“Of course,” I whispered to the window.
“Don’t leave this table,” he commanded.
“Right.” I was still whispering.
I felt him move but didn’t look then I felt his heat at my side.
“Cora.”
I closed my eyes. Then I turned my head and tipped it way back to look up at him. When I did, his hand lifted to cup my cheek and he bent low and touched his mouth to mine.
I felt a tiny tear split through my heart.
When he lifted his head, he murmured, “For my people.”
That loving gesture was for the crowd.
“Right,” I whispered.
“Don’t move from this table.”
I nodded but made no further retort even though he was being bossy and repeating himself to boot. When I didn’t speak, his eyes examined my face as his thumb tenderly swept my cheek.
That tear split deeper into my heart.
“Gods, I wish this was real,” he muttered.
It is, you stupid man! my mind shrieked.
But my mouth didn’t move.
“I’ll be back,” he stated.
“I’ll be waiting.”
His thumb swept back and his eyes held mine.
Then he let me go, straightened and he was gone.
Chapter Nine
I’ll Hand You the World
I woke half on and totally wrapped around Tor again.
But I woke to the dark.
It was still night and the fire had gone out.
I slid away from him and out from under the covers. Then I pulled on my flowy top that dropped all the way down to my upper thighs, covering my silky, lacy underthings. Then I slipped on my satin slippers.
Then I went to spend time with a being that I was pretty certain actually liked me.
Walking on tiptoe and being careful to be quiet, I ducked under the pelt curtain and approached Salem.
“Hey boy,” I whispered as I got close.
He jerked his head up, greeting me but being quiet like he knew Tor was sleeping and he didn’t want to wake him.
I got close and he let me curve an arm under his jaw and stroke the length of his nose.
“I’m not sure he’s this kind of guy, so I’m not certain Tor has told you, but you should know from someone that you’re unbelievably beautiful,” I whispered.
He gave a gentle snort, nuzzling his nose closer to me and I smiled.
I moved to his side, stroking him along the way and I leaned into him, snuggling his neck and stroking his chest. I could swear he took a teeny horse step sideways to get closer to me too.
I liked that.
“I want to go home,” I whispered to him.
This got me a soft whinny.
“It’s beautiful here but I don’t like it.”
A careful jerk of the head, done so as not to dislodge me.
“I should like it. I’m a princess married to a handsome prince and the rivers are clean and the horses are sweet…”
Another soft whinny and I smiled then sighed.
“But I wish I could get home,” I said wistfully.
Another gentle snort to which I replied with another quiet sigh.
His head moved to the right and then he took another teeny sideways horse step into me as I gave him a horse-hug and kept stroking his chest while looking out into the moonlight at the mouth of the cave.
Then out of nowhere a steely arm closed around my ribs and another one closed around my upper chest as I felt a face bury itself in my neck.
Holy crap!
“Noctorno?” I whispered, let the horse go and my hands went up so my fingers could wrap around a hard forearm.
“Stroke me like that, I’ll take you to a castle,” he murmured into my neck.
I closed my eyes tight.
Jeez, how did he get across that stone without making that first freaking noise?
“Please, let me go.”
His mouth moved up to my ear. “Let me stroke you, swear to the gods, sweets, you loosen up just a hint, I’ll make you come so hard you’ll think you’ve exploded.”
Oh God.
I bet he could do that. He was a good kisser. If he was half as good with other things, I’d definitely think I’d exploded.
“Please,” I whispered but his hand at my side drifted up and his thumb slid out and caressed the side of my breast.
Whoa. This had to stop mainly because it felt so good. Too good. Fairytale good.
“Noctorno –”
His teeth nipped my ear and I shivered.
I liked that too, way better than Salem shuffling closer to me.
“You’ve been calling me Tor.”
I had because he was becoming a Tor. But I had to remember he was Noctorno, always, always, always.
“I –”
I stopped talking when his arms squeezed and his tongue traced my ear. I stopped talking because my body trembled and heat rushed to very specific parts of me.
“Forget what I said in the village. I’ve changed my mind. Play this game, my love, I want you to,” he murmured. “Let me take you to my castle where you can play it. Let me make you heavy with my heir and I’ll treat you like a queen while you play it. You give me an heir, you can name your price, a bigger house, more land, jewels, whatever you want, by the gods, it’ll be yours. Just open your legs, convince me you’re enjoying it, settle a son on me and, before you leave, I’ll hand you the world.”
My body started trembling but for a totally different reason.
“Before I leave you’ll hand me the world?” I asked quietly.
“Anything you want,” he assured me, his arms getting tighter, his body pressing into mine.
“Leave you with my son.”
“My son,” he stressed.
“Our son,” I corrected.
His teeth nipped my ear again and he whispered, “My son, Cora. My heir. My country’s future king.”
Dear God. Was he serious?
For sanity’s sake, I moved to another subject. “Convince you I’m enjoying it?”
“Yes.”
“So I won’t?”
“You let go, I’ll make you enjoy it. That’s a vow.” His thumb moved in, stroking closer to my nipple and I bit my lip. “Let go, sweets,” he coaxed into my ear.
“Let go so you can fuck me, get me pregnant and take my child?”
His head came up and he asked, “Fuck you?”
“Screw me. Boink me. Nail me. Tag my ass. You know, have sex with me, sex with no meaning, no love, fuck me,” I explained acidly.
He turned me in his arms to facing him and one hand sifted into my hair, clenching gently but making a statement nonetheless while his other arm caged me in.
“I take it… in your world… that’s not a nice thing to say,” he remarked.
“Nope,” I agreed.
He was silent but he didn’t let me go.
Finally he sighed and said, “You’re clever, I’ll give you that.”
“So clever, you’d think I was from a different world,” I noted sarcastically.
“Now, wouldn’t go that far, love.”
No, of course he wouldn’t.
“Whatever,” I muttered to his shoulder.
“I think you missed it, Cora.”
“Missed what, Noctorno?”
I heard him pull a sharp breath in his nose then he stated, “The part where I gave you permission to play me.”
“That’d be hard to do since I’m not a player.”
I watched him tip his head back before he muttered, “Gods.”
“Got that right,” I muttered back.
He tipped his head down and his eyes locked on mine in the moonlight.
“You know, love, I go to bed and lay awake before sleep claims me wondering what it would be like to have the other half of my soul in Rosa.”
Oh my God.
Ouch times, like, a thousand.
“I asked Dash how he felt,” Noctorno contin
ued. “He said the minute he met her, it was indescribable. The instant connection. The pull. Now it’s constant. He can barely stand to be away from her and she feels it too. I know he’s wounded, bleeding deep somewhere no one can see because he told me that being separated from her is like what he would imagine it felt like having a limb removed. You need it there. You can’t live without it. When it’s gone, the phantom of it remains and when you notice you don’t have it close enough to touch, it drives you slightly mad. She can leave him for hours, days, even weeks but any longer, he starts dying inside. Minerva has her, she has her and while she does, my brother is dying inside.”
God, that sounded beautiful. I wished I had that.
It also sounded awful.
Poor Dash. Poor Rosa.
“We should have that,” he informed me.
“We don’t,” I informed him.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” And I sure as heck didn’t, except the part that I wasn’t from this freaking world!
“I do,” he replied.
Really? He did?
“You do?”
“Yes, Cora, I do.”
“Then why don’t we have it?”
“Because to have that pull you have to have a heart. You have to be able to fall in love. He fell in love with her the second he saw her and she the same. And, as you know, the minute my eyes hit you, I fell in love with you.”
Whoa! Wait.
What?
What, what, what?
Before I could verbalize my question, he kept speaking. “But you didn’t fall in love with me because you have no heart and then you proceeded to kill my love for you and twist it into something else entirely. And you keep doing it. Every bloody time I see you. Every time I speak to you. You twist it until there’s nothing in it to recognize as anything even close to what it once was.”
“You loved me?” I whispered, looking into his harsh, moonlit face.
“Don’t,” he clipped shortly.
“Are you saying you loved me?”
His arm got so tight I couldn’t breathe and his hand in my hair twisted so it wasn’t gentle anymore. Not even a little.
And as he did these things, he barked in my face, “Don’t!”
“I –”
“Play your game but don’t you ever, ever, Cora, play with that memory.”
Oh.
My.
God.
He used to love me! And, obviously, he’d told me. And, just as obviously, I’d spurned that love.
Or, more aptly, the other me spurned his love.
Oh. My. God!
His arm gave me a shake. “Am I understood?””
“Tor –”
He lost it and I knew it when his hand twisted in my hair, I cried out at the pain and he roared, “Am I understood?”
“Yes!” I shouted.
At the same time I shouted, Salem threw his mighty head back and whinnied loud.
Noctorno’s head shot to his horse, his body went statue-still then he looked over my head to the mouth of the cave.
“Gods!” he yelled, let me go but grabbed my hand and dragged me behind him as he sprinted to the antechamber. He went so swiftly, I nearly stumbled twice on the way.
“Noctorno!” I cried and he yanked back the pelt and hauled me through so roughly and with such force, I went flying.
“Hurry, finish dressing,” he ordered.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Dress!” he thundered.
I jumped and ran to my clothes.
I was bending to snatch up my skirt when he commanded, “Meet me at Salem.”
I looked up and saw him dragging a sword off the wall.
“Salem,” I agreed, nabbed the skirt, tugged it on, grabbed the vest, shrugged it on then bent and snatched up my belt. I wrapped it around my waist on the run and saw that Noctorno had already disappeared.
I fled the space and saw him saddling Salem.
“In there,” he jerked his head to the space where the wood was kept. “Arm yourself.”
Arm myself?
I skidded to a halt three feet away from him. “With what?” I asked stupidly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he answered curtly, cinching the strap under Salem’s proud chest. “Just as long as it’s sharp and you can wield it.”
“Right,” I whispered, ran to that space, snatched a lethal looking knife off the wall and ran back out.
When I arrived, Salem was saddled, a sword in a scabbard at his left side. Noctorno put his hands to my waist, hefted me up, wasted no time swinging in behind me and this was good.
Really good.
For I learned what all the fuss was about.
Vickrants.
Everywhere.
Their near transparent wings flapping hideously, their claws reaching, their scaly skin glistening, they were filling the cave.
“Hee-yah!” Noctorno barked as he dug his heels in, Salem’s mighty flanks bunched and we bolted out the mouth of the cave, vickrants following in a swarm. “Home, Salem,” Noctorno yelled over the wind rushing in our ears and the branches slapping at our bodies, vickrants darting through the trees and making passes at us, so close, I could feel their vile, cold, leathery wings and smell their stench.
Yikes. I forgot their stench.
Fetid. Hideous.
“Take the reins,” Noctorno commanded, extending them to me.
“What?” I cried.
“Take the reins,” he repeated.
“I don’t know how to steer a horse!” I yelled.
“Take the bloody reins, Cora!”
I took the reins.
He immediately pulled the sword out of the scabbard and with one arm locked around me holding me tight to the safety of his body, the other one struck out with powerful swings and blue sparks and sharp hisses met his blows.
A smaller vickrant landed on Salem’s neck, claws digging in, the horse screamed his fury but kept charging ever onward through the dangerous rock and scrub. Noctorno was busy swinging so I leaned forward with my knife, lifted it high and stabbed at the foul creature. Blue sparks flew back into my face, the thing shrieked and fell away.
Whoa.
I did it.
I did it!
So I decided to do it some more.
Okay, so I clearly wasn’t as gifted with a knife as was evidenced by the practiced swings and thrusts that Noctorno performed with his sword but it didn’t matter. When he was swinging right, I concentrated on anything that got close on the left. Same with his left, I went right. When he was circling his sword overhead, anything went.
The creatures shrieked, yelped, sparks flew and this happened not only from the shaft of Noctorno’s sword but the sharp blade I carried.
Jeez, I was like a real warrior princess!
Totally cool!
The problem was, there were lots of them, as many fell back, there were more charging in. This lasted a long time. It lasted so long, Salem had made it down the mountain to the road. It lasted so long, it continued down the road. It lasted so long, Salem, Noctorno and I were breathing hard, sweating and, I couldn’t speak for man or beast, but I was scared shitless.
They just wouldn’t go away.
We finally hit a village, not the one we were in for dinner, a different one, just as picturesque but not on the river and it was asleep.
The horse’s hooves clattered sharply against the cobbles and he raced us directly to the church at the other end of the village.
To the church then, no joke, straight up the church steps, then, still no joke, he reared back on his hind legs, Noctorno leaned deep into me, I reached out, dropping my knife and grabbing Salem’s mane, the horse’s powerful hooves beat down the door and then he tore inside.
Yes, the horse tore inside a church.
The vickrants disappeared in an unholy (no pun intended), loud, ear-splitting screech of shrieks.
Salem stopped dead center of the church; Noctorno dism
ounted instantly and just as instantly dragged me off the back of the horse.
Then his hands were on my biceps and he was shaking me.
Shaking me!
Again!
“Stop shaking me!” I shouted through my labored breathing.
“What did you do?” he barked, still shaking me.
Oh God. Was he going to blame me for this too?
“Nothing,” I answered.
“What did you do?” he thundered, still freaking shaking me.
I grabbed onto his arms and screamed, “Nothing!”
He stopped shaking me only to toss me away from him with such violence I went flying and stumbled into some pews, banging my thigh on the side of one so hard the pain beat in and radiated out instantaneously.
He advanced on me and I lifted a hand, palm out and cried, “Stay back!”
“Did you throw out the bones?” he asked, his voice quieter but no less scary.
“Wh… what?”
Then he lost it again.
“Did you throw out the bloody bones, Cora?” he raged.
I shook my head. “Yes, I… you mean when I tidied?”
“Gods!” he bellowed. “Do you want Minerva to find you?”
“No!” I yelled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
He got close, my breath fled and I shrunk away, cowering, stupid, stinking, weak cowering away from his big, powerful body and his bigger, more powerful rage. I dimly heard Salem’s hooves on the wood floor of the aisle and felt him get close to us but my concentration was on Noctorno and trying, and failing, to force air into my lungs.
“You know,” he gritted between clenched teeth.
I sucked in breath, shook my head and whispered, “I keep telling you –”
He reached down and wrapped his fingers around my arm again, hauling me up and he gave me a shake that snapped my head back so hard, I saw stars.
Salem whinnied.
Noctorno’s body went still and I heard him draw in a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth.
“Stop playing that damned, bloody game,” he warned, his face close but I was still blinking away the bright lights in my eyes.
“I… I… I swear, God, I swear, I’m not.”
He shoved me away again and the small of my back hit the sharp edge of the top of a pew. I whimpered but he strode away.
He stopped at the door and looked to his horse.
“Do not let her leave.”
Fantastical Page 9