He ran a gentle, probing finger over her injured knee, his gaze questioning. “All right?”
“I’m fine.”
He sighed, then nodded. “I’ll tell you.”
She nodded. About fucking time.
He pushed himself to his feet and got the water, a cloth, and half a bar of soap.
“Lie back. I’ll bathe you and tell the story.”
With his hands on her, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear a single word he said.
But she did as he asked and allowed his deep, quiet voice to take her to Elder.
* * * *
“I’m not going to make it, Mach. You have to swear to me right now that you’ll take care of her.”
Mach tightened his lips and ran on, holding Elder against his chest, marveling at how suddenly the other man had seemed to shrink.
“Swear it, Mach.” Elder’s voice was weak and thin, but Mach heard him.
He glanced down at his love, glowering. “You know me.”
“Yes, I do. But for my own peace…please. Swear it.”
“I swear.” He felt a momentary pang at how harsh his voice sounded, how angry, but pushed it away. He was angry. Furious. “Shut up. Death does not wait for you.”
“Min ect sul,” Elder whispered, a ghost of a smile lighting his face.
“Min ect sul,” Mach repeated. “I bring death.” He looked at Elder. “But not to you.”
Elder’s eyes burned in the white paleness of his face. “And not to her.”
“Never.”
“Danix has decided, whether he realizes it or not. In the end, he will take her.”
“In the end, I will kill him.”
“Be careful. I would not like to hear of your death.”
“In paradise, you will be well. Wait for us.”
Elder closed his eyes, and Mach’s heart lurched, but he only slept. Mach ran, ran with all the speed lent to him by fear and desperation. Elder was dying, but paradise would save him.
His thoughts wandered as his love slept, wandered to the woman he’d been forced to leave. He would find her again, in the mountains.
They would stay in the mountains until forced out by sheer necessity. They would find the shrube they needed to join Elder in paradise. They would.
He didn’t find the paradise exit for two days.
Elder had grown steadily worse. His breathing was harsh and labored, his heartbeat an erratic drum through his heaving chest. His skin had taken on a bluish cast, and his lips were dry and colorless.
When he was conscious, his eyes were large, feverish black holes in his sunken face. How quickly he progressed toward death. How eagerly death stretched out its long, bony fingers to claim him.
But Mach would not allow death its victory.
Sobbing, he stumbled with his precious burden into the clearing. He fell upon his knees and lowered Elder to the hollowed area before the entrance rock, where the injured man lay like a newborn babe, too weak to move.
The entrance rock was glorious. A huge, carved face in the side of a sloping blue-gray mountain, it watched with sympathetic eyes and sweetly smiling lips. It did not speak. Perhaps it couldn’t.
The hands would not appear until Elder had been accepted, then they would shoot from below the face to claim him, drawing him into the quickly opening mouth. Drawing him into the dark depths of paradise.
As Mach began to scoot back, Elder spoke. “Paradise, Mach.” His voice was whispered and creaky, but surprisingly determined. “I had paradise with you.”
“It waits.” He clutched at Elder’s hand. “I would go with you.”
Elder opened his eyes, just a crack. “No. You will help her, as you helped me. When you both come, I’ll be waiting.”
Mach swallowed, cursing himself silently for the weakness of his tears. He would miss this man, and the pain would be terrible. But Cin needed him, and they needed her.
And in the end, they would all be together in paradise. He leaned to kiss Elder, flinching at the dry heat in the other man’s lips. “They will save you. I put the shrube in your bag. Tell them.” But they would know. They would know before they took him.
Elder gave a slow nod and a weak smile. “I love you.”
“I love you,” Mach’s voice broke, and he forced himself away. They would not take Elder if he was not alone. One at a time. It was the way of things.
But what hurt him the most was the calm acceptance in Elder’s eyes. He thought he was a dead man lying in a grave, not an ill man going to paradise.
He didn’t believe, still.
But Mach would believe enough for both of them. He stared up at the hanging rocks that turned in silver circles above the entrance and shook his fist. “Take him! Take him now!”
“Tell Cin—”
But before he could finish his sentence, he was taken. The ground beneath him shuddered, and those rocky blue-veined hands shot from the mountain to grab him.
Swallowed whole, his faint scream was merely a shout of shock as the face of paradise pulled him into its unknown depths.
It churned and sucked, making a sound like a torturous grinding of gears, and took Elder to paradise.
And Mach could not follow. Not yet.
He knelt for the longest time, his stare glued to the spot where Elder had been. He was gone, then. It was final. Done.
It was like he’d died.
Dead and buried.
Mach shook his head hard and climbed to his feet. No. Elder was not dead. He was in paradise, and there awaited only good things.
The evening wind picked up, blowing loose dirt over the light imprint left by Elder’s injured body. Soon there was nothing left of him but a dark splotch of blood that looked like a butterfly.
Mach stood with clenched fists and screamed to the sky, screamed his fury and his pain, letting the wind carry it from his heart into the wilds of Ripindal.
And when his mind was empty and his eyes were dry, he collapsed upon the ground and slept the night and most of the next day, his body repairing for the journey to the mountains.
Cin needed him. He could feel it, feel it like an itch deep inside him where he couldn’t scratch, and he woke ready to go find her.
He jogged steadily, stopping for short periods to eat and rest. Elder had spoken the truth. Danix would let the soft face of Cin simmer in his memory for a time, and slowly she would become something he had to have.
Cin seemed to know little of the impact of her own striking beauty. There was a sweet pureness to her, despite her attitude of tough necessity, and in spite of, or maybe because of, the stark, raw pain deep inside her expressive blue eyes. She had something irresistible to her, and he could not decipher what that was. It just was.
Danix would eventually fight Mach for her, and Mach knew the housekeeper, even though he had a slight tendency toward honor, would make himself believe Mach needed to be destroyed. Then Cin would be free, and Danix would take her.
It was only a matter of time before Danix caught her wandering the hillsides alone, and if Mach did not reach her in time, there would be little hope for her. Danix would change her into something she didn’t even know existed.
Mach had to reach her first.
And he would see Danix destroyed.
Chapter Seventeen
When Mach let his voice trail off and cleared his throat, Cin was unsurprised to find her cheeks wet with the tracks of her tears.
“You’re a hell of a special person,” she said. “So is Elder.”
His gaze was sharp. “So is Cin.”
She smiled, then sniffed. She missed Elder, missed him a lot, but she’d see him again. It was time to look ahead, to think of the work they would need to do in order to be with him again. “You have my thanks for coming back for me. You didn’t have to do that.” She glared at a nearby tree.
He chuckled.
His voice was dark and creamy like something thick and melted, and that’s all it took to take her mind off her worries an
d put it on her body. And him.
She shivered. He’d washed her body as he talked, but his words painted images in her mind that weakened the feeling of the wet cloth on her skin.
He had barely skimmed over her breasts and had washed between her legs, his attentions clinical and quick. But now the knowledge was there between them.
Her gaze met his, and they only stared at each other. Her breathing quickened, and gooseflesh popped up on her skin. She crossed her arms over her breasts as her nipples hardened, heat climbing her cheeks.
His sniff was so soft and quick it was barely there, but she knew him. His nostrils flared slightly, his eyes narrowing, and she knew he scented her. He knew she wanted him.
And oh, did she want him.
But did he want her, without Elder there to join and share in their lovemaking? Or would he feel it was disloyal? Was he too sad?
She looked at his lips, those full, firm lips, and wanted nothing more than to kiss him, to slide her lips along his, to gently push her tongue into his mouth, to nibble and suck, to bite and taste.
Her groan was out before she could snatch it back, and her gaze flew to his in dismay.
His luscious lips quirked, and there was a distinct sparkle in his midnight eyes. He ran his fingers over her cheek, down her throat and stopped at the barrier of her arms.
“You want?”
Yes, she wanted. She wanted so bad she was panting. Every inch of her body had become hypersensitive, and heat, liquid and melting, gathered between her legs. “Do you?”
After the words were uttered, she felt ridiculous, like a young girl wanting validation from her hot boyfriend.
But he just kept smiling his sexy half smile, his big body looking like a tightly coiled spring. His biceps bunched as he gently but relentlessly forced her folded arms away from her breasts. “Always, Cin.”
Her breath hitched as he lifted his hands to her exposed breasts. He moved his rough palms in small circular motions over her nipples, barely touching the stiff, sensitive tips.
It was torture. Torture. She moaned lightly, watching him. His long hair, loose and flowing over his huge shoulders, his glittering eyes lending enough danger to the experience to make her deliciously fearful; he was just savage enough to do anything he liked, and consequences be damned.
“You’re so fucking…gorgeous,” she told him, even though that wasn’t quite the word she wanted.
He put his mouth to her breasts, teasing her nipples with his tongue, sucking them, first one, then the other before it could be too neglected.
She leaned back on her palms, her head back. She could have stayed like that for hours, with him tasting, licking, and nipping at her breasts.
But heat and an insistent, slow throbbing began between her legs, and she became a little less patient. She had no willpower where Mach was concerned. She hadn’t with Elder either.
Maybe she’d have had trouble with any protective, sweet, sexy hunk of commanding male who came along, but whatever. She wanted them, and that was the way it was. Fuck the judgments.
He spread her legs and slid his fingers into the slick folds of her pussy, probing, then pushed into her, his thumb at her clit.
She gasped and lay back, her legs open and bent at the knee, arms above her head. She squirmed, thrusting her hips to drive his fingers more deeply into her.
There was no sexier feeling than lying open and exposed outdoors with this man playing over her body. The cooling air combined with her arousal caused her nipples to harden and gooseflesh to cover her skin.
She wanted to reach for him, wanted to squeeze her own breasts, but she kept her arms above her head as though he’d ordered her there.
Mach couldn’t seem to remain careful and gentle for long, and she was never disappointed with his roughness.
He flopped to his belly and grabbed her hips, pulling her impatiently to him. Slamming his mouth against her cunt, he ate her like he was helpless to do otherwise. Hard, fast, messily, he used his tongue, his lips, and his teeth, and the heat began to climb from her center to her belly, to her breasts, and spread through her entire body.
She arched her back, crying out as he licked her in hard, short strokes and thrust his fingers into her so hard it was almost too much. Almost. Just enough to be deliciously frightening, and he didn’t let up.
He had her clit in his warm mouth and sucked on it as his tongue flicked it back and forth, harder and faster until her orgasm stole her breath and left her clawing at the ground.
And still he wouldn’t stop.
She grabbed his hair and pulled herself to a sitting position, then beat at his shoulders in desperation. “Stop, God, Mach!” It was too much.
He seized her wrists and held them as securely as any rope, refusing to stop sucking and licking her.
Before she knew it was going to happen, she came again, bucking her hips, screaming his name, and hoping like hell he would give her a minute, then fuck her until she was unconscious.
He flipped her to her belly even before her climax had stopped, grabbed her hips, and rammed his cock into her.
“Fuck… Treg min…” His voice was harsh, strained, and low, and something about the sound of his pleasure sent her once more over the edge.
He pounded into her, and she gave as good as she got, pushing her pussy against him, her fingers scrabbling at the ground, her mouth open.
He turned her into a wild, half-crazed animal, full of lust and need and forgetfulness, and she welcomed it all.
His balls slapped against her as he fucked her harder, and only his big hands kept her from flying headlong into the nearest tree.
She came again, and with that orgasm she lost her ability to support herself, and for a few seconds until he found his own release, he tossed her around like a rag doll.
He half collapsed atop her, sweaty, panting, and groaning. He flipped to his back and pulled her into his arms.
He slapped her ass. “You might yet kill me, woman.” He blew out a deep breath, and beneath her ear, his heart beat like an out-of-control drum.
She fared no better. She laughed, bit his flat male nipple, and dwelled for a moment on her happiness.
Her pussy still throbbed with the aftereffects of such intense orgasms. As though he knew her thoughts, he gently pushed his hand between her legs and just let it lie there, warm and somehow comforting.
She lay in his arms, wondering if he felt as secure with her as she did with him. True, he was stronger and bigger and wilder than she, but still. There was something to this togetherness stuff.
It was so perfect at that moment that she might have known something would happen to shatter the peace.
When it came, she realized she’d been expecting it.
Chapter Eighteen
She was almost glad to see Danix and some of his men surrounding them, because it gave her an opportunity to see how Saint and Satan fared. To see if they’d survived his sadistic punishment.
“This night,” Mach murmured, his voice rumbling in her ear, “he will die.”
She could only hope she and Mach didn’t join him in that predicted death. She and Mach stood, and Mach pulled on his pants as she jerked her shirt over her head. That was all she had time for.
Mach handed her a crank and a short sword, seeming not to care at all that Danix would see this as a challenge. Tonight there would be no politics, no stepping lightly. Tonight someone would die, and it would be finished.
“Have a care,” Mach told her. “I would not lose you.”
“Ditto.”
Some of the housekeepers were missing. Perhaps ten of Danix’s men stood behind him, and she wondered if maybe the others had abandoned him to his mad attempt to destroy the half Mehnarthian and take his woman. After all, Danix had to answer to someone, and she was sure his superiors were even scarier than he was.
Danix stood well back, out of the reach of Mach’s long weapons and violent temper. He looked at Cin. “Come to me, and I will give you back
your knives. I will not share you with my men unless you disappoint me.”
“Very magnanimous of you, but I think I’ll pass.” And then, unable to help herself, added, “Asshole.”
A low rumbling growl began in the chest of the big man standing next to her, and although she couldn’t hear it, she was sure Danix’s body was vibrating with the same sign of Mehnarthian rage.
Danix speared Mach with his stare. “Give her to me, and I will let you live.”
“No, you won’t,” Cin said and spit at the housekeeper.
“She belongs with me,” Mach said. “No bargaining.”
Danix inclined his head and pulled a scimitar from his belt. “Then I will kill you and take her.”
“Why?” Cin asked, aggravated. “Why can’t you find a woman who actually wants you and leave me to my life and my man?”
Danix’s smile was slow and wide. “I like challenge. I will make you beg me before this is over.”
“You can give it a good try, motherfucker. But I swear to you right now I will never beg the likes of you for anything.”
Her temper only amused him. He held up his beautiful, deadly blade, saluting her, and spoke over his shoulder. “Kill him, and bring her to me.”
“What?” she mocked. “You’ll have your men fight for you? Are you afraid?”
He threw back his head and laughed long and loud. But when he was finished, there were no traces of amusement in his gaze. “Shut up, you silly bitch.” He nodded at his men. “Do it. Now.”
And then she found her own reason to smile. She saw the hilts of her knives peeking from one of the belts crisscrossing Danix’s body. It wasn’t just the two of them against nearly a dozen housekeepers. Saint and Satan were still hers, and she knew the kind of damage they could cause.
She wasn’t afraid, exactly. She was beyond fear. Later, if she lived, she would let the fear consume her. There wasn’t time for it right now.
The big men started toward them, almost leisurely, maybe thinking there would be no battle. They would do as Danix commanded and have supper and go on terrorizing all of Ripindal as always.
“Not this time.” She took a deep breath. “Saint!” she screamed. “Satan! To me!”
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