“It’s not easy, Isolde! I’m nervous as hell and I have no idea what you like!”
“That’s my point. We know nothing about each other. If this bond is actually real, maybe we’re supposed to get to know each other before we try it. I’ve always said it wasn’t real, but I may be changing my mind.”
“What changed your mind? Surely, not the fight,” Elan said. He wasn’t expecting to spar with his intended at all, but it ended up being exciting. Did that answer some question for her she couldn’t just ask him?
“I can read your mother’s mind just as easily as I do people back home. I got tired of her lying to me and forced thoughts out of her head. That’s painful for both of us. I can’t read yours for some reason. If we are meant to bond, maybe I’m not supposed to. Or maybe when we bond, it goes both ways. Your mother said you had mind tricks of your own, but I don’t know what they are. She said I might be immune to them like I can’t get into your head.”
“I can make things move with my mind. I can deliver a punch with just a thought.”
“Is that how you win at the pits?”
“No, I don’t cheat and I don’t always have to punch.”
He focused on her hair sitting over her shoulder. Her back was totally bare and he remembered the feeling of electricity when it was pressed against his chest. He pictured running his fingers down the back of her neck and down her shoulders. She nearly jumped out of the pool.
“That was supposed to feel good, not scare you,” he grinned.
“I wasn’t scared,” she protested, lowering herself back in the water. “If someone was really behind me, I would have drowned them in this pool.”
“Isolde, fighting with you is sexy. Sitting in this pool makes it hard to resist you. I don’t want my touch to ever be unfamiliar to you. I want you to beg me for it. I want to beg you to touch me. I’ve been waiting to meet you for so long and you spent the entire day mad at me. I was worried you’d leave and never speak to me again.”
She gave him a gentle smile. “You’re still upset I was angry with you, but you haven’t said a word about anything I told you about our mothers.”
“To be honest, with mine, it’s a relief. She never saw me as weak. She knew the truth this entire time. Though, I am going to have to tell her she must disable any cameras in my chambers while you are here.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Isolde’s face darkened. “How are we supposed to be warriors if our own mothers can fool us like that?”
He heard a knock on the door that had to be either Botak or dinner. If they had just brought it up, he hoped they brought enough for her too. He would send them back if they didn’t. He asked if she was opposed to wearing the clothes Botak had made as they were getting out of the pool. She didn’t answer, she just gave him a wink.
What did that even mean?
Chapter 9
Isolde stayed in the hot spring while Elan hopped out to answer the door. She eyed his back while he dried himself off with a cloth and wrapped a black and gold robe around himself. His back was roped with muscles and there were a few more scars there. She didn’t have any battle scars. She should have. If she got injured hunting, Fjola made her go to a surgeon to make the scar go away. They didn’t have fighting pits on Avala at all or eat least, none she was aware of.
Elan came back to the room with another black and gold robe draped over his arm. He left it on one of the rocks. “Fighting always leaves me starving. There’s food, but I made a few requests and they should be back. Can you put that robe on and join me?”
“Elan,” she hesitated, holding the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “If your servants see me in here eating with you, wearing clothes like you, your people will revolt. It’s too soon.”
She liked sparring with him and she was oddly attracted to him, but maybe he just wasn’t smart. Or, maybe he was more concerned about having sex than anything else. He gave her a mysterious wink, grabbed her hand, and pulled her into the sitting chamber.
“See this armoire?” he asked, gesturing. If he was planning on shoving her in there, he was going to end up with a bloodied nose. “Go towards the back and push on what looks like a burnt knot in the wood.”
She didn’t think he would hurt her, but she’d had way too many surprises since she got here. She felt a tiny, hidden button give way underneath her finger and the entire back of the armoire shimmered, then disappeared. A hidden passage? Even she didn’t have one of those in her chambers. She stopped when she saw a glass case with some sort of costume in it.
She couldn’t make out the material. It wasn’t battle leather. It was black and too shiny. It was the mask that made her step back out the corridor. There was nothing on it that would give away an identity. You wouldn’t have even been able to see someone’s eye shape. There was some sort of cover that would allow the wearer to see out, but there were red eyes painted over it so no one else could see in. She was used to Elan’s red eyes, but this looked like a demon.
The mouth wasn’t better. It looked like a wide mouth full of razor-sharp teeth dripping with blood. This was wrong. Elan shouldn’t have this. Memories of five months ago started flooding into her head. She had been trained to never show fear, but this room was too small. She backed up straight into Elan’s chest. He either knew what that suit meant to her or he knew she was afraid.
Strong arms wrapped around her, but they didn’t give her comfort. They made her panic. She tried to struggle, but all of her training went out the window on how to break his hold.
“Isolde, what is it?” he demanded, whipping her around so that he was looking her in the eyes. She looked away. “My fighting costume upsets you. Why? The entire planet knows my face. This is just the latest costume I’m using. It has to be scary because it’s this big show in the pits. Screaming, cheering, gambling. You could watch from this passage.”
That made sense, but this costume didn’t. It was too close. “Why this? I imagine you have to have someone special design them. Why does the mask look like this?” she whispered, shaking his hands off.
“Did you study our religion too? That’s what all the paintings of Unif, the God of Violence looks like. Why does it frighten you after we sparred? I wouldn’t hurt you. It’s just a scary costume.”
“Whose idea was the costume? Did they tell you what that costume means on Avala?” Just then, her stomach betrayed her, twisted in on itself, and announced to Elan she was hungry.
“Come eat and we will discuss my costume. I had no idea anyone on Avala would even recognize it. Please? I had more curry prepared. I heard them bring it in while we were arguing. I would never hurt you.”
She followed him back to the food and there was even more on the table as well as a note with a wax seal on it. She watched him break the seal and read it. His eyebrows were knitted together at whatever he was reading.
“From my mother. This is just as much for you as it is for me. There’s an entire part addressed to you.”
“Elan and Isolde,
“By now, you both know the truth. Fjola is aware and they are trying to find a way on Avala for her to access cameras here. I was watching and listening while you were in the pool after you fought. I think Isolde is onto something and you should both see Tati as soon as you can.
Isolde, you may find some things in Elan’s chambers that mean something different to you than it does to the people on Cendis. I’m aware of most of it through Fjola, but Elan doesn’t. Please, talk to him instead of leaving. Maybe the two of you together can figure out mysteries Fjola and I never could.”
She started plating things that looked and smelled good, even if she had no idea what they were. The main course was a strange, orangish looking meat. She didn’t know what it was, but it smelled so good, she put double helpings on her plate because she was always starving after fighting.
“Ah, yes. You will like that one. The beast is similar to lamb, but on my planet, they can breathe underwater. I had Botak ask for that since
you said Avala didn’t have spices. The meat has been rubbed down with several spices, marinated in juices and pastes, then stuck on a skewer and roasted over a flame.”
She temporarily forgot about that horrible costume and what it might mean. “You know a lot about cooking for a prince.” She closed her eyes and moaned as she chewed the meat slowly and experienced all its flavors.
“I love watching you experience our food for the first time. I cook my own hunts in the forest before Botak and I come back. That passage helps me sneak spices out the kitchens. Should I start making plans to sneak you out and hunt or should we talk about my mother’s note and your reaction to my costume?”
“When did you adopt the god of violence as your costume? Has it been that way for years or right before my arrival?”
“They give you nicknames in the pits. I’m not the only one who hides my face. Most Cendians now are too afraid of the gods to risk doing anything to offend Fia again. We have the factions, who think we need to make an alliance with your people and work together. Then, we have the underground. They think they need to show the goddess Fia we can handle the flame again. They think whoever gets the biggest glory in the pits will get fire back first. Everyone wears masks, not just the fighters. I suspect most of the people watching me and betting on me are on the council or close to it.
“Your nickname is always something weak your first time in the pit. I think mine was some harmless forest animal that lives off grass. I’m undefeated and I have been for the last year. They introduced me as Unif out the blue about eight months ago. I changed my costume around that time because it’s just expected.”
“Something is not right. A costume similar to that showed up at Avala worn by someone targeting the sixteen. They were sloppy and we thought they were just trying to give everyone a scare at first. But I woke up in the middle of the night staring up into a mask very much like this one with someone’s hands around my throat. I didn’t think, I just reacted and killed him. If I had disabled him, we could have questioned him.”
“When was this?” Elan demanded. “Was he Avalian or Cendian?”
“It was about five months before I came here. It was when we started cutting my food down to look like a slave. Jovin met with a physician and had a plan to get me thinner without losing all the muscle I worked so hard for. It was my first night on different food and reduced portions and I slept a little deeper than usual.
“The man was Cendian, but he did a good job hiding it. We cut into our dead to find out how they died. You don’t, you burn them. The physician cutting into the man found some sort of device in each eye to make them green instead of red. He said they used to exist a very long time ago before correcting eyesight was so easy. People would wear these devices on their eyes so that they could see better or he said some just liked to change the color.
“Some people on Avala, they like to make their hair different colors. Never white like yours, but there’s a way to make it white to put another color on top of it. It’s called blonde. Some of them like yellow hair as long as it’s not too light to be confused with yours. They tried stripping his hair with the same chemicals the Avalians use when they want to change their hair color again. They wanted to see if he was Cendian or someone mixed with a slave and tried to hide it.
“His hair was white when they got all the dye out. They looked at his eyelashes under the scope too. Trimmed down so they looked closer to ours. No one recognized him. They brought all the slaves in and he didn’t grow up with them. He wasn’t built like them. He was built more like you. No one found a pod and none of the satellites were triggered someone entered our airspace. Someone thought maybe we had rebel slaves. When I left, the guards were still tearing up the mountains looking for them and the scientists were running tests on that man’s body they either didn’t think they needed before or it just never crossed their minds. Or maybe they just weren’t allowed.
“The Cendians and the Avalians all started out human when they left earth. Both planets took gods from the totems they found there and gave them credit for the changes that happened to humanity. The scientists have gone against the Order of Prodigies. When I left, the scientists were fighting with our religious order because they think it might be something scientific that changed both of us, not the gods. Quite honestly, I’m not sure why someone hasn’t questioned that centuries ago.
“The scientists were running tests on themselves and that man I killed to see what parts of them were still human and look for possible mutations. They are looking to see exactly why the Cendians and the Avalians look so different and if there are any remaining cells that would clue them in on the fire and ice. They dropped everything with our water problem to do this. They don’t know who that man is or how he got on our planet. They don’t know how he knew about the sixteen or targeted them. I think they are looking for a way to get their ice back and steal fire from that man’s blood.”
“The only people who know that costume is the underground, but they don’t know who is underneath the mask. They wouldn’t have known about you. Why would someone in the underground attack you and not me?”
“This is bigger than both of us. The man with his hands around my neck was squeezing hard and he had the jump on me, but he was bigger than you are. He could have moved his hands and snapped my neck. He could have snapped it before I opened my eyes. He fought hard, but not like someone fighting for their lives. If I had stopped and thought instead of just reacting and killing him, I would have noticed that. I think someone wanted me to see that mask and that man attacked me knowing he would die.”
How was she supposed to sleep here now? She wasn’t the only one thinking that and she was glad Elan had a logical plan.
“Please, don’t go back to the slave quarters. If you want to try the bond that way, we will, but stay in here where you’re safe. I’ll make a big show about wanting my toy in the next room and have them bring a straw pallet from the slave quarters in here. You can sleep in my bed and I’ll take the straw pallet. Just be safe until we can find out what’s going on.”
That straw pallet was uncomfortable and itchy all night. She must have tossed and turned for hours before she found a comfortable position to try to relax. Elan looked concerned and a little scared. He wasn’t worried about being uncomfortable all night at all. He was worried about her. She already had an idea. If he could get her close to the fighting pits, she could listen to see if the underground somehow knew about the faction. She may be able to get a name.
“Can you take me through the secret passage to the pits?”
“Bloody hell, Isolde. Can’t you leave it for tonight? All I can think about is what could have happened to you in the slave quarters where there’s no guards. I know you can handle yourself, but can you just let me pretend I can keep you safe here?”
She decided to get his mind off it. It wouldn’t do if both of them let their emotions get out of control. It would put them both in danger. That couldn’t happen on Cendis. Not after everything she’d learned so far.
“Why do you have to take the straw mat? It’s uncomfortable. I tried to sleep on one last night. You’ve already seen me naked twice, is there any reason you can’t sleep next to me when that’s all we’re doing?”
Elan shot her this pained look. “Do you care for me at all, Isolde? Are you just doing this because you’ve been told you have to?”
She wasn’t good at this. It would have been easier to stand there and let him pummel her stomach with his fists than show weakness and tell him how she was feeling. The truth was, she’d never been that excited sparing before. When he bested her and she could feel he was excited too, she wanted to turn around and kiss him. It was the wrong time. He needed to know about his mother and she couldn’t get him to bed with Sartika watching.
“You’re a better man than I thought you were when I got in that pod to come here. I’m glad I’m getting to know the man behind the lies.”
That was the most diplomatic way
she could think of telling him she was attracted to him way more than she should be having only known him two days. She nearly lost control with his mother watching when he blocked her punches and trapped her in his arms.
Elan looked like he knew she was hiding something from him. It looked like he thought it was bad. They both climbed into his large, feather bed with their backs to each other. This was so awkward and uncomfortable. She needed to give him a hint. She rolled over, snuggled into his back, and wrapped her arms around his chest. She felt his breath catch.
“Is this okay?” He smelled like the lavender he used in the pool and citrus. She wanted to bury her face into his neck and breathe his scent in.
“Why are you doing this? You don’t want to.” He was holding himself totally still like he was pushing her away with his words, but he didn’t actually want her to let him go.
“You think you know what I do and don’t want after two days?”
“I know it’s not me.”
“You think that fight didn’t do the same thing to me it did to you?”
She was right near his ear and she kind of wanted to see what he would do if she bit it or licked it.
“If you could feel it affected me, why did you pull away and tell me you wanted to wait to try the bond? You’re putting it off!”
She took a chance and nipped at his ear. “Your mother was watching and you needed to know the truth. I really do think the bond is not something that happens that easy.”
He easily rolled her onto her back. His weight was rested on his elbows, but he was stroking her hair. His face was so close to hers, his long feather lashes were brushing her cheeks.
“You really think this could work?”
“Kiss me, Elan. The courtesans taught me ways of pleasing you that don’t involve completing the bond. While we’re getting to know each other, we’ll get to the point you can teach me what you like when we try.”
Child of Fire, Child of Ice-A Sci-fi Romance Series (The Waljan Chronicles Book 1) Page 5