CHAPTER 23
Aimee
Ijolt back into consciousness, my heart beating loud in my ribcage, my skin prickling with a burning numbness. Gods, where am I? What happened?
The bed I’m in doesn’t feel like mine—too big, the cold sheets foreign to my touch. No! No! No! Have I been kidnapped again? Red glowing eyes burn behind my eyelids. The last thing I saw. The onpyrs attacking. Killian fighting.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I heave, tears blurring my vision. My lungs rebel with each painful inhale and exhale, each breath scorching my insides.
After a heartbeat, or maybe hours, firm hands land on my covered knees, and I flinch in fear. My pulse is loud in my ears, sounds muffled and incoherent.
“Umbra, it’s me. You’re safe!”
You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe. The words chanted like a fervent prayer pierce through the haze. I blink through tears, and see his face. Unharmed, weary, and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Killian!” I throw my arms around him hastily, needing to feel his body against mine.
I need his touch to anchor me, to ground me in the now.
Violent trembles rake through my entire body, and I press myself harder against him, like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline in the middle of the churning sea.
My brain registers just a little too late that he is wet—wet and naked.
I rear back and look at him. Really look at him. His hair is damp and unruly, his muscled chest and arms gleaming with droplets of water. He gazes at me, eyes filled with silent relief.
His crimson tattoos swirl in endless loops on his torso, and as my gaze lowers, I catch a glimpse of his impressive length. I gasp in utter dismay. It’s picture perfect in ways a cock should never be. It’s better than anything I could’ve ever fantasized. Almost identical to that shadow sex dream.
“Why…why are you…” my voice trails off, my thoughts still a jumbled mess. If from the earlier panic attack, or the growing hurricane of desire coursing through my veins, who the fuck knows?
“I was taking a bath while you slept.” He chuckles, raking his fingers through his midnight-black strands.
“Goodness gracious, umbra. You scared the living shit out of me. You were out for a while. The healers said you’ll be fine though; you won’t even have a headache.
” He gently grazes his fingertips against my temple, in the spot where I hit my head.
No pain ensues, not even a slight sting.
“The attack? Are you alright?” I ask as I let my hands wander to his face, cupping his jaw with trembling fingers. He kisses the inside of one palm, then the other.
“Our spies that we sent to Burneside Keep.” His sigh is full of sorrow. “We lost another four good vampires to Morweena. I killed them all, but a fifth unknown attacker escaped. Blaise is searching for him.”
I embrace him again, this time slower, more mindful.
“We’re alive,” I say in a whisper against his moist skin.
The thought rampages through my body like a spark igniting kindling in a bone-dry forest. I’m set ablaze from the inside, aliveness wreaking havoc in my soul, like a hurricane of feeling wiping out everything in its path. Everything except for him and me.
I jump to my knees, crashing into him on the bed, our lips clashing in a tumultuous tangle of tongues and teeth.
His possessive tongue battles my own, his war-calloused hands gripping my sides, twisting in my hair, grabbing handfuls of my ass.
A deep moan slips from my lips into his mouth as I claw at his arms, scratching deep ravines on his back.
“My clothes…off!” The words come out between kisses—half plea and half whine—and he pulls me off the bed.
We stand at the foot of the bed as he rips my dress to shreds, not breaking our kiss.
I’m burning up, as if suffering from a deadly fever, and nothing can quench my thirst for him.
I let him rip my pants, my panties, only sighing in relief when I feel the crown of his generous length press greedily against my glistening folds.
My fingers itch to touch it, and as I wrap my hand around the velvety hardness, I feel a soft kiss on my shoulder.
Smooth hands are gathering my hair on the side, while gliding heavenly on my back.
But his grip is on my waist, his lips on mine.
“What the fuck?” I startle, breaking our kiss, and jumping back to see another Killian standing behind me, crafted from crimson mist. My dream Shadow Killian.
“You’re real?” I choke out in surprise, and the shadow male shrugs nonchalantly, smirking devilishly. I spin around to a frowning Killian and point an accusatory finger his way.
“You can split yourself, you asshole?”
“I mean, yes, my shadows are sentient and my shadow double emerges, but only in battle. This has never happened before,” Killian says, cocking his head sideways, as if trying to solve a puzzle.
“Bullshit! You sent your shadow self to fuck me the night before you left for Dithrau, you lying, conniving bastard!” I seethe in betrayal.
“He did WHAT?” Killian shouts, and I stumble back into the open arms and smooth chest of his double. The waves of rage flowing from him are so palpable it feels almost suffocating. He’s shaking with unrestrained fury.
“You didn’t know?” I ask, disbelief clear in my voice. The shadow male behind me caresses my exposed skin in soothing circles, and I can’t help shuddering in pleasure. “How the hell would you not know? Aren’t you connected, even when you’re apart?”
He pulls at his strands of hair in frustration, shaking his head no.
“I woke up with a raging boner in the middle of the night that lasted until morning, but it’s not like I haven’t had raging boners every Akaoridamn night since you stepped foot in this castle.” His eyes narrow in disdain, as if a thought just occurred to him. “He fucking ravaged you all night?”
“I thought it was a dream,” I say, my anger dissipating like plumes of smoke, leaving room only for inescapable need. “And technically, wasn’t it you who ravaged me all night long?”
The shadows hum contentedly, circling my nipples, turning the aching peaks hard.
“I can’t believe you fucked my shadow self before me.” He grumbles to himself, and a wicked thought occurs to me. I gingerly wrap my hand around his shadowy double’s cock, and stroke it once.
“So, do you feel this or not?”
A sultry pout forms on my lips while I stroke the misty length. By the way his breath hitches, and his girth stands at attention, I have no doubt he can feel my ministrations.
I turn to peck Shadow Killian on the lips, still gliding my hand up and down his length. Then, I turn and wink at Killian, saying in my best seductress voice, “Now him, I can call my shadow daddy!”
Killian’s eyes bulge and his fists clench at his side. “No, the hell you won’t! Now I have to be jealous of my own fucking self?!?!”
I rasp a provocative laugh as I saunter his way, guiding him towards the bed.
“Relax, baby, this is going to be so much fun!” I nudge him backwards and he falls on the bed.
Killian
I prop myself on my elbows as I watch enraptured as my vixen little umbra strolls back to my shadow self, and falls down to her knees in front of him.
“You and I—we’ll have words about this later, you dipshit,” I mouth silently, and my double just grins—fucking grins—at me, like the cat that ate the sexy canary first.
She’s grabbing my shadow self’s cock—no, that’s not right…
My cock? My shadow cock?—oh, Akaori, the semantics of what’s happening are giving me whiplash.
I suck in a stuttered breath as she lowers her head to the crown of our dick and licks it once from head to base.
I reach a hand out to touch her, but she wiggles a finger at me playfully.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, baby. No touchy-feely. Just watch and enjoy. Your turn will come.” She swings her head back, and in one swift movement swallows our length, one bob of her head at a time. Fuck, how good it feels, it’s as if she’s doing it directly to me. In a twisted way, she is.
Her wicked tongue laps at a languid pace around the shadowy cock, and I feel every swirl, every lick. I grab myself and start stroking, adding my own pressure to the maddening sensations she’s providing.
My double entangles his hands in her chocolate strands, guiding her up and down, and she quickens the pace, hollowing out her cheeks and arching her back.
I have a front-row seat to that sweet pink pussy, throbbing with need.
The air is becoming so thick with the scent of her arousal—something so earthly, so delicious and carnal—that I strain myself not to jump on her from behind and sink myself into that heaven to the hilt.
Oh, Akaori, what is this female doing to me? The nickname menace is right up her alley, because she is a fucking menace in Fae form. A hazard to my sanity, to my cock, to my very heart and soul.
She bobs her head in rapid sequence, grazing our manhood with her teeth, and I’m done for.
I erupt in my hand like a hormonal, pimpled youth that’s never touched a woman yet.
Low growls slip my parted lips, and I close my eyes in forfeit.
She has me completely in the palm of her dainty hands, and she doesn’t even know it.
When I open my eyes, she’s standing back on her feet, slowly licking those lush lips, and pretending to swallow loudly, as she heads my way. My shadows disintegrate their form and reappear on the bed behind me like a predator waiting for its willing prey.
I grab her wrist and pull her into me, placing a chaste kiss next to her belly button.
She smells so Akaoridamn delectable, and I will die if I don’t have a taste of her, yesterday.
I swing her back onto the bed between the open legs of my double, parting her knees with my hands.
I lower my head to her entrance, drinking her scent deeply.
She squirms in our grasp, pushing her hips upwards, but I pin her down with a hand while lazily circling her nub with the other.