Possessed by a Dark Warrior (12 page)

Right now, his eyes were a more human shade of green and the tips of his ears were rounded, but if he lost control, they would change back to violet and to pointed.

And gods help him if he really lost control and his fangs descended.

So, small sips were required, caffeine in moderation.

He sank into the armchair, green gaze idly following a male as he crossed the room to a group of waiting friends who greeted him with warm smiles and affectionate embraces. Losing interest, he switched his focus to another patron of the shop devoted to the dark brew, a younger male, one so awkward in his own skin that Bleu wanted to shake his head and give the boy a few pointers in how to hold himself with confidence, commanding the respect of those around him.

The teen shuffled from foot to foot in the queue, bright gaze leaping between his red scuffed shoes and the female serving behind the counter.

A crush, perhaps?

He had been young once, but he had certainly never been so unsure of himself, so embarrassed around females.

What in the gods’ names did mortal society do to young males to turn them into such pathetic limp creatures, afraid of their own shadow in the presence of a pretty female?

He snorted and took another sip, diverted his attention elsewhere and settled it on a slightly older male, this one looking as if he had indulged in far too much feasting. His shorn hair was visibly receding as he removed a cap and then replaced it, neatening it as he moved through the occupied tables. The male stopped at one where a lonely female sat and Bleu canted his head. The female was pretty enough. Not beautiful, but she had kind eyes and a warm smile for the male as she stood and embraced him.

Bleu huffed and shut them out as they began to kiss, no longer interested in watching them.

He swirled his cooling coffee in his mug, his eyes on it, the gentle buzz in his veins quietening as his body purged the caffeine and the silence in his mind dissipating, whispered thoughts surfacing as his focus turned inwards.

He had come to this place to fill some time, but perhaps he had only thought that. Perhaps he had subconsciously had an ulterior motive for venturing to a place where mortals were known to pass idle time, thinking about things in their life or meeting with friends to talk.

Perhaps he had come here to think too.

That realisation seemed to open the floodgates, filling his mind with too many thoughts, all of which clashed, crashing against each other until the comfortable silence he had been enjoying became a cacophony he could no longer ignore.

The coffee cup shimmered out of focus, replaced by Loren in the courtyard, looking at him in a way that had spoken to him, telling him something without his prince having to use words, answering the question Bleu had done his best to ignore.

Why had he left the elf kingdom a month ago?

He could easily lie to himself, keeping the one he had been living rolling and pretending the truth was the lie instead, but he was tired and everything over the past few days had mounted up on his shoulders and they felt heavy now.

Pressing down on his heart.

His prince was right.

He had left because he had no longer had a purpose or a place where he felt he belonged.

For four thousand two hundred years, he’d had the purpose and that place, but now things were changing.

No.

Now everything had changed, and it felt as if it had happened in the blink of an eye.

Forty-two centuries, most of his life, lived in the same way. A routine that had been ingrained so deeply in him that now that it was gone, he wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing anymore.

His prince no longer needed him as a personal advisor, or to take care of him. He no longer had to attend to Loren’s morning ritual, entering his rooms at the castle before he woke to open the curtains and the double doors to allow light and air into the space. He no longer had to ensure Loren had the blood he needed to heal whenever he was injured, or that he didn’t overwork himself and had the rest he required to remain strong.

He had been reduced to a glorified bodyguard, his primary responsibilities taken away from him.

By Olivia.

Loren’s mate and the kingdom’s new princess.

Olivia had replaced him, and Loren no longer needed him.

It was the same with Iolanthe, his sister. She had Kyter now, her mate who travelled with her on her adventures when she was hunting for an artefact, there to get her out of whatever trouble she landed herself in. It had been Bleu’s job once.

For his entire life, since Iolanthe had been brought into it, he had watched over her, had protected her and taken care of her.

Now she had another male to do that for her.

His fingers tightened around the mug, threatening to shatter the delicate clay.

He no longer had a purpose when once his purpose with those two people, the two he was closest to, had meant everything to him. Serving as Loren’s aide and commander, and protecting his sister, had been his life and he had loved it.

Bleu closed his eyes, his eyebrows dipping low as he tried to shut out the noise of the coffee shop and the roar of his heart as it ached, throbbing madly behind his ribs. He rubbed the spot over it with his free hand, shifting the black t-shirt he wore. It was just the caffeine making it pound and hurt. Nothing else.

He set the coffee cup down and focused on something else.

The dragon.

His thoughts were quick to shift to her whenever he felt lost and adrift, uncertain. He mulled over everything he had learned in the last month, every shred of information, even the small titbits that had seemed like nothing at first glance. He lost himself in his hunt instead, systematically shutting down the parts of him that were shaken by the changes in his life.

Changes that were jarring and unsettling, difficult for him to process.

Gods, he wasn’t processing them at all.

Loren knew it. Bleu had seen it in his eyes and knew what the male had wanted to say to him, what he would have said if they had been in private.

He had responded to the upheaval in his life in the only way he knew—by distancing himself.

Loren had pointed it out countless times during their centuries together, always with a smile, a laugh in his voice even though he was deadly serious, as if he thought delivering it in such a manner would stop Bleu from glaring at him.

It never did.

But he didn’t know how else to react. He hadn’t received the lessons that Loren had during his upbringing, given training in handling delicate situations often involving the feelings of others, ones that had enabled him to process his own emotions too.

Bleu had been trained as a soldier from his youth, taught how to respond to situations in a more tactical way, and that was exactly what he was doing now in order to protect his heart from taking more damage.

He had withdrawn in order to regroup.

He sipped the coffee and grimaced as the cold liquid hit his tongue, set the cup down and pushed it away from him, sliding it across the dark wooden surface of the round table. He kept his hand outstretched, fingers resting on the table top, his green eyes fixed on them, his mind wandering a course that was unfamiliar to him.

One that had it connecting to the heart he had locked behind walls of elven metal so impenetrable he had thought it safe, when in reality it had been exposed all this time, allowing Loren and Iolanthe to steal a piece of it and leave him bereft as they had left him behind.

He growled under his breath and fought to push his thoughts onto a more stable path, one free of the tangled web of emotions slowly snaring him and pulling him deeper into his feelings.

Rosalind flashed into his mind, a fleeting image of her looking down at Vail, her blue eyes filled with adoration and tenderness, and Vail gazing back up at her, the corners of his lips tilted into a satisfied and peaceful smile.

Bleu curled his fingers into fists and the sound of wood creaking hurled him out of his memories and back to the present. He stared at his serrated claws where they were still pressed deep into the table top and the long ragged grooves he had cut into the wood with them without even realising it.

He hadn’t issued a command to his armour.

Hell, he hadn’t even had it out under his mortal clothing of black jeans, boots, t-shirt and long coat.

It was out now though, covering him from toe to neck, forming his claws.

A response to the darkness that had surged through him on remembering how tender Rosalind had been with Vail?

He drew down a deep breath and focused on his armour, willing it to return to the black and silver bands around his wrists. It obeyed, but not instantly, taking more than a second before it responded to the command. Not good.

If he wasn’t fully in control of his armour, it was because he wasn’t fully in control of his emotions.

His eyes widened.

He swiftly raised his bare hands to his ears and grimaced as he found them pointed, their tips long and thankfully covered by his hair. He willed them to change, felt them become rounded again and knew his eyes had switched to green too, concealing what he was.

Holy fuck, the council would have him in the cells in a heartbeat if he exposed their kind to mortals.

Perhaps thinking in a room filled with them hadn’t been his wisest move after all, but it wasn’t as if he had known his jealousy would darken his mood to the extent that he lost control over his emotions.

Jealousy
.

Bleu blew out a hard breath.

Gods, some fucked up part of him was jealous.

It was envious of Olivia for being closest to Loren now. It was resentful towards Kyter for taking his role as Iolanthe’s protector. It was jealous of Vail for being able to find someone to love him.

When Bleu couldn’t find someone who could love him.

He almost laughed out loud when it hit him that Iolanthe would have been proud of him for actually working through his feelings and admitting the things he had—that Sable had wounded him, and seeing his friends and sister finding their mates, getting caught up in bonds and love, had tipped his world off balance.

So he had run away, seeking solitude, space away from everyone who had hurt him and time to come to terms with everything that had happened. It was still too much. His life had been the same for four millennia and now everything was different and it felt as if it had happened in the blink of an eye to him.

He couldn’t deal with it.

His focus immediately leaped back to the dragon, pulling her to the front of his mind. The riot in his head dulled, his emotions settling as he worked through everything he had uncovered about her.

Only this time it struck him that there was a deeper reason he always thought of her whenever things became too much for him.

She was the only constant, the one thing he could depend upon to be the same as before as his world crumbled around him.

She was his anchor in this storm and his reason for swimming forwards, pushing onwards when there was a part of him that wanted to stop and just let the waves crash over him and suck him down into the darkness.

He felt eyes on him but he didn’t seek out their owner. Females had been studying him constantly from the moment he had entered the coffee shop. Watching him closely. Many of them did it secretly, but others did it openly. Boldly. They courted his attention, but only one female could hold it right now, had seized it in her talons with a grip so fierce he couldn’t shake it.

The dragon.

His fingers idly caressed the scars on his neck and he cursed under his breath in the elf tongue as they tingled in response.

She could have cleaved his head off with the blow that had given him this permanent reminder of her. If he hadn’t come to his senses and ducked to his right at the last second, she might have done just that. He had been a fool, underestimating her strength and how dangerous she was, but he had learned his lesson.

This time, when they crossed paths, he would succeed.

He caught the handle of his cup and brought it back to him. He turned it in his hand, tipped it towards him, stared down at his reflection on the surface of the black liquid. He would find her. It was only a matter of time now that he had assembled his team. When he returned to their stronghold, he would issue the order to head out. They would scour the dragon realm and not stop until the female was within his grasp.

The sensation of eyes on him grew stronger and harder to ignore. He could understand their reasons for studying him—elves had beauty and grace that attracted mortal eyes.

He looked up through his lashes at the females dotted around the room, the ones whose eyes were on him. It would be easy to bed any one of them. Hell, he could bed more than one at a time and they wouldn’t complain. Had done it plenty of times in the past. He leaned back and openly eyed them, gaining pretty blushes from some and bold smiles from others as he leisurely perused them.

He could lose himself in any one of them for a short time.

His green gaze settled on the blonde behind the counter.

The one who had been giving him come-fuck-me smiles all night.

He was tired of being alone. He needed some female company, even if it was only for a short time.

Even if it couldn’t be forever.

Bleu shuddered as nails raked over his shoulders, clawed at his hair and tugged on it. He groaned and kissed lower, trailing his lips over the flat of her stomach, blood heated to a thousand degrees as his mind raced forwards, towards his destination. The female moaned and wriggled, bucked up against him in a way that spoke of frustration.

Desperation.

He would give her the release she craved soon enough. She just needed a little patience, because he needed a little time to get her to the point where that release would blow her mind.

He licked her warm skin just above her hip and she spread her thighs, inviting him lower. He growled in his throat and kissed downwards, open mouthed wet ones that had her trembling beneath his touch, moaning with each brush of his lips across her flesh. She wriggled again and he pulled back, silently admonishing her by withdrawing from her.