by C. E. Murphy
Laughter ripped from Belinda’s throat, helpless and gasping. “Now?” Remembering her own name was in question; she wanted to give in to sensation, not force thought into coherent words.
“Now,” Javier said for the third time. “Now is the only time listeners don’t hang on every word. Who wants to listen to the soppy, false endearments spoken during lovemaking?” His own voice carried soft amusement and detachment; it was not the first time he’d used love as a guise for secret conversation. His touch glided over her again and Belinda groaned, half laughter, and tightened her fingers in his hair.
It wasn’t that it was impossible. In fact, it was easier than most men’s egos would like to know, detaching the physical from the mental. Calling stillness all around her helped, the use of long years forbidding the body’s reaction to pain and pleasure both. It allowed her to order her thoughts, ignoring her body’s shivers. Javier felt the withdrawal and bit her shoulder, contrary to his own orders, redoubling his efforts to call them to the surface again. Belinda allowed herself a tiny whimper through the distant ache of need, unwilling to divorce herself entirely from the sure touch of his hands and the pleasure they brought. If there were spies on the garden walls it did no good to stand like a stick in the prince’s arms, ignoring the work he did to please her.
“I know very little, my lord.” The words came as a sigh. “I’ve never met anyone else like me.” She shuddered again, tightening her fingers in Javier’s hair. “Like us.” Her voice was low and liquid, a plea in itself as she pressed her hips into his touch.
Even as she spoke, though, realization sparked through her, bringing its own kind of pleasure. Her father had to share the power Javier called witchbreed, or he never would have seen her through the shadows. And if Robert carried that kernel of power inside him, so, too, did Dmitri, whose presence she was now certain had roused her from sleep in the Khazarian north a few months ago. Dmitri, who had been with her father the night he took away Belinda’s memory of how to hide in the shadows. There were others, then, but Javier’s fingers had found a quick rhythmic circle that threatened to shatter her concentration. Beyond his touch was the weight of his will, impressed upon her stillness, external force to her internal. One or the other she could withstand; the two together gave her over to abandonment unlike any she’d known. For long moments she shuddered and cried out in Javier’s arms, until her thighs were wet with desire and the only thing that kept her on her feet was his grip on her.
“I call it the stillness,” she finally gasped. Javier chuckled, his hands abandoning her. Belinda locked her knees to keep her feet, swallowing hard. “It was a game. So no one could hurt me.” There was very little sound as the prince disrobed. Belinda turned her head toward him, wetting her lips, but he stayed too close to see: a pale shoulder in moonlight, the play of muscle, nothing more. “I used it to hide in shadows once,” she blurted, abruptly desperate to confess what she knew so she might no longer need to divorce body from soul and could focus wholly on Javier’s touch. “But I-” Her breath caught, his hands on her hips again. She heard the smile in his voice, mouth brushing her shoulder.
“But you what?” His hands weighed heavy on her hips, bringing her down to the grassy earth. Her gown, wrinkled beyond repair, let blades of sharp grass prickle her knees as she whimpered again and pressed them further apart. The corset was too long to let her arch her hips back in offering. Instead she fell forward, but Javier’s hand in her hair stopped her with a forceful jerk. The impulse to submit weakened her and her head rolled back in his grasp, the weight of her body following. “But you what, Beatrice?” Javier asked again. He kept his fist knotted in her hair, pulling the skin of her throat taut. She swallowed against it, yielding to his strength.
“But I’ve forgotten how, my lord.” Need parched her throat and she swallowed, raw. “The stillness is all I can do.” Even as she spoke, memory washed over her, the cacophony of emotion in the Maglian pub and the very words she’d plucked from Javier’s mind earlier that evening. “Oh…oh!” Thought left her in a rush as Javier claimed her, a hard thrust demanding submission without causing pain. He settled back on his heels, spreading her over his thighs. Her skin rolled at the shoulder blade, pinched between the hard line of the corset and Javier’s chest. She fumbled her hand back, scrabbling for the corset cords, but Javier caught her hand and twisted it further up, until her spine arched despite the stiff boning in the undergarment. Her breath came more shallowly as he curled her fingers into the laces, a wordless command to remain as he arranged her. An ache throbbed through her shoulder joint, made worse as he teased her nipple with a touch so light she thought she might only be imagining it. She arched again, trying to press her breast into his fingers, making the ache in her shoulder worse. She bent her other arm back, half to try to alleviate the ache and more to hear Javier’s low chuckle and the breath of praise that spilled over her skin. He freed her other breast from the corset bindings, the nipple tightening with desperation at the touch of cool air.
There was a deliciousness to being helpless to the prince’s gentle strength. Belinda’s hair tickled her own spine, her head bent back so dark waves were caught between her body and Javier’s. He put his fist into her hair again, pulling her head further back until she arched more sharply into the corset bones than her lungs could bear. Her own fingers tangled in her hair, pulling hard enough for pain that blossomed into the sweet ache of desire, keeping her in the pose he had placed her in. She had had men treat her thus before, but without tenderness; for them pain and discomfort were meant for domination. Under Javier’s touch she felt sculpted, shaped and made beautiful for the pleasure of extremity, her breasts pushed forward and her hips back in an exaggeration of womanhood. She trusted his desire implicitly, knowing without reservation that he might bend and mold her, but he would never deign to break her. That was for lesser men.
“Tell me more.”
That he spoke sent a paroxysm of shock through her, tightening her nipples and her belly again. He pulsed his hips upward, taking what little breath she had away and leaving her unable to catch more, the corset stays pressed too tightly against her. Black fireworks sparked and trailed across her vision, brightening as she closed her eyes and struggled to take a breath. “Can you not tell me more?” he murmured, teasing. Even teasing, his intent to pursue conversation triggered both laughter and offense in Belinda. She strained to lift her head, determined to drag in enough air to make words.
Javier’s fingers slid between her thighs and clasped the swollen nub of flesh there. Her words were taken by a shallow cry, too little air behind it to give it full voice. She shuddered around him, too breathless to struggle violently as orgasm smashed through her. In moments she was boneless in his arms, held there by the stern corset lines rather than any willpower of her own. Her head was fallen so far back the corset pressed painful lines into the flesh of her shoulder blades, her breasts offered up to the moonlight. Javier kissed her throat with a murmur of appreciation, ghosting his hand over her nipples again. When she shivered he laughed and captured her clit between his fingers again, drawing out a whimper of pain brought by too much pleasure.
“Then let me tell you what I know,” he breathed. He lifted his hips into hers, purposeful strength burying himself more deeply in her. Half swooning with breathlessness, Belinda gasped and fell further into his grasp, spreading her thighs another scant inch to afford him greater access. His mark of approval came with another torturous touch around her aching clit, and as she shuddered he whispered secrets of sorcery against her skin. Dew soaked the green silk of the dress, morning too young to warm the air yet. Belinda shivered under her summer cloak, curling her legs up to move her feet under the comparative warmth beneath the cloak. She found Javier’s shin with her feet and tucked her toes between his legs, making him inhale a sleepy laugh. “Why do women always have cold feet?”
“In this case, because I’ve been sleeping on wet, cold ground for hours.” Belinda rolled onto her back
, still keeping her body pressed as closely to Javier’s as possible. “Why are men always warm?”
He slid his arm over her ribs and the still-stiff lines of her corset. “Because the human race would surely die out if we couldn’t keep our mothers and wives from turning to ice every night. Unbend your knees, woman. Now my feet are uncovered.” He crunched up, resettling the cloak over them, and threw the hood over their heads. The cool air warmed almost instantly and Belinda realised her nose was numb. She clasped it between her fingers and Javier chuckled, moving her hand to cover her nose with his hand instead. She could smell her own scent on him, musky and faint hours later. As if sensing her reaction to that, Javier shifted the cloak and lowered his head to cover her nipple with his mouth. The heat was exquisite and shocking after hours of chill. Belinda arched into it and he let go another low laugh, lifting his head again. “Do it.”
“My lord-”
“Beatrice.” Command filled his voice, expectation bordering on irritation. “Power is begotten by desire, and I know you desire.” He put his hand over her lower stomach, just where the corset ended. The warmth of his hand was distracting, waking heat in other places-but that was the point. Belinda inhaled deeply, watching Javier’s gaze snap back to her breasts. It was something, at least, and thus sated she wrapped the stillness around her, letting it protect her more thoroughly than any cloak could do.
They had done this twice during the small hours of the morning, once with Belinda following Javier’s guidance and once on her own. There was a wall of resistance in her, one that weakened as she shoved against it, calling her need through it and to its other side. That wall, she didn’t understand how, tasted of her father, as if his broad shoulders and scent of chypre had somehow taken up residence inside her own mind. Beyond it was the power that had let her hide in shadows when she was a child. Robert’s very will lay between her conscious desire and that power, making a barrier to her accessing it.
But there was a weakness in the barricade: she could almost see the words around the place where it ran thinner. It cannot be found out. Not yet. It’s still too early. The time has not yet come for you to know such things.
Not yet. That admonishment had been made well over ten years earlier. Now, finally, whether her father meant for it to be or not, it was time. Belinda was no longer a child. She served her queen and her country, but her will was her own, and the long years of wondering were coming to an end.
She had broken through twice, and now felt it giving way before her desire again. It didn’t shatter, but rippled and spread outward, as if she’d thrown a stone into a pool and her point of access was the tiny centre of the vortex it created. She pushed through that centre, widening it, then withdrew. A trickle of power spilled forth, golden and warm as sunlight. It was the stillness, made visible within her own mind. In itself, it was nothing, not even potential; it merely lay beyond the barrier in her mind and waited.
Waited for desire. It warmed her as much, more, than Javier’s touch, filled her with a completion that no mere man could achieve. She cupped her hands together beneath the cloak, as if she might catch water in them, and took a breath deep enough to strain her ribs against the corset. “Light,” she whispered, not in Gallic but in her maiden tongue of Aulunian.
A glow stained her fingers, soft and warm. It lit the underside shadows of the cloak, a tiny, gentle ball of sunlight cradled in her hands. Pride and delight bloomed in her, well-hidden from the surface but enough to warm her within. A smaller part of her mind crowed with alarm, Ilyana’s accusations of witchery proved true, and death by burning should Belinda ever be caught. She should be more frightened; she knew she should be more frightened. But with the soft glow of power in her hands, most of that fear was drowned beneath confidence. She only had to go carefully, and she would never be found out.
Javier clucked approval and she moved her hands slowly, carrying her little palmful of light closer to his face. His eyes picked up the golden hue, reflecting the silky sheen of the cloak they lay huddled beneath. “Better,” he breathed, as if the stirring air might put Belinda’s light out like it was a candle. “It came faster this time. Did you feel it? Witchlight, Beatrice. Your light.”
“Our light,” she whispered back, though it wasn’t true. Javier curled his fingers around the back of her hand, pale silver light springing from his palm as easily as he might point a finger. It warred with her golden sunlight, and dominated, for all that it was the color of moonlight. He had years of practise and skill over hers, and, Belinda thought, access to power that was not hidden behind a wall built by a well-meaning father. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, eyes closed as she wrestled the bleak wall within her mind, prodding and poking at the pinhole she’d made in it. It tore, and her eyes flew open as power stung her palms and brightened the sunlight held in her hands. Javier put his palm against hers and brought more of his own power to bear, smothering golden sparks with the cool light of the moon. Belinda gasped as her witchlight winked out and Javier pinned her wrist against the ground.
“Our gift,” he corrected. “All that’s best of dark and light. But not too bright, lady. Such secrets must be studied in the quiet of night, when there are fewer eyes to watch.”
“My lord?” A sudden blush came over her, an honest reaction; the art of blushing on demand was one she had tried to learn without success. She watched Javier’s eyes follow the rush of pink down her throat to where it stained the upper swells of her breasts, and wished not for the first time that she could achieve the effect at will. She could prevent it; that much the stillness gave her, but never call it. He lowered his mouth to the tinted flesh, then followed the curve upward until he caught her nipple in his mouth, all tongue and teeth. She arched and he rolled his weight over her, cock pressed against her belly.
“Now you blush?” Amusement enriched his voice. “A wanton woman under the moon’s light and come morning you blush and look away? Yes: at night, Beatrice, in the long small hours. Is it your reputation you fear for? You wouldn’t be the first woman to be named the prince’s whore. It may even boost your marriage prospects, if we part on amicable terms.”
“Marius…?” The question was poorly judged. Javier’s eyes darkened as he put his fingers against the hollow of her throat.
“Is it he you prefer, my lady Beatrice? Is the prince merely a feather in your girlish cap?”
“No,” Belinda breathed. She reached for the drip of power inside her, infusing her answer with its light, all the truth she could muster into the soft word. Belinda had seen jealousy in a hundred men, but wouldn’t have imagined that this man, a prince, would allow himself such a petty emotion. Her life might depend on defusing it. She parted her lips and swallowed tentatively against the pressure on her throat. She had not confessed to the prince her burgeoning ability to sense emotion and even thought; the moment to do so had come and gone, and she was no longer tangled in passion that washed even the clarity of stillness away. If Javier didn’t know of the faculty, he might fall prey to it. Belinda poured all the power she could reach into her whispered words, filling them with subtle adoration and trust. “Marius is a boy in his heart, my lord, no matter what his years. I prefer men.”
Javier’s fingers tightened, then loosened enough to let her swallow. The darkness in his eyes diminished, leaving them colorless in the filtered light through the cloak. Belinda tilted her head back, letting the weight of his hand press into her throat again. Submission, now that danger was past, only reinforced his position relative to hers. It could do her no harm.
“Marius should aim so high as a royal cast-off,” Javier said after a moment. “And I think I will not tire of you for some time, my little witch. You have much to learn.”
“You honour me,” Belinda whispered. Flat amusement shot through Javier’s gaze.
“Yes. I do. Enjoy it while it lasts, Beatrice. Nothing ever does.”
ROBERT, LORD DRAKE
11 September 1587 Khazan, capital of Khazar, north and
east of Echon Irina, imperatrix of all Khazar, is a beautiful woman.
Not like Lorraine, whose striking features made her beautiful in her youth. Time has stripped that beauty, her long face falling with age. She might have found a way to move through her later years gracefully, but instead she fights every year as if it is her bitterest enemy, and that, too, has left marks.
Not like Sandalia, either, who has never been beautiful, only devastatingly pretty. She still holds the edge of youth that maintains loveliness, but in a few short years her figure will fail to a fondness for sweets, and her curves will turn to plump softness. It will look well on her, but it is not beauty.
No, Irina Durova will be beautiful when they lay her down in her grave. Time will not be able to take the elegant square bones of her face away, and her skin is of the quality to hold wrinkles tight around the corner of large dark eyes. She is in her forties now, and her hair is silvering. She lets it do so naturally, taking gravitas from aging; she does not believe youth is the only potent drug there is. Then again, she has true beauty to see her through the years.
It is more difficult to be angry at a beautiful woman than a plain one, but Robert is trying.
“I do not understand, Your Majesty.” It was a falsehood; he understood perfectly, as did Irina. “What does Essandia offer that Aulun can’t? Our fleet is better-trained, and a treaty with my queen is unique in its advantages. There can be no backdoor pressure to marry.” He stresses the last sentence, making it a clear reminder to those who know-in the audience chamber, that means himself and Irina-how much trouble Irina has faced on the marriage front lately, and how Aulunian resources slipped into Khazar to divest her of that problem.
“Aulun stands alone against Cordula,” Irina says, full of genuine-sounding sympathy. Her voice is as rich as her face and body: deep, for a woman, and warm. The imperatrix’s laughter is said to melt snow from the eaves, a gift of some renown in icy Khazar. Robert has never heard her laugh, nor seen snow melt through force of personality, but he likes the story. “We do not share Cordula’s faith, but we are cognizant of the dangers of rejecting it blatantly. My father recalled the Heretics’ Trials, Lord Drake. We are reluctant to draw attention to our own borders by making hasty treaties with Cordula’s enemy.”