A Song in the Night (TEMPTED KINGDOM: The Series Book 1)

by Jessa Lucas

  Dash laughed. “You never tame your beast.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “Only a freed creature can be a submissive one. Release her.”

  I felt the flicker of a frown pass over my face as my gaze latched onto his. “When your beast knows the human in you is the one to free it, there is a shift in authority. In the beginning, I was afraid of many things. My advice: whether in dream or in waking, rage against your fear. Fear is a liar, Saylora, and the most poisonous lie it whispers into our ear is that we should be afraid of who we are. When it comes to you... I do not think that any of us in this realm, least of all in this tower, can afford a world where you are afraid of yourself.”

  “But I’ve tried... ‘releasing’ the siren,” I muttered.

  “Ah, is that what you’ve been up to with Jude?”

  His neck, punctuated by bruises in the shapes of my fingers—

  A wolfish grin slid onto Dash’s face, pulling me from the morbid thought. “If Jude did not assist you well enough in the task of unleashing her...” He shrugged, leaning back into his chair and folding his arms, the perfect picture of a nonchalant scoundrel. “Between the four of us, things might get a little savage.”

  Exactly what I was afraid of.

  I writhed against my hand, unable to help myself. Everything Dash said was beginning to sound like ‘sex’ by the time it reached my ears.

  “Do not fight the siren,” he cautioned, leaning in again to deliver this counsel. “Besides, it would get pretty boring in this tower if you did.”

  The generously flirtatious smile he offered me sent a new wave of far more pleasant images tumbling through my mind. I bit my lip, straining to stay present, but my thoughts were lost to fantasies of my wet body against his, his teeth sinking into my skin—

  Dash dipped a finger into the bath and idly stirred his finger around, occupied by something he didn’t voice. I stared up at him for a moment. His face was inches from mine, but his gaze was far away. I followed it down to his finger and watched, transfixed, as I tried not to imagine that finger moving in those same circles against me.

  “I have been telling you from the beginning, temptress, since the very moment we met. There’s a wilderness inside you, vast and starving, and I cannot wait for the day you unleash it on the deserving.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, reluctantly moving my eyes away from his hand.

  Dash had that look glinting in his eye again, like he was waiting to be surprised by what I might do next. “One look at you and it was unmistakable.”

  My breath caught suddenly, and as I eased it back into a gentle exhale I found myself divulging aloud the powerful sentiment ringing inside me. “I don’t know how you guys got roped into this... but I owe a hell of a lot to you. For being here with me.”

  “Til the end.”

  My face contorted at those words, a swell of emotion bubbling over me. Before I could get too carried away, hot water splattered into my eye. “What was that?” I sputtered.

  “No need to be so serious all the time, temptress. We’re only about to die.”

  That wolfish grin— quite frankly, a little too on-the-nose for me— slid right back onto his face as he flicked water at me again.

  “Damn temptress, you sure the heat isn’t coming from you? This water is still boiling.”

  “I like my baths just on the comfortable side of scalding,” I nodded, blinking the water out of my eye.

  “I like other things that way. Figuratively. Jabari told me how much you appreciate your metaphors.” His voice was husky as he looked down again, seemingly unable to help himself. “Speaking of which, you should talk to him about the stamina of this particular magic. The water may still be hot, but those bubbles are dissolving rather quickly.”

  I looked down to the mere suds covering me, realizing Dash had definitely seen where my hands ended up.

  My face flushed, but an instant later any embarrassment had vanished as quickly as the bubbles. Dash’s mouth hung open, his exhale heavy and slow as the heat of it dragged across my face. A fierce hunger burned in his eyes, their shade evolving from cool to feverish, the blue now as vivid and scorching as the heart of a flame.

  “Doesn’t matter unless I keep having unexpected guests,” I whispered, voice hoarse with my need.

  I inched closer to his face, body twisting towards him, hands sliding from between my thighs and reaching up to the collar of his tunic. I clutched at it and pulled him closer. A deluge of images flooded my mind: stripping him, hauling him down into the bath with me, feeling the heat of his skin marry with the fluidity of water washing over my nakedness. Second by second, the space between us disappeared as his body moved closer and closer to mine, closer to the water... closer to satisfying the great aggression sheltered in my lust.

  “I admire your self-control,” I murmured. “Only two days ago, you could barely manage to lie next to me for five very short minutes. And now you’ve watched me bathe and haven’t so much as touched me.”

  “I did touch you,” Dash said, voice uneven as his eyes locked on my lips.

  “Not the way I wanted,” I whispered.

  Every alarm in my body was going off, but I couldn’t stop it. I kept expecting Dash’s wolf instinct to sense the threat of my siren, but the only one who seemed to be panicking was the conquered voice in the back of my head who no one was interested in listening to. Dash smirked at me and it was as if an electrical current sizzled and sparked between us.

  Human Saylor was a goner.

  Yes, so close now. Closer, come closer.

  My lips were millimeters away from his, his hand reaching down into the water for balance as he hovered over me. Any moment now it would brush against my leg, maybe against—

  My breath hitched as his touch grazed my thigh. Then—

  His lips were on mine, the chamber of his mouth retching as the sound of his gagging fell into mine. First I became aware of how oddly rigid the joints felt in my fingers, and then I understood that it was because my fingers were clawing hungrily into his throat.

  His head, in and out of the water. Splashing. Gasping.

  So much gasping—

  The light in those pale eyes collapsed. They went cold and placid, emptied of the feral fire that I was so sure had wanted me.

  Blank. Unblinking—

  For one terrifying moment, I couldn’t tell if it was real. I couldn’t tell if the silence was the numb, deafening roar of my scream all over again.

  “Temptress...”

  The purr of my nickname seemed to come from afar, and then Dash’s dead eyes were lifting away, the favored reality of a flaming gaze quickly replacing them. Water lapsed at my breasts as Dash stared down at me, eyes level with mine. His forearm was submerged, thumb brushing against my thigh as his towering form hung over me. My hand was gripping his throat, but it rested there halfheartedly against his pulse as if I’d been playing at the tug-of-war of pushing him away or pulling him closer.

  Our lips were so close to achieving their goal, but Dash had stilled in hesitation just as I had. He grinned slowly. “I knew you were kinky.”

  “You should go,” I breathed against his mouth, coiling my arousal back inside me reluctantly. I peered up into those eyes, my heart leaping in relief at the life I saw there. I could see him warring between two instincts, just as I was. But we both had beasts to bite back.

  With a steadying exhale, I released Dash and sunk back into the water under the cloak of transparent suds. I would be feeling the aftershocks of that physical contact for a while.

  “Yes, I should,” he finally said. He inhaled deeply, his breath catching as he contemplated the weird desperation I was sure was on my face. Then he stood abruptly, returning the chair to its place by the vanity.

  In the doorway, he paused, looking over his shoulder at me.

  “Pretenses aside, may I ask...” he said carefully, as if he were testing his intentions, “what is it that you want from me, temptress?�
�

  Me, he’d said. Not us.

  I considered him, sharp and dangerous with those primal eyes. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  And that, for once, was the truth.

  Chapter 11

  Curiouser and Couriouser

  Jude didn’t join us for dinner that night. Half of me was relieved, the other half worried. Between corpse Jude from Earth and the sallow-enough-to-be-a-corpse Jude here, there was certainly a bounty of macabre scenarios forming in my mind. I didn’t blame him for wanting to stay away after his kiss has inspired such shrieking from me. Honestly, I was kind of shocked that Dash was there, considering I’d nearly tried to drown him an hour ago.

  But… he was probably into that kind of thing.

  Sy and Gilles slipped away from the table immediately after finishing, and it wasn’t long after that that I found myself unable to stomach the lentil soup. I nodded to the others halfheartedly, then trailed through the halls outside the kitchens as I mindlessly made my way back to my room.

  “—not when she’s like this,” someone hissed. “She’s slept the last two day away and barely eats when she turns up at all.”

  Gilles’ voice came from one of the little lounge areas made from of the oddly shaped nooks and crannies scattered all along this level. I hung back behind the corner, pressing against the stone in the beat of silence that followed. Seeing as how I was the only ‘she’ not currently trapped behind glass, it only seemed fair to eavesdrop.

  “She’s aimless, and when she’s not aimless, she’s...” Gilles threw in an exasperated sigh that I found entirely unnecessary. “She’s stubborn.”

  “As is someone else I know,” Sy replied. “Do not underestimate the power of grief on a will. It is something I would think you quite mindful of, Gilles.” I had to strain to make out Sy’s voice, silently cursing the hushed, pacifying notes of reason it always held.

  “She must at least have the will to fight.”

  “Perhaps she is fighting in more ways than you realize. Nonetheless, you’ll speak to Saylor about training.”

  “I don’t follow your orders, Sy.”

  Sy’s voice sunk to a sonorous rumble. “I would dare hope not. You follow hers, thus you will instruct her as she bid you to.”

  “Archery?” Gilles hissed. “We both know Saylora was more proficient with a blade. The request was meant to provoke! She taunts us, in everything she does. We’re fools if we fall for it.”

  “It does not seem so unfamiliar a request as you make it out to be, if you remember the Wandering Gale as I do.”

  Something hung in Sy’s tone that prodded at my curiosity, but no clarity came— only Gilles’ defeated but insistent reply. “I don’t know that woman sitting across from me at dinner.”

  I leaned closer to the edge of the wall as Sy’s volume dropped even lower. “I have chosen to take her at her word. Perhaps you best do the same, Gillesyn.” My breath caught, a strange emotion fixed in my throat. “Saylor finds herself when she learns her strength. When she knows she is free, and safe.”

  “None of us are free or safe.”

  “Because we do not live with the hope that we will ever be.”

  I considered this for a moment in the accompanying silence and then, taking a deep breath, I stepped out from my hiding spot.

  “Sy’s right. Unfortunately. Again.” I offered a fleeting and pointed look in Sy’s direction before turning to Gilles. “I don’t want to be— what was it? ‘Aimless’? Since I’m named after the elves, it only makes sense that I should learn how to fight like them, too. I’ve seen the movies. You’ll train me on the bow like I ordered, Gilles, and I’ll do my best to not be a cowering damsel. Zero promises on the stubbornness. Deal?”

  Gilles’ jaw tensed and I stared him down, only now realizing how intrigued I was by the thing held tight in those eyes, always oscillating between concern and detachment.

  “We start in the morning,” I said, offering them both one last look of superiority.

  Gilles swallowed slowly, an immovable scowl on his face, and I marched off before his inevitable and begrudging consent had the opportunity to be expressed.

  “What elves?” I heard Sy ask gruffly, just before they were out of earshot.

  The usually peaceful silence of my room sang an eerie suspicion into my heart. As I laid my head down, I tried to see if I could be attentive enough to make out the movement as the blanket of stars twisted through the sky outside my window. I wasn’t, and my interest quickly waned to boredom.

  Every time I neared sleep, my body screamed with the sensation of falling and my heart pounded against my chest until I was riled back to consciousness. It was almost as bad as that first year after I’d run; I’d managed record levels of insomnia, terrified every time I closed my eyes that I went to meet my father and his friend where they still lived in my dreams, and that I might wake to their vengeful ghosts keeping watch over my sleeping form.

  I sighed. Counting sheep, watching stars, wondering about worlds. Honestly, between curse-breaking levels of stress and the epic jet lag of changing worlds, I didn’t think my body’d ever be on a Five Realms schedule. Not that having slept for two days straight was helping now.

  A desperate fear was growing inside me that I was Humpty Dumpty and it might not be possible to put me together again. Out through all of my cracks slipped parts of myself, straight into the hands of these strangers I’d once apparently cared a lot about. Jabari saw my fears, Jude knew my needs, Dash beckoned my beast, Gilles called out to my angst, and Sy...

  Well, Sy seemed to be keeping a lot of secrets.

  Touching my toes to the floor, I snatched the candle from my bedside table. I was making a bad habit of lurking in the darkness even for me, which didn’t seem to bode too well for my character, thematically speaking.

  I found myself creeping through the secret passage behind my room’s bookshelf, and then staring in through the open doors of Sy’s bedroom. My breath caught as I stood in the doorway, curtains rocking against the soft wind and brushing up against my legs.

  He didn’t notice me at first. His sword glinted, casting slanted light over my form, as he sat at the edge of his bed polishing it. Sy studied it a moment and then looked out in front of himself with distant eyes, a small sigh escaping him. Privy to this private moment, I found myself curious to know what he was thinking. I peered on at him with the night at my back, sputtering flame in hand, wondering if comfort was best found where I stood or back in my own bed.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, Sy’s eyes turned to mine and I tried to open my mouth to speak, but words failed me.

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  I shook my head, feet frozen in place.

  Sy turned to fix the sword back onto its mount on the wall. “Nor could I.”

  “Guess this happens to both of us a lot.”

  He bowed his head in agreement. I hadn’t realized I’d expected a reprimand, the girl caught making out in the halls now barely dressed and standing at the threshold of another man’s room. I hadn’t realized I’d deserved it until Sy didn’t give it.

  Instead, he stretched out on one side of the bed, and tapped the other. I frowned, confused by how straightforward this interaction was turning out to be.

  “I’m not here to—”

  I’m not sure what I meant to say or why I meant to say it, but he cut me off with an abrupt shake of his head. “We’ve all had a difficult few days, you most of all.”

  I nodded in agreement, and the thought hit me that sometimes...

  Sometimes things could be this simple.

  I stepped forward carefully as though my steps carried something heavy with them, and sat at the edge of the bed, pushing my candle onto the nightstand. I looked over my shoulder at Sy curiously, but his occupied gaze held no suspicion. No guard. With my breath, the flame evaporated and the room fell dark.

  I settled into the blankets, shifting to my side to face him as he stared up at the ceiling. Light shone j
ust off the edges of his profile, contouring him against the darkness as the moonlight spilled onto us.

  “What if I can’t get us out?” I whispered.

  He was so still for a moment that I worried he’d already fallen asleep.

  “You will.”

  I rolled my eyes even though he didn’t have the benefit of seeing. “I can’t tell if that’s you believing in me, or trying to reassure us both.”

  “It’s me hoping you might believe a little more in yourself.”

  I clenched my jaw against the simmering emotion ready to spill out of my eyes. “But what if I can’t do it, Sy.”

  Sy twisted, rolling to his side so that we faced each other. He was a great hulking silhouette inches away from me, but as my vision adjusted to the fainter light, I saw the shifting glint in his eyes as his searched mine.

  “Tell me what burdens you.”

  “Ghosts and demons from a past that wasn’t real.”

  “Such things are all too familiar to this world as well. You needn’t be afraid to name them.”

  I thought back to the monsters of my childhood, lingering in wait in my closet, and then the monster of my adolescence waiting outside my room. I thought of that golden bar of light at the base of the door, and the shadow passing across it. “In the darkness, everything looks the same,” I said.

  “Then bring light to it, Saylor.”

  I looked over at him. “Whatever me was made by that nightmare, Sy… she lives with the duality of guilt and justice inside her all the time. It’s not like it was easy, like I enjoyed—” For the second time today, my stumbling words couldn’t find footing. They were all wrong, and said far too little with too much. I took a deep breath. “Maybe killing them was some sort of fucked up vigilante justice. But nothing has ever compared to the constant nausea that churned in my stomach after I realized what I’d done. I couldn’t eat. I would escape into sleep whenever I could find a half-decent slum to lay my head down in. That’s when I could sleep at all.”

  I could sense Sy picking up on what I was saying, recognizing the symptoms I’d clearly been displaying ever since I’d been found with Jude.