“Are there any more similarities?”
“We can both shape shift but I’m told vampires can only assume evil shapes like bats and an occasional rabid wolf. It takes power to change into something like a dragon or an eagle.”
“Power such as Revenants have?” she asked, grinning.
“Aye,” he said, not hearing the humor in her voice. “We can both read minds and send thoughts. Being able to mesmerize is also a common trait.”
She lifted her head and looked up at him. “Are you mesmerizing me, Lucien?” she asked. “Have you made me fall in love with you?”
Lucien stopped breathing. Her words had shocked him.
“I didn’t want to,” she went on. “I tried not to but when I look at you…”
“You like what you see,” he stated.
She shook her head. “It’s more than that though. It is something electric that goes through me.”
“Aye, well, that’s the testosterone,” he said with a sigh.
“When you touch me, I feel warm inside. I feel safe.”
“You will always be safe with me, Khammie,” he vowed. “Should any man ever hurt you, he will answer to me.”
She tried to keep the thought from sweeping through her mind but the bruises left by the thrall’s fingers were still painful on her breasts and she could feel the slight discomfort as Lucien pressed her to him. She attempted to shut the memory into a closed room of her subconscious but it was easily plucked from her brain.
“Who?” Lucien demanded, his jaw tight and eyes narrowed dangerously. “Who dared lay hands to you?”
Khamsin knew the name—she’d heard it several times now—but she tried to hide it, instinctively knowing the thrall would pay dearly for what he’d done. She didn’t want to be responsible for another human’s fate.
“Let it go, Lucien,” she asked. “He…”
Lucien’s head turned to one side. “He pawed you?” he asked, delving into her mind easily. He shook his head gently. “Let me see your breasts.”
A dull blush spread over Khamsin’s high cheekbones. “Please, Lucien. I’m not ready to—” She stopped as the bodice of her dress ripped downward as though invisible hands were parting the fabric. She jerked, wanting to cover herself, but the material was laid aside, exposing the livid bruises on her flesh.
Lucien stood as still as a statue and stared at the dark stains on his lady’s body. His nostrils flared for he could smell the thrall’s scent—the oil from his fingers—still clinging to Khamsin’s flesh. Slowly, his eyes swept upward until he was looking into Khammie’s tearful eyes. Their gazes locked for a brief moment then he let go of her arms and spun on his heel.
“Lucien!” Khamsin called as he slammed out of the room. She ran to the door but even before she reached it, she heard Lucien bid the guards not to allow her to leave. She took hold of the handle but it did not move for the tumbler of the lock had already fallen into place. “Lucien!”
Pounding on the door, begging the guards to open it did no good. Khamsin slapped her palms against the heavy oak panel and turned her back on it to slide to the floor. Bringing her knees up, she circled them with her arms and sat there rocking, fear driving deep in her heart. There was no doubt in her mind that the thrall had breathed his last.
How long she sat there on the floor, Khamsin would never know. It was well past midnight and the keep was quiet and still. The guards were not talking quietly. Her rump getting sore from sitting, she finally stood up and went to the settee. About to sit down, she heard noise in the courtyard below.
A man’s angry shout rang out, drawing her to the window. Even before she leaned out and looked down to the courtyard five floors below, she knew whatever was taking place had something to do with her.
There were several men standing in the courtyard, holding torches. Aristotle Pavli—the thrall who had manhandled her—was bucking between Briton and another guard, cursing them soundly as they dragged him toward an upright. He lashed out at his captors, struggled mightily but he was no match for the men who held him. As he was tied to the upright, Khamsin could see blood running down Pavli’s face and one of his eyes was swollen shut.
Leaning further out the window, Khamsin found Lucien standing off to one side, Petros at his side. The Prince of Modartha was as rigid as a statue with his brawny arms crossed over his wide chest. His feet were planted wide apart, the stance suggesting he was barely in control of his emotions.
It took Khamsin a moment longer to realize what the other men were doing as they made their way to the upright and bent down—they were placing dry rushes at Pavli’s feet.
“No!” Khamsin whispered, shock nearly making her swoon.
Lucien turned his head up and caught Khamsin in his hawk-like gaze. His eyes were flint-hard and glowing with a deadly light that set her nerves on edge.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, knowing full well he had heard her denial though the word had been little more than a breath of sound.
The Revenant prince held her stare for a few ticks of the clock then looked away, nodding at the men who held burning torches.
Khamsin backed away from the window. She did not want to see a man being burned to death because he had dared touch her. She slammed her hands against her ears when the first fierce scream came from Pavli’s agonized throat then she ran to the bed and flung herself facedown, striving to block out the hideous shrieks coming from the courtyard.
“Sleep,” the command came—gently but authoritatively. “Sleep and forget this happened.”
Khamsin pounded her fist against the softness of the mattress, vowing she would not surrender to the sensual voice insinuating itself into her brain. She swore she would never forget this horrendous night, but even as tears burst from her stricken eyes, sleep reached up to envelop her in warm, soothing arms and she was carried down into layer upon layer of forgetfulness until she was sleeping deeply and all memory of the ill-fated thrall and his exacting punishment had been wiped from her mind.
Chapter Eight
Lucien stood at the window and looked down at the charred ruin that had once been a man. The body was being scraped from the concrete upright and piled into a wheelbarrow from whence it would be disposed of beyond the keep’s walls. There was no emotion left in the Prince of Modartha. His rage had been taken out on Aristotle Pavli with meaty fists long before the final punishment had been meted out.
Dawn was a few minutes away and already the eastern sky was pink with the day’s rising. The wind—blowing away the last cruel odors of burned flesh—was brisk and beginning to howl at the eaves.
Sighing deeply, Lucien closed the window then swept the drapes shut over the portal. He had bathed when he came in from the night’s work but still felt unclean. He hated to crawl into bed with Khamsin, but he needed the comfort of her soft body in his arms and the reassurance his mental command had reached its mark and wiped the horror of the past night from her mind. Stripping the shirt from his body, he kept his eyes on her, his powerful mental ability lightly touching her subconscious to make sure the events of the evening past were no longer there.
Satisfied she would not remember what had transpired, he sat down on a chair and pulled off his boots and socks, unbuttoned his britches and removed them. Always a methodically neat man, he folded his shirt and britches and left them on the chair for the maid to remove the next morning. Naked, he went to stand beside his bed.
Khamsin was lying on her stomach, her hands to either side of her head, fingers curled. She was sleeping soundly, not moving. As he stretched out beside her, he lay there for a long while just looking at her beautiful face, reaching out to push aside a stray curl that rested along her cheek.
So much like Magdalena, he thought as he watched Khammie sleep. The hair color was completely different and Maggie’s eyes had been a darker shade of blue. Khammie was shorter, more petite but decidedly more voluptuous. Maggie’s waist was thicker, her hips broader, but then, she’d given birth. Same cute
, upturned nose and full lips and the same gentle nature—considerate of others, tending to stand up for the underdog.
Aye, he thought. The two women were more alike than he felt comfortable in realizing. Though there were enough differences to make the growing feelings for Khamsin real and not an echo of his great love for Magdalena, there were some similarities that made his heart ache with crushing grief.
Like the dark bruises on Khamsin’s chest that reminded him all too vividly of the slashes across Magdalena’s.
The sight of those bruises sent cruel vengeance flooding through Lucien Korvina and burned him to the marrow. As the past reared its ugly head to remind him of Magdalena’s suffering and horrific death, all humanity that had ever existed within him fled. Fury—white-hot and sizzling—seized his brain, his heart, his very soul. Nothing could have kept him from exacting revenge against the man who had dared hurt Lucien’s woman.
Rage still smoldered inside the Revenant prince. His veins continued to bubble with the molten lava that had been unleashed only partway upon Ari Pavli. The powerful wrath that had burned Lucien—even as the flames had crept up the thrall’s legs and consumed him in fiery retribution—now lay in dying ashes, but the stench of the reckoning was still in Lucien’s nostrils.
Khamsin groaned in her sleep as though her would-be lover’s savage thoughts had singed their way into her peaceful state.
“Sleep deeply, Sweeting,” Lucien whispered as he ran the backs of his fingers along her cool cheek.
Not a man in the courtyard the night past would ever speak of what had taken place there. Not a one of them would ever let it be known to the vulnerable woman lying beside Lucien that it was her pain that had claimed Pavli’s life. She was not to know.
Lucien’s desire to protect Khamsin from the brutality of his world softened the lines in his handsome face. He, himself, had known such terrible anguish in his life—he would keep those burdens from her if he could.
He moved closer to her and took her into his arms, placing her head upon his shoulder. The way she spooned against his body, he felt as though she had been made for him. He stroked her hair, closing his eyes to the softness of it, and finally allowed the lassitude of the coming morning to claim him.
* * * * *
Khamsin woke early the next evening. Lucien was pressed against her, his arms enclosing her in a haven that felt natural, perfectly normal. His cheek lay atop her head and his warm breath tickled her ear. The steady beat of his heart was reassuring beneath the plain of her palm.
Not so reassuring was the hard erection that poked at her thigh.
Carefully, she lifted her head and looked down where his body touched hers. Her eyes widened for he was completely naked and the sight of the enormous staff jutting from the dark triangle between his thighs made her swallow hard.
“It will fit.”
Khamsin jerked, her head coming up and her eyes flaring even wider when she found him staring back at her, his lids half-raised, his lips creased in a knowing smile.
He reached out to remove a strand of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear. His lips twitched and he trailed his fingers down the silky lock, seemingly gauging its softness. “Like spun gold,” he said quietly.
“Lucien…” she began, but he laid a finger gently to her lips, shaking his head to still her protest. She laid her head down on the pillow.
They remained where they were for a few moments—staring at one another, barely breathing. Their eyes spoke volumes in the silence and when Khamsin reached out a trembling hand to touch Lucien’s cheek, he drew in a long, deep breath.
“You aren’t mesmerizing me,” she wanted clarified. “You aren’t making me do this?”
Lucien closed his eyes at the feather-soft touch of her palm on his flesh. “No, wench. I won’t ever make you come to my bed for anything other than sleep if that is your desire. I told you I wouldn’t force you and I won’t. You must desire me before I’ll lie with you.”
Desire, she thought as she traced the laugh lines on his face, wondering if they had come about before or after his becoming a Revenant.
“Before,” he said. “Once you become one of the undead, your body remains as it was at the moment you were turned.”
“So all the smiles and laughter occurred before you became a prince.”
“The roadmap of my life is etched in those lines, aye,” he said softly, “but so, too, is the sorrow. The lines of grief came upon me the moment Magdalena and Lilly died. Before that, I was relatively free of the harsh lines you see now.”
She studied the lines a moment longer than raised up to lean over him. “Then let me see what I can do to lessen those lines, milord.”
Lucien went as still as a statue as she lowered her face to his and her lips pressed as sweetly as a child’s against his mouth. Every instinct within his manly body cried out for him to throw his arms around her, crush her to him—but he lay still, unmoving, and let her soft lips move tentatively over his. When her tongue flicked experimentally at the crease of his lips, he opened his mouth to allow her entry, both hearing and feeling the blood racing through his veins and pounding in his ears. The hot warmth of her tongue slipping past his lips brought a drop of fluid from his cock.
Khamsin moved over him and stretched out atop his brawny body. The feel of his hard muscles beneath her was intoxicating, and for the first time in her life, she knew what passion meant, for she was aching between her legs, her breasts heavy and her nipples tingling. She reached up to thread her fingers through his where they lay to either side of his head and lowered her mouth to his once more.
The kiss was as stimulating as well-aged wine and went right to his head—both of them. Lucien was on fire with a need he had not felt in over a decade and with an emotion he hadn’t felt in centuries. His heart was hammering a beat beneath her lush breasts and his cock was as hard as granite. He laid there, her captive, and allowed her to work the magic of her hot kiss into his very soul. Her fingers tightened around his and she pushed herself up, looking down at him with a passionate stare that made his belly clench.
“I come to you of my own free will,” she said softly. She released her hold on his hands. “I give myself to you.”
His cock leapt between them at her words. “Give yourself to me, Beloved,” he commanded, his words throaty and filled with passion.
She sat up, her legs straddling his lean hips. Her long hair dropped down over her shoulders to camouflage the thrust of her breasts from his view. She swept the thick locks back with a couple of tosses of her head and sat still as his eyes crawled over her with hunger.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “Your body is beautiful.” He put out a trembling hand to touch one breast and she clasped it between hers and brought his palm to the center of her chest.
“And it is yours,” she vowed.
Lucien’s eyes flared and he took one, two, three short, audible breaths before placing his hands to the curve of her waist.
Khamsin gasped as he flipped her over to her back, his powerful body wedged between her parted thighs. He was a hot, damp weight above her, pressing her down into the mattress, the length of his manhood lying like silken flame at the entrance to her sex.
“You are sure?” he asked, studying her eyes.
“I am sure.”
He lowered his head and trailed soft, fleeting kisses down the column of her throat, across her shoulders and into the valley between her breasts. With lightning raids, his lips suckled here, slid across there, and pressed deep on still another spot. His tongue grazed her flesh and lapped at the perspiration that was beginning to dot her flesh. That strong muscle spiraled around the areolas, over the nipples, then dragged between her cleavage. He laved the rounded globes and spiraled upward to poke lightly in the hollow at the base of her throat.
Khamsin lifted her hands and tunneled them through his dark waves, holding his head lightly as his mouth continued to do homage to her upper chest. She smiled contentedly as hi
s lips circled one hard nipple and drew the little nubbin into his mouth where he began to torture it deliciously with the tip of his tongue.
“You are an evil man,” she said, feeling the heaviness between her legs and the clutching deep in her belly.
“Umm,” he growled and his teeth closed around her nipple.
Khamsin sucked in a breath, lifting her hips instinctively, asking for his manly invasion—seeking the filling she knew would stretch her to the limits.
Worrying her nipple lightly between his teeth, he trailed his hands down her sides then slid them beneath her to lift her hips to his. He ground against her and chuckled lightly as she groaned. With her nipple tucked gently between his teeth, he looked up at her through his lashes, cocking one dark brow in question.
“Aye, my Prince,” she said, her voice husky. “I want you.” She held his head back for a moment. “You aren’t going to bite me, are you?”
“No.” He grinned around the delicacy in his lips then suckled her until her fingers tightened against his scalp. The suckling deepened and it was almost a painful grip he could feel then on his hair, but that mattered little to Lucien. He was intent on drawing out the lovemaking for as long as they both could stand it.
Khamsin closed her eyes and concentrated on the moist heat surrounding her nipple. The sensation of his wet mouth drawing upon her, his tongue flicking against the tiny ducts that pebbled the smooth surface, sent shivers of delight racing along her spine. A tiny presence of pain flitted across her breasts when his teeth nipped at the sensitive nub, but it was a tiny discomfort she found exhilarating.
It had been only the once she had known the intrusion of a man’s body upon hers, but the man who had brutalized her had left in his wake a legacy of tension that seemed not to be evaporating as Lucien worked his sorcery upon Khamsin. As pleasurable as the things he was doing to her were, she could not seem to relax fully and her mind was seething with the fear of being hurt once more. Sensing the turmoil that was detracting from the enjoyment he was striving so hard to give, Lucien lifted his head and looked up at his lady. His gaze fused with hers and when he read the unease slithering through her mind, laid his cheek on her belly.
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