Catching Pathways

by Danielle Berggren

  A rustling sounded behind her, and she turned to see Rodan coming out of the washroom, clad in a pair of soft-looking linen pants, his ever-present gloves, and nothing else.

  Maeve tried, with some degree of desperation, not to look at him when she went into the bath. For hours, pressed against him by force of the crowds, she had taken in the heady scent of smoke and sandalwood. It had been strong even over the blood and gore coating him, and still it lingered, tightening things low in her belly. When she touched him earlier, an electric current flowed up her arm, and a part of her wanted to see what else was possible. Wanted to experience it.

  Men were not strange to her. Touring the United States, parts of Europe, and Australia to promote her books, giving interviews on television and staying in nice hotels afforded her many options. A smart phone and an app were all she needed. Swipe right, meet, and have a good time. Always away from home. Always with someone new. That had been all she needed.

  The only person she ever cared about in any romantic capacity was Sebastian. There remained a part of her that still held out hope for him. Hope that, if she found out what ailed him, he would come back to her whole and smiling. That he would realize they were meant for each other and always had been.

  Except for all those times you caught him looking at you in that strange way, a small part of her said. He was never who he made himself out to be.

  Shaking herself back to the present, Maeve took in the sight of Rodan bare from the waist up. Handsome with his clothes on, he presented in the category of devastating without them.

  Heat blossomed inside of her, and it did more than flush her cheeks and chest. Her knees went a little weak, and she fought a sudden, strong urge to cross the room, pull him to her, and start something that might not finish until they crashed into bed together.

  Not a scratch or blemish marred his body from the battle. His only scar, near his heart, was where Sebastian’s sword had ripped through him. His wide shoulders tapered to narrow hips, graced with that perfect little V-shaped muscle that made her mouth water.

  She may have had a slew of partners, but none held a candle to Rodan’s physical presence. Not just how he looked, but the sensuality that radiated from him which caught her off-guard.

  He moved toward her, and she stood transfixed, eyes grazing up his body to his face. He stopped near her and his voice rumbled through the air and reverberated in her chest. “You’re staring.”

  She flushed even more, sure that by now she appeared beet-red. She stepped back, her legs a little wobbly.

  “Maeve.”

  She stopped and looked up at him, eyes wide.

  Rodan pushed the wet hair away from his face with one hand, the stretch showing off the muscles in his chest and abdomen like he awaited a roaming photographer to come snap a model shot of him. “You did good work today,” he said. “You saved my life.”

  Maeve’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard, her heart beating out a fast rhythm against her ribs. “You saved all our lives. Well. Mostly.” She forced a laugh. “I guess I proved myself useful, after all.”

  “You’ll always be useful, but thank you for staying on the sidelines.” He lowered his arm and then crossed them in front of his chest. “What you did afterward? A stroke of genius.”

  She frowned at him. “What? Acknowledging the moment? What would you have done?”

  “Probably return here and set a ward to keep people out.”

  She laughed. “That would have been a mistake. They are the ones who will crown you. Talk started already.”

  He slid a step closer to her, and the steam of the bath came off him. She licked her lips, trying not to stare at his chest. “The fact remains that we are one step closer to the throne, and it’s because of you.”

  Maeve looked down and stepped to the side, moving past him toward the table. “You did the killing.”

  A gloved hand closed on her wrist, and she stopped still, facing away from him. That electric current came rushing back, buzzing through her. She heard his breathing and basked in the warmth of his body behind hers. It would be so easy to lean back, she thought. What would be the harm?

  Sex tore relationships apart. Jen had almost been fired from her agent job because of the fallout between her and her colleague when their relationship dissolved. It had only been sex, and livelihoods were almost ruined. Here, they were on a life-and-death quest to the high throne, to defeating or helping Sebastian. If they got entangled like this, what would be the consequences?

  His thumb stroked the inside of her wrists, and the sensation made her shudder. Wrists were one of her weaknesses.

  Maeve pulled away, and he let her. She turned to face him, and he definitely stood in her personal bubble. His breath slid along her skin.

  “Listen,” she said, her voice a little huskier than she liked, but quiet so as not to carry. “I like what we’re building now. We worked as a team today. I got the sacrifices to safety and erected the shield. You killed the big bad. We stood by each other in the ensuing celebrations.” She took a deep breath. “You titled me your companion, and that’s how I’m beginning to feel. That we’re more now than tentative allies. I don’t want to sabotage this. I don’t want anything more than this.”

  His eyes, dark with something she didn’t want to name, and his voice a deep rumble that vibrated in her chest combined to make her shiver in delicious anticipation. “Don’t you remember what I told you, that night we met so many years ago?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard. She would remember that moment until her dying day.

  Be with me, and I will give you everything you desire. I will set a crown of silver and moonstones on your brow, and we will rule this land together.

  “Do you think I said those words lightly?” he asked. “Do you believe that there are a hundred other women out there who have been offered the same?”

  Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. “I—I didn’t think about it like that.”

  “Of course you did,” he said in a whisper. “I can see it when you look at me, sometimes. You wonder.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “How many?”

  He gave a single shake of his head. “You.”

  Heart hammering, her hand raised and rested on his bare chest near the scar. “And you see where that got you. How would this be a good idea?”

  Rodan’s hand covered hers. “The fact remains. I want you, Maeve Almeida, if you’ll have me.”

  Her breath caught in the middle of her throat, and her galloping pulse skyrocketed.

  What would be the harm? she thought, and then directly on its heels. Everything could be torn apart if we do this.

  “Tell me you don’t want the same thing,” he said in the softest of whispers. “Tell me I’m mistaken when I see the desire in your golden eyes.”

  She swallowed. “I—” She shook her head, and noticed that he moved closer, leaning down to her. “I—” His breath puffed out, caressing her mouth, and she dug her nails into the flesh of his chest. Her lips throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and her tongue flicked out, wetting them. This closeness, somehow more intense than some of the more carnal sessions she shared with others, overwhelmed her senses.

  “Tell me you don’t want this.”

  His lips were so close that it would take the barest of efforts to reach them. She trembled a little but stepped away on shaking legs. “We can’t,” she rasped. “I’m sorry, we can’t.”

  Rodan released her hand, and it fell limp to her side.

  Maeve gave him a hesitant smile. “Look. We did good today. The kitchen sent up a bunch of food. Let’s celebrate.”

  He stared for a moment, stock still, and then something in him deflated, and he smiled back. “Yes. Let’s.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Rodan

  BY THE TIME HE GOT TO SLEEP, after the feast and crafting the couch into a wider, longer bed for Maeve, Rodan felt weight dragging at him. He thought, with some remorse, that even if
his seduction succeeded, he might not be able to exercise proper technique. Almost all his magical, emotional, and physical reservoirs were depleted, and he needed rest to recharge.

  Maeve’s wakefulness pulsed from across the room. Though they did not speak, his awareness of her, and hers of him, lay heavy in the air.

  He kept replaying those few moments when she almost succumbed to his touch.

  Rodan knew that, sometimes, the path to emotional intimacy lay in physical intimacy. He witnessed it begin that way with many of his subjects and friends over the years. The Basu family, over the generations, instituted arranged marriages for their children, yet they always found a way into each other’s affections.

  And that, in a way, was how he looked at it now. This arrangement with Sebastian. Sickening as the thought seemed, especially since Maeve remained none the wiser, it helped Rodan put things into context.

  There were worse things, he thought. Sebastian might have ordered him to kill her. To butcher villages, like he required of his troops. He might have asked that Rodan make sacrifice to Rigor and Tegal at every shrine or altar that they passed, so that Rodan spilled his own blood time and time again against the sacred stones. By the time they made it to Realmsgate, the process would have rendered him weak.

  Yet a heart remained fickle. He hoped that first step might be tonight. He had seen her need, and felt it trembling beneath his fingers. But she pulled away. Insisted that this thing they both wanted would not be achieved.

  Rodan did not know when last he experienced such rejection.

  Yes, you do, he thought. The eve of the duel with Sebastian. She rejected you then, too.

  She lied when she said she did not want this, but he would not press the issue. Not yet. He had some time on his side.

  Once they both got to sleep, they slept well into the middle of the morning. The room warm from the suns and the heat from the kitchens downstairs by the time they stirred.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Maeve got up first, wavering on her feet with her hair deliciously tousled down her back. He wanted to brush the tangles from that hair and hear her purr beneath him as he ran the bristles against her scalp.

  Rodan shook himself and slid out of bed, padding to the door while Maeve yawned and stretched, a strip of her belly showing between the shorts that she asked him to summon and her loose sleeping shirt. His gaze flicked down, for a moment, to her bare legs. Shapely and muscular, they hinted at the shape of the rest of her.

  Rodan lifted the cross bar and opened the door a crack to find Yolanda the innkeeper on the other side. She bore a tray with fruit and toast—the same fare as what they ate the morning before—and she pushed past Rodan to go to the table with it, frowning at the lack of dishes. He had pulled upon the matter there to help extend Maeve’s bed. He would put it back into place when they left.

  “Well, a good morning to you both,” Yolanda said, brushing her hands off on her apron, this one crisp and cream colored. “There’s a retinue waiting for you two downstairs. The council wishes to speak with you both.”

  Maeve glanced at him, and he looked at her, pretending not to notice her gaze flicking down his body and the faint flush that found its way to her cheeks. He shrugged and turned back to the innkeeper. “What council is this?”

  The woman gaped for a moment, and then grinned, “I forget that you’ve been gone all this time.” She fell into a deep curtsy, sweeping her skirts out to the side. “Your majesty.”

  “There is no need for that,” he said, the affectation not one he missed. “Please.”

  She straightened. “Of course.” She bobbed her head instead. “The council is what came into place about five years into Sebastian’s reign. We’re far from Realmsgate, and he does not send envoys as you once did. We brought this body into effect to help us with local issues. Then, ten years ago, they became our official government when we stopped sending taxes to Realmsgate.”

  “They’re downstairs?” Maeve asked.

  “Yes, loves,” Yolanda said, reverting into her casual form of speech. “They wish to speak with you. Shall I tell them you’ll be down shortly?”

  “Please,” Rodan said. “Thank you.”

  The innkeeper bobbed another quick curtsy, then ducked out of the room.

  “Do you think they can crown you?” Maeve asked once they were alone.

  Rodan nodded, “Yes. It is best we get down there as soon as we can.”

  They ignored the tray of food and dressed, Maeve going into the washroom while Rodan stayed in the main room. She knocked on the door between them before coming out and called, “Are you decent?”

  “Yes,” he said, swinging on his vest and fastening it up the front. Maeve emerged in the same sort of travel outfit she had worn the last few days, the shirt blue and the vest brown leather, with chestnut-hued trousers and boots to go along with it. The blue set off some darker streaks in her hair and made her eyes pop. He wore his usual, black and gold with the crowned rose on his breast.

  She looked him over, gave a quick nod, and smiled. “Come on, let’s see what they have to say.”

  “I don’t get to have breakfast?”

  “You can conjure food in a moment. You can wait a minute while we figure out what they want with you.”

  Rodan chuckled and followed her out.

  The council looked to be a group of four women and three men, all in flowing blue and red robes with the falcon sigil upon a sash worn crossways over their chests. They sat or stood near the fire, talking in low voice among themselves. Aside from them, no one else resided in the great room.

  As soon as Maeve’s boots hit the hardwood floor, they all looked over, and those who sat rose to their feet.

  “The saviors of the city,” said one woman with cream and gold hair piled high on her head. “Saviors of the very Realm. We have much to thank you for.”

  Maeve raised her eyebrows and glanced at Rodan, hooking her thumb at him. “Me too? No, it was him. He did all the stabbing.”

  Another woman spoke up, this one with a sheet of dark hair brushing her shoulders. “You got the sacrifices to safety, threw up a magical barrier, and helped summon this one to our protection,” she said with a nod toward Rodan. “For sir, would you have acted with such speed if your companion were not among the selected?”

  “I would not.”

  “The gods knew what they were doing, placing that stone in your hand,” one of the men said, nodding toward Maeve. He reached into the long sleeves of his robes and extracted the small river stone with the blue squiggle and the number seven. “We plan to display this in the temple, with your permission.”

  Maeve looked like she would be knocked over, and she backed up a step so that she almost stood behind him. “I—yes, do whatever you like, I don’t mind.” She continued in a meek voice, “It really was more Rodan.”

  The first woman focused on him again. “That’s right. You’re styling yourself as King Rodan. Is it you?”

  “It is,” he said, straightening his shoulders. “I have returned from exile and formally challenged Sebastian Sekou to the high throne.”

  Little mutters sprung up at this as they put their heads together, huddled in a loose circle.

  Maeve, red-faced, darkened even more when Rodan added, “And this is my official companion.”

  “What is your name?” the councilwoman asked.

  “Maeve. Maeve Almeida.”

  If possible, the mutterings and little gasps rang out even louder for her than they had for Rodan. She glanced at him, brow furrowed, but he only flicked his eyes at her and gave a little half-smile.

  The woman who did most of the talking stepped forward, reaching out a hand to grasp Maeve’s. “You may not remember me,” she said, her voice soft and low. “I was one of the nurses you helped with the potion that saved our city from plague. I thought I recognized you. You barely aged.” Her free hand reached up to touch the soft folds and wrinkles under her eyes. “Whereas time has not been g
ood to me.”

  “Nurse—Nurse Bethany?” Maeve asked, her eyes widening.

  She smiled. “Yes. Councilwoman Bethany, now. My dear friend.” Her hand squeezed Maeve’s.

  “I remember you. You had that blue uniform and you never stopped working unless I forced you to. You barely ate or slept while the plague raged on.” Maeve spoke with an awed tone to her voice. “You were one of my closest friends here, how did I not recognize you?”

  Councilwoman Bethany laughed. “It has been a long time. For me, at least. How long has it been for you?”

  “Almost twenty years.”

  “It has been almost thirty-five for me. You always said you were from another world,” Bethany went on. “I did not believe it until now. For how else would time have slowed so much for you but rushed forward for me?”

  “I can’t believe it’s really you,” Maeve said.

  “You and King Rodan did more for this city than Sebastian Sekou,” Bethany pressed on. “For it was you who found the formula to save my people, you who mixed it, you who tested it to be sure it would not hurt anyone. It was you and King Rodan who saved us from the chimera.” She let Maeve’s hands go and turned back to her fellows. “I believe that what we discussed must come to pass.” She glanced over her shoulder, “For both of them.”

  Rodan watched the council assemble and speak in low voices. His hearing better than a human, what he overheard pleased him greatly.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that the crown would be his. Yet—

  Yet, they spoke of crowning Maeve by his side.

  He glanced down at her and realized she possessed little idea of what transpired right in front of her, or what it might mean. He pulled her aside. “They wish to crown you, too.”

  “What?” she hissed, glancing back at the group near the fire. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Maeve, there is something that you need to understand about being crowned in this world—in these Realms. If you are crowned alongside me, then we are both contenders to the high seat.”