Jessabelle's Beast (Shadows in Sanctuary Book 3)

by Susan Trombley

  It was clear he was trying to restrain himself from reciprocating, which would have seen them reenacting the last scene they had played out in his room before coming to the theater. His primal had other ideas, and a growl from him rewarded her as her hand drifted higher, slipping beneath his tented loincloth to encircle his rock hard erection.

  He groaned and leaned in her direction, bumping his forehead against hers, and that was the point where she cast her veil aside and pressed her lips against his.

  She was lost once his tongue darted inside her mouth. She didn’t give a damn about the watching crowd. She would have climbed on his lap and impaled herself on his shaft in a heartbeat if he hadn’t kept her pinned in her own seat with heavy hands. Apparently, he was aware of her eagerness and was trying to save at least some face for both of them. Or possibly, he was simply prolonging their excitement by focusing entirely on kissing her while she stroked him beneath his loincloth.

  When the music started back up again, signaling the beginning of the next act, Gorzo broke their kiss. “Do you want to watch the rest of the play?”

  Jessa shook her head, unable to answer because her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was closing her throat.

  Gorzo gently dislodged her grip from his shaft and stood long enough to slide a curtain across the opening of the box.

  “There’s a curtain! Why didn’t you do that sooner?” She watched him unhook his loincloth, revealing his straining shaft in the dim bioluminescence that suddenly lit up their box.

  “I wanted everyone to see that you desired me.”

  Jessa smirked. “Show off.”

  He came to stand in front of her, his erection bobbing. “There were some who had their doubts. Perhaps they thought they might lure you away from me.”

  Jessa curled her hand around his shaft again, then leaned forward and closed her lips around the head, flicking him with her tongue. His huge body shuddered, and his hands dropped to her head, cradling it as she sucked him deeper inside her mouth.

  Just as she felt his erection twitching, she released him, causing another groan of disappointment. “No one could lure me away from you. I’ve never belonged to anyone in my life, and now I know why. I was always yours.” She closed her mouth over him again and brought him to climax.

  One climax wasn’t enough to sate him, and he soon had Jessa stripped bare and bent over her chair. He plunged into her warmth from behind, the scorching heat of him filling her.

  He brought her to the heights of physical passion, but it was more than that. Jessa had once been a spiritual woman but had lost all faith and belief in an immortal soul. That night—hidden behind the curtain of the theater box—she felt a bond between them strengthen that had little to do with the amazing sex. This feeling that transcended sex was enough to convince her that she’d been wrong to abandon souls when she’d abandoned the Diakonos.

  *****

  Their interlude in the theater box had not gone unnoticed, based on the sideways glances they got from many of the umbrose as they left the building. Jessa wasn’t really embarrassed about that, though she’d lived a very sheltered life and had never pictured herself as an exhibitionist. With Gorzo, she wanted people to know she couldn’t keep her hands off of him. She wanted people to know that he belonged to her.

  This possessiveness was also new to her. There had only been one other time in her life when she’d wanted to claim another person as hers. That had ended in disaster, as would this. She knew their time was running out. She’d let this mission get personal, and she would pay for it in the long run, just as she’d suffered after being separated from Micah.

  Jessa didn’t welcome thoughts of the future they didn’t have, so she pushed them away, compartmentalizing them with the memories of a child she’d never been able to call her own. These moments in her life when she could feel like she truly had a family were far too short to dwell on the inevitable.

  Both Princess Stacia and Lady Lilith had been at the theater that evening, so it wasn’t surprising to bump into them when she and Gorzo were leaving.

  “Good to see our theater box wasn’t the only one getting use,” Lilith said, smiling at Jessa as she tucked her hand into that of Duke Ranove.

  He glanced down at her with a sigh and a slight shake of his head. “You used to be so modest. I have definitely corrupted you.”

  Lilith rolled her eyes. “Maybe I was talking about the fact that both General Gorzo’s theater box and ours have stood empty for months, despite the many plays that have run.”

  Ranove chuckled. “Of course that’s what you meant.”

  Stacia crossed her arms over her chest, her forehead creased in a frown. “Well, at least both of your mates stuck around for the entire show. Something called Balfor away half-way through the intermission.”

  “And you don’t know what it was?” Lilith’s tone was surprised as she glanced at her friend.

  Gorzo settled his arm around Jessa’s shoulders, pulling her closer in a protective manner—despite there being little threat from the two human women who had thus far been nothing but friendly and welcoming to Jessa. “Your Highness, My Lady, while we enjoy your company, we have reservations.”

  Ranove nodded. “As do we. We will not keep you.” He sketched a slight bow to Jessa, which caught her off guard, and then he clasped Gorzo on the shoulder. “Until later, my friend.”

  Lilith was almost tugged off her feet as Ranove drew her away. She turned to look over her shoulder at them, waving her free hand in farewell. “Sorry, he gets impatient. We’ll do lunch tomorrow, Jessa. Stace, hope you can be there.”

  Stacia didn’t leave right away, and Jessa felt uncomfortably aware of the other woman’s assessing gaze. “I’m glad to see the two of you are happy together.” Her eyes narrowed. “Gorzo is a good friend, and I owe him far more than I can ever repay him. I’d take it personal if someone hurt him.”

  “Princess!” Gorzo’s tone was sharper than Jessa had ever heard him use before. The word ended with a growl.

  Stacia’s gaze lifted to meet Gorzo’s. She shrugged. “I’m just putting that out there.” She returned her attention to Jessa, who felt uncomfortably certain that the princess—despite being a mere human—could somehow see right through her. “Jessa, I think lunch is a great idea for tomorrow.”

  Gorzo’s arm tightened around Jessa’s shoulder so much that she was almost painfully crushed against his side. His wing wrapped around her until she could barely see the princess. “She’ll be busy. She has to choose her handmaidens. Interviews are tomorrow.”

  Stacia clapped her hands together. “Oh, I do love handmaiden selection. Of course, I abandoned the whole concept of having handmaidens once I became a princess, but I’ll be more than happy to help you select yours.”

  Gorzo spoke before Jessa could. “That won’t be necessary, Your Highness.”

  His defensiveness on her behalf was making Jessa both guilty and nervous. Stacia had a reason to be suspicious, and Gorzo seemed to have picked up on that. While she certainly didn’t want to find herself alone in Stacia’s company, she also didn’t want Gorzo to get himself in trouble with his princess—and no doubt by extension his prince—simply to defend her. She didn’t deserve that consideration. “It’s fine, Gorzo. I’d like the assistance. I’ve certainly never conducted interviews for a handmaiden before.”

  Stacia nodded her head. “Good. It’s a date then. Until tomorrow.” Without warning, shadows darkened the area around Stacia, and then she simply disappeared, leaving Jessa standing tucked against Gorzo’s side, frozen with shock and fear.

  Such power! How can I hope to keep the truth from someone like that?

  Chapter 16

  Hate. It was the only thing that sustained Uriale as he rotted beneath the city of Sanctuary. He hung from his shackles, his wings nearly bare of feathers, the bones beneath the withered skin broken. His body was emaciated, his golden skin dulled by filth and malnutrition.

  The light that g
lowed within him remained, providing the only illumination in the pitch darkness of his dungeon. Though it waned with each passing day that he was separated from the light of Father’s Eye, his glow still remained.

  His connection with Father did not. He no longer heard the voices of his people. The power was still there, and there was still a presence in his mind, but it was locked away. The Father wouldn’t speak to him. Because of Uriale’s hate.

  The Father existed on love. Anata’s perversions had disgusted their patriarch. Her cruelties had alienated Him to the point that Uriale had feared He would withdraw His favor completely. Perhaps Father hoped that Anata would heal and become whole again. Perhaps He hoped that her time as a captive of the umbrose when she was a child could be forgotten. That the tortures she’d seen, the tortures she’d endured, would be wiped away if only there was enough love and forgiveness.

  Uriale knew that wasn’t the case. He’d tried to love the pain out of Anata. He’d tried to heal her. Neither he, nor Father, could fix what had been broken.

  Now he was himself a broken soul. A creature of hate, corrupted by his broken link to Anata—killed by Balfor’s hand—and further corrupted by his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the umbrose.

  Uriale was certain there was nothing else left within him. He was beyond certain. The umbrose would never let him die, not as long as Father’s Blessing remained within him. They wouldn’t risk it passing on to another adurian. There wasn’t any hope of escape. Without Father’s Light and without Father’s aid, he couldn’t escape this prison deep within the womb of the Mother of Shadows. Her influence was felt, like a weight pulling him down into despair.

  Then a sliver of hope broke through, just as a slender shape slipped past the bars of his cell.

  The creature was small and feline. More importantly, its eyes glowed red. He recognized a robot when he saw one. There was no way Balfor would allow such a thing anywhere near him. Which meant that he didn’t know it was here.

  Uriale couldn’t believe the Diakonos had actually managed to come through with an escape plan. He’d always considered humans to be beneath the adurians. They were clever little creatures, but so naïve and incompetent in the most critical ways.

  Yet here was an ambassador of the Diakonos. A guiding light. A small hope to motivate him. His followers had not forsaken him as Father had. They’d come for him.

  He remained silent, not wanting to alert his guards as the little robotic cat slinked towards him and climbed up his leg. The tiny claws barely stung as they dug into his skin for purchase. The pain was nothing compared to what he’d already experienced, nothing compared to Anata’s sadistic touch—the memories of which made Balfor and his lackeys’ efforts laughable in comparison.

  The cat climbed, making its way to the shackles that bound his wrists. Only it stopped when it reached his chest, the red eyes glowing as he looked down at it.

  He saw the needle less than a second before it punctured his skin.

  They didn’t come to save me.

  He should have known better. He’d been the one who was naïve.

  It was too late to scream.

  Chapter 17

  Gorzo was subdued during their dinner, and that made Jessa nervous. He hadn’t been so quiet prior to their brief encounter with Stacia outside the theater. In fact, he’d shared a great deal with her about his life among his tribe and answered her many questions about the land beyond an ocean she’d never even heard of. He wanted her to know about him, and his interest in her was no less eager. She’d had to carefully field many of his questions, but she’d been able to be completely honest about her life in the orphanage.

  Still, she’d avoided a lot of his inquiries, and perhaps that was part of his problem now. Stacia was suspicious. Perhaps her doubts had inspired his own. The best way to alleviate that was to at least pretend to be more forthcoming with information.

  There were stories she could tell that wouldn’t affect this mission she now despised. Deeply personal ones that would hurt coming out. She wasn’t yet ready to share them, though Gorzo would be the one she would have chosen to hear her catharsis.

  There was one story she could share. One that Stacia might share with him if she didn’t. Obviously, she couldn’t tell the truth, but she could tell some of it.

  “Those marks you asked me about after our first….” She covered her stomach with one hand, recalling the way it had felt to have a life growing inside her. “Those marks were from a pregnancy.”

  His preoccupied expression disappeared as he met her eyes. “You don’t have to tell me. I understand what loss feels like. I would never make you relive it.”

  Tears clustered in her eyes. She impatiently blinked them away. She needed to make him trust her. Her cursed mission wasn’t finished yet. You need to tell someone. Don’t lie even to yourself about your reasons! “The baby wasn’t mine. Not really. I was only a surrogate.”

  Gorzo reached for her other hand, folding it into his much larger grip. “Jessa.” His clasp was warm and comforting as she spiraled down into memories she’d tried to avoid for so long.

  “No, it’s okay. I need to tell this. It… it’s been killing me inside.” She turned her head, trying to surreptitiously swipe away her tears with her shoulder.

  Gorzo used his free hand to stroke some of the dampness from her cheek. “Tell me whatever you need to tell.”

  “I was an orphan.” He knew that. Her profile had made no secret of it and neither had she. After all, not having any family had been one of the reasons she’d been chosen—both for Micah, and for this mission. “Because I was without family, I was considered an ideal candidate for a program that wasn’t entirely legal.”

  “That’s why it wasn’t in your records.”

  She nodded. “The baby was created in a lab. Such a thing is forbidden, but the… parents wanted a perfect genetic specimen.” Not entirely true, but she was telling far more than she probably should.

  “I didn’t know humans could do such a thing. Our spawn are created by nature to be perfect.”

  Jessa swallowed. “I know. So are humans. Some people don’t understand what perfection really is and don’t care to. There are plenty of humans who don’t believe nature is good enough.” There certainly were, but that wasn’t why Micah was created. She hated that she still had to lie, even when pouring her heart out to the one person she’d ever felt any trust for. “They asked me to be a surrogate. A baby can’t grow in an artificial womb. The scientists could never understand why.” She stared down at the table as she remembered. “No matter how much they tried to make artificial wombs like the real thing, the results were always….” The results had been horrifying: children suffering from inexplicable severe mental and social disabilities, as if there were some vital connection that was being lost without the womb of a living mother to grow them. So much so that the scientists had destroyed them. This hadn’t happened on Jessa’s project, but that was because the terrible cost of such discoveries had already been paid.

  “So you nurtured this life inside you, then had to give it up to parents who cared so little for life that they believed they should be able to dictate the design of their child?”

  She snatched her hand out of his, pulling away from him. “I didn’t know what it would be like! I’d never had family. I didn’t understand how wrong it was!” The old guilt rose up inside her, nearly choking her. She’d done a horrible thing. She should have found a way to steal Micah. Her crime was even worse than the one she was confessing to. She hadn’t given Micah to loving parents, or even parents who’d been arrogant enough to demand a perfect child. She’d left Micah in the hands of monsters.

  Gorzo didn’t allow her to retreat. He left his seat and circled the table to take both her hands, pulling her up into his arms. She fought him briefly, but his resistance was too strong. This time, he didn’t release her the moment she pushed back. This time, he only held her tighter. “I wasn’t placing blame on you, Schodeco
ra. Never that! The guilt you feel is not yours to bear. You were used, and you’ve suffered for it.”

  The tears came hard now. There was no swiping them away, nor was there any hope of curbing the heavy sobs that shook her body. The part of her that could still reason was grateful for the fact that Gorzo always booked them a private dining room in any restaurant they went to. This was not a drama she wanted to share with strangers. “I just… I nurtured him! I fed him from my body. I held him and rocked him, and for hours I would simply watch him sleep in my arms. He was so perfect, but not because his designers wanted him to be. Not to me. He was simply perfect because he was a life that had grown inside me. I felt connected to someone for the first time in my life.” Her words were broken by her tears, but the translator managed to rattle them off.

  Gorzo didn’t need to hear the translator finish before he was responding. “Every loss is a lesson. I can’t take the pain of that loss from you, nor would I diminish it by suggesting you forget it and move on. You must grieve, but you also have to forgive yourself! There are some forces in life that you can’t control, and there are many choices in life that we only regret once we see their outcome.”

  “I just wanted to help him! I wanted to save him from… I wanted to be there to hold him again. I owed it to him. I was the one who brought him into the world!”

  “You weren’t the one who created him. Those are the people responsible. Those are the ones who should feel guilt.”

  Jessa had no more words. Her sobs had grown too violent to speak. Gorzo carried her to a chair and sat down, settling her on his lap so that she was curled against his chest, dampening his skin with her tears. She couldn’t tell him that she’d left Micah behind in a lab, nor could she tell him what she had done—what she would do—to return to the child she’d unwillingly abandoned. All she could do was cry, because her guilt would never go away. No matter what choice she made, it would be the wrong one.