state, taking his lovers with a savage intensity better suited for the battlefield.
Now was one of those times.
With a growl, he opened his mouth and accepted someone’s kiss, his hands tangling in hair and sweetly fragranced skin. Perhaps he’d join his men for lunch…
CLANG. WHOOSH. CLANG.
Sweat trickled down Valerian’s bare chest, riding the ropes of muscle and pooling in his navel as he swung his sword, slamming the heavy metal into his opponent’s upraised weapon.
Broderick stumbled backward and fell on his ass, flinging dirt in every direction. Some of it sprinkled on Valerian’s freshly polished boots.
“Get up, man,” he commanded when Broderick remained prone.
“Can’t,” his friend panted.
Valerian frowned. That was the fourth time Broderick had hit the ground during this training session, and they’d only been practicing an hour. Usually as stalwart and powerful as Valerian himself, Broderick’s weakness today was disconcerting.
The guilt he’d managed to deny earlier roared to life. He should have sent the women on their way last eve, should have resisted them more determinedly this morning. While he was stronger than ever, these battlehardened warriors were reduced to this.
“Damn it all,” Broderick muttered, his voice strained. Still he remained on the ground, head bent and held in his upraised hands, golden hair shielding his eyes. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”
“What about the rest of you?” Valerian slashed his sword’s tip into the sand, a tip that had been shaped and honed into the image of an elongated, lethal skull—a tip that inflicted irreparable damage. He’d aptly named it The Skull.
His gaze traveled the ranks of his army. Some were sitting on a bench, sharpening their blades, while others leaned against a silver-and-white stone wall, expressions lost, far away. Only Theophilus appeared ready for anything more than a nap. And only Theophilus paid him the least bit of notice.
Well, that was not quite true. Joachim was hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, his head tilted to the side as he gazed up at Valerian with undeniable sparks of fury.
What was his cousin angry about now? “Line up,” Valerian commanded the entire group. “Now.” The sharpness of his tone finally snagged their attention.
Slowly they ambled into a clumsy line, only a few of them trying to appear alert. His frown deepened. They were tall and well-muscled, his men, with bronzed skin and perfectly chiseled features. The force of their beauty sometimes caused grown women to weep. But right now they sported lines of tension around their eyes and mouths, shaky grips and unsteady legs.
“I need you strong and capable, but you’re as weak as babes, every one of you.” At any moment Darius, King of the Dragons, would learn Valerian had taken this palace, defeating everyone inside, and attack. How quickly these warriors would fall if they were challenged today.
His hands fisted at his sides. Defeat was not something he allowed. Ever. No, he would rather die. A warrior won. Always. No exceptions.
Broderick sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face, his expression grim. “We need sex, Valerian, and we need it now.”
“I know.” Unfortunately, the three exhausted humans sleeping in his bed would never be able to handle all of these lust-hungry nymphs at once.
He could send a handful of soldiers into the Outer City to capture sirens—a race of women who reveled in sex just as the nymphs did. Dangerous women, yes. Women who lured, seduced and killed. Well, tried to kill. But they were wonderfully satisfying to tumble, completely worth the risk.
However, the few times his men had entered the city in these past weeks, females of every race had remained well hidden, avoiding the nymphs as if they were hideous, foul-smelling demons. None wanted to find themselves enslaved to a nymph’s dark, sexual hunger, losing their very identity, wishing only to please their lover. An inevitable outcome. Even for mates. Those females, whomever they happened to be, wherever they happened to be found, were treasured, but they were still enslaved.
“I can smell the humans on you, and it’s making my own need all the more intense,” Dorian said. With his obsidian hair, godlike features and mischievous sense of humor, women of every race usually flocked to him. There was nothing mischievous about him now, though. He radiated jealousy and resentment. “I’d kill you if I had the strength.”
More guilt swept through Valerian. He had to make this right. As much as he hated to admit it, there was only one true solution to this predicament.
“Do you still wish to travel through the portal?” he asked, bracing his hands behind his back. Since discovering the strange, upright pool in the caves beneath this palace—the very pool the women had used to travel from the surface world to Atlantis—his men had begged to enter it so many times he’d lost count. Each time his answer had been the same: Gods, no. His friend Layel, King of the Vampires, had told him that Atlanteans could not survive on the surface for long periods of time.
Besides, he needed his men here, ready to fight and defend. But weak as they were now, these warriors would not obtain a victory over a tail-chasing griffin, much less a brutally savage fire-breather.
If there was a chance they could find more human women, traveling to the surface would be worth the risk, he realized.
“Well?” he said.
Nearly all of his men smiled and closed around him. A chorus of “Yes” burst from their mouths. Only Theophilus remained quiet, but then, he had no need to visit the surface. He was mated to the fourth human female in residence.
Mated. Valerian tried not to cringe. When a nymph mated, he mated for life. No matter his age, no matter his circumstances, when he found the woman destined to live at his side, his body would crave no other; his heart would beat only for one. The one. He’d been told a nymph would know this “one” the moment he scented her, and she would, in turn, recognize him, choosing him above all others.
Valerian, as well as many of his men, lived in fear of finding his mate, for too well did he enjoy his freedom. He couldn’t imagine desiring only one woman. He couldn’t imagine one woman being able to hold his interest and sate all of his passions for longer than a single night.
Perhaps he was not destined to take a mate. A man could hope, anyway.
“Will we travel through the portal?” someone asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Yes,” he said. He splayed his arms wide in surrender. “At last, my friends, I relent.”
“How soon can we leave?” Broderick.
“Thank you, great king.” Shivawn.
“Gods, my cock needs some female attention.” Dorian.
Relief dripped from their voices. Already lust burned white-hot in their eyes, strengthening them. He didn’t blame them for their eagerness to leave the palace. He would have been reduced to a snarling beast had he been forced to go without a woman’s sweetness for as long as they had. But that was something he, as king, had never had to endure. And would never have to endure, he was
