“The food will be here soon,” he said, his voice very deep.
“Yes,” she agreed without stopping her exploration of him with her mouth.
She let her fingernails dig ever so slightly into his skin, and his body jerked in response. Releasing her wrists, he shifted his hands to her ass and pulled her tight to his erection.
“This should stop,” he muttered, but his fingers kneaded her flesh and he ground his hips against hers, belying his words.
“Are you sure you want me to stop?” she said into his neck, before biting down lightly on the skin between his throat and shoulder.
“Goddess, no.”
The sheer desperation in his voice made her chuckle. “Then I think I’ll continue.”
Finally moving her hands from where they were trapped between their bodies, she slipped her palms higher, caressing his skin softly with her nails. The movement pushed his shirt higher, giving her access to all the hard planes of muscle. She dropped to her knees in front of him, despite his warning growl and his attempt to keep her in place. The heat of his skin was a lure she refused to resist. Placing her lips gently on his abdomen, she reveled in the trembling of muscle she felt.
She trailed her tongue down the center of his stomach, stopping only when she reached the top of his trousers. Then she pushed the material down ever so slightly and licked.
The sound he made in response was part moan, part shout, but muffled as if he didn’t want to make too much noise. The response pleased her. She nuzzled her cheek against his erection, still unfortunately confined by his trousers.
“This can’t be very comfortable. Wouldn’t you be happier without these?” She tugged gently at the top of his trousers to make her point.
“Yes.”
The gravel of his voice sent a spike of heat to her core. Before she could make good on removing his trousers, though, someone knocked at the door. With a soft grunt of regret, she nuzzled his erection again, then stood.
Grinning, she pointed to the bed. “Maybe you should sit down and make that beautifully hard cock less obvious. We wouldn’t want to scare anyone.”
His dark expression only made her grin more.
When he was seated, uncomfortably, on the edge of the mattress, she opened the door and let in a human woman carrying a large tray. She startled when she saw Einar in the room.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my lord. I left your meal in your room. Will I bring it here?”
He nodded, quick and sharp, without unclenching his jaw.
Setting her tray down on the small table next to the bed, the woman hurried off, glancing nervously at the large warrior elf scowling from his place on the bed.
When she was gone, Nuala said, “You’re scaring her, you know. You might want to try a less…threatening expression.”
He snorted but still didn’t speak. When the girl returned, she looked around for a place to put the second tray, her gaze continuing to jump nervously toward Einar.
“Here,” Nuala said, feeling sorry for the poor woman. She took the tray. “Don’t let him scare you. He’s just…in a mood.”
The woman tried to smile, but when she glanced at Einar again, her faint smile dropped. “If there will be nothing else?”
“No. Thank you very much for the food.”
The human dipped into a slight curtsy and fled, closing the door solidly behind her.
“Einar. That wasn’t very nice.”
She turned to scold him and found him standing in front of her. Silently, he took the tray, set it to one side on the floor, and yanked her back into his arms.
“You want nice,” he said in that same gravelly voice. “I’ll give you nice.”
His threat sent a shiver of excitement across her skin, and she sank against him as he finally captured her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss.
Chapter Eleven
Nuala barely had time to catch her breath before Einar had her stripped naked and sprawled across the bed. The
Shaerta
roared through her, making her skin so sensitive, his every touch was an exquisite balance between pleasure and pain. Before she could gain the upper hand again, he settled between her legs and licked into her wet, hot folds, sending her body into a spiral of desperation.
Knowing there were other people in the building, near enough to hear her, she kept her screams of pleasure locked behind clenched teeth. Then Einar’s revenge swept her up into a fast, hard orgasm so overwhelming it stole her voice.
He tried to take advantage of her loss of control, to keep her in the throes of his revenge. But she wanted too much from him to allow that. Despite his superior size, she surprised him by flipping him onto his back. Her needs rode her hard, making her rough as she opened his belt and wrenched his trousers apart, forcing them down his hips. She didn’t even bother to fully strip him, just leaned over his throbbing cock and took him into her mouth.
Einar’s back arched off the bed and he dropped his hands to her head, burying his fingers in the thick mass of her hair. The long locks fell in waves around her, covering his hips, creating a curtain that added intimacy as she licked and sucked him.
Controlling his body, this warrior so feared by everyone else, gave her as much pleasure as his mouth had just given her. She couldn’t stop, even when she knew he was close to losing control. She didn’t want to. His pants and moans, the near painful grip of his hands, sent her own body tightening again, climbing toward another orgasm without him even having to touch her.
His scent rose up to surround her, mixing with the already potent
Shaerta
to drive her beyond thought. Pleasure, need, taking and giving. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Only the hard length of him between her lips, the desperate sounds he made from between clenched teeth, the rasps of their panting mingling in the quiet room.
Driven beyond madness by her desires, she straddled one of his legs and rubbed herself along the smooth leather of his trousers, even as she continued to savor the taste of his cock. The sensation of cool, smooth material against her hot, wet clit pushed her to the very edge of her control. When she felt Einar pulse in her mouth, when he ground out her name and came with a suppressed roar, she followed. The spiraling pleasure jerked through her body as she continued to suck the last of Einar’s orgasm from him.
Panting and gloriously, if momentarily, satisfied, Nuala released him from her lips and nuzzled his hip with her cheek.
His eyes were so dark they were nearly black, and the love and desire there squeezed around her heart. He still had one hand in her hair, caressing her scalp gently, and she wanted to purr like one of the cats she remembered from her last visit to Sinnale.
“You’ll eat now,” he growled down at her, his voice so harsh another might have thought him angry.
She raised her brows and smiled, glancing at his semi-erect cock.
“The food,” he clarified.
She laughed. “You’ll eat—the food—too. It’s been a long night. Then I do need to sleep. But—” she held up a hand when he started to speak, “—I want you to stay with me, sleep here with me.”
He still looked like he wanted to protest. “The bonding…we made things worse just now.”
“I want you here too much to care if we continue to make things worse.” She crawled up his body and settled beside him, leaning over to hold his gaze so he couldn’t doubt her words. “It’s too late, Einar. And I don’t care. For you, for us, I will take the worst punishment the queen and king will hand out.”
“You’re not scared of the
Or’roan
?”
“Oh, I’m scared of that. I don’t want to meet a permanent end to my soul. Mostly because it means I’ll only have this lifetime with you, and I want more. I don’t want to risk your afterlife, your lifetimes either. If you walked away from me to avoid the
Or’roan
, I’d let you go.”
“Never,” he hissed, his arms tightening around her hard and fast.
She released a little breath, only just then realizing a small part of her had worried he’d make the choice to abandon what they had if she offered him the out.
“Then you should know I will always choose this life with you,” she said, “no matter how long we have, whether we can travel into the next realm together or not. I can’t continue without you anymore. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to either.” He kissed her, a soft promise. When he straightened, though, his brow was creased and his mouth tightened. “I can feel a difference,” he said quietly. “In my magic. Already I can feel a difference.”
She let her attention turn inward, toward that place at her very center where her essence and magic mixed to make her who she was. She concentrated on the swirls of energy, the ebbs and flows, and realized she too felt different.
There were changes happening. She wouldn’t be able to tell how those changes would manifest in her magic until she tried to work it. But she and Einar were linked now, their bonding almost fully complete. With that came a melding of powers and talents, leaving in its wake something new and untried.
She refocused on him. “As I said. Too late. So now there’s no reason for you to leave. Stay with me. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re next to me.”
He kissed her again before saying, “I don’t want to be anywhere else ever again.”
Ulric and Layla came personally to show Nuala to the armory and the room set up for her work. Einar insisted on escorting her despite the fact that she was safe with her cousin.
She allowed Einar and Layla, busy discussing the tensile strength of the steel used in various elf swords, to move ahead so she could have a private word with Ulric as they walked.
“Your brother?” she said in their own language, in case Ulric didn’t want his feelings on the subject known to the Sinnale.
The expression on Ulric’s face was not friendly. His blue eyes narrowed and a set of deep lines furrowed his brow. “The humans have agreed to hold Althir in a comfortable prison for the time being. I think they give him too much luxury.”
“He is your brother.”
“His selfishness almost got Layla killed.
He
almost killed Layla. Though he claims he didn’t know it was her when he fired.” This last he muttered quietly, reluctantly, as if part of him believed Althir and resented doing so.
“Ah.” She understood, better than Ulric knew. The brothers had never been particularly close, so Althir having anything to do with harming the woman Ulric loved would likely override his brotherly feelings. The fact that Althir could have killed Layla, whether he meant to or not… Nuala wasn’t particularly surprised Ulric was so angry. She could imagine the feeling too well when it came to Einar. Still…
Ulric and Althir’s relationship was unique. Most elf siblings weren’t born so close together—they were usually separated by centuries rather than decades like her cousins. She’d always thought it a shame they couldn’t get along better. They were much more alike than either would care to admit.
Not the least being their loyalty to the king and queen. She often thought Althir’s jealousy of Ulric came from that loyalty and the favor the sovereigns paid the older brother. While his turning traitor had shocked her deeply, a part of her wondered if Althir had done that because the sovereigns didn’t acknowledge him the way they did Ulric.
“He’s helping the humans now,” she said. “You begrudge him some comfort? He’s provided information that will eventually help end the war.”
Ulric didn’t answer for several minutes. She’d decided he wouldn’t when he finally said, “I can’t trust him ever again. I would have killed him for the threat he was to Layla. There’s been too much damage between us for me to think kindly on Althir.”
She sighed. A shame, but not unexpected. “Should I… Should I visit him while I’m here?”
“He’s not allowed visitors from Glengowyn yet. On order of the king and queen. They worry he’ll…corrupt other elves. His charm…”
Althir’s magics were tied up in his charm, and he could be very persuasive if he chose to be. Some in Glengowyn whispered Althir was the first to defect, the one who lured the other traitors to the Sorcerers. She had her doubts about that rumor, but it made the sovereigns’ order regarding visitors reasonable.
“You visit him, though?” she asked.
“I don’t. But not because of the order.”
“Then why?”
“I’m still tempted to kill him.”
“I had to kill an elf.” She blurted the sentence before she realized she would. “One of the traitors who helped in the attack on the caravan. I…I’m not sure I would have if you hadn’t confirmed that I could.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. He would have handed me over to the Sorcerers. To be used and drained and eventually killed. I don’t regret killing him. In fact, I felt very little about having done it. I wouldn’t have known it possible without you, though, and so I might not have tried. You helped save my life by telling me.” She shrugged and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I guess I’m trying to say thank you for being honest with me.”
“Always, cousin. Always.” He walked beside her a few more paces before saying, very softly, “I will hate to see you banished.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s obvious now?”