After listening to her pace for over an hour, he concluded that she was not fine.
Even so, he imagined that she was accustomed to her privacy and he did not intend to disturb her. Perhaps she just needed some solitary thinking time. But it seemed that her need for solitude was increasing without an end in sight. She had been withdrawing from him more and more since Aazuria had been abducted. Since then, she had not been intimate with him, and since Alcyone had become sick she had not even slept in the same bed with him. It was as though her stress was too great for her to be near him.
She was almost certainly barefoot, but she had a heavy gait. He could hear the impression of her steps on the ceiling above him, and he followed with his eyes, tracing a mental pattern of her path. Her movements were restless and sporadic. Sometimes she would pause near the window for several minutes before she continued pacing again. Sometimes he would hear the bed creak as though she had laid down on it, and there would be a period of silence. Then she would begin pacing again. This continued for over two hours, and Vachlan felt more and more worried.
It had been days since she had allowed him in her bedroom—he had no idea how long this had been going on. It could not be healthy. He understood that Visola was probably torn up about her daughter’s condition in addition to the political difficulties in Adlivun, but she seemed so calm and collected most of the time. Vachlan hated that her true level of anxiety surprised him. He hated that he did not know her well enough anymore to see that she had been in pain while smiling and joking around.
Her daughter obviously meant more to her than he could imagine. Seeing Alcyone ill was difficult for him too, but for different reasons. He was filled with regret and depression over his own actions, while Visola was filled with compassion and love for her daughter. Vachlan hardly knew her. He could not help wondering to himself if he ever would. The good fates had given him a second chance; they had forgiven his countless unforgiveable atrocities, and returned his wife to him—at least in some capacity. Being in the hotel room beneath hers was still better than being on a different continent, or in a different ocean. Being on her side again was still better than being bound to command enemy forces against her. Not just because she made a formidable enemy—in fact, in this fight her side was that of the underdog, but it was where he wanted to be.
A muffled sound alerted Vachlan, and caused him to hold his breath for a moment. There was only silence, and the sound of a car passing on the road outside. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, as though focusing his vision would also help his hearing. He heard it again. It was coming from the room above him, and although it was soft, he was positive that Visola was crying.
He sprung from the bed and moved towards the door, not even bothering to put his socks or shoes on. He grabbed his phone, wallet, and key cards from the small console table and shoved them into his pockets as he exited the room. Heading to the elevator, Vachlan roughly pushed the upward-facing arrow. He stared at the elevator doors expectantly for a moment, until his expression changed to an impatient glower.
Under the sea, Vachlan was not used to waiting. He might have ripped the elevator doors open and scaled the walls of the shaft, but he found it more efficient to take the stairs. When he was before Visola’s door, he raised his knuckles to sound an authoritative knock on the door.
He heard a shuffling of motion inside, and a sigh. An annoyed voice filtered through the wood panel. “I’m really not in the mood for a booty call.”
“That’s not why I’m here.” Vachlan’s voice was hard and insistent. “Open the door.”
Hearing how serious he sounded, she did crack the door open, without unlocking the chain. She peered at him through the crack. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
He observed her wet lashes. “I think I should be asking you that question.”
She looked at him questioningly before understanding dawned on her. She began closing the door. “Go back to bed, Vachlan.”
He shoved his foot in the door before realizing that he was not wearing a shoe, and he yelped as his toes were smashed. Visola, ever gentle as she was, kicked his wounded foot out of the crevice and continued closing the door. Vachlan stopped it with his shoulder this time, and reached up to grab the chain and rip it off the door.
“It’s your safety deposit,” she reminded him dryly as she continued trying to force the door closed. She groaned. “Sedna, it’s so late. You really wanna do this now?”
“I don’t want to fight,” he said, shoving his way past the threshold. “I just want to be in the same room with you. We’re married, is that too much to ask?”
“At this moment, yes. Don’t come in here,” she warned him, kicking his shin with the heel of her foot. When he winced she shoved the heel of her palm under his ribcage and began physically wrestling him out of the door. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Dammit, Viso—you can’t shut me out like this. You need to let me in.”
“I hate your stinky metaphors!” she shouted. “Did you ever wonder why people still read Shakespeare’s work but not yours? Too many cheesy metaphors!”
“That is a low blow, Visola Ramaris,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “How dare you speak that man’s name in my presence?”
“Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare!” Visola shouted.
“Stop it!” Vachlan yelled, and in a burst of anger, easily forced his way into the room, shutting the door behind him. “Why are you taunting me?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You know I love a show of masculine aggression as much as the next girl. But I told you, I’m really not in the mood.”
“I’m not here for that!” he said angrily. “I just… I knew you were upset and I wanted to comfort you.”
“Oh. That’s actually sweet.” Visola smiled, moving forward, and slipping her arms around his waist. She hugged him tightly, nestling her face in his neck. She briefly closed her eyes and allowed her body to relax against him before she abruptly pulled away. “There. You’ve comforted me. Goodnight.”
“Viso!” he said in exasperation. “I’m serious. I can’t sleep knowing that you’re unhappy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So what you really want is for me to comfort you by letting you comfort me? You want to be reassured by seeing me pretend everything’s okay? I’m great at that, but I’m just too tired to fake it tonight. Hit me up in the morning.” She flung her finger at the door, pointing emphatically. “Out! Now!”
He moved forward, putting both hands on the side of her face. He studied her reptilian green eyes curiously. Even bloodshot and weary, the imperfect emeralds were beyond alluring to him. But they were also far too guarded to offer him the answers he sought.
“Why can’t you stand to be around me anymore?” he asked, entangling his fingers in her red hair and rubbing her temples with his thumbs.
Her eyes closed at the soothing pressure, and she set her lips in a grim line. “I’m not happy right now,” she admitted. “I’m worried that if you see me like this, you’ll see how weak I really am. Then you’ll leave.”
“So you’re pushing me away because you’re afraid I’m going to eventually go away?”
“Yes. I’m trying to get used to it again. Wean myself off you.”
“That makes no sense.” He shook his head. “I’ve told you a million times that I’m not going to leave again. I won’t abandon my family.”
“History repeats itself. And I can’t be sexy, cool Visola right now,” she told him.
“You will always be sexy to me. Even if you were drooling a huge puddle on the pillow, or on your period with blood gushing everywhere, or if you’re on the toilet and loudly…”
“Yes, I get it. Insert crude joke here about how you love the excretions of my various orifices because it makes you imagine putting things in them. Now go away.”
“No, listen. I love it when you go all Kali, slaughtering hundreds of my warriors. I love it when you jump out of hospital windows, when y
ou slice your stomach open…”
“That was one time,” she interrupted.
“And yes, it scares the shit out of me sometimes when I see that wicked smile on your face because I have no idea what the hell you’re going to do next, but do you really think I’d want it any other way?”
“Yeah,” she grumbled. “I kinda do.”
“I would say that you’re special… but maybe you’re not,” he said, pausing for effect. When she seemed sufficiently perplexed, he continued. “Maybe there is some other woman like you out there on this planet right now. I mean there are a couple billion people on land, and maybe a few dozen million in the water, right? So maybe somewhere there’s a wild, unpredictable, honorable, loving woman like you—but chances are, if she exists, she’s about to get herself killed any minute now. Because there is no way she is smart enough to get away with doing the things you do.”
“Aw,” Visola said, trying to hide a blush and smile. She reached out and hit him in the arm. “Wish I could believe you. But if I was that precious to you, then you wouldn’t have gone…”
“I left precisely because you were so precious to me—so much that you were a weakness. But I was young and impressionable. I’ve grown up now, and I have unshakable faith in us…”
She moved close to him to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “You always know the right thing to say, Vachlan. That’s how you got me to marry you in the first place. But we have both grown up—I’m not two hundred anymore. They are just words. Charming words, but empty words. I’ll act like I believe them tomorrow, okay? Please go.”
“Viso…”
She opened the door and pushed him forcefully until he was outside the room. “Let me have some alone time to regenerate my people-face. I’ll be bubbly again in the morning.”
“I’m not people! I’m your husband.”
“The biggest stranger of them all.”
“How can I get close again if you won’t let me?”
“I will. Just not tonight.”
“Tonight is when it matters!” he said incredulously. “We’re in a war. Every minute matters—this could be the last chance we have.”
“I know,” she answered, with quiet guilt, “but if something happens to me I want you to remember me being strong.”
“How could anyone remember you as anything else, General?”
“I’m not strong right now, Destroyer,” she told him in a whisper. “You can’t even fathom how much I love my daughter.”
“If our child is ill, shouldn’t we suffer together?”
She sighed. “Why start now?”
“I’m part of this too—I helped you make her.”
“Yes, that’s right. What a monumental role you played in her fathering. Only a part that could have been played by any other prick on earth with a functional… prick. In fact, most of them would pay me for the privilege to do that part. Bravo on getting to do it for free and not valuing it in the least!”
“Stop being so goddamned unreasonable!”
A door opened in the hallway, and a fat woman waddled out with her hands on her hips. “For Pete’s sake! Can you two keep it down? People are trying to sleep here!”
“Sorry,” Vachlan and Visola mumbled in unison.
“Fucking hillbillies!” shouted a man from the other side of the hallway. “Save your fighting for whatever backwater place you’re from!”
“My apologies, chap,” Vachlan said, quickly using the opportunity to enter Visola’s room again and shut the door behind him. “Let’s stop this, Viso,” he whispered. He wrapped his arms around his wife and held her snugly, not allowing her to protest or fight anymore. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’ll probably have to keep saying it until I die, but I’m sorry.”
After a few minutes, she relaxed against him. “I’m too gosh-darn miserably weak. You win.”
He rubbed her back, and spoke gruffly. “Stupid woman. There isn’t anything you aren’t strong enough to do.”
“Yes, there is,” Visola said glumly. “Apparently, I can’t resist you. So go on. Turn your charm on and melt me in ten seconds flat. Make me forget everything important.”
“Viso…”
“I’m waiting.”
“You haven’t rested in days. Sionna would be pointing a finger at you and declaring ‘insomnia.’ While I’d love to make love to you, I’m not going to sleep with you until you’ve slept.”
She pulled back to stare at him blankly. “That sentence did not make any sense to me.”
“That just shows how tired you are.” He reached out and effortlessly scooped her up, carrying her over to the bed before dumping her onto the sheets.
“I’m a four-hundred-something-year-old grandfather,” he informed her as he plopped down beside her. “I’m just here to cuddle. I would surely need Viagra for anything else.”
She giggled, knowing firsthand how untrue this was, but she was grateful for her husband’s warmth beside her. Visola reached across his body, grasping his hand and applying a gentle pressure to thank him for forcing his way into her room.
“Get some rest now, love,” he told her.
She closed her eyes, fully intending to follow his command. She lay with deathlike stillness for several minutes until her eyes shot open. “Elandria is a lazy twat,” she whispered into the dark. “Don’t I have enough work to do without inheriting her responsibilities? I know she misses Zuri, but I do too. I get that she’s hurting, but wouldn’t it be more productive to help look for Zuri? Or to do her job, and take care of the fucking politics so I can run the army like I’m supposed to?”
“I’m here now,” Vachlan said. “I can help deal with the army. I’m used to leading numbers far greater than these. You can focus on the politics.”
“That’s not who I am! It’s not what I was trained for. I’m going to screw up. Elandria needs to stop being such a childish spoiled brat. For a grown woman of her age and education—Sedna, she’s the wisest person among us. And she’s hiding like a scared little mouse…”
“Is that what this is about? You’re angry at the princess?”
“No,” she said, with a quavering breath. “I’m angry at myself. I failed Zuri.”
Vachlan was afraid to speak, because he felt like they were finally getting down to the heart of the matter. He could feel Visola’s shoulders shaking under his hands, and the warm dampness of her tears soaking his chest.
“I was so obsessed with you… I was so immersed in having sex with you that I wasn’t guarding Zuri as closely as I should have been. Do you know how humiliating that is? I am the queen’s bodyguard. The queen’s trusted protector and best friend. And I let her get taken because I was too busy having, like, weeks of nonstop sex with my good-for-nothing husband to do my job.”
Now he understood. “Viso, you have to stop punishing yourself. First of all, you pretty much saved Adlivun single-handedly; I was going to help burn it to the ground. You deserved a little down time and pleasure. Secondly, if you had been guarding Aazuria instead of shuddering with countless orgasms and screaming my name—”
“Hey, I did not…”
“—you would have been killed too. All of Aazuria’s guards were killed. It’s better this way—now we can retrieve her together. It’s an adventure, dearest.”
“It’s my job to die for her,” Visola said in a low voice. She grasped a handful of Vachlan’s shirt, and he could feel the moisture of her tears against his arm. “I would gladly go back in time and die for her if I could.”
“And it would be a waste. I know Prince Zalcan Hamnil—I spent years sucking up to the slimy ponce. He won’t hurt Zuri. She’s a valuable trophy to him. Kidnapping a beautiful queen? He probably intends to show her off to his father to assert his masculinity.”
Visola rolled her eyes. “Yes. Some masculinity he has there. The first time I heard his voice was when you had me blindfolded. I felt jealous because I thought he was your girlfriend.”
“I do believe he was att
racted to me. But he wasn’t my type. You know I like my women with napalm grenades for ovaries.” As he said this, he caressed her hip, rubbing his thumb over her lower abdomen.
Visola smiled at this description, but when his touch began generating tingly feelings in her lady parts, she promptly kicked him with her knee. “Hands, hands! See what I mean?”
Vachlan cleared his throat. “I am just going to try to remain still. Consider me a comfortable corpse.”
“Mmm. Okay.” She snuggled closer to him, burrowing her shoulder into his armpit and resting her jawbone on his chest. She could feel the swell of his pectoral muscles under her cheek. The taut rise and fall of his massive torso against her ear was like a soothing lullaby from a conch shell.
When her eyelids finally meshed together, the strain and burning behind them began to dissipate. Her own breathing began to fall into a calmer rhythm. She was floating away on increasingly higher waves of slumber—or perhaps it was her stress which was drifting away from her on the waves. She could feel the warmth of the low sunlight, and a pleasant cool breeze as she lay on the beach…
A phone rang loudly. Visola groaned at the interruption. The warm body beside her began to shift, which displeased her. “Turn it off and stay still,” she commanded in a mumble.
“Can’t,” Vachlan said gruffly. “Trevain’s calling from Adlivun.” He had retrieved the phone from his pocket and was now pressing it to his ear. “What’s wrong, son?”
“You and Grandma need to get over here right now,” came the forceful voice from the other end.
“Tell him not to call me that,” Visola said with annoyance as she sat up and began rubbing her eyes.
Vachlan frowned. “Trevain, your grandmother and I need to get some rest…”
“Along with dentures and hearing aids,” Visola said as she hopped out of bed and reached for her clothes. “Tell him we’ll be right there.”
“We’ll be right there,” Vachlan said, sighing as he hung up. “So much for sleep.”
Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4) Page 66