Hearing that Miach actually believed he would allow Temair to be hurt filled Dathan with so much rage he didn’t know what to do with it.
When the Fyre Lord stormed out of the room, Dathan was waiting for him. He followed Miach, grimly satisfied when the man stalked toward the training grounds for the Rayne warriors.
Before he could actually enter the training grounds, Dathan grabbed his arm, spinning Miach around to face him.
“What the fuck?”
If Dathan had been any less pissed, the livid anger on the Consort’s face would have knocked him back a step. As it was, he was every bit as furious. “That’s my line,” he spit back at the pale man. “What the fuck do you mean, saying I’d let Temair be hurt? Where the fuck do you get off even thinking it?”
“Where do I get off?” Fyre crawled the length of Miach’s arms, which were left bare by his sleeveless, belted tunic. The sparks tingled over Dathan’s hands, and he jerked away, unwilling to be distracted by the man’s almost magnetic pull.
Miach blinked, then jerked back in a delayed response to the snap of chemistry between them. Taking a deep breath, he continued. “I get off because you don’t even acknowledge a threat. How the fuck can you protect her when you’re so oblivious to the danger that you’d do her out in the open with no concession to safety?”
“I said,” Dathan returned with forced patience, “that I hadn’t seen evidence of rebellion in the Rayne Lands.” He stepped closer, crowding Miach and savoring the leap of awareness in the Consort’s eyes, and the refusal to back down. “Just because I didn’t think it appropriate to discuss at a public dinner doesn’t mean I discount that there might be a threat.”
Miach growled low in his throat, clearly still enraged. But Dathan saw something else under the anger; something that looked a lot like fear. And it was more than the fear for Temair’s safety. That flash of vulnerability doused his anger like a bucket of ice water.
“And I didn’t have to take security precautions at the lagoon.” He was sharing space, sharing Aire, practically sharing breath with the Consort. “I knew you were there. I didn’t need to keep watch.” Of course, he’d known Miach was just as wrapped up in the heat of Dathan and Temair’s encounter as they were, but there was no need to share that knowledge with the seething man standing before him.
Deciding to tempt the tiger just a bit more, he reached up to cup Miach’s tense jaw, noting the hot color that burned across the Consort’s cheekbones. “It’s easier, isn’t it? Deciding I’m a negligent, oblivious fool? If you didn’t have that belief to cling to, you might have to examine why you’re really so opposed to me as Temair’s Consort.”
Miach seemed frozen under his touch, and Dathan knew the other man was every bit as aware as he was of the current flowing between them.
“Think on it, Lord Fyre.” He breathed the words against Miach’s mouth, and the pale man jerked back, blinking almost as if coming out of a trance. “Think on it, and ask yourself what the real reason for your resistance is.”
Miach snarled an almost unintelligible curse and shoved Dathan hard, regaining his personal space before spinning and stalking into the training grounds. Dathan blew out a long breath and reached down to press a soothing palm to the erection tenting his sarong. He might have worried that he’d pushed the Consort too hard if he hadn’t seen a matching bulge straining against his breeches.
* * *
Temair had too much on her mind to stay in Rayne House. It was easier to think out in the open air.
Dathan. She understood Miach’s misgivings about him. She even shared many of them. Still there was something about the Rayne Lord, the look he had in his eyes, like he knew a secret and enjoyed keeping it from the world. He was gorgeous to behold, but there was more to him than that.
He was intelligent, charming and at ease among people. He would make a good diplomat, something her first Consort was not. No, Miach was a General; her great tactician. Miach might be a disaster with tact and subtlety, but she knew he’d never allow her to come to harm.
With Dathan she experienced the light-hearted side of life. It was a lifeline she would need when she ascended to the throne. She’d witnessed her mother during difficult times, had witnessed how her fathers were able to comfort and soothe their Queen. Temair wanted the same thing for her own life.
She was just afraid she was letting her own desires influence her to make the wrong choice for Emetra. Was there really room for joy in a Queendom under attack and the threat of treason?
Walking quietly through the grounds, she let all the arguments for not choosing Dathan weigh down on her until she once again found herself at the lagoon where he’d brought her such pleasure a few short days ago.
Wearily she sat down next to the water. Her rayne magic had stirred to life under Dathan’s touch, and she felt a pull to the tranquil azure pool stronger than ever before. The gentle ripples on the surface and glinting flashes of tiny fish lulled her into an almost trancelike state. Suddenly she wanted more, more of the peace the water promised, a floating freedom from the difficult choices she needed to make sooner rather than later.
She glanced around to make sure she was completely alone, and smiled at the solitude. On the other side of the lagoon, the waterfall tumbled down, chaos emphasizing the peace of the rest of the pool. It was a perfect reflection of the turbulence in her own mind. Standing, she quickly stripped out of her thin gown, so that she was clad only in her thin chemise.
Temair waded slowly into the lagoon, not stopping until the water reached her thighs, her chemise floating around her like a pale blue cloud. Tipping her head back, she soaked in the dappled sunlight, trying to absorb the peace into her very pores.
Bright fish darted around her legs, and she swished her hands through the water, laughing softly as the little jewel-toned creatures followed her movements. Completely at peace for the first time in days, she pushed off with her feet, letting the water catch her, floating in utter silence and tranquility.
* * *
Dathan hadn’t followed Temair this time. In fact, he’d been trying to avoid her, to avoid the choice she’d soon make that would alter his life forever. He found he wasn’t sure what choice he wanted her to make.
He did not want to be a Royal Consort. But he wanted Temair to the point of obsession. He didn’t think he could stand back and calmly watch his brother marry her, then wish them well and go back to his own carefree life.
He imagined Miach’s face at the wedding ceremony, looking at Aquil with a mix of relief and satisfaction that would only hide the man’s true desires. Dathan hadn’t seen any sign that Aquil was interested in Miach as anything other than a fellow strategist, but he couldn’t suppress the slight tingle of jealousy at the idea of his brother living in the First Consort’s pocket.
He’d had to take a good long look at his own motivations, as well. The Consort drew him like no other ever had, and Dathan’d had to examine if his attraction to Temair was just a means to an end. He’d banished that worry with a mere glance into her warm, laughing eyes. The Consort might make him hard, but the Princess warmed his heart. For the first time in his life, he’d found something he was willing to work for, and it had to do with more than his dick. Of course, the memory of her taste, spicy and heated on his tongue, made his dick pretty happy about the situation, too.
Uncharacteristically caught up in his own thoughts, Dathan was at the top of the waterfall, poised to dive before he saw her.
Temair floated on her back, hair a sable halo around her head and shoulders. Her pale pink chemise was transparent in the water, only emphasizing the dark shadows of her nipples and pussy. The gauzy cloth billowed around her as she languorously swept her arms and legs, propelling herself lazily around the pool of water.
Her eyes were opened, but not quite focused. Dathan looked up and smiled when he realized what she was doing. From her position in the pond, Temair was surveying the clouds as they skimmed across the sky. He’d just bet she
was looking for shapes in the fluffy masses, perhaps even making up stories about the things she saw. He imagined her doing the same with her daughters, with their daughters, and felt that treacherous melting in his chest again.
Cliff diving forgotten, Dathan relaxed and watched her. Something about the Princess calmed him, slowed down the whirling in his head and caused him to think about finding his pleasures in one place instead of many. He wondered if she had the same effect on the Consort, and snorted out a laugh. If that were the case, he’d hate to see how tightly wound the man had been before bonding with her.
It took him a minute to realize she was in distress.
Her gentle, languid movements grew more deliberate; the peaceful smoothness of her face grew tight and strained. Then the water around her began to boil, tranquil azure taking on the angry gray of storm clouds. Before Dathan’s horrified eyes, Temair jack-knifed, bending sharply at the waist as if someone had wrapped their arms around her to drag her beneath the suddenly seething water.
Dathan was diving for the pool, cutting through air and water like an arrow before she’d touched bottom.
Chapter Seven
Temair had lost herself in the hypnotic rocking of the water, the almost painful beauty of the rainbow-hued clouds overhead. It felt so good to just let everything go, to just focus on being in the moment instead of the anxiety inducing decisions on the horizon. She wondered if this sense of ease was a hallmark of Rayne magic, or if it came from one particular Child of Rayne. Because, Temair realized, she would always associate this feeling of utter peace with Dathan, no matter what choice she made.
She was as close to meditation as she’d ever been when she registered the change in the magic surrounding her. Where moments ago the water had been responding to her tentatively questing magic by warming and cradling her, its gentle touch had suddenly become controlling and restrictive. She tried to raise a hand, only to discover that the water was holding her like a binding.
A flicker of fear ignited in her mind. She was trapped, stuck like a fly on sticky paper. The water had gone cold, sending an aching chill into her muscles and bones as her connection to the magic of the world reacted to this perversion of rayne. In that final, lucid moment, Temair knew she was in mortal danger.
The water felt alive, almost human in its malevolence. She pulled frantically at her infant rayne magic, desperate to keep herself afloat. Images tumbled in her mind: Nuriel and Sorcha’s good-natured bickering. The look on her fathers’ faces when they’d announced her mother’s pregnancy. Dathan’s laughing, slanted eyes. The beautiful arch of Miach’s throat as he came, filling her with fyre and pleasure.
Yes, there was pain for the loss her friends and family would suffer. Regret over what she might have had with the Rayne Lord. But the thought of leaving Miach filled her with such rage that her fyre leapt to the fore. Lightning flashed over the surface of the water, bringing the already turbulent pond to a literal boil. For one instant she felt Miach as if he were with her, raging in her mind, then the connection was severed as icy chains whipped around her waist, dragging her under.
She hit the bottom of the pool and was unable to move, chained by an unseen force. An invisible weight pressed down on her chest, forcing out what little air she had left in her lungs. Her eyes widened as her vision went black at the edges. She was so painfully cold. Darkness surrounded her as her struggles grew weaker and weaker, and Temair realized she was dying.
* * *
Dathan broke the surface of the lagoon in time to see Temair go still on the sandy bottom. A roar of rage and denial filled his mind as he reached her side. Whatever force held her pinned to the bottom fought him but, as frivolous as he was, there wasn’t another Child of Rayne stronger than First Son Dathan in a rage. A vicious focusing of his mind and the water around Temair went soft and fluid, allowing him to wrap an arm around her ribcage and propel them rapidly to the surface. Another sharp thought and the water surged, washing them to the rocky sand at the edge of the pool.
She wasn’t breathing. The information would terrify him later. Now there was no room in his head for emotion other than rage; only rage and action. He turned her to her back in a motion of deceptive gentleness and sealed his mouth over her mouth and nose, inhaling sharply, drawing the poisoned water from her lungs, from her very pores. It was bitter on his tongue. Lifting his head he blew out, sending the tainted water out in a burst of hissing steam.
Steam trickled from Temair’s mouth and nose as well, and as her lungs began to clear, she began to cough convulsively. He covered her mouth with his own again and began to breathe aire deep into her lungs. One hand lay on her chest, calling the last of the bespelled water from her lungs, forcing aire in and the water out. She coughed more violently, and he realized she was alive. The realization cut through the rage, but just barely, leaving room for other emotions. He’d never been so afraid in his life.
He turned her to her side to make it easier for her body to expel the water, and rubbed her back with a trembling hand. His Princess had almost died in his own home. Rage rushed through him again, pulsing and hot. All at once he understood Miach’s worry. Dathan wouldn’t be so lax where the Princess’s safety was concerned ever again.
The pool he found her in had been bewitched. Dathan recognized elemental magic. A brutal, questing thought confirmed it, and confirmed that the one who’d created the spell was nowhere to be found. He snarled in frustration. He wanted, needed, to get his hands on the criminal, needed to face the traitor and destroy him as he’d almost destroyed Temair.
The traitor had to be a Child of Rayne and the knowledge tore at Dathan’s gut. He hadn’t discounted the rebellion, but he hadn’t been able to believe it would touch the Rayne Lands, hadn’t been able to accept that one of his own people was capable of treason. He’d been foolish and almost mortally wrong.
Temair had stopped coughing and was now shivering. A low, rough whimper cut through his self-abuse, yanking all his attention back to the precious woman before him.
“I can’t understand why someone wants me dead.” Her whispered words destroyed the weak defenses he had left. There was no way he was entrusting his Princess to his brother. She was his, his and Miach’s, and while he might see himself as a lover and not a fighter, in Temair he’d finally found something worth fighting for to the death.
But there was no enemy here, and it wasn’t a warrior she needed right now.
He sighed deeply and placed his finger under her chin, tilting her face up until her wounded gaze met his. “Princess, I will find the ones responsible for trying to harm you and deal with them personally.” He caught a tear that slid from the corner of her eye, his thumb absorbing the salty drop.
She gave a shaky laugh, and murmured, “Miach might have something to say about that.”
“Miach has earned the right to say whatever he wants,” he muttered in return, then caught her gaze with his own. “But don’t you dare tell him I said that.” He smiled, but it felt strained, not his usual easy grin. “He’s far too arrogant already.”
The sound of her broken laughter, her ability to smile in death’s wake, the sensation of her tear merging with his own magic all combined to reignite his fury; since there was no enemy to unleash it upon, that fury manifested itself as passion. Dathan cupped her face and caught her mouth with his, not a slow sweet kiss, but a hungry, frantic one. One meant to reassure them both that she was indeed alive and safe with him.
Her arms wrapped around his neck and she returned his kiss with matching hunger and frantic desire. Fear and rage transformed into something else, an elemental need to reaffirm life.
Her hands met his at the knot in his sarong, and together they ripped it free, hands fumbling, never breaking their kiss. There was no pause, no slowing down. Just a soul-deep need to touch and taste, to burn the sight of her on the bottom of the pool out of his mind.
Naked and burning for her touch, Dathan drew back and crouched over her, straddling her knees. She
was so beautiful to him, he wondered how he’d ever thought she was plain. Her eyes glowed, her own rich brown dancing with the amber lights of her fyre and the blue flares of rayne.
Her body was still cool from the lagoon, and he set about warming her from the bottom up. Shifting back still further, he took one slender foot in his hand, pressing his lips to the arch and breathing warmth and life against her skin. She sighed and stretched, the curve of her body an enticement he didn’t even attempt to resist. Instead he coasted his mouth to her ankle, licking teasingly at the thin, delicate skin.
He let his hands lead the way up her calves, stroking the silken skin reverently before following the same path with his mouth, pushing her skirt out of the way with each caress. His hands led the way up her calf and was followed by his mouth. He kept track of every whimper as he worked his way up her body, every gasp and every sigh. She moaned softly as his tongue stroked along the back of her knee. Vivid azure surged through the warm brown of her eyes like a tidal wave when his tongue swirled around the tops of both her thighs.
“Open for me, Princess.” Dathan needed her in that moment as much as she needed him. Maybe more. He’d nearly lost something he hadn’t recognized, hadn’t realized was as necessary as the very rayne that gave life to his magic.
“Yes,” she gasped. One slender hand yanked desperately at her skirt, dragging it impatiently up and out of the way, the other tangled in his wet hair, pulling him closer to where he wanted to be.
“Yes,” he echoed, then lost the ability to speak, or even to think, as he submerged himself in the wet heat of her pussy.
* * *
The hot, velvety rasp of Dathan’s tongue whipped Temair into a frenzied state of need. She was alive, she was safe, and she needed. Needed to be Dathan’s. Needed to know he was hers. Grabbing the back of his head, she began to grind down on his mouth. She needed release, needed to expel the adrenaline that was humming through her body at breakneck speed.