by Ann Fisher
“He’s…He’s in the wardrobe,” she said, her voice hoarse. “The truth. It…has a false bottom. I told you the truth.”
He placed his free hand over her face and muttered a series of strange words under his breath. The pain increased a hundredfold. The heartstone felt like it would burn a hole in her chest. She sobbed a moan.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement. It was cat, disturbed from his slumber on her bed. Culan hopped onto the table behind the mage and then pounced on the man’s head. The hand in her hair released her abruptly, and she crumpled to the floor. Her head ached terribly. It pulsed with pain making her feel as though she might vomit. Fighting against the sensation, she pushed herself to her hands and knees.
Above her, the mage stumbled back, trying to dislodge Culan whose extended fur made him appear twice his normal size. Claws dug into the sensitive flesh around the mage’s eyes, making it look as if he were weeping blood. Dizzy, Lorel fumbled for her knife. It hadn’t worked the first time, but maybe if he was distracted…
Swiping the blood from her eyes, Lorel yelped as her hand found the blade. She repositioned her grip on the hilt and lunged forward, not particularly careful of her aim. She didn’t want to miss her chance.
The knife tore through the mage’s robe, but this time, instead of meeting the resistance of a barrier spell, it sank in deep to tender flesh.
The mage screamed. He jerked back, tearing Culan from his face, leaving long gouges in his cheeks. He threw the cat into the wall. Culan’s screech of outrage cut off with a sickening thump.
A soldier pummeled at the door. Lorel stabbed the mage a second time before he recovered enough to cast another spell. The tip of the blade met flesh and then it was as if a great hand swatted her away. She flew across the room. Her body hit the wall as Cu;an’s had, with crushing force that knocked the breath from her lungs and rattled her bones. Stunned, she slid down into a barely conscious heap.
She heard the mage curse and knew that he was still alive, but she could not see him. The edges of her vision had gone black, and the room wouldn’t come into focus. She tried to move, forcing herself onto her hands and knees, but before she managed to climb to her feet, another spell hit, pain exploded behind her eyelids, and everything went black.
10
Lorel startled awake. Her arm flailed out and her wrist cracked against the side of the table. Bright pain exploded from the contact.
“Lorel, be still. You’re safe. It’s all right. I have you.”
A warm hand closed around her forearm and drew her hand gently back to her chest. She opened her eyes to find Janek staring down at her. His face was only a few inches away from hers. There was a shallow cut on his temple and a fearsome look in his eyes.
“Janek…” Panic welled up as she remembered the mage. She looked frantically around the cabin. They were on the floor. Janek’s back was to the wall. His long sturdy legs were stretched out before him, and she lay half-sprawled across his body as if he’d dragged her into his arms and collapsed. Across the room, the mage was slumped against the wall, sitting in a puddle of sticky blood. His eyes were fixed, staring at the hole in the wall where the door had been.
“He’s dead,” Janek said. “You have nothing to fear. We won.”
“What happened?” She remembered fighting with the mage. That concussive blast of power… “You got free of the spell.”
Janek nodded. “It was a close thing. The soldiers wanted to execute me immediately, but their captain had orders to wait for the mage’s return. Dani’s distraction was timely.”
He wasn’t completely recovered.
“You’re hurt. I can feel you shaking. Is it bad?”
“A scratch or two.” His voice was gruff. “You’re the one hurt.”
“You can heal me later.” She needed to help Dani, her crew. “We have to—”
She struggled to sit up, but a sharp lancing pain in her chest made her stop to catch her breath.
Janek pulled her back down. “You don’t have to do anything. You killed the mage. Let the others clean up the rest.”
She stared at him. “I killed the mage?”
“You don’t remember it? He was dead by the time I got through the door. You nicked an artery in his groin. He bled out quick. Caden’s fine. He’s already gone to find Mira. I killed the apprentice, and Dani and Jamie are on deck subduing the last of the Order’s soldiers. Kenna is with them. It won’t be much longer now and it will all be over. You need to stay still so I can put you back together again.”
“It’s my crew up there.”
He made a disgusted sound. “You have two cracked ribs, a concussion, and a wrenched knee. And that’s only what I’ve found so far.”
She only vaguely remembered receiving those injuries. “I blacked out at the end.”
“That was me. I cast a spell from beyond the door so that the mage wouldn’t have a chance to block it. It was meant to render anyone inside unconscious. I didn’t know whether you were still alive.”
She lifted her hand to her temple. “My head feels like I dunked it in a barrel of whiskey and drank my way to the bottom.”
“I can mend that.”
Janek laid her on the ground so he could examine her injuries. He healed her ribs first and then her twisted knee. One moment the pain was gnawing at her with sharp, hungry teeth and then it was gone, faded to nothingness by Janek’s touch.
She gradually relaxed as he tended her. Reaching up. She wrapped her hand around her heartstone. “It’s not burning anymore.”
He looked up. “You were burned?”
She touched her skin where the stone had touched. It was whole and unmarked. “The stone felt hot. It seemed to weaken the mage’s spells, but you’re working magic on me now, and it’s as cold as ever.”
He stared at the stone for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t understand how they work. You’ll have to ask Kenna. Perhaps they only repel malicious magic, but that…”
“That what?”
“It suggests intelligence, and I’m not certain that I’m ready to believe that. Let me see your arm.”
He tore strips of fabric from the hem of his shirt to bind up the bloody wound that ran from her wrist to elbow.
“I don’t remember getting that one,” she said.
“I’m going to let Kenna deal with it. Open wounds stymie me. I don’t want to risk an infection like last time.”
He brushed the sticky hair from her cheek, and his fingers drifted down the side of her face from her temple to her chin. The throbbing pain in her head eased. The light sweep of his fingertips across her temple was so exquisitely gentle a shiver passed through her that had nothing to do with pain.
Janek noticed. Of course, he did.
His touch changed subtly. The edge of his thumb smoothed over her lower lip to draw open her mouth even as he lowered his head. A delicious shiver coiled down her spine at the touch of his lips. He pressed a sweet, too-brief kiss to her lips and then withdrew.
“Done.”
Slowly, he climbed to his feet and offered her his hand. “Come on. I want Kenna to look at your arm before I send you to rest.”
She allowed him to draw her up. “I should see if Dani needs help first.”
“Dani strikes me as eminently competent. The arm.”
She took a single step toward the door and her right leg buckled. Janek slipped an arm around her waist.
“You’re not recovered yet. Your body needs rest to complete what I started. I only gave it a nudge in the right direction.”
“You’ll have someone take care of the mage’s body?”
“I’ll see to it myself. Best that we burn the corpses. They might be able to track them otherwise. No point in leaving a trail.” He led her toward the door, skirting an overturned chair. When they passed the mage’s corpse, she averted her eyes.
Janek looked at her curiously. “How did you get the mage to drop his personal shield? Was it th
e heartstone or is your knife spelled?”
“I didn’t get the mage to drop his shield.” She gestured at Culan who was sitting contentedly on the bed licking the blood from his claws. “The cat jumped on his head. The mage was so startled by the attack it gave me an opening. Kenna will be impossible after this. She’ll want to give the cat my cabin.”
Janek’s face split in a rare, open smile. “He might just deserve it.”
11
It took the remainder of the day for the crew to clean and repair the ship. The repairs were minor. The ship’s carpenter assured Lorel that Cinn would hardly be able to notice. Fat chance of that. Cinn knew her ship better than Lorel knew her own body. Dani had taken command of the Raven while Lorel was incapacitated, and if it was irksome to see how much faster the crew responded to Dani’s orders than they had to Lorel’s, well…it was difficult to be truly angry over it.
After reassuring herself that everything was being taken care of above deck, Lorel retreated to Kenna’s cabin. Kenna heated enough water for her to wash before forcing her to drink a healing draught whose main ingredient seemed to be Dragonbreath liquor. Lorel wasn’t sure how long she slept, but she woke feeling refreshed when Janek entered the room.
She tried to rise to her feet, but he caught her beneath the knees and lifted her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a child.
“Your cabin’s ready.”
“Dani’s cabin,” she corrected, a little sullenly.
He walked the few steps down the narrow hall and shouldered open the door to the captain’s quarters. “Yours for the rest of this voyage anyway. I do think that your career as captain of the Raven has come to an end. Does it distress you?”
“No, not really.”
She looked around at the freshly scrubbed cabin. The floor was clean. Some of the bedding had been removed and the door rehung. You’d never know that a man had died here just hours ago.
Janek’s arm flexed, pulling her close. His lips brushed her temple where the wound had been. He was always kissing away her scrapes and bruises. He cared. She truly thought he cared about her, whatever the differences were between them.
She reached up to touch his jaw. He hadn’t shaved for several days. His whiskers were already grown thick. Coal black, they prickled her fingertips. “I want you to come back to Erys with me to meet Conri.”
“The empire won’t stop searching for us. They’ll track us, even to Erys.”
“They won’t stop searching for Caden, you mean. He could disappear now that we have Mira, couldn’t he? The Order will have no way to track him.”
“They’ll find a way.”
“You’re only in danger because you put yourself between the Order and the boy. You could stay on Erys with us. The empire is burning.”
“And I should just let it burn?”
“What good has the empire done you? You gave your whole life to its service and it cast you aside. Your own people want you dead.”
He searched her face for a moment before placing her on the bed. “I’ll come with you to Erys.”
“Will you stay?”
He ignored the question and began to remove his clothes. She thought about pushing him for an answer, but decided against it as his shirt fell to the floor. Her gaze ran over his wide chest, his scarred body heavy with muscle, the ridged muscles of his abdomen, the narrow line of dark hair that disappeared into his breeches.
His hands fell to the laces of his breeches and she sat up to help him. “I haven’t been with anyone since…”
“Since you birthed our son.”
There was a world of warmth in those quiet words. She looked up. “I haven’t been with anyone since you left.”
He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “Nor have I.”
“You don’t need to say that.”
He cupped her chin and lifted her face. “I don’t speak kind lies. I’ve never been able to lie to you, Lorel. I was running for my life.” His hand fell away, but the look in his eyes held her. “And I didn’t have the heart for it.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “They tell me it will hurt the first time after childbirth.”
“We’ll go slowly then.” He hesitated, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his pants. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
“No.”
He pushed his breeches down over his slim hips and well-muscled thighs. His cock was already erect and exactly as she remembered it—thick and hard, flushed. He kicked free of the last of his clothing, never removing his gaze from her. He planted his knee on the bed, and stretched his long body out beside her on the bed.
She wrapped her hand around his cock, and his breath shuddered out. “Two years, Lorel. I won’t last if you torment me.”
“This isn’t an exercise in endurance.”
“No? Perhaps not for a woman.” Placing a hand on her shoulder, his thumb slipped inside the loosened neckline of her shirt. When he skated his hand down her arm, he drew the fabric as far as it would go. Not quite far enough to bare her breast. “We need to lose this shirt.”
She pressed the shirt to her stomach. “Let me keep it for now.”
Propping himself onto his elbow, Janek stared down at her. She was grateful when he didn’t argue, just lowered his head to gently claim her lips. He palmed her breast and toyed with her nipple through the fabric, pulling it to a peak. A hum at the back of his throat told her how he much he liked her response.
“Your breasts have changed.”
“Everything’s changed.”
“Not everything,” he murmured against her lips and then trailed a string of kisses down her throat. He kneaded her breast, gently testing the size and weight. “Let me loosen the ties at least?”
She nodded and he pulled at the laces of her shirt, not merely loosening them but undoing them completely. It would leave her bare nearly to her navel, but just then she didn’t mind because he moved the cloth aside with impatient hands and then his mouth was on her. Pressing a kiss to the sensitive underside of her breast and then covering her nipple with the heat of his mouth. He groaned heavily. She’d forgotten that about him. The noises he made. The things they did to her.
She gasped as he sucked her nipple into his mouth. Her arm curled around his head to hold him in closer.
“Gods, you are glorious,” he said, pulling back and moving to her other breast. “I missed you. This…us.”
He didn’t seem to mind the differences in her body. She was still adjusting to the way her body had changed. Oh, she knew women had nursed babies for time immemorial but somehow it was different when she found her own body capable of such a miracle. She’d had another person inside of her. There’d been no one to share her wonder when Conri had first begun to move, her terror at the birth. The way that even months afterwards, her body didn’t seem quite her own.
Janek accepted the changes far easier than she had. She could tell he smiled by the way his cheek moved against her breast. “How did you hope to hide this from me?”
“You were tied down,” she whispered. “I didn’t intend for you to touch me. I thought I could have you first and talk later.”
“Mmm. That was an awful plan, lovely.”
“You should hold off on calling me that.”
“You are lovely. You always will be to me. Take off your shirt.” When she hesitated, he tugged the fabric from her clenched hands. Gently, he pushed the shirt to her neck and then over her head.
She resisted the urge to cover herself. “I’m…” She couldn’t find the words and for once he didn’t try to help her.
Instead, he stared down at the changed landscape of her body. Nothing was the way it had been, the way she still thought of herself inside her head. Sometimes she would look down and feel a strange sense of vertigo as if she was looking at another person entirely.
She held her breath when he lifted his face and finally met her gaze. “I see you. Your breasts are fuller. Your belly soft. Your hip
s…” He gripped her, perhaps to make a point. His fingers dug into the flesh there and he groaned. “You’re different and the same. But still lovely, Lorel. You had my child. Every proof of that is precious to me.”
He dragged her down the bed to align their bodies. Her wrists remained beside her head, and he lowered himself atop her. The feel of his body—heavy-limbed and powerful—was achingly familiar. The control he exercised to hold himself back was familiar too.
He’d haunted her dreams for years. To have him here… She’d been wound so tightly since he left. Scared and determined to take care of herself and Conri. She’d always felt safe with Janek. Finally, for the first time in a very long time, she let herself relax.
Janek waited for her eyes to open. The setting sun streamed through the open porthole and lay gently on Janek’s harsh face, making him look years younger. She touched his lips with her fingertips and then drew him down to kiss him. He met her halfway, curving an arm beneath her back and raising her up. He kissed her deeply as he positioned himself between her thighs.
“This is how I feel about your body.” He flexed his hips, pressing his erection against her. “Tell me that’s changed.”
“Slow. Please go slowly.”
He took his weight on one arm. “I won’t hurt you. Tell me if you need me to stop.”
Fitting his cock against her, he coated himself in the moisture from her body. He moved in a slow massage that gradually eased her fears. Each time he paused to enter her, she braced herself. She began to think he braced himself too.
The look of concentration on his face made her smile. “I thought you’d be more practiced at deflowering virgins.”
“Oh? Whyever would you think that? I’ve never been with a virgin in my life.”
She smoothed her hand down his flank from underarm to hip, letting her fingers bump across his ribs. “Really?”
“Really. Even if mothers didn’t hide their virgins from me, I wouldn’t be interested. Fear has never excited me.”
She opened her mouth to speak but gasped instead as he pushed inside of her.
