At just seventeen years old, Tricks had been considered little more than a baby at the time when she had managed to escape. She had run straight to Dragos, the one entity she felt sure could stand up to her uncle without any fear, and had asked for sanctuary. She had been with him ever since.
“It’s been a fun game of Fuck You, hasn’t it? We managed to keep it going for quite a while, but you know it had to end sometime,” he said to her. She gave him a miserable nod.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “Tiago, send some of the troops you brought back with you to scour that Goblin stronghold. They know what to do to anyone stupid enough to still be there.”
Tiago smiled. “You got it.”
“Aryal,” he continued, “investigate the Elven connection. I want to know who might have leaked information to Urien.” The harpy gave him a nod. He turned his attention to the gargoyle. “Grym, I want you to work with Tricks to plot the layout of the Dark Fae palace and grounds for possible plans of attack. I’ve got a few ideas, but I also want to know what you come up with. Tricks, I know you’re going to get really busy, but I would appreciate it if you managed to hire a replacement for yourself before you go, or at least come up with a short list of suggestions. We’re going to need a new PR person.”
“Of course I will,” Tricks said. “It’s the least of what I owe you.”
“It’s never gonna be the same,” Graydon said in a mournful voice. “Watching her cute little face when she came on television and knowing how Urien must have gnashed his teeth every time he saw her.” Everyone laughed. Even Tricks managed to smile.
Rune and Graydon were looking at him. He told them, “Until further notice, you two, and Bayne and Con, are on special detail. Get lieutenants to step in with your regular duties. You four are going to guard Pia whenever I’m not with her. Two on, two off, twenty-four/seven. She is never to be left on her own. Understood?”
Rune’s chair came down on all four legs. The handsome male looked very alert. Graydon’s expression was the picture of incredulity. It was more or less echoed around the room. Tricks’s eyebrows rose and her lips pursed.
“You’re putting four of your most powerful warriors on babysitting detail for a thief?” said Aryal. “At a time like this?”
Dragos looked at her from under lowered brows. Grym put a hand on her arm. The gargoyle said to him, “Unless there’ll be anything else, we’ll get right to work, my lord. I think we all have got a lot to do.”
He considered the harpy for a few more moments, the dragon roused and moving deep in his thoughts. Aryal dropped her gaze and bowed her head in a submissive posture.
“Go,” he said.
The others scattered. Rune and Graydon followed him as he went back upstairs. He stalked down the hall, still brooding, while they shadowed him on either side. He came to Pia’s door where Bayne and Constantine lounged against the wall, talking. The two men straightened at their approach.
“Fill them in,” he told Rune, who nodded. The dragon still roused, he regarded them all. The gryphons watched him with attentive, quiet faces. He said, “Let me make this perfectly clear. Just so there’s no mistake. We’ve worked well together for almost a thousand years. You have all come to mean a lot to me. I treasure your service and I prize your loyalty above all others.” He looked at Rune. “I count you as my best friend.”
They all stood taller as he talked. He pointed at the door. “Thief or not, she is mine and I’m keeping her. If a single hair on that young woman’s head is harmed, you four bastards better be slaughtered and in pieces when I find you.”
Rune’s steady gaze met his. “You needn’t worry, my lord,” the gryphon said. “We’ll guard her with our lives. I swear it.”
T
ired as she was and in spite of the comfort of the bed, Pia tossed and turned, unable to settle into a deep sleep. She dreamed of being chased. The scenes kept changing. First she was crawling through the secret ways of a huge house, trying to find someplace to hide. Next she was weaving in and out of a crowded, unfamiliar city street while someone menacing followed behind her. She could never quite see her pursuer’s face, but he terrified the hell out of her.
Then someone lifted the bedcovers. A large, damp, naked male slid into the bed beside her. She startled, coming awake with a violent jerk.
“Shh, it’s me,” Dragos whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“S’okay,” she murmured. “Didn’t like that dream anyway.”
There was a reason why it wasn’t such a good idea for him to be in her bed. Or was she in his? She wasn’t awake enough to grasp any of it. She was just awake enough to feel a rush of pleasure and relief.
His arms came around her. She made a noise and burrowed into his side. His warmth and energy enveloped her. She put her cheek to his shoulder, against the damp, clean-smelling skin that covered hard, bulky muscle like silk, and rested a hand on his chest.
“Did you like your supper?” he asked.
“Lovely.”
“Good.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Take the spell off.”
“Sleepy,” she complained.
He stroked her hair. “Please?”
She muttered, fumbled to get hold of the dampening spell and released it.
His wide chest moved in a deep sigh. “That’s better.”
“Shh,” she scolded. She turned on her side. He wrapped his body around her. Her check rested on one bulging biceps while he curled his other arm around her torso. He pinned her legs with one heavy thigh. She cast a sleep-blurred glance down at their entwined bodies. The pale glow of her form was caged in possessive, dark bronze male. It was a jealous, suffocating hold. She should want to break free of it. She sighed. Something deep inside settled into place and she closed her eyes, content.
This time when she fell asleep there were no more dreams.
A
long, restful time later something brought her out of deep unconsciousness. She drifted for a while in a twilight state. A large hand played down the front of her torso. Gentle fingers trailed from her flat stomach up her rib cage to circle first one breast and then the other.
She sighed and stretched. She turned onto her back as she arced toward that roaming, pleasurable touch. Lips brushed against her bare shoulder, caressed up the graceful curve to her neck. Teeth scraped against sensitive skin and nipped at her earlobe.
Bare shoulder? She opened her eyes. It was shocking all over again to lie naked with him. She rubbed a foot on his leg, crisp hairs tickling her toes. Predawn bloomed outside and brought the room to a light gray. Dragos rested his weight on one arm as he leaned over her. His severe face was intent as he studied her with a heavy-lidded gaze. The etched line of his mouth was curved in a lazy, sensual smile.
He was so gorgeous her whole body throbbed. His fine-cut nostrils flared and she knew he had sensed it.
She licked her lips. His gaze dropped and he watched the movement. “I’m quite sure I went to bed with clothes on,” she murmured.
“So you did,” he said, his tone languorous. He circled the areola of one breast. She watched him swallow as her nipple puckered. “I found them in the way.”
“You undressed me while I was sleeping?” She shivered as he circled the areola of her other breast. “I must have been pretty out of it.”
“I might have helped you along.” She arched a brow at him. He told her, “It was just a little beguilement. You needed to rest.”
“Without my clothes.” There he went, messing with her head again. Making note to self: they’ve got to discuss how she was not his personal Barbie doll to dress and undress whenever he felt like it.
“I needed to rest too,” he said in a bland voice. “And they were bothering me.”
She snorted out a laugh. Who knew this exotic, terrifying male would be so funny? She loved it, loved the surprise of him.
He traced her lips next. She got the feeling she was being stalked without ever having left the bed.
She took his finger in her mouth and sucked it, and set him on fire.
He pulled his finger out. Shadowed gold eyes flashed with ravenous heat. His head came down hard. He drove her into the pillow as he plunged into her mouth with a hard, hungry tongue. At the same time he cupped her between the legs, probed her damp sex and pushed two fingers deep inside her.
She groaned and clutched at his arm. His aggression pulled a helpless response out of her. She grew liquid and swollen, drenching his fingers. He growled and pushed his tongue and fingers into her in a simultaneous penetration. Her hips bucked against his hand.
She dragged her mouth away from his and gasped. “Wait . . . I don’t want . . .”
He hovered inches above her, the raptor waiting to plummet, while his thumb found and rubbed her clitoris. She moaned and pulled his hand harder against her. “You don’t want?” he murmured, giving her a ruthless smile.
She found his hard penis and grasped it. He hissed and pushed into her hand, pulsing against her palm. “I want to explore you too before you wreck me again.” She looked into his eyes, uncertain. He was so dominant. She didn’t have a clue what he might like. “Would you enjoy that?”
He paused and she watched him struggle with contrasting impulses. Then he pulled her hand off him and pinned it over her head. “I’d love it,” he whispered in her ear. “After we get you to just a little climax first.”
He pushed in deep with those long clever fingers and rubbed the heel of his palm against her, finding just the right spot. She jerked and struggled against his hold, pushing against the pressure, straining to find release. “Come inside me,” she coaxed.
“No,” he purred against her ear, drinking down every response. “Not yet. You come just like this, lover.”
“Damn it!” He was diabolical. The pressure built, and his fingers felt so fine as they stroked inside—God!—but she wanted him thick and hard and buried inside of her. She turned and bit his shoulder.
He laughed, a sexy, husky sound. He bent down to suck one of her nipples into his mouth, drawing on it and flicking it with his tongue while he worked her.
There it was, a climax burgeoning inside like a match flaring alight. She arched and gave him her sounds of pleasure. He left her nipple to brush his mouth over hers as she moaned, her inner muscles contracting. “That’s it, there it is,” he whispered against her lips. He eased rubbing the heel of his palm against her, bringing her down again with care. “Beautiful.”
They lay quiet a moment, breathing together.
Then she stirred and gave him a wicked smile. “You wanted to know why I said I wasn’t right in the head.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
She walked her fingers across his chest. “I kept having sexual fantasies of you at very inappropriate times.”
“Like when?” he asked, stroking her hip and down her thigh. He ran his fingers through the tangle of white-gold curls between her thighs, his touch delicate and light. He looked very interested.
She sighed in pleasure. How did he get so wise in all the ways to arouse her? “Like when you dropped out of the sky and sat on me. You looked like the wrath of God, and it scared me half to death. Then all I could think about was that blasted dream and how hot you were. It’s just not right to be scared and turned on all at the same time.”
“That’s all I could think about as well.” He lifted her hand and kissed the scab on her palm. “I meant to lay a trap for you with that dream. I trapped myself instead.”
“And then,” she whispered, eyes sparkling, “remember when you were chained up in the Goblin stronghold?”
“Not a memory that will soon fade,” he replied in a dry tone.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I felt awful, the cell was filthy and I was scared again. And there you were chained and spread out like a gourmet feast. In spite of everything, for a moment there the sight of you made my mouth water.”
His interest sharpened, became electric. “I’ve got to remember to add shackles to all the bedrooms.”
She chuckled and nestled closer. “It was just a fantasy. The real thing was pretty disturbing.”
“So, we’ll pretend.” He rolled onto his back and took hold of the bed rails above his head. The posture stretched the muscles of his arms and chest, accentuated his rib cage and hollowed his abdomen.
She stared at him heavy-lidded, her body tingling. Banked sensuality smoked in his gaze. His aroused body and his face were the sexiest things she had ever seen. It was even more arousing that he volunteered to lay supplicant before her, this big dangerous male.
She slid over him until they lay torso to torso, her breasts pressed against his chest. She bent her head and rubbed her open lips along his. She licked and kissed and nibbled. His breathing roughened. He nipped at her, trying to coax her down for a harder kiss, but she pulled away and slid down him.
She slid her open mouth along the bulges and hollows of his chest, kissing his breastbone and rubbing her nose in the sprinkle of dark crisp hair that arrowed down his long body to his groin. He shifted underneath her, stretching like a cat. She played with his dark, flat nipples, making them harden.
She was arousing herself as much as him. She reached down and took hold of his penis. He hissed and pushed his hips up. She looked down at her pale, glowing hand gripping him, her breathing erratic. He was beautifully contoured, his erection big and thick, the skin of the shaft and bulb of the head velvet soft. His testicles were drawn up tight underneath. She massaged them. They were heavy, voluptuous round globes.
He lifted his head to watch her fondle him, eyes glittering. He was all hard angles and edges. The muscles in his arms shook. She glanced at his hands fisted at the bed rails. They were white-knuckled.
“This is my game now. Don’t let go,” she warned him. She held his fierce gaze as she slid down his body. Whatever major issues or questions that lay unresolved between them, when it came to this they generated combustible magic together.
She crouched over him, lifted his erection, took the head in her mouth and suckled at him. He gave a short, sharp shout, his head slamming back on the pillows. His hips left the bed as he pushed at her mouth.