by E. S. Bell
Selena felt a warm tingling in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t look at me like that. Please,” he said. “I’m not…Let me help you. That’s all I ask. Say yes, and then I’ll go.”
“I don’t want you to go.” Selena stepped closer to him, her heart pounding so loud she was certain he could hear it.
“Just say yes,” he begged, looking as he had when the merkind’s maelstrom was breaking his ship apart. “Helping you…it’s the only thing I can do. The only thing worth doing.”
He was so tall; she tilted her chin up and leaned in. She could smell the sea on his black leather longcoat. “Julian…”
“Let me,” he whispered, his lips brushing against hers with every word. “Say yes. Please.”
“Yes.” She parted her mouth and he kissed her hard. She felt it in the pit of her stomach and clung to him lest she melt out of his arms. “Yes,” she whispered, when he buried his face in her neck, kissing her ear, her chin, her throat. “Yes. Gods, yes.”
She said it again and again, until she had forgotten why. She said yes to him, to the feel of his arms around her, to the salt of his skin, the sound of his breath rasping in his nose as kissed her. It had been ten years. A decade. She couldn’t fathom it. The last time she’d known the touch of a man, she’d been eighteen years old, newly ordained and about to be shipped off to war. They all were being sent, the young Paladins in the Temple. The last of the Paladins, each wanting to experience one of life’s pleasures before their own lives were corrupted by war or stripped away entirely. She and Isaak—he also barely eighteen years old—had taken their months’ long flirtation from the training grounds to his bed, to fumble awkwardly but sweetly until the dawn came and the bells tolled that it was time to set off.
Now she had Julian and he was no untried boy. She pushed his black coat off his shoulders and then tore off her Aluren overtunic and sword belt. The sword clanged to the ground and the tunic fell away, crumpled and forgotten. They embraced again, crushing their lips together, and in the confusion of aching need, they simply fell to their knees.
He pulled her onto his lap so that she straddled him, his mouth moving over hers, his hands reaching around to grasp her thighs, to pull her closer. She ground her hips against his and lifted his shirt over his head. She reveled at the feel of him, his muscles hard beneath smooth skin. He was scarred here and there, but free of inky black tattoos but for one on his shoulder. Mina in small, flowing script. His sister, she thought and then his hand found her breast, his fingertips brushing the wound, jarring her. She took his hand away from the cold draft.
“It must…repulse you,” she breathed.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t. It won’t.”
He’s brave, she thought. That is why he is unafraid. Accora was wrong. Wrong about everything.
“It must stay on,” she said of her linen undershirt, “to protect you.”
He nodded and kissed her again, kissed her as though he were drinking her in. They fell back onto the rushes and the weight of his body on hers was a kind of ecstasy all its own. Their need grew frantic and he tore at the catches on his belt, and pushed his trousers down just enough. He was hard and hot, and a fresh swell of desire crashed over Selena at the thought of what was coming next.
“The bed?” he asked, his voice raw with want.
“No,” Selena breathed. “Here. Don’t stop.”
He tugged her underclothes off her hips and then held her face in his hands, meeting her gaze with his own unwavering green-eyed beauty. “Selena…”
She closed her eyes and bit the slope of muscle between his shoulder and neck to keep from crying out. The perfect heaviness of him, over her and inside her; it was nearly too much. She clutched his back, her nails digging into his skin as he groaned into the tangled mess of her hair and began to move.
Her ecstasy came swift and hard, rocking her until she was delirious. He shuddered shortly after, kissing her silent when she whispered his name, and then lying still, breathing heavily, breathing in time with her.
And Selena swore that while she’d shared the powerful vitality of Julian’s body, she had been warm.
Change of Course
After the last swell of pleasure rolled through him, Sebastian lay for long moments over Selena, his face against her neck and his hands in her hair he’d waited so long to touch. It was still braided but they’d made a mess of it. He moved off of her, still trying to catch his breath, as a fresh agony swept in to steal the peace she had given him. Her kiss alone had been the most exquisite thing he had known in so many dark years, but it turned sour in his mouth as a question resounded again and again in his mind with a voice that sounded like Mina’s.
What have you done?
He held his head in his hands. Selena had risen from the floor, what little clothing left on her askew and rumpled. She went behind a small partition, to the privy. He heard the rustle of soft material and she emerged wearing a plain silken shift. The outline of her breasts through the thin dress was obvious even in the dim light cast by the lamp and despite his anguish, desire flared in him again. He quickly looked away.
“Julian?”
Julian. His false name. The ocean of lies between them seemed boundless. She knelt on the bed and held out her hand to him. Against every instinct, he rose and took it and let her draw him close.
“This is better, yes?” she said, indicating the sleeping dress.
“Yes,” he said. Better. He wanted to tear it off her and kiss her everywhere. Kiss her on that damnable wound even, and…
Make things worse? Betray her a second time?
Mina’s voice was just as he’d remembered it: sharp and smart and dry.
“Julian, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“You’ve had…a tough time of it.” A tough time? He wanted to kick himself. “I meant, with your healing and Accora…I shouldn’t have taken advantage.”
Selena frowned and sat back on her heels on the bed. “You did not,” she said stiffly. “I’ve endured loneliness for far too long, but I did nothing I didn’t want to do…”
“No, I know that. Gods, I meant…” He shook his head. “It was…”
“Perfect,” she said. “It was perfect, Julian.” She glanced down at her discarded Aluren tunic. “Though it remains to be seen if the god agrees. We are forbidden to have relations with those who are not Aluren.”
“You think the god will punish you again? After ten years?” Anger suffused him in a great sudden burst. “For what? For breaking some stupid rule? You’ve endured enough.”
Her smile returned and with it, his anger faded, as if she were some calming balm that smoothed out all the sharp edges of him. “We all have endured much. Since the war.” Her gaze went to the tattoo on his shoulder. “Will you tell me about her?”
“No,” Sebastian said automatically. “I can’t.”
“Talking about pain can help to lessen it.”
“Not this time.”
Selena touched her fingertips to her lips, and then to Mina’s name. “I hope she is at rest now.”
She’s not, he wanted to tell her. None of them are.
“And I want to help you,” she said, and her smile turned sad. “To close your own wounds. How can I help you? What is it you want more than anything?”
He reached up and untied the knots that held her braids in place and her hair fell over her shoulders in gold ribbons. He took them in his hands, brought them to his face to inhale deeply. Salt and wind and her own sweet scent beneath.
“Peace,” he said. “I want peace. I want you. You remind me of a place…”
She was so close that the slightest movement toward her brought her lips to his, silencing his words with her perfect mouth that had never uttered an ugly, snide, or hateful word.
The kiss deepened, became sweeter, then harder. He lay her down on the bed and she raised her sleeping gown high enough to reveal everything but her wound. Her body beneath
him stole his breath. He’d never lain with a woman who had muscles as she did: lean but strong. Or calloused hands that wielded a sword; that weaved light. That healed. He imaged that’s what she did as she touched him, healed him in great crescendos of pleasure that left him drained and heavy and content in a way that he hadn’t known since before the war.
I’ll fall on my own sword before I let her fear me. There’s no betrayal. Sebastian Vaas is dead. He died the moment I lay my blade at Selena’s feet. No, when I first beheld her.
He drifted to sleep with Selena clutched tight in his arms. This can’t be wrong. It can’t be, and yet he dreamt of Mina and she wept.
Sebastian woke to Selena’s body jerking awake.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“Downstairs. It sounded like breaking glass.”
Sebastian listened for half a second. “The crew. Drunk again.”
“No, it’s…”
A muffled scream came from below and the sound of more glass shattering. Men’s voices, loud and bellowing, followed.
They locked eyes a moment longer and then flew apart to dress. He retrieved his weapons from the balcony and then donned his long black coat.
“Bloody bad timing,” he muttered.
She nodded. He saw the passion they had kindled this night was still smoldering in her eyes.
“It was a lovely night,” she said and then belted on her sword.
Sebastian followed Selena out of her chambers in the keep, a knot of tension twisting in his gut. Her face was drawn and determined, her blue eyes were no longer the color of stunning waters around his atoll, but the cool steel of a warrior preparing for battle. But even before they saw the enemy they faced, he knew there would be no battle. Not the sort where you shoot and cut until you’re dead or your enemy is. No, Sebastian knew Selena wouldn’t let it come to that. His crew was down there. The native people who had opted to serve the old Bazira woman instead of gutting her and feeding her old bones to the sea scorpions, they were down there. Selena wouldn’t let any one of them be endangered if she could help it. The knot in his stomach twisted tighter as they slipped out into the walkway
The walk that led to sleeping chambers circled the main hall one story up; Sebastian and Selena kept out of the torchlight and peered cautiously over the rail to watch the standoff below. The feasting hall was overrun with rough-looking men—pirates, Sebastian thought—and Bazira, the latter in black and red, brandishing silver blades and spitting deadly shards of ice from their open palms. The latter were grubby, their clothing shabby, but their flintlocks looked oiled and new. Twenty men in all. Sebastian’s crew had taken cover behind overturned tables and benches, Grunt warding them with an outstretched arm to remain still. Three natives lay on the floor, their blood darkening the hay around them. A fourth was held in the arms of a weeping Yuk’ri woman. The dead man’s chest bore a pale patch of gray, and even from their vantage, Sebastian could see the man’s staring eyes were rimed with frost.
Sebastian scanned the Bazira for the red haired woman—Jude. Jude Gracus. The woman who knew his true name, who could destroy everything he’d built with Selena with a breath. There is power in knowing the true name of another, Svoz had told him once. Bloody Deeps, he was right.
But it was a man wearing a sleek black overtunic with blood-red edging who stepped forward. A curved sword was belted at his waist on one side, a small water flask on the other, and a flintlock strapped to his thigh. His pale hair was pulled mercilessly tight from his face and tied at the base of his skull. He scanned the room over a hawkish nose, strolling on his heels, hands clasped behind his back, as if he were a prospective buyer of the people who cowered before him.
“I want the Aluren Selena Koren,” he explained to the room that had grown still. Even the Yuk’ri’s woman’s sobs had quieted. “I want her now, and if you produce her without causing me trouble, we will leave the rest of you with your lives.”
Sebastian gripped Selena’s wrist. Wait, he mouthed, and jerked his head at the nearly two-dozen men who blocked the front entrance. He pulled his flintlock from the small of his back.
“I’ll shoot the Bazira bastard,” he breathed. “You light them up.”
“There are too many.”
“Don’t do it, Selena.”
“Do what?” She smiled sadly. “Make myself weak to be kind?”
Sebastian bit off a retort as below, Niven rose from a crouch to a half-crouch. “You are not welcome here,” he said, and cringed at the mocking laughter that greeted his words “N-Now go before…there’s trouble.”
The Bazira adherent with the pale hair looked past Niven. He raised a black-gloved hand and pointed to one of the crew.
“That one.”
Two other Bazira strode forward. They flipped a bench aside to get at Cat. She bared her teeth and loosed two throwing knives, one from each gloved hand. One thwacked harmless into the overturned wooden bench. The other buried itself to the hilt in one man’s thigh.
“Bloody bitch! Krystak!” Ice lanced from the man’s hand as Cat reached for her cutlass. It clattered to the ground and her glove came off with it. Cat clutched her hand to her chest with a grimace of pain.
Beside him, Selena gripped Sebastian’s arm in a vise. She wouldn’t wait much longer and if Cat died while they watched…Then I’ll be pricked. We need a bloody godsdamn diversion.
Spit crouched beside Cat. He spat and slashed with his blade, but the other Bazira knocked it aside and shoved the scrawny man over a fallen bench. He grabbed Cat by her shock of orange hair and dragged her forward.
“Gareth,” he said, bowing to the first Bazira. He thrust Cat forward.
Gareth nodded once, satisfied. “Hush now, love,” he murmured, as Cat struggled wordlessly in the other man’s arms. Gareth laid his open hand over her heart. Her face turned gray as ice crystals fanned out from under his fingers. Gareth turned his steely gaze to Niven. “Get your Paladin. Now.”
Above, Sebastian scanned the room for Ilior. The dragonman was nowhere to be seen. He hangs around like a rotten tooth until he’s actually needed…
Selena turned to him and kissed him fiercely. “Keep them safe.”
He could scarcely draw a breath and then she was gone, slipping out of his reach and hurrying down the stairs into the thick of the pirates. He wanted to scream a curse, or tackle her to the ground, but even in his panic he knew that keeping out of sight might be the only advantage they had.
If I lose her I am lost.
“I’m here.” Selena strode into the room below, her hands held out. “I am Paladin Koren. Let her go.”
“Are you now?” Sebastian heard Gareth say. “I expected a pious old marm who’s only ever been on her knees to pray, but you’re far more luscious. You will speak no word of magic or she dies.”
Cat struggled weakly against the man’s hand. The icy fan around it spread to her shoulders and she trembled violently.
Sebastian took stock of the men blocking the door. Twenty was too many, even on his best day; even if they didn’t have ice daggers as well as steel or flintlocks. But if he had a diversion…He silently cursed the old witch for stealing his sirrak and knelt to take careful aim with his pistol. “Touch her and you die,” he quietly promised the man named Gareth.
“Did Bacchus send you?” Selena demanded.
“Aye. You were never meant to make it this far,” Gareth said, scanning the assemblage curiously. “But our good Reverent is not afraid of you. To the contrary, he is hungry for you. Come along, now, sweeting and no else dies.”
Sebastian laid his finger on the trigger. There was still no sign of the bloody dragonman. “Svoz,” he whispered. “To me.” Nothing. He swallowed a vile curse.
“Let Cat go,” Selena said below.
“Of course.”
Gareth shoved Cat into Selena; if she’d planned to weave light, the chance was lost as she was forced to catch the smaller woman. Sebastian’s mouth wen
t dry and fear coiled in his gut like a writhing snake as the pirates closed in around her. They bound her hands behind her and gagged her mouth with a rag. One of them stripped her of her sword and it vanished into their ranks.
Sebastian’s hands holding the flintlock trembled until he willed them still. He cocked the pin and then a strangled cry came from under the balcony where Sebastian could not see. Accora pushed her way forward.
“No!” she cried, flying toward Selena. “Not like this! Not like this!”
“The apostate.” Gareth nodded at his men. “Bacchus misses you, mother.”
Sebastian had never seen the old witch so undone. Accora closed both fists and opened them again, sending shards of ice into the pirates and Bazira in frantic bursts. It was the diversion he had needed before Selena was bound and gagged.
“Not like this! Not as a prisoner!” Accora shrieked, and bolts of ice flew from her palms, striking at least three in the chest, felling them instantly.
Gareth seemed unimpressed by the display and left Accora to his men. He moved unhurriedly to stand behind Selena and gave her a rough shove to get her walking.
“I warned you.” Sebastian pulled the trigger.
The back of Gareth’s head burst with a small explosion of blood and brain and bits of skull. He fell into Selena, knocking her into the men in front of her. But the loss of their commander didn’t break their discipline as Sebastian had hoped. Other Bazira gripped Selena by the arms and hauled her toward the door, Accora’s ice daggers following them after, until one large pirate clubbed the old woman on the back of the neck. As she crumpled to the ground in a flutter of gray robes, the big man tossed her over his shoulder and followed the rest out of the keep.
Sebastian tore down the stairs. Why are they running? Why aren’t they staying to fight? The window nearest him shattered and a glass bottle stuffed with a flaming rag rolled next to feet, and then he knew why. He had time enough to get his arm up to shield his face and then the world turned red and hot and sharp.
