Chapter 7
“You look particularly beautiful tonight, mate,” Carmine murmured.
I’d felt his gaze on me as we ambled around the fair. The vendors from the realm usually offered up their wares to the king and his mate-intended, but tonight—as if sensing the extra tension—they kept their distance.
Instead, I’d noticed that Gratia and Raes were receiving all the attention. That was fine by me, and maybe a sign of their apparent newfound peace.
I smoothed my white dress with the hand not curled over his fist. “Thank you, mate.”
I glanced up and looked into his gray eyes. No ice. Confusion. Shrouded confusion, but it was there. This outfit was meant to irk Tyran, but it occurred to me that Carmine would read into it a different way.
Dammit. I had to find a way to get Carmine on board. If he knew that I was me, then we could work together. He could drop more hints. The one he’d already given me was huge.
I rose on tiptoe and pressed my lips to his.
Carmine hesitated before returning the pressure. Before ending the kiss as soon as publicly acceptable to do so.
He’d backhanded me yesterday as Tyran. Now I was kissing him while wearing a white dress. I wasn’t convincing him that I was here whatsoever.
“I lost my temper at breakfast yesterday,” he said after.
Had Tyran put him up to this? Through our truth touch, I could tell he genuinely meant the admission, which was about as far as demon apologies usually went. “What do you mean?”
“The place you visited is a particular source of… upset to me.”
“I figured.”
Warmth radiated between us.
He hesitated, “Do you feel any different since the smoke ritual?”
I pulled a face. “Stronger, yes. I guess that’s the point of the smoke ritual. The qualities of our smoke grow stronger.”
The crimson-black blend would hurt others more effectively. And the growth of our individual power would accelerate because of the stronger smoke. Also potentially weaken us if mismanaged, but I’d been releasing smoke more frequently without realizing.
“What about you?” I asked.
He nodded absently. “We gained this truth touch after the joining ritual. I’d wondered if you’d noticed anything above what demon mating pairs usually receive.”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “Nothing yet.”
Then again, the truth touch didn’t show up for a while after.
Carmine forced a smile.
And yes, Tyran backhanded me using my mate’s hand. That wasn’t Carmine’s doing. I squeezed his fist to get his attention. “Don’t worry about losing your temper. It’s not a big deal.”
My mate blinked, then gazed down at me. “Not a big deal? Syera, I hit you.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I just don’t want you to beat yourself up about it. You’re under a lot of stress.”
Instead of helping, my words achieved the opposite. Carmine untangled his arm from mine, and with a disgusted look, he strode away.
Yep. I really had to figure out how to convey some of the truth to him.
Communication was my biggest issue all round. How to get a message to Tempest and ask if I could fake kill her? How to let Carmine know that I was me?
How to tell Tsan that I’d changed my mind and wouldn’t avenge his mate?
How to convince a nismus to tell me the location of the gems that would heal my mate? And me after the next ritual?
I looked after my mate and watched as he spoke to Tsan.
Tsan nodded a few times, then bowed—spine stiff.
Carmine continued on, and Tsan headed my way.
We walked a few stalls and exchanged small talk before my yellow friend muttered, “I’m joining you guys for a family dinner tomorrow night.”
My stomach churned. “Family dinner, huh. You’re in for a treat.”
Tsan was pale, and lack of courage wasn’t usually his issue—he seemed impartial to death because it would only reunite him with his mate, or stop the missing of her. I imagined his pallor had something to do with eating at the same table as the demon who’d killed her.
“The demon king has paid me the honor of inviting me to the war council.”
I struggled to contain my reaction to that.
Tyran, you sly bastard.
He’d taken my advice, and delivered a threat. “I’ll see you there,” I told him, then for the benefit of a listening crimson, I added, “Embarrass me, and I’ll carve the payment from the flesh of your family.”
Tsan bowed low and backed away, remaining stooped. “Of course, mate-intended. I would never, mate-intended.”
He continued backing away between the stalls and demons.
I bit back a laugh. What an ass. Then I groaned. A family dinner. Why, world? With all the mother had heaped on me, why curse me with a family dinner too?
I occupied myself with thoughts of how to reach Carmine, and then with thoughts on how to reach Tempest. Both were risky, and by the time my mate left the fair—signaling that others might leave if they wished too—I only had an answer to one.
The same answer I’d already had.
I strode to my room, nodding in response to Raes’s question about whether we’d train in the morning. When I reached my room, I leaned against the closed door.
Dream.
That was the only way I could think to bring Carmine into the fold.
He was crucial to what was going on, though leaving him out of my plans was far safer.
If I wanted to complete another ritual with him, then he had to agree.
Thus far, from what he could tell, he had gone out on a limb to complete the smoke ritual with me, while believing that I had a secret ace up my sleeve.
He’d since watched me be and then act as if I were under the wrath curse.
In his eyes, he’d taken a gamble to trust me and had only lost me to Tyran’s ruthless power.
Carmine wouldn’t enter the scale ritual as things stood.
Honorable. There was that word again.
Well, his honor was getting in the way of my plans to save him.
I stared around the room as though the answer might be hiding under the blanket or behind the armchair. How to show Carmine that I was still me without Tyran finding out?
That was the question.
I had roughly two ideas on my list, both of them pitiful.
But after making my preparations, I settled into bed and waited for Carmine to return from his war council. Where he had to be going alone to agonize over his plans for supernatural domination.
I listened as he showered, dried, and didn’t dress.
Go to sleep, you bastard.
“Syera,” he called.
I froze with the blanket pulled to my chin. My heart hammered as I called back, “Yes?”
“Come here.”
Oh. Fuck.
Tyran was about to seduce me. And I’d negotiated that. I didn’t have any blue gems, and they had essentially become my condom against catching wrath curse.
Shit.
I licked my lips. If I refused, then that wouldn’t add up with the character I was playing. Was this a test? Or was Tyran trying to lure me under his control again?
I’d guess the latter, but if it was a test, then I had to pass it too.
I pushed off the blanket and left my room, walking down the hall to the end until I reached his room.
Calm, Syera.
I walked into his chamber. “What do you want?”
Carmine was lying in bed under the blanket. One arm was bent behind his head. And his gaze was hard. It was Tyran.
“This was part of our deal,” he said.
It was. I hadn’t thought he’d pay up. Plus, I’d been bluffing. His body enticed me like no other. Tyran did nothing for me and never had, and that was who I’d be in bed with. Initially at least. In the smoke ritual, as we’d gotten more physical, Carmine had been increasingly in control.
That could be restricted to just a ritual, though, and not casual sex.
I padded to the bed and hopped under the blankets.
I should have gone looking for the blue gems myself. Fuck. I was in trouble here. I hadn’t warned Athira or Tsan to be on the lookout either. What if they said something to me without knowing white magic controlled me again?
What if Neti refused to show them where the blue gems were?
I had to think of an excuse.
My mind went blank as Tyran pulled me closer and set his lips to mine. I forced my lips to move against his, even looping my arms around his neck.
He deepened the kiss, and I tried not to gag against the thought of white magic flowing from his mouth to mine. I didn’t know the parameters of when that occurred. I did know that Tyran didn’t want to lose more power to me.
That was it.
“Let me take off my clothes. I don’t want to kiss. I want you inside me.”
When he pulled back, I made sure to keep my gaze unblinking, and to summon that feeling of ice that had controlled me in short bursts after the last two rituals. I wanted him to see himself, the wrath curse.
Tyran studied my face.
I arched a brow. “Or would you like to take off my clothes? Rip them off. I don’t care.”
If he took me up on this, I had no Plan B.
Tyran released me again. “You know my fears, mate. My power is not good for you, and until I know more about that, I cannot risk too much intimacy with you. We have struck a deal, and I plan to uphold that. This matter is receiving my attention, you have my word.”
I didn’t doubt that. He wanted to figure out how to control me through more rituals without sacrificing more power.
If he went through more rituals, then I’d “kill my sister” and use my undead army to propagate his conquering agenda, but I had no doubt he was trying to understand how to keep his power in Carmine too.
The delightful caveat was that Tyran was trying to alter the magic of an ancient curse designed to infect any demon strong enough. He couldn’t alter the nature of the curse without affecting its hold on Carmine.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I replied. “Patience has never been my strength. A kiss doesn’t buy you much time.”
Tyran nodded. “I want this too. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
Cold ran between us. Did he notice? Or was he too occupied with his own plans?
“Sleep next to me,” he said, nuzzling the side of my neck.
Bile speared up my throat. “That will buy you longer, I suppose.”
I rolled over, and he curled around my back. All I could do was pretend that I wanted to be there—and that meant keeping my breaths even and my body relaxed. White-magic Syera wanted this.
She wanted to breed and do all sorts of things. She’d love every bit of this.
Tyran’s breaths deepened, and I hadn’t given up on my plan for the evening. I sincerely hoped that being this close to Carmine physically wouldn’t betray anything I conveyed in the dream.
Getting to the dream proved another hurdle. I’d challenge anyone to meditate into a mate-shared dream with a tyrannical mastermind spooning them.
I stepped along the crimson-black thread of my bond with Carmine. I walked and walked until the physical world was a tiny thought in the back of my mind.
And then gone entirely.
I opened my eyes.
Was I in the right place? Hard to tell when this room was the same as where I’d fallen asleep, and Carmine’s arm was around me.
His arm tensed. Then I saw the pile of clothing on my bedside table.
This was a dream.
Shoving off the covers, I grabbed the pile of clothing, then beelined for the armchair in the corner. Turning back to Carmine, I didn’t speak as I quickly dressed.
In the clothes I’d first worn in Tiers.
As Syera.
The real version of me.
Once dressed, I held his gaze and sat in the armchair.
No seduction. No white dresses. Or crimson dresses either.
He hadn’t left.
He hadn’t spoken. So I didn’t either. That had to be important.
Instead, I held his gaze that was free of ice. Tyran couldn’t come here, and if I got luckier than ever in my life, then Tyran would never learn of this dream either.
Carmine searched my face, slowly sitting in the bed. His crimson-ringed gray eyes met mine, and I felt the intensity in them.
The search.
Is that you?
That was what he wanted to know. That was what I couldn’t confirm aloud, and in these dreams, Carmine had to take the lead because I was running on assumptions.
I nodded, and then I used my last idea.
I’d remembered my sister after the last ritual—and had the urge to kill her. But I hadn’t recalled my son.
Our son.
I drew my finger over my chest in the letter of a large A, then I rested a hand over my heart, then touched my hand to my mind too.
I kissed the palm of my hand, then blew the kiss to my mate.
His chest rose and fell, and his expression seemed in danger of crumbling. Carmine’s throat worked as he swallowed hard. He touched a hand to his heart, then his mind, and then to his lips before blowing a kiss back to me.
The tear that fell from my lashes didn’t make a sound, but I was in danger of sobbing.
I stood from the armchair, met Carmine’s gaze again, then left the dream.