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My breath hitches in my throat when he trails those fingers to my hair, lighting on my comb. “I am willing to grant your family leniency, Isla Adayra.”
Relieved, I sigh until suspicion rouses gooseflesh as the feverish glint appears in Elder Kanat’s eyes. They voyage across the bare flesh of my upper chest and shoulders thanks to my angyl-feathered gown.Oh, no...he can’t mean!
“You will present yourself to me at the Bite Offering tonight,” Elder Kanat defines.
The Nether-mark chafes my back again.No!I’ve worked hard to stay under the radar, beyond any Feyal-Ithydeir’s eyes. Keeping to my family’s farm and our animals and flowers. Franzy and I have spent years planning...tonight was my one transgression, my desperate blunder.
By whatever power I cannot fathom, more corpus roses rear their heads. Behind the soldiers, they’ve grown to half the length of the Ith warrior bodies.
“Please, Elder Kanat,” I press, treading on dangerous ground. “I am not a consort. I would?”
“Isla!” Elder Kanat blows a huffed breath through his nose. I clamp my mouth shut, understanding the grievance I’ve committed. As the highest Elder, Kanat holds the King’s favor and could order my execution for my protest. But he must already hold a number of flesh consorts. Why should he bother with a mere Cock-Cross orphan girl? And a recent felon!
Still, I am bold enough to meet the dark forest of his eyes when he informs me, “Your fathyr and I are good friends despite his lower station. Rest assured, I have had my eye on you for some time. Once I learned of your forging my seal, I came immediately. Rest assured, the promise of your flesh will not only cancel your family’s debt but assure their comfort, given its...current state of honor,” dictates Elder Kanat, knuckles brushing lower to my neckline.
I swallow a lump in my throat. Curse mywell-endowedbreasts.
“I am prepared to elevate my proposal.” Elder Kanat’s eyes burn against mine, and I bite a whimper and strengthen my quivering insides when he captures my palm and raises my body to stand, lifts my knuckles to his mouth. “I have never taken a Feyal-bride. You will be my first.”
A Feyal-bride!
My gut clenches from the deep gravity of his proposal. He will welcome me into his court for my flesh servitude while offering me his home, his possessions, his vow, his...bed. An honor reserved for noble court humans. Humans never serve elders other than as flesh-consorts.
The nether-mark lashes the base of my spine in warning. Fear races through my body faster than a fueled flame. Elder Kanat is well known throughout the land for his favor with the gods and his worship of sacred tradition. If he’d merely offered a flesh-consort proposal, I could hide the shadow-scar. But the moment he takes me to his bed and discovers my Nether-mark, he will have me burned before the entire kingdom.
Or worse...cast me into the Void!
Hundreds of skull eyes from the inner rosebuds stare at me from beyond the soldiers and the elder oblivious to their presence. Each thorn is a deadly weapon the size of my hand. I hold my breath, praying no soldier turns. While I may not understand where this floral power comes from, this is my only chance.
Elder Kanat opens my hand and places...oh, gods!...a small chest vertebra bone in my palm. Symbolic of the strength of males and females standing together in companionship. I whimper. This is a deeper weight: I will be expected to bear his Ith children. “I look forward to biting you tonight, Isla Adayra.”
The chest vertebra is heavier than a crypt. I freeze when Elder Kanat’s mouth settles upon mine?hotter than a flaming altar, tongue probing the seam of my lips. My limbs tingle. My chest tightens, heart faltering.
Opening my mouth and tasting me deeper, Kanat tugs my flushed body to his. The Nether-mark scalds my back. I whimper into his mouth which only encourages him. Some deep part of me wants to surrender. As Franzy stated, I have a warrior’s spirit. If anyone can wage this siege, it’s me.
Beyond my family loyalty and the honor of the highest elder choosing me, a hunger stalks my blood, my heart. A fiery hunger I have suppressed for many years other than the few times I’ve shared with Franzy. But this can’t be the fate the gods have transcribed for me. Unless my life has been a curse?a cruel, twisted joke of demons and angyls.
I am caught between a mountain and the hardest of places.
The Nether-mark sears my back as if pleading with me for self-preservation, for escape. Elder Kanat mistakes my moan for desire. His knuckles brush along my neckline, skimming the upper swell of my breasts as if testing my flesh for where he desires to bite me. I open my eyes, gazing beyond him and the soldiers to the skull roses which lunge?my floral warriors.
Once Elder Kanat angles his head to the side to deepen the kiss, and his hand winds around my waist, I break from his mouth, shove the chest vertebra into his hands, and gasp through parted, swollen lips, “No! I can’t. Iwon’t!”
Without another word, I nod my consent to the roses. They attack. Hundreds of thorns spear the soldiers, and they crash to their knees. Before the elder seizes me, I turn and flee faster than a blackwing flying from a nether-storm.
As I deviate through darker passages leading to deep avenues unknown, Elder Kanat roars behind me, “Bring her back!”
Underneath my robe,I conceal the skull parietal bone?a twin half to Aydon’s?the sole indication of my identity. Other than everything beneath my robes, of course. Considering how many masked revelers have donned my appearance tonight, I don’t stand out. Soon, my brother will arrive to sit on the throne, escorted by the elders and our most ruthless soldiers because Aydon will never spare finery.
At times, I wish a human would volunteer as Feyal-bride of the Corpse King and spare me the headache of choosing. It’s only happened once and for good reason. Not that the kingdom knows the gritty details. Save for me and another.
One Ithydeir passes me, commending me on my costume, and peeling back his mask to exhibit his elaborate makeup. Once he’s out of earshot, I snort. No amount of makeup could mimic the gruesomeness of my face, of the gods’, of Kryach’s curse.
“Would you care to dance, rygh airychdeil?” requests an auburn-haired girl in an emerald gown, lighting her hands on my glove.
By now, I’ve mastered the art of not recoiling despite the pain. At first, I consider stalking away and disappearing amidst all the masked imitations. This whole evening is a mockery of myself. If it were simply our Ithydeir race and prized humans, I could stomach it, but with the other races...
“I have a feeling this will be a night none will forget,” she leans in and whispers her warm breath in my ear. I inhale her feminine scent: an alluring but common heather.
