Theroun snorted roughly, eyeballing the well-manicured eel. “What about Arthe den’Tourmalin?”
A slight snarl curled Lhaurent’s mouth, then it was gone. “The Tourmaline Isles are giving us… a bit of a fuss. Arthe den’Tourmalin has proven unwilling to negotiate. Even the slightest hint of encouraging war with Alrou-Mendera causes him to speak sharp rebuke. One of our agents was careless, hinting too often, and Arthe den’Tourmalin sent him to the block, to make an example of the man. Den’Tourmalin will not provoke war with Alrou-Mendera. Dissuade the Dhenra from his suit.”
“But King Therel of Elsthemen is just rash enough to fight back in fury if Alrou-Mendera accuses him of having anything to do with assassinating our young Queen.”
“Precisely.”
Theroun was silent a very long time. Lhaurent did not blink and he did not fidget, his hands still gracefully clasped as if he was personally waiting upon the King. He appeared benign and servile, but Theroun knew he was far from either. Theroun wondered again just how high up Lhaurent was in the Khehemni Lothren. Far enough to know exactly what was going on, which Theroun himself didn’t. And yet, Lhaurent had surprising information sometimes, that Theroun wondered if he shared with the Lothren. Lhaurent’s network of spies throughout the northern nations and even the southwestern nations past the Isles were personally-recruited, Theroun knew that much.
And were intensely loyal to Lhaurent, for what reason Theroun couldn’t fathom. He wondered if those spies and servingfolk were even loyal to the Lothren at all. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered it. Lhaurent den’Karthus was very closemouthed about his network.
“Tell me about the emeralds, Lhaurent.”
“Emeralds?” Lhaurent lifted his eyebrow, coy.
“Don't bullshit me. You know where they're going. And why. Evshein's been signing off on the documents.”
Lhaurent gave a secretive chuckle. “Wars are expensive, Theroun. Chancellor Evshein is merely providing... a bit of pay. To recruit the men we need when war breaks out on the Elsthemi border.”
“Recruiting men from where?” Theroun's fingers lingered near the knife at his belt.
“Abroad.”
“Where, you fucking sneak-thief?!”
“Abroad.”
Theroun ground his jaw. His fingers spasmed at the hilt of his knife as a lancing dart of pain ripped through his right side. “You’re an eel, Lhaurent. Someone’s going to put a sword through you someday and roast you for supper.”
The Castellan smirked, just the hint at one corner of his too-smooth lips. “Is that a threat, Chancellor? And here I thought you were the one who had been pinned in the rain barrel by a hawk’s talons. Or have you forgotten why you swore allegiance to the Khehemni, to the Lothren, just after your madness on the Aphellian Way? So many Alrashemni Kingsmen to kill… so little time before a man dies to see revenge done for his family’s death. Oh yes, and the fact that he is now a cripple. I’m watching, Theroun. Step wrong, tell the Dhenra, or do any little thing that compromises Elyasin's demise and you will be pinned again, but not by a Kingsman. And that’s not a threat, my friend. That’s a promise. But play our little game, and see all your desires to annihilate Alrashemni Kingsmen bear blood-ripened fruit.”
“You’re watching?” Theroun growled. “Don’t you mean the Lothren are watching?”
Lhaurent gave an oily smile. “Take my words as you like them.”
And with that, the Castellan turned smoothly on his heel, clasping the iron handle of the heavy door with one beringed hand and flowing around the frame. Theroun rubbed his jaw and scowled, watching the Castellan go. He hadn't raided the banks of the Trius with only fifty men, slitting throats in the dead of night for this. To be disrespected by this silken cur; treated like a lackey. Those cream-smooth hands of Lhaurent's hadn't done a lick of work in his entire poufed life. Theroun thought he could smell eels in the man’s wake. Or perhaps it was just jasoune-bloom, reeking like a west wind through Lintesh. Bloody perfume for a woman’s bedchamber, not the smell of a man.
Theroun found he was gripping the hilt of the knife at his belt, hard.
He should have thrown it. Right into the Castellan’s back.
CHAPTER 13 – DHERRAN
Dherran gripped the woman’s hips hard, driving himself up into her deep as she straddled him. Vicious. Rageful. But this buxom brunette was a professional, and she knew how to take a man. She ground down upon him, green eyes flashing by the fire’s light in the inn’s small room, dominant. She gripped him with her thighs as Dherran gave her everything, holding her steady, punishing her. Leaning in, she absorbed it, arching. She raked her nails down his chest, and Dherran hissed through gritted teeth.
So very close.
But this woman was a professional. Reading his body like Dherran read others in the ring, she reached out, slapping him hard across the face. Dherran gasped at the sting of it, at the power in her, unleashed just for him. He came with a roar, spasming hard beneath her, reaching up to seize her by the neck and haul her down, crushing her into his kiss as he shuddered on and on.
And then it was over.
He released her, still breathing hard, the hot forge of rage inside cooled at last, empty once more. She ran a thumb over his lips, but Dherran was finished now, and he turned his head away. “Your coins are on the bureau.”
She arched one eyebrow as she rose, wiping between her legs with a washcloth from the porcelain basin by the bed. “You’re not one for lingering, are you?”
“Take your pay and go. We’re finished here.”
Her chuckle was scathing as she bent, lifting her gown from where it had puddled upon the plain floorboards, hooking the bodice closed. “You’re beautiful to look at Kingsman, and a pleasure to fuck. But you’re a bastard, aren’t you?”
Dherran rose from the bed, going to the basin to splash water on his face, curry it through his blonde hair. “You’re not my lover. You’re not my friend. So get lost.”
“Prizefighters. Figures.” She raked her coins from the bureau, primed her tousled mane a moment, then opened the door to Dherran’s room. Then looked back. “My name’s Cecilia. If you want me again during your stay, just talk to the landlady downstairs. She knows where to find me.”
Dherran met her gaze. He wanted to tell her no. He wanted to tell her he didn’t love her and that he never would, that his heart had been destroyed long ago. But those words didn’t come. He knew the truth about himself by now. He would need her again, tomorrow, and the next day. And she had been good enough, letting him rage deep inside her the way he needed to.
“Tomorrow.” Dherran murmured. “This time again.”
A small smirk lifted her lips, victory. She nodded and stepped out.
Dherran settled back to the bed, not bothering to draw the covers up. Summertime in Vennet was balmy, and the past two nights they’d been here proved stifling at this poorly-drafted inn. Their trio had money now, but it wouldn’t do to waste it, so their lodgings in the valley were modest. It was clean, and that’s what mattered. Dherran rolled to his back on the rumpled bed, turning his head to stare into the fireplace. The flames licked low. The room’s only window was open to let in the night breeze, full of ribbing frogs. Soothed at last, Dherran’s eyelids began to drop, fluttering closed.
Memories rose, of a fine-boned woman in his hands. Small, delicate, her skin supple and her muscles hard, riding him arched and beatifically silent, a smile of bliss upon her haunting face. Calm brown eyes half-closed, enjoying everything of their joining. Sighs licked at Dherran’s ears, the only sound Suchinne had ever made as he’d fucked her, as she’d quickened, climaxed for him.
As he came, roaring, for her.
Dherran drifted, feeling her, hearing the croaking of frogs outside and the snap of the fire. Time stretched, endless in this soothed space. But suddenly, he snapped awake, roused by the touch of steel at his throat.
“Got you.”
Dherran’s breath hissed, in relief and exa
speration. “It’s the middle of the fucking night, Khenria. We’re not bouting. Go back to bed.”
The fire had dwindled to coals, and gave little illumination to her movements. But suddenly, Dherran felt her slide onto his bed atop him, her knife blade moving not a whit from his throat as she settled upon his naked body. Dherran's breath caught to feel her lithe frame so close, so hot pressed up against him with only her thin cotton undergarments between. Khenria's lips were close, her breath warm upon his face.
“I don’t want to go back to bed.” She murmured, husky, her voice low at his ear.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dherran growled. “I’m not playing. Take your knife from my throat and get off me or get your wrist broken.”
“I’m not playing either.”
“Go back to bed.” Dherran insisted, betrayed by his rising intrigue, trapped right against her belly, where he knew she could feel it.
“Do you know where I go when we’re in the cities? Do you know where I was most of last night?” Khenria continued, brushing her lips across his. “To whorehouses. So I can learn. I’m not innocent, Dherran. I know you and Grump like to think I’m a girl, but I’m not.” Khenria had always been her own creature. Dherran knew she slipped away when they were in the cities, but hadn’t questioned her business. But now that he knew the truth of her errands, need boiled in his veins, the same surging tirade he had always felt with Suchinne.
But Khenria wasn’t Suchinne, and she never would be.
“Maybe you want to fuck, Khenria, but not with me.”
“But I do.” Khenria's dark gaze gleamed in the fire's low light. “When I watch you fight, I feel this vast animal inside you. I feel your rage, Dherran…and I want it.”
“My rage is only unleashed in the ring, Khenria. You can see it two days from now.”
Her answering smile was sly. “I see it all the time. I’ve watched through cracks in the door. I watched you tonight. You let it out with the whores, that magnificent rage, just at the very end. I want to feel it. I want to make you lose that perfect control… unleash that animal brutality upon me...”
The knife slipped away. Dherran felt it plunk to the covers beside his head. Khenria was close, her lithe body unfurled atop him, fingertips stroking his neck. “I want to fight like you do. I want to fuck like you do…”
Her lips brushed his, bold with desire.
“I can’t do this, Khenria.” Dherran pulled back, though his loins screamed at him for a fool. “I’m old enough to be your uncle.”
“But you’re not. Not my uncle, but one of my own. Alrashemni. A Kingsman, like I should have been.” Khenria’s slender fingers danced over Dherran’s bare chest, tracing his Inkings. “These. You came for me, didn’t you? I knew it, when I saw you that day in the river. You came to make it right.”
“I’m still trying to make it right.” Dherran murmured, lips starting to seek hers though his mind screamed, ever more feebly. “Your First Seal should have been at thirteen. I’m sorry, that I couldn’t give that to you. But I will. I promise. And I can’t if we do this. You’ll get hurt.”
“Maybe I won’t be the one who gets hurt.” She had begun to slide her hips over his groin, and Dherran’s body betrayed him. His lust was nearly as strong as his rage, and always had been.
“Grump trusts us. I can’t…” He breathed.
“Touch me, Dherran…” Khenria’s tongue flicked out to lick his lips. “Taste me. Train me, right now. Don’t say no. Not tonight. Tonight, you’re mine, not some whore’s, either with my knife buried in your throat or your cock buried between my legs.”
“Khenria...” But Dherran’s resolve was now as feeble as his excuses. He slid his hands around her slender waist, feeling her warm flesh beneath the thin undershirt, so good in his arms, so much like Suchinne. Dark-eyed, bird-boned Suchinne, whom he could wrap entire in his arms, who always came up fighting when she fucked him. Suchinne, who could still his rage with a touch, who could control this beast inside him with a glance.
Who would ask him to do better to control himself.
Dherran pulled back with a grieving growl. In one quick motion, he rolled Khenria to the bed, pinning her with his bulk. She hissed and tried to hit him, but Dherran pinned her wrists. This wasn't the way, not with Khenria. She was his student and he her teacher, and this would only make things maddening.
“I'm not taking you, Khenria. You're my student, not my lover. My lover is dead. Get out of my bedroll.” Dherran rolled off her to standing.
Khenria scuttled to her feet with a hiss. “Fine! If that’s the way you want it… fine! Fuck you!” With a scathing backward glance, she stalked to the door, opening it and slamming it hard behind her. Dherran tried not to give a damn about her feelings. She could hiss and splutter all she wanted. He'd refused her, and there was going to be hell to pay, but there was worse within Dherran's own soul.
His heart twisted as he lay back down, remembering his own beautiful little hawk. Remembering her dark eyes and gentle touch, that had always soothed this awful need inside him.
* * *
Khenria's movements around Dherran this morning were obvious, bitter and pissed. She banged her cup on the rough table, kicked out the bench to slide into a seat by Dherran, more than was truly necessary. She flipped her knife restlessly in one hand, her grey eyes pinning him, ignoring the breakfast bustle of the inn’s main room around them. Their trenchers of eggs and ham in gravy came and she didn’t eat as Dherran set to. The inn was a steady drone of sound around them, people talking, laughing. Their location was apparently known for the decent food, every table and bench-booth in the plain dining room full.
Suddenly, Khenria’s fingers flicked. Her knife flipped from her fingers, thunking point-down into the table a mere finger’s width from Dherran’s hand by his trencher. Dherran blinked, looking up to see her simmering with fury.
“Oops.” She mumbled.
“Oops?” Dherran hissed, leaning towards her, trying to keep it quiet in the busy inn. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Practicing.” Her lips were tight, angry.
“Khenria. Aeon’s sack, girl!” Grump murmured from the bench across from Khenria and Dherran. The hard glint in his normally merry eyes spoke volumes. An angry glower flitted over Grump's features. The steady gaze Khenria turned upon Grump in return could have ripped rabbits limb from limb. Grump simmered, something Dherran had never seen him do, then huffed and rose from the table.
“Grump!” Dherran called out after him. “Where are you going?”
“Just checking on the horses. I’ll be back.” He gave a distracted wave, then moved towards the main door, with a tightness to his shoulders that Dherran rarely saw.
“What the hell has gotten into you this morning?” Dherran hissed to Khenria. “What was that all about?”
“We got into a fight before breakfast.” Khenria smirked. Suddenly, her hand slid out, sliding over Dherran’s thigh to stroke at his crotch.
“Stop that,” Dherran hissed.
“Make me,” Khenria hissed back, nuzzling her face to his shoulder. Dherran moved one hand under the table, pressing down upon hers. “Stop, Khenria,” he murmured, his gaze flicking around the room, wary of drawing attention.
He said stop, but he also hoped she wouldn’t stop. Dherran had lain awake in his bed for the better part of an hour after he'd dismissed her, trying to remember Suchinne but twisting at memories that had been suddenly replaced by Khenria. Feeling her smooth skin, tasting her lips upon his. Those tight, slim muscles beneath his hands. And now she stroked him, cruel and challenging, and he rose for her just as hard as any man who wanted a woman.
“I said stop.” Dherran repeated, his mutter breathier than it should have been.
“I don't want to stop.” Sidling very close upon the bench, Khenria nuzzled into his shoulder, her other hand tugging Dherran’s shirt from his trousers, slipping behind his belt, down. “I want you to take me like a real man. L
ike a Kingsman. And I'm not going to stop... until I have what I want.”
It was all Dherran could do to not moan in the bustle of the inn around them, to not give anything away. He breathed a single long, slow breath, fighting for control. “Being a Kingsman isn’t all about fucking and fighting, Khenria. It’s about negotiation, and balance.”
Her chuckle was purring, ruthless. “The only negotiation you ever do is with your fists. And your cock. So let’s negotiate.”
“Negotiation was never my strong suit. That was Olea.”
Her hands stilled. “Who is Olea? Someone you knew from… before?”
Dherran cursed himself. After Suchinne had died, he had sworn he would never mention the five Kingskinder and their past. And he hadn’t, not even to Grump and Khenria. With every punch, every drunken sousing, with every time Dherran roared at the slurs from the crowd and with every woman he fucked, he tried to forget that time. A time when he had been nothing but a young man with a quick sword, a foul temper, and a fierce bird-boned woman, who had always been there to keep him in check.
Her hand slipped out of his trousers. “Well?”
Dherran meant to sigh, but it turned into a sour growl. “Stop touching that.”
Khenria scowled ferociously, then ripped the dagger from the table and hurled it point-first into the floorboards, turning a number of heads. She wanted a scene today, public and brutal, and if she pushed him, Dherran was going to give her one. His eyebrows shot up warningly.
“Best two out of three, Dherran.” She snarled, not caring to keep her voice down. A few men nearby sniggered to hear the fight, and their women looked over with accusatory scowls.
“No. I won’t fight you when you’re mad.”
“Fuck you!” Khenria snarled. “Best two of three! And I want a wager!”
“I don’t want your wager.”
“Well I want one, dammit!” Khenria surged to her feet, shouting for all to hear. “I’m not a child, and he’s not my keeper!” She gestured angrily across to room towards the hearthfire, where Grump had reappeared without telling them, leaning against the stones of the fireplace and watching Dherran and Khenria’s interaction with hooded eyes. “He’s just a lonely man who found me out in the woods!”
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