Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) (52 page)

“You struck a bargain with Baron?” She looked from Octavian to Riley. “Are you crazy? He can’t be trusted.”

“That was around the time you were threatening to report Riley to the Summit,” Octavian said with a slight chill in his voice. “We didn’t have very many options and I wasn’t going to let Riley die.”

A prickle of guilt stiffened Valkyrie’s spine. “But I never told anyone, did I?”

Despite her rigid upbringing and drive to uphold the law, she never once told anyone that one of the Maxwell brothers had imprinted on a human.

“That wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”

“It wasn’t just Valkyrie,” Gideon cut in, casting his brother a sharp glare. “The Summit was demanding a solution as well. It needed to be done regardless.”

“None of that matters now.” Liam spoke up for the first time. “It is clear where we must start our search. In the morning, Octavian, you and I will pay Baron a visit.”

“I want to be there,” Magnus chimed in.

“No,” Liam said almost immediately, like he had expected the request and was prepared for it. “It will be just me, Octavian, and Gideon.”

Gideon visibly started. “Me?”

Liam nodded. “Magnus, you and Reggie stay here and keep an eye on things.”

Unconsciously, Valkyrie settled her hand over the one resting on her thigh, her mind caught in the dread of Gideon being anywhere near Baron. She didn’t realize it until Gideon glanced at her in surprise. Embarrassed, she tried to draw back only to have her fingers captured and laced through with his.

It was so simple. The gesture was so effortlessly fluid, like they had held hands a million times. Everything fit. The perfect curves of two puzzle pieces finally lining up. Both their hands rested comfortably in her lap and that too felt so natural.

Gideon leaned his body over their armrests and bumped her shoulder with his as he skimmed his lips over her ear.

“It’ll be okay.”

How he knew was beyond her. Maybe the imprint also came with mind reading abilities.

“I don’t want you to go,” she heard herself whisper back and could have kicked herself for being so pathetic.

His gray eyes were calming when he pulled back a notch to search hers. “There is nothing he can offer me that I don’t already have,” he said softly. “I’ll be fine and careful.”

She still didn’t like it and took no reassurance from his promise. But she wouldn’t complain either. Being a Caster was both their jobs and sometimes they had to do things they didn’t want to, but it had to be done.

After the meal was finished and the dinner plates cleared away, Gideon took her hand and led her away from the others, who made their way to the parlor. He seemed in no hurry to get to wherever he was taking her and Valkyrie didn’t ask. There was something incredibly soothing about just being with him.

“This part of the manor has never been used,” he told her as they ventured into the east wing. “Mom always said that once we started our own families, we could have our own wings for privacy.” He tilted his head towards her and grinned. “I picked the east.”

Valkyrie tried to guess why, but the man was just too much of a mystery and it was impossible to guess what he was thinking half the time.

“Why?”

His fingers squeezed hers. “You’ll see.”

The corridor ended at a set of beautiful marble stairs that yawned beneath a high archway. Gideon led her up carefully to the top and through. The carpet wasn’t worn and faded, but a lush red that reminded her of spilled blood. The walls were a soft cream and lined with painted portraits depicting many eras. The hall stopped after ten feet and branched in opposite directions.

“The main area is that way,” Gideon said, pointing to the right. “The bedrooms are that way.” He gestured with a nod toward the left. “Which would you like to see first?”

Valkyrie lifted her face and peered up into his. “I want to see why you picked this wing.”

His chuckle rippled down her spine like a caress. “Fair enough.”

He took her right.

They came to a set of stairs that led down into what appeared to be a wide foyer until they reached the bottom.

Valkyrie gasped in amazement. Her wide eyes devoured the three stories of open space ringed in a wall of glass and diamonds. Columns of white towered from marble floor to domed ceiling where crystals danced from dripping chandeliers and sparkled brightly in the gossamer drapes of sunlight spilling through the windows. The room wasn’t square, but round and almost painfully bright. The furniture matched the flawless white of the walls and sat in a circle around a glass coffee table. A kitchen was tucked away at the far end of the room, divided from the rest of the sitting area by a granite counter. Light glinted off the stainless steel appliances and along the gold trim on the white cupboards. But it was the world outside the five sets of French doors that lined the glass in intervals that propelled Valkyrie away from Gideon. The crack of her heels echoed off the walls and vibrated up the windows and stopped only when she did.

There was nothing special outside but a wide ring of trees embracing a meadow and miles of silence, yet that was exactly what she had always wanted. She had told him so once, so long ago, she couldn’t even bring the full conversation to mind. She had not expected him to understand her need not to look out the window and see looming obstacles, death traps and training arenas, to not hear the clang of battle at all hours of the night and day. But he had hummed and said nothing else. How could he still remember that?

“If you don’t like it, I’ll switch with one of the others.”

He was behind her, so close she could feel the burn of his presence singe the length of her spine.

“I love it.” And she did. It was perfect.

Hands scarred and dangerous closed around her waist and she was drawn into a firm chest. A sigh whispered against the curve of her neck. It tickled the slope of her cheek. His heart reached for her through bone, muscle, and clothes and hers returned the intensity of his. One hand slid to extend across the width of her abdomen. The other braced against the glass as he lowered his face to her shoulder.

Valkyrie closed her eyes. Her body succumbed to him. Even her mind had gone silent. It wasn’t so surreal, her mind and body working together towards a common goal. It was how she had stayed alive so long. But to have them both agreeing on this, on him ... she didn’t fight it.

“I have imagined you here for so long,” he murmured into the soft material of her sweater. “I have wanted you here for even longer.”

She tried to think, tried to pull her emotions apart and figure out why she wasn’t pulling away, why she wasn’t telling him he was crazy, that she didn’t belong there with him, that she didn’t want to be there. But she had lost all capability of speech. Her mind had become a wasteland of fog. The only sure thing drifting through her was the need to keep his arms around her. Nothing had ever felt more important.

“I ... I don’t know how to let go.” Her words broke with her confession.

His hands turned her. The glass propped her up as he leaned into her space and smothered her sanity. Fingers chilled from the window slid the slash of her jaw to tip back her chin.

“Kiss me,” he whispered. “And I’ll show you how.”

Her lips parted without even a second of hesitation. She watched with bated breath as his gaze settled on her mouth. The rough pad of his thumb followed the path of his eyes and she felt it all the way down to the core of her being. Her own attention fixated on the generous bow of his mouth and her stomach gave an unexpected flutter like she’d just leaped off a building. She followed the regal arc of his nose to fall into his eyes and saw her own penetrating emotions shining back at her.

He lowered his head and she sucked in a sharp gulp of air. It wedged in her lungs, too afraid to come out in case he changed his mind. The smell of leather, man, and soap swept off him and plowed into her. It made her head swim deliciously and she reached for him when she swayed. His arms caught her to him. They pinned her between him and the glass skating cold fingers along her back. One hand drifted up to cradle the nape of her neck. The other stayed splayed across the small of her spine.

The kiss was no lighter than the feathery flutter of butterfly wings, yet the brief little contact swamped her in a rush of heat that tore a gasp from her throat. Her fingers reflexively tightened in the fabric of his t-shirt, urging him back to her for more.

He didn’t disappoint. His mouth slanted over hers and the world dissolved in a shimmering mess of heat. Nothing else existed but the pounding rhythm of his heart beating against hers and the throaty groan that vibrated from his mouth into hers. Valkyrie, who had never been kissed, fumbled awkwardly to keep up with the expert coaxing of his lips and tongue. Yet his mouth felt and tasted so painfully familiar. Part of her wondered if they had kissed the night she had unwillingly given herself to him and if it had been as amazing then as it was now. Her body bowed into his as the fire rampaging through her took on a life of its own and devoured her. The pang of something fierce and beautifully excruciating thrummed between her thighs and she moaned weakly.

“God, your moans.” The hand in her hair closed, tugging on roots and twisting her head back even further to get at her exposed jugular with his teeth. “I could come on your moans alone.”

His arm banded around her middle and she was pinned against his chest with her shoulder blades still braced to the window. The place between her thighs was filled with his hips and her legs instinctively wound around him. She was moved away from the window towards the sofa. He lay her down and was over her in the same fluid motion. His mouth never ceased its desperate war over hers, not even when she was certain the flames consuming her insides would, at any moment, devour them both. Her hips writhed against his, lifting and grinding and being met each time with equal force. The throbbing she was becoming all too familiar with roared through her and she was forced to break the kiss to gasp his name as the pressure broke inside her.

He was littering the arc of her throat with open mouthed kisses when her senses drifted back to earth, when her ears ceased ringing and sweet content washed over her.

“Does that ever get old?” she wondered numbly.

His chuckle tickled the shell of her ear. “You’ll have to tell me. I know for a fact I will never get tired of seeing you come apart for me.”

A warm sort of pleasure pooled through her as it always did when he spoke of them together in a way that surpassed just partnership.

“I’ve never felt anything like it,” she admitted.

Gideon raised his head. “Ever?”

She shook her head. “It’s a sacred place that shouldn’t be disturbed unless it’s by one’s ... husband.” Heat prickled her cheeks. “I was always afraid I would lose my powers if I did it wrong.”

With a groan that vibrated through her entire soul, he lowered his mouth and kissed her deeply.

“God, the things I’m going to teach you...” The hard bulge pushing up against the front of his pants ground against the sensitive place between her legs, making her moan and widen her knees around him. “The toys and games...”

Valkyrie laughed. “I do know about them,” she said. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I just never tried any of them.”

His eyes held the dark intensity of an approaching thunderstorm. “Oh, we are going to try them all!”

The idea of doing even half the things she’d seen in human pornos and read about in books with him filled her with a rush of exhilaration that dampened her panties. Her breasts swelled inside the soft material of her bra, aching to be touched and palmed. She may have been ignorant of her body’s carnal needs, but she wasn’t immune to them. She had spent the better part of several millennia fighting the things her body wanted. Her sisters never seemed to have that problem, and most days neither did she. Until Gideon.

From the moment they had officially met at the treaty signing, she had wanted him with an intensity that had nearly gotten her killed during training. Her every breathing moment had been consumed by thoughts of his face, his hands, his body and it had nearly been all she could do to restrain herself when they were partnered. He was and had always been the only man that made her wet just by being in the same room.

“What are you thinking about?” he teased.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

His caress was a feather light skim over her cheek and along her temple to cradle the side of her face against his palm. He continued to crush her into the cushions, but his weight was a comfortable one warming the length of her body.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “For the way I behaved and the things I said. I wasn’t fair to you.”

Valkyrie blinked, taken aback by the unexpected apology. But he was still talking before she could open her mouth.

“You’ve been a warrior your entire life and in the sum of a handful of weeks, I’ve imprinted on you, taken your virginity, and gotten you pregnant.” He paused to shake his head. “Then I expected you to just change and accept everything without even giving you chance to get your footing. I’m an asshole. I don’t deny it. But I don’t want to be that with you. I want you to love me and have my baby and stay here with me. That’s why I spent the whole week cleaning this place up and making it the way I thought you might like it.”

“You were here the whole week?”

Gideon nodded. “The guys helped with the painting and bringing some of the stuff in, but yeah. I didn’t even leave to get supper. My mom brought it down.”

“I think she brought me food, too,” she murmured.

His face grew serious. “She did, and she said you haven’t been eating.”

Valkyrie averted her eyes to his shoulder, overwhelmed with guilt. “I ate some of it.”

That only intensified the creases in his brow. “I don’t know what Harvesters are fed, but bread and water isn’t what we normally eat here in the north.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” she muttered.

His features softened. “I know I hurt you. I promise I’ll try harder. But you can’t starve yourself either.”

“I wasn’t starving myself!” she retorted with just a little too much heat.