“I’ll take your smirk as consent.”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Oriana pressed her breasts against his chest. If she didn’t stop teasing him, she’d find herself naked, on her hands and knees, and him in his Bleddyn form, claiming her the way he’d dreamed.
“I think we should try.” She kissed him, her tongue grazing the inside of his mouth, heart pounding in sync with his. “I want to know what it feels like to have you that way. Part man. Part animal. All wild for me, as I’m wild for you.”
His stomach clenched. Oriana’s fingernails raked his chest, the way he liked, the way she knew that made him hard. The woman was a menace.
“You want it too.”
He lifted his hips, letting her know how much he wanted her like that.
They moaned, then groaned their disappointment when she slid from him, flush and on unsteady legs.
“Do not fall asleep. I’ll make this meeting quick.”
“You better, or I’m starting without you.”
Oriana’s eyes traveled to his lap again, his erection tenting his sweatpants. She licked her lips, slow and tempting.
“Go before I—”
A swirl of magic whipped around Oriana then she was gone, leaving him hard, horny, and alone.
Marrok staggered to his feet, erection heavy, need unfulfilled. He’d give Oriana an hour before turning in for the night. But he had to do something about his hard-on now.
April 24, 2243
Irongarde Realm
Irongarde Skyrise
“It’s about time.”
Oriana rolled her eyes at her mother’s rigid back, approaching her standing form on the balcony of her office.
“I’m not even five minutes late for our meeting.”
“That still makes you late.” Turning, Kalinda watched Oriana exit her office onto the balcony through open, sliding glass doors. “You look lovely this evening. How are you feeling?”
Between Kalinda’s mothering and Marrok’s smothering, Oriana could barely breathe without one of them thinking she would fall back into her sickbed. Not that Oriana had been sick per se. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, Oriana should’ve exhibited less guilt when dealing with her sisters. If nothing else, she should’ve ended the battle sooner. She’d held back, hesitant to use deadly force until she’d had no other choice. What her mother and husband failed to understand was that the witches also held back. They’d fought Oriana, without a doubt, but not with the same level of intensity she knew them capable of displaying, which made executing them that more difficult.
“I’m doing well, Mother.” Oriana pressed her lips to Kalinda’s offered cheek, adding a heartfelt hug. “I’m healed. You don’t have to continue to worry.”
“I wouldn’t worry, if you took better care of yourself. Why didn’t you bring my Keira?”
Twinkling stars that lit up the onyx sky drew Oriana to the edge of the balcony, her hands going to rest on the black, cast iron railing. From this height, she could see all of Irongarde City, no building taller than Matriarch Kalinda’s. The buildings were magic and metal, growing from the ground into the air like fantastical trees of a modern era, the past ignored, buried under concrete and blinders of convenience. Out of sight, often out of mind, but never truly forgotten.
The scent of rain hinted at what was to come, tickling her nose and teasing her senses. Perhaps when it rained, when the shower came, wetting the city below with big, fat droplets, it would wash away the growing tide of suspicion instead of adding to the river of pain that threatened to drown her.
For long, quiet minutes, mother and daughter stood side-by-side, Oriana afraid to broach the conversation they needed to have, although not the one she’d come there to discuss. She had no idea what thoughts ran through Kalinda’s mind. Oriana would like to think regret and guilt, but her mother regretted little and hadn’t ever shown a propensity toward fault-finding in herself, although she found plenty in others.
Swallowing down the urge to retreat, to back away from the precipice looming before her, Oriana plunged forward, taking the scariest jump of her life.
She turned to face Kalinda, back against the railing. “Why did you give me Grandmother’s journals, if you didn’t want me to learn the truth?” Not the most important question Oriana wanted to pose but, of her long, heartbreaking list of questions, this one was the easiest to pose. Not because the question was simple but because the answer would be easier to hear . . . to stomach.
Kalinda didn’t sigh, exhale, or prevaricate. In true Matriarch Kalinda fashion, she stated her truth as if it was the truth . . . the only perspective that mattered in a world full of complementary and opposing opinions.
“You’re like a dog with a bone, Oriana. Stubborn on your best day, willful on your worst. I knew you wouldn’t stop looking, stop hounding me for full access to Mother’s journals and research until I gave you something to sink your mind into.”
“But you didn’t give me all of her journals. You gave me just enough to keep me distracted, enough to give me hope but not enough to do anything of substance with the information I did have. Why?”
“Must we do this now? Don’t we have larger concerns?”
“More distractions, Mother? Yes, we need to do this now. I’ve ignored the gnawing feeling for too long.” Longer than the time she’d had the journals, and about more than the journals themselves. “Tell me, please.”
“You know why. You’ve always known but, until today, tonight, you’ve never wanted to truly see.” Kalinda waved her hand in front of her, slicing the steady appendage through the open space before her, sure in her rightness in a way Oriana had never been. “This is our realm, Oriana. We do what we must to protect the people. For me, that protection begins with you, even if that means protecting you from your own good intentions.”
“You say that as if having good intentions is bad.”
“Only when it’s combined with naivete.”
“I’m not nai—”
“You are. You seek answers to queries better left in the past. You offer rights and privileges to werewolves without the insight to project the long-term ramifications on a complex society.”
“A society that oppresses a third of our population. There’s nothing complex about that.”
With slow deliberateness, Kalinda shifted her gaze from the night sky to Oriana, casting her a look she hadn’t seen since she’d gone into her office after being thrown from her stallion, wanting comfort but finding hard words instead.
“I suppose you want to cut off your arms, too, like Mother? You think you can save them by experimenting on yourself. Well, let me tell you something, Oriana, your grandmother died thinking she could rid her body of the metal. And, for what? Because she thought metal-free magic could curb the lust of werewolves as opposed to it protecting us from them?”
There it was, Oriana and Marrok’s theory laid bare in harsh, angry tones. The missing pieces of Matriarch Helen’s journals. Kalinda had known all along. In the deepest recesses of her mind, Oriana had suspected the truth. The arduous emotional journey Kalinda had taken Oriana on, her lies of commission and omission, pricked her trust but stung her heart.
“Matriarch Alba saved us.” Kalinda raised her arms, covered by a lavender silk blouse with ruffles at the end. “If not for the metal in our arms, we would’ve continued to be the victims of werewolves—our magic used to feed them, to give them power, while keeping us under their paws. As witches, we deserve so much more than that kind of existence.”
“And werewolves deserve more than to be treated as second-class citizens. It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation, Mother. Have you once considered the role witches have played in fueling the magic lust of our males?”
Oriana no longer viewed it as magic-and-blood lust, as she once had. When Muracos killed witches, ripping into them like the beast they were, it was easy to assume the white werewolves, like their black counterparts, craved both magic and blood. From reading her grandm
other’s journals, and her experiments with Tuncay, kissing him while blowing magic into his mouth, Oriana and Marrok had begun to view the relationship between werewolves and witches through new eyes.
“That’s irrelevant.”
She waved Oriana’s bigger point away, as she’d done her entire life—in ways so subtle she’d failed to see her actions for what they were. Dismissals some. Indulgences others, but done with strategy, with patience, with a bone-deep belief that Oriana would be proven wrong and Kalinda correct. Oh, how the realization of Kalinda’s lack of faith in her hurt, so much worse than the pills of lies she’d swallowed over the years, spoon-fed to Oriana at regular intervals.
“Janus Nether, Steelburgh, my marriage to Marrok. You went along with those decisions, but you never believed in any of them. In me. You’re the Queen of Patience. You were just waiting for them to fail—one by one by one until there was nothing of me left but a disillusioned, close-minded, hard-hearted Oriana. Your perfect co-ruler because you created me in your image.”
Oriana thought she’d be sick. Her heart and mind battled her stomach. Her stomach won.
Spinning, she leaned over the railing, throwing up bile curdled in pain. Head spinning, throat constricting, heart raging, Oriana coughed, choked, expelled everything she could latch on to. Her body seized over and again, clenching in painful spasms.
“Oriana.” A hand touched her back, rubbing the center in small circles. “Oriana. Don’t. You’ve made yourself sick over nothing. I’ve always believed in you. But that doesn’t mean I must agree with you. I failed to protect my mother from herself. I won’t make the same mistake with my daughter.”
Oriana didn’t know whether she should curse or cry. What in the hell kind of twisted logic was that?
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her tongue in need of a thorough brushing, she swallowed spit, thirsty for a glass of water.
“That’s it. Get yourself under control.”
She shrugged away from Kalinda’s touch, as much as she did her shallow words. Staring at the nightscape, glass buildings illuminated in yellow, pink, and blue lights, Oriana wished she could steal the serenity of the panoramic display for herself, hoarding it like a yellow pine chipmunk hoarding food for the cold winter months.
Oriana stumbled forward, her equilibrium off. Reaching out, she caught herself on the back of a chair, the cushion soft, metal frame sturdy.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
Now that pissed her off. She spun on Kalinda—angry and hurt because, even now, she loved her mother and wanted to wish this all way. But she couldn’t.
Oriana wouldn’t.
“Lying in bed, I had a lot of time to think. I have no more questions for you. I don’t care that I don’t know all the details because I’m done making excuses for you, including to myself.”
“You’re not making any sense. Why don’t you sit down? I can get you a glass of water, although wine would better settle your nerves.” Kalinda glanced from Oriana to the open glass doors. “Give me a minute to get you—”
“No, Mother. If either of us will leave this balcony, it’ll be me. But not until I’ve had my say.”
Inclining her head, as regal as ever, Kalinda appeared no less disconcerted by their emotional talk than she would be while taking in a firework display over a city she cared more about than her daughter’s feelings.
“I don’t know how you found out or when, probably from a spy you installed in Steelburgh, but you learned of the Crimson Guards’ plan to release the Muracos.”
Nothing in her mother’s countenance changed, with the accusation. The part of her stomach that plummeted to her feet, when Kalinda returned her bold statement with impassivity, shattered something deep inside Oriana. Perhaps it was the pedestal she’d placed Kalinda on. Or maybe it was the bond they shared, not made of steel or iron but, apparently, forged from the same block of ice as Kalinda’s heart.
“Unless Solange and I missed a half dozen witch conspirators, the missing Dr. Bhavari isn’t strong enough to conceal thirteen hundred Muracos. I only know four witches powerful enough to cast a blocking spell combined with a camouflage spell. Solange. Her mother. Me.” Oriana lifted a finger and leveled it at Kalinda. “And you.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“You don’t have to like it. Why haven’t you denied anything I’ve said?”
“Why should I? You’re clearly convinced you’re right. Why waste my breath?” Crossing arms over her chest, Kalinda had a way of looking down on Oriana, despite them being the same height. “None of what you’ve said alters the fact that we need to discuss how we’ll handle the Muracos.”
“It changes everything,” Oriana spat, yelling at a person unfazed by emotional outbursts. “You broke the law. You allowed guards to set killers free. You’re using your magic to shield them from your own damn Crimson Hunter.”
“Watch your language.”
“Really? Out of everything I’ve said, that’s what you decide to take issue with? Well, too damn bad. Mother.” Whatever disgust and nausea Oriana had felt vanished under the weight of her fury. “Every decision I’ve made, since becoming Matriarch of Steelcross, was nothing more than a token acceptance from you, while you waited for me to screw up and my efforts to crumble.”
“Oriana.”
“But Janus Nether didn’t fail. And neither did Steelburgh.”
“Your own guards plotted against you. How isn’t that failure?”
“They were nineteen guards out of hundreds. I don’t expect everyone on this planet to agree with me, not even my own damn mother. But I do . . . did expect you to trust me, to have faith in me, to not freaking lie to me and go behind my back.”
“Oriana.”
“I killed our sisters. I hear their screams in my nightmares, feel the spell I used to kill them surge through my body, a poisonous viper.”
“Oriana.” Kalinda’s voice rose, but Oriana was done listening to her.
“Stop saying my name. I hate the way it sounds coming from your mouth—with disapproval and sufferance. You sent me to execute them, knowing you were just as freaking culpable. At least they stood their ground, took their punishment like women, like witches. But not you. You hid behind lies and rules—your legitimate authority a shield you use to beat everyone, including me, into submission. They died with honor, while you stayed in this iron throne. A damn coward.”
The slap came, an exclamation point at the end of her sentence. The shock, more than the power of the blow, had Oriana stumbling backward and against the chair behind her.
For all of Kalinda’s rough edges, she’d never raised a hand to Oriana, no less struck her.
“Oriana, I’m so sorry. I’m—”
Oriana ran from the balcony, through Kalinda’s tidy office, out the door, and straight into Solange, nearly knocking the flustered witch over.
“Good. I was coming to get you. You need to get home.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“No time to explain, but Marrok and Keira need you.”
With those life-changing words, Oriana’s world turned crimson, and she jumped away from Irongarde and her mother’s lies and betrayal and to Steelcross where her night went from bad to worse.
Love Hurts
April 25, 2243
Steelcross Realm
Steelcross Skyrise
Marrok rolled over in bed, his hand, instinctively, going to the spot to his right—Oriana’s side of the bed. Not quite cold but not exactly warm either. She’d said she wanted to have sex with him in his Bleddyn form. Did that also mean she was ready for them to try having a second child—a werewolf baby?
He wanted to have more children with Oriana. Marrok assumed they would. But they were new parents and, a part of Marrok was like Kalinda. He shared his wife with so many people already. He wasn’t ready to broaden that circle to include a second child. In anoth
er year or two he would be. With the death of Oriana’s brother, she’d grown up as an only child, a lonely existence he didn’t want for Keira. As far as Marrok knew, Oriana didn’t even remember her younger brother.
Sitting up, Marrok contemplated what he could do, other than reading, to stay awake. He’d already taken care of his hard-on in the bathroom and then had showered, tossing on boxers and a T-shirt afterward. He supposed he could watch a movie. Maybe even exercise, but that option would leave him sweaty and in need of another shower. Marrok could also call one of his brothers. It was after midnight Steelcross time but nearly dawn in Wild Moor.
Yeah, that idea was a no go. His brothers would curse him to the moon and back, if he called them at the break of dawn for nothing more important than boredom. Alarick would call him an asshole for waking him up and Zev would . . . Was his oldest brother even at home?
Marrok reached for the phone on the bedside table. His last conversation with Zev had felt wrong. Off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what had unsettled him about their talk, but something had. With a guy like Zev, face-to-face conversations were better than virtual ones. When they’d last spoken, Zev had given him some bullshit reason about the video feature of his phone not working by way of explaining why he hadn’t taken Marrok’s call that way.
For all of Zev’s self-professed “werewolf of the world” talk, his brother couldn’t lie for shit, no more than he’d traveled beyond Irongarde Realm. How in the hell could he be a “werewolf of the world” when he didn’t even know what the other side of the planet looked like? Hell, until Marrok had married Oriana, he hadn’t ever set foot or paw in the Northern Hemisphere.
Finger poised to hit the audio/video button on the phone’s display, Marrok stopped, listened, and sniffed the air. He heard nothing, except for Keira’s soft breathing coming from her room. He jumped to his feet, legs tangling in the comforter in his rush. Kicking the material out of his way, he marched to his daughter’s room. Keira slept in her bed, a small pea atop a soft, large mattress fit for a princess. As always, Oriana had left Keira’s nightlight on, a white glow that showed her the way from her bedroom into theirs.
Promise Forever: Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist Page 49