Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (49 page)

Though she felt nothing, she considered how wrong this had turned out. She’d never wanted her father to believe she’d been kidnapped. She’d never wanted him to suffer like this.

She tried to reach out to him, to reassure him, but at that moment, a cold pressure seemed to flood the empty space where her body should have been. The clarity of the images that surrounded her faded and blurred, and her father’s voice reached her from a great distance.

“I want her found. No one sleeps until she’s been found.”

As her father’s voice faded to a distant echo, Mara gasped. Her lungs filled with warm air, lungs that hadn’t existed a moment ago. A searing pain descended with her next ragged inhalation, and she screamed, flailing at the large pair of hands that held her down.

“You’re all right, Mara! You’re all right now.” Tiran’s face swam into focus above her. He cradled her in his arms, shielding her body from the bright sunlight that beat down on them.

She struggled to sit up, but he held her against him, rocking her to soothe her fear.

“What happened? Where are we?” she managed to ask when her breathing returned to normal. She glanced at her left shoulder, where the white-hot pain radiated down into her chest and her arm. She’d been shot!

“We’re on a neighboring island—a deserted one. We’re alone and you’re safe here. It’s morning.”

“I’m bleeding—”

“Not for long. I revived you, now I’m going to heal your wound.”

Panic gripped her. “Revived me? I died?” The faint memories of her father talking to the security guards seemed like a distant dream. The details that had been so clear slipped away piece by piece. “How?”

“You drowned. I had to take you below the water to escape the men on the island. It was only for an instant. Then we morphed into the air, and I brought you here. You were dead when we rematerialized.”

Tiran’s voice was tight, hollow. He’d tried to save her and ended up killing her—if only temporarily. She lifted one hand to caress his face.

He kissed her palm. “I’m sorry. It should not have happened, but combined with the shock of your wound… Poseidon should have protected you. He knew the bullets would not hurt him.”

Mara shook her head. Though the pain made her weak, she wanted to reassure Tiran before she passed out. “It’s all right. The guards shouldn’t have fired at him. But Tiran…I have to…I have to…”

Blackness engulfed her. This time, she felt nothing and saw nothing as she sank into oblivion.

* * * *

On the tiny island, Tiran nodded with satisfaction at the shelter he’d constructed. From all angles, it looked like a pile of boulders, windswept and moss-covered. No human would look twice at it, nor would most Atlanteans—those who bothered to venture above the waves. He’d never built a shelter above the sea before, and his greatest concern was not that it wouldn’t stand against the unforgiving elements, but that Poseidon might be led by his curiosity to investigate and find Mara recovering inside.

Since he’d brought her here to tend her wound, Tiran had not returned to the city. He expected that his brother and father would both know he was with Mara. It didn’t matter, though. He had no intention of leaving her.

Once he’d placed the final concealing touches on the outside of the shelter, he let himself back inside through a hidden doorway and found his patient asleep, just as he’d left her.

She stirred as he settled himself next to the soft bed he’d created. Her eyes fluttered open, gray as a stormy sky and suddenly full of fear. He put his hand on her shoulder where her wound had been.

“You’re safe. But you need to rest.”

Her gaze fell to his hand, spread on the perfect expanse of skin next to her collarbone. “What happened?”

“I healed you. My people can rearrange molecules and change their form. I scattered the damaged cells throughout your body and drew healthy ones from other areas. That’s why you must sleep. Your body is repairing those scattered cells.”

She nodded, though confusion remained in her eyes. “Where are we?”

“I built a shelter on the island. No one will see us. You can rest here as long as you need to.”

“I need to get back to my father. He must think I’ve been kidnapped.”

Tiran sat back and blinked. After all she had gone through to escape her captivity, why would she want to return? “It’s too soon to go anywhere. You need to complete the healing process.”

“Then I need to get a message to him and let him know I’m all right.”

“Soon, but not now.”

“Tiran—”

He pushed her back down when she tried to rise. A visible wave of fatigue washed over her, and she slumped into the cushions he’d created. “When you’re well enough to stand, we’ll talk more. Sleep now.”

She obeyed, though Tiran was certain it was only because she didn’t have the strength to do otherwise.

While she slept, he settled into a chair to watch her and thought of all the evenings he’d observed her on the beach. From the first moment he saw her, flushed with sexual excitement, windblown and wild, he’d been entranced. It amazed him how her beauty now, relaxed and innocent in a dreamless sleep, surpassed his fantasies of her. If she were Atlantean, he would have chosen her as his mate long ago. But he chose her now, and vowed to do whatever was necessary to give her everything she desired.

* * * *

The next time Mara awoke, she felt better than she ever had. She barely remembered the pain of her wound, though a stab of guilt attacked her when she thought of her father and how worried he must be about her.

She sat up and took in her surroundings. The room had sand-colored walls that seemed to shimmer with flecks of mother-of-pearl, as though they’d been fashioned of crushed seashells. The floor looked the same, as did the furniture: a free-form bed that perfectly fit the contours of her body, and a chair, also with only a barely recognizable shape.

She wore only her cover-up, which skimmed her tingling skin as she rose and tested the stability of her legs.

A warm hand caressed her shoulder. She backed up into Tiran’s embrace.

“You’re awake. I hope you’re feeling rested.”

“I feel fine. Thank you.”

She turned in his arms, liking the feel of his muscled chest under her hands and his hard thighs pressed against hers. His hand fell to her waist and he pulled her hips against his. With only the thin material of her cover-up between them, she might as well have been naked. Despite her confusion, her body immediately responded to him, and she remembered the needs she’d set aside for so long.

“Are you hungry? I can prepare some food.”

She shook her head. She was hungry, but that could wait. At the moment, there was something she wanted more. “Tiran, why did you attack Poseidon?”

His blue eyes darkened and his chest swelled beneath her hands. “He knew I wanted you. He should not have touched you.”

“I wanted it to be you. All the while he was…touching me, I wanted it to be you.”

His lips curved in a grudging grin and his hand slipped down to caress the curve of her bottom. The intimate touch caused another immediate response. She parted her thighs and let his leg slip between them so she could feel the power of his muscular thigh. She squeezed her legs around his and arched up, needing his lips on hers.

He obliged her wordless request and took her mouth, drawing her tongue against his. He tasted salty and sweet and she drank him in, reveling in his heat. When she sank against him, he held her up. She moaned as he stripped away the cover-up with one hand and pressed herself against him.

“Is this your fantasy?” he asked when he came up for air.

She felt his erection pressing into her thigh and nodded. “There’s a lot more to my fantasy than this.”

“Show me.”

She pulled him toward the bed and they fell into the soft curves of the unusual mattress. It formed to their bodies, and Mara felt as though she were cradled in air, perfectly protected with Tiran’s powerful form stretched above her.

He kissed her as his hands roamed her body, exploring every inch of exposed skin. With feather-light pressure, his fingertips danced over her breasts, her belly, and the soft hair at the juncture of her thighs, teasing her. He followed the gentle exploration of his hands with his lips, tasting her wherever her flesh ached from his touch.

When she lay panting, the moisture from his hot kisses evaporating to a tingle on her thighs, he became more demanding with his touch. He pressed his hand between her legs, massaging her pulsing clit in a rhythm that matched the pounding of her heart. At the same time, he lowered his mouth to her aching nipples and sucked one, then the other, until the answering pressure in her sex brought her to a throbbing orgasm. She moaned again as the pulsing of her inner muscles also matched the beat of her heart. Her body tensed, and she held on to the edge for a moment before the wave of incredible sensation washed over her.

She reached for him as she came, impatient to feel him inside her. Immediately, he obliged, pushing apart her legs and sinking himself into her willing body.

“He would not have given you this…” Tiran whispered in her ear as he filled her with a thrust that made her cry out for more.

On a long inward stroke, he seated himself to the hilt and held there, letting her feel the hot length of him. When he began to move with quick, forceful thrusts, she gasped.

“He would have used you and cast you aside.”

Mara nodded. She didn’t need Tiran to tell her that Poseidon was a liar. Her own desperate need to get away and have a life that didn’t hinge on her father’s political mistakes had led her to trust Tiran’s brother when she shouldn’t have. “You won’t…you won’t leave me, will you?”

At that moment, the future didn’t matter to her. All she cared about was the moment that built between them. She clutched his shoulders and brought her hips up to meet his demanding thrusts.

“I’ll never leave you.”

She believed him. She came again, shuddering against him and crying out when his cock surged once more. He filled her, pulsing into her and rocking her into the depths of the soft bed.

“I’ll never leave you, Mara,” he repeated over and over until she slept again.

* * * *

At twilight, Tiran chased Mara into the surf. He caught her in the swirling breakers and swung her up into his arms. She struggled to get away, kicking flecks of foam into the purple sky and laughing as she beat her fists against his back.

“I’m not finished with you, woman!”

He turned toward shore and knelt in the wet sand. While she lay panting beneath him, he waved his hand over the ground, which rose up under her to form a wide cushion that held her above the water. Like the bed inside their shelter, he used the molecules on hand and formed them into another substance such as the soft, pliant material of the bed.

With a dark grin, he rolled her onto her stomach and straddled her, pushing his erection between her legs as she rose up to meet him.

“I’d rather be facing the water,” she said.

He sighed. They held on and rode the flowing material of the bed until it reformed so Mara could face the surf.

“Is that better?” he asked, his lips against her ear as he impaled her.

She nodded and groaned, eager to feel him again. They’d played for hours on the beach, and each time they made love, Mara felt the tingling anticipation as if it were the first time. “Yes — ah!”

She bucked beneath him as he rode her, pushing backward to meet him each time he surged forward. When she came, she screamed his name and urged him to take her harder. When he climaxed, the rush of heat made her body tremble with fulfillment.

The beach lay dark around them, the moonlight only a silver arc across the waves. Their bed formed into a wide chair. Tiran positioned himself so that Mara rested against his chest. He held her, brushed his fingers through her tangled hair and kissed the salty skin of her shoulder.

“Tomorrow, I will take you back to your island prison.”

She stiffened in his arms.

Sensing her fear, he kissed her again and soothed away the worry. “So that you can speak to your father and reassure him. Then we’ll choose a place—anywhere within my power to take you—and we will go there.”

“What about your world? I’d like to see where you come from.” She looked up at him, her stormy eyes wide.

Tiran shook his head. Regret tightened his chest. “It’s not within my power to take you there.”

“Oh…because I can’t breathe underwater?”

“No. I could change your molecules and reform your lungs to be able to live in my world. It would be painless, but it would require a recovery period.”

“I’m willing. I’m sure it’s safe there. I’d never have to worry about my father’s enemies finding me.”

“I would take you there if I could, but it’s forbidden. My father has denied me permission to bring you to live among us. Besides…Poseidon would be there. Would you want to live in his world?”

“I suppose not. Would you like to try my place?”