The Coveted, page 8
“Her power,” Lucius scoffed, his gaze returning to mine. “You’re someone’s pitiful attempt to dethrone me, but all you really are is an annoyance. Whatever power you had has wilted and dried up in my Kingdom, and I think you know that. What are you hiding, little witch?” His eyes narrowed in on me, as dark as his putrid energy.
I fought to keep calm, but his use of Daelon’s pet name for me sent another round of anger shooting through my blood. “Which is it, Lucius? Am I so weak that I’m just a nuisance, or am I so powerful that you think I’m hiding something that could destroy you?”
Daelon glared in my direction, and by the look on both of their faces, I could tell I’d stepped firmly over the line. I was having a hard time caring at the moment, the vision of another witch dead by Lucius’s hand still vivid in my mind.
I braced myself as Lucius shot up from the table. Daelon tensed. I tried to fight hard against my distracting anger so I could build up a magickal defense around my body, and Daelon reached out between us to help. But as Lucius stormed at me, I struggled against the force that slammed into my body. I gripped the table and my hair whipped all around me, but I held his gaze. I would not let him intimidate me.
“You will refer to me as your King. Tomorrow you will get up in front of everyone and bow before me, in a public apology for your little stunt.” He smiled, his loose black curls shifting as an unnatural wind whipped around us. “Practice for me now.”
Daelon’s voice sounded in my mind. Áine, please, he begged. You’re not stronger than him right now, not when you’re unprepared and on his home turf, without help. I can’t watch him hurt you.
“Now,” Lucius repeated. His power broke through my barrier swiftly and brutally, sending me flying out of the chair and onto the carpet. I caught myself on my forearms.
I gritted my teeth, collecting myself and pushing up onto my knees. I was punished for my hesitation, and soon I felt an icy hex around me. It felt like I was suffocating on shards of ice. I knew that I was hurting Daelon now too. I couldn’t risk him intervening and blowing everything up. I ignored every single urge within me to fight back, and it was the hardest thing I’d done so far.
I bowed. My eyes were level with Lucius’s sleek black boots.
“Good girl. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I sort of wish you’d fought back more. I get such pleasure from your pain.”
Ew? What kind of creepy ass shit was that? I didn’t need to glance in Daelon’s direction to know he was fuming inside right along with me.
“Are we done here?” I asked bitterly. Humiliation burned on my cheeks as I raised my head.
“Try again.”
“Are we done here, my King.” I wanted to hurl all over his shoes.
“No. I want to try something.”
There was a pretty good chance that it was something I wasn’t going to be down for. He knelt down in front of me.
“Give me your arm. If you fight you will regret it.”
I so did not want to give this psychopath any part of my body. Panic coursed through me as I wondered if he was powerful enough to enter my psyche this way. If he could, Daelon and I were done for.
He grabbed my arm before I could give it freely, his hand cold and smooth. “Nathaniel told me it was a feeling like no other,” he murmured, cruelty lacing his every word.
I was barely aware of Daelon moving to stand behind Lucius, his tortured eyes meeting mine. I held his gaze, anchoring myself to him so I wouldn’t struggle against the uncomfortable pinch of Lucius channeling through me. I braced myself for the inevitable pain that usually accompanied his unnatural power against mine. It went against my every instinct to allow this to happen, knowing how intimate and invasive it felt.
This was why energy vampires were so detested. Stealing magick from another witch without their consent was cruel. It went against the most basic tenets of morality and autonomy. Our power and gifts were an integral part of who we were, and the thought of Lucius taking any part of me just to feel some kind of high was sickening.
But, as a wave of energy moved through me to him, Lucius gasped, and it was not from pleasure. His face contorted with disgust, and for the first time that I’d seen, with pain. I was starting to think that was a feeling reserved only for his victims. He shot back and away from me, his entire body shaking as he crumpled to the floor.
“What have you done to me, you heretic bitch?” His voice shook as he shuddered. It sounded inhuman, like a feral predator.
I stood up, my brows drawn as I looked to Daelon. He quickly knelt by the King’s side. “This is how your power affects her, brother,” he said quickly. “It’s repelling forces. Just like why we need Amos—that power comes from the old ways.”
Lucius recovered quickly, and I was fully prepared for him try and kill me right then. Instead, he just looked at Daelon. “Well, that was unpleasant. If we don’t find a use for her soon, I want her dead. I don’t care if another futile weapon rises in her place.”
All the air seemed to get sucked from the room as the weight of his words bore down upon us.
He rose, brushing himself off. “Tomorrow at dinner you will bow before me in front of all my subjects. If not, I will kill you brutally and without mercy in front of everyone in the castle. At least that would send a message to the few filthy heretics that are left.”
Daelon’s face paled, but he quickly recovered. “Lucius, you know that’s not the answer. We need her to lure out the traitors. If there’s a deeper plot at play, we can’t make any rash moves without knowing the consequences. What if—”
“The consequence would be that she’d be dead.”
“Or become a martyr. We—”
“Enough, Daelon. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had reservations about my ability to decide what is best for my rule.”
Daelon paused, nodding. “You’re right. I’m only trying to help. Ultimately, it’s up to you.”
Lucius seemed satisfied with this response. “Leave me now. All this conflict has me hard.”
Um, what? Gross?
I made a face. He didn’t need to tell me twice though; I sure as hell was out of here.
“Speaking of, I think Renata has been looking for you, Daelon. She’s been very persistent.”
My stomach churned, and I almost stopped in my tracks. I knew Lucius was still trying to get a rise out of me. He still thought I was heartbroken over Daelon’s betrayal, knowing we were intimate back at the cabin thanks to Nathaniel’s pervy spying on the beach.
Relief flooded my veins as I made it out into a long, empty hallway, barely conscious of guards standing post outside. They glanced curiously in my direction but stiffened when Daelon joined me.
“My place, now,” he whispered once we were out of earshot.
I didn’t protest.
Chapter 7
“Who the hell is Renata?”
Daelon lifted a brow. “Is that seriously the first thing you’re going to ask?”
“I don’t know.” I realized I’d been clenching my fists so hard that my fingernails had torn through flesh. I turned over my palms, my breathing still ragged with anger and a churning feeling in my gut. I could still feel Lucius’s cold hand on my arm, the invasion so personal.
Daelon took my hands in his, inspecting my cut skin. He looked like he wanted to punch another wall, like he had when Lucius overpowered me in the astrals. “She’s no one. Someone I used to sleep with. It doesn’t matter.” He waved a hand dismissively and then ran his fingers through his dark waves of hair. “I hate feeling so powerless. I want to kill him for touching you.”
I decided to move on from the Renata thing for now, though the pang of jealousy was fierce. I knew it was the least important thing to come out of today’s events. “Well, that makes two of us.”
“Are you okay?” Suddenly he was close, and it felt like we hadn’t been this close in so long—the elixir episode aside—our bodies only inches apart as he searched my face and down the length of my body. “Come here.”
I leaned into him as he wrapped his arms around me, tentative at first and then unhesitant. His body was warm and comforting, smelling of its usual woodsy scent. I relaxed as much as I could into his hold, weary from holding back all the power that begged to be channeled. Letting Lucius exert his will over me was fighting against my most innate instincts.
“You know what happened wasn’t your fault, right? None of it was.”
A sob escaped me as I remembered the woman writhing in pain on the carpet, and Daelon ran his fingers through my long hair in an effort to soothe.
“I felt her pain. Like it was a part of me—like it was my own pain. How do you do this? I don’t think I can… it’s too much…”
“Shh,” he whispered into my hair. “You can. Because you have to. Continuing on is the only way to ensure that none of them have died in vain.”
“I hate him. He’s repulsive,” I spat, my voice muffled against his chest.
“Amos likes to say that holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot rock. In the end, you’re the one who gets burned.”
I groaned. “Buddha quote memes might be useful to a middle-aged woman going through a divorce, but I’m pretty sure they’re a bit superfluous when faced with a psychotic witch murderer.”
Daelon chuckled. “Áine, you nearly let your emotions set fire to your bedroom last week. It’s safe to say that your anger can, in a literal sense, burn you.”
Okay, maybe he had a point. “But if I stop feeling it all, then at what point do I lose my humanity?”
“You don’t need to stop feeling it. You just can’t feel it all. You need to find a way to channel it into what’s productive. The future. The revolution. Hope. We’re in the dark night of the soul right now, but faith that this path will deliver us—that’s the only way out.”
“You’ve been here for years,” I breathed. I knew I wouldn’t have lasted so long. “I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
“Even when I wasn’t conscious of it, I always held on to that faith. A part of me always knew you were coming. Nothing has ever made me believe in the impossible more than when I first laid eyes on you.”
I pulled away to look at him, and his hands slid down to the curve of my hips. I wanted to say it then, those three words, but again they dried up on my tongue. “I’m glad he can’t access my power. Even if he could, though, I don’t think he’d ever truly be able to feel it. Not being who he is.”
Daelon’s point about my emotions was easier said than done, despite our weeks of training to detach them from my power. Every time I thought about Lucius’s skin on mine, a fresh wave of intensity threatened to destroy any semblance of that control.
“We need to talk about that woman’s message and what it meant,” I said. “And, of course, the fact that if I don’t become useful soon, Lucius will probably kill me.”
Daelon tensed, his jaw set. “He’s not going to kill you.” He placed his palms on my cheeks and looked hard into my eyes. “I will never let that happen.” He dropped his hands and reached for one of mine, our fingers intertwining. “Come, let’s sit. I think you need a break and time to cool off.”
I opened my mouth to protest. He wanted me to channel my anger into productivity, didn’t he?
“We have time,” he said, before I could speak. We sat down on his long couch with the tall back, my legs in his lap as I leaned against the side. It was close to how we sat last night, which made my stomach do a little somersault. “Did you know that what both Lucius and Nathaniel did to you was against the law?”
“Not seeing how this is going to calm me,” I muttered.
He ignored me. “You’re going to need to learn more about our rules and customs. As you know, energy sharing is intimate. It’s only allowed consensually. It can be pleasurable, like a drug, but it can also be useful. Like when I’m able to share parts of myself with you, or when I can channel through you for my own spells, since you’re so much more powerful. Energy vampires, of course, lay at the fringe of society. They chase power and highs as a way of life. But people here in the Kingdom have also been known to do what they do from time to time. It’s now codified into law that it’s prohibited.”
“Then why isn’t Nathaniel in the dungeons?” I muttered.
He sighed. “Why do you think? People at the top aren’t usually bound by the same laws as the rest of the world.” His hands on my legs, trailing absentmindedly as he spoke, warmed me from within. His touch chased away all of the darkness. “There’s a parable we tell our children and others who we fear will step out of line. It’s been told for centuries, all over the realm. It’s called the Parable of the Coveter and the Painter. It goes like this: Once there was a great artist, blessed by the Goddess—or King, if it’s told here in the Kingdom—with the gift of creating otherworldly paintings.
“Anyone who gazed upon these paintings felt themselves transported by the painter’s brushstrokes, like they could feel exactly what she wanted them to feel. It inspired artists, philosophers, and religious figures throughout the realm, blown away by her beautiful and transcendent magick. Her paintings changed lives. Then one day a man came along who wanted her gift for himself so badly that he kidnapped her. He syphoned her magick day and night until he finally felt that he had stolen her gift. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, but even a short time with her gift he thought would be enough. So, he started painting, and at first glance the paintings were perfectly beautiful. He called all of the greats in the land to see his work, hoping they would be just as influenced as they had been before. But as they gazed upon them, all they felt was her pain. They felt disgust and fear, and soon they all fell ill with depression and insanity, convinced the world was a dark and cold place. It started a ripple effect across the land, swallowing up all magick and beauty until there was nothing left. The woman died, and what was left of her gift dried up. The man was left with nothing except the knowledge that he ruined the entire realm for generations to come.”
I blinked at him, slowly. I shook my head, a small smile breaking through. “Imagine trying to distract someone from their pain by telling them literally the most depressing story I’ve ever heard. What is wrong with you?”
Suddenly the most inappropriate reaction possible bubbled up within me. I started laughing. Then Daelon started laughing, and I couldn’t remember the last time we had laughed together like this. It was a burst of pent-up tension and volatility, scooping us both up in the most unexpected current of release.
“Why are you laughing?” Daelon asked, his usually tense features crinkled and amused.
“Why are you laughing?” I giggled, intertwining my fingers through his absentmindedly.
Daelon grinned, shrugging. “Well, my distraction methods worked. You’re making the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Well, actually, I do quite enjoy some other sounds you make.”
I stilled, feeling heat creep to my cheeks. “Oh. Are you sure you don’t prefer Renata’s?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.
Daelon rolled his eyes. “It’s cute that you’re jealous, but hell no.” And in a flash his hands were around my waist, and he was on top of me. “The sounds you make when I touch you are the only ones I ever think about. The faces you make. The way you tense up, the way you shake…”
I felt my toes curl, my body responding to his words and the way his hips met mine. I took a breath. “We have so much to talk about, so much we didn’t get a chance to say with Amos there. What—”
“Later,” he said, and his words were final. “We’ll figure it all out. Together.”
Together. It was such a simple, straightforward word, yet I found myself lost in its possibilities. Back at the cabin, I always had one foot out the door without even realizing it. It was a necessity when there was still so much unknown, doubt, and confusion. But now it felt like we were finally standing on solid ground, even if that ground was barren and cold. We were standing here, together.
Daelon’s lips found mine, his hand cradling the side of my face. I’d never been kissed like this—ever—in my life. All of my racing thoughts and unanswered questions began to melt away as our lips moved together. They moved slowly at first, like our bodies were becoming reacquainted, but soon the temperature began to rise. We mirrored each other hungrily. My hand reached into his waves of hair as his moved down to the tender part of my throat. My breath hitched when he pulled away, only to trail his lips down to my neck, across my collarbones, and then back to my lips. We lost ourselves in each other. And in our touch lay desire that went so far beyond physical that it touched the deepest, most hidden parts of my soul.
I tried to pull away, but he chased after me, and I was lost once again. His hips pressed against mine—more than his hips, actually—and it took everything within me to put a hand on his chest and stop him.
“Wait,” I breathed. I needed him to know this before I was under his spell again, utterly and completely, stuck in that space where I couldn’t even form a single coherent thought. His touch was featherlight as he trailed his hand along my cheekbone, and our gazes locked. “I love you too.”
He grinned, kissing my knuckles. “I’m sorry that the first times I said it were… less than ideal. I was desperate for you to know. I was terrified I was going to lose you forever after what I had to do. But Áine, I love you more than I ever thought possible. I’d lost hope that love like this even existed.”
“Me too,” I said, and I meant it. After so many years hiding and suppressing who I was, even to my closest human friends, I forgot how it felt to have someone know and love every single part of me. Not since my mothers. And now I understood that Daelon had been living exactly the same way since he’d lost his parents too. “But…”
His brows creased. I didn’t want to ruin this moment, but I knew it would nag me until I said it. It was something that had crept up after I’d shown him the depths of my power on our visit to the beach, before Nathaniel ruined it all. Sometimes when he looked at me, it felt as though he was seeing my purpose, my magick, and my capabilities. What if he thought he loved me, but it was the forces that moved through me that he really loved? The forces that connected us to our lost home.
