The Goblin King (22 page)

She braced herself, her hands gripping his wrists, her lips parted, as he pressed forward.

Pain comingled with the throbbing, heated sensations swirling through her. He was so hot, he almost burned, and the size of him stretched the walls
of her womanhood with a merciless, building pressure.

Her fingernails dug in once more, her breathing ragged and gasping, and yet he continued
his tender, relentless assault, all the while not allowing her to look away. Deeper and deeper he slowly sank, filling her with a pulsing, solid fire that scorched her from the inside and branded her for life.

She had lost sense of time and was aching, throbbing all around him with tight, pulsing pleasure-pain when
he finally stopped, embedded deeply within her. For half a second, she thought he was finished, that she’d somehow managed to take all of him.

But then he lowered
his lips gently across hers, kissing her with a tenderness like a butterfly’s wings… as he pulled back just enough – before shoving brutally into her, sinking the remainder of the way into her body and forcing a cry of painful surprise from her throat.

There he finally waited.

The world receded. The only thing Diana knew was their joining, that pulsing, throbbing, overfilled space where Damon had penetrated and claimed her as his own. It hurt. It hurt like the most wonderful, blissful, undeniable pain the universe had ever created. She wanted more. She knew it would kill her, but she was addicted now… to this pain. To this perfect, Damon Chroi kind of pain.

As he placed those tender butterfly kisses across her mouth, Diana’s breathing slowed, her body relaxed, and the heat that had coiled relentlessly in her middle began to take over once more.

She returned his kisses, and as she’d wanted to do since she’d first met him, she placed one atop the scar running through his upper lip.

He
rose just enough to look down at her – and something unfamiliar but truly wonderful reflected in the fire that danced in his eyes.

She felt him retreat below,
pulling at her with that blissful pain, before slowly – so slowly – pressing back in. She bit her lip, and no longer able to keep her eyes open, she squeezed them shut as she felt him do it again. Each time, the warmth in her belly became hotter and pulsed harder. Her breathing quickened as he pulled further away, and thrust deeper.

There was a familiar rising need blossoming inside her. She’d brought herself to orgasm enough times to recognize it, but never had it been this strong. Never had she almost actually feared climaxing. As if it might… destroy her somehow. As if it was so good, it was dangerous. Deadly.

Damon’s teeth nibbled at her collarbone. He pulled out – pressed in. Diana’s hands fisted his hair, pulling with need. His hand cupped a breast, fondling the nipple, first gently and then hard enough to force Diana to rise to meet him. She cried out as he twisted it just enough and then thrust into her again, this time sparking a light on the edge of something that felt like an ending…. It was the thing she almost feared.

It was drawing nearer.

He became cruel then, as if he knew she was close – as if he was too. His caresses became more insistent. His fingers dug into her flesh, his teeth bit down deeper, and his thrusts quickened and invaded.

Diana held on ti
ght and let him ride her. He laid waste to her senses one after another, until she felt that spark he’d ignited catch on and burn, branding her. Damon slammed his hands onto the table and rose, his teeth bared, his eyes like two maelstroms of hell.

Diana was caught in the conflagration; she threw back her head, and her voice broke free as the magma-like tidal wave of euphoria washed over her, ringing spasms
from inside her, one painful flux after another. Her scream hit the ceiling and walls, and was joined by Damon’s animalistic cry as he emptied himself into her.

He incinerated her.

Diana felt as though she’d combusted and had been turned to ash only to be reborn as something more beautiful. Something forever changed.

It took a short forever for the spasms of her orgasm to cease racking her slim body, for her heart to slow from its racing, and for her breathing to return to semi-normal. She opened her eyes to find Damon gazing steadily down at her, his str
ong arms still braced firmly on either side of her on the table.

The expression on his handsome face was a mixture of what appeared to be hope and awe… and there was that something else there again as well.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Diana didn’t know how to answer that. She was more than all right
. She was
different
. She was
alive
.

So all she did was nod. T
hen she saw the blood she’d drawn in the raked marks on his shoulders and across his back, and she felt suddenly ashamed. “Are
you
?”

But Damon only laughed. His smile was the most genuinely happy smile she had probably ever seen a man wear. He nodded. “Oh yes,” he said. “And if I’m not, you can just heal me.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Damon ran a slow, satisfied hand through his hair as he left the long corridor that lead to the master bedroom and re-entered the great room of his castle. It was raining again, beating down as heavy and forlorn as it ever had. It had begun raining the moment his young queen had slipped peacefully into her restful slumber.

He’d tucked her in, knowing she desperately needed the rest, and quietly left the room. Next, he sent out a call to the other fae kings.

Now he waited. The stained glass windows of the massive room were fogged where they were trapped in the battle between warm and cold. The clouds hung low in the dark gray sky. Lightning crisscrossed a land that appeared to be mourning.

It was Diana. When she was awake, the kingdom celebrated, the sun shone, and the land dried. And when she slept, it missed her, weeping for her return.

She’d been there all of one total day, and already she was tied irrevocably to the land and its inhabitants.

“Good day, Your Majesty!” came a familiar crackling voice from the fireplace.

Damon turned toward it and eyed the tiny fire elemental with a narrowed gaze. “Pi,” he greeted.

“Where’s your friend?” Pi asked.

“I had a feeling you were there,” Damon accused softly. “Spying is a nasty habit, Pi.”

“I left when you kissed her,” Pi said defensively. “I’m not a peeping flame.” He crackled and popped excitedly for a moment and then settled down again.

Damon put his
hands on his hips, waiting.

“Besides,
” Pi continued. “She’s the first human you’ve ever brought to the castle… or to the kingdom. So she sort of stands out. Not like the other kings. Especially the
Unseelie
.” He made a derisive sound that hissed because it was made through fire.

Damon bit the inside of his cheek. “And I suppose you know this because your brethren spy from their
fireplaces as much as you do from mine.”

Pi didn’t respond to that. He crackled and wavered a bit, and Damon chuckled softly.

“But not you!” Pi continued, glossing over the accusation as if Damon had never made it. “She’s the first. And can I just say,
wow
!” The little fire elemental laughed, his cackle shooting sparks that simmered away before they could hit the cold hard floor. “I knew you could charm a keeper if you put your heart to it.”

“Oh?” Damon asked softly as he made his way to the couch and sat down, lifting his legs to cross his boots at the ankle on the coffee table. “You did, did you?”

“
Oh
yeah,” said Pi. “You were banished for a reason, right? Your equals are jealous and scared.” The miniscule fire elemental actually appeared to shrug in the hearth. “Jealousy and fear don’t fill a man’s heart when his competition is ugly or powerless.”

Damon blinked. He’d known Pi for years, but this was
possibly the first time the fiery little guy had shown a depth that went past coal and smoke.

His words struck a nerve though.

Pi was right. Damon
had
been banished. It might have occurred thousands of years ago and under different rule in the fae kingdoms, but the banishment still held. It had been enforced by royalty and was kept in place by the blood and magic of people now dead, so it could not be reversed.

It was why he waited there on his couch in his own great room in his own castle – for the other sidhe kings to arrive. They had to come to him for audience because he couldn’t go to them.

It irked. It
hadn’t
irked until just then. Until then, he couldn’t really have cared less that he wasn’t allowed across the borders of the other two fae kingdoms. Apart from the cooperation each of the fae kings gave as three of the 13 Kings, he had no dealings with Avery and Caliban. There was no reason to interact with them, and it hadn’t really bothered him that this was the case.

But it bothered him now.

Because if I am banished, then my queen is too.

He just didn’t like the way that set wit
h him. It wasn’t as though the Goblin Kingdom wasn’t vast. It was an illusion of sorts, appearing to be a massive island, but in fact stretched extra dimensionally in all directions.

It was only that he wanted to give the
world
to Diana.
All
of it.

Damon sighed. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Pi.”

“It is grossly misdirected.”

Damon leapt off the couch and spun, simultaneously using his magic to call the Atrox Ferrum to him at once. The gleaming, deadly sharp sword appeared in his hand as the stranger who had just spoken stepped out of the sheltering shadows of the far corner of the great room.

Damon had to reinforce his mental constitution when he found himself facing off with his own likeness. It had happened once before – during a meeting with the other kings. However, that single experience made this one no easier.

Damon and his supernatural equals had come to call these copies of themselves the
ka
. They were doppelgangers created by the god Kamon, Amon Re’s brother. They were exact replicas of the 13 Kings – down to every last detail.

They possessed the same bodies, the same faces, the same memories, and the same powers. This was clearly the case, as Damon’s
ka
would not be standing there in his great room otherwise. Only the Goblin King had the ability to transport into and out of his kingdom without permission. Even Avery and Caliban had to be invited.

Speaking of which
, Damon thought as he gripped his sword readily and warily eyed his approaching double.
Where the fuck are those two?

It was alarming enough that he was now going to have to battle his equal. It was made thousands of times
more so because Diana was there at the castle – where he’d sworn to her she would be safe.

“So, which of us gets to use the Highlander quote?” the
ka
asked, smiling a charming smile that was slightly twisted by his scar. His forehead was also marred, but by the mark of Kamon: A black winged scarab.

The double
raised is right hand, and a second Atrox Ferrum appeared within it.

“Why don’t we just flip for the top bunk and be friends?” Damon asked as he gauged the distance between himself and his opponent, the distance between them both to the nearest windows, and their distance to the hearth. His gaze shifted into darker hues and starker contrasts, and his eyes began to burn.

“Oh come on, Damon,” said the
ka
. He chuckled, shaking his head as the two men began to circle one another. “You know there can be only one.”

The attack came swiftly and simultaneously, both kings meeting at the center of the great room, their swords clashing like the very lightning that played outside. Sparks flew along the edges of the blades as they ground against one another.

*****

Diana came awake suddenly, drawn from the floating bliss of her peaceful dream by something she couldn’t identify. She sat up slowly, her eyes searching the empty corners of the giant master bedroom of Damon Chroi’s castle.

Damon was not there. All was silent. She perked her ears, turning slightly, straining to hear what it might have been that had awakened her. Thunder rolled in the distance, evidence of a passing storm. A thin shaft of light pierced the stained glass of the windows across the room. But other than that, there was nothing.

T
he fire in the hearth crackled and popped as if it had hit a pocket of air bubbles. She turned her attention to it – and blinked when she thought she saw a face in the flames.

“Pssst!”

Diana’s eyes widened.

“Sorry to have to wake you, my lady, but I had no choice!” said the
fireplace.

Oh my god
, Diana thought.
That’s it. I’ve lost my marbles.