A Kiss of Magic: A Kiss of Magic Book One (29 page)

No. Need was too tame a word for it.

Crave.

He hungered for her like he had never hungered for a woman before. With her wholesome beauty and her valiant nature, he had never known anyone like her. She was a work of contradictions. To be so afraid of the world she had been thrust into, yet so brave in the face of it as she learned to tackle each challenge that came her way. She was so good-hearted with the way she loved her little non friend Bess as she would a sister of her blood. He had never known anyone so devoted in his life. She would not have left her home without Bess. No, she would never have left her behind. In his world where so many people of power were so selfish, how many would have been so faithful? He had Wil and his other friends and they were good, kindhearted individuals he had found in the midst of all that selfishness, but he felt she put them all to shame. It was because she knew what it meant to be powerless in a world full of those with power. Wil and the others had known power all of their lives.

He reached out and caressed the long line of her throat as she tightened around him, using her muscles to pleasure him.

“Good God,” he croaked.

He wanted to grab onto her. Grab her by both her hips and surge up into her, but he could not put both hands in the water to do so. So he had to satisfy himself with letting her take the lead, letting her do all the work. But she was moving so achingly slow, torturing him with his own need.

Her face had quickly become a treasured thing, he realized. She was so lovely. Worth loving.

Dendri’s heart caught in his throat as the feeling drifted through him. He slowed it down, examined it. Tried to focus on it and her at the same time. Then he realized he couldn’t separate the two. They were intrinsically linked together. He had not loved a woman since he had been a very young man. He wasn’t entirely sure he could remember what the feeling was like. That last love affair, he recalled, had ended badly and left him hurting. Ever since then he had not given his heart freely to another woman, always holding himself in reserve.

And he would do so again, he told himself firmly. This was just the closeness of the Gestalt he was feeling. It was an illusory thing, perhaps even fleeting. What he was feeling right then might not be the truth of it come a month from now.

But even as he told himself that, a part of him rebelled against it. A very strong part of him. A crack of thunder suddenly shook the villa, seeming to sink into the very heart of him. Shaking him awake and aware…as though he were walking through life half asleep. How he could feel that way while inside of her floored him. Rain began to fall loudly against the roof above them, the rumble of more thunder roiling around them.

The tempest outside reflected the tempest of emotions inside of him. She began to moan softly, her back arching as she worked against him. He reached out and stroked the pliant weight of her breast, feeling the lushness and the life within it and the heart lying right beneath it.

The question was…if she were to disappear from his life tomorrow, how would he feel? How would he feel without her?

He didn’t want to think on it. It made his heart clutch with panic at the very thought. Why? Why was he so afraid of that?

He ran his hand down her body, thrusting it beneath the waters so he could stroke her wherever he could. His fingertips brushed through the springy wet curls at the apex of her sex and his fingers delved beyond them to find the little bud of nerves he knew would cause her the most pleasure when he stimulated it. He wanted to make her come around him. He wanted to keep it physical, keep it down to just his body and hers. It was easier that way.

It was cowardly that way.

Dendri was not the sort to hide from a stark truth. He was not the sort to flinch in the face of something that scared him. He usually plunged headlong to confront it.

But this was asking a lot of him. And he wasn't ready for it. He wasn't ready to face what he was feeling.

She cried out, reaching to him to grasp him by his shoulders as her body grew tenser and tighter around him. She was going to come. He was going to make her come. That would bring this back to where it needed to belong. Back to where it would be safe for all involved. She wasn't ready for him to ask any more of her.

He wasn’t ready to ask it of himself.

He plunged his fingers of his free hand into her hair and dragged her forward onto his mouth. He kissed her with blinding need, devoured her in physical ways and…in ways that fed his soul. He could deny it to himself all he liked, but parts of him would have nothing less than everything.

She came hard, her body clenching around him, milking him of his own climax. He gritted his teeth to keep himself from shouting out. His hand moved to grip her hip as he emptied himself right down to the bottom of his toes. When he was through he gasped wildly, unable to breathe. A sweet lassitude immediately began to creep over him as his heartbeat slowed and his breathing evened out. She stayed joined with him, falling forward against his chest, her breath spooling in his ear.

“Now will you rest?” she asked him, her tone impish.

Banishing all his troubled thoughts, he smiled against her hairline.

“Until I want you again.”

She clicked her tongue. “That is not a satisfactory answer. You always seem to want me.”

He stilled a little as his mind agreed with her.

Yes. I always want you.

But he did not share the thought with her. He hoarded it to himself. Keeping it close.

Keeping it quiet.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Yasra insisted on putting him back to bed after their bath. She would not be swayed. She brought him his paper and allowed Wil to come and visit with him.

“Still here?” he asked his friend with a grin.

“Still here,” Wil agreed. He tapped the newspaper. “The paper is full of wild speculation about the Kiltians being here and the fact that they were closed away with you all day yesterday.”

“Well we didn’t think to keep it a secret.”

“Everyone has an opinion on the matter.”

“I’m sure they do.” Dendri frowned. “Have you heard anything from the triumvirate this morning?”

“No. Were you expecting something?”

“No. But I’ll send a messenger all the same.”

“The doctor is here,” Will said. “He is waiting quite impatiently to see you.”

“You can send him in on your way out.”

“Am I going out?” Wil asked with humor.

“You’re going home. There’s no need for you to stay here. You have a very busy life awaiting you.”

Wil frowned dismissively. “Nothing that can’t wait. I’m staying until you are further along in your healing. Yasra might need my help.” He reached out and tweaked her cheek with his thumb and forefinger.

Dendri frowned as he looked from Wil to Yasra. She was standing beside him, almost shoulder to shoulder to him. Nearly touching him. A white hot emotion flashed through him. Distrust for his charming friend. Was Wil staying there for him…or for Yasra?

“There are any number of servants to help her,” he said quietly as he wrestled with the alien feeling.

“But none willing to gainsay you. None willing to fight you to keep you in bed where you belong. Not even Tudman will do that. I won’t leave Yasra alone as the only voice of reason in the house.”

“What if I promise to listen to everything she says?” Dendri said sourly. “Then will you get lost?”

Wil laughed. But then he went very still, regarding Dendri with a keen eye. Dendri shifted uncomfortably as he guarded his thoughts and tried to school his features.

“I doubt you’d keep your word,” he said. He reached out and placed and arm about Yasra’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “I won’t abandon her.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Dendri snapped.

“Dendri,” Yasra scolded him, breaking away from Wil and coming to sit on the bed beside him. “Wil cares for you. He only wants what’s best for you.”

Dendri felt a little better once she was no longer near Wil, so he conceded the point. “I realize that,” he said. “But I’m telling him there’s no need and I wish to be believed.”

“All right, all right,” Wil said, throwing up his hands and deciding it was best not to torment Dendri when it was clear he didn’t need any more excitement in his life at present. But he had recognized Dendri’s jealousy for what it was and he found it endlessly fascinating. Dendri. Jealous. The man most in control of every thought and every action he made indulging in an emotion that ran wild and careened out of his control.

Intriguing.

But Wil would not push his luck. Dendri was not the sort of man you wanted angry with you for any reason, even if it was imagined. Still, Wil looked at Yasra in a whole new light. He had seen many women cross through Dendri’s bed over the years, none of them being there long enough to wrinkle the sheets. Dendri had always remained very cool and aloof when managing them. This flash of white-hot emotion was something Wil had never seen before. It made him want to get to know Yasra far better than he currently did.

“Yasra, you must allow me to take you out of the house for mid-meal,” he said, taking his life in his hands. “Between caring for Dendri and being cooped up in talks with the Kiltians all day I’m sure you could use a break.”

“Thank you but no,” she said before Dendri could work up an explosive reaction to the suggestion. “I’ll have mid-meal with Dendri. I cannot trust him to remain in bed if I should leave.”

“I am getting a little tired of my word not being good enough to satisfy the two of you,” Dendri said sullenly.

“We simply know you are not the sort to stay abed…even if it is required. You are too dynamic an individual for it to sit well on you,” Yasra said.

“Then why make me do it?” he demanded.

“Because it’s for your own good,” she shot back. “Now, visit with Wil a moment while I go and fetch the doctor.”

She arose from the bed and Dendri’s hand reached out to catch hers. “Let Wil get him. Stay with me.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll be right back. Spend a moment with your friend.”

She eased her hand out of his and left the room.

Wil promptly pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed and, relaxing back in it, he regarded his friend.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” Dendri asked warily.

“I never thought I’d ever see you get jealous over a woman.”

Dendri scoffed. “I’m not jealous. Not of you. You have nothing that would interest Yasra.”

“I’m wounded,” Wil said with a mock expression of hurt and a twinkle in his eye. “It’s good to know what you think of me.”

“I think you’re a pain in my posterior.”

Wil chuckled. “Is that any way to treat your best friend?” But then he swiftly dropped the banter. “Be careful Dendri,” he warned his friend.

“About what?” Dendri asked. But the way he smoothed a wrinkle out of the bed sheet betrayed that he knew exactly ‘what’.

“Jealousy in a man of your power can be a dangerous thing.”

“I told you. I’m not jealous.” But it was clear Dendri didn’t know whom he was trying to convince with the statement.

“If you want her, Dendri, you’ll have to offer for her. You’ll have to trade commitments with her. Yasra is not the sort of woman you can toy with. She isn’t like the other women you’ve known. She’s more fragile than they were. She has a heart that can easily be broken. She isn’t sophisticated enough to deal with you on the level you are used to dealing with women.”

“Yasra understands that I’m not one to make those sorts of commitments.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Dendri frowned. He had not actually talked to Yasra about the definition of their relationship. And Wil was right. Yasra did not have access to the type of detachment that came with being his lover.

And that was what he liked most about her. She wasn't jaded. She was wholesome and open and so damn eager to please. She didn’t have a selfish, self-centered bone in her body. She could so easily have been made bitter by her parents’ treatment of her, by the idea of being a failure in a world made of majic. But instead she had done what she had been doing ever since he had met her. She had adapted. She had flowed with life around her, rather than against it.

“Yasra is a very unique and precious individual,” Dendri said slowly. “I would do nothing to tarnish her.”

“Are you certain about that? Are you certain you aren’t setting her up for that very thing?”

“I’m not going to hurt her!” Dendri snapped.

“Then you better figure out what you want and how to deal with it and with her. And how to manage yourself in the process.”

“Why don’t you just let me worry about all of this?” Dendri asked crossly.

“Because as much as I don’t want to see Yasra hurt, I feel doubly so about you.”

That remark softened Dendri’s mood. He cast a rueful look at Wil.

“Thank you,” he said. “But you needn’t worry. I have this under control.”

Wil only had a moment for a doubtful look, but then Yasra was entering the room with the doctor.

“Well,” he said brusquely. “Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”

Wil stood up and made way for the doctor. He went to Yasra and dipping his head pressed a warm kiss to her cheek. He made certain Dendri saw him do it. The only way Dendri was going to manage his emotions was if he was forced to face them. Wil suspected Dendri felt a great deal more for Yasra then he was willing to admit to himself.

“Send a messenger to me if you need me for any reason. If he gives you any trouble, simply call for me and I will come.”

“Thank you Wil, but we’ll be fine,” she said, looking at him with bemusement over his sign of affection.

“Goodbye my friend,” he said to Dendri, and then he took his leave without waiting for a reply that went with Dendri’s murderous glare.

Ariana Colla alighted from her coach, taking Jutsin Felone’s hand as he helped her to the cobbled street. They had decided that Mason Hittite would be the one to cry illness since he was far quicker to show temper when in the company of the Kiltian delegation. For diplomatic reasons, it was best that he remain behind.

The delegation was staying at a very well-guarded guest quarters on the same property as the capitol building. The quarters were often used to house foreign delegates and ambassadors. That had been a much more preferable solution than to allow any such delegates to stay at a local inn.

She grimaced as she thought of all the trouble that could occur had the Kiltians been allowed off the property. There was a lot of bad blood between the Sarens and the Kiltians. The war had gone on for three years now and there was hardly any family that had not been touched by death or injury thanks to the Kiltians. The insult would only be greater if the common people knew of what negotiations were taking place behind closed doors. If they decided to hand over territory to the Kiltians, it would not be a popular decision. Not after they had fought so hard to maintain their borders these past years.

The truth of the matter was, the Sarens, while at present having the advantage militarily over the Kiltians, could not afford war any longer. The Saren coffers were just about emptied. The amount of Saren lives they had lost only promised to grow worse as another brutal winter settled over the Saren war camps. The Kiltians, coming from a more mountainous region where cold weather and long winters were a way of life for them, were far better suited to persevering in the frigid ice and snow.

No, an accord must be reached. It must be done before they lost what little advantage they presently had. It must be done before the Kiltians realized just how desperate they were. If they did, they would take far more than just the Triagle Territory. They could find themselves completely overrun by the savage Kiltians.

A high level Aspano majji by the name of Hectoray alighted from the coach next. He was nothing compared to Dendri’s power and fortitude, but he would do in this instance. As they climbed the steps to the guest quarters, a very large marble building much in the style of the capitol building, though on a far smaller scale, Ariana firmly concealed her thoughts, directing them away from anything to do with the negotiations and their position. She was determined to play hostess to the Kiltian delegation…however unpalatable the idea was.

Entering the vestibule of the building she found the Kiltians standing there waiting for them.

Her reaction to Raja Sin was immediate and disconcerting. It had begun yesterday, upon first setting eyes on Sin. A queer tensing of her stomach and fluttering of her heart. She had put it down to anxiety…even though she was not the sort of woman to give in to such quivering emotions. Now as she tipped her head back in order to see into the eyes of the Kiltian ruler, she felt small and fragile in the face of him.

She shoved the impression away. He was a man like any other man. There was nothing to be gained by seeing him as anything other than what he was…a barbarian. A usurper who was determined to carve her country apart one piece at a time. She should hate him. She would hate him. As soon as she stopped noticing with fascination how nearly black the irises of his eyes were.

“Your friend Adiron is not with you,” he noted immediately. He cast a look at one of his party and she knew immediately that he was the one among them who could read thoughts. The equivalent of an Aspano majji. A Jadoc, she recalled from her studies of the Kiltian culture. They didn’t even call them majji. They called them shaman. They didn’t have a name for the nons of their culture. Not one in any event. They were simply called by their given profession. Warrior. Tailor. Blacksmith. Whore. Whatever the non did was how they were identified.

She took an involuntary step back when he stepped toward her, his overwhelming presence beating at her like a burst of power. Heat bloomed along the front of her body, settling over her cheeks in what she knew would be two flags of color that betrayed her discomfiture.

“He is not with us,” she heard herself saying with a catch in her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again. “We have brought Mr. Fujan instead. However, I was thinking that perhaps we could both dispense with our Aspano—Jadoc—shaman and perhaps walk the city with just us. You and us and maybe two guards for each of us.”

He seemed to think on this a long moment, his gaze boring into her. She wasn't certain if he was deciding this to be a trick, or if he was deciding it was an advantage for him.

“And neither of you are Jadoc? Aspano,” he corrected himself, doing as she had done and deferring to her cultures demarcation.

“No. I am Torrenic,” she said. “And Jutsin is Padoni.”