by Meg Xuemei X
My body protested at the sudden emptiness.
Marrok ground his cock hard against my belly, his hot seed shooting out and pooling on my skin. It took a while for him to stop shuddering.
He rubbed his cock on my body. His lust hadn’t receded. The wolf alpha looked like he wanted to stick his still-hard dick into me for another round.
Heat still pulsed between my thighs. The aching need deep inside me would welcome his penetration, but I had better sense than to give my body whatever it wanted.
Marrok released me from his grip and my weak legs trembled as they hit the ground.
“I would have had the best sex if I came inside you,” he said. “Let’s fuck again tonight in my Keep. We can go all night.”
I licked my lips. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m not going to fuck you again, let alone in your Keep.”
“Why the fuck not?” he asked roughly. The stormy lust gradually receded from his eyes, but I knew it lay dormant inside him. The wolf alpha wanted to keep me as his, but I could never be his.
I wasn’t available.
“If I were you, Marrok, I wouldn’t expect more beyond this point, in case you forget where we are.”
“I haven’t met a woman who could return to cold reasoning right after such mind-blowing sex.”
“Now you’ve met one,” I said. “You didn’t even know of my existence until today. But if you’ll bother to ask around, you’ll know that I’m the only rational person on this fucked-up planet. I didn’t go crazy, and I don’t like going crazy.”
“Fine,” he said and went to pick up his shirt.
Instead of pulling it on, he cleaned his bountiful seed from my belly.
I hadn’t expected that courtesy from him.
Living on Pandemonium had taught me not to expect a decent act from anyone.
A small voice protested in the back of my mind. I wasn’t all alone in abandonment. I had Fia, no matter whether she recognized me or not. And I even had a small, relatively loyal army that was bound by fear and survival.
I pulled up my pants and straightened my clothing to regain some dignity while Marrok pulled on his trousers. He shrugged on his leather jacket, leaving it unzipped, exposing his bare, muscled torso, and flung his stained shirt over his left shoulder.
Was he going to take it back as a souvenir of his sexual conquest? Although, with the limited resources on Pandemonium, I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to wash it later and keep it.
I watched him, waiting for his next move. He was satisfied, but not fully. He wanted more of me. He wanted to come inside me.
Though we’d just had sex, I didn’t really know him.
Yet I was overcome with need.
This need made me feel content, lightheaded, and vulnerable.
But on Pandemonium, vulnerability spelled death.
My rational side explained that I was suffering from sensory overload after two brutal battles and the most amazing sex. It’d take more than a few minutes for my mind to rewire and reboot.
While my body tried to recover from thrill, pleasure, exhaustion, and pain, I felt light as a feather for the first time since I’d come to this planet. The weight would push back, but for the moment, the lightness was precious.
Marrok was watching me.
“Hey,” he said with a smile.
The warmth in his voice made my heart swell. I almost wanted to slump on his shoulders and let him carry me a little further so I wouldn’t need to hold everything all by myself. But I knew I couldn’t. No one could take my yoke, and I shouldn’t even have a small, secret hope that one day someone would.
My burden was mine, and mine alone, to bear, until I could get Fia home.
The level-headed Kaara was back in my body.
“Hello, werewolf,” I said coolly as if nothing had happened between us.
“We’re actually shifters.” His tone also hardened.
Whatever. Werewolves or shifters were a rarity on my former planet.
“Can you shift to forms other than a wolf?” I challenged him.
“We shift only to wolves.” Then he thought for a second and said, “If my ancestors chose other forms right in the beginning, we’d probably stick to that form.”
“Then you’re a werewolf.”
“Shifter.”
“Fine, wolf-shifter Alpha Marrok, whatever you prefer me to call you. We might not live through the next cycle.”
“I’ll keep you alive, Kaara. And I’ll never let you go hungry.”
“I can take care of myself.”
A teasing smile twitched on his lips. My heart stuttered for a second. A moment ago, he was a deadly warrior, and the next, he was an excellent lover. I’d expected to meet monsters at every turn, but not someone so deadly sexy.
“Then how about you keep me alive and never let me go hungry?” he asked.
“Don’t get cute,” I said.
He laughed. “You think I’m cute? You do, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”
Marrok was in an incredibly good mood. I wondered how long it had been since he’d gotten laid. Red jealousy shot through me. He could have slept with another woman last night, considering he was the alpha. He could have any woman in his pack.
He looked at me with dark amusement and my body purred from the attention, despite my annoyance.
“I’ll see you around,” he said.
“Of course.” I shrugged.
So, it was goodbye. We’d each gotten what we’d wanted. He might forget me tomorrow, and I’d try to drop him from my mind as well. Even though it was a small city, we might not cross paths again, given it had taken three years for our paths to cross for the first time.
I headed in an opposite direction from him, ready to call my team to come up to take our spoil.
Marrok caught up with me in two long strides. “No so fast,” he said. “You’ll find it’s very hard to get rid of me. Now, we go out together like a united front. But first, let’s return to that demon and toss it out of the window, so our men will bow at our combined force. Your coven can have half of the alien meat.”
“You plan to eat the Eshmaki?” I asked incredulously.
“Why the hell not?” he asked in puzzlement.
“The assassin is a demon!”
“Now it’s meat,” he said. “And I don’t care about its name.” A dark light flashed in his eyes. He spun me and peeked into my eyes, and I put up my shield, ignoring the immediate ache in my head.
“How do you know it was an assassin?” he asked, menace in his voice. “Did it come after you? If it did, there would be more coming.”
Lithuaria royal house had sent the first assassin. The bounty hunters would keep coming until one of them could take my and Fia’s heads to them. I would have to take caution and double my men when we came for the next fallen ship.
I would take care of it.
“Anyone who attacks me is an assassin,” I said with exasperation.
“You’re hiding things from me, and I don’t like it. If there’s any threat to you, you need to let me know, and I’ll take it out.”
“My point is, demons are a sentient species.”
Marrok chuckled. “We’ll roast it tonight with pepper and garlic. If you don’t want the demon meat, my pack has no problem taking it all.”
I shook my head. Why was I even disgusted? This was Pandemonium.
“Take it,” I said with a dismissive wave.
We returned to the deck where we had slain the Eshmaki.
Marrok dragged the massive she-demon toward the nearest open tear of the ship, raised his conquest over his shoulders for all who were beneath the ship to see, and tossed her down.
The wolf clan howled in victory.
Marrok grabbed hold of my hand and lifted it high with his.
We both stood at the opening, so all could see our joined hands.
The pack quieted. My team widened their eyes, not knowing how to take this.
Had Marrok always
been like this? Never giving anyone a fair warning?
I didn’t know the wolf clan’s custom, but I realized Marrok had just announced our alliance, and more than that—something only his pack understood fully.
If joining hands could get me a better deal when we came to scavenge the ships, I was fine with the gesture.
“Kaara Nightshades,” he said, nodding at me.
I had no fucking idea how the wolf clan closed a deal, so I mimicked him with a serene nod. “Alpha Marrok.”
The wolves and my men soon swarmed the alien ship. We didn’t find the supplies we hoped for other than a dozen vast eggs. Luckily, and strangely enough, none of those eggs cracked at the fall.
Marrok and his pack took the Eshmaki and the three dead alien beasts along with four eggs. I took eight eggs.
I didn’t want to picture what kind of creatures the eggs belonged to. As Marrok had said, meat was meat. Eggs were eggs. We would cook them tonight.
As my team transported the eggs to the Witch Tower, I noticed two wolves trailing behind us in the distance. They left when they saw me entering the witch’s territory.
I believed Marrok had ordered them to follow me. I hoped he wouldn’t turn out to be a stalker.
But there was nothing I couldn’t handle.
Chapter 7
I gazed up at the dark tower that dwarfed the apocalyptic City of Nine. Part of the top of the tower had been cut off, either by a meteorite or something else, yet it remained splendid.
Fia’s dark magic warded the Witch Tower day and night. Only those whom she granted access to could enter her domain. They’d taken her memories and her ability to generate new ones, but they hadn’t been able to rip off her inbred knowledge and magic. The princess was merely too powerful. They’d have to kill her to completely eviscerate her recollections, but the Wickedest Witch was hard to kill.
However, Fia couldn’t use her core magic that simmered deep within her, because she didn’t know what it was. The First Seer had veiled it from her with a potent curse. Only when Fia dug it out would she restore all she’d lost.
For three years, she’d failed to trace it. I’d watched her struggle to find a clue of who she was and a way to end the nightmare. The only clue she had was the magical imprint of “the Wickedest Witch in the universe” on her finger. She didn’t even know if it was the truth or mockery, but she tried to live up to her reputation.
Every morning, I waited on the marble stairs outside her suite at the top of the tower, hoping she would recognize me. And each morning when her vacant, icy gaze fell on me, my heart broke all over again. I briefed her before she met with others, giving her enough information for the day.
But my queen was one of the most powerful witches. Even though she couldn’t remember faces, events, or places, her inherent knowledge was impeccable. She used her magical marking to record crucial names and events. Save me, no one else knew she suffered from severe amnesia. They interpreted her blank, merciless stare as the Wickedest Witch refusing to acknowledge anyone’s tiny existence. If they knew the truth, they’d swoop down on her like vultures, especially the dark vampire prince who coveted her.
Fia would kill anyone she suspected of peeking into her veiled secrets, and I had to conceal the fact that I was an Empath.
As time crawled by, I started losing hope of leaving Pandemonium.
The Seer could have lied to me. The Angel might never fall.
The thought that Fia and I would die on this godforsaken planet terrified me. My princess’ hidden panic, fear, rage and loneliness were more than I could take in, and the weight only grew heavier each day.
And I had failed her again today.
On top of that, I’d fucked a complete stranger.
Two guards patrolling the perimeter of the witch’s territory spotted me and moved toward us. A third guard blew the horn, and Wally led his logistic team out of the tower. The small-sized man was half human and half something else.
Everyone’s eyes sparkled at the huge eggs we carried.
A chef stood beside Wally, shouting cooking instructions to his crew.
“Is Lady Fiammetta in the tower?” I asked Wally.
“Lady Fiammetta hasn’t returned,” Wally said. “Should we be worried?”
“You want me to round up a team?” Rocky asked.
They would wait outside the jungle for the witch. No one dared enter Akem’s realm.
The entity let us dwell in the City of Nine, but I did not think for a second that he would allow us to run the city forever. We were the alien forms he tolerated, and his tolerance only lasted if we didn’t trespass into his dark jungle.
The fact that Fia was the only one who could roam free in his realm made all of the beings in the City of Nine fear her even more. And Fia knew exactly how to use fear to strengthen her rule.
I looked at the low sky. It was muted and dim, but night wasn’t here yet.
Though Akem let her walk his domain, it didn’t mean the jungle was a safe place, not even for the Wickedest Witch.
“If Lady Fiammetta hasn’t returned in two hours, we’ll go look for her,” I said.
For the first time, my mind wasn’t solely focused on Fia. It constantly encircled Marrok, relishing the potent lust and ecstasy in his sapphire eyes when he had pumped into me, and recalling the feel of his hard length filling me. I couldn’t wait to have him again.
A rush of guilt rammed into me.
I couldn’t allow my loyalties to be divided. There had never been a man between my future queen and me. Even though the shifter alpha knew how to fuck, I wouldn’t let him muddle my head.
I was Kaara Nightshades, the second heir of the noble Nightshades house, and the Captain of Guards to the future queen Athena Faya under blood oath.
Chapter 8
Night fell on the Witch Tower, and Fia hadn’t returned.
Anxiety rained in me.
“Rocky, Pattern,” I called. “Let’s go get Lady Fiammetta.”
Before we moved, I sensed three new presences moving toward our territory—one at the center, and two trailing behind. The one at the center was familiar.
Marrok.
My heart fluttered with joy.
It had only been half a day since we’d parted, and I already missed him.
I’d fought to push his scent and image and teasing laughter out of my mind, but to no avail.
Marrok moved like a fast, dark shadow, and he knew I’d detected him.
I could almost see his wolfish grin in the darkness of the night.
I strode toward the large wolf, hoping he wouldn’t charge through the ward blindly and hurt himself. Fia had no love for trespassers. Everyone living inside the tower had her magical imprint so they could come and go into her territory. A visitor couldn’t breach her ward without Fia’s or my invitation.
Marrok stopped outside the ward.
Rocky and Pattern flanked me.
Rocky was the shoot-first-and-never -ask-questions type. Pattern was all about using his persuasive skills to get out of a bad situation. He liked making sense of everything and even believed there was a reason we’d all fallen on this shitty place. Despite his smoothness, Pattern was even more of a vicious fighter than Rocky.
I waved them back.
Whatever had happened and would happen between Marrok and I needed to remain private. I didn’t want anyone to know that the wolf alpha and I had had the wildest sex mere hours ago.
Marrok shifted in an instant, and his naked form stood in front of me. The clothes he had carried on the back of his wolf form dropped to the ground.
His personal guards—two massive wolves—stood some distance away.
If we had been alone, I would have preferred his nakedness. I’d checked him out in the ship, but we’d been so rushed in a frenzy of desire, I hadn’t really had time to ogle him.
Marrok offered me an agreeable grin that said he would give me what I wished for soon before he shoved on his pants, shirt, and a leather ja
cket.
He stalked toward me.
He’d showered, and his hair was still wet and sexily wild.
What had he dressed up for?
For Stars’ sake, we were on Pandemonium. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from his new look.
My team loitered nearby, ready to sprint to my rescue at any sign of attack or kidnap. If they lost me, they would be under Fia’s thumb again. She had ruled them with fear, intimidation, punishment, and chaos to live up to her reputation as the Wickedest Witch before I’d come along.
I waved my team further back, and they moved back only a few more inches.
I sighed. If Fia waved at them, they’d all disappear from her sight as fast as their alien feet could carry them. When she passed, with darkness hissing and ice tracing the path behind her, they dropped their gazes. And when her icy eyes fell upon them, they shivered.
But when I glared at them, they grinned, as if wanting to come over to pat my back.
“Kaara,” Marrok said.
I didn’t invite him to cross into the territory, and remained on my side of the ward.
“To what pleasure do I owe your visit, Marrok?”
His smile widened. “It has something to do with pleasure.”
My face burned hot and I was glad it was dark.
“We don’t deal in the business of pleasure here,” I said, letting steel settle into my voice. “We deal in death.”
He nodded. “That too. As I’ve informed you, your safety has become my interest.”
“My safety isn’t your concern,” I said with exasperation. “I know how to take care of myself. I lead an army.”
“I respect that, but I still want to enhance your security.”
“We’re warded. You can’t even get in,” I said.
“You want to bet?”
I narrowed my eyes in alarm. If he could get in, then the ward wasn’t as strong as I’d believed, and I’d have to tell Fia.
“Will you give me a boon if I break through your witch’s ward?” he asked.
I didn’t want him to break it to cause panic in my army.
“What do you want?” I replied huskily, but immediately regretted it. Last time he’d wanted a kiss and I’d given him more than that. I couldn’t keep going to him. I’d get addicted. I was Fia’s security. I wasn’t supposed to be the weakest link and the security risk.