The Scholomance (78 page)

“Just resting.”

“Ah.”

He was quiet. She
could feel his gaze lying warm over her, feel his thoughts like gentle touches
across her shuttered mind. In those touches, she felt nothing of the Scrivener,
or Malavan, or anything at all except her and how she was here, she was
beautiful, and she was his.

“Do you forgive
me?” she asked sleepily.

“Aye,” he
answered, and bent to press his hot mouth to her naked throat. “For thou art
returned, and so do I readily forgive thee, aye, and even he.”

It took her
several long seconds, fading in and out, before she understood him. She laughed
a little, as much as that hurt. “Not for that.”

His drew back,
confusion rippling through the Mindstorm. “What further offense hast thou?”

She laughed
again and closed her eyes. He leaned against the bed beside her, gradually
becoming lost again in the sight of her until his mind came back to enfold
hers, caressing and consoling her. “But I guess I am back.”

“Aye.” Satisfaction
added thunder to even this quiet voice. “To thy lord and master.”

“I want a bath,”
she said, and looked up at him calmly. “Draw me a bath, Kazuul. We’ll make love
in the water.”

His brows rose. “Make
love?”

“You can pretend
it’s fucking if you want,” she mumbled. “We both know better.”

His brows slowly
lowered again. “Is this not confession that thou dost love me also?”

“I love,” said
Mara, “the idea of love. Isn’t that what you said? But I’ll never have it and
never truly understand it. I’ll only have heartless sex with you and slumber
parties with dumb little girls who wish they were magic. Let me go, Kazuul. Draw
me a bath. We can fuck in that nice warm water and both of us pretend that it’s
still a game we’re playing and I’m never going to kill you.”

He was quiet. His
hand continued to rest easy on the headboard. His thumbclaw stroked slowly up
and down the skin below her bound wrist.

“It’s almost
over,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Aye,” he said
quietly.

“Then let’s make
a memory. It doesn’t have to be all bad, does it?” She looked at him. “It’s
good to see you,” she said, and meant it so much it hurt. “It’s so good to see
you. Draw us a bath.”

The green of his
eyes could never be warm, but it could be calm. Mara lay quiet in that glow,
not tense, not conspiring, but just quiet, inside and out. She wanted him to
see her sincerity when he looked inside her mind, but he never did. He only
touched the bed and pulled her bindings back into the headboard. He bent and
kissed her—a strange, awkward sort of kiss, close-mouthed, almost chaste—then
turned and walked away. He looked around at his chambers, heaved a toppled column
out of the general debris, and began to knead it out of shape.

Mara rolled onto
her side and shut her eyes. She remembered the effort of that little movement
being devastating to her the first time she’d landed herself in Kazuul’s care. Now
it gave her no more than a momentary dizziness, perhaps an extra-loud thump in
her chest, and that was all. If she’d wanted to, she could get up and leave
right now. She’d probably only need one rest on the way out, one more night of
good sleep, and she’d be back to normal. The next time she killed someone, she
probably wouldn’t even black out.

Kazuul worked,
minutes or hours, she didn’t care. She heard him moving broken stone around,
heard water trickling and then pouring down, heard his voice in low rumbles of
arcane speech now and then, but eventually he returned to her side. He gathered
her into his arms without bothering to see if she were even awake, and carried
her across the room. She heard his feet splash into water. A moment later,
warmth enclosed her. He eased his grip, setting her afloat in a hot pool. Her
robe soaked up the heat and then lay heavy over her, clinging to her hips,
breasts, and belly while exposing her legs more and more. Candlelight glittered
in the water, reflected ripples up over Kazuul’s chest and onto the ceiling. It
was very quiet.

Mara closed her
eyes, relaxed, let her arms and legs do what they wanted. It had been a long
time since she’d done this: just been in her body. Every sound seemed overloud,
clarified. Every small sensation—the chill of wet cloth over her nipples, the
lapping of water at her sides, the tickle of the fine hairs along her brow—all
of it, so perfect, so fundamentally necessary. She was not unaware of Kazuul
sharing her bath, but he, like every other minute detail of this moment,
contributed to its perfection.

Her head tapped
up against the side of the bath. Mara reached back her arms and anchored
herself, then stretched out a foot, seeking Kazuul. She found his thigh, hard
and budding with bone, and followed it up over wet layers of leather and metal
to the solid slab of his stomach. He cupped her heel, let her flex her clawless
toes against his skin, then moved it aside and stepped between her legs,
spreading them wider as he pushed her robe up around her hips. He bent, holding
her lightly in the weightless space of the bath, to suckle at her breast,
drinking from her waterlogged robe.

It struck her
like lightning, overwhelmingly erotic for no obvious reason. Certainly, he’d
mouthed her before, and while pleasant, it had never been like this. But now,
adrift in the dark womb he’d made for her, seeing his mouth work and hearing
his strong, steady swallows, Mara let herself go to electric arousal.

Her back arched,
pushing her breast into his mouth. Her knees bent, not locking around his hips,
but cradling him between her thighs. The water skinned between them,
intensifying each touch, amplifying each sound. It was good and it was gentle. It
was almost like real love.

Kazuul began to
move, rubbing hip to hip in long, slow strokes, miming the act of sex in every
way save the most essential. The rough leather and shaped metal of his
loincloth, made slick and warm in the bath, became her lover. She moved with
him, welcomed every shiver and bloom, and thought of nothing but what was here
and now.

He moved down,
kissing and tonguing at the curve of her ribs, the cup of her navel. Down, into
the water, submerging without a sound and only a brief dance of waves. She
opened her eyes, but saw only candlelight. There wasn’t even a shadow to
suggest him, nothing but the tangible truth of his mouth pressing at her sex,
his tongue flicking at her clit before sliding deeply into her. And oh, it was
good, it was so good.

Her legs rested
on his shoulders. Her bare feet stayed flat and gentle upon his back. She could
feel his muscles bunch and coil as he toyed with her. She left her eyes open,
watching light play water-games over the ceiling, and came without artifice or
sound. Again. Again. He didn’t need air if he didn’t want it; he breathed only
her and breathed deep. She kept her hands on the rock behind her, made no
demands, gave no guidance, and came for him.

**Am welcome?**
he sent to her, kissing her inner thigh.

**This once,**
she sent back, stroking her foot down his back. **Just this once, make love to
me.**

Last-bell rang,
resonating in the water like whalesong. Kazuul rose up, kissing and biting his
way back to her breasts as he worked himself free of his sparse clothing. She
heard the subdued clank as his heavy belt fell to the bottom of the bath and
then his hands were sliding under her hips, tilting her up to receive him in
one long, powerful thrust. Water splashed in a hot tide over her chest, falling
in streams over her throat. He growled once, contented, and set a slow,
purposeful rhythm. Each stroke rocked her up against the side of the bath, but
the abrasion was not entirely unpleasant. She let go to reach for him and he
shifted her fully against it, pinning her, suspending her. She wrapped her arms
around him; he mirrored her. Scarcely moving at all, he ground into her,
shaking the water around them in tiny, furtive laps. Now and then, he stole a
nip from her jaw or her neck, but mostly, he just rested his chin on the crown
of her head and rumbled his growling sounds of pleasure. The thumb-sized
growths of bone budding along his sides perfectly cradled her. The small horns
curving down from his jaw fit easily around her head.

Mara snaked a
tendril of will out between them and sank it into him, unnoticed. His mind,
even now not entirely unguarded, was as still and peaceful as her own. He
thought of nothing on the surface, remembered nothing, and intended nothing but
to be here, to savor this, to have what love his kind were allowed, now, and
pour himself into her womb at last, completing them.

Mara came again,
sighing. She turned her face into the hollow of his throat and hugged him just
a little tighter. He growled her name. She nodded, an acknowledgement he could
feel, and kissed the skin above his pulsing vein. Then she ripped her way into
his mind, paralyzing his will, and took his body for her own.

For an instant,
she was him, deep inside her, and she was her, wrapped fast around him. She
moved together, and the sensation was dizzying in its beauty, the poetry of its
perfect unity. Then she pulled out, gripped his/her cock and came in a short
splash into the bathwater. She let go then—too tired to hold on anyway—and fell
back into only her body as Kazuul retook his with a roar and leapt free of the
bath, water boiling to vapor in the air as it fell from his body.

She sagged back,
looking up at him, at the light dancing in ripples over his body, at the fury
and the fire in his eyes. “I know what you want,” she told him wearily. “And
you know what I want. But it was almost like real love. Thank you.”

Then she let go
of the stone lip and sank down into the water. Her hair floated up like beds of
kelp, like mermaid hair, like torn curtains in a demon’s lair. The water was
warm and deep and quiet. She dozed, thinking of Connie. He left her alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

S
he stayed with him longer than she had to and
neither of them talked about it. It had taken days to recover from the attack
in the ephebeum, and she could remember spending much of it falling in and
struggling out of the empty blackness of coma. This time was easier. Once
awake, she never entirely lost herself again. She could watch the sun move
across the sky when Kazuul had the aerie open and count the days as they passed
by. She ate the food he brought her (all but the meat), drank whatever was in
her cup (all but the broth), and felt herself grow steadily stronger. She could
have left him on the third night, but she stayed, and when she sank down into
the blankets to sleep on the fourth dawn, he came to the bed and lay down
beside her.

“I’m leaving
you,” said Mara, her eyes closed.

“Never,” he
murmured, brushing the loose strands of her pale hair back from her brow.

“Tonight.”

“Thou art as
much mine as I am thine. Thou wouldst as soon sever from thine own limbs.”

She didn’t argue
with him, but just withdrew to the Panic Room and watched her body succumb to
sleep. It was going to be tonight. She’d had time enough to think about it as
she pretended convalescence, and she thought she knew where to go. She thought
she’d known for some time. She looked into the monitors and saw nothing but her
sleeping self, free of pain or frailties. She was ready and it was going to be
tonight.

There was no
time in the Panic Room unless she counted it herself. She rested, watching
dreams in the monitors and her own sleeping face in the Mindstorm as Kazuul
watched her. His thoughts were, as always, completely closed to her, even when
he brushed his hand across her skin, but suspicion had a way of bleeding
through even his self-control and she sensed none of it now. As close as he
ever came to peace, he was there. And she was ready.

Mara rolled her
body over without waking it up, turning it into the hot mountain of Kazuul,
lying beside her. He grunted when she brushed against him, but let her stay
close. After a deliberate span of time had passed, she pulled herself away, and
as predicted, he dropped an arm around her and brought her back, nipping gently
at the high curve of her shoulder. She gave him a few minutes to watch her
sleep, then used their shared touches to creep in through the cracks in the
fortress of his mind, stabbing herself deep into his brain. His bellow of alarm
came out as half a second’s gurgle, and then he sagged limp and heavy as a
corpse, snoring.

Mara came
conscious and heaved his arm off. She found her gown on the floor and dragged
it on, testing at the sleeping demon without bothering to look at him. She wasn’t
sure how long he’d stay out and she didn’t trust him to have a sense of humor
about it when he finally came around. It didn’t matter, really. She’d be gone
by then, with any luck. Gone with Connie. Ten feet out of the mountain was
probably further than he’d ever go to get her back. They’d be safe.

But she looked
back from the stairs. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like there was anything to
see. Broken columns, tattered curtains, an empty bath, and a bed where Kazuul
slept his unnatural sleep. Still, she lingered.

No amount of
distance or nostalgia could ever make this place pleasant to recall, but even
she had to admit it wasn’t all bad. The horrible parts vastly outweighed the
rest of them, but here at least, there was a kind of acceptance for what she
was. She didn’t have to hide it. She could, in fact, play with it, study it,
push it to its limits. She’d never have that again and she supposed she’d miss
it now and then.