Prologue
Oron paced his room like the trapped animal he was. He could feel his body screaming. He could feel his blood pumping through his body, rushing in his ears like a tsunami. He growled low in his throat, his anger breaking free in sound the way he could not unleash it in violence. Talmoc, his best friend, and right now his only sworn ally it seemed, watched him wisely silent. Talmoc was the stillness to Oron’s roar, the stealth to his brash. They had been evenly matched, in one way or the other, since birth. It was only Oron’s birthplace that had made him king rather than advisor. It was a fact that Talmoc usually used to lighten to mood, to provide some physical sport for stress release. Tonight, neither wanted the trappings of their place.
“Talmoc, by the Gods, they cannot really mean this,” Oron said at last, his body coming to a stop but he could not stop the movement of twitching muscles. He looked at his friend, his green eyes passing over the pale good looks of his bond-brother, from the long golden hair to the crystalline blue eyes, and powerful physique, so much more bulky compared to his own whipcord length.
“They are more than serious, my friend, though it may be most unfortunate.” Oron saw his friend’s eyes flash with deadly malice and thought then that truly, perhaps, the Senateorian had made an enemy rather than a friend. He sighed, the Senateorian had been trying to break the royal family from the throne for four centuries and this was simply their latest prank. The babbling idiots felt that they could rule the people of Basque better than the king since they were elected by the people. Oron hissed at the thought, more like they threatened and pillaged until people were too afraid to speak again them and were entrenched enough in politics to be hard to eradicate. Oron had nearly had them, one last move and checkmate. They had simply moved before him and his people could very well suffer for it now if he didn’t succeed. He looked over at his friend, make that if they didn’t succeed, he corrected himself.
“We almost had them, brother, almost. One last move, one last fight, and their corruption would be busted so wide they would never have power again.”
“The move is still in place, but until then, we have to succeed at what they have demanded or what we expose will ruin them, but you will no longer be leader and someone else will fight for the throne.”
“Plunging Basque into anarchy,” Oron said then, his weariness showing.
“We will do what we must. It may be an old law but it still stands enough for them to grapple at.” Talmoc said then.
“Find a human woman, create a link, and make her a queen,” Oron recited then.
“And she must bind what has forever been separate in body for the throne,” Talmoc continued.
“Us.”
“Yes, the both of us. One throne, two worlds, one queen, and her loyal kings.”
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Chapter 1
She was lying prone with her mind a babble of confusing, lonely thoughts. Alone, she was always alone; even now, enjoying an amazing getaway along the shores of Florida. She could say she was more a local then a tourist since she knew there was a North Beach to Miami Beach and she could afford shopping on Coconut Walk and Miracle Mile. But all the money in the world wasn’t helping her one bit now. She sighed in frustration, adjusting herself on her towel. Screw it all. Why not? She was powerful, beautiful, and making it in the man’s world. So why did she feel so lonely, why did she feel like everything in her life had de-sexualized her so that she could contend? She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. She had sex, and plenty more than other woman, and hadn’t done it to make it to the top, despite how it may have appeared. It her way of sticking it back to them, letting them lust after her even as she beat them at their own game, and then gave them the fantasy of life, only to walk away and into the position they hadn’t even thought they had lost. What a look a man could conjure when he realized he lost even when he thought he had won. Poor, insignificant, useless assholes. Every one of them who never touched her past sex, and never lasted long enough for her to miss. She would enjoy herself as she always did, alone and content with no pain.
She was turning, shrugging off too heavy thoughts for a vacation when she saw him. He came to her out of the ocean. She watched him in awe as he stalked out of the ocean looking like the hottest fuck she never had. Now I thought I had had fun in my day, she thought. Couldn’t help not to. She was COO of a Fortune 500 company and was aggressive to top it all off. Sometimes a good jump in the bed was good to loosen up the nerves, pay back for the pains of existence. But this specimen before her was not one of the faceless men who had bumped a few times at her pelvis leaving her hungry and aching to finish the job with her personal battery operated boyfriend. No, this was a man who would love a woman into the night and well into the next day if given half the chance.
His stride said that. Long and lean, his body moved like a practice swimmer reluctant to leave the water but knew the effect he had when he did. She watched as water droplets fell and melded with others over him. Cool green eyes fringed in thick, lickable eyelashes gave a brooding appearance to his dark looks and black hair, brushing his shoulders lightly. His jaw was strong, stubborn really, in one of those go-to-hell if-you-don’t-like-it ways that curled her toes and had her pussy smiling just watching him. She wanted to suck on his full lips, lick across his broad, hairless chest, and nibble at the lines of his abdomen meeting squarely at the devil’s horns that accented the cock she could see lying heavy and thick in his trunks. This was a man she needed…and he was staring at her.
The realization that she had been caught ogling stopped her in her tracks. She couldn’t really move away, laying out on a stretch of public beach amidst other happy goers, and she couldn’t cover up. The bright sun, blazing over her even now, had called for a skimpy bikini and an even skimpier towel. She was stiff, red faced and caught under his expressive gaze. A gaze that was raking over her even as she was trying to assume the cool she normally had in the boardroom. It had suddenly deserted her for the first time in her life, and she didn’t like it. Turning the anger around on him for having dared made her so unhinged she let her elegantly arched eyebrow spike over one hazel eye, leaning back over her towel, pushing her breasts into delicate peaks as she smirked her full, glossed lips. Take that, she thought, knowing her bronze skin was a set off behind the stark white triangles of her top and bottom. He smiled at that and she caught her breath, lost all over again. Jesus, she thought, he should be illegal.
He came closer to her as she watched, feeling her nipples pebble at the easy way he moved, the fluid motion of his body. He was like some prowling shark, circling under unsuspecting human toes. The idea of it washed over her as he came closer to her. She felt cool and on fire at once when he stepped up next to her, his form blocking out the sun. She looked up at him, fighting the urge to shield her face as if the sun was still there, anything to make his quiet watchfulness more bearable. He said nothing and all she could do was look at him, yearn to run her hands over his shoulders, wrap her legs around his lean waist, and pump on his cock until she came like she had never done before. The images took hold and wouldn’t let go. She could so easily see him gripping her, molding her withering body against his hardness, rolling her nipples between stiff fingers and eating at her mouth as if he had never tasted anything better. Right then she decided she would have him. No matter what, no matter how, she would have him. Take him in every way she could until her vacation was over and she had to get back to her normal life. The thought gave her confidence and she looked at him then steadily.
