by Reid, Stacy
She suppressed the need to reach out to her sister, not wanting to share her fear, when Kala had enough to shoulder. The visions haunted Kala, and drained her energy, for she constantly searched the future for another outcome. Shilah had reached for her earlier and had almost wept with relief to find her sister slept, resting peacefully for the first time in weeks. For that gift alone, Shilah would repay King Gidon in wealth from her kingdom.
Shilah buried her face in his neck and held onto him as he traveled with them for miles. Those minutes passed in silent anticipation, and with a peculiar vulnerability beating through her. He stirred in her mind, flooding her with warmth, and hunger, and the burning need to belong to him in every way. Just for a moment, a reprieve from the lonely existence she had consigned her heart and life to as she served her people.
Panicked, she could barely breathe, her lungs burning for air. “I feel scared.” The sense of tears was thick in her voice now, and she hated the anxiety searing through her. He felt so raw, so primal, so unstoppable.
He remained silent in the cage of her mind, but she could feel the fire of lust rising in him, sweeping along her senses in a wave of pure fire. His arms tightened around her, and the darkness and shadows danced, painting the blurred world with strange silver-grey auras as he moved with unchecked speed. He scattered soothing kisses to her jaw, along the edge of it, down her neck.
Then he said, “We will wait until you are sure of me, mate. Then I will take you…there.”
Raw, provocative images of his cock bruising her lips as she sucked his thick length deep, of her riding him with wanton hunger, of him gorging on her blood while he took her from behind with primal force. It wasn’t fear that filled her at his violent sensuality. It was a deep ache of want and complex needs. Her nipples became tight and tender, desperate for the stroke of his tongue over the tender tips, the sucking heat of his mouth as it would travel down, and the rasp of his teeth over her clitoris. But beyond the temptation of desire, there was another emotion pouring through her. A thing she’d never imagined feeling with a man like Lachlan Ravenswood.
His promise felt forged in iron. His arms felt safe.
And in that moment, she knew she could love this fierce creature with every emotion in her soul.
14
A few minutes later, they came to a stop, and the shadows retreated. Everything stilled—the surrounding forest holding its breath. There was a winding pathway leading to a castle perched on a hill in the distance. Dozens of torches lit the cobbled trail, and she moved forward onto the path, not questioning why he hadn’t taken her directly to the castle. It wasn’t that she was uncurious, but her throat felt too dry for speech, too many nerves thrummed in her veins for the coherent formation of words.
Shilah sauntered ahead, and the walkway gradually steepened. She could feel his eyes on her and every single step she took sent more heat rushing through her body. Though the great torches helped her see the cobbled path before her, it did not do much in illumining the surrounding land. Darkness hovered at the periphery of the light, and she tilted her head, fascinated the stars seemed to be much further up in the sky than seen from the other realms. It was as if a layer of darkness covered the beauty of the night sky, dimming the shimmering brilliance of the stars.
The incline grew sharper, and when she paused, he took her in his arms and as if in the blink of an eye she was at the top of the pathway. The castle sat atop a mountain overlooking the rest of the Eastern quadrant. Trees rose to enormous heights with vines and flowers sprawled for miles. They moved past the front courtyard which too had dozens of great torches lit, illuminating great winged beasts, massive snakes with ridged backs, wolvyes, lyons all frozen in eternal fight or flight.
His castle was starkly graceful, with an air of chilling elegance pronounced in every sleek line, which seemed to rise to the heavens. The massive stone structure, with the most beautifully designed buttresses Shilah had ever seen, was awe-inspiring. Cascading vines dripped from the castle, twining around the statues that perched on its highest peak. Its dark beauty strangled her breath.
He had dozens of gargoyles, many caricatures of massive beasts perched on high turrets. Some stared somber, some snarling, and some with their heads thrown back howling to the heavens. Some Shilah couldn’t decide what they were, some sort of Lyon with wings.
“How breath-taking, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
With another blink, she was somewhere else similarly lit with torches. A cliff it seemed and below lay a valley, and beyond that valley, the sound of crashing waves hitting rocks reached her ears.
“Where are we?”
He moved to stand beside her and then replied, “A place I’ve visited when I seek peace.”
Shilah stared at him, never imaging there was a moment in time a man such as he could have craved for peace. She shifted her attention to sounds coming from the valley—the rustling of creatures, the cries of birds, the rushing of water. She allowed that serenity to seep into her and soothe her own turbulent mind. There was a shift in the darkness, a shape emerging, and she blinked wondering if she imagined it. Then a hulking beast appeared, its tongue lolling from its head.
Shilah jumped and shrieked, stumbling back, dropping on her ass in the grass. Mortification crawled through her, and she hurriedly lurched to her feet.
A deep, yet soft chuckle brushed against her skin, she whirled around. Oh! It was inexplicably the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—Lachlan Ravenswood with a smile on his face. While she still struggled to control the beating mess of her heart, the great brute bounded over to Lachlan only to skid to a halt, its lips curling back in a savage snarl, wicked canines dripping with saliva exposed, its ridgeback hackles raised.
What was it?
Lachlan rocked back on his heels. “Easy, Cronus, it is me. I am a bit different, but it is still me.”
The growls became more savage and its muscles bunched as if it primed for an attack. A ferocious sound burst from Lachlan’s chest and vibrated on the air with domineering menace. The creature paused, the muscles relaxed slowly, and then it bounded over to Lachlan and licked his face. He grabbed it around its neck with surprising affection, sliding his hand through the creature’s thick hair. Ropes of muscle rippled beneath the creature’s sleek fur. She felt his blast of pleasure through their link and sensed he had missed the beast.
Her heart tumbled inside her chest in the most alarming flip. Her entire body was flushed and alive, acutely aware of him. “You have a familiar?” she asked, tentatively moving closer. She’d read about them, at times wishing her world had animals that offered some comfort and ones with whom she could play. Some planets called them familiars and others called them pets, but she’d never seen one before.
“Is it like a dog?” She sent the impression of a large animal she’d seen in the mind of the human priest when he’d described the animal to her and Kala.
“You dare compare Cronus to something so small and feeble,” he said, sounding genuinely affronted.
Shilah laughed, and he glanced at her, desire making his eyes even more golden, the swirls of color more vivid. She looked away briefly, burying the raw lust that burned through her veins. Taking a steady breath, she faced him again, to see him staring at her with that predatory way of his. Fighting not to fidget under his unswerving gaze, she took a few more steps closer.
“Would you like to touch him, mate?”
She snatched the hand she’d been slowly reaching out with and placed it behind her back. “No.”
Lachlan’s lips twitched again, and she marveled. “Do you know that you are smiling?”
His face was void of expression when he answered, “My lips are not unused to the action.”
“Are you also jesting?”
With a barely-there smile, he lowered himself to the ground and lay back in the grass and tugged her down. She landed against the hardness of his chest with an oomph. Shilah lifted her face to the sky that shone with muted stars.
> “Your kingdom is beautiful.”
He faced her. “You can see it?”
“I can see the aura of all living things. I can see the small winged creature flying above your head. More like its shape and the red aura surrounding it. I can sense the age of the trees, and I can see the silvery green aura which streaks from the trunk and way up as if it would touch the sky.”
Unable to explain the need, she slid her hand against his and entwined their fingers. His hand swallowed hers, and his claws pricked the skin below her knuckles, beading blood. She swallowed when he lifted it to his mouth and licked the small dots of blood in one sensual glide.
Heat blossomed through her heart, traveled down and lodged between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together, fighting the sudden desire arrowing through her body.
This time when he lowered back their hands onto the grass, he was careful to ensure his claws did not pierce her skin.
“I too have a castle in the sky,” she murmured with a smile. “My castle sits on the highest mountain of Dxyriah, and from my bedchamber, I can see every home in my kingdom as it sprawls for miles with majestic grace.” She showed him the image of her city, and the sheer beauty of it when the sun hit the glass buildings, and they winked like yellow diamonds. “I never expected to see such graceful beauty in the Darkage. I pictured your kingdom to be filled with boiling lava pits an unsuspecting visitor could drop in at any time and be devoured, not to mention the bits where it is rumored Darkans feed people to their beasts.”
“We do have those too.”
She jerked her head up and laughed at the dark amusement in his eyes. Resting her head once again on his chest, she thought of why he had brought her here. He had evidently felt her turbulence and wanted to soothe her.
“Who are you Lachlan Ravenswood?” She could feel the monster in him lurking, his darkness twisting along the silver thread that connected them together. What was even of more significant concern was that her silver light seemed to like the darkness and the two essences were merging even more. She reached out to that invisible thread of energy and plucked at the strings. Its resonance vibrated throughout her entire body.
“I’m a Darkan.”
The pale ones. The dark kinds. The demons. She recalled every whispered fear she’d heard in the empire of his people. “Tell me what it means to be a Darkan.” Show me. “Tell me of your kind, please.”
“We Darkans are not born knowing our beasts. The first century of our lives is spent experiencing the joys of childhood freedom, the crushes of teen years’ transitions, and the thrill of young adult discoveries. A great part of this time we spend training to hone our chakra and ability to control the shadows. But all the while we can feel the hovering power of our demon, but we do not understand its breadth and depth until we reach our one-hundredth year when it awakens. We then undergo a brutal battle to fight for control and build up a psychic barrier, so the darkness in us does not rule our action. The rest of our lives is spent either accepting the vile malevolence of our beast and honing it into our weapon or fighting to keep it at bay to retain our sanity. In the past, I would come here and repose on these grasses, watch the forest, and feel a sense of calm that was hard to attain.”
His voice was a pulse of petrifying powers, the rumble of a violent storm that could destroy everything it touched, yet no fear surged in her heart. She felt safe with him. She turned her head on the grass, inhaling the oddly sweet scent. “I could feel the deep apprehension of your friends when they looked at you.” She glanced over the rolling hills, the aura of each unique being, whether it be a plant, birds, or insects, creating the most beautiful effect as she saw the landscape through vivid colors of purple, green, white, and black. I can also see you are different from them. You feel darker Lachlan Ravenswood.”
He tugged her closer to him, and with a sigh of contentment, she rested her head on his chest, listening to the soothing lull of his heartbeat.
“The beast inside all Darkans is made of pure chakra. That essence is very powerful and malevolent. We learn at an early age to manage the psychic barrier that we are born naturally with, to keep that chakra from corrupting us wholeheartedly.”
Shilah’s heart pounded. “You speak of the shield I shattered within you,” she breathed, struggling to push from him, but he held her to him until she settled back.
“We feed our beasts which has its own cunning intelligence on the darkest of energies—rage, fear, and pain. The more it feeds, the stronger it becomes, and if we are not vigilant and strong enough, the beast can become dominant, and when it does….it kills and slaughters, then feeds and feeds. Some of us chose not to ever lower our psychic barriers so not to tempt ourselves with the power the monster inside us offer.”
“You had done that. When I just met you, I could feel your barrier, and I was impressed by its intricate construct.”
Lachlan was silent for several minutes, and Shilah remained still in the cage of his arms, listening to the roar of his heart.
“For years I lived in fear of the other entity rising inside me, that it might try to steal the control I’d honed over the years, and slaughter what’s left of my family. Or worse, force me to betray my king. I am five hundred and thirty-nine years of age. I lowered my barrier once and used the powers of my beast to kill my father, and then I shut it away for over four hundred years.”
Images bloomed in his mind and flowed to her more like memories. She could feel all he had endured the moment he saw his father ripping his mother’s heart from her chest. The agony of her torture and the scent of her horrifying death had driven a young Lachlan to his knees, and he’d screamed his denial until he’d been hoarse. The pain had gone so deep in his heart there was no adequate way to express it, except through fury.
His father had appeared terrifying, eyes flame red with bloodlust, his skin covered with the blackest of chakra and red scales, with vicious fangs protruding from his mouth.
“He’d turned into a Senji. Darkans who are no longer in control of the chakra inside, and it is the demon’s essence who rules.”
The memories continued of Lachlan fighting his father, and almost being killed himself. Her heart was a beating aching mess, and Shilah distantly realized she wept as she sensed the hopeless despair he had felt as he fought his father—a man he loved, a man whom he’d believed to be honorable, a man he’d believe to worship his mother despite the fact they hadn’t been mates. Lachlan’s limbs had been broken, deep gouges in his side, blood pouring from his multitude of wounds as the demon toyed with him, savoring his pain, and still, he’d struggled to his feet, determined to fight, resolved to protect whoever was enclosed by the large oak door behind him. It seemed impossible that he could win such a battle with the powers so unequal. But he did not give up, even when he lay dying, his hand still scrabbled to hold onto the ankle of his father. It was at that point chakra exploded from him, and she saw the awful memory of the first time his beast took control from him. How hideous it had all been. His wounds had healed, and with terrible wrath he’d went for his father, and they battled.
Unable to bear the rage that had pelted from them, the assault against her senses too much, she pulled from his mind, gasping raggedly.
“Somehow I won,” he murmured. “I defeated my father by taking his head from his body and his heart from his chest.”
She read his thought that he believed it had been sheer luck and the fierce quickness of his retaliation which had not allowed his father the presence of mind to summon his beast to a solid form. If that had happened, everyone in their home would have perished. She could feel the echoes of his torment that he’d lived with ever since.
“The demon in me ruled, and my sister whom I’d fought so hard to protect, I turned on her.”
Shilah trembled, praying he did not reveal he had taken her life. The connection between them leaped once more to life, against her will, and she struggled to separate herself from the mental link. Her mouth dried, and when she sat up
this time he allowed her. Shilah pressed a hand to her chest, gasping as the memories powered through her.
With a slam of his fist, the door had splintered open, and a young girl, a child of no more than about ten years of age, sat in the center of the bed trembling and sobbing. The demon went for her, grabbing the child up in his clawed hands, inhaling her terror.
Her breath caught as unfathomable anguish gripped her by the throat.
But this agony was not her own, she absorbed the emotions Lachlan had felt being trapped in the demon and unable to stop himself. Another Darkan had swirled into the chamber in a burst of shadows, grabbed hold of Lachlan and took him atop a mountain of black ice. And there he’d roared and fought for days, battling the unceasing hunger of the demon’s will to devour and kill. His friend, who was revealed to be Gidon, fought with him, doing everything in his power to keep Lachlan atop the mountain. They battled for days, weeks, until Lachlan who’d been so buried under the ravaging lust for blood, started to fight, to regain control, to rebuild his barriers and honed it into an impenetrable shield born from pain and loss.
The connection severed, and she slumped against his chest, gasping harshly.
“You contained it,” she said wiping at the tears tracking down her cheeks. “You held that monstrous force behind a shield for centuries.” A piercing ache filled her heart. “A barrier I callously took from you. Will you ever forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive. You freed me from the shackles of my limitations. The kingmaker has risen, and he has promised a new king for the Darkage. The Empire has declared war, and if the kingdoms respond the third Great war of Amagarie will unfold. I am better able to protect Gidon when the enemy comes for him. And they will come, with a force unlike any we’ve ever seen. For the enemies know his might, and they will have to be greater than Gidon to take him.”
He touched her lips lightly. “I am better able to protect you.”