The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (59 page)

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“No,” I said honestly. “Not in the least.”

Basking in my loss of composure, an impish grin tugged at Neela’s lips. It faded into a more serious expression as her fingers slid between the laces
of my breeches. She loosened them, one after the other, with ridiculous, painstaking precision, seeming not to notice that I was dying with every second that ticked by. Just as deft and slow, she removed my shirt. Regarding me first with her eyes, then her hands, Neela traced the contours of muscle on my chest, arms, and stomach. She bent down and did the same with her lips, and a chill ran over me.

I pulled her up. I kissed her, gently this time. I moved my lips over her chin and down her neck. Caressing her shoulders, gliding my hands down to the small of her back, I made my way leisurely around to her stomach and up over the curves of her breasts.

Supple and damp, they were more than I could hold in my hands. Her nipples were dark and erect and I gave them attention, caressing them, rolling them in my fingers. I plucked one into my mouth. Neela moaned, and her pleasure burst over me like a cloud break. Her desire, the sensations I provoked in her, all came hurtling at me through the link. The outpouring was unbelievably strong. The feel of her was extraordinary. I didn’t even consider shutting her out. Together, we were a seamless, unending wave of tingling nerves and burning skin, rushing blood and pounding hearts. Every sense, every touch intersected and overlapped; the heat rising between her legs; the crushing, merciless pressure growing in me.

Neela’s lust added to mine was a towering wave of desperation and madness.

When it became something beyond measure, I picked her up and threw her down on the first surface I could find.

As I separated the leather of my breeches, she lifted her dress. I gripped her bare thighs, pulled Neela’s body toward mine, and her warm, wet flesh swallowed me whole.

She was tight. Sweltering. Soft.

She opened up.

And I fell.

Her body was the door. Her thrusts were the perfect, eager snare. Her walls, like hot silk soaked in honey, were the treacherous boundaries of a bottomless abyss.

They closed in. I fell deeper.

I had no control, no grip. I plunged past reason and conscience, tumbled past tenderness and attraction. The catacombs, our link, restraint—they all
became background noise as I plummeted into the one thing left in the dark with me; the waiting arms of the dream.

I felt it happening. There was no fighting it, no breaking free of its embrace. Defiling my sense of pleasure, the spell polluted my desire with an impatient, lust-fueled frustration. It stripped my morality and corrupted my affection. It warped my passion into a kind of voracious, selfish depravity, until I had only one motivation, one concern: my own, primal need for release.

In consummating my obsession, its focus had shifted.
She
was unimportant. Her body was paramount. It was a means to an end, a path to satisfaction. And I used it as such. Slamming into it without respite, my thrusts were brutal, long and deep. My touch turned rough, my kisses harsh.

I had a dim sense of fingers clawing at my arms, of breasts jutting and bouncing, and legs wrapping in a frantic attempt to slow me down. Her cries prompted a scattered notion that I might be hurting her, but I didn’t stop. Her pleasure, or discomfort, was secondary to how badly I was burning. How hollow and starved I was. All that would fill me was to empty myself in her.

Yet, I couldn’t. It was quickly becoming apparent that no matter how fast our bodies hit, or how far I pushed inside, it wasn’t hard enough or deep enough to satisfy.

It never will be
.

There is no relief to be had in her.

And that was the point. It was the crux of the spell. It was one final jab from my father that the lure he dangled in front of me, the life he offered in exchange for the stone, was unattainable. Even if Neela came to care for me, my desire for her would become tainted by constant frustration. The thing he made me want more than any other—the allusion of utter contentment I felt in the dreams—would be forever out of reach.

Even dead he plots the course of my life.

Panting, I pulled out of her and stepped back. Damp curls clung to her face. Sweat glimmered like dew in the flickering light. Passion glazed her eyes and it was almost enough to make me believe I was wrong.

Then I saw cuts open on her skin. I heard laughter that wasn’t there.

I reached out to Jarryd, for added strength, and got nothing. I gripped Neela’s arms, trying to stay in the here and now. But the wet on her skin felt like blood.

With a sound of revulsion, I let her go.

Neela tried to pull me back. “What’s wrong?”

I flung her off me. “Everything,” I snarled. “You. Us. You don’t know how badly I need you to be real. How I need all of this to be real. But it’s not. It won’t ever be.”

Her brow tightened. “Calm down.”

The hiss of drawn metal came out of the dark. Past the torchlight and the gloom, something was in the doorway. The shape of a man, it moved slightly.

Watching it, I said, “You turn everything upside down. I can’t trust myself with you. I can’t trust my own senses. I know we’re alone. Only, I swear…
I swear
I can hear him in the room with us.”

“I heard it too.” I went for a weapon and her hand shot out to stop me. “I heard a servant, Ian,” she said, slow and persuasive, “that’s all.” Holding my gaze, she spoke louder. “Come out of the shadows, boy.”

There was a noticeable hesitation. I held my breath through the whole thing.

I let it out when a lanky figure crawled clumsily over the broken door and fell into the chamber. Gripping a torch in one hand, he kept his head lowered and his eyes down as he picked himself up. Clearly, this was the last place he wanted to be. It was also the last place I thought to see him.

“Liel,” I sighed. “Gods...” I ran my hands over my face, wiping away the sweat. The panic was harder to shed, but I took a few, relieved gulps of air and recovered enough to pull up my pants.

Liel’s recovery was going to take a bit longer. His face held significantly less color than my eyes and he wasn’t even coming close to looking in our direction. “Pardon me, Your Grace,” he muttered. “It’s the Langorian Ambassador. He’s returned and is asking for you.”

Neela spared him a frown over her bare shoulder. “I’ll need some time. See if you can scrounge up something to feed him while he waits.”

I looked at her. I was hoping for an explanation. But she just turned away, with her emotions all over the place. There was dread, fading desire, and a lot of humiliation. She was ashamed of her appearance, which was not exactly pristine. Her hair was sticking out all over. A visible sheen of sweat layered her skin. Smudges clung to her once-white gown, which I had completely
wrecked. I’d done the same to her usual poise and dignity, and she was having trouble recapturing it.

Mostly though, she was nervous as hell.

“The Ambassador wishes to meet with Troy as well,” Liel added.

“Me?” I said in surprise. “What does he want?”

Liel’s voice was strained. “I couldn’t say, My Lord.”

I peered at him through the gloom. “You survived the battle without injury?”

“Yes, My Lord. But many were far less fortunate.” Liel raised his eyes. He looked straight at me. “Many that should be here aren’t.”

“That’s enough,” Neela broke in. “Troy is aware of the rigors of war.”

Liel’s gaze plummeted like a stone. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, his normally impeccable posture slumping. His floppy curls seemed to go flat and lifeless, too. As if the weight of worry pressed them down. Even more peculiar, he hadn’t bowed once.

I might have chocked it up to simple embarrassment. After all, the boy did just catch me fucking Rella’s Queen on the tomb of her ancestor. Except, it wasn’t shame he was exhibiting. It wasn’t fatigue either, or trauma from witnessing his first battle.

Liel was radiating fear, anxiety, and a good amount of despair.

“That will be all,” Neela said to him. “Tell the ambassador I’ll join him shortly.”

Eyes on his boots, Liel nodded. He fled the chamber like it was on fire.

Neela slid off the top of the crypt. I stepped back, giving her room to pull herself together. I would have helped, but she shimmied into what remained of her sleeves and flattened down her rumpled skirt in silence. She combed a hand through the tangles in her hair, looking anywhere but at me. Running her fingers through the strands, a few got stuck in the pearls on her head but she worked them out on her own. The front of her gown (in two pieces now) gaped stubbornly open, and the longer Neela fumbled with the material, clutching the tattered fabric to her breasts like a shield, the more I was certain she was looking for ways to avoid me.

“The castle is quiet.” I snatched up my shirt and slipped it on. “Were there no celebrations?”

“Not really.” Still holding her dress together, Neela didn’t look up. “There is a lot of work to be done.”

“Funny,” I said, tying the laces on my breeches in quick, angry motions. “I didn’t see anyone doing any work.”

“Oh?” Her tone was careless, but I felt a ripple of anxiety bounce between us.

“There are things you aren’t telling me.”

“There are things you aren’t privy too.”

“If the healing spell had gone differently, I would have been privy to everything. As it is, all I can feel is how much you’re lying to me right now.” I put up a barrier and choked off our link. Point blank, I said, “You won, Neela. The Langorians are gone. You have your throne back. Yet, you aren’t happy. Why?” Her absence of an answer tightened my voice. “Where are all the people, Neela?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“My father is dead. Langor is defeated. Yet, that poor boy that was just here looked too afraid to breathe. I want to know why.”

Neela stared at me a long moment. Then, so soft I could barely hear her, she said, “We didn’t win.”

“What?”

“We didn’t win.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We lost, Ian,” she said plainly. “The war is over and we lost.”

I tossed my head in defiance. “No. We’re here, in Kabri, in the castle. There’s no battle outside. No enemies camped on the beach or patrolling the halls.” I got louder. “We won, Neela. Your ragtag army defeated Draken’s forces or we wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes. They did. I was told that with Sienn’s help we knocked Draken’s numbers down to half rather quickly. We took heavy casualties, but the city was ours within the day.” She took a halting breath. “The next morning, the warships came.”

“I saw a couple ships on the other side of the island. They looked empty.”

“They were scouts. The rest came shortly before dawn. Thirty vessels landed under the cover of the morning mist. An alarm was sounded, but the beasts poured out.”

“Eldring?”

“They fell on my men, my allies, like a swarm.”

I gulped down the sickness in my throat. “What about Sienn? She could have—”

“Sienn was nowhere to be found.” Neela took a deep, grief-filled breath. “You were right, Ian. Draken knew I’d put everything I had into this battle. He let me think we had a chance. But we didn’t. We never did.”

“How did you and I get back here then, to the castle?”

“Once the battle with Draken’s forces had swung our way and victory was clear, Liel and Jarryd came for you. They had no idea I was even missing. They found us both unconscious and brought us here before the eldring attack.”

“If Draken owns Kabri, why am I not in a cell?”

“I’ve made arrangements for your safety.”

“What arrangements?”

“Before we get to that….” Neela’s gaze wavered. “Ian,” she said, timidly, as if fearing my reaction, “your father’s body wasn’t in the cave.”

“What?” Devastated, I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

“I had all the tunnels searched.”

I said it like a curse. “Sienn.”

“That was my thought as well. Is it possible she took him for burial?”

“Sienn is blind where Jem Reth is concerned. If she has him, he’s not dead.”

“That is unfortunate.”

Rage melted my shock and distress and I roared at her. “Goddamn it! I should have seen this coming. I should have known she wouldn’t just sit back and let me kill him. Damn it!” I spun around and struck the wall behind me. Stone crumbled, but not enough, so I hit it again. “That fucking bitch—she healed him. She fucking healed him!” An uneasy thought came over me and my voice dropped dramatically. “The crown?”

“Gone as well.”

Briefly, I closed my eyes. “Why the hell did you keep this from me?”

“I’ve accepted terms. I knew you would try to intervene.”

“Damn right, I’ll intervene.”

“You can’t, Ian. It’s done.”

“It’s not even close to done. I still have magic.”

“And Draken has my sister.”

I lost some of my zeal. “We have no proof. He could be bluffing.”

“I can’t risk it. If I marry Draken, he will let her go. He’ll pull his men out of the villages. There will be no more killing, no more executions. Kabri will be rebuilt. You will be spared.”

“I never asked you for that. And I don’t give a damn about the city!” I shouted.

Neela’s voice went up to match mine. “I do!” It went back down. “I won’t be powerless as his Queen. I will be in charge of rebuilding the realm. And Draken allowed me to pick a Regent to look after Rella’s lands. Someone I can work with to ensure my people are taken care of. Marriage is the only way to guarantee that some trace of Rella survives, Ian. It’s the best possible solution for everyone involved.”

“Except you.”

She paled a bit. “This is my fate.”

“It doesn’t have to be. If Elayna is at Darkhorne, then I’ll get her out. I promise. Just, don’t do this. Don’t marry him. Give me some time and I’ll find your sister.”

“I have none to give. I leave for Langor in the morning.”

I knew the look on her face. Her mind was made. “So, if I hadn’t questioned you just now, your plan was to deceive me, sleep with me, and then what…? Creep off and leave me here in ignorance until I stumbled onto the truth?”