“Is the oil still where I left it?” he asked, but opened a drawer and said, “Yes, so it is,” before I answered. Thank Ennolu, because I didn’t think I could speak. My whole body vibrated with a horrid mix of my oncoming curse and the force of my magic’s need for him.
Or my body’s need for him. Or…they were one.
Wewere one. My spiritual essence and my physical being, fused into a single, harmonious entity, and what a moment to understand what it meant to be a mage, as Stefan slid slick fingers between my cheeks without a word, gently but without any tenderness or grace. I bit my lip and turned my face further into the bedding, whimpering at the intrusion of his finger, the roughness of his calluses against the wet softness of my hole.
I’d seen an optical illusion once: a clever carving done in semi-translucent crystal that appeared to be a flowering tree when viewed from one angle, and became a beautiful woman when turned a few degrees to the left. Today, everything I’d ever known had been turned a few degrees to the left: I’d always believed that giving myself to another man would be a part of my curse. A punishment.
Now I saw it for the gift it was: wholeness, strength, his vitality joined to mine, my magic and my body singing in perfect unison with the joy of the pleasure I could take from him and return to him, amplified each time.
A rustle of fabric told me Stefan had undone his breeches. His clothed thighs pressed against my bare skin. I held mybreath, every nerve quivering, as he spread me apart with one big hand, the tip of his cock starting to open me, stretch me to fit him.
Mages born in the middle of the night without a curse might be free to use their power as they wished, without another man’s involvement. They wouldn’t need to stifle their moans in a mattress to keep their magic alive. But they’d never have more than their own power. They’d never feel what I felt now, a flush of energy in every cell in my body as Stefan’s cock thrust into it, the pressure behind my balls sending sparks flying up my spine, my own cock painfully hard and trapped in a fold of the dressing gown, the silk caressing me to madness.
And Stefan, deep within me, every stroke of his thick cock over my sensitive flesh driving me to madness, my magic swirling in kaleidoscopic colors, building, building…
His thrusts pushed me off my feet, and he wrapped his hands around my hips, lifting me up and holding me in place to be filled.
That was enough, more than enough, and my magic and I both turned inside-out, my spend soaking into the blanket. Stefan went rigidly still, his cock still hard and his hands gripping me like iron. My whole body trembled, my mind going fuzzy around the edges and my eyelids drooping shut, but my magic sang a clear, high note, resonant and sweet.
Stefan withdrew from me, cock sliding out slowly, and that beautiful tone dissolved into discordance, jangling my nerves like the loosened strings of an ill-tuned lyre.
“Let go of the dressing gown, Remi,” he said, voice a little hoarse but otherwise calm enough. I obeyed him, and he tugged it down, covering my ass and whatever he’d done to it. If I could see through his eyes…would he find the sight of my wet, well-used hole satisfying? Arousing all over again? Or simply distasteful? “Send for me if you require anything. As always.”
His footsteps retreated, and I didn’t move until the door had opened and shut behind him.
Silence. Even my magic had gone quiet.
I slowly pushed up off the bed, wrapped the robe around me, and made my way to the bath. His spend trickled down my thighs.
I’d need to get used to this, wouldn’t I? This quick, impersonal coupling, the loneliness and emptiness that came after. The loss, every time I needed Stefan to soothe my curse, of what could have been, the greater, higher harmony that could’ve sung through me with every kiss and touch.
This would be the last time I ran the bathwater to hide the sound of my tears. Ennolu as my witness, it would be the last time. And no one would see how much it cost me. Not Aldrich, not those sharklike Nevaian courtiers, and particularly not Stefan. If he could wear a mask that he wouldn’t remove even for me, not even when he bent me over and owned me body and soul, then I could do the same.
I had to.
Chapter Twenty
“…and Lord Marzio said,” and here the lady speaking lowered her voice and leaned in, the tall purple plumes on her headdress bobbing, “that all of Dromos’s demons would’ve blushed at the sounds coming from that room!”
I let out a small, shocked sound along with the other three people listening to her story. Duke Lucian and Lord Benedict had recently left Nevaia to oversee the summer campaign against the mountain raiders who harried Calatria’s northeastern border. Along the way, they’d apparently spent the night in Lord Marzio’s manor, and he’d lost no time in spreading the details of their visit.
It didn’t sound like they’d spent much of the night sleeping. Based on my limited personal experience of Lord Benedict, I wasn’t shocked, and I was even less surprised. But I’d spent the last two months since making my new bargain with Stefan trying to acclimate to Nevaia’s high society, and one of the first things I’d learned had been to do precisely what everyone else did as often as possible. If they were laughing, laugh. If they were drinking wine, take a glass.
And if they were gasping in delighted mock-horror at a bit of prurient gossip about the beautiful duke and his notoriously, adoringly lusty consort, then gasp.
In this case, my gasp conveniently covered a sigh. Stefan’s meeting with his father had gone well, so he’d told me, with Lord Ettori satisfied with the results of his kidnapping, threats,and poisoning. It’d also meant that Lady Estella had resigned herself to my existence, recognized that establishing me here would make Stefan more likely to stay, and begun to encourage her friends to acknowledge us. This garden party, given by one of her bosom cronies and therefore a required event for Stefan and me, had been endless and stultifying even by Nevaia’s high standards. On my island, the middle of the summer had been hot, but not oppressively so. Sea breezes swept over the island at all times of the year. But here, a warm wind from the hills pushed the cooling ocean air out from the shore, leaving the capital a sweltering, sweating misery.
Especially in a fucking corset. Gods. Aldrich had told me, with the blissfully smug air of a man wearing a loose cotton shirt underneath a light linen jacket, that some discomfort was naturally attendant on the pursuit of fashion. If I hadn’t been quite so immobilized by the teal blue watered silk contraption he’d laced me into, I’d have shown him some discomfort.
My face had to be nearly as red as my hair, even standing here languidly in the shade of a spreading chestnut tree at the edge of the lawn. Did I dare use magic to find some relief? Here in public, where anything that went terribly wrong would cause an uproar, in addition to possibly lighting my clothing on fire? I’d only done that once, so far, but Aldrich’s terrified cry still echoed in my mind.
I had to, though, or I’d faint, and someone would unlace my disgusting damp corset and peel it off of me in horror in front ofeveryone. Oh, Ennolu, that someone might be Stefan. That would be worse than going up in flames.
The lady relating Lord Benedict’s perversions had moved on to the awkward way Duke Lucian had mounted his horse the next morning, and I contributed the required “Oooh!” while turning my focus inward.
Like any large city, Nevaia had its share of mages. Many of them took pupils, and my mother had recommended one she’d known long ago and trusted. She and I had exchanged letters every week, and I’d kept her up to date on the three-times-weekly lessons I’d been taking. We hadn’t yet found a good time for a visit, but I hoped I’d have something to show her when we did.
And for that, I needed to practice, damn it, no matter how strongly my tutor had emphasized—in gruesome and graphic detail—how one ought not to try to regulate the temperature of a living thing.
