Obsessed (44 page)

Tierra studied him, her brows narrowing. “Your relationship to Zanden?”

“Brother by birth only.” Renn scowled and bit back a curse. “The bastard.”

She nodded, but still he could not read her expression. “Liana and Ranelle,” she said. “Where are they? Are my heart-sisters safe?”

“They are well.” He offered her a smile. “Aric and I have only just discovered that Ranelle is our younger sister, stolen away from our family when she was but a child. We had no knowledge of her whereabouts ’til recently.”

Tierra eased herself from Renn’s lap, his cock sliding out of her channel. “Ranelle? Nordain? Sister to the king and the king’s second?” She took a deep breath as she digested his information. “You are saying she is a Princess?”

“Yes.” Renn shrugged. “But as she has married Elvin royalty, she will one day be Queen of Seraphine.”

Tierra’s back went rigid, her eyes widening. “Ranelle has married the future Elvin King?”

“Yes. Jalen is his name.” Renn gave a quick nod. “Ranelle now bears the mark of enrli here.” He touched Tierra’s forehead. “And here.” He brushed his fingers through the tight, damp curls on her mound, and she shivered beneath his touch. “They are expecting a daughter.”

“All this in a mere two weeks time?” Tierra smirked. “And I suppose Liana is engaged to another Prince?”

Renn raked his hand through his thick black hair. “No. Liana is joined to my brother Aric. She is now Queen of Phoenicia and she carries twin sons within her womb.”

Biting her lip, Tierra nodded, and then said, “Of course. I should have known. This makes perfect sense.” A slightly hysterical laugh tripped over her tongue. She rolled her eyes to the blue canopy before turning her gaze to him. “I just fucked a crazy man.”

“I speak the truth.” Renn reached for her but she backed away.

“This is just too fantastical.” She shook her head. “I would like to believe you, I really would. But no sane person could.”

He wanted to grab her, make her see sense, but he didn’t want to scare her. “I was searching for you to take you to them.” Forcing himself to remain calm, he rested his back against the bluewood tree’s arm. “The eve of Aric and Liana’s joining celebration, I gave my vow that I would find and return with you.”

“You are beyond madness.” Tierra gave him a false smile. “You live in a happy delusion.”

Renn scowled. She raised her hands and pointed her fingers at him.

At the same moment he realized what she was about to do, the air glittered as she unleashed her magical ropes.

In an instant the bindings wrapped around him, tying him fast to the tree.

Even his legs were bound.

Again.

“Release me!” he shouted, furious at her, and furious at himself for not taking into consideration that she might not believe his story.

“Stay. Away. From. Me.” Her green eyes sparked and anger infused in her voice. “I have no time for dalliances with daft bastards.”

“Foolish wench.” Renn roared as he fought against the magical bindings. “I have told you only the truth.”

“Ha.” Tierra climbed onto a nearby branch and began easing from the tree. “Bastard,” she muttered again.

“Gods damn,” he shouted. “Listen to me!”

But the little witch gave him one last piercing emerald glance, and then she was gone.

Tierra scrambled down the tree, trying to maintain her focus on the spellbindings. She was so angry with Renn and so angry with herself that she was shaking. How could she have allowed herself to fuck a madman?

When she reached the ground, the invisible ties to her magic snapped, jarring her from her thoughts of strangling the bastard.

Renn roared and branches crashed overhead.

Damn!

Fear propelled her forward. She rushed past Feymir and took off through the forest, leaves crunching beneath her bare feet and twigs snapping. She couldn’t allow him to catch her this time.

Tierra bolted through the wood, her heart pounding, blood rushing in her ears, and her lungs burning. She dodged through thick pine, oak and bluewood trees, and hurtled over fallen logs. Branches scratched her face, poked her naked breasts and jabbed at her bare thighs, but she ignored the discomfort.

Behind her the crashing came closer and closer as the warrior drew near.

He was surely furious at what she’d done.

She had to escape him!

He would not harm her, despite his dark and arrogant nature. Of that Tierra felt certain. Mostly. And she could still feel the fire of his touch upon her skin.

Gods, but he was an incredible lover. And an incredibly stupid brute.

A madman.

Low branches snagged her ankle, and she stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell. A surge of renewed energy rushed through her body, giving her the strength to go on.

If she could find a place to hide, she could escape the barbarian and whatever punishment he would exact.

She scrambled between a pair of granite boulders and found herself in an enormous clearing filled with an odd blue mist.

Damn. No place to hide!

Hair on the back of her neck prickled and she knew the warrior was near. She sprinted toward thick bushes to her left. The second she moved she was certain she had felt fingers scrape her bare back.

His fingers. Rigid and cold with anger.

Terror and excitement added strength to Tierra’s flight. She dove into the strange mist, toward a gap between the bushes, and began scrambling through on her hands and knees.

What if he caught her here? Took her now, like some wild pack dog, howling before moonchange.

The thought infuriated and thrilled her.

Hands grabbed her hips and yanked her back against a solid male form—as naked as she was.

Renn slid his fingers into her core, testing her wetness, finding her soaked with her passion for him. “Even as you flee from me, you desire me.”

Most merciful gods, but he was right. No matter he was insane. It had felt so good having him deep within her, driving his large cock in and out of her. She would do anything to feel him inside her again, would tell him anything he desired.

“Yes,” she whimpered, wanting him to take her. Wanting him so bad she ached with it.

“Yes…what?” he demanded as he removed his fingers from her folds.

Tierra moaned, giving into her passion for him. Completely. “Yes, my Lord.”

His rigid cock thrust between her thighs and she cried out from the delicious feel of him deep within her. In and out he plunged, fucking her fast and furious.

“In our sex, I will always be your lord.”

Gods, yes. Her senses filled with Renn’s masculine scent, the smells of their sex combined with earth and grass. Leaves and branches brushed her body as he rocked her, his firm hips pounding against her ass.

“In our lives, we will be equals. You will never leave me again, nor I you.” He kept his grip on her hips with one hand and reached around with his other to flick his fingers against her clit. “Tell me you know this to be true.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Tierra moaned and nodded. “Don’t stop. Please.”

He ignored her and came to a complete halt, his cock still buried inside her, and stilled his hands. “I require one more acquiescence. You will never use your magic to escape me again.” He flicked her throbbing nub and she cried out. “I am not your enemy.”

She nodded. Whatever he wanted. At this moment she needed him to fuck her more than she needed anything else on all of Dair.

He teased her clit with another stroke and her body vibrated. “Answer me.” Then, as if to increase her excitement—and his—he added, “Wench.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Tierra dug her fingernails into the grass, moving her hips back and forth, drawing his cock in and out of her. He grabbed her tight and stilled her so that she whimpered again. “Please. Fuck me.”

“Do I have your word?” He leaned over her back, cupping her breasts in his hands, his breath now warm upon her neck. “Your promise?”

“I promise, my Lord.” She could barely speak, she wanted him so badly. If he needed her to be submissive in sex, so be it. He hadn’t asked for her soul—and truth was, she loved it, just as she was growing to love this crazy, arrogant bastard of a warrior.

No, she did not love him. She simply loved having sex with him.

“You have my word,” she said.

Renn gave a satisfied growl. He reared back and began sliding his cock in and out of her. “Tell me that you are mine, denai.”

A cyclone of passions whirled within Tierra. He found her clit again and stroked it as he fucked her, and she cried out.

“Tell me,” he demanded again.

“I am yours…Renn!” Her scream filled the wood as her climax rocked her body.

He continued his thrusts, drawing out her orgasm in burst after burst of sensation. When he came it was with a shout that reverberated through the forest.

Lust spilling into his heartmate’s womb, Renn rested against Tierra’s back, holding her tight to him, yet careful to make sure he did not settle too much of his massive weight upon her slender frame. Her breathing was hard, ragged beneath him, and her core continued to contract around his cock.

He reached up and caressed a strand of hair from her cheek—and saw the silvery mark on the back of her earlobe. “This star…it is familiar.”

“My starmark,” Tierra murmured.

Renn withdrew from her channel and eased her onto her back, still beneath the bush she had crawled under.

Her eyelids drooped, a sleepy and sated expression on her face. “I want you back inside me.”

“If I grant your wish…” He smiled and traced one finger around the curve of her shell-like ear and then along her jaw line to her full lips. “Will you listen to what I have to say?”

She nodded, but then her almond-shaped eyes widened as she looked behind him. “What is that strange fog?”

Renn’s spine tingled. In a swift movement he backed away from her and hurried to his feet…only to find himself standing in the blue mist of Wilding Wood.

“Qinokshit,” he muttered.

“What?” she said as she climbed out from beneath the bushes.

He knelt back down and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into his embrace. Praying that there would be an easy way out of the wood, Renn stood in one fluid motion, Tierra cradled in his arms.

She gasped, her large emerald eyes studying his face. “Something is wrong.”

A groan rumbled through his chest as the scar across his cheek began to tingle and itch. He studied their surroundings and sighed as his eyes met hers again. “Yes, denai. Very wrong, indeed.”

“Then turn me loose.” Tierra pushed against his chest. “I am no wilting jensai! Leave me free to use what magic I have.”

She struggled against his hold and he reluctantly let her down, his cock hardening at the feel of her bare skin sliding against his. “Stay close,” he warned. “It is not safe here.”

Tierra’s muscles tensed as her gaze moved to study their surroundings. “These trees. They are much older than the others…I do not remember any of this…” Her eyes widened as she looked at the mist and then cut her gaze back to Renn. “The legendary blue mist. It is real! We are in Wilding Wood.”

He sighed again. “Yes.”

“But this looks nothing like the clearing I ran through, other than a bit of mist.” Her brow furrowed and she gestured ahead. “I came from there. I know it, because it is directly behind the bush where you—where we… But I couldn’t have.”

“Our path has been blocked,” he replied, and when she gave him a questioning look, he shrugged. “No one enters or leaves Astral unless Anistana wishes it.”

“The Queen of Faerie,” Tierra murmured, remembering that Renn had called Anistana the ‘Faerie Witch’ earlier. A slow chill crept up her spine to her nape, causing hair to prickle along her scalp.

What if Zanden had laid a trap? What if he came for them right this very moment?

Tierra studied their surroundings—everything was so completely different here, as though the world they had come from had simply vanished. Oak, pine and bluewood trees grew so thick she could scarcely see between them, along with other types of trees she didn’t recognize.

Blue mist wrapped around her naked body, sliding over her skin like cool satin ribbons. The mist gave everything an eerie and strange feel. It was dark in the wood, yet an odd golden glow spilled down the trunks of several trees, lending the forest enough light to see by.

She moved toward one, but Renn caught her arm and drew her back. “Hynling trees,” he murmured. “Quite beautiful. Quite dangerous.” As she looked up at him, he added, “Not unlike Anistana.”

Tierra caught her breath as the scar along his cheek flared silver.

He gritted his teeth. “And she is a wily bitch.”

Why thank you, darling Renn. Tierra gasped as a melodious voice entered her thoughts.

Renn rolled his gaze to the wood’s dark canopy. “What do you want with us, Anistana?”

Oooh, I am certain we can find something to do with you both.
The voice sighed.
Of course you must be punished for damaging that bluewood. And then there is the matter of justice for other transgressions.

“I am in no mood for your games,” Renn practically growled.

Games?
Anistana’s giggle filled Tierra’s mind.
I do not consider revenge a game.

“Revenge?” Tierra’s gaze met Renn’s. “What is she talking about?”

This revenge,
the Queen replied.

Blue mist swirled around Tierra, its cool tendrils spinning about her naked body like her own spellbindings. Tierra flung up her hands, releasing her bindings, trying to contain the mist, but they fell to the ground, useless.

Blood rushed in her veins, her heart pounding as she quickly drew the magical ropes back within her body, the silver bindings glittering in the blue fog.

Before she could try to use her magic again, the mist surrounded her from above her head and down to her toes, growing so thick that all she could see was blue. It bound her so tight, she couldn’t budge.

What was happing to her?

“Renn!” she shouted, trying to fight her prison.

“Tierra!” he bellowed from a distance. “Return her to me, Anistana,” he demanded, his voice becoming fainter and fainter to Tierra’s ears.