“Then it’s fortunate the occasion didn’t present itself.” Roland came closer so his soft, sweet breath fanned my face, making me shiver. “I would hate to see such a treasure locked away.”
“Please.” My grip slackened and mind spun languidly from its course. “Don’t take him.”
“Emma.” Dillon said my name in warning.
Too late I wobbled, drunken, and Dillon caught me beneath my arms before I fell.
“You invited me.” My tongue grew thick. “Said you could help.”
“I can help.” His face clouded my vision. “I can make you forget all about this nasty, little incident. Wouldn’t you like that?” I tasted him with every inhale. “We could be friends again, you and I. There’s no reason we can’t kiss…” his mouth brushed mine, “…and make up.”
“Shit.” Dillon dragged me from Roland before our mouths joined. “Get away from her.”
I squirmed, desperation sending crazed impulses my brain struggled to decipher. “Let me go.” Precious seconds later, the claw and tug at my back ceased. I stared straight ahead, right at Roland, who smiled at me with berry-ripe lips. Film coated my thoughts. I crawled to him on my hands and knees. He tilted my chin up with his finger. Bliss flowered low in my belly. I smiled up, adoring this new friend I’d made. Doubt niggled, but he smashed it flat. How could I be missing something when Roland was here? Frenzy spawned in my chest. I attributed it to my excitement. When he bent down, nuzzled my cheek, I knew I’d been right. It couldn’t be fear.
Chapter Ten
Sunlight glittered through the window, bathing the dull floor in a golden glow. I stroked the coverlet I’d cast aside hours ago, admiring the way silk rustled beneath my palm. Dust clung to every surface in the room as if it had been sealed for years. I lifted a brush I’d noticed earlier.
Straight blonde hairs hung from its bristles. My fist swallowed the handle, which was smaller than my meatier hands and stubbier fingers. I stared at it, turned it on my palm. Everything in this room reminded me of doll furniture. I shifted on the bed, and it creaked. I’d always been heavier than… I frowned, glancing down at my bare toes and the delicate shoes too small for my feet.
I’d forgotten something—someone. Hadn’t I? Such strange dreams I dreamt last night.
“How are you feeling, lovely?” Roland entered the chamber with a flourish, carrying a silver tray balanced on his forearm. What a silly male. Servants handled such things, not lords.
I tilted my head back and accepted his lingering kiss. Air left my lungs only to be filled with oxygen from his. “I am well, and you?” I stroked the cover again. “Did you sleep well?”
His smile sent strange trembles through my limbs. “I couldn’t rest for your absence.”
Heat tingled in my cheeks. “You flatter me, my lord.”
“I desire you, my lady.” He set the tray across my lap and braced himself on it. His gaze consumed me, willed him to be my sole focus, and I made it so. “Every flutter of your pulse ignites my regard for your…” he smoothed a fingertip over the swell of my breast, “…person.”
I realized I wore a corset, because my gasp deflated into a sigh. The gown his finger traced scratched, unfamiliar. A strange thought occurred to me. I hated dresses. Every bit as quick, the notion fluttered away. Skirts pleased my lord, so I wore them. I smiled, contented.
His eyes conveyed secrets I blushed to infer. Yes, I adored such gowns. I always had.
Leaning forward, I hoped to lure him into another kiss. He indulged me with a fierce grin. “You must eat now.” I had no interest in food, only in his next move. “You’ll like it, I promise.”
His consideration knew no bounds. He lifted the first succulent piece of meat with his fingers, placed it across my tongue, smiling when I licked him clean. “Delicious.”
I meant him, and he didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
He wiped my mouth, then knocked the tray aside. Metal clattered on stone and bowls warbled until they stilled. I laughed, delighted by his antics. He pressed my shoulder, and I lay back. Crawling up my body, he paused before our lips met. “I fear I’m enjoying you too much.”
My spine chilled when his fingers went to my bodice laces. Nerves, first-time jitters, they must be. Ice spread the more our skin touched, until I shivered from the contact. Fleeting images crackled like a frozen pond. Sweat dripping, mouths connecting, husky groans, a male shape slid into a female form. I choked. Scandal raced through my limbs. I’d done this before, hadn’t I?
“Forgive me.” He kissed my knuckles. His hovering weight dropped, pressing until black dots swarmed my vision. Then he lowered his mouth, forcing his air into my starving lungs.
My fingernails cut his shoulders. Hot, sticky warmth coated them, drawing a hiss of dissatisfaction from Roland before he rolled from the bed and left me. I curled onto my side and wept, for what, I didn’t know.
Shadows lurked in unlit corners, stretching across the floor whenever Harper turned his back on their insidious whispers. Were they his imagination? Or something else, something worse? Ammonia fumes scrubbed his nasal passages clean. His sinuses swelled shut, which meant he now tasted the stench surrounding him. Decomposition lent a bitter tang to the air.
“We have to get out of here.” He checked Dillon for the tenth time since waking.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Dillon’s eyes were glassy, his complexion pale. Fever reddened his cheeks. One leg hung off the low cot. The other stretched toward the wall. Leather damp with puss stuck to his calf. Infection sank claws in him and ripped at his stitch seams.
Distant footsteps, a metal clang, rang sharp in Harper’s ears. Company was coming.
Roland rounded the corner, nodding in greeting when his gaze collided with Harper’s.
Harper recognized him from his youth, when his duty as castle courier had crossed their paths. Roland and Rideal could pass for twins, and some claimed they were. He could believe it.
“I see you’re none the worse for wear.” Roland flicked his gaze toward the cot. “Your friend, though, looks as if he’s sick.” His teeth shone. “I hope it’s nothing contagious.”
“What have you done with Emma?” Rows of corroded bars kept Harper from lacing his fingers around Roland’s neck. His hands trembled with the urge as rust dug into his palms.
“So possessive. I’d heard that about you.” He cast an admiring glance. “I’d have paid to be here the night you brought First Court tumbling down around Archer’s ears.”
“If you’re so amused, then why have me arrested?” Harper tightened his fingers, testing the metal’s strength. “I paid my debt. Eliya cut her justice from my hide one strip of skin at a time.”
“I heard that too.” He turned, considering. “There were murmurs she kept you in a golden birdcage in her room. I suppose she thought you weren’t worth silver.” He chuckled. “She always did have a twisted sense of humor.”
Nauseating memories roiled in his gut, bubbling up the back of his throat. Get back in the box. He shuddered, swallowing as he swept more remembrances into his darkest mental corner.
“Emma.” Harper’s voice grated through clenched teeth. “Where is she?”
Roland swiveled his eyes toward the ceiling. “She’s asleep. I hope Madelyn doesn’t mind I used her bedroom.” His attention drifted down. “You’re in contact with the little princess lost?”
Harper remained silent. Nesvia was the only one who knew Maddie was on Earth for certain, and not even she knew the location of the earthen colony. No one outside of Earth did.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He canted his head to the right. “It doesn’t matter. Not my problem.” He stalked closer. “What does concern me is the little secret you’ve been keeping.”
Harper realized in a lucid snap what Roland wanted. “All this is about the salt?”
“Well it’s hardly about the silver.” He clicked his tongue. “Don’t act surprised. The progesaline samples you sent Nesvia with your permit
application were flawless.” He tapped the bars. “The purer the salt, the more reliable the outcome.”
A feral growl rose from over Harper’s shoulder. Roland stared past him, toward the cot.
“Bastard.” Dillon twisted onto his side. “You’re the one bankrolling the raiders.”
“If I didn’t, someone else would.” Roland shrugged. “I’m offering you a deal—a full pardon in exchange for exclusive salt rights.” He turned serious. “Say the word, and I’ll have the papers drafted. You can be free of this cell and gliding across the dunes in a coach before dark.”
“What are your terms?” Harper ground out the words.
“I prefer if our transactions aren’t traceable to Rideal.”
Harper’s eyebrows climbed. “And why is that?”
“His is a precarious situation.” He spread his hands. “The loss of a queen’s favor is often fatal.”
“She wouldn’t approve of what you’ve done.” He surmised. “Or what you’re doing now.”
“I am Sere’s heir. Nesvia is Rideal’s problem, not mine. Her approval is not something I seek.” Roland gritted his teeth. “Although I would prefer to avoid her involvement for his sake.”
“Fair enough.” Sensing he’d pushed too far, Harper filed the tidbit away. “Your terms?”
“In addition to exclusive salt rights, your part of the bargain includes regular shipments transported direct to the Bernhard estate in Sere. I’ll provide an armed escort for your colonists’ protection. You’ll get a thirty-five percent cut of the profit.” Roland folded his arms. “The silver is yours to do with as you see fit.”
“Thirty-five percent?” Harper came close to laughing in Roland’s face. “I have four years until Nesvia’s stipend expires.” He rubbed his eyes as a headache bloomed. “I can’t go that low. You know the silver alone won’t make up the deficit.”
Roland appeared to give the matter thought. “I’ll go forty percent, and you’ll be the highest paid contractor we have.” He paused while that sank in. “Do we have a deal?”
“I can’t.” Embolite veins depleted and mines went extinct. If the Feriana mine hadn’t been deemed dead, Nesvia’s advisors would have fought harder before she deeded him the property in the first place. In all honesty, he had prayed they would strike it lucky, but he would have settled for discovering a way to colonize the mines and avoid the spell-crafter fee if all else failed.
As it was, he couldn’t afford to take a forty percent share of what should be one hundred percent profit when sold by his merchants at Feriana’s market. “My colony must come first.”
“I thought as much.” Roland sighed. “I’ll give you another day to reconsider, but my patience has limits. I’ll need access to your product soon.” He glanced at Dillon. “Time’s running out.”
Harper would have rather chewed off his tongue than brought her back to Roland’s attention, but his choices ran out once the handcuffs slapped on. “And Emma?”
“I’d intended to send her back to Feriana,” Roland said, “with you.”
“And now?” Harper forced himself to ask.
Roland smoothed a hand down his shirt. “Tonight’s the first night of summer court.” He chuckled. “I’m sure Emmaline will agree to attend.” His eyes glinted. “If I ask her properly.”
“Stay out of her head, Sereian.” Vibrations rattled Harper’s chest as he shook the bars.
“You use your glamour, and I use mine.” Roland turned on his heel. “She’ll last another day, maybe two, before her mind cracks under the strain. If it’s any consolation, she’ll die happy.”
“If she dies, you’ll wish for the swift death I dealt Archer.” Harper bared his teeth. “I’ll peel your skin back, layer by layer. Eliya taught me well that practice makes perfect.”
“Sign the papers, or don’t.” Roland spun aside. “Either way, I have a lady waiting.”
Rattling his cage, Harper growled, “I’ll kill you if you touch her.”
“Then I’m dead already.” Roland turned the corner. “I might as well enjoy her while I can.”
Harper bit down, tasting torn cheek and rage. Slamming his head against the bars, red seeped into his vision and blanked out the cell. Razor-sharp memories sliced deep. The bars shone gold in his mind. The dungeon dropped away to Eliya’s bedroom. The stink of his cell turned to her cloying gardenia perfume. His gorge rose. He preferred urine to her fragrance.
His forehead split and crimson washed down his face, dribbling from his chin onto his shirt. Gasping through the pain of it, he shuddered with mental fatigue, and stress pried off the box’s lid. Years of suppressed memories doused him like an upended bucket of well water.
Two words, his name, scratched across a contract’s baseline, and this would end. He would be freed, Dillon released in time to save his leg from amputation, and Emma’s freedom negotiated from the monster escorting her to court. Only he couldn’t. It would risk the lives and futures of colonists who depended on him to place their wellbeing above his own, above all else.
Bitter laughter choked him. Now he understood his brother’s sacrifice. All those years Clayton loved Maddie, knew how she suffered, and let his heart abscess rather than save her.
Clayton had put his colony and its needs first. Harper prayed for strength to do the same.
Chapter Eleven
Light burned ahead, at the end of a long and twisting tunnel. I squinted, eyes weak for some reason. Laughter chimed and music drifted in a softer counterpoint to shuffling feet. A couple stumbled from the warm glow, swallowed by darkness, their limbs entwined.
Shock locked my gaze with a flush-cheeked courtesan. She smiled gamely at me as her skirts were rucked past her waist. A wide male palm slid up her thigh, wrapping her leg around his hip. Her shudder and sigh as I passed made my eyes water with embarrassment for us both.
“Finish this in your room.” Roland grabbed the male by the nape, peeling him from between the pouting female’s thighs. “You wouldn’t dare indulge in such a display if the queen were in attendance.” He shoved them down the hall. “Show some respect for the ladies present.” He turned a smile on me that made my stomach knot, surely in anticipation. “I regret you had to witness such vulgarity, my lady.” He leaned in close, and I pressed our mouths together.
“You shouldn’t apologize.” My tension ebbed under his stare. “It was hardly your fault.”
“You are most forgiving.” His smile turned apologetic. “I’d have avoided the court had I realized the queen’s absence meant inhibitions and good sense would be lost so quickly.”
I patted his arm. “I’m excited for the dancing.” I misstepped as we entered the ballroom flushed with silk-swathed bodies. My feet dragged as we passed a set of four thrones rising from a dais against the nearest wall. The base of the carved stairs made me shiver. Crimson seeped across the marble, vanishing in a blink. My skin crawled to escape the room. “It’s the strangest thing.” I offered him a weak smile. “I feel as if I should know, but I can’t recall the steps.”
“I’ll lead, lovely.” He stroked my face. I leaned into his touch only to have him withdraw.
Wobbling off balance, I righted myself. Another male had grabbed Roland by the arm. “I have a message for you.” He dismissed me as nothing of importance, which stung my pride.
“I’m busy, Garrett.” Roland shrugged from the other male’s grasp. “Another time.”
“Now.” His insistence was punctuated with a harsh whisper I missed in Roland’s ear.
“Very well.” Roland escorted me through the crowd. Colors swirled and twisted as dancers spun. A gentle tug on my fingers led me into the darkened hall. I gasped as he guided me through a spin that ended when his palm pinned me against the wall. “Now, you were saying?”
Garrett jerked his head in my direction. “Is she safe?”
Roland leaned in, nuzzling my cheek. “What do you say, Emmaline? Can I trust you?”
“Yes.” I gasped as his fingers splayed acr
oss my throat and exerted faint pressure.
“I never doubted it.” He raised his voice at Garrett. “Continue.”
“It’s all in there.” He offered Roland a folded piece of parchment, which Roland tucked away. Garrett’s voice rose to a nervous pitch. “You’re not going to read it?”
“You obviously know what it says. Tell me. Save us both some time.”
“Thurmond has concerns about the shipment.” Garrett followed Roland’s fingers with interest as they drifted toward my breasts. “He…ah…wishes you to contact him immediately.”
“Tell him it can wait.” Roland’s thigh pressed between my legs. “I have plans tonight.”
“Four of the Nisean mares have fallen ill.” Garrett tore his gaze away. “Perhaps more now.”
Roland’s hand dropped. “Four mares?” His eyes hardened. “All ill?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Shortly after they were administered their regular dosage—”
“Regular dosage?” he snarled. “The Feriana product is almost pure progesaline.” He punched the wall at my ear, knuckles cracking. “He’s damned fortunate he didn’t kill the brood.”
Garrett whispered, “The mares weren’t the only ones sickened.”
“For the love of all things holy.” Color leeched from Roland’s cheeks. “If he kills her, the whole of Askara will descend upon us. They’ve lost one queen, a second is treason.”
“Females in the previous trials fared well. Their births were natural and their children healthy.” Garrett lowered his voice. “We had no cause to think her reaction would be different—”
“Think? You didn’t think. Rideal returns soon.” Roland cursed. “Time is running out.”
“Thurmond requests instruction.” Garrett ducked his head. “I’m to wait for your letter.”
“Of all the nights…” Roland’s voice trailed off into silence. Turning toward me, he blinked as if he had forgotten I cowered behind him. “Forgive me, lovely. I’m afraid I must handle this matter immediately.” He indicated the ballroom. “Would you like to stay and explore?”
Evermine: Daughters of Askara, Book 2 Page 9