Possessed by a Dark Warrior (35 page)

“So tell me what you are thinking about,” he husked and she looked back at him, mildly surprised when he looked deadly serious.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had told someone what was on her mind, but she was sure she had only ever shared her private thoughts with Loke. Maybe her brother had been given that privilege too once, before he had grown into a male more interested in fighting in the arena than spending time with her.

“I am not sure where to start,” she admitted and his smile almost blew her away.

She really couldn’t recall ever seeing him smile and the lack of laughter lines bracketing his mouth said it happened very rarely indeed.

But she kept making him smile.

Her belly fluttered and heated.

Bleu’s handsome face turned serious again. “Have I done something wrong?”

She quickly shook her head.

He frowned. “You keep looking at me strangely… as if there is something wrong with me.”

Gods, she wanted to tell him that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him since the gods had made him perfect.

She smiled instead. “It is taking me a little time to grow accustomed to you smiling at me.”

He chuckled. “Fuck, you sound like my sister.”

It was her turn to frown. “You have a sister… and what is this ‘fuck’? You say it often.”

“I do, a younger one, and it is a mortal expression… ah… an exclamation of sorts to declare disbelief or shock… but taken from the profanity they use for what we… ah… did.” He waggled an eyebrow.

Her cheeks burned up.

Well,
fuck
, he certainly knew how to embarrass her.

Bleu tugged her closer, that wicked smile teasing his tempting mouth again. “Tell me about you.”

His violet eyes leaped between hers, intent and focused, his curiosity flowing through her in a way that made it difficult to deny him.

“Where do I start?” She leaned over him, resting with her left side on his chest, her breast pressed against his left pectoral.

He groaned when she ran her fingers in little circles around his right one, enjoying the feel of his compact muscles beneath her caress, power and strength that she found alluring. The wounds her brother had placed on him were little more than faint marks now, criss-crossing his smooth skin, and she followed the line of one down towards his pebbled nipple.

“You can start by stopping doing that. I cannot think when you do that.” He scowled at her hand and she obeyed, bringing her palm down to rest on his chest. His frown melted away and his eyes met hers again. “Tell me what happened seven centuries ago. I need to know if we are going to clear your name with my prince.”

There he went again. Talking about them going together, as if he couldn’t bear to part from her. She reminded herself that he had sworn to protect her and that might be the only reason he wanted to bring her with him when he met with his prince. It might have nothing to do with any sort of feelings he harboured for her.

Feelings that were impossible to detect even with the incomplete bond linking them.

He stirred too many emotions in her that his mingled with, blending together, that she couldn’t easily pick them apart to discern which belonged to who. She wasn’t about to lay her heart on the line after one night of passion by asking him about his feelings though. She had lived long enough to know that wasn’t a wise move.

“Seven centuries ago,” she started and frowned at his chest, trying to get the story into order to make sure she didn’t miss anything vital. She wanted to clear her name too, but not with his prince or the elf kingdom. She only wanted to clear it with him. “I need to go a little further back than that, to where it all began. My brother… we did everything together growing up… but he grew increasingly obsessed with gaining power. It was a poison, one that corrupted his mind and his heart.”

“It will corrupt the best of people,” Bleu said, his voice a soothing drone in her ear, and brushed her hair behind her right ear.

She nodded. “Tenak began to spend his days planning, searching for a way to achieve the ultimate power and rule Hell. I sometimes think his battles in the arena knocked something loose in his mind. He grew convinced that all would bow before him and that it would be wonderful… and that I would stand at his side and we would have everything we had ever wanted.”

She closed her eyes and sighed as sorrow swept through her, a familiar cold and numbing feeling that had been a constant companion when she had been around her brother in the decades leading up to his attack on the elf kingdom and in the centuries that had followed it.

“I only ever wanted Tenak to be at my side and be happy.” She opened her eyes and raised them to meet Bleu’s beautiful violet ones. The concern and compassion in them warmed her heart and chased away the cold. “I knew that the dark path he had found himself on would tear him away from me and drive him mad.”

Bleu looked as if he wanted to say something but she shook her head, not wanting him to speak yet. She had started to talk, to tell him her story, and she had to get it all off her chest because it felt like a weight on her heart, one that was lifting with every word that left her lips.

“Tenak found old writings about an elven sword and grew determined to steal it. It was a treasure. One he could not live without. He had to possess it. It is the bane of our species,” she said and his lips twitched at the corners, the sparkle of mischief in his eyes warning her that he wanted to tease her about it.

It was strange being with him like this when she had been running from him for so long. If she had let him catch her, had told him the truth back then, could she have had this bliss for the past seven centuries? She sighed and idly traced patterns on his chest again, not wanting to think about what might have been when her future was hardly secure. Tenak was coming for her, and she would arm her mate with all the information she could in order to help him succeed and survive.

“The sword was the key to gaining the ultimate treasure in his eyes—the position of ruler of Hell. He told me often when I asked him to give up his quest because it was destroying him that the sword was everything. It was power. It would be his.” She cast her gaze down at her fingers and heaved another sigh as she recalled how Tenak had looked at her back then, his eyes bright and shining with something that she now knew was madness. He had lost his mind before she had noticed it, too slow to see it to stop its spread. “Each hour we were together, he constantly talked of how the sword would bring all of the realms to their knees before him. It frightened me… but I was too afraid of him to say anything… so I sought the help of a witch.”

“A witch?” Bleu frowned at her. “I had not realised you had assistance. All this time I scoured the lands for you, seemingly asked everyone in the realm about you, and not once have I heard you had the help of a witch.”

She shrugged. “He was very isolated from everything.”

“
He
?” Bleu’s handsome face darkened in a way she found she liked, a shadow of envy flitting across it and through his blood too.

She smiled at his behaviour and walked her fingers across his bare chest. “He.”

Bleu snarled, flashing sharp fangs. “I will kill him if he touched you.”

That pleased her even more, but she concealed it from him, not wanting to encourage his violent behaviour.

“He did not touch me. He wanted a stone in exchange… something about an experiment.” She shook her head again, dislodging her lingering curiosity about the witch and his reasons for desiring such a rare gem. “I had one and I offered it to him in exchange for him casting a concealment spell on me. It rendered me invisible to all, undetectable. I followed Tenak and tried to stop him from stealing the sword, but I was too late.”

His eyebrows pinched. “But if you were concealed, how did we see you and not Tenak?”

“The spell wore off shortly after I fled the castle. I was shifting to pursue my brother when your team found me.”

He sighed. “And attacked you.”

She shrugged again. “I am almost identical to my brother when in my dragon form. It was a mistake. Knowing how angry the elves were with my brother, I should have remained in my mortal form and slipped away from the realm before risking shifting. I was in a hurry though.”

He twirled a strand of her hair around his fingers and thumbed the tip, flicking it back and forth. “I am glad you escaped.”

“Probably not as glad as I am.” She managed a smile and then it faded as she thought about what had happened next. “I found my brother and he did not suspect me at all. He was quick to tell me the full extent of his plans and he forced me to go with him to a demon village. I thought he was going into hiding… I did not expect… he used the sword there. When I saw him cutting down hundreds of demon warriors with it, I knew what I had to do. I waited until he was asleep and I stole it, igniting his rage and shattering his trust.”

“You tried to return it.”

She nodded. “I knew he would stop at nothing to reclaim what he now viewed as his property… his prized possession. The dragon need to protect our treasure is powerful, easily rules us and turns us against even those we love with all of our hearts. I knew that only the elves had the strength to fight my brother, so I tried to bring the sword back.”

“We attacked you… again.” He closed his eyes, his nostrils flared and he huffed. “I am sorry, Taryn.”

He flicked his eyes open and they leaped between hers, a beautiful look of sorrow mixed with an apology in them, a touch of tenderness that soothed her.

“I ordered that assault. If I had given you a chance—”

She pressed her finger to his lips to silence him. Gods, they were warm and firm beneath her fingertip, giving just enough to have her remembering how good they had felt against hers when he had kissed her.

“You were not to know that I was not returning to destroy your kingdom with the sword. I should have done things differently but I had been panicked and in a hurry.” Her eyebrows furrowed and she stroked her finger off his lips, traced it along the strong line of his jaw, his dark whiskers tickling the tip of it. “I should have tried to contact your kin or found another way, one that would have made it clear I meant no harm.”

Her life was filled with regrets and what might have beens and she couldn’t allow them to take hold of her and drag her down. The past was just that. It was unchangeable. She had to deal with everything that had happened, put it to rest and move forwards.

Bleu made the thought of doing such a thing seem easy when he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him, a contented edge to his expression that his feelings backed up. He enjoyed holding her like this, laying with her and talking. Spending time with her.

It was such a contrast to how things had always been between them.

No war.

Only peace.

“What did you do after that?” he whispered, his voice too husky and low, telling her he was beginning to think ahead too, to a very short time into the future if the hungry edge to his gaze was anything to go by.

He wanted her again.

Heat pooled in her belly, her blood growing hot at the thought of making love with him again.

She fought the need that rolled through her and focused on their conversation, wanting to finish it now that she had started. She wanted to climb on top of Bleu and satisfy him, but she needed this even more.

“I hid from my brother, constantly on the move, but when I grew tired of running from both him and you, I found the witch again and asked him to cast a concealment spell on the sword. I gave him every drop of gold… every jewel… all of my treasure in exchange for a shot at living.”

The soft look that entered Bleu’s violet eyes said that he knew how difficult that must have been for her, but he couldn’t imagine the half of it. Parting with her treasure had been like cutting off a limb, or tearing out her own heart with her claws. It had left her lost and weak, vulnerable.

“I gave the sword to Loke when I began to fear Tenak was growing close to finding me and after I encountered you in that dragon village.”

“That was three hundred years ago.”

She nodded. “Loke concealed the sword for me, using his magic to cast a different enchantment on it.”

“What happened after that?”

Taryn averted her gaze, unable to look at him. “I was captured by slavers.”

“Fuck,” he breathed and the force behind that word conveyed everything that ran through their bond from him. Anger. Disbelief. Regret.

His arms tightened around her and he crushed her to his chest. She didn’t resist him when he clasped the back of her head and pulled her down to him. She settled her cheek on his chest and closed her eyes, absorbing his warmth and how good it felt to be held like this, wrapped safely in his arms.

She nestled closer and flinched when pain stabbed her.

Bleu tensed, his hand halting halfway through stroking up her shoulder towards his bite mark on her throat. “What is wrong?”

She sighed and appreciated his concern even though it was misplaced. It wasn’t her throat that had hurt. He had no reason to feel guilty.

Taryn placed her hand on his chest, breathed in time with him and listened to his heart beating strongly against her ear.

“I am still a little sore.”

He was silent for a moment, his fingers twitching against her shoulder, and she could feel his confusion and guilt through their bond. It faded a little as she focused on their link, trying to grow accustomed to it, the confusion disappearing but the guilt lingering. She could almost sense he had realised what she was saying, and that it had nothing to do with him biting her.

“I am sorry. I tried to be gentle.” Those soft words curled around her and gave her comfort, but they pained him too, and she couldn’t ignore that.

She pushed herself up and gazed down at him, right into his rich purple eyes. “You do not need to apologise. I was not complaining. It is not an unpleasant sort of soreness.”

She couldn’t quite believe she had just said that, but any foolishness she felt fled when his eyes darkened, his pupils dilating, and heat washed through him and through her too.