King Nakoa KauPo looked between them, then turned to Jepp, putting his back to Kral. He pressed his palms together in front of his heart, saying something to her in a respectful tone. Then held out his hand to me.
“As good as we’re going to get,” Jepp decided. “Go slowly, though, Dafne.”
She didn’t have to tell me that. My heart thudded as I stowed my journal safely in a pocket of my full skirts and made myself take the first step, then another. This close, the tattoos that wrapped over his biceps and chest resolved into finer detail. Despite whatever overall symbol they made, each was composed of smaller pieces, scales like a lizard’s.
Or a dragon’s.
Probably a dragon, because the copper torque around his neck appeared to be one. Again, much like those illustrations I’d seen in Annfwn. Remarkably lifelike, the sinuous creature seemed to coil around his thick throat, inset ruby eyes glinting.
He said those words again, encouraging, soothing.
I placed my hand in his.
He covered it with his other hand, fingers closing over mine, hot as the sun behind the cloud of ash. The volcano rumbled and the ship rocked. His mouth moved in that not-smile. “Nakoa,” he said.
“Dafne,” I managed, stilling the urge to pull my hand away. He held it, not tightly, but so firmly that I wouldn’t be able to withdraw my hand without causing offense.
“Dafne,” he echoed. Then smiled in truth. He said something longer that sounded pleasant and ended with my name. Then he bent over my hand, still holding it in both of his, and pressed his lips to the back of it. He said something, kissed my hand, and repeated it a third time.
“Uh-oh,” Zynda whispered, using the Tala idiom for trouble.
“What?” I asked, almost afraid to. Except even I could sense something of it. The thickness in the air, like the static before lightning strikes. Zynda didn’t reply.
Nakoa raised his head, studying me with that intent stare. He tugged my hand and turned slightly, inviting me to come with him. I followed, Jepp falling in behind me, muttering various curses and warnings under her breath. For which of us I didn’t know. Nakoa guided my hand through his bent elbow, laying my palm on his forearm and covering it with his other hand. Intended as comforting, judging by his touch, but also effectively trapping me.
I breathed into the panic, trying to let it go before it swamped me, and concentrated on the present.
I almost expected his skin to feel scaly, so realistic were the tattoos, but it was silky smooth, without hair like most men have on their arms. And hot, as if he burned with a fire within, not unlike the volcano. He escorted me off the ship, his people forming a double line that we walked through. They bowed as we passed, murmuring something that sounded reverent, pressing their palms together before their hearts as their king had done. Nakoa paused at the end of the dock, looking down at me. He patted my hand reassuringly, then let go and crouched to my feet, assessing my boots with both curiosity and disdain. As he unlaced them and drew them off my feet, I searched Zynda’s face for clues. Her tight expression did nothing to reassure me.
Nakoa’s people watched us also with tense alertness, faces showing hope, trepidation, and the bright anticipation of witnessing something of great moment. Setting my boots aside, Nakoa slid his hands up my calves, under my skirt and over my knees. I stopped him, in a flare of embarrassed alarm, and Jepp took a half step toward me. Nakoa frowned up at me, glancing at Jepp, and saying something while tugging at my sock.
“Fine,” I told him. “But I will take them off.” The knit stockings that tied over my knees were too hot for the muggy island heat anyway. I pushed his hands away and reached under my skirt, trying not to raise it too high, and untied the ribbons. Pulling off the stockings, I rolled them carefully so my hidden daggers would not fall out and stowed them in another pocket. One reason skirts were so much more convenient than fighting leathers, though it might have been better had I been dressed as a fighter. I felt oddly naked and vulnerable to be barefoot. At least I had my other knives, hidden away.
Satisfied, Nakoa stood and offered his arm again. All of this was so strange. He raised his brows at my hesitation, so I took it. He patted my hand in approval and I began to feel like one of Andi’s horses, trained to accept the bit and saddle. Holding my hand in place again, Nakoa led me down three steps off the stone pier, my bare feet sinking into the soft, damp earth.
A flash rang through my head and the ground seemed to move under my feet.
No, it did move. The island shook and a plume of smoking ash roared up from the volcano. I cried out and clung to Nakoa’s arm for balance.
He planted himself, steadying me, holding me upright even as his people sent up an excited chant, singing in the direction of the volcano. Nakoa did not sing, but kept his gaze on the volcano, stroking my hand. My head cleared, though a dull ache remained in the wake of whatever that had been. Jepp had hold of my other arm but was turned away, in furious conversation with Zynda, who met my eyes over Jepp’s shoulder. She gave me a small shake of her head, more communicating that she couldn’t do anything than that she didn’t know what had happened.
The chant finished and Nakoa gestured to a path that seemed to lead in the direction of the volcano, walking us both forward. Jepp and Zynda fell in behind, and it was an obscure comfort to hear Jepp’s mutters. I didn’t blame her, feeling the urge to send up a prayer of my own. We stood on foreign land, but the extension of the barrier might put these isles under the protection of the Three. Following instinct, I drew Glorianna’s circle in the air with my free hand, inscribed Moranu’s crescent, and bisected it with Danu’s sword, adding a fervent, wordless wish for this to turn out well.
Nakoa took note of my gesture, interest softening some of the sterner lines around his mouth, but did not slow or break stride. We went up the path, soft packed dirt, that wound and switchbacked along the mountainside. As we climbed, the vista fell away below us, the sea shimmering blue-green, the Hákyrling clearly visible in the harbor. I’d fortunately gained some conditioning, going up and down Annfwn’s cliffside roads. A year ago I could not have sustained the pace. As it was, I grew out of breath keeping up with Nakoa’s much longer strides. He glanced down at me in puzzled concern—apparently none of the island women spent more time reading than climbing volcanoes—just as I yelped, stepping on a hot ash I missed seeing.
Frowning in such a forbidding way that I flinched, Nakoa stopped, turned me around, and picked up my foot, inspecting it just as I’d seen Andi check horses’ hooves countless times. Which did not do anything to defuse my earlier sense of being trained like one. His thumb passed over the burn and the tender skin of my foot, already sore from the unaccustomed friction of going barefoot on the increasingly rock-strewn path. In one smooth movement, he put my foot down and scooped me up in his arms—a dizzying sensation that stole both my breath and my equanimity—turning and showing me to Jepp, saying something as he did.
She didn’t like it any more than I did, but she nodded curtly and spoke to me in a deliberately even tone. “You’re no more vulnerable than you were and in some ways less so. You can more easily get a knife into his throat from there, if you need to. Better to save your feet anyway.”
In case we needed to run. I nodded back faintly and Nakoa, clearly considering the matter settled, set out again at an increased pace. At first I kept my arms folded, hugging them to myself, but I only felt more like helpless baggage that way. And I tended to slide down instead of looking forward. Tentatively at first, in case I earned one of those black frowns, I put a hand on Nakoa’s bare chest, snatching my fingers away again at the astonishing sensation. He glanced down at me, amusement clearly etched in his face, and said something, adjusting his arms so I sat up higher. Testing my understanding, I slid a hand behind his neck, anchoring myself, and he responded by lifting me into a much better position. Now all I had to do was assimilate the unprecedented feeling of hot male skin under my hand, slick with exertion, his thick, curly ha
ir brushing my hand, shoulder and neck muscles undulating as we climbed.
Unbidden, an image came to mind of experiencing this exact thing, only with us both naked in bed, and him rising over me to plow my body with his. I kept my face averted, gazing steadfastly forward so he wouldn’t guess the direction of my thoughts. Not at all my normal sort of thinking. Whatever the king’s agenda, it had nothing to do with that. Not with me. Not for a man of his power, surrounded by the tall, lethally beautiful women who guarded him.
Goddesses only knew what was happening to me.
We reached a clear area under the summit before much longer, the air ironically clearer than lower down. The heat, however, radiated up through the rock around us, making me profoundly grateful not to have my bare feet on it, no matter how discomfiting the alternative. Nakoa stopped at a ledge that looked over a dazzling horizon, ocean as far as the eye could see, the humps and dots of other islands visible in the distance.
And below us, a bubbling lake filled with lava.
Stricken, I clutched at my captor, though if he planned to toss me in, my feeble strength would be no match for his. Mastering myself, I dropped the hand I’d braced on his chest and found the small dagger I’d secreted in a hidden pocket of my skirt, ready to draw it.
I looked over his shoulder at Zynda and asked in Tala, “Do they mean to sacrifice me to the volcano?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know what they do mean to do.”
“Stop talking around me,” Jepp snapped. “What’s going on here?”
“A ritual,” Zynda answered. “A powerful magical one.”
Nakoa’s people began a slow, humming, hypnotic chant, the sense of portentous magic looming large over us. I couldn’t help staring at the lake of lava, mesmerized by the possibility of my imminent death. From where we stood, Nakoa could simply drop me and I would fall with nothing to break it. Would it hurt or would I die instantly?
My chest hurt from holding my breath and a tear slid down my cheek. That or sweat from the menacing heat. Nakoa frowned at me and shook his head.
“He’s too close to the edge,” Jepp whispered furiously to Zynda. “I can’t get to him without risking losing her. But we have to stop this immediately.”
“I don’t think we can. It’s like an avalanche of magic, already crashing down too fast to halt.”
“Nonsense. A good blade stops anything. Pull your dagger, Dafne, and put it to his throat. Do it now!”
10
For once grateful for Jepp’s relentless drilling and my unthinking obedience to her snapped orders, I moved before I thought about it. Faster than I’d ever thought I could, I had my blade out and pressed to the soft spot at the pulse point of Nakoa’s throat. It looked ridiculously slim and delicate against his corded neck, but the glint of the words Ursula had inscribed there heartened me. I might be small and strengthless compared to this barbarian king, but I had fangs of my own that should never be ignored.
The chanting, however, did not slow, and Nakoa only dropped his black gaze to mine. He did have pupils, though so nearly matching the irises that I barely made out the delineation of them. Oddly, he smiled, ever so slightly, the tone of which I couldn’t quite interpret, but with something of that same interest he showed in my journal. Holding my gaze, he slowly and deliberately leaned into the sharp edge. I lacked the fortitude of my warrior sisters, else I would have kept it in place instead of playing the coward and not resisting. If my hand had not been shaking so badly, the blade would not have bit at all.
As it was, I sliced him. Not deeply, but enough to draw bright blood that ran in a rivulet both along my little dagger and down his throat. Nakoa spoke a few words, a hiss behind them. His arms tightened and he gathered me closer, completely ignoring the blade.
And fastened his mouth on mine.
Stunned, I did nothing at first, unaware of anything except his startlingly hot and hard lips. This was not Zyr’s artful, sensual kiss, nor my suitor’s sloppy, indifferent promise. If Zyr’s kiss had felt like a song not written for me, this one drilled to the very core of my being, filling my body and blood with a sense of homecoming, of feeding me some necessary food I’d lacked all my life. I drowned in it, overcome, forgetting the blade in my hand, my friends watching and worrying, the dire, strange circumstances in which we found ourselves.
I lost everything except my connection to Nakoa and the rumbling of the volcano around us. It thundered through me, stirring my heartbeat into a matching rhythm, as if my quiet, closeted heart had opened up and become part of a much greater, wilder one. Nakoa’s mouth seemed to feed on mine, coaxing something from me, pulling me closer and deeper. I clung to him, no longer questioning any of it, viscerally desperate to meld my skin with his. His heartbeat pounded in time with mine, synchronized. Mine. His. And something else, even larger.
The realization struck me and I started to pull away, but Nakoa slid a hand to clasp the back of my head, holding me there, even as he let me slide down his body, gradually lowering my feet to the ground, the heart of the mountain taking me under deeper, thoroughly, the avalanche of magic searing my blood with unaccustomed heat.
My feet touched the burning rock and the volcano boomed, making Nakoa stagger and wrenching apart that endless kiss, though he caught his balance and kept me upright, pressed close.
Expecting lava to rain down on us, I threw back my head to see. If I was to die here, at least I’d witness one of the greatest events of nature for myself. For once I’d be in the middle of it all. The cloud of ash and steam billowed and swirled. Breathless, my body charged with a combination of dread, excitement, lust, anticipation, and terror, I focused on the smooth peak rising just above us. Soon lava, bright and molten like the lake below, like the blood boiling through my body, would spill over the mountain and carry us with it.
So unfair, that I would meet death moments after the most interesting thing that ever happened to me. That I would die a virgin. The perfect sacrifice.
Instead of regret, however, I felt mainly the exhilaration of imminent release.
Nakoa’s heart still pounded with mine, a profound connection that linked us, that made me feel as if our bodies both circulated the liquid rock that surged up inside the volcano. It burgeoned, grew, swelling to explosive levels. The volcano itself seemed to draw in. Impossible that a mountain could move in such a way, but if rock could melt, then it could also—
Crumble.
Not an explosion, but a peeling back.
And out shot a dragon.
Glittering gold, it cut through the steam and ash, cleaving it like a knife separating flesh and leaving shreds behind. Moans of reverence and shouts of dismay followed in the dragon’s wake as it speared straight up into the sky, a glittering, vertical comet trailing ash, magic, and awe. It nearly vanished, so high above us it became like a star. The shuddering of my heart, feeding blood to the ascent, went with it. Paused there at the apex.
Then the dragon returned. It grew to the size of a full moon, diving ever closer. I shrank against Nakoa, absurdly seeking shelter from the captor who brought me to this literal and figurative precipice.
With a snap that echoed in my bones, the great wings unfurled. Zynda cried out in protest, shouting something in Tala about shattering wings. But they held, the dreadful dive converting into a glide, a great sweeping circle of soundless grace.
I became aware of the still silence then. The rumbling of the volcano had ceased. Nothing more erupted from the peak, and the fall of ash thinned, diminishing with each moment, like the last gentle edge of a snowstorm, after the blizzard winds move on.
“What the fuck was that all about?” came Jepp’s harsh whisper.
I struggled, suddenly acutely aware of being held against Nakoa’s naked chest. With the magic releasing its hold, along with the keen peak of awareness imminent death had brought, all that remained was a grim sense of exposure. I wanted, needed, to hide away somewhere. Some of that black, remembered panic rose, and I fought t
he restraining arms as I hadn’t before. Nakoa frowned at me as I struck him. I’d lost my dagger and had no wit to pull another, but he set me away from him, taking my wrists in each hand and speaking soft words that made no sense and didn’t soothe. My feet burned.
“Let her go,” Jepp said, her words sharp as the edge of the blade she put between Nakoa and me. “Whatever this was, it’s over and she needs you to release her. Now.”
Nakoa ignored her, studying me with that intent expression as I tugged away from his implacable grip. He asked me a question, the tone concerned, and I nearly screamed at him that I didn’t understand his words or any of this, but my heart had fluttered up into my throat, my skin icy with sweat as cold as the rain that had dripped down the black rocks that had entombed me.
Lithe arms wrapped around me from behind, the scent of the vines of Annfwn with them, catching me when Nakoa released my wrists. Zynda leaned her cheek against mine from behind, cradling me against her as we both sank to the hard, heated rock.
“You’re okay,” she murmured in her singsong tongue. “Relax, librarian. All is well.”
I flinched at the brush of her magic, like hot water hitting a sunburn, but then it took the rawness and sting away from my soul. My blood cooled, and rational thought—something I’d never expected to fail me—returned.
“I’m all right,” I told her.
“Yes, I can feel that, but give it a moment until we see how things lean.”
Jepp and Kral were arguing furiously, her Dasnarian full of sexual insults. Behind them, King Nakoa stood, arms folded, still as a carved statue, only his dark eyes glitteringly alive as he watched not them, but me. Above, the dragon circled, enormous wings extended as it rode the air currents like a golden-scaled eagle above the heights at Ordnung.
“Let me up—I need to translate.” Zynda hesitated and I pulled away. “Seriously, Jepp is making things worse with her malapropisms.”
The Pages of the Mind Page 12
