The Ugly Dukeling

by Bex McLynn

  Nellah jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “Not without her sayin’ so. And when she kicks ya out, it’ll be my boot on yer ass. I got steel in the toe, chappy.”

  Cisnetta sidled up to the housekeeper and linked their arms. In a smooth pivot, she turned the other woman around. “Come, Nellah. Tell me how all our ladies are settling in.”

  Atrates watched the two women walking away, leaving nothing but a magone-scented draft in their wake.

  He fought the impulse to hail Trone, hell even Valment, on his farsimi. On this whole wide estate, all Cisnetta had was a barbarous head housekeeper. The woman—Nellah—had held her ground, withstanding his scowls and snarls, but she’d barely brushed the underside of his chin.

  Then a rush of warmth had him darting his gaze about the grand foyer of the estate, seeing everything in a new light.

  Cisnetta needed him.

  Rather, the Magone House—now residing in his mother’s estate—needed him.

  That warmth spread and a pleasurable hubris settled into his bones.

  He was needed.

  The unusual stretch of his lips had him turning, catching his reflection in the mirror and console table.

  Well, look at that. He was smiling.

  Cisnetta crouched down and stared at the thin red cord that roped off the kitchen garden. The line appeared to be plumb with the parallel side being of even length. The plot had been engineered to near-perfect rectangular proportions. Truly, it was exactly what she’d asked the women to do: plot and mark off the kitchen garden.

  Yet, she picked up the measuring tape and began to measure the plot again.

  She was jotting down another set of measurements when a shadow crossed over her page and remained there. Looking up, she saw that Atrates frowned down at her.

  After a silent moment, she cocked her head at him and gave him a prompt. “Hello, Atrates.”

  He continued to frown. “Hello.”

  Her coaxing had done shit, hadn’t it? She’d assumed that he’d sought her for a reason and would surely say more. That hopefully, he would get to the point because today was not a good day to play ‘Guess What Atrates Is Thinking.’ She had a list of items to tackle at Barbotière before returning to the townhome in Zentrale, where she was needed to finalize the last stage of their relocation. After all, they couldn’t leave the medical equipment behind, and there was also Naosim, the women’s physician.

  But Atrates continued to stare at her, tilting his head and gazing down at her ledger, the frown on his face never easing.

  She resisted the urge to glance down at her open page. She hadn’t been writing upside-down again; she was sure of it.

  She cleared her throat. “You’ve toured the property, then?”

  “Yes. The vineyard is gone.”

  He’d mentioned the generations-old vineyard as casually as someone would mention swapping couch pillows. But she wasn’t going to interpret his flat tone as disinterest. Honestly, she should have prepared him for some of the changes done to his mother’s home.

  She stood and gestured to the field that had been turned over and now had rows of magone seedlings. “Don’t worry, we relocated the vines, and for an incredible profit too. We were able to get seedlings, not seeds. Plus we only have to augment a few of the harvesting—”

  She turned back toward him, intending to point toward the back field, but he was staring at her in a way that she couldn’t read.

  “You needn’t worry about the family legacy,” she said lamely. “The vines didn’t go to waste.”

  He stared at her another second and her skin prickled with uncertainty. Part of her wanted him happy with the changes that had been made.

  “I could give a shite about the vines,” he said.

  Well, then. Her worries were for naught. “Oh. Good.”

  “I saw the farming equipment was out of the barn.”

  Yes, there was that as well. The duke had used his contract with the Otar to procure Otaric-designed farming equipment. He’d bragged about it like a hunter would parade about his prize hound.

  She watched him for a reaction. “It’s been leased to other farms.”

  He nodded once. “Good.”

  “Good,” she echoed as she stared up into his stunning blue eyes.

  Oh my. How had she not noticed before? His eyes were magone blue.

  “But your positioning is shit.”

  “Pardon?” But she shouldn’t be surprised by his straightforwardness. Not once during their interactions would she describe him as ‘subtle.’

  He flung an arm out, gesturing to the fields and outbuildings. “You’re exposed here. There are multiple flanking positions. No planned retreat route. But then again, this is Mayren, not the Continent. These women shouldn’t need those measures.”

  Her hopes sank as her heartbeat raced. “No. They shouldn’t.”

  When Trone had taken her to Barbotière for the first time, all she’d seen were acres that could be used for magone and a massive manor house with a dozen bedrooms. No city walls. No sinister denizens of Chauden Gardens canvassing their home, looking for weaknesses.

  Atrates, curt as ever, had opened her eyes to the flaws. However, when she glanced back at him, her anxiety faded. He was here. He would make it all better.

  She infused her voice with her confidence in his ability. “But still, those safety measures are needed.”

  He shrugged. “But still.”

  She couldn’t pin down the root of his skepticism. Was it that these women didn’t need the protection? Or that he wasn’t the one to provide those services?

  Once again, they stood in silence and gazed out at the budding field of magone.

  She leaned toward him. “You’ll tell Trone all this?”

  “Yes.”

  That was the best that she could do for now. She needed to rely on Trone’s faith in Atrates, and in Atrates’s ability to see it done.

  She turned back to her measuring and her open ledger, only to have Atrates pass his shadow over the page once more. “You’re measuring again?”

  She huffed out a sigh, not quite up to explaining the finer details of the kitchen garden. “Yes. I need to make sure.”

  His voice drifted down from above. “You need to make sure?”

  She’d heard it. The criticizing emphasis that he’d placed on ‘you.’ Of course ‘her.’ Who else was there? With the farming equipment leased, the women had beneficially laborious tasks to complete that staved off frenesia. Plus, their labor went directly into the harvesting of magone, that they could then use themselves or sell for additional profit. Asking the women to do something as low-effort as measuring a plot of land, that had already been cleared and tilled, served no benefit.

  “Yes,” Cisnetta huffed. “I need to make sure. The kitchen garden means fewer trips to town or deliveries, which is a security measure. But the plot also takes away from magone production. And if I have to order either large quantities of extract or food, the locals know the estate is occupied, but not only occupied, but occupied by a large number of frenetic women, and since your brother—”

  Atrates hunkered down in a smooth motion, hooked his hands under her armpits, and gently pulled her to her feet. He hushed her like she was a rambling child.

  Cisnetta shook her head at him in confusion. “What? What are you doing?”

  “You’re on the cusp, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes had locked on his full lips. On the cusp. His mouth curled, pronouncing those words beautifully. Oh, yes. She certainly teetered in that moment.

  “Well, I—” She blinked as he stepped back and began to roll up the sleeve of his uniform jacket, exposing his wonderfully muscled forearm. “Are you offering me your arm?”

  He nodded, one sharp dip of his chin, and then he held her gaze. “Because I know there’s a queen’s ransom of magone on this estate, and that you won’t touch an ounce of it to give yourself a bit of respite.”

  She followed his intense gaze to her own, trembli
ng hand. Damn that hand.

  Of course she wasn’t going to touch the women’s magone. The acres of magone were for the rescued, frenetic women, because some were too traumatized to siphon, even with a docile partner.

  Cisnetta was incredibly fortunate to have Trone and Naosim, who both did their best to drain her bezeten. There had been numerous sessions where either Trone or Naosim had bloated themselves trying to give her relief. Yes, she balanced on the verge of a frenetic episode living like this, but it was her choice to be this way, rather than be chained to a bed and force-siphoned.

  With a dry throat, she said of the manor’s magone, “It’s needed.”

  “You need,” Atrates fired back.

  She gazed at his arm, her body coiling and readying to propel her toward him and the relief that he offered. “You’re on synten.”

  “I dose tonight. You’ve caught me just in time.”

  “Good, then one of the other women—”

  “Dammit, you need, Cisnetta.”

  She did need. God help her, she wanted to grasp his arm and let him siphon her. Grace her with ecstasy as the draining of her bezeten rushed her toward a ledge and pushed her over into a euphoric fall.

  Her breaths came in shallow pants as the fabric of her brassiere felt itchy across her nipples. “Not here. Not in the open.”

  Her hypnotic stare at the flesh of his arm broke when he roughly tugged down the sleeve of his jacket.

  Confused, she looked at him, glimpsing his wounded expression before he clamped it down and hardened his eyes.

  Oh, she’d been careless with her nuance.

  She reached out, snagging his sleeve. “It’s not like that, Atrates. Some of the women… It tosses them back into the nightmare of the den to see siphoning.”

  He looked away, and she saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. “Where, then?”

  Nellah’s basso voice boomed across the field. “Mistress Ciss!”

  Cisnetta squeezed his arm, the bunch of fabric beneath her palm a reassuring yet irritating barrier. “Can you wait until later?”

  When he didn’t answer straight away, she squeezed again.

  He turned to her, his blue eyes pulling her forth. There was a reason most Mayreni wore blue. It attracted like a flame and soothed like a balm.

  “When?” he grated out, not sounding hopeful but cautious.

  “The lancar,” Cisnetta said huskily. She swallowed. “The ride back. I’ll need you.”

  Chapter 7

  Atrates sat on the front stoop of his mother’s manor and fought the urge to rise and pace. He rested his elbows on his knees, interlocked his fingers, and stared at his hands. In his head he chanted: Don’t move. Don’t move.

  She needed him to remain still, but god damn him, he wanted to hunt her down and touch her. To run his hands all over her, mussing her clothing and carding his fingers through her hair to liberate her tresses from her bun.

  Cisnetta’s clothing reflected what most modern, modest Mayreni women wore—slacks that defined her waist yet flared wide-legged to her ankle, and a billowy, gauzy blouse that covered her neck to the wrists. Her clothing left no exposed flesh for incidental touching, like when she’d taken the caterpillar from his hand last night.

  That incidental brush of flesh against flesh had almost triggered an exchange of bezeten. Siphoning from her then would have been unbelievably forward and ill-bred of him to do. It was simply not done. Yet, decorum hadn’t stopped him from imagining how her trickle of bezeten would have zipped through him like the burst from a stun gun.

  His sensitive hearing caught Cisnetta’s voice from inside the manor house. Her lilting Mayreni accent trailed down his spine and ignited all his nerves.

  “He’s been there all afternoon?” she asked the housekeeper who trotted along after her.

  He heard the amazement in her tone and wondered if she’d ferreted out his reason for sitting on his ass rather than touring the estate one last time. As his last synthetic dose wore off, walking the grounds would have used his restless energy and staved off his budding frenesia. He couldn’t do that because she needed him.

  He tamped down that asinine thought. She needed his frenesia—his ability to siphon bezeten—which would give them both relief. At the core of it all, her need had fuck all to do with him personally.

  A sharp hiss in his ear had him jolting up and turning about.

  That damn bird. Cobbs stood on the stoop, exactly where Atrates had been sitting, smugly ruffling his feathers.

  “Cobbs,” Cisnetta admonished as she exited his mother’s home.

  She crouched down and ruffled Cobbs’s shiny black feathers as the last of the sunlight reflected off the swan’s vanes in an array of yellow, green, and red sheen. Atrates often wondered if the Mayreni would be more accepting of the hybrids if the Otar had made them truly beautiful to gaze upon. Or, if they had done the glaringly conspicuous—engineer the hybrids to truly resemble everyone else. Tan skin. Brown or green eyes. Middling height. Mundane senses. Average bezeten needs.

  As he stared at Cisnetta’s fingers that had fresh dirt crusted under the nails and crisscrossed white jagger scars marring her skin, he became trapped in a moment of visceral want. Exactly like being trapped in a powered-down armatura battlesuit, all he could do was wait out the discomfort without losing his sanity.

  The want would pass. The want always passed.

  What he feared was the never-sated need.

  “Atrates,” she said.

  God, she sounded sweetly concerned as she focused solely on him.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  What was he truly asking? Hell if he knew. Was she ready to depart? Was she ready to be siphoned? Was she ready for him to take…

  Cisnetta hefted up the massive swan. “Yes, Atrates. I’m ready.”

  He strode to the lancar, already pulling the door open before reining in his enthusiasm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had genuine, crystal clear eagerness coursing through him. As a child, he’d reveled in his occasional trip to the Otar Ark that orbited Gisth, and this moment shockingly struck him with the same ardency.

  She muttered a courteous ‘thank you’ as she slipped into the car. He followed right after, his body pulled after hers, caught in her fog of magone and downy rain of afterfeathers.

  He closed the door and settled in his seat, conscious that the bench and compartment condensed around him. Every drag of his breath carried her scent, and the rustling of her clothing pounded in his ears along with his racing heart.

  They sat in silence as Ridic, on the other side of the privacy panel, got the lancar underway.

  When Atrates turned toward her, he found her studying him. She leaned away not in revulsion but as if to assess him at a wider angle. Her heated eyes—a deep mahogany licked with flames—steadily gazed at him as her hands stroked the shiny black feathers of the swan in her lap.

  “We don’t have—” she started to say.

  “We do.”

  She indulged him with a smile. “Have to make this awkward, Atrates. It’s simply two people engaging in an even exchange. It happens all the time on Gisth.”

  But he wasn’t Gisthean, and he sure as hell didn’t want an even exchange. He wanted to take her without giving any of himself in return.

  Also, his advantage in this ‘exchange’ deeply satisfied him. He’d noted the way her hands were shaking as she petted her hell-fowl and how her lips trembled as she’d stretched them into a mollifying smile.

  She needed him in that moment. There was no even exchange here. He was simply taking her need while satisfying his urge to take.

  He held her gaze, gladly engaging in a wordless, heated exchange of anticipation, until her lips parted on a sultry sigh.

  “Move the poultry,” he told her, his body coiling, readying to dive across the seat and take her.

  Her eyes remained locked on him, but she dazedly spoke to the bird, “Down, Cobbs.”

  The swan hissed.

&nbs
p; Fuck that. The damned demon needed to be plucked and roasted.

  Atrates pounded his fist on the ceiling of the lancar, giving it two hard strikes that he knew Ridic had been trained to listen for—the call of his master over the thrumming of the engine, exactly like he would have been listening for booming fists over the clamor of carriage wheels and horseshoes on cobblestone streets.

  The lancar stopped and Atrates opened his door.

  When he turned back to Cisnetta, her wide eyes pleaded with him over the mound of the swan’s plumage. “Oh, be gentle with him!”

  He’d gently wring that viperous fowl’s neck, then bed down each night on a victory pillow stuffed with black feathers.

  But for her, he’d be gentle. Because she asked. Because it forced him to temper himself in advance of touching her.

  Cobbs hissed and flared his wings. Atrates ignored the posturing, and using his Otaric reflexes, he snatched the bird and lunged from the lancar. Tucking Cobbs under one arm, he opened the front passenger door.

  “Here, Ridic,” he said as he tossed the squawking cob inside and slammed the door closed on Ridic’s alarmed yelp.

  Atrates spared a moment to gather his wild thoughts. Shoving his arm at Cisnetta as they’d stood by the garden plot had been a brash, impulsive, frenetic action. Aside from laying himself out there, he hadn’t known what came next. Since the moment his body had matured and required bezeten, the Otar had placed him on synten. The duke had fully endorsed the plan as well. This way, the duke had been able to beg off terrorizing the fine young misses of the bon ton with his ugly hybrid son. But the duke had also refused to have a ducal son siphon from a lower-class partner.

  Atrates hadn’t siphoned from a Mayreni woman until he’d joined the military. One day he’d dodged his mandatory dose of synten, crashed a ball in Zentrale, and twirled his dance partner—some lord’s wife—into a secluded alcove. He’d parted the flap seams of his pants. She’d lifted her skirts. Minutes later he’d left with his sticky cock shoved back into his pants, a stinging palm print on his cheek, and a ravenous need for bezeten. That night had become the mold which then shaped all future assignations. Concealed. Rushed. Unfulfilling.