“If ye truly believe the Angui want to rule the world and enslave humanity,” he remarked, “if ye truly believe we should all be destroyed now to save humanity from that, then ye’d best make yer stand right here and now. Ye must tell the Gunns who and what I am. If I survive, I’ll flee and never be able to work for them again. They’ll leave a record of who I am and what I look like, and they’ll never stop hunting me down until they kill me, just like they’ve killed all the others.”
“What others?”
“The other Angui. We used to number in the millions. Now there are no more than a thousand worldwide, and the Gunns kill more and more every year. Ye hold me life in yer hands, lass. Ye must understand that.”
“So that’s why you got me locked in a crate with you?” she fired back. “So you could throw yourself on my mercy? Is that it?”
“No, lass,” he whispered. “I got myself locked in a crate with ye to beg ye to help us. We cannae survive without ye. Ree is already working to help us. We need ye too. I need ye.”
A silent scream boiled out of her core. She wanted to beat him with her fists and shriek, No! but the change that had started on board the trawler had already taken hold and wouldn’t let her go. This man almost sacrificed his life for her. She couldn’t get the fight on board the merchantman out of her mind. She couldn’t believe it was all an act. She saw his face. He was fighting for his life. Whoever he was, he’d stood by her and protected her a lot more than Boyd ever had. Malcolm had warned her. Malcolm had defended her, not Boyd.
Ellen and Ree already worked with these men. Vic couldn’t ignore that simple fact. Those two had always blazed the trail for all five friends to follow. That groove in Vic’s being wouldn’t die. If Ree and Ellen joined these men, they must know something Vic didn’t. Then again, Vic already knew. She only had to hold Boyd and Malcolm up for comparison to get her answer.
The days she spent hating Malcolm died hard, though. She didn’t want to let go of her resistance to him and everything he said. What if he was lying? He wasn’t lying. She understood that to her bones. She could trust him.
Boyd’s handsome consideration took on a different cast in her memory. His glorious shining smile, his glittering eyes, his smooth fingers stroking her hand—how slimy and hideous they all seemed now compared to Malcolm’s rough honesty.
He must have revolted against her arrival as much as she revolted against him. She threatened everything he’d spent centuries building and even his life. No wonder he’d tried to push her away.
She let out a shuddering breath. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want ye to come to America with us,” he replied. “We’ll work on the Cipher’s Kiss there. Now that Boyd is dead, and they’ll think I’m dead too, the Falisa will elect a new Guild Master. Ye can help us more than anyone.”
“How? I don’t know anything.”
“Ye ken more than I do about the world ye came from,” he replied. “Ye can help me set up the Falisa to be ready when the time comes for Ned and Ree to make the elixir.”
“Shouldn’t you ‘survive’ so they can elect you Guild Master? Wouldn’t that be the most direct way for you to watch them, influence the outcome,” she asked.
“No, they winnae do that. I’ll never be Guild Master.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I thought you were second-in-command to Boyd.”
“I cannae prove my parentage,” he told her. “Boyd had an unbroken line of descent to the original Falisa who poisoned our women. The documents of his family records are available in the Falisa archives. I dinnae have that. I’m just a working stiff. I can only climb so high. They’ll elect one of the real Gunns, probably Boyd’s cousin Allain Gunn.”
She turned her head slightly to look over her shoulder, but there was nothing to see in the dark. What was that in his voice when he talked about the war between his people and this ancient society bent on wiping them out? “So were you there when it happened? You were there when they poisoned the women?”
He spoke so softly she barely heard him. “Aye. I was there.”
“What happened?” she asked. “How did they do it?”
“They poisoned the water supply.”
“I mean, what happened to you? Where did you go? What happened after all the women were dead?”
He stiffened behind her, and she felt him lean away as far as the box would allow. Maybe she’d made a mistake bringing it up.
After several moments, he rolled closer and murmured into her ear in a fevered rush, “It happened in the space of a week. It crushed our civilization. One day, everything was thriving and peaceful and prosperous. The next thing we kenned, it all came crashing down. The men who were left behind came out of their houses, and the whole society vanished in a few hours. All the slaves and servants and tradespeople left the city. The men and their sons packed up and evacuated. Within twenty-four hours, they left the city deserted, all except the dead bodies.”
A sickening, crawling sensation stalked up Vic’s skin. “Did you go with them? Did you evacuate with them?”
“No, I didnae evacuate.”
Something in those words stabbed through her rib cage. If she ever entertained the notion that she might turn away from the Gunns in favor of the Angui, those words pushed her over the edge. She already belonged to him and anything he wanted her to do. “What did you do?”
“I was left alone in the house,” he replied. “I was only four years old at the time. I lived with me mother and me aunt and me older sister and me grandmother. They took care of me after me father died. I was alone in the house when the plague hit. Me mother took sick and went to bed. I crawled into bed with her like I usually did, and I fell asleep in her arms.”
“Did you wake up to find her dead?”
“No.” His throat cracked from the pain of speaking. “I woke up to find her jerking all over the place and screaming to wake the dead. She wouldn’t stop convulsing everywhere. Her legs spasmed until she kicked me out of the bed. I was screaming and crying for my auntie and my grandmother, but no one came. I watched the plague flay her flesh off her bones. A great bubble swelled out of her neck and exploded blood and pus all over my face. It ripped her throat open. Then another one came out of her stomach. One after another, they destroyed her body before my eyes. I was too petrified to leave the room.”
Vic froze in place, the horror invading her mind. She had to stare at the awful scene the same way he did. She had to see what he saw.
“By the time it was all over and she was dead, there wasnae any sound anywhere else in the house,” he rasped. “I sat there for five days. I was so hungry and thirsty I couldnae think straight, but I couldnae bring myself to leave the room. When I finally realized I would die if I didnae do something, I found my sister and auntie and grandmother dead in the other rooms. I felt numb as I got myself something to eat from the kitchen. When I went outside, the whole city was deserted.”
Vic’s throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe, but she swallowed down the pain. Holy Christ, what was this she was listening to?
He cleared his throat to go on with the story. “I stayed in the city for almost six months until I couldnae find food anymore. Then I wandered off somewhere. I spent about ten years living like an animal on the plains, just hunting for food and trying to stay alive. I went mad in a lot of ways before I grew up enough to realize I could go live among other men.”
“How did you wind up back with your own people?” Vic asked.
He chuckled under his breath, but the sound contained no mirth. It chilled Vic’s heart. Nothing about this story was funny, and yet it all lived under Malcolm’s skin. That scared, traumatized little boy from the story—that was Malcolm, the big, strong, sturdy, steady, protective man lying next to her.
“I didnae wind up back with me own people,” he replied. “That’s the strangest part of the whole thing. I went to live in the nearest town, and I got taken in by the Gunns. They didnae call themselves that in thos
e days, but they were still the same people. They didnae ken who I was, and I didnae ken who they were. I kenned naught about the plague or the Angui or any of it.”
“Really?” she gasped. “How did you find out?”
“My adoptive father sent me on an errand to the market. While I was there, I met a tall man with curly black hair who took an interest in me. I didnae ken why at the time. He met me there every day for a month until he’d heard me whole story.”
A squiggle of excitement ran up Vic’s spine. “Who was he?”
“It was Niall—Dagar Lumani is his real name.” He started to relax. “He recognized me. He said I looked like me father, and when I told him what happened, he regretted no’ coming to find me. He and the others were too distraught to think on anything but evacuating. He was sorry for leaving me behind, and he told me all about the plague. He wanted to take me away from the Falisa then and there, but I didnae want to go. I wanted to stay in me own home. I was comfortable there, and he got the idea that I should keep me eyes and ears open and report to him what I saw the Falisa doing.”
“So is that how you started working for them?”
“Aye. That’s how it started.”
An overpowering need took over Vic’s being to put her arms around this man and comfort him after what he’d been through. She wanted to soothe him and make it all okay, but she couldn’t turn around. Without hesitating, she picked up his hand off her hip, laced her fingers through his, and pulled his arm around her as she snuggled back against him inside the crate.
He stiffened, and his whispered voice in her ear betrayed his pain. “Dinnae do that, lass.”
“I want to.” She hugged him closer, hooked her arm over his, and kissed his knuckles.
He resisted her touch, but when she wouldn’t let him go, he softened.
The minute she’d wrapped him around her in the luscious dark, she knew it was right. The little boy from his story, the grown man she’d seen fighting for his life in the cabin—she embraced them both to her heart. She belonged here in this comfortable circle of his arms. His solid frame surrounded her and protected her from any danger waiting outside.
He held himself distant but didn’t try to fight it. He murmured low into her ear, “Ye dinnae ken what ye’re doing, lass.”
She knew exactly what she was doing. He might not want it, but she did. She didn’t understand all the tangled threads making up this complicated situation, but she understood this. She wanted him right now. If it came to nothing in the light of day, that didn’t make any difference.
She let go of his hand and reached around behind her. She grabbed his hip and pulled him closer to her. She wanted him near her, as near as he could get. She touched his kilt, and his iron body shifted on the hay. He rocked toward her once before he caught himself and resisted against her touch.
When he murmured in her ear this time, his voice was spiked in a high-pitched note of agony. “Dinnae do this, lass. Dinnae do this to me.” His forehead fell on her shoulder, and as soon as the words escaped his throat, he relaxed against her. His arms molded to fit her body. He leaned into her back, and his hips pressed into her ass from behind.
Only when he gave in did the mind-exploding intensity of her desire envelope her in all its power. His hair brushed her cheeks, and his steamy breath floated into her ear to explode in rockets of pleasure. He wanted this too. His raw, injured heart held him back, but in the end, his desire drove him toward her with equal strength.
She gave herself to it and to him. Her heart soared at his touch, and she rested against his bulk.
Chapter 16
Vic’s body sizzled in Malcolm’s hands. His brain told him to pull away, to erect an impenetrable barrier against her. He had plenty of practice with that. He’d been throwing that wall up between himself and any woman who came near him for centuries. He could desire them. He could even touch them and court them and seduce them if he wanted to, or if he saw some benefit to the Guild to do it. But he never let anyone get near him, and he’d certainly never told any woman his story—until now.
Why did he tell her? It just happened. It fell out of him of its own accord, and now he couldn’t resist her.
He disengaged his hand from hers, and it landed on her chest where her breasts curved down to her whale-boned waist. He followed those majestic swoops down to the slender cinched point of her corset.
She breathed into his touch and arched her back. She undulated against his chest and guided his hands down to her hips and back up to her breasts. He massaged them through her bodice until she sighed and whimpered under her breath. Her noises burned his insides until he couldn’t pull away even if he tried.
She leaned her head into his, and his lips dragged down her neck. She sobbed and moaned, and his crotch hardened against her ass. His mind told him to stop this now, but he really didn’t want to. He wanted her to know his story. He wanted her to know all about him.
Now that she’d heard his story, she knew more about him than almost anyone, even most other Angui besides Niall. In that intoxicating swirl of heady sensation and overwhelming emotion, he wanted to give himself to someone who knew him.
Did Niall experience this with Ree? No wonder he fell for her so hard. Malcolm became fascinated with Ree the minute he first met her, but nothing could compare with Vic. Ree never knew Malcolm like Vic did now.
Vic possessed his past and his present and his future. She was his future. He understood that even if he didn’t want her to be. Her body hypnotized him until he could think of nothing else. This desire went so far beyond the mindless hardness between his legs. It weaseled into his blood. It commanded every sinew of his being to respond to her, to touch her and make her respond in kind.
He stroked down her breasts one more time. When he came to her hips, he caressed behind them and up her back. He rubbed her neck and sank his teeth into her bare shoulder.
She seethed against him, quick, panting sighs escaping her. He pulled the pins holding her hair in place, and it tumbled all over him. That blazing red cascade fueled his burning need. He buried his nose in her hair and closed his eyes. He swam in an endless sea of delight in everything she did. She filled his senses to bursting until he couldn’t escape. He didn’t want to escape. He wanted to be her prisoner.
He crawled his fingertips around her waist to her stomach and dug into the soft flesh under her corset. He had to get hold of that flesh. He had to taste her and touch her and bring her to quivering fulfillment. His blood throbbed between his legs to get inside her. He craved her wetness and her fragrant sacred bliss. He nibbled around her neck to her back. She craned her spine back, and her fingers burrowed into his hair. She pulled him into her until he couldn’t hold back. He took a hard bite of her neck, and she squealed in excitement. Her body rippled all the way down to her legs hidden under her skirts.
She covered his hand with her own and tried to nudge him lower, but he hesitated. Should he really? What if he spoiled it by taking her too soon? What if he couldn’t give her the pleasure she needed?
She didn’t give him a chance to question. She pushed his hand lower, to the cleft where her legs met. Once he felt her thighs gliding under her layers of crinoline and silk, he understood. He didn’t have to hold back anymore. She wanted this as much as he did. She would make sure he did what she wanted.
At that moment, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. He wanted to crush her into his skin where he could carry her with him always. He seized her in both arms, jamming one arm under her and lifting her off the hay. He folded her against him, and the last wall separating them came crashing down.
She melted into his embrace. He scooped one mighty hand up to her chin and pushed her head back against his shoulder. She whined in ecstasy and submitted to his guidance. His other hand dove down to her skirts. He tossed them up and whipped them out of the way, but he found only her stockings and underwear. She shoved her ass back against his sharp spike poking into her from behind and drove him crazy
with her insane gyrations.
She whipped her head around. Out of nowhere, her ravenous mouth closed on his, and she kissed him in wild abandonment. She bit his lips, and her hot tongue slithered into his mouth. Wicket jolts of lightning rocketed into his brain. He couldn’t kiss her fast enough to keep up.
He hadn’t met a woman like her in thousands of years. Wild, passionate, free women used to rule in the dawn of time. Then they gave way to these weak-willed women who let men push them around.
Niall had told Malcolm about the Angui women. Malcolm never saw them fighting in his early childhood, and he certainly never saw the way they loved—not the way Niall and Louis and the others had. He never saw them doing anything but mothering him. He never expected to meet a woman like that, and he never wanted to love anything less.
Vic exceeded his wildest fantasies of what one would be like it. She wrenched her shoulders around to mangle his lips while her pelvis jammed against his erection. He pawed between her legs until he found the waistband of her underwear. He dove his hand inside, and the next thing he knew, he drowned in a pool of succulent wetness the likes of which he’d never dared imagine.
She convulsed against his hand but didn’t struggle. She spread her immaculate thighs to let him in. Her burning center welcomed him into her verdant folds until he couldn’t escape. All the while, her mouth held him captive. Her tongue whipped back and forth and she tightened her fingers in his hair, pulling him down harder. He raced to keep up with her, even as her sweet scent and wetness enthralled him out of his mind.
Somewhere in the confusion, he became aware of her other hand touching his member. She dragged her dainty fingers along its length through his kilt. Inch by inch, she eased the wool out of the way until her delicious skin closed around its ridged shaft. He spasmed through his middle and almost died then and there.
She stroked down him to his balls and tickled his fevered flesh until he couldn’t stand it. She matched the rhythm of his fingers inside her. The unstoppable wetness of her mouth, her sweet slit, and her fingers combined in a devastating cocktail of desire and mystical pleasure he couldn’t escape.
Spies of the Angui - Cipher's Kiss Book 3 Page 11