by Ana Calin
“I’m not doing anything that other warlocks don’t do as well.”
“Oh, of that I’m sure. But someone of your standing being into sadistic kink will start a shit storm anyway. In our supernatural world, information isn’t power—it’s weaponry. And I want this new shiny weapon.” I press the whip into his cheek.
He swallows hard.
“Or, I could close my eyes to the matter in exchange for another valuable piece of information. What do you know about the Firestone?”
“The Wr-wraiths,” he babbles. “They came with the Firestone centuries ago. I wasn’t the Grand Mage back then. That’s all I know, I swear.”
“Too bad. That means you have nothing to buy yourself out of this.” I get up to my feet, and pull the leather vest so hard from under him that it sends him flying forward. He lands on all fours right at Cerys’ feet. I walk in front of him, breathing in the scent of the outfit. I could tell from the start that it had been used before.
“Hmmm, a woman. No, two. Witches. Blood.” I drop the outfit and hold up the whip, pick a lash between my fingers, my eyes zooming in on the stains of blood. “You draw it for blood magic. The illegal kind. The kind that binds people to the blood’s owner. And to you.” I lunge over and, in one go, I rip the white robe off of him. It tears from his body, leaving him naked on the floor.
Cerys gasps behind me. Surely, the scene is disturbing to her, even though I don’t do even ten percent of what I usually do. If it weren’t for her, I would start a low fire at Marcus’ feet until he tells me what I want to know. I doubt he’d be able to take it for longer than a few minutes.
“Now that is something no witch or warlock is allowed to do, not without consequences.” I turn to Cerys. “I don’t have to explain what that means, do I? Drawing your blood or somebody else’s blood in a sadomasochistic ritual, enchanting it, and slipping it into people’s drinks.”
“No,” she says through her teeth, her golden eyes twinkling with anger. “It means that he was using it to manipulate people like puppets. Whoever drinks enchanted blood is bound to do the blood master’s bidding. It’s breaking or bending free will. But wait. If the Grand Mage was getting ready for such a ritual, then his partners are here somewhere as well. Maybe they are on their way to this very room. We can uncover the entire dirty secret, Your Highness.” A new pleasure pools in my heart—I’m proud of the way she plays along.
“How unfortunate, that you don’t know anything about the Firestone, Marcus,” I address the naked man on the floor. “Not your fault, I understand, but you know how it is. Now I’ll have to share your illegal activities with the world. In fact, if we wait just a little bit longer, we might get your partners, too, while we’re at it. I trust they will betray the rest of your secrets to save their own skin. What do you say, Miss Dark? Are we in a hurry, or can we afford to wait just a little bit longer?”
“I don’t see why not,” she replies, taking a seat on the bed, and crossing her legs. Fuck, those thighs in latex, I have to look away.
“Or we can just go looking for the others.” I tap my nose. “I have their scents now, I can track them down. That way we can use them directly as witnesses. We can then just deliver them to the Council of the Arcane.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she muses, picking up Nazarean, who’s nestled at her feet. With the black cat in her arms, she looks like a dominatrix witch, but one with the face of a pure angel. One my inner beast is dying to defile.
But as she stands, the Grand Mage breaks.
“Wait,” he screeches, hand outstretched, long, livid fingers splayed. “He might have passed something down, the former Grand Mage. His files, they’re all down in my office. Just let me go and get them for you.”
I bare my teeth. “You’re not the most creative man, are you Marcus? I’m sure you understand we can’t let you go anywhere until we have what we came here for.”
“Then come with me. I’ll cast an invisibility spell over the both of you, so the guards don’t see you.”
Cerys steps in front of me, caressing Nazarean with elegant strokes. “If you even think of casting another type of spell, I’ll know. I’ll touch the King of Flames just once, and he’ll incinerate you in an instant. Do you understand?”
Something blooms in my chest. The prospect of doing what she orders thrills me. Turns out having a fated mate is more dangerous than I thought. It makes obeying a woman gratifying.
“I have to... I must get dressed,” Marcus pleads.
“Go ahead. We’re not stopping you.”
Neither Cerys nor I turn around as he gets off the floor, trying to hide the essential parts of his nakedness with his hands. My jaw ticks. I hate it that Cerys gets to see him naked, and I can’t help wondering if she’s seen naked men before.
While we watch Marcus get dressed I let that possibility run through my mind. It could be that Cerys isn’t a virgin. Maybe there’s a boyfriend out there, maybe one of the guards she’s been living with for a whole year, someone she’s not telling me about. Of course, she wouldn’t tell me. She’d be protecting him, wouldn’t she? We might both hate it, but the more time we spend together, the more our connection strengthens. We are fated mates, which means that any relationship any of us might have outside this bond is betrayal.
But she hasn’t really betrayed me. It’s not like she’s been my fated mate since forever. I, as a High Fae, did not have a fated mate from the start, I had a pool of people I could have connected with. But Cerys was the best match that was ever born. Still, the connection between us was created the first time we locked eyes. Nothing bound her to me until that moment, which means she could have easily been with other men.
I steal glances at her from the corner of my eye as the Grand Mage gets ready. Fuck, questions have started to spin in my head, and I can’t fucking stop them. I’ve never felt like this before, the veins swelling under my skin with the need to know. I suppose I’m gonna need a blood oath from her, too. I need her to swear to me there is no one in her life, and if there is, I need his name.
Marcus faces us, now dressed in one of his Grand Mage robes, leading us to the door. He raises his hand, drawing a rune in the air, and his spell falls like a transparent veil around Cerys and me. It encapsulates us together, the energy of our bodies mingling, the heat of mine enwrapping hers.
We successfully pass the two guards at the door, even though I think one of them reacted. I glance back only enough to see his flared nostrils and his focused gaze. Marcus must have signaled to him in some way that he’s under threat, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, not without blowing our cover.
I think up a new plan for when we’re downstairs, but because of Cerys’ close proximity I have trouble focusing. Marcus leads us quickly down the spiraling stairs, hitching up his robe like a princess. By the time we reach the office emotion rages inside me like a hungry animal, and I don’t understand half of the things I feel. All I know for sure is that I’m angry, and that I can’t stop wondering if Cerys has ever let a man kiss her. Her scent tells me she might still be a virgin, and considering her young age there’s a chance she still is, but kissing? That’s something youngsters do as soon as they can play with voodoo dolls.
“When you called me Your Highness,” I breathe, so only she can hear me. “Why didn’t you call me Milord, like everybody else?”
“Because you are not my lord,” she replies evenly, and the need to grab her and yank her close strangles me. Fuck, these feelings are so new I don’t know how to handle them.
The need to bring her to her knees rises in my groin. To subjugate her. But no, that would be the road to hell. Any form of intimacy between us would strengthen our connection. It’s paramount that she keeps thinking the worst of me, and that I keep pushing against what I feel for her. Maybe I can try to hate her for having been with another man...or maybe there were more of them?
“The fuck.” The curse slips through my teeth, and the Grand Mage flinches. He looks over his should
er at us with big eyes, hunch-backed under his shiny robe. I could haul him against a wall right now, punish him for having signaled his guards, but I have to refrain. Everything at the right time.
By the time he leads us inside his huge office with a vaulted ceiling, a room that looks more like the altar of a cathedral than a study, I’ve outlined a plan in my mind. I close the double doors behind us, and throw off the magic veil the Grand Mage’s spell cast over us.
“I gather that your guards will be here soon, so I suggest that you move very fast,” I declare.
“What?” Cerys yelps.
“Our dear Grand Mage signaled to them that he was under duress.” I grab his arm harshly. “Now you’re gonna give me what your ancestor has passed down to you. Right this hot minute, all of it, or I’ll snap your neck and leave you for dead.” I knock him into his cushioned desk chair. He stares up at me with a terrified look on his face.
“Now,” I snarl, and both the Grand Mage and Cerys flinch. He scrambles up to his feet, desperately searching through his drawers. He curses when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for fast enough.
He shoots towards the bookcase behind his desk as if he just remembered something, climbs on the ladder to a higher shelf, and takes down a tome. It’s one so old that dust rises from it when he drops it on the desk. I tuck it under my arm, shielding Cerys behind me. I put a hand on her hip, telling myself that maintaining contact means I can whisk her out of here quickly and safely, and that’s all there is to it, though who am I fooling? I look around, taking in the room’s details.
“I heard you have a secret exit in here. Where is it?”
The Grand Mage’s eyes dart to the door. The bastard still hopes his guards will gather in time, and barge in here.
“Really, Marcus, are you that stupid? You actually want a confrontation?” I can see that my calmness is staggering to him. “You would have your people face me, you’re not worried for their lives?”
But I can already see behind this, he’s hoping to get on Lysander’s good side, and even reap some benefits if he delivers me to him, or takes me down. Fire charges through my veins, and my body starts to emit shadow.
“Xerxes, please don’t do this,” Cerys intervenes. “You promised!”
But I can already hear the guards’ feet pattering against the floors outside the study. My ears adjust as I pick up the shifting air as they move, their whispers, their breathing and the beating of their hearts. The moment they kick in the doors, adrenaline shoots through my veins. Finally, I can live out who I truly am.
Cerys
I WATCH IN HORROR AS Xerxes emits shadow, rivulets of fire crisscrossing his bronze skin. The magic he exudes is enough to choke the entering guards. They squint at him through the veils of shadow, but can’t see straight, swinging their blades into thin air. But what strikes me most is the way he gets out of the way, so quickly that I don’t even see it happening.
He becomes a blur, and to the untrained eye it would seem he’s teleporting from one spot to the other. The guards’ blades slice through the air, but keep hitting bookshelves and random items.
“Over there,” the Grand Mage yells, taking shelter behind his desk, looking over its edge.
But the guards keep missing. The heat and smoke radiating from Xerxes burns their skin, sending them to their knees, coughing and holding to their chests and their throats. Weapons clamor as they hit the marble ground. The smoke is soon too much for Nazarean and me, too. I haven’t been able to use the confusion and to sneak out of the room, as I intended. I’m still inside when the King of Flames sends out a shadowy breeze that slams the back shut, sealing them, not letting anyone in or out.
I choke on the smoke, my eyes tearing. All I can hear is the guards’ screams, the confusion, and the commotion. I’m looking for a way out, when I see a bookcase sliding open to reveal a secret exit. The Grand Mage is trying to escape. I head toward the opening, and I’m almost there when a guard blocks my way.
He grins, holding his blade like a shield across his chest, but then he bends forward, pointing it at me. Nazarean hisses viciously, and my mind goes blank. Does he actually expect me to fight him? What chance could I possibly stand against his strong silver armor, and all the daggers strapped to different parts of his body.
His lips crack as a grin extends on his face, as if he’s looking forward to piercing me with the glinting tip of his blade. He lunges toward me. I don’t know by what powers and instincts I manage to move out of the way, the guard stumbling into the dark tunnel opening behind the bookcase. He gets back on his feet quickly enough, his agile eyes spotting me. He bares his perfectly white teeth, with the long canines that remind me of a vampire.
“This is from Kareim Velduros,” he says before he attacks again. Nazarean hisses, jumping forward to meet the weapon, determined to protect me.
I scream, the high pitch of my voice piercing my own ears.
But my familiar gets pushed out of the way at the last minute, replaced by Xerxes’ leather-clad back.
He’s placed himself between the blade and me, and bile rises to my throat. Has it pierced him? Has the guard...? High realms, I can’t even think about it.
I cry out his name, but then he moves briskly to the side, pulling the guard by his sword. Blood swells from his hand where he grabbed the blade, but nothing in his face shows that it hurt him. He hauls the guard against the bookcase that slid open to reveal the exit tunnel. The man cries out in pain as his armor splits from the sheer violence of the haul. Books and wooden shelves fall on him, the wood breaking on his head.
Xerxes grabs my hand, his powerful palm hot against mine. I meet his eyes, red, and deadly, and yet I feel that I can trust him with my life. I pick up Nazarean, my familiar snuggling for safety at my chest, and we bolt through the secret tunnel.
It’s dark and chilly, musty air whipping through my hair. Even though we’re forced to run, probably with an increasing number of guards hot on our heels, I’m grateful no lives were lost. Xerxes could have killed many, but he didn’t, all because I asked him not to. For a moment there I felt it would have actually given him joy, killing those men. After all, he’s a creature bred for war and destruction. Instead, he’s running away from the situation, picking me up in his arms, and racing with me through the corridor.
The chilly air soon turns to ice. I bow my head against his warm chest, holding Nazarean between us so he’s perfectly protected. I can see the fire coursing through the veins in Xerxes’ muscular arms, exuding power of annihilation. And yet here I am, once again running away with the man I was supposed to be running from.
For minutes on end there’s no light in sight, with the veins of fire under Xerxes’ skin as the only bright source in a long tunnel that soon turns into what I think is a sewer. I can hear rats scurrying out of our way, water splashing, and the stench is soon more than I can bear. I can’t resist and press my nose into Xerxes’ chest, breathing in his scent of wood and ember. It plays with my senses, making me relax and grow soft in his arms. When he finally stops and reaches up, removing the lid above a gully, I’m almost sad I have to leave the safety of his arms.
He helps Nazarean and me to clamber up onto a dark street. I should be grateful for the crisp night air as I breathe it in, but I wish I were still in Xerxes’ arms, inhaling his scent. What in the cursed realms, Cerys Dark, get a grip.
I watch Xerxes hoist himself up, his bronze muscles glowing in the moonlight, his hair falling to his shoulders like liquid ebony. When he rises to his full height, my eyes are drawn to the way his ripped jeans mold to his athletic legs.
“Come on, we need to get out of the open,” he says, placing a hand on the small of my back, and pushing the lid back over the gully with his foot.
“Do you think they lost us?” I say over my shoulder as I hurry down the dark street, holding Nazarean tightly to my chest. His heartbeat is slower than usual, or maybe it’s my heart that’s beating too wildly.
“Even if they
didn’t, they’re not crazy enough to follow. For all they know, we could have armies ready to crush them.”
“But the Grand Mage, we discovered his secret, he’ll do anything to bring us down before we can talk. Not to mention he’ll want to punish us in the worst way.”
A growl comes from Xerxes’ chest, sending a chill up my spine. “I’m not some knight of the underworld he can punish. If anything, he’ll just do his best to hide from me for the rest of his existence. He hoped he could trap me at his mansion, or have me killed, and reap the honors that would come with that, but since that didn’t happen, all he’ll do for the rest of his days is make sure we don’t meet again.”
“Or he’ll go to Lysander and tell him that you’ve regained your powers, and that you have set out to replace your core with the Firestone.”
“Even so, no one knows where the Firestone is, and all the information is in here.” He taps the tome under his arm with his fingers. “They’ll never know where to look for us. We need to find a place to study this, by the way.”
The further we walk into the night, the more aware I become of the sewer stench that sticks to my skin and to Nazarean’s fur. His thick, shiny black coating is now dusty and caked in places with Hell knows what substances. I walk slower just so I can breathe in Xerxes’ scent, which for some reason wasn’t damaged at all through the sewers.
“What we need to find first is a place where we can rest, and maybe have a bath,” I argue.
“We don’t have time for that.”
“Listen, Your Highness.” I stop in place, forcing him to come to a halt. “Maybe now that you have your powers back you can go on and on, but some of us are merely parahuman. We have needs, and limitations, and—” I hate having to bring it up, but here it goes. “Some of us stink.”
