Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
No matter how much she tried, Verna couldn’t go to sleep.
She lay on her back in the dark, and had been awake since she retired to bed, even though she’d had an exhausting day.
The sheets were too warm, then too cool.
The pillow was not quite right in any position she tried.
The sound of the waves against the cliff face, which had lulled her to sleep on every other night of her life, seemed determined tonight to be noisy.
She turned onto her side and looked at the window. The three moons were up, Lira full and rose-coloured, Senne a silver sliver, and Orath barely visible above the dark line of the sea. Their light lay across the floor in pale strips.
She turned onto her other side.
Her mind lingered on the ring, and the candle, and the three shelves of archive books in the library she had yet to read.
She thought about the Trials, now less than three weeks away, with a surprise event Borgine refused to announce in advance.
She thought about Thom's face across the lunch table, and how she had hurt him.
She stopped thinking about Thom because it led directly to the stable stall where he had kissed her.
And she didn’t want to dwell on it because she automatically compared Kalen’s kiss to his, a comparison she had no business making.
His was a man’s kiss, with a hint of stubble on his cheek while Kalen’s lips were soft and fitted with hers like they were made for each other.
She turned onto her back again and punched her pillow. Damn it! Why did she have to be so attracted to Kalen. She was a slave, for god’s sake.
The second bell rang, the sound carrying on the night air. She counted the strokes out of habit, though she already knew the hour. When the last one faded, she considered getting up and going to the library.
Then a knock came at the door.
She went still.
It wasn’t loud enough to signal bad news or a household emergency. Just two short raps, barely audible.
Verna guessed who it was immediately.
She sat up and pulled the sheet up over her breasts. "Come in," she said, and tried to keep her voice steady when her stomach was doing somersaults.
Kalen opened the door and stepped inside. She was dressed in a loose tunic and breeches, and her feet were bare. She scanned the room first before she turned her attention to Verna on the bed.
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
Then Kalen crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She rested one arm on her knee and looked at Verna with an expression she couldn’t read.
"When are you planning to marry Lord Thom?" she asked, in the conversational tone she might use to enquire about the harvest schedule.
Verna stared at her. "I beg your pardon?"
"You went to his estate today," Kalen said. "You were there for hours. You came back looking like a woman who'd made a decision."
"You have absolutely no right to ask me that," Verna said affronted. Really, the woman took too many liberties.
"Probably not, but I’m asking." Kalen didn't move. "When?"
"After the Trials," Verna said, because the alternative was a prolonged argument in the dark and she was too tired for it. "I asked him to delay until they were over."
"So, you're still marrying him."
"That is my affair and not yours," Verna said sharply. "What are you doing in my room anyway?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
"I could have been asleep."
"But you weren’t," Kalen said.
"Why do you care," Verna said, and heard, too late, that the careful distance had gone out of her voice, "when you made it perfectly plain last night that you had no interest in anything beyond what I asked of you?"
Kalen's eyes sharpened. "I made no such thing plain."
"You made love to me then practically ran out of the room," Verna said. "You couldn’t have made it more obvious that you found me a pathetic lover."
"That’s a long way from the truth. You invited me into your bed to teach you," Kalen said, with an edge to her voice. "What exactly was I supposed to do, stay the night and make it harder to leave?"
"You could have stayed longer," Verna said, hating that her voice had gone whiny. "You needn’t have said what you did on your way out."
"I wouldn’t have if I'd had any idea whether I was in your bed or simply in your plan."
"That’s not fair," Verna said quietly.
"Isn't it?" Kalen said. "You told me you wanted experience before your wedding. Then the next day you couldn’t wait to see him."
Verna hissed out a breath. "It wasn’t like that."
"Wasn’t it," Kalen said. "Did he kiss you?"
"That’s enough, Kalen."
"Did he?"
"Yes," Verna said, furious. "He kissed me. Why shouldn’t he?"
"Did you feel anything?"
The question dropped like a bomb in the room.
Verna looked at her. Kalen was watching her with those dark steady eyes, raw with anger.
"That’s not your business," Verna said quietly.
The rawness in Kalen’s expression didn't disappear, but it looked more like hurt now.
"Last night," Kalen said, her voice lowering. "Didn’t you feel anything?"
"You know I did," Verna replied. "It was overwhelming."
"Then why are you still going to marry him?"
"Because," Verna said tightly, "I haven’t the luxury to think about what I want. You’re leaving after the Trials, and I have a hundred women on this estate who depend on me. The emperor is watching, and I am trying, Kalen, I am trying very hard to be sensible about this."
"I know you are," Kalen said. "But you’ll never be happy with him, with a man."
"Don't," Verna said.
"I'm not trying to—"
"I said don't." Her voice cracked slightly on it.
She pressed her lips together and gazed out the window at the three moons throwing the pale strips of light across the floor, and when she got her emotions under control, she looked at Kalen again.
"You can't come in here in the middle of the night and say these things to me. "
"I can," Kalen said. She remained sitting on the edge of the bed with her arm across her knee, watching Verna like a hawk.
"You should go," Verna said.
Instead of answering, Kalen climbed on the bed and grasped her by the shoulder. Then she kissed her, not like the one last night, but hard and demanding.
Verna meant to push her away, instead her fingers found the front of her tunic, and she returned the kiss with the same fervour.
When they broke apart, they stayed close, foreheads nearly touching in the dark.
"This doesn't solve anything," Verna said softly.
"No," Kalen agreed.
"I still don't know what I'm going to do."
"I know."
Verna pulled back far enough to look at her. Kalen's face in the moonlight was open in a way she rarely allowed, the habitual guard down, the pride temporarily set aside.
"Will you stay," Verna said, "and just sleep if that’s all you want to do?"
Kalen looked at her, and her expression had a rare unguarded quality that changed her face entirely.
"Move over," she said quietly.
Verna wriggled to the side to make room for her.
Kalen lay down, fully clothed, and Verna turned onto her side facing away toward the window, and after a moment she felt the warmth of her settle at her back, not touching, but close enough that she was aware of her every breath.
The sea moved below the cliff.
The moons crossed the window in their slow arc.
And Verna, who had not slept properly in twelve days, closed her eyes and was asleep within a minute.
As the first glow of the rising sun hit the shutters, she opened her eyes.
Kalen was curled against her back, her arm draped over her waist, faintly snoring in her sleep.
Verna lay there savouring the moment. When she cautiously moved, the arm around her tightened and the body stirred at her back.
She turned her head to look over her shoulder and found Kalen eyes on her.
Then Kalen lowered her head and pressed her mouth to the curve of Verna's neck and that was the end of the quiet.
What followed was nothing like the first night.
That had been slow and soft, Kalen learning what pleased her, then she had taken her apart with a thoroughness that had felt, in retrospect, careful. A woman making sure of something she did.
This was not like that.
Kalen rolled her onto her back and kissed her with an urgency that scattered every coherent thought Verna had in her head.
Her hands pushed the nightgown from her shoulders following with her mouth, and Verna could only gasp when a nipple was roughly sucked into her mouth.
She forgot entirely that she had been meaning to say something sensible about getting up before the household, and other things that now seemed completely irrelevant.
Kalen didn’t hold her emotions in check.
The carefulness was gone, replaced by something all-consuming, that left Verna entirely undone.
She moved over her and against her with a focus that Verna felt like a physical weight.
When she pulled her close, she could feel the strength in her arms and she stopped trying to think, and gave herself over to the sensations completely.
Kalen worked down her body with her mouth and teeth, nipping and kissing until Verna was squirming with arousal. When she reached the folds between her legs, she plunged her tongue up and down in long sweeps, then relentlessly sucked on the clit until Verna came apart.
The climax hit her in a crashing wave, and something surged inside her that was not only pleasure.
It was white hot power. She stuffed her hand into her mouth to muffle her screams. Then the last contractions had barely faded away when Kalen was already moving again, not giving her time to recover.
She slid two fingers inside her, curling them up until she found the spot and pumped, which sent Verna over the edge again.
As she lay gasping, Kalen pressed her lips to her collarbone, her jaw, her mouth, and Verna kissed her back with whatever she had left, which wasn’t much.
Then she felt Kalen's hand move again inside her and she tried to say that she couldn't possibly, that it was too much, that she needed a moment.
She didn’t get a moment.
The third climax was slower in its building but deeper when it arrived, rolling through her in long waves that left her shaking. She cried out and didn't entirely care who heard it, and Kalen held her through the last of it with her face pressed to her hair.
When it was over, Verna lay completely still. She was completely spent but she’d never felt so alive.
She was acutely aware of the light on the shutters, of her own heartbeat, and Kalen’s body spread out beside her. Finally, her breathing steadied enough for her to turn her head to look at her.
Kalen was lying on her back, staring upwards. Her face was set hard, her hands flat against the sheet on either side of her.
"Kalen," Verna said softly.
Kalen sat up abruptly. She moved to the edge of the bed with her back to Verna, her elbows on her knees. Her head dropped forward. "I'm sorry," she said. Her voice was low and gravelly.
Verna pushed herself up onto one elbow. "What for?"
"I was too rough," she said, not looking at Verna. "I wouldn’t have treated a serving wench like that. I'm sorry."
Verna stared at her back. The line of her shoulders was rigid, her spine stiff with something that looked, from behind, very much like self-recrimination.
"Kalen," Verna said. "It was fine."
"I lost control," she said flatly, in the tone she used when she’d made an assessment and intended to stand behind it. "It won't happen again."
"That isn't—"
"I won't come again." Kalen stood, the movement decisive as though it wasn’t up for debate. She reached for her tunic from where it had ended up on the floor, pulled it over her head, and turned briefly to look at Verna.
Her face was composed now. "You weren't hurt?"
"Of course I wasn't," Verna said. "In fact, I feel—" She stopped, because the word that came to mind was wonderful and that wouldn’t help the situation. "Kalen. Look at me."
Kalen caught her eye and Verna couldn’t read her expression.
"I would have stopped you if it hurt," Verna said steadily.
Kalen gave her a pensive look, "I'll leave you to get ready," she said and walked to the door. And then she was gone.
Verna sat in the middle of the bed, listening to her footsteps recede down the corridor until there was nothing but the sounds of the household beginning its day.
She looked at the empty doorway for a long moment, then down at her hands. The gold ring pulsed with a warmth that she was becoming familiar with.
What in the name of all the old gods had just happened.
Not the lovemaking. That wasn’t a mystery. Kalen had been upset about her visit to Thom’s estate and was proving she was a better lover.
It was the apology. The I lost control of myself, delivered in a tone of genuine censure.
A woman like Kalen didn't apologise for taking what she wanted, unless the loss of control had genuinely alarmed her.
Verna looked at the empty doorway.
She thought about the way Kalen had held her at the end, face pressed to her hair, after bringing her to climax the third time. Then she had abruptly sat up, her shoulders rigid, and she’d left as quickly as she had the night before.
Whatever Kalen felt for her, it frightened her enough to run from it.
Verna sat with that thought for a moment before the household bell rang, and the estate began its day, and she got up.