by Kresley Cole
Emblazoned across the front was a skull-and-crossbones warning.
So this would be it—a boundary minefield clotted with explosives.
And somewhere in the center was buried a wooden box carved with Nagas, serpent gods. Inside that was a sapphire the size of her palm.
Riora didn't seek the sapphire; she wanted that box.
With the steady rain—May equaled monsoon season—the field was more of a morass, with soupy mud and splashing puddles. Kaderin exhaled. Mines hurt, but she needed some high-dollar points. She, the Lykae, and the siren continued to be neck-and-neck. There was only one prize here, and she had to have it.
At the edge, she swallowed. Easy to lose a foot here. She'd lost a foot before, and she had to say she'd enjoyed cheerier scenarios.
She flexed her fingers, then got to work, scanning for something heavy to toss into the quagmire. If she was quick, she could detonate quite a few—
Her ear twitched. Over the strengthening rain, she barely heard the stealthy movements of a predator. No... not the...
Son of a bitch. There was Bowen, and just to his right, the sodding siren.
The three grasped the situation at the same time. All dashed heedlessly past the warning sign, sprinting out into the muddy space. The Lykae was fast and ran as though crazed. He let his beast out of its cage, turning in the midst of the field, his body becoming bigger, fangs lengthening. His normally short, dark claws shot longer and grew stronger. When he glanced back to snarl at Kaderin, she saw his amber eyes had turned ice blue.
Though Kaderin was fast and Cindey was strong over the slogging terrain, they shouldn't be able to keep up with him as they were. He'd smoked her in the cave. The witch must really have cursed him.
Kaderin ran in his path, exactly where mud flew up in intervals, letting him take the risk. Cindey began gunning to pass Kaderin on the right.
An idea arose. Kaderin pumped her arms, darting forward. "Cindey!" she called. "The right leg!"
She nodded. A breath later, they both dove for him, tackling him into the mucky ground. He twisted around, white fangs bared, snapping at Cindey, who jammed her elbow into his throat. He slashed out at Kaderin with his deadly claws, but she sprang back. They whistled by just millimeters from her face. If Mariketa hadn't weakened him, they'd both be dead.
As the two wrestled to hold him, inflicting injuries to down the large male, he fought like the animal he was. The three covered a large area, yet they hadn't triggered a mine—there had to be one close by. "Kick, you idiot!" Kaderin screamed to Cindey.
They dodged claws, booting his chest to send him rolling over and over far back. All three heard the distinct metallic click. He had time only to grit his teeth.
Light flashed. Kaderin yanked the siren in front of herself for cover. Bowen flew in a hail of red mud fifty feet away, but the explosion caught them as well, catapulting them back.
When it ceased raining clumps of earth, Kaderin shoved Cindey off her. Moaning, Cindey staggered to her feet, holding her sensitive ears, blown from the percussion. She had blood splattered all over her, running down her bared arms and neck through runnels of mud.
As Kaderin scrambled to her feet, she saw Bowen, who had a short bar of shrapnel jutting out from his ribs. Claws digging into the ground, he rose to his hands and knees, then unsteadily to his feet. He must know that if he removed the metal, the blood loss would put him out of this.
Kaderin took inventory, assessing her own injuries. Apparently, she'd caught a good bounce for once, just a few scratches.
Incredibly, Bowen loped ahead, dripping blood, turning back toward the explosion. She yanked her head around, perceived a kind of fluorescence in one of the puddles. The explosion must have unearthed the box. She surged forward, darting through the mud, uncaring of the mines. She gained on Bowen.
The bar was skewered completely through him. His jostling run was no doubt agony, but he was still going. Soon they were side by side. There, glowing before them, was a wooden case, smaller than a cigar box. It was sealed and bobbing like flotsam.
Kaderin dove for it, just as Bowen did. Sliding through the mud, they collided, butting heads so hard her vision briefly blurred. The box went sloshing back.
His ice-blue eyes showed a complete loss of reason. His voice was guttural and breaking. "You're about to wish I could kill you."
They both dove forward once more, grappling for the prize. As it bobbed down, they rooted blindly for it, uncaring if they were about to have their hands and faces blown off. They each snagged it with one hand. She hissed, snapping her teeth, reaching over her shoulder for her sword just as he raised a hand spiked with those deadly claws—
Sebastian appeared, seizing the box from both of them.
Kaderin blinked up at Sebastian through the rain. Time seemed to stand still.
She was transfixed, awed, by the savagery in his jet eyes, the harsh lines of his face, his coal-black hair whipping over his chin.
Suddenly, she was desperate to be the female a male like that would always come for. Ached to be her.
He stood with one foot in front of the other. She understood why immediately—he was standing on a mine. Judging by the menacing look on his face, this was on purpose. He held out his hand. "Come to me." She lunged for him just as Bowen did. Sebastian snatched her away and traced them to the edge of the field.
The mine exploded. Sebastian pushed her back behind him, much as he had that night at Riora's assembly.
When the air cleared, she edged beside him and saw Bowen shuddering, lying on his front where he'd landed. Blood ran freely from his mouth. He mumbled what sounded like a woman's name. Of course, his mate's name.
He seemed to sense they were still there, and raised his face. She hissed in a breath at the sight. One eye was gone, and the left side of his forehead and temple had been burned away. But his wasted body and dazed mind were still desperate for the prize, for the mate he'd lost as she'd fled him so many years ago. Somehow he was digging those claws into the ground to drag himself forward.
"Trace me, Sebastian," she whispered. He did nothing. "He'll hit another mine if we stay."
"Exactly." Sebastian's eyes were dark as the night and chilling. "He deserves it for what he did to you."
Bowen was crawling toward them, and Cindey was walking in circles, blood pouring from her ears, mumbling something... something about a baby, and Kaderin couldn't watch any longer. In the past, she'd have looked on with satisfaction as her competitors suffered.
But she was different now. Or, more accurately, she was as she used to be from the very beginning.
"Please, Bastian," she cried, turning to grab his shirt with both hands. He tensed with surprise, studying her face. Whatever he saw in her expression had him wrapping her tightly in his arms and tracing her away.
Bowen's anguished roars echoed in her ears long after they'd disappeared.
31
Back in her flat, she shivered in her wet clothes. The storm seemed to have followed them to London and raged outside. Dusk had just settled over the city. It was six hours earlier here than in Cambodia, which meant the night had started over for her. For them.
Without a word, he tucked the box into his jacket pocket, then took her hand, leading her to her bathroom. He turned on the shower, then began to unbutton her shirt.
His eyes were as wild as that Lykae's had been. "Do you want that box, Kaderin?"
She nodded, still out of breath.
He pushed her shirt past her shoulders, then pulled it down her arms, freeing it. "You have to pay for it." He unclasped the fastening at the front of her soaked-through bra, then it, too, fell to the ground. At the sight of her breasts, he inhaled deeply but didn't touch her, only continued to undress her. She had to hold on to his shoulders as he unzipped her pants and dragged them and her panties from her.
When she stood before him, completely unclothed, she asked in a bewildered tone, "What do you want?" She was still dazed—not only by the violence
of the night, but by that look of his in the rain. She shivered to recall it.
"Wash off the mud, and come to the bedroom," he ordered, his voice rough.
She stared at the door for long moments after he left. Then she noticed, in her bathroom, all of his things. Razor, toothbrush, soap. The bastard had moved in? Her attention had been focused on him when they first arrived, but now she could recall seeing books and newspapers lying scattered throughout the flat. A pair of boots had been kicked off at the door. "The bloody squatter," she muttered as she stepped under the water.
As she scrubbed away at the mud covering her, she wondered what he would demand. She was infuriated, but at the same time, she was burning with curiosity.
Would he try to drink her again? Or make love to her? Or both? She hated that imagining either made her aroused.
But even though she truly yearned to make love to the man she'd seen in the storm and confusion tonight, she wouldn't be coerced into it.
After washing her hair, she dried off and shrugged into a pink silk robe. When she returned to the bedroom, stepping around his things, he stood.
He'd removed his wet jacket and shirt. His chest was still damp, the muscles tense. His eyes were black once more. "Come here," he said, and she could barely make her feet move.
Worrying her bottom lip, she crossed to him. When she stood in front of him, he wasted no time, palming the curves of her ass under her robe, making her gasp.
Then he languidly kissed her neck with slow licks, before dipping to her breasts. When he sucked her nipple through the silk, she moaned, and her knees went weak. But he held her firmly.
"Bastian," she breathed. "I want to tell you something." Would he believe she never intended to go to bed with Gamboa?
He drew away. "The time for talking is over. Now, do you want your trinket or not?"
"I won't make love to you," she told him.
His lips curled into a cruel smirk. "You assume that I want to make love to you?"
She blinked up at him, clearly surprised by his words. "What if I told you that I want you to give me the prize? As a gift to your Bride? You offered once."
"We're past that. I'm not a gentleman anymore. I'm not even a human. And you're no lady."
When he pressed down on her shoulders, there was no mistaking what he desired. She stiffened, but he said, "Oh, no, you want your prize, then you'll do as I wish."
She went to her knees before him. "Couldn't get a nymph to do this?"
"Why would I settle for a nymph when I have a Valkyrie at my bidding?"
"And this is what you want?" she asked, gazing up at him.
"Yes," he rasped, one hand on her head, the other clutching her nape. He wanted her before him like this, to be forced to look up at him and acknowledge that he was in control. He could master her if he chose. He wanted her to taste him, to show him this pleasure.
No, not like this.
Where did that thought come from? When he was so goddamned close to finally knowing what this was like?
He ground his teeth, not even able to imagine what her mouth closing over his shaft would feel like. But doubt nagged him. Lust warred with an indistinct warning deep inside him.
The way she turned to me tonight...
He choked out, "Stop." He clutched her shoulders. "Get off your knees. I don't want you to do this." He yanked her to her feet, then strode away. "This would make you a whore. I can't do that."
"How is it different from the basilisk's egg?" she asked, her tone rising with anger.
"Then I sought only to touch you."
Her eyes flashed silver. "Why do you even care if this would brand me a whore?"
"Do you know what this is like? I know you care nothing for me, but I feel as if we're wed. For you to have gone to another man... and let him touch you... " He ran his hand over his face, his arousal waning quickly. "Forget it." He tossed the box onto the bed and turned away. "You can have it."
"Payment on the pillow? But, Sebastian, I didn't earn it." Before he could trace, she said, "By the way, you arrogant ass... "
She sauntered to his back, trailing a finger over his shoulders, which tensed from the light touch. Lowering her voice to a breathy tone, she said, "You've just sacrificed the chance to experience how an immortal female worships a male with her mouth."
Her finger skimmed to his front as she walked around to face him. She stood on her toes, and at his ear, she murmured, "I would have given you the hottest, wettest kiss you've ever received. I would have spent ages taking you with my tongue."
Sudden sweat beaded on his forehead.
"But now, I've only to thank you for saving me all those hours."
He shuddered, then strode away from her with a grated sound of frustration. "Do you think this was easy to give up when it would be from you?" He felt crazed with lust. Curiosity goaded him. He threw his hands up, pacing in long strides. "Seeing you on your knees when I've never had—"
"Had what?" When he said nothing, just stilled and ran his hand over the back of his neck, she asked softly, "You've never had that?"
Sebastian looked away sharply, unwilling to admit it to her, and unable to deny it.
He isn't denying it? Kaderin's lips parted. He's never experienced that?
The idea shocked her. Then it stirred her, making shivers dance up her spine.
I could be his first.
She could admit that her anger had come partly from thwarted desire. When the wet material of his pants had hugged his thick shaft in front of her, she'd grown weak with humiliation and heat because she'd wanted to taste him. Now that arousal roared to life once more.
To be a male's first at anything? She tilted her head at him. "Have you... imagined me doing it to you?"
He scowled as if her question was absurd.
"I see." He seemed volatile, seething inside. She felt as if she'd cornered a wounded bear and needed to move gingerly. "Why would you give away the opportunity?"
He snapped, "Because it's not over with us!"
She drew back her head. "Even after Colombia?"
He crossed to her. "Tonight, at the minefield, you were different. It's... just not over."
At his words, a well of emotion swept her up. Desire, yes, but now she could admit there was much more. Sebastian had wanted to be cruel to her—clearly had needed to be.
Yet he couldn't.
Even when he craved this pleasure so badly, he couldn't force her to do it.
Suddenly, tenderness for him threatened to overwhelm her. So much so that the thought of him yearning all these years for something he'd never experienced made her ache as well. She found it unbearable to think of him wondering what it would be like with her.
She'd desired the merciless man she'd gazed up at in the rain, but she also hungered for the man here before her now with vulnerability in his eyes. "What if I wanted to do it?" She nibbled her bottom lip. "Would you still like me to?"
She saw him go hard as steel again. "I... only... only if you wanted to."
Oh, she did. She lifted her hand to stroke his face tenderly. He closed his eyes briefly at her touch. And I'm going to make it so damn good. If he'd waited his entire life for it, she'd guarantee it would be worth the wait.
And, of course, she had to live up to her careless bragging. "Worship," Kaderin? Well, actually... She recalled a scene she'd inadvertently witnessed long ago. She'd crept into a dark warlock's harem to free a witch who'd found good favor with the Valkyrie. The Valkyrie weren't susceptible to spells, but this warlock had been powerful and Kaderin had been alone. She'd found a hiding place to stay until everyone went to sleep.
She'd ultimately waited till dawn. Because one of his concubines had pleasured him for hour after hour in a most original manner.
Kaderin had filed the idea away, thinking, One day, if I find those desires again, I'd really like to try this.
That time was now. She wanted to give Sebastian an experience to remember—for eternity. An immortal version o
f what he'd fantasized about. "I do want to, Bastian." Now she laced her arms around his neck. "But I have conditions."
A hint of a wounded half-grin. "You always have conditions."
"I think you can live with these."
Ten minutes later, Sebastian found himself chained to Kaderin's bed.
He should have seen that wicked glint in her eyes and traced the other way.
But she'd been giving him soft kisses with those ruby lips as she'd smoothed her palms over his chest and torso. When she'd asked him to give her five minutes to get ready, he'd obliged and left the bedroom. He'd been kicking off his boots when she'd come to take his hand, stroking it sensuously with her thumb. She'd tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling at him over her shoulder as she led him to her bed.
Did he ask what she'd done in her room? Hell, no. At that point, and after that bewitching smile, if she'd murmured, "I'm leading you into the fiery depths of hell," he'd have followed dumbly.
Then they'd lain on the bed, slowly kissing again. The way she would give soft moans into his mouth maddened him. When she lapped her tongue against his, he couldn't stop imagining how it would feel on his cock...
Then he'd suddenly found one wrist shackled to a chain she'd stretched under her bed. "What the bloody hell—?"
"Bastian, it's a condition of this deal."
Warnings had arisen. This is not wise. They'd just been fighting. They'd resolved nothing between them. But he knew he could break free if need be. He could trace free. Why would she want this?
Then she'd smiled once more, that seductive curl of her lips, and he could no longer think of anything but sliding his shaft between them. He let her chain the other wrist.
When he was secured, she'd surveyed him with eyes gone silver and licked her lips.
And one second ago, he'd watched in astonishment as she clawed his pants off, leaving him without a thread on.
"I imagined this that first morning with you," she said, pressing her lips to his torso. Her damp hair grazed over his skin, making him shudder with pleasure. "Imagined ripping off your pants to get my mouth on your shaft."
He groaned in disbelief, wondering if he'd die of ecstasy when he felt her warm breaths going lower. If this was a dream, he'd be damned if he would wake. After nuzzling the trail of hair leading down from his navel, she glanced up. "Are you ready?"