by Tia Reed
“It is Myklaan’s finest,” Matisse said, handing her a goblet of undiluted wine.
The first sip suffused her body, richer, sweeter, more potent than anything she had tasted in Terlaan. The food was a long time coming, and she found Matisse was refilling her goblet before Gahdri, the vineyard owner, had served the first succulent morsels of fish. She continued sipping the wine Matisse kept pouring. It was a way to divert her gaze from the intense blue of his eyes.
“I think you have had enough,” he said, pulling the goblet from her hand. “I do not wish to pass a dull afternoon because you have fallen asleep.”
“I think I could quite happily fall asleep,” she said, stretching out the drowsiness from wine and sun.
“I have a much better idea.” He leaned forward.
She anticipated the kiss, but not his gentle push, or him to lie beside her and brush a lock from her forehead. Then his lips were on hers again, gentle and undemanding, their touch diluting both the bickering of the other two and the strains of a rowdy ballad drifting from somewhere behind the hedges.
She heard the tinkle of Jordayne’s bracelets as she rose, pulling Drucilamere with her.
“This we need to settle once and for all,” the lady said, leading the mage to the vines.
In the sudden silence, Kordahla’s heart thudded in her ears. The servants, she noted, had retreated up the path. They were alone, and she was lying very close to a man who was not hesitating to make his feelings known. Who sat up and turned when she tensed so that his hands were placed one on either side of her. She lay at a disadvantage beneath him, tipsy from overindulgence and the tickle of the finger he ran up and down her arm. She wondered if she ought to sit up too.
“What are you afraid of? I shall not dishonour you,” Matisse said. Then that smile returned. “At least not until you ask me to.”
His hand slipped around her bare waist, to the small of her back. The touch of his skin on hers kindled the fire he had already awakened. Without thought, she raised her head ever so slightly, her lips apart. The invitation brought him down on her, his hungry mouth moving over hers, pressing again and again and she was returning his passion, surrendering herself to a fierce burning as his kisses rained over her face and down her neck to the small hollow at its base.
Abruptly, he stopped. Their breaths came heavy between them. She opened her eyes, not aware she had closed them. Aware, though, whatever his assurances, she was travelling a dangerous road. And yet, one small part of her had to swallow disappointment as he stood.
“Come on,” he said, his voice wound tight. He helped her up only to leave her far behind with his quick, heavy strides.
Unsure of herself, she followed. She caught up in a clearing crammed with peasants stomping on grapes in huge oak barrels as they lifted mugs of cheap wine to toast the minstrels among them. Before she could react, Matisse and Gahdri were lifting her into a barrel as someone else pulled the sandals from her feet. She squealed as grapes swished beneath her soles, lost her balance and toppled against the side. Laughing, Matisse jumped in after her. Juice oozing between her toes, she tried to walk to him, tripped over her long skirt and fell onto hands and knees. Juice splashed onto her face as she sank to her elbows, mouth open in shock.
“You are a delectable sight,” Matisse said, pulling her to her feet against his body. He wiped fruit off her face and licked his finger. “And if you mention how our clothes are ruined, I will rip them off you right here.”
Surprising herself, she laughed. The music, the wine, the sweet passion had combined into an intoxicating potion. “Just you try,” she said, and pushed him. He was too strong for her to topple but he returned in kind, sending her onto her behind with a splash. She grinned at him, extended a hand, and when he offered his, brought him down with a pull and a kick to the ankle. The peasants succumbed to a riot of laughter.
“I suppose you think this is funny,” he said, turning to face her. Whether by accident or design one hand had landed on her thigh, its press firm through the soaked fabric of her skirt. She gazed into his eyes, hardly able to complain since she had pulled him down. Not sure she wanted to anyway.
“Very,” she replied, for the first time relaxed in his presence despite the inappropriacy.
He clambered to his feet, hauling her up so her breasts pressed against his chest. It was no liberty if it was merely so that he could steady her.
“I am glad.” he said and whirled her around the barrel before lifting her out and taking her back to Lake Tejolin to bathe as best they could.
Soaking and stained, they boarded the barge. Clothes dishevelled, faces flushed, Jordayne and Drucilamere reappeared from behind the myrtle hedge. They sat quiet and apart in the boat as it headed north to Kaijoor, but their sombre mood failed to infect. Happier than she had been in a long while, Kordahla leaned against Matisse, enjoying the feel of his hands around her, the light strokes of his fingers on her arm, the occasional kiss on her neck, the rarer one on her lips.
He left her in the palace with a brief kiss. Still damp, she waltzed down the vaulted hall in the daze of a daydream where Matisse proposed to her and Father bestowed a blessing. Why she turned into the wrong hall, she would never be able to say. But she had, and she had seen them. Rochelle, framed in a doorway, her nipples erect under a sheer top, her pale hair fanning over her shoulders. And Matisse, who, an incredible hunger in his eyes, had gone to her, his arousal evident. The lady invited him in with a twist of her shoulders, and Matisse, that infuriating smile on his lips, pushed open her door with the flat of his hand. Crushed, Kordahla had fled to her lavish, empty room, refusing to join Ordosteen for dinner and ignoring Timak’s tentative hand on her own as she sat facing the arched windows, allowing the perfumed night to gather its shadows around her.
“Why are you sad?” Timak had asked. He was acting as a page, running messages around the palace.
“I miss my little brother,” she had replied.
“Will you go home?”
“I hope not.” She had looked at him then, aware she hadn’t given him a second thought since arriving in Kaijoor. Colour had returned to his cheeks but he was far from robust. “Do you want to go home?”
“I want to be with my mother and father.”
“Matisse could arrange an escort for you to the Mykver Pass.”
Even as she wondered why she named Matisse, the boy had backed away. Even in the twilight she saw he was trembling.
“He will find me,” Timak had said.
That day – yesterday – she had stared at nothing, sitting in much the same way she was standing now among the ghosted shadows the flickering candle was throwing across the cream tiles of the walls. “Then I suppose we are both stuck here for the same reason,” she had said. She had not even noticed when he crept away.
She steadied herself with a hand on the bedpost. She was deluding herself if she believed Matisse was interested in courting her. The idyllic scenes painted on bedhead and dresser were a romantic’s dream. A conquest. That was how Rochelle had described her. All Lord Matisse’s attention had been designed to entice her into his arms, with no regard for what it might cost her if Shah Ordosteen reneged on his promise.
Chapter Forty-six
A commotion of raised voices. A sudden chill in the air. Then, a panicked cry of djinn.
In a daze, Kordahla turned toward the balcony. The doors burst open and the indigo djinn whizzed inside. He flew around and around her, his legs blurring into smoke, until she was so dizzy that, crying out, she fell to the marble floor.
“Fool,” the djinn roared. “Imbecile. Do I have to do everything for you?”
“I don’t have it,” Kordahla said. She was shivering uncontrollably. “I don’t have anything called Xander.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. Her silk robe slid against her skin, slippery as the djinn.
He loomed above her, shimmering in Dindarin’s light, his slippered feet just off the floor. “You do nothing to earn that gift.”
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br /> “Why are you here?” Was there no end to the demands placed on her?
“I overexert myself to deliver you a chance at happiness and all you do is wallow in self-pity. Why? Because the second most important person in the realm is paying you both too much and not enough attention.”
“I am who I am.”
“Get up, you ungrateful wretch. The floor ill becomes a princess, even one of fleas.”
She swayed, too fearful, too miserable to do as he asked. “Please go.” This supernatural haunting was more than she could bear. “Just go.”
His large hands gripped her and hauled her up so she was forced to look into his ugly face, at his cruel, vermillion eyes and jagged black hair. Only it was not his face. It was Matisse’s, indigo and larger than life, and exuding that stomach-churning, fish-tainted smell. With a wicked sneer, he kissed her full on the lips. She struggled, but he kept her pinned, dragging his sickening, sloppy touch on and on. She wanted to die from the humiliation as his lips worked down her neck, reminding her of how horrid a man’s uninvited touch could be, how close she had come to being violated. The moon was witness to this travesty. Dindarin was but a crescent, half hidden by the lintel, but He could see.
“Stop.”
He pushed her back, hard enough that she stumbled into the door. She huddled over, trying to rub the goosebumps of cold disgust from her arms. The djinn floated towards her, his shimmering, leering face his own.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned, working to free the bolt. Her breath puffed into the icy room, speckled by the glint of the gold tiles.
“You like it when that womanising layabout kisses you. Admit it, you grovelling speck.”
“What if I do?” she said, self-loathing rising.
Lips puckered, he advanced on her. She was forced to back toward the bed or suffer another of his violations.
“You entice him with your beauty, allow him to fondle your ripe body, then bar him from your room.”
“You’ve been spying on me.”
“What if I have? You owe me your life.” He smacked his lips, blew her a fishy kiss.
She circled. “Xander. Something called Xander. That’s all I owe you, and I don’t have it.”
He pointed, all the joints in his arm aglow. “You play games. He kisses you, you kiss him back. He touches you, you touch him back.”
“No! I never.”
There was a pounding at the door. Alarmed voices called her name. She edged toward them but the indigo djinn, his face flickering between that of Matisse and his own, floated right past her and barred her way.
“Keep away from me.”
“You are mine till you repay me, foolish girl. And repay me you will.”
The djinn turned up his palm and blew. Sparkling motes showered her, encasing her in a shimmering haze. She shuddered as they faded, only this time it was not with cold. That deep yearning in her blood was piquing, that memory of Matisse’s lips on her own. Its tingle was as pleasant as the djinn’s kiss was foul.
“Keep away,” she whispered under the continued pounding at the door.
The djinn whipped around her. She huddled into herself, dreading his touch. His hot breath tickled her ear, and sent shudders of revulsion down her spine. She hated herself for whimpering, but Vae’oenka spare her this rapid shift between elation and disgust.
“You insect. The heir to the throne takes an interest in you and you send him into the arms of another.
“I cannot give him what he seeks.”
“After all he has done for you. You ingrate. You cruel temptress.”
The candle on the dresser flickered and went out. Dindarin ascended beyond the top of the doors. The room darkened. Her breath caught in her throat. “Go.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
He blew on her, a warm fishy puff that fired passion into her blood.
Wood cracked. She jumped. The door flung open. Malicious laughter echoed off the walls as people stormed into the room.
“Enjoy him while you can,” the djinn sneered, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Teeth chattering, she stood in the centre of the room as they crowded her, queried her, sympathised until tears welled in her eyes. By Vae’oenka, she wished they would all go. Alone she might weather these fiery feelings, regain a modicum of the dignity she had abandoned the night she fled Tarana. She clutched her arms tighter to her, unable to look at them, saved from needing to under the cloak of darkness.
“Kordahla.” Matisse’s arms encircled her. “By the Vae, you are shivering like a leaf in a gale.” His hand tilted her chin so she was forced to look at his shadowed face. “Did the djinn harm you?” he asked.
The concern in his eyes was her undoing. She sobbed as she shook her head. Was grateful for the cloak Rochelle had found to drape around her shoulders, though she forgot to utter her thanks.
Ordosteen took one of her hands. “He was indigo. With vermillion eyes,” the Shah said, in what was neither question nor statement.
She nodded.
“The mage saw the taint of his kind about you. Has the creature tricked you into a pact?” he asked, a deep, gentle understanding in his eyes.
There was a collective hush as they waited on her answer. She saw no point in denying it. A haunting was bound to make them suspicious, make them question the wisdom of harbouring her.
“He saved me from a bazwaeel in the scums.”
“What did he demand in return?” The gentleness was still there, though there was an edge to Ordosteen’s voice. The Shah needed to know his people, his family was safe. She understood, and was glad she could ease his mind.
“He lays claim to a gift I will not want.”
“Did he tell you what that was?”
“No, he did not. I am sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said, a tear trickling down her cheek.
“My dear, I think there was nothing else you could have done,” the Shah said, rubbing her hand. “But the djinn rarely collect on a pact the way we imagine they will. Whatever the creature intimated, you will pay a dear price for his help.” He was staring beyond her, just as she had gazed through the walls, a haunted look in his eyes. Rochelle’s words drifted back to her, the ones she had, in a fever of jealousy, ignored. You cannot outsmart the djinn. The recognition came, then, how deeply this shah was indebted to one, most probably this one, indigo with vermillion eyes. She felt a fleeting rush of compassion give way to fear. In Shah Ordosteen’s eyes she might be little more than a pawn to barter for his happiness. Had she fled Father’s schemes only to fall prey to those of a foreign ruler? Her trembling grew worse. She put a hand over her mouth as bile rose in her throat.
“Enough, Uncle. You are scaring her witless,” Matisse said. His arms were still around her. These men, these strangers, were standing so close. Inside her, the fire was rising again.
“She needs rest,” Rochelle said, drawing Ordosteen away. “We will have the servants bring in a cot. Your handmaid can keep you company tonight, Princess Kordahla. You should not be alone.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, looking Matisse in the eye. They were alone, and he was holding her, and she was not speaking about the pact.
“Hush, Kordahla. From what I have heard of the bazwaeel, you would be dead if you had not acquiesced to the djinn’s demands.” He stroked her hair from her face. There was an emotion she could not read on his but it was as if he was at war with his feelings. “I’ll send your page to you.” When he released her, disappointment cut through her like a knife.
“Don’t go.” She was breathing way too fast.
Matisse looked her up and down. “I don’t think the djinn will bother you again tonight.”
“He kissed me,” she whispered, and shuddered at the foul memory.
“That could not have been pleasant.” He made no attempt to come closer, but neither did he have a trace of that mocking smile about him.
She took the initiative. Stepped right up to him so she had to look up to see his
face. “Don’t leave me with the taste of him on my lips.”
“If I ever learn his name, he will pay for that liberty.”
His arms slipped around her waist. She shuddered again. By Vae’oenka, this burning was like an insatiable hunger. He was standing there, making no move. Goddess, could he want to be with Rochelle? Rising onto tiptoe, she kissed him on the mouth. He responded at once, and her hands were in his hair, and his were moving up and down her back. His scent, spicy and masculine, mixed with the frangipani wafting up through the open balcony doors. Together, they drove away the taint of the djinn, and her mouth moved harder, faster, erasing all memory of the revolting creature’s touch.
Too soon he was breaking them apart. She stood panting, eyes wide in disbelief at what she had done.
“Is the taint of him gone?” She heard the smile in his words, and knew the corners of his lips had curved.
“Almost,” she breathed, scarcely believing what she was inviting.
Smile growing, Matisse crossed to the door, had a word with the guards now stationed outside, and closed it. She swallowed, unable to move, unable to speak.
This time he came to her. His hands travelled inside the wide sleeves of her nightgown as he bent to kiss her, and his touch sent shivers of delight down her body.
“Let me help you forget,” he murmured.
Then his mouth was travelling over her face. Closing her eyes, she revelled in the warmth of his kisses. When his hand tugged at the laces of her gown, and slid down to her breast, it felt so right. She reached for him, her own hand moving inside his kurta, over his shoulders, up to his head. Then her gown was at her ankles and his own clothes were on the floor and somehow he had moved her to the bed. His teasing hands and mouth roused her to unbearable ecstasy so that she thought she would explode until he joined with her in a climax she had never dreamed was possible. And at the height of it all, her name was on his lips, and it had never sounded so sweet.