Her fingers gripped convulsively at his hair, pulling it in a way that might have been painful under other circumstances, but only served to deepen the rage of need that flowed so violently between them. He tasted and caressed her without mercy or moderation, holding her to himself with a single arm so he could feel her opposite breast fitting into his palm. Wind poured into the cavern, as if in attempt to cool down the fire that had burst to life within the lake. Siena’s hair whipped about them both, blending with his own as the long, loose waves flowed into the demanding breeze.
Siena was blinded by the pleasure his touches and tongue sent streaming through her brain. The entire cavern felt as if it were spinning madly around her. Could a touch truly evoke this much sensation? How could anyone bear so much of a thing without going completely insane? If she were not experiencing it firsthand, she would never have believed it. Even so, she wondered if she had not completely lost her mind, if this was not, perhaps, all a wondrous, riveting hallucination.
She felt herself sliding over his skin, the perspiration that sheeted them making it a slinky, damp slide of flesh and moisture. He somehow managed to hold her to himself with the ease of his impressive strength and yet make her feel as if she was being inundated with his touch. His skillful hands and determined mouth were surrounding her so that every moment was a new experience of fiery arousal and irrepressible sounds of pleasure.
Siena’s legs had linked around his waist, and Elijah could feel the ready moisture and urgent heat of her body pressed low to his belly. He caught the heady, precious scent of her as he pulled her up even farther, his mouth trailing kisses and licks of his tongue down her breastbone to her quivering stomach. He was overwhelmed with pounding desires. His head was full of his need and hers. It was almost as though he could hear her begging for a certain touch from him, more pressure from his sucking mouth, the urge to feel him intimately between her grasping thighs.
It was too much to be borne, and Elijah was urgently in need of responding to it all. He swung her full around and surged through the water to put her on her back at the edge of the pool. She gasped at the coldness of the stone, then at the fire in the touch of his hands as he stroked them up the insides of her thighs, over her hips, waist, and breasts, and then just as boldly reversed his path.
Siena felt him grip her hip, sliding her toward him over the slick floor. Her heart beat violently with a combination of arousal and natural fear. She had never known such intimacies as she was experiencing in that moment. Indeed, she had spent a lifetime avoiding anything that would even remotely bring her thoughts to such a point, never mind her body. She had never expected to know this. She had never suspected it could be like this. His touch was wicked, purposeful, stroking over her flat stomach, her hips, through the soft, golden curls that had never, ever known the touch of a man.
He bent over her, a hand pressed to the stone to bear his weight slightly as his divine mouth drifted over her belly, licking a soft trail that echoed the one he’d left with his hand. Siena felt the silky invasion of skilled fingers, stroking, parting wet, feminine flesh that barely understood why it craved such a touch so very much. She heard him exhale harshly against her skin as he sought gently for…what, she could not guess in that numbing moment. Strangely, she imagined she knew his thoughts in that instant. He was astounded by her heat, wild about how easily his touch slid over her pliant, welcoming flesh. Siena released a throaty cry as his contact evoked yet another sensation unlike anything she had ever known before. It was strange and strong, deep and light, all these sensations at once. But above all else, it was pure pleasure.
For that single, astounding moment of nothing but completely overwhelming awareness, Siena understood that she wanted this powerful man with every fiber of her being. She wanted to feel the rock-hard press of his muscled body over hers, wanted to sculpt with her hands the stony sinew he had built on centuries of battlefields. Every instinct in her screamed for her to grasp for his hips, to guide him up to where she burned so badly for him. Her thighs ached to cradle him; her empty body ached for it even more. Though her body was far ahead of her, her mind at last comprehended what was happening. She was moments away from a mating that promised to be beyond anything she had ever imagined, and she knew she had never wanted anything more in all of her life.
That was the very same realization that, only a moment later, made her cry out with a sound of pure, unadulterated fear. Panic suddenly overwhelmed her, breaking through the haze she had been entangled in since Elijah had first seized her. The terror was virginal and primal, triggering every defensive instinct within her. Before Siena could comprehend it for herself, she was suddenly shape-shifting into the catamount. She screamed out with her misery and her pain, starting out with the sound of a tormented woman, ending with the wail of a frightened cougar.
The warrior Demon suddenly found himself touching smooth fur and leaning into the center of wicked, flailing claws. Elijah leapt away from the sudden feel of feline sinew, his shock erupting in a vocalized announcement just as loud as hers as he suddenly realized what had happened. He fell back into the frigid water as he lost his balance, but reemerged quickly, shaking water back from his hair with a single, sharp motion of his head and hands.
The gold cat scrabbled to gain its feet, claws skittering madly over the smooth stone surface as it bolted into a dark corner of the cavern, leaving white scrape marks in her wake. Elijah could see her cowering, hunched over, clearly terrified out of her senses. The magnificent creature shook with such violence of fear that he could not even distinguish the blur of her whiskers.
He braced his hands on the stone floor, bowing his head as he drew in deep breaths to try and cleanse himself of the sexual high he had been running on so blindly, a high that even his rude dunking into frigid water had not swayed. He was trying to force himself to make sense of her and of himself. After a painful moment in the chill water, he hauled himself out of the shallow pool, gaining his feet slowly as he kept his eyes on the great feline whose fur was spiked out in all directions from ruff to tail tip. He could see now that her whiskers were full forward, ears laid back as flat as she could get them, her enormous eyes wide and alert, oval pupils expanded in the darkness of her corner.
Elijah ran a thoughtful hand over his slicked-back hair, going over everything he knew about her and her kind as well as what it was he thought must have frightened her. He wasn’t at all sure about the latter, guessing only that she had come to her senses where he had not. But the former told him she was likely to be more animal than woman at this moment, and he had best choose the right course of action, or there would be quite a brutal hell to pay for it.
There was nothing more deadly than a cornered cat, and he would be the first to admit that he did not have it in him to survive an attack in his present state. If the beast even so much as pinned him in a fit of rage, it would go right for the gaping wound in his chest, happily finishing the job of ripping his heart out.
Elijah slowly dropped to one knee, everything forgotten except the desire to rectify the situation of the moment. He began by looking down at her paws and not directly into her large eyes. The crouch was giving her an open invitation to attack him, but he hoped his next actions would belay that recourse.
The warrior blinked very slowly and lowered his head in a motion of broadcast submission. He realized in that painful instant that his pride meant very little in the face of seeing a creature so brave suddenly scared out of its courage, its grace, and its beautiful spirit. He would not have seen her thus for all the victories in the world, and he felt it keenly. It was an empathy he had not realized himself capable of until that very instant.
Elijah was not looking directly at her, so he had to use his other senses to their utmost in order to understand her reactions. He could scent her high level of fear, feel on his skin the wary, adrenalized prickles of it. He could hear her move ever so slightly and it made his heart skip a beat in anticipation. Her claws scraped over stone a
s she settled low onto her belly, the first movement in the dance that would follow.
The catamount spent a minute in the position, pretending to be relaxed when instead she was quite alert. The next step in the ritual was when she rose onto all fours and walked slowly away. The more she pretended he was unimportant, the bolder she became. It was a dangerous dance, for all the posturing involved. The most deadly moment would be when she was in striking distance. She would make the choice to bat his head from his shoulders with the swipe of one powerful paw or choose a different form of aggression to put him in his place. By the time she got that close to him, Elijah was beaded with perspiration and fighting a serious bout of fatigue. The ritual had taken a great deal out of a man too soon from his sickbed. But he still did not budge, wanting with every fiber of his being to make up for whatever part of this was caused by his unthinking behavior.
The mountain lioness was so close now he could feel the warmth of her breath and see the gleam of her collar out of the corner of one eye. She extended one paw in a long, tentative reach. Her claws were sheathed, which was an awfully calming piece of information. Still, he could not move. She had not judged him completely.
She sprang so suddenly that Elijah tensed involuntarily. It took every ounce of control he had not to protect himself, instead rolling with her as her powerful jaws clamped onto his neck. His chest heaved with his heightened breath, but he let her continue. All she needed to do was tighten her grip a fraction of an inch and she would puncture his carotid artery or break his neck.
But the hold was meant only to send a message. This was her territory and she was in charge. He would never frighten her again, the grip communicated to him, and if he did, the grasp she had on his neck would not be so harmless next time.
Siena let go after a very long minute, settling back on her haunches as the pupils of her eyes began to round out. The huge cat shook her head and began to change into the woman once more. Elijah sat up slowly once she had reformed completely. Siena remained sitting crouched before him on all fours, eyeing him cautiously. Her hair was wound around her protectively, concealing her bare body in a defensive gesture. It disturbed him because he knew Lycanthropes were rarely shy of parading around in a nude state. The idea that he had terrified her into second-guessing the habit did not sit easily on his stomach. He did not blame her at all, though.
Siena looked at the Demon with wide, cautious eyes, trying to make sense of everything she was feeling. He finally met her gaze, but remained as silent as the grave. His eyes were a swirl of numerous shades of green, the chaos of color reflective of how she was feeling.
How had she let this happen? Why had it happened? Demons and Lycanthropes were as different as cats and dogs. At least, that was the common view in both their societies. If that was true, then how had this been able to occur? They should not have been chemically compatible, never mind the fact that mentally they were in some ways still at war with one another. There was no denying, however, that they had been more than compatible, chemically and otherwise. Her body still, after all this passed time, burned with the memory of his touch and the depth of his passion. What was more, it boiled with her reciprocation of it, of the very clear message that it was perturbed with its unsatisfied yearnings for him. She felt hollow and unfulfilled, felt as though he had vacated her very soul when he had been forced to pull away in defense of himself.
The Queen rose to her feet, turning her back on him and padding quickly into the next room. She felt better once she had dropped another of the loose baby-doll dresses over her head, this one as green as his eyes had been when he had kissed her. She brushed the backs of her fingers over her mouth, feeling the bruises and memory-provoking soreness of her lips. She felt him approaching, her thoughts swirling with a confusion of what she was feeling and what she imagined he was feeling. She was grateful when he did not stop to talk to her, instead retreating into the bedroom. When he was gone, she sank down into the nearest seat and exhaled silently.
Siena could not believe what she had almost done. If things had gone much further, her entire life would have changed dramatically, provided there was such a thing as a life after a mistake of such incomprehensible proportions. She was the sole ruler of her people, no mate, no children, and had never wished for either. The ruling class of her people had one distinctive trait, and that was the fact that when they mated, it would be for life. There were several species that carried this trait, such as wolves and swans, just as there were the polygamous animals, like horses and deer, who changed partners not only year to year, but sometimes moment to moment.
But no matter what the form the ruling monarch took, he or she was driven to mate once and for always. One mate for all time. It was historically believed that this was in order to assure the fidelity and purity of the royal line. The royal’s mate would also succumb to this loyalty to monogamy. How this was accomplished, no one knew for certain. They suspected it was a genetic virus of some kind, rather like the one that caused a Demon to trigger the birth of power in a specific Druid. Perhaps one day they would know for certain.
This was why Siena had chosen to remain absolutely celibate, letting no male anywhere near her in a way that would tempt her. She did not want a mate, and she absolutely refused to share her reign with a man who would become her equal in her monarchy just because she had taken him to her bed. In fact, she actively despised the notion of mating with a male who, in the event of her death, could potentially gain her throne.
If Elijah had taken her body in that one wild moment, he could very well have written out both their executions. Fourteen years of peace was not enough of a base on which to lay making a Lycanthrope King out of a Demon. As adored and lauded as she was, the chances of rebellion and overthrow of her reign would have been an unfathomable and inexcusable risk.
The next thing of importance after that would be the very concept of being forced to spend the rest of her life as part of a pair. Part of a pair that included a male who didn’t trust a single thing about her. Bad enough to be forced to bear the lifelong company of any male, but this Demon warrior? He had sent so many of her people to their deaths during her father’s war, and, even though she had learned to be wiser than her male parent, the families of those the warrior had slain would have disemboweled her as a traitor to her kind, seeing to it her carcass was dragged from here to the original Russian province they had hailed from for daring such an abomination.
How had she ended up in his arms? Why had he even pursued her? True, they had never personally battled each other, but they were the harshest representatives of their people, who had done so for centuries. The idea of kissing, of wanting such a man in any way?
What in the nine hells had gotten into her? Into him?
And why couldn’t she erase the feel of him from not only the front of her mind, but the entirety of her body, both inside and out? Her skin was humming even now. Also, she could feel something else, a depth in her body and in her thoughts she had never known existed. She now could name this hollow, clawing sensation for the hunger of desire that it was. Had she not been paying attention to her own thoughts? It was utter insanity to go on feeling such a thing for even one second more! She should be shamed that she had allowed him such intimacies with her body, not continue to crave them.
The Queen rose to her feet, no longer able to sit still. She absently rubbed a palm over her flat stomach as she began to pace the width of the room. She felt as if he had somehow embedded his presence into her, staining her permanently. They had not mated, so why then did she feel as if his very essence was already swimming inside her womb? She was confused, taunted by his scent on her body, struggling with both the human and feline memories of the past days in his presence.
In spite of herself, she was impressed by the way he had handled the cat in its frightened state. She was aware of it now, now that she had changed back, but in those minutes she had been nothing but the puma, more likely to snap his neck in two than anything else.
By all rights, she should have been so threatened by him as to gut him on the spot. But instead, the cat had run away. Hidden. Just as the lions in the wilds would do when threatened by anything they deemed more powerful than themselves.
But then to approach him once more and use such a low-aggression mode of punishment for frightening her into the change?
Siena loped up the stairs as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her, hurrying as far from him as she could without exiting the cave. However, it was no better for her in that place near the pool. The room reeked of pheromones and the scent of sexual arousal. Hers and his. It seemed no matter where she turned, she could not escape him. And the sunlight streaming through the trees outside prevented her from bolting into the comfort of the forest.
The Queen bit back a sob, twisting her hands together violently and biting down hard on her bottom lip. She would not do this weak, feminine thing called tears. She had never once cried in all of her life and she would be thrice damned before she would do so over a Demon male. Still, she could not escape the feelings of confinement that rushed through her, the rampant emotions, the confusion of thoughts that seemed permanently tainted with impressions of his.