The Taming

by Imogen Keeper

She didn’t even question it. He took care of his own, and for whatever reason, he’d claimed her as his. “He will kill anyone who tries.” Because if he loses me, he loses peace with Argentus.

  She was nothing but a peace deal.

  Layanna nodded. “He’ll kill anyone who threatens his selissa. But they will have more men than he can take on. Tor’s men will help him. They will kill too. Gaspart will raise his weapon. Jeor too. But the Alliance is stronger. They will arrest them all. And Pijuan will have the perfect excuse to take Tamminia. Tor will be tortured in the streets as a message to any country that considers leaving the Alliance.”

  Klym squeezed her eyes shut, imagining Tor bleeding out, and her stomach twisted. He may not love her, but she did love him—despite all the manipulations.

  “You need to leave,” Layanna said. “Your presence here will destroy him.”

  She swallowed thickly, listened to the birds and the insects in the garden, drew in a tammin-scented breath. She’d come to love it here. “What about peace with Argentus? I’m one of the terms for the treaty.”

  There was a rustle of fabric, and she imagined Layanna shifting uncomfortably. “It will not be possible if you are taken and tortured by the Alliance. Imagine what your father would do then?”

  Finally, Klym opened her eyes. Layanna’s face was somber. There was no victory written there. This wasn’t a woman exerting authority. She was a mother, protecting her son the last way she knew how.

  “He’d be able to use it as evidence of Vestige treachery. The war efforts would increase.”

  Layanna nodded. “But if you go home, safe and sound?”

  “Tor can still sue for peace.”

  “And the Alliance will not be able to take Tamminia.”

  It was all so clear. She could see every leaf in the garden, every mosaic pathway, every fluttering shinyassa bird, every fountain and statue. She burned them into her memory, right there with the feel of Tor’s thumb in her mouth, his pearly orbs winking in the dark, and the way his pillow smelled. And everything Janna had done and said made sense now too. She’d always been loyal to her mother. Both in her dealings with Klym and with Sanger. She took orders from one person. Her mother. And that meant… “You had him kill your husband?”

  Layanna’s brows rose. “Janna told you?”

  “She didn’t mention your name. But I can guess. You told her to open the door.”

  Layanna’s eyes widened. “I did.”

  “Why?” Klym said. “Tor says you loved his father.”

  Layanna closed her eyes and squeezed them shut. “I loved my sons more. He killed Dillan with his raids. If he’d lived and Tor had come home, he’d have sent him off too.”

  A ripple in the leaves of a turquoise tree in the path drew Klym’s attention. Janna stood there, her hands twisted in front of her, her brows drawn tightly together. Staria stood beside her.

  Klym dipped her finger in the water. “Does Janna still report to you about me?”

  A half smile curled over Layanna’s cheek, and a dimple flashed. “No. She tells me only what you tell her to tell me.”

  Klym shook her feet off and rewrapped them in their bandages. “I don’t need help getting away. At least not from you.”

  She rose to stand on unsteady feet, and Layanna closed a brittle hand around her wrist.

  “I know my son,” Layanna said. “He wouldn’t have taken you unless he wanted to.”

  Her stomach twisted again. Sanger had said the same thing. But they didn’t know Tor, not really. The Tor they knew was the old one, the one who’d laughed and brawled and done as he pleased. She’d known Tor only as a regio, and regios, like kings, were the least free people of all.

  They didn’t get to fall in love or marry for themselves.

  “It doesn’t matter. Tell Tor I left because I found someone who could take me home.”

  She almost laughed then, because it was so simple. She didn’t need anyone to take her home. She would take herself home. She touched her mother’s pearls.

  She wanted her own freedom enough to take herself home. With a little help.

  She hesitated, unable to resist. “Wish him luck with the peace deal,” Klym said, and turned toward Janna and Staria.

  Janna wrapped her in a fierce hug.

  “I’m coming with you.” Staria crossed her arms. “You’d miss me. And I want my science serum.”

  35

  Gone again?

  “WHERE’S KLYM?” Tor asked Gaspart, after Jeor departed. He leaned back experimentally in his new chair.

  It was much better than the old one—new leather, so no one’s balls but his own had touched it. It didn’t squeak, plus it was bigger. A solid chair for a ruler. Comfortable, but not too comfortable. Not quite as good as his seat on the ship, which he’d have to sell soon, but good.

  “She eats with the felanas now,” said Gaspart.

  Tor drummed his thumbs on the armrest, pleased. She was making efforts to fit in here. Whether she knew it or not, every step she made to befriend someone was part of adapting to accepting Vesta as her home. She needed to see it as a place she could belong, rather than a place he’d trapped her.

  He’d left her with a decision to make because he’d known she needed the ultimatum to force her to face it. She needed to believe that she came to him on her terms, and more than that, she needed to see what they had without being blinded by their connection.

  And he had to admit, he’d needed a break himself. A state of permanent arousal was an uncomfortable one, and whenever he was in her presence, he lost focus, and his whole body just wanted to rut. Whatever pheromones she released, they were as strong to him as the ones the felanas released when they went into heats, only sweeter, and under-laced with that mystifying fruit.

  The night she’d come back from the riot, it had taken every last ounce of self-control he possessed not to fuck her, but he’d known somehow, that deep down, if he did, if he took the choice away from her, she’d hate him for it. She’d feel trapped forever.

  “She’s befriended them?”

  “Getting closer. She is close with Staria and Janna, and with them come a few more. She’ll get there. Even Mother seems to have softened.”

  Pride surged through his chest, and he covered his mouth to hide a growing smile. “Mother hates everyone.”

  “She seems to hate Klym slightly less than everyone else. She had someone come up from the city to cut her hair.” Gaspart rested his elbow on his knee, leaning forward. “You’ll claim her tonight, Tor? No more of this bullshit. Whatever softness you feel for her, it’s not worth risking Tamminia.”

  “I know that,” Tor said, the words layered with a warning growl.

  A growl which Gaspart ignored. “Do you? Make no mistake, Pijuan is coming. There have been whispers. People are talking. They don’t trust you.”

  “The men trust me.”

  Gaspart made a face. “Some of them. The ones who remember you, the ones who saw you the last few days, who fought beside you, but their wives don’t. They see a man who rejected felanas, who keeps a foreigner by his side. And the other rulers don’t understand her hold over you. Get it done tonight, so when Pijuan comes, he can’t take her.”

  “Enough,” Tor growled, rising from his chair, glaring down. Normally, a humani, standing in front of an angry, bristling Prime, would cower or apologize, but Gaspart did none of that.

  He merely leaned his bulk back in the sofa, slapped his belly and grinned.

  Tor didn’t bother saying goodbye, just left Gaspart so he could go find his wife.

  HE’D BE LYING if he didn’t admit that he’d enjoyed the three days sleeping under the stars, sweating under the sun, listening to stories that only a soldier could understand, but he’d missed her.

  He wanted her under his hands, in his arms, under his body. They say Argenti women had pheromones that ensnared a man, and he believed it. He’d barely been able to think without her the past couple days.

  She was
not in the felanas dining quarters.

  “Where’s Klym?”

  The felanas shrugged and shuffled, but no one knew.

  “No one has seen her?”

  One of them—Monna, he thought—rose to her feet. “The steward came to get her an hour ago, maybe two. To tell her you’d come, but hadn’t sought her out.”

  Tor didn’t imagine the note of censure in her voice.

  Nor the look on Kiava’s face.

  He backed out of the room.

  He checked the bedchamber.

  Empty. The plant sat in the corner. He checked, not that he had time, but the damned thing was always thirsty. He tipped some water into it, moving fast.

  Nor was she in the formal dining room.

  Or the regio’s garden.

  Nor out on the cliffs.

  He checked in the main hall. It seemed like everyone in the whole cassia was there, except for Klym.

  His mother and sister sat in a quiet corner.

  “Where is she?” he asked them.

  Janna’s eyes were red-rimmed, and she was holding Klym’s holo-cam.

  “Where is my wife?”

  His mother made the same dour face she always made.

  “Answer me!” he said, but it came out closer to a shout and echoed in the hall. Everyone was silent. Staring. But no one spoke.

  His mother shifted beside him. “Pijuan is coming here, right now.” Her voice was as controlled and steady as always. “He plans to take Klymeni.”

  “He’ll have to kill me first.”

  “Nothing would make him happier.” She glared at him, those hard eyes, the wrinkled, dour face. “Klymeni is gone.”

  “Gone?” he hissed.

  “Gone. Left the cassia. Heading back to Argentus.”

  Tor roared and kicked a chair. It flew through the air, over a table and through the open wall of windows that ran the front of the house. Birds squawked angrily.

  “You’d have died keeping them from her,” his mother said with her preternatural calm, which only made his blood boil. “And if that happened, Pijuan would step in as regio. It’s exactly what he wants.”

  Breathing hard, shaking with the effort to control himself, he whispered, “Where is she?”

  “Safe.”

  “If anything happens to her…”

  “She is safe.”

  He didn’t even hesitate or pause, he turned on his toe and stormed through the hall, past shocked and surprised people, out to the front of the house and the line of hovers that sat there. He would find her. He would drag her back to the cassia and chain her to the bed until she admitted that she wanted to be with him.

  He’d made it less than five steps, when the sound of approaching hovers split the air.

  Looking up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun, he saw them. Not one. Not ten. Hundreds of hovers filled the sky.

  Black and hulking, humming their insistent whine, and emblazoned with the bold insignia of a pair of crossed swords.

  The Alliance.

  Their humming filled the air, sticking in his ears.

  His mother had been right.

  The people of the cassia filed out, drawn by the noise.

  One after another, the hovers landed, and Polizei filed out, armored, weaponed and moving in sync. The Alliance’s central army was robotic in their training and efficiency. Tor eyed them. They trained hard, but few of them were bloodied. Unlike the local armies, the Alliance didn’t participate in raids, nor did they engage the Argenti in space.

  Their sole job was to maintain order on Vesta.

  Pijuan hopped off a hover, his hand on that stupid decorative sword, and stood at the front, his button eyes amused.

  There were hundreds of Polizei. He’d come prepared for a war.

  36

  How much?

  KLYM, with a scarf covering her hair, huddled beside Staria as she pounded on the window of Itta’s shop.

  Overhead, hundreds of hovers whined their way through the sky, in the direction of the Roq. She shuddered, imagining what would have happened if Layanna hadn’t warned her. She imagined herself, incarcerated, questioned, tortured. She imagined Tor, bleeding on the ground.

  A light flickered on at the back of the closed shop.

  Itta’s body stood in silhouette before she hurried to the door. “Selissa, did you come to collect your outfit? It’s ready.”

  Klym forced her tongue to operate and her feet to move into the shop. Staria followed, locking the door quickly.

  Even though it hurt deep down in her heart to do it, she lifted her mother’s pearls. “I came to ask you how much you’d be willing to pay for these.”

  Her mother would understand. She had to. The laughing, smiling woman whose death had destroyed her father, she’d understand.

  37

  He loves her

  TOR BLEW out a long stream of hot air that did nothing to calm him down. It was like fanning a fire. Fury burned along his blood, fury at his mother, fury at Pijuan, fury at Klym, fury at himself for leaving her alone for three days.

  His mother stepped up beside him. “If she’d been here, you’d have died defending her. Look at them all. You couldn’t stop them.”

  He gritted his teeth, his hand clenching around his sword.

  “She said she found someone who could take her home.” His mother slanted him a look.

  Who the hell would get her? Spiro? Tor had been so sure she would come around, but then the riots had happened, and when she’d come back, he’d been so angry, so scared for her. He should have begged her to stay, or tied her to his bed, never let her go.

  Pijuan smiled broadly as he approached. “Everyone says the Roq is impressive, but this is something.” He whistled, gazing up at the cassia.

  Tor imagined ripping out his small intestines, so vividly he could see the rainbow of colors and smell the stench.

  “Some of the tammin vines should be pulled back, though. It’s a bit much.”

  Tor clenched his jaw. The weight of regio had never felt so heavy. He wanted to find Klym and take her away from Vesta, go back to Araa-Ara and stay there forever. But he couldn’t do that. Because he was the regio, and his life wasn’t his own anymore.

  “Come now,” Pijuan said. “Don’t be shy. Where is the errant selissa?”

  Tor just stared back at him, imagining a hundred different ways to kill him.

  “Be honest.” Pijuan leaned in closer, and whispered, “Is she the selissa? I mean, she can’t be unless she’s actually your wife.”

  Tor’s ears roared, and it took force of will not to pull Miannya from her sheath and let her sing. Surrounded by Alliance Polizei as he was, it would be suicide. “What do you want, Pijuan?”

  “To speak with the Argenti woman.”

  “You’re not welcome in this hall. You’re trespassing.”

  Pijuan tutted and pulled a digi from his hip. “The high court just issued a new edict. Emissaries of the Alliance are now invited into all homes of the heads of state to look for evidence of treason. That includes masquerading foreign agents as wives. That includes regios and their supposed selissas.”

  “Would you like to smell my bed?”

  Pijuan’s slimy gaze flickered to Janna and down the line of felanas. “I have other methods.”

  His mother sniffed. “What would you like to know about Klymeni Merona?”

  “Was the marriage ever consummated?” Pijuan looked around the hall.

  Hundreds of people were there. He’d tried to speak to all of them at least once since he’d gotten back. Had he managed to instill any degree of loyalty in that time? It was almost impossible to believe. He’d been a fuck-up before he’d left, and he’d come back and flipped everything on its ass.

  Pijuan clicked his boots together. “The first person to step forward with information will be given an estate in the country.”

  The hall was silent.

  Jeor shifted slightly.

  “A large estate. With a vineya
rd attached.”

  Tor was vaguely aware that Janna had Klym’s holo-cam. She was holding it up surreptitiously.

  Fandig entered through a side door.

  Windio through another. They met his eyes and nodded stoically.

  The armed guards of the house slowly shouldered their way in, drawn by the hovers as they’d arrived.

  They were all dressed for battle. He’d give anything to be able to let that happen. They could cut through these untried soldiers. He didn’t doubt it for a minute. One good man could take down ten in battle. But there were civilians around, and their lives were on him.

  Being regio sucked. Ten years ago, hell a year ago, before Klym, he’d have pulled out his sword, let her sing, and died a happy man. But now, there was too much at stake, more lives than just his, and no way was he dying without having slid inside Klym at least once.

  He pulled in a long breath and let his hand drop from the handle.

  Pijuan looked around, his fingers flexing on that golden handle. “Two estates in the country, a personal barge, and five thousand yenna.”

  No one spoke.

  “Ten thousand yenna to anyone with proof that the selissa was a fraud.”

  A felana stepped forward. One of the ones who’d belonged to Dillan. Kiava, maybe? Tor couldn’t remember.

  His heart clenched.

  His mother stiffened beside him.

  “I knew the selissa,” said the felana. “I sat with her that first night. She spoke of how dedicated and thorough Tor was in bed.”

  There was a smattering of laughter around the room.

  Monna smiled. “Tor took her up to bed as soon as dessert was served. They made love in their room. We heard them.”

  Another felana stepped forward. “It’s true. I heard them too.”

  The steward cleared his throat. “She could barely walk the day after she got lost in the riot. And his scent was all over her.”

  All these people who could have forsaken him, who didn’t know him as regio yet, hadn’t had time to learn to respect or love him, standing up for him—standing up for Klym.

  Pijuan’s face flushed, and his fingers tapped on his sword.