Lord of the Abyss & Desert Warrior (14 page)

T
HAT WAS WHEN
M
ICAH
kissed her.

There was no build-up, no little kisses to get her used to the idea. He just took her mouth, all hot and wet and raw—a kiss as untamed and uncivilized as the man himself. One of his hands pushed into her hair, holding her head at an angle that allowed him to explore her mouth with a wild hunger that had her body attempting to arch into him. He was too heavy, too strong. Frustrated, wanting to feel more of him, she spread her legs without realizing it.

Settling more intimately against her, he made a deep sound of pleasure, his hand moving down to her throat, lower. Breaking the kiss, she gasped, “We have to stop.” She’d finally remembered she was naked—or so close to it as not to matter.

“Why?”

She couldn’t think of an answer.

Which got her kissed again, Micah’s hand lying heavy and warm over her chest, just above the curve of her breasts. When he moved a fraction lower, she gripped his wrist. “A kiss.” It was a husky reminder.

He smiled, slow and so charming she knew he planned to talk her into every kind of wickedness. She should’ve told him no, but he felt so good and that smile was so very tempting that she found herself kissing
him
.

M
ICAH HAD KISSED
L
ILIANA
his way and he wanted to do it over and over again, but now she was kissing him her way. She was much gentler than him, her lips lush and bitable, her heart pulsing beneath skin silky and warm. “Use your tongue, Lily,” he said when she took a breath.

“Like this?” A shy brush.

As he met her intimate advance with his own, he realized his hand was somehow on her hip, and that she was lush and sweet there, as well. “I like touching you here.” He rubbed.

“You can’t just say things like that.” Whispered against his lips.

“Why?”

She laughed, the sound hushed and intimate. “I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll say what I want.” Sucking her lower lip into his mouth, he squeezed her hip, pressing deeper into her. “I want to touch you without the sheet.”

A shake of her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t let a man kiss me and…do other things on the first night.”

“Tomorrow night?” He petted her hip again, because every time he did, she seemed to soften. And he’d use every weapon in his arsenal to coax her to lie bare and open beneath him. “Say yes.”

Her hands stroked down to his back, her response a whisper. “Maybe.”

He had the certain thought that he could melt her resistance, but some long-forgotten voice whispered to him of
honor
.

Shaking his head, he lifted it, stared down at Liliana. “Did you say something?”

“No.”

Honor is what makes a man.

“Micah.” A gentle touch on his face. “What do you hear?”

Looking down into her eyes, he saw an impossible kind of clarity. “Honor is what makes a man.”

“Yes.” A single tremulous word. “Those are the words of a great king.”

“I’ll go now, Liliana,” he said, not ready to ask the name of the king, to consider why the thought of it made an unknowable pain awaken deep inside him. “Wear the green dress tomorrow.”

“I don’t have a green dress.”

B
UT WHEN SHE WOKE, AFTER
a night spent in hazy half-forgotten dreams featuring the Lord of the Black Castle and a carnality that had left her soaked with sweat, she found a pretty green dress draped over the end of the bed. Touching it after her bath, she sighed at the feel of the fine wool against her skin. That was when she realized she’d just washed both pairs of her underwear, having forgotten the intimate chore last night after what she’d thought had been Micah’s rejection.

It made her blush bright red, but she went without them. They’d be dry in two hours, she thought, checking where they hung on the back of the bathing chamber door. No one would know that beneath her pretty dress, she was bare as the day she’d been born—they’d have no reason to wonder about it.

Pressing her hands to her cheeks, she repeated that reassurance once more before going down to the kitchens to make a cup of chocolate. Flavoring it with cinnamon, she took it to the great hall, but Micah was nowhere to be found. About to leave it there for him, she heard a ghostly whisper in her ear, felt a nudge toward the back
right of the hall—where she glimpsed a small door.
Stone garden.

“Thank you.”

Stepping out into the “garden,” she found the velvet green grass host to the most graceful dancers formed of stone. There was a woman, one leg raised, the foot of the other arched. She looked as if she would take flight. The sculpture next to her did look as if she had taken flight, the girl’s small body held to the earth by a toetip at best.

But the dancers weren’t only female. There was a male crouching at the foot of the woman poised on one leg, his hands cupped, as if ready to push her aloft. His face was adoring and filled with mischief at the same time, the woman’s with laughter. In front of them, another dancer stood with his hands on his hips, his expression that of a fond friend.

Enchanted, Liliana craned her neck to see the other statues. There were too many to take in all at once, but she noticed one thing. None stood alone. Not like the man at the very edge of the garden, beside a long, rectangular pool filled with water clean and fresh. Several small birds frolicked in it, diving and flicking water at one another, their chatter a bright stream of music.

“Micah.”

“Liliana.” His slow, dawning smile stopped her in her tracks. No one had ever looked at her that way, as if she was the best thing they had ever seen.

“Is that for me?” he asked when she reached him.

She held out the cup. “Yes.”
So is my heart.

“No, not that.”

As she stood there, confused, he stepped even closer. “Hold very, very still so you don’t spill the chocolate.”

It was difficult to follow the order with him so near. He smelled wonderful—soap and water and warmth. The
black armor covered his chest and legs once more, but his arms were bare to the sky, and his skin glowed under the sunlight, making her want to touch, to stroke. “What—”

“Still, Liliana. So still.” Curling his hands around her neck, he stroked his thumbs over her jaw. “This smile is for me, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Then she lost her words, because Micah was sipping at her lower lip, his mouth caressing, his hands possessive. The tenderness of it made her tremble.

“Careful.” Spoken against her mouth. “I’m kissing you like you kiss me.” Another soft sip, the feel of teeth. “I like it, but it’s even better when you kiss me this way.” Slanting his mouth over hers, he took her with openmouthed wildness that made her want to push him to the earth and do things no good maiden should even think about.

“You spilled the chocolate,” he said, biting at her lower lip.

She glanced unseeing at her hands. “I did?”

“Let me.” Taking the cup, he placed it carefully on the edge of the pool. Then he rose, lifted one of her hands to his mouth and stroked her fingers inside one by one. Each hot, wet tug pulled at things low and deep within her, her thighs clenching in darkest need.

“Chocolate tastes better on your skin.”

“Don’t stop.” It was a whisper as he started on her other hand.

But he did so abruptly. “I smell blood sorcery.”

Yes
. A putrid odor infiltrated the air. That of a corpse defiled, a grave broken.

“Go inside,” Micah ordered.

“I’m a blood mage.” Never would she leave him to face such malignant power alone. “I can—”

Micah snapped out a hand, closing it over Liliana’s wrist when he saw her pick up a sharp stone. “No.”

“I must.” Determination steeled eyes that had been sultry with pleasure only moments ago. “This is who I am.”

“You are not
this
.” And he wouldn’t allow her to be swallowed by it.

Her eyes flicked up. “Look.”

He’d already seen—the sky was turning a fetid brown streaked with red. The spreading color was no shapeless stain. It had the appearance of a skeletal hand tipped with claws. “Who is that, Liliana?”

“My father.” Her pulse turned rapid, almost panicked under his hand, but her voice was resolute. “He’s found me.”

“Not yet.” Squeezing her wrist, he made her drop the stone she’d intended to use to cut herself. “But he will if you spill your lifeblood.”

“Sorcery of his kind is stronger than other magic. It’s created of death.”

“I am the Guardian of the Abyss and this is my domain.” Releasing her hand, he gripped her chin, looked her directly in the eye. “You will obey me. Do not spill your blood.”

“Take care, Micah.” Shimmering emotions in those eyes that showed her every mood. “I’m not worth your life. You’re meant for far more.”

He didn’t understand what she meant, but saw a silent promise that she would do as he asked. Dropping her hand and anchoring his feet, he awakened the old,
old
magic that was of this place and that lived in him when he wished it to. Of the Abyss.

The black armor crawled over the exposed parts of
his body at the same time, curving over his fingers and around his neck, into his hair and across his face in fine threads of impenetrable jet.

“Please be careful. My father doesn’t play fair.”

Things didn’t touch him in the depths of the Abyss, but he felt the care in her words wind around his heart, protecting it in armor that was invisible. “Wait for me, Liliana.” Then he rose into a sky stained with the malevolence of a dark blood sorcerer.

The magic in that stain recoiled from his black armor, from the kiss of death that was the Abyss. But it didn’t retreat. Instead, after a short hesitation, it curved around him, and he knew it had tasted the death, decided that it held no danger. It was wrong. The Lord of the Black Castle stood as the guardian against evil, no matter its form.

Arms down his side, he spread his fingers and said a single word.
“Rise.”

The ghosts of the Black Castle circled into the sky in a wave of cold, the wind vicious and cutting. He knew they wouldn’t hurt Liliana where she stood looking up at him, a tiny figure clothed in green.

Around him, the ghosts formed a twisting ribbon of ice, and he knew it was time.
“Hold.”

The ribbon solidified into shimmering white on either side of him. An instant later, the ice coated his armor in glittering shards bright as diamonds.

The dark sorcerer’s claw reached out again—only to scrape off the ice with a screech that had Liliana clapping her hands over her ears below. Perhaps he should’ve warned her, Micah thought with the part of his mind that remained of the man, not the Guardian, but he
had
told her to go inside. The shriek reverberated through
the sky, through the dark sorcerer’s power, shattering the stain into thousands of lethally sharp pieces. Those pieces began to ricochet back. Hard.

Micah smiled.

D
EEP IN THE CASTLE THAT HAD
once been the heart of Elden, the Blood Sorcerer fell to his knees with a bone-chilling scream, his entire body covered with hundreds of cuts seeping thickest crimson. He hadn’t seen this much of his own blood in decades.

A banging on the door.

“Leave me!” He couldn’t be discovered in such a weakened state.

Hissing out a breath, he struggled to his feet—it had been a mistake to probe that realm. It was protected by something that had never welcomed the dark magics.

He had ever hated the wall of black that stood between him and the vicious nightmare of the Abyss. Oh, he cared nothing for the sorcerers trapped within, but if he ruled the Black Castle, he would have access not only to wealth incomparable, but also to all that power. Sweet, deadly, beautiful power.

But he couldn’t go there. Not yet.

However, there were others who could—because though he called her stupid, his daughter was very smart, smart enough to have found a way to hide in the one place he wouldn’t follow. His minions didn’t understand why he wanted her back, didn’t comprehend that she was his
possession
. None of his possessions had ever dared leave him.

He was going to hurt Liliana a great deal when he
dragged her back. She’d beg him for death by the time he was done. Maybe he’d give it to her…or maybe not. His daughter was his most amusing toy. But before he could indulge himself with her, he had to find her.

Swiping the blood from one of his cuts, he fed it to the palm-sized spider on his desk. “It’s time, I think, to awaken your brethren.”

L
ILIANA’S EARS WERE STILL
ringing an hour later. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?” she asked Jissa as they sat in the stone garden, shelling nuts simply because they wanted to be out in the sunshine after the cold. Goose bumps broke out on Liliana’s arms at the memory.

Reaching over, Jissa rubbed at her skin with a tsking sound. “Always here. The ghosts. Always here.” She removed her hand after a comforting pat. “Never saw them do that before, never, ever.”

“Their power was different.” It had tasted of death, but been pure in a way her father’s magic never would be. “Jissa,” she said, still thinking of death, “does the thought of the Always scare you?”

Jissa gave her a curious look. “Why would it? Happiness and golden magic, that is the Always. I would like to see it, yes, I would.”

“Yes.” Yet her kind friend remained trapped on this earth because of whatever it was the Blood Sorcerer had done to her when he’d killed her, stolen her life force. “Jissa…I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“You’ll know one day.” Until then, Liliana would steal a little more time with the first true friend she had ever had. “Here.” She handed the brownie a funny-shaped nut. “It matches the rest of this castle’s inhabitants.”

The other woman laughed, but the sweet sound was
drowned out by the roar of violent rage that came from within the castle. Placing the basket of unshelled nuts haphazardly on the ground, Liliana stood. “Micah.”

“Liliana, don’t!”

She didn’t listen, running headlong toward the house. Huge hands clamped over her arms before she would’ve raced over the doorstep. Bard’s eyes were liquid dark with sorrow, the shake of his head slow, so slow.

“Let me go.” She forced herself to sound calm, though her blood thundered through her veins. “Please, Bard, let me go.”

“Liliana.” Jissa’s breathless voice. “You mustn’t, no, no. He is a monster, a terrible monster, when the curse is upon him.”

Liliana snapped her head toward the brownie. “So am I, Jissa.” She was the worst monster of all. “Tell Bard to release me.”

“I—” The small woman squared her shoulders. “No, we will protect you.”

“Then I’m sorry again, my friend.” Liliana bit down hard on her lower lip, spilling blood into her mouth. Power flowed through her, vibrant and strong for not having been woken in days.

Lashing out with it, she broke Bard’s hold, sent him swaying. She was gone before he could regain his footing, Jissa’s cry echoing in her ears. Slamming the door behind herself, she pulled down the brace to lock it. None too soon. Bard’s body crashed up against it a moment later, making the entire thing shake.

Knowing it would hold for now—hopefully giving Jissa enough time to stop Bard from attempting to follow—Liliana took a breath. “Where?” Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest, until she wasn’t certain if she would hear the whispering ghosts.

A roar reverberated through the walls.

The feral
power
of it pushed her back a physical step before she shoved it off to run toward the sound as fast as her feet would carry her. The blood from her cut was beginning to slow, but she swiped a small ceremonial knife off the outer wall as she ran into the great hall, dropping it into the pocket of her green dress.

The hall was a place of splintering chaos.

Liliana couldn’t believe the carnage—the massive dining table lay tipped on its side, a huge crack running down the middle, while most of the chairs were nothing more than piles of jagged firewood. Stepping around them with care since she wore only soft green slippers, she searched for the author of the devastation.

“Micah?” Pushing aside an overturned chair, she almost stepped onto the broken shards of what might’ve been a water pitcher. That was when she noticed the weapons embedded in the walls.

There were at least ten, all of them—large and small—having been punched about three inches into solid stone. And they were lined up in two neat rows…as if they’d been released from some enormous catapult. Her heart was in her throat now, but she wouldn’t walk away, wouldn’t leave him to this. “Micah?”

A snarl.

Whipping around her head, she stumbled and fell back against a chair that was somehow still upright. Only her grip on it kept her from crashing to the floor, onto the shards waiting below. Using that hold to steady herself, she scanned the room again. Curtains lay torn off the huge windows, tapestries had been shredded from the walls and furniture destroyed. There was no place to hide.

A low growl, that of a beast ready to attack.

Mercy.

Swallowing, Liliana dared look up at the one place she hadn’t searched. The ceiling.

He crouched along one massive beam, a great shaggy beast on four legs, his claws bigger than the sickles embedded in the wall. They flexed with each breath, his eyes trained on her. And those eyes, they were a murderous red, without any thought or sentience.

This,
she understood on a scream of knowledge, was the realization of the spell her father had cast on the night Elden fell. It had caught Micah, tangled him in threads of darkest sorcery.

For how could a prince return if he was not a man at all?

She should have run. But her feet remained rooted to the black stone of the castle. She knew about feeling grotesque, about being alone. She wouldn’t abandon Micah now, when he was this monster her father had made him. “Hello,” she said, hiding her trembling hands behind her back. “Why are you up there?”

The huge creature cocked its head, its eyes continuing to swirl with menace, its claws flexing and unflexing on the thick beam. Curls of wood drifted to the floor, making it clear his claws were as sharp as any weapon. Fear thumped in her throat, and he growled, low and deep.

A predator would scent fear, would hunger for it.

Straightening her spine, she took a deep, quiet breath, and reached for the sorcery within, her mouth still touched with the metallic scent of iron. The power flooded her body, flowing through to inhabit every part of her, until she wasn’t simply Liliana with the ugly face and the hair so rough and hard. She was a blood sorceress who knew her own strength. “Come down,” she
said, putting a subtle compulsion in the request. “I would admire you.”

A considering look.

“You would like to be admired, would you not?” she murmured with a smile. “You are a fierce creature.”

He began to strut along the wooden beam, this monster who was as arrogant as Micah. She was amazed at the grace of him when those knotted muscles, those overgrown shoulders too big for the rest of his body, should’ve left him unable to move. But move he did, with a power that said he could crush her with but a thought. Now, he used that power to jump into the air, twisting around to clamp his claws into the wall at the apex of his lunge.

He walked down that wall as if he were walking across the floor, using his claws to slice into the stone, his mouth open in a lazy yawn to reveal rows of teeth the gleaming ebony shade of the castle itself. Each and every tooth was razored to a lethal point—the same as the spines along the line of his back, black as jet.

“You are strong,” she said, using her blood magic to imbue her words with shimmering intensity. “And so very large.” That last slipped out past her veneer of confidence. For this terrible creature who was Micah stood taller than her, though he was on four legs, each of his paws so massive as to be able to annihilate her face with a single swat.

He growled, but didn’t spring for her throat.

Burying her nervousness with sheer will, she said, “Let me admire you.” Again, she threaded compulsion, silken and seductive, through the words—blood sorcery to combat blood sorcery.

Those swirling red eyes followed her every move as she shifted to lay a hand on his mane. “It’s softer than
my hair,” she murmured without stopping to think about it. “I’m jealous.”

A huffing growl that sounded almost like laughter. It made her smile, chuckle into his mane as she drew her fingers through the thick brown of it. “So glorious,” she said, admiring him in truth in spite of her fear, because he was a creature who demanded respect. “Though I do wish you’d sit down—it would make it easier for me to pet you.”

He bared his teeth at her, an aristocrat who was not to be given orders.

She bowed her head at once, understanding that any defiance would likely lead to that head rolling off her shoulders. “Please, my lord. I am only a small thing.”

A low snarling sound drifted along the air currents, but he folded himself down at last, his massive head coming to her abdomen. “Thank you.” She began to stroke him again. “You are strong, indeed, to break that table.”

Turning that head with its too-large jaw to look at where the table had been cleaved almost in half, the beast huffed out an agreement.

“Yes,” she said, entangling him in fine, fine tendrils of persuasion. Micah the man would’ve caught her. Micah the cursed beast didn’t appear to understand the subtleties of magic. “Should you not rest after such an action? Every great warrior must rest.”

He angled his head and looked at her with eyes of bloodred. It should’ve made her afraid, but there was something in them… “I will tell you a story,” she whispered, “of three princes and a princess who once summoned a unicorn.”

The beast shifted forward to lay its head on forearms lumpy with muscle.

“So the heirs,” she said, picking up the story from where she’d stopped it the day of the bath, for she knew her Micah existed within this beast, “made their way to the Stone Circle. They were arguing about the best incantation to use when Breena produced an ancient book she’d taken from the library before they set off on their adventure—she was said to mutter that her brothers had likely never seen the inside of the place.”

A deep, rumbling sound. Agreement, perhaps.

“In this book, there was a very old, near-forgotten spell. Later it came to be known that scores of sorcerers had tried to work this spell, and failed. Most believed it to be nothing but a chimera.”

A pricked ear.

“As you know, my lord,” she murmured, stroking his back—being careful to avoid those spines she was certain would take off the skin on her hand, “a chimera is a mythical beast. It doesn’t exist except in the imagination. So sorcerers call those spells which they do not believe will ever work, but which people insist on trying, chimeras.” She’d always liked that little whimsy. “And this chimera had survived centuries.”

The beast’s eyes closed, but its large black ears remained alert.

“It required a certain level of innate magic, and a simple calling,” she continued. “Nicolai, oldest and strongest, attempted it first—without success.”

A snort that might’ve been a snore.

She checked but he’d opened one eye, was awake and listening. “Breena went next, for they thought perhaps the unicorn would prefer a woman. Nothing. Finally Dayn tried it, certain his brother and sister had done it wrong. Nothing. That was when Micah demanded a turn.

“They smiled at him in that way of older siblings who
are amused by a beloved younger brother. After all, he was so small he could only just read his letters, so how could he possibly summon a unicorn? It took him a long time to read aloud the entire incantation, but he owned his siblings’ hearts and so they did not halt or hurry him.”

No sound from the ensorcelled beast, but she knew he heard every word.

Folding down into a sitting position in front of him, she went to continue when those massive knotted forearms opened, swept her inside. Instead of fear, she felt only warmth as she laid her head against his neck and listened to the beat of his great heart. “The moment Micah finished speaking, there was a brilliant burst of light, so bright that for an instant they thought they had gone blind.

“However, when the sparks cleared, they found themselves host to a regal unicorn prince who was bemused by them, as such ancient beings are by the follies of youth.” The idea of Nicolai, the one they called the Dark Seducer, being considered a “youth,” had always made her laugh.

“You see, to call a unicorn, you must have the purest of hearts. All children are born thus, but each day as we grow, we gain small shadows. Not every shadow is bad. A strong man needs his shadows. On that day, only Micah was as he had been born. And so only Micah’s voice could reach the unicorn realm,” she said, her eyes fluttering shut.

M
ICAH DREAMED OF UNICORNS
noble and gracious, and of deep male laughter. He’d never had family, but in this dream, he ran after two tall men—they chuckled when he fell, and he didn’t like that, but he was stubborn, fought to get up. Then there was one of those men, pulling him
up and brushing him off. All anger was forgotten as he ran in his brothers’ footsteps across the sand.

Nicolai scrambled down the dune first.

Micah wanted to race down after him, but his chest hurt and he stopped to gasp in a breath. But he wasn’t left behind. He never was. Grabbing him in his arms, Dayn swung him onto his back. They laughed when they reached the beach to find Nicolai fighting off a territorial red land crab, the water a warm lick of foam against their feet. It was a good day.

The thought lingered as he woke, as he became aware that he lay on the cold stone floor of the great hall in the Black Castle. He was naked, and that told him what had happened before he ever saw the fractured table, the splintered chairs. However, that wasn’t the most interesting thing about this waking.

He wasn’t alone.

Always before, he’d been alone. The day servants scattered at the first sign of the curse, while Bard and Jissa had strict instructions to bar their doors and keep their distance until he was a man once more. But today, he woke curled around a female body that had the most intriguing curves. Especially down where her bottom snuggled so prettily against the hardness of him.

He rubbed against her because it felt good. When she murmured but didn’t move away, he smiled and spread his fingers on her abdomen, holding her to him as he slid his thigh up between the silky skin of her own legs, pushing up the dress as he went. It would be better, he thought, if she was naked, too, but the stone floor was cold. Liliana wouldn’t enjoy that.