by Bailey Dark
“Huzzah!”
“Huzzah!”
“Huzzah!”
Twenty-Two
Ilisa
I winced as the medic wrapped the poultice over the knife wound. It wasn’t that deep, but it was sliced right between two ribs, so it was going to constantly be a place of rub and worry.
“Are you feeling the pain medications yet?” As the medic asked, I started to feel a slight numbness tingle into the lower regions of my skull and slide up behind my eyes. A warm feeling took hold behind my shoulders and quivered down through my arms and into my fingertips, then numbed the area around the knife wound.
“Yes. It feels better. Thank you.”
“Ok, that’s good. Take this pill again, every four hours. It will help with the pain.”
I pocketed the slip of pills. The medic taped down the poultice and then slid my shirt back over the wrapped bandage and patted it. She looked at me thoughtfully.
“You’re a very skilled tele artist, right, Bravo? Can you spare some thought to the placement of the bandage and use your tele arts to keep it in place?”
“You mean, constantly?”
The medic nodded. “It’s one way to help it heal faster. Basically, you’re going to be constantly keeping it stiff. You’re going to be forcing yourself to always be thinking of bending a different way through tele arts.”
I nodded, the words feeling fuzzy on my lips. The pain pills were strong. I hadn’t realized they would be… I rarely took pain pills… “I can try.”
“Do you have reason to believe you will be needing to do a lot of bending any time soon?”
I looked at my Destin where he was speaking to Damox and preparing the prisoners for their gathering back to Harthen. Oh, yes… I would be doing a lot of bending… A lot of supple, limber, twisting and turning and grinding…
My breath caught as I imagined Skarde’s body against mine in the sheets of my bed back at the palace and I noticed the medic follow my gaze. She smiled.
“Ok, then, well, just try to keep the poultice in place for the next day or two. Then it will be better for the wound to be seen by me again and be open-air breathing, anyway.”
I nodded and slid away from her, back toward my Destin. The idea of his skin against mine was almost too much to take. The many people around me had faded into the background. I walked by the other patients the medic needed to see, I paced by Special Operations friends who tried to get my attention, but they were a blur. The fact that our mission had not been concluded was of little consequence. I was in need.
“Skarde…” I whispered to him mentally. I brushed my fingers against his arm and distracted him away from Damox, interrupting his words. He looked at me, finished his sentence, words that I could barely hear, I just wanted his tongue on mine, and then I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled. His eyes laughed at me. “Come with me, Destin… I need you…”
“We are kind of busy here, Ilisa… We could use your help wrapping up the Kall. And I need to unfreeze their lake.”
“They can handle it. I need you now. I need your hands on me, your lips on me, your legs around my body. I need to feel your dick inside me, and your tongue licking me.”
Skarde stared at me, mouth open.
“Then we can do that. What do you think?” Damox was still talking to us but I could barely register his words. “Skarde. Duke Skarde. What do you think?”
Skarde coughed and took my hand. He didn’t look at Damox. “I think I need to help Ilisa with something real quick, Commander. But your plan sounds great. We will be right back.”
I smiled and pulled Skarde with me, away from the Commander. Damox groaned and grumbled, but turned away, continuing to give orders.
I pulled Skarde behind me through the snow, the bright light of sunrays making prism rainbows as snowflakes drifted down through shafts that made unbidden tunnels in the branches. I didn’t know how I knew where we were going, but I was leading us toward a little cabin in the backwoods. I looked back over my shoulder at his goofy half smile as my mind floated with the snow whispers and the breeze moved my hair in gentle kisses. Skarde’s hand clasped mine and he skipped along the new trodden trail beside me.
We stomped our feet free of snow as we stepped up on the cabin’s porch and then popped open the cabin’s inviting little door.
“Breaking and entering, are we, my Chosen one?” Skarde said with a smile.
“They won’t mind.”
I pulled Skarde inside, not knowing who “they” was, but just wanting to wrap him in my arms on the fur blankets that I hoped were waiting for us, and which were, as we entered.
As soon as we were pulled in from the cold of the outside, Skarde pulled me into his arms, his hands a fury of desire in my hair, my half-medicated mind a blurry world of warmth and fuzzy feelings as he kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, biting at my lips, my jawline, trailing kisses down my neck, pulling my coat open, casting it to the nearby chair. He pulled my shirt low and kissed my breastbone. I grabbed him and spun him around and moved him quickly back against the wall, pushing him until his back was against the bold wooden brace of the door, but he picked me up so I wrapped my legs around his waist and he was clawing at my back.
Skarde’s lips were soft and tender on mine, then sped up and were hungry, his tongue searching for answers inside my mouth, as if on a quest to know if I would give him forever.
“I will… I will… I’m yours forever…” I said.
“My Destin.”
A golden light sparked in the sweet silence of the cabin, reflecting off our skin, rippling on our cheeks, echoing off the walls, the illumination of our Destin connection that we knew so well, the sign we were connected so intimately that no one could sever our hold on each other.
I gripped at his back and pulled at his coat, clawing it off of him and he set me back down, pulling blankets to the floor to sprawl them out for us to lay on. Firewood and kindling lay beside the fireplace and with a roaring proclamation of his tele arts, Skarde flashed a furious fire into being.
I smiled at him, my head swimming in the pain meds and in the love of my Destin. I vaguely remembered that I was supposed to be mindful of bending or not bending with a new knife wound… But, the flickering flames lashed at the hearthstones and sparks kissed the golden ripple of our Destin connection and bewitched me. Skarde gently stripped out of his clothes and then, kiss by kiss, took off mine, being careful around the new bandage around my ribs. He laid me down on my back and laid on top of me, kissing my shoulders, my collarbone, my breasts, all the way down my stomach. He looked up at me and smiled.
“Are there more worlds than this one to conquer, Bravo Ilisa?”
“You mean, more worlds than Farian?”
“No, I mean more worlds than you.”
“You think I am a world?”
“You’re my world.”
I smiled at him and melted into the furs, pulling his head up to look him straight in the eyes, his gorgeous half-smile greeting me. “I think there are other world for us to conquer together, Skarde. We can be conquerors together. As Destins. Forever.”
The End
35,049 words
Also by Bailey Dark
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Chapter One
Briar
I sit still as Laurel leans over me to paint a red stain on my lips. The paint is cool, and her touch is soft. It’s something she’s done many times before, but today is different. Today I can see her hand trembling. My own stomach roils with nerves, but I try to push them down unsuccessfully. At my feet, Sera manicures my nails and massages the arch gently. She’s trying to calm me, I think. It won’t work.
"Gods, can you imagine?" Rose, m
y oldest sister, sighs, dramatically. She fiddles with my hair as if to help the servants do it up. "I bet he smells like rotting corpses."
I bite the inside of my lip, careful not to ruin the stain Laurel so carefully painted. She’s drawing kohl around my eyes now, giving me a dramatic look. She’s silent while Rose convinces my second oldest sister, Delphine, of King Kane’s horrific stench. I can see the worry in Laurel’s eyes. I reach out and pat her knee, quickly so my sisters don’t see. They’ve never approved of my friendships with the servants.
“Do you think he really has claws and horns?” Delphine asks. Her naïve voice is sweet but strange; it’s always come from the back of her throat.
I watch in the mirror as Rose rolls her eyes. “Of course he does, you ninny. He’s got horns all along his back and a tail too.”
“A tail?” Delphine gasps, looking horrified. Her eyes flash towards me worriedly, but Rose wraps her arm in a vice-like grip.
"Don't worry about Briar, he wanted her, remember?" Rose cuts her eyes towards me. "Maybe he's a shapeshifter and will wear a skin to please her."
I keep my face a still mask, an expression I’ve mastered. Rose is trying to comfort me in her own way, but she’s always been too self-centered to practice it. Now, her attempt is half-hearted and clumsy. “I’m sure it will be fine,” I murmur.
Sera rises from her knees and inspects my hair. She tuts, giving me a familiar, scolding look. I almost smile, relieved that we can at least pretend it’s a normal day and not the Day of Collection. “What shall we do with these tangles of coal?” She asks lightly.
Rose sniffs at Sera’s teasing words. “Mind how you speak,” she says through pursed lips.
“How do you think he would like it?” My heart drums rapidly in my chest and I touch my hair tentatively.
Sera’s shoulders stiffen at my question. “A man would be pleased to run his fingers through your hair. But perhaps we should make him work for it.”
“Alright,” I say, a small grin on my lips.
My tutors have taught me the mechanics of pleasuring a man, or at least mentioned it, but the details of it escape me. For most girls, it’s the eldest sister who takes the leap of marriage and beds a man first, but today it’s me. We’ve known since my birth that it would be me, and so my sisters have moved on from the slight. No one postpones an engagement to King Kane to simply marry the other sisters off. No one would dare. Despite his reputation and my fear, there’s a yearning in me to please him, to make him happy that he chose me twenty years ago.
Sera makes quick work of my hair while Laurel finishes my makeup. Delphine sighs happily at the sight of me, clapping her hands together. “You look as pretty as a princess,” she says.
I grin at her. We’ve told each other that since we were children, it always made us giggle that the commoners compared beauty to a princess. I open my mouth to reply when Rose ushers Sera away from my hair and puts on the finishing touches. She bites her bottom lip and pulls a pearl pin from her pocket. I inhale sharply in surprise as Rose slips it into my hair, completing the look.
“Mother would have wanted you to have it,” she murmurs. “And perhaps it will bring some luck with the Dead King.”
“Rose, it’s yours,” I protest. “I can’t take it.”
“Then let me lend it to you.” She steps out of reach. “And give it back to me when you return.”
Silence weighs heavily in the room. None of us know if I ever will return. No one knows what awaits me when King Kane arrives to collect on the deal he made all those years ago, the deal that saved my mother’s life for a time. I touch the pin in my hair tentatively. He can’t be that horrid, not when he saved my mother’s life and gave her sixteen years with us. Of course, he did it all in exchange for her lastborn.
“Come,” Laurel says politely, urging me to my feet.
I shiver in the thin, elegant gown, I’ve been laced into, and step in front of the long mirror. My sisters and servants study me appraisingly. I hardly recognize myself. The ivory gown accentuates curves I never knew I had, making my breasts look full and supple. Sera has done my hair into a halo around my head, little wisps of my black locks captured by the light. My eyes, already doe-like, are prominent now, and my lips look perfect and pouty. Everything compliments my pale skin and Laurel has left my rosy cheeks on full display.
I steel my shoulders. It doesn’t matter now, but it will matter later when King Kane and I perform the Unveiling in the privacy of his castle. For now, only my sisters and most trusted friends will see me before he claims me. The last in this realm of the living to truly see me. I swallow hard.
“You look beautiful,” Rose says stiffly.
Delphine nods encouragingly, her wide, innocent eyes silver with tears. “If he’s absolutely horrid, I’ll cough twice.” She takes my hands in hers and holds them tight. “Stay strong, Briar.”
I put on a strong smile even though I don’t feel it. Sera and Laurel return with my veil. A piece of fabric that will cover me from head to toe. It’s red, by the request of King Kane himself, and absolutely covered in precious gems and metals and pearls. The veil is thick and will be heavy with the additional decorations. Delphine places a tall, thin crown on the top of my head. The crown isn’t for decorative purposes, but to hold the veil off of my hair so it won’t ruin the styling.
I brace myself for the heavy fabric. Sera and Laurel drape it over the crown and I wobble under the sudden weight. Rose catches me. “I told you to exercise more, you weak little girl,” she hisses.
I grimace apologetically, meeting her eyes. All I see is cerulean blue, completely opposite of my gray eyes, before the veil shrouds me in darkness. I can hardly see the glow of light through the threads of the veil. My heart is in my throat as panic sets in. I've never been one for dark or small, cramped spaces. I wring my hands together out of sight until I've calmed. Sera sticks her head under the veil, and I look down on her, panic clear in my eyes. She smiles encouragingly and mouths that she’ll miss me. I nod desperately and force my eyes away before I fall into tears.
It’s all real now. I’ve been thinking of and preparing for this moment my entire life, but somehow, I’m not ready for it. All year, I felt nervous and excited about meeting my future husband, wondering what he looks like and how he speaks. I’ve dreamt about the sound of his voice. But, Gods, I would give anything for just one more year at home.
“Come, Delphine,” Rose says. “We must put on our own veils.”
“Yes,” Delphine whispers. She leans close to me. “Remember, two coughs.”
According to custom, all unmarried women must be veiled during the Collection so as not to distract the groom from his bride. My sisters will wear detailed and lovely veils, but they will be the traditional ivory. The door snaps shut, and I know they’ve gone. I sag a little, revealing my fear to my friends.
“Don’t listen to them,” Laurel says. I feel her hand through the veil as she rubs my arm. “King Kane won’t have fangs, or claws, or a tail.”
“He’ll be handsome and kind,” Sera promises.
“Thank you,” I murmur, grateful that my two, true friends wouldn’t try to fill me with fear before I meet him.
“And remember, if you don’t wish to be wed after the three months, you can come home, no questions asked,” Laurel says eagerly.
I swallow thickly, throat dry. If I did that, my father would never forgive me, and no suitor would want a tainted woman. But I nod for them, to put them at ease. They make a few adjustments to my veil, making sure it truly does cover me from head to toe. The stone floor is cold against my feet, and I shift nervously. Brides don't wear shoes, entering barefoot into their groom's home.
I hear the door creak open, and Laurel and Sera guide me towards it. There will be a guard on the other side to escort me to the throne room where the Collection will take place. I shuffle behind the guard, between Sera and Laurel. They hold my elbows when we gingerly descend the many stairs leading from my room to the ma
in floor. I miscalculate the distance for a step and scuff my big toe against the stone. I hiss, pain flaring and settling into a dull throb.
The guard’s loud footsteps halt and I know we’ve reached our destination. My stomach is filled with butterflies, so many that I fear I’ll vomit the meager lunch I was forced to eat. I’m grateful, for once, for the thick veil that hides my panic-filled eyes from view. I don’t want my father to see how terrified I am. I think I’m practically green.
I feel a strong arm around me and lean into my father’s embrace. “Remember, what you do, you do for your mother and Ryrn,” he murmurs.
I nod fiercely, fighting back the tears pooling in my eyes. I can’t cry. It will ruin my makeup. “I know, father,” I whisper.
He pulls away and I’m filled with fear again. “Don’t be afraid. You’re a Princess of Ryrn.”
His words mean little to me now that I’m already drowning in anxiety, but I nod anyway. My sisters enter the throne room first, their heeled shoes tapping on the floor as they’re escorted by servants. My father follows, and the door closes behind him. I wait alone, Sera and Laurel were sent away. Through the door, I can hear my father’s booming voice as he discusses the terms of the Collection with King Kane. He makes a swift speech about the ties between our kingdoms. And then the door opens again.
I take a hesitant step forward, my feet never lifting from the ground, so I don’t lose my footing or sense of direction. I walk as regally as I can into the throne room, holding my head high. It’s the cold that almost stops me first. I hesitate, fear coiling around my heart. I’ve never felt cold like this before, the kind that creeps over you like a snake. I shuffle forward until I reach the soft padding of a carpet; my spot.
