It was worse yet when she had to watch George’s eyes tear up as he hugged Natum. “Please don’t make us stay away too long,” he said.
“I couldn’t get along without you for very long, my friend,” Natum replied, his voice tight.
Then Sheila hugged him, and Nidaba saw, even through her misty eyes, that she whispered something in Natum’s ear, too. She wondered if it was the same thing she had whispered to her.
Natum looked up, caught Nidaba’s eye, and said to Sheila, “Once, maybe that was true.”
“Once true, always true. Some things don’t die, Nathan. You remember that.” Sheila kissed Nathan’s cheek, and then she took George’s hand and led him to the passenger side.
Nathan turned away from the car as they got in and pulled away. He lowered his head and pressed his forefingers to his temples, rubbing small circles there as if his head ached.
“You’ll miss them terribly,” Nidaba said.
“They’re my family.”
“I know.” She lifted a hand, tentative, hesitant, and finally touched him. She stroked his hair, caressed the back of his neck in an effort to rub his pain away. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it safe for them, and then they’ll come back.”
He met her eyes, nodded twice, but didn’t look convinced that what she said was the truth. “Let’s go. We’ve got to pack our own things, close up the house, and collect that damned dog.”
“If we can find her,” Nidaba said, glancing to the left and right. “She’s nowhere around at the moment.”
“We’d better find her,” Natum said grimly. “George will never forgive us if we don’t.”
* * * *
WHEN NIDABA CAME down the stairs with her few possessions packed in the carpetbag Nathan had given her, he was sitting in a claw-legged armchair, staring into the burgeoning flames of a newly built fire. In one hand he held a crystal tumbler half filled with amber liquid that turned red in the firelight.
“I thought we were leaving.”
He didn’t look up. “I know.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
Drawing a breath, he seemed to gather himself. He turned his head slowly, faced her. The firelight painted one side of his face in orange and yellow, leaving the other side in dark shadow, so he looked like some demon prince sitting there. “I’ve been thinking.”
She sighed, set her bag on the floor, and came closer. “Thinking about what, Eannatum?”
His gave her a thoughtful, penetrating look. “It’s been so long since anyone has called me that. It almost feels like someone else’s name now.”
“I apologize if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s who you are to me. Who you’ll always be. To me, ‘Nathan’ is a stranger.”
“Nathan is the man I wanted to be. The man I’ve been pretending to be for years now. I’m comfortable being him. It’s safe. Peaceful. Predictable.”
“And fraudulent. You’re a ruler, a warrior, and an immortal High Witch, Eannatum. Not a gallery owner or an antique dealer. You’re no quaint New Englander, but a Sumerian king.” She drew a deep breath, sighed. “But you know all of that. Natum, you said we would stay here only long enough to gather a few things and George’s precious stray, and then we’d be off again. Go someplace safe.”
“I haven’t found the dog yet,” he said.
“Nor do you seem to be looking for her. Natum, you told me—”
“I know what I told you. It was a lie. What I told you was not what I intended to do. And it’s not what you intended either. Is it, Nidaba?”
He stared at her, brows raised, eyes so piercing that she finally had to look away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. You were going to go along with my plan, and slip away from me at the first opportunity, to come back here and wait for Puabi. To take her on by yourself.”
She made a face. “You think you know me so well, do you?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I was planning to do. We’ve always had certain things in common, Nidaba. Hardheadedness being one of them.”
Slowly she lifted her eyes to his. “You were planning to come back here without me?”
He nodded. “Why? She could as easily kill you as the other way around.”
He smiled, very slightly, just one side of his mouth pulling upward. “Why were you going to do it?”
Nidaba narrowed her eyes. “I owe the bitch. Besides, I’m a warrior. It’s what I do.”
“I owe her as well, you know,” he said softly.
“Ah, but you’re an ordinary antique dealer. Mild-mannered, model citizen. Boring as milk toast and content to remain that way.”
His eyes seared hers with a flash of anger before he banked it again and drew a calming breath. “Sit down, Nidaba. I think it’s time we finished our talk.”
“I’ve no wish to discuss the past any further.”
“You don’t need to do anything but listen. Sit down.”
Blinking in surprise, for he sounded just then more like the king she remembered than he had since she had seen him again, Nidaba met his eyes, searched them. “All right.” She took the rocking chair and pushed it closer to the fire, closer to him, then stepped around it and sat down. “I’m listening.”
He nodded, his face tight. “It pains me to think that you believe what you do of me.”
“And what is that?”
He looked at her. Just looked at her. His eyes, as dark as ever they had been, and so, so intense. She could see all the way into his soul, she thought, in the power of that look. And it was obvious that he could see clear to the core of her own. She couldn’t look away. Her heart seemed to shudder beneath the force of that gaze. To crack and split apart.
“You tell me,” he said, his tone deep, commanding, uncompromising.
“No.”
“Tell me, Nidaba. Say it.”
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered.
“The hell I won’t. Nidaba, you know. You’ve always known. I need to hear you say it.”
She jumped to her feet, turning away, but he was up in a heartbeat, gripping her shoulders, forcing her to face him. “I didn’t know you were pregnant when you left Lagash, Nidaba. I didn’t know you’d had my son.”
“Stop.”
“But even so, I turned over every rock in Sumer and beyond, searching for you. Trying to find you.”
Tears flowed down her face now. “To have me killed. To protect your throne,” she whispered, her throat so tight she could barely force the lies through it.
“To bring you back to me. Because I didn’t want to live without you. Because I loved you, Nidaba.”
“No!” She pulled free, turned her back, and fought not to break down in front of him. But the racking sobs tore at her, straining to escape.
“Is it easier to believe it was me, Nidaba? Is it easier somehow if you can blame me, hate me? Did that make all those years of loneliness go by any faster? Did it?”
“You ordered the death of my son,” she rasped. “It was your soldiers who killed him.”
“No. It was Puabi who did that. I’ve only now come to realize that. It’s the only way it could have happened, and I think you know it.”
Nidaba went stiff. It was not with surprise, because he was only telling her what she’d finally begun to surmise—but refused to admit, even to herself.
“It all fits,” he said. “She brought soldiers with her when she came to live in the palace. She had loyal men placed in the ranks with mine. And no doubt she ordered them to kill you both on sight. To burn your bodies in order to cover up the crime. She probably knew what you were, even though I did not. She knew the heat of a fire would cause your heart to explode in flames within you, destroying you utterly.”
“No,” Nidaba denied. “If Puabi had known what I was, she’d have wished to take my heart for herself. It’s obvious now—that was her goal all along. To make herself immortal, a Dark High Witch. She needed to take the heart of a Light
One to do it. So why not mine?”
“You were too far away. You’d have revived before she could have got to you.”
“Then she’d have had me bound and brought to her as a captive.” She’d been over all of this in her mind already. She knew all the arguments. She’d waged them with herself.
“I had dozens of soldiers there under orders to protect you with their very lives if need be,” Natum said. And then he tossed in an argument she’d never thought of in all the times she had imagined this discussion. “I told my men they would pay with their lives if any harm came to you while under their care. They knew I meant it, Nidaba. So much so that over half the troop fled Sumer after that fire that supposedly killed you, rather than returning to Lagash to face my wrath. Puabi had only two or three of her own men among the troop that finally found you. It would have been impossible for them to bring you back to Puabi as a captive when my men so outnumbered them. Don’t you see, Nidaba? It was Puabi, not me. I could never harm you... much less my own son. Never.”
His hands curled around her upper arms, warming them. “Please, Nidaba, if you ever cared for me at all, tell me you know I didn’t do this thing.” His voice broke on the final two words.
The shield of stone she had constructed around her heart crumbled and fell to bits. And she whispered, “I know.”
“Do you?”
Turning slowly, she stared up into his eyes. “I’ve always known, Natum. I never truly believed...” Fresh, hot tears flooded her eyes. “I’m so sorry. No matter what pain we’ve caused each other, I had no right to say what I did. I knew in my heart it wasn’t you. I...”
He closed his eyes, pulled her close, held her to his chest and stroked her hair.
Sobs wracked her body as so much anguish finally spilled free. Her hatred released at last, there remained only pain. And her words tumbled from her lips without pause or forethought. She wasn’t even sure they made sense. “I had to hate you. Because if I stopped there was nothing left but to love you, to miss you, to accept that you loved your country more than you did me. And all of that... was just too painful. It was easier to hate you, Natum. So I tried to do that. But I never did. Not really.”
He sighed his relief, and she felt his body quiver with it. He cupped the back of her head with his hand, and she rested her head on his shoulder, her body shuddering with the emotions she’d kept pent up for so long.
“I needed you,” she whispered. “Gods, I needed you so desperately. But you were with her. You were with her, and I...”
“I’m here now, Nidaba.” His palm cradling her cheek, he turned her face until her mouth slid over his, and clung to his lips. He kissed her. Fully, deeply, passionately, he kissed her. And she kissed him back, with every bit of heartache and anguish, every bit of grief and agony she had felt for centuries spilling out and into the kiss.
His hips moved against hers, his hands curling over her buttocks to hold her tight to him. She didn’t think, not now. She only felt. And what she felt was fire, the same white-hot fire that had always raged and burned between them. She tugged his shirt free of his trousers, pushed her hands up underneath it to the skin of his back, and higher, to his shoulders. His skin was warm to the touch, firm beneath her palms. She’d always loved running her hands over his hard body. He tugged at the skirt she wore, and she heard the fabric rip, but she didn’t care.
Still feeding at her mouth, he pushed the skirt off her, and it fell to the floor. He shoved one hand inside her panties, touching her, burning her, invading her the way only he would dare to do. When she moved her feet apart, they tangled in the fabric, and she stumbled backward. Her hip hit a table, and a lamp crashed to the floor. And then Eannatum was tearing her panties away, lifting her off her feet, anchoring her legs around his waist. She locked her ankles behind his back and felt his hot erection slide into her, all the way. Her back pressed to a wall, he thrust hard against her. She clung to his shoulders as he rocked into her, over and over.
He took his mouth from hers, and muttered, “The blouse...”
His hands were busy, holding her backside captive, keeping her pinioned tight to him to accept every one of his powerful thrusts. With her hands, she gripped her blouse in front, and pulled it open, tearing buttons free. It didn’t matter. He mattered. He wanted the blouse gone, spoke a command, and she obeyed because he sounded for once like the king she had known. Her king, for whom she would do anything. And she, his Goddess incarnate, for whom he would gladly die.
It was a powerful illusion. Even if it was only temporary.
Her breasts spilled free, and he jammed himself deep inside her and said, “Feed me, woman.” Her hands rose, cupping her own breasts, lifting them to his mouth, holding them for him to suckle and bite and torment.
Then his hands closed on her waist, and he lifted and lowered her in time with his thrusts, lifted and lowered her, pushed her down harder, bit down on her sensitive nipple with his sharp white teeth.
When she came, it was a searing explosion that blinded her, deafened her, so she couldn’t even hear the sound of his name on her own tortured cry.
He held her close, and she felt the pulsing heat of his seed spilling into her. And then he sank slowly to his knees, cradling her in his arms as if she were a small child.
Tears. She felt them, wet on her face, but surely they couldn’t be hers. She never wept. What had just happened between them meant nothing, she knew that. It was comfort, and an outpouring of long-held emotions. It was needed. It was cleansing. It was blessed release.
“Why, Natum? Why did she have to kill my Nicky, when it was me she hated?”
Eannatum stroked her hair. Gently he righted her blouse, fastening what buttons remained until she was decently covered. He reached out for her skirt on the floor, drew it around her. When he finished, she looked as if she’d been through a battle. But she was dressed. He set her gently into an easy chair near the fire. Then he righted his own trousers and rebuttoned his own shirt.
“She was mad with jealousy, Nidaba. After you fled Lagash, your name took on the same mystique as that of Gilgamesh. You were spoken of in awed tones—as half goddess, half mortal. Rumors grew, and many spoke of the love between you and me, as well. Puabi wanted your fame, your mystery. And she wanted my love. I just couldn’t give it to her.”
She heard something in his voice, and swiping at her eyes, she looked up at him. “There is more,” she said, her tone flat, her eyes moving rapidly over his face. “What aren’t you telling me, Natum?”
He shifted away from her. “You always see the truth in my eyes, don’t you? How do you do that, Nidaba?”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Sighing, he forced his gaze level with hers. “There was... a child.”
Nidaba’s heart lurched. “Yours? With... with her?”
“Though I couldn’t love her, Nidaba, I was human. A man. And a king. I didn’t know you’d borne my son, and I needed to provide my country with an heir.”
In a pained whisper, Nidaba said, “You made a child with her?”
He nodded. “You had been gone for five years. I had little hope of ever finding you again, and I had finally come to believe that you honestly did not want to be with me anymore. It crushed me, Nidaba. But it infuriated me as well. I turned to my duty, because I had nothing else. And part of my duty was to know my queen and to produce an heir.”
He pushed a hand through his tousled hair. “And maybe it was a way of... striking back at you for running away from me the way you did. Maybe, deep down, I wanted to hurt you back.”
“You certainly succeeded, Natum. In a thousand ways you hurt me. And had I known of this, it would have hurt me still more. But I never knew.”
“That’s because the infant was stillborn,” he said and sighed deeply. “Puabi... she lost whatever sanity she had at that point. Ordered the servants out of her chambers, bolted the doors and decreed that anyone coming inside would pay with his life. She locked herself in her room wit
h that dead child for days.”
“Days?”
He nodded. “I was away.” He looked at her steadily. “Out looking for you, actually. On one of my endless quests, following yet another fantastical report that you’d been seen in some remote and unlikely locale. But I returned the moment word of the tragedy reached me. I had the doors broken down, the child taken from her, had it buried.” He shook his head slowly. “I thought it would kill her. I honestly did. She hated me for it, and I knew she always would.” He drew a breath. “It was only a short while later we began to hear rumors that you had been seen far in the north, and that you had with you a fine and healthy son some five summers old. I think that must have been what pushed her completely over the edge. She had to know your child was mine, even though when I heard the rumors I was unsure. Mostly, I believed they were fantasies—so many had already been spun around your disappearance...” He shook his head slowly. “But Puabi believed it. And I think it was more than her grief-crippled mind could bear.”
Nidaba lifted her gaze, speared him with her eyes. “I hope you’re not trying to excuse what she did, Natum. A mother who knows the pain of losing a child should be damned to eternal torment for inflicting the same pain on another.”
He stared down at her. “I wasn’t trying to excuse her. Your child... he was my son, too, you know. And I didn’t even get the chance to know him.”
Nidaba rose slowly, lifted a trembling hand, touched Natum’s cheek. “No. You didn’t.” Her own words, those she had just spoken, played again through her mind. A mother who knows the pain of losing a child should be damned to eternal torment for inflicting the same pain on another. Wasn’t that exactly what she was doing by not telling Eannatum the truth about their son?
“I made the wrong choice when I chose my kingdom over you, Nidaba. And I made the wrong choice when I married a woman I didn’t love, much less slept with her while you yet lived—it was a sin against our love. One I know you can probably never forgive. And it was my own army that tracked you down, enabling Puabi’s assassins to kill our son. For that—for that I can’t even ask your forgiveness. Just know, Nidaba, that I have suffered too. At least you got to know him, to be with him, for a little while. But I never did. And while our feelings for each other have... have changed after all this time, the love a parent feels for a child never can.”
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 89
