by K. A. Linde
“I assume you’ve had a trying time. Should I show you to your rooms?” Kael asked.
“I learned my lesson about allowing you to escort me to my rooms a long time ago,” she said, reminding them both of the time he had tried to take advantage of her on the night of her Presenting ball.
Kael bristled at her tone and stepped toward her. She stilled and took a quick breath, as his nearness made her want to edge toward him.
“We must be on our way.” His eyes crawled over her body. “And you require some freshening up.”
Cyrene stood ramrod straight and glared at him. Of course she looked like a wreck. Hurricanes and dungeons had that tendency. She humphed and then strode past him, in the direction from where he had originally come. Kael chuckled softly and then followed behind her. As soon as her feet hit the stairs to go below decks, the ship came to life above her. It was as if every sailor had been waiting for their cue to begin.
The one problem was that the ship was as massive on the inside as it looked on the outside. The first set of stairs led her on a long corridor, and there seemed to be many more sets of stairs to bunks and stores and ammunition and more below. She would never find her room at this rate. And she desperately needed somewhere to be alone with her thoughts.
“Are you going to allow me to help, or are you just going to walk around, dressed like that, with a ship full of military-trained sailors ogling you?” Kael asked from directly behind her.
She could sense him even before she had heard his voice. If she backed up a step, she could press herself against him and feel that electric pull take over.
Kael took that step for her, and suddenly, his solid chest was against her back. His hand fell to her waist. He seemed to breathe her in. And all she could do was stand there and shiver. Because just that one touch jolted her system, yet, at the same time, it made her completely forget where her mind had been spinning toward. And forgetting felt so nice. So wonderfully nice.
“Well?” he breathed.
“My rooms,” she said softly.
He turned her around to face him and took her hand in his own. “Ah, yes. Now, this is much better.”
Her eyes were hazy as she stared up into his beautiful face. Deadly but beautiful. “What is?”
“I do love how feisty you are, Cyrene,” he said, pressing a lock of matted hair back from her face. “But I never thought how much I would adore you…pliant.”
A voice in her head told her to say, Well, don’t get used to it, but she didn’t. She didn’t say anything. Her mind succumbed easily to nothingness.
She just followed Kael down the long hall and to the end of the row. He opened a door for her, and she walked easily inside.
The room was as immaculate as anywhere she had ever stayed while traveling with Edric. Lush and overdone, as was the Byern style. She had gotten used to the simplicity of Eleysian clothing and decorations…the simplicity of it all.
She tried to force the thoughts aside. Thinking of Eleysia was dangerous territory.
And the pain of it all snapped her out of whatever numbness she had been feeling.
She whirled to face him. What had Kael done to me?
“Is this what you want?” she asked. “Pliant? You never seemed the type.”
“I’d prefer to have you naked on my bed.”
Cyrene rolled her eyes. “Well, nothing has changed then.”
He bristled. “Hasn’t it?”
His magic filled the room, practically choking her. She could feel it all around her, touching her skin, pushing through her hair, and obstructing her vision. It cleared away almost instantly.
“Oh, yes, you have all this new dark magic now,” she said. Cold, emotionless.
She stalked toward him but found herself held in place. She had thought he had eliminated all of his magic, but she was encased in something. She couldn’t move a muscle. She couldn’t feel a thing. Her magic was on the fritz, but still, she pushed at the bounds of whatever held her. How is he even capable of this?
“Let me go,” she commanded through gritted teeth.
His fingers caressed her cheek. “Magic is neither good nor bad, dark nor light, Cyrene,” he said with that same sly grin she had grown accustomed to. “It is how you use it that defines you. Not how it uses you.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” she said. Her eyes were on fire. “After you let me go.”
He twirled his wrist, and all restraints were eliminated. She stumbled forward into him, and he easily caught her.
“It could have been fun, you know.”
“Ugh!” she groaned. “Get off of me. That is never happening.”
She glared up at him with all the pent-up anger from her journey to Eleysia at her fingertips. She had been hunted by Indres, kidnapped by Leifs, had to rescue her friends from soldiers, escaped the Aurum court on Dean's vessel, found Matilde and Vera and finally having someone to train her with her magic. Only to have that all ripped away when Maelia had murdered the king and queen. To have Dean ripped away.
She winced and stepped away from Kael. She couldn’t—no, she wouldn’t think about Dean. Creator only knew what dark tunnel that would lead her to.
Kael seemed surprised that she’d backed down, but truthfully, she was exhausted. There was no escape from this place and certainly not in her condition. She was terrified to return home to Byern, but it made her wonder how Kael got away with it…with magic. Byern was sworn to eliminate all magic. There hadn’t been any in two thousand years after Viktor Dremylon killed the love of his life, Domina Serafina. The Doma had fallen, and magic had been wiped out.
How had Kael kept it a secret?
“I see that you need to rest. We have a long journey ahead of us, Cyrene,” he said with a small mock bow. “Perhaps I can answer all of those questions swirling in your eyes at another time.”
She reached for the wall that kept intruders out of her mind and found she didn’t have the strength for it. Creator!
She didn’t know if Kael was able to enter her thoughts, but the way he had so easily held her before without her even feeling it worried her.
He laughed, as if he could indeed read her thoughts and found what she was considering amusing. “Don’t worry. I have always been able to read your thoughts.”
“Stay out of my head,” she snapped.
“I never have to get in your head. If someone knows you well enough, Cyrene, as well as I do, they can see your thoughts clearly for themselves.”
He grasped her hand. She tried to yank it back, but he wouldn’t let her. She felt all the passion and desire and aching for him rush through her body, like she had that day on the docks. That zap and electricity that generated between them at a mere touch. The feeling she had gotten just from being near the ship he was on. It pulsed through her like a living, breathing dragon desperate to fly free.
“Stop using your magic on me,” she spat.
He grinned then, slow and purposeful. “So, you do feel it then?”
Her head felt heavy, and she realized she was leaning toward him. “Feel what?”
“Good,” he said, abruptly breaking the contact.
He turned and strode to the door, leaving her utterly clueless and a bit light-headed.
“What did you do to me?”
Kael had his hand on the door. “I will have a bath drawn for you.”
And, with that, he left the room.
She picked up the nearest object—a small, circular candleholder—and flung it at the door. It shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor. Cyrene stared down at the broken shards of glass scattered across the floorboards. Broken and hopeless and never able to be put back together.
That was how she felt. She was the fragments of glass. Her fury was there, only to mask her grief, but reaching down and touching the pain within her that mourned the loss of her best friend—no. She would never go there. She would build a brick wall with a moat around that place and raise the drawbridge. She couldn’t f
all apart now.
Her very life depended on it.
Kael Dremylon saw that she was cracked. He could force her to do whatever he wanted to. And she needed to figure out how he was capable of it. Her magic was bleeding, but it was still there. When she had started the hurricane after making love to Dean and then used all her magic to stop it right after, against all odds, she hadn’t burned out.
Anyone else would have.
Her magic might be in protest, but it was still there.
She would figure out a way to stop this.
Cyrene didn’t know how many soldiers it took to draw and heat a bath for her, but by the time it was finished, she really didn’t care. A ship might not be the best place to take a long, luxurious bath, and she certainly wouldn’t get to fully relax until she was back in Byern. As long as they didn’t prosecute her for witchcraft. But this would do.
It was a large white claw-foot bathtub with the fresh scent of roses wafting from its depths. With all the grime and salt caked into her skin, she wasn’t sure if she would ever feel clean again. But she would give it a good try.
She hastily stripped out of the ragged dress that she had been wearing and piled it onto a stool. Then, she dipped her toes into the steaming water to check the temperature before dropping her whole body into it. She sighed with pleasure. The first pleasure she’d had since that fateful day that changed everything. Ruined everything.
Her heart constricted, and she forced her eyes shut. Thinking about it all would only overwhelm her. Wondering why would only suffocate her.
Perhaps she would never know true luxury and pleasure again. It would always be marred by an open wound that would never heal. A crack in the facade that she could never patch.
With force, she grabbed the soap and scrubbed her body clean. Removing every last reminder of that dreadful day, every last recollection of what her body had endured, and every single last memory that would come back to crush her. When she was finished, her skin was as pink as a newborn baby.
She felt like a new woman.
A different woman.
She had walked into the Nit Decus castle in Byern almost a year ago with no other desire in her heart than to become an Affiliate and, ultimately, the Consort. Her goals had changed exponentially since then. Between the discovery of her magic and all the broken hearts, she felt like she had aged a decade rather than a single year.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and sank back into the tub until her hair was completely covered. She sat there until the water turned lukewarm, verging on flat-out cold. Her teeth were chattering, and she wished she had her magic. She certainly hadn’t mastered fire yet. Water was the only element she had any control over. She hesitantly reached for the powers just to see if they were there. The water heaved over the side of the tub and soaked the flooring.
She cursed noisily and sat up. She was never great at using magic without Avoca, but with her magic on the fritz, even attempting something so small, she messed up. All she wanted was for the water to heat up.
As soon as she had the thought, the surface of the water actually froze under her fingertips. On instinct, she screamed and jumped up out of the tub. Little crystalized pieces of ice fell off her bare shoulders and fell to the floor just as the door flew inward.
“Are you all right?” Kael asked at once. His eyes were wide, and his sword was out.
And Cyrene stood there, stark naked.
His sword arm dropped, and he stared. She was sure that this was the last thing he had expected.
She scrambled for a towel on the bench and wrapped it around her body. “What are you doing in here?”
“You screamed,” Kael said. His eyes were still roaming her body, as if the vision of her naked figure would be forever branded on his retinas.
“Yes, because the water was cold! Not because I needed help.”
“How was I to know the difference between your screams?”
“Well, you claim to know me! Figure out my screams.”
His smile was wicked. “I’d like to.”
She shook her head and huddled deeper into the towel. She was shaking slightly from the chill of it all. The cold had gone straight to her bones.
“Why must it always come back to this?” she asked in frustration. If she was going to have to be here with him for who knew how long before she got back to Byern, she wanted to get this sexually charged conversation out of the way.
“Because you’re a beautiful woman who is attracted to me.”
“I am not,” she spat furiously.
Okay. Kind of a lie. Kael Dremylon was…gorgeous. Even with his more sinister, dark undertones, he was still shockingly attractive. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be with him.
“Cyrene, you have been lying to yourself from the day you met me.”
“The day I met you, you tried to force yourself upon me.”
“Your version of history is amusing,” he said.
“My version?”
“Indeed.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Kael stared at her with a cocked eyebrow and a silent smirk. He made her feel as if she were somehow missing an inside joke in all of this. Then, he placed his hand on the tub. The ice thawed and melted, and suddenly, steam was billowing out of the tub once more.
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”
Her eyes narrowed at the insinuation, even as her cheeks heated. Though she wanted to blame it on the steam, she knew it was because there was an inexplicable electricity between them.
Then, he disappeared back through the door from where he’d come.
There wasn’t anything in the small bathroom to fling at his exposed back as he exited other than the towel wrapped hastily around her body. When he closed the door, she dropped it and immediately hopped back into the tub. She could enjoy the heat he had given her, even as she puzzled over what he had said and how he had heated the tub.
What version of history had he been referring to? She remembered perfectly well what had happened that night. She would make him tell her. Though…she didn’t know how to do that at this point.
She hated to admit it, but Kael Dremylon had the upper hand.
It made her grit her teeth in frustration. No matter what her traitorous body felt in his presence, he was her enemy. After what had happened on the docks, how could she think otherwise? Not to mention, she knew all-too well what the cost of the magic he possessed was.
She shivered again, as if the water had iced over.
When she had been shipwrecked on the beach with Dean, another vision of Serafina had come to her. She had watched as Viktor Dremylon murdered his firstborn daughter and used a spell to gain dark blood magic. Then, he had bound himself to Serafina for all of eternity.
Cyrene’s head spun as it all came back to her so quickly. What kind of powers did it give someone to take magic from murder? How did it corrupt them? And was that how Kael had achieved his own powers?
She might be relishing in his warm bath, but that didn’t mean this was all okay. It was far from okay. Because, if what she had seen from her vision was correct, then Kael had murdered someone.
The thought chilled her completely, and she gave up on enjoying the rest of her bath. She hurried back out and wrapped herself in a fluffy towel. She found a comb resting on the counter and dragged it through her knotted hair. It took forever before it was in one long mass down her back. She pulled it all to one side and then plaited it simply. In dismay, her eyes turned to the dress she’d been wearing. She didn’t have any other clothes.
With a huff, she left the bathing chamber and entered the thankfully empty living quarters. She rummaged through a wardrobe and found that Kael had actually accounted for her stay. She’d thought he’d have relished in the fact that she’d have had to be naked around him all the time.
Pulling a shift over her head, she climbed into the enormous bed stuffed full of the softest goose down. She tried to bring up
some kind of shield to keep Kael out, but it was no hope. She didn’t think she could hold a shield like that in her sleep even if she knew how to conjure it. And beyond that…Kael had more power than her at the present moment. If she put up resistance, he could probably slice through it like butter.
She was too tired to figure out an alternative option. As soon as her head sank back into the pillow, she promptly fell asleep.
Time was a wily beast.
It stole. It destroyed. It healed.
Constant and immovable.
And each day brought a new morning.
Time was dependable. And only time could move the world forward.
Time had slipped away from Cyrene. It was a thief in the night, scrubbing away the hours and leaving her disoriented.
At first, all she could feel was the soft bed beneath her body. For a moment, she thought of Dean. Lying against his chest, waking in the morning with his arms wrapped tightly around her, knowing that another night had passed. Another night closer to their wedding.
Then, another second ticked by, and that memory stabbed her in the chest. There would never be another morning like that. There would never be another dawn with Dean. There would never be another moment in Eleysia. For she was bound to Byern. And always would be.
Her eyes flew open, and she scrambled across the bed in horror. Her hand touched her mouth…and Kael Dremylon’s eyes slowly opened with a lazy smile on his pretty face.
“Morning,” he said, biting back a yawn.
“What in the Creator’s name are you doing in my bed?” she all but shrieked.
“Sleeping.”
“How dare you come into my quarters and share my bed with me! Do you think I have no honor? Do you think I have forgotten what you tried to do to me?”
She had woken up curled around Kael! Her leg wrapped around his. Her arm flung across his bare chest. His arms cradling her, as if he even knew what comfort was.
Now, he was staring at her as if she had gone completely insane. How could he possibly think this was okay?
“Do you know where we are?” Kael asked.