“Stunning,” he says, shifting closer. He reaches for her and glides his fingers along the winding vines and blossoming buds. Her breath is stolen as sensation leaches deep inside and tugs at her belly.
He crouches onto his knees before her and sucks a taut nipple into his mouth, then again with her other breast. Blood gushes to her core, heating her from the inside. Lips trail to her belly where a gentle tongue tastes her. The blossoms dance beneath his tongue, blissfully hot.
“Ah, that feels so good,” she says, gripping his hair.
“I never believed you could be more beautiful than you already were, but I was wrong,” he whispers across her flesh.
No doubt his words are sincere and her heart warms with them.
His tongue flickers over the bud of a blossom and heat pulses between her thighs. She rolls her head back and moans.
When she looks back down at him, she finds him watching her with such wonder in his gaze.
“Why couldn’t I have loved you straight away?” she asks. “We could’ve had a whole year of this.”
He stands with a chuckle. “We both resisted there, didn’t we?”
She nods.
“Time has its place and its purpose.” He frames her face with his big, possessive hands and stares deep into her eyes. Such carnality is reflected in those irises. “How about we take this time to catch up on all that time we missed out on?”
She presses her hands to his hard chest and pushes him back onto the bed, before climbing on top, legs straddling his lap. “I’m right ahead of you there.”
* * * *
For ten weeks the ship sails along the east coast of Fiore. Ariana welcomes the long stretches of silence where only the bellow of wind in the flowing white sails and the splash of the ashen sea against the ship’s hull can be heard.
For the first full week, the landscape in the distance is of white grass valleys and coastal regions spotted with little blue houses. But one day, after the night washes away and morning greets them anew, it is a different story altogether. Gone is the white, instead are fields of burnt brown and black, wilted, broken trees, rotting a fungal green and leaking across the land.
Whole forests—blue trees with trunks lying crisscrossed against the next—come in to view. A horrid brown mist skulks across the landscape and into the sky, tingeing the red to black.
So this is the work of the Sun Queen—death, ugliness and soullessness, now seen firsthand. Ariana’s heart is heavy. Though she can’t acquaint Fiore with home yet, it still cuts deep, especially as she sees the pain stirring in the depths of Hadeon’s eyes.
Every now and then, they stop at a port for the night. The Sealusters go ashore and don’t return until the morning. Making love, Hadeon tells her. They need it like they need air. Sounds familiar. And then they set sail again.
The Sealusters afford them food, privacy, drinking water, and washing facilities. But with Ariana’s tendency to become bored quickly when stuck in confined spaces, the trip has the potential to turn torturous.
So Hadeon keeps her busy, continuing her defense training on the deck as the red sun beats down on them and her magic arts training when the moons shine high in the night sky. In all other possible moments, they kiss, touch, taste, explore, and make love.
As each day’s sun dips and rises, Ariana falls more deeply in love with Hadeon. And each night before she goes to sleep, her stomach tumbles and heart heaves because she knows she will never be able to give him up.
Ever.
But she knows she may soon have to.
Chapter 22
Ariana is on the deck of the ship. She’s been sitting in the sun for an hour, soaking in the fresh vanilla-scented air and watching the landscape transform. The wilted plant life has morphed again into ragged rocky cliffs with perfect plateaus of pearl white grass.
The sea is like liquid metal as it rolls toward the towering rocks, smashes against them, and explodes into metallic sprays. The undestroyed quarters of Fiore are touched with such beauty, seeing it tickles and warms her insides as though she’s drunk a deep glass of spring wine.
Hadeon strolls across the decking, his hands cupped in front of him and lips curled into a grin. She squints up at him and smiles. With the red sun’s rays glinting off his deliciously tanned skin, dark brown hair, and reflecting in those brown eyes, he is even more breathtaking.
“What have you got there?” she asks, nodding toward his hands as he sits.
He opens the covering hand and thrusts his palm closer to her face.
She looks at a little creature about the size and shape of a fat gecko, but with leathery, brown skin and wee bat-like wings protruding from its back. Its head has the rounded form of a snake, and a tiny puff of smoke wheezes from its mouth.
“Is that a dragon?”
Hadeon nods. “The myths on Earth have to come from somewhere, right?”
Her mouth widens as she takes in a rushed breath. “Wow. But it’s so small.”
“This is only one variety. It’s a messenger dragon.”
Ariana nods. “Of course. I did see this little cutie in the spell book.” She slaps her hand over her mouth and looks around for prickled ears of any near Sealusters, but they are well and truly out of earshot.
“We’re a week out from Loran Bay. From there it’s only a one day journey to the palace. I’m going to send word that we need some of my brothers to meet us when we arrive.”
“And this little darling is going to tell them?”
He nods. “I wouldn’t be calling it ‘darling’ though. It might be small, but if you aren’t trained in handling one, it could bite your finger off in a split second.”
Ariana sits back a little further. “Oh. Looks can be deceiving?”
“Especially in Fiore. You’d do well to remember that.” Hadeon presses a scrolled piece of parchment to the underside of the dragon’s tail and attaches it tightly in two places with small metal braces. “Spring Blossom Palace, little one,” he says, raising his hand in the air.
The dragon flaps its wings as fast as a hummingbird and soars up into the sky and away.
Ariana shakes her head. “This place astounds me.”
“That’s how I felt when I first traveled to Earth. So believe me, I understand. At least you have the necklace to help with the language.”
Ariana touches the bright red stone, and it tingles with warmth under her finger. “I forget that sometimes. Maybe that’s what we can do for the rest of the week?”
“What?”
“You can teach me some Fioren words.”
Hadeon grins as he stands and holds out his hands for her. “I like that idea. The first word I’ll teach you will need a demonstration though.”
Ariana takes his hands, and he lifts her from the deck and into his arms. “Oh yeah, and what word is that?”
He leans closer, brushes his lips against her ear, and whispers hotly, “Sex.”
* * * *
Loran Bay, a seaside port, is not like the others they stopped at along the journey from Silver Shores. The bay is bordered with timber and stone workshops and shop fronts nestled tight together. Behind the workshops are fields and fields of plants lined in orderly rows.
Deep in the distance are enormous sloping hills of dense forest—all blue trunks and navy leaves against the backdrop of the pink sky and spindly white grass covering the ground. It seems the Sun Queen hasn’t tarnished these lands yet.
Ariana and Hadeon bid farewell to the Sealusters and disembark. Ariana raises her face to the sun, her legs wobbly as they find firm ground. “I feel like I’m still on the ship.”
“Me too.”
“So is there anything I should watch out for here?” she asks.
Hadeon looks at her. “Always.” He points off into the distance, just on the edge of the forest. There are fifteen or more bare-chested Warriors waiting. “But we’ll have company this time.”
Ariana’s eyes widen. “I see.” She reaches for his hand, but
he pulls away.
Her stomach tumbles as she peers at him with a pained face.
He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Ariana, but we need to play down our relationship from this point on. It would not be seen in a good light.”
His words reach into her lungs and steal away all breath. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
“You’ve been promised to another. You must.”
Tears threaten to appear. She can’t decide what’s worse—knowing that she won’t get to interact with him like she has become accustomed to on the voyage here, or that he’s so cool about it all.
Her hands find her hips and she scowls, though her voice cracks with emotion. “So that’s how it is then. This doesn’t bother you in the slightest?”
Hadeon’s shoulders droop, and he lowers his head. “I love you now as much as I ever have. I need you to always remember that, no matter what happens between us. Promise me?”
Ariana blinks.
“Promise me?” he says louder.
“I promise.”
He sighs. “We have a duty to Fiore. And that doesn’t involve a romantic relationship. Soon enough you’ll forget all about me and none of this will matter anyway.”
Ariana gasps. “How can you even say that?”
“Because you’ll be paired with the man of your dreams, who will fulfill you in ways you can only imagine, and I’ll be a memory buried deep in your past.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “Never. I will never feel that way about you.”
He smiles impishly, as though recalling a sinister private joke. He parts his lips but doesn’t speak, instead shakes his head. After a long moment, he says,“I’m sorry.” Facing forward, he quickens his pace toward the fields.
Ariana follows.
They approach the fifteen waiting Warriors: tall and brawny, with dark hair and eyes, and all with tattoos writhing under their flesh of all shapes and symbols. Bare chested, they wear only a black knee-length kilt and shin-high black boots. She expected to see some of the brothers from Scotland, but none of them is familiar. They are large and menacing in the sexiest way, lust rolling off them in waves, which hits Ariana directly between her legs.
She gasps and Hadeon’s head snaps in her direction. “Everything all right, Ariana?” he says, his lips curling into a jealous snarl.
“No different than what we’ve had for the last ten weeks on that ship.” She offers a cheeky half-smile. “Well, maybe a little different.”
A rumble sounds in Hadeon’s chest. “Try to keep yourself in check. These guys won’t be used to unrestrained lust pulses, especially one as strong as yours.”
Ariana lifts an eyebrow. “Jealous, are we?”
He growls again, louder now. “Let’s just call it instinctive possessiveness.”
“Whatever,” she says with a laugh.
As they draw closer, she can see that what she thought were horses are actually … panthers. “Mira?”
Hadeon nods. “That’s our ride.”
An enormous black panther-like creature, just like the one on Hadeon’s belly and back, lurches out of the shadows of the forest and bounds toward them. Ariana stiffens and clings to Hadeon. He laughs loud and free as the panther continues for them, her long teeth flashing as she roars to the air.
“Oh my God,” Ariana shrieks, fear pulsing in her temples.
The Mira skids to a stop and lifts her big black paws onto Hadeon’s shoulders. Ariana backs away. All but cooing, Hadeon wraps his arms around the Mira and nestles his head against the beast’s face.
Ariana cocks her head to the side and watches intently, mesmerized by the scene as Hadeon strokes the Mira’s inky black fur and ears. “I’ve missed you, gorgeous,” he says.
The Mira roars in his ear.
She then turns and focuses her bright blue eyes on Ariana. Ariana’s body goes rigid, and her heart thumps hard. This creature is ripped with muscles, enormous, much bigger than the panthers on Earth. So formidable looking, much like her owner, Ariana muses, looking warily from one to the other.
“This is Ariana,” says Hadeon. “Ariana, meet Veruka.”
Veruka’s giant paws find the ground again and she treads toward Ariana. Ariana backs away.
“She won’t hurt you,” Hadeon says. “I have access to every thought she has.”
Ariana’s eyes widen as she peers at Hadeon.
“She’s curious about you. Nothing more.”
She nods and stops her backward paces, allowing Veruka to draw closer. When close enough to smell its beastly scent and breath, she reaches out her trembling hand and pats Veruka’s head. “Nice to meet you,” she says, voice shaking.
Veruka purrs and rubs her head along Ariana’s thighs, back and forth, then lifts her enormous head and licks up the length of her cheek. Veruka’s tongue is slimy and coarse. Ariana holds very still, resisting the urge to wipe feverishly at the animal-scented slobber.
Hadeon roars with laughter, as do the watching Warriors. “What can I say, she likes you.”
Ariana looks sidelong at Hadeon, still too afraid to make any broad movements.
Veruka, her curiosity quenched, stalks back to Hadeon and kneels beside him.
“Did you say we’re going to be riding that?” Ariana asks, wiping her face onto her tunic.
Hadeon nods. “We certainly are.”
“Thought that’s what you said.”
Again Hadeon laughs, his shoulders shaking. “As long as a Mira knows you’re not an enemy, you’re perfectly safe. And she knows.” He looks at all the other Mira standing next to the Warriors and says, “They all know.” His voice has a sense of warning and the Mira sink to their knees and lower their heads.
“Good,” she says softly.
Ariana is introduced to the Warriors before being promptly lifted into the air and thrust onto Veruka’s bare back. Her knees tremble as they grip Veruka’s warm muscled flanks. Hadeon jumps on in front. Ariana presses her body firmly against his and wraps her arms around his waist. Despite being on top of an enormous cat-like beast, she is grateful for the excuse to touch Hadeon. She rolls her pelvis in a teasing motion, grinning all the while.
He looks over his shoulder. “Keep that in check,” he growls, but it’s barely audible.
She clicks her tongue and squirms back from him a fraction. “Happy?” she asks.
He nods. “Now hang on because we’re going to get some speed. Think of this as a motorcycle ride. We’ve had plenty of those.”
“Not quite the same thing. Motorcycles don’t have teeth.”
Hadeon laughs. “True.” He bends and strokes a hand along Veruka’s chest. “Let’s go, girl.”
Veruka releases a long roar and they take off through the forest, the Warriors following closely behind.
* * * *
Exhaustion has settled deep into Ariana’s muscles and bones. It’s been seven hours of riding with only a few short breaks. Her ass is almost completely numb. She rests her head on Hadeon’s broad, muscled back and grips his waist tighter. “I’m so tired,” she says.
He looks over his shoulder. “Not long now.”
She sighs.
“What’s the matter?”
Her chest heaves and tears well in her eyes. She allows them to tumble down her cheeks. “I’m just thinking about how it will be for us.”
“How so?”
She rubs her face on him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep without you beside me,” she whispers, her voice cracking.
Hadeon tenses and then deflates; he grumbles.
Ariana sits taller and tilts her head until her lips are near his ear. “I love you so much, Hadeon.” She swallows a sob and pushes her face against his back again.
“You’re killing me,” he says, his voice infused with such sorrow.
“Can’t we run away together? Forget all about Fiore?”
Hadeon hesitates for a long moment. “We have to do what’s best for the greater good.”
She knows he
’s right. Deep down some small but intense part of her knows he’s right. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.
Veruka continues to snake through the trees, a half-dozen Mira in front and behind. Ariana can hardly stay conscious, eyelashes finding her cheeks when lazy blinks turn into momentary snatches of sleep until she rocks too far left or right and jolts awake. But then the forest thins and before them is a field of white, dotted with indigo, rose, and lilac. Her eyelids stretch wide open as she takes in the imposing palace in the distance—exactly like the one in the spell book, only much more breathtaking in reality.
The white grass glints from the sun and she has to squint. The sight as the primal black Mira pounce across the field with the Warriors, muscled and menacing, on their backs is unbelievable: splendor and the untamed beast—a beautiful contradiction.
Ariana’s lips part and she can only stare as they draw nearer to their destination. Short minutes pass and they are bounding along a winding gold pathway, then over a moat of molten silver toward the monstrous gold gates of the palace opening wide for them.
Chapter 23
Inside the gates of the Spring Blossom Palace, Ariana’s chest tightens and her stomach does handstands. Veruka strides to a stop, in line with the other Mira just outside the main entrance. The Warriors and Ariana climb off and enter through big arching doors to the foyer of the palace.
Ariana is spellbound by the floors of cobbled white stone and walls reaching so high she has to bend her head all the way back to see where they end. The ceiling is lined with thick glass allowing the descending red sun’s rays to penetrate and fill the palace with a soft pink glow. The walls are perfectly white and smothered with green tentacles and branches with pink thorns, red buds, and blooming spring blossoms that stretch and wind.
The energy this place possesses strums Ariana like seductive fingers, squeezing and caressing, burning brightly under her skin and zigzagging down her throat.
Hadeon grips her forearm. His brow is furrowing. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “This place…”
The Book of Spells and Such Page 17