Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(67)

“Just do it,” she groaned in his ear. The lyrics of the song echoed her, eerily. Do it do it do it . . . He slipped the tip of one finger inside her, and it sent every one of her nerve endings into frenzy. She bucked and lost her grip on his zipper.

Niniane, I need to talk to you.

The sharp mental voice guillotined through the sexual haze that clouded her mind. She shook her head, disoriented. Who the hell was in her head? She managed to articulate, What, now?

Right now.

The mental signature of the speaker finally came to her. It was Rune. He sounded harsher and more commanding than she could remember ever hearing him.

Honey, you’re killing him, Rune said. You have to stop this. Shut it down. You’re the only one who can.

TWELVE

You’re killing him.

The words were melodramatic, ridiculous. They made no sense. If they had come from anybody else, she would have lost her temper at the interruption.

But the words came from Rune, and they sent dread flashing through her system. She put her head back against the concrete wall and sucked in air. Her gaze darted around the room as she looked for danger. She found none. For the first time she took note of where they were. They were in a back storeroom of the bar.

Tiago angled his head to kiss her, his features flushed dark with sensuality, knifelike with need.

She jerked her face to the side. Somehow she managed to yank out the words. “We have to stop.”

He froze and looked stricken. He sank down to his knees, and she slid down the wall with him. The friction tore sequins off the back of her dress. They scattered on the floor around them, winking like fallen stars. He let her body weight settle on his lap, braced both forearms on the wall over her head and put his forehead against hers. He ground out, “Don’t do this, faerie. Not this time.”

Rune had better have one compelling goddamn reason for this, or she was going to skin him alive.

She whimpered, “I’m sorry.”

He threw back his head and shouted in silence as he drove his fists into the concrete wall on either side of her head. The concrete cracked, showering gray dust down on their carpet of stars. The breath left her as she stared at his agonized face. She was appalled at what she had done. She rocked forward and threw her arms around his neck. His head came back down. He laid his cheek against hers to nuzzle her even as he hissed at her, his face contorted. His fists were still planted in the scars he had made on the wall. She sat on his thighs, legs splayed wide and felt surrounded, eclipsed by his tremendous body.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again in his ear. She stroked his hair. He shuddered and remained silent as he struggled for control.

She couldn’t see Rune, but he had to be somewhere close by to reach her with telepathy, probably just down the hall. She growled at him, I just did a cruel thing to the both of us, so you start talking, and it better be good.

Rune said, Niniane, nobody will be sorrier than me if I’m wrong. But I’ve just spent the last few hours in Tiago’s company. He behaved like I’ve never seen him behave before. He lost control more than once, and lost it bad.

She listened to Rune’s rapid words, her body clenched as tight as Tiago’s. She cupped the back of his head protectively with both hands. He was breathing deep and hard and slow, like a runner in the middle of a marathon, his skin damp.

Nobody could blame you if you’re looking for an affair, Rune said. If you wanted some kind of comfort, something to hold on to for a little while before you assume the throne, and normally I would cheer you on. But I think Tiago is starting to mate with you, and you know what happens to Wyr when they mate. I hope to hell he hasn’t gone too far already.

She stopped breathing. Tiago, mating? With me?

How gorgeous, miraculous. How impossible and horrific.

Oh gods how I want it, and him.

I can’t, shouldn’t.

Several days ago the shocks had started coming. It had started with her uncle’s death. Over the years, the thought of Urien dying had gradually become something like a fantasy, a vengeful daydream of what might happen sometime in a nebulous future.

When Dragos killed Urien, it catapulted her into a different reality. Every time she thought the shocks might slow down or stop, another one came along and smacked her upside the head. She was beginning to feel buffeted, incredulous, like she had gone swimming at high tide and the waves had caught hold of her. They were tumbling her head over heels, and she only just realized she might be drowning.

She did know what happened to Wyr when they mate. Wyr mated for life. Living in Dragos’s Court, she had watched it happen more than once. The mating came from a complex combination of choice, sex, instinct, actions and emotion. All had to occur at the right intensity and time. Nobody fully understood when the mating became irrevocable. More deep than falling in love, it was a dangerous, often violent time. It was a rare occurrence for those long-lived Wyr known as the immortals. It was even rarer when a Wyr mated with someone who was not Wyr. All too often those pairings could have tragic consequences.

Pia’s mother had mated with a human. When he had died, she had managed to hold on to life long enough to see Pia raised, and then she had faded away. Niniane remembered another time, around 1835, when a Wyr had mated with a Vampyre. They had been together until the American Civil War when differing loyalties had torn them apart. The Wyr had starved to death when the Vampyre left him.