Chapter 12
Later that blacklight
Ransom rose over Scarlett, his arms holding his weight. He kissed her before repeating the exchange with more force.
“Hard and fast,” Scarlett demanded, her tone fierce. “I want to feel your touch tomorrow—on the whitelight. I need to remember this. You. Me. No matter the outcome.”
“Yes.”
He parted her legs and thrust home. He withdrew and slid back inside her, savoring the bite of Scarlett’s fingernails, the glide of his cock into her clinging walls.
“Harder, Ransom. Make me feel good.”
He laughed as she clung to him, meeting each of his plunges with a rise of her hips. A gasp. Her fingernails dug deeper, urging him on. Pleasure bubbled through him, growing bigger and better.
“Scarlett,” he groaned.
“Yes. Yes. Right there.”
The beginning of his orgasm prickled in his balls. It surged, digging deeper before his climax exploded upward, outward, taking him by storm.
Scarlett screamed encouragement, her pussy clutching at his shaft and prolonging his enjoyment. Then, her grip on him eased, and she sighed.
She reached up to draw his head closer and kissed him, slow and deep.
Grata loved this woman and wanted to keep her as his mate. The urge to declare this sentiment rushed through him, yet he withheld the words.
He had no right.
Scarlett groaned and held her head. Her features contorted in an agonized mask.
A long moment later, she breathed again.
Ransom hesitated, worried about speaking, apprehensive about the outcome.
“The prince is stronger,” she muttered. “And angry. Or perhaps motivated is a better word. I don’t know how you bear having him inside your mind. His mental prodding feels black and oily.”
“The perfect description,” Ransom said, accepting that he’d go to sleep this blacklight with no barrier to his mind. It sent his stomach roiling because he’d betray Scarlett the moment they opened the prince’s chamber.
No, he had no right to express his love for Scarlett. Not when he’d captured her for the prince.
“Are you okay? Did your shield hold?”
Scarlett grimaced. “Yes, but it won’t if he gets much stronger.”
“We’d better not sleep so close together.”
“Like hell,” Scarlett said. “You might need me to wake you or help you pull away from him. Make sure he realizes if he kills you, he’s screwing himself.”
Ransom pulled a face and turned on his side. “I get the sense he’s not willing to listen to reason any longer.” Sleep was the last thing he wanted. If he could, he’d do without to have more strength to keep the prince at bay.
Scarlett pressed her naked breasts against his back, and he was fiercely glad she couldn’t see his expression because he feared she’d glimpse his anguish.
Ransom hated this. If he had to die, he wanted his death to have a purpose. He’d skewer the prince through his rotten heart at the first opportunity.
Ransom closed his eyes after a hard swallow to remove the lump in his throat. He regulated his breaths, keeping them even as he willed his body to relax, his mind to drift. The last thing he did was to clear the protective barrier he’d built to make way for the prince’s entry.
The prince exploded into his mind before Ransom had finished his conscious effort to open himself to the royal.
“Why are you traveling in the wrong direction? Who is the third being? I didn’t give you permission to bring another. Why are you sabotaging my release?”
Ransom groaned at the pressure in his brain. Hurt. Hurt so bad.
“Answer me!” the prince thundered.
“The volcano is erupting. We had to find a way around the lava river pouring from it since it was too dangerous and wide to cross.”
“The third being?”
“Scarlett has a pet.”
“A pet?”
“A creature she keeps with her for companionship. It is a harmless animal.”
“She will not require a pet when she is with me.”
“How do we release you from your chamber?”
“Dig at the statue base. The one in the middle with the pointy hat.”
“But the pointy hat—”
“Enough. You will release me on the next whitelight, or you will pay.”
Arrogance. Ransom stilled at the rhythmic sucking on his mind that revealed the prince was feeding. His mind grew fuzzy, and he blacked out.
“Ransom. Ransom!”
The familiar voice drew him to the surface, to full wakefulness.
His temples throbbed, and he stroked them, his mind full of fog.
Unwillingly, he opened his eyes and winced at the bright light searing his eyeballs.
His first vision was a slice of heaven—Scarlett’s cleavage.
The clothing item she called a bra cupped her breasts and lifted them.
The red, sheer fabric set off her golden skin and pushed his mind to happier things.
“Frying fungus, Ransom. You’ve been asleep for ages. I feared the prince had sucked your mind dry.”
“I feel as weak as a baby dragon,” he muttered, psyching himself to stand.
“Did you learn where the entrance is to his chamber?”
Ransom frowned, searching through his foggy memories for the answers. “He told me the entrance was under the statues. The one with the pointy hat. From what he indicated, the statues are in a line.”
“And they’re not in a straight row now.”
He recalled a bird’s head with a cruel beak. He hadn’t seen a pointy hat anywhere, but at least four other heads had been strewn around the area. Perhaps more. “No.”
“Anything else?”
“He was angry because we backtracked, and he expects us to release him this whitelight without fail. His patience is at an end. And he demanded info about the third being with us. I told him Talon was your pet.”
“And?”
“He advised you wouldn’t require a pet once he got his hands on you.”
“Eew! I bet sex with him is some freaky mind thing, and his dick is the size of this pebble.”
“Haw-haw-haw!”
Ransom stared at Talon and his display of razor-sharp teeth. The Trolleris’s brown eyes shone with amusement. “You’re lucky the prince hasn’t entered your brain.”
“Talon and I have food. Since you were taking a while to wake, Talon hunted. The rabbity-thing is ready to eat.”
Ransom fingered her damp hair. “You had another swim.”
“I did. Take some of your potion.”
When she turned away to rummage through his pack for a potion vial, he spotted her arm. The lumps had increased, and her skin had stretched upward so it bulged outward—two purple-tinted growths. As he stared, they twitched.
“Is your arm sore?”
“It’s uncomfortable rather than painful,” Scarlett said.
Talon growled as she went to touch the nearest bump, and she jerked her hand away.
“Anyone would think this arm belonged to you,” Scarlett snapped. “I’m not touching it, okay? I’m putting on my tunic.”
She pulled her black tunic over her upper body, hiding her arm along with her bountiful curves.
“Drink your potion while I carve the rabbity.”
Ransom swallowed down the potion and struggled to his feet. He had no idea how long the prince had fed, and that pushed a sliver of worry through him. He’d never faded to black before either. In his mind, he’d always known of the prince’s presence.
Hopefully, they’d find the entrance. With most of his focus on the journey here and discovering the prince’s whereabouts, he still had no clue how to defeat the prince.
He joined Scarlett and Talon by the fire, grateful for the heat from the flames. The temperature had dropped over blacklight.
“Are you cold?” Scarlett asked.
“Yes. The clouds fell to the mountaintops during the blacklight.”
“We call that snow where I come from,” Scarlett said. “Pretty at first but most inconvenient.”
A shiver slipped through Ransom. He hated the cold.
Scarlett snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Plan?”
“I don’t have one for once we get inside the chamber.”
“We need a plan. I know. We’ll lop off his head.
You barricade your mind the best you can, and I’ll do the same.
We’ll break open whatever life support system he’s inside and decapitate him before he stands.
I’ll bet he won’t be at full strength until he feeds, and since we’re it, we should have a window. ”
“He has guards,” Ransom said.
“Won’t they be asleep too?”
“What if they wake when we break open the chamber? That would be the obvious way to protect the royal.”
“Bah!” Scarlett slashed her hand through the air. “Stop poking holes in my idea.”
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re making excellent points,” Scarlett said. “But we need a strategy. We can’t leave him in his life support because what happens if he’s lying, and he still feeds on your people?”
Ransom nibbled a piece of meat, groaned at the juicy, savory flavor, and shoved another piece into his mouth. He swallowed and licked his fingers. “We could toss him in the lava flow.”
“Depends on what material his life support pod consists of.”
Ransom nodded. “And there’s that problem with the guards again.”
“We’re gonna make up things as we go along. That way lies disaster.”
Ransom grinned at Scarlett’s disapproval, the tension at the pit of his stomach lifting a fraction.
“I like to have a plan,” Scarlet grumbled.
“Goals and charts and a business diagram. I measure the results. Crunch numbers. That is the way to get things done. It stops impulsiveness and unwise decisions.” She wriggled, and Talon, who was sitting beside her, snarled.
“All right. All right,” she muttered, giving the Trolleris a side-eye.
“I’m not touching the weird pulsing things in my arm. ”
“I’ll try my com-circle again,” Ransom said. “We need help.” He pulled the comm from his inside tunic pocket and pushed several buttons before the com-circle crackled and whistled.
“Nothing,” Scarlett said. “Who are you calling?”
“My brother.”
She frowned. “There are mountains between here and your village. Can I try calling one of my brothers?”
Ransom tossed her the com-circle and ate more meat while she made her call.
“Saber?”
“Scarlett! Where are you?”
“Narenda.”
“I know you’re on Narenda,” Saber said in his scariest voice. “Where on Narenda?”
“Near the volcano.”
“Crap, it’s erupting.”
Scarlett blinked. “You’re here?”