The Fire King (31 page)

And suddenly, as though someone had heard him, he found himself in her thoughts. He saw—he saw the flash of the knife, and the splitting of flesh beneath it. Listened to her strangled screams and felt the bite of tears. He felt her resolve. He suffocated on her determination. Her fury. Her fury, which ran so deep, so bitter and powerful, that he felt frightened for her, of her, what slept inside her.

So much like the fury sleeping inside him, as well.

Memories flashed, blurring, seen through her eyes. Movement, light, a sense of stillness and quiet, and difficulty breathing. Slick knife still tightly held, barely able to stand, dragging herself through strange rooms, trailing blood. Seeing on a table—
a gun
—which was suddenly warm in her left hand.

Then, an old man sleeping in a darkened room. So normal and mundane. Opening his bleary pale eyes just as she pressed the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger.

Karr found himself flung out of her mind. Soria gasped just as he opened his eyes. Staring at him in horror, mouth still open, contorted, as though silently screaming. He covered her mouth with his fingers, lightly, his eyes burning with tears that he had not known he possessed. Emotions raged through him, none he could name except that they were primal and hateful, grieved and tender; and full of the endless, unwavering desire to protect this woman so thoroughly that she would never, in dream or waking, ever suffer so much again.

“You saw,” she breathed. “Oh, God.”

“I am glad,” he said huskily, hardly able to make his voice work. “What you did—”

“I killed my uncle.”

“He deserved it. I was speaking of your arm.”

“My arm,” she breathed. “I was crazy. Only a crazy person does that. Like an animal chewing off a limb.”

“You wanted to survive.” Karr pressed his lips to her brow, quite certain he would never in this life have her strength.

“My uncle,” Soria said again. “He deserved to die. I know that. But he was family. I still have not told my parents. I never will. They think I lost my arm in an accident. Only my friends know. They covered up the evidence that I was there. Found a private doctor, people who would not talk …”

“Soria,” he whispered. “Soria, be at peace.”

She fixed him with a tear-stained gaze. “Peace is hard to come by. You have to fight for it. No giving up.”

Karr knew she was not just talking about herself.

“I was a coward,” he said quietly. “But I am ready to fight.”

“Good,” she whispered, tears spilling over her eyes. “It is worth it, you know. Even if it does not feel like it at the time.”

Karr leaned in, quivering, and pressed his mouth to her ear. “I wish you had been alive then, to tell me such things. I wish I could have been alive in your past, to spare you your pain. I wish so many things, Soria.”

The door to the bedroom opened, making both of them flinch. The girl Ku-Ku strode inside, carrying two clear bottles of liquid and a flimsy white satchel that fluttered and made crackling sounds. She hardly looked at them, nor made a sound, just dumped everything on the edge of the bed and then left.

“You thirsty?” Soria asked, hoarse. She fumbled, rubbing at her face, and handed a bottle to him. He was not thirsty, but he understood her need to make something light and new. She had to show him how to open the thing, and once the lid was off, he smelled liquid. Water. He tested it with his tongue and found the taste strange—but not enough to spit it out. It felt good to have something cold running down his throat.

Soria dumped the contents of the bag onto the bed. Karr saw boxes and oddly shaped materials, small containers that defied explanation and a number of other objects that he was sure were very useful but could not possibly be much help in healing his wounds unless they were magical.

He watched, though, and braced himself as Soria began fussing with the bandages that had been placed over his legs. Blood was beginning to seep through some of them. She hissed to herself, anger simmering in her red-rimmed eyes, and glanced to her right at another door. She saw a strange white chair that from a distance appeared to be made of gleaming white marble.

“Can you walk?” she asked, her voice still rough with tears. She pointed at the chair. “Just over there.”

Karr gritted his teeth and swung his legs off the bed. It hurt so badly he thought he would be sick on himself, but he swallowed down the pain and with Soria’s help stumbled across the room. He hated his body for betraying him, for making him feel so weak. He could not control the injuries that others inflicted on him, but there was a part of Karr that had always believed he should be stronger.

The room with the white chair was extremely tiny, and filled with odd structures that bore only a limited familiarity to things he had seen before in the pavilions of the Nile royalty. There was a small basin for washing one’s hands, and a shallow white pool for bathing: though in the past he had seen spouts made of clay, while these were iron. For water, Karr thought. Water for bathing, brought inside a home. Soria seemed to take it for granted.

“What is considered luxury among your people?” Karr asked, sitting heavily upon the white chair, the top of which sagged slightly. “What is solely the domain of royalty?”

Soria smiled to herself, though it was still fraught with emotion—as was his own voice and heart, his body weak with what he had just seen and heard, and the feelings that had overwhelmed him. “There are few royal families left in the world, and they are largely ineffectual. Some humans are governed by collective bodies of their peers, chosen by a majority, while others are ruled by groups that consolidate power among a minority. That is the simple explanation. The reality is far more complex. But luxury … it depends on what you are used to. There are some who would consider this place a dream come true. Others would find it a hovel. I suspect it was the same in your day, just with different fixtures.”

“Yes.” Karr followed her hand gestures and swung his legs over the edge of the bathing basin. “Some of my people were envious of the fine things the royal families had in their possession. We could have lived there among them, but I feared becoming too dependent on their well wishes. Or, that time would make us little better than slaves.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” she muttered, and poured a dark yellow substance over his legs. He hissed with pain, flinching, but except for a tight-lipped glance that could have been an apology, she showed nothing except deep concentration.

“You already cleaned my wounds,” he said tightly. “If you do this much longer, I will not have any legs left to heal.”

“Big baby,” she accused. “Cry me a river when all these cuts become infected and you rot from the inside out.” She froze, then, staring at the crisscrossed wounds. “Damn it. You need a tetanus shot.”

Karr had no idea what that meant, but he was tired, in pain, and the scar in his gut was beginning to tingle again, rather violently. He touched Soria’s shoulder, sliding his hand around the back of her neck—and savored the quick flush of her cheeks and the hesitant, breathless way she glanced up at him.

“Clean my wounds if you must,” he said softly, “and bandage me. But do not put so much on yourself. I am strong. Indeed, I am so magnificently mighty, I came back from the dead. This will not kill me.”

A faint smile touched her mouth. “Now you are a braggart.”

He wanted to be clever for her, to say something that would make her laugh, but all he could think of was the loveliness of her smile and how much he wanted to taste it. He had not tasted nearly enough of her. Crazy. He was a crazy man, and would pay.

Karr leaned forward and kissed her. He tried to be gentle, but the moment their mouths touched, he lost himself to a jolt of raw, hot pleasure that sank from his heart into his groin. Everything quickened—his heart, his blood—and the ache below his waist as his body reacted with desire made his leg wounds feel mild. Her tongue darted between his lips and then sank deeper, and his hand roved down her throat, falling lightly upon her breast. She gasped against his mouth, arching deeper into his touch, and it took all his willpower not to rip her tattered shirt right off her body. He had never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted her, never dreamed that one single presence could collapse so deeply into his own psyche until inhaling her scent and tasting her lips felt as urgent to him as breathing.

“Take off your shirt,” he commanded, his voice barely more than a growl. “I want to see you.”

Soria hesitated, stiffening. “My arm.”

“I want to see you,” he said roughly.
“You,
Soria. You are not your arm. Indeed, your arm is a badge of honor. You should wear it more proudly than you do.”

Karr could see her uncertainty, and he remembered what had happened the last time he touched her. But a deeper hunger was riding him now, and he was not going to let her pull away. Not for
this
reason. Not after seeing what he had.

He did not help her. His patience fraying, he watched in utter silence as she slowly pulled her shirt over her head. Underneath, she wore a cream-colored band of cloth that clung like a second skin to her full and heavy breasts. He could see no way to undo it, except to pull it up—and as she reached behind her, his patience finally snapped. He leaned forward, placing his mouth over her nipple, sucking on it through the thin material.

Soria cried out, throwing back her head as Karr pushed his fingers under the garment’s curved, hard band, pulling upward until her breasts were free and soft in his palms, his thumb dancing over one nipple while he sucked and nibbled hard on the other. Soria writhed, eyes closed, and when he raised his head to kiss her, she met him halfway, driving him backward with dizzying force. Her mouth was hungry and hot, and her left hand drifted down into his lap, brushing over the head of his penis with a deftness that made him wild.

The pain in his legs momentarily cut through his pleasure, but not enough to stop him. Soria, however, broke off the kiss and tried to stand. She wobbled on unsteady legs, and his hands snared her waist.

“I’ll hurt you,”
she gasped in her own language, but her gaze flicked down to her right, to the stump of her arm.

Karr drew her back gently, forcing himself to stay steady and calm. It was difficult. All he wanted was to tear off the rest of her clothing and have her sit hot, wet, and naked in his lap.

She sat in his lap, but her legs were still clothed. Very carefully, with desire burning through him, he leaned over and kissed the disfigured remains of her arm. Soria shuddered, but he did not stop or look at her face. He was relentless in his caresses, running his hands up her back as he buried himself in her scent, spreading slow, careful kisses over the scarred, bumpy skin.

Soria touched his face, fingers sliding under his jaw so that he was forced to look at her. She was smiling wryly, but there were tears in her eyes.

“I get it,” she said. “You are not turned off.”

“I did not notice until you did,” he said truthfully. “You forgot, did you not?”

“Yes. Until that side of my body tried to reach for you.”

“Then let it reach,” he whispered, sliding his hands beneath the soft waist of her pants. “If your body wants something, let it have it.”

She laughed. “Oh, really?”

He tried to smile, but it felt like a grimace. “Will you have me, Soria?”

Her breath caught, but in a different way. “There might be consequences.”

You might kill her,
whispered an insidious little voice.
And you
will
break. It is only a matter of time. It happened once, it will happen again.

He went cold. Desire fled him, though his body stayed hard for her. Soria, who had been staring into his eyes, frowned. “I meant babies. Not you. I do not believe you will hurt me.”

“Believe it,” he murmured, closing his eyes so that he would not be tempted by her breasts or the lean, lithe lines of her body. He heard her move away, which filled him with an unexpected pang—and then gasped out loud as her mouth unexpectedly touched his penis.

He was so stunned he could not move; he could just feel, riding a wave of pleasure so violent he almost climaxed in her mouth. Which seemed to be exactly what she wanted, given the way her tongue stroked him, hard and soft, striking a rhythm that made his hips buck against her.

“What does
your
body want?” she murmured against him, staring up with eyes that were heavy-lidded with desire.

Seeing himself half in her mouth was enough to send him over the edge. A growl snapped free of his throat, and a golden haze fell across his vision until he went almost blind. He grabbed Soria’s arm, hauling her up on her feet, and before she could protest he turned her around and forced her to straddle his lap with her back against his chest. His right hand slid down the front of her pants, searching for her slick heat, and with his other hand he drew her back until she leaned against him, panting with pleasure.

He pushed his fingers deep inside her body, craning to see her expression, loving how she bit her bottom lip, whimpering and shaking. He pulled out and then slid his fingers back in, deeper and harder, grinding his hips against her back as she let out a long, ragged cry. He bit the nape of her neck, fur shimmering over his body before receding into flesh, flesh becoming scales and back again, dragging his left hand across her breasts to squeeze her nipples in the same hard rhythm of his stroking fingers. He inserted another finger, and she moved against him, bracing her feet against the side of the washbasin.

Her left hand reached behind her back, trying to touch him, and he briefly stopped caressing her breasts to guide her fingers to the right spot.

Pleasure cut straight through him, so hard and fast he hardly knew he was coming until her back was suddenly wet, his hips jerking hard against her. Soria let out her own low cry, leaning forward as her body spasmed around his fingers. He tried to withdraw his hand, but she caught his wrist with tight fingers and held him in place.

“Stay there,” she breathed raggedly. “I like how it feels.”