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He sent another flying and it fell before me.
“You only get one,” I snapped, twisting my head to look at him.
He was very close.
“Do I?” he murmured, his eyes wandering my face.
The way they did that made me uneasy.
Therefore, I gave my attention to the card he’d turned.
It was mostly blues, silvers, grays and black.
A warrior in intricate battle armor with blue stones and accents, standing in front of a wide, imposing, craggy black castle set in a black cliff. There was a barren tree to his right, and in it was a crow, a being that had its own card, an indication of second sight, the need for reflection, magic and mystery.
The warrior’s head was bowed, his steel-gauntleted hands at rest at his sides—but the breadth of his shoulders, the trimness of his waist, the manner of his bearing—his strength could not be denied and there was no question about it, even with head bowed, this was not a pose of defeat.
In other words, it was the Warrior card.
“And he is fierce too,” Cassius whispered in a way I felt a thrill across the skin of my neck.
“The Warrior,” I grunted, and before he could ask, I explained, “Strength. Preparation.”
“Hmm,” he murmured and tossed down another card.
The hilt and blade of a magnificent bejeweled sword out of which gold, yellow and orange rays shown.
“The Sword,” I said. “It means strife.”
“Well, that is no surprise,” he replied and threw another card.
Goodness.
“Cassius,” I said softly.
“What is that, Elena?” he asked.
It was a high card.
A full moon over a dark night on a shadowed landscape through which a river of red meandered through.
Blood.
“It is a high card,” I told him. “Blood. Fertility.” I swallowed and finished, “Family.”
“Ah,” he murmured, and if I would allow myself to admit it (which I did not), it was kind that he did not linger on that before he threw another card.
I closed my eyes.
His voice was silk in my ear. “And what is that, my princess?”
I opened my eyes.
On the card was a man floating in the air. He wore white gauntlets from wrists up to his shoulders and they sprung out from there, like wings. Armor at his thighs and over his groin. The rest of him, outside his white, armored boots, was bare. An elaborate bow and arrow were tattooed over his heart. And an he held an extravagant white bow in one hand, arrow in the other.
And under him, on the earth, was a woman upright but on her knees, which were spread wide. She was nude. She was fair. And a strapping man with black hair was on his knees behind her, his head bent to her neck, his arms about her, one hand cupping her sex, one hand cradling a bare breast.
His face was hidden in her neck.
But her face bore an expression of ecstasy.
“Eros,” I whispered.
“A god of the ancients,” Cassius whispered back. “I don’t need a reading, Elena. That speaks for itself.”
“Are you finished?” I queried.
He was not for he threw another card.
I could not stop my intake of breath.
“Pure beauty,” he murmured.
It was.
The Unicorn.
“And she means?” Cassius inquired.
“Joy,” I said softly. “Serenity. Fulfillment. Change.”
He said nothing to that, but he didn’t need to. I felt emotion coming from him, I just could not say what it was.
“Can we be done now?” I asked.
Apparently, we couldn’t for although he set the deck aside, he reached forward, took hold of the ones that had fallen, flipping them so mine was facing up.
A card drawn of purples and blacks, whites and charged blues. A landscape of devastation and destruction behind a woman in a long, wide, black skirt with an ornate purple apron at the front, all of which flowed in a threatening way and was decorated with blue lightning. She had black gauntlets on her forearms with gloves over her hands, her elbows pulled back, her fingers formed into claws.
Her bright white hair flowing up and out, she was leaned forward, her eyes spiteful, her mouth opened wide, her expression dreadful in its fury.
The Banshee.
“Bloody hell, what is that?” Cassius asked.
“An omen. The Banshee. Death of someone you care about. The shifting of the whole of your life as you know it,” I said quietly. I turned to him again. “Can we stop now?”
He turned his gaze to me.
“I sent Nero away.”
I blinked.
“It is but a temporary fix to a troubling problem,” he continued. “But you and I need time. Theodora needs time with us. There is much happening. Much change.” His sky-blue gaze moved to the card before coming again to me. “If she comes to know me, my men, trust will form. They’re good men, Elena. Fathers all to my own daughter. They show Aelia great affection and love. They will do the same for your Theodora.”
“This is a tidy plan, Cassius. But first, that trust will evaporate if it becomes known to her who Nero is, and it wasn’t shared with her before she came to care about your men, and possibly him. But I have thought on this and I would not like her to know at all. However, my fear is, Serena will take that option away from me.”
“I’ll handle Serena.”
I stared into his eyes before asking, “And how will you do that?”
“Leave it to me,” he stated.
I did not want him there at all, definitely not that close, most definitely not reading his cards (which were telling and embarrassing) and most definitely not conversing.
However, when he made a move to shift away, I caught onto the leather of his shirt, gripping it in a fist.
“How will you do that?” I demanded.
“Your sister is being handled.”
Presently?
My eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“It might be best you not know.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I told him.
He looked amused (and I wished he didn’t for he wore it well). “You cannot be the judge if you know and then wished you didn’t.”
“Do you intend to harm her?” I asked.
His face softened (and I wished it wouldn’t do that either because he wore that better). “Bodily? No. Her pride? I’m certain.”
Oh my goddess.
“You intend to humiliate her?” I whispered.
“Yes, though she will be the only one who will know. She and Mars and the man who is pleasuring her in a way she’ll become addicted to him. And, of course, now you.”
I blinked.
“You have my vow there will be no harm, except to her, which, you must agree, Elena, she deserves. No one ever needed to know Nero’s role in Tiana’s demise. Anyone who knew such as that would have died with that knowledge. Serena did not. She used it for no reason other than spite and to cause discord. To that end, for Theodora’s protection, and yours, she will do as he says while he has her and you and Theodora will be safe from him.”
“Controlled by a man?” I queried.
“If she liked sex with a woman, we would have sent one in. As reported by the servants who attended her in camp, she didn’t mind women present when she engaged in her version of hedonism, but she didn’t take any. So, for that purpose only, necessarily, it is a man.”
“You intend to…make a sexual slave of my sister?”
“Yes.”
“My sister? The one who shared her brand of sociability with us the other night. Princess Serena of the Nadirii.”
His lips quirked before he repeated, “Yes.”
“You do know this is impossible,” I shared.
“I don’t know this, as he’s had her once, the night before last, and since, she’s approached him five times, and sent two notes demanding he attend her.
”
“By the goddess,” I whispered, my vision going vague in shock.
“Yes,” he agreed, his voice richer with amusement in a way it made me focus on him to see he was smiling.
“Seven requests in but a day?” I queried.
“There is a good possibility he will wake this morn, if he hasn’t already, to her pounding on his door.”
I stared into the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, not just the color, which was transcendent, but the shape as well as the thickness and length of his dark lashes.
And then I clutched his shirt tighter as my head fell back and I burst with laughter.
Still doing it, I righted my head, let go of his shirt and grabbed his muscled neck momentarily for balance in order that I didn’t topple over with hilarity. Once I managed that, I released it to press my hand into his chest over his heart, all the while talking.
Or stammering.
But actually, babbling.
“I shouldn’t…it’s unkind…she’s my sister…my loyalty should lie with…but I can’t help myself.” I drew in a big breath and let it out, still laughing. “She can be very irksome. And I was most angry with her when she engaged in these very loud hedonistic activities at the camp when Dora could hear. And Dora was upset by them. And then, before the parade…”
I trailed off.
Focused again on his eyes.
And gulped.
I was taught to fear nothing but my own missteps, which, if I used my mind prior to making them, I could circumvent or at the very least learn never to make them again.
But I feared what I saw right then.
Even as I was drawn to it.
Inescapably.
His eyes were no longer sky-blue.
They were midnight.
And at their epicenter, instead of a black pupil, they glittered like stars.
And when he spoke, his voice was…
Animal.
“She engaged…in these activities…close to Theodora?”
“Y-yes,” I whispered.
“And Theodora heard.”
I felt his heart thumping a strong tattoo under my hand and I pressed there, what I hoped was soothingly.
“I had words with her,” I promised. “With both of them. And Dora is fine now. She has me, but she also has much support. My mother is overtly fond of her. Melisse dotes on her. Hera and Jasmine are like adoring aunties.”
When his eyes did not change, I leaned closer and kept speaking.
“Cassius, she’s a strong girl. She’s smart. So very bright. And she knows she’s loved. She’s all right.”
“She knows she’s loved.”
“Very much so.”
“Not of your blood.”
At his words, I ceased speaking.
Cassius’s midnight-starred eyes dropped to my mouth.
I would reflect on it, at length, after it was over.
But even when I did, I knew I would never be able to ascertain if it was he who took my mouth.
Or me who took his.
For it seemed in one moment, our mouths were several inches from the other’s, with me cross-legged and him crouching at my side.
And the next, our mouths were locked, his tongue was inside mine, demanding, so demanding as to be commanding, and I was pushing up toward him, my hand at his heart sliding up to the back of his neck, my other hand cupping the back of his head to hold him to me.
The next I was on my back with his weight heavy on me, his hands spreading heat all over my body.
With a need that was undeniable, a need to discover his heat, I tore his leather shirt free of his trousers and shoved my hands inside, feeling the fiery, taut silk of his back, digging my nails in.
He growled down my throat.
Taking it, I moaned down his.
His hand closed on my breast over my tunic, his thumb dragging hard against my stiffened nipple, forcing me to tear my mouth free and gasp at the pleasure, my neck arching.
I then felt the enchanting prickle of his beard, his firm lips at my throat, along my neck, as he dragged his thumb back.
I dipped my chin and said like a plea, “Cassius.”
He heeded my plea, lifting his head and taking my mouth again.
I dragged my nails up his back.
His hand left my breast and ducked under my tunic.
I felt his fingers flutter over the heat of me and my entire length trembled beneath him.
He broke the kiss and groaned, “Soaked,” against my lips before he took my mouth again, his tongue demanding, mine acquiescing.
His fingers dipped into the gusset of my body stocking, dragged over my clit, and that felt so exquisite, I moaned against his tongue, bucking up.
He rubbed.
I rocked against his finger.
My stomach tightened.
My womb pulsed.
My nails tunneled into his back.
And eventually I broke our lips, my body bowing up into his.
“Elena,” he murmured.
My lips parted, my eyes closed, my arms wrapped around him to hold on as I melted into an explosion of stars and drifted in the midnight I’d seen in his eyes.
When I recovered from this splendor, I no longer bore his weight.
He’d fallen off to my side and his hand was not between my legs. Instead, it was an arm around me, it had turned me to him, and he was holding me close to his length.
His other arm was pillowing my head, but cocked, so it could also hold my face to his throat.
I blinked at its corded column.
By the mercy of the goddess, what had I just done?
I tensed and whispered a ragged, “I must go.”
He tensed, tossed a heavy leg over both of mine and returned gruffly, “You must stay.”
“That should not have happened,” I told his throat.
“Perhaps not in the garden where those in the palace can see us, but I hid you so there was naught to see but a couple embracing. Other than that, it should have happened because it was eventually going to happen. Definitely.”
The goddess showed no mercy because I hadn’t thought of that.
People seeing.
Bloody hell.
I noticed belatedly my arms were around him as well. I pulled them between us and flattened my hands against his chest.
“I must go.”
“Elena.”
“I must see to Theodora.”
His tone changed to coaxing. “Do you not think, my warrior, that this is good?”
“No.”
“I enjoyed that greatly,” he declared.
I went still and stared at his throat.
“And you could talk a millennium and not convince me you didn’t enjoy it…even more than me.”
By the goddess, this was mortifying.
“I would like to go.”
“There are other things I will do to you that you’ll enjoy even more.”
That gave me pause for that was an impossibility.
“Yes, Elena,” he murmured into my hair, and on a squeeze of his arms, finished, “Much more.”
“That was embarrassing,” I blurted.
“I cannot imagine why. You were glorious.”
I was?
I did not ask him to reiterate that or explain it.
But before I could say anything, he spoke again, fortunately changing the subject, unfortunately changing it to something pricklier.
“Shall we go see to Theodora together?”
“No.”
“She must meet me, Elena, and I’ll be in meetings for the rest of the day.”
“She’s not at her best when she wakes up,” I shared.
His arm at the back of my head relaxed but that was all he released of his hold on me.
At least I could tip my head back to look at him, a head which was still pillowed by his bulging upper arm.
It was not cushiony.
But it still was comfortable.
Bloody hell.
When I looked up, I saw he was looking down.
His eyes were again sky-blue.
I could not say if I preferred them that way or as midnight.
That said, the midnight was alarming, but not when one knew it came forth when he was feeling deep.
And he was feeling deep that Dora had been upset.
A girl he had not yet met.
“She would sleep the day away if she could,” I informed him.
“Children do this,” he shared. “A physician in my realm says it’s because they grow so rapidly. Their bodies are working hard. Therefore, they need sleep.”
“That makes sense,” I muttered.
“I still do not allow Aelia to sleep the day away.”
“As you shouldn’t.”
His eyes moved over my face and his voice grew quiet when he asked, “Have we reached an accord, you and I?”
One could say we had.
Though we hadn’t.
“Partially,” I allowed.
“I would very much like to meet your daughter, Elena,” he whispered.
Oh goddess.
There was nothing for it and not just the part where there really wasn’t.
The part where he clearly wished to meet her in order to know her.
“When you’re not engaged with meetings,” I decided. “And we’re not engaged with attending royal weddings. When you have time for her and I have time to see to her and assess how she feels about it after you do.”
“The day after the wedding. Mars will be occupied. No meetings will happen.”
I considered this.
He gave me a shake.
“Elena? Do we have another bargain?”
I couldn’t escape it.
Nor could I protect Dora from it.
Though, with the way he reacted simply to her as a child hearing my sister doing adult things, I was beginning to wonder if I needed to.
“We have a bargain,” I agreed.
“Good,” he murmured, bent, brushed his lips along one of my eyebrows (which felt warming).
After that, he moved us both, adjusting me to my bottom on my rug before he took his feet.
He stared down at me. “I hope we can dine together, but matters are weighty, so that might not be possible.”
Matters were weighty?
How could matters be weighty?
The Beast was rising.
That was weighty, the weightiest, but everyone knew about that.
We were all coming together to quell the Beast.