The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (10 page)

Ingrid scoffed. “Madness. The elder singers would never permit it. The scribe houses are mostly staffed by Irin warriors, but who do they turn to for counsel and healing? Who would take the place of our singers who support them? Not to mention how many mated Irin fight together. Mated warriors are far stronger when they work in tandem. That has been our way since ancient times.”

Sari didn’t share Ingrid’s confidence. “I fear the twisted thinking of humans influences our people. Humans see their woman as less.”

“Then they are foolish to deny half their race.” Ingrid patted her hand. “Besides, there simply aren’t enough of us to survive without singers and scribes working together. We’d be in a sad place indeed if all the singers were sequestered in villages. Heaven would weep, Sari, to see their daughters hidden away.”

※

Hours later she rested in the library. She didn’t want to return home, and she was worried about Damien and Henry. The sun was long set and the crisp fall wind had turned biting. She built a fire and put out a bottle of whisky for when the men returned.

She was dozing in front of the warm hearth when she heard them stomping and speaking in low voices.

“Sari?” Henry called. “You didn’t have to wait for us, sister, but thank you so much for doing so.”

Sari blinked and rubbed her eyes. “Henry, where’s—”

“I’m here.” His voice came from the door. He took off his cloak and hung it on the hook by the door. “What are you doing here, Sari? It’s so late.”

He sounded exhausted. They both did.

“I didn’t want you to come home to a cold house,” she said, rising and clearing her throat. “I’m sure you’re tired, so—”

“
Milá
.” Damien sighed walked to her, pulling her into his arms and wrapping her up. “Thank you.”

The relief was instant. Something tight and angry uncurled in her chest and she hugged him back. His rough chin scraped her cheek, and he took a deep breath as if inhaling her scent.

“I’ll take the whisky to my room,” Henry said quietly. “Good night. Thank you, Sari. It’s lovely coming home to a warm house. That was very thoughtful.”

“You’re welcome, Henry.”

Damien didn’t let her go.

“I didn’t like that you were gone so long,” Sari said.
I didn’t like that you went without me.
“What happened?”

“Much blustering and puffing of chests. Be glad you missed it.”

“Did they apologize?”

“Not in so many words, but they were clearly chagrined that Kirsten was hurt. And afraid.”

“Of Kirsten?”

He drew back, smiling a little, and tucked a piece of her wild hair behind her ear. “No, Sari, not of Kirsten.”

She blinked when he kissed her forehead.
Oh
. Him. They were afraid of Damien. Her dark, hooded warrior was rarely seen in human villages. The sight of him on horseback, visiting at dusk after a woman of his people had been attacked, must have filled them with dread.

“Come,” he whispered. “Don’t go out into the cold tonight. Come with me.”

Her body heated despite her exhaustion. “You said I needed to be sure.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m too tired to bed you properly. Keep me warm. That’s all I want from you tonight.”

Sleep with him? “In your bed?” It was an intimacy she’d shared with no man, not even her first lover.

“Yes, in my bed.” He steered her down the hallway. “I’ll even wear a tunic if you like.”

“Do you not normally? Even in winter?”

He stopped and spoke against her ear. “I prefer nothing on my skin when I sleep. When I was at war, I had to sleep in armor.”

“Oh.”

“But I will make an exception for you.”

Sari walked past him and into his room. She’d lit a small fire in the hearth there as well. “Wear what makes you comfortable, Damien. You know I will.” Sari unbuttoned her kirtle and slipped it off, leaving herself in the long chemise she wore against her skin. Without a backward glance, she slid under the covers of the bed and wished she’d thought to heat a few bricks to warm the linens.

No matter. When Damien slipped in behind her, his chest was a furnace. He wrapped a bare arm around her waist and pulled her back into his chest.

“Relax,” he said, pressing a kiss to the curve of her neck. “Just sleep, Sari.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Have you never shared a bed before?”

“Only with my sister.”

“Hmmm.” His hum held a satisfied note as his chest rose and fell in a deep breath. “Sleep. And dream of me.”

It should have been impossible, but she did.

They were in the field where he first kissed her, but the sun wasn’t shining as it had been. The moon was full and the hills rose in black waves around them as the night wind rustled the barley.

He stood alone in the center of the field, staring down at his outstretched hands.

She stood in front of him, but he did not see her.

“What do you see?”

“Blood.” He spoke and the wind ceased. “So much blood.”

She curled her long fingers around his and lifted his hands to her mouth.

“No.” He tried to pull away, but she held on. “Don’t.”

She kissed them, and he fell to his knees. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his head to her belly.

“Love me.” His voice was no plea. He commanded, even from his knees. “Love me,
milá
.”

“I do.”

※

She woke. The night was pitch-black save for the glowing coals in the hearth, but Sari felt no cold. Damien rested at her back, breathing deeply, his arms still tight around her.

Love me.

I do.

Oh, she did. So deeply it scared her. For the first time, Sari lowered her shields and let the unguarded thoughts of Damien’s soul flow over hers. She reveled in the way his voice caressed her mind. It was nonsense, a tumble of impressions and words in the old language. Feelings more than thoughts.

Happy. Peace. Warmth. Love.

So much love.

Reshon
.

She turned in his arms and lifted her mouth to his, softly kissing his unguarded lips until his eyes blinked open.

“Sari?”

“Shhhh.”

She kept kissing him, whispering kisses that trailed over his face. His soft lips. His rough jaw. Her fingers followed her lips, tracing the hard planes and arching brows. He said nothing, watching her cautiously until he gave in and closed his eyes, surrendering to her attentions. His chest rose and his hand skimmed down her side, sweeping along the curve of her breast and over her hip until he reached her thigh. He pulled up her chemise under the woolen blankets and stroked the soft skin behind her knee before he pulled up her thigh and hooked it over his hips.

Bare. He wore nothing against his skin. Sari could feel the heat of his body and the heavy weight of his erection pressing against her. With a soft groan, she put her mouth at his neck and sucked, tasting the salt of his skin where he was warmest. His hand gripped her thigh when she used her teeth. She licked down his neck and across his collarbone, her tongue tracing the ink on his skin. She could feel his magic rising and reaching out.

She was not his mate. Not yet.

But she was his reshon.

She should have told him, but her mouth was doing other things. More essential things. She wanted to know every inch of his skin. A strange, feral possession rose in her when she remembered her dream. She reached for the hand that wasn’t gripping her thigh, the hand that lay against her cheek, the rough pads of his fingers resting lightly, almost delicately, against her flushed cheek.

He tried to pull away, but she brought that hand to her lips and touched the knuckles with her mouth.

“I love your hands,” she whispered when he stiffened. “I do.”

It broke whatever resistance had been holding him back. Damien tilted her chin up and crushed her mouth to his, holding her almost painfully against his chest. He stole her breath, then stole it again when he bit teasing nips along her chin. Sari wriggled against him until he cooperated and tugged the chemise up and over her head so she was naked against him.

The shivering overtook her, and Sari trembled against his chest, but Damien took her mouth again and drank her in. As he did, a wave of deepest peace settled over her. It was as if her soul rose up, settled against his, and came to rest.

“Sari,” he whispered her name over and over again. “Sari…”

“Yes.” She turned her head to the side and let him put his mouth where he was wont.

Her neck.

“
Milá
, do you like this?”

Her breasts.

“Tell me.”

His whispering mouth at the crease of her elbow. Her wrist.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Everything.” She sighed out and pressed her hips to his. “I want everything.”

She was swollen and aching and wet. Her body was like a raw nerve, and she felt every inch as he turned her to her back and settled between her legs.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Her eyes rose and locked with his as he eased inside. Her mouth fell open in a soft gasp of pleasure at the aching fullness. His strength and control. He braced his arms on either side of her and lowered his body, the solid weight pressing her into the bed.

“Am I dreaming?” he whispered against her mouth. “I think I am.”

“We both are.” She kissed him and lifted her knees to hold his hips. “Love me.”

“I do.” He reached back, wrapping her legs around his waist with a determined glint in his eye. “Sari, you feel…” He groaned when she lifted her hips.

“Good?” she asked with a smile.

“Mine.” He thrust once, then drew back and thrust harder as she gasped. “You feel like you’re
mine
.”

※

Morning light teased her eyelids and she could hear someone moving around the room. A blaze of crackling heat when peat was added to the coals. A low murmur of voices at the door.

“Sari,” he whispered and brushed a finger over her cheek.

“Hmmm.” She sighed and rolled over, enjoying the decadent slide of her bare skin against sheets that smelled of Damien. “Come back to bed.”

She hoped he wasn’t shy about gossip. There would be more than one tongue wagging in the village, but Sari didn’t care. She never had, and it would surprise her if Damien did. He certainly hadn’t been shy in the dead of night. A secret smile tugged the corner of her lips.

“
Milá
, I can’t.”

His voice didn’t carry the lazy timbre of a man well satisfied. And Damien had been very well satisfied.

Sari sat up and rubbed her eyes, pulling the blankets over her shoulders in the chilly room. Damien was already dressed.

“What’s wrong?”

He sat on the edge of the bed and put a letter on her lap.

“What is this?” Sari didn’t touch it. Something about that letter made her skin crawl.

“Henry slipped it under the door this morning. It arrived yesterday from Aberdeen. I didn’t see it before I went to the human village with Einar.”

“What is it, Damien?”

He trailed a rough finger down her neck and over her shoulder. “I am called to Edinburgh.”

The tight angry thing that had relaxed in her chest when he arrived safe the night before tightened again. “Why?”

He gave her a patient look. “To hunt, of course.”

“They have scribes in Edinburgh. More in Aberdeen.”

Damien walked to the corner and lifted a heavy woolen blanket from the oak chest sitting like a quiet sentinel in the austere room. The chest was solid and scarred. It bore no outward decoration except a worn crest. A blood-red shield with a dragon curled in front of it and words in the Old Language:
Ours is the blood.

Damien opened it and took out a smaller box, this one wrapped in worn leather.

“Why do they need you?”

“Because I have skills they do not.”

“Every scribe is taught to hunt Grigori.”

He opened the box and withdrew a black-handled blade. It was barely over a foot long and made of a type of metal she had never seen before. Sari felt the magic pulsing off it and she shivered. “What is that?”

Damien secured the long knife in a black scabbard before he strapped it to his waist. “It is a heaven-forged blade.”

The cry caught in her throat. There was only one reason that Damien would carry a heaven-forged weapon.

“You’re hunting an angel.”

“Yes.”

No no no no no. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t.
This is what the warriors do
, an ancient voice whispered inside. This was their mission. If one of the Fallen was terrorizing Scotland, only a warrior with a heaven-forged blade could kill it. Whether that warrior would survive the effort was a moot point. It had to be done.

“How long?”