Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (26 page)

Kate’s arms came up to wrap around his head, holding him to her. “So, you haven’t been able to heal him, but you can’t end his suffering.”

“Yes. His is a fate worse than death.” Teagh pulled back and settled his head on the pillow facing her. He had no right to be kissing this woman, to be holding her. No right. He should be searching for answers, should be doing everything in his power to save his King. The trouble was, he had absolutely no idea what that could be. He felt lost. Helpless.

“You love him.”

Teagh nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat.

Kate cupped the side of his face. “You’ve done everything you can, Teagh. I’m sure he knows that.”

“It’s not enough. I failed him.”

Kate shook her head and her eyes filled with sadness born of experience. “It’s never enough, Teagh. Never. Not when you’re protecting someone you love.”

Teagh closed his eyes and let her hold him. She understood his failure. It was there, in her voice and in the gentle touch of her hand on his face.

“What would he tell you to do, Teagh? If he were here? If he were right here? What would he want you to do?”

Teagh considered the question and opened his eyes to feast on her beautiful face. He knew his friend well, or had, before Ajax had turned into a Triscani. Before he’d settled down with his Queen, he’d been lost. Sad. Alone. Always alone. Since coming to this time, Teagh had finally understood what that felt like. And he knew the answer to Kate’s question.

“He’d tell me to kiss you until you begged me to take you. And then he’d call me a thousand different kinds of fool if I didn’t make you mine forever.”

Teagh rose up on his left elbow and used the hand on her ribs to tuck her beneath him. She kept her hands wrapped up in his hair and looked up at him with a softness in her gaze he’d never seen before. He lowered his head to kiss her, but she stopped him with a hand to his lips. “Why are you calling me Kate?”

He caught her gaze and held it, willed her to understand. “Because Katherine belongs to them. She’s a warrior who walks in the dark. A tigress determined to protect the whole damn world.”

He lowered his head and she let him. His lips brushed hers as he whispered the rest. “Kate is mine.”

He kissed her then, because he couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to feel her come alive in his arms, to writhe and squirm and beg. He wanted to hear his name on her lips when she came and know that no other man would ever be granted the right to touch her, or kiss her, or love her.

He kissed her until she whimpered and clung, his palm on her Mark shooting fire through both of them. And he held it there, a reminder and temptation, just below her breast, as he finally released her mouth and gently kissed his way across her cheek to her ear. “You’re mine. And I’m never letting you go.”

Kate turned to him, her soft feminine cry music to his ears as she sought his mouth. She tasted him, fearless as the tigress he’d named her, her tongue in his mouth. She buried her hands in his hair and locked him to her in a demanding grip he had no will to escape. He wanted to give her everything she required and more.

She tugged at his shirt and he removed it gladly. In the two seconds it took him to lift his shirt over and off his head, she’d done the same with his T-shirt and lay before him naked. Willing.

Wanting him. There was no word for what he felt when he looked at her and saw the passion in her eyes and the Mark on her side. Want? Desire? Lust?

None of them even came close.

Ownership? Pride? Relief? Fear? Love? His emotions were a complicated tangle he couldn’t hope to unravel with his blood singing and his cock straining to reach her.

He reached for his waistband and her gaze cleared, became guarded. He wanted to weep when she held up her hand to stop him from removing them. “Stop, Teagh. We can’t do this. I can’t. I want to. Desperately. But I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Why?” He sank to kneel beside her, not touching her. Hurting. Again. And then he realized why she might be worried. “Ah, Kate. I won’t get you pregnant. Immortals have control of their bodies, and I would never…”

“Jeez. I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m totally losing it here.” She rubbed her lips together and tugged her discarded T-shirt up to haphazardly cover most of her naked torso, the curve of her breast and hip still free to torment him. “I’m on birth control. It’s standard in the Casper Project for all female operatives. That’s… I… That wasn’t it. I have to tell you something. And after I do, I don’t think you’ll want to do this. I can’t bind you to me. Not like this.”

Teagh’s chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. “What? No more secrets, Kate. Tell me.”

“I told you that the Casper Project gave me gene therapy. Ajax’s D.N.A.?”

“Yes. I don’t care about that.”

She drew a shuddering breath and he prayed for patience as she gathered her courage. He had a feeling whatever she was about to tell him was going to break him.

“They used a virus to get the genetic material into my system.”

“That is usually how it’s done, love. I still don’t care. I don’t care if you have Ajax’s D.N.A. or a monkey’s. I don’t care. You’re still mine.”

She smiled then, and he knew he’d been wrong. She wasn’t going to break him, he was already broken into a million tiny pieces that would never be whole without her. “Doc Hansen said he doesn’t know what the virus might do to me over time.”

Every muscle he had froze in place. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I met get stronger. I might get sick. The virus could eventually kill me. There’s no way to know.”

Teagh studied her for a moment as relief flooded him. She was trying to protect him. She cared enough to deny herself to save him. Very deliberately he reached for the waistband of his shorts.

“Teagh? What are you doing? Didn’t you hear me?”

Teagh threw the remainder of his clothes on the floor and leaned in over her, naked as she was, caging her in his arms. He studied her slowly, felt like a predator, waited for her to run. She didn’t. “You aren’t going to die, Kate.”

He tugged the T-shirt from her hands to reveal her long, lean body and tossed it on the floor as well. She didn’t resist or try to cover herself, just looked up at him, confused.

“But. Teagh. I…”

“Just stop talking now.” He rolled her flat onto her back and lowered himself inch by delectable inch until he covered her completely. She didn’t push him away.

“We can’t do this.”

He supported his weight on his elbows, but kept their bodies aligned. Touching everywhere. Thigh to thigh. Chest to chest. Her hips cradled his erection dangerously close to where he wanted it to be.

Teagh lowered his forehead to hers and met her gaze. “You. Are. Mine. Did you not listen to me?”

“But what if the virus is going to kill me? We’ll make love, we’ll bond, and then I’ll have to leave you. I won’t do that to you. I don’t know how sick I could get, or how long I’d have. It’s not right.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and he moved his hands in closer to her head so he could use the pads of his thumbs to gently wipe them away.

“Hush.” He kissed her softly. Once. Twice. “You’re not going to die, Kate. Hell, you aren’t even going to get sick, ever again.”

“But…”

“No. It’s your turn to listen.” He kissed her again just to make sure she kept her mouth closed. “You’re mine, but you also have a bond with the Gate. It gave you a piece of itself, sent its power into your body, into your bones. I saw it myself. It answers when you call. It obeys your commands.”

She drew breath to speak so he kissed her again, a fiery tangle of teeth and tongue that had her lifting her hips beneath his, trying to get closer. He finally broke the kiss and shifted his hips so his erection would rub her most sensitive spot. She gasped and he trailed kisses to her ear. “You’re Immortal now, Kate. No virus can kill you. You won’t age or get sick. You will always be part of the Gate. I understand that now. And if that weren’t enough, you happen to be friends with the most powerful healer alive. A virus would be nothing to your friend, Mari. Either way, you’re mine and I keep what’s mine. I told you already, I’m never letting you go.”

Kate reached up beneath his arms with her hands to cage his face. When she tugged his wandering lips from her neck up to look at her, he allowed it. He wanted to taste her lips again, anyway.

“I can’t believe I forgot about Mari. But, is that the truth? I’m Immortal now? Because of the Gate?”

He looked deep into her eyes, to her soul, and spoke directly to it. “Yes. Forever.”

“Because you’re part of the Gate, too?”

He nodded. “Forever is forever, Kate.”

She dragged his mouth down to hers and kissed him like she’d die without his taste in her mouth. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding him to her, as if afraid he’d try to escape her embrace. He never wanted to be anywhere else.

But then he discovered that he did. He needed his freedom to move. He wanted to taste her. Everywhere.

He kissed her jaw and neck. Worked his way down to her small, soft breasts and nuzzled them with his nose before pulling a dark nipple into his mouth. She tasted like fire and dreams, and when his mouth reached her Mark, he shuddered at the jolts of fire that seared through him. He lingered there, tracing the design with his tongue, more grateful than he’d ever been for anything in his life.

Kate didn’t love him yet. But she wanted him. And she cared. It was a start. He’d just have to seduce her every day, tease her and protect her, hold her and walk beside her in the dark.

He’d just have to love her until she learned to love him back.

Teagh needed to taste all of her so he reluctantly left the Mark behind and kissed and nibbled his way to her feminine core. She was hot and needy, begging for him to kiss her there. Touch her. Taste her.

He obliged, and nearly came himself as she moaned and lifted her hips off the bed. Her orgasm hit hard and fast, and the walls of her core rippled and rode his fingers as his tongue teased and licked her.

He tortured her until she begged, and then he allowed her to pull him up for a kiss, wrap her legs around his hips so he couldn’t break free. Her hand on his cock nearly made him explode, but then she guided him home.

Hot. Wet. Ecstasy.

Home. She was his home now.

The Mark burned into his skin and he hoped it turned black so there’d never be any doubt that this woman was his.

He shifted his hips and buried his face in her neck, kissing her, loving her, rocking against her in an age old rhythm until they both shattered.

Chapter Thirteen

Katherine was content to lie in bed, completely remade, taken apart and put back together again by the dark lover who lay beside her. The sun was beginning its evening descent and the room was bathed in a soft orange glow. His hand rested over the Mark on her ribs, and his head lay over her breast, listening to her heartbeat jump in reaction every time his fingers stroked over the Timewalker’s Mark.

Teagh’s Mark was darker now. Filled in and solid, the color of espresso in his mocha-toned skin. Her paler complexion resulted in the Mark looking like something closer to the color of ripe Bing cherries. A distinct difference that Teagh found fascinating, and determined to taste.

He licked her again on his way to her nipple and, despite the fact that they’d lounged around in bed all day making love, she arched beneath his talented tongue hungry for more of him. “You’re insatiable. I can’t possibly do that again.”

“You’re Immortal, Kate. We can do this for a week without stopping.” He smiled but relented, pulling her close to his chest and kissing her softly instead. “And one day, we will.”

“But not today?”

“No.”

“Why not?” She nearly laughed at herself, at the regret she couldn’t keep out of her tone. The last few hours were the best of her life, bar none, and she wasn’t quite ready to give them up and go back to the real world, with Triscani Hunters, insane Kings and an Immortal race that seemed to be pretty much nothing but royal pains in her ass.

“That wasn’t nice. I even brought you breakfast in bed.” Teagh nipped at her nose and she did laugh this time.

“It was more like a late lunch, and if you don’t want to know what I’m thinking, stop listening.”

“I do want to know what you’re thinking. When I don’t, you run off and scare the hell out of me. It’s part of the bond, Kate. It’s designed to keep the males sane.”

She shook her head but laid her cheek against his chest. “Very funny. I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, you know.”

“I know.” She felt his pain, and it mirrored her own. They’d both been doing what they thought was right, trying to protect people they cared about, but it had nearly gotten her killed. And broken her heart.

But no more. Now it seemed that their biggest problem was finding a way to win the big battle against the Triscani without Ajax. After what she’d been through the last forty-eight hours, that didn’t sound so bad.

Once real life began to intrude on her thoughts, they wouldn’t stop. She’d called the Doc earlier this morning to let him know she was all right. Teagh had taken the phone from her and asked a few questions about the virus, but didn’t seem worried about it after speaking to the doctor, so she didn’t either.