Fuming, he crumpled the page. There were so many things he wanted to do right now that he’d regret later. He nodded tightly, holding back the sharper things he wanted to say, and glared at her. “Spare your judgment. I have enough of my own.”
The smile disappeared from her face. He turned to leave.
“Did Sir Jonathan Ver ever imagine he’d have to prostitute himself for the greater good?” she asked his back.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, stopping at the doorway before he left. “Sir Jonathan Ver is dead.”
Chapter 29
The morning heat of House Hazael had never been so sweltering. Sweat coated Rielle’s back, her waist, her hair. She opened her eyes, blinking away the light streaming through the latticed windows and the white gossamer of the bed’s canopy, then glanced down at the muscular arm around her.
It was her wolf who heated the bed to sultriness.
She rolled onto her back and glimpsed his slumbering face, light and shadow from the latticework casting an intricate pattern upon his deep bronze skin. The sun’s radiance caught in his long lashes, in the shine of his short, dark hair. At times like this, he looked like no more than a beautiful man, but as she surveyed him, she could see the wolf inside—the dormant power, the calmed beast, the quiescent darkness. The danger just beneath the surface made his beauty bewitching, a pleasing contradiction; countless lovers had fallen under its spell.
Her gaze traveled from his contented face down his powerful, naked body, covered only with the sheet that had separated them the night before. A flood of memories flowed through her—the way he’d watched her while smoking the waterpipe, how he’d looked for permission to touch her, how he’d kissed, how he’d moved…
And how he had respected her. Despite the circumstances, despite everything, he’d found a way to make the pretense seem real when he could have—
He stirred, and she blushed, embarrassed by where her gaze rested. She cleared her throat and melted back into the bed, into him, into his arms. He pulled her in tight, burying his face in her hair. Tucked into his embrace, she relished the smoothness of his skin and the hardness of his flesh. He held her close. So close. His cool breath on her sweat-soaked flesh made her shiver, her skin taut.
“I don’t want to leave here without you.” He kissed her ear. “Not for a day, not for an hour.” He pressed his soft lips to her neck.
“Shh.” She hadn’t expected anyone to come for her; Brennan’s appearance had been a jolting and amazing surprise, and now that he was here, she couldn’t fathom him leaving.
But he had to.
Just not at this moment. “Don’t speak. Not yet.”
He nuzzled her. “Why not?”
She closed her eyes, taking hold of his arms to pull them tighter around her. “Speaking means we’re awake, and I don’t want the night to be over yet.”
Morning meant returning to the villa at large, to being no more than a slave. She wanted the safe, soothing night with him to last. But already, the arcanir cuffs stung her wrists back to her depressing reality.
“Let me take you from here,” he said. “We can leave right now and never look back.”
It was a beautiful dream, but a dream was all it could be. They would never make it out alive, and even if by some small chance they did, the Hazaels would link her to Brennan and seek vengeance upon both their Houses. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I told you last night.”
The rumble of a growl served as his objection, and then he left the bed.
She sat up to follow him with her gaze as, entirely nude, he retrieved a tray from the hall and brought it to the bed. Her stomach growled, and she couldn’t decide whether to look at his pleasing form or the enticing offering he carried.
Complementing the usual baked flat bread, white goat cheese with black olives, and thick yogurt cheese with olive oil was an array of sweets rounding out the feast—sugary cheese pastries soaked in syrup, and spiced fritters.
Brennan looked at her with an expression not unlike pain as he set the tray upon the bed, then offered her a demitasse of aromatic coffee. What was that look? Bewildered, she accepted the coffee, eyeing the food hungrily while she sipped. He seated himself next to her and rested a hand on her thigh.
“Eat,” he said. “Please. I can see your bones.”
She turned to him then, and although he averted his gaze, she could see the dullness in his eyes. She’d eaten well as Farrad’s lover, but for months before that, she’d starved. She held out her arm and noted the protrusion at her wrist, the visible line of her forearm, and her bony elbow. She became aware of her own nakedness, and could—just barely—identify her ribs.
Carefully, she set the demitasse down on the tray and covered herself with the sheet, then feasted on breakfast. She stopped only to sip the coffee, its bittersweet taste enhancing her meal, then turned to the pastries. Their sweet cheese was a revelatory thrill, and the fritters, so like the beignets in Emaurria but flavored with saffron, cinnamon, and cardamom.
When she’d eaten her fill, she rested her hand on her knee, holding her sticky fingers away. He hadn’t moved. Why wasn’t he eating?
“Aren’t you hungry?”
With a dark look, he grasped her hand. Gasping, she watched him bring her fingers to his lips. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but as he took her fingers into his warm mouth one by one, the words died in her throat. His body came to life with arousal, and she swallowed.
Whatever had happened last night—the not-lovemaking—had changed something between them. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, but it was difficult to look at him now.
“Delicious.” He placed her palm on his thigh. The moment he did, her fingers couldn’t help but press into the firm flesh there.
She took off an earring and pressed its point into her palm until a bead of blood appeared. His eyes flashed from hazel to the wolf’s amber as he watched.
His control. He hadn’t asked for her blood, but he needed it, had needed it for months, and they’d both be safer tonight if she gave him her blood. It wouldn’t do anything until her arcanir cuffs were off, and then, their bond would return—she hoped.
She held her palm out to him, and he accepted it with both hands, raised it as he dipped his head down to kiss it. His lips met her skin first, then the warm, wet pressure of his tongue. A shiver rippled over him as he pressed harder, perhaps trying to coax out a little more of what he needed so much.
Something inside her unfurled, throbbed, and she closed her eyes, allowing in only the sound of needy breaths, the feel of his mouth on her flesh, the smell of sweet syrup. She could get lost in this. Forget everything else and lose herself in this moment, but…
What was she doing? Why? She loved Jon.
Jon’s marrying a princess. We can never be together. She shook off the thoughts.
Her eyes met Brennan’s as he slowly lowered her palm. What hid in their hazel depths? Desire, restraint, sorrow, frustration? Perhaps even…
Voices came from the hall. Their time together was quickly coming to an end.
He rose to dress. Every second watching him meant one second nearer to his departure, home slipping away from her grasp, and her chest hollowed at the thought. She wrapped her arms around herself.
She wouldn’t break.
She wouldn’t cry.
She would kill Farrad abd Nasir abd Imtiyaz Hazael and leave Xir and Sonbahar free.
The hospitality staff approached their room. Dressed, Brennan leaned in, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.
Although some part of her wanted to resist, another surrendered to him completely. The syrup and her blood still on his lips, he tasted sugary and coppery when his tongue slipped into her mouth; hot, wet, and urgent, his sweet violation coaxing desire from her perfidious body.
When he began to pull away, her lips brushed his once more, reluctant to part. Once he left, she might never see him again.
“I
will wait for you, hidden in the courtyard. Be merciless. Be safe. Come to me,” he whispered to her lips before drawing back. Her face in his hands, he looked at her one last time, moisture welling in his eyes, then tore himself away.
She stared at the empty doorway. As much as she had, at times, cursed the bond, cursed her lot, and cursed him, Brennan Karandis Marcel had claimed a place in her heart. Forever. He had tracked her all the way to Sonbahar, and some part of her knew it wasn’t just for his monthly control or for the sake of possibly breaking his curse.
Brennan loved her.
Since the night he’d given her the choice not to marry him in Melain, she had known it in her heart. And he’d come here to free her, to take her back to Emaurria, back to Courdeval, back to Jon.
Her face buried in his pillow, she breathed in the spice of his scent and stretched out across the bed to look at the floor. Jon’s letter was gone. Brennan had taken it with him.
Her spirits fell, but he’d done the right thing—if it were found on her person, her identity would have been revealed, Brennan’s complicity, and, perhaps, a weakness of the new Emaurrian king.
Still, she yearned to read Jon’s words again, to see his script again, to feel him near again. Every day away from him, her heart ached all the more. To see his face, to melt into his arms. She wanted to tell him how stupid she’d been, all that she’d done, to beg his forgiveness. If he’d but have her, she’d rejoice.
Make no mistake—he will ascend the throne and forget you between the thighs of many women. Then, he will wed a queen or a princess as kings do.
Shadow’s words on the Siren still haunted her. It was true that she could not hope to marry a king, especially not when the kingdom had so few allies. But she didn’t care about marriage. She cared about Jon and their daughter. About being together in any way they could.
She got out of bed, dressed in the entertainer’s garb, and headed to Ihsan’s solar.
As soon as she arrived, Ihsan’s head perked up from the table. Her gaze traveled the length of her body, and she covered her mouth. “Thahab, I—”
Rielle held up her hands and shook her head.
“Are you injured?”
“Let’s just forget last night,” Rielle said. In the event that Ihsan was less than forthcoming about her entire plan, better she not suspect anything about Brennan.
Ihsan looked her over but nodded. “Come.” Ihsan rose and gestured to the door. “It is a fateful day. It is time to prepare.”
At that, Ihsan led the way to her quarters. Once inside, she shut the door and locked it, then approached the trunk at the foot of her bed. From it, she pulled out a box and touched her hand to it. It glowed a faint white and opened.
The false arcanir bonds lay within, the ones she’d seen a couple days ago. Very dangerous in the right hands. Her hands. “And the brand?”
“Disturb it. It is like any other rune—disturb its pattern, and it will not work,” Ihsan explained. “Cut through it a few times and do not heal the wounds with magic until you can get a runist to alter the design to something innocuous.”
Doable. She glanced down at her wrists. “What about—”
Ihsan pulled out a pair of keys.
“How did you get those? I thought only the overseer had them.”
Her eyes downcast, Ihsan answered, “Grandfather has them, too. I… borrowed them.”
With that, Ihsan met her eyes and held out a palm. Rielle presented one wrist, then the other, and just like that, the arcanir was gone. Closing her eyes, she engaged the bond and sensed Brennan—not far, he bristled with impatience somewhere, but interest surged back to her through the connection. He knew she was free of the arcanir. Good. A surge of power flowed through to him—control, enough of it that he could safely conceal his beastly nature.
She examined her own palms, her own hands, her own wrists, anew. Gesturing, she clad her flesh in a flame cloak; it sparked to cover her fingers, then traveled up her hands and arms until her entire body shone radiant with fire.
The light reflected in Ihsan’s dark, gleaming eyes, which smiled as surely as her mouth did.
When Queen Narenian Sunheart received him, Leigh had struggled not to stare. The elven ruler was tall, with a large but slender frame, platinum blond hair falling straight and long past her hip. Her face was all angles, but refined with soft lips and sharp, silvery eyes, evocative of starlight and so unlike those of her people. Perched regally on the Treeburst throne, she was flanked by the imposing swirl of wood backing the massive bench she sat upon, easily as tall as three men. Atop her royal head, she wore an earthen crown, the likes of which only a tree-singer could have created.
Those all-knowing eyes had a coldness to them, less like a sage and more like the shelves of scrolls a sage’s knowledge came from. Cold, yes, but also hard to read. Jon wanted Immortal hunting squads and information to help Emaurria survive the upheaval of the Rift, but they had yet to learn what Narenian truly wanted. There was no way it was merely food, clothing, and friendship.
The reception had been formal and brief, with Queen Narenian sparing a few words and a nod to acknowledge him and his guards. Ambriel then led him to a tree, and up a stair winding around it, to the hollow where Leigh was to board. And he’d been left there for the night without fanfare. The paladins guarded his door in shifts, their own quarters nearby.
In the evening, he’d felt a strange presence reach out to him briefly but had otherwise remained undisturbed until the talks began the next day. Queen Narenian spoke Old Emaurrian herself and did not require a translator. They’d finalized matters of language learning, embassies, information exchange, food supply and cultivation assistance, and Immortal hunting squads, but some finer points remained.
Today, at a grown—not built—table, Queen Narenian maintained her royal poise, but the intimidating grandeur of the Treeburst throne was absent. Upon the table, too, was a token of compromise—not elven fare but Emaurrian, food the party from Courdeval had brought. Times in Vervewood had to be dire indeed to entertain an outsider with donated meals. The distant song of the tree-singers lulled, ever-present here.
But the show of level footing, compromise even, led Leigh to question what Narenian wanted. Power rarely negotiated from an appearance of weakness. The elven queen readily gave the thrill of victory—and it meant that soon, she would ask a deceptively small price.
“When we awoke, the plant life my people depended on for food was absent,” the queen said, breaking Leigh’s musing.
Perceptive.
He met her ghostly silver eyes and grinned. “I wondered about traditional elven foods.”
The queen’s gaze adopted a faraway quality. “Just as we took care of the land, the land took care of us. Our tables were once laden with its gifts—fruits, vegetables, meats, fish—but we did not use the fire as you humans do. Our food is pure, unchanged, preserving as much of its nutrition as possible.”
“Raw?” Leigh asked. His own native Kamerai was known for its raw fish dishes. “Some human cultures eat this way, but not exclusively, to my knowledge.” He looked at the table, full of cooked vegetables, grilled meats, stews, breads.
“I am certain that, after this, there will be some demand for Emaurrian cuisine,” the queen said with a smile.
Ambriel shot her a look from across the table. Indeed, some among the light-elves were already developing a taste for things Emaurrian.
Leigh suppressed a grin and returned his attention to the queen. “You mentioned some plant life being absent. If you have samples, however minute or deteriorated, a geomancer could spell new growth.” Is that what you want? Your world as you remember it?
Whatever she wanted, perhaps he could find a way to stack even more support against the Divinity while he was here, too. Since the Rift, a whole new world of potential enemies to the Divinity had awoken. He smiled inwardly.
The queen stiffened. “Truly?” She drew her eyebrows together. “Perhaps there are some preserved speci
mens.”
“Shall I order them found, Your Majesty?” Ambriel asked.
“At your leisure, brother.”
If he could hinge the elven alliance on the acquisition of mages, perhaps Jon could be swayed to break the Emaurrian Tower away from the Divinity. His new reign was the perfect time to offer new terms to Emaurria’s mages, and if the Divinity bristled, he had the paladins to withstand a conflict. It wouldn’t be a complete victory, but it would be a start.
And with the Immortals killing and destroying, Jon would no doubt be more receptive to uprooting the status quo.
“Tell me more about the journey here,” Narenian said.
To what end? Leigh was certain the queen had already heard the tale in a private briefing, had already asked the pertinent questions. Ambriel recounted the story of the wyvern, describing the battle in more detail than Leigh remembered, emphasizing Leigh’s bravery and power. The other light-elves at the table listened with interest but not shock, showing their approval with slight nods.
“I thank you, Ambassador Galvan,” Narenian said. “It seems my scouts returned whole, thanks to you.”
Flattery. Leigh lowered his head magnanimously.
“Before the Sundering, when our time broke, there were others like you,” Narenian said, taking a sip of water. “Do many humans still harness power from the Veins?”
“On occasion, although few succeed.”
Ambriel sat a little straighter at that, his focus intensifying.
“It was so during our time,” Narenian said. “But the few humans who did succeed became linked to the earth, capable of drawing upon its magic.”
Unsure of what to say, Leigh simply listened, glimpsing Ambriel’s intense expression.
“Although we desired a closer bond to the earth, no elves ever succeeded in such an endeavor,” Narenian revealed. “Have your human scholars come to understand the Veins better?”
Narenian wanted wild magic for her own people. For herself.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 29