by Alisa Woods
She sighed and once again raked her gaze over him. “I’ll have to leave that to my imagination, I suppose.”
He steeled himself against smiling so as not to jinx it.
She turned back to the mirror and circled a finger at it. The silvery shine warped and undulated. After a long moment, it crystallized into the form of a fae—the king of the Winter Court. His long dark hair and chiseled face were similar to Zephan’s although older and more cold. His eyes had almost no color, but his face was tinged with red and traced with runes along his cheek befitting his Court.
“What is it, Nyssa?” He seemed irate and distracted by something off-screen… and below the belt. Leonidas couldn’t tell if the red splotches were anger at being interrupted in the throes of passion or if the king was actually getting head as they spoke. Fucking hell. Did the fae just lay around and fuck all day? If that were the case, he’d expect them to be in better moods.
“Your son is out of hand again.” The queen’s voice had gone ten degrees cooler and five shades more imperious. Leonidas realized belatedly that she’d been treating him with kitten-soft gloves if this was her normal demeanor.
“What has he done now?” the king grumped and shoved something away, finally giving his full concentration to the queen.
Leonidas shook his head in amazement.
“He’s kidnapped a mate of the House of Smoke,” Nyssa said.
The king waved her off. “I can’t track all the boy’s bedmates! And besides, they have a whole fucking world of women. Get another one.” He seemed ready to terminate this call-by-magical-mirror.
“He’s violating the treaty, Remasay.” Her voice boomed throughout the throne room, sending the butterfly sprites fluttering away.
“Nyssa, it’s just a fling—”
“Don’t fuck with me, Winter Court.” The full-metal anger in that voice jolted through Leonidas and finally seemed to sober up the king.
“All right. All right.” He sighed. “Holy fucking magic, Nyssa.”
“You should know more about what is happening in your own Court, Remasay.” But her voice had returned to the normal imperious level of before.
Leonidas’s heart was still hammering in his chest. The king hadn’t agreed to anything yet.
“I’m not a fool.” The king narrowed his eyes. “I know what he does.”
“Well, then, return the girl,” Nyssa replied. “Need I remind you that the angels have decided to involve themselves? Markos has already seen fit to bless the firstborn son of the House of Smoke. I hear tell an angeling has befriended one of the princes. Your son’s dalliances have limits, Remasay. If you cannot control your Court, then perhaps I should enlist the help of the angels to pay a visit and retrieve what belongs to the human realm and the House of Smoke.”
“This is just an oversight,” the king grumbled again, but the mention of angels had drained the last of the color from his face. “For all I know, the woman desires his bed. He’s well-known for his appeal, and it cannot be helped if he’s more attractive than any beast with Summer fae blood.”
“Take a care, Ramasay.” Her voice was hard again.
But it was clear the king enjoyed tweaking her. “Tell your beast-cousins to keep better track of their playthings. I’ll have my son return the one he’s playing with.”
Playing with? Those words shot horror through Leonidas’s heart. If Zephan had touched her…
The king’s image disappeared, then the mirror after it.
Nyssa turned back to him. “It is done.”
“The House of Smoke is in your debt,” he said quickly. “Is there… is there a payment you would like of me? Once I verify Rosalyn is free, of course.”
The queen smiled gently. “No, Leonidas. I won’t require you come to my bed and satisfy my curiosities.” She arched an eyebrow. “However, I may yet call upon the House of Smoke at some point. Just to see if there is a dragon or two who might want to see if they can satisfy the Queen of the Summer Court.”
Holy fuck. He was legit unsure if there were any of his fellow dragons who might take her up on that offer. “You can call on our House at any time.”
The smile dropped from her face, and she leaned closer. “My fair prince, you should know that Zephan is determined to thwart the treaty.”
He frowned. “I surmised as much.”
“And while I’m sympathetic to the side of the treaty renewing, not everyone is, even within the Summer Court.”
“Why would that be? Why wage war when a peace can be kept?” It truly flummoxed him. Did these fae, who apparently spent all their time in each other’s beds, not see that as better than fighting amongst themselves? Or taking their whimsy out on the human realm? But then, he never could understand the fae.
“The stakes are higher in this than you know.” Her voice was now a whisper. “When the treaty was formed, humans were but a scrabbling band of foragers and farmers. Now they’ve grown into much more.”
“How do you mean?” He was seriously confused now. How could the humans pose any threat to the fae? It made no sense.
“I mean that the humans and their technology continue to advance. I’ve never dabbled in it, but that the Winter Court is, with Zephan borrowing their DNA magic to enhance his own…” She pulled back. “Watch your back, House of Smoke. A fae is never more dangerous than when he feels threatened.”
Leonidas nodded, slowly, not understanding, but taking his cue from the dire tone of her voice. “Thank you for the warning.”
She tipped her head, then leaned back. “Kalen, I have need of you.” She spoke it in a normal tone of voice, but Kalen appeared instantly a few feet away.
“My queen?”
“Escort the dragon prince and keep him and his lover safe.” She turned to face Kalen. “I do not trust Zephan to not defy his father in some way to despoil our deal.”
He nodded solemnly and stepped over to lay a hand on Leonidas’s shoulder to prepare for traveling.
“Thank you again, Nyssa,” Leonidas said. “I meant it when I said my House is in your debt.”
“Love well, young prince.” She smiled, and it had real warmth in it. She nodded to Kalen. “Return him to where his mate was taken.”
Kalen studied Leonidas’s face for a moment, too intently for Leonidas’s comfort, and then in a flash of light, they left the queen’s throne room in the Summer Court and returned to Leonidas’s ancestral bedroom. Rosalyn’s mating gown still lay on the floor, and the bath had gone cool, no longer steaming. The room was empty. His brothers were in the keep—Leonidas could taste them in the throne room with his fae senses—but Rosalyn was nowhere to be found.
“What now?” he asked Kalen.
“Now, we wait.” Kalen folded his arms. “And whatever deal you’ve struck with the queen, know this, dragon prince: your favors from the Summer Court are at an end. If you cannot manage to fulfill the treaty on your own, it will break. If menacing your humans satisfies the Winter Court’s bloodlust, so be it. It matters not to us, and it will keep them from war just as easily as some ancient treaty born of deceit and betrayal.”
A chill ran through Leonidas. If Nyssa’s own lover was against the treaty, he could only imagine how many others in the Summer Court might also feel that way.
He nodded. “Understood.”
Kalen grunted, took a position by the door, and they waited…
Rosalyn’s body was starting to ache.
The silver cage was tiny—she couldn’t stand or stretch out all the way, and her muscles were complaining. She’d shouted several times at the mirror that peered into her bedroom at the keep in France, hoping Leonidas might hear her, but he never returned. Then the mirror went dark. It hadn’t been that long—less than an hour—but the adrenaline had faded, and she was getting worried. Eventually, Zephan would have to come back to feed her to keep her from dying, if nothing else. But Leonidas couldn’t rescue her—he had no idea where she was. And the worry of that might push him over the edge. She didn
’t know how much time he had left before turning wyvern for real, but Zephan seemed to think it was something he could out-wait. She tried stretching again, but anytime she got close to the bars, they hummed with magic—she still had the burns on her hands from when she grabbed them the first time.
Just as she was contemplating the dangers of conjuring her own magic inside this magic cage, Zephan suddenly appeared at the side of the bed.
Oh, shit. He looked pissed.
A pale, simpering man in a black suit stood behind him—Rosalyn didn’t recognize him, but the hungry way he looked at her sent a shiver down her back. Without a word, Zephan flicked his fingers, and the cage disappeared. In the same instant, that magical force he wielded before grabbed her and lifted her from the bed. She was held immobile by it, floating. Her body flew slowly through the air until she hovered just beyond his outstretched hand.
His nearly-clear eyes burned with anger. “Oh, how I want to kill you.”
Taunting him right now didn’t seem very smart, so she kept quiet. That, and the magic force holding her was constricting her lungs and her throat—not quite choking her, but almost.
His jaw worked. “But I have something even better for you.”
Better than dying? She didn’t know what the hell that meant, but she was sure it was nothing she wanted.
Zephan raked his fingers through the air, and suddenly her little black dress was ripping into shreds. She struggled to look down at it. The thing was in tatters now, revealing way too much to be decent. She had no idea what the purpose of that was—before, Zephan had just stripped her naked. Then she moved again, this time floating down from the bed and next to the pale man.
He was licking his lips as he stared at her body.
Fuck.
“No need to be neat,” Zephan said to him. “Make it as bloody as possible.”
What the hell? Then the magic force released her, and she dropped to her bare feet on Zephan’s cold floor. Before she could move or even scream, the man was on her. He grabbed her by the hair and around the waist, shoving his lanky body against hers and bending her back. His tongue ran sickeningly along her neck, but it wasn’t until she felt the actual stab of pain that she realized what was happening…
Vampire.
The urge to scream welled up, but it was too late. That shock of pain was quickly washed away by a surge of pleasure so intense, her body convulsed with it. She went limp in his arms, and she could feel him sucking at her neck, but there was nothing in her senses but a floating numbness between waves of pleasure. The heat between her legs was inflamed with need. Her nipples were hard against the rough fabric of his suit. His hands gripped her like he thought she might flee, but she had no resistance whatsoever. In fact, her body bucked against him, urging him on. He moaned into her neck, and that sound tripped her first orgasm, making her writhe even harder. Her own moans and whimpers were trapped in her throat, paralyzed as wave after wave rocketed through her body and pulsed between her legs. A second orgasm built and crashed over her.
“Enough!” The voice echoed around her, and suddenly the pleasure was ripped away.
The man in the black suit was limp against the wall, and she’d fallen to the floor, her legs unable to keep her upright. She flailed with hands that were numb, her whole body buzzing with pleasure, but she only crawled a few inches toward him. More was all she could think. Give me more. It was an inky black need inside her, a dark craving that had her caring for nothing else, just the pleasure the man had been pumping through her.
“Stand up,” the voice demanded.
But she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. And she didn’t. She kept trying to crawl toward the man in the black suit. The pleasure-bringer that feasted on her and awoke her sweet, terrible, dark need.
Something hauled her up from the floor.
Zephan stared her in the face, his clear eyes sparkling with the reflected glow of the walls. Her mind cleared a little. She remembered who he was—a dark fae. Winter fae. The wrong magic to give her what she needed. He had nothing for her. She struggled away from him, but he held her by the one shred of black dress that was still intact on her arm.
“Perfect,” he said with a smirk. His eyes dropped to her neck, and for a moment, she thought he might allow the pleasure-bringer back, but he just chuckled instead.
Her hand went to her neck, reflexively where he was staring, and it came away bloody. When she looked down at her body in the rags of the dress, there was blood smeared all over—her arms, her chest, her breasts lying exposed through the bits of black fabric. And now her hand. But none of that mattered. The pleasure waves that had wracked her body were quickly fading. She needed more… and this man couldn’t give it to her.
She tried to jerk out of his grasp. “Let me go!” she mumbled, but her mouth wasn’t working right.
He smirked. “So much better.”
She squinted at him. What did that mean?
Then a flash of light dazzled her. When her vision cleared, Zephan had taken her somewhere else. She was back in the bedroom with the tub. It took her a moment to re-orient, but the gasps and sounds around her said there were several other people in the room.
Zephan still had a hold on her, so she could stay upright.
“Rosalyn!”
She swung her head around, looking for the source, but dizziness made it hard for her to focus.
“I’ve had my fill of her,” Zephan sneered. “She’s yours now.” Then he let go of her, and she dropped to the floor because her legs weren’t working right.
New hands were on her a half second later. “What have you done to her?” an anguished voice cried out. She managed to focus on the face of the man holding her. Leonidas. Sweet, sweet, magic-pleasure-sparking dragon. Oh yes. She grabbed hold of him, her hands seeking that skin-on-skin contact. Pleasure leaped from his flesh to hers. Yes! More. She spread her fingers to gain more contact and tried to push up from where she had fallen so she could reach him. But she couldn’t get all her parts moving in the right direction at the same time. Frustration and need growled inside her.
“You were supposed to leave her unharmed!” another voice said, angry. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Then a clash of something boomed against her, like the magic force from before, only stronger. It pushed her flat to the floor, and even Leonidas toppled over, sprawling on his back. The force washed past them. Rosalyn squinted over her shoulder in the direction of where it had come from. Zephan was fighting with a red-haired man—not a man, a fae; she could see the pointy ears—and they were full-body wrestling with a fiery ball of blue magic between them, tumbling through the room and crashing into walls and armoires and small objects of art.
But none of that mattered to her. All she wanted was more of that pleasure spark. And now Leonidas was down on the floor with her. She twisted back to him and crawled across the floor, climbing up his delicious body on the way. His face was twisted as he looked at her, but he had what she wanted. That sparking touch. His big cock. Those talented hands and tongue. The pleasure he could give her was like nothing she’d ever felt. The remembered hum of it was already flushing through her body. She palmed his cock, urging it to stiffness as she kept crawling over his body.
“Rosalyn, what…” He seemed distraught. Then he grabbed hold of her shoulders and rolled her onto her back with him on top of her.
Yes. She bucked her hips against the hard length of his cock. “Fuck me. Now.” Her voice was half whimper. Too quiet to be heard over all the ruckus Zephan and that other fae were causing. She raised her voice. “Give it to me now!”
He kept her pinned, but he didn’t move against her—instead, he just held her cheek and raked her with his gaze. “Please tell me he didn’t hurt you.”
“Need you.” Her body shuddered. Having him so close but not fucking her, not driving into her with that big cock… it was like he was teasing her. Fucking asshole! Her hands were working a little better now, so she slid them down
his body, grasping for his cock, but it was trapped between them. She bucked against his body and growled in frustration, but he was big, so big, and rock hard everywhere. So much muscle. So strong. She needed all that, craved it, wanted it banging hard against her. She wanted his magic too. All the magic. Big strong dragon with all the fae magic and riches and power in the world. Her witch powers were nothing—nothing—compared to that. She wanted it all. How could she get it? What magic words did she have to say to get what she needed?
Mating.
She brought her hands up and grasped hold of his face. That delicious sparking magic made her moan. “Mate with me. Claim me. I want it all. Everything. Fuck me hard, Leonidas, and seal me and give me everything.” She would take any man—any beast or fae or vampire, mattered not to her—but this one was especially delicious and could give her more than any other. She would say and do anything to have his seed inside her. To have his body wrenching pleasure out of hers. All the power and pleasure and riches!
“Hold still,” he said, but then his hands were around her neck.
She flailed against him. He had one hand clamped around her throat, with his other hand just pressing his wrist up tight to her skin. Was he choking her? She could still breathe, but somehow she felt like she was dying. Like he was sucking the very living essence out of her. “Nooo!” she wailed. “Stop!” She fought hard against him, but he was too powerful. “Leonidas, I love you! Don’t kill me!”
A flicker of doubt crossed his face, which was pressed up close to hers—so achingly close but not touching except for those fucking hands around her neck, pulling the life out of her, killing her slowly, one draining second at a time. She clawed at his body and tried to reach his face, but he had her pinned… trapped… a howl reached up from deep inside her and worked its way out of her mouth as she fought…
Suddenly, there was silence in the room. All except for her wailing.
The sound reverberated inside her head, but her body felt like it was lifting—becoming as light as a feather because it was emptying out. Her essence, her self… it was being yanked out by this hulking man crushing her on the floor! She waged one last desperate struggle and then—