“Eric, I want you to find the subject of that dossier. I will provide unlimited resources. If she is alive, I want to know where she is. If she is dead, I wish to know how she died. This is to remain between you and me, no one else. Not your lover, not your mates—no one. I ask as your life-long friend. There is no one else I trust with this. Do you understand?”
“Completely. Do you have a timeframe?”
“As fast as humanly possible. Eric, your information must be accurate. No surmise, no “they saids.” You will verify wherever possible with your own eyes. I want to be able to put my hands on her with certainty if she is still alive.”
“Your Majesty.” Bowing, the young captain left. He had never, in his entire ten years of service as captain of her personal guard, seen that look or heard that tone from Fleur Constante. Whoever she was, this Dossier 347982, the queen wanted her dead.
* * * * *
At an ungodly hour early the next morning, all activity in the Blue Dagger barracks came to a silent halt. Everyone sprang to attention as their High Lord and Supreme Commander strode through. “At ease, soldiers,” Ari said repeatedly, his long limbs eating up the lengthy hallway. Only pausing to knock, he entered Captain Steffania Rickard’s private quarters. “Captain Rickard.”
“High Lord.” The tall, slender redhead smiled in acknowledgement. “Your messenger just stumbled out.” She chuckled. “May I offer you a coffee, or something stronger?”
Ari smiled. “No, but thank you, Steffania. I want to get this distasteful business done with.” He stood silently for a moment before continuing. “I imagine you are eager to be rid of your unwanted ‘guest’.”
“Hmm. She is a cold piece of work, that one and not lacking cleverness. It has required a certain expenditure of energy and skill this past month to keep her—contained. I won’t be sorry to see the last of her.”
“Yes, I read your reports. There is no doubt about her talents.” Ari smiled grimly. “I received the confirmation of cooperation I have been waiting for from the Oshtesh. They initiated the requested contacts and now await our ‘guest’. You will escort the woman to the village of Sh’r Un Kree and remand her over to Primus G’hed. Give him these.” Ari handed her a leather sleeve of documents. “There, your responsibility for her will end.”
Ari paused and continued in a different voice. “I am very grateful for your discrete, competent handling of this, Captain. I can’t think of anyone else who could manage it.”
“Thank you, High Lord. We are very good at keeping our mouths shut around here. And the men asked me to thank you for the generous grants of property and income. Sir…” The captain paused, diffident.
“Ask your question, Captain.”
“I don’t mean to pry and you certainly don’t owe me an answer, but she is one of your own people. What did she do to earn such a terrible reprisal from you?”
Ari voice dropped to a low murmur filled with cold finality. “She cruelly damaged someone I love. She will pay.”
* * * * *
Doral worked steadily on the report Ari wanted delivered to Ardain and Lockwood. The courier-riders hadn’t returned yet, but there was still data he could organize. He didn’t want to think about his meltdown of last evening. Perhaps if he threw himself into this task with single-minded tenacity, he could eradicate the sick feeling of worthlessness eating at his gut.
Ari walked into the library quietly. “Take a break and come with me.”
Doral stilled. A cold nausea saturated his body. He couldn’t look at Ari, afraid he would see disgust, rejection, a repudiation of the trust and care Ari had professed to feel.
Ari stretched out his hand and briefly cupped his jaw. “Come.”
This was not to be rejection. His relief left him lightheaded. Doral stood and followed Ari into the royal apartments.
Silently, Ari positioned him next to the great bed and pushed on his chest until he was sitting. Without saying a word, Ari stripped him nude then divested himself of all clothing and stood gazing at Doral with an enigmatic smile—and a rock hard cock.
“Lie back,” Ari said then lay next to him. Ari began at the heavy welting of scars surrounding his neck. Ari covered them with soft kisses and caresses of a gentle tongue, gentle fingers, gentle lips. As Ari silently worked a lingering, sensual path down his slowly relaxing body, Doral realized not a single scar, no matter how infinitesimal, was escaping Ari’s tender assault.
“Ari?”
“I want to replace your memory of the pain they inflicted with a more pleasant one. You will lie here and allow it.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
“Shut up, Doral.”
He had never had such a tender lover as Ari proved that morning. When Ari had driven him into a state of mindless ecstasy with his light touches and soft kisses over every blessed inch of his body, Ari finished him with the most wicked mouth he had ever experienced. Euphoric pleasure suffused him. Every single hair on his body throbbed with gratification. It took all of his considerable discipline to crack his eyelids open.
Ari gazed down on him with a look of consideration. “Have you ever gained pleasure from being taken by a man?” Ari’s soft touch between the cheeks of his tight buttocks made his meaning clear. “Has it always been only pain?”
Doral swallowed heavily around the frozen rock lodged in his throat. “You,” he croaked, damn-it-all, then began again. “Always pleasure with you.” Doral hated the cracked whisper that was all he could manage.
A flicker of satisfaction crossed Ari’s face. “Good to hear. It is difficult for you, even with me. I noticed that first afternoon Fleur asked me to take you.”
Ahhh, fuck! He forced himself to relax. This was Ari. He deserved an honest answer. “Sometimes, the past can intrude. I prefer to top. It doesn’t matter. Use me. Truly, there is nothing you can do to me I can’t handle.”
Ari nodded. His thumb gently smoothed the wrinkles pleating Doral’s brow. A faint smile flickered on Ari’s face, and then disappeared.
“That’s not how it works with lovers.” Ari held Doral’s gaze steadily. “You don’t get to make that call. You don’t get to handle anything.”
“Ari, I need to be the perfect lover.” Doral steeled himself to hold Ari’s eyes. “Other than killing people, it is the only thing I can offer.”
Anger flared on Ari’s face. “You are perfect, as you are.” Ari shoved him flat onto his back and covered him, holding Doral’s wrists outstretched in a savage hold. Ari’s eyes stared into his from inches away. “I am going to convince you if it takes the next twenty years,” he snarled.
For the first time in his life, Doral didn’t think he could get it up, much less have an orgasm, but Ari proceeded to demonstrate how he had earned his reputation as an inventive and unparalleled lover.
Doral’s body arched upward seeking some relief from the sexual arousal that Ari raised to unbearable heights. “Ari,” he panted. “I can’t take much more.”
“Oh, you can hang on a little longer, lover.” Ari had commanded him to lie still while he stroked him from head to toe with slow, feathering touches, sometimes using his hand, sometimes using a soft fur. Gods knew he tried. After the first hour, he had become so sensitized, so on edge, Doral knew just one hard stroke of his cock would do it for him. Then that hour had become two.
“Godsbedamned, Ari! Finish me.” Doral’s hips spiraled in the air as he chased after Ari’s fingers, trying to bring them in contact with the steely member between his legs that had taken on a life of its own.
“Hmm. Soon. But only if you are still.”
Doral hissed, but relaxed for the hundredth time, trying to ignore the molten plasma that coursed through his groin, balls and dick.
Ari’s hand ran up his inner thigh, tracking a straight path to his cock, then changed direction and circled his hip. Ari laughed at his soft grunt of, “Godsbedamned tease.”
Ari moved between his legs and carefully lay down on him, putting his rigid c
ock alongside Doral’s.
“The slightest move and I am gone, Ari.”
“Then let’s go together.” Holding Doral’s wrists stretched above his head, meeting his eyes in a steady gaze, Ari ground his cock against him. “I’m coming, Doral.” Ari shuddered heavily and sent both of them over. When they stopped gasping for air, Ari released his wrists and rolled to the side. After the heat of Ari’s body, his abdomen felt cool and slick.
Ari lay on his back with his eyes closed. After a time he spoke. “Doral, do you remember telling me that every time I went into battle, every time I risked death, you were afraid you would lose me? Afraid that your blade would not be quick enough to deflect my attacker, afraid your deadly aim would be off?”
“Yes. You have a death wish.”
Warm amusement filled Ari’s voice. “No, I am very fond of living. I could ‘defy death’ because I had unshakeable faith in the man at my side. I had, and still have, the unalterable conviction that if there is a way to cheat death, you will find it.” Ari rolled back to his side and opened his eyes.
“Doral, I could not accomplish half of what I do, did I not know you guard my back.” A slow smile covered Ari’s face. “Verdantia has linked us in a Tetriarch, and I will never let you go. I love you far too much.” Ari rolled to his stomach and within several minutes was asleep.
Doral’s fractured, parched psyche absorbed Ari’s words in astonished silence.
The sun had set and the lamps on the walls glowed a soft gold before he dragged his impossibly satiated body down the hallway to finish his report. If he was lacking the same tenacious, single-minded dedication of earlier that day, he was also lacking the icy, piercing shards of lonely worthlessness. A nascent, intensely fragile, inner warmth bloomed somewhere in the region of his heart. A tiny smile flickered across his mouth. He rubbed at the bruises around his wrists. I don’t think it will take him twenty years to convince me, though I rather enjoy his methods of persuasion.
* * * * *
“Well?” Fleur’s gentle query pulled Ari from drowsy lethargy. He rolled toward her and opened his eyes. The huge bed dipped slightly as she sat and softly stroked her fingers through his hair.
“I did as you requested. You were right, my love. Ask him and he can offer nothing but his body, his damned genetics.”
“Ari, it hurts my soul to think he was so abused. Have you seen how people shrink away? Integrity and honor shine from him. Only the worst sort of monster…” She could not continue.
“He said there was nothing we could do to him he couldn’t handle,” Ari said thickly. “Nothing he could not handle,” he wrenched out. “I am very, very angry. He should expect more.” Ari caught Fleur’s eyes. “Never again.”
Fleur nodded. “No. Never.”
* * * * *
A full eight days elapsed before the first of the courier riders entered the High Enclave courtyard with his report. His arrival heralded an influx of riders and reports. They returned very heartening news. Of the thirty-two sigil towers, twenty-seven projected an energy wall sufficient to protect their city-states.
Ari recalled the Verdantian cavalry units in the field along with the units of LFP ground marines felt to be loyal. Daily, battalions of returning horsemen and ground troops flowed through the newly constructed shield-gates and past the golden stone archways into Sylvan Mintoth. The city teemed with an activity and bustle unseen in over three years.
Quietly, Ari ordered those commanders of questionable loyalty on sweeps of distant territory where the diamantorre were quiescent or no longer standing. It put them on the outside of the vast area now shield-wall protected. Unless the inter-transitional gates were open, the potential threat they posed was isolated.
The rays of the early morning sunrise barely streaked the pale skies when one of the more promising of Doral’s protégés joined Ari and Doral in Ari’s office. Doral sprawled on the leather sofa that had once done service as Ari’s bed, while Ari held the heavy drapes back and stood thoughtfully gazing out the window.
A low masculine voice accompanied a smart rap on the door. “Visconte?”
Doral rose and strode to the door, opening it further, “Come in Captain Rigo, Sub-Lieutenant Donnovan. Sit, please.”
The slightly built, cleanly handsome young cavalry officer sat in the space Doral had vacated. His aide, S-L Donnovan, remained standing behind the sofa. Ari remained at the window in silent thought.
Walking to the large desk, Doral picked up a thick envelope and turned to Tevon. “I need you to contact Fleet Captain Micheol Ardain on Raegill II and give him this information.” Doral handed Tevon the packet. “Discreetly. The fewer people who see you, the better.”
Ari turned from the window. “Stay alert, Tevon. There are those who will try to intercept you if they identify you as a Verdantian courier. What you are holding in your hand is the status of our shield walls and a brief explanation to Ardain as to how they got that way. Feel free to read it. This is vital information. There are those who will definitely try to suppress it. So, stay alert.”
Ari smiled slightly. “The queen enjoys your company on her morning rides. I would hate to explain to her why I got her favorite riding companion killed if you don’t come back.”
Tevon’s mouth quirked up. “No, that is certainly to be avoided. No disrespect intended, High Lord, but life gets uncomfortable for you when she is displeased. I would not want to be the cause of that.”
Ari sighed and looked at Doral. “I am never going escape that infamous week, am I?”
“She made quite an impression on the men. You could have all of them shot. That would slow down the gossip.” Doral shrugged, seemingly indifferent. “You would lose quite a number of highly skilled commanders and staff.”
Silently aghast, Sub-Lieutenant Donovan’s eyes flickered back and forth between the three.
“Hmmm.” Ari paused, tapping his finger on his lips considering Doral’s comment. “How many do you think?”
Doral looked at Tevon. “Care to estimate how far that story spread?”
Tevon looked at the ceiling and shrugged. “I would say at least five to six hundred military personnel, certainly all of the Blue Daggers and a portion of the Third and Fourth Cavalry battalions. Of course, by now, they will have told others and well, you may want to consider non-combatants also.”
“Huh. Really? That many?”
Tevon shifted a little and cleared his throat. “Yes, my Lord. It was, um—a—ah,” Tevon coughed slightly, “highly entertaining story.”
“Guess shooting them is not an option, Doral. I would do more damage than the Haarb.” Ari crossed his arms. His expression was resigned but his downcast eyes lit with humor as his surreptitious glance took in S-L Donovan’s wide-eyed, patent relief.
“I suppose that unfortunate week has been added to the many stories recounted about me around the mess halls.”
“Actually, my Lord, we use it to warn new guards not to underestimate the queen,” Tevon said neutrally.
Ari looked up casually. “Not at all taken in by that she-devil in angel wings, are they, Doral?”
“No, Ari. They are wise to our little hell-cat.”
They both looked at Tevon and chorused, “You never heard us say that, Captain Rigo.”
“Heard what, my Lords?”
“Precisely.” Ari smiled. “Just be careful, Captain Rigo.”
“I always am, High Lord.”
* * * * *
“Mic, this changes the complexion of events dramatically.” Charise Lockwood finished reading the report she had received from her lover’s hand merely ten minutes previously. “Captain Rigo, how current is this information?”
“Less than seventy-two hours old, ma’am.”
“Knowing Ari, he positioned Herrimon’s forces where they can do the least amount of harm.” The admiral glanced over at Tevon, questioningly.
“Both companies of Herrimon’s personal guard were assigned an extended sweep of the territories
outside the perimeter of our shield walls. While we cannot confirm it, we believe Commander Treant and Commander Fosard are unaware of the scope of our new energy shields.”
Tevon smiled slightly. “Strangely, the recall orders for the other LFP battalions were never received at command HQ in Sylvan Mintoth.”
“Really?” Fleet Captain Ardain shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “Obviously, there is a problem with communications that will need to be addressed.”
“Yes. Very regrettable,” Tevon responded gravely. “Unfortunately, this stranded the replacement divisions comprised of Herrimon’s territorial guard in Arkodaenia, their port of entry. The shield wall gates were closed and lacking the proper authorization, the military personnel under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Cristo of the 3rd Calvary, Green Ride, refused them entry.”
Lockwood’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s why Herrimon’s been snarling like an injured Vortian blood-lizard.” She chuckled and cast a look toward Mic. “Well done, Conte DeTano,” she murmured under her breath.
* * * * *
In the considered opinion of Admiral Charise Lockwood, Verdantia had demonstrated more than sufficient ability to protect her surface from the onslaught of any invading force. When information was disseminated among the LFP Council chairs on Raegill II, all talk about changing Verdantia’s voting status would be summarily rejected. The LFP would do nothing to jeopardize their trade agreements for cinnagin. There would still be an official vote following the reception for the Council in Sylvan Mintoth, but there was no doubt in any mind as to the outcome.
Chapter Nine
Augoust Herrimon was sweating blood. The raspy voice of his nightmares once again addressed him from a shadowed corner in his bedroom. “You will kill the Constante woman.”
His heart pounded in his chest. The room seemed to gray, becoming indistinct.
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t get anyone within miles of Sylvan Mintoth. The Verdantians are turning my militia away at the port of entry.”
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