Ariana smiles and nods, though her heart is thudding. Can she do this?
Yes, her body is stirring with this abundance of desire that has been a part of her since she was a child and has remained untouched since Hadeon left.
And yes, she aches to be satiated sexually, perhaps even more intensely now that she has become a fertile flower. But this desire and need to be touched feels no different than how it felt when she got together with Matt every other weekend or any other guy she crossed paths with for a fleeting orgasm. She didn’t want more from those men, and she doesn’t want more from Sonnig.
Not like she does with Hadeon, where she wants more and he gives it to her in abundance and expects and demands the same from her. And she is more than willing to give him all of herself in return, everything, over and over and over. Not just meaningless sex on a restaurant bar or a quickie against a wall of an alley behind a club.
She looks at Sonnig’s lustful gaze—not even with a man as attractive and attentive as he is because some force of nature says they should be married.
“Just say the word and I’ll wrap this dinner up and you and I can spend the first night together in our room.” He pulses stronger as he speaks in a low, sensual voice. He’s saying all the right things and her body is reacting in all the right ways, but there is still no more.
Sonnig brushes her ear with his warm lips. Her nipples tighten, but it’s purely a physical reaction, like reading a sexy passage in a book. She doesn’t love Sonnig like everyone said she would. Her heart still aches in that place she has reserved for Hadeon. He is who she loves—will always love. This marriage has done nothing to change that. At least not yet.
Sonnig frowns as he notes her forlorn expression. “Give it time, sweetheart. I promise our love will grow. But in the meantime…” He gropes at her thigh and slides his hand higher until he brushes between her legs. She pulses and reactively rolls against his fingers. “Let me make love to you. And by the end of the night, you’ll certainly know my name by the time I’m done.”
Ariana almost gasps. She’s been at the receiving end of that type of talk before, but this feels…wrong. Her stomach clenches; dissonance tugs one way and pushes the other.
This is her husband. Her destiny. She shakes her head as she thinks of Hadeon’s words. We’re all victims until we start to believe we are in control of our own destinies and then we become creators.
Yeah, how well did that fate turn out for you, Hadeon? You’re no longer here for me.
Ariana looks into her future’s eyes and smiles as best she can. No use resisting this any longer. “I’m ready to leave.”
A grin curls Sonnig’s lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”
* * * *
The king and queen’s bedroom is an expansive space, four times the size of the bedroom Ariana has been staying in. It has been decorated without gender preference—pale hues of beige, cream, and white.
Ariana spies the bed centered along the back wall, imposing in size and draped in padded silk blankets. Rugs hang from the wall and are draped across the cobbled white floor. Candles are set in square niches in the walls, illuminating the room in flickering light. No passion exists in the design—none.
Sonnig closes the door to their bedroom with a click that, despite being soft, makes Ariana jump. It signifies the realness of this moment. She is now married to a man who isn’t Hadeon. She glances surreptitiously at Sonnig, this man she hardly knows and certainly doesn’t love.
Because there was no official exchange of rings, nor did she have to walk down an aisle, or even kiss her groom like she would during a wedding on Earth, it doesn’t quite feel real; she doesn’t feel married.
She strides to the bed, sinks onto the mattress, her arms above her head, and sighs. At a table off to the side of the room, Sonnig pours them both a glass of spring wine. He sits on the end of the bed and hands her a glass. Sitting up, she smiles and takes it from him.
Ariana holds her glass in the air and chimes it against his. “To us.”
Sonnig smiles, but confusion wrinkles his brow.
“It’s a toast,” she explains.
“A toast?”
“You gently clink your glasses together in celebration of something.”
“Oh,” he says.
“And then you take a drink to make the toast official.” Eagerly, perhaps too eagerly, she gulps at the wine in demonstration, willing it to loosen her tense muscles and expand her inhibitions.
He takes a mouthful and then holds his glass in the air. She imitates him and their glasses melodiously strike. “To marrying the most beautiful woman in Fiore.”
Ariana grins and takes another too-deep swallow of the thick, honey-sweet wine. The soothing effects seep into her mind immediately.
“Can I ask you a truthful question, Sonnig?”
Sonnig turns on the bed, lifting his leg underneath him. “Of course.”
She clears her throat, shifts her focus to the bed, then looks back up at his face. “Um, how do you feel? I mean, what emotions do you hold for me? Now that we are married.”
He reaches for her and strokes his thumb across her cheek. “I feel love for you.”
Ariana nods and empties her glass with two quick gulps. “When? When did you start to feel that way? I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to understand this arrangement more.”
“It’s okay. I expect honesty between us.” He smiles whimsically. “I think these emotions began the night we danced together a few months ago. They’ve been growing stronger ever since.”
She opens her lips to respond, but yawns instead. She smiles bashfully. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine, Harmony. We’ve had a big day.”
His words are slow to reach her mind and make sense. She shakes her head and rubs at her eyes. Another yawn. Her mind is swimming through thick fog.
“I. Don’t. Feel. So good.” Her words are slow and lispy. Ariana’s muscles are weakening to mush; her back droops and shoulders roll inward. The wineglass falls from between her fingers onto the ground and smashes into a thousand splintery shards.
She can’t hold herself upright any longer and falls back onto the soft mattress. Ariana peers up at Sonnig through weighted lids.
Her eyes droop closed, but she squints them open when his lips press against hers, warm and wet. She attempts to push him away, but she can’t lift her arms.
“Nooo,” she whispers, tongue thick, and her head lolls to the side.
Sonnig pulls away and smirks as he looms above her. “So how would you prefer to die, Harmony—fast or slow?”
Her insides are quivering to escape, but she is already lost, unconsciousness dragging her down into its cavernous mouth.
“Such a shame I won’t get to hear you scream as I cut out your heart. But orders are orders, and I’m not so brave as to disobey the Sun Queen.”
Her eyes close, but she drags her lids apart when the door clicks open and footsteps clap against the floor. Sora and Nyklus stand at the foot of the bed, looking from Ariana to Sonnig, and congratulate him on a job well done.
Her fierce fury suffocates under her growing futility to change this fate. Ariana falls under a thick black blanket of nothingness.
Chapter 30
Ariana’s chest is ablaze. She gasps, splinters of air shredding her throat.
Noise, so much noise—shrieks and cries.
Fear scratches at her inside. She can’t orient, can’t remember.
Sonnig’s rough words reverberate off her skull, a whisper. Cut out your heart.
Her eyes snap open and she looks down at her chest.
Blood, so much blood.
She thrashes her head from side to side and screams. The pain is fierce, blinding. She screams, again and again, high-pitched gurgles.
And then a hand is on her arm. She flicks her head to the side and stares up at the face. A familiar woman, but she can’t focus on her and can’t quite see.
“Ariana,” she says, gently. “I’m h
ere to help you.”
Ariana tries to speak, but she can’t find words. The pain is all consuming, and she can’t think or see past it.
“Listen carefully. You’re wounded. It’s important that we heal you as fast as we can. Do you think you can use a spell?”
Ariana winces, trying to block out the pain, but it bears down on her like lava burning her bones to cinders. And that constant clamor in the room, the shuffle of feet and the angry yelling, grates on her.
She opens her mouth, but only a gush of warmth escapes her throat. It steals her next breath and she rushes to find air but chokes on the thick fluid. She coughs and splashes of warmth dot her face.
“Oh no. Quick, she’s bleeding out. I need my kit. Hurry! Blend four vials of Quasark with drying fluid. I need towels and…”
* * * *
“Wake up, Ariana. Come on, flower.”
Ariana is thrust from the darkness and into the light. She peels her eyes open and stares at the woman’s face.
“That’s a girl. Good girl. I need you to listen to me and do as I say. Understand?”
Ariana nods. The pain is less intrusive now, just a gentle burn on the outskirts of her mind.
A desperate cross between a laugh and cry bursts from the woman’s mouth and a tear rolls down her cheek. “Good. Wonderful.” The woman wipes at her cheek with her palm and sniffles. “I need you to use a spell. You must use a spell to heal your body, or…or…you simply must.”
A breath scratches down Ariana’s throat and into her fiery lungs—sheer agony, but life giving. She searches her depleted mind and her broken body for strength so she can conjure the magic that will save her.
Softly, so softly and slowly, she drags the healing spell out from between her lips and casts it to the air. She waits then, mere seconds that beat like slow days, for the pain.
In her state, is it something she will be able to survive?
The slow, creeping scalding sets in and she claws at the blankets beneath her back, wet with warm blood. So much blood.
At that moment, she hears his loud, booming voice among the cacophony. His name lingers on her tongue, coaxing. “Hadeon,” she splutters. “Hadeon.”
But the pain is brutal, scorching her skin, hacking at her ribs with blunt, heavy sledge-hammers. Her attention flitters around the room, seeking evidence of him before the big black comes to take her away. Faces, so many faces—Warriors, guards, officials.
A commotion. Nyklus and Sora, bodies battered and hands tied with thick rope, are being manhandled out of the room by Gideon and Domascus. The guards are screaming at the Warriors to release the royal captives; they draw their swords.
Ariana can barely breathe through the searing, squeezing heat. She screams and screams as ferocious talons shred her apart and crack her in half. But still she looks, body trembling. Was it really Hadeon’s voice she heard or was she dreaming?
Guards fall and stagger before the raging form that bursts through them like a crazed lion. Hadeon, his face as fierce as the devil and eyes as dark as Ariana’s pain. Ariana rasps a breath inward.
The guards grunt, “Who do you think you are to order royalty be thrown into the dungeons?”
Hadeon reaches for a man behind him, lifts him, and throws him across the room. The body lands limp on the floor. His hands are tied behind his back, face bruised and bloody, and torso blackened. Sonnig.
“This man is an imposter,” bellows Hadeon, pointing at the flaccid form. The chandeliers shake and candles flicker from his fury.
“That is the king,” yells the guard. “You’ve gone mad. What do you think you’re doing?”
Hadeon tears off his shirt, his rippled chest bursting through. Writhing like a snake around the limbs of the Mira on his abdomen, caressing and supporting it, are vibrant vines of a spring blossom. The tattoos combine as one, throbbing and beating with life.
Hadeon’s voice explodes from him like thunder, causing the windows to shatter. “I am the true King of Fiore, and you will do what I command!”
Pain jumps onto Ariana’s chest and snaps her ribs.
“Hadeon,” she screams desperately.
His gaze finds hers for just a scraping of a second before she succumbs to the embrace of black wings that take her away from consciousness, but it is enough time to see his love for her shining brighter than a flame.
My king.
Chapter 31
Sweet, perfumed nectar. The flutter of wings like a hummingbird with its long pointed beak diving into a scented flower.
A room dowsed in midday sun.
Red sun.
Fiore.
Ariana gasps and lifts her reeling head. Her stomach bubbles bad tastes onto her tongue. Vision blurred, her gaze flickers around the large room.
Her room.
“Tuti,” she croaks.
Tuti, standing at the window, turns her head so she is facing the bed and smiles like an angel, brightness and light in the colorful aura surrounding her. She buzzes over, so quick Ariana loses focus until she is at her side, sitting on the bed, her hand on Ariana’s shoulder.
“So good to see you awake.”
Memories invade, painful memories, and Ariana winces. She rests her head back onto the pillow and presses her hand to her chest. No pain. All breath wheezes from her throat and she can’t quite find another mouthful of air to take in.
While the agony has fled, the emotional trauma smothers her. She gasps, mouth flapping, but is unable to draw breath. The torturous sensation before she was lost to darkness drills into her thoughts.
Tuti leans close and looks deep into Ariana’s eyes. Her petite, pale features are calm. “I’m here, darling, and I give you all of my calm and all of my peace. There’s not a soul who will hurt you here. Deep breath, darling…that’s it…give me another. All those thoughts are mere dissipating energy that can no longer hurt you. That’s right, nice deep breaths. You’ve got it.”
Ariana nods and takes in another deep breath, letting the thick air invade her desperate lungs. The gravity is heavy against her weary body, the air almost too thick to swallow.
“Hadeon,” she whispers when she can finally utter words.
Tuti smiles and places a sweet-scented, gentle kiss on her cheek. “I’ll go get him.” And she flies from the room.
Again the memories: moving black frames, deep oozing red, swords, and yelling. So much confusion and clamor. And then she has a distorted image of Hadeon, which instantly rights her thoughts. The blossoms on his chest. His words, that he is the true King of Fiore.
A fuzzy warmth nuzzles deep in her belly, both relief and excitement. Light flutters, like Tuti’s gently flapping wings, tickle her flesh, such pleasure. Love pulses, strong and fiery, in her weakened heart.
Could her memories be right?
A deep sigh of relief sounds from the doorway.
Hadeon.
He rushes into the room. She raises her head to take in his dominating frame. Ariana wants to run to him, embrace him, and feel his protective heat against her, but she’s not sure if she can even sit up.
But he’s at her side in two blinks and he lowers his large form over her, wrapping her in his strong arms and pulling her to his heart. His heat burrows right down into her soul, illuming her from the inside.
“Ariana,” he groans into her neck, warm breath scattering over her skin.
“I missed you so much,” she says, her words accompanied by tiny droplets of happiness wetting her cheeks.
He releases her gently and lays her back on the pillow. Caressing hair from her face, his face glowing with adoration, he says, “Me too, flower, so much. I’m so glad you’re awake.” Lips find hers, gentle and desperate. “I love you. You know that. Tell me you know that.”
She closes her eyes and absorbs his words and the raging emotion that chases them. When she looks at his face again, she sighs, “I love you too.”
His body blankets Ariana as he wraps her in his arms and holds her to his chest. This is
how she wants it to be forever…in his arms, body to body, his breath warm on her face. Forever.
“You won’t leave me again?” she whispers, sliding her cheek along his, loving the rough stubble rubbing at her flesh.
“Never. For as long as my heart still beats, I will never leave you.”
Hadeon’s lips press to hers. Ariana inhales his delicious scent, salty and sweet. “Are my memories right? Tell me, are you my king?” She tenses, though weakly, in anticipation of his answer.
Hadeon leans back and pulls his shirt over his head. Her gaze wanders from his face to his thick, muscled shoulders, down to his defined pecs, and further to his toned abs where Mira writhes and, sure enough, blossoms embrace the prowling black beast—she and him, as one. He has changed even more, lighter eyes and polished skin. A figure of virility so strong it pulses off him in waves. He, without saying a word, screams sex, passion, and heat.
A smile creeps onto her lips as she reaches for his stomach and trails a finger over the tattoos. Her belly stirs to feel them and it stings her straight between her legs to touch the Mira.
A deep tug of air inward accompanies his indolent blink. “Ariana, flower, don’t go doing that yet. I’ll burst.”
She grabs for his hand and grins when he smiles at her, his face transforming. “My king,” she says.
He nods. “Who would’ve thought after countless millennia that a humble Warrior would be crowned again?”
“I knew,” she says. “I always knew.”
He grins wider. “I think some part of me always did too, or destiny had her hands around my throat gripping so tight I had to pay attention.”
“Destiny? I didn’t think you believed in that. I thought we created our own.”
He shrugs and laughs. “I was trying to be modest.”
“Why change now?”
He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. “The moment I saw you, I knew what I wanted. Destiny be damned, I had to have you.”
Ariana giggles. “That’s more like it.”
Hadeon stares at her for a long moment. “I love you so much.”
The Book of Spells and Such Page 21
