The Harem Master (7 page)

Demir swung the door shut and locked it, then hooked the key back on the ring that hung from the chain around his waist. Where had Demir gotten a key to the secret passages? Only the king and queen should have them.

More importantly, why were he and Fatih using the passages?

The two men stood speaking quietly, too low for Ihsan to hear, for several minutes. When they finally parted ways and the hall was empty and silent again, Ihsan rose to his feet.

"Do you want me to learn what they were doing?" Kitt asked in an idle tone.

"Not yet," Ihsan said. "We've only just arrived and so know nothing. I would rather get comfortable, learn the lay of things. I want to speak to my father, then the council. Then we will begin to creep around and demand answers. Let us hope Lord Demir and Captain Fatih are friends, not foe."

Euren scowled at the target board, where two of five throwing knives had failed to land in the center mark.

"You're nervous. Your face hides it, but the knives never lie."

Huffing, Euren turned to focus her glare on the woman sitting against the nearest wall of the practice yard under the shade of the overhang that protected the walkways from the relentless sun. "Maybe. Not all of us can be like you, never nervous about anything."

"Me? Never nervous?" Asli laughed and rose, brushing orange-brown dust from her dark red skirt. "You appear to have forgotten that night several days after your wedding, when I came to your room and begged to be the first in your harem."

"If you were nervous about that, this is the first I've heard of it." She smiled as Asli looped an arm around her neck and drew her into a soft, lazy kiss. Asli smelled like dust and the white flowers that made the monastery's wine unique, eagerly sought, and obscenely expensive.

Drawing back, idly playing with the loose knot of Euren's ink-black hair, Asli said, "No reason to be nervous, Sunlight."

"No reason at all. Deposing a king and learning how to be a queen is as easy as finding sand. Especially after five years of hiding away in a monastery, two of which were spent thinking my husband was probably dead." She blew out a breath. "Nothing to it."

Asli smiled, cupped her face, and kissed her again. "I have been teaching you how to be an indolent noble all these years, and you have always done very well. If my mother can master Tavamaran court life, so can you. And you'll have your crazy, very-much-alive husband right beside you, and he'll probably be causing so much ruckus you can work undisturbed."

"That is certainly true," Euren said, matching Asli's smile as she thought of Ihsan. He had stumbled into the monastery starved and exhausted and half-mad from overexposure to the sun and heat, saying her name over and over until he passed out. He and his harem had barely been able to leave their beds for a week. She had never cried so much or been so happy.

Or angry, but Ihsan had always been infuriatingly skilled at banishing her anger.

"I cannot wait to see you a queen," Asli said, hands sliding from Euren's face to smooth down her throat and along her shoulders, skating along her bare arms before she let go and stepped back. She looked Euren up and down, grinned when their eyes finally met again. "Though I will miss seeing you half-naked all of the time."

Euren rolled her eyes. "I suspect you will not care, actually, because you'll be having too much fun walking around in concubine finery and half-naked yourself." She reached out and tugged at the beaded red fabric wrapped around Asli's breasts. "Your old betrothed will hate me even more."

"I'm sure he moved on years ago," Asli replied with a shrug. "It was not as though we actually cared for each other. You can tell that one grew up in a stodgy old city in eastern Tavamara. He cares about his horses, not who he marries."

"There is that," Euren said, mouth twitching. She let her hand fall and turned back around to stare at the target board. "I hope this entire venture does not come down to my aim."

"Your aim is fine when you're not worrying yourself to death." Asli patted her ass playfully, then crossed the yard and pulled the throwing knives free. Returning to Euren, she held them out. "Have another go. Think about the reward you'll get if all the knives land true." She fluttered her lashes, pale, pretty mouth curving in a wicked little smile that made Euren shiver, recalling all that mouth had done just that morning before they all got out of bed to get on with the day. In a couple more days they would be ready to leave and return to a life they'd not seen for five years. Soon they would be too busy trying to stay alive to have many chances to enjoy each other. Every stolen moment mattered. "I do like rewards."

Motioning for Asli to return to the safety of the wall, Euren focused on the target, felt the familiar, comforting weight of the knives—then threw them in rapid succession, exactly the way her father had taught her when she was still a girl, so young her aunt had been furious with him for days.

Homesickness washed through her then, an old, familiar ache, but it was soothed by the knowledge that in a matter of days she would finally be home again—and would never have to leave it. By law, once on the throne, the king and queen never left the palace of Tavamara except under rare, usually dire, circumstances.

"Beautifully done," Asli said from behind her, arms wrapping around Euren's waist, lips pressing to her shoulder. Her fingers dipped into the waistband of Euren's pants.

"Not here," Euren said, even as she pressed back against Asli. "The monks get irate when we're a little too public."

"We'll be gone soon, and they can go back to playing in the yard themselves," Asli said but withdrew and took Euren's hand. They paused to retrieve the jug of water they'd brought along, then slipped into the temple.

The cool dark of its halls was refreshing after the blazing heat of the yard. Even in only a wrap and knee-length pants, she was sweltering. "We should go to the river, enjoy the cold water one last time."

"That sounds fun." Asli pushed open the door to the large room that had belonged to Euren and her harem for the past five years.

The door had barely closed behind Euren when she was pushed up against it and given a ravenous kiss that made the cut in her lip sting. She dug her fingers into Asli's short, dark, red-brown hair, returning the kiss full measure. Asli pushed a thigh between hers, lifting her so her feet barely touched the ground, fingers slipping into her pants to grip Euren's ass firmly.

Tearing away from Euren's mouth, Asli put her own to work on Euren's jaw, down to her throat, sucking gently on the mark she'd left there the previous night. It throbbed under the careful assault, and Euren didn't even try to hold back a soft moan.

She swore when Asli abruptly drew away but ceased complaining when she realized it was only so Asli could unknot her top and cast it aside. Next Asli untied the strings holding her pants closed. Pushing her back up against the door, Asli put fingers and mouth to work. Her mouth alternated between sucking kisses and gentle scrapes of teeth on Euren's breasts. She pushed Euren's pants further out of the way, then braced one hand on the door while the other continued to work Euren's clit. "Can't wait to see you dressed as a queen, fuck you when you're still in all your pretty clothes while people wait impatiently in the hall to speak with you."

"Troublemaker," Euren gasped out and then muffled her cry in Asli's mouth as she came.

She slumped against the door, sated and wrung out—and scowled when Asli danced away from her touch. "Get back here unless you're actually trying to avoid reciprocation."

Asli smiled. When they were children, and Euren was the soldier's child who shouldn't have been playing with a crown prince and a nobleman's daughter, that smile had gotten all three of them in a great deal of trouble. Since she had become the crown princess and Asli a concubine… that hadn't really changed much. Asli would always have an affinity for mischief. Euren loved the quality—always had, always would. If not for Asli, Euren and Ihsan might never have taken a risk on each other. "I am enjoying the rush of anticipation, Sunlight. Let's find our errant sisters and go bathe in the river."

"They're probably overseeing the packing, even though I told them to leave it to the monks."

"Probably." Asli tossed her a bathing robe, then shucked her clothes and shrugged into her own robe. They gathered up the baskets that held their bathing supplies, then went to the south end of the monastery.

As expected, Gulden and Canan were supervising the packing, fussing and questioning and slowly driving the poor monks mad.

"Enough, you two," Asli said. "I think they can manage to pack a few trunks. Come with us to the river for a bath."

They turned around as one. Complete opposites in almost everything, but somehow they managed to get along like sisters who had never spent a day apart. Gulden was tall and extremely slender, with long, dark brown hair she kept braided and wrapped around the back of her head, often decorated with silk flowers and butterflies. At the moment it was messy and undecorated, hastily done up that morning before she'd darted off for her morning exercises. "A bath sounds like a wonderful idea, Highness, but—"

"But nothing," Euren said. "You can fuss over it all later, if you must."

Gulden opened her mouth to argue, but stopped when Canan touched her back. She was short, brown skin not quite as dark as Gulden's, and kept her hair shaved extremely close to her scalp. Large gold hoops hung from her ears, and she had a smaller one in the center of her nose and two in her bottom lip. Hidden from sight were the hoops piercing her nipples, but the one on her stomach, slightly larger and decorated with a ruby, was visible.

Though Canan had never been fond of the priesthood, and had gladly walked away from it to become part of Euren's harem, she still retained much of the appearance and practices of a priestess, her manner of dress and demeanor restrained around others, given to long stretches of silence. Gulden was a former tutor, hired by Euren's father after she'd married Ihsan, to help Asli train her to be queen. He would probably be torn between amusement and annoyance when he learned Gulden had become one of her concubines.

"Let's go bathe, then maybe have dinner while we finalize how we are going to travel home," Canan said. "Come on, Gulden."

"Very well," Gulden replied and followed along as Euren led the way from the temple, down the slight hill behind it along a well-trod footpath to the river. The clearing where they settled, in a small bend well hidden by heavy trees and tall, lush flowers, had become their favorite spot as they whiled away the days and months and years.

It was a much more peaceful existence, usually, than she had expected to enjoy when they'd made the decision to run away. The worst part of that day was that they had not even been able to run away together. Euren had left hours before Ihsan, under cover of not feeling well while he endured a long banquet. They met up days later at a prearranged location to which Ihsan had arrived late. It had the first of many scares the damned man had given her, though nothing would ever be as bad as believing him dead.

Even in the midst of war he had always managed to come see her every few months. Two years and seven days without even a letter, she had been on the verge of giving up and going home to build a new life from whatever was left of the old.

"Enough brooding, Highness," Gulden said, fingers deftly unknotting the belt of Euren's robe. She pushed if off Euren's shoulders with bold fingers that were withdrawn slowly and teasingly. "It's hotter than a heathen stumbling into a royal orgy out here."

Euren clucked her tongue and tried not to laugh. "Not all heathens shy away from orgies."

"Rittuens never say no, that's for certain," Canan replied as she waded into the water. "This water is cold enough to freeze thoughts of orgies."

Asli snickered as she slid into the water and splashed some at Canan, then dove when that got her a bellow of protest and promised retribution.

Leaving them to their battle, Euren picked a quieter bit of river where she could lean against a sun-warmed rock that was a pleasant counterpoint to the cold water. "Going to be strange being home again, all the people and noise."

"No more helping the monks smuggle people out of Tavamara to save them from His Majesty," Gulden added.

Euren's mouth quirked. "I would like to finally meet whoever is on the other end of the arrangement." All they'd ever known were the middle men who got people out of the city and across the country. The monastery then took them to a smaller port city where they were able to flee without all the trouble and danger that escaping via the royal port would have entailed.

It would have been especially dangerous, even impossible, for Princess Zehra, who had been pregnant and distraught when she'd arrived at the monastery. But even she had not said who'd been responsible for getting her out of the palace.

Smuggling was not something with which Euren had ever expected to become familiar, but it was useful knowledge. The monks had been horrified when she'd first chanced upon them smuggling out a poor little harem boy along with barrels of wine and costly spices.

Since then, she'd become a rather adept smuggler herself. Their connections with the market met with the monks in the city, handed over wine, spices, other goods that the crown taxed heavily. Most of Tavamara's wealth was made on trade, and the crown knew its business well enough to tolerate a certain amount of smuggling. Which meant there was plenty of money to be made selling certain goods to those places where they were forbidden—especially Tavamaran wines, varied, potent, highly unique.

The monks stored the goods to be smuggled, and once a month carried it all down to the coast to be taken away by pirates who would sell it elsewhere. Every now and then, some of that cargo was people. Watching them get on the boat, pale and scared and alone, was always unbearable. Princess Zehra had taken it more calmly than anyone else Euren had seen, but even she had looked like a terrified child.

Part of her would miss the illicit thrill of smuggling, of breaking laws that she was sworn to uphold as a princess, but mostly she was relieved the danger and stress and occasional death would be well behind her. She was going to be too busy to worry about it, anyway.