Another punch.
More pain. No, pain wasn’t an adequate word for what she experienced. Agony, perhaps, but even that seemed too tame a descriptor.
Hard fingers wrapped around her biceps and shook her, causing the agony to radiate through the rest of her. “Look at me.”
She blinked opened her eyes. Or eye. One of them was already sealed shut, the upper and lower lid glued together, concealing what felt like a golf ball. She lay on her back, and the king loomed over her. The moment he realized she was awake, he began ripping at her robe.
He liked to fight his conquests, then. Well, she would give him one to remember. She gritted her teeth against a new onslaught of suffering and kicked him in the face. The action was unexpected, and he stumbled backward before at last hitting the floor. Somehow, she managed to pull herself into a sitting position. The starbursts returned, pushing a moan out of her.
“Hold her,” the king said with an evil grin. He rubbed at his erection. His bare erection. He’d already removed his loincloth.
Eager to please—as well as get their hands on her, she was sure—the men jumped to obey. In a blink, she was flat on her back, her hands anchored over her head and her legs pinned and spread.
Just. Like. That.
In another blink, her breasts were being squeezed and her nipples pinched. And all four giants were staring between her thighs, waiting for her femininity to be revealed.
“No,” she snapped, but the word was intelligible. “No!” Was this what Nicolai had endured?
They laughed. The king fisted the tattered hem of her robe. The rest of the fabric ripped.
Beyond the cavern, a scream echoed. Her attackers paused, frowned, looked at one another. Another scream echoed, followed by another. And another. Each was pain-filled and panicked. Were the beasts fighting among themselves, perhaps over the hags, or had Nicolai arrived?
Hope bloomed within her.
The king shrugged, his attention returning to her body. She wore only her panties now, and they already were ripped in the crotch and therefore useless as far as barriers went. He licked his lips as he stroked his cock once, twice, preparing to penetrate her.
“Big,” he said, practically patting himself on the back. In this, he was right. His penis was thick, too thick, and as long as a battering ram. She would be torn apart.
Her hope withered, died. Tears blurred her good eye, and she whimpered, the sound as broken as her jaw. Any second now, and…
A snarl reverberated, deep and ominous. Closer now, so close.
Neither the guards nor the king looked away from her to check who had uttered the enraged warning. But suddenly Jane knew, sensed. Nicolai was here.
“You’re gonna die real bad,” she said flatly. Again, her injuries made the words incomprehensible, but she didn’t care. Saying them offered a small measure of satisfaction.
“Never die.” Still grinning, the king fell to his knees. The guards leaned closer, their hands inching up her arms and legs. Then, as the king guided his cock toward her, something swiped out faster than her eye could track. Blood sprayed. The king roared in pain and shock.
That same something—a real dagger Nicolai must have stolen from the ogres—swiped at the guards, hitting two at a time. More blood, more roars. The men fell away from her, and finally she was free. She lay there, panting, shaking. Then gentle arms were slipping under her and lifting her. She was carted to the pallet and laid down. Fingertips tenderly brushed her swollen cheek. Nicolai’s face came into view. He was covered in blood, every part of him soaked with crimson.
Flames leaped and cracked within his eyes. “Rape?”
She gave a slight shake of her head.
Those flames died, leaving something far worse: cold, merciless rage. Then he was gone.
He attacked the guards first, those who had maneuvered back to their feet, ripping their tracheas out with his teeth and spitting them to the floor. But that wasn’t enough for him, and he used the dagger to remove their heads from their bodies. Bodies he piled in the entry, effectively locking the king inside the room with him.
The two men circled each other.
“Suffer,” Nicolai said, the length and sharpness of his fangs causing him to slur the words.
“Yes. You suffer.”
“She’s mine. Mine! You will die for touching what’s mine.”
The king blinked, his head tilting to the side. “You familiar. You vampire. You…prince?” A gasp of horror accompanied the realization. “Yes. You prince. Dark prince. Majesty, I beg sorry. I thought you dead. We all thought you dead.”
Nicolai, the slave, was a prince?
The king dropped to one knee, a show of submission. “I give my sorries. So many sorries. Majesty. No offense. Take woman. She is yours.”
Nothing Jane had done had humbled the king. Nothing had evoked fear in him. Now, at the thought of battling royalty, he was on his knees, pleading.
“You die,” Nicolai said simply. The king never stood a chance. Her man removed his limbs, one by one. And though the king screamed and screamed and screamed, he didn’t once struggle. As if he knew struggling would earn him an even worse fate.
Next to go, his eyes. After that, his groin. At that point, his screams became pleas for mercy. Mercy Nicolai did not have. Oops, there went the king’s tongue. No more begging or screaming. Just whimpering.
“Nicolai,” Jane finally managed, her voice so weak even she had trouble hearing what she’d said. Fatigue was riding her hard, and she knew she wouldn’t be awake much longer.
Nicolai glanced at her, barely able to catch his breath. The need to hurt clung to him like a second skin, visible to all. Never had she seen a more primitive male, wild and uncontrollable, a Pict warrior straight from battle. A sight most people would only ever see in their nightmares.
“Need you,” she said.
“Yes.” He swung back to the dying king. With a quick flick of his wrist, he removed the man’s head, just as he’d done to the others. Then he was poised over Jane, stroking her gently. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. So sorry.”
“Will be…fine. Been…worse. Just need…you.”
The words were meant to comfort him. They failed. Absolute anguish cloaked his features. He wiped his arm on a nearby cloth, bit into his own wrist and held the bleeding wound to her mouth. “Drink.”
While Nicolai chanted words she did not understand, the warm liquid cascaded down her throat. At first, she experienced the most delicious tingling, starting in her stomach and moving through her veins. To her jaw, her arms, her legs. The tingling soon sharpened, heated, and she felt as if little molten daggers were slicing through her.
What the hell was his blood doing to her?
“Nicolai,” she screeched. “Hurts.”
“You’re healing, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The hurt is good.”
Even as he spoke, her jaw snapped back into place. She screamed, the shrill sound echoing off the cave walls. The lid of her swollen eye split apart, and she groaned. At first, her vision was hazy, as if her corneas had been smeared with Vaseline, but as the heat and the daggers continued to work through her, Windex was sprayed and she could see again. Perfectly.
When the healing process was complete, she lay there, still panting, sweating and trembling, but a woman reborn. She stretched her jaw, and while there was a lingering ache, she could move it unfettered.
“Thank you,” she said, tears of relief filling her eyes.
Nicolai sprawled beside her and gathered her in his arms. He held her for a long while before the dam inside her broke and she sobbed against his chest, clutching him tightly to her. All of her book smarts, and she’d been helpless.
“I killed them, sweetheart. I killed them all. They’ll never hurt you again. This I swear to you.”
The evil of the king stunned her. The complete disregard for her will, the violence he had unleashed… Oh, she’d known there were people capable of such dark deeds, but never before
had those deeds been brought to her door. It was frightening and heartbreaking to have seen the evidence firsthand.
“That’s the way. Let it out. I’ve got you,” he said soothingly.
“I was so scared.”
“Never again. Never again,” he vowed. “Unless…were you afraid of me?”
She shook her head.
“Good, that’s good. I would never hurt you. Even lost in a temper, I couldn’t hurt you.”
Soon her tears dried. The physical damage, as well as the pain of the healing, had taken their toll, and she sagged against him, sighing and shuddering. “What were you chanting when you gave me your blood?”
“More of my vampire magic. I cast a healing spell to aid the powers of my blood.”
She sniffled, her nose stuffy. “It was better than Vicodin.”
“Vicodin?”
“A painkiller from my world.”
“A killer of pain. Did you love him?” The words were growled.
A burst of unexpected humor gave her strength. “No. In fact, he was hard to shake. He, uh, stalked me, that kind of thing. I had to pretend he didn’t exist.”
Nicolai kissed her temple and relaxed against her. “Shall I hunt and destroy him for you, sweetheart? It would be my pleasure, believe me.”
“You have enough enemies. Besides, I destroyed him a while back.”
Another kiss. “Because you are strong.”
Lovely praise, but she was completely undeserving of it and couldn’t pretend otherwise. “I wasn’t strong enough to save myself today.” The tears returned. She brushed them away with a shaky hand. “I took self-defense lessons for a while, but they didn’t help. Not really. He would have…he was going to…”
“Never again,” Nicolai repeated, tightening his hold. “I will train you further. And when I’m done with you, not even I will be able to defeat you.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. Your safety is a personal mission of mine. A mission I will not fail.”
Maybe the turmoil of the day had made her emotional, but she got teary eyed all over again. That was the sweetest thing a guy had ever said to her. Even better than what he’d said to Laila. “Enough about me. I was afraid the giants had killed you.”
“I doubt even death would have kept me away from you.”
Okay. She was wrong. That was the sweetest. She kissed the pulse at the base of his neck. “What—what were those things?”
“Ogres.”
A yawn snuck up on her, her eyelids dipping heavily. “The king seemed to know you.”
He stiffened. “Yes.”
And he didn’t want to discuss it. She changed the subject, suddenly too tired to reason out why or press for answers. “You found me because you’d marked me, right?”
“Yes,” he said again. He traced his fingertips along her spine. “And I have never been gladder for something.”
“Have you marked other women?” Oh, God. She shouldn’t have asked. She wasn’t ready for the answer. Not here, not like this. Not after what had happened. He clearly did not have to be wed or engaged to mark a woman, so there could be a thousand out there. She should have….
“Not to my knowledge,” he said cautiously.
She sighed with relief. She would be willing to bet “marking” was more than a memory, that marking was an instinct, biology at its finest, a knowledge that went bone-deep. After all, dogs did it. Of course, they peed on what they wanted, leaving their scent behind. And they didn’t need to remember doing it; they simply needed to smell and catch a hint of the desired aroma.
Nicolai had not honed in on any other woman. As easily as he’d found Jane, he would have found any others, without difficulty. If they were out there. So, logically, she had to believe she was the only one.
Yes, logically. He was free.
Maybe you’re the one who’s as dumb as a box of rocks. A good scientist studies both sides of the coin. Fine. She’d argue in favor of the other side. Nicolai could very well be engaged, as he’d feared, as she’d tried to deny. And maybe he hadn’t marked the woman yet, wanting to wait for the actual ceremony to complete the connection.
Or, like the ogres, he could have had a harem of women. Perhaps one woman had not satisfied him for long, so he’d plowed through them like he had a cold and they were tissues. Perhaps there’d been too many to mark. Or perhaps he’d simply never cared enough to do it.
That certainly fit the image of a pampered prince. Was he a prince, though? Had he been pampered? A man given everything he wanted, never really satisfied?
Sometimes she hated her brain. And coin flipping.
The man she knew was volatile and possessive. He didn’t play nice with others, and he didn’t know how to share. Yet he was as far from pampered as a man could be. And he’s mine, she thought, burrowing her head deeper into the hard line of his body. His strong, warm body.
He knew her, and wasn’t bothered by her verbal and mental tangents. He’d cared enough about her to come back for her—twice—saving her life. That had to count for something.
“Stop thinking and sleep, Jane,” he said.
“All right.” Nothing would happen to her while they were together. She knew it. He would guard her with his life. “Hold me and don’t let go.”
“Always,” he vowed.
Oh, yes. He cared. She drifted off to sleep with a smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN JANE AWOKE, SHE was still in the cave. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. All she knew was that she’d never felt so rested. She stretched like a contented kitten, warm despite her nakedness, her muscles liquid, and gazed around.
Startled by what she saw, she sat up. Enough time had passed for Nicolai to clean every speck of blood from the floor and walls. He’d also removed the bodies and subsequent body parts. If not for the lingering taint of evil, this could have been some kind of underground resort.
There was no reason for Nicolai to have done such a thing. They weren’t going to live here. Weren’t even going to spend the day. Unless he’d hoped to spare her any upset. Her eyes widened. That was exactly why he’d done it, she realized. The sweet, darling man.
Hello again, emotional roller coaster. She sniffled, her chin trembling.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry.” He was perched beside her, looking away from her, and holding out a bundle of wrinkled material. And God, his profile was gorgeous. Still streaked with blood, though some had been washed away, his cheeks were sharp, his lips lush and his expression relaxed. No ill effects from the fighting. “It kills me inside.”
After everything he’d done for her, she would do anything he asked. Besides, despite his relaxed expression, lines of tension branched from his eyes, as if permanently etched there. Something more was bothering him, and she wouldn’t add to his troubles.
“I won’t.” She used the hem of the offered fabric to clean her face.
The corners of his mouth twitched, his inner worries momentarily forgotten. What did he find so humorous? “Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good. Now. Will you dress for me?” A question layered with apprehension.
She thought she knew why. Her nakedness aroused him—or at least, she hoped it did—but he didn’t want to do anything about it. Not after what had happened here. She was grateful.
She knew the old adage “replace the bad with the good.” She also knew there was nothing better than Nicolai’s touch. He could play her like a piano, stroking all the right keys and creating a symphony. But she didn’t want their first time to spring from any need but the one to be together.
“Jane?” he prompted.
Dress. Right. “With what?” Her robe was ruined beyond repair.
“Your tissue.”
“Oh.” She chewed on her bottom lip as she studied the “tissue.” A faded yellow cotton robe, clean, and free of rips. Perfect. “Where did you get this?”
He motioned b
ehind him with a tilt of his head. “The only other females here were so grateful to be free of their ogre masters, they stayed long enough to help me clean this room and offered you all of their possessions.”
“That was thoughtful of them.”
“They also offered me the use of their bodies.”
“I will wipe the floor with their blood!” She jerked the robe over her head.
When Nicolai came back into view, she saw that he was grinning. That grin…decadent and shameless. Her blood heated. Blood that belonged to him, had once been a part of him.
“I sent them on their way,” he said. “Without accepting.”
“Like I care what you do,” she groused. This conversation, on the heels of her harem worries, brought out the fires of her temper.
That wiped away his amusement completely. “You had better care.”
She sighed. Honesty was needed if they were going to have any kind of relationship. And she wanted a relationship with him, however long they had left together. A day, a week, a month? Or would she remain here forever?
She wouldn’t worry about that now.
“Fine,” she said on a sigh. “I care.” Her stomach growled from hunger, and in the quiet of the cave, the sound echoed loudly. She blushed. “Do you?”
“More than I can say.”
“I just…don’t want you to be hurt if I leave.”
“You won’t leave. Now, come.” He stood and waved his fingers. “I’ll feed you.”
He cared! And how could he be so certain she would remain? “What time is it?” she asked, accepting his aid with a tender smile. A smile that quickly fled. Her bones creaked and ached as she straightened.
“Close to midnight.”
Back home, she would have been in her bed right now, tossing and turning and dreading the coming morning.
They made their way back to the river. Limping at first, but muscles relaxing with the exercise, she gathered mint leaves and twigs, and they brushed their teeth as they walked. Afterward, Nicolai foraged for fruits and nuts to tide her over. As she nibbled, she kind of expected creatures from childhood storybooks to jump out and grab her, or Laila to scream a curse and appear, but no. The thirty-minute journey was incident free.
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