Embracing Destiny Page 12

  “Not enough, you need to do better. I don’t remember saying you could come yet, either,” I taunted, my magic stretching her for coming without permission. I stared as her head lifted, and her lips parted on a scream escaping her tight throat. “Quiet, or I’ll fuck that warm mouth of your next, Pet.”

  I surveyed Synthia as she rocked against my magic, fucking her greedy slick flesh as it tightened around my cock. Sex magic was heady, and I was its master. I could feel her as if I was in her pussy, deliciously wrecking that tight hole. My magic fucked her ass hard too, and it took everything within me to be gentle.

  Her humanity was stopping me from taking her ass myself, and I craved it. I wanted to watch those pretty eyes grow languid, coming undone on my cock, buried in that tight little ass up to my ball-sack.

  Pulling the magic back, I watched as she sagged against the bed in relief. “What’s the matter, Synthia? Not happy with the change you forced on me?” I asked, gazing at the electric-blue eyes that locked with mine. Fire banked within them, and then sadness slipped in as her head shook with her reply.

  I’d done shit her way for as long as I could, keeping secrets from her that could destroy the tenacious, precarious relationship we had together. She knew who I was, just not what I was. How did I tell this beautiful woman that I was the one who wrecked her life, setting everything into motion that had happened to her? Worse, I was about to do something so horrendous she’d leave me without question if she found out. It would break her into a million pieces, ruining everything we’d built in the last year together.

  Synthia took away the beast. The one constant thing I knew could never change. She fucked him right out of me, and he had allowed her to do it. It burned, pissing me off until I wanted to hurt her, viscerally and so profoundly that she would know the betrayal I felt.

  I’d heard her plotting to change me, knew she was holding court with creatures I’d forbidden from entering my kingdom, and now I was expected to pay the price? Fuck that, and fuck waiting around for her to get her shit together. This war didn’t have an endless amount of time before it would be pounding on our gates and knocking down our doors.

  We’d all helped her, taught her how to wield her powers and fight. The one fucking thing she had to do alone, and she’s refused to accept it. The power of Faery is hers, and it was right there, waiting. I’d fucked her in front of the horde, shown her she was more than just a part of this world. I’d pounded into her tight pussy as the skies changed, and she’d fallen apart, stretched painfully on my cock, coming so hard the world shattered with her. She still didn’t reach for that power.

  Standing up, I moved to the bed, turning her onto her back, staring at her sleeping face. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing, and I snorted. If she accepted what Faery offered, she wouldn’t tire. Gods didn’t sleep. Synthia needed sleep, which should have told her the transformation from human to goddess was incomplete.

  She ignored everything we said, tuning us out as she accepted us and not the world around her. She had to wake the hell up before we lost the war, and our children paid the price. I’d been gentle, loving, and nothing came from it.

  I had tried to make her realize that she wasn’t accepting Faery. Dristan point-blank told Synthia that she needed to take what Faery was offering her. She’d looked at him with a soft smile curving her beautiful mouth as I’d studied her from the shadows. Her response? Is that so? Not how, or help me, just lame-ass replies to the one thing that could help us win this war before it started.

  The fucked up thing was, Synthia had to want the power Faery was offering. It couldn’t be forced upon her or taught. One had to want it with everything within them and grab the power the moment it entered them, tethering it to their soul. Synthia was too busy shoving her soul into me, and yeah, that was also a fucking problem.

  She’d taught me love, unwavering, undying love. She was the stars in my eyes that she loved so much. Synthia ignited a fire within me, and yet she still held herself at arm’s length while demanding I give her every part of me. She didn’t even realize she was doing it, or that when she spoke of her home, it wasn’t here with her children or me. She was fighting for us, but she sure as shit was not fighting with us, not yet.

  I parted her thighs, enjoying the look of her pretty, sleepy eyes slipping open as I rubbed my cock against her hungry cunt. Inserting my thick tip into her haven, she clenched invitingly around me as a groan escaped her lips. I lunged deep without warning, pushing into her tight body until her greedy flesh took me all the way to my aching balls, swallowing me entirely.

  “I’m not finished with you, woman. Wake up and fuck me,” I hissed, a growl escaping my throat. Those pretty electric-blue eyes turned to violet and back again as she came alive for me. “Move, ride my cock, Synthia,” I chuckled. Pushing her knees against her shoulders, I added more length and width until her eyes went wide, and her pretty mouth opened on a scream. I stretched every inch of her until I knew she ached.

  “Ryder, it hurts,” she complained, and I leaned down, claiming her lips hungrily to stifle her complaints. Her body moved, her argument turning into a moan as I slowly rocked against her.

  “Good, it’s supposed to hurt. You’re a naughty girl,” I growled, turning us until I was on my back, and I filled her pretty pussy with as much as she could safely take, clenching against me with the need to come. “Ride me, or I’ll add more length and watch you struggle to get off of it.”

  Tiny hands moved to my chest, going flat as she lifted onto her knees, staring down at my engorged cock, so large she could hardly move on it. I was willing to bet, right about now, she was regretting that she transformed me. I had no plans to help her. If anyone could take my cock, it was her. My gaze dropped to where she stretched around me, her greedy cunt milking my dick until it fucking ached.

  “Look at your tight, messy pussy. Make it come for me. I want to watch you fuck me, Pet.” I noted those angry eyes lifting to mine, burning with rage and anger. “You pissed off? Good, take it out on my dick, woman. It’s your only option right now.”

  I barely contained the groan as she placed her feet on the bed and stood, gripping every inch of my cock enveloped in her body as she slipped it from her swollen flesh. The popping noise of her body as she freed herself from me sounded throughout the room. My arms moved, resting behind my head, staring at the angry red flesh of her sex. I expected her to move from the bed; she didn’t.

  Synthia slammed down, taking every fucking inch of my cock, repeating it over and over until I exploded into her cunt, trembling. Throwing her head back, Synthia roared her release as magic filled the room. I moved, rolling her onto the bed, stalling her orgasm long enough to own that shit. I pumped my hips hard and fast, wrecking her flesh until she whimpered, trying to escape me as we both came until completely drained and gasping for air.

  “Woman, you undo me,” I chuckled against her perky tits, nipping one and then the other as her head lifted and fell back without words. I bucked my hips, and her head shook, unwilling to take more of the monster she’d created. “Tired? Too fucking bad, Pet. I’m still hard and not finished ruining this pussy yet.”

  Hours passed, and I continued to wreck her until we were both depleted and satisfied, and even then, I didn’t want to be out of her body. I felt like the beast with his insatiable hunger to fuck and claim her in the most basic primal way.

  I wanted her womb filled, her body drenched with my come, and I wanted her swollen with my babe growing within her. It took everything I had inside of me not to release the reigns I held on that part of me. I could knock her up, and all it would take was me wanting to do it.

  Once this war ended, she would give me more babes, and we’d live in peace as I watched her belly swell with them. Fuck, I wanted this woman and the life we could have together, but I needed her to wake up first. I needed the warrior within her to see what awai
ted her, but rose-colored glasses prevented that from happening.

  I was out of time and patience, waiting for her to grow the hell up and take what was rightfully hers. She wasn’t my equal, not yet. I would force her to become it, though, because this world depended on both of us to ensure it survived.

  “Ryder, go to sleep,” she uttered hoarsely, her voice long gone from screaming.

  I smiled harshly, withdrawing from her. I glamoured a nightgown onto Synthia’s naked body and some simple clothes onto mine, fully aware of the eyes watching me from the shadows. I turned, leaving the room to join Zahruk, who waited for me in the hallway. We didn’t speak, not until I sifted out of the stronghold and appeared next to the Fairy Pools in Scotland, far away from my mischievous wife and those she’d allowed into my home.

  “Was she there?” Zahruk asked, palming his blades while watching my face.

  “Synthia brokered a deal with her. What she agreed to, I have no idea.”

  “Synthia betrayed us.” Zahruk frowned, unhappy with her choices.

  “She changed me, and yes, she’s betrayed me. I don’t know what she has planned or what she has done. Until we know, I don’t want her to realize we’re aware of her secrets. She loves us and wants to keep us safe, and I fear someone else, a god or goddess perhaps, is playing on those emotions to get to her. I’d rather be certain of her reasoning before assuming she has committed treason against us out of malice. Have we moved the children and warned Liam of our concerns?”

  “Yes, they’re hidden where no one will find them.”

  “If we do this, I want guards posted everywhere. I don’t want her to walk in while it’s happening. Synthia would react before she knew the truth.”

  “Maybe if you piss her off enough, she’ll wake the fuck up and take the powers from Faery that we need to end this war.” Zahruk’s sapphire eyes studied me intensely.

  “I told her we issued a kill order on the fae, and she went to the human world. Synthia didn’t move to protect the people of Faery from me. She ran back to Alden and the guild. I don’t know what to do with her, other than force her into that tower and fight this war on our own.”

  “She invited creatures into our home. Synthia refuses to become part of this world, straddling the line between both. She has to be forced to choose one, Ryder. The human world doesn’t want her or need her anymore. Faery is screaming for her the only way it can, with the blood of the fae drenching the soil. That pain she feels? It will go away the moment she finally accepts this world as her home and stops grasping on to the one that refuses to let her go.”

  “Do it, set the trap and bait the pest. Don’t get fucking caught. I don’t need to tell you what a shit show it will be if that happens.”

  “And if I get caught?”

  “Then we handle it, nothing changes. It can’t. Too much depends on ending the threat within our walls.”

  “It’s your funeral.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Synthia

  The shadows swirled, becoming the silhouette of a goddess. I surveyed her warily, allowing my gaze to slowly dip to the dress she wore, brushing over her delicate ankles. Midnight ringlets bounced over her shoulders as she stepped out of the shadows and entered my private bedchambers.

  Ryder was somewhere else in the stronghold, occupied with the coming war. Her long, slender hands pushed the shadows away from her frame as her blood-red painted fingertips dusted off the stubborn shadows remaining on her bare shoulders that refused to release her.

  “You were supposed to be here days ago.” I spoke low and clear, anger lacing my words.

  “It wasn’t easy to get the potion without the other gods noticing me. I’m here now,” she said in a bored, breathy voice.

  Between her fingers was a vial of glowing blue liquid. The bottle was small, easily pinched between her fingertips. I didn’t reach for it, studying her face silently, and she watched me for any signs of weakness. After a few moments, she snorted.

  “I thought you wanted it?”

  “I do,” I admitted, carefully. “You were supposed to be here to take my children to the City of the Gods. Yet you have not asked where they are, why?” I scrutinized the woman before me as I waited for her to respond.

  “I cannot take them yet,” she confessed, frowning. “I need to arrange a secure place to hold them where they can thrive instead of being smothered. I’m sure you understand the need for secrecy, and I don’t think you want the other gods and goddesses to know your offspring are within their world.” At my silence and continued glare, she went on, “I will take them, but I need a little more time. They’re safe for now.”

  “And the potion, it will turn Ryder into a god?” I asked, watching for any sign that she was lying.

  “It will, Synthia. I promise you it will make him into a god, but of what, I cannot be certain. You should administer it as soon as possible. He will head south within a matter of days to cut off the mages and troops marching toward us, and you’ll want him here as he goes through the change. Have your children here tomorrow morning. I will be back for them.”

  “That’s rather short notice,” I mused, tapping my chin with my finger. “I need four days to hide the fact that it will be you picking them up instead of Destiny. Ryder will also be in transition, and won’t be present for the handoff. I need your assurance this potion won’t harm Ryder, and that you will protect my children with your life.”

  “I’ve given you my word,” she mumbled. “I will do everything I have promised. I will ensure your children are within the City of the Gods, and your beast changes into what you wish him to be, like you. Synthia, you need to know that once you do this, it cannot ever be undone. Be sure you can live with your choices, because you may lose him.”

  “I can live without him. I cannot live without him in this world. Thanatos is here, and we both know what that means. There are only a few people within this realm whose soul is strong enough to rebuild the walls of Hell. My husband is one of them. So I will do this to protect him.”

  “Put it in a glass of ambrosia, and it will hide the bitter taste,” she offered, handing me the bottle.

  I stared at it, noting the way the tiny bubbles fizzled against the plastic stopper. My fingers cradled the vial, and my eyes closed against what its contents meant for Ryder. Slipping it into my dress pocket, I wiped away tears blurring my vision.

  “Four days, and then return for my children,” I whispered thickly.

  “I promise that you will make it through this, Synthia. You will feel it, but you will survive. Life is chaos in motion, and that motion is beautiful waves of destruction that shape us into what the universe intended for us to become. Good luck,” she said, vanishing into a mass of shadows slithering out of the bedroom window.

  I exhaled deeply, staring at the window long after she’d left. It took me time to come to terms with the path I’d chosen. Treachery was everywhere. No one was safe from Thanatos, and we all knew it.

  I reached into my pocket, holding the bottle before I looked around the room slowly, noting the vanity Ryder had created for me. I moved to it, opening the drawer. Reaching in, I withdrew a thin velvet pouch used to hold the crown for ceremonies. I wrapped the vial in the soft material and closed the drawer, locking the potion inside.

  I left the bedroom and asked a passing servant where I could find Ryder since they all seemed to know where the king was at all times.

  “He’s in the feeding room, My Queen.” The servant bowed low at the waist as my heartstrings tugged.

  “Why would he be in there?” I asked carefully.

  “The king said he was preparing to feed and didn’t wish to be disturbed,” he admitted, albeit sheepishly while his fingers rubbed the back of his neck.

  My stomach clenched as unshed tears swam in my eyes, blurring my vision. I
opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t get words past the tightness in my throat. I shook my head, uncertain if the servant had misunderstood Ryder’s orders, or if maybe he was wrong. I continued down the hallway with shaky legs, threatening to deposit me onto the floor.

  The moment I came into view of the guards standing before the feeding lounge doors, I paused. This was the room where the men and soldiers fed from willing women and where orgies occurred, playing out in gluttonous debauchery. Mere feet from the door, the guards stepped in front of me, blocking my entrance.

  “My Queen,” one said, scrutinizing me. “You’re not allowed to enter the feeding room.”

  “Is the king inside?” I hated the weakness in my voice. When they refused to answer and looked at each other before looking back at me, I asked again. “Is Ryder within the feeding room?”

  “You may not enter,” the guard repeated. I brought my hand up, snapping my fingers, catching both guards before they toppled to the floor.

  I could feel my heart beating in my throat, and a sick sensation churned through my stomach as I opened the door and stepped inside. It was dark. Candles held in sconces along the walls lit the room in soothing, muted shades of light. The smell of sex and alcohol filled my senses as I moved further inside. Flesh meeting flesh in a passionate rhythm was the only noise other than the lusty moans and groans echoing within.

  Slowly, I moved forward, peering into each room I passed until I reached the end. Relief took hold as I saw nameless guards in sinful feeding frenzies, fucking whoever offered their services. Standing in front of the last room, I whispered a silent prayer before opening the door.

  Ryder’s back was to me, his arms filled with a nameless feeder screaming for him to fuck her harder. My stomach dropped to the floor as the world fell from beneath my feet, a viselike grip squeezing my heart painfully. Golden brands pulsed with untold power as he vigorously pounded his cock into a woman, his wings concealing her face. Tears slipped free of the hold I’d had on them, and I covered my mouth with my hand as the other held my stomach.