by Kim Knox
Marek pulled on his breeches, not looking at her. She felt the shape of his mind, the hard turn of his thoughts. And something closed against her, forming slivers of granite and diamond in an obscuring mosaic. She didn’t understand Marek, and with his mind a wall against her, she doubted she ever would.
He had said that a broken ward was no use to him, that he would no longer provide for her and she would have to fend for herself. Was that still true? Questions speared her, and the worry came with it that she would grow too close to Marek, to Lucas, and they would leave her. She had no skills, the priests had prepared her only to pray for the fortune of the city. Wards of the temple lived out their lives and died in that role.
She closed her eyes and prayed that her need for Marek and Lucas, her agreement to break the magic that tied her to the temple treasure hadn’t been the stupidest mistake she’d made in her life.
“Ash.”
Lucas ran his hand along her arm and she shivered under his warm touch. Yes, her emotions might be in turmoil, but her body had no doubt what it wanted. She let him turn her onto her back and he grinned, his dark eyes holding that hint of captivating fire. She could so easily become attached to Lucas, his beauty and wicked humor drew her like no man ever had before. Not that she had any experience…
“You had fun without me,” he murmured, his hand curving down her waist, and Ash sucked in a quick breath at the ripple of pleasure heating her skin. And he could do that—drop joy into her flesh. He teased a light kiss over her collarbone, his body covering hers, his hard thigh pushing hers apart. “You know that’s not allowed.”
She tried not to think about the hard muscle pressing against her pussy. It didn’t work. Ash wanted him…again. “It’s not?” Her question was breathless.
“Lucas…” Marek buttoned his linen undershirt and a frown cut his mouth. “Now’s not the time.”
Lucas looked up and his wicked smile tightened her belly. “How can you say that?” His mouth found her breast and heat curled between her thighs, his fingers teasing over her navel to draw lazy circles over her mound. His finger dipped and Ash gasped. “How can you resist her? She wants me…us.”
“And shouldn’t you wonder why?”
Lucas’ hot mouth ran over her stomach, the curve of her belly, and the familiar ache seared through her. She caught her fingers in Lucas’ cool hair and fixed her gaze on Marek. He watched them, his fingers still on the last button of his shirt. Color slashed his cheeks and the heavy heat in his eyes drove fire through her body. She didn’t understand why she wanted this, why she had to share her pleasure with him. Was it something to do with what they were? Dark souls weaving magic through her eager flesh? Her first dream with Lucas…displaying…herself had seemed wrong. Now? His watching had become as needed as his touch and brought as much satisfaction.
Lucas parted her thighs, his fingers firm. His mouth found her pussy. Marek’s breath hitched with her own. He wanted to watch, it was there in his dark gaze, but a frown creased his forehead.
And his unease broke her spiraling pleasure. “Marek?”
Lucas paused, his breath hot against her skin. He lifted his head and pressed a kiss to her belly. “Not the time?” He met her gaze and the promise there squeezed her heart. “But soon.” He climbed off the bed and found their clothes. He gave her her tunic before he tugged on his breeches.
Ash shrugged into her long tunic and sat cross-legged. The ache to lose herself in Lucas had faded as she watched Marek pick up the temple box. He didn’t open it, but brought the box back to the bed. She shifted across the mattress as Marek sat next to her. He stroked the smooth wood, reluctant to lift the thick lid. Having sex with her in a dream was one thing, but she suspected he balked at the physical act of forcing his way into a treasure. When he did, he was officially breaking the laws he had lived by for so long. “Should I open it?” she asked.
Marek twitched a smile. “That would be too easy.” He pulled in a heavy breath and lifted the lid.
Hidden hinges creaked. But there was no gush of pale smoke or the sudden wash of hot metal through the air. Ash leaned forward, eager and fearful to know what lay in the box…and saw nothing. She stared. The interior was as plain as the exterior. “It’s empty.”
Marek cursed and wiped his fingers around the inside of the box. “Something was here. Not too long ago. I can feel its shadow.” He closed his eyes. “A crystal, with a heavy weight, but it was more than that…” His mouth thinned and a curse broke from him. “A crystal map. A marker.”
“A marker?” Lucas ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. I didn’t know…”
Ash hated that she knew nothing about the world into which she had fallen. “What have I been protecting?”
Marek closed the lid on the box with a soft thunk. “A marker is ancient magic.”
“Demon magic.” Lucas weathered Marek’s glare. “What? You can’t deny that ancient magic is demonic.”
“Lucas…” Marek stood and paced, the floorboards creaking under his heavy boots and the bands of golden sunlight cutting across his body. He stopped and fixed his attention on her. “Ash, what happened the night the thieves broke into the temple?”
Ash closed her eyes, focusing on her memory. The fast peal of the bells had dragged her from her bed, bleary and half dressed. She’d thrown open the door to her cell and slaves had raced past her. Without thought, she followed.
She’d skidded to a stop outside the great hall. Rani stood on the steps, shirtless, and Kia a limp weight in his arms. “Rani—the temple warden—raised the alarm. He’d found Kia in the sanctuary, cut and out cold. He bound her wounds as best he could.” A smile lifted her mouth. “Saved her…though when I left, she still had no memory of what happened.”
“And the thieves?”
Ash wiped her fingers over her lips. “I never saw them. Wards aren’t allowed in the sanctuary.”
Marek flicked a glance to Lucas before meeting her gaze again, and something about that brief communication tightened her gut. “But…Kia…was there?”
“Yes. She’s four, new to sleeping alone, we thought that she’d lost her way in the night…” Ash’s words trailed away and she stared at Lucas and then Marek. “But she didn’t?”
“One of the ways to break ancient magic is with blood.” Marek ran his fingers over the closed lid of the box. “Was there anything special about Kia?”
Ash blinked. Was he saying that someone had tried to sacrifice Kia to open the stupid box? “No, she was brought to the temple as a baby, like all of us were.”
“By the same man.”
A fist gripped her heart. He was not blaming Rani for this. “He didn’t do this.”
“They cut the child and snatched whatever was inside before Ash’s ward kicked in.” Lucas picked up the box, turning it over. He lifted the lid, scraped the edge with his fingernail and frowned. “Dried blood.” He winced. “She had to be some relation to you, Ash, and whoever did this knew it.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Like the man who brings the babies into the temple.”
“No.” Anger had her pointing at him and heating her blood. “No. Rani would never—”
“The senior eunuchs knew what was in here.” Lucas tapped the lid. “They bound you to it and knew how to slip past that magic.” He frowned. “Wanted to use me to try to break you so that…what?”
“I’d be implicated,” Marek said. “There’re elements within the custodians that have never been pleased with the skills I have.”
“Your dark soul blood,” Lucas said.
“I perform magic in a way they find…uncomfortable.” Marek ran his hand through his hair. “Influence others, dream magic. It’s a difference they’ve always feared. And the reason I’m not a prime, haven’t risen through the Order. They’ve sent so many against me to try to break my right to hold, to remove me from the Order. Maybe this is simply another way.”A wry smile curved his mouth. “A bonus.”
Ash shook her head and the fast run of her blood h
ad her climbing off the bed and putting distance between herself and the two men. They were taking apart her world. Her spine hit the closed shutter and the riot of noise from the street below cut across her straining nerves. She pulled in a calming breath. “So you’re saying the priests and the custodians are behind this…this…theft? What is a marker anyway? And why go to so much trouble?”
She caught her fingers in the braids in her hair. “It makes no sense. I’ve been in the temple for twenty-five years. At any point,” she waved her hand at Lucas, “he could’ve been smuggled in if the priests were behind this. I would be breached and the box opened.”
“Others would hear, suspect. You would tell other wards and priests of a man seducing you in your sleep.” Marek laughed. “They’re churning out wards to guard their treasures and the temple. Even a low-level priest would know what it meant and would raise an alarm.
“No, this way the blame falls solely on me. I’ve opened the box. Broken my oath. Can be blamed for its loss.” He took the box from Lucas and put it on the table beside her. “And a marker? It’s a crystal map, pointing those who can read it to a greater treasure.”
“And it will be bad.” Lucas snorted. “These things are never good. Our progenitors hid certain magics for good reason.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “All right. I’m assuming that you have no food stocked.” A wry smile pulled at his mouth. “And since I haven’t had a proper meal in who knows how long…”
Marek lifted his tunic from the chair and unhooked a pouch from the lining. He tossed it to Lucas. “There’s a courtyard market up the street.”
Lucas opened the pouch and poked through, the coins clinking. He looked up and his eyes gleamed. “You trust me to come back?”
Marek snorted. “There’s only enough there for two days. You’ve obviously been bound for a long time.” He strode past him and down the stairwell. His voice echoed back. “Come on, I’ll let you out.”
Lucas caught her gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “I must obey my primary.” But he closed the distance between them, stroked her jaw and then pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. He took another. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “You have two dark souls guarding you.”
Ash pulled in a ragged breath and licked her lips, tasting him and the lingering scent of herself. She wanted to press her face to his chest and for a long moment feel the strength of his arms around her, find some security in his hold. But she didn’t. She didn’t know what they shared, what she could or should expect from either man. They were both strangers. “This whole thing is insane.”
Lucas smiled and his thumb teased her lower lip. “Yes, it is.” He stood back from her. “Now, is there anything special I should buy?”
A smile broke from her. “Marek will advise you better.”
“Ah yes, the primary knows all.” His dark eyes shone and he gave her a deep, short bow. “I will be back as soon as I can.”
He turned and trotted down the twisting stone stairwell, his boots echoing.
Ash let out a heavy breath and pressed her hands to her face. Had her whole life been a lie? The priests of Fausta had used her, used all of them to protect baubles. Her heart twisted. Some of the wards had left the temple, going to other smaller shrines, the priests said. Had they been farmed out to custodians? Marek had said the eunuchs had a system of creating virgin wards. Did others use them to protect their treasures? Tears burned and the betrayal of all she had known pushed deep.
She picked up the box and the grain of the wood pressed against her palms, smooth, cool, and the urge to smash it against the floor burned through her. But she stopped and frowned. It felt different. She ran her palms over every flat plane. There’d been a hint of a pattern before, now…nothing.
The heavy sound of boots echoed across the room and she looked up. Marek stopped in the narrow archway. “What?”
“Would I know what was in here?” She turned the box over, trying to refind that strange sensation, but it was gone. She wasn’t its ward anymore and all connection had broken down. “Because when I touched it before I felt a pattern, as if the wood pressed an image into my hand.” She put the box back on the table and wiped her hands against her thighs. “Maybe before…” She shrugged, still uncomfortable with describing—out loud—what they’d shared. “I would’ve known more.”
Marek frowned but said nothing.
More questions bubbled up to break the stretching silence. “What happens now, Marek? We hide out here?”
He stood at the half-open shutter, his attention fixed on the street. Sunlight edged his profile. “We wait until dusk.”
Did she have to drag every answer out of him? “And then what?”
“We follow the marker.”
Ash stared at him. “Have I missed something? We don’t have the marker.”
A dark smile lifted his lips and he stroked a finger over her temple. She twitched at the contact of his skin against hers. “When the priests first bound you to the marker and its box, they had to expose you to it. Let you see it.” He took her hand and his thumb traced over the lines on her palm. His touch spiraled warmth though her flesh and she tried to deny the sudden tension between her thighs but she couldn’t. “Perhaps even touch it.”
Thoughts slotted into place. “And I’d have memory of it… You can explore my memories.”
“Exactly,” he murmured. “We, Lucas and I, can then follow the trace of it through the city. We have to secure the marker before they read it. If you touched it,” he pulled in a breath, “maybe the reawakened memory will read it.” He stepped back from her. “We’ll wait for Lucas to come back. All three of us observing that moment in your history will improve our chances of working out what the crystal map was created to show.”
“And we’ll…” She waved at the rumpled bed, the image of them tangled and naked flushing her skin.
Marek laughed and stared out to the crowded street below them. “Maybe.”
Her nerves had her blood rushing and she had to try to allay her fear. “And after that? After you’ve found this thing, what happens to me?”
“Ashsara…”
An unexpected pain tightened in her chest. “I told you, I’m not that woman. She prayed to the goddess, spent her days in happy ignorance. I’m Ash, a former ward, nothing more.” She swallowed and lifted her chin, but Marek fixed his attention on the riot of the street. “You said I’d become a lupa.” She followed his gaze down and caught a woman, her dark hair pinned up, sunlight bathing her thin shift and making her naked body obvious. “Like her? Selling myself on the streets of Bukhara.”
He tensed and she looked at him. His mouth had thinned and anger burned in his eyes. “No.” He stepped back from the window and closed the shutter, sinking the room into shadow. “Whatever it is, there’s a connection between the three of us.”
“Which can be broken by blood.” She followed to the table that held the box. “Whatever that means.”
“The ritual of self-cut wounds,” he said. He ran his finger over the closed lid of the box and let out a slow sigh. “An agreement to the end of the bond. They realized obsession could sour.”
“And that’s what this is? Just lust and obsession?”
“Ash… What do you want me to say?” He shook his head. “I wasn’t prepared for this situation any more than you were. Do I want it? No. Do I want you? With every breath.” His admission made her heart squeeze. “I don’t understand it, but I have it under control. When this is over, however it falls, then I will deal with it.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “With Lucas and with you.”
“And dealing with it means ending it?”
“I don’t know.” He snorted. “It would be the sane thing to do, whether it would be right…” His soft, cynical laughter edged under her skin and she didn’t know how to feel. Marek didn’t deny their attraction; he simply didn’t want it. “I wonder did the priests and custodians realize the damage they would cause, did they have an idea of my heritage.” He let out a slo
w breath. “Because I didn’t.”
“How are you dark soul?” She waved at the open archway. “Lucas said they—you—breed with two men and one woman.”
“Yet more questions?”
“Do you expect anything else?”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “No.” He tapped the lid. “From what I know of dark-soul customs, magic, lore, whatever you want to call it, it’s possible. Especially if the other has innate magic.”
“And your mother…?”
“A prime within the Order.” His gaze grew distant. “Powerful. A legend.”
She could almost feel the push of old memories, though his barricaded thoughts prevented any breaking through. “Whatever happens, you still have your magic.”
“And with it I broke the first law of my profession. I opened a treasure I was meant to guard.”
“A treasure they’d already stolen.”
“Semantics,” he muttered.
“Fact.”
His eyes narrowed and something dangerous sparked there. It jumped her pulse. “Are you questioning me, Ash?”
Her reply bounced around in her mind. No—because he was her primary and her instincts screamed that she obey him, with the reward of her body pressed against his. And yes—because then he would do more than glare at her, her disobedience would force him to act, to chastise her and that would lead to delicious nakedness. She took a step closer to him, still undecided, and his scent, the intoxicating mix of leather, unknown spices and his skin, wove through her. “What would you like me to do, Marek?”
His large hand cupped her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek. “A dangerous question.” His voice deep, quiet, slid through her flesh and her nipples hardened against the rough material of her tunic. “Because I will answer it.”
The need to breathe became difficult and her mouth dried. She wanted to close the short distance between them and press her body against his, to feel him, touch him and have it become real, not a dream. His mouth dipped to hers, so close she tasted his breath. Damn, it was so easy to slip into the need to touch and kiss, to strip from their clothes and find each other. Was that Marek’s fear? Nothing else mattered. Everything became unimportant, trivial.