At once, he was reaching out with his power to again steady the arch, this time breaking the shadows up into long, thin lines of thread that he wove through the rock to “sew” it into place, locking it hard and fast. The arch would now have strings of black rock running through it, forever changed – but it was better than having the monument fall completely.
As he worked, he moved up behind Violet, and when she finally realized he was standing behind her and turned to face him, he moved in.
He slid his arm around her waist, yanked her up against him – and kissed her hard.
Shadows exploded in his mind. That was what it felt like, what it seemed like. It was as if all this time, he’d been filled with a darkness he was so used to, he’d forgotten it was even there – and in an instant, as he claimed her lips with his own and pried her passion from her with ruthless demand – that darkness detonated like a pile of black leaves torn asunder by the wind. At its tattered edges, the world sparkled like the pixie dust he’d made for her.
And it tasted like pixie dust too.
He’d only meant to give her back a touch of her own magic, to give her through that kiss through that tiny sexual act, just enough strength that she would be able to actually listen to him. He just wanted her to see that Lovelace’s rage was taking over her and forcing her to pull more power out of the very ground upon which she stood. That’s what she had been doing; she’d been stealing power from the earth, from the universe.
That’s how powerful Lovelace was, even from the grave, even after all this time.
But what he had originally meant to do flew from his mind just like the darkness, and in its place, something else moved in. At first, there was resistance on her part. In the few tense seconds after he’d pulled her into his embrace, Violet stiffened in his arms, her lips plump and yielding, but her body and mind clearly shocked and confused by his actions.
A few seconds. Maybe one, maybe two.
And then everything changed.
Chapter Twenty
She was burning up. He had been right about the rage of Wolfram’s magic; it had infused her blood stream like a slow licking fire, singing her from the inside out. It made her twitchy, it made her shake, and it made her lose control. She’d attacked a king. There was no going back now. She’d probably be killed for this.
But no, Violet, you’re not thinking straight. Keeran doesn’t want to kill you. He gave you that necklace, remem –
But she didn’t listen, couldn’t listen, to the tiny, miniscule, insignificant voice of reason inside of her. She bullied it back into the corner it kept wanting to crawl out of and let loose with another attack. She was barely aware of what she was saying. It was coming out of her mouth like music notes painted red. The whole world seemed to be painted red, in fact. And it was moving in strange stop-motion scenes, disjointed and crazy.
And underneath it all, like the insidious undercurrent that it was, there was pain. This fury – it hurt. From the way it fire-cracked her limbs and fingers to the way it boiled in her veins, it filled her with a kind of agony. Deep down, she was terrified. She’d lost control, her body was on fire, and she was on the edge. The only place left to go was over it.
The stripped-down core of it was that she was afraid she was going to die.
And that was perhaps the worst pain of all.
But then the Shadow King vanished before her second attack, and her magic wound up slamming into the arch behind him. She heard a footfall and spun to face him. But before she could ready another attack, he was moving again.
The way he moved this time made her think of ghosts, black and wispy and immaterial. He flashed from where he’d been standing a few feet away, and suddenly, in a single frantic heartbeat, he was directly in front of her. Touching her, towering over her.
Shadowing her.
She inhaled a quick gasp of surprise before she was pulled hard into his arms, and he was slanting his mouth over hers in a fierce kiss.
At once, the pain and fury within her went white-washed. It was so hot, it seared – but the wash was also one of cold, one of relief, like a wet rag on a fevered forehead or a stream of cold water on a burn. For the first time in the last hour, there was a split moment in which Violet had the ability to think.
But that moment of clarity was hastily slaughtered by the influx of pleasure brought on by the Shadow King’s relentlessly devouring kiss. She’d never felt anything like it. It was so fast, so hard, so demanding. He pried her teeth apart and tasted of her deeply, and she heard herself moan against him as stars exploded in her vision, and every one of her nerve endings betrayed her.
She welcomed it as she had never welcomed anything.
Like a mad, wonderful dream, she craved it. Like air. Like life. This single thing, this crazy, inexplicable moment, was the only thing that could rescue her from herself.
But at what cost?
Her inner voice again, that tiny mumbling little thing that waited silently in the corners of her mind and recognized danger when she refused to. She felt a warm rush travel through her belly and slide inexorably lower, and the voice said, You’ll be rescued from yourself only to fall victim to HIM.
She didn’t care. Gods help her, she didn’t care! The fury was so horrible, and Keeran Pitch felt so fucking good! He tasted like darkness, new and different like clean rain and promises. That new and different darkness exuded from him, and through his kiss, it entered her as well, freeing her from the terrifying bonds of Lovelace’s hold.
But he’s a king. You attacked him. And he still hasn’t told you anything.
Damn that voice. It joined in with her residual anger and made it stronger. She felt it rising again now, ready to fight back, ready to re-claim her, and she found herself clinging to Keeran’s leather jacket. No! Save me!
As if he understood all too well what was happening – as if he truly did have some magical way of knowing what the ancient warlock’s magic was doing to her – Keeran shoved his hand through her hair, fisted it hard, and deepened the kiss with wanton abandon.
She felt something scrape her lip, and confusion joined in with the warring emotions already wreaking havoc inside her. She tasted blood and knew it was her own. But then her boots left the earth; they were moving through the shadows now. The iron in the ground was finally gone, and the spaces within her body where pain at last vacated were rapidly flooded with mounting need.
Keeran growled low against her lips, a deep unnatural sound that in the back of Violet’s muddled mind, she could have sworn she’d heard somewhere before. It was animalistic and powerful, and it made her breasts ache.
It made a lot of things ache.
The sound passed through her like a shockwave, primal and fundamental, touching every part of her as it went. Her skin broke out in goose bumps, her fingers curled into the leather of his jacket, and her nipples hardened into tiny nubs against the inside of her bra. Her legs, which had been held up by sheer anger alone only moments before, were suddenly weak in the knees, but he held her easily against him.
When her strength gave out entirely, he only lifted her against him and deepened the kiss, as if going in for a kill.
I’m going to die either way.
She was laid upon something soft and cool, and even though her eyes were shut tight, she could feel that darkness stretched long and deep all around them. She could feel it… as if it were fast becoming a part of her.
She welcomed it. She welcomed that darkness, even if it was her death. She threw open her inner doors and stepped aside and invited the darkness into her home.
Chapter Twenty-One
He knew why he’d really done it. He hadn’t even been thinking, just feeling, just needing. And he knew she needed too. When his lips touched hers, he immediately felt her frantic pull against him, her undeniable petition for salvation in the way she at once opened her lips to him and let him in.
She was hot to the touch, burning like a living, breathing vessel of fire. It bewildere
d him that she’d managed to hold on to her own sanity as long as she had. He could feel that Lovelace’s anger had infused nearly every part of her.
Every part but her heart, which beat hard and strong and rapid-fire against his chest as he let himself claim her at last. She moaned against him, and his thoughts were shattered, no longer able to function with any sort of normality. His fangs ached in his gums and his vision shifted into the predatory grays he hadn’t seen in thousands of years.
His eyes were glowing; he could feel them hot in his head. Everything was coming back. Thrums of pleasure were whipping through him, bringing the long dormant animal in him back to life. He felt as if he were humming with electricity, sparks of it sizzling along his skin. The air around them felt charged, ready to make lightning.
She was surrendering to him, like a dream come true, so he surrendered to it all. It had been too long. And this was so very right – she was his queen.
His fangs exploded in his mouth, and one pricked her lip. A half-second later, he tasted her blood across his tongue, and his shades of gray tainted themselves red. A growl escaped his throat, long and low, as he moved them swiftly through the shadows. He wanted her in his bed. The alpha in him wanted her tied down in his bed – but that could wait for another day.
He tempted her tongue with his own, delving deep to taste as much of her as inhumanly possible. There was an answering hunger in her own kiss, in the way she pressed back against him with what little strength she had, and he recognized it well. There was a bit of animal within Violet as well. That darkness – it was there inside her like a lone she-wolf, keeping to the shadows, knowing and waiting, eyes glowing from the dark.
The beast within him wanted that wolf. He wanted her as his own.
At last he was in his chambers, pressing her body beneath him into the silken sheets of his massive, dark bed. He broke the kiss, just long enough to shrug off his jacket, but Violet’s fingers were curled into it, her swollen lips were red as roses, and her heavily lidded eyes were laden with lust – and he decided he’d wasted enough time.
Fuck it.
He used his magic to rid them both of their clothing, willing it away like so much trash. It disintegrated from their bodies, evaporating into shadow-mist that lifted and surrounded them like tendrils of smoke. In the wake, Violet had nothing to hold on to, and her arms lowered to the bed in surrender.
She was laid bare before him, every man’s ultimate wet dream. She was a fairy princess, quite literally, with her hair a waterfall of multi-hued gold, the enticing curve of her shoulders, and the rise of her absolutely perfect breasts. Her skin was pale and perfect against the darkness of his sheets, but for the slightly darker hue of her nipples, tightened so beautifully in the cool night air. The acorn diamond glittered madly where it rested in the hollow of her throat. It belonged there.
She glowed like an angel, long-limbed and slim, her flesh dewy with perspiration.
Her waist was narrow and the curve of her hips beckoned. He was gazing down at her, frozen in awe when he again caught the scent of her blood. His head snapped up, and he zeroed in on the small cut he’d made on her lip. His senses shifted. He could hear the fluttering of her heart, so rapid. He caught the adrenaline that laced her blood.
His gaze shifted to her eyes. She stared up at him with warring emotions. Her eyes were locked on his mouth – his teeth.
They were teeth he hadn’t used on anyone in more than three thousand years. But he saw the indecision there in her beautiful orbs. He smelled her fear. She was afraid of what he’d become, of what she didn’t know about him.
And yet her body betrayed her like the worst turncoat imaginable, and the scent of her arousal was beyond intoxicating. She wanted him, despite the fear. Maybe even because of it.
He could hear her quick breaths, shallow and shaky. His body ached. His mind reeled with implications and consequences. But then she did something he never would have expected her to do. Slowly, sensuously, Violet closed her eyes and bent her long, lean legs, opening them up to him.
Keeran’s breath stilled in his very inhuman chest as she arched her back and raised her arms, reaching for him one final time. His glowing gaze sharpened, his strong body responded painfully, and a kind of madness overcame him at her submission. In one smooth, fluid movement, he was gliding up over her to reclaim the tender sweetness of her lips. He tasted her blood, wanted more of her, and knew that this time, he would have it.
His hands cupped her face as he kissed her. She moaned in what Keeran now knew was impatient frustration. He smiled against her lips like a rake as his hand moved up her waist and chest to palm the tender curve of her breast.
He propped himself on his elbow and ran one hand along the silken smooth length of her side. She gave a soft cry when his thumb gently brushed the hardness of her deep, red nipple. He did it again and she shuddered against him, gritting her teeth.
He moved on to explore the tempting rise of her hip bone and the valley of creamy flesh beneath it before he brushed through her silken curls to the heated, waiting core of her. It gave off a radiating warmth, like flesh that had been flogged or sunburned, and a part of him went mad.
She gasped against him as he circled her slit like a shark, teasing and taunting. When she bucked and pressed toward his fingers, he deepened his kiss to drink her in with greedy thirst. Then he parted her nether lips, slick with need, and pressed inward.
The feel of her there took his madness and shook it up. The promised bliss of her wrapped around his cock was nearly unimaginable. He was throbbing hard, his manhood screaming for release.
She made a deep, delicious sound against his mouth as his fingers dove ever deeper and were squeezed with her wet tightness.
He swore softly under his breath, his mind delirious. She was so small, so hungry for him. He could wait no longer. He braced himself on the bed and reared up, pulling his fingers from between her legs. Violet’s eyes opened, and their gazes met. Her body went still in that kind of anticipation that is laced with gluttonous, glorious fear as he moved over her to press the tip of his engorged cock to her opening.
She could feel how big he was; her eyes flashed with that knowledge. But she maintained eye contact – the wolf in her was not one to back down. She was a fighter. He smiled.
It was a cruel smile, fangs and all.
Violet’s hands went to his chest, and her fingernails curled into his muscles as he breached her defenses and slowly, oh so slowly, pushed into her tight, slick sheath. Her heat infused him like another kind of magic. She gripped him so hard, every muscle in his body flexed taut.
When he was nearly all the way in, he paused and braced himself. Violet cried out against his mouth as he slanted over her in another hungry kiss and none-too-gently shoved himself into her to the hilt. He felt her arms come around him and smiled when her nails again dug into his flesh, leaving marks.
He wasted no time, pulling out of her enough to make her moan beneath him before driving into her again, harder than before. He wanted to go deeper. He wanted to claim her as nothing and no one ever could.
His vision was starring, his fingers were going numb and the only sensation in the world he could give notice to was the feel of her wrapped around him. He pulled out and drove in. Again. And again.
Each time he took her, she arched to meet his thrust, the softest, sweetest sounds coming from deep within her and pouring across his tongue. Every gasp made him more of an animal, every moan drove him further over the edge.
A change was coming; Keeran could feel it like an ebb and flow as he took his beautiful queen. The terrible fire that had consumed her before made way for new flames. Her rage and fury dissipated, making way for pleasure and a new kind of pain.
And for a new kind of darkness.
It was that darkness that he wondered if she recognized as he pressed it into her, as it left him and infused her glorious, sweat-glowing body. Just as were his fangs and the glow of his eyes, that darkness was a pa
rt of him he had never shown anyone. No one but her.
The power of his many secrets swelled within him as he broke their kiss to pull back and gaze down at his mate.
My mate. I haven’t thought those words in so long.
She was covered in sweat, her lips swollen and red and parted, her eyes glazed, her breathing now more frantic and demanding.
She was entering that blissful, barely attainable place where women hovered when their bodies drew near the edge. He saw that last, hard need riding her, and he knew she was in no state to understand what was happening to her. She wanted release. She would have done anything for it.
And that fueled the bonfire that had already been threatening to claim Keeran completely. So he gave it to her. With a hard strength and a nearly cruel resolve, he shoved back into her and slipped one hand between them and found the spot between her legs that he knew would make her scream. Violet arched her back and opened her mouth. Her cry split the night as he simultaneously drove hard into her over and over – then one final time, finally impaling her so deeply, so fully, he felt he would split her in two.
The tight ring of her muscles squeezed him in her climax and the world flashed out of sight. This was not a darkness of shadow that he was plunged into, but one of delirium. His body was shifted onto a plane of pure, immense pleasure, and he came so hard it hurt.
He threw back his head and cried out harshly as a bliss he’d never known racked over him, wringing him out again and again.
And again.
It took eons for the world around them to come back into focus. Eons….
And then Keeran slowly lowered his head, his eyes burning hot in his face. He closed them a moment, riding the last of his waves back down to Earth.
Then he opened them again and looked down at Violet through a white glowing haze.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Shadow Realm was silent but for the sounds of their breathing. It was as if in reverence, the entire kingdom had quieted down and bowed its heads. The king had taken his queen.