My finger brushed flesh. Her breath hastened, causing her chest to rise and fall faster.
There were too many buttons. My fingers kept slipping.
Impatient, I seized the half-opened bodice and jerked it back off her shoulders. Material ripped as I pushed it down her arms. Wind rushed over her exposed breasts and she shuddered.
“I’ve missed that sound,” I muttered, sampling the bare skin of Jillyan’s throat. My grip still on her dress, I held her fast as I bent and kissed each generous mound in turn. Tasting her, sucking her nipples into my mouth, I drew supple flesh between my teeth. Her hands dug into my thigh. Jillyan arched, throwing her head back with a deep moan that set my cock to aching.
I let the bodice go and sunk my hands in her windblown hair. The glow got lost in the lush, black strands, and all was dark again.
Jillyan’s face turned up toward the sky. “I have no memory of when I last paused to stare at the stars.” She sighed in appreciation. “It truly is beautiful.”
I was more interested in her beautiful breasts in front of me. But I tipped my head back, too, and gazed at the endless spread of white points against the black. They all seemed to blink at once, like a field of gemstones taken by the sun. “It was like this on the ship, after Malaq broke me out of prison. I used to lie on the deck at night for hours…when I wasn’t seasick.”
“If Captain Krillos sails as rambunctiously as he does all else, I imagine your trip was far from smooth.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Affecting my best Krillos impression, I drawled, “T’was the mood of the sea,” making her laugh again.
“It must have been a difficult time for you, to wake with such confusion and find yourself on a ship full of enemies.”
“I almost killed Krillos that first night. I probably would have if I’d remembered who he was. I certainly wouldn’t have stayed on the ship, no matter what Malaq said. I had too much history with the Langorians. Except, at the time I couldn’t remember what that history was.”
“Your gods clearly had reasons for the path they set you on. Fate is all-seeing, is he not? He knows the outcome of all victories, all tragedies, and the roads they lead to. He knew you needed to be cleansed of the past to accept the present.”
“That’s your theory? Being tortured by Draken and Jem was B’naach doing me a favor? I appreciate your reasoning, but Fate doesn’t do favors. He punishes and scolds, and teases. Mercy isn’t in his bag of tricks.”
“Even so,” Jillyan conceded. “Look at you now.”
I grunted. “Aren’t you one joke after another tonight?”
“Mind your tone, Shinree. I was referring to your diversion from the path you were born into. You may have been bred as a soldier for Rella, but you have become far more.” Jillyan’s long, graceful fingers reached out to trace the scars on my left arm. I liked how she knew their design even in the dark. “I know how you feel about them. But I have always found your marks quite…stimulating.”
“You should have used that line on Elek. His ink is far from dull.”
“Hmmm…is that jealousy on your tongue?”
“Curiosity.”
“Ah. Elek is a man with great pride. It makes him easily played by someone skilled in such matters. It also makes the lack of challenge he presents rather boring. His culture is another matter. Isolated from our troubles here on Mirra’kelan, Arulla has developed differently. Her people are wise and have advanced in ways unlike our own.”
“Sounds like you’ve found a new race to study.”
Her head tilted in thought. “Perhaps I have.”
“I’m glad.” I liked the idea of her having another focus beyond the Shinree. Beyond me, I realized. “The world is old, Jillyan. There are other realms, other ancient places deserving of your passion for research and learning. Who knows what you might find.”
Jillyan moved in. “Are you attempting to extricate yourself from the burden of my attentions?” Her lips touched mine.
I turned my head. Suddenly, I had no stomach for our usual games. “What’s happening with me, with the scars, and the crown… I might not come back from this.”
“Nonsense.”
I made myself clear. “I’m not coming back from this. Not if I take it to the end.”
“I see.” Even in the dark I felt the weight of her stare. “Have you told—?”
“No one. Not yet.”
“What exactly is the end?”
“Curing our addiction to magic.”
She was quiet for a full minute. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be until it’s done. But if it works, maybe the Shinree can become what you dream they once were.”
“A dream you will not live to realize.”
“No. But others will. Like my daughter. She deserves to know real freedom. I can give her that. I can give that to all my people. There’s just…”
“Jarryd,” she said in sympathy. “How have you kept this from him?”
“We’ve been storing each other’s memories instead of reading them. We don’t always need to know what the other one had for breakfast.”
“Then he might discover this at any time. Which would take the telling of it out of your hands and spare you the anguish of confessing,” she added, seeing right through me. “I cannot say I approve, but I understand. You fear his reaction.”
“How can I not? If I do this, I’m taking half his soul with me. How is that right?”
“What is right is what often hurts the most. And if you turn your back, if you do nothing when the gods have given this opportunity to you and no other…how will your soul fare, then? How will his when the two are inexorably linked? For Jarryd, being bound to a man who can no longer live with himself would be its own kind of pain.”
“So I hurt him either way.”
“I’m sorry, Ian. I see no end in which he remains unscathed. But this you already knew. What you must do now is come to terms with it.”
“Thank you,” I smiled. “Until I met you, I never thought a Langorian mind could be capable of such wisdom. You were nothing like I expected. You never have been. But you’ve always been what I needed.”
A sudden change came over her. It was too dark to see, but I sensed it; a strengthening of her resolve, a reinforcing of her armor. It was in the tensing of her body as she sat on top of mine. It laced her voice as she spoke. “When you are gone, I will remind them of you. I will tell the story of how a man I once despised became the hope of us all. And I will never forget how he made me feel so glorious.”
My hand in her hair, I pulled Jillyan in for a kiss. My grip slid to her bare shoulders—and she jerked away with a gasp. “What is it?” I asked.
“Touch me again.” I reached up with my glowing hand and cupped her face. She sighed, “Whatever this spell is, I approve.”
“There’s no spell. I pushed the aura into my hands for light to read by.”
Jillyan nuzzled her face into my palm. “It feels nice.”
“It shouldn’t feel like anything.”
“A mystery,” she cooed. “I like it even better.”
“I don’t understand.” Testing her reaction, I brought my other hand up.
“Forgive me if I’m unable to question why. When all I want to do is this.” Jillyan’s generous mouth fell on mine. Her hands groped. I tried to stay focused, to gauge if it was the scars amplifying the effect. But my concentration was outmatched. The fiery effect my touch was having on Jillyan dominated us both. I surrendered to it and pulled her into my arms.
My hands drifted, lighting up her body, making the sweat break on her skin and the air move brisk through her lungs. Her tongue played. Gently it gave attention to my neck, progressing downward with not-so gentle nips. Her agile fingers made quick work of the laces on my breeches. Finding me more than ready, she lifted her body up,
and encased me on her way down.
She moved with purpose and a shudder ran through me. I clutched her tighter as the wind took her dark hair and whipped it around us both like a living thing. Her scent grew, drifting up between us with every rise and fall. The musky fragrance was as strong and enticing as the taste of ale in her mouth and the feel of her skin—it was like a wisp of cotton. The rapid drum beat of her heart kept time with her ragged breath as it pushed past my probing tongue. Splotches of color that had nothing to do with my glowing hands amassed in her body. Heat, I thought, as I listened to the blood rushing through her veins like a roar of water.
I wanted to see more. I wanted to smell and taste all she had to offer.
I wanted to bite, to mark her. I wanted to fuck her and lay claim.
To my emerging eldring senses, Jillyan was the perfect mate.
I started to shove her away, but her strong leg tightened around me. Desperate moans escaped as she quivered in my grasp, back arching, ample breasts jutting. It was a powerful release that quickly triggered mine. I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to.
But I denied my other urge.
Turning my head and forcing anxious teeth away from her veins, I kept the beast in his cage until I was empty.
TWENTY SEVEN
“Who captured him?”
Standing beside me in the rain, Krillos ran an arm over his brow and pushed back his damp curls. Thunder cracked in the steel gray sky overhead as he shrugged. “Nobody. I put the word out a while back I wanted one alive. But this one…he got himself caught.”
Mud squelched as I crouched to examine the dark hole in front of us. The bottom wasn’t in sight, but I was putting it as a good fifteen feet deep, maybe more. “A root cellar?”
“It will be. The owner’s still digging it out. He had it covered with planks to keep it dry. Apparently, our friend here stumbled onto the planks during the attack and broke clean through. Must have busted himself up good, or I figured he would’ve found a way out.”
“You’re sure he’s alive?”
“Heard him myself. And that don’t smell like death.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I stood up. The blend of animal musk, blood, and fresh waste floating up was distinctive. “Who else knows you have him?”
“The family that lives here. The guards that took their report. But they’ll keep quiet.”
“What about the neighbors? We don’t need a panic.”
“We’re on the outskirts of a city on its last legs, Troy. Neighbors aren’t a problem.”
To prove it, Krillos directed me over his shoulder to a small house thirty feet behind us, set against the backdrop of the dead pine woods. No glow of light emanated from inside. Wind tossed the strips of soggy fabric hanging in the broken front window. Trampled crops pushed up against the edge of the forest. Rows of what used to be corn, mud-drenched and bent-leafed, were dwarfed by a line of black trees. Their trunks stood like giant scarecrows, snapped in half and barren limbs jutting. Of the other three homes in view, two were as dark, quiet, and rundown as the first. The third was a pile of rain-soaked, charred timber.
Krillos shifted, looking farther to his right, and frowned at the house belonging to the cellar’s owner. “How come he gets to stay dry?” he said, glaring at Jarryd standing on the front porch. Its roof had seen better days, but it was more cover than we had. Beside him was a middle-aged man in a rocking chair. Moving back and forth as they conversed, hat on his head, pipe in his mouth, and axe in his hand, the Rellan’s penetrating gaze zeroed in on us.
“You can speak to the farmer,” I offered. “He seems like the understanding type. He’d probably love to negotiate with a Langorian for access to his land for the day.”
Krillos grunted as he turned back around. “We haven’t talked about this since before all hell broke loose at the camp. You still interested?”
“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
“Think it’ll work?”
“I think Lirih would have a better chance. But it’s worth a shot.”
“One is all you’ve got. Malaq’s aiming to leave for Langor tomorrow. If he’s ready to go and you’re passed out from some damn spell that I put you up to…”
“Relax, Krillos. I know what to expect this time. Besides, Malaq loves you,” I said, to which he grunted. “If it goes well, you’ll be a hero. If it doesn’t, find a way to stall him.”
He cocked an eyebrow. Whatever wise comment he thought to make was interrupted by Jarryd’s arrival. Coat collar turned up and head down, he glanced back through the rain at the man trailing behind him with a wooden ladder balanced on his shoulder.
“We have an agreement,” Jarryd said, stopping between us. “You can stay.”
“That’s kind of him,” Krillos muttered, “seeing as we’re already here.”
“He doesn’t care how long it takes or what you do,” Jarryd went on. “But he wants nothing left to clean up. Whatever’s down there, we take with us, including remains.”
“Kind and generous, then,” Krillos chuckled. “What’s he want in return?”
“Work for his daughter,” Jarryd said, “at the castle. He thinks she’ll be safe there.”
“What about food?” I said. “From the looks of his farm, he could use some.”
Jarryd nodded approvingly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The Rellan man walked up alongside the hole. The edges of his wide-brimmed hat flapped in the wind. His scruffy scowl deepened as he gave Krillos and I the once over. Settling on me, he let his conditions be known. “Don’t leave nothin’ behind, Shinree. I want every bit of that thing’s stink gone from my land. And yours.” He dropped the ladder on the soggy ground with force, splashing mud up to my ankles.
As the farmer walked away, Krillos let out a whistle. “And that, my friends, is what we’re fighting for.”
“Not everyone can be as open-minded as you, Captain.” I turned away from his grumble to face Jarryd. “Sorry, Nef’taali, but I’m doing this one alone. I don’t want anything spilling over the link.”
“After last time, neither do I. But we should have Sienn here just in case.”
“Kane’s right,” Krillos said. “If he’s a feisty one, this’ll get rough.”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “Sienn will approve of me going into a dark hole with an injured eldring, binding with it, and rummaging around in their collective mind in hopes of finding the source of my father’s compulsion.”
“Good point,” Krillos said.
Jarryd stared into the hole. “Why is he alive? You aimed your spell at every eldring on Kabri.”
“No,” I said, “I aimed my spell at every eldring Jem sent to the island—not the ones already here. Draken’s patrols have been leading them around like dogs for months. This one must have gotten loose from his chain during the attack.”
“Hold on,” Krillos said. “If they have a common mind, why don’t all eldring belong to Jem?”
“Remember what I told you when we were in their den back in Langor, about there being two classes of eldring? Some were raised in captivity. The rest grew up in the wild. I could feel their differences. The wild ones owned a significantly stronger will. If my father cast on a single eldring, and he was counting on their shared consciousness to work on the rest, a water-downed spell might not be strong enough to bend minds that had never been broken.”
“Goddamn magic,” Krillos grumbled. He bent and picked up the ladder. “Let’s get to it, then. I’m growing gills out here. Just understand, Shinree. If you bite me, we’re done.”
“This was your idea,” I reminded him.
Krillos slid the ladder into the hole. “I never said it was a good one.”
TWENTY EIGHT
It took me a second to remember where I was. To recall the untimely break of the ladder and the subsequent fall that landed me on my
back at the bottom of the hole. Dazed and winded, cradled in cool mud, I listened to the distorted echo of breathing in the dark that wasn’t mine. The circle of gray light and falling rain above me blurred. The drops, as they neared me, seemed to slow. The splatter as it hit my clothes was strangely hollow. It streamed off the sides of my face, filled my mouth, raced down my throat.
I coughed, choking. And full lucidity rushed back with a roar.
In the wan light I saw the torch I’d carried was now a damp rag beside me. Wood from the broken planks and the busted ladder littered the cellar floor. A decent sized sliver protruded from my left shoulder. I must have fallen on it with force. The wood had gone straight through. Yet there was little blood on my coat, and I felt no pain, only a distant sense of warmth.
A face filled the circle above. Krillos yelled down, but thunder drowned his words. He disappeared, and I blew out a breath. Clenching my teeth against the anticipated discomfort, I rolled over to the left and felt nothing. I sat up; nothing still. Deciding on a real test of my apparent, sudden unresponsiveness to pain, I gripped the piece of wood. I was about to pull it out when a fuzzy outline moved against the shadows. Orange eyes and white teeth flashed. The shape was nearly level with the ground; the eldring was crawling. Painfully, I thought, from his stilted moves and low moans.
Krillos was right. The beast was hurt. And hungry, seeing as he’d been trapped for days.
A growl left the gloom. It trailed off with a rattling wheeze. I waited, but the eldring didn’t advance further. It was a hesitation I knew wouldn’t last long.
Shrugging out of the right side of my coat, I slipped the dagger from my boot and cut the leather garment away from my left shoulder. Detaching the sleeve, I ripped a wide hole in my shirt. I was able to see now; the wood had impaled the magic-scar on my shoulder. The design directly around the wound was warm. I touched the swollen edge, releasing a spurt of blood. The pressure should have triggered a deep twinge of pain, but apparently magic had deadened my nerves.
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Borne Page 24