Rise of the Lost Prince (4 page)

Anger stabbed at Kros and scraped
through his brain with sharp metal claws. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“If I had fed first. Maybe I—”

“I watched you through the sphere
of shadows,” he said, brow pulled into an angry V as he retracted the hook.
“Fed or not. You are weak when you walk the surface. And if you had not flashed
when you did, he would have taken your head.” Grapple stared him down. Lip
curling up into a wicked sneer. Kros hated this man. He detested being
subservient. But most of all, he loathed the fact his father was right. “Are
you eager to have your head cleaved from your shoulders?”

“No.”

“It took all of your magic
reserve to flash yourself here, did it not?”

Standing, Kros reluctantly
nodded.

 
“I,” Grapple said, voice echoing off the cave
walls, “Am still the most powerful Unseelie Sidhe Fae to ever live. And do you
know why?” Kros shook his head. “Not only do I still retain my magic, but I
have kept my alliance with Ariette, doing what I must. Enduring unspeakable
things so that we may thrive in this under-verse of shadow until we are
powerful enough to break the seal, return to my homeland, and seize the
throne.” He held up the stump where his right hand used to be. “Unlike you, I
do not weaken on the surface of man, and yet you can see what Petúr did to me.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “If we are to destroy him, we must be smart.”

“And the girl you desire? She’s
the way to destroy him?”

“His binding with the darling
woman of heart has been foretold by the seer. If I defile her, I will decimate
him.”

“I’ll go back to the surface and
feed, then—”

“No.” A muscle ticked in his
father’s jaw. “I suppose if I want something done, and done right, I must do it
myself.” His lavender eyes flashed into a deep shade of crimson. “You,” he
said, “are to go with the others and prepare for the reaping.”

“But, Father. I’ve not fed.”

“Atalos,” Grapple called.

The most ancient of the
darklings, one who’d mastered the black art of human disguise by skin walking,
wore the body of some college boy and appeared with a succulent young blonde
woman wearing a tiny sparkling silver dress and some sort of crown on her head.
She was frantically screaming and crying, flailing about wildly as Atalos dragged
her along with him.

“Feed,” Grapple said, drolly.

Atalos presented the terrified
human to him. Was this a trick? His heartless father never assisted in
providing food, and nothing was ever freely given.

“What am I to owe?”

“Do not question me. I said
feed.” Grapple’s eyes flickered wickedness, narrowing in on the girl. “Or, I
could just take her for myself and let you wither into nothingness.”

“No.” Kros flicked out his
serpent tongue and licked the side of the girl’s neck, somewhat disappointed.
This human female was nowhere near as tempting or as innocent as the
Darlinghart female had been. Still, the one before him would slake his hunger.
“I’ll feed.”

 
“Would you like her on the banquet table?”
Atalos asked.

Kros shook so hard, his bones
clacked together—his craving to feed overtaking him. He disrobed. “I’ll have
her right here.”

The girl whimpered when Atalos
tore the dress from her, revealing her body. Kros allowed his gaze to flow over
her. She wore nothing but little blue silky panties and high heels. Her curves
pleased him, and if he weren’t starving, he’d take her under him first.

Kros reached for her. She let out
a high pitched screech. “Music to my ears,” he said, securing the shaking human
to him, reveling in the feel of her supple breasts pressed against his chest.

He ran his hand up her spine,
wrapping his bony fingers around the base of her skull, and then slanted his
mouth over hers. She tried to fight him.
Silly
girl,
he thought blowing tendrils of his darkness into her.

Her eyelids drooped. He knew the
lethargy she was experiencing would win out over her fear, even her will to
survive. A moment later, she stilled, going limp in his arms. When he breathed
in her essence, he had what he needed to meld with her.

As Kros spoke the ancient words,
blackened tendrils seeped from every pore of his body and whirled around the
two of them, manacling long tentacles to the girl, creating the gateway. Not
wasting a moment, he became the shadowed-mist and stepped inside of her. Once
acclimated, he looked out from behind her eyes, stretched, rolled his neck
along his/her shoulders, and smiled. Human warmth enveloped him, driving the
cold away.

He felt her mind protesting the
possession, screaming. He latched onto those screams, projecting explicit
images into her thoughts of being with her dream man. He proceeded to run her
hand/his hand over her right breast, feeling the nipple pebble to the touch. He
had her now.
Dalia
was their name.

She licked her lips, a seductive
swipe, and Kros experienced the petal softness of those lips on his tongue.
Slowly, their hand slithered over the dip of her stomach. Inched lower.

“I
want to touch you, Dalia. Lick you,”
he whispered inside her head.

“Yes,” she said in a dream-lust
voice. “Touch me.”

They reached down between her
legs, burrowed beneath her panties and stroked. Her clit throbbed beneath his
fingers. She moaned. He groaned.

Using their left hand to strum
between her creamy breasts, mimicking how they rubbed between her sopping
folds, he projected, “
Finger your cunt
for me,”
keeping up a steady pace of erotic pictures flowing through her
mind’s eye.

They thrust their fingers into
her wet core. Upon penetration, the human climaxed. Euphoria struck him and he
rode the wave until the last spasms of bliss shook him, and her. Sated, he
pulled back into her body with his mist as if he were removing a glove of
flesh. Her right hand immediately left her pulsing sex and flopped to her
side—a puppet with a cut string—dangling.

Reaching inward, Kros palmed her
frail heart. It
thumped-thumped
in
his misty-palm. He basked in the moment, wrapped his fingers around the organ
and squeezed until he stopped the beat. Easily, so easily, he plucked her soul
free as if picking a grape from the vine, inhaling.

With her inner light extinguished,
the human shell he wore withered and crumpled. Akin to leaving a pile of old
clothing on the floor, Kros stepped away. His movements were sure, no longer
jerky. Feeling strength surge through him, he threw his head back and roared.

Reborn. His blood soaked body, no
longer skeletal, had been rejuvenated. The feeding, complete.
 

Chapter Three

Petúr stared down at the petite
blonde; sporting black and pink striped knee high stockings, wearing a bar
uniform which reminded him of a Catholic school girl uniform, only naughtier.
The short pleated skirt was dark in color with small pink skull and crossbones
patterns weaved throughout, and the button up shirt, tied in a knot, showed off
her belly button.

She’d muttered something like,
it’s really you
. Then she kneeled and
was bowing her head. He pulled in a breath. His eyes narrowed. Besides him, his
brothers, Grapping Hook, and the darklings they battled, he’d never come across
someone residing here who clearly smelled non-human. Not even when he was a
small boy living in the orphanage, nor later on the streets.

“Vibe. Dash,” he said. “Stay with
Wyndi.” He tugged the strange feminine creature up by the elbow. “Come.” He
didn’t give her the option, just kept on tugging her until they were out of Wyndi’s
office, down the hall, out the front doors of the Jolly Roger’s Bar &
Grill, and then walked over to the sparsely populated back parking lot. “Why
did you speak as you did, then bow at my feet, little one?”

“The symbol,” Bell said.

How
does she know of it?
“Symbol?”

She reached out and moved the
torn flap of his shirt aside. “On your chest.”

He gritted his teeth. “What about
it?”

“I know of this.” She lightly
traced one circle and tilted her head, staring up into his face.

“How?”

“I’ve seen this before.”

Petúr’s brow furrowed. “Where?”

“In my homeland.”

Did this creature know of his
homeland? He always knew he wasn’t from this world, not human, and over the
years he’d had flashes of a place. Glimpses of a woman. They were vague,
dreamlike images of a faraway land, lush and green, and of a beautiful
enchantress wearing gowns of gold, with a loving face, golden eyes, and long,
flowing brown hair.

The woman, and the land, he never
knew, yet somehow he did. They danced in the peripherals of his mind. As a boy,
he believed them to be real. As a teen, he supposed them a figment of his
imagination. As a man, he assumed neither the place, or the woman ever really
existed.

“I know of you, Petúr.” He ground
his teeth. “You might not want to believe me, but I do, and what I have to say
is the truth.”

“I do not know of you,” he said.

“I’m Bell.”

He crossed his arms over his
chest. “You’re not human, Bell.”

She shook her head. Blonde
ponytail whipping. “No. I’m not.”

“What are you then?”

Her eyebrows pulled together.
“You really don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“I am Fae.”

He’d heard of such creatures,
being spoken of in human fairy tales. “A fairy?”

“Yes. A Demi-Fae.”

****

Wyndi splashed cold water on her
face from the sink in her office restroom, feeling dazed, a little sick to her
stomach, and completely baffled. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d
dreamed of a beautiful man with the face of an angel, and eyes of the purest
gold. Water dripped from her nose, lips, and trickled down her neck as she
stared at her reflection in the mirror. Tonight, after being mugged, she’d met
the man she’d somehow visited over and over again in her dreams, only while he
did have those same angelic features and golden eyes rimmed in dark ash, he
wasn’t her guardian angel. He was too earthy to be celestial.

She grabbed a hand towel and
patted her face dry. In her dreams, her angel was lighthearted. In her dreams,
he would take her into his strong arms and fly her into the clouds, smiling and
laughing as the wind thrashed through that chocolatey-gold mane of hair.
 

Stop
being ridiculous
,
she told herself, placing the towel onto the counter.
Dreams are dreams. They aren’t real. They don’t come true. And the fact
Petúr resembles a make-believe dream man who flies you through the heavens when
you sleep is only a coincidence.
Besides, the man she met wasn’t even close
to being lighthearted. He was lethal looking. Intimidating for sure. Most
assuredly possessed a stern set to his jaw, hardness to his face, and punishing
eyes.

But
he had the softest looking mouth.
Wyndi stomped her foot. “Stop thinking
about his mouth,” she mumbled.

“Ma’am,” one of the men, she
couldn’t distinguish the voice, called through the door. “Are you okay in
there?”

“Fine,” she said, snapping her
spine straight.

Quickly, she pulled the clip from
her hair, combed her fingers through the strands, yanked at the hem of her
dirty suit jacket, grabbed up her purse, and turned on her heel.

When she stepped out of the
confines of the restroom, she glanced around. Vibe and Dash were imposing
sentinels, taking up a post by the exit to her office.

“Where’s Petúr?” she asked.

“He stepped out for a moment,”
said Dash.

“Well….” Her gaze bounced between
the two large men. While similar in ways, both having the same thin line to
their noses, same shape to their full lips, they were also the contrast of
opposites. Vibe wore a white suit, had short sun-blond hair, silver eyes, and
looked as though he stepped out of the pages of GQ magazine. Yet he too had
this lethality about him. While Dash was dark haired, which he wore pulled back
in a nubby ponytail, donned biker leathers, and had coal-black eyes which
seemed haunted, his youthful features were hardened, too. “Thank you for your
help tonight, and for making sure I arrived back at my office safely, but you
really needn’t stay. I’m just going to—”

Vibe smiled bright white, however
it was Dash who said, “None of us are leaving until the big guy tells us it’s
time to go.”

Wyndi frowned. Vibe and Dash
glanced at each other. Their body language, and the way Dash arched a brow
intrigued her. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were talking, but
their mouths never moved. She dismissed the bizarre thought and walked
determinedly over to her desk, put her laptop into the carrying case, and
flopped the strap over the same shoulder her purse was on.