“More desperate than you will ever comprehend, Arkady.”
“Yet you have no choice but to go on.” She fell silent, wishing there was something she could say that would help. There wasn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop her wanting to try. She kissed him again, revelling in the taste of him.
“Why don’t you sleep with your husband?” Cayal asked, pulling away from her.
“Who says I don’t?”
“You do,” he told her. “You make love like a starveling. Does he not find you alluring?”
She laid her head against his chest again, snuggling into the solid warmth of him. “It’s complicated, Cayal, and I really don’t want to talk about my husband while lying naked in the arms of another man.”
Cayal was undeterred. “Will he come after me, do you think? To avenge your honour?”
“Last time I checked he was after you anyway,” she reminded him, “because you’re an escaped convict. Having your way with his wife will just prove an added incentive to see an end to you, I imagine.”
“Will you be in a lot of trouble when you go back?”
“None at all,” she assured him, although the question pained her. There were no illusions in this bed. As world-shattering as it had seemed earlier, in the heat of their desire, this could not, would not last. This was the distant war-drum she could hear in her mind. Whatever Arkady felt for his man, her future lay with Stellan in Torlenia, not with a fugitive immortal.
She understood that and Cayal—to his credit—wasn’t trying to fool her into believing otherwise. “You kidnapped me. I’m the victim here.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re many things, Arkady, but believe me, a victim isn’t one of them. Won’t he know you’re lying?”
“I’d rather we stopped talking about him.”
“Tell me something else then.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about yourself. Something from your childhood that doesn’t involve dirty old men. A happy memory.” He looked down at her with a frown. “You do have happy memories, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Don’t you?”
“None that aren’t rotting from old age.”
She frowned, a little hurt by what he was implying. “Not even tonight?”
Cayal leaned forward and kissed her apologetically. “Tonight is still happening. It’s not actually a memory yet.”
Somewhat mollified, she smiled. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. Just tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the only gift you can give me that I can’t take for myself.”
That made a twisted sort of logic, actually, so Arkady settled down against him again and thought on it for a moment.
“When I was about eight,” she began, recalling an incident all but forgotten over the years, “my father was called to the palace because the duke was ill and his physician was away. This was the old duke, Stellan’s father, and my mother was still alive then, too, although heavily pregnant. The old duke had severe gout, poor man, and suffered with it terribly. There were plenty of other doctors in the city the duke could have called on, but my father and his personal physician were friends so as a favour to us he always arranged for Papa to cover for him when he was away. I think he knew my father would never accept charity—or payment from half his patients, which was half the reason we were so poor—and he knew how much we needed the money.
“Normally, I would have stayed at home for such a house call, but Mother was having a particularly bad day and she didn’t want me underfoot, so my father took me to the palace with him. All the way there he admonished me about my manners and not saying anything and staying out of the way, which of course I promised to do, and which of course, I didn’t.
“Anyway, as soon as we arrived, Papa was whisked away to attend the duke and I was left standing in this massive hall into which our whole house would have fitted. Naturally, I started poking into doorways until I found one unlocked. It led to a music room. I’d only ever seen musical instruments played by street performers before then, and we lived in the poorer part of the city, so they were pretty battered and worn. I’d never seen anything as beautiful as the dulcimer resting on a stand by the window. You should have seen it. It was shaped like a huge hourglass, enamelled in black and polished till it shone like a mirror. Its fretted fingerboard was inlaid with mother of pearl with a matching inlay scrolling down either side of the strings. I’d never seen anything so gorgeous. I reached out, and was just about to touch it, when this boy of about fourteen threw open the door and demanded to know who I was. Tides, he gave me such a fright, I nearly knocked the damn thing over.
“After I got over my shock, I explained why I was in the palace and then the boy walked across, picked up the dulcimer and asked me if I played. When I told him I didn’t, he offered to show me what it sounded like. We must have spent the better part of the morning in that music room. Stellan played every song he knew, I think, and some of them more than once. He tells me he’s not a particularly accomplished musician, but I was only eight, so what did I know? I just thought the instrument made the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard, and that the boy playing it was the nicest person I’d ever met.
“It wasn’t until my father came looking for me in a panic a couple of hours or so later that I found out the boy was the duke’s son, and even then I was too young to be impressed. He assured my father I’d been well behaved, bowed to me like I was a real lady and left the music room, after inviting me to come back and visit him again.”
“That’s the happiest moment of your life?” Cayal asked.
She shrugged. “It may not seem like much of a memory, but my mother miscarried and died a little more than a week later, and after that, things were never the same. It probably wasn’t the happiest moment but that morning was the last time I can remember being truly and completely happy.”
Arkady fell silent, letting the joy of that simple reminiscence envelop her. When Cayal offered no other comment, she looked up at him and discovered he wasn’t even listening to her.
“Cayal?
His attention was elsewhere, his eyes unfocussed, as if he was listening to something Arkady couldn’t hear. He lay like that, still as a rock, for a few more moments and then he sat bolt upright, pushing Arkady out of his way without apology. Throwing the furs back, he cursed under his breath as he sprang out of bed and began fishing around for his trousers.
Arkady stared at him in alarm. “Cayal? What’s the matter?”
“Jaxyn’s here,” he said, as he dressed hurriedly in his discarded prison uniform.
“How could you possibly know…?”
“I can feel him on the Tide.”
“But Jaxyn is…” Arkady’s voice trailed off in horror as something awful, something almost too terrible to contemplate, suddenly occurred to her.
A sleazy little opportunist, Cayal had called him. Jaxyn will already have his eye on the land he intends to rule once there’s nobody around who can oppose him…
“Cayal, wait!” she called after him, as he slammed the bedroom door open with a thought, so hard the whole cabin shook, and hurried into the main room to find his boots.
“I don’t have time to wait,” he told her. “Get dressed.”
“But I think…” She never got a chance to finish the sentence because at that moment a chillingly familiar voice called to them from the yard outside.
“Cayal! O Cay-al! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Tide’s turning, brother. It’s time for you and me to have a little fun!”
Still naked, filled with a dread that left her nauseous, Arkady rushed to the window and looked out of the shutters, only to have her worst fears realised.
“Come on, Cayal! Be a sport! Don’t make me come and get you!”
Standing in the yard, very much in command of the situation, surrounded by a
force of nearly two dozen feline Crasii, including those Arkady had brought from the palace, was a Tide Lord. The torches the Crasii were holding illuminated the yard with fitful light, but there was no mistaking the figure standing out there, taunting Cayal.
It was the Lord of Temperance himself, Jaxyn Aranville.
Chapter 61
Cayal was more surprised by Arkady’s reaction to the appearance of Jaxyn than he was by the arrival of his old enemy. Clearly, she recognised him. He sighed, thinking Jaxyn had more than a knack for finding himself the comfiest nest possible when the Tide was out. It bordered on a magical power.
My husband has a friend…Jaxyn, Arkady had told him.
Tides, a palace, a place full of secrets…Just the sort of bolthole Jaxyn has a nose for. Cayal should have realised then who she was referring to.
“You know him?” he asked, pulling his shirt on.
“It’s…” She hesitated, obviously debating something within herself and then turned to look at him and said flatly “Jaxyn Aranville is my husband’s lover.”
Cayal wasn’t surprised, not by the news Arkady’s husband had a male lover (which explained quite a bit about Arkady), or that it was Jaxyn. Even older than Cayal, there was little left that he hadn’t done, or people he’d done it to. The Aranville name…well, that was something he’d probably stolen either by killing the real Aranville or simply borrowing the family name to get a foot in the door at Lebec Palace. It wasn’t a particularly difficult thing to do. Cayal had done it any number of times himself, in order to secure a comfortable niche to wait out a Low Tide. “He does get around, our Jaxyn, doesn’t he? I take it you had no idea who he was.”
“Are you kidding? I’m still getting my head around you being a Tide Lord. Trust me, I’m a long way from coming to grips with the notion I’ve been harbouring one under my roof for the past year.” She shook her head and straightened up, probably unaware that her naked body was limned in firelight from the torches in the yard. “Still, I suppose that explains why he was also so good at getting the Crasii to work for him.”
Tides, she is beautiful, he thought, only half-listening to her. And totally dismissive of it.
In eight thousand years, Cayal had never met anybody less impressed by their own appearance than Arkady Desean. If she dressed like a duchess, it was only because she treated her role like a job, which to her it probably was, given what she had just revealed about her husband. She appeared to be totally without vanity, which fascinated Cayal.
Among the Tide Lords, vanity was more than just a common trait. It very nearly defined them.
“You said Jaxyn would already have his eye on the land he planned to take over…,” she began.
“I’d start practising my grovelling curtseys, if I were you,” he advised and then he added in a less ominous tone, “but probably after you get dressed.”
As if she’d only just realised she was still naked, Arkady wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.
“Come on, Cayal!” Jaxyn called from the yard. “I know you’re in there!”
“Please, Cayal! Don’t go out there!”
He was touched by her concern, which shocked Cayal, because he was rarely touched by anything, these days. It had been a very long time since anybody cared about what happened to the Immortal Prince. Perhaps that’s what he found so beguiling about this woman. It wasn’t just her beauty. Or even her intelligence. This woman had risked everything—her home, her title, perhaps even her husband’s position in court—just to help him escape being tortured.
And it wasn’t as if there was anything in it for Arkady Desean. While Cayal liked to imagine he was a competent lover, no woman would have risked what she had, just for the dubious pleasure of a night in his bed…
No…with eight thousand years of memories to call on, Cayal couldn’t remember the last time any living soul had willingly risked so much to help him.
He stepped a little closer, taking her by the arms. “He can’t hurt me, Arkady. Well…that’s not strictly true. He can hurt me. But he can’t kill me. And it’s a while yet ’til High Tide so I’m fairly certain it’s in his best interests to see you back to your husband in one piece. You really don’t have to worry.” When he could see his reassurances were having no effect, he kissed her forehead. “Get dressed. I’m sure you don’t want the sleazy little bastard finding you naked.”
Looking very cold and mightily unhappy, Arkady nodded and hurried back into Maralyce’s bedroom. Cayal turned to glance out the window. The Crasii who’d accompanied them from Clyden’s Inn had all followed Jaxyn here, which explained why Chikita had appeared earlier to report on the lack of pursuit. She wasn’t responding to Cayal’s command, but Jaxyn’s. He would have sent her up to the cabin to check that he and Arkady were still here. Approaching himself—with the Tide on the turn—would have alerted Cayal to his presence.
“You’re only making this harder on yourself!”
Cayal felt no particular fear at the presence of his nemesis. With the Tide so low there wasn’t much either of them could do that would cause the other trouble. Even at High Tide, it was debatable who was the most powerful. Cayal liked to believe it was he, just as he was sure Jaxyn liked to imagine he was the stronger of the two. They’d never really had reason to put the matter to the test until now.
Perhaps, for the sake of every other living soul on Amyrantha, it was a good thing the Tide was still on the way in. This might get very nasty.
“Cayal.”
He turned to discover Arkady had dressed in record time, although she was still tucking in her blouse and her tangled hair showed the evidence of their wild lovemaking. Maralyce probably didn’t own a mirror, but even if she had, with Arkady’s lack of vanity she doubtless would have deemed it unnecessary.
“I’m sorry, Arkady.”
“For what?”
“For dragging you into my world. You don’t belong here.”
She shrugged fatalistically. “Given that’s my husband’s lover out there, whom you assure me is planning to take over Glaeba and enslave us all as soon as he’s strong enough, I think I was dragged into your world long before you came along.”
“I’ll burn it down if I have to, Cayal!” Jaxyn shouted, sounding a little impatient. “And then Maralyce will get mad. You know what happens when Maralyce gets mad.”
Arkady glared at the door. “Why is he doing that?”
“You mean standing out there yelling, instead of breaking the door down?”
She nodded, obviously puzzled by Jaxyn’s willingness to wait for Cayal to emerge in his own time. “He has a score of Crasii with him. They’d tear this place to shreds if he ordered them to.”
“But then he’d have to explain to Maralyce why he destroyed her house,” Cayal said. “Trust me, nobody in their right mind pisses that lady off. Not even a Tide Lord as strong as Jaxyn. Besides, this is all part of the game.”
“You think this is a game?”
“Jaxyn does.”
“I will never understand you.”
He wasn’t sure if she meant him or all Tide Lords in particular, but it didn’t really matter. This was the end of the road for the Immortal Prince and the Duchess of Lebec. However pleasant an interlude they had shared, however beguiling she was, however selfless, there was no future for them.
Not now.
Maybe…The thought died almost before it was born. There was no maybe. Cayal had had enough of immortality and with the Tide on the turn, he might soon be in a position to do something about it. Getting himself beheaded wasn’t the only plan he’d come up with to end his torment, just the only one that might have a chance of working at Low Tide.
Arkady wasn’t a part of his suicidal dreams. If anything, she was a threat to them because she represented the only glimmer of hope in a life almost totally devoid of it.
Jaxyn turning up now is a good thing, he told himself, turning for the door.
“Aren’t you even going to say goodbye?”
> He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You’re assuming I’m going to lose? Thanks for the overwhelming vote of confidence.”
Arkady wasn’t so easily fooled by his glib answer. “I don’t think you care enough to win, Cayal.”
“I care enough to wipe that smug expression off Jaxyn’s insufferable little face.”
She shook her head in amazement. “All the power you Tide Lords claim to command, and that’s the best you can find to rouse you?”
“There might have been something else.” He shrugged, looking away. “Once. Not any longer.”
“No wonder you want to kill yourself,” she said unsympathetically. “I would too, if that’s all I’d been reduced to.”
He was shocked by her callousness, and then suddenly he smiled. “Tides! Are you trying to goad me into wanting to live? That’s incredible!”
“Why incredible?”
“That you’d care enough about a complete stranger to do anything so foolish.”
“I rather thought we were beyond being strangers.”
In answer, Cayal drew her to him, kissing her, surprised to find himself wanting her again, and wanting her to understand him. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back, stirring emotions in him he thought long dead, long forgotten.
For some reason, he wasn’t just going through the motions with this woman. It wasn’t even simple lust, the way he’d lusted for Gabriella. He’d only ever wanted Gabriella to love and admire him. He found himself wanting Arkady to know him, and that was about the most frightening thing that had happened to Cayal in the past eight thousand years.
To cover his uneasiness at the effect she was having on him, he pulled away from her. “This isn’t goodbye, you know. We’ll meet again.”
She searched his face for a moment before answering. “As equals? Or when you and your kind have enslaved us all?”
“Slave or not,” he told her, kissing her again, unable to resist the temptation, “I will never be your equal, Arkady. I could never aspire to anything nearly so lofty.”
“I’m getting impatient, Cayal! Do I have to start killing things to get your attention?”
The Immortal Prince Page 50