Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
It was Damon. My Damon.
Of all the emotions tumbling through me, relief and anger were probably the strongest. I wanted to jump up and hug him fiercely, but I also wanted to verbally unleash at him for leaving me alone, without even the comfort of knowing where he was or when he’d return.
“Step away from her now,” Damon continued in that same dangerously low tone, “or I swear I’ll follow through with the threat.”
“And if you do,” came the arrogant reply, “you forsake the lives of your dear sisters and mother.”
“My dear sisters and mother are now well beyond the reach of you and our fucking parent. Step. Down. Now.”
The platform creaked as the other Damon obeyed. I immediately reached for the nearby light tube and flicked it on... and saw, as the light banished the nearby shadows, the man moving silently toward my Damon, his knife drawn and determination glinting in his eyes.
General Makki.
I didn’t bother warning Damon. I simply flung a stream of fire at his would-be assassin and corralled him instead. It was tempting, so damn tempting, to burn his fucking flesh from his bones, but I resisted.
Shouldn’t resist , Kaia growled. Deserve die .
Not until I get some answers . Like, how in Vahree’s name had the two of them gotten into the room?
They certainly hadn’t come through the only door—the guard would have knocked to alert me first, and given all the extra guards in the hall, there was no chance Prince Damon and Makki could have silently overcome them all—not without the help of Aric’s mind enforcer, anyway, and she’d been safely deposited out in the grasslands.
Even if she had decided to return here rather than go home, it would have taken her days, if not weeks, to do so on foot.
The only other way into the room was through the window slits, and neither of them would have fitted.
Hell, not even us stregas could have squeezed through them.
But maybe the answer lay in the strange energy that had always surrounded Makki.
“You were warned, General Makki,” I growled. “I hope you’re prepared for a long, cold flight into the middle of the grasslands.”
Shame if dropped , Kaia comment darkly.
Indeed, it would be , I said. But we can’t go about murdering our enemies when they’re also our allies.
No need this one.
That was a truth I couldn’t refute.
Damon—whose sword remained pressed against his brother’s chest—didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder at the now contained Makki.
He wore his weariness like a cloak, and his features were gaunt, his eyes ringed by shadows and the sclera a bloody hue.
But never had I seen anyone looking so good.
He was here. He was home. Alive.
“Well done, wife,” he said softly.
“No more well done than your intervention, husband.”
He glanced at me then, and just for a second, the rest of the world melted away.
It was him and me and a myriad of unspoken but nevertheless earth-shattering emotions crowding the space between us.
Emotions that should not be, given how little time we’d known each other, but they were as strong and as real as anything I could have wished for.
I’d once dreamed of having a relationship as loving as that of my parents. That possibility lay before me... but only if we could survive what was coming.
I tore my gaze away. Until we’d talked, I could not let any of those emotions hold sway over me.
A touch of uncertainty surged through our link, an acknowledgement of my emotional distancing, but it was almost immediately swamped by fierce determination.
The man had not saved me to simply let me go.
“May I point out,” the fake husband growled in the brief silence, “that in the eyes of the church, this woman is married to me . She is mine to bed as I wish, Damon, no matter what the treaty might otherwise infer.”
“You might want to check your facts before you make a statement like that,” my Damon drawled, a vicious glint in his eyes. “Damon Tor signed the marriage register, not Damon Velez.”
“I don’t fucking believe you,” his brother growled. “The friar wouldn’t?—”
“Oh, the friar would and did. He and I had this cozy little chat, you see, about the whole situation.”
“The church will excommunicate him for that treachery?—”
“Highly unlikely, given that, according to the treaty agreement, Aric’s firstborn son was the marriage bargain, not his heir.
” He smiled his fierce smile. “You and our father played a long and treacherous game, but you have finally been caught by your own lies. Now, brother, if you don’t mind, please take five steps to your right. ”
The fake husband scanned the space between him and Makki, his confusion evident in his expression. He couldn’t see the sphere he was being directed to, I realized.
“I cannot see the point?—”
He stopped and cursed as Damon pressed his sword harder into his chest. Blood welled around the point, staining his unbuttoned white linen shirt. His gambeson, I noted, lay near his feet.
“Do it,” Damon growled.
“Can I at least put my boots?—”
“No. Move.”
Fake husband cursed softly, then obeyed.
The magic gleamed brighter as he approached, washing a kaleidoscope of color across the black stone walls untouched by the light tube’s glow and lending them a warm beauty.
I’d expected the magic to stop him in his tracks, as it had initially done to me, but it didn’t.
He stepped through the barrier and then just.. . disappeared.
I gasped, as did Makki.
“What have you done to him?” the stout man growled. “Your father will not?—”
“I am beyond caring what my father will and will not think about anything .” Damon waved his sword toward the dome. “You, in.”
“I will not go willingly to my death,” the older man growled.
“You do not. As much as I might wish to make an exception, I am a blood witch, and we do not kill our fellow humans in cold blood or anger.”
Makki motioned toward the sphere with such accuracy it was obvious he could see it. “Then what is that thing?”
“It is what we call a distance slip, and it is a rarely used and extremely difficult piece of magic that will deposit you midway between Esan and Zephrine, on the other side of the Red Ochre Mountains.”
“In the badlands? You might as well kill me now?—”
“ That is a seriously tempting statement, especially given I do not have the same convictions about killing in cold blood,” I cut in, “but before I decide whether I should cinder your ass or let you escape through the sphere, tell me one thing—how the fuck did you two get in here?”
“What’s in it for me if I answer honestly?”
“My vow does not prevent me from wounding you,” Damon replied. “And I’ll more than happily relieve you of a limb or two.”
Makki studied him for a moment, then waved to the bathing area on the other side of the room. “I made a door over there.”
“He’s an earth witch,” Damon said, with a glance my way.
“He doesn’t feel like any earth witch I’ve come across.”
“Because he’s not of Arleeon origin, and his energy is therefore different.”
My gaze returned to Makki’s. “The royal suite lies on the other side of that wall. There are no old passages between that and mine you could have used to get so close without being seen.”
His smile was derisive. “Just because their existence has fallen into memory’s shadows doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There’s an ancient passage that runs from the suite to the servant quarters, into the military zone, and then beyond, following the edges of the Blue Steel Mountains.
I believe at least part of it might once have been a rodent run. ”
Which was a term used for the passages high-level authorities sometimes used to safely escape, leaving everyone else to die. “That is why you spent so much time leaning against various walls. You were sussing out possible entry points.”
It was also why he was such an effective assassin. It was hard to stop someone who could, basically, walk through walls.
“I am but a mere soldier who obeys his king and protects the interests of Zephrine.”
“In that case,” Damon said evenly, “I think it wise you follow Zephrine’s heir into the sphere and protect him . He would have landed in the badlands by now and is without shoes and weapons. Your life would be forfeit if anything happened to him.”
“A statement you had best take note of,” Makki growled. “Or do you think your father will sit idly by while you foul his plans for Esan?”
“Better his plans than his city,” I said sweetly. “Remember, we now have fire-breathing drakkons, and they, I’m afraid, do not hold a very good opinion of Zephrine or her people. Something to do with the drakkon slayings that are still happening.”
Makki didn’t deny the last bit, and I had to clench my fingers against the surge of heat against my fingertips.
Should burn , Kaia growled.
Makki or Zephrine?
Both.
Zephrine won’t be happy that we have drakkons and they do not. We could use it to our advantage.
Don’t care.
But can’t the drakkons use the aeries there? You’ve already said the ones here are overcrowded.
Are. Not trust them.
If the drakkon who go there can flame, they can burn any who attack.
Should burn anyway.
I snorted and refocused my attention, well aware that she would mull it over. I also had no doubt that once the currently reluctant drakkons saw the advantages of having flame and an alliance with humans, that they would eventually repopulate Zephrine’s abandoned aeries.
It might take several generations, but it would happen.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Makki growled. “That would be a declaration of war.”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘dare’ around my wife,” Damon drawled. “She tends to take it as a guide to her next course of action. Move, Makki. Now.”