by Plum Pascal
“Who are you?”
“Eilish, My King.” The slight rasp to her voice makes my prick thicken in my trousers. That’s a voice that should be screaming my name to the rafters. “And I come here to make a request.”
I wish for her to keep talking, for the words that drip from her succulent lips make me think lecherous thoughts. I’m drunk, but not from the liquor. In fact, it takes quite a lot for me to feel inebriated by common drink.
“What would your request be?” I saunter over to her, drinking in the sound of her labored breaths. She’s nervous. Good. She should be. My hands itch to squeeze her ample ass and caress the tantalizing curves of her hips and breasts. Fuck. That’s a body crafted for sinful pleasure. I continue to advance, placing my body between hers and the door. “Speak up, Eilish. It’s not wise to keep a king waiting... unless you toy with danger in hopes of being punished for it.”
“N-no. Not that,” she insists. “My mother and sister are in danger and that’s why I’ve come.”
“You believe I can help?”
She nods. “I know you can help. You are the king.”
“And what do I get in return?”
She nods again, as if she expected this line of conversation. “For their protection, I would do anything.”
“Anything?”
“Whatever you ask of me, my liege.”
“Whatever I ask?”
“I’m sure you understand my meaning, My King.” Eilish’s fingers dart to the tie that keeps her robe closed. She pulls the string and allows it to slip from her shoulders. Finely crafted leathers and delicate lace cling to her glorious proportions, a perfect contradiction that makes me throb with need as her words echo in my mind.
I flick open the clasp between her breasts and they spill from the fabric as if they’re eager to feel my hands and mouth. “You would give me your body to save them?”
“I would, My King.”
“And who do they need saving from?” I ask, still thinking clearly enough to know the stakes of this arrangement and the weight they carry even after she leaves me this evening.
“An Unseelie lord’s son. He calls himself Prince Yanhir, though he holds no such title. My sister has been hurt by him many times because he thinks he’s entitled to whatever he lays his eyes upon. She resisted and paid a horrible price. So I killed him in retaliation, and now his father seeks to do us harm... as well as… another.”
Her revelation doesn’t surprise me entirely. “And who is this other threat?”
“Unknown, My King,” she admits bashfully.
“You don’t know?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never seen it, but it’s something very dark.”
“It?”
“Something not of this world. I know it sounds crazy—”
“No, not crazy.”
I want to help her. I can’t explain why. Yes, I want to fuck her and she’s clearly offering her body. But, even if I didn’t agree to help her, I could still fuck her. I’m the king, after all.
But, no, there’s something that calls to me, something within me that wants to do whatever she asks of me. I don’t understand why. “I’ll do it. I’ll protect your family.” My hand reaches down and I trail my fingers along the top of her skirts, feeling the way she shivers at my touch.
“Thank you, liege,” she whispers.
“Beautiful,” I breathe. “So very beautiful and fragile, even as you hold magic within yourself.” I force myself to look away as I feel beguiled by her innocent seduction. Something I suspect she is unaware of. My lips brush hers, just a faint kiss, but it sears me to the bone….
In a blur of movement and gasps of air, we tumble to the bed, tugging away layers of clothing that keep our hands at bay. She’s naked underneath me and I can’t tear my eyes away from her. She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
I spread her legs and look down at the pink folds of glistening flesh. My cock is throbbing and begs me to slip inside her but I want to look at her first. I feel my mouth salivating.
I lean down and taste her as she bucks underneath me. She begs me to enter her and I chuckle, appreciating her need. I push myself between her legs as I grip onto her hips and I thrust inside her. She screams out and digs her fingernails into my back. The feel of her is both exquisite and devastating.
Each thrust builds toward something that rocks me to my core. Her hips roll and we grind against one another in an erotic dance of limbs. She drenches me in her passion. I feel more alive than ever before. I’ve fucked many women before, yes. But, I’ve never felt this. I’ve never wanted to lose myself in a woman before.
When Eilish shudders with release, clenching and milking my flesh with the force of her climax, I see light behind my eyes and tumble over the edge with her…
I should never have crossed this line…
The sound of rattling chains wakes me from my slumber. Though I was with Eilish in a lover’s embrace, the dream isn’t one of happiness, but pain. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and yet I allowed my body to be enthralled by her feminine wiles. Even now, flashes of pale skin and rosy nipples seep into my mind. More shuffling in the darkness draws my attention. Aima. I’m glad I’m not alone, but my comfort shouldn’t come at her expense.
Daylight finally spills into the cell, illuminating the healing cuts and bruises on her face. I never wished for this. I never wanted my old friend to suffer at the hands of my brother.
“Don’t do that,” Aima demands in a biting tone. “I can practically smell the stench of your self-hatred and pity from over here. It doesn’t matter whose fault this is—there’s no going back now.”
“Looking past it doesn’t make it right,” I rasp.
“Neither does looking back, either.” She snorts and shakes her head, causing her chains to click against the marble we’re tethered to. “I’m leaving, by the way. After we’re rescued, I mean.”
“You think we will be rescued?” I laugh.
“I know we will be.”
“Maybe you will.”
“Both of us,” she insists. Then she takes a big breath. “And when we are rescued, I don’t think I’m coming back... what happened in that room, Cambion... I can’t go through all of this for a third time. I can’t sit around and wait for the real Theren to return.”
“Where will you go?”
She chuckles. “Wherever. I don’t know yet. I just... I feel so broken. They took something from me, and I want it back. Torture changes people. But being tortured multiple times? I’m lucky to still be breathing. My sister didn’t last a third round... I won’t, either. I know it.”
“What about Kolvar? Perhaps you can stay with the mercenaries,” I suggest.
She looks down at her feet and I notice how far we’re hanging off the ground. My toes are numb and the skin around my wrists is raw and bleeding. I dangle here like some fish at the market waiting to be purchased. Aima shakes her head and quirks a little smile.
“Don’t even think about escaping. I tried while you were knocked out,” she says. “I couldn’t get high enough to look at the locking mechanism before my feet went numb and I fell back down. Just a tip: don’t drop more than once, or else your wrists will look like mine.”
I glance over at her hands and grimace. The skin is torn and bleeding, eating through almost to the bone as the shackles bear all of her weight. “I’m sorry, Aima. This never should have happened.”
“Look, I’m all right. And, for the record, I don’t think you betrayed us.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t. Nothing you did was intentional, remember? We’ve already been over this, and I don’t think you’re guilty of anything other than loving your brother,” my old friend says. “If my sister were in the same situation, I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d slaught everyone until I got to her, but you... you can make something out of this. This is an opportunity in disguise.”
I attempt to answer, but the door to the cell opens with
a bang as it hits the wall.
Variant.
He walks into the grimy little room with bars on the windows and wards all around, whistling a merry tune. My enemy stops right in front of me and taps my forehead with his finger. There’s something not right about his eyes or the rune on the side of his head, hiding in his hairline.
“Your friends were caught in an explosion. We don’t know if anyone survived.”
I don't say anything. Baron is already dead, Pyre is a necromancer with insane power, Dragan and Kolvar are too stubborn to die, and Eilish and the others are always protected. There’s no way they’re dead. Variant must see the disbelief in my gaze, because he grips my jaw painfully.
“Morrigan has escaped, and your little friends can’t hide in the spirit world forever, Cambion. I’m on my way to finding a key to that font of magic the necromancer has at his disposal. And when I get my hands on it... let’s just say things will get very, very bad for all of you.”
“Whatever plan Morrigan has will be stopped, Variant,” I respond, my voice coming out icy.
“And what makes you think that?” he asks smugly. “Last I checked, your allies were scattered and you’re here being tortured and chained to a wall.”
I reach out with my magic and probe Variant’s mind. There are barriers and I’m weakened by the beatings, but I fight my way through. A flood of information prickles at my consciousness.
###
Variant
Nowhere
Darkness... there’s so much darkness here. And I, a creature of light and power, grow weaker with every passing second. Seconds? Does time even matter anymore? Whatever spell Morrigan has woven around me won’t unfurl its clutches.
I once thought I loved her, that we shared a connection no one else understood. She, the ancient being with infinite knowledge, and I, a king on the rise towards greatness. But she besmears my name and the legacy established by my father and his father before him.
I have visions, visions of angels falling from the sky. Their wings are torn and burning from their backs. When they finally hit the ground, I see their women, their mates, crying over their bodies, holding bloodied feathers in their hands. I did this... not the me that I am or the me that I thrive to be, but the me I never wanted to become—a dark, vile creature that thirsts only for the pain of others.
Morrigan reached inside me and found that part of me. She took it into her palm and defiled it, forging something new and much more dangerous...
I stand in the throne room, with tendrils of ice surrounding me. Baron’s lifeless body rests at my feet, but unlike the angels, he’s alone in his death. No woman cries over the loss of his life. The allies he depended on are too late and I... I’m the one who did this to him...
No. No, that isn’t right. I’m not in the throne room, I’m in the darkness…
I’m in the place where Morrigan locked me away with her power. Even weakened by Silvanus’ mirror, she’s still formidable in her own right. What magic she can’t wield on her own, she syphons from enchanted objects or... wait... I’m supposed to remember something important, something about autumn. No, not autumn, but harvest.
Morrigan is harvesting innocent fae to fuel her talisman…
She needs an angel.
She needs an angel and a mirror. She needs a talisman and a vampire to kill a god... she needs an angel... Not just any angel, but the angel, the one who will either bring great destruction or carry the way to redemption on her wings.
Her? Yes, her.
Eilish is her name.
###
Cambion
Oronrel
Variant tears himself away from me, eyeing me suspiciously.
“What did you see?” he barks. I feign ignorance, shaking my head and blinking at him in mock confusion. He grows irritated and storms out of the cell. When I no longer hear footfalls down the corridor, I turn to Aima.
There’s so much anger and rage roiling off her, it takes my breath away for a moment. When she pulls herself together, her eyes meet mine, and I take a few seconds to reassure myself that she’s all right. Despite what she claims, I don’t believe Theren and the Unseelie have broken her.
“Aima?”
She gives a curt nod and a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah, I’m all right. Did you see something?”
“Has Theren ever mentioned a spell Morrigan may have placed on him? Maybe something innocuous that might mean more than he thought?” I ask.
She shakes her head for a moment, but some form of realization dawns on her and her expression changes as she struggles for words. When she speaks, it nearly leaves me speechless.
“Theren told Eilish that what we see isn’t real. He told her that the Theren walking around isn’t really him,” Aima explains. “She couldn’t tell me much else, but it was pretty clear what she meant.”
“Well, I just heard something similar from Variant. Not a spoken word or admittance, but his actual thoughts.”
“You were able to access his mind?”
“Yes. His thoughts were much easier to locate than they should be, which could mean the spell is wearing off without Morrigan’s magic to sustain it.”
“Morrigan’s in power and no one even knows it,” Aima says, taking in a deep breath. “So many people in the Realms believe she died in the war.” Aima closes her eyes, hanging her head so low her chin touches her chest.
“If Variant really did lock her away in that tower, there’s a possibility that he’s been fighting her magic for a lot longer than Theren has,” I say. “Maybe Variant has moments of lucidness where he’s able to think clearly.”
“Maybe?” Aima struggles against her shackles once more.
I hate seeing her in pain, so I flatten my feet against the wall and push myself away from the marble. I position my body awkwardly so that she can turn and use my bent legs to rest her weight against me, taking some of the pressure off her wrists. “We need to watch things from this side as much as we’re able to, from this fucking cell. The others won’t know what to look for in Variant and Theren, but you and I have spent enough time with the two of them to know the differences in their behavior.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“For now, just keeping us both alive,” I reply.
“Cambion... you can’t keep taking my punishments because it’s pointless. If you do, they’ll just find new ways to hurt me. You weren’t fighting in that battle. I was. Unseelie want revenge, they want to hurt those who killed their brethren. And at the moment, that’s me.”
“I won’t let them hurt you, Aima.”
“You have to,” she argues. “Our job right now is to buy the others time. If... the Unseelie do something twisted, something like what they did to my sister. I want you to—”
“No. I won’t listen to this. We’ll make it out of here, Aima. Together. I refuse to believe anything else.” My body aches with a furious passion. The pain doesn't come in waves anymore, but in a constant onslaught of agony. “It’ll hurt like hell, but we’ll make it.”
Aima snorts and looks me in the eyes once more. “I should have chosen you, Cambion.”
“No offense, but I’m glad you didn’t. Your choice made both of us stronger. We may have endured tragedy afterwards, but I have faith that everything leading up to this moment is happening for a reason. There’s light left to be discovered, Aima. We just need to be patient and never give up, even when we find ourselves in the thick of it.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It isn’t,” I concede. “Our time here will be hard, but you’re right. We’re keeping the enemy busy. We’re buying our allies time. And when that light finally returns for us, we’ll join their efforts and make these assholes pay.” I grow quiet for a few seconds. “Are you with me?”
“I’m with you.”
~
To be continued in Variant, the 5th book in the Sacred Oath Series,
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Excerpt from To Kill A Warlock
I picked up my feet and started jogging, enjoying the fact that I seemed to be the only person awake at this hour. There’s a certain intimacy to the night when you don’t have to share it with anyone. The sound of my feet pounding against the pavement was my own type of meditation; the chirp of crickets overlaid with the shuffling of various night creatures music to my ears.
I started up the base of a large hill, looking forward to cresting the top. The steep incline was making itself known in the burn of my calves. I hadn’t gone for a run in over a week. Usually, it didn’t sting like this.
“You can do it,” I whispered to myself. Hey, even the magical sometimes need a few words of encouragement.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and pushed my legs into the ground. The asphalt leveled off and my muscles relaxed. I opened my eyes with a grin. My gaze focused and my smile faded.
A man stood directly in front of me—maybe ten feet away.
I gasped and stopped in my tracks. Every nerve in my body was alert and standing at attention. My body was poised, ready to rebuff an attack. It was a built-in response in law enforcement. You never know when some asshole’s going to try to make your day.