There was a tense pause, and Kala said, “I cannot see. Let us leave this place soon, sister. We must find another way.”
Shilah closed the connection with her sister, hating the sense of helpless rage that filled her. Taking back her throne was not worth the cost of the pain in her sister’s vision. If she returned to Dxyriah with Lachlan and his promised army, her people’s blood would stain the streets and the mountains. Why? How might her love and compassionate nature lead to such an awful outcome?
Suddenly he was there, the warmth of his body penetrating the chill that wrapped around her earlier. She sensed when he bent his head, felt the brush of his lips against her hair, the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck. “If I ask you to promise you will never hurt my people, what would be your answer?” she asked hoarsely.
“Whatever you wish will be done.”
She did not allow relief to fill her, instead asking, “And if they should hurt me in the fight to reclaim my kingdom? Will your promise stand?”
He needn’t answer for a wave of violence and retribution flowered through her along their link. She closed her eyes and spun to face him. “You cannot return with me to Serange.”
He caught her chin between his thumb and finger in a firm grip. “Why?”
Her gaze jumped to his. “My sister is a foreseer, and she has visions of you killing hundreds in my kingdom. And her visions have always come to fruition. Those are my people. I love them, and I must protect them even at the cost of my own desires.”
His eyes watched her, but he made no reply.
“I cannot vow to stay and accept your claim. Do not demand it of me.”
A low growl rumbled warningly through the night, and she tipped and pressed her finger against his lips. “I want you…more than I desire my next breath. I crave you with an intensity that petrifies me. I want to feel pleasure, I want to feel alive as only your touch has ever made me feel in all my two hundred and six years alive. I want to bask in something other than the doubts and fear I feel for my people and the path I am on. I want to feel. I want to burn. And I want you to give it to me, Lachlan Ravenswood for another has never awakened this hunger I feel.”
The tension swirled and thickened around them.
Shilah brushed her mind against their telepathic thread. She found a hunger so deep, so wild, so urgent, it scared her, even as it called to somewhere deep inside. She couldn’
t rely on him to help her take back her throne. Somehow, she had to do this herself. Queen of darkness you shall become. If she submitted to his claim Shilah sensed with her entire being she would be changed. But she could make love with him without handing over her soul, and the destruction of her kingdom, couldn’t she? She closed her eyes, blotting out the utterly foolish thought. This man would not take in part and be satisfied. He was a conqueror, and he would demand her irrevocable surrender—to the man, the monster, and everything he represented.
“I will give you one night,” she said softly. “To hold me, to love me, and then I must leave. If you swear to let me go after….”
A burst of lust swept from him and covered her. He smoothed the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lower lip, ensuring his claws did not split her lips. He was going to kiss her, she could feel it, and how desperately she wanted his lips against her. Logic didn’t seem to have a place in her heart at the moment. “Say something, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
His head dipped, and he pressed his mouth against hers. And she wanted to weep at how gentle he was. They stilled, and her lips trembled against his. A very strange but sweet twisting ache stirred in her belly, and her heart quickened.
He traced the curves of her breasts, sliding down to explore her tiny waist before moving down to the swell of her hips. “I like touching you, Shilah.”
The sting of his claws had her flinching. He withdrew his hand, a frown slashing his brows as he stared at the wicked claws jutting from his fingers. Shilah felt his fierce concentration along their link. Power surged, and right before her eyes, his claws retracted.
She pressed her hands to his chest, moving even closer to him. “I like touching you too.” Their mental connection leaped, burned to life in a pulse of silver-blue aura. Though her eyes remained closed, her lips pressed to his, their bodies unmoving, and she could see the image of them standing by the lake, a strange aura surrounding them clear in her mind. The silver-blue glow around them, expanded, and the nearby flowers which had been covered in darkness now burst into bright colors.
Her fingers slid over his face, the angles, and planes, memorizing his features. If only she could have him for a brief while.
Queen of darkness you shall become.
Pushing aside that forbidding prophecy, she leaned deeper into his kiss, parting her lips to his slow licks and nibbling.
“My mate.” This brush against her mind felt deeper, more intimate, and she opened her physic eye peeking at the thread through which they connected. An arrow of shock darted through her as a smoldering burn seared her belly and flared through her core with a dark heat that threatened to consume her. She ached. She got wet. And he inhaled.
“I want your pussy on my tongue mate. Let me lap you up.”
A rip vibrated on the air as he rent the top of her sari from her body. Hot lips trailed along her jaws, her neck, and along her exposed breasts. With a blink of the shadows, she was on her back, lying on the grass, his powerful body coming down over hers. The hungriest of eyes devoured her naked breast.
A gentle breeze washed over the hill, and Shilah smelled the rain, inhaled the scent of it, then felt the cold drops on her skin. A groan of thunder rumbled, the ominous sound a portent for her possible future. She slid her legs up his pants, loving the feel of his muscles, and over to his hips to lock them behind his back. To keep her ankles locked behind his back, her hips arched sharply upwards, flushing her wet, pulsing core directly against the hardened ridge of his cock.
He groaned. She sighed. And they kissed.
She looped her hands around his neck and held on. Shilah became lost entirely in the taste, the scent, and the feel of him. His skin stretched, the tattoo slid sinuously along his body and hers, and she did not flinch from it but coasted the tip of her finger over his back and up to his shoulders. Ropes of muscle rippled and twisted beneath her gentle glide, and she felt the dark predator in him rise, incinerating the leash that caged the storm in her arms.
Water dripped from his body onto hers and trailed between the valley of her breasts and down her belly to the junction between her legs. Shilah parted her lips, letting the drops wet her mouth, hoping it would cool the burning hunger erupting inside.