Hearts of Shadow (Deadglass #2)

by Kira Brady

  She watched the white linen flutter to the ground, a flag of surrender to this lust that charged the air between them. Swallowing, she looked back at his godlike body.

  He unbuckled his belt.

  She was still nervous she’d freeze up again, but the heat had returned. She fought the urge to clamp her legs together against the ache. Instead she lounged back against the machine, trying to look cool, open, and willing.

  Please don’t be a gentleman, she thought at him as he dropped his clinging trousers.

  Un-freaking-believable. She’d seen his naked body before when he’d Turned, but this was the first time she’d allowed herself a good, long look in the smoky lights of the biodiesel lamps. A commando Norse god in the flesh. Gorgeous and powerful and sexy as hell. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth taking it all in.

  With slow, lazy grace, he turned in a circle, giving her a good, long look at his every angle. A wicked smile played across his face. It promised naughty, naughty things to come.

  But he still maintained his distance. The challenge in his eyes said, Come and get it.

  Her hands fisted against her pants. This was her moment: wallow in the past, ruminate on her own insecurities or seize the day.

  Grace jumped off the table. “Move that hot ass over here.” He humored her and lowered himself to the position she had just vacated at the foot of the brass machine. He lounged back on the table, weight on his elbows, thighs parted. His eyes trailed her hungrily. All that masculinity and power coiled and waiting for her touch. “Are those tiny scales sparkling in the lamplight?”

  “Why don’t you find out?”

  She trailed her fingertips over the carved abs, pointedly ignoring the organ most clambering for her attention. “Nope, velvet smooth.”

  “Grace.” Leif’s voice was ragged. Need turned his green eyes to catlike slits. For the first time, the inhuman eyes actually turned her on. A dragon might lurk beneath his skin, but right now he was all man, and she wanted that man with whatever twin creature hid inside him. What other immortal tricks could he do?

  “Grace,” he said again, more serious this time. Tension bound every muscle in his body. He surged forward and grasped her arms just under the gold armbands. “Please.”

  An order of such vulnerability and need. She couldn’t turn away from that. She felt the same down to her all-too-human soul. “Lie back,” she ordered. Taking charge, she slid her hands down his thighs and brought her mouth to the base of his cock. Leif gave a choked moan. His muscles shook.

  “Don’t hold back,” she said. “I’m not as delicate as you think.” She was tough, and she was mean, and she was enough woman to match him any day.

  With one slow lick from base to tip, she drew a guttural cry from him. She’d never realized how empowering sex could be. She’d reduced the great beast to absolute putty.

  “Grace, you’re killing me.” The third time her name left his lips. Too aware, still. She would drive every thought out of his pretty little head. The salty tang of him slid over her lips. In and out, slow and sleek. She took her time driving him to the edge. But the power pulled both ways, because as she took his pleasure, her own need grew.

  The sweet perfume of his musk filled the air as his passion rose. It stoked her desire. Smell, taste, touch. His arousal strained against her tongue. A sheen of sweat beaded his beautiful body. His muscles bunched, holding back. An assault on her senses, driving her wild before he even touched her core. She held on as long as she could. Clenching her thighs together could only do so much to ease her ache.

  Grace wanted to make him beg, but she broke first. With one last lick, she released him, panting. Eyes wild, he reached out to caress her breasts. “I want to see you,” he growled and tore the button from her pants.

  “I needed those,” she said as she shimmied out of them.

  “You don’t need clothes. You will be gloriously naked, chained to my bed from this day forward.”

  She thought about how easy it would be to keep him here prone on the table to do with as she pleased. She needed some spelled handcuffs. Later.

  Pulling herself up, she climbed on top and straddled his thighs.

  “On second thought—”

  “I don’t want you thinking at all,” she said.

  “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

  She shook her head.

  He crooked his finger at her and licked his lips. “Come closer, let me—” She didn’t let him finish. With a deep breath, she impaled herself on his shaft. Pain shocked her. It had been a while, and he was so thick.

  “Ishtar save me.” He grabbed her hips to steady her. She blinked against the uncomfortable fullness and tried to will her inner muscles to relax. “You are so tight.” His fingers slipped over her clit and circled. Shock and pleasure washed over her, and suddenly the tightness eased to deep fullness. She slid down another inch. Leif sucked air between his teeth. “Ah, gods, she already has. You feel so good, so right. You’d put even the goddess to shame, and that isn’t a blasphemy, only truth.”

  She basked in the sensory overload and tightened her inner muscles, making Leif squirm beneath her. But soon her nerves called out for friction, and she moved, leveraging herself up and sliding down again. Leif’s eyes rolled in his head. He was her victim, helpless to move from her feminine wiles. Was this what Ishtar’s Maidens felt? This power they wielded over men. This heady control. Bringing men to their knees.

  She’d never come to sex as an equal before. Leif wasn’t the only one affected. Far from it. Her legs shook with the effort to push up, and only his strong hands on her waist kept her from falling over in a quivery pool of jelly, especially as her pace increased and his circling thumbs drove her to higher pleasure. She felt raw and exposed in a freeing, mind-numbing way that she wanted to go on forever.

  And then the friction increased, and she knew if it didn’t stop she would fly apart in a billion glittering pieces to float away on the Aether, an explosion of energy and light.

  Leif twined his fingers through hers and let her push into his vitality and strength.

  Did all Drekar need to suck a piece of her soul to finish? She fumbled her rhythm.

  “Grace, don’t stop. I’m losing you.” Stopping her, he sat up and scooted them both off the table, holding on to her the entire time. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist. Her arms circled his neck. He didn’t bat an eye at the extra weight.

  She licked her lips. “Do you need to feed—?”

  His eyes took on a hard edge. “No.” Gently, he untangled her legs and arms and set her belly down across the worktable, ass in the air, chill metal on her peaked nipples. “Keep your pretty little mouth away from me.” He took a moment to lay kisses down her spine to the tip of her tailbone.

  “What are you—?”

  “Relax, Grace. I’ve got you. Trust me on this.” He put her hands on the suit of armor and squeezed them as if he expected her to hang on. She felt the command in his body. The tables were turned: her on her stomach in the vulnerable position, him with the power and control. Except that this new position was safe; he couldn’t reach her mouth to sip from her soul. She didn’t have time to be anxious, because he spread her legs again and entered her with a single thrust.

  “You are mine,” he said as he speared her to the core, even deeper than she thought he could go. She couldn’t move, pinned to the table beneath his weight and his pounding, demanding presence. His hands shaped her ass possessively. Her cheek pressed against the table, and she held on for dear life. He was going to shatter her. “When I am inside you, you will think of no one but me. Nothing but how good I feel and how hard I’m going to fuck you. When you come, you will come screaming my name.”

  Her moan echoed through the cavernous room, wanton, free with all the sexual power of a goddess in full lust. She couldn’t believe it came from her lips. She couldn’t deny it. He thrust deeper. His stomach slapped against her ass. He had the control, but his voice rasped wit
h the same need she felt. Neither one of them was cold and calculating. They were equals as his thrusts built this fire to a raging peak. She didn’t know where he ended and she began, only that he filled an emptiness inside her she hadn’t known she possessed. She thought she would break apart. Each moan, each powerful thrust sent waves of passion building inside her. Aether poured over her sweat-slicked skin, tingling her sensitive nerves, until all she felt was the wild, untamed tide washing over her.

  She screamed, “Leif!”

  A moment later he followed her over the edge into the abyss. Shivers racked his body. As he leaned over her, his skin was hot and wet against hers, fire where he laid his cheek against her back, cool where he touched his lips, ever so gently, along her spine. The romantic gesture disturbed her bubbly post-orgasm haze. While her mind floated back to earth, the part of her brain she’d been ignoring started shouting into the empty space: This one could break you.

  All the more reason to fear him, because it was true. He could seduce her body. Charm her mind. But he would kill her with kindness. If he cared about her at all, he would leave her her heart.

  Chapter 19

  Leif kissed the bumps along Grace’s spine, his lips saying everything he couldn’t put into words. The gods had never designed so wicked a temptation as Grace’s skin. She might dislike his drugging scent, but she didn’t know how her natural human rose musk blurred his mind and made a fool of him. Her taste, her moans, the feel of her slick folds welcoming his cock. He would stay here forever in her drugging embrace. Civilization could go to the dogs; all he wanted was right here. To languish in selfish indulgence making love to this fierce little woman. To make her laugh until she forgot her past, every wraith, aptrgangr, and Dreki that had bled her strong heart. As the warm glow of lovemaking called him off to sleep, he pulled his little fighter into his arms and carried her to the alcove where he kept his lab cot.

  “It’s not the Savoy, but it’s better than that metal table.” What kind of lowlife made love to a woman on a metal table anyway? He wanted to kick himself. She deserved better than that. He didn’t realize she’d come to him so soon. He’d issued an ultimatum, but he didn’t realize how strong her resolve was. She’d overcome her numerous reservations with his nature and her past to come to his bed. Ishtar’s own strength. Freya’s good luck. He knew their attraction burned deep, but he’d never dreamed it could be so good.

  She seemed strangely reluctant to meet his eyes now.

  “Regretting it so soon?” A wry note crept into his voice.

  “No.”

  But he could tell she was lying. Damn the gods. He sighed. Wrapping her in his arms, he stretched down on the cot. He didn’t want to let her go. She was his now. But if she struggled to get up, he knew he would have to let her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  He held her and luxuriated in the feel of her in his arms at last. The gold slave bands pressed against his side. They hung between them like lead weights. Unequal—master to slave. Take me as I am, he thought. A king, a captor. He might own her soul, technically, but what was a measly soul when she was in possession of his all-too-breakable heart?

  “I didn’t go to the temple to work,” she said.

  “Good.” He felt her bristle.

  “But I could have. I can do what I want—”

  “Yes.”

  “And you took away my—”

  “Power. I know. I’m sorry.” Closing his eyes, he tapped into the slave bond between them. “You have the power to fight as you see fit. There are no restrictions on your person.” The bond crackled with his order.

  After a beat, she settled again against his chest. “I went back to search the library. Marduk had a scepter, a ring, thunderbolts, a magic web, and fire, few of which we have. Our only saving grace is that Kingu isn’t a full-fledged demigod—he’s a wraith. To seize the Tablet of Destiny, he needs to possess someone so he has hands. He can’t hold it as a wraith. I don’t know if the same is true for the Heart, but if we catch him possessing a human, I can banish him. There’s gotta be something about defeating Kingu in the House’s books. I found one that looked promising before Ianna found me.”

  “I’d offer to ship her to Antarctica, but I’m feeling rather fond of her at the moment. You’re here in my arms. It worked out.”

  “She’s not worth the trouble.” Grace rolled off him and padded away to find her pants. The sudden loss chilled him, but the sight of her walking away warmed him right back up. She wore nothing but her black boots. Compact muscle toned her lithe body. Runes ran up her spine and spider-webbed out to her shoulder blades. Two long lines of ink trailed over her ass and down the backs of her legs to disappear into her boots.

  It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.

  “Ianna is good to her Maidens. She’s a bit like Ishtar in that way. She can be benevolent or she can be a bitch, the goddess of love or the goddess of war. No one is all good or evil; it’s our actions that make the difference.” Her eyes flickered to him and away, and Leif felt pierced through his nonexistent soul.

  The admission had cost her—proud, stubborn woman that she was. She didn’t think he was all evil, even though he was Drekar. The knot of worry released in his gut. She hadn’t slept with him to prove her courage or a point or whatever angry, twisted reason she might have come up with.

  Pulling the book from her bag, she walked back, flipping through the pages as she did. Hot damn, the front view of her body was even better than the back. Blue-black runes spiraled out over her womb and across her heart. She was not unselfconscious in her nudity; there was an erectness of her carriage, a defiant lift of her chin that said she was hyperaware of her lack of clothes.

  She was beautiful. Her skin glowed beneath the lamplight. With each step her long hair swayed like a curtain of spider silk down her back. In her determined stride he saw Ishtar conquering the battlefield. Why couldn’t she see how magnificent she was? No wonder Sven had tried to ensnare her, but he hadn’t been able to tame her fire. Grace was a force unto herself.

  “What do the runes mean?” he asked. “And why do you have so many?”

  “Most are for protection, like Thurisaz, which means ‘thorn.’ It can be used for defense or destruction.” She pointed to a stick with a triangle coming off it like a flag over her heart. There were many more creeping over her ribs in chains of blue-black ink.

  The Aether sparked between them. She burned brighter than other humans. Power greased her movement. The spiderweb of runes seemed to throb with a magic all of their own.

  It reminded him of a magic cage he’d once seen far in the northern tundra of Lapland. The local shaman had trapped an ice elemental in a cage of reindeer bones carved with ancient runes. The bones were still bloody—the death of the animal had fueled the spell that kept the enraged elemental at bay.

  Grace pointed to another rune over her solar plexus. “Algiz helps focus my will to perform the banishing spell.”

  She stopped just short of him, but he bridged that gap by reaching out and tugging her closer. He liked having her here in his arms far too much. He knew anything that smacked of possessiveness made her nervous, but the need to hold her was too great. Not to trap her, just to bask in the warmth of her soul light.

  He could feel the anxiety rippling beneath her skin. They’d taken a giant step in their relationship, and she was confused as hell as to what that made them. He valued commitment. She valued freedom. He had to prove to her that the two weren’t incompatible.

  Grace flipped through the book. “I don’t know about the scepter and the ring, but we can re-create Marduk’s other three weapons. A net—”

  “My suits of armor shoot nets and fire.”

  “Great. The Kivati Thunderbirds can draw thunderbolts, and your Drekar can breathe fire too. What we need to do is draw Kingu into the open and trap him with thunderbolts and fire. I’ve been looking for a book on how Marduk used the Tablet of Destiny, but so far no luck.”<
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  “Rudrick used it as a knife during the ceremony to bring down the Gate.”

  “Yeah, but what would I do, carve a rune? I doubt I have enough oomph to draw the Aether through such a powerful object.”

  He was beginning to suspect that she had more power inside her than she realized. She was faster, stronger, and more Aether-conductive than any human he’d ever met.

  “I bet the Heart sleeps most of the time,” Grace said. “Otherwise Kingu would know exactly where it was.”

  “The aptrgangr—” He paused to weigh his words. “They would be attracted to the Heart, wouldn’t they?”

  “Definitely.”

  “The Heart might even be calling them. Wouldn’t Tiamat want to be found and resurrected? And it’s inside a living thing, Longren said. Moving about the city.”

  “It would have to be a freaking powerful host.”

  “Or someone magically enhanced. Maybe someone who doesn’t even realize what’s inside them. Someone who just happens to find aptrgangr everywhere they go. Who happens to be strong enough to fight them even though she’s only human.”

  Her head came up. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I think Tiamat’s Heart is inside you.”

  Grace’s stomach dropped out of the soles of her feet. She pulled out of his arms. “I’m not a fucking zombie!” How could he even suggest something so stupid? So insulting? That she drew aptrgangr to her like some freaking magnet? That she was responsible for the destruction Kingu caused?

  She saved people, damn it. She didn’t endanger them.

  “Calm down.” Leif raised both hands. “It’s all right—”

  “It isn’t all right! I am not possessed.”

  “Possession implies that the Heart is in control—”