King of Spades (5 page)

Chapter Three

Alexi let loose with a scream of fury. With all the strength she had, she yanked against her bonds. The leather straps bit into her wrists and ankles and her muscles ached with the effort of her struggles.

The straps didn’t budge. Not that she’d thought they would.

Shit shit shit. Calm down. This isn’t going to get you out of here, Alexi O’Brien.

Forcing herself to relax her muscles, she slowly turned her head from one side to the other, and tried to tilt her head to look behind her best she could. No sign of the bastard. Just trees, grass, mountains, flowers…yadda yadda yadda.

Alexi’s breathing and her heart rate were surprisingly calm and even considering her circumstances. But she was incredibly turned on, and that pissed her off and excited her all at once. How could being abducted by a gorgeous Conan the Barbarian, and staked out like an offering to the gods, make her so hot?

But with her legs spread wide, her pussy was more than wet, her folds swollen, and her clit throbbing. Her breasts jutted up, her nipples hard as gemstones, her arms stretched way overhead, and her hands still gripping the gold stake. She wished she could ride the smooth, round end of the stake right now to get some relief. Damn but she needed to climax.

More than likely this was due to her year of celibacy. Annie was right—she shouldn’t have so completely neglected herself. Then she wouldn’t be so desperate to be fucked by her captor.

Even if he made her pussy vibrate with just one look.

He’s a rapist, damn it.
But her mind pushed back against the thought. She sensed plenty of aggression and power in tiger-man…but no malice. No intent to truly take her against her will, beyond what he had already done.

So, it’ll be a battle of wills. So be it.

Alexi sighed and stared up at the strange blue-green clouds above her in the darkening sky. The clouds moved as though a gentle wind pushed them, but she couldn’t feel a breeze or hear the waterfall. She felt surprisingly warm and comfortable, as though she was within a room, rather than outside in the middle of nowhere. Even the pebbles that had been poking into her back no longer bothered her, and it was like she was lying on a soft bed of velvet instead of grass. Weird.

Time to take stock and formulate a plan.

She was staked out and naked (thigh-highs and stilettos did
not
count as clothing), and entirely vulnerable to man or beast…or men who were both. She was in the middle of a meadow filled with trees, flowers, and bushes that didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before. Not that she’d ever been into wildlife—she was a city girl and a lawyer for crissake. What did she know about rural anything?

Good thing she’d peed before she left the restaurant and that she hadn’t had much to drink with dinner. But what would she do if he wouldn’t let her up later?

Her knuckles still throbbed from slamming her fist into the bastard’s eye—Darronn he’d said his name was. Although he’d insisted she call him Master. Goddamn asshole. She’d show him who was Master.

Obedience my ass.

Even though she didn’t give a damn what he’d said, his words echoed through her mind.
“You have come to a world you do not understand, my firecat, and you have met a man you cannot command.”

A world she didn’t understand…he’d gotten that part right. She didn’t understand how any of this could be real, or even how she knew it was. Was this a world full of men who tied up women who refused to call them Master? Great.

The part about not being able to command him, well she could certainly see that—no man she’d ever known was like him, and damn him, but he turned her on more than she wanted to admit.

What he was going to find out, though, was that he’d just met a woman whom
he
couldn’t command. Yeah, they’d kill each other in no time.

She couldn’t help but picture the sincerity in his eyes when he’d said,
“For your own good, you must learn the desires and fears of your heart…”

Asshole. As if there was anything that
he
could teach
her
. She always knew what she wanted, and when she found it, she went for it. She didn’t need some tattooed, green-eyed, gorgeous Neanderthal to teach her anything.

As far as fear, she feared nothing when it came to her heart. Long ago she’d learned her lesson, and she didn’t let any man come close enough to hurt her. So what was there to fear?

“…and you must learn to trust and respect the one person with the skill and power to make you whole. Me.”

Oh, yeah, sure.
As if
she’d trust and respect a brute who’d yanked her through a mirror, turned into a tiger and tackled her, then left her staked out, alone, in the middle of nowhere. Hot and horny at that.

Bastard.

Damn, but it pissed her off to want him so badly when she should hate him. What was it about him? Something told her there was more to him than just an arrogant prick who liked to order women around. Even in his domineering manner, he’d seemed somehow sincere and caring.

Alexi rolled her eyes and sighed. Well, that made
lots
of sense. She was staked and bound and at her captor’s complete mercy, and she thought he’d seemed caring. Once she got back to San Francisco, she’d have to visit a shrink for sure. Maybe Alice’s disappearance had affected her more than she’d realized. She would just close her eyes, go to sleep, and hopefully wake up in her own bed.

Darronn shifted into a tiger and paced the edge of the Tarok Forest, his gaze focused on the maid staked out in the meadow. He would never leave Alexi, or any of his subjects, alone and vulnerable. He would stay with her as long as it took for her to learn what it would take to heal her heart and soul.

He had no doubt that when she gave into his wish, that at first it would be merely as a way to be free of her bonds. But it would be a start, and she would soon learn to bow to all his demands.

Wind ruffled his fur as he quietly continued his pacing. She would be comfortable on the grass for the night as he had used his magic to place a black velvet cushion at her back. Air remained still within the protective bubble he had put around his mate, and the temperature would remain constant and comfortable, so long as it surrounded her. Nights in the Kingdom of Spades were still cold through most of spring, but the dome would protect her, just as his fur protected him. She would not be able to smell, hear, or feel the world around her, beyond the barrier, but she would be safe.

The sun had reached the horizon, casting golden light over his mountain, and caressing the meadow with its last rays. Darronn’s ears twitched, his sensitive hearing attune to squirrels and
calin
scampering along the boughs of the
ch’tok
and
sini
trees.

In the distance a mountain wolf howled, one of Lord Kir’s pack, and Darronn heard the sounds of many paws, hooves, and tiny feet of forest creatures scrambling for safety from the predator. The cave-dwelling wolves of Emerald City reigned over the lands on the other side of the mountain and beneath it, although they often traveled the Yellow Road between their realm and Tarok.

As he continued to pace, Darronn sensed the range of emotions sifting through Alexi—from anger to lust to frustration to calm consideration. Like his brothers, Darronn could not read minds, but he could sense emotions of those in his presence.

Unless the person knew how to hide their true emotions, a rare skill that Mikaela had perfected. Darronn rumbled and bared his teeth at the thought of his traitorous sister. He and his brothers had never sensed the blackness that had claimed her heart and soul. Even now a part of him ached to rescue the sister he had loved.

What would I give to erase the damage done by my parents’ choice?

Or could Jarronn be right…that the blackness had already existed within Mikaela? Jarronn believed that the former High King and Queen had recognized this evil and made the choice they felt was best for all of Tarok. Darronn…wasn’t so sure.

But then I was a fool, blindly trusting Mikaela until her betrayal.

Not only could she mask her true feelings, Mikaela had also been born with the gift of being able to read a person’s thoughts if they were projected loudly enough. When they were young, in their twenties or so, the four brothers had all eventually learned to shield their minds from their sister. Until they had mastered the ability to block her, Mikaela had enjoyed mentally spying on the young men and teasing them with whatever she had learned. Whether it was mischief they had been into, or an early sexual escapade, she found out all she could about them. It had taken much schooling from the sorceress Leeani for the young men to master hiding their thoughts, and that had been well over two hundred years ago.

At the memory of the sorceress, a chuckling purr rose up within Darronn. How he and his brothers had lusted for their former teacher. The charms dangling from Leeani’s dark nipples and her sensuous voice had been distracting to the young men. Surely it took them far longer to learn the lesson than they would have if their teacher had been one of the elder, decrepit sorcerers.

Darronn shook his massive head and raised his muzzle into the wind. Alexi’s perfume of starflower and midnight still hung on the breeze. He scented an
anlia
buck nearby, too, and hunger burned in his belly for fresh meat. But he would not leave his woman for a moment, not even to assuage his thirst. If need be he could magically summon Kalina to watch her, but he chose to remain with his future queen.

He had sensed that Alexi felt no hunger, and had caught the scent of wine and good food on her warm breath. Fire burned in his loins, and the desire for his mate was near to overwhelming. Such a challenge she would be to tame…a challenge he would most certainly relish.

A warm mouth brushed over Alexi’s, and she parted her lips and gave a soft moan. Firm lips pressed tight to hers, and stubble scraped her skin as a tongue darted inside. With a soft moan of surrender she invited the man’s tongue deeper, invited him to fill her mouth in the same way she wanted his cock to fill her pussy.

She could hear a waterfall pounding in the distance, birds chirruping and the sound of wind through trees. Smells were keen, too. Grass and a wildflower perfume…and the drugging smell of a man.

His weight pressed against her, leather shirt and pants tight to her naked flesh. She ground her mound against his raging erection, needing this so badly, wanting it with everything she had.

Slowly Alexi’s eyes opened and she saw Darronn above her with a smile so carnal that thrills ran straight from her nipples to her pussy and back. His hips pressed tight to hers and his hands were braced to either side of her breasts. Around his dark features, his wood-brown mane hung down long enough to tease her breasts.

She’d always thought a man with long hair was sexy, and damned if he wasn’t that and more. His gold earring glinted in the morning sunlight, stubble roughened his jaw, and the bruise purpling the skin below his eye made him look even more rugged and dangerous than he had before.

This was real.
He
was real.

At that moment Alexi didn’t know whether to rage at him for kidnapping her and tying her up…or to beg him to fuck her.

Always in control, decisive, man-eating Alexi O’Brien was at a loss for words for the first time in her adult life.

She was a sexual harassment lawyer for crissake, and she went after those assholes with a vengeance. She
always
knew what to say, she
always
won her cases, and she didn’t put up with shit from anyone. After what she’d gone through in law school, Alexi had done everything she could as a lawyer to prosecute every sonofabitch who thought he could get away with using his strength and position to intimidate her clients.

And her clients weren’t always women. Several were men who either had a domineering woman trying to force them into bed by threatening their jobs, or a man who wanted to screw ‘em in the ass. She had nothing against any kind of sex, as long as it was consensual. And if it wasn’t, watch out ‘cause Alexi would nail the rapist’s sorry carcass to the floor.

She’d gone after all of them with a vengeance, and had never lost a case. As if that would make up for the harassment she had experienced at the hands of her law school instructors.

But as she stared up at Darronn, it was as if all of her anger and her past wounds had been stripped away like her clothing, leaving only a woman. And this woman wanted this man more than anything. Right here. Right now.

It didn’t make sense at all. None of it.

“My firecat wakes.” Darronn lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers again. He smelled of forest breezes and a primal male musk that seeped into her blood like alcohol, intoxicating her just as much. “Do you desire me as badly as I desire you?” he asked.

“No.” Alexi forced out the lie as she shifted against her bonds and tried not to moan from his sensual touches and words. She had to get her head back together. “And I’m not your anything.”

A purr rumbled up from his chest, reminding Alexi that this man could turn into a real tiger. “You want my cock thrusting into your core,” he said softly as his mouth moved to her ear. “I will fill you like no other man could. Or ever will again.”

“You’re deranged,” Alexi replied, even as her body was on fire for him. Even as she arched up, pressing her breasts and mound tighter to his leather clad muscles.

His stubble scraped her jaw as he moved his mouth back to hers. “Am I, wench?” He nipped at her lower lip, causing her to gasp from the pain and the thrill of it. “I think not.”

Alexi wanted him so badly right now she didn’t care how he took her, just so long as he thrust his cock inside her, so hard and so fast that she could feel it all the way to her throat.

But first she needed to pee really,
really
, bad.