Death Doesn't Bargain

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  He slid his hand down her body, through the moist tangle of curls, until he could touch the part of her he craved. She gasped and moaned, then opened her legs even wider for his exploration.

  “Tell me what you want me to do to you, Cam?”

  “I want you to kiss me.”

  “Where?”

  She touched his lips with her fingers. “On my lips.”

  He obliged her until he could scarce breathe for the fire inside him. “Where else would you have me kiss you?”

  “Here,” she said, turning her head so that she bared her neck to him.

  Again, he licked and teased her neck. He felt the chills spread over her body, felt her nipples harden even more against his chest.

  She made little noises in the back of her throat as he nipped her skin with his teeth.

  “Is there any place else you would have me?”

  Her face pinkened and she looked away sheepishly.

  “Here now,” he said, capturing her chin in his hand and turning her face until she looked up at him. “’Tis not like me lady Cameron to be timid. You’ve never shirked away from talking before.”

  Her eyes softened.

  Kalder turned serious as he leaned on his arms and met her gaze. “Never be afraid or embarrassed over telling me what you want. So, I ask again. Where would you have me, me love?”

  She bit her lip and slowly trailed her hand down her body. Kalder watched the path of it, his breath rattling in his chest. It was the most sensuous thing he’d ever seen.

  She braced one leg up, spreading herself open to his hungry gaze, and touched herself between her legs.

  Cameron shivered at the hot look Kalder gave her. She still couldn’t believe what she was doing, but there was no shame in her heart.

  Only love for the man who was with her.

  He kissed his way down her body, slowly, languidly. The touch of his lips on her skin made her burn with fiery need. Who could have imagined a man’s touch could be so pleasurable?

  When he took her into his mouth, she cried out in total abandon.

  His hot tongue licked and teased, around and around, stroking and delving. The watery room spun out of control while she lay there, weak and panting from the ribbons of pleasure that shredded her. Now she understood Sancha’s bawdy talk completely! Gracious! The woman hadn’t been jesting at all.

  She reached down and took his large, masculine hand into hers.

  Kalder laced his fingers with hers and gave a light squeeze. Cameron smiled as her love washed over her. There was truly nothing more sublime than having him like this. Feeling him with her body, holding on to his strong hand that was now human again in appearance.

  Cameron looked down to see their entwined hands. Her skin was so pale compared to his. Scars marred his knuckles, and stood out against the darkness of his skin.

  Content and thrilled, she sighed as his thumb stroked her palm in time to his tongue stroking her body. Then, she lifted his hand up to her lips so that she could kiss his scars.

  But she didn’t stop there. She opened her mouth and suckled his fingers one by one, tasting them. Nibbling them.

  Kalder looked up, startled by her actions. No woman had ever kissed his hands, let alone given them so much consideration. But he had to admit that her tongue felt heavenly sliding over his skin, between his fingers, and for that alone he was glad he’d found dry land and allowed his skin to return and the webbing to recede so that she could do this.

  He crawled up her body and then stared down at her, warm and open beneath him. The sight tore through him.

  How he craved her. Needed her.

  Her hands released his. Then she trailed them over his chest, his hips, ran them down until she could cradle his hot, rigid shaft in her hands.

  His body jerked in response.

  Kalder moaned at the sensation of her hands sliding down his cock, of her reaching down lower so that she could cup him in her hands.

  “Tell me what you want, Mr. Dupree,” she breathed.

  You.

  The word hung in his throat. Unlike her, words were strangers to his tongue.

  But he couldn’t say that out loud. He’d been rejected by everyone else, and while he was used to it, the thought of her turning him away …

  It would finally destroy him. She, alone, had the ultimate power over him.

  So, he did what he did best and held his feelings in.

  “First, I want you to call me Kalder,” he teased. “No need in such formalities while we’re so intimate, Miss Jack, and I would rather show you.” Dipping his head down, he claimed her lips, then slid himself deep inside her body.

  He growled at her warm, sweet wetness that surrounded him. At the feeling of her body welcoming his intrusion.

  For the briefest moment, she tensed and dug her nails against his back.

  Kalder froze. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded against his shoulder as she panted ever so slightly. “It’s a rather shocking sensation, isn’t it?”

  He wouldn’t really know. “Am I hurting you?” He glanced down at her.

  Looking up, she met his gaze, and he didn’t know but there was something far more intimate about this than any other encounter he’d ever had. It was as if his very soul were bared to her and not just his body. Never had he felt closer to anyone.

  “It’s subsiding now.”

  Cameron swallowed with the realization that she’d just crossed a threshold from which there was no going back.

  Ever.

  One for which there could be extreme and dire consequences for both of them. For all she knew, she could conceive a child out of this. And that thought terrified her. Not because it would be a baby, but because of the responsibility it would bring. The scandal.

  If I do conceive a child, I shall love it forever. Just as I do Kalder.

  How could she not?

  The look on his face as he made love to her was, and would be, forever seared into her memory. He’d been hurt by so many. The fact that he could be tender at all mystified her. God knew that he hadn’t learned it at home. No one had shown him kindness. The scars on his body bore testimony to that.

  All he knew was violence. Strife.

  War.

  Yet he made love to her slowly, and with the tenderest of care, making sure not to hurt or harm her. Ever careful of how much weight he placed against her body. It was such a wickedly sweet sensation of his hips sliding against hers. Of him kissing her while giving her unbelievable pleasure.

  Never would she have imagined anything more glorious than this. More incredible than him.

  How could she?

  Kalder closed his eyes and savored the way Cameron held him. The sensation of her running her hands over his back while he lost himself deep inside her. If only this moment could last.

  You have to let her go.

  But letting her go would be the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  It’s for her own good.

  Everything you love, you kill. He knew that. Without fail. The gods would never allow him to have something and keep it. They took too much pleasure in giving him pain.

  I can’t watch her die, too.

  Kalder kissed her lips as he thrust against her hips. He had no idea how long they’d have together, but fate and circumstance would separate them. One way or another. Of that he had no doubt.

  Fight for her. You have to.

  Did he dare?

  Do you dare not?

  He tried to imagine going back to his life without her. Tried to imagine making it through one day without her smile warming his heart.

  He couldn’t.

  The pain of the thought was too much. I have to find some way to keep her with me. No matter the consequences.

  She was the only thing that was good in his life. The only thing that made him happy, and no one would take that away from him.

  Not without a fight.

  Cameron saw the determined set of Kalder’s jaw as he quic

kened his strokes.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, wondering what caused the sudden change in him.

  “Aye, love,” he said, punctuating his words with his thrusts. “When I’m with you, it’s the only time I’m right.”

  She melted at that. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she held him close and reveled in his hot, naked skin sliding against hers. There was nothing more erotic than to hold him against her like this.

  She teased his jaw with her lips and tongue and trailed her hands over the smooth plane of his back to his hips. She splayed her hands over his delectable rear and closed her eyes as she urged him on.

  Her body quivered and tightened until she could stand no more.

  Moaning deep, she let her orgasm take her and held him close until the last tremor had shuddered through her.

  He cupped her face with his hand and kissed her deep.

  Then she felt it. He growled into her mouth as his own release took him.

  He buried himself deep and froze.

  “Oh, me lady phearse,” he breathed in her ear. “There is truly nothing better than the feel of you in me bed.”

  “There is nothing better than the feel of you in me body.” Heat exploded across her face as she realized what she’d said.

  But her embarrassment faded the instant she saw the warm, satisfied look on his face.

  He gave her a light kiss, then withdrew. He rolled over onto his back and gathered her into his arms.

  Cameron draped herself over his chest and listened to his heart pounding under her cheek. The deep thud was so incredibly soothing. How she wished she could lie like this forever.

  She traced circles around his chest and toyed idly with his nipples.

  “You keep doing that,” he said huskily, “and neither of us will leave this place.”

  Cameron was beginning to think that she wouldn’t mind spending eternity here with him. And that thought terrified her. He made it so easy to forget herself.

  To forget everything.

  If only she could.

  But all too soon they hunted down their clothes and dressed, then swam back to the palace, where Kalder retrieved her dry jacket to wrap around her before they immediately ran into a section of the crew that had been searching for her since she’d followed after Kalder.

  Rosie let out a relieved breath at the sight of them before he called out for the others. “Cameron’s not dead yet!”

  She scowled at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  He shrugged unrepentantly. “Our natural assumption was that something here had eaten you, given that all we found of you was your coat.”

  “Oh.” Cameron prayed there was no color in her cheeks over that remark, especially as she remembered some of what Kalder had done with her. Harder still was resisting the sudden urge to not look at Kalder and see his reaction to those words.

  Yet luckily she managed not to give in to her temptation and betray their tryst.

  Until Paden stormed toward her and took her roughly by the arm. “Where the devil have you been? We’ve searched everywhere for you! Have you any idea how scared I’ve been?”

  Grimacing, she jerked her arm free of his tight grasp and pushed him back. “Kalder was touring me around the city.”

  “Why are you sopping wet, then?”

  “We went for a swim.”

  “You can’t swim! You don’t know how.” Paden glared at Kalder.

  That set off Kalder’s anger in turn. “If you’re questioning the lady’s honor, then I’ll be taking it from your hide, man. And your teeth! Now, you apologize to your sister!”

  “Me? I’m not the one what took her out alone. Unchaperoned, I might add. If you care so much for her sterling reputation, then you needs be minding it, you bloody wanker bastard, and not blighting it every chance you get by dragging it through the mud like you’ve gone and done every tart and whore-slag you’ve come across!!”

  “Here now! ’Nough of that what with the both of you, or I’ll be playing conkers with your bullocks!” Devyl stepped between them, then faced Paden first. “For the record, mate, his people can share air with us, and allow us to breathe beneath the seas as if we were born to it, same as they. I’ve seen them do it. If he says they swam, then ’tis so. There’s no reason to doubt it, and you’ve even less reason to doubt someone as honest and forthright as your sister. I trust Kalder, Captain Jack. Completely. And of all people alive, you ought to be putting faith in Miss Jack.”

  A tic started in Paden’s jaw. “Cammy, I trust implicitly. Him’s another matter entirely, and then some. I don’t like him keeping company with me baby sister. At all. Especially not alone when no one’s around what to be watching him, and his wandering male body parts, as if I don’t know well enough what they’re capable of when left unsupervised by a third party. And not after all the stories what I’ve heard about him, while we’ve searched.”

  Cameron gaped at her brother.

  Bart stepped forward quickly. “Well, there’s been no harm, aside from the time we’ve slaughtered. So, now that we’ve located the lass, and proven false Paden’s cannibalism allegations about the Myrcians, I say we join the party, as we were invited to it, and play nice with the merpeople until they decide to throw us out. Aye? Who’s with me?”

  Devyl nodded in agreement. “Why not? We might as well go and give them more reasons to dislike and mistrust us.”

  Mara scoffed at her husband’s dour tone and dire prediction. “You’re all incorrigible.”

  “But notice the lady doesn’t discount what we say,” William said loudly to Bart.

  “That’s ’cause the Lady Marcelina knows it’s truth we be speaking, and what not.”

  As they headed away, Cameron caught a brief unguarded expression on Kalder’s face before he shielded it.

  Concerned about what was causing it, she went to him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  At first, he smiled and started to discount it, then he grimaced and decided to confide in her. “I have a feeling of disquiet.”

  “About?”

  His countenance said “everything,” but his lips contradicted what her instinct was telling her about his mood. “Not sure.”

  Belle came up to stand beside Cameron, and passed a knowing glance to each of them. “So, Miss Jack, did you find the—” She cleared her throat meaningfully. “—fruit to be suited to your tastes, after all?”

  Kalder scowled at the veiled question that Cameron more than understood, as it pertained to an earlier discussion she’d had with Belle and the other ladies upon her first arrival to their ship. One that stemmed from their initial discovery of her most virginal state.

  This time, Cameron felt the heat of embarrassment scalding her cheeks, as she knew that Belle’s powers allowed her to know well enough what had transpired between them. There was never any hiding from the Lady Belle.

  “It was most succulent, indeed, Miss Morte. And yes, definitely to me tastes. Thank you very much for asking.”

  “Lucky you, me lady. For there are many who’d give much to sample a bite of it. ’Specially here in this land. Guard yourself, as they’ll be most unhappy should they learn that you were the fortunate one who plucked it for her own.”

  Kalder scowled. “What are you two talking about?”

  Belle patted him on the cheek. “Pretty sure you know, love. As I’ve never seen you more tranquil than what you are right now.”

  Kalder snorted before he cornered one of the watchmen who was trying to slink past them. “You there! See to the Lady Cameron’s needs, posthaste. She needs dry clothing and something suitable for whatever event my brother has seen fit to put together for our guests.”

  “I’ll have to—”

  “Am I not still a prince of this empire?”

  That ferocious tone of power even managed to send a wave of apprehension, and a tremor of fear, down Cameron’s spine.

  The watchman’s eyes bulged. “Aye, Highness.”

  “Then you will do as I command and see to the lady’s needs. Avast!”

  Cameron’s eyes widened at a tone she’d never heard Kalder use before. He sounded more akin to the captain than her tender mermaid.

  Kalder turned toward the shimmering wall. “Chthamalus?”

  The Barnak demon appeared instantly in the glassy depths, where he stared out at them with a blank, curious expression. Then he blinked at Kalder before his eyes widened and he leapt from the wall to stand by Kalder’s side. “You summoned me, my lord?”

  “Make sure he”—Kalder jerked his chin toward the watchman—“sees that me orders are carried out and that the lady is attended to in chambers worthy of a royal consort and that she isn’t shunted off to a closet fit only for a scullery maid.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “Good demon, Tally. Thank you.”

  Cameron hesitated. While she was grateful for his concern and courtesy, she wasn’t quite so sure about the thought of being alone in this place. Kalder’s orders made her a bit uncomfortable since she barely knew his demon. Not that she didn’t trust Chthamalus per se, she just had a bad feeling in general.

  “Want me to come with you?”

  More than the Caribbean sorceress could imagine. Grateful beyond measure, Cameron hugged Belle for her perceptive powers, and kindness. Every day she loved her dear friend more. “Aye! Thank you!”

  Kalder didn’t move until the ladies, with Chthamalus in tow, were completely out of sight. And still that feeling that something was amiss persisted deep in his gullet.

  Trying not to think about it, he took a few minutes to tend to other pressing matters with another servant, before he started on his way.

  And no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t shake that uneasiness. It walked over his flesh like a living, breathing creature. Someone was definitely watching him. He turned around to scan the walls and corridor with both his eyes and his “other” senses.

  Nothing. Everything appeared normal. There was nothing on this plane or in the aether. Yet the feeling persisted.

  Uneasy and spooked, Kalder headed for his old rooms and wondered what he’d find there. Most likely one of his brothers had taken them over as soon as his mother had dumped his body for the sharks to feast on. Darcel or Eyson would be his first guess as to the current occupant. Out of the eleven of them, they had hated him most.

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