“You’re not pretending. You’ve devoted yourself to the fae cause, and you bear whatever it is that Akiel does to you. You are loyal, and he is the one who denies his own kind when he denies you.”
His jaw twitched. He turned away from the mirror and looked at her. He lifted a hand, pressed his palm against her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You have no reason to be kind to me, domina.”
She jerked away, ashamed of herself.
He flinched, as if this hurt him in some way.
She turned away, wrapping her hands around her waist as if she was trying to hold herself together.
He sighed audibly.
They didn’t speak after that.
Soon after, he left, and she was alone in the room.
The first thing she did was to try the door, because she knew that it was dinner hour and that the guards would be more sparse, and that she was usually moving about the house at this hour, so maybe she could…
Well, she didn’t really think she could escape, but…
It was locked, anyway.
She picked up her book again. She read for a short time, but she was startled out of it when Larent was back, too soon.
He shut the door behind him very deliberately, very carefully.
Then he pressed his forehead into it and began to utter a string of inaudible oaths to the fae ancestors.
“What happened?” she said.
“He wants you to be there, and he says we’ll reschedule when your bleeding is over. He mocked me for being squeamish about blood and said it was of no bother to him.” He said this to the door.
“No,” she said. “No, I can’t.”
“You have to.” He turned around. “We have to.”
She got up from where she sat, shaking her head, shaking her entire body. Her heart had leapt into her throat. “No, you said you would think of something.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“But you said you were clever.”
“I…” He squared his shoulders and he came for her.
She backed away, backed around the couch, but then there was nowhere to go, and she was simply backing into the book shelves built into the wall. “Please.”
He stopped, a foot away. His voice was quiet. “I know I hurt you, domina, but it was only because it was the first time, and I can be… gentler, and I can take more care to arouse you, and it doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”
She shook her head more insistently, mouth gaping, heart going wildly out of rhythm. She could not even speak, so great was her horror.
He considered this. “Well, not physically unpleasant, anyway. I don’t know that there’s any way to make Akiel’s eager gaze less horrible, but… we just do it and it’s done. He’s not asked any of the other men for repeat performances.”
She gaped at him.
He was gazing at her, questions in his eyes.
“No,” she said finally. “No, never. No.”
“You understand it is going to happen, even if I have to drag you there and wrestle you down and force you. That will be quite awful for both of us, and if you—”
“You don’t have to do what Akiel wants.”
“I do,” he said. “I wish I didn’t, but…” He sighed.
“You’re a coward,” she decided, her voice shrill. “You’re frightened of him.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps, it is a choice between the fae army and… a human woman, and you mean nothing to me, but I am ruled by this, because I am frightened of violating you, of truly doing it, of what it would make me. It seems wrong to me, very wrong, but perhaps I am only cowardly because of my own past, my own history, seeing my mother in you…” He backed away, and he sank both of his hands into his hair. He gazed at the space in front of her feet for several long moments.
Then, shaking himself, he went into his bedchamber and shut the door, but this time, he slammed it, and it made her jump and shudder.
She crumpled onto the couch and began to sob.
MAGDALIA AWAKENED AND there was something heavy on her chest.
Startled, she opened her eyes and pushed it off.
It was Duranth’s arm.
She was back in her bed—well, the csaerina’s old bed—and Duranth was sleeping next to her.
She lifted the covers to look and was gratified to see that she was clothed, completely clothed. Duranth, however, was naked from the waist up, and she could see clusters of scars on his shoulders. Lashes. She knew he’d been beaten more than once.
The arm she’d pushed off herself was the one that didn’t have a hand attached anymore. He stirred, using the stump to push himself up a bit and survey her, blinking sleepily. He yawned.
“What are you doing in here?”
He arched an eyebrow, and she thought to herself that he was handsome, and she didn’t think she’d ever let herself articulate that thought, not exactly. Of course, he wasn’t unpleasant to look at, but a dominissa did not find fae handsome. One could… could desire them, she supposed, because that happened. It was far more likely for human men to go and take their pleasure with fae women, but it happened the other way sometimes, too, for dominae to dally with fae as well.
Duranth was speaking. “You don’t remember?” His voice was amused and deep and it had a just-awakened quality that sent a ripple of sensation through her.
What was happening to her?
She should be demanding he get away from her, insisting on propriety, setting right the state of affairs between the two of them. He must not get the idea that he was allowed to sleep in a bed with her.
She didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she tried to remember, and slowly, bits and pieces came back. The last clear memory she had was kissing him in the field of corn.
But then, vaguely, she remembered him carrying her back to the carriage, her arms hooked around his neck, her head resting against his firm chest, but she had been half asleep at that point. She had been so exhausted after expelling that much magic.
He’d been tired too.
She remembered the jolt of the carriage waking her, hearing him snore, still being in his arms, both of them sprawled out across one of the seats.
But the bed… “I remember falling asleep in the carriage.”
“Mmm,” he said. “We both did. I got you up here, but I didn’t have the energy to make it elsewhere.” He yawned again and then rolled onto his back, stretching his arms above his head.
She watched the muscles in his arms ripple, speechless. “You managed to have the energy to take off half your clothes!” It was an accusation.
He laughed softly. “Sleeping in a shirt makes my scars itch.”
The mention of that, so casual, sent an unpleasant feeling through her, and she didn’t want to feel it, so she busied herself with sitting up, pushing herself up to lean against the headboard.
He sat up also, turning to the side table next to the bed to retrieve his artificial hand, and when he did, he gave her his back.
She was forced to gaze at the thatched mess of raised scar tissue on his back. She shuddered. She wanted to cry. She’d cried when she’d watched it done—although that had only been the one time. He’d been whipped on more than one occasion and she hadn’t seen them all.
He noticed her staring, and he raised his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop it.”
“You tried,” he said.
“I made it worse.” She looked away.
“It’s over now.”
“Yes, you killed him, after all,” she said, and her voice twisted.
He busied himself securing his artificial hand, pulling leather straps snug on his forearm, buckling them. “I didn’t think you’d miss your father much.”
“He was my father, Duranth.” This was a pained whisper.
“You hated him.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” Duranth didn’t have a father. Well, he did, but he didn’t know
him. He’d been purchased as part of a lot of slaves and he’d been a child alone, no mother or father. She realized she’d never asked him about that, and she didn’t intend to do it now. It was likely that his mother had simply been bought by someone else at the auction that day when he’d been purchased. Or maybe his mother was dead.
Anyway, Magdalia was certainly not going to bring that up now. Especially because she was realizing that it wasn’t a very good argument, to say that he didn’t understand what it was like to lose his family when he very well might know, and would have experienced the loss when he was quite young, like those little fae children playing with sticks and pebbles.
Tears spilled out of her eyes now, and she pulled the covers up over her head to hide them.
“Well, I’m sure he’d find your tears gratifying,” said Duranth dryly.
She wasn’t about to tell him that she was crying for him, not her father. What was he doing to her?
Fortune’s favor, she had kissed him!
Well, he kissed me first.
But he’d only kissed her skin. She’d turned and joined their mouths. She was never going to pull these covers away from her face.
“This isn’t the way I’d hoped things would be between us in the morning,” he said in a regretful voice.
“I suppose you were hoping there’d be more kissing.”
“I was, in fact.”
“Never,” she said softly. “I only did that because I was weak and tired and not in my right mind.”
“Ah,” he said. He got up off the bed.
She felt it rather than saw it because she still had the blankets up over her face.
“I’ll give you a bit of time to adjust to the new reality, Magdalia,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve been too impatient with you. I forget you’re unlearning an entire lifetime of indoctrination, and that all of it was thrust into your head by people you loved.”
“Indoctrination?” She threw down the blankets, angry now, all embarrassment forgotten. “If anything, you’re the one who is indoctrinating me now. You’re trying to turn me into a fae sympathizer.”
“I want you to do more than sympathize,” he said, giving her a smile. “You already have, in fact. I had my tongue in your mouth, and you liked it.”
Of course he would throw that in her face. She huffed, glaring at him. “I was… exhausted.”
“Yes, yes, not in your right mind.” He smirked. “But you felt it when our magic came together, all that power, all that…” He trailed off, overcome by the memory.
She sat up straight, swallowing.
“You’re the one who believes in fate,” he said. “You humans worship Fortune. If anything is decreed by the whims of Fortune, it’s this, Magda, you and me. It feels right because it is right.”
She did remember how it had felt, and she could hardly form words, because the memory seemed to overcome her as well. It had felt good, exquisite even.
“But take your time to adjust. We do not need to be in a rush about it.” His shirt was hanging over the back of a chair, and he shrugged into it, buttoning it deftly from the bottom up, even with his artificial hand. She was amazed at how good he was at it. His artificial hand pressed the button down, holding it in place as his good hand did all the work.
She watched as his smooth, muscled chest disappeared. He was handsome. Oh, Fortune deliver her, she was in awful danger here.
She was so very confused.
He had bewitched her with his words. He was too good at that, at weaving an argument that was unassailable.
But she remembered a discussion at a dinner once in the capital. Albus had been there, laughing about how he was happy that he would never be a senator, and that he was happy to leave the job to his elder brother, who was similarly happy to leave warfare to him. Technically speaking, every senator was also the legatus of the legion that served his province and could also be out there fighting with the men. But most senators did not take to the fields themselves, but employed a proxy to work in their stead. Albus’s brother had chosen him to do it.
Argument is a science, or perhaps a form of sorcery, Albus had said, eyes dancing. I prefer to convince men with pistols.
Onivia had argued with him. Her eyes had danced as well. Magdalia recalled how her sister had looked at that man. But that is only bullying, not convincing at all.
Well, the empire seems quite happy to use force to achieve its aims, he’d said.
The point was that Albus had said his brother had gone to school to learn the art of argument, and that senators employed it on the floor of the senate to argue for or against some law or other. They were so skilled at putting together such arguments that they were capable of convincing anyone of anything, that was what Albus had said.
It was an exaggeration, she knew, but she also knew that Duranth had access to books that he should never have had access to, that he had studied the art of argument as well, and that he was likely as skilled as a senator.
It was dangerous, such skill in the mouth of an evil death fae.
And I am attracted to him. He is getting to me. I kissed him.
“Would you do it again?” asked Duranth, folding his cloak over his arm.
“Do what again?”
“Crops,” he said. “People are in desperate need of food.”
“Because your armies have put a blight on the land with your magic,” she said. “I know well how the fae fight this war, using their magic to make the land refuse to feed the enemy. But I suppose it is having an affect on them as well. Foolish tactic, I suppose. Was it your idea?”
“Can you undo magic?” he said, eyebrows raised. He mused. “Can we undo magic? Interesting. Something to try, I suppose.”
“I’m not helping you, Duranth.”
“You did yesterday.”
“No, I helped the children and the pregnant women, and I did it because humans are good, and we do not wish for destruction, and because we are meant to be the stewards of your kind, because you fae cannot contain your own evil tendencies.”
He made a pained expression. “Still clinging to this? Did nothing I said to you yesterday make any impact on you?”
“You are tricking me with your words, and you shouldn’t even be so good at it at all, at crafting argument. If you hadn’t been so cunning to contrive to be educated—”
“Cunning? Contrive?” He glared at her. “I had no control of anything that happened to me on the villa. I was plucked out to do tricks for your father like a court jester, and then you took a shine to me, so I was sent to amuse you. There was no cunning.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Making confusing arguments, twisting things up with your words.”
“I’m presenting facts, Magda,” he said. “You simply don’t want me to say anything that disrupts the way you already view the world. You can’t bear the idea of upsetting the foundation of your thinking. Believe me, I do understand somewhat. It was difficult for me as well. When you’re brought up being taught you’re evil, you do tend to think it’s true.”
“You are evil.”
“You kissed evil.”
“I know.” She wrung out her hands.
“Well, that makes you a sympathizer of evil,” he said.
“It doesn’t.”
“A kisser of evil.” He grinned at her. “I suppose I tricked you into that through evil means.”
“You did.”
“Well, then, if it’s all my fault, I think I’ll steal another kiss.” His grin widened and he bounded back onto the bed.
She backed into the headboard, eyes wide. “No, you will not.”
“Why not? It’s already against your will, isn’t it? You didn’t want to kiss me last night, so now, this, no reason not to indulge.” He crawled toward her on hands and knees.
Once again, she was stunned at how easily he made use of his artificial hand. She was so distracted by that, she didn’t seem to register how close he
was until he was on top of her.
He straddled her, face looming close, still smiling that awful self-satisfied smile.
She tried to melt into the headboard, but it didn’t work. “Duranth…”
He brushed a lock of her hair off her forehead. “I like the way you look in the morning, with your hair down. I like how it’s in disarray from sleep. I like how the color rises to your cheeks when you get excited.”
“I’m not excited. I’m horrified.”
“Yes, this is definitely your horrified face.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
She shut her eyes, and a little shudder went through her.
He kissed her forehead. Both of her cheeks. Her chin.
She sighed.
Then his mouth against hers, soft, a hint of pressure from his lips, and she opened her mouth to him instantly.
Now, his hand came up to cup her face as the kiss deepened, and it swirled into her, dark and pleasant, warm and deep, dark red.
The kiss went on and on, their tongues dancing, and she was utterly participating in it. She was kissing him back, curse him.
When he finally pulled away, he gave her a half-lidded look of desire that made her entire body clench.
Groaning, he climbed off the bed. “Unfortunately, I’m very busy today. I have to leave you and go see to running… everything. Do you want to dine together this evening, however?”
“No,” she said, but her voice wasn’t strong.
“Right, then,” he said. “I’ll send for you later to join me in the dining room.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONIVIA AWOKE TO Larent standing over her couch. She scrambled up, pulling the blanket she had over her up with her, even though she was well covered beneath. She slept in the same clothes that she wore all the time, only removing her structured undergarments for comfort. Once a week, she wrapped in a towel to wash everything and then hang it out to dry. It was often not dry by the time she had to put it back on for dinner, and on those days, she simply wore damp clothes.
“It’s not only Akiel, you know,” he said. “It’s everyone. You are human and you are hated. Your people have not afforded my people any kind of consideration for generations. So, most fae believe there is no reason that we should treat you with any niceties at all. You have raped our women, so we’ll rape you. It’s a certain crude logic that I’m sure you can appreciate.”
Battles of Salt and Sighs (Rise of the Death Fae Book 1) Page 12
