“Yvan,” I say, surprised by his searing expression, the fire blazing in his eyes. I hoist myself up on one elbow and consider him questioningly.
“Can I lie down with you again?” he asks, his voice ragged with emotion.
My heart thuds against my chest, and I lift up the edge of the blanket in invitation. The bed dips as Yvan slides the length of his lean body under the blanket in one smooth motion. He languidly curls up against me, his hand finding my waist as he pulls me close. I press my hand to his chest, tracing its hard planes through his woolen shirt. His heartbeat is strong and steady under my fingers, his fire running in a hot stream.
He’s so close I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. He smells like well-stoked bonfires and something distinctly masculine that makes me want to burrow my head under his jaw and inhale his scent all night long. The glow of his eyes heightens, locked on mine, blazing with a heat I can feel straight through my fire lines. I slide my fingertips along the collar of his shirt, tracing the skin just above it and along his graceful neck. His breathing deepens as I touch him like I’ve yearned to for so long.
“Elloren,” he says, his voice breaking with intensity. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
His words light me up, like flame to dry brush, his heat sweeping through me.
Yvan leans forward and brings his lips to mine—his mouth all softness and sensuous curves, at complete odds with the sharp angles of his face.
We kiss each other slowly at first, his kiss fervent and lingering. And then his kiss deepens, my mouth parting under his as his kiss roughens with desire, his fire sizzling down my lines. We kiss each other desperately, like two people starved for air who are finally able to draw a breath. I press myself against his hard body, wanting to be as close to him as I possibly can, and he responds eagerly.
“I’m falling in love with you, too,” I say breathlessly, pulling back a fraction, staring deeply into his eyes.
He brings his lips back to mine and kisses me passionately, his tongue finding mine as his fire rushes through me. My affinity lines give a hard, white-hot flare as my breath hitches, my body arching toward his.
Yvan’s fire pulses through me as he guides me gently onto my back, his long fingers stroking my hair as he rolls on top of me, the feel of him thrilling my entire body. I wrap my legs around his, his body welded to mine and moving against me with a provocative rhythm. He pushes my tunic slowly up, his fingers sliding under its edge to explore my skin underneath.
Somewhere in the background, a man’s gruff voice sings loudly and off-key, slurring the words to some tavern song. My lovely world abruptly shatters around the sound, like glass fracturing into a million pieces and quickly dissolving into the air.
Holy Ancient One, I’m dreaming!
I begin to slide out of my dream state, desperately trying to pull the image back together by sheer force of will—an impossibly intricate puzzle whose pieces are falling away, soon to be lost forever.
In its place is Yvan, sitting on a wooden chair next to the bed, staring at me intently. His face is serious and deeply unsettled, his arm resting on the frame of the window that looks out onto the street. In the background, the jarring voice continues to belch out fragments of a tune.
I prop myself up on my elbow, dazed, forcing myself to adjust to a diminished reality, the intimacy I’ve just shared with Yvan a complete illusion. A torrent of emotions floods through me, like black dye meeting white cloth—utter humiliation, loneliness, and a burning longing for him.
“I heard a man singing.” My voice comes out shy and groggy from sleep. “He woke me up.” I pray Yvan can’t decipher anything about my dream from my voice or posture.
His face tenses, and he glances toward the window. “He’s drunk. Seems to be quieting down, though.” Yvan looks back at me, his brow tightly furrowed.
“Did he wake you, too?” My voice is almost a whisper.
“No.” Yvan glances down and shakes his head. Then he looks back up and locks his eyes on to mine. “You did.”
I gulp. “I did?” The words come out faint and strained. “Was I snoring?”
“You talk in your sleep.”
We’re both uncomfortably quiet for a long moment.
“What did I say?” I whisper, mortified.
He averts his gaze. “You said my name a few times.”
My stomach drops, the blood draining from my face. “Oh.” I can hardly take a breath. “Did I say anything else?”
He’s looking anywhere but at me. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“Too late.”
He turns back to face me. “You said, ‘I’m falling in love with you.’”
I roll onto my back and cover my face with my hands, wanting to disappear. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” His voice is tight, but kind.
“I can’t control what I dream about.” I drop my hands from my face and let them rest on my abdomen. I stare up at the swaying cobwebs as a single tear falls from my eye and I reach up to wipe it away.
“I get lonely sometimes,” I say simply. Another tear falls, cold on my face.
“I understand,” he says, his voice low and thick with emotion.
“When I saw you that night with Iris...” He winces slightly at the hurt in my tone, and I regret the words immediately, feeling petty and vulnerable. “You have a long history with her, don’t you?”
Yvan sighs deeply, his jaw tensing. “Iris has been a good friend to me, Elloren. But it’s not like that between us.”
But I bet she knows all your secrets. Since she’s Fae, too.
And she doesn’t look exactly like Carnissa Gardner.
I sit up and hug my knees to my chest, wishing I could look like anything but what I am. “She’s very beautiful,” I say as more tears roll down my cheeks.
“So are you.”
I stop breathing for a moment, confused by his admission. “But...you told me once that you found me to be repulsive.”
He winces again. “That was before I knew you. It was wrong of me to be so unkind. I’m sorry. It doesn’t excuse my behavior, but at the time, I was thinking more of what your looks represented.”
“My grandmother?”
“Her... All of them.”
I wipe at my tears. “And now? What do you see?”
He lets out a long sigh and studies me, his green eyes blazing gold at the edges. “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He inhales sharply and looks away, his mouth set in a tight line, as if he’s said too much and wants to prevent himself from making the same mistake again.
When he finally looks back at me, I can see my own loneliness, my own longing for him, reflected back in his eyes. I hug my knees tight, heart racing, not quite believing I’ve heard him correctly.
“It’s late,” he says, his voice sounding strained and sad. “We should get some sleep.”
No, I want to say. Come here and stay with me. I want you. Only you.
Instead I say, “All right,” my voice equally strained, equally sad, reeling from his sudden reserve.
I watch him as he stiffly moves back to his spot near the fireplace and stretches out on the floor with his back toward me. His body looks tense and uncomfortable, his head resting on his arm. An aching loneliness hangs in the air and chills the room.
“Elloren,” he says as he lies very still.
“Yes?”
“Do you know what happened to the family of the Kelt that Sage Gaffney ran off with?” When I don’t answer, he says, “I ran into some people I know at that tavern we stopped at earlier today. They told me.”
“What happened?” I ask hesitantly, almost not wanting to know.
“They found them a few days ago. They were all killed. By Gardnerian soldiers.”
“No,” I whisper, shocke
d.
“His parents, his brother, even their animals.” Yvan hesitates for a moment before continuing. “The Mage Council sanctioned it, Elloren. At the request of the Gaffneys. It was a Mage purity strike.”
Nausea roils through me, and I suddenly understand the reason for Yvan’s distance. Why he’s on the floor right now instead of in my arms. It says right in our holy book that the loss of a Gardnerian woman’s purity by a man of another race must be avenged. And horrific acts like this are becoming more common in the Western Realm, the Alfsigr Elves also enforcing purity in this way.
“You think being involved with me could be dangerous in that way,” I say, my voice numbed.
“I know it would be.”
“Because of my family.”
“Yes. And because some very powerful people want you wandfasted to Lukas Grey. Anyone who gets in the way of that will be in danger, especially if they’re not Gardnerian.”
“Anyone...meaning you and your mother.”
“Yes. I can’t think of a way to get around it. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
Tears prick my eyes. “What I said in my dream was true,” I tell him. No longer hiding anything. Holding my heart straight out.
“There are lots of ways to care about people,” he says, his voice tightened. “As friends. Allies.”
“And what if that’s not enough?”
“I think, in our case, that has to be enough, for more reasons than you know.”
“We could keep it a secret.”
His tone takes on a jaded cast. “These things never stay secret.”
“What am I to you, Yvan?” I ask, clutching at the blanket.
He pushes himself up and turns to me. “I think we’ve become good friends.”
“But that’s it.”
“That has to be it, Elloren. For my mother’s safety. And for yours. And your family’s safety.”
My fire line gives a defiant flare, and I fight the urge to throw a rebellious streak of flame out toward him. I can sense him holding his fire back as well, gold sparking in his eyes.
I’m lost. Trapped in a cage with no way out, steel bars separating me from Yvan. But I can’t ask him to make such a dangerous sacrifice. Not for me. I won’t risk his life or the lives of our families.
I turn away from Yvan and lie down, pulling the threadbare blanket over myself and balling my body up tight. I close my eyes, dam up my tears and wish that I could disappear into another beautiful dream and never wake from it.
* * *
Yvan is quiet during the trip back, and so am I, the two of us wrestling with our own private thoughts. I sit behind him on the black mare, my arms wrapped around his waist, pressed tight against his warm back, yet feeling like I’m a million miles away from him—both of us forced by birth into separate worlds.
But there’s nothing to be done about it. He’s right. If we went off together, we’d place everyone we love in grave danger.
Hours later, after we’ve left the horse with Andras and trudged through the snowy wilds for what seems like an eternity, we find ourselves once again at the base of the daunting Southern Spine.
Yvan pauses to glance up at its snowcapped pinnacle as the two of us stand there awkwardly. He doesn’t need to explain his discomfort—I understand completely. It’s hard to be physically close and deny our feelings for each other, knowing nothing can ever come of it.
“Yvan,” I say, breaking the silence, “I just want you to know that I’ve thought a lot about everything you said and...I understand. About the danger to your mother, I mean. And why we can’t...be together. It was reckless to even consider it.”
Yvan nods, his jaw growing rigid as he glances at me and then at the ground, as if he’s trying to compose himself. Trying to rein in both his fire and some powerful emotion.
“Elloren,” he says, his voice heavy with feeling, “if things were different...”
The words hang in the cold air between us.
“I know,” I say softly.
“I wish things were different.”
“Me, too.” I swallow, my throat suddenly raw and tight. “It’s strange,” I tell him. “I don’t really know you that well at all, and I know you have so many secrets...but I feel like you’ve become my closest friend.”
His gaze turns ardent. “I feel the same way about you.”
“Friends then?” I offer. “And allies?”
He nods stiffly, clearly as miserable over the unavoidable boundaries as I am. I swallow back the ache, fight back the tears. But I have to say it. I have to know. Because if we can’t ever be together...
“Iris?” I look down at the ground, not able to meet his eyes, bracing myself.
“I’m not interested in Iris,” he says flatly.
Relief washes over me. I know it’s unfair to want him to be exclusively mine when we can never be together, but I don’t feel like being fair.
“And Lukas?” he suddenly asks, obviously not of a mind to be fair, either.
I look up at him and am thrown by the severe look he’s giving me. “He’s not what I want.” You are.
He nods, and some of the tension drains from his face, only a troubled resignation remaining. He glances up at the ridge, then holds out a hand to me. “Shall we?”
I walk over to him and take his hand as I wrap one arm, then two, then my entire body around him. I close my eyes as we begin our ascent and lose myself to the feel of his warmth and his strong heartbeat against mine.
MAGE COUNCIL
RULING
#319
All diplomatic relations with the Northern and Southern Lupine packs are hereby suspended and trade sanctions will be vigorously enforced.
The sanctions will not be lifted and diplomatic relations will not resume until the Lupines cede the disputed land along the Northern and Southern border of the Holy Magedom.
CHAPTER FIVE
NILANTYR
The day after Yvan and I return from Keltania, a fierce storm blows in from the northeast. The heavy winds and driving snow cut off all visibility and make travel to Amaz lands an impossibility for now.
As the sun begins to set and the storm takes a sharp turn for the worse, Ariel bursts into our North Tower room, slick with snow, her eyes wild, her raven flapping in behind her and cawing abrasively.
Diana, Marina, Wynter and I stare at her in confusion, startled to see her in such a panicked state.
Ariel stalks to her bed and hauls the mattress off it. She frantically feels around the mattress’s edges, searching desperately for something, not even noticing her beloved chickens as they run about her feet and try in vain to get her attention. She’s deathly pale and sweating, despite the chill air.
“Ariel,” I ask carefully as she flings open a dresser drawer and throws the contents on to the floor, agitatedly moving from one drawer to the next, barely noticing me. “What’s the matter?”
Ariel hurls one of the drawers clear out of the dresser and lets loose with a stream of profanity. She rounds on me, her eyes savage. “Naga set it on fire! She planned it this way! She waited...waited for the storm!”
I’m thrust into further bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”
“My nilantyr!” She goes back to hurling things around in desperation.
Diana rises slowly to her feet. “Stop this right now,” she demands, tensing her muscles authoritatively.
Wynter has abandoned the drawing she’s working on and is slowly approaching Ariel. I can tell by Wynter’s grave expression that the situation is even worse than it appears.
“Ariel,” Wynter says, nearing her with supreme caution, “you brought all the nilantyr with you. I watched you put it in your bag.”
“No...no,” Ariel vehemently protests, shaking her head as she frantically tears the pillow on her bed apart, feather
s flying everywhere.
“It’s not here,” Wynter calmly insists.
Ariel continues to shake her head from side to side as she paces the room, looking through anything she can find, thrusting her arms under furniture. I notice, with mounting alarm, that she’s starting to tremble.
Sweet Ancient One, she’s been pulled completely off the nilantyr.
“What will happen if she stops taking the nilantyr so suddenly?” Wynter asks me, fear in her silver eyes.
I send her a troubled look, my mind racing back through all my apothecary lessons, trying to think of a way to help Ariel. To offset what’s coming.
“If it’s all gone,” I tell Wynter, “she’ll get very sick—”
“Shut up!” Ariel screams at me, her face twisted up into a mask of hatred. “It’s not gone! I know there’s more! I had more! Just in case! I know I had more!” She starts rummaging through my dresser now, tossing my clothes out of it. “You hid it from me, Gardnerian! You stole it!”
Diana takes a step forward. “No one stole from you.”
Ariel’s eyes blaze with violence, and she takes a threatening step toward Diana. But then her legs buckle, and she throws an arm out toward my dresser to keep from falling, her trembling increasing to the point where I fear she’ll collapse.
Wynter and I rush to Ariel as her face turns deathly gray, and the trembling worsens to a full-body quaking. We grasp her arms just as Ariel lurches forward and vomits all over the clothing she’s pulled from my drawers. Wynter and I both recoil instinctively, and Ariel falls to her knees, still retching. We follow her down to the floor, Wynter throwing her arms around Ariel to steady her.
“We need to find a physician,” I tell Wynter, my voice tight with urgency. “Now.”
“We can’t,” Wynter cautions emphatically. “The nilantyr is illegal. If they find out she has it...”
The Iron Flower Page 24