Warders, Volume One
Page 29
“You are not allowed to speak to—”
I grabbed his forearm, and instantly he screamed from the contact. He shoved me back hard, and I fought for balance, hitting the wall hard, stunned for a moment. When my vision cleared, I saw him holding his injured arm; saw the blisters on his skin, the welts on the palm of this other hand, which he had used to push me off him.
“I may not be able to touch you, hearth, but I can pierce your heart with a sword, sever your head from your shoulders with my ax.”
And I watched in amazement as he morphed from his magazine perfection to the ax-wielding barbarian. He roared as he came at me, and I ran. Halfway across the room, my wrist was yanked hard, and I was pulled into what felt like a closet. It was small and cramped, and I was suddenly face to face with Raphael the kyrie.
“Hiya,” he said as he smirked at me.
“Holy shit,” I gasped, looking at him, my face inches from his. “What’re you… how?”
“It’s called the tomb of Osiris,” he told me, pointing away from him.
I jolted, realizing that the demon was right there beside me, and my hands fisted as I prepared to defend myself.
“Calm down,” the kyrie said, his tone patronizing.
I realized then that even though I could see the demon, he could not see me. I watched with huge eyes as he walked around us, sniffed, and reached through me before roaring out his frustration and charging out of the room. “How?” I exhaled sharply, turning back to Raphael.
“It’s why it took Isis so long to find her dead husband. Their brother Set, he put all the pieces in one of these and spread ’em all over every plane of hell he could get to.”
I just stared at him.
“What?”
“You’re telling me that that myth, that myth is real?”
“Pieces of every myth are real,” he said, squinting at me. “You know that.”
“I don’t know that.”
“How come?”
“Because I don’t live in your world with demons and strange worlds and—”
“Don’t you?” he challenged me, arching an eyebrow.
I went mute as I realized he was absolutely right.
“I never get you hearths. You go around thinking that somehow or other you can pretend like everything is how it’s always been, all normal, even after you know all about the things that go bump in the night. Why do you do that?”
“To stay sane.”
“Isn’t it better to be ready? To know what could happen? Be prepared?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should figure it out.”
He had a point.
“But this is cool, right?” Raphael waggled his eyebrows at me. “The tomb of Osiris is the shit.”
The man was astounding.
“You wanna know how it works?”
He enjoyed his own power, that was obvious. “Sure.”
“Well, see, you come in one door, and if we open the one behind us, we’re in limbo. So we’re not gonna do that.”
“How long can we stay in here?”
“Only a few minutes before the door just sort of dissolves by itself and we’ll be transported to purgatory.”
“Is that bad?”
“It’s not bad bad; it’s where I was created, after all, but there’s nothing to do there but wait, and most people go nuts just hangin’ out.”
“How did you leave?”
“I’m made to get out,” he said, like I was stupid. “I’m a kyrie; we hunt across planes, dimensions, rings. It’s what we’re designed for.”
“So if you’re here, does that mean warders can be here?”
“Yeah, no.” He shook his head. “Only demons and kyries in siphon worlds.”
“That makes no sense, Leith is here.”
“Sorry, lemme rephrase, no warders that still know they’re warders. Your boy is changed, he has no idea what he is or who he is beyond this place.”
“He knows me.”
“He knows what’s primal; he knows you belong to him, but that’s all. He has no idea who he is or even what his name is, and that’s why he can be here. He’s a creature of the pit now, not your warder.”
“He’s still mine.”
“Fine, whatever.”
“How are we going—”
“Shit,” he groaned, shoving me forward.
I felt wind on my back before I was suddenly in the room again, standing on a large fur.
“I have to pay closer attention,” he said as he exhaled, grinning at me. “That could’ve been bad.”
My eyes found his. He was unbelievable. My savior was a five-year-old boy in a man’s body. “Do you have a plan to get us out of here?”
“Kinda.”
“Kinda?”
“I have an option for you.”
I threw up my hands. “And what is that?”
“I know where the cliff is, but you’ve got to get everyone to it.”
“I’m sorry?” Talking to him was exhausting.
“Cliff,” he repeated like I was impaired.
“Cliff?”
“Yeah, cliff.”
“What cliff?” I snapped at him.
“Why’re you yelling?”
“Just—what cliff?”
“The edge of this dimension, the jumping-off point.” He grinned at me. “I found it.”
He really was much too cheerful for my peace of mind. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”
The way he went silent led me to believe he was actually contemplating my question.
“Well?”
He tipped his head. “I have something I want that helping you will get me closer to, so yeah… I can be serious.”
“What do you want?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Tell me.”
Quick puff of air from him. “I want a warder.”
“Do you have one in mind?”
“Why, yes, I do.”
I swallowed hard. “My warder?”
His face scrunched up like he’d bit into a lemon. “Are you kidding? There’s no evil in that man, no blackness. How could I want him?”
“Malic,” I said, because he was the hardest, angriest man I knew.
He snorted. “Have you seen Malic with his hearth? That man is as tame as a kitten.”
I would take his word for it. Malic Sunden still scared the hell out of me. Though after my day trip to the siphon world, I would have to re-evaluate what really gave me chills.
“I don’t—Jackson,” I said softly, because I suddenly remembered our conversation from four days ago. “I saw you grab him, save him from falling in when the façade fell. He’s the one who asked you to find me.”
His eyes glazed, and I saw the wicked grin. “Yes.”
“But he has a hearth.”
“Does he?”
Didn’t he? I had met Frank Sullivan many times myself. “You can’t kill his hearth.”
“I don’t need to.” He shook his head. “Warders are hard to keep and even harder to love. A hearth must be strong to the core, and Frank Sullivan is weak. I cannot take what is freely offered.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And you don’t need to,” he told me. “Just listen, because I can’t stay. It’s hard to remain here and keep my baser nature in check.”
I saw it then, the beads of sweat on his forehead, talons where his fingers should have been. “You’re changing.”
“I am.” He nodded, but he gave me a smile that showed off his extended canines that somehow were not scary in the least. “Now, ten miles east of here is the edge of this dimension. You must leap from the cliff within two weeks’ time, and that will take you back to the hotel.”
“What? I don’t—how can going down be up?”
He cleared his throat. “Have you ever gone scuba diving?”
It was the weirdest subject change ever. “Yes,” I sighed, really annoyed and trying hard not to let him hear it.
“Sure. You just have to stop and watch which way your bubbles go.”
“Precisely. This is the same thing. You’re actually upside down, and you just can’t tell.”
“And so leaping down will actually be leaping up.”
“Yes, but this world isn’t stagnant like yours. It will change, fold in on itself, and then there will be no out, just a jump to another plane and then another and another. You’ll be lost if you don’t get home soon. The window to your home is very small.”
“Two weeks is not a definite timeline.”
“It’s all I can give you.”
“So what you’re really saying is that we should go as soon as we can.”
“I would.”
I absorbed what he was telling me. “Okay.”
“Keep in mind, as well, that the longer you remain here, the harder it will be for you to convince others to leave. Even now, your friend, what’s-his-name, the one who was changed into a wolf, he’s gone. He can’t come back from that change. You’ll have to leave him here.”
“But why did he change to begin with?”
“It’s his nature. Whatever truly lives in the heart will come forth with the demon’s bite. Your friend Chale—had he been bitten, you don’t know what would have happened.”
“But all the people who were bitten and didn’t change—”
“Their humanity is strong. It doesn’t make them saints; they just know who they are.”
“Like when a hypnotist tries to put you under but you remember your name so they can’t.”
“Sure,” he grunted.
“Ten miles east,” I reiterated, because I heard the raspy sound to his voice. His eyes were darkening, his smile changing from friendly to carnivorous. “Edge of a cliff.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been here a while, watching me,” I said, because from everything he knew, everything he’d commented on, no other conclusion could be drawn. “Thank you.”
“I wish I could move you, but you’re too far down for me to wormhole you out. Even Jael couldn’t bring you out from this depth.”
“That’s okay; you gave me the way out, now I just have to convince everyone to go with me.”
“Use your gifts, Simon, your natural gifts.”
I had no idea what those were.
“And Leith, make him follow you,” he said, as he winced with pain.
“I’m gonna try my best. Is there going to be a displacement wave when you leave, will Saudrian know you were here?”
“He saw me before the façade fell, and my scent is in this room now; he’ll know I was here.”
“He’ll hunt you down.”
I got a flashing grin. “He’ll try.”
“But, is there gonna be a wave or whatever? What’ll happen?”
“No, there’s no wave in a hell dimension, only on your plane. I can just leave from here like demons can come and go from your world.”
“That’s not comforting,” I told him.
“But that’s why people have warders,” he said with a grimace, “to protect them.”
“Go, go, go,” I urged him, seeing the pain on his face. “Hurry.”
The muscles in his jaw corded, and I saw the veins in his neck bulge before he closed his eyes and disappeared. I wondered for a second what a kyrie wanted with a warder before Leith stepped through the door wearing what looked like a mink coat with a huge collar. I rushed across the room and flung myself at him.
He clutched me tight, head in my hair, rubbing his cheek on the top of my head.
“I missed you,” I told him.
He rumbled deep in his chest, speaking words—maybe Latin, maybe ancient Greek; I wasn’t sure—and slowly removed my cloak.
I looked up into his face and wrapped my arms around his neck. He bent to kiss me, and I felt his hands on my ass, cupping me before I was lifted up, held tight to his chest as he crossed the room to his bed.
He lay down, stretching languidly under me as I straddled his thighs. In either form the man took, the lean, toned, sinewy-muscled man I was used to or this new buffed-out Adonis, he was the same when he touched me: gentle, reverent. His hands wound into my hair, pushing it back from my face, and I saw the awe as he looked at my eyes. He was speaking to me softly, his voice deep and growly as I leaned down to kiss him.
He opened for me, moaning urgently into my mouth, and I felt his huge, throbbing cock pressing against me. I tried to lift my mouth from his to ask where the oil was, but he caught my bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled, holding me there. When I felt his hands on my ass cheeks, spreading them slowly, and then a finger slide into my cleft, I realized that the oil was somewhere beside his bed.
Leith pushed inside me with his slippery digit, rubbing, pressing, before adding a second that came with more oil. Tenderly, he prepared me, stroking deeper each time until he bent his finger forward and eased over my gland. It felt amazing, as did the strong hand he wrapped around my lust-hardened cock.
I leaned forward, away from his fingers, only to push back down onto them, driving them further inside me. The second time I rose up, when I lowered myself, a third finger was added, filling me and coaxing a choked whimper from him as my hands dug into his chest.
“Leith,” I barely got out his name, moving away from him, pushing his hands away so that I could take hold of his long, hard, thick shaft. I lined it up with my clenching hole and eased down inch by inch. He filled me, stretched me, and it hurt and didn’t at the exact same time. He pushed up into me, unable not to, arching up off the bed, head back, eyes closed.
My slick, hot channel squeezed around him, held him tight, and as I levered off him only to plunge back down, his hands clasping my thighs made me groan with my own need. He felt so good. When he opened his eyes to look up at me, I saw it clearly there in his passion-clouded gaze: he loved me.
“Do you like being buried inside me?” I asked him, pushing down hard, impaling myself on his shaft.
“Simon,” he gasped, and I saw his eyes in that second of clarity.
I felt the smile explode out of me. “Yes.”
He knew me. And even though his understanding was gone a moment later, it gave me hope nonetheless and made my heart swell.
He whined in the back of his throat, and I lifted up off of him, rolling over on my back in his enormous bed.
I laughed at how fast he moved and lifted my legs for him. Reverently, he eased them over his shoulders, leaning forward and curling around me before he pushed gently against my entrance.
“No,” I ordered him, my voice low and filled with gravel. “Fuck me hard.”
He stared down into my eyes, and I pushed up so he would understand.
The first plunge took my breath away. He drove inside of me deep and fast, his cock buried to the base. It was always astounding to me that from Leith, and only ever from Leith, I craved this domination. I had never allowed anyone else but him to see me lose control, lose composure, watch me abandon all my careful restraint and lay myself bare for the taking.
He rocked into me, thrusting deeply into my clenching passage, holding my hips tight, not allowing me to move. When he changed his angle, sending the length of him rubbing over my prostate, my back bowed as I came off the bed. I heard his rumble of satisfaction as he fisted my shaft. The moment he tugged, his slick fingers gliding over my sensitized flesh, I yelled his name.
My orgasm tore through me, and semen erupted over his fingers, his wrist, and across his magnificent sculpted stomach. He fucked me through my release and then came as my muscles rippled around him, clenching him tight.
He collapsed on top of me, pinning me to the bed, his weight taking all the air from my body. I laughed in spite of the fact that I couldn’t breathe, and he whispered into my hair before h
e started to kiss me.
My mouth was savaged as he lifted up off me, kissing me hungrily, breathlessly, until I had to push him off me to suck in air.
“God, you’re gonna kill me.”
He tucked me tight against him, lifting my leg and pulling it over his hip, stroking my ass, his right arm sliding under me, curling around my back. He always liked to cuddle. On lazy Sunday afternoons, cold and rainy outside, I would be sprawled out on the couch reading a book, football on in the background, and he would suddenly be stretched out on top of me, head on my chest, eyes closed, content. The man enjoyed being close, and I would need to remember that, remember that I didn’t need to be so careful and correct and hold things in instead of sharing. I had to trust him more, and now that he was in the position to make me accept his affection, I understood how much he craved being demonstrative. I needed to thaw a little, and I would. When we got home… things would change.
As I heard the heavy sigh come up out of him, I realized how replete with happiness the man was. And while I was thrilled to be the cause, I knew that to get everyone where I needed them to be, I was going to have to scare the hell out of him. But there was no choice.
VIII
THE NEXT morning, after Leith dressed in his armor, I asked him if I could see my friends. He didn’t understand at first, but when I took his hand and put the other one out, holding it like I had been the day before, he nodded. He left me in the room alone, petting me first, stroking my hair. Minutes later, Jess appeared with a tray of food.
“Oh God.” She broke down when she saw me, dumping the platter on wooden table and rushing across the room to me.
She flung herself at me, and I caught her, tucking her onto my lap.
“I know the way home,” I told her.
She twisted around to look at my face. “How?”
“We have to get to a cliff.”
“What?” she gasped.
“You have to really listen to me now.”
The way she was looking at me, vulnerable and scared but trusting, was almost overwhelming. I had her whole life in my hands, and just for a second, I was terrified. What if I wasn’t up to the challenge?