“On our end as well,” Jackson said. “We’ll need to get in touch with Grey, the Night Angels. The Phoenixes, too … although it is beyond me how to do that. Same goes for the Mysticals. Do they even have a leadership?”
“They do.”
The room turned as one to see a new male had entered the room, although how he had entered was a mystery to Kat.
“Grey,” Ahnvil said, answering the question. Another Djynn! Someone she could potentially learn a lot from, Kat thought with no small amount of eagerness. Someone Ahnvil already said he would not mind her learning from. Someone she suspected had to be incredibly powerful to be the leader of the Djynn in all of North America.
After Grey was brought up to speed he was utterly intrigued. “Something beyond my scope of power. Fascinating,” he said, only supporting Kat’s perception that she would have a lot to learn from him about being a Djynn. “SingSing told me to come to you, but didn’t mention why. I am so glad she did. She’s a good girl. Always able to tell when she is over her head.” He eyed Kat thoughtfully. “I’ve heard of Adoma’s Amulet,” he said, moving closer to her and lifting the object into his hand. “Yes, it’s really quite powerful. Why ever would you want to take it off?”
“Because I can’t,” she said dryly.
“Humans. Always wanting what they can’t have only to realize they don’t want what they’ve gotten after all.”
“Well, luckily I can always put it back on again once I figure out how to get it off,” Kat said.
“Are you so certain of that?” he asked archly.
Kat wasn’t certain about anything anymore. She was in this surreal new world where she didn’t know a damn thing about herself … where she was even more normal then she thought she was all of this time.
“Look at me,” Grey instructed, touching her under her chin and lifting it. He examined her on one side and then the other with his eyes. “Sun sensitive?” he asked.
“Very,” Kat said.
“For a full-breed Djynn, we turn to smoke at the touch of the sun. You blister and burn because you need to learn how to voluntarily become smoke. You have enough power for it, I believe, but we will only know in time. It will have to be the first thing you learn. In order to protect yourself.”
Kat gaped at him a long moment. “Cool.” That was all she could think of to say in response.
“As for the Mysticals, I have the Empress of the Mysticals in my care. In fact, Leo and his Night Angel helped to rescue her from her captives.”
“You mean the winged horse?” Leo said, gaping at him. “She was an Empress?”
“Yes. Is. It is taking her some time to recover from the poison they were giving her … the eggs. Mysticals cannot eat eggs. It freezes them into either their mystical form or their human form, depending on what state they are in at the time. The Tsar of the Phoenixes will also want to know about this. I recommend we all inform these Nightwalkers of the curse and then, perhaps, we can figure out a way among us to lift it. And if their prophecy is correct, a great evil is upon us and we will need to be in tandem in order to fight it off.”
“Even the Wraiths?” Jackson asked dubiously. Wraiths were pure evil in his book.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Grey said.
“Do you think it’s Apep? The great evil?” Docia asked.
“Perhaps. The thing about prophecy is it is often unclear how to interpret it until after it is too late … or has run its course.”
“Agreed,” Kamen said. “It would seem I would best serve this action by researching the magics and prophecies.”
“There we are again,” Ahnvil said harshly. “With you trying tae get at our knowledge stores. You’re pushing pretty damn hard for it, are you no’?”
“It’s what I’m best at. If you don’t want me to do my spellwork, then what good am I to you?”
“None at all,” Ahnvil said with dark punctuation.
Kamen turned to lift a questioning brow at Jackson.
“Very well,” Jackson relented. “You could hardly do any more harm than Apep can.”
“I’ve told you,” Kamen said quietly. “I brought this evil onto this earth and I will not rest until I have eradicated it. I know my duty here. I also know you have little reason to trust me.” He looked pointedly at Ahnvil. “But it has been a long time since you were in my care. Things have changed.”
“Your care? Your bloody care?”
Kat leapt up and put herself in between Ahnvil and Kamenwati, probably the only reason why Ahnvil’s hands were not presently around Kamen’s throat.
“You. Come with me,” she commanded, grabbing up his hand. “All of you,” she pointed to the room. “Talk among yourselves and figure this out.”
She then pulled Ahnvil out of the room and headed for the stairs. When she had him in his rooms at last, she shut the door hard behind them. Then, hands on her hips, she frowned at him.
“Look, I get that he pisses you off. I get that you hate him. You have every reason to. But you have to see the bigger picture here.”
“No, I doona! I—”
“Hush! I’m talking! You will listen to me or … or … or there will not be a spectacular blowjob in your future. Got it?”
Oh, he obviously got it all right. His jaw dropped nearly to the ground for several beats, and then his eyes darkened with what could only be described as pure, blistering desire.
“Spectacular?” he repeated, moving slowly in her direction.
“Out-freakin’-standing,” she promised with a lift of her chin. “But only if you stop being such a thickheaded pain in the butt. I just found out I’m a Nightwalker, like, ten minutes ago. And then I found out I can learn how to turn to smoke! Do you have any idea what that feels like? It’s really fricken scary, that’s what it feels like! So instead of being all mad and grumpy and stuff, can you please please please help me out here?”
Ahnvil had been standing there, fists clenched, body ramrod straight, but at the sound of the pleading and desperation in her voice he sighed and relaxed, his hands falling open.
“Of course I can. But I have tae tell you, I doona trust Grey all that much either. I always feel like he knows more than he’s letting on. I dinna like the way he was looking at you.”
“Well, be that as it may, I need him. I need him or SingSing or somebody to teach me how to be … to be a Djynn. God, I hear myself say it and I can’t even believe it. To be honest I’m starting to think I’m back at home in my little bed having, like, the coolest dream ever.”
“I’d much rather have you here,” he said, his voice rich and low. “In my bed.”
The remark made her eyes widen a little, but then she felt herself smiling slowly. Naughtily. “Oh, really?” she asked.
“Yes, really.”
She moved forward, her body falling against the intense warmth of his as her eyes drew up slowly to meet his amber ones. “I wonder … How would you like to make love to a Djynn?”
He chuckled at that. “That’s a bit like asking me if I want that spectacular blowjob. ’Tis what I would call a no-brainer.”
“I would call it that, too,” she said, her eyes lighting with merry mischief. “So which will it be? Door number one”—she reached to run drifting fingertips up the length of his fly—“Or door number two?” She reached next for his hand and drew it up over her belly, over her ribs, and then settled the weight of her breast in his palm.
“Christ,” he muttered, the light in his eyes nothing short of virulent fire. “Do I have tae choose? Why canna I have both?”
“So greedy,” she said with an exaggerated pout. Then she smiled. “Okay, you talked me into it.” She reached for his belt buckle, her fingers nimble as she unhitched the two sides of it. The hand on her breast tightened briefly, as if he couldn’t help himself, but then he turned his knuckles to her and ran them up the length of her breastbone. He traveled up her throat as she pulled his belt free and was touching gentle fingers to her lips
as she reached to unbutton his fly.
“I doona know if I can even bear the idea of it. I think of your mouth on me and—” He grabbed hold of her hand and turned her palm in toward his body. He rubbed the heel of her hand tightly down the length of a very hard erection. “Just the idea of it and I’m randy enough tae come in my pants like the greenest lad in the township. You’re too new tae me for me tae have an ounce of control. I’m afraid I’ll … I doona want tae hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me. You’ll let me do this, you’ll let me give you all the pleasure I know how to give, and then you’re going to return the favor. And we’re both going to love every. Single. Minute.” She leaned in and kissed his mouth in punctuation with the last three words.
“Oh, I doona doubt that, Kat lass. No’ for a second. I—” Ahnvil stopped before saying he loved every single thing about her. Love was a very strong word to use, and a man shouldn’t use it lightly. He didn’t want to lay false groundwork, giving her ideas about the future that just might not be possible. The future was a dark, murky place. He didn’t know what he would have to offer her in it. He barely knew how to keep himself in the present from day to day. So much of his life came out of the past. Out of his mistakes and misfortunes. Out of his hate and his anger. He wasn’t even sure he would know how to give a lass things like love and contentment. Didn’t one have to be content before one could offer it to someone else?
Oh, but she was tempting him with far better things then contentment, he thought as she drew down the zipper to his jeans. She reached with strong little hands to push his pants down off his hips. He felt her nails scraping gently against his skin as she bared his backside and then his thighs. His erection had fallen free of the denim and, as she worked his jeans free, her body brushed against him again and again and again. She dropped to her knees and guided his feet free of his pants. He was forced to bear the gorgeous sight of her in that submissive serving position. Then she looked up. First into his eyes and then at the jutting length of his erection. She reached out and touched gentle fingertips about midway along the shaft, then drew them slowly down and then back up the length of him. It was nothing, a touch of so little consequence, and yet it made him tighten and harden even more. He had to touch himself, to squeeze himself as though in warning, to try and control the intensity of his reaction. If the lightest of touches could spin him so out of control, what would the feel of her kiss do to him?
“No. Let me,” she scolded him softly, taking his hand and drawing it away. Then she imitated the touch he’d used, squeezing him at the base of his cock.
“Jesus,” he groaned, his hand feeling lost in the open air until he finally rested it atop her head, his fingers burrowing into the dark roots. Be gentle, he warned himself. Doona hurt her.
She was, he decided, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Not just because of what she was doing to him, but because she was genuinely beautiful, with her bourbon eyes and her mink-colored hair, her berry-red lips and lightly freckled pale skin. He was glad she couldn’t be touched by the sun. He wouldn’t trade her porcelain prettiness for all the world.
She wrapped her hand fully around him, drawing up to her fullest height on her knees. But their heights were so disparate that she could not reach him. All he would get was the feel of her breath washing over him. Slowly, allowing her to continue to keep him in her wee hand, he knelt down, his knees spreading wide on either side of hers. She smiled at him and he thought he might die from the way it made him feel. He felt suddenly invincible. Oh, he had learned what it meant to feel invulnerable as a powerful Gargoyle, but with the smallest of courtesies she made him feel that he was able to conquer worlds. She leaned forward drawing him up to her lips. At the last moment she stuck out her tongue and touched it to him instead of just kissing him with her lips. Light exploded into his vision and he was convinced the only thing possibly better was when he was deep inside of her.
She slowly licked him, as if he were a piece of hard candy, and everything in his body grew tenser and tighter as pleasure washed over him. His hand in her hair fisted against her scalp, crushing strands into submission. It was an attempt to keep himself from pushing her forward in an endeavor to hasten her torture to a better point of pleasure. But he didn’t want to make her do anything before she was ready. Not when everything was so new and he didn’t yet know all of her boundaries as a lover. But he was learning more and more as every second ticked by.
She licked him down to the base of his shaft and then back up several times, each stroke bringing more nerves alive than he’d ever realized he had. Her tongue toyed against the head, sweeping away the welling fluid that seeped from it more and more with each passing moment.
“Gods above, Kat lass, you’re killing me.”
That made her smile with an unholy satisfaction. And that made him all the more impatient to have her. He was just about to grab her and throw her to the floor when suddenly she opened her mouth and took him inside with a sweep of her tongue.
Had she said spectacular? It was stellar. Utter nirvana. Now he knew he had never felt anything like it in his life. What made it so different? What was it that brought him to his knees even though he was already kneeling to her?
Kat. It was all Kat. She was beyond everything a woman should be. So brave in the face of what she had thought of as a crippling disease, making her way in the world as best she could when the world looked at her with cruel, judgmental eyes. She had hidden away to protect herself, and yet it was a defiance, too. A way of saying she could live her life on her own terms and screw what everyone else thought.
And yet he knew she thought she was weak. That she had let them win by forcing her to run and hide. He saw it differently. Very differently. And her bravery and brilliance was just as bold as the way she held him in her mouth.
“Kat … oh, my sweet Kat, you have tae stop,” he groaned, as she worked him into her mouth again and again and yet again. “You’ll have me spending in another minute and I want tae be inside you when I do.”
She responded by moving quicker, taking him deeper, sucking at him a little harder. Now both of his hands were clutching into her hair and in spite of himself he was beginning to thrust up against her palate more and more with every second.
“Kat, I’m going tae—” He was going to come. He knew it with barely an instant before she made it happen. He roared out with pleasure, letting go of her so she could move free of him if she chose to. But she did not. She took everything from him. His seed. His pleasure. His sanity. He was humbled by it, even as he was drained by it. He was sucking for air, barely able to keep upright on his knees as she pulled away from him at last. He nearly fell over at the sight of the bright satisfaction in her eyes. She was entirely pleased with herself, and had every right to be.
He reached for her, turned her onto her back on the floor, threw a leg over her, and went nose to nose with her.
“Your turn,” he rumbled fiercely.
He kissed her then, thrilling at the taste of himself on her tongue, sensual and salty and sweet all at once. When he came up for air she was flushed and pretty and all things irresistible. “Come and give us that tongue again,” he said before touching his lips to hers and kissing her as deeply as he already had, and yet it felt as if he never had before. It was like that every time he kissed her.
And that was when he realized he was falling. Fast. Too fast. And too hard.
Panic touched him. He couldn’t do this. Compared to her with her kindness, generosity, and boundless bravery, he had very little to offer her. Danger? Threat? A life where he would risk his life day in and day out to protect the lives of others with no regard for himself and the woman who would be waiting for him to return?
He drew away from her. From her mouth, from her entire body, rising up on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.
“What is it?” she asked, sitting up and looking at him with innocent, questioning eyes.
“I have to … There’s some
thing … I forgot to …” All of it fell flat as he grabbed his pants off the floor and pulled them on with as much haste as was possible. “I’ll be back soon,” he said once he was fully dressed. But it was a lie. He couldn’t come back. He couldn’t risk the emotions he knew were building inside of him. They were not his to give. His life, his duty, had been given up to Menes, the man he had sworn to protect in exchange for the energy he so willingly provided to his touchstone.
No. He had nothing to give her except maybe sex and amusement, but it had gone beyond that already. He had to be honest with himself and admit it. He could only pray it had not gone beyond it for Kat as well. She wasn’t a casual sort of woman. She took these things very seriously. She would not give herself to any man lightly. If he had learned anything about her it was that she didn’t do things lightly.
Even as he walked out the door, unable to meet her eyes or even look at her face, he knew he was hurting her. She didn’t realize it yet, but he was hurting her. But there was nothing he could do about that.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It wasn’t until twenty minutes had passed before Kat began to get the picture that Ahnvil wasn’t coming back. Well, she thought, perhaps he’s being held up by something important. Or maybe he’d sensed some kind of threat. Hadn’t someone told her that Gargoyles had a built in alarm system that had them sensing threats before they even fully materialized?
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