“How breath-taking, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
With another blink, she was somewhere else similarly lit with torches. A cliff it seemed and below lay a valley, and beyond that valley, the sound of crashing waves hitting rocks reached her ears.
“Where are we?”
He moved to stand beside her and then replied, “A place I’ve visited when I seek peace.”
Shilah stared at him, never imaging there was a moment in time a man such as he could have craved for peace. She shifted her attention to sounds coming from the valley—the rustling of creatures, the cries of birds, the rushing of water. She allowed that serenity to seep into her and soothe her own turbulent mind. There was a shift in the darkness, a shape emerging, and she blinked wondering if she imagined it. Then a hulking beast appeared, its tongue lolling from its head.
Shilah jumped and shrieked, stumbling back, dropping on her ass in the grass. Mortification crawled through her, and she hurriedly lurched to her feet.
A deep, yet soft chuckle brushed against her skin, she whirled around. Oh! It was inexplicably the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—Lachlan Ravenswood with a smile on his face. While she still struggled to control the beating mess of her heart, the great brute bounded over to Lachlan only to skid to a halt, its lips curling back in a savage snarl, wicked canines dripping with saliva exposed, its ridgeback hackles raised.
What was it?
Lachlan rocked back on his heels. “Easy, Cronus, it is me. I am a bit different, but it is still me.”
The growls became more savage and its muscles bunched as if it primed for an attack. A ferocious sound burst from Lachlan’s chest and vibrated on the air with domineering menace. The creature paused, the muscles relaxed slowly, and then it bounded over to Lachlan and licked his face. He grabbed it around its neck with surprising affection, sliding his hand through the creature’s thick hair. Ropes of muscle rippled beneath the creature’s sleek fur. She felt his blast of pleasure through their link and sensed he had missed the beast.
Her heart tumbled inside her chest in the most alarming flip. Her entire body was flushed and alive, acutely aware of him. “You have a familiar?” she asked, tentatively moving closer. She’d read about them, at times wishing her world had animals that offered some comfort and ones with whom she could play. Some planets called them familiars and others called them pets, but she’d never seen one before.
“Is it like a dog?” She sent the impression of a large animal she’d seen in the mind of the human priest when he’d described the animal to her and Kala.
“You dare compare Cronus to something so small and feeble,” he said, sounding genuinely affronted.
Shilah laughed, and he glanced at her, desire making his eyes even more golden, the swirls of color more vivid. She looked away briefly, burying the raw lust that burned through her veins. Taking a steady breath, she faced him again, to see him staring at her with that predatory way of his. Fighting not to fidget under his unswerving gaze, she took a few more steps closer.
“Would you like to touch him, mate?”
She snatched the hand she’d been slowly reaching out with and placed it behind her back. “No.”
Lachlan’s lips twitched again, and she marveled. “Do you know that you are smiling?”
His face was void of expression when he answered, “My lips are not unused to the action.”
“Are you also jesting?”
With a barely-there smile, he lowered himself to the ground and lay back in the grass and tugged her down. She landed against the hardness of his chest with an oomph. Shilah lifted her face to the sky that shone with muted stars.
> “Your kingdom is beautiful.”
He faced her. “You can see it?”
“I can see the aura of all living things. I can see the small winged creature flying above your head. More like its shape and the red aura surrounding it. I can sense the age of the trees, and I can see the silvery green aura which streaks from the trunk and way up as if it would touch the sky.”
Unable to explain the need, she slid her hand against his and entwined their fingers. His hand swallowed hers, and his claws pricked the skin below her knuckles, beading blood. She swallowed when he lifted it to his mouth and licked the small dots of blood in one sensual glide.
Heat blossomed through her heart, traveled down and lodged between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together, fighting the sudden desire arrowing through her body.
This time when he lowered back their hands onto the grass, he was careful to ensure his claws did not pierce her skin.
“I too have a castle in the sky,” she murmured with a smile. “My castle sits on the highest mountain of Dxyriah, and from my bedchamber, I can see every home in my kingdom as it sprawls for miles with majestic grace.” She showed him the image of her city, and the sheer beauty of it when the sun hit the glass buildings, and they winked like yellow diamonds. “I never expected to see such graceful beauty in the Darkage. I pictured your kingdom to be filled with boiling lava pits an unsuspecting visitor could drop in at any time and be devoured, not to mention the bits where it is rumored Darkans feed people to their beasts.”
“We do have those too.”
She jerked her head up and laughed at the dark amusement in his eyes. Resting her head once again on his chest, she thought of why he had brought her here. He had evidently felt her turbulence and wanted to soothe her.
“Who are you Lachlan Ravenswood?” She could feel the monster in him lurking, his darkness twisting along the silver thread that connected them together. What was even of more significant concern was that her silver light seemed to like the darkness and the two essences were merging even more. She reached out to that invisible thread of energy and plucked at the strings. Its resonance vibrated throughout her entire body.