by Nadine Mutas
So he’d decided not to absorb her magic, not to break the bond leashing him to her. Instead, he’d stay true to his word, would help her find Maeve, knowing Merle would have to bind him right away afterwards. It was the single most unselfish decision he’d ever made, and he marveled at the strange feeling. He’d figured it would hurt, yes, but he’d never guessed it would bring him such a bittersweet sense of peace. Of doing something right.
As he strolled toward the bathroom, listening to the sound of the shower running, Merle’s presence on the other side of the closed door a beacon drawing him like nothing else, he knew it would be the noble thing to do to let her stay angry at him, considering she’d have to let him go, too. It would be easier on her if she became less attached to him, and being a ruthless jerk would certainly help that along. He could hurt her, make her hate him even, to the point that she’d be happy to banish him in the Shadows again once he’d served his purpose.
Yes, it would be the noble thing to do.
However, Rhun was only demon, after all, and there was only so much selflessness he was capable of. In this, he’d be selfish. He wanted to enjoy the remaining time he had with her, to savor her, what they had, this ephemeral bond they shared. He wanted to make her smile so he could take the image with him, wanted to relish how she made him feel, how she branded him in a way no one else ever had.
He took off his clothes, folded them neatly, set them on the dresser, and then went into the bathroom, disabling the lock with a mental command. Steam rolled up against him. When he slid open the glass door of the huge shower cubicle and stepped inside, Merle jumped and dropped the soap.
“Rhun! I locked the door, dammit!”
“Aren’t we past that?” he asked quietly.
He picked up the soap, lathered his hands and then set the bar aside. Calmly, he took her hand and started washing her. When she wanted to withdraw, he grabbed her wrist, holding her in place.
“Stay still.”
“You,” she said through gritted teeth, “are such an ass. If you think you can just waltz in here and cop a feel like you have a right to…”
“Merle.”
“…then you’ve got another thing coming. You are—”
“Sorry.”
She stopped short, blinked, a rivulet of water running down her forehead. “What?”
“I’m sorry. That’s what I am.” He continued lathering her, stroking soap in soft caresses up her arm, her shoulder, her collarbone. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you in front of your friends.” He washed her other arm, rubbing each and every finger with utmost care. “I’m not sorry, however, that I made it clear to Blondie that you’re mine.” Taking up more soap, he then spread it in languorous strokes over her breasts, around her puckered nipples, until her breath hitched and his own skin was on fire. “Because that’s what you are. Mine.”
Merle stood still now, not fighting him, her eyes fixed on his face. Her aura wavered, tinged with budding desire.
“You might not be mine for long,” he said, his voice gone rough with hunger, “but you are right now, and I want us to enjoy this for the time we have left.”
At that, her pulse stuttered, and her power spiked with a new kind of hurt.
Rhun stopped lathering her stomach and glanced at her face. There was a sheen of tears on her eyes, and she jerkily shook her head, taking a step away from him. The iridescent flutter of her aura stilled, brought under careful control as she shut herself off bit by bit.
“No,” he said, panic surging through him, and he followed her, crowding her until her back met the tiled wall. Cupping her face, he pinned her with his gaze. “Do not go cold on me again.” He couldn’t let her do that. It would shatter him.
Merle’s breathing went erratic, her throat worked fast as she swallowed several times, and her gaze skittered back and forth between his eyes.
His thumbs stroked over her cheeks, and his chest was tight, so tight, as he looked upon her. “When I go back to the Shadows,” he whispered, “I want to take a good memory with me. I want to remember you, us, this.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Will you at least grant me that, little witch?”
At his endearment, a part of her walls came down. He could taste regret, fear—affection. Warmth spread through him as he latched on to the feeling, grasped it like the pathetic idiot he was. He kissed her then, brushed his lips over hers in a tender caress, a silent request for permission. Because for what it was worth, for all the raging need in him to claim her more aggressively, if she told him to let her go now, he would, even if it wrecked him.
She whispered something against his lips, her body pressing into him.
“Yes,” she said more distinctly when he drew away far enough to look into her eyes. They were wide, a clear blue with depths that haunted him, and right now, they held such bittersweet longing, a desperate hunger echoing his own.
“Merle mine,” he muttered, and she shivered, parting her lips.
It was all the invitation he needed.
With the water of the shower pelting down on his back, he lowered his head and kissed her again, harder this time, infused with the force of his craving. He licked along her lower lip, and she opened for him, greeting him with her tongue as he plunged into her mouth, pressed his body closer to hers. A low moan escaped her, and her aura flickered with pleasure. It only ratcheted up his hunger.
He broke the kiss, panting, his fangs punching through his gums. He was strung tight with need, for blood and pleasure and Merle, his cock grown hard where it pressed into her belly, but he wouldn’t rush it. Not now. Not when this might be their last time together.
Licking and nibbling along her jaw, he moved down to her throat, nicking the artery there just the tiniest bit with the tip of his fangs. Merle gasped and grasped his shoulders, trembling with anticipation. He didn’t sink his teeth into her neck, though, only lapped up the few drops of blood, sealing the small nicks he’d caused. The aroma of Merle spread on his tongue, and he closed his eyes, savored it while pressing a kiss to the curve where her neck met her shoulder.
“Rhun.” Her voice shook.
Taking a deep breath, he inhaled her scent—mixed with that of water and soap—and then withdrew a bit.
“Turn around,” he said, need and raw emotion roughening his voice.
Merle obeyed without hesitation, and it almost did him in. He had to pause for a few seconds, tamping down his desire far enough that he wouldn’t just bend her over and take her. It was clear she thought he’d do something like that, though, by the way she stood still, half-glancing at him over her shoulder, trembling with thrilled expectation.
Smiling, Rhun ran his hand down her spine, delighting in how it made her shiver and how she slightly bent forward in response, angling her hips toward him.
“Not yet, witch volcano,” he murmured.
He picked up the soap bar instead, lathered his hands again, and proceeded to finish what he’d started. Stepping up close to her, he rubbed her back, spread the soap, kneading her muscles, and Merle sighed and leaned into his touch. He worked his way down, took care of her hips, her ass, stroked down her legs and even lathered each foot down to her toes. Straightening up again, he playfully nipped at her earlobe as he moved his hands to her front and lavished his care on her breasts again.
“You already did that area,” she said, even as she leaned more into him. Her husky voice was a stroke of pure sex over his senses.
“Not well enough.”
He relished the feeling of the swell of her breasts under his hands, her supple skin, the hard buds of her nipples, the way she arched her back and pushed into his caresses. He relished and savored and memorized, and still knew it would never be enough to last him through the Shadows.
By the time he moved his hands lower to stroke her abdomen, circling her bellybutton, Merle had raised her arms and tangled her fingers in his hair, her head tilted to the side so she could half-face him. Her breath came in pants, hot on his cheek, and he held
still for a moment, just reveling in her nearness, in the feel of her. His arms tightened around her, and he wished he could keep her like this. His heart splintered with the knowledge he couldn’t.
She obviously felt the hard ridge of his erection pressing into her hips, because she wiggled them impatiently, ground her rear against him in sensual invitation. Grinning, he loosened his embrace enough to give her a warning slap on her ass. She sucked in air and froze while a bolt of pain shot through her aura, followed by a violent wave of pleasure.
“I said not yet, my impatient little spitfire.”
She half-turned around and opened her mouth to protest, saw his expression, and clamped her lips together again. A quiver rippled through her body, her cheeks flushed a lovely red, and the tantalizing scent of her increased arousal suffused the humid air. When he curved his hand around the back of her neck and stole a kiss, she softened against him, melting something inside him, too.
With a patience belying his roaring need, he then shampooed her hair. His fingers massaged her scalp, gently worked the ginger strands—now a darker shade of red under the water—while he placed kisses on her cheeks, her temples, her forehead. She was his to take care of, at least for now, and he enjoyed every minute of it.
He maneuvered her underneath the shower’s spray to rinse it all off. With her eyes closed, she let him do as he pleased, and the warm appreciation in her aura was like a balm for his hurting soul.
As the soap and shampoo flowed down her body, over skin flushed rosy by the heat of the shower, he came around to stand behind her again, his front to her back. His hands slid down over her abdomen, to her hips, and followed the curve of her thighs inward to the triangle of her ginger curls.
“There’s a place I haven’t washed yet,” he said into her ear, and he smiled as she trembled in response.
Using only water this time, he started attending to the one spot he’d hungered to touch, had left for the finish as his own special treat. He slid his fingers through her folds, parted them, stroked her in what could hardly pass as washing. Not that Merle seemed to mind. She writhed against him, moaning with her head rolled back against his chest. Her mounting excitement tinged her aura and deepened his hunger.
Growling low in his throat, he felt his control slip. He dipped one finger inside her to check how wet she was.
Dripping.
“Hands up on the wall.” His voice was barely recognizable, even to himself.
She did as told, breathing fast, and he nudged up her right leg, setting her foot on the low marble bench below the wall. Without further ado, he grasped her hips, pulled her backwards toward him and then buried his cock inside her.
Merle’s choked cry made him freeze.
Gut clenched tight at the troubled flicker in her aura, he held still. “Am I hurting you?”
“No. Yes. A little.” She panted, her body tense. “It’s okay. I’m just a bit sore from yesterday.”
“You know I take that as a compliment,” Rhun said, stroking her back—and then he pulled out and knelt behind her.
When he grabbed her hips and delved his tongue inside her slick center, Merle gave an adorable squeal of surprise. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Making it better,” he muttered against her intimate flesh, and continued to lick her. Sealing the puncture marks of his bites wasn’t the only possible application of his skin-surface healing ability.
In addition to soothing her soreness, he brought her to a swift climax and soaked up her pleasure as it spread in the air. This time, when he entered her, she pushed against him and let out a long moan of pure delight, echoed by his own sounds of pleasure as he moved inside her, withdrawing and plunging back into her tight heat.
While he stroked her breast with one hand, he held her hips in place for his thrusts with the other and used a fragment of his powers to tease her clit. She bucked against him in a frenzy, her hands slipping from their position on the wall.
“Stay in place,” he ordered her roughly.
His command was enough to send her over the edge—and wasn’t that the fucking hottest thing he’d ever seen? Waves of pleasure rippled through her aura, she cried out, cursing him, moaning his name as if it was a prayer, and he drank it in, all of it, not just her pleasure, not just as nourishment. He feasted on the layers of warmth in her feelings for him in a way that had nothing to do with carnal hunger, and everything to do with a need running much deeper, to the core of his soul.
Leaning down until his chest brushed her back, his cock still buried inside her, he embraced her, one hand gently closing over her throat.
“Drop your shields,” he whispered in her ear.
Merle stilled, breath wild and heavy, her pulse fast in the wake of her orgasm.
“I want to taste you,” he said, caressing the sensitive skin of her throat, a subtle gesture of possession, a promise. “All of you. I want to feel you, Merle. Without barriers.” He brushed her mental senses with a reassuring wave of his powers. “Open to me. I won’t hurt you.”
Her breath caught in her throat, a choked sob. Rhun stroked her, physically, mentally, their bodies still linked in the most intimate of ways, and he waited patiently while her aura quivered with a storm of emotions, too many and too quick for him follow.
“I won’t ever harm you, little witch.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck.
She trembled hard in his arms now, so hard, and she seemed so small and vulnerable that he thought better and wanted to tell her it was okay, she didn’t have to do this, he didn’t need to feel—
Merle lowered her shields.
It knocked the breath out of him, almost brought him to his knees. Her power wrapped around him, and his heart stuttered at the unadulterated richness of her emotions, her thoughts, laid bare before him. He saw, felt, tasted, touching her mind with gentle care, humbled by her trust. The depth of her feelings was staggering, such true goodness, such pure hope and faith, and her magic—it was as strong as he’d suspected, stronger even, a power beyond any he’d ever encountered. There was a promise of greatness in her, the potential of her—given more time—growing into a witch of unparalleled force.
He voiced his thoughts directly inside her mind. “Gods, but you’re beautiful.”
Her response was visceral, swift, a wave of affection, shatteringly open and honest, and he soaked it up, bathed in it. If he spent the rest of eternity in the Shadows, this feeling would last him through it.
She held nothing back, and he saw the intricate tangle of her emotions for him, tasted it, reveled in it, wrapped it around himself. There was fear, of him being hurt by the Elders, of losing him, of her feelings for him. Laced into it was a desperate hope for the impossible, echoing his own futile wish to keep her. There was anger, too, affectionate exasperation that made him want to smile and tease her. But, above and beyond all else, there was the one emotion that ripped through his heart and stitched it back together, the one feeling he’d never tasted before, not this deeply, truly, consuming.
Merle quivered as he touched upon it, marveled at it, savored it. He was torn inside with the need to open to her as well, to let her see her feelings reflected in his own, to let her taste him as he tasted her now.
Shame kept him from lowering his shields and letting her in.
Rhun couldn’t allow her to know how he’d planned on stripping her of her magic, of her beautiful, strong magic humbling him so profoundly now that he’d seen how deep it ran. He couldn’t stand her disappointment, was afraid it might taint the wonder that was this feeling which she wrapped around him. So, he simply voiced what defied all definition, reduced it to words that were too small.
“I love you, too.”
An explosion of emotions inside her, bittersweet, powerful, delight tempered with heartache. Her mind splintered, broke into shards of pleasure and pain, threatening to break him as well. But he held on to his witch, didn’t let her drown. He latched on to the threads of purest affection, to the sparks that wou
ld ignite fire, and he nurtured and intensified them, until there was only desire and passion, heat and hunger.
Linked to her in devastating emotional intimacy, Rhun deepened their physical union as well, moved inside her, enhancing their shared pleasure in her mind. Merle met him thrust for thrust, climbing with him toward a shattering release. When he bit her neck in the throes of their passion, drank from her as if starved, it was enough to hurtle them both into bliss.
Much later, after he’d carried her out of the shower and onto the bed, after he’d taken her again, slowly and thoroughly, pleasured her until she’d fallen asleep, happy and sated, only then, when she came to again locked in his embrace, did he tell her. He could have done so earlier, but he knew it would destroy this moment he had with her, would force her back to reality and rush them both toward the inexorable end. So he only told her now, being the selfish demon he was.
“I know someone,” he said, stroking her fiery hair, “who could break the blocking spell.”
Chapter 18
Merle sat up with a jolt, fully awake within one second. Heart beating a million times a minute, she stared at Rhun. “You know someone who can break the spell? How long have you known that? And you’re only telling me this now?”
Rhun gingerly disengaged her hands from his throat, placed them on the pillow and patted them. “I said could, not can. I know someone who could break the spell. Big difference, little witch. And even if he can, chances are he just won’t. He’s…a bit difficult.”
Merle had a feeling the frown on Rhun’s face was not for her benefit. “Who are you talking about?”
He cleared his throat. “Arawn.”
Merle’s jaw dropped. “The Arawn? The Demon Lord?”
“Yes and no,” Rhun said. “He’s not really our lord.” He frowned again. “He’s not even demon.” The frown deepened and he grimaced. “In fact, no one’s really sure what he is…” His voice trailed away and he stared off with unease in his eyes.