by D. D. Miers
When I heard the door creak open again, I sat up slightly.
“Lie down,” said Kieron, without even looking at me.
He didn’t argue with me about staying here to fend off the nightmares, though, so maybe my instinctive panic reaction was on the right track.
He snuffed out the remaining light, and the room was bathed in darkness. But I could still sense his presence in the room, and I certainly heard the rustling of fabric as he undressed.
If he got into bed with me naked, I might actually die.
But no, he wouldn’t do that. Would he?
By the time he approached the massive bed, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that I could see he was wearing some kind of lounge pants. No shirt, though. Despite myself, I squinted hard to see if I could trace the lines of his muscles, even though I had seen them in visions many times before.
Even though the impractically large bed still kept us far apart, I felt cocooned in with him, safer. that might be the most dangerous thing of all.
“Kieron?”
“You should be sleeping,” he replied, but his voice didn’t hold any real sternness.
I rolled over to face him, nothing but a vague shape on the other side of the bed. “We should all be doing a lot of things. You and I, for example, are supposed to be soulmates.”
It was a topic we always avoided, skirted around, when we could. Even though it hung heavy in the air every moment we were together, it seemed better not to talk about it. But under the blanket of darkness, everything was a little softer and easier to face.
He let out a humorless chuckle. “You really are infatuated with the elhun, aren’t you? It’s just another spell. Another trick. Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or whatever they do in your realm.”
“Isadora said—”
“Isadora says a lot of things. But I know some things she didn’t. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, as well.”
“But you haven’t done it yet.” I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat. “You haven’t freed us. It’s only gotten stronger the more we’re together.”
Kieron said nothing.
“You can feel it too,” I persisted. “Can’t you?”
His voice grew very quiet. “Of course, I feel it.”
In my nervousness, I’d managed to clench a handful of sheets into a tight ball. “Have you made any progress?”
“I’m not discussing this with you,” he said, flatly.
“I deserve to know. It affects me as much as it does you.”
“Trust me,” he said, “if I could snap my fingers and be done with this mess, I would. But it’s not quite that simple. You’ll need to trust me. I know that’s a difficult prospect for you.”
“What reason have you given me?” I challenged him.
He scoffed quietly. “I’ve saved your life.”
“So has Dorian,” I blurted out, before I could stop myself. “But you don’t seem to think I should trust him.”
The room was heavy with unspoken things.
“Yes,” said Kieron, finally. “So has Dorian.”
His tone was dark, and full of things he wouldn’t say.
“Dorian could’ve just let me die,” I pointed out. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince anymore because the seed of doubt placed in my mind grew stronger. There was so much about Dorian I didn’t know, and so much he could be hiding. Was Kieron’s dislike of him simple jealousy or something much darker?
Kieron, of course, had his secrets, too. But he’d never pretended to be in this fight for anyone but himself. And there was something reassuring about that.
I’d assumed Dorian was fighting for—what? The greater good? I didn’t know. I had no reason to believe he cared about me, except that he showed up one day and said so.
But if there was one thing I’d learned since coming to the First Realm, it was that people weren’t always what they seemed.
“I can’t let you die,” Kieron said, at last. “And you know exactly why.”
Because our fates were intertwined. If I died, he died. At least, that’s what everyone seemed to believe.
“There’s no better reason to trust that I’m invested in your well-being,” Kieron went on. “I have no choice but to protect you. And I know plenty of things you don’t. So the next time I tell you not to go wandering off alone, or with that smarmy—”
I snickered. I couldn’t help it. “You really can’t stand him.”
“I know you think it’s pure jealousy,” he said. “Because that’s the reason you try to kill Stassi with your eyes every time she gets within ten feet of me. But he would sell out his own grandmother for fifty pieces of silver. I’ve known him longer than you’ve been alive.”
“I do not try to kill . . . that woman with my eyes.” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. “I just don’t think there’s any reason for her to rub it in everyone’s face.”
“What, the fact that we’ve slept together?” He almost spit the words out, like they pained him. It shocked me a little. “At least I never suckled her tongue in front of you, in your house, while taking advantage of your hospitality.”
Quietly fuming, I edged closer to him on the mattress. “You forfeit your right to complain about me kissing Dorian right about the time you tortured him within an inch of his life.”
“Pain doesn’t kill,” he shot back. “I would know.”
It was the first time he’d openly admitted something I had intuitively known for a while now.
Kieron suffered. A lot. I didn’t quite understand why or how, but he’d obviously known pain and sadness beyond anything I could comprehend. It didn’t really excuse his behavior, but it did give it some context.
“It’s been months now,” I said, softly. “Do you have any idea how you’re going to undo the elhun? Have you made any progress?”
“You don’t understand how these things work,” he replied. “I’m not going to attempt to explain it to you.”
“Yes or no, Kieron. Please. I deserve your honesty, if nothing else.”
“As of yet,” he said, slowly, “the proper course of action for undoing this curse has yet to reveal itself.”
“So we’re stuck with it.”
“No,” he insisted. “I’m going to—”
“For now,” I amended, quickly. “For the foreseeable future. Maybe we should, I don’t know. Stop fighting it so hard.”
He took in a sharp breath through his nostrils. “Ms. Davenport, do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?”
“No,” I admitted, softly. “But I don’t think you understand this either, so we might as well go on the only information we have. Which is what Isadora told me. She said I wouldn’t be able to reach my full potential without . . .”
His love.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“Without you,” I finished, finally.
“Earlier today, you were shouting at me for daring to save your life.” He sounded more amused than angry. “Now, you want me to awaken your powers with a kiss, like a fairy tale prince? That’s hardly me, Ms. Davenport. Elhun or no elhun.”
“Neither one of us asked for this,” I persisted, quietly. “But we might as well make the best of it.”
There was a long silence, punctuated only by the sound of his even breaths. Then, a sigh.
“This isn’t just about the elhun, you know,” he said. The sheets rustled as he rolled over to face me. Briefly, I wondered if he could see in the dark. “Love itself is dangerous enough without any magic enhancements. It drives people to desperation. Once you learn to control your powers sufficiently well, you’ll be far better off without me. Whatever the others think.”
“So is it love that’s dangerous, or is it you?”
For a minute, I thought he ignored me. But then he finally spoke.
“Go to sleep, Ms. Davenport.”
Chapter Thirteen
Wheat grass was twirled between my fingers, long and sun-kissed. It scrat
ched my throat, like the allergies I had always ignored in the summer. I was freezing cold, colder than the icicles hanging from the underworld city.
The wheat grass dissolved into nothing but black ash. One simple touch and it was gone. I turned around to run, but something was there. The Faedus. It whirled around me, screaming, yelling, begging for help. I covered my ears with my hands but it was still there. Still screaming. I screamed as well. I had to counteract its loud screeching with my own. I tried to run but my body moved slowly. My hand burned, starting as a simple hum. It worked its way up my arm and around my chest. The Faedus hovered over me, its claws deep into my wrist. I saw its red veins suck the life from chest. Oh god it was so painful.
I screamed again when it kissed me. Kissing me softly on the lips. The pain lightened as the Faedus faded. I heard the crackling fireplace in my room and felt the feather covers over my legs. The kissing continued. I kept my eyes closed as I began to understand my surroundings. Kieron was kissing me. It was the only way to pull me from these dreams. Incubus powers against my dark warrior’s, and his was stronger.
I opened my eyes to see Kieron hovering over me, his dark honey smell intoxicating me with every breath. I wanted more.
Kieron’s hand clenched my sweat-dampened hair as we both breathed heavily. Without thinking, I rested my forehead against his. Like this was a perfectly normal thing. Like we were lovers.
“Ms. Davenport,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”
“I am now,” I sighed. And it was true. The physical connection, as paltry as it was compared to how much I wanted him, how badly I wanted to consume him and be consumed by him . . . it helped. It helped a lot. The tendrils of fear and shadows unwound themselves from my mind, and my heart lightened.
If just a kiss can do all that, imagine . . .
No. I’d already pushed my luck with him enough tonight. It wasn’t the time to throw caution to the winds and give him my body, no matter how badly I craved it.
I trembled, almost hyperventilating, and I reached for him before I could stop myself. Before I was even fully awake, I was wrapped in his arms.
“Shhh,” he whispered.
“I can’t,” I half-sobbed, hating myself for how weak I sounded. But it was true. I needed him. I couldn’t do this alone.
“You can,” he said, softly. “This is what you’re destined for.”
“And this is what you’re destined for,” I reminded him. In the darkness, I thought I could still see his eyes glint. “To help me through this.”
His voice was husky when he spoke again. “What sort of help did you have in mind?”
Already, his body responded to my closeness.
“I think,” I whispered. “For the sake of the cause. For the greater good. We . . .”
“Yes?” he prompted.
“I think we ought to sleep together.”
I heard the smile in his voice. “I believe we already have.”
“Oh my God. You know what I meant.” I blushed furiously, thankful for the pitch blackness.
“Are you certain about this, Ms. Davenport?” he intoned, his mouth very close to my ear.
I shivered. “I have to be. It has to help.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It has to. Normally . . .a vision like the one before, that kind of darkness, it would take me hours to recover. But when you kissed me, it was like all the color came back into the world.”
“Ah,” Kieron breathed, making goosebumps rise all over my skin. “So you think, if my lips could do all that—”
“Maybe the rest of you—”
“It’s perfectly logical,” he said. “I suppose, if I’m to be used for my body, I couldn’t ask for a better circumstance than this.”
I let out a nervous little laugh. “I’m pretty sure you could, actually.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” His lips brushed my earlobe, and I squirmed. “You’re a beautiful girl. And for as much as we both want this . . .situation resolved, in the meantime, well . . .”
“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” I confessed, pressing my body against his. There was no point in pretense anymore. “I’m guessing you have, too.”
“That’s the nature of the curse, I suppose,” he breathed against my neck. “You’re very lucky, Ms. Davenport, that I have uncommonly good self-control.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because,” he said, “every moment we spend in this house together, all I want to do is devour you slowly and make you scream my name. Over. And over. And over.”
Of course, it was my freaking luck that someone knocked on Kieron’s bedroom door.
“Lord Blake,” said my new anonymous least favorite person, “you asked to be woken up at this time.”
“You did?” I hissed.
He nodded.
“With Daegus and Stassi here, it’s not polite to make them wait on breakfast.”
Oh sure, I think sarcastically. It would be horribly rude to make them wait after practically promising to give me the best sex of my life. And we wouldn’t want Golden Girl and Stink-breath to be put out, would we?
The edges of Kieron’s lips turned up as he heard my thoughts, the bastard. I hated, the mischievous glint in his eyes, how his ebony hair hung perfectly on his forehead, and how I wanted to devour his mouth. I despised it all because just when I was about to realize my fantasy, someone fucking had to give Lord Blake his wake-up call.
A mortal girl just can’t catch a break around here.
I had never been less interested in a slice of bacon in my life. Dorian avoided my gaze, going straight for the coffee and mumbling a perfunctory good morning. The others took a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy about the bandage across his nose.
The thrumming in my core told me Kieron drew closer. Dorian had probably put the pieces together. Hell, anyone who heard us arguing would have noticed that I went into Kieron’s bedroom with him, and it wouldn’t take a detective to figure out that I never left, either. Not until this morning.
Everyone in this room probably thought we were having sex.
I buried my face in my mug and willed myself to sink into the floor.
“Goodness, what happened to you last night?” Stassi’s voice always managed to interrupt my inner monologue. Once again, it signaled Kieron’s arrival. Like I needed the prompt. The neglected throbbing between my legs told me everything I needed to know.
Kieron didn’t answer her, going straight for a drink. Apparently, none of them had been informed about the fight in the bar. So much the better.
The floor was still stubbornly refusing to swallow me up.
“Come here,” Stassi purred, and Kieron just gave her a baleful look. “What’s got you so stressed, hmm? Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk it out. I used to be pretty good at getting you to relax.”
Kieran set his glass down on the marble counter, a little bit louder than necessary. “No, thank you,” he said. “Take a hint, woman, would you?”
I snickered a little. I couldn’t help it.
“I’m sorry,” said Stassi, icily. “Forgive me for trying to be nice.”
Kieron took in a deep breath, and I swore he counted to ten. “It’s not you, Stassi. I had a long night.”
“Of course.” She eyed him cautiously.
Dorian sat down, close but not too close, leaving a seat between us
“Are you okay?” he asked, finally. “I never got the chance to ask you properly.”
“Yeah. I guess.” There was no way in hell I was ever going to tell him what happened between me and Kieron.
Marcus came and whispered in Kieron’s ear. Kieron stood and made excuses about having to take care of some business, so I was left alone all day by myself in Kieron’s Fortress of Solitude. It gave me plenty of time to stew about what didn’t happen. By the time Kieron returned I decided I wasn’t going to let him get away with turning me down again.
My fist was already raised, poised and ready to knock on Ki
eron’s door but hesitation had a tight grip on me.
My knuckles rapped against the wood of the door, giving me only a few seconds to decide if I wanted to hightail it.
I didn’t.
Kieron opened the door a crack, drinking me in before he pushed it open the rest of the way.
“Ms. Davenport.”
“Kieron.”
I was glad when he stepped away, opting for silence over any awkward preludes.
He stopped in front of the window, the icy view outside drawing his attention as he swirled a glass of bourbon in his grip.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do, so I stood there, basking near the crackling fire’s warmth as I drank in the bookshelves that flanked the opposite wall
I curled into his chair nearest an open flame and tugged at my sweater. A persistent chill seemed to have taken root in my bones, and I wanted it gone. Now.
“How did it go? Your business, whatever it was??” I asked, long after the crackling fire had lulled me into a sense of false security. Across the room, Kieron’s stoic expression reflected in the window’s glare.
“As well as one could expect. There were injuries.”
“Are your men okay, though?” I wanted to be snarky with him, but it hardly seemed the time. I wondered if anyone I knew got seriously hurt and instead, I sighed into the collar of my sweater. I’m so tired of Kieron keeping me in the dark. “Did you lose anyone?”
“No.” For a moment, I wondered if he’d elaborate or leave me in the dark as to which of my questions he was answering.
“There were some minor injuries, but no serious losses.”
That was at least one less thing to worry about, but then there was still the matter of Kieron clinging to the view outside the window. From my curled perch, I watched him as I wondered what was swirling in that closed-off head of his
Then, his soft gray eyes turned my way. “Why are you here, Ms. Davenport? Is there something you are in need of?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” I sassed back before I could halt my own tongue.