Captive Desires

by Diane Whiteside

  She prowled through her rooms and looked for something else to clean up. She could see lots of carpet now but the maids had the equipment to tackle it. There was plenty of space for her costumes and for all of Alekhsiy’s gear, even all of his weapons outside their fancy pouches. Heck, there was so much free floor space that Alekhsiy could have fucked her against any wall he wanted.

  Alekhsiy. Pain lanced through her heart and into her gut. The greatest guy in the world, damn his hide—and her memories, which wouldn’t let her forget his wicked smile or sinful laugh.

  Maybe there was something on TV to take her mind off him.

  She pointed the remote control at the monitor and began to play god. No, she didn’t want to watch an ancient movie.

  The screen filled with her picture, her agent’s favorite publicity still, in fact. What the hell?

  “There was an attempted kidnapping yesterday in Atlanta against rich and famous prima ballerina, Danae Livingston.” The news anchor leaned forward, showing a crack in his normally urbane demeanor. “We go live to our correspondent in Atlanta now.”

  Oh shit.

  She switched channels.

  “Everyone in the dance world is abuzz about the latest attack on beautiful Danae Livingston . . .”

  “Stalkers are particularly dangerous when they target celebrities, as Hollywood has taught us. Last night’s destruction certainly increases the potential for future harm to Miss Livingston . . .”

  She clicked past channels faster and faster, cursing hotels’ propensity to stick with the fewest possible choices. Otherwise known as, the news, weather, sports, and a couple of movies.

  Yesterday she could’ve curled up with a big, strong, blond dude and played with his chain mail, instead of this agony.

  Aha, Griffin TV! She settled back, ready for a panel discussion. On anything, it didn’t matter what.

  The central gymnasium flashed onto the screen, full of golden light and two sweating, half-naked men. Alekhsiy? What on earth was he doing out of his armor?

  Why was he wrestling? Didn’t he know that heavy combat took everything a man had and then some to swing that big sword and shield around? How the hell did he hope to defeat Turner if he killed himself along the way doing something else?

  Her hands ached down to the bone. She looked down at them and realized she’d been pummeling the TV, trying to get him to stop. But he’d do whatever it took to win, no matter what it cost him personally.

  She should be there cheering for him and trying to help him, instead of sitting here alone. She could feed him chi or heal him. She could tell him how much she missed him already, no matter how much the topic scared her.

  Tears started coming to her eyes and for once she let them fall over a man.

  She’d have to wait to apologize until Larissa and Sasha took her to the arena that night for the masquerade finals. All the fighters would be there, too, so she should see him then. She had to believe that.

  And she wouldn’t go earlier because that would expose herself to Turner and break the delicate balance Alekhsiy was fighting to achieve.

  She wouldn’t be a brat, either, and bitch about being stuck in her room.

  It did leave her with a lot of time to fill, though.

  Well, she had found more of those exercise DVDs. She hadn’t realized her agent had sent so many of them to her, hoping for an endorsement. Even if she didn’t look graceful, they at least set her blood pumping.

  Alekhsiy finished his meal and handed the platter back to Colin with a word of thanks. “And please extend my thanks to your mother as well.”

  Mistress Nora was guarding all of Yevgheniy’s Spears’ food like a farmer anticipating a drought. Oh, it was tasty fare indeed, albeit strange. But she permitted nobody near her chests and bottles except herself and her sons.

  “I’ve heard there’s more of the twenty-four-hour flu going around the other seeds,” Colin remarked chattily. “Especially the teams scheduled to face—”

  “The Northern Wastes,” Alekhsiy finished for him.

  “Yup.” The stripling looked ready to deal murder.

  “How many rounds has he passed over for lack of an opponent?”

  “One. Two others only fielded swordsmen and archers.”

  “Which forced Turner at least to take the field.”

  “Do you think so?” The youth cocked his head, clearly reconsidering gossip. “They recombined pairs to field their teams so you may be right. Wicked!”

  His shoulders slumped an instant later. “But we still have to fight full rounds.”

  “We will win through.” The gods would not be so cruel as to keep him from facing Turner.

  “Well, we’re the best in our division. You should have told us you could wrestle like that!”

  Alekhsiy smiled wryly. He’d had to rely on his prowess in those bouts, rather than conceal it, since he didn’t understand the rules. For the swordplay, he was doing barely enough to move forward, hoping Turner would underestimate him.

  That would be a blessing, although a greater one would be a sweet farewell to Danae.

  “You are damn good,” a man’s voice agreed.

  “Good morrow, friends.” Alekhsiy glanced up from the table and tossed a salute to Sasha and Larissa. “Will you join us?”

  “Thanks.” They easily found seats in the oddly shaped hard chairs. Larissa plopped her enormous purse, with its multitude of pockets, onto the chair next to her. Colin scampered off, responding to his mother’s silent demand.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Alekhsiy offered.

  “No, thanks. We’ll only stay a moment, since you probably have to get ready to go back into the ring.”

  Alekhsiy bowed his head in acknowledgment and waited. Sasha’s gun was a very visible bulge at the small of his back today, where it had not been last night.

  “We just wanted to let you know that the Atlanta PD—”

  “PD?” Alekhsiy murmured, keeping his voice as quiet as the other man’s.

  “Police know all about the stalker who targeted Danae.”

  Stalker? Didn’t that imply an unknown hunter?

  “And the attempted kidnapping last night that went sour.”

  Kidnapping at least was correct.

  “They’re taking it real serious. As good as I could hope for.” Sasha nodded significantly and Alekhsiy flicked his fingers in acknowledgment, his brain spinning.

  “So there’s no need for you to worry about her,” Larissa picked up the tale. “There’s a guard sitting outside her door and another one will follow her wherever she goes. She’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “The FBI and Interpol are working the case.”

  Alekhsiy muttered some kind of agreement to the unknown warriors and hoped nobody expected him to say anything clever about who her hunters truly were.

  “Danae is being so brave, too. That’s why we both had to come talk to you. I didn’t think Sasha could explain it right.”

  Alekhsiy shot a sideways glance at Larissa’s husband, who shrugged. “Girl talk,” he muttered.

  Larissa put her hand on Alekhsiy’s forearm. The corners of room keys, including Danae’s golden one, glinted from a purse pocket just below her elbow.

  “She’s spent the whole day cleaning her room. She’s never done that before, not in the entire time I’ve known her. We’ve been best friends since we were three years old.”

  “Danae did what?” Alekhsiy frowned. He could not picture her doing so—not her thought processes, her activities, or the result.

  “She said”—Larissa looked around, then leaned a little closer to Alekhsiy—“it left more room for you to take advantage of the wall.”

  Alekhsiy’s eyes flew wide open. His rod shouted its readiness to do exactly that, at this minute, with his lady.

  Larissa settled back and smiled smugly at her husband. “I told you he’d know exactly what she meant, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, dear, you did.”

  She pres
ented her cheek for a victory award and he bussed it.

  Alekhsiy gulped for air and began to force some logic back into his turgid flesh. Danae had made a fundamental change, and she’d done it for him. It spoke of the most basic discipline, the first type taught to every cadet at the academy.

  If she could do this, if he could trust her in this, could he trust her to be disciplined in more ways? Would Danae the dancer, who spent every waking hour tutoring her body to weave chi from people’s happiness, yield to any blackmail demands from Turner?

  Surely he could trust her in this much. Surely.

  He couldn’t talk to her now but he might have a chance later.

  He filched both room keys out of Larissa’s purse in a move Ghryghoriy had taught him years ago. They disappeared up his sleeve long before Sasha and Larissa stopped smiling at each other.

  Alekhsiy walked past Danae’s guard nonchalantly, glad the fellow was both wary and an evident fighter, however little he wished to test those skills. Brazen confidence brought Sasha’s door open but his hand shook when he set the key to Danae’s portal.

  What if she threw something at him? Or spat curses at him?

  Instead she was asleep, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders like silk’s sweetest veil.

  He covered his mouth and laughed silently at himself. He should have known his little dancer would slumber peacefully and completely, no matter what the hour.

  Should he wake her? His chest tightened, denying breath and hope to his straining heart. What more could be said when she’d already refused his offer of marriage?

  Leave a note? He was no great bard or scribe to make words dance. He was a soldier and a man who put deeds into action.

  Deeds. Perhaps they would speak louder than words. Perhaps they were the only way to say he loved and trusted her.

  He crept over to the bed, careful not to wake her.

  ELEVEN

  A soft noise brought Danae out of a world of noxious dreams about cold, crashing, blue waves and knife-edged green ice. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut to hide them from the hazy gray light. She was safe, she was in Atlanta, she was locked up in her hotel room—but she was alive.

  If you could call it living when dancing didn’t play a part.

  Her breathing steadied long enough for her to wonder what the hell had woken her up. There was supposed to be a police guard at her door, right? But the connecting door had closed, not the front door. Yet Larissa, God bless her, had no idea of how to move silently and Sasha would never come in here on his own.

  Then who the hell had come in? Turner? She sat bolt upright in her bed, her heart pounding like the entire percussion section of a symphony orchestra. No, if he’d been here, she wouldn’t still be here alone.

  She propped her chin in her hand and told herself not to be a silly ninny. She wasn’t going anywhere until tomorrow when she hit the airport and a plane back to New York. Heck, she and Sasha had decided she wouldn’t even go to the masquerade tonight. Turner had proven he was capable of anything. and she didn’t want to risk hurting any more innocent bystanders, given the horrors he’d pulled last night.

  The hope of seeing Alekhsiy again had died a painful death and she’d cried herself to sleep.

  Her wrists felt funny. A hard day’s unaccustomed work of bending and stooping had taught her exactly how two wide gold cuff bracelets slid up and down her forearms, especially how they jammed to a stop and were just plain damn heavy. They weren’t doing any of that now.

  She glanced down uneasily. Had Izmir’s Curse thought of another way to manifest itself?

  There was nothing on her wrist at all—no bulky cuff, no bracelet. Nothing.

  She kicked the covers off and grabbed her ankles to look at them. No, Izmir’s Curse wasn’t there, either. Nor was it around her neck or waist, not that the Torhtremer Saga had ever mentioned such placement.

  The damn things were completely gone.

  Had Alekhsiy snuck in to take them off?

  Could she work magic? Could she dance and live again?

  She tentatively tried a combination, nattily dressed in her cami and cropped pajamas. Jazz walk, kick-ball-change, pas de bourée, chassé—yes!

  Joy exploded into her heart so strongly, she bounced on the bed and high-fived the ceiling.

  Could she do something longer, more complicated? Fosse’s “All That Jazz” from Chicago or part of the Torhtremer ballet, perhaps?

  She grabbed her iPod and cued the Torhtremer music.

  Pas de chat . . .

  And wow, it came back! She could dance again! She was alive!

  She spun on one foot, whipping fouettés in wild disregard of potential damage to her free foot from nearby furniture. The sky outside warmed her eyes, the air conditioning danced the hairs off her skin instead of freezing them, and she could have floated like a balloon to Manhattan.

  Something thudded to the floor just outside her door.

  Danae landed immediately, dropping into a martial arts’ combat stance, not a ballerina’s admiration-ready first position. Ice swept across her skin, replacing her rebirth’s golden heat.

  The guard grumbled something and picked it back up.

  She shook herself, her euphoria fading faster than it had come.

  Turner was still out there, hunting for her.

  But if nothing had changed beyond her room, why had dearest Alekhsiy given the grace of life back to her? Did he trust her or did he need Izmir’s Curse to use on somebody else? Another sorcerer perhaps?

  But the only person who concerned him was Turner.

  Alekhsiy couldn’t possibly think he could walk up to that rich bastard carrying two bracelets.

  Even if that was his end game, he still trusted her enough to give her back her freedom. Enough to risk his home and family based on what he believed of her.

  Wow. A slow, warm current spread through her heart and seeped into her bones. Delight pushed into her veins and out to her fingertips.

  She needed to say thank you and see him once again. Dear God, how desperately she needed to hear his voice and touch him. That meant getting past the damn guard. But how?

  According to Alekhsiy, she worked magic by writing down whatever she wanted to have happen. Would that work over here on Earth?

  It would be damn convenient if it did. But would it really?

  Come on now, Danae, think positive, just like your Dad taught you. You think you can, you think you can, you know you can.

  Maybe she could test it on those idiot TV commentators.

  She grabbed her Mac and turned it on, then grabbed the TV’s remote control. The news shows were still continuously scrolling the abominable headline about her attempted kidnapping. Okay, so it was apparently a slow news day but there had to be something else to talk about every couple of minutes.

  She made a very rude gesture at the TV anchors and typed, Danae Livingston is no longer of any interest to any TV news show . . .

  She hit SAVE and waited.

  The feed rolled past. Thunderstorms occurred in the upper Midwest, politicians made banal speeches, two Hollywood stars were caught together at a nightclub without their spouses, more was said about those thunderstorms.

  Hey, she’d immediately disappeared from the show’s loop.

  Hope blossomed, but she tamped it down quickly and switched to another channel. A producer could have made a typo and pulled her from just this feed.

  She wasn’t mentioned by the next show’s talking heads or their automated feed, or on the channel after that, or anywhere on the networks. Websites didn’t have anything about her, even on the most gossipy, well-archived blogs. And, hallelujah, she was no longer a top search on Turner’s hottest, most up-to-date search engine.

  Cool! She had her privacy back, thanks to the spell she’d typed—although, damn, it felt weird to call it that.

  First things first. She had to get dressed. Jersey pajamas would probably attract notice, even in GriffinCon’s relaxed atmosphere. If s
he wore her Sunday night masquerade outfit, she could say she was the other half of Larissa’s entry.

  And with any luck while she was doing that, she’d figure out how to get rid of the police guard.

  Of course she would. Piece of cake for an author, right?

  And then she’d see Alekhsiy again and talk to him. Somehow.

  BIYSK MOUNTAINS, FAR NORTH OF TORHTREMER

  The sun’s last rays lanced off the high peaks and faded into the snow without lighting the valley. The river roared and dashed itself against the iron rocks far below, confined like a madman in a cell too small for his ambition. Sheer cliffs, bereft of soft trees or even moss, plunged toward the water, while their jagged edges clawed the sky. The troops had seen none of the knife-edged, fast-moving waterfalls in the last ten leagues, thanks be to the Hunter.

  Zhenechka and Jeirgif’s latest hymn to that god was a stout one and most of the men had joined in. The echoes died away too quickly but their simple magic at least barred some of the worst pursuers from coming too close.

  A single road clung to the mountain’s edge, barely high enough to stay clear of the water. Its roadbed was made from ancient bricks, with many missing or unevenly set. Igoryok had walked it time and again in his dreams—and measured its narrow width with his friends’ bodies.

  They rounded a corner—and the gorge narrowed, tightening to a gap that a handful of men could protect.

  And beyond that? Salt air swept into his nostrils with a tyrant’s arrogant assurance.

  The song collapsed as his people gathered close to stare.

  “The Tungur Sea,” Jeirgif whispered.

  “And the Chulym Beach, there, where the great breakers are.” Zhenechka pointed. “I can see flashes of light from where jeweled weapons have washed up.”

  Igoryok nodded, his throat too tight to make a sound.

  “But it has floating ice in it,” Jeirgif objected, hanging on to a high boulder so he could lean farther out over the gorge to see. “How can anything, even our enemy, spawn in something so cold?”