Aemon stood, holding his hand out for me. His aura had calmed but as I reached for the shard beside me, nestled inmy blankets, there was a flash of darkness in his eyes. An overwhelming surge of power that I felt down in my bones.
I slowed my breathing. “Perhaps I am not ready for a visitor just yet.”
“Do you want breakfast in bed? Do you want me to grovel? Get down on my knees for you?” He raised his eyebrows. “Lick between your legs?”
Lissa stifled a gasp in the corner.
Aemon chuckled. “Don’t worry … Lissa,” he said, pulling her name from her mind. “She likes to be watched.”
“Leave her alone.” I groaned. “I’ll come and meet your chayatim.” Despite my wariness, I was curious. And hungry to pull any memories she might have of Jules from her mind.
Carefully, I set the shard down, and walked to a pair of tall black riding boots that Parthenay had an akadim procure on my command. Before I could reach for the laces, Aemon was before me, on his knees, staring up with a level of care I didn’t think possible as he threaded and tied up each boot.
“I told you I’d get on my knees for you.”
“And between my legs,” I said.
He grinned. “Trust me, kitten, the moment you ask it of me, I will.”
Something heated inside me. A spark that reminded me of all the times we’d been together. But I stared ahead. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to remember. Didn’t want to forgive. I just wanted to right the wrongs in Lumeria. To free Jules. To free all of my kind. The rest was too complicated.
With the final lace tied, he smoothed his hand over my knee, letting the touch linger between us.
“I know you’re still angry with me. I understand. But do you know how many centuries I waited to find you?” he asked.
I reached for the shard, holding it above his head, keeping it tauntingly in his eyeline.
“Considering the poor execution of your plan, I would have waited longer,” I snapped.
“I couldn’t,” he said, the intensity in his eyes somehow amplified as they tracked my movements. “The time had come.”
I shook my head. “Sometimes I don’t know if you’re speaking to me, or the crystal.”
“Why can I not speak to both?” he purred. “You are so much more connected than you know, than you remember.” He rose to his feet and then reached for a black shawl, reverently wrapping it around my shoulders. “You’ll need a crown next,” he said. “Maraaka.It will look so beautiful atop your raven hair.”
A shiver ran down my spine as he called me “queen” and I rested my fingers in his palm. I’d been calling myself queen for days. Acting like one, too. But prancing around a cave of akadim, having only two mortal subjects to do my bidding … it felt like I was playing dress up, a child in an endless fever dream. Hearing it on his lips made it feel real. Made me feel like I was true royalty.
“You like the idea,” he said, smiling seductively.
“I like a lot of ideas.”
“Stubborn girl.” He laughed.
“Lissa, wait here,” I said. “Tidy my room, and then have a long breakfast. Eat as much as you want.”
“Yes,Maraaka,” she said, staring at her feet. She hardly ate, despite my best efforts.
“Nice meeting you, Lissa,” Aemon purred. Then turned to me, and whispered in my ear, “You don’t want her attending you at Court.”
“She fears the akadim,” I said.
He lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “And you keep her here, still?”
I didn’t need to read his mind to know his thoughts about that. But he shrugged, and led me into the Allurian Pass’sstone corridors, down the stretch of hall into the Seating Room.
Torches flickered from every corner of the cavernous walls, and all at once, the grunts from akadim fell silent as they all dropped to their knees in supplication. Hundreds of silver collars around their necks gleamed in the torchlight. I sifted through the mass of bodies, of large extended limbs that ended in claws, ones that still made me want to cower in fear.
But behind them, interspersed were more and more of theothers. The ones whose eyes remained intelligent, whose bodies were clearly akadim, sharp, and deadly. And yet … less. Smaller, and not as threatening. The ones who were easier to look at.
