Lord of the Abyss & Desert Warrior (15 page)

Her name was dawnlight in his mind, a signal that he was no longer lost. “Lily,” he said, rubbing against her again. “Wake up, Lily.”

“Mmm.” A husky sound that delighted him, pleased him. “Micah?” She tried to turn onto her back, was stopped by his embrace.
“Micah.”
Shock colored her tone this time, her thighs squeezing down on the one he’d insinuated in between.

Kissing her neck, he moved his free hand up to cup her breast. “You’re so soft, Lily. I wonder what it’d feel like if I lay on top of you.”

Her skin grew hot under his lips, her hand rising to grip the wrist of the hand on her breast. “We have to get up. The others could come in.”

Ignoring the husky order, he ran his thumb over her nipple through the material of the green dress he’d brought her. She tried to pull away. He growled low in his throat, held her to him. “Mine.”

“You’re no longer the beast, Micah.” Her hand tightened on his wrist. “Don’t try to trick me.”

Laughing, he played his thumb over her nipple again. “You like this, Lily. I can feel your dampness against my thigh.” He pressed that thigh harder against her. “My mouth waters—I think I want to taste you there.”

A
SQUEAK ESCAPED
L
ILIANA’S
mouth. Biting down on it, she tugged away that teasing hand and scrambled up into a sitting position, surprised at her success. Then she turned…and felt every bit of air leave her body.

Micah was naked.

And he was the most sensual creature she had ever seen—all tumbled hair of golden light, eyes of slumberous winter-green and a jutting arousal he fisted without shame. Her own hand flexed and she almost whimpered when he released himself to stand.

Snap out of it, Liliana.

Rising after him on the strength of the command issued by some small sensible part of herself, she tried to find the rest of her rational mind as he closed the distance between them to circle her like the beast he’d been not long ago.

She shivered when he stopped behind her, put his hands on her hips and squeezed. “Mmm.” A deep, rumbling sound as he—

“What are you doing?”

Ignoring her attempt at pushing away his hands, he continued to raise the skirts of her dress. The air was cool against her calves, the backs of her knees, moving ever higher. “Micah, we must stop,” she said, but it came out holding not the least bit of certainty.

“Why?” Kisses on her neck, wet and open and involving licks that made her melt from the inside out.

“It’s not d-decent.” The air had reached her thighs now. “We’re in the great hall.”

Continuing with his sinful game, Micah made no response, not until he said, “You aren’t wearing underthings.”

Red filling her cheeks, she went to tug away but he braceleted her waist with one muscular arm. “They’re drying,” she admitted.

“I’ll find them and throw them away,” he told her, biting her ear. “I like this.” Then he pressed his hotly aroused body against her bare curves.

She shuddered at the shock of feeling that hard ridge of flesh nestled so intimately against her, but Micah snarled in frustration. “You’re too short for this.”

Not sure what to say to that, she’d barely opened her mouth when he swung her up in his arms and made his way to a chair lying on its side, beside the table. Putting her down, he set it upright. Liliana’s befuddled brain took that long to figure out what he intended. “I think I better—oh!” He had her in his arms, his mouth on hers before she could finish the sentence.

His tongue pushed past her lips and, oh, it was a very naughty kind of a kiss but she couldn’t resist him, especially when he was so strong and warm and hard against her. His skin was like hot satin, his muscles fluid beneath the smooth heat. His jaw was a little rough, making her wonder what that stubbled skin would feel like against her breasts.

The wickedness of her own thoughts scandalized her, but that didn’t stop her from sucking on his tongue. He liked that. His hands, those arrogant, wandering hands,
told her so. A minute later, he was raising her dress again and she had no will to stop him.

So when he sat down in the chair and swiveled her around so her back faced his front, she went, feeling shameless and brazen and bad. Very, very bad. But Micah didn’t pull her down to the dark temptation of his lap. No, he stopped her between his legs. Then, tucking up her skirt into the thin belt that was part of the dress, he ran his hand over the lush curves she’d hated all her life.

Heat burned her cheeks and she wasn’t sure whether it was arousal or embarrassment. Whatever it was, it left her immobile, waiting on tenterhooks for his next touch.

A hot breath. “So soft, Lily.” His fingers sliding through her slick flesh, heading straight for the little nub that pulsed hot and tight.

“Micah!”

“This place gives you pleasure.” It was a satisfied statement. “Like this?” A rough flick.

Her knees crumpled.

Making a low, rumbling sound that seemed to be a remnant of the creature he’d been before they slept, he held her upright using an arm around her waist. His fingers rubbed, slid back, circled the entrance to her body with an exploring touch. Expecting a sensual intrusion, she was taken utterly by surprise when he arrowed his fingers through her intimate lips again, closing the rough pads of his fingers around the nub that made her boneless. “I want to put my mouth here, Lily.”

“Don’t. You. Dare.” She wouldn’t survive. Even the thought of it—that beautiful, sensual mouth on her most secret place, a place that he was caressing with a distinctly proprietary touch—made her so hot that her dress
was suddenly too tight, her breasts feeling far bigger than she knew them to be.

“I will dare.” Continuing to hold her up with that strong arm around her waist, he moved his fingers back down to her slick and sensitive entrance, began to push in a little with one thick finger, halted at her cry. “Am I causing you hurt?”

“No,” she whispered, knowing she should’ve used the opportunity to stop him, keep this from progressing any further—but she wanted this wicked pleasure, would steal it from him.

Taking her at her word, he pushed in slow, so slow.

She cried out again—her body was tight, untried, and it felt too much and not enough at the same time. When he withdrew his finger, she couldn’t help her whimper of protest. But he didn’t leave her for long. Stroking his hands down the insides of her thighs, he said, “Can you reach the table?”

“Yes.” Her hands were already gripping the edge of the fallen wooden table before she realized what she was doing, her thighs parting in an instinctive attempt at balance. Nerves awakened—she’d never had a man within her, and he’d moved so fast, until she was now in position for him to mount her. However, she had no intention of stopping him, not this man who looked at her and saw a woman he desired. Never had she felt as she did in Micah’s arms. Never had she wanted this badly.

The hot gust of his breath on her most intimate flesh was the only warning she had before he put his mouth on her. Her brain simply stopped functioning at the crash of scandalizing pleasure, her entire body taut with shock. She had to protest. This was surely not something…
“Oh.”
It was a shuddering moan as he flicked his tongue over the entrance to her body.

M
ICAH SMILED AT THE SOUND
of Liliana’s pleasure. It was good that she enjoyed this, because he had every intention of repeating the act; she tasted unlike anything he’d ever before sipped. Hot and dark but with a delicate feminine musk that intoxicated senses still sensitive after the visitation of the curse.

The reminder made him frown, lift his head from his exploration of Liliana’s sweetness. “Was I terrifying?” He didn’t scent fear on her, needed to make certain it didn’t linger in her blood.

“What?” It was a breathless word.

“When the curse came upon me?” He caressed her with his fingertips, deciding that next time, he’d have her on her back in bed, so he could spread her more fully, see everything he tasted. It would be good. She was so soft and flushed and pretty.

For him.

His smile was probably very uncivilized.

Liliana went as if to rise, but he stopped her by the simple expedient of stroking her with his tongue once more. Trembling, she held her position. “You were terrifying,” she said. “But you were rather beautiful, too.”

He liked that answer, liked that she’d seen both beauty and danger in him. What he liked even better was that when he reached down and rubbed his finger on that little nub at the apex of her thighs at the same time that he kissed her long and deep in her most secret place, she made a hotly feminine sound before her body clenched and grew even more slick for him. Lapping up the proof of her pleasure, he inserted a finger inside her again.

“Micah!”

Tiny muscles clenched on his finger over and over again as tremors shook her frame. Pleased, he stroked his hand over her hip until she stopped trembling. “No,
Lily,” he murmured when she would’ve pulled away. “I’m not done.”

He’d never had a woman, never wanted any of the silly village creatures so rank with fear. After a while, that part of him had seemed to go to sleep, leaving him the perfect Guardian, cold and without need of any kind. Then had come Liliana. A woman who looked at him as if he was wonderful, told him fantastical tales and filled his castle with laughter. He wanted to lick and suck and bite at her until he knew her every pleasure point, her every sensual weakness. “I like the taste of you.”

“Micah, if you—” A short scream as he covered her with his mouth again.

This time, he decided to try little flicks and licks using his tongue, rubs with his thumb and sucks with his mouth. Lifting away his lips when she began to buck against him, he played his finger through her slickness before sliding it inside…then adding another. Quivering, she gasped, but didn’t ask him to stop. So he pumped his fingers, slow and deep and again. Her body clamped down on his, tight as a fist. Tighter.

His cock surged.

Feeling her spasms subside into shuddering aftershocks, he withdrew his fingers and pulled her down to sit on his lap, ensuring her nakedness met the pulsing rigidity of his own. Soft and wet, she tensed, then folded back against him, boneless. “I gave you much pleasure, Lily.”

He saw her lips curve up at the corners as she lay with her eyes closed, her head against his shoulder. “You sound quite satisfied with yourself.”

“I am.” Reaching forward, he pulled up her dress, ignoring the small attempt she made to slap away his hands. “I like looking at you,” he murmured, and her
hands dropped. When he’d exposed her thighs, a paler shade than the honey-brown of her skin where the sun had caressed it, he put his hands on them. It made her shift on him, causing his arousal to nestle more snugly into the hot, wet place between her thighs.

His hands clenched on her, his head dropping back.

The feel of it was so raw, it took him long moments to realize Liliana had gone motionless. “Micah?” Her hand closing over his. “Will you come inside me now?”

“No.” He wanted to try this first. “Move on me, Lily,” he whispered, nuzzling at her throat.

He saw color tinge her skin, but she didn’t deny him, sliding along his hard flesh in small, sensual movements that made his arousal throb. Groaning, he shifted his hands up to close over her breasts. She gasped, her nipples tight points against his palms through the dress, but didn’t stop the hot little movements of her body over his cock.

Hands tightening on her breasts, he buried his face in her neck and urged her to speed up with harsh murmurs against her skin. When she did, pleasure shot a lightning bolt through his body, so primal and raw that he knew he wanted to experience it again and again and again.

He tensed before he spilled, clenching his jaw until his bones grated against one another. “Stop.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Petting her breasts, he took a deep breath, lay back. “I want to see your face.”

Liliana rose to her feet at his urging. Her cheeks were red when she turned around, but it was pleasure that colored them, not embarrassment. When she touched her fingers to his lips in a shy caress, he pretended to bite. Her laugh was husky, only for him.

Pleased, he pushed up the front of her dress and
tugged her forward to straddle him. Her mouth opened in a shocked gasp as their bodies came together, his cock sliding through her delicate folds.
“Micah.”

He smiled and claimed a hot, deep kiss, realizing the position allowed his cock to rub up against that sensitive nub, the one he was going to suck on when he had her naked and spread out on his bed. For now, he clasped his hands on her bottom and began to rock through her folds over and over again with her lush cooperation, feeling pleasure build up hot and dark along his spine. His cock jerked as she whimpered, went liquid around him and then his own release had him in a grip hard and brutal.

“That was good,” he murmured afterward, collapsing against the chairback with her limp against his chest. “Next time, I’ll be inside you.”

L
ILIANA COULDN’T LOOK
J
ISSA
in the eye that afternoon as they began to set the great hall to rights. She could still feel the heat of Micah’s breath on her intimate flesh, the shocking wetness of his seed against her thigh, the rough clasp of his hands on her bottom. He’d left marks, he’d held on so tight at the end, but unlike with the scars on her back, Liliana had found herself twisting in front of the mirror to examine these with a sinful lash of heat.

They’d disappear within the next day or so, but until then, they were a physical indication of not only her own pleasure, but of Micah’s. There was going to be pain, terrible pain, when she told him her lineage, but nothing and no one could ever steal this truth from her—that she’d brought him to that extremity of need, of desire.

“Liliana,” Jissa said, and from the tone of her voice, she’d been trying to get Liliana’s attention for a while.

“I’m sorry.” An ache in her heart, entangled with memories of a most beautiful sin. “I was woolgathering.”

But Jissa didn’t smile or scold her. “He is not himself,” she said, “not at all, oh, no, when the curse is upon him. You must not blame him.” Distress in every word, in those dark button eyes. “Oh, please, don’t—”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Liliana managed to get in when her friend paused to gulp in a breath. “He didn’t, Jissa. Please believe me.”

“He is so fearsome, big and wild and terrifying.”

“Yes,” Liliana agreed, putting broken dishes on the cracked but usable table. “But inside, he is still the Lord of the Black Castle.” Her father had tried to twist the soul of the child Micah had been, and succeeded only in twisting the physical shape of him. “Kindness and a little flattery will calm him if you ever find yourself alone with the beast.”

Jissa’s eyes were huge. “Oh, no, never. Not me. I’m not brave like you.”

Liliana thought of how she’d cowered under her father’s whip, how she’d lain weak and starving in his filthy dungeons, and knew she wasn’t brave. But she didn’t say that to Jissa, who finally looked more like herself. Instead, sweeping up the remains of what might’ve been a chair leg, she asked, “Where is the lord, do you know?” He’d been nowhere to be seen when she’d returned from cleaning herself up—and putting on her now-dry underwear.

“The village elder, sharp and pointy man, came here. A scourge of Bitterness in the village, you see.” Seeing Liliana’s confusion, she said, “Many arms and feet they have, yes, they do, and they are covered in black, so black, fur. Small creatures, so much trouble. Trouble, trouble.”

“Are they creatures of the Abyss?”

Jissa shook her head. “Oh, no, they are simply drawn to the Black Castle. Home, it is, home from long, long ago. But rice and potatoes they love, tsk, tsk. Stealing rice and potatoes.”

Liliana laughed at the idea of these pieces of “Bitterness” eating their way through potatoes with relish. “What does Micah do with them?”

“He brings them back home,” came a familiar male voice from the doorway.

Turning, she found Micah standing there, fully armored again—and surrounded by a small sea of furry little creatures who were making the oddest chittering sounds. Before she could say a word, Jissa put her hands on her hips. “No, no! Pests! No pests in my kitchen!” the brownie said in an unexpected show of temper.

“They’ve promised to behave.” Micah smiled, slow and coaxing, and Liliana all but saw Jissa melt. “They’ll only be here for a while. Something scared them and so they’ve come to hide until the badness is gone.”

Liliana felt a chill in her heart. “What is this badness?”

“Bad magic,” Micah said. “The Bitterness were created to sense bad magic, and eat it up. But they are too small, and can only eat small bad magics.”

And the Blood Sorcerer’s magic, Liliana thought, was huge and ever growing. Had she needed one, this was the final sign that there was no more time—she would tell Micah the truth tomorrow, hope he would remember…hope he wouldn’t hate her.

T
HAT NIGHT, WHILE
M
ICAH WAS
gone hunting the souls destined for the Abyss, Liliana dreamed of huge spiders as big as horse carts. Their eyes were a malignant red that burned, until she couldn’t look at them without tears of blood streaking down her cheeks. And yet she knew she couldn’t look away, for their legs were lined with razors, their mouths with knives.

Then she fell, and they were on her, cutting and tearing and ripping.

It was her own scream that wrenched her out of the nightmare.

Sitting up in the huge black bed in the room that belonged to the Lord of the Black Castle, his shirt—the
one she had borrowed from his closet, though he had ordered her to sleep naked—stuck to the sweaty film on her skin, she bit the inside of her cheek, creating enough blood magic to open her palm on a ball of light. It floated to the ceiling, bathing everything in a soft glow. There were no spiders in the corners, or if there were, the small creatures were too shy to bother her.

But it wasn’t those insects that worried her. “They are coming,” she said to the mouse who watched her from the windowsill, his tail twitching as if he sensed it, too. “The Arachdem are coming.”

M
ICAH RETURNED TO THE CASTLE
with many shadows this night, all of them so full of evil that he felt drenched in it. Not going to Liliana until he’d washed off their stench, he was most displeased to find his bed empty—though the hunt had been long and dawn touched the sky in a luminous cascade of color. “Where is she?” he snarled at the mouse who had the bad fortune to be sleeping curled up on the bedside table beside the unicorn timepiece he’d shown Lily last night.

The mouse squeaked, stood up on two paws for a second, before dashing down and behind the table and under the bed. Leaving the creature because it was a denizen of the Black Castle, though its magic was very, very small, Micah slammed his way down to the kitchen. Jissa jumped when she saw him, then shook a wooden spoon.

“Look! Look at this!”

Bemused by the sudden aggression from this most sweet and timid of brownies, he walked around the counter to see what had her so upset. By and around her feet rippled a sea of furry black. The Bitterness. Micah scowled. “You promised to behave.”

A chittering, squealing response.

“Oh.” Raising his head, he said to Jissa, “Have they eaten any of your potatoes or rice?”

Jissa frowned, put down the spoon and went to check the stores, the Bitterness at her heels. They made a mournful, hungry kind of sound when she opened the bins, but didn’t swarm. Instead, they followed her back when she returned to stand in front of Micah. “No, they did not.” Shocked words. “Not at all.”

“Then I believe they must like you, Jissa.” Kissing her on the cheek—and enjoying her “eek” of surprise—he left her surrounded by the squealing happiness of the Bitterness.

“Hush, silly, silly,” he heard her mutter, but there was no ill will in it. Then, “
Very
hungry you are?”

Smiling because the Bitterness would not be harmed here and Jissa would not be lonely, he was almost in a good mood for an instant. Until he remembered that Liliana hadn’t been waiting warm and naked in his bed as she should have been. She was his, after all. Didn’t she know the rules? He was scowling again by the time he entered the stone garden, following the scent of her sorcery to the grassy area beside the long reflecting pool that was a favorite with birds.

She’d drawn a blood circle and though he could’ve crossed it as this was his domain, he didn’t. To disturb such magic could cause harm to rebound on her. Instead, he took a seat on an overturned sculpture and watched as she knelt on the cold, hard earth dressed in nothing but her old brown dress and a black jacket.

At least the jacket was his, he thought, mollified.

A tickle at his leg announced one of the Bitterness. Looking down, he saw it was, in fact, four of the creatures. Carrying a cup of chocolate dusted with cinnamon.
“My thanks.” He took it, was almost expecting the group that came along with a plate of bread heaped with butter and honey. “Jissa is working you hard.”

They all but leaped in joy before running back to their new mistress. That was what no one understood about the Bitterness. They had been created to eat bad magic, and that was how they got their name—for it was said they became bitter with the eating of it. That, however, was not true. When the Bitterness ate bad magic, it lost its badness and became inert. The Bitterness, on their own, were loyal creatures, full of happiness and a desire to help. If not for their unfortunate propensity to raid farmers’ stores, they would be much loved.

Eating a piece of the bread, Micah decided to keep one aside for Liliana. He wasn’t pleased with her for depriving him of a chance to touch and kiss her naked body, but he didn’t like her looking weak. After spilling that much blood—from a wound in her arm, he saw—she’d need sustenance.

Her lips moved, her fingers lifting to make graceful flowing patterns in the air that glowed with light. It was blood sorcery, beautiful and arcane and of Liliana. He watched, enthralled, his own power resonating with hers, as if it was as enamored of it as he was of the woman who wielded it.

“See,”
she whispered.

A minute later, her hands fell, the glowing patterns disappearing into the ether. “I wasn’t wrong, Micah,” she said, her eyes flicking open. “He has sent the Arachdem.”

Her words were a chill wind. From what he’d heard pass the lips of the condemned, the Arachdem were fed the worst of the dark magics and, as such, were nightmares given form. It was said they could cross the Great
Divide, traverse the ice mountains, lava-filled pools and other obstacles that protected this realm. “When?”

“Soon. Within hours.”

“Break the circle, Liliana.”

“What? Oh.” Standing, she ignited a match and dropped it on the circle. It opened with a “pop” of sound, the magic dissipating. “Is that for me?”

He held out the bread. “I will not share my chocolate.” But when she smiled at him, he gave it to her.

A small, quiet moment passed with her sitting beside him, warm and smelling of nothing but Liliana. Then the sun’s rays hit the broken circle, caressing the dark ruby stain of her blood. “How many?” he asked.

“I think…an army.”

B
ARD TOOK CARE OF EVACUATING
the people of the village to the safety of the Black Castle—which had, according to legend, never fallen. The villagers came in huddled and scared, not simply of the threat of which they had been warned, but of the castle and its inhabitants.

Jissa, shy and afraid of strangers, came out with the Bitterness holding cups of sweet tea and cakes for the little ones. At first, people stared and whispered, but the sight of the Bitterness chittering and obeying Jissa soon charmed them into smiles. Before long, the Black Castle was filled with the sounds of children’s laughter as they attempted to catch the Bitterness—who were delighted at the attention, but never wavered from their devotion to Jissa.

“I think,” Micah said to Liliana in a rare moment of quiet on the castle roof, “that the Bitterness are here to stay.”

“Them, I welcome.” She touched her fingers to his
arm. “He has sent the monsters for me. You must know that.”

He didn’t know why she told him that. Did she think he would turn her away so as to escape the Arachdem? The thought annoyed him. “Good,” he said, “then I’ll give you to them at the edge of the village and they’ll return from whence they came.”

A small pause, then an even smaller voice. “I’m sorry.”

Frowning at the bloody black of the sky, he shot her a glowering look. “Don’t be sorry. Help me halt this army.”

“The Arachdem are his greatest weapon,” Liliana said, an odd catch in her voice. “He has never been defeated when he has brought them into battle with him.”

Micah didn’t like the sound of that, but he also knew that this was his domain. The power of the Abyss would respond to no other, and would sing for him. “He has never before attempted to breach the Abyss.” Something pushed at him from the back of his mind, an insistent prodding. “Their eyes shine red in the dark—like living embers of flame, and they carry pure poison in the sacs on their legs.”

Liliana’s expression turned desperate. “Do you remember?”

“What?” Shaking his head, he dislodged the odd prodding.

“
Please
don’t fight it.”

But he barely heard her, his attention caught by a roiling cloud in the distance. “I must go. They’re almost here.” Turning, he caught her startled lips in a kiss that warmed him to the core, before he rose into the air on leathery wings meant for hunting shadow prey.

The sky thundered, menacing shades of red and black licking at the horizon. He dived down through the ug
liness of darkest sorcery, to see another layer of black. But this one was furred and moving, flashes of gleaming metal catching the light as the huge spiders crawled forward on razor-armored legs; there were so many of them that they covered the bubbling lava pools that had kept out intruders for aeons. He wondered how they did not drown in the agonizing heat of the pools—until he swept lower and saw that they were using the bodies of their fallen as a bridge.

It was no surprise.

The Arachdem were, after all, a creation of the blackest blood magic. It was said that the Blood Sorcerer himself, the one who had done more evil than the others combined, the one who sought to live forever and escape the Abyss, had formed them before— A wicked lance of pain swept through his mind, trying to disgorge thoughts his consciousness wouldn’t accept. It had him gritting his teeth as he hovered above the coruscating mass of the Arachdem.

They stopped as one.

Their heads lifted up, their many eyes holding him in their sights.