Master of Shadows (23 page)

“So you tried to kill him?” Belle fought the impulse to slam her fist into the Maja’s face.

Sabryn tossed her red hair. “If I’d tried to kill him, he would be dead.”

“You blasted a hole in his bedroom wall, you psychotic cow! What if that blast had hit him instead?”

She shrugged one shoulder and glanced away. “I would have healed him. And it would have taught him a lesson.”

“So why don’t I teach
you
a lesson?” Belle spoke between her teeth. “I demand satisfaction, Sabryn Sans Merci. Choose your seconds.”

Sabryn’s head snapped back toward her as her jaw dropped. “Are you challenging me to a duel, you lunatic?”

“Lunatic? I didn’t blast holes in Tristan’s house. Will you give me satisfaction or not?” Duels among the Magekind were exceedingly rare, but they weren’t unheard of.

“Not!” Morgana snapped, glaring fiercely at Belle. “Do I have to remind you we are on the brink of war?”

“She needs her ass kicked by someone who can honorably do it.” Belle glared at the younger witch. “She wouldn’t have dared attack Tristan if he could have fought back.”

“Are you calling me a coward, bitch?”

Belle displayed her teeth. “And you’re
clever
, too.”

“Stop it, Belle.” Magic sparked dangerously in Morgana’s eyes, revealing how close she was to losing her own temper. “As your liege, I forbid you to duel. Sabryn, I will deal with you. Belle, don’t you have armor to reinforce?”

“Yes, actually.” She gave Sabryn another flash of her teeth. “Tristan’s.”

Sabryn stepped toward her, magic flaming on her palm.

“Enough!” Morgana roared. A wave of force rolled out from her palm, seizing Sabryn and flinging her against the wall of Tristan’s living room hard enough to shake the house. That the blast had simultaneously cushioned her back was revealed by the fact that she was still conscious as she hung there, pinned like a butterfly by the older witch’s power.

“Belle, get out of here,” Morgana snapped, glaring at Sabryn. “You want Tristan that badly, he’s yours. I wish you joy of him. Go.”

Belle turned and stalked for the door. Just before it closed behind her, she heard Morgana say, “Now, about this habit of yours of attacking other agents . . .”

 

Belle’s knees were
shaking, and she took a deep breath as she walked home. The sun rose high in a clear blue afternoon sky, and the cobblestone streets were accordingly quiet. Avalon tended to roll up the sidewalks during the day, since many Majae followed the same sleeping schedule as the Magi did.

She’d challenged Sabryn to a duel over Tristan. Now that she’d left the scene, it was hard to believe she’d done it. But when she’d seen his burns and bruises, not to mention that sword wound, her temper had started smoking. It hadn’t taken much goading from Sabryn to make it explode.

One thing was for sure, Morgana would never again stick her nose into Belle’s love life. Which made the whole embarrassing incident worth it.

Now she intended to go home and curl up beside Tristan again. Tonight she’d start work on his armor.

Well, maybe not first thing.

 

When the sun
set, Tristan’s consciousness returned in a rush, as it always did. He could feel the delicate weight of Belle’s lush body stretched across his.

Opening his eyes, he glanced down. She was curled around him like a fox stole, one long leg thrown across his hip, an arm lying over his chest. Her long blond lashes feathered her cheeks; she was still deeply asleep.

She’d forgiven him. With a sigh of relief, he wrapped his arms around her and relaxed back into a lazy doze.

Until, that is, Belle stirred and moved against him in a long, feline stretch. He heard her heartbeat pick up as she woke, and he was abruptly aware of the lush female perfume of her scent, tinged with magic and jasmine.

Just like that, he was as hard as Excalibur. His fangs lengthened, aching in his jaw, and he was abruptly starving for her, for the taste of her sex and the magic in her blood.

He rolled over with her and covered her mouth with his, moaning in hot need at the way she tasted, at soft breasts and hard nipples, the long, silken heat of her legs sliding apart for him. His cock came to rest against her firm little belly, and he imagined how she’d feel gripping him, tight and slick and ready.

His tongue slipped into her mouth. She opened for him with a moan, her arms sliding around his neck.

Nobody had ever
kissed her like Tristan, Belle realized in that heady moment. He drew her close with arms strong and warm, and covered her in a body he’d forged as hard as any weapon. His tongue slipped into her mouth, swirling lazily, brushing over teeth and lips, teasing her into licking him back. She kissed him until the sheer heat of it grew to be too much, and she had to fling her head back and breathe.

That didn’t discourage him. He only switched his attention to the angle of her jaw, the shell of her ear, the throbbing leap of her pulse. Belle quivered against him, loving every kiss.

His long swordsman’s fingers discovered her breasts, stroking over them with fingertips rough with calluses that somehow made his touch even more arousing. When he pinched her nipples, she shivered, enjoying the delicate delight. He tugged her, twisted gently, even as he made love to her pulse with his mouth, teasing her skin with the gentle rake of his fangs. Not piercing, not breaking the skin, just running the points over her flesh until she tightened, imagining the sweet almost-pain of his bite. She loved the way his bite made her float, head spinning as he fucked her, his body thrusting hard and sure into hers.

Her dark lover. Her sweet bastard, with his fiery temper and utter lack of diplomacy. You always knew where you stood with Tristan. He never sugarcoated anything, never told pretty lies, no matter how badly you wanted to hear them. He was what he was.

And he was delicious.

She stroked her hands through the rough blond silk of his hair down to the hard planes of his shoulders. He’d kissed his way lower, and his mouth hovered over her nipples now, making her catch her breath.

His tongue flicked out to circle one hard point in a teasing little dance. Another lick, hot, wet, teasing, making her squirm with the pure intensity of sensation.

Tristan feathered his rough fingers over her breast as he licked her, a back-and-forth flick of his tongue. Until he engulfed her nipple for a good, hard suckle that sent streaks of golden fire running up her spine.

She raked her nails gently across his back, barely resisting the urge to dig in as he teased and nibbled and stroked. Belle shivered as he played his hands over her skin, until one hand found its way between her legs.

His fingers slid between her delicate lower lips, sending heat shooting through her like a lightning strike.

“God, Tristan!” she gasped.

“Yes?” he purred against her breast, his voice flavored with laughter.

“You know, two can . . . AH! . . . two can play that game!”

“Can they?” He bit down gently on the nipple, then laved it as if in apology.

“Yes—especially if one of them’s a witch.” An image flashed through her mind: Tristan, tied to her bed with scarlet ribbons, deliciously helpless while she . . .

Uh, no. Not with his mental scars. The thought of the fear such a scenario might trigger washed over her like a bucket of cold water.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but stop.” Rising to hands and knees, he slid between her legs, spread them with big hands, and settled his shoulders between them. Feeling his fingers spread her lips, Belle rose to brace herself on her elbows. His blond head bent as he contemplated her sex with a very wicked smile.

His first lick streaked fire across her clit. “Oooh!”

He rumbled back at her and licked again, treating her like a melting ice cream cone.

“No fair,” she informed him. “I can’t touch you all the way down there.”

“Really?” His tongue swirled, sampled. “That is too bad.”

She shivered, and her eyes narrowed. There was more than one way a witch could touch her lover. Belle let her power rise and sent it swirling down his body until she could feel him, the ripple of hard muscle under velvety skin, the silken curls of chest hair spreading across wide pecs and down his abdominals, the tight jut of his male nipples.

The width and heat of his cock.

Belle smiled, slow and wicked.

He threw up his head, startled, his wide eyes meeting hers. “Belle!”

Her smile only widened.

 

The grin on
Belle’s face was downright evil. As well it should be, because it felt as if her tongue was simultaneously licking both Tristan’s nipples and the length of his cock.

“Now, that is just not fair.” His attempt at a stern tone shattered into a near-squeak when teeth closed over the head of his cock. Which was flatly impossible, since his dick was pressed into the mattress more than a yard from her talented mouth.

But Belle had a lot of talents, and she demonstrated every one of them on his hapless body. He went back to work licking her in sheer self-defense. She tasted delicious—salty, female, distilled, musky, sex. His cock lengthened and grew harder than his armor just from the taste alone—never mind the wet swirl of her tongue.

Suddenly he had the unmistakable sensation of his cock plunging to the balls into Belle’s hot mouth, right down her throat to a depth he suspected was probably impossible. He was a big man, and taking him that far was not something most women could do.

Yet Belle and her tricky magic accomplished the job nicely. She dug her nails into his shoulders—that was real; he saw one hand out of the corner of his eye. But simultaneously, those nails bit into his ass while her heels rode the small of his back. His head whirled from the delightful intensity of her hands, her mouth, the heat of her body, until he had trouble telling what was real.

His body didn’t particularly care. He felt lost in the taste of her, the perfume of her arousal, the flick of tongues and fingers, until he felt a climax pulsing in his balls, and he knew he was about to lose it. Just shoot like a green boy into the sheets, which he hadn’t done since—ever, come to think of it.

“Enough!” Tristan lunged upward, gasping as he crawled up her lush body and took his cock in a shaking hand. Barely taking time to aim, he drove to the balls, hard and fast, managing at the last minute to drag back on his vampire strength. They both groaned at the sensation.

Which was when his gaze met hers, and caught helplessly in the blue-gray depths, in the pupils so huge and dark in the candlelight. He was conscious of her trembling mouth, her slow, dazed blink up at him, as if she was tracking about as well as he was. Which was not at all.

Tristan’s arms shook, not with effort, but from the sheer sensory overload of being so deep inside her. His head spun with sensation. Every inch of her pressed to every inch of him. Warm. Fragrant.

He lowered his head and kissed her. The magic of it exploded in his awareness—not some trick she was doing, but the raw truth they made together.

“Tristan.” She spoke his name, and the word trembled on her lips, quivered from her mouth to his.

“God, Belle,” he breathed. He knew he should add something clever and romantic, but just then, that much intelligence was beyond him. He started thrusting, a slow in-and-out pressure that made stars light up his skull. One of her heels dug into his butt, and he picked up the pace, as obedient to her urging as a stallion.

He couldn’t seem to look away from her eyes. They held him, blue-gray as storm clouds, deliciously inescapable.

This was
different
from every time he’d made love before. There’d been times he’d been more creative, times his partner had been kinkier, times there’d been riding crops and fuzzy handcuffs. Yet he’d never felt such stark intensity, as if something momentous was happening, something that went beyond mechanics and body parts and toys. As if he and Belle had touched.

Fuck if he knew what it meant.

All he did know was that the way she touched him reached parts of him no one had ever reached. Not Isolde, not any woman.

Her pulse leaped in her throat, and he lowered his head and took it. Something snapped in his head like a closing circuit, forming an intense connection with the throb of her heart and the taste of her blood. And they were, somehow, one.

He suspected he should be scared out of his mind.

Justice reported what
he’d seen to the members of the Security Council in a carefully objective voice. He couldn’t let them think his emotions had been affected by what he’d seen. It took real work; he still felt sick at the memory of Emma Jacobs’s savaged belly. It wasn’t the goriest corpse he’d ever seen; there’d been the ninety-year-old man who’d murdered his wife with a hatchet, plus a few shotgun killings and several traffic accidents that still gave him nightmares because of the kids involved.