TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) (31 page)

The lock flipped shut just as her hand closed around the door handle. Startled, she looked down, tried to unlock it, but the mechanism wouldn’t budge. Temper flaring, she turned for the window. The shutters snapped closed with a deafening clack, darkening the room.

She whirled on Nick, that anger flaring to full-on fury. “Stop using your damn god powers and let me out.”

“Not until you tell me what Isadora did to your family.”

His calm, even tone was so infuriating, it was all she could take. “You want to know what she did?” she snapped. “Nothing. She did nothing.”

“Then why—”
 

“She knew her father approved the Council’s attack on this settlement. She sat back while hundreds—no, thousands—of people were slaughtered because they were different. There weren’t just witches living here. There were all races, all types of people from all over the land who’d congregated here to avoid the Council’s persecution. And she watched while the Council’s soldiers not only murdered and raped, but razed this city to the ground. It might look different now. It might be rebuilt, but I remember. I remember my parents lying dead in the street. I remember the fires and the screams. I remember Delia grabbing me and making me run. I remember everything that your
soul mate
didn’t do to stop the massacre.”

His features softened, and he stepped toward her. “Cynna…”

She swatted his hand away before he could touch her and moved back. “No, don’t.”

Her skin was vibrating, her emotions raw and unguarded. And now that she’d spoken, she couldn’t get the images out of her head. Images that were a thousand times worse than those she’d seen at his colony, because they’d been of her people.
Her
family. But though she hurt, she relished the pain because it fed the rage inside her. The rage that kept her focused and reminded her…revenge was the only thing that mattered.

“Cynna.” His voice was calm—too calm—as he moved another step closer. “You don’t know what it was like for her. The hold her father had on her. She couldn’t have stopped it if she wanted to.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit.” Cynna moved back another step. “She could have stopped it. She could have stepped in. She chose to sit back and do nothing while people suffered.”

The way you sat back and watched Nick suffer?

A wave of heat washed over her, making her skin prickle. That was different, she told herself. What she’d done, she’d done for a reason. For restitution. For payback. For—

For your own personal gain. Just like her.

Her stomach tossed, and the air seemed to clog in her lungs. She wasn’t like Isadora. She couldn’t be. She—

“It was wrong,” Nick whispered, his warm breath fanning her cheek, making her blink several times. Somehow she’d backed herself against the wall, and he now stood only inches away, one hand braced near her head, the fingers of his other hand running softly down her cheek to make her tremble. “What the king and the Council did to your people was wrong. But it wasn’t her. She wasn’t in power then. She was timid, shy, not at all like she is now. No one would ever have listened to her. If she’d known what was happening here, she wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

A hot ball formed in Cynna’s throat, one that made it hard to swallow. She glared up at him. “She’s your soul mate. Of course you’d take her side.”

Why was he standing so close? Why was he touching her? Why the hell was he even here when his soul mate was back at the castle, just waiting for him?

She shoved aside the jealousy and swiped his hand away. “Go back to her and leave me alone. I’m not the one you want, and we both know it.”

She twisted to get away from him, but he caught her around the waist and pushed her back against the wall. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t want her. I need you.”

Cynna stilled and knew he had to be lying because…no one needed her. No one ever had.

“You’re a fucking liar.”

“It’s not a lie.” His arm tightened around her waist, and his body pressed fully into hers—his chest grazing her breasts, his thigh pushing between both of hers, his erection—oh gods, his heavenly, hard erection—nestling against her hip. “You keep me centered. You have from the start. How do you think I got through every sick thing Zagreus subjected me to? Because you were there. Because no matter what was happening to me, I could look at you and think about you, and not focus on the pain. If not for you, I’d have lost it long ago. Zagreus would control me, Krónos would be free, the gods would be at war, and the human world would be consumed by the apocalypse. You stopped it all from happening. You give me the strength to fight back.”

Cynna’s heart pounded hard, and her skin tingled with a heat she couldn’t hold back. She braced her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him away, but he was an immovable force, and he wasn’t letting her go. “You lie.”

“Why would I lie? What do I get out of lying about this? I need you, Cynna, not her. I have for a long fucking time.”

Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, and her breaths came fast and shallow. But she was no longer sure if she was trying to push him away or pull him in closer. And her gift, the ability she’d always had to tell lie from truth, was screaming she was wrong. He believed what he was saying. Believed it as he believed nothing else.

She tried to be disgusted. Knew that was the logical reaction. But she wasn’t. She was intrigued. And, dammit, incredibly excited. “That’s…sick.”

“Not to me. To me it’s the only thing that feels right.
You’re
the only thing that feels right.”

His mouth was so close, his breath hot and minty, and everywhere he touched her, even through the fabric forming a barrier between them, her skin tingled. She needed to get away from him. Couldn’t think when he was close like this. But the thought of letting him go back to
her
…

Her fingers tightened even more in his shirt, and she dragged him an inch closer. Electricity arced between them, like a firecracker about to explode. “I don’t need you. I don’t even want you.”

“Now we both know who’s lying,” he whispered.

His head lowered to hers. She sucked in one breath and lifted to meet him. His lips parted at the first touch, and she licked into his mouth, their tongues tangling in a fiery kiss that rocketed through every cell. He pushed her harder into the wall while he devoured her mouth, while she devoured his right back. His erection stabbed into her belly. Desire roared in her veins. Wrapping her leg around his hip, desperate to feel the friction of his cock rubbing against her mound, she clawed at his shirt, needing skin. Needing heat. Needing him.

“Cynna…”

“Don’t talk.” She nipped at his bottom lip hard enough to make him wince. He drew his head back. She braced her hands against his chest and pushed hard. “Don’t say a word.”

He stumbled back a step and stared at her, his face flushed with arousal, his eyes as dark as she’d ever seen them. And somewhere in the back of her brain, a little voice screamed she needed to walk away, needed to run if she had any hope of saving herself. He might believe the things he’d said, might want her right now because of what had happened between them, but eventually, that soul mate bond would win out, and Cynna would end up heartbroken and alone.

But she didn’t listen. She couldn’t. Because every ounce of anger and longing and frustration and hurt was swirling inside her, making her see red, making her body tremble, making her want to prove to him—and maybe to her—that she was more real than his soul mate could ever be.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. The weight of her body knocked him into the back of the couch, but he didn’t miss a beat. His arms wrapped around her waist, dragging her in tight, and his mouth opened over hers. And then he was kissing her like he couldn’t get enough, tasting her harder, deeper, making her wetter with every touch, making her forget everything but him.

His hands streaked down to the hem of her shirt, and he broke the kiss long enough to drag it up and over her head. She found his mouth again as he dropped it on the floor, then sucked in a breath when his tongue stroked over hers and his fingers flipped the clasp of her bra free. He tugged the garment from her arms, then closed his large, warm hand over her left breast and squeezed.

She groaned as electricity shot to her nipple, then raced to her core. It was wrong—wanting him like this after everything she’d done—but she couldn’t stop the desire. Couldn’t stop the hunger. Needed only this, here and now.

Her own hands slid down his torso and found the hem of his shirt. She pulled away so she could wrench the garment from his body. Dropping the soft cotton on the ground, she let her gaze slide over him. Over the broad, strong muscles flexing beneath his rough skin. Over the dusting of fine blond hair covering his pecs. Over the scars in all shapes and sizes that proved he was more than Zagreus or Hades thought. He wasn’t just a vessel of untapped power. He was a warrior. One she’d wanted from the first moments she’d laid eyes on him.

Memories bombarded her. The day Zagreus had pulled him into the torture chamber and presented Nick to her as if he were a gift. Watching from the upper level of the arena while he fought Zagreus’s satyrs, being mesmerized by every ripple of muscle each time he moved. Standing still and unmoving as that nymph had dropped to her knees in front of him in his cell, ripped off his towel, and taken him deep into her mouth.

Her blood pumped hot. Her mouth grew dry. Her sex burned. She’d hated that moment with the nymph, not just because the female had been tormenting him, but because Cynna had wanted to be the one to taste him, to stroke him, to make him moan.
 

“Cynna.” Nick’s hand slid into her hair, and his fingers flexed against her scalp, drawing her face back toward his. She opened to his kiss, dragged her tongue along his, and trailed her hands down his torso until she found the snap on his jeans.

He groaned into her mouth, used his other hand to tip her chin up higher so he could taste her deeper. She flicked the snap on his pants free, slid the zipper down while he kissed her, then pushed the waistband over his hips.

His cock sprang free, and she wrapped her hand around the thick shaft. He was hard as steel beneath her fingers, hot in her palm, and while he continued to devour her mouth, she stroked him, base to tip, squeezed the head until he moaned, then drew the moisture from the tip down his length so she could do it again.

He let go of her chin, trailed his hand down her chest and pinched her nipple. And as electricity arced straight into her sex with the mixture of pleasure and pain, she moved closer, stroked him faster, lifted her chest so he could do it again. His teeth nipped at her bottom lip, then her jaw as his fingers rolled her nipple, and then his lips were pressing hot, wicked kisses along the soft skin behind her ear, his warm breath making every inch of her body shiver.

“Gods,” he whispered. “Your hand feels so good. So much better than before.”

Before…
 

She knew what he was remembering. When he’d been chained in his cell and she’d pleasured him with her hand. Except then—like now—what she’d really wanted to do that night was taste him. Drop to her knees like that nymph. Feel his length pulse against her tongue. Draw him so deep he’d never want anyone but her.

She might not have had the courage to do it then, but now there was nothing holding her back. Letting go, she braced her hands on his belly, then slid down to her knees. He sucked in a breath. His cock stood out strong and proud in front of her. Wrapping her fingers around his steely length once more, she drew him toward her lips and glanced up at his face.

Desire darkened his eyes, flushed his cheeks, made a vein in his temple stand out against his pale skin. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she leaned closer, opened her mouth, and traced the tip of her tongue all around the head of his cock.

A groan rumbled from his chest. His hands slid into her hair, his fingertips flexing against her scalp. She did it again, running her tongue along the vein on the underside, then finally closed her lips around his length and sucked.

“Holy fuck…”

He was so thick, she had to open wide to take him deep. Flicking her tongue against him, she drew him to the back of her mouth. He groaned and flexed, his hands tightening in her hair. Wrapping her hand around him for balance, she squeezed his ass, drew back with her mouth, then took him even deeper.

His cock hit the back of her throat, pulsed and swelled. She sucked hard, released, and did it again. He dropped his head back. Every time she drew him in, he flexed and thrust forward until her eyes watered.

“So good,” he groaned, driving into her mouth. His fingers tightened in her hair. “Swallow me.”

Wanting to give him a pleasure his soul mate never could, she opened her throat and took all of him, fighting her gag reflex and breathing through her nose so he could slide in one more reaching inch.

“Oh fuck, yeah. Don’t stop.”

He was on the edge. She could feel the sexual energy radiating off him, could sense he was about to come. She dug her fingernails into his ass and swallowed again and again, milking him with her throat muscles, needing to take him over. His cock swelled in her mouth, growing even larger. He thrust harder. She held on tight as his climax slammed into him, and he burst in her mouth, groaning long and deep with every soul-shattering pulse.