Page 13 of War Mage

“How do you know that this will work?” questions Adara, still wary. “I’ve never heard of a soultie being undone.”

“Lady Melelea, the trolless who did your tattoo, was mated to a monster of an orc,” I tell her, though I don’t tell her that Lady Melelea is Rognar’s mother and the monster was his father. “When he grew tired of her, he ordered her death, so that he could try to father children with others. To escape him, she had to cut away her mating bite so that he couldn’t feel her emotions any longer and believed her dead.”

“And the tattoo?” Adara asks.

I shake my head. “She wanted him to die of the wasting sickness, to be unable to father other children so that he could not visit misery onto another female. Had she completed the ritual with the tattoo, their soultie would have been severed and he would have been free to abuse someone else. But she knows the rune we would require and can tattoo it for you, once we return from the mission.”

“And I won’t experience any ill effects being mated to an orc?” she challenges. “There’s no mind control or anything like that?”

Her words are offensive, but I don’t react to them. “You will be able to feel my surface emotions, as I will be able to feel yours, but we will not be able to control the other. Influence, perhaps, as I’ve heard that mates can send their emotions to each other, but that is all.”

Adara purses her lips, considering. Finally, she sighs. “And I have to do this withyou?There’s no other orc?”

“None that would risk what I am,” I say. And itisa risk. She could decide she wants revenge on me for her imprisonment and leave before the severing and I would get the wasting sickness, but I do not voice that aloud.

She sighs again, aggrieved. “But I reallydislike you. Maybe even hate you. I’m not so sure that I want to be tied to you so intimately.”

I expected this response. “You must ask yourself if you want to be tied to someone you dislike for a temporary amount of time and have a higher chance of survival, or whether you wish your feelings to cloud your judgment and seal your fate.”

Her eyes narrow at my words, assessing. “You sure are trying to convince me that this is a good idea. What’s in it for you? You can’t want to be tied to me just because of my devastating beauty and winning personality.”

“If you attempt to draw out your soulfire and you burn out before you can even throw it at the demon, we are all doomed,” I answer honestly, ignoring her attempt at a quip. “We would be in an even worse position than we are now, because Grazrath would know that we know a weakness of his and that we attempted, however unsuccessfully, to use it against him. He would escalate his actions and increase his defenses, making it unlikely that we would get to strike a second time. We have one shot at this and I will do whatever I must to make it count.”

“The soultie will mean that I am using your soul as well as mine to make the soulfire,” she warns. “I don’t know what the effect of that will have on you. Likely, it will shave years off your life.”

“I am an agent of the Crown and a spy besides,” I respond. “Mine was never a life that was meant to be long or to end peacefully in my bed, surrounded by loved ones.”

Her lips still quirk up at that, teasingly cruel. “Because you don’t have any?”

I know she is needling me, but her assessment is true so I just nod. “Loved ones are liabilities that the Shield of the King can ill afford.”

The mage cocks her head. “That’s kind of sad. But I suppose that it makes more sense that you would be willing to do a mating without affection, if that is your view.”

“A loving mate was never in the stars for me,” I confirm.

Adara considers me for a moment longer, then finally nods. “Alright. Fine. I want to live to see the freedom of my brothers and sisters of the Tower, and this sounds like my greatest chance for that to happen. But don’t come crying to me when you regret your actions.”

“Regrets are for the weak and cowardly,” I reply. “I am neither. I will own the consequences of giving you my mating bite, whatever they may be.”

She raises a brow at me and then shrugs. “Alright, how do we do this then? I imagine that sex is involved.”

I almost let my shock be apparent on my face at her words, but keep my expression schooled to indifference through years of training. “You would be intimate with someone you hate?” I question.

The mage merely shrugs again. “Sex isn’t always intimacy, at least to my mind. It’s not like a kiss. Sometimes it’s just a bodily function, a necessary release. Gods know, I’ve certainly had sex with people I didn’t love before. Someone I hate isn’t too far from that.” Her gaze goes assessing, looking at my form, as if gauging whether she would want to have sex with me. Then she nods again. “I may hate you, but your body is nice and your voice is pleasant. I’m game if that’s what needs to happen for the mating to take. Besides, I could use an orgasm, or two, as long as you know what you’re doing.”

I shake my head. “It isn’t necessary, but often sex is used to lessen the pain of the bite. If timed right, a climax can overpower the sensation of being bitten. But that is normally done between willing partners . . .”

“I’m willing,” Adara says, starting to shrug out of her robes, revealing expanses of smooth skin to my eyes. “I’m no glutton for punishment. If it makes it hurt less, then I’m all for it.”

I’m surprised by the turn of events, but I view this logically. Though pleasure isn’t required for a mating bite, there is the theory that it deepens the soultie. And it’s not like I haven’t had sex without feelings before either. Sex is a weapon to a spy, a tool of the trade. So why am I hesitating? Somehow, though, having sex with this particular female, without feelings or attachments, feels wrong.

Adara doesn’t share my hesitation, however. She stands naked in the cell in front of me, her cinnamon smoke scent intensifying. She looks confident in her body, in her sexuality and a touch of arousal enters her scent as she stands before me.

“Just no kissing,” she says. “That’s for lovers.”

“I won’t have sex with you,” I tell her, keeping my voice calm to take any sting out of my words.

The mage frowns and puts her hands on her hips, her small breasts jutting out impertinently in the air. “Why not? You said that pleasure takes the edge off the bite. I don’t want to be in pain if I don’t have to be.”

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