The Destroyer Book 2 (42 page)

His statement made little sense to me. Alexia would have gladly interfered with the empress’s plans. She would have gone insane knowing that Elvens were attempting to enslave humans again.

"Turnia's came to mind. But I prefer to think of them as Thayer's clan anyway. And again, you would have admitted as much when we first met," he continued, slender finger on his chin as he looked up into the blue sky.

"I am done with this discussion now." The wine glass made a hollow ring when I set it down on the wood table. "Take me to Nadea." My head hurt again. It radiated down my spine and to my feet.

"You know I can't allow that." He waved his finger in the air.

I almost ripped the table off the floor of the balcony, grabbed the silver-haired bastard by his scrawny neck and shook him until his bones turned into jelly. Instead, I let out a long breath and glared at him.

"Don't look so hostile, friend." His lips turned up, but the smile did not crease his cheeks or eyes.

"I am not your friend. Fuck you. I'd rip your body into a thousand pieces, drink your blood out of this glass, and then piss you out into your empress's mouth before murdering her as well." The man shot to his feet and I felt magic rip from the ground and flow to him. I stood up a quarter second after him. There was no way that he could cast anything with me this close. I would kill him first or he'd roast himself. Three swords drew with one sound behind me.

"Damn your words human!" His eyes began to glow bright yellow, and I tasted the air burning. "Our empress gave us life, made us her children. You disrespect her again, and you will die."

"The only thing keeping you alive right now is Nadea. I will see her, or your empress will mourn all of her 'children' in the castle by the end of the day."

He was silent as he regarded me. I couldn't make out his pupils or his thoughts past the magic in his body and the mask of anger he wore. The guardswomen slowly approached from behind. Their footsteps were too quiet to hear, but their hearts beat like galloping horses running in fear.

Pull the Fire from him, rip it out of his body and destroy him.

Entas's advice brought a memory to me like a scented wind delivers the smell of rain. I knew that I could take Alatorict's Fire from his body as easily as he took it from the Earth. I was about to do so when the light released from his eyes and I felt the power drain from him, filling the space between us with heat. He sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Put those away." He waved to the women behind me. I heard them sigh in relief and ease their swords into their sheaths. "Please sit down again, O'Baarni." He motioned for the chair, but I remained standing. He didn't seem to notice as he sunk back into his seat with an exhausted breath.

"Bring me the treaty scrolls,” he ordered the guardswomen. He poured himself the rest of the wine and took a shaky drink.

"The empress was going to discuss this with you. I'll just explain to her that you left me with no choice." He set the glass back on the table when Isslata handed him four tightly bound bundles of rolled parchment. She moved behind the silver-haired man and then gave me an unmistakable look of adoration. She wore tight leather armor and knee high boots under a thin cloak of blue silk. Her attire was similar to the other guards, but was embroidered with thread that matched her hair. Her heart was still beating wildly and a light sheen of perspiration allowed her skin to reflect the sunlight. She bit her lower lip and her hand absently stroked the hilt of her long sword. Our eyes made contact and she mouthed something to me that I didn't catch.

"Four times," Alatorict said sadly. "My memory hasn't faded, O'Baarni. There are four of your forsaken treaties here. Each ends the same." He shook the bundles of paper and I looked at them confusion plain on my face.

"Your people, and I don't care which clan you are or aren't from because all of you have had the same contribution over the last two thousand years, have made four promises to us. Each one copied down carefully on these scrolls, agreed to by your leaders, and signed by ours." He held up a scroll. "This is the most recent, made twenty years ago between the leaders of your clans and our empress. It promises us this world, just as all the earlier ones promised us a home. You know how it always ends, some of the O'Baarni show up on our world, just as you did. They claim that they are defending their humans, or other such nonsense. Then more of your kind appear and push on us until--"

Alatorict must have read the confusion on my face. He stopped talking and looked at me in amazement, his mouth hung open, the next word dangling from his tongue.

"I was wrong to engage in this conversation with you.” His face paled. "I have become too emotional. As you can imagine, this is a sensitive topic for me." I nodded and leaned back in the chair. I tried to piece the bits of what he revealed together. How long had I been sleeping? I knew nothing of a treaty. Was this something hidden in my memory? I couldn't imagine ever agreeing to make peace with the Elvens. I almost asked the obvious question, but then stopped myself. They carried all the leverage right now, and Alatorict had left me with more questions. I would have to be coy about my past until I spoke to Nadea.

"Take the O'Baarni back to his quarters." He looked down at the scrolls and waved his hand absently, not even bothering to make eye contact with me.

Before I rose, Isslata dug her nails into my arm and was pulling me out through Alatorict's suite and into the hallway toward my room. The other two female guards followed us quickly. I didn't remember the walk back; my head was spinning out of control from the possibilities.

Isslata's lips were suddenly on mine. Her passionate kiss took me from my broken memories and slammed me into the present. The woman's right hand gripped tightly through my hair, pulling my face into her eager mouth. Her left hand scratched at the front of my tunic in a rushed attempt to open the ties. I realized that my hands wrapped around her hips and I tried to push her away from me.

"I'm so fucking wet for you," she seethed into my ear before she bit the lobe. She slid through my grip and pushed her body against me, moving her left hand to circle my neck. If this were a fight I would be in serious jeopardy, you never wanted to let someone get control of your head. "Did you see his face? He can't figure you out and it irks him so much." She moaned and moved her mouth down from my ear and ran her tongue across the ridge of my jaw. Her scent reminded me of waking up with her a few hours ago.

I should have felt nausea again. I should have wanted to walk into the bathroom and puke out the food I had just eaten. But my mind was gone, drifting and dreaming through what memories I had scraped together, trying to find out an answer. It acknowledged Isslata's actions like it viewed a painting on a wall, or a tree that I didn't need to climb.

My body was not so aloof. I felt my erection pushing through my pants and against her groin.

"Bed,” she murmured the word while ravaging my neck with her mouth. Her legs and hips leaned away and pulled me toward the place we had shared for the last week.

"No," I said without conviction or emotion. The words didn't stop my feet from moving after her.

"You want me standing? Fine." Her lips met mine again and her tongue swirled against my teeth, flicking and tickling the roof of my mouth. Somehow my shirt had been untied and she pulled it off of my chest. This gave her a whole new area to bite, kiss, and lick.

Mostly bite.

"When did the Destroyer die?" I asked.

"What?" She stopped unfastening my belt.

"When did the Destroyer die? I can't remember."

"If you are going to talk about the Destroyer while you fuck me, then this might top the last week of nights I spent with you." She moaned and bit the skin below my rib cage.

"Isslata. Really. When?" I was focusing now. I could get her to tell me. She was in heat and wouldn't think about my questions. My fingers moved from her slender shoulders to smooth her golden hair away from her face and the tips of her ears. She looked up at me from where she was kneeling.

"I am unsure. Many years before the Treaties were signed." She made a sudden movement with her hands and my pants came undone and fell to my ankles.

"How many years?" I couldn’t feel her nails dig into my skin anymore. Or her bites. Everything was numb. I glanced down through fog and saw her take my penis into her mouth. The woman begun to lick and suck on the tip with an erotic purr, but it was someone else that she was pleasuring. I was hundreds of miles away.

"How many years?" I asked again. My lips felt like I was talking in water.

"Maybe two or three thousand years before. Our kind never kept track, and yours didn't either." She moaned out each word between wet sucking sounds.

Kaiyer was five thousand years away.

"Stop looking out the window," I said to Runir. He moved his hand quickly away from the curtain of our carriage as if he had been bitten, then glared at me like I was the one who had done the biting.

The carriage bounced harshly over a bump in the cobblestone streets and I grasped the plush velvet seat to steady myself. It was a difficult task to get any movement out of my body with the tight corset constricting my chest. The dress I wore was fashionable thirty years ago, and I almost laughed at Countess Detoria when she recommended that it would be the best attire for me to wear to the ball.

At least, if I wanted to go in disguise.

I had imagined my plan would be more difficult to execute. Instead, the countess was delighted to see I had survived, “as beautiful as ever,” which somehow seemed to be the pertinent detail to her. I had only ever seen her at a few banquets, she had missed the last one and said she did not care for parties anymore and would be happy to help me go in her stead.

Well, it hadn't been quite that easy.

I had to tell her about Nanos’s betrayal. About the Ancients trying to take over Nia. About me taking control of the army from Maerc. About what I wished to accomplish at the banquet. She had bobbed her ancient head and made faint humming noises after each of my recounts, and then, when I finished, she gave me her ideas and listed what she wanted in exchange for her cooperation.

Her terms were agreeable and prudent, she wished to heighten her family’s control over its already respectable wine trade. They were things I could easily provide if the banquet went as I hoped. Then the old woman granted me access to her wardrobe, stables, and personal guard.

"I always show up in style Nadea. Your figure isn't quite as good as mine was back in my youth, you're spending too much time on thuggish undertakings, but this should still fit you," the countess had said when she pulled the silver and blue monstrosity I was currently wearing out of her closet.

It was stiff and thick, the material caked in gaudy beadwork and sharp crystals that dug into my skin in some places and scratched others if I dared to move. The skirt was so heavy it actually slowed down my existing limp. One of the countess’s handmaidens had shown me how to squeeze my body into a corset that constricted my waist down the required inches needed to make my muscular figure somewhat close to the measurements the countess boasted in her glory days. My rib cage was also reined in by the sharp boning in the corset, making it difficult to breathe, especially while seated. The boning ran all the way down to my hips, digging into them and forcing me to sit straight and tall to avoid a puncture wound. My breasts were smashed upward and together, to the point that they almost reached my chin when I looked down to read. This seemed particularly useless, as my entire face, neck and chest would be covered by a long veil that was conveniently still seen as fashionable for elderly countesses.

"We are approaching the castle walls." Runir's voice cracked a little.

"Don't worry. This will work out fine," I reassured him. I'd never seen him this afraid.

"We are walking into the bear's mouth. If you are discovered before the banquet, we won't even have an opportunity to fight. I'll lose my life, my country, and the woman I love in one swoop. I'm going to be a little worried." His eyes pierced into mine and he tried to force a smile through his fake mustachio.

I'd made him shave his beard, cut his hair, dye it black, and then wear this ridiculous mustachio as a disguise. I was more concerned that he would be discovered by any of the remaining guards at the castle that knew him than of anyone discovering I wasn't really the Countess Detoria. He looked so outlandish that my guards all agreed that no one would believe it was Runir.

"This is no less dangerous than you sneaking into the dungeons to save me. Besides, the worse possibility here is that we get to go down in a splendid display of bravery, killing hundreds of Losher warriors before we reveal Nanos for the snake he is."

"Aye," he said after taking a moment to consider. "I actually didn't see many Losher soldiers. Do you think they’ve left?"

"The scouts are reporting to the main army." I shrugged, or attempted to shrug, but instead the torturous dress creaked painfully and restricted the gesture. "One of the runners would have alerted us to any danger before we got here."