A Magic King (11 page)

On Earth, she was a single person working to keep the light alive in a world of increasing darkness. And the church had taught her that the loss of one candle, no matter how small, was a loss to all.

Jane watched the swirling mass of people as she and Daken ducked and twisted through the stands. What was she to these people? She didn't even speak their language, didn't understand the most basic things about their customs or bridal gear. Didn't even recognize the food they ate.

On Earth, she was a competent computer technician. Here, she was just a fool.

By the time they escaped the marketplace and found the relative peace of an inn, Jane had reaffirmed her decision. Tempting as it might be to be Daken's queen, she was at heart a computer technician. It may not be much, but it was who she was. She couldn't leave it behind just for a life of luxury. She shook her head, knowing now that she was indeed a fool.

"I'll get us a room. Then we will talk in private," Daken said in her ear.

Jane turned, suddenly nervous about being alone in a room with him. "Are you sure?" she stammered. "I mean, we could talk right here—" She gestured to an empty booth near a large glass window. But the moment she looked back at Daken, her spirits plummeted. He would have it out with her, and it would be on his terms, on his turf. And that meant in a private room.

Jane sighed. "Whatever you want is fine with me."

Daken nodded. "We will talk in our room."

Five minutes later, they were ushered into a large, luxurious suite with rich furnishings, thick fur skin rugs, and a large bed.

"This," Daken declared, "is an apartment fit for a king and his mate."

"You mean queen," she said dryly, her feminist soul noting the subordinate position he would relegate her to.

Daken's eyebrows drew together. "Of course. My mate will be a queen." He dismissed the innkeeper with a curt nod of his head. "This is the best room in the best inn in Bosuny. But your room in my home is even larger than this."

Jane sat down heavily on the bed, feeling her shoulders droop almost to her knees. "You can't buy me, Daken. I don't care if you own a palace inlaid in gold, with a thousand servants. I can't marry you. I can't marry anyone."

"Then why did you give me this?" He held up the shirt in his fist, shaking it at her as if it were a dead animal he'd just killed for her.

"Because I didn't know what it meant."

He shifted to stand directly in front of her, his legs spread, his hands on his hips. The shirt drifted to the bed beside her as he casually tossed it aside. "You are not," he paused, struggling with his words, "as innocent as you seem."

"And you're not this stupid," she shot back, her anger suddenly bursting through. She stood up, facing him eye to eye. Or rather, eye to collarbone until she tilted her head to glare up at him. "You're being deliberately obtuse, and it's making me real uncomfortable."

Daken drew himself up even taller. "Refusing a king is not supposed to be comfortable."

Jane balled her fists in frustration. "Damn it, Daken. You haven't even proposed. I did, and you know I didn't mean it."

Suddenly his face lightened. "Is that what you need?" He swiftly drew out his sword. She squeaked in alarm, springing backward onto the bed as the bright blade flashed before her eyes. Then he flattened the blade across his palm and set it down before her. "Cripes, Daken. Warn a body—"

"Mistress Jane Deerfield," he said in solemn tones as he dropped to one knee.

Jane groaned. "Oh, God—"

"Will you do me the greatest honor—"

"Daken, wait—"

"—of becoming—"

"Daken—"

"—my queen?"

He lifted his bowed head, his eyes on level with her knees given her position perched on the bed. She waited, her breath coming in quick, short bursts. "Jane?"

"Are you finished? Are you willing to listen now?"

"Do you wish me to say more?"

"No!"

Suddenly, she jerked forward and shoved hard on his shoulders. He wasn't prepared for the surprise attack and tumbled backwards onto his rear end. She immediately followed him, jumping down from her perch to stand over him, her position as domineering as his had been just moments before.

"Now you listen to me, you big galoot, and listen good. I am honored more than I can say. I'll be your friend. I'll even maybe be your—" She cut off her breath before the word could spill out, but it came anyway, slipping through on a breath of a sigh. "—your lover, if you like. But I can't marry you. I don't belong in this world. As soon as I can find a way, I'm going back to my home."

He looked up at her, his eyes hard, his face blank. "I don't want a lover. I want a wife."

"That'll make for a fun honeymoon," she said dryly.

His forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What is a hon-E-moon?"

Jane sighed, suddenly stepping away to drop down beside him, her legs crossed Indian style, her hands on her knees. "Daken, we can't even communicate on the basics. Don't you see? I don't belong here."

"You belong anywhere you wish to be."

"Maybe I don't wish to be here."

He lifted his chin. "You mean, you don't wish to be with me."

Jane bit her lip, wondering how he could look so haughty and so hurt at the same time. "I have a life, a home, and a job somewhere else. Somewhere far from here, and that is where I belong. Can't you see that?"

Daken sat up. In one lithe move, he faced her, crossing his legs until he mirrored her position exactly. "Do you have a... a husband at your home?"

Her laugh was almost bitter. "I can't even keep a goldfish, to say nothing of a man."

"Then keep me."

She smiled at his awkward phrasing, knowing what he said and what he meant were worlds apart. Daken would never be anyone's pet.

"I don't belong here, Daken. You know that as well as I."

He shook his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes. "I don't know that. And I don't think you do either."

She started to argue, but he pressed his fingers to her lips.

"You do not wish to marry me. I accept that. For now. But I will keep the wedding tunic for when you change your mind."

"You mean
if
I change my mind."

He just grinned, refusing to amend his statement, and she was forced to admire his grace and determination, even in the face of her refusal. Then, before she could think of anything else to say, he pulled a small dagger and sheath out of his belt and offered it to her, hilt first.

"What's this?"

"A dagger. For you."

She took the weapon, drawing it out, extending the bright blade to the sunshine. "It's beautiful."

It was a fine dagger. Its hilt was iron inlaid with silver. The blade was razor sharp, and its point deadly. But most incredible to her was the way, even in the sunlight, that the edge seemed to dance with its own fire. A bright copper flame seemed to skate along the tip, burning up the edge until it slipped through the silver designs on the hilt and into her fingers.

"Uh..." She glanced up nervously, wondering if the tingling that spread through her body was supposed to happen. She tried to drop the knife, but she couldn't make her fingers release it. "I feel strange," she said, her voice a thready whisper.

"It is linking with you. Now it is your blade, and it will help you to use it better."

"Great." She giggled. It was her sick hyena laugh because she still had trouble accepting the magic he seemed to think was common. The tingling stopped, and she fumbled in her rush to sheathe the strange weapon.

He steadied her hands, his grip gentle as he guided her nervous movements, helped her stand, then tied the sheath about her waist. Only after it was fixed to her side did Jane say the things uppermost in her mind.

"Thank you, Daken. It's a beautiful gift, but..."

He raised an eyebrow.

She swallowed. "But is there some, uh, special meaning to this?" After all, she'd just given him a wedding tunic. For all she knew, this dagger meant she was part of some tribe that was in a death feud with everyone else. Or worse yet, that wearing it made her his woman somehow. "I, uh, just need to know."

He smiled, his eyes suddenly darkening to a mesmerizing navy. "It means, little fool, that I don't want you to feel naked."

That threw her until she remembered her earlier comment about everyone having weapons but her. She'd said she felt naked without a knife. A slow smile spread across her face, but before she could speak, he turned her around, untying the sheath and dropping her dagger on the floor next to his sword.

"I don't want you to feel naked with anyone but me."

She felt her eyes widen at the implication. Up until that moment, they had skated around the edges of sexuality. Now, it appeared, Daken was changing the rules of the game. Suddenly she was very aware of him and of the very big bed right behind them. His hands came up to frame her face, and she tingled from the electric intensity of his eyes.

Sunlight on glacier ice. The image flashed through her mind. His eyes were just like sunlight on blue glacier ice, sometimes as brilliant as the noontime sun, sometimes, like now, as dark as the night shadows, but always beautiful, possessing an elemental power that awed her, excited her, and in general made her knees go very weak.

"You know," he said casually, his voice like the low throb of a purring cat. "I think I was wrong. I want
both
a wife and a lover."

"Daken..." She pushed his name through the tightening in her throat. Her mouth was suddenly very dry as she tried to retreat from his advance. But she bumped straight into the bed. Slowly his hands framed her face, drew it upward to meet his gaze. "I... uh... I'm not sure—"

"I know," he said, and then he lowered his mouth to hers, capturing her slight gasp of alarm and molding it with his lips into a sigh of delight. His kiss was warm and wet and wonderful. She'd expected him to be harsh, almost brutal in his possession of her. Instead he was gentle and disarming.

"Wait a minute." She pushed him away, only succeeding in separating them by an inch. "Two days ago, I was less appealing than rat bait. What happened?"

"You have always been appealing, Jane. I merely waited until I was sure of your good health."

Jane felt her heart lurch into double time. "You mean you don't think I'm crazy?"

He glanced away, his expression nervous.

Her pulse dropped with a disappointed ka-thunk.

"You
do
think I'm crazy."

"I think you are different. And," he looked back at her, his face suddenly open with his surprise. "I like it. I like you."

Then he caught her face again, and she tensed, wanting to wait until she sorted out her conflicting desires. Did she want to go to bed with him now?
Yes!
said her body, but her mind wasn't entirely convinced, especially since she liked to carefully weigh pros and cons before committing to a decision. But Daken wasn't to be deterred. He pulled her closer, stroked her lips with his tongue, and his delicate persuasion pushed away her arguments, leaving no room for thinking at all.

Her mouth slipped open on a sigh, but he didn't enter. Instead, his tongue teased her lips, alternately stroking and sucking the tender flesh until she was dizzy from the new sensations. It wasn't until her jaw relaxed in invitation that he finally ventured inside to taste her.

She would do it, she thought dizzily. She would become his lover. It was what she'd dreamed about nightly. It was what she'd dreaded as an awkward complication. It was something, everything, she'd secretly longed for.

He played with her, teasing his tongue along her teeth, brushing the inside of her lips, tickling the roof of her mouth. The myriad sensations flooded her mind until her knees went slack, pressing her whole body against him. She felt his hands run down the length of her back until he cupped her buttocks, pressing her intimately against his hardness.

Her body heated, and her belly began to tense. She lifted her arms, sliding them up his until she twined her hands in his long hair, feeling for the first time the silky dark brown strands as they seemed to melt around her fingers.

It was at that moment that he changed. Where before she had been aware of his gentleness, now she learned the warrior strength of him. Cradling her head in one hand, he bent over her, deepening his kiss until he thrust into her with a battle fire she quickly matched. They dueled, the two of them, dancing in and out of each others' mouths with the precision of accomplished campaigners and the awe of awkward youths. It was impassioned, and it stoked the fire in her blood until she panted for breath, her hands grasping his shoulders for support against the dizzying vortex of desire.

He broke from her mouth, his breathing as ragged as her own, but unlike her, his hands were not still. He ran them up and down the length of her, following every curve, sinking into every valley, and molding every peak. She moaned as both his hands found her breasts, grasping and teasing the soft mounds through the thin Lycrasheen material.

He pressed her backwards, pushing against her until she lowered onto the bed. He came down on top of her and possessed her mouth again. This time his kiss was harsh and brutal, but she reveled in it, eagerly urging him to take more, arching into his weight as he ravished her mouth.