Kavya looked down at her hands, which were already aligned into perfect hills and valleys. She dug deep beneath the layers of emotions and thoughts, old lives and new, Masks, memories that weren’t hers, fears, desires. She kept digging until she found a shining kernel of something innocent, young, and beautiful.
The effort it took to lift her head and take his stare head-on was tremendous. To accept the weight of his expectations was another challenge. But saying the words was not difficult at all. They reflected what she wanted, for herself and Tallis. “I want to be joined with you.”
“Why?” he said roughly. “Tell me why, and by the Dragon, Kavya, make me believe you.”
As if drawn to the need to touch fire or swim rough waters or, yes, stroke a wild animal, she took his hand. “I’ve never been with another man, and I never will be again. I’ve never been in love before, and I never will be again. Tallis, the only man I’ll ever love is you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
In the three minutes between donning his cargos and striding down the corridor to Rill’s room, Tallis could’ve changed his mind. He could have changed his mind had he had a sensible mind left to change.
He should have been panicked. Echoes of the last decision he’d made while under the power of a woman with Kavya’s dear, familiar face . . .
He pulled up short.
His whole body rebelled, shaking with anger. That vision had never been Kavya. There in the darkness of the corridor, he closed his eyes for even more privacy. Glimpses of the woman from his dreams were fading. He was left only impressions. Pure sensuality. She’d had perfect eyes, a perfectly formed mouth, and a low, throaty, syrup-sweet voice that had acted as a snake charmer’s whistle.
Kavya had eyes nearly too wide for her face. They threw off any chance at symmetry, and lent her a childlike look that belied the wisdom in those amber depths. Her mouth was lush, with full lips shaped in a pout that her demeanor never fostered. She had strong cheekbones and an even stronger jaw, which balanced the hints of innocence. The body he’d touched, worshiped, and initiated wasn’t all rounded curves and soft flesh. She was resilient. She was muscle underneath silken skin and a woman’s lustrous shape. Sexy but tough—so much tougher than he’d given her credit for.
Kavya was flesh and blood and real.
He pounded on Rill’s door. Although he’d reined in his arousal, he couldn’t help the speed of his respiration or the impatience with which he knocked again.
Rill opened it wearing a wrapped-tight robe and a surly, sleepy expression. “Unless the castle is on fire, go away.”
“Will you acknowledge us? Me and Kavya?”
With a pair of blinks, Rill became fully alert. She smiled and pinched him on the arm. “I’d assumed you had been already. An Indranan, though? I guess stranger things have happened.” She sobered briefly. “Just . . . don’t you dare get yourself killed. It’s eerie, Tallis. You’ve returned like Vallen did, in the company of a stunning woman from another clan. Then he was killed. This brother of hers is likely to pursue you both to the edge of the Chasm itself. Have you wandered so long that you’re resigned to such a harsh fate?”
“Yes, I’ve been on the run,” he said quietly, full of emotion he hadn’t meant to express. Kavya was right when she’d said his people were not the kind to hide their feelings, especially among family. It was the heart of their gift. “Is this where I belong? Am I a part of this clan? Am I an ally to our Giva, or a villain for my deeds? Ask me any of those questions and I couldn’t answer.”
Rill nodded. Her eyes softened, and for a moment, she appeared less careworn. “You were dubbed the Heretic when you left. Prove them wrong. What do you believe in, Tallis?”
“Kavya’s goodness.”
“And if this isn’t home, where might it be?”
Tallis swallowed. He was growing more calm with each question, although his heart still beat with the rhythm of a man running a flat-out sprint. “With her.”
“Then who are you?”
“Hers.”
“You’d better tell her all of that after your claiming.” Rill made a shooing motion. “You’re acknowledged, brother of mine. Don’t stand here wasting any more time.”
After a brief kiss to his sister’s cool cheek, he returned to the guest bedroom. He wanted to sprint, so that the motion of his body matched the eager, hopeful throb of his heart. That hope tunneled down deeper, until he felt it quivering in every cell. That certainty. His faith was Kavya. His home was with Kavya.
She hadn’t moved from her place on the bed. Looking up from intertwined fingers, she showed him eyes as full of hope as was his chest. He crossed the room in three strides and stopped at the side of the bed.
“What did she say?” Kavya asked, more uncertain than he would’ve expected. “Your family’s opinion about this means a lot to me.”
“Why?”
“Because they mean a lot to you.”
He fisted his hands. Patience? Calm? Did he have any left? She was naked and kneeling on the mattress. The part of him that was deeper than Tallis of Pendray wanted to be set free. He swallowed, then blew out a tight breath. “Rill acknowledged us.”
For a flaring second, Kavya beamed. Only when he stripped his cargos once again did her unspoken happiness transform into outright hunger.
“I could lie on my stomach,” she said with a dark taunt. “Lie there passively.”
“You could.”
“I could get into position on all fours. Make it easy on you.”
Tallis’s head was going to explode. “You could.”
“But we don’t want that.”
He inhaled, feeling the flare of his nostrils. He pictured a bull taking a breath before its bloodlust charge.
She pushed up onto her knees on the mattress. Leaning forward no more than a few inches, she dipped her tongue in the hollow at the base of his throat. “You want me to fight, Tallis. I’ve never been a fighter, but I am with you.”
“For me.”
“And for myself. I’ve survived so much, but I never gave myself credit. I don’t know why.” She lifted her arms in a provocative pose before flipping long, lustrous hair back over her shoulders. Her tight nipples mocked his self-control. “That ends now. I give myself credit for keeping up with you.”
“You’re asking for it. Something holy and dangerous and—” He gritted his teeth. He was seeing Kavya and he was seeing red.
She took his fists in her palms, then kissed the back of each. “Do you love me, Tallis? Not the animal want. Not some need for revenge. Love. If this is for all time, I need to know.”
He closed his eyes against a flush of dizziness. Forcing words into the air was as difficult as sawing off a limb. He was slipping away, becoming his other self, but he held on for his woman.
“Yes,” he said with utter certainty.
“Then do your worst. Your best. I know you won’t do a thing to me that I don’t want.” She touched her lips to each fist once again, then lifted her eyes like a supplicant, not a goddess. That she might be both for him was just as arousing as the idea that he could be man and beast. For her. “So I won’t lie here, Tallis. Toss me down, like you threatened. Show me what it is to be claimed by a Pendray.”
Tallis grabbed a fistful of her thick, dark hair and twisted. She cried out. Her head jerked back until he’d turned her upper body, her throat arched toward the ceiling. The crown of her head pressed against his chest. He placed the sweetest, softest kiss on her forehead.
Then he threw her down against the mattress. She kicked the covers, scrambling toward the headboard, but Tallis caught her ankle and hauled her down the bed. He yanked her hips up. The woman who’d been so calm and artificial on that distant altar was spitting mad, with a violent passion that flowed between them like fire meeting barrel after barrel of gasoline.
Kneeling behind her, Tallis flashed back to the last time he’d held her in this position, with his hands taut at her hips. He’d
been so tempted. Bite her. Claim her.
This was different.
This is forever.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, Tallis.”
On some level he’d been waiting for those words. He’d wanted her permission and her desire—proof in one word.
He aligned his hips with hers and drove deep. They moved together with the trust of two people deeply committed and thrown over to the abandonment of that commitment. Kavya still fought, with gasps and foul words that stoked him hotter, higher. She reared back to meet him with the same force of his thrusts. Sweat slicked the coppery skin of her back. She looked over her shoulder. Amber eyes glowed fiercely. She was a woman in the midst of a fight for the rest of her life. In so many ways, that was true. Those eyes flared wide. Her body tightened as her breath ratcheted toward release.
Tallis wanted them to go over together. United.
Hips suddenly, achingly still, he bent low. “I’m claiming you, Kavya,” he rasped against her nape.
He sank his teeth into her and tightened his arms around her body, holding them both steady with the strength of his abs and thighs. She cried out. Reflex made her shake. She grabbed his nearest hand and bit down as well, slaking her frustration and perhaps the last need to resist. Tallis gloried in that poised moment of shared danger and beauty. They were bound together in pain, in the giving and receiving of it, with the anticipation of pleasure on the horizon. They moved together in a dance few else would understand. Fierce. Beautiful. Filled with the trust he wouldn’t give another woman.
For the rest of his life.
Sensation gathered in his balls and intensified as he resumed his relentless rhythm. He bit as hard as he dared, which at that moment was as hard as he could. Kavya’s moan sank into the pad of his thumb just before she released him from her fearsome teeth. She arched, shuddered, and screamed. Her clenching sheath welcomed his cock one last time as he drove home. Tallis spent his passion and staked his claim with a furious, mindless growl against the back of her neck.
—
Kavya lay sprawled on her stomach, with Tallis layered over her. She should have felt crushed, abused, exhausted. Instead she smiled against the pillow and took her first calm breath since they’d taken off their clothes for bed.
She’d never been an impetuous woman. She’d grown up knowing that caution meant invisibility, and invisibility meant safety. There, on that night, she’d made one of the most impetuous choices of her life.
She’d never felt safer.
Perhaps that was because a very satisfied berserker with muscles to spare and who possessed not one but two vicious Norse seaxes pinned her so deliciously to their marital bed. Tallis made her remember what it was to be strong. If she could fight and win against such a man, in a contest of bodies, hearts and wills, then she could take on all comers.
She elbowed upward, connecting with his ribs. “A little air, please.”
Rather than roll away, Tallis shoved his arms beneath her body, hugging her while holding her fast against the mattress. He kissed her nape, licked, suckled the sore skin. She shivered, knowing with bone-deep certainty that in the future, he would only need to touch her there—and she’d be ready for him. Such a sensitive place. So much primitive symbolism.
“You were right,” he said, the words rumbling from his chest into her back. “You kept pace. Fuck for fuck.”
She elbowed him again as he laughed. “I wasn’t that crude.”
“You acted like it.”
He used those sure arms to roll them both over. She tucked against his side and sighed. Did all brides feel this way on their wedding night?
Looking up at Tallis’s sharp jaw and the untamed mass of his sweat-damp hair, she had her answer. No. No other bride had felt this way, because they hadn’t been with her man.
Her husband?
Yes, that felt right. In her heart. Forget the human trappings of ceremonies. This was the Pendray way. They were married.
A tiny, almost silent voice in a tucked-away corner of her heart wanted the Indranan way, too. She didn’t need to know everything in his mind, but she wanted a taste of how he processed thought, how he saw color, how he heard sound. A married Indranan couple would share those little intimacies. She would never know them about Tallis. No matter how exhilarating their commitment had been, part of her remained restless.
She loved him. She trusted him. But she didn’t know him the way an Indranan wife would know her husband.
“I don’t make idle promises,” she said, working to push those misgivings aside.
“I’m learning that.”
Stroking his stomach, she kissed his throat just below his stubbled jaw. “I love you.”
“I’ve said that before,” he said carefully, “but not to you.”
She elbowed up so she could look at him face to face. Her breasts pooled across his upper chest. Soft to hard. Heart to heart. “To her? Whoever she is?”
“Like a kid professing his love for an actress.” He waved one hand haplessly toward their entwined bodies. “How was I supposed to know?”
“Know . . .” Kavya tilted her head. That heart to heart was hammering now, tense and breathless—just shy of scared. “Know what?”
His blue eyes had never been clearer or more earnest. “What love is supposed to feel like. It feels like us, Kavya. I love you.”
Swallowing was impossible. So was knowing anything but the miracle of his words. She flung her arms around his head in history’s most haphazard hug. He rolled her again, both of them laughing and whispering words Kavya had never thought she’d hear. Love, commitment, the rightness of being together and the unconventional choice they’d made.
“But I’m not going to rest until you’re safe,” Tallis said. “There’s too much of me wrapped up in you. We won’t make choices born of fear. And I need to know who infected my brain all these years. I love you, but we’re not there yet. I can’t . . . settle. Do you feel that in me?”
Balancing her elbows on either side of his throat, she placed her palms flat against his cheeks. She’d done that from the first. It remained the surest way of reading him. “I can’t say I feel it so much as know it. You’re an honorable man, beneath all you’ve done. What you’ve done was in service of a higher, noble goal, no matter her slithering techniques.”
“Maybe. But then I think of the other people I’ve harmed, not just my niece. The other Dragon Kings I’ve killed. Some ends have been worth the means. Others . . . I don’t know whose ends they benefited. The greater good, or the person behind the voices and dreams?” The jaw muscles bunched beneath her palms. “I can’t live like that.”
“That’s what I know. Things are different now that you know the truth. I don’t sense it like a telepath might, skirting over thoughts or digging deeper in search of the truth. I don’t need that with you. You’re good. And within you is a beast that knows right from wrong. Between the both of you, you’ll set this to rights.”
He placed his hands over hers and squeezed her fingers. “My Kavya.”
“Yes.” She kissed him full on the mouth, giving him the emotion bubbling and fizzing through her body, infusing her heart with such clarity. “Yours.”
She lay against him, with her head cradled in that special spot where his shoulder hollowed in its sloping reach for his chest. Closing her eyes was . . . easy. With Tallis, she could sleep. It was another beautiful gift that she’d never thought possible for her. She was once-blessed. Never cursed. Together they would find a way to solve both of their problems and make a future with each other.
The last thing she heard in the quiet mist before sleep was the low, gentle rumble of Tallis’s soft snores—an audible reminder that she was exactly where she needed to be, where lassitude was welcome rather than something to be warded off at all cost.
Boneless.
Melting.
Dreaming.
Screaming.
She bolted upright and screamed again. The seaxes. She needed
them. Run. Where was she? Fight.
Strong arms clasped her upper arms. “Kavya, stop. Stop!”
The voice was deep and dear, but she couldn’t obey. She twisted and kicked. She saw only black, then red, then a familiar face dripping with blood.
“Chandrani!”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Tallis’s blood seized, frozen like a river during an Arctic winter.
Chandrani?
“She should’ve been back with her family,” he said. “You made sure of it. That’s what brought Pashkah down on us in Bhuntar.”
“I did.” Kavya’s voice was stripped. She vibrated beneath his hands, ready to hit him or run—either seemed likely. “But . . . I saw her beaten. She was stripped almost bare. Black Guardsmen had her.”
“Where? Back in the Panjal?”
For the first time since screaming them both to wakefulness, Kavya calmed somewhat. She turned. Her beautiful face was haunted by shadows, with sunken cheeks. Her focus was divided between Castle Clannarah and a distant place. She blinked, looked down at where he gripped her arms. “Tallis?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Where she is . . . I don’t know. But there was no snow. There was a—” She shook her head. “There was a tall . . . rock? It was covered in gray moss. I smelled salt.”
“We need more than that, goddess. Think hard. Go deeper. I know you can.” He pushed the hair back from her temples and held her head in his hands, cradling the place where she stored so many amazing gifts, the least of which was that bestowed by the Dragon. “Remember.”
“It was a dream. They go. It’s not real.”
Tallis made a frustrated noise. “They’re not real—most times. But they leave clues. Images and real things that follow you to waking. Follow those clues. The boulder, moss, and salt.”
She angled her neck so that her crown pressed against his chest. He continued to smooth her long, passion-tangled hair until she shuddered, then sucked in a fast breath.
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