“Not when you’re dressed to torment.” He nipped her chin. “The castle can wait.”
Ohhh. Yep, he was definitely delaying the visit, but she didn’t care. There wasn’t anything important hanging over their heads anyway. All was dealt with last night except for Nate meeting the rest of her friends and Guardian brothers.
“I find I have an insatiable appetite for something more…” he cast her a lecherous leer, “carnal. Want me to pin you to the wall and fuck you,laika?”
That darn mouth of his which could bring her so much pleasure, could also torture her verbally. But his eyes shone with tender amusement. Without a doubt, he would take them to the very edge before they found their release.
“Eh…” She feigned indifference, aware it would stir him up. “I think you already did something like that in your room at the garage.”
Those striking eyes narrowed. “With my mouth, yes. But not my cock,laika, not my cock. Now you’ll have both,” he growled, capturing her mouth…
* * *
“When you said we’ll stroll to the castle, I thought it was a stone throw from the boathouse,” Nate drawled, stopping in the middle of the dense forest. Hands on his hips, he stared up at the looming evergreens. They had been walking for more than an hour. Not that he minded when it gave him alone time with his mate.
But damn, this island sure was massive. And well hidden from human eyes. With gods and angels in residence, it made sense.
“Aw, poor baby’s tired?” Ely teased, leaping onto a large boulder, then looking down at him, her dark, slightly wavy, much shorter hair framing her beautiful face. Dressed in paint-smeared faded blue jeans, a gray sweater, and tan boots, she looked like an innocent, not some badass fighter. “If you like, we could use the path around the cliffs on the other side. It’s shorter but will take twice as long scrambling over boulders and rappelling dangerous rockfaces.”
He bit back a smile at her taunt. “Ely, I can take you on the rock you stand on and show you just how not tired I am.”
“I’m sure you can.” She rolled her eyes, leaped down again, and slipped her arm through his. “We can dematerialize to the castle if you like.”
He shook his head. In those last moments in the Infernii Realm, when he thought they’d never have more than those few stolen hours, it had torn him apart. “We’ll walk. I want every minute I can have with you, Ely.”
“It’s what I want too, and why I suggested a stroll.” She rubbed her cheek against his biceps, and tenderness for his mate seeped into him. He slipped his arm around her, and they started off again, tramping through the decaying leaves and twigs, avoiding the sludgy snow patches.
“So the boathouse is yours?”
“Ours,” she corrected. “It was gifted to me.” She filled him in on Hedori, a fellow Empyrean, who’d given her the boathouse, then spoke about her life in Empyrea…
“Wait.” He stopped her after a few minutes, eyes narrowing. “This Aethan who lives here now was your betrothed?” Through their bonded souls, he felt her amusement.
She laughed. “If my parents had their way. It didn’t matter that I saw him as another sibling. He’s my brother’s best friend…” She explained about him being banished for accidentally killing his little sister.
He frowned at hearing that, feeling the loss as if it were his own. Absently, he rubbed his chest and the ache there, recalling his dream.
“What is it?” she asked, eyes dark with concern.
“It’s nothing,” he murmured. “It must have been painful.”
“Yes.” Her expression turned somber. “All of Empyrea grieved. Aethan lived with the guilt for millennia. I think meeting and falling for Echo, his mate, helped him overcome the self-blame. It was an accident. The child had somehow gotten into the fighting arena when his sword slipped from his hand…”
Silent now, they continued through the tall trees, the tops reaching up as if to touch the heavy gray clouds with promises of more snow to come and disperse them. Weak sunlight filtered through the vaporous mass as they cleared the forest, the soft beams caressing the acres of landscaped gardens currently covered with a layer of snow from the night before.
Nate halted, staring at the soaring castle some distance away. “Damn, that’s some serious pile of bricks.”
Ely burst out laughing. “It’s home.”
No matter the scenic setting, the massive, gothic castle with several imposing towers, crenelated battlements, and many turrets loomed over everything. Some kind of thick, creeping plant covered parts of the somber gray walls as if to hide its aura of peril. And failed.
“Come.” Ely grasped his hand and navigated the rolling gardens toward the building. They rounded the castle, passing many, many terraces.
“So, where exactly are we going?”
“The kitchen. It’s where they are right now. Well, most of them, anyway.”
Damn. Just how many of these Guardians were there? He knew a few of them by sight, had to, to stay off their radar, especially with the gory work he did for Azgor.
