Rogue Within
Page 25
Smoke hung thick over the streets and crowded buildings. The Queen had not opened the gates for citizens seeking safety as she always had before, and another riot had formed right outside the Royal wall. How quickly supplication had turned to demand. The guards had quelled it, but dinner had been a sparse and tense affair.
He rinsed and waded out. His muscles flexed and rippled as he walked up the steps. Her belly clenched. Magnificent. Questions crowded her throat regarding his day and the rumors she’d heard. He was home. He was whole. It was enough. She stayed quiet until he finished drying off and slipped on a robe.
“Would you like a meal?”
“Take me to the exact place in the garden you saw Signy and Sverre meet.”
“Sverre?”
“The other man you heard her with was Sverre.”
Moriko recognized the name as one of the remaining four darkmage leaders.
Biting her lip on the request that he rest, she bent and slid her dress and shoes back on. He put on his boots and they exited the Royal apartments and walked along the bailey, the kitchen hall, and the south alley. It was the exact same path she’d taken when she’d followed Signy. Past the first, formal gardens and into the gate of the deeper, thicker jungle garden. Slowing, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She’d been back several times in the course of the investigation, but not at night.
Hesitating, she looked around and then moved forward. “This is the tree I was by.” She turned and dove into the brush, shoving through the vines and past the leathery leaves. The clearing they’d used was even larger now, trampled from so many feet studying it. “Here.”
Donte crouched, looking almost like a Priest in the cream-colored robe. He ran his hand through his hair and it spiked, but then he rubbed through it again, flattening it. Standing, he breathed deeply, turning carefully. She stayed still.
“Did you fuck anyone today?”
“No. That’s an unworthy question, Donte. You asked me not to and I said I wouldn’t and I keep my word. I used the brush you gave me, and also some hair clips. I discovered that the bristles are a hard pleasure that chafes me enough to satisfy my need for stimulation. And the clips on my nipples create this deep ache that steadies me.”
He faced her and she studied the dim planes of his face. His eyes gleamed but she couldn’t see his expression. He huffed. She shifted her feet. He huffed again, breath hitching, and gave a snorting breath. When he did it a third time, she realized he was laughing.
She smiled. “What’s funny to you?”
He huffed some more before he said, “You. Me. This whole day.”
“What is it?”
He turned away and began to force himself through the brush. Unhappily, she followed.
“I’m out killing darkmages all day to end their perverted greed. They delight in agony, seek it out as a source of power. Humiliation, fear, they get off on it. They can use it and turn it back out of themselves in this blast of energy, like a fireball only it glows deep green and the pain isn’t the same as a burn. But they also have poison, and then they just like to control people, either through manipulation, chains, or taking over their will.”
Moriko stumbled over some roots as she followed his path.
“And I get back from chaos and cruelty, having totally fucked the whole City up into a brutal frenzy, and here’s my mate touting the steadying benefits of sexual pain. I mean, if that isn’t the Skyfather fucking me in the head and sliding my soul closer to insanity, I don’t know what is.”
She came to a dead stop. He slashed and ducked and ripped and moved on. Breathing in the rich humidity and sharp scent of the earth around them, Moriko put one hand on her clenching heart.
He went farther from her, but she couldn’t make her feet move. They seemed to have become encased in ice. Why hadn’t she seen what she’d been doing with clearer eyes? Could it have been some seed Signy had left planted in her? Or was it just a weakness in Moriko’s own spirit? Her mind flew over her memories of her recent sexual interactions, but they didn’t seem any more violent than usual. She’d often liked an edge to sex.
What had she done? Was she on the path to becoming a darkmage? Did—
“Stop thinking.”
His voice came from behind her, out of the dark silence.
She jumped so hard her feet cleared the ground, her gasp ripping loud. Stumbling to face him, she babbled, “I’m so sorry. I never even considered it was—”
“It’s kind of ironic. Moriko, all pain isn’t evil. Relax.”
She could barely make out his shape under the canopy of the tree he stood next to. “I’m sorry, Donte.”
“When a woman bears a child, it isn’t evil. When I have to rip myself open to stay sane, it isn’t evil. And when a princess wants to scrape her own flesh in order to keep a promise, then it’s all right.”
They stood among the dense plants staring at each other. And over the heartbeats, she let the fear go. She wasn’t a darkmage and Signy had no role in what felt good.
He came forward and touched her shoulder. “Did you hear what happened at the Temple?”
“I heard the riot started there after darkmages were killed in the inner Temple, and that four guards were killed including two trux.”
He was close enough she could smell his skin and feel his warmth. He stood quietly and she sensed he was lost in thought. A little nausea curled through her, a reminder from her self-disgust and panic earlier. They stood in the jungle foliage, quiet, for a long time.
He bent his head down over hers, brushing his face across her hair. His voice, low and hoarse, came quietly. “Thad is winning.”
She curled her hands into fists to keep from clinging to him. “We will stop him. The Cities will not fall.”
“Inside me. The darkspell binding us weakened so much when I rode the dark sifting stone back to my jungle. But since I lost Bear it has become more active. And today when I was at the last of my strength, as we fought toward the Royal compound through the crowd, I felt his call.”
She threw herself at him, wrapping him up as tightly as her reach around his girth would allow, like she could muffle him against the pain inside him.
His arms didn’t return the hold. “I need to go, Moriko.”
Her fingertips reflexively latched into his skin like barbs. She forced them to unclench, smoothing her palms over the indentations. “You’re stronger than him, Donte. Your spirit has been forged in—”
“And you need to go with me.” His quiet whisper was lethal.
Body rigid, breathing past her gut rejection, she considered. She’d known since entering his magescape he wanted nothing in the world more than to kill Thad. He mated her to gain residence in the City and a place with the Queen to stand against his Council. His mind was full of a twisted knot of plot and counter plot, double cross and sacrifice.
But what level of sacrifice had he imagined? They barely knew each other. A handful of intense encounters between their spirits and a few days of interchanges. And in between he’d been soaked in violence.
“A princess would be too big a temptation for him. He’ll enforce the slave spell on you, and when he does, I think I’ll be able to use you as a source.”
“Are you done here yet?” She gestured, her voice controlled.
“Yes. I found where Sverre came over the wall and I bet he used the sifting stone from my old territory to travel. But the clans have it shut down now.”
Shivering with relief, she spun on her heel and battled back through the leathery leaves.
“I need you to understand, Moriko.”
She ducked under a low branch and squeaked when a bird flew off, furious at their disturbance. Its fury seemed to transfer to her.
“We know duty, the two of us.” He followed behind her silently despite his girth.
She worked her jaw, getting angrier and angrier.
“This war is everything.”
She stumbled back onto the path in a clatter of branc
hes, the smooth dirt a relief. She breathed, trying to be patient with him.
“Stop ignoring me. You know I have to face him and you know I tied us together to give me an edge. Thad will think he’s got you, but in the end our Bond will transfer your energy to me.”
She put her hands on her hips and spoke to the stars. “You think you want to give yourself to it, but you’re just running. You focus on the short game like that’s all there is and that’s just a form of blindness. I will not be sacrificed in one battle, Donte.” She turned and stared at him, leaning into her angry words. “This war is one we will win together. I will not be a doll for you to maneuver. I will be a warrior at your side. Don’t play me. Brief me. I’m an excellent actress and I have resources, at least for awhile.” Until the Queen assigned a new Chatelaine and Moriko had to “retire.” The thought didn’t even pinch. She would have a new role, helping her Kingdom recover from Donte’s purging.
She dropped her grip on her hips. “Donte, I was so scared today. I prayed for you. Now you’re here, exhausted and talking about Thad. Take a moment of peace for yourself. Share your body with me. Eat, and rest in my arms. Please.”
He took her by the hand. “Bear stirred today.”
Ribs knocking with excitement, she threw herself against him, melting to hold him, to press herself close and know he was whole and safe. “Was it killing them?”
“One in particular, yes.”
She gripped his shoulders, then, irritated, dove into the flap of his robe and pushed it wide, resting against his skin. Her palms roamed over his chest and around his ribs to hug him as tightly as she could. She sighed, her body’s need fading with just this slight acceptance from him. When his palms rested on her shoulders, she closed her eyes, thankful.
“Tell me about killing them. In the apartments, you seemed to take no pleasure in it. But the first one seemed to satisfy Bear tremendously.”
“There is satisfaction. No pleasure at all, no. Perhaps a bit of relief. Imagine the streets being burned by a fuzzy. Never knowing where it would land, who or what it could hurt.”
He named a strange anomaly of magecraft, not quite a creature, but a random form of energy that burned all living things, yet left manmade things often intact. It took several mages from the Mage Guild or a trux to disband the entities. Whenever one was spotted in the City, a rarity, it created mass panic.
“Everyone rushes to destroy them.”
“Yeah. That’s this incredible urgency I feel. They’re all out there, recruiting, maiming, raping, killing. For every moment I stand here breathing you in with enjoyment, they’re getting stronger, multiplying.”
She stirred her fingers up and down his ribs. “Give us a bit more credit than that. The amount of darkmages is due to time. Most humans are honorable and decent, and we don’t fall to darkcraft at a child’s snap.”
His hands curled farther around her, one spreading across her back, the other cupping her head.
She relaxed even more. “This will take time. After you have your showdown with Thad, we’ll continue this work, Donte. We’ll organize our own guard unit and we’ll create a grid. We’ll roam across the whole City until we can be sure they are gone, no matter how long it takes. And then we’ll go to Second City.”
A thought jumped to her brain, alarming her. “No. The Farm. We’ll need to make sure they’re secure first. And after that Guild has been proven innocent, we can go City by City for as long as it takes, even if you need a cane. You kill and I’ll clean up the aftermath for the families and Guilds.”
She stroked his hard abdomen thoughtfully, accepting the ridges and lumps of his scars. “We need a tribunal. Their closest acquaintances will have to be scrutinized. Even if they didn’t take the final step and become darkmages themselves, if they supported them, they need to be punished and watched.”
His fingers stirred her hair. “A cane, huh?”
She fingered his nipple. “I doubt you’ll need one. Don’t worry, my Shark-Bear. It was just a turn of phrase.” She patted him, blatantly patronizing, then tweaked the tight little nub she’d stirred, laughing.
“You laugh easy.”
“You make me happy.”
“You are so strange.” He sounded genuinely befuddled.
She laughed. Turning her face into his chest, she kissed his breastbone. Never would she ever have dreamed, in these last painful weeks, that she’d be laughing in the arms of a beast at the site of her humiliation.
“Shark-Bear?”
“Your tattoo surrounds your face like a shark headdress I once saw in an artist’s shop. Do you know the creature?” Contact with the ocean was rare for most humans, but she didn’t know how much Donte had seen on the island.
“I know it. Most are smaller than me though. I bet I could take one.”
She licked up the swell of one pec. “Of course you could.” Again, she teased him with cooing, overt praise. “You could take ten of them before breakfast.”
“I want you to suck me off.”
His words ignited her growing heat. Her blood crackled with need. “I can manage that.” She lifted her head. The jungle garden no longer seemed so threatening. “But do we have to do it here? Let’s go to a cabana on the beach. The chaises are soft and the breeze is always so nice.”
“Not on the beach, but not here if you don’t like it.” He burst past her, towing her behind him, the flaps of his robe flying.
He wound them through the path with ground eating strides and she had to trot to keep up. Clearing the garden gate onto the groomed gravel path that led to the various gardens, he stopped.
“Here.”
She looked around. The path was wide and a magelight burned steadily just a few bodylengths away. The flowers along the border smelled lovely, but her feet scuffed in the gritty stones. “I know where.”
Now their roles reversed and she pulled him along, toward the outer wall and farther from the main compound.
“Is it far?” His voice had sunk to that tight, low need.
Thrilling. “No. At the end of this path there’s a fountain against the Wall. Benches and a fern garden. It’s perfect, almost like your magescape.” They rounded a bend and the constant green glow of the ancient spells protecting the Cities lit up the night, banishing all but the brightest stars. “See?”
The fountain was a free-form sunken pool, made to look like a natural pond. When she’d been a little girl, there had been a monstrosity of a tiered cascade in red marble. She liked this one much better, with the one central burbling plume of water. The ferns around the fountain, along the wall, and surrounding the path varied from tiny delicate frilly things to large stiff ladders almost as tall as she.
Collapsing onto a gray stone bench, she looked up at him as he tossed his robe away. Standing in only his boots, lit by the green tendrils of light leaking from the massive stones, he was magnificent.
“This is the third night I’ve been free.”
She cupped her breast, massaging the nipple. “You’ve been away from the fortress longer than that.”
“Another imprisonment. I killed my own people.” He breathed heavily.
“You defended yourself. They would have killed you.”
“I was held by them and rightly so. I only left when I felt your need.”
“Are they going to make you pay more for that? I thought your punishment was finished by your tattoos.” She cupped both breasts now, heavy with the moment, but holding back to stretch this precious time together.
He stared at the fountain off to their right. “They’re done with me. What happens after I kill Thad will be questionable. The Wolf might come.” His hands hung loose in the air, his arms so massive they didn’t rest against his sides. His thighs flared from his hips, and his erection stood tall in the steamy night air.
She licked her lips. “He has no rights here.” She made a mental note to tell Fergmar to bar the Wolf clan leader from entering the compound via the Gate or the sifting stone. “Three
nights of freedom is a fabulous achievement. You broke from the darkmages, and you’re away from trux politics. Bear has been wounded but he stirred today and we’ll heal him.”
Waiting, she rubbed her palms on her thighs, restless, sensual, loving the pressure and the slide. He turned his head slowly and the spark of this magnificent survivor standing before her, wanting her touch, belonging to her spirit, set her on fire. When no comment came about her mentioning Bear, she flowed off the bench onto her knees.
Crawling to him, her ass swinging with sexual intent, she prowled up to his feet. Starting at his toes, she lowered her face over his boots, then drifted higher. The scent of earth and freshly broken leaves clung to the leather from their walk in the garden. Up past his knees, scarred and lumpy, over his thighs, covered in a fuzzy patchwork among the shine of healed skin.
When she was upright on her knees, she breathed in the scent of him, clean from his bath, but still so male, so private. Ignoring his erection, she breathed in over one hip, ducked across his balls, and breathed out over the other hip. Licking her lips, she waited for him.
“Woman.” His voice rumbled, barely above a growl.
She stared at his erection, mouth parted, her blood burbling like the fountain.
“Woman. Will you…”
Her tongue tested the edge of her teeth. Her fingertips twitched in the folds of her dress. His erection was free now too, uncaged by the metal they’d forced on him.
“I need you to…”
Even his poor belly button was scarred, slashed straight across like they’d gutted him there. She sucked on her lower lip, so ready to tie him down and cover him in kisses.
“Help me rescue Bear.”
She froze. Looking up from the delicious head of him, she tipped her chin and met his dark stare. “Anything.”
His hand cupped her head and she leaned her skull into his hold. His other hand lit a flame that danced around his wrist, twined his fingers, then settled into a shimmering glow. It was like he was gloved in hot coals.