Black Lion's Bride

by Lara Adrian

  “Then come with me,” he growled, pushing her up and taking her by the hand.

  Their fingers laced together, he brought her out of his chamber and down the snaking corridor to the bathhouse. At this hour, they would have the place to themselves; the rest of the garrison had already gone to supper in the meeting hall of the palace, where food and wine and the presence of the king would keep them occupied for the better part of the night. Sebastian opened the door to the lamp-lit sauna and ushered Zahirah inside.

  A fragrant steam enveloped them beneath the high dome of the ceiling. It hissed out of vents hollowed into the smooth stone walls, whispering softly, and carrying the scent of sandalwood and myrrh. The fine mist swirled over the tiles of the floor and skated in ribbons across the surface of the small bathing pool in the center of the chamber. Water trickled in a small fountain-fed basin, echoing like primeval music in the damp solitude of the room.

  Sebastian brought Zahirah around in front of him and caught her in a hungry embrace, kissing her as he worked to unlace and strip off his tunic.

  “Let me,” she said, placing her hands over his and pulling the cotton shirt up over his head. She dropped it to the floor, then bent to press a kiss to his bare skin. Her tongue teased his nipple to instant hardness; her breath blew warm and uneven into the mat of hair on his chest. The air around them was humid, but it rushed cool against him when she broke their kiss and backed away, leading him to a small stool beside the water. “Sit, my lord.”

  He sat, and watched with keen interest as she knelt down before him and slid his feet out of his heavy boots. She rubbed his tired soles and heels, her touch like heaven as she moved up to massage the tight muscles of his calves and thighs. His hose came off next. Zahirah came up between his legs to unhitch the points fastened at his waist and tug the leggings down. The brief friction of her body, the slight press of her breasts against his thighs, sent a bolt of lust shooting through his loins.

  When she moved to rise, Sebastian brought his knees together, trapping her there before him. He remembered another time that they were in this very stance--the night in the caravansary outside Darum, the night they had first made love. She had been seated before him like this then, too, and well he remembered how badly he had wanted to keep her there, to feel her mouth moving and suckling on his hard flesh. He looked at her upturned face now, holding her questioning gaze and knowing the one he fixed on her was harsh and dark with need.

  She understood that need. Her lips curved sensually, her eyes smoldered in the dim lamplight. With graceful fingers, she unrolled the waistband of his braies and freed him of the loose undergarment. Unrestrained by the confining linen drawers, his erection thrust up past his navel, stiff and substantial, leaping under the heat of her appreciative gaze. She smoothed her hands up his thighs, and when she wrapped her fingers around the solid width of his shaft, stroking him from root to tip, he quaked with a sudden jolt of white-hot pleasure.

  She toyed with him for an unbearable while, teasing and touching him, driving him to the edge of a perfect madness, but then she raised up and took him into her mouth, and Sebastian thought he would splinter on the spot. He could not contain the low oath of anguish that curled up from his throat when her tongue sucked and swirled around his swollen member, nor could he stop himself from reaching down to catch her behind the neck with both hands, burying his fingers in her hair and holding her head in place as she took him deeper, impossibly deeper, into the hot velvet sheath of her mouth. He felt his climax building with each upward pull of her lips, each subtle scrape of her teeth, her little mewls of arousal vibrating against him to wrench his loins tighter and tighter.

  “Zahirah,” he managed to croak thickly. “God . . . curse it.”

  Savagely, before she had sapped him of every bit of his control, he seized her by the arms and hauled her up onto her feet. “I need to be inside you,” he rasped, fumbling with her pantalets and finally ripping the laces loose. He shoved the wrecked silk down her hips, while she quickly took off her tunic and tossed it aside. Naked and beautiful, she stood before him, lips glistening and moist, breasts rising with each panting breath she drew into her lungs. She stepped forward to straddle his legs and Sebastian gripped her pelvis in his hands, positioning her over the top of his straining sex. Their gazes locked and hungry, he brought her down onto his lap and sheathed himself to the hilt in one long stroke.

  The rhythm they found was fierce and passionate, too powerful to deny. Sebastian felt Zahirah's release come along with his, heard the quickening of her breath, felt the delicious squeeze of her body around his sex as climax shuddered through her. She cried out, clinging to him as he gave one final thrust and spilled his essence deep within her womb. For a long while, they merely stayed there, holding each other, still intimately joined, loathe to disrupt the moment.

  “You feel so good, I don't want to move,” he murmured beside her ear.

  “Let's not, then,” she whispered. “Let's not ever move.”

  He chuckled, nipping her shoulder and savoring the taste of her salty-sweet skin. “We'll have to eat sometime, my love. And sooner or later, my love, someone is sure to come here looking for a bath.”

  Zahirah drew out of his embrace and met his gaze. She stared at him, looking so serious, so utterly sober, it took him aback. “What is it?” he asked, smoothing her frown with a brush of his fingers over her brow.

  She shook her head slowly, her eyes rooted on his. “I just . . . I never want to forget this moment. I want to remember you always like this, the way you're looking at me right now.”

  “We'll have many moments like this,” he said, smoothing her hair away from her face, loving her so keenly it put an ache in his chest. “If I have my way, sweet lady, we will have moments like this for the rest of our lives.” She gave him a smile, made all the more endearing for how it wobbled on her lips. She glanced away, but not before he saw the shimmer of tears welling in her eyes. He scowled, wondering at her sadness, at what felt oddly to him like regret. “You still haven't answered me, you know.”

  “Answered you?”

  “Today, in the park. I asked you to come back with me to England.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, you did.”

  “I know it would not be easy for you to leave. This is your home. I would not ask you to give up your faith--”

  “Sebastian,” she said, turning an earnest look on him, caressing him with her eyes. “My love. I would give up everything for you. Nothing would make me happier than to see your home, to be with you there, or wherever you go.”

  He saw the deep love in her gaze, felt his heart swell in the warmth of her regard. His mind sped forward to the day he would bring her home to Montborne, the day he would take as his wife in truth. “I'll speak with the king as soon as possible,” he said, stroking the smooth slope of her cheek. “He must be made aware of my intentions.”

  “Let's not talk about him now,” Zahirah whispered. “Let's not talk about anything now. Just hold me. I need you to hold me.”

  She burrowed into the circle of his arms and Sebastian wrapped himself around her, rocking her gently, caressing the slender arch of her back. He rose from the stool and lifted her with him, and together they slipped into the small bathing pool to wash. They soaped each other in the warm water, silent but for the intimate hush of their breathing, joining in a slow tangle of slick wet hands and twisting, twining limbs. They made love once more, there in the shallow pool, then they gathered up their clothes and Sebastian carried Zahirah back to his chamber and placed her in his bed beside him.

  With legs and arms entwined, they lay together in the moonlight, engulfed in a reverent brand of silence, kissing and caressing each other for some long hours, until sleep began to beckon. Sebastian pulled Zahirah close and let his eyes drift shut, surrendering to a calm--a soul-deep fullness--he never thought he would know.

  * * *

  Zahirah lay in his arms, listening as Sebastian fell into a sated, he
avy sleep. There would be no such peace for her this night. Indeed, not ever again. This would be the last time he held her. The last time she knew the wonder of his love, the last time she knew the bliss of his body joined with her own.

  Paradise, if such a prize was truly to be hers upon the success of so heinous a mission as the one she had been called to do, could not possibly compare to what she had with Sebastian. Nor could Shaitan's fiery domain be worse than the guilt and pain she felt now, looking at the man she loved more than life itself and knowing that in a few short hours he would hate the very notion of her.

  The understanding of that eventuality was like a vise around her heart, squeezing as if to wring the very breath from her lungs. She could not sleep, nor could she bear the oppressive weight of her thoughts. Carefully, she freed herself from Sebastian's slack embrace and rose from the haven of his bed. Outside, beyond the gentle soughing of the curtains that framed the balcony terrace, the moon hung full and bright in the deep black sky. The milky light spilled into the chamber, bathing everything with a pale, otherworldly glow, washing the vibrant weave of the carpets nearly colorless, and throwing long shadows beneath the pieces of the shatranj board that sat where she had returned it that afternoon, ready for play on the small table across the room.

  Zahirah walked toward the idle game as in a trance, her gaze straying to the checkered board with its orderly rows of pieces--small enemy soldiers, facing off to do battle unto the death. In shatranj, war was neat, so clearly an issue of black and white. Life was a far crueler game, indeed. She plucked the white king from his place between his queen and guards and held the piece up in the moonlight, idly examining it. How she envied that cold chunk of carved stone. To feel nothing, to move as directed without grieving one's losses, without wishing for things that could never be--she had known that sense of purpose once. Long ago and far away, it seemed to her now.

  She needed that sense of purpose again. Allah help her, she had never needed it more.

  Steeling herself to what had to be done, to the shattering idea that tomorrow at this time her world and everything in it that mattered would cease, Zahirah laid the white king down in the center of the board. With remorse pricking her eyes, she glanced back to Sebastian, sleeping soundly in a naked, masculine sprawl on the bed.

  “Shah mat, my love,” she whispered. “Your king is dead.”

  Chapter 25

  “You're awake,” Sebastian said when he opened his eyes a few hours later.

  Her head on the bolster next to his, Zahirah nodded, giving him a small smile. She had climbed back into bed with him some time ago, but she had not slept, and now that it was dawn, she mourned the night's swift passing. Sebastian's strong legs were wound around hers; he slowly flexed his knees, pulling her toward him until her hips were flush against his. He was hard beneath the coverlet, and her body responded to that knowledge with a sudden quickening in her veins. But she shied away from wanting him now, forcing herself to deny the longing that would keep her there with him for as long as he would have her.

  “My morning prayers,” she said feebly, “I cannot neglect them.” She pressed her fingers against his bare chest in tender resistance, but instead found herself closing her eyes at the contact, memorizing the feel of his heart thudding against her palm.

  The feel of him, so alive and warm beside her, seared her now, scorching the resolve she was fighting so hard to keep. Before it crumbled any further into ash, Zahirah rolled away from him and swung her legs over the side of the bed. With a groan and a shifting of the mattress behind her, Sebastian did likewise. While Zahirah donned a morning gown, he padded barefoot to the door and summoned a servant to bring them breakfast.

  Meekly, her limbs and heart lethargic, Zahirah went to the washbasin and performed her daily ablutions, then unrolled her prayer mat on the floor. She knelt on the woven square of cotton canvas and began the ritual of her praises for Allah. It was a farce today, little more than a performance of the motions, for she could not concentrate on the words. She rushed through the last of her prayers, finishing just as a knock sounded on the door.

  “Maimoun is quick today,” Sebastian said when her head snapped up in startlement. He shrugged into a long tunic and went to admit the servant entry.

  But it was not Maimoun come to bring them their meal. It was Logan. He was outfitted in chain mail, his helm tucked under his arm, his sheathed broadsword slung low on his hips. “Where are you off to so early this morning?” Sebastian asked, stepping aside for the other man to enter.

  “Not just me, my friend, but you as well. 'Twas the king's order not a moment ago.”

  Zahirah swallowed hard. God help her, her betrayal had begun already.

  She got to her feet as Logan came inside and gave her a polite nod of greeting. “The king has obtained information recently about Saladin's movements,” he told Sebastian. “According to Templar spies, the sultan has been poisoning area wells in an effort to impinge our march on Jerusalem. Lionheart has assembled a scouting party to ride out and assess the situation for himself.”

  “What's this about?” Sebastian asked, a dubious edge to his voice as he tugged on his braies and hose, then fastened the points and ties. “He doesn't trust the information he's received?”

  “I couldna say, my friend. 'Tis my understanding that the king is not well today and still abed in his chambers; these orders came from one of his lieutenants.” Logan slanted him a wry look. “All I know is what I've been told. The king wants reports, and he wants you and I to head up the scout. We're to leave without delay.”

  “Were you told how far we are to scout for these reports?”

  Logan nodded. “North, toward Jaffa.”

  “God's blood,” Sebastian swore. “That's a day, easily.”

  Logan grunted, looking no more enthused with the prospect than Sebastian. In the corridor, Maimoun arrived with a tray of dates and oranges and a loaf of bread. Before the servant could usher in the food, the big knight grabbed a handful of dates and popped one in his mouth. “I've had no time to eat yet,” he said, talking around the chunk of succulent fruit.

  Sebastian retrieved his gambeson from a T-shaped rack beside the bed and shrugged into the padded leather vest. Draped beneath where the gambeson had been on the stand was his shirt of steel armor links; he gathered it up and slung the tunic's jingling bulk over his arm. “Regrettably, duty calls, my lady,” he said to Zahirah. He came over to where she stood and cupped her cheek in his palm. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

  Too unsettled to speak, Zahirah gave him a shaky nod. It was all happening so fast. Now that he was going, she wanted to reach out and hold him back, to plead with him to stay. She wanted to blurt out the truth of what she was hiding from him, pray that he would forgive her, and hope that somehow, together, they could puzzle a way out of this coil of lies and destruction. But her father's threat echoed roundly in her ears, and, so, instead, she kept her tongue and willed her hands to stay at her sides.

  Sebastian leaned forward to place a quick kiss of good-bye on her lips, and she accepted this last gift of affection, feeling as treacherous as a snake as she watched him turn and grab his sword belt then stride out of the chamber with Logan.

  * * *

  In the large courtyard outside the palace, four squires were already saddling and provisioning the mounts that Sebastian, Logan, and two other men would be taking on their scouting errand for the king. One of the lads saw the officers approach and rushed around to assist Sebastian into his chain mail. As the heavy armor shirt settled onto his shoulders, a movement near the palace caught his eye. It was the king.

  Robed in a hooded white caftan, Lionheart stood on the balcony of his second-floor chamber, idly observing the assembly of the riding party. Behind him, the silken curtains that framed the portal ruffled in the soft breath of the morning. The king watched for a moment, still as a hawk. He met Sebastian's gaze across the space of the yard, by accident, it seemed. He stood there, simply staring, t
hen he turned away and headed back inside.

  “Let's go,” Sebastian ordered, jerking his head back toward the squires as they strapped on the last of the packs and moved aside.

  He took his destrier's reins in hand and swung up into the saddle. Logan and the other two knights followed, bringing their mounts around to join him. With a queer feeling of suspicion beginning to gnaw at him, Sebastian gave his steed a kick of his heels and the scouting party headed out for Jaffa.

  * * *

  Zahirah remained behind the closed door of Sebastian's chamber for the rest of the morning, receiving no one. Maimoun had brought more food at midday but she refused it, sending the servant away without admitting him entry. He obeyed and withdrew, unquestioning her request that she not be disturbed unless she called. Which, of course, she would not.

  Today she would fast; she had only room for prayer and reflection, for reconnection with her faith and her clan, and her obligations within them. Devoting herself to that goal, she bathed and dressed and braided her hair, then left Sebastian's empty apartments for the solitude of her own.

  But it was more than mere solitude that drew her to the room she had occupied upon her arrival at the palace some weeks ago. With cool-headed purpose, she went at once to the mattress of her small bed and reached far beneath it, her fingers sliding and groping for purchase along the flat of the bed frame. It was there, where she had left it: the dagger that had been forged and fashioned especially for this night. Zahirah curled her hand around the knife's leather sheath and brought it out of hiding.

  The weapon was heavier than she recalled. The slender blade whispered softly as she drew it from the sleeve, its razor edge glinting deadly silver in her palms. She lifted the dagger to her lips and bowed her head to kiss it, murmuring a prayer that she be granted the strength and skill to deliver it as He willed. She knelt on the floor, praying for clarity and focus, for the courage to face these next few hours without emotion, and to accept whatever should come after them.