Mists of Velvet

by Sophie Renwick

  Keir shrugged. “By the cards, by spells, by Rowan and her impending death. By a fucking dream in the night where I hear a woman pleading for mercy.”

  “You’re still having that dream?” Rhys asked. “Is it Rowan?”

  “I don’t know.” Keir dragged his fingers through his hair. “I think so. She’s dying, and in pain, and she’s begging for someone to end it.”

  Rhys reached out and touched Keir on the shoulder. They hadn’t really talked since that night they took the woman in the club. They certainly hadn’t touched. Theirs was a complicated relationship. They had a tight bond, kind of like twins. But twins didn’t share what they did, and that was what confused things. They weren’t lovers, and they weren’t brothers. They were more than friends, but they were different species.

  “Don’t try to figure it out,” Keir warned. “It’ll give you a fucking migraine.”

  Rhys smiled. “I already have one.”

  Keir snorted and made his way to the window. Gazing outside, Rhys saw the wraith’s eyes stray to the end of the castle where Rowan lived. He knew better than to ask him how she was.

  “How are you?” Rhys asked instead.

  “Pissed.”

  “Because you can’t save her?”

  Keir nodded, then raised his arm against the stone sill. His gaze never strayed from Rowan’s room. “She’s going to die, and there is nothing my immortal soul or magick can do to change it.”

  “But she’s a goddess and an angel. How can she die? She’s not mortal.”

  Keir whirled around, his eyes flashing with anger. “I don’t know what she truly is. I don’t know if she’s immortal. I know only she’s dying and I can feel her slipping away, and feeling that is killing me. It’s making me fractured. I’m not doing right by you because I can’t see past my pain for her. I’m fucking up all over, and letting you slip into Annwyn proves just how much.”

  Rhys strode over to Keir and hugged him gruffly. “You know I’ll be there for you when the time comes. You know that. I’ll help you through it.” Keir struggled against him, but Rhys held him tighter. “I don’t know what this prophecy means. I don’t know what the future holds for any of us, but there is one thing you can count on, wraith, and that’s me by your side, bugging your ass. For as long as I live.”

  Nodding, Keir pulled away from him. “I’m sorry,” he said on a deep breath. “This is all my fault. If I had told you, none of this would have happened.”

  Rhys knew and felt they were no longer talking about Rowan, or about his stupid trek into the cave. “You saw her, didn’t you? You knew she was going to be your mate.”

  Keir moved away, putting more than a physical distance between them. “I did. I saw Bronwnn in the cards. Cailleach wants us together because we are both practitioners of divination. She believes we will enhance each other’s gifts.”

  “But you knew I was dreaming of her.”

  “I did. At first I thought it was because of my thoughts. But then I began to learn of your desire for her.”

  “And you didn’t say anything because you wanted to spare my sorry ass?”

  “No,” Keir growled. “Because I thought I could wait until . . . after Rowan was gone. I can’t . . . I couldn’t be with the goddess before that. Even knowing it was Cailleach’s wish, I knew I couldn’t obey. Not until . . .” He swallowed and dropped the thought. “After, I planned to share her—with you. I thought it would work until”—Keir met his gaze—“until I realized you felt more for her than desire.”

  Rhys felt his body stiffen. The thought of Keir with Bronwnn made him crazed. The thought of sharing her . . . He couldn’t even go there.

  “I won’t take her from you, Rhys, I promise. She isn’t my mate.”

  Suddenly, Keir was at the door, holding it open. “We’re wasting time. Cailleach’s oidhche will be here in a matter of hours, checking on you. Go,” Keir ordered.

  “Cailleach will kill you if she discovers your deception.”

  Keir shrugged. “I’m halfway there.”

  Rhys sent him a hard glare. “No, you’re not. And I won’t let anything happen to you. Got it?”

  Keir nodded, but Rhys realized, too late, that the wraith wasn’t looking him in his eye. For the second time in their long association, Rhys could not hear or feel what the wraith was thinking.

  The ugly gray chemise tore easily in Rhys’ hands, and, without thought or guilt, he ripped it up the center, revealing Bronwnn’s pale body in the moonlight. Breasts, round and full, rose and fell with deep breaths as she stirred in her sleep. Hungrily his gaze raked over her voluptuous curves, drinking in everything he had longed to see. There was enough moonlight to illuminate her body and the V between her thighs as she spread them for him. She was wet, glistening, and he wanted to taste her; to finger her.

  Cupping her breast, he stroked her nipple, watching as it puckered beneath his thumb. Already aroused, he felt himself swell further, and to relieve some of the ache in his groin, he brushed his cock along her milky white thigh. None of his suffering was abated, however, and he stroked himself along her smooth skin over and over, watching the tantalizing visual of his cock rubbing her leg.

  God, he wanted her. She was his, regardless of whatever she had offered Cailleach. They were fated to be together.

  She stirred and sighed huskily, still slumbering dreamily while he fondled her breasts. His gaze slipped to her face, and he watched her lips part when he pressed her breasts together. Damn but he needed to feel those lips on his cock.

  Raising himself to his knees, he nudged her thighs wider and kneeled between them, resting his weight on his hands. Pressing forward, he trailed his mouth between her breasts, then down her belly where he circled her navel with his tongue. Gooseflesh erupted on her skin, fanning out along her midriff. She stretched, then reached for him, clutching his hair in her fingers.

  “Rhys, I feared you wouldn’t come to me.”

  “Of course I came. Bran’s not much of a jailer.”

  She sighed, and he looked up along her gorgeous body to her face. “Talk to me, Bronwnn,” he whispered, “I love your voice. The way it moves along my body. Say something . . . Tell me something.”

  “I ache to have you inside me,” she said, catching his gaze. “I desire you like no other man. I want your cock pushing inside me, filling me.”

  “Keep going,” he murmured. “You’ve made me rock hard.” Just to prove it to her, he pressed his cock against her, and she reached for him, but he evaded her touch.

  “This is for you, mo bandia. Just lie back and let me hear those little cries of yours.”

  Tonguing her belly again, he listened for her sighs and felt her hips shift on the bed as he lowered his mouth to the damp curls. Spreading the soft folds, he raked his tongue up her length, arousing her with his mouth. She was wet and writhing, her fingers curling in his hair while her hips moved in an intoxicating, erotic rhythm against his probing tongue.

  “Rhys.” She sighed, rubbing her sex against him. Her voice in the quiet turned him on. The way she said his name lit him on fire. “Please,” she said with a keening cry as she tensed and tightened, but he stopped just before she came. He wanted her wild for him.

  Sliding along her body, he licked the valley of her breasts and slid his now-rampant erection between them. He showed her how to press her breasts together to increase his pleasure, and he groaned, watching his cock slide between her breasts.

  “Suck me,” he demanded. He watched as her pink tongue crept out and licked him slowly, teasingly so that he nudged his cock farther into her mouth.

  “That looks so damned good,” he moaned. Fuck, she was good. And gorgeous, and everything he could have ever desired.

  “Show me more,” she whispered, meeting his gaze and flicking her tongue along his erection. “Show me what you want.”

  Needing no more encouragement, Rhys moved away from her and brought her to her knees. Kneeling before her, his cock soaring in the air, he entwine
d his hand in her hair and motioned her forward so that her mouth was poised over his tip.

  “Take all of me. I want to watch you on your knees.”

  And then she slipped the tip of him past her lips and put his whole shaft in her mouth. With gentle pressure of his hands in her hair, he guided her into a rhythm painstakingly slow and erotic. He told her how to suck him and how to bring the tip of his cock to her lips without letting him slide out of her mouth. He described how to build his passion slowly, glimpses of her tongue curling around his shaft and her hand working his length as he watched.

  She mastered the skill in minutes, and soon he needed only to groan or fist his fingers in her hair for her to know what he liked. As she worked her magic on him, he reached for her breasts and filled his hands with them, his fingers becoming more insistent as his desire escalated. Watching her loving his cock aroused him more than he thought possible. He’d always loved the sensation of a mouth on him, and Bronwnn certainly knew what to do with hers. She was a Siren like this and so very good at fueling his need. Already he was close to coming, and, wanting to draw it out, he moved away from her, settling himself against the headboard and motioning for her to come to him.

  When she crawled on her knees to him, he was already gripping his cock in his hand and stroking himself shamelessly. Damn it, she was working him up, and he needed this release, this climax with her. With a soft purr, she lowered her mouth to his wet tip, and he circled her lips with the head of his erection. Her eyelids fluttered closed as her tongue flicked out, as he teased her with his cock, and she moaned, as if savoring the taste of him.

  Slowly her tongue swirled around his shaft until he could not bear it. Pulling out of her mouth, he reached for her and brought her legs around his waist. “Lean back on your hands and rest your feet on the bed,” he rasped as he parted her thighs and stroked her swollen pussy. As she leaned back, her sex was exposed, slick and wet. Taking his cock in hand, he rubbed it against her folds, teasing himself by watching and listening to Bronwnn’s escalating pants as he pleasured her.

  Her hips were rocking as well as her breasts, meeting him stroke for stroke. It would be so easy to take her like this, to drive into her and watch the whole act. Giving in to his desire, he brushed her opening and grinned as she looked up at him through a veil of hair. Teasing her, he traced her slit, watching her passion-glazed eyes widen.

  “Do it.” She sighed, the sound husky and breathless. Nudging her hips forward, she forced the tip of him inside. She was scalding hot and drenched with arousal.

  “What would you like me to do, Bronwnn?” he teased, slipping a fraction deeper inside her. She gasped, and he watched her toss the hair from her face over her shoulder. He could now see all of her—full breasts with pink nipples that were pebble hard and lush thighs that were open wide for him. “What would you like?” he asked again, watching as he slid deeper into the curls.

  “Take me.”

  He reached for her hips and brought her toward him. “Only if you watch.” And only then, when he was sure she was watching him inch inside her, did he take her, not in one swift movement, but in slow, straight strokes. When he was certain he had aroused her enough, he looked up from their bodies and commanded that she look at him. Eyes locked with hers, he slid deeply inside with a forceful thrust. She gave a little gasp, but then he felt her thighs go tight around him; guiding him with the inside of her legs, she brought him forward, urging him on.

  “Harder? Deeper? Tell me how you want it, Bronwnn.”

  “I don’t know. Just don’t stop,” she cried.

  His strokes were fast, furious; his passion spiraling. She clutched at the sheets as her orgasm built. His was building, too, and when she came, he poured himself inside her, then pulled her down on top of him.

  “Rhys?”

  “Hmm?” he murmured as he kissed the top of her head.

  “I just want you to know that mortal or not, you make my body sing.”

  He smiled into her hair. “Mates,” he murmured. “My body is supposed to do that to yours, just like you make me completely insane with desire.”

  She snuggled next to him and started to breathe softly and rhythmically. “Go to sleep, mo bandia, because I’m planning on waking you up later. I want to hear your body sing again.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cailleach stared at the man who had dared to enter her chamber. She was in bed, her hair down around her naked shoulders and the sheet pulled tight over her naked breasts.

  “You have some explaining to do.”

  The man was not really a man. He was an angel—a fallen one.

  “I owe you nothing,” she hissed.

  He moved so fast that she startled and pressed herself against the headboard. She had sent her oidhche out into the night to spy on the mortal. She was alone, and never had she feared the darkness as she did now, with her old nemesis looming above her.

  “You always were such a stubborn female.”

  Lifting her chin, she gazed deeply into Suriel’s black eyes. “I would not bow to you then, and I will not now.”

  Clasping her chin in his hand, he forced her to look at him. “I should have just taken you. Fucked you and showed you who was the greater power.”

  “Your coarseness sickens me.”

  “You shiver, but I doubt it’s from sickness.”

  Flinging his hand from her, Cailleach pulled the sheet tighter to her body. “What do you want, Suriel?”

  “What we both want. The flame and the amulet.”

  “That’s not all you desire.”

  He smiled, that beautiful fallen face lighting up with mystery and menace; sensuality and sin; pleasure and pain. “You know what I want, Cailleach.”

  “I do not trust you. You’re evil, Suriel.”

  “And you’re not?” His long, tapered finger stroked her cheek and skimmed down her jaw to her shoulder, where he let it trail along her arm. “I know what you did, Cailleach.”

  Alarm seized her, and she met his onyx gaze. “You know nothing.”

  “You parted them.”

  “You do not know what you speak of.”

  He laughed as he brushed his fingers back up the length of her arm. Her traitorous nipple hardened, and his gaze slipped down, focusing on it as it pressed against the sheet.

  “Two tragic, tortured souls,” he whispered.

  “Get out,” she commanded. She was weakening. Her always-strong resolve was slowly unraveling.

  “You led Covetina to Uriel. You fed her to the bastard.”

  “I did not!”

  “Because you wanted Camael for yourself.” He pressed against her, his fingers teasingly resting at the edge of the sheet she clutched to her breasts. “You wear the white of a pure goddess. But you’re not.”

  “You know nothing!” she sneered, hating this angel. Of the three, he had always been the most lethal and dangerous; the most difficult to control. Whom was she lying to? She had never controlled Suriel. Even Uriel, with his dark pleasures and his ambition to learn the Dark Arts, was not as dangerous as the angel before her. There was something so very primal and black inside Suriel. She felt it—the hunger for power; for revenge; for all-consuming satisfaction.

  “When you discovered that Camael loved Covetina,” he said, moving closer so that his breath whispered across her shoulder, “you flew into a rage. In a jealous, impetuous rage, you tore them apart. You banished her. You knew Uriel was no good, that his heart was impure, and still you led him to her. You knew what he would do to her, but you didn’t care. You wanted Camael.”

  Her heart was racing; her breathing fast. He was too close, looming over her, breathing against her.

  “She was your handmaiden. You knew her secrets, that she had mastered the Dark Arts. You knew and didn’t care, because all you desired was Camael. You didn’t care that Camael mourned her. You didn’t care that Uriel would rape her.”

  She couldn’t listen to any more. Tearing the sheet from the bed, she
wrapped it around herself and walked away from him.

  “The past has no bearing on what is happening now.”

  He stalked her, pressing her into the shadows, against the wall. “You don’t think so? All misdeeds must be atoned for at some point. Yours. Mine. In Annwyn. In heaven. In the mortal realm. It doesn’t matter where or when. Only that it will happen.”

  “The flame and the amulet will be found, and none of that will matter.”

  “When was it you discovered you needed Covetina’s amulet, Cailleach? Was it after you fed her to Uriel, or was it later, when her child—Uriel’s—told you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He reached for her, pressing his long, tall body against hers. “You sacrificed Covetina, and then you stole her child.”

  Her body stilled, and Cailleach looked up into Suriel’s face. “She betrayed me. It was against our laws. Our order.”

  “Because she slept with an angel—or because she slept with the angel you wanted?”

  To hear the truth from Suriel was more than Cailleach could bear.

  “You took her child from her. You assumed that with the combined powers of Covetina and Uriel, the child would be of use to you. Either that, or you feared the child might have skill in the Dark Arts, and you wanted to make certain no one else could use her against you.”

  She shook her head, denying it all, but Suriel smiled, enjoying her discomfort. “But what you didn’t know was that Covetina had borne Camael’s babe. In secret, of course, before you banished her.”

  No. Cailleach felt her expression freeze in horror. No, it couldn’t be.

  “I didn’t know, and I certainly did not take Camael and Covetina’s child.”

  “No,” Suriel said with a dark smile. “I did. But he’ll believe me when I say it was you.”

  Cailleach sagged against the stone wall as Suriel looked down at her. “The child has lived and died a hundred times in the mortal realm, and each time her soul is transmigrated to another living being, I watch over it, protecting what is mine—what you need. Do you know whose body Camael’s and Covetina’s daughter claims?” Cailleach shook her head, her mind reeling with the implications that the amulet might be forever out of her reach.