The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (23 page)

Malaq sighed. “Just don’t nursemaid the kid. He wouldn’t like that. Besides, the wound isn’t fatal. He’s not going to die tonight just because you got some shut eye.”

“He’s not dying at all,” I vowed. I kicked Kya into a run.

“It was just a joke!” Malaq called after me. “Gods, am I really the only one out here with a sense of humor?”

NINETEEN

H
er dark skin glistened wet in the moonlight.

I could see the individual beads of water on her body so clearly that I knew I was dreaming, but I didn’t care.

How could I? The girl standing before me was wearing nothing but a man’s mail shirt. The neckline draped down off her shoulders. The edge of the hem barely skimmed her hips. The large, woven links revealed glimpses of a small frame molded to perfection.

Yet, it wasn’t just her meager attire that appealed to me. A sense of spirit dominated her face; a flawless, dark brown circle, framed by an unbound mane of black curls that hung down to brush her thighs. There was an abundance of playfulness in her brazen smile and clear mischief in her wide, round, dusky-colored eyes. They gazed at me, suggestive and confident. And I instantly thought: Aylagar.

I couldn’t deny the girl’s resemblance. The color of her skin and hair, the slant of her nose and shape of her face were more than a good match. There were nuances though, aspects of the fantasy that my mind had gotten wrong.

Foremost, the girl in my dream was only half Arullan. She was young too, and I never knew Aylagar that way. By the time we met she had born two children. She had the curves of a woman’s body and more than a handful of years on me.

Despite that, Rella’s Queen was every bit the warrior; strong, vibrant and determined, calculating and assertive, fierce and passionate. I’d once likened Aylagar to a storm trapped in a bottle. She had nothing naïve, carefree or innocent about her.

The beauty moving away from me toward the edge of the pond didn’t exactly strike me as innocent. But a sense of freshness, a youthful, untroubled exuberance, showed in every step.

Pausing to dip her bare toes in the water, she reached a slender arm back in my direction. Her fingers stretched out—and I was suddenly standing beside her; watching her lift the shirt up over her head.

Slowly, it slipped through her fingers.

She let go of the mail. It hit the ground with a clink. I reached for her and she ran, laughing and diving under the surface of the water.

She came back up in the middle of the pond like a rising fountain. Unruly curls kinked about her face and shoulders. Longer strands fanned out behind her. She laid back and small waves bobbed over the curves of her breasts; caressing them.

Undressing quickly, I threw everything I owned in a heap on the muddy bank. I put my swords on top and waded in after her. The water was impossibly warm. I sunk down into the liquid darkness and she drifted into my arms. Her small body fit so seamlessly against mine that I had the distinct and sudden impression that it belonged.

There was a mutual sense of security and trust in our embrace. She felt safest with me above all others and I was stronger with her. I was comfortable. Relaxed and content in a way I wasn’t accustomed to. I was completely at ease with myself. I had no anxieties, doubts, or misgivings. No regrets. It was similar to the bliss that came with channeling magic, but better somehow—if it weren’t make-believe.

I should wake, I thought. Something told me it wise to flee her presence now. Before the false feelings she aroused in me became too hard to forget.

“I have to go.” I started to push her away.

She lifted her head off my shoulder. “Stay.” Her eyes pleaded, as dark and wet as the water around us. And as I looked into them, I knew her. I had no idea what the girl was called, or where she came from. But I knew our life together. I knew her body and her heart. I knew she was mine.

“You…” I lost the words. “This can’t be right. You’re a dream.”

She laughed. “How sweet.”

“No, I…” My thoughts felt strewn about. “This isn’t real. I shouldn’t be here. I was,” I looked about, “somewhere else.”

“Hush.” She brushed her fingers over my temple, smoothing out the frown.

“I wasn’t here,” I insisted. “I don’t even know where here is.”

“Yes, you do. Here is where I am. There is nowhere else. No one else.” Her voice hardened. “There is only me, Ian. You must protect me, no matter the cost. No matter what you have to surrender. Nothing and no one else matters, but me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but—”

“Say it.”

“I understand.”

She kissed me then, a soft, gentle touch of her lips that left me wanting.

“More,” I begged.

The Arullan girl wrapped her hand around mine and towed me back through the water. At the bank, she let go. She walked out onto dry land, and the water fell off her like rain.

I came up from behind. She leaned against me. My body responded instantly to the soft, wet warmth of her. But as stiff as she made me, there was an overwhelming, peaceful comfort at being near her. She felt like home.

Home…?

I frowned at the notion. It was odd, unfamiliar, and as I tried to figure out why, I was filled with a tense restlessness, so palpable, she sensed it.

“The unease will fade, Ian. Just focus on me.” She turned to face me. Her arms encircled my neck. Her fingers dove into my wet hair. “Remember what’s important.”

“You,” I said.

She took my hand. We sat on the wet moss of the bank and she climbed onto my lap. Wrapping her legs around my waist, her mouth collapsed on mine with an aggressive, demanding kiss that was more about laying claim than anything else.

She shoved my back to the ground. Her eyes flickered with a strange, unnatural gleam. I’d seen it somewhere before.

“Intae’a…love…wait.” I tried to sit up.

“No.” She pushed me back. Sliding her body down the front of mine, her tongue lapped at my chest. Her hands wandered over the muscles of my stomach. “You go nowhere.” They moved lower. “Not ever.” Her lips joined them. “You’re mine.” Lifting her head, she stared at me through a tangle of muddy curls and said, “Forever,” with such outright passion and need that I came up off the ground, grabbed her arms and rolled her onto her back.

Letting out a low, impatient growl, I lowered my body down on top of hers. Her legs fell open. I slid inside her, and she smiled. Watching me, her fingers sifted through the hair over my eyes. She ruffled the pale strands that hung against the sides of my face.

As she let them fall, it came to me that there should be color there.

“Wait,” I said again. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Grinning, she pushed her hips against mine. “Really?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She thrust again, harder. “Is this right?”

“Stop,” I scolded her. “There’s something—”

She thrust a third time and I stopped caring. “To hell with it.”

I plunged in deep and she laughed again, this time breathless and manic, as we fell quickly into a seamless rhythm of sliding skin and swelling desire. Seizing each kiss like it might be the last, her entire body consumed me. Mouth, arms, legs; wrapping and kneading, stroking and gripping, with a clear sense of dominance.

She wanted to own me. And I let her, because I was no better. I beat against the soft walls inside her. I pushed her strong, dark legs up higher, shoving in harder, as if I had some great yearning to feel the end of her, to have her taste in my mouth, her smell on my skin. I wanted to burn the sensations into me so I wouldn’t forget.

So I could keep them with me for when she was gone.

Looking down, I watched her writhe beneath me. I felt the muscles in her thighs tremble. I listened to the sounds of her release and realized how perfect she was.

The Arullan girl was my sanctuary. The moment should have been flawless.

But a word had popped into my mind and I couldn’t quite shake it. It was playing over and over, above the pounding of blood in my ears, worming its way in, trying to break my concentration: wake.

I didn’t know where it came from, or what it meant. Lost in the folds of her, I had trouble caring. The word only became truly important when her body stiffened and a gasp that was more fear than pleasure escaped her.

Pulling out, I sat back on my heels. I croaked out a wheezing, dry-mouthed, “What?” She didn’t answer and our ragged breathing sounded huge against the silence.

Then her eyes slid past mine. They widened.

She shook her head in fright and a chill raced up my spine.

The air prickled along my skin.

Ever so slightly, the space around us tightened.

I grabbed the girl’s arms and pulled her up. “Run.” Gathering her clothes, I glanced at the thin dress and shall in my hands. They were dry and free of mud, and as I shoved them against her bare chest, I couldn’t remember her wearing them.

The inconsistency was disturbing, but I shook it off. “You have to go.” I pushed the curls back from her face and kissed her. “I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

Eyes damp with fear, she nodded and backed away. The waist-high grass swallowed her in seconds and I crawled the short distance to the bank. I’d left my cloths, boots, and
weapons there, yet when I reached the spot, everything was gone. There was only a pair of worn, gray trousers that weren’t mine.

Having nothing else, I slithered into them. I checked the bushes, but my belongings weren’t there either. I had a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong. The girl, the pond, my presence here; it all felt off.

I raised a hand to my throat. It was bare.

“No.” I looked at the ground. Panic raced through me. I couldn’t remember losing the obsidian, or taking it off. In fact, I couldn’t remember anything. Where I’d been, what I’d done before. I was unarmed, in the woods, in the middle of the night, and I had not the slightest inkling why.

I jumped as a voice broke through the dark. “Just how does a man with so much power fall so far?”

Spinning around, I found him standing in the shadows at the water’s edge. Dressed in gray and crimson, dark hair bound at the back of his neck, King Draken of Langor stared down his hawk-like nose, eyeing me like a rabbit in a snare.

He tilted his head higher. “So what is it they call the Champion of Rella now? Slayer of Bandits? Defender of Worthless Peasants and Cheap Whores?” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “I admit, Troy, I expected more of you.”

Jaw set, I nodded at him. “And I expected you to be babbling incoherently, sitting in a corner and pissing yourself for the rest of your life.”

“Then I suppose we are both disappointed.”

“The madness I gave you with the Crown of Stones was permanent, Draken. How the hell did you break the spell?”

“Who says it was broken?”

As I pondered that, Draken narrowed his deep-set eyes and gave me a cold, menacing stare. There was a hint of sedate distance to it, making his intimidation seem almost accidental. It was a gift, and I’d forgotten how aggravating it was. How his slightest smiles were strategic and meaningful. How even in battle he could be striking and stoic; nothing out of place; nothing showing he didn’t want.

Like Malaq.

I drew a startled breath. Anxiety settled into my stomach like a heavy weight. “This is wrong. This isn’t where I was.”

“Perhaps not. But it’s where I want you.” Draken wandered closer. “Now. Where to start?” His black-gloved fingers traced the thin stripe of beard that ran the length of his
jaw. “Oh, yes. That nice little bit of dark meat you were enjoying. I don’t suppose you’d call her back so we can share?”

I lunged for him and hands came out of the bushes. Gripping my arms, wrapping around my chest, as they pulled me back, I resisted; shoving an elbow into solid plate mail, a fist into a closed helm. I kept trying, but they were too well protected. I couldn’t land a decent hit. My bare feet kept sliding in the mud and I had nothing to deflect their spiked clubs as they swung into me—striking legs, back, and shoulders—driving me closer to the ground.

A solid hit to the jaw whirled me around. Something heavy hammered the back of my head a few times and I was down. “Chain him,” Draken ordered.

Shackles locked about my wrists and ankles. A burly Langorian with metal gloves yanked me onto my knees. He grabbed a handful of hair and wrenched my head up higher. “Pay respects to your new King, witch.”

I pushed out a heartfelt, “Fuck you,” and his fist sunk into my side.

Draken squatted in front of me. “Comfortable?” he asked.

Winded, blood spattered off my lips as I breathed. “I’m good.”

Draken blinked. Rising, he cleaned his face with the back of his gloved hand. “As you are no doubt aware, Troy,” he said, still wiping at his chin, “there are many levels of pain. And you are about to learn them all. Quite intimately, I might add.”

“Did I say fuck you, yet? My head’s a bit fuzzy.”

“By the gods, how I would love to kill you,” he confessed with an eager, angry laugh. “But, I suppose we must have compromise in a situation like this.”

His words were odd. “Whose situation? Mine? Or yours?”

Draken flicked a speck of mud from the cuff of his sleeve and straightened his tunic. “One neither of us would be in if you had simply killed me with the rest of them. But my death wasn’t satisfying enough for you, was it, Troy? It was far more pleasurable to twist my mind and destroy my soul.” The leather of his gloves creaked as his hands clenched. “You left me aware. Did you know that? I knew what you made me into. What I lost. I couldn’t come back from it, of course. I watched the world go by from inside my little prison,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “And every day the madness grew worse.”