Page 40

He lifted her hips, placing a pillow beneath her, and raised her bottom in the air.

She moaned as he stroked her wet folds. His knees nudged hers apart as he knelt behind her and entered her, slow, gentle, but deep.

His cock seared her channel with heat as he stretched and filled her.

He felt even bigger from this angle, and she writhed beneath him, her fingers digging into the lavish bedding as he continued to have his way with her.

“You’ll always be mine, Kate.” Roan’s voice was soft but carried a hint of a growl that she was coming to love. He gripped her hips, driving into her and out again, building his thrusts to a furious rhythm.

She could barely think past the exquisite pleasure of him taking her.

This dark dance between the sheets held them both prisoners of their desire.

He seemed to go for hours, torturing her with near climaxes over and over as he drove her to the edge and then slowed before starting over again.

When she could not take it anymore, Kate’s voice grew hoarse with begging for her release.

Roan at last moved to bend over her, his hands grasping her wrists as he lay above her, his chest pressing against her back as he hammered his hips against her ass.

Then she flew apart, her body spiraling in exquisite pleasure.

He shouted her name, his body becoming rigid as he followed her over the precipice.

Heat filled her as she welcomed his release.

His breath, warm and sweet, covered her neck as he took a moment to catch his breath.

“What have you done to me, little one? What have you done? ” Roan’s voice was full of wonder as he pressed kisses to her shoulder.

Kate couldn’t speak, but she smiled as he stayed buried within her a moment longer.

He withdrew and rolled her to face him, curling his arms around her to tuck her into his body.

“You fill me with such madness,” he whispered against the crown of her hair.

In his eyes, Kate saw thousands of years of life with him at her side.

She saw herself exploring everything this universe had to offer.

She saw an infinite stretch of time that could be hers to live, to love, to discover her truest dreams and her deepest desires. Roan could give her all that and more.

Her gaze shifted to stare at the distant labyrinth. Strange... she could not remember why she’d ever wanted to walk through its dark and winding passageways. Her memories were like a melancholic dream that filled her chest with an ache that had no name.

A light from far beyond the vast labyrinth caught her eye. It was like a single flame upon a dark sea of midnight that glowed bright.

“Roan, what is that light?”

Roan rolled to face the balcony doors to see where she pointed. He cursed and threw himself out of bed. “No... no...” In a matter of seconds, he simply snapped his fingers and was dressed.

“Roan, what is it?” Kate clutched the bedsheets to cover herself.

“The beacon fires of the dwarves of the Black Hills. Culan has attacked Vol Buldohr.” His wings were gone, and he was sheathing his sword in a scabbard at his hip.

She scrambled to get out of bed. “Culan... the Seelie king?”

“Babbitt!” Roan bellowed.

The brownie popped into the room.

“Dress Kate at once and take her to Rath and my sister.” Roan glanced between Kate and Babbitt, his blue eyes burning with kingly rage. “Tell Rath that Kate is his mission now. He must see her safely out of danger.”

“Roan—” With the sheet wrapped around her body, Kate ran to him as he stopped at the bedchamber door. “Roan, please, tell me what’s happening.” She grasped his arm, feeling the taut muscles beneath her fingers.

“The war I have dreaded has begun. We are about to engage the Seelie army. Follow Rath’s orders and remain by my sister’s side.

” He pulled Kate into his arms, kissing her one last time.

A moment later he was gone, leaving her and Babbitt alone.

The brownie snapped her fingers, and Kate was back in her jeans and sweater, clean and untorn.

“Mistress Kate, come with me at once.” The brownie tugged on Kate’s arm. “We will find Lord Rath and Lady Eudora. They will know what to do.”

* * *

Calls to arms filled the palace as the Twilight Court fell into chaos.

His soldiers met him in the throne room, where Roan instructed them to fortify the palace and prepare for an assault.

Dozens of Fae women joined his warriors.

They were dressed in slender but strong battle armor, and many carried bows with elf shot arrows or blades.

Even though they were ladies of the Twilight Court, they were not defenseless.

He commanded them to guard the windows and the key entry points of the castle.

“My lord!” One of the ladies pointed to a shooting star of light that, rather than fall to the earth, was flying upward into the night sky.

“Hagni...” Roan recognized the distress call of his trusted friend.

He reached out, opening a single Fae road in the direction of that light.

The air shimmered around him, and a figure burst into being before him.

Hagni fell to his knees, an elf shot arrow buried in his back.

Roan knelt beside the loyal warrior who had fought alongside him over the centuries.

Hagni looked up at Roan, his eyes full of sorrow and pain.

“My king...” Hagni swallowed hard as he struggled for breath. “The dwarves are fighting, and the Lady Kyma has been taken to safety deep in the keep. But they cannot hold the line.”

“Hold still. Let me remove the arrow.” Roan tried to get a better look at the arrow embedded in the guard’s back, but Hagni shook his head. “Too late... my king. Too late. Andvari said to use the ring. He said... you’d know what he means.”

Impossible. He couldn’t use that cursed ring. The battle could not be that lost already, could it?

“Defend... the court... Roan.” Hagni’s eyes clouded with death as his last breath drained from his body. Roan stared at his old friend in shock. Death was so foreign to a Fae. It was unnatural. It was agony to even consider.

“Rest in the starlight, old friend,” Roan whispered as he lowered Hagni’s body to the ground.

“Lord Arun, the labyrinth is burning!” a maiden shouted from a window.

Roan rushed over and stared out into the night.

The distant boundary of the labyrinth to the south glowed with a vermilion edge that stood stark in the night.

A swarm of pixies burst into the throne room, fluttering around the ceiling, their tiny voices crying out what they had seen.

“Fire sprites aid the Seelie,” they shrieked. “They will burn us all!”

Fire sprites were not creatures that Roan guarded his labyrinth against. Sprites of all kinds were considered neutral in the battle between Seelie and Unseelie.

The labyrinth would not keep them out, just as it did not keep out the pixies that roamed the passageways.

But the fire from the sprites should not have been able to harm the labyrinth.

Something was wrong with his wards and spells.

Roan bellowed orders to those nearest him to guard the palace.

Then he rallied his Shadow Guards to follow him.

He opened a Fae road and leapt out of the window, instantly reaching the southern part of the labyrinth, his guards right behind him.

The acrid smell of smoke choked him as he landed a quarter of a mile from the burning walls.

“What are your orders, my lord?” Toran, the new head of the Shadow Guard, asked as he unsheathed his sword.

“Defend the land. Kill if you must.”

“Even the sprites?” Toran asked in a low voice.

“Even the sprites,” Roan said. “They have chosen their side and will feel the consequences. Somehow they have helped break apart the very enchantments that guard our lands.”

Toran gave a solemn nod and spread the orders among the Fae. Roan stared out across the vast walls that were lighting up with fresh flames. Somewhere behind those fires was Culan.

Roan tightened his grip upon his sword as a flurry of fire sprites rounded the nearest tall ivy-covered walls.

He threw a bolt of power from his palm, sending the majority of them careening backward until they crashed into stone.

A sudden cry had Roan and his men spinning around to face a battalion of Seelie warriors, flanking them from the other side.

“To me!” Roan roared and plunged into the fray.

Screams arose from Roan’s right as a massive snakelike creature slithered out of the nearest passageway and barreled into the Seelie fighters.

Several of them turned to stone the moment they gazed upon the basilisk.

It whipped its tail, lashing out at others before striking out and biting those in front of it with its long, venomous teeth.

It charged left after half of the Seelie soldiers.

“To the right!” Roan roared. The basilisk would kill the Seelie in front of it, leaving Roan and his guards free to attack the right flank of Culan’s army.

The labyrinth was fighting back.