A distant part of her mind protested this careless cluttering of the floor, but the warmth of his body invited her to step in instead of away to pick it up. She slid her arms around his waist and delighted in pressing her bare chest against his. Something between a growl and a rumble of pleasure reverberated in his throat, and he, too, embraced her.
His lips captured hers once more, the uncertainty replaced with surety and desire. And a willingness to please that might have brought her to tears if her body wasn’t so busy responding… His lips strayed from her mouth to tease their way down the side of her neck, then to flesh far more sensitive and alive than that.
How long had she dreamed of this? She buried her face in his hair, this time not hesitating to inhale, to breathe in his scent. It had taken so much to get here; she wouldn’t deny herself these simple things now.
He turned, his arms around her to keep her from falling—as if she would have let go so that could happen. Two steps and she was on the bed, the soft fur blanket against her bare back contrasting with his hard body against her chest and between her legs. Her hands roamed, delighting in what she’d never dared do before, to taste what she’d never dared taste.
Sicarius rose to his elbows, meeting her eyes again. “Do you trust me?”
The question surprised her. She’d been so pleased that he trusted her… It hadn’t occurred to her that he would wonder if she felt the same way. A monster, he’d called himself more than once. A dangerous monster. Did he wonder if she’d be afraid of being so vulnerable before him?
“Yes. With my life.” She hesitated—he knew that—and added, “With everything.”
His pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. Their eyes held for a long time, and she decided it didn’t matter if he never grew into someone who would share his every thought; if he simply looked at her like that… it was already more than she’d ever expected from him.
“Don’t you think we’re a little overdressed?” She glanced down. “Though I see you did find a moment to take your boots off. Was that before or after you unbuttoned my shirt?”
“After.”
His hand drifted downward from her face, as did his gaze, and she stifled an embarrassed urge to drag a fur over herself. He’d seen her naked before, but she’d never been one to flaunt her body even before she’d earned the makarovi scars on her abdomen. She couldn’t help but think, too, of the various beautiful women she’d seen express their attraction for him over the last year. But there was nothing disappointed in his eyes or in his hands, as their caresses drew shivers and promised there’d be more to come.
“I have,” he murmured, as he helped her remove her trousers, “longed for the moment when I could openly look at you… and touch.”
Yes, looking and touching were definitely more thrilling than that pretending not to look when he strolled past with his shirt off after an exercise session, with his chest gleaming in the morning sun. “Oh?” she asked. “Was there un-open looking before?”
“Yes.”
She was more than a little titillated at the idea of him lusting after her from afar—all this time, she hadn’t known if he had any urges whatsoever, or if he sublimated them along with the rest of his feelings. She ran her hand up his arm, along his shoulder, and to the back of his neck. “What did you think of doing while you were looking?”
“Much. Often.”
Amaranthe snorted softly. Terse and cryptic, as always, but it was enough to excite her imagination. She no longer felt embarrassed by his appraisal, but intrigued by it. She dug her fingers into his hair, and whispered, “Show me.”
As if he’d been awaiting the command, he lowered his head for another kiss, this one less playful and more intense, his desire blatant and hungry. She opened up to him, wanting him to enjoy this as much as she was, hoping her enthusiasm would please him, as his surely did her.
She slid her fingers down his back, relishing the restrained power quivering beneath the surface, and helped him out of his trousers. He would have managed it himself eventually, she was sure, but his hands—and his lips and teeth too—were busy attending to her, sparking her own desire.
When they came together at last, it was as much a binding as a release. Oh, he’d call it something prosaic like a biological necessity being fulfilled, but his caresses, his soft kisses, the way he watched her eyes for signs of discomfort or distress, the way he smiled ever so slightly when she cried out his name… it all meant more to him than biology. She could tell, even if he didn’t say a word.
Once she’d likened Sicarius to a caged tiger, too dangerous to keep around if one didn’t want people hurt. Others had called him a trained dog, ready to kill at the drop of a flag. He was neither of course. He was a human being. One scarred by life, by fate. Just like her.
Once, she’d chastised herself for being attracted to the “amoral assassin,” but she’d been as much of a different person then as he had. This journey they’d survived together… it wouldn’t make sense to be at the end of it with anyone else. Not the end, she decided, but the beginning.
“Tears?” he asked, lying atop her, his weight propped on his elbows, though she’d claimed him with her legs and her arms, not ready to let him withdraw.
She hadn’t realized the tears were running down the sides of her flushed face until he caught them with the backs of his fingers. He kissed her eyes, a hint of a crinkle to his brow, worry that he’d done something to hurt her. She shook her head and smiled—funny that he’d worry about that now after all the times he’d ordered another torturous lap around the obstacle course or an impossible number of chin-ups.
“What?” Amaranthe asked. “You’ve never had women so overcome by your tender ardor that they wept?”
His eyebrows didn’t twitch, but he scrutinized her, and she imagined him calculating the appropriateness of various witty responses and rejecting all of them. “No.”
“Huh. Maybe I’m odd.”
His features softened. “Yes.”
“Though the tales of eld often speak of women being enraptured by doting paramours eager to go along with their every word, there are times when I wouldn’t mind you disagreeing with me.” Doting paramours? Tales of eld? Erg. During all those times she’d dreamed of being snuggled up with Sicarius in post-coital rapture, she’d imagined much more intelligent pillow talk.
“Your chattiness implies that your breathing has returned to normal,” he observed.
Amaranthe squinted at him. “You’ve said those words before, always during training, usually when I think we’ve completed our workout, only to find you have more rounds, sets, or repetitions in mind.”
“You’re not tired, are you?” Mischievousness lurked in his eyes.
“No,” she said automatically, having long since learned that admitting to weariness would win her no leniency, only an admonition that she must improve her stamina.
“Good, I’d like to acquaint you with my tender ardor several more times before dawn.”
“Acceptable,” she said, mimicking his tone from earlier, though she held a hand up before he could lower his lips for a fresh kiss. “But there’s one thing we simply must tend to first.”
His eyebrows lifted.
Amaranthe slid to the edge of the bed and groped about, having a vague recollection of hearing a clink earlier. Ah, yes. There. She retrieved the scissors and waved them triumphantly. “It’s a testament to your lovemaking skills that your crooked bangs didn’t distract me earlier, but we’re going to have to fix that before going another round.”
• • •
Sicarius walked hand-in-hand with Amaranthe through the Emperor’s Preserve toward a bier placed in a clearing made white with fresh snow. A waist-high bed of branches waited beside it, along with several of their comrades. It was a much smaller gathering of people than had appeared for the morning’s public ceremony to mourn all of those who had fallen during the Time of Incertitude, as some etymology-loving journalist had tagged it.
Having accepted Books’s death, and reacquainted himself with the notion that there was little fairness in a universe that would prematurely end the life of a professor while sparing that of a murdering assassin, Sicarius had little interest in this public sendoff. He would have preferred to spend the morning in bed with Amaranthe, though he was mollified—and pleased—that she hadn’t let go of his hand during the earlier ceremony. Though he’d admittedly been the aloof one over the last year, she’d always been quick to hide any displays of affection when the rest of the team was around, and he’d wondered if she’d simply wanted to appear professional, or if she’d been reluctant to show others that she’d fallen in love with a cold-hearted killer. This seemed not to be the case though, for she’d not let him wander far at any point that day, the handgrip an open claim for all to see.
Basilard saw them approaching and walked over to give Amaranthe a hug. He looked like he might offer the same to Sicarius, but extended his hand instead. Sicarius clasped it and let go.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around these last couple of days, Bas,” Amaranthe said, though Sicarius didn’t see why she felt compelled to apologize for the fact. “I’ve been mourning… or sulking.” She shrugged. “Something of that ilk.”
Basilard let his gaze fall to their clasped hands. Oh?
“I mean, I wasn’t mourning the whole time. Just until last night. Someone convinced me to stop. Not that you care. Or should. Uhm.” Amaranthe’s blush drew a smile from Basilard.
Sometimes Sicarius found it incongruous that Amaranthe had no trouble leading men into battle and jumping into the fray herself with all manner of self-poise and confidence, but that she tripped over her tongue in abashment when the matter of her relationships and feelings came up. Of course, he had his own difficulties in that area. The night before… it hadn’t mattered a speck to him if his hair were cut—more than once that morning he’d caught himself rifling his fingers through it in an attempt to find the defiant tousle again—but he hadn’t possessed the courage to knock on Amaranthe’s door without that pretext. Despite Starcrest’s talk, and the knowledge that she should be the last person to dismiss him out of some disdainful moral superiority, he’d worried that she might change her mind in the end. Her shy stroking while she’d been tending his hair and her covert glances at his chest had relieved him. Once he’d been certain of her desire, the rest had come naturally, though he’d wondered at one point if he was being overeager to please, having few other ways to let her know how much her loyalty—how much she—had meant to him this past year. But she’d never protested or teased. Indeed, the memory of her enthusiastic responses to his touch pleased him greatly. To care about the woman one shared physical intimacy with was a new and delicious experience. The memory filled him with satisfaction and… completeness. And an urge to steal off into the trees with her and to do it all again.
Basilard was watching him with an amused quirk to his lips, and Sicarius wondered if his inattention to his facade had allowed a few of these thoughts to slip out. He decided it didn’t matter. With these people, he no longer worried about threats or betrayal.
“What are your plans?” Amaranthe asked Basilard. “It seems that our outlaw-mercenary efforts won’t be needed here any more.”
“Outlaw?” Sicarius murmured. “I thought you’d upgraded us to revolutionaries.”
“True, but I’m hoping revolutionaries won’t be needed any more either.”
I want to return to my homeland for a time, Basilard signed. To find my daughter and make sure she is well, and… He glanced at Sicarius and shrugged, then gave a single nod to Amaranthe.
Sicarius had the sense of this being a follow-up to some conversation for which he hadn’t been present.
“Good,” Amaranthe said. “I hope your family accepts you back, but if things don’t work out or if you get bored without our wit…” She tilted her head toward Maldynado, who was striding down a slope arm-in-arm with Yara, heading to a black steam carriage that was pulling up. Starcrest’s conveyance presumably. “Come back to the capital, and we’ll take care of you. With your culinary knack, I bet you could open an eating house or a bakery that would rival Curi’s.”
Perhaps so. Basilard smiled again. Does this mean you two will stay in Stumps?
“I… we… hadn’t talked about it yet. Other than vague mentions of vacations on remote beaches far from bounty hunters.” A chilly gust of wind rattled the skeletal tree branches, and Amaranthe pulled her scarf up higher. “A warm remote beach.”
Admiral Starcrest stepped out of the steam carriage, followed by Tikaya, Mahliki, and two younger teenagers. Sicarius would have chosen to stand beneath a tree and endure this ceremony in silence, but Amaranthe still had his hand, so he perforce went where she did. It looked like she wanted to visit the Starcrests, but Maldynado had planted himself in the admiral’s path, so she walked up to speak with Akstyr instead.
“Have you been well these last few days?” she asked him.
Akstyr nodded. For a while, he didn’t speak, then he quietly said, “I thought he was the biggest lecturing pest, you know.” He tilted his head toward the blanket that wrapped Books’s body. “But he was all right. I’m going to miss him. I still don’t really get why…” His shoulder twitched.
“One of the more endearing qualities to human beings is their willingness to sacrifice themselves to make someone else’s life better,” Amaranthe said. “My father did that for me, not by stepping in front of an arrow, of course, but in the work he chose, work that killed him far too young.” She gazed toward the unlit pyre, the sadness of memory in her eyes.
Sicarius wondered if he should say or do something for her. And if so, what? He squeezed her hand, and she returned the gesture with a smile for him.
“Well, I never thought anybody would sacrifice anything for me,” Akstyr said. “How do you… What do you do if you’re not sure their, uhm, sacrifice… was worth it?”
“You make it worth it.” Amaranthe looked like she might say more, but she closed her mouth, letting him figure out what her words meant.
He studied the snow at his feet. After a time, he said, “All right.”
An improvement over his whatevers.
Amaranthe must have found the response acceptable, too, for she patted Akstyr’s arm. “Have you heard anything about… Well, with the gangs decimated, I hope nobody will be worrying about that bounty. Do you know if your mother is still…?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Akstyr pulled an envelope out of his pocket. With some bemusement, Sicarius wondered when he’d stopped worrying the boy might be pulling out a weapon to use on him. Akstyr held out the envelope for Amaranthe. “Professor Komitopis gave it to me. I guess someone mentioned to her that I wanted to study the Science at the Polytechnic.”
Amaranthe opened the envelope, revealing tickets for a westbound train along with a berth on an ocean liner heading to the Kyatt Islands.
“I’m leaving in two days,” Akstyr said. “The professor said I could stay with her family while I study. She said her mother still cooks up piles of food for all the hands and wouldn’t hardly notice if one more person showed up at the dinner table, and…” Distracted by something, his words trailed off. He was peering toward the Starcrest family, his eyes alighting not on his fift
y-year-old benefactor, but on her youngest daughter.
“Two days?” Amaranthe looked at him, then toward Basilard, chagrin in her eyes. “I…” She focused on Akstyr again. “I mean, that’s wonderful. I know that this is your dream, and I’m sure you’ll be safe there. I heard this morning that the enforcers are already routing out the remains of the gangs. There’s talk of finally renovating the old part of the city, getting it on the sewer and making sure the people living there have the same educational opportunities as everyone else.”
Akstyr, having failed to catch the young woman’s eyes, pulled his attention back to Amaranthe and waved dismissal. “Same educational opportunities as other Turgonians maybe, but I’m sure it’ll still be forbidden to study the mental sciences.”
“I wouldn’t be certain about that. If Starcrest does indeed get elected to office, at least one of his children practices the mental sciences.” She grimaced and rubbed her forehead at some memory; Sicarius would have to get the details of what had happened while he’d been ensnared by the Nurian. “He might push for some reform in that area too.”
“Maybe so, but the population won’t be quick to accept that. Superstitious donkey lickers. I won’t be in a hurry to come back here.”
“Ah,” Amaranthe said.
Akstyr, displaying surprising percipience for him, noticed her downcast expression. “But you could visit Kyatt, right? You don’t have any reason to stay here either, do you? I could show you around.” Akstyr glanced at the hand Amaranthe still had clamped around Sicarius’s, then added, “Uhm, both of you,” though he didn’t quite meet Sicarius’s eyes.
“Thank you,” Amaranthe said. “I’d like that.”
Akstyr, his gaze drawn back to the Starcrests again, said, “I’m going to go see how long she’s—I mean they’re—going to be staying and if they’re going back to Kyatt for their studies…”
Amaranthe started to walk in that direction, too, and Sicarius wondered if he might talk to Starcrest while she chatted with whoever was next on her list. He could certainly make that happen if he released her hand, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to yet. Later perhaps, when he’d grown used to the idea that she’d return to reclaim it if they parted.
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