I stood up and busied myself with cleaning up the dishes, avoiding his gaze. “I’m not supposed to know. It’s in the part of the Library that is restricted to all except the Inner Circle.”
He followed my lead and brought his empty plate over to the wash cabinet. I had always thought my flat was cozy, but his presence made it seem miniscule. I was too aware of his presence, too aware of how close he was. Kai’s voice was casual. “I thought the Library’s mission was to advance and preserve all knowledge for everyone.”
Somehow, I sensed his approach behind me. I turned and shoved the expensive-looking bottle of alcohol he had brought against his chest. “It is. But there is some knowledge too dangerous to have.”
He took the bottle from my hand and yanked off the cap in a single motion—an easy thing for a shifter. His voice was edged with suspicion. “Who decides that?”
I found two oddly thin-stemmed glasses that I had never used—a random gift from someone I had helped—and set them in front of him. “The Inner Circle, the leadership that runs the Library. And there are no Ealens in the Inner Circle, if that’s what you’re trying to imply,” I said, helpfully stating the obvious since they were all extinct.
“Mayhap. But their works live on.” He poured a red liquid into the glasses and handed one to me. “If you’re not supposed to know, then how do you know?”
I took a sip.
Oh. Wow.
“It’s a Gaian wine,” he said, hitting me with that satisfied smile. “Southern Continent. I’m glad you like it.”
I took another sip. “How do you know I like it?”
“Because your pupils are dilating. And you can’t stop licking your lips.”
I swallowed. He was watching me far too closely.
I wasn’t used to alcohol, and I should have known better. I turned away, set down my glass, and began fiddling with the plates in the wash cabinet. “I broke into the Deep Archives. I was trying to find a match for my DNA.”
“Really.” His voice was even closer than before.
I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop. “I’m an orphan. The Library found me on a refugee colony, and I won myself a place in their school through a xiangqi game.”
“Impressive,” he said, his voice even closer.
How close was he to me? I was afraid to turn around to find out. But what if it wasn’t what I was thinking this was? Shifters had weird definitions of personal space. Hadn’t I read that invading someone’s personal space was more a test of dominance?
I swiped at my vambrace, brightening the lights. I turned.
There was an intensity to his gaze that made me feel as if I was going to be the next course. He was so in my space, it was practically his space. My heart thudded at the incredible nearness of him, and I could smell the faint hint of soap.
My heart kept thudding. I didn’t even know him.
I turned sideways, my shoulder tingling as I brushed against his chest, and walked away from him. “How do you know about the Lost Ealen Fleet of the Dead?”
He followed me. “I’m a seer.”
Well, that was something I hadn’t expected him to say. I turned, half-relieved that this was something I could seize on before I made a mistake of doing something I shouldn’t.
I faced him. This time he kept a more respectable distance from me, getting the hint.
And I realized that I didn’t truly want that either. Oh stars, I had to make up my mind. I put on my skeptical Librarian face. “You’re telling me you can see the future.”
“Not all of it. Visions come to me in my dreams. My ancestors have prophesized the coming of the Ealen Fleet for years. And now it is my job to find the Dragonlords to stop them.”
This was what he had come to tell me. I turned and discovered I was next to my wall screen, as if I had planned this. “I want to see more evidence. More than just prophecies. If you’ve been searching for the Dragonlords, you have a research trail. Show me.”
He pushed up his sleeve, revealing his own vambrace barely covering a muscled forearm, and swiped at it.
Code began floating between us.
And he showed me the truth of his story.
It had seemed like only a few minutes, but by the time we were done talking amongst floating codexes, deciphered relics, and reassembled fragments of ancient manuscripts, the hours were late, and the snow was piled up waist-high at my door. He was more than a random artifact hunter. His knowledge of obscure Ealen and Dragonlord history rivaled some of the senior Infoists I had known.
He clearly wasn’t crazy.
“I believe you,” I said to him, as he swiped away the final images. Unintentionally, I had drifted close to him once more. It had been hard to properly gauge where he was in relation to me with all these floating screens between us. Now that the images between us were gone, I was acutely aware of just how close I was standing to him.
And this time I held my ground.
Slowly, deliberately, he raised his hand to my face, and I realized he was giving me time to move. I felt immobilized by the adrenaline coursing through me, yearning for his touch and yet afraid of what it all might mean, afraid it might not mean anything.
And then he said something that would change my life.
“Good. Because you, Seria, are part of my destiny.”
His fingertips were rough against my cheek, but not unpleasantly so. I felt an urge to lean into his warmth. And then I remembered myself, and who we were. I put my hands up and almost touched him but held myself back, more afraid of my response than his. “That’s a strong statement.”
His hand fell from my face. There was that look in his eyes again, that look of intensity and purpose.
I didn't realize that I had even backed away from him until I pressed against the cold, smooth wall. He followed me, and I was suddenly intimately aware of the power differential between us.
Kai was a shifter, his ancestors bred to be living weapons, with strength and senses beyond human abilities. I wondered if what people said was true, that shifters could smell anything, particularly desire. If that was the case, then I was in trouble.
My heart was racing. “Is this how you talk to all the ladies, with nice words of predestined fate?”
He lowered his head. “No. Just you.”
I kept talking. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
He rested his elbow against the wall, cradling his head in his palm. His other arm connected to the wall, caging me without touching me. I swear I could feel his heat radiating from him. “Did you know,” he said, looking at my neck, “that scent is made up of many molecules? Everything affects your scent. Who you are, what you’ve done, what you’re thinking. It’s all there if you know how to read a scent.”
Oh. I was definitely in trouble. I swallowed. “You’re just trying to change the subject.”
Kai shook his head slowly. “I have heard it said that humans have a saying: ‘love at first sight.’ There is a similar concept among my people. ‘Fate at first scent.’
I was almost afraid to ask. But I did. “And what do I smell like to you?”
He inhaled deeply. “Like you are meant to be mine.”
His hand grabbed at my waist, pulling me toward him. I gasped, and his mouth closed in. Contact was a shock of desire, his mouth tasting of wine, intoxicating in his hunger. Simmering need ignited within me, taking control despite lingering suspicions in the back of my mind that he had underlying motives, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was more.
Kai broke off the kiss. He gripped my hair, pulling my head back and baring my neck to his mouth. Stubble scratched as he licked a path on my bare skin. “Unbelievable. You taste so good, like the most scrumptious wine. And I haven’t even begun to taste you.”
“Taste me?” I echoed brilliantly. Apparently, all my common sense had fled.
“Consent?” His words were more demand than question, the curl of a Tigerish accent straying into his words.
I rallied myse
lf not to surrender so easily. His hands were shameless in their journeys across my body, uncovering my territory with his touch. I was helpless, melting, yet he was a rock of solidity. I clung to him, the press of our bodies keeping me both alert and overwhelmed at the same time.
“To what?” I breathed.
His hands found the split of my robe. One hand cupped my ass, squeezed hard, his fingers so close to my core. I jumped, his fingers suddenly at my entrance, only the thin cloth of a very wet underskin between him and me. I could feel the heat of him as he traced the line of my pussy through the cloth. Unable to control myself, I arched into his hand. “You already know,” he said, “just like I already know your answer.”
The slow swipes of his thumb against me were weakening my ability to think. Even as it was, it was all I could do to stay upright. I ran my hands up inside his shirt, reveling in those unusual lines of hard muscle. “Then why ask?”
“To give you a choice.” His lips brushed against my ear, sending a delicious spark through me. “I want to hear you ask me.”
I leaned my head back against the wall, exposing my neck to him. “What does my scent tell you now?”
There was a rumbling that vibrated into my hands, making my core clench involuntarily in anticipation. His lips touched a sensitive spot in the hollow of my throat, sending delicious little shivers throughout my body. He shoved my underskins downward, dipping into my slickness, taunting me with the threat of intimate invasion.
“Is this what you want?”
I shimmied against his fingers, enjoying the feel of his touch as my underskins slid off. I stepped out of them, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted him inside me, to feel his tigershifter strength inside me, possessing me in the most primal of ways. “Is that all that you offer?”
I had thought his voice sexy before, but now with the Tigerish accent slipping into his words, he was utterly irresistible. “Tell me what you want.”
I reached for him, tracing the seam of his pants, which smartly opened up at my touch. His cock rose forth, unhindered, hard, and hot. I closed my fingers around him, and he made a catlike noise of pleasure. Touching him was touching raw bestial power. I knew my senses were nowhere near as sharp as his, but underlying that soap smell was a masculine musk that made me want to taste him. I began to lower myself to him.
“In good time.” With a single motion, he slid his hands under my thighs and lifted. I shrieked in surprise, off balance for a moment, grabbing at his thick muscled body as he forced my legs open to straddle his waist.
“I could take you right here,” he said, pressing me against the wall.
He looked me in the eyes. “And you’d love it, too.” He shimmied me, and all of a sudden, I could feel the length of him gliding along the most intimate part of my body. The touch of his cock brought forth a powerful craving that was far beyond anything I had ever experienced. If he fucked me now, I’d totally embarrass myself by orgasming from a single thrust.
And by his smile, he seemed to know that. “You’d shriek and scream and beg for more. But from the moment I walked in here and surrounded myself in your space with your scent, all I could think about was my mouth on you.”
And with that unnatural shifter strength, he raised me upward and set me on his mouth.
The insane flickering of his tongue, almost a vibration, wrenched an unexpected explosion of shuddering, toe-curling pleasure. I crossed my legs around his neck and wound my fingers in his hair for balance, but all of it only pressed me against his mouth even harder. My stars, it was true what they said about shifter tongues—more dexterous, more flexible, and longer than any human’s could ever be.
And Kai knew just how to expertly use it, even as he carried me to my bedroom.
I came, again and again, kicking and digging my heels into his back, crying and pleading for more.
Finally, he lowered me. I had come, but it wasn’t enough. I reached for his cock.
Impressive before, it was now a monster of fierce need.
A big hand closed around my wrist, his voice as commanding as royalty. “Tell me what you want.”
“I’ve got a universal implant,” I said. There would be no consequences to this. “I want you. I need you inside me now, Kai.”
An inhuman gleam came in his eyes at the sound of his name. There, that was how I could catch him. “Kai, take me now,” I breathed.
His teeth scraped my skin as he tasted me, his speech more snarl than words. “I had the most beautiful seduction plans. But your scent, your taste. I can’t—” Words devolved into rumbling beast-like sounds.
“Take me. Take me now, Kai.”
With shifter speed, he flipped me onto the bed, nestled himself at my opening, and thrust. I was slick, wet, and wanting more than I had ever in my entire life, and yet, he was so big that there was still a hint of pain. My core clenched around him, and he withdrew and thrust into me again. I looked at him and saw the sweat on his brow, the muscles of his immense frame hard with exertion as he held himself back.
“You’re not going to hurt me. I promise I won’t break.”
Another hard thrust into me, this time faster, and yet the same pause. I squirmed against his impalement, and he squeezed my ass tightly. I scratched his back, writhing underneath him. “Take me, Kai. Take me.”
And then he began to move, slowly at first, and as I adjusted to the feeling of him, I began to move, truly move as only a determined shifter could. I bit down hard on his shoulder as he brought me higher and higher, and he laughed—that wicked, wicked man. Fingers twirled into the tight curls of my hair, pulling me into a hard kiss. I couldn’t help but close my eyes, trying to hold myself back from sensory overload.
Faster and faster, harder and harder, he drove into me. I was consumed by the desperate, primal need of his cock within me, as if he was a drug that had driven away all my senses, making me crave nothing but him, this man, this fucking beautiful, amazingly brilliant man. My body could not help but obey the commands of his merciless rhythm. I fucking came harder, longer, louder than ever before, over and over again, each time convinced I couldn’t come anymore, and each time I was proven wrong.
And when he finally erupted into me, his hot, delicious desire, I knew that I was totally and utterly lost.
I don’t know how long we lay there, entwined in the most delicious of stupors. Our backs were on the bed, my head on his shoulder, both of us looking up at the ceiling screen, which projected an image of the night sky. Usually it was nearly indistinguishable from a real windowed ceiling, but the lack of snow in tonight’s display gave it away.
Kai traced patterns along my skin. I was so tired, but the thought of falling asleep and missing a precious moment with this man was keeping me awake. I wanted to memorize every minute I had with him because happiness like this would never last.
And as if he could sense my thoughts, Kai finally said, “I had intended to spend a week here,” he said. “I figured it would take me that much time to decipher and unlock the Codex of Mixa.”
A week? I had done it in a few hours. Well, not exactly I, but the programs I had previously developed had unlocked it. “So are you leaving Tranquility soon?”
His smile sent an absurd spark of warmth through me. “Not if I have a reason to stay.”
I knew I shouldn’t say anything. And yet, something inside me knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t take this chance. Perhaps it was fate. I made my voice as nonchalant as possible. “I have Solstice Week off.”
His arms tightened around me. “So why don’t you have a tree?”
An image of the monster-hiding white trunks in the swamp flashed in my mind. “A tree?”
His fingers skimmed my bare arm. “You know—on First Earth for Solstice Week, they harvest a tree, bring it indoors, and decorate it.”
My mind raced, wondering where he was going with this. Dare I hope? “That never made any sense to me. Why would you celebrate First Earth by killing
a plant and bringing it indoors where things could hatch out of it and eat you?”
He laughed, a sound that warmed me more than it should have. “First Earth isn’t Tranquility. I don’t think First Earthers worry about things coming out of trees and murdering them in their sleep.”
I watched the moonlight on the ceiling. The programming adjusted itself to reflect the exterior, and snow began to fall in the scene. Some of it even began to pile on the windows, just enough to be pretty before it melted away. “Lucky First Earthers.”
His voice was casual. “I want to get you a tree for Solstice Week.”
I made my tone mirror his, despite the rapid beating of my heart. “I don’t know. I still don’t like the idea of sleeping with a tree indoors.”
He rolled himself on top of me, settling between my legs and looking into my face. I could get lost in those eyes of his. “I’d be here to protect you,” he said softly.
Heat blossomed in me, impossibly joyous. I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face, nor did I want to. “Well, if I don’t have to be afraid of being eaten in my sleep…”
His smile was a dangerous thing. “I didn’t say that. But the only one tasting you is going to be me.”
Solstice Week with Kai was the most amazing week of my life. Not only was he handsome and well, a tiger in bed, but he was also one of the few people I had ever known who knew enough of esoteric ancient history to argue the finer points with me.
Kai was utterly brilliant and relentless in his painstaking piecemeal research in hunting down the Dragonlords.
He was everything I had ever wanted in a partner.
But shifters were always so concerned with bloodlines, which was logical considering their origins as an Ealen experiment. They considered their DNA as their greatest treasure.
And I was an orphan, who had been searching for her origins for her entire life.
After one particularly lengthy session of lovemaking, and us lying there on the floor in companionable satisfaction, Kai said something to me that would change everything.
The Lady and the Tigershifter Page 3