“You tried to help me,” he murmured in his own tongue and cupped her cheek in his palm. It was cold. He rubbed it gently, trying to get some warmth back into her. “I repaid you by attacking you… and triggering this bond between us.”
A bond that relayed fragments of her emotions, enough that he could feel her confusion and how tired she was.
Bleu’s fingers shook as he brushed them through her hair, carefully working the knots out from the violet roots to the bloodstained white tips. She remained relaxed against him, not fighting his hold, not even when he found the strength to curl his left hand around her arm and draw her closer to him. He cradled her and, fuck, she was beautiful as she gazed up at him. Breathtaking.
He didn’t deserve such a beautiful female.
He averted his gaze and it settled on the reason he didn’t deserve her. Blood pooled in the gouges on the left side of her throat where he had savagely bitten her and steadily dripped onto the dirty damp floor of his cell, mingling with his.
He looked away from her and closed his eyes, shame riding him mercilessly, heart reproaching him. He had hurt her. Damn near killed her.
He swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in his throat that refused to go away.
Gods damn him.
His fingers tightened against her arm and he gritted his teeth, bit out a string of curses in the elf tongue when all he really wanted to do was scream his rage until his voice gave out. He couldn’t. If the dragon male heard him, he might come to see what was happening, and the male would surely kill him then.
What would happen to her?
Her shallow rasping breaths filled the silence, scraping in his ears, tugging all of his fear back to the surface. He was going to lose her. He screwed his eyes shut and focused on her pulse to allay that fear, listening to her heart beating steadily.
A heart he’d had to keep working through their connection.
A heart that he should have cherished enough to recognise it had been his mate he had been drinking dry.
Killing.
His throat burned. Nose stung. Eyes felt as if someone had just poured a shot of Hellfire into them. His lips peeled back off his fangs as he frowned and he ground out another curse.
Trembling cool fingers touched his cheek, icy against his burning skin, and his eyes flew open only to close a second later as realisation blazed through him, self-reproach following swiftly in its wake.
She was trying to comfort him.
The gods knew he didn’t deserve it.
He deserved her anger, her hatred.
He didn’t deserve this tenderness, this touch that came too close to affection.
Her fingers dropped lower, caressed under his jaw, and he refused to obey that silent command and look at her. He couldn’t. He screwed his eyes closed even tighter and his nostrils flared as he drew down a deep breath, trying to find his feet again when the whole world had been tossed off kilter once more.
Taryn refused to give him that moment, her fingers pressing against his jaw, firmer now.
Stronger.
He could almost feel her strength returning, trickling back into her. Any moment now, she was going to give him hell and he wouldn’t fight her. He would take whatever punishment she wanted to dish out and wouldn’t try to stop her when she walked away from him. He knew the score. He knew that what they shared wasn’t meant to be. He wasn’t the right male for her and nothing he could do would change that. He had proven it here today.
To her and to himself.
She deserved better.
He shifted his gaze to her and then back down to her throat. Crimson seeped from the wounds he had inflicted, so bright against her pale skin. It covered her chest and stained her cream corset. Drenched the side of her face, drying dark on her skin and in her hair.
Gods damn him.
He didn’t want to frighten her, but he couldn’t leave her as she was. He couldn’t deny the need to take care of her. A ridiculous need. Tending to her wasn’t going to give him the result he was looking for. It wouldn’t atone for what he had done. It had been an unforgivable act.
Even with those words ringing around his mind, he still couldn’t stop himself from carefully lifting her towards him with his left arm and lowering his head to her throat. She tensed in his arms, her heart skipping a beat and causing his to do the same.
“I will not hurt you,” he whispered in the dragon tongue and then added in his own language, the one she couldn’t understand, “I swear I will never hurt you again, Ki’ara. Never. Let me take care of you… please… for this moment… let me think of you as mine.”
Her eyes searched his, implored him to speak in a way she could grasp, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge what was happening or what it meant, that it meant anything at all. He wasn’t strong enough to bare that part of himself he had guarded for millennia.
Not when he knew she would crush him in return.
“Let me take care of you,” he murmured in the elf tongue.
She seemed to get the message from the gentleness of his voice, or perhaps she was picking up on the feelings running through him, the emotions he wasn’t quite able to conceal because he didn’t know how to control the connection between them.
If it was possible to control it at all.
She relaxed and he dropped his lips to her throat, coursed them over it and breathed her in, stealing a moment with her before he began licking the wounds to clean them and halt the flow of blood, helping them heal.
A shudder wracked him, pulling a moan up his throat that he managed to swallow back down before it could escape. She tasted divine.
Resist.
He was trying, but, fuck, she was everything sweet and light and warm and he wanted to drown in her as he lapped at her throat, running his tongue over her skin. She trembled in his arms.
Oh, dear gods, resist.
Bleu frowned and stilled, his breath washing back at him from her skin, carrying her intoxicating scent with it.
Sweet gods… even that is too much.
His left eyebrow rose.
His eyes shot wide and he pulled away from her throat and looked over his shoulder at the unconscious female near the open cell door.
Unconscious fae female.
Unconscious siren.
He had drunk deeply from her, and by stealing her blood he had temporarily stolen her abilities, a skill all elves possessed and one that was normally useful.
Not torture as it was this time.
Torture because he could hear Taryn’s thoughts in his head as if she was speaking them aloud.
He stopped.
Was it wrong that he found it intensely satisfying that she sounded disappointed?
He tried to tell himself to warn her that he could hear her, that he was prying and it was wrong of him, but for some reason the words refused to line up on his lips. Lips that wanted to caress her skin again, because now that he had tapped into her thoughts, her feelings were coming through loud and clear too.
She wanted more.
Desire to satisfy his female had him dropping his mouth back to her throat and tenderly sweeping his tongue over it. He focused on cleaning it and tending to her, and that worked, pushing thoughts of a more wicked nature to the back of his mind.
Until she moaned in his damned head.
Gods, the things this male could do to me with that tongue.
Holy fuck, she had to stop thinking like that. It would be his undoing. She was weak, had suffered heavy blood loss because of him. She should have been foggy and focused on recovering, and mad as hell at him, not thinking the sort of things that were suddenly popping into his head.
Bleu screwed his eyes closed and tried to shut down the telepathic ability.
Nothing he tried worked, and Taryn didn’t help him. He couldn’t exactly focus on stopping himself from hearing her thoughts when they were all too alluring, painting pictures in his head that had him instantly hard and aching for her despite his
healing injuries.
His skin is so warm. Would it feel hot pressed against mine, our bare flesh touching? Gods, it would. I can feel it now, stroking mine as he slides between my thighs, taking me.
A possessive growl rumbled up his throat and he couldn’t stop this one from escaping, not when he was imagining everything she was thinking, picturing them tangled together, and their incomplete bond demanded he satisfy his female.
She tensed in his arms.
Is it so wrong that I get flushed with fire whenever he growls?
“Holy fuck, Female,” Bleu snapped and pulled back, releasing her and shooting to his feet. His legs wobbled but they didn’t collapse. He pressed his palms to his groin, keeping the small scrap of black cloth over it to give himself some dignity, and paced away from her.
He needed to breathe.
No.
What he needed to do was fulfil every damn fantasy running rampant through her mind.
CHAPTER 21
Bleu stalked back towards her and caught himself at the last second, right before he was about to yank her up into his arms and kiss the breath from her, and snarled as he spun on his heel and walked away again.
His blood pounded.
He couldn’t do this. Whatever this was. She wasn’t his. They weren’t meant to be. It didn’t matter that she was his fated one. There was no future for them and the quicker he got that message, the better.
He needed more than a biological connection to her to make him belong to her. He needed something that she could never give him. Their history was too dark, too filled with pain and hatred.
She could never love him, and as much as he despised how weak it made him, love was what he needed, what he had always craved from his mate.
He stopped near the back wall of the cell, pressed his forehead against the black stone and exhaled hard.
All of his dreams of his ki’ara had been centred around her loving him.
Taryn had made it clear more than once that what she felt for him was quite the opposite.
Her trying to help him meant nothing. It was probably just her instincts as his fated female making her behave that way. Not her feelings for him.
Gods, his bottom is incredible.
He gritted his teeth and pretended that thought didn’t rub his ego the right way. It didn’t prove that she felt anything other than hatred or that it wasn’t her instincts making her protect him.
But then… every inch of him is incredible.
That sultry low whisper in his mind, almost a purr of approval, rubbed him the right way so hard that he was solid as a rock and tenting the tiny piece of black material around his hips. Holy fuck, he was either weak from everything he had been through and had no control over himself because of it or she had a wicked way with words that worked magic on him. He looked down at his raging erection and huffed when his heart supplied that it was the latter. He was stronger now, his wounds already knitting back together thanks to the siren’s and her blood, and very much in control of himself.
Scratch that. She was very much in control.
My throat feels better. I am stronger. I should tell him and ease his concern… but I think I would rather remain here admiring the view. Perhaps I could say something to make him look around… then I can take in all that masculine beauty he wears so well.
Bleu whirled to face her, hands dropping to cover his groin as the piece of black cloth threatened to fall off.
“Empty your mind,” he snapped, because her thoughts were both a wicked pleasure and sheer torture.
Her eyes gradually widened.
A fierce blaze burned up her pale cheeks.
Dear gods he can hear me!
She scooted backwards, her embarrassment flowing through their link to him, and didn’t stop until she was far away from him, her back pressing against the bars of the cell near the door.
As far from him as she could get.
That seemed to be the story of his long life.
The moment whatever was happening between him and a female stopped, they distanced themselves.
He couldn’t remember ever spending the night with a woman tucked in his arms. Maybe it had happened. Maybe not.
He felt sure he would have remembered it though, that it would have been special and would have seared itself on his mind forever.
What would Taryn feel like in his arms?
Would she feel as good as she had a moment ago, her body cushioning his, tucked close? Her soft breaths filling his ears and telling him he wasn’t alone?
Gods, he could easily imagine passing the long hours of darkness watching her sleep peacefully, safely tucked up in his arms.
He kept his right hand over his groin but shoved the fingers of his left one through his hair, yanking it back. What the hell was wrong with him?
He smiled wryly. Wasn’t that the perfect question to sum up his life?
What was so wrong with him that no one could love him?
He wanted to slide down the wall to sit with his back pressed against it but if he gave in to the urge, he was liable to flash his private parts at the female. He wasn’t sure whether it would please or shock her.
He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
He just wanted to find his feet again. His place, if he was honest with himself. His purpose.
He stared across the cell at her, a sea of blood-soaked black flagstones separating them. Her violet-to-white eyes locked with his, the rosy hue on her cheeks grew darker, and she dropped her gaze to her knees.
“I’m sorry,” he said in her language and she jerked her head back up, her eyes enormous and sweet heart-shaped lips parted. He cast his gaze down at his bare feet. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“Tenak drugged you,” she whispered and it felt so good to hear her voice again that he wanted to moan.
All that came out was a growl as he thought about what her brother had done to him.
She grabbed the bars of the cell and pulled herself onto her feet, held them as she tested her legs, moving a few steps back and forth along the wall. When she looked across at him, she was a different female. Stronger. Darker. Her anger rolled over him, swept through his blood, and he had to wonder.
Could she feel the connection he had forged between them?
Was she aware of what he had done by biting her?
A sound came from above and her head snapped up, eyes scanning the stone ceiling, breath stilling as she searched for the source of the noise. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling too and listened hard, the pointed tips of his ears twitching as he tried to pinpoint where it had come from.
“Tenak will return,” she said, her voice stronger now, a commanding edge to it that he found he liked too much.
It stirred wicked thoughts, memories of his dreams of her, and he had to fight to keep his feet planted to the ground, stopping himself from crossing the room and making those dreams come true.
A frown flickered on her brow, her cheeks darkened another shade, and she slid her eyes down to him.
Pierced him with a look that said she didn’t need to be telepathic to know his thoughts.
Damn.
Maybe she was aware of the connection between them after all.
“We must go.” She shuffled to the unconscious female, crouched and checked her pulse.
Bleu just stared at her, sure he had heard her wrong. The cold that stole over him, pushing all of the softer feelings from his heart and hardening it, said that he had heard her right.
“I cannot leave.” He shook his head and shifted his focus back to the ceiling. “I have to retrieve the sword.”
There was no way that he could leave it in the hands of her brother. The male was a maniac. Far worse than Vail had ever been. With the sword in his possession, he could fulfil his twisted fantasy of bringing all of Hell to its knees.
“Neither of us are in any fit state to battle my brother,” she snapped and rose to her feet, turned and glared at him. “Deny it if you dare.”
It was the darkness.
He could feel it trickling through him still, a deadly undercurrent in his blood that stirred dangerous thoughts that would pierce his mind from time to time, black urges that pushed him to do things he found repulsive whenever the darkness’s hold on him faded.
It was only Taryn’s blood keeping it at bay right now, restoring the light in his soul whenever the darkness rose to steal control.
The effect she had on him could shatter at any moment and he knew without a doubt that the darkness would seize command again if it did. He needed time to master it again and purge it from his soul. Fighting her brother would do the opposite. He would need to draw on his full strength in order to win against the dragon male, and that meant tapping into the darkness.
He would end up giving it a stronger grip on him, giving it more control over him, and he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to come back from that.
Or whether he would end up tainted.
Possibly even lost.
Taryn turned towards the open cell door and paused there with her back to him.
“I will have to bide my time,” she whispered and her fists clenched at her sides. “When I am stronger, I can return to free the others and deal with my brother.”
Bleu stared at her as those words sank in and he realised that she hadn’t come to this place to join forces with her brother.
She had come here to destroy him.
He couldn’t believe it.
“Was taking down your brother the reason you stole the blade in the first place?” His voice was surprisingly strong in his ears, no longer rough and scratchy. He rubbed his throat, found it no longer hurt to touch it, and then looked down at his body, expecting to find it battered.
The wounds on his torso were healing fast. Thanks to Taryn’s blood? He had heard that a mate’s blood could swiftly restore an elf’s strength, but he hadn’t expected it to be this powerful. It was incredible. Far better than the wretched medicine most elves had to take when in this condition, a concoction that could instantly heal but rolled all of the pain the person taking it would have felt during the course of naturally healing into one excruciating blast.
Possessed by a Dark Warrior Page 20