Lord of the Abyss - By Nalini Singh Page 0,41

at her ankle and, unbalanced, she fell onto her back. Gasping as he came over her, bracing his palms on either side of her head, she fought the urge to spread her thighs, cradle him with sumptuous intimacy. "I will," he said in that gentle voice that was so effective at chilling people's blood, "give you until tomorrow morn to get used to the idea."

It made her shiver, but not because her blood ran cold. "I want till the morn after." Before, she might have argued with him about the order, but now she'd learned that that wasn't the way to get what she wanted with Micah.

"No."

She made a mutinous face.

"Tomorrow eve." His tone said that was his final offer.

"If I decide I don't like kissing?" she asked, because he was big and overwhelming and made her lose all sense of self-preservation.

A slow, slow curve of his lips had her toes curling into the sheets. "Oh, you like my kiss, Liliana. I felt your tongue stroke against mine."

"Micah!"

He tilted his head to the side, the black retreating to reveal winter-green luminous in the dark. "Am I not supposed to say that, either?"

"Yes."

"I'm the Lord of the Black Castle. I can say whatever I want."

She didn't know whether to scream or laugh. "You're not the least bit civilized, are you?"

He gave her the strangest look, as if she'd asked a silly question. But to her surprise, he answered it. "I live at the gateway to the Abyss."

"Yes, I suppose the civilized graces aren't exactly useful here." If she wasn't careful, he'd turn her as wild. To be quite honest, she wasn't sure she minded.

The Guardian of the Abyss slept that night. Dreamed. Of the firedancers and the castle with the pennants flying in the wind. A castle with windows full of golden light and sparkling music that floated across the night-dark lake to tickle his ears where he lay on his back in a small rowboat.

"Is it time, Nicki?" he asked the man with silver eyes streaked with gold who sat beside him.

Carefully stowing the paddle so they wouldn't be stranded in the middle of the lake, his brother shook his head and came down on his back beside Micah, stretching out his big, muscled body on the blanket they'd borrowed from the stables. It was kind of scratchy, but at least Mama wouldn't yell at Micah for spoiling her soft fleecy blanket like she had the last time.

"Is it time now?" He wiggled in excitement.

Nicolai said, "Not yet."

Micah liked lying there with Nicolai by his side. Nicolai was the strongest, with the most powerful magic. Breena was the nicest, and Dayn brought the best, most interesting things to show him. Micah, though he was the smallest of them all, was the "stubbornest," everyone said so. He liked being the stubbornest. Especially when it made Mama blow out her breath and then laugh. And laugh.

"Is it time now?"

Finally Nicolai said, "Yes. Look."

Micah sucked in a breath as the first star streaked across the sky. He didn't talk for the whole time the stars fell to earth, so entranced that he forgot to wish until Nicolai whispered for him to, "Hurry, or it'll be over."

Micah didn't want to miss even a minute of the sky magic, but he squeezed his eyes shut and made his wish. It was a strange wish had he thought about it, but he made it as the stars streaked across the sky, and forgot it by the time he scrambled out of the rowboat onto the rocks that led up to the castle.

But when the Guardian of the Abyss opened his eyes, he remembered.

"I wished that we'd all come home," he told Liliana the next day, while she tried to make something in the kitchen. "An odd wish, don't you think?"

Liliana gave him a startled look, her lips parting as if to say something, but then she pressed those lips back together. Lips he wanted to nibble at again. Prowling around the bench where she was rolling out the dough, he put his hands on her hips from behind. "Did you make up your mind about kissing yet?"

"Micah."

Pushing aside a tendril of her hair, he buried his nose in the curve of her neck. She smelled of the soap he'd given her, flour and something sweet. He decided he wanted to eat her up, so he took a bite.

She jumped. "Micah, did you just bite me?"

He thought about whether to answer her or not. She'd tasted good.