“Whatever we do, we’ll do it together,” she said, reaching out to cover one of Bess’s cold hands with her own. Bess gave her a wan smile and took a deep swallow of her port. She coughed, clearly unused to a wine that was meant to be savored in small doses.
“You are both welcome here as long as it takes for us to ride out these beginning trials,” Dendri said.
He couldn’t have known how much it meant to Yasra that he was making Bess feel included and important, but surely he had not been planning on being saddled with two unexpected women in his life? He lived the life of a bachelor. He was no doubt used to the freedoms such a life afforded. Just because he had shown some interest in a physical relationship with Yasra did not mean he intended for it to last for any length of time. It did not mean there was a promise of exclusivity.
And there was the sticking point. Yasra was not the type of woman to give herself casually to any man that paid her attention. True, not many had paid attention to her in the first place, but still. She flushed when she thought of the liberties she had allowed him already. He certainly wouldn’t have known that by her behavior to date. She had practically stripped and jumped into bed with him from the moment she had met him. Their sex majic had been so powerful, so unlike anything she had ever experienced. The real life sexual play had been just as extraordinary. She flushed warmly from head to toe as she thought of the way he had brought her to orgasm so easily. She glanced his way and could swear the smile he shot her was positively wolfish. Did he know what she was thinking? Of course he did! He was Aspano!
A flush tinged her cheeks and she looked away from him. She couldn’t look at his handsome visage for too long without feeling overwhelmed.
“It’s been a long day,” Dendri said then, setting aside his empty glass. It was quickly swept away by the footman, the servant moving like a barely seen ghost. “Perhaps it would be best for all of us to head to bed. Yasra, you have expended a great deal of majic for a beginner. You must be tired.”
She hadn’t realized she was until he said as much. But she was concerned that he would try to come to her bed that night. She didn’t think she was ready for that.
“You’re right. Come Bess,” she said, reaching to yank her friend to her feet by a hand. “We shall sleep together tonight. Then I won’t feel so alone in this big house.”
Bess dropped her glass on a table as she was swept past it. Yasra dared a look at Dendri, only to find his eyes shining with amusement. She turned her attention away and drew Bess at a clip down the halls.
“Yas! Slow down!” Bess cried.
Yasra immediately slowed her pace as they neared the bedroom she was staying in. She hurried Bess in and shut the door. Leaning back against it once it was shut, Yasra exhaled a relieved sigh.
“What’s wrong with you?” Bess asked, honestly perplexed by her friend’s behavior.
Yasra thought for a moment about keeping everything to herself, but it was only a moment. Then suddenly she was rushing to tell Bess everything that had happened once they had separated company earlier that day.
Bess giggled. “Oh Yas, you goose! There’s nothing wrong with a man finding you attractive! In fact, I think it is well overdue.”
Yasra bustled across the room and went to her satchel. She began to hunt for her nightgown, refusing to meet Bess’s eyes.
“You’re supposed to advise me to be cautious,” Yasra said with a frown. “You’re supposed to tell me how unwise it would be for me to get involved with a man I know almost nothing about!”
“Well then you are going to need to tell a different friend, for I am not about to do so. Not a physical involvement. However, I will warn you not to invest anything in him emotionally.”
“Oh Bess, how can I get emotional with him? I don’t even know him!”
“I may not be interested in things a man like Dendri Adiron has to offer, but I am smart enough to know it would be easy for an inexperienced girl to get swept away by a man of that kind of skill and power. Still, you aren’t exactly from different worlds. You were raised among people of power and privilege. It’s only recent years where you’ve been force to slum it with the likes of me.”
“Bess! The years I’ve spent with you are worth ten times the ones I spent growing up in my parents’ house!”
“Knowing your parents as I do,” Bess said quietly, “I can believe that.”
“Well, it’s true. You mean more to me than anyone else on this planet.”
“Thank you for saying so. Thank you for believing that.” Bess reached to hug her and then moved to the adjoining room to retrieve her own nightdress. Yasra was used to sleeping on the couch or in bed with Bess. It had been a long time since she’d had a large bed like the four-posted bed to sleep in by herself. She was glad she had invited Bess into bed for the night.
Bess returned with her nightgown and both women changed.
“Yas, are you scared?” Bess asked as she climbed into bed beside her.
“Terrified,” Yasra confessed. “I never thought this would happen. I still think it all must be some kind of terrible mistake or joke being played on me.”
“Don’t think like that. There’s no denying the power you have. I’ve seen it myself.”
“I guess. Oh! Bicky! I forgot all about Bicky!”
“We’ll ask Dendri if we can bring him here tomorrow.”
“Oh I couldn’t do that. What if he doesn’t like cats?”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t get involved with him! What would you do with a man that doesn’t like pus—“
“Bess!”
Bess snickered. “Men who don’t like cats have something inherently wrong with them.”
“I tend to agree. But we’re already asking a great deal of him. We’ll just have to make the trip to feed Bicky every couple of days.”
“I say you should at least ask him.”
“I won’t ask him. I won’t ask him for anything that will make me owe him any favors. It’s bad enough he has us staying here living off of his good graces.”
“Nonsense. He wants us here. He said so several times.”
“The question is…why? Just because we are Gestalt? That’s no reason for him to suddenly have to change his entire lifestyle.”
“Who says he’s changing his lifestyle? We’re just guests! People have guests all of the time.”
“Come on Bess, you don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“Well, maybe not,” Bess conceded, “but it’s his life. He should get to decide what he wants to do with it.”
“I suppose.”
“Now go to sleep,” Bess said, blowing out the lamp on her side of the bed.
“Sleep?” Yasra wailed. “How am I supposed to go to sleep when so much has happened?”
“Try. Blow out the lamp and try to think peaceful thoughts.”
Yasra reached over and turned down the lamp. Then she lay in the darkness, her mind churning and churning. She wondered what tomorrow would bring. She wondered what Dendri was doing. She wondered if he was thinking about her.
She closed her eyes and eventually sleep claimed her.
Chapter Seven
Dendri awoke to autumn sunlight spilling across his bed. He could feel that it had grown colder overnight and the maid had yet to start a fire in his room. It didn’t surprise him that he was up so early. He had barely slept at all last night, his thoughts swirling with visions of a raven-haired beauty who was sleeping just down the hall, a chaperone installed in her bed.
He chuckled at the thought. He had to admit he had come on a bit strong yesterday. Although it had not been he who had initiated the sex majic that had so swept away the boundaries between them. But sex majic and real sex were clearly two different things for her. What she didn’t realize was that they really weren’t all that different. In this case it had been brought on by her unrealized desires for him and the first connection of their Gestalt powers. But something could not be built out of nothing, and sex majic was alw
ays strongest when it was a two-way street.
The funny thing was, he hadn’t even realized he’d noticed her. Not at the moment it happened. Now that he thought back on it, he remembered watching her as she crossed the field, remembered how pretty she had looked in her dress, her long hair in a braid that seemed more like an afterthought with its flyaway strands. Then she had reached him and she had smelled of the wild out of doors. Like a wildflower meadow baked in the sun. The empire waist of her dress had flattered her ripe breasts and strong shoulders. She was not a lady of elegance or snobbish refinement. There had been something far earthier about her.
When he had touched her he had barely had a moment to register the warmth of her skin, left exposed by the short sleeves of her dress. Then, in an instant, he had been naked with her in a dream.
The dream had been so powerful that he had found himself in the middle of a field in front of an endless amount of gawking onlookers with an erection. He was not embarrassed by it. Quite the opposite. But he would have rather have been alone with her in that instant.
Then he had been alone with her mere hours later, and he had actually had her naked, had actually heard her throaty, sexy cries as she had come for him…but had let her escape him. He had known that it was better to give her time than to push her into something she wasn't quite ready for.
It wasn’t going to be easy to keep his distance and keep her close all at the same time. She was far too compelling a creature. It made him laugh at himself. He was not a man prone to rolling around with his baser nature like a puppy in the grass, tumbling off of its feet in its eagerness to run. But he felt just as carefree when it came to his desire for Yasra. It was strange to think he had not even known her name before yesterday, and yet now he could think of nothing else.
He sat up and threw back his covers, letting the cold of the room seep into his skin, trying to let it cool his runaway ardor. He would taste of her again today. He had made up his mind to do so even before his feet hit the cold marble flooring. He went into the bathroom and began his morning routine. He shaved and thought about Yasra. He dressed and thought about Yasra. By the time he was walking down to break his fast he was practically running in the hopes that she would be down eating breakfast already, although it was unlikely given the early hour.
He entered the solarium where he had breakfast every morning and found it empty of everyone. He sat down and Tudman, his butler, walked into the room.
“My lord! I had not realized you were up already!” he declared. “I will have cook send up breakfast right away!”
“There’s no rush. I’m early,” he said soothingly. “Has the paper arrived?”
“I shall have Joseph bring it right away,” he said, referring to the young footman.
“Thank you. Umm…have you seen either of our guests yet?”
“Felli just built up the fire in their room, my lord. According to her they were sound asleep.”
“Oh.” Dendri knew he sounded disappointed, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Will the young ladies be staying long, my lord?” Tudman asked.
“Indefinitely,” Dendri said. “See to it their every need is met. They are both guests of honor in this house. Have the new guards arrived?”
“Just minutes ago. Would you like to speak to them, my lord?”
“Yes. Send them in to me.”
“Of course. I will see to it immediately.” With that, Tudman left the room.
It was only minutes until the four new guardsmen arrived. They were higher level majii of the Padoni house of majic. They were in tune with all things having to do with nature, so if anyone so much as stepped on the grass around the main house they would know about it. They could have the very trees and ivy come alive and protect the walls, or grow bramble and thorns at the base of all the walls on the inside so that anyone who scaled the wall would find themselves landing in a patch of the stuff.
“You gentlemen know my wishes?” he asked after he had relayed his expectations to them. “No one is to have access to this estate who does not live or work here already. Familiarize yourself with the staff. Then familiarize yourself with every blade of grass or sprout on this property.”
“Yes my lord,” they all said earnestly. Then they were dismissed to their duties.
Paying high level Padoni like them would be expensive, but it would be worth it in the long run, he knew. He knew majji far too well to think it would just be business as usually around there. Nons too. Nons often followed majji’s lives obsessively, fascinated by the world of majic and those that moved high within its circles. He had gained a high level of notoriety among them and he now knew that notoriety was going to bite him in the ass. And it only promised to get worse now that he was going to be known as half of a Gestalt couple. All he could hope to do was shelter Yasra from the worst of it until she proved strong enough to cope with it on her own. And she would be a force to be reckoned with one day, of that he had no doubt. Necromay majji could kill with a thought once they reached a certain level. No one wanted to mess with a Necromay majji. There were laws of course. Necromay could not kill indiscriminately without falling under the justice of the majji’s councils, but in self-defense…no. No one wanted to mess with a Necromay majji.
A footman brought him his paper on a silver serving tray. It had been ironed to dry the ink and turned crisply in his hands. And there, the boldest headline on the first page was:
Gestalt couple! The first Gestalt pairing in nearly a hundred years comes on the scene at local school testing!
The article went on to name names and even the towns in which they lived.
“Damn,” he muttered.
“Having a bad morning already?”
Dendri looked up and into the brightly scrubbed face of his houseguest, her long black hair hidden away in a swept up style of braids and twists. Bess stood beside her and the women were holding hands.
“Just reading the news,” he said, carefully folding the paper so the headline remained hidden from her.
“Nothing too terrible I hope,” she said as she took a seat to his immediate right. Bess sat to her right, their hands still joined. Finally, Yasra let go of her friend’s hand and poured herself a cup of coffee from the silver pot in the center of the table. Dendri wondered a moment if he’d been missing something between the women, but a quick scan of both women told him they were just friends. Bess, however, might have a little bit of a crush on Yasra that Yas didn’t notice or know about. However, that was Bess’s business and he saw no reason to tattle on her. If she was keeping her feelings for her friend under wrap then she obviously had good reason. The main reason, he suspected, was that Bess knew Yasra was heterosexual.
Good. He would have hated to come between an already existing love relationship. He hadn’t even taken the time to figure out if Yasra had any men in her life. He had simply swooped in and commandeered her. It had been too easy to get caught up in the moment. Now in the light of a new day he had to begin to take new things into consideration. He would try and be more measured in his dealings with Yasra. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her away. He was intruding on her life and pushing her around as it was. He didn’t want her to run away from the only one who could protect her.
And he would protect her. To the very best of his ability. She was a very special, and in some ways, very fragile, creature. Still, she had her strengths and he knew once she got her footing she would be just fine.
The footmen came in and began to serve breakfast. Yasra piled food on her plate and dug into it like a stevedore. He smiled. Using majic burned resources. It came out in ways like making one very hungry.
“We were wondering if we could bring Bicky here,” Bess chirped up.
Yasra choked on her eggs and shot a scathing look at Bess.
“Who is Bicky?” Dendri asked. It was so damn hard not to smile as Yasra kicked her friend under the table. He pretended not to notice.
“Our cat,” Bess sai
d. “Do you like pussy…cats?”
Bess got another kick under the table.
“I adore them. Of course you may bring…him? Her?”
“Her,” Yasra spoke up at last.
“I think we could use a pet around here. It gets lonely clattering around here by myself.”
Yasra shot a look at the footman and Tudman who was crossing through the room just then. Then she cast a raised brow at him.
“All by yourself?”
“It’s been a while since Tudman curled up in my lap,” Dendri said with amusement.
Tudman harrumphed, possibly as a way of diverting a laugh since he was not known for his shows of joviality. It would be beneath his dignity. Bess giggled and Yasra smiled. He decided in that moment that he would make her smile often. It did glorious things to her beautiful face.
“Don’t worry Yasra. I am as devoted to my staff as they are to me. Tudman keeps things orderly and proper, but I try and make myself approachable to any of the nons that surround me.”
“I didn’t mean…that is to say, I’m not judging you.”
“Of course you are. We all of us judge everyone we meet. It’s how we are able to sketch someone’s character. It’s how we know whether or not to trust someone or to find them likeable or to know if they are the sort of person we would like to be seen around. It is wise to judge everyone you come across. Just be careful not to take someone at face value. I cannot tell you how many people I have dealt with that had all the outward appearance of goodness and virtue, yet beneath the surface they were a cesspool of sin and deceit.”
“I cannot decide if I should feel sorry for you or feel relieved for you,” Yasra said.
“Why would you feel sorry for me?”
“Because you can see the worst thing about everyone the moment you meet them, and then you must judge whether to make friends with them in spite of it. That must be a terrible way of meeting new people.”