Pleasure

by Jacquelyn Frank

  The twins quietly waited.

  Senator Jericho stood up to be recognized, and Malaya darted a look and sly smile to Guin. She’d said it would be him, and Guin had laid bets on Angelique. It looked like Malaya was going to get her night of total servitude quite soon. Guin returned the acknowledgment softly, his eyes flashing hot with promise at her.

  “My Lady, are we to assume this is an indication of our need for glorious celebration because you have already selected a mate for your joining?”

  Malaya stood up, moved to the front rail beside the podium, and, laying her hands on the railing, she leaned toward the assemblage, and toward Jericho in particular.

  “Ajai Jericho, before I respond to your observant query, I should like to pose a question to you first.”

  “By all me—”

  “I should like to know if you are ill, Ajai.”

  “I—Ill? No, of course not,” he said with a bit of bluster that his virility and vitality were being questioned.

  “You are unaffected by a memory illness?” she pushed further.

  “No, My Lady. I am in perfect health and of quite sound mind.”

  “Hmm. Very well then, We shall have to assume then that your refusal to use Our proper title is an act of blatant disrespect and We must dole out sanctions accordingly. You are hereby commanded by your Chancellors to absent yourself from all Senate proceedings for the remainder of the season. During this time you are to reflect on your behavior and on Our intolerance of it in the future. We also suggest you practice saying K’yatsume quite often, because if you make the error when you return next season, you will be banned and excommunicated altogether from the Senate for the remainder of your life.”

  There were several gasps and Jericho was entirely apoplectic. Angelique shot up to speak, but Malaya cut her off.

  “Any complaints, whining, or outright bitching about this choice from within the forum will be ignored and found irritating to Us. If We are irritated, We have decided to be equally severe against those who cause said irritation.”

  That said, Malaya turned with regal posture and returned to her seat. The twins waited as a furious Jericho was escorted from the Senate by two city guards. Malaya turned to her lover and inclined her head. She had just given him his engagement present. Guin had told her how much he despised that she allowed such disrespect, and she had agreed it was time to do something about it. She wouldn’t let another Acadian ever mistake her for being weak again.

  Once Jericho was gone, Tristan stood and addressed the assemblage from the podium.

  “Anai, Ajai, I announce to you my sister’s engagement and give you her fiancé of choice.”

  Tristan went to sit down and the room stirred with eager curiosity as everyone waited for the chosen man to appear. They looked around themselves to see who was moving to the royal booth or who was missing from their ranks. Then, once they were all quiet and watching raptly forward, Guin sharply snapped his heels together, the sound ricocheting around the rotunda along with his sharp footsteps as he crossed to take his seat beside Malaya. He arranged his weapons a moment, then reached for the hand of his woman and, lacing his fingers through with hers, he brought her knuckles to his lips as their eyes met with intensity of emotion.

  The room exploded.

  Guin briefly closed his eyes as he took the brunt of the assault of outrage, shock, and blatant hostility from the gathered nobles. When he opened them again, he could see the disappointment in Malaya’s eyes, even though her expression remained mostly passive. Senators began to shout up to the royal balcony, their anger striking like whips.

  Suddenly, Malaya jolted out of her seat and shouted at the top of her voice.

  “How dare you?”

  “How dare you, K’yatsume?” Angelique shouted back, forcing the audience to simmer down. “How dare you place that barbarian in a seat of state and threaten the sanctity of your royal bloodlines with his ordinary seed? You think to breed our future rulers with this?” She gestured to Guin with absolute disgust radiating from her every pore. “It is an insult to us and a mockery of your honorable position!”

  “You sanctimonious bitch!” Malaya growled out as she stormed up to the railing. “All of you! Sitting there thinking how much better you are than those in the lower levels of this city. No wonder they despise our position in life! Not because we have it so good, but because we’ve forgotten where we have come from! Who are you all but defeated clan elders my brother and I were hoping would mature enough to bring the needs of their people to our attention? Instead you waste time trying to jockey for power over me and inflicting an archaic law on me about marriage and succession. What of those who go hungry in your provinces? What of those who are being hunted and picked off by larger and more powerful enemies than we have ever known before? What of telling me their feelings about the other Nightwalker clans’ offer to make a summit of peace with us? Or to develop a policing system? You had all of the off season to circulate these items of interest. Instead of pursuing these important issues, you are all trying to prove your…your dicks are bigger than ours!”

  The collective gasp that rushed the risers was priceless. Guin covered his mouth to hide his grin, and Tristan was coughing into his hand to camouflage a laugh.

  “And you dare to call Guin ordinary in any way? After the unheard-of dedication he has invested in Our safety and this throne? This man is the greatest warrior of our time and you call him ordinary? I crave the children of a man of such strength and character!” She held a hand out and open in his direction. “Big, healthy babies, protected by a father who will never stop watching over them, and inborn with the determination to always strive to be better than what they are every single moment.

  “And you treat that as a taint to me? As if any of you would be so much better? You give me names of fifteen men, most of whose barbarism during the wars would make them unpalatable to a rhinoceros! One is distinctly homosexual, so I’d like to see how I am supposed to conceive any blue-blooded children with him, and those who were even passable enough to consider would be like straw beside me on my throne. Here I bring you a man of powerful ideals, in touch with the thoughts and needs of the common people you all are supposed to be serving, and a warrior who could protect our city and our people with his vast experience.

  “Let me also add the one thing no one else could or would be able to provide me. His absolute and loyally dedicated love for me. Everything he is today is because of how he loves me. Who he became and how he acted constantly to see I was safe, happy, and well was all because he loved me with every minute of every day. And yet he would have sacrificed his heart, run the dagger through it himself, if he thought I could be happier elsewhere. And you wish me to turn my back on that because…because his blood is not noble enough for you?

  “Please,” she scoffed at them. “Half of you were hiding from the sun in dark hovels before the wars, amusing yourselves by pulling children’s tricks on unsuspecting others. Noble what? Noble partiers? How impressive you all must have been, dancing and fornicating day in and day out and taking potshots at your neighboring clans just for a change of pace! You really want to play this hand? You really want to see which of us has the bigger tool? By all means, stand and defend your reasoning. Argue until you are blue in the face. But I warn you now, you will be talking to yourselves. Tristan and I have agreed that there is no better man for me in this culture, and when it comes right down to it, Senators, nothing you say or do can change that. And if you think to rouse trouble among the commoners…”

  Malaya paused to smile with wicked pleasure.

  “Go right ahead,” she invited. “I’d like to see how many of them will complain that their queen has chosen one of their own, without prejudice, to love and marry and breed their future rulers with.”

  Malaya left her position with a sharp about-face, walked up to Guin, and then, her body and attitude suddenly softening into visible warmth and tenderness, she bent over his lap to kiss him warmly. The
n she took his hand and brought him out of his seat. Holding his fingers tightly between hers, she brought him forward.

  “Anai, Ajai,” she said evenly, “I present to you my husband-to-be, Ajai Guin. Guin, would you like to say something to the assemblage to mark the beginning of your role in this monarchy?”

  “Yeah.” Guin turned and glared into the risers. “I’m warning you now. Don’t fuck with me.”

  Guin drew Malaya close to his body and kissed her slowly and warmly. Then they turned and exited the balcony and, as promised, wouldn’t listen to a single argument against them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You were amazing,” Guin said on quick, escalating breaths.

  “So were you.” She laughed against his mouth. Guin kissed her again and again, her head held between his hands and her body pressed between his and the door of the small meeting room. “And I should have known.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He chuckled.

  “The Senate. I should have known you’d want to do me in the Senate.”

  “I want to do you everywhere and every way I can possibly think up. And when I’m done thinking up stuff on my own, I’m going to read lots and lots of books.”

  “You don’t like to read.” She laughed.

  “For this I will make an exception. Although I will start with ones that have pictures first. Just to make it easier, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  There was a sharp rap at the door that vibrated through Malaya and made her go still for a moment beneath his mouth.

  “We’re going to ignore that, right?” Guin asked.

  “Mm-hmm,” she agreed, smiling as she kissed him to prove it.

  The knock came harder the second time, the sensation annoying to the lovers, who preferred to concentrate on other things. Guin growled in his irritation.

  “Welcome to my world.” Malaya giggled. “Wait and see. It’s much different being my guard as opposed to regent. You realize they are actually going to assign someone to guard you now, don’t you?”

  Guin pulled her away from the door, moving her aside as he grabbed for the knob.

  “Over my dead body,” he groused as he jerked the door open. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of—”

  The draw and plunge of the dagger into his chest was so fast that he barely reacted in time to draw up a fist, stopping the blade from sinking all the way to the hilt as he spoiled the attacker’s full thrust into him by the width of his closed hand.

  Still, half of an eight-inch dagger was enough to do serious damage, and considering how true the aim had been for his heart, Guin fell back in shock and hit the floor hard. Lodged in bone and heart muscle, the blade came with him, protruding from him as he stared at it for a stunned moment. He realized that he could actually see the beat of his heart vibrating up the blade and hilt.

  Malaya screamed so loudly that it drew everyone within reach. The guards had already tackled the attacker and were holding her down on the floor as Malaya fell to her knees by Guin’s body.

  “Drenna save us! Guin!” she cried out, the terror and heartache filling her voice and her horrified eyes, making him reach to grab hold of her any way he could manage. But she was on his left and his coordination was deteriorating as he lost feeling in that arm. “Oh, Guin,” she sobbed, leaning over him and, for a moment, unable to figure out where to touch him. “Somebody help him!” she screamed.

  “Too late! Now you’ll see what power the Senate can really have over you!” Angelique grunted out from beneath the weight of the guards holding her. “Did you really think we would let this abomination take place?”

  Malaya turned through her tears as an overwhelming rage possessed her.

  “Give me a blade! Give me a blade!” she screeched as she scrabbled over the floor toward the prone Senator. She rammed through the guards, fighting off the hands trying to stay her as she lunged for Angelique’s throat. “Give me a blade or I’ll flay her with my bare nails! Give me a blade!”

  It was Killian who kneeled across from her and offered her a dagger over the body of her enemy.

  “K’yatsume, I am ever at your service,” he said softly. “But realize that while you spend time doing what others can do for you, you are wasting what may be very, very precious time with your mate.”

  Malaya already had her hand on the weapon when Killian’s observation penetrated her fury and struck its mark in her heart. She pulled her hand back and covered her mouth as tears poured down her cheeks. She whirled back toward Guin and crawled quickly back to his side.

  By this time he was starting to gasp for breath, his coloring shading with tones of blue. They fumbled together to clasp hands and Malaya held the joined weaving of their fingers tightly to her breast.

  “Guin,” she said, struggling to control her emotions. “My Guin. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

  “I told you…” he gasped, “they wouldn’t…like it.”

  “And I told you I don’t care. I’ll never care. I love you. That’s all that matters.” She turned when Tristan slammed into the doorway, starting to call her name but stopping when he saw her on her knees next to her dying bodyguard. “Tristan! Please! We need healers. Please.”

  “They’ve already called for them, K’yatsume,” Killian informed them. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “How in Light did this happen?” Tristan demanded of the guards around him.

  “She said she needed to apologize for…” The guard stopped when he saw M’itisume’s furious eyes. “We always…Guin was with K’yatsume.”

  Tristan understood what that meant. It meant they were so used to Guin protecting Malaya so well that they had not even considered she might be in any danger. They hadn’t taken Guin’s safety into account at all. And why would they? Guin had been a force of impenetrable protection for decades.

  Tristan watched his twin sister bending over the prone body of her lover, her tears falling onto him as she tried to speak words of comfort to him. His heart twisted and lurched in sympathetic pain for her. He knew how much she felt for Guin. He was keenly aware of it enough to have even felt a twinge of jealousy when she had told him she was going to marry him. Whether he was jealous of her or jealous of Guin he hadn’t had time to figure out. It had been a petty emotion and not worthy of their relationship, so he had discarded it and wished her well while promising his complete support. He had known Guin would take the best of care with her and that no one would love her better.

  Now he was watching their hard-won union crumble because of twisted elitist prejudice. Guin had known they would reject him, but none of them could have anticipated something like this. Certainly not this quickly. But taking notes from Julius Caesar, Angelique had done the deed swiftly and publicly, not by skulking around with assassins and plots. As if that would give the message a more powerful punch.

  Except that had been a conspiracy of many and, so far, all they could see here was a criminal acting on her own bigotry. Malaya had infuriated the Senator several times over, first by banishing her known lover from the Senate in public humiliation, then by slapping her down repeatedly in front of her peers. It had also been made very clear how Angelique had felt about Guin’s placement among the royals.

  Very clear, indeed.

  “Oh my gods, I beg you with all that I am to save this man. Please, Drenna, do not take him from me now. Don’t punish me, M’gnone, for the vanity and self-centeredness that made me waste his precious love for me. I beg you—” Malaya sobbed in a way that Tristan felt all the way to his everlasting soul. “Please. Oh, please…”

  “Don’t…my honey…” Guin managed in staccato bursts of breath. “These days…were…worth everything…to me.”

  “I love you and I know you love me,” she said as she bent to kiss his forehead again and again. Like a mantra, she kept repeating the words. “I love you and I know you love me.”

  “And your gods love you very much, K’yatsume.”

>   Malaya turned her face to the door and her body rippled with the stiffening of surprise.

  “M’jan Sagan,” she breathed.

  The priest was rushing with breath, having run every step from Sanctuary when he had heard of the tragedy unfolding in the Senate.

  “It’s just Ajai Sagan, now,” he corrected her gently as he moved into the room. “I’m no longer a priest. And here is my reason why.”

  From behind his back he drew forward a pale, prettyish little redheaded woman with Caribbean blue eyes that were wide with everything she was seeing around her.

  Sagan had disappeared, had been presumed dead, after the battle with Nicoya for control of Sanctuary. The priest known for his solitary ways and his fierce love of discipline had been one of the best penance priests in Sanctuary’s history. He could dole out penance and ultimate punishment with dark efficiency and had remained ever faithful to his gods and the Shadowdweller people he protected from sin.

  But history had made them leery of thinking Sagan was dead because his body had never been found. Everyone who recalled how they had once mistaken Trace to be dead, only to have him end up Acadian’s toy for so long, realized that it was a hard possibility the as-yet-unidentified creature had him in her dungeons.

  Now Malaya recalled Magnus coming to them and telling them about this girl. This human girl. He had reported Sagan’s story of how Acadian’s men had kidnapped him after Nicoya had gotten through poisoning him and, on their way to wherever Acadian had instructed them to bring him, they had stopped at a cabin owned by this human girl, threatening her into defending herself with…