Embrace the Wild (The Blood Rose Series Book 6) (3 page)

He’d hurt her.

Sweet Goddess! Not again.

“Miriam, I’m so sorry.” Still on his knees, he shifted away from the side of the chair in which she sat. His ass hit the stone tiles of his living room and he held his head in his hands. He was in a painfully aroused state and dammit, he’d become an animal.

He’d promised Miriam he’d keep himself under tight control.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“I’m so sorry, Mastyr Malik, but I can’t serve you anymore. My husband was adamant that if this happened again, he wouldn’t allow me to come back. I have to resign.”

He glanced at her arm, horrified all over again. She’d be black and blue for days unless he did something for her. “Let me call you a healer.”

Miriam drew in a deep breath. “That would be best.”

Not ready to stand up yet, he shifted to dip his hand into the pocket of his jeans. Pulling out his realm cellphone, he called Alexandra the Bad, who had ruled the Guild in his realm for longer than he’d taken his first breath.

She growled over the phone, somehow knowing exactly what had happened, then stated harshly that she was on her way. Malik knew that when she arrived, she’d deliver a weighty lecture, and one he damn-well deserved.

He then summoned his housekeeper, requesting dewberry tea for Miriam.

His
doneuse
wiped at her eyes.

He was so fucking ashamed. “I’m sorry. Dear sweet Goddess, a thousand apologies.”

Miriam huffed a ragged sigh. “Mastyr, if there was any other way.”

He lifted a hand. “You don’t have to say anything. I was out of control and this is all my fault.” He wanted to explain, but what could he say? That he had the hots for a woman who swam naked and disappeared into vines?

But Miriam shook her head. “Please listen to me. I may not be as powerful as the fae in the Ashleaf Guild, but I know that you’re suffering in a way you didn’t even two years ago. You seem incredibly sad, Mastyr, yet I have this sense that something very realm is upon you, and that whatever possessed your mind just now has a realm source. You shouldn’t ignore it.”

Malik stared at Miriam for a long moment. Was she right? Was it possible that his obsession with Willow had meaning beyond the deep lust that he experienced? “I’ll think on what you’ve said. I promise.”

A few minutes later, Alexandra the Bad assaulted his house.

She was a stout fae with an additional two hundred years on Malik’s three centuries. She took one look at Miriam’s arm and cast him her deepest scowl, the kind that brought her bushy, porcupine brows into a single, disapproving line. “What the hell have you done, vampire? This is an abomination. Have I not warned you sufficiently?”

“You have, and I have no excuse.”

She pinched her lips together. “We will have words, but after.”

“Of course.”

She turned and focused all her attention on his
doneuse.

When Alexandra had made all the bruising disappear, she sent Miriam away, then turned the full force of her displeasure on Malik. Compressing her lips, she glared at him. “This is the third time in three weeks. You need to get hold of yourself and don’t even think about pulling your ‘I’m-the-Mastyr-of-Ashleaf’ gremlin shit with me. I dandled you on my knee, Malik, and don’t be forgetting that! Stop hurting your
doneuses
or the next time I will report you to the Sidhe Council for abuse. You can count on that.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“You said that last time.”

“I vow to you it will not happen again. I know what I need to do.” He’d been avoiding it from the time he first gave Willow chase; he needed to confront the woman who had captured his mind and end this thing between them. It was possible that she’d created some kind of chemistry between them, a charm perhaps. She was, after all, extremely powerful.

But whatever this was, Willow was the cause. And this time, if he had to hunt her down all through the night until she fell exhausted at his feet, he’d force her to explain herself.

“And are you making a vow to the Goddess?” Alexandra asked.

He nodded. “I am.”

“Then I suppose I must be satisfied.” She narrowed her gaze. “But I can feel your determination, so for the present I will rest in that. I’m counting on you.”

“I won’t let you down.”

After several more glares and at least two ‘harrumphs’, Alexandra left.

Malik remained by the door for a long moment, a hand pressed to his stomach. Miriam’s blood, as fine as any by realm standards, had done little to ease his chronic blood starvation. His stomach cramped but there was nothing to be done about that.

However, the straying of his thoughts all over his most recent experience with Willow had left him with an ache he had to get rid of, and he headed to his bathroom.

He set the jets of his shower on cold, undressed, then stepped in. His skin was so heated that it took the icy feel of the water to bring him down to normal.

But he still needed a release.

Soaping up and leaning a forearm against the tile, he let his thoughts run wild.

Willow.

Sweet Goddess, Willow.

Once more, he saw her auburn hair and milky skin, eyes the color of stormy skies, breasts that made his groin ache. He saw her rising naked from the pool then turning to run.

She moved liked the wind.

He gave chase mentally, while his hand went to work on his cock, pumping fast, his breathing growing rougher by the second.

He knew exactly when he wanted to come. Just a few more seconds as he watched her racing, her narrow waist, full hips, her bottom an invitation like nothing else.

Then there it was. She glanced at him over her shoulder and met his gaze, connecting with him in a way that he felt shot full of fire. He came hard, remembering that look. His balls fired off, sending his seed rocketing, delivering up a rolling series of exquisite pulses.

“Willow,” he whispered against the tile and flowing water.

After a moment, when his heart returned to normal, when he heard the wild chattering of the birds in his nearby aviary, he slowly rinsed off and finally left the shower.

He should have felt tremendous relief. Instead, his craving for Willow seemed even more intense. He wanted to touch her, to bury himself between her legs, and to feed from her vein.

By all the elf lords, he was in deep shit.

From a distance, he heard his housekeeper, Francesca, call to him.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he responded, “What is it?” But his heart sank because his housekeeper only disturbed him in his private quarters when something bad had happened.

“The Society struck again. A murder in Birchingwood. And Mastyr, there were children this time.” He heard her voice catch, and his own throat tightened.

Dear Goddess, not children. How would he ever bear it?

~ ~ ~

Well past full-dark, Willow sat cross-legged in her meditation space, one of several isolated rooms in her expansive treehouse complex. Her heart labored, which had been happening a lot lately, especially after Malik gave chase.

She forced her eyes to close as she pressed her thumbs to her middle-fingers and began a soft fae calming chant. Her responsible nature settled deep into her bones once more.

She had to let Malik go. She had to forget about him and her ever-present desire for him, and focus on what was infinitely more important – keeping the wraith-colony from being discovered.

If Mastyr Axton ever found a way in, he’d slaughter everyone: Man, woman, and child. And they were good realm-folk to the last baby wraith.

She ran through one of her favorite centering meditations,
Goddess of all that is love, who created the world of the Nine Realms, the expansive universe above and the blessed earth below, please strengthen me to serve Ashleaf and the colony. And help me to stay focused on the protective shield.

The simple prayer calmed her mind and solidified her focus. If she continued in this way, she would have no problem supporting the protective shield through the night. She would soon be reaching out to Mastyr Malik as well to arrange for a meeting. Once she ended things between them, she would be able to fully turn her attention to keeping the colony safe.

The wraith community had been part of Ashleaf Realm for more millennia than the current ruling wraiths even knew.

And beneath their cottage-like homes, established in the largest meadowland in Ashleaf, beat the heart of the Nine Realms like a living force that Willow felt even now.

She gained her strength from that beating heart and allowed the vibrations from within the earth to rise and cover her.

She could breathe more easily now.

Suddenly and without warning, however, the image of Malik once more intruded within her mind, but not in the sense of needing or wanting him. Instead, the beating heart of the realm connected her to Malik so that right now she could feel that some kind of terrible despair had overtaken him. Because Malik carried the weight of his realm with him at all times, she knew the sorrow he also bore that half-breeds died so often in Ashleaf.

And she knew without having to be told that more of her kind had died and his sadness became hers.

Her heart reached for him and because she could feel the earth’s vibrations, a present-moment vision came to her that brought tears to her eyes. She watched Malik fall to his knees over the bodies of a family of four elves murdered viciously with an axe, the way The Society killed half-breeds. She knew the family because she knew every realm-person in Ashleaf known to have a full-blooded wraith for either a grandparent or a great-grandparent.

Her heart felt bludgeoned as she held the vision within her mind.

Tears now flowed down her face just as they flowed down Malik’s.

As one-quarter wraith, she knew the stigma that all half-breeds bore in Ashleaf, and that each realm-person with even a hint of wraith-blood would one day be targeted for extermination by The Society.

She pulled out of the vision and opened her eyes, wiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt.

She rose from the small space and moved to the window that she’d thrown open for the night. Ashleaf Realm had dozens of night bird species that chattered and called out until dawn. From the thirty foot height of the meditation room, she could see down into the shallow stream at the foot of her oak-based complex. Frogs croaked and some of the larger birds waited to catch a meal near the stream.

She stood there for a long time, just staring down into the stream, listening to the frogs and the chatter of the birds.

Sadness clung to her for a long time as well as thoughts of Mastyr Malik and what it must have been like for him to enter the elves’ home. She wished she could ease him and console him at such a terrible time.

Instead, her duties lay elsewhere. She knew what needed to be done, and she made the difficult decision to go immediately to Birchingwood and to finally speak to the man she’d been craving for the past two years.

CHAPTER TWO

Malik walked slowly out of the home of the cobbler elf and his family. He tried to wipe the blood off his hands, but couldn’t. He had blood on his leathers, his boots, the bottom edge of his Guardsman coat.

He’d knelt in the spilled blood because there was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t bring the family back to life, shore up their horrific wounds, or make the blood disappear. All he could do was kneel, take a moment, honor the dead.

The killer had used an axe.

He leaned against the front porch post, shading his face with his hand. The attack had been incredibly brutal, worse than anything he’d witnessed before, which meant he was sure the family had been tortured.

He’d seen a lot of bloodshed in his life, but the little, twin boys had only been toddlers, maybe two-years-old, if that. Nausea now accompanied his usual stomach cramps, and his mind still wasn’t functioning right.

A village woman, a troll and a good neighbor to the family, approached him. She carried a basin of water in her arms, and a rag dangling from her hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “We know one day you will make this right, Mastyr, and that you will end The Society forever.”

He stared at the tightly compressed ridges of her forehead. He didn’t blink as she began wiping the blood from his boots and his Guardsman coat.

As she performed this grief-laden service, he glanced up and down High Street of Birchingwood. He had twenty of his Vampire Guard standing watch at intervals. Many realm-folk wept openly and more than one woman wailed her distress and her grief.

He glanced up at the treehouse level, two and three stories above the ground. Many occupants of the homes up there stood along the rope walkways that led from tree to tree.

Some of the realm-folk wept, some just stared at him in mute horror. Others looked distastefully satisfied by the killing. His realm was completely divided and all because of Mastyr Axton and The Society.

Still struggling to bring his mind to order and absorb what had happened, he didn’t know how much more he could take.

An agent from the Realm Investigative Unit was already inside working the crime scene with his forensics team. But they wouldn’t find much. The killers associated with The Society were well-trained and employed illegal charms bought on the black market to shield their deeds. None of the neighbors saw or heard a thing, even though the family must have screamed in agony through their ordeal.

Once the RIU was done, members from the Fae Guild would come to test for charms and spells. They always found the remnant of a spell, usually one that would allow the killers to get away, and perhaps more importantly, one that was designed to degrade over time, so that the bodies would be found.

But what good did that do? The Guild could identify a charm, but they couldn’t prevent another one from being created. And the black market was alive and well in his realm.

The woman who’d been cleansing his uniform completed her task. She rose and patted Malik’s shoulder. “The Goddess’s blessings on you, Mastyr.” She then moved slowly down the steps, weeping anew.

One of his lieutenants, Evan, flew in, his expression somber. “Came as fast as I could from the north. We found three Invictus pairs. Took care of them.”