Pleasure: The Shadowdwellers

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “K’yatsume!” Xenia greeted loudly over his tirade as the devil herself strode quickly into her brother’s rooms.

  “Laya!” Tristan added with surprise as he watched Guin follow her in. He tried to read the warrior, but as usual he was a wall of impassivity. “What brings you here to me?” He knew he sounded surprised, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “I have had a most disturbing vision and it is imperative that we discuss it.”

  “Yes, love, and I have a most disturbing sister and it is imperative that we discuss that, too.”

  The rejoinder made her stop in her tracks so quickly that her skirt swirled around her ankles and Guin almost ran into her. Malaya’s bodyguard closed the outer door. He was no fool. He saw a brewing storm that could easily develop into a challenge of tempers. Unfortunately, along with beauty and intelligence, the twins had inherited equal measure there as well.

  “You are in danger. You must add guards to your details,” Malaya pushed on.

  “No. Absolutely not. I’ve little enough privacy as it is.”

  “But I dreamed of Acadian! I dreamed of her challenging me to trade my life away for that of another. Who else but you would make me vulnerable to that?”

  “Did you see her face?”

  Malaya huffed in frustration. “No. If I had, I’d be having the twisted thing arrested, now wouldn’t I?”

  “You couldn’t.”

  Malaya turned sharply when Guin countered her.

  “What do you mean? I most certainly could.”

  “No, K’yatsume, you couldn’t. Officially speaking, Acadian has committed no crimes.”

  “No crimes? What do you call what she did to Trace?”

  “A war crime,” Tristan answered for him. “If you recall, the only way we could knit this populace together was to pardon all acts of war and give everyone a clean slate. She cannot be tried for her crimes against Trace.”

  “Well then, treason! Sedition. She…” Malaya hesitated as she looked from one man to the next. “There must be proof…somewhere.”

  “There must be. But we will have to find it first. And we have to find her. I’ve no doubt that if we follow her, the bold bitch will lead us to proof of her crimes. She thinks she is untouchable. It will be her downfall.”

  “I pray that you are right, Tristan,” Malaya said. “But this dream was so horrible and so vivid. You know how the vivid ones are the ones to watch! Please, I beg you to take more protection.”

  “No. I am sorry, but that is my final word on the matter. Xenia has been enough for me almost as long as Guin has been enough for you,” Tristan said. “She was enough in the dead of battle and enough when we were outnumbered ten to one that time in the outback. I’m not having any more of an entourage than I already do! I don’t care if you dream of doomsday, Laya. I need a life. I need what little privacy I have. Surely you of all people understand that. I mean, gods! When was the last time you were able to take a bath alone? Do you remember what that was like? Or how about having sex without an audience? Granted, for me that isn’t always a bad thing…” Tristan grinned and ducked when Xenia took a swipe at him. “But surely you would like some intimacy without Guin standing right there! You’re talking tightening security, and before this began I had been hoping we could loosen it some.”

  “With Acadian running free within inches of us every day? Are you mad?”

  “She’s right,” Guin said quietly. “It would be foolish to relax with Acadian gunning for your throne. I know these past ten years of living by strict royal protocol have been a tough adjustment…for all of us. But it’s part and parcel of what you both wanted so badly. It comes with the job.”

  “I know that.” Tristan sighed with frustration. “And I know we can’t relax our guard just now. I just won’t tolerate you trying to suffocate me with protection, Laya. I’m not a boy and I’m not a weakling. I am a warrior, too, you know. I can protect my own damn life.” He frowned darkly. “And I know I screwed up with you really badly, but you act like you have no faith in me at all, and I don’t think I deserve that because of a bad judgment call. If I’m guilty of anything it’s loving you too damn much, and I’ll be happy to try working it down if that’s really what you want.”

  “That’s not fair. You know I cannot argue with you when you pull the love card.” She pouted and, like a charm, Tristan was drawn across the room and he took her in his arms for a hug. Guin shook his head and grinned. She really was a crafty little thing. She used every resource she had to its fullest, including feminine wiles.

  “Well, you’re pouting,” Tristan countered, not letting her get away with thinking he wasn’t fully aware of her trickery. “You know I can’t stand it when you make this little boo-boo face. It reminds me of when you were seven and I tricked you into sitting on all those ants. You looked at me like this and I realized how betrayed you felt. It’s worked on me ever since, even though I know it’s a damn ploy. You are such a wily little thing. You know just how to work every last one of us.”

  “You make me sound manipulative,” she complained.

  “Because you are. You’re a queen, Laya. If anyone needs to be manipulative, it’s you and I. Otherwise we’d never have come this far. Just be careful you’re doing it for a good reason and not just because you can.” He drew back to look at her, running a hand over her head. “The Senate meets again tomorrow. Are you ready for it? It’s going to be a circus. And keep an eye on that Angelique. She’s working real hard at drowning you with this law. Everyone knows Jericho is her lover. She’s pulling his strings sure as I’m standing here.” Tristan looked at Guin. “She’s got that streak in her. She could be Acadian.”

  “I’ve thought about it. But I’m thinking she wouldn’t be so obvious. I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got work. You and Rika and Trace should get together to prepare for tomorrow. I’ll see you a bit later? And are we done punishing me yet?”

  “Yes and yes,” she sighed. “And to prove it I will dance for you tonight.”

  “Excellent! Let’s invite our close company. Magnus and his new girl as well. They will be honored to be guests of your dance, and I have been feeling they well deserve a reward for all they had been subjected to on our behalf.”

  “You are right. I will have Trace arrange it.”

  Since there was no Senate session that day, Malaya spent most of it in meetings or working in her office. Guin watched her carefully, as he always did, but now he was carefully scrutinizing her body language. Making up with Tristan had been a powerful relaxant for her. However, her twin’s refusal of extra protection seemed to negate the effect. Guin could understand why. He had seen how powerfully the vision had affected her, the sound of her screaming his name still on the edge of his mind.

  It was well enough until the midnight meal. She ignored her food and began to pace, her mind obviously trying to scheme a way to get what she wanted.

  “Perhaps I can use guards out of uniform,” she suggested. “Faces he won’t recognize but men Killian trusts.”

  “K’yatsume, we have a very tightly secure area most of the time. Familiar people and familiar routines. You think he will not notice loiterers?”

  “Guin!” She stopped pacing to shoot him a look. “You are the clever warrior. You think of something.”

  Guin crossed the room to her, standing close and reaching to pat her shoulder. “I think you should trust Xenia. As well as Killian and the guards. We honestly cannot improve on this protection, Malaya. If she can figure out how to get through all of this, more men isn’t going to be of help.”

  There. That was more like it, Guin thought. It was a familiar and friendly interaction and he had remained clear and calm. This was how it had been for all those—

  Malaya stepped forward and slid her arms tightly around his ribs. She rested her cheek against his as she stood on her toes and hugged him tightly.

  Ah, damn, Guin thought with heat. There it was, sharp as a knife gutting through h
im. That instant surge of hunger that made every nerve come to attention. The feeling that his senses were eagerly seeking the input they so enjoyed. Then her richly stunning scent would wash over him and get deeply absorbed by his every cell. The bonus shot was the warmth of her, with a decadent chaser in the form of all that flexing, lean muscle under soft, sweet skin.

  Guin’s tether on his self-control was fraying. Urges he shouldn’t be allowing himself kept ambushing him. Kiss her, one said seductively, taste her once again. Curves and silken skin all within reach, tempted another.

  He had always believed, on instinct and maybe because of all he had absorbed about her in all of this time, that he could figure out what would please her best. There were things she did, subtle clues she gave off that were lost if you didn’t know her or pay special attention to them. Even she did not realize the complexities of her body and its needs. It was so hard to resist the urge to see if he was right; to make her reach every inch of her full potential.

  Normally, he would never have allowed himself to think of such things while she was in his arms because it was cruel and torturous to himself, and it was presumptuous and insulting to her. All she sought was the warmth and affection of a hug. These paths he took made him a betrayer of her faith and trust in him.

  Guin was not known for being relaxed, but Malaya felt as though she were hugging a building. He was stiff and tense and had barely put his arms around her in return, his hands holding her shoulders as if he were dying to push her away. Malaya closed her eyes and for the first time slowed her thoughts and examined his behavior at this moment, and most importantly, in her bath last night. Guin had left her so abruptly and had been so mean afterward that she had been too confused to analyze what had happened. But the tenser he grew within her arms, the clearer it all became.

  Her guard had developed a desire for her.

  No. Her Guin, her beloved friend, had developed a desire for her. She drew back in his hold and looked for his eyes. He avoided her for an instant, but he was too close to hide from her what he quickly concealed behind his usual gruff stoicism. She had seen the same stark yearning that he had shown her by the bath. In his eyes she could see the words he had spoken—I crave you—and she felt her blood flush tight and hot in her veins.

  She drew away from him, putting several steps between them, and monitored herself with fascination. Her heart was beating in quick flutters and her skin tingled with the desire to get close to all of that brutish strength and intense body heat once more. Malaya was astonished. She had so little desire for men of late. Adequate as they had been, there had always been an infuriating feeling of unfairness; the petulant thought that they had gotten far more out of the encounter than she had. She was probably too distracted by the intensity of her life to relax enough and truly enjoy the moment.

  But the point was that no one had caught her eye for some years now. How outrageous it was to find herself so stimulated by Guin! Of all people! Not that he wasn’t a stimulating male, because there was most definitely a very delicious quality of barely civilized strength and potency that he reeked of, but…

  Guin? Guin had seen her every best and worst moment for fifty years! He knew her every trick, her every mood. He even read her mind sometimes, she could swear it. And how could she want…?

  The open-ended thought was filled with a sudden barrage of images, almost like a vision, and she started imagining exactly what she could want from a man like Guin. Somewhere between thinking about those rough, callused hands on her skin and that powerful masculinity controlling her body, she lost all coordination and had to sit on the nearest couch. She had to turn her face from him as a hot flush crawled up her breasts and throat.

  Oh my gods, she thought in utter shock. I just imagined how it would feel to have my legs wrapped around him as he…

  She went warm and wet in a wicked rush, making her heart pound painfully with the sudden stimulus. Now she couldn’t keep herself from looking at him. He was walking away and she watched how he moved with perverse fascination. He wants me, she thought. And realizing that was absolutely profound. How long? she wondered. How long had she been so blind? Since he’d touched her in the bath? Since he’d threatened to guard her from the inside out those weeks ago?

  Drenna…Since the war, when he had warmed her with erotic whispers of what he might tell her if she only asked once more?

  How long?

  And to keep it so perfectly trapped away. She could not have been that dense! Granted, she had relegated him to a specific role in her mind and she could be stubborn about those things, but she realized it was also because he had the control and fortitude of mountains, and he had forced himself to maintain the role she had wished him to fill. How had someone of such potency kept himself in so narrow a space? And for how long?

  She had never considered him as a sexual male before. Not seriously and not as pertained to herself. He barely left her side. He never entertained women, though he had every right to. Maybe that was why she’d never thought much about it. And now she had to wonder…why hadn’t he ever pursued her? Yes, there was danger in it because they worked together and all of those details that could get knotted up, but after fifty years it was clear they could manage or overcome anything. Even falling in and out of an affair. She honestly believed that. Why had he not seriously approached her—and just considering those brief teases of his fiendish sexual male aggression when he had used it simply to bully her, what if he truly applied himself?

  Ah…like in her bath. He had lost control of himself when she had kissed him. What had followed after the kiss, that had been pure application of his desires. Had she not been taken so by surprise, everything could have been different. He might not have left. They both might have taken it much more seriously.

  But it did track, the way it had all come about. For all his aggressive personality and all of his courage, he would never make the first move. He would consider it a breach of trust. To him it would be bad form, a form of pressure because of their close confines. Of course he wouldn’t pressure her. Not her noble Guin. To his thinking it would be unfair to her because she was trapped in his presence day and night. Especially if she had not returned the attraction.

  Malaya sat back, crossing her legs slowly as she fixed her gaze on her bodyguard and smiled a little smile. She would have to be the one to pursue him, if she wanted to even consider it. Oh, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea appealed to her. Who would make a better lover? He knew her perfectly. They always had good conversation, he was close at hand constantly, and, well, if he was going to leave his position soon and if her head was on the marital chopping block, there would be no better opportunity than now. What kinds of heat could the two of them create? The man gave her an erotic chill just by touching her back. How would he feel? How would he taste? Guin was a creature of such intensity, but with her he could also be infinitely gentle. Which would she find in his bed?

  Those questions and a hundred others raced through her mind until she had to look away from him lest he see the savage fire in her eyes. The fun would be in seeing what she would have to do, exactly, to push him over the edge. What would make him forget all about protocol and deference and all the rest of it? What would it take to tangle them together purely as a man and a woman?

  Lucky for her, she’d had the very best sexual instructors in town.

  Guin was restlessly wandering the room as Malaya gathered her thoughts. It was better when he wasn’t too close to her. The less feedback for his senses, the easier it was to control all those infuriatingly inappropriate impulses. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he screwed up again like in the bath. He’d gotten too close, his bullying backfiring on him big time. He’d not make the mistake again.

  “Guin, come here.”

  The invitation brought his full attention to her, something in the pitch of her words tickling at the hairs on the back of his neck. He hesitated only a moment, but then crossed to her. He st
opped three feet away from her. Malaya laughed at him and patted the couch beside her.

  “Guin, you really should learn to relax when you have the chance.”

  “I can’t afford to relax. Now more than ever. I’ll not rest properly until I have that bitch’s head in a sack. Pardon or no pardon, K’yatsume, that woman will pay for what she did to Trace and who knows how many others. It may not be condoned by this Chancellery, but it will happen.”

  “And who will do this? You? If you do, they all will assume I gave you the order.”

  “There are ways, My Lady. Or do you forget how we met?”

  “Never in a dozen centuries will I forget that night.”

  “Nor I,” he said quietly, his gaze falling on her so softly she could tell he was remembering the first moment he’d seen her. “It was the manor house in Swenton. Three stories and you in the corner room with the windows shoddily bricked in. It only took ten minutes to pry out a space large enough to pass through.” He came and took the seat she had offered him, never breaking eye contact. “I entered the room and there you were, sitting up on the edge of your bed waiting for me with your hands primly folded in your lap. It was so obvious you were expecting me, and I didn’t know what to make of you.”

  “You’ve come to kill me,” Malaya said just as she had then. “It was the first time you called me princess, and though you meant it snidely, you did not say it that way. It was as if you changed your mind about being nasty to me partway into it.”

  “How could I be nasty to you? You were so unnervingly brave, sitting in the moonlight from the window I’d come in by. Dressed in a very light blue, so contrary to our customs. It was as if you wore it on purpose to show me you had no plans for escape into the shadows.”

  “Because I did. I thought it all out quite carefully. My vision had prepared me for you.”