Ghost in Her Heart (9 page)

Vana couldn’t answer.

He nodded and walked away, leaving her alone
in the echoing gym.

***

Vana took a fast shower under the multiple
showerheads in her private bathroom, then donned the bright yellow
and black patterned square that served as alien nightwear. It had a
fringe and was knotted at the shoulder, leaving one shoulder bare.
The abbreviated sari remained open at one side, revealing flashes
of skin as she moved, yet covering the essentials. Soft and thin
enough to feel weightless under the covers, it did not bunch or
drag at her as she tossed in her bed, and was more secure that
sleeping naked.

As she stared at the ceiling, willing herself
to sleep, Ser’s words played in her mind. Now that he’d rubbed her
nose in it, she realized that yes, the woman who married Dagon
would become queen. One plus one equals royalty. If anything, it
only made him seem more forbidding in her mind. Who wanted to be a
queen? And in spite of her unique position, she neither wanted the
job nor considered herself in the running for it. If Dagon was
losing sleep over her, it was because of the problems she caused
him. Had she been the type to indulge in wishful thinking, she’d
have hoped that he’d be inspired to send her troublesome self home.
The realist in her knew better. If she got home, it would be
because she was smart enough to get the job done herself.

It might involve using people. That part she
hated. She would do her best to avoid it, but if it came down to a
choice between staying here and getting home….

She rolled over and pounded her pillow,
trying not to think about the luxuries of not paying rent or doing
her own laundry. Chores were good. They meant she was making her
own choices, living her own life. Maybe that life had been a bit
empty, but.…

Groaning in frustration, she buried her head
under the pillow and willed herself to sleep.

The Beast was big, black and crawling up her
bed. Vana stared in horror as the scene played out in slow motion.
He wanted her. Though he had yet to touch her, he pinned her in
place with the force of his will alone. He was all about claiming.
Possession. Passion. And he terrified her like nothing she’d felt
in her life.

She woke with a muffled scream, flailing
about in the tangled covers. It took long moments to clear her
head, but when it did….

Rolling over, she pulled the covers over her
head. She had to get out of there!

***

The boys were in the kitchens, doing their
pagely duties. She’d been surprised that morning when she’d learned
that even young princes were expected to work their way up the
ranks like everybody else. When she spotted Devin doing his hour of
vegetable scrubbing, though, she had to wonder at the wisdom of
starting so young. The kid was soaked with water and seemed to be
doing his best to annoy the older lad in charge of watching
him.

Easily six foot, the white haired boy scowled
at Devin as he rewashed the occasional vegetable and chopped it
with the skill of a television chef. He was handsome, in a grumpy
sort of way. Too bad he was too young to be allowed to chose a
wife. Some of the younger girls would have drooled over him for
sure.

“Hey!” Devin shouted as the older boy tossed
a still-dirty tuber back in his sink, splashing him. “You didn’t
have to do that, Roac!”

“Clean it and I won’t,” Roac retorted, then
went back hacking hapless roots.

“Need a hand?” Vana offered. The boys turned
and stared at her as if she’d sprouted fangs and tentacles. It was
a look she’d gotten often and almost universally since she’d
stepped foot in the kitchen. Obviously, she’d found another taboo
to flaunt.

How marvelous.

“Women don’t work in the kitchen,” Roac said
as if she’d proposed to rob the place.

She raised a brow. “I’m an excellent cook,
thank you very much. And I was under the impression that women did
pretty much whatever they wanted to do here.” All except for the
captives, that was, but she didn’t point that out. No use in
mucking with conditioning that might benefit her. “Are you going to
be the one to throw me out?”

A muscle in his jaw flexed, then he turned
around and went back to work.

Ah, hah! I’m getting the hang of this, she
thought smugly. She contemplated Devin, who blinked at her as if
she’d just done something miraculous. “I really do like to cook,
especially desserts, but I hardly know anything about your
ingredients. I really want to know about adoc. Since you’re my son,
would you like to teach me?”

He puffed up and glanced around to make
certain that the rest of the crowded kitchen had heard her. “Yes,
mother. I’ll teach you all about it.” Devin wiped his hands on his
apron importantly and started to walk away from the sink.

“Where are you going?” Vana asked
chidingly.

“To get you some adoc,” he said,
confused.

“Are you done with your chores?”

He looked at the sink reluctantly. “No.”

“I can wait.”

Roac almost looked impressed.

Vana eyed his pile of diced veggies. “That’s
impressive. Do you train with a knife outside of the kitchen, too?
With the men?”

He went back to work, giving her his back.
“Everyone trains.”

“Then you know how to use a sword?”

He shrugged.

“Would you teach me?”

He nearly cut off his thumb. “Women don’t
train!”

It was her turn to shrug. “I do. Every night.
Dagon doesn’t care.”

Roac eyed her, slicing his victims more
slowly. Clearly he needed more incentive.

She had just the thing. “Where I come from,
we barter. Tell me, who are your parents?”

A murderous light came in his eyes. “I have
none. I am unclaimed.”

Vana winced. She’d been hoping to trade some
of the items she’d been given to wear—some of the collars had real
gems—for some lessons in Beast weaponry. Under the circumstances
she’d worry about the legality of it later. Getting an idea of how
well off the kid was and what his parents would allow had been her
goal. Hurting the boy was the last thing she’d wanted. “Okay. I can
identify with that. My father didn’t want me, either.”

Disbelief was written all over his face.

She leaned a hip against his counter and
picked up a diced veggie, eyeing it contemplatively as she tried to
sound casual. “In my case we were better off. My old man used to
beat mama. One day he came home drunk and wreaked the house. He
beat her black and blue and walked out with that month’s rent
money. We never saw him again.” She smiled without humor, as if
that memory didn’t bite. “So you see, I had a good reason to
practice martial arts. I’m willing to pay you to expand my
knowledge. Are you interested?”

“You think the Tzar will give you to an old
man who will beat you?” Roac said the words slowly, as if they made
no sense. “You are too valuable―”

“Look, are you interested or not?” she said
impatiently. No matter what the locals thought, she knew that Dagon
didn’t walk on water. This kid was a target of opportunity, someone
maybe young enough to be flexible, yet old enough to have useful
information.

And yes, in her heart she feared what Dagon
would do.

Carefully, as if afraid that she would ask
the impossible, he said slowly, “What did you want to know?”

So Vana learned about the cultivation,
preparation, and especially the consumption of, adoc. Devin even
offered to show her the gardens where it was grown, and she agreed
to plan a picnic with all of her sons. Although she invited Roac,
he refused. She had the feeling that such invitations were rare in
his life, and that maybe he needed persuading. In spite of himself,
she liked him. It might be fun to convince him to cooperate.

To her surprise, her lessons started in the
kitchen yard. Roac handed her a sword, corrected her grip, then set
her before a big round fruit on a piece of firewood.

“That’s a man’s head. Split it.” He crossed
his arms and stared at her skeptically. The crowd of men and boys
included her sons, who’d somehow gotten wind of the action. They‘d
shirked their chores to watch the fun. The kitchen help stood
around, torn between watching her respectfully and smirking. Nobody
thought she could do it.

So she raised the sword and brought it down
as hard as she could, pretending it was an oversize cleaver. It
bounced off the smooth green hull as if it had hit a stone.

Hands stinging, she ignored the chuckles and
picked up the fruit. It made a rock-like thunking against the wood.
She’d bet even Dagon’s skull couldn’t be this hard. “Is this a
trick?” she demanded of Roac.

In answer, he took the sword, moved her back,
and raised it high in a two fisted grip. The melon split as if made
of butter. He looked at her. “There’s a huge pile of these for you
to practice on. We make juice of them for the evening meal.” He
nodded at the pile of pale green cannonballs. He was right. It was
huge.

Vana sighed and accepted the sword back.
“Okay. Show me again how to hold this.” Beasts didn’t use the sword
in real battle, but they trained in their ancient martial arts for
the same reason that her gun-infested world chose to keep them
alive. Besides, many of the moves translated well to makeshift
weapons, like sticks. She’d always wanted to learn the sword, but
by the time she’d demolished the pile of fruit, she was starting to
rue that wish. Even Keg had long since deserted her for other
amusements, and it was nearing sunset. It was all she could do to
sit on the stump and use her sword as a prop for her arms.
Everything hurt.

“Why do you bother?”

She looked up. Dagon had replaced her
ever-present guard and was watching her in the growing gloom of the
side-yard. Wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of one
trembling hand, she said hoarsely, “I like to finish what I start.”
She accepted the cool drink he handed her gratefully. To her
surprise, she recognized the taste of the fruit she’d labored so
hard to split.

“I thought you deserved a taste of your
efforts.”

“Um.” She didn’t have a lot of energy left
for conversation.

He studied her in the growing darkness. “You
think I will give you to an old man who will beat you.”

Vana grunted softly, too tired to be annoyed.
“Devin.”

“That will not happen.”

Silence.

“It might surprise you to know that there is
a death penalty here for beating women.”

“You marry sixteen year olds to men ten years
or more their senior.”

“Twenty-six is hardly an old man. Neither
would a man in his thirties be too advanced for you.”

She stared at the ground and chose to let
that dangerous comment lie.

Softy, he asked, “Are you that afraid of
intimacy with a man?”

Her head shot up. “Not if it were my choice!
Being forced like this…no woman wants that.”

A few smooth steps brought him to her side.
Gently, he cupped her cheek and raised her head. “Let me show you
something,
adajah
,” he whispered. His kiss was soft, barely
there. Lips met lips in a slow, gentle slide. Long moments passed
as he tasted of her slightly parted mouth, in no hurry to demand
more.

It rocked her. No one had ever been so
patient with her, which was why she was still so unskilled at
kissing. But Dagon…he kissed her as if he were the teacher, content
to pleasure her all day as he learned the shape of her mouth, the
softness of the pink skin. His hand under her hair warmed her as
his gentle stroking sent tingles skipping down her neck.

He caressed her cheek with the edge of his
lips, sighing against her skin. His mouth brushed the edge of hers,
and he withdrew with a soft sigh. “You taste like heaven,
adajah
mene
.”

She rested within his arms, trembling a
little. Her first lesson in Beast sensuality had completely
shattered her composure. If they all made love like this…but she
didn’t care what any other man did. It had been Dagon who had
showed her, and it was Dagon who held her. She wanted no one
else.

Perhaps that was what truly scared her.

He drew back and took her hands, pulling her
gently to her feet. “Come. Let me wash your hair. There will be a
banquet tonight, and you won’t want to miss it.”

In a sensual daze, she nodded dumbly and
followed where he led.

Once inside, he had her kneel in a corner of
the warm kitchen. While she braced her forearms on a short stool
and leaned over, he poured warm water over her head, catching the
runoff in a basin. Then he rubbed cleanser between his palms and
worked it into her long hair, massaging her scalp with his fingers.
Heaven was the feeling of his hands on her. Less pleasing was the
number of cooks and kitchen boys pretending to ignore them. By now
she knew the rules―Dagon would not risk being alone with her. A
traitorous part of her was starting to regret that.

The cleanser must have been his, for it had a
musky, woodsy, masculine scent that she’d always associated with
him. It curled around her like smoke, marking her in a subtle, yet
definite way. Even the careful way he dried her hair felt good to
her sensitized nerves.

“I have no brush. We’ll have to go get one,”
he said when he was finished, looking pleased by the idea. “Come.”
He didn’t touch her, but escorted her to her room, in no particular
hurry. “Bathe and dress, then come to me,” he told her at her door,
ignoring her bodyguards. “Your sons and I will brush your hair for
the banquet.”

In spite of her soreness, she didn’t linger
under the hot spray of the shower. For once, she felt grateful for
the rich array of her new wardrobe, and carefully chose a gossamer
sari of lavender and blue. It clasped at one shoulder, leaving the
other bare. The cool platinum of a spiral arm bracelet rode on one
arm. Dagon had given it to her as a new mother gift. Unless she
fancied thongs, there was nothing to wear under it, so she chose to
go bare underneath, careful not to examine her actions too
closely.