Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (49 page)

“I, I don’t understand—”

“Change the face, Suranna.”

Nora smiled then and her eyes flashed golden. A ripple went through her, changing the skin, softening her borrowed features, padding her curves until it was Suranna underneath him and no longer Nora.

“How did you know?” Her fingers caressed his forearms while his hands still itched to choke her.

“I know you. You know me. Please don’t insult me by thinking I wouldn’t recognize a trap when I walked into one.”

As he let her sit up, she made no effort to cover herself. He turned his head and looked away demonstratively. She laughed again.

“You haven’t changed, Telen.”

He looked at her, keeping his eyes high, looked at the long black hair framing her beautiful face, long black lashes framing the warmth in her hungry eyes. He looked away again and tried to picture snow. Cold, cold snow.

“Neither have you, it seems. Where is Noraya?”

“Perfectly safe and sound.”

“Where?”

She shrugged and her breasts moved with her shoulders. Catching his gaze, she leaned back on her elbows, displaying her attributes.

“Drowning her frustration with Brisin? Shall I look into the fire and divine her location for you? Is that what you desire?”

“No.” Diaz stood up to leave. “Call us when you’ve divined the location of the Blade.”

“You want to leave me so soon?” She grabbed hold of his sleeve.

“Yes.” The sooner, the better. He should shake her off. But he didn’t do so immediately.

“Tell me what you want, Telen.”

He stiffened.
I want you to leave me alone
, he thought.
I want the past to never have happened
.
I want to stop
—

“Don’t you know?” he said out loud. “You are an all-powerful seeress, are you not?”

“Don’t pretend to be coy with me. Of course I know what you want. I just want you to tell me. I want to hear your voice break, my name on your lips.”

He pressed his lips tight together.

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you care.” He tried to calm the emotion in his voice, ran a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. “So after I ravished you in Nora’s form, may I ask: what was your plan?”

Her foot ran up his leg. He folded his arms in front of his chest, not sure what to make of her silent smile.

“You left me to die,” he said.

Her foot ran higher.

He stepped back and turned to the door. “I’m not your plaything.”

“But you are mine,” she purred after he had gone a few steps. “And now that I see someone else reaching out to play with my toy, I want it back. Badly.”

He snorted and shook his head. But he had stopped instead of leaving.

“Don’t think of it as love,” she continued. “Think of it as possession. You swore you’d be mine till death do us part. You’re still alive.”

He gnashed his teeth. She laughed and rose with a sweeping gesture. Anger had always excited her. Nora’s black clothes vanished as though burned from Suranna’s golden body, and in their place, red flames enclosed the naked flesh in a transparent linen garment that clung to her every regal, sensual move.

“Forgive me,” she said, coming closer. “I know you want to.”

“No.” His voice shook. Gods, she was still so beautiful. Beauty was a thing of terror, far worse than any onslaught he had ever faced. She nestled into his arms, those traitorous arms that took her in without him wanting them to. Her sweet scent of myrrh overpowering him, her hair tickled under his chin as he rested his head on top of hers.

“I missed you, too.” Her lips brushed against his skin. “Kiss me.”

He looked down into her eyes and they were warm. Like they used to be. He bent down and kissed her lips; her hot, soft, and yielding mouth. Just like it used to be. Another illusion. It wasn’t real. A mild pain in his chest was warning him to stop. But her fingertips made his skin tingle as she touched him on the outside and underneath at the same time. He moaned and shuddered with pleasure.

“Take your clothes off,” she commanded between kisses.

“No.”

Her index finger ran over his shirt, so scorching hot it burned through the fabric and left an angry red welt on his chest. He sucked in air between his teeth. She pulled the ruined shirt from his arms and threw it into the gloom.

He stood very still as she walked around him, her hand traveling over the scars on his body, every touch leaving a burning trail. Her hands came to rest over his heart, her gaze sultry under her long lashes. She kissed him again, thrusting herself into him until he grew weak in the knees. She smiled triumphantly when she heard him gasp for air. Her hands crawled over and under his skin, pulling him down to the floor with her.

Her skin was soft under his touch. He brushed his lips against her naked shoulder and followed the curve of her flesh down to her breasts. She moaned in his ear as he drew a circle around her nipple with his tongue, grabbing a fistful of her glorious silky hair as she reached down between his legs and touched him.

He was half raised above her, frozen by her touch. Her golden eyes were slits of longing as she caressed him, massaging him. Yes, she knew what he wanted—he felt cold suddenly. And drained. One shaky hand reached up to her face and covered those golden eyes, but it didn’t help. He closed his own eyes and tried to conjure up Nora’s face as he bent down to kiss Suranna’s full lips, but that just made the gnawing feeling in his gut bubble over and he felt himself slipping away from her grasp.

“What is it?”

He sat up, kneeling between her legs as she propped herself up on one elbow. He ran a hand over his face.

“I just…this does not work for me.”

She reached out for him with a smile.

“Let me make it work.”

He stopped her hand, but she wouldn’t let go.

“I cannot. Let you. Do this to me. Again.”

“But you want it. Go on. Beg me.”

Her touch sparked a fire. He gasped as the heat spread through him from his root to his pumping heart, energizing him once more, making him hard and ready, greedily devouring all thoughts of cold and snow and loneliness. A strangled cry came from him as her hand started moving again.

“I, I won’t beg,” he said, breathless.

“You will. The only question is how long it’ll take.”

Two hours later, she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, leg over his loins. But he didn’t, couldn’t sleep, exhausted and lightheaded though he was. He waited a long time before slipping out from under her to search for his clothes in the dark. She arched her back as he pulled his shirt over his body, feeling her golden eyes rest on him once more.

“I used to be the one who crept away from you,” she said. “Some things do change.”

He couldn’t find his belt and cursed silently.

“Where are you going?”

He remained silent, scanning the blackness with his adjusting eyes.

“Back to her?”

There it was. He walked over to the belt and picked it up. He could feel the toothmarks still.

“Aren’t you worried she’ll smell me on you? Or wonder where the scratches came from? Or maybe she’ll just realize how calm and collected you seem now and draw her own conclusions.”

He sighed. “Did you always talk so much?”

“Will you lie to her, Telen?”

He surrendered to her conversation. “Silence is a virtue.”

“And virtue is a grace.” Suranna smiled. “You’re her hero. And you’d just be ordinary. Just like any other man. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”

He pulled the belt tighter, clenching his jaw as his stomach churned.

“I can see it behind your brow, the guilt rising, the anger at yourself for losing control.”

He turned around and met the queen’s eye.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, annoyed.

“A child, of course. Oh, your face is so divine when you’re shocked.”

She shrugged, fingering a long strand of silky hair.

“The small alcove on the left. You remember the one? No, not the one with the bed in it. The other one, where you would watch me?” She saw him glance over to the piece of the wall where the alcove was hidden behind a heavy, black curtain. She rose, stepping closer to him, and whispered into his ear: “Guess who’s there right now, watching you?”

Diaz closed his eyes against the sinking feeling. It was going to be another show. Another trap. He walked over to the alcove anyway, knowing what he’d see, who would be there, preparing for the hammer fall. One hard whisk of the curtain to the side and—

An intense look of hatred met his gaze, making him recoil. Then Nora looked away.

The girl’s hands and feet were tied together, the thin cord cutting into her flesh. Because she’d fought. She’d always fight. She had been gagged, and he saw lines streaking down her bruised face where the tears had washed a clean path. His heart felt like an icy fist was squeezing it tight. It was another illusion, he told himself, not even believing his own words. He’d forever be at Suranna’s mercy until she let him leave. His knees were still trembling and now he felt sick. Two guards stood over Nora with their swords to her throat.

“She’s been very well behaved, hasn’t she?” Suranna sidled up behind him, leaning against him. “So quiet. She came in here ranting and raving a few hours ago about the injustice of life and love. I see why you like her. Remember when you last felt such passion?”

“This isn’t happening,” he murmured.

“I assure you, it is.” Suranna gestured at the guards and they hauled Nora up to her feet. She groaned into the piece of cloth between her teeth. “Take her to the Pit.”

“Yes, queen,” the guards said in unison.

Nora swore through the gag as they hauled her out of the alcove.

Diaz swept around. At least, he tried to. He was rooted to the spot.

“I wondered when you’d feel it.” Suranna stepped up from behind.

Diaz wrestled against unseen chains. In vain. He was as a stone marker set in the ground. Even when he strained his entire will, he remained paralyzed. Trapped. Like the fool he was proving to be.

“What are you doing?” He spoke in a low menace. “The Pit?”

“How well have you trained this girl? Do you think she’ll last as long as you did?” Suranna paused for a breath before adding, “In the Pit?”

“You’re going to test her?”

“No. I’m going to watch her die, Telen. And you are, too.”

He struggled more then, jaw clenching until it hurt. She laughed and slapped him on the cheek. His body mistook the sensation as rough foreplay.

“I should kill you now and rid the world of your presence once and for all,” he growled at her from deep inside and stopped fighting.

She lifted one hand up to his arm and with a finger made the mark of a cross on it. The fabric of his shirt burst into flame, searing the flesh underneath it. He pressed his lips tightly together, but a groan escaped them anyway as the fire ate into him.

“Try. But know you are not the one to give me death.”

“You have seen your own end in vision?”

“You brought it here with you.”

Diaz winced, but not at the flames licking his skin.

“Noraya?”

She shrugged. He laughed a bitter laugh.

“Attempting to change fate, then?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

She swept her hand up, and the fire on his arm died with a flicker, leaving behind a raw and open wound.

“I am not. For I have seen the future. But you haven’t. Guards!”

Four men in heavy armor appeared from the corridor and leveled their spears at him. Diaz licked his lips. He had no weapon, yet. But it would be easy to take down these four despite the pain in his arm, if only she’d let him go.

“No. You will enjoy doing as I say.” Suranna smiled then and moved her hand in a complicated gesture.

He knelt before her then, his legs moving of their own accord as he fell rigidly to his knees. He shuddered and tried to get back up. He couldn’t. His knees scraped across the stone floor as he approached her on them like a penitent sinner and kissed her outstretched hand.

Her smile broadened as she caressed the scar on the back of his right hand.

“Burning the mark only made the bond stronger.”

She waved her hand again, and he had to rise and follow her to the Pit.

I
t was the noise that
told Nora where they had brought her. The noise she could feel like a numbing punch, along with the stench. Both made her head reel. The heavy iron gates before her, rusted in part, were hauled open and she was shoved forward into the white light beyond.

A step and she nearly fell to her death. The hand had roughly shoved her onto a thin wooden plank that shuddered and bounced under her feet. To each side of the plank, she saw below her a death pit. The stench was worse here. People hung spitted on stakes, some dead, the others slowly dying, broken and whimpering. Throwing out her arms for balance, she staggered three steps farther to cross the plank and stand in the gleaming white sun on hard-baked sand.

The ropes binding her hands together had been cut, and whoever had done so had also put tight leather bracers on her forearms. She hadn’t even noticed. The gag still remained. Realizing her hands were now free, she reached behind and tried to untie the knot, giving her watering eyes a moment to adjust to the glare.