“Simon hurt?” he asked after a lengthy pause, anger threading his voice now.
When she didn’t respond, he eased away from her, trying to see her face. She burrowed deeper against him, trying to hide her tear ravaged face, to avoid the probing of his gaze. He wouldn’t allow it. He caught her jaw in one hand and urged her face upward until she could only close her eyes to shield herself from him.
“Simon hurt?” he demanded.
Simon hurt, she thought. Yes. Simon hurt. That was why she’d cried, not for herself, not for anything he’d done. Although it had hurt her to the quick when he’d snarled at her to leave, she’d understood that it was fury borne of pain that had inspired it, anger that she’d seen something meant to be private and not shared, certainly not with her.
It wasn’t her pain that had dredged up the hurtful wails. It was his that was chewing her up, his suffering that made her hurt so badly she felt like she couldn’t bear it.
Because she knew, knew, that he had loved that woman, still loved her and there was not even a tiny little corner of his heart that was open to anyone else. She hadn’t even realized that she had coveted that as much as she’d yearned for his body until she’d seen just how truly hopeless such an idea was.
She sniffed, shook her head. “No,” she finally managed. “He didn’t do anything.”
His face tightened. The smoldering of anger in his eyes blazed into rage. “Liar.”
Her chin wobbled. “No,” she said on the edge of tears again, but she couldn’t explain it. Even if not for the language barrier that stood between them like an impenetrable wall, she couldn’t have explained that she’d felt the agony of his tormented soul to the depth hers and it wasn’t anything she’d ever felt before or wanted to feel. She’d run to escape the weight of it, unable to handle emotions more powerful than anything she’d ever known. She’d run to escape the shattering of dreams she hadn’t even realized she had been nurturing.
“No cry,” he said huskily, nuzzling his face against hers as he dragged in several ragged breaths.
Finally, he eased her away and sat up. When he released her to stand, Riana mopped her eyes and nose with her hands, wiping the moisture on her jeans for lack of anything else. He caught her hand, hauling her to her feet and then brushing at the sand that clung to her clothes and skin while she wavered and tried to find her balance. Slipping an arm around her waist when he’d brushed the sand off, he dipped and hooked the other beneath her knees and hefted her against his chest. She looped her arms around his neck instinctively. “You don’t need to carry me. I can walk,” she said on a shaky, snuffling breath.
“No argue,” he said tightly.
She was too tired to argue. If he wanted to risk a hernia carrying her as if she was child, she was in no mood to quibble. Sucking in a shaky breath, she dropped her head to his shoulder and enjoyed the nothingness that had settled over her as her tears swept her clean of emotion, left her feeling empty.
Dread began to filter through the emptiness as they reached the front lawn. She hadn’t run far enough or fast enough to escape the pall of sorrow that hung over the mansion. It shamed to her to realize she’d been too insensitive to notice before.
But she had, she realized in the next moment. She’d just misinterpreted it. She’d thought they were all cold and unfeeling when the truth was they were hiding from the raw emotions they didn’t want to feel or deal with any more than she did, probably didn’t know how to deal with any more than she did. No wonder they all looked as if a smile would be enough to make their faces crack like fractured ice.
Simon was standing at the head of the stairs as Audric began to climb them. Raina caught no more than a glimpse of his boots before she knew who it was. Tensing all over, she tightened her arms around Audric’s shoulders and burrowed her face against the crook of his neck. When he stopped, she hunched even closer to him, wishing she could become invisible. Audric’s arms tightened on her, but she didn’t know if that was because she was strangling him or not. She relaxed fractionally when he started moving again and she could tell by the change in direction that he’d turned toward the room she’d been using. The temptation assailed her to peek over her arms to see if Simon was watching. She quelled it. If he was, she didn’t want to know badly enough to risk meeting his gaze.
She didn’t want to see that again, ever. It had been hard enough to deal with the other things he’d made her feel, desire so powerful it wasn’t even recognizable as desire, need that threw her into so much turmoil all she could think about was escaping its grip on her. She felt, suddenly, as if she’d lived her entire life up until the moment she’d first seen Simon in an emotional desert. All the pain, happiness, sorrow, anger, desires she’d experienced had been nothing, mere bumps in the road, so insignificant she wondered that she’d even noticed them now.
She didn’t want to let go of Audric when he shouldered his way into her room and settled her on her bed, partly because she wasn’t ready to give up the comfort of his closeness, but mostly because she’d finally emerged enough from her self-absorption to realize he was tense all over, to feel the rage boiling out of him and threatening to explode in violence. “Stay with me, please?”
He peeled her arms loose in spite of her efforts to hang on to him. Fear squeezed her heart when she saw his face. She’d never seen that look on anyone’s face before, but she knew what it was.
Killing rage.
“Audric don’t! Please don’t! Oh god! Don’t! Don’t!”
He peeled her hands away as quickly as she caught at him again. “Stay!” he growled at her from between clenched teeth, his hands tightening around her wrists for a moment before he released them and stepped away. “No move!”
She stumbled out of the bed as he pivoted on his heels and stalked to the door. The slamming door reverberated behind him. The bellow of rage that echoed down the hallway made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She froze, unable to move, struggling with the urge to run after him and try to stop him and the equal urge to run and hide. Immobilized by the conflicting urges, she remained frozen to the spot as she heard the thundering raging of titans colliding down the hall. The grunts and snarls and roars, accompanied by meaty thuds and the cracking and splintering of wood, sounded like two wild beasts battling to the death.
It was that thought that drove her to the door and through it. There was no sign of either man when she reached the hall. The sounds, she realized, were coming from downstairs and she surged forward, halting again in stunned horror when she saw Audric and Simon pounding at each other with their fists. A swath of balustrade and banister support was missing, as if they’d rolled down the stairs and slammed against it.
“Go to your room, woman!”
Raina’s head jerked toward the voice. She stared at Mr. Black blankly until he surged toward her. Uttering a gasp, she whirled then and raced to the room, slamming the door behind her and then ran into the bathroom, slamming and locking that door and backing away until she bumped into the wall. She held her breath, staring at the door, expecting it to cave in any moment. When it finally dawned on her that he wasn’t coming after her, she wobbled and finally slipped down the wall until her rump connected with the floor. Dragging her knees up tightly against her chest, she covered her ears with her hands and tried to block out the sounds of breaking glass and furniture that seemed to escalate for a time before the silence between began to lengthen and finally stopped altogether.
It was a while before she realized she was so cold her teeth were chattering. She grunted with pain from stiff, cramped muscles when she unwound herself slowly and tried to get to her feet. She needed to get warm, though, and the promise of hot, soothing water beckoned. It took an effort to pull her clothes off. When she climbed in, she stood under the hot, pelting spray for a few moments and finally settled on the floor of the tub, allowing the water to beat down on her until it was no longer scalding, and then barely warm.
Feeling completely drained w
hen she got out, she dried off, stumbled into the bedroom and climbed into the bed, cuddling a pillow against her. Audric’s scent clung to the pillow. It was comforting. Burrowing her face against it, she yielded up the effort to stay awake and dropped into a welcome, black nothingness.
* * * *
Jorell dropped an ice pack into Audric’s hand and then moved away. Sprawling in the chair across from the bed where Audric sat, he studied his sibling with a mixture of amusement and empathy. “You look like hell.”
Audric said nothing, but he squinted at his brother through the one eye he could still open. In truth, he felt like hell now that the heat of battle had left him and dreaded the morrow with the certainty that he was going to feel worse still before he began to feel better. “He deserved it,” he growled finally.
Jorell’s amusement deepened. “I will not argue that. It has been too long in coming, but while I am certain that it made him feel a great deal better to beat the shit out of you, I can not see that it has helped your feelings a whit.”
Audric glared at him, but he was too weary to maintain his anger and after a moment his own sense of humor got the better of him. “It was a draw,” he admitted, albeit reluctantly.
Jorell chuckled. “Only because this life he has led here as not kept him as sharp as he once was, a fortunate circumstance for you.”
Shifting the ice pack more comfortably over his eye, Audric moved from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting with great care and settled on his back with equal care, letting out a long sigh of relief when it was no longer necessary to move. “Aye, you are right. There was a time, not so long ago, when he would have beaten me down in half the time it took him today.”
“A few more rounds like today and I expect he will be at the top of his game again,” Jorell murmured. “If I were you, I would wait awhile before I challenged him again, though. It is not likely to be much of a contest otherwise.” He paused. “I assume this was about the woman.”
Audric made a rude sound. “He did something to her, the bastard,” he growled, angry all over again.
Jorell said nothing for a moment. “He kissed her, nothing more.”
“So he said!”
“He is your brother, not mine, but I will say this. I have never known him to lie.”
“Nay,” Audric agreed tightly. “But he has been known to omit from time to time.”
“It is called diplomacy,” Jorell said pensively. “But why would he feel the need of it? You are closer to him than anyone I know. He was never as close, even to his full brother, Jaelen.”
“That serpent!” Audric spat. “I almost think his dame lied to his sire about that one! He is darkness. He has always been, since he was no more than an infant.”
Jorell shrugged. “Simon was the beloved … born to rule while he was born only to dwell in Simon’s shadow. It ate at him.”
“He would have been that way regardless. His mother doted on him, far more than she did Simon. That is what is wrong with him, if you ask me, what was always wrong with him, that he was the favorite of that shebeast. Emperor Devlyn did not coddle Simon and see how he turned out. If he had had a hand in Jaelen’s upbringing he would have been a better man for it.” He thought it over for several moments. “Likely the woman poisoned his mind because hers was eaten with jealousy and envy. She spoon fed him her poisons night and day until she turned him into an image of herself. Likely it was she who convinced Jaelen that the throne was rightfully his. I think she hated Simon for being the image of his father.”
“Mayhap … probably,” Jorell agreed. “Women have a way of doing those things.”
Audric turned to look at his half-brother. “You are suggesting that Raina is trying to drive a wedge between us?” he demanded angrily.
Jorell shrugged. “It is a thought.”
“One you can put aside!” Audric snapped. “You are too accustomed to the ‘ladies’ of the court, who dabble in politics and see that they keep some excitement or other stirred up. Raina is not of that ilk. She knows nothing about politics, especially ours, and she has no facility for deceit.”
“If she told you Simon did something to her and convinced you to behave like such a fool, she has a fair grasp on it!” Jorell said brutally.
“She said he did not do anything!”
“But not convincingly enough?”
Audric sat up abruptly and winced at the pain that shot through him. “You did not see her!”
“I saw her clearly enough when she came to watch the results of her little drama!” Jorell snapped.
Audric sent him an arrested look. “She saw?”
“Very little. I sent her back to her room.”
Setting aside his reflection that he and Simon had probably frightened her half death with the realization that going to her looking as he did was unlikely to soothe her, Audric studied his half brother in silence. “Do you truly see her as such a creature? Or is it only that you would prefer to blame her than him?”
Jorell met his gaze for a moment and finally looked away. “She is no good for you, regardless of what I believe or whether she is or not, big brother. If you need a woman, come with me into the city. Stay away from that one. That one will steal your soul.”
Audric grimaced. “I am afraid she has already gotten her tender hooks into it, little brother. I have little will to resist the siren call … and less every day.”
Jorell shook his head at him, smiling faintly but grimly. “Save yourself while you can, Audric. I am as certain as I can be that she has her hooks in him, as well. It will not go well for you.”
Audric dropped the ice pack on the chest beside the bed and lay down again. “I knew how it would be from the beginning. I have accepted that.”
Jorell snorted. “So you say now! But it is I will have to look at your glum face all the way back to Schalome and listen to your tale of woe.”
Audric smiled faintly. “I did not say that I would take it manfully. I said that I had accepted.”
Jorell stood up abruptly and paced the room. “Send her away. You have done what you set out to do.” He speared his fingers into his hair, clutching it for a moment and leaving it in wild disarray when he withdrew his hands. “By the gods! This is a nightmare! The fate of the entire realm hanging in the hands of this … half-pint woman-child who is so daft she thinks she can take Tedra on one moment and weeps buckets over a cross word the next! This is as bad as it was with Evangeline … No worse! She is not suitable for either one of you fools!
“This is a dangerous game, Audric! I should have seen it, but you know him best. I was certain that you knew what you were doing and it was the right thing.”
“It was the right thing to do!” Audric retorted. “The fate of the realm has rested in the hands of a dead man for years, who did not care about his own fate, let alone the suffering of the people he left behind. I thought that he would come out it on his own after a while, but it has become such a habit with him I do not even think he remembers how to live anymore!”
“Well he remembers now!” Jorell ground out. “Much more of this and he will be a complete madman!”
Audric frowned and then winced at the pain the effort caused him. “He needs to purge the poisons he has kept locked inside him all this time. He never did, you know. If he could have, he would never have sunk so deeply in melancholia.
“It was not just losing Evangeline. It was losing little Tiera before her, the betrayal of his brother, and the helplessness he felt when he could not save Evangeline. That most of all, I think. He had never known what it was to be helpless. He has been treated almost as a god since birth, known his place in the universe, felt his invincibility as a dracon in every battle he fought and won. It destroyed his belief in himself when he was forced to watch helplessly while they did … that to Evangeline.
“It is good for him to rage. Let him work it out of his system. When he has done ranting at nothing, he will turn it to good purpose. He will remember that he has a dut
y to his people and his name and take back what is rightfully his.”
Jorell stopped abruptly and glared at his brother. “You say that because you did not see him while ago. It took the four of us to drag him into his room when you brought her in. I thought that he had calmed down or I would not have backed down when he commanded me to release him. I thought you would try to make him see reason, but you were spoiling for a fight yourself!”
“We worked it out.”
“Nay! He worked you over and now he is pacing his room like a caged leon, snarling and baring his teeth every time anyone tries to speak to him. He ripped the portrait of the princess from the wall and pitched it through the window and dared anyone to touch it. I have not seen him throw such a royal tantrum as this since he was a youth.”
Audric struggled to sit up again. “I will go and speak to him.”
“You will not. I am set to watch you to be sure that you do not. Elden and Haig and Rama are bent on helping him drink himself into a stupor.”
Audric snorted. “He could drink them under the table any day of the week, and it is certain if he is still as angry as you say that there is not enough liquor in the house to do the job. I expect there is enough to mellow him, though … especially when he has not had spirits in so long and has decided to drink his dinner,” he said dryly. “I will leave him to it, then. You need not stay.”
Jorell gave him a look. “I am not as big a fool as you obviously think, big brother!”
Audric grimaced. “It did not hurt to try.”
Chapter Eight
Raina felt refreshed when she woke--as well she should’ve since she’d gone to bed at dusk and slept through the night--but she was subdued as she left the room and went down for breakfast. She’d woken once during the night, hungry because she’d skipped dinner, but she hadn’t wanted food badly enough to sneak downstairs to get it and in spite of her rumbling stomach it hadn’t taken a lot of effort to go back to sleep.
Mrs. Higgenbottom looked subdued, too, which was a surprise. Raina had more than half expected the woman to bite her head off after what had happened the day before. To her relief, though, the housekeeper made a point of behaving as if none of it had ever happened.
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