by Sarina Dorie
One of Vega’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows lifted. “You can always whip him into shape.”
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. “Ms. Bloodmire, was that a pun? Did Principal Khaba’s humor rub off on you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t start.”
“We could take him with us to a lightning storm,” I said. “It might be good for him.”
“I could also poke myself in an eye with my wand.” She glowered at me. “If you’re going to get your groove back and fulfill the prophecy of uniting Fae and Witchkin using the Red affinity, you’d better get started with my husband. Get it over with and bear his heir, release him from the magic that’s draining him—and then we’ll kill all our enemies.”
Never before had I imagined Vega would be so adamant about me making love to her husband. Revenge was always a good motivator for Vega.
I felt like lightning zigzagging through the air, not in a straight line, but searching for the path of least resistance. Perhaps I was making this too hard for myself. I needed to stop fighting.
I needed to start loving.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Two Birds, One Stone
We electrocuted a small flock of ravens circling in the sky when we returned to Elric’s estate. Vega rushed into the house ahead of me, sending servants to fetch Captain Errol. All was well in the house. No one had been snatched.
Not today anyway.
Vega used magic to dry our gowns, but the fabric was as stiff as line-dried cotton. The fabric chafed against my skin, and I felt uneasy at the presence of our enemies so near.
Elric was still asleep from his nap when I found him. We’d been gone for two hours, and he hadn’t even known we had left. Not that I wanted him to catch us sneaking out and insist it was too dangerous to leave, but it was a bad sign he was so unaware of the comings and goings on his estate. At any moment we might be attacked again.
Especially if the flock was a sign of what might be to come.
Elric slept on a golden divan that now had a patch in the side. His clothes were more mismatched than usual, the pink stripes of the trousers jarring against the yellow paisley waistcoat and green brocade cravat. An outsider might have chalked it up to his eccentric fashion taste rather than the slim pickings of his wardrobe after what the Raven Court had done to it, but I knew better.
He stirred when I placed a hand on his elbow. “You look lovely—as always.” He smiled groggily.
I kissed his cheek. “And you, sir, are a liar.” I suspected my hair was a wild nest after being out in the rain and wind.
“Me? I think not.” He inhaled. “Mmm. And you smell like rainbows.”
Felix Thatch had said the same thing the day before. Yet there had been no rainbows. Even so, something about that idea tickled my brain, a hint of something important I couldn’t quite place my finger on.
“I’ve come to ravish you,” I said, lifting my skirts so I could straddle his lap.
“Have you? To what end?” He circled an arm around my waist.
“Just because.” I snuggled closer.
“Because you want me to inspire you?” He kissed me and swept my hair out of my face. “Or because you need me to replenish you with magic?” His words were gentle, free of resentment. He didn’t dislike doing this for me, but I could see he was fatigued. He would probably excuse himself to continue napping if the need wasn’t dire.
Unfortunately, the need was dire, but more for him than for me. I wanted to tell him I intended to give him the heir he needed, but it would have saddened him. He hadn’t once commented on my growing magic. Perhaps he couldn’t sense it as he had been able to in his stronger days. That worried me.
I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t intend to kill the mood by talking about something he considered hopeless. I tried to tell the truth.
“I need to do something,” I said. “I need to express my love for you.”
His eyes shifted from green to purple as he stared into my face. “Do you love me?”
My throat felt tight. I did care about him. The idea of him dying was too sad to bear. “I do love you. I didn’t understand you had sacrificed so much for me.” Not just for me but for Thatch.
“Don’t be sad. I’m not dying yet.” He tried to smile at his joke, but it wasn’t funny.
I leaned down and kissed him. I undressed him, trying not to dwell on the way his ribs showed through his skin or the hollowness of his face. I didn’t want him to see the pity in my eyes. There was nothing like concern to destroy a romantic mood.
He was as considerate as always, attentive and communicative. He allowed me to take charge and to set the pace. I wasn’t sure why I had been so resistant to loving him . . . except that I was in love with someone else. Even if I hadn’t remembered the oath I had made with Felix Thatch, I suspected my subconscious had.
I needed my heart to be able to love more than one person for my plan to work.
Elric didn’t use showy magic to evaporate my clothes or to transport us to the bed. It might have been because he no longer had magic to waste. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use his magic frivolously to try to make me happy.
“No cheating,” I said. “No magic orgasms.”
He laughed.
I didn’t think he would be able to do so, but I wanted to be sure. I was full of magic from the lightning. I just needed my affinity to push me over the edge.
It didn’t take long. I closed my eyes and let the pleasure take me. As the first wave of ecstasy filled me, I rode on that tide, allowing it to push me higher. I launched myself upward and out of my body, a slingshot into the stars. I felt as though I had wings. I flew upward and through the cosmos.
Peace filled me, speaking to me in a language made of song. I had succeeded. I was my dragon self.
Unlike the other times I had transcended my body, my mate wasn’t here. I thought I detected a shimmering red star far to the right that might have been Felix Thatch—or his subconscious mind—but I didn’t pursue it. I needed this moment to myself. I needed to find a dragon egg and take it back with me.
Or swallow it as Vega had been urged to do.
My limbs weren’t tangled and infinitely long like when I’d been with Thatch. I suspected this body more closely resembled a slender Chinese dragon than a Western one with a fat dinosaur body as I had imagined a dragon might look as a child. Then again, this form was fluid and shifted shape easily. When I thought about spreading my wings, I had wings. I imagined horns, and I felt them sprout on my head.
Perhaps Vega had been a cat because that was what her imagination conjured.
I uncurled myself and stretched. My scales shimmered pink and white, catching the light of the stars. In this realm, I felt as though I were made of pure energy, clean and perfect. My body was perfect, unlike the imperfections of the human form.
Yet as I gazed at myself, I saw I wasn’t without flaw. A crisscross of scars etched my middle. Gouges had been torn deep into the flesh of my abdomen, craters pocked my belly and zigzagged their way across my scales. Some of the wounds looked partially healed while others were still raw.
Elric had healed my human body, but his magic hadn’t reached my soul—if this was my soul.
I studied the injuries, uncertain how this had happened. Was this the emotional scarring of what the Raven Queen had done, or the effect she’d had on the flesh and blood of my soul? Did each scab and defect represent the loss of one I loved?
To heal Felix Thatch, I had projected love into him. I had embraced the warmth and light inside me and sent nurturing out of myself and into him. I tried to do this for myself.
Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.
I craned my long neck and curled in on myself, brushing my nose against the wounds, and tried again. I projected love through myself. I visualized the scales smoothing and scars on my belly healing.
Still, the injuries remained. Perhaps I had been damaged so sev
erely that I needed someone else to heal me while I was in this form.
When I uncoiled and looked to my belly again, I noticed what I’d been too preoccupied to see before. My belly had been hiding a nest of eggs. The nest itself was made of a spiral galaxy clustered tightly with stars. Perhaps these were dreamers, not stars. I wasn’t certain. Cushioned in the pillows of light rested the scarlet eggs. Each ruby was faceted like a precious stone, translucent and glittering. Only one was bright with life.
I brought my face closer, examining it. A dark shape shifted within the ruby egg.
A compulsion to possess this egg drew me closer. Without thinking about what I was doing, I curled protectively around my nest, not that there was anyone in this realm who might hurt them, but the instinct in me was strong. Thatch wasn’t here to try to nudge me away from my treasure, and though I regretted his absence, I enjoyed that I could bask in the red glow coming from the egg.
It took all my willpower not to touch the egg as I had last time. If I did, I would become pregnant. I could see why Vega had wanted to eat the egg in what she thought had been a dream of this celestial realm. I suspected Thatch had thwarted me from finding the egg the first times we’d transcended together because he hadn’t wanted me to become pregnant. As a result, I hadn’t touched the egg the first two times I had been here. That had prevented me from becoming pregnant. It had only been the last time that I’d touched it. That was how I had solved the Fae Fertility Paradox and become pregnant with his child.
If I intended to gain knowledge from the Ruby of Divine Wisdom, there had to be something more I needed to do. Something different.
I stared at the shimmers of light radiating from the egg. Shadows and light danced within. I thought I saw a figure stretching within, but I couldn’t be certain. More than ever I wanted to touch my snout to the egg, to nuzzle up against it. Had I never been exposed to the lure of Fae enchantments meant to trap a Witchkin, I might not have known magic was at work.
Only this wasn’t a trap. I had willingly come here seeking the solution to my problems.
The red flickers mesmerized me. I gazed into the ruby, willing the answers to come to me. Staring into the dancing light was like using pyromancy to scry into a fire. It was calming and hypnotic. The way the light undulated, whispers of images forming and then dissolving too quickly to read, hinted at the mysteries within the egg. The ruby was speaking to me, but I didn’t know the language.
Out of the red light, occasional flashes of other colors came and went. The longer I watched, the more balanced the spectrum of light grew. It wasn’t so much a ruby, but a diamond, some facets reflecting yellow or green. Other sections flickered orange and blue. Violet and silver facets shifted to shadow and then back to red. A pattern emerged, groupings based on the affinity pyramid at the school: Amni Plandai, Elementia, and Celestor, balanced with the red and black of my affinity. The missing section of the color wheel became complete.
Complementary colors replaced their opposites on the color wheel. The undulation of light, first slow and gentle, now beat against the egg. Frantically the message rushed forward, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t know whether the thrumming I heard was music or a heartbeat in my ears. The rainbow spiraled and blended, colors mixing and growing brighter. Whiter.
All of this had to mean something, I was certain. I understood the physics of rainbows and the prism of light turning into white light, the blending of all colors. The absence of light was the opposite. I just didn’t understand how this was important. I thought of Alouette Loraline’s journal with all her answers. If I had access to it, there might be an explanation there. All I had were notes.
I also had one page that had been torn from the back. The last page. On it, Derrick had drawn a caricature of me.
My thoughts started to become incoherent. White light thrummed against the silence of shadows. I tasted a piano sonata and felt wildflowers growing all around me instead of stars.
Hot and cold tingles caressed my scales. The places where scars had been etched across my belly didn’t appear as deep. The rawest of wounds were now closed and healing. Wildflowers massaged my belly, and music embraced me. I smelled ice and tasted fire. Earth and sky plucked notes in my ears.
My senses grew more confused as the synesthesia of the magic pulsed in front of me. The compulsion to coil around my nest intensified. I ached to possess that light, to let it fill me and become one with it as it healed me. I couldn’t tell whether I pined for a brood of knowledge or a brood of babies.
The secrets of the universe reached out toward me, tempting me. The glowing ruby sang to me and offered me everything I had hoped for and more.
Unlike before, I could see I couldn’t have knowledge and life. It was one or the other. This dragon egg could be the answer to all questions and the problems, all the power I could ever desire. Or it could be a baby. I couldn’t have both.
Did I want all the knowledge and wisdom of the world? If I took that forbidden fruit, I could defeat the Raven Queen. Or did I want to save Elric’s life and give him an heir?
Which path did I want to take? Which would bring greater goodness to the world? The knowledge of death? Or the power of life?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Body of the Soul
I chose life.
That was just the kind of witch I was, like it or not.
I touched my nose to the egg and embraced my fate. Brilliant light flashed, pure white exploding out in all directions and drowning out the darkness.
I wasn’t even certain I had a choice of what I did with the egg. I didn’t do anything different from before. Perhaps the egg had chosen for me. I felt certain of what my biological mother had chosen in the end.
She might have created life, but she had chosen death. I had selected a different path than she had. More than ever, I felt reassured I might have been her daughter, but that didn’t mean I had to repeat her mistakes. I didn’t have to repeat my mistakes. I had hurt Odette for pain magic. I wasn’t going to be that person, even if it was out of the desire to save someone else.
I had chosen my own path. This was for the best.
The blinding light faded. I fell away from the beauty and perfection of the cosmos. All at once, I came rushing back into my body.
I gasped for air. My heart thundered in my chest. I was hot and cold at the same time. Sweat chilled my naked skin. Warm arms smoothed up and down my back. Elric covered me with a blanket.
As the sensations of the cosmos and the intensity of the Red affinity faded, a different kind of magic embraced me other than my own. Muse magic radiated from Elric. His powers of glamour were still weak, but his innate magic of inspiration spiked higher in him. My passive affinity made his energy spark higher, and in turn, the inspiration in him flared in me.
I saw what I had almost been able to grasp before while I’d transcended above my body.
“Rainbows,” I said, opening my eyes. “I need all the colors of the rainbow.”
“I beg your pardon.” Elric’s eyes shone brilliantly silver.
I stared down at him, momentarily hypnotized by the starlight in his eyes. His eyes flashed from silver to green to gold. It had been a long time since I had seen his irises shift so quickly. Something had changed in him. He didn’t look different other than the radiance in his eyes, but I felt the shift in him. Now that a hungry hole inside me wasn’t eating me away from the inside out, I could more fully sense his magic.
“What’s that about rainbows, love? Are you talking about art or fashion?” Elric rolled over, shifting me off him. He held me close enough I didn’t fall off the divan.
I wanted to bask in his warmth and cuddle with him, but now wasn’t the time. I had business to attend to. Time was wasting. I had people to rescue.
I kissed his cheek and tried to wiggle away. “I’m sorry, I need to talk with Vega. And Felix.” Not only them, but others.
Elric hugged me closer and planted a ki
ss on my lips. “Did I inspire you, love?”
“Yes, you did.” I squeezed him and covered his face with kisses, briefly giving in to the temptation to cuddle and show him I cared about him. “How do you feel? Any different?”
I wondered whether he felt as complete as I did. I thought I had felt powerful in that dragon form, but that had been only a fraction of what I felt now.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I feel quite refreshed.” He winked. “You should wake me from a nap like this more often.”
I laughed. It felt like it had been a long time since I’d laughed so deeply.
I squeezed him one last time before forcing myself to leave him. “By the way, I’m pretty sure I’m carrying your child.”
He sat up, his expression somewhere between disbelief and joy. “I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. Even if this tryst did result in getting you with child, it takes days for conception to occur in a human body.”
I untwisted my skirts and shoved my arms back into the dress I’d come to his room in. “Not in a Red affinity. Not with magic.” Thankfully I hadn’t been blessed with a speedy childbirth this time.
I rose to leave, but he circled his arms around me and drew me back beside him again. “No, you aren’t allowed to run off like this. Explain to me why you think you conceived.” His brows drew together, concern in his eyes.
I didn’t want that spark of inspiration to leave me, but I knew it wasn’t fair to drop a bomb on him as I just had and then run off.
“Felix told you about the oath we made while we were making love in the Raven Court?” I asked.
He nodded, but his expression was guarded, uncertain. It was hard to say whether Thatch had been completely forthcoming. I explained the details. His expression remained sorrowful, as if he thought he were about to burst my bubble. I went on to tell him about the Ruby of Divine Wisdom, and how I had used it before to get pregnant.
“Felix changed our oath to give me the ability to choose you as a lover, and because of that, I could ascend to the celestial plane and heal myself. I took the egg and now it’s inside me.” I placed his hand on my belly. “Can you feel the life inside me?”