The Horde Wars II: Wanton Fire Read online

  And she’d given up the chance to be with him, for however brief an interlude it might have been.

  She wanted to kick herself for her stubborn pride now. To be with a man like Cinder would probably be the most pleasurable experience a woman could have. But then again, she also suspected that being with a man like Cinder would have completely ruined her for any other man. And that was something she had to avoid at all costs. She didn’t want to give herself fully to any man, least of all to a man like this Shikar warrior.

  She had enough problems on her own without adding that kind of heartache to the list.

  The tapping of their booted feet on the stone floors of the corridor leading to Tryton’s sanctuary became an accompanying percussion of the music that played through her mind. The beating of her heart kept rhythm with the noise and her breath was the chorus line. It was difficult for her not to speed up her steps as a new feeling of apprehension took her and increased the tempo with its urgency. At long last—and not a moment too soon for her frazzled nerves—they arrived at their destination.

  A small group of people awaited them there.

  “I trust you slept well, Steffy?” Tryton’s words were spoken cordially enough, but the teasing glance he sent between her and Cinder made her teeth grit against a harsh response.

  “Well enough.”

  “You met Cady and The Traveler.” He motioned to the lovely, dark-haired woman and the tall, cloaked man she’d met the night before. “This is Obsidian and Edge. They make up my greatest team of warriors. They have killed more Daemons than can be counted and will kill more than that before the war with them is through. You can trust them with your very life.”

  Steffy couldn’t help but frown at his words. “Why do I need to know this? Aren’t you letting me go?”

  “Of course. You are not a prisoner here. But I must ask—is this your wish? You could stay with us here if you like. You will have a comfortable life, and you will be treated with honor as one of our own.”

  “Thank you, but no. I have a life that I want to get back to.”

  “But you have no close friends, no loved ones. You told me as much yourself last night when we spoke. And now you know firsthand of the dangers that walk the night—dangers which you must caution yourself to now that the Daemons are aware of you. Would you be giving up so much to stay with us?”

  “I’ve lived with the threat of those monsters in the world all of my life and I’ve been just fine.” She ignored his words regarding her solitary lifestyle. He might see her life as a lonely one but it was not, at least not to her. She much preferred having no one to worry over as she had worried over her lost Raine. “I can take care of myself. And I very much enjoy my life. I thank you for your offer of refuge but I assure you, I don’t need it.”

  “So be it. Cinder will accompany you. He will be your guard until the threat is lessened to your life. His team will check on you both once a week, to be sure you are well and truly safe.” He motioned for The Traveler, who moved forth, presumably to ‘travel’ them back to her home.

  “Wait just a minute! I told you, I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine. Cinder doesn’t have to baby-sit me.”

  “But he does. The Daemons know you now and have seen you with us.”

  “You can’t be serious. Didn’t your precious warriors kill the lot of them? How could they know about me now?”

  “They have a collective consciousness so if one has seen you with us then all of them have, you can be sure of that. I cannot, in good conscience, leave you at their mercy without protection of some kind.”

  “No. This is not cool at all! I’m not without resources. I’ll buy a gun, put extra locks on my door, something. But I don’t want a nanny, least of all that one.” She stabbed her finger wildly in Cinder’s direction, voice going hoarse as she struggled to keep from shouting.

  “If you leave here it is with Cinder at your back. That is non-negotiable.” His voice was hard as steel.

  “Scheiße. I don’t fucking believe this!” She’d ended up shouting after all.

  “Take heart, Steffy. At least you have your human life to go back to. Think of last night, when you faced those Daemons and that life hung in the balance. Would you go back to that? With Cinder as your guard you can at least live in some safety.”

  “Fine,” she gritted out. “But what am I supposed to do? Let him move right in with me?”

  “That would be best, I think.” Was that a twinkle of mirth in Tryton’s eyes? His words were spoken so matter-of-factly that she assumed it had to be a trick of the light.

  “Scheiße.”

  Cady came forward and took her hand. “We’re only trying to do what is best to keep you safe, Steffy. Cinder didn’t have to agree to guard you. Take it from me, a former human in the know, that this is probably the last thing a Shikar would choose—living with a human. Protecting a human full time. At least you have the consolation that Cin will be just a miserable as you.” She winked cheekily at her.

  “You are being given a great honor, Stefany. Cinder is a powerful warrior. He will take your safety very seriously.”

  “Shut up, Sid. Don’t scare the girl,” Cady snapped at her husband, then turned back to Steffy. “You’ll be fine. And if there are any real problems, The Traveler will know and come at once.” Cady sent a meaningful, commanding look in The Traveler’s direction and Steffy was made to wonder—not for the first time—just who the leader of this Shikar team was. Cady or Obsidian? Could be either, or both, depending on the moment. “Nothing bad will happen to you so long as we can help it.”

  “Thank you.” What else could she say?

  Steffy felt rather than saw The Traveler approach. Cinder joined them. “Take my hand.”

  “If you should change your mind about staying here with us you have but to tell Cinder and he’ll have you brought back. You have a home here now, Steffy.”

  “Thank you, Elder. I’ll remember that.”

  She laid her hand on The Traveler’s and Cinder did the same. The world around her faded away abruptly, then reassembled itself in the form of her living room.

  “Scheiße,” she muttered under her breath. She would never, not in a million years, get used to such a way of travel.

  “Scheiße, indeed,” Cinder said at her back. Steffy turned and was less than surprised to see that they were alone in the modern surrounds of her home.

  The Traveler, of course, had already disappeared.

  * * * * *

  “How can you think with so much noise around you?” Cinder growled. He stomped to the stereo system, which was blaring at a considerable volume, and started frantically pressing buttons in search of some way to turn it down. There was a moment of silence, in which he grew hopeful of success, but he’d only succeeded in changing CD’s and the noise was back at full volume within seconds.

  “Holy Horde,” he roared, clamping his hands to his head. He’d been too close to the speakers when the sound had resumed.

  Steffy ignored him as best she could, going about her normal routine of mixing music for the club’s sound system using software programs on her Macintosh computer. The stereo playing beyond her headphones—headphones that played the music she was in the midst of remixing—was just background noise for her. In actuality, she rarely turned it off, except to watch television or leave the house. But she didn’t think Cinder would be happy to hear that truth spoken aloud so she let him fiddle with the buttons on the console in another vain attempt to turn it down. At least it was keeping him occupied for the time being.

  How had she gotten into this mess?

  She tried not to think about it. What was done was done. A fatalistic attitude was probably the only thing that would get her through the situation as it was. Concentrating on her music was what was important now. It was Monday, which meant she wasn’t scheduled at the club until Thursday, so it was imperative that she find an outlet for her aggressions…or she’d end up attacking her bodyguard out of sheer frustra
tion. She looped a few bars of music and winced at the offbeat caterwauling that sounded as the result of her efforts.

  “What are you doing?” Cinder’s voice boomed at her ear.

  Steffy growled and jerked the headphones from her ears. “I’m working and I’d really appreciate it if you’d go find something else to do besides get on my nerves.”

  “What is that you’re looking into, some kind of oracle?” He gestured to her monitor.

  “No,” she replied in disgust. “You Shikars know so much and yet so little about us humans. This, my friend, is a top of the line Apple Cinema Studio Display. It cost me a very pretty penny too, so keep your meat hooks off of it.”

  “You sound so much like Cady sometimes it’s scary.”

  “That’s probably because I spent some time in the States where she’s from. I use a lot of slang, like she does. Most Germans don’t sound like me,” she explained.

  “So humans are different depending on where they are from. I’ve always suspected as much. But as the years pass it seems that most humans become more and more alike.”

  “And I suppose that means you’re old, like Tryton, to speak so casually of what basically amounts to human evolution.”

  “No, I’m not nearly so old as The Elder.” He laughed, seemingly happy now that he’d gained her undivided attention. He plopped down on the couch situated a few feet from her and spread his length out onto it. His legs extended off the edge by a good foot or more.

  “How old are you then?” She was almost too afraid to ask.

  “Seventy-nine seasons this winter.”

  “Good grief.” She tried not to gawk. He looked great for his age, that was for sure. Just how long did Shikars live, anyway? She wondered at it.

  “Am I too old for you, do you think?” He winked.

  “Positively ancient.” She grinned devilishly. “You couldn’t keep up with me, old man.”

  His eyes burned over her, lingering on her lips, breasts and legs peeking out from beneath the table where she sat. “I think I could surprise you. Why don’t we try and find out?”

  “Why don’t we not,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. She was growing more and more at ease with these teasing moods of his. It was his more dangerous, seductive, and downright sexy moods that she was wary of now.

  He released a long-suffering sigh. “Have it your way then.” He folded his hands atop his head and closed his eyes.

  “I will. So. How did Cady go from being a human to being a Shikar? Tryton never said how that happened, exactly.”

  “Her husband brought her over to us.”

  “How?”

  “It is not for me to tell you.”

  “Is it something only Obsidian can do? Some kind of Shikar magic?”

  “Tryton thinks we all have the ability to do it. But only Obsidian has ever tried, to my knowledge.”

  “You’re avoiding telling me exactly how it works, aren’t you?” she said in amazement. “After all I know about your kind, you would still keep things secret? Are you afraid I’d tell someone?”

  “No. I just don’t want to tell you.” He flashed her a grin, but the look in his eyes was far too serious for the smile to reach there.

  “Why not?”

  “I could always show you. That would, perhaps, be easier.”

  “And become an overbearing, arrogant Shikar? No way. You can keep your dumb ol’ secrets. I didn’t want to know that badly anyway,” she lied. Her fingers began tapping out a new rhythm on the table. She put her headphones back on and spent the next several minutes inputting it into the software on her computer.

  She felt his hands on her shoulders long before she sensed him behind her. He moved so fast! She hadn’t even seen him rise from the couch. He kneaded her muscles, reminding her that she’d been sitting in the same position for hours.

  “You’re so tense. Does it hurt?” He massaged more deeply into her knotted muscles.

  “No.” Her voice had gone husky. “Yes. I don’t know.” She laughed softly, her mind lulled with the pleasure of his gently squeezing hands.

  “Let me ease you.” His voice held the secrets of every decadent boudoir he’d ever visited.

  Steffy sighed and trembled beneath his magical hands. She knew better than this…but it felt so good. So sinfully good. “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Take off your clothes and lie down on your bed.” Had a man’s voice ever been so innocently seductive?

  Some bit of self-preservation returned. “I’m not going to take my clothes off, Cinder.”

  “You can cover your charms with a towel or sheet. I just need to be able to touch your bare skin.”

  The massaging of his fingers through the covering of her knit top felt so good. It would undoubtedly feel doubly so without that barrier between them, she felt certain. “Okay. But no funny stuff.”

  Cinder followed her, stalked her, to her room. He suavely gave her his back as she undressed and donned a satin robe. Heat shimmered around him in a nearly transparent halo and she wondered at his mood, which seemed more than a little charged and dangerous for the moment.

  She lay down on the bed, rolling to her stomach. “I’m ready.”

  Like a panther he crawled up the foot of the bed, over her body, and straddled her hips. He helped her free her arms from the robe, uncovering her shoulders and neck. Ever so slowly, he moved his hands upon the fabric, pulling it down further to reveal the line of her back. The ends he tucked around her waist, his fingers expertly, knowingly caressing her as he did so.

  It was impossible to keep from responding to so seductive a play and she squirmed a little beneath him. Whether to retreat from or advance into his touch, she couldn’t have said.

  “Lie still,” came his soft whisper at her nape. “Trust me and you’ll feel such pleasure as to swoon with it. I promise.”

  Foolish or not, she gave herself over into his more than capable hands.

  The heat of his palms on her shoulders made her gasp.

  “Too hot?” he asked, and magically the heat lessened.

  “No, just surprising.” She sighed.

  The heat increased once more, ebbing and flowing until it became a pulse that beat at her knotted muscles with a delicious force.

  “How’s this?” Such a harmless yet sinful sounding whisper, that.

  “Mmmm…” How had she succumbed so quickly? So easily? She didn’t know, nor did she care. His massaging hands on her bare skin felt far too good for her to care for anything beyond the magic of the moment.

  His hands swept over the expanse of her back, leaving a trail of soothing heat behind them. The length of his fingers and the breadth of his palms almost covered her back completely, making her feel small and delicate when she knew she was not. He was so much larger than she, dwarfing her, giving her a feeling of vulnerability that she’d never before experienced with any man. She was at his mercy and it was so easy to surrender herself this way that she gave in without a thought to the consequences.

  The heat at her back waned as he pulled away, resettled himself at her feet and moved his hands to them. She tensed as he cupped one, the gesture being far too sexual for her to ignore, but he eased her with a surge of heat into the sole of her foot. Her protestations died a swift death before they could be voiced. Oh, this was such bliss! Her toes curled around his massaging fingers and her entire body sang with an echo of the pleasure that radiated outward from where he touched her.

  Cinder moved to her other foot, leaving the first one to mellow in its tingling state of relaxation.

  Mind numbing warmth ebbed and flowed from his skin to hers. She moaned softly, unable to catch the sound before it escaped. Cinder chuckled softly. His fingers kneaded her steadily, and the pressing and squeezing motions of his hands echoed in all of her erogenous zones despite her languor. With light, teasing strokes his fingertips flitted over her ankle and moved upward to her calves. She sighed and stretched.

  The temperature of the room had i
ncreased by several degrees.

  Steffy began to lightly perspire.

  Cinder sent more heat flooding into her muscles and she gasped with pleasure. With her defenses down it was easy for him to spread her legs with light pressure on the insides of her calves. The satin of her robe felt shockingly cool as it settled between her legs, onto her sex. His body moved higher, spreading her wider to him. She moaned a soft protest—the last vestige of her resistance.

  He brushed it away with a burning kiss on the dip of her spine.

  The fiery touch of his hands moved up to massage her thighs. It felt so good to let herself go, to give herself over to this seduction of the senses. She stretched beneath him. He settled closer to her sex, which pulsed and throbbed and wept with the growing ferocity of her need. The heat of the room rose exponentially and she gasped, pressing her burning face into the cool softness of her pillow.

  “Your skin is like pale cream.” His whisper trailed over her shoulder, his softly pressed kiss was an echo there as it died away. “It tastes better by far.”

  A lone fingertip whispered over the seam of her ass, all the way down between her legs to the swollen button of her clit. A zing of electricity blazed a pathway through her body, from her head down to her toes. Cinder pushed the hem of her robe up around her hips, exposing her fully to his gaze. She tried to close her legs but he was still wedged tightly between them, resting on his bent knees towering over her.

  That lone fingertip pressed into her clit, swollen and wet with need, and sent a bolt of molten heat into her. She cried out brokenly. His breath was a flame over her back as he plied his tongue along her spine. His free hand began a tantalizing massage of her bottom, squeezing and plumping the globes of her ass until they too burned like the rest of her. Her clit was aflame. He pressed and rubbed it until she feared she would scream, the pleasure was that great. Greater.