Shadow Rising (19 page)

When he groaned out his pleasure and took a final lick at her wrist, Kara’s nipples tightened painfully against the thin burgundy silk. She was floored to see that he’d gone from desperate to aroused in the few minutes she’d let him drink.

“You’re my goddess,” he breathed.

She paused. Did he know that was what he used to tell her? Was he remembering? She crawled on top of him, her silky shorts rubbing seductively against his engorged length. “See? You’re going to be fine. All you needed is a little blood.”

No, that didn’t seem right. Wouldn’t Gavin or Aiden have told her if the Aniliáre survived on blood? A frown tugged at her brows, but she wouldn’t worry about it tonight. Julian was here and getting stronger, and that was all that mattered.

“Feeling better, Jules?” She rubbed the juncture of her thighs along his rigid shaft. She didn’t mean to, it just happened.

He inhaled and his lips parted, then he grasped her hips and moved her again more deliberately. “Jules? Another name for me?”

She leaned down and kissed his forehead, then slowly dragged her lips from his temple to his chin. “Which do you prefer?”

“I will leave the decision to you.”

Her silk shorts were damp from her own juices, and her skin broke out in goose bumps. “Let’s keep it
Julian
, for now.”

She leaned down and kissed him, feeling the softly sculpted outline of his upper lip with her tongue before pressing into his mouth with her own. He tasted like the stars, pure burning energy. When her tongue hit his, her desire detonated.

She reached down and stroked her breast through the slippery fabric, then pushed the neck opening aside and brought her nipple to his mouth. “Suck me.”

He shivered. “There’s something dark inside of me, Kara. Every breath I take I have to choose if I will control it…or it will control me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ravenous with desire, she slid up and down along his length. “The only thing that could hurt me is not having you.”

With a groan, he locked her against his body and flipped her over, pressing into her with his full weight. Her heart stuttered when she realized that she couldn’t feel the bed under her, and with his hands plunging under her shirt, he couldn’t be holding her either. She was literally suspended midair, so firmly fixed to her spot that all two hundred and something pounds of her black-wing lover couldn’t move her.

Instead of frightening her, his power thrilled her. When he pulled her shirt up and bent to her breast, she moaned. “That’s right, baby. Take what you want from me. I’m yours.”

Perhaps taking her at her word, he grazed a fang along her areola and then latched on again, sucking in her lifeblood as he nursed the wound. She reached up with her pelvis, rubbing her aching mound against the bulge of his massive cock.

When he grasped her other breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth, she reached a hand between her legs to quench the fire building there. She massaged her clit with her fingers, then found his girth with her palm and stroked him. “I can’t wait much longer. I need you so bad.”

He pulled the silk shorts down her thighs, then dropped her to the bed. “You’ve given me your strength. There is no other way I would choose to spend it than by making love to you.”

His lips found her stomach, and he flicked a tongue into the groove of her belly button. She started trembling slightly when he continued to kiss his way down her abdomen. When he reached her inner thigh, he bit down, not hard enough to truly hurt but hard enough to draw blood, and at the same time, his long fingers plunged inside her wet heat. She gasped and rocked against him.

He slurped at the blood building on her thigh, then eased his fingers from her sheath and rolled her to her stomach. His weight pressed against her back and she felt his breath in her ear. “What did I do in my past life to deserve another chance to join my body with yours?”

He parted her legs and she felt the head of him skim past her buttocks, nudging at the opening of her channel. She angled her ass up, her pussy desperate for his solid length. “Please, Julian.”

He kissed her shoulder as his fingers found her hooded bundle of nerves. She bit her lip to keep from wailing from the bliss when he slowly slid home, burying his cock inch by inch in her snug heat as his fingers worked her clit. She thought she was going to have an orgasm right then, but she held it in, wanting to simply listen to his sounds and feel his body move as he took her.

Every inch of him was hot, silken steel. She felt stretched to bursting, her pussy grasping his cock in a tight embrace as he slowly invaded her body, stopping his descent only when he hit the entrance to her womb. Then he pulled out again before plunging even deeper.

He rolled her clit gently between his fingers, the slight pressure keeping time with the thrusts of his hips. She was so wet, she was sure he was drenched in her fluid. But she only wanted one thing, to be drowning in his seed as he released all he was into her body.

“I love you, Julian. I didn’t say it before, because I was an idiot. But I need you to know it now. I love you.”

She whimpered when he drove harder against her, his magic fingers picking up the pressure and the pace, even with his utterly gentle touch. He began to breathe harder, and his thrusts grew shorter, more erratic. He grasped one hip in his hand as his other worked her frantically. “You are my goddess, Kara. I breathe for you.”

With that, he shot his seed deep in her womb, and she cried out, instantly bathed in a rainbow of light. Her pussy clamped around him as waves of euphoria shook her body. Her face pressed against the pillow as he bit her shoulder, sucking hard against the wound. Her breath rushed in and out, no capacity for words remaining. He’d transported her to another land, a place of light and joy and ecstasy.

As she felt his crown beginning to expand, he slowly turned her to her back, still embedded deep in her womb. He brought one of her legs over his shoulder and laid his head on the pillow, just above hers. She knew they were coupling and had expected it from the beginning. That’s how it had always been with Julian, and this time, she wanted to see it through to completion. She felt the bittersweet tug on her channel and tried not to move as she locked him in place.

“Are you all right, love?”

Love?
He called her
love
. Kara laughed and a tear sprang to her eye. “Do you remember, Julian?”

He shook his head and pressed his lips to her hair. “You could have been nothing less to me.”

Her lips parted. Pain and hope battled for ground in the purgatory of her heart. “You feel this?” She shifted the tiniest bit so he could feel what she was talking about.

“Yes.”

“I don’t care if you remember. You are my bondmate. And if I have anything to say about it, you always will be.”

“I’m so sorry, Kara.” He clutched her head to the curve of his neck and breathed her in. “I would stay with you forever if I could.”

She thought at first that he’d released her, until she felt his form melting away, turning transparent before her eyes. She shot up in bed, grasping at his hand. Her eyes went wide in denial as he let out a silent gasp, his eyes bulging as he crumpled in on himself and disappeared from her life. And by the look of him, this time it was for good.

Chapter Twelve

Gavin knelt on the polished black rocks and stretched his hands out before him, dropping his forehead to the stones. Once he was prostrate before the king, the ground began to shift. The carved tiles softened, and an earthy smell sprang up. Gavin frowned and spat, trying to get the taste of manure from his lips.

The rims of his ears heated and his fingers itched, his claws desperate to tear through his nail bed and curve from his hands. A worm wriggled against his cheek, and the pungent scent of rot filled his nostrils. This was Brakken’s sense of humor at its finest. He was one sadistic son of a bitch.

“Rise, my son,” said the man towering above him, not more than three paces away.

Gavin stood, careful not to touch the decaying corpses at his feet where just a moment before had been polished marble. He didn’t look closely at the faces of the dead, their bodies littered with arrows from Brakken’s mythic bow. If Brakken had conjured the props from real people he’d killed, Gavin didn’t want to risk seeing his mother, half bone, half oozing flesh.

Gavin approached his father. Black-wings didn’t usually look any older than thirty, but somehow Brakken seemed weathered and gaunt. With his snow-white hair and pale skin, his completely black eyes stood out on his face. Gavin wondered if it was possible for his father to look anything but insane with those damn cavernous eyes.

Gavin’s boot squished in the remains of some poor young woman as he came to a stop and bowed his head, careful not to make eye contact. If he showed any reaction to Brakken’s game, it would only escalate. “It is finished, Father.”

Brakken sighed, the sound a tired growl. “So soon? Which female did you get with child?”

“Only Rachel came into season, but it seems it took with her.”

Brakken’s claws extended until they were almost a foot long. He brought the tip of one claw under Gavin’s chin to tilt his head up. When Gavin finally forced himself to meet the man’s eyes, Brakken was smiling. His sharply pointed rows of teeth made him look like a grinning shark. “She is one of my favorites. She has borne me many sons, but none with as many gifts as you and Gable. I had to put another one down recently when he failed to manifest any of my powers.”

Gavin swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth. He knew this wasn’t another of Brakken’s mind games. Rachel had wept and told Gavin the same while he’d been locked inside her.

“And he was a silver-wing,” Brakken said. “Remind me again, Gavine, why I would take your demibreed offspring in exchange for the child Kara Reed owes me. She took my greatest son from me.”

Kara.
Visions of her smile and the memory of her scent were the only things that helped Gavin through the endless nights in the Shadowland. He took a breath and tried to relax his muscles. Trembling in front of Brakken would show Gavin was either scared or on the edge of losing control, and either emotion could get him killed. “You took me into your home instead, Father, and allowed me to pay her debt because she can’t yet travel to the Shadowland. She’s young and immature. Her womb is barren.”

“It won’t be barren forever. That’s what they said about your mother…” Ghostly images misted into existence around Brakken—advisors who had long since been put to death. Gavin wanted to look away as Brakken’s memories played out before him like holographic movies, one man, then another, trying to convince Gavin’s father to let the young Demiáre female go, but Brakken only laughed.

“I worked that hardened soil for years, Gavine, until it finally came time for reaping. And look at you.” His long nails retracted, and he pinched Gavin’s cheek. “Aren’t you glad I did?”

At that moment, Gavin could honestly say he wished he’d never been born. Brakken had abused his mother for years, some said decades, before he and Gable had finally been born. “Let’s be honest, shall we, Father? You didn’t agree to leave Kara Reed alone out of the kindness of your heart. You delight in the idea of keeping my firstborn son to punish me for Gable’s death.”

“over leaving your
Punish you
? Is that the thanks I get for providing you with a selection of ripe and fertile females? I loaned you my private collection, Gavine. Every woman in my stable has borne me at least one child. If you weren’t so heartbroken
true love
,” he mocked, bringing his hands over his heart, “you would have realized what a gift I gave to you.”

“Me, love Kara Reed? No, Father, you’re mistaken. I only knew her a short time. She’s no different from any other female you have here, and I have plenty of bedmates in my own clan. I don’t attach so easily.”

“So you won’t mind if I decide to take her?”

A muscle in Gavin’s jaw twitched. “Of course not. Simply send a messenger when my child is born and I will come for him, bringing the terms of our deal to an end.”

Brakken frowned. “Hmmm. I was planning to call him Gable Two.”

Gavin felt sick. How could he leave any offspring of his with a man like this? He swallowed down the acid rising in his throat. Allowing Brakken to brutalize the woman he loved was not an option. “Good choice.”

“But if Gable Two disappoints me, I’ll replace him from Kara Reed’s hide.”

Gavin’s brows drew down, as if thinking it over. “Rumor has it Ailexon would descend with a vengeance if Kara ever entered this realm. She may have killed Gable—albeit, in self-defense—but she was Deanna’s daughter. You know Ailexon didn’t take kindly to being cuckolded by the first queen of the Shadowland.” Gavin paused and bit his cheek. “No…Ailexon would surely root her out if you brought her here.”

Brakken snarled and twenty-foot flames burst into existence all around the throne room, burning the bodies in an instant until only the slick marble tile remained. “Let him come! I am not afraid of Ailexon.” The flames died down but continued burning low to the ground.

“I know this, Father.” Gavin almost smiled. Everyone thought Brakken was absolutely mad, but his sense of self-preservation was well intact. For all of Brakken’s cruelty and fervor in battle, his army was smaller and less devout. It wouldn’t stand a chance under direct attack from the chief of the fallen angels.