Possessed by a Dark Warrior (46 page)

“We do not condone vampires near us,” the First King said, her voice as calm and smooth as still water but holding darkness beneath the placid surface, a threat that he knew he would be wise to heed.

He was too fascinated by Isla though.

She looked ready to bolt.

What had happened between her and Lord Van der Garde?

The room whirled upwards and he stumbled backwards, confused for a heartbeat before he noticed Loren’s hand on his left arm, dragging him away from the table. Loren shoved him into a corner and Bleu looked at him. His prince did not look impressed.

“Must I remind you that vampires were on the side of the demons from the Devil’s domain in the battle a century ago that claimed King Valador’s life?” Loren snapped in the elf tongue and the amusement Bleu had been feeling drained from him.

He had forgotten that.

“I am sorry. I will apologise immediately,” Bleu said.

Loren shook his head. “It will not be necessary… but why did you lie about the vampires?”

Bleu glanced beyond his prince to the two phantom females. “I have the feeling that the one called Isla is or was somehow involved with Lord Van der Garde.”

Loren’s right eyebrow shot up and he surprised Bleu by looking back over his shoulder at the female in question. It wasn’t like his prince to behave in such a manner. He had expected Loren to resist the desire to look at her and take the more respectful approach of concealing his curiosity by treating her in the same manner as he did everyone else in the room.

“You believe she is the reason?” Loren hissed in a low voice, revealing that his intrigue ran as deep as Bleu’s own and that he wasn’t the only one who had noticed Lord Van der Garde’s behaviour during the time they had worked together on the side of the Third Realm.

Bleu nodded. “I believe she is the reason the vampire doesn’t trust females.”

“Fascinating.” Loren looked back at her again. Tensed. Bleu looked past him and found everyone watching them. His prince released him, cleared his throat and walked back to the table as if nothing had happened and they hadn’t been hiding in a corner, acting in an almost conspiratorial manner. “Let us discuss our plan and see what we can come up with. Taryn will lead us by sharing information on a vision she witnessed.”

Bleu didn’t like the sound of that. The vision had shaken her.

He moved back to her side, standing close to her so she would feel him there, would know that he was there for her if she needed him. He listened to her as she relayed what she had seen in her vision and fielded a few questions from the demon kings, and then tried to focus on everyone else in the room as they began to discuss ideas about what they should do.

Impossible.

Being so close to Taryn had all of his focus drifting back to her the second he tried to pull it away. He took in everything that was being banded around in the room, but couldn’t find his voice to speak out against any of it. He felt Loren glance at him several times, and then Sable joined in too, but nothing he did could convince him to take his eyes off his beautiful mate as she stood tall beside him, trying to make her voice heard in the din of chatter.

It was only when she mentioned the garrison where he had taken her when he had teleported them away from Tenak’s castle that he felt a stirring need to agree with her. That need only grew when the demon kings and Loren talked over her, ignoring what she had offered and making his little female withdraw into herself.

Bleu frowned at everyone present. “Taryn is right and we should move away from the castle.”

Loren arched an eyebrow at him and held his hand up. The room fell silent.

“The stronghold is ideal. It is a defensive position close to the free realm, bordering the First Realm of the demons, and we have supplies in place there.” Bleu leaned over and planted his right palm against the edge of the map and pointed to the spot where the garrison was with his left hand, a small area that was close to not only the First Realm but the free one too. “It is away from any villages on both the elf side and the demon side.”

Everyone murmured in agreement and he felt Taryn move closer to him, sensed her warmth flow through their link. She was pleased he had made her voice heard in the room. He was glad she had been brave enough to mention it, because it really was ideal.

Her vision had been of the castle in ruins and the battle taking place there. By moving the battle away from the castle, they might stand a chance at changing the future she had witnessed.

He rubbed the pad of his left thumb across his lower lip and frowned at the map. “We will need to infiltrate the enemy ranks to steal the sword back. It is pivotal… whoever possesses it will win. There is no doubt about that.”

Rosalind rocked on her heels, almost bouncing on the spot, causing her drab black traditional witch’s dress to sway around her legs, and when he looked at her she was grinning, starlight sparkling in her blue eyes. “I have a cunning plan.”

Everyone stared at her in silence, stony faces waiting for her to explain it.

Apparently this was the wrong reaction.

She huffed, folded her arms across her chest, and muttered, “You all need to watch more classic British telly.”

Everyone continued to stare at her.

“Perhaps you should explain your plan, Little Wild Rose.” Vail lowered his head and murmured the words into her ear, and her cheeks darkened, the starlight in her eyes exploded into fire, and she leaned towards him.

Vail’s gaze darkened the moment she did, his breathing deepening and eyes dropping to her throat.

Bleu was sorely tempted to tell them to get a room, but he liked his head where it was—attached to his body.

Loren cleared his throat. Vail stilled. Rosalind’s blush deepened and she blinked rapidly.

“Um… I was going to address the dragon in the room and say that I will mask Taryn by changing the colour of her scales,” Rosalind said, a wobble of uncertainty in her voice now. She glanced at her mate. Dragged her eyes away. Glanced at him again. With each one, her eyes grew darker, pupils expanding to swallow the blue of her irises. She cleared her throat again but couldn’t clear the rosiness of desire from her cheeks as easily. “It’s a simple spell really, and it should allow her to enter the enemy’s camp and get close enough to steal the sword.”

“No.” Bleu left no room for argument in his rejection, but it didn’t stop several people including Taryn from voicing one. He crossed his arms over his chest, scowled at everyone, and made damn sure they realised that he wasn’t going to budge on this. “Taryn is not going in there alone. She needs back up.”

“Perhaps we could convince Loke to help,” Loren said.

“We do not have time,” Bleu countered. “Loke is great as a back up plan, but Tenak knows him. Rosalind would have to change the colour of his scales too.”

Rosalind shook her head. “I won’t have enough strength to cast two spells like that if I’m also expected to shield the garrison and the lands surrounding it as I did for Thorne in the battle in the Third Realm.”

There was more to her refusal than a drain on her energy too. It was there in her eyes as she tossed a wary look at her mate. She was nervous about using so much magic around Vail, afraid it would send him off the deep end and drive him back into the madness that seemed to have abated in their time together. Abated but not disappeared. Vail’s eyes were already growing black and they were only talking about magic.

Rosalind turned to Vail and Bleu looked away, giving them some privacy as she sought to soothe her mate.

The room grew noisy as a debate broke out about how they could provide Taryn with back up if they couldn’t use another dragon.

Bleu held his hand up and came right out with it.

“I will shift into a dragon.”

Everyone stared at him, stunned expressions on all their faces.

Loren was the first to find his voice. “How?”

Bleu looked to his left, at his prince. “I will drink Taryn’s blood.”

He could almost feel the heat of her blush where she stood to his right, and gods, he wanted to look at her. His heart pounded, blood thundering with a need to shift his eyes down to her and take in her beauty as her cheeks blazed crimson. There was hunger in her and it ran through him too, ignited by remembering the last time he had bitten her, a memory that flooded his mind with the wicked thoughts he had heard in hers because of the siren’s blood in his veins.

Loren’s violet gaze moved to her.

Bleu growled low in his throat, a feral snarl that had a few in the room gasping.

He was halfway to calling his armour and jamming his clawed thumbs into Loren’s eyes so his prince couldn’t look at his fated female when Loren slid him a black look, but one edged with knowing and a sprinkling of amusement.

He could almost hear Loren’s thoughts, and his prince was right. He was acting exactly as Loren had behaved around Olivia, and Kyter around Iolanthe, and even Thorne around Sable.

He had become territorial, extremely possessive and protective, and downright obsessed with his female, and he wasn’t going to apologise for it.

Fuck them.

He didn’t take his eyes off Loren, but mentally he looked at everyone in the room and said ‘fuck you all’. He was a male in the middle of a mating and he didn’t give a damn what they thought. The only thing that mattered was Taryn and securing her as his female.

His forever.

“I think we are done here for today. Relay the plan to your people and we will meet again tomorrow to go over the final details.” Loren didn’t take his eyes off Bleu either, held his gaze even as everyone filed out of the room, leaving them alone in it. When the doors closed, his prince’s lips tugged into a wicked smile. “Feeling a little touchy today, are we not? A little territorial perhaps?”

Bleu looked away from him and groaned when he saw that Taryn hadn’t left the room. This really wasn’t a conversation he wanted happening in front of her. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted happening at all.

“You growled at me, Bleu, and looked ready to raise a hand to me again.” Loren pressed onwards, mischievous bastard, clearly amused by his plight. “Did I hear and see that wrongly?”

Bleu refused to answer. Maybe if he was silent, Loren would drop it.

Nope.

Loren grinned. “I believe someone is acting like a ‘prick’… is that not what you called it when I was territorial about Olivia?”

“I am not,” Bleu snapped. “It is nothing. Your imagination is running wild, my prince.”

Loren chuckled. “Is that so? Then if I do this…”

He turned his smile on Taryn.

Bleu was on him in an instant, both hands wrapped around his throat as he snarled at him and pushed him down onto the stone flags. He sat astride the male’s chest, shoving his arms down with his knees. He tried to pull himself away but he couldn’t. His body had other plans, his primal instincts at the helm. Nothing he did made a difference. He kept tightening his hold on Loren’s throat, choking him.

Loren managed to wrestle his arms free and his hands snagged Bleu’s wrists. He struggled, trying to prise Bleu’s hands off him. His prince’s lips moved but Bleu couldn’t hear anything over the maddening rush of blood through his ears and the dark whispers to kill the male for daring to flirt with his female.

“Bleu.”

He snarled and ignored that softer feminine voice as it curled around him. He had to kill the male. No, he had to stop. He didn’t want to hurt Loren. Loren had to die.

“Bleu,” the female voice said again and this time it caught and held him, and the warmth of his name on her lips broke through the darkness like a shaft of light, driving it back.

He stared at his hands where they held Loren’s throat, his eyes widened and he released him and staggered onto his feet.

Taryn touched his shoulder. He jerked away from her and paced across the room, putting himself as far as he could get from Loren. Gods, he had tried to kill him, a male he loved deeply. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. That hunger to hurt him still lingered and he feared it would rise up again to overwhelm him.

He shoved his fingers through his unruly blue-black hair, clawed his scalp and drew blood.

Loren picked himself up and rubbed his throat. “I deserved that.”

He didn’t.

Bleu wrestled with himself and managed to find his voice. “I’m sorry.”

“How long have you known?” Loren said.

That question opened a floodgate inside him and Bleu let it all spill out, telling his prince everything, beginning at the moment he had first set eyes on Taryn.

“The bond is triggered?” Loren asked with a concerned glance at Taryn, his eyes only landing on her for a split-second before they wisely moved back to Bleu. He still wasn’t totally in control of himself and even that brief glance at Taryn was enough to have him wanting Loren’s blood again.

He breathed deep and nodded to answer him.

Loren looked concerned. “Incomplete?”

Bleu nodded again. He knew it was dangerous to leave it in such a state, especially when he was going to be around so many males during the upcoming battle.

Unmated males.

Just the thought of that was enough to have his blood burning again, catching fire. He itched with a need to track down all of the unmated males and kill them before they could look at his mate and try to steal her from him.

She was precious.

His treasure.

Gods, he was thinking like a damned dragon.

He glanced across at Taryn. The way she was looking at him, the possessive heat in her gaze, told him that was her thoughts, her feelings, flowing through him too and bolstering his own ones, making them stronger. She viewed him as precious. Her treasure.

That pleased him way too damn much.

“Do not leave it incomplete, Bleu,” Loren said in the elf tongue, concealing their conversation from Taryn.

Bleu sighed and looked back at his prince, all of the fears he had been suppressing rising to the fore as his fight left him. “It isn’t that simple. Our history… my history…”

He wasn’t a good mate. He wasn’t a good male. He hadn’t done anything right by Taryn. He had hurt her. Hunted her.