by Jessi Gage
An oil lamp beside the bed cast a wavering glow over them. His eyes reflected the flame, golden irises glinting with hunger. Magnus was a large man, taller than most and cut lean with muscle. On all fours, he seemed impossibly large, impossibly powerful, a beast about to fall on a fresh kill. But he didn’t pounce. Not yet.
Instead, he cupped her face in tender, battle-hardened hands. “I have need of you, Goddess.”
“Yes,” was all she could say. This king had her tongue tied. But her hands knew what to do. Already, they were clawing his shirt from his belt.
“No,” he said, gathering her hands and pinning them above her head.
She sucked in a startled breath. She had always been the aggressor with her lovers. But she had also always been the more powerful in any pairing. She was not the more powerful here. This man, this wolfkind male, could easily overpower her small human form. For the first time, the thought of being overpowered thrilled her. It heightened her arousal near to the point of pain.
“You will not lift a finger,” Magnus said. “I will show you what it means to be worshipped.”
Her head sank into the bed furs. Free. She felt free.
“Make me soar,” she commanded.
“As you desire.” Holding her wrists with one hand, he lowered his body along the length of hers. His delicious weight pressed her more firmly into the bed. She was surrounded by him, his heavy, muscled body, his heady scent, his fiery gaze.
Pressing her down from wrists to ankles, he began a tender assault on her mouth. He nipped, nuzzled, and licked, but ages passed before he accepted the invitation of her parted lips. When he did, oh, when he did, she melted.
His tongue slid like heated silk along hers.
She remembered the sensations of kissing, the anticipation of carnal fulfilment. But her memories paled in comparison to the joy filling her now.
As she lay beneath her king, every inch of her body tingled. All thoughts of her people and her duties faded. Her entire physical and mental being focused on the man above her. The man loving her lips and tongue, her jaw, her neck—oh, her neck—yessss. She was more sensitive there than she remembered. Could it be this different body possessed different secrets?
His kissing and sucking left a trail of warm spice along her skin and seemed to connect to her very core. How strange! How delightful!
Magnus sat up tall above her. His stomach and chest rippled as he drew his shirt over his head. A shake of his mane set his hair to rights, but she hardly noticed for the leagues of pure muscle at her disposal. Magnus’s torso tapered from broad, tanned shoulders to the belt wrapping his narrow waist. Pectorals like rocky plateaus bore a coat of silky, dark blond hair. The pattern of growth tempted her fingers to play, the hairs making tantalizing whorls around dark, small nipples.
Should she move her hands from where he’d pinned them? He no longer held her there, but his command had been clear. She was not to lift a finger. Oh, how she enjoyed obeying commands from her king.
She decided to continue obeying. Keeping her wrists above her head, she let her gaze do the caressing. Moving up his abdomen and chest, her gaze caught on a chain of gold making a line across his throat. How odd. The vee of his collar had displayed his throat all day. There had been no chain visible there before.
While she watched, mesmerized by the play of his muscles, Magnus reached behind his head. With nimble fingers, he drew a pendant over one shoulder and forward. The chain was a necklace, which must have been set askew when he’d removed his shirt.
The pendant, now set to rights and enclosed in his fist, hung just low enough to be obscured when he wore a shirt. That explained why she hadn’t noticed it before.
Thoughts of what else could be hidden beneath his shirt made her mouth water. Love bites, marks from her fingernails. Oh, yes. She desired to mark him—her carnal thoughts came to an abrupt halt as Magnus dropped his hand from the pendant.
There, gleaming between his perfect pectorals, lay her moonstone.
The vessel for the portion of her power that sustained her people. The object created from her hair in her darkest hour so Hyrk could never take control of her precious wolfkind. The treasure she had entrusted to Duff.
“Easy, love. I have not lost it. I gave it away.”
Before she could learn more, she and Seona had swapped bodies. Upon discovering herself in her mortal realm, she’d determined to find her moonstone. Reuniting with it was the only way she might restore herself to her true form. But she’d since forgotten all about it. Because she was in no hurry to return to her true form—and Hyrk’s dungeon.
Now, here it was, facing her boldly. It had been beneath her nose the whole time.
I’m not ready to go back.
Not only to Hyrk’s dungeon, but to her goddess form. She did not wish to leave Magnus so soon. She did not wish to leave her people. She felt like she had only just rediscovered them.
Magnus unclasped the necklace. “I have been meaning to give this to you. It is a very special amethyst.” Chain open, ends in his hands, he gazed over it at her. “It allows the one wearing it to speak and understand any tongue.”
It could do much more than that, but perhaps not in mortal hands. She refrained from saying so.
“I have been using it to speak with the human women rescued from Larna,” he went on. “But I’ve known it belonged to you from the moment I laid eyes on it.”
He had? How?
Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he said, “I dreamt of you.” His face held tender reverence. “I thought the dream was of Seona, but it was you. And in that dream, you were wearing this.”
While she lay frozen with apprehension, he leaned down and fastened the chain around her neck. The cool stone rested smooth and heavy in the valley between her corset-plumped breasts.
Magnus scooped her to him and kissed her.
Would this be their last kiss? Was she about to be dropped back into her true form? Of course not. She was being ridiculous. Just because her moonstone was in her possession didn’t mean she had to use its magic. She was in control. She could use it to return to her true form when it pleased her.
It did not please her to go just yet. Not while Magnus’s mouth moved like a confident conqueror over hers. Not when they were so close to the intimacy she’d been craving.
She welcomed his affections, at ease for the moment, despite the nagging knowledge that every moment she tarried here, Seona suffered in Hyrk’s dungeon.
Just a little longer.
She would do the right thing, but first, she required more of her king.
“Open for me, now,” Magnus encouraged.
She eagerly obeyed. She would absorb as much of his affection as she could before returning to her prison. Opening to him, she dove into the kiss. She clung to Magnus with every ounce of strength this mortal body possessed.
“Take me,” she commanded.
“Gladly, my goddess.” He began slipping silk buttons from their delicate plackets, working down from her neckline, one fastening at a time. He was taking too long.
Shoving his hands away, she grabbed both edges of the parting fabric and tore it. Used to wielding more strength, it took her two tries before the sound of shredding fabric filled the room. Buttons pattered like raindrops to the floor.
Next was the corset, tied with ribbons that Magnus undid with an expert swipe of fingers. The moment her breasts were bared to him, they ached for his touch, for his tongue.
With the dread of Hyrk’s dungeon nipping at her heels, she dragged Magnus’s head to where she wanted him.
He came more than willingly. Breathing hot over her nipples, he murmured, “I have been waiting so long to taste these.” He mouthed one breast and then the other. “So long.”
Eyes closed, he chose one and latched on, laving and sucking, humming.
Sudden delight made her back arch, an act which pressed her breast even more securely into Magnus’s mouth. Oh, this was heavenly. It had
been so long for her as well. She’d nearly forgotten how satisfying these preludes to intimacy could be. She needed more.
“More. Now.” She clawed at his kilt, dragging the wool up his thighs, reaching for the one part of him that could bring her ultimate satisfaction.
But he scooted back, putting himself out of reach. “My impatient goddess.” Stripping her ruined gown from her body, he grinned a predator’s grin. “Fear not. You shall have what you seek. But I have many more pleasures in store for you tonight. Beginning with this.”
Once she lay needy and naked on his bed, he lowered his face between her legs and began to tease her most sensitive place with long, firm caresses of his tongue.
Oh. Oh!
She forgot why she was so impatient for his cock. This waiting was more than tolerable. This waiting was—men’s voices sounded outside the chamber.
She stiffened, but Magnus only chuckled against her sex. “Fear not, my divine lady. We shall not be interrupted.”
The voices intensified, matching the rising of her pleasure at her king’s mastery. Magnus did not slow in his attentions, and she chose to trust him.
“Yes, my king. Oh, yes.” Her breath came heavy and quick. Within moments, her pleasure crested a shattering peak. She cried out at the overwhelming wonder.
The chamber door burst open, and a guard came in, face red as a pomegranate.
Her king became a beast. “I said no interruptions,” he growled, her pleasure dripping from his beard.
“Sire, I would not interrupt, but—but—”
“Get out!” Magnus yelled.
“Sire, I cannot. It’s the children. They’re missing.”
Magnus’s lean body went taut as a bowstring. The guard had his full attention. “Which children?”
“A—all of them, Sire.”
Chapter 17
The fire in Magnus’s veins turned to ice. Time seemed to slow as his guard’s words penetrated his fog of lust. With steady hands that belied his rising panic, he covered his goddess with a bed fur.
“Tell me again what you said,” he commanded, as he rose from bed.
Behind his guard was a middle-aged man, who had served in his army faithfully for decades. Brant stood tall and said, clear as day, “He speaks true, Sire. The children are missing. No one has seen any of them in hours. None can be found. They are gone. Every last one.”
All the children. Gone. Unthinkable. “Impossible. The children are adored by all, seen by all. Have you been to the classrooms? Have you inquired with Hatrick? Connoly? The tutors may be instructing the children in sum at the moment.”
Even as he said it, he realized how daft it was. There were twenty-eight precious ones under the age of twenty—still young enough to serve and required to take lessons. The younger ones took different lessons than the older ones. Having different schedules and chores, the lot would have no reason to be in the same place at the same time.
“Yes Sire,” Brant said. “We’ve been—”
“Of course we’ve been to the tutors.” Brant’s answer was flattened under the rolling barrel of Cathal’s growl. Magnus’s war chieftain shouldered through the door.
His personal guards peered into the chamber after Cathal. Each face bore the same worry gripping his heart. This was no misunderstanding.
“That was where we started, Sire,” Cathal said. “The children didn’t show up for their lessons, and only a few performed their chores this morning. We’ve been all over Glendall and the grounds, and we’ve searched all of Chroina. Every last man and trainee is actively searching as we speak. We didn’t come to you until we were certain.”
“The trainees are searching? They’re all accounted for?” Magnus asked. Between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, one hundred and thirteen adolescents trained in the king’s army. While not considered full-grown men, they were mature enough to wield weapons of war and learn to fight.
“They’re fine,” Cathal said. “It’s just the young ones.”
He could hardly comprehend what he was hearing. How could twenty-eight children disappear without a trace?
A cool hand came to rest on his bicep.
He glanced down to find Danu by his side, concern making sloping hills of her delicate eyebrows. The bed fur wrapped her from the neck down, obscuring her beautiful body from the eyes of his men. Good thing, since he would have hated to slay so many for ogling what was his.
It seemed not only natural but necessary to pull her close to his side as he addressed Cathal. “This is why Maedoc didn’t interview the prisoners this morning as I commanded,” he surmised.
“Aye, Sire.” Cathal’s face was a roiling storm. “I enlisted his help in the search. This was more important than Bilkes. Been looking for the pups all day, and I can confirm. The children are gone. Disappeared. All twenty-eight of them. None have been seen since this morning.”
“Three of the children brought me a bath this morning,” Danu said. “Where and exactly when were the others last seen? Some serve in the ladies’ residence, yes?”
Magnus’s chest filled with pride, even in this dire circumstance. How queenly his goddess was! Like a true ruler, she focused on the disaster at hand. He wished he could keep her, but she belonged on her throne above them all. One thing was certain, however. No one would take her from him before he showed her the worship she deserved—the worship she craved. Sadly, it would not be tonight.
Cathal blinked as if just realizing Danu was there. To him, she would simply be Seona. Shock showed in the lift of his brow, whether at her sudden interest in wolfkind affairs or at her state of dress, Magnus could not guess.
Cathal nodded at Danu but addressed Magnus. “Daly last saw the Glendall pups after they finished with your lady’s bath. They exited the castle through the bailey. Daly called for them to finish their morning chores, but they didn’t stop. He assumed they didn’t hear and were headed to the Fiona Blath to serve the ladies there. He thought naught of it and returned to his duties.”
Magnus remembered the three Danu referred to. Julian, Ruben, and Alexander, the latter of which had been seen in the dungeon before Bilkes’s escape. “Alexander, again,” he said. At Cathal’s confused look, he apprised the war chieftain of the conversation he’d had with Neil in the dungeon.
“We need to interview Diana,” Cathal surmised. “She’ll know if her third-born’s been up to something suspicious.”
“Not interview,” Magnus said, recalling how she lied to protect Alexander this morning. “Interrogate.”
Magnus saw red as he stormed to the dungeon with Cathal. He’d left his personal guard to watch over Danu. They were to protect her with their lives. No one was to be admitted to his chambers until his return. Which would be soon. He had no doubt Diana would talk, considering what he had in mind for her.
While they navigated Glendall’s passageways, he learned all he could about the search for the children.
“Have you given the children’s scents to the wolves?” he asked Cathal.
“Aye. We gave them clothing from several—all different ages. Each group of wolves tracked the scents to the same place. Brawhaven.” Magnus’s memory supplied Chroina’s stone and mortar schoolhouse. Now abandoned, the two-story structure had once been as grand as the Fiona Blath. In his grandfather’s time, the best instructors from all over Marann taught the city’s children at the prestigious institute for learning. By his father’s reign, most of the building’s classrooms had been converted to housing for the instructors, since they were no longer needed for lessons, so low had the population dropped. “The schoolyard is where the wolves lost the scents.” Magnus pictured the grassy yard with its swings and roundabouts, pole ball circles, and hop-square grids. “It’s like someone reached down and plucked them off the face of the Earth.”
Magnus felt the blood drain from his face. He knew of only one way a group of people could vanish like Cathal described. Hyrk’s gemstone.
He exchanged a dark look with his war chiefta
in. “Have you seen Riggs?” Had it been only this morning Magnus had sent the knight to search for the lost gemstone? It felt like days had passed, but in truth, it had been merely hours.
Cathal nodded. “He came back a little after dark. No luck finding that stone. Now he’s leading a group of civilians. They’re canvassing the east quadrant of the city.”
If the stone had been at the bottom of the canyon, Riggs would have found it. Magnus had a sick feeling the stone had been found by someone else, and that someone had used it to move the children somewhere. The question was, who had found it, and where were they now? He could only pray Hyrk was not directly involved.
“We need some idea where to search for the children.” His gut told him they wouldn’t be found in Chroina. Perhaps not even Marann. “Have their quarters searched. Especially Alexander’s.” Remembering Danu’s suggestion that they look for people who sympathized with Ari and Bantus, he added, “Look for any sign of Breeding First paraphernalia.”
“Yes, Sire.” Cathal left him at the entrance to the dungeon. It was the first time he’d been alone in a long time.
Weariness hung around his neck like a jougs-stone. And there was no rest in sight.
He didn’t deserve rest. Not when he had let this happen.
The youngest among them held service positions of honor, but the goal of such positions was so much more than the satisfactory completion of chores. He desired to teach the children humility through service. Furthermore, Glendall and the Fiona Blath were the two most secure places in Chroina. Serving in the king’s home and the ladies’ common house kept them safe and close at hand. Magnus was supposed to be watching them, caring for them.
And still, they’d been taken.
The fault lay squarely on him, but there was no time for self-flagellation. He must find them. Whatever it took, he would find them. And there was a certain prisoner who would help, whether she wanted to or not.
Simmering with rage, Magnus stormed through the dungeon until he reached the east wing. “Where are they?” he bellowed as he passed cell after cell. Near the middle of the block, he turned and pinned a wide-eyed Diana with his gaze. “Where. Are. They.”