Paladin (Graven Gods 1) (28 page)

Questing with my magical senses, I felt Paladin’s lush enjoyment at holding me helpless. He was also well aware of how much I loved being his captive.

I wondered if I could free myself. Magic gathered, swirling at the base of my brain, deliciously new and intense. Almost as intoxicating as Paladin’s touch.

Almost.

I
could
break his hold. Instead I just squirmed. A slow, sensual struggle intended to excite him -- and me -- rather than actually win free.

Paladin’s gaze flicked upward, found my face. He lifted his head long enough to give me a pirate’s smile, then nuzzled my breast and closed his teeth on the nipple in a tender bite. I shuddered at the rich delight.

“You taste
sooooo
good,” he told me in a soft purring growl, and I felt the petals of my sex tightening, growing slick with craving.

Even slicker, that is, than they already were.

Paladin rose on his elbows above me and nibbled his way up across my chest to reach the other peak. Delight bloomed behind my eyes like a glowing rose, each petal perfect. The light in the dim room was growing brighter. My swirling power tatts shedding sparks of blue and purple again.

“You are a goddess now,” Paladin reminded me. I wasn’t surprised he knew what I was thinking. He knew me that well. “You’ll be making like a nightlight until you learn how to properly contain your power.”

A dozen questions flitted through my head, but before I could ask any of them, he leaned down to nibble the taut flesh of my abdomen. I promptly forgot everything else except the feel of his lips and the warmth of his fingers sketching delicious sigils along the length of my body -- until he moved between my thighs and spread them wide.

I gasped as he parted tender vaginal lips with his fingers, stroking and circling the taut bud of my clit. Arousal built with each tiny caress until my hips rolled helplessly.

He lowered his head.

I sucked in a breath of anticipation.

I should’ve known better. Paladin was not the type of lover who rushed. Instead, he bit the inside of my thigh, inflicting a sharp little sting to make me gasp. Fingers swept the sensitive skin of my thighs, my calves -- and impossibly, my wrists, though I knew his hands were nowhere near them. Ghostly little brushes light as an ostrich plume.

I’d have sworn there was more than one man in my bed -- and with Paladin, it was possible. But when I rolled my head, I saw that the glitter around my wrists now wound up my arms, following the lines of my power tatts. The clever bastard was using those channels to reach into my magic, stimulating the neural pathways in a way I’d never felt with my mortal lovers. Or even with him.

“I know all kinds of little tricks,” Paladin purred, giving the seam of my outer labia a promising lick. “Four thousand years adds up to a
lot
of experience.”

I whimpered. “Ohhh, you evil god. I’ll bet you gave the Marquis de Sade lessons.”

“Wench.” Laughing, Paladin reached one long arm up the length of my body to pinch and pull a nipple. Spreading my labia with the other hand, he drew back a bit, tilting his head in admiration. “Delicious. As red and pretty as a maraschino cherry.”

Bending his head, he gave me a swirling lick, circling the eager bud. “And just as sweet.” His tongue traced a lazy figure eight around my clit, circling my opening, licking the slick lips.

I writhed against my bonds, which only tightened, pulling my arms and legs even further apart like cuffs made of solid steel. He sent another sparkling rush along my nerves that triggered pain and pleasure in luscious waves.

I ground my head back into the pillow. “Paladin, stop torturing me!”

He laughed, a deep, dark rumble. “I’ll do as I please, wench. I’m your master, and I won’t tolerate any more of your sass. Otherwise…”

I lifted my head to shoot him a challenging glance. “What are you going to do about it?”

I half expected him to drag me out of my magical chains and give me the spanking I was begging for. Instead his tongue began to play, flicking and swirling over my clit.

And with every delicate lick, magic rolled out of his mouth, a warm, sweet wave of it that slowly intensified, dragging a drunken moan from my mouth. Pain joined it, shivering delicately across my flesh from the delicate rake of his power over my nerves. The sensation morphed into pleasure, weaving curling strands of glitter up my spine into my brain. Swirling, tightening, magical delight stacking on magical delight until I yowled, shameless, lost in the whirlwind of my arousal.

I had no idea whether he was so good at driving me mad thanks to those forty centuries of erotic experience, or just the twelve years inside my head. Either way, he licked and circled and teased, sometimes with his magic, sometimes with his tongue, fingers sliding into my cream-filled cunt.

And every time he did it, little pulses of magic shot me closer to orgasm, until I swore I could feel it vibrating my brain’s stem. It was maddening, and I rolled my hips desperately, trying to get that last little bit of pressure I needed to climax. But each time I almost came, he’d back off, leaving me teetering on the edge, quivering arousal building higher and ever higher.

“Paladin,” I panted, “Let me…”

He gave me a lazy lick just inside the opening of my vagina. As he lapped, magic snapped and popped over my nerve endings, stinging sweetly. “Did you or did you not compare your master to the Marquis de Sade?”

“Sorry! I’m… sorry!”

“Oh darling, you’re going to be much sorrier.” His tongue returned to its circling dance between tiny bites that stung and pleasured by turns.

My arousal built and built and built, hips pumping desperately. “Please, master!”

“No.”

And I lost it.

Magic surged over my body, overloading his bonds in a rain of sparks. I reached down between my thighs, caught him under his brawny arms, and dragged him up over me with my Demi strength. I flipped him neatly onto his back. His yell of surprise became a gasp as I rose and impaled myself on the thick, smooth length of his cock.

“Elder gods!”

I think that shout was his. Though it easily could have been mine…

I rode him hard, rising off him only to grind back down, furious with lust. Paladin filled me just the way I wanted. He felt so delicious inside me, a hot velvet length, tempting and maddening. Leaning back, I braced my hands on either side of his hips, and punched mercilessly up and down, setting up a hard, relentless rhythm.

His blue eyes blazed up at me as he sprawled beneath me, all ridiculously broad shoulders and a rolling landscape of abdominals.

I keened in delight at his delicious, steely width. Long, so exquisitely
long
. And I was so close, almost there, almost…

The orgasm started out as physical, inner muscles pulsing as I lost myself in him, on him. The magical explosion began, his power blending with mine, setting off an incredible detonation of sensation.

There was nothing delicate or fragile about this pleasure. It reached up, grabbed the base of my skull and shook it like a mouse in Calliope’s jaws. My scream blended with Paladin’s raw bellow as we both came.

I was vaguely aware of our tattoos blazing blue and violet in the room, almost blinding. I finally collapsed on top of him, breathless, boneless, feeling as if the magic had been wrung out of me like a rag. I listened to Paladin pant, the sound blending with my own pounding heartbeat.

Long minutes went by before either of us was capable of doing anything more strenuous than breathing.

My skull was so drained of thought, I was faintly surprised when Paladin managed to speak. “Well, if there are any bad guys left in this town, that display should make them lie low.”

I wheezed a snicker. “They’re probably quaking in their lairs.”

“
I don’t know about the bad guys
,” Eris said dryly, “
But
I’m
terrified
.”

He laughed and pulled me close.

Through the door I heard Calliope’s voice. “Are you two still alive in there, or was that some kind of mutually orgasmic destruction?”

Paladin wrapped his delightfully brawny arms tighter around me. “Nope, we’re still here.”

My stomach chose that moment to grumble. “I’m hungry.” I stretched luxuriously against my love, enjoying the sensation of his hard body against mine, the light ruff of his chest hair tickling my skin down to the fluff at his groin. “How do pancakes sound?”

“I think I’d rather eat pussy.”

“Unfortunately, that particular item is not on my menu. And since I’m faint with hunger, I propose a breakfast break for an hour or so.”

“Half an hour,” he countered. “Then I’m having you for dessert.”

I laughed and tumbled out of bed to pad for the bathroom. It was definitely time to brush my teeth, though I hadn’t noticed Paladin having morning breath. Then again, I doubt I’d have noticed an earthquake, what with all the lovely sex…

* * *

Paladin watched as I practically danced around the kitchen, whipping the pancake batter with a whisk. As I started to pour it onto the heated griddle, it occurred to me I could probably have cooked them with my power alone.

But as my mother always said, “
Never waste magic when you can use your hands to do a job. You may need the power later
.” I poured another circle of batter. “What does this mean? My being a god, I mean.”

“Mostly it means that neither Eris nor I have to worry about losing you. When she clarified all that magic, poured it back to me, I realized what we could do with it. That not only could we make you a goddess, but that you deserved it. That you’d use the power well. And she agreed with me.” He grinned. “Which may be the most surprising thing about this, because Eris rarely agrees with me about anything.”

I reached out and touched my magic. Before my transformation, it had seemed like a little dancing stream through my senses. Now it lay across my consciousness like a lake, deep and blue, ready to surge at my command.

I was a goddess.

It was really hard to believe. “I didn’t even know this was possible. I thought you had to be worshiped for centuries to gain this kind of power.”

Paladin shrugged. “We don’t talk about the possibility much. It’s incredibly difficult to pull off, and it requires far more power to ignite the transformation than is normally possible.” His face went grim. “And the new god runs the risk of going mad. Even the most power-hungry dark acolytes don’t want to risk plunging into that kind of insanity.”

“So if Eris hadn’t been able to purify all that polluted power…”

He shrugged. “We wouldn’t have given it to you. It would have destroyed you.”

I flipped the pancakes and decided to change a subject that was getting far too dark. “Why didn’t you come back to my body? Immediately after you were free of the gem, I mean.”

“That wasn’t even a possibility. I couldn’t stand the thought of giving you up to Ulf-Mark or someone like him. The idea made me crazy.” He said the words with flat honesty. “Plus I knew you wanted children, and I couldn’t give them to you if I shared your body. We can do a lot, we gods, with the right genetic materials, but I’d have to get half those source genes from somewhere else. Otherwise the baby would only be a clone.” Paladin spread strong arms wide, as if displaying his big body. “I can give you that child now.” His lips pulled off his teeth. “And I won’t have to watch you marry another man.”

Calliope glanced up from the kitchen table, where she was crunching her way through a pile of bacon. Now that the cat was out of the bag as far as I was concerned, her days of eating on the floor were over. “You do realize your new body’s genetic material is nowhere near Summer’s quality?”

He shrugged. “Yes, but I can work with it. I can manipulate my sperm’s DNA to maximize our children’s abilities. This body’s not as talented as I might wish, but he’ll do.”

I considered that a moment. “What happens when we both begin to age?”

“There are things we can do to slow that down, with you being a goddess. We can heal the damage of aging so we can remain in these bodies for a couple of hundred years. When that doesn’t work any longer, you can find a new host, just like any other god.”

“But what about the children we have in the next few years? If they don’t inherit gods, won’t that pose a problem for them?”

Paladin shrugged. “There’s always someone occupying some gemstone somewhere who needs a host. I’m confident we can find a couple of worthy gods who’d be delighted to inhabit our children, especially given the talent they’re going to have.”

We carried the food to the table and sat down in the golden morning sunlight streaming through the lace curtains.

“You do realize, you could have used that power you gave me to become god of the city instead,” I said as we dug in. “If not of Graven, somewhere else.” Giving up that kind of power wasn’t something a god did lightly. Generally, they hoarded all the magic they could get. You never knew when a more powerful dark god would come hunting.

Yet he had given it up for me.

Paladin reached across the table and laid his big hand over mine. “I could have kept it,” he agreed steadily. “But what I really wanted was you, even more than any magic. Magic is easy to come by. A woman like you is not. In all my long life I have never loved a woman the way I have loved you. And I never will.”

I felt my eyes sting with tears. “And I’ll never love another man.” When his brows lifted, I knew what he was thinking. I smiled and flipped my hand over so I could grip his in return. “I may be only twenty-five, but some truths you don’t need a lot of experience to recognize.”

Angela Knight is the New York Times best selling author of books for Berkley, Red Sage, Changeling Press, and Loose Id. Her first book was written in pencil and illustrated in crayon; she was nine years old at the time. A few years later, she read The Wolf and the Dove and fell in love with romance. Besides her fiction work, Angela’s publishing career includes a stint as a comic book writer and ten years as a newspaper reporter. Several of her stories won South Carolina Press Association awards under her real name.