My Wicked Enemy (22 page)

That was Nikodemus’s voice. Low and even. Completely and utterly calm, as opposed to the panic that held Carson immobile. Iskander rose. He was tall, tall, tall. His presence shivered through the room. She couldn’t disengage from his eyes. Her head tipped back. There had to be a way out. But he was still looking for a way in, and she was afraid if she tried anything, he’d find it.

“She is a witch,” Iskander said. His voice was hoarse. His magic washed over her and raised goose pimples on her skin. “An enemy.”

“And kin.” A floorboard creaked, and movement darkened the moonlight that flooded the room from the open window. “You trying to tell me she doesn’t feel like kin to you, too? Let her go, Iskander.”

“You’ve bound the witch to you,” he said.

Nikodemus walked into Carson’s line of sight. Iskander topped him by a couple of inches, but Nikodemus came to a stop, arms crossed over his chest, unconcerned by Iskander’s physical size. “I said let her go.” His hand whipped out and caught the side of Iskander’s head. “You must have a death wish pulling this shit.” He brought his head toward Iskander. “She’s mine, fiend.” Iskander’s eyes flashed again. He took a step back, but Nikodemus didn’t let go of him. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m not even going to count to three.”

“Warlord.” The locks around Carson’s head loosened. Nikodemus opened his hand, and Iskander’s hair fell away from his grip. Iskander touched his first three fingers to his forehead and bowed. She still sensed them both, but Iskander was no longer trying to break her down.

“Whatever was wrong with you, you psychotic freak,” Nikodemus said, “Carson fixed it. You think we can’t use that on our side? You think that’s not a power that can save us?”

Iskander knelt at Nikodemus’s feet, head bowed. “Warlord.”

He was big. Bigger than Nikodemus was, and if she didn’t know Nikodemus’s power, if it weren’t flowing through her right now, she wouldn’t have been sure which one of them would win a fair fight. Nikodemus cocked his head at the kneeling Iskander. “You wanna tell me what you mean by that?” he asked. “Be real clear, because there’s no going back.”

Iskander touched his first three fingers to his forehead before he turned his head to one side, stretching his neck taut. “There will be a battle between fiends and the mages,” he said. “And I choose the warlord whose witch freed me.”

“What about your sister?” Nikodemus softly asked.

The stripes down his face glowed intense blue. “I am free to choose, Warlord,” he replied.

“Just what I’ve always wanted,” Nikodemus said. “The psychotic half of a pair of blood-twins. Last chance. You sure?”

Iskander began to speak in a soft voice that sounded like silk in a dark room. Magic coated the words, colored the intent, and worked into the very air they breathed. Carson didn’t dare move. Iskander might have stopped trying to break down her mind, but he hadn’t disengaged from her, and she found herself a spectator to the ritual that forged a connection between a fiend and a warlord.

When Iskander finished the words, Nikodemus scored the fiend’s neck with a now-sharp nail. Blood flowed with crimson heat and a copper scent, rich and pristine. A longing to taste it wracked Carson. She was already on edge with Nikodemus’s magic flooding through her, and this about sent her off a cliff. He pulled Iskander to his feet. With his fingers tangled in the hair at the back of Iskander’s head, Nikodemus drew the fiend toward him. Off balance, Iskander’s arm snaked around Nikodemus’s hip, stabilizing them. Carson was there, too, experiencing with him the taste of Iskander’s blood and the thrill as the fiend’s bond of fealty was forged. She felt as well Iskander’s reaction as the bond eased the desolation that had eaten away at his soul while he’d been cut off from his twin.

Nikodemus drew back to score the inside of his wrist and offer his blood to Iskander. The fiend’s eyes flashed a dozen shades of blue, and Carson felt Iskander’s magic filling her as he bent to Nikodemus’s wrist. The taste and smell echoed in her. Her heart thudded slowly as the bond solidified. This, she realized, was what Nikodemus needed. Kin loyal to him, who could be trusted.

When Iskander lifted his head from Nikodemus’s wrist, he bowed, again pressing three fingers to his forehead. “Warlord,” he said.

Nikodemus put a hand down and pulled Carson to her feet. He rested a hand on the back of her neck. “She’s mine, Iskander. And I am hers. You understand me?”

“I feel her as kin,” Iskander said, and it was both an admission and an expression of relief. His eyes met Carson’s, and he was a flicker in her head, and then more. Iskander’s magic was definitely off, like his mind, too long twisted to be anything but permanently bent, but there was no denying he was a powerful fiend. He’d been isolated for so long, cut off and unable to interact with his power, that he greedily reached for Nikodemus now. His need to connect with the kin became a river. His mind touched Carson’s, too, jittering like Fen’s eyes. Unstable.

Nikodemus brushed a finger along the line of the blood-twin’s jaw. The air around them rippled with their magic, sweeping Carson along in the connection. She lost sight of Iskander, but his presence in her head burned with sensual heat. She lost Nikodemus, too. He was still in her head—none of that had changed. Both were in her head, or maybe she was in both their minds. She tried to find Nikodemus’s face in the shadows, but every time she thought she saw one or both of them, she lost them.

“Nikodemus?”

The light rippled again, or maybe it was that her vision returned to normal, because she could see them both as clearly as if the sun were pouring in the windows. Iskander slid his arm off Nikodemus’s shoulders. Nikodemus captured her in his arms, caressing her throat with the tips of his fingers.

She felt at home, and though Iskander was there, the deeper connection for her was with Nikodemus. The two of them, Nikodemus and her, shared their stronger link with Iskander. Together, they brought Iskander along. He’d been so very isolated all these years. Even now Iskander missed his sister, the years-long coexistence with a being that was an extension of him. Without that, he’d been slowly losing himself. And this, Carson realized, this link between the three of them was a step toward healing him. He needed touch, physical and mental, with creatures of his own kind. He needed to learn how to interact with fiends other than his sister.

Iskander removed his shirt with fluid grace. Moonlight shadowed the muscles of his torso and then his thighs as he shucked his briefs. Naked, he touched his finger to his heart, then drew a line along the midline of his chest from throat to navel. A dark blue line rippled in its wake. In the dim light, his eyes glowed cobalt blue, and the base of Carson’s spine liquified as she watched.

The blue line down Iskander’s midsection wasn’t going away, and she watched it, fascinated and horrified both. Iskander crouched. The energy gathering in him pressed the air from Carson’s lungs. He stretched his arms over his head, palms reaching for the ceiling, and stood to his full height. She had to move to see him and tip her chin upward. Power resonated in him, along the connection between the three of them.

And then Iskander changed. His body rippled. For a moment, she thought he’d disappeared. She blinked and then blinked again. He absorbed darkness so absolutely, the contours of his body were lost unless she turned her head and looked at him from the side. His eyes glowed hot blue, the only color left to him aside from the unrelenting shifting blue-black of a body that gleamed cobalt where the moonlight slid over him. Even his hair was blue-black, shoulder-length curls of inky blue darkness. Iskander remained in his balanced pose. He was made to fight, formed to be lethal. He was bigger now, his body physically larger. Menacing. And she couldn’t dismiss her suspicion that he intended the menace.

The thing was, she liked it. She liked the menace. Was this what Nikodemus meant about her responding to fiends? Looking at Iskander made her hungry. The fiend’s mouth curved into something that might be a smile.

“Yes, Carson.” Nikodemus braceleted her wrists and, too quick for her to track, brought her arms up and back so that she ended up with her hands clasped behind his neck. Because of his height, she was stretched up. He pressed a hand into the small of her back, and when she arched in response to that pressure, he reached around her and slid both hands under her shirt again, slipping up her stomach to cover her breasts with his hands. In her ear, with Iskander present with them, he said, “You have on too many clothes.”

And he proceeded to undress her. Her shirt and bra, gone. Then he cupped her breasts and dropped his head to her shoulder, his teeth scraping along her skin, not drawing blood, but close. He could so easily hurt her. One hand returned to the small of her back, pressing until she had to let go of him. He caught her around the waist in time to stop her fall to the floor, but not gently. His hands on her telegraphed his strength. He could have been much rougher. Her breath caught.

In her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of Iskander moving toward them. Nikodemus hooked his fingers in her flannel pants and jerked down hard, taking her underwear with them. His mouth on her breast was firm, just on the edge of too rough, his tongue over and around her nipple wickedly agile. She felt the pull all the way to her core; she felt Nikodemus and Iskander and herself all in the same mental space.

“This won’t be sweet or tender,” he said.

“I don’t want sweet or tender.” She brought his head to hers, and when their mouths met, her stomach soared. She felt his teeth against her lips, and when he opened his mouth over hers, she swept her tongue inside. Her body ached for him. He reared back. His eyes glowed black, backlit with silver. The wetness started a quiver in her belly and an ache in her breasts. Her heart pounded too quickly. “Nikodemus.” She felt Iskander echo her. Her hands lifted, caught in Nikodemus’s hair, and tangled there in curls like silk across the backs of her hands. “Nikodemus, please.”

“This isn’t safe,” he said. His voice came from deeper in his chest, lower down, harsher. “We are not safe like this.”

“I don’t care.” Carson pressed her palm to his chest.

Inches from brushing his mouth with hers, he pulled back.

“Nikodemus.” She moaned his name. Her hands lifted, caught in his hair, and tangled there in curls like silk across the backs of her hands again.

“Iskander,” Nikodemus said. “You need to shift back. Now.”

“Warlord.” Her sense of Iskander receded. He was back in full view, as the man she knew, blue stripes on his face, but with eyes that were alive.

Nikodemus touched her forehead with an index finger and he was there in her head, taking over. The sensation of his connection with her flared, and then the silver-to-black of his eyes disappeared, too. Even the shadows around him vanished. Nikodemus was inside her. Really inside. All the black shadow of him was inside her, taking her feelings and racheting them up unbearably. He used her body from inside. Iskander knelt and touched her, his hands sliding the length of her body, alive in her head. Nikodemus took all her sensations and fed them back to her with his.

She gasped when she felt Iskander touch the magic from the talisman. The very action made her aware of the magic she couldn’t touch, of the poison that had gathered there year after year until there was no hope for the magic she’d been born to. Her body reacted differently, and her vision was different, too. She felt Iskander’s teeth against her lips, and with her reaction came Nikodemus’s. When he opened his mouth over hers she swept her tongue inside. Iskander needed the augmented psychic link that came with physical touching.

With a slow movement, Iskander covered her body with his. The heat of his body startled her, then the pressure of his chest against her torso jarred her. He kissed her, one finger of a hand around her nape finding the physical remnant of the talisman’s entry into her and stroking over it. Carson brought him into her embrace, touching him, letting him kiss her harder and then kissing him harder yet.

She could feel Nikodemus in her head, taking her to the edge of sensual collapse. Iskander fit his body to hers, and though he was brutally big, she was ready. His forward press into her came in a relentless pressure of her body accepting his. She lifted a knee and he surged forward. When he was in, all the way in, a cry gathered in her throat. He felt right, exactly what they needed. And then the slide, the withdrawal and surge inward. She felt him in her body and Nikodemus in her head, ramping them higher and tighter. He grabbed her hands and pressed forward, getting deeper inside her, and while he did, she matched him.

“Nikodemus. Warlord.” The words came from deep in Iskander’s chest. Heat built in her all over again, a wave of climax rushing at her. Nikodemus controlled the wave, plunged them both into it, built it up. Iskander’s eyelids lowered, hiding the burning blue pupils. The stripes down his cheek glowed softly. She held him as tight as she could, following the muscles down his back, feeling them flex and extend and release. He had her pinned, thrusting hard and harder. His forward flex into her brought a scream rushing up and, in time, in response, a growl rumbled through the air, thrummed through every inch of her body. He wasn’t close enough, not deep enough.

His burning hands slid under her shoulders. He rolled onto his back and she went with him, still with him inside her. The pressure was almost more than she could stand. She was beyond the point where she should have come. Her inner muscles clenched around him. Iskander grabbed her head and tangled his fingers in her hair to pull her to him. His mouth covered hers, tongue thrusting. Inside his mouth, the wet was hotter than she expected. The shiver of orgasm built in her. Her hands slid around his back, down the curve of his spine, to his hip. He came first, with a keening groan that emptied into her body and swept her along with him.