“As much as I’ve thought about this, for so long, I don’t want to just rush through it. And all of this is so new, tense, fast. And right now, I’m too”—he drew his eyebrows together—“in my head, the virgin paladin lying awake imagining what sex might be like. This, between you and me, I want it to be... right.” Not just getting it over with.
She blushed pink—
Rosy—
Red—
She hid her face.
He straightened. “Terra have mercy, Rielle, if you laugh at me right now—”
She kissed him... to silence her laugh or to silence him? As her lips played against his, whatever care he might have mustered unceremoniously surrendered.
“Why don’t we just enjoy each other? And whether it’s minutes from now, hours, days, or weeks, when you’re ready,” she whispered, slowly wrapping a leg around him, “I’ll be waiting.”
He hissed in a breath, raised her chin, and took her mouth with a ravening ardor, threading his fingers into her hair.
Selfishness? Perhaps...
But one he would allow.
Rielle’s eyes flew open. She wriggled, damp with sweat, her knees aching with the need to move.
The light of the waxing gibbous moon cast its eidolic glow through the window’s lace curtains, silvery apparitions indolent upon the white bedspread. Beside her, Jon slept soundly, his chest rising and falling steadily.
She lingered, wishing to memorize the way the moonlight cast shadows across the planes of his face, his high cheekbones, the sweep of dark lashes almost too genteel a companion to his chiseled jaw, dark and coarse. Her fingers twitched as if to touch him, although she moved no closer. Just below, on his neck, was that scar—that blessed and terrible scar—the bittersweet beginning of all this and, she hoped, so much more.
He breathed softly, his lips slightly parted—lips that sparked her heart to flame.
A smile claimed her mouth. They’d spent hours kissing, tangled in each other, breathing the same air and chasing the dawn. Every part of her had ached for him, but she had resisted pushing for more, and he hadn’t pushed either. Every kiss, every touch, every breath, every whisper—had meant all the more.
A perfect night.
No man had ever stopped to question when she’d offered herself. Pleasure was pleasure, greedily consumed whenever on offer—whether the time was right or not.
But not last night. Not with Jon. Her face had warmed to such heat, she’d nearly burst into flames.
Until she learned how to make peace with herself, her love was a liability, frightening, but as she closed her eyes and gave in to the swell of warmth inside her, what she felt for Jon—it was irresistible.
Beneath her skin, movement—restless, crawling, unyielding.
The sen’a.
Shifting, she raised the sleeves of her nightgown with clammy hands to give them something to do. No matter how she shifted, her legs hurt; she just had to move.
All her muscles rebelled, as if awakened from a thousand-year slumber and relearning the meaning of use. It was happening. The withdrawal. Moving her toes back and forth, she lay her hand next to her face on the bed and focused on it, trying to quiet her anxious mind.
For a moment, her hand stayed miraculously still.
Her finger jerked.
Exasperated, she eased off the covers and sat up, staring out the window while she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Not a soul moved outside. It was at least two hours before dawn. Unable to sleep or stop moving, she surrendered and rose, padding across the room to the water carafe to pour herself a cup. She brought the cool water to her lips and sipped.
Jon stirred, his eyes still shut. “Rielle?” He yawned. “Is everything all right...?”
“Privy,” she whispered. There was a chamber pot in the room, and although they’d dispensed with a lot of privacy, she certainly wasn’t prepared to dispense with that bit of privacy.
He nodded and shifted his head on the pillow.
As she set down her cup with a shaking hand, tension claimed her body. Abrupt. Quick. Complete. The distinct pull of the bond from Brennan. He’d answered her call. She hated having to ask him for anything, but she needed his help if she had any hope of getting into Courdeval.
Another pull of the bond. Brennan was near. Very near.
She headed for the door, and with a final reassuring glance at Jon, she laid a ward and left.
Barefoot, she went down the hall and, finding no one downstairs, headed out the back toward the stable. The ground prickled, chilled, and hurt her feet, but anything was better than their damned restlessness. In these predawn hours, Bournand was finally quiet.
She entered the stable. Sweet hay crisped underfoot, dewy. It was far warmer in here than outside, but it was too quiet. Something was amiss.
Her back thudded against the wall, the breath beaten from her lungs.
She couldn’t move.
Horses snorted their protests from their stalls.
An arm pinned her, pressed across her chest. Nothing disturbed the darkness until the faint glow of amber eyes.
“Let me go, Brennan,” she spat, and he released her. She rotated one of her shoulders, frowning at the ache. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“And you didn’t have to pull on the bond earlier tonight.” Even as a man, his voice rumbled like a growl. “Do you have any idea how long I had to wait before everyone was asleep... just so I could wait around some more in a stable?”
“Quit being so dramatic.” She dusted off her nightgown, but due to her sweat, all the dust was now caked on. Wonderful. She took a step away when he trapped her between his arms, his palms meeting the stable’s wall on either side of her head.
“What do you want?” His exhalations steamed her face in short, irritated puffs.
“Besides a little space?” she shot back, but he didn’t move. She wouldn’t be intimidated. “I found out Olivia is alive but bound in Courdeval.”
The sound of his usual scoff was more pronounced in the dark. “And now you’re finding out I don’t care.”
“I need you to scout the road to Melain for Crag Company outposts, then the road to Courdeval, and do some reconnaissance there.”
“Is that all? Shall I single-handedly oust all the Crag? Perhaps resurrect the entire Faralle line?”
Sarcasm was a paper wolf. He could have his small victories—they didn’t hurt until they came to tears, blood, and bruises.
“There’s a Black Rose assassin named Nicolette stationed at Del’s. She owes me a favor, and if she’s there, I’m calling it in. On Spiritseve, I need a diversion to keep the Crag off my back, as far away from Trèstellan Palace in the city as possible, ideally a couple hours before midnight and lasting as long as she can manage.”
He stayed silent, the only sounds in the stable his breathing and her restless toes tapping against the ground. He swallowed. “You’re going to Courdeval to save this Olivia?”
Why did he pretend not to be familiar with Olivia? Rielle nodded. “Yes, I—”
His fist pounded the wall. “Are you insane? The place is crawling with mercenaries. You don’t need reconnaissance to know that. It’s suicide.”
She didn’t answer. Maybe it was, and even if it wasn’t, this seething wolf would be her jailer for the rest of her life. But Olivia needed her, and someone had to prevent the Rift. The Grand Divinus’s army wouldn’t cross the Shining Sea any sooner than Spiritseve, and she couldn’t count on the Order to retake the capital. There was no one else. “You’re right. Maybe it is suicide. But we all have people we’d die for, and I’m going there whether you help me or not.”
Unless he wanted to live with the risk of losing control of the Wolf, he would do all in his power to keep her alive. She knew it. He knew it.
The distinct heaviness of menace hung in the air. She wanted to move, to leave, but every instinct kept her frozen in place.
Her heartbeat quickened, but she refused to gratify him with
the unnerved response he no doubt desired.
“You smell of wine... sen’a... and him.” As he lowered his head, his stubble brushed against her forehead, and then his mouth was a whisper away from hers. “I could steal you away right now, and there wouldn’t be a thing you could do.”
And yet his voice was low and sonorous. Not threatening.
She scrambled for answers—with magic useless against him and his preternatural abilities, what could she do to him? A shudder rippled through her. “I could shout your secret to the four winds,” she hissed, “and let the good people of Emaurria deal with you.”
An amused laugh puffed onto her chin, and even in the darkness his smile was white.
“Could you”—a finger grazed from her ear, down her jaw, and he clamped his hand over her mouth—“with my hand just here?”
Why did he—
Her lips pressed against her teeth, painfully. She grabbed his arm and pulled. No use. The pressure intensified.
The coppery tang of blood pricked her tongue.
“Could you, in fact, utter anything?” The smile persisted in his voice.
She struggled against him, snatching for his face, but he drew away. When she spiked her knee toward his groin, he caught her strike with a palm and laughed quietly.
“Could you do anything? Anything at all?”
She trembled—from fingertips to feet, quaked, filled to bursting with anger—sparked to blazing. She dug her nails into his shoulder and raked them down his arm. He sucked in a shaky breath.
In pleasure?
He released her mouth only to take her shoulder, burying his face in her hair. She wanted to slap him, curse him, banish him from her sight, but she needed his help if she was to increase her odds of surviving Courdeval. And he knows it.
It was then that a knee parted her thighs and traveled upward.
Her breath caught in her throat. Too far. He was toying with her. Mocking her. “It’s times like this I wonder why I don’t whip you for your insolence.”
“Perhaps because I’d like it?”
He actually would. She pressed herself as close to the wall as she could, shuddering as the heat of his knee reached her flesh. “Brennan...”
“You’ve dreamed of being under a lover who doesn’t tire”—he pulled down the shoulder of her nightgown—“who is more wild beast than man”—he brought his nose to her skin and breathed deep—“who can satisfy your every desire and keep pushing you past heights you’ve never envisioned.” He raked his teeth against her skin, making her hiss with revulsion. “You could have an intoxicating dream tonight, every night, every day if you wish it, for the rest of your life.”
A stare was all she gave him. He didn’t really think she’d just acquiesce and fall at his feet, did he? That he’d see the curse broken so easily?
No. He wanted her to scream, wanted to unsettle her. But that was his condition for victory, not hers. She needed his agreement to help her in Courdeval. He’d soon tire of this game anyway and leave her be.
“You lack the most important quality of a lover,” she whispered in his ear. “Love.”
“A mere word forgotten in blinding pleasure.” He pressed searing hot lips to her shoulder.
Once, they would have melted her to an aching, pining, pathetic puddle on the floor. Once.
She swallowed, looking away. “I’m in love, Brennan.”
He scoffed. “You’re what?” He straightened, all artifice abandoned, and loosened his hold. Wide eyed, he looked her over from head to foot and back again.
Did he think she meant with him? “I’m in love with Jon.”
He paused, inhumanly still, listening? To her heart, perhaps. He could hear a lie, but in this, he would hear none.
“A commoner? Unworthy.”
She shook her head.
He narrowed his eyes, their amber glow a mere slit from darkness. “He’ll end up no more than a dalliance like all the others.”
She stiffened. The conversation lurched toward an ugly destination. Time to return to the matter at hand. “Will you help me with my ‘suicide mission’ or not?”
He snarled. “Fine.”
A lantern filled the stable with soft, yellow light.
Who— She turned her head to its source.
The stable boy’s eyes were wide as saucers.
Indeed, they must have made a bewildering picture: a barefoot woman in a sweat-soaked nightgown pinned against the stable wall by a… a… naked man. Divine’s flaming fire—
“You saw nothing,” Brennan said, with the unmistakable imperious tone of a noble. He speared the boy with a glare.
The boy gulped and nodded, then retreated into the night. Before the light disappeared entirely, she faced Brennan, catching a glimpse of his smoldering hazel eyes, human eyes, before blackness dominated the stable once more. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.
He was already gone.
Chapter 34
Rielle woke to a gentle caress gliding along her cheek, then her neck. As it trailed over her shoulder and down her arm, whisper-soft, she smiled and opened her eyes. Jon rested on his elbow next to her. With a playful grin, he stroked an iris flower toward her inner wrist. Amused, she brought the bright amethyst petals to her nose, breathing in the powdery, earthy scent.
His grin soothed away all trace of indignation from meeting with Brennan. When she’d returned, she’d washed, changed, and gone back to bed. Jon had pulled her close.
“As captivating as it is to watch you sleep, I couldn’t resist waking you.” His finger traced the iris’s path from her hand to her cheek. He slipped his hand to the nape of her neck, and kissed her, his mouth deliciously sweet and a touch tart, like...
Rosehips and hibiscus.
“Jon,” she whispered, sweeping her hands down his body, “you taste like... tea.” Over his shoulder, two cups steamed on the nightstand—he’d already completed his morning routine. “Can nothing keep you from rising with the sun?”
He gathered her into an embrace, chuckling softly in her ear, and she melted into the bed’s warmth and his.
“I would have entertained arguments, but you weren’t awake to make them.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder.
“I was in no state to resist sleep,” she replied, stroking his arm.
A devilish laugh. “Is that a concession, witch?”
“Concede?” She raised an eyebrow. “Never.”
Then her stomach had the audacity to growl.
Jon huffed an amused breath in her ear. “A truce, then, while you quiet the dissension among your ranks.” He tightened his hold briefly, then pulled away. “Come, let’s eat.”
Eat? On the table sat a large breakfast. Her stomach rebelled. The sight of food made her gag, but she sat up and reached for one of the two cups on the nightstand. With an expectant look, Jon took a seat at the table.
The last thing she wanted was to burden him with the effects of her sen’a withdrawal.
“You go on,” she said, with a dismissive wave. “I only want some tea just now.” When he raised an inquisitive brow, she added, “Really. I’m not particularly hungry, contrary to”—she glanced down at her belly—“rumor.”
While he ate, she eased out of bed. It was past time to glean what knowledge she could from Flame’s letters and to learn what she needed to know about the Moonlit Rite. She washed again and dressed, but her body, needy for sen’a, still refused to cooperate. She cringed at the inevitability of the throbbing pain that would soon invade her senses, worse than the night before. At least some research would distract her.
Nearly all of the letters bore the same thin, sloped script. All from the same sender. They were vague in their contents—preparation, setting an event in motion, discussing a target. Probably elaborated upon in the coded letters.
But the code symbols offered no easy answers. Without a cipher, comprehension would be impossible. She picked up her quill and began making notes of repeated words and their
positions in sentence structure. Surely they’d be common enough? If she could guess at one or two, derive a test cipher, and see if it worked...
Nearly an hour later, Jon poured her some water from the carafe. He rested a hand on her shoulder and looked down at the line of letters. She, too, stared at the letters until the symbols blurred into one another. Why didn’t the Tower teach code breaking? She sighed.
“This is hopeless.” She leaned back in the chair.
Jon rubbed her shoulders. “Let me try.”
She rose, and Jon took the seat. He laid the coded letters side by side and looked across them. She left him to it and sat at the table.
Codebreaking wasn’t one of her few skills, but she could still read a book. Perhaps she’d find some answers about the mysterious Moonlit Rite. With a slow stroke, she brushed the knife hole in the cover of Ancient Blood Rites, Flame’s book. It had saved Jon’s life. She pulled out Kieran’s orders, which contained instructions to the rite.
She read: During the midnight moon between Spiritseve and Hallowday, find the Lunar Chamber in the catacombs of Trèstellan Palace... A reference to a map. Trace a sacred circle and a pentagram with rowan ash, and spill the vial of king’s blood in the center while the full moon is at its zenith. There will be no second chances. Diagrams and page numbers. They matched pages in Ancient Blood Rites.
A pentagram etched in the Lunar Chamber matched the layout of anima threads around Veins—where the Veil was thin, where wild magic bubbled close to the surface, close enough to touch, close enough to die to, or to become a wild mage.
Was there a Vein the Lunar Chamber? What did Veins have to do with Spiritseve? She frowned. Pondering the questions repeatedly yielded a headache, but no answers.
She slammed the book shut. Sacred circles and pentagrams. Not exactly her forte. She rubbed her forehead, then paged through the book.
An illustration took up an entire page, a copy of an engraving. A naked man holding the hand of a naked woman in a clearing, under the stars. Behind them was a handful of people, one of them holding the halter of a doe. Beneath was a caption: The Earthbinding, a mythical rite performed for the favor of the Dead Gods, binding a king to his land.
Blade & Rose (Blade and Rose Book 1) Page 31
