The Bloodgate Warrior (15 page)

My heart pounded and I pressed back harder against the stone. Surely this pyramid had survived countless earthquakes over the thousand years or more it’d been here. No huge chunks of rock came tumbling down. No cracks tore across the plaza below. Light blazed brighter, making me turn away with a sudden burst that made black spots dance in my vision. I blinked, struggling to see.

The jean-clad man I’d arrived with had been replaced with a Maya warrior. His immense chest and upper body were completely bare. His long sleek hair was bunched up high on his head with gold and jade ornaments. A short skirt of woven white cloth wrapped around his waist, covered by what looked like a real jaguar pelt. Gold and green lights still danced around him, making the night as bright as noon.

He looked so different, so fierce and harsh and wild, that I couldn’t stop the yelp of fear as he approached.

His lips curled slightly, his eyes heavy and dark with remembered slumberous heat. A pinprick of that otherworldly light glinted in his eyes. “That’s the sound I like to hear, Cassie. Are you still my willing sacrifice?”

My mouth was as dry as the Sahara, but I gave him a shaky nod. He fisted his hand in the back of my shirt and hauled me up, my feet dangling, the cotton digging into my underarms. I could only hope the thin T-shirt didn’t tear and dump me on my ass. He carried me like a kitten over to the stone altar built in the middle of the temple and set me down onto it. Shivering, I pulled my legs up and huddled on the stone, watching him like a mouse waiting for the hawk to swoop down for dinner.

The scent of lightning and blood on the air made me dizzy. Or maybe that was just my frantic breathing as he lowered the bloody blade toward me.

I did trust him, honestly, but I couldn’t help but cry out again when the cold steel touched me. He’d sworn not to hurt me, but it was impossible not to be afraid. Not when tied up and sitting on an ancient altar while a very exotic-looking warrior threatened me with a knife. A wickedly sharp knife, evidently, because the T-shirt tore like a spider web beneath the blade.

I scooted backward, involuntarily trying to escape such a sharp threat, and almost tumbled off the other side.

He seized my wrists and lifted my hands over my head, taking me down on my back before I could even blink. When he stepped back, I realized he’d hooked the rope binding my wrists to the altar. I jerked my hands, squirming desperately, but the rope only dug into my skin. Panting in earnest, I squirmed on the stone, trying to get higher so I could work my hands free. I didn’t want to be spread out like a bug, trapped and pinned while he…

Without saying a word, he waited patiently until I ceased struggling, exhausted. My eyes must have been as huge as saucers when I finally dared to look into his face. His eyes glowed with that eerie light, making him not familiar. Not safe.
Not human.

With agonizing slowness, he lowered the knife toward me again. Dozens of gory possibilities flashed through my panicked mind, but all he did was carefully work the knife beneath my bra, right between my breasts. He tugged up and the material split open. My breasts popped out, eager and ready for his touch even if my mind was still struggling with the fact that he’d tied me up and cut my clothes off me with a big freaking knife.

Leaning down, he breathed on my flesh. “Much better than your heart,
noyollotl
, wouldn’t you agree?”

I couldn’t answer. My nipples had pebbled so hard that the barest brush of the air made them ache. I couldn’t even comprehend what it would feel like if he actually touched me. If he pinched…or took my breast into his mouth…

Shuddering, I arched my back and groaned out a low sound that I’d never heard from my lips before. God, I sounded like an animal in heat, a starving beast tearing at its cage to escape. He hadn’t even touched me intimately yet and I was hovering on the verge of climax.

He stroked the flat of the blade down my stomach and began slicing my jeans up into little strips. Cold metal pressed against my waist, hipbones, skin, teasing me with danger. I vibrated with tension, torn between fight and flight but incapable of doing anything more than shivering and moaning beneath his knife.

Denim ripped and shredded. The humid night air kissed my knees, my ankles, finally my toes as he tugged off my tennis shoes and socks. Steel pressed against my calf, tickling the inside of my knee, and I couldn’t decide if it was a threat or a caress. My body didn’t care. In fact, my knees opened, widening my thighs as much as possible despite the ropes on my ankles.

Leaning down so his breath caressed my inner thigh, he murmured, “Do you feel how wet you are?”

Open and bare, my flesh chilled in the night air. My panties were stuck to me, uncomfortably cold and damp.

He grazed his cheek against my knee, and I shot up as far as the ropes would allow. The stubble of his jaw abraded my skin in a deliciously rough caress that made my nerve endings scream with delight. Cold steel flirted with the thin material shielding my crotch, the only protection I had left.

I hovered between panicked bucking and those throaty, hoarse cries that I couldn’t suppress.

Straightening, he stared down at me, waiting until I looked up into his face. My underwear dangled from his knife. Completely naked and stretched out on an altar, I’d never been more vulnerable and afraid, nor as turned on. My thighs ached and quivered from keeping them open as much as the rope allowed. The heat of his glowing eyes stroked my skin like a caress.

I watched him slowly stretch out his left hand, palm up, those powerful fingers taunting me. The barest brush of his finger slid between my folds.

That was all I remembered or knew for an eternity. Spasms shook every muscle of my body so violently my skin burned from the stone rubbing beneath me. I must have screamed, because my throat hurt. I ached all over, my wrists raw from fighting the ropes.

Gasping for breath, I finally focused on him. Head back, arms open, palms out, he drank in the magical light dancing around us. His arms and shoulders corded, and for a moment, the green and gold light fluttered like feathers around him. When he finally opened his eyes, they glowed even brighter with that otherworldly light.

“Magic,” he whispered hoarsely. “Your pleasure releases energy, mixed with your own magic. I feed on that energy to become stronger, building my own magic, which I use to give you more pleasure. Back and forth, we strengthen each other with pleasure.”

Leaning down once more, he gently kissed my knee and then the other, soft lips and a hint of tongue that made me moan and strain at the ropes binding my ankles.

“I could do this endlessly,
noyollotl
. Endless pleasure, boundless power.”

That sounded wonderful…and hellacious at the same time. My muscles already trembled. Another climax like that and I wouldn’t be able to walk. We still had to find a way to get Natalie back, not to mention deal with a monster who’d once terrorized this entire region with his cruelty
before
he became a demon with unknown powers.

Técun flicked his tongue to taste the tender skin on the backs of my knees. He kissed and licked my inner thighs, back and forth, tormenting with soft lips and trailing hair.

I panted like I was running a marathon, twisting against the ropes. If I could free myself, I’d fist my hands in his hair and drag his mouth exactly where I wanted him. My clit throbbed with each agonizing stroke of his tongue. Just the thought of his tongue sinking deep made me moan louder, so close, but so far away from release. By the time he finally made it close enough that his hair stroked my stomach, I was babbling.

“Please, please, Técun, I can’t stand it. I need you so bad. Please!”

“Where do you need me,
noyollotl
? Here?” He kissed my lower stomach and I growled at him, making him chuckle. “I thought to kiss every inch of your sweet skin first before giving you another release. I don’t want to wear you out.”

I groaned again at the thought of his mouth playing with my breasts, torturing me with those light flicks of his tongue, the velvet heat of his lips. I strained harder against the ropes, arching my back, pushing, so close…

“Yes,” he breathed against my stomach. “Rise to the pleasure. Give it to me,
noyollotl
.”

He nipped delicately at my stomach, lightly pinching skin between his teeth, but the sharpness sent me soaring off the edge of the cliff into another release.

I couldn’t believe that I’d come like that, so hard, just from a non-intimate love bite on my belly. I was in serious, serious trouble, because we hadn’t even gotten started yet.

Gasping for air, I pried my eyes open and froze.

He crouched at the foot of the altar staring down at me. For a moment, all I could think about was the man who’d turned into a jaguar. Técun had that look of predator glinting in his glowing eyes. He looked at me and saw…food.

He raised his hand, and the knife blade glinted like emeralds in the strange light we’d generated. Eyes heavy with dark intent that made my stomach muscles quiver, he slit the ropes at my ankles and sheathed the blade.

I immediately stretched my legs out. My muscles were killing me. But I couldn’t relax, not with that silent warrior hovering just a foot or two away. All he did was watch, a hawk laughing at its scurrying dinner. The longer he looked at me in silence, the more nervous I became.

My mind leaped forward to what he planned next. I hadn’t even had his mouth on me yet and I’d come twice. If he…

He lunged forward and clamped his lips on my clit. White-hot pleasure exploded through me, scouring my mind, grinding my bones to dust. My ears rang with the aftereffects of my scream. I wasn’t connected to my body any longer, like I was having an out-of-body experience. If I looked down, I’d probably see my poor pleasure-ridden body thrashing on the altar.

No. All I saw was Técun’s shoulders, my thighs pushed back high and tight to my body. Then I realized his mouth was still on me. His tongue plunged deep inside me. I jolted hard back into my body, sensations swamping me one after another, rapid fire. The stroke of his tongue, the pressure of his lips sucking and nibbling on my flesh, even the sharper press of his teeth.

I couldn’t stop the constant climax rippling through my body. I couldn’t stop him, not even to catch my breath for just a moment. Bound and helpless, all I could do was let the pleasure pour through me and into him. I could almost see the golden waves rising, flowing into him like warm, thick honey.

When he finally raised his head, his eyes glowed as brightly as the jaguar’s at Lake Atitlán. My breath caught in my throat at the strangeness. He didn’t look like Técun any longer, but more and more like a legendary warrior hero.

Or a god.

Breathing hard, he dismounted from the altar. He didn’t say anything, so I wasn’t sure what he meant to do. Was the ritual not going as he planned? My legs were trembling so badly I’d never be able to walk, let alone make a run for it. His silence unnerved me.

He rummaged in the pack and pulled out a bottle of water. My throat instantly dried up like parched earth during a drought. He cracked open the bottle and helped me lift my head, holding me steady so I could guzzle water messily like I was dying of thirst. Stroking my cheek, he let me drink as much as I wanted, watching me with those eerie eyes.

Night lay all around us, but the top of the pyramid still glowed. I hoped that light was veiled from below. Maybe it was just an illusion, my own delirium. My head still echoed hollowly, floating like a balloon. If he untied me, I’d just float away into the clouds.

His touch jerked my awareness back to him. He ran his hands over my arms, checking the ropes. I’d twisted and fought against the restraints and my wrists burned. Hopefully I hadn’t torn open my skin. He made a low sound of regret, and his tongue stroked over the ragged skin, soothing away the sting.

With magic singing all about me, I could sense his emotions. Hunger rose in him, the hint of my blood worsening his need into a growing darkness that he barely contained. Suddenly, I understood why he’d chosen to take a break. Not because there was a problem with the ritual…but because he was at the edge of his control.

His teeth grated my skin. His fingers tightened on my arms, pinning me against the stone, even though I couldn’t have moved much even if I’d wanted. His face and hands were hot, searing my flesh, and I could only imagine how hot the rest of his body would be.

Twisting my body toward him, I forgot my legs were free. My weight shifted, tipping me over the side of the altar. The rough stone abraded my skin and I cried out.

Catching me before all my weight fell on my bound wrists, he turned me around so I sprawled across the altar on my stomach. My toes barely touched the floor, just enough to help balance my weight so I didn’t dangle awkwardly. He ran his tongue over the faint scratches on my back. I thought it would hurt, but the stroke of his tongue only built a slow, slumberous fire within me. Hot, powerful hands seared me, those big palms closing around my arms, sliding down my flanks, kneading my back as he worked his way lower. When my rubbery legs gave out, he shifted me up higher on the altar, and his mouth roamed lower on my body.

He gripped me harder in his teeth, and I understood his temptation. Even just a hint of blood stirred the Great Feathered Serpent, the source of his magic. Hunger urged him to draw just a bit more, with his teeth, talons, even the knife he’d used on himself. Until my blood pooled on the stone altar and power lit up the night like a beacon.

He took that temptation and turned it into something else. Denying those darker urges, he pleasured me with his mouth, treasuring my every moan of bliss as much as each drop of blood. I’d thought the sacrifice was brought to the altar to worship the god, but I was wrong. The god was worshipping
me
.

And that was somehow…wrong. Wonderful, yes. Incredible, absolutely. But he was withholding that darker hunger from me. He’d been so reluctant to expose me to this ritual, yet he’d been remarkably tender and passionate. Other than when he’d first brought me to the altar, I hadn’t been scared at all.