Temperance (30 page)

The cry that left her was both satisfying and arousing as he pulled her down the table until he was sitting with his face in her lap devouring every swollen inch of her soaked cunt, and the more he tongued her, the wetter she became.

She was writhing around under him and he didn’t know half of the words falling from her mouth. But when her thighs tensed hard and she thrust up to his mouth and screamed, he knew sure as the Gods that this woman Naeve, now belonged to him, and he would lay down his very life to protect the body that had just explode across his tongue.

As he raised his head from between her thighs, he licked the taste of her from his tongue and crawled up over her where she lay out on his table. Placing his palms on either side of her head he looked down into her dazed eyes and felt a grin hit his lips. His long hair fell out from behind his ears and when it tickled her neck she giggled.

“I like that sound,” he confessed, and she reached up to stroke his cheek.

“My laugh?”

He nodded, and when she shifted under him and pressed up against his aching shaft it turned to a groan.

“Yes. Your joy.”

She tunneled her hands into his hair and pushed it back from his face.

“My joy sounded a lot different a minute ago.”

With a tight-lipped smile he agreed, “Yes. I liked
that
sound too. I shall endeavor to hear it more often.”

She blinked up at him as if realizing for the first time what she’d just done, and right before his very eyes her mood changed. It was as though everything she’d pushed aside to enjoy the moment came tumbling back in, and the happiness that had been there faded away in an instant.

“Naeve?”

She turned her face from him, dismissing him.
 

He pushed up and away from her, and as he stared down at the disheveled woman lying across his table, he felt a different kind of ache. This time though, it was located higher.
 

This time it was in his chest.

Ry’Ker left the Great Hall with even more questions than when he’d first entered.

Omnipotence.
That one word had changed everything, and yet changed nothing at all, because the sensualeer that was locked up in the East chamber had no idea what he truly was.
 

He had no idea that his powers, they were limitless—or soon would be.
 

Si’Bastian was dangerous. More so than Ry’Ker could have ever imagined.

He looked at the guard standing by the double doors and told him, “Meet me at the East tower in an hour. Bring Ai’Den.”

When the guard acknowledged his request, Ry’Ker turned and made his way up to his own chambers. He needed a moment to think. Some silence to try and work out the best way to do what Li’Am wanted of him.

Gaining Si’Bastian’s trust would’ve been a hard enough task when he’d known nothing but the bare facts. But staring him in the eye and lying to him was going to take every ounce of control Ry’Ker possessed.
 

 
He ran a hand up over his shaved head and winced, thinking of the disdain he’d seen in his brother’s eyes when he’d first seen it several nights ago. He and Mala’Kai had many issues, most of which revolved around the death of their mother, but they had since broadened to include; who he choose to fight beside, and what he fought for. It was clear they would never see eye to eye, and he would never understand his brother’s blatant disregard for all that they’d lost.

Walking over to the window of his chambers, he stared out at the men below. He wondered how different the place would look if they were able to undo all that had been done. Women, even children, would be seen in the courtyard below, just as they had when he’d been a boy—and he wanted that.

Sighing, he placed his hands on the wooden sill and spotted Ai’Den crossing the yard to the kitchen side door.
Damn it
, he’d forgotten all about the women. He was supposed to be meeting them with the healer to see if he knew any more of what ailed the redhead. Why she wasn’t yet awake.

Well at least this way he would kill two birds with one stone. After he’d seen to Red, Ai’Den could come with him to check on Si’Bastian.

Rolling his shoulders he crossed to the door and thought,
so much for a moment of silence.
Gods knew what he’d be walking into with Fiona Brannigan after their last encounter.

* * *

He reached the landing above the kitchens, to find that Ai’Den was there waiting on him talking with another guard who was laughing over something he must have said.

“Here he is now.”

He watched Ai’Den turn his way to greet him. “Hey, Ry’Ker.”

“Ai’Den,” he replied, as he stopped in front of the healer.
 

He was about to say more when he felt something tugging on his pants leg. Looking down, his words came to a standstill when he saw a fawn colored goat chewing on the ankle of his breeches.
 

“Sorry,” Ai’Den offered, and then bent down to swat the animal away from his leg. “She’s been misbehaving all morning.”

Slightly thrown off by the goats’ appearance, Ry’Ker lost his train of thought.

“Usually I’d leave her outside, but Cook has been threatening to gut and plate her for this eve’s meal. So you can understand why I want her close.”

As Ai’Den’s explanation came to an end, Ry’Ker felt the tugging again and this time the healer reached out and grabbed the animal by the neck.

“Quit it, Buttercup,” he mumbled and pulled her away.

Ry’Ker shook his head and then asked, “If you and your animal are ready.”

He stepped past Ai’Den, who shrugged apologetically, and turned the door handle. He pushed it open and found Fiona and the dark haired woman sitting cross-legged on the cot beside their sleeping sister. Knowing that any kind of friendly conversation would not be welcomed, he decided to forgo it and get right to the point.

Marching across the room, he saw Fiona’s eyes move from him to the man walking in behind him—and then, to the goat.

“Has there been any improvement?”

She stood and wiped her hands on her pants before responding coolly, “No. Who’s that?”

Ry’Ker didn’t bother looking over his shoulder, he merely explained, “He’s the healer.”

“The doctor? A little young don’t you think?” she then let her eyes flick over his shoulder to Ai’Den who she mumbled, “No offense,” to.

“None taken,” he assured her, and stepped up beside him. “I’m Ai’Den.”

As he shifted toward her and held out a hand there was a loud high-pitched bleat, and the goat bounced up onto the bed Fiona had vacated. She looked shocked by the animals’ appearance, and as Ry’Ker was about to tell Ai’Den to take the damn thing outside, the other woman in the room began laughing.

It was the first noise he’d heard from her in days, and apparently a shock to Fiona also because she looked over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t heard things.

“Audra?” she asked expectantly, and when her sister looked at her and grinned, Ry’Ker was dealt his second blow of the day.
 

The woman didn’t bare a slight resemblance to the lost Empress, when she smiled she was the
exact
replica of her, and the sheer beauty of her was breathtaking.

“Isn’t he cute?” she beamed, genuinely impressed with the animal that was now trying to eat her pants.

“It’s actually a she,” Ai’Den spoke up, and finally walked past him to offer his hand once again to Fiona.
 

Apparently, he was much more acceptable as a human being because Fiona bestowed a smile on him and also extend her hand. He took it and bent down to press his lips to her fingers.

“My lady.”

Ry’Ker watched as a flush hit the cheeks of the usually prissy female.

“Oh,” she flustered slightly. “My name’s, Fiona.”

“That’s a very pretty name.”

Ry’Ker barely resisted his urge to tell the healer to hurry up, but when Fiona glanced over Ai’Den’s shoulder to him he knew she was trying to send
him
a message.

“It’s nice to finally meet a gentleman.”

Ai’Den released her hand and gave a quick laugh. “Ahh, I wouldn’t call myself a gentleman. A man is well enough for me.”

Fiona placed her hands in the pockets of her pants and then turned aside slightly to show him where her sister, the patient, lay.

“I didn’t mean to be offensive about your age,” she explained. “It’s just…where I’m from doctor’s are usually older. They have years of schooling and then interning and well, you look barely what? Twenty?”

Ai’Den walked past her to the middle of the bed where Red lay, and then looked back to Fiona and said, “I’m two and twenty and was born a healer, of that I had no choice. It’s the life as a naturalist that I got to decide. I don’t know what you speak of when you say school and intern.”

Ai’Den raised his palms over the unconscious woman, and Ry’Ker saw the way Fiona tensed and found himself walking up to stand beside her.

“He won’t hurt her,” he murmured, trying to offer some sort of reassurance.

She turned her head to the side and when their eyes met, hers narrowed. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why would I bother with a lie?”

Without a word, she turned back to watch Ai’Den and perhaps hope for a miracle.

Ry’Ker wasn’t a stranger to what Ai’Den’s kind could do, but when the white light shimmered down from his palms and cloaked the woman lying stretched out on the bed, he heard the two women near him gasp.

“He’s like Bastian?” Fiona questioned, and the first thing that came to his mind was;
no, he is nothing like, Si’Bastian. No one is.
 

“No. Ai’Den is a healer. Si’Bastian is…”

“But they do the same thing,” she whispered when he didn’t complete his thought.

Shaking his head Ry’Ker told her, “Look closer.”

As she bent a little and peered at the light that was shimmering around her sister’s body, he knew the minute she saw it. There, within the light, were tiny little flecks of color.
 

The blues of their waters and sometimes their sky. The greens of their grass and their once thriving trees. And mixed in amongst them were the yellows and browns of their land as they all swirled together to create a throbbing, pulsating glow that could detect the life force of the one within.
 

“What is he doing to her?” Fiona asked, without taking her eyes of off the healer and her sister.

“He’s trying to find her?”

That had her turning her head. “Find her?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Your sister has been unconscious for days now. Ai’Den is trying to detect some part of her. See if he can feel any sort of connection with her, from what she experienced before she ended up as she did.”

They both turned to see that Audra had moved forward to the edge of the other cot and was watching with rapt attention.

“Do you think it will work?” Fiona asked.

Not wanting to lie to her, Ry’Ker voiced what had been on his mind from the beginning. “Probably not. She was found unconscious in the Tasie Forest. There’s not much left living in there. That in turn will make it hard for Ai’Den to find any kind of life signature that was around her at the time for her soul to latch onto.”

She said nothing as his brutal truth was delivered, and he decided that maybe this should have been the moment he practiced telling a lie. After all, he was about to have to live the biggest one of his life starting soon enough.

Seconds passed. Then minutes. Until it felt like he’d been standing there for hours—and nothing was happening.

Ai’Den’s arms were trembling and Ry’Ker knew the connection was about to be severed.
 

Every time a healer practiced, a certain amount of their energy was drained, and right now the shaking in Ai’Den’s arms and the pallor of his face was a clear indication that he was breaking down.

“Shut down, Ai’Den,” he commanded.

“One more—”

“—No more. Shut. It. Down.”

Instantly, the glow dissipated and Ai’Den fell forward. Before he could brace himself against the bed, his hand landed on Red’s shoulder and his other brushed by her face.

“By all the Gods,
nothing
. I felt nothing,” he muttered, and went to right himself.
 

Just as he did, Ry’Ker saw it. The foot at the end of the bed, it moved.

“Stop,” he commanded, and pushed past Fiona to where Ai’Den was still braced over the woman’s prone form. “Her foot, it moves.”

Both him and Ai’Den looked down upon the motionless woman and waited, for what he wasn’t sure, until her eyelids started to flutter and then wide green eyes came into view as Red finally woke from her slumber.

* * *

Naeve reached for the material at her waist and pulled it up her body as she pushed the hem of the dress down her legs.

What had she been thinking? Letting him touch her like that?

 
She turned her head where she lay on the table, and watched Kai as he walked over to the fireplace.
 

His shoulders were stiff, as was his spine, and when he placed a hand on the wall and stared at the flames below, Naeve felt the bitter taste of shame and regret on her tongue.