Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) (32 page)

Cold emptiness greeted him. The other end of the link was gone, severed. His brother’s female had concealed Olivia, just as she had somehow clouded the link between him and Vail.

Bleu moved beside him, flanking him with Sable.

The demon closest to them picked himself up off the floor and grunted as he reached around behind him, touching the wound slashing down his muscular bare back. The two other demons were pulling themselves together too, all of them casting dark angry looks in Loren and Bleu’s direction.

The Third King held his hand up. “Leave us.”

The three demons looked unwilling to follow that order until the king growled at them. They glared at Loren and Bleu and disappeared one by one.

The king’s order strengthened his position, giving Loren reason to believe he spoke the truth and hadn’t come here because Vail had sent him.

“How did you know?” Loren bit out, finding it hard to speak as he struggled with his feelings, the crushing weight of losing Olivia too much to bear. His knees weakened, threatening to give out, and it took all of his willpower to stop himself from collapsing and crying out for her.

His heart plagued him, torturing him with images of Olivia held at the mercy of Vail and his worst nightmares coming true, all because he had again failed to protect her. He should have kept one hand on her. He should have kept her safe.

He had vowed to do that and he had failed again, and now his brother had her and it was only a matter of time before he realised that Loren had completed the bond. When Vail discovered that, he would act out his vengeance.

He would destroy Olivia and in turn destroy Loren.

He couldn’t allow that to happen. The demon had information and he would give it to Loren, at sword point if necessary.

The hunters around the room closed in by a few inches, their weapons at the ready, all aimed at the demon king.

Sable flicked Loren a glance that asked whether she could kill the demon and he shook his head. He could feel her pain on his senses and see it in her eyes. She was hurting because of the disappearance of her friend and wanted to hold this demon to blame, just as he did. If the demon king didn’t manage to convince him completely that he wasn’t working with Vail and Kordula, Loren would turn the little hellion loose on the male. The demon’s desire for her would force him to hold back and that was a weakness Loren had no qualms about exploiting.

Loren growled and picked up his sword. He stalked across to the demon male, set his jaw and narrowed his eyes on the demon’s red ones.

“Speak of what you know and how you came to know it.” Loren flexed his fingers around the hilt of his sword, his desire to retrieve Olivia before she came to harm shortening his temper and wearing down his patience.

“We met with a magic bearer, seeking to see the future of my kingdom. She had a vision, but not of my war. She saw your future and that is why we knew what would happen to your fated female,” the demon king said and Loren snarled at him, exposing his fangs.

“Describe this witch.” It had to be Kordula. She had tricked the demon king into creating a distraction that had left Olivia open for Vail to capture her.

“The female is small, of pale skin and white-blonde hair, with large blue eyes. She is young and lives near this city. Her people call her Rosalind.”

Sable immediately rushed around the room, drawing the demon’s gaze to her. It brightened again and his breathing turned laboured, his horns growing at an alarming rate. He definitely desired Sable, and it was making Bleu twitchy. His friend was on edge, his purple gaze pinning the demon with a murderous glare as the male’s eyes followed Sable around the room.

She picked up something silver and rectangular, and came hurrying back to Loren. It was some sort of monitor or computer, but none like he had seen before. It was thin and had no wires attached to it. Merely a small flat screen no bigger than his two palms side by side. She flicked her fingers over the bright display and images of people appeared. She skimmed down them, her gaze darting around the screen, and then tapped one of the pictures.

Sable turned it towards him and the demon king. “Is this her?”

Loren peered at the image of a young, blonde woman. The information beside her picture stated her name and last known address, and other details such as her documented powers and her threat level, which was apparently green. Did green mean not a threat?

“This is her.” The demon king stared at Sable with blatant heated desire in his eyes and flexed his fingers. Loren knew the feelings running through this male. He had experienced that undeniable need to touch Olivia when they had first met and had barely leashed it himself. Sable would probably rip the demon’s arm out of its socket if he dared to touch her.

The female in the picture was not Vail’s ki’ara.

Loren focused on Olivia again, desperate to feel her. It took all of his power to form a fuzzy connection between them, but it relieved him nonetheless. Olivia was alive, for now.

“I can help you, Elf,” the demon said, his deep voice gaining a hard edge. “If you agree to help me.”

Loren nodded. He would do anything to retrieve his ki’ara, even lead his people to war with another demon realm.

The Third King slid his crimson gaze towards Sable again and Bleu twitched beside Loren, his sword rattling as he tightened his grip on it.

The demon looked back into Loren’s eyes. “I can find your fated female, but only if your brother returns.”

Loren stared at him, fury burning like acid through his veins, and clenched his fists, causing the points of his serrated claws to press into his palms.

“Vail will return, and when he does, I will kill him.”

O
livia came around to find herself at one end of an elegant eggshell blue room with a beautiful woman with very long dark red hair and icy blue eyes looking down at her. Her lips matched her hair and the dark make-up around her eyes made her irises appear almost white ringed with dark blue, and her flawless pale skin gave her the appearance of a doll, too perfect to be real.

She planted her hands on her curvy hips, drawing Olivia’s jealous gaze to the perfection that continued to her figure. Full breasts rose high on her chest, supported by elegant silver metal curls and points that formed a sort of corset over her long black strapless dress.

“What does your brother see in such a bland female?” the woman said in a silken tone that did nothing to hide the haughtiness from her voice.

Olivia frowned at her and sat up on the wooden floor. Bland female? Just because she wasn’t the goth version of a Barbie, it didn’t mean she was bland. Loren didn’t seem to think so. He had murmured to her several times over the past day alone that he thought she was beautiful, although she had found his announcement that she was the most beautiful female in the world to be a stretch.

She was certainly not bland though.

She would have told the woman that if she hadn’t been able to sense the danger radiating from her in waves stronger than Loren had ever emitted.

Kordula.

It had to be Vail’s female, which meant that he had been the one to snatch her from the cafeteria.

Olivia’s thoughts turned to Loren. He would be frantic. There had to be a way to let him know she was safe. She focused her thoughts on him, all of her concentration, shutting out the bright and elegant period room around her that looked like it belonged in a fancy country house hotel.

Loren.

She pressed her hands to her chest, her heart aching with the need to feel him. The link between them felt clouded and weak. Was it the distance causing the static in the line or was it something else?

Olivia looked up at the woman standing before her.

A witch. Olivia had researched a few in her years at Archangel and all of them had incredible powers, able to weave spells and concoct potions capable of causing great destruction or infinite good.

There were three different castes of witch. Those born of the rare bloodlines capable of calling on the light or the dark sides of nature, were always of the light or dark themselves. Those born of a common coven witch were neutral, unable to connect with the power the light and the dark held without using spells beyond the level of most neutral witches. A light or dark bloodline could never bear a neutral witch or warlock, and vice versa. It was a calling, passed by blood to their offspring.

They could harness the power of nature and the world around them and tended to live in solitude, never acting as a coven. All light and dark magic bearers bore core abilities but some had rare talents, such as the power to gaze into the future.

The light tended to focus on life and their connection to that side of nature, harnessing it to heal and do good for others.

The dark had a connection to death and destruction, and forces from beyond the grave.

Kordula looked as though she dealt in the darker side of sorcery.

A male prowled into view behind her, hands clutching the sides of his bent head, fingers buried in his tousled black-blue hair. He growled, his agitated strides eating up the parquet floor, his bare muscular chest heaving with each laboured breath.

Vail.

What was wrong with him?

“Stop that infernal pacing!” Kordula snapped and Vail halted mid-stride, frozen in position, as if the witch had aimed her deadly powers at him and forced him to halt. “Come to me.”

Vail turned on his heel and glared at Kordula’s back as he stalked towards her, his eyes wild and vivid purple. He eased his hands away from the sides of his head and his black armour emerged from the bands around his wrists, jerkily covering his hands and forming his fingers into ragged, stilted black claws. He flexed them but it seemed to take him great effort, as if he had to fight his own body to make it move. He reached for Kordula, dark menace in his crazed eyes.

“Vail,” Kordula said in a voice that was all sweetness and smiled over her shoulder at him. “What have I told you about behaving nicely?”

Olivia gasped when the armour covering his hands began to recede but then swept forwards only to recede again. Was Kordula controlling Vail’s armour? They were mated, forming a powerful bond between them. Just as Loren had taken Olivia’s injuries into himself, using the link between them to make it happen, Kordula was using it to keep Vail’s claws sheathed.

He bared his fangs at her.

“Watch the female while I prepare.” Kordula turned imperiously away from him and swept out of the room, slamming the door to an adjoining one behind her.

Vail stood before Olivia, staring down at her, as tall as his brother but the insane twist of his lips and dark dull edge to his eyes stole something from his beauty.

He didn’t move a muscle, was barely breathing now.

Olivia swallowed and kept perfectly still too, even though her backside was going numb from sitting on the floor and she didn’t like having to crane her neck to look up at the madman standing before her.

He looked too much like Loren.

Was this what Loren had feared would happen to him when they had completed their bond?

“Loren will be looking for me,” she whispered, afraid to raise her voice any louder in case Kordula heard her or it triggered Vail into attacking. “I know he hurt your ki’ara... but hurting me won’t solve anything.”

Vail’s lips twisted in a snarl and he shoved his fingers through his hair, clawing it back. He grimaced and mouthed something, a lost and desperate look entering his eyes.

“Loren still loves you, Vail. He wants to help you. Let him help you.”

Vail shook his head and screwed his eyes shut, and his armour swept over his body, covering him from toes to neck. His claws dug into his scalp and his hands shook. He mouthed something again and she shrieked when he suddenly kneeled before her, the force of his knees hitting the parquet jolting her.

He struggled to bring his hands down and they trembled as he held them out to her, his black claws glistening with blood that he had drawn from his scalp.

“Loren is sorry for what he did to your ki’ara,” Olivia whispered, her heart pounding now that Vail was so close to her.

She didn’t dare attack him. He looked crazed, as mad as everyone said that he was, and Loren had told her that he wanted to make her suffer in order to hurt him and have revenge for what Loren had done. Olivia didn’t want to end up as a victim of Vail’s claws.

She eyed them and swallowed hard.

Vail edged them closer to her.

She glanced at the wooden antique chair off to her left. Could she reach it and hit Vail with it before he cut her to shreds? If she did hit him with it, would it affect him at all? He might be insane, but he was still at full strength as far as she knew, and that meant he could easily defeat her.

Vail mouthed something again, the desperate edge to his eyes growing more intense.

“Can you not speak?” It was a possibility. Kordula might have commanded he not speak to her.

Why would she do such a thing though?

He shook his head and reached for her, and she scurried backwards, keeping some distance between them. Vail frowned and lowered his hand, his shoulders sagging, and then his eyes lightened.

He used his claws to scratch the dark wooden floor. Olivia peered closer when she realised he was writing. Her heart rushed in her ears and she ended up on all fours, crawling closer so she could read what he had clumsily carved into the wood.

Her eyes widened. “Not ki’ara. Tricked. Slave.”

Her head shot up and she stared into Vail’s haunted eyes.

“She isn’t your fated female?” Olivia struggled to grasp that, even when he managed to nod. “She has you under her spell... she can control you.”

He looked away and raked his claws over the words he had scratched into the wooden floor, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of them or her now that she knew what had happened to him. He kept scratching the parquet until he had obliterated the words, leaving no evidence behind.

“Do you have any control over yourself?” she whispered and he nodded, and looked back at her, the hollow and haunted look in his eyes hitting her hard.