Bozena and Sveta (Neuripra) (23 page)

Chapter 27

Sveta: Two days later.

“
So, I've been thinking,” I say.

“
That's always a dangerous pastime. Did you pull a muscle again?”

I laugh at her cheek, scratching below my lip with my thumbnail, “It's time to come clean.”

“I can't come clean. I can cum, but I like my mind filthy, I don't do clean.”

“
Zena,” I chide, half choking on my laugh. I lean over her, planting an elbow either side of her head, looking into her deep blue eyes and the black hair webbing over my bed. “Babes, I want to heal you.”

She belts out, “Lay your hands on me!”

“Seriously. Can we stop screwing long enough to have a meaningful conversation?”

“
I have a new word to describe you,” she smiles salaciously.

“
What?”

“
Satantric. You are sexier than evil, and you do that tantric stuff that leaves me ruined in the aftermath. You are satantric.”

“
I like it,” I nod. “But seriously Angel, we need to own this moment, focus.”

She loses the smile, fear deepening her eyes to indigo.

“That fucking does it.” I cannot, and will not, stare into terrified eyes again.

Clamping her head in my hands, I dive in, using my new alpha ability to rework her thought patterns, to remove the scar tissue, to smooth over the welts, to unknot the network, to remake her reactions to stress. To give her the perspective she needs to know not everything has to hurt, sometimes all it takes is communication, and a lot of honesty.

Carefully sitting up, releasing her, I hold my breath, hoping it worked. Alpha neuri can change minds, it's our greatest weapon.

Sparkling eyes stare intently at mine, “That was weird.”

“Good weird, bad weird?”

“
Sexy weird. Satantric weird.”

While she was sleeping I snuck outside, and with my rogue smile front and center I reach beyond her, retrieving my surprise.

With a flourish, I present her with a bunch of pink sweet-peas.

“
Pink?”

“
Because you're no longer blue.”

“
Because I'm with you,” she rhymes, laughing, taking them and inhaling deeply, closing her eyes and looking like a gift the fairies left in my bed.

Like a dream I refuse to wake from.

Stretching up, tempting me with the arch of her back, she flops when she relaxes again, “I could get used to this. Do you deliver morning coffee too?”

“
That depends.”

“
On what?” she smiles, so freaking cute I could lick her raw.

Licking her plyx is like living on angel orgasms.

Pulling my focus back, I smile with meaning, “I only make coffee for family.”

She arches her eyebrows, “Elitist prig.”

Using her flowers to slap my bicep, the key flies out of it, hitting me in the neck.

“
What was that?”

She sits up, almost head butting me, wriggling around until she claims the chain. Realization dawns on her, recognizing it as the same type of key that Zaria wears.

“What is this?” She drops the flowers, fingering the key, looking at me, her focus flicking over my eyes, back and forth, looking for the meaning, hoping but afraid to hope.

“
I will never be king, and I don't want to be. I will never be the alpha ruling Belgrade, and don't want that either. All I am is a man in love with a slakax. Stay with me...”

It's harder than I thought, my pulse spiking and my chest tightening. Running my hand up her side, I squeeze, “Please?”

You're all I want, Zena. Just you.

“
Are you asking me to wear your key?”

I nod, biting down hard to control my emotions.

She looks at it, turning the heart-head around, examining the three hearts that represent Ryan - my brother and King, Zauran - my brother and alpha, and mine, a piece of amber shaped like a heart. The three of us represent the heart of the neuri nation, just like Zaria, Phoebe, and Zena represent the heart of the slakax.

Ryan's been doing a lot of research, making sense of it all for us, sending the info when he finds it. He's in Italy with Phoebe, and has no intention of returning until she's ocean deep in love with him.

Good luck with that bro.

Zena clamping arms around my neck and squeezing, breaks the thought, “Yes!”

Hugging her back, I squeeze harder, “Do you remember the first night I brought you here?”

She sniffs in my ear, nodding, burying her face in my neck.

“I said
welcome home
. I want to be your home baby. I'm the place where you should go to hide, the safe place, the one place you always have a key to and a warm hug waiting to hold you.”

She sobs in my ear, and I hold her tighter.

“I love you Angel, this home is empty without you,” I murmur in her ear, referring to my chest.

Ducking my head, I kiss her neck, holding her like we're the last two in the bunker, and the bombs are detonating everywhere.

We've been through hell together, and finally we're on the path to peace. She's healed, she's going to wear my key, the one that will always keep her safe; the sworn allegiance of a nation is in that key. We don't do rings unless they want a ring. We give keys. The keys to our hearts, to our power, to our homes, to our plyx.

I love you Zena. Never forget that.

Samo Sloga Srbina Spasava.

(Only unity saves Serbia.)

Epilogue: Sveta

Božena:

I love Sunday Mornings. 'Our song' is playing, we're at the breakfast table together, and he absently taps his fingers to the beat.

This is now on the playlist at Pravus, and they play it every time we go. Just hearing it reminds me of the second time we went there... alone... the whole place to ourselves... smokey, steamy, elicit.

He sang it in his deep baritone, dancing with me, holding me so close I could feel every muscle in his body pressed up against mine...

Closing my eyes I recall it vividly, getting all hot and flustered...

He gripped my face, breathing at me with sexy seduction, “You've got me weakened.”

Guilt flogged me with the next lyrics...

But we've forgiven each other for that.

It's foot stomping, the kind of song that's happy even when it's serious, it lightens the damage, and bombed the baggage to smithereens.

… And then he held me so tight, blasting my head with a mantra, “You've got me weakened, oh yeah. You've got me weakened.”

I'm his Kryptonite... just like he said.. that night in the passage, right here in Pravus...

“What's your weakness tough guy?”

“
You are.”

He says it without hesitation.

“So I can break you?” It's so absurd I am tempted to laugh.

“
Angel, you've broken me in so severely I've forgotten what the wild tastes like.”

The recollection makes my heart ache. I'm no longer a leper.

Watching him respond to the text on his phone, his free hand taps in time to our special song. Drumming the wood of the table he has
a relaxed smile on his handsome face.

I wonder if I dare say anything?
I know he's into being all lovey dovey these days... but damn it all.

“
Sveta.”

“
Yes angel?” he says, frowning up from the message on his phone.

“
I miss fucking. Can we at least strike a kinda happy medium here? I miss rabid wild fucking.”

“
Oh yeah?” he says, ten shades deeper, the movement of his thumb stopping completely.

I give him the come hither stare, “I need some man appreciation therapy, baby. Satantric therapy.”

Music serenades the kitchen, speaking for us, thickening the air like a mirage on a blistering highway.

Dropping his phone with a loud thunk on the table, he reaches over and drags my chair up to his, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I fell in love with you because you were a wild crazy man who also had the sweet side you reserved just for me. But I'm all sweeted out now. I want the lunatic back.”

“
But I might bruise you and then your henchmen will pop out of the woodwork to teach me not to hurt girls no matter how much they beg me to.”

The naughty smile is hitting his mouth and eyes simultaneously.

“If I don't like it I'll tell you stop. And besides, Jo is in behavior rehab with Darise, and I won't be telling anyone,” I lick my lips, staring from his eyes to his mouth, back up and down, over and over, being obvious.

And before I can blink he's got me bent over his legs, head hanging to the floor, and his hand connects with my ass so hard I swear to god I don't know whether to scream or cry.

“Is that better?” he purrs, deep and gorgeous, as if he just kissed my knee after I hurt it.

My ass is just throbbing. Fuck, did he leave finger welts on it?

“You are fucking stronger than you realize, Sveta.”

“
Say fucking again, slowly, like you mean it, and I promise the next one won't hurt so bad.”

Ohmigod, he's playing with me again! We're back to role playing and screwing with each others minds, pretend like.

“Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.”

This time the smack is lower, softer, right where he knows I need the blood to go. And my god is it going!

“Whatchagonnado cowboy? Tether me to your horse and drag me through the compound to your basement?”

“
Now that's the best idea I've heard all day,” he drawls, holding me down tight, using his free hand,
the smacking hand
, to ruthlessly rub my tender bits.

Without warning of any kind, he whips me up like a ragdoll, flings me over his shoulder, stands, and heads to the dark passage with the magic ufo lights.

My heart's pounding, I'm already getting wet with anticipation, and I'm desperate like someone's flipped a switch in me.

Using my vantage point I claw his shirt up, being deliberately scratchy, and bite the lump of muscle right there, clamping my teeth on his muscular back.

The answer is a fast sting to my rump.

Bite.

Sting.

Bite.

Sting.

Laughing outrageously he flips me off his shoulder onto the bed, holding me down so hard he's gonna fracture something.

“Where shall I start?” he purrs, looking me up and down and all over with burning seduction, stopping his stare on my left nipple.

With excruciating slowness he lowers, closer and closer, covering my t-shirt with his mouth and biting through the material to pinch my peeking taut nipple.

Jesus!

My body's trying to swallow itself and spit at the same time. My underwear feels like I just drooled a lake.

“Good thing you wore a skirt today,” he murmurs in the deep
deep
seduction baritone, flicking my skirt up with a wrist snap, rubbing over the delicate material with merciless fingers. “What you got there? Who gave you permission to get horny? You don't get that privilege until you've sucked me hard baby.”

“
How hard?” I taunt, feeling cutesy and sexy, wanting to resist but also needing to dive at him and eat him up alive.

His phone ringing breaks the moment, and he holds up a finger, “Sorry Angel, I have to take that.”

I recognize the ring, it's Ryan.

Bolting off me, he sprints to the kitchen, and I sit up, straining to listen, absently fingering the key hanging from my neck.

“Yup?”

“
Say what?”

“
Who said he wants Phoebe?”

“
I had no idea Zarak was still interrogating them. So the red eyes finally broke and gave up their leader. .. Aha. No she's safe, she's with me. Why do you ask?...”

“
Zaria is fine too, we're having dinner with them tonight. Ryan, what the fuck is going on?”

“
He what? How do you know?”

“
Jesus...”

Anxiety twists my insides and I rush to the kitchen, stopping behind him, waiting for the call to end.

When it does, he looks at my neck.

“
Arelstin drank from you. He's the one I could smell in Pravus, he's after Phoebe.”

“
He drank from me? When? I swear on the fucking bible Sveta, I have never met him.”

His eyes mist with orange vapor, “His minions speak telepathically with him. He got to you the night Jo and Darise handed me the afterlife.”

I shrug, afraid he won't believe me again and accuse me of something I didn't do.

Lifting his arm, he beckons me in for a cuddle, and I step into the safe harness of Sveta muscle. “We just have to be careful babes. He's still out there, somewhere. Ryan can look after himself, Phoebe's in good hands.”

Looking up at his worried countenance, I break the tension, “I was in good hands, but then the phone rang.”

Hot lips frame the mark in my neck, teeth locking into it, and I'm instantly back to throbbing wet...

~The End~