Three The Immortal’s Lair
THREE
The Immortal’s Lair
I
This woman was the reason Dav’s brother was dead. She had no right to smell like life itself.
When she slid her hand in his, he fought the urge to pull her closer. His eyes focused on her wrist, and his fangs unsheathed at the memory of her skin giving way to his bite. The mere scent of her blood was enough to make him forget where they were.
He could not afford to forget. His brother’s life, which should have been eternal, had been cut short. Here. For the sake of this mortal’s fleeting existence.
Dav must never lose sight of this—Nora’s blood was a means to an end.
He took a step back, and with it, stepped away from the clearing with her. His effortless magic seemed to leave her reeling. She peered at their new surroundings, swaying on her feet, and stumbled into him.
As her body made contact with his, Dav cursed inwardly. He had forgotten that stepping with a Hesperine was uncomfortable for mortals who were not adjusted to it.
He’d also forgotten how long it had been since he’d held a female this close. Nora was bundled up in layers of wool and propriety, and yet the feeling of her leaning into him made his whole body tighten.
Grief was a twisted master. For months, it had isolated Dav. Now it threw Nora into his arms.
He set her on her feet and strode away, putting the table between them. She tracked him with her gaze, her brown eyes wary, as if he were a predator that might pounce.
“Does this look like a beast’s den?” he asked her.
She took in the warm spell lights, the paper and ink arranged on the table, the tidy scroll racks along the wall. The round chamber was all that remained of an ancient tower, but at least it was hospitable, for a ruin.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“A Hesperine Sanctuary. The spells over this place protect it from discovery and destruction. Your Order will never be able to find it.”
“Good. I don’t want them interfering with our agreement.”
She seemed to decide he was not about to make a human sacrifice of her at quill point. She roamed over to one of the arched windows. Her candid face lit up, and her aura shone, an unseen light he could feel with his arcane senses.
The Blood Union revealed all mortal emotions to Hesperines. It was, perhaps, their greatest magical ability…and greatest weakness. For five hundred years, Dav had vicariously experienced every shade of human experience, from joy to despair. And yet none of their emotions had sunk so deep into his veins as hers.
Her wonder glittered through him, a mockery of his own pain, and he wanted to claw her feelings out from under his skin.
She smiled, drawing his attention to her generous mouth. “This is the architectural style of the Great Temple Epoch! The structure must be at least fifteen centuries old.”
“I’m not that familiar with your history.” Nothing in the kingdom of Tenebra had ever mattered to Dav. Until his brother had met his fate here.
Nora scarcely seemed to notice the rose vines that spilled through the window frame from outside. She ran her hand along the stonework. A thorn tore her skin, painting one of her fingertips red. The fragrance of her blood bloomed in the air.
Dav took a Hesperine step, transporting himself to her side. He had pulled her hand halfway to his mouth before he realized what he was doing.
They both froze. Blood dripped from her finger onto one white rose. His mouth went dry, parched for his next taste of her.
By the Goddess, he was an educated, intelligent immortal who never struggled with self control. He would not let any human reduce him to this, least of all her.
Slowly, he released her, to prove to himself that he could.
She scuttled away from the roses, cradling her bleeding hand. “Are those Harlot’s Kiss?”
He huffed. “That’s what you call roses here, isn’t it? I suppose you’ve never seen one in person.”
She swallowed. “Tenebrans set fire to them wherever they spring up.”
He nearly rolled his eyes. “Yes, they are Hespera’s sacred flower. No, pricking your finger on one will not destroy your soul or any of that other nonsense.”
“But they have magical properties associated with your goddess.”
“Nothing that will harm you.” He turned his back on her and crossed the room. He was not fleeing from the temptation of her blood. He was exhibiting self-mastery.
His fangs throbbed, taunting him.
“We are not animals, Nora. We are scientists, artists…” He gestured around them. “Architects.”
Curiosity sparked in her aura. Apparently, the way to Nora’s heart was through historical buildings. Dav had never thought a window arch would prove the key to his plan, but if this was an opening he could use, he would take it.
He beckoned her over to one of the walls, where a bas relief was overgrown with rose vines. With a touch of magic, he swept the blooms aside to reveal the red stone beneath. The carving depicted Hespera as a beautiful woman clothed only in her flowing hair.
Nora gasped and stared for a speechless moment. “This has to be a portrayal of Hespera from before worship of her was outlawed. Most of the carvings from this era were destroyed in the Last War. This is exquisitely preserved.”
His empathic abilities tortured him with every flavor of her emotions. Her fascination with the architecture was more powerful than her disapproval of his goddess.
Dav said, “This ruin is just a small example of our architecture. There are glorious cities in Orthros built in styles you’ve never seen before.”
At the mention of the Hesperine homeland, a shudder went through her. “I suppose you would need buildings, even in the Land of Eternal Night.”
“It isn’t a frozen wasteland of death and destruction. It is a place of great beauty and sophistication, a pinnacle of learning and the arts.”
She scowled at him. “Your fangs weren’t made for sipping fine wine. You expect me to believe you sit about painting and reading whenever you aren’t invading my lands and dragging me into your lair?”
For the last seven months, Dav had sat about watching his entire life collapse. Until Queen Soteira had told him that the only way for him to finish grieving was to finish his brother’s mission. She, his gentle mentor, had tossed him out on his arse and told him to go to Tenebra.
“I’m a mind healer by profession,” he said.
You were. The voice of doubt had followed him here. What kind of healer cannot men d himself?
Nora tensed. “You’re a mind mage?”
“No. Not a mind mage, a mind healer. My magic cannot manipulate your thoughts, only restore them to what they should be. It’s the same principle as a healer mage mending a broken leg, except I work on broken minds. My power can repair the inner damage from harmful spells or painful life experiences.”
Where is your power now? the voice taunted.
As he so often had in the past half year, Dav reached within himself on reflex, deep into the well where his mind healing magic had always dwelt. And once again, he found only emptiness.
He, one of the most powerful theramancers in Orthros, could no longer wield a drop of his own magic. He was a wreck held together by the innate Hesperine abilities he could still use.
Queen Soteira said magic couldn’t die. But Dav had felt no sign of life from his power since his brother had died in his arms.
Nora’s scent sharpened with anxiety. “I’ve never heard of such magic before.”
This was what Dav hated to sense most of all. Her fear clawing at the Blood Union. Bleeding thorns, he was a healer. Not a monster.
Aren’t you? the voice whispered. You want her pain. You want her remorse. You want her to atone until she breaks the way you have.
He tried to keep his tone calm, factual. “Mind healing is not practiced in Tenebra, but it is an honorable calling in Orthros. So you see, Hesperines have better things to do than roam around your kingdom stalking humans.”
If only his brother had stayed in the safety of their queendom, instead of venturing into these dangerous mortal lands.
Nora’s righteous fury blazed through Dav’s senses, colliding in chaos with his own. “Then why did your brother come here and take my parents from me? Why did he almost kill me?”
That accusation again. After everything Dav’s brother had suffered because of her. How dare she say this of Rahim, the kindest soul Dav had ever known?
Rahim had always believed the best of people. He had been the one with compassion for Tenebrans. And it had gotten him killed because of this ungrateful mortal.
Dav didn’t know if Nora was trying to deceive him about that night for her own ends, or if she truly believed her warped version of events. But he had two more chances to find out what game she was playing.
He would strip away the lies, one by one, until he laid her bare.
“By the time our agreement comes to an end,” he said, “you will understand.”
She thrust out her hand. “Get on with it, then.”
He didn’t take her offering. “Tonight, I will show you I can be trusted with more than your wrist. Will you offer me your throat?”
Her face flushed. Goddess help him, it was so easy to make her blush. He wouldn’t have needed the Blood Union to read her response to him. But the warmth of her anger and attraction washed over his Hesperine senses as well.
“You’re sweating, Nora. Will you let me take your cloak?”
She clutched it closer about her for an instant, but then slowly unfastened it and handed it to him. He tossed it away onto the nearby cot. She rigidly ignored the bed.
She needn’t have worried. She was the last person he had any intention of bedding. It was hardship enough that their agreement required him to drink her blood.
Oh, indeed, what a hardship. The voice of doubt had become the call of temptation.
No, Dav was not doing this for himself. This was for his brother.
Rahim’s last wish had been for Dav to turn Nora into a Hesperine. He would do whatever he must to convince her to go through with it.
What better way to prove her wrong about Hesperines than this? Her beliefs about his kind, her family, and herself would not survive three bites from him.
He would destroy her assumptions with his fangs, and he would taste her confession in her blood.
Not such a sacred act now, is it? taunted his darker self.
She wasn’t making it easy for him. Her gray mourning gown covered her from neck to ankles, and a scarf shrouded her head and throat.
“Will you unwrap your scarf for me?” he asked.
“It’s immodest for a woman to uncover her hair before a man who isn’t her husband.”
“I’m not a man. I’m a Hesperine.” He drew nearer. “And giving me your blood last night was far more immodest than showing me your hair.”
She bit her lip. What would that lip taste like? What would her teeth feel like biting him? He shut the thoughts away, but he could not ignore the snap of arousal in her scent or the blaze of her aura. Unruly, undimmable. Vital.
“Do you enjoy things you’ve been told are wrong, Nora?”
Her eyes flashed, and she snarled, “I am doing this for Gloria. Not myself. Don’t you dare forget it.”
She tore off the scarf and threw it on the ground. Her hair tumbled free, falling to her waist in wild red curls. Dav stopped breathing.
The scarf crumpled under his heel as he slipped behind her. She froze. When he lifted his hand, she didn’t shy away.
He wrapped one ginger curl around his finger. “What else are you hiding under your holy principles?”
“Things you cannot take from me, no matter what you do to me.”
“I will only take what you offer,” he reminded her. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
Are you not her worst fear?
He pulled the heavy curtain of her hair away from her neck. Letting its soft weight slide through his hands, he laid it over her other shoulder to leave her throat bare. He traced his fingertips along the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder and felt a shiver dance across her skin.
“Will you offer me your throat?” he asked.
“Yes.” The word came out in a husky whisper.
He covered her hand with his and pressed her palm amid the roses, bracing them against the marble carvings. A quiver of excitement went through her.
He buried his other hand in the tangle of her hair, tilting her head. The flow of her blood called to his arcane senses, a coppery pulse summoning his fangs. His canines ached, but he made himself wait.
He was in control. But she was not, judging by her racing heartbeat.
“Can you deny you want me to bite your throat?” he murmured.
“I’m offering it to you freely. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“No.” He lowered his head and kissed her neck.
He could taste the musk of her arousal on her skin. His deprived body rose to attention in the confines of his trousers. Goddess, why did this woman seem perfectly crafted to torture him?
“Admit it, Nora. You want my bite.”
“I have agreed to it.”
“You want it,” he ground out.
He closed his mouth over her vein and sucked her skin. His reward was a strangled little whimper from her. What would such an expressive woman sound like when she climaxed? Dav would wager a Hesperine could make her scream, and not from fright.
This time, he gave her no gentle bite. He took her vein fast and hard. She cried out, an unmistakable sound of pleasure. Her blood flowed warm and thick into his mouth, rich with the flavor of her lust. His own blood seemed to halt in his veins and wrench in a new direction. His thoughts faded, and his body hardened.
He was still in control, he told himself. But she was on the brink of falling from her self-righteous pedestal. He pulled back, her blood trailing warm and wet down his chin. His lips left a crimson smear on her pale skin as he spoke in her ear. “Can you deny you like how my fangs feel inside you?”
“You can’t read my thoughts,” she accused.
“I don’t need to. I can taste it in you. You want me to bite you again, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
He sank his fangs into her once more. Her hand came to his face. But she didn’t push him away. Her fingers dug into his scalp, holding him to her vein with a vengeance.
His jaw locked, and he swallowed her lifeblood. She was so alive. Rahim was dead. Dav begrudged Nora each beat of her heart. But he drank down every surge of the elixir that heart pumped for him. He didn’t want her here, weaving into his blood. But his own heart pounded harder, driving her essence into the cold reaches of his veins and filling him with her warmth.
He tightened his bite, tugging on her hair. Her head fell back against his shoulder. Her shapeless gown could not disguise the fullness of her breasts or the way her chest rose and fell with a harsh sigh of pleasure. A savage desire overtook him to unbind the rest of her as he had her hair.
He slid his hand down to grip the column of her throat. Her pulse pattered faster under his touch. He slipped his fangs out of her neck and nipped her earlobe. “Can you deny that blush of yours goes all the way to your breasts?”
Her hand curled into a fist upon the wall. “My blood is all you’ll get from me.”
“You’ve already given me more than that. You didn’t promise me the flavor of your desire in the bargain.”
“Go to Hypnos.”
“Holy knights’ daughters aren’t supposed to swear by the god of death, either. But no one can hear you except a heretic. No one will ever know if you ask me to give you what you want.”
He drove his fangs back into her slowly. A moan escaped her. He began to suckle her, pleasuring her vein, teasing each sip out of her and onto his tongue. Her breath came faster.
Her hand slipped from his hair, coming to rest on his where he held her throat. Her nails dug into his hand, prying him off of her. Tugging his hand down to the laces on the front of her gown.
He took over, teasing apart her laces one by one. She whimpered in frustration. He went slower. She cursed him again, but yanked the loose portion of her bodice out of his way.
When her gown hung open to her belly, another layer of fabric got in his way. Finding another lace at her collar, he loosened the wide neck of her undergarment and pulled the fabric down.
A thick band of cloth wrapped around her chest, viciously tight. Dav felt an unexpected rush of anger at the binding that held her natural figure in a vise. With a whip of levitation, he tore it off of her. She gasped as her breasts swung free.
He could make an entire banquet off of them after he was done with her blood. He swept his forearm under the heavy globes, pressing them up toward him. Just as he’d imagined, a rosy flush swept all the way down to her taut nipples.
She shifted her head to look down at what he was doing to her. The motion tugged against his fangs, sending a jolt of pleasure through him. He wrapped his hand around one breast and massaged her, and there came an echoing jolt of pleasure in her aura.
Her whole body tensed, as if she were fighting to hold still. He kept kneading and teasing her breasts, dragging at her vein. Her fist uncurled, and she flattened her hand on the wall. He pressed his fingers between hers, trapping her.
Her blood escaped his lips, trickling down past her collarbone, over the swell of her breast. He caught the crimson trail on his fingers. When he swept the warm liquid over her nipple, the peak drew tighter. He played with the tight bud between his slippery fingers.
She arched back against him, pressing into his straining trousers. Through her thick skirts, he felt an impression of wide hips and full buttocks. The foretaste of her release enriched her blood and filled him with a sense of triumph.
He would not bed her. But he would make her climax against this wall.
He suckled her relentlessly, giving her breasts no mercy from his hand. Her divine pleas dissolved in wordless mewls. Her free hand struck the wall, seeking purchase.
At last, her shocked outcry echoed through the chamber. She came apart, grinding back against him, a wanton mirror of his goddess. He tasted her prim self-control explode into pure, carnal defiance.
He had thought he knew the flavor of a woman’s ecstasy, but no lover of his had ever tasted like this. He shouted against her throat, his body pounding with vicarious pleasure, aching in the grip of his own hunger.
When the crest of her release faded from her blood, and her body calmed, she still rubbed softly back against him, panting.
He gave her neck a long lick. “That barely took the edge off, did it?”
“Oh, gods ,” she uttered.
“Only Hespera can hear your prayers.” He braced his feet, nudging the ridge of his erection in the gentle groove he could feel through her skirts. “Do you know why Hesperines prefer willing humans?”
She canted her hips, exploring how they fit together. “Because you’re manipulative bastards, that’s why.”
“Because free Will is sacred to Hespera. We never violate a mortal’s power of choice. This is up to you. If you want more, you must ask for it.”
Her curious movements were a guileless, wicked tease.
“Is this an offer?” he gritted.
She stilled, trembling. He sensed a battle raging in her, an old one that had always been tearing her apart.
It ended in surrender. She leaned forward against the wall and stretched her back, offering her hips into his waiting hands.
“Ask me, Nora.”
He heard her swallow. Then her whisper. “Take my body, too.”
He would not bed her. He would thrust inside her right here.
He leaned his weight into her, pressing her closer to the wall. He wanted to sample a different side of her neck as he discovered just how wet his first drink had left her. Sweeping her hair to her other shoulder, he yanked the layers of her clothes down to her elbows, trapping her arms at her sides.
His gaze arrested on her arms. Scars criss-crossed her skin, some old, some new, a long history of pain written on her skin in long slashes. The most recent chapter was a set of new bruises, angry red imprints in the shape of a man’s fingers.
Dav wanted to break his oaths as a healer. He wanted to snap this man’s hand one finger at a time and listen to them crack.
With the utmost care, Dav brushed his fingertips over the angry marks on Nora’s skin. She flinched, and he felt her past fear in the Blood Union.
Then memories flashed across the surface of her thoughts, as clear to Dav as if she had described them. A brutal hand. A threatening voice. Her inner wounds cried out to him.
For the first time in half a year, his magic stirred within him. His sleeping power soared to life and revealed the depths of Nora’s mind.
Her inner world was a landscape of scars. They were small, a thousand little cuts. But over the short years of her mortal existence, they had disfigured her inside.
At her center lay an ugly injury that had never healed. He recognized the bends and breaks in her thoughts. No natural experience, however traumatic, could have caused this. A spell had invaded the Sanctuary of her inmost self to twist and shatter her memories.
She hadn’t been lying. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know the truth about Rahim’s death. She didn’t even remember that night.
Dav took a step back, his body throbbing with cooling lust and unspeakable rage. Nora’s tormentor had committed the unforgivable act—violating a person’s Will.
He bared his fangs. “Who did this to you?”
She pulled her gown up over her arms. “No one who concerns you.”
“Tell me who he is.”
“Why does it matter? Am I not human chattel to you?”
He rested his hands on her shoulders and eased her around to face him. She clutched her hair, pulling it across her chest to cover herself.
“Did I make you feel like chattel tonight?” he asked.
Her gaze dropped to her feet. Memories of his mouth and hands flitted through her mind, and the scars there twisted her pleasure into shame.
He wanted to worship her against this wall until she regretted nothing.
But she snapped, “You’ve had your second tribute. Take me home.”
Dav cupped her cheek, lifting her face toward him. She looked more startled at the gentle touch than at her first glimpse of his fangs.
“Who. Is. He.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you want to make sure no one snatches your human plaything from you before you’re done with me. Very well. I don’t fancy the Order killing you before we complete our bargain, either. I should warn you that Sir Virtus has moved himself into my castle. Be careful. He’s a Knight Commander in the Order of Andragathos.”
The pieces fell into place. Sir Virtus was the man who had wounded Nora—and the knight who had dealt Rahim his death wound.
For the first time in his existence, Dav wanted to feel another’s suffering in the Blood Union. That empathy was what prevented Hesperines from abusing their great power. Awareness of others’ pain stayed them from causing it. But Dav would enjoy Sir Virtus’s pain.
His reborn magic felt raw, achingly aware of Nora’s thoughts. He tried to apply his power as he had done with his patients, to follow the pathways of pain through her thoughts to answers that could heal her. But his magic ebbed, then surged, slipping from his control. It was alive and well, but he felt like an apprentice relearning how to be a mage.
Dav wracked his own memory for his scant knowledge of Tenebra, now regretting the years he’d spent in his ivory tower. How could a Knight of Andragathos have caused these wounds in her mind? “Do I recall correctly that the holy knights do not possess magic of their own?”
“Right. Anyone with magic is required to enter a temple and become a mage instead of a warrior.”
“But your Order fights with enchanted weapons.”
“They pledge themselves to our god, so they’re the only warriors permitted to wield magical artifacts. Sir Virtus has access to relics that can harm a Hesperine and the training to use them.”
“Will you be safe from him during the day?” Dav silently cursed the sun. He would soon be locked in the Dawn Slumber, unable to wake until night returned.
“I can protect myself.”
“Are you certain Sir Virtus will not harm you while I Slumber?” Dav pressed.
“He is the one at a disadvantage. It’s my castle.” She turned her back on Dav, lacing up her bodice. “You can take me back to the clearing now. When you meet me there tomorrow night, be careful.”
“No,” he said, “tomorrow, I will come to you.”
“What? That’s madness. You mustn’t, not while Sir Virtus is there.” She rounded on him.
Dav gave in to the urge to run his hand over her riot of curls. Her breath caught in her throat.
“I don’t want him to catch you sneaking out,” Dav said.
She pressed her lips together, but did not disagree. “The fortress is riddled with relics that can alert him to a Hesperine’s presence, though.”
“Can you clear one room and wait for me there?”
Nora swallowed. “Very well. Tomorrow night…come to my bedchamber.”