“You know exactly what I mean. You may be a slave, but I know you are no fool. Then again –” Suddenly he reached out for her arms, easily pulling them from behind her back. There on her finger, the golden ring shone in the light, his lips curling in a sinister smirk. “I see I was not misinformed. Guilt must have propelled him into it. I can think of no other reason for the rush.”
Guilt? What was there for Kael to feel guilty of? Any deception in their relationship rested solely on her shoulders. “How does my relationship with him have anything to do with your wife?”
“It has everything to do with my wife!” he shouted. “I made the mistake of trusting him. Never have I allowed any man in my service to get close to my wife but he – he swore his loyalty to me and assured me he would never touch her – and then I catch them both together the night before our anniversary celebration. Here, in this very room, on that very bed!”
Her jaw fell open in disbelief. It had to be lies. All of it. Kael would never have done something like that. On several occasions he had voiced a specific dislike for her, detesting her mixed blood. Why then would she have any reason to believe he would involve himself intimately with her?
“It cannot be so. There must be some mistake.”
“Are you calling me a liar, slave?” he hissed, shaking her roughly in his grasp. “Do you think my eyes deceived me? In his blatant disrespect and disregard of that supposed loyalty he swore to me?”
Images flashed through her head. Strings of conversation from the party that had been harmless, yet confusing to her at the time. It made sense, despite her unwillingness to believe any of it could be true. He questioned my loyalty… and threatened to harm you if I did not comply. Had he ever explained why his loyalty was in question? His responses were vague. Never did he tell why anything had happened or why Mikel would have felt compelled to force the magic on him. It is no secret around this house that his marriage with Oksuva is hanging by a thread. If I had not done as he commanded, he wouldn’t have thought twice about taking you.
“You made him use your magic,” she whispered, pushing the thoughts from her head, not wanting to believe it. It fit too perfectly, but there were so many other possibilities that to settle on the first thing which fell into place would be foolish, and unfair of her. She couldn’t let her emotions get out of control over something she had yet to give him an opportunity to deny or explain.
“I had to punish him. To make him do something to mark him as the slime he is. Do you think he would be accepted with open arms if his people saw the taint in his traitorous eyes? It would let the world know that he cannot be trusted.”
It was true. Zander had noticed it immediately, and it was very probable that any other Vor’shai would take note of the dimming light in his eyes. But what did he want her for if Kael had already been punished for his actions? He’d cast the magic, which meant if what Kael said was true, Mikel would have no reason to come after her. “What is it you desire my help with, then? If this matter has already been dealt with accordingly.”
Mikel laughed. The venomous sound sent chills coursing up and down her spine, shuddering visibly under his hold. “Until the deal is completed, she is still my wife, and therefore she is held to the requirements that such a title dictates. She made a fool of me!” He shook her again, his rising anger causing her head to snap back under the force. “That bastard of a man knows I could destroy him. I could take you away, and I told him I would. But think on it! I am not the only one he has betrayed here. He has made a fool of you the way my wife did of me.”
“You are hurting me –”
“You will help me to get my revenge on both of them. If you do not, then my decision will be quite simple,” he snarled. Digging his fingers into her arms, he slammed her up against the dresser, ignoring her painful gasp. “If you will not comply, then he will be sent away from here. I will not allow him to set foot back in this house once he leaves for Siscal on threat of death if he returns. Do you understand me?”
She understood perfectly. Not that she could tell him the reasons why she wanted to beg him not to make it so. If Kael was sent away, it would hurt the mission. She would lose her partner, the one person close enough to Mikel to gather the information for their people that she couldn’t get. But was it worth what was being asked of her? She couldn’t think of enough reason to justify it.
Mikel had proven long ago to be a minor pawn in Oksuva’s schemes. It was her and the people she was seeking who would provide the information the Consul desired. That was the reason why Feolan had argued for Leyna to join the mission in the first place. They needed someone close to Oksuva, and Kael couldn’t do it. Perhaps it was his attempts to get closer to her which led him into her bed. Foolish of him. On many levels that she couldn’t even begin to think about in her mind, her thoughts scattered with the fear of this man who posed a more prominent threat to her at the present.
“I cannot,” she breathed, struggling against his grasp. She wanted away from him. Away from this room. There was no saying when Oksuva might return. Or perhaps that was his intention. To have Oksuva come in and find them there together the way he claimed to have found her and Kael. She couldn’t let that happen. If Oksuva saw it, she would cast Leyna out and they would both have failed at their mission.
“Impudent wretch!” he shouted. In a display of strength and speed, he threw her down to the floor, her flailing arms taking everything atop the dresser down with her in a loud crash.
Her head was reeling, making it impossible to think. Her body moved reflexively to escape. Mikel’s legs straddled her on either side, pinning her arms down to the ground over her head. Lifting her knee, she brought it up repeatedly against his tail bone, jarring him forward, preventing him from situating his balance on top of her.
Releasing his hold on her left wrist, his right hand connected hard across her face, her head jerking to the side. She was too frightened to register the pain. To her mind, all she could see was an opening. A chance to strike back at him while she had a free hand. With the heel of her palm, she struck upward at Mikel’s nose, feeling the bone cracking, blood trickling from his nostrils.
The pain seemed to strengthen him. He came at her again with a newfound vigor, letting her hands free to rain a flurry of punches at her head. Protecting her face, she continued her attempts at disrupting his balance, driving another blow with her knee. It was less effective from where he was positioned now, her strike uselessly meeting only the flat of his back.
By now, she took comfort in knowing his thoughts were distracted from his initial intentions, fueled by his fury at the pain shooting through his nose and face. If she could just get a hold of something to hit him with that would cause more damage than her fist. In strength, he would always overpower her. She would have to rely on other means of getting free of him.
“Stop it!” she screamed, squirming under him to try and work her way free, her arms still shielding her face from his hands. They came at her with more power than before, his agitation building at his inability to break through her guard. Eventually she knew he would grow tired of it, but what he moved on to then, she didn’t want to risk finding out. He could easily render her unconscious and leave her incapable of defending herself.
Oksuva’s shrill scream echoed through the room around them. The blows ceased, Mikel’s face twisting into a scowl, his plan failed. “What in the name of the gods are you doing?” she shrieked. “Get off my lady this instant!”
“You know what I’m doing, dear Oksuva. My beloved whore!”
“I know what you are attempting to do, but it looks to me that you are failing. Do you really think I care anymore what you do or with whom? The only thing I care about is that you are going to mark up that poor girl and I need her to look presentable.”
Seeing her break, Leyna grabbed for the broken jewelry box lying on the floor where it had fallen from the dresser. With all her strength, she brought it up to Mikel’s head, the wood shattering agains
t his skull with a loud crack. Caught off guard by the strike, Mikel’s eyes rolled back into his head, his body toppling over to the side. She scrambled to her feet. Her whole body was trembling, her knees barely able to carry her weight.
“My Lady,” she stammered. She could hardly bring herself to look Oksuva in the face. Shame filled her over what Mikel had planned to do, while at the same time she felt an overwhelming need to know the truth. To know if what Mikel said had any claim to accuracy. “Is it true? You and Kael?”
Oksuva steadied her gaze on Leyna. Calm. Unfazed by the question being presented to her. She made no move to deny it. Not even a flicker of surprise affected the glow of her stare. “Go clean yourself up. I have changed my mind. We will leave for Siscal tonight. I need to get away from this place before I lose my sanity.”
Oh god. It was true? Then again, it was possible she’d felt the claim too ridiculous to merit answering. Who was she fooling? Some part of her was desperate to hear the words spoken out loud, and yet her subconscious knew already. It was just a matter of how bad it was. How far had they gone? And why? Surely Kael must have some kind of explanation. If he truly loved her, he would never have done something like that. But then, what did she really know about men and love? Maybe all men were like Prince Enaes and merely made less of a show of it than he did.
Hanging her head, Leyna knew it was pointless to object. Yes. They needed to leave for Siscal as soon as possible. She wanted away from that house and everything inside it. And she had no desire to ever return, if she could help it.
In the hallway, she caught sight of another figure standing just outside the door, having been there the whole time, hidden behind Oksuva’s slender form. Oran Bedrick. Perhaps he was the key to her escape from Mikel’s employ. She let her eyes lift ever so slightly to his face as she passed, demurely gazing at him through her long lashes. He was watching her. The dark abyssal holes that were his eyes stared forward, curious, intrigued. He was worth more to her and her mission than this house ever had been. It was time to move on from the frivolous games they had been playing with Mikel and Oksuva. If only she could convince him to help her. Something told her she’d already piqued his interest. She just needed a chance to speak with him. Alone.
Chapter Thirteen
“Well, you were uncharacteristically quiet on the ride here,” Zander mused, tugging the curtains closed in the tiny room. A small bed was situated in the center of the left wall, serving as the only piece of furniture. Leyna recognized the room to have once been nothing but storage space, no doubt transformed into a guest room specifically at Gislan’s request in case of her sister coming to visit. “Normally I would think nothing of it, but the tension between you and Kael was smothering me. Care to tell me what is going on?”
“I would rather not,” Leyna frowned. Had it been that obvious? She’d been on the move from the minute she woke that morning. Her body was exhausted, mentally drained. Emotionally, she felt there was nothing left in her at that moment. As long as no one was aware of what had happened, she could at least maintain some shred of her dignity.
She should have known Zander wouldn’t let up quite so easily. “I am going to insist that you do, given that I heard you knocked Mikel out this afternoon. Would you like to explain to me why you did it, or was it just for giggles to see how badly it would hurt the mission? Experimenting?”
“Hush,” she whispered loudly. Carefully she pushed the door closed, turning the knob to press it quietly into place, not wanting to draw attention to their location, or the fact that they were alone together. “It is a lot more complicated than that, I assure you.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Zander stood there, waiting, his foot tapping impatiently. Under any other circumstances, she would have been irritated by his attitude, but she knew their time was limited. It would only be a matter of minutes before Kael finished helping Oksuva and Gislan unload the carriages and came looking for her. He would lose his head if he found them there.
“I do not intend to return to the house in Dalonshire.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he blinked. “Have you discussed this with the Consul? What exactly are you going to do?”
“Zander, everything there is falling apart. Oksuva and Mikel have arrangements made which will inevitably end in their divorce. Because of that, there is nothing but constant fighting and manipulation. Not to mention, Mikel has already caught Oksuva seeing another man.”
She wasn’t comfortable delving into the details with Zander. He was trustworthy. She didn’t doubt that. She trusted him more than she did Kael, which was a depressing thought. And she had bound herself to marry him? How could she have been so stupid? Calm yourself. There is no sense in getting worked up over it until you have given him a chance to explain.
Zander was eyeing her curiously. He was reading her like a book, picking out the uncertainty in her expression. “I am getting the impression that there are a lot more details to this than you are letting on.”
“There is not enough time to explain. If Kael comes inside and finds us –”
“He’ll what? I’ll show you how little I care about what he has to say about it.” Moving swiftly across the room, Zander stepped around Leyna, securing the latch in place on the door. “You and I are partners in this, remember? If something is going on, I want to know about it.”
A brief wave of panic washed over her at the sight of the locked door. Kael would be furious. If Zander continued in this manner, there was going to be another fight between the two of them. And she wasn’t sure who would come out on top if Zander chose to fight back. “Zander, I am betrothed to him,” she said breathlessly, throwing her arms up in the air in defeat. “He has every right to be angry at some other man locking me away in a room. We cannot risk any more fighting between the two of you. You are on the same side, he just doesn’t know it.”
Slapping his forehead with his palm, Zander lifted his head to gaze up at the ceiling, his mouth open to speak but no words coming out. With a quick shake of his head, he focused his eyes back on Leyna, barely containing his voice to a whisper. “Leyna, what the hell did you do? Are you insane? Do you even love him?”
“I do not know. I think so,” she said hesitantly.
“You think so? You are engaged to him, and you do not even know if you love him?”
“How am I supposed to know? All I know is that I care about him. A lot. If anything were to happen to him, I would be heartbroken. But how can anyone know for sure, so soon, if it is love? I do not even know what that feels like.”
“If you love someone, you know,” he sighed. He began a slow pace back and forth across the room. “Besides, you have had years together. That is not exactly a short span of time. I assumed you were both simply using each other to gather more information. He could get in close to Mikel and you to Oksuva. It was the perfect set up. I never once believed you two to actually be serious.”
“Zander, he has been courting me for almost six years. I owed it to him, at the very least. It is not like anyone else would ever have me. What man in his right mind would find it in his heart to love a slave?”
“Any man who knows you, Leyna. Have you really been there for so long that they have you convinced you are a slave? Have you forgotten who you are?”
She looked at him, surprised by his comment. She hadn’t forgotten who she was. The world had chosen to forget her. “Kael has been there for me through everything. I care about him, and he loves me. I cannot expect anything more than that.”
“Leyna,” Zander started, exhaling to regain his composure once again. “You are not a slave. You are a hero among our people. You were the first lieutenant of the Siscalian military. You were a student of Lady Faustine, the most prestigious teacher for feminine etiquette in all of the Queen’s lands. You are still one of the most loyal servants of Her Majesty. How could you have let all of this make you forget that? You claim you could not expect anything more than Kael – do you realize that the Crown P
rince of Tanispa would have you in an instant if he could find you?”
“Have me?” she laughed miserably. “Define ‘have me,’ and we shall see if that is something of which I should be proud.”
“And you say you do not intend to return to Dalonshire… Have you thought about how that will effect Kael’s position in the mission? Besides – if you insist on marrying him, you would be emancipated. Freed of your position as a slave. You wouldn’t have to worry about Mikel.”
There was no sense in hiding anything from him at this point. He was going to find out one way or another, be it through her, or through the Consul. “It will change nothing. Kael has been instructed not to return to Dalonshire by Mikel. He is out.”
The expression on Zander’s face was absent. She couldn’t tell what was going on behind his icy blue eyes. “Dare I ask why Mikel has removed him?”
“He was the man said to have been caught with Oksuva.” It hurt her worse to speak the words than she thought it would. For the first time, it was as if she were accepting it as reality. A reality that she didn’t want to think about. “But I have not had a chance to speak with Kael on it. For all I know, it was just a story Mikel was making up in hopes of convincing me to sleep with him.”
“Oh gods, Leyna,” Zander grimaced. “Let me guess then. The swelling on the side of your face was caused by Mikel’s hand when you then denied him and he tried to force it anyway? Am I right? Is that why you knocked him unconscious? Because it makes perfect sense to me, although I am praying you will prove me wrong.”
“I would prove you wrong if I could, but your suspicions are accurate. And that is exactly why I cannot return to Dalonshire. With Kael gone and Mikel’s marriage in shambles, he will only get worse. I refuse to leave myself in a situation where there is no benefit to remaining and would only serve to place me in greater danger.”
The Myatheira Chronicles: The Vor'shai: From the Ashes (Volume 1) Page 42
