Act Two: New Beginnings: For Whom the Heart Stone Burns, #2

By Kari Gregg

Who is seducer and who the seduced?

Kellan Fik raced to Nitcha when a master seer scried his rival’s fosterling as his destiny and his mate. Becket was a bibelot—devoid of magic. But the man wasn’t the shy, submissive virgin Kellan expected. Ponderously tall, outspoken, and a shockingly skillful lover, Becket intrigued Kellan and inflamed his desires. Becket was also the key to unraveling the puzzle of Becket’s guardian and Kellan’s chief competitor, Theodore Douglas.

Kellan courts Becket with powerful charms and the dizzy wonder of their every caress. His hope? Convincing his wily lover to share his secrets and cement their bond. Becket isn’t what he seems, but neither is Kellan. Together, they must learn to trust despite the lies and intrigues… before it’s too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kari Gregg
• Release date: Sep 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536509175

Book preview

Act Two: New Beginnings

For Whom the Heart Stone Burns

By

Kari Gregg

Copyright 2016 Kari Gregg

Cover by Lou Harper

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning: This book contains strong language, sexually explicit situations, and may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is for adults only.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Disclaimer

Act Two: New Beginnings (For Whom the Heart Stone Burns, #2)

Dedication

Who is seducer and who the seduced?

Kellan Fik raced to Nitcha when a master seer scried his rival’s fosterling as his destiny and his mate. Becket was a bibelot—devoid of magic. But the man wasn’t the shy, submissive virgin Kellan expected. Ponderously tall, outspoken, and a shockingly skillful lover, Becket intrigued Kellan and inflamed his desires. Becket was also the key to unraveling the puzzle of Becket’s guardian and Kellan’s chief competitor, Theodore Douglas.

Kellan courts Becket with powerful charms and the dizzy wonder of their every caress. His hope? Convincing his wily lover to share his secrets and cement their bond. Becket isn’t what he seems, but neither is Kellan. Together, they must learn to trust despite the lies and intrigues... before it’s too late.

Dedication

With heartfelt thanks to beta readers who make me look much smarter than I legitimately am – Susan Sorrentino, Jennifer, and Laura, you guys are the BEST.

During the new moon, draw a bath of warm water. Add sea salt, basil leaves, sprigs of rosemary, and frankincense oil. Light a black candle placed safely near the bathtub. While cleansing your body in the bath, gaze at the flame and release the past by visualizing the old being carried away like smoke from the candle. Get out of the bath without toweling dry or applying moisturizer. Light a white candle and meditate on new ventures ahead of you and what you will achieve by them.

Chapter One

Kellan watched the bibelot—his bibelot now—through the post-greeting examination of his failures in Theodore Douglas’s quarters. High in the peaks of the Lagenore Mountains where the promise of spring yet taunted them, Nitcha was as cold and forbidding as a witch’s heart.

He smothered his shiver so no one would guess his discomfort. He hated caves. Abundant light stones didn’t alleviate eerie shadows in the aerie’s top hold, nor did heat stones abet the damp chill. Kellan longed for blue skies and the ripening green of the tree canopy where he’d made his home and the open spaces of Melaeum. Where was the sun in this goddess-forsaken fortress?

At least Becket’s skin bore the healthy flush of days spent in the outdoors. He hadn’t been confined to dreary tunnels long. Kellan had to believe his bibelot would be happier away from this cursed aerie and away from his wily kinsman who lied. And had taught Becket to lie too.

Kellan would not have reacted as strongly if Becket had been properly prepared, Sav said, fingers clenched so tightly over Kellan’s he wasn’t sure his minder didn’t intend to crush Kellan’s bones into fine powder. Even so, Sav defended him to the gathered elders and seers. Because the bibelot did not know what to expect, he suffered and his fears triggered Kellan’s territorial response.

He attacked my nephew, Douglas said through gritted teeth, the frisson of power that danced up and down Kellan’s spine indicating Douglas’s precarious control of his magic despite his minder’s arms looped around him. The animosity wasn’t a shock. The fierce business rivalry that had exploded between he and Douglas fueled the man’s ire...and Kellan’s. That Nitcha’s master seer had scried Kellan as the sentinel and fated mate for Douglas’s ward hadn’t alleviated their mutual distrust. If anything, the likelihood of Kellan handfasting Becket had exacerbated the hostility.

Kellan kissed him, Sav stubbornly corrected, which is the custom and wholly acceptable when bibelots and sentinels meet.

Did no one else notice Douglas’s slip? Twice now, he’d referred to Becket as a nephew. Nephew? Who knew of such things? No one in Nitcha, Melaeum, or the other aeries. Certainly nobody in the lowlands from which Kellan had emerged. Not in all of Ket. Becket was a kinsman of Douglas and with Becket’s sire dead, he was also Douglas’s ward and fosterling. Once they returned to Melaeum, Kellan would search tribal histories for this nephew designation. Perhaps it was old and had fallen out of use? Either way, something was wrong with Douglas and wrong with the ward who was the man’s bibelot. They were hiding something. Kellan felt it in his gut. They papered over their secrets with a pretense of normality, but Kellan saw through those lies to the unknown menace lingering beneath.

Becket was no danger to Kellan beyond the fire burning in Kellan to bed him. Douglas was extremely dangerous, though—to Becket. If Douglas’s slips continued, Nitchan elders might see beyond their greed in striking a match between Kellan and Becket. They might wonder instead at Becket’s strangeness and grow alarmed by it. Until Becket wore Kellan’s heart stone, the aerie’s ruling council could easily dissolve their troth. Kellan wouldn’t be able to protect him. If Becket proved too unusual for the notoriously close-minded Nitchans, no one would be able to save him. While Nitcha accepted eccentricities in casters like Douglas, the ruling council held bibelots to a higher standard. They’d executed any who failed to meet their expectations in times past, regardless of the value of even the most troublesome bibelots to other aeries. Not often. The Nitcha of today tended toward negotiation rather than murder.

But those risks ate at Kellan like acid.

Theo, stop, Becket said from the corner of the room, where he’d slid to the floor once Kellan had released him. The boy’s minder crouched beside him, Becket’s hand enfolded in his grasp so firmly the minder’s knuckles shone white even as the minder used his other hand to straighten Becket’s disheveled clothes, having already given up on neatening the disgrace of Becket’s hair. I was surprised. From his perch on the floor, Becket flashed a shaky smile at Douglas. I’m okay.

Kellan, demonstrably, was a poor sentinel. The tremble of Becket’s lone free hand as he patted his minder’s shoulder was condemning proof of Kellan’s lack of care with him. What should have been a gentle introduction had surged into... Kellan wasn’t sure what it had surged into. Hormonal anarchy, perhaps. When he’d sensed Becket’s resistance, although Kellan had realized the bibelot whose mouth he’d taken was far too skilled to be untutored despite the skittishness that had preceded their kiss, Kellan should have backed off and let Sav soothe him.

Instead, as much as admitting it shamed Kellan, Douglas was right. He’d attacked. He’d shoved away both their minders, pushed Becket against the wall, and kissed him until his bibelot had surrendered and truly welcomed Kellan to him.

That Nitcha’s elders hadn’t tossed him over the side of their cursed mountain ledges was a measure of their determination to put him and Melaeum trade agreements solidly under their boots. Their callous disregard for Becket’s safety disgusted Kellan almost as much as his own lack of control.

His only defense was Becket was no helpless bibelot vulnerable to abuse by a predatory sentinel. Becket had no magical power within him. Kellan had immediately sensed the void only superficially masked by Douglas’s heart stone worn around Becket’s neck. Everything else about Becket unsettled him, though. Everything. From his disconcertingly short hair to his massive size, from his utter lack of preparation for the most important day of any bibelot’s life to the mind-blowing skill of his kiss.

His bibelot had lain with another. He was no timid virgin, a deficiency that would earn Becket rather than Kellan a speedy trip down the Lagenore peaks if any of the elders or seers suspected. Which was why Kellan must now prove his worth as Becket’s sentinel—by protecting him. No one could ever know.

The fault is mine, he said, the half-truth like broken glass in his mouth. And his kinsman’s.

Kellan had overreacted, but his instincts would not have compelled him to bend his bibelot’s will to his own if he hadn’t felt his claim on Becket threatened by Becket’s absent innocence. That was entirely the responsibility of Theodore Douglas, who had catastrophically failed to guard Becket’s virtue.

Becket accepted me, however. He’d melted deliciously under Kellan’s mouth and his hands. Only he can break our troth.

I haven’t announced a troth yet, Douglas said with an arrogant sneer as he reached for Becket.

If you touch him again, I’ll rip off your arm and beat you with it, Kellan said, his voice as cold as this damned labyrinth of tunnels, his smile warming with evil satisfaction only when Douglas jerked to a halt shy of his goal.

If Sav didn’t stop squeezing Kellan’s hand, his bones would grind to dust.

Douglas glared at him.