Oria's Gambit (3 page)

His intention sharpened, giving her warning,
but he still surprised a gasp out of her when he lunged to his feet
and closed the distance between them with only a few athletic
strides. Chuffta spread his wings and hissed, though he didn’t
breathe fire. Oria held her ground—barely—and Lonen flicked a
dismissive gaze at her Familiar.

“Rest easy, dragonlet,” he murmured. “I won’t
harm your mistress.”

“I told you before—his name is Chuffta.”

Lonen didn’t acknowledge that, sticking up
three fingers, his thumb and pinky tucked into his palm. “How many
fingers am I holding up?”

“Lonen—”

“You’re not telling me any of your precious
temple secrets.” He seethed with a dark combination of frustration
and desire. Probably he wouldn’t harm her. Not intentionally, but
his longing to touch her was as palpable as the scent of warmed
oils on his damp hair and skin—and as vivid as those sexual images
that burned through his mind like meteors. An outsider like him
might never understand what harm he could do her with the intensity
of his thoughts alone, intentionally or not.

“How many fingers, Oria?” he grated out the
question, his angry impatience even harsher than the sound. “It’s a
simple question. One I’d ask any of my men who got knocked upside
the head.”

It wasn’t simple. None of this was.

“Three,” she answered, knowing that only
satisfied one question among many, but nevertheless hoping he’d let
at least this go.

He nodded, confirming something to himself.
Then circled around her, holding up his hand behind her. No such
luck that he’d drop the subject so easily. “How many now?”

Ignorant of Báran magic, perhaps, but a canny
man. Another priestess might lie, might keep the temple secrets
from a foreigner, but she couldn’t bring herself to deceive him
more than she already had. He did deserve to know something of
who—and what—he’d agreed to bind himself to.

“One.”

“Is the dragonlet telling you that? It’s
looking at me. You can talk to it, can’t you?”

“
Chuffta?”
She emphasized her
Familiar’s name.

Lonen made an aggravated sound. “Fine.
Chuffta.”

“He’s protective. He doesn’t like you behind
my back. And yes, we communicate. Go over to the bench, Chuffta,”
she said aloud, for Lonen’s benefit. “And look the other
direction.”

Chuffta grumbled without words, but did as
she bid, settling on the bench, folding his wings, and delicately
sniffing at the haft of Lonen’s axe propped there. Her Familiar
understood that she needed to build trust with her future
husband—had, in fact, been lecturing her on the topic.

“
Advising you,”
Chuffta corrected.
“
Which, I might point out, is my job.”

“
Yes, yes—now let me do mine.”

She had to force herself to hold still as
Lonen drew up close behind her, the fine hairs prickling on the
back of her neck. “You’re holding up two fingers, one on each
hand.”

The man moved soundlessly, but even without
sgath revealing the energies around her, his masculine aura would
impact her from even much farther away. This close, it enveloped
her as surely as a physical embrace, the complicated interplay of
his thoughts and emotions strumming over her nerves. As disastrous
as that would be, she found she ached for his touch on her skin,
her body heating and throbbing as if he already had. He’d brought
that out in her from the beginning, though it made no sense. Only
her ideal mate—a priest, masked and trained in grien—could interact
with her the right way, without harming her.

She’d only completed the first stages of
testing—meshing auras to evaluate compatibility. None of the priest
candidates had affected her like this. Though that could be because
none had met the initial requirements either. Perhaps an ideal
husband would affect her this way?

Not that it mattered. These feelings for a
foreigner were … unnatural. A perversion born of her
adolescent fascination with the gruesome illustrations of the
barbaric Destrye warriors carrying off naked women to do vague and
illicit things to them. She could never explain why those stories
mesmerized her—before the priestesses snatched them away as
inappropriate—no more than she could prevent her body from rousing
to Lonen’s presence and the potent sexuality that surrounded
him.

However, though she might not have true
hwil
, she created the appearance of it well enough to fool
the High Priestess. She could and would just as easily fool this
magicless Destrye and prevent him from ever knowing how he affected
her.

Allowing any glimpse of her weakness would
only encourage him to pursue the topic of bedding her, and that
could never happen. He’d touched her once—on the wrist—and she’d
been unconscious for a week. She couldn’t imagine what sexual
intimacy would do to her. No matter how much this newly discovered,
recklessly sexual side of her wanted it.

“What do you want, Oria?” Lonen breathed the
question close to her ear, startling her into thinking for a moment
that he’d turned the tables and read
her
mind. “Why did you
come here?” he clarified. “I thought it was difficult for you to
leave your tower.”

Grateful to be back to non-sexual and
non-magical business, she seized the opportunity to step away and
turn to face him. She didn’t need to, of course, but it helped
diffuse that heady intimacy, the implicit trust of having him
behind her, his body heat warm on her back, his breath on her
exposed nape.

“I can leave my tower more often than when
you knew me before. I am … stronger now.”

“Because of the mask.”

“It’s more that I have the mask because I’m
stronger.”

He contemplated that, studying her. “Is the
hair part of it?”

She stumbled mentally. “The hair?”

Lonen waved his hands, indicating her
elaborate hairstyle by wiggling his fingers, transmitting a fair
amount of Destrye disdain for all things Báran. “The braids and
stuff.”

She put a hand to the intricately woven
style, though she hardly needed to confirm its existence to
herself. “It’s just easier, with the mask ribbons, to tie it all
together. Well, and it’s traditional.”

“I liked your hair better when you wore it
down.”

Dropping her hand, she straightened. “I’m not
a decoration that exists to please you, King Lonen.”

“Not in bed, nor out of it,” he replied, both
musing and taunting.

“Enough of that.” She was losing patience for
this … sparring match. That’s what it was. “It’s not too late
to back out of the deal. Don’t marry me. I understand if this one
caveat is too much to ask.” She sneered a little though, when she
said it. He could have all the women he wanted. She’d be the one
committing herself to a life of never knowing the touch of another
person besides her mother.

“
And me.”

“
A human person,”
she amended with a
mental caress of affection. Again she was glad of the mask that hid
her smile. Lonen had folded his arms, glaring at her. He would only
grow more annoyed if he thought she laughed at him or took their
predicament lightly.

“Hardly one simple caveat. However, as you so
succinctly pointed out,” he was saying, biting out the words, “I
don’t have a choice in this. You can’t save the Destrye from the
Trom unless you’re married to the Destrye king, because that’s how
the magic works.” He freed a hand to wave it in the air, much as he
had in describing the braids, making the magical rules seem equally
fussy.

That’s what she’d told him, a convenient
half-lie. In truth, getting him to marry her had a great deal more
to do with becoming Queen of Bára, granting her access to the
innermost secrets that would enable her to summon the Trom and
wrest control of them from Yar. Guilt chewed at her, though. She’d
been thinking on her feet. How much of her conniving Lonen into
marriage came from her strange attraction to him?

It worried her that she’d made the decision,
not out of integrity and the resolution to live up to her promises,
but out of self-indulgence. A family trait and failing, perhaps.
One that had led Bára into taking so much at the cost of
others.

She should face this potential corruption of
her moral fiber. She did feel that, when Lonen wasn’t pissed at
her, they shared some common ground, besides this impossible
attraction. Though they’d admittedly conversed very little—and
she’d spent an awful lot of her life alone so she had little to
compare—she liked talking with him better than anyone else she’d
met.

“
Besides me.”

“
A human person!”
But she laughed in
her head, no doubt as Chuffta intended.

“You’re laughing at me.” Lonen flung the
accusation at her, granite eyes flat.

“No!” She retorted, too fast, surprised into
being defensive. He knew it, too, narrowing his eyes at her. Worse
and worse. She scrambled to explain. He wouldn’t much like the
truth, but he’d flustered her too much to think up a good excuse on
the spot. “Chuffta and I do more than communicate—he talks to me.
And sometimes he’s … he makes jokes. In my head.”

Chuffta flipped his wings at Lonen’s
incredulous stare. “You’re saying the dragonlet is a smartass?”

She couldn’t help it—maybe it was all the
tension—but she laughed in truth. Lonen transferred his bemused
stare to her, anger lightening. “I’ve never heard you laugh
before.”

“Surely you have.”

“Not a real laugh, like that one, instead of
those little huffing noises you make when you find something
ridiculous.” A mischievous smile tugged at his mouth, one she
recalled from when he’d teased her about using that sword she could
barely lift.

“I do not make huffing noises,” she
protested, and he pointed a finger.

“There. Exactly like that one.”

“How did you even know I was laughing at what
Chuffta said? I didn’t make any sound, huffing or otherwise.”

He cocked his head slightly, his smile fading
and his face growing serious again. “You may be wearing a mask and
that ugly shapeless robe, but I can still see the lines of your
body, how you move and hold yourself.”

Oh. She didn’t know what to do with that
information. His own way of sensing emotion, she supposed. A
warrior’s way of reading an opponent. He stood there, relaxed hands
on towel-draped hips, and watched her, waiting for her to speak
next.

She should tell him the truth, that she could
marry his brother and it should work magically. That she’d misled
him because she herself would rather marry a man she knew and felt
affinity for. Her feelings weren’t important. She was forsworn and
must make recompense. It didn’t matter that it had been Yar who had
broken her promise that the Trom, the ancient guardians of Bára,
would leave the Destrye in peace. Only a recreant would try to
dodge the guilt by claiming it wasn’t her fault. It fell to her to
make good on the promise, not to find a path through her penance
that pleased herself.

Time, however,
was
of the essence. If
Yar returned from one of their sister cities with an ideal mate,
he’d make a temple-blessed marriage and his claim to the crown
would trump hers. If she could get Lonen to marry her that very
evening, she might beat Yar to the crown. Under false pretenses.
But for the right reasons. It was all a mire deeper than the muddy
Bay of Bára when the tides receded.

To give herself time to mull the
ramifications, she moved over to Chuffta, stroking his arched
neck.

“Here—come meet Chuffta officially. He’s a
derkesthai and does not much like you calling him a dragonlet or a
lizardling. You can touch him.”

“Did I say I wanted to?”

“You said you wanted to know more about me.
Here’s something to know.”

Trepidation colored Lonen’s energy, until he
shook it off. He drew near, then extended a fingertip and traced
the luminously white scales. The anger evaporated entirely for the
moment, leaving behind a shimmering wonder. “He’s soft,” he said
reverently. “And intelligent?”

“Very. He has a tendency to lecture.”

“
My job,”
Chuffta reminded her
unnecessarily.

“He scolds you?”

“Yes, as he’s reminding me now that it’s his
job as my Familiar.”

“I’ve never heard the word used that way—what
does it mean?”

“It means that he’s family to me, that
he … helps me.” So difficult to explain to this hard man all
the ways she was fragile, how Chuffta buffered the worst of the
impacts of incoming energy. “It’s a special relationship.”

“Do you remember the first time I saw you?”
Lonen asked, voice rapt as he stroked Chuffta’s curved neck.

Though an apparent non-sequitur, his question
made perfect sense to Oria. It had been the first time she saw him,
too. “Through the window.” She’d been transfixed by the sight of
him, blood-drenched axe in one hand, knife in the other, as he
slaughtered the priestesses on the walls, helpless in their trances
as they fed sgath to the battle mages. They’d died easily because
none of those women had active grien as the men did. As Oria did,
against all nature and common sense—a secret no one but her mother
and Chuffta could know.

Unless Yar had guessed, which could spell
disaster.

“I’d never seen anything like you in my
life.” Lonen wasn’t looking at her, his emotional energy turning
warm, a youthful, wondering feel to him, his voice almost dreamy.
“You and your derkesthai, like something out of an illustration in
an old storybook. Fantastical and ethereal. Magical.”

She stroked Chuffta’s wing, holding her
breath against confessing that Lonen had looked to her like
something that stepped out of a book, too. Ironic that his vision
had an innocent, even romantic purity to it while hers had carried
darkly sexual overtones—particularly given their current opposition
where she’d play the eternal virgin and he could cat about as much
as he pleased.