Teasing Danger

by Autumn Dawn

  Jasmine halted and grabbed his vest, forcing him to face her, uncaring that their escort could hear every word. “I don’t care about politics,” she told him, her throat tight. She searched his eyes for something of his feelings. There was nothing.

  “I do,” he told her with cold blooded calm, not a trace of hesitation in his manner. Jasmine’s heart shriveled within her, and when he made no move to walk on, she left him.

  “I’m two months pregnant,” Rihlia informed Jasmine with a radiant smile. She’d nearly squeezed her to death when she’d first seen her and scolded her about taking so long to come home, as if it had been in her power to hurry up. “If it’s a girl her middle name will be Jasmine.”

  Jasmine smiled and hid the touch of sadness in her eyes by reaching for a cookie she didn’t want. “I bet your mother is ecstatic.”

  Rihlia grinned. “And then some. I catch her looking at my stomach and tearing up all the time. I swear she’s walking on air. And Jayems....” She sighed dreamily. “He’s like a little kid counting the days until Christmas.” Collecting herself, she shifted on the couch, saying, “But enough about me. Keilor almost drove us crazy, running around as grim as an undertaker the entire time that you were gone. I’m surprised that he’s let you out of his sight already.”

  Jasmine’s smile froze. “We’ve already said our hellos, and he had some important business to take care of, so I came to see you.” Then, before Rihlia could ask any more, she launched into a recounting of her adventures, exaggerating and playing down the danger where appropriate. By the time that she was through, her trek through the swamp had taken on the glamour of an adventure, and Rihlia was completely enthralled.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “I had no idea when Jayems told me about the Symbionts-Who-Came-Before, the Ronin, that I’d ever get to see one of their critters up close.”

  Uncertain as to what her friend was referring, Jasmine frowned.

  Seeing her confusion, Wiley exclaimed, “What! Doesn’t anyone tell you anything? The Ronin,” she said again, as if repeating the phrase might jog Jasmine’s memory. When it had no effect, she elaborated, “The Ronin are the humans who found this place, and the symbionts, before the Haunt arrived. There was a big war over who would keep the land, about sixty years ago. Finally it became clear that there wasn’t going to be a winner in the situation, and both sides decided that it was a stupid waste of time. They moved into the swamps after signing a treaty with us, to keep the peace.” Looking like she was about to hand Jasmine a gift, she leaned forward and told Jasmine, “Because of the symbionts, they live as long as we do.”

  Jasmine stared at her, ramifications and possibilities jogging through her mind. “Are they still there?”

  “Sure.” Rihlia leaned back, smiling with satisfaction. “I’m surprised that you didn’t see any.”

  Jasmine stared out her windows, watching the sunset gloss the sky over the sea fuchsia and gold. Her room had been thoroughly cleaned and Keilor’s stuff transferred back to his old quarters. The door was locked, and she was in the mood to reinforce her solitude with Sylph commands, if necessary.

  She would not be the one rejected this time.

  What a shame she hadn’t figured out Keilor’s game before she submitted to a “marriage” with him. Nice and tight, legal and binding, at least here, or so he’d led her to believe. Thanks to a little investigation on her part, though, she‘d discovered that wasn’t true. The bond they’d created together could be severed with about a year’s worth of abstinence.

  Tonight would be day one.

  No doubt Keilor would put up a fuss. Her lip curled. Honor or some sense of ownership would compel him, not affection. This morning had proven that.

  Keilor halted in shock when he saw the red rune of divorce on Jasmine’s door, between two unhappy guards, there for the world to see. It had taken most of the day to collect himself after the crippling blow the medic had dealt. To know that his wife could have his children, but to be unable to give them to her because of a law passed years ago...The devastation had nearly killed him, and he hadn’t been as kind to her as he should have been. There had been no way he could have explained that to her at the time, though. He’d hadn’t had the strength.

  Closing his eyes to still the fear and hurt that the sight of the rune caused, he stiffened his spine, prepared to erase the battle lines between them. As soon as that was done, he’d erase the cursed rune and get on with their lives as if it had never appeared.

  His loose hair brushed against his back as he called through the door to the wife that he knew still loved him. Knowing how much she loved it, he’d worn it loose for her. “Dragonfly?”

  “You have been served with a divorce, Lord Keilor, given by authority of the Lord Jayems on the basis of your refusal to provide your wife with heirs,” his wife’s cool voice answered. “It will not serve you to use that name now.”

  A cold rush flowed through him, but he forced the worst of it back. Jayems hadn’t had a choice. No doubt Jayems had already tried to dissuade her with the facts, but Keilor told her anyway, “There is a law against me doing so, as well, wife. The penalty for breaking it is fatal.” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, putting as much conviction in his voice as he could manage, “I would anyway, if a way could be found—”

  “There’s no law on my world,” Jasmine answered.

  Betrayal slapped him. How could she ask him to go to a place where his kind was hunted and feared? To give up the Haunt? What kind of life could he or their children have there? “I have no place on your world,” he answered, his voice taunt. “Is our desire to conceive children worth starting a war?”

  “Do you really want my answer to that?” came her flippant reply.

  “So speaks a woman who has never seen blood!” he snarled, pressing his palms to the door. “Have you ever been in battle, my lady? Ever shed the blood of someone whose only crime was to have been born different from you? I remember the Symbiont Wars. I will not be the cause of another.” Why could she not understand, he agonized. The very creature that gave him the ability to give her his child also made her his political enemy. Peace depended on strict segregation of two such volatile races, and as the Master of the Hunt, he couldn’t ignore that.

  “All the more reason to go our separate ways,” came the slightly shaky response.

  Hearing her uncertainty, he pressed, “I do want children, Jasmine. There is still no reason why we can’t adopt—” Something heavy slammed against the door, shaking it, and he snatched his hands away.

  “That’s not the issue!” she yelled back.

  “Then what is?” he roared, frustration getting the better of him. Thundering rains, what was her problem? No answer came, and he reached for the door. Enough of this. She was his wife!

  One of her guards, looking extremely unhappy, got in his way, and the other tensed in readiness. White-hot fury slashed through him as he realized he was legally bound to remain outside his own wife’s door until given permission to enter.

  Only a lifetime’s discipline kept him from thrashing the soldiers—his soldiers!—and doing it anyway.

  Instead, he banked his rage and called to his woman with the age old challenge of the wronged husband. “You are my wife, I am your husband. Promises given, promises taken, Jasmine. You will acknowledge me again, once and for all time. That is my promise.” The guards grinned fiercely and saluted him. Keilor nodded back and then spun on his heel.

  He had a battle to plan.

  Jasmine soon found out that she had no supporters. Her best friend wouldn’t speak to her, her adopted family was coldly polite, and all of Keilor’s friends, with the exception of Mathin, whose brooding face discouraged discourse, shunned her. Urseya was the only one willing to spend time in her presence, for the express and pointed purpose of fulfilling her promise to train Jasmine.

  Keilor did not ignore her. Everywhere she went, she felt his eyes on her, until she began to feel stalked. Two weeks went by,
but he never said a word to her, just joined her as she strolled in the gardens, watched her as she practiced with Urseya, or mounted his ugly brute of a stag when she chose to practice riding. He was as unshakable as the plague and as impervious to chill as a mountain.

  There was nothing cold about his eyes, however.

  Constantly she felt his eyes strip her, and they spoke eloquently of the touches that followed in his mind, torturing her with reminders of a desire that never died, only grew until it coalesced in a seething ball of fire that threatened to escape her command at any moment. Constantly she saw his eyes ignite and his nostrils flare as he drank deep of the scent of her desire. The sight caused her to tremble, and the tiniest of cracks appeared in her wall.

  All her life she’d wanted something of her own, something good that she’d created and that no one else could ever take away. Her logical mind began to nag at her that Keilor and her marriage was that something good, a creation worth saving, but her emotional self refused that logic, bringing the image to her again and again of Keilor’s face when he’d asked if the symbiont could be removed. He doesn’t want you. That other self whispered. He doesn’t really want anything of yourself, anything that you can give. Look how he behaved when offered the gift.

  Rejection. Humiliation. Old foes with heavy chains bound her. Days went by as she let them torture her, wallowing in emotional filth until she couldn’t remember what it was like to feel clean and bright and full of hope. Nausea began to plague her, and she didn’t want to eat. The exercise she forced on herself in her attempts to forget Keilor wore on her, and she took to sleeping until nearly noon.

  It wasn’t until three weeks into her emotional paralysis that she finally noticed how tender her breasts had become and recalled that her period should have occurred some time ago.

  Relief swamped her. The decision had been taken out of her hands. She was pregnant.

  There could be no divorce.

  Chapter 14

  Isfael slapped Keilor on the back, nearly sending him sprawling over the scarred tavern table he shared with Mathin. “I never doubted you for a second!” he told Keilor, grinning fiercely as he claimed a seat.

  A waitress set down a pitcher full of strong barley beer, avoiding Raziel who thumped Keilor with bruising enthusiasm. “I have only one question,” he said, spinning a chair around and straddling it. “What are you doing here when you could be bedding her?”

  “Who?” Keilor asked with a frown, totally in the dark and a little annoyed at the pounding. What were these fools going on about?

  “Your wife, you fool!” Raziel retorted, taking a swig of amber beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “The symbol’s off her door.”

  Keilor froze. It had still been there when he’d walked by, just an hour ago. “I didn’t see it.”

  Raziel smirked. “Well, you know now. The stubborn woman has finally come around. Go get her!”

  Wary, yet hopeful, Keilor rose from the table with the merry jests and naughty suggestions of his friends ringing in his ears. Could it really be this easy?

  Keilor entered his wife’s room as though it were his own, catching her unawares.

  Jasmine jumped and spun around to face him from her position at the fountain. “Keilor,” she said somewhat uncertainly. She flinched when he shut the door—hard.

  “You do realize,” he told her sternly, “that you only get one chance at divorce.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. Arms wrapped around herself, she shifted, causing the white satin of her dress to mold around her slack hip and thigh. “I...should not have....” She bit her lip and said in a rush, “I shouldn’t have done it, and it wasn’t fair—” she broke off, panting a little with nerves.

  His eyes narrowed with suspicion. He’d never seen Jasmine so rattled. Was she afraid? He allowed his eyes to drop for a moment, something he would never do with an enemy, in reassurance. “I told you once that I would never beat you.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “There are some things worse than beating.” Since she was looking at the floor, rubbing her arms, she missed his sharp look. “That first day, outside the clinic, I thought that since you were rejecting...other things,” her face spasmed, betraying pain, “It seemed clear to me that you had no real use for me, either. Other than the obvious,” she finished stiffly.

  Torn between compassion and anger, he scratched his neck, stalling his temper. “I explained myself.”

  “You did,” she jumped to agree. “But...what my ears hear and my brain understands doesn’t always make it to my...heart.” She spoke the word ‘heart’ with great difficulty, almost as if she’d rather skim over the entire explanation.

  “You doubt my love,” Keilor said, and her hesitation and heightened breathing set his teeth on edge. His left hand wrapped around his sword hilt, the index finger tapping out his displeasure. Did all married men suffer these grievances, or was he simply unlucky?

  Still, she refused to look at his face. “You warned me, so I won’t blame you if you don’t want—” Taking a shaky breath, she rushed out, “I’m pregnant already.” Finally she turned her white face to him.

  He stared at her belly, his thoughts stalled on that one word.

  She must have taken his dumbfounded expression completely wrong, for she blurted out, tears in her voice, “I can go back to my world and have the baby there, and you won’t have to worry about us messing up your life. Really. We—”

  She broke off as he drifted up to her, unable to take in her words at first. Realization of what she was saying hit just as his palm flattened over her stomach in wonder. His head snapped up. “You will do no such thing. I will not have my wife and child wandering around a hostile alien world without me. You are staying here, my child is staying here, and no more words will ever again cross your lips denying me my rights, do you understand?”

  Heartbreaking, bewildered eyes blinked at him. “You want us?” she whispered, as if a louder tone might break his trace and cause him to change his mind. “After what I did, you still—?”

  He crushed her to him, touching her for the first time in far too long. “Woman....” Words failed him. He stroked her hair, kissed the top of her head. “Dragonfly, I told you that I wanted children, didn’t I? Why would you think I would reject my own child?” She started to cry, and then he understood. Her mother.

  “Thundering rains.” He picked her up like a child and sat down on the couch with her in his lap. What damage had she suffered before coming to him? Stroking her hair in a soothing rhythm, he cradled her, saying, “I am Keilor, and no one who came before. You know me, Dragonfly. Would I do these things that you accuse me of?”

  A shuddering breath escaped her, and she shook her head against him, sniffing. “No.”

  He made her sit up and look at him. “Would I—no, look at me and don’t think of another,” he chided her when her gaze turned inward. “Would this man you know send his baby away? His son or his daughter? His wife?” he finished softly, letting a trace of the hurt he felt color his voice.

  “No,” she answered, just as softly, and rested her head against his. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “We’ll put it down to pregnancy. Breeding woman are known to do all manor of odd things.” She scowled at him, and he smiled, glad to see a return of her spirit. He stood up and carried her to the bed, laying her on top of the quilt and arranging the light blanket folded at the bottom over her. “Rest for a little while. I’ll be back to join you very soon, but first I have to speak to Jayems.” He kissed her. “I won’t be long.”

  “I won’t allow harm to come to them.”

  Jayems cocked his head. “Since when do you think I became capable of sentencing an innocent woman and an infant to death?” He smiled faintly. “Not to mention the trouble I would have just getting to her. I assume that you have Raziel and Isfael guarding her again?”

  Keilor nodded, smiling as he remembered the shock and relief, and then the congratulations that hi
s friends had offered. Isfael had teased him, thanking him for not getting her pregnant before their adventures in the swamp. If she’s this grumpy with her husband, I’d hate to think what we would have suffered with if she’d been breeding in the swamps.

  Serious again, he pointed out, “The others are not likely to support us, Jayems. The law is an old one.”

  “And foolish.” Jayems removed his feet from his desk and reached for a document on his desk. “Take a look at this,” he said, handing the sheaf of papers to Keilor.

  Keilor scanned it quickly. Brows raised, he asked, “Are they serious?”

  Jayems nodded. “The Symbiont people wish to open negotiations with the Haunt. If I send an affirmative reply, their representatives will be here within two weeks. Your wife would make the ideal ambassador,” he suggested.

  There was silence for a moment as Keilor considered the implications. The Haunt could hardly afford to alienate Jasmine under those circumstances. Unfortunately, if he were to allow her involvement, she would be exposed to much danger. Knightin had not been found. Yesande was on the loose, and his own people might very well attempt to kill her for the crime of carrying a half-breed child.

  He did not like his choices.

  Eyes closed, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t just keep her hidden away for the rest of her life. She deserved so much more, and for all he knew she’d love to be involved with the Ronin. “The choice shall be hers,” he finally said.

  Jasmine’s eyes got wide with delight. “You mean it?” she breathed. “The Ronin are coming here? I could really be an ambassador?” Keilor smiled in affirmation, and she hugged him with glee. “That’s great! Now I can finally be of some use around here. I’ve got to talk to Jayems,” she said and started to scramble from the bed.

  Keilor blocked her with his body and used it to lower her back down to the mattress. One of his knees rested between her thighs, and he allowed just enough of his weight to settle on her to make her eyes flare. “I’ve been married to you for three months now, yet have only shared your bed twice. Has that been enough for you?” he asked, his eyes smoking.