18. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Caelan
B eing alone with Eave was dangerous. Then again, so was battle. I guess I liked dangerous things.
I requested hot bath water and shackles with chain and buried my irritation with the guard's smirk. He was probably one of Amon’s, with ears that could hear through stone. My first order of business must be replacing Joab. I needed a man at my back I could trust. Especially when I had a woman at my side who I couldn't trust at all.
What was I thinking claiming her as my companion? The words had just rushed out of me, coming from readings of history that I didn’t even remember. They were a weapon to wield against the lustful gaze in Amon’s eyes.
I couldn’t let him get close to her. She knew I was an altayr. She might just give him that knowledge willingly, but if she didn’t, he’d pull it out of her. He had ways. Which led to the second reason to keep Eave from my brother. I didn’t want to see her skin flayed off her body.
The third reason pulsed in my breeches as we stood silently together in the chamber. It would be damned hard to hide once I stripped for my bath.
Eave went to the window and peered down. We were in the beast’s neck and the window was narrow, suitable for shooting arrows but not wide enough to squeeze a man’s body through. Her body…almost.
“This fortress is grotesque, but the skill required to hollow it was masterful. How’d they do it?”
“The methods have been lost, but we assume they used blades made of dragonstone.”
“Of course.” She studied the sparse décor. An old tapestry hung on the wall, hiding a secret door that would allow me to escape the fortress if it were breached. Torches sought to light the space, but dragonstone sucked light. Little filtered through the narrow window. It was very dim.
Like everything else here, the sparse furniture was made of dragonstone. The bed was a part of the room itself, a protrusion left behind when they hollowed the rest of the space. As was the table against the wall that offered wine and fresh bread.
I could chain Eave to the unbreakable posts of the bed and make her sleep at my feet. The thought had some appeal. I'd have to keep the chain short or she’d be close enough to crawl into bed with me. I shivered at the thought of her body sliding along my own, waking me with its warm touch. But it wasn’t fear that made me shiver.
A knock came on the door.
“Come,” I called gruffly.
A string of servants entered bearing a tub, followed by bucket after bucket of water. Steam rose into the air and the fresh scent of lavender wafted from the oils they poured into the bath. They placed drying blankets and soaps beside the tub, and then the last of them waited for instruction, her head bowed. She was young, but old enough for the duty I knew she’d been sent for. To bathe a prince.
“You may go,” I told her.
On her way out, she passed the doorman, who entered with heavy shackles and chain weighing down his arms. He deposited them in the corner of the room. They clanged against each other as they fell, making a tremendous noise.
I’d always loved that noise. Metal slithering along metal, the tinkling sound of shifting chain. I indulged myself imagining Eave with cold, iron shackles around her delicate wrists. They slid up and down her arms, and she almost, but not quite, could squeeze her hands out of them. The tease of freedom made the captivity all the more frustrating for her and I drank in every emotion she revealed. Maybe her brow would furrow as she twisted in the restraints, testing them. If I came too close, or scared her, she’d twist away, and then the chains would really jangle.
I took a deep breath and released it. One thing at a time. Eave wasn’t a woman I’d paid to please me. She was a demon-sympathizer who’d tried to kill me only days ago. The chains were here, not for my pleasure, but for my protection.
“Go to the corner,” I said, having made a decision. Chaining her to the bed felt too intimate. There was a ring in the wall under the window. “Unless you’d like to help me bathe.”
She hesitated, which surprised me. Her eyes flitted up and down my body as if she were really considering it. Then she took the few steps into the corner.
I tried not to feel disappointed.
I was right—the metal cuffs were loose on her, but not loose enough to come off. I restrained only her hands, for now, linking them together and to a chain on the wall.
Having restrained her with my own metal devices, I suddenly found the metal ring around her neck offensive. It wasn’t mine. It must come off immediately.
I turned it in my fingers. As we’d walked, I’d studied it. It had no lock, only a simple release. Eave might have taken it off at any time, but she’d chosen to wear it. As she’d chosen to be here with me even after I’d offered her freedom. What an enigma she was.
I slid the pin from the release and the collar opened. I flung it into a corner to gather dust.
“You’ll get a bath after I’m finished,” I told her. I’d considered bathing her first, but I didn’t want to touch her skin for the first time with caked blood on my hands.
I retreated—it felt like a retreat—and began to remove my dirtied clothes. It was a relief after days of travel with the fabrics caked to my skin with sweat and blood.
I turned my back to Eave as I peeled off my shirt. I was suddenly self-conscious, though my muscled body was nothing to be ashamed of, and she’d seen it before anyway. I unlaced my boots and kicked them off, then removed my pants. I turned towards her, heart hammering, to find her eyes on me. Unabashedly, she looked me up and down. Her emerald eyes were a caress I could practically feel, like fingers tickling the sensitive hairs on my skin.
“You like what you see?” I joked to cut the tension.
But she didn’t laugh. “Your body has power and beauty, but it has scars, too. There’s stories in them. I bet you were small when you were a child, weren’t you?”
I cleared my throat, uncomfortable being so exposed. She was right; before the age of eight, I was skinny, almost sickly-looking. I spent most of my time in the library and the temple, reading histories and performing the sacred duties expected of a second son. It was Selim’s training in the art of keeping secrets that had changed all that. Men of power respected physical strength, he said. They respected power they could see. And nobody over-estimated the mind of a brutish warrior. When I’d shot up in height later, it only added to the disguise.
I got in the bath. It was a relief to sink into the water, hiding myself from her gaze beneath the rim of the copper tub. I thought she’d take her eyes off me and let me soap myself in peace, but she didn’t. Her eyes settled on the thick white scarring along my forearms, gashes that had merged together into a single thickened mass.
“Your bird hasn’t always obeyed you,” she said.
“He has. The scarring is deliberate. It toughens the skin.” I grabbed the soap and began to lather. Specks of red sand sank to the bottom of the tub, flecks of dirt flaked off to float on the surface, dried blood dissolved to tint the water red.
“You wanted to be able to fly him without the usual trappings of an austringer. Without arm guard or leash or blinders.”
“A warrior may find himself without any of those things. Calathan the Conqueror did. And he bested Archeon anyway.”
“You fancy yourself like the Invader himself?”
“In some ways.” I dipped into the water to soak my hair. I shook my head back and forth to bring the water deep into my roots. I rose from the water and began to soap the waves, wishing all the while it was her hands massaging my scalp.
I could unchain her. I could make her do it. But somehow it felt wrong. As a prince, I’d learned that most things could just be taken. But as a warrior, I’d learned that some had to be earned. Eave was no whore who could be bought. A sense of what I wanted from her was beginning to form in me as I scrubbed the road scum off my skin. And it was something that could not be commanded so easily.
“Did you know that Calathan the Conquerer was an altayr?” I said.
“Everyone knows that. The first altayr, given the gift of magic by the Father, who sensed his cruel and ambitious heart.”
“Yes. He was from the Pestern Mountains above Vaharilar. Falconry was an honored tradition up there amongst the Bird Lords, but altaya magic didn't exist yet." I was warming to the story. It was good to fill the silence and distract from the strangeness.
"Everyone knows that, too," she said. "Havards and the lords who came south with them still look like northerners, even after a thousand cycles. All except you."
"My mother is Vasiliki Hagos," I supplied. The Hagos family were lords and ladies of The Waste, a desert territory in the far east of Vaharilar. Amon and I didn't share a mother—one of many things we lacked in common. "Anyway, back then, Tajawls ruled Vaharilar and dragons were the power in the world. But the Father offered Calathan power akin to a Rider's—the magical ability to bond his mind with another creature.”
“A bird is hardly a dragon,” Eave said.
I shrugged. “Calathan proved otherwise. And there’s another benefit to altaya. The bond doesn’t produce insanity.”
Eave cocked an eyebrow. “No, but it’s said to have had a different effect on the mind. It is said that it makes men cruel.”
“The Havards are not cruel because we are altayrs. If you’re looking for an excuse for that, Eave, I’m afraid I must disappoint. My father and grandfather and great-grandfather were not altayrs. We are cruel because it is who we are. It is how you keep a dynasty alive for a thousand cycles.”
I scrubbed at the wound in my arm. The black web still showed up beneath my skin, but it hadn’t spread further than before. I took that as a good sign.
“You were poisoned,” Eave observed.
“Will it kill me?”
“Not if it hasn’t already. Probably not a large enough dose.”
That’s what I’d thought, though it was still a relief to hear.
I stood up. The bathwater was tepid and brownish-pink. I grabbed a drying towel and raked it along my back. I stood in full view of her this time as she sat on the floor. It would be so easy to walk over to her and shove my half-hard cock into her mouth. Her tongue would feel soft and tentative licking up my shaft. What noise would she make when I pushed in deep?
Instead, I went to the door with a towel draped about my shoulders, hiding nothing. “Fresh water,” I commanded.
Now that I was clean, I was famished. I’d eaten only dried meat and bread for two weeks. I bit off a big bite of fresh baked bread from the side table and allowed the pleasant complexity of grainy flavor to explode in my mouth. I followed it with a grape. It popped between my teeth, exploding with moisture and sweetness.
Eave watched me hungrily. She might as well have licked her lips. Hmm, what would she do for me in exchange for some of the food on this sideboard? That could be interesting.
“Are you hungry?” I asked her.
She pursed her lips, displeased she’d revealed herself. “Yes.”
A knock came at the door. “Come,” I called. I popped another grape in my mouth as a new line of servants came in. They removed the tub and brought in another. They filled it with clean hot water. The door closed behind them.
“After your bath,” I said. My voice may have slightly wavered.
I was still naked, and had no intention of getting dressed. I went to her and she stood when I approached. I slid the key into the lock at her wrists and the shackles crashed to the ground between her feet with a loud clang. I took a step back, and then another. I wanted to see her. All of her at once.
“Take off your clothes.”
She hesitated for a long, drawn-out moment. Her eyes lingered on the steaming bath. The herbal scent of the room was intoxicating. Almost as intoxicating as the promise of what she was about to do.
Then her fingers trailed to her stomach, to where the tatters of her shirt hung above the wound I’d given her. They curled into the knot of the fabric wrap and teased it loose.
My breathing came fast as the wrap fell to the ground and she began to lift her shirt. It climbed higher and higher until it revealed the underside of her small breasts.
Eave's eyes were soft and wary. She blinked, long black lashes brushing her cheeks. She fixed her gaze on me, and then she exposed her breasts.
Deep pink nipples, like garden rose petals, stood out against her olive skin. Her breasts were tight and small, each a perfect handful. I ached to reach out and take her in my hands and squeeze her flesh beneath my fingers.
The tone of her skin was even. She’d hidden it from the suns. But it was far from perfect. The gash I’d cut across her stomach was not her only scar.
Above her breasts on her chest, a series of straight lines had been carved. The most recent was still fresh and pink, hardly closed. I guessed it was about five days old.
I stepped closer and raised my fingers to touch her there. She sucked in a breath but didn’t move. Her nipples hardened as my finger grazed her. My cock was rigid and exposed.
“What are these?”
“They were made during a ritual tied to my duties as a priestess.”
“What duties were those?”
“To tell the Heir when his dragon would be born.”
“If he knew when the dragon would be born, why did he leave the mountain?”
“Because I lied.” She sounded slightly ashamed, rather than proud.
My mind turned the words over, assessing their truth. She’d attacked me when we met, but she hadn’t come to Tanead’s aid since. She’d helped me keep him secure on our travels here. the Losians' side or not?
“Why did you lie?”
“Because I saw you and I had to come to you.” Her eyes looked up at me with utter openness. I didn’t doubt for a moment that she was telling the truth.
“You abandoned a dragon’s birth to come to me. Why? ” I pressed closer to her, urgent to hear another truthful answer. The tips of her breasts were almost close enough to touch me, but my hand pressed to her chest kept us apart.
“I wanted to kill you,” she whispered.
“Because I’m an Havard.”
She nodded. “I didn’t lie to you, Caelan. I told you when we met why I came.”
“Yet here I am. And you had an opportunity, didn’t you? You didn’t take it. So what’s the real reason why?”
She breathed heavily and broke her eye contact. She looked at the wall to the side of us, seemingly steadying herself. “You’re not how I expected you to be.”
“Then you have me wrong. You think I’m not like the rest of my family but I am. ”
It was because I was like them that my cock pulsed between my legs right now. I wanted to shove Eave back into the wall suddenly, so that she'd cry out. I’d pin her there and rip the rest of her clothes off and shove my cock inside her so that it hurt. I’d take her that way and then I’d kick her to the floor, cracking her knees on the stone as I put her on all fours. I’d spear her from behind and if she screamed, I’d choke her to hide the sound from the doorman’s ears.
No, that was a lie. I’d choke her because I fucking wanted to. Because knowing her life was in my hands would make me cum. Then I’d chain her to my bed and make her sleep on the cold floor with my seed leaking out of her onto her thighs. I’d train her to thirst for me so she would wake hungry to do it all over again.
That was what I wanted from her. This was the wish that I had begun to admit to myself in the bathtub.
And you know what? I was tired of holding myself back.
I moved the hand I had on her chest to the back of her neck and drew her forward, reveling in the hiss of surprise that slipped through from between her teeth. She crashed into my chest and I squeezed my hand to make her head tilt up to me. Her mouth opened slightly as I stretched her neck.
“The Havards rule everything they touch, Eave, and now I’ve touched you. You think I’m not a sadist but you’ll learn otherwise now that you’re mine. I’ve claimed you before my brother but now I will claim you in ways that will make you blush and hide your head in shame. I will make you mine—body, mind, and soul—until you can’t imagine a time when you ever wanted to do anything other than suck a Slayer’s cock. I will beat you until my hand is raw. I will fuck you until you scream my name. And do you know why I’ll do these things, Eave?”
She was shaking, a little. I felt it beneath the palm I cradled below her head. But she looked at me boldly, fire in her eyes. “Because you want to.”
I allowed a cruel smile to curve along my face. “Yes.” I leaned in to whisper in her ear. The full length of my cock pressed against her leg and I felt her chest rise and fall against my stomach. “But also, because I think you want me to. You talk like a fighter, but I think you prefer to lose. I will treat you this way because it’ll make you mine, Eave. Because if you were braver and more honest, it’s what you’d beg me to do.”
She was really shaking now, little twitches running the length of her body. Abruptly I released her and she stumbled, catching herself on the wall with a steadying hand. She bent over for a moment and then she stood. Her eyes found me again. They were still on fire, but it wavered in and out like a flame caught in a strong wind.
She swallowed hard. “No.”
“You are full of lies,” I said. “And I will enjoy making you get on your knees before me to own up to every one of them, right before you beg me for forgiveness and kiss my feet.”
The fire surged back into her and she growled. “Never.”
I bared my teeth in a feral grin. “Never is an awfully long time. Now take off your fucking clothes.”