by Renee Wildes
***
Anuk stared at the grey-haired man swaying afore her. Trystan was the strongest man she’d ever met. He’d climbed to his feet, staved off horrific pain to speak, and fought against her allure. His words troubled her. Added to her own growing suspicions about Spiridon, and what the book had told her, made her doubt. Made her wonder.
What had happened to her mother? Why weren’t they in the mountains of their birth? Why had Spiridon lied about the magic?
What else did he lie about?
“Come on,” she ordered. Action gave her less time to think. “Through the door and up the stairs.”
“T’ where?”
“To wherever I say.” She stepped closer, close enough to feel his trembling as a vibration of air against her skin. “You can follow me of your own accord, or I can have two strong housemen escort you.” Her voice lowered. “You know you want to. Come to my rooms, my bed. You yearn for that with every breath, with every beat of your heart.”
His eyes were glazed, yet incredibly he shook his head. “I am the master o’ me own body. Spirit o’er flesh. Badger-stubborn, Badger-strong.”
His voice was but a whisper, but she admired his strength. “Come.” She grasped his wrist, dug into a nerve point that brought him to his knees. She immediately let up. “Don’t be stupid. Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”
He followed her up the stairs. She felt his muscles flexing beneath her hand, but they made it to her rooms without incident. As soon as she turned the knob, he twisted free and attacked her. Rage awoke, swift and hot. “Get off!” she snarled. Something welled up from deep within, surging out as she shoved him off her—
Across her room into the opposite wall, where he crashed and landed in a heap. Unmoving. Unconscious.
She stared in shock at her hands. A crackle of something powerful zinged along beneath her skin. Similar to the sensation of shifting, but with a euphoric feeling. What had just happened? Was that magic?
The book laughed in her mind. “You thought it was all chants and spells?” it teased. “Magic is whatever you need it to be, guardian. As subtle or as public as you wish.”
Anuk hauled Trystan onto the mattress, tied him spread-eagled, a limb to a post. She needed to check on the children, make sure they were all right, without having to worry about Trystan staying where she put him. Although, seeing him spread-eagled in her bed almost made her stay… “Badger-wolf-badger-wolf,” she whispered. Her words shimmered over him. Did he try to shift, the images would spin too quickly to follow, confusing him and not allowing him to hold either image long enough to actually shift. That should hold him as a human, and therefore keep him restrained until she returned.
“The children. Check the children.” The nagging compulsion was new and unwelcome. But the book would not be denied. Almost as an echo of Trystan’s earlier words…
She went down the hall and unbolted the door. As she slipped into the room, a lamp crashed into her hip. Anuk stared in astonishment at the small girl wielding it like a club. The room pulsed with fear, and yet the little savage dared fight, standing betwixt Anuk and the tiny boy cowering in the corner.
“Back off, beastie!” The little girl drew back for another blow.
“Ow! Drek! Stop it.” Anuk grabbed the lamp and twisted it out of the child’s grasp. She received a kick in the knee in exchange. Admiration warred with amusement. “I’m not going to hurt you.” To seem less threatening, she sat on the floor. “What’s your name?”
“What’s yours?” the little girl challenged.
“Anuk.”
The little boy sniffled. “I want Mama!”
A twinge of sympathy stirred. They were so small, so helpless…
What was she thinking? They were sworn to Cilaniestra. Their mother was gone. ’Twas up to her to win them over to their new life. But it all felt…wrong.
What was the matter with her?
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
The little girl shook her head, but her brother bit his lip and nodded. His big seal-brown eyes were wide and
glittered with tears yet to streak down his chubby pink cheeks. An insane urge to cuddle him, comfort him, washed over her. He gave her a suspicious, somewhat awed look.
“You’re a dwagon?” he asked. “Like Twystan said?”
Anuk blinked. “Trystan told you about dragons?”
He nodded.
“And you can see me?” That meant he could see what was, in truth, and not just appearance. So no one could try to sneak up on him, pretending to be one thing whilst hiding another.
He nodded again.
“Why are we here?” his elder sister demanded, arms crossed.
“You’ve been chosen by the goddess Cilaniestra for a very special job, because of your gifts,” Anuk replied. “You’re to stay with us now.”
“Where’s Mama?” the little boy asked.
“Ssh. Your mama’s been returned to the sea. That’s where she belongs. She’s been made to understand this is the way things are supposed to be. I’m your new teacher and I’ll take care of you now.”
“I want Mama!” the boy wailed.
His sister went over to him to wrap her arms around him. “Where’s Trystan?”
“He’s here.”
“Can we see him?”
“In time.” After his compliance had been…assured…Trystan could be her greatest help in getting the children settled in their new life. “What’s your name, child?”
“Braeca. This is Ioain.”
Triumph stirred at that small concession. “Well Braeca and Ioain, let me order you up something to eat.” Anuk stepped outside and motioned to a maid. “Two bowls of chicken soup, bread and butter, and milk,” she ordered. “Have someone return to the cottage on the bluff and get the children’s things. Return the dog to Mari.”
“Aye, m’lady.”
Anuk returned to the children. “Supper will be here in a bit. I must leave you for now. I will come back later.”
She peeked into her room. Trystan still slept. She frowned. Had she done him an injury? Used too much power? She’d best go check on her father’s progress with the wolf, Niadh. Would Spiridon succeed in restoring the other guardian’s humanity?
She made her way down the back staircase, into the wine cellar, then through a secret panel to another staircase. So narrow her shoulders brushed the walls on both sides, it wound down and down into the very bedrock, until she scented the sea running through channels in the land. Far below, in the darkest dark, fire lurked. Molten rock and metals. Always she could sense it. But now, it felt different. Closer, almost as if she could reach out and touch it…
“You can,” the book whispered. “It is a part of you. You are a part of it.”
She tapped on the door to Spiridon’s workroom. Oddly enough, he did not answer. The wards were down. Curious, Anuk cracked open the door and peeked inside. Spiridon was gone. The wolf was gone. Instead, a wreck of a man lay curled up in a ball on the floor. In chains of bespelled bronze. Burned, almost beyond recognition. Battered. Bloody. He might have been dead, save for a faint moan, the merest rise and fall to indicate breath.
It had worked. Bile rose. She steeled herself against horror, pity. Her father had done this to another creature. A creature whose only sin had been being a guardian, trying to protect children. Rage rose, swift and hot. No one deserved this.
“You can help him,” the book whispered. “Life or death, it’s in your power, guardian. Heal him, or end his suffering. Don’t sit back and do nothing.”
Killing him would be easy—and mayhaps the greater kindness. She had no idea how to heal him, or if she should. What mercy was there in healing him, only to have Spiridon begin his questioning anew? Spiridon did not intend for either guardian to walk out of here as a free man. He’d expect her to turn them, as she had so many others.
She couldn’t do that. The book and Trystan had hinted at another way, another power, another purpose. She had to dis
cover the truth. Then she could choose.
The man groaned again, and she slipped into the room and shut the door. No sense locking it—it would do no good keeping Spiridon out of his own workroom. Shelves of canisters lined the walls, a fire crackled in a small hearth, torches encircled the room. It smelled of magic and sex and pain. But not death. Not yet.
Not ever. Not if she could help it. Cautiously she approached the man and knelt aside him. “Can you hear me?” she whispered.
Incredibly, he opened his eyes. A slashing silver color, full of pain and rage and defiance. Somehow he found his voice. “Come t’ finish the task?”
How could he speak? The strength of these men awed her. Guardians must be wondrous creatures. She needed to know more. She dropped her recently erected shield and reached out to him with her senses. Bottomless agony crashed over her, through her. It felt as if her flesh peeled back from her very bones. How could he still live, let alone consciously? What could she do? She knew no healing spells. “Pain to me,” she thought. It wrapped itself around her in tearing layers of pain atop pain. She floundered, struggled to focus, to send it elsewhere.
“The fire,” the book whispered. “The fire in the earth.”
Not knowing, just reacting, Anuk grasped that distant pool of molten earth, willed the cocoon of pain to go there. She gasped as it dissolved and flowed from the here and now, as if it had never been.
Niadh stared at her with shock and awe. She reached for his hairless, ruined face. She felt the fires in the room, felt them in her soul. She focused on her own life force, linked to every fire in the house. She stretched her senses to seek every fire in the town. Kale’s forge. The Mermaid. She was going to need every one to maintain her strength for what needed doing. And then she summoned the only word she could think of. “Restore,” she whispered. Life, warmth flowed from her, through her hands into him. Flesh cooled, wounds closed, skin reknit.
Done at last, Anuk collapsed. Even with the book’s and fires’ help, she shook with weakness. And shock at what she had dared to do. At what she’d been able to do.
“What have ye done, lass?” Niadh brushed the hair from her face. He looked distinctly odd without so much as a speck of hair on his body.
She had no idea how to regrow hair. It would just have to come back on its own.
Or not. The door crashed open, and Spiridon stood glowering at her, hands on hips. “Just what, might I ask, do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter Fourteen
Finora paced the confines of her rooms. How to get to her sire? How to convince Matteo to take her? He’d lied to her. He had orchestrated the whole thing with the wizard—probably traded her children for her skin. Matteo was just selfish enough to do it. And once bound to her, what was to stop him from annihilating her sire’s pod as well and taking over the whole colony?
She’d have to convince him he’d won her over. He was big and strong and powerful. A king now, for all the blood on his hands. The selkie cows she’d seen fawning over her sire and his chosen bulls indicated that was what was expected. Too bad she and her dam Fiona were made of stronger cloth. And her seven years on land had done naught to weaken her spine. But she could pretend.
“Bulls see what they wish to see,” Fiona had said. “The more self-absorbed they are, the less likely they are to see past the ends of their whiskers. And the easier they are to fool.”
Finora hoped her dam was right.
The door opened and Matteo stepped through. Leave it to the arrogant bastard to neither knock nor await permission to enter. Already he acted as if he owned her. Pasting a pleasant expression on her face, Finora approached him and inclined her head in a subtle sign of respect. He frowned and cocked his head at her. “Finora?”
“Is that not how my king is to be greeted?” she asked, raising her gaze to his.
Matteo looked confused…and cautious. He was no fool. She’d have to move very slowly to allay his suspicions. “It is,” he replied. “I was not expecting such from you, especially after our last…encounter.”
“Have you not replaced Freine as king? Am I not in your palace? Then as your guest, I should show respect.” Her eyes narrowed, and she took on a touch of royal hauteur. “My father is also a king. As a princess, may I also be entitled to respect? You took me by surprise. I did not expect to be mauled in public like a common whore.”
He had the grace to flush. “You’re right. You’re entitled to be mauled in private.”
His eyes said he made a jest. She did not find it amusing. “I prefer, my lord, to not be mauled at all,” she retorted. “Common bulls maul. Surely you’re capable of a gentler wooing?”
“A challenge, is it?” Matteo laughed. “You’re full of spirit, princess—and surprises.”
“Would you care for a drink?” Finora moved to the table. She bypassed the wine in favor of attilar, a strong liquor distilled from the stem-milk of the attilas seaweed.
He raised an eyebrow. “Careful That’s strong stuff, and you’ve been away a good long while.”
“Afraid I’ll get tipsy and take advantage of you?”
Open, unaffected laughter transformed his face. His brown eyes sparked. He really was a handsome rogue. If only his character had been different, Finora might truly have been tempted to stay with him. She mentally pinched herself. He was a kidnapper and a murderer. The sooner she convinced him to take her to her father, the sooner she could get away and return to her children.
Finora set the decanter and glasses on a tray and carried it to a low table by a settee. She sank down to relax against the cushions. “Are you happier towering over me, or would you care to join me?”
He sat beside her and poured them each a small portion, handing her the crystal goblet. She wondered what doomed vessel he’d snatched them from. “To renewing our vows,” Matteo toasted, and tossed it back in one swallow.
Stars! Finora knew better than to follow suit. She sipped at the sweet, creamy concoction, bracing herself for the follow-up bite. ’Twas as she remembered. Heat flushed her entire body, and the material of her gown irritated her skin. Too much of that and she’d be shedding her gown from sheer annoyance.
“I forgot how much I missed home,” she said. “The flow of the water, the colors of the fish, the song of the behemoths, the excitement of a shark chase. Even the taste of home.” She held up her glass to study it in the greenish light of the glow-worm lanterns. “It’s lonely on land. Too quiet.” She took another sip.
“Why did you go?” Matteo sounded genuinely curious. His eyes studied hers.
“I wanted to know what it was like, what they were like,” she answered. “I didn’t expect betrayal.”
He reached out to brush her hair back from her shoulder, and the slide of his fingers against the side of her neck made her skin tingle. She shivered. One corner of his mouth quirked.
She found herself staring at his mouth.
“You always were an adventurous soul. That was part of what drew me to the alliance. Instead of just another fawning cow, you have spirit. You’re unique. I’ve missed these wasted years. But now you’re home, you’re mine once more.”
Did he plan to embrace her spirit, or break it? Was she naught but a challenge, a possession? A means to an end? She blinked. What was wrong with her? He was a means to an end, not the other way around.
Matteo poured them each another. “You feel it, too, don’t you?” he murmured. “The attraction stirring?”
It had to be the attilar. She wouldn’t be attracted to him. No matter how big, strong and handsome he was, he was still a monster. She was selkie, true, but she had a mind and a will. She was stronger than her body, more than just instincts. Finora lowered her gaze as she took another sip.
“Look at me, Finora.” His voice had somehow deepened, mellowed, a caress all by itself.
She did, only to be ensnared by that dark, liquid gaze. Flickers of heat shimmered in them, and she found a part of herself reacting to him, drawn to the lure of
desire, of need. “Matteo?” She wanted to kick herself at that breathy, tremulous sound, and she curled her fingers into her palm to try to break the spell he wove around her.
It had to be some sort of spell.
“Aye?” He reached out with his free hand to curl his fingers around her throat, stroking her skin with the lightest of touches. Such leashed power, such restraint. He drew his thumb along her jaw, traced her lower lip.
A tingle followed in the wake of his touch. Warmth. Awareness. Her lips parted, but her mind went blank of anything to say. She trembled.
“What were you going to say?”
Stars, she couldn’t remember. All she could remember was begging her sire to agree to the Intending ceremony. Matteo, the neighboring prince. An equal. Handsome, powerful, charming. “I was thinking of our Intending ceremony,” she whispered.
“Me, too. I’ve thought a lot about it.” Matteo curled his fingers around the back of her neck. “Your sire will honor that bond.” He set his glass down, took hers from her nerveless fingers. “Everything I want is right here. You, princess.” He dipped his head and captured her lips.
If only he’d been rough, she might have found the strength to push him away. He’d all but said he’d make her stand with his afore her sire and demand Griogair honor their bond. But she had to make sure. The Claiming ceremony was the only way to make it irreversible. He brushed his lips against hers, taking her mouth with gentle possession. She whimpered as her body awoke, and her mind went fuzzy in an onslaught of need. She ran her fingers through his hair, holding him close and slanting her mouth under his to deepen the kiss.
Anything to get to Griogair. Anything to get back to her children.
Trystan, forgive me.
Matteo stroked her tongue with his. He tasted of attilar, of hot, male passion. She shook in his arms, with fear and shame at her body’s awakening need. Matteo would have her. Better this than forceful taking. She’d set out to seduce him. She’d never considered he’d seduce her.
But he was a master of persuasion. He brushed the outer curve of her breast, a teasing promise of things to come. Finora stiffened in his arms, but the silken slide of his tongue against hers made her skin tingle, her breasts swell. She shifted restlessly as her gown chafed her stiffening nipples. Every rasp of cloth was a torment. Too much sensation.
