Ingrid spoke, “Two” the very same moment Lena said, “One.”
When her friend looked at her, wordlessly questioning, Lena said, “One is fine. The men will learn to share.” Now was a busy time for any inn in Rivaini; she wasn’t going to take two rooms when she couldn’t even pay for one. “I don’t have any coin, though.”
Harry didn’t think anything of the whole sharing-a-room thing, setting a single key before her. “Don’t worry about it. Ingrid here has helped me stay in business more often than I’d like to admit.” He gave her friend a warm smile. “The room’s on me, for as long as you need it.”
“They’re probably going to need some food, too,” Ingrid spoke. “These two haven’t eaten in years.” Though it was true, she spoke it as a joke, which earned a hard, hearty laugh from Harry.
“Aye, fine. I’ll be sure to send up a plate or two every now and then.” Harry turned his smile on Lena. “Will you be visiting your boyfriends often? Are we going to need extra housekeeping?”
Ingrid reached over the counter and smacked his arm. “Harry, that’s not appropriate.”
“Right, right. Sorry.” Still laughing to himself, Harry gestured to the stairs that wrapped upwards in the far corner. “Go take a look. It’s room seven, third floor. Bathhouse is in the back. I bring in new water from the well every morning.”
“Thank you, Harry.” Ingrid snatched the key and practically ran for the curling wooden steps.
That was…a weird encounter. Lena whispered, “You’ll have to tell me all about that, when we get back to the College.”
Ingrid sighed, her legs not slowing until they reached the topmost floor of the inn. Their room was the one closest to the stairwell, but that didn’t matter. As she inserted the key into the lock, she said, “There goes my moonlighting business.”
“Moonlighting?” Lena echoed, watching as her friend entered the room. “What are you moonlighting as? Why? That’s…” Illegal. Only mages who were enchanters could get jobs. She knew her friend dabbled in potions—clearly, if her violet hair and eyes had anything to show for it—but to call it moonlighting?
The room they walked into was a small space, big enough for a bed, a tiny, waist-height dresser, and a nightstand. She supposed the guys would be fine if they wanted to spend some time in the bar downstairs. Drunkards wouldn’t recognize them; most people wouldn’t, though anyone who’d ever had their nose in a history book might remember the infamous Tamlen Grey. His scar had made it in every single portrait that was painted of him—or rather, the battle between King Midas and the usurper.
Valerius…why did history forget Valerius?
“I need coin,” Ingrid muttered, hands on her hips. “You might never want to leave the College, but I do, eventually. And to get out of Rivaini, I need a lot of gold.”
Oh. Even though she knew it, deep down, for some stupid, childish reason, Lena hoped she and Ingrid would remain together, friends until they were old and wrinkled and unable to have full conversations. If they lived that long. Mages tended to die younger than their non-mage counterparts.
Lena bit her lip, not knowing what to say.
“Tamlen, Valerius, welcome to your room, where you will stay until Lena figures out what to do with you,” Ingrid spoke, setting the key on the nightstand. It was a terribly-made piece, for it rocked back and forth a few times with the added weight of the iron key.
She wondered how bad the bed would rock…
No. Bad Lena.
“Please tell us,” Tamlen spoke, moving to lounge on the bed. The bed hardly moved with his weight. Huh. “That you are going to find us other clothes, garments that fit, preferably.”
Ingrid sighed. “I suppose I can spare a few coins.” She pointed at Lena. “But you will pay me back.”
Lena nodded. “Of course.” Though she had no clue with what, or how.
Moving to the door, her friend bent her head to the hall. “Come on, I’ll show you all my favorite places in the markets. It isn’t often I have my friend outside the College with me.” Yes, because normally, Lena was not allowed outside its walls. Initiates were confined to the College.
If something happened…if there was a repeat of her childhood, the other mages and College guards would put her down fast. Much faster than any city or royal guardsman could.
Lena pursed her lips, glancing at the two men, at her two men. She wasn’t ready to leave them. Not yet. She felt the bizarre desire to stay near them. How was she going to go back to the College without them, if she couldn’t even stomach the idea of shopping in the markets with Ingrid?
“No,” she softly spoke. “You go.”
Ingrid was startled. “You want me to shop for your men? How does that work?” She must’ve seen Lena’s confusion, the mental tug of war that went on in her head, for her expression quickly softened as she said, “Fine. I’ll go. But you know you can’t stay here overnight. You might be Gregain’s favorite, but even he won’t make an exception to the curfew.”
With a sigh, she watched Ingrid go, closing the door behind her, shutting Lena inside the room with both Tamlen and Valerius. Probably a bad idea, getting stuck with the two men, given her previous bodily reactions to the both of them, but she just couldn’t leave them. Not yet.
Valerius was slow to draw his gaze away from the closed door and onto Lena. She stood in the corner of the room, lost in thought. Whatever worried her, whatever drew concern to that innocent, fragile face—he wanted to stop it, wanted to help her. Seeing her so torn was not something he liked.
“I’m going to go,” Tamlen said, stretching, “and take a look at that bathhouse. Anyone want to come with me?” His dark eyes flicked from Valerius to Lena. “I’d love to see you naked.”
Lena’s cheeks burned an instant, bright red. Ironic, considering the position she and Tamlen were in not too long ago.
When she didn’t reply, Tamlen shrugged. “All right, I’ll go by myself, I suppose.” As Lena started to speak, he reached over, swiping his fingers across her cheek, startling her back into silence. “Don’t worry, love. I’m bound to you. Running away is not an option for either Vale or me.” With a wink, he exited the room.
Valerius slowly returned his gaze to Lena. Tamlen was a smooth-talker, charismatic and overly confident. But he was right. They were bound to Lena, just like Lena was bound to them. And maybe it was because of that connection, but he could not stop thinking about her, watching her, wanting her.
It was so against everything he used to be. Then again, everything he used to be was poisoned and entombed, forgotten about as the years went on, thanks to Midas. Maybe it was not such a horrible thing to become a new man in this second life, even if he spent this second life at the beck and call of a mage.
Lena…did not act like the mages he knew in his previous life. She was quiet and pensive, though he knew she could snap and shout when the situation called for it. She did not revel in her magic, did not want non-mages bowing down to her awesome power. No, she was utterly opposite to the mages Valerius used to know, the ones he fought against during Tamlen’s uprising.
Having a mage rule it all—hadn’t they learned anything from the decaying empire of Noresah? Perhaps the northern territory was more prosperous now, perhaps there was less corruption and unnatural magic use…or perhaps Noresah was nothing but crumbling stone statues and empty halls today.
“Are you all right?” Valerius asked, wanting to move closer to her, to touch her like Tamlen had, but he held back. If they got closer, things might happen, things more intimate than before. It was a ridiculous notion, for they didn’t know each other. Not really. The connection they had was forced because of magic, necromancy that Lena clearly did not understand.
“I will be fine,” Lena said. “I just…it’s a lot to take in, you know? Everything that happened today. I still don’t know how it happened, either.” She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, moving her bag onto her lap. She ran her hand over it. “I had no idea that tome held spel
ls of necromancy.” Her eyes, such a clear, glorious violet, turned to him, gazing up at him from beneath thick black eyelashes. “I don’t even know how I read from it. I’ve never seen that language before.”
Hesitant, Valerius moved to sit beside her, careful not to touch her. There was a few inches between them, and it should stay that way for everyone’s sanity. “May I see it?”
She nodded once, digging out the large tome and handing it to him.
Even though Valerius was no mage, he could feel the power radiating from the book. This was no ordinary book. It couldn’t be. Running his fingers along the black outer binding, studying the inscriptions on its face, he said, “Do you feel that?” A crudely stitched hand with an eye in its center.
“What?”
“How it seeps cold.” Valerius’s fingers moved to the frayed edges of the parchment pages. “Like ice.”
“I don’t feel that.”
That was…odd. He flipped open the book, turning the first blank page to see a full page of writing. This writing was not written in ink. The letters were more like runes, ancient symbols that could hold multiple meanings, depending on the other symbols around it. This was not a language that was common in Rivaini, even when he was first alive. The symbols were written in a dark red paint.
In blood.
“This, I believe,” Valerius spoke as he recalled seeing letters on Midas’s desk as they were…getting intimate, “is Noresh.”
“Noresh?” Lena echoed. “Impossible. The College banned all works of all Noresh mages the instant the Faroe did not agree to abide by their rules.”
Ah. So Noresah was still a kingdom, then. What a shame.
Lena brought a shaking hand to her mouth, biting her nails as if she were a child. “The Noresh are…well, not the kind of people our King wants to associate with. Their current Faroe is a mage, I think, and he does not hide his practices of…” Her eyes widened. “Of necromancy. What if this is his? How did it wind up in the College’s library? Gods—how did I know what it said? I’ve never seen Noresh before.”
The temperature in the room began to rise as she trembled, and Valerius was quick to close the book and set it aside. If she could raise the dead without trying, he did not want to witness what other spells she was capable of while fretting.
He touched the small of her back, telling her, “Calm yourself. You are fine. At least you were the one who found the book and not someone else. If another had found it, Rivaini could’ve faced an undead war.” Her small shoulders no longer trembled, and the temperature around him lowered. “You may have risen an entire crypt’s worth of skeletons, but…”
Lena smiled a smile that could light up the entire night sky, a smile that made his stomach harden. “That was scary, not going to lie.” She turned to him, still smiling. “But I also rose you and Tamlen.”
“You could have worse thralls,” Valerius said, hating both that he was willing to call himself her thrall and that he was on the same level as Tamlen.
“But why weren’t you skeletons?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a mage. I’m not sure how spells like that work. Necromancy is as foreign to me as…” As the feelings he now felt towards her. Desiring a woman was not something Valerius knew well. Not really.
When he was fifteen, he’d laid with a woman on an older brother’s insistence. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t fun. Now, the farmhand who worked the fields beside his parents’ house? That had been fun.
“As what?” Lena asked.
Valerius watched her, wondering if she would think of him differently if he told her the truth about his past, about who he was with. She didn’t need to know that he was with Midas during the revolt, but perhaps she should know about how he liked other men. Maybe she’d hate him, find him revolting and disgusting, and whatever strange thing was between them would snap and break.
Or maybe she wouldn’t care. Maybe she’d accept him as he was, his past and all.
Could he take that chance?
“I know we’re still strangers to each other,” Lena spoke, reaching for the hand that still rested on his lap, the one that wasn’t touching her lower back. “But I feel like I’ve known you for so much longer. Whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen.” She quickly tore her hand from his as she shuddered.
Relieved to change the subject, he asked, “What is it?”
“It’s hard to describe. Every time I’m near one of you guys, I just want to…” Her voice trailed off, but Valerius knew what she meant. He knew, because he still had remnants of the Hunger itself. Perhaps that was why they wanted each other. Maybe if they had each other, Hunger would grow full and leave their minds entirely.
“Something was trapped in my tomb with me,” Valerius said. “I called it Hunger.”
“A Demon?” Her eyes grew wide, and the short hairs on her arms stood straight up. “Do you think I’m possessed?” A mage possessed was a death sentence, for the mage herself and for those around her. He knew that.
“Hunger isn’t a Demon. It’s a spirit. It doesn’t have to possess a body to live on this plane.”
“How do you know so much about it if you’ve been dead this whole time?”
Valerius knew there was no turning back now. Perhaps he should’ve just told her how he favored men in his past; it would’ve been easier than discussing his shortcomings. “I made mistakes in my first life—mistakes that I don’t plan on repeating again.”
She put the pieces together. “It was inside of you when you died, but it couldn’t get out. It was trapped in that tomb until you were nothing but bones. I let it out when I summoned you.” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, welling until they spilled over her pale cheeks. “I let the spirit out. Is it inside me? Is that why I feel so…” She couldn’t finish.
“It might be inside you, or it might’ve simply touched your mind, given you a taste of its power, hoping that you’ll turn to it willingly. You’re a mage. You know that a—”
“A willing host is more beneficial for both parties.” Lena squeezed her eyes shut, burying her face in her hands as she muttered, “I cannot believe I was so stupid.” Her shoulders shook, and she covered her hands and her face. “Where do you think it is? I should find it and exorcise it—”
Valerius hated seeing her so torn up. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, whisper into her ear that it would be all right, that he wouldn’t let anything harm her ever again. But he, like her, was weak in the face of true Hunger. He felt it now, actually: the burning desire to pull her onto his lap and smother her lips with his.
It took all his willpower to say, “You won’t be able to find it, unless you can convince it that you want to partner with it.”
After calming herself somewhat, Lena sat straight, wiping the stray tears from her face. “How did you stumble across it? You’re not a mage. Spirits and Demons should leave you alone.”
“Demons do. But spirits are different. I’m surprised you haven’t learned this in your…College. Spirits can affect any living creature, even animals and mythical beasts. Spirits are very choosy in their targets.”
Lena inched closer, eyes falling to the neckline of the shirt he wore. “Is that why you submitted yourself for runes? Because you had the spirit inside of you?”
“I think you misunderstand. Hunger doesn’t force you to do something you’d never normally do. It nudges, whispers, makes things seem more appealing, but every action is yours…every desire rooted in some truth.” Valerius wanted to hit himself. If that were true, did that mean he always found women as attractive as men? It didn’t seem like the case, but it was a moot point now.
Now, it was him and her. And Tamlen, but it was easy to overlook him because he wasn’t in the room.
“So you’re saying that, if I would’ve come across you on the street, a complete stranger,” Lena’s voice was soft, low, almost a whisper, “I would’ve wanted you?” Her tears were gone, replaced by curiosity…and hunger.
“S
ubconsciously, at least,” Valerius murmured, turning his torso to better face her. Gods, she was beautiful, even in those trousers. Even with the mess of unnaturally violet hair. He wanted desperately to run his hands in its length, tangle each finger in it as he held her close, tight against him.
She bit her bottom lip. “And you, Vale?” Somehow, when she spoke it, it didn’t sound half as bad as it did coming from Tamlen’s mouth. When Lena said it, he rather liked it. Perhaps he’d go by that shortened name from now on… “What do you want?”
Such a loaded question, and an equally loaded answer. Right now, though—currently he could only answer one way. “You,” Valerius whispered, leaning to kiss her. She did not back away; Lena accepted his kiss, practically moaning with anticipation. He pulled her over him, sitting on the edge of the bed, with her on his lap, one of her legs on either side of him.
She ran her hands down his chest, fumbling with his tight shirt, parting their mouths so that she could help him out of it. Once again, her fingers traced the runes inscribed in his flesh, her soft skin sending ripples through his.
“Why does it feel so good when you touch me?” Valerius asked, bending his neck so that he could shower hers with kisses. He didn’t want to stop her fingers from roaming along the runes.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, grinding her hips, rubbing the area between her legs onto his hard-on. Even though they both wore pants, it sent waves of pleasure throughout his whole body. “Why do I want to keep going? I’ve never…”
Valerius paused. Did she mean that she had never made love to anyone before? How in all of Rivaini was that possible? She was immaculate, flawless and beautiful. Why had no man ever wanted to be with her? It blew his mind. He’d more than happily be the first, just as she’d be his first in a long time.
But, there should be transparency. Lena should know his history.
“I have,” Valerius whispered, moving the small tendrils of hair that had fallen in her face, staring into her violet eyes. Her hands paused on his biceps, her grinding slowing to a halt. “With women, and with men.” Mostly with men. But she didn’t need to know that much. “Does it bother you, knowing that I—”
Spells and Necromancy: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Unfortunate Magic Book 1) Page 9
