Prince of Swords (20 page)

For a moment she stood there, watching him in the faint light. Her blood pounded at the thought of what was to come next, her heart swelled with love. And when Lyr lifted his hand to her, she took it, and then she lay down beside him so they were skin to skin. Her breasts were pressed against him, one leg draped over his hip.

“If I asked something of you now, would you give it?” she asked.

“Anything,” Lyr whispered.

“Let me be the keeper of your heart.” She kissed his throat.

“You have my body, you have my undying allegiance, I swear, you have my soul. Is that not enough?”

“You said
anything
, and I want your heart.”

His hand raked up her thigh and he touched her, much as she had touched him. His fingers aroused, they even slipped inside her so that she gasped and swayed against them. “I'm not sure I have one to give,” he said. “What we have is enough, is it not?”

“No. I want all of you, Lyr Hern.” Her voice was unsteady, and she felt a tremble in her body, a tremble that was much like his own.

“You have all that's worth having,” he said. To make his point, he laid her against the pillows, spread her thighs farther, and took a nipple deep into his mouth while he caressed her. Her hips moved of their own volition, her breath was literally stolen away.

Rayne's eyes drifted closed. “This is so unfair,” she whispered.

“What's unfair?”

“You have all of me, every shred of my heart and soul and body, and yet you will not allow me to keep that which I know is meant to be mine.”

He moved above her, he lifted her legs so they were wrapped about his hips, and then he was there, inside her. She could not think of anything else but the physical sensations as Lyr made love to her, she could not think of anything but how he felt inside her, how he touched her, how he made her body do strange and wonderful things. He robbed her of demands, of speech, of the ability to think.

Release came on waves, and she cried out as her body and his shuddered together. The pleasure was like none other and she wanted to scream, but the scream was caught in her throat. She felt Lyr's release, not only in her body but in some place deeper, in some place she had never thought any man could find.

She had taken his body, she had taken his soul. If necessary, she would steal his heart as well. He certainly had hers, so it was only fair.

“I love you,” she said hoarsely. “I love you so much.”

“You are unlike any woman I have ever known,” Lyr responded. Perhaps that was as close to “I love you” as he dared to go.

Sleep was creeping upon her, but she did not dare to sleep until she had a promise from Lyr. “Do not leave without waking me.”

“I won't.”

She believed him. After all, Lyr did not lie. Much. “I wish you would let me help you, my love.”

He twisted one hand in her tangled hair and held on tight. “You will.” He leaned down and kissed her throat. “I promise, you will.”

Lyr did not seem to be called by sleep, as she was. He was growing hard again, so soon. She felt it, she moved against it. She smiled.

There was no smile in Lyr's voice when he said, “I have only one instruction for you.” He raised his head, and she saw a fire in his eyes unlike any other she had ever seen. “If I don't come back…”

“Don't say that.”

He moved inside her gently, without haste but not without passion. “It's important, Rayne, and more than a little possible. If I don't come back, then I want you to run.”

“Your family will protect me. You said they would.”

“If my family knows what Ciro plans for you, and if they realize that he might win, then they will kill you. They won't like it, but they will do what has to be done to stop Ciro's plans.”

The baby. The child Ciro had promised her. The child that could not be allowed to come into this world. “You could've killed me yourself when you learned of Ciro's plans.”

“No, I could not.”

It was then that she knew he loved her, whether he would say the words or not, and it was then that she knew the fear she saw in his eyes was not for what he was about to do, but for her.

The tension in his body increased, and he moved a little bit faster. Harder. Before turning his attentions entirely to pleasures of the body, he said, “If I don't return in four days, run.”

 

D
IELLA COULDN
'
T SLEEP, WHICH WAS ODD SINCE THE
damned baby made sure she was exhausted all the time. She often slept too many hours at night, and then she napped during the day. Some nights were like this one, restless and uncomfortable. She ate and ate and ate and still lost weight, getting skinny everywhere but for her distended belly, and the sentinels no longer held any appeal for her. Sex had become too much trouble.

Once the child was born and out of her hands, all that would change. It couldn't happen soon enough to suit her.

Agitated and impatient to have this pregnancy done with, Diella roamed the palace that she had been so anxious to call home. Just as she was about to return to her chamber to attempt once again to sleep, a bit of late night excitement chased away her boredom.

The hallway should be deserted this time of night, but it was not. One soldier, one of Ciro's Own, escorted a bloodied and bruised man in black. Even though the prisoner's head was down, Diella recognized him. Instead of running away, she walked toward the prisoner, smiling at his obvious distress.

“Sian, dear, you look a bit the worse for wear.”

The enchanter lifted his odd purple eyes, and at first glance he did not recognize her. When he did, his body jerked slightly, as he was startled by her appearance. Diella knew she looked haggard, but really, how bad mannered. She found the strength to draw back one foot and kick the rude man squarely in the shin. She did not have the power to aim any higher.

Diella walked away from Ciro's soldier and the unkind enchanter. “You're good as dead,” she said casually. “Your woman is good as dead. Everything you love will soon be dead.” The thought made her smile as she walked toward her bedchamber to claim a good night's sleep.

 

P
ROMISE OR NOT,
L
YR WOULD'VE SLIPPED AWAY WITHOUT
waking Rayne if he didn't indeed need her help.

It was hours still until sunrise, and yet he and his small party were ready to ride. Ariana was anxious, and he could not blame her. She loved her husband very much and would do anything to save him. That much was obvious.

A part of him wanted to tell Rayne what she wished to hear, that he did indeed love her, that she did have his heart. How cruel that would be if he didn't return from his mission. What a burden that would be for her. If he didn't survive and she ran as she should, then she'd be able to make a life for herself somewhere else, somewhere far away. She could find another man, one who would care for her, one who would love and protect her.

It was best that she not know that he did believe he could love her. Maybe if grieving was necessary, that would make it easier.

He had everything he needed, and though there were those among them who did not like his plan, no one had any better suggestions.

Ariana called, “Let's go!”

“One minute,” Lyr called.

“We do not have one minute to spare!” Ariana argued.

Lyr grabbed Rayne and pulled her against him, and then he waved his hand impatiently. He'd never before stopped time for a kiss.

Rayne glanced about. “What happened?”

“Don't let go,” he said. “As long as you're touching me, you're where I am. As long as we're touching, time stops for everyone but us.”

He kissed her, not knowing how long time would be frozen for the others, not wanting to miss a moment of this stolen time. A minute, two, three…

The kiss said good-bye, and it said much more. It said things he didn't dare voice aloud.

Rayne took her mouth from his, but she continued to hold on tight with one arm. With the other, she removed the blue gem that always lay against her chest. “Take this.”

“I can't.” After all, he couldn't guarantee that he'd be coming back.

“While I don't yet completely understand what my mother was, I do know she possessed good magic. You need all the light you can carry in order to face Ciro.”

Lyr dipped his head and Rayne placed the chain over it. It dropped heavily against his chest.

He kissed her again, and when he took his mouth from hers, he said, “You're still beautiful.”

She snorted.

Time restarted unbidden, and it seemed that no one knew what had happened.

“Not even a minute!” Ariana said, thinking her tirade to be unbroken.

Lyr stepped away from Rayne. “If you insist, your imperial highness.”

“Stop calling me that!” Ariana snapped. “It's ridiculous,” she added in a lowered voice.

Lyr mounted a new, fresher horse than the one he'd been riding since setting out to recover the crystal dagger, and he spared Rayne one last look. As he did, the stone he now wore seemed to come alive as the crystal dagger did, pounding against his chest as if it had a heartbeat all its own.

I
F
L
YR HAD HAD THE FREEDOM TO PLAN THIS MISSION
without interference, there would be two travelers, not six. Interference was apparently his cousin's new middle name, and General Merin was not much better. As ardently as Ariana refused to remain behind, Merin refused to allow the empress to travel without a proper escort.

When it came time to approach the palace, Lyr
would
be in charge. There was no room for error in his plan, no room for interference.

If he'd been concerned only with the well-being of the soldiers, they would have ridden through without stopping. The horses, however, deserved better.

At one of their infrequent but necessary stops, his cousin approached. “I should've known that when you fell, you would fall hard.”

“I don't fall,” Lyr responded without emotion. “Ever.”

“Sure you don't.”

Ariana needed to have her mind taken off what was happening to her husband as they rushed toward his rescue, but Lyr didn't think anything would accomplish that. If Rayne had been in Ciro's hands…

“Maybe I've fallen a little,” he said. “Maybe not. It is hard to tell with everything else that's going on. When Ciro is dead and Sian is emperor and you're in the palace planning parties and I'm back in Tryfyn…”

“I am
not
going to spend the rest of my life planning parties. Mum and Aunt Isadora and Aunt Juliet will find Liane and Sebestyen's sons, and when the war is over, Sian and I will go to his home, a very nice, quiet house where we can have babies and sleep without constant guard and know peace and…and…”

“And what?” Lyr prompted. “This is my point exactly. Since I've known Rayne, we've been running from one threat to another. If I'm able to kill Ciro…”

“When,” Ariana said sharply. “
When
you kill Ciro.”

“Fine. When I kill Ciro, then what? Would Rayne and I have anything at all to talk about if we lived in a world where every day was like the next, where there was no danger, no prophesy to fulfill? If I had met her in the King's court, would I have looked at her twice? Would she have looked at me?”

“You're such a man,” Ariana said with a sigh. It sounded oddly like an insult. “Why don't you just say what you mean?”

“I don't know what I mean.”

“Of course you don't.” Tonlin was leading the horses this way and Ariana headed toward them, ready to begin the journey once again. The young soldier offered Ariana her horse with a softly spoken:

“Your mount, sister.”

And she took it.

“You want to know if Rayne will love you if you're not the only thing standing between her and a demon. You want to know if you'll still love her if she's not your damsel in distress. You want to know if the sex will be as fantastic if you don't think every day might be your last.”

“I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what I meant,” Lyr grumbled.

Ariana stepped into her saddle with the ease of a woman who was accustomed to spending her days on horseback. “I think it is, and I also think there's only one way to find out.” She waited while Lyr took his own saddle before finishing. “Kill the son of a bitch who's got my husband.” With that, she turned her horse about and galloped toward the palace.

 

C
IRO STOOD BACK AND STUDIED HIS BASTARD HALF
brother with some amusement. Sian Sayre Chamblyn had not been treated well by the soldiers who had spirited him from his bed in the midst of the army which opposed them. They'd had the help of some magic, of course, the demon's dark magic. He imagined the armies of his Own were in a tizzy over the bold success. Such success would give them hope, and given their losses of late, they needed that hope.

If he'd had the strength to do so, he would've had his Own take them all. The witch, the soldiers…all who dared to defy him. But as the demon was not as strong as it should be, Ciro was forced to simplify his efforts. First he would remove the threat to his newly taken position, then he would worry about the others. Their time would come, and it would come in his way, in his time.

The trip from the enemy camp to this palace had taken two days, and Ciro's Own had taken some of their anger and glee out on the man whom some would call the rightful emperor. Chamblyn's face was cut on one cheek, and there were numerous bruises beneath the black shirt and trousers he wore. Ciro could not see all the bruises, but he felt them with his own surge of glee.

Chamblyn was on his knees, bound hand and foot, in this small room which had once been a chamber for a lowly servant. It had also been the last room the late Emperor Arik called home.

“So, your mother fucked my father some years ago.”

Chamblyn remained calm. “So it would seem.”

“When I was younger, I often wished for a brother,” Ciro said thoughtfully. “Would you have been a good one?”

The wizard lifted his head with a touch of defiance. “Likely not,” he responded with an unexpected arrogance.

Ciro stepped forward and let his hand fly. The back of his hand connected soundly with the wizard's cheek, sending the head snapping to one side and making the wizard gasp. While Chamblyn regained his breath, Ciro dropped to his haunches so they were face to face. In truth, they did not look like brothers. Ciro had his mother's fair coloring and blue eyes. Chamblyn was dark-haired and possessed unusual purple eyes. Ciro considered himself to be rather pretty. His half brother had a face of sharp lines, and a nose which was anything but pretty.

Since taking a turn a while back, Chamblyn's soul had become too white to take, too pure for Ciro to steal. He felt as if he grew stronger every day, and yet he was not yet all he could be. One day, one day soon…

That didn't mean he couldn't kill his bastard brother but it seemed a waste—especially since their father's soul had been lost. It wasn't as if the wizard would be going anywhere.

It would've been easy enough to have Chamblyn killed while he slept among Ariana's soldiers and thus end the possibility that some would view him as the rightful emperor. Ciro had considered that route at one point, but when he looked at the larger arena in which this war was being played, he saw advantage to holding the man alive—for a while. There were those who would rush foolishly forward in order to save Chamblyn, and that would be their undoing.

He most particularly wanted the blond healer who had cheated death once before, but now was not the time. When he was stronger and she was weakened by the loss of her enchanter. When he had the upper hand and she was not surrounded by men who would die for her. When he was certain he could kill her and she would not come back from the dead to harass him…then he would kill her again.

Ciro placed his hand on Chamblyn's throat and squeezed. Just because he had decided not to kill his brother just yet, that didn't mean the fear of death wouldn't feed him. Chamblyn didn't have to know that his death was not at hand. Ciro watched the purple eyes grow dark, and defiant, and finally frightened. His hand squeezed tighter, and an object smacked into his back. He glanced down to see a decorative vase lying on the floor beside him.

“Is that it? Is that how you defend yourself?” A heavy candlestick flew end over end and hit the back of Ciro's head, drawing a tiny bit of blood in his fair hair. The blow might've hurt another man, but not Ciro. “Too bad we're not near the kitchen. You could pelt me with pots and pans and perhaps a plate or two.” He did not ease his grip until it appeared that his brother was about to lose consciousness. There was no amusement in studying an unconscious man while awaiting him to awake, so Ciro dropped his hand.

Before he could do more, there was a cursory knock at the door, and then it opened swiftly. A dark and ambitious priest, Cestmyr he was called, filled the doorway.

“You have a visitor,” Father Cestmyr said petulantly. He was obviously annoyed at the menial task he'd been assigned.

“A visitor?”

“A woman. She says she is to be your bride.” At this, Cestmyr pursed his lips. The fat priest didn't care much for women.

Ciro rose to his feet, the man before him forgotten. “Rayne? Rayne is here?”

“You sound like a smitten boy when you say her name,” Cestmyr said boldly. “That sad infatuation is not befitting the powerful man I know you to be.”

Ciro glared at the priest, who was in danger of losing his place of importance, and his very life.

Realizing he had gone too far, Cestmyr answered helpfully. “Yes, she gave her name as Rayne.” The priest pointed toward the window. “She waits below.”

“She came alone?”

“No, she arrived with one escort, a young green-clad soldier of Merin's army. The solider insisted that if he delivers your bride to you, you must release his sister's husband, the rightful emperor of Columbyana.”

Ciro had no intention of releasing his half-brother, but he was determined to have Rayne with him, where she belonged. He strode to the window and looked down upon the walkway below. He could not see her well, not from this vantage point, but he recognized the dress Rayne wore as one she'd often chosen for cooler days at her father's house, though the blue had faded and the fabric was the worse for wear after days of travel. The fall of hair beneath a ridiculous hat was tangled, but unmistakably hers. He had dreamed of that dark silky hair spread across his pillow. Even though she had betrayed him, he continued to dream.

He shouted her name, and Rayne's head tilted back a little. With the sun positioned as it was, her wide-brimmed hat shadowed the top half of her face. A wrap she'd tossed over her shoulders crept up and covered a portion of her face, so that all he could see of her was one perfectly shaped feminine cheek.

All he could see of her soon-to-be-dead escort was a sentinel's green hat.

“Let them in,” Ciro said. “Bring them to me so we can make the trade they seek.”

“You're not seriously—” Cestmyr began.

Ciro turned to glare at him. “Do as you're told, or I'll suck your pitiful soul out of that pathetic body and then spit it out the window for the wild dogs to claim.”

“Fine,” the priest snapped, turning to leave the room as quickly as possible.

“I have a feeling you're not going to let me go,” his half-brother said, his voice raspy and accepting.

“A man should always trust his gut instincts, eh?” Ciro responded.

It had to hurt to speak, but the wizard continued. “Tell me, before I die, is there anything of Prince Ciro left inside you or are you entirely Isen Demon now?”

That was a question Ciro had often asked himself, and he assumed that as long as he thought to ask, some of the man he had once been survived. “Why do you care?”

“As long as there is something of the man within you, perhaps there is a chance the world will go on. It doesn't need me to survive, it doesn't need any one person, but when the demon who possesses you is all-powerful, what will be left for the humans?”

“He'll need…we'll need some of them in order for life to go on.” Slaves for menial tasks, women for breeding, gray souls, and blood for sustenance.

“Some,” Chamblyn repeated.

“Yes, some.” No soldiers, no magicians who did not do his bidding, no priests who did not know their rightful places at his feet, no children who were not his own.

“Does the little bit of the man inside you grieve for the world you're about to destroy?” Chamblyn asked. “Do you know any sorrow for what might've been?”

The question caused a ripple in Ciro's stomach. “If your soul was not so annoyingly white, I would take it now.”

“When you are strong enough to take a white soul, there will be nothing left of you, Ciro. There will be only demon. Did he not tell you that yet? Did he not inform you that in a short while you will no longer be necessary? He needs your body, but that is all.”

“I look forward to the day when I am entirely demon.”

Chamblyn smiled, crookedly since his face was swollen. “When you are entirely demon, fuckwit, there will be nothing of
you
left.”

Don't listen to him. He's dead to us.

Ciro stepped toward the oddly defiant man, who was bound and bleeding and bruised and who continued to annoy him. He raised his hand, but the sounds of footsteps in the hall stopped him. He hadn't seen Rayne in months, and he did not wish her to see him with blood on his hands. Not right away. She might not understand. In time she would be made to pay for her unfaithfulness, but not today.

The door opened, and a sentinel dressed in green stepped inside, his sword drawn as if he thought it might do him some good. Behind the soldier, the familiar swish of a skirt made Ciro smile. He'd waited so long for her, his reward, his bride.

“We will not proceed until I have ascertained that the Emperor Sian is well.”