Ishtar's Blade

by Blackwood, Lisa

  After Kuwari and his grandsire left in the company of an appropriate number of Shadows, Uselli came and stood at his king’s shoulder, looking unhappy.

  Ditanu sighed. “You have something you wish to say? Out with it then.”

  “I don’t like having you and Kuwari separated.”

  The king wandered over to his desk and sorted through reports, ledgers, and some other unknown letters. “I trust Shalanum.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. Anyone can see he dotes on Kuwari.” Uselli followed Ditanu over to his desk, but Iltani stayed where she was. She could hear the conversation well enough from by the fire. If the way Uselli just squared his shoulders was any indication, he planned to dig in and stand his ground on this subject. Iltani was exhausted. There was no way she was getting involved.

  Besides, her link with Kuwari had grown and was equally as strong as the one she shared with his father, and the cub was close enough she could sense any danger that came near. If Ditanu wanted some time alone with his grief, she’d give him this evening. Tomorrow, it was back to being a king and a father. He could be just a man for a few hours. The hall outside would be close enough. She could guard her two wards from there.

  While she’d been making her decision, Ditanu had poured himself a goblet of wine and continued the conversation with Uselli. “Does it really matter? The suites are housed on the same hallway.”

  “Still, if something were to happen, it would be safer if you were both together.”

  “Our guard is up, our enemies won’t attack now. They’ll lay in wait until they think our guard is relaxed. Sadly, Kuwari is probably safer now than he has been in the months leading up to the attack.” Ditanu’s expression darkened. Iltani could see him going down dark corridors in his mind. “I wish to be alone with my thoughts tonight. At least, as much as I’m ever alone.”

  “Fine,” Uselli said with a huff. “But you’re going to take years off my life with worry.”

  Ditanu turned to spear Iltani with a look. “To sooth some of your worries, I’ll keep Ishtar’s Blade no more than an arm’s length away.”

  “I’ll reduce the number of guards in your chambers, but double them outside in the gardens and the hall.”

  In the end, Uselli agreed to his king’s demand and he left to go guard the cub.

  After a time, the servants came and prepared a bath for the king. Ditanu waited at his desk, drinking wine and reading through a few of the reports on the desk. The three servants exited the bathing chamber.

  Ditanu ignored them.

  “My king, your bath is ready for you,” Warassuni prompted. He’d served Ditanu’s father as well. Iltani had always liked his quiet confidence, his ability to keep the simple day to day routines of the city running and the king’s surprisingly few needs attended too without issue.

  Iltani knew Ditanu liked the old human steward, and they normally shared a few pleasant words of conversation until it was time for the king to see to other things.

  “Thank you,” Ditanu said without inflection of any kind. “I will not need your services further this night.”

  Dismissed, each servant bowed as they departed in haste. Apparently, Iltani wasn’t the only one to notice her king’s darkening mood. Ditanu downed his wine, poured another cup and then unrolled another scroll, squinting at the handwriting.

  The guards rearranged their positions as Uselli instructed, leaving only two Shadows standing at the door leading out to the hall. Iltani moved away from Ditanu’s desk and took up a position another guard had vacated by the wall. At least here she was out of Ditanu’s direct line of sight, and maybe he would find the solitude he so clearly craved.

  An hour later, Ditanu still sat at his desk. He tossed the scroll down he had been reading and picked up his wine goblet. Finding it empty, he refilled it and drank that one down almost as fast as the one before it. When it was empty again, he reached for the pitcher only to find it empty. He huffed something under his breath and set it back down on the table with an overly cautious movement.

  Her king was thoroughly drunk.

  Pushing up from the table, he started toward his bathing chamber.

  “I doubt wine can actually drown your sorrows. However, it might manage to drown you in that big bath of yours,” Iltani called as she stepped away from the wall and started toward him.

  Ditanu paused, turned with an overstated slowness and then looked her up and down.

  “I have faith my Blade would prevent me from drowning.” His words weren’t slurred and his motions were still smooth and coordinated, so perhaps he wasn’t as far gone into his cups as she’d thought. Gryphons had a naturally higher tolerance for the stuff than humans did, and they sobered up quicker, too. She’d yet to meet a gryphon who had ever suffered from a hangover, either. Lucky bastards.

  The last time Iltani had drunk to excess had been four years ago at the king’s coronation. Burrukan had shown no mercy the next morning when she was still suffering a raging hangover. He’d bundled her onto his skiff with no regard for her pounding head or heaving stomach. Iltani didn’t touch drink after that. It clearly turned her into a raging fool—she was grateful she didn’t remember anything from the night.

  Ditanu’s gaze travelled up and down her body once, and a secretive smile softened his firm lips.

  What the hell was that look about?

  When he met her gaze, his eyes had that glassy look which came with too much drink. “Letting my Blade save me from drowning might be enjoyable.”

  “You’re drunk, my king.”

  “Yes, I am. And it’s Ditanu here. Not king, sire, or majesty—I hate majesty. It’s just Ditanu. Remember?”

  Damn him. Even drunk he remembered that stupid rule.

  “As you say.”

  “Yes,” he gestured back toward the bathing chamber, “And I say I shall have a bath. I’m a king and can do as I wish.”

  He turned from her and made a relatively straight line toward the chamber.

  Rolling her eyes, Iltani followed. Ditanu rarely drank to excess, but when he did, he was never dull or mean. He was playful and downright….adorable.

  Oh, this was going to be interesting.

  *****

  Ditanu’s head started to nod for the third time. Unlike the first two times, he didn’t jerk awake. Cursing, Iltani pushed off from the wall where she stood guard and darted forward. Her powerful strides quickly covered the distance and powered her halfway across the pool before gravity won out and she plunged into the water.

  Fragrant, but cooling, water was displaced by her sudden arrival and a great wave washed up and over the sides. Her skirt’s streamers floated in the water all around her. Cursing under her breath, she pushed them out of her way and waded over to the king where he was slumping forward, still asleep and unaware he was actually in danger of drowning. She reached his side just before he slumped face first into the water. With a grumbled curse, she braced his shoulders against the back wall of the bath.

  Even her sudden arrival hadn’t been enough to wake him. Maybe he actually might have drowned. She’d only been joking with him earlier. Delayed fear set her heart to pounding and she just stood in the bath, her skirt swirling around her, her harness, scabbard, and sword half under the water. Worst of all was the heavy golden torque around her neck. The cooling water stole her body heat from it. Now it was heavy, cold, wet and chafed her breasts every time she moved.

  What a stupid, foolish token. Why couldn’t monarchs and their blades have exchanged something more sensible like a hair ornament or bracelet?

  “Wake up, damn it!”

  He didn’t respond.

  Annoyed, she slapped the water directly in front of his face.

  He jerked awake with a surprised grunt, and she gave his shoulders a good shake while he was still trying to orientate himself.

  “Get out of this water right now, or I swear…” her words were cut off midsentence.

  Ditanu grabbed her and lifted he
r halfway out of the water to sit her across his lap. “I would have gotten out sooner if I’d known you wanted to take a turn,” Ditanu reached behind him and his groping hand eventually closed over a cloth and a cake of soap. “But we can make this work. Besides, we used to bath together as cubs, this isn’t that much different.”

  Not much different? Hah. Iltani disagreed. She wiggled out of his arms before he could start to bathe her as he clearly planned.

  “You,” she scolded and pointed at him to reinforce her statement. “Almost drown. Out of the pool now!”

  In case he resisted, she hooked one of his arms over her shoulder and wrapped her own around his waist. With a grunt and a mighty heave, she got Ditanu to his feet.

  With some trouble and a considerable amount of laughter on Ditanu’s part, she managed to extract him from the pool and navigated him back to his bedchamber. She grabbed a couple towels from a bench on the way by before she continued on to his bed. One she wrapped around his head and shoulders, the other she just tossed at his lower extremities without letting her eyes focus on anything.

  She helped him dry off while having to avoid his grabbing hands. He kept trying to drag her into bed with him. By the time she was done, a blush was burning merrily upon her cheeks but Ditanu was dressed in a robe and more or less tucked into bed.

  “Iltani, stay?” There was great loneliness in those two words. “I need you.”

  “Shhh, my king. You’re still drunk. That’s the wine talking. You don’t mean it. You won’t remember it come the morning anyway. So just go to sleep and everything will be better when you wake.”

  “Hmmm, yes, I’m drunk.” His voice had mellowed to a deeper tone which did things to her she was better off not thinking about.

  He was silent for a time, but then he turned to her and reached out to cup her cheek. “But I do mean it. I have always needed you, always loved you. I’ll still remember that come morning.” He traced a finger along her lips.

  His words held her frozen. She should pull away. She really should. She didn’t.

  “Gryphons never forget. Though some memories are better than others.” He made a rolling sound in his throat which sounded a lot like a gryphon’s purr. She hadn’t known he could make that sound in a human body.

  It was surprisingly sexy.

  Her curiosity peaked, she asked, “What are you remembering?”

  “My coronation. Afterward, when you seduced me.”

  “What? Oh, by Ishtar, I was drunk out of my mind that night. I was such an idiot wasn’t I? I should have known better—you were always complaining about females continuously coming after you. I would have apologized once I sobered up but Burrukan had me bundled up and away…I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

  “You were sweet. I welcomed your attentions.” Ditanu took advantage of her distraction, and suddenly his hands were roving along her sides. “You’re wet.”

  “I jumped in a bathing pool to keep your drunk ass from drowning.” One of his hands tried to go up under her gold torque to fondle a breast. Too surprised to think, she smacked it away. “What are you doing?”

  “I want my mate.”

  “But…we’re not…I mean.”

  “Ishtar has made us mates. You are now mother to Kuwari. You shelter my unborn cubs. How much more of a mate could you be?”

  Iltani honestly didn’t know, and she wanted to be his mate in a most desperate way. She couldn’t tell him that, though, not drunk and grieving as he was at the moment. Perhaps in a few months?

  Instead, she frowned at him and said, “You are drunk. I will not take advantage of you.” He might think he craved her now, but come the morning and a clear head, he might have regrets.

  “I won’t have regrets,” he said as if reading her mind, and sounding a lot less drunk than he had earlier. “Ahassunu wasn’t a true mate to me.”

  Even as her heart lurched in surprised shock at his words, hope bloomed in her heart. Cautiously, barely daring to believe her ears, she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Ahassunu and I begot children, and she was a good friend and a wise consort, but we were never mates.”

  Ishtar’s magic whispered that Ditanu’s words were impossibly true.

  “How? Female gryphons will only come into heat for their mates.” Even as she asked, she knew.

  “Ahassunu and Burrukan were mates. They had been in love secretly for years.”

  While she was mulling that over, Ditanu captured her wrist and gently dragged her under the covers with him. Iltani tensed but relaxed when he did nothing more than wrap an arm around her waist and draw her closer.

  His voice continued to rumble above her head. “At the time I learned about Burrukan and Ahassunu, you were almost a year into your training. The council had been leaning on me hard to take a mate or, at least, spend some time with a creature of the opposite sex. Beletum’s father was the most determined. Ziyatum almost succeeded in convincing the rest of the council that Beletum and I should be betrothed for a trial year.” Ditanu shuddered.

  “Nobles were throwing their daughters at you since you turned fifteen.”

  “Earlier, actually, you were just too innocent to see it.”

  “That’s disgusting.” Her fists clasped and unclasped, wanting to throttle the ones responsible for making a boy grow up too fast.

  “Tradition mixed with desperation, actually. I was the last of my line.”

  “Still,” Iltani countered. “Doesn’t make it right.”

  “No, but I used you to keep all but the most determined at bay.”

  “Hmmm, is that why I always happened upon harlots lying in wait for you?”

  “Probably. I figured chasing away unwanted females was an honorable way for Ishtar’s Blade to serve her king.”

  “Duty. Ha! Not sure if I was feeling the ‘honor of serving my king’ at those times.” She huffed and then clarified. “I saw way more bare asses and breast then I should have had to endure.”

  “It was always entertaining to watch you convince them to give up the hunt.”

  Iltani heard the smile in his voice. “I guess we were quite the pair when we were younger.”

  “I think the councilors might think we are still quite the pair.”

  “You’re right.” Iltani started to laugh. “You were starting to tell me about how Ahassunu came to be your consort but is not your mate.”

  “The council wanted me betrothed and to complete a year of courtship to increase the chances a female might go into heat for me.”

  Iltani hated the idea of Ditanu having his hand forced. A year’s betrothal wouldn’t guarantee a female would become fertile for him, but it would force a kind of intimacy between the two betrothed. Even as a young woman, it had not sat well with Iltani. It also influenced why she’d been an idiot the night of his coronation. That hadn’t been a snap decision, but something she’d been working up the nerve for days in advance. As her younger self had judged it, if Ditanu were going to have to take a mate, it should be someone who at least loved him.

  Ditanu nuzzled her wet hair. “The thought of getting betrothed was bad enough, but when Burrukan pointed out something very disturbing, I listened to him.”

  “Was there some danger I wasn’t aware of?” The thought disturbed Iltani.

  “Burrukan had noted that three other females around my age and of suitable bloodlines had died over the years, leaving only a few candidates for potential mates.” Ditanu sighed. “That was when Burrukan broached the topic of making Ahassunu my consort.”

  Relief washed over Iltani’s mind. “I knew Burrukan was loyal, but that must have been hard for both of you.”

  “Yes. But he said it was better to beget heirs with a trusted female, even if she wasn’t in actual fact, my mate, than finding a viper in my marriage bed that might desire my throne more than me. As he pointed out, I would also have Ahassunu’s powerful family at my back in the crucial first few years of my reign.”

  Iltani felt her throat
thicken with unshed tears. Poor Ditanu. “The last four years haven’t been easy for you either.”

  “I would have endured nobles tossing their daughters at me for an eternity and I would still not have taken any of them as my mate willingly.” Again Ditanu shuddered. “But Burrukan told me there are drugs that could be given to both a male and female that would make a male ache and ensure the female went into heat even if she didn’t have a deep emotional bond with the male.”

  “That’s what Beletum gave you…” Iltani cleared her voice and tried again, having to shove aside the terrible imagery and jealousy the thought conjured. “Is that how you and Ahassunu…?”

  Ditanu started to cough, when he had himself under control, he said, “Even Burrukan isn’t that loyal, and I had no interest in another man’s mate.”

  “Then how?”

  Ditanu swallowed another laugh. “My hand and a cup to catch it in, if you must know. I never asked how Ahassunu and Burrukan worked out what to do with my donated seed.” His hand slid from her hip to cover her belly. “I imagine it was done with magic, much like how Ishtar planted my little ones within you.”

  “I knew Burrukan couldn’t have been betraying you as it seemed.”

  “Ah, you caught them. The first night?”

  “Yes. It was a shock.”

  “Burrukan must have thought I’d keep you up all night reminiscing.”

  “I didn’t tell you that first night because I didn’t know how to go about it, and my power didn’t judge them as a direct danger to you.”

  “That must have been stressful for you,” Ditanu said distractedly. The hand against her stomach had started to wander again.

  “Not as much as this,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Your clothes are cold and wet, and you’re still wearing your sword and harness. That can’t be very comfortable.”

  “Whose fault is that?” In a louder voice, she added, “You’re still drunk my king. Let me go before I get your bed any damper.”