She relaxed a little and let him take some of the strain, anchoring her both physically and mentally. It was wonderful to have someone to lean on. To have someone to trust. Maybe this responsibility wouldn’t be so bad.
“You’re doing well, Ruby. Hang on,” he said. He felt solid, strong, and reliable, and she wondered how she’d ever managed without him.
A small knot of spectators had gathered on the landing. Michael was staring out an upstairs window. “Pissed-off Seelie hunter incoming,” he shouted. There was a grin in his voice.
The front door crashed and rattled as if someone had kicked it. “Get out here, Mistress, or I’m coming in,” Kade shouted.
Nightshade released Ruby. She angled her back to the wall so that she had a better view of the room just in time to see a fist smash through the stained-glass window at the side of the door.
“Feather-butt is too scared to come in,” Nightshade shouted in a singsong voice. He’d positioned himself in the center of the foyer, arms loose at his sides, an expectant smile on his face.
The words were barely out of his mouth when the front door burst open. Kade leapt through, but he hadn’t considered the dimensions of the opening. His wings caught, and he had to duck and twist to wriggle through. Red–faced, he cursed, his gaze fixing on his specter.
“How dare you,” he spat. “Trapping a specter is forbidden.”
“Tough luck,” Ruby spat back. “Why did you kill my mother? What did she ever do to you?”
She heard those watching snatch in startled breaths. Kade reared back, nostrils flared. “You read that from my specter?”
Ruby didn’t bother to answer, simply stared him down.
“Your mother talked to mine. She would have told you how powerful you were.”
“And you wanted to keep me ignorant till you were ready to use me.” A wave of anger and disbelief crashed over Ruby. “You really are a selfish bastard.”
“I’m your father. That gives me rights.”
“The right to kill people? Maybe in the Scottish Seelie Court,” Ruby said. “You need to invest in satellite navigation, Father. This is the Cornish piskies’ domain. You have no rights here.”
Niall emerged from a side corridor, a glinting crystal blade in his hand, his face a stony mask of anger. He stepped up beside Nightshade and pinned Kade with a frigid glare that reminded Ruby of Troy. “You’re not welcome here!” he snapped.
“Meet the pisky king,” Ruby said. “By the way, your specter attacked the pisky queen, so you might want to apologize.”
Kade’s gaze flitted arrogantly from Niall up to Michael on the landing. “By-blows of the Deathless One,” he said derisively.
Niall produced a second crystal dagger, his expression darkening, while Michael ambled down the stairs, grinning.
“Shall I call me father to join us? He loves a good scrap,” Michael said.
Kade snorted in supposed disgust, but he didn’t quite carry it off. “Release my thought form.”
“Or what?” Nightshade demanded.
Kade took a threatening step toward Ruby, but Nightshade moved swiftly to intercept. “Don’t even think about hurting my woman.”
“Your woman!” Kade’s gaze skipped to Ruby. Disbelief, then anger, flashed across his face. “You’ve bonded yourself to the nightstalker? I heard you were bonded to the Unseelie king!”
“That’s your fault as well. If I’d known then what I was, none of that would have happened. Get out of here! And stay away from me,” she shouted.
“Foolish girl. You have no concept of what you could do with your power.” Kade’s fists clenched and released, his wings trembling. He seemed to hesitate. Then he drew himself up straight and his wings flared out. “Forget the nightstalker. Come with me, Ruby. I’ll help you take over the Seelie Court. Together we can rule all of Scotland.”
Stunned silence hung in the air, broken after a few seconds by Nightshade’s growl.
“That’s enough!” Nightshade leapt at Kade, Niall hot on his heels. The Seelie hunter tried to sidestep, but his wings caught on the furniture and he couldn’t avoid the foot Nightshade slammed into his crystal breastplate. With a dull ringing like a cracked bell, Ruby’s father stumbled into a table. A vase of roses crashed to the floor. Nightshade and Niall grabbed Kade beneath the arms and hurled him out the door, white feathers scattering on the breeze.
Ruby hadn’t known exactly how she would punish Kade, but now an idea came to her. If he aspired to control the whole of Scotland, he was more of a threat than she’d thought. She didn’t care who ruled the Seelie Court, but despite the way Twister had treated her, she did care about the Unseelie king. If she weakened Kade, it would punish him and deter him from taking over Twister’s domain. She dragged Kade’s specter outside and ripped the leash joining it to him.
She opened her net, and the ghostlike form made of Kade’s life force expanded and drifted away on the air like smoke. Kade whimpered like an animal in pain and fell to his knees. He turned glassy, shocked eyes upon her. Bruises and red blotches appeared on his perfect skin, the sheen left his golden hair, and his pristine white wings faded to grubby gray. With the loss of so much life force, he obviously couldn’t maintain his glamour and she was shocked by his true appearance.
“How could you do that to me?” he whispered.
“You’re lucky that’s all I did!”
He visibly composed himself and scrambled inelegantly to his feet. She was comforted by a sudden knowledge that he’d take a long time to replenish his lost life force and regain the power to become dangerous again.
His gaze skated over the watchers who crowded in the doorway. “You’ve not heard the last of me.”
“Yes, we have,” Nightshade replied in a voice edged with violence.
Kade jumped skyward with a huge flap of his wings, his face contorting with the effort. When he was safely airborne and out of their reach, he shouted, “I have a powerful ally!” He threw a small bolt of lightning, which sizzled pathetically in a puddle.
“Good for you,” Ruby replied. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
* * *
Nightshade took Ruby to her room and lay with her until she slept, but he couldn’t settle down; the sense of her flowed through him, setting every nerve ending alive with desire. He wanted to bite her and make love with her and . . . something more, but he wasn’t sure what. Ever since they’d traded Magic Knots he’d felt as though there was something he’d forgotten to do.
He trod quietly back down the stairs, heading for the kitchen. He poured a glass of milk and ate a bar of chocolate standing at the counter, staring out the window at the star-speckled sky.
A rush of awareness prickled up his spine, and he turned to see a figure materialize by the door, gleaming in scarlet and gold. “Troy. I sensed you before you arrived.”
“We still have a blood bond, my friend.” The immortal beckoned. “Come to me.”
The words carried only a trace of compulsion. Nightshade could have refused, but he stepped forward anyway. Troy’s hand gripped the back of his neck and pulled him close. Nightshade inhaled the immortal’s unique fragrance of sun on ice, crisp and clean, and remembered biting him at the Gathering of Kith and Kin. Had it only been a few weeks ago? So much had changed, including his burning desire to dominate Troy with the ecstasy of his bite. The piquant dash of fear that added spice to the encounter had faded, too. The only person he wanted to bite now was Ruby.
Troy pulled Nightshade closer and pressed their cheeks together. “I sense your bond with Ruby is complete. You have chosen well,” he said softly.
The silence stretched as Troy’s breath brushed his neck. Then: “I offer you the advice that should have come from your father. Search deep inside yourself for the unique instinct that drives a nightstalker. There is a bloodless bite shared only with your bond mate. It’s called the Ruby Kiss.” He laughed. “Ironic considering her name.”
The Ruby Kiss? Troy’s words fizzed th
rough Nightshade’s brain, sparking deeply buried instincts. A compulsion he didn’t understand bubbled up: He needed to build somewhere safe and private where he and Ruby wouldn’t be disturbed.
Troy released his neck, along with an exhalation of regret. “I wish you both well,” he whispered. Then he stepped back, touched two fingers to his brow and disappeared.
All his young life, Nightshade had yearned for his father to come for him and take him away. But when his father did finally arrive it had been to hurt him and destroy the happiness he had won for himself. How strange, that Troy, whom he’d feared at first, then yearned to dominate, should now take the role of a mentor, a father figure. In Ruby and Troy he had found what he had been missing.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-one
The next morning, Ruby learned she was going to be left alone. Nightshade announced he had a job to do and departed Trevelion Manor. Rose and Cordelia kept giving her secret looks, and Michael was grinning with a twinkle in his eye, but none of them would tell her where her nightstalker had gone.
He couldn’t be far away because she could still feel him through their bond, his enthusiasm and excitement. Even when he wasn’t by her side she no longer felt alone.
She was in the garden two nights later, sketching the rocky coastline at twilight when he returned, dropped unheralded out of the sky. Lifting her in his arms, he spun her around. “I have a surprise for you,” he announced, grinning.
A frisson of excitement raced through Ruby, and she ignored the fact that he hadn’t even said hello. “So, what is it?” She had guessed he was doing something for them but had no idea what.
“You’ll have to wait and see. Wrap up warm.”
She grabbed a sweater from her room, then Nightshade picked her up and leapt into the chilly twilight sky, his wings beating down. Ruby snuggled against his chest, enjoying his heat and the feel of his muscles working beneath his skin. Warm light glowed from the windows of Stigy Mill, the house Niall had loaned them, like a beacon in the shadowy countryside below.
Nightshade dropped carefully to the ground outside the back door of the house and stood her on her feet. “Ready for a unique experience?” he asked, closing his wings with a snap.
Her eyebrows rose. They’d shared every intimate experience she could think of. What did he have in mind now? She was no longer as terrified as she once was of the unknown, and she tingled with imaginings of new pleasures he might bring her.
“As long as it doesn’t involve dragons or shape-shifters,” she quipped. “Or Troy,” she added more seriously.
“No, just the two of us.” Nightshade rubbed his hands together nervously, and a spike of apprehension shot down Ruby’s spine.
He placed a hand on her back and directed her through the quaint house toward the stairs. Up them, on the landing, he pushed open the bedroom door. Short fat white candles burned on the windowsills and cupboards, the soft, flickering light giving a lovely romantic atmosphere. But there Ruby stopped dead.
The mattress was on the floor. At first glance she thought Nightshade had erected a weird tent on it; then she realized it was a huge ball of fabric. She peered closer and identified sheets, blankets, towels, comforters, a duvet or two, and curtains. She could even see a blue fish on the corner of a bathmat. She experienced the same strange surreal sensation as the night he’d first dropped through her roof into her life.
“What do you think?” He stared at her, eager for her reaction. The touch of vulnerability in his silver eyes tugged at her heart, but she still didn’t understand. She nodded dumbly, words escaping her. She hadn’t been expecting a diamond ring, but . . .
“Do you like it?”
“Hmm. It’s . . . big. It must have taken you a while to . . . build.”
“Do you want to go inside?”
“Inside?” She peered more closely at the ball of material. The fabric was woven together leaving an opening on the side nearest the bedstead. She walked closer and bent to get a better look. Was this some kind of regression to childhood and he’d made them a fort?
Ruby put her arms around him and kissed his chest. “Nightshade, I’m new at all this fairy stuff, remember. I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s our love nest,” he said.
“Our love nest?” She was starting to sound like a parrot, so perhaps a nest was just what she needed. She stared at the giant ball some more, a bit taken aback by his obvious pride. “You sure there’s enough room in there for both of us?”
He grinned, shimmying against her suggestively. “We’ll be pressed together. We don’t need much room.”
She clung to him, unable to take her eyes off the massive rag ball. She couldn’t imagine Twister, Devin, or Troy balling up the contents of a linen cupboard to make a love nest, so she guessed this was probably a nightstalker thing. That meant Nightshade would be ultrasensitive about it.
“It looks very soft and comfortable,” she finally managed.
“It is. I tried it out before I brought you over. I can lie on my back inside there without hurting my wings!”
“Right.” She smiled and nodded, wondering when someone was going to jump out with a camera and start laughing.
She took another step toward it and crouched to check the space inside. The word sardine flitted through her mind, but she had to admit it would be fun crushed up against him naked. It always was.
“We won’t have room to undress in there. Shall we take off our clothes first?” she suggested.
He grinned, a flash of white teeth against the gleaming ebony of his skin. “Good idea.”
As his fingers went to the buttons on his jeans, suddenly she didn’t care if he wanted her to climb inside a rag ball. They could end up anywhere as long as he would always be with her. How different things were from the night they first met when she’d wanted one night of passion with no strings.
She dragged her sweater over her head and her shirt followed. Nightshade undid his boots and kicked them off by the door; then he stripped out of his jeans. Quivering inside with anticipation, she stared at his sculpted muscular body. He was so incredibly gorgeous she would never get enough of him.
He sauntered over, a sexy grin on his face. “You’ve still got too many clothes on,” he whispered by her ear.
“I’m waiting for you to help me out of them.”
He rumbled a growl deep in his chest, sending shivers of arousal through her. He slid his hands behind her back and released her bra, then cupped her breasts and stroked his thumbs across her nipples.
“Hmm, a little better,” he allowed. “But you’re still wearing too much.”
His hands grazed down her belly, sending tingles racing over her skin to focus on the tight demanding heat between her legs. He crouched, trailing kisses over her belly before he dragged her jeans and panties to the ground. She stepped out of them, her fingers threading through his hair.
“I could get used to having you at my feet ready to do my bidding,” she commented.
“Your wish is my command, Ruby love. But first I want to try out our love nest.”
Swiveling on his knees, he crawled into the ball of fabric, giving her a view of his muscular backside that wiped all other thought from her mind. Ruby had to suck in a deep breath before she remembered how her legs worked. She crawled in through the hole into the shadowy warm nest, and he pulled her against him so that her back fitted snugly to his front, his erection pressed against her bottom. A slow simmering heat started in her belly and spiraled up.
“So, do you like our love nest?” he asked. “Hmm?”
Coherent thought escaped her as his hand slid down her belly to that aching place she longed to be touched. His teeth tickled her neck and she tilted her head, yearning for the erotic pain of his bite.
“Oh, Nightshade.”
Ruby closed her eyes as the pleasure from his stroking fingers built inside her, but she wanted to touch him as well. She turned to face him, their bodies jammed together in the
tight, soft space. She hooked a leg over his thigh and wriggled to make herself comfortable, drawing a groan from him. His lips found hers in a devouring kiss.
She flattened her palm against the bulging pectoral muscle over his heart, feeling the rapid thud behind his ribs, and let her consciousness expand to meld with his. Beneath her lowered eyelids, she saw ropes of energy winding around them, joining them together and meshing into the structure of the love nest to surround them with a glowing sphere. Maybe there was more to Nightshade’s creation than she’d thought. There was so much yet to discover about Nightshade’s world, about her power.
“I love you, Nightshade,” Ruby whispered, her sense of self dissolving into the expanded swirling energy around them. She held him tightly, and for long moments they just lay in each other’s arms.
Nightshade rolled onto his back and pulled her astride, a position they hadn’t tried before, as a normal mattress hurt his wings. This seemed to have solved that problem. She rubbed against him, their shared rush of pleasure melting her bones.
“I’ve fantasized about having you on top,” he whispered.
“I thought you’d want to stay in control.”
“I am in control.” He gave her a feral grin.
Ruby lifted her hips, and he angled his arousal for her to sink down atop. He swept his hand up her spine to her neck. But as she started to move, he pulled her down for a long hungry kiss, then grazed his teeth on her collarbone. A breathy murmur of pleasure escaped her.
“Bite me.” She yearned for the pleasure-pain that transported her to bliss, though she knew he wouldn’t take blood from her again as he’d done so only the night before last.
“I want to give you The Ruby Kiss,” he whispered instead.
The Ruby Kiss? “Is that a special name you’ve made up for biting me?”
“No, that’s what it’s called. It’s a little different from a normal bite,” he whispered. He rolled her over, moving atop her, keeping himself buried within her and pushing her down into the softness of the nest he’d built. She wrapped her legs around him and dug her heels into his buttocks. “So, do you want to try it?”
The Ruby Kiss Page 27