The orgasm rushed through Annie. Her hips moved against her hand and she continued to circle her clit, drawing out every last wave until the sensations were too much to go on.
She slipped her fingers from her pussy and brought her hand to her nose and breathed in the rich scent of her juices. If only the smell of Karn’s semen was mixed with the scent. It was such a rich, heady smell that she’d grown to love.
With a sigh, Annie braced her forehead against the windowpane, and both palms. The pane was cold against her skin, helping to chill her lust for Karn. Her breath fogged the view as she looked out into the dreary afternoon, and in turn her glasses clouded over.
Annie removed her glasses and cleaned them with the bottom of Karn’s tunic while she stared at the ocean.
Something dark moved along the cliff’s edge, high above the rocky shore. A two-headed something?
Frowning, Annie slipped her glasses back on, but whatever was out there was gone.
A shadow. That’s all it was.
Shaking her head, Annie turned away from the window and moved to the massive mahogany chamber door to her left. She knocked, waited for a moment in case someone was in the room, and then gripped the door handle. The large pewter-like handle felt cold in her hand, and for a moment she had to struggle with it to open the door. When it finally gave in to her efforts, the hinges creaked, sending a momentary chill down her spine.
Annie squinted into the darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the dim room, and dark forms gradually came into view, Annie almost screamed. She wasn’t exactly the screaming type, but she was so excited she could hardly contain herself.
She’d discovered an art room.
Three easels occupied the center of the chamber, canvases were stacked against walls, and countless other artist treasures filled the room. For the first time since before the sharing tea, Annie felt a burst of pure happiness. Art had meant so much to her before she was taken from her home, and the need to create was a part of her very soul.
Annie spent the day exploring the room, righting pictures that had fallen down and organizing the painting supplies she found. There were empty canvases, tubes of oil paints, a box of pastels, some kind of cleaner that smelled more like almonds than turpentine, and a box of ebony-handled brushes with bristles made from fine silver, gold, and bronze hair, probably from the horse-like beasts she’d seen in the village that were called jul. There were also countless canvases of portraits and landscapes, obviously created by an artist with true talent.
“Karn’s mother,” she murmured as she moved to a painting of a beautiful white castle that sparkled in the sunshine, with acres of gardens in every color of the rainbow spread out before it. “He mentioned she was an artist.” She checked the corner and saw the ornate initials, Q.E.
Queen Elinara.
The room was rather dusty, telling Annie it had been awhile since its contents were used, but the supplies were in fabulous condition.
In this magic place, everything is probably enchanted, she thought as she arranged the oil paints. They were in tubes that looked as if made from oilskin, and she found a palette made from rosewood in the shape of a paw print with wells where each pad would be. The pastels were in compartments on a long wooden tray that had a snug fitting wooden lid, and the lid was inlaid with a heart, a spade, a diamond, and a club.
Annie smiled. She felt like a giddy child who’d been searching for the end of the rainbow and had found her pot of gold.
After searching out a castle servant, Annie was provided with the tools she needed to give the room a good spring cleaning.
Well, maybe a winter cleaning, in this bleak place, but a cleaning nonetheless.
Late in the evening, once she’d tackled most of the room, Beya tracked Annie down. The woman appeared in her usual manner—out of nowhere—scaring the crud out of Annie in the process.
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Beya, don’t do that.”
“Pardon, Milady.” The housekeeper’s gaze traveled the now well-organized room. “’Tis time someone took this room in hand, yes. An artist’s touch it has well needed.”
Annie’s fingers itched to hold a paintbrush and bring one of the many empty canvases to life. “I can’t wait to get started.”
“But wait you shall.” Beya, who was over a good two and a half feet shorter than Annie, reached up and patted her arm. “Dinner is served in your chambers and your creature is quite in need of companionship.”
“Abra!” Annie wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Poor thing. More than likely she’ll be giving me the silent treatment until tomorrow morning.”
Beya smiled. “Come now. To your chambers.” The housekeeper faded into sparkles, leaving Annie alone once again.
As she surveyed the room one last time, she propped her hands on her hips. Her arms, legs and back ached, but she had that wonderful feeling of a job well done.
Annie gave a tired but satisfied smile in the direction of an empty canvas sitting on an easel. “Tomorrow you’re mine, sugar.”
Over the next few days, Annie threw herself into her art and pushed aside her nightly dreams. Every night she dreamed of leaving and finding her cousins safe and happy. The urge to leave and find the family who truly loved her grew greater every day, but she couldn’t abandon Karn, not yet anyway.
When she first sat down in front of the easel, she hadn’t known what she was going to create. Before she knew it she had fallen into an artistic trance, and when she came out of it the image of a man was on the canvas.
Her man.
Karn.
Daily Annie poured her heart and soul into the painting, working on it until she felt it was as close to perfect as it was going to get. Since she normally did landscapes, it surprised her how well she’d captured the brooding, sexy look in his dark eyes as he looked to the distance, the fall of dark hair to his shoulders, the arrogant line of his jaw.
Annie loved everything about Karn, and it was breaking her heart to know she’d have to leave soon. She couldn’t and wouldn’t stay where she wasn’t loved. It would slowly kill her to live with a man who refused to share his heart and soul with her.
From Aleana, Annie had managed to learn a bit here and there about her cousins, the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Spades. The Kingdom of Hearts was the closest, several miles to the north of the Kingdom of Diamonds.
And she would leave now that she’d finished his portrait. It would be her final gift to Karn, a way of leaving her love with him, even if he didn’t want it. Unconditional, no strings attached—pure and simple and colorful.
When she made the final stroke, a hint of shadow to the line of his jaw, her heart settled low in her belly. She was done. She could no longer put off the inevitable.
One more thing to do. Annie adjusted her glasses with one hand while she reached for a fine tipped brush with silver hair. Annie dipped the point into navy blue paint and then carefully signed the lower right corner.
To Karn with love,
Annie Travis
The incredible feeling of loneliness and emptiness that she’d forced back this whole week came crashing over her like the waves against the cliffs. Pounding and pounding at her so hard that tears forced their way past her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. With angry jerks of her hand, she swiped at them. Crying was useless, and she might as well get over him now. She was a big girl, and time to act like it.
After she cleaned the brushes and packed all the art supplies neatly away, she stood for a moment in the doorway, carefully holding Karn’s portrait with one hand. The room’s smells of almond-scented brush cleaner, oil paints, and cedar wood, would be forever imprinted on her mind.
Annie closed the door, the heavy wood easily sliding shut with a click and a resounding thump. Taking care not to bump the portrait, she stole back to her own corridor. She paused in front of the weapons room then set the painting so that it was resting against the wall. She slipped into the room and grab
bed the smaller of the leather packs then retrieved one of the sheathed daggers she had seen on her initial exploration of this wing. Once she reached her destination, she would make sure the dagger and pack were sent back to Karn.
The dagger she slipped into the pack for now, and then she slung the pack over her shoulder. She left the room, closing the door tight behind her then retrieved Karn’s painting and hurried to his chambers. She’d only been inside once before, when she’d swiped his shirt to wear.
Annie almost cried when she walked into his chambers and the full force of all that was Karn flowed over her. His presence filled the room from his raw masculinity to his unique male musk. Like the man, the room was dark and foreboding, yet infused with personality.
Don’t cry! she admonished herself. Tears are useless.
She set his portrait on one of the trunks in the room and leaned it up against the wall. After the portrait was settled, she slowly took off her collar and laid it on the trunk beside the painting. She felt so naked and lost without the collar, the symbolism of what it meant…that she had belonged to Karn.
Biting her lower lip to keep from crying, Annie moved to the trunk where Karn kept his clothing. She didn’t want to take anything from Karn, but she couldn’t very well travel the moors in nothing but a tunic. She knew his clothes would be too big, but maybe she could roll up each pant leg and tie a scarf or belt around the waist.
When she dug through his trunk, her fingers brushed something familiar, and she almost cried out her relief. Her jeans. By the time she’d dug everything out, she’d discovered that all her clothing was there, buried beneath his belongings. Her own jeans and T-shirt.
He’d kept them.
What that meant, she didn’t know, but if she was going to sneak out into the moors, it was good she’d have her own clothing.
Annie hurried through the connecting doors into the bedroom she’d used since arriving at Diamond Hall. She’d spent many wonderful days with Karn, before the sharing tea, but her nights had always been alone. In her heart she knew it was his way of keeping distance between them. Not allowing himself to come to care too much for her. She understood what had damaged his heart so much that he refused to love, and it was impossible to get past that. He guarded his heart so well nothing seemed to get past it.
Abra was sitting at her crystal bowl, eating her dinner, and Annie’s heart squeezed. If it wasn’t for her cat, her days would have been so much harder to take.
The cat gave Annie a haughty look that said, about time you showed up, and returned to eating. Annie smiled and sat down at the table where her own dinner was laid out.
When she finished eating, she dressed in her own clothing then strapped on the sheathed dagger. When she caught sight of the nipple rings on her dresser, she paused for a moment. The diamonds glittered in the candlelight and she couldn’t help but remember the times she’d worn them for Karn, when they were alone.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Annie withdrew the traveling cloak from the trunk and slipped it over her head, then pulled on the doeskin boots he had given her for the walk along the shore. After she stuffed the leftover piece of bread into her pocket, along with a piece of fruit, she put the pack over her shoulder. She scooped Abra up from off the bed and held the cat close beneath her cloak.
A sense of déjà vu swept over Annie, but she shook off the feeling and slipped out her bedroom door and quietly closed it behind her.
* * * * *
Karn guided his golden jul through the misty moors. The beast gave a low whinny, and Karn had to agree, it was not a good evening to be out and about. Yet he didn’t mind the rain against his face or the chill wind seeping through the opening of his traveling cloak.
What did concern him were creatures that preyed on travelers who dared to cross the moors at night. It was not fully dark yet, but Karn kept his sword across his lap and his senses constantly on the alert. Fortunately the jul also had keen senses and could easily work their way through the fog to avoid stepping into the boggy locations.
The only sounds in the moors were the creak of saddle leather and the soft clip clop of the jul’s hooves. Even the rian were quiet this night, not a chirp nor a trill, which did not set well with Karn.
Nothing sets well with me these days.
He’d left his kingdom to meet in Hearts to strategize with his brothers, Jarronn, Ty, and Darronn. The trip to Hearts was two days long by jul-back, and at least three if one was to go on foot. But to travel the moors in such a manner was foolhardy indeed.
Karn knew he should have taken Annie, but he needed space and distance. Both Alice and Alexi had been furious with him, and he’d been sure to guard his bollocks before informing them that Annie was at Diamond Hall. In just days, along with their mates, the sisters would arrive in the Kingdom of Diamonds to reunite with Annie.
And to witness Karn’s and Annie’s joining as King and Queen.
He couldn’t help but care for Annie. Her gentle ways, how she blushed so easily, her desire to please him, and how she so easily interacted with his people and truly appeared concerned with their welfare. His subjects were enamored with their future Queen, and Karn had to admit that he was, too.
But love…no.
His gut twisted as he remembered the look on his kitten’s face when she overheard him talking before the sharing tea. He did not like that he had hurt her, but what was done was done.
No matter that he cared for her, he would not allow himself the mistake of falling in love with her.
When Karn finally reached Diamond Hall, he left the jul with a stable hand and strode toward the mansion. A queer feeling settled in his gut, but he pushed it aside. Right now he needed to bury his cock in his woman, to fuck her again and again. He’d dreamed of sliding into her quim, of suckling her lovely nipples and tasting her folds and bringing her to orgasm after orgasm.
He hurried up the stairs and almost trampled Beya when he hurried down the hallway. “Pardon,” he said, never stopping in his desire to be with Annie.
“Sire,” Beya said as he opened his mate’s door. “I must—”
“Not now,” he said in a curt tone and entered Annie’s room.
She wasn’t there.
Her warm vanilla scent still lingered, mixing with the smell of ch’tok logs burning in the hearth. But his senses told him something wasn’t right.
Beya appeared beside him, but he ignored her and charged through the adjoining doors to his room. Immediately he saw the portrait across the room, sitting on one of his clothing trunks, the back braced against the wall. Annie’s collar lay on the trunk, beside the portrait.
His steps faltered as he walked toward the painting. When he reached it, he dropped to one knee. Time stood still in that sharp, clear moment while he couldn’t take his gaze from the portrait. His chest ached with a fierce and sudden pain and his heart pounded against his ribs.
Annie’s heart and soul were obvious in every stroke, and in her signature. She had painted him whole and full of color…she had seen him in ways that only a woman who loved him could express. He rubbed at his chest to chase away the ache, the same chest that Annie had so lovingly captured in the painting. The savage yet faraway look to his eyes, the firm set of his jaw, the sense that he was coiled and ready to spring with a mighty roar.
Yet in his eyes she had shown the caring that he tried to forever hide from anyone who knew him. The love buried just beneath the surface that he had always kept hidden.
He had managed to hide from everyone…from everyone but Annie.
Thoughts of his mother and her art returned to him in wave after painful wave. It had meant the world to her. Every time she painted a human subject, it was only of the people dearest to her heart.
No matter that he had done all he could to keep Annie from falling in love with him, no matter that he had kept himself at a distance, she still loved him.
And even though she loved him, she had left him. Every fiber of his soul told him she
was gone. She had taken the few pieces of her heart he hadn’t broken with his pride-cursed arrogance, and she’d fled.
Annie had left him, his kingdom, his people, and the only truly safe place in all of Diamonds because he had refused to admit the truth.
And what is the truth, my son?
Karn heard his mother’s even, melodic voice, ringing from his memory like a warm spring breeze. He had never been able to lie to her, and he wouldn’t now, not even to her memory.
Especially not now, when an honest answer might be his only route to salvation.
The truth is I love her.
The realization punched his gut harder than any enemy, stabbed him deeper than any blade. For all my blustering and damned fool games, I love her. And somehow, I must tell her, and try to mend the gentle heart I broke.
“She is gone, Sire.” Beya’s voice faltered. “Just as you arrived, I discovered it. I intended to set the guard out to find her.”
“No.” Karn picked up the collar Annie had abandoned beside the portrait and clenched it in his fist. He got to his feet, his jaw set with determination as he set the collar on his bureau. “I will find Annie. And I will bring her home.”
Chapter Ten
Annie cuddled Abra beneath the traveling cloak as she slipped through the thick mist. She carried a torch she had “borrowed” from the steps down to the doorway leading to the ocean. After retrieving the torch, she had hurried back upstairs and slipped out the front door without being seen.
Phantom shapes appeared and disappeared in the fog, setting Annie on edge. She’d packed away her glasses since they’d be useless in the rain, and the shadows were gloomy and foreboding.
The pack at her back hung heavy with food she’d taken from the kitchen, and the dagger strapped to her side made her feel like an old West gunslinger. Except of course she didn’t really know how to use the dagger, and likely she couldn’t hurt a thing with it, but she felt better just having the weapon with her. No doubt it would be ideal for cutting chunks of cheese and apples.
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