Heart of Darkness (41 page)

Her heat enveloped him, searing sanity,
banishing reason. His hands moved with a mind of their own, down
her taut stomach, past the thatch of coarse dark hair hiding her
sex. His fingers teased her slit, moist with her desire. The
evidence of her arousal was nearly his undoing. Raphael dragged his
mouth away, along her jaw to her ear. Tracing the shell with liquid
heat, he plunged his tongue inside as his fingers sought and found
her clit.

She moaned loudly, gasping as though she
could not get enough breath. She spread her legs wide, tilting her
hips to him. Fingers rapid, he worked the nub in tight circles
until she lay panting beneath him. He broke his hand away from her
lushness to rip his kurt away, until nothing barred him from taking
her.

His cockhead nudged her opening, wet with her
juices. She was smaller than he’d reckoned, tighter. Bliss beckoned
his possession.

“Yes. Please,” she begged, her voice husky as
she wrapped her legs around him.

Beneath him, he could feel her body wracked
by an unnatural heat, a fever that overtook her, leaving her
senseless to his possession.

He stilled, poised above her, tense. He’d
lost his damned mind. Strained, his arms shook with the effort to
control himself. A cold sweat broke out on his body. It would take
little movement to sink into her depths. She was slick and needy
for him.

Swan arched beneath him, and his cockhead
teased her entrance, jerking with need. He groaned, slipped
infinitely inside. His arms shook more violently as restraint
slowly crumbled. Her wet heat enticed, threatening to snap the
remainder of his control.

“Don’t stop. I beg you,” she cried, tossing
her head back and forth on the silken furs, her eyes squeezed
shut.

“You know not what you ask,” he said through
gritted teeth, pained with resistance.

“I do,” she whispered and went still of a
sudden, collapsing back.

Raphael drew up as though the tension between
them had shattered, surprised as her arms and legs fell away.
Moisture beaded on her body, sliding down her curves. Her skin
brightened to a warm sun-infused brown, suffused with life, healthy
and perfect. The fever had broken.

He moved from between her legs, beside her
prone body. Tension shook him to the core, for he still felt that
desperate need to claim her body in every pore. How he’d managed to
not sink into her depths and ease his lustful needs, he did not
know.

Kneeling over her, he touched her face. She
slept. Her skin was cooling. No longer did the scent of illness
cling to her.

Had the
kharez
worked?

He could not know, but it was likely so. And
dawn was fast approaching. If his suspicions were correct, she
would be changing soon.

Raphael stood and covered her once more. His
body thrummed with need, insatiate. He touched his still hard cock
and groaned at the pleasurable pain. He promised himself that he
would have this human when next he saw her, until the unbidden lust
she aroused as woman and prey was cleansed from his body.

* * * *

An alien hardness nudged the opening of her
sex, probing, painful. She arched her back, welcoming the intrusion
with all her being....

Swan awoke with a start, gasping with
remembered sensation, a cold sweat broken across her brow.
Shivering, she wiped the moisture away, realized she was trapped in
place. An unfamiliar heat lay at her back, cradling her length. She
shifted, but a heavy weight held her in place, draped across her
hip.

Looking around from her vantage point, she
saw she lay in a strange bed, covered with dark furs. Beside the
bed sat a squat table with the remnants of her robes. Bed posts
rose from the corners, carved in the likeness of rampant wolves. In
their teeth, dark gauze stretched between them--a net that could be
dropped to protect from annoying insects, she presumed. Large stone
blocks made up the walls of the room. An arched window was cut into
the side wall she could see. Further down she could see a basin of
flame that gave off flickering light and warmth.

Her attention returned to the bed, the other
occupant, and the hand draped possessively around her. She had no
memory of coming here. And she was as naked as the day she was
born. Swan wondered frantically if she’d been sodomized, but a
mental body check confirmed there was no tenderness, no aching,
torn flesh. Her sexual muscles were relaxed and whole as the rest
of her body.

The weakness she’d last recalled was gone, as
was her nagging injury. Swan flexed her left hand in wonder. The
consistent pain had vanished though the shock of the missing digit
still greeted her. What magic did these beastmen possess?

From her position, she looked out of the
window that faced her, though she could see sky and nothing else.
Twilight reigned, that hazy darkness that warned of approaching
dawn ... or coming night. She could not remember changing, but
then, she usually did not, no more than the barest sense of it.
Could an entire day have passed without her knowledge?

And if she had changed back and been healed,
who then lay at her back? Logic dictated it would be her captor,
Raphael. He would naturally be the most powerful hunter if he ruled
them. Spoils always went to the victor. Seized by curiosity, Swan
turned into his embrace for a glimpse at the man who would call her
prisoner.

His hand slid down her hip at her movement,
dangerously close to her femininity. She stilled, held her breath
as she awaited some sign he’d awakened. The deep rhythm of his
breathing greeted her. He’d not been disturbed.

Lying at an angle now, all she could see from
the corner of her eye was a shock of black hair. Her hip began
cramping from the twisted position. She couldn’t hold it for long.
She wondered just how deeply he slept. With the time, she must’ve
changed a short while ago, so he could not have slept near her
long. Certainly he’d not fallen into a deep sleep so quickly. The
sky steadily darkened to pitch as she waited. The moons slowly
began their ascent.

As she lay studying him, an outrageous plan
began to take form in her mind. She dismissed it at first, daunted
by the enormity of it, unnerved that it had even occurred to her,
feeling her pulse quicken with an odd mixture of excitement and
alarm. Still, it nagged at her, refusing to be quelled until she
examined the idea for flaws.

There were, she concluded, a wealth of them.
On the other hand, she was in no position to dismiss a plot she
perceived as holding tremendous potential for gaining what she
needed. With an effort, she forced her doubts to the back of her
mind, forced herself to calm reflection. The plot would only work
if he was sound asleep as she suspected. It was wicked, not at all
the thing for a lady to do, but it was her one chance to convince
the beastman she was serious. If he wouldn’t willingly help
her--she’d force his hand.

Swan listened once more to confirm her
safety. Satisfied, she began inching away from him. Sweat dotted
her skin as she concentrated on small movements, moving with
excruciating slowness. Finally, she managed to dangle one leg over
the side of the bed. She was near spread eagle from the position,
and his hand slipped steadily down, until it rested between her
thighs. She gritted her teeth at the contact, flushing. Her body
felt like a flower thirsting for water, thirsting for the heat and
feel of him. Long had she been without a man’s touch, not since
she’d lost the seal of her body so many years ago in one careless
act of defiance. An inch more and he could delve into her
womanhood--

She closed her eyes, willed the blossoming
desire down. He knew not what he did. It was abhorrent the thoughts
flooding her mind. He didn’t knowingly touch her--she could be any
woman for all he was aware. It was insane to react to the touch of
a beast, a stranger.

Slowly, she regained her purpose and used the
strength of her leg to slide out from under him. She freed herself
enough to rise from the bed. Almost at once, he sighed and turned,
lying flat on his back with his arms upraised.

Swan stopped breathing as she awaited
discovery. Watching him suspiciously, she got her first look at the
man who had captured her. When he didn’t stir immediately, when it
was certain he slept on, she took her leisure in examining this
man-beast. He was different than she’d thought, not at all the
monster she had visualized.

Long, black hair shrouded his face, streaming
over the sharp line of his jaw. A single strand caught in the part
of his full lips. She itched to remove it, part the flow of hair to
see him fully, but she didn’t dare. Almost, she wished he would
open his eyes, just so she could see the color, but that time would
come soon enough.

The rising moon increased at the window and
sculpted the hard lines of his chest in the silver light. It
slipped along his tapering waist and the flat hardness of his
stomach, drawing her eyes down. He was completely naked, but she
couldn’t quite bring herself to look at his sex. Not the smallest
measure of fat existed on his body. He was all muscle and rampantly
male, more so than any other she’d ever known--and far more
dangerous.

She wondered what he looked like awake. Would
his muscles play fluidly with restrained power? Would his smile be
as feral as she imagined? Swan shook herself from the arresting
vision of him in repose. Now was not the time to dawdle. She had no
notion the ways of servants in this castle, but she couldn’t chance
discovery before she’d had the chance to put her plot into
action.

She quickly searched the room for some
implement to bind him. There were no tools or ropes that she could
see, no drapery but the fragile gauze that even she could rip
through with ease.

The furs would be of no use either. They were
too tough and thick to bend as needed. She looked back at the squat
table. All she had were the sad remains of her robes. Sighing, she
picked the robe up and walked softly around to the opposite side of
the bed where he lay.

With quick efficiency, she twisted the length
of fabric into a thick cord and looped the ends into knots that she
could slip over his wrists and tighten from the top once in place.
She knew she would have to move quickly, before he could rouse.
Thankfully, he’d angled enough in his sleep that she saw she could
bind him to one bedpost.

She wrapped the length around the post and
took a deep breath, willing her nerve not to waver. It was now or
never. Her heart drummed in her throat, choking off her breath.
Steeling herself for action, she gently slipped the loops around
his upraised wrists. The moment she had the loops around his
wrists, she snatched the knot at the crux of the post, tightening
the binding.

He awakened at once with a startling growl.
Swan leapt atop the bed and straddled him, holding him down with
her body while she clamped her hands over his mouth. He went still
immediately when he saw her, though his arms tensed with leashed
power.

Alert, he was more frightening than she’d
imagined he could possibly be when she’d thought about tying him
up. Slanted brows drew down in anger. Fierce black eyes, flecked
with gold, stared at her above the level of her hands. Swan watched
him warily, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat. She’d
caught a wolf, and now didn’t know what to do with him.

“Are you going to call for help if I take my
hands away?” she asked. “Blink once for no, twice for yes.”

He blinked once.

Swan regarded him suspiciously for several
moments before she slowly withdrew her hands.

“Why have you bound my arms?” he said, his
voice tight, his gaze watchful.

Swan felt a surge of victory as she realized
he was well and truly caught. She’d done it. He was at her mercy.
She needed only the strength of will to enact her plan. “Now you
are my prisoner,” she said triumphantly.