The Invisible Ring (39 page)

“What?” Lia said weakly.

He kept a firm grip on her hands. “I’ve spent this entire journey chasing my own tail because I couldn’t sense the Ring in order to confirm that it existed. If you’d told me a couple of days ago that you had made it all up, I would have believed you.”

“Why won’t you believe me now?” Lia wailed.

Jared gave her a sharp smile. “Because we had help last night. A Warlord Prince I know did the healing. Just before he left, he confirmed that I wear the Invisible Ring. The Silver Ring.”

Lia tried to tug her hands free. “Why would you believe
him
?”

“He had no reason to lie. You, on the other hand, didn’t mention it until I threatened to drag you back to Dena Nehele. If you were in my place, what would you think?”

“That you’re an idiot.”

Slipping an arm around her waist, Jared led her to the bed. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. It was just bad timing on your part.”

She muttered something that sounded nasty.

“Come on, Lady Grumpy. Put your nightgown on, and I’ll tell you a bedtime story. Unless, of course, you’re like me and prefer to sleep in nothing but your skin.”

Her face had a lot of color now.

“Maybe you could sleep somewhere—”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh. I ... I’ll change in the bathroom.”

“You do that.” He waited until she was at the bathroom door. “Oh, Lia.

Just in case you get any ideas about slipping out of here without me, you should know that I’ve put a Red shield around the bathroom as well as this room and a Red lock on the door that leads to the adjoining bedroom.”

The mutter that got cut off by the bathroom door closing was
definitely
nasty.

Her brains were still as wobbly as her legs, Jared decided as he undressed.

Why bother to tell him now, even if it was true? He’d just go to Ranon’s Wood, and
she
was going to Ranon’s Wood, may the Darkness protect the stubborn little idiot. She thought she could push him out of her life before he was ready to go? Well, she could think again.

And he
would
go as soon as he got her safely to Dena Nehele. He’d said nothing less than the truth when he’d told her all male slaves carried scars.

Nine years as a pleasure slave had carved some deep ones into his soul.

He had no future in Dena Nehele. Or maybe it was more honest to say that he wouldn’t allow his heart to show him something that could never be more than a wistful dream.

Jared settled into bed and waited for Lia.

But he’d keep her safe until then. Safe so that, someday, a man without scars on his soul would be able to love her the way she deserved to be loved.

Krelis pressed his palms against the desk to keep his hands from curling into fists.

Don’t believe too quickly
, he reminded himself as he stared at the Second Circle guard standing in front of him.
Don’t hope at all
.

“Are you sure the man wasn’t selling you a lie for a few silver marks?”

Krelis finally asked.

“The bastard had no reason to lie, Lord Krelis,” the guard replied with a feral smile. “And I paid him nothing. Whenever I take leave time outside Hayll, I find it more ... lucrative . . . not to travel as a guard. These loose-tongued merchants and traders from other Territories are much more willing to complain and gossip with a fellow trader trying to make a little profit.

They say things they wouldn’t even dare think in the presence of a Hayllian court guard.”

A clever man, Krelis thought as he leaned back in his chair. A dangerous man. A man who knew how to fashion lies to look like bright truths. A man who, one day soon, would find a way to speak to the High Priestess directly.

And if he, Krelis, wasn’t very careful, he’d find himself condemned by compliments. “This loose-tongued merchant is sure he saw a Shalador Warlord at a traveler’s inn?”

The guard nodded. “A Red-Jeweled Shalador Warlord who looked like he’d been doing some hard traveling lately.”

“He was alone?”

The guard shrugged. “The bitch didn’t walk through the front door with him. Maybe he slipped the leash.”

“Or maybe she slipped in the back way.” Krelis rubbed his chin. The bitch-Queen had been traveling north or northwest since his pet had left the first message. So what was that Shadalor bastard doing so far south? Where were the others? If the bitch really wasn’t with him, if he
had
slipped the leash, why wasn’t he heading for his home Territory to hide for a few days?

Unless he was deliberately showing himself to lay a false trail. Or had the fool gone to that inn hoping to strike a bargain?

“This merchant. He was sure about the rest of it?”

The guard shifted his feet. He pressed his lips together. “It’s hard to mistake
that
one for any other.”

A chill started in Krelis’s lower back and crept up his spine. “Yes, it is.”

Hell’s fire, he needed a drink! “Your diligence to your duty is highly commendable, Warlord. You may be certain I’ll keep it in mind. Inform Lord Maryk that his presence is required.” Krelis gestured toward the door.

Accepting the dismissal, the guard bowed and left.

Krelis called in a bottle of brandy, but Maryk knocked on the door before he could consume enough of it to settle his nerves. Smothering a curse, he vanished the bottle, and snapped, “Come in!”

“Lord Krelis.”

Maryk’s bland expression was a subtle insult, but he hadn’t been able to completely extinguish the contempt from his eyes.

“I’ve received some information about the little bitch-Queen who’s been such an annoyance to the High Priestess,” Krelis said. “I’m going to look into it personally. Until I return, you’re in charge. If the High Priestess summons, you’ll have to answer her.”

Maryk swallowed carefully. They both knew what could happen to males when Dorothea was annoyed.

“I understand, Lord Krelis. Is there anything that will require special attention?”

Krelis shook his head. “You have the assignment roster. I’ve been informed of nothing else.”

“Then, may the Darkness grant you a safe and speedy journey.”

Yes, Krelis thought, as Maryk escorted him to the landing place. The guards—especially the First Circle guards— might despise him, but they’d rather have him standing between them and the High Priestess of Hayll than nothing at all. And not one of them would envy him this journey.

Krelis didn’t bother to knock before he opened the door of the small receiving room. Men didn’t have to extend any kind of courtesy to pleasure slaves. Even this one. Besides, he’d already used up his courtesy on the pouty Queen who ruled this forsaken Province. Hell’s fire! What had the High Priestess been thinking of to loan the Sadist to a witch who’d had half of her brains bred out of her?

Daemon Sadi stood with his back to the door, looking out a window.

Krelis closed the door hard enough to make anyone else jump. Daemon didn’t even twitch.

“Sadi,” Krelis said, coming into the room far enough to see the beautiful face in profile.

“Lord Krelis.”

The boredom in that deep voice grated on Krelis’s nerves. That Sadi didn’t bother to look at him grated even more.

Krelis’s hands curled into fists. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“No.”

If Sadi’s voice and face were any gauge to measure by, he also didn’t care.

“It seems your Lady grants you a lot of liberties,” Krelis said.

“She has a low threshold for pain.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, Krelis said nothing for a minute.

“You were seen at a traveler’s inn a couple of days ago.”

“Was I?”

“You met a Red-Jeweled Shalador Warlord named Jared there.”

“Did I?”

“Did you arrange to meet him?”

“That would have required effort. He’s not that interesting.”

“After he rented a room, he wasn’t seen again. You left the common room shortly after he arrived and weren’t seen again either.”

“It appears someone else was as bored as I was if keeping track of everyone else’s movements was the best entertainment available.”

Krelis clenched his teeth. “You met with him. Why?”

“We were in the same court a few years ago. When he showed up at the inn, having dinner together seemed like a way to pass some time.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing interesting enough to remember.”

“Was there a woman with him? A witch?”

“I’d gone to that hovel to get away from the stink of witches. I wouldn’t have stayed in the room if one of them had been present.”

Krelis took a deep breath and forgot what he was going to say. The air in the room felt soft, heavy. An elusive scent drifted past him, a scent that warmed the muscles in his groin at the same time it melted the tension from the rest of his body.

He took another deep breath. What had they been talking about? The Shalador Warlord. Now he remembered. “You talked all evening and remember nothing?”

“We talked during dinner.”

“Did he mention the Gray Lady?”

“He wasn’t quite that boring.”

“What—” Krelis bit his lip. The pain cleared his head a little. “I want to know what the two of you did that evening.”

Daemon turned and looked at him. “Do you?” he asked too softly.

Krelis nodded slowly.

Daemon smiled that cold, cruel smile.

Krelis shuddered and then gasped.

Long-nailed fingers whispered down his back, over his buttocks, down the backs of his thighs. They were still drifting over his calves when another pair of phantom hands brushed the back of his neck and began the journey.

“He bored me.” Daemon took a couple of graceful, predatory steps toward Krelis. “It left me feeling mean, so I seduced him.”

Another pair of phantom hands whispered over Krelis’s chest and belly, separating just before they reached his groin to travel down the front of his legs.

“He was begging by the time I began to feel amused,” Daemon crooned, taking another step toward Krelis.

Krelis opened his mouth to protest.

The tip of a phantom tongue delicately licked his upper lip.

Another tongue licked the inside of his thigh, moving upward.

Warm breath washed over his balls, over his hard organ.

“He was sobbing by the time I left the room,” Daemon crooned, coming just a little closer, but still not close enough to touch.

A phantom mouth brushed against Krelis’s throat. Sucked gently.

“Do you want me to show you what I did to him?”

Krelis couldn’t think. Didn’t want to think about anything but that beautiful face, about the moment when that real mouth would glide over his hot skin, when that real tongue would—

Daemon smiled. “I thought not.”

Everything stopped. Instantly.

Krelis swayed. His vision blurred. Every breath made his body throb. In that moment, he would have promised anything, done anything to make Daemon finish it.

Knowing that revolted him.

He bit his lip until it bled. By the time he could think again, Daemon was looking out the window as if nothing had happened.

Krelis wanted to lash out, wanted to threaten some kind of dire punishment that would make up for his body’s screaming need for relief.

Daemon turned his head and smiled that cold, cruel smile.

Krelis staggered out of the room.

A few steps away from the door, he leaned against the wall while he waited to get some strength back in his quivering legs.

Now he understood why Queens and favored witches from aristo families paid Dorothea such exorbitant fees for the loan of Daemon Sadi. Now he understood why they were willing to endure his cruelty, why they were willing to risk his temper. To have that exquisite pleasure brought to completion . . .

Krelis pushed away from the wall, desperate to get away from this place.

Maybe, with distance, he could deny the terrible feeling that, no matter how skilled the whore or how much relief he took between her thighs, he would never again experience the kind of pleasure he’d felt with the Sadist.

Lia stopped abruptly at the edge of the official landing place outside Ranon’s Wood.

Jared grabbed her, drawing her back against him while he absorbed the significance of what he was seeing—of what he
wasn’t
seeing.

The section of the Coach station roof that had been torn away.

The broken windows.

The empty corral where the horses for hire would have been kept during the day.

The pieces of the stable door that were scattered around the yard.

The absence of people.

And the deeper feeling of emptiness.

“The land’s been wounded,” Lia said in a hushed, aching voice. “Oh, Jared, the land’s been deeply wounded.”

Hay fields that should have been thick with stubble from the harvest had small islands of yellow grass growing out of a sea of barren ground. Trees that had been landmarks for generations scarred the morning sky with their dead branches.

“The Blood fought here,” Lia whispered. Her hand shook as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

Hearing her unspoken question, Jared chained his grief, leashed his growing fear. “This didn’t happen because of our coming here. Look at the land, Lia. This happened during the growing season, not the harvest. When we got the supplies at the landen village, the old woman warned me that there was trouble in Shalador.” He took her hand.

“Come on. Ranon’s Wood is about a half a mile from here.”

It would have been easy to probe the village, would have been easy to reach for the familiar minds of his family. He didn’t do either.

The second time Lia stumbled because he’d increased the pace beyond her ability to keep up, she planted her feet and refused to move.

“You go on, Jared. Find out what’s happened to your people.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll be fine. There’s nothing here that will harm me.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

As they stared at each other, the words seemed to echo.

Jared swallowed. Tasted bitterness. Silently acknowledged the lie beneath the sincere words. As much as he didn’t want to, he
would
leave her—as soon as he saw her safely home.