Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)
Betrayer: Chapter 16

One day of riding with Gabriel consisted of two quick breaks and no conversation. As the sun lumbers behind the trees, we stop and make camp. Rather, the men set up the tents, and the women prepare food over open fires. When I try to help, Kassandra motions me away, stating she has everything under control.

I perch on a rock near the fire, helplessly watching as everyone around me works.

Like Kassandra, the women who labor with her have the same red circles on their surcoats. Proof, they’re outsiders too.

Why? What makes them different?

Inviting smells taunt the emptiness gnawing at my stomach, and a lazy breeze plays with my hair as I settle my palms against my thighs. The soldiers continue raising their tents and partially unpacking the wagons. Everyone works together. Even Luc.

I study his features, noting his sad eyes, his firm jaw. Luc embodies strength and leadership as he issues orders to his men. They obey without question.

He doesn’t resemble his uncle. If he did, I couldn’t abide to look at him.

As the soldiers finish, the cooks serve them dinner in terracotta bowls.

Kassandra brings me some of the soup and smiles as she speaks. “I hope you enjoy.”

“Thank you.” I blow on the food and take a bite. The rich flavors in the venison warm my tongue and remind me of home. “It’s delicious.”

Gabriel sits near me and eats in silence. Not that I’m surprised. The man seems incapable of offering small talk.

A group of six men join us, including Luc. Leah joins us too.

I stare at the other men, noting their size, their strength beneath their surcoats. The hissing serpents etched into their coat of arms bleed into my mind, sparking the memories I locked away. Those moments when I hid in cowardly silence. What my eyes couldn’t see, my ears could. What my hands couldn’t touch, my heart felt.

Look away, Sol.

I pin my focus on the ground and exhale the nightmare away. Down, down, down the pain goes. Forever hidden. Forever burning a flame inside me.

At least, for now.

A blond-haired man with friendly brown eyes and a long scar on the left side of his face, addresses me. “Is your name really Sol?”

“It is.”

He takes a quick bite of food and studies me in the firelight. “Is that a common name for a Kyanite?”

“No.” I offer a half shrug. “But my father liked it.”

“You can’t say anything,” a young white-haired warrior with striking, pale blue eyes and illegible tattoos etched beneath them says, “your mother named you Praxis.”

Surprise ripples through me as I take in the white-haired man for a second time. He’s from the Carnelian tribe, a clan with powerful water magic. They all have white hair like his, and they have tattoos beneath their eyes.

I have heard of the ties between the Bloodstone and Carnelian, but this is the first time I have seen them sitting side-by-side.

Praxis steals the wheat bread clutched in the man’s hand. “And yours didn’t name you at all. The Seer did.”

“Hero.” Luc stands and jerks his hand to the left. “Let’s check on the horses.”

Hero? Truly? Was the Seer sloshed when she named him?

“Yes, Hero. Check the horses,” Praxis says with a grin.

The Carnelian shrugs and follows Luc to the horses corralled nearby.

Kassandra’s grandmother ambles to where we sit. She mumbles as she shuffles along, her words incoherent until she stops in front of us.

“Hector. Hector,” she cries out as she raises her fists to the darkening sky.

Kassandra rushes from her place near a kettle and grabs her grandmother’s hand. “I told you, Grandmother. Hector isn’t here.”

“No.” The old lady bats Kassandra’s hand away. “The Seer promised me the rising sun.”

For a second time, Kassandra reaches for her grandmother, and the old lady bats her away.

Gabriel lifts his goblet and takes a long drink, as if the old woman’s rants don’t bother him. Praxis and the other men mirror him, sipping their wine and ignoring the woman.

“No!” She skirts around her granddaughter and swings her hand toward us. “Hector is the rising sun, and he will bring magic back.”

Apprehension settles like hot embers against my back. The Bloodstone must never practice magic again.

Kassandra speaks gently as she takes her grandmother’s hand. “Yes, the Seer promised you many things, and Olah shall fulfill them.”

Firelight weaves around the soldiers as they resume talking. Maybe they’re used to Kassandra’s grandmother.

I settle against the log and cast a sideways glance at Gabriel. If I’m going to win his approval, I must connect with him. Getting him to speak to me will be the first step.

“Do you believe her?” I rest my hands against my thighs.

He takes another drink of wine and settles the goblet against his thigh. “Do I believe what?”

“In the rising sun. Hector? Magic?”

Hues of red and orange dance across Gabriel’s face as he stares at the fire. “No.”

No emotions crossed his features when he spoke, and his gaze remained pinned. Yet, I remember the words he uttered to Luc only a few days ago. Gabriel declared he was close to replaceing a stone. Surely, he meant a bloodstone. Their stone. There’s only one reason I can think of for replaceing their stone. He wants to cast magic, or he knows someone who wishes to.

“Do you not wish for it?” Even as I speak, I think of my kyanite necklace. Always cold against my skin. Always incapable of heightening anything.

“I don’t waste my thoughts on things I’m incapable of changing or doing,” he says in a plain voice.

I continue, my tone light, friendly. “I am from a tribe that has great magic, but I’m unable to create a single spell.”

His stare flickers over me for several beats. “You are a Kyanite, yet the gods marked your body with a serpent.”

My breath stutters at the truth behind his statement. It’s true. The inside of my right wrist bears the brand of a serpent, the same kind these Bloodstone warriors wear, etched into their weapon belts, their bracers, and their surcoats.

Unconsciously, my fingers trace the mark. It looks just like theirs. It has the same details, the same markings. The same hissing serpent with its faint detail of scales.

“I don’t know why the high gods gave me this,” I say in a raw voice.

“They need no reason. They cursed you by suppressing your magic and branding you with the mark of the people you hate.” No bitterness fringes his words, yet they bear the weight of a hundred bricks.

“I don’t hate anyone.” Somehow, I speak without allowing my flame to spark in my eyes.

Gabriel rises and sets his goblet on a log. “Come. You will share my tent tonight.”

Share his tent?

Like the first night, or does he mean to make me his wife in more than name?

Warmth nestles in my belly. It shouldn’t be there.

Maybe it has simply been too long. I miss intimacy, stolen moments, glances, kissing.

Is it wrong to want that with Gabriel?

The longer he rode behind me earlier, the more I thought about those things. After all, he wasn’t speaking. It gave me far too long to think, to feel, to wonder why my stomach didn’t tighten or my skin crawl at his nearness.

I even thought about how perfectly I sat in front of him. His chin brushed against my hair. His arms and thighs cradled me.

The men exchange knowing looks before pretending to eat instead of watching as I stand, dust off my surcoat, and follow Gabriel.

The moment we enter the same tent as the night before, he pours a goblet of wine. “I haven’t changed my mind about not bedding you.” He takes a drink and continues. “But it’s important people think we are intimate.”

“Why?” It’s a fair question and one I need to know so I may understand him better. “I am a Kyanite. Why should your people care if you bed me or not?”

“Precisely. You’re a Kyanite, and my people will never accept you if they don’t think I care about you.”

“Do you want them to accept me?”

“Yes, or they will condemn you.” He taps his thumb against the edge of his goblet. “Trust me, you never want the Bloodstone people to condemn you.”

Unease prickles against my skin. “What does condemnation look like?”

“Death,” he says, his word choice far too blunt.

“That is rather harsh.”

“Is it?” He runs a hand across his forehead as if attempting to ease the tension.

“I have no wish to be your enemy, or your people’s enemy.” At least, not yet. When I’m finished here, I’ll be all their enemies.

“Good. Then, we’ll let them believe you and I are intimate.”

“You seek the pretense.” I untie the belt cinched around my waist and lay it over the table. “Why not enjoy the benefit of married life?” I have never met a man like him. All the ones that came to Father’s brothel paid a lot of coin to be there. They all wanted the same thing, a woman in their bed. Why doesn’t Gabriel want that?

“Because I don’t trust you.”

Then, he might reject me, cast me out, the way Kyanite men do when they no longer want their wives. Once a Kyanite woman is rejected, she lives apart from her husband. She’s never allowed to wed again. Nor is she allowed to see her children. Her husband is free to remarry.

My throat clenches. If Gabriel rejects me, I’ll have no way to replace Roland.

I unlace my surcoat and allow it to slip down my body, leaving only the chemise. “You would rather deny yourself a night of pleasure?”

He takes a long drink before answering. “I prefer not to wake to a dagger in my chest.”

If I met him under different circumstances, I might have admired his ability to resist me. As it is, his unrelenting rejection chafes my pride. And it strikes fear into my chest. Real fear. The kind capable of ruining everything I have worked for.

Men bed women they desire. They reject women they don’t. At least, that’s what I have witnessed over the summers.

His words echo in my ears. “I prefer not to wake to a dagger in my chest.”

“Do you think me capable of murder?” I sit at the end of the bed and gaze up at him.

A slight smile touches his lips. “I would prefer to not replace out.”

I bring back the covers and lie on the left side of the mattress. “If I wanted to murder you, I could do so while you sleep next to me.”

“True.” He empties his goblet and sets it on the table. “But at least you wouldn’t deceive me after I had you.”

The mattress moves beneath me as I roll to my side. “You think I’m capable of deception and murder? I’m not sure if I should feel insulted or flattered.”

The mattress dips as he sits on the opposite end of the bed. “Feel nothing.”

“Is that what you do?” Those words slip out before I consider them.

His mouth tightens a fraction as he runs his hands through his black hair again.

My pledge to myself after he refused to consummate our marriage floods my ears. Flaming his anger will not win his devotion.

“Gabriel.” I remember the way the women in the brothel spoke to their patrons and adopt that silky voice. “You don’t have to trust me, like me, or believe in me to obtain pleasure. Let me ease your frustration.” Boldly, I draw closer, allowing my breasts to brush his arm. “At least give me a chance to try to please you.”

It always worked for them. Surely, it will work on Gabriel.

“Why? You are a Kyanite, yet you want me to think you desire my touch?”

“I have needs. The same needs you have. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you are.”

If I closed my eyes, I would no longer see his coat of arms, and I would just be a woman enjoying a stolen moment.

He holds his thumb against the pulse at the base of my throat. “You’re lying.”

“I am not.” Thank the sky above. The three words come out even and not in a squeak.

Those silver-blue eyes slide over me as he presses in deeper. “You don’t desire me.”

“What you feel is merely my lack of experience. I have never been with a man.”

It’s true. I have never gone farther than I did with Malachi. He was the first man I shared moments with and the last. After I left, I immersed myself in my training. There wasn’t time for anything else.

“Never?” Gabriel asks, as if he doesn’t believe me.

“Yes. Never.”

A smirk pulls at the upper corner of his mouth. “If you say so.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“You offered yourself to me when we first met.”

Warmth scours my skin at the memory. It takes everything in me to not run my fingers across my cheeks and wipe away everything that happened that day.

“I grew up in a brothel.”

His brow rises. “What?”

I look away, locking my gaze to the far end of the tent. “My father owned a brothel.”

“And did you…” The moment his words fade away, more heat stabs my skin, more embarrassment.

“You think I am a loose woman?”

“Does it matter what I think?” he asks in a flat, emotionless voice. Yet, I wonder if he’s hiding his true thoughts. After all, he was unable to finish his question.

“I simply lived there. I didn’t work there.”

Maybe telling him the truth about the brothel is worse. Now, he probably thinks even less of me.

No. Please. No.

He cannot think ill of me.

Boldly, I grab his hand and bring it to the base of my throat again. “What you feel is the pulse of a Kyanite woman who is lying in bed next to her Bloodstone husband, and she’s scared because she doesn’t know what kind of man you are. Will you give her pleasure, or will you simply take from her?” It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. I do wonder what kind of man he is.

Instead of pulling away, he pushes his fingers against my throat enough to feel the throbbing against his fingertips. “Is that what you fear? That I would think only of myself?”

“Yes,” I whisper, my words low, hoarse.

“If I bedded you, I would pleasure you until sunrise.” He frees me and shifts to his back. “But I will not.”

Tightness squeezes around my chest as I rise to sitting, pull my knees forward, and wrap my arms around them. “You don’t desire me?”

The sky above!

I’m like those Kyanite women rejected by their husband’s.

He’ll throw me from this tent.

“This has nothing to do with desire.”

I tighten my grip. “Is it because I’m Kyanite?”

The moment he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, I frown at him.

“Will you tell me?” I ask, needing to understand his refusal to consummate our marriage.

He rotates to his side, facing away from me. “Go to sleep.”

I shift closer to him, leaving only a breath between us and bring my blanket to my shoulders. “Is it because I have black hair? You favor blondes. If I was blonde, you wouldn’t resist me.” There’s something too vulnerable in my words. Too revealing in my need to connect with him.

If I was Katya, he would have already bedded me.

“I prefer black hair,” he says, his voice so low it takes a moment to understand him. “Like yours.”

Unconsciously, my fingers lift to my hair. Like yours.

“Stop touching your hair and go to sleep,” he says in a knowing tone.

I blink and drop my hand. “I wasn’t.”

“I’d believe you more if you lied less.” Even though he speaks evenly, threads of bitterness edge his words.

Guilt constricts my throat as I shift away from him, lying flat to stare up at the ceiling. He’s right.

But I don’t know how to be honest and hide my secrets. Not that I needed to hide the truth about touching my hair. I just didn’t want him to know I cared what he thought.

Like yours.

I smile into the darkness and allow my eyes to drift shut.

Maybe there’s hope after all.