Escaping Destiny (11 page)

His fingers entered me, spreading me, fucking
me. I closed my eyes, unable to keep them open any longer. “Open
them. I want you to watch me make you come, Synthia. I want to see
when desire floods through them, when the passion takes control and
you give yourself over to me.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I cried,
still riding his fingers.

“I’m fucking you,” he ground out through the
lust, which made his voice low and seductive. “I love your
sweetness, love to be inside of it. You are
mine
now,
Synthia, forever,” he whispered, before he moved back up my body as
he held my legs spread. “Now, come for me,” he ordered.

He entered hard this time, and held nothing
back as he pounded himself inside of me. His magic exploded over my
flesh and the moment it did, I exploded with it. My body shook from
the sheer magnitude of the orgasm. I screamed his name over, and
over as he continued to fuck me until his own release electrified
and spread warmth through me.

He turned onto his side and pulled me flush
against his body our breathing labored and torn as we both fought
to control it. He didn’t say anything, and the feeding that he’d
just given me made my eyes grow heavy with sleep. Tonight, I would
allow his comfort; tomorrow, I would barbeque his ass.

As I drifted off to sleep, I felt his soft
kiss as he rained them down on my forehead. His soft words were
whispered in the ancient language that I was starting to think was
part of the Horde language, and something about them tugged at my
heart strings.

I awoke to Ryder kissing me, his eyes smiling
as he ravished my mouth. I moaned and pushed with my hands against
his chest, trying to push him away. Not that it was working, or I
had a chance in hell of managing it. I felt his mouth curve into a
smile as his hand easily captured mine, and trapped them above my
head.

He didn’t enter me, even though I could feel
his hardness against my hip. He had taken the form I was more
familiar with as he had last night, which only made what he was
doing harder to resist. I pulled my mouth away from his, but he
followed me and caught it easily with his, and growled his
disapproval.

When he finally pulled away, he refused to
allow me to use my hands. Instead, he kept them pinned above my
head as his free hand stroked my stomach. I stopped moving away
from him the moment his fingers grazed the skin above my navel
tenderly. “Ryder,” I whimpered. His eyes met mine, as his fingers
continued to explore my flat abdomen.

“You will give me the strongest, most
stubborn son that the Horde has ever known,” he mumbled before his
head lowered and kissed the flatness of my belly. “I won’t stop
with one child. You will be the mother of all of my sons and
daughters.”

“And when you marry Abiageal?” I asked,
watching his reaction.

“She will be my wife, but you will still be
the woman I go to sleep with and the one I wake up with. Nothing
will change that.”

“Are you serious?” I snapped.

“I’m the Horde King, Synthia. They expect me
to follow through with that. It’s a normal custom for the Horde
King to take a bride from within the Horde. This was a contract my
father made, and at the time I thought I could go through with it.
Then I met you. You changed everything, but it’s not a simple thing
to undo. It’s a binding contract, one I signed.”

“Then I hope you are happy, but don’t expect
me to play happy whore for you. I am
not
willing to do that;
not even for you, Ryder.”

“It’s not like I want her. I want you,
Synthia Raine McKenna. She will go to the pavilion, like the others
before her after I have done my duty.” he mumbled and released his
hold on my hands.

I sat up and scooted away from him as quickly
as I could. “You think I care if you want her? It won’t matter at
that point, because I won’t be here. Your duty will include bedding
her. I’m not an idiot, Fairy. I know the old customs, and I know
that most come from the Fae. You will have to,” I stopped as my
throat thickened with the words, “you will have to take her to your
bed. That’s not something I can just look past. My feelings might
make me sound stupid to you, but I can’t change them.”

“So you’d take my child and leave?” he asked
in a deadly tone.

“Without a doubt,” I sneered.

“I could chain you to my bed,” he whispered
as his golden eyes lifted to meet mine.

I flinched from the heat in them. Why
couldn’t he see how wrong it was that he wanted to keep me and a
wife? I knew he was old, and that in this world it was common, but
why couldn’t he see it from my eyes? “Ryder, you can chain me all
you like. In the end, I will leave you. Either by checking out
mentally, or physically; I won’t stay if you marry someone else,
don’t ask me to.”

“And you’d stay if I refused to marry
her?”

“Maybe,” I said.
Yes, I’d fight to stay
with him with every fiber of my very being.

“Yes or no, not that it matters. You are
having my child. Leaving isn’t an option at this point.”

“I’m having our child, ours. He’s inside of
me
, not you. You are so wrong if you think you can pull what
you did yesterday in the front of your Horde on me again. You don’t
get to do this to me. Not when my entire life was shaped because of
a choice you made before I was born. You stole my life, Ryder. If
you hadn’t demanded a contract, I would never have left Faery, and
my parents would be still alive and would never have had to go
through what they did.”

“If I hadn’t made that fucking contract,
you’d be a very different girl than you are now. You’d have been
mine either way. Danu chose you for this. She thinks you’re
something special. She thinks our child can fix this world, and
when I find the relics, I hope she’s right,” he hissed.

“But you don’t think I’m special?” I asked,
crossing my arms uncaring that I was naked. Besides, it wasn’t like
he hadn’t seen it all many times.

“I think you’re a scared little girl who
doesn’t know what the fuck she wants. You have no home, you have no
friends, and you have no one who is willing to walk in here and
fight me for you. And trust me, Syn, Adam and Adrian are not that
stupid nor would Vlad or Kier allow for them to come here and
challenge me.”

My chest and throat burned from unshed tears.
I closed my eyes and felt one drop. I shook my head and looked up
into his gorgeous face. This was my Knight in shining armor, this
was my savior. Right, I was such an idiot. “Feel better? Does it
make you feel better to point out that I have no one left? No
fucking options?”

“Syn,” he said, sliding his fingers through
his hair.

“Get out,” I seethed, straightening my spine
and reinforcing my courage. He might be the Horde King, but I was
the Blood Princess, and I wasn’t some weak ass bitch who would cave
to this. I may not have what I had a few months ago, but he was
wrong. I had options. I wasn’t down and out yet.

“Synthia,” he warned.

“Get the fuck out, Fairy! Get out! Get out!”
I half screamed, half cried as the feeling of everything crashed
down on me. I felt pain shoot through my midsection as if the fires
of hell were tearing through me. I hit the floor hard and landed on
my knees before I bent over and everything went black.

*~*Ryder*~*

“What is wrong with her?” I demand and watch
as Eliran shakes his head.

“No idea. You said she screamed and then
fell?” he asks, and his eyes fly to mine as if he can sense my
guilt.

“We were arguing,” I divulge, and listen as
Ristan snorts.

“Dizziness and fainting are very common
symptoms during pregnancy. She looks stable, but I’d like to keep
her down here for tonight,” Eliran continues.

“No. If you want to monitor her, you will do
so from my chambers. She is emotionally unstable. I’d rather you
keep an eye on her from a distance. She needs to feel like she has
some control of her life. I took her from her world, and according
to Sinjinn, she’s already made one enemy he had to send packing for
threatening her life.”

“Synthia doesn’t make enemies without good
reason, Ryder. Did you question why the girl verbally attacked
her?” Ristan muses and meets my eyes as if he knows Synthia better
than I do. As if. I know every fucking curve, every inch of her
beauty personally.

“She said something Syn didn’t agree with.
The girl was removed, but the fact that Synthia’s not adapting to
her place here is not acceptable. I won’t let her walk away from
me.” I meet his eyes, daring him to argue.

“And the child?” I finally ask, after noting
everyone is staring at me.

“It’s fine as far as I can tell. I retrieved
medicine for the nausea, and vitamins to ensure that she and the
babe stay healthy. My only concern is that she wasn’t all of the
way out of Transition when she conceived and is still not fully
immortal. She’s delicate, no matter how strong she seems right now.
She needs to take it easy until the child is firmly planted in her
womb.”

“How in the fuck do we manage that when she’s
walking around hitting people? She’s not like the other women here;
she’s explosive.”

“When she is around you,” Ristan points out,
not even pretending to care that I was even now glaring murder in
his direction. “She was fine when I was with her, Ryder. She’s been
through hell and not even you can deny that. She has plenty of
reasons to hate us, and yet she doesn’t. Nor have I
seen
her
hating us. You, well she tries very hard to hate and yet she caves
to your whims. You may not want to hear this, but I’m going to tell
you anyway. Stay away from her unless you plan on apologizing for
whatever shit you probably dropped into her lap. Give her time to
breath, to heal, and for your child to be secured in her belly. I’m
just saying give her time to acclimate.”

“You don’t think I have fucking tried? I let
her walk away to marry someone else! I’ve given her up once,
Ristan. I will never do it again.”

“I’m not saying to let her go. You couldn’t,
anyway. She’s carrying your child. I’m saying that if you want her
to be willing to stay, give her time to adjust. Two months ago she
was a human with normal…well, she was a Witch, but my point is, she
had normal problems. She knew what she was, and what she had to do.
She was active, and needed. Now, she is trapped in a pretty cage
and the only thing she has to do with her time is to sit around and
think. We took a fucking assassin and we cut off her arms. Took her
swords. We took her purpose from her, and gave her what? This is
Synthia we are talking about. She’s a fighter, Ryder, and
everything she has ever known is gone. It’s all changing at a rapid
rate, and she’s coping by lashing out…not to mention she’s got some
raging hormones that are taking over. Just ask Eliran.” He motions
to the healer, who nods his head solemnly.

“I can handle hormones.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” I grind out through clenched
teeth.

“You’re doing a shit job with it so far.
Where were you when she was crying?”

“She was crying?” I bark and glare.

“For no reason; absolutely no reason, just
crying her pretty little heart out on my sleeve. Shit Ryder, of
course there was a reason. Claire had been there playing with her
mind, and you didn’t ask me to check on her until you were well
overdue. Don’t tell her you will be there unless you know for damn
sure you will be. Look at this through her eyes, or at least try
to. She needs time to adjust to everything here, and she’s been
sick on top of that. One minute she was this bad ass warrior, and
the next she’s just supposed to lay down her weapons and become a
mother? That shit is just not going to happen overnight, it takes
time.”

“Syn is going to a mother soon. She doesn’t
need to fight anymore! Doesn’t she know I’ll fight for her? And why
the fuck does she only cry around you, Demon? What the fuck did you
do to her?” I growl, allowing the beast to show from within.

“I was there, Ryder. She was experiencing an
overload of hormones. It’s very common early in pregnancy, as is
the nausea. Her body is changing and so far she’s doing an amazing
job of handling it. Crying and being emotional is normal,” Eliran
adds.

“And the pain she just had? Was that fucking
normal?” I glower and watch as he takes a step back.

“No, but she’s pregnant with the son of the
Horde King, Ryder.
Your
son. She’s young and that child was
conceived before she was ready to become pregnant. If she’d become
pregnant after she’d been done with Transition, this wouldn’t be
happening. Anyway we look at it she’s in for a rocky road. The best
thing for her right now is to take it easy and allow your child to
reach the second trimester of this pregnancy. I have to look in on
another patient. When you get her settled and she is conscious, I
will look in on her.”

“You do that, Eliran. Just keep in mind that
the fate of Faery may rest inside her womb. She is your number one
patient until she delivers that child safely. I suggest you be
ready for when the time comes, and be prepared for everything that
could go wrong, just in case it does.”

The fucking beast inside of me wants out. He
wants full control and fighting him off is getting harder with
every passing moment. He wants to take Synthia, to show her what he
is. Never fucking happy, he wasn’t even happy that I allowed him to
show her only a sliver of his passion when she first came here. He
wants more, so much more.

She’s ours, and not even that has made him
happy. He wants to feed from her, to fuck her until she feels
owned. She isn’t that kind of woman. She can’t be owned. Not by
him, not by me. Even though I want to dominate and control her, I
already know what the end result would be. She’s a warrior, and she
needs to be treated as such, not as he would have me do. She’s our
equal, our match—we need to tread carefully now, or risk the chance
of losing her forever. That’s not something I can allow to
happen.