Chapter 6 #3
“He was held prisoner. The gilded mages apparently round up the most resilient fighters to use in their blood ceremonies.”
“Then how did he escape? I take it he’s here in Esan?”
I nodded. “Under heavy guard in the royal suite. Kele and I found him when we flew out to investigate another fog patch.”
“He remains in Túxn’s good graces, obviously.” He brushed the lightest kiss across my lips. “And to answer your question, my life and my home are wherever you are.”
“But what of Angola? I know you love that place?—”
“I do,” he said softly. “It was my salvation and my place of peace before my father hatched his plans for me to step into my brother’s shoes.
My mother’s kin are there, and perhaps our children will need to go there if any show signs of inheriting my magic, but I am more than happy to build a life here with you and your drakkons. ”
“Thank you,” I whispered, once again blinking back foolish tears, this time of happiness rather than grief. I hesitated, then added softly, “Where was he holding your mom and sisters prisoner? How did you get them out?”
“That is perhaps a story that is better told once?—”
“And that sounds like a return to old habits to me, husband.”
“Wife, we can stand here and discuss the matter if you wish, but I desperately need a bath?—”
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but I’ve been in pig pens that smell better than you do right now.”
“—and something delightful to eat,” he finished.
His wicked grin very much suggested he wasn’t talking about food. I laughed and whacked his shoulder. “There shall be no wife eating until said wife can reciprocate, and that isn’t happening until you smell more... ambrosial.”
“You weren’t so worried about that a few minutes ago.”
“Lust overwhelmed my sense of smell.”
He chuckled and pulled up his pants. “I promise to tell you everything you want to know over our breakfast. A breakfast involving actual food, that is. But first, before the bath and the welcome back festivities begin, I need to deal with my father.”
“ We need,” I corrected. “I want to see his face when he realizes all his planning has been for naught. I want to bask in the waves of his fury and his impotence.”
Damon raised an eyebrow. “Am I sensing a little bit of anticipation in that statement?”
“More than a little, I’m afraid.” I touched his arm. “Give me a few minutes to clean up and dress.”
He caught my hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it, leaving my skin tingling and desire sharpening.
The gleam in his eyes suggested he was well aware of that tide, but he simply stepped to one side and waved me past. But his hunger followed me as I ran around the bed to the bathing chamber, and it was all I could do to force my feet forward rather than back.
I quickly cleaned up, then pulled on pants, boots, a chemise, and a woolen shirt. While the extra layers weren’t really necessary, instinct was twitching, and I wasn’t about to ignore her.
Damon waited near the door. I reached for my knife and strapped it on.
“You cannot kill the King of Zephrine, no matter how tempting it might be right now,” he drawled. “The two halves of Arleeon cannot go to war when Esan herself faces foes on two sides.”
“I don’t intend to kill him.”
Amusement twitched his lips. “Blooding him, however mildly, would also not be wise.”
“Says the man who bears both sword and knife,” I said, tone dry. “And besides, a little bloodshed is not unwarranted, given everything he has done.”
“If I can resist temptation, you certainly can.” He opened the door and ushered me through.
“It’s not a question of resisting so much as the desire not to.”
Janis did something of a double take when Damon followed me out the door, but didn’t ask the questions I could see in her eyes and saluted instead.
I paused, motioned Damon past me, and then said, “Can you step inside the suite and keep watch? If anyone enters it via any other means aside from this door, feel free to stab them and ask questions later.”
Her eyebrows rose, but again, she didn’t ask her questions.
She simply nodded and stepped inside. Another guard assumed her position on this side of the door, his expression stony faced as he glared at the guards Aric still had stationed in the hall—each still being shadowed by an Esan soldier.
I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I’d called for help—would Aric’s men have attacked ours to stop any interference before the deed could be done?
Would Aric really have been so bold? I guessed it depended on which he prized more—his plans for Esan, or a continuation of the equitable trade agreement that had benefitted us both for centuries now.
I hurried after Damon, catching him on the other side of the stairs.
As one, we strode down the hall to the grand guest suite, watched by three more sets of soldiers.
The man standing beside the door saluted, then opened it unbidden.
He obviously couldn’t tell the real Damon from the fake, but then, given how few whispers we’d heard on the military grapevine about the substitution, it was pretty obvious few could.
Vahree only knew I’d almost been fooled; it was only when I’d looked in his eyes and viewed the contempt and coldness there that I’d known.
Aric was awake and pacing when we entered but stopped and said, his voice harsh, “Has the marriage now been consummated?”
“Indeed, it has,” Damon said. “But not recently, and certainly not by your heir.”
Aric’s gaze narrowed and quickly swept Damon. Then he glanced past him at me. “What have you done with him?”
I smiled. “Not killed him. I didn’t even burn him, as much as the bastard deserved it.”
“Then where are he and Makki? With Garran’s return, you no longer have the authority?—”
“She doesn’t need the authority,” Damon cut in. “Aside from the fact she is a princess and the only surviving direct descendant of the Silva bloodline, she is fully within her right to protect herself by whatever means necessary when attacked.”
“She is his wife. He has conjugal?—”
“You really should have checked the church registry, Father, before you devised your plans for rape. As to where he and Makki are…” Damon shrugged. “Somewhere in the badlands, making their way back to Zephrine.”
Aric’s fists briefly clenched, though his expression and voice remained calm. Cool. Dangerous .
“You were warned, Damon, about what would happen if you did not play your part. And now, thanks to your actions here today, your mother and siblings will pay the price and be forever banished to the prison isle.” His smile was brief and savage.
“There is, I’m told, a decided lack of women there, so their presence will be most welcome. ”
Damon made a low sound in the back of his throat, then quickly closed the distance between them, one hand gripping his sword, the other clenched.
Aric didn’t move. “Touch me, and they will die a very ugly death.”
Damon didn’t answer, didn’t stop. Aric’s eyebrows rose, but he remained in place. When little more than several yards separated them, he raised his voice and called to his guards.
I turned and, as the door opened and two men rushed in, corralled them both in a white-hot net of fire, pressing it against the stone on either side of the door but keeping it well away from anything flammable—including flesh.
“Get out and shut the door,” I growled. “Or I’ll burn your souls to Vahree’s plains and back.”
The two guards—who were barely even visible through my fiery net—hesitated, then quickly did as bid. As the soft click of the lock falling back into place echoed, I turned.
Damon had pushed his father back against the wall and was now holding him in place via the hand he’d wrapped around his parent’s neck.
“You will do no harm to my sisters or fuck my mother ever again.” Though his voice was low and even, fury radiated from every pore of his being. He shoved his face inches from Aric’s and added, “They are beyond your reach, safe from your?—”
The rest was cut off as Aric produced a knife from the back of his pants and stabbed hard at Damon’s stomach.
My heart leapt, as did flames to my fingertips, but Damon didn’t move or make any attempt to avoid the blade.
Then I saw why. The blade’s sharp and deadly tip simply slid along the front of his gut, an inch away from clothing and flesh, then rolled off his hip.
“Do you think,” Damon said, voice low and deadly, “that I am fool enough to come here unprotected when I’m well aware of the lengths you will go to to erase a problem?”
“This treachery will be remembered, Damon,” Aric growled, “and my revenge will be had, whether in this decade or the next.”
“Hurt my husband, me, any offspring we may have, or indeed my cousin and his family,” I said, tone sharp, “and my drakkons will come a-calling.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” a familiar voice said behind me.
I spun around. Garran stood in the reopened doorway, barely visible through my fiery web. I immediately released it and smiled sweetly. “Why, nothing more than a little family discussion, cousin.”
His gaze narrowed. But then, he was very familiar with that tone and knew it meant trouble.
“It would seem to be a rather energetic discussion, given one man holds a knife and the other has his hand wrapped around his counterpart’s throat.
I take it the man belonging to said hand is the real husband, not the fake? ”
“Indeed.”
“And the reason you’re both in this room, armed to the teeth?”
“Aric’s heir tried to consummate his supposed marriage to Bryn,” Damon growled.
“Unfortunately, neither he nor Aric thought to check the church records first. It was Damon Tor who married Bryn, not Damon Velez, and I am well within my rights to protect my wife from assault. The only reason he is not dead is my vow not to shed blood unnecessarily.”
“Ah.” It might have been a single word and softly said, but it conveyed a whole lot of nuance to someone who knew Garran as well as I did. Aric would pay for this treachery. “And if he is not dead, then where might he be? Not still in Bryn’s suite, I take it?”
“No. He is currently making his way back to Zephrine on foot.”
“Really?” Garran said, surprise running through his voice. “And how was this feat managed, given I’ve no reports of him leaving?”
“I’m a blood witch,” Damon said. “When we were researching spells to give fire to drakkons, we found one for distance slipping. It comes with usage restrictions that make it both dangerous and impractical for everyday use, but it nulled the immediate threat he represented to Bryn and yourself.”
He hadn’t eased his grip on his father’s throat, but he’d now positioned his body between us and Aric. While it was unlikely Aric would be so foolish as to throw the blade he still held at either of us, tonight had shown just how far he was willing to go to achieve his goals.
“I suspect said spell was used to do more than transport your brother out of here, but that is a story you can tell me over a good flagon of ale. As for you, King Aric, I believe a revisit of the trade agreements once this war has been won is in order.” Garran’s even tone and cool expression was such an echo of my father’s that I found myself blinking back tears.
They might not be related by blood, but Garran had learned the craft of kingship well.
“In the meantime, you will be confined to your quarters, and your men removed to the military quarters. In the morning, you will all be escorted out of Esan so you can return to your ship and your fortress.”
“This is not a good way to start a relationship with a needed ally when Esan’s defenses have yet?—”
“You destroyed any relationship when you hatched your plans to deceive my uncle and claim Esan’s throne for your own. As for our defenses, you know nothing of Esan or the heart of the people who guard her. We will not fall. Damon, Bryn, outside. Now.”
He spun on his heel and walked out. My gaze returned to Damon.
He hadn’t moved, but his turmoil surged through me, the battle to keep squeezing his father’s throat until he took his last breath warring with his need to respect his oath.
With an abrupt curse, he released him and pushed back, his face set and his blue eyes gleaming a bloody hue in the shadows.
Aric didn’t move, but his neck bore deep red marks from Damon’s grip. He would be bruised in the morning. Of course, I would have preferred he be bloodied as well, but I couldn’t have everything.
“You will pay for this treachery,” Aric repeated, his voice cold and flat. Dangerously so. “You will not live to find your happiness, no matter what this war brings. I will feel the warmth of your blood on my hands and watch the life leach from your eyes, even if it is the very last thing I do.”
“And it will be the last thing you do,” Damon growled. “King or not, father or not, I will kill you?—”
“Then do so now, because if you release me, I will come for you. No matter how long it takes, no matter what I have to do, you will die at my hands. On this, I swear.”
Damon took half a step forward, his fists clenched and murder in his eyes. Then he swore, spun on his heel, and strode toward me. My gaze went past him and met Aric’s. There was something very unsettling—almost manic—in those blue depths. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to.
After he killed Damon, he was coming for me.
Fire burned at my fingertips, and I wanted— so wanted—to unleash the fury, scatter his ashes to the winds, and pray that Vahree kept his soul for eternity.
But Garran was king now, and he’d ordered us out. I had no choice but to obey.
Unless, of course, Aric attacked me or mine.
Damon touched my elbow and lightly guided me out the door.
Once we were through, it was closed and bolted from the outside.
Esan’s people were the only ones now standing guard in the corridor, but footsteps and voices echoed up from the floor below.
Garran hadn’t mucked about when it came to removing Aric’s people.
He waited at the far end of the hall, studying my approach with more than a touch of frustration. “Trouble continues to snap at your heels, I see.”
“Because I presented it a challenge, obviously, by refusing to give in to its taunts.”
He snorted and held out a hand to Damon. “We haven’t been formally introduced. Garran Asli, heir apparent to Esan’s throne.”
Damon clasped his hand. “Damon Tor, Aric’s bastard son and blood mage.”
“I take it you weren’t a willing participant in this web of deception?”
“This web? No, but I am not without some?—”
The sudden sounding of the siren drowned out the rest of his words.
Esan was under attack.