A jeweled chain had been woven into her partially pleated hair, the remaining thick curls unbound and saturated with pomade until they shone like the gold adorning her body. Heavy earrings dangled from her ears, and a multi-strand necklace with hundreds of golden coins weighed down her neck and chest, jingling as she walked. Matching bracelets, a belly chain, and anklets weighed heavily.
A spectacle. One so heavily adorned, it seemed impossible to move. But the cacophony of metallic sounds accompanying her every bare-footed step proved otherwise. She’d have to ask Farrad’s permission to wear something simpler tomorrow, for comfort—and so that her escape efforts wouldn’t alert everyone within a fifty-foot radius.
As she reached the doors to the entertainment hall, two men escorted her in. Her every noisy step turned heads.
The massive space was decorated with lush rugs, detailed tapestries, and silk canopies slung from the ceiling. Several stations of large cushions and waterpipes spread throughout the room, separated with standing sandalwood lattice screens or tapestries. Well-dressed male patrons lounged everywhere, with mostly female entertainers and pleasure slaves, but some male dancers and servants in attendance. Guards lined the room, standing to attention with impeccable form.
It appeared idyllic, a place of bliss and relaxation, when beneath it all shackles bound half the wrists in this room, half the wills, and money had changed hands.
Sensual music joined the haze of smoke in the air. Farrad approached in his Zeharan-red caftan, scowling, and grasped her arm.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, his grip on her upper arm soft. His regal bearing was more rigid tonight, his face hard. He turned to the slaves escorting her. “Take her to him,” he said sternly. “Accommodate his every request.”
Farrad departed before she could reply. No, he hadn’t wanted this, and it pained him. But she couldn’t let that deter her from what had to be done tomorrow.
The slaves urged her ahead to one of the semi-private areas. If she was lucky, maybe the patron would drink himself to exhaustion and leave her be. She hoped.
Her escorts finally stopped, and she couldn’t bear to look at the man. But as was proper, she bowed in his direction, where he was seated and smoking a waterpipe.
“I am Thahab,” she said, introducing herself as his almutifi tonight. If she didn’t please him, Imtiyaz could have her lashed, beaten, sold—killed.
Malaise stirred in her stomach. She had to do this. Tears threatened to surface, but she bit them back. No one would see her cry tonight.
Just get it over with.
She just had to entice him, hurry it up, and then scrub her skin raw in the bath. Get clean again.
Fighting the unease, she closed her eyes. Notes feathered on her skin, vibrated inside. Music. Good. It would help keep her mind off what she had to do.
She opened her eyes.
Brennan.
Her breath caught in her throat, sending a ripple of shock up her neck that forced her mouth open.
The boy she’d grown up with, her fiancé, her former enemy, her werewolf thrall, her ally, her friend. Here.
His skin was darker than its usual bronze, and he was somehow leaner, which defined the musculature beneath his deepest-green thiyawb all the more. His gaze locked onto hers with smoldering focus.
The moment the beast’s wildness blazed in those hazel depths, she gave Brennan a disapproving look, grateful she had her back to Farrad. If he suspected she knew Brennan, this would all end disastrously.
Suppressing her shock, she let the drum beat in, and her body knew the rest, winding, curving, bending to the music’s whims.
Brennan’s amber rebellion burned, intensified to a raging anger, and Great Divine, if he couldn’t get himself under control, he’d get himself killed. She tried to connect to him through the bond to no avail—the arcanir.
Divine help her, the arcanir. He could kill everyone here, and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. There were innocents here, like Samara somewhere in the house, but a massacre would bring every mage and warrior in Xir upon them. The zahibshada would level the city before allowing the escape of two murderers to weaken him. They’d have no hope of leaving the city.
It had to be her way.
All she could do was lock eyes with him and pray he understood.
For one very long moment, she wasn’t sure whether he would obey her wishes, but then, he took a puff of the waterpipe, the wild blaze fading a measure before it vanished. He breathed in deep, glaring, and when his eyes went cold, she neared him and blocked him from Farrad’s view, dancing just within arm’s reach.
She wove in close enough to feel his scorching body heat. For her sake and his own, he needed to keep it together.
His nostrils flaring, he inhaled deeply. While she moved, she stole glances at him, her gaze trailing his changed body. He watched her examine him with interest, smoking the waterpipe, his eyes narrowed.
He scrutinized her thoroughly, beginning with her face and making his way lower. With a modest lift of his eyebrow, he stared at her belly, his breathing slowing.
She needed to talk to him, but there was no way to do it here.
Brennan licked his lips, giving her an idea. She leaned in close, stealing the chance to press her lips to his cheek and whisper, “Grab me.”
She danced away. From beneath his eyebrows, he mustered as lustful a stare as she had ever seen. He grabbed her hips with blazing hands and followed their gyrating motion for a moment before drawing her in and pulling her down.
Planting her knees on either side of him, she straddled his lap, raked her fingers to the back of his head, and pressed his face to her chest, isolating her rotating hips. He inhaled, long and deep, and then his breath heated between her breasts.
When his sultry lips met her skin, she shivered, and something inside her responded. One of his palms made its way up her back, coaxing her closer, while the other weighed down her hip until her core was flush against him.
Divine… She trembled. His mouth traced from her chest to her collarbone—making her gasp—and up her neck, before at last, his lips found hers.
The heat of his lips seared against her own, unbearable and irresistible at the same time. When his tongue sought hers, she opened to him, drawing on his mouth and waning from it like breath itself while her hips moved against his in pulse-pounding rhythm. Something throbbed inside her, and she pressed harder against him.
He gasped, throwing his head back—just the opening she needed. She kissed his neck, lightly sucking, and moved up to his jaw, near his ear.
“Ask for a private room all night. We’ll talk when the guards leave,” she whispered, then redoubled her attentions on his neck toward his shoulder.
He met eyes with one of the Hazaels’ managers, gaze speaking with the imperious nonchalance he’d been born to. The man approached.
“A private room for the whole night and two bottles of your finest wine,” Brennan said in High Nad’i, hissing as she nipped his shoulder.
Soon, a small escort of servants and two guards arrived. Brennan rose, swept an arm under her knees, and hoisted her up into his arms.
Divine, some part of her had wondered whether she’d ever see him again, and here he was, in the flesh. As he followed the servants, she let herself feel him—his heat, his breath, his skin against hers—the nearness of him. His presence here was as though her world had walked into her nightmare to remind her of reality. Tears pushed to the surface, but she held them in. Barely.
The walk felt much longer than it actually was, and when they were finally shown into the room, it had nothing more than an enormous, lavish bed. The two guards took up posts in the hall on either side of the doorway, their backs turned to the open latticework. Despite being a “private room,” it offered little privacy in actuality, but at least it was away from Farrad’s scrutiny.
Brennan laid her on the bed and joined her, perched on his knees to throw off his thiyawb while two servants hurried in wi
th wine and other items. She had seen Brennan naked before many times during his Change, but as she looked up at him, disrobing, it was different than any other time.
Even at a time like this, trying to steal a moment to speak, she was struck by his beauty. Her gaze traversed the vast expanse of his chest, following its lines, enthralled by every inch of his bare body. He was all hard muscle, lean and rippling, like a wild animal, an apex predator, and yet in his soft eyes and his slow movements, there was no threat, no danger, but care. His eyes never left hers, fixed in inquisitive concentration, waiting for any sign from her to stop.
He would find none. The guards waited for her work to be done, and then they would leave, replaced by a patrol through the hall for the night.
Since her humiliation at Tregarde, she hadn’t fathomed being in bed with Brennan, and no matter how beautiful he was, she didn’t want him that way. She once would have preferred torture over bedding the man who had so wronged her.
But what choice was there? She needed the guards to leave to discuss her escape. And there was only one way to accomplish that.
It would be over soon. She could shut out her heart, shut out her mind, be somewhere else until it was over. For weeks, she’d been with Farrad, and if she had managed that, she could manage this. She could.
Her heart heavy, she reached up to touch him, her palms gliding over his rising and falling chest. He peered down at them, observing her exploration with a patience she had never seen in him. Her palm settled over his heart, its beat quick but strong, the flesh there hard and taut like the rest of him.
If she shut out their past, thoughts of the man she loved, and everything but his body and hers, she might accomplish this without weeping.
When she met his lustful eyes, she slowly nodded her permission just as the servants exited, the guards still visible on the other side of the lattice.
Brennan raised one of her feet to his lips and kissed his way up her leg as she unhooked her bra. When it was off, he descended to her and kissed her collarbone while she unfastened the sash that held her skirt in place—the final article of clothing guarding her honor—or what remained of it.
If it had to be anyone other than Jon, then she had some small amount of comfort that, even if she despised the thought, it was Brennan, by her permission, and not some stranger. It would end in her freedom, with Brennan’s help, and that was what mattered most.
He lavished her breasts with attention, tantalizing with his tongue until her entire body awakened to need against her reluctance. As his hand slid up her thigh and over her hip to grip it, she tried to let the sensation of his touch dissipate any other thoughts she had left.
Jon… Divine, Jon… Her eyes watered, and she closed them.
His lips returned to hers in soft but eager kisses; she grasped a fistful of his hair and pulled him closer. The sooner this was over, the better.
Her head swam while he acquiesced to her urging and deepened his kiss. His tongue played against hers at first, teasing longer and deeper strokes until she writhed beneath him. They needed to finish before whatever held her composure broke. Her frantic hands pulled, clutched, grabbed—doing anything and everything to bring him closer. He obliged, devouring her mouth with hungry kisses while she angled her hips up to his.
He throbbed against her, but he didn’t move to enter her. When she reached between them, he grasped her hand and buried his face in her hair, his breaths hot and harsh against her head.
“We’ll try to be convincing,” he whispered, his voice nearly inaudible, “but if you want me to stop anything I’m doing, pinch me.”
Convincing?
Then he didn’t intend to—
Great Divine—she’d never expected…
But they could pretend, if they were careful.
He rose to his knees and pulled the sheet up over his backside to his hips. She tried not to look at his bare body, but she peeked. He caught her, his eyes dancing for a vain moment; then he descended back down to her, covering their lower bodies with the sheet, a portion slipped stealthily between them.
Facing her with an intense look, he waited—for her agreement? Her chest heaved with nervousness, but she nodded, and his body visibly contracted with purpose. Through the sheet, his hard length pressed against her, his heat blazing between them. Gasping, she clutched a fistful of sheets while he moved in perfect time.
Great Divine, it had no right to feel this good, this act, this betrayal, this necessity, but the rising pulse of pleasure in her lower body would not be swayed by reason.
Her hips rose to meet him, the tension building at her core, and his pressure was just right—enough to please but not to hurt, pleasure just out of reach. His eyebrows drawn, he forced out a harsh breath, and he must have longed for entry, for tightness, for release—her former enemy, her wolf, her loyal wolf. Whatever else he was, he was loyal to her. He was here.
She raised a hand to wrap around his neck, her fingers digging into his flesh, part pretense and part primal, bringing his mouth down to hers. Groaning, he kissed her in a greedy assault, plundering her mouth with a ferocious urgency, and Divine help her, she wanted to give him all he sought, everything, as her conquered body writhed against him.
A cry escaped her lips—the throbbing between her legs peaked, pulsed to rapture, and it spread to her hips, her belly, her entire body, until she wanted to weep in submission to the sensation, to crumple in shame but be no more than the pleasure vibrating in her core and everywhere. Intensity etched into his face, he curled over her and forced out a rough breath, finding his release in body-quaking spasms. Mesmerized, she watched the pleasure dominate his face, her craving lower body contracting at the sight.
Was this what it was like to make love with Brennan Karandis Marcel, even this pale imitation? Had everything gone differently three years ago, would this be her life? The moment fell like nostalgia, a loose anchor plunging ever deeper into vast, unknowable depths until lost.
She closed her eyes and shivered at the wetness of the sheet between them.
With an exhilarated breath, he collapsed next to her, his arm draped over her belly and his face turned to hers. For some time, he didn’t move but to breathe, hard and fast at first, then slowing and deepening. She lay, intertwining her fingers with his, taking solace in this anomalous moment in the long nightmare that had been her enslavement.
It was both troubling and confusing. No matter the reason, tonight they had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.
The telltale sound of retreating footsteps sounded from the hall. The guards had left.
“I’m sorry,” Brennan whispered.
She glanced at him, at his overbright eyes. She believed him. For years, he’d been torturing her, hurting her, begging her to break the curse, but the broken look in his eyes—she believed it. “You had the opportunity to take me, but you didn’t.”
When they’d entered the bedchamber, she hadn’t expected anything else.
“Of course not,” he murmured. “Although I would relish the opportunity to make love to you… not here, and not like this.” He sniffed. “And don’t take tonight as any indication of my usual performance.”
She smiled despite herself. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Now tell me everything,” he said gravely.
With a grim nod, she whispered it all into his ear. She told him of Shadow’s scheme, of her connection to the pirates who had attacked Laurentine, of her threat to kill the man she loved. She told him of the Siren bearing her to Harifa. She told him of the slave auction, of Ihsan, of being a scribe, and of Farrad… And then she told him of Ihsan’s plan.
“You needn’t suffer any longer. I’ll break you out.” His fingers squeezed hers.
“No… They know your identity and could easily find me later if you’re noticed. And there’s a company of guards here… even you couldn’t survive that.”
“You’re wrong. I know—”
She couldn’t risk rebellion.
“Please,” she said, “let me handle this my way. If I succeed, no one will ever come after me, and you won’t take any risks. It’s the best of all options. If I fail, then please, by all means, save me from being executed.”
Silent for a moment, Brennan finally rolled his eyes. “So you’re going to kill Farrad?” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Fine, stick with the plan. I hate that bastard.” A crooked grin tugged the corner of his mouth.
Farrad wasn’t all bad. Maybe if she revealed Ihsan’s plan, he’d somehow secure her freedom.
Or he’d have her locked up.
Or worse.
She didn’t know him well enough to accurately predict his response, and she couldn’t risk Sylvie’s life on a guess.
“Tomorrow night, I’ll be waiting just outside, under the pomegranate trees in the courtyard. You had better show up.”
“I will. I promise.” There was another question on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitated. If she didn’t ask, she would regret it. “Tell me of home.”
He rolled over onto his back, then paused, his body rigid. Listening for spies?
He reached into his clothes on the floor and handed her a folded note; he must have deemed it safe enough. “Immortals are popping up all over the kingdom, but the paladins seem to have the situation under control. Last I checked, your former master was locked up in the arcanir dungeon for thwarting the rite. We also suspected he might’ve had a hand in your disappearance, but it looks like that wasn’t the case.”
Of course not. She hadn’t expected Leigh to stand against her, but she’d understood it. But this? Never.
While she examined the smooth paper in her hands, Brennan continued. “Olivia is a capable Archmage and seems to have recovered. She’s indispensable right now, decoding ancient texts to find out how to handle these Immortals.”
That sounded like Olivia. Rielle smiled.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 27
