New Blood (22 page)

She needed to reinforce the spell, which meant she needed more of the sex magic. It still bothered her a little, that she had so easily accepted Jax's word that sex created magic in the same way blood did. She felt vaguely as if she should have protested more, should have refused to believe him. Except that Jax had never lied to her, ever.

Besides, it made absolute sense. Sorcery was
body
magic, worked with more than just blood. If blood and spit could work magic, why not a man's seed? Blood was shed the first time a woman had sex, and blood was shed when she gave birth. Blood and sex went together, like rope and pulleys.

“Jax, kiss me.”

J
AX DIDN'T HESITATE
. Didn't try to argue or delay, as Amanusa would have. Because it was an order and he was bound to obey? Or because he was a man and hoped for more than a kiss? It didn't matter. She didn't have to learn the rest of the sex magic today.

He braced one hand on the seat between them, touched her face with the other, and kissed her. Amanusa waited for the magic to bloom, but could gather only the faintest of trickles. It wasn't working.

Jax broke away, cupping her face between his hands as he drew back to look at her. “You're too distracted.”

“There's an Inquisitor right outside,” she hissed at him. “They're all over the city, looking for us. And the protection spell is fading. I'm not distracted at all. I am totally focused on the magic.”

“Not on the kiss. You can't work this kind of magic when you're focused on something else. Your attention has to be on what you're doing. On the kiss. The . . . sex.” He rubbed his thumb across her lower lip and she reached out to push it away.

He caught her hand in his, leaving his other still touching her face as he brought her hand up to rub its back across the faint roughness of his cheek. “Do you honestly want me to kiss you, Amanusa? Because if you truly want to learn how to work the magic of desire, you have to let go of everything going on up here—” He tapped her forehead. “And
feel
what your body is doing.”

“I—” She shivered. The Inquisitors were just outside. How could she forget them? They made her too nervous. Or maybe it was Jax who made her nervous. She trusted him. She
did.
She just—

Jax released her and peered out through the open window. “I don't see any more Inquisitors. The attack last night surely can't be duplicated any time soon, and we've changed our appearance. We should be safe enough.”

“For now, maybe.” Amanusa just couldn't concentrate on kissing Jax, knowing Kazaryk was out there searching, but she was determined to learn how to do this new magic properly. “What about later? What about on the river? Or when we come into Vienna? What if they set up another ambush there?”

“I can gather the magic for you.” Jax stared at the floor between his boots. “With your permission, of course.” Two patches of red stained his cheeks as he stared determinedly straight ahead.

“My . . . permission?” Amanusa didn't think she liked where this was going. But then he'd told her about “permission” at the very beginning. She just hadn't wanted to think about it.

“To—” He cleared his throat. “Participate in intercourse. With someone else. You don't have to take part in the—”

“Sex.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat again, his eyes flicking around the inside of the carriage, in every direction but hers. “The magic is automatically gathered and stored inside me—like that you gave me after the assault. You don't have to be present, or even nearby.”

This
bothered her. Not the idea of sex creating magic, but the thought of sending Jax out to—to whore himself for her. The whole topic of sex disturbed her. Given her history, it shouldn't, but it did. “I just, I—” She struggled for words to explain without being unforgivably crude, or embarrassing herself, or him. “It makes me feel like, like a procurer. Sending you out to, to—”

He interrupted with a curse. “It's just sex, Amanusa. We have to be able to talk about it. People do it all the time and nobody gets hurt. It's not murder. It's not even rape. There's always somebody willing for a quick tumble, and most of the time, they don't want money for it. They do it because it feels good—for the woman too, if it's done right. And I know how to do it right, because usually there's more magic that way. If everyone involved enjoys it.”

Amanusa's face burned so hot, she couldn't believe it didn't light the carriage interior with its glow. Jax was right. She had to get over this embarrassment. Enough to at least talk to him about the magic. About sex. She couldn't live this way. She was a
sorceress.

The carriage pulled to a halt and Jax looked out. “We're here.”

The smell of damp and of green fermenting things confirmed his announcement. Amanusa put a hand on his elbow to delay him a moment. “Let me think
and we can talk again about what to do. We
will
talk.”

He held her gaze a moment, then gave her a solemn nod and hopped out of the carriage to direct the unloading of their trunk, and the box he'd bought for the machine, and Crow in his cage, before helping her down.

The riverboat was neat and streamlined, with a small paddle wheel in the back. Their tiny cabin had two bunks against the wall and barely enough room for Amanusa's skirts in what remained. They saw their luggage stored in the cabin and returned to stroll on the aft promenade while the boat's crew cast off from the dock. No Inquisitors appeared, before or after the riverboat turned out into the current and chuffed away up river, leaving Budapest and Kazaryk behind. She hoped.

When they retired to their minuscule cabin that night, Amanusa hadn't yet thought enough to have that promised conversation with Jax. Everything was mixed up with the horrors of her past, and what had happened since Jax walked out of the forest and into her life.

What she thought about things was tangled up in how she felt about things, and how she thought she
ought
to think and feel, until she didn't know what was up and what was down. Left and right had departed long ago and she wasn't any too sure about inside or outside. Several days passed with that muddle churning inside her while Hungary and then Austria drifted by on either side of the boat.

“The captain says we'll be reaching Vienna tomorrow.” Jax leaned down to murmur in Amanusa's ear
as the gentlemen joined the ladies in the salon after dinner one evening.

“I know. I have ears.” Guilt instantly consumed Amanusa. She'd been in a nasty mood since they got on this silly boat, and she'd been taking it out on Jax, who deserved far better. Especially since he never responded in kind.

“I'm sorry.” She laid her hand on his arm as he straightened, hoping he understood that she truly was sorry. “You're too good to me, putting up with my moods.”

His smile touched his lips, glinted in his eyes. “You have much to be moody about.” He came around the settee and offered his arm. “Walk with me?”

She smiled back, grateful for the forgiveness. “Of course.”

Jax took her out onto the promenade where the creak of the stern paddle wheel and the splash of the water would hide their conversation from the other passengers. “The only reason I mentioned Vienna—if I am going to call magic for your protection, it should be tonight. Madame Villet—”

He named the widow who Amanusa suspected had never been married, with her brazen manner and not-quite-respectable fashion. “She has indicated a willingness for me to visit her cabin.” Jax paused by the rail, staring out at the deep blue of the midsummer twilight. “But I must have your permission in order to do what is necessary.”

Amanusa's insides churned furiously, both her mind and her stomach. Her fingers dug into Jax's forearm.

“I will not hurt her, Amanusa.” He covered her
hands with his other and the assurance of his touch allowed her to relax her grip. “I promise that Madame Villet will exper—”

“But you're
mine.
” The words popped out of her mouth so quickly, her hands couldn't clap themselves over it fast enough to keep them inside. Oh dear heaven, that couldn't be what had her so mixed up about all this, could it? Some kind of possessive feeling she had for Jax? She didn't want to own him. She
didn't.

Jax held motionless a moment longer, then slowly turned to stare at her, the blue-green of his eyes—no brown flecks at all—shining in the stern lamps. “What did you say?”

She couldn't say it again. Couldn't believe she'd said it the first time. She shook her head at him, eyes wide, hands still clasped over her mouth.

“I
am
yours, Amanusa,” he said so quietly she could scarcely hear him over the splashing of the water. “It is because I am yours, because I am bound to you with magic, that I am able to call this magic for you—”

“But I don't want you to.” The words came out muffled, squeezing past her hands.

Gently, Jax peeled her hands from her mouth and held them in his. “What?”

She was better than this.
Braver
than this. She had faced down Szabo and his outlaws for six years. Somehow, that had not been as difficult or as frightening as this, as explaining—or even understanding—how she truly felt about—about
things.

She summoned up all her courage. “I don't want you to.”

Jax had to bend his head closer to hear her. When he heard, he shook it, looking up at her again. “Amanusa, if magicians in Vienna have set up another ambush, you
need
the protection this will provide you.”

“I know. I just—I can't—” She twisted her hands so that she held his hands too, and tightened her grip in frustration at her inability to explain things to either one of them. “When I think about—about you, doing that. With her. With anyone—”

She had to rub a hand over her knotted stomach. “It makes me sick. Not because of what you're doing. I know it's not rape and I know you can make her like it, and that's what makes me so sick, because you're
mine.
You're
my
Jax.
Mine.
”

She was clutching the hand she still held to her chest, staring up at him, trying to find her way through to understanding. “Because it's not ‘just' sex. Sex is more important than that.

“It has to be. How else could a simple kiss call up so much magic? Why else would—would what happened to me have me so afraid of sex for so many years? I think sex touches more than just your body, Jax. I think it touches your soul. And I do not want that woman to lay one red-painted fingernail on your soul.”

Jax stared at Amanusa a very long moment while she blinked back tears. Strong emotion of any kind brought them on, and she hated it, because the outlaws had always seen her tears as their victory. Somehow, she didn't mind so much exposing her weakness, her emotions to Jax.

He swallowed visibly. “I—” He had to stop and
clear his throat. “I would like very much to kiss you right now.”

Amanusa's lips curved in a faint smile. “I think I would like that. I would like that very much.”

He lowered his head, she lifted hers, and their lips touched. He let go of her hand and she laid it on his chest over the strong, swift thumping of his heart. His hand rose to cup her face, hold her in place while he took possession of her mouth.

This time, when his tongue swept over her lower lip, she didn't startle or pull away. She opened her mouth and let him in, let him rub over her tongue and invite her to join in the sensual play. Jax's kisses felt new and fresh. Untainted, and therefore all the more precious.

He had an arm around her back, she realized, holding her up, holding her against him while his other thumb stroked along the pulse in her neck. They kissed another moment, mouths melding, tongues teasing, until he drew away into a series of kisses across her cheek toward her ear. Then he wrapped her in his arms, laid his cheek atop her head and simply held her.

And magic bloomed all around them.

Amanusa had only to gather it in and give it focus in the warding spell. “Did you kiss me to call up magic?” she asked idly as the shield nestled in around them.

“I kissed you because I wanted to. But the magic is a nice bonus.” Jax turned his head to rest his other cheek on her head. “Did you kiss me for the magic? It's all right if you did. I don't mind.”

“I kissed you because I wanted to.” Amanusa liked
being held safe in the circle of Jax's arms. He seemed to like holding her. Her arms were squeezed between them, in the way, so she moved one of them and put it around Jax, over his frock coat, and realized that holding him was quite as nice as being held. She liked the broad solid feel of him in her arms.

“We are not private here,” Jax murmured as she laid her head on his shoulder.

“I know.” She sighed. “Perhaps that is why I'm not afraid. Because I know this can't go too far as long as we're out here.”

“You know I will never do anything you don't want. If kisses are all you ever want from me, I will be happy with kisses.”

“Liar.”

His laughter rumbled through her, shook against her cheek. “There is no hurry. This spell will last long enough to get us through Vienna, and if it doesn't, there are always more kisses.”

Amanusa's lip curved between her teeth and she captured it. Her old fears—the fears she was determined to defeat—were not her only reasons to hesitate. There were old promises as well. Promises made to her mother, and to herself.

“Jax?”

“Yes, my sorceress?” he said when she didn't go on.

“Will you marry me?”

Jax went so very still, she might have thought him made of wood or stone, rather than flesh and blood, save for the suddenly speeding beat of his heart under her hand.