Tempted by a Rogue Prince (18 page)

Vail growled low in his throat and advanced a step, rising to his full height to intimidate the inferior male.

The incubus glanced at him and then returned his gaze to the witch.

His witch.

His female.

His ki’ara.

Vail snarled and teleported in a flash, appearing between the incubus and his Little Wild Rose. He pressed his hand into her hip, guiding her behind him, keeping her hidden from Fenix’s gaze. The male would not take what was his.

The female belonged to him.

He bared his fangs again and hissed, warning the male away.

Fenix stood his ground, palming the hilt of the sword he held point down at his side.

A soft huff broke the tense silence.

Vail looked over his left shoulder at the witch. She pulled his hand away from her hip, tossed it aside and moved out from behind him, pinning him with a black look.

“Really?” she snapped and shoved her hands onto her hips.

Hips he had touched.

Hips he wanted to touch again.

Witch
.

Vail shook his head, spurning his desire to lay his hands on her, to feel her soft flesh give beneath his fingers again and have her warmth seep into his skin.

He did not desire to touch the witch.

Vile. Evil. Vicious little rose. She would likely prick him with her thorns and make him bleed.

He would not fall under her spell.

“And now we’re back to hating me. Great. Has anyone ever told you that you’re mercurial?” She turned her nose up at him before he could respond and looked at Fenix. “Or maybe he is just mad.”

Vail grabbed her roughly by the arm and spun her to face him, dragging her closer at the same time so she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze, hers filled with fire.

“I am not mad, but if I am, then it was one of your kind who made me so. Never call me such a thing. Never judge someone when you know nothing about them,
Witch
… it may save your life.” He threw her arm aside and stalked past her, heading towards the end of the corridor that led up to the courtyard.

He didn’t care if they followed him or not. He didn’t care if a thousand men awaited him in the area ahead.

He would welcome it.

He wanted to fight. He wanted the taste of blood on his tongue and the feel of bones shattering beneath his blows. He needed the pain and the rage, and the release.

He tossed a vicious snarl back down the corridor at Fenix and Rosalind and teleported. If Little Wild Rose believed him mercurial, then he would show her just how mercurial her mate could be and just what he did to witches who annoyed him.

Vail reappeared in the middle of the courtyard facing the immense dark castle that rose up at one end of it. Several demon warriors immediately turned his way but he paid them no heed as he scoured the occupants of the courtyard for the females he had seen in the times he had passed through it.

Darkness slithered over his skin, igniting his rage, and he swung his gaze to his right, towards the source of it.

With a hiss and a flash of fangs, he disappeared. The redhead was unprepared for him. He appeared above her, dropping out of the air and taking her down, his booted feet pressing into her shoulders. His weight drove her hard into the flagstones and he grinned as the back of her head smacked off the black ground and she unleashed a pain-drenched cry.

Two black ribbons swirled around her left palm and Vail shook his head at her. He shot his hand out, snatched hold of her left wrist, and viciously twisted it, snapping the bone. She cried out again, the agony in it sending pleasure flooding him, a high that drove him to hurt her again.

To make her suffer as he had.

He drew in a deep breath and fought to control the hunger for violence, the dark need to inflict pain and steal pleasure from it. It pushed at him, stronger than he could resist, and more powerful than he could ever hope to control. It drove him to punish her, to take his time over it and ensure she knew first-hand the depth of the pain he had survived, and the torment he had endured. He wanted to condense four thousand two hundred years of agony, of hope-destroying torture, into four extremely painful minutes.

The same as he did to every witch he came across.

Warmth swept over him from behind, carrying the scent of nature that drove back the darkness pulling him under.

Little Wild Rose.

The sound of battle reached his ears and he realised with horror that the dark witch beneath him was calling out to her brethren.

Vail ran his black claws across her throat, so her cry for Alyssum ended in a gurgle as blood gushed from the deep wounds and poured into the punctures.

He pushed off the dead witch and called his twin black blades to him at the same time, preparing to hurl himself at the blonde witch she had called.

The sight of Rosalind trying to evade the blows of the demon warriors froze his heart in his chest. Ice crawled across his skin.

Little Wild Rose.

His ki’ara ducked and rolled, leaped backwards to avoid the six-feet-long blades the huge males swung at her. The chain between her manacles swayed and rattled with each desperate move she made and Vail snarled at himself.

He had left his ki’ara defenceless.

He teleported and reappeared behind two large males who were attacking her. Her eyes widened as they flitted to him and she threw herself to one side, rolling under a strike aimed at her neck. Vail growled and slashed down the bare back of the biggest demon, ripping a cry from the male. He thrust his other sword at the smaller male, but the demon unfurled his black leathery wings and kicked off, beating them hard as he took flight.

The larger demon turned on Vail, bringing his sword around in a diagonal arc. Vail ducked under the blade and teleported, dropping out of the air above the male. He twisted in the air, twirled both of his black swords so they pointed downwards in his grip, and snarled as he drove them deep into the demon’s shoulders, slicing clean through tendon and bone. The male roared and fell to his knees. Vail landed behind him, pulled both of his swords out of the demon’s back, and swept his left one in a fast arc, severing his head.

Rosalind gasped and Vail paused only long enough to satisfy his need to see she was unharmed before teleporting after the smaller demon. The male was about to touch down on the high dark stone wall surrounding the courtyard when Vail appeared above him, landed on his back and knocked him out of the air. He shoved with his feet as they neared the pavement, slamming the male into the slabs with such force that they cracked and the male spewed blood from his mouth.

Vail grinned, stepped off the male’s back and brought his swords down in two swift strikes, cutting straight through his wings. He raised his swords to finish him.

A female cry caught his attention and pain swept through his side, blazing fiercely.

Little Wild Rose.

He turned and growled when he spotted her using her thick metal cuffs to block the sword coming down at her.

Wielded by the blonde witch.

Alyssum threw her free hand forwards and a dark purple orb flew from it, hitting Rosalind in the chest and sending her flying across the courtyard. Vail teleported in an instant, sent his swords away and snatched her out of the air, landing in a crouch on one knee with her tucked against his chest. He drew back to check on her.

She remained curled up in a ball, her ash blonde hair strewn across her face and her eyes screwed shut.

“Witch?” Vail said and she let out her breath, her blue eyes slowly opening and rising to meet his. The warmth in them, the relief that shone so clearly, stole his breath from his lungs and he found himself staring down into them, picking out every dazzling fleck of silver that floated on azure seas. Bewitched. She had truly cast a spell upon him, but it wasn’t like any he had experienced before. It ran deeper, held him fast and refused to let him go, and part of him liked it. “You are unharmed?”

She blinked slowly, looking as lost as he felt.

The battle raged around them, Fenix fighting the demons back unknown to Vail. He knew only Little Wild Rose as she lay tucked safely in his arms, pressed against his chest, her backside resting on his right thigh and her back supported by his bent left knee.

What spell had she cast upon him that had enslaved him so completely that he felt driven to protect her, felt warmed inside whenever she looked at him as she was now, and felt he would go mad without her?

“Look out!” She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her, so their chests pressed together and he could feel her heart hammering against his.

He stared down at her mouth, so very close to his, so perfect and soft, her rosy lips parted in sweet invitation.

The oily slick of magic crawled over his skin, detonated above him and showered him with pain.

He shoved off Rosalind, twisting to face Alyssum at the same time. The dark witch smirked at him, her long black dress fluttering and whipping around her ankles as her eyes filled with crimson fire and she called another spell. Her gaze dropped to Rosalind where she remained on the ground and darkened with intent.

Vail hissed, his pointed ears flattening against the sides of his head, and mentally completed his armour, forming his spiked black helmet. The slats of the mask flowed down to conceal and protect the lower half of his face, and he kicked off, launching himself at the witch. She hurled the spell at him instead of Little Wild Rose.

The twisting black orb slammed into his left shoulder and sent him into a spin. He growled behind his mask and teleported, using the shift to right himself and appearing behind her. He lashed out, raking his black claws down her back, and grinned as she cried out and arched forwards to evade him. He stepped into her, hooked his right leg around both of hers, and shoved her in the back, sending her toppling to the ground. He pinned her with his right knee and poised himself to strike.

She grunted and stretched her right hand out, her focus fixed on Rosalind where she was finding her feet with the help of Fenix.

Vail snarled as Rosalind turned wide blue eyes on the witch and defensively brought her hands up. Her face twisted, her panic drumming in his veins. She wanted to call her magic and he had callously left it bound, had been too weak to give her the freedom he now used to his advantage. He growled at himself, disgusted by how weak he was, and how cruel.

His Little Wild Rose could have defended herself had he been stronger.

The quiet voice locked deep within him battled with his darker side, the one that said she could have defended herself had she taken the weapon he had offered. He had no need to release her magic.

When had he become so weak and despicable?

Fenix grabbed her and teleported them just as Vail shoved his claws into the back of Alyssum’s hand, pinning it to the stone flags beneath her. She cried out and he silenced her by running the claws of his other hand across her throat. Blood flowed across the flagstones as she choked, her life seeping out of her, and he held her down with his right knee, waiting for her heart to stop before he flipped her onto her back and called his black blades to him.

He drove one through her heart and severed her head with the other, and then teleported to the other dead witch and gave her the same treatment, ensuring neither of them would come back.

He scanned the warriors in the courtyard. All of the large demon males stared at him. None were fighting.

Where had Fenix taken his female?

Vail shut his eyes, unconcerned by the demons closing in on him, and focused on her. He frowned when he located her some distance away, beyond the boundaries of the fortress. The wretched male was attempting to steal his ki’ara.

He would pay for his insolence.

Pale blue-purple light traced over Vail’s body and the darkness swallowed him, its cool embrace a comfort. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been strong enough to teleport a long distance, or had the power to heal his armour. It felt good to have it complete again, without any weak points, and to be able to travel great distances in mere seconds.

He appeared a few metres ahead of Fenix and Rosalind, facing them and the great black fortress beyond them. The male drew to a halt but the witch kept walking, her eyes fixed on him and her hands slowly coming up in front of her.

“Are you hurt?” she said in a soft voice that spoke of concern.

He wanted to bare his fangs at her in warning to make her stop too, but managed to force a shake of his head instead.

Relief joined the concern in her blue eyes, but it quickly melted into a darker emotion, one he was more familiar with.

She stopped her approach, planted her hands on her hips so the chain between her manacles rested across her stomach and scowled at him. “What the bloody hell did you think you were doing?”

“Rosalind.” Fenix flexed his fingers around the hilt of his sword.

The witch didn’t heed the male’s warning.

Vail flicked him a glare, daring him to attempt to attack him, and then locked his eyes on the little witch, giving her all of his attention. She shrank back.

Towards the incubus.

Vail mentally commanded his helmet to return to the rest of his armour, revealing his face, and his top lip curled back off his fangs.

“Come. Female.” He held his hand out to her.

She eyed it with reproach.

“I have a name. Until you use it, I see no reason for me to do anything you ask.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And I’m most certainly not following orders from you.”

She walked towards him, her gaze fixed on his, and he expected her to take his hand and do as he had requested, falling into line with him and keeping her distance from the incubus.

She stomped straight past him instead, and he followed her with his gaze, turning so he could keep track of her, a frown forming.

Fenix chuckled and muttered under his breath as he passed him, “You have a lot to learn about women, my friend.”

Vail curled his lip at the incubus and at the witch’s behaviour.

“I vote we teleport
there
,” Fenix said and pointed with his blade to black hills that rose in the distance and sharply dropped away on one side.