Chapter 37
Gemma
“A zur,” I moaned, my eyelids fluttering wildly, pushing at his shoulders. “You’ll leave a mark!”
In response, he drank even deeper, and I felt my clit tingle, a warning.
He wants to leave one, I knew just as my orgasm crested, blinding and fast. I clutched on to him, my legs shaking, biting my lip to stifle my loud cries because I could already hear the music funneling throughout the keep.
Guests were arriving. The lore harvest ball was underway, and here I was, hidden in a dark alcove on the second floor of the keep, with my husband’s fangs deep in my neck.
When he was finished, he pulled away, licking his lips. I was flushed, panting, staring at him with a half-lidded gaze. There was an odd scent drifting in the air, one that smelled strangely like cinnamon but spicier. One that made me feel dizzy, that made my heart speed and the muscles in my thighs quiver.
Azur had been leading me down the stairs, his hand presumptuous and wandering over the dress he’d purchased for me. The most beautiful thing I’d ever worn. The Hindras clothier was truly skilled to craft such a work of art. The material was human-blood red and light as air, skimming close to the curves of my body. Yet it was sturdy enough to hold the silver metal that had been hand sewed into it, metal that had been shaped into delicate swirls and curving lines in the bodice and sweeping down toward my hips.
The neckline was low, showing the expanse of my upper chest, the valley of my breasts, and the line of my neck. Ludayn had swept my hair up in a soft, braided bun, pinning it back with silver pins encrusted in ruby-like gems. The final touch was the headband of silver flowers—which resembled starwood blooms—that she had been eager for me to wear.
I’d felt a thrill go through me when Azur had first seen me. He’d stilled, his nostrils flaring, those fiery eyes roving . A low, unconscious growl had reverberated up his throat before he’d swallowed it down. That sound had made my toes curl in my silk slippers, and I’d just narrowly managed to dodge his lunge for me, laughing breathlessly because I hadn’t wanted us to be late.
And I’d known that if my husband had gotten his hands on me, we would’ve been very late indeed.
He’d behaved until the second floor.
Now he peered down at his bite with a smirk that nearly made me whimper.
“Perfect,” he purred, his hand cupping my cheek. “You’re beautiful, wife.”
My throat burned. I’d never heard that before. Not once in my entire life. It was my sisters who other people had called beautiful.
But the way Azur was looking at me…I knew he meant it. He truly meant it.
I wasn’t very good at accepting compliments, but I smiled at him, managing to hold back my tears. “Thank you. You’re very handsome tonight too.”
My husband, however, had likely heard compliments his entire life from females who’d clamored over one another to reach him. Azur was dressed finely in a black structured vest that molded to him and black pants. The material of both was strong like leather but held the supple softness of suede. Similar metal work was sewn into his vest, though the accents highlighted the breadth of his shoulders and the width of his chest. He wore his gauntlets, gleaming and freshly polished. A dagger—the same one we’d used at our marriage ceremony and to cut our hands again the night of the moon winds—was sheathed at his hip.
His shoulder-length black hair was left down and unbound, completing his roguish look.
If we’d met at a ball like this, in another place, I’d likely have been unable to keep my eyes off him.
To think that he was my husband , that he was mine …it was hard to wrap my head around. Once, I’d been terrified of him. I’d recoiled at the sight of him, frozen in place, fearful of what my fate with him might be.
Now I skimmed my hand up his chest and leaned into him as he studied his obvious bite mark with masculine satisfaction and primal pleasure.
I was falling in love with him. Swiftly and hard. It didn’t scare me as much as I’d thought it would.
“Brute,” I whispered, teasing. “What is it with you and marking me? Now I’ll feel everyone’s eyes on it tonight.”
“Good,” he rasped, taking my hand and continuing on our way. “At least the males will know to keep their distance.”
The nerves kicked up in the notch of my throat the closer we drew to the front of the keep. There were two keepers stationed at the private hallway doors that led to the main foyer, making sure no guests strayed into the private areas of the house. After they inclined their heads at us, they opened the doors, and a flood of noise and light and laughter briefly startled me enough that I forgot my fear.
We entered the foyer with little fanfare, slipping among the growing crowd, who were waiting to be let into the extravagant, massive dining room just beyond the entrance doors. A dining room that we never used, which had been cleared of the table that must’ve sat nearly a hundred guests.
I heard the murmurs as our appearance registered among the crowd. Villagers from Laras. Nobles too. Travelers from all around the Kaalium, for an entire portion of the village had been cleared for their traveling tents. The keep kept its doors open on this night for any who wished to attend, but that meant the line went out the doors and down the tree-lined path toward Laras. It meant Kylorr guards were out in full force tonight, guards I’d seen patrolling throughout the village on occasion, in case trouble arose, and who I’d later learned had dealt with the aftermath of the kyriv attack.
Azur smiled and greeted all who called out to us. And when we bypassed the line to step into the dining room, which had been transformed by Kalia and Neela into a ballroom, I was too entranced by the beauty to notice that most guests turned our way when Azur guided me inside.
Overhead, there was a projection of a starry scape. Gone was the towering, vaulted white-stone ceilings of the keep. In its place was the indigo night sky, dotted with twinkling stars that looked so incredibly real. The orb lights were soft and dim as they weaved and swayed around the room. Candles had been brought out too, old fashioned and tapered, black in color with golden flames.
Haunting music echoed through the ballroom with instruments that sounded like human harps and violins but were somehow muted, their notes drawn out and wispy like smoke. Beautiful. Couples were dancing on the floor, swaying and gliding across the stone. I was relieved to see that it looked like a universal dance, the basic steps of which I knew well.
Flowers spilled from all corners of the room. Decorating the food table or perched on tall columns, vines trailing down like ivy. Beautiful blooms. Starwood blooms, I saw too, likely in remembrance of their mother, mixed in with creamy white flowers with large, velvety petals. They had a wild look about that, but the effect was glorious. It looked like we’d stumbled onto a ball deep in the woods of Krynn, lit up golden and glittering in the night.
“Kalia has outdone herself this year,” Azur murmured.
“Neela too. It’s beautiful,” I said. I took a deep breath, finally registering the multitude of eyes on us and the speculative expressions on their faces as they whispered behind hands. I swallowed hard, squeezing his forearm, finding his presence next to me comforting. “Are your brothers here?”
Azur scanned the crowd, moving me forward, skirting the dancing couples and making his way toward the left side of the ballroom. He wore a cool expression, seemingly unfazed by the sheer amount of looks being cast our way. As if this were a common occurrence in his daily life—which, perhaps, it had been. Kalia had told me their mother had thrown all kinds of parties and dinners at the keep in her time as Kylaira .
I wondered if the same was expected of me. Somehow, the idea of it made a stone lodge in my belly. It didn’t appeal to me. At all. It was what human women were expected to do when they took over great houses just like this one, when they married into wealthy, respected families. I’d much rather be deep in the records room up to my ears in numbers or flying across the sea with Azur. Or pruning gardens and visiting the village and walking the terrace walls, admiring the crash of the waves below, with Ludayn and Kalia.
“Kythel and Kaldur are likely in the smoking room,” he told me. The smoking room? “I don’t see Lucen or Thaine. Mm, there’s Kalia and Rivin.”
He pulled me toward his sister, who was dressed in a stunning midnight-blue dress, the first dress I’d ever seen her wear. Simple and delicate and understated, but I saw the eyes of Kylorr males practically glued to her, males I recognized from the village.
Males who averted their eyes the moment Azur stepped into their path, and I bit back a smile.
“Alaire’s mercy, look at you,” Kalia breathed, practically squealing with delight when she saw me on her brother’s arm. “Estee’s shop will be booked for months after tonight.”
I flushed at her praise, sliding closer to Azur. Rivin, who had shown up at the keep just a few days prior, gave me a wide grin. “ Kylaira ,” he greeted, and I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes dipped to the bite mark on my neck before that smile widened. “Shall I claim your first dance of the night?”
“Only if you wish to greet Raazos,” Azur cut in smoothly, clapping his friend on the back, making Rivin wheeze. My husband bared his fangs, which he hadn’t retracted, and added, “Behave and keep your hands off my wife while I go make the greeting to our guests.”
Kalia stifled a snicker but took my hand as I watched Azur stride away, making his way toward where the musicians were plucking away on their instruments on a raised dais at the front of the ballroom. He signaled for them to stop and turned to face the crowd with a charming smile that didn’t quite match him as the noise quieted considerably.
“Welcome,” his voice rang out once the room fell silent. I could feel the energy pulsing in the room, the buzzing. The Kylorr, I’d found, loved the harvest season. Everywhere we went in the village, there had been a childlike merriment and joy in the festivities. “Welcome, friends of House Kaalium. You honor my family by being here tonight, whether you have traveled near or far.”
Heavy feet stomped on the ground, a trembling roar in the room. A way of clapping, I realized, for the Kylorr, as their wings began to flurry in time with the beat.
“This was a year of blessings for our country. Our greatest lore harvest in our history. For Erzos, for Kyne, for Vyaan, for Salaire, and for Laras.”
Choruses of cheers rang out when Azur listed off his brother’s territories—cheers from their residents who had traveled to be here tonight—but the wing flapping and foot stomping when he said Laras drowned them all out. Azur waited patiently until the noise died down once more.
“Another blessing of this year is that Laras welcomed its new Kylaira .”
I froze as seemingly thousands of eyes swung to me, squeezing Kalia’s hand in my own, but I only watched Azur when his own red gaze locked with mine.
“My wife. My kyrana ,” he said as whispers broke out among the crowd mingled with cries of exclamation and surprise, possibly from those outside Laras, “who will bring prosperity and perhaps reflection to our keep and to my family.”
There was a softness in those last words as he regarded me from across the room.
“I introduce her to you now, our friends. Gemma of House Kaalium, Kylaira of Laras.”
I pasted on a smile as the ground quaked my very soul, as the cheering echoed throughout the massive room. But I only watched Azur as shock reverberated through me. I’d never heard my name any differently. I’d always been Gemma Hara. And to hear my name attached to his own, to his family, to Krynn and this keep…it made me want to be alone with him. So I could feel the steady heat of his arms and savor the feel of his wings wrapping tight around me.
So much had changed between us in such a short amount of time. And while I felt grief—surprising and strange—at knowing my old life in the Collis would only be a memory from now on, that I would no longer share the name of my sisters, my mother, my father, I knew that I would forge my own path here on Krynn.
My fate made new.
“May our gods and goddesses bless her as they have blessed us all,” Azur continued, his jaw tightening on the words, but the expression vanished quickly, a smile taking its place. “A year of blessings that I know will continue as we grow the Kaalium into an even greater nation. So please…feast, drink, smoke, dance, and enjoy one another’s company. Our keep is yours tonight. There is much to celebrate.”
Azur stepped down to rising cheers as the musicians started up again. A Kylorr word, one I didn’t recognize, seemed to ripple through the crowd, chanted and following him as he made his way back toward me, his gaze pinned on my own.
“What are they saying?” I asked.
Rivin was the one who replied. “ Dalkye .”
“It’s an ancient war cry,” Kalia explained, her voice soft, her eyes speculative as she watched her brother make his way through the crowd, though many Kylorr were approaching him, vying for his attention. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s a…a comfort, I suppose. A word of remembrance and memory of our ancestors but also a word of hope and victory.”
“I see,” I said quietly, watching as Azur got waylaid by yet another pair, an elderly couple from the village, who wore bright smiles on their faces as they greeted their Kyzaire . I watched as my husband grinned at them, charming and patient, though his eyes flickered to mine over their wings.
Rivin was regarding me carefully. I still remembered his kindness when I’d first come to the keep, when Azur had been so cold that he’d felt like a wall of ice. Then his expression shifted when Neela found us, his eyes flashing over the human woman, nostrils flaring.
“Hello, Rivin,” Neela greeted, smiling.
Azur’s friend grunted. I had the impression he was holding his breath, and he inclined his head to us all as he said, “I’m going to go smoke.”
I watched as he faded away, bewildered by the sudden change in him. Especially when I saw him grin at a Kylorr female in a slinky dress who bumped into him as he pushed past.
“He still hates me, I see,” Neela murmured, the words dry even though her smile was bright. “If only I knew what I’d even done in the first place.”
Kalia frowned and was just about to say something when I felt a familiar hand wrap around my wrist.
“Let’s go dance before I get pulled away again,” Azur rasped in to my ear, tugging me out of the diminishing circle of people before I could protest.
“You would rather dance than speak with your guests?” I whispered, finding myself in the circle of his arms among the other couples on the floor.
“Hmmm, I’d rather not be bothered while I admire my wife in this dress,” he countered. I bit my lip to keep from chuckling, still feeling oddly shy from his welcome speech. “I’ll commission Estee to make you about a dozen more.”
I shook my head, afraid to see what the purchase charges had been for the wardrobe he’d already gifted me. “Mine are more than enough. You like my hideous dresses, after all,” I teased. “Because you don’t feel so bad when you tear them to shreds.”
A couple close to us choked on their laughter, and my face flamed, not realizing they’d been listening to our conversation. Azur ducked his head and murmured in my ear, “Careful, wife. All of Laras will know my hunger for you by the end of tonight.”
With that, we began to dance as I avoided the eyes of the couple when they swayed away.
“Myraa and Dy of House Nes,” he murmured, his fangs brushing the sensitive flesh of my ear as I shivered. “Nosy gossips. You’ll do well to watch your tongue around them, though they are useful if you ever need information spread throughout Laras.”
Instead of threading my arms around his neck, I placed them on the broad wall of his chest since it was easier to reach. Our height difference was vast.
I memorized their names and their faces. “Will I ever learn all these people?”
“Yes,” he answered, the word confident. “You forget, wife, I have known them all my life. They are as familiar to me as the walls of this keep. You will learn them with time.”
His words were reassuring, and we settled into a gentle rhythm for a while, Azur infinitely patient while I found my footing, nervous that so many eyes were upon us.
“Kylorr dance like humans,” I commented to distract myself.
“Or maybe humans dance like the Kylorr,” he rasped.
I exhaled, still fighting my grin. “I stand corrected.”
With the exception of Myraa and Dy, the other couples around us kept their distance. Wing-distance as I liked to call it, giving us privacy as we swayed in the crowded ballroom. Azur, naturally, was a wonderful dancer. The bulk of his body did nothing to deter his grace, and he guided me expertly through steps that I fumbled over, unused to the timing of the Kylorr music, which held a dark edge to it, accompanied by a primal beat. Still, I smiled at him, beginning to enjoy myself, especially with the firm press of his hands at my hips and lower back and the tease in his dark eyes as he watched me, promising early retirement up to our rooms.
I sensed another presence step forward. I heard a hush from the onlookers, more whispers, and saw Azur’s gaze flick to someone behind me.
“That was quite the speech, brother,” came the voice. Rich and dark. Quiet but firm.
Azur’s hands left me, and I turned to face the Kylorr male, who stood close, his black wings slightly flared.
The male’s eyes were bright blue. Like faceted glaciers. Or blue salt from the mines in the Collis, I thought. His dark horns curved back alongside the crown of his skull. His black hair was cut short, curling around his sharply pointed ears. His fangs weren’t elongated, but I spied the glimmer of a scar running through his bottom lip.
His features were achingly familiar. The sharp cut of his cheekbones. The intensity of his gaze. The build of his shoulders, the breadth of his chest, and the imposing strength of his thighs.
I knew who he was as certainly as I knew my own husband’s touch, his scent, his voice.
“May I cut in?” the male asked, turning those icy eyes to me.
Kythel .