Chapter Six #3
Ellie couldn’t help feeling both fear and a thrill of excitement at the display of primitive possessiveness.
His savagery, which should have frightened her witless, made her feel protected instead.
She had never known what it was to be wanted so badly by anyone, had never dreamed such a thing could happen to her.
A tide of longing swept over her, drowning out her fear of magic, her nightmares, even Selianne’s warning not to let the Fey control her mind.
She looked at Rain’s hands, now clenched into tight fists.
She remembered the feel of them sliding into her hair, remembered the closeness of his arms pulling her tight, the way his voice had poured over her like honeyed cream as he spoke the Fey words of shei’tanitsa claiming, Ver reisa ku’chae.
Kem surah, shei’tani. Your soul calls out.
Mine answers, beloved. She remembered the warmth and security she had felt with the sound of his heart beating in her ear.
Heat bloomed in her breasts and belly, a tingling heat that made her skin feel two sizes too small.
Rain drew a hissing breath, and his eyes, glowing like beacons, fastened on her face.
Need, hot and urgent, rolled over her, scorching her, bringing every nerve in her body to quivering life.
She could almost feel his desire, like hands, stroking her through the fabric of her gown, touching the aching tightness of her breasts, the liquid heat gathering in her loins.
Her breath came very fast, and a fine trembling started in her belly, radiating outward.
“Dear gods,” she whispered, her eyes starting to lose focus. What was happening to her? “Dear gods.”
Then he was there, his strong hands drawing her up against his chest, his arms enfolding her.
His cape swirled about her, hiding her from the hundreds of prying eyes surrounding them.
She leaned into his strength, pressing her hot face against his throat.
Her arms linked around his waist and clung tight, as his head bent to her and his lips rained searing kisses and a storm of passionate Feyan words in her hair.
“You are mine.”
The fierce claim sent another bout of shudders rippling through her. All she could do was cling to him and whisper brokenly, “Yes. Yes.”
Rain’s head shot up in savage triumph. “She is mine,” he growled, his narrowed gaze spearing the onlookers with naked threat, a lethal promise of death to anyone fool enough to try to take Ellysetta Baristani from him.
The scorching heat of the Tairen Soul’s desire for his mate was palpable, and his primitive claiming of her raised the temperature of the room several degrees higher.
In the gallery, breathless, corseted ladies swooned by the dozens.
On the dais, the king swallowed and ran a finger under the suddenly too-tight neck of his tunic, while the queen shifted restlessly on her throne and fanned her face, muttering, “Good sweet Lord of Light.”
King Dorian cleared his throat. “It would indeed seem that you and Mistress Baristani are in accord on the subject, My Lord Feyreisen, and this court has heard all it needs to hear.” His face settled into a stern expression and he leveled a hard gaze on the butcher’s son.
“Den Brodson, you claimed the girl by marking her without her consent or knowledge, and when the king of the Fey also claimed her, you filed a petition in the hopes that our court administrators would not yet have heard the name of Ellysetta Baristani and would make your claim binding before anyone was the wiser. You sought to deny the Tairen Soul his truemate through legal maneuvering.”
Den opened his mouth to object, but the king’s hand slashed up in a curt gesture that silenced the objection before Den gave it voice.
“If Ellysetta Baristani were being claimed by the Feyreisen against her will—if he threatened her in any way—then I might very well refuse the Fey king his mate and face the consequences of that decision, whatever those might be. But you, Den Brodson, not the Tairen Soul, are the one who has molested the girl, claimed her against her will, threatened her family, and tried to manipulate this court in order to force her to your will. I will not—now or ever—plunge Celieria into war in order to support the questionable claim of an unquestionable bully.”
“She is mine!” Den shouted. “She bears my mark. Everything she says is being manipulated by these Fey sorcerers, and you are falling prey to their magic!”
“Goodman Brodson, you will be silent!” The king gripped the arms of his throne and glared at the butcher’s son.
“As my queen correctly noted earlier, the betrothal agreement is between Master Baristani and your father. You have no say in the matter. Your father has accepted payment in lieu of your bride. The betrothal is dissolved. The Baristanis are free of all obligations—material or honorable—entailed by the agreement or the circumstances leading up to it. Ellysetta Baristani may bear your mark, but she is no longer yours to claim. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear, Your Majesty!” Gothar replied quickly, grabbing his son up in his arms and clamping one huge hand over the younger man’s mouth. “Very clear! Thank you for your time and patience. Den won’t be bothering these people.”
“See that he does not,” the king warned.
Then he took a deep breath and leaned back in his throne.
“In light of the obviously strong feelings this case has . . . er . . . aroused”—a weak, dazed laughter rippled through the audience—“I call a one-bell recess to allow passions to cool.” He nodded and the steward’s gavel cracked out the call for dismissal.
The king immediately rose to his feet and thrust out an imperious hand to his queen. “Annoura, you will attend me.”
The queen eyed the passion-dark eyes of her husband, the flaring nostrils, the ruddy color of his face, and took his hand, allowing him to drag her off her throne and into the privacy of the antechambers beyond.
Only a few paces away, Ellie’s Fey protectors watched the throne room empty with astonishing quickness, the majority of observers leaving by twos with flushed faces and dazed eyes. The few dozen who remained were mostly women who stayed behind to ogle the Fey Tairen Soul and his Celierian truemate.
“Any bets on the number of Celierian babies born in nine months’ time?” Kiel vel Tomar murmured dryly as he watched the rush of departing couples.
Rowan vel Arquinas ran a hand through his black hair and shook his thighs to ease the tightness of his leathers. “And I thought the keflee thing was stimulating.” Beside him his younger brother Adrial gave a bark of laughter that he tried to disguise with a fit of coughing.
Kieran grinned and obligingly thumped him on the back. “What do you think, Bel?”
“She is a fine mate for our king,” Belliard replied in a distracted voice. The watchful eyes of Ellysetta’s blood-sworn champion were focused on the enraged face of Den Brodson as his father dragged him from the courtroom.
“Bel?” Losing his grin, Kieran followed the older Fey’s gaze. “You think the little sausage still hopes to make trouble? Surely even he would not be so stupid.”
“Not stupid, no. He was wise enough to see in our Feyreisa what these other Celierian fools did not. What even she does not see in herself.” Belliard fingered one of the red-handled Fey’cha sheathed in his crisscrossed chest straps.
“A man who has laid claim to such wealth will not let it slip from his hands without a fight.”