The Horde Wars II: Wanton Fire Read online

  His teeth blazed white, clenched in a grin that was not a grin but more a challenging leer. “I will take you anyway. And you will thank me for it later.”

  He took advantage of the shock that gripped her at his words. His lips fell on hers with the weight of an immovable mountain, and her bravado was crushed beneath it. Losing all pride she thrashed in his arms, shoving against him, turning her head away from his kiss though it was inescapable. His arms moved around her, crushing her to him ever more tightly than before. He lifted her clean off the floor against him and she was granted the opportunity to kick his shins in her struggles.

  He merely insinuated himself completely between her scissoring legs, pressed her back against the wall, and effectively disabled her attack. But she was fierce and would not be so easily subdued. Yes, she wanted him, or at the very least her body did. Her sex swelled and wept with want of him. Yes, she found him attractive, intriguing and deliciously male. But she was not ready for this.

  Was she?

  Steffy brought her hands up, laid the tips her thumbs on his trachea…and pressed warningly against it.

  Cinder stilled. He pulled back, his breath hot against her mouth, which was moist and tender from his kiss. “You want me,” he growled.

  She pressed harder, digging brutally into his flesh.

  He released her. But he did not retreat. He stayed there, his body pressed flush to hers. They both panted heavily for breath, each unsteady and unsure of the other and what would come next.

  “Scheiße. Don’t ever do that again.”

  Cinder stared at her, still and assessing, for a long moment. His eyes were like twin orange flames burning in his face, and the air shimmered around them—visual proof of the heat that sweltered between them like the bellows of a furnace.

  Whatever he saw in her face must have made him rethink his strategy. “You’re right.” He backed away, slowly, as one would from a wild animal whose next move could be a danger. “It was wrong of me to press you so. But you surprised me in a weak moment—you were right in calling it a weakness. You know I desire you. I know you could sense it from the first. But I do not desire this. I would have you in softness and in passion, not in force or animal lust. I am sorry.”

  Steffy tried to stop the shaking of her hands, raking them through her still wet hair in an effort to hide their unsteadiness from his all too knowing gaze. “You won’t have me at all.”

  He smiled, a small enigmatic look that warned her of the folly of her words, which he could only see as a challenge. “I will have you. And you will love it. You will scream with the pleasure I give you and beg for more when I am through…many, many hours later.”

  “You have the ego of a god or devil. But you are neither. You are just a Shikar.” She sneered the word with all the venom she knew a Shikar would have sneered the word human. “I will not fall at your feet in a swoon for your affections. I have a lot more pride than that.”

  His smile remained and the hairs on the back of her nape rose in response to it. “Pride goeth before destruction,” he quoted blithely. “You will yield to me. And oh, what a yielding it will be. My breath would stop to think of it.”

  “Let it stop. In fact, why not hold your breath in anticipation? Go on, go ahead, please do,” she bit out in a rush.

  He only chuckled, and the sound echoed behind him as he turned and withdrew towards the bathroom—no doubt to clean himself after his explosive release. “If you wish to maintain the last of your modesty, you will need to dress accordingly for bed.”

  Steffy sneered at his retreating back, but her bravado disappeared with his next words.

  “For I mean to join you there as we sleep.”

  * * * * *

  She wore her boots to bed.

  “Move over, you louse. And keep that pillow between us or I swear I’m going to do you some serious injury.”

  Cinder chuckled and settled his length even closer, brushing her legs with his as he did so. Steffy kicked back, connecting the thick heel of her boot with his shin, and hoped he suffered at least a little pain for it. He merely chuckled louder and moved against her backside in such a way that the pillow separating them seemed practically non-existent. Steffy felt her cheeks heat with a blush but said nothing else, suspecting it would only serve to amuse him.

  The coverlets that Cinder had found for her—he’d told her with a wicked smile that he’d never needed the added heat of bed linens before—began to stifle her, fully clothed as she was. It took every ounce of willpower that she possessed to keep from kicking free of the covers. It was his fault; not that she’d give him the satisfaction of ever saying so. The man gave off heat better than a fireplace. The pillow pressing against her back was burning from his body heat and causing her own clothing to stick to her perspiring skin.

  Damn it. She kicked free of the covers. It was just too hot to stay beneath them. Steffy let out a loud sigh and settled back against the exquisitely comfortable mattress, trying but failing to find a center of calm. How could she find calm? There was a predator of a man lying next to her, blatant in his sexual interest in her person, just waiting for her to show some weakness that would give him a tactical advantage in seducing her. Calm was the last thing she felt just now.

  “Quit fidgeting. You need your sleep.” His voice was a gentle brush of velvet in the shell of her ear.

  Steffy batted him away and scooted closer to her edge of the mattress. She sighed deeply again.

  “If you don’t quit sighing like that, I’ll give you a reason to sigh so loudly. One far more pleasurable than mere restlessness.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Make me.”

  “You wish.”

  “You know…all that shiny black stuff you’re wearing gives me the most wicked ideas. How do you feel about whips and restraints and silky, slippery ointments, love?”

  Steffy growled and jerked away from the teasing hand that caressed her PVC-covered hip. “Would you just please leave me alone? I said no and I meant it!”

  “You’re just torturing me.” He groaned dramatically. “Teasing me.”

  “Look, you’re the one who refused to let me sleep in another room. If you’re tortured or teased it’s your own damn fault. Now please let me try and get some sleep.”

  “It must be hard, living a life with no sense of humor.”

  “Are you completely insane? Not half an hour ago you were as serious as the Pope at Christmas and now you’re acting like I’m the one who needs to lighten up.”

  “Half an hour ago I was hard as marble with need of you. Now I’m only half so hard. It’s easier to be lighthearted when I’m not so horny.”

  “Geez! You sound like some archaic feudal lord one minute and a twenty-first century gigolo the next. What is with you?”

  “What can I say? I am a man of many facets. Just as you are a woman of many facets.” His voice grew serious, the teasing quality of it deepening to a decidedly dangerous timbre. “Why did you follow me tonight?”

  “I thought you were in a gang or something. Up to no good.”

  “Do you always follow ruffians, just to see what they are up to?”

  “I was just curious, that’s all.”

  “Curious about me.”

  “And your friend.” Steffy sat up in bed, hugging her knees fiercely to her chest as she tried to see him in the darkness. “You struck me as…very odd people. I wanted to know what you were up to.”

  “How did we strike you as odd, exactly? Did we look any different from the rest of the people in your club? Was it the way we talked or dressed? Was it our eyes? Cady assured me your people would assume we wore contact lenses.”

  Steffy thought a moment, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t think it was any one thing about you. I just sort of guessed there was something strange about you. I knew it was probably stupid to follow you but…I felt compelled to anyway.”

  He was silent for a long time, staring at her with his strange, glowing eyes. At
last he seemed to find whatever it was he sought so intently in her face. He settled back against the mattress. “Get some sleep,” were his husky words.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He laughed darkly. “You don’t want to know. Just rest. We’ll have plenty of time for talk tonight when we rise.”

  Steffy sat in silence for many long moments. “Cinder? Are you still awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “This war between Shikar and Daemon…it’s really bad. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes. We’ve been fighting them for centuries, but the battles were mere skirmishes and they only happened at the Gates, which stands between our worlds. But now…now the Daemons are everywhere. At the Gates, in the Territories, in the many dimensions the Travelers frequent. Where before it was an ongoing battle it is now an open war between us.”

  “Tryton says they keep getting stronger. What does that mean…for all of us?”

  “We don’t know yet. It’s true that the Horde is increasing in strength and numbers but we haven’t lost control of the situation yet. We are still winning the fight against them.”

  “What do they want?”

  Cinder’s answer was long in coming. “Death. Darkness. Chaos. It is the act of destruction alone that seems to drive them most. They suffer in what they are and so they wish for all things to suffer as they do.”

  Steffy laid back down, careful to keep the pillow between them, small barrier though it was. It was a long time before she slept, before the music in her mind quieted and fell silent. But at last she gave in to beckoning sleep, losing herself in dreams that blessedly had no memory or time or place.

  Cinder lay awake for many long hours, listening to her breathing. It was nearly sundown when Tryton summoned him for a meeting and he’d barely slept at all. Steffy was still deeply dreaming when he left her. She barely felt the soft kiss he laid upon her brow as he rose.

  * * * * *

  “I know what you’re doing. I don’t like it one bit.”

  “What do you mean?” The words were silky soft, a challenge.

  “I don’t know you nearly as well as Obsidian or The Traveler do. But I know enough of your ways to guess where this might going. You have something planned for Stefany. You can’t let The Traveler wipe her memory—if indeed he can do that as you so casually claim—because you have some other use for her. For her psychic abilities, small though they are. Don’t you?”

  Tryton sighed. “Can’t you trust me enough to do what is right by the woman?”

  “I know you have at least some softness for humans. That you love Cady as you would a daughter is to your credit. But Stefany is not Cady. Your softness will not extend to her—how can it? She is not a warrior.”

  “I know that.”

  “What have you got planned for her?” Cinder demanded.

  “What business is it of yours what I do? What I plan?” Harsh words intended to sting, to punish.

  “You are The Elder and I respect you for that. I do. I would lay down my life for yours, this you know. But Stefany is…”

  “She is special to you.” Tryton sighed wearily. “Already it has begun.”

  “She is human—fragile. It is because of me that she is involved with us now. She would never have followed me last night if I hadn’t spoken with her at the club. I aroused her intuition by contacting her. I am responsible for her safety. I will not have her placed in any danger.”

  “She is already in danger,” Tryton exploded. His voice echoed off the stone walls surrounding them.

  Cinder took a deep breath and sought for calm. The thought of Stefany in any peril did not set well with him for reasons he didn’t want to explore too deeply. “From us? But that is easy to rectify. Why not just let her go? She will share with no one the things she has seen, I am certain of it.”

  “It is beyond us now, my young friend. There are forces at work here that even I do not understand. The Daemons are aware of her now, of her tie to us, however new it is. They will come for her with all the rage of their kind and they will end her.”

  “Keep her here with us then.” Cinder bit out the words, fear coating his heart. Fear for her. For himself. For the world. The Daemons were getting far too strong, far too quickly. None of them knew why or how, but there it was, the awful truth of it.

  “She is a human. And, as you said, she is no warrior. So unlike Cady she has no real place here, not yet. And I doubt seriously that she would willingly stay here and give up her life in the human world.”

  “You would just let her go then? Into danger, into death, with no memory of how she might protect herself? We are sworn to protect humans. Sworn to keep them safe. Stefany is no exception merely because she has seen too much.”

  “We are not personal body guards. I cannot devote protection to one particular human, when so many are at risk that have not the eye of the Horde fixed so intently upon them.”

  “I don’t believe this!”

  “What would you have me do, Cinder? I will ask Stefany if she wishes to stay—of course I will—but you have to know that I will not force her to stay. I will tell her the risks, tell her some of what she might face if she leaves here. But to what purpose? She is human. She will choose her own way and neither you nor I can overrule her decision.”

  “You know she will choose her life above.”

  “Yes. I have learned well enough from my time with Cady that humans are often inclined to be stubborn.”

  Cinder paced furiously before Tryton, who watched him with his ancient and knowing eyes. At last he seemed to come to a decision.

  “If she goes I will go with her. I got her into this. I will keep her safe.”

  “I thought you might say that.”

  “It is non-negotiable. Do not try to sway me.”

  “You are part of Obsidian’s team. Would you abandon them?”

  “I will fight with them when they have need of me. The Traveler can retrieve me easily enough for that. Cady is a good Incinerator—one of the best. Obsidian’s team will not need my skills all that often, surely.”

  “But if it is dark in Steffy’s part of the world during those fights you would leave your human charge unprotected by joining your team.”

  “What do you want me to say, Elder? That I will just leave Stefany to her fate and be done with it? I am at fault here! It is because of me that she is in danger at all.”

  “She is gifted. She would be in some danger regardless of what you have done because of that. But you are right. You know the cost of involvement with humans. You know that recently, in rare instances, the Daemons have sensed out those whom we have touched, and since Steffy is psychic to boot—the perfect food for their endless appetites—there is not much that can be done to save her.”

  “I will save her. I will protect her as best I can. It is better than nothing—which is what you would give her. I thought you had plans for her, as you did for Cady, but to just send her back… It is negligent, Elder.”

  “My plans are none of your concern, young one,” Tryton said warningly. “What of your days—what of the sunlight? You cannot Travel between here and the surface on your own and I cannot have The Traveler make special journeys just for you. Would you be willing to give up your life here to protect hers? It could be years before your protection was no longer needed by her. It could well be the full span of her life.”

  Cinder gritted his teeth. “If Stefany will not stay here with us until it is safe for her to go back home, then I will stay with her until I am no longer needed. I will hide from the sun as best I can. I will find a way.”

  “So be it. You have made your choice.”

  Cinder offered a stiff bow to his leader and quit the room. He did not look back, nor did his shoulders slump from the weight of his new burden. He failed to see the mischievous smile that broke across Tryton’s handsome, ageless face.

  A smile that, had he seen it, would have made Cinder seriously rethink the purpose of their meeting and Tryton’s
machinations regarding Steffy and himself.

  Chapter Six

  The heated press of his lips to hers woke her. Her first breath upon waking came from his mouth into hers. It tasted of wild and potent masculinity. It was just as hot as the rest of him—burning into her lungs with all the fierceness he so blatantly exuded, even when he was trying to appear harmless.

  “Wake up, my sleeping beauty.” He pulled back, but only just enough to speak the words, his lips tickling against hers as he did so.

  “I’m awake,” she whispered, hating for the delicious moment to end. Hating for reality to intrude.

  He pulled back but kept his eyes on hers as she opened them. “It’s time to go home.”

  She sat up in the bed. “You mean Tryton is letting me go?” It was hard but she managed to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice, managed to sound nonchalant despite the fact that her heart was pounding.

  “Yes.” Such a simple word, but it raised countless questions in her mind, the way he said it.

  “Will I…” She swallowed around a lump in her throat. “Will I be allowed to keep my memories?”

  “Yes.”

  Heaving a sigh of relief, she ran her fingers through her tousled hair. “Great. When do I get to leave?”

  “Soon. After you say goodbye to Tryton and the others.”

  His words seemed so shadowed, as if he wasn’t quite telling her the whole truth of the situation or was hiding something important, but she didn’t care. She was being set free, and after a night and day of pondering her fate at the hands of these people, she couldn’t be happier. To hell with his strange attitude towards her, to hell with the unrequited lust she felt for him, to hell with this magical place. She was going home and right now that was all that mattered to her.

  “Well let’s go then. I’ve had enough of this place. I’ve been having withdrawal from my apartment’s creature comforts.” She gave a laugh, hoping he might join her and break the tension of the moment, but he remained stoic.

  “Come on, then. They’re waiting for you.”

  She rose from the bed and followed him from the room. She’d come with nothing but the clothes on her back and she was leaving with the same, except for a few dark memories that she hoped would fade away with time. Who was she kidding? She would never forget one facet of this place or the man who was now leading her back to Tryton’s anteroom sanctuary. Cinder, above all of the wonders she’d seen in the past twenty-four hours, would haunt her memories for all the years of her life.