by Brenna Lyons
She stiffened, her breathing strangled as his meaning became clear — as the smell of the Dolgen oil assaulted her. “No,” she pleaded, scanning her eyes over the intact circle. If Loric took her at that moment, she’d be tied to him. “You cannot do this. My training has pushed you too far.”
He captured her lips. “You are my mate,” Loric assured her. “I would never harm you.” He kissed her again. “You are ready to meet Fion’s challenge.”
Deliya couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the challenge. He wouldn’t dare! If Loric did this, he’d be an outcast. He’d bring down Fion’s displeasure on himself. He’d never be able to mate with one of their own, not Deliya or any other priestess, not even with a dishonored woman.
She shook her head, stumbling over her plea to him. Loric was insane. Deliya could help him but not if he persisted. If he took her this way, against the traditions, she could not save him.
Loric smiled. “Do not fear. You know what you can do to save us both. Take the challenge.”
“Take the—” She gasped. He wanted her to accept him willingly, to agree to be his mate, and to do so this way.
“You are my mate,” he whispered. “I have waited so long for you. If you turn me away, there is no hope for me.”
“Let me do this the proper way — at the proper time,” she reasoned, praying that Loric would not force her to this choice.
“If you want me, it is time.” His eyes pleaded with her: to accept him, to love him, to defile the ceremony for him.
“Untie me and let me do this as we always have,” she bargained. “Now, but by custom. Please.” She could save him if that was their course. There would be repercussions, but her mother had decreed that Deliya was to produce a true heir, and she would not be returning to the sanctuary for her challenge. Loric had confided that to her only days earlier.
Loric paused, abruptly uncertain. Deliya forced one breath then another. He understood. She knew he did. Loric would stop before he crossed the line and completed this bastardized version of the challenge and promise combined.
He trained his eyes on her, sad eyes. Loric touched her cheek gently. “It does not matter now. If you love me, you must accept me. If you do not, I am already dead. We are all dead.”
“You need help, Loric. Let me help you.” She opened her mouth to call for Vela.
Loric’s hand muffled the sound. No one in the main house would hear her. She stilled as her abinatine touched her throat. Tears filled her eyes. How could Loric do this to her? Deliya had loved him her whole life, and he would do this to her?
He pulled his hand away slowly, wiping a tear with the pad of this thumb. “Do not cry, Deliya. I— We have a duty to produce an heir. It is a sacred trust, and we must do our duty. I have always loved you.”
“Then do not do this,” she begged of him, willing her lip not to tremble.
Again, he hesitated, unsure of his choice. The blade left her throat. Loric forced one of her fists open and pierced her thumb then his own. “I am bound to you in this life and the next, the father of your heirs, the seed to your soil. You are the missing half of my heart.”
Deliya shook in stunned dismay, as Loric pressed his hand to hers and mixed their blood. She’d dreamed of the promise with Loric many times, but not this way.
“Please. Let me do this the right way,” she insisted. “Please, Loric. Let me appease Fion for us both.”
“No. You will leave me.”
“I will not. You have my vow.”
“We are bound, blood to blood and heart to heart. I vow to walk with you in this life and meet you in the soul’s reward. I will not allow you to come to harm while I can prevent it.” Loric planted his hands on the floor above her shoulders. “I will not touch you for the challenge,” he promised.
Loric pulled his hand next to her cheek, the blade laid on her shoulder, perhaps in warning.
“Loric,” she demanded. “Do not do this. As your priestess—”
He kissed her gently. “I have no choice. It is our last hope.”
Deliya shook her head in denial. She would not have thought Loric was capable of this. He would defile her circle, defile her. If she allowed this without a fight, Deliya would be as guilty as he. If she fought, she would die by her own blade.
I am a priestess of Fion. I am no coward. “I will not submit,” she informed him, her voice a choked whisper. Do not make me do this to you. Do not make me testify to your dishonor.
“If you have any love for me, you must.” He seated his cock inside her entrance, meeting her eyes with a mad look of decision. “I will anoint you after your challenge,” he assured her.
Deliya screamed, a full-throated sound of terror that seemed to go on for minutes, long after her lungs started to ache in protest. Loric startled, and his expression changed to one of confusion then realization. Deliya gasped as he pushed away, her blade cutting deep into her chin.
In the abrupt silence their shock created, Loric looked at her stained blade in dismay. He used the edge of her green overmantle to staunch the flow of blood coursing down her throat. She shied from his touch.
Loric winced at that. “I never meant,” he stammered. “The Merciful Mother help me, I—” He looked up as Celdin burst through the door, paling as his situation became clear to him.
Her father’s eyes panned over Deliya: bound, bleeding, her cheeks tear-stained, and her legs spread wide around Loric. He barely breathed as his eyes took in Loric: holding Deliya’s blade, the length and his hands stained with her blood, and his pants half off.
Vela pushed in behind Celdin. Deliya met her mentor’s eyes and sobbed in relief. Vela would set everything right. Loric hadn’t gone too far.
Deliya never learned if it was her sob that broke Celdin’s composure. One moment, he was frozen in shock with his sword in hand. The next, he was pounding across the stone toward them, his sword in the deadly swing.
“No,” Vela screamed. “Do not kill him.”
But, Vela’s order came too late. Deliya screamed again, as Loric fell over her. She screamed in fear, but she also screamed in frustration that she hadn’t kept her head long enough to save Loric’s life.
Loric smiled weakly and touched her cheek with fingers coated in blood. Whether it was his blood or hers was immaterial. Fresh tears escaped Deliya’s eyes. She shook her head. He couldn’t die.
Celdin dragged Loric off of her, and Deliya shook in sobs at the sight of him. Bile rose in her throat. There was no way to save Loric. The blow laid the muscles of his chest open, baring bits of two ribs, one clearly splintered. Already, he had succumbed to blood loss. Loric would be dead in minutes. She looked after him, as Celdin dragged him from her sanctuary.
Vela cut the cord that tethered Deliya to the table and cupped her chin up to check the gash. She sighed in relief. Vela grasped Deliya’s hand and examined the cut on her thumb. “Did he complete the ceremony?” she asked urgently.
“No. I could not let— The law,” she forced out through chattering teeth.
Vela’s expression grew more grim. She nodded. “Be still now,” Vela soothed her. “I will make it right.”
Deliya shivered in a combination of shock and the chill air from the open door washing over the blood-soaked robes plastered to her body. Vela nodded again and started to cut them away, tossing ruined fabric into the flames in the pit.
Celdin stepped back into Deliya’s sanctuary, edging toward her. “It is over,” he promised her.
Deliya’s breathing hitched. “No,” she pleaded.
“Get out,” Vela snapped at him.
He looked at her in surprise. “Deliya,” he began.
“You have sullied her with innocent blood. You have crossed onto consecrated ground and killed within its boundaries.” Vela met his eyes. “You have taken the one who should have been Deliya’s mate from her.”
Celdin paled. He looked to the door, seeming to stagger in the realization that Loric was dead. He reached for Deliya, a stricken loo
k on his face. “The Mother’s plan,” he breathed.
Vela slapped his hand away. “Out,” she ordered. “Do not sully her further. You have done more that enough damage.”
She threw her herbal into the fire bitterly, the last of the Zura in the dried stores. It would be summer before Deliya would be able to brew the herbal that made Vela’s existence tolerable again. But, Vela was proud. She believed Deliya’s healing tainted by the death in the circle. Vela would not drink the herbal now, even if she knew Len waited in the shadows to steal her soul.
Celdin bowed his head and turned away, looking tortured. Vela’s refusal of her herbal was not lost on Celdin. Nor was the implication. If Vela did not survive the spring, she blamed Celdin for her end.
Deliya reached for him. “Celdin,” she whispered. She tried to pull the Len-be-damned bonds from her hands, wincing as the cord cut into her wrists. “Father,” she cried out desperately. Deliya hadn’t wanted him to hold her since her temple training began when she was ten. She needed her father’s comfort now.
He paused, looking back at her hopefully.
“Go,” Vela shouted in fury.
“No,” Deliya pleaded. “Stay with me.”
Celdin dropped his gaze. “I am sorry, Priestess. Vela must tend to you now.”
She stopped fighting the bonds. He was walking away from her. He called her Priestess — not Deliya or Daughter.
“I will make things right,” Vela assured her.
“No. Nothing will be the same.”
*
Ro snapped awake, as Deliya yanked at her bonds, wrenching his arm in the process. His irritation melted into concern, as she sobbed.
“Celdin,” she whispered. “Father, no. Stay with me.”
He winced, imagining what it must have been like for Deliya when her father died. Celdin had been the last of her protectors. She’d tilled his ashes in the newly thawed soil with her own two hands.
Ro pulled her to his body in an effort to comfort her. She wasn’t alone anymore. She needn’t be alone ever again.
Deliya screamed, pulling at her bound hands more forcefully. Ro startled, clasping her hands in the darkness to keep her from injuring herself. The result was disconcerting.
She threw her head back and forth, her thick hair tangling in Ro’s, as she fought his grip. “Do not do this,” she sobbed. “Loric, please.”
Ro searched his memory frantically. Loric was the one her father killed.
“The proper way,” she mumbled. “The proper time. Do not do this.”
He ran his free hand in soothing circles over her back. “Deliya,” he called softly, trying to break her from her dream.
Her voice went cold and sharp as a blade. “I will not submit.”
Ro shuddered, suddenly chilled. His mind worked over everything she’d said in the last few days. “No,” he breathed. He tightened his grip on her reflexively, as if he could protect Deliya from that long-ago trauma.
Deliya screamed an ear-splitting scream, panicked, terrified, pulling frantically at her bound hands and intent on escape. She moved against him, her movements more purposeful as she woke. She strained against his hold, twisting and thrashing.
“Deliya,” he demanded. “Stop this. I will not harm you.”
“Untie me,” she pleaded. “Please, release me. I cannot—” Deliya crumpled, sobbing.
He fumbled at the knots, desperate to release her. When the ropes slid off her hands, Deliya scrambled away. Ro followed, afraid she would injure herself. She stumbled out of the cave, landing on her hands and knees. Deliya sucked in the icy mountain air, her entire body trembling. Ro touched her cautiously, afraid she would bolt again.
“I am sorry,” she breathed. “I gave my word.”
“Your word?”
“The ropes. I gave my word,” she noted miserably.
Ro eased her to his lap, tangling his fingers in her half-undone braid and pulling her cheek to his chest. “Your penalty is ended,” he assured her. Had I known, I never would have bound her.
She nodded.
“How old—” He took a calming breath. “It is not my place to ask,” he decided bitterly.
“I was eighteen,” she whispered.
Ro grimaced. She hadn’t even been an adult when he—
“Loric was twenty-two. He was— He should have been,” she stammered.
“Your mate?” he guessed.
“Yes. I think he realized before he died. He was sane for a moment, lucid. When he traveled to Rintal on my birthday, he must have learned the truth. I was all he had left, myself and the children we would have.” Deliya stroked at her scar distractedly.
“He did that?” Ro growled. “He put a blade to your throat?”
Deliya didn’t answer him. She buried her face in his neck, shivering in her memories — or in the frigid air. Ro couldn’t be sure of which it was.
“Would you allow me to take you inside?” he asked. “You are shivering, and there are quilts.”
She nodded.
Ro eased them both inside the cave and wrapped the quilts around their intertwined bodies. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but Deliya wasn’t in any condition to answer them. Ro shook himself mentally. Did he have any right to question her, even when she was?
CHAPTER SIX
Caj 5th, Ti 10-459
Ro came up off the empty quilts in a panic, scrambling into the clearing, his heart pounding. He took a calming breath, thanking Mag that Deliya hadn’t run from him again.
She looked up from a small wooden bowl with a paste of her herbs in it, blushing. “I made a curative for your wrist.” Deliya stared into the bowl, stirring the tan mixture. “Would you allow me to use it?”
He looked at the wrist he’d taken the rope from in confusion. It was lightly bruised. Deliya was worried about that? Ro knelt beside her and offered his arm, reluctant to offend her by refusing her healing, though he hardly felt it necessary to treat something so minor.
Deliya didn’t meet his eyes. She smoothed the cool paste into his wrist, her touch hesitant, as if she were afraid to lay hands on him. When his wrist was coated, she set the bowl aside and pushed her tunic sleeves up her arms to treat herself.
Ro winced at the deep bruises marring her pale skin. He cradled her wrist up to his lips. Deliya looked at him in shock, as he started healing her. She shook her head, pulling her arm toward her chest.
He held her. “Let me heal you,” he insisted.
She shook her head, trembling in his grasp. “You should not,” she began.
“Your Goddess holds some grudge against the healing magic?” he asked pointedly.
Deliya opened her mouth as if to speak, then blanched and shook her head.
“Men have the ability to safeguard their women and children,” he offered logically, ignoring the obvious counter-argument that it was the opposite in her culture.
She pulled her hand from his grasp. “Men have the ability to ease children from a woman. It is a sacred trust and nothing more.”
“If that was the only reason, it would not close gashes and help knit broken bones,” he argued.
“A woman can—”
“A birth correctly handled includes none of that.”
Deliya darkened, nodding slowly. “You are right. It should not, but there are rare occurrences when the babe will not pass without tearing or breaking bones. A few children must be surgically taken.”
Ro shivered at that. “Still, it would be an affront to the gods to ignore all the benefits of their gifts.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “You may heal me,” she whispered.
He brought her wrist to his mouth, healing the bruises slowly, savoring her skin under his lips. Deliya watched him, barely breathing. When Ro finished, he laid a kiss in her palm.
Deliya nodded shakily. “Thank you.” Her voice wavered, and she grimaced at that.
Ro tried to meet her eyes, but she looked away.
“I know why you cannot
trust me,” he assured her. “I am not like Loric. I will not force you to my hand.”
She snapped a look at him, her eyes wide. “It has nothing to do with that,” she denied. “Loric presumed too much in his madness. He used my training to try to trick me to more, to fill his sense of loss.”
“Because he knew you were the last two capable of producing more of your race?”
Deliya stood and ambled to the stream, rinsing her bowl in the running water.
Ro followed, watching the tension in her jaw uneasily. “Deliya?”
“Do Magden men ever create life with someone other than a true mate?” she asked.
“Occasionally.”
“What happens?”
“Happens?” he asked, confused. “What typically happens when a child is created?”
“Does the child belong to him? Heirs belong to their fathers in Magden law, do they not?”
“Only if they contract,” he explained. “Unless— Well, there are some cases where he can demand a contract, but only if certain conditions are met. It is quite complex.”
“And, if there is no contract? If they are not true mates?”
He furrowed his brow. “He has no hold over her or her child. If there is no contract, the child is hers alone by law.”
“Do you think they miss those children? Mourn for them if they are lost?” she asked sadly.
“The men who fathered them?”
She turned to him, nodding, a strained smile on her face.
“I imagine many of them do. Some men are simply shortsighted in not demanding their rights immediately. If the mother of his child refuses him later, there is no recourse for him.”
Deliya nodded. “I thought that might be so,” she decided miserably.
“Deliya?”
“Loric fathered two children by other priestesses — a son with Syron, and Jolia carried by him when we fled.”
Ro blanched. “He wanted to replace the children he lost?”
“By our laws, they were never truly his children. He could watch them grow and take pride in how strong and bold they were, but they were not his to claim.”
“Because there was no contract,” he decided.
