With a quick yank I snatched my arm away, stepping backward until I felt the staircase at my back.
He glowered at me. “No one is allowed in here without my approval.”
“Your approval?” I laughed and pointed at the book. “You’re going to do to me what is in that book and I need your approval to see it?”
I could see my words stung him. Good.
Now he spoke in a soft tone, a bit less rough around the edges. “Zara, you need to trust me.”
“Trust you? What have you ever done for me to trust you?”
“I kept my word to you. I saved your aunt.”
“You kept your end of the bargain. For it was a bargain. A deal. Maybe you dressed it up, but it was just a deal. What I speak of is something different. Something deeper. Sure, you’ve inspired desire in me. And fear. And anger. But when have you ever inspired trust?”
He took a step toward me, saying softly, “Zara.”
I felt the cold metal of the stairs at my back, saw the dust of old books swirling all around us. In that moment I realized I very much didn’t trust him. So I took the closest escape route I had. The staircase. Dashing up the stairs, I threw open the door at the top and stepped onto the roof of Lucian Manor.
Salty wind gusted over me. I looked down the stairs and saw Navarre racing up them. There was only one thought in my mind. Get away. I paid attention, and took off running over the roof tiles. Straight ahead and heading toward the only place I could hide. The bat tower.
Grabbing the ladder, I began to climb. The wind assaulted me, grabbed at my heavy red skirt. I dared not look down. Higher and higher I climbed until I reached the top, crested the last rung and threw myself onto the floor.
The structure creaked in the wind. Far away I heard Navarre’s muffled shouts. I stood on shaky legs to consider my options, and then I looked around and saw the whole world stretched out in all directions. The thin horizon between sea and sky was blurred in haze. The fat sun was dying, sinking into that water. Night and day battled in the sky, throwing shards of purple, gray and orange light over the heavens. An enormous storm cloud pummeled into the fray, black as night and flashed with lightning.
To see that cloud made me sick. Afraid. For it was very similar to the ones I had feared for so many years.
Except…I wasn’t afraid. At all. I stood higher than I ever had before in my life. It gave me perspective. I saw everything. The standing stones, the cottage, the mansion curled beneath me. Even the old oak tree by my window, now strangely tilted and leaning heavily onto the house. But, I needn’t fear those things. What I needed to fear was climbing the ladder after me. What I feared was right now pulling himself onto the gable beside me.
A touch of madness descended on me. There’s no doubt about that. But could I be blamed? I was so full of anger and fear both that a giddy wildness came over me, and as Navarre stood up and glared at me, I yanked off the necklace that held my mother’s ring. Holding it up for him to see, I then climbed onto the railing.
“Zara!” Navarre cried.
I meant only to throw the ring. To make a grand statement rejecting anything but my own free will. That neither my lineage, nor a promise should guide me. Nor his demands. But as I stood there in the gloaming light, perched on the railing, something strange happened.
Small, black creatures began to drop from the slats of the tower above me. The bats. They tumbled and fell before righting themselves and taking flight to swarm past me. Light as air and black as night they darted past me, barely brushing against me with their velvety wings.
I trembled. Panicked in the black cloud of their bodies swirling around me. I screamed, bumped into a beam and reached out searching for something, anything to grasp. My hands brushed against those soft bodies, which fluttered around me. But there was nothing to grasp. I pitched backward over the edge.
A hand reached out and nabbed my arm. The cloud of bats split in two.
It was Navarre. The weight of my body yanked on his arm and I slammed against the wall of the tower and dangled in the air. The ring clattered down and struck the roof, then bounced over the edge and disappeared.
I looked up. Navarre’s face was clenched, straining with the effort of holding me. Shadowy bundles of claws and veins and glossy black eyes smoked past him.
And there, against the indigo sky, bats streaming to the heavens, I realized that Navarre’s eyes were the serene blue of long afternoons and easy summer days. The kind of days that one treasured and hoped would stretch on forever. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and squeezed his arm. I was safe.
He pulled me up. My body scraped against the wood of the tower and we collapsed into a heap on the floor. The last few bats took flight. It was only us left, our hearts pounding against one another.
Finally he spoke. “Zara, I need you to believe in me. We must join. After that, you can leave if you choose, but I need you to join with me.”
Panting. Shaking. Relieved. I said to him, “I trust you.”
Chapter Fourteen
It took a long time for me to descend from the tower. I was shaky and scared that I might fall again, so we made slow progress. When we finally entered the library, night had fully arrived and the sky was dotted with stars. Very soon our ceremony would begin. Esther and Naya were waiting for us when we emerged from the library. They had been searching for me, as well. They led me to the second floor, and down the long hallway. We stopped in front of a small door. Esther opened the door and I entered the room.
A wall of ornately colored tile greeted me. Steam billowed out to curl around my body and welcome me. It was a bath. I had never seen one like it before, as the entire room was devoted to it. The floor formed a basin. Around it a half-wall enclosed a bath of steaming water. In the far corner of the room stood a table with towels stacked beside it.
It was heaven. I looked at the women. They smiled and nodded at me.
Naya led me. She said, “You are to cleanse your spirit here. We will cleanse your body. We will bathe you, dress you and prepare you for your joining. You must not speak. The quiet will still your soul.” A strange thing happened now that I accepted my fate. I began to anticipate it.
With deft and strong fingers they removed my clothes. I felt no shame or awkwardness, but rather a womanly kinship with them, and I knew I was in the best of hands. They led me to the bath. I slipped into the water and the heat of it stung my skin. Once I was submerged they left me alone for what seemed like hours. The only sounds were my breathing and the occasional drip of a water droplet falling from the ceiling. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Soon I was so relaxed that I felt sleep calling to me.
The women returned to me with jars of sweet-smelling oils. They led me from the pool to the table. I thought they would rub the oil on me. Instead, they pulled long pieces of thread from their pockets. With their sharp eyes, they studied my whole body looking for stray hairs. Using the string, which they rubbed and crossed in strange patterns, they pulled unsightly hairs, leaving behind swollen red skin. They turned their attention to my face, using the string again to shape my eyebrows.
Then came the oil. Strong hands kneaded my muscles and infused the oil into my skin. Next, the smaller woman pulled out something that resembled a silver knife. With quick strokes, she scraped the oil from my skin, leaving me soft as a newborn.
Now it was back into the bath. Water that was hot before was now cool and soothing on my tender skin. Naya called to me, and I slipped through the water to sit against the wall. She stood behind me and massaged a shampoo into my hair that smelled of gardenias. Her strong fingers worked my scalp sending goose bumps up and down my spine.
At last she guided me from the water and led me to a wooden bucket. She doused me with icy water that rained over my whole body and rinsed the shampoo from my hair. Instantly I was awake and felt strangely refreshed. Her dark eyes twinkled. “Almost ready,” she said and nodded with a small smile. “But not just yet.” She brought me back to t
he table. “Here, sit. One more step.”
I lay on the table completely nude. Now Esther stood at my head, and ran a thin comb through my hair repeatedly, threading her fingers through my locks, and twisting the strands. The other woman disappeared and when she returned she carried a tray with a large bowl filled with yellow paint. Thin paintbrushes were arranged in a circle. “Now we talk. You listen,” she said.
She picked up a brush, dipped it into the yellow paint and began speaking. “Lucians paint their brides before joining. I will tell you a story about why a bride wears yellow.” I closed my eyes and felt the paintbrush slide straight up my stomach and stop just beneath my ribs. Then, I felt it arc in a wide circle. Her words carried and echoed in the chamber of the bath. “Many mothers ago when our people arrived here they did not bring with them the tradition I now share with you. We lost so many of the old practices when we came. For a long time, we didn’t know if there would be food to eat. We struggled to live. Mothers’ milk dried in their breasts. We struggled to understand why a woman would even take a man in marriage, when there was no hope.”
All the while she spoke, the brush slid across and then down my body. In the strange atmosphere, and with my heightened state of awareness, the words she spoke and the paintbrush entangled in my mind, until without even opening my eyes, I saw the design that she painted onto my skin.
“But we remembered the story of the first dawn, and we drew inspiration. For in the darkness of night we are blind and cannot see to gather food or care for each other. But there was a promise made to us, and we knew to wait for a sun to rise and light the way for us. We struggled in darkness for many generations. We waited for our sun to rise again.”
I felt my hair being yanked and tugged as it was twisted into a design.
“We knew that a lost daughter would come as a beggar and finally serve as a queen. This is why our brides are painted yellow. It is a promise. A promise to her husband, and to her people.” The paintbrush was still on my flesh. I opened my eyes and saw hers glistening with tears. “Now you are here. We know the sun will rise again.”
I put my hand over hers. I didn’t need to look to know what image she painted on my body. But when I saw her staring at her artwork and then at my face, I couldn’t help but to look. There was a sun, beautifully drawn, with rays that twisted and arced across the planes of my body. Every curve hugged by a stretching ray. Better than any jewels that I could imagine wearing, it was not only beautiful but meaningful. I was surprised by the tight feeling in my throat as I tried to thank them.
Both women smiled at me and led me to the door. I stopped them and gave each a deep hug. Then they pulled a thick blue velvet robe from a peg and slipped it over my shoulders. As the last clutch of dark color slipped from the sky, I raised the hood over my hair, and we made our way to the standing stones. They placed me in front of the stone. I felt the cinching of the rope around my wrists, my arms being pulled tight. Then blackness descended over my eyes as the fabric was cinched tightly. I waited.
Chapter Fifteen
The wind blew in erratic gusts. I felt each gust as a caress of Navarre’s hand, the touch of his lips upon my cheek. I swore that I could almost feel the trembling of the earth beneath my feet. And still I waited, until with each sensation a tiny bit of fear followed right behind. I was nervous. If only I had turned the page of the ancient book, I would already know what was about to happen to me. And what would be revealed when the blindfold was removed.
If only Navarre would hurry. I would feel his touch and be reassured.
My skin grew chilled with the morning dew. Blind as I was I only knew the sun was rising when I felt the warmth of it tickling my skin. Doubt crept over me. Was I naive? Was I so foolish and needful that I had fallen into some sort of deception? Far away I heard the seagulls calling, laughing at me.
A razor-sharp fear sliced through me. I pulled on the rope with all my weight. I tried to fall to my knees, to yank the rope free, but it was useless. I found myself tossing about like a bound animal, wild and heedless of injury. My senses were so highly wrought that I magnified every one. The wind became painful.
The ground…the ground…moving. The motion was slight, but I felt it more powerfully than a thousand earthquakes. I stilled, paying close attention to the strange sensation. It was so different that I focused my whole being on trying to understand what was happening around me.
The movement rushed up from beneath me again. A rumbling like an approaching thunderstorm that originated from beneath the very earth. A great cracking noise sounded out. I turned in time to see the northernmost standing stone of the circle crack in half and topple to the ground. I felt an ominous sense of foreboding.
Then I felt it. His presence. Navarre.
My body went completely still but my heart took flight. I peeked beneath the edge of my blindfold. Only pinkish-gray light colored the sand. But I knew. I knew.
“Navarre.”
He touched me then. His strong, warm hand lifted my chin. Then his lips over mine, claiming me. Owning me. My arms pulled at their bindings. I was awash in pain. In pleasure. He traced a finger along my painted body. I felt the searing outline of his touch over the rays.
“See nothing,” he said. “Only feel.”
His hand was now at the base of my neck, grabbing me. He pulled me closer and roughly kissed me. The stubble on chin rubbed my skin. I felt his strong hands behind my head, and gave in to it, loving the feeling.
He was demanding, entirely male.
His hand behind my head held me perfectly still, he slid his mouth lower, settling on my nipple. He bit and sucked and rolled it in his mouth. I couldn’t move at all, his hand a vice on my neck thrusting me forward. I endured the exquisite agony.
He rose and kissed my lips again, deceptively gentle. He grabbed me by the waist, pressed his hardness against me, and then rolled my figure from side to side. Both of his hands dropped from my hip bones suddenly, slid around my backside and grabbed my cheeks. He shamelessly spread them, sliding one hand between my legs until he encountered my wetness.
I moaned and tried to wrap my legs around him. To climb him and draw him inside me. I entwined my legs around him only to have him roughly rip them apart. He then dropped to his knees and put his mouth upon my wetness.
Wet. All round me I was wet. I could feel myself swelling beneath his tongue. Opening to him, needing him. I moaned and begged him to please end my suffering. But he only dragged it on by slipping a finger inside me, and pushing it in and out. Swirling always with his tongue.
I had enough. “Now, Navarre, now,” I said.
He stood. Lifted me, held me aloft at the hips by my buttocks. I wrapped my legs greedily around him.
He stepped backward denying me yet again. It was enough to pull my arms taught and deny me what I wanted. I responded, clamping my legs tighter, bringing him back to the heart of me. He kissed me deeply. I tried to pull myself back onto him; my body was painfully stretched, my arms tight, hands swelling beneath the rope.
He was ruthless. Sliding his hard cock against the most sensitive part of me and then pulling it away. Giving pleasure. Denying it. Never entering me. It was a wicked dance that he alone controlled and brought me right to the edge. Where the mere touch of him threatened to release waves of pleasure over me.
“Now. Now. Now.” I repeated over and over. “Now, Navarre, now.”
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I’m ready.”
With a tug of his hand the blackness, the blindfold, was torn away. I could see. I saw the sleepy dark ocean. The pink morning sky. And the blue afternoon eyes of Navarre as he lifted the knife above my head. Then with a flash of silver he brought it down, slicing the rope. I was freed and fell toward Navarre, impaling myself upon him.
Tight. Sharp. Both of us breathing.
I will always remember that moment. When first pain and first pleasure mixed. I had to choose one sensation to focus on and I chose pleasure.
Chapter Sixteen
We lay on the ground with our limbs twisted and entwined. He reached out and caressed my hair. And try as I might in the fading afterglow of our union I felt not the warmth of satisfaction, but rather, deep dark fear clawing within me.
Why was I so afraid? What caused this unease within me? By all rights I should be aglow. Content. Yet I knew nothing other than gnawing, racking fear.
“Zara, you’re trembling. What’s the matter?” He held me tighter.
I struggled to find words. “I feel so scared, Navarre. It’s overwhelming me.” My voice cracking, I looked at him, a pathetic tear at the corner of my eye. “Why am I so frightened?” I asked him.
“Darling, maybe that’s normal. We’ve just had a big buildup.”
“No. I knew, knew, that once we joined that I would see something crucial. I saw it in my vision at my initiation ceremony. You would pull away the blindfold and suddenly I would know. I would know because I could finally see.”
“Zara,” he said. “That’s foolish. You’re not the blind one. Cleo is.”
“But the vision,” I said emphatically. “I saw it. I knew it in my soul.”
“But Cleo…” he began again.
A strange flash of light burst inside my mind. Cleo. I sat up straight, looking at him, realizing I had just put the pieces of the puzzle together. “Cleo…” I said.
“What about her?”
“Cleo. That’s it! Aunt Cleo was right. I was blind. It was me who couldn’t see.” I looked to him, a cold flush of dread washing over me. “Oh, my God. Navarre, they’re all going to die!” I jumped up, pulling on the velvet robe and babbling as I did. “We have been blind, Navarre.” Like a key slipping into a lock, I knew I was right.
Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 4: The HeadmasterDarkness UnchainedForget Me NotQueen of Stone Page 54