And that left the mention of only one person. She rubbed the folded paper with reverence.
“Jon asked me to give you that when I found you.” Brennan’s voice was hollow.
Her heart weighed heavily. When she would tell Jon about this, she couldn’t guess his reaction. Her fingers trembled as she opened the note, her gaze drawn to the fine slope of his script.
Rielle,
I pray this letter finds you well.
By now, Brennan has found you. I am told that as king, I am the most powerful man in the realm and can do anything, yet I find many things I cannot do, chief among them leaving. I am told that, just by entering a foreign country, I could start a war.
I have faith in Brennan to find you, to do what I long to do but cannot. Trusting that faith is the only way I am able to stay and function here, when everything else in me demands I find you.
I don’t have the words to ask your forgiveness for not being there myself. In truth, I don’t expect it, and I wouldn’t deserve it. But I will await you here, your love or your indignation, forever if I must, so if nothing else, allow me the favor of looking upon your beloved face at least one more time.
I love you.
Yours,
Jon
Tears streaming down her face, she read the letter several times before Brennan snatched it from her grasp and covered her mouth. He cocked his head toward the hall, then hid the note among his clothes on the floor.
The patrol was coming, but all she could think about was Jon. He hadn’t ignored her. Hadn’t abandoned her. When she returned to Courdeval, she would tell him everything and beg his forgiveness.
Lying on his side, Brennan faced her and pulled her into his arms, an embrace not unlike that of a sleepy lover. His breath slow and steady, he seemed at ease, but the stiffness of his alert muscles hardened against her.
The patrol walked by, the guards’ footfalls sounding from the hall. As they passed, the tension lost its hold on Brennan’s body; the safety and warmth of him relaxed her to a state she hadn’t experienced since the eve of Monas Amar with Jon.
It was the familiarity of someone she knew. That was it. He’d come for her when no one else had.
But… How had he found her? She hadn’t thought to ask earlier because of the bond’s usual possibilities, but it occurred to her that he hadn’t been able to rely on it.
“Brennan,” she whispered, and he nudged her head softly. “How did you find me?” Her eyelids grew heavy.
“I’ll tell you after the party.” He kissed her neck softly, his lips a hot brand upon her skin. “Get some sleep tonight. I will watch over you.”
With a tired nod, she wrapped her arm around his and cuddled closer, catching the twinkle of the starry night sky through the lattices. She wished she could stop this moment in time and never wake to the nightmare of morning.
Chapter 28
Tugging his shirt sleeves nervously, Jon headed for the Grand Library. After his bath, his chamberlain had selected an ensemble that presented his physique to best advantage. Chagrined, Jon shook his head. His chamberlain had the unique ability to make him feel like no more than a very fashionable doll. He wore the tailored black leather doublet that had garnered so much attention a few weeks ago, a crisp white shirt, and fitted black trousers tucked into his knee boots. It had been some time since he had felt so on display—since Bournand. Since his time with…
He couldn’t even think her name. Not now. Thinking her name would somehow make her witness to this betrayal, and as reluctant as he’d been before, imagining her reaction would make him abandon this course altogether.
He had taken some time to think as he’d washed and dressed. With a heavy heart, he had agreed with Tor’s words. A king does what he must.
A separate matter.
He heaved a breath. For the sake of her father’s flotilla, he would convince this princess he might marry her. He would make her laugh, make her smile, make her forget all of this was a maneuver. He would play the part some of his tutors and lessons had been preparing him for, that of the consummate suitor, for as long he needed to.
For the sake of his kingdom, he would deceive and pretend, and hate himself, and keep doing it anyway.
Two guards snapped salutes as he approached the Grand Library’s massive double doors.
He walked in. Princess Alessandra stood in the center, wearing a red brocade gown that emphasized her slender figure, flanked by a tall window aglow with the afternoon sunshine. Upon his entrance, she turned her head and viewed him in profile. Her waves of dark hair were gathered in artful coils, secured high, with flowing ringlets guiding the eye to her shapely breasts and smooth, exposed back.
“Your Majesty.” She curtsied.
“Princess,” he greeted with his most pleasant expression. She allowed him to take her hand, and he brushed it with his lips. “You came.” He held her hand a little longer than custom dictated. In her other hand, she held a book entitled Masters of Sileni Architecture.
“It is a brazen woman who would ignore a king’s invitation.” She looked out at the snowed-in courtyard through the window, then spared him a sideways glance.
“And yet you decided to come.”
She shot him a quick smile. “I should be offended, Your Majesty.”
“But you’re entertained. A singular, if brazen, woman.”
Alessandra pursed her lips. “I see you.” She scrutinized him with her chestnut-brown eyes. “You are charming, Your Majesty, and light-hearted… but only on the outside.” Her gaze fell to his chest, right where, beneath his clothes, he wore the Laurentine signet ring. “Your heart belongs to another, and you are suffering terribly.” She was silent awhile. “You are a worthy man, Your Majesty, in many ways, but I do not wish to continue vying for your heart, when only its ruin is available.”
“A ruin, am I?” How had she seen right through him? But his role here and now was the gallant, not the confessor. He squinted and forced a rueful smile. “You wound me, Princess.”
Alessandra looked him over and gave a little shrug. “A very handsome ruin, but a ruin, nonetheless.”
He moved a step closer and leaned in. “Silen’s history is full of builders.” He tipped his head toward her book.
“A ruin is much easier to rebuild when it is abandoned,” she said, but her chest heaved quicker breaths. She glanced away, her gaze wandering back from time to time as she feigned interest in something beyond the window.
“Shall I take that to mean you are afraid of challenges?” He cocked his head.
Mouth open, she eyed him and set down the book. “Is your tongue as skilled in all else as it is in verbal sparring?”
Crossing his arms and leaning against the window frame, he replied, “Telling you would reveal the answer in the most unexciting way.”
Her eyes shined. “Then show me,” she said, her voice an octave lower.
It is a separate matter.
He swept her up and pinned her against the window, eliciting a soft gasp, but she lifted her chin, lips parted. He claimed her mouth, crushing her lips with his own, his hands gliding down her body to her waist.
Anything but her. Anything but her—
He instead focused on everything he could feel. The suppleness of her lips. The soft give of her body. The spiced argan scent of her hair. The subtle sweetness of her mouth. The mounting urgency of her breaths.
And she wasted no time, slipping her fingers into his doublet, unfastening, while her tongue sought his.
When she splayed his clothes open, he grabbed her and lifted her; her legs fastened around his waist, and her eager mouth took his once more. He moved to a table, threw all its items to the floor with a sweep of his arm, and lowered her to the surface. Raising her chin to expose her neck, he trailed kisses from her jaw to her collarbone while she tore at her gown’s laces.
A separate matter.
After he threw off his doublet, he lifted her high enough to grab the back of the gown and forc
e it open, eliciting a gasp with each rip of the brocade. With trembling hands, she wrenched the bodice down. He lavished her breasts with kisses as his fingers found the silken stocking covering her knee. Slowly, he smoothed a fingertip up her leg, raising her gown’s hem along with it, and she pulled open his shirt.
“Please…” She reached for his trousers, began unfastening.
And Terra have mercy, a part of him wanted her to.
A soft commotion came from the other side of the doors, but he ignored it, slipping his fingers into her silken underclothes.
“Your Majesty—” Olivia’s muffled voice from the hall.
Alessandra’s soft skin against his lips, he exhaled forcefully. “Not now,” he called out.
Alessandra raked her fingers through his hair, urging his face to hers. She assailed his mouth, devouring it with unrestrained need.
“It’s urgent!” Olivia shouted, and then a “Don’t touch me,” presumably to the guards. “It’s about the spiritualist!”
The spiritualist…
Rielle.
Olivia had managed to get the spiritualist here. He could finally get some answers about Rielle. He paused.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Alessandra hissed.
Rielle.
“I wish I didn’t have to, Princess,” he lied, breathing heavily over her. Well, not entirely a lie. Lust raged through him, demanded satisfaction, and he struggled to rein it in and regain control over his own body.
It was not a separate matter. The reward lust alone offered was illusive, a mere scrap of kindling compared to the wildfire of love. And he wouldn’t betray Rielle again—not unless he had no other choice. The Earthbinding weighed heavily enough already. There had been pleasure of the body in the act itself, but then a coldness, a shame, afterward. Regret. Remorse. Burying the man he had been—the man he wished to be.
No, this was pretense, no more than it needed to be, until duty demanded utter sacrifice.
At last, he sighed and pulled away. “Just a moment, Archmage Sabeyon,” he said, careful not to address Olivia by her first name in front of Alessandra.
Staring at the ceiling, Alessandra huffed, dragging her bodice up over her breasts. Quickly, he stuffed his shirt into his trousers, fastened them, and gathered up his doublet. Alessandra hopped off the table. She took his hand as he was about to throw on the doublet, then rose on her toes to kiss him—passionate, deep, needy. When she reached down to boldly tease him, he was of half a mind to throw her back onto the table.
No.
She pulled away and breathed against his lips. “You’ll think of me tonight.”
With that, clutching her bodice to her chest, she stood. He picked up his doublet and held it out for her; she put it on, draping one side over the other, and with a feline smile, walked away, her gaze lingering for a moment before she turned to the door.
His eyes followed her, and at the sight of Olivia scowling in the doorway, he sobered. Attired in a black velvet gown, her hair in a long, red braid adorned with a golden circlet, she appeared elegant, if stern. She exchanged a narrow look with Alessandra in passing, a brief but bitter smile flashing on her face; Alessandra must have grinned at her to elicit such a response.
The princess left, and Olivia turned her attention to him as he fastened his shirt.
“I would say I’m sorry to interrupt,” Olivia said as she approached, looking him over with a glare, “but I’d rather not lie.”
A grunted half-laugh escaping his lips. “Tell me what you truly think, Olivia.”
“I think you’re being an idiot,” she said, and when he raised his eyebrows, added, “Your Majesty.”
He cracked his neck. “An idiot?”
None of this was ideal, but the necessity of keeping Macario’s flotilla here—by Alessandra’s favor—had required a certain amount of lip service.
Her gaze flickered lower, then she looked away. “You did ask me to tell you what I truly thought.”
He righted his doublet. “By all means, enlighten me on my idiotic ways.”
Rolling her eyes, Olivia shook her head and turned back to the door. When she moved toward it, he followed. “I don’t think you can handle hearing it.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I couldn’t.” His chest tightened as they walked down the hall, flanked by his guards, to meet with the spiritualist. Finally. He felt the rumble of a winter storm on the edge of his consciousness and ignored it.
Olivia kept her gaze on the floor ahead of them. “You’re betraying who you are, and for what? To keep that tart of a princess from retreating back to her palace because she didn’t get to bed the king? What are all these dark deeds for? Who cares?”
“I have to care, Olivia. It is by dark deeds that this kingdom survives.”
“Forget about dark deeds. You’re about to secure an alliance with the light-elves, Your Majesty.”
A vein pulsed in his arm, and he flexed his fingers. “And what compelling information do you have that everyone else on my High Council seems to lack?”
“Did you see the way Leigh looked at that captain? He has a habit of getting what he wants, Your Majesty.”
He rolled his eyes. “It seems like you’re the only one willing to bet the security of the entire kingdom on Galvan’s ability to seduce a military officer of an immortal race, who may not even have the ear of his queen.”
Olivia let out a frustrated growl. “You’re complicating matters.”
“No,” he said, louder than he’d intended, “you’re simplifying them. And the question is why.” He inspected her through narrowed eyes.
“Because Leigh’s a wild mage and has been estranged from the concept of failure for as long as I’ve known him. He makes success look effortless,” she said. “You’re sacrificing and degrading yourself, for what? I’m trying to help you avoid making a huge mistake, Your Majesty.”
Jon clenched his hands. “Are you?” he asked, his muscles tense. “Or are you just jealous?”
Olivia stopped in the middle of the hall, her gaping face frozen, and she shivered. “I can’t believe you said that.”
Neither could he. He anchored a fist on his hip and palmed his forehead, rubbing it. This was quickly getting out of control. The cost his actions required haunted him, but the cost of inaction would haunt him more. He didn’t need that choice between a bad option and a worse option shoved in his face, not by Olivia, not by anyone—but she didn’t deserve his bitterness.
“I have never loved a man like I loved James,” she murmured, her voice uneven. “And you, my king, looking like him, laughing like him, reminding me of him every single day… must be some kind of punishment. But don’t you for one second think that because you remind me of him, you are him.”
He met her livid green eyes. “Forgive me. I… I don’t know what’s come over me.”
Olivia’s intensity faded. “It’s who you are around those royals, Jon. That heartless, cocky, devil-may-care king—whoever he is—is slowly taking over.”
The king was taking over, and the kingdom needed him. And Jon couldn’t stop him.
No… he wouldn’t. The man he’d been was already buried. “I appreciate your concern—”
With a dismissive wave of her hand, she rolled her eyes.
He took her waving hand, and she jumped but did not pull away.
“No, Olivia, I really do.”
She looked away for a moment, then glanced back, her cheeks reddening.
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you, and I’ll mind that in the future. But there will be things I’ll do that you won’t approve of, and although I’ll be glad for your counsel, if I do not heed it, you’ll accept that.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I understand.”
With a temperate nod, he released her. After a moment’s quiet introspection, she continued down the hallway, and he followed the path to her study.
A shiver worked its way down his spine, but he took a deep breath and composed himself. The spirituali
st would have answers. Rielle was alive. And gods above, when he learned where she was, king or no, he’d go after her.
Olivia opened the large, azure-blue doors to the Magic Library. It was immense, housing thousands of arcane tomes in dozens of languages. The colorful spines lent the quiet place a bright cheer, some wear revealing the age of the knowledge contained within—some as old as a thousand years or more, carefully preserved both by magic and conventional means. Tufted armchairs and great, carved tables awaited research and leisure, bearing the images of beasts once thought to be no more than myth.
As they passed by a massive cedar table, he ran a finger along the ornate dragon carved into its surface. Before the Rift, this had been the kind of dragon Emaurrians could imagine in their country. Carved. A work of whimsical art.
There had been reports now, however, of large airborne-creature sightings, dragons among them. And he’s seen one himself by the Brise-Lames.
Let them stay aloft. And away from his people.
Olivia strode to her study at the end of the room. Numerous shelves of jarred powders, fluids, and various substances trimmed the room. A long table bearing alchemical contraptions spanned its length, all manner of alembics, retorts, ambices, and cucurbits of glass, metal, and ceramic set in various stages of experimentation. Books, papers, and models filled almost every available space. And, in the middle of it all, an elegant desk, with books stacked a dozen high and a collage of papers obfuscating its wooden surface. Beneath his booted feet, a green-and-gold geometric-patterned Sonbaharan rug softened the room, a conspicuous burn mark blackening the edge nearest the alchemy station.
He looked around the room but found no one else present. Perhaps he and Olivia were early, the spiritualist yet to arrive.
Olivia rounded her desk and sat down with a sigh. She scattered the papers on her desk, then singled one out. With an expectant smile and brows raised high, she held it out to him.
He examined the note. “A list of items to prepare, an arrival time…” His teeth clenched. “You could have given this to me at any time, but you chose to interfere in the Grand Library?”
She crossed her arms. “Aren’t you glad I did, before you did something you’d regret?” she asked, her voice lofty.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 28