Shameless Desire (The Outlawed Realm) (13 page)

With maddening calm, Nikoli had told his father about the guards and werewolves coming to Regina’s realm.

Domm said nothing. He didn’t even blink.

It was more than Regina could bear, and so she’d told Domm the score. “Vakar must know Nikoli’s here. That’s why he sending guards to this plane. He must also suspect that you helped Lukan and the others to escape. Please, you have to come to this side where we can protect you.”

Domm regarded her as one would an obnoxious child or a future daughter-in-law he didn’t much like. “The guards are collecting women from your side for the rulers to use as pleasure slaves on E4.”

“Are you serious?” she blurted. “How can you be so sure?”

“They’ve invited me to join them in enjoying the newest of the women.”

Revolted, she backed away from the portal.

If that offended Domm, he didn’t let on. Calm as could be, he continued, “I declined, of course, telling them I had important work to do for the realm.” He paused, then added, “Their invitation assures me that I have their trust. They don’t know Nikoli’s still alive.”

“Maybe not now,” she argued, “but they’ll figure it out soon enough if one of the werewolves leads a guard to him. At that point, Vakar will guess what you’ve done. The longer you stay over there, the more danger you’re in.”

“I can’t leave. It’s my duty to remain so I can do everything possible to stop what they’ve done.”

Regina fought the urge to scream. This wasn’t the time for him to play Rambo and possibly fuck things up even more. “Talk to him,” she insisted to Nikoli.

He conversed with his father in their language. Whatever they discussed, their voices remained monotone, betraying none of their feelings. Only the speed of their words told Regina they might be arguing.

At last, Domm held up his hand. Nikoli fell silent. The older man spoke to Regina. “I can do more good here than I could by hiding on your side. I won’t leave. Vakar will never know what I’ve done or what I continue to do.”

Regina wished she could be as certain. She returned to the monitor. Like statues, Meelo and Damir waited for her to speak.

“I know you guys are as worried as I am,” Regina said. “So come on—think.” Their intellect was far more advanced than even the most celebrated genius on this plane. While her kind had been living in caves and discovering fire, Nikoli’s people had already located the portals between the realms and had banished the vampires to this dimension, which caused no end of grief, much as E4’s guards and werewolves were managing now. “There has to be something we can do.”

Damir glanced at Meelo. He could have been Nikoli’s father or Domm’s twin, they resembled each other that closely, even with the brutal scar on the side of Meelo’s face. A reminder of his perilous journey to this plane with Lukan and Damir. She was an exact replica of Sazaar, Nikoli’s former mate who’d fallen under the vampire Andris’s spell. Like all of E2’s women, Damir had the same delicate features, long blonde hair, dark eyes, pale skin.

At their continued silence, Regina sighed. “Help me out here.”

“We’re trying,” Damir offered, “but we don’t know of any way—”

“Wait,” Regina interrupted, having a sudden thought that should have occurred to her earlier. It was such a damn simple solution. “Can’t you close the portals they’re coming through? That would keep more guards or werewolves from entering this realm.” She turned to Nikoli. “We did it with the vampires. We can do it again now, right?”

He ran his hand over his mouth and shook his head.

“Why not?” she pressed.

“We’d have to be in the same vicinity as they are to do so. Even if we did manage to run into them in such a large city, the guards would use the devices Vakar’s giving them to find another area of entry.”

Damir spoke. “Are you certain you saw one of the werewolves in human form the other night? Couldn’t it have been one of your neighbors?”

“No.” Regina frowned. “They don’t stand on their front lawns in the dark, staring at this place. Right now, we can’t even leave the house.”

“You won’t let us,” Nikoli said beneath his breath.

“You’re right about that,” she countered. “No way are you going out there and getting attacked or drugged and dragged back to E2, no matter how confident your father is that it’ll never happen.”

As she paced past him, Nikoli turned in his chair, slinging his arm over the back of it. “You can’t keep canceling your patient appointments.”

Regina waved her hand in dismissal. “I’ve only been out for two days. Carly’s rescheduled them. I’m not leaving you here alone until I’m certain you’re not going to be shot with a tranquilizer dart as Lukan was when he…”

She paused, her thoughts interrupted by something else she hadn’t considered. Returning to the screen, Regina spoke to Damir. “Is there an antidote to what the guards use on the darts? Something’s that fast-acting? Let’s say instantaneous?”

“Yes.” She paused, a bit of shame registering on her lovely face. “I should have provided it to Lukan when he crossed back over to E4 for Arez. I didn’t think of it. I didn’t consider that Vakar would have the guards follow them to the cave. I should have, but I—”

“It’s all right,” Regina said, “we were all under a lot of strain at that time. Now, about the antidote.”

“Yes, of course. You’ll have to prepare it.”

“Not a problem.” Regina grabbed a pad and pen from Nikoli’s desk. “Tell me the ingredients, portions, what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Nikoli cut in. “You’d have to leave the house to get the materials.”

Regina gripped the pen even harder.

“You’re going to break that,” he said.

“Do the guards only hunt at night?” she asked Meelo.

He exchanged a glance with Nikoli. “I can’t say for certain, but it’s probably likely, given that they’re used to the subdued light on E4. Any brightness, like that from the sun, would disturb them as it does Lukan and Arez. Even now, they’re not able to withstand its intensity for extended periods of time.”

“Arez is still doing okay, isn’t she?” Regina asked. “Her pregnancy’s going well?”

Damir grinned, the kind seen on this side, not the stoic, sterile smile from her people on E2. “She and Lukan are at a bookstore, buying instructions on how to raise their baby.”

Regina fought laughter and tears. They’d been through so damn much, she wanted nothing except their happiness, which brought another worry. “Do you think the guards could be searching for her and Lukan?”

“Not here,” Meelo said, his outrage protective, the same as a father’s. “We’re in the land of Arizona now.”

“They couldn’t possibly guess where we’ve gone,” Damir added. “They’re not perceptive and cunning like the werewolves. They follow Vakar’s orders, nothing more. Vakar knows very little about your realm.”

Regina hoped it stayed that way. “I need those ingredients,” she said, putting pen to paper. “And I need all of you to keep thinking about how we can get rid of those SOBs for good.”

He needed to hunt. He needed to kill. The urge for revenge pounded in Kuma’s blood even as the rest of his body reacted to Gwen’s mouth on his throat, her womanly scent and heat.

On a helpless groan, he gathered Gwen to him, his length pressed against hers. She responded by suckling his neck, marking him again as she’d done the past two days, unwilling to let him out of her sight.

The first evening when he’d tried to leave, she’d stood in his way, blocking the bedroom door.

“You’re not going out there,” she’d said. “I’m not letting you get yourself killed.”

She was naked and so defenseless against his strength, Kuma warned himself not to smile or to sigh at how her concern moved him. To reassure her, he tried to reason. “The guards are too stupid and slow to catch much less kill me.”

He ran his hand down her arm. She made a low, purring sound. With as much gentleness as possible, he took her wrist to ease her aside.

Gwen sighed, then pushed all her weight against him, using surprise to knock him back. His breath huffed out. He flapped his arms to keep from falling to the floor. Once he’d regained his footing, he gaped at her.

She smiled. “I’ve taken self-defense classes.” She sobered. “Hell, I give self-defense classes at the hospital to women whose boyfriends and husbands have used them as punching bags. Trust me, I would have beaten the crap out of that guard and blasted him with pepper spray if he hadn’t shot me with that dart.”

“But he did,” Kuma growled. “That’s why I have to go out there and see that he doesn’t do it to another woman.”

“No fucking way. I won’t let you.”

He laughed. “You think you can stop me?”

“I already have, and I’ll do it again.” She put up her hand as he approached. “Not only do I have a gun, I have handcuffs. I’ll cuff you to the damn bedpost to keep you here if I have to.”

She was talking too much as she always did. Saying things he didn’t understand. “What are handcuffs?”

“Restraints made of metal. They go around a man’s wrists to keep him from escaping.”

Kuma regarded the pleasant room, so snug and warm, protected from the night’s dampness, scented with her fragrance and his. He didn’t comprehend any man not wanting to be here or why she would have found handcuffs necessary to make him stay. “You’ve used them in the past to imprison men in this room?”

“What? No. Of course not.” Gwen screwed up her face. Her rich complexion darkened with more color. “It’s a sex toy, like a dildo.”

She was confusing him again.

Her shoulders sagged. She mumbled, “A dildo’s a rubber version, a fake version of your cock, all right?”

He regarded his erect rod, the skin reddened and stinging from him burying it within her so many times. Kuma sensed Gwen was equally sore, not that it kept them from wanting each other again and again. “Why would any woman crave something like that rather than a real man?”

She regarded him with renewed disdain. “Not every woman has a man, so she finds ways to satisfy herself.”

Poor woman. “I have to leave.”

“No.” She pressed her body against the door, arms flung out to each side, nipples jutting. “There has to be a way to do this without you putting yourself at risk each night.”

He studied the pale blue vein on the side of her right breast, wanting to lick it. “There isn’t.”

“There has to be.”

Before Kuma could stop her, Gwen was on her knees, slipping his cock into her mouth, so welcome and warm. She lapped his crown, dipping the tip of her tongue into the small slit, enjoying the first of his pre-come.

He gave in too readily and allowed himself some happiness, even though he knew it couldn’t last. She was right. He was at risk with the guards. Individually, they couldn’t outrun or outmaneuver him, but if more than one or two came over at the same time, he’d be no match for their numbers and weapons.

And so he’d stayed, listening to Gwen talk and talk and talk as she tried to reason this out, finally coming up with a plan. A few minutes ago, she’d shared it with him.

“Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll make our move,” she’d promised after bringing him to climax, then pressed her mouth to his throat, again defeating his purpose.

As she was doing now. With more grace than he could have managed, she moved down his body and turned, straddling his torso, her back to his front.

Unable to see her breasts, he frowned. “Face me.”

“Not now. Later.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

She expected him to accept that as an answer? He grabbed Gwen’s hips to bring her down, beneath him where she belonged.

“Come on, baby,” she cooed. “Let me do this. I won’t hurt you.”

As though she could. What she’d done before—pushing her body against his—was still child’s play in the realm he’d come from. “Do what?”

“This.” She pushed his hands away, then positioned her body over his, her sex near his face, her moist folds close to his mouth, her breath warming his cock.

Kuma forgot what they’d been arguing about. Was this normal behavior for females in this realm, doing this to a man once they’d imprisoned him with their imperious threats and bountiful curves? He grinned, liking it. With his hands on her ass, he guided Gwen closer. For once, she gave him no argument, gasping as he licked the length of her slit. She smelled of him, he of her, their combined fragrances heady and musky.

He tongued her clit.

Gwen stiffened for a moment, then snuggled closer, her lips hugging his crown. If he’d had the strength to speak, Kuma would have thanked her. All he could manage was a grunt and a growl, the man and beast within him responding to her equally.

Indelicate sounds poured from Gwen, revealing her mounting passion. She took him in her mouth all the way to the base of his rod. Warmth rushed through Kuma, followed by tingling sensations. Handcuffs and a weapon couldn’t have imprisoned him faster. The thought of ever leaving this room seemed ludicrous. He adored everything about Gwen—how she looked and sounded, her fearlessness, her desire to protect him.

He’d had Zule’s love, of that Kuma had no doubt, but on E4 she’d deferred to his authority. He’d led and she followed.

If he’d attempted the same with Gwen, she would have laughed and fought him. She was his equal in every way. However, he was still far stronger and accustomed to more hardship than she’d ever been.

The moment she seemed on the verge of climax, he stopped licking her clit.

Seconds passed before Gwen seemed to notice. Rather than release his cock from her mouth as Kuma had expected, she panted around it, then whined, “Dun.”

“Dun?” he mimicked.

Gwen let his rod slip out finally. She puffed, “Don’t stop—why did you stop?”

“I want to be inside your cunt,” he said. “Go on. Take me in.”

She turned as well as she could to see him and curled her upper lip.

How he enjoyed teasing her. As she would say, pissing her off. “Would you prefer to use your dildo?”

Muttering an obscenity, she kept her back to him but did push to her knees and guided his rod into her pussy, little by little, far too slowly.

“Faster,” he complained.

“No. You’ll just have to—”