Blinded by the Sun (Erythleh Chronicles Book 4) (26 page)

"Friend." Kavrazel's words were ground over the gravel in his throat, but he would not stint on them for the effort. "I would be honoured to call you my countryman, and more. You've earned your place at that table with your wisdom, knowledge, and loyalty. Of course you may stay, and I would be honoured if you would retain your position. Whether you continue with your links to Felthiss, that matters little to me, but I would not wish to lose you from my side. Please, stay."

Words became impossible. Manly gestures of shoulder slapping and firm nods relayed any sentiments yet to be expressed. It was with a lump firmly lodged in his throat, and grit irritatingly prevalent in his eye, that Kavrazel took his leave of Otal.

He had managed to master his emotion, and his baser instincts were reminding him of his purpose in heading for his chambers so early in the evening, when Shinu appeared from the shadows. Kavrazel almost spoke aloud to remind himself that the Blood Father had no ill intention, and cursed Taan's capricious nature for denying him straight road to the pleasures that awaited him. Apparently his fortitude was to be severely tested this night.

"I won't keep you." Shinu gave a teasing grin, but Kavrazel was short on humour. If the interruption had come from people he respected and liked just an iota less, there would have been blood to clean from the stones. At his terse nod, Shinu continued. "Might I ask, Sire, have you thought on scheduling a date for your nuptials?"

The words were too complex for Kavrazel's clouded mind, considering that he was being guided by a more insistent organ some feet lower on his body than his head. It took him a moment to discern Shinu's meaning and to form an appropriate answer. "No, we haven't set a date for the wedding. I haven't thought of such details."

"Might I start preparations for a dress?"

"If you think it would be wise, by all means."

"And... Sire..."

"Yes?" Kavrazel drew the syllable out, trying and failing to keep the irritation from his tone; it wasn't like Shinu to be so circumspect.

"Perhaps you should think on setting the date for the wedding sooner rather than later? I wouldn't want to have to inconvenience the dressmaker by asking her to let the seams out too much."

"I don't..."

"Sire," Shinu inclined his head and dropped his tone to a more confidential note. "If you intend to keep bedding your betrothed before the wedding, think on the consequences of a child born out of wedlock to a mother not of this country. You know I love Lyssia as my own daughter. Do not lay such a trial at her feet."

Kavrazel was shocked, and he had thought himself past the capacity to be surprised this day. Of course he knew how children were conceived, he wasn't ignorant of the workings of life, but he had been so caught up in the discovery of Lyssia herself, and in the preservation of his throne and country, that he had paid no heed to the consequences of their actions.

"Certainly." It was an effort to keep from stuttering. "And thank you. I will bear your excellent advice in mind."

"I should tell the seamstresses to work quickly then?" Shinu asked with a cheeky glint to his eyes. "You'll not... restrain yourselves before the arrangements can be made?"

Kavrazel tried, and failed, not to growl at the presumptuousness of Shinu's question. "Yes, tell them to make haste. Regardless, I would wed her before the year is ended."

Shinu made to take his leave, but turned. "Thank you, Sire."

"What for?" Kavrazel was genuinely perplexed.

"Thank you for making her happy. You've always treated the blood slaves well. You've done much for them, and they are as children to me. Your consideration means more than I can say."

It gave Kavrazel pause to hear Shinu speak so. He didn't think it would be fair for the Blood Father to hear of the plans for the abolition of the blood saves from any other source. He explained, as succinctly as he could, given that he still very much wanted to be elsewhere, the précis of the discussions that had only just taken place. "So you see," Kavrazel concluded, with some humour since Shinu's place in his household was assured, "I'm afraid I may have negotiated you right out of a job."

"I'm not worried, Sire." Shinu's smile was at once confidential and condescending, in a way that intrigued Kavrazel rather than angering him. "I'm very good with children."

Kavrazel laughed, he couldn't help himself. "Then I hope to keep you just as busy as you are now! However, unless you have any further queries..."

"I wouldn't want to keep you from the creation of my new charges."

"Then I bid you goodbye and goodnight."

He knew he was treading the edge of arrogant incivility as he hurried passed Shinu, but Taan be damned, he had had enough of the interruptions. Lyssia was waiting for him, awake he hoped, and they had the night before them. If one more person tried to step in front of him, he would punch them first and leave Girogis to deal with the consequences; he had a bride to attend to.

Chapter Twenty-Five

"How do you like your ring?"

She loved the hoarse note to Kavrazel's voice, the insinuation that his throat had been so roughened by his shouts of ecstasy that even now his words caught. He was teasing her, but she would let that pass.

"It's beautiful, in ways I never imagined anything could be, let alone something I could wear."

"It is yours. You can call it your own. It is a possession, not some form of elaborate borrowing."

"Semantics." Lyssia grinned at him and twisted her hand so that the jewels caught the light. "See how it casts prisms on my thighs?" she asked with faux innocence. She knew very well how the jewels trapped the light from the candles and refracted it against her skin. She had played with the trick whilst Kavrazel had been caught up in his political business. She still had the impish urge to exact some revenge for that long delay, despite the fact that he had apologised profusely, both with words and actions. Wanting to taunt him now, to drive him to the edge of madness, she delved her fingers into the tuft of curls at the juncture of her thighs, and angled her hand so that the ring twisted the trapped light into rainbows against her honey-coloured skin.

"Yes, I see," Kavrazel growled. His own hand lifted and covered hers, following her fingers and mimicking their movements. Lyssia gasped as the dual sensations became something that could overwhelm conscious thought. He made her feel so much. Perhaps it was that her heart and her body were in tandem when they received his touch, but in all her years with Braedeth, she had never felt as this.

"I have news for you."

"And you choose to impart it now?" Her voice was barely more than a series of pants.

"What better time? You are a captive audience."

"Sire, I am always captive to your words, but now..." Lyssia gasped as Kavrazel's fingers probed deeply into her intimate flesh. "Now... I find..."

"We're to end the trade in slaves."

She struggled to make sense of his words. She tried to sit up, but Kavrazel pressed her back against the pillows and continued his distractingly intimate caresses. She managed to gasp out the question, "Completely?"

"Yes."

"But the blood."

"Vuthroan blood is the best tribute to Taan, wouldn't you agree?"

"Well, yes, but..." Her mind was caught on a particular movement of the king's hand and stuttered over words. She groaned, and he laughed. "Why... How have you only just come to this conclusion?"

"It appears that the willingness of a slave to offer her own blood for the toast has made quite the impression."

"This is my fault?"

"No. Your inspiration."

"I didn't mean..." He did that thing with his fingers again, a twisting, scissoring motion, whilst his thumb pressed on the swollen bud that was the centre of all pleasure. Lyssia lost the ability to speak for too long.

"No. I know you didn't."

"But still..."

"Shhh." The king had evidently tired of their discussion. He pressed a brief kiss to her mouth, and increased the tempo of the fingers at her more intimate flesh.

Lyssia all but growled at him. Keeping quiet was no option if he continued his sweet assault.

He remained half leaning over her, his lips a whispered breath from her own, driving her to the brink of madness with only his hand. She tried to lean up to capture his mouth in a kiss, but he reared back just enough to deny her each time. He allowed her burying her nails into the muscles over his shoulders, but he resisted all her attempts to pull him down over her. She twisted her hips and tried to lift them to gain more contact, to entice him, but he hooked a leg over hers to hold her still. She was captive to him once more. He only released her to move once her orgasm had crested and she was trembling beneath his touch.

She surprised him when she pushed him. He was caught off guard, unbalanced, and fell backwards. Lyssia crawled over him, planting her knees either side of his hips. Even as she felt her body pulse with the aftershocks of pleasure, she grasped his cock and prepared to settle herself onto it. The burning heat of his shaft was scalding her when Kavrazel stilled her hips with his large hands.

"Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you. You must be sore."

"Are you mad?" Lyssia gasped as she pushed past the resistance of his grip, forcing her body down, until she had achieved her aim. She let speech be forgotten whilst she moved, making herself comfortable, rebuilding the foundations of pleasure, and glorying in the simple feeling of being filled by him once more.

When she had found a motion and angle that suited her, she planted her palms on Kavrazel's chest for support, and continued. "I wouldn't do anything to cause myself pain." She flexed her hips again to prove her point; Kavrazel responded with a grunt. "I can feel you... the memory of you, inside me when I move. It isn't painful, quite the opposite. It's a constant reminder that we are joined. Jewels can be put away or stolen, collars can be cut away..." Kavrazel tightened his grip at that, and gave a thrust of his own, eliciting a contented groan from Lyssia. "No one can take this away."

The movement was sudden. She cried out as Kavrazel rolled them over, his body still buried deep within hers. The shift in angle and pressure hit a different spot inside her that made Lyssia want to promise all her blood for all eternity if only the king would carry on doing exactly what he was doing. She tried to take hold of his arms once again, but he caught her wrists and pinned them down against the pillows above her head.

"I won't let anyone take you from me again."

"No one would dare try."

"Oh, they'll try." Kavrazel punctuated his words with sharp thrusts of his hips, which made anything other than elemental thought extremely difficult. "But they will fail, and it will be the last thing they do."

With all the strength that she had, Lyssia surged up against him, not to torment him or to fight him, but to move with him, to join with him, to take him as he was taking her. "I love you," she managed to gasp.

Kavrazel answered her with a brutal kiss, and ecstasy that brought stars to her vision and fire to her veins.

~o0o~

"Oh, my days! You look fabulous!"

Shinu was observing the dress fitting, although supervising might have been a more accurate term. There was no aspect of the process - from concept, to design, to construction - that he had not personally overseen. He hadn't interfered, but he had definitely made his presence felt. Lyssia was concentrating her attention on the seamstress behind her and the pins which seemed to be precariously close to pricking her skin, but she turned anyway at Shinu's exclamation. The Blood Father was clasping his hands and failing to hold back tears like any proud mother watching her daughter prepare for her wedding.

"I feel a little ridiculous." Lyssia was standing on a small, high dais, one with such a limited diameter that she felt she might tumble off the edge at any moment. Preparations for the wedding were continuing at breakneck speed, and had been further complicated by the decision to hold the first "Blooding" ceremony on the same day as the wedding rituals, immediately before the marriage ceremony. Consequently, her gown had turned into a more elaborate affair than she had first envisaged. The day was to be a seminal point in the country's history, and she had to project the appropriate image.

The first design for her dress that had been produced had been heavily reliant on the theme of Taan being the god of fire, but Shinu had dubbed the concept too theatrical. He had reminded the seamstresses that Lyssia was not the sacrifice for the day, but was to be crowned queen of the country. He had suggested that they concentrate less on flair and more on elegance. As far as Lyssia was concerned, either design meant a day of restrictive corsetry and weighty, voluminous skirts, but she did have to admit a fondness for the second design. It would be worth the discomfort of the day, and of the hours of fittings, to wear such a work of art. The idea of flames and fire had been retained, but the execution had been limited to the colours. The construction was purely an exhibition of talent for couture.

"Ouch." Pricked by an unfortunately placed pin, Lyssia tried to keep the exclamation to a mutter. Her back was sore from standing erect for so long. Her feet were hurting; it was midday and she was beginning to be hungry, and she had had enough of being poked and prodded and turned and examined.

Evidently, her mutter had been quite loud. Shinu bustled forward and shooed the harried seamstress away from her post. He took one look at Lyssia's face, and insisted that the fitting was done for the day.

"But there is so much still to do!" the seamstress protested. Lyssia couldn't see where the problems lay, the dress looked and felt finished enough, in her opinion. "There. And here." More prodding as the woman pointed out imaginary flaws. "It's not quite right."

"Enough." Shinu sternly interrupted the frantic woman. "That is all for today. Do what you can, we can look again tomorrow."

"But the ceremony is in three days!"

"And you've hardly slept for the past two moons." Shinu put a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder. "Go. Sleep. Rest. It's perfect. It will still be perfect tomorrow. It will be perfect in three days' time. No one in all the realms could match your achievement."

"But the king..."

"Would probably be happier if she were naked." Both the seamstress and Lyssia gasped in shock at Shinu's joke, but Lyssia's gasp became a breathless laugh. Shinu wasn't wrong.

With another squeeze, and some more quiet words of assurance, he convinced the woman of the wisdom of his suggestion, and both set about extracting Lyssia from the creation. Lyssia was glad to be done with it, and hoped she wouldn't hate it by the time it came for her to wear it for its true purpose. It was so beautiful that it would be a shame to resent it.

Lyssia shrugged her usual dress back on, and fastened the belt about her waist, fretting that the usual notch was too tight. She was evidently doing nothing to assist the poor women panicking over her dress if her figure was changing as they worked. Shinu tutted as she ground her teeth, and took over fastening the belt in a more comfortably loose fashion. He led her out of the mirrored room. Despite her expanding waistline, he didn't speak until he had procured an amount of food and drink for them both, and had found them a seat in a quiet corner overlooking the mist-riddled moat. Heat of the season had endured from the mid-point of the year, and whilst no amount of warm weather could dissipate the perpetual fog that shrouded the waters around castle Vulc, the grass was dry and the air was balmy.

Shinu let her eat, not that he had much choice. Lyssia found herself starving and had devoured most of her portion of the food before she even realised what she was eating. Only Shinu's chuckle brought her to some semblance of sense.

"I'm sorry," she apologised around half a mouthful of cheese.

"Don't be. You needed a rest, too."

Lyssia managed to swallow before continuing ruefully "But I appear to have forgotten my manners, and my diet."

"Completely understandable, my dear. Totally excusable."

"No it isn't." Lyssia frowned.

"My dear." He placed his hand on her arm. "Have you realised why Mirta is having a fit over your dress?"

"Not until today. If I keep eating like this," Lyssia brushed at the crumbs on her lap. "She'll be making alterations on the day itself."

"It's not your appetite, my dear, that's the issue."

"Please, Shinu. It's been a long morning," Lyssia pleaded, in no mood to try to interpret his meandering point.

"When was the last time you had your moon's blood?" Shinu asked, as if the answer were of no consequence. And normally it wouldn't have been, except that when she thought about it - and she had to think hard - Lyssia couldn't remember. "There was the time just before the jousting..."