“That is exactly my fear: fear of what will come next.”
“You cannot let it paralyze you. That is no way to live a life.”
He took a deep breath and drew her tighter to himself, until their breaths mingled and her mouth was just brushing his.
“Then again, all is not perfect for us,” he said softly. “My brothers and I have to get back to my brother Dethan.”
“There are other portals. There is one that empties onto a beach only half a league away from Kriza.”
“Ah. Well, this is fortunate. I have a schedule to keep and my brothers deserve time with their wives over the winter. Besides, Dethan must be worried and he should be told of Maxum as soon as is possible. He will be beside himself with joy.”
“Never mind being beside himself with it,” she said with an impish wrinkling of her nose.
“Hush,” he scolded her with a click of his tongue before he kissed her deeply and put his tongue to better use. Their tongues tangled and rubbed sensuously against each other, the warm honey of her mouth something he devoured with great relish and passion. He rolled her beneath him and settled himself between her warm thighs as she raised them to bracket his lean hips. He broke from the kisses for a moment to look down into her face, staring hard into her eyes, almost as if he were searching for something. He was. An answer.
“What have I ever done in my cursed existence to deserve something as beautiful and charming as you?”
“Whatever it was, I am glad you did it,” she whispered.
“As am I.” He grew more serious. “Do not hurt me, Jileana. If you ever grow tired of me or feel you need to leave me for whatever reason, promise me you will tell me rather than let me live in ignorance.”
“That will not happen.”
“Promise me,” he insisted, giving her a little shake in his desperation.
She reached up and took his face in her hands, making certain he was meeting her eyes. “I make you this promise. I will always tell you exactly how much I love you. Whether it is a little or a lot. But know this: As long as there is a little love for you in my heart, I will never do anything to hurt you. And since I will always love you, that makes this a forever promise. I am yours and you are mine. The only one who can ever break that bond will be you,” she vowed.
He fretted a little more. “But if you—”
“I promise. I will not hurt you,” she said softly.
This finally put his mind to rest, and with a smile, he kissed her again. He wanted to trust her, knew that she had never done a single untrustworthy thing in all the time he had known her, and so in the end, it was easy to trust her. The love he felt for her melted away all of his past pain, and what was left in its place was only love and passion.
He kissed her again and then again and again. He filled himself with the flavor of her, with the temperateness of her mouth. He devoured her eagerly and was just as eagerly devoured by her. He grew incredibly hard in the lee of her hips, his sex pressed firm and hot against hers. They were naked already; to be so felt more natural to him now than not. That would have to change of course once they were back in the Overworld, but here he would enjoy the freedom and the benefits that went with it.
He broke from her mouth and began to travel down the length of her torso, trailing kisses down her breastbone and into the soft spaces between her lower ribs. He traveled down over her belly and then drifted his lips over the soft mound that protected her sex. With a long lick, he parted the folds beyond and took the warm, syrupy taste of her onto his tongue. Like syrup, she was sweet and decadent, and he just couldn’t get enough of her. His tongue danced across her again and again, and he listened to the increasing crescendo of her moans with the greatest of pleasure. Her fingers burrowed into his hair, grasping and clutching at him as her spine undulated like a sinuous snake. She cried out sharply and he knew to increase the intensity of his strokes. Even as he did this, he thrust two fingers deep inside her and waited for her to explode. She did so instantly, her inner walls clamping down on his fingers, her whole body pulsating with spending desire. Unable to bear being outside her body a minute longer, with his love for her swelling in his heart, he rose up and thrust himself deeply into her. He made love to her almost frantically until she came again, this time screaming out his name, the delight of it echoing into the room long after he had reached orgasm himself.
Panting for breath, he settled his weight onto her, shivering at the little pulses that still shimmered through her and around where they were still connected. He kissed her again and again, fearing he would never get enough of her, fearing the power of his own emotions.
But no. He would not be afraid. Fear wasted time and twisted minds. He had faced his fears before and was a better warrior for it. He would face these and be a better man for it. In the end, he knew there was little cause for fear. Jileana was so wholly different from Casiria. From her coloring to her selflessness to the capacity of her heart. So different. She was what he had deserved in the first place; she was worthy of the love he felt.
“I will love you as long and as hard as I can. This will be a very long time, since neither of us will age.”
“I am aware of this,” she said with a laugh. “And I am all the happier for it.”
He smiled. “Good. Now let’s get some sleep. It has been quite some time since I have fallen asleep before juquil’s hour. I think I should like the indulgence.”
“I do not blame you. But…do you plan to sleep while still inside me?”
He laughed and then reluctantly separated their bodies so they could lie side by side, snuggled up close together. “Perhaps another time,” he whispered into her ear.
She smiled. “Perhaps.”
—
At dusk, long before he had the chance to heal from his initial damage, the ground beneath the ocean shook and trembled and then parted to swallow Maxum whole. The earth and stone crushed him; the soil suffocated him.
But he soothed himself with the knowledge that come juquil’s hour he would be spit back out into the open world, rescued by his brother’s selflessness.
Provided a god did not come and smite him once again for his own entertainment. Maxum was angry. Blindingly angry. His temper had been simmering for a long time, growing more caustic with every year he had been suffocated and crushed beneath the rocks and stone and dirt, Sabo’s forgotten plaything.
He would have his revenge against the god one day. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, but one day the god of pain and suffering would know pain and suffering for himself. Maxum would not rest until he had.
No…he would not rest at all.
For Las and Christopher
No mother has loved her son more.
No son has loved his mother so well.
BY JACQUELYN FRANK
The Immortal Brothers
Cursed by Fire
Cursed by Ice
Bound by Sin
The World of Nightwalkers
Forbidden
Forever
Forsaken
Forged
Nightwalker (eBook)
Three Worlds
Seduce Me in Dreams
Seduce Me in Flames
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JACQUELYN FRANK is the New York Times bestselling author of the Immortal Brothers series (Cursed by Fire, Cursed by Ice, Bound by Sin, and Bound in Darkness), the World of Nightwalkers series (Forbidden, Forever, Forsaken, and Forged), the Three Worlds series (Seduce Me in Dreams and Seduce Me in Flames), the Nightwalkers series (Adam, Jacob, Gideon, Elijah, Damien, and Noah), the Shadowdwellers novels (Ecstasy, Rapture, and Pleasure), and the Gatherers novels (Hunting Julian and Stealing Katherine). She lives in North Carolina and has been writing romantic fiction ever since she picked up her first teen romance at age thirteen.
jacquelynfrank.com
@JacquelynFrank
Read on for an exciting sneak peek of the next book in
The IMMORTAL BROTHERS series
>
BOUND IN DARKNESS
BY JACQUELYN FRANK
Coming soon from Ballantine
PROLOGUE
Maxum clawed himself up out of the soil, spitting dirt, coughing it from his lungs with a roar of fury and frustration. He would think he would be used to it by now, used to the pain that came from the sheer weight of the rock and soil that pressed against him from all sides. Suffocated him from all directions. Filled every orifice, every crack, every crevice of his body as it fought to get inside of him—crushing him didn’t seem to be enough to satisfy it.
He finally pulled himself fully free of the dirt and laid on the ground, panting and coughing. He spit. Spit again. It was a lost cause. Dirt caught between his teeth, stuck to his tongue.
And so it would be. It would always be. He was cursed. Cursed to be swallowed by soil and stone every night from dusk to juquil’s hour.
He supposed he should be grateful. Until several full turnings ago he had been trapped permanently in the ground, held deep in the soil of the bottom of the ocean, with no reprieve. He had since been rescued from his permanent fate and been given this one instead, thanks to his brother Jaykun, who had won the grace of a god, just as easily as the four brothers, Dethan, Jaykun, Garreth, and Maxum, had won the fury of the gods with a single act of hubris over two centuries ago.
He and his brothers had climbed the highest mountain in the world that day, finding there a fountain of immortality blessed and protected by the gods—and they had dared to drink from its waters without permission from the gods. The backlash for their gall had been instantaneous and severe. Each brother had been sent to suffer, each in his own way, each at the hands of a different god, as payment for that hubris. Dethan had been cast into the eight hells by Weysa, the goddess of conflict and war. Garreth had been chained to that very same mountain, within sight of the fountain that had been the cause of his curse, doomed to freeze time and again thanks to the bitter ironic nature of the goddess Hella. Then the god Grimu had taken Jaykun and chained him to a star, dooming him to burn endlessly again and again. None of the brothers had been given quarter, none a reprieve…until Weysa had fetched Dethan out of hell and set him on a path that had resulted in all three of his brothers being released from their curses. But while his brothers were now completely free of their curses, Maxum enjoyed no such reprieve. In order to be freed from his curse the god who had given it to him must lift it. But the god in question was Sabo, the god of pain and suffering, who thrived on the agony of others. It was safe to say he would never have cause to free Maxum from his curse.
And so he had lived through four winters now with his “reprieve” hours, each day living free of the curse until dusk settled over him and the ground opened to swallow him whole all over again. He didn’t know which was worse. Having been trapped with no reprieve from the crushing soil or to be given a taste of freedom and release only to have it snatched away each night by a devouring maw of dark, suffocating loam.
After a few minutes Maxum righted himself, feeling the pain of every bone that had been broken by the pressure of all that rock and soil pressing in on him. Cracked ribs, snapped thighbones, crushed arms. The agony of it was brutal.
But he was immortal and so he would heal from all of those injuries until he was as good as new…or as close to it as he could be. His head hurt, his ears ringing from what was no doubt a cracked skull. He couldn’t get up and walk yet, so he dragged himself across the ground toward his campsite not too far away. Once there he rolled onto his bedroll and lay panting for breath, each one of those breaths torture thanks to his damaged ribs.
It had to stop. One way or another, he would put an end to this. The easiest solution required a god-made weapon removing Maxum’s head from his shoulders. But then he would very likely be sent to the eight hells upon his death and that would only mean trading one torment for another—one far more permanent.
The other solution was much more impossible on the surface of it. Convince Sabo to free him from his curse. The idea of the god doing that was laughable. His brothers might have been lucky enough to get their curses lifted by their various gods, but there was no hope for it in Maxum’s case. They all knew it. It was apparent in every pitying look his brothers had cast him. That was one of the reasons why he had left their company. That and the fact that his brothers had proven to be enviably happy and in love with their wives and it had just about made him sick to watch them.
But he didn’t begrudge them their happiness or their curse-free existences. He was glad they were free. Glad they had found happiness. He was an uncle several times over now as his brothers wallowed in their joy and made babies with their wives. The most recent had been Jaykun and Jileana’s son, newborn when last he had seen them. He would be two now and no doubt getting into all manner of troubles.
Part of him had wanted to stay, to enjoy what time with his family he could muster. But just as adamant was his need to do something about his situation. The plan had come to him shortly after Jaykun’s son had been born. Sabo would never willingly release him from this curse, so that left him only one option.
Maxum had to kill the god.
He didn’t even know if such a thing was possible, but he saw no alternative. Sabo’s death was the only way he could end his own suffering. He had heard tales…tales of magical items that could be very powerful, possibly powerful enough to kill a god.
So he had left his brothers to go on a quest. Several quests really. He wasn’t going to face a god with nothing but a single talisman that may or may not do the trick. He was going to hedge his bets and gather as many such talismans as he could. He was going to face down Sabo and he was going to do it fully prepared with anything and everything he could think of. Including, perhaps, the help of some of the gods.
For the gods were at war. There were two factions, each with six gods. Well, seven to five if you take into consideration that Kitari, the queen of the gods, was being held captive by Xaxis’s faction, Xaxis being the god of the eight hells. His faction also included Grimu the god of the eight heavens; Diathus the goddess of the lands and oceans; Jikaro the god of anger and deception; and, lo and behold, Sabo, the god of pain and suffering.
The faction that warred against Xaxis’s faction was Weysa’s, the goddess of conflict. On her side was Hella, the goddess of fate and fortune, her husband, Mordu, the god of hope, love, and dreams. Meru, the goddess of hearth, home, and harvest, Famun, the god of peace and tranquility, and Lothas, the god of day and night.
With the help of Weysa’s faction and his gathered talismans he had high hopes that it would indeed be possible to kill a god.
Now all he had to do was gather his talismans.
And win over an entire faction of gods.
Impossible?
Well, that remained to be seen.
CHAPTER ONE
Maxum slammed the hand of the large, stinking man who had challenged him down on the table. The rowdy gathering of men cheered and jeered, some thumping Maxum hard on the back in congratulations for winning the arm wrestle. Someone slapped a mug of ale into his winning hand and the reveling men began to sing a victory song in his honor.
Maxum moved away from the boisterous group and found a reasonably quiet corner of the inn, preparing to slowly enjoy the ale in his hand. He wasn’t as drunk as the other men in the room, but he was going to catch up with them. They had been celebrating since sunset but Maxum had only joined them an hour ago—two hours past juquil’s hour when he had finally clawed his way out of the ground. Once he had healed enough to walk he had come to the inn to join his men.
They were a motley crew; five in all including himself. Each with their own special talents and each necessary for him to obtain his next talisman.
He reached into the pocket of his pants and fondled the amulet they had retrieved just that afternoon—along with enough treasure to keep the men satisfied for quite some time.
This talisman was said to have great power; it made the wearer
invulnerable to attack. He had not tested that yet so he didn’t know if it was the truth. But a talisman like that would come in quite handy in a war with a god. For, as much as he was immortal, he was not invulnerable. He could be hurt and hurt badly. And there was that little bit about a god-made weapon taking off his head and ending it all right then and there. If there was one thing he could count on, it was that a god would have a god-made weapon in his hands.
He didn’t take the amulet out, he didn’t put it on. He would test it tomorrow, and he didn’t want to flash it in front of the other patrons in the bar. He didn’t want to invite a thief to take it from him. To try anyway. A thief was more likely to lose his hand than succeed.
Maxum took a swig of his drink and looked around the room. There were two women there. One was the barmaid and she was being kept quite occupied by the graspy hands of his men. There was Kyno, the big lumbering orc halfbreed with his shining bald head and large meaty hands that swung a spiked club like nobody’s business. There was Dru, a slightly shy, slim figured, fiery-haired spirit mage who barely had twenty-five full turnings under his belt. There was Kilon, a slightly rotund archer whose arrows always hit their mark. And last but not least there was Doisy, a cleric, far more handsome than a religious man should be and with about just as much charm as could be fit into one person. He did not grab for the barmaid, instead preferring to tempt her with smiles and charm and wait for her to come to him. Smiles that were gaining him the fastest refills when it came to the ale in his cup.
What Maxum found interesting, however, was that his men weren’t paying any attention to the other woman in the room at all. True, she was clearly a patron and should go about unaccosted, but though she was wearing men’s leggings and a shirt and vest to hide her womanly curves, Maxum could see them all the same. She was a shapely thing, her close-fitting breeches leaving little mystery to the slender shape of her thighs and the cozy roundness of her ass. The vest hid her breasts for the most part so he couldn’t get a good feel for their size, but he suspected they were enough to fill a man’s hands.