Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) (31 page)

She loosened her grip on him and relaxed again, but sombre feelings flowed through their bond and her eyes reflected them. “It sounds romantic... and I feel sorry for Bleu then.”

Loren brushed the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. “Bleu will find his mate one day. He is not in any rush though. He is a male born for battle and war, not tending to a mate.”

“A devoted bachelor and a player.” Olivia sighed. “We should definitely get back before he tries to seduce his way into Sable’s pants then, because if he hurts her, she will probably kill him.”

Loren couldn’t help smiling at that, easily able to picture such an event occurring. Sable would certainly go to war with any male who dared to hurt her, and Loren had the feeling that Olivia would be there fighting at her side.

He gathered her to him and she tiptoed and kissed him. They would return to Archangel and find out if Bleu had discovered anything about Vail at the club, but first he had another pressing matter to attend to.

He wanted to turn his bathing pool fantasy into a reality.

T
he portal shimmered in multi-coloured hues before Loren, as tall as he was and twice as broad, slowly draining his energy. It took a lot of power to teleport in this way, forcing his ability to manifest itself away from his body, but Olivia had asked to see a portal like the one they used to bring light into his kingdom.

He took Olivia’s hand and guided her towards it. Her wide eyes darted around as they approached, her curiosity bouncing through their bond to him. She reached out with her free hand and gasped when it made contact with the portal and then disappeared. Loren smiled and led her into it and the moment they appeared in her apartment at Archangel, she turned to look back and frowned.

“Where did it go?” She glanced at him.

“Portals do not show on the other side. It would rather give away our approach.” It wasn’t just a matter of stealth either. While portals could be used for sneak attacks, they were more readily used as an easy method of transportation between his realm and this one. If a portal was visible at the destination, there was a chance that someone there could use it to cross over into his realm, or they could ambush him.

A shiver went through him and he tightened his grip on Olivia’s hand, his fingers pressing into the back of it.

“Something is wrong.” He cast his blue eyes around the room, his senses stretching beyond the walls of the small apartment, spreading through the building as he tried to pinpoint what had him suddenly on edge.

Was it Vail?

His heart rate picked up and he sent a mental command to his armour. It rippled over his skin beneath his formal black coat and trousers, and he was careful not to cover his hands so he didn’t hurt Olivia with his claws.

“What is it?” Olivia curled her free hand around his arm, drawing closer to him.

Her fear trickled through the link, but she was experiencing other emotions too. Fight and not flight. She felt her friends were threatened again and she wanted to seek out and eradicate the source of that threat.

“I do not know.” Just as he said that, alarms wailed and the lights dropped. Red flashing lights replaced them, hurting his sensitive eyes.

Olivia flinched, pressing her face against his arm. “Bloody unholy sound!”

She was still growing accustomed to the changes in her body and her heightened hearing and vision was probably causing her pain.

“Come,” he said and pulled her with him. He broke out into the corridor and several hunters rushed past, Sable and Bleu among them.

Olivia’s friend stopped and stared at her. Olivia blushed deeply, awkwardness written across her face as well as her emotions.

“What is it?” Olivia said over the constant screech of the alarm system.

Sable loaded her compact crossbow, a vision of dark menace in her combat gear and with her hair tied back into a long ponytail. “Something just popped into the cafeteria, and it is big. Like huge.”

Loren’s heart pounded now. “Take us there.”

Sable ran on ahead and Loren followed with Olivia, struggling to maintain the slower pace. It was good to have his full strength back. If he wanted to, he could be down at the cafeteria in a heartbeat. He didn’t know where it was though and it was quicker to follow Sable than it was to follow his senses.

Olivia kept pace beside him and Loren dared not look at her. She still wore her sexy halter-top and tight jeans, and he needed to concentrate. If he set eyes on her running in that dark purple top, he was liable to forget what he had been doing and want to kiss her, and more.

Evidently completing the bond did not lessen the ferocity of his need for her.

They ran down several flights of steps and along another pale corridor, and then he spotted the cafeteria ahead. The doors were jammed open, held in place by a broken table on one side and a collapsed hunter on the other.

Sable rushed forwards and checked the condition of her comrade.

Loren burst into the room and froze, pulling Olivia behind him to shield her. His armour completed itself, forming claws over his fingers and his spiked black helmet, but leaving his face mask open.

He growled and drew his black blade out of the air, bringing it to him from his rooms in the castle, and mentally commanded the alarms to cease. The lights in the room came back up, startlingly bright, hurting his eyes and those of the enormous male battling in the middle of the room. The male growled at the lights and continued his fight against the hunters.

Bleu teleported to the other side of the room, his black armour in place and his eyes bright purple in the slits left open on his horned helmet.

The immense demon battling between them paid them no heed and lashed out with one meaty muscled arm, sending half a dozen hunters flying across the room. He took the human males down with ease but he wasn’t killing them. Had his brother sent the male to harm Archangel and increase the unease between Loren and the hunters?

The male was enormous, broad and thickly muscled, his torso bare and his lower half clad in tight leather trousers that matched the colour of his wild russet-brown hair. Blood streaked his dark golden skin from several wounds on his torso, some of which still had the crossbow bolts sticking out of them. He snarled, flashing large fangs at the hunters, and swung wildly again, bashing several of them together and sending them crashing into a heap on the floor.

Other hunters called out commands and the demon turned crazed red eyes on them. The dark brown ridged horns that curled from behind his ears grew and the tips of his ears began to grow pointed.

This was not good.

As it was, the male stood taller than Loren and Bleu, his formidable strength making him a threat to both of them. If the male went fully demonic, he would grow several feet taller and become infinitely more dangerous. Loren had to stop him before it happened.

Loren moved forwards, his blade at the ready.

The demon swung to face him and, rather disturbingly, the wild look in his eyes grew clear when they settled on Loren.

No, not Loren.

Sable.

She stood beside him, her crossbow held at the ready, looking tiny compared with the male but furious too. She wouldn’t back down. She would take on this demon who stood almost a foot taller and two foot wider than she was.

The demon’s horns shrank and he was savage as he shoved his way towards them, snarling and growling at any hunter who dared to get in his way. Bleu skirted the edge of the room, his gaze locked on the demon, his blade ready. Three arrows stuck out of the demon’s left shoulder, and the itchy trigger finger of a young female hunter embedded a fourth in his deltoid. It didn’t even slow the demon.

He halted two metres from Loren, straightened and preened his horns as if nothing out of the ordinary had just been happening.

“You are a hard man to find,” the male’s deep voice rumbled through the room, a dark growl, his thick accent making it difficult to understand his English.

Strange that a demon would choose to speak that language to him. It was almost as if he wanted these hunters to know that Loren was the reason he was here.

Had Vail sent the demon to kill him after all?

“State your business.” Loren swept his blade out, aiming it at the male’s throat, and tipped his head back, holding his gaze. With his other hand, he kept Olivia close behind him. She refused to remain hidden, but at least she only moved far enough to peer past him, and ended up between him and Sable.

The demon grinned. It might have been a smile. It was always hard to tell with demons. They had rough masculine features and fangs that didn’t fully retract. A smile looked like a grin most of the time.

“I was not sent by your brother.”

That didn’t ease Loren at all and he only grew more unsettled when three other demons appeared behind the male.

Bleu eased forwards and Loren could sense the arrival of more demons had set him firmly on edge. Loren held his hand out to Bleu.

“All is good here,” he said to him and then turned to the demon. “Is it not?”

The immense male’s eyes darkened to a rich shade of crimson and he nodded. His gaze darted down to Sable and then back to Loren. It did this several times in the space of a few seconds and Loren had the impression that it wasn’t because she had her crossbow aimed at him and it was unsettling him. No. The way a corona of scarlet flared around the edges of the male’s eyes whenever he looked at her, and his horns grew larger and more pronounced, said it was a very different emotion commanding his gaze to leap to her and study the little human female.

He desired Sable.

“I need your assistance,” the demon said and Loren arched an eyebrow.

He had come here, to Archangel, to ask Loren for help with some matter? No wonder he hadn’t killed any of the hunters, but still. It was highly unusual for a demon to approach him directly about such a thing. Normally, they would send their messenger to the elf council and they would deal with negotiations between the two species, and come to some form of agreement.

Unless.

Loren moved a step closer and stared at the huge demon before him. He spoke English, had three subordinates standing behind him, all with their heads bowed, and had the audacity to speak to Loren directly as though they were equals.

A demon king.

Red eyes didn’t give him much to go on though. Several of the demon species had red eyes when enraged, although this demon’s eyes had failed to change back to a different colour. They had merely darkened to a deeper shade of crimson. What king was he?

Loren glanced at Bleu to see if his second in command had figured it out. Bleu mouthed the elvish word for three.

The Third King.

Loren knew little about him. He had become king long after Loren had gone to war with Vail. If rumours were to be believed, Kordula had killed the previous king of the Third Realm, placing this male into power.

Were they working together after all? Was this all a trick?

Why else would this demon appear now, asking for his assistance, rather than working through the normal channels?

The male huffed and plucked the bolts from his left shoulder and arm, gritting his teeth as they pulled free of his flesh.

Their clang as they hit the floor cut through the silence.

“I will help you in return for a favour. I need your men at the battlefield. I need to settle a war in my kingdom.” The demon crushed the last bolt in his huge fist.

Help him? Loren frowned. Did the demon mean to help him with his battle against Vail in exchange for Loren leading his army to war with his enemy?

Loren shook his head. “I have no interest in your demonomachy. The elves have no reason to join your fight.”

One of the males behind the demon king moved forwards, an uneasy edge to his dark red eyes as he looked beyond Loren. He spoke to his leader in the demon tongue, a language that Loren had mastered many millennia ago.

His words sent a chill sliding down Loren’s spine and turned his blood to icy sludge in his veins.

“We were too early. The female has not yet been taken.”

Loren spun on the spot to face Olivia and reached for her at the same time, but he was too slow.

Vail appeared behind her, his armour covering all but his vivid purple eyes, his helmet matching the crown of spikes that Loren wore, and grabbed her around the waist. Loren swung his blade, aiming for his brother’s head, but it cut through empty air as his brother disappeared.

Loren bellowed in rage, his fangs punching long from his gums and his ears growing pointed, flattening against the sides of his head beneath his helmet. He turned on the demon king and roared as he attacked, catching the male off guard.

The tip of his blade sliced across the demon’s broad chest and the other three demons rushed Loren, colliding hard with him and almost taking him down. Bleu leaped into the fray, his dark sword a black slashing arc as it cut down the back of one of the demons, sending him to the floor. Loren thrust forwards with his clawed left hand, using a powerful blast of telekinesis to throw the remaining two demons off him. One hit the ceiling, punching a hole in the plaster tiles, and the other flew across the room, slamming into the wall.

The demon king growled at him, his eyes flashing dangerously and his horns growing, curling around in front of his pointed ears.

Loren discarded his blade and flexed his claws.

The huge male’s dark short claws grew in response to the threat, becoming deadly talons.

“Do not do this,” the demon snarled and hunkered down, preparing himself to attack even as he spoke words that said he wanted to avoid a fight. “I swear on the life of my future fated one that I am not allied to your brother and had no part in this.”

Loren reined his fury in on hearing those words, clawing back control over his ragged emotions and his dark hunger to shed blood.

A demon would never make such a vow lightly.

They valued their eternal mate just as the fae did. His soul cried out for Olivia and he reached for her with his senses, needing to feel she was safe and discover her location so he could rescue her from Vail and Kordula before it was too late.