Annoura sat on a gilt chair beneath the largest canopy next to Prince Dorian and his future bride, Lady Nadela. Theshei’dalin, robed and veiled in unrelieved scarlet, was seated nearby, with her black-leather-clad Fey quintet behind her. Dorian and Lord v’En Solande stood some distance away in a smaller, less festive gathering of lords that included Teleos, Clovis, Nin, and Fann. Kolis had no doubt what they were discussing.
He caught a nearby page and handed him a folded, sealed note. “Deliver this—discreetly, mind you—to Lady Montevero, that lady in blue standing near the queen.” He tossed the boy a gold coin for his troubles and headed back into the palace to a small reading library to wait.
A quarter bell later, the library door inched open and Jiarine slipped inside, locking the door behind her. Sky-blue sapphires and diamonds glittered at her throat and wrists, accenting the pretty blush in her cheeks and the soft powder-blue silk of her gown.
“That blue suits you, my sweet.” The color lent a deceptive air of innocence to a woman who was anything but. He dragged her to him andtsked over the bruises on her throat hidden by carefully applied layers of powder. “Those buffoons at the dinner werecareless with you. You should have insisted on better manners. But then, I know you didn’t mind, did you, pet?” He smiled and stroked a finger along her jaw as the color in her cheeks deepened.
She yanked her face away and scowled at him. “You didn’t tell me what that Feraz spell would do,” she accused. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
He lifted a brow, but let her impertinence pass. There would be time enough later to teach Jiarine the expected subservience of anumagi. “My dear, I didn’t know. Thetalisdoesn’t cause a specific reaction; it only enhances its target’s emotions and rouses a magical response. If she’d been cold, the room might well have ended up coated in ice.”
“You left me. You left me there to them.”
“I don’t favor men. Especially not foul, droolingbogrotslike Lord Bevel. Not even while existing in your sweet body.” His hand trailed down her throat and followed the low scoop of her gown’s neckline. Her breasts swelled against the bodice’s narrow bands of fabric. He saw the hint of another bruise disappearing beneath the fabric and knew those marks on her throat weren’t the only ones she bore.
“Who had you, Jiarine? Give me their names.” His hands stroked across her bodice in featherlight, teasing brushes.
She shuddered and closed her eyes.
“Their names, pet. Bevel I know. Who else, hmm?” He knew her well enough to know there’d been more than one.
“Purcel.” The admission grated its way past clenched teeth.
“Purcel?” Kolis chuckled. “You’re a stronger lure than I suspected. The man’s a walking corpse. I doubt he’s been able to raise more than a finger in a decade.” His mind raced through reams of data he’d committed to memory long ago. Purcel’s estates were rich with iron and coal, and his foundries placed him second only to Lord Clovis as Celieria’s greatest producer of steel. Vadim Maur would be pleased to gain such a conquest. “Who else?”
Kolis’s hand slid into her bodice and lifted one breast free. The creamy skin, porcelain-fine and pale as milk, was marred by dark, finger-sized bruises and curved lines that looked like teeth marks. Her nipple was tight and pebbled. He brushed his thumb across it and watched her flesh jump in response. “Who gave you these little bites?” He bent his head and traced one of the bite marks with the tip of his tongue.
She gasped and grabbed his shoulders. “Ponsonney.”
“Ah... yes, I’ve heard that about him. Did he show you his walking stick?” He licked her nipple and grazed it with his teeth. She rewarded him with a sudden wave of heat and the musky-sweet scent of her arousal.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“Did he use it on you?” He raised her skirts and ran his hand up over the silk of her stockings, past the beribboned garters to the soft, bare skin of her inner thighs. Her hips jumped forward.
“Yes.” Her voice was tight and choked.
“And did you like it?” Wetness soaked his hand as he stroked her. She rose up to the tips of her toes in an unconscious move to give him better access. Her hips began a familiar rhythmic grind against his hand.
“Yes!”
Kolis smiled and worked her with his hand and mouth, enjoying the eager way she responded to his touch and the scattered images and remembered sensations from the other night that filtered from her mind to his. She’d let them use her in every way a man could use a woman, and she’d reveled in it, begged them for it, wept and pleaded for their hands, their mouths, their cocks inside her. He bit down on her nipple at the same time as his thumb pressed hard on the small bud of straining flesh until she cried out and came in a sudden, jerking rush.
“Good,” he purred when her spasms slowed to small shudders. “I want their votes. Get them for me. And I want Mull and GreatLord Harrod too. Do what you must.” He clasped her shoulder and pressed her down to her knees before him. Without instruction, her hands went to the buttons of his trousers. Of all hisumagi, Jiarine was the one whose insatiable appetites most closely matched his own. “I know how”—his voice broke off and he gave a faint groan as her mouth closed around him—“persuasive you can be.” It was his turn to close his eyes.
A half bell later, Kolis stood watching from behind a marble column as Jiarine rejoined the courtiers gathered beneath the large canopy. She moved around the crowd with easy grace, pausing at the queen’s side to murmur something in Annoura’s ear that made the queen smile. After one brief glance over her shoulder, Jiarine lifted a flute of iced pinalle from a passing servant and strolled across the lawn towards Great Lord Harrod.
Kolis stepped away from the column into plain view and waited for Queen Annoura to catch a glimpse of him. He knew the moment she did. Even from a distance, he could see her body go motionless. He held her gaze for a long, hypnotic moment, long enough to refresh her memory of sultry Ser Vale’s appeal, then turned away, knowing she would be thinking of her Favorite for the rest of the day. Temptation, as Kolis had long ago learned, worked best when delight was just out of reach, and despite Annoura’s resistance, her hunger for forbidden pleasures was growing stronger with each passing day.
Lauriana sat across from Selianne Pyerson at a small window-front table in Pimbold’s bustling keflee shop on King’s Street, where she and Selianne had come after the day’s devotions. A small blue-and-silver-wrapped gift—Selianne’s wedding present to Ellysetta—lay forgotten on the table between them. Lauriana’s reflection in the window showed a face as stricken as her heart felt upon hearing Selianne’s whispered news... rumors whispered in confidence from a friend with palace connections.
Ellysetta had been part of some... somecarnal banquetat the palace two nights ago. The results of a spell woven by the Tairen Soul.
“I’m sorry, Madame Baristani.” Selianne reached across the table to clasp Lauriana’s hands. “I didn’t know what to do, but I thought you should know.”
“No, Selianne, you were right to tell me.” Pulling her distracted thoughts back to order, Lauriana patted the younger woman’s hand.
“I’m frightened for Ellie, Madame Baristani. I’m frightened of what’s happening to her, of what will become of her when the Fey take her away. I know you’ve always been a beacon of strength for her. I fear what will happen when she doesn’t have you to guide her.” Selianne lowered her eyes and hesitated, as if gathering courage to speak. “My mother has a friend... a sea captain.... He’s agreed to offer Ellie safe passage on his return voyage. He can take her away to someplace where she’d be safe from the Fey.”
