What a difference seven days made. She was almost thankful to the malevolent force behind her abduction, for it had brought her to Darios. Funny how fate worked.
As she turned at the end of the hall toward the main stairs, she noticed something odd and came immediately to a halt. Sidrah’s bedchamber door stood ajar. It had been two annums since she’d married Axton and come to live in the castle. In that time, never once had Aurelia known this to happen.
Her sister-in-law had a fanatical need for privacy, especially when it came to her private space and belongings, and she had always kept it locked.
Unlike married couples on Voltarre, spouses on Aeldor did not share a room, or a bed. In her cold, detached world where simply rubbing up against a spouse during sleep could bring on an onslaught of unwanted input, they slept separately. She felt bad that her brother would never feel for his wife what she and Darios shared. But even without their psychokinetic ability as a barrier, she doubted Sidrah had an ounce of passion inside her.
Since before they wed, she’d never been on friendly terms with Sidrah, which was disappointing. Aurelia had always wanted a sister, but her brother’s wife wasn’t remotely interested. She’d made a show of it at first, but after the vows were said, everything changed. Most often, she kept to herself, deigning to eat supper with them, and accompanying the prince on social occasions and official functions when expected, but otherwise, her presence was scarce.
In her brief time with Darios, learning how it could be between a husband and wife, and seeing Callae with Daryk, the two of them touching, smiling, and making moon eyes at one another, even with her far along in her pregnancy, it made her sad for Axton and Sidrah. Well, maybe not so much her with the fake, plastered-on smile, but she wanted more for her brother.
He’d never have it with her sister by marriage. She was an odd bird, always had been and, likely, at twenty-six, always would be.
As she stood staring at the barely open door, she wondered why she guarded her privacy so closely. What could she have to hide? Her secrecy made Aurelia want to know, and to see, more than ever.
She glanced up and down the long hall, at this early hour no one was about. This was another factor adding to her curiosity. She didn’t recall Sidrah ever being an early riser.
And, was she mistaken, or had she seemed more withdrawn than usual during the celebration last night?
“This odd bird,” she whispered, “is acting even odder than usual.”
Taking one more glance around, and seeing no one, she pushed the door open. She’d just take a little peek.
When she walked in and immediately spotted her mother’s rocking chair in the corner, the quick peek became an in-depth search. A gift from her husband upon the birth of her twins, she’d used it often when she and Axton were children. One of the few memories Aurelia had of her mother was sitting in her lap, with her brother, in the nursery, as she read them a bedtime story. Her father often told of his last conversation with her. She’d been rocking with Axton, in that very chair.
It held such bittersweet memories for her father, after her death, he couldn’t bear to look at it, nor could he bring himself to part with it. Instead, he’d had the wooden rocker meticulously preserved, along with other cherished mementos, and stored in the attic, for what Aurelia thought was the past nineteen winters.
Had she helped herself to it? Or had Axton given it to her? If so, did her father know?
Outrage flared within her and didn’t diminish when her continued search turned up a silk scarf her grandmother had given her on her twentieth birthday—all this time, she’d thought she’d carelessly left it somewhere while visiting—and a jeweled box that contained several pieces of jewelry handed down to her, also curiously and unexplainably missing.
“She’s nothing but a thief,” she hissed, while combing through the box.
There was a crumpled piece of paper with a list of numbers that meant nothing to her. After tucking it into her pocket to ponder later, she came across the most worrisome thing of all—her grandfather’s pocket watch.
She picked it up, quivering with rage because the last time she’d seen it had been seconds before the Ophigs had attacked then abducted her from her caravan.
If she had Darios’ powers, the room around her would be nothing but smoke and smoldering ash. She contained her anger, somehow, telling herself there was a reasonable explanation, and long enough to put everything back where she found it, just in case there was not.
Next, she quietly exited the room, hoping she left it as she’d found it should Sidrah return before she could decide what to do.
She managed to walk calmly to the corner then sprinted back to her room. First and foremost, she needed to discuss with her husband what she’d found.
HALFWAY BETWEEN SLEEP and waking, with fatigue pulling him inexorably back to the remnants of a dream starring a naked princess with silvery-blonde hair and a delectably curved backside, he sat bolt upright in bed. Jerked violently into waking by the sound of a door slamming.
Seeing his wife walking across the room, he flopped back onto the pillows and draped his arm over his eyes, blocking out the light streaming in from the windows behind her. “By the gods, woman. Startle a sleeping man into heart failure, why don’t you?”
“Get up, Darios. I need to talk to you.”
“I’ve got a better idea. Come to bed, sweetness, and soothe my jagged nerves with your lips.”
“This is important.”
Her words made him move his arm, but the slight quiver in her voice and the pinkness of her cheeks convinced him more than anything else it was serious. “What’s wrong?”
She held out the wrinkled strip of paper. “What do these look like to you?”
Sitting up, more slowly this time, he took it from her trembling hand. After glancing at it briefly, he replied, “These are coordinates.”
“Yes, but to where?”
“Without a frame of reference, it’s hard to tell. Where did you get them?”
“Sidrah’s room.”
He blinked. “And you were in there because...”
“The door was open. Does it matter?”
She whirled and started pacing, her agitation unmistakable in her jerky motions and the way she threaded her fingers through the hair at her temples.
“Come here, princess.”
“I’m not in the mood right now, Husband.”
He frowned. “Perhaps not,” he replied sternly, “but I am, for an explanation.”
On her next pass, he reached out, caught her wrist, and hauled her to the bed. Pulling her across his thighs, he held up the crumpled set of coordinates. “Now, what’s this about?”
“That,” she said, with a jerk of her chin toward the paper, “was in my brother’s wife’s room along with my mother’s rocking chair, my grandmother’s scarf, jewelry from the family vault, and the heaven only knows what else.”
She stopped and sat still, saying nothing more, only staring straight ahead, silently seething. He knew she was simmering with rage from the vibrations transferring from her body to his, and the set of her spine, rigid, like it was forged in tensile steel.
“And you thought these things should be yours?” he guessed.
Her head whipped around. “What?”
“These family heirlooms, you feel they need to be yours, not Sidrah’s?”
She shoved at his shoulder. “No! Do I seem so petty?”
“My response would be, you do not, but, princess, I’m at a loss here.”
“Darios!” she exclaimed, her anger now mixed with exasperation. “She had my grandfather’s watch.”
This time he stared at her blankly.
“Argg! Polar ice pellets, you’re slow first thing upon waking.”
He caught her chin with his hand and held it, firmly. “I’m not slow any time when I have sufficient information to keep up with a conversation.”
“The last time I saw my grandfather Xzavis’ watch was on th
e caravan, Darios. Keep up.”
Now it made sense. He let her sharp reply and disrespect slide for now. “You never told me about a watch.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t,” he drawled, striving for patience. “But you may do so now.”
“I’m sure I told you the story.”
“You didn’t. My memory is as sound as my mind, upon waking or any other time of the day.”
“Oh, Husband.” Her hand rose to his cheek, and despite the growth of beard that had happened over night, he felt its cool softness.
Like that, she was back, his usually sweet, polite, charming princess.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take my anger out on you. It’s that bitch, Sidrah, who deserves the edge of my tongue and the heat of my wrath!”
He blinked again, never having heard her curse, not once, in the time they’d been together. Another thing he let slide for later.
“The question remains, how did she come into possession of the watch?”
“Yes, and why is she stealing from us?”
“The explanation could be the same to both questions. Your brother gave her those things.”
“I suppose,” she replied, drawing the words out slowly as though considering his suggestion, “but knew I cherished it and carried it with me everywhere. He’d have suspected—”
“What do you suspect, Aurelia?” He had his own theory, but she knew the players much better.
“She’s involved in this somehow.”
“My thought, too.” He whistled softly. “When I said the enemy was within, I meant your brother at the time. But I see I wasn’t far off.”
“But it makes no sense. She has less to gain from my death than Axton would.” She waved her hands at the paper. “What could those coordinates be?”
He leaned forward, brushed a kiss upon her temple then lifted her off his lap. “Let’s find out.”
Rolling to the opposite side of the bed, he took up his communicator. After swiping to the maps screen, he keyed in the numbers and, in an instant, a 3D image of Aeldor hovered over his handheld device.
“Here.” He pointed to the blue indicator. The bed shifted as she crawled across it. Leaning into his back, she peered over his shoulder and studied the map with him. “It’s near the Northern Sector. Close to a town called—”
“Last Point. God’s above.”
Twisting, he met her alarmed gaze. “What’s its significance?”
“That’s where my caravan was attacked. She knew about it or ordered it done. I’ll kill the lying, thieving, malicious shrew!”
Without saying more, she bounded off the bed, raced across the room, and was out the door.
“Aurelia. Wait!”
But as her footsteps faded in the hall, he knew she had no intention of doing as he commanded.
“Dammit!” he muttered, as he, too left the bed. He couldn’t go tearing after her naked, however. Hopping on first one foot then the other, he donned the despised trousers. Without bothering to put on anything else, he went after his impulsive wife before she committed murder, which, if she turned out to be right, would be justified.
Out in the hall, he paused to listen, unsure which way she had gone.
He didn’t wait long before he heard a loud bang and his wife’s furious accusation. “It was you!”
It came from the right, which was the direction he ran, skidding to a halt in the only open doorway in the long corridor. Inside, Aurelia confronted a half-dressed, shocked, and momentarily speechless Sidrah.
Her eyes darted to Darios who had entered on her heels. His presence helped her find her tongue. “Have you lost your mind?” she screeched. “Both of you, get out.”
“What’s this about?”
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Axton had also arrived.
“She’s gone mad,” Sidrah told him, at the same time Aurelia exclaimed, “Your wife hired those cretins to murder me!”
Her brother blinked, clearly expecting anything except that. “Excuse me?”
Sidrah protested, “I did no such thing. See what I’m saying? She’s gone insane.”
Aurelia whirled on her brother. “Ask her why she has Mama’s rocker, and half my jewelry, then have her explain why she had the coordinates where my caravan was attacked?”
“Is this true?” Axton demanded as he moved into the room. When his gaze fell on the rocking chair in the corner, his tone became exacting. “I can see at least part of it is. Explain yourself, now.”
“She tried to kill me.”
“Not you, Sister. I’m asking my wife.”
The buxom blonde shrugged so affectedly, she almost dropped the gown she held clutched to her chest. “So, I took a few things. They will be mine as the future queen, anyway.”
“Not things that belong to me, Sidrah,” Aurelia disputed bitingly. She crossed to a dressing table, upon which sat a jewel-encrusted box, and flipped open the lid.
“Get out of that.” She raised her hand, as if to smack her away then thought better of it and appealed to her husband. “She can’t just come in here and go through my things. Do something.”
“You mean my things.” Aurelia held up a round watch on a chain. From the etchings and dullness of the metal, Darios could tell it was very old. “You know I don’t go anywhere without Grandfather’s watch, Axton. Ask her where she got it?”
“Good question,” Aziros said from the door. “Aurelia treasures that old piece and told me just yesterday, she had it with her when she was taken.”
“I didn’t know it was hers. I bought it from a secondhand goods merchant in the market.”
“What about the coordinates? Did you get those from the same fictitious merchant?” she demanded with more sarcasm than he’d ever heard from his usually polite princess.
The other woman shrugged. “I guess I must have jotted them down, after the fact.”
As lies went, the first was plausible, but this last one—pathetic. Aurelia, who had rolling her eyes down to an art form, obviously agreed.
Tired of the scene, he strode forward. “Let’s end this, now.” Giving her shoulder a reassuring pat, he moved past his bride to the defensive, prevaricating, obviously guilty woman.
Sidrah pressed herself into a corner when she saw him come her way. “Stay back, you Voltarrean brute! Axton, help me!”
“My lord,” the prince began hesitantly.
“You know I have abilities?” Darios inquired, speaking over him.
“You are a fire bringer,” Sidrah replied, her disdain clear in the ugly twist of her lips. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I was referring to a different ability.” He extended his hand. “Take it so we can learn the truth and be done with this.”
“No,” she repeated. “Keep away from me.”
Back to screeching, the shrillness and volume grated on his nerves.
Axton, who, from the annoyed look on his face had had enough of this, too, moved in and took her by the shoulders, holding her still. “Take his hand. If you are innocent, he will know it.”
“You want me to willingly touch him? But, Husband, imagine the horrors he’s committed. You know it will cause me unbearable pain.”
Grunting in vexation, Darios held his hand out behind him. “Someone get me a pair of gloves. It works with or without them.”
It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. He got a measure of truth and lies without skin-to-skin contact, but it lost accuracy. Some questions slipped past his ability, but Sidrah didn’t need to know this.
Leather slapped against his palm.
“To speed this along,” Aziros announced, his hands stripped of the black gloves he always wore. “I will let you borrow mine.”
Having run out of excuses, Sidrah struggled in Axton’s hold.
“No! I won’t do this.”
“Believe me, if there were another way, I’d do it. Touching a traitor who would order the murder of one of her own family sickens me.”
The gloves were supple but very snug on his much-larger hands, and it took a moment for him to tug them on. Then, he took hold of Sidrah’s wrist, clasping it firmly when she tried repeatedly to jerk it away.
To Aurelia, who now stood beside him, he directed, “Ask your questions again.”
“Did you have me kidnapped?”
“No,” Sidrah immediately replied.
“Truth.”
“See! I told you,” she crowed. “Now let me go.”
“Ask differently, princess,” he urged.
“Did you order me murdered?”
“No!”
Even through leather, Darios’ gift showed him the answer. She had, with certainty. “Lie,” he growled, bile churning in his stomach. This was another indicator of a lie, especially an egregious one.
“How dare you,” Sidrah squeaked, not nearly as confident with the warlord towering over her, a man she’d doubtless heard terrifying stories about as a child, and feared as an enemy, as an adult.
“Lord Darios is a truthsayer,” her angry husband hissed in her ear. “That is the ability he referred to. Why would you do this horrible thing?”
“But I didn’t.”
“Lie!” he stated once more.
She twisted her arm, but his hold was inflexible. “Let me go.”
“Don’t,” Axton urged him. “I have a few questions of my own. Why did you marry me?”
“Because I love you, Axton, please.”
“Lie,” he repeated, though with less satisfaction.
“Stop that,” she shrieked.
“Care to try again?” Axton said with a sneer.
Aurelia walked around to the other side and picked up her other wrist. With a tortured cry, she almost fell to her knees.
This time he was the one to insist, “Don’t do this to yourself. Let her go!”
“Axton cannot read her,” she gasped. “There is avarice, hunger, and undiluted hatred.” The last came out more like a moan than a spoken word.
“Stop. Now!” Darios demanded.
“Not yet!”
“Aurelia, you’ve suffered enough,” he bade her more softly.
Claimed by the Warlord Page 24