by Lisa Daniels
“Oh no, you don’t,” he said, taking her fingers off, pushing her backwards onto the bed. “Not before I’ve had a little more from you.”
She let out a little groan of frustration, which was drowned in a gasp of surprise as he went onto the bed with her, pinning her arms down. “I get you’re impatient, but I don’t want to be finished before you are...”
Still letting her keep her bra on, he began tugging off her underwear. Her eyes went wide in astonishment, before she helped him take them off, and he parted her legs, leaving her core exposed with the thin thatch of hair around it.
His tongue went to work at the softness there, which quickly grew wet with his ministrations, not just from his tongue, but from her squirming, gasping reaction. She did need to stop moving around so much…
Swallowing the urge to just rip off his own pants and plunge himself into her already, he continue to lick her out, careful not to press his lips onto her nub, in case she tried to do some wayward interpretation of their bet, until he felt her shuddering and twitching beneath him. She let out a long, sighing moan, body arching upward, causing him to shiver in increased excitement. Muscles in her thighs quivered with the unleashing of tension, and she whimpered at him to stop, because of the increased sensitivity there.
He loved the way her hair splayed out on the covers, so wild and curly, like an animal’s mane. He loved the way her scent enveloped him, speaking to that primal instinct in his brain that wanted to fuck, to consume his partner, rather than take it slow and gentle.
His fingers shook as he pulled down his pants and underwear, and tore open the small packet to place the condom over his erection. A moment later, he moved up her body, resisting the urge to shove his face against her skin and start kissing along it, and tested her reaction to him waiting at her entrance. He slowly pushed in, squeezing his eyes shut at the warmth and constriction.
Shamefully, he could only manage around a minute of increasing movement inside her before heat boiled through his groin and shot out with a release of pressure and pleasure all at once.
Mine, he whispered against her ear, giving a light nip. Teeth—not a kiss. He breathed hot air down the back which caused her to flinch violently.
“Skies, that was way too nice,” she gasped, before he managed to extricate himself and lie by her side.
He had to agree. His least favorite part now remained. Peeling off the condom. That was always fun. Having it off left a stickiness clinging to him that he instantly went to wash off. A sleepy happiness flooded through his body, making him want to slump next to her, but he also didn’t want to relax too much. What with the bet and all.
Instead, he focused on dressing himself back up again, under her slightly disapproving stare.
“As much as I’d like to lie next to you, pretty one,” he said, “I know I’ll be tempted to kiss you if I do.”
She let out a little hmph, before both her eyebrows flicked up. “Wait. We really did just have sex without the kissing, didn’t we?”
“We sure did. Not quite as romantic… but it’s still… pleasurable,” he said, buttoning up his shirt. He took his time to do so, noting how she enjoyed watching the act.
The cool air around him helped lower his otherwise heated body temperature, and his heart rate had now slowed to acceptable margins. If they did survive long enough to return to the Six Isles and settle back into a sense of normalcy, they’d probably talk about this moment as a brief spell of madness between them. Admirable, really, how a human, or indeed, dragon mind could seek to distract itself.
It would be nice if we could have met in more favorable circumstances, he thought sadly.
“You could always take a bath with me…?” she suggested, now sitting up in bed, hopeful. Not shy or covering herself up.
“Perhaps another time.” Sensing her growing disappointment, he moved over to her and held her right hand, squeezing it briefly. The terms of the bet suddenly seemed ridiculous to him now. But since she didn’t make any move, neither did he.
He wasn’t quite that mature of a person. “Thank you,” he said to her softly. “I enjoyed this. I look forward to any more time spent together.” He lifted his other hand to brush one of her wonderfully soft, still-flushed cheeks. She leaned into the touch with a sleepy smile. It felt a little… sacred, somehow, having someone else lean into his hand like this. He hadn’t done anything nearly this intimate with any of his other relationships. He’d gone through the long-term courting process, and when it finally came to the sex part… sure, it was enjoyable. Any sex could be, regardless of the partner. But he’d never felt so eager to watch someone else in pleasure as he had just now. He didn’t understand some of the men’s complaints in court when they had their gentlemen gatherings, about how women were just so hard to please.
Seemed to him paying some attention to a woman was pleasing enough. Just… being attentive. Already, his mind started working through potential gift ideas for her, ways to express interest in her beyond this.
“Wow, you’re so polite after sex,” she said with a wavering smile, as if trying not to laugh. “That’s not something I’m used to.”
“Pity. My mother always said a lady liked it if she was treated as such.”
Evelyn arched an eyebrow. “Seems she was quite wise in this idea. But you know… we don’t always like to be treated as ladies. Sometimes we like something a little extra.”
“You can tell me all about it.” He stroked her under the chin with one finger, before moving away to put on his shoes. “But I think I’d better find out what Meridas is up to.”
She settled herself back under the covers. “Good idea. And, um, thank you as well.”
He gave her a polite bow, before closing the door behind him. The moment the door shut, the smile on his face vanished.
One of the Zamorkan hotel attendants lay on the floor, a red, cloying stain spreading beneath him. His glassy eyes saw nothing. A knot of unease drowning the last of his happiness from earlier, Janus headed to the man, bent over him, and tested for a pulse, even though he knew there wouldn’t be one. Before Janus found the words to express himself, to raise the alarm, he heard someone shrieking to his right.
“Murder! There’s been a murder! The foreigners killed one of our own!”
He turned just in time to see the caller, a lean, blond-haired man, who caught his eyes. Even from the distance, Janus felt the sheer hatred emanating from the individual.
A set-up, he thought, as people began pouring down the corridor from both ends, and some of their crew members opened their doors in curiosity.
Chapter Seven – Evelyn
The cell was decidedly less comfortable than the bedroom. Evelyn didn’t much appreciate the single cell, or the angry, judgmental glares of the prison wardens who patrolled the cells. Anybody’s attempts to try and explain the situation were rebuffed. Meridas was missing, and Janus, she knew, was in a special prison that stopped him shapeshifting.
Funny how things turned out, really. One moment she’d been enjoying a rather vigorous sex session with Janus—the next, hauled out of her room by stone-faced authorities who seemed to think she might have had something to do with a murder in the corridor outside her room.
“It’s an obvious set-up,” Alex snapped from within one of the cells. The woman had been particularly agitated at being thrust into a cell. She’d unfortunately been on her way to inspect her rooms when she was caught. “There’s no benefit for any of us to get ourselves arrested. Someone wants us silenced.” Her brown-green eyes blazed in both fury and fear. “First we’re battered by a storm by someone who doesn’t want us reaching here, then within a day of arriving, we’re arrested for something we didn’t do!”
“Silence!” one of the guards snarled, banging his spear against her cell cage. A loud clang vibrated through the thin corridor, where about six of them were jailed. The rest of the crew were still at large, as far as they were aware. Unable to be implicated for a murder if they were on the other side of the
city, naturally. But they were in the process of being found and brought in, due to group responsibility.
The gloomy little cell provided little light from within. All the light came from the orblights in the corridor where four black-clothed guards paced up and down, all wielding spears. At least two of them had magic—Evelyn smelled them using it constantly, and figured that the magic probably enhanced their physical fighting skills. Though she couldn’t be entirely sure, since she’d only read about it in school. They hadn’t had combat witches in the Isles for a while.
Alex looked as if she wanted to snap back at the guard, but thankfully held her tongue. Evelyn, however, couldn’t.
“We know we’re being framed, yes. We can assume the Conclave of Zamorka is behind it, as they’ve been seeking our fall for quite some time.”
The guard turned on her now, the physical magic thrumming through him.
“We haven’t got time for this,” Alex said. “The Creeping Rot’s killing our people and our islands as we speak.”
The guard, who was about to slam his spear against Evelyn’s cage, was stopped by the other guard humming with physical magic.
“Prisoner,” the second guard said in a baritone, “did you just say you’re having issue with Creeping Rot?” He continued to make aggressive silencing motions to the other guards, clearly wanting to listen further.
“Yes. One of our island’s floating cores is infected with it now. People with magic are being afflicted and killed. And...” she licked her lips, “I had an altercation with a Conclave member during my journey to try and heal the island.”
The guard crouched by her cell, leaning on his spear. Evelyn approached the cell bars and wrapped her hands around them, pressing her face as close as possible to eavesdrop on the conversation.
The guard rubbed his face. “You were hoping to get answers to the Rot here, I take it?”
Alex nodded, though her body language was hunched and suspicious.
“We shouldn’t let the prisoner speak, they will fill us with lies—”
“Shut up, Ket. If they have important information, let them speak it. Just because they’re foreigners doesn’t mean they’re lying.”
Between Evelyn and Alex, helped by a few pointers from the other four unfortunate sailors imprisoned with them, they related an accurate tale of their journey here. The most fascinating information came from Alex, who talked about the Red Woman, the dying core of one of the Six Isles, and the people who succumbed to the Rot. Like Janus’ parents. Both sets.
Despite themselves, the other three guards seemed wholly absorbed in the information as well.
“It does sound like they were set up, Ket,” the friendly guard known as Izek said. “And I don’t see why they’d be lying about this.”
“Wild magics take us,” Ket spat. “Our laws state they’re to be executed without trial if within reasonable suspicion of murder. And because they’re foreigners… people won’t believe them.”
“We’d be… executed?” Alex’s voice suddenly sounded small.
“It is a perfect solution to their prodding around in Leavenport, isn’t it? Especially if we’d stuck to our instructions and not allowed them to speak, or listen to them.” Izek appeared deeply uncomfortable. The originally aggressive guard, Ket, now paced up and down in agitation.
“I don’t know what we should do. We break our own rules if we listen to them and argue on their behalf. But if the Conclave is continuing to meddle with people’s lives...”
“I take it this mysterious, shadowy organization causes you issues as well?” Alex posed the question in a dry manner, though she did appear more relaxed once the guards had shown some sympathy towards their cause. Evelyn noted how the guards seemed more inclined to listen to her in general compared to everyone else. Was it because of the Zamorkan blood inside her?
“The Conclave’s been assassinating people in Leavenport for years,” Izek said, letting out a big sigh. “Most of their members have gone into the wild magic at some point, and come out changed. We don’t really know why. They make some statement about changing civilization for the better… but from what we’ve seen, the wild magic makes them… destructive.” He held one hand over his lips. “We need to say this. We can’t just pretend nothing happened.”
Ket let out a growl of frustration. “Want to bet they don’t have anyone listening in on us right now?”
A deadly silence permeated those words. All four guards exchanged meaningful expressions with one another. One of the guards, Evelyn noted, seemed to be sweating more profusely than the others. He also had what seemed to be a nervous tic in his eyelid.
“How long did you say you were working here, again, Paul?” said Izek, now standing and prowling to Paul’s side. Ket honed in upon him like a predator seeking flesh.
Paul cleared his throat. “That’s none of your concern. I’ve half a mind to report you for speaking with the prisoners.”
“You were listening, too,” Ket pointed out.
“Yes, because you made it clear you didn’t want us interrupting them,” Paul replied. His voice quivered at the end.
“What do you think, eh, Paul, about this whole Conclave business? Eh, friend?” Ket’s smile became sinister, and the physical magic rippled through him.
In response, sudden magic whipped from Paul, striking out at the remaining three guards. One of them collapsed with wounds springing all over his body, as if cut by invisible blades. Ket and Izek resisted the blows with their own magic, though blood trickled down from their arms and cheeks. Both men lunged at Paul, and Alex desperately tried to reach the fallen man, her fingers just short of grasping something of him. She strained harder, asking the man to move a hand to her, stretch a hand, anything, if he was still conscious.
Also, Evelyn now felt a pretty good incentive to access her magic.
So far, she hadn’t wanted to risk aggravating the locals. Now seemed like a pretty good time to help. Calling upon the winds, faint as they were in this place, she helped shunt the body closer to Alex, so she could grasp the unconscious man and attempt to heal him.
Next was trying to help the fighters, but she didn’t have precise enough control to try and separate them, and she wasn’t entirely sure if that’d be smart, given what the attacker could do. Her pulse hammered faster as she concentrated on the fight, trying to follow the fight, on the alert to attempt to protect herself and Alex. Not that she thought wind powers would help against invisible slashes. The physical magic pair managed finally to overpower the slashy guard, clamping manacles upon his hands that seemed to have some kind of nullifying effect on his magic.
“If you’ve killed Burton,” Ket said with a sinister growl, baring his teeth, “damnation will be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.”
Alex lifted her hands off the fallen guard, and sagged against her bars. “I can’t,” she said. “He’s dead.” The words grated out of her. She didn’t want to say them, to admit she didn’t have the power to save someone.
Ket let out a scream of anger and pummeled the attacker’s face, not stopping until Izek yanked him off and told him to go get some help.
“We’ve got a lot of talking to do,” Izek promised them. “And I’ll see to it myself we get you out of your cages and interviewed instead.”
Evelyn smiled, though felt cold at the thought that they might have just sent them to their deaths without even a chance to plea. Maybe they had a good reason for doing so, but right now, it worked against them completely. They hadn’t even found out a single thing about the Creeping Rot, other than the fact that people here knew what it was, and hated it as well.
If they hadn’t been allowed to speak… Janus would be dead along with them. Everyone on the expedition would vanish, and they’d be chalked up as another group lost to the curse of Zamorka. It’d be so much easier if they just wiped the stupid country from the map. Because Evelyn had been here less than a day, and her wonder had already turned into a sullen hate.
&n
bsp; “You did all you could, Alex. Don’t feel bad about yourself. You always try to help people,” Evelyn said in an attempt to comfort the stiff life witch. No response came, and Alex didn’t turn to face anyone. Evelyn groaned inwardly, but let Alex have her moment. Evelyn didn’t know what it was like to have the power to heal but still fail, but she supposed Alex certainly did.
I do know what it’s like to fail, though. Evelyn closed her eyes, until she heard more footsteps coming.
Chapter Eight – Janus
Sound traveled far in the small, domed room. Paintings on the ceiling resembled a starry night, full of color and wonder. Seats spread in a circle in the middle of the room, and most of them carried occupants. Janus didn’t like going into this situation blind, but everyone who’d been imprisoned needed to be interviewed alone.
Evelyn and the rest had already been. He’d caught rushed words from her about them almost being executed or something, and a hasty embrace, before they were separated, and then waited awkwardly outside the interview room for what felt like hours.
One of the interviewers happened to be the same man that had bumped into them earlier, with his cryptic message and leftover address. That helped make things a lot easier, at least.
“I must apologize to you for this undue situation,” the white-haired stranger said, striding towards him to shake hands. “I was just arguing your people’s case to the precinct. I daresay I might not have succeeded, had there not been an attack in the cells proving that what I said was correct.” He waved Janus towards a seat. “Sit, sit.”
“Your name?” Janus cautiously settled himself down and eyed the group of strangers. Eight of them in total, and all of them white-haired like the man, though of varying lengths and shades. All wore a soft, ceremonial-style robe, with gold embroidery around the edges. These Zamorkan types really liked their long robes. The Red Woman, a lot of the witches… it made them look pompous and impractical.
“Verran,” the stranger answered, with a small bow. “And I will be quick on the matter, since we’ve already gone through the same deal with everyone else. If you seek to stop the Creeping Rot, you’ll need to visit a mausoleum located in the wild magic area. You can’t completely stop it, because no one knows where it originates, but there is a powerful cure in there that is capable of healing even rock.”
