She shook her head, having no answer, and took a slow step back.
He sat up completely, staring at her from blue eyes shot through with mercurial streaks of silver that shone brilliantly in the early morning light. God, he had been breathtaking in the pale light of the moon and the soft glow of the fire, but now, in the building morning light, he simply robbed her of the ability to speak…to think…to reason. All she could do was stare and try not to drool.
“Where are you going, Tess? There is nowhere for you to run off to.” Something twisted in her heart at the dark look of fear that he tried so hard to hide. “You…cannot leave me,” he said simply, his voice low and demanding.
And then it all came roaring back to her, and she gaped, sending him a look of pure shock, stunned that she could have forgotten, for even a moment, the real reason she was there.
“Zarnak,” she gasped, “my sister is still out there, or down there, or wherever the hell these Lower Realms are. I have to go to her, if you can get me there. We can’t stay in bed when she needs me! We’ve already wasted too much time!”
“Tess,” he said softly, looking as if he would spring for her at any moment, “there is naught we can do now.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, eyeing him suspiciously.
He shook his head at her look. “You must have more faith in me than that. One does not dance with the devil at dawn, little one. It requires the shadows of dusk for such nefarious activities.”
It sounded as if he were speaking in riddles. “Please explain,” she said tightly, filled with guilt for lying safely in his arms while Emily was suffering god only knew what.
A small smile curled lazily at one corner of his mouth, and he arranged the pillows so that he lay back upon them, his dark, consuming gaze never once leaving her body, and she suddenly realized that she was standing before him completely in the buff, without so much as a stitch of clothing. Normally such a thought would have sent her scurrying for cover, but not with him. No, with this man she did not worry if her thighs were too fleshy or her breasts too full. The desire in his hungry gaze left no room for doubts or insecurities about her form.
She returned his stare, the seconds seeming to stretch out between them, laden with sexual tension, and then he finally said, “The Lower Realms can only be entered at certain times, lass. You cannot simply waltz through the portals that separate our world from theirs, just as the mortals cannot enter The Wood. Unless, of course, you are being allowed entrance, as your uncle was done with Emily. But we must wait until tonight to make our journey, and when the time is right we will be able to seek out your sister.”
There were several items she needed to correct him on, but Tess sensed that now was not the time to argue facts. Instead, she sat down upon the corner of the mattress at the foot of the bed and managed to grab a lavish ruby-colored throw that felt like cashmere to pull against her front. Somehow she didn’t think she would be able to keep her wits about her long enough to ask her questions if he kept looking at her naked body with such feral intensity. Resisting the urge to fan her face, she tried to organize her thoughts.
“Okay, then we can use this time to talk,” she announced evenly, surprised by the steady sound of her voice, when all she really wanted to do was throw herself at him and investigate every inch of that hard male body that he seemed in no hurry to cover.
“Talk?” he scowled, clearly having other ideas of how they would spend the day.
“Yes, talk,” she sighed, and a small grin played across her mouth. “Why do men always have that same reaction to such a simple word?”
“What do you know of other men?” he grunted, managing to look beautiful even as he grimaced. The sheets were a deep sky blue, providing a perfect backdrop to his golden skin and that silver hair that he’d shoved behind his broad shoulders, as if annoyed with its length.
Her own raven hair hung past her shoulders in a heavy, waving fall that she should have cut long ago, but somehow she’d been unable to bring herself to part with it. She knew it was because of him. Her dream lover. Her bright, silver-haired angel who now lay before her in the flesh. In her dreams, the look in his azure eyes as he’d followed the tangled tendrils of her long dark hair while she writhed in need for him, had made it impossible to cut.
Licking her lower lip, she wrenched her thoughts away from hair and sex and focused on his question. “I read and watch TV. Trust me, I understand enough to know that your aversion to conversation is a universal affliction when it comes to males, no matter if they are human or…er, whatever,” she finished lamely, still not knowing quite what to call him.
“It is not that I do not wish to talk with you, Tess.” His heavily-lashed gaze moved over her as he spoke, narrowing with intensity as if he were trying to look through the crimson weave of the throw that she clutched to her chest. “But it has been too many years since I held my true form, and the time that I have ached for you feels even longer. I can think of far more important things to occupy our day than talking. Urgent, powerful, enjoyable things,” he drawled with a wicked smile, looking sexier than any man had the right to look.
His long body sprawled across the bed in a blatant display of power and strength, rippling with muscles, and as he lifted one knee and lowered the other, her gaze snagged hungrily upon the mouthwatering sight of his cock. It was very long, reaching up high on his hard stomach, past the slight indentation of his navel, and impossibly wide, surely thicker than her own wrist. She wet her mouth as she stared at it, noting that the head was fatter than the wide stalk, gleaming and dark, and all down the rigid length there was a primal looking mapping of veins that pulsed and crossed one another. She bit her bottom lip, thinking of what it would feel like to try and take such an organ within her mouth, to feel all that primitive power pulsing against her tongue, and he made a harsh, snarling sound in the back of his throat.
“Stop, Tess,” he rumbled through his clenched teeth, “if you truly wish to talk.”
“Or what?” she whispered, unable to drag her devouring gaze away from the brutally beautiful sight of his aroused body.
“Or you’re going to get exactly what you’re thinking about and know precisely how it feels to have this,” and he wrapped one hand around the broad root of his cock, squeezing until all those sexy veins bulged, throbbing and thick, “shoved past your lips, fucking your sweet little mouth, surging to the back of your throat.” His voice came heavy with warning, those hypnotic eyes all but glittering as she dared a quick peek at his face.
Oh, well, he was certainly direct, wasn’t he? “Hmm…” she hummed, lowering her gaze to allow herself a moment more to drink in the sight of him before wrenching her attention back to his face. She needed to make him understand how she felt, but it was difficult to find the right words. “As, um, interesting as that sounds, I…I feel lost right now, Zarnak. I need some kind of point of reference. Please. We don’t have to spend the day in conversation, but please help me understand what is happening.”
He nodded, the look in his eyes reflecting a wealth of tenderness, as if he understood precisely what she was feeling, and the hand wrapped around his cock ceased its provocative stroking. “What do you want to know?” he asked softly.
“Well,” she laughed shakily, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “I hardly know where to begin. Um, for starters, where are we?”
“The Wicket Wood, as you well know,” he replied with a small smile. “Or has my lovemaking dazzled that knowledge right out of your beautiful head?”
She shifted self-consciously, wondering if he was teasing her. Since her parents’ death no one but Emily had ever teased her, and she wasn’t entirely sure how to take it. “What I mean is, where is The Wood? It’s not on any map of Eire I’ve ever seen.”
“Nor will it ever be,” he sighed, apparently realizing that this conversation was in no way going to be a quick one. He released his grip on his cock and raised one arm behind his head, against the pillows, while the
other scratched lazily at the sculpted planes of his chest. “We are on Earth, yes, but thanks to the enchantment of this forest, we exist in a different…space than the mortals. Humans can walk to the doorway of The Wood and never realize it is there, for they see only one reality, though there is a deeper layer to their physical world. That is where The Wicket Wood resides.”
She nodded, thinking his answer only created a thousand more questions. “Who lives within The Wood?”
“All the ancient clans. The fae, pixies, shifters and sidhe, to name a few. Though the sidhe exist only in small numbers now, since many have been lost over the years in our battles against the Blood Goddess, fighting so that the other races might live.”
Tess chewed on the corner of her lip. “Are they all immortal?”
“Aye. They are immortal, unless they court death or join with a Death Courter.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Death Courter?”
“Those of us who, by action and choice leave the protection of The Wood and lose our immortality. The pixies are the only ones who can go between the two worlds without repercussion. If not for the curse of the unicorn, I would have died long ago.”
It was impossible not to shudder at the thought of his death.
“You wanted me here,” she said carefully, after a moment. “You told me to come. And yet you argued with your friend over my being brought here? Why?”
“Because I would not have wished this on you. I begged you to come simply because I could not resist. But I knew it was wrong.” His gaze drilled into her, hungry and hot and impossibly seductive with its mesmerizing power and want. “I could not resist,” he repeated, sounding as if he’d committed a crime. “No matter how I fought it,” he added in a rough voice, eyeing her with a purely possessive gleam in that dark gaze, “the fact is that you belong with me, Tess.”
She stared, feeling thunderstruck, marveling at how something spoken so commandingly could sound so impossibly romantic. Not knowing what to say in response to such a possessive statement, she searched her mind for another question, but couldn’t seem to think beyond her need for him.
It was like something vital and real that she couldn’t deny, just waiting beneath the surface of her skin for his touch, the possession of his body. And suddenly she was filled with a dizzying mental stream of data flooding through her mind, crowding into her brain.
“What’s happening to me?” she gasped, her head reeling as her vision seemed to swim with a bright, blinding fog that swirled within her. Through the chaos she felt his arms close around her and pull her over his long, naked length, those strong arms wrapping her close, offering the safety and protection of his body.
“What is wrong, Tess?” he rasped, lifting one hand to push her hair back from her flushed face.
She lifted her head and stared down at him in mesmerized wonder, her brain filled with image upon image of him, as if she were seeing inside his mind. “How…how do I know these things?”
“What, little one?” he asked with that small, mischievous smile that made him look young and wicked, though his eyes appeared dark with worry. “What do you know?”
“How do I know that you love bacon, yet hate it when cooked too crisp?” she asked, her voice thick with wonder. “That you lie awake under the stars at night, dreaming of…of me? That you could see me in your dreams? That buttercups make you sneeze and crying babies make you uncomfortable because you always want to comfort them but aren’t sure how? You…you’re a stranger, and yet—”
“Yet you feel you know me better than you know yourself,” he said softly, the look in his eyes so tender it made her melt inside.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I don’t understand what’s happening here, between us.”
He rolled her beneath him, balancing his upper body on his elbows as they sank into the giving mattress on either side of her head. “You and I, my Tess, are one and the same. Not strangers. Never strangers. I know not how to explain it all. But do not fear a gift that has been given so freely. Do not be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she grumbled, and she could have sworn she felt him smile against her cheek. He pressed a warm kiss to her temple, and her breath sucked in on a sharp gasp as his strong thighs pressed hers wide, and he took his place between her legs as if he belonged right there. In a whisper, she said, “I…I don’t know if I can do this now, while my sister is out there terrified.”
His breath feathered the soft hair at her temple, and she closed her eyes, trying to block out temptation that had already burrowed itself deep beneath her skin. How did you struggle to resist something that was already a part of you? She had no idea.
“I wish I could tell you that she is happy,” he said, his low voice melting over her like honey, “but I can assure you that she is unharmed, Tess. It is strange, but she is…not afraid.”
She pushed against his shoulders until she could see his face above hers, and knew her eyes were round with disbelief. “What do you mean? You can’t be serious! How can you know that?”
“I can feel her, through my connection to you. Emily is not afraid. Angry, yes,” he said with a small smile. “I see your own angry passion in your younger sibling, but she is not cowed. They need her safe and unharmed, if what Graedor and I believe is true. In the event they failed by sacrificing you to…me,” he explained roughly. “It seems they meant, or rather mean, to offer her as a direct sacrifice to the Blood Goddess herself. The one who cursed me. The moment my curse was broken, she would have known. So Montgomery has remained in the Lower Realms with Emily. He is probably hoping the Goddess will take pity on him and now gift him with a cure for his illness, in exchange for your sister, but he is a fool to trust her. The Blood Goddess loves nothing and no one but herself. She has no honor. She will take Emily if she wants her, and leave your uncle to die. But first,” he added in a low rumble, “she will wait and see if we come. There is no one who loves a battle or revenge more than the Blood Goddess, and this is an opportunity she will not let pass. She will keep Emily alive and use her as bait…in the hopes that we will come for her.”
“So then she is safe, in a way, for now?” Tess questioned shakily.
“Yes,” he answered softly.
Her brow creased as she thought over what he’d said. “So then that’s why they broke away from our group when we reached Ireland. He meant to take her there, to those Lower Realms, all along. He meant to separate us completely, from the very beginning, and my plans to help her escape never would have worked.”
His thumb stroked a slow, intimate pattern against the corner of her mouth, the silver flecks in his eyes all but glowing with heat as he stared down at her. “Most likely. And if something had gone wrong between us, then he would have had her brought to him. Of course, he would have had to enter The Wood first, and that would have been impossible.”
She shook her head in self-recrimination. “I never even guessed. He talked of her taking my place, but I never gave a thought to the idea that he might have other plans for her. I-I underestimated him.”
“And he has underestimated the Goddess. He does not realize that she cares naught for the years of service he has offered her as Chancellor of The Order. She has used him—used his arrogance against him. Perhaps she hoped he would solve the cavern riddle, or mayhap it was all for the purpose of seeing me finally destroyed. Whatever her motives, she is not interested in your uncle’s life, merely what she can gain from him. She cares naught for his hopes for cures and immortality.”
“But he did…he solved the cavern riddle!”
“I doubt that,” he answered with an adorably boyish, lopsided grin. “But even if he did, it will do him and his men no good. The answer alone does not give you admittance. You must be brought across by one of our people, and no one within The Wood would dare to do such a thing.”
“And you can feel Emily, simply because of your connection to me?”
“‘Tis no mere connection, Tess,” he m
urmured, stroking her cheek with his knuckles, the look in his eyes so intimate it made her shiver. “Like I said, we are one.” He paused, and then in a low, aching voice he said, “I am sorry I did not open my mind to where you’ve lived these many years, Tess. If I had, there’s a chance I could have saved you much suffering, but I did not trust my own weakness for you—not as the beast.”
She shook her head at him. “There is no need for apology, Zarnak. But what happens now?”
He laughed a low rumble of sound at her question and his cock pulsed against the swollen lips of her pussy, making her gasp. To her endless embarrassment, Tess felt her cheeks burn.
That sin-kissed mouth curled in wicked delight, clearly enjoying, savoring her shyness, her innocence. “Now,” he murmured, his voice low and smooth like a fine whiskey, “I get to do all. All that I’ve dreamed of.” And his eyes told her that she had not imagined that added emphasis he gave to those words.
“Oh god…”
“Aye, beautiful. The dreams,” he rumbled, rubbing the calloused pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, again and again, as if he were trying to memorize the textures and contours of her mouth. “I remember them well. Have lived them over and over within my mind. The longing and frustration at seeing you but not being allowed the pleasure of your flesh. Until yesterday,” he rasped, those azure eyes going narrow with carnal memory.
She trembled again at that purely primal look, and the even more primal reaction it triggered within her. Perhaps she should have been terrified, considering her lack of experience, but all she could seem to focus on was the mounting hunger for him twisting through her, sharp and unsatisfied, wanting to be fed. And there was so much more than the physical connection. It was so odd, but she felt as if she had loved him forever. Blinking up at him, she asked, “Have you bewitched me?”
Horn of the Unicorn Page 12