Bloodflower

by K. J. Harrowick

  But his stomach was already growling at the thought of hot meat.

  “City gates close at sundown. Welcome to Felaren.” Her body exploded in a burst of feathers, a dozen zankata returning to perch on the wall’s apex.

  “Thank you.” Jon nudged his horse forward, but the hairs along the back of his neck rose as half a dozen people crouched in the trees, barely visible except for the bows on their backs.

  Those same folks had been following them since the sahiranath and could even be the ones who’d painted the zankata symbol for Jàden. Maybe they were leading her toward Kale. Or maybe back to another grave like what happened in the north.

  CHAPTER 35

  Felaren

  Jàden brushed the fur along Agnar’s neck, her horse the only comfort she had left. She leaned against him, a whisper of breath on her cheek as he softly nipped at her, but he could barely keep his eyes open.

  “I hate that Jon’s angry with me,” she whispered, the unbearable emptiness eating her insides. Her gentle warrior had disappeared since that night on the beach, replaced by a cold, moody captain who barely spoke two words to anyone.

  Agnar grunted, dozing against the warmth of his brother-herd. Even he couldn’t offer the comfort she needed.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  She stuffed the brush into her bag and closed the gate. Barely more than a circled fence with a roof, the pen was just large enough for all eight horses to fit comfortably and keep off the wind.

  As she secured the latch, a herd of deer plodded along the road, a buck in the lead with a fifteen-point rack and a dozen does trailing behind. The buck turned toward her, staring hard as if to penetrate the shadows within her cowl.

  Jàden turned away, rubbing the ache in her chest.

  She’d made a horrible mistake, pulling her energy out of Jon, even if it was morally the right thing to do. Certain it would cut off her growing desire toward him, the severed tie had only strengthened her need to be near him.

  Day and night as they rode, she’d kept her head down, silently begging for a kind word or his soft touch on her cheek. She still needed to find Ironstar Tower and go back to the beginning, but that path was starting to feel more like a dream.

  The human quarter settled on a marshy spit of land stretched between two wide rivers. A cool breeze blew in from the twilight harbor, and she wanted to tear off her cloak and turn her face to the last of the sunlight. But she held her hood tight against her cheek and scanned the skies for any sign of a ship.

  Jon had set them up in an inn for the night, a celebration of their freedom from the Rakir and surviving their first days in a new land. Most of the others went out drinking at the local tavern, but she suspected their ploy was to learn about the Dark Isle and what lurked beyond the city’s trees.

  It would have been nice to drown herself in a bottle of réva, but with her rotten luck that would be the moment Frank showed up.

  Toppled stone spires jutted out from dark green waters, one with an old bell nearly rusted through inside its apex. She searched for Jon but instead found Thomas leaning against the bathhouse, clean-shaved and dressed in fresh clothing.

  She trudged toward the low, stone building, ready for a hot bath and a few moments to nurse the lonely ache in her soul. “Anyone in there?”

  “You’re the last.” Thomas ran a hand over his fresh-shaved hair. “You’ve got the night off. We start fresh in the morning.”

  It was more than she could have hoped for. She hadn’t had a hot bath or a soft bed in years, if she didn’t count her time in hypersleep.

  She pushed open the wooden door, steam lifting off a bathing pool in the center. Heat pressed against her skin, filled with the scents of lavender and hickory. She breathed them all in, a beautiful blend of fragrance, and yet it wasn’t the mountain pine smell she craved.

  “Just make sure no one comes in,” she said.

  Thomas chuckled and shut the door as if he had some secret amusement.

  Steam frizzed out the hairs around her neck as she dropped her bag near the side. She pushed back her hood, glad she didn’t have to cover her face anymore. With Thomas standing guard, there was no need to worry about unwanted visitors.

  Tugging off her boots and breeches, Jàden settled on the side of the basin and dipped her bare feet into the heated water. Candles flickered along the walls, the low light fueling a sense of relaxation as she breathed a sigh of relief in the silence. Here was the only place she could be alone with her thoughts—and her tears—as she tugged off her hooded outer shirt.

  Water splashed upward from the center of the pool, followed by a low sputtering.

  Jon rubbed the water out of his eyes, a silver and ruby pendant glistening against his chest.

  Fire burned in her cheeks as his dark eyes found hers, water droplets sliding down his muscular arms from soldier brand to bloodflower tattoo.

  “I’m sorry. Thomas said it was…” Empty.

  Except he hadn’t. The bastard must have known Jon was in here. The last thing she wanted right now was another confrontation.

  “Not like you ain’t seen me every day for an entire season.” Jon forged to the edge of the basin, only the water covering his nakedness from the waist down.

  She tried to avert her eyes.

  But he laid a hand on either side of her legs. “Besides, you and I ain’t finished. We need to get a few things sorted—without the others.”

  “I’m not going to fight you, Captain.” She pulled her knees to her chest to stand up.

  Jon grabbed her thighs and yanked her back down, her backside hitting the ground hard. “You might once I speak my mind.”

  Heat blazed up the inside of her thighs as he wedged his body between her legs. She wanted to scream at him to stop touching her like that—she belonged to Kale.

  Except every time he stood so close, Jàden’s heart split in two.

  She ached for Jon with a burning desire in the deepest part of her gut, but her heart still grieved for Kale and the love they’d once shared.

  Even after watching Kale’s funeral, she wanted him back. Her Kale.

  But she would never get that chance, a hard truth she still struggled to accept even as an intense ache for Jon’s affections clutched her heart. She loved him, wanted him. He deserved so much better than a broken woman like her, but damn if she didn’t harbor a selfish desire to feel the heat of his lovemaking.

  “This is the last time I’m going to say this.” Frustration edged his voice. “I want you to call me Jon. You and I are in this together. Equals, got it?”

  “We’ve never been equals. I can’t wield a sword the way you do.” She pressed against his chest to push him back as he caressed her thighs. By the Guardians she wanted him to kiss her. “Do you have to stand so close?”

  “Damn right I do. You gutted me, Jàden. Ripped the best part of me away and left me cold and empty.” He tightened his grip and pressed closer, leaning his forehead against hers. “I want it back. I can’t bear this hole you left behind.”

  Why did he have to make everything so difficult? She tried to hide her own frustration, telling herself the hole in his heart would heal with time. Except she didn’t believe it. She’d been gutted too and ached to have that tie to his energy again. But she couldn’t rely on Jon forever and needed to find her own strength.

  Jàden grabbed his cheeks, his fresh-shaved beard prickling her fingers. Caressing his jaw, each of the fine, dark hairs glistening in the low light, fueled her need for intimacy. “I told you, I have to leave Sandaris.”

  “Not without me.” He slid his hands along her legs. “This is as far away as I ever want to be again.”

  Her body ignited like an inferno as his soil-brown eyes pinned her in place.

  “I made up my mind before we ever left the north. My place is by your side, whether that’s here in this city or wherever you Guardians come from.” His fingers trailed up her side, t
ugging at the hem of her lighter undershirt. “I know you’re in love with another man, but you ain’t gonna get rid of me that easy.”

  “You misunderstand me.” She didn’t want to get rid of Jon; she loved him. And yet the intensity of his words left a trail of tingles up her neck.

  Except here they were, over a thousand leagues from his home. He and his men had given up so much for her already. Jàden caressed her thumb over his lower lip. Whispers of Kale faded to the back of her mind. She’d been so cold and miserable without Jon’s energy woven into her senses. She could kiss him now with no fear of their combined energy forging together, but one taste of him and she’d never be able to let go.

  She couldn’t put him in danger anymore. “Jon, I can’t. If I lose control of my power, you’ll die.”

  “Let me make that choice.” His hand slid beneath her shirt as he pulled her closer. “I’d rather die by your hand than live another day without your soft breath on my skin.”

  He was killing her. She’d never once flinched when Kale decided to follow her off Hàlon, but Jon was like a wild stallion and a ship in deep space would surely be a cage he couldn’t bear. “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.”

  “I know exactly what I’m asking.” Jon lifted the silver chain over his head and laid the pendant in her hand. “It’s been in my family for generations. I want you to have it.”

  A large red ruby sat in the middle of her palm, cradled by four silver petals. The bloodflower key.

  “Is this real?” She turned it back and forth, candlelight glinting off the jeweled surface. Embedded in the gemstone’s matrix were millions of lines of code. Instructions for the gates to open and ignite the theric fires between the ship and the moon’s surface.

  A single energy source to power the gates, but in her mind lurked the one she’d seen years ago buried in the moon’s core.

  The one that could get them all killed.

  She sighed and pressed the bloodflower into Jon’s hand. “You can’t give this to me. You’re a gatekeeper. This key—”

  “Is yours.” He slipped the chain over her head. “This pendant is my family’s legacy, Jàden, and you’re the only woman I’d ever let touch it.”

  A hole opened in her chest as Jon ran his fingers through a lock of hair against her left temple, then wove it into a three-strand braid with a fourth, twisted lock looping in and out of the weave. He tugged a wet thread off her breeches and tied off the end. “My sister taught me how to do that. It means you’re part of a family.”

  “Jon.” His words warmed her heart, but they were not enough to fill the hole his strength left behind.

  “You’re part of our family now. Me and these men,” he whispered, the edge gone from his voice.

  He slid his hands inside her shirt again and pulled her tight against him.

  The heat burned along her thighs as she tightened her legs. Letting the bloodflower fall against her chest, she gripped his arms.

  His lips brushed against hers and the fire surged in her gut. “I want you to bond with me again so neither one of us is ever alone.”

  “Jon—” Between the softness of his voice and his mouth so close to hers, she could barely breathe.

  “I need you.”

  Jàden bit down on her lip as the Flame crackled in her veins. She wanted this so much, but the thought of accidentally hurting him stabbed at her heart. He had a raging fire in his soul and the stubbornness of an ox, and she loved him for it.

  “You don’t understand. I won’t be able to reverse it again. We’ll be bound until death.” Unless they never kissed, but with his breath on her lips, Jàden already knew that argument was useless.

  “No, you don’t understand. I want this. I want you, my beautiful kóna,” he whispered against her neck, trailing his mouth across her skin. “Nakshirnén. Until death.”

  Without the bond, Jàden could not feel the meaning of the two northern words. Jon had not spoken them before now, and with the fire raging in her soul to feel every piece of this man, how could she refuse? She never wanted him to leave her side.

  Tendrils of light lifted away from her arms and dug into Jon’s chest until the strength of his energy surged into her once more. She breathed him in, pine and mountain and sea whispering into her essence. “I missed you.”

  Jon pressed his mouth against hers.

  Tugging her shirt into his fist, he pulled her tight against his chest.

  As his tongue brushed hers, the fire in her veins wove their combined energy as one, sealing Jon to her as a bonded soul. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a deeper kiss.

  Jon slid his hands along her back and into her hair. “Don’t ever gut me like that again. I’m yours, Jàden, body and soul.”

  Clutching him tight, guilt tugged her heart. What would she say to Kale if she ever found him? She was family now, but did Jon understand that they could never be too far apart, or their combined energy would stretch to the point of pain? “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “About the bond,” he muttered, capturing her mouth again and kissing her deeply. “It means you’re my—”

  “Captain.” Ashe appeared at the door, graciously keeping his back to them. “It’s the old man.”

  Jon tightened his jaw and groaned against her mouth. “He shouldn’t be drunk for at least another hour. What happened?”

  Her heart pounded, silently willing Ashe to disappear and Jon to finish his earlier words. It meant she was his what?

  “Not sure, Captain. He’s on the warpath tonight. Worse than usual.”

  “You can’t fix it?” Jon’s voice took on a biting tone, but his eyes burned with desire, all the anger of the past few days gone. He caressed her lip as if he’d rather be kissing her again, and finally shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll go shove Malcolm’s head in a water barrel.”

  Jon leaned toward her ear, warm breath whispering across her skin. “I won’t be long.”

  She wanted to cling to him, beg him to stay, but something in his voice warned her that Malcolm might be in trouble. Releasing her grip, his strength flowed through her veins once more, strong and sure and bound to her now.

  Jàden gripped the edge of the basin.

  Jon climbed out, quickly pulled on dry clothing and grabbed his weapons with a lingering glance at her.

  “I’ll be back.”

  Then he retreated into the evening air.

  CHAPTER 36

  Felaren

  Jon cursed under his breath as he stormed toward the tavern, the heat of Jàden’s kiss like fire against his mouth.

  All he wanted was a night alone with her and was determined to give her every reason to stay with him instead of leaving. To stop hunting a dead man she’d never be able to reclaim.

  But first he had to take care of the old man. Jon hurried down a series of wooden steps buried in the hillside.

  He tugged his collar open, sensing the missing weight of the bloodflower. Maybe giving it to her tonight had been a bad idea, but he’d been trying to work up the nerve to tell her she was an Ayers.

  At least she didn’t rip the bond out of him again.

  The steps ended at a gravel lane winding along the river. At the far end of the rolling lawns, a small tavern nestled beneath a large willow. Amber light glowed from the windows, but no laughter reached his ears. If anything, he should have heard Theryn spouting poetry or some horse shit to the crowd.

  Jon threw open the door. Half a dozen patrons were pinned against the wall, Malcolm’s daggers sticking through a sleeve or a pant leg. Malcolm leaned back in a chair, a pint in his hands. By the glassy gaze in his eyes, he’d been drinking long before he ever set foot in the building.

  The Felaren citizens glared at Malcolm.

  “Here to talk, old man.” Jon stepped inside the tavern and kicked the door shut. He raised his hands to the side but didn’t dare light a cigarette. Not yet, and especial
ly not with Jàden’s intoxicating scent still clinging to him.

  Every time Malcolm got drunk, his mind blacked out while his body kept on fighting the enemies that killed his wife, children and grandchildren, wiping out his entire bloodline. Any minute he’d start talking about the past. About why he had no one left. Jon had heard the same story for the last twenty years.

  “He’s my grandson. Did you know that?” Malcolm finished off his pint of réva and slammed it on the table. He stood and kicked the table across the room. “Did you know that?!”

  Jon’s other men circled the tavern’s central area, standing protectively in front of the other patrons and staff. Their expressions were hard. They’d all seen Malcolm crack before, and it was why the old man rarely drank. Something in the last few days must have pulled his past tragedy to the surface—likely the gutting fight between him and Jàden.

  “Family’s dead, Malcolm.” Jon shuffled closer. He had to pick tonight. “They died more than twenty years ago. You have no enemies here.”

  Malcolm threw an ax at him.

  Jon shifted aside and caught the handle before easing it down on the table, never taking his eyes off the old man.

  “It wasn’t right what they did to your family.” His chest tightened at the thought of anyone harming Jàden or any of his men.

  “Him.” Malcolm slammed his other ax into the chair, the wood splitting apart. “What he did to my wife. My children. My grandchildren. I only have one left.” There were tears in his stormy gray eyes. “One grandson, and if I don’t protect him…”

  Jon furrowed his brow, edging around the table until they were no more than a dozen spans apart. This was new information to him. “Who’s still alive? You never told me.”

  There was shuffling behind him, the others getting the patrons outside until Jon could get the old man under control.

  “One grandson. He doesn’t know. Thinks he’s alone.” Malcolm gripped the ax handle and shook his head. “That boy is never alone.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” An uneasy feeling settled into Jon’s chest as he inched closer.