“That’s a moot point if Macmillan does his I-can-make-everything-right routine—as I know damned well he will!”
The lethargy of having lost nearly every pint of blood in her body weighed heavily on Khamsin. The spasms were dying down and the pain was becoming more tolerable.
“You feel up to traveling?”
Trying to lower her knees, Khamsin discovered the pain could come roaring back quickly so stilled. “No,” she said. “I hurt too badly.”
Sibylline turned her face toward the window. “Dawn is only a few minutes away on your world. If we don’t go now, we will have to wait until nightfall.”
Spending another day in the company of the Revenant queen was a doom Khamsin had no desire to experience. She forced her legs down—groaning with the agony that shot through her—but managed to turn to her back. Swinging her legs over the bed proved to be an excruciating experience that almost brought on unconsciousness. She fell back with a scream.
Sibylline sighed. “As much as I hate to do this, I see I have no choice. I’m afraid the leaving is a bit more dramatic than the arrival.” She strode over to the bed and scooped Khamsin up in her arms. “Hold on!”
Light burst over Khamsin like a ball of fire and she squeezed her eyes shut, pain lancing through her head. Cold swept fiercely over her, making it hard to draw in a breath. Wind rushed around her, whipping her long hair about her head.
“Hold on,” Sibylline repeated.
* * * * *
Christina laughed at something Macmillan said then leaned closer to him as he spoke so softly Lucien could not hear.
Already the pulse of dawn was beginning on the crest of the eastern horizon and fear was clouding Lucien’s mind. Despite Macmillan’s reassurances that Sibylline would return, Lucien wasn’t so sure. He was afraid the woman would keep Khamsin just to spite him and the thought hurt so badly, Lucien had to sit down. He went to the far end of the cave, slumped on a rock and buried his face in his hands.
“Where did you come by your unusual looks, Your Majesty?” Christina asked, studying the strange appearance of Macmillan.
Macmillan grinned. “My ugliness you mean?” he countered.
Christina shook her head. “I wasn’t suggesting that you…”
“Don’t have a clue what my parents looked like but I suppose I must bear a resemblance to at least one of them,” Macmillan interrupted. “I was brought here—or sent here, don’t know which—to this world many millennia ago—me and the old ball and chain both. All I can tell you for a certainty is that we are not of your world.” He put a finger to his eye and drew the lower lid down. “That’s a story best left for another time, though, I’m thinking.”
“Will you stay around long enough to tell me?” she asked.
“Let me tell you about what it means to go To The Ground, muffie,” Macmillan suggested. “Vampires, now, they go for that eternal rest of theirs, you understand? They smart off about how the soil heals them, revives them and all that drivel. For a Revenant, it is just a time to laze about without having to worry about feeding and the like. You store up enough blood to last you for as long as you think you want to be there and you take with you a comely lass or two to while away the time.” He grinned. “Or five or six. It depends on how addicted you are to the fucking, you see.”
“In other words, it’s like a vacation,” she said.
“Exactly!” Macmillan exclaimed. “A vacation!” Macmillan slapped her on the back, nearly knocking her down. He looked around, spied Lucien and sobered. “The boy is suffering,” he observed. “He must love the human.”
“He has been alone for so long. Khamsin is the only woman he’s touched other than Sibylline,” Christina said. “I had almost given up on him ever finding happiness.”
Macmillan dropped his wide chin into his massive hand and studied Lucien. “Shall I take away his pain, muffie?”
Christina shook her head. “He wouldn’t appreciate it.”
“Likes to suffer, does he?”
“Sometimes I believe he does.”
“Humans,” Macmillan said with a snort. “Such strange creatures, you are. I once…” He stopped, sniffed the air, and then grinned hatefully. “Her bitchiness returns.”
The sparkling lights did not burst over the cave this time but a harsh wind roared through the area so violently, small loose rocks and sand was whipped up like a mini cyclone to sting the eye and pelt the flesh. Those in the cave cursed, hiding their faces in the crooks of their arms.
Lucien lowered his arm to a sight that turned his blood as cold as ice. He slowly came to his feet, his face a mask of sorrow.
“Oh, get over it, Luc,” Sibylline snapped. “She’s alive.”
Khamsin was draped over Sibylline’s arms, her head hanging down, her long hair sweeping the ground, her arms limp. The brutal marks of Sibylline’s fangs stood out in high relief against her very pale throat and a streak of blood was caked on the white flesh.
“You couldn’t resist turning her, could you?” Macmillan accused.
“You made sure I would have to when you made me bleed. I was being drained and had to drink from her whether I wanted to or not,” Sibylline snapped. She walked over to Lucien and extended his lady toward him. “Take her. She’s heavy.”
Christina turned to Macmillan. “You knew she’d turn Khamsin?”
The giant shrugged. “She had to replace the blood loss from somewhere. Any handy human would have sufficed but she took what was at hand.”
Lucien dropped to his knees, cradling Khamsin to him. Her stillness, the boneless limpness of her body, the pallor of her skin made his heart ache. He lowered his lips to the swollen red punctures on her throat and kissed them. Gently. Beneath his mouth, he could detect the slightest beat of her heart and he knew she would survive. But what had been done caused him such intense fury he raised his head and glared at Sibylline, wishing he could pull out her black heart and squeeze it to pulp.
“When you have time to consider what I’ve done for you, you will thank me,” Sibylline said, raising her chin.
“I doubt he ever will,” Christina disagreed. She went to squat down before Khamsin and placed a hand on the young woman’s chest. She looked up at Lucien. “She will be okay, Luc.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His strength was waning with the spreading light of the dawn he could feel seeping into his bones.
Macmillan picked up two heavy boulders in the wide span of his meaty hands and carried them to the cave entrance as though they were no more than feathers. He piled the rocks across the opening and turned to gather more to block the intrusion of light that would soon bother them all.
“I want my womb back,” Sibylline said. Her movements were not as slow as Lucien and Christina’s but she yawned for sleep was needed.
“I’ll lift the mental suggestion and you’ll get it back when we leave this accursed world,” Macmillan told her. “And not a minute before then.”
Sibylline grunted and went to sit down with her back to the cave wall. She slid down, crossed her legs and arms, and lowered her head. Just as quickly as that, she was sound asleep.
“Bitch,” Macmillan said. He finished blocking the entrance then went to where his wife sat. He plopped down beside her, turned and laid his head in her lap, turning on his side with his back to the others in the cave.
In her sleep, Sibylline lowered one arm and twined her hand through the giant’s hair.
“They are quite the pair,” Christina remarked. “I believe they love one another but just can’t live together.”
Lucien nodded. He was tired, his eyelids drooping but he rocked Khamsin slowly against him, crooning softly to her in his native tongue.
“Lay down, Luc,” Christina said. “You looked like undeath warmed over, my friend.”
With Khamsin’s head resting on his shoulder, Lucien stretched out, his arms protectively around her. His lady moaned in her deep sleep but her hand crept up to press against his chest. Lucien smiled.
Christina lay down, bracing her head on her outstretched arm and before her eyelids closed, was asleep.
* * * * *
Lucien stirred, drawing in a long breath, and then opened his eyes to the midnight darkness surrounding him. He could smell the warm scent of his lady and listened closely to the strong beat of her heart as she lay against him. His arms tightened and he smiled for he sensed she was awake, looking up at him through the lightlessness.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
“As clearly as though we were in bright sunlight,” Khamsin answered.
“Being a Revenant has its rewards,” he said.
“When did the others leave?” she asked.
Lucien lifted his head and surveyed their environs. They were, indeed, alone. He laid his head back down. “I don’t know.”
“Can we go home?”
That one word made Lucien’s heart soar. “Whenever you’re ready, milady,” he replied.
“I’ve been ready,” Khamsin said, sitting up.
Lucien lay there for a moment and watched her. Her long hair was spread like a cape of daffodils around her shoulders and when she ran her fingers through the thick mass to drape it down her back, he sighed for her breasts flexed, and his cock pulsed.
“She was furious you did not give her a child.”
He shrugged. “Had I known that was what she was after, I would not have laid hands to her.” He reached up a hand to cup her cheek. “Do you understand I never would have had you been safe at Modartha?”
Khamsin clasped his hand in hers. “There is no need to explain, my love. I am as sure of your love as you are of mine.”
His heart soared and he sat up, crushing her to him, his mouth closing over hers in a heady kiss that left them both breathless when he ended it. They gazed into one another’s eyes for a long time then without speaking he reached out to cover her breast with the palm of his hand.
“May I show you just how much I love you, milady?” he asked softly.
“No,” she said. “Let me show you.”
Holding his gaze, she leaned forward to run the tip of her tongue across his taut nipples.
“Wench,” he warned and would have put his hands to her but she pushed him to his back then made quick work of his belt. She pulled it from his waist then ran her fingers through the buttons of his fly.
“What are you doing, wench?” he asked, his fevered gaze burning.
“Seeing to my man’s needs,” she replied as she spread open the fly of his britches then worked them down his long legs.
She scooted down in the bed to rain kisses on his belly and thighs. She licked at his flesh, spiraling her tongue over him in lightning raids that made him squirm. That hot little muscle ran along the inner surface of his thighs, over his knees then up again until her warm breath was whispering along his balls.
He buried his hands in her hair and held her head as she took the tip of him into her mouth, drawing upon his shaft, lapping at his dewy slit, thrusting her tongue as far inside as it could go.
He groaned as she pulled him into her mouth, her teeth scraping along the sensitive sides of his erect column. When her lips fastened around his cock and sucked him deep inside, her lips pressed close to his pelvis, he arched his hips up and began a light rhythm in and out of her mouth.
Khamsin looked up through her eyelashes as she increased the pressure of her lips upon his shaft. She was swirling her tongue around and around the oozing head—tasting him, sipping his saltiness—and increasing the force of her suckling in proportion to the thrust of his cock.
Her hands were on his balls, kneading them gently, and one finger pressed firmly against the soft flesh just under his anus. His reaction was immediate—lifting upward, whimpering softly—and she pressed a bit harder, making tiny circles upon his flesh.
No longer able to contain the heat of his lust, Lucien pulled out of her mouth and reached down to draw her up and over him. When she was lying stretched out atop his body, he flipped them over until she was on her back. Before he could move down to return her torment, she wrapped her strong legs around him—legs that now had the strength and power of a Revenant woman—and refused to allow him to escape.
“Take me, Korvina,” she said through clenched teeth. “Take your woman!”
He dug his fingers into her delicious rump and slammed into her, his cock going to the hilt in the soft, moist cavern that gripped him as though it would never release him. He thrust into her with an abandonment he would never have known of himself and with every push into her lushness, he felt the world as he’d known it for so long—for far too long—slipping away in bits and pieces, like the shards of a broken mirror that held an image he no longer wanted to see.
Khamsin felt the rush of his seed coming up from the core of him and she held on, refusing to allow him to buck loose although he was slamming into her with mindless thrusts. The inward and outward suction of his cock was driving her crazy and she gripped his shoulder, dragging her nails down his back to spur him on.
The passion that broke over them was like a fire catching from some exploding incendiary device. Ripples of heat danced along their genitals to inflame them and they ground against one another in an attempt to put out the fire, to quell the itch. His cum spurted deep inside her and she drew him in, taking the copious fluid into her womb to nourish it there.