The King

She was wrong.

Except then he stopped.

With a curse, he seemed to have to force himself to retract—and even then, he didn’t go far from her neck. With his fangs out of her skin, his head hung there for the longest time. Until he started licking at the puncture wounds to close them.

This can’t be over, she thought frantically. This can’t be—

“I’m sorry,” he said in a guttural voice.

“Please … please,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t stop…”

This brought his head up and around. And, dearest Virgin Scribe, he was magnificent. Thick lips parted, black eyes glossy, a high blush upon his cheeks, he was both satiated and hungry still, the male animal only partially fed.

And she was well aware what part of his meal was missing.

Yet when she tried to reach for him, her hands pushed against an iron hold.

“Take me,” she begged. “Down below … I need you there—”

“Jesus Christ,” he spat as he leaped off her, all but throwing himself from the bed.

Up on his feet, he seemed to lose coordination, but then he stalked off to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

Cold rushed in all over her. And not just because his body no longer blanketed her own. It was shame. Embarrassment.

But how could she have gotten that wrong?

Sitting up required a couple of tries. And when she was finally off the pillows, she pushed at the mess of her hair and tugged the lapels of her robing back into place. Twisting around, she looked at where she had lain. Her blood was a bright red stain on the white sheets.

Her wrist was still bleeding from where she had scored it.

Taking care of that with her own tongue, she shifted her legs off the bed. They felt too weak to hold her weight, but she had no choice, save to call them into service.

Going over to the closed bathroom door, she placed her hand upon the panels. On the far side, she could hear him breathing hard.

As she opened her mouth, intending to apologize for her temerity and then take her leave—she took a deep inhale—

The scent of his sexual arousal was strong as ever, and she frowned. He wanted her, still. So why had he …

At least her mortification could ease a little. “Trez?”

“I’m sorry.”

Testing the knob, she found things unlocked—but as she began to open the door, he barked, “No! Don’t—”

As the scent of that arousal grew even stronger in her nose, she peered inside. He was across the way, braced against the sinks, his head hanging low. And whatever torment he was going through, his body was clear with where it stood.

His erection was … just as incredible as the rest of him.

“Shut the goddamn door!” he hollered.

Except she wasn’t going to listen to that. Not after her visit to the cemetery up above. Not after having been reminded as recently as this morning exactly what was waiting for her: Her body was just beginning its death process, but she knew well enough that once the joints began to grind, time was of the essence.

This could be her one and only opportunity to be with a male—and she wanted this. In fact, she would have wanted him even if her future weren’t as yet breathing down her neck.

And his body desired hers. Clearly.

For all those reasons, she pushed the door completely open.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered. Then more loudly, “Selena, please.”

“I want … this.”

His head shook. “You don’t.”

“I want … you.”

“You can’t—for God’s sake, Selena, I hurt you.”

“You did not.”

He looked over the carved muscles of his upper arm. His eyes were glowing green. “Don’t push me right now. You’re not going to like what happens.”

“Are you going to make me beg?”

His huge body swayed, as if she’d sucked his strength instead of given him more. “Don’t do this to either of us, Selena. Not tonight.”

She frowned. “Tonight?”

He grabbed for a towel and wrapped it around his hips. “Just go. I’m so … grateful you gave me what I need. But I can’t do this right now.”

Giving her his back, he stood there, staring at a blank wall.

Selena pulled her lapels closer. “What ails—”

“For the love of f**king God, I’m already f**king my parents over, okay? I do not want to add you to the list.”

“Whatever do you speak of?”

When he didn’t reply, she went over to him, her cloth-soled shoes making no sound. When she touched his shoulder, he jumped.

“Trez—”

He wheeled around and backed up at the same time, slamming into the wall. “Please—”

“Speak unto me.”

His frantic eyes bounced around her face, her shoulders, her body. “I don’t want to talk right now. I want…”

“What?” she whispered.

“You know what … goddamn me to hell … I want you. So you really f**king have to leave.”

They stared at each other for the longest time. And then she decided to take control.

Reaching for the tie at her waist, Selena’s hands shook as she pulled apart the bow and let the strip fall to the floor. Uncurling, the robing split asunder, exposing the center of her body, her aching br**sts catching the two halves and holding them.

But her sex was on display. And his eyes went down … and stayed there.

Trez’s lips parted, his fangs descending anew; and now she was the one weaving on her feet as her core responded even further, blooming between her legs, sending out a call.

Which he answered by falling to his knees.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t what he did next.

Reaching up, he slipped his hands under the robe’s halves and onto her waist. Warmth was her first impression—and that was followed by an immediate electric sensation, a sizzle that was transmitted from him to her through his broad palms.

He was so tall that his head came up to just below her br**sts, and all she could think of doing was running her hands over his soft, tightly curled hair—

She lost that initiative as his mouth brushed against her sternum. And then her upper belly. And then her navel.

He was curling himself backward onto his heels as he went down, and she … was he going to—

Selena moaned and nearly fell over as he brushed the top of her bare sex with his lips; His grip on her waist was the only thing that kept her upright.

The nuzzling was soft and gentle, his face and nose rubbing on her pelvis, his lips kissing the outside of her cleft.

And she wanted more.

Just as she was trying to form words, his tongue extended in for a probing lick, the invasion so languorous, she wasn’t spooked at how foreign it was. And then it came back, reentering, taking another taste of her.

He was purring now.

Falling forward, she put her hands on his shoulders and widened her stance—even as she became impatient with the effort it took to stay standing: She wanted all her concentration to be on him and what he was doing to her. Worrying about balance and coordination—

He solved that problem by lifting her off her feet and laying her down on the fur rug in front of the claw-foot tub.

Giving herself up to wherever this would go, she reached her arms over her head and arched her back, her br**sts peaking and casting aside the robe halves, her body revealed to him.

“Fucking hell,” he gritted as his eyes traveled from the crown of her head to her tight ni**les … past the flat plane of her belly, to her sex and her legs.

His dark hand was a contrast to the paleness of her skin as he drew a lazy stroke from her collarbone to one of her br**sts. Capturing the weight in his palm, she groaned and undulated, her knees bending up … and falling open.

His towel dropped away from his body, exposing his hairless beauty and his formidable sex.

“Take me,” she ordered him. “Teach me.”

THIRTY

His brother’s tears had smelled like summer rain on still-warm asphalt.

As Wrath stalked his way back from the training center, every word that he and Tohr had shared, each syllable, and all the silences in between resonated like aches after a fight: Down to his bones, down to his marrow, he felt the remnants of the conversation they’d had by the pool.

One comment kept coming back to him.

They are as empty without a young as we are empty without them.

It was probably the only thing that really punched past all the fear: For him, waking up without Beth had been the worst kind of revelation—and if that was the way she felt without a baby, then it was going to be a cold-bed overtime for the both of them.

Look at him. He was in a life he hated, and he was one hallucination short of psychotic. He didn’t want that for her—and he knew all too well how being with the one you loved wasn’t enough if you were honestly, fundamentally unhappy.

The problem? The fact that he saw the light about where she was coming from didn’t change all the shit he was worried about. It just made him feel their incompatibility all the more viscerally.

George sneezed.

Wrath switched hands on the halter, leaned down, and patted the dog’s flank. “This tunnel always gets to your nose.”

God, what the f**k was he going to do? Assuming she was going into her needing that was … but maybe he was wrong and that would save them. Although that was for how long? Sooner or later she was going to become fertile.

When George signaled it was time to stop and go up the shallow stairs, Wrath punched in the code, opened the way, and a moment later, they were in the foyer and rounding the base of the grand staircase. First Meal had already been served, the Brotherhood in there talking, the voices deep and loud. Pausing, he listened to the group and thought of that night Beth had transitioned. She’d come up from the basement at Darius’s, and he’d blown his brothers’ minds by taking her into his arms in front of them.

Made sense. Back then, they’d never seen him like that around a female.

And when he’d returned from the kitchen with the bacon and chocolate she’d needed to satisfy her post-transition cravings, the Brotherhood had been down on one knee around her, their heads bowed, their daggers nailed into the hardwood floor.

They had been acknowledging her as their future queen. Even if she hadn’t known it at the time.

“My lord?”

Wrath looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Hey, what’s doing there, counselor.”

As Saxton walked over, his scent was all about the not-good. “I must speak with you.”

Behind his wraparounds, Wrath closed his eyes. “I’m sure you do,” he muttered. “But I have to go to my Beth.”

“It’s urgent. I’ve just come from—”

“Look, no offense, but I’ve backseated my shellan for the last … shit, I don’t know how long. Tonight, she’s coming first. When I’m done, if there’s time, I’ll hitch up.” He angled his head downward. “George. Take me to Beth.”

“My lord—”

“As soon as I can, my man. But not a second sooner.”

With quick efficiency, he and his dog jogged up the grand staircase and headed for the door that led up to the third floor—

From out of nowhere, a lurching sensation made him stumble on his feet until he had to throw a hand out and catch the wall.

The weirdness passed as soon as it hit him, though, his balance righting itself, his shitkickers once again solidly on the floor.

He turned his head left and right, like he had when he’d still had some vision to go by. There was nothing coming at him, however. No one pushing him from behind. No mad gusts of wind blowing in from the sitting room at the other end of the hall. No toys to trip over on the floor.

Weird.

And whatever. He just wanted to get to his Beth—and he sensed that she was upstairs, in their private quarters.

Waiting for him.

As he started up the final staircase, he thought of his parents. From everything he had been told, they had wanted him badly. No discord on that issue. He had been prayed for and worked for and given over to them by fate, or destiny, or luck.

He wished he and his Beth were on the same page like that. He truly did.

As Anha heard her name from a great distance, she felt as though she were drowning.

Sucked down deep into unconsciousness, she knew herself to be summoned, and she wanted to respond to the call. It was her mate, her beloved, her hellren who was speaking unto her. And yet she could not reach him, her will tethered by some great weight that refused to let her go free.

No, not a weight. Nay, it was something introduced unto her body, something foreign to her nature.

Mayhap the young, she wondered with horror.

But ’twas not supposed to be as such. The bairn she had conceived within her womb was supposed to be a blessing. A stroke of luck, a gift from the Scribe Virgin to ensure the next King.

And yet it had been after her needing that she had taken to feeling the illness. She had hidden the symptoms and the worry as well as she could, shielding her beloved from the concern that had bloomed within her. She had lost that fight, however, had fallen to the floor at his side at the festival …

The last thing she had heard clearly was him calling her name.

Swallowing, she tasted the familiar thick wine of his blood, but the rushing power that came with imbibing from his vein did not follow.

The sickness was claiming her, piece by piece, robbing her of faculty and function alike.

She was going to die from whate’er this was.

Good-bye—she wanted to say good-bye to Wrath. If she could not reverse this, at least she could bid him sweet love as she went unto the Fade.