One Thousand Kisses (7 page)

“I’d know if you were unstable.” Skythia clapped his back again. “That first month after the kidnapping, your bogeymen kept me from getting any beauty sleep. You haven’t woken me with one in years.”

“Your beauty sleep, without a doubt, was my first concern,” he said mildly.

His proactivity with regards to hunting the Torval agents had been the exact therapy needed to erase the nightmares completely. Either he needed to capture the damned agents once and for all—or the changed content of the nightmares required another approach. He’d hidden it so far, but soon he wouldn’t be able to. His exhaustion would come out.

He was almost to the point where he needed help.

There wasn’t much he hated more than asking for help. The Torvals. Frivolous conversation. Gnomes. Large bodies of water. Lying. The Incident. The thought of Anisette making love to anyone but him. Turnips. Possibly human country music. Not much else.

“I haven’t been sleeping as much as I should,” he said, which was true. “You know my schedule, but you don’t know I’ve been experimenting with shield magic in my personal time.” His omission of other experiments didn’t count as a lie.

“Is that how you keep vanishing?” Skythia asked. “I thought your head was getting thick. Good trick. Is it something you can globe?” One of the many reasons crime was minimal in the Realm—it was next to impossible for perpetrators to hide once they’d been identified.

Unless the perpetrator was Embor Fiertag.

“I’ll have a preliminary report after the assessments. It’s enjoyable work but tiring.” When he presented the Torval agents to his cabinet in a nicely subdued bundle, their best weapon against the AOC’s chokehold, he doubted anyone would look too closely at how he’d achieved the feat. He’d tell them the censored version he, Jake and Talista had drummed up, but his staff’s forbearance did hinge on his success.

“Are you saying there’s truth to the rumors?” Gangee asked. “If your performance is affected, Elder, it’s time for a new hobby.”

“I haven’t pushed myself too far.” If he couldn’t rest well tonight,
too far
might be tomorrow. He couldn’t prop himself up with energy globes forever.

“You could take a vacation,” Skythia suggested.

Skythia usually retreated to Fiertaggen’s beach for long weekends, but she also had a hideaway in Key West. She used a simulacrum to cover her absence from the Realm like he did, although he’d dissuaded her from traveling to humanspace lately for reasons of his own. He found it ironic he used his simulacrum to conduct business while she used hers to pursue water sports and hideous clothing.

They all had their hobbies. His just happened to be bringing the Torvals to justice.

“I do have a request,” he said. “It occurred to me the real problem I’m having is a lack of hours in the day. As yet there’s no magical way to increase them. I’d appreciate it if research and development could get on that.”

At first, his staff goggled. Time magic was as impossible as a forced bond. Then Skythia snorted. “Now I’m worried. If you’re trying to crack jokes, you’re punch-drunk.”

Several cabinet members chuckled with relief, particularly R&D.

“Perhaps I am. I’ll take tonight off.” A thorough sleep was crucial at this juncture.

“If there’s nothing else?” Skythia asked pointedly.

“There’s nothing else.” Embor inclined his head and thanked everyone for coming. “Gangee and I will report our findings with the princess tomorrow. Sleep well.”

The other fairies popped out of the room so fast it doused the flames in the hearth. Embor returned to his chamber, set a shield and prepared for sleep. If resolve could make it so, tonight would be dreamless, and tomorrow Gangee would uncover the evidence needed to ensure the first set of Torvals got what they deserved.

All in good time, he’d take care of the other set himself—with a little help from some unorthodox friends. Well, acquaintances.

Brightness knifed through Embor’s vision. He shielded his face and squinted. A figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by light.

He’d been waiting for so long. Years. He tried to tell her, but his throat was dry. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was drowsiness. Had to get up. Wake up. His limbs failed to respond. Prickles dotted his extremities.

But it didn’t matter. She was finally here.

“Anisette.”

“Shhhh.” She advanced through the darkness. A breeze pinned him to the mattress.

Mattress. He was in bed. Something sweet and flowery tickled his nose. She reached for him, two slender hands cool against his naked chest.

Her hands lingered at his throat, paused, covered his face. Her body brushed against him, blocking the glow of the doorway.

Small, firm breasts. A blanket of hair.

Anisette. Yes.

The crisp curls of her groin brushed his cock, and her fingers pressed his eyes shut. Summer flared inside him, and heat. When he tried to embrace her, his arms were too heavy.

“Shhh,” she said again.

Her satiny skin caressed him, but she was winter and snow. His heat flowed into her. He could feel it amass inside her like a beating heart. Yet with each beat it faded, chill and small and smaller still. He strained to reach it before it was too late.

He’d waited so long for this. Why wasn’t it working?

Her finger slipped between his lips, bitter and salty. Inside her. Inside him. Wake up. She’d taken his heat but she was too cold.

“Anisette?”

“Shhh,” she said a third time. Her body began to move. Rime crusted her skin, chafing him. He should roll atop her and into her, heat her up. Why couldn’t he move?

She squeezed two icy thighs around his cock and blew frost into his ear. Pain shuddered through him instead of ecstasy. He hadn’t told her about the prophesy. If he told her, she’d melt. Then she’d make the pain go away.

Wake up. Her body sizzled with icy fire, searing him. She was freezing without him inside her. She needed him, and he hurt so much.

Suddenly she was wrenched away, crying his name. White light flared, trapping her in solid ice. This wouldn’t be happening if he’d taken her, and now the ice would kill her.

He leapt forward, but wires cut his wrists. Fetid air entered his nose. He couldn’t breathe, he’d suffocate, he’d die before he could tell her—

No!

This wasn’t happening. Another nightmare. He couldn’t stop watching her die, watching
them
kill her. He couldn’t wake up. Break the cycle. Wake up!

Help me.

The cry roused Ani from hot, restive slumber.

She nipped up like a jack in the box. Heart racing, she stared into the darkness. Earth magic sharpened her hearing, her vision. Yet no matter how far she extended, the only sounds were the ordinary noises of the night.

She’d been dreaming. Good or bad? Fairies only had bad dreams if their psyche was imbalanced. The type of imbalance that could cause a woman to experience graphic, sexual dreams about the Primary of the Elder Court. That could cause panic attacks and instinctive agony spells.

What a mess. Ani collapsed onto the pillows and scrubbed her face. She had to regain control. Erotic nighttime fantasies like the one she’d been enjoying weren’t bad exactly. What made hers bad was that she’d been interrupted before the grand conclusion.

It had been so close to grand. His skin. His hands. His tongue. Whether or not it was a nightmare, it felt bad now. Her puss ached with frustration, but she had no urge to rub it. All the lust had been shocked out of her by the sudden fright.

Imbalanced indeed. Without Talista by her side, she’d grown too feeble to handle Court. She’d limped along for five years, but evidently she’d reached her limit.

She suspected her limit had something to do with Warran Torval. Or was it her mortifying desire to offer Elder Embor a proposition card—or proposition him outright?

While cowardice explained the first issue, lack of balance was the only explanation for the second. She’d lost her center and her sense. While Embor’s threat to report her had likely been a bluff, it didn’t erase the fact she’d throttled him—and soon thereafter tried to kiss him.

No, she’d not be offering Embor a proposition card.

Ani rolled in the tangled sheets until her cheek hit a cool spot on the opposite pillow. There was no place at Court for a half-twin with violent panic attacks and a yen for the Primary. What was she going to do? Ani pondered her options until a bar of orange sunrise splashed her face, waking her from the sleep she thought she’d never find.

The light was so concentrated it pierced her eyelids. She flopped away from it, or tried to. Something large weighed down the coverlet, pinning her to the bed.

Ani yanked at the covers. Her sister hadn’t sheet-wedged her in decades, but the sensation of being stuck by tightly wrapped blankets was a familiar one.

“Talista, not funny.”

A hoarse rumble answered her right before a multitude of needles pierced her thigh.

Ani screeched and kicked. The weight disappeared. A distinct thump sounded on the floor to her right.

Adrenaline blasted her system as her eyesight adjusted to the half-dark. She scrambled off the bed, groping for the alarm globe on the side table.

“Who’s there?”

She could see no one in her bedchamber, and she didn’t sense Tali through their sibling bond.

Cautiously she crept around the footboard, gripping her alarm globe. The fist-sized charms could wake one person or a castle depending on how one used them.

When she reached the corner, a black cat waited in the center of her damp rug with its tail tucked over its paws.

She looked at the cat. The cat looked at her. Its yellow eyes gleamed. Then it hiked its back leg into the air and began to wash itself.

Oh. Well. Himself.

“Hello, Fey.” Anisette glanced at her door and windows. Undisturbed, keyed to locks she controlled. She chose who could enter. The only other way in was via transportation.

“What are you doing here, Master Fey?”

The cat, in the way of cats, didn’t acknowledge her. He started on his tail.

Some Fey cats communicated with fairies. Some didn’t. They appeared and disappeared all over the Realm, cities to deserts. They also traveled to humanspace, possibly through things Tali called gnome holes and possibly by means of their own devising.

Fairies were the dominant primates on the Realm continent, the only civilized land in their world. Fairies outnumbered leprechauns, annishags, yeti, medusas and other sentient species, with the sentience of gnomes an item of some debate.

Cats were not primates.

“I hope it didn’t hurt when I kicked you out of bed,” she told the cat. “I must have heard you meowing last night. I thought I had a nightmare.” What a relief to know she wasn’t stricken with night terrors on top of cowardice, panic attacks and extremely naughty fantasies about the Primary of the Realm.

The cat extended his front paws, lengthening his body until he looked like a weasel. He was glossy black with tuxedo markings—white chin, chest, belly and paws. He was neither small nor large, longhaired nor short, striking nor drab.

When he finished his stretch, he ambled to her bathing room, his tail curved into half a heart. She followed. He batted the surface of her bathing pool before helping himself to a drink.

“I could fetch you some milk,” she offered. “Or an egg. Or both.”

The cat continued to drink—lap, lap, lap. Pause. Lap, lap, lap. Pause.

She felt uncomfortable taking care of her needs with him in the room so she waited until he left. Whenever cats appeared in a dwelling, the inhabitants were considered lucky, blessed by the spirits. It was tradition to pamper cats if given the opportunity. Ani enjoyed their company, even when the creatures had nothing to say.

What did it mean that a cat was in her chamber? Was she about to come into some luck? She could use it.

He was napping on her pillow when she exited the bathroom, his black fur a contrast to the pale pink sheets. Puzzled by the cat and anxious about her visit to the healers—and the person dragging her there—Ani dressed.

Had she heard anything about cats wandering the complex lately? They’d been known to show up during Court sessions, to the dismay of the Elders, but rarely anywhere else. Janelle might know. Anisette would ask when she dropped off her laundry.

When she was brushing her hair, a knock sounded on her door.

“Princess,” Embor’s voice called through the wood. Her stomach fluttered so hard she was surprised the cat didn’t wake up and chase it. “You have an appointment.”

“One moment.” She hadn’t chosen her prettiest blue dress because she was to see Embor today—it was because the yellow was dirty. She always combed her straight hair one hundred times; otherwise tangles overwhelmed her head. And she always dabbed perfume behind her ears and glossed her lips.

A bit breathless, she tied her hair back and opened the door. Outfitted in an off-white tunic and trousers, Embor appeared more and less intimidating than he’d been yesterday. More intimidating because his handsome face seemed drawn with displeasure. Less intimidating because she knew what he looked like naked. Courtesy of her dreams.