“Yeah. My parents never made that a secret. They accepted that they were from different worlds—literally—and didn’t fight that. Growing up with that duality sort of became second nature. Like I said before, I like both worlds, which is why I certainly don’t want to see some conquest of this one. Of course, I had plenty of times in my life, particularly when I was young and moody, when I’d get mad at one of my parents. Then I’d swear I’d be all kitsune or all human, depending on who’d pissed me off.”
“Your teenage angst must have been a terrible thing,” I teased.
“You have no idea.”
“Are your parents still together?”
“No. Still amicable. My mom finally stayed in the Otherworld for good once I got older. I see her from time to time. It broke my dad’s heart—he was crazy about her—but he remarried and seems to be better off.”
I leaned back against the seat. “Now that I know what I am…I kind of wish I’d known sooner. I would have liked to get a head start on my magic and go blow Aeson’s castle apart and get Jasmine back.”
“You don’t know that you can actually do that,” he warned. “You’re half-human. You may not have gotten all his power.”
“Did you get everything your mom has?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“I can’t leave Jasmine there. Not knowing what I know. But I don’t know how to get her back.”
Kiyo reached over and squeezed my hand. “We’ll think of something. Don’t worry.”
It was a little comforting, but I think we both knew it was the sort of empty, kind statement you say to make someone feel better. I doubted he had any better ideas than I had on how to get Jasmine back.
Kiyo didn’t have to work until the next morning, so we decided to go hiking at Sabino Canyon. Physical exertion seemed like a good way to forget about abducted girls, and it was. The temperature pushed into triple digits, and we were exhausted and sweaty as we finally made the return trip down, both of us greedily drinking from water bottles.
I saw him watching me at one point while we stopped to take a break. There was a content and admiring expression on his face, not purely sexual, for a change.
“What?” I asked.
“Your hair. I never realized how red it is. The sun lights it up like a flame.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Very good.”
The comfortable look on his face shifted, and I saw the familiar glint of need surface. We didn’t say much after that. The rest of our hike and subsequent ride home proceeded in silence, but the air burned between us, hotter than anything we’d felt outside.
Tim was nowhere to be found when we arrived home. Just as well. I turned on the shower, eager to remove the sweat and grime, and Kiyo hopped in with me.
“We’re here to get clean,” I warned.
“Sure,” he said, pushing me up against the wall.
Water poured down on us as we kissed and touched and attempted some semblance of washing ourselves. I don’t know how good a job we did. I think some parts got significantly soaped down more than others.
I wouldn’t have minded sex in the shower, but we had no condoms in there. Sometimes I thought the double birth control was overkill; in eight years, I’d never had problems with the pill. But we both knew how high the stakes were. A condom was a small thing to ask.
We fell onto my bed, still kind of slick and soapy. He slipped the condom on in like two seconds, and I moved on top of him. Foreplay apparently wasn’t going to play a big role in our relationship. His hands grasped my hips, halting me for a moment.
“You took your pill today?”
“Yes, yes,” I assured him.
He relaxed and released me, letting me move down and take him into me. A soft sound, half-groan and half-sigh, escaped his lips. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.
“You are…the most right thing in my world.”
I smiled back, knowing exactly what he meant. We felt good and right together, like the last month’s tension hadn’t existed. We were where we should be, picking right up after our first night together.
His hands clenched my sides, his nails touching my back as my body shifted up and down. A tingle of apprehension ran through me whenever those fingers came near my back, but he continued to show restraint. The scratches were finally healing, albeit slowly.
He let me stay on top only about a minute or so before he flipped me onto my stomach and took me from that position, all aggression and furious passion. I slyly tried shifting us once, and he playfully returned me back. Maybe it was the fox thing, or maybe it was just his own human nature, but something in him liked being the dominant one. I decided not to fight it, far too busy swimming in the bliss and fire of him moving inside of me.
When he finished, he rolled off and pulled me to him. Happy, I buried my face against his body, drinking in his scent and feel like an intoxicant. Clinging to each other, we listened to our ragged breathing calm down. For the first time in awhile, I felt safe and at peace. Things were exactly as they were supposed to be.
He stayed with me that night, and our bodies wrapped around each other in the darkness. My body fell into its old bad habits, and I found myself lying awake long after he’d fallen asleep. I twisted and turned, counting stars on my ceiling and attempting to force my mind into calmness.
I tried too hard, apparently, because my mind slipped into trance, one off from wakeful consciousness but not really asleep either. Recognizing this, I started to shift out of it until an image appeared in my mind, a familiar one of a barren area I didn’t recognize and a dark, crowned figure standing over me.
The memory I’d half-started in the sauna returned, flooding my mind’s eye. I suddenly found myself looking up at Storm King. The fear was there, the fear that I couldn’t escape him and that he would take me away.
Then, just as before, I reached for something both within and without. Power surged through me, and the air grew thick. Dark clouds formed out of nothing, covering the sky. Soft thunder echoed around us. I still couldn’t see his face in this memory, but I could sense his amusement.
“Are you going to try to fight me, little one?” A different power built up around us as he gathered his own magic. “I like your attitude—though you’re fighting a losing battle. For now, at least. Come with me, and I’ll show you how to really use your gifts.”
He gently nudged his power toward me, attempting to quell mine. I sucked in more of my magic, letting it course through me. It burned, but it was wonderful. Amazing. Like nothing I had ever felt before or could have conceived of. I was more than a human in that moment, more than Eugenie Markham, more than a god. It filled me, but even then, I could not control it. Not yet. Lightning flared above us, followed immediately by thunder.
Storm King was still pushing against me. I don’t think I was really more than a match for him, but he hadn’t quite expected this much of a fight. I tried to focus my power, to get ahold of it and use it against him. It was slippery, though; I couldn’t keep a hold. Lightning blazed again, and I reached out with my mind to seize it, willing it to strike him down.
Only my aim was off. It hit me instead.
I screamed, pain ripping through me as I became the lightning’s conduit, its means of grounding itself. It couldn’t kill me, however; it couldn’t even really hurt me—that much. I was one with the storm, and the magic I’d summoned was my own. It shot into my body, terrible and magnificent, a burning pain laced with pleasure, an ecstasy I didn’t ever want to let go of….
I jerked upright in bed, gasping for air. Immediately, Kiyo was beside me, asking what was wrong. I couldn’t answer right away. That fiery, exultant power was emblazoned in my memory. Yet, even as I sat there, I could feel the memory fading, the remembered sensation going with it. Some part of me cried out for it, willing it to stay. But it was going.
“Eugenie?” I think it was the hundredth time he’d spoken my name. “What’s wrong?”
“A dr
eam,” I murmured, closing my eyes. Even with that magic gone—gone for years, really—my body shivered with delight. I felt alive, my flesh tingling with an awareness of both itself and the world around me. I opened my eyes and turned to Kiyo, resting my hands on his arms, curling my fingers into his skin.
“What’s the—mmm.”
His words were swallowed by my kiss. My mouth fed so ferociously at his that I tasted blood from where I’d bitten his lip. In an instant, I felt his animal lust answer my own as his hands gripped my hips and tried to pull me down. But I was already pushing him down, moving myself on top of him.
“Don’t fight me on this,” I growled, digging my nails against him.
He smiled. I think he thought I was joking, little knowing the power and aggression suddenly churning through me. His hands slid over to my wrists. Gripping them tightly, he rolled me over, pressing his full weight down on my body. “A little fighting’s not bad,” he teased.
“No.” My words were fierce. Unchallengeable. Still wrapped up in the dream’s fleeting power, I surprised both of us and flipped him over. It was a lot like when we’d had sex earlier today, only now the roles were reversed. My own strength astonished me.
“Don’t fight me,” I repeated, voice low and dangerous.
His eyes widened in the near-darkness. There was only a heartbeat’s pause. “Anything you want.” Ostensibly, he sounded excited and amused, but there was an undercurrent of nervousness there too.
Burning and exultant, I moved my mouth and hips down. We both gasped as I took him inside me. No condom, nothing between us. I shuddered at the contact, growing aroused at the thought of him directly feeling me and all my wetness. Skin to skin. Maybe I should have moved slowly, letting him savor the new sensations, but my body was too impatient. I rode him as fiercely as he had me earlier, something within me needing to assert my dominance and claim him as mine. My nails drew blood, and he cried out each time our hips slammed together.
I felt powerful, in control. Like I could do anything and conquer anyone. The warmth and bliss of orgasm started building up inside of me, and some very small part of me wondered if I was getting off on thrusting him inside of me or simply on the thrill of domination. And if it was the latter, whom was I exerting my control over? Kiyo? Storm King?
The ecstasy in my lower body grew more intense, more urgent. I pushed aside the nagging speculation and gave myself up to my own selfish wants. I stared down at Kiyo; he looked back as though he scarcely recognized me.
“Mine,” I gasped, holding back my release. “Right now, right in this moment, you’re mine.”
Kiyo made a strangled noise of pleasure, head tipped back.
I was on the edge; I couldn’t hold my body back much longer. I didn’t want to hold back much longer. I was the powerful one here. I was taking what I wanted. But first, I needed to make sure he knew that.
“Say it,” I told him between heavy breaths. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me, and I’ll let you come. I’ll let you come in me. I’ll let you explode in me.”
“Eugenie…” he moaned when I started to slow my pace.
“You’re mine,” I told him again. The lovely agony between my thighs was almost too much to bear. I was going to lose it.
But Kiyo lost control first. “Yes…yes. Oh, God, Eugenie. I’m yours.”
The power of that admission set me off, both physically and mentally. Crying out, I threw back my own head as I came. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was coming too. I could feel it, feel it in the way his body spasmed inside of mine. Squeezing him tighter, I earned another moan of pleasure from him and another orgasm for me. It was glorious. We both shook from the force of our own reactions.
When we finally collapsed apart, sweating and panting, neither of us could say a word. Finally Kiyo rested his head on my chest as though seeking comfort or protection.
“Yours,” he murmured at last, just before falling asleep.
Chapter Twenty
I became merely mortal the next morning, the last lingering memories of magic recalled only in theory, not in feeling. I wanted to try to explain the dream-memory to Kiyo, how I’d at last recalled what happened between Storm King and me before Roland killed him. But I didn’t know how to explain it. I barely understood magic at all and found recapturing that terrifying yet glorious feeling nearly impossible.
Besides, I had other things to worry about today. It was Beltane Eve.
I found myself busy almost from the crack of dawn. Beltane—or May Day—ushers in the return of life to the year; many western European cultures consider it a peak day for fertility and conception. Apparently many Otherworldly creatures do too. Like Halloween—or Samhain—the gates between the worlds open, facilitating passage between humans and the Otherworldly alike. Midnight on May 1 was the ultimate opening, but the passages steadily increased throughout the day on April 30.
Since my presence at Dorian’s party tonight was common knowledge, many must have decided to get in their chance before I left the human world. Fortunately, most of these same gentry and assorted creatures were those who could not have passed through under normal circumstances. This meant they were considerably weaker and hence easier to banish or destroy. Unfortunately, when they came in a steady stream, they also became a huge and exhausting annoyance.
I got home around dinnertime, not long before I was supposed to show up in the Otherworld. Hastily, I shed my sweaty clothes and took the world’s fastest shower. Afterward, I managed a makeup job rivaling the last one, but it cost me time. With minutes ticking away, I threw on the dress Lara had procured and ran a quick brush through my damp hair. There was nothing else to be done with it. I threw a little mousse into it to avoid frizz, and then I was off to the desert.
Dorian had wisely put my Slinky anchor in a more secure place than a flimsy table. I appeared in a small chamber where a servant had awaited my arrival. He gave me a polite bow and then took me straight to Dorian’s room. Inside it, I found pandemonium.
Male and female servants ran in and out, doing God only knew what. Dorian stood in front of a giant mirror, checking himself out in an azure blue robe. A stout man hovered nearby with about a dozen other robes weighing down his arm. It was the same man, I realized, whose place I’d taken in croquet.
“Eugenie Markham,” announced my escort.
Dorian gave me half a glance. “Lady Markham, so nice to—sweet gods. She’s wearing beige.”
I looked down. Lara had found me a clingy silk dress in a shade she termed “champagne”: a warm ivory tinged with gold. I wouldn’t have thought the color worked for me, but she apparently knew me better than I did. The strapless bodice was gathered and decorated with a bit of iridescent beading meant to imitate buttons down the middle. From the waist down, the skirt cascaded in smooth, shining folds. It fit snugly against my silhouette, flaring slightly only when it hit my ankles.
“It’s ‘champagne,’” I corrected. “And what’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It’s lovely.” He turned back frantically to his valet. “It’s not going to match any of these, Muran. What else do we have?”
Muran bit his lip. “There’s the green velvet, your majesty. Its trim has that shade in it. Paired with an ivory shirt, it would look quite stunning.”
Dorian made a face. “Silk or satin would be better. Grab it anyway, and see if there’s anything else we’re missing. Oh, and send someone to do Lady Markham’s hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Nothing, were you sprawled in my bed after a night of passion.” A young woman hurried forward, and he jerked his head in my direction. “See to her, Nia.”
Nia, a tiny thing with olive skin, curtsied to me and led me to the parlor where Dorian and I had first chatted. I couldn’t see what she did, but her fingers worked as deftly and intricately in my hair as Dorian did when tying the cords around me. I’d only once had my hair done by a stylist, and it had been for a wedding in which a cruel frien
d had required me to wear orange taffeta. The event still woke me with nightmares.
A slight tingle occasionally brushed my skin as Nia worked, and I realized she used magic in the styling. I supposed it was handier than a curling iron, but geez. What a disappointment to discover you had the magical equivalent of cosmetology when other gentry got healing and the ability to tear buildings apart.
“There you are, my lady.”
She took me to a mirror, nervously assessing my reaction. Scattered braids ran toward the back of my head where the rest of my hair had been gathered up into a high ponytail. She’d smoothed and curled most of that hanging hair, but a few tiny braids hung in it here and there. Long, smooth locks framed my face, curled slightly at their ends. Violets and dark ivory sweetheart roses adorned some of the braids.
“Wow,” I said.
Nia wrung her hands. “My lady likes?”
“Very much.”
She beamed. With her petite frame and smooth face, she looked about sixteen but could probably actually boast a century. “I didn’t know how humans wore it.”
I smiled and gave her arm a small pat. “It’s wonderful.”
She looked ready to swoon with joy, and I recalled how eagerly Dorian’s staff always jumped to obey his commands. Was I inspiring that kind of loyalty? Or fear?
Dorian swept into the room then, resplendent in a forest green robe made of silk. The edging contained an intricate pattern of ivory, russet, and gold, set off by the black slacks and ivory shirt underneath.
“Much better,” he said, taking my hand. “Come, we’re late.”
Muran and a few others followed as we headed for the throne room. Dorian didn’t actually run, but an urgency underscored his movement.
“Why the rush?” I asked. “Don’t they wait on your every pleasure?”
“Certainly. But I have to be in there before the other monarchs arrive, or we’ll create a complication of etiquette. Everyone will bow when we enter, but the other monarchs don’t have to. If they’re in there before me, it’ll be awkward.”