The Sorcerer's Concubine (The Telepath and the Sorcerer Book 1) (8 page)

“We’re almost there,” he said, pointing ahead to a canoe that was parked in the muddy ground up the bank of a stream.

Grau paced around the canoe for a moment, like he was looking for something. Then he stepped back. He jerked his hands up and the standing water in the body of the canoe flooded out, down the sides. She jumped with surprise.

“How far do your powers extend, anyway?” she asked. “You did that without even needing the crystal!”

“This is home. I know all the energies of the land. It looks easy, but it took months of practice as a kid.” He wiped the seats of the canoe with the edge of his coat and motioned for her to climb in.

“This is the fun part.” He grinned and lifted his hands. The mud began to slide, and the canoe with it, dropping them in the water with a jolt and a splash.

She laughed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really laughed, with abandon.

He smiled back at her, his eyes squinted against the sun, as he lifted up the paddle and pushed off into the stream.

The canoe slid past the brown grasses, down the gently winding waters. She heard rustling in the grass, and saw ripples from small creatures. It was so tranquil here that she really could see forgetting her past before long.

“Do you want to try a little sorcery?” he asked. “Chances are, you won’t be able to do it on your first try, but one must start somewhere.” He put the warm crystal in her hand. “See if you can feel the threads of magic around us.”

She eagerly cupped the crystal between her hands, now hearing the whispering of the grass in the wind almost as if it were a language. The water had a healing glow, an aura of shimmering green. She felt the slithering of a nearby water snake before she saw it, and turned to see the black curve of its tail disappear out of sight. And she felt it within her own body, too. She was made of forest and field. Just as it was clear when a tree or a meadow was alive even though it didn’t breathe, she understood now how Grau felt her own life, even as she slept. All her senses were heightened, and undiscovered senses threatened to emerge.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

“Yes. Everything is so much more…
more
.”

“Someday, I’ll have to get you a crystal of your own,” he said. “You take to it well.”

“I haven’t done any magic yet.”

“You feel things right away. I didn’t have that luck trying to teach Preya. She can’t still her mind long enough to listen.”

“Why is it that sorcery is all right, but telepathy is so frightening?”

“Daramons are dependent on the resources around them. I can do elemental magic when there are elements around, but if not, I have to create or buy spells and carry them with me. Miralem can do telepathy anywhere, and from great distances. And besides, talented telepaths can read minds, manipulate minds, even rip the soul from the body. The only reason Daramons have gained any ground at all is because of the Ten Thousand Man Sacrifice.”

“Why do I have telepathy, then?”

“You must have been a Miralem, in your past existence.” He grinned. “The enemy.”

“Will the time ever come…when you could take off my band?” 

He shoved the canoe away from the grasses where it was drifting to a stop, and kept it paddling toward the autumn-bare branches of the bushes that hung over the water. “Sometimes untrained telepaths don’t have the best control, and if you used your power in a fit of emotion—it could be very bad.”

“My emotions are pretty controlled.”

He poked the paddle through the water. Pretending to paddle, more so than paddling.

“If the time comes that I deem it safe, I will certainly take off the band,” he said, a firm edge entering his tone. “But it doesn’t feel safe now.”

She nodded faintly.

He put a hand on her knee. “I trust
you
, the time just isn’t right. I certainly wouldn’t mind having a telepath on my side. A telepath and a sorcerer together can accomplish nearly anything. It’s how you were made, after all, with both kinds of magic.”

“Was I?” He was right. She didn’t know much about the world, not even exactly how Fanarlem were created.

“Each little piece of you needs its own spell. A spell so your skin can feel, a spell so your bones will move, a spell that gives strength to your stuffing so you can lift and clench things. At the end, the sorcerer will weave you with illusions so you look just the right amount of real. But that’s just your body, and the body is nothing without a soul. At the end, a telepath must call your soul into your eyes and give them life.”

“It sounds very complicated,” she said.

“It is. Often, several different sorcerers must make the spells. I’ll bet their initials are carved onto you somewhere.”

She supposed to a sorcerer, a Fanarlem was an apex demonstration of magic.

“Did they give you different bodies to grow into?” he asked.

“Yes. They give us three before the final one, which we get at fourteen.”A Fanarlem’s soul rested in their eyes, so when her body was changed as she grew, only the eyes had to be moved. The child bodies were then reused on other girls, but their faces were always individual.

“It must be jarring.”

“I’m always very clumsy for a few weeks. But I like getting taller.”

“I like getting taller too. Lots of pressure on Daramon men to be tall.”

“You’re quite tall.”

“But I don’t know what boy doesn’t worry about it, growing up. If you end up short, the teasing is merciless. You can go to a Halnari shape-shifter in the city and get them to add a couple inches if you can afford it. One of my friends did and it made him clumsy at first, too. And achy, for days. It’s hard to shape-shift
well
.”

“There are a lot of expectations on all of you, aren’t there?” Velsa asked. 

“Did Preya tell you about her situation?”

“Yes.”

“I think maybe she
should
go work for Kalan Jherin,” he said. “My parents might despair, but that marriage will bring her despair tenfold.”

“Could we all go together?”

“Maybe. But I have to finish my time on patrol. I’d be back just in time to save Preya from her wedding.”

S
lowly
, hour by hour and day by day, Velsa began to enjoy the moments of her life. Preya gossiped about her friends in town and taught Velsa a dance. Sometimes Velsa was left alone to read their books, which held much more variety than the educational volumes in the House library. Grau took her riding to the top of a hill for a picnic, and on another day they went on a quest for a blue-footed Atlantis marsh toad. He said they mostly lived on the island in the middle of the lake. They rode in the canoe to the lake where his family raised the fish that had secured their fortunes, and then spent the day roaming the island.

When he triumphantly placed in her palm a small, fat toad with eyes that squinted calmly, she thought it was the most beautiful gift anyone could give her.

“What makes it the smartest member of the toad family?” she asked.

“Oh—I read that in a book, but I’m not sure. I haven’t, personally, been able to coax any great displays of intelligence from a toad. But it’s cute, isn’t it?”

“Not a bad first girlfriend,” she said. “I’m not sure what your mother was complaining about.”

Of course, they let the toad go. It surely would not be as happy held captive.

Grau’s father was gone most of the day working in town, so she only saw him in the evening. He was the only thing she feared. If someone needed wine at the dinner table, he would ask her to pour. When he noticed Grau rubbing his shoulder as if it ached he said, “Why don’t you have your girl do that?” It was plain that Grau’s father didn’t think Velsa should be treated as a member of the family.

One night, she had come to bed a little before Grau once again, when she heard his father stop him in the hall.

“Why did I pay two hundred and twenty ilan for that girl?” he asked bluntly. 

“What do you mean?”

“She isn’t doing her duty.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, Grau. You are not having her for her intended purpose.”

“I’ll decide what her purpose is.”

“You’re besotted with her, aren’t you? It happens, I suppose, but remember, she’s a Fanarlem. It benefits her to be kept in her place. Every time you bed her, you’re helping her learn humility and submission.”

“I would hope she doesn’t feel
humility
when I bed her.”

“But she should. When she dies, the fates will look kindly on her. You don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying her. Don’t forget what she is and that she belongs to you.”

“She’ll hear you,” Grau hissed.

“I hope she does. But in the end, you’re the one who needs to draw the line.”

A moment later, Grau opened the door. He looked at her, his eyes like storms.

She sat up in bed, her tiredness brushed aside. One strap of her chemise fell off her shoulder and she didn’t bother to lift it.

“I heard him,” she said.

He shook his head. “My father doesn’t understand. It’s not his place to tell us when we should…”

“But I…I’m scared he might send me away.” She tried to scramble out from under the covers, but her movements were jerky. She was scared—and yet, not just scared.

She
did
like him. Something in his eyes had compelled her from the first moment they met, the same as he had clearly felt toward her. And some part of her wanted to surrender fully to that feeling. “I think…I might not mind,” she said. “I think I might like it.”

He crossed the room to sit on the bed beside her. “For weeks I have slept so close to you. Dreaming of the day you would be fully mine…but…I don’t want it to be because my father said so.”

“Maybe the time is right.” She had already been so close to him, but this still seemed very different. She wondered how it would feel, if it would hurt—or maybe it would be the best feeling of her life, to have his hands and body engage her as deeply as his eyes already did.

He reached for her face. His fingers stroked her cheek, briefly. “Velsa…I don’t want to
take
you. I want to
bring
you happiness. I want to make love to you.”

She shivered.

He pushed the covers fully off of her and crawled toward the corner where the bed met the wall, where she always slept. He kissed her forehead, and then her cheekbone, and then her mouth.

She blinked at him. He was kissing her, and it was such a tender gesture, just like she imagined. His eyes regarded her softly in the candlelight, golden light flickering on his left cheek, while the other half of his face lay in shadow.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m falling in love with you. I think maybe I was in love with you from the start, or at least from the minute I saw that your only possession was a box of rocks…but I want you too. I don’t know, sometimes, if I’m a brute lusting for your beauty and the strange magic you’re made of, or if I’m…your friend. Your friend who loves to talk to you and to know what you’re thinking.”

Your friend…
Why did that bring a lump of pain to her throat, of all the words?

She stroked his hair. He had bathed earlier; his hair was still a little wet at the ends, soft and black.

Her innards felt like they were buzzing.

She moved her hand down, to his cheek, to stroke the edge of his chin. He had shaved, but still, his skin was a little rough, while hers was soft as velvet.

What if she loved him back? Truly loved him?

She stood on a precipice. If she dared to fall, then— That was when he really would have the power to hurt her.

But I already like him.

Maybe she had fallen without knowing it, almost from the start. She crushed her lower lip beneath her teeth, causing brief jabs of pain. 

“What
are
you thinking, Velsa? I never really know.”

She couldn’t find the words to explain the depth of her fear. It was no use. Right now he believed he would love her forever, and he never seemed to understand what it was like to be her, to have her life in his hands at every moment.

But she wanted him. She couldn’t really be sure if she wanted him because she wanted him, or if she just couldn’t bear the tension of his desire anymore.

Maybe it was both.

Yes. Certainly, it was both, and they tangled together. She wanted him to desire her. He was the only man she had ever met who made her feel that way.

Her actions would speak louder than words. She put her hands to the button just below his collar and unfastened it, revealing a triangle of his skin. Her hands worked their way down until his shirt was open. She trailed her fingertips along the lean muscle of his chest, feeling the slow rise and fall of his breath. He was so solid, so complicated with his real flesh and bone and blood flowing through veins. She felt like a breath of air, hardly real at all, just skin and bones and fluff.

And a damaged soul inside.

She remembered him saying,
What if it wasn’t true, and you felt bad for no reason?

He shrugged his shirt off, with the faintest smile like he feared this might scare her. Then he pushed the other strap of her chemise off her shoulder, and peeled the bodice down to reveal her small breasts. Her torso was stitched at the sides with thread the same color as her skin, so her chest and stomach were unmarred by any seams, just the indent of a navel like any real girl. In the candlelight her skin looked golden.

“The sight of you is worth waiting for,” he said.

She used to wonder, sometimes, if men ever got a Fanarlem girl home and changed his mind when he saw the reality of her artificial form. Her body seemed a shameful thing, the charade of a real woman, and what beauty she had did not feel like her own but rather something that was placed upon her. She grew up knowing that the man who bought her might want to change her. He might decide she needed larger breasts or the exotic touch of red hair—more expensive features that would always be added after purchase.

It was so different now, far from the House, seeing herself in Grau’s eyes. To him, she was a work of craftsmanship. She couldn’t take credit for that, but it made her wonder if the person who made her thought of his work the way Grau thought of his magic.

Whatever the case, this body was hers now. She could settle into this skin because he obviously didn’t want to change it. 

He continued to pull the undergarment down, tossing it aside, leaving her naked except for the stockings.

He lay down beside her, putting his arms around her, gathering her close, skin to skin. His warmth seemed to slowly melt into her, and as always it felt like something she remembered, being warm from within.

He nudged her hair away from her neck, placing kisses there that barely brushed her skin. She felt her body relax, her legs parting, her back melting into the pillows, like a flower opening to the spring. He ran his hands along her thighs, pausing when he found the little buttons sewn to the back of her legs that were hidden beneath the ribbons. He unbuttoned them, and loosened the ribbons, and slowly peeled the silk away from her skin, as he kept kissing her neck and chest and finally, her breasts. 

She had always expected, when the moment came, to feel like a slave submitting to her duty, so it was surprising how much this seemed the opposite. His soft kisses made her feel like something so treasured that it was she who had his heart—she who could hurt him. He ran a hand over her breast, her stomach, her thigh, and she looked at him through her long lashes, making no move to touch him in return, although he was also beautiful, with his lean, strong body, his olive skin, his light brown eyes slightly slanted and mysterious. The pulse of life within him that stirred her soul as if she hadn’t really lived until she felt the beat of his heart.

“Velsa…” He suddenly gathered her up in his arms, holding her against him and under him, not quite placing his full weight upon her. His erection pressed against her and he let out a shuddering breath into her ear.

“Go slowly,” she whispered.

He climbed out of bed, cold air rushing in behind him. She propped herself up on one elbow, watching him rummage in his bag. He took out the small bottle of oil that Dalarsha must have given him.

“Let’s try this…” He poured a little onto his fingers. “Letting it warm up a bit…”

He slid his fingers inside her, swirling the warm oil to coat the surface of her passage, and an unexpected tremble of pleasure made her gasp.

“Oh—oh dear,” she said. “This feeling…”

“Does it hurt?” His movements stopped.

“No…,” she groaned.

“Have you never pleasured yourself?”

“No…no. I didn’t even have those parts until my final body, and they told us that if we touched them, they’d strip our hands off. We’re supposed to be pure until the day we’re acquired…”

“Well, that doesn’t help anything. I don’t approve.” His two fingers now slowly stroked along the top side of her passage, and his thumb reached up to stroke the little fold between her mounds, so his fingers seemed to pinch her in a vise of pleasure. Ripples of sensation fluttered through her. 

“Although maybe there is something to it,” he said, “because you look so deliciously surprised…”

Her back arched. She stared at the ceiling, clawing the sheet. Her legs were utterly limp but her toes curled. Her entire body seemed to be narrowing to a pinpoint and was the heat inside her only her imagination? 

“Grau…”

He sped up the motion of his thumb. She felt like there was a bird beating its wings inside her, begging to be set free. She gasped for breath, feeling like she needed to draw in air for the first time in her life. 

He drew his hand away.

“No, no, please don’t stop,” she begged.

“Let me be inside you when you release, bellora…”

‘Bellora’ was a word that unmarried men in the land called eligible women of their class, but for married men, this term of endearment was only for their wives. She wondered which way he meant it, but either way, no Fanarlem girl was called ‘bellora’.

She could hardly bear the moments it took him to remove his pants and resettle beside her. He drew the blanket over them, sheltering them against the cold room. He pressed her shoulders against the wall beside the bed, pinning her in a nest of warmth.

He gazed at her, drawing out the moment, to her exquisite torture. His hands grazed her thighs and stomach, coming just short of touching her between the legs again.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked impishly.

“Grau,
please
.”

He wrapped his hands around her buttocks and slowly pierced her. She dug her fingernails into his back.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little, but…”

“That is a tight little space,” he said. “Of course, I’m sure they have this all planned out at the House of Perfumed Ribbons. It certainly wouldn’t be good for business if any man had to order a
smaller
part. If it keeps hurting, we could maybe…customize you a little better.”

“You talk too much,” she said, her body still hungry for what his hand had promised.

“Yes, madam.”

He thrust deeper, still gripping her bottom, and then slowly drew out—almost all the way—then slowly slid his way back in. He filled her completely, and she almost felt like he could tear her up, but the pain seemed to ebb after a few strokes. She grabbed his hair, maybe a little too hard, as if some part of her wanted to cause him pain too. He drew in a sharp breath but didn’t fight her.

“Oh, Velsa…I’m so glad you’re mine…” He kissed her fully now, his tongue in her willing mouth. She tasted mint—it had seasoned their salad at dinner. His weight pressed upon her fully, her rib cage creaking with protest, but she was made of strong enough stuff for this, and she didn’t have to breathe. She liked the feeling of him crushing her, his hips rocking deep into her—she felt like she was becoming a part of him. His fingers entwined with hers. He held her hands against the mattress. 

I will belong to this man forever,
she thought. It was a fact, but just now it was also a comfort. She felt safe, and deeply valued. Her skin was alive with his touch, sensations rolling through her core.

If only life could always be this simple.