The cursed king, p.15
The Cursed King, page 15
“Is there no reflection inside the castle to use?” Angelika asked.
Meira shook her head. “They’ve covered all their mirrors since…me.”
In other words, Angelika’s wolves had shared Meira’s powers, and the wisely wary wolves took pains to keep them out.
“That does not bode well for us,” Airk muttered, apparently reaching the same conclusion.
Stretching her lips into a smile meant to project confidence took more effort than usual, thanks to more nerves fluttering in her gut. “I guess I’ll have to be extra persuasive.”
Another choked sound from the man at her side. One that could have been a snort of derision or of sympathy for the wolves. She wasn’t sure which and didn’t get a chance to check, because Airk didn’t wait for her, stepping right through the portal Meira had created between reflections.
Blowing a kiss to her visibly worried sisters, she followed, and immediately the side window of a storefront in the middle of a quaint Romanian town was all she could see as Meira cut off her power.
They’d have to contact Meira the usual way, via modern technology, when they were ready to leave. Until then, they were on their own.
“Thank you,” she said to the broad back of the silent man with her.
He glanced over his shoulder, dark brows pulling together slightly. “For what?”
For getting me through that, and for being here with me now.
He stilled as she stepped into him, a hand on his chest as she went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his cheek. “You know what,” she whispered, the stubble of a day’s growth of surprisingly black whiskers prickling her lips.
She dropped to flat feet, the warmth of him under her palm penetrating, the cherry-and-smoke scent of him wrapping around her almost protectively. An emotion she couldn’t possibly hope to interpret flashed at her, there then gone. Still, he hesitated, and she waited, wondering for a brief second what he would do.
But he turned away. “Where are we?”
“Transylvania.”
His shoulders went rigid, and, without moving beyond that small tell, she got the impression he was ready to fight the next thing to round the corner. “Vampires—”
“No.” She shook her head. “The bloodsuckers abandoned this region after it became popular following the publication of Bram Stoker’s supposedly fictional book, Dracula, in 1897. Apparently, all the vampires around here were being hunted by frightened humans and decided to go elsewhere. The wolf shifters took advantage and moved right in.”
Including requisitioning an abandoned castle.
“Smart.”
She pointed at a peak in the distance, one Jedd had made her memorize pictures of long before their falling out, just in case something happened. “That’s where we’re going. We hike from here until the wolves find us and take us the rest of the way.”
Airk stared at the mountain, expression turning broody. “You had better be right about them.”
Angelika patted his arm even as she hid her own trepidation. Bleidd, Jedd, and the others from their pack would never harm her. But a random wolf sentry who didn’t know her was a different ball of trouble.
I hope I’m right, too.
…
Airk leaned against the trunk of the piney tree they’d taken shelter under for the night, the bark rough poking through the thin layer of his shirt a vague irritation.
Night.
This was a bad idea, coming here at this hour. Not just because of the chill in the air, but night was when all the worst of the supernatural creatures that walked this planet decided to come out. Hopefully, the wolf shifters’ presence in the region scared off any truly bad ones.
Still, the forest was a welcome change after so long sleeping against stone. Anything different was good. He tipped his gaze to the skies.
The room where he’d been held in the dungeons of Everest was built inside the peak of the hollowed-out mountain. The precipice. Generations before him had hewn those walls from the very mountain itself, turning it hard as diamonds, strong enough to continue to support the weight and designed to allow those inside an unimpeded view of what lay outside.
Any being standing outside saw only the rock, snow, and ice of the most massive mountain on the planet. The mountain was so huge, they didn’t really worry about discovery by the humans determined to scale it. But putting the dungeon at the top…that was the perfect prison to torture dragon shifters. A view of skies where they could look but not touch.
Where Airk had never soared and never would.
This view of the sky here was also different. No more ice and snow. A different angle of the stars and evergreen branches overhead. Even a different feel—the sharp scent of the trees and musky earth, the wind rustling the leaves and needles for the forest, a new bite of cold that didn’t affect him.
And the clacking of teeth.
Angelika leaned against the other side of the tree, arms wrapped around her middle, hands stuffed under her armpits, and her teeth chattering so hard she could pass for a woodpecker hammering away at hard bark.
He clenched his own teeth until the molars scraped against each other and his jaw locked. “Come here,” he demanded.
“I’m fine,” came her voice from around the other side. Not stubborn like Skylar would have sounded, or Kasia’s sarcasm, or even Meira’s softness. Angelika was honestly trying not to be a bother. What was she trying to prove? That she wasn’t frail? That she could do this?
Sure enough, a second later she said, “Aren’t the stars amazing?”
As if that could distract him from the clatter of bone on bone. What if she caught a sickness and died because she was determined not to use his natural warmth?
“I have seen better.” He had, too. He’d lived in the highest place on earth, with no light pollution, a thing he’d learned of recently. On clear nights, he felt as though he could touch the cold light of the stars. Swim through the Milky Way stretched out overhead.
“So have I,” he caught the faint murmur. Then a huff. “I didn’t expect it to be this cold. It’s summertime, for goodness’ sake.”
Given that his personal experience to measure such things against was one of the harshest places on earth, Airk didn’t comment on that. Instead, he pushed to his feet, moved around the tree, and bodily lifted her up, then sat back down where she’d been, back against the trunk and Angelika cradled in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, cringing at the way her body was shaking like an aspen leaf in a windstorm, strung so tight he could probably use her muscles to shoot arrows.
“Doesn’t this break your rules?” she asked.
“Rules?”
“Don’t touch Angelika. I’m pretty sure after giving me the most incredible orgasms, the next morning, that’s what you decided.”
She wasn’t wrong. He said nothing.
“Don’t you hate it when I’m right?” she teased.
No. It made him want to touch her more, if anything.
She shifted against him, burrowing her head between his chin and shoulder, cold little nose digging against the skin of his neck. Something inside his chest squeezed hard. Probably his dragon.
“I guess my sisters would kill you if I died from exposure on this trip.”
He wouldn’t like it much, either. “They could try.”
“Although…” she continued as though he hadn’t just dropped a subtle challenge to her family between them. “You know a terrific way to warm up is to…move around. Encourage circulation and all that.”
He frowned. “You want to keep walking?” They had been traveling by foot, over rough terrain for much of it, all day. “We need rest.” Or she did.
“True. Hmm…”
He waited for whatever came next. He’d started to pick up on the fact that when Angelika was worried, or rattled, or trying to be brave, was when she tended to come up with…ideas.
“I’ve been told fucking is a great way to get the blood pumping.”
Holy shit.
Yes, his dragon growled in his head, more than enthusiastic about that idea. Mine.
Not ours, though. The word his animal side used was distinctly possessive and singular. Almost as though, given Airk’s reaction this morning, the dragon side of him had decided Airk wasn’t part of the deal anymore.
Dammit.
With Angelika’s sunshine scent wending round him, her body against his, the softness of her hair tickling her jaw, Airk was already locked in a battle of wills with the beast inside and his own desires. Blood pumped through his body, swelling his already semi-hard cock to pulsing, painful life.
Holy hells. What do I do now?
Let go of her and move back to the other side of the tree. That was what he should do. Or say no. The word should have burst from him, but his mouth refused to form around it. And he didn’t remove himself from her. “Better that we keep our clothes on for warmth,” he muttered.
Her raspy chuckle, the sexiest damn sound in the world, was close to his undoing. “I’m sure we could get creative.”
Fuck. He dropped his head back against the tree with a painful thump and squeezed his eyes shut.
Images—lusty, sensual, beastly images of what he’d do to her—bombarded his mind, and he couldn’t even say they were from his dragon. Because, all the hells and heavens be damned, he wanted her.
One time had not been nearly enough.
Now he was picturing what he’d do to her—with her—in graphic, sensory-filled, brutal detail. He’d lift her from his lap and place her on her hands and knees where he could lower her pants just enough. Then, releasing his cock from his own pants, he’d surge inside the tight, hot, wet heart of her. Pound into her until the forest was filled with her cries of desire.
He tried to put a stop to the thoughts, but his mind was already far down that road. He kept going.
Nathair had brought him more than just books about combat. There’d also been rare tomes, and among those had been the Kama Sutra, though Airk doubted Nathair had read that one. But memories of some of the pages suddenly took on a whole new meaning as he pictured himself and Angelika in all those positions. Sexual positions drawn in titillating detail that he’d beat off to in his cell—his only form of release—now sent ideas and even more ideas slamming into him.
Her skin glowing in the moonlight. To have him push his thick cock inside her while he used his hands to stimulate other erogenous zones? He wanted to lay claim to every part of her. Leave his seed everywhere until she was his in no uncertain terms.
Even then, he wouldn’t be done.
He’d sit, back against the tree like he was now, and have her straddle him, ride him. Have her take her own pleasure from his body while he watched her come and come and come. Fill her body so full of him until they wouldn’t know where he ended and she began. Hells, if he could do that, there were so many ways he could take her, trap her, trap them both, in a sexual, beautiful haze and have the unique pleasure of having her come all over him. Over, and over, and over.
It might be decades before he let them up for air. The kind of prison he’d never want to escape.
A low, feminine moan yanked him out of his own head, out of those fantasies so real he almost cried out at the loss, only to freeze solid to find his hands down her pants, fingers buried in her slick heat and thumb pressing against that bundle of nerves that seemed to be the key to her pleasure.
Fuck!
“Don’t stop,” Angelika begged on another moan, shifting her hips to get him moving again.
Gods, what had he done? How had he—
She shifted positions in his lap, back to his chest, legs on either side of his, spreading her legs wider, and Airk clamped his eyes shut even as he was bombarded by everything that was Angelika. The musky, luscious scent of her desire hit him like a thunderclap, and he couldn’t stop himself. Didn’t want to stop himself.
“Fuck,” he said. Then said it again.
“Airk?”
He hated the uncertainty in her voice and that he’d put it there, almost more than he adored the feel of her. Closing his eyes, he locked down the beast inside him, pushing him so deep he couldn’t be part of this, then moved his hands.
The catch in her breathing, the way she relaxed against him—he would have smiled if he wasn’t using every part of his control to give her this pleasure while holding the worst of himself in check.
Gods, he hoped he was touching her right. Exploring her slick folds by touch alone was fascinating, and he kept losing himself in that. But at the same time, he returned to anything that made her breathing hitch, and that seemed to be working.
“Inside me,” she begged. Urged.
Happy to obey, he slipped one, then two fingers into her tightness. Pumping his fingers slowly in and out of her, he flicked with his thumb at that spot slightly above, a bundled nub that made her squirm, and she shuddered, pressing into his hand.
Yes. Fuck my fingers.
She undulated her hips, and the action pressed her ass into his pulsing cock, which was jutting straight up, trapped between his stomach and her body. Airk grunted.
She must’ve caught what caused the sound, because she did it again. This time, he couldn’t hold back a low groan.
“I hit a spot, huh?” The smile in her voice was an invitation to play.
One he wanted to accept so much, his chest burned with it. But he couldn’t. Dammit, he couldn’t. He’d finish what he’d unwittingly started, they’d sleep, and then they’d find those damn wolves and get this journey over with.
He pressed harder, faster, building the pleasure inside her. Pleasure that spilled from her lips in uninhibited sounds that wrapped around his dick and squeezed. At the same time, she kept moving her ass, rolling her hips so that she rubbed his erection—hells, throttled it—as she rode his fingers until they were both panting, both mindless, both reaching for the pinnacle.
A tiny flutter of her inside walls was his only warning. Then Angelika slammed back into his body, head flinging to land on his shoulder, mouth open around a cry of completion and greedy pussy clamping around his hand as she writhed and pulsed with release.
In the same instant, her release tipped him over and he exploded, jets of come pumping from his body.
Seed that should be inside her. Dammit.
He hadn’t even realized that could happen without direct stimulation. Reality brought him down from the high as harshly as a punch to the throat, but he tried not to do that to her, too. Not to drag her down with him.
Seemingly unaware of his reaction, Angelika took her time drifting back to reality, replete and languorous against him. And he held her, selfishly, as long as she let him.
The best and most horrible torture.
When she sighed—a sound of contentment that made his own chest ache—he pulled his hand out of her pants, rearranging both their clothing. Nothing he could do about the sticky dampness in his. He’d have to live with it. Then he pulled her around sideways in his lap and into him, her head lolling against his shoulder.
“See?” she murmured in a pleased little voice. “I told you we could get creative.”
Airk squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to stiffen at the happiness she radiated. Because nothing had changed, except that now he knew even fantasies about her were dangerous to indulge.
“Angelika Amon.” A deep voice resonated from the woods about fifty yards to their right.
Airk tensed, a warning growl ripping from his throat as he searched the trees. The distinct earthy scent of a wolf floated to him on the night breeze. They’d approached downwind. Damn the gods. He’d been so wrapped up in the woman in his lap, in chasing the small amount of indulgence he’d ever had in life, and he had failed to protect her. Failed to know danger lurked closely.
Had the damn wolves gotten an eyeful? He knew they’d had to have heard what had just gone on. A private show. Did they beat off to it?
Strange satisfaction ripped through him at that. At least they’d know she was his.
In the next instant, he shoved that possessive instinct in the same hole he’d locked his dragon in. She would never be his.
The woman who was the source of all his problems, meanwhile, oblivious to his internal struggle, pushed out of his arms to her feet. “I’m Angelika Amon.”
Chapter Thirteen
Well, that was…whatever it was.
Angelika tried not to think about how hard she’d come with only Airk’s hands down her pants, or the fact that no way could the wolves not have at least heard. She hadn’t exactly been trying to be quiet. Even now, her body was still buzzing from the aftereffects, and she didn’t even want to think about how they could smell her desire.
Airk, meanwhile, stalked through the woods at her side, not even turning his head once to check on her. She’d like to pretend he was too busy watching all the shifters around them—after the first sentry, they’d picked up another, then another, until six trailed before and behind—but she was pretty sure he was just avoiding her gaze.
Like last time.
As soon as she got him alone, they were going to have a chat, because either he was into her or he wasn’t, but this back and forth needed to stop. After all, she’d been teasing with her comments about getting creative. He was the one who’d trailed those provocative fingers over her skin, brushing her breasts with the backs of his knuckles, then inching up her shirt to tease the sensitive skin of her belly before pushing lower. As though compelled.
Best to stop thinking about it, or she might spontaneously orgasm off the memory alone.
The castle chose that moment to rise up out of the dark, and Angelika paused, mouth open. Dragons hid inside their impressive mountains, but nothing from the outside gave a person warning.
This…this was different.
Built into the side of the mountain, the structure blended with the crags and spires and valleys of the rock almost as though the rock itself had built it, pushed it out of its own body. Difficult to tell in the dark, but to her it appeared as though some parts were crumbling while others had been added to recently. Either way, she almost expected the first vampire himself to come flying over the top in the moonlight. Or maybe a rush of bats.
