Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1)

by Felicity Heaton

“Thorne.” Loren looked at Sable and Bleu, and then at the large male demon. “How powerful are your portals?”

  Thorne squared his broad thickly muscled shoulders. “More powerful than elf ones.”

  “Can you teleport three with you?” Loren could manage to teleport one other beside himself and that often took a lot of focus and could weaken him depending on the situation. He didn’t feel weakened when he teleported Olivia or Sable, but he had teleported elves before and the drain on his powers was intense then. The theory went that the more powerful the creature you wanted to transport with you, the more power you needed to make it happen.

  He was asking Thorne to teleport two powerful elves and a human.

  The Third King lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug. “It would not be a problem.”

  He had his arm slung around Sable before she could move, pulling the slender female against his broad frame. Sable squeaked and tried to break free, but the demon’s large hand settling on her hip made her still and a fierce blush stained her cheeks.

  Bleu frowned and tightened his grip on his spear.

  “You want me to stab you?” Sable said and the demon looked down at her.

  “No.” His rough gravelly voice held a confused note. “Why would I desire that?”

  “Because it’s what’s going to happen if you don’t stop manhandling me.” She pushed again and the demon reluctantly loosened his grip on her, allowing her to break free.

  Sable smoothed her black t-shirt down, neatly arranging the hem along the belt of her combat trousers.

  Thorne still looked confused. Loren didn’t have time for this.

  He grabbed Thorne’s arm and then grabbed Bleu with his other hand. “Sable.”

  She looked up, a hint of colour lingering on her cheeks, and stared at all three of them before she stepped forwards and took hold of Bleu and Thorne’s hands. Both males shot deadly glares at each other and then Thorne’s eyes burned red and a vast black hole opened beneath them.

  “Hold on,” Thorne growled and Loren hoped to the gods that Sable did as he said because a portal was no place to get lost. If she let go, she could end up anywhere, in this world or the demon one.

  Darkness swirled around them and then lifted to reveal a decrepit manor house illuminated by floodlights. The hum of a nearby generator filled the silence, obliterating the softer sounds of the nature all around them. Shadowy silhouettes of trees speared the sky, swaying in the cool night breeze.

  Scaffolding covered the sandstone three storey façade of the manor house and there were no lights on inside. Several of the windows had been boarded up.

  Loren ran a calculating gaze over the building and released Thorne and Bleu. It was falling apart and looked as though it hadn’t been lived in for at least fifty years. Vail could have been hiding here with Kordula for all that time, or possibly longer.

  How long had Vail and Kordula been in the human world?

  Sable broke away from them and flipped open her small crossbow. She loaded a bolt and looked over her slender shoulder at Thorne. “So, Demon, where’s the bastard who took my friend?”

  Thorne arched a dark slash of an eyebrow at her biting tone and pointed towards the house. “I thought it was rather evident, little female. He awaits yonder.”

  “Yonder? Who the hell says yonder anymore?” Sable hooked her crossbow on her belt and turned away, missing the black scowl Thorne directed at her back.

  Loren thought yonder was a perfectly good word.

  Bleu called his helmet, the black scales forming it over his cheeks and his forehead, and then flaring back into twin curved horns.

  Loren followed suit, mentally commanding his black spiked crown and helmet to form but leaving his face mask. He needed to be able to speak with the others without it hindering him.

  Sable stalked off. Bleu followed with Thorne.

  Loren focused on the building, his senses mapping every floor. He could hear three heartbeats. One far slower than the other two. Olivia. She wasn’t inside the building. She was outside somewhere. The link between them was as hazy as ever, but it was dull and calm too. Combined with her slower heart rate, it left him in no doubt that she was unconscious.

  He closed his eyes as he walked towards the rundown manor, focusing all of his power on enhancing his senses so he could pinpoint the locations of the owners of the three heartbeats.

  “They are outside.” Loren frowned and felt Bleu, Sable and Thorne halt and turn their gazes on him. “Olivia is unconscious. Higher than the other two. Vail is bleeding. I can smell his blood. He is weakening. Kordula is...”

  “Here.”

  Loren’s eyes shot wide and he quickly shifted his sword, gripping it in both hands before him.

  Kordula threw her hand towards him and black ribbons shot at him like spears. Loren ducked and rolled, came to his feet and growled as he brought his sword down in a swift arc aimed straight for her chest. She fanned her fingers out and more thick black bands blocked his sword. They curled around it and Loren quickly withdrew it and distanced himself. He didn’t have time to dance with Kordula. He had to get to Vail and end him before his brother could harm Olivia.

  He looked to Bleu and Thorne.

  Both males nodded and readied their weapons.

  Loren called a portal as Bleu and Thorne attacked Kordula in unison, drawing her attention away from him. The purple and blue light flashed over his body and he leaped forwards and appeared right beside Sable. She gasped and attacked with her long knife, and he blocked with his left forearm. The blade struck harmlessly against his armour and Loren grabbed her and called another portal.

  He came out on the other side of the manor, close to the scaffolding that covered it too, and growled when he saw Vail and then froze when he spotted Olivia. She hung from chains near the top of the scaffold, suspended with her arms out beside her and a loop of chain around her neck. The chains were precariously loose and if her hands slipped free of them, the one around her neck would strangle her.

  Or worse.

  His heart stopped when he realised a chain wasn’t the only thing around her neck. A fine filament caught the glow of the floodlights illuminating the gravel drive and the lower floor of the house.

  If Olivia fell, it would decapitate her.

  Loren snarled at Vail where he stood several metres away in the large clearing between three floodlights, clutching his side. Blood glistened on his hand and down his leg, and Loren could see the pain written across his pale face and in his dark eyes.

  Sable cursed viciously, reached under her arm and sent three throwing knives flying at Vail. Vail easily deflected them with a wave of his hand, sending the blades firing back at them. Loren pulled Sable behind him and blocked each knife with his black sword, knocking them to the ground.

  “Get her down,” Loren tossed the words at Sable before he released her, readied his sword in both hands and rushed his brother.

  He had to be careful. It would only take a few blasts of telekinetic power to shake the scaffolding and cause Olivia’s death.

  Kordula appeared off to Loren’s right as he clashed with Vail, bringing his sword down hard to strike Vail’s twin blades. Thorne appeared swinging his broadsword at her and the tip sliced across her upper left arm. Blood streamed down it and she shrieked at the demon king, who merely grinned at her.

  Bleu appeared behind Vail and thrust forwards with his black double-ended spear. Vail disappeared and Loren had to dodge Bleu’s blow, shifting his hips to the right and clumsily knocking the spear away with his black blade. Bleu’s horrified expression was apology enough but the prickle of hairs across the back of Loren’s neck and the way his senses screamed in high alert said it hadn’t been meant as an apology.

  Loren swung to face Vail, bringing his sword up at the same time. Too slow. Vail slashed down Loren’s chest, cutting a long gash in his black armour, a savage twist to his expression.

  It faded a moment later, turning as horrified as Bleu’s had been, and t
hen Vail growled and stumbled backwards, dropping one of his blades. He pressed his hand to his forehead and screwed his face up as he dug the points of his claws into his scalp, drawing blood.

  Kordula shouted something that Loren failed to catch and Vail’s demeanour changed, turning vicious once more. He attacked again, striking hard and fast, driving Loren backwards towards Bleu. Bleu shot past him and engaged Vail, and Loren was thankful for the brief respite.

  Bleu ducked and dodged, thrusting and parrying with his spear, keeping Vail on the defensive. Loren turned to check on Thorne and his eyes shot wide as he saw thick black and red bolts flying directly at him. Loren called a portal but wasn’t quick enough. The powerful spell hit him square in the chest, some of the spear-like bolts striking the gash in his armour and sinking deep into his flesh, and he shot backwards.

  No.

  Loren’s whole body reverberated with the force of the impact as he struck the scaffolding, causing the metal to bend and twist under the strain.

  Olivia screamed.

  CHAPTER 22

  Olivia shrieked as pain tore through her and she came awake, her vision blurring and distorting, making the drop to the ground below her shrink and grow. It focused and she struggled and then wished she hadn’t when her left hand slipped free and she dropped.

  Something cold tightened around her throat, cutting off her air supply, and she shot her hand up and reached for her other secured arm. Chains. Olivia stretched and grabbed the ones holding her other arm just as her wrist slipped free. The chain around her neck tightened further, making darkness encroach at the corners of her mind, and something sharp cut into her throat.

  “Olivia!” Loren bellowed and her gaze darted to him. He stood below her, a wild panicked look on his face.

  Bleu and Vail fought nearby, and beyond them were the witch-bitch and the huge man from the Archangel cafeteria. He fought like a demon, swinging an enormous sword with no visible effort.

  She kicked her legs and tried to pull herself up to relieve the pressure on her neck, but the chain slipped through her hands and she skidded further down. A hot sting slashed around her throat and she gasped, her eyes shooting wide.

  Olivia’s hands slipped again.

  Loren roared below her and his fear flooded the link between them, forcing it back to full strength somehow.

  She was going to die.

  She lost her grip on the chains and dropped.

  Warm hands grasped her forearms. “Got you.”

  She had never been more glad to hear Sable’s voice. Never again would she moan about her friend’s requests for painkillers so she could go out and hunt when she should have been resting her injury or how she liked to tease Olivia whenever she was bored.

  Olivia looked up to find her laying on the scaffolding boards above her, her hands locked tightly around Olivia’s bare forearms. Sable growled with effort and pulled, and the pressure on Olivia’s neck lessened.

  Olivia held on to her friend’s arms as she slowly raised her.

  “Do you have her?” Loren shouted from below.

  “I have her,” Sable hollered, steely determination in her golden eyes. She added quietly, “Only bloody thing I’m good for is saving your arse. Go get the bastards, big guy.”

  No. Olivia panicked and grabbed the edge of the wooden board as soon as it was within reach. She hauled herself up on trembling arms and Sable grasped the belt of her jeans and pulled her awkwardly onto the scaffolding.

  Olivia quickly removed the makeshift noose from around her neck and ground her teeth to bear the pain as she pulled the thin wire away from the groove it had cut into her flesh.

  “You okay?” Sable said and Olivia nodded, pushed to her feet and looked around. “Take it easy. The guys have this one. I pretty much failed to make an impact and bloody Bleu had to save me.”

  Olivia could tell how much that had irked Sable but she didn’t care right now.

  “I have to get down there, Sable.” Olivia didn’t want to see what was happening below them but she couldn’t stop her eyes from drifting to the battle.

  “No way.”

  “I need to get down there now.” Olivia spotted a ladder off to her left, towards the end of the scaffolding, and started for it.

  Sable grabbed her arm and stopped her, and she went to snap at her friend but lost her voice when she saw the fight below them.

  Loren and Bleu were battling hard against Vail, all of them bleeding from gashes in their black armour. The demon was changing, his horns curling around his pointed ears now and his eyes glowing like the fires of Hell as he attacked the redheaded witch and did his best to block her spells. Wounds from where Kordula’s attacks had hit covered his broad muscular chest and he seemed to be moving more slowly than before.

  Kordula hit him hard with a left hook that was impossibly strong for such a frail looking female. It knocked the demon backwards, sending him stumbling and struggling to keep upright.

  “Damn. Thorne’s going to get himself killed at this rate. Bloody idiot,” Sable muttered and unhooked the crossbow from her belt. She opened the quiver-pouch there and danced her fingers over the bolts in it. She pulled out one with a thick pointed tube secured to the end and grinned at Olivia. “Let’s see the bitch dodge this.”

  Sable loaded the explosive bolt, aimed and fired. It whizzed towards Kordula and the demon Sable had called Thorne. The demon’s pointed ears perked up and he shot Sable a glare and then disappeared.

  The action distracted Kordula and Sable’s bolt hit her shoulder and exploded on impact, sending her spinning through the air and crashing to the ground in a blaze of fire and smoke. Had it killed her?

  The smoke cleared to reveal the sorceress lying on the gravel, blood covering the right side of her body and pooling beneath her, black in the bright floodlights. The slinky material of her dress was shredded and smouldering, and the top right side of the metalwork corset had blown open, the silver curling outwards in places.

  A dark snarl came from behind Sable.

  Sable tensed and her eyes edged towards her shoulder. Olivia’s gaze leaped to the demon towering over her friend.

  Thorne’s eyes burned bright crimson, his huge body hunched over in the small area between the two levels of scaffolding, his broad shoulders almost spanning the width of the frame.

  “You seek to harm me, little female.” His deep voice vibrated through Olivia and Sable slowly shook her head and pointed towards Kordula who lay in a smoking heap on the drive.

  “I seek to kick that bitch’s arse,” Sable said calmly but Olivia could see past her false smile to the fear it hid.

  Thorne scared her for some reason.

  He took a step closer and ran his gaze over Sable’s body, his expression unconvinced at first and then gaining a decidedly hungry edge. Oh. My. No wonder Sable was on edge around Thorne. Olivia glanced back at her and caught the almost imperceptible touch of colour on her cheeks.

  The demon’s red eyes slid to Olivia and she seized her chance.

  “Take me down there,” she said and he looked below them at the raging battle. She didn’t want to look now because she feared she was going to be too late and was beginning to consider the outcome of grabbing the chain and sliding down it to reach the ground. She had to stop Loren.

  Thorne nodded and held his large left hand out to her.

  She grabbed Thorne’s arm and he grabbed Sable, tucking her against his bare chest despite her protests and blushing, and then darkness opened below them.

  Olivia dropped into it, clinging to Thorne, regretting her decision to ask him for assistance. She had expected him to use portals in the same way Loren and Bleu did. There was something disconcerting about plunging into a black hole.

  The darkness receded and Olivia instantly broke free of Thorne and Sable, running towards Loren and Bleu where they battled Vail.

  Loren’s handsome face was a picture of determination, his black spiked helmet making him look formidable as he struck hard
at Vail with his blade, murder in his eyes. A chill went through her when he managed to slash across Vail’s shoulder and turned his blade to deal another blow while his brother fought to recover from the first.

  “No!” Olivia screamed and Loren froze mid-swing but Bleu didn’t.

  He drove his spear through Vail’s side from behind and Vail cried out in agony, the force of the blow causing him to arch forwards.

  “No,” Olivia shouted again and raced towards them. She had to stop them before they killed Vail. He was just a pawn, used against his will by Kordula in her insane quest for power.

  Olivia slowed as Kordula rose to her feet behind them, her flesh knitting and mending before Olivia’s eyes, becoming perfect and smooth once more. The metalwork of her corset repaired itself and the threads of her dress wove together. Her hair floated around her shoulders and her black dress fluttered around her long legs.

  The witch’s eyes blazed crimson and bright arcs of red energy crackled around her.

  Olivia threw herself forwards as a bolt of crimson lightning struck at her and grunted as she hit the gravel hard, skidding across it.

  Loren peeled away from his brother and was at her side a split-second later, pulling her onto her feet and shielding her with his body. A bolt of red energy hit him in the back and drove them both forwards. They smashed into the crumbling sandstone wall of the building beneath the scaffolding, Loren’s arms and her backside taking the brunt of the blow, and dropped together to the ground.

  “Olivia?” Loren said and released her. His hands claimed her cheeks and he pushed back, his purple gaze warmed by concern and the fear she could feel in him.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered and arched her back, cracking everything into place.

  Loren’s gaze fell to her throat and the slash that cut around the front of it and darkened. He growled and went to turn away and she grabbed his wrists, stopping him from launching himself at his brother.

  “No.” Olivia held firm when he tried to break free of her and he looked back at her, his black eyebrows knitted into a dark frown and his gaze narrowed and bright with the fury she could sense in him. “Listen to me.”