But what had become Damon’s home wasn’t what stunned Sasha the most. It was the ceiling…or rather, what was drawn on the ceiling that rendered her speechless. Pictures of people, fish, bats, wolves and lizards had been picked or carved into the rock in some kind of linear fashion.
“Did you do that?” she asked, pointing up, staring at all the markings.
“No, that was done long before I came around.” He tossed his backpack in the corner and moved into the center of the living room, waiting for her to leave the doorway. “The cave was carved and the ceiling was designed. I simply hung the door and added some necessities.”
She’d seen something like the etchings in books—they had to be hieroglyphics or tribal markings, though she could never imagine so many of them being found in one place. They nearly blanketed the ceiling. “Are they hieroglyphics? Like what’s in Egypt?”
“No, they’re petroglyphs—stories carved into rock. They’re pictures turned into words, instead of symbols translating into an alphabet. They could’ve been done around the same time, though.” He paused, eyeing her curiously. “No way to tell unless we convince a scientist to jump through the portals to Feralon to research them. I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.”
It was a damned shame to leave the carvings as they were—hidden and unstudied. She gazed up at them a bit more and then realized she was using any excuse not to think about the more pressing issue—Damon.
“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,” she said as she paced slowly around the room. “I guess I just thought you’ve been living with your clan all these years. If I’d known…”
She stopped. What could she have done, exactly? Hell, she didn’t know.
“Don’t worry about it, Sasha. I’ve done all right for myself. This place doesn’t have the workings of Were Mountain or Castle Arcane, but it’s fine. I only eat and sleep here.”
It didn’t take long before Sasha was back at the door. Which made her think…
“Why here?” She spun around. “Of all the places to make your home—the caves carved high in Timeless Gorge or the forest right outside the castle—why did you chose this place? I mean, it’s cool and all, with the petroglyph things and the river outside your door, but why?”
He stood quickly and stalked to the kitchen. “One place is as good as another.”
“Yeah, but your only access is through that door…and we walked through it. Who’s to say tomorrow it won’t be a Were, or one of the Merfolk walking through it?”
He put both palms down on the table and took a deep breath. Like he was angry about her line of questioning. Had she offended him? Did Damon think she didn’t like the place? Or was there something else he wanted to say?
“It’s just that,” Sasha continued, hoping to talk her way out of a hole, “you’ve chosen a place that seems most accessible to other races, instead of choosing a home that is only accessible by flying. That doesn’t make sense.”
When he looked up at her, his eyes were ghostly white. “It makes sense if you’ve waited every minute of every day for seven long years for the love of your life to come walking through that door.”
Sasha’s heart caught.
“Damon, don’t. Not again.” It’s all she could say. It pained her to no end, but they couldn’t be together. She couldn’t give up her home, her family, like Damon had. That had taken strength and courage, neither of which she had.
“Don’t what?” Damon asked. “Tell you the truth? Why don’t you like hearing it? Does denial suit you that much better?”
“Just don’t.” She eyed the door as her instinct to run flared. She didn’t want to hear what Damon had to say. It’d only make leaving him today that much harder. “Don’t say anymore.”
Damon moved to her side, took her hand and pressed it against his lips. “I can’t ask you to choose between your pack and a life with me. I won’t.” He clenched his jaw until his lips strained white. “But I won’t live like this forever, exiled and ridiculed by my clan. If there’s a sliver of hope for us, now or in the future, I’ll stay, Sasha. I’ll stay where you can find me and walk through my front door and right into my arms. If there’s not a chance in hell of that happening, tell me now and I’ll leave you the hell alone and work my way back into Queen Elixa’s good graces.”
As much as Sasha recoiled at the thought of Damon going back to Draco territory, where she knew for certain she’d never see him again, she couldn’t promise him a future. How could she? When her father was prepping her to become Alpha? Everything was riding on her position. She’d be the first female to take charge and could alter the way females were viewed in the pack. She had to hope they’d begin to hear the mind-chatter of the males.
There was too much at stake. It was bigger than she was. Bigger than the two of them and the love they shared…if that’s what it was at all.
“Damon, I can’t promise you anything but this moment.”
If he didn’t take it, what would she do? Stay anyway? God, she would, wouldn’t she? Damn it, she was getting too close to the fire and too accustomed to its warmth.
Damon nodded, the glimmer in his eyes shadowing over. “Then I’ll take this moment and make a thousand memories with it.”
It was exactly the thing Sasha was hoping he’d say.
In a flourish of movement, Damon swept Sasha off her feet and carried her through the carved door, right into his bedroom.
She studied his face as he looked away. The cut of his jaw was severe and menacing, but his lips were so deliciously sweet, and so close to hers, she could almost taste them. He could’ve carried her this way to the ends of the earth. She wouldn’t have cared. As long as her body was pressed against his, feeding off his warmth and the sexual power flowing off him in heady waves. Nothing else mattered.
Her body nearly shook with excitement. Trembled from expectant hope. And when he laid her on his bed—a massive mattress with a knotty wood headboard and thick fur blankets—she bit her lip to keep her gasps locked away.
He kicked off his boots and stripped out of his pants and then crawled over the top of her and plunged into her mouth again. Sasha opened her mouth with a moan as his tongue swept inside. She caressed his shoulders, scraped her fingers over his hair. Angled his head so he could take more of her mouth.
Damon pressed against her, chest to chest, hip to hip, the hardness of his body eliciting a burning ache from her middle. The pressure over her body was perfect. It was possessive and dominant, yet as promising as a whisper. Sasha thrust her hips up as primal hunger from his breath-stealing kisses surged through her veins.
She wasn’t the only one hungry for this.
Damon was glistening with sweat, his skin damp beneath her fingers as she stroked them over and down his back. Sasha reached between their moving bodies and rubbed a firm hand over the bulge in his leather. He sucked in a short breath and rose up on his hands.
“I was hoping this was the hand you were offering earlier.” He was breathless but continued to smudge his mouth over her body. Scorching heat followed his lips, down her neck, along her shoulder. He slid her arms from her coat, revealing more skin to feed his hunger.
“If you hadn’t thrown your laundry at me,” Sasha breathed, her core aching for his touch, “I might’ve obliged.”
Their mouths met again. Hotter. Hungrier. And as his hand found the full mound of her breast spilling from the top of her corset, he groaned into her mouth, long and languid, setting her desire aflame.
His arm curled behind her back, grasped her by the hip and flipped her over in one, devilishly sexy move. With slow, tedious precision, Damon kissed and licked her back and then went to work untying her corset. By the time he was finished, it was Sasha who was undone, squirming and shifting from the softness of his lips and the brush of his fingers against her skin.
She flipped over and found herself caught in the massive cage of his body. He was enormous, poised over her with glowing charcoal eyes, glaring at her as if at
any moment his control would snap like a rubber band and he’d drive into her until he burst.
His mouth closed over her nipple, as his hand darted between her legs and unbuttoned her pants. Dull, throbbing pains pulsed inside her, shooting from her breasts to her core and back up again. She squirmed her legs free from their leather prison and lay before him bare and ready for taking.
“Mmm,” he growled, as he palmed one of her breasts and suckled the other into his mouth. “Your skin is so soft…so sweet. I could eat you all day.”
Sasha’s breath hitched as he lowered his head between her legs. With a snap, her panties tore loose from her body. Damon tossed the shreds away and groaned as he dove his tongue inside her. Drugging, wet heat swallowed Sasha whole, blinding her to anything but the pleasure surging in her middle. His tongue raked against her most sensitive flesh, swirling and probing until Sasha was writhing against his mouth, begging for release.
She arched up, sensations in her core gathering into a tight ball of ecstasy. And when he smashed his mouth to her center and began to move his tongue in rough, fevered strokes, waves of pleasure overtook her, rippling through her body with succulent force. Digging her fingers into his shoulders, Sasha arched up, crying out.
It wasn’t until the ache in her middle eased into numbing bliss that she realized she hadn’t been breathing. Not really. Not fully. Maybe she never had, until this moment.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Damon set his burning gaze upon her. Warm, tingly sensations crept up Sasha’s spine and burst in her chest at the sight. As he stalked up her body, she settled lower, anxious for what was to come.
Damon angled himself between her legs and thrust into her in one long, slow motion that made Sasha rear up and dig her nails into his back. He moaned in response, heightening the sensations still tingling in her core. She lay back down, watching with hazy pleasure as his body moved against hers, pumping into her with deep, slow thrusts. Her hips rode up and a moan slipped out, as Damon drove deeper, stretching her intimate flesh to the fullest.
“That’s it, baby,” he said, roping one of her legs around his arm. He increased his tempo, thrusting into her harder. Faster. Dragging her into the throes of ecstasy with wild abandon.
As another climax hit with unexpected force, Sasha’s whole world shattered. She rocked her hips against his, gripped his shoulders and brought him down to claim his mouth. He assaulted her tongue. Bit her lip. Plunged into her with long, demanding strokes. Possessed her body and soul.
Damon’s body seized, his muscles tightening beneath her fingers. He held taut. And with a throaty moan, he thrust into her one more time, his spasms toppling her into a longer, deeper orgasm than she’d ever experienced before.
They stayed there a moment, breathing hard, letting the world spin around them.
“If you say that was fun,” Damon said as he melted over the top of her, “I may have to ask you to leave.”
Feeling his heartbeat as if it were hers, Sasha laughed into his ear and wrapped her arms around the wide span of his back.
This was it. This moment was the one she’d been waiting for. The one that made the world slip away. She welcomed the loss with open arms.
Chapter Five
“And that one?” she asked, pointing up to another petroglyph—a stick figure with a spear and shield.
Damon squeezed Sasha tighter against him. “He’s Draco. See the spots surrounding him? I’ve interpreted those to be Draco specks.”
Nuzzling deeper into his embrace, Sasha made a soft sound of understanding that warmed Damon’s chest. He cherished the feeling…until it panged him to think that by midnight he’d never hear that sound again.
They’d spent the entire morning in each other’s arms, alternating between brief moments of sleep and longer periods fulfilling their most erotic desires. He’d never felt more worn out yet more energized than he did at this moment. His legs were weak, his middle shaky and hollow, but with the renewed passion flowing through his veins, he somehow felt like he could take on the world.
“The pictures over there,” Sasha whispered, pointing to a group of carvings near the foot of his bed, “are smashed really close together. Are they a part of the same story?”
He could tell Sasha was stalling their departure, asking detailed questions about every etching she could find. Damon had gladly answered each one…in even greater detail.
“The stick figures with the wave designs at their feet are Merfolk. The ones with the vines over their heads are Weres.”
“And that guy?” She nudged her chin at a stick figure with all three features—waves at his feet, specks at his sides and vines over his head.
“I’m not sure.” Of all the years Damon had spent following the petroglyphs around the ceiling, he still hadn’t figured out why anyone would draw a figure with the ability to shift into all three forms. There weren’t even legends about such a creature. Damon lightly traced the Were mark curling around Sasha’s shoulder and then followed it up her neck. “Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”
He’d fully planned on continuing his path down her body, when she said, “Or maybe we’re all descendants of the same creature who has the ability to shift between all three forms.”
She stated it simply. Like she’d studied the carvings her entire life and had come to the conclusion after much research. And it made damned good sense, didn’t it?
Though he hated to do it, Damon stopped his trek down her chest and thought about the possibility. It would explain a lot of the etchings he’d translated, though he had no way to know if he was doing it right in the first place.
Could Dracos and Weres really have descended from the same, single shifter? What would it mean for their races if they were? That they were more alike than any of them wanted to let on?
As Sasha rolled in Damon’s arms, rubbing her backside against his shaft, he let the seriousness of their conversation flitter away. “I think you’re made for this, Sash, I really do. Is there a Were research program you can apply for? I can donate this cave as a research facility if you promise to come back and work me—I mean, work. Of course, I mean work. It’d be business only around here.”
“Business?” She craned her neck around, and he kissed the tip of her nose. “You mean business like we conducted today?”
“Of course.” Damon’s spirit lifted. “I’ve got a lengthy petroglyph you can decode.”
She smacked him in the side. “So what about that large group of figures on that side of the room?”
“From my best guess, they’re grouped together for some sort of social event.” He went to work smudging kisses down her back. He didn’t have to look—he knew exactly which carving she was talking about.
“What makes you think that?”
“They aren’t holding spears, keeping to separate sides, like over there.” He pointed to another grouping on the ceiling over his shoulder, behind him, where bodies were drawn flat on the ground in pools of red. She followed the direction of his finger and gave another mewing sound as he licked the groove between her shoulder blades.
“If you follow the arc across the ceiling,” Damon said, making the same arc across her back with his finger, “they progress from fighting to gathering together as friends…or at the very least, tight acquaintances.”
Her breathing became shallow. “Do you think the Dracos and Weres will ever get to that point? When they’ll come to accept…”
Us.
Though she let her words hang, Damon knew how she meant to finish it.
He hated the sudden heaviness of their conversation, but he supposed it was bound to take that turn. It had to be early afternoon, and the fight for the springs was gulping down minutes of the day faster and faster. “There’s a whole lot of bad blood between us. So I doubt it.”
“Damon,” Sasha said softly, turning to look up into his eyes. “You still haven’t told me the real reason you came back to negotiate the springs. You said it was to
prove you could resist me, but we both know that’s not all there is to it. If you’re exiled, why would Queen Elixa choose you to come into Were territory and talk to my father?”
His back teeth grinded shut. What was the point of holding back the truth now? What would it matter? “If I prove my loyalties are only to the Dracos, they’ll accept me back into Castle Arcane and Draco society. I have to prove you hold no sway over my decisions.”
“And by that you mean…” She twirled in his arms, facing him.
“I’m going to be the Draco who claims the hot springs tonight. It’ll be all right, Sasha. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“You can’t…” Conflict plagued her eyes, filling them with shadows and despair. She clearly didn’t want a Were to win the fight any more than she wanted him to. “You have no idea the kind of wolf my father is going to bring out of his arsenal,” she said. “He’ll be a beast unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”
“And you have no idea the kind of beast I can become when I need to.”
Sasha quirked her lip disbelievingly, irritating Damon to no end.
“Isn’t there another way to convince Queen Elixa of your loyalty?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve already discussed tonight being the end. Isn’t that good enough? Couldn’t you just be upfront with her about what’s going on? About my role in my pack?”
Damon kissed the worry from her chin. “I can talk to her.”
“She can choose another Draco to fight. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Of course it did. Deep down, Sasha had to know it.
“You can tell her that after tonight, you’ll forget about me, about us. Convince the queen of that and your Draco family will be waiting for you with open arms.”
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