A wicked grin spread over Kem’s face and he lowered himself down her body until he could reach the bottom of her dress. He took the hem in one hand, careful not to ruin the silky material, even if there wasn’t much chance of it getting out of this situation unscathed. He ran his hand up Lia’s leg as he pulled the dress up, revealing her long limbs to him and causing her to buck upwards, desperate for his touch. His hand reached her hip and he brushed his fingers gently inwards, until they settled between her legs, all the while watching her face to make sure she was comfortable with what they were doing.
Lia bucked again, urging him on, and unable to stop himself, he slid his fingers into her, the sounds she was making urging him on and making him pump into her harder. He curled his fingers upwards and was rewarded with a gasp, followed moments later by a shudder and the whisper of his name from her lips. He couldn’t help the smug look that crossed his face, though if her lazy smile was anything to go by, he had no reason to. After a few moments to collect herself, Kem felt Lia’s hands at his waist, and she wasted no time unzipping his fly and taking him in her hands. A wicked smile replaced the lazy one as she stroked him, causing him to lose all coherent thought, only able to focus on the need to be in her.
“Lia…” He groaned, touching his forehead to hers. She closed the distant between them with a kiss, all while guiding him towards her. “Are you sure?” he murmured against her lips.
“Yes,” she answered instantly, reminding Kem of how willing she’d been the first time they’d been together too. With one swift thrust, he was inside her and no longer able to control himself. His shifter side fed from sex like it would from a good fight, and he briefly worried that he was being too rough for her. But Lia’s hips were moving to meet his, creating a delicious friction that increased with each thrust. He gave her a hungry kiss, but the intensity of their bodies moving against each other, and the fabric of their clothing scraping against bare skin, broke his concentration. Lia trailed kisses down his neck and around to his throat, the pleasure of the kisses travelling straight to his groin and bringing him closer to the brink. His thrusts became more erratic as he tried to put off the inevitable, but she felt too good, and the connection between them was too overpowering. When Lia began to shudder around him, he let go and waves of pleasure overtook them both. Dimly, Kem was aware of a sharp pain in the side of his neck, followed by the lapping of a tongue, the sensation of which very nearly had him ready to go again.
He rolled off her, and collapsed on the grass beside her, both of them panting as they regained their breath. Before Kem knew what he was doing, he captured her hand in his, a wave of contentment flowing through him, even as he considered the slight ache on his neck.
“Did you bite me?” he blurted out, turning to her. She was looking at him gingerly, her green eyes uncertain as they took in the look on his face. Tentatively, she nodded.
“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” She looked away and he brought his other hand up to cup her face, drawing her gaze back to him.
“There’s no need to be sorry if it felt right.” Her gaze bore into him, and everything that they both knew, but weren’t saying, was conveyed within it. For the past year, the idea that Lia was his mate had hovered at the back of his mind, and now, he was unable to deny it. How she’d bitten him was another matter. She was too warm to be a vampire, and he’d have seen signs of her being a shifter by now if she was one. In fact, if she was who he thought she was, then she was a dryad and tied to nature by a gentle spirit, not the kind of paranormal that normally bit during sex. She shivered against him and he finally noticed that the night air had a chill to it that it hadn’t before. Or it may have and he’d just been too caught up to notice.
“Stay.” Her voice was almost inaudible, but she had to know that he heard her. He nodded and pushed to his feet, offering her his hand once he was standing. She smiled gratefully and rose with more grace than he’d have thought possible, especially from someone whose dress was in such a state of disarray. She walked him into the large white house behind them. She didn’t turn on any of the lights, not that he’d notice any difference if she had; now that he’d found her, he didn’t want to take his eyes off her.
She led him into a room, with a rumpled bed that looked as if someone had got off it in a hurry, and he felt a brief pang of jealousy before reminding himself that he had no real right to. Glancing around the room, he got his first real sense of who she was. While the attraction between them was undeniable, and there was certainly a connection, he had to keep reminding himself that they were virtual strangers; one of the reasons why he didn’t want to scare her by telling her they were mates. There were a few pots of makeup strewn over a dressing table, along with a hairbrush, and a book discarded on one of the bed’s pillows, but other than that, there wasn’t anything out of place in the room.
Lia dropped his hand and moved the book, before unzipping her dress slowly. Kem couldn’t take his eyes away as the rest of the dress dropped to the floor and she was left standing there in just a tiny blue thong, that had been pushed to the side in haste earlier. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her naked, but he was reacting like a horny teenage shifter, unable to control the beast within him. He took a step towards her, but she shook her head, looking pointedly at his lower half with a smirk. He pushed on his waistband and watched her eyes widen as he revealed himself, already hard and ready to go. He stalked up to her, the innate grace of his panther coming through, but to his surprise it was Lia that moved first. She tugged on his arm, pulling him on to the bed with her, letting out a tinkling laugh as she did.
6
Lia stretched, relishing the strain of muscles sore from being used for the first time in a year. The previous night had been amazing, the passion between the two of them hadn’t been sated easily, though they’d certainly given it a go. In fact, she could easily go again now. Reaching out to the other side of the bed, it took Lia a few moments to realise that there was no one there. She bolted upright, her eyes flying open and making a frantic search of the room, but there was no sign of Kem anywhere.
Lia blinked away the tears welling up in her eyes, at some point during the night she’d really started to believe that her research was actually right and that he was her mate. But if he’d left her so suddenly then it didn’t seem likely. Logically, she knew he’d have had to leave soon anyway. Her father was notoriously protective, evidenced by the fact that, despite having jobs and lives of their own, his two daughters still lived in the family mansion. Lia had tried to move out, but he’d managed to guilt her into staying. Not that any of that changed the hurt she was feeling at being abandoned.
Determined not to wallow, Lia forced herself out of bed and into her workout clothes. It was her day off from the lab where she studied the medicinal properties of various plants, so no one was expecting her anywhere. Normally, she’d curl up and read a book, or spend the day outside in the garden, but something told her that it just wasn’t going to cut it today, especially as the hurt grew into anger.
She grabbed her ear buds from her dresser and plugged them into her phone, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts while she burnt off the pent-up anger. She sighed, and made her way out of her room towards the private gym her father had installed when she’d been a teenager. Yet another example of his overprotectiveness; he didn’t want her and Aella to end up in a vulnerable situation just because they wanted to keep active. Lia had come to hate it. She wanted her own life, away from her father and her sister and the constant feeling of being watched.
Lost in her own thoughts, she almost missed the sound of raised voices coming from her sister’s room. Curious, she crept forwards, using every bit of inbuilt stealth that she possessed to stay quiet and unnoticed. She knew that it was wrong to listen in, but she knew that Aella had listened into her own arguments with their father, so it only seemed fair that she listened in too.
“I won’t marry him father,” Aella sounde
d furious, and even if it wasn’t aimed at her, Lia wanted to flinch away. Aella had been born under a particularly violent and magically potent storm, and as such, she’d been the first storm nymph born in three hundred years. While nymphs were long-lived, like most other paranormals, there weren’t any alive who could remember the last one, leaving them all a bit clueless when it came to dealing with Aella’s mood swings.
“You have to Aella. We need the alliance.”
“Why?” she bit out. Lia was curious now, she knew that her father was the head of the dryads, and that he had a position on the Nymph Council, but she didn’t know too much more than that. It was yet another topic that shut her father down whenever she asked about it.
“We’re tied to nature, Aella. With the world becoming more urban, so we get weaker. Unfortunately, it’s started to show and the other Councils have noticed. Without an alliance with the shifters, we risk losing all credibility in front of the High Council.”
“You didn’t see the way he looked through me. No man gets away with looking through me.” Lia could imagine her sister pouting now, like she normally did when she was angry. It was almost making her wish that she’d been paying more attention to what was going on at the reception, rather than just focusing on how she felt about Kem; any man that looked through Aella was either brave, or incredibly stupid.
“He only found out about the marriage two days ago, he was probably still in shock,” their father tried to reason. Lia felt sorry for the man, whoever he was. Being forced in to a marriage sounded particularly unpleasant as it was, and there was a part of her that pitied the man for having to live with her sister for the rest of his life. She loved Aella, but even she had to admit that she had her failings.
“I don’t care! I don’t want to marry him.”
“Aella, you will marry Kemnebi. We are out of options if you don’t.” Lia was sure that her father kept talking after that, but nothing was registering in her mind except for Kem’s name repeated over and over. She backed away, her back slamming into the wall and a pained growl slipping from her. A familiar tingling sensation travelled through her body; her shape changing rapidly until a sleek black panther stood in her place. Inwardly, Lia began to panic and made a break for the garden, where she’d be able to hide until her emotions calmed down and she could return to human form.
7
He hated having to leave Lia, especially as he hadn’t been able to say goodbye. But he also hadn’t been able to bring himself to wake her when she looked so peaceful. After the night the two of them had shared, Kem knew that he had to straighten things out with the Council. And he wanted to do it before they mated properly; something that was bound to happen if he’d spent any longer in her bed. While she’d bit him, he was fairly certain that it didn’t mean anything; he wasn’t sure how dryad’s actually claimed their mates, but he’d bet everything he owned that it wasn’t through biting. That was a shifter thing. It had taken enormous will power not to claim her himself, but his conscience wouldn’t let him until he was a free man. Which was why he found himself banging on the door of the Shifter Council’s chambers just after dawn had broken.
“What?” The door swung open as the harsh sounding voice of the female fox-shifter reached Kem’s ears. Her auburn hair was tousled, whether from sleep or sex, Kem wasn’t sure and didn’t particularly care.
“I need to talk to the Council.” He called on every alpha instinct he had to inject confidence he didn’t feel into his voice, knowing that these people could make his life incredibly difficult. The fox-shifter looked at him sceptically.
“Can it not wait?” She sounded exasperated, as if he’d interrupted something. Kem shook his head and she sighed. “Fine, come in. But you’ll have to wait for the others to arrive.” Kem followed her into the same room he’d been in before, and was somewhat surprised to discover that it still looked the same. While it was only two days ago, too much had happened for Kem to think of the world in the same terms.
“What was it Arabella?” The deep voice of the large Council member surprised Kem, almost as much as the tenderness he’d heard when he said the fox-shifter’s name.
“Kemnebi. He says he needed to talk to the Council.”
“Could he not have waited?” There was a deep growl in the man’s voice.
“I don’t think so. He had that look that you males get when you’re determined.” She replied softly and Kem began to suspect that they’d been up to more than just politics in the Council room. Which made very little sense to Kem. While shifters often had a high sex drive, they didn’t often sate it with other shifters, too much potential for accidental matings, which in turn caused all kinds of problems. Then there was the issue that shifter Council members weren’t supposed to be mated at all, an archaic rule if there ever was one; but one that was strictly enforced as far as Kem knew.
“You’d know all about denying us.” Kem wasn’t sure that he was meant to have heard that, but he had all the same. He wondered what was going on between the two shifters, but before her death, his mother had taught him not to pry into other’s business. He felt a pang of sadness at the thought of his mother; she’d been taken from them before her time, along with their father, and while it had been years, it still hurt.
The two shifters continued their argument, though thankfully they were now using hushed tones and Kem didn’t actually have to listen to them. That was, until a door banged and the two of them jumped apart quickly, confirming Kem’s theory that they were up to something they shouldn’t be. It took another half an hour of tense silence before all five members of the Council were seated. Of them all, only Arabella wasn’t glaring at him.
“How can we help you Kemnebi?” Arabella asked through a bemused smirk. He had a feeling that, despite first impressions, she was the most likely to be sympathetic.
“I can’t marry Aella,” he blurted out. He’d intended to make a much smoother argument, but the only thing he could focus on was the memory of being with Lia last night.
“What?” A hiss came from one of the other men on the council. He was sat over the left and, reluctantly, Kem turned to look at him. If his voice hadn’t conveyed his annoyance, then his appearance certainly did. His eyes were glowing a strange yellow colour, with black slits in the centre. Kem gulped nervously. Despite being an alpha male, this man had him on the back foot, and not just because of his position of power within shifter society. Until that moment, Kem had always thought that the fabled reptile shifters were just a myth, and yet, this man was clearly one of them. Though Kem wouldn’t want to take a guess at what the man became when he shifted.
“I can’t marry Aella Dentro,” he repeated, with more certainty this time. “At last night’s reception, I found my mate.” Kem was sure that he could have heard a pin drop as the five Council members let that sink in. Mates were growing rare, and many shifters went their entire lives without finding theirs. Instead, most shifters just married, sometimes for love and sometimes for power, but it all paled in comparison to the bond between mates.
“Who?” the large man who he’d walked in on with Arabella asked gruffly. Kem made a mental note to discover the rest of the Council’s names at some point, though they too were shrouded in secrecy; another archaic rule as far as Kem was concerned. He was surprised that Arabella’s name had been let slip so easily.
“I believe it’s Aella’s sister, Lia.” He swallowed nervously, a lot was riding on how this meeting went. To his surprise, the other woman left her seat and walked towards him. In the light, he could see just how pale she was, verging on completely white. Instead of making her look sickly, it gave her an ethereal look, almost like the one elves had. But that couldn’t be right, if she was sitting on the Shifter Council then she had to be at least a third-generation shifter. Yet another outdated rule, especially in an age where paranormals interacted with each other on a daily basis. The woman walked around Kem slowly, making him feel uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot, but otherwise
held as still as possible.
“He smells different,” she said suddenly, causing the other Council members to nod, looking deep in thought as they did. “He doesn’t smell of dryad though. Shifter maybe.” She wrinkled her nose in a gesture that came across as surprisingly feminine.
“I doubt Aella’s sister is a shifter.” The final member of the Council spoke for the first time.
“They are different though,” Arabella mused. “The Nymph Council made their case that Aella, as the only storm nymph, should be the one offered in marriage. That means Aaron’s other daughter would be different.”
“Still a nymph though,” the man pointed out and got a withering look from Arabella for his trouble. There was little doubt in Kem’s mind that she was the one in control.
“Is this the first time you’ve met this woman?” She turned back to him and unable to speak, Kem just shook his head. A rustle came from behind Arabella, and she turned absentmindedly took a sheet of paper from one of the Council clerks. All eyes turned to her as she read, and her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Thank you.”
“What is it?” The large man looked at Arabella with a hint of softness in his eyes, but was quick to cover it up, and it was unlikely that anyone other than Kem had picked it up.
“It’s confirmation on the names of Aaron’s daughters; Aella and Xylia.” She gave Kem a slight smirk, which made him feel like she was actually on his side.
“Why can Nathalie smell shifter then?” the quiet man asked, more curious sounding than confrontational.
“I suspect that something has happened between them before, and it’s possible that they started the mating process already.”
The Paranormal Council Complete Series 1-5 Page 3