by Kristie Cook
“Open your mind and tell me what you hear,” Tristan murmured before his lips explored my collarbone.
I didn’t need to count the mind signatures to know too many people were way too close for me to truly enjoy making love with him, and I couldn’t have counted even if I wanted to. Because now his tongue swiped over my breast and around my nipple and his hands gripped my hips, his fingers digging into my pants as he pulled me closer. Pleasure jolted in every direction across my body. I opened my eyes just enough to see him on his knees in front of me, his lips now skating over my chest to my other breast.
“You don’t hear anything do you?” he asked before rolling his tongue over the dark pink tip, his hazel eyes trained on my face, an eyebrow lifted.
What? He’d asked me a question, but I was already so turned on, I couldn’t focus. Mind signatures. That’s what he was talking about. Right. But I found none. I leaned back, pulling my breast away from his reach and missing the warmth already, but panic tried to slide its way into my peaceful and lovely moment.
“Where is everyone?” I demanded.
“Relax, my love,” he murmured as his arms snaked around my back and he pulled me to him. “There’s a super-duty muffling spell on our suite. And just in case, they all went to the village to search for any supplies they could find.”
“In the middle of the night? And Dorian, too?”
“It’s the best time to hide from any norms who may be watching the island, but Owen and Char have cloaked everyone anyway. Don’t worry. Please relax, Lexi, and let us have this night together. It might be our last good one in a long time.”
The idea of Owen muffling our suite so we could have uninhibited sex made my stomach twist with embarrassment, but I couldn’t resist the beautiful man in front of me or the thought of a blissful night of making mad love to him. It had been way too long since I’d really been able to enjoy our time together. My whole body suddenly flushed with excitement.
“Make it count,” I said, my voice already husky.
“Oh, I plan on it.”
His mouth clamped down on my breast again, and his tongue swirled around the hard tip of my nipple. He easily undid the button of my pants, and in a moment, they lay on the floor in a heap. His hands traveled all over my body, leaving a trail of electric sparks, as his mouth continued to work on my breast, sucking and biting, pulling a direct line of pleasure all the way from my core. By the time his fingers slid up the insides of my calves, then my thighs, to the pulsing junction in between, I was soaking wet and trembling with need. But he only gave me two teasing strokes of his fingers before he rose to his feet and took a step back to gaze appreciatively at me. His eyes may as well have been hands touching me everywhere with the way my body reacted.
“You look as though you’ve never seen me naked before,” I said, practically panting. Can he just touch me already?
“Your beauty astounds me every time, as if it is the first,” he murmured. “I still always have to wonder how you can be mine.”
He still didn’t move. Only his eyes, the gold sparkling as they swept over me and then lingered down low, and his tongue, as it slid tauntingly over his bottom lip. Intense need jolted through me.
“If you don’t come here and kiss me and touch me and make love to me fast, I will only be my own,” I growled, one of my hands reaching out for him as the other slid down my belly, ready to take care of things if he didn’t.
He chuckled as he came back in, and then crushed his mouth to mine. His lips moved hungrily with mine, our tongues licking and twisting together, tasting and consuming each other as though we were the other’s last meal. And then his mouth was gone again, traveling downward, over my chin, down my throat, to my chest. His hands slid down my sides to grip my waist, and he easily lifted me, setting me on the counter. I leaned back on my elbows, and he dove down.
Warm wetness engulfed each hardened nipple, one at a time, as his palms skated over my hips and thighs and to the backs of my knees. He pushed my legs up and out, opening me for him as he lowered himself to his knees again. His head dipped down, and mine fell backwards. I already hovered on the edge of an orgasm before his tongue made its first swipe. My body quaked uncontrollably with the second one. And I danced on the edge, shaking and gripping the counter, as his tongue did magnificent things to me.
“Let go, Lexi,” he murmured against me. “Be mine.”
He sucked then, and his fingers slid in deeper and curled upward. And I more than let go. I exploded, screaming his name over and over as his lips and tongue and fingers continued to lift me up, up, up until I burst again and again, lights popping before my eyes and my muscles seizing. His mouth pulled away, and all at once, I was grateful for the relief yet still wanting more, more, more. He kissed the inside of one thigh, his tongue swirling against my skin, and I almost came again.
He stood, and I reached out for him, but he wouldn’t let me touch him. He lifted me by the waist again and carried me over to the tub, where he set me down. My legs gave in, too weak to hold me, and I slid into the warm water. My eyes never left his perfectly sculpted body as he pushed off his boxer briefs and stepped into the tub with me. I took hold of him before he could immerse himself completely in the water, and he groaned as I stroked the thick length a few times and then took him the way he’d just taken me.
“Lex . . . I can’t . . .” He moaned again, and his hooded eyes slid all the way closed.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Not yet. I want inside you.”
Before I could stop him, he sank all the way into the water. I glared at him, but he returned it with a smirk.
“Turn around,” he whispered, leaving me no choice but to obey as his hands again gripped me and turned me so my back faced him.
He pulled me in between his legs, then slid his wet, bubbly hands up my spine and pushed my hair over my shoulder. His mouth and tongue tickled the nape of my neck as he scooped warm water over my skin. His erection pressed against my butt and up the small of my back. I curled my legs underneath me and rocked forward slightly onto my knees, teasing his tip as his hands and mouth continued to caress my shoulders and back. Anticipation built again, pulling my breasts tight and pulsing between my legs. I leaned forward further and lifted up. His hands grasped my butt and squeezed right before I moved down and over him, pulling him inside me. We both let out a quiet cry.
His hands gripped my hips as I slid up and down, both of us moaning and groaning as the friction sent spikes of pleasure up through my belly and out across my body. Then his palm slid forward and up over my breast, while the other slid down my front, causing chills to sweep over my skin. I leaned back against him, arching my head over his shoulder as his fingers stroked and my hips rocked and his breaths came hot on my ear, sending wave after wave of pleasure until my insides exploded again. I screamed his name, and he yelled out mine as we both came together, quaking and convulsing and losing ourselves into the other, becoming one soul, one body, one entity of love.
I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful and primal we could be together when I didn’t have to hold back. The sense of freedom overcame my mind, body, and soul now that the mental wall had fallen, and our lovemaking became so much more through the night as we slammed our bodies against walls and into the ceiling, doing all those things we couldn’t do when others were around.
And I no longer cared that everyone knew what we were doing even if they couldn’t hear us. Because Tristan was right—we needed this night together. It would be our last for a long time. Maybe forever.
Chapter 8
The time to move out arrived quickly. News on the television and the web became unreliable as governments and the Daemoni censored the media. We couldn’t even access any networks in some countries, and others contradicted each other’s reports. The world was quickly descending into Lucas’s orchestrated chaos.
We spent a few days consulting with our generals, so to speak, ensuring they were capable of handling the Daemoni a
nd the humans on their own within their regions. Our intelligence teams began to report back that the Daemoni believed the Amadis was falling apart. As soon as rumors began that I was no longer in control, we started packing up and making plans. Solomon had a few places for us to visit in Europe to try to secretly align with some Normans, although he warned us that he couldn’t guarantee anyone would come through.
“We’re leaving in eight hours,” I called through Dorian’s door while knocking on it at the same time. “Are you packed?”
The door flew open, and my son stood there with wide eyes, taller than me but looking like a frightened child.
“You’re not making me go with the others, are you?” he asked, panic lacing his voice. Sasha stood next to him, the size of a Husky instead of a toy dog. Her stripes vaguely showed through her thick white coat. Dorian’s anxiety had her on edge.
“No, little—” I paused. He wasn’t exactly a little man any more. “No, Dorian. Of course not. You’ll be with Dad and me.”
He looked away, at some point over my shoulder, and nodded, but I couldn’t help but notice how his bottom lip trembled in the most minute way.
“Dorian.” I stepped closer to him and put a hand on his upper arm. Sheesh. It was thicker with muscle than it should have been at his age. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . . I just don’t want you guys to leave me,” he said. He averted his eyes for a moment, and then threw himself at me, like the little boy he should have been. “Don’t leave me again, Mom. Please.”
I kicked the door closed, wrapped my arms around him, and held him tightly. “No, never, Dorian. I could never leave you. They took you, remember?”
“Because you left! What if they come back again?” His body shook in my arms, and fear weighed heavily in his words as he sobbed against me.
I gripped his shoulders and gently pushed him away from me, then walked him over to his bed. We both sat down, and I held him again.
“Dad and I will keep you safe,” I promised.
“You can’t forever, though.” He drew in a jagged breath, then pulled away and scrubbed his eyes as if I didn’t already know he’d been crying. He scooted away on the bed until his back pressed against the wall, then he tucked his legs up with his knees under his chin. He stared at the wall across the room, but his mind was elsewhere, and I looked to see where. There. At the DoD building, where Kali and Lucas had been holding him. Threads of panic ran through this mind, although I could grasp no coherent thoughts.
“Dorian, what did they do to you?” I asked, not for the first time. He’d never given me an answer before, but he’d never been as open as this either. Maybe he’d tell me this time.
“Nothing,” he muttered, his voice rough.
And maybe he wouldn’t.
I scooched my way back to sit next to him and placed my hand on his leg. “I think they did. You know you can tell me.”
He shifted away from me. “They didn’t do anything. Just told me stuff.”
“Like what?”
When several moments passed and no answer came, I looked into his mind again while watching his face. His jaw muscle popped.
“Get out of my head,” he growled. Well, that was new. He could sense me in his mind now. “How come when you want to, you can just let yourself into my head, but when I needed you, when I tried to warn you about them coming, you ignored me?”
I sighed at his accusatory tone. “I’m sorry. The way it works is weird. I was focused on the meeting, and I felt you, but didn’t realize it was you or what you were saying until it was too late. I have to have my mind open to you all the time to be able to hear you whenever.”
“And it’s not?” he sneered.
“No, Dorian, it’s not. I try to give you privacy.”
“Except just now.”
“Except when you have me freaking out about how you’re doing and you won’t talk to me, yes.” I cocked my head to the side to look at him. “I’m so worried about you. And I don’t know how to help you if you won’t talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” he mumbled.
“No, you’re not. And how could you be? They’re horrible, evil people who kidnapped you!”
He rolled his eyes. “Uncle Owen kidnapped me, and he took care of me. He made sure nobody hurt me.”
“Just being away from us had to have been traumatic.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Yeah. It sucked. But I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, Mom.”
“I can’t help it. You’re still my baby.”
He snorted. “Right.”
I watched him for a long moment, feeling the sadness emanating from his body as though it leaked out of his soul.
“What did they do to you?” I asked again. “And don’t tell me nothing because you came back half-a-foot taller and half grown up.”
He shrugged. “That pretty redhead asked what I wanted more than anything in the world. When I said to go home, she said it had to be something else, so I said to be big and strong like my dad. And she said okay.”
Bile rose in my throat. That “pretty redhead” had been Kali, possessing a young witch’s body. And of course she’d put a spell on him to make him grow—the sooner Dorian went through puberty and gained his powers, the sooner the Daemoni would have him. That was their plan anyway. I’d do anything in my power to stop that plan.
“What else?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Dorian . . .”
“Seriously, Mom. Nothing. Just told me stuff, but it was stupid. I don’t believe it. A lot of it, anyway.”
I studied him again and peeked into his mind, but he concentrated on the ranks of characters in his favorite video game so he wouldn’t think about the stuff they told him. He’d already figured out how to keep me from accessing his memories and thoughts.
“Well, don’t believe any of it,” I finally said. “They lie. They don’t know how to tell the truth.”
“Right,” he said. “Except it’s true that Dad used to be one of them, and your own father leads them? The dickwad who murdered my mimi?”
“Watch your mouth,” I said automatically.
His eyes cut sideways at me. The look in them caused me to pull back. He had the same hazel irises as Tristan, and I swore I could almost see flames around the pupils.
“Yes, that’s true,” I admitted quietly.
“So not everything they said is a lie.”
“Tell me what they told you, and I can tell you which ones aren’t true.”
He blew out an angry breath, and then sprang across the bed and to his feet, as if a switch had been flipped, making him suddenly irate. “Just forget it, Mom! I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Dorian—”
“Leave me alone!” he shouted so loudly, I felt the vibration in my bones. He flicked his hand, and the door flew open—another newly acquired power.
I narrowed my eyes and walked right up to him. “Don’t you talk to me that way. I am still your mother.”
“And if you care about me at all, you’ll just let me be. Don’t make me say the things they told me!”
Realization dawned on me then, and I could easily conclude what “stuff” they’d told him. The same things they’d told every Amadis son—the Amadis didn’t care about him, he’d always be treated like dirt here, the Daemoni would become his new family, and they’d worship him like a king. That the Amadis would kick him out and want nothing to do with him. No wonder he’d been so scared that Tristan and I would leave him. They’d already planted the seeds in his mind of what they thought his future would grow into if he stayed with us. This explained his mood swings, too.
“Dorian, don’t believe them. Nothing has to be the way they said.”
“No, but it will be,” he said under his breath, but I heard him loud and clear.
“Dorian,” I gasped.
“Just leave me alone, Mom.” He sounded weary now. “I’m not going anywhere, except with you. Just let me p
ack.”
I stared at him for a long moment, but finally nodded. “You can only take a backpack.”
I strode for the door, vowing to myself to make sure he knew he was always wanted here with Tristan and me.
“The Daemoni have already dug their dirty, disgusting claws into our son,” I told Tristan a little while later while we checked our weapons in our suite. I only had my trusty dagger, inherited from Cassandra herself, and a knife I kept in my boot, but Tristan had all kinds of things hidden here and there among his leather fighting gear. Not that he ever used them. He mostly relied on his supernatural powers.
“Did you really expect anything different?” he asked.
I frowned as I looked at him. “I expected them to tell him lies, which I guess they did, but they also told him the truth about you and Lucas. And they already started their whole spiel about how he belongs to them.”
“I know, Lex. He told me.”
My brows rose. “Really? He talked to you about it? And you didn’t tell me?”
A feeling of betrayal niggled at me under my skin. I couldn’t decide whom I felt more betrayed by, though—my son or my husband.
He chuckled quietly. “Yeah, he came to talk to me. I figured he’d tell you when he was ready.”
I grimaced. “Well, then. He wasn’t exactly ready to tell me anything at all. I was happy to get out of him what I could. Why would he tell you everything and not me?”
Tristan set the silver throwing star he’d been polishing on the bed and strode over to me. He wrapped his arms around me and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Because you are his mother, and he doesn’t want to disappoint you.”
“And you are his idol.”
“I’m also a guy, and he knows I’m not perfect. Especially now that he does know about my past with them.”
“But why would he disappoint me? It’s not like he’s done anything wrong.”