Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Iwas hurled from the nightmare of prophecy and fell panting and heaving within sweat-soaked sheets.

“What is it?” a rough voice groaned from the darkness.

I flinched as my mind spun with the dream and I found myself back in my bed once more, the air still around us, the balmy breeze sweeping in through the gossamer curtains.

“I…” My heart was thrashing so violently that I could barely form the words, true tears wet on my cheeks, the dream having felt so real that I was struggling to take in my surroundings.

There was the metal framework at the foot of my bed, the sheets twisted around my legs, and the space beyond it where the curtains moved in that familiar pattern before the open doors to my balcony. The candle on the mantle above the unlit fire had long since burned out, but I could see it there, the nub and melted wax coating the bronze holder.

I looked to the wooden armoire and let my gaze trail over the whirls in the design above the doors, counting them slowly as my thrashing heart began to settle, and I gave in to the feeling of safety and familiarity which filled this place.

The heated air rolling in from the distant desert was as familiar to me as my own breath, the sounds of the blue-feathered harocs calling to one another in the trees outside letting me know that the night was still at its fullest.

Calvari rolled closer to me, the sheets shifting and the pale moonlight gilding the bare skin of his broad back as he pushed himself onto his elbows to look down at me.

I blinked up at him, his long hair falling forward over his shoulders as the face I had once known so well pinched with concern.

Reality returned to me as I remembered the tavern last night, the singing and the Faery wine. Calvari’s unit had returned from the Banished Lands, another battle won and more lives lost. But he’d returned among the rest of the Fated Legion, a few new battle scars marking the dark skin of his powerful body. And just like we had many times before, we’d fallen prey to the sinful nature of my secondary Affinity for seduction, gifted to me by the god Bentos, and I’d brought him back to my bed.

“You had a nightmare?” he asked slowly, his weight shifting on the bed as he reached out to brush a tangled strand of my ebony hair away from my eyes.

“It felt so real,” I murmured, distracted by the lingering fear of the nightmare.

“Did it hold a taste of prophecy?” Calvari asked seriously, and I frowned as I noted the metallic taste on my tongue which the Fae had always known to associate with the gods.

“Maybe,” I hedged, the horror of what I’d witnessed too awful to be a true rendering of the future. “A warning, perhaps. The world was falling down around me, the gods were filled with wrath. They stripped me of my power…I…”

“It sounds like they had reason to be angry with you. Have you been up to no good while I’ve been off fighting the Banished?” Calvari’s lips curled up at the corner, and I narrowed my eyes at him, the fear from the dream fading as I settled back into reality once more.

There were no cracks in the walls, no angry gods screaming at me, and my power still imbued my limbs. Though my most prominent Affinity was for healing, here, alone with him, I was far more caught up in the talents Bentos had given me.

“When am I ever bad enough to incite the gods?” I taunted, and his smile grew.

He wasn’t the most handsome of Fae, but there had always been something about that smile which drew me to him. It didn’t hurt that his training with the Fated Warriors had moulded his body into a work of art worth studying for hours on end, and I liked that he didn’t ever flinch from the sharpness of my tongue.

We were what we were. Two Fae who enjoyed sharing our bodies. Easy, simple, no promises holding us to anything, no vows or declarations hanging in the air between us. When he returned from war bloody, broken, and haunted by the things he’d seen and experienced, I gave him a distraction, a release, simplicity. While he gave me…

“Bad is what you’re best at, Kyra,” Calvari purred, his hand shifting to my thigh beneath the thin sheet as our thoughts wandered to the truth of that fact.

I bit down on my bottom lip and my gaze drifted down his chest, the long scar which stood out across his abs letting me know how close he had come to death this time.

“The Legion is smaller than it was when you last set out,” I said, my hand finding the edge of that scar and my healing Affinity making my fingertips tingle as I inspected it. “You lost a lot of warriors in the last four years.”

“We did,” Calvari grunted, his gaze dimming with that reality, and for a moment I could hear the screams of the dying, scent the blood on the air, feel the hopelessness of war surrounding us. “The Banished hatched three dragon eggs. They caught us off guard more than once.”

He tugged on my knee to widen my legs, and I obliged him as his fingers shifted higher, seeking the wet heat of my core, the oblivion we could claim in this bed.

I wasn’t running from the kinds of horrors he had lived through, but I was always seeking my own kind of escape with him too. Escape from this stagnation I felt in my life. This eternal nothing where days spilled into weeks and months and years and I just…was.

I didn’t know when I had first begun to feel like my destiny wasn’t in this empire, or when I had realised that I would never find true peace here, but I felt like a bird in a cage within this city.

I yearned for adventure, a different reality, something more. I just didn’t know how to begin seeking it.

“Surely the dragons didn’t serve them willingly?” I asked, my eyes meeting Calvari’s as he sank two fingers into me and coaxed a moan from my lips.

“They were chained,” he admitted, watching me as I writhed beneath him, drinking in the sight of me at his mercy. “Beaten, scarred. It was a terrible crime to witness. We released two into death before my unit drew back.”

“And the third?” I asked, my heart aching for that most sacred of creatures, even as my mind began to scatter beneath the feeling of his fingers deep inside me.

“They still have it,” he admitted, the words sending a crack of sadness through my heart. “We plan on seeking out Azurea and asking her to fly into battle with us when we return to the front,” Calvari added, his mouth moving to my throat as his thumb found my clit and he began working me harder. “Perhaps we can convince a dragon to fly into war like they did in the days of old.”

My spine arched against the sheets as a cry of pleasure fell from my lips, and I imagined the fear such a thing might inspire in the Banished. A fully grown dragon flying into war above the Fated Legion. No doubt they’d die from terror alone.

“Nothing could stand between you and victory then,” I panted, and Calvari chuckled darkly, the sound a sin against my skin.

“Nothing will stand between me and victory now,” he swore, his cock driving against my thigh as he fucked me with his hand, and I drew closer to the edge.

I almost came for him, a good girl bending to his masterful fingers, but I knew we both wanted to work harder for it than that.

I turned my head to capture his lips, the thin line of a scar pressing against the softness of my mouth as I tasted him, the bite of stubble raking against my chin.

He was a brute of a man, built for war and ruin, his Affinities all linked to fighting and battle. But my Affinity for the pleasures of the flesh was more than a match for his unerring strength.

I pushed him back suddenly, pressing his spine to the mattress as I swung my thigh over his body and knocked his fingers from me.

I bit down on his lip and kissed him harder, the fear of my nightmare fading as the power of my gifts rose and my skin sang with need.

I broke our kiss, reaching for the curved metal of the headboard as I moved up his body and knelt over his face.

Calvari obliged me, his mouth locking over my clit as his large hands moved to grip my arse and he dragged me down to sit on his face.

I moaned as he sank his tongue into me, rocking my hips and beginning to ride his mouth, sighing loudly every time his tongue circled just right.

My right hand locked tight around the metal of the headboard and I began to tease my nipple with my left, my breasts full and heavy, bouncing softly as I rode his face and the need in me heightened.

I was insatiable when this power was awakened in me. My body filled with a hunger that I could never fully satisfy, but Calvari had the stamina it took to at least take the edge off my need.

He devoured me with all the unsated lust he had gathered in the years he’d spent at war. He’d told me once that he never took lovers while he was deployed, though he had never asked me to withhold in turn, he simply preferred to lean into his Affinities while at war. He was a warrior honed for death and bloodshed, and the power the gods had gifted him made him a perfect weapon for such things. When he was in the battle camps, he became simply that; a machine intended for destruction. Passion and needs of the flesh went unanswered until he returned to us here in the homelands, where it was safe and he could let his guard down without risking his survival.

It made sense. And it also made for an utterly ravenous partner in the bedroom when he returned.

I came with a cry of ecstasy, my body bowing forward as I leaned on the headboard for support.

Calvari lifted me so he could get to his knees at my back, and he was inside me before I could even catch my breath, the feeling of his cock sinking deep and striking hard enough to push out all lingering fear from that nightmare.

His hand fisted my hair, his teeth nipping at the soft skin of my throat as he tugged my head back to give himself the room he desired, and I hooked an arm back around his neck to hold myself there.

My other hand dropped to my clit, and I rode my fingers in time with every savage thrust of his cock inside me, moaning loudly with each pump of his hips.

Calvari gripped my waist as he fucked me harder, stealing a brutal kiss from my lips before pushing me face down onto the bed and sinking in even deeper than before.

My hand was crushed between my body and the mattress, my fingers rutting against my clit in time with the punishing thrusts of his hips, and I called out for him to go harder, deeper, seeking oblivion in the release of this passion.

I felt his cock stiffening as he drew closer to his climax, mine just out of reach as I panted and writhed beneath him, and I pushed my hips up, demanding more from him with gasping pleas.

He gripped my arse as he pumped into me harder, faster, cursing my name as he tried to hold off his own release while chasing mine, and I rode my fingers more frantically, sweat rolling down my spine between us.

I swore as I finally found my outlet, biting down on the bedsheets as my pussy clamped tight around his cock and bliss trilled through my limbs. Calvari jerked out of me, groaning loudly as he came all over my arse, the hot splash of his cum against my skin bringing a breath of laughter to my lips.

“You’re fucking ravenous as always, Kyra,” he growled as he grabbed the sheet which had been covering us while we slept and used it to clean the evidence of his desire from my body.

“I’m ready to go again when you are,” I teased as I rolled over to look at him, and he dropped back against the sheets with his chest heaving from exertion, a faint smile on his lips that told me he wanted to do that just as soon as he recovered.

We fucked and swapped stories of the years since we’d last seen one another then fucked again. The rhythm was endless, my need limitless as always, my body bringing his to ruin time and again, while his took the edge off of my lust as he made me come for him. Slowly, the night passed to dawn, and we finally fell into a heap of limbs and succumbed to sleep once more.

Or at least we did until the call of my sister’s voice drew me from my bed, an amused curse passing my lips as I was dragged from slumber.

I left Calvari where he was, satisfied and a little lighter than he had been after a night lost in the feeling of our bodies against one another, the memories of war farther behind him once more.

There was a thin satin gown hanging by the door to my bathing chamber, and I pulled it on to cover my nakedness, the deep red colour contrasting prettily against the warm brown of my skin.

It was summer, and even an hour past dawn, the heat was stifling, the air thick and humidity rolling in from the river which carved through the centre of the city.

“Two more minutes or we’ll come in and drag you from your bed with our bare hands!” Aalia called, amusement to her tone which let me know the twins were close by.

I ignored the door and headed for the window instead, stepping out onto the balcony and raising a hand to shield my eyes from the brightness of the morning light.

The lush green gardens beyond my room in the manor house I shared with my sister and her family were full of the chittering of small birds and rodents, the burbling of the stream at the foot of the hill a welcome I had received almost every day of my life.

My sister’s husband, Aren, stood beneath the broad willow, his back to the bark as he eyed me with amusement, inclining his head towards the lower floor of the house just enough to confirm that Aalia and the twins were inside.

My lips quirked up at the corner, and I took several running steps before hopping up onto the low white wall which ringed my balcony.

I threw my arms out wide on either side of me and closed my eyes as I let myself topple from the edge.

My stomach swooped and my ebony hair whipped back, but before I could so much as drop a full foot, glimmering golden wings expanded from my spine, fluttering hard to catch my weight while the sun shone through their near-transparent membrane and made the world glitter around me.

I swept into the trees in utter silence, my skin tingling as my lesser Affinities for stealth and secrecy gifted from the god of tricksters, Carioth, helped me land silently, my bare feet pressing into the soft grass before my wings faded from existence again. The Affinities the gods gifted each of us upon our birth varied from Fae to Fae, most of us claiming a single dominant Affinity which supposedly matched the essence of our souls to perfection.

Mine was healing, a trait from the goddess Luciet, who had blessed me with a natural inclination towards medicine. It was magic, but it was also an ability, a part of who we were. I could sense illness, my instincts always helping me choose the correct remedies and treatments, while my innate magic made my own ability to heal near boundless. I could share that power with others to an extent when I willed it, but the magic which dwelled within me made my own body heal from practically any injury almost instantly.

In my youth, I’d wanted to use that gift to join the warriors fighting in the Banished Lands. I’d wanted to learn to fight and travel the world, my ability to heal from all wounds surely a gift any warrior would make great use of.

But our parents had squashed that dream quickly enough, along with the entire kingdom, I supposed. No woman could join the Legions, and only those Fae blessed with Affinities from Efries himself, the god of war and might, were allowed to go into battle. Perhaps I could have travelled to the outer reaches of the war camps to offer medical assistance, but it wasn’t the same, and our parents had been no more likely to allow that even if I had tried to argue for it.

So here I’d stayed. For almost two hundred years, I’d woken up in this house, wandered the gardens, enjoyed the company of my sister and… well, not a lot of anything else, if I was being totally honest with myself.

Our parents had left to travel the western coast almost thirty years ago, visiting the various courts and sending occasional letters to their forgotten daughters. They hadn’t even returned when Aalia had given birth to the twins. Twins! They were a miracle to be celebrated endlessly for our kind, especially with how rare it was for Fae to conceive at all. A child was a blessing, but twins were a gift from the gods themselves. Yet in the five years since their birth, the only thing our parents had sent was a note of congratulations, mixed in with commands for the way they expected the manor to be managed in their absence.

I supposed I might have been bitter if it weren’t for the fact that we were all so much happier without them here. We were free to do as we wished, and I didn’t have to suffer the endless judgements over how I spent my days and who I spent them with. There was no pressure to marry or to attend court more often – which I did as infrequently as possible. I was simply free, and if that came at the cost of a little restlessness and boredom, then I’d take the trade gladly.

Aren watched in amusement as I dropped to my hands and knees, his brown hair curling to his nape and the white shirt he wore loose around his neck in anticipation of the day’s heat.

“Kiki!” a little voice shrieked, and I recognised my nephew, Rayan, as he tore around hunting for me.

I began to crawl through the long grass in his direction, grinning at the game as I closed in on him, growling like a desert beast to let him know I was on his trail.

Rayan shrieked and started running for the house, but before I could take chase, a little monster leapt from the grass to my right and landed on my back with a cry of victory.

I laughed as I rolled beneath Lina, her gleaming silver hair tumbling into her eyes as she fought to tickle me, and I made a good show of screaming and crying out for mercy.

Rayan leapt into the dogpile too, the little beast punching me in the side as he got too caught up in the game, and I quickly snatched his fist into my grip before pretending to gnaw on his arm.

He half howled, half fell apart with laughter and suddenly, Lina shifted sides, helping me tickle her brother as he kicked and shrieked between his laughs.

“Ah, Kyra, I should have known we’d find you rolling in the mud,” Aalia teased.

Her shadow fell over us, and I released the two hellions as I rolled over to look up at my sister.

The golden light of dawn gilded her curling brunette hair in a crown of its own design, her skin lustrous in the light and her smile captivating. All over the kingdom, people whispered my sister’s name and coveted her beauty. She was radiance embodied, this ethereal-looking creature who stole the breath from men and women alike when they laid their eyes upon her.

Some claimed Helios, the god of beauty and purity, had gifted her a drop of his own blood during her creation along with her Affinities, but I knew that the full truth of her beauty lay within her heart.

I was often compared to her, called the budding rose to her full bloom, and though it may have been meant as an insult, I had only ever seen that as a good thing. Alone, I was often called beautiful by those aiming to find their way into my bed. I was coveted and pursued enough not to concern myself with anything so petty as jealousy. My features had more of an edge to them than Aalia’s, my eyes more feline, my smile sharper, and that suited me perfectly because we were not the same creature at our cores.

Aalia was beauty. She was kindness and compassion to the point of innocence, which frightened me sometimes. She saw the good in people and turned a blind eye to the bad all too often. I was a darker soul, and I knew it. I saw the bad in most before looking for the good, and I had more than a little of my own bad too. It made me somewhat jaded, but I liked to think I was more prepared for the reality of our world and therefore able to help shield my sister from the worst of it.

I had been more than thrilled when Aren had been the Fae to finally capture her interest fully. Marrying him in secret had been the one and only time I’d known her to defy our parents. They had hoped to capture a royal with her face, but Aalia had given her heart to a Fae whose dominant Affinity was for baking, thanks to Aliot, god of sustenance and health. Aren was a masterful baker, and I certainly had no complaints about the pastries I consumed endlessly, nor the biscuits I devoured with my tea.

No doubt that snub was the reason our parents hadn’t returned to meet the twins, but that was their loss, so far as I was concerned, and the longer they stayed gone, the better.

“Is breakfast ready?” I asked, my gaze snapping to Aren who still lounged beneath his tree, hiding from the sun as always. I’d never known another Fae to be quite so scornful of the celestial being. He wasn’t the kind to voice complaints, but I knew he far preferred it once the sun went down and the stars were shining upon his skin.

“Sadly, you missed it,” he replied, and my mouth fell open in outrage.

“It’s barely past dawn,” I complained, getting to my feet as my stomach growled to voice its own complaints.

“Well, the twins wanted to see the sun rise, so we made a picnic of it on the roof.” Aren shrugged innocently while the twins broke into tales of how beautiful it had been. Of how the sky had first turned from ebony to sapphire, then palest blue with streaks of orange and pink lighting the few clouds until they were burned up into nothing and the sun was reigning over the land in its entirety once more.

“There were some rather alarming sounds coming from your room,” Aalia noted casually, her eyes flicking up towards my balcony doors which were flung wide as always.

“Were there now?” I asked, phrasing my reply as a question while she tried to back me into an admission. We couldn’t tell a lie, one of the conditions the gods placed upon us during our creation, but that simply meant all Fae learned the art of evading answers from a young age.

“The children were quite curious,” Aren added, shaking his head. “I told them that the warriors had returned from the Banished Lands.”

“And that was answer enough for them?” I asked, looking to the children who had fallen into an all-out brawl.

I reached down to snatch Rayan off of his sister and tossed him over my shoulder where he started kicking and squealing in protest at being carried like a sack of potatoes.

“There was a convenient burst of drake fire towards the western mountains which drew their attention away,” Aalia admitted. “So is that Calvari up there or…”

“I ran into him in the tavern last night,” I admitted, and she grinned, making me roll my eyes. “You know it isn’t like that between me and him. Don’t go thinking you’ve found yourself a brother-in-law or anything ridiculous.”

Aalia sighed dramatically before grabbing Lina and tossing her over her shoulder too, Aren falling into step with us as we headed into the house.

The scent of lotus blooms greeted me in the open space, and I inhaled deeply, looking at the arrangements Aalia had put together so skilfully. Beauty and purity. Her Affinities were seen as somewhat useless and merely decorative to many, but our family line held powerful magic, and the weight of hers shone through in everything that surrounded her. She could see beauty in almost everything. And she could see that which was truly ugly too – though she avoided such things as much as she could.

We set the twins free and they tore away from us, charging towards the table laid out with paints and parchment, both of them loudly claiming they would paint me the best portrait of the sunrise they’d seen.

Aren slipped his arm around Aalia’s waist, tugging her close and murmuring something no doubt sickeningly sweet into her ear which drew a giggle from her lips before he stole a kiss from them.

She melted into him like she always did, and I smiled as I looked between the couple, their love for one another so potent I could practically taste it in the air.

“We’ve been summoned to court,” Aren said as I moved to take a seat, and I fell still, glancing to my sister, then back to her husband.

“We?” I questioned, unease rising in my chest.

“The Fae of age who reside within our household,” he clarified, waving a hand towards a letter which lay open on the table.

“It’s just one evening,” Aalia said softly, her attention shifting to the twins as they began work on their masterpieces.

“One too many,” I muttered, scooping up the letter and examining it, hoping for some loophole to the royal summons.

“We can’t be certain the emperor has any further interest in Aalia,” Aren said, squeezing her hand in a way that was meant to be reassuring but only gave away his concern.

The last few times we’d visited Emperor Farish’s court, he had paid my sister all too much attention. He’d even asked for a night with her, sending one of his guards to offer up the invitation as if it were some great honour to serve him in his bedroom. No matter that she was in love, married, a mother. Why should he care about such things?

The twins had been so young then that we had managed to use them as an excuse, Aren somehow stopping me from losing my head entirely and screaming my protests at the top of my lungs while he far too politely explained to the guard that my sister needed to return home to nurse her babes. It was the truth; no lies could pass the lips of our kind, and the emperor had accepted it oh-so-graciously.

But I knew. I’d watched as the guard returned to him with the refusal, while Aalia feigned flattery and curtsied so low that her nose practically skimmed the floor and Aren bowed his head in deference to the man who had so casually asked to take his wife to bed. They’d played the game all courtiers had to play and had hidden their true feelings well. But I’d done no such thing. I simply stood and watched that ancient bastard while they played at being willing subjects to his every desire, and I’d seen the way his eyes had flashed with fury at being denied. I’d seen the way he watched Aalia as she was dismissed from his presence, his eyes clinging to her, a possessive intent gripping his features.

I’d begged her to leave this place after that, begged her to take the entire family and head across the empire to the western coast to reunite with our parents if that was what it took to escape the emperor’s attention.

But she’d refused me. The world was a big place, filled with more horrors than either of us could count. I knew that, though I had still been keener to brave those horrors than remain and await this one. There were beasts out there, fire and ice drakes who preyed on everything and anything they could make a meal out of, the cruel, dumb cousins to the all-powerful dragons who ruled the deserts.

Then there were the scorpious spiders - enormous, eight-legged monsters with a sting as lethal as their fangs - not to mention wolves, gremlins, the Coy Folk and the Banished. The world beyond the safety of this kingdom was no place for young children, and the passages to other cities of safety were perilous, to say the least. Yet still, I would have run if I could have convinced them to.

But my sister was a stubborn creature when she decided to be, and once her mind was made up, there had been no changing it.

Months had passed, then years, no word from the palace and no demands for Aalia’s presence in court. I’d attended once or twice, sticking to the outskirts and observing, wanting to know this enemy I felt lurking in the shadows of our lives, but I had never learned much.

Farish was a cruel ruler when he wanted to be, but he pretended to be a fair one too. There was no denying the power he held though, this entire kingdom was locked in his chokehold, at the mercy of his whims. There was no democracy, nor way to question his law. He played the part of benevolence well but took all he wanted and was denied nothing; a tyrant ruling through brute force. He was old. So old that hardly any Fae remembered a time before his coronation. And he was bored.

I knew well that the oldest of our kind were the most dangerous. Compassion and kindness were often the first emotions to dwindle in the long lifespan of our people. When a Fae lived through loss, grief, and heartache too many times, they were hardened to it, becoming selfish and petty. Cruel and unyielding.

Aalia’s rejection of the emperor had been received simply enough at the time, but it hadn’t been forgotten. And her excuse had grown irrelevant too.

“We should think up a reason not to go,” I said firmly, beginning to pace as my mind whirled with ideas on what I could do to get her out of this. “A sickness perhaps? I could mix up a tonic which would render you incapable of attending and then-”

“If someone questions what made her sick and discovers what you did, the situation would be far worse,” Aren objected, though I could tell he was just as keen as I was to remove Aalia from this obligation.

“I can evade answering easily enough,” I replied stubbornly.

“It’s too risky. It would be far worse to get caught in a scheme like that. Better we go and try to minimise the damage.”

“I can wear that orange gown which you claim makes me look like a pumpkin,” Aalia suggested, forcing a smile, and I frowned.

“Nothing can hide your beauty, Aalia. Not truly,” I said, a note of fear touching my words.

“We can try,” she replied.

I bit my lip as I found myself nodding in agreement. I hated this. Hated every moment of it, but I knew there was no avoiding it. If she didn’t appear at court tonight, she would only be summoned again. And again. No one could refuse the command of the emperor and attempting it would likely cause nothing but more harm if it ended up incurring his wrath.

“Fuck,” I hissed. “Fine. But I intend to spend the day making you look as unattractive as Faely possible,” I swore and at the very least, I got to hear my sister laugh.