"I have seven brothers, Highness. There is nothing I have not seen."
"What you've seen wasn't mine, lady."
She finished with his hair and took up the soap. "I see you blushing when you shouldn't be."
He realized she was watching his expression in the Cheval mirror just to the left of the tub. He met her sparkling eyes in the glass and blinked. The woman was flirting! He watched her smile shyly and then turn her attention to his shoulder and left arm, drawing the soap along its tanned length as she hummed softly. If she noticed the Maze tattooed on the underside of his wrist, she didn't remark upon it. He glanced back into the mirror, curious to see her reaction to the band of burned flesh just above his left elbow, but she ignored that also. The pentagram branded into his palm, however, brought a frown to her face.
"Did my aunt provide beds like mine for my men?" he asked, wanting to bring the prettiness back to her face, to take her thoughts from the pentagram.
She looked up at him. "Oh, yes. Well, at least for the royal sons who are visiting. Her Celestial Highness had a dozen sleeping pedestals in storage for just such visits."
She pushed gracefully to her feet and padded to the other side of the tub, studiously avoiding glancing into the water where his legs, he hoped, hid him from her sight. She sank to her knees again and began to wash his right shoulder and arm.
"Are you ready for me to wash your legs?"
"I… I can do it," he stammered, watching her lips twitch. "I'm not helpless!"
She made a quick nod. "Then let me do your back, at least. That I know you can not do."
He leaned forward, clasping his knees with his arms and waited. He decided right then, when she finished with his back, he was sending her on her way!
There was a sharp gasp. Her eyes found his in the mirror once more. She stared at him with horror. She had seen the puckered, criss-crossed scars that covered him from his neck to well below his waist.
"You don't have to bathe my back," he told her. "I can manage on my own."
"Those who would dare do such a thing to you should be put to the ax!" she said fiercely. "No one had the right to hurt you in this way."
He had no thought of his own shame and hurt. Another's pain had always touched him far deeper than his own. He turned, heedless of his nakedness, and caressed her cheek with his palm. She brought his hand to her lips, kissing the scarred palm.
"Don't," he said. "It happened long ago and I no longer feel the pain."
She came hurriedly to her feet, backing away until she reached the rice-paper doorway. "I have shamed you," she confessed, stepping backward through the opening. She bowed several times. "I ask you pardon, Highness."
"You've done nothing wrong."
She spun around, a gasping sob floating to him as she slid the panel shut.
He let out a ragged breath. Suddenly, he was more tired than he could remember being in a long while. He looked at his legs and decided not to finish his bath. Getting out of the tub proved to be an effort since his muscles ached and cramped, making him wince. He needed exercise and he made a mental note to ask his uncle about it that afternoon.
He plucked a towel from the table and dried himself with the thick fleece. Padding to the bed across the straw mat flooring, he saw the clothes she had brought for him.
He picked them up, marveling at the rich feel of the black silk. The tunic and breeches were heavily embroidered down the front, sides, and sleeves with black silk thread. Peacocks and mountains, arched bridges and flowing water were etched on the material. Slipping the breeches up his legs, he inhaled with pleasure as the feel of the silk lulled him. The tunic, held together by tiny black pearls down the left side, felt cool, clean, and fresh as he slipped it over his shoulders.
He looked at himself in the Cheval mirror. From a distance, he looked normal. But he knew if he walked closer, the scars, the haggard look on his face, the twin furrows along his left cheek would return. They would be with him always.
He sat on the bed, staring at the brands in his palms.
"She pitied you," he said to the empty room.
He lay on the white coverlet, pressing his scarred cheek to the bed as though to hide it forever. He was soon asleep, the vision of the Tribunal Square firmly in his troubled mind.
He didn't hear his screams of nightmarish pain.
* * *
He woke.
He was lying on his left side. There was a soft warmth lying beside him and he snuggled up to it, a tiny, fleeting smile on his lips. He felt hands on his right arm, smoothing the fabric of his tunic. The hands moved over his shoulders, ran down his back and rump and up again. The feeling was wonderful and he wished for it to continue forever. He drew in a long, contented breath.
"Did you sleep well, Highness?"
His eyes snapped open; the breath held in his throat.
She lay on her side facing him. Her head was propped up on her bent elbow and her free hand smoothed over his back and rump. There was a faint smile on her lips. Sometime during his sleep, she had lain beside him. He had sought her warmth, her woman's softness. His belly and chest were pressed against her, his arm thrown possessively over her tiny waist, one black-clad knee wedged between hers. He knew without looking that she was naked.
He let out his ragged breath.
They stared at one another a long time. He let his attention roam over her perfectly shaped face with its tilt of flaring brows. Her nose was small, delicate, the nostrils thin and arched. Her lashes were fine, short and moved upward with the slant of her beautiful black eyes. The rosebud lips were puckered in a gentle smile, their ripe cherry-colored flesh shining and moist. Her tongue darted out to wet them and his eyes lowered to them. Her teeth were as white as virgin snow, the tongue pink and curving. His eyes raised to the black glory of her hair and he wondered what she would look like if her tresses were released from the restriction of the ivory combs that held it in a tight coil.
His lids fluttered as she ran her slender fingers through his hair, her red-tipped nails grazing his scalp with tantalizing slowness. He drew in his breath, savoring the feel.
"Such marvelous hair," she told him, pulling his braid over his shoulder. "Such a beautiful shade of gold."
Her hand went once more to his shoulder. He was about to speak when she pushed him, a slight, incessant pressure against his shoulder that demanded he turn onto his back.
He obeyed.
Se Huan took the ivory combs from her jet black hair. Shaking her head, the thick mane of shiny, straight, silky hair slipped over her shoulders and cascaded down to his chest.
"Are you a mind reader?" he whispered.
She began unbuttoning his tunic. He covered her fingers with a restraining hand.
"Are you committed?" she asked, her eyes hungrily sweeping over his face.
Had she used any other word he might have said yes, but that one word, a word echoing from his conversation with Brelan, made him shake his head in denial. "Not anymore, it seems."
When she returned her attention to the buttons, he didn't stop her. He kept his head turned to the side, hiding his scarred flesh.
Se Huan exposed the wide expanse of his chest. Her fingers slid seductively over the hard mounds of his left breast muscle, threading through the hair in the center of his breastbone and caressed the right side of his chest before moving over his taut belly. Her fingers fanned over the hard ridges along his midsection and a knowing smile touched her mouth. She put her lips on the soft nub of flesh on his right breast. He drew in a harsh breath. Her low laughter was musical and teasing. She placed a feather-soft kiss on the side of his neck.
"Your blood pounds through your veins, Highness."
"Se Huan?"
She ignored the question in his voice. Her hands went to the drawstring of his breeches.
"What are you doing?" he whispered, his hand slamming down to still hers.
She regarded him with a steady look, her will far stronger than his own. Her tongue r
an over the arch of her upper lip.
He was lost.
Beyond help.
He surrendered to the sweet torture.
Her face stretched into a compelling, conquering smile. She untied the drawstring and slipped her questing fingers through the patch of hair hidden below the waistband.
His ragged breath seemed to please her as she stroked, kneaded the sudden hard thrust of his manhood. She covered his body with her own, then slid down along his length until she could plant a warm kiss on the deep indention of his navel. Her lips trailed along his belly and sides.
"Let me pleasure you in a way that will not break any commitments you might have, Highness. Let me fill your soul with rapture and take you to the heavens you have been denied for so long."
He knew he was entirely at her mercy.
She seemd to know it, too.
She pulled down his breeches, smiling as he raised his body enough to accommodate her. His flesh leapt at her as the breeches moved off his hips; her smile turned hotter still with passion. She looked up at him with a hunger of sexual need that staggered him. Her hand molded itself around him. She raised one fine brow in appreciation, then lowered her head. With infinite care, her lips parted to draw him deep inside her warm mouth. Her tongue spiraled around the swollen tip of his manhood and her hands slid down to cup and hold.
Conar threaded his fingers through her silky hair while his eyes closed to the intense pleasure. It was exquisite torture, drawing from him a response he had long since forgotten. With blinding swiftness, he felt the raging tide of his need building toward the shoreline of his release. He groaned. Her lips nibbled, her mouth sucking the very nectar, the essence, from him. The pressure built within him, crested forward, edged ever toward the shore of his consciousness. Her hands shifted his testicles and he burst forth like the explosion of a star, white-hot with excruciating pleasure. He groaned as his flesh jerked within her soft mouth, his life-giving fluid cascading down her slender, arched throat. He grasped her head with both hands and called out, his body stiffening, and then he seemed to fall away, his hands sliding limply to either side of his depleted body.
Her tongue swept over his shrinking flesh, drawing, taking away the remnants of his passion. The soft rustle of silk breeches eased over his hips and waist as she tugged them into place, silently making him lift up so she could re-tie the drawstring. She rebuttoned the tunic, then put a finger on his bottom lip and traced the soft flesh before. She fused her mouth to his in a heady kiss that made his senses reel. He could taste himself on her lips and the warm invasion of her tongue into his mouth sent shivers of intense sweetness through his belly.
She broke the contact of their mouths and rested her head on his broad shoulder.
Conar drew her to him, fitting her body into the curve of his own. He placed a kiss on the shining halo of her hair. It had been a long time since he had experienced the pleasures this tiny woman had just given him. There had been dreams early after his imprisonment, dreams that had left him wet and aching, but they had subsided long ago. He had almost forgotten how wonderful the act of love could be, and in his mind, there was no doubt that was exactly what Se Huan had done for him. Her face had revealed more than desire when she had gazed up at him.
He wanted to love her, to make love to her, but knew he couldn't. Not now. Not in the way she deserved, but he did know ways of bringing about the sweet bliss in her that she had drawn from him.
"When we have slept, Highness," she said, snuggling against him, seeming to read his intent in the way his fingers passed over her naked shoulder. "Then we will climb the mountain again."
But when he awakened the second time, spread her gently on the bed and used hands and fingers upon her more than willing flesh, he found the steadfast obstruction of her maidenhead blocking his questing fingers.
"Your aunt would not have sent a whore to your bed, Highness," she remonstrated. "I would not have come, myself, had I been impure." She took his hand and brought the fingers to her lips, kissed them and, molded them to her breasts. "When you are ready to love me without guilt, Highness, then you may initiate me as you wish. No one but you will have that right."
Guilt? he thought. He felt no guilt at what he had allowed to happen. He felt no shame. He had not actively participated in the process, but he hadn't put up that much resistance, either.
There was no commitment. He had no wife. He was free. Free to love and cherish this woman. Free to offer her his hand in companionship, if not in marriage. His body was free; his soul was free, but his heart was still securely chained to Liza.
He decided there was no one to blame because this had happened. He had done nothing wrong.
But he did have one regret.
No doubt to the woman lying beside him it hadn't meant overmuch; to him it was a burden, a reminder, nothing more. But it had been like the shattering of a fine, expensive crystal.
At the moment his climax had come, he had called out. One word:
Liza.
Chapter 2
* * *
Conar let the chilled wine flow down his throat. The sweet, tart taste of plums exploded on his taste buds and he closed his eyes, savoring the taste. The meal he had just finished had been superb, nothing like the good but substantial food on board the Boreas Queen or the native fare along the islands where they had stopped for provisions. His aunt had ordered all his favorites prepared, down to the triple chocolate cake that had been his one addiction and culinary weakness as a child. He looked at the velvety crumbs sprinkled about the tablecloth and smiled.
Dyreil carefully watched her nephew. Despite the battered condition of his face, the leanness of his body and the haunted despair in his beautiful eyes, she could still see the young man who had held the world in the palm of his hand all those years ago in Serenia. There was strength of will within him and she knew the vital animal instinct of survival he had leaned upon at the penal colony would help him deal with the problem of Liza.
She frowned, looking into her wineglass. Liza was a subject he had yet to broach with her. Brelan told her about a conversation with his brother prior to leaving the Labyrinth, but since then, on the long journey to Chrystallus, Conar had studiously avoided any discussion of things in Serenia and especially of his ex-wife.
"How's the wine, little brother?" Brelan asked, as his aunt nudged his foot under the table and nodded toward Conar.
Conar shrugged. "So-so."
"Aye," Dyllon snorted, "so-so good he's on his fourth glass! You'd better watch him, Uncle Tran. He doesn't hold his liquor well!"
"And you know what plum wine does to the McGregor libido," Coron remarked.
Tran chuckled at the pale pink blush that spread over Conar's face. "Your great-great-great grandfather had some problem with plum wine, if I recollect accurately, didn't he, Conar? Was that not what started the War of the Zones?"
Conar nodded, absently, looking into the golden swirl of his wine. "He bought; he tasted; he drank the whole bottle; he pillaged a town." He turned to his uncle. "Typical McGregor male reaction."
"Aye, well," Coron said dryly, "if pillaging the town had been the only thing great gramps had done, we'd still be four separate countries within Serenia. I believe there was a female or two abducted in there somewhere?"
Brelan chuckled. "Maybe one or two."
"Like maybe our great-great-great-grandmama-to-be?" Dyllon reminded them.
"He saw her; he liked her; he took her," Conar answered. He frowned into his wineglass again. "Typical McGregor male indulgence."
"And started a war when her father and brothers and uncles and cousins went after the raiding party," the Empress put in.
"Well, she didn't seem to mind being taken," Coron remarked. "If the tales are true, she seduced her Boreal warrior before they were two leagues out of Eurus."
"He allowed her to fight him; he surrendered; she conquered him," Conar mumbled. He drained his glass, reached for the bottle in front of him. "Typical McGrego
r male stupidity."
"But she loved him, Conar," his aunt said. "Didn't she fight for him when her father came to challenge him to a duel? She took up a sword to protect his back from one of her cowardly brothers who was trying to skewer Grandpapa."
"If he had not been intoxicated with good Chrystallusian wine, he might not have pillaged the town, though, Aunt Dyreil," Wyn put in. "If he'd been sober, he might not have picked that particular lady. Wasn't he engaged to another woman from Norus?"
Dyreil sent her great-nephew a warning look, then exchanged looks with her husband. "It doesn't matter if he was engaged. He and his captive fell in love. He was willing to start a war to keep her."
"He took her with him; he laid her; he thought she loved him," Conar snarled. "Typical McGregor male arrogance."
"It was a true love, Conar," Tran said. "Their marriage was one of the best, or so I've heard."
"And you know what our great Grandpappy always said about true love!" Dyllon said, wanting to lighten the heavy air. "He said—"
"That it only comes once in a man's lifetime," Conar interrupted. "If he is willing to risk everything to keep it, to fight to the death for it, he should be allowed to have it for the rest of his life." His voice trailed off, his eyes suddenly dark. "Typical McGregor male presumptuousness."
Dyreil silently pleaded with her husband to change the subject. Again she nudged Brelan beneath the table, making him wince.
"If you gentlemen would like, we could go hunting tomorrow," Tran said. "Our bowyer has crafted a new crossbow that is wicked! I have had reports of a were-tiger in the northern hills. Who would care to try his expertise with the crossbow?"
Conar got hastily to his feet and mumbled a good eve to all. His footsteps echoed hollow and lonely over the polished parquet flooring.
"Did I say something wrong?" Tran asked, his kind face wrinkled with concern.
"Liza once saved his life," Wyn explained. "Not long after they'd met. She brought down a were-tiger with her crossbow."
Brelan stood up, hurrying after his brother. He had seen the glimmer of tears in Conar's eyes. Neither had he missed how Conar had snatched up a bottle of plum wine from the sideboard on his way out. When he reached Conar's door, he found it closed, locked. He rapped lightly.
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