Chapter 17
Seventeen
Timur
Iwas drowning in the storm of sand, heat, and absolute darkness. I called for help but couldn’t hear my own voice. I reached for salvation but didn’t know where to find it.
And then…
It felt like the sand clouds parted, and I could draw in a breath of fresh air. Clean, sweet, and refreshingly gentle, I recognized her presence at once.
Elaine…
I tried to say her name out loud, but only growls painfully tore out of my dry throat. Pain was everywhere. My body no longer felt like my own. It moved, but not under my command. I wasn’t sure where I was or who I was now. Or whether I still existed at all.
I love you.
It was more than a phrase. Her confession came with a swell of warmth that washed away the darkness and melted the rigid cage trapping my mind.
“Stay with me…” the words fluttered by on a breeze of shimmer that chased away the storm. “Just like this…”
It was a simple invitation, easy to obey because it required nothing from me. Just to stay where I was. Just to be. To exist while the warmth of her love cradled me, protecting me from the storm.
So I did.
I lived. I breathed. I was.
From my mind, my awareness spread out into my body, reclaiming it breath by breath and limb by limb.
I became aware of the heart beating in my chest and the blood rushing through my veins.
My muscles flexed, then relaxed, following my orders.
My fingers twitched. My eyes opened, focusing on the stone ceiling above dotted with glowing spots.
Elaine’s weight gently pressed on top of me, and I couldn’t imagine a better place for her to be. Willing my arms to move, I wrapped them around her, lest she moved away.
“Stay with me,” she’d said, and this was exactly where I wished to stay, with her in my arms and her love in my heart.
“Are you back? Are you here?” she asked with a coarse thread of worry stitched through the gossamer silk of her tenderness.
“Here…” I exhaled, combing through the thick waves of her hair with my claws.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. “Don’t ever leave me again. Don’t ever scare me like this.”
She didn’t fear me. I sensed only intense, paralyzing worry inside her. She trusted me blindly, even when she shouldn’t have. I’d lost all control over my body and my actions. I could’ve killed her, and I wouldn’t even have known.
Horror shuddered my body. Her worry spiked.
A soft hand cupped my cheek. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”
I was always in pain. It had become a permanent part of me, more permanent than my ever-changing body. Except that right now, I didn’t feel any. Along with Elaine’s love and compassion, comfort spread through me, filling me with lightness.
“No,” I replied sincerely. “No pain. I…I feel incredible.”
A cooling wave of relief flushed our joined emotions.
“Good,” she said, resting her head on my chest. “That makes me happy.”
“I know.”
She shifted her arm, the one with my tendril connected to her leilatha harness. I should disconnect from her before I lost my mind and ended up like Ray. Except that severing our connection was the last thing I wished to do.
“Just another moment,” I muttered to myself.
“Stay,” she repeated. “I don’t think my emotions will harm you. Not right now, anyway.”
“Why not?” I longed to believe her, but I couldn’t take the risk.
She inhaled deeply, her naked breasts pushing against my bare chest.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I never saw anyone in Teneris act like Ray. Many of Prince Rha’s people had dinners with us.
The prince became very close with my friend.
They were inseparable. They spent so much time together, it even triggered his mating fever.
I saw him before it happened, he acted crazy, to be honest, but it was because of the fever.
He wasn’t like Ray. He didn’t force my friend.
He actually tried to get away from her when the mating fever struck, afraid he’d hurt her.
He acted aggressively towards others and wildly possessive of her, but he didn’t slur words, didn’t look confused, didn’t have trouble staying on his feet… ”
Splaying her hand on my chest, she propped her chin on the back of it and gazed at me. She wrinkled her nose in concentration, and I decided I adored that expression of hers.
“What I’m saying is that even as the shadow fae in Teneris eagerly shared our emotions, it didn’t affect their mental abilities. None of them acted even as pushy as Lord Arnaf normally does.”
A claw of unease scraped through the calm landscape of her inner world at the mention of that name, and I jerked in realization.
“You don’t like that little prick, Elaine,” I stated the obvious. “And I keep making you see him twice a week.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t have to like him to take his money. Besides, his servants draw the best baths ever. But he does act a little too…intense, don’t you think? There is that feverish energy about him, something like…”
“Obsession?” I offered.
“Probably. The same kind of desperation that Ray has, just toned down a bit.”
“Maybe it’s toned down because Lord Arnaf doesn’t have a Joy Vessel he could attach himself to permanently,” I suggested.
“Or…” She bit her lip as her focus sharpened. “Tell me, what effect does the juice of the golden hyacinth have on shadow fae?”
“None. It’s just a flower.”
“Do you know what it does to humans?”
I recalled my conversation with Zayr, the morning he gave me the cluster of withered yellow flowers.
I’d tossed them the moment I’d left the tavern that day, remembering Elaine’s disgust and fear when Ray had tried to force the flower on her at the auction.
I didn’t know her well back then, but I already knew I wouldn’t force anything on her that she disliked so fiercely.
“I heard it heightens their pleasure,” I said. “From what I saw in Ray’s bedroom, however, I doubt it’s really as joyful for them as I was told.”
“It’s not,” she confirmed, her brows knitting into a frown. “I mean the lust is clearly there, but if they didn’t choose to drink the tea in the first place, if it was forced on them, it’s abuse. Their free will was taken away from them.”
Her bottom lip trembled. Helplessness spread through her emotions like a gray spiderweb. Her compassion had no bounds, but it was more than just compassion, she felt the pain of others like her own. In many parts of this world, that would be considered a great weakness.
“What I’m saying…” she drew in a deep breath, finding her composure again, “is that maybe it’s the effect of the hyacinth tea that makes human’s sexual pleasure so harmful to the fae? And if so…”
Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she tried to say because I shared her hope. If I could be connected to her just like this, I would. I’d drink her joy as often as she would let me.
“Do they make humans drink the hyacinth tea in the queen’s sarai? Do you know? Lord Arnaf visits it often. Maybe that’s where his…well, that weird obsession of his comes from?”
“I’ve never been to the queen’s sarai, but I’d bet my life they do not serve that tea there.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because the golden hyacinth is forbidden in the kingdom. Planting it, cultivating, gathering, and consuming in any shape or form is punishable by death.”
She blinked at me in surprise. “I didn’t know that. But why?”
“Queen Abeille’s husband was assassinated with a dagger laced with the potion created with the hyacinth.”
“And it killed him?”
“Well, it paralyzed him for many years, both his mind and his body. But eventually, yes, he died.”
“But you just said that hyacinth has no effect on the shadow fae.”
“In its natural form, it’s harmless. But when brewed in potions with some ancient spell that a mage discovered a while ago, it has a devastating effect.”
“It’s different for humans. The thugs who caught and sold me talked about a hag who came up with the recipe for the tea to give to humans. But I also saw them feed just the juice of the flower to a human woman, and it had a very similar effect on her too.”
Her expression darkened with that memory, and I ran a soothing hand down her back. I made sure to use my right hand, gently scraping over her skin with my claws. A shimmer of pleasure sparkled though her emotions, rippling over my skin too.
“Brewing tea would require less flowers, I imagine. And since their supply is scarce, it makes sense that they would use magic to strengthen its potency,” I said.
With Elaine’s sweet pleasure spreading though my body, I struggled to maintain focus on our conversation.
“It doesn’t apply to Lord Arnaf then, since he only tastes the human emotions without the tea,” she pondered out loud.
“Right.”
“Maybe he’s just naturally that needy and jittery?”
“Maybe.”
I felt relaxed and more at peace than ever. My thoughts drifted away from Lord Arnaf and his odd behavior. Instead, I focused on studying Elaine’s responses as I caressed her body.
Curiously, her reactions varied depending on where I touched. During our meetings with clients, I’d learned that she enjoyed me touching her in some places more than others. What I hadn’t expected was how wide the range of those emotions was and how so finely nuanced they were.
Her joy came in so many flavors, it took all my concentration to map her feelings by touch.
“You’re not listening, are you?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
I blinked, meeting her accusing look.
“Sorry.” I stroked the side of her face apologetically.
“What are you thinking about?” The flare of curiosity in her was favored with the spice of desire. It made her words come out a little breathy, and I made a note to remember that voice and what it meant.
“You,” I replied because no matter what I did or what I thought about, she was always the reason for both.
“And what are you thinking about me?”
“How much I like having you lying on me like this.”
“You like?”
“I do.”
“But shadow fae can’t enjoy things, not even enough to like.”