Nectar of War: The Song of Verity and Serenity (The Nectar of War Series Book 1)

LAVEN HEPHAESTUS ARVENALDI, II

L aven, I have already bathed!” Maivena laughs as I tug her into the bathwater.

The white silk shift she is wearing immediately clings to her skin as she sits up after dunking under the water.

I smirk. “You will dry.”

I pull the wet silk over her head and drape it across the ledge of the bathing tub.

“You opened all the doors,” she smiles, gazing outward at the water crashing onto the shore. The floor-to-ceiling doors reveal the stars and moon from the tub, and she smiles.

“Tell me something,” I push away the hair sticking to her face to see her more clearly.

“Like what?”

I lean in to perceive her face as she turns to view the sea again. “What was wrong at breakfast?”

She looks lost the longer she stares out at the stars hovering above the sea.

“That is where my mother is.” She faintly replies.

As I recall morning meal, I remember the conversation of Nadrexi and then her sudden distance at the mention of it.

“I thought your mother and brother were in Provas?” I turn her to look at me.

Lifting my knee through the water, she sits between my legs and reaches out her hand, touching the scorpion tattoo starting at my knee and leading up my thigh.

“My mother who raised me is in Provas. The woman who gave birth to me is in Nadrexi.”

I raise her chin, so her eyes join mine. “Keep going but stay here.”

“My mother was a fiendish woman to my brother, he never stood up for himself, so I did. And she resented me for it. Every morning there was something wrong I did or was doing . . . her critiques of food I enjoyed that did not suit my figure, striking me when she felt I did wrong.” Maivena forces a low laugh and turns around.

She lifts her hair, showing a deep scar hidden in her curls.

I incline closer, seeing the completely healed and lifted scar. “What happened?”

“Her temper happened,” Maivena responds. “My mother is easily blinded by her own rage.”

“How did that happen?”

Maivena shifts and faces me again, I thread through her hair, finding the bump.

“She struck me with my bow as I was leaving the house. I bent enough for it not to go through my neck. That was the last time I ever stayed there; my father had finally obtained a position in the Quamfasi Mandem. He did not stay long as a Warrior, and he was moved up to General relatively fast.

“The royals had given us rank my mother despised. When I would visit her in Nadrexi, she always made me feel dastard for having the luxury we worked for. Yet she had no quandaries asking me for coin when she demanded it. I was always ridiculous enough to give it to her. I think part of me still hoped that she would change after I did things for her, but she never did. No matter the length I went to for her, it was never sufficient.”

It feels disproportionate to consume so much information about her, and I cannot even tell her what haunts me in my nightmares. There is already so much weighing down her shoulders. How could I possibly put my strains over it? She would go crashing with everything wrong with me.

I have looked over her all this time to now discover that her past was something horrid. I once thought that she was a woman at peace before this, a humble woman who had everything but wanted none of it to be at ease with her current state. When, all this time, she has been a prisoner of her mother once before, and now a prisoner of Vaigon. She is at ease here because she is familiar with her life as a prisoner.

How do you help someone flooded with such extreme amounts of turmoil?

Maivena abruptly shakes her head as if to disregard anything she said.

“You tell me something.”

“What do you want to know?” I gently stroke the wound hidden in her hair.

She floats a hand over the water soaked in lavender. “What will happen after you find your mate?” I can see that portion of despondency crossing over her face at the consideration of returning to the Servant Grounds. “Would I go back?”

How else do you make someone apprehend that you will never leave their side? That you are eternally with them even when they do not discern it.

“You will go wherever you wish.”

And I will go too if you would allow me.

That bit of hope returns. “And my family?”

“They will as well.”

She continues to toy with the tattoo on my leg. An emotion takes over her face that I have not ever seen. “Have you ever had a lover before?”

There is no need to lie. “No.”

The expression on her face is still unreadable to me.

“You are a liar.”

I smile. “Did you not tell me to be a good liar?”

She smiles back. “Yes, but not with–” she stops.

But not with you, I silently finish for her.

“That is not real. You are a High Prince, the most sought-after man in our universe. And,” she laughs. “Men are weak, you all easily cave under pressure when beautiful women are around you.”

I lift her higher through the water and she settles in my lap as she straddles me. “Maivena,” I say in a dramatically hurtful tone. “Are you saying I am like other men?”

She falls into laughter as I gently knead into her waist. “No!” She thrashes about. “But you could be.”

I still, and she rests again in my lap. Her eyes sparkle with tears from laughter, and I wish there was a  way to pause her in this moment. To forever see her glistening in happiness with the view of the stars and the moon hovering above her. To forever let her feel happiness like this.

“But you are not.” She breathlessly whispers. “Why?”

Because of you, yet I cannot say that.

Or could I?

I think I could tell her anything and she would not be frightened away so easily. Plenty of men must have said she was the reason they behaved so they could have her in return. What difference would it make coming from me? To her, I am just another man bowing at her feet.

But I am not just another man, I am her forever. Therefore I am above them and I am above saying the things they say.

“Nothing has ever provoked me enough.” I finally answer. “I have had plenty of women try to be the person I have casualties with, none of them have ever reached that little place in my mind to make me want to say yes to them.”

She is nervous to ask the question I know lingers on her tongue. “And me?”

I exhale heavily and let my eyes fall to look over her body. Her wet hair hangs over her chest and covers her from my sight. I reach forward and remove her hair.

Just barely, I graze my thumbs over her nipples as I rub down and over her waist. “And you,” I say just as breathlessly as her. “You because I want to be your favorite lover of all that you will ever have.” I grasp her hips and her body responds just as my hips lift to hers.

Her hand grips the side of my neck as she looks down and her body moves with mine.

“The ways I will make love to you are endless.” I cannot grapple with it.

She leads my hand up, begging me to play with her, and I do.

No.

This is too much.

I tug and pull at her nipples as she slowly rubs herself against me. Her back arches, a silent demand for my mouth. I give her everything.

But is it?

Is it too much? Or is it exactly enough?

She quietly yelps.

Fuck . . .

Her hips dig harder and I flick my tongue while using my fingers to tease the other.

So slowly, she continues with such need that I want her to never end.

I never want to not see her edging for a release she has wanted long for.

The deep furrow in her eyebrows.

The gasping and biting of her lips as she searches.

No.

It has to end here.

Impulsion is a horrid trait I must stop.

“Mai-” I choke on my words as she quietly moans at the feeling of us. “Mai, we need to stop before I lose every last bit of sanity and you will never leave this room again.”

She does not stop.

“I never said I wanted to leave,” she stares at how we could connect again and her eyes roll.

She wants this just as much as I do.

I build the strength to ascend, and we fall on to the plush rug laying in front of the fireplace.

“Enough,” I warn.

She lazily giggles below me as I press her into the ground. “Fine, I will stop.”

“I would think you are trying to kill me.” I rub my nose against her wet neck and I can hear her heavy breathing thumping from her chest.

I stand from the ground to retrieve a bathing towel.

“Come,” I nod as I sit down on the chaise.

Just as the nights before, I begin to dry off her body and she watches my every move.

“What would you say if I said we should no longer sleep in the same bed?” Her bright orbs are staring directly through me.

“Why would you want to do that?” I sit up straighter as she looks down at me.

“You should be lying in a bed with someone you are in love with, the person you are intended to be with.”

She watches the rise and fall of my chest as I try to understand where this is coming from.

I could deny it.

I could tell her no and that we will sleep in the same bed no matter what she asks.

Except, I could never deny her wants—even within an inebriated mind, I could never.

“Is that what you want?”

She only nods.

“Say it.”

“Y–yes,” she stutters. “It is what I want . . . Intimacy Arrangements are purely sexual, and I feel we should keep it as such.” Her words are hurtful, yet her tone is welcoming and soft. “Sleeping in the same bed as someone is above the laws of Intimacy Arrangements, which we still have not gone over.”

She is correct, nevertheless, if this is what she believes she wants, then I will say yes as well. Either I like it or not.

Suddenly the entire atmosphere around us shifts.

Just as simply as we began, I so simply see the end.

We both are sleeping alone tonight.