Captiva Capitulation (29 page)

As Kash and Sixten worked an opposing rhythm, Blythe groaned in deep satisfaction. Kash lapped at her shoulder, his fangs growing, his need dotting across his forehead in beads of perspiration. “You haven’t fed yet,” Sixten accused, thrusting upward as Kash pulled out. A harmony of push and pull ensued. “Oh, take it easy, Blythe. You’re tightening up too much with the clenching. Pull out a ways, Kash. Let’s go in together. I’m one second from lift off and so is she.”

“I need to feed,” he complained while sliding back.

Sixten whipped his head on the pillow as Kash’s cock rolled over that thin skin separating Blythe’s vagina from her forbidden hole. “You left your circlet on. No wonder she cannot even talk. Just…fuck…bite me. We all come on the count of three. One, two…” Kash had his fangs deep inside Sixten before he finished counting. “Damn it,” he groaned with a serious shudder. Kash’s endorphins hit him in the most incredible way as Sixten spread Blythe’s cheeks further apart so his friend could delve deeper.

Sixten swirled his cock as Kash fed, his friend drawing deep mouthfuls. “Three,” he whispered and they all tightened around each other’s bodies, coming in hard spurts as Blythe milked them dry. When the last aftershocks left them, Kash pulled away from his bite, licking Sixten’s puncture wounds closed.

Both eased slowly out of Blythe, her cognac eyes dull with exhaustion. “I don’t know if it’s the baby, or having two or even three big cocks inside me, but I’m tired.”

“Can you allow me another moment, angel?” Sixten asked, flashing his signature sexy grin. “There’s something I want you to have.”

“You’ve given me enough jewelry, Six,” Blythe protested.

“I’ll never give you enough jewelry, but this is more important.” He reached for his pants, sliding out his favorite blade. “This is the blade my brother Rave gave me, taught me to fight with,” he said, his grin fading. “I killed him with it.” He felt her recoil. Sixten wanted to recoil, too, but such is life. One minute everything is fine, and then the next, nothing is as it should be. “You’re immortal now, well, newly made. So you still have some growing to do, and not just your stomach.” He wagged his brows. “I’m thinking if you cut yourself with this you’ll still be okay so long as it’s not deep.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“It will kill Habalines, not many blades do.” With his other hand, he traced her stomach. “Carry it with you always. Use it without hesitation. Protect our daughter by protecting your own life.”

“Our
daughter
,” she gasped, her eyes filling with tears.

He had to leave, couldn’t take the time to brush away her tears of joy when he needed to show her something more important. “Listen to me,” he said sternly, continuing to trace a pathway under her ribcage. “On a shifter, the best way is to strike here as hard as you can, and then after it’s buried, move the blade up inside the flesh. Remember. Jab and push up. Push up until you feel the bones in your hand break from the strain, only then will you be alive with a victim on the other end of this blade.” He slid it into a thin sheath and placed it on the nightstand.

“Repeat my three rules, Blythe.”

She wiped at a tear. “There’s something you’re not telling me. I’ve sensed it for days now.”

“I’ve been fighting,” he said, revealing a lie he’d told, but not revealing the truth in what she really sensed. That he was going to call up his father via an ancient scroll and locate a disastrous wormhole in the process, all in a day’s work if he came back alive.

“I know that,” she said with exasperation. “That’s not it.”

“That’s all you’ll get from me now, and before I leave, repeat my three rules,” he demanded.

“Carry it with me always.” Her eyes grew as fierce as any warrior he’d encountered. “Use it without hesitation.” Her delicate hands dropped to her stomach. “Protect our daughter by protecting
my
life.”

“Perfect.” Sixten stood up, taking her with him. “I’ll walk you to the bath before you go back to sleep, moja láska. There’s a funky tub in this bathroom that you and Kash are going to love.”

“Unless I can sleep through this bath,” she groaned, dropping her head on his shoulder, “don’t bother.”

“You can sleep through it, sweetheart.” Kash pressed a kiss to her head, his cock hardening for another round. “She’s dripping out all over the place, cream sliding between those plump lips. I want to eat this out.”

“I can’t take it,” she complained.

Nevertheless, when Sixten lifted her ass in the air, she trembled when Kash speared her dripping pussy with his tongue. “Even though this is a lovely sight, I have to work the rest of the day.” Kash stopped, glaring up over Blythe’s body. To his friend, Sixten qualified, “It won’t take long.” Another look passed between them, wordless promises made over Blythe. If something unstoppable were to happen, Kash would take her far from the island and not look back. He and Rock would hide their daughter, protecting her and Blythe with their very lives. Kash nodded, gathering a naked Blythe in his arms, and marched through the adjacent doors as Sixten misted away.

Remembering how Sixten warned her, she strolled back to the nightstand and lifted his favorite blade, burying it in her pocket. It was a bit long, but the hilt stayed completely covered and covert. Though it would take some getting used to, she would carry it with her always, would kill anything that might harm her baby without a second thought.

Kash zipped his pants and pulled on his shirt, ending his call. “Rock’s finished up with his errands and he will be here in less than an hour. He’s stopping to pick up some food for you, Bane and himself.”

“If he has it his way, I’ll be too fat to walk. I’m still full from breakfast.” A dull thud hit the turret glass, a single window trembling from the impact. “Sounds like a frog hitting the window, but we’re up too many floors for that,” Blythe said to Kash.

“Get down!” Kash grabbed her, covering her body with his, right as glass rained down on them.

When the glass stopped falling, the scent of the sea blew in. Kash grabbed Blythe and jumped up, shoving her behind him without checking her over. Another small gust of wind blew in before flapping wings sounded. Outside, Blythe could see their shapes moving against the night. Further, a glowing spherical illuminated the gulf like a second moon, full and bright.

Footsteps sounded to her left. When they stopped, she heard Bane growling in the Beta Beast’s way. In the next instant, to her sickening realization, his ferocious warnings turned into gurgling garbles of…death. Then, there was nothing. “Oh, my God, Bane!” She screamed. “We have to help him!”

Her heart pounding, she tried to run past Kash, but he wasn’t having it. When she whipped around to protest, he dropped to his knees, his mouth opening and closing as though he were a landed fish. Directly behind him was a Lovec. Not just any Lovec, but the one whose eyes she had gouged out. “What did you do to him?”

Twirling a metal box, he kicked Kash to the side, as if he were garbage. Heading straight for her, she covered her stomach with her hands. “I know about the little female,” he whispered, his hands caressing hers, right over her womb.

His touch sickened her. “
What did you do to Kash
?” Writhing in pain, Kash’s body lifted off the floor in broken waves of agony. With his hand, he tried to reach out to her.

“Hit him with this Stavz,” Lovec said. “It’ll take him three days to regenerate…painfully. Since you’re now immortal, you can give it a shot, if you’d like.” His breath smelling of copper and death, he lifted his lips in a cruel and mocking smile. “Though I wouldn’t recommend it for the baby, it’ll scramble her like a morning egg.”

“Get away from me!” Every way she turned, she couldn’t get her hands from his iron-clad grasp. “Leave!”

“I can only oblige one of your requests, hope you’re not inconvenienced. In a blur, his fingers gripped her upper arms, dragging her to the broken-out window. No matter how many times she kicked him, he was an impregnable wall of steel. The hunter didn’t flinch, even when she head butted an open wound a shard of glass created in his chest, hastening his blood loss. “I refuse to coerce you again. I want to feel your fear. Sadly, I’m not allowed to kill you," he said with genuine regret, “but I believe in an eye for an eye. And when we land,” he laughed crazily, “I will remove those stunning peepers with my claws and eat them one by one.”

In the next second, he launched them in the air, his wings shooting out on either side. “Kash!” she screamed, wishing she could help him, wishing he could help her. “The baby,” she sobbed, finding herself moving across the island in breakneck speed. As he drew closer to her and Sixten’s house, he dropped down in a spiraling descent and Blythe’s stomach turned over. Down below, she noticed a sight that appalled her. When they landed, she lost everything, falling on her hands and knees while heaving onto the long grass blades.

“Well,” Marchii Gianni said, kneeling next to her, one elbow perched on his knee in bored amusement. “I hope our little homecoming hasn’t affected you in this way.” He pushed her hair back from her face, signaling for his hunter to grab the garden hose. “Please say we can blame it on my Lovec’s flying and not my presence. I missed you so.”

When the hunter brought her the hose, she washed her mouth, spitting to the side. “Go to hell, Gianni, and stay there this time.”

The Lovec loomed over her then, his claws protracted. “I owe her, Master!”

“I’m afraid you cannot have her.” Gianni waved a negligent hand. “You know where to go and what to do. Believe me,” he said, trailing a wandering hand across her breast, “I have this. Signal me when all is accomplished, and we’ll be along thereafter.” After a disgruntled hiss, the Lovec took to the air. “Did he hurt you, Blythe? He was ticked off about the whole eye incident, although I threatened him not to lay a hand on you…or in his case, a claw.”

Not that anything was right about this situation, but something was off about his cadence. Although she hated him, the Gianni she knew would have killed the Lovec for
considering
hurting her. “Do you still love me, Gianni?”

“You know it,” he said, eye smoldering her with golden eyes and black pupils. Wrong color pupils, she realized. “Let me show you how much.”

His lips descended on hers, his tongue thrusting in her mouth until she thought she would gag or vomit again. There wasn’t a blood bond to be found. This could have happened after Rock mated her, but she guessed something entirely different. “Someone brought you back,” she whispered, cupping her hand over her mouth. “You’re Undead.” His head flipped back and he roared with laughter, the sound reaching the tops of the trees, setting fire to her ears. “Gianni never laughed like that.”

“Then what do you want me to be?” He blurred before her eyes, reforming into her husband. Flaxen hair, platinum streaks, a movie star smile, a killer body, ice-green eyes, and a perfect set of luminous fangs stared back at her. “Is this better? When we
move
together, is this the form you would prefer?”

“Gianni is really dead, isn’t he?” she asked, though she wished he were the Marchii. At least she would know what to expect.

In another distortion, a breathtaking man appeared before her, gripping her arms. His hair changed color from one second to the next, but his eyes glittered like sunbeams and moonbeams rolled into one. He was pretty. Dark and Sexy. And if Blythe’s hunch was right, he was the reason women couldn’t walk the streets after dusk.

“My spies tell me that Sixten pulled Gianni’s heart out and supped from it,” he said, his eyes popping in distaste. “And when you publically denounced the Marchii, he slit his own throat to the spine over his loss. That coupled with his lost heart, he’s as dead as he can be. Tragic, isn’t it?”

“He was a disturbing bastard who played a deviant’s game of cat and mouse with me,” she snarled, trying to twist away from him.

“I find you fascinating,” he said simply.

“I find you horrifying,” she retorted. “Who
are
you?”

“The male who will raise your young with you and give you more, but I promise there will be no cat and mouse. I never play when procreating my race.” He released Blythe, letting her hit the ground on a soft pile of fallen fronds. She clutched her stomach protectively when he crawled over to her.
I will not go underground.
Then in one eye, those crazy lights started up, blinking like colored strobes.
Not now!
Her vision was peppering in and out, flashes of memory chipping away barriers inside her brain.

“It never ceases to amaze me, and that’s saying a lot, when a mixed-blood faces her destiny. Most females wait three to six seconds before they run, not that they could get away from me, mind you. Nevertheless, I find it curious, all the same. I mean, does your puny brain have to put everything into perspective before you take off? If water closes over your head, do you gulp several times before you kick to the surface? If flames touch your skin, do you watch an appendage burn to a crisp before you make an effort to extinguish it?” He shook his head, his teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. “Oh, of course you would hesitate to save yourself in any situation you deem frightening. You’d rather close your eyes and pretend the bad stuff wasn’t happening,
wishing
it would all go away.”

A bark of laughter escaped him. “Just to ease ennui, I ask every being I capture as to why that happens. I get no answer that satisfies me. You grew up believing in fairy tales, didn’t you? You know the ones, where creatures, such as me, are toppled by a fair-haired prince who rolls in on his stallion in the nick of time.” With a frustrated sigh, he admonished, “There’s no fair-haired prince here. Your Sixten is gone. I’ve killed him. If that were a lie, he’d be here kicking some serious ass right about now.”