Under His Wings (15 page)

She recaptured him with her mouth, taking him deep and hard.
Her head bobbed over his cock, greedy, with little care for technique or skill.
She just wanted—wanted his dick in her mouth, her throat. Wanted his seed to
fill her.

“Tamar,” he said, and the voice carried more beast than man.
“Take it. Deeper. Open for me. Open.”

Pushing her breath through her nostrils, she loosened her
muscles and sucked a couple more precious inches into her throat. She forced
the air through her nose, flexed the walls of her passage around his cock.

Material ripped. She lifted her lashes to razor-sharp talons
that had replaced his fingers, as well as ragged tears in the blankets,
exposing the hardwood floor beneath.

Slowly she slid up, up, up his cock until only the head
remained in her mouth. Then just as deliberate, she returned down, down, down,
swallowing more of him than before. Her eyes stung, her throat convulsed around
the invading length but she took him, fucked him.

A thunderous roar erupted from him—her only warning before
the hot blast of his seed struck the back of her throat. Instinctively she
jerked back but swiftly recovered and consumed everything he offered her. His
essence, his strength, his vulnerability.

A shudder racked his body. She finally released him and
power eddied inside her, a whirlpool of desire, lust and triumph. No matter
what happened, where they went after this time ended, she would have this
moment. She’d pleasured this beautiful creature, taken him and believed he
would never forget.

As she wouldn’t.

“Not enough,” he rumbled and before she could digest his
meaning, Nicolai had her on her hands and knees, open, bared and at his mercy.
Mercy she doubted he possessed.

Thank God.

Behind her, his thighs pressed to hers, spreading them wider
until her legs bracketed his. He placed his palm at the small of her back and
stroked upward to the nape of her neck, sweeping over her shoulder to cup her
chin. He paused. Braced his thumb and middle finger on either side of her jaw.
The other hand clasped her hip, urging her up to lean against his chest,
telling her without words to trust him, rely on his strength. The tiny muscles
of her pussy spasmed and the fire-warmed air caressed her exposed flesh even as
her heart fluttered in her chest. She fisted her fingers on her thighs and held
her breath.

His cock tapped her inner thigh, as hard and insistent as
before, proving he was no ordinary male. No average man could have recovered in
the matter of seconds he had after such an explosive orgasm.

Shit. Tamar moaned as Nicolai tipped her head back, placed a
tender kiss on the underside of her jaw and slid his cock through the slit of
her pussy. He was going to ruin her. Who the hell could measure up after
this
?

No one. Just the fleeting thought of a man other than
Nicolai touching her in this way repulsed her. Cracked her heart into jagged
pieces.

“No one,” he said, mirroring the words in her head. “No one
but me, Tamar. You got that?”

The soft question clenched her heart and sex.
If only…
And she was thankful for the tumble of curls that hid her face from his view.

His hand dipped between her thighs and he pressed two broad
fingers into her pussy, shoving away everything except for his touch.

“I want you,” he murmured. “All of you. Nothing separating
us. Like in our dreams.”

Tamar closed her eyes at the sweet seduction of his
whispered plea. God, she wanted the closeness he requested. She craved it.
Memories of his bare, hard cock pushing into her, the hot blast of his seed
high in her pussy extending and intensifying her orgasm… Hell yes, she desired
the dream to be reality.

Still she hesitated. She’d never had unprotected sex—not
even with Kyle and they’d planned to marry. Her concerns boiled down to trust.
Did she trust Nicolai with her body, her protection? Her future?

Yes.
God, yes
.
At some point, Tamar had made
the unconscious decision to trust him. Maybe when she agreed to place her
safety in his hands and allow him to bring her here to the mountains. Maybe in
the glen when she touched his hippogryph and the power that emanated from
him—power he’d never used against her but always in her defense.

Or maybe when he’d burst into the dark of her bedroom, ready
to fight any enemy, and ended up cradling her in his arms and calling her a
warrior.

Maybe all three.

The truth was she believed he wouldn’t harm her. Her best
interest was foremost in his priorities. And whether those priorities were
protecting her from Evander or from disease or pregnancy, she trusted him.

“Will you, Tamar?” he asked and followed the curve of her
ear with his lips, traced the slit of her pussy with his fingers before
circling her clit. She shivered in his arms. “I want your heat surrounding me,
your sweet cream flooding over me.” His big body shuddered. “You’re human,” he
rasped. “I can’t impregnate you and I’m not affected by human diseases or
ailments. Let me have all of you.”

Jesus, how could she say no? She didn’t
want
to say
no.

“Yes.” She reached behind her, curled her fingers into his
hard thighs. “Yes.”

He kissed her just below the ear, brushed a caress over her
cheek and, tilting her head toward him, took her mouth. His arm wrapped around
her abdomen, holding her close as his cock nudged her entrance and pressed
forward until only his cock head rested inside her. He paused and his harsh,
rapid breath bathed her lips. Tamar moaned, squeezing her muscles around him,
encouraging him to move. To give her more of him.

Their mingled pants and jagged breaths resounded, seeming
ten times louder in the silence that surrounded them.

“Nico,” she pleaded, her nails biting into his unyielding
flesh.

Slowly he pushed inside her, filling her. Nicolai released her
chin, slid a hand beneath her thigh and lifted it, spreading her wider as he
shifted her hips higher on his lap. The position and angle of penetration made
him seem larger, wider…
more
. He didn’t pause in his tender but firm
taking of her and every ridge rubbed over the walls of her pussy, dragging
shudder after shudder from her.

It’s so good
.
She gasped, raising her arms to
circle his neck and hold on. His silken hair tickled her cheek and neck as he
grazed a kiss over her shoulder.

His hands gripped her hips, gently lifted her halfway up his
cock. Then slid her back down. A gust of air tore out of her chest at the
erotic caress of her pussy. It massaged every inch of her sex, from the
swollen, parted lips that pressed to his groin on the down stroke to the walls
and muscles that quivered around him. He repeated the slow thrust and she cried
out.

“Do you know what fucking you is like? What being in this
hot, tight pussy is like?” he asked in a honeyed timbre. Another unhurried
lifting and lowering. She groaned. “Nothing. I don’t have anything to compare
it to. It’s pain, pleasure, heaven and hell. It’s like jumping into a warm,
sweet lake and never wanting to come up for air. I love being inside you,
Tamar,” he whispered.

A sob welled in her chest at the carnal yet tender words. No
fair. He used emotional warfare as well as a devastating, sensual assault.

“Your pussy makes a man welcome death,” he whispered.
“Because only heaven could be sweeter than coming inside you. But me,” his
voice thickened and the slow thrusts shortened, quickened, “even knowing how
stained my soul is, knowing hell awaits me, I would willingly greet the grave
if it meant another moment in your arms, in your body.”

Nicolai fell forward, his arm around her waist, keeping her
from slamming onto the floor. With tender yet hurried hands, he positioned her
beneath him, bringing Tamar to her hands and knees. He planted a palm next to
hers, the other clasping her waist. His broad chest blanketed her back, his
thighs bracketing hers. He covered her, reminding Tamar of the animal that
comprised half his genetics. He rode her, plunging deep, hips rolling against
her ass as each thrust buried him inside her pussy.

The smack of thighs hitting thighs, the suction of his cock
fucking her wet sex filled the room. The orgasm swelled, looming closer and
closer. The thick head of his cock bumped against a place behind her clit, high
in her sex, shoving her toward oblivion.

Nicolai growled and the vibration hummed against her back,
echoed in her ears. Abandoning her waist, he plunged his hand between her
thighs and rolled her clit between his finger and thumb. Ecstasy burst over
her, an implosion that rocked from the depths of her soul and outward until it
rolled out of her on a long, breathless scream. Her pussy clamped down on his
driving cock and she convulsed. Above her, Nicolai gave a hoarse roar, his body
tensed and bucked. Hard, powerful detonations of his seed seared her pussy,
bathed her and triggered another wave of release. It crashed over her in a long,
seemingly endless flood of pleasure.

As he murmured her name in her ear and the downy, heavy
weight of his wings enfolded them, Tamar leapt into the black welcoming arms of
release.

Chapter Eight

The sky, heavy with gray-and-navy-blue clouds, looked like
God had sucker punched it.

Its angry, bruised appearance fit Nicolai’s mood perfectly.

Though he scanned the air and ground below, his thoughts
were as chaotic as the storm that brewed and rumbled in the distance.

This had to end—Evander had to come to an end. Tonight.

Urgency rode him hard, made him fly faster, soar higher.
Demanded he fight fiercer.

Protect Tamar. At all costs, she must be protected.

Making love to Tamar the night before had altered the
timeline of the chase. After holding her as she confessed her fear of the dark,
and then receiving the gift of her body and trust, his sole concern was
shielding her from any future harm or pain. A woman as brave and fierce as
Tamar shouldn’t live in fear.

No more relays where he passed the baton of the hunt to
Lukas, Adon or Dorian. This had become a hundred-yard dash and Nicolai was
racing for the finish line, dragging Evander’s corrupt, crazy ass behind him.

The longer Evander remained free, the deadlier he became…and
the more dangerous he was to Tamar.

This hunt had ceased being about Nicolai’s people and the
safety of their existence days ago. If he were honest, it had changed the
moment he’d stared down into Tamar’s unconscious face on that dark street. But
it had been cemented the moment she’d swallowed her fear and asked him to
change into his hippogryph. Then she’d caressed him. Accepted both sides of
him. Whispered her heart’s desire against his chest.

She was a woman of worth and beauty. A woman who had been
betrayed in the cruelest of ways and yet had the courage to surrender herself
into his keeping.

Tamar had trusted Nicolai not to hurt her when she was at
her most vulnerable. Making love to her had rocked him to the core. His soul
had once been battered but intact. But after burying his cock inside her, after
sleeping with his head against her breast and her arms holding him close, a
jagged fissure had cracked his heart wide open.

And she’d reached inside and captured the pieces with her
small hands. His soul, spirit and heart belonged to her. Forever.

Even with Pria—whom Nicolai had loved before meeting
her—there hadn’t been this…fuck, how did he describe it?

For once after all these centuries, he understood how a
hippogryph could go rogue. If any harm came to Tamar, nothing would keep him
from hunting and destroying. No law. No tradition. Not his people.

When Pria died, he hadn’t opted to follow her into Eirene or
go into
nepenthe
. Instead he’d channeled his rage and grief into hunting
and exacting justice.

But with Tamar…

He wouldn’t choose sleep or the diversion of work.

He would choose to die with her.

So she had to survive.

And when this was over—when he didn’t have a choice but to
walk away from her—it would mean another kind of death. One of his soul. But he
refused to put a bull’s eye on her back. As he’d learned in the most brutal
way, abdicating as
Dimios
wouldn’t keep her safe. As Tamar had so
eloquently put it, he knew the risks.

Yet even if he was willing to take the risk—if Tamar was
willing—there remained the biggest elephant-in-the-room hurdle of them all.

She was human.

Though he didn’t give a damn about the law when it came to
her, taking Tamar as a mate condemned her to certain death not only from
enemies but from his own people. The hippogryph that succeeded him would be honor-bound
to take her out.

Then Nicolai would be forced to kill a friend.

Lukas’ words came back to haunt him.

What a clusterfuck.

“Lukas?”
he called out.

“Yes.”
The response was immediate but clipped with
irritation. Apparently, the male was still angry with him for insisting Adon
remain with Lukas and Dorian at the cabin. His second-in-command most likely
figured Nicolai wanted to take Evander down himself, without interference.
True, revenge for Bastien continued to burn in his chest, but another concern
overrode that desire. Tamar’s safety. And if Nicolai had to wing it by himself
to provide her with the best security possible, then that was his decision.

The three men who served under him were the best warriors of
their people and would guard her with their lives.

“Is it all good there?”
Nicolai asked even as a
faintly darker mass slid among the column of clouds that rolled across the sky.

“Yes.”
A pause.
“Any sign of him?”

“Not yet,”
he sent, but his eyes zeroed in on the
fast-moving billow. Shifting his body with the current, he followed the shadow.
“Gotta go. I might be on to something. Luke?”

“Yes.”

His heart dipped as he sped up.
“I’m entrusting her into
your care. Ensure her safety. Please.”

A long beat of silence passed before his second’s deep, solemn
oath rang in his head.
“I swear it. On my life.”

“Thank you, my friend.”
Without waiting for a reply,
Nico cut off the line of communication and arrowed in on his prey. It was
Evander, he was certain of it.

He switched directions, climbed higher to come over the
cloud. Blood pumped in his veins, conveying fury throughout his body like a
parasitic toxin. He blocked everything but Evander from his mind. Evander and
his imminent death.

A crimson mist shimmered at the edges of his eyesight.
Nicolai sucked in several deep breaths, shoved the fury down and forced a calm
to settle the rage-fueled beat of his heart.

He couldn’t afford to lose control.

Tamar’s life depended on it.

“You are so predictable, Nico. It makes this moment
almost anticlimactic. Almost.”
The smooth, aristocratic voice emerged from
the stormy mass seconds before Evander did. The hippogryph hovered like a
specter of death waiting to feast on the carrion of whatever poor soul he
chose.
“I knew it would come down to the two of us.”

“Then you should have stayed hidden like the rat you
are.”

“But I waited for you, Nico.”
Evander’s silky timbre
oozed like an oil stain across Nico’s mind. He wanted to cringe from the filthy
residue he couldn’t scrub from his brain.

The rogue used Nicolai’s nickname like a weapon. Each time
he uttered the reminder of their former bond, the word poured acid on the open
wound of Bastien’s death.

“I’m glad you did,”
Nicolai growled.
“I wanted to
kill you myself, you piece of shit.”

“Oh, I’m hurt,”
Evander goaded, his black head
bowing. But his onyx eyes glinted with pure evil delight.
“Even after I left
you such a precious gift, you still wound me. Tell me, Nico,”
he crooned.
“How
is our little Tamar doing?”

Fury and fear blasted through Nico, temporarily deafened and
blinded him. The section of his brain that clung to logic recognized the tactic
Evander employed. Hell, he’d taught it to him—an opponent consumed with emotion
made stupid mistakes. Yet the part of him that envisioned Tamar’s broken,
ripped body after Evander would administer his tender mercies blew away logic.
Fuck logic.

Nicolai wanted the bastard’s blood.

“You’ll never get near her,”
he promised.

“Always so cocky, so sure of yourself,”
Evander
drawled before fury sizzled down their link.
“Yet you didn’t know you had a
rogue operating right under your nose, in your command. The great
Dimios
played
by one of his own
krinos
.”
He laughed, the chuckle wicked, taunting.
“You killed the wrong brother, Nico,”
he whispered.

Disbelief and a growing rage swelled inside Nicolai like a
malignant cancer.
“You lie.”

Evander cocked his head to the side, his wings flapping back
and forth in a lazy rhythm as if they were old friends meeting up by chance
instead of enemies intent on each other’s destruction.

“I begged you not to kill him,”
Evander snarled.
“But
you wouldn’t listen. You’re so arrogant you couldn’t conceive you might be
wrong in your conclusion of Gregor’s guilt.”

“I didn’t kill him, you sick fuck,”
Nicolai rasped.
“You
did. You let your own twin die in your place because you were too much of a
coward to accept punishment for your crimes. You’re the murderer, not me.”

But it hurt. Damn, did it hurt. He’d executed an innocent.

It scored a hole in his heart, one that would never heal.

“You’ll die for that, Nico,”
Evander hissed, venom
snaking down the line of their connection. The rogue pulled back, his wings
almost stationary as his heavy body floated in midair.
“You know,”
he
said, his tone conversational, but his malice buzzed against Nicolai’s skull
like a swarm of bees.
“Until I saw Tamar, I’d forgotten how beautiful your
Pria was. Ummm…”
The lascivious hum vibrated in Nicolai’s head and reached
to the depths of his soul.
“With the others I enjoyed the kill. But Tamar
,”
he chuckled,
“I’m going to fuck her, Nico. Fuck her until she bleeds. And
then I will tear her apart slowly, eat her entrails while she still breathes. I
hope it’s your name she cries out. It’ll be sweeter knowing you can do nothing
while I take her pussy and her life.”

Nicolai loosed a piercing, shrill cry that split the air and
shattered the tenuous leash on his control. It popped with an audible snap that
resounded in his mind and Nicolai shot forward.

The wind cut a path around him as if getting out of his way
as he dove for Evander, his talons extended and aimed at the rogue’s chest.

At the last moment, Evander wheeled to the side and launched
into the night, a maneuver a less-skilled hippogryph couldn’t have managed. But
Nicolai had trained him.

With grim determination, he slammed to a stop as if a wall
had formed and followed the rogue above the clouds. Cold mist clung to his
feathers then evaporated as they soared higher.

For a moment, Evander disappeared from Nicolai’s sight, the
black sky enveloping the hippogryph like a lover’s embrace. Nicolai searched
the clouds, his eyes darting beside and below him. Just as he glanced up,
Evander’s massive bulk plunged toward him, claws spread wide. The razor tips
scraped Nico’s breast before instinct kicked in.

Pain burned as Nicolai’s legs jerked upward, blocking the
death blow that would have eviscerated him. Talon to talon, chest to chest,
they clashed and tumbled beak over tail, plummeting toward the ground.

Air whistled in his ears, dragged at the wings he’d folded
against his sides. Light from the lighthouse perched on the small town’s
shoreline flashed over their straining bodies. They would crash into the hard,
unforgiving earth and Evander’s vile face would be the last thing Nicolai saw.

So. Fucking. Be it.

They broke through the cloud line and Evander wrenched free,
leaving chunks of skin and muscle in Nicolai’s grip.

Satisfaction hurtled through him at the rogue’s furious
anguished caw. But his contentment was short-lived. Before Nico had time to
wheel out of the plunge, Evander rushed down, a black bullet cutting through
the shrieking wind.

Fire erupted across Nicolai’s throat.

He coughed, lifted his talons. Fluid flooded his lungs,
choked him.

Copper filled his beak, coated his tongue as the obsidian
cloak of death encroached on his vision, his brain.

The strength bled out of his limbs, wings and body along
with his life’s blood.

A loud, harsh cry reached his ears as he plunged toward the
jagged rocks and unyielding land below.

His last thought was of Tamar. Her beautiful face as she
touched him in the forest.

Once again, he’d failed to protect her.

The black arms of death and grief enshrouded him, claiming
him in their bitter embrace.

* * * * *

He stared into the face of a dead man.

Sorrow welled inside him like a bubbling geyser.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. In order to see his best
friend again he had to lose the woman he’d fallen in love with.

Rage and grief battled in his chest, surged in his throat,
racing to find out which would release its howl first.

Grief won.

“You keep that up and security is going to stick a nose in
our asses,” a familiar voice drawled. “And when they knock on the door, I’m
going to let you explain why your neck’s been filleted.”

Security?

Nico grabbed for his neck and simultaneously broke off the
cry of pain.

His fingers encountered a ridge of flesh about an inch
thick.

Where his neck had been sliced open.

“How?” he croaked and winced at the slight soreness.

The ghost of his best friend Bastien Sarris smiled down at
him. He seemed so…corporeal. His green eyes were as bright as Nicolai
remembered, his tall, rangy length as solid. Even the white-blond hair
fluttered on a ripple of air.

Everything was the same—except for the wide puckered scar
that bisected the right side of his face from hairline to jaw.

“Bastien?” Nico rasped, his hope so raw and tender fear
gripped his voice and squeezed. He nearly choked on the word. Desperate fear
stabbed his heart. Terrified if he spoke his best friend’s name aloud, if he
dared reach out to touch him, Bastien would disappear like smoke through
Nicolai’s fingers.

The ghost grinned, his white teeth flashing in his
olive-skinned face.

“In the flesh.” He shrugged. “More or less.”

“But…” Nicolai pushed to sitting, his gaze riveted on the
man he’d mourned for three months. With a swift glance around the room, he took
in the standard hotel-issue brown dresser, round card table and two
straight-backed chairs. But nothing captured his attention more than the man
he’d believed eternally lost to him. “You’re dead. I saw your blood. You’re…”
His voice failed him as a mixture of disbelief and fearful joy churned within
him.