And Donal had been right. It was us now, not you... not them.
I was a part of that us. It were a part of me, just like the fire lizards themselves.
If the other red witches and warlocks thought I might put their lives in danger if I were to fight on the front lines, then I shouldn’t go. Even if that meant staying inside this fortress for the rest of my life, never knowing what went on beyond these walls, I shouldn’t go.
Even if it meant I never got to fight alongside Donal, I shouldn’t go. Not if my going might decrease his chances of returning, even by a small amount.
Looking down at the fire lizards, I let out a deep sigh.
“I never thought talking to you would be so dangerous,” I told them. “All I said was how beautiful you are. And you are beautiful, so I’m not sure why my saying so got you all so riled up like it did.”
The lizards just stared up, their tongues taking turns flicking at me.
Their coal black eyes studied me intently, and I saw a few cock their heads, like the lizard in the Market had done, when it studied me from where it had been chained to the floor. I’d asked Luna if it was true the fire lizards lost their flame-like colors when their body temperatures cooled. I asked her if it was true they turned blue and gray when that happened, or if they were some other color under all that fire.
Luna confirmed that they did turn blue and gray.
She also told me that usually they died if they were kept from the heat of the core for too long. Looking down at them now, I hoped their brother in the Water Market was okay.
“I suppose I seem odd to you too,” I said to them, a little accusingly.
They continued to stare up at me, expressionless.
They didn’t seem confused by me, though, or afraid.
They certainly didn’t seem confused the way my instructors claimed to be, or the other students and red magic fighters occasionally acted towards me inside the Black Fortress.
I didn’t see anything in their eyes that resembled confusion at all.
Rather, they looked up at me as if waiting for my next command.
Chapter 17
MIDNIGHT VISIT
WHEN I LAY in bed that night, I found I couldn’t sleep.
I stared at the ceiling for hours, willing sleep, if only to quiet my mind. I didn’t want to think anymore, not about things I could do nothing to change.
Eventually, I must have drifted off.
I know that only because at some point, I was awakened.
Hands woke me.
I didn’t know whose at first, but strangely, I wasn’t alarmed.
When I opened my eyes, someone had built up the fire, enough that I noticed the difference in light at once. He must have thrown at least one log on the grate and stoked it when he came in, as it had been little more than embers when I last remembered, and now it cast enough light that I could see his outline above me.
His dark hair hung down, and his face, while halfway in shadow, stood out in gold light on the half I could see. His eyes looked raptor-like, or like those of a fire lizard, perhaps. Glints of red light shone in their centers, sending a thread of reddish hue into the gold from the hearth.
His expression was still, but held an intensity that threw me. Not quite anger lived there, but his features looked fierce, harder than usual, and his mouth formed a narrow line in his face.
Somehow, even with all that, I wasn’t that shocked to see him there.
He held my wrist in one hand. The other brushed the hair out of my face, touching my cheek and neck with a gentleness I didn’t see reflected in his eyes or expression. I watched him look down at me as he fingers stroked the hair back, his gaze wandering over my form and then my face in a way he hadn’t let himself since we’d first been together in the Capitol.
I reacted to his stare differently this time, as well.
By the end of it, I was breathing harder, looking at his body, too.
He’d left the knife behind in coming to me, as well as the gun holsters and the armored vest and leggings he normally wore. That left him with dark brown pants, and a thin, long-sleeved shirt open at the collar. Somehow, the lack of his usual war-gear was more difficult to wrap my head around than the fact that he was there at all.
“Tell me to leave, Maia,” he said.
He gripped my hair tighter in his hand, waiting for my answer.
My eyes shifted from his chest, which I’d been watching move under his breath, up to his face. Meeting his gaze, I found myself understanding the question he was asking, even as I shook my head, my own mouth firming to a near-scowl.
“No,” I said.
I sounded almost angry.
He only looked down at me a few seconds more.
Then he lowered his mouth and kissed me, shocking me with the intensity behind the contact, the heat coming off his hands and mouth. He didn’t wait to coax my mouth open with his, using his tongue and lips before kissing me harder, letting out a low sound when I kissed him back. He had most of his weight on me then, pressing me into the bed as he rearranged my body to accommodate his. He paused only long enough for each of us to catch a few breaths, then he was kissing me again, slower that time, but deeper, more deliberate.
When he ended the kiss that time, he let out a heavier gasp.
I pushed him back when he leaned towards me a third time, roughly almost, but only long enough to get him to sit up.
Following him once he had, I knelt in front of him and began unfastening the front of his shirt. For a few seconds, he only watched me. Then, when I had it about halfway done, he gripped me tighter, pulling me closer by the waist, his eyes still on my hands as I undressed him. I got his shirt off and he wrapped his arm tighter, yanking me directly into his lap.
We kissed longer that time.
He ended that kiss, pretty much for the same reasons I had with him.
Taking a fistful of the silk shift I wore, the same one I’d been wearing that first morning he’d come into my room, he bunched up the material in his hands. He worked it gently up over my legs, my rear and torso, then tugged it more roughly over my head, letting out a gasp once he had it off me. Still staring at me in the firelight, he was unbuckling his belt then, his fingers clumsy but fast, struggling with the silver tongue and leather until he got it undone.
The urgency flaring off him caused me to grip his hair tighter, pulling his mouth back to mine. We kissed while he worked his way out of the pants, then he had ahold of me again in both arms, jerking me forcefully back into his lap.
I had my hands all over him then, lost in the feel of his skin under my fingers. I traced muscles and the outline of bone, stroking a fine coating of hair on his chest. I’d only seen it once before, while he’d been in that crate under the dock. His arms and shoulders were pure muscle, broken by occasional scars, and I traced all of those as well, learning every inch I could find even as I leaned up against him.
He groaned aloud when I went from exploring him with my hands to my mouth, and then he had his hands on me, as well.
I gripped his hair in a fist when he started moving lower; then he had his fingers inside me and it was my turn to let out an involuntary sound. I’d avoided touching any part of him below his waist prior to that, but I followed his lead, gripping his sex tentatively in my fingers at first, then more firmly when he arched his back to meet my hand.
“Maia...” He let out another low groan.
Taking hold of my wrist, he pulled my fingers off him, gripping me so tightly I gasped. We kissed again before either of us could catch our breath. Then he had me pinned on the mattress once more. That time we were skin to skin, most of the way down to our feet, and he let out another heavy sound, pressing his body down into mine.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he told me, his voice a gasp.
“I know.” Thinking about that, I looked up, meeting his gaze. “Is that why you’re doing this?”
“No.” He shook his head, adamant. “No... not likely, huntr
ess. But it might ‘ave been the thing to get me to stop being such a damn’d coward with ye.”
I laughed and he kissed me again, harder, pressing his weight down on me deliberately once more. When he came up for air that time, his dark eyes were glassed, but a brighter red light lived in them than I’d ever seen.
“You forgive me?” he said. “For lying to ye... for what I had to do in there?”
I knew what he meant. He was talking about the Capitol again, about working for my mother.
Thinking about his words, I shook my head.
“No.” I tightened my hands on his taut biceps, meeting his gaze. “You should have told me. I still would have tried to help you. Especially if you told me why.” Pausing, I added, “Although I get that you wouldn’t have known that, not having known me. And I don’t know that I would have been much good to you... so it probably would have come out the same anyway.”
“So you forgive me?” he said, still breathing hard. “Or no?”
My throat closed. Inexplicably, I was fighting tears.
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
He stared down at me, stroking my hair back tenderly from my face. “I’m sorry, Maia. Truly. I am. If I could take it all back––”
“I know you’re sorry,” I said, still fighting that pain in my chest. “I’ve known you were sorry since before we left.” My fingers caressed the outline of his jaw, and I bit my lip, hard enough for it to hurt. “I forgive you for lying to me, Donal. Even for working for my mother. I’m not sure I can forgive you for leaving your sister there, in that horrible place. You should have given me over... made some excuse to get her back.”
He looked down at me, bewildered.
Then, he seemed to be replaying my words. His expression cleared, right before he bent down, kissing me hard on the mouth.
For a few minutes more, I got lost there.
When he raised his head next, he was gasping again, but his voice came out hard.
“I’m only goin’ to say this one more time, huntress,” he said. “I don’t regret anything I did in takin’ you out of there. I regret not trusting you sooner, when my heart told me I could. I regret not seeing that white witch for what she was.”
When I shook my head, my jaw firm, he shook me a little.
“Maia, listen to me! She wouldn’t ever have given Kaitlin back to me. I was a fool to think she might. No matter what I’d done, no matter how perfectly I’d executed what she asked, I would’ve been sent back here, empty-handed. I think I even knew that. I let myself hope it might be otherwise, but I knew. I definitely knew after talkin’ to you.”
“Me?” I said, frowning. “How? What could I have possibly said?”
“In talking to ye, I learned she’d sent me there to kidnap her own damn’d daughter,” he growled. “Not some rival in the court. Not some greedy and equally conivin’ witch angling to take ‘er power aw’y from ‘er, for reasons of intrigue o’ whatever else. You.”
That time, I heard the anger in his voice.
He exhaled some of that anger out, adjusting his weight on his palms.
“I couldn’t fool myself any longer after that. I knew then, what kind of witch I was dealing with.” He looked down at me, his eyes holding that intensity again. “I’m still sorry, Maia. I’m sorry I lied to ye. I’m sorry I caused ye to lose your freedom and your uncle and your rightful home. But I can’t say I’m sorry I took ye away from that ‘orrible woman and that ‘orrible useless prison of a school. At least here, they can’t abuse ye directly.”
I shook my head, too. “I’m glad I’m here and not there, Donal. I’m glad of it. You must know that, at least.”
He sighed again, in some frustration that time.
“I do,” he said. “I can see it. You’re a different person here, and a happier-seeming one. But the whole thing still angers me, Maia. She used me to steal your birthright. I’ve unseated a queen, all on the say-so of an evil white witch... I helped her to steal your throne.”
I shook my head though, caressing the long lines of his neck. “I never would have been Regent, Donal,” I said. “That wasn’t going to happen anyway.”
His frowned at me, as if angered by my words, even as I saw a flash of understanding cross his expression. I watched him stare off to the side, as if turning over his feelings before he spoke them aloud. Once he had, that crimson flame in his eyes grew brighter still.
“Maia,” he said, decisively. “You were born to lead.”
I shook my head. “No, Donal. I wasn’t. Not in a white court... with white magics. I’m telling you, I would never have been Regent there. Never.”
He didn’t return my smile, but continued to stare down at me, his words serious.
“But you should be,” he said, his voice angry. “Don’t you see? You should be Regent, Maia. This isn’t only about you... it’s about the court not allowing red magics in the first place. Your mother knew it as your rightful place. Maybe the current Regent knew it, too. That was the real threat you posed... not some hogwash about embarrassing the family with your poor showin’ at the lily white monk school. They had to get rid o’ ye before ye realized who and what ye really are... and claimed that throne yourself!”
I shook my head, confused. “But I never would have done that, Donal. I don’t even want to be Regent. And they don’t care about the kind of power we have, anyway. They look down on red magic. Scorn it... as you’ve said to me so many times yourself. We’re nothing but animals to them. No one would have followed me.”
“But you are the ancestor of Ilric the Brave,” Donal said, hammering his words. “They may have scrubbed the history books, Maia, but some of them must know what that means. They wouldn’t have known to hide ye, if they didn’t know.” He grunted, a sharper annoyance in his voice. “Your mother clearly knew. But I’m bettin’ she’s not the only one. I’m bettin’ there are others. And red magic was always said to be the magic of the planet itself. A woman’s magic, at base, even if men can wield it, too.”
I looked up at him, startled. “Woman’s magic? But it’s all about war.”
He shook his head. “‘Tisn’t about war at all, huntress. It’s about what lives below. Magic is, and always has been, a circle. What is above is mirrored below. Red magic was said to be female, white magic male. Both men and women can embody either or both, but the symbol of the red is a woman. It always has been. It’s as old as the magics themselves, to view it thus.”
Looking over his shoulder, he nodded at the tapestry of the red witch on my wall.
Thinking about his words, I felt the truth there.
But remembering how things were in the palace and at the monastery school, how unmovable and monolithic the thinking there, I could only shake my head.
“Maybe it’s supposed to be so,” I sighed, exasperated. “But it’s not, Donal. What does any of this matter now, in the world we actually live in?”
He frowned, looking down at me, then shook his head, his mouth curled in a frown.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it feels important to me, Maia. Even now. Yer still a threat to them, even here. I wonder if that’s why Luna and the others want to keep ye out of the field. To protect ye. Who ye are means something to them... to all of us here in the Black Fortress. Ye must have picked up on that, surely?”
I hadn’t really, but I found myself thinking about it now.
It also felt true.
I remembered Luna’s evasiveness when I asked her why I could not fight, the concern I felt on her, the reluctance to tell me the truth. My chest clenched again.
Donal leaned down before I could wrap my mind around any of it, and kissed me again.
That time, I curled my legs around his, pulling him closer, and he let out a surprised gasp, raising his head. He was breathing harder in seconds, his hand wrapped around my breast, caressing it with slow, massaging strokes of his palm and fingers.
“You’re all right with this?” he said, his voice short. “I
know I’m not being as gentle with it as I probably should...”
Smiling faintly, I shook my head, tightening my legs around him. “I’m all right with it,” I assured him. “And you’re being fine.” Hesitating, I added, “But you must know I’ve never done this before.”
He nodded. “I figured that, given th’ rules they had ye under.”
Looking up at him, I hesitated.
I didn’t really want to know how often he’d done this already.
Some part of me did want to know, but I knew I would regret asking.
He lay down on me then, propping himself on his elbows instead of his hands, stroking my hair and throat. “Maia,” he said softly, kissing my the face. “Maia, I want more than this from you. More than yer body. Ye ken that, don’t you? Ye hear my meaning?”
I nodded, swallowing.
“If it was jus’ sex I wanted, I would have asked the day I came in here and first saw you wearing that red thing that hugged every curve in your body,” he joked.
Despite his tone, I saw his eyes watching me seriously, looking for comprehension in me, or maybe for some kind of agreement.
I did understand. I could feel it all around me, that wanting on him. I couldn’t quite put it into words yet, on his side or mine, but I understood in all the ways that mattered.
Meeting his gaze when he raised his head, I nodded again, holding his stare with an effort.
“I, as well,” I said, soft. “I don’t want this to only be sex either, Donal.”
His expression softened, more than I’d ever seen it.
“Then yer all right with me telling people I’m with you, after this?” His voice grew a touch sharper, more of a question. “If I say you’re with me... that won’t offend you?”
Feeling my face warm, I shook my head. “No, it won’t offend me.”
His eyes changed again.
Before I could wrap my head around the difference, he lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me intently enough that I lost my train of thought. I massaged his shoulder and the back of his neck when the kiss deepened, then he was pushing my legs apart with his hands, stroking my hips and thighs with his fingers.
Red Magic: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 6 (The Othala Witch Collection) Page 18