Flamebound (16 page)

I've never felt more vulnerable in my life, and there's a voice, deep inside me, that's urging me to look away. To hold myself back. Not to give him everything when our future is still so uncertain.

I ignore it, shove it back down as pleasure races up my spine and nearly overwhelms me with its intensity. Because no matter what pain the future brings, no matter what danger or disaster is waiting for us, this connection between us is completely and utterly worth it.

I love you
.

The words tremble in my soul, hover on my lips. But before I can say them, before I can give him the reassurance we both so desperately need, Declan slams his mouth down on mine. He strokes one thumb over my nipple, another over my clit. And with a final thrust of his hips, he sends me hurtling over the edge into a climax so electric it's like magic itself.

O
nce we can both breathe again, I expect Declan to lower me to the ground. I'm not sure my legs will support me after that, but I'm willing to give it the old college try. Only Declan doesn't pull away, doesn't even pull out of me. Instead, he just leans against me, eyes closed, forehead pressed to mine, and just breathes.

“Am I too heavy?” he finally, reluctantly, asks.

I tighten my arms around his shoulders. “You're perfect.”

He grins. “It's about time you figured that out.”

“And so modest, too.”

“Modesty is overrated.”

“Obviously.” I press kisses along the curve of his shoulder. “You know,” I tell him in between soft, sweet smooches, “our fight might be over, but we still need to talk out the points we disagree on.”

He groans and shifts a little, though he doesn't pull away. The slight movement sets off a bunch of sensations deep inside me and I gasp. Tremble, despite myself.

His laugh is low and sexy as he moves again. This time he shifts so that his palm rests against my lower abdomen, his fingers curling possessively over my sex. It's different from the other times he's touched me, though, because the heat I'm feeling is more than just sex. It's a fine, electric vibration that originates in his fingertips and works its way—slowly, sensuously—over my skin, and then through it, to what lies beneath.

“What are you—” I break off as a wave of pleasure slams through me, before finally gasping, “What are you doing?”

“If you don't know, I must be doing it wrong,” he teases as he leans in for a kiss. As he does, another shock wave of pleasure shoots through me, this one bringing me to the very brink of orgasm all over again.

“You're not—” I gasp, twisting my hips to maximize the sensations sparking inside me, then try again. “You're not going to distract me with sex this time.”

His lips smile against my own. “Hate to be the one to break it to you, but I think I already have.” I feel another shock of electricity—this one longer and more intense than the ones that came before.

I scream a little, claw at his back in a desperate need to get closer. “Finish it,” I demand when I can think again.

“What if I don't want to?” Yet another pulse sets my nerve endings jangling. “I kind of like you like this, all sexy and demanding.”

I grab his hair in my fists, yank his head back. “I'll show you demanding! Finish it!” I growl against his lips.

“What's the magic word?” he asks, even as he slides one of those magic fingertips of his against my clit.

“Please!”

“I was thinking more along the lines of
abracadabra
, but
please
works, too.” He bends his head, pulls one of my nipples into his mouth. And with another jolt of electricity straight to my sex, sends me tumbling into a second orgasm.

It takes me even longer to come down this time, because Declan keeps petting and kissing and touching me. Every time I think I've caught my breath, another wave crashes through me until finally, in self-defense, I sink my teeth into his heavily muscled shoulder.

He jerks against me with a groan. I like the sound, so I do it a second time, relishing the way such a simple touch from me can send him spiraling into another release as well.

“Now,” I tell him after our heart rates settle and he finally stops kissing me, “it's time to talk about the ACW.”

With a groan, Declan pulls back and lets me slide slowly to the floor. He keeps an arm around me—just to make sure I'm steady on my feet, even as he conjures our clothes back up.

“That's a pretty parlor trick,” I tell him as I grab my jeans out of thin air. “Ever thought about including it in the show?”

“To do that, either I'd have to get naked or I'd have to strip a member of the audience. Neither seems an optimum choice for my career.”

“You could get a really cute assistant. Strip her down on stage. I'm sure the male contingent of your audience won't mind.”

“Maybe not,” he answers with a smirk. “But transubstantiation only works if I'm really motivated. Maybe if you were up on stage with me . . .”

It's my turn to smirk. “Dream on, buddy.”

“Oh, I will.” My bra is dangling from his fingers when he swoops in for another kiss.

After he's dressed and I've snagged some more food for him from the front of the house, I settle down behind my desk and try to figure out the best way to launch into the conversation we need to have. In the end, Declan does it for me.

“You can try to reason with me all you want, Xandra, but when it comes to the ACW, I'm going to do what I see fit.”

“Even if what you see fit to do causes a major war?”

“Hard to have a war if all the players are dead,” he says, taking a huge bite of the steak sandwich I made him.

“Well, that's impressive reasoning.” My tone says it's anything but. Declan just grins at me and forks up a bite of pasta salad.

“Right now we have a bigger problem than what happened to me. We both know that the Council, even now, is scrambling to figure out what happened to Alride so that they can annihilate the threat.”

“That's all I'm trying to do, too, you know. Annihilate the threat to you.”

“Yes, but you don't have the full backing of Hekan law behind you. They do,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “But that's a different story. It won't take them long to start running through the list of people who would want a Councilor dead. And once they do that, it will take even less time for them to land on your name. Or mine.”

“Don't kid yourself. They've already landed on our names. I'm expecting to receive notice of a command performance any hour now.”

Just the thought makes my stomach hurt. “What are we going to do?”

“Not much, besides go see them.”

I stare at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? Tell me you don't honestly want to walk straight into the belly of the beast—knowing its claws and teeth are aimed straight at you.”

“I already told you what I wanted to do,” he answers with a sardonic lift of his brow. “And you didn't seem any more impressed with that plan than this one.”

He's right. I know he is, know I'm being impossible, but I don't know what to do. I'm a princess of Ipswitch, have been surrounded by the dark power struggle that accompanies politics all of my life. If my powers weren't forcing my involvement, none of this would be all that new. No, Councilors haven't been murdered in my lifetime—all part of the power and stability my mother brings to the throne—but it isn't the first time in history this has happened. And it probably won't be the last.

But that doesn't mean I want Declan, my family or myself to be caught up in it in any way. Because when things like this go bad, they go really bad, really fast.

“We need to stop this,” I tell him.

“Kind of hard to stop it now. Alride's already dead.”

“Yes, but there's no guarantee another Councilor won't follow. We need to figure this out before someone else dies.”

There's an urgency to my tone that I know Declan hears, but for the first time in forever, he doesn't respond. Instead, he just leans his back against the wall and watches me, his arms crossed over his chest. Though he doesn't say anything, I know him well enough—even after only a few weeks—to recognize a
hell no
gesture when I see it.

“We can't just let them all die.”

“No one's saying anyone else is going to die. This could be a one-off thing with Alride.”

“You don't really believe that.”

“No.”

“Then we need to do something.”

He lifts a brow. “Why? Seems to me whoever's doing this is taking care of a problem. I'm more than okay with that.”

“Taking care of a—they're killing people, Declan.”

“People who need to die. I already told you I have no compunction whatsoever about that. I'm not a hypocrite, Xandra.”

“I never said you were. But we're talking about people's lives here—”

“The same people who had no problem fucking around with your life. The same people who actually hired someone to kill you. I'm not going to forget either of those things just because you want me to.”

He bends down, starts yanking on his boots while I search desperately for something to say that might change his mind. Even as I do, I have a feeling I'm too late. In his head, Declan condemned these people to death—even the innocent ones—the moment he realized they were responsible for what Kyle did to me. The fact that someone else is killing them might bug him—knowing, as I do, that he wants to do it himself—but at the same time, it must be kind of nice. He gets the outcome he wants without having to face me after doing something unforgivable.

“But what happens to the Council?” I finally ask. “If all the Councilors are dead, what happens to the whole Hekan community?”

“Same thing that always happens. They'll be replaced by more corrupt witches and wizards and the whole thing will start all over again.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what's your point?”

“The point is, killing them isn't going to solve anything.”

“Yeah, but their gruesome deaths will stand as a warning not to mess with you.”

“Who else is going to mess with me? It's not like my birthright doesn't offer me some protection.”

Again, Declan doesn't look impressed. “The world's a fucked-up place, Xandra, filled with fucked-up people who will be drawn to a power like yours. The Council went after it once and it's only a matter of time before they go after it again. Once that rabbit's out of the hat, it won't take long before every asshole with a little magic and a plan comes calling.

“What's so special about me? I've been latent for twenty-six years and now that I'm not, I can see dead people. It's not exactly a power that's in high demand.”

“I keep telling you. You don't know what your magic is yet. Yes, communing with the dead is the first power to have woken up in you. But there's a lot more still buried. When they come out, you'll be more powerful than your mother ever dreamed of being.”

His words strike a chord deep inside me, send me reeling, though I work hard not to show it. “You don't know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“How?”

“The same way you can sense my magic. I feel it deep inside you.”

“And you think my magic makes me a target?”

He gives me a no-shit look. “I know it makes you a target. Otherwise, the ACW never would have come after you. Their deaths will prevent that from happening again—especially if I kill one or two of them.”

His words send terror skittering through me. “You have to stop thinking like that,” I tell him firmly. “Self-defense is one thing, but revenge is totally different. You can't actually sanction the killing of eight people just because you think it will keep me safe.”

He's never looked more serious than when he says, “I'd let a lot more than eight people die to keep you safe, Xandra. If you don't know that, then you don't know me at all.”

“That's ridiculous! I'm not that special, Declan.”

“You're that special to me. I told you yesterday. Nobody hurts you and lives.”

The shadows are back, and in that moment I see him more clearly than I ever have before. It shakes me to my core as understanding, true understanding, of his perspective, seeps in for the first time.

We see things differently—magic, the world, ourselves and each other—will probably always see things differently. For some people and some things, that's fine. I don't care if he likes red wine while I like white or that he's a night person while I'm definitely all about the day. Those differences don't matter. But our magic, our power, those differences, change everything.

I understand Declan's anger. I do. If someone tried to hurt him, kill him, I'd hunt the bastard myself. Take great joy in watching him rot in prison forever. But vengeance of the type Declan demands? Sanctioning violent, premeditated murder? Or doing it himself? That I can't understand—or get behind.

He doesn't say anything as I think this through, just sits there watching me with implacable eyes. There's a part of me that wants to throw myself into his arms and beg him to see reason. But there's another, bigger part that knows that he won't. That he can't. Not as long as the darkness surrounds him like a cloak.

As the realization sinks in, I want to scream, to cry, to beg the goddess to—what? Beg her to do what? I ask myself a second time. To take the soulbinding away? To take Declan from me? Because if I can't accept him, walking away is the only route left to me.

No!
It's a soul-deep cry, an instinctive claiming that goes deeper than black and white or right and wrong. I will never ask the goddess for that because I will never let him go. Declan is mine. Above and beyond the soulbinding, above and beyond family and duty, magic and mayhem, he's mine and he will stay mine.

If that means the shadows that are so much a part of him eventually become a part of me . . . well, then, I'll deal with that when it happens. Because anything else is nonnegotiable.

Declan knows what I'm thinking. It's in every implacable line of his face, every steady breath he forces himself to take. He must be a hell of a poker player, because he's giving away nothing. But for me, that's his tell. Because lately when he looks at me, there's so much emotion in his eyes, his face, that I can't help but know what's going on inside him.

I pull him close because I can't do anything else, press soft kisses to his eyes, his cheeks, his forehead. With each press of my lips, he relaxes a little more, that terrible rigidity draining out of him inch by inch. By the time I get to his lips, he's ready for me, his hand tangling in my hair as he holds me in place. Then he ravages me, using his lips and teeth and tongue to brand me in a way I won't soon forget.