by Nalini Singh
But none of that mattered. What mattered were those eyes of dirty ice.
Retracting the spikes formed of the earth’s elements once he was certain the spiders wouldn’t regain their courage and return, he held up his exhausted body through sheer strength of will as he turned to face the woman who scrambled up to her feet, unhidden concern in her expression. However, he halted her with a palm held flat out when she would’ve touched him. Those eyes…those eyes looked at him with a dawning comprehension that turned them dull and distant. “You know.”
“You lied to me, Liliana.” He’d seen storm skies in those changeable eyes, and yet all this time, they had been filled with lies.
She flinched, stayed silent.
“You didn’t tell me your father is the sorcerer who stole my parents’ lives.” He couldn’t bring himself to ask about Nicolai, Dayn and Breena.
Swallowing, she fisted her hands. “I needed you to trust me, to remember.”
“Why?” Something niggled at him, a half-remembered dream.
“The twentieth anniversary of Elden’s fall is almost upon us,” Liliana said, hugging herself. “You must be at the castle before midnight on that day.”
Micah gripped her upper arms. “Why? Tell me.”
“At midnight, Elden will die…and so will your siblings.” Instead of attempting to break his rough hold, she touched hesitant fingers to his chest. “After today, there are only two more days left and the road to Elden is long and filled with many dangers. I may be able to take you halfway using the spell that brought me here, but it’ll drain me—and I must fight beside you, for my father is an evil man bloated with power.”
Letting her go, he stepped away from her touch. Hurt filled her eyes and it made him want to rage, but he was so angry at her, the wildness of it leaving him near wordless.
“I know,” she whispered in a broken kind of a voice. “I know what I stole from you. I don’t expect you to feel the same toward me now that you know whose blood runs in my veins, but please, Micah, you must believe me. You must or your family will be forever lost.”
“It’s not your blood,” he said, rising into the air, rejuvenated by the powerful magic of the Abyss. “It’s the fact that you lied to me.”
Liliana watched Micah disappear into the clouds on those strange leathery wings that had formed from the ether, aware he was chasing the last of the Arachdem to ensure they wouldn’t return. But he was also getting away from her—a woman who had lied to him. However, regardless of what he’d said, she knew that couldn’t be the sole reason for his fury.
How could he bear to touch her when her visage was an ugly feminine echo of her father’s? When her eyes were those of the Blood Sorcerer? When her hooked beak of a nose was a replica of the man who had murdered his parents? There was nothing of her mother in her beyond the color of her skin, as if he’d stolen that, too, when he locked Irina in a spell of haunting blindness to the child she’d borne.
The sky above her began to fill once again with blue, the purity of it mocking her pathetic attempt at escaping the truth of her murderous lineage.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
But Micah wasn’t there to hear her, and when the sun blazed dark orange as it sank toward the mountains, the kitchari having cleaned up the Arachdem corpses and returned to the earth, he wasn’t there to hold her…never would be again. Forcing herself not to think of that lest she become paralyzed by the pain, she spent the last half hour before sunset working with Jissa to pack enough supplies for the journey to Elden, though she didn’t yet know how they would cross the border between realms, or navigate her father’s vicious traps to reach the castle. “We’ll find a way,” she said. “We will.”
“What?” Jissa asked. The brownie was more than a little confused over Liliana’s sudden desire to pack supplies, but she was doing everything she could to assist.
“Time,” Liliana answered. “We just need enough time, for though he’ll lose the power of the Abyss after he leaves this realm, he is an earth mage, and will have not only his personal magic but the strength of Elden at his command once we reach the kingdom.” Except his land was crushed and broken, its spirit in tatters.
“Liliana.” Jissa’s small, warm fingers on her arm. “Why are you crying?”
“Oh,” she said, trying to rub off the tears and failing because they kept falling. “I must look a fright. Worse than usual.” Grabbing the handkerchief the brownie held out, she slid down into a sitting position in among the bags of apples and flour, the chittering mass of the Bitterness whispering around her, their tone as close to a croon as the creatures could manage. Her oldest friend in the castle snaked in between them to nudge at her with his nose, his small magic sparking in distress.
Their tenderness only made her cry harder for she deserved none of it.
“Liliana.” Jissa’s concerned voice. “Come, come.”
Somehow, she ended up with her head in Jissa’s lap, crying her heart out. The brownie stroked a careful hand over and over her hair, murmuring things Liliana didn’t really hear, but that gave her some small measure of comfort. The gaping hole that Micah had made in her when he walked away would never heal, but this brittle healing, it would allow her to get through the days to come. There wouldn’t be many—the death spell would ensure it, cleansing the taint of the Blood Sorcerer once and for all.
She was sitting in the bath off her room just after sunset, trying to wash off the stink of her own perfidy when Micah walked in. Heart a giant twisting pain, she looked up to find him covered neck to toe in armor. “Are you ready to leave?” she asked, barely keeping herself from begging for something to which she had no right.
“No.” A single hard word. “I must remain here tonight to ensure the Arachdem don’t return.”
“Yes, of course.” Her father’s creatures had just enough cunning for that, but they wouldn’t be capable of waiting beyond that time. “You’ll be going out into the night again?”
“There’s no need. The land knows to be aware—it’ll warn me if it senses their approach,” he said in that same harsh tone so unlike the Micah she knew.
And loved. So much.
“Now,” he ordered, “you will tell me everything.”
So she did, laying out her vision, what she thought would happen, what she knew. “The watch in your room—I think the queen anchored the spell to it, so you’d know when time was about to run out.”
Arms folded, he stared down at her. “You didn’t tell me this at the start.”
“I tried. You weren’t ready to listen, to remember.”
A scowl. “You didn’t try very hard.”
She’d thought she had, but perhaps she hadn’t. Maybe she’d actually been doing everything she could to extend this fragile fantasy of a life with the man who had become her very heart. “I’m sorry.” Putting the soap on the rim, she wished for him to pick it up, hold it away from her, anything the old Micah would’ve done, the one who hadn’t looked at her with that dark judgment in his gaze.
He didn’t move.
Biting the inside of her lip, she pushed back wet strands of the hair she’d pinned up and said, “Elden Castle is very well fortified.” If she focused on the practical side of their task, then maybe it wouldn’t feel as if knives were shredding her to pieces from the inside out. “It stands in the middle of a lake.”
“I know.”
“The lake,” she added, “is now full of fish that like to feed on human flesh.”
The Blood Sorcerer enjoyed throwing “scraps” out the window and watching the fish jump and snap—at the hacked-up pieces of magical creatures, human beings. He’d once put Liliana in a thin, woven basket and lowered her so close to the water that she’d felt the snapping teeth of the fish a bare inch from her on every side. She’d been eight years old at the time.
Fighting back the memory of horror with resolve gained from experience, she continued. “There’s a connecting causeway to the shore, but it’s guarded
night and day by large poisonous creatures who were once blue sand scorpions and are now nothing that should exist.” A single sting equaled instantaneous death. “There are four of them. Two stand at the gate, while two prowl up and down the causeway.”
“Why are you scared of the lake?”
Jerking up her head, she stared at Micah. “What?”
“You’re scared of the lake.” His eyes pinned her to the spot. “Tell me why.”
“My father is an evil man,” she said, because what else was there to say. “I was a great disappointment as a daughter.”
When Micah said nothing, simply watched her with eyes of cool winter-green, she began to feel as if she was drowning, though the water only came up to her shoulders. “I’d like to get out now,” she said. “I need to prepare dinner.”
For a second, she thought he’d refuse to leave and part of her wanted him to do exactly that—because it was something the old Micah would’ve done, the one who was sly and arrogant and liked to tease her in wicked, wicked ways. But this Micah—the one who had every right to hate her—pushed off the wall and stalked out, slamming the door behind himself. Trying for the ice-cold will that had allowed her to survive her father, she found only the hot burn of tears.
Stupid, stupid Liliana.
Her harsh imprecations didn’t assuage the rawness in her throat, but a splash of cold water on her face after she left the bath had her eyes clearing at least. Rubbing herself dry, she once more put on the ugly brown dress in which she’d arrived, though it was dusty from the fight with the Arachdem. It seemed only fitting. She was no longer the woman for whom Micah had brought dresses of chocolate and red, green and silver.
Combing her hair straight, she stared at her face in the mirror.
It’s a good thing you’re my daughter or you’d be spit at like a mongrel dog on the street. As it is, men beg to come to your bed, even knowing they’ll have to do the deed with their eyes closed.
Her stomach revolted at the memory and the only way she kept down what little she’d eaten was because she refused to give her father the satisfaction. Back then, she’d been young, a cowering animal on the floor that he’d kicked at with steel-toed boots to emphasize his words. Now she was a woman who was going to drag him into the Abyss for the basilisks to feed on.
With that in mind, she opened the bathroom door and walked out to face Micah.
He wasn’t there.
Her hand trembled on the edge of the door but she shook her head, said, “No more tears.” There was no longer any room for self-pity. No room to mourn the loss of something that hadn’t been hers to begin with; she’d been a thief, stolen so many moments, moments she’d never, ever thought to have. That stolen hoard would have to be enough.
Except now that she’d touched Micah, been touched by him, been looked at as if she was beautiful even though she knew she wasn’t, it hurt much, much more than before, when she hadn’t expected anything at all.
Micah prowled the great hall until his patience ran out. “Where is my meal?!” he roared so loudly the walls shook.
Bard turned baleful eyes on him. “Jissa will be scared.”
“Find her!” If she had tried to run away, he’d throw her in the dungeon and chain her up with cuffs of iron forged in the burning cold of the Abyss.
The door opened on the heels of his command, the object of his anger walking in with a tray. “I’m sorry this is late, my lord.” Her words were polite, reserved.
He scowled and went to grab a seat. The food she placed in front of him was some kind of a thick stew with rice, followed by fruit. She set it out and went to leave until he grabbed her wrist. “You will stay here.” But he nodded at Bard to leave.
Liliana stood motionless beside him as he ate.
“Why are you scared of the lake?” he asked her once more.
She grew stiff. “I—”
He waited to see if she’d lie to him again.
“Just because,” she said at last, “I was his daughter didn’t mean I was safe from him.”
Pulling her down with his grip on her wrist, he fed her a piece of fruit. “Sit. Eat. I need you healthy if we’re to defeat your father.”
Her lower lip trembled. He saw it. But she bit it and, tugging away her wrist, sat down at the table, began to force food into her mouth. He watched to make sure she ate what she should. “What did he do to you?”
She pushed away her plate, pressed her hands to her abdomen. “I was his to use, his to hurt in any way he saw fit. After all, he made me.”
Micah slammed a fisted hand on the table, causing the plates to jump. “Stop sounding like that!”
Those eyes of no particular color that reflected everything were dull when she said, “I’ve offended you. I’m sorry.”
He should have been happy that she felt so bad about lying to him. He should have made her apologize over and over. Except he didn’t like the way she looked, the way her shoulders were hunched up, as if she expected him to hurt her. The realization enraged him. “You think I’ll beat you!”
Liliana caught a plate before it would’ve skittered over the edge of the still-cracked table and crashed to the floor. “No, my lord. You need me to defeat my father.” Her shoulders straightened to reveal the line of her throat. “I’ll give you everything I have.”
He wanted to bite that throat.
Hard.
And suddenly, he had the answer. “You will make me be not angry.”
Her gaze slammed into his. “What?”
“You will convince me not to be angry.”
“How?” She shook her head, as if her thoughts wouldn’t settle. “I can ask for forgiveness but—”
“No. Words aren’t enough. You lied to me with words.”
“Then?”
“Come.” Taking her hand, he ordered her to leave the dishes and dragged her up the stairs and to his bedroom. “Here,” he said, turning to trap her against the closed door. “This is where you will convince me to be not angry.”
Chapter 21
Liliana’s mind simply stopped working for several long seconds. Because before Micah had shut the door and pinned her to it, his arms braced palms-flat on either side of her head, her eyes had fallen on the massive four-poster bed with black sheets that she’d occupied the night before the Arachdem invasion. A bed in which she’d fallen asleep waiting for the Guardian of the Abyss.
“Liliana.”
She scraped up her pride, set her jaw. “What if I say I don’t want to?” Being with him again was a temptation almost beyond bearing, but she wouldn’t degrade herself, not even to appease this man who she’d foolishly thought had cared for her at least a little.
“I would touch you between the legs and prove you a liar.”
He must truly hate her, to want to humiliate her this much. “Am I your prisoner?” she asked, shame a cold, cold rock on her heart; each and every memory of intimacy stained with an ugliness that made her want to tear out her soul because those memories were her greatest treasure.
Eyebrows lowering, he pushed off the door. “Go. Go, then.” Turning away, he folded his arms.
He’d let her go.
Even after the lies she’d told him, and though he was so furious his eyes glittered hard as gemstones, he’d let her go—when he would have been perfectly justified in hurting her. No, she thought, no. That was the dark reasoning of a woman who had been raised in the house of someone who had treated her like a piece of property, his to break and bloody and beat.
For Micah, a man with honor that ran so deep and true it had survived the Abyss itself, hurting a woman would be anathema. Yet he’d brought her to his bedroom, demanded she defuse his anger. The proximity of the bed led to only one conclusion, but she knew it was the wrong one.
Hurting, confused, scared the hope inside her was a mirage, she took a page out of his own book and just asked. “Why did you bring me here?”
Silence.
Angry and frustrated, but wanting him m
ore than she’d wanted anyone or anything—even her freedom—she stomped around to face him. When he refused to lower his head to meet her gaze, she slammed her fists on his armored chest. “I need to know, you big sulking beast!” It just slipped out.
And it made him glance down, his gaze blade-green, his words snarling with anger. “You wanted to leave. There’s the door.”
Glaring at him, she barely resisted the urge to kick at his booted foot. “I thought…” …you wanted to humiliate me. She bit off the words before they could escape, because to say those words would be to hurt him in a way this man should never, ever be hurt.
No. Words aren’t enough. You lied to me with words.
“Liliana, you are not leaving.”
This is where you will convince me to be not angry.
“Why are you not leaving?” It was a growl.
“We enjoyed each other in the great hall,” she whispered, speaking past her embarrassment because she had to fix this. “On the chair.”
His eyes gleamed and she knew, she knew, he was imagining her naked flesh on his own as she moved over the hot, hard ridge of his arousal. “I don’t think you enjoyed it so very much.”
“I did.” Swallowing to wet a dry throat, she stood on tiptoe, realization a shimmering rain through her senses. “Please bend down a little.”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to convince you to be not angry.” There had been nothing brutal or cruel in his demand, in his dragging her to his room. Micah hadn’t grown up in the world, didn’t think in the ways of a sophisticated courtier or a world-weary seducer, had never had cause to learn to hide lies behind charm or to become jaded in his sexuality. For him, there was only pleasure in this act, only delight…and so he’d used it to give her a way to ask for forgiveness that would cause her no pain.
Sweet mercy but she loved him. “Micah, please.”
He dipped his head an inch. Just barely enough to allow her to brace her hands on his shoulders and press her lips to the line of his throat. “Are you still angry?” A whisper.
“Very.” He bent a fraction more.
