Taylor lifted and twisted her head to see and caught a glimpse of Veris just over Brody’s wide shoulder. But she could sense what Veris was doing from the trembling and tensing of Brody’s muscles. Spasms shuddered through him as Veris worked.
Then Veris gripped Brody’s shoulder with his big hand and lifted himself over the top of both of them. His blue eyes met Taylor’s. “He wants both of us, he gets both of us.” His eyes lost their focus as he worked his cock inside and Brody’s breath hitched and hurried along in reaction.
Taylor could feel Brody’s pleasure building in the small movements his hips were making against hers, the trembling of his body and his shortening breath.
He began to thrust into her again, this time in slow strokes that she knew he intended to be controlled and masterful, but were distorted by the frissons of excitement running through him. His desire was overwhelming him.
Veris’ fingers were clenching on Brody’s shoulder, signaling his own building pleasure. Taylor wished suddenly she had mirrors, dozens of them, so she could see exactly what Veris was doing to Brody. But all she had right now was imagination and the memory of countless times in the past when she had witnessed similar moments. Veris was fucking Brody as Brody took her, using the strength and agility they had both just teased him about to ensure that neither she nor Brody bore any extra weight than was necessary. Taylor could see Veris’ fist curled over the edge of the divan, and the tightly-flexed biceps and triceps in his arm as he held himself up and used the arm for leverage, too.
The mental imagery and Brody’s thrusting combined were the catalyst that tipped Taylor over into a powerful climax. Her back bowed as she snapped taut with the rush of hot liquid excitement.
Brody hissed and his thrusts shortened. He gave a groan that sounded like a muffled cry of protest and climaxed in three hard, deep thrusts, the tendons on his neck straining.
Veris gave a guttural groan of his own and his fingers released Brody’s shoulder. Brody dropped to the cushions next to Taylor, his breath ragged.
Veris sat next to them, still breathing easily. He wore a small smile, the one he often wore after sex. Taylor had decided it simply meant that Veris was happy.
Brody kissed her neck, her jaw, then her mouth. He reached for Veris’ hand and held it for a moment. His gaze skittered between the two of them. “They’re racing again tomorrow,” he said. Then his gaze cut away, down to his toes.
Veris’ smile faded. He let go of Brody’s hand and turned to face them both properly.
Taylor sat up. “No, they’re not,” she said shortly. Swiftly.
Brody sat up, too. “It’s the season, Taylor. There is racing every fourth day. There will be races tomorrow and I will be in them.”
Veris was wordless. Again.
Taylor shook her head vehemently. “No. I know every four days is traditional, but they postponed the races just this once, Brody, because of Matthew’s death. The Emperor sent a message to Ariadne’s father earlier today, giving him a general dispensation and advising that the racing would be held over a day so arrangements could be properly made.”
“Arrangements?” Veris asked. There was a note in his voice she had never heard before. Distress?
“Ariadne was Matthew’s heir. Through her, her father acquires all Matthew’s business interests, including his chariots. The emperor wants all the chariots ready for the races. He also thought Ariadne might like to arrange for Matthew’s rites, too.”
Brody plucked at an embroidered swirl of gold thread on the divan. “Considerate of him.”
“You have to attend a funeral tomorrow?” Veris asked, in the same tight, careful voice.
Taylor shook her head again. “A Byzantine funeral? The rites will be held at the palace, so they’re still preparing Matthew’s body. It can’t be done in a day. But arrangements can be started.”
Veris seemed to relax. “Then we have this night and the next, at least,” he said, reaching for her.
Taylor got very little sleep that night. Neither did Brody.
Normally, the lack of sleep wouldn’t have bothered her. She was a lady of leisure and could sleep whenever she wanted. But she had plans for early Thursday that needed her full and sharpest attention—plans she couldn’t share with Veris and most certainly not with Brody.
Chapter Eighteen
Early the next morning, Taylor learned from Kale the name of the guard that had accompanied them to the races with Matthew four days ago and asked for him to present himself to her in Matthew’s office, a large open room attached to the formal wing of the house just off the processional.
Taylor began by asking Narses about racing. She quickly established that the young guard was as much a fanatic of chariot racing as any kid in jeans back home was a fan of basketball or hockey. A few more careful questions gave her the answer she needed; Genesios the Money Lender owned the blue chariots that Brody drove, and he, like all good businessmen, kept a shop front in Galata, the business district on the south-eastern side of the city.
As today was no longer an official race day, Genesios would attend his business as usual.
Taylor pressed a small bag of coins that she had found in Matthew’s quarters into Narses’ hand and told him what she wanted.
Surprised, he agreed and Taylor hurried back to her suite to dress. Brody had been returned to the slave cavern, but Veris still lingered. Taylor couldn’t read his mood at all. He had withdrawn into himself as he did when he was troubled.
But she couldn’t worry about Veris for right now. She had more overwhelming, more urgent matters to deal with.
She dressed in a very simple, almost unadorned tunic and plain mantle, suitable for a wife in mourning, and kissed Veris goodbye. “I will be making arrangements at the Palace all morning,” she warned him.
But Veris barely seemed to hear her.
Taylor pummeled down all her concerns and worries about Veris once more. She would deal with them—had to deal with them—later.
She walked through the house once more, back to Matthew’s office. Narses stood waiting for her, as agreed.
“You brought them?” she asked.
He waved a hand toward the table next to him. “Everything you asked for,” he said, showing her.
She looked the items over. “Perfect.”
* * * * *
There were no women in the Galata district and very few people escorted by slaves and guards. Here, the men roamed unfettered, free to walk where they needed to go, to speak to whomever they needed to confer with and to conduct their business freely.
Taylor pulled the deep hood of her cloak more tightly around her face, hiding her feminine features as much as possible. She was very tall for a woman of Constantinople, and taller than many of the men here, so her height was not out of place. She had surreptitiously shortened her tunic by tucking it up over her belt until it was as short as any merchant’s ankle-length tunic. The lack of a dalmatic she hid by the voluminous cloak the guard had supplied and she kept the hood up.
The cloak also hid the bow and arrows she carried.
Narses threaded his way through the jagged, crooked maze of streets until he reached a corner. He stopped and waited for Taylor to catch up with him and carefully pointed across the road.
“Genesios?” she asked.
He nodded.
The business he pointed to was a peak-roofed open-fronted establishment with an awning painted in bright red spreading shade across the paving in front of the open store. Taylor could see tables and cupboards inside the dim interior, but Genesios himself sat upon a stool outside in the cooler air under the awning. He was eating grapes and calling out to passers-by he knew, or back inside to what must be clerks or office workers of some sort. He was a chubby man, with dark curly hair, brown eyes and thick lips. He had heavy laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.
To be able to sit in the shade and watch the world go by, Genesios was clearly wealthy and his business must be thriving.
&nbs
p; Taylor swallowed and looked at her guard. “Go home,” she told him softly. “You do not need to see what happens next.”
Narses shook his head. “I will go back up the street if you insist, but I will not go home.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to explain without explaining. “There are events happening in the city…things you don’t know, that you can’t possibly know. You don’t want to become involved in them.”
“You are my mistress,” he replied. “I swore I would protect you.”
Taylor sighed. “Matthew is dead. Your fealty died with him.”
Narses was very young and of the age when ideals were still shiny and new. He hesitated, pressing his lips together. “So is Ariadne dead, but I still served you.”
“You know?” Taylor drew in a slow breath, riding out her shock. “Do you know what I intend to do now?”
His lips pressed even more firmly together. Then he nodded. “I think so.”
“Then go back,” she told him.
“Just up the street,” he replied with passive stubbornness and turned and left, removing any chance she had of arguing him out of it.
Taylor dismissed Narses from her thoughts. She had to clear her mind for what she had to do next.
She masked her movements as best she could by turning her back to the street, then with deliberate movements, she brought the bow out from under her cloak and fitted an arrow to the string.
She turned on her heel, stepped to the corner of the building until Genesios came back into her view and took aim.
Her heart was slamming against her chest. Her mouth was dryer than the dessert. She was not trembling, for which a small chink of her mind was grateful as shaking would destroy her aim.
Breathe and release, Taylor, she told herself, watching the point of the arrow settle over Genesios’ chest. Just let it go.
But her fingers wouldn’t let the string go.
The building noise in her mind reassembled into articulate thoughts. This is murder. Cold-blooded murder.
It’ll save Brody, she told herself. Now her arm was starting to tremble, for she had held the bow drawn for too long and it was a man’s bow – it took a lot of strength to keep it at full stretch.
Just a simple flex of your fingers and this is all over, she reasoned with herself.
But her fingers wouldn’t cooperate.
Behind her, the guard’s footsteps sounded and she sighed. He had changed his mind. She saw his shadow come up behind her.
The shadow was too large.
She processed the size of the shadow and reacted, turning to face this new threat just as a hand plucked the arrow from her bow, right off her string. It made a little thrumming sound. She swallowed the cry of dismay that wrenched at her. The last thing she could afford right now was to draw attention to herself. She was a woman and armed, which would demand explanations she couldn’t give.
Her arm was gripped with the strength of a vice and she was turned and her back slammed up against the stone wall she had been hiding behind.
Veris pushed his forearm against her upper chest to keep her in place. His eyes were dark with fury. “I knew, last night, you were planning something,” he said, his voice low and angry. “You weren’t nearly upset enough and you dropped that tidbit about the funeral rites in with too much detail.” He glanced to his right, across the road toward Genesios. “Who is he?” he demanded.
“No one. It doesn’t matter now,” Taylor said, all her fear evaporating and a bone-sapping weariness taking its place.
Veris turned his head in the other direction. “You, boy. Come here,” he called softly.
Taylor bit back another protest. She had forgotten Narses. The guard stepped to her side and looked up at Veris with some trepidation.
“You know who I am?” Veris asked. “You were in the room yesterday when Ariadne’s father was there, so I know you know.”
Narses nodded.
Veris looked toward Genesios again. “Tell me who he is. Why does my wife want to kill him?”
Taylor winced at the bald stating of the fact.
Narses cowered. “I…sir….”
“Don’t be afraid,” Veris told him. “I seek answers. Nothing more. I am a stranger to this city. Explain it to me. Who is he and what is he to my wife?”
Taylor caught Narses’ eye and nodded.
He swallowed. “The man yonder is Genesios the Money Lender, sir.”
Veris frowned. “He offended my wife in some way?”
Narses sucked in a despairing, shaky breath. It was possibly the first time he had ever been directly involved in the affairs and politics of his masters and he was not enjoying the stress. “Genesios owns Braenden the Celt, the chariot driver your wife has had brought to her chambers the last three nights’ past.” Narses glanced at her and Taylor thought she saw an apology in his eyes.
Veris grew still and his eyes narrowed. His mind was racing. “Ahhh…” he said softly, straightening up. His arm fell away from Taylor’s chest. He rested the tip of the bow on the ground and his hands on the other end. “You may go,” he told Narses. “Return to the house. I will see the lady home.”
“Sir?”
“Go,” Veris repeated in a tone that even Taylor would not dare argue with.
“Yes, sir.” The guard hurried away.
Taylor pulled her hood back over her features properly. It had slipped backwards thanks to Veris’ manhandling.
“Don’t do that,” Veris told her.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t hide yourself away like that.” He reached around behind her and tugged sharply on the back of the hood, bringing it down around her shoulders and revealing her to everyone who passed them on the street. “If you are going to kill a man,” Veris told her, “then you do not do it anonymously, from some dark corner, so he is cheated of his chance to brace himself.” He reached under his dalmatic and pulled out a long-bladed knife, which he hefted in his hands. “When you kill a man, you look him in the eyes.” He held the knife out to her.
Taylor shuddered, gazing at the long, sharp weapon lying on the palm of his hand.
“A silent arrow out of nowhere…that’s the Assassins’ way. The cowards’ way,” Veris added.
Taylor wrapped her arms around herself, staring at the knife.
“Take it,” Veris insisted.
She shook her head, sickness grabbing at her throat.
He made a sound of annoyance and snatched her wrist in a lightning fast movement, pulling her arm out from her body. He slapped the knife onto the palm of her hand and curled her fingers around the hilt while Taylor moaned in horror.
“This is how you kill a man,” he told her, his voice low and hard. “You use the blade and you cut out his heart so that both you and he understand what his death means.” He held up her hand, fisted around the knife.
Taylor found her voice. “Väinä, behage…”
But the use of his real name and Norse seemed to anger him more. He stepped closer to her, towering over her. He wrenched her arm up so the blade was shoved against his chest. “If you cut out my heart you would kill me as good as any human. Shall I help you drive the blade in?”
“No,” she whispered, barely able to speak the world for the sick horror gripping her. All she could see was his eyes, the blue dark with stormy anger.
Veris glanced at Genesios, who was standing and talking to a customer now. “Killing him is screwing with history. If you tweak anything this far back in our timelines, then you’re as good as shoving this knife in and cutting out my heart, because we’ll both be gone.” His gaze would not let her go. “Haven’t you learned anything in all the time and years and centuries we’ve crossed? All the time we’ve spent discussing and theorizing about this?” His jaw rippled. “Gud, Taylor, what about Jerusalem? We came so damned close to losing it all…did that not teach you a thing?”
“Of course it did.” She had to force the words out passed the constriction in her
throat and it hurt to speak.
“You’ll kill us all if you do this,” he told her, his expression bleak.
Taylor tried to pull her wrist from his fingers, but Veris’ grip was vice-like. She yanked uselessly, feeling the panic building in her. “We have to do something!” she insisted. “If Genesios is dead, his chariots won’t run. Brody won’t have to drive them.”
“But he did drive them,” Veris replied. “You must not change that.”
The fear spilled over inside her—big, bubbling and huge. She grabbed at Veris’ chest, gripping cloth in her spare hand, and shook him wildly. “Don’t tell me ‘no’! Don’t!”
“Taylor….”
“No!” Her eyes were stinging and she couldn’t draw breath because of the tight band around her chest.
“Tyra,” Veris said, his voice soft. The grip on her hand around the knife eased and fell away.
She shook her head, refusing to look at him because she knew she would see the truth in his eyes.
“Tyra,” he repeated and his fingers lifted her face up so she had to meet his gaze.
Taylor drew in a breath that shuddered as she made herself ask the question that had haunted her since last night. “We let Brody die?”
He didn’t look away from her, so she saw the agony in his eyes. The truth.
She couldn’t cry. It was too awful. She stared at Veris as he took his time to reply—he needed to find the courage to answer.
“Yes, Taylor. We let him die.”
Chapter Nineteen
They kept up the normal façade until just a few hours before Brody was to return to the cavern. Veris was so good at it Taylor was almost offended at the ease he seemed to have with maintaining an “everything’s fine” bearing.
She struggled to hide her fear and pain from Brody and to remember what her ‘normal’ behavior around him was.
They made love in a low-key, slow and honeyed way that was bitter-sweet. Afterwards Taylor found she couldn’t let Brody go. But neither could Veris. His mask had finally dropped.
They lay on the bigger divan, Brody between them. In the moonlight streaming through the windows over their heads, their bodies were all silvered and ghostly. Veris’ long arm stretched out over Brody’s waist and his hand rested on Taylor’s hip. He was not stroking or teasing or nibbling as he normally did. For a moment, he rested his forehead against Brody’s shoulder. It was a telling movement.
Kiss Across Chains (Kiss Across Time Series) Page 21