by Slade, Jessa
“And your sisters’ lives?” When she did not answer, he sighed. “You are still so young, Yelena Morozova. Still on fire with the dreams bottled up inside you. We elders are here to protect you, even from yourself.”
They faced each other for a heartbeat across the dark water, then Yelena turned and paddled for the shore. Each irate stab and kick stirred up glowing water, just when she didn’t want to look too closely at anything he’d said.
She knew he was right behind her, felt the bow wave of him moving through the pool, but she didn’t look back.
She couldn’t look back. She just had to hold on. Even though she wondered if what she truly wanted was still within her reach.
Chapter Nine
He’d pushed her too hard. More fool he. A phae should know better than to peel back the edges of an illusion.
In her fury, Yelena outpaced him and rose from the pool, the iridescent water sheeting from her naked curves. The spiderlings’ veil still clung to her darkened hair, the glistening ammolite beads suspended like water droplets. Raze swallowed hard as his body responded eagerly to the sight. So bold, holding fast to her dreams even without her claws, even when nightmares threatened to change the very thing she wanted so badly. So brave.
Unlike him.
He would have sworn he went into that last battle as fearlessly as the first, but sometime since he had lost his nerve. Maybe each nick of the athame had drained it away with his blood. She might think less of him for locking the phae away, but he had no other choice.
And the truth remained, even when he wasn’t touching her: he wasn’t going to let her go, either.
He paused before leaving the water, fighting to get his body under control, though it seemed as wayward and unpredictable as any prowling beast. How many centuries would it be before he could look on her without instantly rousing?
Just as well they wouldn’t fade while they stayed in the phaedrealii; he’d need all that time.
She paced the shoreline, watching him impatiently, tail lashing in his imagination. “Where is the nearest open portal?” She tossed a curt gesture at him. “All the geasa on your back are gone, so many of the locks must be failing.”
“Yes, but I don’t know which ones.” When she huffed out a curse, he stared at her through half-lidded eyes. “I have many scars.”
She flushed and glanced away from him. “Still, you must have an idea where to look.”
“But I won’t tell you.”
Her gaze arrowed back to him. “You have to tell me the truth.”
“Only when you are touching me,” he reminded her. Before she could take a step toward him, he held up one hand. “I need to check the portals, but the Queen may be looking for us. The illusion of bones I left for her won’t confuse her long, and I can’t say whether she’ll be more infuriated or amused.”
Yelena bit her lip. “She would have killed you to get to me.”
He pressed his advantage. “And yet you think the phae should be unleashed into the world.”
She snapped, “Because only the guilty deserve to be imprisoned.”
She hadn’t come close enough to touch him, but that truth bit at him, cold as the iron in the dungeons deeper than his cavern. “Everyone is guilty of something.”
Her amber gaze narrowed on him. Did she hear in his tone his intent to keep her?
He took the offensive. “Do you think most humans are willing to feed their household domovye? Do you think most humans would want to be fed on by the strix or the aswang or any of the other blood-drinkers? Even in your enthusiasm you must appreciate the problem. The strong are a danger and the weak are in danger. How else can I protect them all?”
She crossed her arms, studying him, and he couldn’t admit to himself that he held his breath. Did he really think she had an answer when he hadn’t come up with an alternative in all the years since the Iron Age?
Slowly, she shook her head, the ammolite in her hair winking. “I don’t know.” His pulse stuttered in disappointment, then she added, “But I know you can’t go on like this.”
He snorted out the breath he’d been holding. “I was ‘going on like this’ when your many-times-great ancestresses still had saber teeth.”
“Then it’s definitely time to change.”
“Said the changeling.”
“Says the woman who doesn’t want to see you carve yourself to pieces again.”
For a heartbeat, he stared at her, and the glint of gold in her eyes ignited a simmering heat within him. “Why do you care?”
“Because I’m trapped too. But at least I’m still hoping to find a way out. You’ve lost even that.”
She would come to hate him for keeping her safe—or, as she would see it, keeping her prisoner—from her own impossible dreams. He rather thought her stepmother would understand him, though. Tigers were almost extinct in the wild, and this particular tigress seemed hell-bent on reducing their numbers by one.
He inclined his head. “No carving.” For the time being anyway. He had to etch each geas in his skin at the same time he reset the wards on the portals; the blood would be wasted otherwise. And with so many of his geasa wiped away, he couldn’t afford to let a single scar be wasted.
A tour of all the portals to find which had failed would take an excruciating amount of time. Not nearly as excruciating as the pain of carving the geasa, but bad enough. Yet he knew he would make that leap again to shield her from the Queen’s wrath. As for the healing soak in the pool...
He stalked toward her, somewhat amused as she retreated warily then hastened to follow when he continued past.
The patter of her bare feet kept time with her eager words. “You’re going to leave the portals open?”
“I am going to find some clothes,” he said.
She paced behind him, fairly quivering with impatience as they made their way back to his chambers. He forced himself not to look at the bed and rifled through the flowing drapery until he found a spiderling-wrought robe. But when he pulled the robe free from the drifting threads, instead of his usual loose gray, he found a tough cloak of subtly gleaming ebony highlighted in places by ammolite.
Yelena huffed out a laugh. “Since when do spiders weave black leather trench coats with studs?”
He shot her a hard look while he shook out the coat and found a similarly hued vest and trousers. “Your presence seems to have inspired them to...unusual acts.”
She smirked. “I guess I have that effect on some phae.”
He did not dignify that with an answer, just waved her over to the next drapery. “Don’t tease until you see what they made you.”
She bit her lip. “How would they know to make me something? I shouldn’t even still be here.”
He definitely didn’t want her to think that through too long. “Don’t look gift spiders in the spinneret.”
“That does seem rude,” she murmured. She pushed aside the gauzy curtains and emerged with a long silhouette laid over her arm. “A catsuit.” She shook her head. “An actual catsuit. Do these spiders watch Project Runway by any chance?”
He frowned. “Like the rest of the phae, they can’t run away.”
She grumbled something under her breath and turned away from him—as if his view from the reverse angle were any less intimate—to don the clothes. He stole glances as he pulled on his own layers, glad for the protection of the flexible but sturdy weaving.
Almost the whole span of his skin was covered, which would make it harder for her to force the truth from him. Perhaps the spiderlings had known he’d need the advantage, although he found no gloves.
But then why had they made Yelena’s garment so enticing? He had to tighten his bare hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out to explore the alternating bands of black and gold that caressed her curves.
“What?” He glanced down at himself, only then realizing the leather was cunningly seamed in a similar pattern, except black on black.
He scowled up at the ceiling where he sensed many, many invisible eyes.
“Thank you,” Yelena said pointedly.
“My thanks,” he echoed with a more grudging note.
She studied him. “It is sexy, you know.”
He stiffened, and though the leather had room for his spine to do so, other parts of him reacting to her sweeping glance were more confined than he would have liked. Perhaps he should not have been so quick to dismiss the wereling attitude toward nakedness.
But Yelena wasn’t the only female he needed protection from. “Perhaps it will also keep the Queen’s magic off my back.”
Yelena shifted, her stripes moving like sun and shadow. “Will she take another shot at you?”
He shrugged. “She’ll need time to recover after that blast. Illusions don’t come cheap, and she burned through many to attack.”
Tigress-gold brightened Yelena’s eyes. “Then we should find the nearest open portal before she recovers. Can the spiders make weapons?”
“Nothing substantial. Even for the Steel Born, metalwork is fraught with hazards. Iron is never far away.” He summoned his athame to his hand, making Yelena gasp with surprise at its sudden appearance. He quirked his lips at her. “Even closer now.”
She sniffed. “I wish I had something sharp and dangerous too.”
“You do. If you choose to bring her out to play.”
Her gaze darkened to amber and skittered away. “Are we going to find the open portals or not?”
While he didn’t want to leave the cavern stronghold, he knew he couldn’t keep her that closely confined.
As if the phaedrealii itself was big enough to contain her heart....
He led the way up from the cavern. The doorway above opened not to a baroque hallway nor a churning ocean as before; instead, a featureless plain, barren except for the rocks that sprouted from the dun-colored dirt, spread out in all directions from the arch where they stood.
Raze hummed in his throat. “It appears the Queen burned through even more illusions than I thought.”
Yelena peered around them. “Is this good or bad?”
“What does your inner huntress tell you?”
She tilted her head. “Easy land to hunt. Easy to be hunted.”
“Just so.”
“Which way do we go?”
“It doesn’t matter. We walk until we find a breached portal.” He expected her to bound off on her search, but she lingered in the doorway.
Her gaze skipped from pebbles to boulders as if seeking a place to land; anyplace but on him. “Arazael,” she murmured.
He waited. He would have waited forever, but she made a noise of self-disgust and strode out from the doorway.
After a moment, he followed.
The plain wasn’t as empty as it had first seemed. The tracks of small creatures patterned the dusty ground and the furtive scuttle of things fleeing behind the rocks kept them company in their silence.
He wasn’t surprised that Yelena didn’t hold her silence for long. As tigresses went, she seemed more the sort to chase than to stalk.
“This place seems too dry to sprout mushrooms,” she said.
“The portal spores aren’t only rooted in fungus, although that is the classic shape. Algae, mosses, ferns, even conifers also grow from spores.”
“Nothing green here.”
Raze paused beside a particularly large rock. “The portals aren’t always green.” He pointed to a flat, dry ring of flaking gray. “This is a lichen portal.” When she stiffened, he added, “This one is still locked.”
She stepped closer and touched the ring. A piece of the dead lichen fluttered off. “Which of your scars locked this ward?”
He shrugged, imagining he could almost feel the slight catch of leather on the rough marks on his chest and arms. “I don’t remember. Probably one on my arms. We are near the heart of the court, so I closed these portals first and I used the most accessible skin when I etched the geasa.”
Her golden gaze was shuttered. “Can you open the portal again?”
“I can’t take back the blood I spilled to lock it.” He stared at her. “Although you could burn the geasa off my body one by one until you find which will break the seal.”
She flinched. “You think I’d do that to you? On purpose?”
“I think you are a force of nature, and such forces are known to roll over the petty pains of lesser beings.”
She straightened, the golden stripes on her body rippling. “Like the Queen, you mean.”
He considered a moment. “In some ways.”
Yelena paled. “She could have killed you when she attacked me, she was so angry. Is that because you and she were...”
“Lovers? No. The last she took to her bed was the Lord of the Hunt before he came Undone. She killed him when he demanded her true name and has taken none since who might challenge her.”
“You could challenge her.” Yelena touched his arm, and though the black leather should have protected him, his body tightened at her nearness. “You wanted an alternative to locking the court. If you were in charge, you could restrain only the dangerous phae and let the rest go free. If you were King—”
He jerked his arm out of her reach. “We have a King.”
She blinked. “Oh. I assumed—”
“Not wise when dealing with the phae.” For an instant, he wanted nothing more than to scour his skin of geasa so he could throw open the portals and send her back to the sunlit realm, away from him.
But even without her claws, she clung tenaciously. “If you already have a King, why doesn’t he keep the Queen under control?”
“Hard to do when he is buried behind iron in the Queen’s dungeon.” Since she wasn’t touching him skin-to-skin, he shouldn’t have felt compelled to answer. Yet it seemed her very presence had undermined the strict restraints he’d once kept on his emotions, because he spoke with anger. And guilt.
She shook her head slowly in confusion. “Why don’t you free him? Maybe he could help you with the court.”
“He’d rather kill me. I’m the one who imprisoned him.”
Though millennia had passed, the memory still ached, the deepest geas he’d ever carved, scarring all the way to bone. It had trapped him as certainly as it trapped his King, and the wound still bled when he disturbed it.
He took a step toward her, not caring if she touched him now, since he wanted her to know the truth. “The King would have kept fighting the Iron Wars. He would never have retreated, and the phae would have been destroyed. I couldn’t let that happen.”
She lifted her chin as he approached, not backing down. “But there’s another way. Not fighting, not withdrawing, but living with the rest of the world. If you told him how it’s different now—”
“He wouldn’t listen.”
“You can’t know that. What if—”
“I know him better than anyone else. He is my brother.”
Chapter Ten
Yelena stilled. Raze’s face was so hard, as if set in stone. He wasn’t going to change, she realized, dismay settling into her chest even heavier than his expression. He couldn’t change, not because he wasn’t wereling, but because he wasn’t willing. That truth—he didn’t have to say anything more; she saw it in his eyes—stirred her dismay into a heavy sludge in her heart.
“You never intended to let me go, did you?”
His hesitation was so brief, she might not have noticed it except all her senses were on edge, ready to catch him in a lie. “No. I couldn’t unlock
a portal just for you. And now that I know the havoc you have in mind, I’d be even more remiss to let you tear open secrets that have stood for thousands of years.”
She glared at him, the toxic sludge backing up into her throat, making her words rough. “Those are not only your secrets to keep.”
“I made them mine.” He shoved back his leather sleeves to brandish the pale scars gleaming like a second set of cuffs around his wrists. “I am one of the last, Yelena. That is what changed me. I betrayed my brother to save my people. I cannot undo that. I won’t undo that.”
Reluctant sympathy threatened to soften her rigid spine. “I don’t question the choices you made back then.”
“Just the ones I’m making now,” he translated.
“I would do anything to see my sisters freed. And yet you’ve kept your brother locked up for ages. Literally.”
“He would have been the death of us.”
“As if being buried alive is better.” She knew the accusation had struck home by the way he recoiled, though she hadn’t intended to toy with him. “I can’t stay here.”
His jaw flexed. “Many non-phae have called the court home.”
“Yeah, I’ve read those stories. They don’t usually end well. And even if they did, I’m not looking for a happy ending just for me.” She felt her cheeks heat thinking about the “happy endings” she’d already found in his arms.
Worse was the hot prickle in her eyes at the thought she might never experience one again.
But though the truth hurt—no wonder the phae didn’t like it—she wasn’t going to let him lie to himself. “You think you’re saving your people, but you’re as bad as that Afghan warlord, so afraid of losing what little you have you won’t let yourself reach for something better.”
He flared his broad shoulders, and the furious silver glint in his eyes was as sharp as any steel had ever been. For half a second, she wondered at the power he’d once commanded that had allowed him to imprison a King of the phae. If only he’d use that power to guide his people instead of confining them....
“You haven’t lived the past I have,” he said between gritted teeth.