Dreams Made Flesh bj-5 Page 12

  "I'm sorry," Karla said. "If there was another way…"

  He shook his head as he looked at her. Her fair skin had a touch of sickly green. She looked so young, standing there in a simple cotton nightgown, waiting for him to open her body and spill the virginal blood that would protect her power as a witch.

  "You didn't want to do this," she said.

  "No," he replied honestly.

  "Why?"

  Would it make it easier for both of them if he explained? "I've only done this once before."

  Karla swallowed hard. "And it went badly?"

  Lucivar looked away. "Not for her." The memory he'd pushed away so long ago rose up, choking him. "The hunting camp I was in at the time… The young males who were deemed ready were taken to the Blood Run to test their strength against it. Once an Eyrien male successfully makes the Blood Run, he's considered a warrior.

  "Well, we all survived the Run, which doesn't always happen. We guested at a nearby eyrie to celebrate. Plenty of food, plenty to drink… and women who were willing to bed newly acknowledged warriors eager to test their other skills.

  "One young witch lavished attention on me…the kind of attention I seldom got in Askavi.When she led me to one of the bedrooms, I was imagining a lusty night of hot sex…and was young enough and stupid enough to want it. Well, after a few kisses it was clear something was wrong. That's when she admitted she was a virgin. She'd been refusing the warriors who lived in that eyrie because she was certain any of them would do his best to break her, and she didn't want to lose what power she had.

  "So I put aside my own expectations and saw her through her Virgin Night."

  "So what went wrong?" Karla asked.

  Shame clogged his throat. He swallowed it, just as he'd swallowed it centuries ago. "The next morning, when I went to join the other warriors for a meal before heading back to the hunting camp… She was serving up food with the other women. I went over to her, just to talk to someone who would think kindly of me. But the other women must have told her who I was. What I was. Must have teased her about giving herself to a half-breed bastard. So instead of saying anything or even smiling at me, she… spit on me."

  The memory swamped him. The disgust in her eyes. The cruel laughter of the men. The reminder that they had to accept his status as a warrior but would never accept him.

  "Bitch."

  The sudden chill in the air jolted him back to the present. Karla's glacier blue eyes flashed with fury. Her Gray power rolled through the room.

  Before he could think of how to respond, there was a sharp rap on the door and Saetan walked into the room.

  Great. That was just great. He really needed confirmation that his father was staying so close in case something went wrong.

  After looking at him, then at Karla, Saetan asked quietly, "Is something wrong?"

  "That bitch spit on him after he got her through her Virgin Night!" Karla shouted.

  The room had been chilly before. Now it was frigid as Saetan's eyes glazed with cold rage.

  "Who?" Saetan asked too softly.

  Oh, no. "It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

  Karla grabbed a pillow and began shredding it as she stormed around the room. "The bitch deserves having her heart ripped out…if she has a heart."

  "Who?" Saetan asked again.

  Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. Maybe he should have known better, but he hadn't expected this.

  "Can we discuss this outside?" He gestured toward the door.

  "You're not going to let that bitch get away with this, are you, Uncle Saetan?" Karla demanded.

  That's just what he needed…a Gray-Jeweled Queen goading a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince to rise to the killing edge.

  Saetan walked out of the room. Lucivar followed, closing the door firmly behind him.

  "Who?" Saetan asked for the third time.

  "I don't remember her name," he lied. He remembered everything about her, everything about that night and the morning after.

  "Liar," Saetan crooned.

  If Daemon had said that to him in that tone of voice, he'd have braced himself for a terrifying kind of fight.

  "You never saw another witch through her Virgin Night because of that bitch," Saetan continued. "Isn't that true?"

  He didn't say anything. Wouldn't say anything. Not because he gave a damn what happened to that bitch, but because his father's instant response to a son's pain was as frightening as it was gratifying.

  "Let it go," Lucivar said. He deliberately looked at the bedroom door. "This is more important than avenging an old memory."

  The fury in Saetan's eyes didn't diminish, but he stepped back, walked down the hallway, and entered a room a few doors down from the one Lucivar stood in front of.

  Knowing he'd managed to walk away from one battlefield, Lucivar took a deep breath, opened the door, and prepared to step onto the next one.

  Karla was still storming around the room, bits of pillow stuffing stuck in her spiky white-blond hair. When she saw him, she planted her feet in the fighting stance he'd taught her, her eyes fired up for battle.

  "What can I do to help you?" she demanded.

  He almost laughed, but as he looked at her, he could hear Daemon's voice whispering to him. She took the bait. Now use it. As long as she's focused on helping you perform, she won't be thinking about why you have to perform. Use what she's offering to get her through what has to be done.

  He sighed, then said hesitantly, "Maybe if we just sat together for a while."

  Alarm leaped into her eyes. Had he sounded too uncertain, too hesitant?

  There weren't many choices in the room. The armchairs by the hearth weren't made to accommodate a man with wings, but there was one straight-backed chair that had been placed near the window. He led her to it and settled her on his lap.

  They stared at each other.

  Maybe it would have been easier at night, in the dark, instead of late afternoon with the heat and light of late summer pouring through the open window. Saetan had cleared this wing, so there were no gardeners working outside, no servants in the hallways. But there was still that awareness of people working and moving throughout the rest of the Hall. If Marian had been sitting on his lap, he wouldn't have thought about those people…couldn't honestly say he'd be thinking about anything at all except her.

  He pushed that thought aside. It wasn't smart to think of Marian right now. They weren't lovers. He wasn't breaking faith with her by being here. And even if they were lovers, seeing a witch through her Virgin Night was a duty to the court, not an act of infidelity. Thinking about that wasn't helping him either. He looked at the brew warming in its glass container. No choice. Using Craft, he lifted the glass container, poured its contents into the two goblets, set the container back on its stand, and extinguished the small tongue of witchfire. When the goblets floated over to him, he handed one to Karla and took the other.

  "What is this?" Karla asked, sniffing cautiously.

  "Night of Fire. A brew made specifically for… this." He braced himself, but couldn't lift the goblet up to drink.

  Karla took a sip. Took another. She stared into the goblet. "You only get to have this once?"

  He studied her as she sipped again. "I suppose so. Why?"

  "Because this stuff is wooonderful."

  Wary, he took a swallow of the brew. Nothing happened. The aphrodisiacs he'd experienced in Terreille worked wickedly fast, pumping lust through a man's body before he realized what had happened to him. But this… He drank again. Waited. It did taste good. Warm. Ripe. Some kind of brandy or wine as the base, but…

  His limbs felt warm, relaxed, heavy. His cock, felt warm and heavy. Desire softly heated his blood, sharpened his senses to the feel and smell of a female. He drained the goblet, then used Craft to send it gliding on air back to the table. Karla's goblet followed a few moments later.

  "What can I do to help you?" she asked, looking at him with lightly glazed
eyes.

  "Kiss me." The feel of her mouth on his, hesitant, exploring. The feel of her body as his hands caressed her. Desire, thick and golden, swam in his blood as his hand cupped her breast. Her tongue in his mouth… Tart and sweet, just like the woman.

  He picked her up and took her to the bed, vanishing her nightgown as he set her down on the sheets. Vanishing his own clothes, he stretched out beside her, putting an Ebon-gray shield around his left hand and forearm before he pinned her wrists above her head. Being a Black Widow as well as a Queen, she had a snake tooth beneath the ring finger of her right hand. He didn't need her pumping venom into him in a moment of panic.

  Her body responded to him as he kissed, caressed, and suckled, but he felt a tension rising in her. She'd fight him when the time came. Even knowing he was doing this for her, she'd still fight him…unless she was sufficiently distracted. There were different ways of protecting a witch during that moment when her life hung by a hymenal thread, but this way…Yes. If she trusted him enough to let him in, she'd be captured, distracted, and protected.

  "Karla," he said, his hand still caressing her. "Will you let me in?" She panted, but it wasn't excitement that made her breathless. "What?"

  A psychic touch. A soft brush against her first inner barrier. "Will you let me in?"

  She flinched at that light touch, too aware that he was strong enough to force open those barriers. But she opened herself to him, let him glide through the surface layers of her mind. She began to shake when he got close to her core. In another moment, she would try to push him out.

  He moved with a warrior's speed and training, wrapping his power around her so fast, she had no time to evade. In his mind, he held a picture of his arms wrapped around her naked body, her back pressed against his chest as tendrils of power strapped her legs to his, leaving her helpless.

  "Hold on," he said…and launched them both skyward.

  Wings pumping. Blue sky above them. He turned…and sent them diving toward a canyon in Askavi that he knew well. While he pictured the canyon's physical details, he didn't take her through the experience of making the Khaldharon Run. He had to keep his attention divided between what he was doing in the real world and this fantasy he was building to distract her. Even in a fantasy, the Khaldharon Run was too dangerous to play with. So he changed it to a straight flight down the center of the canyon, flying at the speed of the Red Wind, flying so close to the river below them a miscalculation would end, with them hitting the water with bone-breaking force.

  She squealed and swore at him, but her body was primed for the taking now. As they approached the wall of stone at the end of the Run, he positioned himself between her legs… and waited.

  They swung up out of the Run and continued flying up, up, up. Releasing the bonds that strapped her legs to his, he flipped her between one pump of his wings and the next so they were now face-to-face. Her arms locked around his neck as he strapped their legs again. His arms wrapped around her, his hard cock pressed against her.

  Up, up, up.

  "Ready?" he asked.

  "For what?" she yelled.

  He laughed, folded his wings, and twisted. For one endless moment, they hung motionless before they plummeted toward the ground far below them. And in that moment when they began the fall, he thrust into her.

  The speed and exhilaration of free fall. He spun them, laughing, while in another place, his body thrust into hers, pushing her toward climax.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and swore at him as the ground rushed toward them and pleasure burst through their bodies.

  He opened his wings, changing the picture in his mind as he glided over treetops to settle them in a glen that was one of his favorite places in Ebon Rih.

  As he laid her on the grass near a pool of water, he unwrapped the power that had held her captive while he withdrew from her body.

  Fully back in the bedroom now, he settled beside her, pulling the sheet up to their waists. They would deal with the practicalities in a few minutes. It wasn't something she needed to see just yet.

  "Mother Night," Karla muttered over and over. She finally opened her eyes. "Is that your idea of a good time?"

  He grinned. "Actually… it is."

  She swore at him.

  She looked a little pissed, a little dazed.

  "It's done," he said gently.

  "What's done?"

  He rested a hand on her belly.

  She stared up at him. "Done? But… how? When?"

  He laughed. "When you were watching the ground come up to meet us."

  "Who said I was watching?" She blew out a breath and finally began to relax. "Well, that was a unique experience."

  He watched the tension build in her and worried about the grim expression that settled over her face.

  "Lucivar," she said, staring at the ceiling. "When I asked Uncle Saetan to arrange this, I wasn't thinking about… I wasn't thinking. But it's not my fertile time. I swear it's not."

  "It's all right. I've been drinking a contraceptive brew for a few weeks now." He'd never had to think about it when he'd lived in Terreille, never had to wonder if the bitches who had used him could get a child out of him. He'd known that he'd somehow made himself infertile in a way the witches who had wanted him for stud couldn't undo. Just as he'd known within a week of Marian's coming to live in his eyrie that he'd turned the key in that lock so that he could flood her with ripe seed. He wanted a child with her, but not without a bond, not without commitment.

  "Why are you drinking a contraceptive brew?" Karla asked. Her eyes widened. "You have a lover, don't you?"

  "No."

  She moved fast, surprising him enough that he ended up on his back with her on top of him.

  "Who is it?" Her mouth curved in a wicked smile. "It's the hearth witch, isn't it? The one you made the garden for."

  Just the thought of Marian primed him. He shoved Karla off him and slipped out of bed while he still could. "Let's get cleaned up."

  "Cleaned—" Karla flipped the sheet back. "Oh."

  When she turned pale, he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of bed and into the bathroom.

  "There's no need to get snarly about it," Karla said.

  He turned on the shower faucets, waited until there was a hint of hot water, picked her up, and planted her under the spray.

  She let out one breathless squeal and tried to punch him when he stepped in behind her.

  He soaped one cloth and shoved it into her hands. "Wash." Soaping up another one, he spun her around and started on her back.

  "If you've been drinking the contraceptive brew for weeks now, you're safe," Karla said as she washed her breasts and belly. "So why aren't you lovers yet? You want her, don't you?"

  "What I want doesn't matter," he growled.

  Swiping the hair out of her eyes, she turned to face him. "Does she want you?"

  "How in the name of Hell am I supposed to know what she wants?" Gritting his teeth, he began washing himself. He watched for signs of interest, didn't he? If he pushed too fast, she'd run. Hell's fire. He hadn't even tried to kiss her yet because he was afraid she'd run, and he needed her there. He needed to be around her.

  His hands curled into fists. He closed his eyes. This wasn't the time or place for anger of any kind. Before he could get his tongue around an apology, Karla nudged him.

  "I'm washed," she said. "Trade places. I'll do your back."

  Frustrated and miserable, he obeyed.

  "It's summer," Karla said as she moved the cloth over his back. "Which means you wear what Eyrien males usually wear during the summer…which is next to nothing, right?"

  "What's your point?"

  "So maybe you're right about not doing anything obvious. Maybe it would be better to wait until she trips by herself and falls into your waiting arms."

  He snorted.

  "I mean it." She gave him a light punch. "Look. There you are, flaunting all these lovely muscles day after day…"

  "I don't fl
aunt."

  "Sure you do. All the males do. You've just got more to flaunt than a lot of them. You can rinse off now."

  He turned to face her to get his back under the spray. "Your point is?"

  "Does she ever get a dreamy look when she's doing something simple?"

  He stuck his head under the spray. "Sure. When she's planning what bulbs to plant for spring flowers."

  "Well, what's she supposed to say? That she's daydreaming about your muscles and it's got her all warm and tingly?"

  He considered that for a moment. "Yeah. Why not?"

  Karla shook her head and smiled at him. "When she finally gets up the nerve to try to seduce you, don't make her work too hard, all right? And don't scare her with that falling out of the sky stuff."

  "She's Eyrien. She'd enjoy free fall."

  Karla just stared at him, then looked down. "You know," she said slowly, "since you've got the water so cold, it's hard to tell if it's true about wings being in proportion to…"

  "Do you want to find out how cold a mountain lake is even in late summer?" he demanded.

  "You've never been in a cold mountain lake until you've been in one in Glacia." She stepped out of the shower. "Taking a swim there will shrivel your assets for a month."

  His response as he turned off the water was pungent and succinct. "That's the Lucivar we all know and love," Karla said, giving him that wicked smile. "Kiss kiss."

  Lucivar stared at the study door. Everything has a price. He'd wanted this since coming to Kaeleer and being reunited with his father three years ago. Now he would finally get the answer to a question that had haunted him.

  Now he wasn't sure he wanted it.

  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he walked into the study.

  Saetan rose from the chair behind the blackwood desk and came around the desk so that he could lean against the front of it. "You did well, Prince."

  He nodded, warmed by the praise but too edgy to respond to it.

  "What's your price, Lucivar?" Saetan asked softly.