Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
He nodded. “Not enough, you’re right. But Brannal left his position as Summus and Mage Warrior because he cared so much about Perian and disagreed so much with what we did to him.
We haven’t all followed in his footsteps yet, but we’re not insensible to what he’s done and how poorly he was treated for it. ”
“You speak with passion, little prince,” she said, and she almost sounded slightly regretful, “but you see, this is simply history repeating itself.”
“We can’t change what happened in the past—” Kinan tried again, sounding a little desperate.
She interrupted. “You call it the Great Cataclysm. We call it the Great Betrayal.”
Fire and water.
Cormal had actually thought it couldn’t get worse than what he, Brannal, and Cormal’s father had done.
“What did we do?” Perian asked.
He was still wrapped in Brannal’s arms, his eyes red, but his gaze was intent on Yannoma.
She stared at him for a long moment, and then she spoke.
“The world was being overrun by demons, as your history books say. The veil between the two worlds had torn catastrophically. Wraiths, lesser demons, and nightmares were everywhere. The wraiths were the worst, but they were all causing havoc. Elemental Mages couldn’t fix it—not alone.”
She fell silent, and it was Perian who spoke again. “They needed Life Magic?”
Cormal jolted. Life Magic? Wait, did that mean—?
“They did,” she agreed. “At that time, there were many more carnalions and children of two worlds. We proposed a solution: Life Mages working with Elemental Mages.” Her eyes were distant.
Cormal was frozen in shock. “There has never been such a working before or since. The amount of energy they generated and directed, the elements fused together with Life Magic to heal the breach… It was truly astonishing. So many demons were driven back, and the tear was sealed forever. But what we didn’t realize was that some of the humans had decided it should be all demons that were destroyed.
Including us. Once the tear was mended, they attacked.
We tried to defend ourselves, and our mates and bonded died alongside us. So many of our children died.”
“I’m so sorry,” Perian breathed. “That sounds terrible and unfair.”
Cormal still felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“And yet you ask me to help again.”
Perian came to stand in front of her. Brannal’s fists clenched, but he let Perian go.
“I don’t know how else to help Kinan. He’s a friend. I have to try. But you’re right that we seem to be proposing taking a lot from you without giving anything in return. Maybe I can undo a little bit of the damage. May I try to heal you?”
Trill started to say, “Oh, you c—”
But Yannoma shot him a look, and he stopped abruptly.
“And if I won’t help your friend?” She said it like a challenge.
“Then I’ll be sad,” Perian told her simply. “And I’ll keep searching for another solution. But I’ll do what I can for your injuries regardless. I don’t like to see people in pain.”
She regarded him for a long moment. “You may try, if you wish.”
“Let’s at least sit down,” Brannal said, voice tight.
So Yannoma was seated in one of the armchairs, and Perian sat on a footstool at her feet. Brannal hovered. The rest of them were reluctantly seated as well, all anxiously watching.
Perian held out his hands, and after another moment of consideration, she pulled off her gloves and placed her scarred hands in his. Some of her fingers appeared to have fused together. It looked painful.
Perian’s eyes fell closed, a look of intense concentration on his face.
Yannoma sucked in a sharp breath, loud in the silence of the room, and then blew it out slowly.
Everyone was focused intently on the two of them.
And then, as they watched, it was like Yannoma’s skin…
rippled. As they stared speechlessly, it began to smooth out, the ropy scar tissue merging back into paler, unblemished skin.
It was one of the weirdest things Cormal had ever witnessed.
But it was also amazing to watch the evidence of the damage his father—and thinking like Cormal’s—had caused slowly disappear.
It was yet more evidence that Perian cared more about other people than himself and was, probably, the least monstrous of all the people in the room, excepting Kinan.
Perian was breathing heavily by the time the woman in front of them was unrecognizable from the ravaged figure whom they had first met.
She was beautiful. It was impossible to tell her age, and those bright blue eyes now sparkled in a face where it was impossible to pick the most attractive feature.
Flawless skin, high cheekbones, sharp chin, straight nose, red lips, and flowing blond hair that he’d actually seen growing out of her scalp—but it was like his brain couldn’t quite catch up and accept the before and after were actually the same woman.
There was something viscerally appealing about her, which Cormal had to assume was her being a carnalion, because he’d never been particularly attracted to women.
He realized that she was clutching Perian’s hands and that she was trembling. Perian opened his eyes, and when he saw her, he beamed. There was no attraction in that smile, just pure happiness.
Trill had a weird expression on his face, some sort of shock that Cormal wouldn’t have expected under the circumstances, not from him.
Of all the people in the room, shouldn’t he have been the least surprised by what had just happened?
Although, if Trill and Yannoma were friends, why hadn’t he healed her? Was he not strong enough, or—
And then Perian listed slightly to the side, and a moment later, Brannal was on his knees gathering him into his arms as a chorus of alarm rippled around the room.
“I think you overdid it,” Brannal said gently. “Come on, feed from me.”
“Are you turned on right now?” Perian asked in a voice that was a bit threadier than normal.
“I’m always turned on by you,” Brannal told him with remarkable seriousness given the question.
Perian made a happy sound, and Brannal hugged him closer. Cormal watched Perian’s back rise and fall as he breathed in and out. That seemed to be the extent of it. He hadn’t realized that he was being watched closely until Yannoma spoke.
“It’s not always about sex, at least not for children of two worlds.”
“It didn’t seem quite the moment,” he observed as mildly as he could.
“It’s always the moment for a carnalion.”
Cautiously, Cormal said, “If it’s how you survive, then I imagine it would be of paramount importance.”
“It scares you, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“It, uh, does make me a bit uncomfortable,” Cormal acknowledged, making sure he didn’t squirm, even though part of him wanted to.
He’d hated looking at her injured form, but this powerfully seductive form was disturbing, too.
“And if that’s what my help costs?”
“What?” he croaked out.
“Not money,” she said, never looking away from him. “Would you feed me to help your Prince?”
And Cormal didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Right now.”
“Yes.”
“Uh, hold on—” someone protested.
“Come here,” she demanded, rising to her feet.
Cormal was reminded anew that Perian had never tried anything with him, because the fog of lust that wrapped around him was so powerful it blotted out everything else.
It was like the world faded away, and there was only him and the woman he wanted.
Distantly, he could remember that he didn’t want women, but it was a faraway thought, not holding up against the undeniable certainty that he wanted this woman more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Her lips were soft and sweet against his. Muffled and barely audible, some part of him pointed out that this was wrong, but it was subsumed under the tide of arousal that flooded him, the certainty that she could give him everything he wanted.
But… why was someone touching him? Part of his brain was clamoring, telling him that this wasn’t right at all, because as much as he desperately wanted to, he couldn’t touch—
Kinan. Oh.
He felt the fireball ignite in his hand as he snapped back to himself, and he had to concentrate far too much on snuffing it out. He’d sworn that he would do anything to help Kinan, and he’d meant it—he just hadn’t imagined that it might be this.
He was hard and aching, plastered against this carnalion as she continued to kiss him.
Did that make it easier to pull on his energy?
He was starting to feel lightheaded, the pleasure taking on a surreal, unnatural edge.
Everything was growing foggy and distant again, and he knew that wasn’t a good thing.
But he suppressed the urge to pull away.
If this was what it cost to help Kinan, then he would gladly pay it.
He became aware that someone was yelling.
“Stop it! Stop it right now!”
What were they saying? If they stopped, then they wouldn’t be able to help Kinan. Wait, was that Kinan—?
“Stop it! Please!”
And as suddenly as it had started, it did stop. Cormal staggered back, wavered, and would have fallen over, except Perian and Trill were there to support him, Molun and Arvus on either side of them.
Cormal immediately started to feel better, and he assumed that one or both of them was giving him energy. Kinan was hovering anxiously by his side. Brannal had a chaos of elements in his hands, and he was watching over them all.
Yannoma was staring at him contemplatively. She looked… glorious, her face framed in the glowing gold of her loose hair, her eyes bewitchingly bright, her cheeks pink. She couldn’t have looked healthier, and he assumed this was a carnalion well-fed.
It was at once attractive and repellent, knowing what it had cost—but it was also no longer the all-consuming pull it had been. Just like that, he was back to not being attracted to her, just seeing that she was attractive.
For several long moments, there was only the sound of his rough breathing, which finally began to settle back to a more normal rhythm.