The King

THIRTY-TWO

Beth found the medication kit on the sink in the bathroom. After freaking out about the condition of the pool table and everything else, she’d gone upstairs and immediately headed across the bedroom to take a shower—whereupon she’d discovered the black leather clutch on the counter between her sink and Wrath’s.

At first, she thought it was a glasses case for one of Wrath’s pairs of wraparounds, except it was soft, not hard.

And it was as she reached out to pick the thing up that the first wave hit her.

Hot, moist air bloomed all over her body, from the back of her neck to the lengths of her legs, from her face and throat to her belly and down to her feet.

As if she’d already turned on the shower.

Throwing off the sensation, she unzipped the two halves and opened the kit. Not sunglasses, no. Instead, there was a glass vial with a clear liquid in it, and three syringes, all strapped in like they were going for a car ride and wanted to follow the seat-belt laws. The label on the little bottle was facing in, and she twisted things in place to see what it said.

Morphine.

She’d never seen anything like this in any of Wrath’s things. And it wasn’t hard to extrapolate that he might have gone to Doc Jane—or hell, even Havers—to get prepared in the event she went into her—

Another blast of heat came over her, and she frowned up at the vent above her head. Maybe Fritz needed to have the HVAC systems looked at—

As her knees gave out without any warning, she barely had time to catch herself on the counter, the kit scattering into Wrath’s sink, her two Chanel perfume bottles knocking over. With the groan of a wounded animal, she tried to haul herself up, but her body didn’t listen to the signals.

It was on its own path.

A tremendous, volcanic power exploded out of her, robbing her of the strength to keep herself off the floor. Slumping down, she curled herself around her core, holding her lower belly, jacking her knees to her chest. The cool marble barely registered as the forest fire under her skin shifted into a driving urge, an overwhelming sexual need that required one and only one thing.

Her mate.

Flipping herself onto her back, she rolled over to her other side, and then onto her belly. Clawing at the slick floor, she rubbed her thighs together, trying to find some relief, some respite from the ache that was taking over everything.

How many hours? She tried to think—how many hours had Layla said this lasted?

Twenty-four? No, longer—

Beth cried out as another blast tore through her body, sweat bursting from her pores, fangs descending into her mouth.

And this was only the beginning, a distant part of her acknowledged. Just the first salvo—it was going to get worse: As time wore on, the hormones were going to render her incapable of anything but respiration.

To think she had volunteered for this?

Madness.

The needing was like a pair of fists torquing her body to the point where she knew she must have broken bones. No, no, this was going to kill her—how could it not? And the need for sex? It wasn’t even about having a child. It was about survival—

Wrath.

Oh, God, he was going to come up here. Whenever he was done talking to Tohr. And he was going to find her on the floor—and then what?

Even through the maelstrom of hormones, she was able to think that through to its conclusion—he was going to be in a horrible position: either service her and live with consequences he hated, or watch her suffer.

Which he would never do.

Her palms squeaked against the slick floor as she pushed her thousand-pound torso up. Climbing the drawer pulls like they were a ladder, she had to take a break at the counter level, her vision swimming, her eyes struggling to focus as her body begged for sex it simply couldn’t have.

Before she succumbed to this entirely, she was going to take care of things on her own.

Her hands were shaking so badly, it took her several tries to capture the kit, but eventually, she got the thing and brought it down to the floor. Time for another breather on the cool marble. But not too long a delay. The waves were coming harder and faster each time.

Fumbling fingers, the glass vial bouncing out of its tether, skittering away.

She was crying as she dragged her body after it, arm out, hand pawing—

“Beth,” a voice said. “Oh, God … Beth.”

A masculine palm came down from out of the sky, reaching for her, searching through thin air for her—and through the morass, she struggled to process the hows and whys—except then her body made the connection for her.

Wrath.

As his shitkickers came into her vision, her hormones blew up, responding to his presence by ratcheting up to a level that was Hell not just on Earth, but under her skin, boiling her blood, making her sex scream for what only he could give her.

But that could never be.

“Go…” she cried out in a cracked voice. “Drug me … or give me the—”

Wrath knelt down with her. “Beth—”

“Give me the drugs! I’ll do it—”

“I can’t let you—”

Pegging him with a hard stare, she didn’t have any energy to fight with him. “Give me the fucking drugs!”

Wrath’s body had begun to respond as he took the stairs up to their quarters—and by the time he made it into the bathroom, he knew exactly what was doing. As well as what the solution was: Every instinct in him was roaring to service his female, to ease her suffering in the only way that mattered.

Shaking himself, he dropped to his knees, patting around for her, following the sounds of her voice and the jerking movements of her body against the marble floor. She was incoherent, writhing in pain, lost to the throes of the needing.

“Give me the fucking drugs!”

It took a moment for her demand to sink in, and then he realized that this was a moment in life when the path that was presented had only two forks—and in his mind, neither was a good one.

“Wrath…” she groaned. “Wrath … just drug me.”

He thought of the kit he’d left on the counter. All he had to do was open it, fill a syringe and inject the morphine into her. And then her suffering would be eased—

Only partially, a part of him pointed out—

A fresh onslaught of need crushed Beth’s body, her gasp rising to the volume of another scream, her limbs knocking into him as she spasmed.

He wasn’t sure exactly when his mind made itself up. But suddenly, his hands were at the button fly of his leathers, the medication forgotten, the direction chosen.

“Hold on, leelan,” he grunted as he released his erection. “Hold on, I’m coming…”

Too fucking right.

Except as he felt around for her legs and went to take her jeans off, it took him for goddamn ever: Her body fought with him, thighs scissoring as she twisted and turned on the floor—but when he finally got the fuckers off her legs, he didn’t waste time. He forced her to be still, digging his hands into her hips, and then he—

Beth yelled out his name as he entered her, her nails tearing into his shoulders, her breasts shoving up against his chest. He came immediately, his balls tightening up and then releasing—and he wasn’t prepared for the response from her. As she orgasmed along with him, her sex milked him, pulling at his length, all but yanking at him—

He came again. So violently, he bit into his own tongue.

Pumping against her, pumping into her, he went hard and wild—until his body took a short pause to recover. And that was when he felt the difference he’d made in her: She, too, was at a brief rest, the tension in her body uncoiling as if her very molecules were taking a deep breath.

But before he could congratulate himself, he sensed something else. Sorrow permeated the air, the sad spice of it stopping him and tilting his head down as if he could look her in the eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he said roughly. “Leelan, don’t—”

“Why are you doing this?” she moaned. “Why …?”

There was only one answer. For tonight … and evermore: “Because I love you more than anything else.”

More than himself. More than any future young.

Her trembling hand brushed his face. “Are you sure?”

He replied by beginning to move deep inside of her again, the rolling penetrations sliding him in and out of her slick sex. And her response? The sound she let out was part purr, part groan, her hormones cranking up again.

For some reason, he thought about Vishous’s vision.

I see you standing in a field of white. White, white is all around you and you are talking to the face in the heavens.

Your future is in your hands.

Jesus Christ, he felt like the Fade was breathing down his neck, stalking him—and even though that was true of every living thing, he felt targeted, like his expiration date was around the next corner.

It didn’t mean that Beth was going to survive him. Quite the contrary. The most likely cause of his own demise … was going to be hers.

Dropping his head into her neck, he jacked his arms under her body and got serious about the fucking. Giving in, giving up, going with it was just like jumping off a cliff—the leap was the easy part because the free-falling didn’t cost you shit.

It was the landing that was a killer.