He must be hers, I decided. I moved closer to Endre, trying to catch his attention. “Endre, please.”
I wasn’t sure what exactly I was asking for, I just didn’t like this tension or the way it was making everybody else react around us.
His body went limp as soon as I spoke and he turned his head to find me. “I’m sorry, Thyra.”
“For what?” I was confused by the apology, I wasn’t hurt or in danger, not that I could tell. I’d moved away from the giant, the dark-eyed one had stop glaring at me the moment I moved. I was safe.
“This is my brother, Wruin, king of the Northern Kingdoms. He destroyed my life and I expect he’s back to do it again.” His head hung in defeat and my heart broke for him.
I glared at the brother. “Look buddy, I don’t give two fucks what you’re the king of, you can’t order me around so don’t think you’re going to fuck up whatever dream/hallucination/coma dream I’m having here with your doucheyness, got me?”
“Honey, it’s not a dream. I know, I was in your shoes only a day or two ago. I’m still not sure I’m not dead.” The gray-eyed one came up to me, her hands reaching out to touch my shoulders.
I looked down at her hands, but looked back into her eyes. She had answers, I could see it there. “You too?”
“Yes, only Holly and I both got it. I’m Abigail, by the way, and this is Holly, my best friend, that glaring woman there. This is my mate, Wruin. And the giant cradling your man is Lothar. It’s nice to meet you.” She held her hand out, a pretty smile on her elven face. She was just too pretty to resist, and her smile was infectious.
“Hi, I’m Thyra.” I took her hand and we shook. Maybe we could accomplish a truce the men couldn’t.
“Now, Wruin, tell Lothar to let Endre go. I expect he’ll be calm now, won’t you?” She looked at Endre and he was befuddled but shook his head in agreement.
“I won’t hit him again. For now.” Endre came to my side, his right hand taking my left one. “What do you want? What has Airitech done now?”
“He’s snuck into your kingdom with the refugees from reports we’ve had.” Wruin, so very similar to Endre it was almost creepy, took his own woman’s hand in his.
I studied him as they spoke; apparently this Airitech fellow was Abigail’s father, another fact that didn’t please Endre. Wruin’s eyes were different from my Dream Man’s. His eyes were gold. Endre’s were green but were often almost blue. From what I’ve seen so far anyway.
This was all too weird, but surreal. I’d come to believe it was all real, and I knew I was taking it like a trooper, but at the same time, my brain was screaming at me to run. They were all discussing what to do about this “wolf-shifter” as they kept calling him, and all I could think about was whether I was hallucinating or not. I glanced at the other women, and saw a reassuring smile from Abigail. The other one was still glaring at me.
I pushed into Endre’s side, not sure I could take the woman on. We were around the same height and build, but there was a self-assurance about her that told me I might just get hurt if I took the woman on and so far, there wasn’t anything happening worth getting my ass kicked over.
“Fine,” I heard Endre sigh. “Come down to the house. I can’t keep Thyra out in this cold.”
Wruin did some waving at the portal, some kind of hoo-doo, I don’t know, but the purple turned to blue and Endre led me through it. We stepped out to an area just beside of Endre’s house. I looked at and for the first time wondered where the materials had come from to build it. There was no wood on Antarctica that I knew of and the wood looked well-aged. He’d been here a long time, from what he said, but still.
Where did the fire wood come from? The rest of it? Magic, I had to guess as I looked around. We walked into the house, now cleared as the kings went inside first. All of the people were gone, down at the camp from what I could see.
“Airitech is down there, I can feel him.” Abigail said as she went into the long, narrow house. I saw she’d clenched her hands around her biceps, and knew it wasn’t from the cold. Something had unsettled her.
Who was this guy if he was such a dick even Endre would put aside his lifetime hatred of Wruin? From what I understood, he was Abigail’s father, but that meant little did it? Not all fathers were as good at their jobs as mine had been.
For a moment, I missed my parents deeply and pain squeezed my heart. What would they do if they knew this is where I’d end up? My father had told me the legends and fables of his country, so I wasn’t totally ignorant, but this was an alternate reality, wasn’t it? It went well beyond the fables and legends.
As if he sensed my pain Endre stopped whatever he was saying to his brother and came to me. He smoothed a finger down my cheek, his eyes searching mine. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” I shook my head positively, “Just a moment.”
“Okay. Are you hungry? I can find us something to eat. Our guests might be hungry too.” He lead us all into the kitchen and we all set about calmly preparing a simple meal. Endre actually did most of the cooking, preparing a fish stew for all of us, as they all made plans.
Wruin had an army coming as soon as it could be assembled, but they were hoping Airitech would just leave now that Wruin’s very obvious portal had appeared. The portal was gone and would reappear when Wruin had word that his army was ready.
“Why did he come here?” I asked, cutting up apples to make a dessert with. Everybody turned to me, questioning me.
“What?” Wruin asked, his own hands busy applying butter to bread.
“Why did that man come here? What drew him?”
“Abigail recently met her father, and also destroyed the plans he had for getting back into his own world. He was cast out of the lands to the west of ours, in the flooded area that used to be a part of Ireland. It was called Tir na Nog before it sank beneath the waters. It’s the land of the fairy folk. He was banished from his own lands long ago. He betrayed his people.” Wruin finished his recital and went back to his bread.
“Tir na Nog. The Tuatha de Danan?” I asked, remembering some old legend my father had told me about me about the legends of the other country. He’d loved all of the old mythical tales like that.
“That’s them.” Endre agreed, placing a kiss on my nose as he sat down to take a mug of ale from a pitcher on the table.
“And he’s a part of them?” I continued, pulling out another apple to peel.
“He was, he tried to overthrow the leadership there at one point, but he was caught and banished. They should have...” Wruin stopped his words as he looked at Abigail. “No, you wouldn’t have been born then.”
She smiled at him happily, and honestly, I just wanted to go take a nap. This was all doing my head in. Fairies were real now too?
I sighed heavily, I couldn’t help it.
“It takes getting used to doesn’t it? If I hadn’t seen my father turn into a wolf with my own eyes, and Wruin into a dragon I’d be screaming for an ambulance to the psychiatric ward. I saw it though. So did Holly. It’s real. Knowing I’m not alone in this has helped. And now you’re here. I’m really not alone now.” Abigail took her own cup of ale and sat down at the long bench and table we were sitting at.
The room had one long table with two benches on each side, and Endre was back at the old stove, something from the 1930s by the look of it. He kept feeding wood into a tiny little box on one side to keep the stove hot.
“So there’s a really evil man down in the camp, and we’re all just sitting here, twiddling our thumbs? If you’re all magic, why do we need an army? Can’t you just go zap him or something?”
“He’s brought his pack with him, and they’re just as magical as we are.” Abigail said, picking up an apple and knife to help me. I noticed her use of we, but she hadn’t called herself a shifter. Was she more than the human woman I’d taken her for?
I looked around the room and saw a group of people ready for the fight coming their way. Ready in a way I didn’
t think I could ever be. Sure, I’d won a fight with myself, with my ex, by crossing the ocean alone, I’d conquered my fears of being helpless against a man that had far more power than I did. But that was an intangible kind of power, the power these people had, even Holly with her karate skills, had a magic that I didn’t have. I was the odd man out, the one most likely to be voted to don a red shirt. The one most likely to be killed in the first seconds of a magical firefight. I put down my knife, fear making my stomach churn.
“Ah, right. So we can’t just blast him then.” I didn’t like the sound of this at all, and it showed in my voice. “Uh, Endre, can I talk to you? Alone?”
“Sure.” His back had gone stiff at my tone and I wondered if he knew what I was going to say.
He took me to the bedroom and we settled on the bed.
“I’m not sure I can do this whole battle thing. I’m only human.” I looked up at him, into eyes gone ice blue. Whoa.
“If that is your decision, Thyra. I would like for you to stay though. I will do all I can to protect you.” He looked like he wanted to try to sway me, but wasn’t going to force me.
I barely knew this man, but I knew enough. He was kind, good, loving, and protective. He wouldn’t make me stay if I wanted to go. He’d proven that with his story about Riever.
Now, he was willing to let me go, even if that meant his world would crumble once again. Did I really want to leave a man like that? Especially after running from a man that was the exact opposite? I looked a t him, and knew the color of his eyes reflected his feelings right now. He’d shut himself down. Could I do that to him? Could I do it to myself? I closed my eyes, trying to find an answer.
7
Endre
Thyra was confused, her heart was aching, and fear was starting to creep in. I couldn’t blame her, this wasn’t the life she’d led. She lived a life with cars, electricity, and danger, but nothing like this. She’d lived a peaceful life compared to many, even with that awful man she’d married, only to divorce. I didn’t want to let her go, but I knew it wasn’t my place to make her stay.
“If you want to go back to your world, Thrya, I can send you there. I can get you to one of the dark places in South America, then you’ll have to find your way home from there. There’s no portal into your country.”
“I just...” I could see the indecision, the uncertainty, and knew she needed the truth.
“This is not going to be easy, Thyra. Airitech is dangerous, and what he wants could end my world and yours. We might all die in the process, but we have to try and fight him. He’s cagey, and there is evil in this world the same as in yours. He’s growing support from the disenfranchised in the magical world from what Wruin has said. He has to be dealt with. If you think you’re unable to help with that, I understand. This life isn’t for everyone.”
I could see pain in her eyes, emotional pain, and wanted to take it away, but I couldn’t lie to her.
“I think, I just...” She held her hands out, open and empty. “I have nothing to offer do I? I’m not magical like you or the others. I don’t have the karate skills Holly mentioned. I’m not a giant. I only have two weak humans hands to offer.”
“Maybe that’s what we need, but no. I won’t try to sway you, Thyra, forgive me that moment of weakness.” I had to look away. The pain of losing her pricked me already.
This was so much worse than leaving Riever. So very much harder.
“It’s just too much, Endre. I can’t do anything but die. That would be even worse wouldn’t it? If I died and left you alone?” Her eyes implored me for understanding, she didn’t seem to realize she already had that. Maybe she was trying to convince herself.
I held my hand out to her, to her heart. I placed my palm flat and listened. I could hear the gentle beat of her heart in my own blood. I closed my eyes, opening my mind to hers.
I felt something soft brush against my brain, just as I brushed against hers. I found her memories, her thoughts, her hopes and fears, the same as she found mine in that moment. This was far more intimate than even sex, but I wanted her to have this part of me before she left.
I knew everything about her, just as she knew herself, with that one act. We were each other from that moment on. Wherever she went, whatever she did, I would always be a part of her.
“You will know if I die, my heart. You will know if I survive. If you change your mind, all you have to do is think it, and I will come for you. Somehow, I will find a way.”
I saw her eyes change, become darker, as she looked at me. She can’t leave without knowing me. I knew her thought before she even thought it. I would give her anything, anything at all. And this would be a gift to me as well.
I pulled her to me, tasting her lips hungrily as her hands pushed away my shirts, and I removed hers, our pants flew away a moment later. Naked skin came together and turned to flames, or so it felt as her skin brushed against mine. Fire was my friend, it was what I was when I was a dragon, and with Thyra stoking the fire deep inside me, I let her fire consume me.
I fell back on the soft moss mattress of the bed, taking her with me. I felt her calves straddle my hips, and her breasts flattened against my muscled chest. She grinned down at me, her eyes burning for me as she drank me in. Her lips came to mine and I inhaled sharply of her scent. She smelled so familiar now, a scent that hit me in the stomach whenever I smelled it. I tasted her as I drank in her tongue, teasing it with my own as I sucked at her lips, tasting the flavor of her scent, and savoring it.
Her fingers clenched on my shoulders and she moved to offer me her breasts. Her hands were planted on each side of my head as I took one, then the other into my mouth to tease the peaks into hard little beads. Her hips ground down into me as I licked the nipple between my teeth with a slow swipe of my tongue.
“That feels so good, Endre.” I heard her breath above me, and couldn’t stop the grin that stretched my mouth wide. I knew she loved it from the way her hips ground down into my abdomen so deep, with a frantic pace that told me she was close, so close, if only she could hit just the right spot, at just the right time.
I also knew it because I could just feel the brush of her thoughts against mine. Knowing how aroused she was by my touch deepened my own arousal. It became too much, because she became aware that I was aware, and I had to step back, mentally, or be lost in a mirrored maze of our own creation.
I stroked a finger down her spine as her hips danced on me, the slender line of her vertebrae was an enticing valley, but I trailed down, until I cupped her ass in my hand. I held her to me before I clenched the globe of flesh, directing her movements as I felt arousal pulse through me. I was so hard it ached, and I felt a pain I hadn’t felt in a long time. The pain of arousal.
I shuddered for a moment, and thoughts of pulling her down, pulling her right onto the part of me that ached the most for her filled my head.
“Endre, please...” She gasped as the thoughts flooded my mind, then hers in the next second. “Do it.”
But I couldn’t yet. I wanted to touch her, to memorize every part of her, before she left me.
I dipped my hand down, from her bottom to the deep well of her desire. I could hear myself groan as my middle finger sank into her slickness. She was greedy; she needed the release that was just right there, if only I’d give her just that one thing more.
I pushed, just a little, just enough to get my other hand between us to slide into the valley between her thighs. That’s when she exploded into a release that I could see as hot blue flames but the rest of the world would not witness. They would never see this, because they were not magical. She was also mine, and there would never be another soul that would make her come so hard that her fire burned blue.
She pushed her hips down, not ready to explore, not ready for slow love-making, but totally consumed with the need to be a part of me, now. She clamped down onto the finger still buried inside of her, as her thighs gripped my sides. I could hear her calling out my name and it made
my cock pulse with impatience, but I held on, letting her have this first moment as she lost herself in pleasure.
Thyra rode it out, my finger on her clit working out every single shiver I could before she collapsed atop me. She wasn’t done though, as I said, Thyra was greedy and she wanted more immediately.
I felt her slide slickly down my abdomen, until she was straddling my hips. Her small hand found the length of my cock and before I could even enjoy a shiver of pleasure at her touch she sank down onto me. She took me into her tights walls and as her wet heat surrounded me, I forgot about the world outside, I forgot about my past, and my feud with Wruin. There was only Thyra, there was only us.
Our minds became one as we moved together and I felt a shudder begin in her depths. My fingers found her breasts, cupped the heavy globes and teased at her nipples as she shudder turned to a tight spasm around me.
“That’s it, Thyra. Let go baby. Give it all to me.” I felt her pleasure as my own, she felt mine as hers, and her dance on my cock became slow, a teasing grip of fascination as she slid up my shaft. She would sink back down and I’d thrust up into her savoring the feeling of being invaded as I invaded her pussy.
Sweet was the only word for it. Maybe succulent too, she was so wet it was like biting into a ripe peach every time I pushed my cock up into her. I could feel the way it felt to her, and it was blowing both of our minds.
She leaned down to kiss me, her hips still working on me as we moved together, and rocked together. She gasped and forgot to breathe as the shift caused a pressure against her clit and I moved my hands to cup her ass once more. To grind her in just the right way against my pubic bone.
My hips moved faster, tighter, entering her deep but quick, teasing at the place within her that made her cry out my name. I clenched my jaw, wanting to wait, wanting to fall into ecstasy with her. I was the one left gasping as her fingers found my own nipples and pinched, the pleasure new and unfamiliar.
Endre: Brothers Of The Dark Places Page 5