by Brenna Lyons
“Oh gods. You— If you did not want what I was doing, you had only to ask— I would never have knowingly—”
“It was not that,” she denied.
“Then what?”
“I did not release an egg.”
His heart sank. Deliya had conceived, and she wasn’t yet convinced. If she were, she would not be crying.
“Let me love you,” he pleaded.
She sobbed, shaking her head.
With that refusal, he realized what being truly helpless was. “Then I have three weeks to convince you.”
Deliya stiffened. She looked to her bound hands fearfully. “Convince?” she squeaked. “That was not our deal.”
“I will do nothing,” he promised. “Do you trust me?”
She nodded. “Then what did you mean?”
Ro covered her lips with his fingertips then unbound her hands. “When you turn to me, I will be in your bed waiting for you.”
Her eyes widened in understanding. “But, you cannot,” she gasped.
“If you have no drive to be mine, it will be no different than when you shared my pallet on the trail home,” he reasoned.
Deliya swallowed hard, and Ro bit back a smile. His greatest hope was that she would want him that much. Her schen would do the rest, if she did. If only that weren’t her greatest fear.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Abrin 24th, Ti 10-459
Deliya sank into the heat of the bath, letting the water battle back the chill of her pregnancy signs. She sighed, moving her hands over her body then stilling them miserably. Even out of his sight, Deliya imagined Ro’s hands on her.
Ro had agreed to give her privacy for bathing, but it hardly seemed to matter. Deliya still pictured him intruding on her bath, his hands exploring her body, his mouth following, sliding into the wide tub—
She fisted her hands at her sides. This need was beyond distracting to maddening. Worse, there was still more than a week to go. Deliya looked at her body through the water, tinted pink with the cleansing oil she loved so much. Her hands shook, and her nipples beaded as if for Ro’s touch. It would be more than a week of pure torture.
Deliya clenched her teeth, smiling grimly. She could survive this. One favor Loric had done her was training her well. Their deal never stipulated that Deliya couldn’t find her own pleasure, only that she couldn’t turn to Ro for it without becoming his queen. Fion’s priestesses could take their pleasure in silence.
She closed her eyes, her nerves humming in anticipation. Deliya sank her fingers into her body, biting her lip as her skin heated, rivaling the temperature of the water.
Ro filled her mind, his mouth teasing at nipples that hardened further in the eddies of water swirling and stroking past them. His hands caressed her, driving her higher. It had been too long since she’d felt his body in hers.
“Deliya?”
She stilled, opening her eyes to the sight of Ro in the doorway. Deliya swallowed hard, taking in his look of hunger as he stared at her. His entire body went rigid, and his cock rose to the occasion. For one timeless moment, he was the embodiment of her fantasies. He would stride to her, take her in her bath as she dreamed.
Dear Mother, what am I thinking?
Deliya followed his line of sight to her hands, and she removed them hurriedly, pushing herself against the far wall of the tub with her knees drawn up to shield her body from his sight. He strode toward her, the living embodiment of what she asked for moments earlier, and Deliya scrambled from the tub, pulling a robe around her body. The silin lay against her wet form like a second skin.
Ro stopped, running his eyes over her as if she were a plate of Gelgrin. “Deliya,” he growled.
His scent teased her senses, and Deliya fought the urge to step to him, to bury her face in the fragrant curls on his chest and make her madness complete. “You promised,” she whispered.
He nodded. “The meal has arrived. You have been in here for quite a while.”
She eased past Ro, gasping at the lungful of his musk she inhaled. Deliya rushed to her cabinet, pulling out a dress with trembling fingers.
Ro’s hands closed on her shoulders, kneading her muscles. “You cannot deny what you need forever,” he breathed into her neck.
Perhaps not even long enough to escape him, she thought bitterly. “This is not an appropriate test,” she snapped.
“In what way?” he asked in the calm voice that he adopted when she yelled at him. He knew that voice infuriated her, but he used it regardless of her feelings on the matter, as if she were a child in need of scolding.
“You are always near me and always aroused. Your scent is driving me mad.”
“It does not have to.”
Deliya turned on him, pushing Ro back. “What sort of test is this?” she demanded. “You make me crazy and offer yourself.”
“What would you have me do?” Ro asked, a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth.
She bit back her fury, trying desperately to make herself clear on this matter. “I have no options but you and madness,” she exploded, realizing she could not remain calm in the face of his mocking smile.
His smile disappeared. Ro removed his hands from her shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. “You want schaen?” he asked, his voice cold.
Deliya furrowed her brow. “What is a schaen?” Sometimes, it seemed that she and Ro didn’t even have a shared language in common.
“A sterile male to satisfy a woman’s urges,” he snapped, as if she should have known the term. His shoulder muscles bunched and his eyes were as cold as his voice.
She stood frozen in disbelief. The concept shocked her on many levels. Deliya wished she could honestly claim that the idea of stealing a male’s fertility bothered her most about the practice. It didn’t.
Deliya felt ill, nauseated by the idea of taking another man. Worse, a fire burned deep in her gut at the idea of Ro’s willingness to give her to another man so easily. Loric would never have sent her to another if he could convince her otherwise.
She ground her teeth in anger, smacking Ro’s cheek hard. “I would never,” Deliya shouted.
Ro grasped her hand. “Why not? You want release. You simply do not want me. Why not a schaen?” His eyes flashed dangerously.
Because, it isn’t you. Deliya shook her head to dislodge that idea. “A sterile male,” she spat.
He pulled her to his body, his muscles tense and his breathing ragged. “Who is it that you want, Deliya?”
You. She shook her head hopelessly.
“You want another man? You want to invite another man to your bed as you could in your precious villages?”
“You would allow that?” she stammered, forcing back tears. How could he allow that if he cared for her? Were Magden men who wished to take a mate so different than Fion’s Children?
“You are denying any right I have to stop it,” he challenged.
Deliya felt her face heat at that. “I want nothing,” she attested. “I want no one. Not you and not one of your men.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why did you not choose him to give you a child to begin with?”
She recoiled in surprise. “I told you—”
Ro’s mouth covered hers, devouring her, making her head swim. Deliya stumbled against his chest. His mouth softened. Ro tasted her slowly, and she groaned, pressing closer to him. He released her arm slowly, running his hand to the small of her back. Ro released her mouth, nibbling along her jawline.
Deliya closed her eyes and laid her head back with a sigh. She groaned his name, her whole body weak and pliant. She molded to his body, as he lifted her to fit him. Ro eased her to the bed. Deliya stared up into his face, knowing he would make love to her, knowing she would let him.
He leaned over her, his breath a warm breeze over her sensitized lips. “Is it me that you want?” he asked.
Deliya fisted her hand in his tunic, stunned to silence. She couldn’t force the words past her lips. Didn’t he know what she wanted by now?
/> Ro pried her hand open, shaking his head slowly. “When you can say it.” He pushed off the bed and walked away.
She shook her head in disbelief, burying her face in the pillow as the door closed behind him. Deliya sobbed, rubbing her aching temples. She had to leave before this game drove her insane, before she forgot her duty and let her body rule her mind.
*
Deliya paused in the shadows, watching Ro’s guards move further away. She ran for the stable, sliding silently into the low building. She berated herself again. Was it really worth leaving this way? Unarmed and unarmored without her seeds and herbs? She didn’t even have trousers to wear, and winter would be upon her all too soon. Would she really flee into the night in one of Ro’s silin gowns with her abinatine as her only means of defense?
She sighed. Deliya had argued this with herself a dozen times. She wouldn’t survive another week with Ro without begging him to ease her schen. Having him beside her was driving her mad. Why can you not simply take this as a sign from the Mother? Because, I am weak, and I will not use the excuse that this is the Mother’s will to hide from that fact. If any of her people had intermarried in the past, Deliya could accept that this was Fion’s will, but it was not.
There had never been a need to intermarry until now, her traitorous heart protested. Deliya pushed that thought away. How would she explain herself to Mother and to Mother Leiana at her death if she did this? She had to leave. If she left, there would be nothing to explain.
Deliya found her war-buck in the dim light sifting through the half-doors of the stall backs, open to let in the mild autumn air. She stroked his face, reaching for a bridle.
She stilled, sensing that she was not alone, the bridle fisted in her hand. Deliya sucked in her breath as a hand closed on her wrist and dragged her to a chest so familiar that she eased into it in relief.
“Ro,” she whispered, drinking in his scent. Deliya’s nerves buzzed in awareness of him as a man.
Ro removed the bridle from her hand. “You broke our agreement,” he growled. “Again.”
Deliya nodded. “I know. I can offer no explanation,” she began. In truth, Deliya couldn’t remember why she ran — not while she was in Ro’s arms.
“Because there is no excuse.” Ro drew her further into the stable and tugged at her wrist, urging Deliya to her knees beside a feed cube.
She furrowed her brows, watching his movements in the near darkness. Deliya sucked in her breath, as Ro released his erect length from his trousers. Was this her penalty? To be at his use? Her blood heated at the prospect.
Deliya stroked her free hand over his cock then took it in her mouth. Ro’s hand fisted in her hair and stilled her movements. Deliya teased at him with her tongue, moaning as his flavor swirled inside her mouth, the slight release of his readiness taunting her with the musk she would taste at his climax.
“What are you doing?” Ro panted.
She didn’t answer him. Ro’s grip lessened, and she took him deeper into her mouth. He trembled, his scent intensifying. Deliya worked his length in and out. She’d always wanted to do this, but Deliya had never dreamed it would be this good.
“Mag alive,” he groaned. Ro’s arm tightened again, and he backed from her, removing his cock from her mouth. “No. Not this way.”
Deliya sank to the floor, her wrist still in Ro’s grasp. She licked her lips, the flutter in her stomach turning into a crawling in her skin that Ro’s touch would still.
Ro knelt in front of her, his lips nearly brushing hers. “You broke our agreement,” he repeated.
“Yes. I did.”
His hand caressed her breast, plucking at her nipple lightly. “Why did you run?”
She groaned, arching into his touch. It would be so easy not to fight her schen, to give in and live to their agreement, to tell him that she ran because he had won.
“Why, Deliya?”
Deliya shook her head slowly, her mind muddled. It would be too easy.
Ro pulled her up to her knees and met her lips gently. He nipped at her chin then her lower lip, drawing it into his mouth. Deliya opened to him, no longer caring that she was surrendering to him. Ro released her mouth and turned her, draping Deliya over the feed block and pressing her hands to the far edge beneath one of his.
Deliya shuddered as he lifted the back of her skirt. Ro was taking a penalty. Would he take her hard and fast? Deliya bit back a groan in the realization that she didn’t care how he took her, as long as he did it soon. She spread her legs in silent invitation.
His fingers sank deep in her, stroking her slowly. “You want me,” he breathed.
Deliya didn’t deny it. She laid her cheek on his arm, delighting in the brush of his coarse hair and cool skin over her heated face.
Ro’s hand retreated and he eased inside her. Deliya strained back against him. He rocked inside her in long, leisurely strokes that stole her sanity. She had been prepared for Ro to be rushed, not tender. Ro threaded his fingers through hers and eased his free hand around her hip, cradling Deliya to his body.
“So hot,” he murmured. “Your schen makes you like fire in my hands.”
She rolled her cheek on his arm, feeling the end coming for her. Deliya cried out as her climax washed over her, an icy shock to her overheated body. Ro groaned, and his hands tightened on her as her body milked at his. Deliya pushed back hard on him, craving completion.
“You want me locked inside you.” Ro didn’t ask. He didn’t have to ask.
Deliya nodded, gasping as Ro released her hands.
He pushed away, cursing fluently as his seed shot from him onto the feed block and her inner thigh. Ro pressed her hard into the block, his hands fisted in her dress until she thought he might tear it in two.
Her eyes flew open in surprise and dismay. She turned her head, searching out the faint outlines of Ro’s face in the darkness. Deliya stroked the taut muscles of his neck, shaking her head as tears spilled down her cheek.
“You should not,” she stammered.
Ro was playing a dangerous game. It was instinct for the male to complete in the stim band — or at least with pressure applied to the head at climax. A male couldn’t pull out like that too many times or he would drive himself mad.
His hands eased. Ro pulled away from Deliya’s hand, straightening her dress, his fingers lingering on her hip. He stood and strode a few arms’ lengths away, fastening his trousers.
“Ro?” she called after him, as stunned by his sudden withdrawal from her physically as she had been by his sexual withdrawal.
He put his hand down to her, pulling Deliya to her feet. Ro guided her back across the courtyard and into his home without a word. He didn’t pause as he led her back to her room, waving Donic off when the general tried to speak to him. Deliya turned her face from the sour look Donic shot her. She couldn’t argue that she deserved his ire this time.
Ro closed them in, releasing her elbow and crossing his arms over his chest. “You had something to ask me?” he inquired coldly.
Deliya shook her head. “You should not do that. The danger—”
“You wanted me to take you to completion?” he interrupted her.
She darkened. “I admitted that.”
He closed the distance between them, his body mere finger-widths from hers. Deliya breathed in his scent, the faint taste of him still echoing in her consciousness.
“Say it now,” Ro ordered. “Say it without tricks, and sign the contract.”
Deliya bit her lip, fighting back the urge to do as he demanded. It would be easy. Too easy. She was better trained than this.
Ro nodded. “I could have taken you to completion in the stable and claimed your submission as proof of your need. I did not do that.”
“Why?” she asked weakly. “Why did you give up your victory?”
His hands closed on her shoulders. “I do not seek a tactical engagement with you. When you come to me, it will not be because I used my knowledge of your weaknesses to crumb
le your defenses. It will be because you have abandoned those things and come to me willingly.”
Deliya nodded. “And my penalty? Was the stable—”
“No. The stable was — an affirmation. I will not try its like again.” He released her and backed off a stride. “Despite your willingness, I had no right to take advantage that way.”
“My penalty?” she asked again.
Ro stroked her cheek, smiling sadly. “Your penalty is an extra week to convince you to the contract.”
Deliya bit back her protest. She had broken her word, and by Magden law, Ro would be expected to take a penalty. What penalty had she expected him to take? She had been prepared for the penalty to be a harsh lesson, but she had to admit that Ro’s kindness in choosing her penalty would be more difficult to ignore.
She nodded. “It is an appropriate penalty.”
“I am glad you agree,” he noted wryly.
Deliya forced a smile to her reluctant lips. “Who would I lodge a formal grievance with, if I chose to?”
Ro laughed harshly at that.
“As I thought. Then I suppose complaining is a waste of my time.”
“It is.”
“Will you be coming to bed now?” she asked.
Ro’s smile disappeared. “Not tonight. After the stable, I thought it best if I slept in my own bed.”
“Are you concerned about my self-control or your own?” she snapped, irritated at the sense of loss his proclamation caused in her.
Ro drew her to his chest, sweeping his lips across hers and stepping away as her body responded to his touch. Her eyes wandered to his groin, watching the rising proof of his own loss of control.
“Both,” he growled. “Sleep well, Deliya.” Ro strode to the door and yanked it open. He paused, taking a calming breath. “Do not try to escape me again. There will be guards at the door and below your window. If you break your vow again, there will be a new penalty for you.”
“What will you do?” Deliya asked nervously.
“You will not leave me,” he whispered. “Ever. If you run from me again, you will contract with me.”
Deliya sank to the bed, nodding in resignation. Ro left without another word and without looking back at her. She laid her head on the pillows, cursing her body as she inhaled Ro’s scent on her bed. Tomorrow he would be back, a living, breathing temptation. There was no escape. Deliya couldn’t even brew a tea to entice herself to sleep.
