“Come swimming with me,” he coaxed her in a throaty voice, his dark eyes dancing with wicked mischief.
Searching for anywhere to look but those alluring eyes, she focused on the small gold hoop in his left ear. “You got your ear pierced.”
His smile widened, dimples deepening. “Do you like it? I think it makes me look like a pirate.”
She did like it, but she gave him a reproving shake of her head. “Not an appropriate image to aspire to, young Jak.”
“Oh, I know you’re not that stuffy,” he replied, undaunted. “Come swimming with me. Give me a chance to show you I’m not the kid you try to pretend I am.”
“I know you’re not a kid.” Her voice came out breathy.
Jak smiled, tugging her even closer, his heated gaze on her mouth. “I missed you. I’ve been thinking about you. I think about you all the time. And I have ideas, things we could do that won’t hurt you.”
Though they weren’t touching, her mental barriers had gone wobbly, images insinuating themselves into her mind, of her and Jak, naked together, and coils of rope…
With a gasp of shock and dismay—surely not desire—she jerked backward, the lock of hair he still held yanking painfully on her scalp. “No!” she burst out, loudly enough that several people turned to look. When had she forgotten they were surrounded by a crowd? And not just anyone, but her own people, who she’d serve someday as their sorceress, possibly their queen.
Jak, who’d immediately released his grip on her hair, held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I apologize. What can I do to help?” His sharp, dark gaze fastened on her left hand, and she realized she’d stuck her two littlest fingers in her mouth, the nails snapping as she bit down.
Stella yanked her fingers from her mouth, tucking her hand guiltily behind her back. Moranu take her, she’d broken that habit, one she’d had since she was a little girl. Another failing her mother had despaired of. Just look at your poor, wrinkled fingers! How will you ever have pretty nails if you’re forever chewing them down to nothing?
“Stella, my star, please.” Jak’s forehead creased in worry. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I—”
“You didn’t,” she lied, drawing herself up and letting the magic settle around her like a protective cloak. There. That was better. She should know better than to let her mental shields weaken like that. “It takes more than the offensive flirtations of a silly boy too young to know better to upset me.”
Jak’s mouth fell open, and he closed it hastily, dark eyes glittering. “You can keep saying that, but I won’t always be too young for you.”
At times like these, Stella felt positively ancient. “Oh, Jak,” she said. She wanted to sound pitying, but she didn’t have it in her to be cruel. “You are now and you always will be.”
He curled his hands into fists, frustration radiating off of him. “You’re wrong. I’ll prove myself to you. Just wait and see.”
Jak stormed off, leaving a cloud of roiling emotions in his wake, and Stella watched him go. Once again alone, she continued up the road, telling herself she hadn’t been shaken by the encounter. Jak would grow out of this phase, this youthful infatuation, and he’d find lovers to absorb his considerable energies.
Her future didn’t hold him in it. It didn’t hold anyone at all. Just an isolated tower in an endless field of lilies. And herself, forever alone.
~ 1 ~
Seven Years Later
The Hákyrling’s bells rang the advent of dawn in his head, popping Jak awake.
Hot and restless, he groaned as he moved, his body aching where it wasn’t stiff and numb. They’d all been up most of the night, dealing with Lena and Zeph’s dramatic return to the land of the living—not that he’d been able to contribute much—so you’d think that for once he’d sleep in. But no. Dawn it was. Though, to be fair, sunrise in these northern, wintry climes was admittedly significantly later than his father would’ve rousted him out of his berth on the Hákyrling.
Since his bed was a cold and lonely one, he might as well get up. The beds at King Groningen’s manse on the shores of Lake Sullivan were well-appointed and comfortable, but without company, there wasn’t much reason to stay there if he couldn’t sleep. Plus, he felt like crap. Previously undetected deep bruises made themselves felt as he levered himself to his feet. Padding naked to bathing chamber—all his, as these were indeed nice digs—he surveyed himself in the mirror, wincing as he noted the sickly greens and purples, particularly over his ribs. Fucking Rhy sure packed a punch when he wanted to. The fall from the wrecked carriage likely hadn’t helped either.
Jak tentatively fingered the bite marks from Rhy’s wolf teeth and lacerations from his claws. Just flesh wounds, as his father would say, in that dismissive Dasnarian tone—but they stung like a copper viper’s bite, all swollen and crusty, too. Good thing Rhy was such a close friend, or Jak would be seriously pissed at taking this beating from him.
Rhy had also been out of his head over a woman at the time—a kind of insanity Jak understood all too well.
With a sigh for that, which became an unmanly moan as his ribs creaked, Jak dunked his head in cold water to try to clear it, missing the hot, running water at Castle Elderhorst. Still, as lovely as a hot bath sounded, running some dagger forms would be the best thing to work the aches out of his body. His ribs bit again as he towel-dried his hair. Cracked, most likely. Two or three of them, he decided, after some judicious prodding. Still, he was better off than Zeph, who’d nearly died after falling through a portal in the sky escaping from wherever she’d gone to rescue Lena.
Lena had been bad off, too, having nearly bled to death from the lacerations covering her body. If they didn’t have Stella with her magical healing abilities, they’d have lost Zeph and Lena, no doubt. Stella would be exhausted from that effort, so Jak could handle a few flesh wounds on his own. Not to mention that he tried very hard not to ask Stella to do anything for him.
Not wanting to bother any of the servants either, given the night they’d had dealing with their newly arrived guests’ emergency, he found the shirt he’d worn the day before—a new one that Rhy had also ripped all to hell and gone—and completed its untimely demise, reducing it to strips of cloth.
Binding his ribs, he tied off the ends, then tried some dips and twists. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but they’d at least hold his ribs in place. Glancing outside, he verified the beach was empty in the gray dawn light. Plenty of room to run some forms. And, as it was oddly balmy down here at lake level—as opposed to the arctic winter up on the heights—he decided to forgo a shirt. He only had one intact spare with him and no reason to stink it up with sweat if he didn’t need to.
He got winded just pulling on his pants, ribs grinding unmercifully. Fucking Rhy.
Normally it would be tempting to make the short jump from the room of his balcony to the pebbled beach as a light warm-up, but he didn’t trust those ribs. All he needed was for one to separate into a full break and puncture his lung. Then he’d have no choice but to ask Stella to heal him. Hopefully, she was sound asleep, as she deserved to be.