Chapter 14
Killian
Imight be made of darkness, but I’m not one to be in the dark, ever.
So as I chase after Aimee up the stairs that lead away from the Temple of the Desert God, I feel a storm brewing inside me, one I hope I can contain before it decimates further the already crumbling foundation of trust between us.
She kept secrets from me. Again.
I was right to expect her to keep betraying me. As they say, fool me once…
But what if I’m exaggerating? Again?
I try to shake the nauseating thought away, because if it’s correct, then it would mean I solely fucked up everything between us. And I’m not sure I’m ready to face that.
“Aimee, stop.” I grab her upper arm, halting her hurried steps. “What is going on? You can’t expect me to chase after you without knowing what we’re doing?!”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing, though?” she says, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow and staring pointedly at where my fingers circle her biceps.
“Umbra…” I growl. “I don’t think you understand how dangerous these games you’re playing with me truly are. Don’t awaken the beast of prey. You will not like it.”
Her gaze narrows until I can barely discern her golden irises beneath her heavy-lidded slits, and she bares her teeth at me in an attempt at intimidation.
Granted, she probably would make a lesser male piss himself.
But if my throbbing dick is any indication, her anger is a potent aphrodisiac for me.
“Don’t. Tell. Me. What. To. Do.”
I lean in closer, grazing my fangs against her neck, followed by my tongue lapping up at her pulse point.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what to do, little umbra, and you’ll do it, like the good fucking girl you are for me.” I press my erection into her thigh, close to her center, letting her know just how hard I am for her.
Her narrowed eyes crinkle further for an instant, before the fire of her fury dies out, getting replaced by something darker, something depraved. A carnal hunger that plagues us both, no matter what we do, or how hard we try to stay away from each other.
There’s a sense of fucking inevitability in this stolen moment right now, and I wonder if we’re not too great a force not to clash every time.
In every lifetime.
She exhales a long, heavy breath that tingles the side of my face before burying her fingers in my hair and scratching her nails against my scalp, almost painfully.
Her plump lips hover a whisper away from mine, and my fangs burn with the need to sink into her over and over.
No matter what I say or do, she’s branded deep down in my soul.
She’s inescapable.
Maybe it’s time I embraced the truth.
Despite everything, even if she doesn’t feel the same, I still fucking love her.
I know what existence is without her in it. There was a millennium of that before her, and I’m not going back. I’d rather die at her hands if she proves to be my fucking ruination than live incomplete any longer.
“This is not the time nor the place, Killian,” she murmurs against my lips before pushing me away.
I feel her absence like a blow to my gut. I grip the sunstone wall for support, clenching my hand against my engorged cock.
“Must you always be so difficult?” I ask in vexation.
“Must you always be such a horny bastard?” she retorts, a smirk playing on her fuckable lips. “Besides, you wouldn’t want me any other way, and you damn well know it.”
She doesn’t even spare me another glance before resuming her climb out of the cave.
“Come now, Killian, we must return to Sangeries at once.”
“And you plan to walk there?” I ask in amusement. All we need to return to my castle is to hold each other and think of my chambers. Any part of the castle actually will do, but I would not mind taking a detour through my rooms first.
“No, smartass. But we can’t shadow travel from under the palace. You didn’t feel the energy shift when we started descending earlier? The entire place is warded, just like your floor is in Sangeries.”
“And you sensed that?” I ask, frowning.
“Obviously. It’s like a slight pull against my shadows, as if something is tugging on them from the outside. Don’t you feel it against yours?”
“No,” I admit. “I cannot sense the wards. It seems it’s a new facet of your powers, umbra.”
That stops her in her tracks.
“Oh.” She turns to look at me, wonder shining in her amber eyes. “I just assumed it’s something you could do too; that’s why I didn’t mention it before.”
“And the vision? Talking to the dragon in your mind?” I ask softly, hoping she’ll answer me this time.
She sighs before slumping against the polished wall of the narrow staircase.
“Something happened when I lost consciousness in the dining hall. I saw the Gods hunched over, writing the prophecy. They disappeared one by one until only Ereshkygall remained. It felt more like a memory than an illusion, and it shattered like fractured glass, giving way to a sort of altar of the Fae Gods, marble statues sitting on pedestals. Ereshkygall stepped down from hers and called me the Foretold One. She told me to find her and to bring you with me. I had no recollection of it when I woke up.”
I long to touch her, to caress her beautiful face and tell her we’ll figure it all out.
“I’ve been having these dreams since then…A female’s voice telling me to come find her. A sense of urgency and dread. I couldn’t remember what it meant, no matter how hard I tried. Not until K’haram said her name.”
“He unlocked what your mind kept hidden from you,” I say in understanding, and she nods.
“He called me Omri, Killian. His soul bonded.”
I’ve heard this term before. The old tales from yesteryear about these creatures mentioned a lifetime bond between them and a chosen Fae. But how could she, a twenty-three-year-old Fae, be soul-bonded to a creature that has roamed these lands since before our kingdoms existed?
“And you believe him?”
“I do,” she simply states. “I feel it to be true. But he couldn’t give me the answers I sought. Only the Goddess of Death, apparently, can.”
When we came here for an alliance, I wasn’t expecting to get also more riddles.
“We’ll get to the bottom of things, Umbra. I promise you,” I say as I thread my fingers with hers, tugging at her hand to follow me toward the exit. I relish the warmth that seeps from her skin directly into my iced veins.
“There’s one last thing I need to do before we shadow walk,” she says, uncertainty swimming in her voice. “I wish to apologize to Mael.”
I tense at the name. Unwanted jealousy rears its ugly head, and I grip her hand harder.
“Why?”
Does she harbor any attraction to that human asshole? Did he win her affections in such a brief span of time? “Affections you haven’t been able to earn in months,” my mind whispers cruelly.
“What question is that?” she asks with disdain, squirming in my hold to free herself, but I refuse to let go of her hand.
“Because our dinner ended in disaster thanks to your brutish, cave male behavior. Because he commands the human army. We need him on our side.”
“We have the human leaders and the dragon on our side,” I answer gruffly.
Her laugh is sudden and razor-sharp. “Can you please think with your head? The one between your fucking shoulders?”
I don’t like this one bit, but she has a point. Having bad blood between us would be detrimental in the battles ahead.
“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I will go with you. But he’d better not try anything funny.”
“I’m sure you scared him into submission, Killian. Who would dare to cross the big, bad Vampire King?”
“Only you,” I say under my breath as we emerge in one of Sol’Kantarra’s inner gardens.
We find the cursed human on the warrior training grounds outside the palace, surrounded by glittering dunes and scorching heat.
The grounds are a vast expanse of hardened sand, forever stained a reddish hue by all the blood and sweat spilled here.
It’s not a place for comfort, but a mosaic of cracked sandstone forged to test grit and strength and to weed out the weaklings.
War is not for the faint of heart, and the humans know it firsthand.
The air around us feels like a veil of uncomfortable incalescence, making everything sticky and damp. It adds another layer of hardship to the brutality of warrior training.
I’m impressed.
We approach the open sparring circles, our feet kicking up fine, opalescent sand that clings to skin and leather alike. I can only imagine their insides must be coated in this damned dust. Their blood must have a tangy, earthy taste after so many centuries spent here.
“Mael,” Aimee calls to the human as soon as we are within his earshot.
He spins on the spot where he was watching his soldiers spar with curved desert blades and sharpened spears.
He throws her a dazzling smile, all pearly white teeth and crinkling azure eyes, before he notices me two steps behind her, and his smile dissolves into a stoic, reserved composure.
That’s it, motherfucker. Know your place.
“Foretold One,” he says with a slight bow. “Vampire King.”
“High General,” I answer back curtly.
“Mael, we’re leaving back to Wrahta. But, uhm, we wanted to apologize for the other night.
You showed us nothing but kindness and camaraderie, and I’m truly sorry for how the dinner unfolded,” Aimee says as I remain silent beside her.
She elbows me in the ribs, pinning me with a pointed glare to speak up.
“What she said.”
That gains me another elbow in the ribs, a bit more forcefully this time.
“Fine. Fine. I apologize,” I grumble roughly. “I should have handled things with more decorum.”
“I understand, Vampire King. I would probably react similarly if someone tried to woo my betrothed in front of me. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“That’s not what I…” Aimee objects, but I grab her by the waist and whisper in her ear, “Behave, little umbra.”
“Then it’s settled, General. Apologies accepted. We shall see you and your soldiers in Wrahta.”
I whirl Aimee in my arms, capturing her lips with my own.
She tenses for a second before melting into the kiss, opening her sweet mouth and letting my tongue explore.
I nibble on her soft flesh, sucking on her plump bottom lip and sinking my fangs just enough to draw a drop of blood, eliciting a sultry moan from her.
I’m well aware we have an audience, both the High General and his men gawking at us.
Good.
Just in case they needed a reminder of whom she belongs to.
I let my crimson shadows unfurl from my skin, enveloping us in a mist before we disintegrate into thin air with a clear destination in mind.
My bedroom.