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With a thrill of triumph, he surged to his feet and carried her to the bed. She felt good in his arms—a perfect fit in every way—supple and sparkling with delicious power that warmed even the cold, damp hollows of his heart. With her hands looped around his neck, she gazed at him with wide green eyes gone fulgent.
Oh yes. Together they would conquer the world.
~4~
Nic was lost.Boneless, boundaryless, she tumbled into the deep lake of Lord Phel’s deliciously cool magic and powerful presence. Distantly, and ruefully, a part of her acknowledged that those epic stories of Fascination might have a grain of truth. Besides the immortal tale of Sylus and Lyndella, there were other ballads and novels of such magical pairings, always culminating in tragedy. They plucked the heartstrings nicely on cold winter nights, or long sweetly warm summer ones, and she’d shed tears over more than one such story, reveling in the heartbreaking tales of love lost.
When she’d been too young to know better. And that did not mean she wanted to live through one.
She’d been so certain, especially after the awful other suitors, that those stories had been entirely fictional, products of wishful thinking, or perhaps deliberate propaganda to sugarcoat what was, at its heart, an exploitative relationship. How do you persuade a familiar to be happy living their life as magical food for someone else? Persuade them that it will be emotionally and sexually fulfilling, and that what looks like indentured servitude is actually an epic love affair!
Focusing on Lord Phel’s depthless black eyes—she refused to think of him as Gabriel, as that implied a friendship that could never exist—Nic gave herself a mental slap. This was how magic worked. Wizards were ruthless sorts; no one attended the Convocation Academy without observing that universal truth. To be fair, wizards had to learn to be hard. The same traits that enabled them to learn the complex spells and rituals, and to survive the viciously competitive academy, were the same that made them into cold-hearted monsters.
Kindness got you killed in the Convocation.
Lord Phel was obviously manipulating her. All’s fair, she supposed, as that was what wizards did. He’d simply used different tactics than the others. Instead of attempting to establish immediate mastery, he’d capitalized on her Fascinated attraction to him, softening her up with kissing andcongenial conversation. Her other suitors had been the fools, not taking the time to coax her into opening like a parched flower drinking in the cooling rain. How little time it had taken him to do it, too.
One thing she knew: This man was more dangerous than she could have guessed. And she’d made herself vulnerable to him, totally unable to help herself. She’d tried to hold him at arm’s length, keep their relationship to cold business… and utterly failed.
Lord Phel set her on her feet beside the bed, making her realize how fully she’d surrendered to his embrace. She hadn’t offered the slightest protest when he’d picked her up and carried her. His black eyes glittered with passionate intensity, nearly burning her, his magic palpable as his rough fingers stroked her shoulders where the gown bared them. Hands accustomed to manual labor, and wielding physical weapons, too, not soft like most of the gentleman wizards of the Convocation. The dossier on him said he’d grown up poor, no better than the other farmers of Meresin who sometimes took up arms to defend their lands against scavengers. Until his developing wizardry had taken him from that.
Or, more accurately, she knew now that she’d met him: until he’d grasped that opportunity to lift himself and his relations out of the hole they’d fallen into.
She should have put all of that together right away. Lord Phel was certainly desperate, but he wasn’t a victim of that desperation. No, he’d tempered that into a drive to win at all costs. This man would never be manipulated the way she needed. She could only hope that his seed—like the others—would fail to find purchase.
How to steel herself against him, though? Where she’d been able to endure the assaults of the others, those banal encounters seemed easy in retrospect compared to the enormity of walling out how this man affected her. Developing feelings for him would doom her. If she did have to become Lord Phel’s familiar, succumbing to this Fascination for him would be a disaster.
Hopefully she’d never have to face that day.
He smiled slightly, watching her face, and she hoped he couldn’t read her fears more than he already had. He’d seen through to her building dread, somehow divining how profoundly she’d hated those other couplings, something even Maman hadn’t realized. She hadn’t wanted her mother to know, but she didn’t wanthimto know either. How had he figured her out so easily? She hadn’t sensed him using mind magic on her, but he’d used the insight as expertly as any bladesman, wedging the sharp edge into a tiny crack and slipping through her defenses. She had to put a stop to that.He wants to use you, so use him instead.
Tracing the skin where her dress clung to her upper arms, he canted his head in question. “Can we take this off?”
A near-hysterical laugh bubbled up, but she squelched it.You are allowed to do anything to me you wish, she thought, but didn’t say. Asking for what he could have commanded was simply another ruse to lull her into this yielding complacency. Nodding, she turned her back, sweeping aside the long ringlets that trailed from her elaborately coiled hair and showing him the long seam of her gown.
A pause made her look over her shoulder.
“I don’t know how this fastens,” he admitted with a frown. “No laces?”
“It’s a House Ophiel gown,” she replied. When his frown didn’t clear, she added, “Magic. Just run your finger down the seam and will it to part. Anyone can do it—even commoners with no magic at all.”
“Ifthey can afford a House Ophiel gown,” he muttered, and she had to concede the point.
The cloth parted, and he drew in an audible breath—in admiration for the slick mechanism, she thought, until he traced the line of her spine from the nape of her neck, which he’d so stirringly caressed before, all the way to the cleft of her buttocks. She shivered, suppressing a moan of pleasure.
“You are incredibly beautiful,” he breathed.
Finally, something to snap her out of her trance. “You needn’t ply me with pretty lies,” she hissed, stepping away from him and tugging her arms out of the tight sleeves. “At least do me the courtesy of being honest.”
He regarded her curiously, a hint of anger in his tightening jaw. “I am many things, but a liar is not one of them.”
Angry in turn—a far more useful emotion than that drugging desire and humiliating temptation to snuggle up to him like a kitten in need of petting—she stripped off the gown and let it fall in a puddle. There, better to be fully undressed than play along with this game of seduction. Standing before him naked except for her heeled slippers—she was loathe to give up any height compared to his—she punched her fists to her hips, lifted her chin, and dared him to comment.
“You want to know me?” she challenged, dragging his gaze up from her nakedness. “Then know that I am a realist. I know my value rests in the power I offer, both magical and political, so don’t insult me with empty compliments.”
His anger seemed to decline with the rise of hers because he grinned at her, dark eyes lowering to wander over her. “You’re flawless,” he murmured, almost to himself. “A pearl beyond price. Would you take your hair down for me?”
With nothing to push against, Nic found herself flailing. “It will be a mess,” she warned, plopping herself down on the side of the bed and kicking off her shoes. With practiced efficiency, she pulled the various jeweled straight pins that held the unruly mass of curls in place, tossing them on the bedside table to scatter among the cremes and oils, then shook out her hair. Fingers combing it, she wrestled it to temporary obedience to hang down her back. Glancing up at Lord Phel, who seemed mesmerized, she lifted a questioning brow. “Satisfied? Perhaps you’d like to examine my teeth also.”
