Unchained, page 33
And was there another change? She leaned over the bed and peeled down the coverlet, knowing very well that he wore nothing beneath. But as much as she enjoyed the view, she was interested just this once in something besides his perfect form.
The skin of his sculpted chest was marble-pale. Bare of tattoos.
“You see, they’re gone,” he said. “The curse is broken.”
She started. “You’re awake!”
His lips twitched. “Indeed. I keep regaining consciousness to find you taking care of me.”
“You have a problem with that?”
He reached up, brushing her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Never. You’re as welcome as the sun after centuries of darkness. And I know what that means. It’s not just poetry.”
She leaned over him, finding the warmth of his lips. He was safe. He was free—and now his gray eyes were dark with fascination, his hair loose around his muscular shoulders. Dark stubble showed off his sharp cheekbones—the kind cameras loved and plastic surgeons ached to re-create.
He should model for a pin-up calendar. Hot Historical Heroes. Sir September. The Duke of December. Marquess of May—or May Not. Reynard could have starred on every page.
His gaze stayed on her face as the slowly slipping bedcovers revealed his lean abdomen, each set of muscles clearly defined. Nothing like daily battles for a few centuries to develop the old six-pack.
His hand caught hers before the coverlet could descend those last critical inches. A dare burned in his eyes. “You wouldn’t take advantage of a man when he’s down?”
“Sure I would.” She grinned. “Without apology. And, y’know, you’re not entirely down.”
“You witch.”
“Guilty.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “And what am I going to do with you now that you’re in one piece?”
His gaze made suggestions. “You mean now that I’m not half in a clay pot?”
“A nice pot, though.” She lifted her eyebrows, her expression pleased. “Not that you’ll need it anymore.” She looked over at the urn, sitting on the stand that held his washbasin.
He squinted. “I haven’t seen it for hundreds of years.”
“I caught it just as the place exploded. When you forced the demon back into the Castle.”
“Then you saved my life.”
She allowed herself a small smile. “Maybe.”
He squinted harder. “Is that duct tape stuck to my urn?”
Ashe looked a bit sheepish. “I caught it before it smashed, but I think the blast cracked it a bit. I didn’t want your soul leaking out. The tape was the only thing I could find fast enough to do any good.”
Reynard began to chuckle. “Witches, werewolves, vampires, and a castle full of guardsmen on hand, not to mention police, firefighters, paramedics, and the media—and the only thing that could save my soul was a roll of duct tape.”
The chuckle turned into a guffaw.
Ashe looked down at him with a mixture of shock—she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him really laugh—and pique. “I was doing the best I could. It was all chaos and demon bits!”
He touched her cheek, his fingers threading through her hair. “Did you bring Eden here?”
“Yes. Today.”
“I thought I sensed her presence. It was like the brush of a bird’s wing against my dreams. I think it brought me back.”
Ashe bit her lip. “She was worried. She cares for you.”
“I care for her.” He gave a crooked smile. “And I care very, very much for her mother.”
Reynard was giving her that smoking look again, the one that made it feel as if her insides were turning to chocolate syrup. He cupped her head, pulling her mouth down to his. The kiss was urgent and vulnerable, as if he were making up for the centuries of emotion that he’d missed. When they broke apart, he still held her, his breath warm against her ear.
“How did Prince Miru-kai get your life out of the urn and back into you?” she asked. “You were gone for three whole days before they put you back in your chamber.”
“I’m not sure. That time is a blank to me.”
“I watched over you as much as I could.”
“Thank you.” He kissed Ashe again, and she completely lost verbal skills.
“Three days,” he murmured. “Three whole days. Now that I am mortal again, I have but another forty years or so. I don’t have time to waste.”
“Aren’t you a warlock? Couldn’t magic sustain you?”
He shook his head. “I was never that skilled, and I’ve had my fill of enchantments.”
That wasn’t hard to understand. “Still, forty years is a long time.”
His smile grew lazy. “I’ve been alive for nearly three hundred, and I’m not sure I’ve made good use of my days. I have some catching up to do.”
There was real regret in his words. He sat up, the sheet pooling around his hips. Swallowing hard, Ashe rested her hands on his shoulders. There was a lot of naked Reynard right there in front of her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
He suddenly laughed, his gray eyes alight with humor.
She unbuckled her holster, setting it on the chair beside the bed. Reynard’s laugh faded. One by one, she shed her knives, the stakes, the second handgun at the small of her back. She made a show of it, taking her time. By the time she got to the wrist sheaths, he looked deadly serious.
“Do you want to help me with the rest?” she asked.
He slid out of bed and knelt at her feet, the motion graceful and fluid. And without a sheet.
Oh, Goddess. He was clearly feeling hunky-dory.
“Allow me.” He lifted her foot in his hands and drew off her right boot, then her left. The stone floor was cold through her socks, worse than an unheated basement, but all she let herself notice was him. It wasn’t difficult. His full lips curved in that bad-boy smile.
She reached down and picked up one of the stakes she’d dropped, running the tip along her thigh as she straightened. “Want to play hunter and vampire?”
Reynard quirked his eyebrow. “Madam, I came equipped with my own stake.”
“Whoa! Points to the old guy.”
He sprang up, snatching Ashe off her feet in the same motion, proving that he’d lost none of his amazing strength. “You consider me old?”
Ashe yipped with horror. “You toss me over your shoulder and I’ll stake your butt, mister!”
With a grunt, Reynard dumped her onto the bed, making the springs squeak. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion. She grabbed his arms and pulled him down, devouring his mouth. He tasted spicy, like sin melting on her tongue.
Her clothes were off in moments. Their lips met again, starved by the few seconds it took to undress her. Ashe could feel the magic of the fey still clinging to him as they bonded skin-to-skin. It was far subtler than a witch’s power, as gossamer silk was to heavy wool. It hung like smoke around them, filling her senses with the impossible: rainbows that shone only at night, music that fell like a shower of daydreams.
As Reynard ran his hands over her, she saw a stately home dusted with snow. His old house, back in the day? The scene shivered to a storm of color as the needs of her body pushed away the thrall of magic. The house was gone, and he was touching her, testing her wetness as she clenched around his probing fingers. Salty skin and male musk surrounded her. Ashe arched into him, letting pleasure ride her to the first crest of release.
Then she was back in the vision, riding a horse at breakneck speed through a field, the sunset glittering on rain caught in the grass. “Memories. I’m seeing your memories.”
“It’s my life coming back to me, one moment at a time.”
Then they were lost in the heat, finding sweet release. Mouths met again, nurturing, nourishing. She slid down, the length of her body stroking his as they curled beneath the covers of his narrow bed. His hand found her hair, fingers weaving through it. Ashe pressed next to him, glad of his warmth in the cool room.
She turned his hand in hers, feeling the weight of it, the calluses where he held his sword. His fingers were long, but the tips were blunt and his palm square.
“What do you see in the lines of my hand, madam gypsy?” he asked. His voice was deep and intimate in the tiny room.
“If I’d looked at your hands first, I might have understood you better.”
He folded his other arm behind his head so that he could see her better. Amusement played around his lips. “How is that?”
“You work hard.”
“I always have.”
“Really?”
“You thought I didn’t?”
“I wouldn’t have assumed...”
The lines around his eyes crinkled. “I had my fun, but I was a second son, love. I had to make my way in the world. Either that or marry an heiress.”
Ashe laughed. “Well, we still have a few of those around.”
“I never could bring myself to wed for money. Now, for that motorcycle of yours, I might make an exception.”
His hand explored beneath the covers, stroking her waist and hip in a long, possessive sweep. “I seem to be recovering my strength.”
“You’re just thinking about my bike.”
“No.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m wondering how a man courts a woman in these times. Are there still balls?”
“Nightclubs and coffee shops. A lot less formal.”
“What do you like to do?” His smile was wicked, bad boy present and accounted for. “You have such a poor opinion of my aristocratic kind that I ought to show you how a gentleman born can make a woman happy.”
Ashe felt herself smiling in response. She’d all but forgotten this back-and-forth with a man. “Skiing. Mountain climbing. Horseback riding.”
“Riding?”
“I like a good stallion,” she said. “A good, frisky one.”
“Really?”
She moved under the bedsheet. He drew his breath in suddenly, touching her face, sliding his hand down over her breast. Angling over her, he left a long, lingering kiss on her lips. “You’re so beautiful, if a trifle impatient.”
She felt the softness of his hair, the harsh brush of his stubble. The contrast of textures was exciting. Then his mouth was on her breasts, her stomach, then nipping the soft flesh of her thighs. He was just this side of masterful. That was what she needed. She didn’t feel like proving herself tonight. For once, she wanted someone to simply want her—nothing complicated, no thinking required.
His mouth was on her, tasting her, sending a sweet-and-sour need through her belly. She felt her heels dig into the sheets as the tension grew, desire sharp as the finest steel. Cursing under her breath, she felt the waves of sensation pounding through her as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, then backed away, then brought her there again, only to steal her finish once more. She flung her head back, arching her neck, eyes squeezed shut in delicious frustration.
“Goddess, I’m not immortal; let me go before I break!”
“Are you asking nicely?” he teased, closing his lips around the peak of her breast at the same time his fingers slipped inside her.
And that did it. With a wild gasp, she opened her eyes, the pool of lamplight by the bedside dissolving into a golden aura as tears of release spilled down her cheeks. She came under his hand long and hard.
She was still burning with pleasure when he slipped his hard length inside, easing in with a few leisurely strokes. His chest muscles did an interesting dance as he shifted his weight onto his arms, doing a slow, slow push-up to bring his lips down to hers. Ashe could see a vein in his arm pulse as he hovered there, intimately inside her, yet holding himself apart. Her nipples just brushed his skin, trembling against him as she breathed. She began to pant, her inner muscles spasming, clenching around him.
He groaned, giving in to the urge to thrust. She felt the slide through her whole body, friction that overflowed her senses. She rose to meet it, slick with anticipation. His next thrust was harder, barely banked power.
“Again,” she breathed, reaching up to grab the bars of the headboard. “You don’t need to hold back.”
He let his mouth trail over her neck, down between her breasts, and then the rhythm took them both—slowly at first, Reynard lingering over the motion, then more and yet more greedily, driving into her without mercy. She came first, the sound of his name on her lips bringing him to climax in a shuddering rush.
Afterward, they lay entwined, reluctant to separate. Finally, sweat drying in the chill air, Ashe began to shiver. Reynard made the first move, retrieving the covers to pull over them. Ashe curled into his chest, basking in the lassitude after lovemaking.
It had been perfect. Epic.
There was no reason for this to ever end. She had him. Life was good.
“My love,” Reynard said, running one finger down her cheek.
“What?” Ashe curled deeper into his side.
“You have very, very cold feet.”
She swatted him with her pillow.
* * *
THE END
Continue with Frostbound
Afterword
Thank you so much for reading Unchained and stepping into my story world for a time. While you’re immersed in the book, you’re helping to create the place and people with your imagination. I hope this journey together was fun!
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Speaking of what’s coming next, don’t miss the next Dark Forgotten novel, Frostbound. As a snowstorm locks down the city, vampire Talia Rostova becomes the prime suspect in her own botched murder. Lore, the hellhound Alpha, takes her prisoner while he tries to solve the case—and the more he starts to believe in her innocence, the more he realizes it will take far more than a stake to put this killer back in his grave…
Ravenous
THE DARK FORGOTTEN, Book 1
One kiss is all it takes to lose your soul…
* * *
Holly Carver is a small-time witch who busts ghosts for tuition money, but ends up wrangling a demon when a haunted house job goes bad.
* * *
Her Undead business associate, Alessandro Caravelli, suspects the demon is somebody’s not-so-secret weapon. The supernatural community is at war, and Holly’s unpredictable magic holds the key to hell’s doorway. Soon Holly is on everyone’s “must have” list, and not in a good way.
* * *
Alessandro wants her for more than magic. A lover with six centuries of experience, the vampire is walking seduction, but he’s also a predator. Every moment he spends guarding Holly, every second he spends falling under her witch’s spell, he becomes more and more of a threat himself. As Holly’s sharp-tongued grandma warns her: vampires are like a box of rich chocolate—they seem so tempting, but over-indulgence is a killer…
Start reading Ravenous now!
Scorched
THE DARK FORGOTTEN, Book 2
Cracking the case will cost Mac the last of his humanity. Walking away means Constance loses her son.
Detective Macmillan has a taste for bad girls, but his last lover took the cake—and his soul. Now half-demon, Mac’s lost his friends, his job, and his freedom.
Constance is a vampire trapped inside the Castle prison. Her adopted child has been kidnapped, and she turns to Mac for help. The trail leads them deep into the dungeon, where the stakes are beyond even Mac’s worst fears—beyond even death itself.
Fiery, vulnerable Constance will do anything for those she loves, including Mac. And he’ll be damned if he turns his back on her . . . and a demon forever if he doesn’t.
Welcome to the Castle. The price of admission is your soul.
This Romantic Times Book Reviews Top Pick blends the best of urban fantasy with sizzling hot paranormal romance.
Start reading Scorched now!
Frostbound
THE DARK FORGOTTEN, Book 4
Every dog might have his day, but the hellhound guards the night …
As a snowstorm locks down the city, more than the roads are getting iced. Someone’s beheaded the wrong girl, and vampire-on-the-lam Talia Rostova thinks it was meant to be her. Now she’s the prime suspect in her own botched murder—and the prisoner of her smoking-hot neighbor.
Lore is a hellhound, bred to serve and protect, so he’s not freeing Talia until he’s sure that she’s the prey and not the hunter. You’d think a beautiful woman in his bedroom would be a good thing, but trouble-prone Talia has run afoul of someone more sinister than your average lunatic killer. An ancient Undead is wreaking vengeance on the city—and on her—and Lore will have to go far beyond a stake to put him back in his grave …
Start reading Frostbound now!
Gifted
THE DARK FORGOTTEN, Book 5
Who says the holiday season is just for humans?
