He did, if only to get out of the sun.
~ 30 ~
The moment of truth. Oria centered herself as best she could, breathing out the unexpected nerves. Being around Lonen again did strange things to her. As if he triggered the rise of different energy in herself, ones she wasn’t accustomed to grappling with. If he accepted her proposed plan, that would be yet another challenge to face.
“I’m not sure this is a good plan at all.”
“Nor am I, but we’re in a corner.”
Chuffta ruefully sighed for the truth of that. The Trom attacking Dru, taking their water, Yar haring off to the sister cities, looking for a bride with bribes in hand: It all added up to him outmaneuvering her. She couldn’t possibly find an ideal mate before he did. He was at least three steps ahead of her. But the law didn’t require that she have a temple-blessed husband. Just that she have a husband. A bit of a loophole in Báran law—one that existed mainly because so few would contemplate the step she planned.
Subjecting themselves to a mind-dead, magicless, and sexless marriage as well as a loveless one—a high price, even for the throne. Some sacrifices were too steep for most.
Except for her.
“Tell me,” she said, pouring him another glass of juice, pleased that her hand remained steady. “Are you married?”
He sputtered on the mouthful. “Engaged. Why?”
Unfortunate but not surprising. “Why haven’t you married her yet?” She sorted through the sudden gamut of his emotions—defensiveness and guilt uppermost among them. A very beautiful woman, with masses of curling black hair and luminous dark eyes. Voluptuous and sensual, doing things to Lonen that—Oria cut off the scene, grateful for the mask that hid her flush.
“I’ve been a little busy keeping my people alive,” Lonen growled.
“You’re fond of her, but you don’t love her.” It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Oria didn’t expect love for herself, but it would be difficult to watch him wish for another.
“Reading my thoughts again?”
“My apologies. Her image rose up quite clearly to me.” Along with strong feelings—conflicted ones she didn’t care to examine, even if looking too closely hadn’t felt overly intrusive. That he didn’t love that beautiful woman would be enough. “It doesn’t matter, truly, but it would make things even more difficult if it would disappoint you greatly to break your heart or hers by marrying me.”
Lonen set the glass down, very carefully. He laced his fingers together and leaned forearms on his knees. Then looked at her. “Excuse me?”
She should have planned what to say better. “It would be a marriage in name only, consecrated by the temple here in Bára, but otherwise non-binding for you in most ways. You would not be required to be faithful to me, so you could continue to be lovers with that dark-haired woman, if your customs allow it.” The idea gave her a surge of bitter jealousy. Still, that was only fair to him. She would never be able to be his lover—nor anyone’s, as temple law would bind her to fidelity—but Lonen should not have to give up intimacy for the rest of his life, too. He didn’t carry the burden of expiating Bára’s crimes.
Lonen studied her, his dislike of her mask palpable, his astonishment grown stronger. “You want me to marry you, according to your temple laws, and keep Natly as my lover.”
“I did say you wouldn’t like it.” Natly. It had been better before this shadow fiancée had a name.
He laughed, dropping his forehead to his knuckles, then wiping the sweat from his brow. “Nothing with you ever goes as I expect.”
“I’m explaining this badly.” She held up her arm, and Chuffta came to her, offering his affection and support. She scratched his breast and he leaned into her. That helped calm the strange spike of jealousy, the grief at giving up the dream of finding an ideal mate. Always a fantasy anyway. “This isn’t about what I want. It has to do with…well, magic and the way that it works. I’ve learned a great deal about wielding magic to help Bára, and will continue to learn more. One thing I’m certain of is that I cannot extend my abilities to assist Dru without the Destrye becoming my people, too. Through you.”
At least she knew that much now, after spending hours every day studying the texts available only to priestesses in the temple. She loved her rooftop terrace, drying up as it was, even more for leaving it and returning in the cooling evenings.
“Why me?” Lonen asked. He was still watching her with unnerving intensity, that male vitality pricking at her. Though she’d deliberately closed the channel, sensual energy still leaked through, warming her, despite knowing he was thinking of his fiancée. “Arnon isn’t married either.”
Oria shook her head, partly to dispel disappointment that he was so eager to foist her off on his brother. Of course he would be, but it still wounded her pride. “You are the king. It might have been an easy ritual that made you so, but such responsibilities are binding on planes the Destrye might not perceive.”
“But the Bárans do.” He sounded accusing. Something darker ate at him, some profound tension.
“Some of us. I do. And the knowledge was hard-won.” He wouldn’t be able to understand what it had cost her. Even if they remained married the rest of their lives, he would never know her on a profound level the way an ideal husband would. She had to resign herself to that.
“I can’t marry you, Oria.” Desperation filled his voice, paining her. She hadn’t intended to trap him, but the way he thrashed internally confirmed that she had done so. She’d thought—well, she’d hoped—that he wouldn’t hate the idea of marrying her so much. They’d had something of a tentative friendship, but apparently not enough to make even a marriage-in-name-only to her palatable. She steeled herself to persuade him.
“You can’t afford not to. I can’t help you any other way.”
“What about heirs? I can’t have a queen who won’t bear me children.”
“What about your brother—can his children be your heirs?”
“Possibly,” he admitted. “My older brother left two sons behind when he ascended to the Hall of Warriors. By Destrye law, the crown passes to my father’s children first, before going to the next generation. But if I have no sons and Arnon persists in his refusal to be my heir, then Ion’s sons would be next in line.” He shrugged off the musings and focused on her with renewed intensity. The image broke through her still-clumsy screening, of her beneath him, naked and writhing, her husky voice gasping his name in pleasure. “But why couldn’t we be husband and wife in truth?”
“Lonen.” Inadvertently she echoed her fantasy self. She knotted her fingers together, face hot under the mask. “Because I simply can’t. It’s not possible for me.”
He was quiet a moment. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised, but I’m asking you to trust that I’m telling you the truth. When I ask you not to touch me, it’s not because I find you unwholesome. It has to do with who I am. Not who you are. But it’s so much part of who I am that it won’t change. No matter how long we’re married, we will never lie together as husband and wife.”
“You speak as if I’ve agreed to this wild plan.”
“Neither of us has a choice in this. You, like me, are bound to act in the best interests of your people. You can’t save the Destrye from the Trom without me, and I can’t defend them unless I’m their queen.”
“And you’d do this, simply to keep your promise.”
“Yes. And because this will also make me Queen of Bára, which will let me protect my people here, too.” She didn’t tell him about Yar. Time enough to judiciously admit him to Báran secrets in the days ahead. Most of the politics wouldn’t be his to deal with anyway, so no need for Lonen to know. He didn’t say anything, however, the silence stretching out while dark emotions rolled in waves beneath the surface, like the lethal rip currents of the sea.
“I’m sorry,” Oria said finally. “Perhaps I was wrong and marriage to me will break your heart, after all.” She wished the wor
ds back, because she sounded entirely too sorry for herself.
“And you—are you giving up someone or would you have never married otherwise?” he asked, surprising her. The question took her emotional breath away. Impossible to explain to him what she’d be giving up—and also placing a burden of guilt on him he didn’t deserve.
Proud of herself for sounding cool and remote, she told him, “You once pointed out that my life is a strange one, to live in this tower alone. I shall simply continue to do so.”
“Because of this thing where you can’t touch anyone.”
“Yes.” Better for him to believe that than to know the truth.
“All right then,” he said abruptly, standing and scrubbing his palm on his pants, then sticking out a hand. “It’s a bargain.”
She stood also. Folded her hands together and tried to ignore the spike of hurt and annoyance from him that she refused his hand. “Agreed.”
Lonen left her to go bathe, eat, and rest, and Oria finally cut the ribbons on her mask, welcoming the breezes that cooled her skin.
“A fine time for you to ignore my advice,” Chuffta said, but compassionately, without rancor.
“What else could I do?” Oria wiped the sweat from under her eyes, telling herself she couldn’t possibly be weeping over the loss of a girlish dream. “I made a promise. And Bára owes the Destrye far more than the price of one woman’s happiness.”
“Your mother won’t be pleased.”
“No.” Oria dreaded breaking the news to her mother. There would never be a temple-blessed marriage for her, no babies to carry on the maternal line. Though if she could prevent a daughter of hers from facing the thing in the blue light… Even the memory made her a little ill. “But this marriage will put me one step closer to the throne, and that will make her happy. I need to arrange to see her and make the argument. Having her support with the temple and the council could make all the difference.”
“Was it worth it?” Chuffta asked, the first time he’d mentioned her ordeal in the heart of Bára’s magic.
“To be able to wield sgath, instead of being at the mercy of it? Maybe. But to have the potential to keep the Trom from consuming everyone and everything, then yes. Absolutely so.”
“You couldn’t know Yar would send the Trom to Dru. That he’d even be able to, and so soon.”
“But I might have predicted it and I missed it. Still, he also failed to predict me.”
“What do you mean, Oria?” Chuffta’s mind-voice bristled with suspicion.
“I won’t have a temple-blessed marriage, but as queen I’ll have full access to the temple knowledge—the information High Priestess Febe gave Yar to summon the Trom.”
“You can’t mean to do the same.” Chuffta’s mind-voice held a panicked edge.
“I can and I will.” Oria settled into the resolve. “How else can I control what they do, what Yar attempts? I must fight his Trom with mine.”
Chuffta was quiet, his tail winding around her wrist. “You know the danger in this. Without true hwil you’ll be subject to corruption from those dark magics. It could be your undoing.”
“But for the right reasons.”
“I’m not sure that matters.”
“I understand if this breaks our contract,” she managed, no longer fighting the tears. “I’ll release you if you feel you can’t be part of this.”
She felt his slight hesitation as he considered. But then he replied.
“You’re not alone. I’m always with you.”
“Thank you. That means more than I can say.”
She would need all of Chuffta’s support in the days ahead—and his company. Something told her that taking the Destrye as a husband would create as many problems as it would solve. It seemed impossible that she should feel lonelier than ever.
As the dry desert wind dried the tears on her cheeks to salt, she turned her thoughts away from the sand trap of self pity.
She had more important things to think about.
Look for the next book in this series – Oria’s Gambit – coming August 17, 2016
About Jeffe Kennedy
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook.
Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014 and the third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books will follow in this world, beginning with The Pages of the Mind May 2016. A fifth series, the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, started with Going Under, and was followed by Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Connor Goldsmith of Fuse Literary.
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Titles by Jeffe Kennedy
CONTEMPORARY BDSM ROMANCES
FACETS OF PASSION
Sapphire
Platinum
Ruby
Five Golden Rings
FALLING UNDER
Going Under
Under His Touch
Under Contract
CONTEMPORARY EROTIC ROMANCES
The Devil’s Doorbell Anthology
EROTIC PARANORMAL
MASTER OF THE OPERA E-SERIAL
Master of the Opera, Act 1: Passionate Overture
Master of the Opera, Act 2: Ghost Aria
Master of the Opera, Act 3: Phantom Serenade
Master of the Opera, Act 4: Dark Interlude
Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet
Master of the Opera, Act 6: Crescendo
Master of the Opera
BLOOD CURRENCY
Feeding the Vampire
Hunting the Siren
BDSM FAIRYTALE ROMANCE
Petals and Thorns
FANTASY ROMANCE
A COVENANT OF THORNS
Rogue’s Pawn
Rogue’s Possession
Rogue’s Paradise
THE TWELVE KINGDOMS
Negotiation
The Mark of the Tala
The Tears of the Rose
The Talon of the Hawk
Heart’s Blood
For Crown and Kingdom
THE UNCHARTED REALMS
The Pages of the Mind
The Edge of the Blade (Coming January 2017)
OTHER WORKS
Birdwoman
Hopeful Monsters
Lonen's War Page 21
