“You believe it was a Mage.”
“Aiyah, I do. That seems the most logical answer. Dreams are the place where Azrahn andMena—Spirit—meet, and night is when the dark powers of Azrahn grow strongest.” He reached for the leather belts filled with dozens of Fey’cha throwing daggers and slipped them on one by one, crisscrossing the straps over his chest.
“I told you about my seizures,” she murmured, “and my childhood exorcism. I’ve never told anyone about that before.”
“You did, and you can put your fears of demon possession to rest. I believe someone has been hunting you all your life—the Shadow Man, you called him—and that your nightmares and seizures are the result of his attempts to access your mind.”
“Those afflictions began long before I called you from the sky,” she pointed out. “When I was just a woodcarver’s daughter. No one worth a Mage’s notice.”
He pinned her with a hard look. “Ellysetta, I am the Tairen Soul, the most powerful Fey alive, and you are my truemate, my equal in every way. Even though you have spent a lifetime denying it, your magic is beyond powerful. It always has been. Some part of that power must have attracted the Mages’ attention even though they obviously didn’t know who you were or how to find you.” He picked up his wide leather sword belt and strapped it around his waist.
She watched him fasten the belt buckle and adjust the two curvedmeichascimitars hanging in their sheaths at his hips. A curl of pleasure tightened low in her belly. There was something incredibly intimate about watching Rain dress and don his weapons. The sight roused fresh memories: watching Rain through a dreamy, sensual haze, the feel of his arms around her, the dizzying whirl of stars, a burning, endless emptiness. Other sensations followed the first: Rain’s bare skin beneath her hand; the rich scent of cinnabar oil, magic, and Rain washing over her; the slow, relentless burn of his body filling hers, completing her, immersing her in exquisite sensations like nothing she’d ever known before.
“Rain,” she said in a low, choked voice, “did you... did I...” Her face flamed. “Did you...matewith me last night?”
He went still. His head lifted, his gaze locking on hers. Then he took a step towards her and cupped her face in his hands. His thumbs brushed slowly across her lips, outlining the shape of her mouth. “Aiyah, shei’tani,I did indeed.” Her womb clenched in melting response to the purring satisfaction in his voice and the light, stroking caress of his thumb. “And if I thanked the gods every chime for the next ten thousand years, it would not be enough to honor such a wondrous gift.” Then he frowned. “Though perhaps our mating was a greater gift to me than you, if you do not remember it.”
“I remember.” Her voice came out as a strangled whisper. Everything was coming back to her now. Especially that. “Vividly.” The sudden blaze in his eyes sent fresh waves of heat rolling up and down her body. She scooted back out of range of his enthralling hands.
“Our bodies joined in Spirit only,shei’tani. I did not break my oath to your father. And, believe me, keeping my honor intact has never been so difficult.”
Her brows drew together in consternation as she realized she couldn’t recall the end of last night’s dinner or how she’d gotten home. The memories were clear up to a point, then grew disturbingly hazy, as if parts of the night were wrapped in a fog. She remembered sweet blue wine that packed a surprising punch and being warm, so very, very warm. Oh, gods, what had she done? What sort of fool had she made of herself?
She swallowed. “How did I get home?”
His gaze fell away from hers. He stepped back to retrieve the twoseyanilongswords propped against the window and slid his arms into the harness straps. “I carried you.”
“Because I was ill?” Please let her dim memories be wrong.
“You were not ill.” He settled the two swords in place on his back and bent his head to focus with suspicious concentration on the task of buckling the straps.
“If I wasn’t ill, then why did you carry me?” she persisted. He was Fey, and though he could and would dance around truth and evade questions with far more skill than he was displaying now, the Fey did not lie. When pressed for an answer, he would give her the truth.
He sighed and met her gaze. “You had too much pinalle.”
“I was drunk.” Her stomach lurched at the thought.Nowshe felt ill. Oh, gods, what sort of fool had she made of herself before the nobles whose support Rain was so desperate to win?
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean? What did I do?”
“You’d had too much pinalle.”
“You already said that!”
He gave her a look that made her bite her lip and subside into unhappy silence. “You’d had too much pinalle,” he repeated in a deliberate tone, “and then you had a cup of keflee.” He stopped, a wry look entering his eyes. “Let me just suggest that younotcombine the two in the future.”
Ellie covered her hot cheeks with her hands. “What did I do?” He didn’t answer immediately, and she could see him weighing what to tell her. “Just give me the truth, whatever it is. If you don’t, I’ll drive myself mad conjuring up all manner of awful possibilities.”
“The pinalle lowered your inhibitions,” he admitted, “and the keflee—were you aware that keflee can act as an aphrodisiac on some people?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “You’re one of them, apparently, though in most the reaction is considerably less intense. Of course, it wasn’t until after the fact that your quintet revealed they knew about your... unusually strong... response to keflee. Not that it would have mattered. Who could have guessed you would weave Spirit that way?”
“What way?” she whispered. But she already knew.
“What were you thinking just before I carried you out?”
“Oh, gods.” She buried her face in her drawn-up knees and draped her arms over her head. Blood heating like fire. Desire heightening to unbearable need. A yearning so strong the ache became torment.
“The effects of the weave didn’t wear off until the small bells of the morning. Around three, to be exact. Seven bells of incredibly acute, inescapably relentless sexual desire, Ellysetta. That is what you wove. Oneveryoneat the dinner last night.”
