by M. J. Scott
“Just me,” he whispered in her ear. “Just us. From now on. You and me, Sophie. And this.” He lifted his head, kissed her. Kissed her in a way that was somehow both soft and fierce. Kissed her until she widened her legs of her own will, as the fire rose again and all she could think of was the need to be closer. To have him inside her.
Cameron groaned as he slid inside her, stopped, pressed his forehead to hers. A shiver ran through him, and she wondered if his extraordinary control was finally close to a breaking point.
“Merciful goddess,” he muttered, and began to move. But even now, with both of them trembling, he didn’t give in. Each thrust was long and slow and deep. Giving her time to adjust to the slide and length of him, to the pure sensation of hard flesh sliding across sensitive tissues. He urged her to put her legs around his waist, and he held her hands over her head. He kept up that slow, sure rhythm, letting her arch to meet him but not letting her go any faster than he wanted to go. Until all she could do was give in to him. Give in to the kisses and his determination to show her he was hers and to the sensations melting her into him. Until all there was was his face over hers and his eyes drinking her in and the pleasure building deeper and wider and hotter with each stroke.
Until at the very last, she gave in completely and called his name one last time as she exploded. Then his pace changed; then he drove harder and faster, lifting her hips and taking her hungrily as she shuddered around him, boneless and drowning in it.
He feasted on her, took her over completely. But it was her name on his lips as he finally lost control and shuddered into her with a shout. And the sound of it made her wonder if perhaps they’d both won something precious here in the darkness.
“You have to get out of bed sooner or later, little wildcat.” Amusement filled Cameron’s voice.
Sophie rolled over, still half asleep, and opened one eye. “Why? We just got married. People expect us to want to stay in bed.”
Cameron laughed, then bent to kiss her bare shoulder. “If we do that so soon after last night, you’ll be a very young widow.”
She sniffed. “I thought I was getting a wild northerner husband. One who could ravish me for days.” She studied him. He was, for what had to be the first time since they’d returned to the palace, not wearing his uniform, dress or otherwise. Instead he wore a dark-blue jacket and dark-gray breeches with a white shirt. Each of the items was unornamented but beautifully cut. He wore no jewelry other than his wedding band. She realized she’d never seen him wear any. Most men wore a signet ring or a cravat pin or, amongst the younger set, an earring. Cameron did not. He looked delectable all the same. Smug satisfaction that it was her ring around his finger made her smile.
“Stop thinking what you’re thinking. Even wild northerners have limits. Besides . . .” He paused and tilted his head at her. “You’re the one with the more . . . delicate . . . parts. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I feel absolutely fine.” She stretched her arms over her head. Muscles in unexpected places twinged and a wince crossed her face. Maybe not absolutely fine.
Cameron grinned. “I think you just proved my point. Come, milady. I’ve run you a bath. Once you’re ready, we’ll go out.”
“Out where?” Normally newlyweds would have headed away from Kingswell altogether, to a family estate or a guesting house at one of the popular seaside towns. Cameron and Sophie, however, had been told they would be spending their marriage week in the palace.
“We can walk in the gardens. Or visit your parents, maybe?”
She shook her head at that. “No. Not my parents. Not today.” Not whilst what she and Cameron had done in this thoroughly rumpled bed was painted so fresh in her memory. She didn’t want to sit across the table from her parents and have them know. “I could always just tap the ley line. Give us both a boost. Then we can start all over again.” In truth, despite the small aches in her body, she felt energized now that she was fully awake.
Cameron shook his head. “No. No, best not. You’re still having lessons. Perhaps you should focus on those before you start playing with such things alone.”
“Spoilsport.” She was doing much better with her control. She hadn’t shattered an earth-light in the last week. And the temple devout had taught her a useful lesson the day before the wedding. “Look,” she said, and focused on one of the candles set along the mantelpiece. It flared to life with a whoosh, the flame shooting several inches high before it settled back down.
“Very impressive,” Cameron said. “But I’d prefer not to be set alight just now.”
“I wouldn’t set you on fire,” she said. Then she grinned. “Well, not unless you really upset me.”
His brows lifted. “I’ll try not to do that,” he said. “But being a human matchstick, although useful, isn’t going to get you dressed.” He pulled back the covers, looked down at her naked body, and grinned suddenly. “Though I have a sudden urge to let you stay here.”
“I like that urge.”
He stepped back. “No. Not going to work. We need to be good newlyweds and go out and let people giggle at us. Eloisa wanted us married so quickly to show that the court is continuing as usual. So we have to be seen.”
She tried not to frown when he spoke the queen’s name. He had driven away the doubts Eloisa had planted in her mind during the long night they’d shared, but that didn’t mean Sophie had forgiven her yet.
She needed to work on that. Or, if it was too soon to forgive, then on not letting her rancor show. She would be returning to the queen’s ladies-in-waiting once the week was over. That could prove difficult if she was angry at the queen and unable to hide it.
Maybe Cameron was right. Better to just get on with things. Start this new life of theirs. She held out a hand and let him help her out of bed. “How about a compromise? Come scrub my back in that gigantic bathtub, and then we’ll go out.”
“I like the way you think, wife,” he said. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small wooden box. “Here. I meant to give you these last night, but the right moment didn’t quite eventuate.”
She took the box, feeling guilty. He’d obviously meant to give her this on their wedding night, before he’d reached their rooms to be confronted by her in a hideous temper. “I’m sorry,” she said, “about last night.”
He shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for. The matter is dealt with. Perhaps not in the fashion we might have liked, but”—he flashed her that grin—“I think the outcome was satisfactory in the end.” He nodded at the box. “Open it.”
She lifted the lid. Nestled on a pad of velvet inside was a pair of pearl earrings. Perfect spheres in an unusual bronze-green shade that she hadn’t seen before, dangling from simple gold settings that echoed her betrothal ring. A tiny sapphire flanked by two topazes decorated the small bead that linked each pearl to the gold. “They’re beautiful,” she breathed, lifting one to the light.
“You like them?” Cameron looked nervous suddenly. “The court jeweler suggested cream—I think he knew about the necklace that the queen gave you—but this color reminded me of you.”
Sophie doubted she’d be happy wearing cream pearls ever again, even though she would have to wear the queen’s necklace at court often enough to be polite. The bronze, however, was gorgeous. They must have cost Cameron a pretty penny, but it wasn’t their value that pleased her. It was the fact he’d chosen them for her. “They’re perfect,” she said, and slipped the first into her ear, then reached for the second. “There. How do they look?”
“Very good,” he said, reaching to brush her hair back from her ears. Then he stilled, studying her. “They make your hair look redder. Or maybe it is redder.”
She didn’t want to think about that. “We were discussing pearls, not hair.” She came to her knees and reached up to kiss him. “Thank you for my gift.”
More than an hour later, they finally left the apartment and began to wander through the palace. Sophie occupied herself idl
y with trying to see the wards they passed. She fancied that she could see the layers of them now. Faint variations in color and the way they felt in her mind that told her which might be earth magic versus those laid by battle mages or the Illusioners.
“Perhaps we could go back to the Illusioners’ library tomorrow,” she said. “I’d like to keep up my . . . studies.”
Cameron paused. They were walking along one of the portrait halls, filled with paintings of generations of Fairleys and other favored nobles of the court. “That might not be so wise. Not this week. Not whilst people are paying such attention to us.”
He was right. She hadn’t considered that. She was doing nothing wrong, seeking out the library, but it might be wisest to wait until Eloisa and the Domina seemed more certain of her loyalty and had forgiven her for her mishap with Cameron before she sought out the library and the book on bindings again.
The Domina had performed the binding ritual between Sophie and Cameron after the wedding yesterday, but the sigils, instead of vanishing at the completion of the ritual, had shimmered on their bound hands with a golden glow for a second or two. When the glow vanished, the sigils faded but were still visible. Eloisa, standing witness as the strongest royal witch and given the need to keep Sophie’s status secret, had frowned at the Domina.
“What does that signify?”
The Domina had thrown up her hands. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’d say there is a connection of some kind, if not a full binding.” She’d scrubbed their hands clean with the same burning liquid she’d used to clean Sophie’s the week before. “It seems to have taken a little. Maybe she’ll be able to help him if he gets a sniffle.”
Sophie had stayed silent, still too angry at the queen and Cameron at that point to want to add to the conversation. But now she wanted to understand what had happened. Were they bound as an Anglion husband and wife might usually be? Or was there something more because of what they’d done? An “augmentier,” as Madame de Montesse had named it. It was important that they knew exactly what they shared, if only to know how best to hide it if necessary. But Cameron was right. They were under scrutiny this week. Best not to put a foot wrong.
She let Cameron lead her onward through the endless corridors. The day was hot for so late in summer, and the damaged palace wasn’t as cool as she remembered from previous summers.
The wards mending the shattered walls might have been keeping the rain and worse out, but apparently wards weren’t as good at soaking up heat as good Carnarvon granite. The temperature varied markedly, depending on how close they were to one of the damaged sections of the palace, the heat and closeness, making even the pale green, light cotton dress she wore seem too hot.
She remembered another thing the devout had taught her and tried to sink some of the heat down through the stone at her feet. She must have sunk a little too much, because she suddenly felt icy, a shiver running through her.
“Sophie?” Cameron said, stopping their walk.
“It’s nothing. Ghost walking past my grave, perhaps.” It was something her grandmother had used to say.
“Don’t say that.”
“Ah, superstitious northerner.” She smiled at him and started to walk again, the sensation of cold fading as she did. “Ghosts aren’t—” She paused. Stopped what she had been about to say. Northern superstitions ranked ghosts right along with demons and other things associated with the forbidden fourth art. Which was another thing she probably shouldn’t even joke about here in the palace. Even if she hadn’t been out of favor with the queen already, she would rapidly find herself so if she was heard talking about anything connected with Illvya. “Never mind.”
Eventually their meandering path through the palace led them toward the ruined Salt Hall.
“We don’t have to go this way,” Cameron said as they reached the junction of the corridor.
Sophie could see the holes in the outer walls from where they stood. “No. I want to. I haven’t seen it yet. I’ll have to sooner or later.”
“If you wish.” Cameron tucked her hand through his arm, and they set off again.
When they walked into the Salt Hall, the guards on the space where the doors should have been let them past without argument. Sophie blinked a few times, startled by the bright sunlight filling the space. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that it wasn’t just sunlight but the light shining from the wards that made the room so bright.
The wards shifted and shimmered, the layers and levels of color, which she could sense only faintly elsewhere in the palace, as clear as watching rainbow light in a crystal here. Perhaps because they were so freshly laid? She wasn’t sure, but she just stared at them, entranced by the dancing patterns until Cameron nudged her and she looked up to find Lord Sylvain standing before them.
“Barron Scardale, Lady Scardale,” Lord Sylvain said with a broad smile. “Felicitations on your wedding.”
Sophie had dipped into a curtsy automatically, but halfway through rising, she suddenly remembered that Lady Scardale was her. The queen’s gift to Cameron had been a title to go along with Liam’s gift of extra holdings of land. A barron was a more suitable husband for a royal witch than a mere lieutenant. She suspected Liam and Eloisa had colluded in the matter. Liam had held the barronetcy that belonged to the Inglewood title whilst his father had been alive, and now it would be Alec’s until Liam had a son to succeed him.
There wasn’t another major title attached to the family that Liam could bestow on Cameron. So without Eloisa granting Cameron a new title, Liam couldn’t have improved his brother’s rank. Only his wealth by granting him more land.
Cameron had definitely been startled when Eloisa had made the announcement at the wedding dinner, but Sophie hadn’t been in any mood to felicitate her husband on his elevation just then. Up until now she had forgotten it entirely, Cameron having so thoroughly distracted her.
So she was now Sophia Mackenzie, Lady Scardale. It would take some getting used to.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Cameron said. “How are you today?”
“Well enough, lad, well enough.”
“And the investigations?” Cameron looked past Lord Sylvain to the group of Illusioners examining a section of outer wall.
“Much the same. Nothing to disturb your week with your lovely wife.” He smiled at Sophie again, and she smiled back. Of all the erls, Lord Sylvain was her favorite. Maybe because he was now too old to be—or need to be—overly bothered with indulging in the posturing and status-proving that all the others seemed to find so fascinating. He was always amusing when he attended anything the queen invited him to and had been kind when he’d spoken to Sophie elsewhere. Old enough, too, not to worry so much about setting a foot wrong with a potential royal witch. Too old to be chosen as her husband and therefore able to treat her just as he would any other young lady he liked.
“What are they looking for exactly?” Sophie asked. “If you can tell me that,” she added hastily.
“Traces of whatever was used to set off the explosions, magical or otherwise.”
Sophie looked over at the Illusioners. But as she didn’t understand how their magic worked, she couldn’t hope to understand what it was they were actually doing. “The court seems convinced it was magical.”
Lord Sylvain nodded, leaning on his cane. “It is nearly certain. The fire was too hot to be purely natural.”
“But nothing has been found?”
“Not yet.” Lord Sylvain swept his hand across the vast room, at the rocks and rubble piled in heaps taller than Sophie herself. “As you can see, there is much to go through.”
He offered his arm to Sophie. “Let me steal you from your new husband a moment and I’ll show you what they are doing.” He pointed his cane at Cameron. “You can tag along if you keep quiet.”
“He’s very obedient,” Sophie said with a laugh. “He’ll keep quiet.”
Cameron pulled a face at her.
Lord Sylvain laughed. “I see your marriage is
off to a good start, lad. You’ve learned your place already.” He patted Sophie’s hand, and they made their way over to one of the nearest piles of broken stone.
“Each pile is sorted and studied individually,” Lord Sylvain said.
Sophie tipped her head back, trying to judge how tall it was. It rose past Cameron’s height. How many stones did it contain? Hundreds? And there were how many piles to go through? The Illusioners would be here for weeks. Or months.
“How do you know which has been dealt with? There are so many of them,” Sophie asked.
“The archivists are keeping track. They have some sort of grid system. That part—Lord Sylvain grinned again—“is not my problem, thank the goddess. The memory isn’t always what it used to be.”
“Nonsense. You’ll outlive us all,” Sophie said.
“Not unless the Domina extends her newfound healing skills to men like me,” Lord Sylvain said. He tilted his head at her, his dark eyes suddenly far more serious.
“Are you ill, Your Grace?” Sophie asked, the thought making her feel suddenly sad.
“No more than any man my age, my dear.” He patted her arm again. “Don’t worry about me.” He tapped at the pile of rubble with his cane, and one of the smaller chunks, barely three inches across, came loose, sliding down the pile and rolling to a halt half a foot from the edge of Sophie’s skirts. A chill swept over her, and she shivered.
“What is it?” Cameron said, stepping forward.
“Stay where you are,” Lord Sylvain said, his voice cracking with authority. “Lady Scardale, don’t move. But tell me what you feel.”
“It’s just a chill,” she said. “Probably a draft.” But the icy feeling wasn’t receding as a draft would.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Lord Sylvain said. He scowled. “Move back, my dear.” He gestured at the stone with his cane. “I think the Illusioners should look at that.”
