Warrior Witch: Book Two, page 10
Kye slid out of her leather pants, then started on her shirt buttons, stripping down to thin linens that hugged her thighs and a camisole. “You’re staring.” She undid her braid.
Jack cleared his throat and looked up at the ceiling.
“Now you’re blushing.” She laughed, striding to him. “I’ve never met a witch so troubled by a little bare flesh. Plenty of us run about in the heat on this island in far less than I’m wearing now.”
“I’m not troubled by bare flesh.” His rough voice gave him away. “Not usually.”
“Just my bare flesh?” Her breath skimmed his folded arms.
He ground his teeth, warring against the urge to wrap her up, hold her tight. He wanted something from her, but he sensed she needed more from him in return. More that would add heaps to the weight on his shoulders. More than he could give. He wasn’t made that way, had never been that sort of gentleman. His romantic entanglements were short and shallow because sex was a release, but attachments always ended painfully.
“You want me,” he said.
“So blunt?” Her eyebrows rose. “I should be used to that from you by now, I suppose. Yes, Jack, I do. I want to be with you.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
She swallowed. “I assumed as much. Witches aren’t usually the celibate type. Male witches, or the ones I’ve known, tend to be especially free spirited . . . That would describe you as well, I take it?”
“Yes.”
Color darkened her cheeks. “I see . . . I don’t condemn you for that, you should know. I haven’t been quite so free with myself, but I won’t hold your past against you.”
“That’s very kind, but you should hold it against me,” he said gruffly.
She met his eyes, hers curious with a hint of something else. Disappointment turned down the corners of her mouth. “Why?” she asked quietly.
“There isn’t a single woman I’ve been with that I didn’t hate afterwards.”
Kye sucked in a breath. “That’s . . .”
“. . . how lust works. I wanted them, got them, then needed them far away from me.”
“Not one of them was special to you?”
He shook his head. “Not one.”
“Would you hate me afterward?”
He mussed his hair, looking at her. Really looking at her. The silence grew leaden, begging to be filled until Jack thought he might burst if he didn’t say or do something.
He decided on blunt honesty: “I don’t know.”
She shifted closer, and her magics tickled his skin. Studying his face, she cautiously laid a hand on his arm. “I don’t think you could hate me.”
Jack pressed his body against hers so suddenly she gasped. He pinned her to the wall with his weight and his hips, and he stole her mouth, his lips aggressive against hers. It was a kiss that laid claim and plundered. His hands fisted into her hair—her beautiful hair. Smooth as satin in his fingers.
When he released her mouth, he buried his face in the silky strands of white and waited there, breathing in the scent of sunlight and blossom trees, suddenly certain he’d gone too far, been too rough.
“Jack.” The word was a quiet plea.
A plea for more.
Kye rubbed her cheek against the stubble on his. He kissed her again, just as hard as before. She tasted as sweet and wild as she smelled. She bit his lip, dipped her tongue into his mouth, meeting his rough touches with her own demanding ones.
What he felt for her threatened to be more than attraction. Thoughts of the future tensed his muscles as he explored her neck with his lips. He hid his eyes there, holding her to him, as her soft magics caressed him.
Jack’s mind whirled. He couldn’t release her but wouldn’t take more either, no matter how his body and his magics protested. He felt trapped. Paralyzed. Her ragged breath blew into his ear. Her heart hammered against his chest. He wanted to bury his face in the soft mounds under her camisole.
He didn’t. Jack resisted as a flood of emotions stirred in his gut, battling with each other. Her hands slipped around his waist, clinging to him. She tried to make him look at her, tried to shift her weight. He kissed her throat, then finally lifted his head.
“You’re so tense. Why?” She cupped the coiled and quivering muscles of his back.
“What’s your plan for your bride price?” he said, breathless. “Why don’t you seem to need Marnie anymore?”
Her tongue went to her cheek. “My magics have a plan. It scared me at first, made me run away from you, but I’ve decided I need to listen to them—I want to listen. They’ve never failed me before and you’re . . .”
“What?” he demanded, tightening his hold on her hair.
“You’re what I want.” The skin of her chest colored beautifully.
He gritted his teeth. “All I’m offering you is a release. That’s it.”
“You’ve been quite plain on the subject. I don’t think I can walk away now even if I wanted to. God, Jack, your magics . . .” she purred. Her eyes rolled back in her head. “Your magics are cold on my skin. It always feels incredible in this heat.” She ran her hands down his torso. “You feel incredible. And the smell of it . . .” She leaned forward and licked his chin.
Fire burst in his gut. She pressed her belly against the growing length in his trousers, and he groaned at the contact.
“Why do you look so angry with me?” A line deepened between her brows. “You kissed me first, so stop looking at me like I’ve trapped you somehow.”
Guilt battled the fire in him. He ached to smooth away her frown, but he didn’t dare touch her lips. Jack sucked in a breath and held it until his lungs screamed. He released her, turning away.
“I’m not angry with you,” he said, his voice full of raw emotion. He stared at the window, the lantern on the wall, the bed with its tangled blankets. Everywhere but at her.
“What is it, then?”
He chanced a glance her way. Kye’s lips were red, fuller where his mouth had been rough. She tried to smooth down the hair that his fingers had rumpled. Her chest rose and fell with her uneven breaths.
Her camisole was too thin. It hid nothing. More ink curled down her ribs; a Sidra star encased her belly button. He wanted to run his tongue over it.
Like she knew his mind, she leaned her head back against the wall. “Please tell me you’re going to kiss me again, Jack.”
“I’m not going to marry you,” he huffed.
Her eyes glinted, edged by hurt, but the emotion disappeared in a blink. She smirked. “You were right the first time we met. I asked my magics for a way out of being paired. They brought me to you . . .”
“You’re engaged—”
“But not married. The Cloth can’t pair me if I have a husband already.”
“I’ll help you find your fortune so you can pay off the bride price. I’ll help you get your freedom. I’m willing to give you a release, here and now, but that’s it. I’m not one of your rare animals to hunt. You won’t catch me like you do them.” The invisible weight on his shoulders pressed him into the floor, making him feel flat and powerless. His muscles clenched, fighting the sensation.
“You want to be a witch about this, but a release alone isn’t enough for me.” Her lips quirked. “It won’t be enough for you either.”
“I won’t marry you,” he insisted, sensing he might as well have been talking to the wall for all the good it did him.
“This debate is looping in circles, and I’m exhausted by it. Go figure your head out, Jack,” she said, with enough heat and longing in her stare his mouth went dry. “There’s something between us, and that isn’t going to evaporate simply because you don’t like it. You can’t run away from it either. I know, I already tried, but go on and see for yourself. See how far you get.”
***
Jack spent the next week at the manor, promising himself he was not avoiding Kye. He was not running away. He just had work to tend to, and Marnie needed him. The stress of the apprenticeship was getting to her again, causing nightmares. He slept on her floor more often than his own bed, comforting her with their shared bond.
Jack rid the gardens of poltergeists, used a spell to remove rust from the lawn equipment, and cured a maid of a cough. He kept busy until late in the evening, resisting the urge to visit the cottage, to check on Kye.
The sun dropped, turning the sky orange. He entered the manor through the servant’s entrance as his stomach alerted him to his hunger. He intended to interrupt dinner, looking for Marnie and food. When he rounded on the dining room, only Bran was at the table, sitting under a gilded chandelier with crystal draperies. He ignored the remaining food on his half-empty plate. His black hair dangled over his eyes, emperor’s stole slung over the back of his chair.
Bran didn’t look up from his newspaper—or what was left of it. That morning Jack had cut out several squares full of anti-witch rhetoric so Marnie couldn’t read it and make herself sick worrying. Wood District was losing workers to Magus District’s rubber sap operations and gold mine. Magus District was undercutting prices on raw materials. Somehow it was all Marnie’s fault for gifting Magus District with alchemical answers that made mining safer and more efficient. She was repeatedly named as the butcher of Wood District’s economy, allegedly driving non-witch-owned business into the ground.
Magus District was able to undercut prices because of a generous investment from Lady Annette Becker, a revenge-fueled venture designed to put Master Becker, her former father-in-law, out of the rubber business. The only desperate course of action available to Master Becker now was to stir up prejudices against witches. But these were no longer what they used to be, not since Marnie served as an apprentice the first time. Annette would soon be buying up all his factories, proving herself to be the talented, ruthless mogul Jack long ago suspected she was.
Lady Becker was the true butcher.
Witch-kind needed their “hero witch” with her head on straight, so Jack cut out the worst articles and cautioned Marnie not to bother looking for them elsewhere. She listened about half the time.
Thinking of witches and their plight brought Kye back to the forefront of his mind, a place she often frequented these days. She lived in his dreams, his fantasies. The image of her in her thin camisole, thoroughly kissed and eager for more burned behind his eyelids.
Jack plopped down in a walnut chair beside the emperor, suddenly feeling twice as heavy as before. “Where’s Marnie?”
“We were supposed to have dinner together.” Bran would appear calm and collected to the untrained eye. Jack knew him better. A muscle in his jaw tightened as he poked a finger through one of the holes in the newsprint. “She must be dealing with something for her apprenticeship. She’s not at the manor—I checked.”
“Lady Becker?”
Bran’s grin was crooked. “I’ve flustered her again. She keeps dropping heavy hints that with her signature and mine, Marnie could be legally wed, regardless of her feelings about the matter. She doesn’t like the way I dodge the conversation with her, so she chose to dine elsewhere tonight. With the butler, I think.”
“Marnie would murder you both.” Jack sniffed at Bran’s half-eaten plate.
“I know.” He sighed, turning the page, squinting around another missing article. “Tempting, though.”
“I need advice and possibly a loan. A large loan.” Jack stole his plate, dragging it in front of him.
Bran lowered the paper, his brown eyes alight. “You’ve never asked me for money before. Marnie sometimes, but never me.”
“I don’t ask, because it wouldn’t be honorable.” Jack stole his knife and fork next.
Bran waved his words away. “My parents took you in when you were a boy. You’re the closest thing I have to a sibling. I’d be more generous with you if you’d let me. Ask for it, and it’s yours.” He stared into space for a moment. “You’ve never asked me for advice, either, now that I think on it.”
“You give me advice all of the time.” Jack spoke with his mouth full.
“Yes, but not because you asked for it.” Bran poured himself a glass of cucumber water from the pitcher on the table. “I give out advice for free. Apparently, it’s a bad habit of mine. Marnie insists I’m insufferable when I do it to her.”
“You are insufferable, but you’re also clever most of the time, and you know how the law works. I need law advice now. A witch friend of mine, the one staying at the cottage—she needs out of a pairing to a priest.”
“Your friend is from Stejin?” Bran rolled up the butchered newspaper and sat it beside his water. A smile sprung to his face. “So, here you are, asking me for money and advice . . . because of a girl. Why, I never thought this day would come.” He leaned in. “I’d like to meet her.”
Jack grunted at his plate. He cut the chicken into smaller bits with ruthless swipes of his knife. “No. You can’t meet her. Not yet. Tell me how to get her out of this pairing.”
“Not yet? Pity . . .” Bran tapped the table, thrumming his fingers repetitively. “You need a loan, so I’m guessing someone has already paid her bride price. That complicates things a bit.”
“Refund her bride price, and I’ll ask Lady Becker to add her to the staff here. You have the treasury of Loreley at your disposal. Add her to the palace if you must.”
“Loreley has strict laws against slavery and indentured servitude. Exchanging money for her services violates those laws, were I to pay her bride price and then not wed her myself . . . or to someone else.” His grin turned suggestive.
“But selling young brides is lawful?” Jack asked, incredulous.
“I don’t condone it, but selling brides and requiring a legally binding marriage is designed to keep witches from becoming slaves or street girls. Adding the price assigned them value, ensured fathers and masters took care of them to increase that value. Pairing isn’t practiced in the capital anymore. Rarely in Acheus. Witches have more opportunities here, but Stejin is slow to get with the times.”
“Too bad it isn’t common in the capital. You could have bought Marnie up already.” Jack forked more chicken into his mouth, chewing around a grin.
Bran chuckled. “It’s a shame, really, when you think about it that way. I could have paid her price a long time ago and then had no choice but to marry her.”
“You’re the emperor and not a priest. No one wants a scary natural-magic-wielding witch having that much authority. You’d make her queen of the island. People would revolt.”
“Yes, but eventually it would all calm down, and because she had no say in it, she couldn’t feel guilty when I had to use force to put down a few riots. She’d be a nightmare, though, locked up in the palace for her protection. She’d want to save everybody . . .”
“You’d let it all burn for her, wouldn’t you? If she’d just ask you to, you’d fight it out and win. People would die, but maybe Loreley would be better for it in the end.”
“An excellent idea,” he said sarcastically. “Let it all burn, then off into the blazing sunset we go . . .” Bran drank deeply from his glass, then set it aside with a heavy exhale. “You’re not here to lament the unfairness of my relationship. Let’s hurry back to yours, please.”
“I’m not in a relationship.” Jack speared the chicken, glowering over the plate. “You know me. None of my swift entanglements could be called a relationship.”
“Um-hm,” Bran said, sounding entirely unconvinced.
Jack hurried to change the subject. “What happens to my friend when she rejects the priest and pays back her bride price?”
“Paying back the price doesn’t guarantee her freedom,” Bran said. “Her master may legally accept offers of marriage from others, and if her master and this priest both pushed the matter, she’d be powerless against it. There’s really only one thing you could do to make any pairing null and void.”
“And what is that?” Jack already knew the answer. Ice water flushed through his veins.
Bran met his eyes. “Become her husband. You pay what’s owed to the priest, then marry her yourself.”
Jack groaned, hanging his head.
“The priest can attempt to sue you over the broken engagement,” Bran warned, “but I know a good law philosopher. He could make it all go away once your lawful marriage is legalized. The trick would be getting a priest to agree to it. They won’t like that she’s already engaged, but money might fix that too—a generous tithe, we’ll call it. Whatever the cost, I’d give it to you. So would Marnie if it’s what you wanted.”
Jack pushed the remaining fragments of chicken around his plate with his fork, his appetite gone.
“This is all hypothetical, though, correct . . . ?” Bran looked him over, and his eyes gleamed. “My God, you’re thinking about marrying her, aren’t you? I really must meet this girl!”
“No, I told you. I’m not in a relationship . . .” A thought blossomed in Jack’s mind, and the lines near his eyes crinkled. “You were Marnie’s master after her father died. Pretty witch like her, how many stodgy priests have offered to pay her bride price over the years?”
Bran’s fingers tightened around his glass. “It’s a sore subject for me. Thankfully, the practice is discouraged in the capital, so most of the offers I received were by mail and easily declined.”
“Most of the offers?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
Bran sneered. “Most of them.”
“Does Marnie know?”
“No,” he choked. “Lord, could you imagine? The mouth on her afterward.” He chuckled, and Jack joined him. “She’d be furious with me too, just for having more legal say in it than she did. I’ve never wanted her to think of me as master, so I wasn’t about to rub it in her face by showing her I’d received offers for her hand. She would have murdered me after each attempt just to have someone to lash out at.”
