Forged In Fire (Witch World Series Book 2), page 9
This was Ciaran’s only chance. He would be damned if anyone took it from him. But, as for the resident of the Underworld, otherwise known as Hell, being damned was entailed in its description. As was occasionally being incinerated.
One moment Ron lunged forward with a savage battle cry forming in his throat. The next, a bright light tore through Ciaran, blinding him for a precious moment he was sure would cost him his life; but when he regained the ability to see, a pile of ashes was all that was left of his enemy.
Shouts erupted all around him, threats and demands for the responsible parties to come forward, or else… Ciaran staggered as more shouts joined the cacophony, some demanding to know who helped Ron, others … he no longer listened, no longer heard. The ground slipped from under his bare feet. The world went dark.
*
It never took long to regain consciousness—reprieve was as foreign a concept as mercy in the Underworld—but when Ciaran remained dead for countless hours, Desiree became frantic. She tried again to shock his body into waking up, but just like the last dozen or so times, after she’d moved him into her bed, he showed no signs of stirring.
The last time she’d seen him like that was of her own doing, but now—her hands trembled. Her damned nature warred with itself, frantic and angry over the incident. She wanted to torture anyone who took part in harming him, yet she couldn’t force herself to leave his cold body.
Those were not just needs, nor wants. It felt stronger than ingrained instincts, stronger than the compulsion of the oath. She was used to small skirmishes inside her, when two different desires collided, but the moment he went down, the two opposing powers had clashed with deadly force, ripping into each other with talons drawn.
For a moment she hadn’t been able to do anything but feel those two creatures fight tooth and nail for dominion over her. She had been frozen. Vulnerable. She did the only thing she could have done—subdued them using force. But in doing so, she was afraid she’d caused more harm than good. Something had torn inside of her. Something felt off.
Not the moment to think about the consequences, Desiree told herself.
“Ciaran…” Finally, he opened his eyes, and she let out a breath of relief.
“Dezi…” His chocolate-brown gaze met hers, the warmth in it caressing her. “I can’t die,” he uttered, sitting up.
“Of course you can. There are dozens of ways to destroy a soul. Me being one of them.”
“I mean I can’t die from a dagger wound.”
“From this one you would have,” she admitted, still shaken. Healing was not her specialty. She’d spent a millennium inflicting wounds, not patching them up, but this… “It was close.” Too close.
“What happened?” he asked, cupping her face with both his hands.
“That’s a good question.” She moved closer, until she felt those hands around her. For some unexplained reason she needed his warmth. She needed to hear the heart beating beneath her palm. She simply needed him. “Do you have enemies?”
“Enemies? Sure. But in high enough places to acquire a weapon that could destroy a soul? I don’t think so.”
“The dagger was a simple one, the poison on it was not,” Desiree corrected him.
She remembered her senses prickling in awareness, but unfortunately when she pieced everything together it had already been too late. Ciaran had been stabbed, and for an endless second she sat paralyzed with horror as his insides were ripped out by some rotten scum who reeked of sin so foul, he should have never been permitted to enter the mines.
For the first time in centuries, Desiree had felt the old Gem awakening. Red was all she’d seen.
“Then what? Someone made a bet and decided to take matters into their own hands?” Ciaran kept caressing her with the lightest of touches until her vision cleared. A peace settled over her like the softest of blankets.
“A long shot.” She shook her head.
Demons constantly laid wagers, true. It was probably the main attraction—for a lot of them it held far greater appeal than the fight itself. The currency was anything they could think of: power, a future claim, a shichra. But sometimes the price in the event of a loss got too steep, and demons risked their hide by interfering.
Though not exactly unheard of, cheating was definitely a rare incident. Not many could pull it off with the whole arena watching.
“I’ll know more when that piece of ash reforms and regains his ability to scream.” Desiree bit her lip in anticipation of making sweet music with freshly regrown vocal cords.
“Don’t.” Ciaran cut off a particularly entertaining torture scenario swirling in her head. “You’ve already incinerated him.”
“And I shouldn’t have?” She frowned, confused at his attitude. “Was I supposed to let you bleed on the spot as well?”
His muscles tensed under her touch, and he gritted his teeth. “I could have handled Ron.”
Males and their pride! Desiree almost rolled her eyes, realizing too late that no matter the age, species, or setting they all had that in common. But with Ciaran…
“I know,” she finally said, catching his eyes. “I know that … now.”
Back then she hadn’t been thinking straight.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done, or want to do, but I don’t want you fighting my battles.” His voice had yet to lose the sternness, though if anything his hands only gentled as they pulled her closer.
She blinked, dumbfounded. How was it possible to reject and welcome at the same time? And then there was his gaze—dark, intense, yet devoid of any anger. It could have sucked her in, made her forget the world existed beyond his embrace; if not for the sensation the problem would only grow to the size of a hellhound.
“Tell me, what would you have done in my place?” she asked, trying to dig into his convoluted logic.
Convoluted it might be, but it was obvious it was important to him. So important that even when her fingers began playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, and she felt him harden, it hadn’t disappeared completely.
His look turned hungry, and still she saw it.
“The same,” he admitted. “Maybe more.”
It took Desiree a few seconds to realize what he said. So lost had she been in his gaze, she almost missed the answer.
“And…” she prompted.
“Nothing.” He laughed, the sound coming out strained somehow. “Like you’ve said before—this isn’t Earth, and I shouldn’t try to apply the same rules.”
And yet, it ate at him.
“So basically you’re creating problems out of thin air?”
“Probably. I just…”
“You just can’t help the way you feel.” She finished his sentence.
“And you can’t help the way you are,” he added.
They both smiled in understanding, and it felt like it was the most natural thing in the world. They both knew their relationship couldn’t continue indefinitely. There was no way around their situations. They didn’t belong together, and in the long run it could never work. But for now, she brushed off the awful feeling of finality creeping in, and focused on the present.
“How long have you been in the Underworld?”
Every time he spoke of the Topworld, every time his thoughts visited there, even if only in passing, his voice changed. The look in his eyes turned to longing, and sadness, and something she’d never seen before. Something she craved to know.
“Not really sure.” Ciaran’s brow furrowed as he tried to piece together the time he’d spent in the mines, the Island, and somewhere in between. He couldn’t.
“Could be a couple of years, or a thousand,” he uttered. “It all blurs after a while, you know. Why are you asking?”
“Because your impression of your past life is too vivid for someone who has been dead for a few hundred years,” she explained, making him a bit uncomfortable.
Broaching the subject of his death was something Ciaran was keen to avoid. And at first he was afraid she would see right through him, as her skills were uncanny, until … her words sank in.
“How long did you say?”
“Well, maybe three hundred,” she guessed, making his illusions shatter all the faster.
Two, or three hundred years…
It felt like the ground had slipped from under his feet, as the fabric that held his sanity together was exposed as having holes the size of the Vortex of Shyau. Even worse, with it, the hope of getting out of the Underworld someday—the same hope that kept rising from the grave—withered and died for the last time.
The three innocent children he’d sacrificed his life for were no longer children, if they were alive at all. And they never came looking for him.
Ciaran closed his eyes for a brief second in his attempt to contain the sharp pain slicing his heart in two. Betrayal hurt far worse than a dagger to his side.
How had he managed to delude himself for so long when the truth was staring him right in the eye? He didn’t want to see it, that’s how. Still didn’t. It hurt thinking his family left him in Hell when they should have come for him the moment Amira’s children were powerful enough to defend themselves.
He forsook everything for them … his thoughts vanished as if they never were the instant Desiree’s fingers lifted his chin. His eyes flew open, only to find themselves drawn into the green fire. It burned fierce and strong, and amazingly, calmed the crashing breakers of the storm-tossed sea inside him.
Despite the heat she wrapped around him, despite the roaring flames, Ciaran found serenity in her touch. It soothed and healed. It became the lifeline that kept him from falling off the precipice. And then she leaned closer, and kissed him.
She nibbled on his lower lip before her tongue flicked over it. Her fingers curled into his hair; her tongue brushed past his lips. He groaned.
Sweet, and spicy, her kiss consumed his senses as the rich flavor exploded in his mouth, and fire flowed through his blood. His heartbeat gained momentum, yet underneath it all there was a sense of calmness. As if the desperate urgency that had always been the driving force between them transformed into something even more powerful.
Something that could potentially break them both.
He was beyond caring.
She broke the kiss, going up on her knees on the bed, in front of him. Waiting. Giving him an opportunity to think. As if he could.
Ciaran stood up before her, needing the space for no other reason than to take this slow. To make it last. If she reached for him, he knew this strange control would snap like a twig and he would charge her.
A part of him prayed she would. A part of him wanted nothing more than the pleasure they gave each other. But it seemed she knew how fragile the moment was. She stood perfectly still, without even attempting to breach the small distance between their bodies.
She did nothing but smile, and he was already rock-hard for her.
The slight tilt at the corners of her lips acted like a catalyst igniting his reaction. He stepped forward and pulled her head up, capturing those lips between his own. Their tongues tangled in a sensuous dance like two flames merging and igniting the all-consuming blaze.
“Yes,” she moaned as her nails raked down his back.
They traded one hungry kiss for another, not stopping at the lips. He placed kiss after kiss along the line of her jaw, down her neck, her shoulder, until her head rolled back and she moaned yet again.
With his teeth, Ciaran pulled aside the straps of her dress, winning a throaty laugh. His fingers slid down her sides, deliberately shaping up the breasts, and the sound transformed into a gasp. She arched. Her chest rose, and the sight of rosy nipples playing hide-and-seek behind the hem of the dress caught his attention.
His lips continued their journey downward, his tongue swirling over the hardened bud before he drew it into his mouth, enjoying each sound she made. His hands went lower, down her back, her ass. His fingers went under the hem of her short dress, and slowly, so slowly, Ciaran trailed them up, until the garment settled around her hips. He nearly died when he found her bare beneath the flimsy material.
“Sweet mercy,” he breathed. He almost came right then and there.
“I don’t believe in mercy,” she uttered in a hoarse voice.
At the moment, neither did he.
He flipped her to her back, rising above her, and before she could recover had one of her legs over his shoulder.
“Ciaran?” She yanked his head up, panting. “What are—”
“No mercy,” he told her, and lowered his lips to her navel. Her fingers eased out of his hair, her heel dug into his back. Permission given.
Ciaran pressed his lips to her sex. She was so wet, quivering already. He gave a lick, and her hips rolled. A strangled cry escaped her mouth.
With a pad of his thumb he rubbed her clit, using his tongue to delve deeper into her. Each thrust she met with a rock of her hips. Her fingers sank into his hair again, but this time to pull him closer, not push him away.
He swiped his tongue over her little nub. Felt her muscles tense.
“Don’t … stop,” she moaned, lifting her second leg onto his shoulder. “So … close. So…”
It was beyond satisfying playing with her body, and watching her reactions. Each gasp, each sharp intake of her breath, each whimper only made him that much more determined to drown her in pleasure. He slid two fingers inside her, and felt her inner muscles contract.
She screamed when she came. The drapes of the bed caught fire. And he knew, in that instant he knew, she’d ruined him for any other.
Chapter 11
The charred fabric above Desiree’s head served as a glaring reminder how out of control she was becoming, how much damage the latest rift of her psyche had done to her.
If only she cared.
She lay with her mind still floating somewhere afar. Every muscle of hers felt deliciously sore, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this relaxed. If ever.
Desiree hadn’t meant for that to happen when she’d kissed him. Sex hadn’t been her goal, or even on her mind. She simply couldn’t look at the devastation on his face. The urge to comfort him had swept over her like a tidal wave, and what began as an instinctive thing ended someplace she’d never been. She’d never had anyone focus solely on her, disregarding his own carnal needs as if her pleasure was all that mattered. She had never…
Sometimes she just didn’t understand that man. No one had ever shown her as much tenderness as he had, and it confused her. Worse, it scared her. There was this gnawing feeling inside her that seemed to grow each time they were together. It had her all in knots, and Desiree had no idea how to deal with it.
She didn’t like the unknowns.
She grew up drenched in the sins of others, and while she was an expert in the darkest side of emotions—emotions that led to murder, rape, humiliation—she had nothing to compare with what she was experiencing right now.
She had no guide to show her the way. No vocabulary to name it. She couldn’t even ask anyone, couldn’t reveal how this was affecting her. Couldn’t risk serving up her weaknesses on a silver platter.
She felt so lost.
If only she could glance into his eyes. The uncertainty, the guardedness she sometimes saw there could almost make her feel better. Like she wasn’t the only one struggling with herself. But if she rolled to the other side, she knew what she would find. An empty space.
He’d left her to prepare for his next fight.
Logically, she knew he needed time to complete the bonding with Dragonspirit, time to master the sword’s quirks. As far as she was concerned, logic could take a hike down the soul bridge. She missed the warmth of his embrace, and all she was left with was the remnants of it still lingering on the sheets.
Everything female in her ached with longing for a man who would rather return to a hole than stay with her. Desiree closed her eyes and sighed. A second later she groaned, her eyes flew open, and the pillow she wanted to bury her face in exploded into millions of pieces.
Why was she doing this to herself? she wondered as the small white feathers descended around her. This was pathetic. Was she so far gone that her emotions were leaking out like a combustible liquid?
She’d gone from being blissfully content to miserable in a matter of moments. She had never been erratic. And she didn’t even know who to blame: him, or her dual nature. The only thing she knew was that she couldn’t let emotions control her like that. Her strength lay in controlling it, not the other way round. Yet it ate at her that she couldn’t help him, that he would refuse any gift she bestowed upon him.
The blasted man refused to take charity or payments, or simply obey a command. He refused to be her pet. Not her words—his.
“Damn it!” she muttered, brushing the feathers away. As if she’d ever been into charity. And if she wanted a pet, she would have conjured one up. Well, she would if she were a witch. As a demon, her powers were a bit different. But that was beside the point. That attitude of his drove her insane.
Stop your obsession! Desiree ordered herself, just as a wave of power washed over her, slapping her into reality.
Two seconds, and her greeting hall would be graced by one very dangerous Council member—one who was yet to reveal his endgame. But instead of searching for a way out of her predicament, she’d been daydreaming. It seemed like a thousand years of self-preservation had evaporated in the non-existent wind.
She jumped into action, and by the time she’d thrown her legs over the bed and stood up, she had the sturdiest walls erected around herself. One did not bring a map to self-destruction into a potential battle. Especially when the opponent was in no way her inferior, and already knew too many of her secrets.
She needed leverage.
Unfortunately neither V nor Arik had turned up any good news yet. She needed to think. Plan. Usually she took strength from her emotions, but not now. Not when her feelings and priorities were tangled up together, refusing her the clarity she needed.
