Queen of dust, p.17
Queen of Dust, page 17
He waited a moment, two, and then nodded, heading back to the vendor’s stand.
When Mara settled against the rough wall, Iola’s voice teased out of the alley.
“Mara. Mara Leanor. Yes, I looked you up. Grew up on Støsh. No wonder you stayed away so long.”
The other redhead had a talent for poking Mara right where she’d flinch hardest. “I stayed away because I couldn’t afford to make it back.”
“But you’ve got the means now. And I’d say, by the way you’ve got Liam Pent wrapped around your finger, you’ve got plenty of them.”
Mara’s shoulders threatened to rise and she forced them back down, leaning one into the wall as she turned to find Iola in the dim light of the alley. “That’s not Liam Pent.”
“I know. But if you’re doing all that under his nose, you must be confident in your ability to soothe the wound.”
“It’s not—What do you want, Iola?”
Iola clasped her hands and held them low. “This is a serendipitous development. It turns out you have access I need.”
“If I want to help you.”
Iola’s eyes were dark in the shadows, solid and set. “You want to. You want to blow through this city, decimate the Dern before they can take anything else from us. I see it in your face like looking in a mirror.” She gestured to Calvy, who was making his way back over to them, a fresh rice cake in his hand. “I don’t see how you can stand it—he’s pretty, sure enough, but underneath he’s just another Dern. Another oppressor.”
Heart racing at Calvy’s approach, Mara rushed Iola to her point. “Were you here to ask for my help or insult me? You’ll need to pick one and forget the other.”
“Meet me tomorrow morning, by the docks. If you can pull yourself away from your Dern.” Iola sank back into the shadows.
“Let’s try this again,” Calvy said, and Mara jumped. The rice cake he pressed into her hand was hot and sweet and he looked at her expectantly. Waiting for her to say something.
What’s good and here and now.
Only her thoughts whirred, spun up by Iola as they always were.
What did she believe? What did she want?
She wasn’t ready to let go yet, of any possibility Balti offered. And maybe this was a way for her to finish what she’d started here, without waiting for Liam. He’d excluded himself from the rest of the experience anyway. She wanted to keep the planet to herself. Let Balti be hers.
“I want to head back,” she said, recovering herself. “I’ve got plans in the morning. I should sleep.”
“What plans?” Calvy asked.
“I’m sure Harper will give you the full report.”
That made him laugh again—seeing Shef had made him light as air. His burden was almost lifted. His penance nearly complete. It was better for both of them, to start now, getting back on their own paths.
Mara risked a glance into the alley. She could sense that Iola was still close by, listening.
“I have something I need to do,” Mara said.
Chapter Twenty-One
Harper rapped on the door. Dawn lit the sky outside Mara’s window. Calvy’s shift was over.
“Be right there—” Calvy nipped the side of her cunt and Mara cut herself off with a yelp. “A few more minutes,” she called instead.
He stopped to grin up at her.
She let her head fall back. “I’ve got places to be, you know.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“I want you to get on with it.”
“No patience whatsoever,” he lamented. “And I know you hate to be told you’re wrong,” he stroked a finger over the top of her thighs, ruffling the red curls, calling her nerves to attention, “but I maintain that this is no cunt. This is a pussy—you want to be pet and fondled and caressed.”
“Do I,” she attempted to drone but he finally brought his mouth down on her and the words were overtaken by her moan. Further argument would just interrupt the tight pressure of his sucking, and that would be a tragedy. He finished her off a few minutes later and she lay trembling and unfocused.
“You do,” he said, standing up, trying to claim the last word. Mara let him, for once, her mind hazy and slow. She propped herself on her elbows and looked him over. His hands flexed at his sides and she imagined what would happen next, under different circumstances. How he’d take her behind the knees and pull her to the edge of the bed, sink himself into her—but things weren’t different. And if she wanted him to do that she’d have to ask.
“Anything else, Ms. Leanor?” Calvy said, following a step behind her.
“Does it look like I need anything else?”
“I’m just trying to make sure I do my job well.”
Right. That’s all it was. The pleasure that still shuddered through her body in shock waves, squeezing her cunt tight. His job.
She forced a smile. “That work ethic, how lucky for me. But your shift is over. You need to get some rest. You’re meeting Shef this afternoon, remember?”
“How is it that you can give me orders even when I’m off duty?”
“I’m a powerful woman.”
He waited for her to dress and they left the room together, Harper stepping out of the doorway as they came through.
“Private,” Mara dismissed him. He offered a sideways salute before heading for his room.
Harper kept her stony silence all the way to the docks. She didn’t have to say anything. Mara knew what she thought.
The ocean was churning, crashing into the land in white arcs. Iola waited under a stone arch, her hood pulled up. From a distance, Mara secured her own. The spray beaded in the patterns shaved in Harper’s short hair.
Iola disappeared, moving deeper under the masonry that covered the path down to the docks. She was right to be more concerned about Harper noticing their interaction than Dannos. Harper noticed everything.
Mara stood at the stone wall for a minute before moving slowly towards the covered section where Iola had gone. She drifted successfully under the arch without Harper following and stopped. The path curved out of Harper’s sight but Mara stayed where she was, visible to Harper and Iola both.
The other redhead nodded at Harper, waiting in the distance. “Why seduce the Dern when your other bodyguard looks like that?”
“It wasn’t a choice.”
“She wasn’t interested?”
“What’s your point?” Mara wasn’t sure if meeting with Iola would be worth her time, but she knew she didn’t have long to find out.
“I looked you up.”
“Yes, and decided I’d be useful to you. That’s why we’re here.”
Iola tried to keep her tone casual, but Mara heard the effort it took to conceal her interest. “They say you’re the last Balti Temptress.” She couldn’t control the eager quake in her voice as she asked, “Who taught you? Could she teach others?”
A lump threatened to close Mara’s throat but she managed to answer. “She’s dead.”
Iola dipped her head down to avoid a spray of seawater that scattered through the stone opening in front of them. “So they’re right. You are the last.” She lifted her chin. “And you waste it on a Dern grunt. If you are inclined to slop a Balti Kiss on the enemy, why not one with more sway? The city could be under our control already.”
Wind pushed Mara’s hood across her face and she took it off. Droplets in the air stung her skin like a cold rain. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s not how it works at all. It’s power in the moment. Not absolute. Is that what you think I can do for you? Because it isn’t happening.”
“Maybe you didn’t learn it right.”
“I assure you I did.”
“And yet you waste your training on—”
“I waste nothing. Is that what it feels like to you—when you seek a moment of pleasure? A waste?”
If Harper hadn’t been there, Mara was sure Iola would have forced herself forward. “It feels like I could be doing so much more. If only I’d had the chance to learn. And that is a waste, a waste for all of us.”
“So dedicate yourself to it now. Practice the mindset.”
“The mindset?” Iola balked.
“That’s what I was taught—the truest pleasure comes from within. Is it not the same on the moon?”
“No. Everything was static there. I think they forgot—why we needed the philosophy of temperament. And here—when we returned—the Dern have tried to stamp out every trace of our culture. They pave our streets and cut us off from what’s rightfully ours. They took our history and they crumbled it to dust.” The rant brought Iola back to the point. “We need you to help us make some noise. Let the queen know there is support here, that we’re readying for her return.”
“I told you I don’t believe in that.”
“But you’re here. You believe in Balti?”
Mara nodded.
“And there’s something you want. For helping us?”
Mara nodded again.
“Then it doesn’t matter if you believe in the Resurrection. Even if she isn’t out there. We have to rally support for the fight anyway. Because we can do better than this. Forced to drain and wreck ourselves, our home, for their benefit.”
Every time Iola spoke with such passion Mara felt the fire of it catch in her blood, warming her from within. With or without Queen Balticourt, this was what Jimma had wanted for them both. Not the chance to return to Balti, but to return Balti to itself.
She was glad that dream was alive, that someone would work on it even after she was gone. For now, she’d do what she could.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing hard. Just make an appearance. At the Pent arms factory this afternoon.”
Well, so much for keeping the dream alive. Mara turned back to Harper. It was time to go. “I’m not spying on Liam.”
“Who said anything about spying? I haven’t asked you to steal anything. I don’t care what you do once you’re inside. Just get in.”
Mara glanced over her shoulder at Iola. “Why?”
“Call it a test. I need to know that you’ll do what I ask.”
Mara rubbed the roof of her mouth with the tip of her tongue.
“Unless it’s not worth it to you? You’ve only just returned, how much could this place mean to you?”
Mara should be used to the way it felt, when Iola used that particular jab. She should be over it by now. Instead Mara thought back to the full moons dinner—watching their traditions mocked, remembering how it had felt to defend them.
“It means everything to me.”
“Then you’ll do it—and I’ll owe you one. Proof of my own. A show of good faith. You can get in, can’t you?”
“I could try.”
How would she—why would she—
“Are you with us, Mara?”
The water splashed against the rock and she thought of the cliffs—This is you, Calvy had said. She was Balti—it was the only thing she knew. It was why she’d committed herself to Jimma’s training. Why she’d traveled through the Black.
She’d come here to prove it. And now she had her chance.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t try. Do it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
But how? Liam was in and out of the Black—he wouldn’t be able to arrange it. And what would she say to explain it anyway? That she’d developed a sudden interest in arms production?
Mara felt Harper’s silence like a weight all morning. At least she was free of that dark-eyed scrutiny in the afternoon. She stood in the bathroom, working up the courage to ask Dannos for help. He might know someone. Dannos always knew someone.
A look of doubt met her in the mirror. But she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She wasn’t doing anything that could cause harm. Yet she was letting Iola test her. And she wanted to pass.
Calvy leaned unsteadily against the doorframe.
“Hi,” he said, his eyes heavy. He stumbled into the room, planting his hands on her waist.
“You smell like you bathed in lighter fluid.”
“Military-grade vodka. Standard issue. Do you need me for anything?”
“I wouldn’t dare—the friction alone would set you aflame.”
“I’d burn for you,” he mumbled into her neck, hands still roaming, one reaching up under her dress.
Mara fumbled the earring she’d been trying to string through her ear and the end dangled at her neck. “I didn’t initiate this,” she warned him.
He wrestled with the clasp on his pants. “But you want it, we both do—that’s what matters. Not what Pent—”
“Cal.”
He stopped and Mara felt her heart beating unreliably in her throat.
“Kiss me, Mara.”
Whether it was a command or a plea, it didn’t matter.
“No. It doesn’t work like that.”
There were rules. There were boundaries they’d both agreed to. Mara stood stiff, waiting for Calvy to recover himself. She exhaled as he released her. He backed away until he hit the matching vanity behind her and sank onto the counter.
“Fuck,” he said, wiping a hand across his face. Mara slowed her breathing, picking up a powder brush, resuming her routine. An endless line of Calvys and Maras stretched behind them both, trapped, untouching, between the two mirrors.
Calvy fell back against the glass. He watched her for a moment, sitting still, his spread legs opening his pants wider. Then he reached down to free his cock from the layers, sliding his hand along the solid length of it.
“What are you doing?” Mara froze, the brush at her cheek.
“I can’t have you, but no one ordered me to keep my hands off myself.” He stroked himself up and down, tugging in a way that seemed both rough and tender. Intimate. Mara’s cheeks flushed pink, the brush in her hand forgotten, useless—now that her blush was natural.
“I can do this somewhere else. If it makes you uncomfortable. But it doesn’t. Does it, Mara?” She loved the way he talked, stringing fragments of understanding together like bulbs on a wire, lighting Mara up with each one. He leaned his head back and groaned, his cock swelling in his hand. “You like this. You like everything that feels good.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, but stood and made his way back to her. Mara drew a shaky line of kohl under one eye and he smiled a lazy, personal grin. “That first time I saw you. Your hand working deep between your legs. I felt the same way. Dumb with lust. Talking like an idiot because I liked it so much I didn’t know what to do. All I wanted was to pull those fingers out of you and into my mouth.”
Mara set her hands on the counter to steady herself. Drunk Calvy was not someone she was prepared to contend with. And he knew it. His words caressed her mind, drawing a response from her body the same as if his hands had made contact with her skin. Calvy stroked his cock again, a bead of white squeezing from the tip of its smooth head. He wiped it onto his thumb and brought his arm around her, offering the taste. She found his eyes in the mirror and opened her mouth, sucking his finger clean. Calvy groaned again and pressed his head into her shoulder. He drew his finger from her mouth and lifted the back of her dress, revealing the round curves of her ass. He took one cheek in his hand and gripped it firmly, all the while stroking his cock with the other.
He angled his hips and pushed the head of his cock gently against the seam between her cheeks, lifting his eyebrows in the mirror. Okay? That would be tight, slow, excruciatingly good. But she didn’t have time for it. Mara shook her head and the pressure decreased. Still she could feel him dripping that white liquid onto her skin, warm and slick and uncontainable as his arousal grew. Her mouth dropped open as his finger spread it up and down the fold, lightning striking inside her at his touch. Then he was raising his eyes to hers again, looking to her for confirmation. This time Mara responded with a resolute nod and Cal smiled, pressing his wet finger deep into her crease. Mara’s grasp on the counter tightened. Her wet cunt swelled with a sudden contraction, though his attention remained further behind.
“I need more hands,” Calvy complained, biting the taut tendon of her neck as her head fell back into him.
Mara was already releasing the counter to engage the ache between her legs. Their gazes locked, both of them determined to work together, to keep pace with each other and stay connected until the end. As Mara rounded her middle finger over her grateful clit, Calvy pressed the finger in her ass higher. She felt her insides grind together, the mechanics of her orgasm clicking into gear. And the rest came to her in fragments of sensation: her name on his lips, tangled in her hair. The hip he’d overlapped with hers, pushing her harder against the counter’s sharp edge until it dug into her bone. And then: white lines of come jetting past her like ribbons in a breeze.
Calvy eased his finger out of her and wrapped his arm tight around her shoulders. He pulled her into him, his nose at her neck taking and releasing deep breaths that tingled across her skin.
What was she doing?
“I’ve got to get dressed,” she said.
Her knees shook as he let go of her and she leaned into the counter for support. Mara couldn’t tell if it was her pulse or her cunt throbbing harder. She tried to steady them both.
“Right.” He blinked, looking around the bathroom to orient himself.
Mara looked at herself in the mirror, her face misted with sweat, her eye makeup lopsided and smudged.
“Are you leaving?”
“Exploring some more,” Mara said, attempting to even out the kohl sketched around her eyes with trembling hands. She was lucky that drink slowed his mind and he didn’t pick up on the deception.
“I’ll come,” he offered.
“Like this? You need to sleep it off—”
“I need a cup of coffee.”
