Authors: Kim Knox
“There are other ways to take the power I need.”
He frowned. “That’s not just illegal, it’s taboo.”
Ava lifted an eyebrow. He knew about consuming. Had everyone known about this method of taking power but her? “They’re caught up in the wonder of each other. Their absolute perfection. It’s not a part of the harmony of magic. And if we have to use something...unethical to return the balance, then I’m good with that.”
“How much power?”
She had him.
Ava stood and let her long hooded cloak drop back to her seat. “For this demonstration? Not much. I’ll need more as the illusions I weave become elaborate.”
“I’ll judge from this first time.” He offered up his hand.
She took it, his long fingers, the thick callused palm swamping her own small hand. His thumb stroked over the lines of her
teken
and her heart missed a beat. There was no fear in him as he touched her. An unusual reaction to a thief. Only Reist had ever looked at her without terror in his eyes.
She dropped onto his lap and shifted her backside over the hard muscle of his thighs. The chair squeaked and groaned. The images from the treatise danced before her eyes. Wanton and carnal. She liked the taste of blood and bone in her mouth, even if an elemental like Heyerdar left a lingering stink of wet earth. Would this way add a nuance to the illusions, give it a veracity that would make it believable? Should she go that one step further?
Heyerdar’s hand settled on her hips, calm and waiting. What she was giving to him she’d given to no other man, but Reist was worth it. Would be worth it in the end.
She leaned forward, watching the flicker of firelight sparking in his golden eyes. “I will weave a dream and push it through her thoughts. She’ll remember you, your scent, your taste, the feel of your skin under her mouth, her fingers. Your power. It will burn, and her returned ache for you will begin.”
She didn’t need to mention the hint of herself she’d fasten to Reist. Of the mage replacing Heyerdar as she sat across his lap. She also wouldn’t mention the image she intended to plant was of her naked.
Heyerdar’s hands tightened on her hips, his fingers digging into her muscles hard enough to bruise. His eyes had grown dark. “And for this...?”
“A kiss.”
A smile lifted his mouth, wry and wicked. “So little.”
Ava steadied her breathing, grasping at the heavy weight of her center...but it eluded her. Something so valueless to him was beyond price for her. She’d never kissed anyone. Nobody. No mage with any sense touched the mouth of a thief. But with him, she could try. For Reist.
She teased his upper lip with her tongue-tip. Her open mouth didn’t change, distort, and her heart thudded at the tasting of him, the drawing of the first golden threads of power from his flesh. Just as the treatise had described. His soft groan urged her to deepen the kiss. He wasn’t fighting her. He seemed to
like
the rush of fire from his blood. Luck was on her side for a change. She fisted her hand in his thick hair and, with her empty soul open, took his mouth.
The illusions wove around her, growing, gaining strength as she wrapped herself in Heyerdar’s incredible power. With his strength, time and space became hers to twist. Reist and Fallon sat in the Convocation of the Higher Mages, the moonlight silvering the great circle of the table...but Ava rewrapped time, pushing threads through the night until early morning.
She strung a thin sliver of herself to Reist. Offering her bared skin rather than the coarse linen of her tunic. Heat and want. Waiting for him when he returned to his bed.
Heyerdar tightened his grip on her hip, his hand splayed across her back. More power, and the taste of Heyerdar was hot and sweet and completely unexpected. She drew his magic from him in delicious waves, and he groaned his appreciation. It was almost addictive.
Her empty soul brimmed with energy, and she focused. She tied the illusion to her rival, to the moment Fallon climbed into the bed she shared with Reist. Heyerdar’s strength, his intoxicating power and the hint of the beast at his core wove through Ava’s thoughts and into Fallon. With the first light of morning breaking through the window of her bedroom, Fallon’s head would hit the pillow with the beginning force of the spell.
And still Ava poured Heyerdar into her mind. The taste of the man whose tongue fought with hers, giving her everything of himself, his scent, both sweeter and more tempting than she had imagined, wrapped around Fallon. They bound the illusion, spinning it into the woman’s mind, sealing it from Reist’s own sharp powers. Her heart pounded, and with it the need grew in her for more of him, more than a meeting of magic and mouths.
For a long moment, she kissed him for herself, for the debauched thief at her core. Kissed him for the joy of having a man want her. And he did want her. There was a promise, hot and fierce, to sate her darkness—
Ava broke away, her breath quick, her skin flushed and hot. Her fingers flexed from their tight grip of his hair, and she stroked their tips down the hard plane of his jaw. Touching him, tasting him. It could become addictive. Her body was on fire, from magic and the unexpected wildness of her first kiss. She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against his for a brief, easing moment, waiting for the fast rush of need to drain from her body. It had begun.
Sex magic for mage, thief or elemental was taboo. And from the hard length of Heyerdar under her straddled hips, she knew why. She was playing with an elemental. If he wanted, if he needed, he would take her and she wouldn’t stop him. From the low throb in her belly, she’d welcome him. Sex magic had opened a dangerous connection between them.
“I felt it, saw it.” The roughness of his voice prickled over her skin and she shivered. His hand still gripped her hip, holding her against his erection.
“It was a strong working.” She opened her eyes and unconsciously licked her lips. “Your strength...”
He frowned and pulled his hands back from her body. “Don’t forget why you’re doing this, thief.”
Ava scowled at him. Did he think she wanted
him?
He was mostly animal. The rest was tree, and therefore stump-stupid. Nothing about him compared to Reist. It was just the power of the magic she’d opened. “Aftershocks. Nothing more.” She willed strength into her legs, climbed down from his lap and pulled on her cloak. “It’s a thief thing.”
“This is a business arrangement.” He stood and a long finger teased a loosened strand of her hair behind her ear. “Never forget that.”
Ava jerked her head away from his touch. “I know what it is. The thief in me wanted your power. I’m nothing if not practical.”
“I’m not one of your little mages. My power comes from the heart of the earth. The heart of the sun.” He leaned forward, his mouth so close to hers she tasted his sweet breath and couldn’t stop the quick hitch in her chest. His voice was just above a raw whisper. “Never offer me anything you’re not willing to lose.”
Ava’s gaze narrowed on him and she ignored the prick of her skin, the quick nervous rush that rioted through her. Not that she could have anything he wanted. She had no magic of her own. “Deal.”
He straightened. “So Fallon will dream of me? Remember what it is that drew her to me?”
“As a start, yes.”
“And tomorrow?”
He’d taken her deal. She willed her heart to calm, to remain the cold thief everyone expected her to be. “Tomorrow she’ll remember your first time.”
Heyerdar growled. “You want me to give you my memories?”
“Specific ones.” She wet her lips, remembering her own body’s reaction to him. “I’m certain we can use your first time over and over.”
He lifted an eyebrow and his golden eyes gleamed with a dark humor. “You’re certain?”
“It wasn’t good?”
“Don’t cheek me, girl.” He ran a thumb over the edge of her coarse tunic. “Wear something else. Something smooth, fitted.” He frowned. “And lose the daggers. You have a blade at your back and both thighs, two tucked in your boots. Too much distracting metal.”
“My blades are my trade.”
He laughed at her. “Your eyes and ears are your trade in the Institute and in the palace. You’re the mages’ pet thief. Don’t pretend you’re anything else.”
Ava gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to launch herself at him, find his mouth and pull away every thread of power she could. He was an elemental. Having...respect for anyone wasn’t in his nature. She needed him, needed his fearsome power to get what she wanted. So she ignored his gibe. “Tomorrow at the same time?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The low thrum to his voice promised darkness and pleasure. She swallowed nervously. She was playing with old magic. But then her abilities came from the same source. She had to take courage from that.
Ava turned without a backward glance, though her body ached for one last look at him, and she disappeared through the door. A silent, unseen ghost.
The path to her room was empty of people and for that she was grateful. Her thoughts were a mess and she wanted only to focus on the slip of her shadowy form down the stone corridors.
She had begun something from which she couldn’t back out. She’d waited too long for Reist. Milestone birthdays had passed. Sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty-one. Twenty-five. Half her life was gone. She expected something, some acknowledgement that what she felt burned in him too. She would live on a half look, the brush of his hand over hers, the way he leaned in to her as they’d drape themselves on a balcony and watch a naked Heyerdar in the arena.
Ava closed the door to her room and leaned back against the cold wood.
In the still darkness the familiar scents of stone, wool, leather and lavender washed over her. Her haven. Her place of peace. Maybe it was the relief of being in her room that had the darkness falling away from her. All her senses grew quiet, and the strain of living too sharp in the world eased. Despite all the insanity of Heyerdar and what she’d just agreed to do, she felt lighter, calmer, saner than she had in months.
Well, not exactly sane. She’d bargained an illegal gain and use of power with an elemental. No, not exactly sane at all.
She wished she’d been able to keep a little of Heyerdar’s power as she made her way across the room. A wave of her fingers and she could ignite a spark in the cold hearth or the wick of a tallow candle. But her empty soul had taken it all. Mage-light in her room was impossible. It itched against her thoughts...a temptation she’d never known how to eat. A smile tugged at her mouth. Now she did.
As it was, she had to pull out her tinderbox and drop a spark over a fat candle on the grate. Golden light pushed at the shadows. Ava lifted the candle holder and picked past the dark lumps of furniture to the screen behind which her narrow cot was set.
Her little room had none of the grandeur of Heyerdar’s chambers. That she had a room in the Institute at all was down to Reist. He saw the benefit of having a thief. She frowned, remembering Heyerdar’s words. Was she their pet? Records said no thief had been welcomed into the Hall of Mages in living memory. And mages lived a
long
time.
Thieves were the enemy, the soul-stealers who wanted to drain every mage to a husk. Assassins for whoever would pay them, thieves were the lowest of the low. Untouchable and hated. That made Reist’s push for her to remain, be trained and provided for even more strange.
It was what gave her hope.
Ava put the candle on the little table beside her bed and stripped off her clothes, laying everything over her cedar chest. Her arms ached and she turned them to see bruises forming. She blushed at the hard marks she found on her hips.
For a moment she closed her eyes. Heyerdar had taken her first kiss, and the burn of it, the taste of him on her tongue and lips, licked unexpected heat under her skin. It twisted in her gut that it should’ve been Reist. She’d imagined it. Too often. Had seen it as his right. One he’d refused.
She usually took her daily orders from him in the round stone chamber in the east tower after they’d had tea on the balcony. Her fantasy had him looking up from one of the myriad scrolls that piled across his desk. The shaft of morning sun gilded his smooth features, casting a halo around his dark hair. He’d tilt his head, drop the scroll and stand in one fluid moment. In less than a heartbeat, he’d be around the ancient wooden desk. Nerves backed her away until her spine hit the door. Reist caught his fingers in her hair, jerked her head back and then...
Ava swallowed and willed her breathing to slow. She stared at the flickering light of the candle. She only tasted Heyerdar. Felt his strength, his heat, the raw burn of him. Why had Fallon involved herself with an elemental?
She scrubbed her hands over her face and stared at the mark on her palm. It was almost invisible against the lines of her hand. Heyerdar had given her a sated moment. Catching her fingers in her hair, she hunted for her nightgown and crawled into her cot. The heavy blankets were a comforting weight and she twisted against the rush mattress. A quick breath blew out the candle, and darkness settled again.
Ava thumped her pillow. She’d broken so many rules in such a short space of time. A single day. Turning to the wall, she frowned. She was living up to her reputation as a thief, a creature without conscience. But she couldn’t walk away from Reist without trying everything she could to make the lump-headed man see sense. And he would see it—a fist tightened in her chest—even if she had to fuck the elemental to do it.
Chapter Four
Ava splashed water on her face and failed to feel awake. Her eyes were raw and sandy and her thoughts clouded. Dreams had plagued her. Hot, disturbing visions of Reist, of Fallon, of Heyerdar, caught in wild tangles of limbs, mouths and fingers.
She shivered and denied the illicit thrill the images ran through her body. She pressed the towel to her face. One kiss and she was imagining an orgy. Not that Heyerdar would share. Another shiver ran over her. He wouldn’t share anything.
A shaft of morning sunlight crept across her open window. She winced. She was late. In one way that was a good thing. Seeing Heyerdar welcoming the sun, every inch of his luscious skin exposed to the light, would’ve run fire through her flesh. She didn’t need Reist seeing that reaction. Not if she was going to be there for him when Fallon left.
She threw on clothes, stamped into her boots and grabbed her cloak. Breakfast would have to wait until after her meeting with Reist.
She flew down the twists and turns of numerous corridors and up the tight stairwell to Reist’s chamber. At the heavy, closed door, she stopped and drew in calming breaths. She pushed her hood back and straightened her hair. Not that it would make any difference. Her lack of sleep no doubt made her look like the recently-dug-up dead.
She rapped her knuckles against the wood, waited five heartbeats and lifted the latch. Her thief-mask settled over her face. No emotion, just professional courtesy. That morning she needed it and, thanks to Heyerdar, it came easily.
Sunlight striped the flagstone floor, the warmth of it touching her face. She squinted, finding Reist at his desk. The meeting of the Higher Mages had finished only a few hours before, but he’d never missed one of their appointments. Another stupid thing to drive in hope.
“I overslept. I apologize.”
Reist looked up. “Morning, Ava.” He pointed to the wooden chair set before his desk. “Sit, please.”
She gave him a silent nod, unclipped her cloak and sat. He continued to read. He wasn’t questioning her lateness. She let her gaze wander over his face, gilded by the morning sun. He was beautiful, with a smooth perfection she never tired to look at. He belonged to
her.
“You’re to scout the outer town today. There’s evidence of thieves in the city. Bodies have turned up. Husks. Covered in bite marks. You’re to liaise with the Guard, report to them as well as to me.” He ran his hands over his hair and sank back. The leather of his chair groaned. “We believe that the dead have been identified...so we could be safe from them gaining access to the palace using the skin of their victims.”
Ava held back a wince. It was little wonder that everyone shied away from her. “How many victims?”
“Four.”
“And their trades?”
“A knife-grinder, a pothawker, a dustman and a challoner.”
Ava frowned. “The unnoticed, people in the shadows, in the crowd.” The faceless people who could slip even into the palace, where their skills were needed. “And there are no others?”
“Not that the Left Hand can find.” Reist paused. “Not yet anyway.”
Ava stared at the desk, tracing out the grain of the wood, focusing her thoughts. It hit her that she’d have to report to Heyerdar. Fuck.
“Ava?”
She jerked her head up, feeling the heat in her face. “What?”
“You have a problem?”
You’re fucking someone who isn’t me.
She pulled her thoughts in, glad he couldn’t read them. She tilted her head, trying to see if her illusion or Fallon’s dream had affected him...but nothing was obvious. He was calm, no hint of tiredness around his eyes or pulling at his skin. Though Reist could go days without sleep, so that was no sign. She remembered his question. “No, no problem.” She could test him though. “Who do I report to in the Guard?”
“This has the highest priority.” Reist looked down at his scroll and Ava resisted the urge to lift her eyebrows. His eyes narrowed, but he wasn’t reading from the thin parchment. Reist had an excellent memory. His action was a delay. “Captain Nahum Heyerdar.”
His voice took on an odd note with Heyerdar’s last name, something strained. Nothing obvious, but as the elemental had pointed out, the Institute paid for her ears. Had Fallon woken with the captain’s name on her lips? Worse—or better, said it in a moment of passion?
Ava pressed her lips together to stop the wicked smile. “The elemental.”
“Yes.” Reist dropped the scroll. Now there was a pinch of unease around his eyes. “Elementals are old magic. They don’t bind themselves to the same rules as high magic users.” His expression changed to something she couldn’t quite read, something that appeared to be caution with a hint of...was that concern? His hand lifted as if to point to her, but he picked up a pen instead. “He has no love for mages.”
One particular mage, no.
Again, more unsaid words. The lack of honesty with Reist was new and she didn’t like it. She winced and let him think it was a reaction to his words. “I’m not a mage.”
“No.” He was still holding something back. A slight flush colored his cheeks. “You are...untouched.”
The memory of Heyerdar’s mouth, his body, the hard dig of his fingers into her hips, surged over her. The laugh burst out unexpectedly. “Hardly!”
Reist sat forward. “Who?”
She hesitated and tried to tamp down the little excited flutter in her belly. That sharp edge to his voice? Was that a touch of jealousy? “We share most things, but I’m not comfortable...” She twisted in her seat and looked down for a brief second. She caught his expression when she looked up. Shock. Not jealousy, just plain disbelief. Why was this man twisted around her heart? His reaction stung her into speaking. “Am I not
allowed
to be touched?”
He blinked. Twice. “Your life is your own...”
“But?”
The mask fall over his features, professional and calm. “Heyerdar is dangerous. He likes to manipulate people, use them. Your—” his fingers did wave at her now, “—
experience
...will protect you from his worse aspects, but never trust him.”
“How can I work with him if I can’t trust him?”
“Professionally, you can. Don’t step beyond that boundary.”
Had she missed something? Had whatever happened between Reist and Heyerdar escaped even her? Or had Fallon said why she’d run from the elemental? A fist tightened in her gut. Ava had existed in a happy state of ignorance. Now, she had to push...and force herself to say the damn woman’s name. “Does this lack of trust concern you and Mage Braith?”
He frowned and sank back into his chair again. “No. Our arrangement is...amicable.”
“Amicable?” That was a bloody odd word to call the way they’d been groping each other the night before.
A smile touched his mouth. “As with you, it’s not something I’m comfortable sharing.”
Ava shrugged, letting the action cover her unease. Her life—beyond her work—was a mess. “So I’m to report to the captain this morning. I head out into the town after? Pick up what I can find about these murders?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to report back tonight?” She stood and swung on her cloak, lifting her hood to shadow her face.
He nodded. “This has become your priority. We can’t allow thieves to penetrate the palace or the Institute.” A smile cut his mouth, familiar, conspiratorial, and it stabbed at Ava with the reminder of what she couldn’t have. “Excluding you, naturally.”
“Thank you for the exception.” She turned to the door and stopped. “Heyerdar is expecting me?”
“A runner caught him before dawn.”
“He’s still alive?”
Reist snorted. “Just. Though the boy is probably still shaking.”
His chair scraped back and Ava’s heart missed a beat. The taste of her fantasy burned in her mouth, in her thoughts, and she had to will herself to stillness. Reist’s hands fell on her shoulders. Ava bit at the inside of her cheek to stop the escaping gasp. Had it worked already? Too many of her own emotions, her own interest, stopped her from viewing the situation clearly.
“Ava.”
Reist’s voice was soft and had that familiar trace to it, the touch of ease and humor. It always made her want to turn into his arms, bury her face against his neck and inhale his scent.
Bastard.
“You know I’m curious. Is it someone in the Institute?”
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t admit who had touched her or how far—or not—it had gone. Making up a lie would just drop her into more trouble. “It’s private.”
His hands stilled and her chest tightened at the slow slide of them away from her body. “He’s serious?”
Was that relief in his voice? Was he glad she was palmed off to some unknown man so that she wasn’t mooning over him? Ava wanted to groan. Everything about them, him, her, was fucked up.
“A serious secret man?” She heard the smile in his voice and hated the way it eased the tight pain in her chest. “And if anyone could keep him secret it would be you.”
“True.” She turned to face him. Her gaze flicked over the perfection of his face touched by sunlight. She itched to tease back the strand of dark hair that fell across his forehead. He’d been her friend, her only friend, for too many years. She couldn’t let that go. “Grab food with me tomorrow? I’ll be on time.”
“Breakfast on the balcony.”
“You bring the food.”
“I always do.”
Her mouth twitched upwards. “Now I must face the lion.”
“The lion?”
“Heyerdar. Tall, muscled, that mane of blond hair, golden eyes. Looks permanently...hungry.” Her smile felt suddenly forced as his touch and taste flooded her again. Taking magic the old way had never brought indigestion. She stepped back at Reist’s narrowed look. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You have to tell me if anything happens.”
“Concerned for me?”
“As your friend and as your master, I have to be made aware. There are some experiences Heyerdar cannot seek out. Thankfully—” a wry smile twisted his mouth, “—it doesn’t apply to you. Still...”
Friend and master...but not for much longer. “I will let you know.” She nodded. “I’ll come back for the eighth hour.”
“Ava.” His hands flexed but didn’t lift from his sides. He moved forward one step, and his body blocked the shaft of sunlight breaking through the thin window, dropping them both into shadow. His scent—warm, familiar with the hint of soap and herbs—wrapped around her. “Be careful of him.”
“I think I’m safe.”
His finger touched her temple, running in a slow line to her jaw. Ava didn’t breathe, didn’t move. Reist didn’t do touching, not like that. “I know his passions.” His voice was little above a murmur. “Fallon...” He pressed his lips together. Yes, the less he said about
her
the better. “Remember what I said.” He stepped back and his hand balled into a fist. “He’s a conduit for old magic, more animal than man, remember that.”
Ava stared at him. Did he know? Guilt ran hot through her veins. Did he already know what she’d done? Had Fallon worked it out? Fuck.
She grabbed at her sense. He couldn’t. If he had he, as her master, would have to bring her up before the council for sex magic. He couldn’t ignore it. “I’m a thief. A soul-stealer, remember? I’m sure he’ll be able to resist me in the short time I’m in his office.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow you tell me all about your secret man.”
“Reist...” She tugged at the door and slipped through the narrow gap. “I’ll see you later.”
Ava had to escape. What had happened in there? Reist had touched her. Her own fingers followed the path of his down her face and she felt the ghost of his touch. Maybe she wouldn’t have to take much more of Heyerdar’s power. Maybe a sliver of her and the reminder to Fallon of what she was missing would be all the shove they needed.
And wouldn’t that be completely unlike her life?
She slipped through shadows, following the stairs and paths and narrow corridors to the palace. And she needed her breakfast. Hunger spun around her, hot in the air, taunting her thief, pushing at the control Heyerdar’s power had brought her the night before. She doubted the man would willingly offer up his body and his magic to sate her morning cravings.
For over a thousand years the Institute had butted up against the emperor’s first home, a dark menacing shadow of archaic stone compared to the marble and gilt of the palace. It was meant to be that way. Mages refused to allow interfering emperors to gild the Institute. They wanted the reminder of their ancient power to be...obvious.
In all too short a time, Ava stood outside the door to Heyerdar’s office, her hand lifted, knuckles ready to knock. It had too much of an echo of the night before, though this entrance hall was clad in white marble and had the morning sun slanting across the stone floor. The brightness seemed wrong for Heyerdar somehow, even though he also drew power from the sun. His chambers in the lowest levels of the Institute fitted him, allowing him to connect to the earth, the stone, the seams of metal cutting through quartz.
She closed her eyes, denying the tug of his world. None of his power or need had remained with her. Practically all of it had pushed back onto Fallon, onto the memory of his touch, his taste, the feel of him under her skin.
Ava pressed her lips together. In that moment, she wasn’t certain whose skin he was under. Old magic was fearsome. It had been the first lesson she learned in the Institute, her second being to stay away from the man living in the lower levels. She was a thief. She’d never been that good with rules and law. It was too late to regret that now.
Her knuckles rapped against the thick wood before she became lost in the memory of him again.
A young guard pulled back the door, the wood sliding over a groove worn into the stone. He frowned at her. “Push your hood back.”
Ava did as she was asked. He didn’t trust the shadows that shifted across her face. They were natural, something about her empty soul. She belonged to the darkness. “Highest Mage Reist sent me. I have an appointment with Captain Heyerdar.”
His frown deepened, lining his smooth forehead. “Really?”
“Corporal, let her in and make yourself scarce.” Heyerdar’s voice, deep and with that familiar hint of irritation, echoed out into the long corridor.