Chapter Eleven #2
The movements were far too hasty and rough for that, each seeking their victory from the other.
Yet even in that first fierce rush, a steadier connection began to blossom beneath it.
The battle they had been fighting with words turned into a kind of accord.
A kind of unity. The tempest in them softened.
His mouth, rough at first, gentled against her skin.
At last he lifted his head and kissed her properly, his fingers interlacing with hers.
When the kiss broke, she leaned fully into him, her head against his shoulder, her pale curves pressed to the hard muscles of his chest, her hand resting under his neck.
There was safety in that closeness, in feeling so plainly how strong he was, in knowing how powerful he was in body as well as magic, and how carefully that strength and power was now being used.
He could have remained rough. He did not.
That choice moved through her as deeply as desire.
“Control me, Karai,” she whispered near his ear.
His whole body shuddered at the sound of his own name on her lips, no cool mastery left in him for some clever remark. Instead he swore again, this time a sigh of relief, and tipped his own head back as he held her close. The rhythm of them changed again, growing deeper and more certain.
She rolled her hips against him, letting him stroke the deepest wall of her center, the pressure relieved only by sounds somewhere between whimpers and moans.
They left him cross-eyed with lust, wanting more of the same, and he hardened further as his movements quickened again.
The ache and pleasure continued into a breathless ascension, a volcanic mountain they climbed together to its highest point, standing on the edge of the quarrel’s heat and strain.
There it broke, both erupting in unison, the anger finally spent in one shuddering answer. The hammering reached their ears like a drumbeat, and then faded slowly away again.
Ina stayed unmoving in Karai’s arms, in that chair, still on him, for longer than was practical. He made no effort to force the moment forward. He only held her more tightly, one hand at the back of her neck, the other in her hair, and pressed a gentle kiss to her shoulder.
“I love you,” Ina whispered.
It was half confession, half apology, though she was not sure for what exactly. Perhaps for the argument. Perhaps for having waited so long to say those particular words first.
Karai did not answer at once.
She felt him take the words in. Felt the silence in him change to satisfaction. Then, in his own low voice, he gave her what he had sworn to give her freely, replying, “I’ll always love you.”
She drew back a little, hearing something he didn’t say. “Even when I lose control?”
“Especially then,” he murmured, and kissed her again.
They clung to each other quietly, caressing, a vindication without words.
Afterward they dressed in a rush more disorderly than either of them liked. Ina was still struggling with the wind guiding the laces at her back, and Karai had not yet found where she had thrown his shirt, when the library door opened.
Derran came in mid-sentence. “One of the ravens found a clue, there was a – ”
He stopped.
The silence hit harder than any shout might have.
Ina turned too fast. Karai did the same. Derran stood just inside the doorway, his gaze taking in everything at once – Ina’s half-fastened dress, Karai shirtless and bruised beside the table, the state of the room, the state of them.
His face changed so quickly it hurt to watch. Not into anger, not exactly. Derran was rarely outright angry. It was worse than that. He looked wounded first, and then he covered it as best he could, which only made the wound clearer.
“Derran,” Ina began.
Derran lifted a hand only enough to stop whatever came next. “No. I should have knocked.”
Then he turned and left.
Ina was after him before Karai could say anything to stop her, though he reached a hand halfway up as if he meant to try.
She caught Derran halfway down the corridor. “Derran!”
He stopped because he would never have made her chase farther when she might still be sore from the attack, but he did not turn at once. When he did, his face was calm in a careful way she distrusted immediately.
“We need your help,” she said, tentative.
“I know.”
“One of the ravens found something.”
“Yes.”
“Then come back.”
He looked at her for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. That gentleness made every word strike harder. “I never agreed to… this. To whatever it is that Karai agreed to.”
Ina’s heart skipped a beat, wondering what was coming next.
He sighed. “I’ve tried. I know what you feel. I know what he feels. I know what I feel. I have tried to put my jealousy somewhere useful and keep walking. But seeing you...”
He broke off, not because he lacked words, but because he had too many and did not want to choose the cruel ones. “Seeing that was too much.”
She took a step closer. “Derran, please – ”
“I love you.” He said it without hesitation, as if that were part of the injury and not the cure.
“I love you enough to rip my own heart out and put it in a diamond myself if you ask it of me. Enough to do your bidding as my queen and bow to you as your loyal servant. Enough to follow your every command, even if it leads me to my doom. But…
I don’t want to stand in a room with the two of you after that and pretend it costs me nothing.”
Ina had no answer ready. Nothing polished. Nothing queenly.
So she told the only truth that came to her.
“I love you, too.”
His expression flickered at that, then steadied again.
“I know,” he sighed.
“Then come back with me. Please. Whatever clue the ravens have found, we need to follow quickly. And I need...”
She stopped, because begging and dignity seldom traveled well together, and because she knew he might still respond to his duty if not her desire.
“Please. For the marsh court. For Jasenka.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse.
He had just told her he didn’t want to stand in a room with her and Karai again, and she was asking him to do exactly that. It would have been fair for him to refuse. It would have been fair for him to make her command him to do it as his queen instead of going willingly.
But he was too good a man for that.
He let out a breath and looked away down the corridor, as if the part of him that had been wounded needed one more instant to be set aside.
“I’ll come,” he said at last. “For Jasenka.”
Ina nodded. She was not fool enough to press the point.
“For Jasenka,” she echoed.
He gave her a small, weak smile that did not reach far in his eyes. “And because if I leave the two of you alone now, you’ll probably argue yourselves into another catastrophe.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed at his perception. At how he’d somehow known they’d been arguing. That, at least, was something.
Together they went back to the library, where Karai stood by the table fully dressed now, his neck covered, his face unreadable enough to be called a wall.
No one apologized. No one mentioned what had happened. The kingdom had passed them all the courtesy of urgency. Ina looked at both of them and thought, not for the first time, that ruling fairy kingdoms would be easier if hearts were less complicated and villains less inventive.
Neither seemed likely to improve.