by Brenna Lyons
*
Deliya lay at the edge of the cliff, ignoring the curious stares of the geela who nested there. Her heart in her throat, she raised the oculars to her face, training them on the valley below.
There were fields laid out, but the pattern was wrong. There were no pink gola berries to ward off pests, no bright patches of yellow-orange Dolgen and eye-green Walla, no lines of gray Zura bush and choc Felgren. They were ordinary crops that the Lengar or Magden might grow.
Deliya stifled a sob as she turned the oculars to the village. Fion’s circle had been desecrated, the precious green stone smashed and scattered. Her tower lay in ruins, overgrown with iri vines. Surely, all of her people were dead. None of them would let this sacrilege happen while they drew breath.
She scanned her eyes over the homes, seemingly innocent homes with children playing in the yard and women hanging wash on wooden racks fashioned by Fion’s Children’s hands. Deliya curled away from the edge, letting her tears fall. Hanging wash… The women were hanging uniforms of the Lengar butchers who killed her people to dry on the racks built by them, living in the homes stolen from them. It was all too much.
Sobs wracked her body. She begged the Mother for answers, but there was no answer. Why would Fion save Deliya to see this? Any move she made to avenge her people would see Deliya dead as well.
No, she reminded herself. Vengeance is not one of Fion’s virtues. Fion was love, life and laughter crushed beneath the heel of the vow-breaking disease of the Lengar. Then what did Fion want of her?
A hand covered her mouth, and strong arms crushed her to an armored chest, before she had a chance to retaliate. Deliya tried to drag her feet against the pulling hands.
“Stop,” Ro whispered. “You are raising dust.”
Deliya relaxed in his grip, letting Ro pull her back to the stand of trees where she’d tethered her war-buck. Ro settled her to the ground then grasped her arm and pulled a loop of rope with a slip knot snug against her wrist. Deliya panicked, trying to yank her arms away, but Ro was the stronger of the two. All her struggles were for naught. Before Deliya quite knew what was happening to her, Ro lay over her with one hand clamped over her mouth and her wrists trapped in the other.
“Be still,” he growled.
Deliya nodded. Ro uncovered her mouth and went back to binding her hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked calmly.
“Enacting your penalty.”
“Penalty? I do not understand,” she moaned. Why did the Magden culture have to be so confusing?
“You vowed not to do this. I told you what I would do.”
“I will not run from you, Ro,” she promised miserably. “It seems I have nowhere to run.”
“We will discuss the length of your penalty, when I have calmed down, but Mag’s law demands justice when vows are broken.”
“This is not justice,” she hissed. “This is—” Deliya bit her lip, as Ro shot her a hard look. “Vengeance,” she whispered.
Oh, Mother Fion, guide me. I do not know what You intend. He is vengeance. Ro is Mag’s justice personified.
*
Ro looked at the ropes on her hands in dismay. It was vengeance. He was doing this, because Deliya fled his bed. Not for a broken vow, but because that vow was to stay by his side.
He touched her tear-swollen cheeks tenderly. What had he expected of her? Her guards had either lied to her or not known the truth. Fion’s Children do not lie. The former was likely. They told Deliya that her mother was alive. They laid out plans that would never come to pass for her, and they took the truth to the grave with them. It was the only truth she’d known.
Three days ago, Donic had crushed those beliefs, the hopes that sustained her when she was left alone to wait for a summons that would never come. How could Ro have believed she would not question? That Deliya would follow blindly the path he set? Would he have in her place?
Ro kissed her cheeks. “I am sorry.” He started to untie her hands.
Deliya shook her head. “No. I broke my vow. You must do as your law demands.”
“No one but the two of us knew of this penalty,” he reasoned. “No one will know if I show leniency. Mercy is a gift from your Mother Fion, is it not?”
“You are not one of Fion’s Children,” she reminded him. “Mag demands strict adherence to vows. To be honest, Fion does not look kindly on lying either. Please, do as you must.”
He nodded.
Deliya raised her bound hands to touch his lips. “Do not frown, Ro.” Her fingertips shook against his face, and her eyes were wide and pleading.
Ro dropped his head to taste her lips again. Her responses were slow and sweet, deep and painfully pure.
“We should not,” she whispered.
“Not here,” he agreed.
Ro untethered Deliya’s mount and tied it to his own reins, then swung her up into his lap, thanking Mag that his armor kept her from rubbing the aching bulge of his erection directly.
*
Deliya looked at the small cave in dismay, the crevice that led into it so tiny that Ro had to crawl inside. “We really cannot reach your men today?”
Ro shook his head. “Donic will have moved them on. If I do not rejoin the group in three days, they will search for me.” He untied her wrists and draped the rope over his thigh.
“Will Donic be very angry?”
He smiled widely. “Furious. He treats me like a child at times, but that is the least of my worries.”
Deliya didn’t have to ask what his true worries were. They had made Magden territory without incident, but they were still two very important targets traveling unprotected not far from the Lengar border.
She gasped, as Ro started removing her armor. “What are you doing?”
“I promised you could keep these things if you kept your vow.”
“But,” she protested, a lump in her throat.
“You will get them back while we ride and when your penalty is over.”
Deliya nodded. “A fair proposition,” she decided. She reminded herself that she was in no position to argue with him. Ro had come to collect her from her foolhardy rush into enemy hands at great risk to himself, and she had broken a vow to him. The Mother had placed Deliya in Ro’s keeping — for now.
Ro grunted in response, undoing the fasteners slowly, gently peeling away layers of leather plate and mail. He started setting her armor and sword aside.
“No,” she noted, reaching for her abinatine.
He pulled the ceremonial dagger to his hip, shooting her a warning look. “Weapons were part of the vow,” he reminded her.
“It is not a weapon,” she whispered, staring at the seal that marked her long-lost lineage. “Please, Ro. You cannot keep it from me.” She was reduced to begging, as her mother had begged for Sol’s help.
Ro raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “I have had the displeasure of very nearly tasting this blade twice. I think it is safe to say that it is a weapon.”
“It is a ceremonial blade called an abinatine. It is sacred, consecrated. It is only used to kill in very specific circumstances. Had I—” She took a shuddering breath at how wrong she would have been to kill Ro as a liar. “Your men would have found only my sword.”
“What are you saying? Why would I have tasted this blade?”
“In my home, I knew only that you were important and bold. You were a most worthy adversary. When I ran — I would have shown you dishonor if I hadn’t —” She shook her head. He wouldn’t understand. Deliya stared at her empty hands.
Ro placed the abinatine in them slowly. “Never raise it against me again, or I will take it as a weapon,” he warned her.
Deliya nodded, pushing the abinatine into the back of her trousers. “Thank you, Ro.” She couldn’t look at him. The offering itself was too much to expect. If she didn’t look at him, Deliya could imagine that Ro had a scowl on his face, a look of warning.
He removed his armor much more quickly than he had hers. Ro
cupped her chin up, so Deliya faced him again. His eyes seemed full of pain.
“I must do this,” he assured her.
Deliya nodded, as the loop of rope circled her wrist again. He bound her hands then tied the loose end to one of his own wrists. Ro lay back on the quilt he’d settled on the floor, pulling Deliya with him.
Ro’s free hand settled on her waist. “Do you always dress this way?” he asked.
“How should one dress to raise crops and fight?” she countered testily. “It is appropriate to the life I lead.”
He stroked his thumb up and down her stomach through the tunic, sending delicious curls of pleasure through her body. Would every touch affect her this way? Her nipples stood out, hard and aching for the handling she remembered so well.
Ro brushed his lips over her jaw, the stubble that announced the haste with which he gave chase making trails as hot as his breath. “Was that all life was for you? You had no occasion to wear anything else?”
“What else could there be?” she asked breathlessly. A traitorous wish for Ro to tell her what else there was beat at her conscience.
He drew her tight to his body, growling as his erection pressed to her mound. Deliya closed her eyes, as his musk washed over her senses. She’d forgotten how good this felt — or perhaps Ro felt better than Loric had.
No. Ro is the wrong man. He is Magden. Loric was one of Fion’s Children, the one who should have been her mate. Her mother had chosen him with that eventuality in mind, but Loric had not been a stable man. She moaned at the memory.
Ro turned over her until his stiff cock nestled tight into the cradle of her thighs. How could a Magden feel so right? He was larger than Loric had been in both body and his attributes for mating. Deliya hadn’t forgotten that much.
He rocked that length against her, and Deliya bowed up to him. Her body was on fire, and the hand that closed on her breast scattered her senses. She gasped at the ache deep inside her, an ache that she knew instinctively Ro could heal. Oh, Mother Fion. Why had Loric never made me feel like this?
Ro drew her hands above her head, wrapping his hand around them slowly. Her protest, weak as it was, dissolved in a moan of delight as his mouth closed on her breast. His tongue batted back and forth over the sensitive tip, making the ache in her throb in time with his movements.
His mouth left her breast, and the cold air made her harden further. Should she beg him to take that tip back into the heat of his mouth? To take away the last vestiges of her thinking mind?
She might have done that had his mouth not closed on hers, hard and insistent, the short hairs on his face rasping over her cheek and chin. His scent wrapped around her, and Deliya drank it in, potent, drugging. She met him as she had the previous night, body to body, mouth to mouth, frantic for sensations she could barely remember yet craved as if she felt them moments ago.
Ro rained kisses over her face. “Silin,” he breathed as he nipped at her ear. “This was what the gods gave us silin for. A beautiful gown of green silin to match your eyes.”
Deliya remembered her silin robes, the sky blue with the green overmantle for ceremonies. Unbidden and unwelcome, the last time she wore her robes came to mind — Vela cutting the blood-soaked and ruined silin from Deliya’s body and tossing them the fire to begin the purification ritual.
“No,” she whispered, pulling at his grip on her hands.
Ro eased back and looked at her in surprise. “Deliya?”
She fought him harder, visions of a stunned Loric as his life was taken dancing in her mind. Deliya battled back her panic. She was a priestess of Fion. She should not panic, but she had panicked — that night and now.
Deliya swallowed a scream. Screams brought death, loss, blood. Loric died, because she lost her composure and screamed. Had she simply fought him — reasoned more strenuously with him, Loric would have lived. He would have lived in dishonor, but he would be alive.
“No. Release me. You cannot—” Deliya slowed her breathing. She was hyperventilating, letting the panic win.
“You are frightened. Why?” Ro asked in confusion.
“Release me. Please.” She pulled at his hold again.
“What have I done?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “I cannot— We cannot—” Deliya took a shuddering breath and blinked back tears.
Ro released her bound hands and slid off of her, touching her face gently. “You are trembling. Please, tell me my offense.”
She shook her head. “I cannot do this. I am sorry, Ro.” It was unkind to excite a man and not pay him return for his arousal, but Deliya felt unequal to the task of caring for Ro. Sleep pulled at her weary mind and body.
He pulled her to his chest, rubbing her back in calming circles. “I am not Lengar, Deliya. If you are unwilling, I will not continue.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Loric’s hands kneaded her shoulders through the silin of her robes, as she stirred the fire. Deliya reached out her hand to take down the brush she would use to scatter her circle, but he stilled her hand.
“Not yet.” Loric kissed the back of her neck above the cowl she’d lowered at the end of her work. It had taken hours, but the herbal for Vela had been completed.
“The Mother’s blessing is not required for that,” she teased.
“It could not hurt to beg for her help,” he teased in return.
Deliya shivered. Only Loric would say something so irreverent.
He kissed her again, his fingers plucking at her nipples through the silin of her robes. “Please, Deliya.”
She turned to him, placing her hand over his pounding heart. His chest was bare for the ceremony, strong but still slim. She’d once thought of Loric as a brother but not since he’d set out to begin her training in the love arts. From the first time he drove her to a climax that left her shivering, she’d seen him as nothing but a very talented and loving male.
“What shall you teach me today?” she asked.
Loric chuckled. “Kiss me,” he instructed.
She feigned an indignant look. “You seek to order a priestess of Fion?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.
He captured her mouth and lifted her to fit the ridge of his cock straining against his trousers. Loric lowered her to the floor of the circle, his hands molding her body through the silin robes while his mouth plundered hers.
“This is not a proper lesson,” she informed him, winding her hands in his shoulder-length hair, the white locks pale even against her winter pallor. “You have done nothing new.”
“So impatient,” he chided her. Loric pulled her hands above her head and held them in the grip of one of his larger hands.
Deliya looked at him in confusion and concern. “What is this?”
“When you take your challenge,” he hinted for her.
Deliya nodded, still confused. What did this have to do with her challenge?
“Learn the beauty of not touching.”
Deliya’s heart raced. She nodded her encouragement.
Loric lowered his head, kissing her as he dragged her robes to a point high on her chest. He moved lower, suckling her breasts.
It was maddening, she decided. She wasn’t sure how anyone survived the challenge, let alone why the men agreed to this torture. Deliya moved beneath him, needing what she couldn’t have.
“Loric,” she pleaded.
“Silence,” he whispered.
“I am allowed to speak,” she reminded him indignantly. Even in challenge, Deliya would be allowed to speak.
She bit back a scream of pleasure as his fingers breached her. That would not be a part of the challenge, reminded herself. No. The challenge will be worse. Loric was testing her dedication.
Deliya met his eyes, challenging his test, as he stroked her inside and out, coaxing her toward a climax. Just as her internal muscles started the first flutterings of her coming release, his fingers withdrew. She glared at him, swallowing the cry of frustration he hoped to wring from her.
Loric
chuckled, licking her essence from his fingertips, his eyes bright and playful. He moved his gaze from her face to her core, licking his lips slowly.
She shivered in anticipation then smiled smugly. “And how will you hold me?” she inquired.
He raised an eyebrow at the insinuation that he could not, then pulled the cord from his silin pants with a look of pure triumph. Loric bound her hands securely then wound the cord through the leg of her stone worktable to finish the job.
His hand rested between her thighs, stroking slowly. Deliya bowed up to his touch, craving release.
“Soon,” he promised. Loric stroked his hands down her body, using the silin of her robes to tease and excite her further.
When he thrust his tongue into her, Deliya shattered, grinding her teeth to hold back the sweet sounds of her climax.
Hearing her wouldn’t disturb Vela and Celdin. They knew Loric was training her. He had to inform them of Deliya’s agreement before the training began, after all. But, this was training, and Deliya was trained well enough to meet the challenge. Loveplay was time to vent her pleasure, but Loric made it clear that he was training her in earnest this time. That meant silence in pleasure and pain.
Loric settled back on his heels, his hand pumping his length. He’d let Deliya watch while he handled his own release many times. As much as she liked driving his body as he drove hers, Deliya couldn’t deny that she liked to watch him pleasure himself.
He closed his eyes, his muscles tensing. “Would you like to learn something new?” he offered.
“Yes,” she pleaded. “Will you teach me to pleasure you?” Females weren’t typically trained to take a male orally to climax. It was too intimate and led to uncontrolled drive in an unchallenged female. That was a pleasure for after the challenge.
He shivered at her offer. “No. Not this time.”
Deliya nodded. “What then?”
Loric reached a flask down from her table and returned it almost as quickly, hiding the colors and size that would tell her its contents. He rubbed the oil over his length, grimacing as he did so. Loric laid his body over hers, his cock brushing over her core.