Tempting Ecstasy (The Guardians of the Realms Book 4) (30 page)

“Good damned question,” Sander snapped. All the Guardians were snapping and snarling now.

He couldn’t wait for the fucking meeting to end. He needed a reprieve and to be buried in his mate’s wet pussy. His muscles were tense, and the need was escalating for both of them. Partly from the frenzy, and partly because of everything that had happened. Her anguished voice was still imprinted in his mind. He knew she was okay. Worried for her brother, relieved. Bastian had gone and picked up the other two brothers after the fighting and cleanup at the cities, so they were all helping Jerric replenish his energies and heal.

“Do we think she can do anything with him?” Conn asked. Elizabeth had just turned into a much bigger nightmare.

More smoke filtered up from Drake’s lips, and power flowed around him. His rage was barely contained. “The Creators gave me the only fucking key, so she shouldn’t be able to do anything with him, but I still want that fucking asshole back, now!” The whole damn place shook with Drake’s wrath, and Dacia tensed beside him. This was Drake as they rarely saw him; this was their dragon in all his pent-up, dangerous-as-shit glory.

Everyone waited for the shaking to stop. Sacha said they’d finished the hell beast cleanup. At least there were no casualties from that mess.

A minute later Dacia’s hand dug into his leg. Her need had been getting more intense, and he knew she was holding on by a thread like he was.

This is horrible,
she groaned inside his head.
Your scent is killing me even with all that’s happening around us. How is that even possible? Drake’s anger might take the building down around our heads. My brother almost died! The sight of how broken he was is burned in my mind, yet all I can think of is having you inside me making this ache go away.
She snarled in the link. Frustrated and angry at her own body’s response.

I know. Soon.
He clamped his jaw tight and tried to fucking focus. How did Dorian hold out so long after touching Rain? His muscles were tense, and the need to fuck and to comfort his mate was driving him wild. Everyone was ignoring it, thank fuck, he didn’t want her embarrassed, but he knew they all were very aware of what was happening between them. Even Jax kept his mouth shut, which was a happy damned surprise and probably just showed how out of control it was.

“Elizabeth will be trying to find a way to wake him now,” Uri said, sitting at the other side of the table with an arm over Alex’s chair, touching her neck. She looked furious and frustrated, her goddess blue eyes were flashing, pissed that her ability hadn’t given her any indication of what Elizabeth was doing, or compelled her to stop it. The problem was, no one knew how Alex’s power worked, what the triggers were. It wasn’t something she could control, and he knew she hated that.

“She might have thought he’d wake up with the blood they used to find him,” Dorian offered.

“The problem is that we don’t know what she has at her disposal and whether she’ll be able to find a way around Drake’s key. Cyril loved his experiments, and she has his helpers to do her bidding. No one outside this room even knows there is a key to waking a God. So what does that leave us with? We don’t know where she is, what she knows, or how she’s hiding him,” Sirena said. Tensions were running high with all the unknowns.

“We have the Rod now. We can find any remaining Immortals in Earth, and you’ve already set new safeguards on the remaining Gods. Maybe we can use it to find Elizabeth’s hideout?” Rain offered.

“Not if her people stay inside a spelled location. It only worked for Apollo when we were caught outside the protections. Apollo had other tricks to get us out,” Conn added through clenched teeth, remembering the pull when he’d left Hades’ walls.

“Even then, I don’t think it’s a good idea to use it here. If the Immortals knew it still existed, there would be a huge uproar, and I wouldn’t fucking blame them,” Uri said.

“We could use it in the outlying areas away from the cities,” Erik suggested, from his seat next to his sister, Alex.

“Yes,” Drake said.

“Do we even know what Immortals are hiding in Earth, Dacia?” Alyssa asked. They all knew now that her parents had escaped with others, and that her family had never found them.

“Kairos,” she said. There were a lot of nods, and Conn noticed Bastian and Sacha looked more stoic than normal. Not that most would even see the difference, but he did. Dacia looked at them too and blew out a breath. He doubted the missing Immortals had direct family or there would be mental links, but that didn’t mean that the two Guardians weren’t wondering like Conn would have been. The possibility of having lost family wouldn’t be a good damned feeling. That’s why he’d asked her in the beginning. He still needed to spank her ass for not telling him sooner, whether she’d known where the Immortals were or not. He mentally groaned. He just wanted to spank that tight ass for any damned reason he could come up with. He shook his head at how truly fucked it was to be stuck in such an important damned meeting and only want to bend her over the table and take what they both needed. Fuck the meeting, fuck the missing God, and fuck anything that got in his way of screwing his mate into delirium.

Her fingers dug into his thigh again, and a sexy groan came through the link.

“And you two are fucking doing your damned mating ceremony tomorrow! Fucking around time is over! Finish it! And, Conn… if your damned wolves tell anyone about Havoc, it’s your ass. I don’t give a shit how it worked out. You have your own damned pack now, and they’re your responsibility! They fuck up, and I rain hell on your ass,” Drake snarled, and Conn nodded tightly. He’d known it was coming, he accepted the responsibility as his due, but Dacia went tense, and he watched her beautiful eyes flash with her animal until she narrowed them at Drake. “My family would never be so dishonorable. Conn gave them,
us
, our brother’s life.” He felt her hand shaking with emotion, she was offended as shit, and Conn was just sending her soothing thoughts through the link when Drake pissed him the fuck off.

“Good, because you’re just as responsible as your mate if your family fucks up.”

“Drake!” Conn growled. The dragon had gone too far for Conn’s animal.

“Gladly,” she snarled and dug her nails into Conn’s jeans, holding him, grounding some of his fury.

The tension in the room was thick as Drake gave Dacia a nod and then ordered them all to get their asses rested and refueled for the ceremony and the hunt. Conn clenched his teeth at the reminder that the damned dragon had just ordered him to mate. He didn’t give a shit that they’d already planned to. His beast was riding a fine line of fury and lust, and rational thought was beyond him. Dacia leapt out of her chair for the door, and his entire being focused only on her soaking panties. The ones he was about to rip off with his teeth.

Chapter 39

Mountain Temple, Tetartos Realm

Dacia’s sisters wouldn’t stop fussing with her hair and the fall of the gorgeous mating gown Alyssa had managed to make within hours. Her sisters stood back finally and looked at her with happy teary smiles. She was just as amazed by the sight of herself in the mirror. She couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked in the deep red silk. The dress hugged her breasts and flowed to the ground, elegant and stunning.

“All mating gowns are simple and made for swift removal,” Alyssa said with a grin. She’d asked her for preferences earlier, but Dacia hadn’t been able to think of any. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to look like, so she’d left it in Alyssa’s hands and was so happy that she had. It was incredible.

“You look like a queen,” Isa said, and the emotion in her sister’s eyes was almost her downfall. She wasn’t a crier, but her sisters were nearly pushing her there.

She cleared her throat and slid her hands over the silk. Undergarments were not worn with mating dresses, and her skin felt sensitive and exposed under the soft rasp of the material. Her cheeks flushed with excitement from both she and her animal.

“Alyssa’s like a little fairy godmother,” Zoe announced, and Rain cracked up, but Alyssa beamed at the compliment it was.

“Thank you, it’s incredible,” Dacia told Alyssa, and the female waved it away, but Dacia saw the pride in her eyes and the genuine happiness for the day. She fought more emotion.

Now that she was dressed, she just felt anxious to get to her mate and finish what they’d started. She wished her brother Jerric could be there, but he had days, if not weeks before he was in any condition to move around. Just rebuilding his blood would take time. He was alive and there, safe… That was all that mattered, and Dacia made sure her siblings knew the importance of keeping the Guardian’s secret. She wasn’t disappointed. They’d been united and determined in their dedication to guarding it. Conn had forever earned their loyalty.

She took a deep breath and looked around at the females with her, her sisters, who were near tears, and her new Guardian family, and she felt relaxed, happy. She was already finding her place; she was where she should be.

Sirena smiled. “Ready?”

She nodded, and within minutes Sacha and Sirena had teleported them to the temple’s ledge. It sat high on a mountain cliff and looked into a tunnel of gold. After a moment they were all walking through to a cavern beyond. The shining walls flickered with the light of a candle chandelier. Beautiful.

She glimpsed the Guardians and her brothers, but the second her eyes fell on Conn, her breath caught in her throat, and everything else disappeared. All she saw was the raw hunger in his eyes as they glowed in the room. His chest was bare, the only thing covering him was black silk pants, and he’d never looked more gorgeous or Godlike. Breathing was hard as she seemed to float rather than walk. His biceps and shoulders looked bigger, thicker under the ink, and his chest muscles rippled. He was so damned perfect. Her chest swelled that the powerful, beautiful male before her was hers forever. Her stomach fluttered, and she’d never been so happy or so grateful in her entire life.

She barely heard Drake’s voice or the vows Conn spoke in another language about loving and cherishing her body and blood. She knew the meaning as much as she knew he wasn’t speaking in English.

Open to me, love.
His voice was a beautiful seduction in her mind. She opened and felt him do the same as Sirena lifted Dacia’s hand and placed it over the warm skin of his thick chest, and she felt the healer’s power flow through her. Sirena was helping her mark her male, her mate for eternity, with the two serpents, entwined by their tails in twin symbols of eternity. He let her feel the heat and reverence of taking the mark into his skin. The black ink was a permanent imprint that he was hers. It could never be taken; even if the skin was flayed from his body, it would grow back, such was Sirena’s ability. It felt biting and hot, sexy and arousing as the mark slid in to become a part of his skin.

When it was over and Sirena’s hand fell away, he lifted her against his newly marked chest and kissed her deeply, with all the feeling and intensity of what they’d done.

My turn,
she said, and his body shook at the words. She was still in his mind and knew how much he wanted to see her skin bear the mark of his mate. It was tradition for the males to take ink, but the other Guardian mates had done it, and even Sam, Alex’s sister-in-law, had taken a symbol for Erik.

Conn set her on her feet and watched her with banked need, his wolf riding him. His breath sawed from his lungs as she heard him wondering where she’d want his mark.

Her hand went to his and lifted it to collar her neck, and he growled deep and hard. He liked it. His wolf howled that she would want the mark for all to see. Sirena’s palm came up, and the emotions and the intensity of the marking was so much that Dacia thought she’d die of wanting him by the time it was over. Her neck bore the warm heat of the design she’d worked out with Sirena. The ink was red, a beautifully scrolled version of the serpents with one change: Conn’s name had been scrolled into the design that wrapped around her neck like a beautiful necklace. He touched it with his thumb, caressed it before taking her lips. When he broke the kiss, his deep voice echoed through the room. “I love you so damned much.”

“I love you,” she said with a smile as he lifted and carried her out to cheers and revelry. She couldn’t keep her fingers from the mark on his chest. Hers.

Chapter 40

Island Temple of Consummation, Tetartos Realm

Conn took her moan into his mouth as they reformed on the sand. It was warm beneath his feet as he carried his beautiful mate up to the marble steps that led into the one-room temple. Stone pillars surrounded it, and the sound of the ocean sliding up the shore would have been peaceful if his body wasn’t so out of control. The moon shone bright on the sand and water, but he barely noticed anything beyond the salt air and the sweet scent of his gorgeous mate and the mark she bore on her fucking neck. Not just that she was a mated female, but that she was fucking his. She wore his name on her skin for eternity, and he still couldn’t breathe because of it. He wanted to touch and lick that mark so damned bad.

His first look at her in the red mating dress had sucked the air from his lungs, and now he just wanted to see her naked wearing only his name. Not yet. The silk of the gown was soft between them. The deep dark red set off her midnight hair and golden eyes and made her appear more like a goddess of old than his young mate. He’d thought the frenzy was as out of control as he’d get, but he’d been fucking wrong. The ceremony had flayed him open and slid her deeper inside him. She touched his jaw, so much heat and love in her eyes it enthralled him. He wasn’t sure how he moved to the bed and set her down, following her to the bed and sliding to their sides so he could see her eyes.

The blood bond first. It’s tradition to have a guard watch over us.
He’d played sentry for Dorian and Gregoire both. They’d been lost for hours, while his brothers had said it felt like only minutes had passed in their minds. It was an intense experience, and worry had been eating him. He hated that she might be devastated by memories so old they shouldn’t haunt anybody anymore, but they’d made him, and she would see them whether he wanted that or not.