She stopped and pulled back.
"No!" he bellowed.
Gazing up at him with her deeply kohled eyes flashing metallic, she clutched his shaft, still wet from her tongue. Between panting breaths, she said, "Give me the vow, demon. I'll make your eyes roll back in your head."
The throbbing pain was too much ... goading him to give in to her.
"Rydstrom, I want this. Did you never think that I need you, too?"
Need me? "Sabine . . ." He trailed off when he heard a yell coming from the main tower. "What was that?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing-"
Someone pounded on the cell door.
"Ignore that, demon," Sabine said. "What were you going to say to me?"
"Abie!" a female called from just outside. "Quickly!"
Sabine made a sharp sound of frustration, then leaned her forehead against his shaft, pressing it against his stomach.
Rydstrom bit out, "Finish this, Sabine. I need you to finish this!"
She eased up over him, lying atop him with her head on his chest. As they fought to catch their breath, she was shaking-he was shuddering.
But even as he was in agony, she felt so damned right against him.
Mine. He needed to have his arms around her, to clutch her tighter, to keep her by him.
"Let me in!" the woman called. "I'm not leaving until you open up."
Sabine sighed, then pressed a kiss to his chest. "Your heart is so strong," she murmured, sounding impressed. When she lifted her head, she met his gaze. "I wonder if it could beat for both of us."
He rasped, "If I thought I could have more of you like this, it'd be yours."
Her lips parted. Another shout sounded from the main part of the castle.
"Abie, I will create a portal into that cell if you don't come out!"
Sabine glanced away, and when she turned back, he briefly saw something in her eyes that wasn't there
before. For a heartbeat's time, she'd appeared ... fearful. The fires dissipated in a rush.
Rydstrom knew how deadly the beings here were. His alarm for her cooled the worst of his lust. My female. His instinct was to protect her. But she was one of the deadly beings here-he had to remember that.
Instinct had never warred with his reason this much. He was torn inside, the conflict taking its toll. "Are you in danger?"
"What would you do if I said yes?" She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Would you keep me safe?"
"Yes," he answered without hesitation. "Free me, Sabine, and I'll protect you with my life."
"Why? Only because I'm your female?"
"Protecting you is what I was born to do."
"I have to go."
"Then kiss me," he said, the words leaving his tongue before he'd even thought.
She cupped his face in her small hands and leaned down. She kissed him-differently. He cracked open his eyes to find hers squeezed shut, her brows drawn. As if she were desperate to lose herself in the kiss.
He soon did, his lids sliding shut. Lost in the way her lips trembled against his, lost in the Tightness of his female needing him.
14
"He'd been just about to say the vow, Lanthe!" Sabine had barely been able to redress she'd been so affected by Rydstrom. "So help me, this had better be the coming of the apocalypse-"
"Yep, fairly much. We're kind of under attack."
"Acutely or chronically?"
Chapter 7
Lanthe answered, "Nothing at this exact moment. Of course, something could have come up since I came to the dungeon. In any case, Omort summoned you-I figured you wouldn't want him coming to search for you.
Sabine turned to one of her Inferi. "You. Come here." She'd promised the demon that he could be free to move about the cell and clothed. And she was feeling just guilty enough to allow him a pair of pants and some limited freedom.
As the attendant ran off with her instructions, Sabine and Lanthe hastened to court.
"Your eyes are still glowing, Abie. You might want to camouflage that before you see Omort."
Sabine wove a new illusion over her face. "It was ... nice with Rydstrom. Unexpected." A demon lover with eyes tike night-who looked at her as if nothing else existed for him.
"Are you falling for him?"
"Could there be a more doomed relationship? It is ridiculous even to contemplate." His husky voice . . . the way his smooth skin tasted. "He's just so... so good"
"I think that intrigues you," Lanthe said. "He's a male as strong as you, and one you can't defeat."
"Can we talk about this later? Perhaps after you tell me what's happening here?"
"Pravus patrols are returning with reports of small uprisings, increasing in number and intensity. Some of the rage demons even attacked the patrols."
"They've never dared before."
"They know we have their king. And evidently they also know Cadeon has undertaken the quest for the sword. Just like you'd said, it's become a rallying point."
"Can there be anything else?"
"Absolutely! I also heard that Omort has dispatched four fire demons to acquire not just a soothsayer, but the most powerful one in existence."
Sabine said, "Nïx."
The notorious Valkyrie oracle called Nïx the Ever-Knowing, or Nucking Futs Nïx, was rumored to be three thousand years old and exceedingly insane.
But her foretellings, when she deigned to give them, were always accurate.
"It seems she keeps eluding the fire demons," Lanthe said. "Oh! Almost forgot-we've heard word that vampires are converging in the forest outside the castle to
take Tornin."
"Lothaire's?" Was that why he'd been studying everyone, because he planned some kind of treachery? "We don't think so. His covenant is still intact." When they reached the grand double doors of the court, a snickering group passed the sisters on their way inside. "What in the hell is going on?"
"They know you haven't been able to seduce him." Her face fell. "The covenant." Actual evidence that she was still a virgin was available for all the world to
see.
Now everybody would be waiting for the tablet to break. The Sorceri males she'd been sexual with-the ones who could never talk her out of her virginity- would think it great fun that she couldn't even give her virtue away to the one she'd supposedly saved it for.
"There are betting pools," Lanthe muttered.
"Betting pools. And what are the odds?"