He stepped closer to her and now stroked both his hands along her thighs. “It’s funny, you’re covered more than most girls at this party, but seeing just this little bit of you all night is enough to make me crazy.” She was wearing a little coat that covered her arms and neck, cut short in front and a little longer in back, with a short skirt, stockings and boots.
She tugged on his shirt, bringing his mouth to hers. Then he let out a slow breath, pressing against her, before looking down the hall. “There must be somewhere we can have a few minutes of privacy…”
He pushed past the beaded curtains, peering in rooms. There was a naked couple passed out on a bed, and quite a few locked doors, so clearly they weren’t the only ones with the same idea. All the rooms were occupied.
They stared at each other a moment before they were kissing again. He lifted her up against the wall, breathing hard. His hardness teased at her through their clothes. She wrapped her arms around his neck. He unbuttoned her collar, and kept going down, revealing bare flesh under her coat. “You’re not wearing a chemise,” he said. “Are you…wearing any underwear?”
“Yes…barely. There was a lingerie shop next to the costume shop.”
He slid his hand under her skirt and found a brief silk garment. “The latest fashion in underwear?”
“That’s what they told me. Easy to strip off, huh?”
“I look forward to it.”
She unbuttoned his pants. “I’m tired of waiting. Who is really going to see, down at the end of this hall? And who cares if they do? Everyone up here is thinking the same thing anyway. This is much less embarrassing than when you made me chase you into the stairwell at the patrol camp.”
“My coworkers are at this party, which is being thrown by my boss.”
Velsa ignored him, pulling his pants down just enough to coax out the length of his erection. She stroked it with her hand. He dropped his head against the wall, briefly lost to her touch. “The music…,” he murmured. “And the dancing…”
She understood. This place was seductive in a way that made the House of Perfumed Ribbons seem a joke. She had never seen Grau look so desperate for release.
The beaded curtain down the hall rustled and a couple peered down the hall. Grau tried to pull away from her to draw his pants back up, but she tugged him closer to her instead. He was very flushed and turned his face away, but Velsa kept stroking him, her hand firm. The couple glanced at them but just as quickly disappeared.
“Damnit, Velsa…”
She felt a strange little surge of pride that she had embarrassed Grau.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Isn’t this what the masks are for? Anyway, what was I supposed to do, shove this thing back inside your pants?” She kissed his chest, ran her free hand up his back. “I want you inside me.”
“We don’t have any oils,” he said, but he lifted her skirt, sliding her silk underwear down. He easily hoisted her up, the lightweight skeleton showing more of its advantages.
“It feels good…,” she murmured as he ground into her. It was rougher without the oils, almost a little painful, but in some ways that made it more potent. Fanarlem couldn’t feel much pain and just a little made her feel more alive.
He winced, however. “But you’re not the one who could get a rash out of this. All the illusion spells in the world don’t quite hide the fact that you’re made out of cloth.”
“You’re being a real complainer.”
Now the nearest door opened and a couple spilled out of it. He covered her body with his while she looked up at the gleam of his eyes. She was lost in those eyes, so familiar to her, and so dear. The beaded curtain rustled.
“They’re gone,” she whispered. “Let’s grab their room.”
Velsa pulled him into the room but was immediately dismayed to see a toilet.
“Well, I know you’ve always refused to make love in the same room as a toilet, but you have to admit this is a very nice room,” Grau said, and he shut the door behind them like he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
There was a long counter with a sink and a mirror, a huge vase of flowers on the floor, a rack of magazines, a painting of stylized birds. Grau lifted her onto the counter and dropped a few kisses on her neck. He glanced over an array of soaps and products on a small shelf by the sink and found some kind of flower-scented oil.
He finished unbuttoning her coat, pushing it away from her breasts, and pulled off her skirt and underwear. “Velsa, I mean it,” he said. “I can hardly stand how sexy you are. And there really is no woman like you.”
She gave him her best coy smile, but she could hardly help gazing into his eyes with unrestrained affection.
“Still…I’d better get you back for that stunt in the hall, huh?” Before she could ask how he intended to do that, he turned her toward the mirror. He grabbed her legs, penetrating her from behind while pulling her against him. The full length of him pushed deep into her, prompting a squeak of surprise. His thighs forced her legs wider; they dangled helplessly, while his arms wrapped around her, holding her back against his chest. She could see the whole thing unfold in her own reflection. His face was beside hers, grinning wickedly behind his black mask while she still wore a look of surprised pleasure.
“Put your hands behind my head,” he said, like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Well, she had no interest in refusing anyway. She reached back until her fingers met his hair, which she had always loved the feel of. Her torso now was one inviting length of exposed skin.
His hands, more tanned than hers, ran down the curve of her body and traced the line of the stitches at the top of her legs, where her skin was exquisitely sensitive. Those stitches were like arrows pointing to where her legs spread around his cock, the tops of her stockings visible pressed against the counter.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I am pretty sexy.”
She had never seen herself in the act before and maybe she should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. She liked seeing the raw joy on her own face. I might not always know how to be a wife, she thought, but I am a damn good concubine.
His hands kept exploring her, lingering on her nipples and teasing her between the legs, even as he thrust into her. Keeping her hands on his head, her toes spread into empty space, she felt deliciously vulnerable. Her senses were overwhelmed and she couldn’t stop making little sounds that only seemed to encourage him.
“So you’re just going to admire yourself in the mirror? So much for getting you back…”
“The only way you could truly get me back tonight is by not doing this.” She gasped, digging her fingers deeper into his hair. “You’re not usually quite this assertive. I like it…oh fates, it’s so much better when I don’t have to worry that a thirteen-year-old might hear us.”
He laughed. “Yeah, it’s so much better when my professional colleagues might see us instead and confirm all their suspicions that I only married you because I’m a kinky son of a bitch.”
“Well, you’re not.”
“I don’t know, this feels kind of kinky.”
“It’s not, because lots of people are doing the same thing and I am your wife and you love me for my—what was it? Beauty of the soul?”
“That’s right.”
She kissed his cheek. “I do need a new position, though.”
She took her hands off his head and reached for the edge of the mirror, testing its strength, and when it seemed to be mounted on the wall pretty firmly, she held onto it and put her knees on the edge of the counter. Now she could angle her own position a little better. That didn’t last long. Grau lifted her legs off the counter, rocking into her deep and fast. She was almost crying from hovering so long on the brink. She stole one last look at her glazed brown eyes and her small red mouth fallen open with moans before shutting her eyes to let it roll over her.
The only problem with the bathroom was that there was nowhere to lie down when it was over, and her limbs felt absolutely
liquefied.
Grau gently replaced her underwear and buttoned her jacket back up. He lifted her into his arms.
“Carry me to bed,” she groaned. “I’m done with this party.”
“We must be adults now,” he said. “We have to go to someone else’s house just to get some time to ourselves.” He put her down onto her reluctant feet.
“Before we go, I need to take a piss,” he said, looking a little bemused. He found it hilarious that she liked it when he came inside her but found urination fairly revolting. It was a little ridiculous but she couldn’t seem to help it, maybe because she was capable of having sex herself, and she liked to imagine their bodily functions were the same.
“I’ll wait for you in the hall,” she said.
She paced a few steps, checking that he’d done up her jacket buttons correctly. She heard murmuring voices behind one of the doors. Velsa didn’t pay any attention to them until the name ‘Flynn’ suddenly stood out.
“Is he still meeting out in Sweetheart Caverns?” a man asked, his voice muffled behind the door. “I thought maybe he’d given up.”
“I think so,” a woman replied. “I just spoke to him in the ballroom. He told me he still plans to leave Nalim Ima someday.”
“Well, then why doesn’t he?”
“Let me count the ways! I think he admires Calban. Loves him, even—I wouldn’t be surprised.” The woman sounded smug. “Can you really imagine him leaving this place? Much less risking his neck for an ideal? What does he really care about Fanarlem slaves or whatever else? I know he was miffed that I asked at all. He brushed it off.”
“I can almost imagine anything after Githa’s betrayal.”
“If Flynn ever manages to betray Calban, I will eat a slug.”
“I hope you’re right, then. I don’t want to see that.”
They laughed a little and then it sounded like they started kissing.
Grau came out. “I suppose I should try and mingle a little more before we leave. At least make sure the Peacock General knows I made an appearance.”
“Yes,” she said, but she was a little distracted, trying to sear the conversation into her brain. Whoever Flynn was, he seemed to be on her side—and he was at this party.
Just a little later, Grau was talking to a man who was studying climate sorcery while Velsa watched the performance going on at one end of the main hall, a poetic sort of dance called ‘ballet’. The girls were very graceful, swan-necked, dancing on their toes, moving with athletic fluidity as only flesh and blood women could.
Just a few feet away, separated by the crowds, Irik was watching the dancers as well. Her dress bared her slim shoulders. A stack of golden bangles adorned each of her wrists and her gold earrings twirled when she moved her head, catching the soft lights.
Calban entered the room, a striking figure in a short cape beaded in gold. He wore a headdress that rose in points from the back of his head like the rays of the sun. The fabric of his shirt—or whatever you might call it, more of a wrap really—was bold yellow with stylized blue circles, paired with loose knee-length pants and slippers with pointed toes.
He paused a moment to watch the dance. His fingers moved with the notes of the music and the motions of the dancers, as if he anticipated each hand gesture, each drum beat.
Velsa glanced back at Irik, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Velsa had a pang of disappointment.
She wasn’t sure she had any desire to be with a woman the way she was with Grau. She hadn’t looked at another man during the entire party, and yet she could hardly take her eyes off the female dancers and the foreign princess.
They’re safe, she thought. It doesn’t feel like I’m betraying Grau to look at women.
This party was not really for a girl like her, was it? She had never been this free.
She couldn’t blame Grau for it, he wasn’t especially possessive, and how she loved him. It was just a strange yearning to have been given the opportunity to consider someone else.
“Grau.” Calban was approaching them with his arms spread in greeting. “And Velsa. So you did come.”
Sometimes she could hardly believe he had fought in the War of the Crystals, over a century ago. Shapeshifting smoothed wrinkles, but over time the skin of older people acquired a tired appearance. The color of their eyes was not usually as bright. Calban truly looked like a young man, his skin fresh and glowing with health. She wondered what sort of magic Kalan Jherin provided his most favored.
“Having a good time?”
“Yes, sir,” Grau said. “This is quite a party. And quite a house.”
“I told you I knew your maker, didn’t I?” Calban spoke to Velsa. “I hope you weren’t too startled by my concubines.”
“Uh—no,” Velsa lied.
“I shouldn’t even call them concubines,” Calban went on. “I don’t do anything with them. Fanarlem girls are pretty to look at, but I like my lovers earthy. No offense, darling.”
“Why do people always feel the need to tell us whether or not they’re attracted to Fanarlem?” Grau said as Calban latched on to some other young man walking by. “I wouldn’t dream of meeting someone’s wife and saying, ‘Your wife is lovely, but I wouldn’t have sex with her’. But that’s what what they say to us,” he said.
“Or, ‘Your wife is lovely, and I’d definitely have sex with her’. We get that too, don’t we?”
“‘Is it true that Fanarlem girls are better than real women?’” he said mockingly.
“Well, what do you tell them?” she asked.
“I tell them to mind their own damn business.”
“No you don’t. You’re too nice.”
He groaned.
Calban turned back to them. “So how did you like my little gift, Velsa?”
“Gift?” For a minute, she couldn’t think what he was talking about.
“Your husband’s bonus.”
“Oh. We appreciated it. Very much.” She was stilted, nervous again.
Calban smiled. “I’m glad. You both look very dashing this evening. Have you given any more thought to working, my dear? Now that you’ve settled in?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I can’t stop thinking how much you helped Irik at the last party.”
“I really don’t know if I helped her that much,” Velsa said. “I couldn’t do anything for her pain.”
“She will always feel physical pain when she shifts. That can’t be helped. She needs to learn to master that pain. You have an innate talent for working with emotions. You helped her to calm down. I understand if you don’t want to commit to a position working with the Halnari, but I wondered if I might beg you to work with Irik, just a session or two. See if you might be able to help her with control?”
His eyes were locked on her, waiting for an answer. As he waited, one of his concubines strolled by and put a drink in his hand.
Velsa could never shake the feeling that everything in Calban’s parties was designed to manipulate her. To catch her in a web and then ask something of her that she didn’t want to give.
But surely he wouldn’t put that much effort into targeting her alone.
Maybe everyone here felt that way.
And she couldn’t say no, could she? She couldn’t say no forever. It would start to seem suspicious.
Working with Irik…that isn’t so bad. I think we might understand each other, if we had a chance to talk.
“I—I suppose I would be willing to try, sir,” she said.
Chapter 10
“You don’t want to work for him. You’ve been clear about that from the start,” Grau said, as they walked home.
“I just don’t know how to keep saying no.”
“I don’t either.” He pulled out the key to the apartment and tossed it in and out of his palm. “I want to try to leave.”
“Leave? Leave—Nalim Ima?”
“Yes. This isn’t working out like either of us hoped. I wanted to learn potions and you wanted to be left alone
. Well, we own Sorla now. There’s no reason to stay.”
“Can we leave?”
“It’s not as if we signed a contract.”
But Grau certainly acted as if they were sneaking out into the night. He told them to pack their most valuable possessions only. Early the next morning, they watched out the window for the bus that traveled beyond the palace grounds, so they didn’t have to stand outside waiting for it, and when they boarded, he glanced around like someone might stop the bus.
No one prevented them from traveling all the way across the city and back to the docks.
Grau walked into the passenger line offices, where a lean, tired-looking woman stood under the “Tickets” sign. “Papers, please,” she said.
He slid them toward her.
She took them into the back office for a moment. Then she came out, holding a cup of coffee, but looking even more tired than before. “I’m sorry, sir. Travel to Atlantis is greatly restricted due to an outbreak of the blood cough. We aren’t issuing tickets now.”
“I see passenger ships out there.” He motioned to the window, where a shining new steamer was boarding even as they spoke. “Where are they going?”
“You’ll have to apply for a new passport.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this from the start? What were you looking up back there?”
She took a sip of coffee and regarded him blankly. “I was checking your papers against our records.”
“Where do I get a new passport?”
“Here is the paperwork. You have to take it to the transportation department.”
“So you’re saying I can’t go home? My sister is getting married!”
She shrugged. “You can go to the transportation department. I just work here.”
Grau took the paperwork, shoving it in his bag as he pushed the door open again. “I remember a time when you just bought a ticket, and got on a ship. You didn’t even need papers. Just money. What happened to a world where money is all that matters?”
“Listen to yourself! Spoken like a guy who has always had money,” Velsa said, unable to resist teasing him a little.
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