TravelersKiss

by Sherri L. King

  Clang.

  When they found me, I was near death. Malnourished. My head was all jacked up, my skull caved in, but somehow that’s all healed now. There’s not even a scar.

  I’ve been back from that cavern for years now.

  Clang.

  It’s been years since Grimm saved me.

  Clang.

  But I don’t remember anything before waking up in front of the fire. I have forgotten the years I’ve spent since the cave, all the time between then and now.

  Clang.

  Holy shit.

  Raine gasped and put her head in her hands. “Think. Think. What do I remember?” She remembered the fire. That was the start of it. The world had swum into focus with the emergence of the flames in the hearth. After that she’d only remembered the events leading up to and right after her car crash. Even now she couldn’t remember anything concrete about what had come after Grimm had saved her, only impressions.

  Tonight isn’t the first time we’ve made love.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  What was it he’d said to her?

  This time, I will burn myself so deep into your memory that no force on this world or any other could ever reach into your head and remove the thought of me again.

  Oh God, how could Grimm be so patient, so calm about this? He knew she’d lost her memory…

  This isn’t the first time. He has seen this happen to me before.

  Clang!

  How many times had Grimm gone through this with her? Raine felt the press of madness behind her eyes, the burn of panicked tears. What kind of torture must that be, having someone you care about forget who you are over and over again? He’d never let on either. He’d done everything to help her remember on her own, he’d not forced a thing.

  She rubbed her hands over her face and took several deep breaths. Okay. So this was her reality now. What was she supposed to do about it? In the past, what had she done?

  Of course, she couldn’t remember. Damn it.

  Something moved in her periphery.

  Did Emily or Steffy know about this? Of course they must. They lived here—she was remembering more now. Where was here? She thought hard and the answer bubbled up from the depths of her tortured mind, where more and more bubbles soon followed until her head was frothing with knowledge.

  This was the Shikars’ home territory, far below the surface of the Earth, where the humans would never be able to find them if they ever decided to go looking for the ancient race of warrior peoples. The Shikars liked their privacy. Emily and Steffy were now Shikars too. She and Grimm had helped them become Shikars.

  When Raine tried to recall exactly how that was possible, the details eluded her.

  How could she forget all of this? How could she forget any of it? Was there a trigger that activated her amnesia? Was she broken after so many years in captivity or was it something else that had fractured her mind? Her questions abounded and there were no easy answers. Did Grimm have any ideas?

  Something moved in her periphery. It was insistent.

  Raine glanced up at the mirror and reflexively away, not wanting to see her weird eyes again.

  Her reflection wasn’t in the mirror anymore.

  Something else was. Someone else. Raine started when he moved again.

  Eyeing her from his silvered perch, he tilted his blond head sharply.

  He’s a lizard wearing human skin, her mind screamed.

  His eyes were bright golden coins, catching the light, blinding her. They roved over her from head to toe, reminding her explicitly that she had no clothes on. “You owe me, Earthmover.”

  “Fuck, what the fuck, holy fuck, fuck me, fuck, fuuuuck!” She threw herself back, stumbled, fell and continued kicking her feet, sliding ineffectually on the glassy surface of the floor as she scrambled to get away from the blond-haired devil in the looking glass.

  “Whether you come willingly or not, you will be mine…” The words were gentle but his lips were cruel, or she imagined they were beneath their shapely moue. “So beautiful, with all your power simmering beneath the surface.” His eyes shuttered, his voice too warm for the cold depths she knew lay in his heart. “You make me wait at your peril.”

  The bathroom door exploded open and Raine started violently, gasping for breath. She turned and saw Grimm crash through it, resplendent in nothing but his bulging nudity. When she turned back to the mirror it was just empty glass.

  “Raine! By the Horde, what has happened?”

  “There was a, a g-guy, a man in, in, in the uh, m-mirror and uh, he, uh,” she stammered, shaking from head to toe, gasping for breath between every other word. “He hissed at me. He was in the mirror and then he, he, he, well, then he w-wasn’t.”

  She crawled toward the glass hesitantly, shaking so hard her bones ground against one another, and peered closer but saw only her own stricken reflection inside. Her spine was an icicle and her blood had congealed to frost. “He was there, Grimm. I swear he was there, in the mirror, he was there and he was as real as you and me.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, hurrying past her lips as if they were trying to escape. Her body was a cage of fear now, every nerve trapped by it. “You have to believe me. I think it was Lord Daemon.” The name slid off her tongue like an oil slick, leaving a honey-sweet taste behind that confused her.

  Grimm went very still. “What did he say to you?”

  Raine prayed that he never turned such a cold tone her way again, ever. “He said…” She hesitated, a creeping unease tightening her skin. “Well, he said a couple of things.”

  Something inside her cautioned against saying anything at all. But that was stupid. She wanted Grimm to know everything about her. He was her protector. He would keep her safe and she needed to be kept safe from that snake.

  Right?

  Raine felt a sudden onset of nausea.

  Starlight exploded in Grimm’s eyes. Planets were born, lived and died right there in his gaze for her to see. It freaked Raine out and excited her at the same time. He reached down, put his hands under her arms and lifted her up off the floor as if she weighed no more than a small child. Her feet dangled a good six inches in the air and he brought her so close to him their noses touched. “What did he say to you? Tell me every word that slid off his forked tongue.”

  Raine gripped his shoulders and trembled like a leaf in his hands. “He said I owed him. And that I would be his. He also said I was beautiful.” The words left her mouth automatically, as if he’d pulled them out by an invisible string. It was such a strange feeling that Raine actually snapped her teeth closed after saying them, her lips tingling long after the sound faded.

  Grimm set her down on her feet so gently she wasn’t aware he had until he turned away from her and left the room. It was a worse dismissal than if he had slapped her away. She followed him on slippery feet, his cool withdrawal leaving an empty void that grew and grew as his long legs ate up the distance of the bedroom. “Wait, Grimm, I need to talk to you—”

  “He is growing more and more enamored of you, Raine.” He slashed his hand through the air without turning to her. “It is not only your magic that interests him, I fear.” He stomped through the bedroom and walked through the farthest wall without another word.

  Raine skidded to a halt and stared after him. “What the heck?” She reached out and touched the expanse of wall where Grimm had disappeared. It was, of course, solid. She looked around to reaffirm that there were no doors leading out and released a frustrated whumph of air. “Come on, seriously?” She kicked the wall, but as it was comprised of solid rock, it accomplished nothing. “That’s just not fair.”

  Hopping between fear and confusion, terror and exasperation, it had to be the longest and most emotional day of Raine’s life. Yet she still wasn’t tired. If anything, she was more awake and enervated than ever.

  “Okay.” She slapped her hands together and eyed the wall like the adversary it had become. It was all that stood between her and Grimm. She ha
d overcome fiercer obstacles. He had stepped through it as if it were water, not even hesitating for a moment.

  He also stepped across worlds.

  True. But this was different. This wall was made out of stone and earlier she had put her fist into the floor and pulled it back out, no problem. Walking through this shouldn’t be much harder.

  “I can do this.” Raine hopped on her feet. “I am a strong, supernatural wonder woman. I can walk through this wall.”

  She took a step forward, skidded to a halt and chickened out.

  “Ugh. Okay. Okay.” She shook herself and began hopping again. “I can do this. Really.” She took several quick breaths. “Maybe if I count it out. Here goes. On three, I’m going to walk through this wall. One. Two. Two and a half. Two and—hey!”

  Grimm’s arm came through the wall, grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her through. There was no odd sensation of passing through solid, black obsidian—though when she stepped through it, Raine’s brain identified the rock as obsidian as if the material whispered its name and origin to her as though they were old friends. She was simply in the bedroom one second and in the sitting room the next.

  “Cheese and rice,” she said shakily. “I guess we don’t need doors, huh?”

  “Sit down.” He didn’t appear to be in a lighthearted mood.

  Without wasting her breath on a useless protest, Raine plopped down on a chaise lounge. Instead she blurted out the only important thing she could think worth saying. “Listen. I’m remembering more stuff, Grimm.”

  He gathered his hair in his hand and flipped the mass over his shoulders carelessly. He didn’t even look her way. “You don’t remember everything,” he snarled under his breath.

  “I realize this isn’t the first time I’ve forgotten everything, how’s that for a start?”

  He glanced at her long enough to lift one black, winged brow, as if daring her to continue.

  She exhaled and tried desperately to gather her thoughts. But her thoughts kept getting tangled up. Strangely enough, after all she had just suffered, Raine found herself feeling better, especially now that she was no longer in front of the bathroom mirror. Perhaps she was more resilient these days, able to overcome things that would cripple most people’s psyches.

  Probably, though, it had something to do with Grimm still being naked.

  He was marvelously nude and simmering with barely checked anger, pacing before a lit fire in the hearth. The way the firelight flickered its glowing halo upon his bronze skin made shadows play across his bulging muscles and tights planes. His manhood, enormous even at rest, hung like a heavy pendulum between his hard thighs.

  Her thoughts became words before she had the wits to keep them locked away behind her lips. “I was hoping to see that your pubes were going to be that same cool shade as your hair, but you don’t have any.”

  His feet halted so suddenly that the silence was itself a sound that blanketed the room. His cock immediately engorged, swelling, lengthening and darkening. It looked like a weapon and threatened her enough to make Raine forget all remnants of the worries that had pushed her to follow him to this room in the first place. Now she only worried about the danger that stood before her.

  At first Raine tried to look away from him, but—oh wow, Grimm’s erection was really swelling now that she was openly gawking—he was just so magnificent she couldn’t tear her eyes away. She licked lips that had grown suddenly dry and heard him take a sharp breath.

  “I can never think straight when you eat me with your eyes like that.”

  Raine squirmed in her seat. “Do you need to?” She swallowed. “Think straight, I mean? Do you need to think at all?” She no longer needed to. It hurt to think. Forgetting was better.

  Grimm palmed himself, his own hand unable to skirt his girth, even semi-hard as he still was, though that was changing by the second. He pumped himself from base to tip. “I should, for both our sakes. But you make me crazed with lust.” He padded over to her and put one foot by her hip on the lounger. His cock bobbed high in front of her face and his exotic scent made her dizzy. “When you look at me, woman, you will think of no one else. Are we clear?”

  Raine started and looked up at his face. His features had taken on a savage cast. “What?”

  “I will not repeat myself.” His gaze closed off, avoiding hers.

  “Grimm, it doesn’t matter if I’m looking at you or not,” she assured him. “I can’t think of anyone but you.”

  He grunted, but Raine could tell he was satisfied with what she’d said. He stroked himself again, drawing her attention back to the real issue between them. His cock was bigger and harder than ever. What a beautiful creature he was, this Traveler of hers. Raine leaned forward, spellbound, and pressed her lips against him.

  The texture of his swollen member was like velvet, real velvet, it wasn’t just a cliché. His flesh was scorching hot against hers, burning and heightening the sensitivity of her lips so that just the whisper-soft brush of him made her mouth sizzle. She darted her tongue out and puckered her lips firmly, pressing another slick kiss on him, drawing gently on the tip at the end of it. Her clit swelled, the tips of her nipples stung and her sex became so wet, Raine was afraid the evidence of her arousal would stain the brocade fabric of the seat underneath her.

  “I don’t remember what you like,” she whispered. “But I’m a quick study.” She palmed his heavy sac and licked him with the flat of her tongue.

  Grimm took her head with his free hand, burying it in her hair. “I know it,” he said raggedly. “You may not remember how it is between us, but I do. I am a very lucky warrior. Each time this happens, it is like being with you for the first time all over again.” He panted as her tongue made languid, broad strokes up and down the long length of him. He held the immense weight of himself high for her so that she didn’t have to work too hard. She kissed his fingers where he gripped himself and his breath caught. “Woman, your mouth is wicked.”

  “Mmm, so are my thoughts.” Raine was giddy, lightheaded. She had to touch him, had to put her hands on him. They both sighed when she did. He tensed and hardened even further, wringing a gasp of pure amazement from her swollen mouth. Dipping her head, she very carefully drew upon his tightly wound sac and almost laughed her delight aloud when he swayed on his feet, reflexively tightening his hold on her head. Grimm’s body was as enthralled as hers.

  Grimm in the midst of his pleasure, his knees gone weak with his guard completely lax, was magical to behold. He was a magnificent beast. He would never be tamed but he could be gentled—Raine had just proven it. Egad, she had even ridden him and lived to tell the tale! She imagined that with Grimm’s cock sweet and snug in her mouth, his shaft calescent and throbbing in her hands, she was the most powerful woman in the world. Without a doubt she was the most enviable.

  Raine was drunk on a potent brew of eroticism and lust, therefore it was understandable that she was unaware of the accelerando—the changing and upswing of the tempo between them. Grimm’s hand tightened in her hair. He moved his hips, insistently brushing his cock against her mouth, very careful not to press too hard, lingering when he wanted most to charge in and conquer.

  His Raine was mistaken in thinking it was she who was in charge of this rhythm between them. She had forgotten the first and only unbreakable law—Grimm always conducted their symphony. He might let her think she set their rhythm, perhaps even grant her a brief illusion of some control for her own delight and pleasure, but he was not the kind who could ever truly relinquish such a thing for long. Dominance and restraint were too much a part of him to be things he could ever truly surrender. That would be akin to shedding layers of his skin—impossible. Already he had held himself in check far longer than he liked and Raine’s eager mouth was sucking him closer and closer to an edge he might not be able to step away from before hurting them both.

  He pulled on her hair, yanking her head back insistently when she stubbornly tried to hold on to him. Gods, she
had lips like a hungry succubus! His body craved nothing more than to thrust balls deep into the wet, hot heat of her mouth, but his heart and his head cared too deeply to use her so brutally. Besides, he better liked seeing her lips curve in that little secret kitten’s smile when she climaxed. There were thousands of ways he knew to make her smile like that. The trouble was choosing one now when he was already shaking with the need to bury himself inside her tight, lithe body.

  He watched her, admiring her untamed spirit, her fierce will and feminine beauty—all of it transcending the physical in an instant. It glowed through her skin brighter than any flame, hotter than a star, though Raine herself would never be able to see it with her own eyes or feel its burn through her naked flesh. Grimm was struck blind for a brief moment, then the flame dimmed, the moment passed, and he could once again see her simply for the magnificent, woman-creature she was.

  Her agile hips moved in a sinuous figure eight, her perky tits bounced deliciously and suddenly Grimm knew exactly how he wanted to make her come. With a secret smile of his own, he bent his dark head and stole her swollen lips in a kiss he knew would rob her of any further foolish notions of dominion over him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grimm was as careful as he knew to be, but she had pushed him closer to the edge than even he had been aware. He jerked her head back harder than he’d intended, arching her neck higher, graceful and pale as a swan’s. With a silent curse he reined in his ardor and gentled his kiss, tracing his fingers across the downy side of her cheek, along the curve of her throat and over the swell of her breast.

  He took one globe in his hand, felt his loins turn to stone. Her nipple was as hard and flushed as a cherry under the pads of his fingers, her breast the weight and size of an apple. Unable to stop himself, he rubbed his cock across her chest, reveling in the lush softness of her against his hot erection. Gods, he wanted to lay her out and spread his seed across her skin like a pearlescent balm. He wanted to rub his seed into her until she absorbed him into her flesh. His body ached from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet just thinking about it. But no, this was about her pleasure, not his—her pleasure was his.