Idol of Glass (27 page)

Epilogue: Quickening and Fire

It was bitterly cold at the top of Munt Zelfaal
.
He stood at the ice-covered gates—how like his love—and recalled his first sight of them, and the awesome anticipation of what he'd come to do. She'd infuriated him from the very start, humiliating him and commanding him like a dog. Now she expected him to follow her like a serf. He'd possessed a
soth
of his own once, and it had been impressive in his brief reign of less than a century. He was Meer, not some curtseying courtier. She thought he'd jump at her command—
“you come when I call”
—and yet he did, and knowing this made him angrier.

He stormed
Ludtaht
Shiva, blasting in with the ice and snow that invaded the unprotected arches. It was an idiotic design of naked arrogance. She left her temple open and vulnerable to the elements as though she ruled over some balmy
soth
of the Delta. It gave the correct impression of her, however: a frigid, thoughtless hollow.

“Shiva!” he bellowed from the entry. The halls echoed as though untouched for centuries, not a sign of life within. It was hardly surprising. He wouldn't expect her to emanate any. He advanced on her throne room, but it was empty as a tomb. “You try my patience!” She was probably waiting in the very room where she'd first summoned him, arrogantly, as then, expecting to be serviced. He went there, still remembering the way, but it was cold and abandoned. “Damn you!” he roared. “I am tired of games!”

Her private chamber was the only place he hadn't tried. If he didn't find her there, he would leave. He was sick of this. He'd had enough.

A curtain of red silk hung over the arch. Hraethe moved the silk aside and found more layers of curtain, folding over one another like the folds of the goddess's red sanctum. He tore at them, not in the mood for a labyrinth.

Her bed was a voluptuous obscenity, a bed of blood-red velvet. Hraethe stopped, the curse on his lips suspended by the sight of her pressed overflowing into a red bodice to match the bed, surrounded by vulgar layers of voile that were her dress and not the bedside curtains. She reclined in an excessive pile of cushions, her hair an equal luxury against her body, disappearing against the hue of the bedding as it snaked away from her head. He hadn't seen her wear it down since that first time.

Shiva's fingers played at the top of the bodice. “And so he comes.”

“I didn't come here to service you again.”

A ruby eyebrow lifted in amusement. “Then why did you?”

“I want to know, once and for all, what you want from me. Why you bound me.”

She sighed and focused on the ceiling. “You can be exceedingly simple, MeerHraethe. I didn't bind you at all.”

“What do you mean, you didn't bind me?” Hraethe curled his hand around the bedpost, unwilling to accept this. Why would he have come if she hadn't bound him? Of course she had. She'd said so. “You bit my tongue and gave me your blood, and took my voice. What was that for if not to bind me?”

“I needed you to stay put and not to utter anything that would keep me from my task, even after you woke.” With a sigh, Shiva stretched her arm above her head in the sea of pillows, still speaking to the ceiling. “You drank of my history.”

“Your history?”

“It has given you knowledge you didn't possess before. That is how you knew of the Permanence. But apparently, it didn't give you everything.” She turned her gaze on him, fierce and compelling. “Do you want to know what transgression you committed last night?”

He suspected he wasn't going to like the answer, but he gave her a curt nod, trying to maintain an air of cool indifference. “For once, you deign to offer an explanation. Do tell.”

Shiva seized the hem of her gown and tore the fabric to her hip, showing him a mark he'd never noticed before. If Shiva didn't want something to be seen, it wasn't. It appeared to be a brand, like one that would mark cattle, a hieroglyph from the ancient Delta.

“It's the mark of Lord Einskis. He gave it to all his dogs.”

“His…” Hraethe raised his eyes to hers and saw the warning in them. This time he heeded it.

“The first time you came to
Soth
AhlZel, I told you the ancient custom of Meercatching was real. Meer were caught and consumed for their
vetmas
. I was difficult to catch. It became a challenge for Lord Einskis. Every hunting party he sent out after me I struck down with a word. So he devised a way to circumvent my curses. He used an arrow tipped with poison, and while I was sickened with it, he cut out my tongue. That is the history you drank.”

“
Meershivá
.” Hraethe swallowed, the sensation of the paralysis in his tongue a vivid memory. The blood in his veins spiked with fury at the long-dead Lord Einskis, livid that anyone would dare to touch Shiva with such malice. “And I provoked you.” He shook his head, dispelling the anger lest it seem directed at her. “I'm surprised you allowed me to live.”

Shiva gave him a rare smile. “You'd proven useful.” Her breasts rose within the bodice with a deep breath, and his body once more rose to the call of hers.

“I could prove useful again.” He climbed onto the end of the bed and crawled toward her over the layers of velvet and voile. “Forgive me,
ai
MeerShiva.” He dared to kiss her, and she didn't throw him off.

The green eyes regarded him like foxfire. “You kiss me and make me your slave.”

“No.” Hraethe kissed her again. “I kiss you and make myself yours.” He slid his hand between the torn fabric of the gown and stroked it slowly up the side of her leg, lowering his head to kiss the place on her hip where the brand had been, once more concealed by her will. He placed a second kiss at the top of her thigh. “If I'm not bound to you,” he murmured, kissing the inside of it, “why have I come here?”

Shiva laughed softly. “Because you're a fool? Perhaps you like abuse.” Despite the harshness of the words, she spoke them as though they were terms of endearment, and he divined at last that this was her way of covering the true depth of her feelings: devaluing herself as the object of his desire.

“Perhaps I do.” He placed the last kiss on the brilliant tuft of poppy that marked the sacred sanctum within. “And perhaps I have also loved you for nearly four hundred years.” Before she could protest against this declaration, he slid his tongue downward and made her cry out, a delightful, high-pitched crooning note he remembered from his only other visit to this temple. He tormented her with the tongue she'd silenced, drawing out the sweet sounds until she was thrashing beneath him.

At last he came up for air, and Shiva took hold of him by the collar and dragged him up to her mouth, tasting of herself while she slid one hand down between their bodies and released him from the tight pants.

“I love you,” he insisted again as he entered her, though his motions were anything but tender.

“Then you
are
a fool,” she breathed, wrapping her legs around him. “And if you're waiting for me to say it in return, you'll wait an eternity.”

“I can,” he promised. “Because you will.”

He closed his mouth over hers to silence her denial, and Shiva arched upward into him, and the definition of them blurred in the sacred madness of the Meeric kiss. Time stopped, a meaningless trifle that battered futilely against the jade mosaic of
Ludtaht
Shiva while the City of Always defied the mountain's peak. Shiva's protests were meaningless. Hraethe had spoken. And he was Meer.

About the Author

Jane Kindred is the author of
The Devil's Garden
and
The House of Arkhangel'sk
and
Demons of Elysium
series. Born in Billings, Montana, she spent her formative years ruining her eyes reading romance novels in the Tucson sun and watching
Star Trek
marathons in the dark. She now writes to the sound of San Francisco foghorns while two cats slowly but surely edge her off the side of the bed.

You can find Jane on her Twitter account and Facebook page—both of which are aptly named “janekindred”—and her website,
www.janekindred.com
.

Look for these titles by Jane Kindred

Now Available:

Demons of Elysium

Prince of Tricks

King of Thieves

Master of the Game

Looking Glass Gods

Idol of Bone

Idol of Blood

Idol of Glass

Coming Soon:

The Lost Coast

The Water Thief

Don't miss the other titles in Jane Kindred's Series!

One stranger seeks to claim her heart…another is destined to destroy her.

Looking Glass Gods
, Book 1

Ra
. Just two letters. Barely a breath. When she stumbles into the frozen Haethfalt highlands, her name is all she has—the last remnant of a past she's managed to keep hidden, even from herself. Her magic, however, isn't so easy to conceal—magic that's the province of the Meer, an illicit race to which she can't possibly belong.

The eccentric carpenter who takes her in provides a welcome distraction from the puzzle of herself. Though Jak refuses to identify as either male or female, the unmistakable spark of desire between them leaves Ra determined to find out what lies beneath the enigmatic exterior.

But more dangerous secrets are brewing underneath the wintry moors. Jak's closest friend, Ahr, is haunted by his own unspeakable past. Bounty hunters seeking fugitive Meer refuse to leave him in peace.

Harboring feelings for both Ra and Ahr, Jak nonetheless struggles to keep them apart. Because like the sun and the moon coming together, their inevitable reunion has the potential to destroy Jak's whole world.

Warning: Shape-shifting? That's so last millennium. Reincarnation? Yawn. Get ready for a gender-bending fantasy that will fire your imagination and haunt your dreams.

The price of revenge may be her sanity…and the lives of those she loves.

Looking Glass Gods
, Book 2

No longer haunted by memories of her life—and death—as the Meer of Rhyman, Ra looks forward to a quiet existence with her lover Jak in the Haethfalt highlands. Having made peace with Ahr, her consort from her former life, Ra can finally explore her new relationship, free of the ghosts of the past—until she unwittingly unearths Jak's own.

Out of instinct, she uses her Meeric power to heal the pain of Jak's childhood trauma. But all magic has a price, and Ra's bill has come due.

Succumbing to the affliction inherent in her race, Ra flees to the mountain ruins where her mother's temple once stood. As the madness takes hold, she resurrects the ancient city of AhlZel in a tremendous act of magic that seals her fate—and threatens to destroy those who would give up everything to save her from herself.

Warning: Contains dark themes, violence, gender-bending sex, and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Idol of Glass

Copyright © 2015 by Author

ISBN: 978-1-61922-373-8

Edited by Linda Ingmanson

Cover by Kanaxa

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: October 2015

www.samhainpublishing.com