The Sentinel Keeper (Forest Series) (3 page)

“Don’t tempt him,” his breath was right in her ear. His face was inches from her.

Beth could sense he was off-centre. His breath was coming fast and he didn’t move as if felt like he was trying to control himself. She could feel the rough bark marking her cheek as she turned her head towards him.  He pushed her harder into the tree. The breath was sucked straight out of her as she tilted her head right back to meet his green eyes. They burned into her with a depth that shocked her. His were locked on her mouth and she could see the blaze of raw desire in them. Oh Jesus he was going to kiss her.

She should have been terrified, but all Beth could feel was shameful lust, screaming through her blood.  A hot, desperate need that slid down her body and throbbed between her legs. Her body seemed to move on its own accord and she tilted her head up, her lips aching for a taste of his hard mouth.

She thought she heard him groan, and then he turned his face away from her.

She felt his hips move as he pressed his body against hers, pressing the full hard length of him against her. He was aroused, his sex stretching up against her buttock in a thick hard staff against her.

Stop this now, a voice in Beth’s head warned.

She should resist. She should push him away and run. But instead she gave a low moan and pushed back against him. He gave a low growl that rumbled like a low thunder across the sky. The vibration moved through Beth’s entire body, as her nipped hardened to pebbles in an instant Before she could stop herself she was arching back against him, begging his hands to touch her. To take her hot skin between his fingers.

His hand moved. It slid up her side, scoring her skin with heat, and cupped her breast over her sodden top. Her breasts were aching; her nipples rock hard and painful as they strained against her thin vest towards him. She wanted his mouth on her breast now.  All thoughts were gone as she gave in to the desperate heat that was surging through her, turning bone to liquid.

His fingers tweaked her nipple and she groaned as a hot shaft shot straight from her nipple to the hard small nub between her legs. She wanted his hands there. More. She wanted his tongue on her core.

Beth could feel his heat against her as his body moved.  His huge length was surging against her, forward and back pressing her into the tree again and again.  She wanted more, wanted him surging inside her and filling her to the point of pain.

His fingers left her breast and Beth could have sworn she heard him curse. They trailed lower to her stomach and Beth gasped. The contact seared through her skin, blazing a trail of fire up her belly. Jesus what was going on? Her entire body was responding to his touch like he had lit a torch inside her, she could feel the thick damp desire flood between between her legs, her flesh burning for his touch.

His hand moved lower, testing the waistband of her pants. Then it slipped under them and down onto her flesh.

His fingers felt the slick wet of her, razing across her aching skin.  His hand cupped her core and Beth almost went over the edge, an orgasm bearing down on her hard and fast.

“Not yet,” she heard him hiss. “Not until I say so.” His voice was so strained she could barely hear him.

She surged against him, pressing hard back against the thick ridge of him that was moving between her buttocks. His loose hand pulled off her fleece bunched around her waist.  She felt him freeze, just for a heartbeat. Then his hands were spanning out, torturing her flesh with the heat of his rough skin. They slipped out of her pants and moved behind her.

Through the haze of blind desire, Beth felt the familiar old friend of reason start to speak to her.

He was searching her. Son of a bitch. He was patting her down.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been poured over her. He must have felt her sudden change of mood because he jerked back and it was as if even the quality of the air changed as his hands slipped over the phone and pulled it out of her pants.

Hot shame flooded though Beth, dousing the raging fire that had licked her inside and out. He had tricked her. What the hell had just happened?  Beth was red with shock and humiliation.

If it was any consolation, she could tell he was not entirely unmoved by their encounter. There was no way he could have been faking the fact that he was still as hard as iron against her. His rock hard cock was pressing against her. There was no disguising his arousal.

“Let me go,” she gasped.

“Tell me what you are first,” he whispered, his breath ragged.

“Okay,” Beth whispered. “Let go of my arms first. You’re hurting me.” Beth hated herself for doing it, but she forced a sob out from between her lips. Lucky he couldn’t see that her eyes were blazing like coals with rage and determination. She let another one go, a small whimper this time.

“I don’t trust you,” he said, his voice like an assault in her ear. But he loosened his grip on her hands.

Too right, Beth thought as she moved.

Using all the force she could muster, she dropped to her knees and jerked her head backwards up into his swollen groin. The air went out of him with a deep grunt and his arms dropped.  With a bone-crunching thud he fell to ground like a stone. Beth pulled her canister of mace from her ankle holster, aimed for his eyes and sprayed.

No matter how big they are, it works every time, she thought with a hollow smile as she took one last look at the fallen warrior, before she turned on her heels and ran.  There was no way he was getting up for a while.

“Some lousy mugger you are,” she yelled.

Aslan was in the glade chomping down on an apple when Melchior flashed beside him, a dark scowl slashing across his face as he tossed the phone at his friend. Melchior saw him do a quick double take before he busied himself with grabbing the duffel of weapons. If his burning eyes looked half as bad as they still felt they must look as if they were bleeding buckets.

Aslan cleared his throat as he righted himself and tossed Melchior a sweater. They fell into step as they headed up the path pack to the camp.

“She fights dirty.”

Aslan let out a bark of a laugh.

“Not a problem for you is it?”

Melchior shook his head.

He had met a fighter that was dirtier than he was, and she was female.

His errant ways and personal liberty with rules were the very reasons he had been chosen by the Gods to guard The Sentinel – gateway to the Etheric Realm where they lived.  Priests had guarded the gateway hidden in the forest for two thousand years, but they could no longer hold back the dark forces trying to find their way through and destroy the Realm.

Melchior was as far removed from a Priest as they could have chosen, a dark warrior born from the God of Thunder to the fallen minor Goddess of the Forest. He was just perfect - a ruined immortal, cast out of the Realm for an unforgivable crime.

This was his punishment. For centuries he had lived in the Sacred Forest along with his soldiers, guarding the gateway. If that hadn’t been enough he had also been stripped of many of his immortal powers so he had to rely on earthly skills, making him and the warriors he trained a fitting match for the dirty fighters of the dark forces bred on earth.

He was a perfect mix of immortal soldier and lethal earth fighter, well known for his ruthless fighting style. And a human female had just felled him, and then maced him. If his eyes weren’t still so raw he may actually have laughed.

As they rounded the corner Melchior could see the camp in front of him in the failing light, a massive sprawling city made of stone. A slight haze surrounded the stone walls, a silver glow like a mirage. One of the powers he had retained in his fall from grace was the ability to cloak the air, hiding this forest and the growing gathering of Etheric beings that had joined him over time.

This was his city, where he reigned. But he was still a servant to the Gods that bound him to his fate.

Nobody had ventured into the Forest for over 100 years, so powerful was his concealing magic now. He drew it from the very land he lived in. Only outcasts from the Etheric found him.

Nobody human had ever even come close. Not until the human female today.

Melchior’s mind snapped back to her. Gods the way she had felt against him. He felt himself harden just at the thought of her tight nipples, straining against his palms as she arched back against him. She had been wet for him.

If he hadn’t felt the hard lines of the phone in her pants he would have taken her there, up against the tree on the forest floor.

“Got something on your mind?” Aslan was matching him step for step as they headed up to the armour room. They had left the smaller dwellings where families were getting ready for the night. Floating lights were starting to come on in the twists and turns of the paths as they turned towards the stone fortress where they lived and slept.

“The female,” Melchior growled. “She is different.”

“What is she?” Aslan said. “Not human if she got into the forest.”

“She’s human all right,” Melchior grunted. “But she’s something more and I intend to find out what she is tonight.”

As they entered the armoury a redheaded warrior goddess rose to greet them. Shara was Captain of Guards and she could better most men in a fight so she barely raised an eyebrow when she saw her leader’s bloodied chest and blood-red eyes. She dropped to one knee in front of Melchior and then quickly rose, as was their custom. Melchior tossed his sword at her and she caught it by the hilt. Shara was ready to lead the soldiers out for a night of duty. In Melchior’s army males and females were of equal standing as fighters but Shara had special skills. Not only was she so dazzling that most males were dumbstruck by her beauty, but she was born from the Keeper of Snakes and her skin was laced with lethal poison and she could wield it in a thousand different ways. She was a lethal killing machine and Melchior had found her centuries ago, trussed up in a cloth and tied to the Black Rocks as a blood sacrifice by the Dark Lord in an archaic custom of his people. He abhorred the custom and the dark, oily slick of earth that made up the Rocks.  He had brought her back to the forest and one of the healers had nursed her back to life. Now she was one of his fiercest warriors, and most loyal friends.

Melchior stripped off and stepped under the steaming shower, knowing Shara would clean his equipment with a precision not even he could match. He groaned as the water hit his stinging eyes. He let it course over his body, feeling it wash away the blood in a swirl of pink. This was a ritual he had done a thousand times, after a thousand battles.

He lifted his head to the jet as it coursed over his face. He felt the heat of it wash over his scars. They had not scared her at all. She had wanted him. Gods he could still smell her arousal on his skin. It was with a pang of regret that he soaped his hands.

She had stirred something inside him, with her deep black eyes. She looked so fragile lying still beneath, but she was made of fire and steel. She was a fighter. She had stabbed him, tricked him and finally maced him. She had almost taken her pleasure from him. He groaned. Never before had he wanted a female like this

As Aslan came through the door Melchior turned away and got busy with the soap and icing himself with a cold blast of freezing water. Aslan was pacing as he finally turned the water off and grabbed a towel.

“Melchior, we’ve got a problem here,” Aslan stalked over. “This clip she took of us fighting, it seems she sent it off to someone. It didn’t send in the forest but it must have gone off a few minutes ago because I heard it beep.”

Melchior scowled and grabbed the phone.

He watched the footage of their sparring session in the forest training grounds. They were moving so fast they looked like little more than a blur. How had the human even seen them? He slowed the clip down and played it again.

“Too vague to see our location” Melchior said, his face tight. “You think this is going to be a problem?”

“I have a feeling it is,” Aslan said. “Seems she sent it to a human called Jackson. I ran a trace on the number and it seems it comes from the national newspaper.”