Return to Shanhasson (19 page)

Her heart wrenched and she couldn’t
stifle the sound of pain. Her daughters, how she missed them. “They’re safer on
the Plains. The new Khul has pledged his entire Camp to keeping them safe from
all harm.”

Allandor had failed before and allowed
her mother to be assassinated. She would keep the twins as far away from their
homeland for as long as possible and pray every single day that they found
happiness and lives of their own. That they were strong enough to refuse the
yoke of the Rose Crown’s duty.

Blessed
Lady, let them be stronger than I am.

CHAPTER

NINE

AFTER
TWO FULL MONTHS IN SHANHASSON, DHARMAN STILL COUNTED IT A BLESSING THAT SHE
ALLOWED SAL AND HIMSELF TO SLEEP IN HER BED. However, that blessing was quickly
becoming a curse.

She slept between them as always, but
not easily. Dharman tried to breathe shallowly, but it was impossible not to
smell the smoldering roses of her scent. Every night, her scent grew stronger.

Vulkar help him, she
needed
.

Every oath he’d ever sworn demanded he
ease that need as quickly as possible. Yet she hadn’t asked him. Night after
night, she tried to sleep between them as though nothing had changed, as though
she didn’t need them at all.

She dreamed, aye, but never of the Tenth
Camp, never of her dead Khul and the Shadowed Blood. Dharman felt her try to
enter that sacred place, but the swirling snows of her sorrow and blizzard of
her rage kept her locked outside. Every single night, she closed her eyes and
strained to reach them, but all she woke up with were her two Blood.

Which was exactly why he didn’t touch
her, despite the desperate need burning in her body. She didn’t need
him
. She didn’t need Sal. Until she did,
they lay here in the Three Hells.

She shifted. Rolling closer to him, she
threw her leg over his. His breath hissed out. Across her shoulder, he met
Sal’s gaze. The wretched dimple flashed in his cheek with his grin. He enjoyed
watching Dharman sweat.

Letting out a ragged little sigh that
tied his guts into knots, she nestled her face deeper into his neck. Her
fingers on one hand played in his hair; the other hand curled in the small of
his back. Her nails bit into him delicately and he couldn’t help but drop his
hand to her hip.

How he hated the long cotton gown she
wore to prevent a single brush of bare skin against his.

“Touch me,” she whispered, hooking her
heel behind his knee.

Her wish was his command, yet he
hesitated. He didn’t think she was awake.

Vulkar help him, she bit him. Just a
graze of her teeth, but it sent his heart pounding, blood searing his veins
until the world pulsed in a red haze.

“Please.”

He dragged the cloth up higher on her
hip. Her breathing quickened, hot on his flesh. He knew the need that clenched
her inner muscles in a vise. She ached, burned, a touch would send her
trembling and crying over the edge. Shaking, he trailed his fingers up the
curve of her thigh. She arched her hips, those deep-throated whispers driving
him onward. He cupped her and slid a finger into the sweet place he’d been
burning to explore at her leisure.

Breathing hard, she gripped his throat
in her mouth and dug at his back. He gritted his teeth, concentrating on
control, and pushed deeper.

A cry tore out of her and she convulsed
in his arms. Melting roses smoked in her scent. So hot, Vulkar help him, so
tight. Shaking on the edge of release himself, he let out a hoarse groan and
sank his finger deeper.

“Rhaekhar,” she moaned.

She might as well have kicked Dharman in
the groin and buried the ivory
rahke
in his heart. Shuddering, he fought back the pleasure threatening to break his
control. He must have squeezed too tightly, for she cried out and opened her
eyes.

Nose to nose with him, she opened and
closed her mouth, but he knew exactly what she had begun to say.

“Nay.” He flung himself onto his back.
“I’m not him. I’ll never be him. He still stands between me and your heart and
always will.”

She scrambled to the foot of the bed and
huddled there, wide eyed and chest heaving, shocked at what she’d allowed him
to do. He might have given her small pleasure, but her body hungered for much
more. She dropped her gaze to his straining
memsha
,
and he bit back a curse.

Something hot and wet closed around his
index finger, the one that had been buried in her tight heat. Tongue working on
a rumbling purr, the other Blood licked Dharman’s fingers of every trace of
musk. On a low shout, his back arched, his hips pumped desperately, and fire
ripped through his stomach.

Panting, he glanced at her face. Her
mouth hung open with surprise. Face burning with shame, he rolled to his feet
and stomped toward the bath. “Great Vulkar, Sal, your hair is bad enough. I
don’t need your hands on me too!”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset; at
least you released. I’m about to die.” Sal flopped on his back, smacking his
lips with loud appreciation. “Besides, it wasn’t my hands.”

* * *

CHEEKS BLAZING, SHANNARI SLOWLY MOVED
back to her pillow in the middle of the bed and tried to pretend that nothing
had happened. Sal rolled toward her with a welcoming sigh and curled against
her.

“Do you think he’ll forgive us?”

“Oh, aye. All you need to do is ask him
to touch you again.”

She listened to Dharman’s bond while he
washed away the evidence. He was humiliated, mostly, although terribly hurt.
What he’d thought to be a great step toward fulfilling his dream had become a
nightmare that grated on his pride, compounded by Sal bringing him to
release—no matter how accidentally—while she watched. She might as well have
ripped his
kae’valda
away and
trampled his young heart into the dirt.

Worse, though, was the thought that they
truly were suffering because of her. Not these proud young boys who’d grown to
warriors right before her eyes and given up their entire lives to be by her
side.

“Sal, are you truly hurting?”

He laughed and drew her face tighter
against him. “Your desire is our desire,
na’lanna
Qwen
. When you’re ready, we’ll be more than eager to satisfy your every
need.”

Which wasn’t an answer at all. She
didn’t fail to note he couldn’t meet her gaze. She opened herself to his bond,
and tears burned her eyes. Every muscle in his young, powerful body screamed to
roll her beneath him and release this burning need, but all he did was cuddle
with her. Night after night, he’d done nothing but hold her while she cried or
slept.

She slid her mouth across his neck to
the old bite mark she’d put on his throat years ago.

“
Na’lanna
,”
he breathed. “Are you—”

She pushed him on his back. Stroking
that sensitive mark with her mouth, she licked him while his hands tore at the
sheets and his head tossed side to side and his hips arched desperately. As
soon as she gave him teeth, his breath exploded. His pleasure rocked through
her, his warm, spicy scent urging her to dig her teeth deeper to taste the
blood beneath.

One taste, and she’d forget this
hesitation and lingering guilt that she ached for another who wasn’t her mate.
She’d climb on top of him, licking and biting and kissing him until he was hard
again and she’d push him deep, ride him hard, until…

Shuddering, he cradled her head and
lifted her face so he could kiss her tenderly. “My thanks,
na’lanna Qwen
.” He slipped out from beneath her and winked, just as
Dharman came to the edge of the bed, stiff and vibrating with anger. “Next
time, I promise to taste your cream directly from the source instead of
Dharman’s hand.”

Dharman growled as the other Blood
sauntered by, red hair swishing seductively down his back. Keeping her face
deep in the pillow, she waited for the dip in the feather mattress, but it
never came. Hurt pride might keep her First Blood from her bed. If she let it.

She made a great show of rolling over and
fluffing her pillows just so. Then she nestled on her side and looked at him,
really looked at him. Beginning from the floor, she took in his full calves and
thighs thick and hard as granite pillars, up the red
memsha
about his hips, slightly damp from his ministrations in the
bath. Muscle encased his waist and abdomen in a vee that would lead her gaze
back south if she allowed it. His chest and shoulders were as wide and powerful
as Rhaekhar’s had ever been, his bulging arms surely even larger. All her Blood
wore their hair extremely long, even for a Sha’Kae al’Dan warrior, for they
knew how much she liked long, tousled hair. Dharman’s hung like thick sheaves
of wheat well down his back, although Sal’s hung down past his ass.

So much of what they did was for her,
even how they wore their hair. None of them wore the typical braids at their
temples. She must have mentioned once how much she’d appreciated Khul’s hair
when loose of all his precious
kae’valda
,
and they’d immediately changed to meet with her approval.

Looking at such a splendid specimen of
warrior, whose every goal was to make her smile, she couldn’t help but feel her
body stir with anticipation. Instead of denying and hiding—running, as she
hated to do—she let that desire shine in her eyes and thicken her voice. “I’m
cold. If you don’t—”

She’d intended to threaten him with
asking Jorah to hold her instead, but Dharman didn’t let her finish. He came to
her immediately, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into the heat of
his body. His heart thudded too fast against her cheek. Listening to his bond
made her dizzy. His emotions tumbled from hope to despair, gladness to
remembered humiliation and aching love.

Fisting her hands in his hair, she held
him close until his heart steadied and some of his turmoil lessened in his
bond. Sal wrapped against her back and tossed his hair over her shoulder. She
knew that red silk dragged over Dharman too, but he didn’t complain.

For her sake.

Just before she drifted off to sleep,
she whispered, “I knew it was you. I just miss him. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know,
na’lanna Qwen
. I know.”

CHAPTER

TEN

KING
CHALLON OF THE NORTH FOREST SIGHED AND SHUFFLED THE PAPERS FROM THE LATEST
REPORTS FROM FAR ILLIONE. “Even the harshest winter we’ve seen in a hundred
years hasn’t stopped the Keldari raiders.”

Shannari already knew what the pages
reported. The caravans might be slowed by significant snows, but the desert
raiders only rode deeper into her territory. She supposed snow was merely a
colder form of sand.

“You need to post more soldiers on the
border, Your Majesty,” Challon continued. “If we escort the caravans, more will
surely get through.”

Lightly, she rubbed her temples,
deliberately displaying weariness to her Council. If they thought her confused
and weak, they might play their cards quicker. If she sent any more troops to
the farthest reaches of her country, then she’d have barely a skeleton guard
left in Shanhasson, which was exactly what her enemies intended. With a sigh
that was only half feigned, she said, “Let me think on it. That will be all for
today.”

One by one, her Council rose, bowed, and
made their way to other areas of the Palace to continue their plots behind her
back. Benton, the Steward of Far Illione, stood at the door, whispered to
someone outside, and then stepped back to her chair. “Pardon, Your Majesty, but
I have some firsthand news that you may find interesting.”

Oh, Benton. She nodded sadly. She’d
hoped to prove him an ally after he’d worked so hard to arrange the trade for
Keldari horses, but once he’d brought that flaming Keldari oil into the Palace,
she’d feared the worst. “I’m most anxious for news from Keldar.”

Benton waved a young man into the room.
“My son, Percy, barely made it out of the desert alive.”

Clean cut and handsome in a nondescript
sort of way, the young man seemed mild and unassuming as he bowed deeply and
stammered his pleased thanks for the private audience. Yet her nerves shrilled
with urgency. Her stomach knotted so hard she flinched.

Dharman stiffened behind her, so she
quickly used his bond.
:Don’t sound the
alarm. This man may have information I need.:

He flashed the command,
Guard
. All her Blood jerked to full
attention, but the outlanders didn’t even notice. They were all terrified of
the barbarians, so one step short of killing meant nothing to her people.

Curled against her leg, Sal was mostly
hidden beneath the table. A simple request through the bond, and she felt the
prick of his
rahke
on her palm. He
cradled her hand, keeping the blood pooled in her palm so it didn’t drip onto
her clothing or floor. Although knowing Sal, he’d lick the floor clean if she
did accidentally spill it.