by Liz Craven
“What do I do then?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice when she added, “Aside from lying around, waiting for you to get me pregnant.”
Talon stiffened, and she sensed his outrage. Lia swallowed the apology that bubbled in her chest. She knew he hated himself for threatening her. She knew he hated himself more for knowing he would force her to assume her “rightful” place.
“Lia…” She heard the warning and the plea in his voice.
“What do I do after the ceremony?” she asked. “How do I spend my days? What does the Damaia do?”
Talon stepped back, tugging her with him until she suddenly lost her balance and tumbled into his lap. He’d settled himself into a large, worn chair next to the window. Tucked into his body, surrounded by his scent, her muscles relaxed and she melted against him.
“All the planning that went into creating the Damaia—did anyone consider what to do with me now that I exist?” she asked, shifting in her husband’s lap.
He grabbed her hips, stilling her movements. “Keep moving like that sweetheart, and I’ll show you exactly what I’ve considered doing with you since we found you.”
Lia flushed with pleasure at his admittance and bit back a flirty response. The man might make her pulse race and toes curl, but she needed to find her path—not throw her husband to the ground and have her wicked way with him. No matter how warm and wet she grew in response to the hard, throbbing bulge beneath her bottom. Or how vivid her fantasies had become as she lay next to him in the bed aboard the Aegir.
“Talon, I’m serious,” she said quietly.
He sighed and began to caress her back in soothing circles. “I’m sorry sweetheart, but there’s no definite answer to your question.”
Lia’s heart did a little flip at the unexpected endearment and her pulse rate increased. With effort, she focused on her husband’s words.
“Much of your role is ceremonial. The government restructuring leaves you as the planetary head, but all legislative authority rests with the Senate. Your signature is required on all laws, but only as a matter of form.”
“I sign laws that I can’t veto? A lot of money and effort went into developing a Damaia. It would’ve been cheaper to produce a rubber stamp,” Lia sniped.
Talon’s hands slid up to massage the knots in her shoulders. “Your primary responsibilities are diplomatic. You represent N’yota in all treaty and alliance negotiations, and the diplomatic corps reports directly to you.”
The dark cloud over her mood began to lift. This was important. It was something that required independent thought—and it was hers. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Talon reassured her with a chuckle, before turning serious again. “The most important task you have is to reassure our people. We may appear to be a flourishing, wealthy League planet, but beneath the gossamer mask lies a war-ravaged people who fear the new order isn’t strong enough to hold them together.”
“By ‘new order’, you mean me,” Lia clarified, meeting his eyes.
A rueful grin played with the corners of his mouth. “I meant for you to silently infer that, but yes.”
“No pressure,” Lia said, wryly. “I just have to hold a planet together while avoiding assassins.”
Talon shifted her in his arms until she lay cradled against him. With his free hand, he brushed her hair from her face. “I’m not going to let assassins get to you. And you’re wrong. You don’t have to hold the planet together. We do. You aren’t in this alone anymore, sweetheart.”
“Really?” she breathed, drowning in his eyes.
“Really,” he repeated. “Lia there’s never been a Damaia before. You get to define that role, shape it how you see fit. The future page is blank. You don’t have to read words written by others—you get to be the writer.”
Passion darkened Talon’s eyes to the color of storm clouds, and the strong pulsing beneath her seat told her the passion that swirled within him wasn’t political in nature. She licked her lips and felt Talon’s body tighten in response.
“If I’m the writer, what does that make you?” she teased, though her voice had become so husky it didn’t sound as though it belonged to her.
“The editor,” he growled before capturing her mouth in a ravenous kiss.
She wound her arms around his neck as she drowned in the magic he worked with his mouth. Her tongue dueled with his, her mouth flooding with his rich, spicy taste.
Without breaking the kiss, Talon turned her so she straddled him in the chair, nestling his hardness against her core. Her body responded to the erotic stimulation with pure instinct. Her hips began to rock against him and low moans issued from her throat.
Talon trailed hot kisses from her mouth to the column of her throat. She tilted her head to give him better access. His thumb found the hard point of her nipple and stroked it with a feather-light caress through her clothing. Sharp pleasure rippled through her at the butterfly touch. Her pulse raced, and she began to take deep, gasping breaths.
A loud knocking sound startled her from the passionate haze her husband had created.
“Talon? Lia?” Teresa’s voice floated across the room. “Dinner’s ready.”
Talon froze for a beat, before raising his head to stare at the door. The look of frustration on his face was so severe, it was comical. Had she not been suffering the pains of arousal herself, Lia would have laughed aloud.
“Talon?” Teresa called in a louder voice. “Did you hear me?”
Talon dropped his forehead against Lia’s with a loud groan. “We’ll be down in a minute,” he called.
She felt his…enthusiasm…fade beneath her. For some reason, the situation made Lia begin to laugh.
Talon pulled back with a frustrated glare. “Nothing like my mother to kill the mood.”
Unable to resist, Lia smiled sweetly. “My mood is just fine.”
Talon rose, dumping her on the floor. “Mine isn’t.”
Lia rolled her eyes behind closed lids and bit the inside of her cheek to keep the smile from her face. No matter how old a man got, he was still a little boy around his mother.
She opened her eyes to see Talon standing above her with a sheepish look on his face.
“Sorry about that,” he said, offering her a hand.
She took his proffered hand, wondering if he was apologizing for dumping her on the floor or for starting something they couldn’t finish. Regardless, she felt a zing of excitement at the passion Talon had displayed and a shiver of excitement when he didn’t release her hand once she regained her feet.
This was the first time he’d truly given himself over to the attraction between them and it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Smiling, she let him lead her to the dining room.
—
Teresa had cooked a large celebration dinner and fed Asha so many scraps the gimfrey had fallen into a satiated food coma in the kitchen. For her part, Lia found herself seated across from Talon at the dining room table. To accommodate everyone, two small folding tables had been set up in the room. The meal was loud, chaotic and strangely comfortable. Lia watched Talon’s siblings jockey for preferred dishes and the serving salvers rotated around the tables, but a glance from Teresa quelled any burgeoning arguments. Lia let the pandemonium flow around her, enjoying the sensation of belonging to a family.
Talon spooned some majani onto his plate, and passed the tureen to his mother. He glanced across the table at her, and Lia’s heart skipped a beat when the handsome man winked at her. Her libido still hadn’t cooled from their earlier activities, and Lia wanted to crawl across the table and plant her lips against his.
She watched him interact with his family and felt a strange contentment settle into her bones. This was what she had always dreamed of having. This feeling of belonging that she’d never had before—not even with the crew of the Dawn Rider. Lia speared a vegetable with her fork and made noncommittal noises when addressed.
She’d spent the time since Talon found her struggling a
gainst fate. Lynaya’s words floated through her mind. Lia isn’t running from her past. She’s running from her future.
The old crone had been right. She’d been running from her destiny all her life—even before her escape from the Cordoba. She had resigned herself to living out her life as the Damaia, but what if she embraced the role rather than suffering it?
For the first time, Lia began to wonder if Lynaya might be wiser than she’d originally believed. What else had the old woman said? You are no longer the child you were before you came here. You must realize that while you must fulfill your destiny, you control your fate.
Hadn’t that been her complaint all along? That her life wasn’t hers to live as she saw fit. Since Talon had found her, she’d made decisions he and the others hadn’t approved of, but no one had silenced her—and she’d almost always gotten her way.
Laughter bubbled around her, drawing her attention. She faked a grin and caught Talon giving her a concerned look. The fake grin became a real one. The man clearly worried about what was going on in her head.
If he only knew.
What if she took Lynaya’s advice and embraced her destiny? She could use her position as a planetary sovereign to ensure peace reigned on N’yota. Talon had told her she would be responsible for N’yotan diplomacy and would represent the planet before the League. That meant she would be able to take a seat on the League Planetary Assembly. With that seat, she could bring the problems faced by the miners who toiled for the Guild to the highest governing body in the galaxy. The Guild might operate outside League territory, but with the pressure the Planetary Assembly could bring to bear, the miners would find themselves in a much better situation.
Of course, embracing her role as the Damaia would certainly mean embracing Talon as her husband. Something that would be no hardship, given the man’s godlike physique and the way her knees melted when he walked into a room.
Now that she’d officially given herself permission to sleep with her husband, Lia found herself wondering why she had waited. She lifted her wine glass for a sip and met Talon’s silvery gaze over the glass. Unable to resist, she traced the rim with her tongue before touching the glass to her lips.
Her husband arrested in the middle of slicing his steak, his grey eyes smoking. She savored the knowledge he wanted her and belatedly realized he had wanted her since finding her on Tmesis—or at least since she’d taken a shower. His patience with her over the physical aspects of their relationship warmed her heart.
Taking a fortifying gulp of her wine, Lia decided she would be Talon’s wife in truth before formally ascending the N’yotan throne. It was symbolic somehow. She was his wife before she was the Damaia.
She suddenly realized Malachi had asked her a question. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid my mind wandered,” Lia apologized.
Malachi smiled. “You said you did glass work. Do you do torch work or blown glass?”
“Both, but I prefer to work with blown glass.” Lia replied.
“Delicate work,” Malachi said.
“It can be,” she agreed. “Of course, if you screw up, all you have to do is melt the glass back down and start over.”
Malachi shook his head. “Given the number of canvases I’ve had to throw out, maybe I should have become a glassworker instead of a painter.”
Lia smiled. “I’d love to see some of your pieces.”
“You’re looking at some,” Talon interjected.
“I bet your pardon?”
“Everything on the walls and everything sculpted in the house was done by Mal.”
Malachi glanced around the room at the childish drawings hanging on the walls. “I got better. I promise.”
Lia laughed, and Teresa scolded her son. “These works are precious to me.”
Malachi ignored his mother. “I got much better,” he said with an endearing grin that reminded her of his brother.
“It would be hard to get any worse,” Talon goaded, his gaze fixed on a crayon-drawn picture that vaguely resembled some sort of animal Lia guessed might have been a quadruped.
“If you’ll take some free advice from your brother, I’d suggest you set up your studio as soon as you move into the palace. Make sure you schedule time to work on your art, or everyone will run you ragged and you’ll never get to it.”
“Thanks, Malachi,” Lia said. “I’ll do that.”
“You should see her work. She’s quite talented. People will be lining up to buy her art,” Talon told the table.
Lia frowned at that. “People will line up to buy things made by the Damaia, whether they like them or not.”
“If you’d prefer, I can help you sell things off-world, under a false name. That way, you know people are buying your work because they enjoy it,” Malachi volunteered.
“Thank you,” Lia said. “I may take you up on that.”
“I expect you to,” Malachi replied with a wide smile. “That’s what family is for.”
Tristan leaned back from one of the side tables, drawing everyone’s attention. “Mal, what time is the coronation in the morning?”
Lia bit the inside of her cheek to stifle her laughter. Tristan sat between Thane and Vardin, both of whom had likely been peppering him with questions about the security for the coronation. She imagined being stuck at a table with those two anticipating a major security event and repressed a shudder.
“Midmorning at four bells,” Malachi replied. “Lia should leave here by the striking of the second morning bells.”
“What about a coronation gown?” Ilexa asked from the other folding table.
“A coronation gown is hanging in Talon’s closet,” Teresa said, calmly.
Lia hadn’t even considered the practicalities of the coronation. The pomp, circumstance, clothing, protocol and hundreds of thousands of eyes focused on her… Butterflies began trying to beat their way out of her abdominal cavity with sledgehammers.
She schooled her features to a neutral expression and looked at Talon. He smiled at her.
“Don’t worry. All you have to do is walk down the aisle, kneel before the High Priestess, let her place a diadem on your head, and rise. The ceremony’s pretty simple.”
“I’m not worried,” she assured him, lying through her teeth.
Talon gave her a knowing look. “That’s good, because there is nothing to worry about.”
“I suppose the two of you will move into the palace tomorrow,” Teresa said sadly.
Talon nodded. “Lia will be safer at the palace once the coronation occurs.”
“Perhaps we could all have dinner at the palace tomorrow night,” Lia suggested, wanting to enjoy the warmth of her newly found family after the formal event.
“We’ll see if something can be arranged,” Talon assured her, clearly pleased at the suggestion.
Chapter Sixteen
The door to the bedroom closed with a loud click. Talon watched his wife cross to the window she had stood before earlier. Two of the planet’s three moons were full. Lia stood bathed in the moonlight, looking so beautiful he hardly believed she was real.
Dinner had gone well. He’d worried about how Lia would react to his boisterous family. Fearing she’d be overwhelmed, he’d delighted in seeing her relax and enjoy the evening. The only glitch had been the mention of the coronation. Though her features had remained serene, Talon had sensed her distress.
The conversation had moved on, but his wife had not completely relaxed. Unable to resist her siren’s lure, Talon crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. “My family has fallen under your spell.”
“My spell?”
“Mmm-hmmm. I think if our marriage ever dissolved, they’d want to keep you rather than me,” he told her.
“We’re sealed. The marriage can’t be dissolved,” she said with the faintest bite to her words before letting a small smile lift the edges of her lips. “I like them.”
“I’m glad.”
They stood staring out
at the night in companionable silence. He breathed in her sweet scent and enjoyed the feel of her soft flesh in his arms. The pleasant sensation produced the expected biological result, but he continued to hold her against him, not trying to hide his hardening anatomy.
His fiery little wife didn’t pull away from him. Instead, she pressed backwards against him, drawing a groan from his throat. His arms tightened reflexively.
She struggled against the sudden squeeze, and he reluctantly loosened his grip. To his surprise, she turned in his arms and lifted her mouth to brush against his with a feather-light touch. Not stopping to question his good fortune, Talon pulled her flush against himself and devoured her mouth.
She tasted like dewberries, and he couldn’t get enough. His mouth slanted over hers again and again, his primal instincts demanding her surrender. He gave no quarter, and her body melted into his.
When he realized he was about to throw her to the carpet, he made himself pull back. Her lips were wet and swollen from his kisses, and those beautiful eyes that haunted his dreams were heavy-lidded with passion.
He tried to speak, cleared his throat and tried again. “Baby, if you want me to stop, you need to tell me now.”
She gave him a languid, cat-like smile and replied, “I don’t want you to stop.”
Talon’s heart rate accelerated, but he managed not to fall on her like a ravenous beast. “I need you to be sure.”
“I’m sure,” she whispered.
Talon lifted a hand and cupped her face. He lowered his mouth slowly back to hers, giving her ample time to change her mind. When his lips touched hers again, he kept a tight grip on his lust, unwilling to frighten her. He used all the skill he possessed to rouse her passions.
He tasted and teased, plundered and withheld. With only his mouth, he had her clinging to him and gasping in breathy moans that made him so hard, he hurt.
Threading a hand in her hair, he tugged her head back, exposing the pale cream of her throat to his mouth. He nibbled and sucked his way down the slim column, enjoying the flavor of her skin.
She rubbed her body against his in desperation as he worked to inflame her. Without lifting his head from her throat, he brought his hands up to cup her breasts through the tunic she wore. They swelled at his touch, pushing hard peaks against his palms. Unable to wait any longer, Talon lifted his head and pulled her tunic off.
