By the Magic of Starlight (The Forbidden Realm) (9 page)

“I’ve got to find out what game they are playing.”

“Of course you do, but I’m going with you.”

“No! You need to be safe.”

“I am safe when I’m with you. And you’re safe when you’re with me. I rescued you from the Council Hall, didn’t I?”

“And I appreciate it, but I can’t ask you to—”

“I don’t care whether you ask me or not. Our fate is decided, Kyne. That first moment we gave in to our passions our lives became wrapped in each other. Don’t you see? We need each other.”

“I never wanted to need you, Raea.”

“I know. Neither of us planned for this, but I don’t regret it. Do you?”

“No. Never.”

“Good. Then let’s just admit the obvious: we are a team. We work together, we love together, and together we’ll figure this out.”

Her eyes were so bright, so full of devotion and assurance. How could he doubt her? She spoke the truth; they were a team now. For the first time in his life, he’d found one place he belonged, and that was with Raea.

“Together,” he said, reaching to touch her pink skin. “We’ll get to the bottom of things.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said, catching his eyes with her own and giving him a sly smile. “Getting to the bottom of things is fine, although… sometimes I like to be on top.”

He’d been planning to leave this haven, to head out to confront his parents and investigate the network of human and magic machinery. Now, however, the glint in Raea’s lavender eyes and her playful smile sent his mind racing after other pursuits. By the Clouds, she was beautiful. And she was his now; his very own.

“I think we can wait just a while longer before starting off on our journey,” he said.

“At least as long as the Sizing Dust holds out,” she added.

He pulled her to him. Instead of passively lounging in his lap, though, she twisted so she was straddling him. He pretended to defend himself as she teasingly ran her hands over his naked body and shoved him, trying to knock him down. He easily gave in, dropping onto his back and letting her pin him into submission.

“Thank the Skies that bag was full to capacity,” he said.

She shifted her position atop him and grinned. “Thank the Skies, so am I.”

He chuckled at her, until she wiggled a bit more and he was reduced to groaning in pleasure. She had taken him fully into her warm depths again and he’d never felt so completely at home. They fit together more perfectly than he could ever have dreamed.

He supposed the sensible thing to do right now, though, would be to focus on all the unanswered questions they still had—why would fairies conspire with humans like Baylor? Who had orchestrated the trumped-up charges against Kyne? And how could forbidden passions play such a role in disturbing the strange energy of the hybrid machine? For now, though, all he could concentrate on was what he was sure of.

And that was Raea. He loved her. This was more than just passion. This was something that marked him deep in his soul. It marked her, too. He knew that above everything else. She loved him and nothing magical or mundane would ever change that.

She was rocking against him, sweet sounds of wonder and bliss escaping her, and he was very nearly carried away by it all. Their bodies were joined every bit as much as their hearts, as their souls. He pulled her closer, crushing her to him for a kiss that contained more than a promise—it was a vow.

Her lips responded eagerly, drawing from him and giving back. He arched up into her, retreating and then thrusting again. She held on to him tightly. It was as if they’d been lovers for centuries, yet every moment together was their first. The kiss swallowed their cries of completion as the world around them faded away. Once again nothing else mattered but passion, love, and Raea herself.

Serena Gilley grew up reading fantasy and fairy tales, and believing there was a distinct possibility that both of them were real. Somewhere. Even all these years later, Serena’s belief in magic and mystery hasn’t diminished. In fact, she is living out her own happily-ever-after with a handsome prince in a beautiful castle, taming dragons and granting wishes every day. Okay, so the prince is a regular guy, the dragons are really just teenagers, and the wishes she grants are as spectacular as frozen pizza on Friday night, but it’s a fantasy world just the same.

Learn more at:

SerenaGilley.com

Facebook.com/SerenaGilleyAuthor

Please turn the page for a preview of the next book in Serena Gilley’s Forbidden Realm series

Available February 2015

Nicolai Stefanya Vladik paced the length of the boardroom and wished in his very core there was a window in this damn place. It was not in his nature to be cooped up in these constructions, human boxes made of plastic and wood, substances that would wither and melt into a wisp of smoke at the very least hint of fire. It was a tenuous way to exist. No wonder humans were so short lived—they spent so much of their time in these fragile spaces.

Not that Nicolai had been back in his own timeless lair anytime recently. He’d given that up to go on this quest. It was for the good of his kind, yet so many things in this new life still felt unnatural to him. Clothing, machines, shallow entertainments… all of them were so frail, so meaningless. This meeting today with a dozen so-called experts in their fields was a waste. None of these learned humans knew anything. Of course, he ought to be glad for that, but he was tired of the isolation and boredom this situation offered.

He would never be a human despite the years and years his duty had kept him here, walking among them. There were times his nature burned to come out, to take him over once again and let him rid himself of this human foolishness. Today was one of those days. It was all he could do to maintain his appearance.

But he had to maintain. For the sake of his mission, he would keep it together. He would act like a human, live like a human. He would
be
a human. For just a while longer, he could keep up this charade.

He knew what he needed. It was always this way if he let himself go too long without. This human body must be given what it craved or Nic would lose control over it. He would have to do what must be done if he wanted to continue in his role.

The question, of course, was how. Even as the meeting droned on, as the men around him talked about projects and statistics and governmental regulations, he could only wonder how he would tend to his needs. This site inspection, after all, was scheduled to go on for another two weeks. In the middle of nowhere. Nic didn’t dare leave at this critical time, but he also couldn’t figure how to manage his problem.

He needed a woman. Badly. By the fires of below, he thought he could almost smell one, though he knew only men had been assigned to this remote project site. Pity his cravings didn’t lean that way; it would make things infinitely easier. But no. Nic liked women.
Human
women. And there was a definite shortage of those around here.

Still, his need was growing and his senses were overheating with awareness. Just beyond his carefully calm exterior, he could feel the very real presence of a woman. His nostrils flared. His skin tingled on alert. It was as if the air in the building crackled with the hot essence of woman. Damn, but his situation must be worse than he’d thought.

If he didn’t sink himself into warm female flesh soon, he was likely to explode. And this was not just the wishful thinking of the usual frustrated human male. No, this was serious. If Nic thought he might be about to explode, everyone here had good reason to worry. He’d likely take this whole damn mountain with him. He wasn’t just any sex-crazed mortal man, after all.

Nicolai Vladik was a full-fledged dragon.

*     *     *

She was a woman and there was no way to hide it. Lianne McGowan didn’t generally notice that she was often the only female on a given project, or in a department, or perhaps even the only one assigned to any particular building. She was oddly aware, however, that as of her arrival at this jobsite today, she was the only female for a good hundred miles. Or more, maybe.

Iceland, as it turned out, was overflowing with volcanoes and geothermal hot spots. Not so much civilization, however. Not that this concerned her.

She was used to making her way in a man’s world. It meant she had to get the point across right away that she was confident in her role here and wasn’t going to let any good ol’ boys—there were always a couple of those in the group—push her around. Also she wasn’t going to let any of them think she wasn’t just as tough and as determined as they were. Geo-Diagnostics had sent her here with one goal: the project had been lagging and she was supposed to get these guys back on the ball. The higher-ups needed to see some results if they were going to keep the investors happy.

Lianne was here to get those results. It was as simple as that. She knew her job and she knew how to do it. Twelve men or a hundred men weren’t going to distract her. She was ready for whatever attitude problems or temper tantrums they were going to throw at her.

She didn’t bother to knock, but pushed the boardroom door open and stood there for a minute, letting the group inside figure out that something in their little world had just changed. It gave her a minute to look them over, too. First impressions were important on both sides.

A few of the guys she recognized, having worked with them at other sites before. Mr. Casper she knew from way back, and Mr. Blanchard sitting at the head of the table with his usual smug expression made her want to roll her eyes. The other men looked about like every geologist, engineer, and technical geek she usually worked with. No surprises here. Except… one guy was pacing at the back of the room.

Wow. He was not like the other ones. He paused in his pacing to stare at her, silver-blue eyes practically throwing sparks against exotic bronze skin. His gaze stalked her, wild and ferocious as a caged animal. No, he wasn’t like the other ones. Not at all.

The smile he gave her wasn’t very much like the usual patronizing smiles she got, either. His lips curled like he’d been starved for a week and was just handed a plate of lasagna. She’d never really wanted to be lasagna before, but for half a second she was ready to slather on some Parmesan cheese and tell the man dinner was served.

The insanity lasted only a heartbeat, though. After a quick draw of breath and some rapid internal scolding, she grabbed control of herself and managed to take her eyes off him. It wasn’t easy, but she knew better than to get carried away by a pretty face and a pair of ungodly wide shoulders. Any man who looked like that most likely knew he looked like that. That meant he was probably an asshole.

She’d had enough assholes for a lifetime.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she said, enjoying her moment of authority before they all started trying to assert their male dominance. “I’m not sure what you’re up to right now, but I’m here to tell you vacation time is over.”

She heard one of the computer techs mutter her name under his breath. Good. Her reputation had preceded her, so maybe she wasn’t going to have to be a total bitch to get these guys to work with her. She hated playing that role, even though she’d learned it well enough over the years.

“For those of you who don’t know me”—
like the steaming-hot asshole with the silver eyes
—“I’m Lianne McGowan. Yes, that’s McGowan, as in Crandall McGowan is my father and he’s the one all of you work for and he’s not been too happy with the way things are being done here. Or rather, the way things
aren’t
being done, so he sent me to hold your little hands and kick you in the balls until he starts seeing some improvement. Any questions?”

The men glanced back and forth at one another. She noted a couple of raised eyebrows. One of the computer geeks leaned in to his buddy and whispered something. They both snorted and tried to hide idiotic schoolgirl giggles. This was where she either gained them or lost them, right here when these pubescent juveniles tested her. It happened at least once on every site. Sooner or later, they always wanted to see what she was made of.

So she’d have to show them. They’d better not let her damn freckles or the fact that she wore a bra confuse them into thinking they could push her around. She knew exactly what she was doing, and whether it threatened their collective manhood or not, she was in charge. She nailed the giggling techs with a malicious glare.

“You two have a question?”

They shook their heads frantically. She was not about to let them off so easily.

“It sounded to me like you had a question. Did anyone else happen to hear what these two boys were mumbling about?”

Peer pressure was a wonderful thing. She loved to use it to evoke cooperation whenever possible. The men would band together, united in submissive silence, as no one wanted to be the rat who threw the pimple-faced kids under the bus. It would establish her role as leader instantly. Men were so wonderfully predictable at times.

The asshole, however, surprised her. He cleared his throat and stepped forward.

“I believe the first young man wondered if you left your leather whip in your suitcase,” he said. “And the other asked if we ought to call you Lianne, or if you prefer something more formal, like Mistress.”

The horror on the faces of the young techs proved that the asshole had, indeed, heard their whispered conversation. They probably thought they were being clever to insinuate she was some kind of dominatrix. They didn’t look so clever now. One looked like he was almost going to cry, in fact. Poor idiot kid. They’d be more respectful toward her after this.

The asshole, though… now he concerned her.

She shifted her glare to him. “And who are you? I don’t recall running across you in the personnel files.”

“I’m a consultant,” he said, and she detected the dark tones of a slight Russian accent. “Nicolai Stefanya Vladik. You can call me Nic.”

“All right, Nic. And since you’re so eager to help us answer the young tech’s question, what do you suppose I like to be called?”

He narrowed his silver eyes and contemplated her. “Here on the job, no doubt you expect to be called Ms. McGowan. In your private time, though, I suspect you prefer something else.”

Yep, asshole. His eyes were already undressing her; she could feel it. Hopefully he had a good imagination, since that was the closest he was
ever
getting to the goods.

“Well, nobody here is going to find out about that,” she said sweetly. “From this point on, there is no private time, gentlemen. When you’re not in the lunchroom or in your beds, you’re on the job, twenty-four/seven. Got it?”

The men who had worked with her before rolled their eyes and nodded. The others grumbled. The asshole smiled.

“I’m always on the job,” he said. “In the office, in the lunchroom, or… wherever I happen to be applying myself.”

An uninvited little thrill coursed up and then down her spine. Damn, but those silver eyes of his… they did things to her she really did not need right now. At all. And was that the jagged hint of a dagger-shaped tattoo she saw peeking out from the man’s collar at the broad, bronze nape of his neck? What kind of consultant was this, anyway?

Hell. She flew halfway across the world to this frigid, rocky wasteland to play Queen of the Bitches for the sake of dear Dad and
this
is what she was stuck with. It would figure.

Assholes with tattoos just happened to be her weakness. This was going to be a long, miserable assignment.