Page 50 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
Chapter 12
Lishelle had half a heartbeat to stare at the violent fireball reflected in Tynan’s wide dark eyes before they were both knocked flat.
The breath was punched from her lungs, her ears ringing dully, but he caught her, cushioning their fall. Before that heartbeat finished, he’d dragged her to her feet and they were running back toward the castle.
Her numbed mind supplied only onecoherent thought as she stumbled along behind him: Her scarf had been ripped right off her head, and her hair was an absolute disaster.
For some reason, that realization reset her brain, and she threw herself into the run. She’d never been athletically inclined, but she was tall and she was going to put those long legs to good use, goddamn it. She drew even with Tynan when they hit the frontsteps of the ruins, and she actually passed him in a dead sprint for the front portal.
Ooh, why had she thought the worddead?
There was zero lag in her heartbeat now. Her blood was screaming through her veins, giving her a lifetime of awful cardio in minutes. Together, they swung around and shoved at the huge double doors, closing them tight. When Tynan strained to spin a gear that droppeda thick bar across the entry, she pointed mutely—ears still ringing and her tongue dry in her mouth—at the hole in the ceiling. He shrugged, held up one finger, and pulled the blaster from his thigh holster.
She cringed back. He was going to try to force the attackers to come through one opening. Where he could mow them down.
She swallowed hard. “Tynan, wait.” Her voice sounded thready and weak,even to herself. “It might be the duke or the captain and their people, come to rescue me.” She obviously hadn’t convinced them she’d gone willingly; was it because, as her ex had accused, she always held back a bit of herself, never quite convincingherselfshe was where she wanted to be?
But Tynan shook his head. “That was a mercenary cruiser. No ship ident, and no warning. They’re here forBlackworm. For me. And they just destroyed our only means of escape.”
Okay, turned out, her heart could only race so fast before it stopped entirely. “How did they find us?”
“Apparently whatever flair I had as a warlord atrophied in my time as a love god.” His dark eyes narrowed, sharp and glinting through his lashes, as if the plasma fire had forged his glare into obsidian. “They interceptedour last communications with the station, or they followed our wake, or our mimic shroud wasn’t configured correctly, or…” He snarled. “I larfing failed. I forgot what I was. But that stops now.” He turned those hard eyes on her and grabbed her hand. “Come with me.”
Disconcerted at his abrupt transition, she followed along behind him without question. He hauled her around the dais and then slungher toward the small hidden room behind.
“Get into the spy room,” he snapped. “There’s food and drink for several days.”
A surge of relief made her almost dizzy. “Yes. We can hide here—”
“I’ll seal you in,” he interrupted. “Whatever happens,stay quiet. They’re here for me, or who they think I am. Once they have me, they won’t care about you.”
“Wait—”
He grabbed her, the butt of the blasterpressing sharply into the small of her back as he yanked her up against his chest. He stared down at her, and she was achingly aware of every point of contact between them, even more aware of the fragility of her own body and his, for all his potent strength and godliness.
“You make me believe not what was, but what could be,” he rasped.
“Tynan,” she whispered.
His mouth crashed down on hers,all brutal finality and zero of the grace she’d known from him, as if the infinity he’d known as the God of Beloveds had shrunk to this single point of time between them.
She swayed into him, grasping at his shoulders, but he was already pulling away. Her lips stung from the pain of his kiss, and she could only loose an incoherent cry of denial when he planted his widespread hand between herbreasts and shoved her back into the room. She stumbled a few steps, almost bouncing in the lighter gravity, before she caught herself, but even as she launched toward the opening, he gave her one last look and slammed the door in her face.
“Tynan!” She grabbed for the seam of the hatch. It had taken both of them to force it open yesterday. Despite the hopelessness, she clawed at the recessedhandle, throwing all her weight at the closure. She had enough weight to crack the seal… Argh, but not enough to force it open! She just needed a few more pounds, a little more leverage. Her whole life had been scrabbling to make it just a little further from where she started, and yet here she was again, trapped and abandoned. Not by her own ambition or some vile abductor, but by the man she loved.
She loved him.
The truth expanded through her in ravaging waves like a supernova consuming everything in its orbit. Someone smarter—someone like she’d once been—would run and hide from such devastation. But…what was fear, what was uncertainty in the face of this power? She couldn’t protect herself from this, and…
She didn’t even want to save herself.
Shoving away from the door, she raced tothe spy holes in the wall that observed the dais. Tynan stood in the center of his throne room, staring up at the broken ceiling, his legs braced wide and the blaster extended at his side. Sunlight streaming in a bright column through the shattered window, bright motes dancing in the humid air, left him standing in a pool of stark shadow. He looked like the warlord he was.
And he looked veryalone.
Every muscle in her body contracted with dread and betrayal. She’dtoldhim her secret shame, that she hadn’t fought her way out, and now he’d locked her in. Damn him! She slammed her hands against the wall on either side of the spy hole, as if she could strike a blow against him, against an unfair universe that didn’t believe in the power of love.
She swung her face away from the sightof him ready to fight for her, die for her.