“You made him a monster,” said Pairce.
“Yes, but that was an accident,” said the Cowntess. “I meant him to die. The other men died, and I used their ashes to make a concoction for eternal youth. But he didn’t die. He turned into that. So, what was I to do with him? I made the best of it. I could have killed him anyway.”
“Oh, could you have?” said Pairce. “He is very strong.”
“He slept sometimes,” said the Cowntess. “I could have cut his throat.”
“Instead, you used him for profit.”
The Cowntess sighed. “I did what I had to.”
“How did you even discover this idea? Killing men for eternal youth?”
“Oh, my housekeeper knew a woman. She lives out on the outskirts of Laironn. Her name is Maib. She extracted quite a hefty amount of coin from me to give me the incantation I used.” Then the Cowntess laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you that, should I? Now you’ll go to her and leave me here to die.”
“Because you have no idea how to reverse it?”
“Well, if you bring him in here, I suppose I could try some things,” said the Cowntess. “Maybe I could say the words backwards or… or maybe if Sefoni made her fire, and I pulled it away from him instead of putting it into him. I do want to go free, of course.”
“All right,” said Pairce. “We’ll start tomorrow, then. I’ll bring him here and you’ll try to reverse the spell. If you can’t do it alone, I suppose I’ll have to approach Sefoni.” And if nothing worked, this Maib person would be her last resort.
“Are you really going to let me go?” said the Cowntess. “You hate me. You’d have no qualms lying to me.”
“I’m the only one countenancing any mercy at all to you,” said Pairce. “Blazes knows why.” She turned on her heel and marched away from the cell.
When she crawled back into bed with Cadon, he was warm, and she snuggled into him, wrapping his arms around her. She had to make this work somehow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SEFONI WOKE IN the midst of the night to find the bed empty.
“Haid?” she called.
“Hmm?” he answered immediately, from that chair by the fire.
“Were you asleep?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the iubilia. I thought I’d get by without any effects from it, but… I suppose I can’t be that lucky.”
She got up, pushing aside the covers. “What do you mean? Does it rob you of sleep?”
“I’m just…” He sighed. “Don’t worry about it. You should sleep.”
“You’re just what?”
“I’m craving it.”
She padded across the room to sit down opposite him again. “Can I help?”
“You don’t need to do anything.”
“What’s the craving like?”
He groaned, leaning his head back, exposing the length of his neck to her. “My mouth is dry. I feel… I don’t know, a sort of itch that I can’t quite scratch. And I can’t sleep. I’m glad to be here and not in the city. There’s nowhere to get it here, but if I were home, I probably would have gone out looking.”
“No!”
He sighed. “You see, Sefoni, I am damaged. Very damaged, and when I tell you that I wish to spare you that, you should listen.”
“We’re all damaged,” she said. “Shut up about that. Besides, it’s not your fault.”
“Oh?” he said.
“You told me the Cowntess got you dependent on it.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said. “But she didn’t put a knife to my throat to make me indulge in it.”
“No, I’m sure you welcomed it, grieving over the loss of your entire family, at the hand of your own father, when you were barely more than a child. You were vulnerable. She took advantage of you. And you said that thing in the carriage about drawing blood? I can’t stop thinking about that.” She was shaking now. When had she started shaking?
“She just liked to do things with knives,” he said. “They were always shallow cuts.”
“I don’t understand how someone derives pleasure in bed from making another person bleed.” Her voice was rising.
“You don’t have to do that.” He furrowed his brow at her. “I got myself into it, Sefoni. She’s horrible, but I… well, it’s my fault too.”
“How is it your fault?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Well, I could have behaved differently.”
“Yes, out of your mind with grief, with no one to turn to, no family, no one you could trust, and with only the members of the court there, all of whom were delighted to revel in your tragedy.” She sneered, and now she felt something alarming. The living flame was stirring within her. She almost never lost control of it. The last time had been when she’d thought about flirting, which had made her think about Maister Simon, and that had made her think about feeling helpless and now she thought of Haid being helpless, and how much worse everything had been for him.
Would that he’d had living flame. Would that he could have pushed his attacker down the steps in a tower and come into power. It was worse for him. He was a man, and the Cowntess was a woman, and he didn’t think of himself as a victim, but he was. This had been done to him, and Sefoni couldn’t stand it.
He eyed her, blinking. “It wasn’t easy,” he said in an even voice.
Smoke was starting to emanate from Sefoni’s fingertips.
“Sefoni?” he said. “Are you… smoking?”
She sprang up from the chair. “I hate her.”
“Well, so do I, but—”
“No, it’s different.” She rounded on him. “It’s different because we’re all too quick to excuse the things that have been done to ourselves. We have to minimize them in order to survive. We have to tell ourselves that they weren’t so bad and they were partly our own fault.” A sob escaped her throat. “But they weren’t. It wasn’t your fault, Haid. It wasn’t my fault. Not Maister Simon, not what the Cowntess made me do.” Suddenly, tears were escaping her eyes, rolling down her cheeks, and her palm caught flame. “Oh, blazes.” She turned and fled.
“Sefoni!” Haid yelled after her.
She ran.
At first, she didn’t realize where she was going. She only pushed herself to go faster, because she could hear Haid behind her, yelling after her, and she wanted to get away from him, get away from everything, get away from the blazing living flame that lived inside her.
She almost never lost control like this.
But then she realized that she was going to the dungeon.
She halted on the steps, and Haid caught up with her.
Smoke was pouring off of her, billowing around her like a gray cloak.
“What are you doing?” Haid whispered.
“I’m losing control,” she told him. “Can you bring me back?”
He swallowed. “I can’t even bring myself back right now. All I can think of is… the craving.”
“Well, here we are,” she said helplessly. “Both of us damaged.” And she started down the corridor towards the Cowntess’s cell.
“Sefoni.” His voice was choked.
She didn’t have a key for the Cowntess’s cell, so she just burned away the lock.
Haid was there. He put his hands on her, but she burned him, and he recoiled, yelping.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “I told you I was losing control.”
“Sefoni, not for me,” he said. “Don’t you do this for me.”
“It’s for me,” she said, and she lit up from head to toe, the flames burning through her like an ecstatic revelation.
“What are you doing?” came the Cowntess’s voice. It sounded very small.
“You killed men to get rid of wrinkles on your face,” said Sefoni in a low voice, from within the blaze. She advanced on the Cowntess.
“You need me,” said the Cowntess. “You need me to fix Cadon.”
“Y
ou raped Haid,” said Sefoni.
“Blazes,” said Haid from behind her.
“You made me burn men alive,” said Sefoni.
“Haid,” said the Cowntess, her voice shrill, “your plans will be ruined if you let her do this.”
“I don’t let her do things,” whispered Haid. “She doesn’t answer to me.”
Sefoni’s voice was low. “You deserve to die.”
“Please!” There was abject terror in the Cowntess’s voice.
Sefoni placed her hand on the Cowntess’s shoulder.
The Cowntess screamed. She sounded just like the men who’d died to make the beauty masque, that same throaty scream of pain and horror.
Sefoni ignited, white hot, and the Cowntess went up, a glowing inferno.
The air smelled of burning hair and sizzling fat, and Sefoni usually hated that, but this time, she didn’t mind. It smelled like victory.
The Cowntess’s throat burned and her screams died out.
Sefoni kept burning her until there was nothing left, however, until her bones were burned to cinders.
Then, and only then, did she feel any measure of control return to her.
She turned back around.
Haid was staring at her, slack-jawed.
“Unbutton your shirt,” she told him.
He nodded. His fingers came up to do that. They were strong and sure as he undid them, top to bottom, revealing his dark skin as the V of the shirt opened wider and wider.
She approached him, careful to make sure all her fire was out, that she wouldn’t burn him.
She put her fingertips on his chest and slid them down until she found the scar.
He shut his eyes.
“You wanted me to touch it,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he breathed.
“Did she touch it?” said Sefoni.
He opened his eyes.
“We’re taking it back from her,” said Sefoni briskly. “You belong to yourself now, Haid.” She took him by the hand and tugged. Together, they ascended the steps back to their room.
HAID WAS VERY, very hard, and he wasn’t sure if it was disturbing to be so turned on while watching someone burn someone else to death, but he thought—he hoped—it wasn’t about the death part but about Sefoni.
She was… well, she was magnificent.
She was over him now, straddling him on their bed, and his shirt was open, and his chest was bared to her and they were both touching him. His hands on his chest, her hands on his chest, both of them making shivery patterns over his skin, and his cock was throbbing in time to their movements.
She put her hand over his and guided it to the scar.
He shut his eyes, letting out a groan.
They touched it together.
He felt every stroke over the scar tissue in his groin. He writhed, panting.
She hovered over him, her hair falling down around them like a curtain. Her voice was soft. “Do you want me to take it out? Do you want me to touch it?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then ask,” she said softly, and there was something in her voice, something that did things to him, because she was… she was like a fiery, powerful goddess and she had taken possession of him, and he was in awe of her.
“Please,” he murmured. “Will you touch my cock?”
She smiled. “I will, since you asked so nicely.”
He groaned again.
And then she was unlacing his trousers with one hand, and fingering his scar with the other, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He was falling apart. He was surrendering. He was going to melt away into her heat and sweetness.
She wrapped her hand around him.
He let out a long, gravelly sound.
She stroked.
He was utterly mastered by her. She was everything, and he was hers. Her hand left the scar, and it went to other parts of his chest, parts that no one touched, no one except—
He seized her hand and put it back on the scar, opening his eyes, breathing hard, seeking her gaze with his.
But she was staring at his cock, biting her lip, and eyeing it as though it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
That made him harder.
She fingered the scar obligingly, but he felt like he needed to explain. His voice came out hoarse. “She used to touch it. She used to make me touch it, and to touch… touch myself.”
Now, Sefoni’s gaze meant his. “You feel ashamed,” she said. “That it’s become associated with sex to you, that it makes you hard to touch it.”
He swallowed.
“But it’s your body, Haid. No shame,” she said. “It feels good?”
“Yes,” he breathed.
“So, why not?” said Sefoni. “It’s your body, and you’re allowed to do whatever you want with it to make it feel good. We can touch you here, and here, and anywhere. Everywhere. It’s your body, Haid.”
He made a funny noise, something like a sob. He grabbed onto her nightgown and yanked, pulling her face down to his. He kissed her, too hard, but she could take it, couldn’t she? His mistake was thinking that she was going to fall apart, but she was made of sterner stuff than that. She was strong, so very, very strong.
She was still stroking him, and she did that as she kissed him back hungrily.
Their kisses were kindling a fire within him, one that started in his belly and spread to his limbs. He wanted to combust with her. He wanted to join with her light and heat and—
She pulled back. “Haid?”
“Mmm.” He could see down her nightdress, and her breasts were elongated like hanging teardrops. He reached for them both.
She gasped. “That’s nice.”
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“But I want…” She broke off with a sigh. “May I put my mouth on you?”
His hands stopped on her breasts.
She opened her eyes. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t like, so I won’t be bothered if you say no, but—”
“Yes,” he rasped.
She smiled. “Good.”
“Take this off first,” he said, tugging on her nightdress. “So, I can… see you.”
Her smile deepened, taking on a wicked tinge, and she pulled it over her head, baring her beautiful body to him.
He let out a little moan, his hands roaming over her.
She slid down his body, sliding her breasts over his belly, and he loved the sensation of that, of her skin on his skin. How much had he missed by keeping on his blazing shirts?
She settled over him, her eyes bright. “I haven’t done this before, obviously, though, so I might need some… direction.” And then she planted a kiss on the tip of him.
He let out a huff of air.
She opened her mouth and descended on him, warm and wet and so, so good.
His whole body stiffened. He fought every instinct he had to thrust.
She sucked and explored, and he let his limbs go slack and groaned again. He was even harder. Blazes, this was as hard as he’d been on the blazing cainlach. She… flames take him, she unmade him.
She lifted her head, licking the head of him as she spoke around his erection. “Does this feel good?”
“Yes,” he muttered.
“Should I be doing it differently?”
He opened his eyes in slits to look at her.
She was looking up at him expectantly. “Will you come if I keep doing that?”
“I don’t want to come in your mouth,” he said. “I want you to ride me.” He hadn’t realized that until this exact moment.
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t even know what—”
“More up and down with your mouth, I guess,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Obviously. Why didn’t I think—”
“You do whatever you want with it,” he said. “I like whatever you—”
She descended on him again and then came back up, her tongue against the back of the head of him, and his words were swallowed in a r
ush of searing goodness.
The fire inside him roared up, concentrated where her mouth was on him, where her head bobbed against him, and he grasped at the sheets of the bed, his neck cording, and it was bliss.
He let her do it as long as he could stand, but when he thought he would spend if she kept at it, he stopped her, and breathlessly tugged her up so that he could kiss her.
He fumbled between their legs, fitting himself against her opening.
She gasped, tearing her lips away from his. “Like this?” she whispered, and then she sat back on him, drawing him into her slick heat.
He dug his fingers into her hips to keep her from moving or he was going to lose it right then, and he didn’t want to do that yet. He hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to her body, and she was a goddess of fire and power and pleasure, and he needed to worship her.
“Haid?” she said.
“One minute,” he said.
“If there’s really meant to be ‘riding,’ it implies a bit of movement, doesn’t it?”
He let out a ragged chuckle. He loosened his grip on her hips and walked his fingers around to find her between her thighs. He planted his thumb there and began to make circles around her.
She let out a hissing breath, shutting her eyes.
He smiled, satisfied. He brought his other hand up to touch her nipples. He teased one stiff and then the other.
She threw her head back, moaning in a very gratifying way.
He continued to touch her until her body began to undulate against his, and he rose to meet her movements.
It was slow at first, like the first sparks of a fire beginning to kindle, but as they moved together, it began to blaze brighter and brighter, tongues of flame licking up as their collective pleasure grew.
She bucked against him, her body fully on display, and he gazed at her, at the immaculate way she was put together. Her eyes were closed and her breasts were heaving. Her waist was small, but her stomach was soft, and he liked all of her softness and her curves.
Abruptly, she flopped forward, catching herself on her arms, on her hands and knees over him, caging him in.
They kissed, and then she fed him her breasts, one after the other, and he held onto her hip with one hand as he stroked her between her thighs.
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