Paradise of Shadows and Devotion

by Gaja J. Kos

  A weak, barely audible moan spilled between us, filled with such yearning that surprise swept through me as I realized it had come from me. But I didn’t have time to dwell on my body’s treacherous admission, because in that very moment, Santino crushed me to his chest and slanted his mouth over mine.

  I opened up for him, my arms curving around his back to hold him even closer as his tongue tangled with mine, the soft press of his lips so at odds with the wild exploration. With one hand kept firmly on my back, Santino guided the other lower, following the curve of my spine until he reached the first of my scales.

  I gasped into his kiss.

  Nobody had ever touched my tail. Not like this. Not with such care and adoration that I felt the pulse of his energy spreading across my scales all the way to the fluke, doing things to me I had never thought possible. My mind screamed to lead us to shore, to let this man take me as I’d wanted him to from that windy morning when we’d first spoken at the cafe. But my body had different ideas.

  And it refused to yield to my command. Only his.

  The touch of Santino’s fingers exploring the smooth surface of my scales sent a storm of sensations rushing through me, a tightness that built low in my core, coaxing moan after moan to spill from my lips and onto his. He groaned as I rubbed my breasts against him, as I slid my hand down the side of his honed torso, hesitating only for a moment on his hips before slipping it between the press of our bodies to wrap my fingers around the hard length of his arousal.

  I guided my hand from the base to the very tip, all the while marveling as he quivered with every inch of velvet skin I caressed. Marveling that it was me he reacted to, not the seductive song of magic.

  His pleasure enveloped me, my own rising to meet his and as his fingers dug into my scales, I pulled away from his kiss just enough to see the hunger blazing in his now perfectly silver eyes—to see it etched in the handsome angles and planes of his face. With each stroke, I increased the pressure, building it up in tune with my own need. He overflowed in my hand, growing even harder, thicker, the sheer sensation of how he responded to my touch nearly obliterating my own control.

  Santino let out a carnal growl that blasted through the serenity of the nature and spun me around. He molded my back to him and kept me still, captured with one arm across my stomach so that I could feel the press of his erection against my scales. My mind swam from the explosion of pleasure, every thought shattering until I believed reality, too, would fall under the spell of his lust.

  And when he touched his lips to my neck, when his fingers encircled one aching nipple, and then the next, reality did collapse.

  I writhed and moaned, grinding myself against him as he kneaded my breasts, his mouth working relentlessly on my neck in a dangerous combination of tongue and teeth. Waves lapped towards the sky around us, my magic leaking out and spreading through the water, echoing the thunderstorm rolling within me, yet never touching Santino. Never dispelling the grip he had on me—or the rapture he caused.

  “Ti voglio, Liana,” he breathed in my ear, voice hoarse and low and so devastatingly sensual all I could do was moan in agreement. “I want you, cara. Now.”

  12

  The lake itself seemed to take us to shore.

  One moment, we were hidden among the rolling waves, the next I was in Santino’s arms as he lifted me from the water and carried me all the way to the gently curving edge of the woods. The plush bed of brilliant green grass pressed against my back, my scales, yet for all the pleasant sensation it offered, my body was attuned to one person only.

  I smiled up at Santino, at the intensity of his gaze and the alluring twist of his mouth, as if caught between a whisper and a growl. Heat flooding through me, I raised an eyebrow in silent invitation.

  He accepted without delay.

  He straddled my hips, exposing my tail to the drying caresses of the sunlight and brought his mouth down to my breasts. I writhed as his tongue caressed one nipple and then the other, the urge to feel him sending fire to course through my veins. But when I shifted beneath him to take his exquisite length into my hand, Santino simply trapped my arms. He raised them above my head, keeping me immobile for him to pleasure me as freely and as wildly as he desired.

  I could feel the smile on his lips as he licked his way across my breasts once more, then sucked the aching bud between his teeth, rolling and assaulting it with the torturous flicks of his tongue until I was crazed with need. The wet strands of his hair brushed against my flushed skin, inflaming my already sensitive flesh, and when he looked up, when I saw that raw hunger etched into the breathtaking liquid silver, I couldn’t hold on any longer.

  A cry tore itself from my lips, then another, the orgasm ravaging my body with the force of something kept dormant for far too long. His erection pressed against my stomach and he bit into my breast, unleashing himself upon it with such fervor, such passion, I thought I would shatter right then and there.

  I writhed, twisted beneath him, but Santino’s grip on my hands and body remained unaffected. I was trapped in the cage of his sweet torture, tumbling over the edge over and over again in rapture that seemed unwilling to end.

  And I didn’t want it to.

  Even as my mind spun from gasping breaths, even as Santino’s name became the only word that still made sense amidst the cascades of pleasure, I wanted nothing more than to stay like this forever, unraveling under his touch.

  The heat of his body bathing mine was soon joined by another—the touch of magic that swirled around my tail, gracefully sweeping away the fluke and scales, changing my biology swifter than ever before. Almost as if it, too, was impatient to claim this joining.

  With one final graze of his teeth, Santino freed my breast. The sudden absence of his lips was almost staggering, but the void was quickly filled as he pressed his mouth to mine and stole away my taste. Just as I did his.

  The ache in my body sank lower, reaching parts my now human form allowed. Without releasing my arms or my lips, he nudged apart my legs with one knee, then nestled himself between them to tease my folds with his steel.

  And gods, it felt good. It felt as if a brilliant storm burned inside me, the electric, thunderous sensation dancing on the verge between pain and release. Between longing and fulfillment.

  I wanted him. I wanted him more than I wanted anyone in my life, and for once, the thought of it didn’t scare me.

  “So willing, piccola,” Santino whispered as his lips caressed my jaw, my cheek. But his smooth voice was labored, tight, as if he were fighting with every ounce of his will to tease me just a little longer. “So deliciously willing.”

  And I was. Hot, liquid desire pooled between my thighs, beckoning Santino to enter me and end this torture with a long, demanding thrust.

  “Please,” I whispered. “I need you, Santino. I need to feel you, now.”

  With a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh, Santino let go of my arms. Kneeling between my thighs, he traced one hand down my side, then guided it across my stomach, ever lower. As his thumb reached the aching nub above my folds, he wrapped the fingers of his free hand around the thickness of his own throbbing flesh, and pleasured us both.

  Gently, at first.

  Then with increasing urgency.

  I peered at him through eyes lidded heavily with desire, alternating between the chiseled planes of his abdomen, his sensual, half-parted lips and prominent cheekbones, and the smooth strokes of his slender fingers, traveling down the length of his hard, veined erection.

  Gods, he was magnificent.

  I’d never been a voyeur, but watching Santino pleasure himself, watching him pleasure me… It was intimate yet wild, carrying an edge of possession and surrender alike.

  I couldn’t get enough of him. I couldn’t stop drinking in every small ripple of his muscles, the fall of his glistening, damp hair, and his labored breaths, echoing mine.

  A carnal, male smile flickered across his handsome face the instant before his low g
rowl permeated the air and he plunged two fingers inside me. I gasped as he grazed against my aching walls, exploring and claiming me with such heat in his eyes that I was helpless to do anything but moan while my entire body shivered.

  With taunting slowness, Santino then drew his fingers back out, raised them to his lips, and licked my flavor off his skin. A groan rose from his chest, so primal and intense that the sound seemed to reverberate straight through the earth beneath me.

  As I was still spellbound by the sight of the divine, primal pleasure dancing upon his features, Santino slipped one hand beneath the small of my back, raised my hips, and buried himself inside me.

  I cried out as I sheathed him, as he filled every inch of me and began to move. Languidly, carefully, so that I could accommodate his thickness and length. His hands wrapped around my hips and kept me steady as he built up the rhythm, the sensual melody of flesh against flesh rising through the surrounding woods in tune with my ever-growing moans. I raked my fingers down the hard wall of his chest, my nails leaving little reddened paths on the tan of his skin, trailing across the spill of silver curls and writing out how badly I wanted him. How right it felt to have him buried inside me so deeply I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

  As his thrusts became more urgent, more fervent, I wrapped my fingers around his arms, afraid that if I didn’t have a tether, I would drift from this world on the currents of pleasure he pushed into me, again and again.

  He was a surging tide, a storm, darkening the sky with the promise of release.

  And I wanted nothing more than to surrender myself to his destructive embrace.

  “I can’t hold on much longer, piccola,” he warned as his rhythm faltered.

  I felt him throb inside me, pushing against those intimate walls with the sweetest of pressure, and met the silver of his eyes.

  Somehow, I found the voice in me to whisper, “Then don’t, Santino.”

  The instant the words fled from my lips, he groaned, a shuddering, rolling sound that swept across my skin and tightened the muscles of my core around his steel. I sensed him quiver, sensed that accumulation of pleasure graze against my walls ever harder as he thrusted one last time, casting me over the edge and into oblivion. His entire frame shook as he spilled his seed inside me, the ripples of orgasm dancing through us both and binding our bodies, our minds, in the ribbons of absolute rapture.

  Even as he still fought for air, Santino lowered himself on top of me and kissed me. He kissed me so thoroughly and lovingly, with such hunger and care that I knew… With him, I would always have a home.

  I would always belong.

  13

  “Here you go.”

  Santino handed me a cup of freshly brewed coffee I’d smelled all the way from the kitchen, and the instant he made sure I wouldn’t spill the steaming brew all over myself, his lips found mine. I smiled into his kiss, marveling at the taste of pine, moonlight, and man that was Santino. The tender demand tightened my body, stealing away my breath. I leaned closer, then remembered the coffee in my hands.

  With a throaty chuckle, I pulled away and nestled myself deeper into the love seat, instead. Still, the sudden loss of his touch hit me like a blow to the stomach. I curled my legs up on the cushion while Santino made himself comfortable by my side. He draped one arm across my shoulders, engulfing me in his warmth once more.

  Through the large window stretched out on the wall before us, I observed the gentle, puffy clouds reflected in the surface of the lake, my senses consumed by the untamed beauty of the serenity and power it carried. The water had been right.

  While there were bleak, dark pockets of the world, my reality didn’t have to be anchored within them.

  And tucked next to Santino as I was, feeling the heat of his body pressing against mine, I knew I would fight to the very end to keep the grimmer side of existence from sinking its talons into me and whisking all this away.

  I took a sip of the fragrant coffee, rolling it across my tongue until this newly found determination settled in. Once it felt as much an inherent part of me as my power, I placed the petrol-blue cup on the wooden club table and ran my fingers through Santino’s hair. His eyes blazed with silver as he looked down at me, a slight curl appearing in the corner of his lips.

  The sight was so stunning, warmth flushed my skin, my core, infusing me with life I’d once believed to be lost. And yet as much as I wanted to sink into the oblivion of his silent offer, I made certain to keep my kiss guarded. I couldn’t allow myself to be swept into this fairy tale when there were so many threads still left unresolved.

  “Has Caz told you anything more?” I asked.

  My question seemed to crumble and break apart in the sheer force of Santino’s hunger. It electrified the air, making me lick my suddenly all too dry lips. For a moment, I thought—perhaps even hoped with that treacherous part of me that refused to listen to reason—that his desire would spill over and snatch us away.

  But as his chest rose with a deep inhale, the energy subsided.

  Santino leaned back, the arm he had previously kept around my shoulders now draped over the headrest. The other, however, he placed on my knee, his fingers drawing intricate patterns across my exposed skin. I shuddered, and a flash of approval brimmed in his eyes before it died down, giving way to something more rational. Something darker.

  “I’ve looped Caz in on the specifics of your problem,” he said carefully.

  My breath whizzed from my lungs. That fragment of my being, the lingering essence of the Rusalka not even my transformation had the chance to eradicate, protested violently at the thought of a Perelesnyk knowing about my existence.

  None of their kind had come after us in all the time I’d spent in the morass, but stories—especially ones based on tragedy that bordered genocide—were hard to get rid of. Once someone did their best to implement them not only in your mind, but your heart, even rational thought did little to stem the fear.

  But I was adamant to escape its clutches. I’d lived in a perpetual state of terror and fright for long enough.

  Perelesnyk or not, Caz was police, legitimate police, as well as a source of vital information. Without him, we wouldn’t have even known who the PI was—or about his abundance of less than savory associates headed my way.

  Slowly, I nodded. “And what did he say?”

  Displeasure slid across Santino’s features. “That we have a far better chance of going after the Rusalkas than bringing down Kauer’s entire organization.”

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  Somehow I’d sensed it would come to this, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Although the magic of the Rusalkas, originating from a rigid, patriarchic time, meant they could only harm men with their power, they were dangerous even without the lethal magic backing up their wrath. The painful, bitter, and indisputable proof of their ruthlessness lay with Iza’s death. And Angela’s vicious capture.

  But despite it all, there was something else bothering me. I chewed on the inside of my lip, feeling my brow furrow. I wanted the Rusalkas to leave me alone. I even wanted those responsible for the bloodshed to pay with their lives.

  It was just that I didn’t want to kill all of them.

  The single thing some of my former sisters were guilty of was falling in with the wrong crowd. Yes, they—we—were predators, but that wasn’t a crime in itself. I understood that now. It was merely the way of nature, a way to keep the world in balance—much like within the animal hierarchy.

  Every hunter had its prey. And nearly every predator could become it.

  Yet the distinction between being a hunter and being a murderous sadist was profound. One was nature, the other evil. And it was the latter who should suffer for their crimes, not my former species as a whole.

  I sighed. Somehow, seeing the angry glint in Santino’s eyes when he mentioned the Rusalkas made me believe that convincing him of going after only a select few might prove to be a more difficult task than
the actual execution of the plan. I placed my palm on top of the hand he still kept on my knee, squeezing gently. Where this sudden courage was coming from, I couldn’t tell.

  But I accepted the gift it was and said, “Santino, maybe if I practice more, I could use the water to contain the Rusalkas while I slip in and save Angela.”

  If she’s still alive…

  “And the rest?” His voice was even colder than that night in Moon Bay.

  I swallowed, hoping my nervousness wouldn’t show. “I don’t want all of them to die.” My fingers tightened around his hand to stifle his oncoming argument. “I’ll do it. I’ll kill the ones responsible for all of this, but the others deserve a chance—they deserve to make a choice, decide if they wish to stop this ridiculous animosity and go on with their lives, or let their hatred carry them into the underworld.”

  Santino snorted, but his tone was gentle nonetheless. “Porca miseria… Are you actually paraphrasing me?”

  I shrugged. “Guess you shouldn’t spurt out wisdom if you don’t want people to take it to heart…”

  Santino shook his head, then cupped my face in both his hands. With a long exhale, he pressed his forehead against mine, the heat of his breath laying phantom caresses on my lips and filling my trembling body with warmth. With certainty.

  “They are all guilty, piccola. Did any one of them even try to stop the others when they attacked you? Did they hesitate?”

  When I didn’t answer, Santino pulled away, hands still on my face and silver-blue eyes alight with conviction. “When you see as much death as I have, you realize there are no innocent bystanders. Only aggressors and victims. Someone may turn a blind eye now, but the next time, it could just as well be them, meting out the final blow.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t.

  I might not have liked my sisters, but who was to say their actions—or lack of them—hadn’t originated from fear? Santino didn’t know what it was like in the morass, the constant threat weaving through the murky water, just waiting to lash out at the first sign of disobedience. While I’d been the only one actually walking a thin line of defiance, luring men to their deaths when needed but flat-out refusing to participate in any of the more gruesome activities the ringleaders liked to busy themselves with, I couldn’t have been the only one who’d felt this way.