Ilona Andrews - Magic Rises

I checked my side. Doolittle was a miracle worker. The shallow gashes were already closing and stripes of paler skin crossed my tan. I picked up shampoo and worked it into foam in my hair. It smelled like jasmine. I took a washcloth and began scrubbing: neck, breasts, stomach, shoulders . . .

Curran reached over my shoulder. I realized he was nude, standing in the shower with me.

He took the washcloth from my fingers and scrubbed my back. The water splashed over us. He closed his arms around me and I felt his muscular body press and slide against my back. In the whole world, there was no better place than being wrapped in him.

His arms were tense. The tightness vibrated in his muscles, like an electric current under his skin.

I turned in his arms. He rested his forehead on mine. I closed my eyes. Being attacked by strange beasts I could handle. Being in the same room with Hugh . . .

“One word,” he whispered, his voice taut with suppressed anger. “Say one word, and I’ll rip him apart. He won’t see the sunrise.”

I looked into his eyes and realized he would. He would step out of the shower, shift his shape, and fight Hugh until one of them stopped breathing. If I stood next to him, he would fight Hugh so I would be free, and if I chose to run, he would fight him so I could get away. Nobody in my entire life had loved me this much.

And because of me and Hugh, and because of Jarek, now Curran was trapped with me in this castle. Fury boiled inside me.

“No,” I forced myself to say. “We still need the panacea.”

Curran locked his teeth.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to the Keep. I’d cut off my arm to teleport all of us back there and forget we ever came here. The frustration built inside me, fueled by fear and anger. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it now. Running in there and fighting Hugh, as great as it would feel, would condemn everyone who came with us and everyone who stayed back home.

I put my head on his shoulder. My hands squeezed into fists on their own.

He held me. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

We stood like that for a long time, water washing over us. Gradually, I became aware that my breasts were pressed against him, that he was hard, and that we were both nude.

I leaned in and kissed Curran, licking him in the sensitive point under his jaw. My tongue tasted the raspy stubble. My body came to attention, suddenly aware and rejoicing in the fact that I was alive. I caressed his face, sliding myself against the slick, hard wall of his chest.

A low male sound came from him, frustration and need rolled into one. “Does your side hurt?” he whispered.

I wanted him so desperately. I needed to be in that place where only the two of us mattered and nothing except love existed. It felt like if I couldn’t have him, I would burst. I shook my head and kissed his mouth, with my eyes open, and saw the precise moment he let himself off the chain. His lips closed on mine. His tongue slid into my mouth. The taste of him, the smoky, male taste, was intoxicating. My body shot into overdrive. Every cell focused on him, screaming, More, more, more! I felt his hands caressing my back, I tasted his mouth, I sensed every hard inch of him pressed against me. I slipped my hand down and stroked the hot length of him.

He made a rough noise, a growl born of pleasure.

Dear God, I had to have him now or I would cry.

“I want you so much,” he whispered.

I opened my arms.

Our fury, our worry, our frustration, and our need collided. He picked me up and hoisted me on his hips, his hands under my butt. I felt so alive. I locked my legs around him. The muscles of his shoulders bulged under my fingers, strong like steel cables. He was looking at me, his gray eyes luminescent with golden sparks and filled with such raw, honest need that I felt light-headed.

He kissed my throat, stoking the fire inside me. I leaned back and let him kiss me more. He licked my breasts, sucking on my nipples. The jolt of desire pulsed through me, molten and electric, and when he thrust inside me, hot and hard, I no longer cared about anything but him. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to feel him touch me.

My back pressed against the cool tile. He slid inside me again and again, pumping in a smooth rhythm into the liquid heat. A yearning need built inside me, each thrust sending a pulse of slick pleasure through me, propelling me higher and higher. My nipples were so tight, it hurt. My legs shook. My joints turned fluid. The anticipation swelled inside me, like a tidal wave threatening to crest. He thrust again. Bliss exploded inside me. The wave crested and drowned me in pleasure, each contraction of my orgasm an ecstasy in itself. I cried out. A moment later he grunted and emptied himself inside me.

“You make me crazy,” he told me.

“Look who’s talking.”

Five minutes later, rewashed and tired, we left the shower. Curran sprawled on the bed. I forced myself to dress—we could end up jumping out of bed straight into a fight—and collapsed next to him. Above us the absurd purple canopy shifted gently in the night breeze. The cool wind felt nice on my skin.

He leaned over on his side, held me, and whispered in my ear, so quietly I thought I imagined it. “I meant it. One word and you’ll never see his face again. In the morning, this castle will be a bonfire and we’ll sail home.”

I’d have to word this carefully. People were listening to us. I whispered back to him. “If we sail down the coast southwest, we’ll pass by the ruins of Troy. Do you remember the story of Paris and Helen?”

“Yes,” he said.

Troy’s favorite son and badass archer, Paris, had sailed to Sparta. He came under a banner of truce. The Spartan king treated him as an honored guest, and then Paris stole the king’s wife, Helen, and emptied his treasury. Nobody really knew if he kidnapped Helen or if she went with him. Her husband could’ve loved her or beaten her every day. But the whole of Greece united against Paris. At the end, Troy was a smoking ruin.

I kissed his jaw. “The bow and arrow was never your thing.”

He locked his teeth, making his jaw muscles bulge.

We promised to be impartial. We came in peace. If we broke that peace and started a bloodbath, we’d get a bloodbath in return. Nobody would see it as an act of a man trying to save the woman he loved from her father’s warlord. The European packs would spin it as an act of betrayal from a man who couldn’t handle being insulted.

Attacking Hugh would be an act of war. Not to mention that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that even if both of us fought him, we’d survive that confrontation. Whatever the outcome, Roland would have an excuse to burn the Keep to the ground. He already viewed the Atlanta Pack as a threat, and this would be the tasty icing on his massacre cake. By the time we got home, people we knew and cared about would be dead.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“It’s because of me.” I was the reason we were all trapped here. I didn’t cause it, but I was the reason for it.

He pulled me to him and squeezed me. “You’re worth the fight,” he said in my ear.

He had no idea how much I loved him.

“We all volunteered,” he whispered. “And without you, we wouldn’t have a shot at the panacea. We need it desperately.”

We fell silent. For a long moment I simply enjoyed being next to him. If only this could last . . .

“He hasn’t attacked me on sight,” I whispered. “That means he’ll want to talk to me.”

“No,” Curran said. “Not alone.”

“Sooner or later this conversation has to happen. If he planned on killing me, why go through all this trouble? He knew where I was. He could’ve just put a sniper on the roof across the street from Cutting Edge and put a bullet through my head as I unlocked the office.”