Threads of Desire (Spellcraft) (2 page)

Chapter Two

She didn’t know why she’d come. Curiosity. Avarice. Desperation. Lust. None of them
good
reasons, yet here she was, sitting across from Kal in the courtyard of his home. Dining with him.

There was that. If nothing else, she had a free meal, a feast really, spread across a satin-draped low table. Crusty, soft-centered bread and platters of cold meat. Colored glass bowls filled with cut fruit and set in ice to keep the contents cool while they “discussed the particulars of their arrangement.” They’d yet to speak a word about their bargain, but her stomach was very full.

“Drink.”

He’d been pressing food and wine on her all evening. This was a dessert wine, the final course before the table was cleared. The goblet was hammered gold and beaded with condensation. Slowly, she lifted it to her lips, regarding him over the rim.

Arms outstretched, he leaned against the plush cushions, glittering eyes tracking the movement of the cup. They fixed on her mouth for a moment before lifting to her eyes. It was unnerving the way he looked at her, so openly appreciative and completely unashamed of his desire.

She took a tentative sip. Cool liquid. The light, sweet flavor exploded on her tongue. Ulla. She wanted to moan in appreciation but kept that reaction to herself. After all, his offering was a deliberate choice. His family’s extraordinary wealth came from the Ulla trade. The Azi family owned all of the vineyards that produced the rare grape. This was by far the finest wine she’d ever tasted, and a gentle reminder of who she was dealing with.

“We could dine like this every night, if you like.”

“I’m not joining your harem.”

He turned his head to hide a smile, flicked a tassel. “Harem,” he repeated with a small laugh. “Is that what you think?”

A ridiculous question. What else was she to think? His home was a palace. The courtyard garden alone could produce enough food to feed ten families, but there were only fragrant flowers in the beds opening now to the cool night air. His servants wore far finer clothes than she’d seen on anyone but him. What was she to him other than a plaything? A momentary curiosity. And she was only here to see if she could leverage that interest to her advantage.

He lounged on cushions while she knelt across from him with her hands folded in her lap. He’d invited her to join him on pillowed silk but she’d refused, preferring to keep the square food-laden table between them.

“I saw what you did,” he said. “For Seli. Calef would have taken his hand if he’d caught him stealing silver again.”

Calef would turn
her
out if he knew she’d sheltered the sticky-fingered little orphan. Her palms began to sweat, but she resisted the urge to wipe them dry. Instead, she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Jas tossed Hekan’s booth looking for the rat, but he never thought to look beneath your skirts. A remarkable oversight, that. It would have been the first place I looked given the excuse.” He set his goblet on the low table, torchlight gleaming on the ebony band at his wrist, but that wasn’t what caught her attention. His sleeve pulled back just far enough to reveal a strip of taut golden skin covered with springy black hair. He was the kind of man who would have hair on his chest. He must shave his face twice a day if he planned to go out in the evening.

A low chuckle brought her gaze up. “Why did you do it? A man who has no qualms about beating a child won’t hesitate to abuse a woman. He’s a dangerous enemy.”

She searched his face. “Is this about blackmail?”

“Only a friendly conversation.”

“We’re not friends.”

His face hardened and for the first time tonight, she could see past his civilized mask. What she saw scared her. She was suddenly, excruciatingly aware of her vulnerability, and all of the daring plans she’d made about exploiting him melted like wax in the sun. She’d thought to grab hold of his lust and use it as a leash to tame him, but there was more than simple lust in his eyes. There was patience, intelligence and a complicated desire that she could barely understand, let alone hope to use. He was Kalar of House Azi and she was a poor woman he’d plucked from the streets for his own unfathomable reasons.

This was a mistake. A terrible mistake. She climbed to her feet, sputtering some excuse about how it was time for her to leave, but he stood too. Moving faster than she would have credited, he came around the table to stand in front of her, blocking her way. His fingers slid behind her neck, thumb settling beneath her jaw.

“I wouldn’t blackmail you.”

“You would.” A man like Kal, an aristo, wouldn’t be above blackmail. She knew all about powerful men and how far they would go to have their way.

“We’re being blunt now, are we? Very well. I don’t want to be your friend, Ily.” His free hand found the slit in her tunic and then hooked in the sash at her waist. “Or your savior.”

Hot skin, the cool slide of the ebony band at his wrist. And she waited, fear and excitement warring inside her. He paused, the backs of his knuckles stroking the vulnerable skin of her belly as his dark eyes searched her face. Was he waiting for permission to go further? She’d already offered herself.

“I can’t afford to give you a cut on my profits. Even if the rugs sold for full price, by the time I paid you and the vendor, I’d lose money.” She wet her lips and his gaze fixed momentarily on her mouth. He wanted blunt, she could do blunt. “I want you to help me sell the rugs and I want you to waive your fee.”

She didn’t move, not when his hand dropped from her neck, not when—with excruciating slowness—he began to push her skirts down over her hips.

“The offer you made me earlier, it still stands?”

“I thought that was understood.”

A smile, self-mocking and faint. “No, Ily. When I touched you in that alley, I only wanted to be certain you understood exactly what you were offering. I wanted you to consider it carefully before you came here tonight. You can’t propose such things lightly. The next man might not let you go.”

“You didn’t,” she whispered, remembering his body, his hand, rough fingers tunneling into flesh. “You—”

He looked up, eyes glinting like diamonds. “I let you go.”

His thumbs dipped to the inner curve of her thighs, stroked slowly over sensitized flesh. “And you came back to me.”

She could leave now and he wouldn’t stop her. He was giving her a chance to run away. He practically dared her to do it. But she didn’t. And that was on her. She saw her chance to escape but didn’t take it. Instead, she stayed frozen in place, trapped like a snake by his eyes and the slow moving pull of his hand. As her skirt slid down her thighs, his open hands followed, the touch of his palms light as the whisper of fabric falling from her body. He touched her softly, reverently. The crease where hip met thigh. The edge of dark curls. She was damp, tingling with readiness, hot and needful. And he held back, even though she could see a matching hunger in his dark eyes.

He only touched her sex when she whimpered and arched restlessly toward him. Then he cupped her as if he had every right to, explored her gently, pressing his other hand to her back and lifting her into him while his fingers split her open. While he drank down every shift in her expression. The flush she felt rising to her cheeks. Her sharp exhalation of held breath.

His fingers found her clit and circled it slowly until she began to move with him.

“That’s it,” he murmured and increased the pressure just enough to make her frantic.

He pinched her lightly and she jerked against his body. When she might have pulled away, he simply resumed that rolling caress. Lifting her hands to his chest for balance, she tilted her hips to allow him better access. He eased a finger inside of her. Earlier she’d admired the single ring he wore, extravagant but too well crafted to be truly vulgar. It was thick and heavy, carved with his family’s crest. She could feel it now, scraping against her skin. He twisted his arm, sinking another finger inside of her while he ground the heel of his hand against her clit. She could feel her own wetness on his skin when he turned his wrist to find a better angle. Her thighs parted to accommodate him, her body stretched around his fingers, melting onto him.

He set the pace, slow and steady but no longer gentle. Demand not seduction. And nothing for himself. When she reached for his cock, fingertips brushing against the hard solid length of his shaft, he pulled his hips away.

“I want you to come for me, Ily. I’ve wanted to see you laid bare and open since the moment I met you.”

She was too far gone to wonder at that, her body pulling tighter and tighter like knotted thread.

He kissed her temple, brushed his lips across the crest of her cheek, dipped lower to taste the side of her neck when she turned her head. She made the mistake of looking at him. The wicked tilt to his smile, the ruthless cast to eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “Let go, I have you.”

It was embarrassing how quickly her body leaped to answer him. As if it belonged more to him than her, as if it always had. His face blurred in her vision and her whole body trembled. She pulled at his shoulders and lifted toward his body, everything inside of her rising with the motion. His fingers pushed deep and held there as she came around him, shuddering and biting at her lip to keep from crying out. Her eyes had shut tight so she wouldn’t have to see the look on his face, but she couldn’t block her ears from his soft laughter.

Oh gods, what had she done?
She knew better than to find herself in such a position. She truly did. He removed his hand and gathered her clothes while she stared at his bowed head. Thick black hair, expertly trimmed. It looked clean and sleek. She’d barely touched him. She wanted to know the texture and taste of him. And this...it was over too quickly. Like catching a raindrop on her tongue when she was dying of thirst. His gaze angled up from beneath a fringe of ridiculously long eyelashes. Amusement there. Hunger. Triumph.

He tugged at the rough cloth of her skirt and began to set everything to rights, folding the top down twice as if he’d dressed her a thousand times. The pocket created by the cloth was empty now and had been for some time. He retied the sash at her waist, his fingertips lingering for a moment on her exposed skin before falling away. And then, for the second time that day, he simply let her go.

As he stepped away, she took a deep breath to collect herself. Her thoughts were as unmanageable as rats fleeing floodwater. Somehow, she’d need to regain the upper hand. She wanted more of him and, clearly, he wanted her as well. He enjoyed playing with her at least, and if she could engage him as a business partner, then...

He started walking toward the door and her head snapped up. He
did
want her, didn’t he?

“Come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss terms.” He paused in the shadows, eyes glittering as he glanced back. “Or don’t. Your choice, Ily.”

* * *

Kal watched her go, watched the guard he’d dispatched to see her home safely slide through the shadows behind her. Moonlight touched her hair, streaking it with silver.

“You left her to run away weeping?”

He didn’t turn.

“She won’t weep.”

“She came to you as a whore.”

“Yes. I know.”

“She’s not the woman you think she is.”

“She’s angry. She’ll curse me tonight, sanctify herself in the fountains of Risa at dawn, avoid me in the marketplace tomorrow and be back here again by nightfall.”

“And then you’ll tell her?”

He made a soft sound of denial. “I will bind her to me as tightly as I can manage it before I tell her anything.”

A long pause as Rael, his most trusted servant, moved around the room lighting the oil lamps. “I hope you’re right.”

“I always am.”

Chapter Three

Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts. The rains had come early, drenching everything and leaving behind a wet, miserable heat. Midday in the marketplace was never pleasant, even when you were lucky enough to be able to afford to rent one of the small stalls and owned enough fabric to drape a canopy over your booth. Ily was neither lucky nor rich. Kal, who was both, had bribed the peacekeepers to evict a silversmith’s apprentice who’d set up in the stall directly across from her. The confused man had protested the mistreatment loudly and been cuffed for his efforts by Calef. She didn’t expect to see him back any time soon. Calef was a reasonably effective peacekeeper who had little tolerance for troublemakers even when their only offence was in choosing the wrong stall.

Kal caught her glare, shrugged and sat in the shade while his servants arranged his clearly inferior merchandise. The youngest, little more than a boy, fetched him a goblet of wine and a sweating bowl of chilled grapes.

Everything about him spoke of cool elegance, except his eyes. They were hot and not at all civilized. He smiled and she jerked her gaze down to her work. If she must suffer the sun—and his presence—she would have something tangible to show for it. She wouldn’t remember the feel of his hands on her body. The slow, sure touch that had set her ablaze with embarrassing ease. She would not sit here trembling with shame and want while he watched her squirm.

She turned her attention to the thread spread across her lap in radiating lines connected to a series of spools set directly in front of her. She tested each of the spools to ensure that they would turn freely. When she was satisfied that everything was precisely as it should be, she closed her eyes.

First, the red. Not the sunset color of dried saffron but the bright shock of fresh blood. The icy blue of the snow capped mountains to the north. Green to ground it and a milky cream to soothe the eye. She held the pattern in her thoughts with the practice of long hours of disciplined meditation. The marketplace dropped away, the buzz of noise and the stench of unbathed bodies roasting in the sun. The sensation of the heat faded along with her hunger. The biting flies which had harassed her all morning. And lastly, blessedly, her awareness of her unwanted watcher.

No one would disturb her now. She’d never practiced her art in the marketplace. While she was weaving, she’d be completely exposed, vulnerable amongst strangers. Casting required absolute focus, and the marketplace was loud and dirty. Anything might distract her and destroy the weave. Someone could steal the final product before she’d recovered enough to protect it or herself.

But Kal watched over her today. He would, she knew, prevent others from harming her so why not make use of his intrusive vigilance? Buyers would pay extra for a carpet they’d seen created with their own eyes. They would tell their friends they’d witnessed the weaving. They’d—
please the gods
—bring others to pay for the spectacle.

The threads caressed her palms as they moved through her hands. Closing her eyes, she offered up a silent prayer that there would be no pulls or snags. These threads...they were all she had left. She’d arranged them carefully before she began, but one could never be certain. If her concentration was broken, there was no way to resume the weave. The cupped shapes that formed the border reminded her of Kal’s goblets and for a second she regretted the fact that she did not have golden thread. Red sufficed. Like the wine.

For a long time she thought of nothing but the colors running through her mind, running now through her fingers, cool and light, collapsing and reforming patterns of bright and dark. A kaleidoscope of perfect beauty. And from that first moment when she let the casting fully claim her until the last thread whipped from her hands, everything was right with the world. She was doing precisely what the gods had created her to do. The magic blossomed inside of her, poured out into the world and left only a deep and solemn peace in its wake.

Far, far too soon, it was over.

Reluctantly—because it always seemed unbearable at the end—she released her hold on the magic. Her body sagged, but her hands clutched the weave tight to her chest. If she’d been alone or at the University, she’d have allowed herself to sink fully to the ground. To let the lingering magic settle like dust after a sandstorm. Right now, the light piercing through her closed eyelids and every noise made by the crowd was an assault to her senses. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t at the University. She was sitting in the middle of the Southton market and she could not afford to be weak.

She gave her other senses a bare moment to adjust to the tumult around her before opening her eyes. A crowd had formed, which was not particularly remarkable. After all, people liked to gape at oddity. What
was
remarkable was that they’d kept their distance, not crowding her, fingering the rug, threatening to snap her concentration. The circle of people stood a good six feet away—no small feat in the tight lanes of the marketplace. Her gaze came to rest on the person nearest to her, Kal.

Of course. She’d counted on that. His personal servants were a step beyond, holding clubs and glancing every so often at their master.

The rug... She drew a nervous breath and braced herself. It had been such a long time since she’d attempted such an ambitious weaving. The ones she normally sold in the marketplace were made from beggar’s rags that she collected, cleaned and did her best to work into serviceable pieces. She hadn’t created something like this, using silk and true-dyed thread, since she left the University. The collision of memory with the reality of her current state tore something open inside her, and she swallowed the cry that threatened to erupt from her throat.

This rug was a beauty. She’d been half afraid the magic wouldn’t come when she called. Afraid she’d lost some of the skill she’d worked so hard to gain. It had been so long... But she hadn’t lost her talent. A fierce pride shook her body. She hadn’t lost one bit of it.

* * *

Kal didn’t think she realized he was standing there. If she had, even exhausted and stripped bare, he didn’t think she’d allow herself to cry. It tugged at his heart, but he held to his resolve. With Ily, there was too much at stake for softness.

“Come now, it’s not so bad.” He meant it as a joke, but in truth she looked stricken. He’d been appalled when she’d begun the weave.
The cost of the thread alone...
He shook his head. It must have taken her years to gather the money to buy it. Years during which she rented a spot on the floor to sleep and bought barely enough bread to feed a bird. And then to gamble everything here, so openly, where an untimely sneeze could have destroyed the work. He didn’t know whether to applaud or scold that kind of audacity.

She lifted glowing eyes to his and his breath hitched. Her cheeks were tracked with tears. Lovely Ily, so much more so when she wasn’t wound tight as a top and watching her every move. She smiled. “It’s a masterpiece.”

“You’re modest.”

A delicate flush touched her cheeks. Beautiful. She dipped her head. “Thank you.”

She was feeling magnanimous else she never would have said it, but he didn’t have the heart to mock her. He merely bowed his head and stepped aside as the first bidder reverently approached.

She was a difficult puzzle. So very stubborn. Proud despite the rags she wore. The stiff set of her shoulders, the lift to her chin. He would need to be as cunning as a cat, as cold as a snake. A small smile pulled at her lips now, letting everyone know—including the man she bartered with—that she would not be taken for a fool.

Kal suppressed his own smile. The little mouse had used him. And when was the last time he’d been outmaneuvered? Or surprised? She’d been annoyed when he’d claimed the tent across from her, but then she’d used the questionable safety his men would provide to work her magic, knowing he would protect her even if she thought he was doing it for his own gain. It was still trust...of a sort. And it was a beginning.

He scanned the square again looking for trouble. It was rare that a weaver would dare work in public. Only the old masters ever attempted it, and the spectacle had drawn considerable attention. Few of the gawkers were serious buyers. His gaze came to rest on the captain of his guard. Rael’s smirk widened to a smile. He’d seen Kal’s expression when Ily had begun her weave and was still laughing. The edge of Kal’s favorite tunic was stained red with the wine he’d choked on.

He started to smile back, but a flash of movement caught his eye. Small hands. A narrow face smudged with dirt.
Damn.
He lifted his chin and Rael followed the movement, intercepting the thief before he could reach her, signaling his men to find the others.

The children moved in packs. Feral as starving cats and just as vicious. Cassia had no empty beds left at the home, but she’d make room for a few more. Kal would find her more beds if needed.

When he turned back to Ily, she was watching him suspiciously. Half his men were hauling spitting children away. He saw the judgment in her eyes. She thought him so heartless that he’d leave infants to Calef’s untender mercies. That he’d exchange a few words of introduction to the shopkeepers for the use of her body. Who else had she made that offer to? And why was she still here? A master artist. A genuine guild-trained mage hiding in the slums. His informants had spoken true. After today, he wouldn’t be the only one hunting her.

She rose from the ground as stiffly as an old woman but when she began to walk toward him, her head was held high. And while he’d been distracted, she’d concluded her business. The rug was already gone and judging by the size of her purse, she’d driven a hard bargain.

Good.

Unceremoniously, she shoved the money into his hands. It was either take it or drop it and let the crowd swarm as they scrambled for loose coins.

“What—”

She was already turning around. “I know exactly how much is in there. I’ll come for it tonight.”