“Oh, yes.”
“And how did she take the news all her dreams are about to come true?”
“Pretty much how you’d expect her to take it. She wanted to know if I was sleeping with you.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Not yet.”
Marla couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud. “You’re an optimist, Galon. I’ll grant you that much.”
“You will accept my offer eventually, your highness. Remember, there’s still the issue of your agreement with the Assassins’ Guild to take care of.”
“I could walk down to the Slave Quarter and find some abandoned child on the street tonight, legally adopt him tomorrow and then hand him over to the Assassins’ Guild the day after, Galon. Your plan isn’t nearly so clever as you think it is.”
“Don’t get too excited about your clever little plan to circumvent guild law, your highness,” he warned. “I’m the one responsible for deciding when you’ve fulfilled your obligation to the guild. Trust me, you could adopt every homeless child in Greenharbour and it won’t be good enough for me.”
“So now you’re telling me which child it has to be? And conveniently it’s one you fathered?” She shook her head. “It would seem in the matter of honour, you really are your father’s son.”
The insult didn’t seem to faze him. “Actually, I’m not my father’s son at all. My real father was another slave, a court’esa. My mother told Ronan Dell I was his son to protect me from him. Pretty smart move for a terrified thirteen-year-old girl, when you think about it. It saved her any further suffering at his hands and it had the added bonus of setting me free. A slave’s bastard grows up to be a slave, you know. But a highborn bastard … that’s a whole different pile of horse dung. Highborn bastards are looked after. Fed. Clothed. Well educated. Almost treated like real people. I was probably the only child to ever walk the halls of Ronan Dell’s palace without fear.”
“I was told your mother died giving birth.”
“She did. But my father lived to the ripe old age of thirty-six,” he replied. “He was a linguist. A damn good one, too. Ronan Dell’s wealth came from precious metals. His family had mines all over Hythria and interests in more than a few other countries, as well. He did a lot of business with the Fardohnyans and even the Medalonians and Kariens so he kept my father around as an interpreter. Until Alija Eaglespike sent her henchmen through Ronan Dell’s palace on a killing spree, that is. I found him out in the courtyard, you know. He’d just been sitting there in the sun, reading a book, when some Dregian thug sneaked up on him and cleaved his head in two from behind.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He shrugged. “No reason you should. And I’m not telling you this to get your sympathy. I mention it only so you don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m anything like that monster you mistakenly believe gave me life. The massacre at Ronan Dell’s palace took place over twenty-five years ago. I’ve pretty much come to terms with it.”
“Yet you want me to believe you’re still burning with the need for vengeance?”
“I’m burning with a need, your highness,” he agreed, squatting down in front of her to brush the hair gently from her face. “But right now, it’s not vengeance.”
She ignored his unsubtle hint and pushed his hand away impatiently. “On consideration, your guild’s vengeance for reneging on an agreement might be slightly less harrowing than the reaction of my children, were I to tell them my next husband was going to be an assassin.”
Galon smiled and stood up again. “So you have been considering my offer?”
“Only when I feel the need for a bit of light entertainment.”
“But you are considering it,” he pointed out. He was awfully close. Perhaps because he knew how much it unsettled her. “That’s a step in the right direction.”
“You’ve met my stepson, Rodja, and my daughter, Kalan, but you’ve never met my other sons, have you?”
“I’ve seen your eldest son around town on occasion. He likes the taverns, I hear. And the races.”
“Don’t be fooled by his affable manner. Damin could take down a grown man by the time he was twelve.”
The assassin seemed rather amused. “Are you trying to scare me, Marla?”
“I just mention it in passing.”
“You’re not threatening to set your boys on to me, then?”
“The Wolfblades are a ruling family, Galon. By definition that means we delegate.” She rose to her feet and walked across to the window, throwing it open. She took a deep breath of the damp night air, hoping the faint breeze would cool her clammy skin, and then turned to look at him. “People like us hire people like you to do our dirty work.”
He looked at her oddly. “People like us?”
Marla looked down her nose at him. “Feel free to leave the same way you came in, Galon. I’m actually starting to think rather fondly of this window as the tradesmen’s entrance.”
He crossed the room to the window and looked out over the rooftops of the palace. Marla was a tiny bit disappointed. She thought he’d put up more of a fight before she tossed him out.
Finally he turned to look at her. “So, tell me, your highness, do people like you ever spare a thought to what your lifestyle costs people like me?”
Marla rolled her eyes. “Oh, gods, spare me! Just when I thought I had you all figured out, it turns out that at heart you’re really a noble champion of social justice.”
He smiled at the very suggestion. “Not me, your highness. I want in to your world. I’m not interested in tearing it down.”
“Here’s a little tip, then, Galon,” she told him softly, reaching up to pat his face like a mother chastising a spoilt child. “Learn to use the door.”
He caught her wrist and held it fast. No longer in charge of this dangerous exchange, Marla struggled to free it. “Let me go!”
“Here’s a tip for you, your highness,” he breathed, pulling her to him. “People like me don’t pay a whole lot of attention to people like you when they’re behaving like spoilt, condescending little bitches.”
“Get your hands off me!”
“Or you’ll scream?” he asked, pushing her back against the curtains. “You threaten that a lot, your highness, but you never seem to actually do it.”
“I’m warning you …”
“And now I’m really scared, because when people like you warn people like me, we’d better pay attention, hadn’t we?”
“Stop saying that!” she ordered. “You’re completely misinterpreting what I meant.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what you mean, Marla Wolfblade, which begs a rather interesting question.” He held her against the curtains, her wrist held fast, his body pressed against hers. “What does it take, I wonder, for people like me to make people like you scream anyway?”
Bereft of her senses, let alone a comprehensible answer, Marla turned her face away, but all it did was give him unhindered access to the hypersensitive skin just below her ear. His lips trailed fire down her neck, deliberately tormenting, torturously delightful.
“Stop it,” she commanded without conviction.
“Stop what?” he asked, as his lips burned their way across her throat. “This?” He waited and when she didn’t answer, he added with a wicked little smile. “Or this?”
“Galon …” she breathed helplessly.
Her whispered call was all he seemed to be waiting for. He kissed her then, and Marla forgot everything. Galon let go of her wrist and pulled her closer. Marla gripped the curtain and let him, wishing there was some way to make this feeling last forever. This was raw animal lust, pure and simple—the court’esa-trained part of her knew that. That didn’t make the experience any less intense. If anything, it sharpened the need, the hunger. This wasn’t logical, or sensible, she knew. It was something that only happened on that rare occasion when two people, against all logic and common sense, wanted each other so badly they were prepared to thro
w caution to the wind and give in to that part of them they normally kept hidden in the darkest recesses of their souls.
When she was younger she might have called it love, but she was older now and far more cynical.
The savagery of her desire shocked Marla a little. She barely noticed when the curtains came crashing down as Galon lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, didn’t hear the table fall or the vase by the bed shatter to the floor as they bumped it on their way past. Marla was lost completely to her hunger, his touch, oblivious to anything else but her desire …
Until Galon cried out in pain and suddenly slumped on top of her on the bed and Marla looked up to discover her guards standing over them, one of them wiping the blood from the blade he had just used to run Galon Miar through.
CHAPTER 55
It wasn’t until Aleesha reported to her mistress that Emilie wasn’t anywhere to be found that Luciena really started to worry. Nor was she entirely certain that “nowhere to be found” was an accurate statement. Krakandar Palace was a huge place riddled with hidden nooks and crannies a tenyear-old might hide in, not to mention the labyrinthine slaveways which it would take days to search, if they were really serious about it.
No, Emilie had found entertainment somewhere else in the palace and had given Aleesha the slip long enough to find it. It was up to the adults to find Emilie, because until she was ready, she probably didn’t want to be found.
“Did she say anything to you before she left the nursery?” Luciena demanded of her slave.
“Not a word, my lady. Not really.”
“What exactly does not really mean?”
“Well, she was talking about a promise her father made to take her riding later today … I don’t know … maybe she went looking for him?”
“Didn’t you check?”
“Your husband is with Lord Damaran, my lady,” the slave replied. “I’m not about to knock on his door. Besides, I didn’t think she’d go …”
Luciena cursed under her breath, not waiting to hear the rest of Aleesha’s explanation. She hurried out of the nursery, across the foyer and along the broad east wing corridor where Mahkas’s office was located. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door when she reached it, and then opened it cautiously, dreading what she might find inside. If Mahkas was feeling fractious and didn’t want to be disturbed, who knew how he’d react to this unwelcome interruption.
“Luciena!” Xanda was alone in the study, working on the accounts by the look of it. He looked up in surprise when the door opened. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for Emilie. She’s been missing for nearly two hours from the nursery. Aleesha thought she might have come looking for you. Have you seen her?”
He shook his head, apparently unconcerned. “Not for a while. I promised her we’d go riding as soon as I was finished here and she said she’d wait for me. I assumed she meant in the nursery.”
“Never assume anything with that girl,” Luciena warned in exasperation. “I’ll bet you anything you care to name that she’s waiting for you down in the stables, hoping she doesn’t get caught.”
He smiled. “Well, I’m nearly done here. Did you want me to go and find her?”
“I’ll come with you. We need to have a talk to that girl about the meaning of the rule no roaming around the palace unaccompanied.”
Xanda closed the ledger he’d been reading and rose to his feet. “I can’t say I blame her, though. This palace is wonderful for a child. Or at least it used to be.”
Luciena frowned. “Ah yes, the good old days. I remember some of those wonderful things you and your cousins got up to as children. Wasn’t sneaking out onto a second-storey roof and drinking yourselves into oblivion with a stolen wineskin one of your favourite pastimes?”
“You make it sound so unromantic, Luciena.”
“I recall it being perilously dangerous. You haven’t been filling Emilie’s head with your wild childhood reminiscences, I hope?”
“Gods no!” Xanda exclaimed in alarm. “I don’t want my child doing even half the things I got up to as a boy.”
“I’m very relieved to hear it. You don’t think they would have let her go riding on her own, do you?”
“Unless she’s bullied one of the stable boys into saddling a horse for her, I doubt it. I don’t think she’s tall enough to saddle a Raider’s mount on her own.”
“Let’s just go down to the stables and find out for certain,” Luciena suggested, a little impatiently. Xanda’s words had left her feeling even more nervous. Emilie wouldn’t think twice before trying to bully a stable boy.
Xanda followed Luciena’s impatient steps through the palace and out through the solar into the garden that led down to the corrals. When they arrived at the stables, the warm summer air was buzzing with the sound of flies and thick with the smell of horse manure but there was no sign of Emilie, which relieved Luciena no end. If her daughter had found mischief to get into, obviously she’d found it elsewhere.
“Jendar, have you seen my daughter this morning?” Xanda asked one of the stable boys mucking out an empty stall near the entrance.
The lad stopped his shovelling long enough to point in the direction of the yards. “She’s with Lord Damaran, sir. Down in the round yard, I think.”
“Lord Damaran?” Luciena exclaimed in alarm. “What’s she doing with him?”
The young slave shrugged, the goings-on among the highborn obviously something he cared little about. “She was hanging around here for a while, getting underfoot, when Lord Damaran came down to check on Brehn’s Pride. She got to talking with him about you taking her out this afternoon, my lord, so he saddled the bad-tempered brute and took her down to the round yard for a ride.”
“Who are you calling a bad-tempered brute?” she asked distractedly, looking around for Emilie.
“That stallion of his, Brehn’s Pride,” the slave replied, shaking his head. “Mean-spirited thing it is. Even Lord Damaran can’t control him half the time.”
“And he took my daughter riding on this beast?”
“Hang on a minute!” Xanda said, grabbing her arm before she could storm off in the direction of the round yard.
She shook free of him impatiently. “Xanda! That maniac has my daughter! And he’s put her on a damned stallion! Even if it wasn’t this brute his slaves claim, she’s barely mastered her pony …”
“If they’re in the round yard, she’s not likely to hurt herself. Mahkas wouldn’t let her come to any harm …”
“Ah, yes!” she agreed. “The great Mahkas Damaran! The well-known Regent of Krakandar, renowned throughout the land for not hurting people!”
Xanda glanced around at the slaves who’d stopped working to watch this interesting altercation between two of their ruling family. He took Luciena’s arm and led her out of the stables, and out of earshot—provided they didn’t shout—of their audience.
“Calm down, Luciena.”
“Calm down?” she hissed furiously. “How can you tell me to calm down? He’s got Emilie …”
“And I will go and get her,” he promised. “Let me handle this. You’ll just make things worse.”
“Xanda, have you forgotten Leila already?”
“Of course not! But this isn’t the same thing. However twisted, Mahkas had a reason for what he did to Leila …”
“By the gods, Xanda! You’re defending him again!”
“I’m doing nothing of the kind. Now please, Luci, let me deal with this.”
Luciena wanted to scream at him. Don’t you understand! This place was dangerous and her children were in the most danger of all. They were living under the roof of a madman, at the mercy of his fickle moods, and her husband, the father of those same children, seemed reluctant to do anything to protect them.
She searched his face, wondering why he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see what was so clear to her. “The biggest mistake I ever made was agreeing to stay here when Damin left the city. I sho
uld have got out—with my children—while I still had the chance.”
Xanda sighed wearily, as if he was tired of hearing her complain about it. “I’m doing what I can, Luci. More than you realise. But it’s important … no, it’s critical … that you do nothing to upset my uncle at the moment. Chief among the things likely to set him off, incidentally, is you marching down to the round yard to deliver a scathingly indignant lecture on his total lack of common sense and responsibility.”
She scorned his excuses, sick of his insistence that doing nothing equated with doing something. “You’re not doing a damned thing to help us, Xanda, except defending that monster at every turn.”
“Luci, trust me on this,” he pleaded, lowering his voice. “I can’t tell you why, certainly not standing here in the stables, but I’m doing far more than you realise to get you and our children out of danger. Please don’t jeopardise my efforts for the sake of a silly argument.”
Luciena’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
Xanda hesitated for a moment, glancing over his shoulder before he replied. “If I promise to tell you later, will you promise to turn around, go back to the palace, and let me fetch Emilie?”
Luciena debated the issue silently, not at all happy about the idea, but conceding, however reluctantly, that Xanda was making sense. “You’ll bring her straight back?”
“I’ll be back before you can say Xanda, where the hell have you been? I promise.”
“And you’ll tell me what’s really going on?”
“I swear.”
Luciena nodded grudgingly. “You have to say something to him, Xanda. We can’t have him taking Emilie riding every time he’s feeling—”
“Go, Luci! I said I’d deal with it.”
With a great deal of reluctance, Luciena did as her husband asked. She turned her back on the stables, the flies, and the rank smell of the manure and made her way back to the palace, trying to imagine what plans Xanda might have up his sleeve. It disturbed her to think he was plotting against Mahkas without telling her about it, almost as much as the idea that others might be plotting with him.
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