Dark Magic (The Chronicles of Arandal)

Chapter Two


A knock at the door made her jump. Raising her head, she saw her old nurse, Brinna, step into the chamber.

“Did you call me?”

“No, I was just mumbling to myself. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m too wide awake for sleep. I’ll get you some food from the kitchen.”

Devon’s stomach clenched as she pictured the larder, which was now guarded as closely as the armory. “The people have no food.”

“But the princess must eat. I’ll go now, while it’s still dark and few people are about.”

When the old woman stepped back into the corridor and closed the door, Devon sighed. Brinna had taken care of her as long as she could remember. Even before her mother had died. If her nurse’s mind was set on something, it was hard to change it.

Moments after the door closed, a small sound in the air made Devon turn slowly, fearing what she would see and yet full of anticipation at the same time.

Her visitor was back. Watching her.

As if by magic.

The province of devils. Forbidden to all in this kingdom under pain of death.

She took her lower lip between her teeth, more afraid than ever that she had fallen victim to the strain imposed by the siege. Was she coming unraveled like an ill-made piece of cloth?

“I would have imagined the king’s daughter in a larger, more luxurious chamber,” he said in a conversational tone.

She looked around, seeing the room through his eyes. The narrow wooden bed with a small table beside it. The old, sagging chair. The stone floor partially covered by a threadbare, woven rug. The marriage chest she had started to fill in her tenth year. The shrine to the goddess. The plainly made armoire stuffed with rich clothing.

He was right; her quarters were hardly luxurious because they didn’t have to impress the king’s subjects like the intricately embroidered gowns she hated wearing in court.

Pretending she was the one in control of the situation, Devon raised her chin and used the voice that made people take a step back.

“My private chamber is none of your concern. How dare you come in here.”

“You think I dare too much?”

She couldn’t answer.

As they regarded each other across three yards of charged space, she scrambled to place him in the shrunken confines of her world. He couldn’t have come here in the past two weeks. No one had gotten in or out of the castle since the Lubantans had laid siege.

She tried to recall where she might have seen him. Certainly not in the great hall when the nobles ate together, nor in the yard where the men practiced their swordsmanship.

When he moved slowly toward her, she took an involuntary step backward, then another and another until her shoulders pressed against the stone wall.

“Stay away from me.” Even as she gave the command, she heard the quiver in her own voice.

He continued to regard her. Then he closed the space between them so quickly that she hardly saw him move.

One of his large, square hands closed around her wrist, taking her captive, and she felt his strength. He could crush her bones if he chose, yet his grip eased, and he held her as gently as she might cradle the injured birds she had sometimes found in the forest.

He was like no man she had met in her father’s court. No man who had come to ask for her hand and been turned away by a king who would extract the highest price possible for his daughter. All of them were respectful to Princess Devon.

Respect had nothing to do with the way he was looking at her. He leaned toward her, and to her shock, he touched his free hand to the tender place where her hair met the side of her cheek, stroking his finger back and forth, setting up a tremor of sensation through her. “Your hair is like spun silk. And your skin is soft.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not? You like it, don’t you?”

“No,” she denied, because that was the only thing she could say. Should say.

“You’re lying.”

She had learned to control her reactions so that no one could guess her innermost thoughts. For her own welfare, much of herself was hidden from the world of the castle. Her love of learning. Her yearning for a different life. The core of strength that had sustained her through too many trials.

But she feared that this man’s penetrating gaze saw through the mask she had fixed upon her face. She should push him away. She should not be so close to this stranger. When she’d come into her womanhood, Lady Ellena had told her that she should never be alone with any man—except her father and her brother—until her wedding night. Yet she could not move.

“You and I have an appointment.”

She shuddered. “That’s impossible. I don’t even know you.” Then a thought came to her. “Did my father arrange it?”

“Your father.” He laughed. “This has nothing to do with the old reprobate. This is between you and me.”

“You dare call him that?”

“You have a higher opinion of him?”

When she didn’t answer, he tipped his head closer, his breath hot against her cheek, increasing the unfamiliar sensations coursing through her.

“Leave me alone,” she gasped.

Ignoring the request, he ran his fingers through the silky strands of her hair.

No man had dared such intimacies. When he massaged his fingers down to her scalp, she closed her eyes, feeling currents of sensation kindle deep inside herself.

“You’ve never been with a man,” he murmured.

“Of course not.”

Every rule she had ever learned commanded her to shrink from his touch, yet she craved what he offered.

A hum of sensuality flooded through her, and she clenched her hands at her sides to keep from reaching out and pulling him closer.

“We haven’t met before, have we?” she whispered.

“No.”

As he continued to caress her, she felt need coursing through him as he touched her. Or was she only projecting her own feelings onto him?

Through the screen of her lashes, she studied the strong lines of his face, the curve of his lips. In the privacy of her chamber, he could have taken her mouth if he wanted. Instead he bent to press his cheek to hers, that touch as enticing as any kiss. When he slowly pulled her body against his, the breath caught in her throat.

Her senses whirled. Her mind spun. Her blood pumped hotly through her veins.

“What do you want?” she managed to ask.

“Only what you can give.”

A rush of longing overwhelmed her as she responded to his boldness. His brashness. When he pulled her more tightly against himself, she felt a hard shaft pressing against her middle.

As the heat of his body seeped into hers, he whispered her name with such tenderness that she felt her chest tighten.

“I don’t know your name,” she answered in a breathy voice.

“Galladar.”

A strong name. For a strong man.

She turned her head to look at him. And he turned at the same time, so that his mouth brushed hers.

She should pull back, but she stayed where she was as she marveled at the softness of his lips, marveled at the sudden heat surging through her as his mouth settled on hers, moving, pressing.

Two of her suitors had dared to kiss her when her chaperone had turned away, pressing their lips against hers in a way that repulsed her.

This was different. So different. With them she had drawn back quickly. With this man, she wanted more.

“Open for me.”

“Why?” she asked against his lips and felt him smile.

“You’ll like it.”

She did as he asked, startled when his tongue stroked the inside of her lips, then played with the ridges of her teeth.

She caught her breath, overwhelmed by the intimacy and by the way her whole body responded. It was as though the mouth-to-mouth contact promised more. So much more.

His hands skimmed up and down her ribs, then upward, brushing the sides of her breasts, making them suddenly ache.

She needed to ease the fullness in them—by pressing them against his broad chest.

Before she could raise her hands to pull him closer, he let his arms drop to his side and stepped back, putting a foot of space between them. As the heat of his body left hers, she felt such a sense of profound loss that she had to steady her hand against the wall.

When she raised questioning eyes to his, he murmured, “Your nurse is coming back.”

She had forgotten about Brinna, forgotten everything but the man who held her in his arms.

“Eat the food she brings you,” he said. “You will need your strength.”

Then he was gone, leaving her with a feeling of lingering emptiness.