Darkness Rising

by Katie Reus

  “It’s nothing,” she muttered, feeling stupid. He had the ability to make her feel stupid without trying. Worse, she knew he’d feel awful if she told him that. “Aurelia stopped by the club earlier, when you were out looking for Greer and the others.”

  “She did?” Confusion rolled off him.

  “She said you’ve been away from the coven too long, that I’m keeping you away.” Cynara couldn’t stand Aurelia and the way the bloodborn vamp looked down on her.

  “I’ve made a choice to stay away. They’re fine without me. Paris is in charge and he’s reported nothing out of the ordinary. What else did she say? Because that can’t be what’s bothering you.”

  “She started talking about the two of you and how there had never been anything you wouldn’t try with her—and others. How you used to be absolutely hedonistic and that you’d turned into a pussy since meeting me.”

  He blinked again before laughing. “I’ve never fucked her.”

  Cynara’s anger cooled. “You haven’t?”

  “No! I have better taste than that. And the only reason she’s still part of the coven is because she hasn’t given me a legal reason to kick her out.”

  “I didn’t scent any lies coming off her.” And given the combination of her demon and vamp side, Cynara would have.

  “She’s a fucking sociopath, of course you couldn’t scent a lie coming off her. I knew she was in town on holiday but she was very clearly baiting you.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly looking exhausted. “Why didn’t you just tell me what she’d said?”

  “I didn’t want you to know it bothered me,” she muttered.

  “Why not?”

  “I…didn’t know if it would matter. If you’d care. And honestly, I was scared she was right. That you’d changed for me.”

  He covered the short distance between them. “I care about anything you do. I never want you hurt. And I have changed, I’m in lov—”

  She grabbed him by the back of the head and crushed her mouth to his. He’d told her before that he loved her but she couldn’t let him finish. Every time he said the words to her, she came a little closer to caving and giving him what he wanted.

  What she desperately wanted.

  But she wasn’t a fool. Cynara was a half-demon and he was Alpha of his own coven. He was over two thousand years old and respected by everyone. Why the hell he’d want to settle for a hybrid nobody was insane to her. She pushed the thought away as he wrapped his fingers possessively around one hip and shoved her against the nearest wall.

  “Should we go back to my place?” she asked after managing to tear her mouth from his.

  His fangs had descended as he stared at her. Letting out another one of those sexy growls she felt all the way to her core, he shook his head and glanced around. “Later. After this.” Moving with supernatural speed, he carried her to what turned out to be a powder room with gray and blue wallpaper covered in fleurs-de-lis. “You. Naked. Now.”

  When he got to the point where he could barely get words out, Cynara knew she was going to love what came next. Namely, him inside her. “We have to be quiet,” she whispered, turned on and practically panting for him.

  In response he growled again. Seriously, it shouldn’t be so hot, but everything he did was. She just wished things could be different between them. That she wasn’t who she was. Ugh. She knew she had baggage but it was impossible to shake it off. Especially since his coven would never accept her as an Alpha’s mate. That much she knew.

  As he pinned her up against the wall, he peeled off her sparkly purple top. She’d also worn a black and purple plaid skirt and boots tonight—though she’d lost the boots during poker. Apparently he wanted her to keep her skirt on because he didn’t make a move to take it off. And with Justus, he always did what he wanted. Something she found insanely hot.

  He reached between their bodies, cupping her mound even as he raked his fangs along her neck. Right now she desperately wanted him to sink his fangs into her, to mark her. But if he did, she would want to do the same to him. And that was dangerous. If they bit each other at the same time during sex it would bond them, mate them.

  “I miss your taste,” he murmured, biting her ear gently.

  A shudder slid through her. “Take a wrist,” she whispered, even as she arched against him, heat pooling low in her belly.

  “I want your neck.”

  “Bite me,” she rasped out. Her own fangs descended as he sank his fangs into her neck, but she refrained from attacking him. Barely.

  As he pulled on her, dragging blood from her vein, he slid two fingers inside her folds. She was already slick with need, something he would have scented long before they’d ended up in here. It was impossible to not be turned on around him. Her inner walls tightened around his fingers, desperate for more.

  “God,” he murmured, pulling back and licking where he’d bitten her. She was already healing but that would make her heal even faster. “I can’t get enough of you.”

  Then his mouth was on hers, hungry and dominating. She was vaguely aware of when he ditched his boxers. His cock was thick between them, making her ache to feel him. When he pushed inside her she cried out, barely able to handle all the possessive, love-infused emotions she felt rolling off him.

  The sensation of being filled up by him was familiar, yet every time they ended up like this, he took her breath away in more ways than one.

  Because every time they had sex, it was as if he couldn’t get enough of her, as if he was starving for her.

  So what happened if they mated and then he grew to resent her later on? She wasn’t from a pure bloodline. She wasn’t what he deserved. She was a hybrid who had a demon king father who’d raped her mother. She came from monsters—both of whom were thankfully dead. Justus, however, had led actual armies and he helped keep the peace among their people. She was a small business owner with a hybrid family of misfits. He was everything she wasn’t.

  Fuck. She shoved those thoughts away as he sucked a nipple between his lips.

  “Justus,” she moaned as he thrust hard once before stilling inside her.

  Her inner walls tightened around him as he stayed deep inside her, oh so slowly teasing one nipple, then the next. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as she rolled her hips, silently begging him to do more. But he knew exactly what he was doing. How much he was teasing her. This was pure Justus right here.

  Surprising her, he suddenly pulled back, his amber eyes intent. “I love you, Cynara. Nothing’s going to change that. Accept it.” His final two words were an order and a desperate plea, mixed in one.

  He took her breath away with his confession but she couldn’t find her voice so she did what she always did. She kissed him hard, teasing her tongue against his and trying to tell him exactly how she felt. That she loved him too, even if she felt selfish for doing so. But she’d never expected to fall for someone like him—someone so giving and wonderful that he surprised her with every kind thing he did.

  He began thrusting again even as he cupped her breasts, teasing her exactly the way he knew she liked. And just when she was about to climax, he stilled again, a wicked laugh rumbling through him as he slowly pulled out. What the hell?

  Before she could protest, he turned her around and bent her over the little pedestal sink.

  “Look at me,” he said. A bronze-framed oval mirror hung above the sink.

  She stared at him as he shoved her little skirt up and thrust into her again.

  She pushed back into him, keeping her gaze on his as long as she could and savoring the sensation of him filling her up. She gripped onto the edge of the sink, ignoring the cracking sound as he thrust harder and harder. When he reached around her and barely grazed her clit, it was enough to send her over the edge.

  She surged into climax, pleasure punching through her as he added more pressure, making her completely crazy. Her eyes flared as bright as his, twin beacons reflecting back at them as she came hard. Just as qu
ickly, he followed, burying his face against her neck, just grazing her with his fangs as he came inside her in long, hard strokes.

  His climax was raw and loud, leaving no doubt to anyone what they were doing. Not that she cared. She wanted the whole world to know that Justus was hers. If only for now.

  As he pulled out of her, he immediately gathered her into his arms, holding her close. “I’m pretty sure we owe them a new sink,” Cynara rasped out, laying her forehead against his chest.

  He laughed lightly as he held her close. She felt secure in his hold and there was nowhere else she’d rather be than in his arms. “Let’s head back to my place,” he said. “I’m not done with you.”

  She wasn’t done with him either. Ever. That had barely taken the edge off.

  She kept telling herself to end things. Over the holidays she’d broken up with him. Sort of. She’d tried but she couldn’t seem to walk away. Not when he was always there, showing her that he wasn’t going anywhere. That he was perfect and had her back.

  But they were supernaturals and mating was forever. Once they crossed that line there was no going back. And it carved her up thinking that he could one day regret her. That she wouldn’t be good enough.

  Her own mother had been miserable, had taken it out on Cynara every day until she’d run away. She’d made it clear that Cynara was unwanted, that her blood was tainted, that she was a mistake.

  She locked those thoughts up. They had no place in her mind right now. Not when she was in Justus’s arms.

  So she pasted on a smile and took the shirt Justus handed her.

  “I’m not even embarrassed we did that.” Cynara laughed as they opened the bathroom door. Maybe she should be but they were supernatural after all. She was too old to care about someone overhearing them having sex.

  To her surprise, Justus’s cheeks tinged red. “Speak for yourself.”

  She blinked once before laughing even harder. He seriously never stopped surprising her. The big bad general was embarrassed about what they’d done.

  For some reason she liked him just a little bit more because of it.

  Chapter 9

  Reaper strode into the kitchen to find Greer and Prima already there, both drinking coffee—something new to him that he found he enjoyed. The house smelled faintly of sex, no doubt from Justus and Cynara’s escapade last night. And the smell of sex made him think of taking Greer right on the countertop.

  Though to be fair, most anything made him think of her and sex.

  But he shoved all of that back down for now. Instead, he nodded politely at Prima and smiled at Greer.

  To his delight, her cheeks flushed pink. He’d surprised her last night with his offer to please her, and he’d realized that she wanted him more than he originally thought. She must have been suppressing her desire for him. And if she was hiding her scent, she was fighting her need for him. He wasn’t certain why.

  So he was going to be careful with how he courted her. He was a strategist by nature and he simply had to figure out a way to win her heart. With a female like Greer, he couldn’t simply claim her body—though he planned to. He must claim both her body and heart.

  He was going to start now by being as honest as possible. But he would not tell her about the reason he believed he had woken up, about the fire and war he sensed on the horizon. He did not want to ever bring her any sort of pain.

  Walking around to her side of the center island, he pulled out his cell phone, even though he did not care for the thing. Then he handed it to Greer. “Cynbel texted me just now. He said he got my information from someone at Cynara’s club.” It sounded true enough as he had left his contact information there in case Cynbel decided to reach out to him. He wanted to make it as easy as possible for the other ancient to make contact.

  Greer seemed surprised that he was offering the phone even as she took it from his hand. An electric arc sparked between them as their fingers brushed and he knew he did not imagine the slight shudder that passed through her.

  She looked at the text, then handed it to Prima, who simply frowned at the screen.

  “This could be a trap,” Greer said.

  “I do not like his message either.” Cynbel had told him that he’d seen Prima with Reaper at the club last night and decided to reach out to him later without the female around. “And I am obviously not familiar with this meeting point.”

  Greer was already on her phone doing…something. “The location he gave you appears to be near an alligator farm out in the bayou. It will be quite hard for humans to get there unless they’re using a boat, but it’s easy for dragons.” She turned her screen around and pointed to a spot on the map. The maps of today were different than the ones from his time but he could figure out easily enough what he was looking at.

  “I don’t remember making enemies with this dragon,” Prima said. “Though I don’t know why he would lie.”

  “I do not know either but I have been asleep for a very long time.” None of this sat right with him, however.

  “We should have Camden do a deeper search on him,” Prima said.

  “He’s already on it,” Greer said, glancing between the two of them. There was something in her eyes that he couldn’t quite define—as if she wasn’t sure she should have told them that.

  “Who is Camden?”

  “He’s a member of my clan and he’s very good at finding people and digging up dirt on them. He’s currently gathering info on Cynbel and any of his known associates from before he went into Hibernation and since he has awakened. He has done the same with the other ancients you wish to find.”

  Reaper nodded. “I am going to meet him at this place he indicated, but I want you two to act as my sentries.” Truthfully he hated the thought of bringing Greer with them even though she was a dragon, which meant she was completely capable. And he had felt the effects of her healer’s fire when it hit him.

  For some reason his body had seemed to absorb it and he wasn’t certain why, but it was potent and would hurt another dragon, he was certain. At least if there was enough anger behind it. Not to mention he would protect her to the death if any danger arose. But the main reason he was bringing her today was to show her that he did indeed think she was capable. He had inadvertently insulted her before, even though he wanted to do the opposite. He would simply have to be on the highest alert, which was normal enough for him.

  Greer looked surprised at his request, as did Prima.

  “Both of us?” Prima asked, her words carefully spoken.

  Greer glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with me coming?”

  Prima simply shook her head, her lips twitching as if she was fighting a smile. “Nope.” A wise answer.

  “Given what my GPS says, we can fly there easily in twenty minutes,” Greer said, looking back at him. “I’m ready when you are. Since he doesn’t want to meet for another hour it might not hurt to arrive early and do some recon.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Then let’s go.” Prima pushed off the chair, looking ready for battle as always.

  “We can simply take flight from the yard, I suppose?” Greer said.

  This particular house was surrounded by a very high wall, keeping prying human eyes out. Apparently the clan owned it, and when they first purchased it they’d increased the height by two feet. It was unlikely humans would be able to spot them. Not unless they used something Prima had called a drone. If they did, they did. He would not worry about such things. Unlike Greer and her clan, he cared little if humans knew about him. Though he could understand why the clan wanted to keep their existence a secret, the thought of war did not bother him.

  It never had.

  In the backyard, the sun was in the east, barely up, illuminating everything in a soft glow. Bright red and purple flowers created a soft background behind Greer’s body. Prima immediately started stripping off her clothes but Greer gave him a pointed look. “Turn around.”

  He desperately want
ed to see her naked again—he had only gotten a quick glimpse before—but he would respect her. Before he turned around, however, he stripped off his shirt and took pleasure in the way her eyes roved over him. Hungry and needy.

  Oh yes, she liked what she saw. Then he turned and stripped his pants off, giving her a shot of his ass. Which was nowhere near as perfect as her own, but he figured she liked what she saw if the little inhalation of breath he heard was any indication.

  By the time he was undressed and had shifted, Greer had shifted as well. A pity. Though her dragon was just as gorgeous as her.

  He’d seen her before but the sight was no less awe-inspiring. Her dragon scales glittered a pale green and silver, like the finest jewels carved from deep in the earth, but her eyes were the same striking green. Before he had time to enjoy the full sight of her dragon, she called on her camouflage.

  So he did the same. Despite the fact that humans wouldn’t be able to see them, it was easy enough to follow the shimmering images of Prima and Greer. And because he was attuned to Greer’s scent, he could follow her anywhere.

  * * *

  Reaper stretched his wings wide as he swooped down over the plethora of greenery below. He’d never been in a place like this before. Despite the cooler weather, the foliage was green, lush and grew everywhere, with no encumbrances as he’d seen in the city. The trees, plants and animals ruled this place called the bayou.

  The scent of various animals filled the air—and he spotted more than a few from his dragon’s eye view as he flew over the interconnected rivers. As he glided right over the water, his wings caused it to ripple outward, sending an explosion of birds flying into the air. Which was probably a good thing considering the alligator that had been lurking nearby looking for a snack. Hmm, maybe he’d eat the gator later.

  He pushed back up into the air, careful not to run into Greer or Prima. Though they were all camouflaged, he could still see the outline of their dragon bodies shimmering against the sunlight. Greer’s image was embedded into his brain now, even her camouflaged one.