He cupped her face in his palms and stroked her hair back
from her damp, flushed face. She smiled at him, her pleasure
shining in her emerald eyes. Heโd never seen a human so
beautiful. Even the stunningly gorgeous Beguiler females
heโd known paled in comparison.
Rez kissed her long and deep, inserting a desire for sleep
into her mind.
Itโd taken every ounce of will he possessed to protect her
from him at the moment heโd released his essence inside of
her. He felt curiously drained, as though sheโd sucked all
his vital energy from his body. He needed to rest, to
examine this experience in minute detail.
But Leisa somehow resisted his compulsion and kissed him
back, wrapping her body around him. And her mind.
He felt her essence seeping into him, insidiously infusing
his veins with everything she was. Before he could take
steps to protect himself heโd absorbed herโher hopes, her
deepest desires. Her pain.
He knew her.
And unconsciously, instinctively, not knowing what it was
she was doing, Leisa began to draw knowledge from him.
Desperately he fought her, exerted his will and battled her
relentless desire to know all there was about him, to bond
with him as no creature had dared attempt before. Finally
his compulsion won out and sleep swept her away.
But it was too late. She had the knowing of him.
Amediel. My Amediel.
Intimately linked to her mind and body, still, Rez heard his
true-name echoing in Leisaโs mind as clearly as though she
uttered it aloud.
Panic engulfed him, countless ice-cold shards piercing his
body, crystallizing around his heart. He unsheathed himself
from her body and flung himself from the bed, backing up
until he hit the wall. All his senses heightened, becoming
preternaturally alert. His pupils dilated, elongated. His
hands became talon-tipped claws. His body bulked, muscle
mass increasing to battle-ready proportions. His skin became
armored with iridescent, impenetrable scales. He crouched,
coiled, tensed and poised to battle.
Rezon teetered on the verge of fully transforming into his
primary form and becoming Drakon, a form he hadnโt found it
necessary to revert to since becoming a Beguiler. But Leisa
threatened him. Not physicallyโno mere human could ever do
him physical harmโbut fundamentally, and his reactions were
instinctive. Some part of him viewed the vulnerable weak
human female heโd just fucked as if sheโd suddenly morphed
into the ultimate Demonic predator, a predator whose sole
desire was to consume him as prey.
Sheโd named him Amediel, the name bestowed upon him at birth
by some nameless elemental presence. The name which had
blossomed in his mind the exact instant heโd burst from the
egg. The name heโd struggled to be worthy of and finally
earned in blood and pain and sacrifice. The name no other
creature on Earth, Heaven or Hell knew. Not even his King.
He was Amediel, Bonecrusher, last of the Drakons.
And this vulnerable human female had somehow wrenched the
gift of his true-name from the innermost recesses of his
powerful mind.
Amediel. She cried out to him in her sleep, reached for him
with blindly searching hands, reached out to him again with
her mind. He fielded her call, cloaking himself from her.
And when she could not find him, she curled herself into a
ball and whimpered piteously.
He could not deny her. Rezonโs shields disintegrated. His
essenceโhis soulโshattered into a trillion tiny pieces, each
one shrieking Leisaโs name before melding together into a
new, stronger whole.
Leisa. The mate heโd longed for. The human woman whoโd
captured his heart and made it her own.
For the first time since heโd been a youngling, alone and
struggling to survive, Rezon felt that unwelcome clenching
in his gut, that clammy sweat oozing from his pores, that
tell-tale dryness of his mouth. Fear. True, paralyzing fear.
It took far too long for him to quell it. Even longer to
prod his mind toward logical thought and finally let go of
the pseudo-Drakon form heโd assumed. Rez prided himself on
being a creature that inspired fear, not succumbed to it and
he was not at all impressed.
In fact he was damnedโHell, they both were.
Asmodeus was not going to be at all pleased.
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