The Staff and the Blade

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “A slow hunt in winter.” Henry rubbed her shoulder and let his magic flow out, soothing her. “Damien is a very skilled warrior, Sari.”

  “I know.”

  “You realize that if he kills this angel, it is likely the council will call him back into service.”

  She blinked. “You mean this is a… trial? A test of some sort?”

  “There are scribes in London who carry heaven-forged blades. They could have sent another. I suspect the council wanted to test Damien’s skills to see if his years of seclusion had dampened his strength in battle. They’re ready to call him back.”

  Sari’s eyes hardened. Bastards. What if he wasn’t ready? What if sending him into battle against an angel as a test killed him?

  “Sister.” Henry shook her. “You have no need to worry. Do you truly think anything could soften Damien?”

  She shook her head. It might have been more out of hope than assurance.

  “Even loving you has only made him fiercer, sister.”

  Gabriel’s fist, she hoped so.

  “‘Iron sharpeneth iron,’” Henry continued. “‘So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.’ You sharpen him, Sari. Give him direction and purpose.”

  She closed her eyes. “He needs to come back to me, Henry. He needs to come home.”

  ※

  Sari heard whispers in her sleep. An urgent voice whispered in her mind. Hoofbeats and driving rain. Shouts and—

  She jerked awake at the pounding at her door.

  “Sari!”

  She yanked open the bolt and threw herself into the arms of the muddy, rain-soaked scribe at her door. She couldn’t speak. She clung to him as he stumbled inside and slammed the door shut. Damien locked his arms around her and lifted her off her feet. Sari wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his mouth to hers. Their kiss was desperate and hungry. Hard lips and sharp teeth. He bit her lower lip when she tried to pull away. Sari gripped his hair and forced his head back.

  “You will never”—she choked on her tears—“never leave me behind again! Never, Damien.”

  “I promise.” He kissed her over and over. “I promise.”

  “Never again.”

  “I love you.”

  Sari burst into tears of relief, and he buried his face in her neck. “I’m so angry with you.”

  “I know.” He turned and set her on the edge of the bed, kneeling between her legs. “I love you.”

  “I love you so much,” she whispered. “And I’m still angry with you.”

  He pulled away and looked at her in wonder. His thick hair hung in wet ropes around his face. His beard was wild, but his eagle eyes glowed with fierce joy. “You love me.”

  “Reshon,” she whispered, drawing his mouth back to hers. Her face would be rubbed raw by his whiskers, but she didn’t care. “You are my reshon, Damien. I love you. I choose you. I have decided.”

  “Reshon.” He let out a hard breath and pulled her closer. “Milá, you are my own.”

  She began to peel off his mud-caked cloak, but he stilled her hand with trembling fingers.

  “A bath,” he whispered. “I have been in battle, Sari, and it was… Take me to the ritual bath that I may cleanse myself.”

  Sari nodded, recognizing the soul-deep weariness in his voice. She threw a few more bricks of peat on the coals to heat her cottage, then stood and took Damien’s hand.

  ※

  He sat in the round pool heated from the fire Sari continued to stoke. She had poured buckets of cold water over him to cleanse his body of the mud he’d collected on the hard ride from Kirkwall. Damien told her he’d missed the Irin merchant ship and been forced to sail with humans to get to her. The boat had arrived just before dark, but he couldn’t stand to wait. The moon was full, so he’d ridden through the night despite the summer storm that had swept in from the sea.

  Sari stripped down and wrapped herself in her ritual linen robe before she scrubbed him with a soapy rag. She ignored his body’s reaction to her and bathed him head to foot, scrubbing the months of dirt and grime from his hair and neck. She silently trimmed his beard as he watched her with tired eyes. When his body was clean, she led him to the warm pool, sitting behind him as she took oils and anointed his back and hair. With strong hands, she massaged his shoulders and felt the magic rise on his skin as if reaching for her.

  When his shoulders began to unknot and his arms fell around her knees, she spoke. “Tell me.”

  “It was a long hunt.”

  He told her of his months in the wilderness and the humans who had been lost. About his brothers’ determination and strength in battle. Though he didn’t say it, Sari heard the pride in his voice when he spoke of the men he’d led. Heard his appreciation and respect for Monroe, the Scottish scribe who’d sacrificed months of time with his pregnant mate to accompany Damien on his hunt. His sorrow for Faraz, who was healing from grievous injuries.

  When his story reached the dead human village, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her cheek to his back. Whole families had been killed by the Grigori. Young women and girls enthralled by the Fallen.

  “There were pregnant women there,” he said quietly. “Girls carrying Grigori babies.”

  Sari tensed. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.” He paused. “Monroe tried to get them to return to Stirling. He thought one of the healers might be able to rid them of the Fallen’s offspring and save their lives. They wouldn’t go. They were distraught when we killed the angel.”

  “Their minds had been turned by magic, Damien.”

  “There was some food there. We left them with what supplies we could, but…”

  Sari knew that the women were probably already dead. Even if they survived the birth of their Grigori children, they would die in isolation. And the Grigori babes would as well. It was evil, but an evil caused by the Fallen, not by her reshon, though Sari knew he still carried the weight of it.

  “We are supposed to kill human women carrying Grigori,” he said. “They will die anyway after their children are born. It is considered a mercy to kill them swiftly instead of letting them starve and fade.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  His voice was barely audible. “I could not.”

  “Damien—”

  “I have…,” he said. “I have killed an angel before. That is how I obtained the heaven-forged blade. It was the only other time when I saw surviving humans carrying Grigori children. Usually we would only find bodies. But when I was young, I followed orders. We let them fall into a deep sleep with our touch and then one brother killed them quickly.”

  Her arms were tight around him. “They would have died anyway.”

  “My eyes have seen too much to ever look on that which is lovely again,” Damien whispered. “Otto followed my orders. I believe that is why he wanted to die.”

  “Slemaa, reshon.” Sari murmured a spell to give him peace. “We did not start this war. We can only fight it with as much honor as we own. You have fought hundreds, Damien. Protected thousands. Do not let guilt eat our joy.”

  He clutched her hands over his heart. “You choose me?”

  “I do.”

  “Then be my mate, Sari. Take my mark. Walk my dark nights with me and call me your own.”

  “I will.”

  ※

  He warmed the ink by the fire, and when the sable brushed over Sari’s skin, it was as if the brush was an extension of her lover’s own body. Warm lips kissed her shoulders as Damien painted the mating marks on her shoulders and down the center of her back. She could see the glow of gold in the dark cottage where they had returned after the cleansing bath. Felt his hand tremble even as he wrote ancient spells and vows over her body, tying them together.

  When he finished one portion, she sang softly to him. Old songs of joy and binding and love. Songs given to her mothers by the Forgiven and passed down in joyful whispers from grandmother to mother to daughter. Sari felt the old magic ris
e in her heart, suspending her joy as Damien wrote again. She felt his tears against her shoulder, but he kissed them away and returned to writing.

  When he finally turned her to write his mating vow over her heart, the heat and desire for him took her breath away.

  “Soon,” he whispered, his lips flushed and swollen. His eyes locked on her breast as he wrote his vow over her heart, speaking it so Sari would know the words he had written just for her.

  “So many years,” he murmured. “I dreamed, but I never truly hoped… How could I have imagined this love I feel for you now? Love did not exist for me until I saw your face.”

  “Damien.” She wanted him so badly it was an ache in her belly. She had only her last song to give him after he wrote his vow on her. The vow that would glow each time they made love. “Hurry.”

  He dipped his brush and started, whispering as he wrote:

  “Mine is the fire. Mine is the blood.

  Mine, her soft touch and her sharp tongue.

  She that wields a strong hand

  And a gentle embrace

  Is my lover.

  My own.

  Mine is the need and the desire.

  My witness, her song.

  Daughter of heaven,

  Beloved of my heart.

  My Sari.

  My own.”

  She felt his power and heard his voice, sharp and martial, rise in her breast and flood her mind. Felt his ravenous need and heady possession. Threaded through the wash of sensation and magic was an aching tenderness, a gentleness and surrender that she did not expect. She opened her eyes and met his, unashamed of her joyful tears.

  “Hear my own vow, Damien of Bohemia:

  I choose you.

  Through ages you have come to me,

  And I choose you.

  Because you wandered many roads alone

  And this body has bled and shed blood in honor,

  I choose you.

  The one who sees me and challenges me,

  My warrior, my lover. Friend, protector, helpmeet, mate.

  As iron sharpens iron, I will ever be your own.

  I choose you, my love.”

  Sari leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Damien’s, their hands linked together as her song died to a whisper. “I choose you.”

  They stayed like that, hands locked together as the ink dried on her skin and the fire crackled in the hearth. The next day, Damien would tattoo her vow on his skin and ink her magic permanently onto his body. Until then, Sari would sate months of hunger and longing. Nights of aching for his body and missing his touch. She opened her mind to his voice and heard the longing and desire mirrored in his soul. The night birds sang, but the air was laden in magic, like the moment after a lightning strike.

  Their skin glowed in the low light, Damien’s talesm a deep burnished silver. Sari’s new marks were a bright gold that lit her pale skin as if she’d been painted by the midsummer sun.

  “Reshon.” Damien’s mouth found hers, and his lips were trembling. His hands shook as they locked around her wrists. “Sari?”

  “M-my ink is dry,” she stuttered, barely in command of her body.

  “Good.” He took her down to the bed in a controlled rush, shoving her hands over her head and his tongue in her mouth. Damien groaned and thrust his body between her thighs. “I have waited so long. So long for you, my singer.”

  “Don’t wait anymore.” She arched against him, but his muscled weight pinned her down.

  Bracing himself over her, Damien kept control of her hands and arms, pressing them over her head as his mouth descended and tasted her neck. He spread her legs apart and settled his body in the space between her thighs, resting his heavy length against her as months of desire spiraled into a barely controlled tangle of need. She ached for him.

  “Please, please, please,” she sobbed. “Damien.” Wresting her hands away from his own, she gripped his hair in one hand and reached for him with the other, guiding him into her body and arching up as he slid tight and deep.

  He thrust into her with a groan, and Sari cried out as her body and magic recognized him. This was true union. No other physical pleasure could compare.

  She clutched Damien tighter as he began to move. She kept trying to get closer, and the dried ink cracked against her skin. She reveled in the friction of their bodies together. Pressing and giving and taking. Push and pull. They rolled on her narrow bed and didn’t stop, even when they crashed to the floor. They landed on their side in the pile of linen robes smeared red with sweat and ink.

  His magic heightened her senses. She smelled the ash from the fire and the sweat on his body, the sweet almond oil she’d used against his skin. His talesm shone brighter than the firelight.

  Damien was no quiet lover. He growled and twisted her hair in his hand, wrapping the golden blond in his fist as he whispered in her ear. “Love you. Need you, milá.”

  Come for me.

  I want to feel your flesh tight around me.

  More, Sari.

  Bite harder.

  I love you.

  His words and touch intoxicated her. He reached down and played with her body, eliciting the most delicious thrill. His strong hands gentled her and drew out her pleasure as she locked her legs around his hips.

  “Take me,” he whispered against her mouth. “All of me.”

  “Yes,” she panted. “Always.”

  The hand in her hair twisted painfully as his movements turned rougher, balancing on the edge of control. Sari’s mind and body were a whirl of magic and pleasure. She came under him, surrounded by him, over him. Damien’s hands were fierce and gentle, commanding as he coaxed her to release over and over again with his hands and his voice. He drew teasing spells across her thighs and bit her knees, tasting her in ways Sari had only heard of in rumors. He was wild for her, demanding in his appetites and greedy for her satisfaction.

  Her head was spinning and her body was flush with heat and magic by the time Damien found his own release. He shouted her name as he arched up, and Sari rocked over him, her hair curtained around them, red-gold in the light of the fire and their mating marks. He pulled her mouth down to meet his lips, kissing her deeply as his body shuddered in climax. He rolled them to the side and pressed her face to his chest.

  “Every night, Sari. I will have you like this every night.”

  She shivered against his chest, her skin a living thing under his command. “We’ll never get any sleep.”

  “I can survive on very little sleep. I was bred for war.”

  Her laugh was sharp but her eyes were heavy. She wanted to burrow into him and sleep for days. Wake up, make love for a few more hours, then fall back to sleep.

  “That, my Sari, sounds like a most excellent plan.”

  “Did I say that aloud?”

  “I have no idea.” Damien rolled to his knees, picked Sari up and lifted her into bed, covering her with a light blanket before he crawled beside her. “Sleep, mate. I have plans for you when we can both walk again.”

  She closed her eyes and felt his arms come around her. “I never want to be parted from you, Damien.”

  “Then we won’t,” he whispered, playing absently with her hair, spreading it over his chest as she lay boneless across him.

  “Never, Damien.”

  “Sleep, milá. I will see you in your dreams.”

  EPILOGUE

  NORDFJORD REGION, 1596

  “HIT me again,” she said. “Harder this time. You’re going too easy on me.”

  “Sari…” He let his head fall back and looked at the clear blue sky cut with streaks of white clouds. “I’m pushing you harder than I would a scribe newly out of the academy.”

  “Then push me harder! How am I supposed to learn if you won’t teach me?”

  Sari was proficient with a short staff, but Damien was better. Though it was considered an Irina weapon, his mother had trained him on it even before he picked up a sword. Sari wanted to be able to best
him, so instead of making love out of doors—which was how Damien would much rather be spending a summer afternoon—he was beating up his mate with a short staff and barking orders at her.

  As expected, the council had called him back into service after his hunt of the angel in Scotland. It had been a test, just as Henry suspected. Damien had received the letter from Vienna only weeks after he’d returned to Orkney and Sari’s arms. When he had written back and requested a year of bonding time with his new mate, the response from the elders had been more than enthusiastic. After all, mated scribes of Mikael’s line were even more desirable than unmated ones. The fact that he’d mated with the granddaughter of Orsala of Vestfold had even placated his parents. Not much, but some. Sari was a powerful singer, but one of Ariel’s line. His mother worried for their offspring.

  Sari’s family, on the other hand, was happy if she was happy. And Damien did everything in his power to make her happy. His young mate was eager for travel, so Damien’s upcoming posting to the scribe house in London was welcome, though Damien knew she would have preferred to go farther south.

  Her sister, Tala, was still in Spain. London would put him and Sari closer to Salamanca than they had been in Orkney, and it was possible that Tala would even be granted time for a visit once they were there. If not, they would travel to Spain.

  Sari needed to see her twin, and Damien gave Sari what she needed.

  Which at that moment was a sharp strike to the back of her knee.

  “Too slow!” he shouted. “We’re the same size. I should have no advantage over you with the staff. You need to be faster. Tomorrow we start running more.”

  Her angry red face preluded a flurry of blows.

  She was getting better.

  Not long after they mated, Sari announced her determination to become a warrior. Though she had made up a very logical list of reasons why it was prudent for her to have martial training, along with relevant arguments and counterarguments, none of those had been necessary.

  Damien wanted her with him. She needed to be able to defend herself. And Damien gave his mate what she needed.