Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Z
P leasure overloaded my body and brain so much that it took me a second to realize that something was wrong.
Slowly, I came down from the post-bliss high I found myself in and immediately reached for Killian.
Only to realize that he was no longer in the bed with me.
What…?
I blinked, desperately trying to clear my thoughts, and rubbed at my face with a shaky hand.
It almost felt like I was waking up from a dream—a beautiful, erotic dream that left me aching and wet. It took me a moment too long to orient myself, to plant my feet firmly in reality.
“Kill?” I pushed myself upright, searching the room for my incubus prince. My heart clenched painfully as soon as I caught sight of him. “Killian?”
He sat in the corner of the room, still naked, with his knees pressed up to his chest. He had both of his arms wrapped around them, as if he were trying to hold himself together. His head was lowered, allowing me to clearly see the ivory horns poking through his mane of garnet-red hair. Behind him, his tail thrashed from side to side, thumping against the floorboards.
Soft, indistinct murmurings left his lips as his body shook.
“Kill, I can’t hear you.” Tentatively, I stood, not caring that I was still naked. “What are you saying?”
I ventured a few steps closer, and his words reached me, guttural and raspy.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
What the fuck?
Immediately, I dropped to the ground beside him and wrapped him in my arms. He stiffened, almost as if a bolt of lightning had struck him, but didn’t push me away. A heavy weight settled in my chest.
“Are you apologizing about…what we did?” I asked, the last of the lust dissipating, replaced by something akin to fear.
Killian slowly lifted his gaze and pierced me with an unreadable stare. “I am so sorry.”
He choked on the last word and turned away, clearing his throat.
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I think we were under some kind of spell. A lust spell. I could practically taste the pheromones in the air.” His nose wrinkled, and he sniffed again, dropping his attention to his raised knees.
“Do you regret what happened?” My heart began to beat even faster.
Killian’s head snapped up, shock and a multitude of other emotions bursting to life in his eyes. “No! I mean…yes! I mean, I don’t fucking know.” He lowered his gaze once more. “I fucked you with my tail, Z.”
“And…?” I arched an eyebrow at him, wondering where he was going with this train of conversation.
My pussy convulsed deliciously around nothing but air at the reminder of Killian inside of me. I’d never felt so full as I had when he fucked me with both his tail and cock. At first, it had hurt, but the pain had quickly given way to a pleasure so intense, I’d seen stars behind my eyes.
“And?” Killian stared at me incredulously. “Isn’t that revolting to you?”
I jerked as if I’d been slapped. “Revolting?” I paused as something occurred to me. “Did you think it was revolting?”
Killian opened, closed, and then opened his mouth once more, before dragging a hand down his face. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“It does if you’re going to throw that word around,” I snapped.
“What word? Revolting?”
Gritting my teeth together, I nodded.
Killian’s frown deepened, unveiling deep wrinkles around the corners of his mouth. “Z, what I did?—”
“Was fucking amazing,” I insisted. “That was hot, Kill.”
He blinked as if he’d heard me wrong. Those long, sooty lashes of his dusted the high planes of his cheekbones. “What?”
“What we did was hot, Killian. I liked it. Loved it, actually.” Heat stained my cheeks at my confession.
Did it make me sick and twisted to enjoy it as much as I had? Possibly. But I couldn’t say I cared too much.
Killian’s brows drew together. “You don’t think…? You don’t believe that I…?” He swallowed convulsively, and I watched the way his throat bobbed, transfixed. “I didn’t take advantage of you, did I?”
“Kill…” I stared at him in shock. And my heart broke all over again when I noted the pain on his face—the heady mix of self-loathing and disgust. Was that why he was so upset? “You did not take advantage of me, Killian. At all. Everything that happened, I wanted to happen.” I gripped his cheeks and forced his gaze to mine. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“You were out of your mind with lust, Z,” Killian whispered, his lips barely moving.
“So were you,” I pointed out.
“And I released my powers to create even more lust.” He swallowed again. “You would’ve done anything I asked of you.”
I realized then that this fear of Killian’s went much deeper than me, than us.
He didn’t want to become his father.
Didn’t want to become a man who raped, brutalized, and destroyed innocent women.
I could see it written across every line of his handsome face.
I tightened my grip on his cheeks and whispered, “You are not your father.”
His eyes widened. “Z, how did you know?—?”
“You are not him,” I continued. “And you’ll never be him. You’re Killian. And you’re kind and smart and innocent and sweet and?—”
A blush stained his cheeks. “Z, stop.”
“—perfect and silly and handsome and?—”
“Z,” he urged.
I offered him a weak smile. “And you’re not your father. You’ll never be him. Everything that happened just now was consensual. I wanted it. I wanted you. And when you fucked me with your tail?” A shiver dusted over my skin. “It felt fucking amazing.”
A hesitant light entered his eyes, even as his lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile. “It did?”
“It definitely did.”
And it made me wonder how full I could become. How many cocks—or other appendages—could I fit in my body at one time?
Focus, Z!
I breached the distance between us to plant my lips against his. “I love you, Kill.”
He trembled in my embrace. “I love you too. So damn much.”
He kissed me once more, and I wilted against him, my body feeling limp and pliant.
All around us, the world began to glow, the light so intense that I squeezed my eyelids shut. When I reopened them, I found myself…
About to be run over by a panicking, six-hundred-pound bear.
“What the fuck?” Killian and I both dived out of the way, and the bear jerked to a stop, practically tripping over himself in his haste not to crush us.
“Z! Kill! You two are back!” Ryland materialized beside us, the shadows parting just enough to reveal his ice-blue eyes.
“Where are we?” I frowned as I took in my surroundings.
“We are…” Ryland’s gaze flicked to something over my shoulder. He cursed under his breath. “We are running for our damn lives. We need to leave. Now.”
“Huh?” I frowned and exchanged a look with Killian, who appeared just as confused.
Beside us, Lupe began to pace anxiously.
And then, from the forest, something screamed. The high-pitched, keening cry caused the fine hairs on my arms to stand at attention.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, instantly on alert.
Fortunately, when I returned to the land of the living, I wore the clothes I had on when I’d disappeared. I reached for my dagger now, the hilt a comforting weight in my hand.
“Goblins,” Ryland answered, his voice slightly breathless—whether from exhaustion, fear, or relief, I didn’t know for certain. “Lots of goblins.”
“Goblins.” I blinked.
“I’ll explain more later.” Ryland put his hand on the small of my back and gave it a tiny push, urging me forward. “But we need to move. Now.”
Something dove out of the brush, and I had just a moment to take in its small stature, wrinkly skin, strange ears, and abnormally large eyes before I heeded Ryland’s advice.
And I ran.