But Jemin’s hands, the same as they were keeping her from withdrawing, were keeping her from coming too close.
“Let me just breathe you,” he asked, desperate. “Let me feel your cheeks under my fingertips.” He ran his index fingers across her cheekbones, making her shiver with a fire of her own. “Grant me a moment of bliss—innocent bliss. And I will gladly suffer forever in the joy of a moment we’ll never get back.” His eyes caressed her with their gentle gaze as they swept down to her lips. “Let me bask in your presence and find that I am capable to withstand your draw. If you let me learn today that I am strong enough, I will be a happy man, for I will be able to stand beside you, savor your beauty, and not touch you again.” His gaze returned to her eyes, boring deep into her soul. “If you push me over the edge now, there will be no return for me.”
Maray didn’t dare speak. She didn’t dare breathe. Spellbound by his words, by his nearness, and petrified from what would happen if she moved even an inch, she simply gazed back into his eyes, savoring the meaning of his confession. And there was truth in it. If she gave in to what her heart was commanding, there wouldn’t be a way back.
Maray sat upright in her bed as a crackling fire erupted in the fireplace leading into the secret passageway. The bright orange flames were too stark a contrast for her squinting eyes to make out anything else in the room.
“Who’s there?” she asked, voice trembling at the possible scenarios of who may answer.
For a brief moment, the fireplace was all she could hear. Then there were footsteps, and a hooded figure appeared beside her. A shriek died in Maray’s throat when she found a familiar face above her.
“Shh—it’s me,” Corey said, making Maray jump and slide off the bed.
She straightened and paused until her pulse returned to normal, staring into Corey’s dark face as if she might be waking up from a dream any second. But nothing changed. Corey remained on the other side of the bed, and the flames kept licking inside the fireplace, the light of the flames reflecting in the mirrors on either side above the bed.
“What are you doing here?” Maray asked when Corey didn’t speak.
“I am sorry if I disturbed your rest,” Corey apologized, “but there isn’t much time.” She gave Maray a significant look, which didn’t demystify anything about her sudden appearance in the middle of the night.
“What’s going on, Corey?” The anxious look in Corey’s eyes put Maray on red alert. “Should I call the guards?”
“I’m not really here, Maray,” Corey explained. “I am a projection.”
Maray wanted to ask what exactly Corey meant by that, but Corey didn’t stop long enough to give her the opportunity.
“I am no longer at the warlock quarters. He found me. And I don’t know how much longer I will be myself before—” She glanced over her shoulder as if someone was standing behind her, but as Maray followed her gaze, all she could see was the fire. “Listen,” Corey started over. “I don’t know if you know, but Gan Krai has already extended his circle of influence within the palace walls. You are no longer safe there.”
Maray didn’t dare interrupt Corey, who kept nervously glancing back over her shoulder. She held back all the questions for now.
“You need to prepare yourself, Maray. He is coming for you.” Corey eyed Maray, her shape flickering ever-so-slightly as she stepped around the bed and extended a hand to place it on Maray’s shoulder.
Maray couldn’t feel the warlock girl’s touch, but a sudden coldness ran through her as she realized that this was as real as if Corey had truly come to visit. Corey was warning her and putting herself in danger by doing so.
“Where are you, Corey?” Maray asked. “I can send someone to come get you.”
Corey laughed humorlessly, and her eyes flickered to the side. “There is no way back for me, Maray. I am a devil-child, and the devil has come to get me first.” She bent forward and gave Maray a hug she couldn’t feel. “I am sorry I couldn’t save Laura… and your grandmother. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this situation all by yourself.”
There was a tiny tear in her eye as she pulled away from Maray, who tried to hug her back to show without wasting time on words explaining there was nothing to forgive. Corey gave a wry smile then retreated toward the fireplace, her eyes glancing sideways in distress.
“What’s wrong, Corey?” Maray asked, following the girl, feeling helpless.
“I need to go.” Corey ducked and stepped into the flames that were collapsing into a bunch of glowing embers, swallowing the image of Corey with them.
Just when Maray was about to take another step forward to see if there really was a fire, the flames blazed into the air, licking out of the opening, and a new shape emerged. A larger shape this time. Cloaked and hooded and marching right out of the flames toward her. Maray shrank back as the man lifted his head and the firelight revealed a pair of crimson eyes on a smooth face. Dancing shadows distorted his handsome features, and strands of white hair floated out of his hood as he stopped, lifting his slender hands to pull back his hood.
“I see you recognize me, Princess Maray,” Gan Krai said in a tone as sweet as honey melting on a spoon. “I have been patiently waiting for this moment.”
A smile, equally sweet, spread on his lips as Maray’s backward path was blocked by her bed. He took a graceful stride toward her, one hand held out as if he was expecting Maray to lay her own into his as the gentlemen at court expected. Appalled, Maray pursed her lips and shook her head in refusal.
“I see it will take you a while to get accustomed to the thought of me taking the precious place at your side.” He paused, cocking his head as if surprised by Maray’s silent objection. “What? My men didn’t manage to get word to you about my proposal?” He shook his head, pretending he couldn’t believe it. “How very rude of me to not make clear my intentions.” He got down on one knee and placed both his hands on his thigh as he gazed up at Maray, looking as innocent as a normal human and mortal man proposing to a woman. But Maray knew better. She let out a gust of air, intending to kick the projection of Gan Krai out of her bedroom, but he was faster with his words. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
It was unbelievable that he had the guts to ask her after bringing all that misery over her family, all the pain, the fear, the torment. Maray was at a loss for words.
“Naturally, a gentleman should ask…” he clarified. “But it’s not as if your hand wasn’t already promised to me.” His handsome features twitched with dismay just enough for Maray to be pushed over the edge.
“No.” One small word that said everything.
“What do you mean by ‘no’, Princess.” Gan Krai’s tone was still polite, gentlemanly, but his eyes, fiery red, threatened to burst with flames the way the fireplace had.
Maray told herself that this wasn’t the real Gan Krai, that she was safe, that he couldn’t touch her—not really. Not as a projection. She straightened her back and lifted her head. “It means that there is no place in my life for a power-hungry, demon-controlling monster such as you.”
The warlock’s face went blank before fury distorted his features. “You will regret your words, Maray Cornay,” he threatened. “Your people will suffer from your lack of insight, and you will end up at my side anyway.”
“Guards!” Maray screamed and jumped right through the kneeling projection of Gan Krai, darting for the door, before she was caught at both arms by the guards who were storming in, almost pushing her over as she rushed toward them.
“Run, Maray, run. But where will you go? There is nowhere safe for you. Not in this world or the other one.” Gan Krai’s laughter followed Maray as she bolted from the room, leaving the guards to fight the untouchable version of Gan Krai, which had turned to withdraw back into the flames.
“I can’t do this any longer,” Maray informed Pia in a whisper. The handmaiden had come running from her own chambers at Maray’s call for the guards and was now glancing a
t Maray, her look urging Maray to remain calm for the moment.
Calm. That was something that was far from Maray’s mind.
Even though the worst was over now, and the soldiers hadn’t found a trace of Gan Krai’s nightly visit other than the embers in the fireplace, Maray felt safe for the moment—safe, as Gan Krai had so fittingly pointed out she’d be nowhere. Not in Allinan or the world she’d grown up in. Similar to the burst of flames from the fireplace, her bottled-up fear and continuing grief had erupted from her in that very moment she had defied the evil warlock. And what was left was an unwavering emotion of brewing fury. Maray was at the eye of her own tornado, and if Gan Krai challenged her by taking away her family, her friends, her realm, she would sweep him and his Shalleyn off the lands with the raging storm of wrath that surrounded her.
Pia waited until the last guards had left the room, reassured them she would stay with the Princess for the rest of the night, and closed the carved double doors with a thud before her expression relaxed enough to show compassion for Maray’s frantic pacing.
“You don’t need to do anything,” Pia reassured her, sounding a bit helpless despite her usual spot-on understanding of Maray’s state of mind. “The guards will hunt him down and bring Corey back.”
The fact that Corey had been claimed by Gan Krai was almost worse than Gan Krai’s visit itself. It was connected to the innate sense of loss Maray had been fighting on a daily basis, and it painfully brought to her attention that no relationship, no friendship could be taken for granted within these walls. Wasn’t that what Corey had warned her about; that Gan Krai’s reach had extended into the palace?
“Not that,” Maray stopped Pia, all stiffness of the past weeks, all the petrification her role had pushed her into crumbling as her thoughts cleared in her mind. Every glance Maray threw at the fireplace was a glance that fortified her fast-beating heart as she came to a conclusion.
Pia cocked her head, expectant and curious, her fingers tapping on the bedside table as she sat on the edge of Maray’s bed.
Maray stopped for a brief second, just long enough to acknowledge that once she had spoken the words, there would be no going back.
“This must stay between us for now, Pia.” She gave the girl a stern look and waited for a gesture of agreement before she took a deep breath and said, “I can’t move forward with the wedding.”
Pia’s eyes widened—not in a negative way. Something told Maray that Pia had been waiting for this moment to arrive.
“Not until Gan Krai is defeated,” Maray added.
“You mean not at all,” Pia suggested, now causing Maray’s eyes to widen. “Not with Heck, I mean,” Pia added.
“No wedding until Gan Krai is defeated,” Maray repeated, voice sounding confident for the first time since she’d had to move up in the line for the throne.
Pia crinkled her freckled nose as an expression of disappointment spread on her face.
“I need alliances, Pia. True alliances,” Maray explained. “Alliances that are forged with me, Maray Elise Cornay, not with Heck’s wife, if I am ever to be taken seriously in Allinan court. Even if Heck’s alliance as my fiancé is true, it comes with the price of his family gaining power in the council. If he is serious about helping me, he’ll support a coronation before the wedding.”
Pia’s disappointment vanished and was replaced by something Maray had never expected to see on the rebellious girl. Pride. Pride in her, Maray, her friend.
“You don’t need any man at your side to be taken seriously in Allinan court,” Pia cheered, but Maray knew better than that. She needed them, not as her husband but as trusted friends. As partners in the war, they were on their threshold, and Gan Krai’s visit—even if it had been a mere projection, not the real threat—had been a clear signal that there was only one way for her to go.
“I need to prepare myself, my skills, my mind for battle. If I want to be a queen, worthy of my Allinan’s trust, I need to be ready to protect them, not hide behind palace walls, running from a ghost who tries to kill everyone I love.” Maray thought of her mother, of how Gan Krai had sunk Jemin in the frozen lake, how he had now gotten to Corey. Her anxious expression, the risk she’d taken to warn Maray. She couldn’t leave Corey to her fate. She couldn’t let a council make decisions for her, push her. Whether she was Queen or Princess, it didn’t matter. The responsibility she had—she felt—for Allinan didn’t change. “And I’ll need your help.”
“The pack is one-hundred percent loyal,” Pia commented.
“So are Heck and Scott,” Maray added. “And my dad, of course.” And Jemin, she added in her mind, but that was an entirely different story. Another story, which swept through her like a hot breeze every time she thought of him. Had it been only yesterday that he had sat beside her on the sofa, hands securing her face an inch from his, and promising he would not simply disappear again? Jemin was the second—the unspoken—reason Maray had to follow through with her own way of doing things. The moment the council managed to rush the wedding, Maray would never again be free to feel Jemin’s hands on her, to touch his skin, to feel his lips. She suppressed the urge to scream the shackles of forbidden love off of her soul and settled down on the bed beside Pia.
“But we need the people,” she said, returning her focus to what lay ahead of her. “We need each and every person to understand the threat that is looming over us.”
She was well-aware of what that meant. She would need to tell Heck she needed to postpone the wedding—even if the date hadn’t even been set yet—she would need to step in front of the council and tell them that she was going to set her own date for her coronation and it would be before she was married to anyone. And she would have to go out there to seek the people of Allinan, to hear them and speak with them—not only to them like she’d done until now. It was time to take her royal life into her own hands.
“Your people already love you, Maray,” Pia reassured her and laid her hand on Maray’s forearm in a gesture of friendship. “They will support you with or without the council.”
Maray nodded half-heartedly. “They love what they know about me. The eel-smooth image of a Princess, not the true Maray with sharp edges and unpredictable magic. It will be a challenge in itself to win them over. To get them to believe the danger we are all exposed to.”
It appeared more and more difficult as Maray followed her train of thought, but it wouldn’t be her if everything went smoothly.
“I’ll need to talk to Heck first then the council,” Maray listed what lay ahead of her in the right order. “Then we’ll see how many supporters we have left.” But there was one task that outranked all the others. “Before we start, we need to find Corey and retrieve her from Gan Krai’s power. I don’t know what he is planning to do with her, but she sounded scared.” Maray remembered the look in projection-Corey’s black eyes. Wherever she was, Corey had a real monster to fight, and Maray wasn’t going to leave her friend to her fate.
Pia eyed her, for the first time since Maray knew her, with something that resembled hesitation. “We’ll find a way to get Corey back,” she slowly said, not looking at all like she believed what she was stating. “But you need to rest now. You’ve had a rough night, and you’re not going to win anyone over by looking like a ghost.” Pia’s fingers gestured at the dark circles under Maray’s eyes which seemed to have become a constant whether she slept or not.
However, Maray decided that last time she had impulsively rushed out to save someone she loved, she had ended up burning down the tunnels of the secret quarters of the palace—and almost killed her friends and Jemin in an attempt to free him. “A couple of hours. We’ll put together a search party first thing in the morning.”
Pia agreed, relieved, judging by the way she got up and lifted the corner of the blanket for Maray. “Get in then,” she said with a grin and shooed Maray off the edge and into the safety and warmth of the covers.
Half-willing, Maray lifted the hem of her nightgown and climbe
d under the blanket then let Pia tuck her in like a little girl.
“Sleep, Princess,” she said, her green eyes almost hypnotic as she stared down at Maray. “Let’s face tomorrow’s challenges tomorrow.” And with a wistful glance, she snapped her finger and switched off the dim light.
For a long moment, Maray couldn’t hear the shifter-girl, but Pia’s hand remained on Maray’s shoulder, infusing her with the rare sensation of not being alone. Pia let herself drop onto the bed and sat beside her. She hummed a melody that reminded Maray of a song her mother used to sing to her when she was little.
“What is this melody?” Maray asked, already feeling her muscles turn to pudding as the exhaustion of holding her emotions replaced the rage of a couple of minutes ago.
“An Allinan lullaby.” Pia interrupted her singing just briefly enough to answer, then continued until Maray could no longer tell if she was awake or if sleep had soothed her into its gracious unconsciousness.
Corey
A blast erupted, sending half of the furniture flying. Corey ducked down, whispering words of protection for her and the old man who was lying on the floor on the other end of the room.
“You can crawl all you want,” Gan Krai’s voice followed her as she slowly made her way through the pieces of splinters of wood that were raining down. “There is nowhere for you to go.”
The cruelty in his voice was the opposite of the velvet tone he’d used to try to persuade Maray. Corey cursed under her breath. How could she have been so stupid, so reckless, thinking that she’d stand a chance of tricking Gan Krai? She shook her head at herself as she slithered forward between the evidence of destruction. Small chunks of wood fell from her curls and she had to shield her eyes.
“Why do you run from me, my child?” Gan Krai asked, his voice returning to a somewhat composed tone. “What child runs from her father?”
Two Worlds of Dominion Page 7