Forbidden by Fate (5 page)

She hesitated. Did he know what he was getting into? Had he come through here before?

“Come on,” Damon said. He turned back, propping his foot up on a rock. “Don’t tell me you’ve come all this way just to turn back now.”

“It’s not that I want to go back…”

She simply didn’t want to follow him into that cave. Rogue Were packs often dwelled in caves along rivers, and they weren’t always friendly, even with wolves from like-minded packs.

“Oh, come on,” he said, offering his hand. “I know this is the edge of Draco territory, but I wouldn’t worry about other dragons bothering us. As long as you’re with me, you’re safe.”

It wasn’t
her
safety she worried about.

The land may’ve been Draco territory, but the cave was the perfect place for rogue Weres to plan an unexpected attack against a Draco or two. Damon might’ve been able to take care of himself against one or two werewolves, but a pack of them? No way.

Taking his hand, they walked through the wide mouth of the cave. It was dark, but Sasha’s superior Were vision allowed her to see perfectly. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see every crevice and every turn with crystal clarity.

The further they trudged, the more Sasha realized this wasn’t simply a cave, carved out of the mountain from river wear. This was someone’s home, with candles lit in iron sconces to lead the way, and a warm, inviting scent emitting from somewhere in the walls.

Wolves.
Though she didn’t smell them, it didn’t mean they weren’t here.

She stopped.

“Damon, I don’t think—”

“It’s all right,” he said, tugging her along. “I want to show you something.”

“This is someone’s home.” She bit her lip and peered around the corner. More lights. More warmth radiating from within. “We don’t belong here. Let’s go.”

He smiled, and Sasha could’ve sworn it lit the cave a shade brighter. “It’s
my
home.”

“Your…” Her eyebrows rose in surprise as Damon dragged her around the corner. A massive wooden door was inset into the rock, flanked by two large oil lamps, burning bright. “Home?”

He slid his hand along the top edge of the door, came up with a wrought-iron key and shoved it into the crude lock. “After you and I were finished, I went back to Castle Arcane to live with my clan. Turned out falling in love with a werewolf didn’t exactly scream
loyalty
to the Dracos.” He pushed on the door with the palm of his hand, letting a sliver of light into the cave. The warmth Sasha had picked up earlier swept through the crack in the door and hit her flush in the face. “I had to make a new home away from them…from everyone.”

Sasha pieced together his words. His clan wouldn’t take him…
because of her
? “You’re exiled?” Because of her decision to stick with her pack, Damon had spent all these years away from his family? Bearing the shame she would’ve endured had she stayed with him?

Waves of guilt rocked and soured her stomach. He’d taken her spot under the guillotine.

“You make it sound like they sawed off my left arm.” He pushed open the door fully, giving Sasha a glimpse at what had become his home.

From the look of the goliath-sized vaulted ceiling, the center of the mountain had been carved out, leaving rough walls of stone and dirt. Damon had sectioned off a living room with a leather sofa facing an overflowing set of bookshelves and a wood-burning stove churning hot in the corner. A kitchen with wood counters and a stone slab table was situated in back. And on one living room wall, a door carved out of rock led to what Sasha assumed was Damon’s bedroom.

But what had become Damon’s home wasn’t what stunned Sasha the most. It was the ceiling…or rather, what was drawn on the ceiling that rendered her speechless. Pictures of people, fish, bats, wolves and lizards had been picked or carved into the rock in some kind of linear fashion.

“Did you do that?” she asked, pointing up, staring at all the markings.

“No, that was done long before I came around.” He tossed his backpack in the corner and moved into the center of the living room, waiting for her to leave the doorway. “The cave was carved and the ceiling was designed. I simply hung the door and added some necessities.”

She’d seen something like the etchings in books—they had to be hieroglyphics or tribal markings, though she could never imagine so many of them being found in one place. They nearly blanketed the ceiling. “Are they hieroglyphics? Like what’s in Egypt?”

“No, they’re petroglyphs—stories carved into rock. They’re pictures turned into words, instead of symbols translating into an alphabet. They could’ve been done around the same time, though.” He paused, eyeing her curiously. “No way to tell unless we convince a scientist to jump through the portals to Feralon to research them. I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.”

It was a damned shame to leave the carvings as they were—hidden and unstudied. She gazed up at them a bit more and then realized she was using any excuse not to think about the more pressing issue—Damon.

“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,” she said as she paced slowly around the room. “I guess I just thought you’ve been living with your clan all these years. If I’d known…”

She stopped. What could she have done, exactly? Hell, she didn’t know.

“Don’t worry about it, Sasha. I’ve done all right for myself. This place doesn’t have the workings of Were Mountain or Castle Arcane, but it’s fine. I only eat and sleep here.”

It didn’t take long before Sasha was back at the door. Which made her think…

“Why here?” She spun around. “Of all the places to make your home—the caves carved high in Timeless Gorge or the forest right outside the castle—why did you chose this place? I mean, it’s cool and all, with the petroglyph things and the river outside your door, but why?”

He stood quickly and stalked to the kitchen. “One place is as good as another.”

“Yeah, but your only access is through that door…and we
walked
through it. Who’s to say tomorrow it won’t be a Were, or one of the Merfolk walking through it?”

He put both palms down on the table and took a deep breath. Like he was angry about her line of questioning. Had she offended him? Did Damon think she didn’t like the place? Or was there something else he wanted to say?

“It’s just that,” Sasha continued, hoping to talk her way out of a hole, “you’ve chosen a place that seems
most
accessible to other races, instead of choosing a home that is only accessible by flying. That doesn’t make sense.”

When he looked up at her, his eyes were ghostly white. “It makes sense if you’ve waited every minute of every day for seven long years for the love of your life to come walking through that door.”

Sasha’s heart caught.

“Damon, don’t. Not again.” It’s all she could say. It pained her to no end, but they couldn’t be together. She couldn’t give up her home, her family, like Damon had. That had taken strength and courage, neither of which she had.

“Don’t what?” Damon asked. “Tell you the truth? Why don’t you like hearing it? Does denial suit you that much better?”

“Just don’t.” She eyed the door as her instinct to run flared. She didn’t want to hear what Damon had to say. It’d only make leaving him today that much harder. “Don’t say anymore.”

Damon moved to her side, took her hand and pressed it against his lips. “I can’t ask you to choose between your pack and a life with me. I won’t.” He clenched his jaw until his lips strained white. “But I won’t live like this forever, exiled and ridiculed by my clan. If there’s a sliver of hope for us, now or in the future, I’ll stay, Sasha. I’ll stay where you can find me and walk through my front door and right into my arms. If there’s not a chance in hell of that happening, tell me now and I’ll leave you the hell alone and work my way back into Queen Elixa’s good graces.”

As much as Sasha recoiled at the thought of Damon going back to Draco territory, where she knew for certain she’d never see him again, she couldn’t promise him a future. How could she? When her father was prepping her to become Alpha? Everything was riding on her position. She’d be the first female to take charge and could alter the way females were viewed in the pack. She had to hope they’d begin to hear the mind-chatter of the males.

There was too much at stake. It was bigger than she was. Bigger than the two of them and the love they shared…if that’s what it was at all.

“Damon, I can’t promise you anything but this moment.”

If he didn’t take it, what would she do? Stay anyway? God, she would, wouldn’t she? Damn it, she was getting too close to the fire and too accustomed to its warmth.

Damon nodded, the glimmer in his eyes shadowing over. “Then I’ll take this moment and make a thousand memories with it.”

It was exactly the thing Sasha was hoping he’d say.

In a flourish of movement, Damon swept Sasha off her feet and carried her through the carved door, right into his bedroom.

She studied his face as he looked away. The cut of his jaw was severe and menacing, but his lips were so deliciously sweet, and so close to hers, she could almost taste them. He could’ve carried her this way to the ends of the earth. She wouldn’t have cared. As long as her body was pressed against his, feeding off his warmth and the sexual power flowing off him in heady waves. Nothing else mattered.

Her body nearly shook with excitement. Trembled from expectant hope. And when he laid her on his bed—a massive mattress with a knotty wood headboard and thick fur blankets—she bit her lip to keep her gasps locked away.

He kicked off his boots and stripped out of his pants and then crawled over the top of her and plunged into her mouth again. Sasha opened her mouth with a moan as his tongue swept inside. She caressed his shoulders, scraped her fingers over his hair. Angled his head so he could take more of her mouth.

Damon pressed against her, chest to chest, hip to hip, the hardness of his body eliciting a burning ache from her middle. The pressure over her body was perfect. It was possessive and dominant, yet as promising as a whisper. Sasha thrust her hips up as primal hunger from his breath-stealing kisses surged through her veins.

She wasn’t the only one hungry for this.

Damon was glistening with sweat, his skin damp beneath her fingers as she stroked them over and down his back. Sasha reached between their moving bodies and rubbed a firm hand over the bulge in his leather. He sucked in a short breath and rose up on his hands.

“I was hoping this was the hand you were offering earlier.” He was breathless but continued to smudge his mouth over her body. Scorching heat followed his lips, down her neck, along her shoulder. He slid her arms from her coat, revealing more skin to feed his hunger.

“If you hadn’t thrown your laundry at me,” Sasha breathed, her core aching for his touch, “I might’ve obliged.”

Their mouths met again. Hotter. Hungrier. And as his hand found the full mound of her breast spilling from the top of her corset, he groaned into her mouth, long and languid, setting her desire aflame.

His arm curled behind her back, grasped her by the hip and flipped her over in one, devilishly sexy move. With slow, tedious precision, Damon kissed and licked her back and then went to work untying her corset. By the time he was finished, it was Sasha who was undone, squirming and shifting from the softness of his lips and the brush of his fingers against her skin.

She flipped over and found herself caught in the massive cage of his body. He was enormous, poised over her with glowing charcoal eyes, glaring at her as if at any moment his control would snap like a rubber band and he’d drive into her until he burst.

His mouth closed over her nipple, as his hand darted between her legs and unbuttoned her pants. Dull, throbbing pains pulsed inside her, shooting from her breasts to her core and back up again. She squirmed her legs free from their leather prison and lay before him bare and ready for taking.

“Mmm,” he growled, as he palmed one of her breasts and suckled the other into his mouth. “Your skin is so soft…so sweet. I could eat you all day.”

Sasha’s breath hitched as he lowered his head between her legs. With a snap, her panties tore loose from her body. Damon tossed the shreds away and groaned as he dove his tongue inside her. Drugging, wet heat swallowed Sasha whole, blinding her to anything but the pleasure surging in her middle. His tongue raked against her most sensitive flesh, swirling and probing until Sasha was writhing against his mouth, begging for release.

She arched up, sensations in her core gathering into a tight ball of ecstasy. And when he smashed his mouth to her center and began to move his tongue in rough, fevered strokes, waves of pleasure overtook her, rippling through her body with succulent force. Digging her fingers into his shoulders, Sasha arched up, crying out.

It wasn’t until the ache in her middle eased into numbing bliss that she realized she hadn’t been breathing. Not really. Not fully. Maybe she never had, until this moment.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Damon set his burning gaze upon her. Warm, tingly sensations crept up Sasha’s spine and burst in her chest at the sight. As he stalked up her body, she settled lower, anxious for what was to come.

Damon angled himself between her legs and thrust into her in one long, slow motion that made Sasha rear up and dig her nails into his back. He moaned in response, heightening the sensations still tingling in her core. She lay back down, watching with hazy pleasure as his body moved against hers, pumping into her with deep, slow thrusts. Her hips rode up and a moan slipped out, as Damon drove deeper, stretching her intimate flesh to the fullest.

“That’s it, baby,” he said, roping one of her legs around his arm. He increased his tempo, thrusting into her harder. Faster. Dragging her into the throes of ecstasy with wild abandon.

As another climax hit with unexpected force, Sasha’s whole world shattered. She rocked her hips against his, gripped his shoulders and brought him down to claim his mouth. He assaulted her tongue. Bit her lip. Plunged into her with long, demanding strokes. Possessed her body and soul.