Aftershocks

by Marie Harte

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped between her lover and her cousin, gasping with pain as Cadmus’ Light seared through her body. “Cadmus.” She tried to reach out, but couldn’t find a hold in his fractured mind.

  Then suddenly, blessed ease filled the aching burns within her, healing the invisible wounds that bled…magic. Magic. Acknowledging the truth about herself for the first time, she started to settle down, her heart rate slowing as the adrenaline rush pushing her began to crash. But instead of feeling drained, she felt revitalised. Cadmus and she remained joined, their energy had fused together. She could only stare at the world around her, seeing it through eyes laced with Storm Lord power.

  A deep groan brought her gaze quickly back to Cadmus. Her energy soothed his, climbing over the Dark bands connecting them until her magic infused itself within him. Like one giant Djinn, their Darkness settled over them like a comforting blanket.

  “Ellie? I don’t…” Cadmus shook his head, his entire body flaming, the Light within him trying to burn out the dark flames encasing his body in truth. “I can’t think,” he rasped. “I need, I need so badly.” Again, he paused, as if he knew but didn’t know how to express what he had to have.

  But Ellie knew. Conscious of Djinn approaching and that Jonas lay nearby, watching everything before him in shock, she tentatively grabbed Cadmus by the arm and hugged him to her, startled not to feel a burn from his fiery body. He felt hot yet soothing, and so very right.

  “Ellie?” he whispered.

  “Jonas, we have to go. We’ll be fine. And so will you.” Knowing the others would take care of her cousin, she pulled the information she needed from Cadmus’ mind and teleported them both to an isolated spot deep in a wooded area away from the scene of his battle.

  Cadmus had come here often in his first trek to Foreia. He’d found a spot to commune with the land, a place where he felt somewhat at home in the midst of his enemy.

  Elllie ignored that reflection, knowing he couldn’t help what he’d thought upon first arriving here. She could only hope he spoke the truth when he’d said he didn’t mind the Djinn now, and that he didn’t hold her heritage against her.

  “I know what you need,” she confessed, and drew him out of his Djinn-like form back into solid flesh and bone.

  Stroking his arms, his neck and chest, she murmured soothing words of comfort, promises of togetherness she wished might come true. Soon, he was returning her strokes with large, callused hands, assuring her of his return.

  He suddenly kissed her, pushing her shirt off her shoulders and soon off her body. Lips and hands caressed her breasts, her stomach and lower, causing desire to vibrate through her like an approaching storm. Lost to sensation, she could only gasp when his hands found the wet heat between her thighs.

  One minute, they were groping and straining against their clothes, and the next, he had her lowered to the mossy ground, covering her naked body with his. Pressing against her, he nudged her knees apart and slid into her body.

  “Cadmus,” she groaned, arching up as his mouth found her breast.

  He pulled the peak and sucked, laving her flesh with a mouth so hot he set her body ablaze. His hands, his touch, and then his mind began increasing her pleasure, mild tremors making her shudder as he thrust and plumped her clitoris. His magic speared her with sexual hunger, an erotic haze rapidly taking over her every rational thought until she was a mass of feeling.

  “Yes, Elliara,” he breathed, filling her with his thick shaft. “Take it all, every inch of my cock in your tight, wet pussy. Welcome my mind inside your own. Listen to your body that craves what I can give you.” He palmed her buttocks, pulling her closer as he thrust deeper into her sex. “Feel the whole of me that needs what you are, who you are.”

  The friction was unbearable, the pleasure so intense she wanted to scream. He continued to surge in and out, his body growing harder and thicker as he slid through her molten heat. His large hands pulled her with him, stoking her to complete and utter satisfaction.

  She couldn’t take anymore, and when he increased the vibration on her clit as he rocked harder into her, she cried out and came, shuddering around him as he finally convulsed, spilling into her. The orgasm seemed non-ending as he continued to shudder, filling her with his essence.

  When he finally stopped moving, she felt as if every one of her bones had turned to water. Too sated to move, to barely breathe, she could only lie there and stare up at him in utter awe.

  This was the warrior Jonas had spoken of when telling tales of the dreaded Storm Lords. This was the Casanova women at the bar clamoured over for the chance to experience the heaven she’d just reached.

  “No, baby,” he murmured, leaning down with eyes so dark they looked black. “This is the man destined to make you sorry you ran out on him this morning.”

  “Eavesdropper.” She sighed and kissed his cheek, then his nose, then his mouth, too pleased with his performance to be more than annoyed at his persistence. “This is the man who has a memory like an elephant. How can you still be harping on that after what we just did?”

  He remained buried within her, his body still hard though he’d released inside her with tremendous force.

  “I’d rather focus on your leaving me than think about how I almost hurt you earlier,” he said quietly, his expression one of open regret. “Ellie, when I think of what I almost did to you, I—”

  “Don’t, Cadmus.” She placed two fingers over his lips. “It wasn’t your fault. It was the Darkness.”

  “Of this place.” He caged her gently but protectively in his muscled arms.

  “No.” Upon first settling down onto Foreia’s ground, she’d felt the instant connection to the land, to its gathered energy. The swirling power within Cadmus didn’t feel the same. “When you burst in truth, that energy came from somewhere else. It’s not Foreia. And it’s not evil. I think I’d have sensed if it were.”

  “I almost killed you and Jonas. That’s not a good thing, Ellie,” he said, his expression grim.

  “But you didn’t. I’m not sure what happened, but the only thing I felt as your Light burned through me was desperate need.”

  “For you, Ellie. You’re the one I need.” He kissed her tenderly, placed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “I don’t understand any of this. Light forgive me, but I can’t ignore the truth anymore. I want you, Ellie. All of you.”

  He began moving in her again, surprising her at how quickly he could arouse her after such a mind-blowing climax. She felt his energy reaching out to her and embraced him, allowing even the tentative touch of his Light. Surprisingly, the Light no longer burned, but caressed like fingers of pleasure everywhere it touched.

  “What are you doing to me?” she whispered as he pulled out of her and turned her over, propping her up on her hands and knees. Her limbs felt like jelly, and the mental support he lent was all that allowed her to remain upright.

  “I’m loving you, Ellie. All of you,” he said thickly. “This time I’m going to take things slowly, thoroughly, as I give you the perfection you so richly deserve.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cadmus felt the cool touch of Ellie’s flesh like the calm beginning before a storm. The physical need to connect with her overwhelmed every other thought in his mind. Her beauty, the silken feel of her golden skin, so much lighter than his darker hand, the scent of their combined lovemaking, all of it fuelled his desire, pushing him to fulfil his darkest fantasies.

  As if Foreia had totally opened its arms in greeting, Cadmus could feel the land’s Dark energy spiraling up through his knees on the bed of moss, in the very air touching his naked flesh and in the plant life whispering to him all around. Desires and urges he’d suppressed for so long poured out of him as he readied to mount the woman he’d been waiting for forever.

  Coating his shaft in the combined moisture of their release, he pressed into the tight rose of Ellie’s anus. He clenched his teeth, knowing she buzzed with the same passion
he felt, but also with a hint of nerves that stroked his excitement unbearably.

  She squirmed against him, pushing herself onto him and he inched inside her.

  “Oh, Camus,” she breathed. She stilled, letting the small intrusion settle before she tentatively pushed back again. “More.”

  He kept himself frozen in the moment, his body eager to take hers, to possess what no man had ever before touched. The primitive rush of conquest washed over him, the darkness of the moment emblazoned in the hunger steadily building within.

  Running his hands over her back and shoulders, he leaned closer to hug her, cupping her full breasts and kneading the globes with an urgency that stoked her own. Her nipples tightened, twin buds scoring his palms as he nestled closer inside her.

  “Ellie, love, I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered in her ear and nipped at her lobe. At her sigh, he pushed a fraction deeper, fighting the need to plunge deep, to feel her completely surrounding him. “Being with you, seeing you every day and not feeling your heat around me, it’s torture.” Dark needs rode him with brutal pressure. “I need to fuck you, baby, long and hard.”

  Her breathing increased, and he groaned, feeling her Darkness sweeping through him. Her feminine energy challenged him, demanding he finish what he’d started. She drew him into her thoughts—images of them making love in every way, dark and decadent, light and tender, made his blood burn.

  The ground beneath them trembled as he reached down to pinch and pleasure her clit. The harder he pinched, the more she pushed back, impaling herself on his steely cock even as she gasped against the intrusion.

  He couldn’t take much more and, sharing those feelings with Ellie, was thrilled to find she couldn’t wait either.

  “Cadmus,” she moaned.

  “Yes, baby, now.”

  He stretched her slowly, forcing himself to feel the same painful pleasure she felt while he shared his fiery lust. “Push me out, baby, let me feel those walls tremble around me.”

  Her tight muscles clenched him, and by pushing out, she actually made it easier for him to slide deeper. Unable to stop, he continued to slide until he was seated as far inside her as he could go.

  He knew she should have felt uncomfortable, but the intensity of their mixed emotions and the steady, elemental thrumming he continued against her clit had Ellie verging on climax.

  The beauty of the moment locked into his heart, and Cadmus blinked away an absurd welling of tears as he began moving, gently at first, then with harder thrusts as Ellie exploded, coming hard with a keening cry.

  Sweat beaded his brow and the familiar pressure started in his balls, urging him to take what he needed, to fill the woman under him with what only he could give her. When her energy pulled him deeper, he lost it completely.

  “Ellie,” he groaned and spurted, his orgasm ripping away all thought as sensation overtook him. The trees and flowers echoed his pleasure, their blooms growing brighter, their leaves greener. The blue moss multiplied, covering three times the area of the small bed upon which they knelt.

  Lost in Ellie, he could only wonder how it had taken him so long to see the truth. Her perfection resonated so deeply within him that it was as if they were one. He’d never felt this way about anyone before. Certainly none of the women he’d lain with while in the mundane plane had stirred him to such heights. The paramours he’d courted in Tanselm had never seemed to want Cadmus, the man. They’d been eager to bed a prince. Cadmus was the funny Royal, the lighthearted rogue who would steal kisses but never a heart. And while he’d been more than happy to maintain such a reputation in his youth, as he’d aged, he tired of trying to change minds. Hell, everyone he’d ever known treated him like the court jester. Even his brothers had a tendency to treat him like a younger sibling, despite the fact they’d been born quadruplets.

  Yet Ellie, his blonde, magnificent Djinn, took him very seriously. He’d been caught the moment he’d laid eyes on her. But it was more than beauty that kept his attention. Ellie had a natural charm, an intelligence and wit that made everyone around her happy. Even the assholes at the bar constantly coming on to her had received gentle yet firm rejections. While kind, Ellie was also strong. Her only vulnerability seemed to have to do with family, and he knew exactly how family could make a body crazy.

  He sighed and squeezed her tight before withdrawing from her body. Even apart, he could feel her inner magic calling out to him, her Darkness beckoning his Light to reach out and touch. He felt too sated to be alarmed, but he thought he might be falling in love with the enchanting woman, who’d turned around to stare up at him with dreamy blue eyes.

  A surge of humour took him by surprise. The shit was really going to hit the fan when Arim realised Cadmus had found his affai, and that she was not only Djinn but the daughter of one of the Dark’s most powerful rulers.

  If only Ellie were surer about herself, he’d feel better about telling her what he now accepted as the truth. He really had no choice in the matter. His soul had spoken for him. Ellie Markham, Elliara al Ethim il Ruethe, was his affai, his destined mate and soon-to-be his partner in rule over the northlands of Tanselm.

  Unfortunately, Cadmus had a feeling that telling her now would only spook the stubborn woman into never accepting her destiny. Damn Ethim and her mother for putting their daughter between them in their painful war of affection. Now, he had to woo a woman resistant to magic and wiles and Light Bringers. Though he had to admit, the sheer challenge of the notion sparked his interest more than a little.

  “What has you grinning like that?”

  “Like what?” he asked in a husky voice, wondering if she could feel the powerful emotions roiling within his heart.

  “Like the cat that ate the canary.”

  He propped himself on an elbow on his side and eyed the sated woman, wondering if she knew how close she resembled that remark. Had he not known better, he’d swear she was purring.

  “What’s that noise?” Her eyes widened.

  “I thought that was you.”

  She shook her head. “No. But now that you mention it, I’m surprised you heard it. It’s the same sort of sound I hear before Jonas shows, when he’s courteous enough to give me a little warning.”

  “Likes to pop in unannounced, hmm?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Cadmus planned to put a stop to that. Then recalling what he’d done to Jonas earlier, his good mood promptly vanished.

  “Shit.”

  “Excuse me?” She leaned up and looked for her clothes. “I’m going to take that as an ‘I wish we had more time to spend together’ shit.”

  He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped. “I’m a real pain in your ass, aren’t I?”

  She flushed at his play on words. “Yes, you are, you pervert.” She let him clean her before she quickly dressed. “I can’t believe I let you do that to me.”

  “Come on, Ellie.” He lazily dressed then stepped into his boots, wanting to take her all over again. Something about her called to him on a purely visceral level. “You know you liked it. I guess that makes you the perfect pervert for me.”

  Her blue gaze regarded him with laughter, and with a small hint of caution that had him suddenly aware of how he’d hurt her in the past. He had no way to right that wrong, but he could make the present pave way for a joyous future. Rejuvenated, he smiled with all the charm he had in him.

  “Holy mother of all that’s Light, but I never feel as good as I do around you, Ellie.” He took her in his arms and kissed the breath out of her. “I’d be a fool not to admit how perfectly we fit. You make my head spin.” He paused. “You are all right, aren’t you? I didn’t hurt you?”

  “No.” She blushed and looked down, a becoming shyness so at odds with the strong woman he’d come to know. “As much as I’d like to tell your ego to pound sand, I have to admit I never would have agreed to what we did if I didn’t…”

  She trailed off, and he knew it was too soon for her to admit what he prayed she
was growing to feel. She needed time—and wooing, his conscience added—to tell him what he suspected she might feel for him.

  He looked deeply into her eyes, caught by the fierce yearning in the sky blue irises staring back at him.

  She cupped his cheek and brushed her fingers over his whiskers. “It was wonderful, Cadmus. You’re a very giving lover. And you’ve shown me Light in so many new and wonderful ways.”

  His heart stuttered under her touch, and he revelled in her praise. He wryly likened himself to a beast brought to heel by a beautiful maiden. She had well and truly snared him, and he knew he’d give his last breath to make sure she had every happiness she deserved.

  “Cadmus, I need to tell you something.”

  “Anything, Ellie. I’m yours.” He meant that wholeheartedly.

  “It’s hard for me to say. You see, I think I—”

  He froze as a familiar spread of Darkness enveloped them.

  “Hell. Not now.” Cadmus threw up a protective shield around them both and pushed Ellie behind him.

  Within moments, he felt oppressive sorcery sucking at his energy.

  “Ellie, focus on your father and teleport to him right now.” He gritted his teeth and transferred what power he could still control into Ellie’s shield. Damn, Lexa aggravated the hell out of him. He’d just had utter bliss with Ellie. And now the memory of it would be tainted by Jonas’ Dark Mistress.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Ellie refused.

  Fuck. He didn’t want her anywhere near Lexa Van Nostren. At least Ethim would protect Ellie from harm. He’d overheard the man mumble something to a few of his men the last time Cadmus had been in Foreia. But how to get Ellie out of here? The stubborn woman would no doubt rather be killed trying to make a point.

  “Fine.” An idea sparked. “Teleport out of here and bring help back with you. Find your father. Don’t let us both get trapped here. Quickly, before she arrives.”

  Ellie frowned. “She? But who—”