by Gaelen Foley
But three nights from now came the ritual of the eclipse, and when they all were gathered in the mountain temple, then what?
Emily drifted over to stand beside his chair, put her arm around his shoulders, and bent to kiss him lightly on the head. He loved her smell, breathing her in as she leaned near. Her wholesome beauty pleased him. Her ivory muslin gown with a charming print of muted purple flowers hugged her lush, alluring curves. He closed his eyes, absorbing the guileless love that she poured out on him so lavishly.
James’s words from their final conversation haunted him. I have never seen anything like it, her unselfish love for you.
Drake wondered what he could do if she ever figured out he didn’t deserve it. But for the moment, she was still his, and the light caress of her lips eased the tension from his brow.
“How are you today?” she whispered. “You seem so burdened.”
“Hmm,” was all he could reply as she straightened up again and withdrew to lean against the window near the desk. He shrugged away the question. “How are you?”
She shrugged in return; he wondered if she knew the gauzy muslin of her gown turned just a little bit transparent in the sunshine streaming in.
At least it looked that way from where he sat in shadow.
“More men just arrived out in the courtyard,” she informed him. “I think they are from Denmark.”
“Then our number is almost complete.”
“ ‘Our’?”
“ ‘Their’ number is almost complete,” he muttered, correcting himself.
She studied him warily.
“I wish you wouldn’t look so frightened,” he said, irked by the uncertainty in her eyes. “I’ve kept you safe thus far.”
“I just can’t believe we’re still here. That you of all people have been chosen as the leader of the Prometheans. It is, to say the least, a bit ironic.”
He couldn’t argue that.
She shook her head and looked out the window, sunlight glimmering along her delicate profile. “We were so close to escaping! Just when we almost got away, the evil of this place reeled us in again, and now we’re trapped. I don’t think we’re ever getting out of here.”
“Why do you say that?”
Her shoulders lifted. “Just a gut feeling.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. “At least we still have each other.”
She glanced over and met his gaze. “Do we?”
“I’m right here, aren’t I?” He dropped his gaze to the ledger book for the secret accounts laid out before him, the words on the tip of his tongue pushing to get out, though he barely dared admit what he was thinking . . .
Millions sterling at his disposal.
Houses around the world.
An army at his beck and call.
Influence in nearly every government on earth.
He looked up calmly from the ledger and met her gaze. “Perhaps it’s not so bad.”
His soft words sent an icy chill down her spine.
Indeed, if the dark stranger sitting there before her had not been her childhood companion, Emily would have been scared to death of him.
Outwardly, he looked the same, for the most part. He was dressed in the all-black clothes he usually wore, an ominous yet striking outfit, with his black hair and brooding, jet-black eyes.
He seemed larger somehow, she wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t have grown taller in the past few days, but perhaps he’d added muscle.
His black coat lay snug and sleek across his broad shoulders. His mother would have said he needed a haircut, she thought, her gaze following the length of glossy sable locks curling over the back of his collar. But for herself, Emily found his wilder look appealing.
If only he weren’t so distant. He’d been so remote for the past two days, keeping his thoughts to himself. But she saw the new, stony hardness in his eyes, a ruthlessness he no longer bothered hiding and no longer tried to fight.
She feared that the battle in the great hall had affected him worse than he let on. He was not hurt in body, warrior that he was. But inwardly, he seemed to have ranged into a dark territory where she could not follow.
“What’s wrong, for God’s sake?” he murmured in annoyance. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“I am worried about you,” she confessed.
She saw that he hated the words as soon as she spoke them. He looked away with a scowl, flames of defiance flickering in his eyes. Nevertheless, she could not help herself. “Why won’t you talk to me? I know that you are suffering—”
“Don’t start that again! I’m fine.”
“But James—”
“Is dead. So be it.”
She shook her head and stared beseechingly at him. “This was not supposed to happen. We were going to get away.”
“We have to play the hand we’re dealt,” he answered in a softer tone.
“What are we going to do?”
“Leave it to me. You do still trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Come here, sweet.” He held out his hand to her.
A thrill ran through her body as she noticed the smolder in his eyes. Reluctantly, she left her perch by the window and accepted his invitation. He pushed his chair back from the desk and drew her onto his lap.
She closed her eyes when he kissed her temple. “You smell like flowers,” he breathed against her hair. “Don’t be afraid. You know I’m not going to let anything happen to you, don’t you, darling?” He nuzzled her cheek, cuddling her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“I’d feel better if I knew what was going on in that head of yours.”
He was silent for a long moment, stroking her hair. “Do you really want to know?”
She nodded.
“Very well . . . I’ve been thinking . . . what if it could be turned to good somehow?”
“What do you mean?” she murmured.
“The Prometheans. They’ve already got the machinery in place to make an impact on the world. Perhaps in the right hands, it could be used for good . . .” His words trailed off when she turned and looked at him in cold horror.
“What?” he asked, stiffening.
“Listen to yourself,” she breathed, appalled. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“No, actually, I do. It’s all right here in these books and papers. I can do whatever I want with it. They’re prepared to follow my orders—”
She shot up off his lap and walked away.
“Where are you going?”
She stopped and turned around slowly. “I can’t be a part of this. I won’t. You must not contemplate this. If you do, you’re on your own.”
He glowered at her.
“Drake, if you have ever listened to anything that I have ever said, heed me now. Do not be tempted by this power they’ve placed in your hands. It will destroy you.”
His lips twisted bitterly. “Tempted? Who wouldn’t be? You can hardly think me a saint after the things you’ve seen.”
“No, not a saint. But a knight of the Order. It’s all you’ve wanted to be since you were a little boy. And now you are actually considering accepting this role? As head of the Promethean Council? Your archenemies?”
He shrugged, watching her, his chiseled face a mask of cold amusement. “A boy doesn’t always grasp the way of the world, love.”
She shook her head, at a loss. “Do not say such things. You must not even think them!”
“Why not?” He stood abruptly. “Open your mind! Of course I’d have to be careful. But what if I could use this power somehow to stop the sort of thing that happened to me from ever happening to anyone else again?”
“Oh, Drake.”
“You can’t stop me.”
She swallowed hard. “I’ll leave you.”
“No, you won’t.” With a dark, devilish smile, he rounded the desk and slowly stalked toward her. “You couldn’t bear to. Look at the lengths you’ve gone to t
o be with me. We both know you’ll follow where I lead . . . even into darkness.”
She swallowed hard, her heart pounding, but refused to admit to herself or to him that he could be right.
He came to stand before her. “We all have our price, my angel. Even you.” He cupped her cheek, a storm of tender passion raging in his onyx eyes. “If I choose to rule them, you’ll be by my side. You are mine, and you always have been, just as I have always been yours, no matter who has tried to keep us apart.”
She quivered as he caressed her, her senses beginning to reel at his nearness. If Drake could be corrupted by the hunger to hold total power over those who had tormented him, perhaps she could be corrupted, too, by her sheer, mad love of this man.
He was her obsession. Her fatal flaw. Why else would she be here, risking her life for a madman? If he were not her greatest weakness, she would have married some country yeoman years ago rather than holding out hope that she, a commoner, could someday win the earl.
But her want of him had nothing to do with his title or even his deadly male beauty. She needed him like he was the other half of herself.
Even so, she knew that she could not allow this. If he really did accept Promethean corruption, he would be much too dangerous . . . to the Order . . . and the world.
She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with whatever courage she had left. “I’ll kill you myself before I’ll let you betray yourself and all you once believed in.”
“Would you now?” he purred. “I’d like to see you try.”
He called her bluff with a knowing half smile.
“Then I will leave you,” she forced out, issuing her second warning. “You’ll be left alone.”
“My angel, you know I could never allow that.” He tilted his head and kissed her, his hand lightly cupping the back of her head so she could not pull away.
Emily tensed, though his lips were silky-warm, all too enticing. He felt her resistance, and his mouth curved against hers in a wolfish smile.
Drake ended the kiss, but as leaned his forehead against hers, she could feel the heat in his touch and knew he wanted her. “You know what the poet said, darling. Better to reign in Hell.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “You need to trust me. I’ll keep us alive.”
She shut her eyes, trembling. “I want to go home,” she said in a small voice.
“Do you know what I want?” he breathed as his fingertips glided sensuously down the sides of her neck. He leaned closer and kissed the corner of her mouth. His lips skimmed her cheek, her brow, her eyelids. “It’s you, Emily. You’re all I really need.”
“Drake—”
“Shh, it’s all right.” He lowered his head and kissed her neck. Emily’s toes curled in her light kid slippers.
She hated herself for being completely unable to protest. Better to reign in Hell, indeed. Better to serve as Drake’s harlot than anyone else’s wife. As his warm, luxurious kiss descended to the crook of her shoulder, she knew that she had made her choice years ago. The only way she could stop loving him would be for her to die.
In spite of everything, she felt herself melting under his expert ministrations. He moved closer, drawing her to his chest. His arms wrapped around her. He enfolded her in his seduction, kissing away her fears as his deft fingers plucked the pins out of her hair, bringing it tumbling down around her shoulders. He raked his fingers through it as he nibbled on her lower lip with a soft, heady groan.
He left her swaying on her feet, enthralled, when he went to lock the door. In a haze of need, she turned absently, her chest heaving, and watched him with a glazed stare.
Twisting the key in the study door, he turned around again with flames in his eyes. He took off his black jacket and cast it aside as he came to her, lifting off his shirt.
Her hands alighted on the hot, hard wall of his chest as his lips swooped down to claim hers. The next thing she knew, she was locked in his arms, overwhelmed by the ardent incursion of his tongue in her mouth.
Her hands tingled as she clung to his broad shoulders. His bare chest heaved against her bosom, maddening her with the desire to be free of her chafing clothes. He drove her back almost roughly a few steps, kissing her all the while until her senses were inflamed. When she felt the solid oak desk behind her, she leaned her hips against it.
But he pressed her down to lie on it, licking her lips and sucking lightly on her tongue while his practiced hands untied the ribbons of her bodice, parting her gown.
His lips moved lower, down her neck to her chest as though irresistibly drawn; Emily tilted her head back as he lay atop her. A delicious tremor raced through her entire body a moment later as her nipples received the benefit of his full attention. Nothing else mattered anymore.
Doom might be irrevocably closing in on them, but in that moment, they were lovers, bent on enjoying each other to the utmost in whatever time they still had left.
Raking her fingers through the ebony silk of his hair, she thrilled to the feel of his fingertips skimming past her knee, lifting her skirts.
Flushed and panting, he tore himself away from her breasts to apply his kisses lower. Emily gasped in shocked delight as his mouth boldly claimed her throbbing center.
He was absorbed in the task of pleasuring her, and he was not a man who did anything by half measures. Her senses flew, wild and crazed, like a Congreve rocket, out of control. He left her, cruelly, writhing with his kisses and hovering on the brink of release, when he stopped and rose, his sculpted lips shining with her dew. He dried his chin with a rough pass of his forearm, staring at her like he would never get enough though he had already devoured her.
His creature entirely, she stared at him in near-mindless lust as he freed his towering erection and leaned down, planting his hands on the desk on either side of her.
She grasped his taut, muscled hips as he stood between her legs at the edge of the desk. He took her, guiding his pulsating member into her core. Her body received him with ease, still dripping with arousal from his kisses.
The fierce glide of his fevered rhythm soon put her in a trance. He drove into her with total male dominance.
She was all-yielding, all-quivering acquiescence, putty in his hands. Every heaving breath that left her lips bore a wanton echo of her wild desire for this man. His unbridled passion stoked her hunger to a state of sheer wantonness.
She arched beneath him with each silken thrust, his iron length buried deep inside her. He, too, was in the flow of rapturous instinct, having his way with her completely.
“You are too delicious,” he uttered drunkenly, fondling her thighs. He lifted her heel to his shoulder to deepen his penetration and kissed her ankle in dreamy sensuality as he made love to her.
Time ceased to have any meaning. Emily was absorbed in him. She watched him flinch with pleasure and thrilled to the groans of heated ecstasy on his lips. He held her stare; she read the raw emotion in his night black eyes as he brought her to the brink of surrender. Indeed, she was in his thrall, eager for his every walloping stroke as he clutched her waist and whispered harshly in her ear for her to come. She could do nothing but obey, letting out a light, breathless scream. He growled, he grunted, slamming into her, exhausting her with the hurtling collision of his lovemaking, freed of all restraint. She bit her lip against a small whimper of pleasure-pain as the inferno of his ravishment swept over her in delicious, fevered violence.
His fingers gripped the soft flesh of her buttocks as Drake surrendered all control. He bit her shoulder hard enough to leave a lover’s mark. Her heart was still pounding after his big, heavy body had gone still, leaden atop her. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest.
Panting, he shifted his weight to keep from crushing her, then he ran his hands down her sides gently, lovingly, caressing her. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I needed that,” he breathed.
“Me, too.”
He was silent for a moment, holding her. “If I had to choose between your threats
, Em, I’d rather have you kill me than ever leave me.”
Leave you? I’d sell my soul for you, she thought as she lifted her hand weakly to curl her fingers into his hair.
“Hell, I’d load the gun for you myself,” he murmured, his lips nuzzling her ear. “Just . . . never go away.”
She hugged him. “I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have said those things,” she whispered, closing her eyes and pressing a reverent kiss to his sweat-dampened brow. “You know I’d never hurt you. I was just scared.”
“I know.”
“Don’t talk like that anymore,” she chided in a whisper, but the reminder had brought back the grim reality of their situation.
“Whatever happens, you must know I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured, slipping his arm around her.
“But they’re evil, Drake.” She winced as he pulled out of her body with a soul-deep sigh.
“Well, we’re all a bit evil, aren’t we?” he answered, straightening up and fastening his trousers.
She sat up and studied him warily as she began righting her clothes, as well. “Some more than others,” she said, wondering if he had just done all that to her in part to gain her compliance.
He was, after all, a trained spy. Among other things.
“Let me do this my way. I can rein them in. Trust me,” he ordered in a velvet whisper, leaning down to capture her face between his hands, and giving her a frank kiss on the mouth.
Like a seal of ownership.
She did not protest.
Just then, a knock at the door diverted their attention from each other.
“Who’s there?” Drake demanded with a glance over his shoulder.
“It’s Galtür, my lord.”
“Just a moment!” Drake called back.
Emily sent him a curious glance.
“Count Galtür, of Austria,” he whispered. “One of the Hundred.” Then he offered her his hand with a smile.
His coal black eyes, heavy-lidded with sated pleasure, could have seduced her all over again. But she warded off the fresh surge of temptation and accepted his assistance, hopping down off the desk. He steadied her with a possessive half embrace. “Ready?”