Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (36 page)

A
lone in his quarters, the Great Sultan of Kad slammed his fist on the stone windowsill and damned the woman who was plundering his thoughts and desires. And she’d had the gall to say the Tegannese weren’t thieves!

How dare she turn him away?
He was the sultan.
Kaddite maidens craved his notice. They prayed to Naaz each night for it, dreamed of him coming to their beds. Yet Varene spurned him. Stoked him to an inferno of need, intoxicated him with her ardent response—she’d
climaxed
in his very arms, fully clothed!—then turned him away, with that needful, despairing look in her eyes. The look that made him want to kill whoever had put it there.

She was a sorceress after all, for she’d certainly enchanted him.
Damn her.

“You seem…provoked, O Lord.”

His gaze snapped to the harem entrance, where Sulya parted the curtain of pearl strands and strolled into his chamber. In her arms lay a leather-bound book. His brows drew down at the odd sight. His Sixth Wife was not particularly fond of scholarship.

“I do not want visitors,” he said flatly.

She ignored his declaration and closed in, a smile on her lips. “I may change your mind.”

His teeth ground together. “Sulya, it’s time for you to depart.”

Unhurriedly, she opened the book, laid it on the table and skimmed her sharp nails down the page to a marked passage. “There.”

He eyed her for a moment more, not liking her poise or the determined flicker in her gaze. Then he looked down at the passage, and fury flamed through his bones.

“Where did you get this?” His fingers clamped the book’s edge, whitening his knuckles.

“Dabir’s quarters.” Her mouth made a smug twist. “An ancient law—forgotten, perhaps. Or overlooked. No matter. I claim it now.”

He dropped his gaze back to the book, read the title on the cover. A muscle spasmed in his clenched jaw. “Besides the obvious, what, exactly, do you hope to gain by this?”

“It is my due as your wife.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No?” She drew closer to him. “This law clearly states my right to demand lovemaking from my husband; that Naaz and Idu bless that right, for the benefit of Their children, of Their realm.” She drew herself up, thrusting out her breasts. “I stand before you now, demanding your good faith. Your obedience to the High Ones.” Her eyes glittered. “Your body.”

Rage blazed through him. She, a woman who cared nothing for reading or study, would blackmail him using Dabir’s collection of books? She was using him for her own ends, and always would.

“I have honored you as the mother of my son.” He stepped close to her, his voice a guttural snarl. “Perhaps I am bound to make my body honor you.” He waited a moment, watching her nostrils flare at the scent of her win. “But Sulya,
you will never again know my love.
”

The truth of that crossed her perfect features, and for a second he saw the snap of pain before her lashes scrolled down over her darkened eyes. Soon she had control of herself. “If that is the case, O Lord,” she said, “then I will have to content myself with taking what
is
mine.” She reached up, wrapped her hand in a sensual wave around the back of his neck, and pulled his mouth to hers.

Her lips slid against his, and her tongue nipped and stroked. Her fingers, ever skilled, found their way into his kaftan. They enfolded him in ways that urged, cajoled…aroused. His body, wound tight for days, displayed a mind of its own.

A wordless sigh escaped Sulya as she felt Kuramos respond to her touch. This was the only way she had ever mastered him. The power of it coiled in her belly, and lower, in the place that ached for him and for his seed.

Perhaps tonight, she would once again be fertile. Conceive another son of the sultan, another chance at the greatness meant for her own bloodline. With two sons, she could almost assure her family that their hopes and plans would come to pass after generations. The thought thrilled her, spurred her to twine a leg around Kuramos, urging him closer, tighter, deeper.

He groaned and shoved her against the wall, trapping her between his arms. She rubbed her breasts over his chest, her body against the hard length of him, felt him grow and pulse for her the way he always had. He sought her mouth, captured it. Surely he could taste the triumph on her tongue.

His warm hands slid around her waist and down, underneath the fabric of her skirt, and cupped her buttocks. Her husband.
Hers.
And now he was doing her bidding. She would get what she wanted, in the end. She always did.

He lifted her up and settled her against his arousal. She writhed, rubbing his length, and reached for the drawstring at the waist of his churidar. As she tugged, he closed his eyes and pressed her back to the wall.

Kuramos felt Sulya release the drawstring…but in his mind, it was Varene who was cupped in his hands, Varene who was undressing him, Varene who would ride him through the night. The Tegannese enchantress held his thoughts and his heart even as a different woman clamped her legs around him, panting.

“Varene…” he sighed.

Sulya’s eyes flew open and her talons splayed across his back. She looked at him for long seconds as he stared down at her, concealing his surprise, calming his impassioned breath. He had never before called a woman by another’s name, much less showed that disrespect to one of his wives.

Tonight, he could not regret it.

Sulya inhaled a deep, shocked breath, then huffed it back out. Her palm slammed his cheek.

Their gazes locked, and he slowly set her down. Despite himself, his lips curled into a barbed smile.

A tic marred one of her exquisite eyes. She whirled out of the room, smashing through the curtain of pearls. One strand broke and cascaded its beads across the floor.

Kuramos watched the pearls roll to a halt as he smoothed a hand over Dabir’s book. It was almost as if his mentor had helped him, after all.

Feeling strangely liberated, he walked into his hammam, stripped off his churidar and plunged into his bath.

He scrubbed himself down, then floated in the lapping water to gaze at the mosaic on the ceiling. In it, Naaz’s golden sun warmed Idu’s blue sky and their Kaddite lands below.

The sun could burn a man. And Naaz knew everything.

Had Naaz placed Varene in his path on purpose to torture him? Varene, whose life and beliefs were so different from his own and had branded his heart… He should have been eager to take Sulya, his
wife
, up against a wall, begging for him, squeezing his length with all her supple skills. Instead, the whole encounter seemed a sordid betrayal of what he felt for Varene.

Never before had he been ashamed of being with one of his wives. He was the sultan, he had six of them, and it was his right to be with each—and more—if he so desired.

But Sulya’s twist of the knife had forced him to be with her when he’d already told her they were done. Not only had her manipulation infuriated him, it had made him feel dirty. Unclean. Which was crazy. He’d been married for nearly two hundred years, and not once had he been tempted to confuse sex and desire with love.

He cared for his wives, respected them, honored them, but had never wanted to be with only one; never wanted to wrap himself around that one, hear her crystal laugh, plunge into her, seeking a forever promise from her eyes. Never before had he yearned to gift a woman with his whole heart and his very soul.

Tonight, he’d closed his eyes and seen all that and more. Instead of Sulya, the woman who’d always used him—just as he’d used her—he had felt Varene with him. Loving him, just as he loved her.

Love. That was inescapable now.

Stay away
, she’d said.
I can’t be one of your many women.

He turned over in the water and stroked from one end of the pool to the other, wanting the water to sluice over him and cleanse his life as it cleansed his body. He wanted it to change things back to the way they’d been. How could he love a woman who was a heathen, an infidel, a Tegannese Healer with magic in her soul—and who disdained Kaddite marriage?

But he did. He loved her honorable nature. Her boldness. Her generosity and devotion to those who depended on her. He loved the woman who looked upon him as a
man
, not as a sultan with wealth and power. Not as a means to her family’s glory, as Sulya did, or as a ruler and tactician, as did Rajvi, a source of fun for Zahlia, a political alliance for Nireh, a protector for Maitri or a victor for Taleen.

Varene saw him as a lover, a father, a man with dreams for his realm and hopes for himself. Hopes he thought he had entombed long ago, but she’d discerned them anyway.

He loved the vulnerability she concealed deep inside her challenging, insubordinate shell. She was a stunning flower that hadn’t yet fully bloomed, hiding the most beautiful and tender part of herself. Her fiery sensuality, the spark that lit his own, engulfed him with desire for her. He wanted to protect her and stroke her and set her free to blaze her own trail, all at once. He wanted to make her happy in every way, in his bed and out of it, every day and every night, for as long as the stars shone upon his land.

He reached the end of his pool and halted, bobbing in the water.

Stay away…

He knew she wanted him to love her body.
That
he’d already proven, and the memory of her moaning climax again hardened him to sword-strength. But what if that was all it was for her? What if she didn’t love
him
?

She had a comfortable life in Teganne—a high place in the court and in the hearts of its rulers. Would she give that up to be with him? Would she
want
to? Kad was foreign to her, a culture that didn’t understand her and even at times offended, insulted and threatened her. His contributions to that shamed him.

He pulled himself up to sit on the turquoise ledge. Water slid down his naked body and pooled on the tiles like his cascading thoughts.

Whether Naaz had intended these developments or not, her son Kismet had Kuramos’s life in his grip. Unrest snapped at the edges of his sultanate. Varene’s land and his were nearly enemies, and his realm distrusted and reviled hers.

This should have been simple, but nothing had been simple since he’d first gazed upon her face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

V
arene spent a lonely night angry with herself, Kuramos, and Fate. Between fitful periods of sleep, she stared at the pale glow of moonlight on her patio.

She should have been departing for home. She wanted to resume her interrupted life more than ever—to spend time laughing with Jilian and Alvarr, to stroll through the quiet forests, even to sort her herbs in the solitude of her rooms. But now she couldn’t leave until Sohad and Priya wed.

Wed.
She’d encouraged their romance and was glad to see them together, even if she’d never dreamed they would say their vows so quickly…

She flipped onto her stomach and pulled her pillow over her ears, hating the jealousy that swarmed her.

Another day’s delay. Another day of loving Kuramos and being unable to escape his presence. She was in orbit around him, in an unrequited and unfulfilled love that would only bring her pain.

Almost as soon as sleep had come again, Priya entered her door, panic on her lips. “My lady, there are fifty patients waiting at the doors of the palace!”

“Fifty!” Varene sat straight up in her shift, blinking, then swung her legs to the side of the bed, peering about in the dawn light for her sandals. “Was there an accident?”

“No. They’ve been lining up for hours to see you—so many that the guards will only allow in a few at a time. Word has been spreading about your skills.”

The handmaiden flashed her a proud smile, but Varene smacked her own brow and moaned. “The Palace residents are one thing, but I can’t cure all of Kad myself!” Varene grabbed her indigo gown from the footboard.

“But your new clothes, my lady. You don’t wish to wear them?”

Varene stared at the open trunk. She didn’t need any more reminders of what she’d felt in the man’s arms last night, nor did she want to be branded as “his” when she so clearly wasn’t… and couldn’t be. “Those are much too fine for me.”

Priya helped her pull on her gown, then laced her up as Varene muttered. “Another Healer… Bennek might be amenable, if his wife will accept the move. Or maybe Rissa—she has plenty of experience.”

But then Varene scowled. Rissa was much too pretty to be let loose in Kuramos’s palace. Would he…seduce Rissa? Make her his lover? After all, he’d taken six wives…

Well, if Varene couldn’t be sure, it served her right for falling in love with such a man. And that was yet another clue that it was time to go home.

As they moved toward the hall, she reached up to pull her hair into a ponytail, then remembered her hair band was long gone—Kuramos had slid it off her while they’d been alone on his ship.
Damn.

She hated to admit it, but perhaps he’d been right about the ponytail being a mask of sorts. She certainly didn’t feel like herself without it.

“Priya, I don’t suppose there are any hair bands lying around? Or perhaps some ribbon, or cord?”

“Hair bands aren’t common here, my lady. I’m sure I could find ribbon or string, though.”