Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 9 ~
The bathwater was almost too hot, but Nic submerged herself anyway, beyond grateful for the sting of clean water in her myriad scrapes, the heat an anodyne to the scrapes, forming bruises, and persistent chill in her bones. She wanted to scrub herself clean of the hunters’ foul touch. She hadn’t been all that afraid. Gabriel was right there, and he’d defended her ably. The encounter hadn’t been anything like last time. But it had been enough to make her shaky.
She also really didn’t like that they’d both been so depleted of magic. They’d won, but the margin had been far too narrow.
Fully underwater, she scrubbed at her scalp with numb fingertips, grimacing at the scrape of grit in her hair interspersed with the occasional bit of unnamable slime. Some of it hunter blood. Ugh. With a sigh, she searched for something to wash her hair with, then realized she’d left her fancy Aratron soaps across the room. Reluctantly levering herself out of the tub, she padded naked and dripping across the bathing chamber, scooped it all up and—shivering in the chill, damp air—ran back to the tub, tossing the vials and bottles on the floor. About to hop back into the water, she caught a reflection in one of the age-spotted mirrors and screamed.
The other woman screamed, too, wrapping her arms around herself and looking about frantically, like a wild animal caught in a trap, her cries escalating in pitch and volume.
“Seliah!” Nic overcame the shock—still on edge from the hunter attack, she’d nearly peed on the floor from the fright—and managed to make her voice loud, calm, and commanding enough to pierce Seliah’s ongoing wail of dismay. Gabriel’s sister slammed her mouth shut, the sound cutting off abruptly, and she stared at Nic with feral eyes that held little human intelligence. “Seliah,” Nic said again, soothingly, holding out her hands. “It’s all right. You gave me a start is all.”
Seliah stared at her with no hint of comprehension.
“Remember me?” Nic asked, doubting it heartily. “Lady Veronica Elal, Gabriel’s… wife. You can call me Nic.”
“I know,” Seliah said, straightening from her crouch, sanity returning to her amber-brown eyes. They were the same color as their mother’s, and Nic wondered if Gabriel’s eyes had been that color before the magic turned them wizard black. Seliah tossed her head, looking Nic up and down. “I came here because I wanted to see you.”
Nic gestured to her nakedness. “And now you’ve seen me, all of me.”
Seliah, to Nic’s great surprise, giggled. “You’re—”
“Nic!” Gabriel roared, charging into the bathing chamber, sword drawn, barely skidding to a stop on the water-puddled tiles. Oops. Probably she should’ve tossed down some towels. “Selly!” Gabriel gasped in astonishment.
“She came to visit me,” Nic told him, infusing her tone with all the cautions she wanted to offer but felt she couldn’t say aloud. “Isn’t that sweet of her?”
Gabriel didn’t look like he thought it was sweet. He looked too pissed for that. With his silver hair mud-matted, slicked and tangled around his face, his wizard-black eyes glittering with determination to protect her, muscles flexing with battle fervor, he appealed to her basest instincts. Though that could be the residual need from what they’d started and now wouldn’t be finishing anytime soon. Alas for that. At least the delayed gratification was good for recharging the magic.
He lowered his sword, a resigned line to his shoulders. “Selly,” Gabriel said, giving his sister a once-over. She wasn’t any cleaner than they were, though she was better dressed for it. Her pants and shirt were stained with mud and other evidence of days spent in the marshes. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Seliah set her jaw obstinately, very like her brother would. “I didn’t want to be found.”
Gabriel sighed, holding out his hands by his side. “I’m very glad you found us, then,” he said gently. “Are you hungry?”
She jerked her chin in a nod, eyes drifting back to Nic.
“I’ll just finish my bath,” Nic suggested, cold enough to hop into the water without further hesitation. It warmed up a bit more, and she gave Gabriel a grateful smile. Ducking her head to wet it, she began working the shampoo through her hair.
“I sent up a flag for lunch,” Gabriel said, gesturing Seliah out of the room. “Why don’t we wait for the food out here, give Nic some privacy.”
“Why is she here?” Seliah demanded, not budging. “I don’t want her here, in my house.”
Gabriel set his teeth. “It’s our house, and it’s Nic’s now, too. I explained this to you.”
Seliah slid Nic a look of distaste. The girl looked far younger than her twenty-four years, all long legs, knees, and elbows like an adolescent, her skin ravaged by acne, both active and old scars. Her childlike reactions only compounded the impression. She was all out of balance—physically, emotionally, and mentally. The Refoel healer should be able to assist there too.
Though a Refoel wizard would immediately recognize Seliah as an untapped familiar, and Gabriel wasn’t prepared to deal with that. They needed to cement the wizard’s loyalty first, and she didn’t know how they’d accomplish that. It really depended on who answered the call, but House Phel wasn’t exactly ready to lay out the charm. They didn’t even have a dry room to offer. She’d really been hoping they could raise the entire house today and have the water wicked out of a few rooms, then at least minimally furnished by tomorrow.
Things weren’t looking good for that, but at least she wasn’t wearing an iron collar and being marched off by hunters. All things in perspective.
“I don’t remember you explaining anything!” Seliah whined like an even younger child. Was the bouncing about in mental age a side effect of the untapped magic? It must be. Unless the woman had another underlying mental condition. Hadn’t there been rumors of madness in House Phel? More so than the standard runaway hubris and megalomaniacal tendencies of most wizards. She and Maman had dismissed those sketchy details as unimportant, but now she wished she’d paid more attention.
“Selly.” Gabriel took his sister’s arm, not ungently, but black frustration oozed off of him. Taking note of Gabriel’s fraying patience, Nic ran some conditioning oil through her hair, using it to detangle the last of the snarls.
“Let go of me!” Seliah shrieked, tugging away from her brother. “You stink.”
“Gabriel,” Nic inserted before he could say anything more. So much for her plans of soaking in the tub and perhaps cavorting with her wizard. Rinsing her hair one last time, she stood again, stepped out of the tub, and grabbed a towel, wrapping herself in it. At least she was clean now. “I’ll keep Seliah company while you bathe.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she laid a finger over his lips, then kissed him. “You need a moment, and you’ll feel better for it. Did you say you ordered lunch?”
“I—yes.” He frowned. “It’s midafternoon, and you said you were hungry.”
“I’m starving.” She offered him a warm smile. “Thank you.”
“For ordering lunch?”
“For your thoughtfulness.” She hesitated. “We can finish what we started later.”
With a wistful smile, he lifted a hand to touch her cheek, then curled his fingers and withdrew. “You’re clean and I’m not,” he noted ruefully.
“And I intend to stay that way. Take your time. Relax a little. Let me get to know your sister.” She kissed him again, lightly but hoping that her pleasure and relief conveyed themselves to him, then snagged her bag of cosmetics, including her comb and the bottled grooming imp. “Come on, Seliah, let’s have lunch, and I’ll tell you a story.”
“What kind of story?” Seliah demanded petulantly, but she went with Nic, a glint of curiosity in her eye.
Nic pulled the bathing chamber door shut behind her. Gabriel, bless him, had lit a fire, and the room was already considerably warmer and drier. She went to the closet containing her meager wardrobe. Dropping the towel, she pulled on the cozily soft bronze robe—all praise for dry clothes—then grabbed up the towel to dry her short curls. Eyeing Seliah, who was exploring the room with an unsophisticated lack of propriety, Nic wondered if the young woman had seen much of what had happened before Nic got in the bathtub. Surely Gabriel would’ve sensed her presence. But then, somehow Seliah had gotten past him to get up to the master suite.
“Why did you kiss my brother?”
“Because he’s my… husband,” Nic replied. Calling him her wizard still felt more true to her, but here in Meresin they only seemed to think in terms of marriage. Though that would get confusing fast if they had a wedding. Maybe she should say betrothed? This was why it was easier to just acknowledge him as her wizard master, except that Gabriel took such exception to it. She went to sit by the fire, coming out her curls. “Why don’t you sit with me?”
Seliah eyed her suspiciously but sat in the other chair, perching on the edge. With her snarled dark hair, wary brown eyes, and too-thin body, Seliah reminded Nic of the sparrows flitting about the marshes, skittish and barely glimpsed before they hid themselves in the rushes.
“You know, we’re sisters now,” Nic said. “That means we can share special secrets.”
“Like what?” Seliah asked, curiosity overcoming her wariness.
Nic held up the grooming imp’s bottle and waggled it. “Magic,” she whispered, and Seliah’s eyes grew round.
“My brother is a wizard,” the young woman confided.
“Yes, he is. A most powerful one.”
“I wish he wasn’t.”
“Why’s that?” Nic glanced at the bathing chamber door, confirming it remained firmly closed. Gabriel didn’t need more reasons to regret who he was.
Seliah fidgeted unhappily. “He’s always sad now, and he never was before.”
Nic bit back a sigh for her brooding wizard. “He’ll be happier now,” she said firmly, willing it to be true. She might not be a wizard who could shape reality with her thoughts, but she had a powerful will of her own. She was going to make Gabriel happy if she had to drive them both crazy to do it. The absurd thought made her smile, so she widened it for Seliah’s benefit. “Did you know we’re going to have a baby?” she asked on impulse.
Seliah’s gaze went to Nic’s lap, then lifted with shrewd distrust. “That’s what Mama said, but I saw you naked. You don’t have a baby belly.”
“It will get bigger,” Nic assured her. Something she needed to remind herself of, too. It would be good to have that healer on site, to check that her adventures hadn’t affected her unborn passenger. “And then you’ll be an aunt! Shall we call you Aunt Selly?”
“All right,” she breathed, face lighting. “Now tell me the story. You promised.”
Indeed she had. Nic considered what seeds she wanted to plant in Seliah’s mind. The young woman had no training in magic, no experience with it besides what she’d observed of her brother—and what she experienced internally due to its corrosive effect. Whether she was consciously aware of that effect or not, part of her would know.
“Once upon a time,” Nic began, pleased when Seliah wriggled happily, settling back in the chair, “there was a beautiful princess. Her brother was king, ruling over all the lands anyone could see, and he was a kind and good king.”
“Like Gabriel.”
“Just like Gabriel,” Nic agreed. “And the princess was kind and good, too, beloved by all. But she was unhappy, because all of her best qualities were trapped inside, where no one knew about them.”
Seliah touched her fingers to her ravaged face, eyes welling with sympathetic tears. “Why were they trapped?” she asked.
“Because she was cursed,” Nic explained gravely. “And when the princess tried to explain to everyone about the curse, no one understood her. Not even her brother. Though the princess spoke the words to tell them, what came out of her mouth wasn’t what she planned to say. The curse twisted her meaning, making it into something else. After a while, nothing she said made any sense at all, and people thought she wasn’t even trying to be understood. They became annoyed with her, telling her to speak clearly.”
Seliah nodded mutely.
“Finally the princess stopped trying to explain anything. Instead she ran away to the forest. The birds and the animals there didn’t need her to speak. They accepted her, and she made a life with them. But the curse didn’t go away. It only worsened, until the princess found that sometimes she didn’t even understand herself, as if her very thoughts had turned inside out, too.”
“What happened to her?” Seliah breathed, leaning forward, intent gaze focused on Nic.
What answer to give her? Nic could see herself in this young woman, feel the silvery-cool magic in her, so like her brother’s, but stagnant like the marsh water. “Her fairy godmother arrived to save her,” she said. “The fairy taught the princess’s brother how to break the spell. He did, and they lived happily ever after.”
“Truly?” Seliah brightened with painful hope. “Do you think that—”
Knock-knock-knock.The crisp alert on the door made them both jump. Nic let out a huff of a laugh—but Seliah sprang to her feet and ran for the wall of glass doors leading to the balcony. A steady rain slid down the glass, and one door appeared to be slightly ajar, which explained Seliah’s unobserved arrival.
“Wait,” Nic called, springing to her feet. “It’s only lunch!”
But Seliah had dashed out the doors and scrambled with impressive agility over the railing. Nic dashed after her, too slow to do anything but watch as the young woman leapt from handhold to foothold, reaching the back lawn and disappearing around the side of the house. With a groan, Nic tapped her forehead on the railing. Gabriel would not be happy with her.
“Was that Selly?” Gabriel’s mother, Daisy, said behind her.
Nic turned reluctantly, then quickly relieved the older woman of the heavy tray she carried. “Yes,” she replied with a wince. “She came to see if I was really going to have a baby. We decided she’d be Aunt Selly. Your knock startled her and she ran off, I’m sorry to say.” Nic was babbling, but she felt absurdly guilty. Daisy didn’t understand what was wrong with her odd daughter, and Nic couldn’t explain it to her. Not in a way the barely magical woman from Meresin would understand. Maybe not ever.
Daisy stared toward the balcony and her vanished daughter with a look of disappointment and profound irritation. “I despair of that girl, truly I do. We haven’t laid eyes on her since you arrived, Lady Veronica. Not that it’s your fault! I don’t mean to imply that at all.” Daisy wrung her hands together. “Of course, we haven’t laid eyes on you since you arrived!” She laughed uneasily, wincing. “Which is fine. We’ve barely seen Gabriel—just the once when he stopped by the levee—so I thought, well, I would bring your lunch myself!” She focused fully on Nic for the first time since entering the room, her eyes going wide. “Oh, your beautiful hair! What happened? You cut it all off.”
Nic ran a hand over the cropped hair, glad it was at least clean and somewhat orderly. What excuse to give? Daisy wouldn’t understand about the bonding ceremony either. This living amongst the nonmagical led a person from one lie to another until you were caught in a sticky web of them. “An Elal custom,” she said, which was close enough to the truth to give her answer a tone of confidence. “The bride and groom cut each other’s hair to symbolically demonstrate leaving their old selves behind to make a new home together.”
Daisy’s face cleared of one worry, at least. “Ah, that makes a kind of sense. Gabriel telling me he got his caught on a branch sounded just too strange.” Daisy considered her. “Why wouldn’t he tell me the truth?”
Why indeed? Or why wasn’t he a better liar? “I asked him not to,” Nic said, freely embroidering on her own tale. “Until I could explain it to you myself.” Speaking of too strange… but Daisy seemed to accept that, nodding absently.
“Where is Gabriel?” she asked.
“Taking a bath.” Nic tipped her head at the closed bathing chamber door. Though what was taking him so long? “I think he might’ve fallen asleep,” she added, hoping that would be in character. Given how much magic Gabriel had spent, the pitched fight with the hunters, along with a restless night fighting Vale for bed space, Nic wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had. But Gabriel didn’t strike her as a napper. Some people were and some weren’t. How little she knew about him still.
Fortunately, Daisy smiled, beaming maternally at Nic’s dishabille. “Too much honeymooning, yes? Though you two could go at it more easily.” She patted Nic’s belly with affectionate familiarity. “After all, the bun is already in the oven.”
Yes, but the manse won’t raise itself out of the swamp,Nic managed not to say aloud. Instead she smiled and nodded. An all-purpose reply that seemed to satisfy Daisy.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to your special time.” She turned to go, then paused at the door. “Could we have dinner all together sometime?” she asked wistfully. “Gabriel mentioned planning a wedding, so the family can attend?”
“Yes, of course,” Nic agreed immediately. Anything to avoid another awkward dinner with Gabriel in that dining hall. “Tonight?”
Daisy clasped her hands together. “Oh, I would love that. I’ve made some lists.”
Nic found herself smiling in genuine kinship. “I’ve got lists, too,” she confided. “And about more than the wedding. I’d like to share with you some plans for the house renovation, and get your ideas.”
“Oh.” Daisy put a hand over her heart, going misty eyed, so clearly moved to be included that Nic kicked herself for not thinking of it before. “I would love to be involved.”
“Bring your lists tonight,” Nic told her warmly, then hesitated. “And probably the food? I feel like a terrible hostess—Maman would be cross with me—but…”
“It’s not your fault, dear,” Daisy said kindly. “House Phel is a mess, and I know it. How about this? You two come to our house. It’s not much, but it’s clean and dry, and I can promise the food will be hot. You can bring your lists to me.”
“That sounds like a perfect solution.” Nic only hoped Gabriel would think so, too. “See you this evening.”
Daisy gave her a happy wave and slipped out, Nic putting the manual lock into place as silently as possible. She didn’t want to offend Gabriel’s family, but she’d also had enough of being surprised for one afternoon. Then she went to the bathing chamber and eased the door open, peeking in. Gabriel indeed slept in the tub, his head canted back, face utterly lax, his mouth having fallen open slightly in the lassitude of deep sleep.
He’d at least cleaned up before he passed out, his silver hair sleeked dark against his skull, tanned and muscled arms free of smudges where he’d draped them along the rim of the tub, his elegantly long fingers hanging loose. He looked nearly angelic like this. Not frowning or brooding darkly, not annoyed by or frustrated with her. Not bashing his head against the forces of his magical nature. Her idealist, forever thinking he could change the world. A rush of affection filled her, and she hesitated, wanting more than anything to brush her fingers over his unfurrowed brow, to lick the beads of water from that muscled chest.
She also wanted to keep him just like this, happily asleep and tormented by nothing. She should also probably wake him up, get him out of the cooling water and on to eating lunch. No doubt he was as hungry as she was. Though he also needed sleep.
She was dithering over the decision still when his eyes popped open, staring suspicious holes into the ceiling before he fastened his black gaze on her. “Where’s Selly?” he demanded, and Nic sighed for the brief moment of peace, lost now.
Picking up a towel, she sauntered to him. “Your sister left again. Shall I help you dry off?”
Gabriel frowned at her. At least he looked like his usual self now. That was something. “What do you mean she left—where did she go?”
“Wherever she goes, I imagine,” Nic replied mildly. “Your mother was here. She delivered the lunch you sent up a flag for. We arranged for us to go to their house for dinner this evening.”
Standing, he snatched the towel from her and tied it around his waist—not before she noted he was still at half-mast from her earlier teasing and looked to be waxing rather than waning—then he stepped out of the tub, taking one long stride to grab another towel from the stack. At least they had plenty of dry towels. Probably a necessity in eternally damp Meresin. It would be nice to put a tiny fire elemental in with them so they’d be warm. Small luxuries.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” Gabriel asked, brisking drying himself. Nic didn’t mind the show at all, so she reclined on a chaise in the corner. She’d wondered why the pretty antique had been put in the bathing chamber. In case one needed to take a break from grooming? But it served nicely as a soft spot from which to admire her wizard. His youthful collision with moon magic had turned all his body hair silver—except his brows, lashes, and the single lock at his temple—and the paleness of the hair did a lovely job of becoming invisible enough to show all of his skin while highlighting the sculpted lines of his warrior’s body with a silvery shimmer.
“Nic?” Gabriel prompted, raising one dark brow.
“Hmm? Oh, ‘we’ being your mother and me. Don’t be grumpy about it.”
“I’m not being grumpy about it,” he retorted, quite grumpily indeed. “Why do we have to go to their house? It’s a tiny cottage. Not at all what you’re accustomed to.”
“Honestly, Gabriel,” she said on a sigh as she sat up, no longer enjoying the recline, “you make me sound like a snob. I’m interested to see more of Meresin, and it makes more sense for us to go to the hot food than for them to drag it here.”
He grimaced. “I know that living in this wreck of a house is little better than being on the road.”
“I didn’t say that. And we’re working on it.”
“We’re going backwards, if anything,” he corrected. Then, before she could reply to that—though combatting his current black mood and defeatism wasn’t something she enjoyed bashing her own skull against—he asked, “So, where did Selly go—or should I ask, how?”
“Over the balcony,” Nic supplied blandly, figuring there was no reason to hide it from him. “She ran when your mother knocked. I’m pretty sure that’s how she got in. She’s impressively fast and agile.”
“I wanted to talk with her,” he grumbled.
“I know, and I tried to keep her here. Ultimately, there wasn’t much I could do.”
“It’s not your fault. I apologize.” He blew out a breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “I know I’m irritable and taking it out on you.”
“You’ve had a lousy couple of days, so you’re forgiven. Also, sexual frustration is likely a contributor,” she pointed out with a sweet smile. “Want me to help with that?”
“I was thinking food,” he replied with a half smile, but the tenting in his towel showed otherwise.
“The food is waiting, and this won’t take long.” She extended a hand to him. “Why don’t you come over here?”
She thought he might refuse, but he came to her, taking her hand and then sitting beside her. Running a hand down her back, he kissed her, softly and tenderly. “I’m so sorry about the hunters.”
“Why? You dispatched them. That’s all that matters.”
He grimaced at that. “And I’m sorry I’m being a bastard. Wallowing in self-loathing, then alternating between sullenness and sudden explosions of anger,” he quoted her wryly.
“My intense and brooding wizard,” she agreed, combing her fingers through his hair, then trailing them over his lovely shoulders. Coaxing him to lie back, she kissed her way down his throat, his skin warm, steaming soft from the bath, spicy from his soap. Working her way down his muscled chest, she tasted him, nibbling at his nipples so he groaned, his hands tightening on her. When she reached the towel, she untied it, feeling as if she unwrapped a special gift selected just for her. Laying the towel open, she unveiled his cock, thrusting from its silver frame of sleek hair to lie against Gabriel’s flat abdomen. Delicious.
His hands on her waist, he urged her upward. “Come here,” he murmured.
“No,” she replied coyly. “You stay there.” And she slid between his strong thighs onto the tiled floor, parting them as she went. Gorgeous view.
“Nic, what are you—” He broke off on a choked gasp as she leaned forward, delicately licking his tightly drawn scrotum, inhaling his musky scent.
“Shh. Lie back and enjoy.” Cupping his balls in one hand and wrapping the other around his shaft, she experimented with the silky feel of his skin, how it moved over the turgid tissues beneath. The veins stood out against his skin, and she ran her tongue along one, gratified when he groaned, cock flexing under her lips, his hands delving into her hair.
“Nic, you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.” To forestall further protest, she pulled the soft head into her mouth, delighted to feel his surrender as he let his head fall back. Perhaps this was the purpose of the chaise; it certainly worked well for it. Savoring the tension in his thighs, at the feel of him in her mouth, she swirled her tongue, seeking the tremors of most intense response. She’d never done this before, but steamier novels described such scenes. It gave her a sensual rush, too, to be kneeling at his feet and tending to him—in a way he’d otherwise object to.
If the wizard wouldn’t make her kneel for him, she’d find other ways to experience it.
As expected, it didn’t take long, nor did it fortunately require much technique on her part. He tried to stop her in time, ever the gentlemen, but she ignored his hands urging her upward, tightening her clasp on his shaft and sucking him deeper into her mouth. When he came, the rush of magic filled her as his seed filled her mouth, rich and powerful, silver moonlight and seawater, nurturing and fulfilling.
Very pleased with her first attempt, she continued kissing him through the aftershocks, licking the sweet, softening shaft and head, raining soft kisses on his groin and thighs. She could kiss him like this forever, savoring his relaxation and sense of deep pleasure. Gabriel might despise her familiar nature, but she couldn’t help it that, at a core level, she wanted to make him happy. At least, in this one way, she could do that, and please herself too.
His fingers flexed on her, and this time she followed the tug and allowed him to pull her up against him. Studying her face, his wizard-black eyes softer and bemused, he rubbed a thumb over her lower lip. “Are you all right?” he asked roughly.
She smiled. “I feel wonderful, yes.” She kissed his thumb. “I liked that very much. Ready to eat lunch now?”
“But what about you?” he asked with a slight frown, his hands running down her back. “I need to take care of you.”
“Hold that thought for later,” she advised, levering herself up. “It’s good for me to simmer a bit, to recharge my magic reservoirs.”
Sitting up also, he dragged his hands over his head. “I’m sorry I drained you like that.”
“Don’t be. I recover fast—and so do you, as it turns out—and we need to learn each other’s limits, preferably in a nonlethal situation.” She held a hand out to him. “But I do want to eat.”
Taking her hand, he stood, naked and unconcerned about it now. With one strong arm, he snagged her around the waist, pulling her close against him for a long and lingering kiss. “You are a remarkable woman,” he murmured.
“I keep trying to tell you that,” she replied with a saucy smile, unutterably pleased by his praise. When he smiled in return, it was as if the sun had emerged from the overcast, banishing all the chill and rain.
