Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) (7 page)

Loren focused on her. It was still very fuzzy, but he could sense her more clearly now, even over the enormous distance between them. He no longer had to exert his powers to the point that they drained him in order to feel her.

The distance between them diminished the effect of the bond though. If her heart rate increased, it wouldn’t affect him. He could feel a glimmer of her emotions, but not as clearly as he could before.

Was this boost in his strength and abilities temporary? If he remained away from her, would his strength fade again and his abilities weaken?

He knew much about bonds, but had never read anything about a bond between a mortal and an elf. He couldn’t risk remaining here in this realm long enough to discover the answers to his questions. He had to speak with his men and then return to her.

Not only to protect her and help her find a way to break the bond.

He wanted to see if spending time in her presence would give him back more of his strength or whether it had been something else, something more dangerous, that had restored his healing ability and a sliver of his strength.

Not closeness in the sense of proximity, but closeness on an emotional level.

He couldn’t allow himself to fall for her.

He couldn’t bear the pain of parting with her if that happened.

He slipped his jacket on and buttoned it down his bare chest. He straightened the stand up collar that almost reached his chin and did up the purple metal fastening across the front of it.

He had been wearing something similar the night he had met Olivia. When he had come around, it had lain shredded on the table beneath him. He hoped that this one fared better.

Loren smoothed the flat ends of the tails over his knees and studied the purple embroidery that depicted dragons locked in battle.

What had Olivia made of his clothing?

It must seem strange to a modern human. He doubted any of them wore a long coat such as his, fitted flush to his chest but looser at the waist, and then flowing down in four long rectangular tails, all outlined with fae symbols and with a beautiful depiction of fae life at the base of each panel. Would she think him handsome in it?

Loren pushed that thought away. Considering such things would only cause him pain. It didn’t matter what she thought of him. He would find a way to undo the bond, she would be safe from his brother, his full strength would return, and they would never see each other again. It had to be this way. She had said herself that she didn’t want this bond.

The way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t watching said differently though.

She had studied his body, lingering on his bare torso, and he had reacted fiercely to the heat of her gaze, his markings flashing violently in response. Her eyes had roamed back and lingered on him whenever he had begun to pace, trying to get his thoughts into order. She was afraid to look at him when he faced her, but couldn’t help herself whenever he left her to her own devices and lost himself in thought.

Her behaviour confused him.

He would call her shy, but she had stood up to him, fiercely at times, challenging him and even putting him in his place.

Loren couldn’t recall the last time someone had dared to do that.

Bleu tried from time to time, but his attempts were always weak, held back because of Loren’s position as his prince.

The last person to put him in his place was probably Vail, all those millennia ago.

Loren shoved those memories out of his head too because only pain lay down that road and he didn’t want to go there. Even the happy memories he had of his brother had become sources of sorrow for him.

He switched his thoughts back to Olivia. She hadn’t mentioned how long she would need to convince her people to allow him to come to the facility in an official capacity. He would go and speak to his researchers about finding a way to undo the bond and then he would return to her.

Loren closed the black wardrobe door and turned towards the main arched door of his rooms.

Bleu leaned there, dressed in similar garb to him, with rich blue embroidery on the jacket. The collar and top few buttons were undone, revealing the three jagged scars that slashed diagonally down the left side of his neck.

Loren shifted his gaze up to Bleu’s face and grimaced.

His second in command did not look pleased.

He waited, staring into his friend’s cool purple eyes as they slowly narrowed with the increasing frown that joined his black eyebrows.

“You reek of mortal female,” Bleu said, his bass voice suiting his slightly larger build and the darkness in his expression. “What business had you bringing her here?”

Loren exhaled slowly. What business indeed? Bleu suspected that Loren had brought the female here to make love with her and that was enough to have him ready to lecture him on his safety, the safety of their kingdom, and a myriad of other things. If his friend didn’t like entertaining the idea of him risking his neck and those of his people to get a taste of a pretty human female, then he was going to hate the truth.

“It is not what you think,” Loren said and waited until Bleu’s expression began to soften before he added, “It is worse.”

“Worse?” Bleu shoved away from the door and came to stand in front of him. They were equal in height but that didn’t stop Loren from feeling as though Bleu was towering over him, attempting to show him how angry that one word and the involvement of the human female made him.

Loren moved past Bleu and headed along the long stone corridor. Coloured crystals lit it at intervals, casting shadows in the intricate carvings across the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

“The female doctor... is my ki’ara.” Loren kept one step ahead of Bleu, not wanting to see the thunderous look he could feel directed at the back of his head.

“What do you mean... she is your ki’ara?”

Loren sighed. “Exactly that. Vail left me outside the Archangel facility on purpose. He knew that the female was my fated one and conspired to throw us together.”

“He ensured you would need blood the moment you awoke... believing you would be in the presence of this female.” Bleu stopped dead and Loren halted too, and slowly looked over his shoulder at him. Bleu stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and eyebrows lodged high on his pale forehead. He remained motionless for almost a full minute and then his purple eyes slid to Loren and he frowned. “You bit her and unwittingly bound yourself to her.”

Loren nodded. “Unfortunately. In doing so, I have made her a target for my brother and have weakened myself. I have no doubt that Vail will seek her out and torture her, inflicting her pain upon me, having his revenge for what I did to Kordula.”

Bleu swore an oath under his breath and started walking again, his footsteps silent in the hall. Loren waited until he was in line with him and then began walking, keeping pace beside him this time.

“What will you do?” Bleu said in a low, cautious voice.

His second in command wasn’t sure what to make of this or what Loren would do. Loren could sense it in him. His emotions were all over the place and fear laced all of them. Not fear for Loren or the female. Bleu feared saying the wrong thing, inciting the wrath of a bonded male.

That sagacity was the reason Loren had made him his second in command four thousand two hundred years ago when Bleu had been one of the few to make it back from the first attack by Vail. The male had been born for the role of commander of Loren’s legions, a first rate soldier and strategist, and a man who would speak his mind without fear if he felt the kingdom was making the wrong move.

“I will not be completing the bond if I can help it,” Loren said and felt his friend’s emotions immediately settle, the fear drifting away. “I go to speak to the researchers about it now. They will find a way to undo it.”

Bleu cast him an unconvinced look. “What if there is no way?”

“I will complete the bond to restore my strength.” He didn’t let the emotions that swirled inside him whenever he thought about laying claim to his ki’ara colour his voice. If Bleu detected that part of him wanted to complete his bond with Olivia and finally have his eternal mate, he would speak out against her and remind him of his position and his duty, and his war with his brother. All good reasons to let Olivia go, but it wouldn’t stop him from turning on Bleu. Loren wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself.

He felt irritable just talking about her with Bleu, half of him expecting his friend to turn against her, the other half expecting Bleu to attempt to steal her from him. Would he feel like this around all males until the bond with her was broken? He was on the edge and close to losing his cool, scenarios running amuck in his mind, most of them involving beating any male who dared look at her into a bloody pulp.

If this was how he felt now, he didn’t want to think about how he might feel if he completed the bond with Olivia.

No wonder Vail had gone insane.

“I will kill the female.”

Those five words turned Loren’s blood to fire.

He fought to contain the explosive rage that ignited within him and calmly said, “She must not be harmed.”

Bleu cast him a suspicious look, eyeing him closely. “Because it would hurt and weaken you.”

Loren couldn’t lie to his sole friend. “No. I will not allow her to come to harm because she is my responsibility. I brought this upon her.”

Bleu snorted and folded his arms across his chest, stretching the thick black material of his jacket. “She is nothing but a mortal. She is expendable. If we kill her now, you will regain your strength before your brother can attack again.”

Loren whirled on his heel, grabbed Bleu around the throat with one hand and slammed him against the dark stone wall. He shoved Bleu up it, until his feet dangled above the floor, and tightened his grip until the male choked and grabbed at his arm, desperately trying to prise Loren’s hand off him.

He felt his markings flash, the buzz of them appearing adding fuel to the fire, pushing him closer to the edge.

“That is my ki’ara you speak of so ruthlessly. My female.” Loren squeezed harder, his fangs sharp points against his lower lip and the tips of his ears extending. He growled, exposing his fangs, and his ears flattened against the sides of his head. Bleu’s face turned red, veins popping out on his forehead and temples. He gripped Loren’s hand, scrabbling against the wall, pulling at Loren’s fingers. “Watch your tongue, Bleu. I will not hear another word against Olivia.”

Loren sucked in a harsh deep breath, struggling to tamp down the emotions running riot inside him, demanding Bleu’s head as payment for his cruel words regarding Olivia. He shut them down one by one, his grip on Bleu’s throat easing at the same time. The colour drained from his friend’s face and he breathed hard, wheezing and relaxing in Loren’s grip.

“Olivia?” Bleu rasped, his hands going lax against Loren’s arm.

Loren lowered him to his feet and peeled his hand away from his throat. He forced himself back a few steps, giving Bleu some room, still battling his heightened emotions. He didn’t want to hurt his friend, but he would if Bleu dared to speak of killing her again. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He might want to break the bond, might not have been looking to form one with Olivia in the first place, but he was still a slave to the effects of it. He would defend Olivia from anyone who sought to harm her, male or female, and he would kill any male who dared to attempt to take her from him.

“My female is called Olivia,” Loren said and Bleu bent over, grasping his knees and wheezing as he tried to breathe normally. “It is a good name. Beautiful.”

Bleu looked up at him, his black hair strewn across his forehead and wild around his pointed ears. The look in his purple eyes told Loren that he was dying to ask if he truly wanted to break the bond, but that sagacity that Loren admired in him won out, and Bleu held his tongue.

Loren knew he didn’t sound as though he wanted to undo what had happened. He could understand Bleu’s difficulty believing him.  He would put his friend’s mind at rest.

Bleu straightened, swept his hair back out of his face, and exhaled hard.

“Sorry about that.” Loren wasn’t used to issuing apologies and he had done it twice this day. Once to Olivia and now to Bleu. Maybe the bond changed him in ways other than awakening his lust and making him volatile.

Bleu casually shrugged. Loren continued along the hall, banking left when he reached an intersection and heading down the stone staircase to the next level. This one was made of paler stone that glittered in the white lights, far brighter than the level where his rooms were.

“Olivia is going to work on finding a way to break this bond too, so you see, you have nothing to worry about, Bleu.” Loren turned right at the bottom of the pale staircase, heading along the grand hallway, past towering white statues of the former kings and queens of his bloodline. Vail had a statue once, opposite his at the end of the hallway, close to the throne room.

Someone had destroyed it.

“How is the female able to help?” Bleu sounded sceptical again.

Understandable.

Loren had felt the same way when the female had offered to help, but his lack of belief in her had frustrated her and then she had said a lot of words he hadn’t understood. They had all sounded very technical. He had also felt her belief in herself and her abilities, and that was the reason he had decided to grant her request. She felt she could find a way to break the bond by studying their blood. It sounded fascinating and he was almost looking forward to being with her while she worked on it.

“Olivia is a scientist. It would appear modern science is rather incredible. She is apparently able to study our blood and something to do with things called genomes, and other things I have no clue about. She is confident she can discern from it whether our link is a physical change that she may be able to reverse.” It still sounded incredible, even when he still wasn’t quite sure what those things were.

Bleu raised an eyebrow.

“You know they have cloned things... creating a duplicate of a living creature.” Bleu motioned with his rigid index fingers, holding them with their full lengths pressed against each other at first, and then moving them apart but keeping them identical. “Some of their science seems dangerous to me.”