The Cursed (League of the Black Swan) (38 page)

She
needed
him.

“Luke, I—”

“I’m going to taste you now,” he announced, and then he parted her legs and moved between them, lifting her legs so they straddled his shoulders.

He speared her with such a look of determination and desire that her words dried up in her throat, because apparently all the liquid in her body was heating and rushing to the very place he was bending his head to kiss.

At the first touch of his tongue, she cried out and fisted her hands in the quilts, knowing only that she needed to hang on for this ride that threatened to take her deeper into sensation than she’d ever gone before. He licked and sucked on her, destroying her, sending sizzling heat shooting through her body; every nerve ending expanded and contracted in time with the touch of his tongue.

Her hips moved rhythmically beneath him. She couldn’t help it; they moved on their own, trying to rush the pace and force the issue. Every inch of her body was straining and focused on what he was doing to her with his mouth.

“Touch your breasts for me,” he said hoarsely, and she blushed again, but she touched her nipples, softly at first, and then pinching them the way he had done during one of the many times he’d driven her to incredible orgasm.

He shot her a look so filled with masculine pride and possession that she almost laughed, but then he bent and fastened his lips around the most sensitive place on her body and she exploded beneath him. By the time she’d quit shaking, he was already moving up on the bed and then rocking into her, his hardness providing the perfect counterpoint to her sensitive flesh, and soon his steady, deep thrusts sent her over the edge again, and this time he tumbled over with her.

“I love you,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him, so she could pretend he hadn’t said it at all.

But then he took her face in his hands and said it again. “I love you, Rio.”

Caught by his gaze—trapped by his honesty—she couldn’t lie to him. “I love you, too, but we can’t be together. My families, the curse—”

“I have a plan,” he said, grinning smugly.

He rolled over on his back, laced his hands together under his head, and began to whistle.

She poked him in the chest. “Are you going to share?”

“We’re going to get out of Dodge.”

She sat up and stared down at him in bewilderment. “What?”

“We’re leaving Bordertown.”

“Get up, get dressed, and let’s get going,” Luke said, jumping out of bed after planting a resounding kiss on her lips.

Rio didn’t move. She just watched him warily, like a zoo visitor might watch the tiger from behind the glass, and wondered if he’d been drinking Grendel venom. Doing shots of the stuff, maybe.

“Luke. Luke! Listen to me. We can’t leave Bordertown. What about your business? Your house? Your things? And where would we go?”

He paused in his apparent quest to throw the worst combination of clothing possible in a backpack. “I have a plan. I don’t care about the business. Alice will send me anything from the house that I want, and she can have the house. All I need is you, and we can live anywhere in the world that you want.”

Luke threw one yellow and one blue sock and a red T-shirt into his bag, but then he finally seemed to realize that she wasn’t moving. He shoved the silky dark hair out of his face, and she was caught off guard and wondered what a man as beautiful as a fallen angel would look like in one blue and one yellow sock.

Probably just as gorgeous. It was ridiculously unfair. Also, she didn’t want to talk about her new families and their schemes before she’d had even her first cup of coffee.

“Is it only me, or does this feel like I’m caught in a magical episode of a soap opera?” She experimented with a sultry TV pose, letting the sheet drop down low, and had the immediate satisfaction of watching his eyes glaze over and his erection bob up to instant, interested attention.

He groaned and covered his eyes, which left all of his other glorious parts still naked. “Rio, I’m trying to be serious. If we stay here, your life will be a continual battle between trying to balance the demands of one family against the other. They’ll want to use you, and if they can’t use you, they’ll kill you,” he said seriously, and his erection and her silly mood both wilted at the thought.

“I know, all right? I know. I just wanted to be able to have a family for a little while. Is that so wrong?” She sighed. “Maybe the Fae court—”

“Rio, Merelith told me as much, right to my face.”

“The king told me he planned to lock me up in my new suite of rooms in the palace for ‘two or three years’ until I was properly educated,” she reluctantly admitted, feeling torn in two despite the threats. “I know it sounds childish to say, but it’s not fair that I’ve only just found them, and now I have to lose them again.”

“Tell me what you want to do. Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do,” he said, holding perfectly still; a predator weighing options in order to make the most lethal decision. Except he’d just said he’d leave the decision up to her—nothing he could do would be better proof of his feelings for her.

“We should go,” she said slowly, and then with more conviction. “We should go. To hell with them. They had twenty-five years to find me. I’ll call Clarice once we’re settled somewhere.”

His smile was almost blinding. “Come on, then, the sooner the better, before one or both of your families sends armed guards to collect you. I could blast them, but it would attract a lot of attention, and we’re trying to do this quietly.”

Rio loved watching him move; even watching him do something as mundane as shoving clothes in a bag was a treat. Especially since he was doing it naked. She smiled as the muscles in his back bunched while he reached up to the top shelf of his closet for a single electric-blue Converse shoe, considered it for a second, and then tossed it back.

“You know, they have clothes and shoes in Paris,” he said, tossing his backpack on the end of the bed. “Why don’t we go there first?”

“I don’t have a passport,” Rio said, wondering why the idea of leaving town was freaking her completely out.

“I’m a wizard, Rio. I can manage a passport.” He pulled the quilts away from her, then grinned wolfishly at the sight of her breasts. “You know, we might have a little more time.”

“No! I’m up, already.”

She escaped to the bathroom and the shower. By the time she was clean and dressed, the idea had caught fire in her imagination. More important, she’d woken up enough to appreciate the full extent of what he was offering her.

Luke was willing to give up his entire life for her. How could she not be willing to do the same?

“Let’s leave now,” she said, when she found him in his office, sorting through potions and powders. “Or as soon as you’re done with what you need to do. The sooner we’re gone, the sooner we can start over somewhere else.”

Luke nodded, still sorting, and she went to find Kit.

“Sleeping in Alice’s room? Do you think that will be okay with her?”

Kit was curled up in a snug little ball in the middle of a gorgeous jade-green silk comforter. She stretched her head up to have her ears scratched, and then she stared at Rio with her beautiful emerald eyes.

Are you leaving?

“Yes, we’re leaving. If I stay, my families will tear me—or all of Bordertown—apart trying to control me.”

Rio stroked Kit’s silky fur and realized she didn’t know if the little
Yokai
would be willing to go with her. She swallowed, hard.

“Kit, I’d love it if you’d come with me. I know foxes can’t roam around in human places as easily as they can in Bordertown, but we can buy you a pretty collar and pretend you’re a pet, some kind of dog. I think an Akita looks like a fox.” Rio was babbling, but she was afraid that if she stopped talking, Kit would have a chance to tell her no.

My task is not done, but I am still not sure what it is. I will remain with you for now.

Rio hugged Kit, and Kit allowed it, and then the two of them went to find Luke so they could begin their new life together.

Luke finished sorting through the most important bottles in his collection, selecting some to go with him and carefully boxing more up for Alice to send. Now he could leave his office, secure in the knowledge that nobody who might manage to break in after his wards had faded would be inadvertently poisoned.

Rio appeared, carrying only the backpack she’d first arrived with, and Kit trotted along at her heels.

“We’re going to need a collar. Green, I think,” Rio said, grinning down at Kit.

“I’m glad you’re coming with us, fur-face. I need your superior help to keep Rio safe, after all,” Luke said, and for the first time, he heard Kit’s voice in his mind.

I know.

Luke’s mouth fell open, and Kit laughed her little fox laugh at him, with her tongue hanging down from the side of her mouth.

“She talked to me,” he sputtered. “Smug little—”

“I heard her,” Rio interrupted, grinning. “You two deserve each other. Stupid arrogant wizards and
Yokai
.”

“We should go. Now,” he said. “The best exit from Bordertown to the human side of things is through the High Line park. Also, the park was built out of an old abandoned railroad line, so the Fae can’t get anywhere near it because of the metal.”

“That’s half of my relatives, at least. Strange that I never had a problem with metal. Must be my demon half.” Rio forced a smile, and he appreciated the attempt. “I guess we’ll worry about Chance and the demons when they show up.”

Within five minutes, they’d locked up the place and were in the Jeep. Rio kept glancing nervously around, and he wanted to reassure her but knew she’d only feel safe once they made it out of Bordertown. He pulled into a parking lot owned by a black bear shifter who owed him a favor, tossed the attendant the keys, and told the boy that Alice would pick it up. He thought the kid would wet himself at the news, but Luke managed to wait until he and Rio had walked a half block away before he started laughing.

“So everybody knows Alice,” Rio said. “Someday I’d like to hear more about her.”

Luke took her cold hand in his. “I’ll tell you all I know. She’s one of the most secretive people in the world, I think.”

He gestured. “There’s the entrance to the park.”

She stopped and stared for a moment. “Oh, Luke, it’s gorgeous. Is that hotel actually stretched over the top of the park?”

“Yes, that’s the Standard Hotel. There are a couple of other buildings that cross the park, too.”

“It used to be a railroad?”

“For freight. It was an elevated line that brought freight cars directly to factories and warehouses. Once it was abandoned, it became a horrible urban eyesore. In fact, the Manhattan city government wanted to tear it down.”

She started walking again, still admiring the sight of the oasis of plants that existed not only in Bordertown, where such things were magical and common, but in the steel and concrete jungle of Manhattan, where the humans seemed to systematically destroy all plant life so they could build more and more buildings.

“What happened? Did Bordertown take it over?”

Luke laughed. “No, we had little to do with it, other than some discreetly disguised contributions. This was all done by the humans. A talented team of landscape architects and traditional architects worked together with a lot of volunteers and donors to make this a remarkable place.”