Possessed by a Dark Warrior (41 page)

Caves had secret tunnels, hidden chambers ideal for storing treasure and keeping it safe.

Her eyes leaped to the bed and dropped to the floor beneath it. She would have to sleep on the bed. If she placed her treasure beneath it, it would be safe there. No one would dare try to take it from her if she guarded it so closely.

She scurried to the bed, tossed the covers up onto the mattress on the left side, away from the doors onto the balcony, and began unloading her hoard. She set aside a piece for her hair, a beautiful silver clasp with sparkling amethysts, and pushed the rest under the wooden frame of the double bed. Settling back on her heels, she frowned at the small pile. It was still too obvious.

She scanned the room again and grinned when she spotted her boots.

Taryn sprinted to them, gathering them and her trousers and corset, and hurried back to her treasure. She shovelled the trinkets into her boots, stuffed her trousers and corset into the end of them, and tucked them back under the bed on their sides.

There.

As safe as she could get it for now.

Satisfied at last, she rose onto her feet, drew the dark purple covers down over the side of the bed and smoothed them so none would suspect they hid anything.

She took the clasp from the dark stone floor and went into the bathing room. The pool was close to overflowing now.

Taryn twirled her hair up and pinned it at the back of her head. Strands fell down but she didn’t care. She ran her hands over her exposed neck. The marks Bleu had placed on her throat were paler now, healing well. She shivered when her fingertips brushed them, a hit of pleasure rolling down her spine. It was so wrong that it had felt so good when he had been biting her, even when she had been afraid he would kill her.

And the way he had licked her throat afterwards?

The shiver became a burn that had her squeezing her thighs together again.

The sound of water stopped.

She whirled to face the pool, her eyes widening when she saw that the level had reached the spout, and rushed to the sluice that Bleu had opened. She twisted the thick metal ring and shoved down, jamming it shut.

A hot shiver coursed through her, setting her aflame.

She lifted her head and stared across the pool to the other end.

To Bleu where he stood with his eyes on her, his chest heaving with each hard breath he drew. Those striking eyes almost glowed in the low warm light of the chandelier above the pool and the way his pointed ears flared back, the tips growing longer, had all of the heat rushing through her heading south to coil in her belly.

His gaze narrowed as she slowly stood, raked over her and grew heated, dark with the passion and hunger that flowed through their link.

Gods, when she had dressed to seduce him, she hadn’t realised just how deeply his reaction would affect her.

She felt beautiful.

Desired.

Needed.

That need was a powerful force, one that rocked her as he strode towards her, a male on the prowl and one who was going to take what he wanted from her. She trembled, all of her strength stripped from her again as she waited for him, eager to feel his hands on her, desperate for another taste of him.

He snarled, looked her over again, and caught her cheeks the moment he was within reach and pulled her up to him for a hard kiss. His tongue delved between her lips as he slanted his head, inhaled hard as if the kiss had sent the same bolt of hot lightning through him as it had through her. She swallowed his throaty moan and clutched his shoulders, digging her fingers into the fine material of his jacket as he possessed her mouth, claimed all of her with only a kiss.

His hands dropped to her backside and he groaned as he palmed it, drew her closer and kissed her fiercely, his desperation sending a thrill through her. She hadn’t been prepared for this. It was far more than she had expected. The ferocity of his need startled her, but as she leaned into him, seeking more from his kiss, it dawned on her that his passion and hunger only matched her own.

The thought that she wasn’t alone in her feelings gave her courage.

She moved her hands across his chest, found the line of buttons down the centre of his tunic and began slipping them free of their holes.

His kiss slowed, his ragged breathing filling her ears as he eased her back. Their mouths broke apart and he looked down, chest heaving as he watched her unbuttoning his jacket. His need poured through her, swirling together with her own sense of anticipation and eagerness.

When she reached the last button, just below his navel, she lowered her gaze to his chest and slowly parted the two sides of his jacket. Her breath hitched in her throat as she caught her first glimpse of the compact muscles of his torso and then shortened as she revealed more of him, slipping her hands beneath his jacket and brushing it aside by moving her hands over the delicious hard slabs of his pectorals.

Bleu half groaned half growled.

He trembled beneath her and she had never felt so powerful.

She had brought this warrior to his knees with only a touch.

She smoothed her hands up his chest to his shoulders and slowly pushed the jacket off them. He shifted his arms back and it dropped to the floor behind him.

Hungry eyes raked over her, making her shiver again, and he muttered something in his own tongue. She frowned at him, wanting to know what he had said in such a passion-drenched voice, but not expecting him to tell her. He had said much to her in that language, and she knew he did it because he wanted to keep those things secret from her even though he couldn’t stop himself from voicing them. What things didn’t he want her to know?

The same sort of things she had thought were hidden back in the dungeon of Tenak’s castle, when she hadn’t realised the fae’s blood had given him the ability to hear her thoughts?

“Gods, you are beautiful,” he whispered earnestly in the dragon tongue, and her heart warmed, her belly fluttering in response to those low spoken words and the fact he hadn’t kept them secret from her.

His violet eyes travelled down the line of her throat, darkening by degrees as his pupils dilated. The tip of his tongue swept across his lips and hunger lit his eyes, a thirst that ran deeper than a need for blood.

He needed her.

She could feel it in him through their link and it called to her dragon instincts, rousing a fierce demand that she satisfy her male.

She stepped closer and leaned in to kiss his chest at the same time as his left hand rose to her hair.

It neared her silver clasp.

Taryn leaped back and snarled at him, flashing sharp teeth.

He tensed, eyes shooting wide, the hunger in them replaced with shock that rippled through her.

“I… I did not…” She wasn’t sure what to say. Instinct had stolen control of her, roaring that he meant to steal the clasp and forcing her to warn him away.

She would have lashed out at him if she hadn’t retained enough awareness of what she was doing to distance herself from him.

Taryn lifted a hand to the clasp, fingers shaking as she touched it and a strange soothing warmth flowing through her when she felt it was still there.

Still in her possession.

A wicked smile curled Bleu’s lips.

“You can keep your
treasure
,” he breathed in a sultry whisper and slowly stepped towards her, closing the distance between them, his eyes holding hers the whole time. “But your throat is temptingly bare and I am not sure I am strong enough to resist the need to bite you again… I do not want to hurt you, Taryn.”

Her fingers shook for a different reason, the warmth that had been curling through her exploding into a wildfire that blazed in her blood and made her want to moan. Just the thought of him sinking his fangs back into her made her itch with a need to mark him too.

A dangerous desire.

Biting him would seal their bond, completing it and making them mated.

She wasn’t sure she was ready for that, and she felt certain that he wasn’t. There was still so much to learn about each other, so much to overcome before they could think about forging a permanent bond between them. She wasn’t going to rush into this, because the thought of allowing her instincts to mate to blind her, only to realise later that the one she had bound herself to didn’t share her feelings, made her heart heavy.

She refused to do anything until she was certain.

Until they were both certain.

So biting was definitely off limits, because as much as she ached to feel his fangs in her flesh again, feel that intense connection between them blossoming once more, she couldn’t risk the danger that in the heat of the moment she would bite him in return.

She reached up and pulled the clasp from her hair, letting it tumble back down around her shoulders. The silver trinket was warm in her hand and she stared down at it, mesmerised by how the jewels sparkled at her. Her feet carried her away from Bleu, her instincts sweeping her along unaware of what she was doing.

She crouched beside the bed, raised the covers and carefully tucked her treasure into her boots, safe with the rest of her hoard.

When she straightened and turned back to face the bathing room, Bleu was standing in the grand archway, his right shoulder against the stone frame, his legs casually crossed at the ankle and his arms folded across his bare chest. His left eyebrow quirked.

“What do you have there?” He jerked his chin towards the bed.

She spread her arms out at her sides and growled. “Mine.”

He smiled again and she realised what she had done, felt like a fool as he grinned, obviously amused by her behaviour.

“I am not interested in taking anything from you. Whatever you have, you can keep.” He advanced on her, his smile slowly fading, an all too serious expression replacing it as his eyes held hers, bewitching her and pulling her under his seductive spell again. “I have the only treasure I need.”

She frowned. “You do? I would like to see this treasure.”

She would like to make it hers.

He smiled but this time it was wicked, heating her to her core as he held his hand out to her.

“Come with me then.”

Bleu held his hand out to her and Taryn eagerly slipped hers into it, excitement bubbling up and tugging at her lips. There was a bounce in her step as he turned away from her but it faded as he led her into the bathroom. She frowned and scanned the room. There were no hidden compartments or anywhere he could hide treasure.

Was he toying with her to make her return to the pool with him?

The thought that he might be made her want to growl at his bare back, only that growl died on her lips as she watched his muscles shift in a sinful symphony with each step he took. Gods. He had called her beautiful, but he was the beautiful one.

She ran her eyes down the line of his spine to the twin dimples above his backside and bit back a moan. She wanted to tongue those dips while he laid on his front on the bed, and she would palm the firm globes of his backside at the same time, finally getting her hands on them.

She was so deep in her wicked thoughts that she hadn’t realised they had stopped moving until he spoke.

“Have I lost you again?”

She blinked herself back to him and found herself staring into the mirror above the basin. He stood behind her, his hands on her bare shoulders, his cheek close to the right side of her head and his eyes locked with hers in their reflection.

“Where is your treasure?” she whispered, still eager to see it.

He lowered his lips to her ear. “You are looking at it.”

She frowned and all of her excitement deflated, her shoulders sagging beneath his grip as she huffed, “The mirror is nothing special. It is not a treasure.”

He smiled, stealing her breath. “It is not the mirror but what it contains.”

That made no sense. “It is a mirror. It contains nothing… nothing but a reflection of this room anyway… you and I.”

He muttered something in the elf tongue, closed his eyes and sighed. His frustration rolled through her. She pouted and stared at the mirror, trying to see what he called a treasure.

There was nothing special about it, and it only showed him where he stood behind her.

Oh.

Her eyes widened.

Her.

Was he calling her his treasure?

Her heart skipped a beat.

Bleu’s eyes slowly opened, fixed on hers in the mirror again and he drew her hair away from the right side of her throat and pressed a tender kiss to it. Her blood heated. She wanted him to tell her that she was the treasure he had spoken of but the frustration that had gone through him had been replaced with nerves and she didn’t want to push him, not when his violet eyes gave her the answer to that question as he brushed his lips over her throat, holding her gaze in their reflection.

She was.

She was his treasure and he wanted to possess her.

The heat each sweep of his mouth over her flesh caused slowly spread through her, until she couldn’t stop herself from leaning her head to her left and moaning. He lightly bit with blunt teeth, teasing her with a brief flash of pain, a touch of pleasure that only roused a need for more.

Gods, she wanted him to bite her.

She trembled as he slid his hands around her waist, brought them up to cup her breasts, hitching some of the layers of her cream dress up with them. He groaned against her throat and palmed her breasts, his bare torso pressing against her back. She lifted her right hand, skimmed it over his shoulder and curled it around the nape of his neck, sifting her fingers through his silky blue-black hair as she savoured the feel of his lips on her skin and how erotic watching them in the mirror made everything.

“You look too damn good in this dress.” He pressed kisses across her shoulder as he looked at her reflection, his eyes dark with the need she sensed in him. He rolled his hips, nudging the hard length in his trousers against her backside. “I do not want to take it off you.”

Gods.

She throbbed between her thighs, core clenching at the thought of him being inside her while she stood before the mirror.