by Mima
And in that moment, Donte-Bear arrived amidst the uneven ground of the shattered laundry room. Her arms, held cocked in the air before her, lowered in awe. She’d only gotten a taste of this blended version of her man last night. It had been powerfully erotic, dangerous and exotic. But right now, she was filled with nothing but joy.
A very small, grateful “Oh…” breathed from her, a prayer to the Sacred Couple at how magnificent and awful they’d made him become.
He pinned her with his dark gaze, one of the few human things left on his body. He was inhumanly tall and broad, with a misshapen face that appeared to be half-muzzle, half-shark and all scar. His walnut-shaded hair stood up in dire spikes, but that’s how it had been in her magescape. His neck, shoulders, arms were piles of exaggerated muscle, too large for his form, tipped with the black curving claws of a bear. His barrel chest was furred more than a man’s should be, although shiny bald patches gleamed among the pelt, and his legs were sort of crooked beneath him, his feet also clawed. Tattered cloth clung to his hips, fluttering across ridiculously huge thighs.
She took him in at a glance and sighed, her body trembling with relief to have him here. She let all her love shine at him. Step one of the plan she’d made that morning was firmly in place: Trust him.
“You came for me.”
Her words broke the spell that held the cluster of guards at the doorway, the shocked crowd, Silva with his gaping jaw. Screams and shouts flew from the people as they stampeded away. One of the guards turned and ran with them, while the others drew their weapons. Silva began to scream in short, piercing shrieks, over and over.
Donte’s gaze swung around the room, checking over each shoulder, then settled on Silva. His jaws parted, blood trickling off his chin. It was a fearsome look.
Silva went abruptly silent, sagging in his precarious cocoon, head and arms flopping down.
The gurgling, guttural growl lifted every hair on Moriko’s body. She straightened up, pulled her shoulders back as her mother had taught her.
“Stop that.” Her words were firm but calm. She strode forward, belatedly realized her knees were extremely watery, stumbled, but made it over to stand between him and Silva. “I’m fine, Donte. Some minor burns that can be easily healed.”
He shuffled forward, and one of the wash basins rolled as he shifted a broken tile beneath it. Between one blink and the next he was an armlength beyond it and splintered stone chattered across the floor from his powerful, obliterating strike. More screams and scuffling came from the still-lurking crowd. The soldiers shuffled forward, but Moriko flashed her arm out, imperiously barring them.
She glared at the foremost one and hissed, “This is my fiancée. Stand down.”
He stared at her, blue eyes spun so wide she could see all of the whites around it. “My Lady?” He didn’t lower his weapon.
Stones rattled and she whipped back to see Donte had risen to his full height. With the practice and polish of all her experience, Moriko smiled at him. He cocked his head. It took only one heartbeat for her political polite smile to sink into her face, a true expression of the bloom unraveling in her chest.
Donte shivered and shrank. The shimmer flowed over him and then he was there before her, still much bigger than most human men but much less hairy. Now he wore his large stubborn jaw with human teeth and his poor broken nose. He lifted his scarred face and scented the air in a very bestial way. “He attacked you.”
“He did, but I had it well in hand. It was a long time coming and now he will be punished.”
He swallowed and stepped toward her. The guards rattled behind her. She stiffened, about to get truly angry again, but then one said, “Back away, people. The excitement is over.” The door banged closed.
Moriko became aware that the steamy room and battle had left her sweaty and flushed, her hair lank and sticking to her face. Red blotches covered her arms and surely her cheeks, too, although the pain was a distant throbbing. “This isn’t how I imagined our first meeting.” Her ordinary work dress was wet.
“Yeah.” His gaze was so intent, she could feel the air pulse between them. “I’m afraid.”
She blinked. “Truly?”
He just stared at her. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
She smiled again. “I hope not. Surely you haven’t mated before?”
“One per lifetime.” He answered her teasing with utter seriousness. “I want to touch you.”
Her shaky knees actually wobbled. She licked her lips.
His gaze zoomed to her mouth and her tongue grew thick. “I want to taste you.”
“Donte, you know you are welcome to. I invite you to.” There was only a bodylength between them, and she thought the smell of soap would forever be an aphrodisiac now.
“Not here. There are people listening against the walls. This dungscum could awaken. You were frightened here.” He frowned. “You’re hurt.”
She held her hands up to him, her smile still in place. “You could heal me.”
Frantic pounding came at the door and Moriko jumped.
Donte was there before she’d turned. He leaned his head against it. “A woman, excited, nervous.”
“Who is it?” Moriko snapped.
“Princess Shebu.”
Moriko huffed. How did her Queen Aunt hear about things so quickly? “She’s the Queen’s right hand, Donte. Let her in.”
Donte opened the door a small way, keeping his arm on the frame so that the woman couldn’t get in. “What do you want?”
Shebu curtsied in a deep arc of cherry red silks. Ever since the Queen had openly disliked Revay’s blue dress, most of the court had been wearing warm colors. Shebu was a strawberry-blonde and the color wasn’t the best on her, so she’d braided her hair into a stunning tangle. Holding the curtsy, face to the ground, she spoke loudly for benefit of the crowd, which although pushed back, seemed to have grown.
“The Queen her Majesty of the Seven Cities welcomes you, Bear warrior, and honors your sacrifice in leaving your people in reversal of your customs. She is deeply grateful for your aid in our battle against the cursed, perverted, twisted Darkness attacking her people, and hopes you will find sanctuary here among us.”
Donte turned his head and winked at Moriko. She gasped, biting her lip to hold the burst of delighted laughter in.
Softly he said, “Word games start early here, I see.” Loud and clear his baritone called, “And yet my promised match was attacked, by the Queen’s very people.”
“A regrettable and tragic rarity that she will see punished in the most dire of ways, for the Chatelaine is beloved by Her Majesty.”
Shebu could sure hold her curtsy well. Moriko’s knees ached in sympathy. She motioned for Donte to open the door wider. He did. The crowd muttered and swayed, falling back from the guards’ outstretched arms.
Moriko stepped up next to Donte. “Rise, Shebu. Silva and I finally passed beyond bitter words and I got the best of him. Everyone is fine, despite my man’s heroic entrance. I would have you be the first to meet my fiancée.”
Shebu rose in a whisper of grace. “Lord Donte, it is with great pleasure I wel—” Shebu’s words cut off when she lifted her gaze to Donte. Her pretty mouth hung open for a moment, then worked silently while her face drained of all healthy color. Her lovely green eyes spun huge, and a tiny squeak escaped her throat.
“Shebu,” Moriko hissed quietly. “Take hold of yourself.”
Shebu did not take hold of herself. Donte remained motionless at her side, but she could feel him pull even more caution around him. Scanning the whispering, appalled crowd, Moriko considered stage two of her plan: Make them fear him. “Surely the Queen told you I was not to have just any trux husband.” Moriko lifted her voice, letting her firm confident tone ring out across the bricks. “Donte is a reaper of darkmages. He is a darkhunter.”
The crowd fell back even more, the murmur rising to a chattering swell.
She continued on. “His scars are his mar
ks of success. He has survived many battles with them, and he is here not just as a symbol of our alliance, but to wield his skills in the Queen’s name.”
The crowd was almost at a roar with this information. Moriko tipped back her head and shouted over them. “All hail Queen Idivay, Savior of the Cities.”
Several answering shouts of “Hail Queen Idivay!” echoed back. Moriko smiled grimly. Meeting Shebu’s stricken gaze, Moriko glared at her.
“Forgive me, Lord Donte. I was not prepared for—”
Donte leaped straight into the air. Shebu screamed and threw herself to the ground, but Donte sailed out into the crowd. He landed amid wails and an outright stampede. Like he’d set off a concussion, the people lunged back from his position in a mad rush of panic.
Moriko hurried forward, pushing past the people who jostled her. But then she caught sight of him. Stumbling to a stop, her breath like lead in her frozen lungs, she stared.
Donte was down on one knee, one hand braced on his raised thigh, his head bowed. It was almost the exact position of obeisance to the Queen. But instead of his fist being merely planted on the ground before his lowered knee, his claws were skewered into the skull of a blond man. Two of the claws cut cleanly into each of the man’s eye sockets. One broke through his nasal cavity and blood pooled in the street.
The moment etched into her. The stillness of the body, of Donte’s powerful, nearly nude form, scars highlighted in the bright sun, the pale cream bricks all around and that slow ooze of thick garnet.
Blinking rapidly, Moriko stared at Donte, unsure of the moment. What had he done? Why? What would happen to him for this? She didn’t recognize the blond man but at this hour of the early afternoon he must be one of her people, one of her Guild. The fleeing people meant they were alone in the narrow byway, the clatter of them echoing loud. This level of fear among her people wasn’t in the plan.
He raised his head from the crumpled form and her blood chilled. His teeth were clenched, lips peeled back in a kind of snarling smile. As soon as she saw his eyes, she knew Bear was in control.
He stood and lumbered toward her, his one hand still clawed, blood dripping like liquid rubies in the daylight. Her breath heaved uncontrollably as he stopped before her. What was going to happen when the martens guarding the Queen heard he’d killed after barely ten minutes in the City? Should he run? His eyes were so calm as she stared up at him, almost peaceful but for their excitement.
He raised his claws up and licked the blood from them. They rippled away and he spat to the side.
“One down. That was easy.” And then Bear smiled at her with the same joy she’d felt back at the laundry. “Mate. Moriko.”
He went down on both knees, bowing his head low, both hands flat to the bricks and longer than her own plain leather work boots.
Pictures of her potential exile among the wildlings flashed before her eyes, but with this man before her, there was no fear. Reaching out a shaking hand, she touched the stiff peaks of his hair. They were unwelcoming, so she burrowed into them until she could feel his warm scalp. “Bear-Donte, let us go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Avis, to Moriko’s shock, met them as they turned from the outer bailey into the promenade that ran around the courtyard. It would have been faster to just go straight across, but she thought the fewer people saw her massive, scarred fiancée, the more people would live.
Avis didn’t say a word, eyes down, plastering herself against the wall, but as Moriko scurried by, Donte striding along with her, Avis peeled herself off and followed behind.
Donte started to turn back toward her, but Moriko said briskly, “Avis is a friend.” Which was sort of true. “Avis, do you have news?”
“That was Vulan. A lower potter apprentice.” Her voice was a mere thread.
“Understood.” Moriko assessed and discarded a dozen routes to her room. They all went past too many common rooms. “I need you to go to my room.” She’d send Avis for her jewelry trunk and coin chest. Except Avis wouldn’t be able to lift either of them. Well, she’d bring what she could carry. Moriko wanted to take as much money as she could when they were banished.
But she’d just turned into the shadow of the kitchen complex when Donte threw out an arm and brought her to a stop, blocking her path.
“Get at my feet.”
She had no time to process the odd direction before four martens leaped through the arches and landed in a semicircle around them. Whirling to look behind, she saw there were more there, one having already swung Avis free of their circle.
Donte’s grip on the back of her neck hurt. With one yank her feet left the ground and she was tossed to the flagstone floor, palms burning. He stepped over her, straddling her sprawl.
“Stay there.” His voice low and curt, his knees bent, hands out to each side, he waited.
Understanding flooded through her. He meant to defend them against the guards. “Stop this! Guards, I am issuing a Royal Order to stand down.”
“Rogue,” hissed one of the men behind her.
Well, it had been worth a try. Terrified, Moriko wondered what kind of help she could call for. Not enough.
“Is… Are they mated?” The utter confusion in the whispered words surprised her.
“I smell it too. Perversion. The Bear would never have allowed this.”
“She’s burned and I scent another’s blood. He’s already attacked.”
“Shut up,” hissed yet another guard. “Remember what he did to the wolves. Don’t underestimate him.”
There was a tremor beneath her and that was all the warning she got. Earth shot up in a wall just a fingerlength from her nose. A clean, packed line, it was masterful use of raw dirt. Donte squatted down. There was a glance of heat on her cheek. A touch? Pulling herself up and around, she sat and looked at him. Only minute particles cascaded from where the circular wall met the ceiling. He’d sealed them in a tube that wouldn’t hold martens away long.
“How do you feel about digging?” he asked.
Despair crashed over her. This was impossible. Beast guards, the Queen’s own, Royal guards, City guards, wildlings, and she thought they’d get out? Even if they did, it seemed his people would not let him be. “Was that man a darkmage?”
“He was.” He sat on his heels, wrists dangling off his knees, so watchful, filling the small space.
She’d reasoned he’d kill without mercy, but seeing it… For the first time, his scent hit her. Saliva flooded her mouth, and something like fireworks went off in her skull. She inhaled again, deep and long. Men smelled so good. But Donte, her bear, smelled unlike anything she’d known. Wild, with a crackle of anger, and oh, Skyfather, so perfect. Herbs, heat, her throat lit up with a tang. Her tongue hungered for his skin. Tears pinched in her eyes. She’d never even held him, really.
He scowled at her, that maze of scars tangling into a monstrous, dear mask. “Made you cry already.”
Perversely, that made her laugh. She wiped at her face. “I’m not good at digging, but I can help.” She assessed the height of their oubliette. “The issue will be we don’t have enough space to move the dirt to, so we won’t be able to go far.”
“Um. That was a joke.” He cocked his head at her doubtfully. “We won’t have to dig. I can sift us away.” He sighed. “I’ll have to work on my delivery.”
Sifting through space was a trait only trux could manage with their hidden, special anchor stones. Or it had been until the darkmages had apparently found and accessed a second set. “You mean you can take us away like how you just appeared in the laundry.”
He nodded. “I’m fucking strong. We need to go to your Queen.”
“The Queen!” Alarm flashed through her.
“She’s the only one they’ll hesitate for. We can wait with her for Dom to get here, if he isn’t already.” He stood. “Actually, I bet he’s already with her. He’ll know she’s my best bet.” Leaning down, he offered his hand. It was huge.
Lust exploded ins
ide her.
His head jerked a tiny fraction. “Fuck. I can smell you and it’s amazing.”
She agreed completely. Putting her hand in his, her skin sliding over calluses and scars, her golden hue against his slightly darker shade, seeing her fingers there and feeling his heat… He closed around her hand and drew her up. Her body flowed at his command, nearly limp with need.
His grip clutched on hers, compressing her bones, before pulling away. He scowled again. “When I say ‘get down’, you get down.”
“You didn’t say ‘get down.’” She smiled at him, because he was a miracle.
“Well, if I say ‘get down’, you should throw yourself down by my feet where I can defend you best.”
She nodded, still smiling, breasts tingling. “If we don’t both survive long enough to make love I’m going to haunt the Temple.”
“Souls don’t linger after death.”
She shook her head at him. “I’m disappointed in your imagination.”
He stared. “That was a joke.”
“Yes, it was, sort of.”
He held his arms out to the sides, like he was modeling the almost indecent shredded pants. “Come to me.”
Without hesitation, she stepped up to him, tucking her face against his chest, her hands resting lightly at his waist. “We’re both used to giving orders. I foresee an issue.”
His arms closed around her, gentle, massive in their warmth. “Describe where she might be.”
She did, distractedly. His smell saturated her and she breathed, happy. In his loose hold, pressed to the hard length of him, the world twisted and spun around them. Which was completely understandable.
That was why she was surprised when she opened her eyes to a mint room and saw she was staring at a completely disheveled, pale Shebu. Who screamed with the full force of her lungs from a bodylength away.
Donte stayed still, but Moriko flinched.
“Hello, Dom. Greetings, Your Majesty.” His arms dropped from around her and he shifted his stance.