by Gail Dayton
In a near frenzy, he rose to his knees and wrestled his way out of his dressing gown and drawers. Laughing, Amanusa sat up and shed her ruffles. She laughed. Who would ever have thought it? Jax couldn’t laugh. Not yet. Not when he still hadn’t found his way inside her.
He fell to hands and knees over her, able at last to indulge himself with the sight of her glorious nakedness—her high, proud breasts, the endless stretch of sleek legs, the flare of her hips, the little mound of her stomach. “You are so beautiful.”
“You are the first to ever say so.” She held her arms out to him, smiling. “The first to make me believe it.”
His arms shook with the effort of holding himself up. He was afraid to take her offer, afraid of forgetting himself in her embrace. “I want you so much, I’m afraid of hurting you, or frightening you.”
“You won’t. You can’t.” She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders. “Jax, you gave me what I needed. You showed me there was beauty and pleasure and joy in making love. Let me give you what you need. Let this be your turn. Come and take what you want.”
It couldn’t be that simple. Could it? She tugged at his shoulders and his elbows collapsed. Somehow he kept his weight from crashing into her, but though he fell slowly, he still fell, and her body cushioned his fall.
Take what you want, she said. He scarcely knew what that was, it had been so long since he’d been able to have it. He wanted… wanted just to take her, like those bastards in the mountains, to plunge inside her and hammer at her until—
“Do it, Jax.” Her fingers roamed into his hair, playing in the too-long waves. “Whatever you want, do it. Take it. It’s not like in the camp. It can’t be. You’re my husband. I chose you. We’ve shared blood. You can’t hurt me because you would feel it.”
It sounded logical, but he wanted it so much, he couldn’t help looking for the viper in the nest. Something had to be wrong with it.
“Jax.” Amanusa squeezed her hand between their bodies and touched his cock where it pressed into the softness of her stomach. He caught his breath. She wrapped her hand around his rigid flesh and he groaned, his hips twitching. She squirmed, trying to maneuver her body, to bring him where he wanted so badly to go.
“Do you mean it?” The words grated out of him, his voice gone harsh.
“Whatever you want, Jax. You did as much for me. Please. Let me do this for you.”
He pulled back to search her face, not quite yet able to believe. He pushed himself into her hand and she didn’t retreat, didn’t look away. Her eyes returned his hungry stare with a wild hunger of their own. Still watching her face, Jax tugged her hand away and took hold himself. He probed her folds, sucking in a quick gasp when he found her as slick and wet as before.
He would take what he wanted, but he would make it good for her too, because that was part of what he wanted. He wanted to feel her come apart in his arms, screaming his name. He rubbed his tip over her sweet spot until she moaned, until he couldn’t bear any more and brought himself to her entrance.
He stopped then, poised just outside. “Look at me, Amanusa. See me.”
He wanted her eyes on him not only because he didn’t want her frightened, but because he wanted her focused on him and nothing else. Her eyes fluttered open, and when he knew his image registered in her mind, he thrust home. The wet, slick heat of her body enfolding him almost brought him to climax right then. He laced his fingers through hers, pressing them hard into the mattress, and held on, his cheek against hers as he fought for control. He wanted more from this. More for himself and much more for her.
“It was easier,” he rasped, “when I wasn’t the one in control.”
“But it’s better now?” Amanusa sounded uncertain.
Jax lifted his head to see her. “Oh yes. Much better. More difficult, but better.” He withdrew almost all the way and drove back home again, sliding his hands down to her hips to lift them so he could rub across that place inside her, the one that had taken him so long to learn.
Amanusa gasped. Jax grinned, a fierce, predatory grin. He was going to make her scream.
He didn’t hold back. When he tried, Amanusa clawed at him, drove her hips up into him. So he let go that much control and pounded into her. He could feel her reactions, know how that thrilled her, and this thrilled her more, and he gave himself over to it. The sensations built higher and tighter until he cried out with every thrust, every breath. Wild, barbaric sounds that harmonized with Amanusa’s moans and whimpers.
Her body went taut, paralyzed with pleasure, and he shouted, giving one more hard, perfect stroke, so that they exploded together, throbbing and pulsing around and into each other, captured by the perfection of the moment. A moment that lasted forever and not nearly long enough.
“Oh my.” Amanusa combed Jax’s hair out of her face.
Jax turned his head to press a kiss on her temple. It was nice that she was tall. “Is that a good or a bad ‘oh my’?”
She poked his arm with a forefinger. “You felt everything I felt. What do you think?”
“You know men and our frail self-esteem. I want to hear it in words.” He lifted his weight off her, but couldn’t bring himself to leave her altogether. He nuzzled along her cheek, unable to stop kissing her.
Amanusa nuzzled back. “If I tell you that I want you to take whatever you want any time you want, will that satisfy your need for words?”
He chuckled, content. “I am going to be so bloated with magic, you’ll have to give spells away for free to keep me from waddling with it.”
She pulled back abruptly, worry in her eyes. “Will too much magic hurt you?”
Jax gave her a hearty kiss and slid to one side, propping himself on an elbow. Her worry warmed him. “I haven’t carried huge loads of magic very often. Yvaine almost never f—” He edited his language. “Never had sex with me herself, which raised the most magic. She sent me to parties—orgies—”
He watched Amanusa through his lashes for her reaction, fearing her disgust, but now able to believe she might not condemn him for it. “When she had a great spell she wanted to work, I would sometimes carry the magic for weeks. It did me no harm to carry so much magic, didn’t affect my physical self at all, but I felt bloated. Because I felt it, I moved differently. It made me walk like a fat man, or a pregnant woman.”
“I am not sending you to any orgies, so you can get that idea right out of your head this instant.”
Her snappishness, her obvious jealousy, had Jax laughing with delight. He scooped her into his arms, rolling onto his back with her atop him. “With you as my wife, how can I even see other women? I shall be that most boring of creatures, a faithful husband.”
“Good.” She gave a brisk, satisfied nod and folded her hands on his chest. “Now what?”
He laughed again. He’d never ended lovemaking with so much laughter. “Now, you reinforce our magic shields, and then I suppose it will be time to begin the ‘happily ever after’ part of our lives?”
“Oh, Jax, do you think it’s possible?”
“What? ‘Happily ever after’? No, I suppose not. Not the ‘ever after’ bit. But I think we ought to be able to manage ‘Happily some of the time.’ Perhaps even ‘Happily most of the time.’ “ He brushed back a cascade of pale blond hair so he could see her face. “I’m happy now. Are you?”
Her smile made his heart turn over. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”
She reached for magic, Jax gave it, and she added another, brighter layer of protection to that they already wore. Then, tired by the effort, they slept.
Jax woke her once more in the morning’s small hours to make love again, needing to know if she’d really meant it—whenever, whatever he wanted. She did. How could he love her any more?
The attack struck just before dawn, crashing past the wards around their hotel room as if they were walls made of paper, shrieking across the personal shields built with so much pleasure in the night. Amanusa screamed as the attack pierced the s
hielding, pain slicing through her. She grabbed for the magic Jax thrust at her. Shouting the shielding spell, she built up their defenses from the inside out.
“Must we just endure the bombardment?” she gasped between waves of attack. “Can’t we attack in return?”
“Sorcery doesn’t have much offensive magic without innocent blood being shed.”
Amanusa thought frantically as she spoke another spell, built another shield. She didn’t know enough. She needed more spells in her repertoire.
“The attack is fading,” Jax said. “I’ve still got plenty of magic. What if we turn it back on them? Reflect the spell back at them with your magic in it.”
“Can we do that?”
From the nightstand, Jax pulled one of the notebooks she’d filled on the train and flipped through it. “Yes, here. I thought I remembered it.”
Amanusa finished yet another defensive spell. “I didn’t think you could remember what Yvaine said when she spoke with your voice.”
“I can’t. But I always looked over what you’d written when I woke.” He climbed back onto the bed, unaware of his nudity, his finger marking the spell in the notebook.
She spoke it as she read, pouring magic into the conclave’s testing spell, turning the attack back on its source, confining it to pain and forbidding death or physical injury. Then she let it go and felt it slingshot back across the city.
Only then did they hear the shouts and pounding at the suite’s door. “It’s Harry,” Amanusa said, recognizing the voice as Jax found his dressing gown on the floor and pulled it on.
“They must have felt the warding shatter. I’ll tell them to come back later.” He closed the door to the bedroom as he padded out to the parlor.
Amanusa decided she could take time for undergarments beneath her dressing gown before emerging to consult with their friends.
Friends? The word brought her up short. She’d never had friends. Not since her family left Vienna. Did she now?
She rather thought so. Harry and Elinor and even Grey, for all his nonsense. They seemed to like her and care what happened to her, and she liked them. Amanusa smiled as she tied the ribbon on her chemise. She had a husband—an excellent one—and she had friends. Life was suddenly very good.
But why were they all shouting? Amanusa threw her dressing gown over her unmentionables and tied it hurriedly shut before snatching open the bedroom door to see what was going on.
Jax stood in the doorway, arms braced on either side of the frame, barring the way. Harry and Grey, also in dressing gowns, stood just in front of him, and Amanusa thought she saw Elinor in a shabby green wrapper in front of them. Beyond her friends were several gentlemen in morning coats and suits. Amanusa could barely see them past all the bodies in her way.
“Mademoiselle Whitcomb?” A heavily accented voice floated over the heads of her friends and husband, speaking a few more sentences in French.
“Oh, wait. I don’t have my translation stone.” Amanusa turned back into the bedroom and rummaged through yesterday’s dress for the stone in her pocket. The dressing gown didn’t have pockets so she held it in her hand.
“There is no Mademoiselle Whitcomb,” Jax was saying in his fluent French. “There is only Madame Greyson.”
“My apologies.” The other man’s accent had vanished. Magic. “And my congratulations on your marriage. I am desolated to be disturbing you so early—”
“Just get on with it.”
Amanusa recognized that voice. It was the English wizard. Cranshaw. The one who feared and hated sorcery—and women—so much. Her stomach began to churn.
She rose onto her tiptoes to see, a hand on Jax’s shoulder for balance. The man at the forefront of the group had turned around to look at Cranshaw, who stood with a cluster of four—no, five other scowling magicians. Behind them, at the door to the suite, she saw uniformed policemen.
Cranshaw flushed under the man’s stare, and after another long moment the man turned back around. What was Captain Vaillon doing in her hotel suite? Amanusa’s head went light and fuzzy.
“Madame Greyson.” Vaillon met her eyes over Elinor’s sleep-touseled head. “I have been asked by the International Magician’s Conclave to execute a warrant of arrest for the investigation of a magical crime. These men—” His disdain showed clearly in his voice. Probably too clearly. “They have been sent to ensure that you do not use your magic to escape.”
Amanusa gripped Jax’s shoulder, needing the support as her head threatened to float entirely away, and she lost track of the whereabouts of her knees. Dear God, what was wrong with these people? Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? “What crime am I supposed to have committed this time?”
Jax glanced over his shoulder at her and immediately abandoned his role as gate to wrap his arms protectively around her. Vaillon stepped forward and held out a folded paper. Amanusa reached between Harry and Grey to take it, but before she could open and read it, a little man all in black, save for the red cockade on his top hat and the red badge on his frock coat, came in. He marched across the parlor, the occupants parting before him, until he stopped just behind Vaillon. Kazaryk. He had pursued her even to Paris.
Amanusa’s knees gave way, only Jax’s hold keeping her upright. How long had the Inquisitor Plenipotentiary been here? The thought of Kazaryk’s greedy cruelty working with Cranshaw’s rabid hatred of sorcery terrified her.
“You are charged with the magic assault on an officer of a duly constituted national council,” Inquisitor Kazaryk spat.
Actual spittle flew from his lips. She had forced him to confront his own crimes, and he hated her for it. Amanusa saw the promise of her death in his eyes.
Another man had come in with Kazaryk and stood beside him, glaring at Amanusa. She hadn’t noticed him beside the Inquisitor’s blazing threat. She glanced at him now, wondering what it was about him that seemed so familiar.
“You are also charged with the murder-by-magic of twenty-three innocent men,” Kazaryk said.
Amanusa gasped. She might have cried out. The other man was Szabo.
Dragos Szabo, with his gray-laced black hair slicked back and his bristly chin clean-shaven between his bushy side whiskers, dressed up in a fancy suit. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.
“You betrayed my trust,” he snarled.
“Your trust? What about my trust?” Anger—absolute fury—drove out her fear. “What about what your men did to me? What about my murdered mother? My little brother? Where was the justice for that? Did you give me justice? No. So I took it.”
“You have heard it from her own lips,” Kazaryk crowed, triumphant. “She confesses to her crime.”
“This is a hotel room.” Vaillon’s voice rang out. “Not a court of law. Proper procedure will be followed.”
“Then arrest her, by God,” Cranshaw shouted. “Do your duty. Or has sorcery enslaved you as well?”
Vaillon turned to glare at him again. “It is my duty, monsieur. I am the one who knows what my duty demands. I do not take orders from you. You have satisfied yourselves that I am free of magical influence. Now, if you do not shut your mouth, I will arrest you as well for interference in my duty. Do you understand?”
Cranshaw subsided, muttering. In centuries past, magicians had defied civil authority. It was one of the things, according to Jax’s returning memories, that had sparked the witch-burnings. A great many more people had small talents than had great enough talent to become master magicians. Their numbers made a difference when the council magicians abused their power.
The masters had agreed to abide by civil law in order to obtain the protection of that law from angry and fearful mobs. Even Cranshaw did not dare defy the law and risk a return to those days, much as he might wish to instigate a mob against Amanusa and her sorcery.
“Surely you cannot mean to take her into custody in her dressing gown,” Elinor protested.
“Of course not. Madame may dress. I will remain here in the parlor with my poli
cemen, and these…” He sneered, as only the French can sneer. “These ‘gentlemen’ may go into the corridor, if they insist on waiting.”
“How do we know you won’t let her go?” someone demanded.
“Because unlike you,” Vaillon said, “I have honor. This lady has honor. She will not run. But if she did, I would stop her.”
“You didn’t expect to find us alive, did you?” Jax said then, looking at Kazaryk, at the magicians. “Did you launch the magic attack on us yourselves?”
“No.” Amanusa shook her head. Her fist closed around the satin shawl collar of Jax’s robe as realization hit her. “They wouldn’t be here if they had. They would be trying to cope with the results of their own spell. These cowards persuaded the conclave to authorize the attack as my master magician’s test. They manipulated them into timing it just before dawn. Just before Captain Vaillon was to arrive with his arrest warrant and discover our bodies. That attack was meant to kill. Is that how you test all your journeymen?”
Harry looked shocked. The magicians behind Vaillon looked defiant. But they hadn’t been the ones attacking.
“I reflected the spell used against us back at those who attacked, but I barred the reflected magic from killing,” Amanusa said quietly. “Who are the barbarians in this room?”
Chapter 26
“Out.” Vaillon turned to eject the magicians from the parlor, grabbing Kazaryk by the shoulder to turn him forcibly around and propel him out the door.
“You destroyed the revolution,” Szabo growled.
“No.” Amanusa was suddenly too tired to growl back. “You destroyed it, Szabo, when you let criminals and thugs join your revolution. They turned it into nothing more than a rabble.”
Vaillon shoved the outlaw chief backward, handing him over to one of the policemen.
“Amanusa, I am so sorry.” Elinor squeezed between Harry and Grey and pulled her into a fragrant hug.
“I can give you only so much time, madame, monsieur,” Vaillon said, returning from the closed suite door. “Time for dressing, but not time for consulting with your friends.”
