by Lee, Nadia
Now that I knew Valerie was okay, other things started to vie for my attention. “Very clever, Toshi. You almost fooled me.”
“Milady—”
“As a matter of fact, it was so good that if I didn’t have a heartstone, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Not bad for a two-hundred-year-old fairy dragon.”
Toshi immediately descended to the floor and pressed his snout against it. “Please, milady. I beg you. Pretend you didn’t see anything. If…if…” He began shaking so hard he couldn’t finish his sentence.
“It was Ramiel, wasn’t it?”
I kept my voice soft, but my fingernails were digging into my palms. How dare he lie about Valerie’s condition and manipulate me into acquiring the heartstone? I’d almost died trying to get it. Twice. If that weren’t enough, now I had another demigoddess enemy who most likely wanted me dead. For all I knew, she was signing a pact with the Triumvirate of Madainsair right now to destroy me.
“Milady, I never meant to deceive you, but I panicked when you asked to see Lady Valerie. It was my magic that made her sleep and disguised her true condition. Please. I would’ve told you the truth. But if…if Lord Ramiel…oh dear.” He covered his mouth with his foreclaws. “Please…please don’t be angry with His Lordship. It’s all my fault.” He began to sob earnestly. “If…if you m-must be angry at someone, please—” hiccup, “—please be angry at me. And punish me for my shortcomings.”
Valerie gave me a what the hell? look, but she squatted down and began making cooing noises, trying to comfort Toshi. That place behind my eye began to throb. Knowing how he dreaded pain, I understood the kind of turmoil he must be going through to offer himself as a scapegoat. For that alone, Ramiel should be horsewhipped.
“Toshi,” I said, my voice calm. “I’m not angry with you.” And that was true enough. I looked at Valerie. “I need to go talk to someone now. We can catch up later, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” Valerie’s voice lacked its usual confidence.
Toshi gulped in air. “But milady, Lord Ramiel is—hic—most likely waiting for you at breakfast. I’m not sure if it’s wise to have a confrontation before eating. It may cause—hic—indigestion—”
“Not talking about it will cause more.” I went down on one knee, scooped Toshi’s tiny trembling body into my hands and brought it up until I could look levelly into his teary eyes. “Toshi, I promise, I’m not mad at you. I just want to understand why I wasn’t told about Valerie’s recovery.”
It took a moment, but he gathered himself and rose into the air. “Please follow me.” He sniffled aloud and bowed to Valerie. “Excuse us, milady.”
He led me down a wide hallway and out into a garden with a gorgeous high arch of pomegranate-red roses and dark ivy vines. The roses had a strong heady scent. A pair of fairy dragons hovered over a blossom. One of them was picking little bugs from the rose and handing them to his partner, who put them in a small bag. Along our footpath, crushed mint added a dash of freshness to morning air still moist with dew.
It might as well have been a garbage alley in Calcutta for all I cared. God, what a fool I’d been! A pretty face and a hot body, and I’d trusted him like some hormonal teenager. Oh sure, I’d protested a bit, but words were cheap. In the end, I’d done everything according to his plans.
Beyond the arch, Ramiel sat at a round table carved out of a single large block of ivory marble. Toshi had outdone himself again. There was enough food laid out to feed a village. If the table hadn’t been made of stone, it would’ve collapsed under the weight of our breakfast.
“Are we expecting company?” I asked, my eyebrows raised high.
“No.” Ramiel smiled at me. He didn’t seem to notice Toshi’s distress. The little dragon was doing his best to be invisible without actually leaving us.
“Really?” I sat down. “Valerie isn’t joining us?”
All expression left Ramiel’s face. He glanced at his fairy dragon, who had dropped to the ground and was cowering.
“My lord, it’s all my fault. Please puni—”
“You may leave. Now,” Ramiel said in a tone that demanded—and received—instant compliance. He turned to me. “So you know.”
“Of course. Did you think you could hide it from me forever?” I leaned back in my chair. The trees around us shielded my eyes from the morning sun.
“I intended to tell you.”
“You intended to tell me. When? Before or after Nathanael killed me in front of my mother? While Nahemah was skewering me with her sword? No, no, I know. You were going to wait until I pissed Enmesaria off too, since four dragonlords after me just isn’t enough.”
“Ashera—”
“How much of what you told me is actually true?”
He gazed at me. With each beat, my heart bled a little until it hardened against anything he could say. He had no excuse. How could he use me, abuse my trust? Worse, how could I not hate him for the things he’d done? I wanted to strangle him, bring him pain greater than what he’d given me. But nothing I felt now could change the fact that my stupid heart beat a little faster when I thought of him or that my breath still caught in my throat when I saw him sitting there, resplendent in the shade. His collar winked in a dapple of light, and I hoped he’d choke. Bastard.
And as much as I hated to admit it to myself, this was my own fault—a huge lapse in judgment. I should never have let him get so close. Never forgotten that he was a supernatural, and thus by definition untrustworthy.
“Valerie was the only…unvoiced truth,” he said finally. “I intended to tell you before we visited Enmesaria, although I would’ve asked that you see her anyway. She has maintained neutrality for eons, even through the Twilight of Slayers, but I believe she will be your ally if you can appeal to her sense of fairness.”
“You mean manipulate her.”
He shrugged, but his eyes were sharp enough to cut. “If that’s how you prefer to view it. I don’t think it’s necessary to tell you the importance of forming alliances with other dragonlords. Nathanael has his Triumvirate. What do you have?”
I tapped my fingers on the cool tabletop. I could barely hear his voice over the roaring of my blood.
“No one except me,” he said. “I apologize for…capitalizing on your loyalty to your mortal, but if it weren’t for your having to help her, you would never have seen Leh and gotten the heartstone.”
He was right. I would never have gone to the Mystic Forest voluntarily. Not even to meet my mother, because I hadn’t believed anything Ramiel had told me at that point.
He continued. “Draco perditio can kill dragons, but not us. You cannot stand against Nathanael, Semangelaf and Apollyon without claiming your dragonhold. You refused to listen, though. You wanted to preserve your life as it was.”
A chill went up my spine. “You son of a bitch. You poisoned her yourself to get me to do what you wanted, then blamed it on Semangelaf!”
Ramiel shook his head. “No. It was Semangelaf, or perhaps Nahemah. That part was true enough.”
“Swear it.”
He shrugged. “I have already done so.”
True. I’d forgotten in my anger. Still, the fact that he hadn’t been responsible did very little to placate me.
He leaned forward, intent. “Ashera, I had to get you to accept your demigod heritage. I had to get you to acquire the heartstone. I had—still have—my vow to keep. So I misled you concerning the antidote. It was the most expedient way to get you to do what needed to be done.”
“So all this has been for my own good?” My hands began shaking, and I curled them into fists. No weakness in front of the enemy. “I must seem awfully young to you—almost a baby even—but I’m twenty-seven years old, and where I come from that means I’m capable of making my own decisions. I don’t need some scheming dragonlord to handle me.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Yeah. Unreasonable. All because I don’t care for lies, especially ones dressed up as being for
my own good.” I stood up. “I’m going home,” I said, then remembered my condo was blown to pieces and swore. “Well…not home, thanks to you. Still, I’m outta here.”
“They will come after you.”
“Great! Let ’em. At least they’re honest about what they want.”
As I intended, each word hit him hard. He flinched, but somehow I didn’t feel any satisfaction.
I began walking away. I was going to find some way off this floating rock. Commandeer an amphitere if I had to. I sensed rather than saw Ramiel rise to his feet behind me.
“Ashera, your home isn’t down there. It’s at Eastvale.”
“No,” I said without looking back. “No dragonhold is my home. This is your world.”
There was a frisson of magic and Ramiel appeared in front of me, blocking the archway.
“Get out of my way,” I said.
He didn’t budge. I clenched my teeth. It was his dragonhold, but he had no right to keep met here against my will. For my own good or not.
“I said get out of my way!”
My body flushed with fury, and without any incantation my sword suddenly appeared in my hand. I swung, moving instinctively. If he wanted a fight, I’d give him a fight. I’d chop off an arm to join that wing Nathanael had removed. Or maybe his lying tongue.
My blade cut the air cleanly, but stopped with a jarring clash when he countered my move without even shifting his feet. His steel caught the morning sunlight, reflecting it into my eyes and making me squint.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
“Now I’m ridiculous?” I took a step back, blinking. “Let’s see who’s really ridiculous.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Funny way of showing it.” My teeth bared in an ugly smile. “Maybe you should’ve adopted a more honest approach. You know…like any normal person. But wait, you’re not even human. I guess being a demigod really puts you above everything—morals, ethics, honesty…everything.”
His eyes darkened. Anger swirled in their depths before they become blank. “Not a wise thing to say, now that you’re one of us.”
“Never claimed to be wise, and I’m certainly not one of you!”
I made the first move, and a mad dance of steel began. Ramiel held back while I attacked. Wyverns landed around us, forming an arena, and I knew that even if I somehow beat him, I’d have to cut my way out of Besade. I wondered how many I could kill now that I had a heartstone.
The sun climbed higher in the sky, its movement languid. Sweat tasted salty on my tongue. I lost count of the blows we’d exchanged. My blouse clung to my skin, but Ramiel wasn’t even sweating. He looked as if he were doing a routine morning exercise, nothing more. My joints warmed, and blood pumped into my muscles. I felt as strong and quick and tricky as I ever had. But I couldn’t advance past him, and he didn’t push me back. At the rate we were going we’d have fought forever, like Besade’s bas-relief figures.
Finally, Ramiel shifted and made a long thrust at the hollow of my neck. I gasped. Although we were fighting in earnest, at some level I didn’t think he’d actually go for my life. I lunged backward and raised my sword from below to fend it off. I angled my head, just so, to avoid the rising tip of his sword and getting my jaw split in half.
Ramiel dropped his sword and jumped toward me. Before I could blink, his hands closed over my wrists. He squeezed until my blade slid from my grip and hit the ground, and then his weight brought both of us down. He twisted so that he absorbed most of the impact of the fall and rolled us over and over, away from our weapons, stopping when I was on the bottom.
Seeing their liege victorious, the dragons surrounding us gave a mighty roar and took flight. My chest rose and fell rapidly. The scent of rich soil and crushed mint mingled with man and sweat. The sun cast a platinum halo around his hair, which framed his face and fell around my head like curtains. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Let me go,” I said, trying to jerk my wrists from his grasp.
His teal-green eyes bore into mine. I struggled against him. Instead of trying to squash my resistance, he kissed me.
People talk about it, of course—the rush of intense sensitization to everything around you after a battle. But that was the first time I’d really felt it. Ramiel’s kiss, coming so soon after we’d been at each other’s throats, was like a firebrand and sent my blood singing.
His lips on mine were hungry and demanding. His tongue probed my mouth and savored me. He tasted of wine, berries and something I labeled lust. I refused to consider another four-letter word that began with L. He held my wrists over my head. The helplessness of my situation added to my excitement. My sex grew damp. I’d never allowed someone to exert any dominance over me, and it provoked a fierce sense of freedom.
He rubbed his erection against the juncture of my thighs. A small moan escaped through my clenched teeth. Ramiel’s mouth created a warm trail down my jaw, toward the sensitive skin of my neck. His breath felt so hot against my bare skin, I almost flinched. My pulse beat rapidly, like a trapped animal, and the air caught in my throat.
He imprisoned my wrists with one hand and with the other ripped my blouse open. Buttons popped and flew away as if shot from catapults. His free hand fumbled with my pants while his mouth suckled an exposed nipple. My back arched, my legs rubbing restlessly against his.
I wanted him.
The need startled me. Didn’t I hate him for his deception? How could my body surrender to his so shamelessly?
He finally pushed my pants down my legs until they bunched around my ankles and tied me further. He grabbed a wrist in each hand and went down on me.
God, the ecstasy!
It was as if he existed solely to pleasure me and I to receive it, revel in it. My toes actually curled. His tongue and mouth suckled and licked the swollen lips of my labia. Then they moved up and waves of pleasure were washing through me so violently I thought I’d snap in half.
He was breathing hard. He licked his lips and flipped me over before I had a chance to come down from the heights of orgasm, entering me smoothly from behind. I gasped at the invasion, thick and imperious. My face rubbed against the soft dark soil, and its rich scent filled my nostrils. I wanted more, and he gave it to me, harder and faster.
I convulsed again, and he finally let go and joined me with a guttural cry. The sweat on his skin mingled with mine when he fell on top of me.
Raw Sex crackled in the air. He gathered it carefully and gave it to me. I opened an eye.
“You can keep some,” I said in a hoarse voice I didn’t recognize as my own.
He shook his head mutely.
Power rushed into my body, causing my heartstone to pulse more strongly. But the magic of the moment disappeared just as quickly as it had come. Suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable, I struggled under him until he lifted himself off me. I covered my body with my hands and sat up. My suit was irreparably damaged. Again.
The problem was that Ramiel had yet to force me to do anything I didn’t want. He’d said he wouldn’t, and he’d kept his word, regardless of my protests to the contrary. I’d wanted his body. I’d wanted to save Valerie no matter what. I’d wanted to see Leh.
And I was having a hard time accepting that I’d done all this on my own despite what I knew about the supernaturals and their devious ways.
God I still wanted his body.
“I have to go.” I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.
“Ashera—”
I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the ground. If I looked at him, my resolve might weaken.
And that was the damnedest thing. Our bodies were made for each other, but when it came to the thing that mattered the most—trust—we were such a miserable failure that the knowledge burned like a hot poker. Weird how when I looked at him, I saw more than a terrific roll in the hay. I wouldn’t have given a damn about all this if my attraction for him hadn’t gone beyond the physical. But who was I kidding? It could neve
r work. I was too stubborn, and he was too arrogant. He was a demon, and, for better or worse, I was a hunter. We weren’t meant to reach any compromise.
There was no middle ground.
“I’m sorry. I need to get Valerie,” I said. “This…isn’t enough to keep me here.”
Fifteen
“So there’s really nothing to tell?”
It had been over an hour since we’d left Besade, and Valerie had been rather patient. I’d expected the inquisition to start sooner.
Dressed in a white Armani robe, she looked like a fairy snow queen holding court. Her living room was decorated with furniture of the palest ivory. Every shelf held silver-framed photos of Valerie with Jack or her friends or her current boyfriend. Some even had me—well, the old me. In an odd way it made me feel special, because she didn’t like having ugly things in her home, and I was definitely ugly in the photos. She didn’t keep things she didn’t like, either. Pictures of her boyfriends were always burned the second the relationship ended. Valerie didn’t believe in carrying excess baggage.
Her bare feet rested on a birch coffee table with a glass top, ruby red toenails startling against the paleness of the wood. Since my condo was now nothing more than a charred pile of rock and lumber, she let me crash at her place, and I preferred that to a hotel room. I watched her as we sipped white wine together. It was our small treat before work, especially given all the things we’d had to put up with. Out of everyone I knew, she had the best collection of wine. I always enjoyed it, and today was no exception. Drinking dry Riesling reminded me of Toshi and his melon wine, though. I was going to miss him.
“Nothing, other than, well, you know.” I gestured at myself, feeling like a fraud. But I didn’t want to discuss my relationship with Ramiel or the outlandish warning by the Advisors or my encounter with Leh and Nathanael. Ramiel and I had no relationship worth discussing, I didn’t believe the Advisors’ mumbo jumbo, and who my mother’s current lover was—that was nobody’s business.
“Well, your voice is still the same. Eyes too, of course.” She pursed her lips slightly. “But if your mother is a slayer, doesn’t that make you one? I thought they were matriarchal.”