“Any man who desires to sit at my right hand as my king must first come to my bed.” Through the bond, she asked Sal to look up at her. She ran her fingers through his hair, lifting the heavy red pelt and letting it spill through her hand like silk. Then she traced the bite mark on his neck. Old and white it might be, but she knew Phillip remembered how the red-haired warrior had gained that scar years ago. The King of Maston made a sound very much like a whimper and fled the room.
“This man must come to my bed and survive.” Laughing softly, she twisted her hand in Sal’s hair and gave him a jerk that pulled his head sharply to the side. He moaned deep in his throat and melted against her, burying his face in her lap perilously close to the junction of her thighs. “This man must come through each of my Blood and meet with their approval. And then, he must satisfy my First Blood’s challenge.”
“Challenge?” King Challon asked in a shaky voice.
Dharman smiled so widely the other man recoiled. “No man comes to na’lanna Qwen’s bed except through me. Any man desiring to lay with her must challenge me for the honor of touching one hair on her head.”
Sal retorted, “And I,” followed by sharp ayes from each of her Blood.
Letting her eyes smolder, she rubbed the back of her head against Dharman’s stomach. “Surely the servants have spread the tales, yes? Two of my Blood sleep in my bed each and every night. That will never change.” Never mind that nothing had actually happened. Yet.
King Challon spluttered, his face pale but splotched with red. “Your Majesty, you can’t honestly expect your king to…that is…”
Sal lifted his head and licked his mouth thoroughly. A rush of heat flooded her, even though she knew firsthand he hadn’t actually done anything. “If she desires another man, he would have to fight each and every one of us first. And then, if he still has blood remaining in his body enough to rise for her challenge, he would have to watch me and her First Blood nag her from sundown to sunrise, for we have first claim on her heart. And then, if she still desires this man, he may crawl into her bed with her First Blood at her back and my rahke at his throat to ensure he does it right.”
Murmuring their apologies, the nobles made a rapid escape. She couldn’t laugh, not with Sal’s promise blazing through her mind. Dharman released her but remained at her back, his bond crackling with heat.
Lady help her, she couldn’t think and plot her strategies with them burning up like wildfire in her mind. She tried in vain to lighten their mood. :Sundown to sunrise?:
:Sal must have been mistaken.: Dharman’s bond oozed through her like warm, gooey honey. :For that is not nearly long enough.:
:Days, at least,: Sal agreed. :Yet I didn’t want to scare them off completely.:
“Are you sure that was wise, Daughter?” Valche’s face was red, but his face had often been red once he met her barbarians. “Marriage to the right noble will cement your allies to you. Instead, you bring only outrage and titillation to your court.”
“That’s exactly why I did it,” she said evenly, keeping her face smooth of emotion. “I refuse to remarry, but if I object, they’ll do nothing but harass me until the day I die. Now they’ll never bring the issue up unless one of them is on a suicide mission.”
“You’re going to need help, though.” Valche ran a hand through his hair. With a shock, she realized his hair had gone almost completely silver, and his face was heavily lined. “Allandor is at your back now and always, but we are few against so many who oppose you. An alliance by marriage with one of the more powerful countries would settle the republic beneath your control. Maston would have been the best choice, but I honestly don’t think he’d reconsider.”
“No,” she retorted, blinking back tears. Cold, so cold, the blizzard swirled to life within her, threatening to obliterate anything and everything. Dharman squeezed the nape of her neck, hard instead of comforting, which helped drive back the moment of weakness. “It’s out of the question, Father. I’ll never marry again, certainly not Phillip or any other noble. I’ll never take a king. That I’m even still alive is a…”
She’d been prepared to say curse, eternal damnation and punishment, but her father reached over and patted her fisted hand.
“Blessing, I know. When your mother died…” He sighed and his eyes shimmered. “I know, Daughter, I do. I understand. We’ll find another way to keep your throne intact. Are you sure my granddaughters are safe with the barbarians? They could always come to Allandor.”
Her heart wrenched and she couldn’t stifle the sound of pain. Her daughters, how she missed them. “They’re safer on the Plains. The new Khul has pledged his entire Camp to keeping them safe from all harm.”
Allandor had failed before and allowed her mother to be assassinated. She would keep the twins as far away from their homeland for as long as possible and pray every single day that they found happiness and lives of their own. That they were strong enough to refuse the yoke of the Rose Crown’s duty.
Blessed Lady, let them be stronger than I am.
CHAPTER
NINE
AFTER TWO FULL MONTHS IN SHANHASSON, DHARMAN STILL COUNTED IT A BLESSING THAT SHE ALLOWED SAL AND HIMSELF TO SLEEP IN HER BED. However, that blessing was quickly becoming a curse.
She slept between them as always, but not easily. Dharman tried to breathe shallowly, but it was impossible not to smell the smoldering roses of her scent. Every night, her scent grew stronger.
Vulkar help him, she needed.
Every oath he’d ever sworn demanded he ease that need as quickly as possible. Yet she hadn’t asked him. Night after night, she tried to sleep between them as though nothing had changed, as though she didn’t need them at all.
She dreamed, aye, but never of the Tenth Camp, never of her dead Khul and the Shadowed Blood. Dharman felt her try to enter that sacred place, but the swirling snows of her sorrow and blizzard of her rage kept her locked outside. Every single night, she closed her eyes and strained to reach them, but all she woke up with were her two Blood.
Which was exactly why he didn’t touch her, despite the desperate need burning in her body. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need Sal. Until she did, they lay here in the Three Hells.
She shifted. Rolling closer to him, she threw her leg over his. His breath hissed out. Across her shoulder, he met Sal’s gaze. The wretched dimple flashed in his cheek with his grin. He enjoyed watching Dharman sweat.
Letting out a ragged little sigh that tied his guts into knots, she nestled her face deeper into his neck. Her fingers on one hand played in his hair; the other hand curled in the small of his back. Her nails bit into him delicately and he couldn’t help but drop his hand to her hip.
How he hated the long cotton gown she wore to prevent a single brush of bare skin against his.
“Touch me,” she whispered, hooking her heel behind his knee.
Her wish was his command, yet he hesitated. He didn’t think she was awake.
Vulkar help him, she bit him. Just a graze of her teeth, but it sent his heart pounding, blood searing his veins until the world pulsed in a red haze.
“Please.”
He dragged the cloth up higher on her hip. Her breathing quickened, hot on his flesh. He knew the need that clenched her inner muscles in a vise. She ached, burned, a touch would send her trembling and crying over the edge. Shaking, he trailed his fingers up the curve of her thigh. She arched her hips, those deep-throated whispers driving him onward. He cupped her and slid a finger into the sweet place he’d been burning to explore at her leisure.
Breathing hard, she gripped his throat in her mouth and dug at his back. He gritted his teeth, concentrating on control, and pushed deeper.
A cry tore out of her and she convulsed in his arms. Melting roses smoked in her scent. So hot, Vulkar help him, so tight. Shaking on the edge of release himself, he let out a hoarse groan and sank his finger deeper.
“Rhaekhar,” she moaned.
She might as well have kicked
Dharman in the groin and buried the ivory rahke in his heart. Shuddering, he fought back the pleasure threatening to break his control. He must have squeezed too tightly, for she cried out and opened her eyes.
Nose to nose with him, she opened and closed her mouth, but he knew exactly what she had begun to say.
“Nay.” He flung himself onto his back. “I’m not him. I’ll never be him. He still stands between me and your heart and always will.”
She scrambled to the foot of the bed and huddled there, wide eyed and chest heaving, shocked at what she’d allowed him to do. He might have given her small pleasure, but her body hungered for much more. She dropped her gaze to his straining memsha, and he bit back a curse.
Something hot and wet closed around his index finger, the one that had been buried in her tight heat. Tongue working on a rumbling purr, the other Blood licked Dharman’s fingers of every trace of musk. On a low shout, his back arched, his hips pumped desperately, and fire ripped through his stomach.
Panting, he glanced at her face. Her mouth hung open with surprise. Face burning with shame, he rolled to his feet and stomped toward the bath. “Great Vulkar, Sal, your hair is bad enough. I don’t need your hands on me too!”
“I don’t know why you’re so upset; at least you released. I’m about to die.” Sal flopped on his back, smacking his lips with loud appreciation. “Besides, it wasn’t my hands.”
* * *
CHEEKS BLAZING, SHANNARI SLOWLY MOVED back to her pillow in the middle of the bed and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. Sal rolled toward her with a welcoming sigh and curled against her.
“Do you think he’ll forgive us?”
“Oh, aye. All you need to do is ask him to touch you again.”
She listened to Dharman’s bond while he washed away the evidence. He was humiliated, mostly, although terribly hurt. What he’d thought to be a great step toward fulfilling his dream had become a nightmare that grated on his pride, compounded by Sal bringing him to release—no matter how accidentally—while she watched. She might as well have ripped his kae’valda away and trampled his young heart into the dirt.
Worse, though, was the thought that they truly were suffering because of her. Not these proud young boys who’d grown to warriors right before her eyes and given up their entire lives to be by her side.
“Sal, are you truly hurting?”
He laughed and drew her face tighter against him. “Your desire is our desire, na’lanna Qwen. When you’re ready, we’ll be more than eager to satisfy your every need.”
Which wasn’t an answer at all. She didn’t fail to note he couldn’t meet her gaze. She opened herself to his bond, and tears burned her eyes. Every muscle in his young, powerful body screamed to roll her beneath him and release this burning need, but all he did was cuddle with her. Night after night, he’d done nothing but hold her while she cried or slept.
She slid her mouth across his neck to the old bite mark she’d put on his throat years ago.
“Na’lanna,” he breathed. “Are you—”
She pushed him on his back. Stroking that sensitive mark with her mouth, she licked him while his hands tore at the sheets and his head tossed side to side and his hips arched desperately. As soon as she gave him teeth, his breath exploded. His pleasure rocked through her, his warm, spicy scent urging her to dig her teeth deeper to taste the blood beneath.
One taste, and she’d forget this hesitation and lingering guilt that she ached for another who wasn’t her mate. She’d climb on top of him, licking and biting and kissing him until he was hard again and she’d push him deep, ride him hard, until…
Shuddering, he cradled her head and lifted her face so he could kiss her tenderly. “My thanks, na’lanna Qwen.” He slipped out from beneath her and winked, just as Dharman came to the edge of the bed, stiff and vibrating with anger. “Next time, I promise to taste your cream directly from the source instead of Dharman’s hand.”
Dharman growled as the other Blood sauntered by, red hair swishing seductively down his back. Keeping her face deep in the pillow, she waited for the dip in the feather mattress, but it never came. Hurt pride might keep her First Blood from her bed. If she let it.
She made a great show of rolling over and fluffing her pillows just so. Then she nestled on her side and looked at him, really looked at him. Beginning from the floor, she took in his full calves and thighs thick and hard as granite pillars, up the red memsha about his hips, slightly damp from his ministrations in the bath. Muscle encased his waist and abdomen in a vee that would lead her gaze back south if she allowed it. His chest and shoulders were as wide and powerful as Rhaekhar’s had ever been, his bulging arms surely even larger. All her Blood wore their hair extremely long, even for a Sha’Kae al’Dan warrior, for they knew how much she liked long, tousled hair. Dharman’s hung like thick sheaves of wheat well down his back, although Sal’s hung down past his ass.
So much of what they did was for her, even how they wore their hair. None of them wore the typical braids at their temples. She must have mentioned once how much she’d appreciated Khul’s hair when loose of all his precious kae’valda, and they’d immediately changed to meet with her approval.
Looking at such a splendid specimen of warrior, whose every goal was to make her smile, she couldn’t help but feel her body stir with anticipation. Instead of denying and hiding—running, as she hated to do—she let that desire shine in her eyes and thicken her voice. “I’m cold. If you don’t—”
She’d intended to threaten him with asking Jorah to hold her instead, but Dharman didn’t let her finish. He came to her immediately, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into the heat of his body. His heart thudded too fast against her cheek. Listening to his bond made her dizzy. His emotions tumbled from hope to despair, gladness to remembered humiliation and aching love.
Fisting her hands in his hair, she held him close until his heart steadied and some of his turmoil lessened in his bond. Sal wrapped against her back and tossed his hair over her shoulder. She knew that red silk dragged over Dharman too, but he didn’t complain.
For her sake.
Just before she drifted off to sleep, she whispered, “I knew it was you. I just miss him. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know, na’lanna Qwen. I know.”
CHAPTER
TEN
KING CHALLON OF THE NORTH FOREST SIGHED AND SHUFFLED THE PAPERS FROM THE LATEST REPORTS FROM FAR ILLIONE. “Even the harshest winter we’ve seen in a hundred years hasn’t stopped the Keldari raiders.”
Shannari already knew what the pages reported. The caravans might be slowed by significant snows, but the desert raiders only rode deeper into her territory. She supposed snow was merely a colder form of sand.
“You need to post more soldiers on the border, Your Majesty,” Challon continued. “If we escort the caravans, more will surely get through.”
Lightly, she rubbed her temples, deliberately displaying weariness to her Council. If they thought her confused and weak, they might play their cards quicker. If she sent any more troops to the farthest reaches of her country, then she’d have barely a skeleton guard left in Shanhasson, which was exactly what her enemies intended. With a sigh that was only half feigned, she said, “Let me think on it. That will be all for today.”
One by one, her Council rose, bowed, and made their way to other areas of the Palace to continue their plots behind her back. Benton, the Steward of Far Illione, stood at the door, whispered to someone outside, and then stepped back to her chair. “Pardon, Your Majesty, but I have some firsthand news that you may find interesting.”
Oh, Benton. She nodded sadly. She’d hoped to prove him an ally after he’d worked so hard to arrange the trade for Keldari horses, but once he’d brought that flaming Keldari oil into the Palace, she’d feared the worst. “I’m most anxious for news from Keldar.”
Benton waved a young man into the room. “My son, Percy, barely made it out of the desert alive.�
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Clean cut and handsome in a nondescript sort of way, the young man seemed mild and unassuming as he bowed deeply and stammered his pleased thanks for the private audience. Yet her nerves shrilled with urgency. Her stomach knotted so hard she flinched.
Dharman stiffened behind her, so she quickly used his bond. :Don’t sound the alarm. This man may have information I need.:
He flashed the command, Guard. All her Blood jerked to full attention, but the outlanders didn’t even notice. They were all terrified of the barbarians, so one step short of killing meant nothing to her people.
Curled against her leg, Sal was mostly hidden beneath the table. A simple request through the bond, and she felt the prick of his rahke on her palm. He cradled her hand, keeping the blood pooled in her palm so it didn’t drip onto her clothing or floor. Although knowing Sal, he’d lick the floor clean if she did accidentally spill it.
:Absolutely,: he purred in her mind. :We won’t waste a drop.:
With the sacrifice made, she took a deep breath and opened her inner mind to See.
* * *
A MASSIVE BLACK DRAGON STRETCHED out on the sands. She caught her breath, wondering if it was the one she’d seen in her Dreams. If he was already dead…
Percy crouched over the beast and took something that flashed. A claw, perhaps? No, he held his hand up to the sun and the dull black ring glared in the sunlight, angry and malevolent. Even in the vision, that ring made her breath turn to ash in her lungs.
He hacked at the dragon’s throat. A sudden thick odor drowned her. It filled her nose, blinded her, lighting her skin on fire. She burned, crisped and blackened like a spit over the Three Hells.
Dragon musk. It smelled like that oil that she’d used with Rhaekhar.
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