“Okay, Whyle.”
Amber crept into bed. She wanted to go into the catacombs and seek out the Sanbara but was mentally exhausted. She made a vow to go down in the morning. She would ask them if they were using her life-long visions to talk to her. If they had somehow bewitched Wrexel into bringing her to Four Wings and if so, why.
Why her?
Revan said the Sanbara were immensely powerful but using her and Wrexel also made them very cruel.
Her mind wrestled with possibilities.
Maybe they had been desperate. They wouldn’t trust the brothers to help them and she was the only non-Thromian in Four Wings who happened to be stumbling around the catacombs.
This made her an easy target. Then she reminded herself that Lilith had started to look green and sprout words about the future even before Amber left Earth. This frightened her again, but perhaps their magic was that strong.
She consoled herself that she wasn’t magical.
She hadn’t caused this.
Maybe when Wrexel found out and the curse was taken off him, he would forgive her.
Forgive her before he bade her farewell.
Amber could not help the tears that fell down her cheeks.
It had always been temporary.
A short-term agreement.
How it ended didn’t really matter.
* * *
She had just nodded off when she felt a hand stroke her brow.
“Wrexel?” She sat up in the dark.
“No, it’s Shihlo,” he said softly. Amber called for light and a dim glow bathed the room.
“Shihlo.” Her eyes widened when she saw his look of concern. “What is wrong?”
“Wrexel is missing. I wanted to be the one to tell you before you woke to the news and panicked.”
“Missing? Where was he?” she demanded.
“He was on Vergana when the Sketchi breached their atmosphere. His fighter ship went down into a lake.”
Amber went cold.
“No.”
Not now.
Not now when she was ready to admit what she had known for months.
“Is he… dead?”
Shihlo looked uncertain. “I don’t know. The ship went into water. We’ve retrieved three Thromian bodies...”
“Oh my God. No, Shihlo, no!”
“He can breathe underwater, Amber. There is a chance.” Shihlo clasped her face in his hands. “There is a chance,” he repeated when she began to lose control.
Shihlo slid into the bed beside her and lay at her side for hours as they watched updates on the search flash across the viewing screen.
When Shihlo left, Whyle took his place, promising her that if anybody could survive the crash, it was Wrexel. When she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, she saw Whyle pace the room, talking to the brothers earnestly and honestly, admitting that hope was dwindling.
When nothing turned up in a few hours, he left to join the search and Inndra came to sit with her. He comforted her and distracted her with stories of Dionys and Freya’s antics when they were children. He assured her that despite their retrieval equipment, there was nothing better than a Thromian who could breathe and scent, even underwater. All the brothers would be searching for Wrexel.
Anxiety ate away at her, and soon Amber retched with fear.
When it became dry heaving, she retired to her bed and wept, curling into a ball and refusing the potions Leyahanna brought. She was determined to stay awake so that she could know the truth. Hours passed, and Amber was certain her body would explode with anguish. Leyahanna took her hands and forced a mug to her lips, begging her to be strong. Amber finally relented, numbly sipping the liquid as fresh tears of horror streamed down her face.
The feelings she had tried so hard to push away pummeled her with vicious intensity.
She loved him.
She loved him desperately.
She loved him, and he would never know.
Sweet oblivion arrived in the form of sleep.
Much later, Amber sat up in bed. Light streamed in through the window. Her eyes were swollen and sore and the dwelling was silent. She sat rigid, unsure whether she should seek out one of the brothers or Inndra and hear some news. What if it was bad news?
No, she couldn’t bear it if Wrexel were dead.
She could not.
Her head sank into her palms and she found that her tears were indeed not depleted. Then a sound indicating that she was not alone made her look up.
He stood there, leaning against the side of the door, watching her curiously. Fresh cuts across his cheek and an arm were covered by a gelled cast. It looked as if he had just bathed, for his hair was wet and he wore nothing but the comfortable lounging pants he donned at home.
Wrexel.
* * *
Amber clasped her mouth and more tears fell down her cheeks. He watched her for a while, sad resignation upon his face.
“Disappointed that I lived?” he asked in a deep voice as he moved forward.
“You need a Yimmyrd.” She jumped up as he lay beside her.
“I do not need healing. My arm is broken and my leg is sprained. I will live.”
“You should be in the infirmary, then. You should be…”
His good arm shot out and grasped her. “I need my wife.”
Amber sank beside him, staring down at him, unable to stop crying.
“Did you dream that you would be set free? And now your dreams are crushed?” His voice was ravaged with disappointment.
Amber reached forward and stroked his scratched cheek. “No, I did not have dreams of being set free.” She stared deeply into his honeyed eyes.
Wrexel went rigid at her touch. He stared at her in utter confusion as she stroked his jaw, ran her finger along his perfect cheekbones, and then lowered her mouth to kiss the spot that hurt. He inhaled and when she sat up to look at him, his eyes swam with color. Not only the purple that she always saw but other colors, vibrant and beautiful. They took hold of his gaze in small explosions.
He was breathtaking.
She moved closer, sliding her leg across his stomach, careful not to touch the arm wrapped in the cast, and settled herself across hips.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No.” His voice sounded strangled as he searched her face.
She lowered her head, nibbling along his jaw with her lips. She traced her way up to rub her lips across his, then slipped her tongue inside his mouth, kissing him as he always kissed her, keeping her body close.
Except for the time he had bribed her with Banjo, this was the first time she had initiated a kiss with him. Giving herself to him in this way would change so much. He would have the last thing on his checklist and could add one more.
He could add that he had won her touch but also her heart.
But it didn’t matter.
Once he knew his feelings for her were not real, he would set her free. She would leave him with one memory of her showing him love.
She continued to kiss him with all of the pain and love within her.
“Amber.” He shuddered against her when she finally lifted her head and his eyes searched hers with a desperation she had never seen before.
“Please don’t stop,” he begged her.
“I won’t.”
* * *
The tortured look in his gaze exploded with color once again. She lowered her lips, and he moaned as she trailed her mouth along his chest the way she had always wanted to do. She ran her tongue across his flat nipple, pierced by the small steel bar. He jolted beneath her, thrusting his hands into her hair as if he were terrified she would move away.
Amber traced each muscle, each perfect line of his defined stomach. Doing all the things she had longed to do. When her tongue danced along the edge of his lounging pants, threatening to dip beneath the drawstring that held them in place, he cried out, grasping her face with both hands, even the one in a cast.
“Holy God.” His grip
was like that of a vise.
“What are you doing?” he growled, but his eyes swam with violet.
“Shhh.” She slid her fingers into the sides of his pants. Then, as he stared at her in shock, she stripped them from his legs.
He was painfully aroused, throbbing and distended. A drop of moisture ran down the side of his shaft and Amber felt her chest swell with longing to caress him. He was gasping for breath, his chest rising and falling with excitement, and the look of wonder on his face astounded her. Amber surged with feminine pride when she saw that his hands were unsteady. She traced his entire length as he watched; he was like silken steel in her hands, the way she had always imagined.
She didn’t make him wait long. Watching his reaction carefully, she lowered her head until she was close enough that he could feel her breath upon him.
“Amber.” Her name was a strangled rasp. “Please don’t do this if your plan is to hurt me by stopping,” he begged.
She answered by running her tongue around the rim of his shaft.
The cry of pleasure she wrung out of him was exhilarating. It increased when she pulled him into her mouth, gently tugging until he clasped her hair in his hands and lifted his hips.
He cursed aloud, shuddering against her lips.
Spurred on, she continued the motion of sucking him as deeply as she could, moving her mouth up and down as he shook.
“I can’t...” he gasped eventually, lifting her head from his body by gently gathering a handful of her hair. “I’m losing…” She continued, using her hands to give him more pleasure. Wrexel shouted her name, thrusting into her fist and moaning when she met his thrusts with her warm mouth until he climaxed violently and shuddered against her cheek.
He pulled her away at the end. She wanted to tell him there was no need; she would take what he gave but then he dragged her up to face him. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, kissing her wildly. He still shook and his heart thumped wildly against her ribcage.
After kissing her, he held her face and stared at her in wonder, still breathing raggedly.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I wanted to,” she whispered back.
“I’ve never…Thromians don’t…” He broke off. Amber knew but it still gave her a surge of joy. “I’m sorry I lost control.” He looked ashamed.
“You’re not meant to be sorry.” She smiled.
He grimaced. “You did this with Travis, didn’t you?”
“No, I saw it done at my neighbor’s pool.” She laughed and slid across his hips as he flared to life again.
Amber had never mounted him; she always told him she would never make love to him, and yet at that moment, she was sliding him into her body.
He stared up at her in awe, choking back cries of pleasure as she moved on him until he gripped her hips and caused them both to cry out when he surged into her giving her as much pleasure as he was taking.
When she felt her sheath convulse around him, his one hand dropped from her waist and shredded their bed sheets with unsheathed claws as he lost control violently beneath her. Amber knew she would never forget the way he responded to her.
Never forget the way he came undone at her touch.
Eventually she collapsed on his chest with a small smile when she felt him still trembling beneath her.
“Amber.”
“Yes, Wrexel.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever let you go,” he warned her.
Her heart exploded with love for him but then it slowly dimmed; he would give her up when he knew the truth.
“I’m not asking for that.”
Wrexel crushed her beneath him, hardening against her again, wanting her as much as he did when he first walked in the room and saw her crying. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough, and soon the madness that always plagued him when he was with her took over. Wrexel drowned in pleasure, ignoring with vehemence the rising sound of crackling sorcery that engulfed his senses.
He had accepted long ago that there was something more to Amber than any test could reveal, but he didn’t care.
Nothing mattered but the fact that she was his.
38
Temporary Bliss
She awoke much later to find him staring at her and she smiled when his gaze remained locked on hers with awe. She curled into his arms but not before she lovingly stroked his face, enjoying the look of shock and the way his eyes burst into the colors she had witnessed the night before.
“Amber.” His deep voice sounded in her hair after he spent a few moments nuzzling her. “Open my drawer beside the bed.”
She slipped out of his embrace.
“There is something in there I want to show you.” He pushed the button for it to open.
Inside rolled several pearls. Rage and jealousy overwhelmed her. Without a second thought, she scooped up a handful and tossed them at him in anger.
“Is this a confession of your past?” she demanded. “I don’t want to know about the list of virgins you’ve screwed.”
He stared at her in amazement and confusion as the pearls bounced around the bed and the floor. Then he began to laugh.
“Not these.” He kicked them off the sheets. “I forgot they were in there.”
“Then what?” she yelled, seeing that he had more than fifty.
He pointed at the drawer, a small grin of amusement still on his face. She looked down and saw a necklace like the one Staede had shown her months ago. This one was clearly different. It was one of the four special royal necklaces, kept for queens and daughters of queens.
“I’ve wanted to give it to you so many times… but it’s all that I have of my mother. If you threw it at me or scorned it, I would have been greatly pained.”
“I know what this is,” she whispered.
“Then you understand the symbolism of it, as I’m sure my brother explained.” Wrexel seemed aggrieved by this but reached for it with his uninjured hand. “I would like you to wear it.”
Amber swatted one more offending pearl from the bed and moved to his side. She wavered between offended and awed but lifted her hair anyway.
He fastened it with their fingers intertwined, which was the way in which it was sealed.
“Now you are truly mine,” he whispered.
“Until you tire of me?” she teased. “Or when our contract ends?”
His eyes twinkled with laughter but he did not reply, crushing her to him instead. He kissed her until her head spun.
The buzz of his monitor interrupted them.
“I have to leave; I have a debrief.” He finally lifted his head, regret etched on his face. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
* * *
Amber watched him leave with a gentle smile upon her face until she was reminded of her plight. She threw on some clothes and raced down to the catacombs.
She padded into an open area and lifted a piece of stone from the ground. The circle was embedded in her mind and she had no trouble drawing it onto the stone floor.
When she was done she stepped inside and knelt at the center, waiting for the feeling of magic to overcome her.
“Argyt, Wraith,” she begged and called over and again. “Tell me the truth, tell me if you are using me and bewitching Wrexel… set him free, set us both free.”
Her calls echoed in the room and faded but she received no reply.
Desperation filled her, fueling her anguish, and though her heart rebelled against the threat she shouted, “I will abandon the search.”
She still received no reply.
Amber stood up and this time her tears were small splatters upon the carved circle as she removed it with the bottom of her running shoe. She returned to her bedroom, passing the rooms she was still meant to search, and sat upon her bed, her mind reeling with the enormity of her love and future loss.
The silence around her taunted her as a remnant of her future. The day when she was alone without Wrexel, without her beloved new family crep
t closer every day.
The large-screen monitor in her room clicked on and she glanced up in time to witness the ribbon of green magic fading from the frame. It showed live footage of the Monarch in a procession somewhere on Throm. His face twisted in smug cruelty and he tugged the Sanbara by the neck as he walked down a line of Red Thromian soldiers standing at rapt attention.
The chain was tight, and they panted and bellowed in pain, froth dripping from their mouths.
Amber moaned in horror. She was fooling herself. No matter the outcome, no matter if she was a mere pawn, she would still search to set them free. Not because she they compelled her, but because her heart would not allow her to do anything less.
She lay her cheek upon the pillow and felt her mother’s misty hand upon her cheek.
“I love you, Amber.”
Amber touched the hazy hand until it blurred away with her tears.
“I love you too, Mother. I will not let them down. I will keep seeking what they need.”
Two blissful but unsuccessful weeks of rabid searching later, Amber donned a new white dress, for it was the next full moon ceremony. This one was particularly important, for it would tell if Shihlo won the brother’s support in pushing for democratic change or if Wrexel would get his war. She smiled when Wrexel struggled to keep his hands off her dress and put her hands upon her warm cheeks when he reminded her that when they got home, he would repeat their own full moon ceremony. Lilith had been strangely quiet; she showed her face now and then but had little to say except to tell Amber she loved her and to smile as her daughter told her the same.
Amber’s attempts to search the catacombs were still a failure, but she remained committed, never forgetting her promise to the Sanbara and to herself. Her map showed she had completed searching beneath all the brothers’ wings and would have no choice but to go beneath the Monarch’s in the next few weeks. The idea frightened her but it was the last section of the search and she believed that she would find the orb beneath his floors. She closed her eyes and fought against the wave of anxiety.
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