‘Cup of tea?’ Velody suggested.
Ashiol gave her a look that made her shiver. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Full retreat. The sky’s so calm you wouldn’t know it had even rained this nox.’
‘How many did we lose?’ Her voice was surprisingly steady on that question.
‘Halberk, Poet’s bear. Quenched, not swallowed. One of Priest’s courtesi is in a bad way, might not make it. All Lords accounted for. So it’s not all good news.’ Ashiol’s grin might have been harsh if she couldn’t see how drained he was, right down to the bone.
Velody was tired too. She could think tomorrow about the courtesi that she had sent to their deaths. Right now, she needed to get to bed before she fell apart, a heap of flesh and bone.
‘Do you want to stay the nox?’ she asked. ‘The morning, I suppose I mean. There’s at least one armchair that Crane’s not sleeping in.’
Ashiol’s eyes were glowing coals, bright and haunted. ‘I need to say something to you.’
‘It can’t wait? Ash, you’re shaking. You need to rest.’
He shrugged her suggestion off, though he couldn’t stop his hands trembling. ‘You did well this nox. Better than well.’
‘I wasn’t fighting the battle…’
He met her gaze with that intent look of his, the one that was so hard to look away from. ‘I got the story from them, Velody. You put them in the sky, played the real Power and Majesty without so much as a teaspoon of animor to your name. You’re the real thing.’
It should have meant more, hearing that from him. ‘You really didn’t think I had it in me,’ she said quietly. ‘Why did you put me in this position if you didn’t believe I could be the Power?’
‘I didn’t think you couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I just…I just didn’t know. I didn’t even think about it. I was so desperate for it not to be me.’
Oh, that. Did he really think it was a surprising admission? Velody sighed. ‘That’s why the seer sided with them, you know. She thought she could save you from yourself. Everyone else expected you to come blazing forth and be the real Power and Majesty, leaving me in a crumpled mess at your feet.’ She shook her head. ‘Everyone except Poet, which is so bizarre I can’t begin to figure it out.’
Ashiol looked alarmed. ‘Don’t trust him, no matter how much he seems to be on your side.’
Velody was sick of being underestimated. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I am the Power and Majesty. I proved that, if it needed proving. Once my animor is back I will prove it again and again if I have to. This is who I am now, and I am not giving it up to anyone, least of all you.’
Ashiol nodded, but said nothing.
Velody had given up on all diplomacy. ‘Is that it, my Lord Ducomte? You wanted to pat me on the head, tell me how well I did this nox? Because if there’s no other old news you’d care to share, I need to sleep.’
His eyes flared up at the formality, as if she had insulted him. Perhaps she had. ‘Has anyone told you about Tasha?’ he asked abruptly.
‘You,’ Velody sighed. ‘You told me.’
‘Not this story.’
She rested her arms back on the table and stared at him. Her skin ached. Sleep. Why wouldn’t he just leave? Why was it she suspected this story wouldn’t leave her in a happy bedtime mood?
‘Tasha turned viciousness into an art form,’ Ashiol said. ‘I hate to think what she could have achieved if she’d known it was possible for females to be Kings. Livilla’s a pale shadow of what our mistress was like.’
‘You and Livilla were courtesi together?’
That was the hardest part of coming to this game so late. Velody had no idea of the history of these people, their past alliances and enmities. She knew that members of the Court might serve as courtesi to two or three Lords before coming into their own Lordship—and, of course, they would have close relationships with those courtesi who shared the same Lords. She was going to have to write a list somewhere to keep track of the histories as she learned of them.
‘Livilla was Tasha’s too,’ Ashiol confirmed. ‘As well as Garnet, and Lysandor who left us…and Poet.’
Velody lifted her eyebrows. ‘All at the same time?’ Five courtesi. These days, Dhynar having four was apparently a big deal.
‘We were her cubs,’ said Ashiol with a bitter smile. ‘That’s what she called us. She drew her power from us. Tasha knew—thought—she could never be a King, let alone Power and Majesty, but she found her power in other ways. She was charm and poison and sex and claws. She had all kinds of dirty tricks that no one else had ever figured out. She didn’t have more animor than the other Lords, but the way she used it…ingenious and nasty. No one dared cross her, not even the Power himself.’
Velody rose and found the bottle of brandy that Rhian had been hiding from Delphine. She poured a measure for each of them in square green glasses, and passed Ashiol his across the table. ‘Why are you telling me this? What does it matter now?’
Ashiol tasted the brandy, blinking as if surprised at the quality. We might not all live in a Palazzo, seigneur Ducomte, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a taste for the finer things. This particular bottle had been a gift from a satisfied customer. Velody sipped her own drink. Alcohol didn’t hit her as fast these days.
Finally, Ashiol spoke, his voice low and uneven. ‘A boy came to us once. He was about eight years old—Garnet had found him somewhere. We knew just by looking at him that he was one of us—or, at least, that he would be. When he hit his teens, he would awaken the animor within. But that was too long for Tasha. She wanted him to be hers.’
Velody frowned, but said nothing. The less she interrupted, the more likely he was to get this over with before it really was the new day.
‘She did something to him,’ said Ashiol, his voice stumbling a little over the words. ‘I still don’t know what—we were there, but we’d never seen anything like it before. She dragged the animor out of his skin. Made him a courteso, years before his time. I’ve always wondered…how it would have been different if she’d let him be, sent him away until he was ready. Would he be more or less powerful? For all we know, he could have been a sleeper; never awoken at all.’ He drummed his fingers against the glass. ‘I think he would have ended up less twisted anyway. No one should have to deal with the Court at eight years of age.’
‘I don’t know that twelve is so much better,’ Velody said sharply. It still appalled her that they were introduced to this world as children. She was barely able to deal with it as an adult. ‘So Tasha had six courtesi?’
‘No,’ said Ashiol.
She stared at him. Far, far too tired for this. ‘Poet,’ she said finally. ‘Saints, that was Poet?’ Eight years old. It made her shudder to think of it.
‘You were a sleeper,’ he said. ‘You…’ He swallowed, and stared at the glass before draining it. ‘I need to know if I did this to you. Whether I awoke you. I know it was hardly before your time, but…I wanted another King so badly.’
Velody started to laugh. Maybe it was the brandy, but she’d barely tasted it. She looked up at him and cackled harder. ‘Ash,’ she said when she could breathe again. ‘Saints and angels. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more self-absorbed than you.’
He looked offended, and that only made her laugh harder. ‘Of course it wasn’t you, you colossal thimblehead. It was Garnet.’
Ashiol stilled. It felt for a moment as if all the heat had left the room, had been sucked directly into his skin. ‘Garnet?’
Velody wasn’t laughing any more. ‘Of course Garnet. Isn’t everything about him? He…I…I’ve only been remembering since the Floralia, when I got my animor back. It comes in bits and pieces. But I’ve been dreaming of the skies of Aufleur most of my life. I think I woke up the first nox I came to this city. I saw the sky explode into colours. I saw a naked boy fall from the sky.’ Her eyes met his. So very dark and unrelenting. ‘I saw his friend transform into a cloud of cats. It’s so strange…it feels like a story someon
e told me once. But I do remember it now. The pieces have started coming back. Garnet caught me out on the balcony and he…’ She hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t put the fragments of dreams and memories together, and now the answer was so very simple she almost gasped with it. ‘He took what was mine.’
Ashiol’s gaze only became more intense. ‘He took—he couldn’t, not without your consent, not unless…’ His face blazed with anger. ‘What did he do to you?’
Velody was taken aback. ‘Nothing. He kissed me, and he took—he asked first. I had no idea what he was asking, or taking. He was half-insane, or seemed that way. I think he was high,’ she added, with rather more knowledge of such things now, thanks to Delphine’s habits. ‘He asked me to give it willingly, and I did. He was right, Ash. Your world, the Creature Court—I was a child. I would have been chewed up and spat out.’
‘You think you won’t be now?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, hush.’
Ashiol stood, anger pouring off him. ‘He took your animor? No wonder—we were equals and then we weren’t. He outstripped me. He became Lord first, and King. I couldn’t keep up, couldn’t fucking compete. Now I know why.’ He turned on her, his animor lighting his skin up from the inside. ‘You gave him that.’
‘I didn’t know,’ she protested. ‘In any case, he’s dead. Don’t you think maybe he’s not beating you any more?’
Ashiol moved fast, too fast for her to react, grabbing both of her arms and pulling her to her feet. ‘You have no bloody idea.’
‘I know he hurt you,’ she flung at him. ‘I’m not defending him, Ashiol. But it’s over. He’s gone. Can’t you let him be gone?’
His hands trailed heat up her arms. ‘How can he be gone? Your animor still stinks of him. So does mine.’ But something else crossed his face, a pain Velody couldn’t begin to understand. ‘Don’t want him to be gone,’ he muttered.
‘Forgive him,’ she whispered. ‘You have to forgive him for everything. Including leaving you in this mess. Or you’ll never be free of this…thing that weighs you down.’
Ashiol gave her a frantic look, and he still wasn’t letting go of her. Why wasn’t he letting go? Then he moved, his mouth forcing heat against the pulse point on her throat, and oh. This. Velody could feel the deep power of his animor through his lips and tongue as he sucked lightly on the sensitive skin there, making her gasp.
She leaned back against the kitchen table. His body was hard against hers, his fingers still pressing into her arms, but she worked one wrist free to hook it around his neck, pulling him closer. Ashiol let out a noise, somewhere between a moan and a snarl, and lifted her onto the table, his hands tangling in the soft fabric of her dress as his mouth moved, kissing along her collarbone, then further down…
Velody almost cried out as his lips traced the swell of her breast, right at her neckline, as his fingers pushed her dress up, bunching it around her hips. Thoughts such as not being alone in the house were…not relevant, somehow. Velody could hear every heartbeat, knew where every creature slept, and none of them were here. Here was about Ashiol, his fierce kisses against her cool skin, his fingers working their way up her thighs. With a small sound of frustration, she slid further back on the table, dragging him with her. His body covered hers, and the room spun around her with the dizzy heat of wanting him. She could feel the hard outline of his cock digging into her thigh, and she guided his hands to the fastenings of her dress. One hook, then another, and she was spilling out of it.
Velody closed her eyes as his fingers and mouth worked over her breasts, and a vision swept through her mind. A different mouth, different pair of hands…She gasped as Ashiol’s tongue flicked against the edge of her breastband, then ran over the fabric.
Red hair, black hair, skin hot against skin, limbs tangled…
Ashiol was actually sucking on her breast now, his mouth hard on her nipple, wetting through the breastband to the sensitive skin below…and his fingers were lower, sliding between her thighs.
Velody opened her eyes, a deeper vision spearing through. Every suck of his mouth, every caress of his fingers, brought Garnet into her head. Not the Garnet she had met, a bright-eyed boy taunting her on a balcony. An older, sharper, more fierce warrior.
Red hair and black, one body covering another, hands on skin, heat…
Pain.
Velody gasped aloud, and not because Ashiol’s fingers were pressing inside her, not because his mouth was tugging fiercely on her breast. She shoved him hard, and if she had even a breath of animor at her disposal, she would have used that too. Ashiol tumbled onto the floor, staring angrily up at her. ‘What the frig—’
‘You,’ she said, shaking, pulling her dress back to cover her breasts and legs, fastening hooks back where they belonged. ‘You and Garnet were lovers.’
He touched the back of his hand to his mouth, eyes darkening at her. ‘Yes,’ he said sullenly.
‘I saw—’ She clenched her hands into fists, to regain some kind of control. ‘He did something to you. When you put your mouth on me, I saw it! He took—’
‘He took my animor.’ Ashiol stood, his body bristling. ‘Is that what you want to hear? You knew that.’
‘How did he take it?’ she snapped out, angry because she had seen the truth finally. If he didn’t admit it to her now, she was going to hate him forever.
‘Kings,’ he said, and then stopped. ‘Kings shouldn’t fuck each other,’ he said finally. ‘Leaves them vulnerable to attack. In the moment…one can steal animor from the other. Rip it right out of them. That’s what he did to me. What I thought he’d done to you.’
Velody glared at him. ‘So if we had finished what we started on this kitchen table…if you had made me come, you could have taken my animor.’
‘You drank sentinel’s blood, you’re not—’
‘Don’t give me that,’ she said, breathing hard, still feeling the imprint of his mouth and fingers on her skin. ‘You should have told me. You know you should have told me what I was risking.’
‘Believe me,’ he growled, ‘it won’t be an issue in future.’
Velody crossed her arms over her body, afraid at how close they had got. ‘It had better not,’ she said. Especially considering—hells, Livilla’s blood oath. ‘I think you should go, Ashiol.’
He nodded, formality restored between them. ‘My Power. My Majesty.’
She couldn’t breathe properly until he was long gone.
48
Delphine awoke to the sound of someone shuffling about in her wardrobe. As she peered sleepily across the room, several garments flew out, adding to piles already heaped on the floor and across her bed. ‘Velody, it’s too early for a fashion crisis,’ she groaned.
‘It’s past noon, so it is!’ The voice that emerged from the wardrobe was definitely not female. ‘Have you nothing at all practical to wear? Honestly, lass, there’s nothing in this cave of yours that isn’t tangled in beads and ribbons, or made of fabric so fine one good sneeze could tear it to shreds.’
Delphine pulled the covers defensively over her breasts. ‘Macready?’
The Islandser’s tousled head emerged from the wardrobe. ‘You had no brothers, I take it? Why Velody couldn’t have had a tomboy or two as friends, I don’t know. Trews, lass, trews.’
Delphine summoned as much poise as she could manage with a sleep-encrusted mouth, unbrushed hair and no cosmetick. ‘What the seven hells do you think you’re doing?’
Macready backed out of the wardrobe dusting off his hands. His face was unaccountably serious. ‘You were a liability last nox.’
‘What?’
‘Dhynar took you down as easily as breathing. Used you as bait to trap our Majesty into worrying more about you than herself.’ Macready rolled his eyes. ‘You haven’t the sense you were born with. Rhian’s no use in a brawl either, but at least she doesn’t step out from these walls. I may not be able to do much with her right now, but, by the saints and angels, I can do something with you.�
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Delphine sat up, letting the covers slide down to her lap. Whatever he was up to, he wasn’t in this room to get an eyeful of her in her noxgown. ‘What exactly do you have in mind to “do” with me?’
Macready grinned suddenly, the expression lighting up his hazel eyes. ‘I’m teaching you to defend yourself.’
There was a flashing movement as he tossed a silvery knife at her. Delphine squeaked and threw the covers up. The knife hit the bedclothes with a soft thump. ‘Very funny.’
Macready moved towards her, reclaimed his knife and sat on the bed. ‘Not being able to stand up to Dhynar—well, that’s not entirely humiliating. The man’s an animal, no joke intended. But the other nox, you couldn’t even hold your own against a drunken fop who wanted to fumble you up against a fence.’
Heat rushed to her face as she remembered that nox. ‘I know how to kick a man if he gets too close.’
‘Do you now? Didn’t see much kicking at the time, lass. Seemed to me the only defence you had was to retch all over him, and that made him all the more of a mind to hurt you.’
She opened her mouth to protest, but he tapped her lower lip with his finger. ‘When I’m finished, coves like your Teddy boy won’t be able to lay a hand on you unless you want them to. And as for the Lords and Court…’ Macready’s smile this time was a slightly evil one. ‘Let’s just say you’ll be able to hold your own. What do you say, lass?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ she accused. ‘Why do you care what happens to me?’
The smile drained from his face. ‘As long as Velody is fretting about you and your lass Rhian, she cannot truly be our Power and Majesty, and she cannot keep herself alive as best she can. We’re down to three sentinels, and if we have to keep diverting one or two to watch out for daylight folk, we’re not protecting our Kings.’
‘So it’s for Velody,’ Delphine said sharply. Well, what had she expected?
‘For you all,’ and it was annoying how damned sincere he sounded. ‘You’re part of this world now, like it or not. Unless you want to cut Velody out of your lives altogether, you have to be prepared for danger.’ Macready shrugged. ‘What I’d really like is to get my hands on that Rhian of yours. She’s got a nice core of anger under all that shying and shuddering. Imagine what she’d be like with a knife in her hands and some idea of how to use it.’
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