by Kim Knox
That had taken no effort. It was little wonder he was the emperor’s Left Hand. In the growing firelight, there was a wildness to him, an animal strength. That would be it. Fallon would crave the power and not the beast that gave it to him. She wanted force and beauty. Perfection. The perfection that was Reist.
“I want to break them up. Reist is mine. He is and always will be.”
“You fucked him?”
Ava kept the blush from her cheeks. It was none of his business what she’d done—or hadn’t done—with Reist. “I’m a thief. I can twist any gift, any spell to my will with enough strength.” She focused on him. “You have a vested interest in giving me that strength.”
“Why?” He sat back and watched her, his eyes hooded. She knew she was playing with a predator, but she had no choice, not if she wanted to get her man.
“I can cast illusions.”
His brow furrowed. “Illusions are illegal.”
“Going to tell on me?”
He grunted. “Carry on.”
“I can spin a veil, push it between Reist and...her.” It was still hard to speak her name. And she doubted Heyerdar would appreciate the names she wanted to call her. “Break them apart.”
“Really?”
“You want a demonstration of what I can do?” A sharp smile lifted her mouth. “Of what we can do together?”
“I know what I taste like to a thief.” He tugged at his linen collar and exposed his neck, the hard line of muscle and brown skin. “You still want to do that?”
Reist, Eleta, the images in the treatise swirled through her thoughts. It was something she hadn’t thought through, but if she didn’t grab her chance then even with the thief ruling her she would lose her nerve. He was her only chance to break Reist from Fallon. She could weave illusions so Reist would think of her more as she wanted him to, more than as a thief of magic, the lowest of the low. And she’d chase need through Fallon, remind her of Heyerdar’s power, his...virility. Fallon had slept with him for half a year. She had to still have some need for him. The whole thing would be fucked up but she had nothing to lose. Heyerdar could still say no.
“There are other ways to take the power I need.”
He frowned. “That’s not just illegal, it’s taboo.”
Ava lifted an eyebrow. He knew about consuming. Had everyone known about this method of taking power but her? “They’re caught up in the wonder of each other. Their absolute perfection. It’s not a part of the harmony of magic. And if we have to use something...unethical to return the balance, then I’m good with that.”
“How much power?”
She had him.
Ava stood and let her long hooded cloak drop back to her seat. “For this demonstration? Not much. I’ll need more as the illusions I weave become elaborate.”
“I’ll judge from this first time.” He offered up his hand.
She took it, his long fingers, the thick callused palm swamping her own small hand. His thumb stroked over the lines of her teken and her heart missed a beat. There was no fear in him as he touched her. An unusual reaction to a thief. Only Reist had ever looked at her without terror in his eyes.
She dropped onto his lap and shifted her backside over the hard muscle of his thighs. The chair squeaked and groaned. The images from the treatise danced before her eyes. Wanton and carnal. She liked the taste of blood and bone in her mouth, even if an elemental like Heyerdar left a lingering stink of wet earth. Would this way add a nuance to the illusions, give it a veracity that would make it believable? Should she go that one step further?
Heyerdar’s hand settled on her hips, calm and waiting. What she was giving to him she’d given to no other man, but Reist was worth it. Would be worth it in the end.
She leaned forward, watching the flicker of firelight sparking in his golden eyes. “I will weave a dream and push it through her thoughts. She’ll remember you, your scent, your taste, the feel of your skin under her mouth, her fingers. Your power. It will burn, and her returned ache for you will begin.”
She didn’t need to mention the hint of herself she’d fasten to Reist. Of the mage replacing Heyerdar as she sat across his lap. She also wouldn’t mention the image she intended to plant was of her naked.
Heyerdar’s hands tightened on her hips, his fingers digging into her muscles hard enough to bruise. His eyes had grown dark. “And for this...?”
“A kiss.”
A smile lifted his mouth, wry and wicked. “So little.”
Ava steadied her breathing, grasping at the heavy weight of her center...but it eluded her. Something so valueless to him was beyond price for her. She’d never kissed anyone. Nobody. No mage with any sense touched the mouth of a thief. But with him, she could try. For Reist.
She teased his upper lip with her tongue-tip. Her open mouth didn’t change, distort, and her heart thudded at the tasting of him, the drawing of the first golden threads of power from his flesh. Just as the treatise had described. His soft groan urged her to deepen the kiss. He wasn’t fighting her. He seemed to like the rush of fire from his blood. Luck was on her side for a change. She fisted her hand in his thick hair and, with her empty soul open, took his mouth.
The illusions wove around her, growing, gaining strength as she wrapped herself in Heyerdar’s incredible power. With his strength, time and space became hers to twist. Reist and Fallon sat in the Convocation of the Higher Mages, the moonlight silvering the great circle of the table...but Ava rewrapped time, pushing threads through the night until early morning.
She strung a thin sliver of herself to Reist. Offering her bared skin rather than the coarse linen of her tunic. Heat and want. Waiting for him when he returned to his bed.
Heyerdar tightened his grip on her hip, his hand splayed across her back. More power, and the taste of Heyerdar was hot and sweet and completely unexpected. She drew his magic from him in delicious waves, and he groaned his appreciation. It was almost addictive.
Her empty soul brimmed with energy, and she focused. She tied the illusion to her rival, to the moment Fallon climbed into the bed she shared with Reist. Heyerdar’s strength, his intoxicating power and the hint of the beast at his core wove through Ava’s thoughts and into Fallon. With the first light of morning breaking through the window of her bedroom, Fallon’s head would hit the pillow with the beginning force of the spell.
And still Ava poured Heyerdar into her mind. The taste of the man whose tongue fought with hers, giving her everything of himself, his scent, both sweeter and more tempting than she had imagined, wrapped around Fallon. They bound the illusion, spinning it into the woman’s mind, sealing it from Reist’s own sharp powers. Her heart pounded, and with it the need grew in her for more of him, more than a meeting of magic and mouths.
For a long moment, she kissed him for herself, for the debauched thief at her core. Kissed him for the joy of having a man want her. And he did want her. There was a promise, hot and fierce, to sate her darkness—
Ava broke away, her breath quick, her skin flushed and hot. Her fingers flexed from their tight grip of his hair, and she stroked their tips down the hard plane of his jaw. Touching him, tasting him. It could become addictive. Her body was on fire, from magic and the unexpected wildness of her first kiss. She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against his for a brief, easing moment, waiting for the fast rush of need to drain from her body. It had begun.
Sex magic for mage, thief or elemental was taboo. And from the hard length of Heyerdar under her straddled hips, she knew why. She was playing with an elemental. If he wanted, if he needed, he would take her and she wouldn’t stop him. From the low throb in her belly, she’d welcome him. Sex magic had opened a dangerous connection between them.
“I felt it, saw it.” The roughness of his voice prickled over her skin and she shivered. His hand still gripped her hip,
holding her against his erection.
“It was a strong working.” She opened her eyes and unconsciously licked her lips. “Your strength...”
He frowned and pulled his hands back from her body. “Don’t forget why you’re doing this, thief.”
Ava scowled at him. Did he think she wanted him? He was mostly animal. The rest was tree, and therefore stump-stupid. Nothing about him compared to Reist. It was just the power of the magic she’d opened. “Aftershocks. Nothing more.” She willed strength into her legs, climbed down from his lap and pulled on her cloak. “It’s a thief thing.”
“This is a business arrangement.” He stood and a long finger teased a loosened strand of her hair behind her ear. “Never forget that.”
Ava jerked her head away from his touch. “I know what it is. The thief in me wanted your power. I’m nothing if not practical.”
“I’m not one of your little mages. My power comes from the heart of the earth. The heart of the sun.” He leaned forward, his mouth so close to hers she tasted his sweet breath and couldn’t stop the quick hitch in her chest. His voice was just above a raw whisper. “Never offer me anything you’re not willing to lose.”
Ava’s gaze narrowed on him and she ignored the prick of her skin, the quick nervous rush that rioted through her. Not that she could have anything he wanted. She had no magic of her own. “Deal.”
He straightened. “So Fallon will dream of me? Remember what it is that drew her to me?”
“As a start, yes.”
“And tomorrow?”
He’d taken her deal. She willed her heart to calm, to remain the cold thief everyone expected her to be. “Tomorrow she’ll remember your first time.”
Heyerdar growled. “You want me to give you my memories?”
“Specific ones.” She wet her lips, remembering her own body’s reaction to him. “I’m certain we can use your first time over and over.”
He lifted an eyebrow and his golden eyes gleamed with a dark humor. “You’re certain?”
“It wasn’t good?”
“Don’t cheek me, girl.” He ran a thumb over the edge of her coarse tunic. “Wear something else. Something smooth, fitted.” He frowned. “And lose the daggers. You have a blade at your back and both thighs, two tucked in your boots. Too much distracting metal.”
“My blades are my trade.”
He laughed at her. “Your eyes and ears are your trade in the Institute and in the palace. You’re the mages’ pet thief. Don’t pretend you’re anything else.”
Ava gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to launch herself at him, find his mouth and pull away every thread of power she could. He was an elemental. Having...respect for anyone wasn’t in his nature. She needed him, needed his fearsome power to get what she wanted. So she ignored his gibe. “Tomorrow at the same time?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The low thrum to his voice promised darkness and pleasure. She swallowed nervously. She was playing with old magic. But then her abilities came from the same source. She had to take courage from that.
Ava turned without a backward glance, though her body ached for one last look at him, and she disappeared through the door. A silent, unseen ghost.
The path to her room was empty of people and for that she was grateful. Her thoughts were a mess and she wanted only to focus on the slip of her shadowy form down the stone corridors.
She had begun something from which she couldn’t back out. She’d waited too long for Reist. Milestone birthdays had passed. Sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty-one. Twenty-five. Half her life was gone. She expected something, some acknowledgement that what she felt burned in him too. She would live on a half look, the brush of his hand over hers, the way he leaned in to her as they’d drape themselves on a balcony and watch a naked Heyerdar in the arena.
Ava closed the door to her room and leaned back against the cold wood.
In the still darkness the familiar scents of stone, wool, leather and lavender washed over her. Her haven. Her place of peace. Maybe it was the relief of being in her room that had the darkness falling away from her. All her senses grew quiet, and the strain of living too sharp in the world eased. Despite all the insanity of Heyerdar and what she’d just agreed to do, she felt lighter, calmer, saner than she had in months.
Well, not exactly sane. She’d bargained an illegal gain and use of power with an elemental. No, not exactly sane at all.
She wished she’d been able to keep a little of Heyerdar’s power as she made her way across the room. A wave of her fingers and she could ignite a spark in the cold hearth or the wick of a tallow candle. But her empty soul had taken it all. Mage-light in her room was impossible. It itched against her thoughts...a temptation she’d never known how to eat. A smile tugged at her mouth. Now she did.
As it was, she had to pull out her tinderbox and drop a spark over a fat candle on the grate. Golden light pushed at the shadows. Ava lifted the candle holder and picked past the dark lumps of furniture to the screen behind which her narrow cot was set.
Her little room had none of the grandeur of Heyerdar’s chambers. That she had a room in the Institute at all was down to Reist. He saw the benefit of having a thief. She frowned, remembering Heyerdar’s words. Was she their pet? Records said no thief had been welcomed into the Hall of Mages in living memory. And mages lived a long time.
Thieves were the enemy, the soul-stealers who wanted to drain every mage to a husk. Assassins for whoever would pay them, thieves were the lowest of the low. Untouchable and hated. That made Reist’s push for her to remain, be trained and provided for even more strange.
It was what gave her hope.
Ava put the candle on the little table beside her bed and stripped off her clothes, laying everything over her cedar chest. Her arms ached and she turned them to see bruises forming. She blushed at the hard marks she found on her hips.
For a moment she closed her eyes. Heyerdar had taken her first kiss, and the burn of it, the taste of him on her tongue and lips, licked unexpected heat under her skin. It twisted in her gut that it should’ve been Reist. She’d imagined it. Too often. Had seen it as his right. One he’d refused.
She usually took her daily orders from him in the round stone chamber in the east tower after they’d had tea on the balcony. Her fantasy had him looking up from one of the myriad scrolls that piled across his desk. The shaft of morning sun gilded his smooth features, casting a halo around his dark hair. He’d tilt his head, drop the scroll and stand in one fluid moment. In less than a heartbeat, he’d be around the ancient wooden desk. Nerves backed her away until her spine hit the door. Reist caught his fingers in her hair, jerked her head back and then...
Ava swallowed and willed her breathing to slow. She stared at the flickering light of the candle. She only tasted Heyerdar. Felt his strength, his heat, the raw burn of him. Why had Fallon involved herself with an elemental?
She scrubbed her hands over her face and stared at the mark on her palm. It was almost invisible against the lines of her hand. Heyerdar had given her a sated moment. Catching her fingers in her hair, she hunted for her nightgown and crawled into her cot. The heavy blankets were a comforting weight and she twisted against the rush mattress. A quick breath blew out the candle, and darkness settled again.
Ava thumped her pillow. She’d broken so many rules in such a short space of time. A single day. Turning to the wall, she frowned. She was living up to her reputation as a thief, a creature without conscience. But she couldn’t walk away from Reist without trying everything she could to make the lump-headed man see sense. And he would see it—a fist tightened in her chest—even if she had to fuck the elemental to do it.
Chapter Four
Ava splashed water on her face and failed to feel awake. Her eyes were raw and sandy and her thoughts clouded. Dreams had plagued her. Ho
t, disturbing visions of Reist, of Fallon, of Heyerdar, caught in wild tangles of limbs, mouths and fingers.
She shivered and denied the illicit thrill the images ran through her body. She pressed the towel to her face. One kiss and she was imagining an orgy. Not that Heyerdar would share. Another shiver ran over her. He wouldn’t share anything.
A shaft of morning sunlight crept across her open window. She winced. She was late. In one way that was a good thing. Seeing Heyerdar welcoming the sun, every inch of his luscious skin exposed to the light, would’ve run fire through her flesh. She didn’t need Reist seeing that reaction. Not if she was going to be there for him when Fallon left.
She threw on clothes, stamped into her boots and grabbed her cloak. Breakfast would have to wait until after her meeting with Reist.
She flew down the twists and turns of numerous corridors and up the tight stairwell to Reist’s chamber. At the heavy, closed door, she stopped and drew in calming breaths. She pushed her hood back and straightened her hair. Not that it would make any difference. Her lack of sleep no doubt made her look like the recently-dug-up dead.
She rapped her knuckles against the wood, waited five heartbeats and lifted the latch. Her thief-mask settled over her face. No emotion, just professional courtesy. That morning she needed it and, thanks to Heyerdar, it came easily.
Sunlight striped the flagstone floor, the warmth of it touching her face. She squinted, finding Reist at his desk. The meeting of the Higher Mages had finished only a few hours before, but he’d never missed one of their appointments. Another stupid thing to drive in hope.
“I overslept. I apologize.”
Reist looked up. “Morning, Ava.” He pointed to the wooden chair set before his desk. “Sit, please.”
