by Terah Edun
Jason grunted. “Lass, if you mean you weren’t supposed to be stealing into a duke’s villa in the dead of night, I’d agree with you. If you meant that you weren’t supposed to turn the court on its head, yes, I’ve heard of your exploits, then I’m quite glad your life isn’t how you planned it to be.”
Ciardis was silent. She didn’t feel like explaining the storm of emotions in her heart right now. Partially because she might end up putting a blade through Sebastian’s shoulder if she did. She wasn’t fool enough to try to kill him. She was sure he had a perfectly rational explanation.
He always does. The echo of her voice in her head sounded painfully sad even to her.
Hurting him like he was hurting her felt justified. But acting irrationally at the moment did not. So she let out a frustrated sigh, tightened her hand on her glaive and watched Thanar descend on the winds. If thoughts of shooting the other irritating male in her life out of the sky crossed her mind, she didn’t voice them.
Chapter 4
When he was two city blocks away, Thanar banked his wings so they flowed behind him in an elegant sweep. He came towards them prepared to land as he dove down in a controlled descent. Even now she envied his grace. She couldn’t mount a horse without falling flat on her bum. Flying was worse. It made her feel like a sack of potatoes. In contrast, Thanar looked like a dancer in the air. He had long ago outdistanced the two forms flying behind him and now he floated just above the stone of the rooftop. He didn’t land. Instead he hovered with the power of his magic, calling in dark winds to hold his form aloft as he spread his black wings majestically.
He was silent for a moment. Like an avenging god hovering over them all, with wings that she knew from experience felt like smooth leather to the touch and spread out like a delicate copy of a bat’s wings behind him. She also knew from experience that those wings were quite capable of taking some damage. The same kind of damage that an irate dragon could inflict. They might look fragile but his flesh was quite resilient.
As her gaze flicked from the expansive wings to the central figure between them, she noted with dark amusement that his chest was bare again.
He seems to enjoy the no-clothes thing. Even furious with him, she couldn’t say he didn’t look great in his chosen au naturel state. Then she looked at his crossed arms with a frown. His muscles bulged, but that wasn’t what she was looking at. For the first time, Ciardis noticed tattoos on his upper arms.
No, not tattoos. Those are sigils. Emblazoned on his flesh, she thought.
For a moment, Ciardis wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Sigils were arcane magic. They were an ancient script that not many of the kith races remembered, let alone the human mages who were forbidden from learning the art of the arcane. What little she knew about them she had garnered from watching Thanar at work. The sigils were used by daemoni mages to conduct their power. She knew it was supposed to be a very visceral experience to call them up. Unlike human mages who used knowledge-based magic to focus their rituals through chants and practiced techniques, daemoni mages used their emotions to form their greatest and deadliest works of magic. Their passion became emotions, their emotions became thoughts, their thoughts became symbols, and then their symbols became sigils. She had seen the sigils called on solid objects and in the air. But in the flesh of a living being? Never.
Which was why Ciardis was wondering why she hadn’t seen them on Thanar before. She stared at the symbols of darkness that lay like black clean lines on the pale white of his flesh. But there was nothing simple about them. They glimmered and shifted like eels on his arms. Even from a few feet away Ciardis could feel the power radiating from them like the heat of fire. One she didn’t want to touch. Because this fire wasn’t one of warmth and safety. It promised dark depths, heated brimstone, and a danger in a way that she had yet to experience.
Then Sebastian cleared his throat. “You just going to hover there?”
The snap in his voice hinted at irritation.
Thanar said, “Yes. I have to wait until those creatures catch up. There’s no reason to land and re-launch if I can help it.”
Sebastian snorted. “Right.”
Ciardis reached out to Sebastian’s arm. It was more for a touch of reassurance than anything else. Better the evil she knew than the one she didn’t. Both males had their power latched around her mage core, but out of the two Sebastian won her trust more. She knew that Sebastian had and would betray her for honor and empire, but at least he wouldn’t roast her over a dark god’s fire and cackle while he did it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere with the daemoni prince. Ally or not. He might have saved their lives numerous times but he’d killed just as many people in a blink of his carnelian eyes. He was cold, calculating, and brutal. If Thanar was crafting sigils and conjuring dark winds with a snap of his fingers, that was trouble. Trouble with a capital T.
Before she could speak, Thanar spoke to her. “Something the matter, Ciardis?”
Ciardis might have been a touch frightened, but she was no coward. She had never let fear rule her actions and she wouldn’t start now. Besides, she had the sneaking suspicion that the smug bastard was mocking her.
One confirmed when she caught the slight tilt of his mouth into a smile when she stared at his lips. She didn’t know why, but she refused to look into his eyes. Call it superstition. Call it wariness. But the old wives’ tale that a daemoni mage with the power to conjure sigils also had the power to enrapture with their minds was foremost in her thoughts. Better safe than sorry. So she picked a spot on his face, just to the left of his nose, and kept her determined gaze squarely there.
“Just wondering what you’ve been up to.”
If Thanar noticed her odd concentration on his cheek, he didn’t say anything.
He shrugged. “You mean in the hours since our separation? Killing some guards. Getting the hell out of the villa.”
She couldn’t help it. She quickly glanced up and away. Not meeting his eyes but assessing them. She wasn’t as good at reading the daemoni prince’s emotions but it was as clear as day. Amusement glinted in his eyes.
“Funny,” said Sebastian. He sounded irritated but not alarmed. Which he should be. Very alarmed. Her mind went cold. She hadn’t been referring to Thanar’s extended stay inside the villa. From the look in his eyes, Thanar knew it. She knew it. The question was...why didn’t Sebastian?
“Oh,” she said carefully. “It looked like more than that to me.”
“Yeah, those blasts were intense,” concurred Sebastian without catching on to the undercurrents of the conversation.
“Wasn’t my doing,” Thanar said while looking over at Sebastian with a hint of mockery in his eyes.
This time she wasn’t going to mince words. This dance around the subject wasn’t to her taste. Especially when it felt like Sebastian was the butt of an unspoken joke.
Catching Thanar’s expressive eyes, she felt a gasp escape her mouth unwillingly. It wasn’t a gasp of passion. It was a murmur of controlled astonishment. The sigils weren’t just emblazed into his flesh. She felt their power radiating from his eyes.
She felt drawn to it. In the swirl of arcane magic in his eyes was a promise. A promise of shared power, shared gifts. Ciardis lifted a hand as if to grab hold of the daemoni prince before her.
She dropped it. One word came from her mouth. “How?”
He smiled. He said nothing.
She shuddered. The sigils were powerful symbols written with magic which could do anything from opening a gateway to a god to destroying a dragon with a net of fire. She had experience with both instances unfortunately. Thanar had conjured both of those sigils with her help, the former with her willing help and the latter without it.
To be fair, she thought, he did save my life the second time.
But that didn’t mean she trusted him. Besides as she recalled he was saving his own butt in the process. As she eyed the arrogant daemoni prince standing before them on the air, she th
ought about what this meant. She had no illusions. Thanar did nothing without a reason behind it that furthered his goals. So far whatever his goals were, she hadn’t liked them. Being bound to a crazy destructive-god worshipping daemoni prince was not her idea of a good time. Ever.
Then she frowned. Something was happening. The sigils began to lighten. From a dark inky black to a charcoal gray. They grew progressively lighter by the second.
Thanar raised a curious eyebrow as if questioning her fascination with his form. Ciardis ignored his gaze as she watched as the sigils disappeared before her eyes. Then when his flesh was clear of any markings, a white tunic appeared. Neatly buttoned to mid-stomach, and it even had sleeves. The damn thing covered his entire upper body. The dark aura surrounding him also dampened. It was like the whirlpool of power that Thanar represented had disappeared in moments. Instead a wolf in sheep’s clothing stood before her eyes.
Make that a tiger in wolf’s clothing, she thought wryly. There was never anything fragile about Thanar. Sigils or no sigils.
“Yes, Ciardis?” said Thanar’s silky voice.
Ciardis almost cursed. Was she seeing things? What had just happened?
Deciding a second opinion couldn’t hurt, she reached for Sebastian’s mind.
Ciardis whispered, What do you see when you look at Thanar?
To his credit, Sebastian didn’t question her motives. He also didn’t hold back his critique.
A douche in a billowy tunic and black leather pants, was his answer.
Ciardis nearly choked on her answer. Is that all?
Yes, was there supposed to be something more? A leather vest, perhaps?
The sarcasm was thick in Sebastian’s tone. He still hadn’t gotten over her kissing the other male. To be fair, she hadn’t gotten over it either. Although she hoped it had been settled after she’d told Thanar he held no interest for her and she told Sebastian she loved him. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that it wasn’t anywhere near finished.
No, she replied, just checking.
Sebastian didn’t bother responding. A soft annoyance radiated from him. The kind of annoyance that was indicative of an upset lover put out that her attention was drawn to someone else. She almost sighed in irritation. Sometimes Sebastian was wise beyond his years. When he took up some of his princely duties was generally when that wisdom took precedence. But Sebastian could just be such an idiot boy sometimes. Granted, he was sixteen, but when she was sixteen she’d had two jobs, lived on her own, and was putting plans in place to woo her future husband. She had had the responsibilities of a poor woman facing a life of drudgery. He had had the responsibility from birth of a young man born to rule an empire. But it wasn’t just those circumstances that made them so different.
She would have thought that his upbringing would have instilled a more polished veneer to his character. But apparently being a prince didn’t negate jealousy. Still if the responsibility of Sebastian’s station wasn’t enough to force him to act like a mature adult, men in Algardis reached majority at fifteen and a half. They could marry, own land, start businesses, and even join the imperial army at that age. So he wasn’t really a boy. He was a young man and should act accordingly. Which meant that Sebastian had no excuse in her mind for being petty and sulking.
He hadn’t been this angry when they were facing Jason alone, she thought with a sigh. Nice to know what gets him riled up.
She angrily tossed her hair behind her. Refusing to bring her hand up to shade her eyes from the glare of the rising sun behind Thanar. The daemoni was giving her a crick in her neck from just floating there. From the smirk on his face, he knew it too.
Of course he does, she thought ruefully as she took in the new white tunic that had appeared before her eyes like magic but apparently had always been present in Sebastian’s. She wondered what that meant. Wondered if Thanar knew she could see through his illusion spell and see the dark sigils they hid on his skin. She wondered if he cared. From the smirk that graced his face, she decided he didn’t. Now the shirt opened on his stomach—pale, scarred, and yet still beautiful. When she looked back up at his eyes they took on the appearance of dark carnelians that sparkled in his face in a way she’d never seen before. As if flecks of gold were spread throughout the dark brown of his irises. His hair, ebony like a raven’s wings, floated around his shoulders. She noted with surprise that it had grown out.
That was fast, she thought. Ciardis knew that a group of men from Sebastian’s troops had hacked away the daemoni prince’s hair as well as beat him in retribution for what he had done on the battlefields of the north. Then they had put him in a cage. To be fair, the cage part had been justified. It was the actions that immediately proceeded it and the filthiness of the confines that had tugged at Ciardis’s heart. Mainly, the men’s retribution had come about because Thanar had refused to die even after they had executed him for murdering the Sanctuary kith. Or rather they tried to kill him. With an arrow that went straight through his heart.
Now his black hair floated about his face in waves. It was pretty enough that she wished she could run her fingers through it.
Then warmth spread through her chest. She suddenly had the overwhelming desire to run to Thanar. Again. For the second time in less than ten minutes, she wanted to reach up and slide her hands from the edge of his sculpted shoulders, up the breadth of his neck, and through his falling hair.
When those feelings overtook her that was when Ciardis examined her motions with shock. This wasn’t like her...at all.
She felt anger and horror flow like molten lava through her veins. Because she had never felt like this before and she knew it wasn’t a natural occurrence for her. Not with Thanar. Besides she didn’t entertain the foolish whims of a woman in love...or lust. She never had.
A shocked intake of breath later, Ciardis knew what he had done.
Chapter 5
Ciardis realized it wasn’t her desire to hold the daemoni prince in her hands. It was his twisted desire to see her in his arms that was flowing through her. She could feel his emotions like an undercurrent in her head. Like a small stream of thought it flowed deep in her mind, just below the raging river of thoughts and emotions she could feel constantly emanating from Sebastian. Sebastian had yet to turn off their connection. If he ever intended to at all. With her focus on the overflow of thoughts and feelings from him, she had missed the smaller influx that had craftily flowed through her mind like a spider working on a web before the trap was set. Even now she wasn’t overtly conscious of Thanar’s mind unless she focused on him.
What is going on? she thought in horror.
We’re bonded, Thanar answered.
What do you mean we’re bonded? We’re not bonded! Whatever that was, it wasn’t a bond, she said.
She knew if she said enough times it would become true.
At this point, Ciardis knew she was rambling but she couldn’t stop. I know what a bond feels like. I know what I feel. Pushing your feelings ahead of my own isn’t a bond. It’s mind-rape. Get out. Stay away from my feelings and my emotions. You can’t make me love you.
Thanar didn’t even bother to contradict her. Because he couldn’t. One benefit to linking to someone else’s mind, was being able to see their thoughts before they spoke them. It was almost impossible to lie to the other person. Ciardis could feel Thanar’s contempt, but she also knew what she had said was true. Now that she realized that he was an undercurrent in her mind as well as connected to her power, she would use that to her advantage. Mind bonds weren’t a one-way street. Therefore she knew that there wasn’t one word that he could issue through his lips to placate her and not have it be a lie. But she also was aware of the horrifying satisfaction in his mind. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that he had upset or morally misused their mind link because he had gotten what he wanted. He had manipulated her emotions and forced her to feel what he wanted her to feel, and not a drop of remorse clouded his mind.
His selfishness was
astonishing. More importantly, she wanted to know how this false bond was happening and why. There was only one other time that Thanar had spoken into her mind and had been able to use his gifts to sync with her own powers so simultaneously.
Her mind flashed back to the time that they had flown in the skies together.
She felt Sebastian’s unease through their bond. Ciardis?
She realized abruptly that Sebastian couldn’t understand the storm of emotions running through her head because of Thanar. He just felt her emotions skyrocket with no corresponding source of concern appearing in front of him. In his eyes, she was having a panic attack for no apparent reason.
He wouldn’t know, said Thanar smugly. You and I are bonded on a separate link. He can’t hear what he can’t feel.
“Interesting,” Ciardis muttered aloud, her heart pumping a mile a minute. She really needed to figure out who could and couldn’t access her mind quickly. And what’s more she needed to do it fast. She’d gone over the lessons she had had with Lady Maree Amber over and over again in any spare moment she could after the warehouse incident. She was desperately trying to cut off access to her mind but shielding wasn’t working as well as she’d hoped.
It wouldn’t, seeing as it’s not supposed to be used against bond mates, Thanar said.
Ciardis was heartily tempted to ignore him. Out of sight, out of mind kind of thing. But she couldn’t. She needed answers and right now he could give them.
Reluctantly, she said, Sebastian can block me. So your argument is invalid.
Amusement wafted through their bond before he deigned to answer. I said bond mates, not bonded idiots. Two different concepts. Two different connections.
Ciardis’s shoulders tensed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She would deny a bond with Thanar to her last breath if any soul asked her. But she couldn’t deny that he had both a link to her power and the key to enter minds at will. If she wanted to shut off either of those connections, she needed information.