He scowled at the fire and she didn’t need to read his aura to know he didn’t like it.
“The current king did not make that decision.” He was silent for a minute that felt like an hour, his face etched in pensive lines, before he added, “It was the right decision to make though.”
He closed his eyes, drew down a deep breath and sighed.
“The people were dying… starving. Famine was rife across the kingdom because a disease had destroyed the livestock. The kingdom could not provide for its people. The elves and the First Realm pledged aid in exchange for peace. Edyn would have been a fool to turn down that offer.”
“Edyn?” She watched him closely, because from where she was sitting, it sounded a hell of a lot like he had personally known the king.
He stroked his horn, his handsome face shifting towards sombreness as he breathed another long sigh.
When he opened his eyes and looked at her, they were hollow and haunted, and she wanted to go to him and do something to comfort him, because she could read in them that he was in pain.
“We were close. As commander of the Royal Legion, I advised him on the treaty. I was against it, but it did not deter him. He went ahead with it and it was the right thing to do.”
“What happened to him?” Because something had happened, it didn’t take a genius to see that.
It took only a single look into his eyes.
The pain they held grew. “A courtesan… They were alone together and she claimed Edyn had been rough with her and it had been self-defence. I knew he would never act like that, and it did not take long in the cells before she confessed she had aligned with the Sixth Realm. The murder had been meant to halt the forming of the treaty. Her act came too late… Although the ink had barely been dry at the time.”
His eyes darkened as they turned to the fire and narrowed as his hands clamped down on the mantelpiece and he leaned over, hanging his head between his arms.
“I wanted to go to war and make the Sixth Realm pay for what they had done, but the truce bound my hands,” he gritted, his deep voice a black snarl that spoke of his anger and his hurt. “That truce had been Edyn’s last act in this world, it had been important to him… I could not bring myself to break it. I failed him. I failed to save him and I will forever live with that weight on my heart.”
She stood, unable to keep still any longer, and closed the gap between them. She settled her hand on his left arm and ducked so she could see past it to his face, and her heart went out to him when she saw the tears lining his eyes and the regret swimming in them. He twisted away from her on a low growl and paced towards the couch, his right hand tracing the patterns on his horns.
The way his fingers followed the gold inlaid into the black told her much.
He had been close to the king and the pattern engraved on his polished black horns was meant to honour the fallen male.
She stepped into his path as he paced back towards her, stopping him. He gazed down at her, his head bent, his fingers methodically following the lines and swirls of gold on his horns. When she lifted her hand and stroked the tips of her fingers over each arc, following them down from the root, his fingers stilled.
“Did it hurt when you did this?” She searched his eyes.
He nodded and swallowed thickly, the pain lingering in his steady gaze.
“Was this your penance?” She caught the sorrow that flooded his eyes before he averted them and brushed her arm away.
Gently.
Many men would have shoved her arm aside, but even in the deepest grip of his pain, Tegan was being gentle with her. He wanted to keep that vow not to hurt her again, and she appreciated that, more than he would ever know.
He didn’t want to talk about this, but she did, because she finally felt as if she was connecting with him, as if there was a string that tied them together and she wasn’t alone in this world.
He’d had someone he loved ripped from him too.
“You must have loved him dearly.” She kept her voice gentle and soft, a bare murmur as tension bracketed his mouth and anguish flared in his eyes.
Guilt burned stronger inside her, but she needed this connection to him, because she had never felt this with anyone before him. It was more than kinship. There was a bond growing between them, and as much as it frightened her, it thrilled her too, brought light into her life and lifted her as it made her see she wasn’t alone.
She really wasn’t alone.
Tegan had fought in her corner, he had defended her, and now he had revealed he held a similar pain in his heart. If she had believed in soul mates, the ridiculous mortal notion that there was one person out there who was a perfect match for you, she might have thought he was the other half of her, the one piece that would complete her.
Ridiculous.
She tried to laugh off the idea, but it stuck, taking root in her heart as she gazed at him. Succubi didn’t have soul mates. They didn’t fall in love.
They didn’t.
“I loved him like a brother.” He pushed past her, sighed and sank into the chair she had occupied. She turned towards him. He closed his eyes and tipped his head up as he slumped against the back of the armchair, his horns catching the firelight and his black-leather-clad legs spread as he draped his arms over the rests. “I lost much that day a thousand years ago.”
A gasp lodged in her throat when the black shadows rising from his shoulders flickered to reveal a hint of deepest blue and dark grey, a glimmer of his sorrow, and she felt bad for pressing him. The pain he felt had to be intense to have lasted so long without fading.
Or perhaps it had faded, and the intense hurt she could read in him was only a fraction of what he had felt the night he had lost Edyn.
He stroked his horn, thoughtful and distant as he stared at the fireplace. “My horns… it was not penance… or perhaps it was in a way. I did it to honour Edyn. The ink too.”
His fingers reached the root of his right horn and drifted over the intricate swirls and arcs tattooed in black on the side of his head, a design that centred around his horn.
Suki swallowed her nerves. She wanted this connection to him, and to forge it between them, to make it unbreakable, she had to let her guard fall just as he had and let him in, beyond the barrier, a place where no one had ever touched.
“I know a thing or two about honouring people.” She resisted the urge to clam up when he gave her a questioning look.
Instead, she turned her back to him, swept her fall of wavy hair forwards so it flowed over her breasts, and reached over her shoulder to grip the back of her black tank. She pulled it up, revealing the full length of the tattoo that ran down her spine.
She heard him stand and the heat of his gaze seared her, the intensity of it sending fire skittering over her skin. That fire burned deep into her bones when he brushed his fingers over her markings, gently tracing each of the interlinked symbols that lined her spine.
“They’re beautiful,” he murmured softly and then his voice gained strength, an edge of surprise to it. “They change colour.”
She gasped as he grasped her hips and electricity arced through her, igniting the need of him that always simmered in her veins, a constant ache that was never sated. He turned her back towards the firelight and dropped to his knees behind her, his warm breath skating over her lower back.
She twisted to see him, was about to ask what he was doing when he leaned in and brushed his lips over the mark at the base of her spine, just above the waist of her plaid skirt.
That heat he stirred exploded into wildfire and she muttered a fae version of his name as she clutched her top to her breasts.
“You shouldn’t do this.” Because control was a fragile thing for her and had been since the cove.
Even when she had been angry with him, she had ached for him, had dreamed of them together, making love in front of a fire on a rug like the one beneath her feet.
“Do not focus on me,” he rumbled between kisses. “Speak wi
th me to take your mind off your fears, because this time, Suki, we are not stopping.”
It was impossible to do what he had asked. He had to know that. The entire world had narrowed down to them, all her senses locked on him as he delicately swept his lips over the symbols, fogging her mind with desire and need.
“Why did you mark yourself with these fae symbols?” Apparently, speech wasn’t difficult for him.
She desperately tried to focus, clawing it back even as he tried to dismantle it again with each kiss he pressed against her markings.
“It was for my mother.” She pushed the words out and trembled as he stroked his tongue over one of the symbols. Her breath stuttered. “She was banished from the clan… forty years ago… died shortly afterwards. An incubus killed her.”
Tegan drew back, his deep voice a low snarl. “Did you kill him?”
She shook her head. “No. Incubi are far stronger than I am. Cunning. You saw that. I’m no match for one. If I was… he would be dead.”
She had thought that burning need to avenge her mother had died out years ago, but it blazed just as brightly inside her now as it did then as she thought about the man who had taken her mother from her.
Taken her world from her.
“I will kill the male for you,” he growled, heating her by degrees, starting with her heart. She had seen him fight. The incubus would be no match for him, not if it was one on one. “Your mother should be avenged.”
“Is that what you did?” She looked over her shoulder at him, catching him glaring at her back, his handsome face etched in dark lines that spoke of his anger. “Did you avenge Edyn?”
He kissed her back again, murmuring between them. “I killed the courtesan. It was all I could do.”
But it hadn’t been enough for him. He didn’t feel his vengeance was complete because the truce had stopped him from leading his men to the Sixth Realm. She could feel it in him.
“If you could, would you go to war with the Sixth Realm now, all these years later?”
He stilled.
Growled.
“Yes.”
There was menace in that word, anger that matched her own. He needed vengeance as much as she did, but the truce bound his hands and her lack of strength bound hers. If she let him avenge her, would that satisfy her?
She wasn’t sure.
Killing never really had been her style.
Another growl rumbled from him. “What is this?”
She lifted her right arm and peered down at her side, at a long black bruise that was slowly and surely emerging above her hip. “The incubi. They got a few lucky shots.”
They had been more vicious than usual, throwing insults like daggers and several objects too, all because she had seen them stalking a group of fae women the night before, when she had taken a break from the books, and had decided to tell the ladies to stay away from them because they were syphilis carrying incubi who would either kill them in the act or at a later date like the gross disease they were.
Tegan pulled her back to him by gently kissing the bruise, lavishing it with attention that warmed her and had all her focus narrowing on him again.
Whenever he found a mark on her back, he gave it the same treatment, but with each cut and bruise, the softness she had been enjoying began to disappear, his kisses growing firmer.
She glanced over her shoulder at him again, wanting to know his feelings. His aura was black again, rising and writhing, not giving anything away. If she had to guess, she would say he was angry.
Suki turned towards him, stopping him, and he tilted his head back, lifting his gaze to meet hers. She stroked her fingers through his tangled black hair, the silken threads of it slipping between them as she absorbed the sight of him kneeling before her, violet-red flames licking around his pupils and his black horns flaring.
“I like you like this,” she whispered.
He growled. “Angry? Furious?”
She smiled saucily. “On your knees.”
He pushed to his feet on a wicked snarl and claimed her mouth, his kiss demanding and delicious. She was sure that no man in this world or the mortal one kissed like he did. He had ruined her to all others.
She tried to hold back, but his kiss was a drug that ravaged her control and she couldn’t stop herself from stealing a little of his energy, justified it by telling herself that she was injured and he probably wouldn’t mind since he wanted her healed.
Damn, she was sure her wounds would heal in an instant if he just kept kissing her like this, so wild and desperate as his lips clashed with hers. He gathered her to him, large hands landing on her backside to lift her up his hard body, so her feet dangled above the floor. She looped her arms around his neck and locked them tight, showing him she wasn’t going anywhere and earning a growl from him, one that sounded as if it was born of satisfaction this time. He teased her, his lips dancing with hers, firm one moment and hard the next, a kiss that drove her wild.
The door opened.
The world whizzed past her and she struggled to catch up as Tegan growled, his bare back a wall before her wide eyes as the fire warmed her bottom. His right hand held her hip, his grip firm as he pressed her close to his back, as if she needed protecting.
She peered around him, aware she was risking his wrath as she pressed her hands against his back and felt the tension in him.
He was a bomb ready to go off. Why?
Another demon stood near the door of the room, his hand still clutching the knob. His polished black horns were in a normal state, the tips barely passing the lobes of his pointed ears, and she frowned at the gold that capped the last third of his right one. His dark eyes were fathomless abysses too, no trace of emotion in them, and when she focused, his aura appeared, swirling in golds and violets, with hints of red, revealing surprise and love.
Who was this man?
Wild black hair framed a face that was oddly familiar.
She looked up at Tegan and then back at the newcomer.
His brother?
Tegan bared his fangs at the demon and held her closer still, pressing her painfully against him as his grip on her hip tightened enough that his short claws dug into her skin through her skirt. Why did he want to attack his brother? He hadn’t made it sound as if they were on bad terms.
Maybe she was misunderstanding the situation and his brother had merely surprised him, causing this reaction because he had been swept up in her and he wasn’t happy about the disturbance.
She tried to step out from behind him to introduce herself, sure it would ease the tension in the room.
It only made it worse.
Tegan snapped fangs at her and pressed his claws in deeper, enough that the points of them were in danger of piercing her flesh, forcing her to remain behind him as he growled low at his brother.
The demon backed off and slowly released the door handle, his hands rising before him in a submissive gesture as he spoke, the deep baritone of his voice matching Tegan’s. She wanted to know what he was saying, but she hadn’t lied to Tegan. Her demonic was a bit rusty and extremely limited, and the way this man spoke it, growling each word, made it impossible to understand him.
Tegan snarled a reply. She caught what she thought was a name. Ryker.
“Is this your brother?” She adopted a firm tone, one she hoped would leave Tegan in no doubt that she wanted an answer, because she needed to know what the heck was going on.
He glared at the demon and nodded as he bit out something in the demon tongue.
Ryker just stared him down.
Tegan bared his fangs again when Ryker attempted to look at her. She got the feeling this was about her. Although it didn’t take a genius to figure that out since Tegan was intent on keeping her hidden from his brother. She knew when it was time to make a graceful exit.
She had been having a nice time with Tegan and she didn’t want to ruin it, or his relationship with his brother. They clearly had some things to work out and her presence w
asn’t helping matters.
She touched Tegan’s bare back between his shoulders. “I’ll go freshen up.”
He was tense for a moment, and she was sure he was going to growl and snap at her again, but then he eased his grip on her and turned with her, guiding her towards a door in the corner to her left, just beyond the fireplace, and she didn’t miss that he was leading her out of a door as far from his brother as he could get.
She wanted to glance back at the demon where he stood on the opposite side of the room, but she didn’t want to anger Tegan, not when he was calming down again, his hand slowly relaxing against her as she moved further from his brother.
“My rooms are up those stairs and straight on. The door at the end of the corridor.” Tegan gruffly murmured the words, his voice strained, speaking of the tension she could feel lingering inside him.
Suki turned, careful to keep her eyes on Tegan alone, and tiptoed to press a brief kiss to his lips.
Regret flickered in his eyes and shame crossed his features as he nodded and tore his gaze away from her, turning back into the room and closing the door.
What had that been all about?
She got the feeling that Tegan wouldn’t tell her even if she asked him.
Her heart sunk a little as she turned away from the door.
They were both keeping secrets from each other.
CHAPTER 20
Suki wasn’t two steps away from the closed door before Ryker moved into the room.
“What the hell was that all about?” Ryker’s dark gaze shifted to the door behind Tegan.
Tegan growled at him, baring his fangs to warn him to keep his damned eyes off her. Every inch of him ached as his muscles strained, his control slipping as rage threatened to overwhelm him again.
When Ryker looked back at him, Tegan could see the shrewd bastard had figured it out before he could say a word.
“She is your fated one.” Ryker looked him up and down. “Do not deny it. You still look somewhere between wanting to commit bloody murder and wanting to get between her thighs.”
Seduced by a Demon King Page 22