The pulse in Dominique’s throat beat like a trapped animal beneath her skin, the sensation unpleasant, almost choking. Married. He’d been married before, ostensibly for reasons other than good business. To three women. Dominique knew there were places where it was normal to take more than one spouse, but she’d… She’d never thought that he would…
Her stomach rolled, her chest too tight to get a proper breath. Plucking bits of broken glass from wounds she couldn’t feel, Dominique forced the emotion from her voice. “What proof do you have of this?”
“The proof lies in a mausoleum nestled in the woods on his property. He had the corpses brought here with him.” Narcisse scanned the trees as if he could see the mausoleum in question even though they were far from Julien’s property—their property now. “They lie there still encrusted with their own blood. He didn’t even give them an honorable burial.”
“You speak with such detail.” Dominique held up a sliver of bloody glass, idly turning it this way and that. “Why is that, Narcisse?”
“I told you, I know this man.” His face twisted into a pained expression. “I called him friend for many years. I was there on the island when he married them, and I was there when…” A shudder rippled through Narcisse’s body, muscles gripped by sharp spasms, though his eyes remained steady on Dominique’s face. “I came to visit and… He was…”
The trembling grew worse, shaking Narcisse so violently that he stopped speaking, as if to continue would risk cutting his tongue off on chattering teeth. Dominique’s throat constricted, but she kept her face serene. After a moment he calmed enough to speak again.
“So much blood...”
The tree branches stretching before Dominique suddenly seemed like arms deliberately blocking her view, wanting to hide Julien’s past from her prying eyes, protect her from his crimes. Ice settled in her veins, freezing the warmth the bourbon had left in its wake.
“Please don’t tell him I told you. Do not even mention my name. If he were to discover… If he thought… If he knew…”
Fury rose like an acidic wave inside her. She’d bared her soul to him, and she’d received nothing in return but rhetoric and indignation. Dominique glared at Narcisse, suddenly wanting him gone. “I will tell him nothing. Go, make yourself scarce. Run!”
There was no reason for her to be angry with Narcisse, no reason to use that tone that frightened others so. There was certainly no reason for her power to ride her words, lash him like a vicious cat o’ nine tails. Narcisse flinched. He didn’t speak again, didn’t meet her eyes. He ducked around the other side of the tree and fled, vanishing into the crowd of revelers at the edge of the village.
Dominique stood by herself in the night, still staring out into the trees. Strangely enough, the idea that Julien had killed his wives for wealth rang ridiculous. Narcisse seemed earnest and sincere enough in his tale, but knowing how easy it was for rumor and excitement to blur fact and fiction, she wasn’t ready to cast judgement on the crime. Actually, she was more than preoccupied with the revelation itself. Married before. To three women no less. But wouldn’t marry me. Not until he needed me. Not even me, just my reputation, the fact that I meet some requirement for an invitation.
“There you are, my dear wife.”
Julien’s voice spilled through the air like oil on water, smooth and deceptively pretty. Earlier when she’d heard that voice say “I do,” she’d been plunged into a moment of weakness, a moment when she’d suddenly looked forward to coming to his bed as his wife despite what she knew about his motivations.
“Number four.”
Julien halted a few paces away, still close enough for her to smell the sharp scent of rum on his breath. Heathen couldn’t even appreciate fine liquor. He continued to drink that swill even here in Sanguennay when there was bourbon to be had.
“I’m sorry?”
Dominique faced him, back ramrod straight, her features schooled into her most distant mask. “I am wife number four. Am I not?”
The grip that closed around her wrists dragged a hiss of pain from between Dominique’s lips. Julien had moved with inhuman speed, more a force of nature than a man of flesh and blood. The surprise she’d expected to see on his face, perhaps a smidgen of chagrin, a touch of nervousness, was blatantly absent. Instead, the lines of Julien’s handsome face were deep with fury, brown eyes once again the avian black orbs that were so terribly disconcerting on a human face.
“What do you know of them? The three. Who have you been talking to?”
He shook her with each question, jarring her where she stood and her back seethed with fresh pain, the blood from the myriad of cuts on her palm flowing faster. Her own fury rose in response, her power crackling in outrage at being manhandled by the pirate—again. She pushed her aura outward in a small cloud, like breath on a freezing winter’s day, wrenching her arms from his grasp at the same time. He released her, the quiet blast knocking him a couple steps back.
“Do not lay a hand on me again.” She pawed at the satchel still hanging at her side, and dug through it until she found the red bottle she was looking for.
Ignoring the seething pirate beside her, she spilled some of the bottle’s contents onto her palm. Fumbling to replace the cork in the bottle with one hand, she finally got it back into the satchel. A few muttered words under her breath, and a swirl of her finger through the watery, bloody mess in her palm and the symbol for healing flared into existence. She held her breath as the wounds closed, praying she’d gotten all the glass out. When the symbol had sunk completely into her flesh and disappeared, most of the wounds were completely gone, the few large ones flushed with fresh tissue.
“Tell me who spoke to you of the three.”
Julien reached for her, and she stiffened. His hand fell back at his side.
“Give me a name.”
She met his eyes. “The name should have been Julien.”
“Why? What right do you have to my history when you so clearly have no interest in my future? You made it very clear that you want to be rid of me as quickly as possible and will remain my wife only long enough to satisfy our business arrangement.”
“No, you made it clear that all that exists between us—will ever exist between us—is business. You came back and blackmailed me into marrying you. You made it clear that you don’t trust me, couldn’t stay near me because I might attempt to enslave you. This business arrangement was your idea.”
Julien groped at his belt and retrieved a thin bottle of brown glass. “Yes, it’s a lovely business arrangement. But a business partner has no rights to my marital past, no reasonable expectation to hear my deepest secrets, my every desire.” Julien ripped the cork from the bottle and drained its contents in one long draught, tossing the bottle and cork to the ground when he’d finished. “What you are asking for are the rights of a wife. A true wife.”
“Which I am not.” Dominique curled her lip into a sneer, fiercely ignoring the stab of pain in her chest. “You’ve made that perfectly clear—to me and any of my people who dared to look closely enough.”
Julien licked his lips as if searching for more rum. “What do you mean?”
“I wear a ring my assistant purchased for me—with my money. I had a ceremony that lasted no longer than the sentences needed to seal the vows. I had no wedding dress, I had no—” Dominique cut herself off as a ferocious blush scalded her cheeks. Something tickled her skin and she bit her lip as she realized that at some point she’d started to cry, evidence of her pain sliding down her face in fat droplets of humiliation.
Julien looked like a man who’d fallen overboard. The harsh lines of his face melted like ice under the rays of a warm day. “I had no idea.”
Dominique averted her face, scrabbling for her anger, needing the protection it offered. Something to put between herself and the man staring into the soul she’d so foolishly bared to him for the second time.
“Dominique…”
“Go away.”
She’d meant it to be an order, but of course it came out a feeble plea, more a whisper than a command. Julien stepped closer, hands settling gently on her back as he pulled her against his chest.
“Let me go.”
Again, her voice offered her a pathetic excuse for a demand, fluttering between them like a breath. Dominique leaned back as far as his embrace would let her. She would not give in, not this time. Even as she fought, the strength to do so withered, and he cradled her even closer.
“Oh, chere, what a wretch I am. I should have known you’d want a proper romantic wedding.”
Dominique had never hated him more than she did in that moment. That moment when she wanted to collapse against him and cry, cry for the wedding she’d wanted, cry for the love she’d wanted. How many stupid, foolish dreams had she had of marrying this awful pirate, dreamt of the day he would realize how much he wanted her, come back and make good on all those lovely promises he’d made? Now she’d married him even though she knew he didn’t respect her, let alone love her. She had no one to blame.
“Please don’t cry. I never wanted to make you cry.”
“I hate you,” she whispered fiercely, half-choking on her tears.
“I know.”
He tried to pull her closer, tried to bury his face in her curls. She pounded a fist on his chest, pulling back to glare at him with every fiber of fury jetting through her being.
“Damn your eyes, do not pretend you care. Tell me now that you never cared, that you never loved me. Tell me the only reason you married me was to save your skin, your business. Tell me you never thought of me these past ten years.”
“Dominique…”
“No!” She tried to tear herself free of his arms. “If you have one decent bone in your body, you’ll be honest with me now. Say the words I need to hear so I can hate you forever, so I can—”
He crushed his mouth to hers, and swallowed the rest of the words she wanted to throw at him. He yanked her against him, so close that not even a thought could pass between their bodies. The heat of his mouth melted the rest of her rancor, sent her spinning into a warm, sheltered place where there was nothing but his kiss, his lips on hers, their breath becoming one.
He kissed her as though he would consume her, as if he would take her inside of him and leave nothing behind. His coarse palms ran up and down her back, snagging the fabric of her dress, urging her impossibly closer. Her head spun and when he finally pulled back, she gasped in a breath.
He was speaking now, a steady stream of a lyrical language she vaguely recognized. He whispered against her neck, her ear, her hair, his breath caressing her with every word. His hands trembled against her, voice shaking with emotion. Dominique blinked, trying to think through the haze of pleasure holding her in its comforting embrace.
It took her a moment to realize he was staring into her eyes. His mouth moved and she finally understood the words spoken in an old form of Sanguenese. She knew those words.
“Je t'aime.”
She covered the hand cradling her cheek. “What did you say?”
Julien pressed his lips tightly together, the lines around his eyes deepening. His gaze was heavy, the force of it willing her to understand something he couldn’t or wouldn’t admit.
But he had admitted it.
Dominique couldn’t breathe. It was a dream, a dream like so many she’d had in the past ten years. A beautiful fantasy where he’d never left, where she’d woken to find his smiling face and that mischievous glint in his eyes promising wicked things to come. Her power swirled inside her, a wild dance of energy and joy growing impossibly large. It shot through her, burning as brightly as a comet…and continued flowing from her body into Julien’s chest.
Chapter Thirteen
Ecstasy. Pleasure. A feeling of…completeness. A tension he’d felt his entire life easing, releasing its death grip on his insides. Warmth flooding through his core, chasing away the biting chill of shadows.
“Je t'aime.”
The words leapt from his lips again, stronger this time. He trapped her against a tree, as he dropped his head, seeking his lover’s mouth, needing to share her breath. Her warm lips parted beneath his and Julien groaned, pressed forward, questing tongue licking, searching. The taste of bourbon in all its smoky, aged glory, a perfume that would forever remind him of this place, this woman.
This woman. His woman. His bonded.
Something fluttered at the back of his mind like a swarm of bats waking in a cave, his nerves sizzling from the jet of adrenaline. But it seemed far away. Everything, even the world, seemed far away right now. His entire existence narrowed down to the warm and willing feminine body in his arms, and her soft exhalation of breath.
“Julien…”
Her voice. Oh, he’d missed that voice, dreamt of that voice. Leaving her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. But he’d had to leave, couldn’t risk—
This.
Julien’s eyes flew open, a freezing wash of horror spilling over him like a sudden autumn shower. Dominique’s brown eyes, glazed over with desire, blinked lazily at him. Her beautiful lips were swollen, passion-bruised from his kiss. Her skin was glowing the way every bride’s should glow on her wedding night. She shifted against him, a rolling, sinuous motion that broadcast her invitation to every nerve center in his body. It was nearly enough to draw him back into the kiss, to distract him from the dawning realization of what had just happened.
Bonded.
“No. No, it shouldn’t have been that easy, it shouldn’t… It can’t happen that fast, that… It should have hurt.”
Dominique tilted her head to study him, her hair brushing against the bark of the tree at her back. Julien’s desire-addled brain finally registered that he had her pinned there, held to the trunk of the oak like some sort of hamadryad.
“You… No. No, you couldn’t.” He closed his eyes, willing it to be a dream. His stomach roiled like a ship on storm-tossed waves. And still that shining light inside him glowed, gave off waves of peace, satisfaction.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the lines around Dominique’s eyes had deepened. Her body lost the languidness of passion, stiffened as she finally registered the change in his demeanor. He wanted to back away, put space between them, but the power pulsing inside him pulled, straining toward the woman it had come from. Julien let out a choked sound and dropped his head again, his lips barely touching the shell of her ear. The pathetic note pricked his pride, stirring his temper.
“How dare you,” he breathed into her hair.
“How dare I?” Dominique jerked back and shoved against his chest, the friction breaking bark from the tree. “How dare I what?”
He gripped her wrist in a crushing hold and pressed it harder against his chest. She opened her mouth, whether to cry out in pain or protest he didn’t know. Her eyes widened and the words died on her tongue. She gaped at his chest where her hand touched him.
“Blessed Bondye…”
The shock on her face… It was as if she hadn’t known what she’d done, hadn’t meant to… But that would mean her power had sought him out on its own. It would mean it remembered him. Wanted him. It would mean those legends among his kind were true, the tales that said impundulu did not seek any magic user, but rather, a specific magic user—someone meant for them, and them alone.
This…this feeling is what he had so narrowly avoided the last time he’d been with her. This was what he would have felt if he’d given in to that tempting caress, that kiss of power against the aching emptiness inside him. What Dominique had felt had been real. A connection, as deep as love, but different—more. Fate.
As if stirred by the very nature of his realization, the feminine tones rang in his mind like killing hour bells.
“It will feel so good if you stop fighting it.”
“A pitcher with a hole in it holds no water.”
“You will thank us someday.”
During his first marriage—marriages. It ha
d taken everything he had to fight his way out, every ounce of willpower to free himself. And that bond had not felt nearly as complete as this. Because it hadn’t been right, hadn’t been the bond he was meant to have. This time… This time there would be no escape.
Julien back stepped, and tripped on a root in his haste.
“Julien, are you all right?”
Dominique knelt beside him. He hadn’t seen her move. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder like she was soothing a frightened child. He opened his mouth to tell her no, he was not all right. He never should have married her, he should have never come back.
“Get it out.”
Dominique winced, her hand recoiling. “Julien, I didn’t mean—”
“Get it out! Get it out now!”
Panic swallowed him. Pride flew from him and he got to his knees, grabbed Dominique’s hand. She stared at him as though he’d lost his mind, lips parting without making a sound.
“Take your power back.” He was begging, the sound pathetic even to his own ears, but he didn’t care—couldn’t care. “Please.”
“I don’t—I’m not sure how.”
Julien scrabbled at the sheath fastened to the inside of his coat, fumbling until he freed his dagger. Dominique tensed and the power inside of him pulsed. The sensation merged with his heartbeat, forcing him to experience her magic as a part of himself. Another pulse of rightness radiated through his being, touching every corner of his soul. He tightened his fingers around the dagger’s hilt, firmly grasping the fraying ends of his willpower, his self-control. He had to act now, before it was too late and the bond was permanent.
“Take your power out of me, or I will cut it out myself.”
Eyes impossibly wide, Dominique sucked in a sharp breath. She leaned forward, hands reaching for him, but hovering safely out of reach, as if she were smart enough to be cautious, but brave enough to stop him if he tried to follow through on his threat.
Blue Voodoo: A Romantic Retelling of Bluebeard (The Hidden Kingdom Series Book 2) Page 13
