Forged: The World of Nightwalkers (31 page)

She slowly licked him, as if he were a piece of hard candy, and everything in his body grew tenser and tighter as pleasure washed over him. His hand in her hair fisted against her scalp, crushing strands into submission. It was an attempt to keep himself from pushing her forward in an endeavor to hasten her torture to a better point of pleasure. But he didn’t want to make her do anything before she was ready. Not when everything was so new and he didn’t yet know all of her boundaries
as a lover. But he was learning more and more as every second ticked by.

She licked him down to the base of his shaft and then back up several times, each stroke bringing more nerves alive than he’d ever realized he had. Her tongue toyed against the head, sweeping away the welling fluid that seeped from it more and more with each passing moment.

“Gods above, Kat lass, you’re killing me.”

That made her smile with an unholy satisfaction. And that made him all the more impatient to have her. He was just about to grab her and throw her to the floor when suddenly she opened her mouth and took him inside with a sweep of her tongue.

Had she said spectacular? It was stellar. Utter nirvana. Now he knew he had never felt anything like it in his life. What made it so different? What was it that brought him to his knees even though he was already kneeling to her?

Kat. It was all Kat. She was beyond everything a woman should be. So brave in the face of what she had thought of as a crippling disease, making her way in the world as best she could when the world looked at her with cruel, judgmental eyes. She had hidden away to protect herself, and yet it was a defiance, too. A way of saying she could live her life on her own terms and screw what everyone else thought.

And yet he knew she thought she was weak. That she had let them win by forcing her to run and hide. He saw it differently. Very differently. And her bravery and brilliance was just as bold as the way she held him in her mouth.

“Kat … oh, my sweet Kat, you have tae stop,” he groaned, as she worked him into her mouth again and again and yet again. “You’ll have me spending in another minute and I want tae be inside you when I do.”

She responded by moving quicker, taking him deeper,
sucking at him a little harder. Now both of his hands were clutching into her hair and in spite of himself he was beginning to thrust up against her palate more and more with every second.

“Kat, I’m going tae—” He was going to come. He knew it with barely an instant before she made it happen. He roared out with pleasure, letting go of her so she could move free of him if she chose to. But she did not. She took everything from him. His seed. His pleasure. His sanity. He was humbled by it, even as he was drained by it. He was sucking for air, barely able to keep upright on his knees as she pulled away from him at last. He nearly fell over at the sight of the bright satisfaction in her eyes. She was entirely pleased with herself, and had every right to be.

He reached for her, turned her onto her back on the floor, threw a leg over her, and went nose to nose with her.

“Your turn,” he rumbled fiercely.

He kissed her then, thrilling at the taste of himself on her tongue, sensual and salty and sweet all at once. When he came up for air she was flushed and pretty and all things irresistible. “Come and give us that tongue again,” he said before touching his lips to hers and kissing her as deeply as he already had, and yet it felt as if he never had before. It was like that every time he kissed her.

And that was when he realized he was falling. Fast. Too fast. And too hard.

Panic touched him. He couldn’t do this. Compared to her with her kindness, generosity, and boundless bravery, he had very little to offer her. Danger? Threat? A life where he would risk his life day in and day out to protect the lives of others with no regard for himself and the woman who would be waiting for him to return?

He drew away from her. From her mouth, from her entire body, rising up on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“What is it?” she asked, sitting up and looking at him with innocent, questioning eyes.

“I have to … There’s something … I forgot to …” All of it fell flat as he grabbed his pants off the floor and pulled them on with as much haste as was possible. “I’ll be back soon,” he said once he was fully dressed. But it was a lie. He couldn’t come back. He couldn’t risk the emotions he knew were building inside of him. They were not his to give. His life, his duty, had been given up to Menes, the man he had sworn to protect in exchange for the energy he so willingly provided to his touchstone.

No. He had nothing to give her except maybe sex and amusement, but it had gone beyond that already. He had to be honest with himself and admit it. He could only pray it had not gone beyond it for Kat as well. She wasn’t a casual sort of woman. She took these things very seriously. She would not give herself to any man lightly. If he had learned anything about her it was that she didn’t do things lightly.

Even as he walked out the door, unable to meet her eyes or even look at her face, he knew he was hurting her. She didn’t realize it yet, but he was hurting her. But there was nothing he could do about that.

Nothing at all.

It wasn’t until twenty minutes had passed before Kat began to get the picture that Ahnvil wasn’t coming back.
Well
, she thought,
perhaps he’s being held up by something important
. Or maybe he’d sensed some kind of threat. Hadn’t someone told her that Gargoyles had a built in alarm system that had them sensing threats before they even fully materialized?

Picking herself up off the floor, she went to the window. It faced the front of the house. Looking outside she saw nothing more than a woman she had not met yet playing with a dog. She was pretty and tall and, like everyone in this place, really attractive. She was realizing that the perk of being a Bodywalker was that you got to pick and choose who you came back as. That included looks. But that was understandable because good looks got much further in this shallow world of theirs. That was a fact.

But the playing woman told her that there was no obvious threat taking place. At loose ends, she decided to go back downstairs and look for him, trying to figure out what had happened. When she passed through the living area it was devoid of the gathering she had left behind. Now she was curious on two fronts. She thought
one should have been more important than the other, but for some reason it was Ahnvil she fixated on.

But after nearly twenty minutes of searching, she did not find him. Instead, she ran into Kamen in the kitchen. Full-bodied ran into. She was so preoccupied that she crashed into him like a crash-test dummy. He reached out and steadied her.

“Oh. Hi,” she said distractedly.

“Hello, little Djynn.”

“I’m sorry but … have you seen Ahnvil? You know, big Gargoyle. Hates your guts.”

“Yes,” he said with amusement, “I am aware of who he is. No, I have not seen him.” He studied her. “You left earlier. Are you not curious as to what transpired afterward?”

She nodded to him.

“Leo Alvarez has accompanied the new Nightwalker couple off the grounds. They will return to their Demon King … Noah, I believe is his name … and they will tell them of finding us and this curse that seems to be separating us. Eventually I believe we will need to figure out a way to dispel this curse. It will not be an easy solution. It might take years before we discover it. Unfortunately, I do not believe we have years. Fortunately, Menes has allowed me permission to begin to research this matter on my own. He has finally come to realize that I am his best hope in dispelling this problem.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Kat let go of her distractions and focused on the man in front of her. “Did you mean what you said? That you can help me learn about who I am?”

“You would be much better served to ask Grey for assistance in that regard. He knows what it means to be a Djynn. Far better than I do. Though I admit, he is mercurial at best. Most Djynn are. Between him and perhaps SingSing …”

“I get the feeling I won’t get anywhere with SingSing.
She isn’t the instructive type. I’m not entirely sure she’s all there.” She whirled her finger around her ear.

“Perhaps,” he said with a small smile. She wondered if the man had ever laughed. He seemed incredibly serious. Then again, she would be serious, too, if she were under house arrest and untrusted by the entire household. She couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Here she was a total stranger and already she had been trusted with high levels of information. Before they had even known anything about her. Based solely on the word of her Gargoyle.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Why would you stop now?” he queried.

“Oh. Right.” She gave him a self-effacing laugh. “Well, I was wondering. Do you regret anything you’ve done … I mean outside of this whole resurrecting a demon god thing.”

He raised a brow. “Is that not enough?” he asked.

“I suppose it is.”

“I am going to guess you are asking if I regret making and owning Gargoyles.” At her nod he said, “I have not made a Gargoyle since creating Stohn, and even he was not something I wished to do. After so many escapees I realized there was nothing I could do to breed in true loyalty. My compatriots are convinced otherwise, but I did not need to have my head bashed against the wall in order to see the writing upon it. A Gargoyle caught escaping was put to death without question. And escaping Gargoyle tells you he no longer has loyalty to you, that there is a flaw in the forging process. At least, that was the general belief. I have other abilities that if brought to bear could reel an escapee in, had I truly wanted to.”

“And you didn’t want to?”

“Better they escape than stab me in the back while I slept. Once they attempt escape it is very clear they will
be focused on nothing else for the rest of their days, rendering them useless to me.”

“You are so cold about it,” she said with a frown.

“I am merely stating facts. It does not follow that I approve of my actions in retrospect.”

“Oh. So you regret them?”

“Regret applies emotion. I do not feel that strongly about it one way or another. But I can see the flaws in my thinking.”

“And I can see why Ahnvil hates your guts,” she said with another frown.

“Would you rather I affect an emotion that does not exist? I would much rather be honest with you.”

“I would much rather you feel something. Anything. You don’t feel anything about anything from what I can see.”

“I feel, I assure you. And quite deeply. I just do not feel appropriately according to you on this topic. And I do not cast my feelings about like one strews trash upon the ground. Emotion must be kept, savored, and contemplated. I have thrown emotion too easily and that is how we have ended up facing off with such powerful evil. And I have, I realize belatedly, thrown it in the wrong direction. Emotion clouded my judgment. A mistake I will not repeat.”

“You felt a great deal for this Odjit, didn’t you?”

He looked uncomfortable with the topic, for the first time showing her a glimmer of the emotion he was trying to hold in check. “I felt for the ideal. She was … not what I thought she was. Had I …” He trailed off and shook his head. “What I felt is of no consequence. It is not real. That is what matters.”

“All right. I accept that. Regret is regret, whether you think it requires a deep show of emotion or not. You wish you had done otherwise. Whether in hindsight or not, doesn’t matter. That’s what regret is. Looking back
and seeing what we’ve done is wrong. Now, let’s get back to this magic thing.” She took hold of the Amulet and lifted it into his view. “Tell me about this.”

“It came with a prophetic verse. I will try to recall it exactly. ‘The slave, born of the infinite Nightwalkers, will set free the power within. The one that harnesses Adoma’s Amulet will have such power as to make a god weep.’ ”

“Wow. I still can’t get over that.”

“Indeed. Would you like to know how I am interpreting this?”

She nodded eagerly.

“I believe that the prophecy has come to pass. The slave has set the Amulet free. The Gargoyle liberated it from those fools who thought they could use it to their own will. And the one who will harness the Amulet is you.”

“Me?” She knew she looked as incredulous as she sounded.

“You,” he confirmed. “Clearly the Amulet has chosen its owner. I donned the Amulet myself and it did nothing for me, no matter how much I put it through its paces.”

“But you said …”

“I had forgotten I had tried that. Not until later. And learning you are part Djynn has altered my perception of things. So that means you are special in some way. Very likely it has to do with you being a Djynn. Now, what the Amulet does … that I cannot say. That is for you to discover. Perhaps when you learn to draw the power from your niks you will learn how to hold that power to your will.”

“Wait. Nik?”

“A nik is an object of magical power, either living or dead. Inanimate niks are called niknaks. Living ones are called nikkis. This is a nik.” He pointed to the pendant. “What happened when you tried to remove it?”