by Julie Leto
Mariah smirked. “She doesn’t seem like the fawning type. She’s good for you, I think. Takes your ego down a peg.”
“I think Rafe could do the same for you, if you’d let him.”
Mariah jabbed her hands into her hair, tugging at the roots, trying to make her brain and her heart communicate with each other in a way that could result in Rafe’s freedom. She knew she couldn’t attempt to undo the curse now. They needed his magic in order to thwart Pryce. But after it was all over, if they succeeded, he deserved a life like the ones his brothers were enjoying—living with beautiful, successful women who’d somehow bridged a two-hundred-and-sixty-year difference in culture to fall madly in love.
Her stomach turned. She wandered to the table and picked through the remnants of Rafe’s room-service lunch, scoring a slightly wilted celery stick and chomping on it simply to avoid having to talk.
“Mariah,” Ben pressed.
“You think I don’t want to let him in?” Mariah asked, washing down the tasteless root vegetable with a swig of her lukewarm beer.
“Have you ever let anyone into that heart of yours?”
“You didn’t want in,” she replied.
“Fair enough. But this isn’t about us anymore. I chose my family over you. I apologized then, but I’m not sorry anymore. My father and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies, but we’ve made strides. You and me? We could be friends. Hell, we could be relatives.”
He muttered the last part, but Mariah heard him loud and clear.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she warned him. “Don’t you think your uncle deserves someone better?”
“What’s wrong with you? I mean, you’re headstrong and full of yourself and single-minded and untrustworthy and coldhearted, but other than that?”
She reached across the couch and slapped him on the back of his head.
“Ow!” he protested.
“I am not untrustworthy,” she claimed, then swung around to the other side of the room, away from the alcohol, because it would be all too easy to lose herself in the act of getting truly and honestly dirty, stinking drunk. “But I can’t argue the rest. Has he told you about his wife?”
Ben’s eyes widened. “I didn’t realize he’d been married.”
Mariah hummed, then strolled to the seat opposite Ben. “Oh, yeah. She died right in front of him shortly after he was trapped inside the stone. Had her throat slit by the soldiers who’d come to murder the Gypsies.”
“No,” Ben gasped.
She closed her eyes and described to Ben what Rafe had told her, trying to picture what he’d gone through—what it had felt like to watch the woman he loved slaughtered when he was inches away, but unable to save her. If Irika had just walked a few more steps and brushed her hand over the marker, would she have freed him? Would he then have been butchered alongside her, or would he have been able to use the magic to save them both?
They’d never know.
“No wonder he’s so brooding,” Ben said when she’d finished.
She sat up, surprised. “Rafe isn’t brooding. He’s surprisingly well adjusted—I mean, for a phantom.”
Ben rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “He’s got a definite darkness in his eyes. Who wouldn’t, after going through that?”
“He’s made up for it,” Mariah said. “For not being able to help her, I mean. He may not know it yet, but I think Irika would have been proud of him. From what he’s told me, she was sweet and quiet and calm. And likely very forgiving. All the things I’m not.”
“You can be calm,” Ben said, a hint of a chuckle in his voice.
“I’m also usually self-sufficient. He’s saved my arse three times already. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Ben attempted a smile, but while his eyes lit up with humor, his mouth managed only to quirk up at one corner. “Pretty much. But in the big picture, it should be a sign. What more do you need, Mariah, to convince you that he’s the one?”
“But what if I’m not the one for him?” She cursed, deciding this touchy-feely conversation had gone on long enough. “Look, I know I have to love him to free him. But right now, we need to worry about Pryce. And Velez. Once we’re clear of them, I can focus on Rafe. Not until then.”
Ben pursed his lips, slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “That buys you a reprieve for at least another day.”
“Fuck oft mate. I don’t see a ring on Cat’s linger. You’ve been together for more than a year. What the hell is up with that, Mr. Romance?”
He nodded as he shuffled to the door. “You’re one-hundred-percent right. And since I don’t want to lose the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I’m going to rectify the situation very soon. What are you going to do?”
If only she knew.
* * *
“There isn’t much time,” Rafe said, charging back into the hotel room shortly after Ben had left.
Mariah jumped and turned away from the window. “What’s wrong?”
“This is wrong,” he said, tearing off his shirt, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her as if he’d never kissed her before.
He waited for her to surrender to the sensations, to melt into his arms as she’d done by the waterfall or at the cabin. But her resistance was palpable. If he let her go, she’d try to speak. Ask questions. He did not want to hear her voice unless she was screaming his name in pleasure.
During the hotel tour, Catalina had explained how his brothers Damon, Aiden and Paxton had been freed from Rogan’s curse. She’d been entirely certain that it wasn’t mere exclamations of love that broke the spell, but the sentiment—the true and honest surrender of one’s soul to another, as he’d once had with Irika.
And only Mariah could help him.
He’d never imagined sharing his soul with another woman. And yet, he knew Mariah did not love easily. In another time and place, he might have coaxed and seduced her emotions to the surface. But did he have that much time left?
After centuries of torturous solitude, he had a rare and precious opportunity to rebuild bonds with his brothers. Paxton, known to the others as Paschal, did not have much time left on this earth. When he met the others again, he wanted to do so as a man. Free of Rogan’s infection.
But Mariah had to love him. And he knew she didn’t.
Not yet.
“Rafe,’ she said, pulling away from him.
“The dawn approaches.” He held her tighter. “I need you, Mariah.”
“Did something happen?”
“Is the magic the only reason you believe I would want you?”
She pushed completely out of his arms and turned back to the window. “If you were smart, you wouldn’t want me at all.”
He wrapped his arms around her middle, standing snug against her so she could feel the fullness of his desire. “My need for you defies the mind. Let me make love to you, Mariah. Allow me to undress you. The sun is less than an hour away. I cannot rest until I’ve felt you beneath me.”
She dropped her hands to her sides in surrender, and one by one, he undid each of the buttons on her blouse, plying her shoulders, neck and arms with kisses. He peeled the material away, and then removed her pants, leaving her in only her lacy lingerie.
She moved to shut the curtains, but he stopped her, blinked and doused the lights behind them, bathing her in the amber lights shining in from outside the suite. He inhaled the sweet scent of her until surrender rolled off her skin and eased the darkness that had sparked within him. That was the last bit of Rogan’s magic he’d use tonight. He wanted her elementally, deeply—and as a human man. Or at the very least, as close to a human man as he could be while still ensnared by magic.
He nibbled at the skin on her neck while he unhooked the contraption that buoyed her breasts.
“You taste so sweet,” he murmured, invigorated by the sound of her sigh as he dragged the material away from her body. “And you feel,” he whispered, cupping her with both hands, loving the weight of her, “like satin.”
> He flicked his thumbs over her nipples, which were already erect with wanting. When she cooed, he tweaked her harder and took her earlobe into his mouth, sucking to a rhythm that made her push her backside hard against his engorged cock.
“Yes,” he said. “This pleases you?”
“Oh, yeah,” she admitted.
He nipped at her pulse point, feeling the jump in her blood. “Your heartbeat is quickening. Where else can you feel it? Show me.”
She drew one hand down the other arm, wrapping her fingers around her wrist.
He smoothed his palm down her arm, lifted her wrist to his lips and suckled the succulent inside skin where her veins pulsed.
“Where else? You feel it deeper; I know you do. Show me.”
With a whimper of acquiescence, she slipped her finger down her panties.
“Oh, yes,” he encouraged. “That’s where you beat for me the strongest. Where your body slickens. Test how wet you are, Mariah. Tell me you want me as badly as I need you.”
He pinched her nipples hard, then soothed the sensitive nubs with his thumbs. He had no idea where his brazen questions came from, except his need to be whole. Human. Real. Not just in the night, but in the sun. He wanted to exist in the light with equal longing to mate with her. The needs were just as overpowering. And just as intertwined.
She moved her hand, but he snared her wrist and guided her fingers back to her panties.
With a moan, she understood what he wanted to see her do. Gooseflesh blossomed across her skin as she slipped a finger inside. Her body quivered. His cock pulsed and he found himself mimicking her rhythm, wanting desperately to join her pleasured crescendo. But not before he showed her—not before he made promises with his body that he could not make in words, knowing that nothing would send Mariah running faster in the other direction than sentiments she could not return.
“Rafe, please,” she begged, tugging her panties off and attempting to pry his hands from her breasts. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” he replied, turning her once so he could kiss her long and hard. But when she lifted her leg to his waist, he spun her around again. “No, no. Not yet.”
“But the sun…” Her words faded when he dropped to his knees and kissed her curvy bum.
“Don’t worry about the sun. Don’t worry about anything. Just feel me all over your body. Touching you. Wanting you. Imprinting your flavors on my tongue.”
He turned her then, pushed her up against the slim windowsill and spread her legs so he could feast. And pleasure. His first curl of a kiss started her climax, but he tormented her for as long as he could, suckling and licking and flicking his tongue across and into the soft folds of her sex until her legs nearly gave way. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.
Once he had her in the sheets, he finished undressing, then pressed the button that opened all the curtains in the room. The view of the hotel grounds and the city beyond wasn’t as intoxicating as the jungle, but the sparkle of lights and the soft sway of the tall palms provided the perfect backdrop for lovemaking in this new world.
She held her arms out to him. He stayed at the edge of the bed, staring at her, drinking in every inch of glistening flesh, encircling his sex with his hand. Contact with his rigid state nearly caused him to jump out of his skin.
She moved toward him. “Let me,” she begged.
“No,” he replied. “I want you to see how much I need you.”
She plumped the pillows behind her, her tongue moistening her lips as she drew her knees apart and matched him touch for touch.
The luscious pink folds of her vulva tempted him, taunted him, the moisture clinging there glimmering in the light. He tightened his grip, imagining the snug fit of his sex within hers, of the friction of him squeezing into her tight, hot channel. Her tawny curls drew his eyes and, with the flavor of her still on his tongue, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist her. When a drop of his seed met his hand, he knew he’d waited long enough. He crawled over to her, took one last long lick of her sex, then trailed a path to her breasts, suckling hard on one and then the other before joining with her in one deliciously long squeeze of flesh into flesh.
“Rafe,” she gasped, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and clinging to him as if her life depended on it, when, in truth, the reverse was true.
He retreated for a torturous second before pressing harder and deeper inside her. “So beautiful. So perfect.”
He took her hands in his and trapped them above her head. She arched her back to meet his thrusts and he lost all control. They crashed together, pumping, crying out, pleasuring and taking pleasure until the room began to spin.
He was hard and thick and hot—she was wet and warm and unbound. When she clenched around him and spasmed with release, he drove harder and deeper until his seed spilled and his body shook with unparalleled satisfaction.
When he finally fell, spent, beside her, he was as drenched in sweat as she.
“Rafe,” she said, though the sound this time was more like a question.
He glanced up at her, but his vision blurred. The sun would break through the horizon soon. Streaks of pink already taunted him from the skyline outside.
“I don’t want to let you down,” she confessed.
He forced a small grin, “You’ve made a living taking valuable items for other people. Maybe this time, it’s time to take something of deeper worth just for yourself.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could find the words, Rafe faded away.
Twenty Two
Farrow Pryce stroked the handle of the sword, his head pounding, before he pressed the spot between his eyebrows with the cool metal hilt. Despite months of his trying to retrieve it, Rogan’s magic remained elusive. The power had saved him from death, but not injury. His recovery had been hard and long. Pain still plagued him, forcing him to rely on pharmaceuticals for the first time in his life. Until recently, he’d barely had a clear enough mind to access capital from his offshore accounts and summon his most loyal K’vr followers to his cause without alerting the Council.
Now he was stronger. Sharper. He’d returned to the hill country estate he’d abandoned shortly after Gemma’s betrayal with Paschal Rousseau. With the old man’s expertise, he might have dominance over the magic by now, but the bitch had beaten him to the punch. He’d been left on his own to figure out exactly what the sword was and how it related to the legends and lore of Lord Rogan. His investigations had led him to Mariah Hunter.
Somehow, she possessed magic. He had no illusions that the mysterious black fog that had eased her escape had been created by natural phenomena. The moment she’d disappeared, the fog had dispersed. She must have had the stone nearby and somehow used the powers within. Or else she’d tapped into the magic in the sword. He’d managed to call upon it once or twice, but without knowing precisely how.
He’d hoped Mariah Hunter would clue him in, but she’d escaped before he could persuade her to share her knowledge.
It would not happen again.
In his wildest imaginings, he’d never dreamed such power could literally be at his fingertips. Just holding the sword, running his hand down the smooth part of the honed blade, caused a ripple of excitement through his body that wasn’t unlike good sex. Not that he’d had much of that, lately. Since Gemma had left, he’d found few women interesting, except for an occasional quick fuck to work off pent-up energy. Tab A into slot B. Nothing inventive. Nothing surprising. Even the kinkiest kink didn’t do it for him, not when the part of his brain that controlled his lust was obsessed with possessing a magic darker and more powerful than he’d ever believed.
The door to his room burst open and the young punk, Topher Pyle, rounded on him with a mad gleam in his eyes.
“We found her,” he exclaimed.
Farrow stood, instinctively covering the sword with the quilt on the bed.
“Mariah Hunter?”
Pyle shook
his head, his sharp teeth gleaming in the sunlight. “Gemma.”
Farrow eased back into his favorite chair. “Where is she?”
Pyle’s smile faltered. “Gone now, but she broke into the K’vr mansion. She and the old man.”
So she was still keeping company with the fossil. “And you know this how?”
Pyle lifted his chin. “I’ve still got contacts with the elders.”
Farrow sniffed derisively. The elders. Pitiful fools. They’d taken their time in choosing a successor to the grand apprenticeship, he now knew, in an attempt to appropriate the vast K’vr holdings for themselves. Farrow should have seen it sooner, but it wasn’t until after his so-called death, when they’d attempted to obtain his personal assets as well, that he’d realized their scheme. They weren’t merely a half dozen men trying to make the best decision for an organization that had lasted centuries. With no direct heir for succession, they’d been plotting to usurp every drop of K’vr wealth they could get their hands on—including his. Without a designated leader, they were free to rule as they wished.
“Did she take anything from the manse?” he asked.
Since the death of Gemma’s father, the K’vr rarely used the old house. Only a small contingent remained to examine and catalog the archives, and even that exercise had been mostly abandoned without a leader to oversee the work.
Pyle’s oily grin returned. “Took paperwork. Mostly on the items the K’vr had been looking for under Grand Apprentice David and Grand Apprentice Stuart.”
“Her grandfather and a great-great-uncle, if I remember my Von Roan family tree correctly,” Farrow surmised.”She took nothing from the archives itself?”
Pyle shrugged. “There’s so much junk, no one is sure. She left footprints, and some china shit got smashed, but otherwise, it didn’t look like anything was missing.”
“Any idea where she went next?”
“Someone saw her driving out of the neighborhood with the old man, but the house had been abandoned. Something to do with radon gas. It was probably a trick, don’t you think?”