“Beautiful.” She heard Jakuta’s voice as though from a distance, still too wrapped in the ongoing delight to respond. “By the Orixás, I could watch you come all night.”
He withdrew his thumb to pass it, slick and hot, over her clit and Gràinne pressed her eyes closed even tighter, her back arching at the new, overwhelming sensation. Kissing his way up her body, Jakuta sent sparks into her skin with each impression of lips on belly, sternum, each breast, creating sharp aftershocks of pleasure.
As though released by the force of her orgasm, memories began scrolling through her mind, slowly at first then with gathering speed, each bringing with it the attendant emotions she hadn’t felt when the events first occurred. Soon the images came so swiftly they left just an impression on her closed eyelids. But her reactions lingered, piling one atop the other, growing, expanding—overwhelming. Happiness, revulsion, sadness, surprise, disgust, amusement—bombarding her until she was going insane from the onslaught.
Pain racketed through her head and she clutched her hair, trying to make it stop. She couldn’t breathe, the air sucked out of her lungs by the cacophony and visions of times long past churning in her brain. It was a cyclone, growing stronger and faster, widening, threatening to suck her under or blow her apart. In the center of the roaring mass was a black pit—silence, peace, perhaps even death. If she could get to it everything would stop, and that was all she cared about.
Gathering what strength she could, Gràinne lunged for oblivion.
Chapter Five
Gràinne was rigid, face colorless, twisted with agony, wet with tears. Jakuta shouted her name again, pressing his hands over hers, trying to stop her from tearing her hair out. Muscles locked, the straining tendons in her neck seemed ready to snap, and beneath closed lids her eyeballs jumped and rolled, as though she were living a nightmare.
He didn’t dare release his grip on her fisted fingers. Even if he did, Jakuta had no idea what to do to bring her out of whatever the hell it was she was going through.
“Gràinne!” He roared it, his heart leaping as she relaxed fractionally. “Come back to me.”
Desperation made his voice crackle with electricity and she seemed to respond, her lips parting slightly, eyelids fluttering.
“Come on.” He resisted the urge to shake her, to shout at her some more. “Come on, little one. Come back to me.”
She groaned softly, a wealth of pain in the sighing sound, but her hands grew lax beneath his and fell to her sides when he let them go. Although she was damp with perspiration she began to tremble and Jakuta pulled her close to his chest, trying to share his warmth.
“Oh Goddess, help me…” It was a raw, terror-stricken sound, and Jakuta had never felt more helpless as he did hearing her prayer.
“What happened?” Maybe it wasn’t the right time to press for answers, but he couldn’t hold the words back.
“I felt—I felt…”
The trembling increased until she was quaking in his arms, and Jakuta reached down, lifted her chin so he could meet her gaze.
“I have you.” It was all he could think to say, and all he could do was hold her, rub her back, let his concern and caring show. Maybe it was what she needed. Her body calmed, but fear and agony still clouded her eyes. Softly, insistently, he asked, “What did you feel?”
“Everything.” The single word echoed with remembered horror. “Everything.”
His heart clenched, for although he didn’t understand what she meant, her tone was enough to make him fear for her. A shudder moved through her and, suddenly aware of her nakedness and the cool air in the room, he wanted to cover her up. Not wanting to let her go, he shrugged one arm then the other out of his shirt and draped the garment around her shoulders. She pulled it close to her throat, her gaze steady on his face, searching, although what she was looking for, he couldn’t tell.
Something in her expression made his chest ache and he smoothed the tangled hair away from her face, trying to find something to say. Before he could, she said, “I heard you, calling to me.”
“Did you?” The tightness around his heart eased and he cupped her cheek, stroking away the last of her tears.
She pressed into his palm, closing her eyes for a moment, relaxing into the support of his hand. “Yes. I was going into the darkness, trying to escape, but your voice pulled me back.”
“What were you trying to get away from?”
When her lashes lifted there was evidence of a struggle reflected in her eyes. “Memories. Ones that meant nothing to me before, but suddenly filled me with all the emotions a normal being would feel seeing them. It overtook me, like a giant tornado with darkness in the center. It called to me, and I knew I might die if I went into it but tried to get to it anyway. Your voice stopped me, brought me out of the storm.”
A shiver climbed his spine at the thought of what she must have gone through. If she’d truly been around since the Great Purge, it would’ve been several millennia of emotions barraging her all at once. How the hell had she survived? Her strength was amazing.
“I’m glad I could do that for you. Darkness comes for us all eventually, but I wouldn’t want to lose you today.”
And it was surprisingly true, Jakuta realized, his knees suddenly going weak with the knowledge. It wasn’t just because of the way they responded to each other physically. There was something about Gràinne that had worked its way under his skin, become important in a ridiculously short period of time. Yet, if there was one thing he’d learned, accepted, it was that fate has a plan for every being, human, god, shapeshifter or banshee. Apparently she was a vital part of his, and he couldn’t have been more surprised or frightened by that fact if he tried.
He was no good when it came to emotional connections, protecting those in need of his strength. But he couldn’t push her away. Instead he eased her toward him, until her cheek rested on his shoulder. Gràinne sighed, snuggled up as he pressed her closer. Ah, by the Orixás, the soft, plump length of her felt good against him. Better than good, it felt right, inevitable. Necessary.
“What do your markings mean?”
Gràinne sounded sleepy, her words slow and almost slurred. After the emotional wallop she’d taken, he wasn’t surprised.
“They are all the tribal marks of the people I once called my own. Each village had their own traditional patterns, so I combined them into one design and wear it as a sign of my fidelity.”
“I like that.” Fingers drifted, soft as butterflies, across the band of scars encircling his waist. “What happened? Why are you no longer their god?”
It wasn’t something he spoke about, the shame still with him after all these many centuries, but if anyone deserved to know it was this woman who seemed inclined to put her faith in him.
“I was a god of truth, sitting in judgment over the humans. But like many truth-seekers before me, and those who have come after, there was one fundamental truth I myself couldn’t grasp, and that lack led to my downfall.”
He paused, listened to her shallow, even breaths, feeling the weight of her body leaning into his, thinking she’d fallen asleep.
“What truth is that?”
If anything she sounded more awake than before, and he sighed silently. “That truth is a multifaceted jewel. That the story told twice can lead you closer to it or take you further away.”
Gràinne stirred, made a questioning little sound in her throat. “I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t then either,” he admitted, the taste of shame still strong on his tongue. “And that lack was costly.”
“Explain it to me.” She let go of the front of the shirt and slipped her arms around his waist, pressed her palms flat against his back, as though sensing his impulse to move away.
“Two honest men can see the same thing at the same time, but each tell a different story. Does that mean one was lying?”
“Ahhh.” It was a sigh of recognition. “No. It just means they each had a different perspective, saw thin
gs differently because of where they were or what they believe.”
“Exactly. You see it but I didn’t, not for a long time. I believed if two stories didn’t match one person must be a liar, and it was up to me to judge which one. I would brook no arguments to the contrary and eventually I was stripped of my name, banished for condemning too many innocents.”
“Harsh.” Such a simple commentary, but sympathy lingered behind the word.
He didn’t deserve her compassion.
“I thought so too, although I was sent to the human side and, under a new name, made a king over a large, prosperous tribe. Anger and the need to prove my worth caused me to be constantly waging war, ever trying to expand my territory and work off my frustration.”
Her finger traced the ram’s head tattoo on the side of his neck.
“What happened next?”
“I was too angry to heed the lessons the Orixás tried to teach me and one day, in a fit of temper, I burned down my own palace.”
That brought her head up and he knew she was staring at his profile, but it took all his courage to face her. Gràinne’s eyes were wide, a little darker around the edges—the light-green irises ringed with smoke. “How? Why?”
He shook his head, needing to be as honest with her as he could be. “I still had the power to make storms appear at will. One day I was so frustrated with the humans’ weaknesses, not able to recognize my own, I hurled lightning at a courtier, and the entire palace burned to the ground.”
Myriad emotions seemed to fly over her face as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. He couldn’t articulate his disgrace, his shame at seeing those who had trusted him hurt by his rashness, at realizing all he had done was not out of love for his people, but for selfish self-aggrandizement. He’d deserved to see his true name fade into obscurity, even while the name he’d been forced to bear had lived on, taunting him through the millennia.
“Now you see why I sometimes wish I could be without feelings, able to see and not react.” He tried to smile, but it faded away before being fully formed. “My pride and temper are not to be trusted.”
Her gaze sharpened, bored into his for a long, solemn moment. “Are you the same being you were—still judgmental and angry at your banishment, the loss of your name?”
There was no need to consider. “Not exactly, although I’m still impulsive and quick tempered.”
She lifted one finely arched eyebrow. “And when last have you hurled a lightning bolt at anyone?”
That made him smile, just a little. “I haven’t since, but I have been tempted—and I did throw a vamp over the railing from upstairs into the café tonight.”
Gràinne shook her head before she replied. “That doesn’t count. You knew the vampire wouldn’t be hurt.” Her arms tightened fractionally around his waist. “Isn’t it time to put aside your guilt?”
For the first time he truly wished he could, but that would be unconscionable. “What I did was inexcusable, and the burden of guilt I bear cannot be put down, if only in honor of those I hurt and destroyed.”
Gràinne’s eyes grew distant, the smoky rings becoming more pronounced, and he wondered what she was thinking, seeing. Then she blinked, once more focused on his face, and the strangely disquieting moment passed. “Perhaps you are right. Some things are too important to ever forget, but you can still forgive yourself. There is no loss of honor, either to yourself or those you hurt, in that.”
As though suddenly exhausted, she laid her cheek on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering closed.
How he wished it were that simple, but it wasn’t. Forgiveness was out of the question. To him it equated with a release from responsibility. Even now, if he allowed it, the memory of the roaring flames, the screams and fear of those he was charged with protecting could overpower him. Millennia may have passed in the human world but it was as fresh in his mind as though it occurred yesterday. Sometimes the shame of it was like a spiked club battering his conscience, driving away peace, forcing him out into the night to hurl lightning across the sky to work off his impotent rage.
From what he’d deduced, Gràinne thought the tattoo would give her back all the emotions she’d been unable to feel. After what had happened, when she’d been swamped by memories, did she still need it or even want to subject herself to that type of agony again?
There was a part of him that wanted to ignore it all, not say anything. The ramifications of all she’d told him, what he’d seen, tore at him. Emotion, even physical sensation, was new to her. Whatever happened between them was, for her, simply an offshoot of what she was going through, a natural reaction to her burgeoning feelings and proximity to a male who wanted her with unnatural fierceness. It wouldn’t last, he was sure, once having those emotions and reactions were familiar.
“Jakuta.”
She whispered it, and his arms tightened instinctively, his heart clenching at her tone. “Yes, sweetness?”
“I’m frightened.”
“I know.” Turning his head, he kissed her cheek, resisting the need to take her lips again, to tell her he’d protect and take care of her, that all would be well. Promises he had no way of keeping. “Do you still want the tattoo? It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I think—” She burrowed closer, lips brushing his neck as she spoke again. “I think it is too late. I can’t go back, no matter the end result.”
There was a note of fatalism in her tone, and it was then he realized—she wasn’t sure she’d survive, had already considered the possibility of death.
“Gràinne, don’t do it.”
She shook her head, her nails digging suddenly into his shoulder blades, a physical manifestation of her fear and resolve. “I have to, whether I survive or not doesn’t matter. I can’t go back. I just can’t.”
He wanted to shake her, roar with the rage growing inside. But he only held her tighter, turned his face away, forced himself to breathe steadily until he built a tenuous control. But he couldn’t get his throat to work, to ask if death truly was better than survival, afraid of her answer.
“I wouldn’t give up what I’ve felt tonight for anything.” She pressed her lips to his mark, and Jakuta felt every line of the image burn his skin afresh. “I don’t care what happens, as long as I face it complete, intact.” Lifting her head, she cupped his cheek, gently exerted pressure until he faced her. “Even with what happened afterward, I want never to forget how it felt to have you touch me. If I don’t capture the power of the sigil, have it where no one can take it away, I’m afraid I’ll go back to how I was before.”
“How do you know that’s what’ll happen?” Perhaps he was grasping at straws, but his gut told him she was on a road that would lead to destruction—hers and maybe his too. “You’ve already regained so much without it.”
Once more her eyes had that strange, distant look, the smoky outer ring darkening and swirling—snow-laden clouds on a faraway horizon.
“It’s the only way.” In a blink her gaze cleared and her lips firmed. “I need you to do this for me, Jakuta.”
By all the gods, he wanted to refuse, to tell her to find someone else to carry out her crazy plan, but when he tried to speak, nothing came out except a growl of despair.
Gràinne flattened her hands against his back, reached up to rest her lips softly on his, as though in apology.
He didn’t want her regret, most decidedly didn’t want to be the agent of her passage into the dark.
With another growl he held on to the back of her head, kept her where she was when she would have pulled away. Angling his head brought him as close as possible. Parting her lips with his tongue, invading her mouth, he poured all he felt into the kiss. Shockingly, she took the rage and anguish, absorbing and tempering them until all there was left was passion, stronger and hotter than even before.
Tearing his mouth away almost killed him, but he was already in too deep. Making love to her the way he desperately wanted, only to see her walk away or worse,
die, would be more than he could bear.
Taking a deep breath, resting his forehead against hers to avoid looking into her bewitching eyes, he said, “I’ll start mixing inks.”
“Wait.”
Her breath rushed over his face and he inhaled it, staying where he was, still not ready to fully face her, not sure how much of what he felt showed in his expression. “What?”
She took a deep breath, slid her hands around to his sides, until her thumbs brushed his belly. “I want—” She exhaled, took another quick breath. “I want to touch you, in case I don’t get another chance, but…”
Somehow he knew what she couldn’t say. She didn’t want him to touch her in return, fearing the rush of memories would overcome her again. The thought of her fingers on him caused a deep ripple of yearning to once more tighten his muscles, bringing him to full erection again. The effortless way she aroused him was a shock, and he had to swallow, moistening his suddenly dry throat before he could reassure her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
That was true, but also true was the fact that he ached to caress her, kiss her, hear the little cries as her body convulsed against his. He wasn’t used to denying himself whatever pleasure he desired, wasn’t sure he could restrain himself that way.
“Thank you.”
He wanted to tell her not to thank him, he’d done nothing to deserve it, but her hands were already unsnapping his jeans, reaching for his zipper, and the ability to speak deserted him.
Carefully releasing his grip on her nape, he grasped the chair’s arms instead, held on for all he was worth, determined to allow her to do whatever she wanted without interference. The zipper rasped in descent and he squeezed his eyes shut, hardly daring to breathe in case she changed her mind, now desperate to feel her hands on his throbbing cock. She parted his fly and Jakuta shuddered, inhaled, held his breath.
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