Sealed in Sin (29 page)
One stranger seeks to claim her heart…another is destined to destroy her.
Idol of Bone
© 2015 Jane Kindred
Looking Glass Gods, Book 1
Ra
. Just two letters. Barely a breath. When she stumbles into the frozen Haethfalt highlands, her name is all she has—the last remnant of a past she’s managed to keep hidden, even from herself. Her magic, however, isn’t so easy to conceal—magic that’s the province of the Meer, an illicit race to which she can’t possibly belong.
The eccentric carpenter who takes her in provides a welcome distraction from the puzzle of herself. Though Jak refuses to identify as either male or female, the unmistakable spark of desire between them leaves Ra determined to find out what lies beneath the enigmatic exterior.
But more dangerous secrets are brewing underneath the wintry moors. Jak’s closest friend, Ahr, is haunted by his own unspeakable past. Bounty hunters seeking fugitive Meer refuse to leave him in peace.
Harboring feelings for both Ra and Ahr, Jak nonetheless struggles to keep them apart. Because like the sun and the moon coming together, their inevitable reunion has the potential to destroy Jak’s whole world.
Warning: Shape-shifting? That’s so last millennium. Reincarnation? Yawn. Get ready for a gender-bending fantasy that will fire your imagination and haunt your dreams.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Idol of Bone:
“I don’t know where she came from,” Jak insisted in a low voice. The stranger was curled in a chair by the fire in the gathering room, drinking a hot cup of kerum while the rest of the moundhold huddled in the kitchen trying not to be obvious about the fact that they were huddled in the kitchen. Their guest had offered up no other information about herself or her situation, content to drink the pungent liquid with an air of curious interest.
“She looks Deltan,” said Keiren, opening the kitchen door a crack to glance out.
“So what?” Jak pulled the door shut, eyes narrowed with irritation. This was obviously about Ahr. “Why must we have such mistrust for anyone from the Delta? Aren’t we all, originally?”
Peta, the mound matriarch, shrugged absently. “My nan came here from the Delta. Rem’s great-grandparents were northfolk.”
“We’ve no objection to Deltans,” Oldman Rem said gruffly, packing his pipe at the table. Jak couldn’t refrain from laughing out loud, and Rem frowned. “It’s not your friend’s race we object to, Jak, it’s his standoffishness. The mounds are a cooperative collective, not every man for himself. A man’s got to give something to get something, and he gives precious little.”
Jak sighed. “Can we just leave Ahr out of this for the moment? Besides, she speaks perfect Mole. She has to be from around here somewhere.”
“Then someone will be looking for her,” said Peta. “She must have suffered some trauma, hit her head perhaps.”
Keiran snorted. “Or perhaps she’s just daft.”
Peta ignored him. “She must stay the night, at any rate. It’s too cold to let her wander about on her own. We’ll try to help her find her people in the morning.”
Keiren’s scowl deepened. “How do we know she’s not going to kill us all in our sleep?”
“Oh, for soothsake, Key.” Mell, normally quiet, tossed a dishrag at her partner from her spot by the sink. Jak tried and failed to suppress a grin, earning a black look from Geffn, who’d said nothing since Ra’s arrival—not that silence from him was unusual these days when he and Jak were in the same room. But if looks could kill, the moundhold would have had one less name in it from the vitriol in that glance.
For once, unexpectedly, he had something to say. “What’s this really about, Jak? Went out and scrounged up new blood because you ran out of people in Haethfalt to fuck?” The room went silent, and Jak sucked in a sharp breath.
Peta put a hand on her son’s shoulder, but Geffn rebuffed the gesture and swept from the room, letting the kitchen door swing closed behind him with a bang.
Keiren tossed the damp dishrag back into the sink. “Congratulations, Jak.”
“What in sooth did I do?”
Keiren opened his mouth, apparently all too eager to enumerate Jak’s sins, but Mell grabbed her partner by the arm and steered him toward the door. “We’re going to bed.”
“See you all back here in the morning, then,” Keiren threw over his shoulder, not bothering to lower his voice when he added, “if our throats aren’t slit.”
Jak was left standing awkwardly before the couple that had become like second parents, though they were getting on in years; Geffn had been a late-in-life surprise after they’d lost their first son, Pim. Rem avoided Jak’s eyes, studiously lighting his pipe.
“Why don’t you find our guest something warm to wear before we sit down to dinner?” Peta suggested, smiling fondly. At least she hadn’t judged Jak for the disaster of the failed relationship with Geffn. “I had the distinct impression there wasn’t much beneath that cloak of hers.”
Jak looked toward the door. “I got that impression, too. Honestly, I hope Keiren’s right and she’s just daft. I’d hate to think what else would send a woman out onto the moor in this weather dressed like that.”
Ra followed Jak down the hallway with an amiable shrug at the suggestion that she might like to change clothes, relinquishing her empty kerum cup to Peta with a somewhat reluctant glance after it, as though she’d rather have more.
In the darkened bedroom, Jak fumbled to light the oil lamp, and nearly knocked it over when the flame came up with a sputter. “Holy fucking sooth.” The words were out before Jak could stop them.
Ra had slipped off the cloak and dropped it where she stood. There was nothing underneath. She gave Jak a quizzical look, completely unselfconscious, as though standing naked in snow boots were nothing out of the ordinary. If something untoward had happened to her, there was no sign of it. Not a single blemish or bruise marked the pristine flesh.
Jak closed the bedroom door and picked up the cloak to shove it back at her. “Look, just—hold on to this for a minute.”
Ra gathered the awkward garment in her arms beneath the white slopes of her breasts. “It’s warm down here.”
Jak tried to focus on the ridiculous boots, but it was impossible not to look as Ra came forward into the room to examine the sparse furnishings. She had the palest skin Jak had ever seen, paler still in contrast to the mane of ebony that hung past her hips—just shy of covering her backside while she bent toward the mirror over the dresser.
Jak swallowed and muttered, “It is now.”
The pale brow furrowed with some unidentifiable emotion. Ra looked at everything, even her own reflection, with a sort of wonder, as if for the first time. The black sapphire eyes met Jak’s in the mirror, and Jak meant to look away, but couldn’t seem to. A person could get lost in that liquid ink, like staring into a night sky dusted with the brilliance of stars and forgetting the earth. Like her unconscious poise, Ra’s gaze held no shame, only curiosity. The frankness of her appraisal made it feel as though Jak were the one who was naked.
Jak blushed, turning away to rummage through the wardrobe. “You really need to put some clothes on.” It was doubtful any of Jak’s pants would fit her tall frame, but maybe something with a drawstring waist would do for now. Jak tried to concentrate on anything but Ra’s unadorned skin.
“Skirt and sweater,” Ra murmured.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any of those.” Jak glanced up, holding a pair of painter’s pants, but Ra was somehow already dressed. The foreign fabric of a long, dark skirt and a cardinal-hued sweater hugged her form perfectly. This time Jak managed to not only knock the lamp over, but slammed a thumb in the wardrobe door as well.
Cursing, Jak righted the lamp before the oil spilled out. “How did you—?” The question fell unfinished. There was no answer Jak could accept.
Ra said nothing, her expression unreadable. Images of the dark gods of the Delta sprang to mind—gods who could conjure and kill at a word—but Jak shook the thoughts away. It was superstition and nonsense. The Meer had been nothing more than men. There were no such things as gods—or Hidden Folk, for that matter, even if wisdom dictated that the tradition of honoring the land as a living entity was better heeded than ignored. This was something else, something beyond Jak’s experience. Something completely and utterly devoid of rational explanation. There was nothing Jak hated more.
“I expect you must be tired from your travels.” Jak took time relighting the lamp. “We don’t get many visitors this time of year.”
“I’m not daft.”
With one hand still cupping the burning match, Jak studied Ra’s placid and slightly amused expression. “Sorry?”
“You were wondering before. I’m not. But I thank you for your hospitality…” Ra paused, at last taking in Jak’s appearance with an expression Jak had seen a hundred times before. “I’m sorry. Is it sir or madam?” Above Ra’s head, the hobnail glass of the windows circling the mound at ground level—Rem’s masterful touch that made their mound the most distinctive in Haethfalt—glittered in the lamplight.
The flame had burned down to Jak’s fingers. “As a matter of fact,” said Jak, shaking out the match, “I prefer neither.”
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Sealed in Sin
Copyright © 2015 by Juliette Cross
ISBN: 978-1-61922-496-4
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: April 2015
