Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 (13 page)

Adrian sat back, confusion and new respect etched across her features. “I’m sorry.”

Jacquin shook her head. “It’s fine. It‘s a common misconception from northern travelers.”

Fisk raced across Jacquin’s lap, leaning back on his hind legs to stretch out tall and touch Jacquin’s cheek with his nose. Her face split in a smile, as radiant as the stream of stars in the desert sky, and kissed the top of Fisk’s head. Rox felt a mild surge of jealousy in her stomach and sighed at her own foolishness. She spotted Adrian squirming in the corner of her eye and she knew the other woman felt the same.

“This is ridiculous,” Rox grumbled, sheathing her knife along her back with a sharp click. Jacquin and Adrian turned to her in confusion. “There’s obviously something here between us. You all feel it. I know you do.”

Adrian shook her head. “It’s the bonding.”

“It’s not the bonding. We all felt something, even before the bond. Jacquin has been seeing Adrian her entire life. Adrian, you said you noticed me before we ever fought.” Rox swallowed hard, forcing herself to continue. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about you after our fight. I never saw a line of your body, you never spoke to me, but I could feel you. And I didn’t want to kill you. Can you honestly say you wanted to kill me?”

Adrian’s lips pressed together hard and she let out a sharp breath. “No. I hoped we’d never meet again.”

“You were the only thing I could see during the raid,” Jacquin whispered, her eyes locked on Rox. “I would have died if you hadn’t saved me. Focused me. You’re a touchstone. For Adrian, too it seems.”

Adrian growled. “It’s the bonding. You think it only affects us after we touch? It messes with fate. Draws us together when we’d never come together otherwise. Loving each other under these circumstances is like being intoxicated. It’s not real.”

“Whose to say the fates only affect those with lifestones?” Jacquin rebutted. “I have been dealing with fate and the soul since childhood. A stone in your wrist that saves you from plague and binds you to people who will love and balance you means nothing to fate. It’s just the way fate chooses to work through you.”

“I’d rather have a choice,” Adrian snarled. “Not be trapped.”

“Would you choose someone else?” Jacquin insisted.

Adrian squared her shoulders. “I would choose no one.”

Rox snorted. “Because your choices have served you so well in the past.”

Adrian’s eyes widened incredulously, her cheeks coloring with anger. Rox was surprised by the jolt of pleasure in her stomach at the look. She grinned. Adrian was more fun when she was angry.

Adrian leaned forward, ready to fight. “You’re going to talk to me about choices, merc?”

“This merc bested you with a single look not yesterday, warmage. You think I couldn’t feel you when you force-bonded me? You’re a mess. Are your destruction abilities even natural?”

“Rox!” Jacquin chided, eyeing Adrian warily as the mage’s rage continued to build. Rox didn’t know what Jacquin had seen of Adrian‘s past, but she could tell from the look on Adrian’s face and the fear in Jacquin’s eyes that her words were hitting home. “Enough!”

Rox shook her head with a smug grin. “You’re not free, Adrian. You’re controlled by shame.”

Adrian charge, lunging forward and tackling Rox back to the floor, her back striking sand and fragile wood with a heavy thud. After hours of sitting still, the rush, even the pain, made Rox laugh with delight, the sound only seeming to enrage Adrian more.

“Stop! You’ll break the wagon!” Jacquin shouted as Rox and Adrian rolled, each fighting for dominance, wrestling and kicking, a tangle of limbs and aggression. “Adrian, you’ll hurt yourself!”

Rox reached out, grabbing for Adrian’s neck, but she reared back. “You think I’m going to let you strangle me again?”

Rox pressed heavily into the floor, allowing Adrian to pin her down. “I’m not even trying.”

Adrian paused, a sneer etched into her face. “Neither am I.”

Rox defiantly locked eyes with Adrian, charging into her Blue Sight so brazenly Adrian lost her grip on Rox’s wrists in surprise. Rox felt a rush of Adrian’s suppressed desire in their momentary connection. Rox grinned a vicious, teasing smirk. “You don’t scare me, Adrian.”

Adrian’s defiance broke and she wrapped her hands through Rox hair and kissed her, an attack of lips and teeth as fierce as any of their battles. Rox grabbed the front of her shirt, holding her close while being careful to avoid her injuries, her kiss just as fierce and fiery as Adrian’s.

“You’re infuriating,” Adrian hissed, shaking Rox, her grip like steel. “I shouldn’t want you.”

“Blame the lifestones,” Rox growled and they kissed again, their hands searching for ties and loose clothing, layers peeling and torn away.

Adrian instantly assumed control, knocking Rox’s hands away and pinning her again, her grip loosening as Rox relaxed into their power dynamic. Adrian slowed, her actions less violent without losing her intensity. Her eyes flickered like the scorching blue flames of a bonfire, her movements precise and smooth like a jungle cat hunting her prey. Rox admired her control, her skin flushing dark brown. Rox could smell the warm, pine and earth scent natural to Adrian. She couldn’t help but notice that Adrian smelled of the Core.

Adrian looked up, releasing one of Rox’s arms to reach out across the wagon to Jacquin. Jacquin watched the brawl, her Amazon genetics flushing her skin more red than brown, her eyes wide with desire. She didn’t hesitate. She stood slowly and stripped away her silks, standing nude in the last breaths of the candle light, her tanned skin reflecting back glowing hues of caramel and sunlight.

Rox and Adrian froze, drinking in the sight of her, their bodies growing almost unbearably hot where they pressed together. Adrian trembled, her thighs squeezing tight around Rox’s hips where she straddled her. Rox groaned deep in her throat, memories of Jacquin’s touch, her skin, her body pressed tight against hers casting waves of pleasure across her skin.

Jacquin crossed the wagon, kneeling beside Rox to kiss Adrian, wrapping one arm around the mage with a hunger born from a lifetime of desire and fascination with her magical protector. Her other arm caressed Rox, her fingers trailing along the sensitive lines of her neck and jaw where her mouth had been the day before.

Rox reached out, running her fingers over the lines of Jacquin’s hips and thigh, her skin softer than any of her silks, her eyes locked on Adrian and Jacquin’s kiss. Jacquin pulled back slightly, locking eyes briefly with Adrian, communicating without words their desires.

An instant later Adrian slid down Rox’s body, making room for Jacquin to turn, sliding atop Rox, a knee on either side of Rox’s hips. Their lips meeting with gentleness and passion, Jacquin immediately finding a rhythm of softness, nips and licks Rox had responded to before.

Rox felt Adrian near her knees and she reached out with her legs, wrapping them around Adrian’s hips in silent invitation. She dug her bare feet into the floor with pleasure as she felt Adrian’s hands respond, exploring her hips and more sensitive areas with a slow urgency. Jacquin arched her back as if dancing, pressing her chest tighter against Rox, tipping her hips for Adrian who immediately found her with her mouth.

Rox and Jaquin kissed and caressed, each trembling and gasping beneath Adrian’s touch, their skin pressing, sliding and grinding against each other, their kisses growing deeper and more insistent as they sped toward climax together. Rox felt the rough press of her legs holding Adrian near, her thighs pinned tight against Adrian’s hips, the weight and security of both women a divine distraction, condensing her world down to touch, sensation, passion.

Rox felt her entire body explode, her muscles jumping and melting as Jacquin arched, gasping quick shots of breath against Rox’s mouth, her hair falling loose and wild around them, Adrian’s hands and mouth seeming to slide across both their bodies with abandon.

Jacquin came down first, collapsing against Rox as Rox still reveled in the electric waves of pleasure. Jacquin’s eyes were soft, unfocused, her breathing gentle, her muscles loose. Tears rand down her cheeks and Rox reached up to wipe them away. Jacquin caught her hand, laying soft, feathery kisses along the lines of her hand. She whispered against Rox’s skin, more to herself than anyone else. “Nothing. There’s nothing in my mind. No visions. No chaos. Finally, nothing.”

Rox could feel the heat and tenderness of Jacquin’s bliss. Adrian leaned forward over the calming women and laid gentle kisses across Jacquin’s back as her eyes met Rox’s, tying them together once more.

Never stop looking at me. Please.

The words entered Rox’s mind as if Adrian had whispered them against her ear, too real, too infused in Adrian, to be the whispers of her mind.

“You don’t scare me, Adrian,” Rox repeated gently. Adrian blinked away a tear. Rox grinned wider, breaking the sad, gentle tension in the room. Adrian grinned wolfishly, already knowing what Rox would say. “Now take me again.”

Rox lay limp and warm among her lovers, Jacquin’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Adrian’s arms encircling Jacquin to rest on Rox’s arms, her legs wrapped tight enough around the dancer to entangle with Rox’s thighs. It had taken an entire day for them to tire, resting in spurts between love making, the howl of the storm a primal backdrop when the candles finally died and everything went dark.

The wind had died nearly an hour before. Adrian and Jacquin were still sleeping heavily but Rox hadn’t been able to rest. As the passion of bonding had died down, her reality had settled around her once more, along with a heavy weight of guilt. She had let herself forget. In the throes of passion she’d buried herself in her lovers, escaping the Circle and the Twins but in the moment she’d also let go of Serena.

Love wasn’t a part of the plan. She was growing weaker, allowing herself to think beyond the mission and her child and that was unacceptable. As much as she’d been drawn to Jacquin and Adrian, they were dangerous. Too dangerous.

She slowly pulled free from her lovers, moving so as not to wake them. She dressed quickly and wiped tears from her eyes as she silently commanded Fisk into her pocket and cautiously opened the wagon door. The sand was heavy and thick, the grains wearing away at the junkyard around them, but the storm had ended and she’d be able to crawl through the debris.

Horns blared in the distance and Rox looked up through the holes in the wagon parts above them. The force field was falling away. The Circle would want to leave as soon as possible.

Rox looked back at the wagon, her heart breaking at the thought of leaving, but she clenched her jaw and pushed her sadness aside. This wasn’t about romance or bondmates. This was about Serena. And to Rox, her daughter was everything.

It was time to leave.

Jacquin coughed, the pressure tearing at her throat, burning in her lungs. Adrian bent to lift her up, clearing her airways as she took a deep, gasping breath.

Adrian let out a tense breath, clicking her tongue against her teeth. She’d stopped asking Jacquin if she was okay days ago. She obviously wasn’t. Since Rox had disappeared, a mysterious illness had fallen over Jacquin, starting as a lack of appetite and fatigue and quickly turning to a fever and cough. The day before, Jacquin had lost the ability to speak.

Khalisa blended a sharp, bitter tea just outside Jacquin’s wagon, the rancid odor reaching Jacquin through the haze of her fever and she curled her nose, moving to cover her mouth with her arm like an obstinate child. Adrian caught her wrist, shaking her head.

“You have to, Love. Medicine never tastes good.”

Khalisa ran the brew in to her sister and Adrian held Jacquin’s arms as Khalisa ran the broth past Jacquin’s lips. “This isn’t helping her,” Khalisa muttered. “This is the best remedy available in Oasis and it’s not even keeping her stable.”

Jacquin lay back, Adrian and Khalisa’s discussion coming in snippets as her mind shifted in and out of reality. The ceiling seemed to spin, the wooden beams warping and twisting as the etchings along the ceiling came to life and danced through the air. Jacquin knew, even in her fevered delirium, that the images weren’t real. They weren’t even premonitions. She was losing her mind.

She closed her eyes and the chaos of images continued in her mind, pulling her out of herself. She stalked through the rubble of a shattered stone building, angry voices and the pound of boots behind her. She dodged and wove around silverpines, leaping up into a tree with low-hanging branches, her muscles shifting and moving in perfect unison, pulling her high enough to avoid the mob that passed below.

She looked out through the trees at the ruins, her heart heavy with grief. She could barely recognize the shape anymore: the ruins of the Council’s Keep. She dropped to the ground, her old-fashioned wool cloak billowing out behind of her. She made her way back to the ruins, pausing once in the front courtyard. Flashes of gunfire reflecting off swords flashed through her mind, the memory of the trees of Valley Bay going up in flames.

She looked up at the sky, heavy with white clouds like a ceiling over the world. It was a sky she knew well. A sky that didn’t seem to be right without her beloved, buried too deeply beneath the sprawling rubble for her body to be found. There would never be a funeral pyre for Antonia n’Athena. She would forever rest on her last battlefield.

Jacquin felt herself separate from the Amazon of her vision and she watched the woman whisper a prayer over the ruins and flee in the opposite direction of the mob. Jacquin could taste sand and sunlight in the woman’s intentions. She was heading for the desert.

Jacquin woke again in her wagon. She took a deep breath and could smell sea water and pine. Rox. Her eyes flew open, but it was only Adrian and Khalisa, their faces pale with worry. It wasn’t Rox. It never was. Just her ghost.

“Thank you for staying with her, Adrian.”

“There’s nothing more important than Jacquin. Nothing.”

Jacquin’s eyes locked on her lover. Adrian’s pallor wasn’t just from worry. Her eyes were ringed in dark circles, her skin tinted a light green. Jacquin had paid to have her back healed when the storm passed. She couldn’t pretend her weakness, her exhaustion, was due to injuries. It was Rox. Their bond was breaking, pulling apart, fraying at the seams and Adrian felt it, too. If Rox didn’t return soon, Adrian would quickly fall ill as well.

Adrian turned as she felt Jacquin’s gaze and her eyes, hidden once again behind a hazel illusion, narrowed. “I don’t think we should give her the medicine anymore. She doesn’t want it.”

“She hates the taste,” Khalisa pressed.

Adrian shook her head. “No.”

The tea Khalisa had given her started to work its way through her body, easing her to sleep, forcing her body to conserve energy. Jacquin closed her eyes, trying to fight the effects. The tea would ease any other sick person, but for Jacquin it was a descent into madness, her visions enveloping her as the medicine robbed her of her strength to control what she saw.

Jacquin held to her vision of Rox as she drifted into unconsciousness, her lips moving slowly, forming Rox’s name in a soundless whisper.

Jacquin descended into a vision, waking in the middle of a dark, ancient forest, her bare feet cold and sore against the rough forest floor. The trees, swathed in inky shadow, rose high above her, almost blocking out the deep blue night sky. An icy chill clung to her skin, chilling her to the bone. In the distance she could smell smoke rising above the scents of wet pine and cedar.

She heard a mournful yowl and turned, a orange and ginger eitteh stalking toward her, its sandy cream wings folded tight against its back like a rigid cloak. It looked up at Jacquin with sad eyes. As it stalked toward her, it grew, shifting and rising into a changling, its body expanding to reveal taut muscles and a masculine frame a bit shorter and more muscular than the changlings that had attacked Oasis. The changling’s eyes echoed the same sadness as the eitteh.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered that the winged cats were all female, but there was no mistaking the changling before her was male. Instead of a knife, a woman’s shawl was strung through the loop on his belt, his pants tattered and torn from running through the forest.

In the distance, melding with the sent of smoke, was a loud, hoarse, feminine scream of pain. Jacquin jumped in surprise but knew in an instant the woman wasn’t in trouble; she was giving birth. The changling turned to the sound, emitting a wild yowl that echoed through the trees to the sky as mournfully and viciously as any wolf’s howl.

Jacquin wandered forward, catching the changling’s eye. She instinctively flinched, waiting for an attack, but the changling was still, the sharp, feline angles of his face a frozen expression of pride and acceptance. They locked eyes and Jacquin gasped, instantly recognizing the creature’s truth in a series of images and emotions. A woman bathed in moonlight, standing in the forest. A feather-light touch. A kiss. A sigh.

“She wasn’t crazy, was she? And you weren’t a ghost.”

The woman screamed again in the distance, her voice joined with the squeal of a child, the infant’s voice too strong, to pitched to be a fully human infant cry. Jacquin saw another flash of images. A child, as changling as human. A torch. A cry. Her heart sped with panic, her legs ached from running.

“And her family didn’t move south voluntarily.”

The changling turned from the sound, stalking deeper into the forest. Jacquin chased after him, pressing through the tangle of brambles and low-hanging tree branches, but he ran faster, blurring together with the forest. As Jacquin suddenly stepped outside the forest, her feet meeting familiar warm sand, the changling stood before her, no longer a man, but a woman, more catlike than human, her fur a perfect match for the winged eitteh from before. She carried a wooden, carved staff, her eyes narrow and intense.

Jacquin was consumed with vision, running through the forest, stones beneath her feet, claws and fur and the sharp edge of glass blades piercing her skin. She heard a rising, purred song echoing in the distance to be shattered with the hissed, screaming war cries of changling warriors. The scents of blood on snow, minerals strung through an underground river, sulfur and fire filled her nose and mouth all at once. A deeply rooted fear settled in her stomach. The sensations bombarded her, too much for her to comprehend or separate, a swirling storm of aggression and misery and fear choking her like the sandstorm, filling her lungs until she could no longer breathe.

Jacquin woke with a silent scream, arching out of bed and nearly tumbling to the floor. Adrian caught her, laying her back in bed with a distraught look on her face. Jacquin saw her lips move, felt the tightness in her hands, but she couldn’t hear anything. She was loosing her senses to her visions and she grabbed Adrian’s shirt in shaking, damp fists as she realized that she would soon lose her vision, and with it all connection to reality.

Adrian’s lips urgently formed Jacquin’s name, her breath coming too quickly for her to be doing anything but yelling. Jacquin tried to respond, but she was frozen, her body slowly rebelling against her desires.

She felt darkness closing in again and she held Adrian tighter, their eyes meeting as she plead with whatever God would hear her not to slip away again. Adrian kissed her, held her close, her hands desperate to protect her lover but they both knew there was nothing Adrian could do. She had stayed. She was all that was keeping Jacquin alive.

Darkness fell again and Jacquin was once again far from home, standing in the dark, her feet on cold stone and her hands bound. She wasn’t in her own skin. The body was different, slighter, smaller. Her wrists burned from her bonds, the skin wearing away beneath the metal manacles. Her feet were numb from the cold, every movement sending shocks of electric pain up her legs. She felt thin linen around her haggard frame, her stomach nauseous with hunger, her tongue dry and heavy in her mouth.

All she could smell was the cold, the damp, the dirt, sweat and tears of the other prisoners. There was no light, but somehow Jacquin could still see the other cells -- the other prisoners – in the darkness. Her eyes were locked on a small child across the stony aisle, her face covered with her hands, her knees tucked tight against her waist as she curled into a tiny ball on the cave floor as close to the prison bars as possible. She was too dehydrated to cry, all her tears spilt days before.

Jacquin reached out through the bars of her cell as far as the manacles would allow, attempting hopelessly to be closer to the child. She sang softly, wordlessly, her mouth too sore and broken with thirst to easily form words, but she could still hum, could still vocalize the child’s favorite songs. She refused to let the girl – Serena – be alone for even a second in the dark.

A light echoed deeper in the prison, the sound of boots stomped forward. Jacquin turned to the sound, a cold fear rippling through her stomach, her eyes flickering back and forth between the child and the sound. A small contingent of guards began opening the cells, pulling prisoners seemingly at random until she noticed the mark on the guards’ clubs. They were slave merchants.

A man stopped before Serena’s door and unlocked it as another entered Rox’s cell. The man didn’t hesitate with Serena, throwing the limp child over his shoulder.

“Stop!” Jacquin shouted with all her strength, the sound ripping from her heart as she pushed her way toward her cell door. Jacquin hesitated, recognizing the voice. Rox. The man blocking her door pushed her back, the motion instantly igniting a fire in her stomach that eased away her pain, pushing everything but getting to her daughter to the back of her mind.

She charged, catching the man off guard as the frail prisoner who had been effortless to push away barreled into him, her hands flying like claws, her voice a crazed animal’s howl. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t think, her nails and teeth finding every bit of exposed skin, her fingers warm with his blood before more men charged her. She flailed and slashed, catching another man by the throat and snapping his neck with her arms before another caught her from behind.

Everything became a blur of blood and screams. She didn’t feel their fists as they punched her, only their weight as they fell limp to the floor. Serena screamed, both at the sight of her mother covered in blood and the man carrying her away.

Jacquin lunged, reaching out for Rox’s child when she was grabbed by the neck and an icy blast encircled her, knocking her instantly unconscious, consuming Jacquin in darkness.

Jacquin gasped, her voice echoing in her vision, her own once more. She wept, Rox’s grief over the loss of her daughter still a physical weight beneath her skin. She could still feel Rox near and she ran through the darkness in search of her lover, the ground beneath her feet turning cold and hard, high marble walls running to peaked vaulted ceilings shifted into view until she stood in the center of a great hall, walls and floors of slick, smooth, mottled black and white marble. A council of warriors and mages sat along the walls.

Sitting at the front of the room on a short dais were identical twins, young men in matching black travelers’ leathers, the only sign of their nobility scarlet cloaks wrapped around their shoulders and over their heads like hoods. Jacquin walked up to them, unseen in the vision, and studied the Twins who Adrian and Rox so feared.

They were perfectly identical in all respects but their eyes. The twin on the right had green eyes, while the other had brown. She crossed her arms over her chest. Their identical appearance was a farce. They weren’t identical, they were fraternal, using illusion to erase their differences.

Soft, shuffling footsteps and sounds of alarm echoed through the hall and Jacquin turned as Rox stumbled into view. She was manacled at her hands and feet, her dirty linen dress ragged and torn, dried blood in her hair, beneath her nails, down her chin and neck. She stood at the center of the wide hall, a lone pinpoint under full scrutiny of the council and the Twins.

Rox, ever defiant, seemed not to notice the men along the walls, her full attention on the Twins, her eyes wild, her stance low and aggressive, her mind spinning, trying to find a way to run, to attack, with bound hands and feet.

“Give me back my daughter.”

The brown-eyed twin leaned forward, seemingly unfazed by Rox’s wild, gory appearance. “Rox, is it?” Rox regarded him warily without answering. “You’ve been held prisoner for two weeks, picked up during our raids down the coast of the southern continent?”

Rox was single-minded, her voice hoarse and vicious. “I want my daughter back.”

The twin continued on, “And yet somehow, despite limited food, water and exercise, you were able to escape your cell and kill four armed guards with your bare hands.”

A murmur of approval and awe echoed between the courtiers and councilors, but Rox didn’t even glance away from her captors. She took two shaky steps forward, soldiers in the crowd instantly moving forward to stop her, but the green-eyed twin waved them away.