Shadows of Asphodel (36 page)

She sighed at the aching sweetness of his words. He slipped inside, slowly, agonizingly, until she dug her fingernails into his hips and dragged him down. He gasped and flung back his head. She wrapped her legs around him, forcing him deeper, and he growled low in his throat. His fingers clenched the sheets.

“I want you to ride me,” he said.

She grinned at the lust in his eyes. “Me, too.”

He hooked his arm under her shoulder and rolled them both. He landed flat on his back, her knees on either side of his hips. She looked down at him, greedy for the sight of his long dark eyelashes and kiss-swollen lips.

“Gorgeous,” she said.

Wendel laughed. “Gorgeous?”

“Take the compliment.”

She licked her lips, watching him, then sank lower and took him deeper. He sucked in his breath, his eyes smoky with desire. She wanted to hear his pleasure. Smiling mercilessly, she moved up and down, torturing him.

“Ardis,” he said, his voice gravelly in the best way. “Touch yourself.”

“Why?” she teased. “Would you like that?”

“Very much so.”

She did as he said. He let out a shuddering sigh. He couldn’t resist thrusting, and she encouraged him with a moan.

“Harder,” she said.

Sweat glittering on his skin, he set a relentless rhythm. It brought her close faster than ever before. When he slowed, she ground against him with frustration. It was too much—it wasn’t enough. She shook her head.

“Wendel!”

He thrust again, harder, and she tightened the muscles in her thighs. Pleasure built and built until it resembled pain. He angled himself to lick the sweat between her breasts. She teetered on the edge of ecstasy.

Then she fell.

She clung to him and bit his shoulder to stifle her scream. He held her as she shuddered. Gasping, she curled against him and squeezed her eyes shut. She realized she felt raw and fragile, baring herself to a man like this. Not just skin to skin, not just letting his body entwine with hers, but letting him into her heart.

“Ardis?” he said.

Inexplicably, her eyes prickled with tears. She gritted her teeth. No. She wouldn’t cry over him when she hadn’t lost him yet.

“Did I hurt you?” he said softly.

Not yet.

“No.” She cleared her throat. “I needed to breathe.”

He smoothed her tangled hair from her face. Then he slipped out from underneath and lowered her head to the pillow.

“Am I that breathtaking?” he said, his smirk at odds with the concern in his eyes.

He had to understand. Of course he did. He had lived his life in the shadow of the Order of the Asphodel. Even now, he didn’t believe he could escape. He could only steal fragments of a life that wasn’t his.

And lies hurt so much less than the truth.

“Breathtaking?” She managed to laugh. “Put your money where your mouth is.”

“My mouth, you say?”

Wendel almost hid behind his smile. When he bent over her, she closed her eyes and tried to let herself live in the moment. She wasn’t very good at it, she realized, but he knew what to do. His lips closed around her breast. He licked her nipple, teased her with his teeth, and she sighed and knotted her hands in his hair.

“Wendel,” she said.

She wanted to say, “I love you,” but fear choked her throat. She wasn’t sure she could admit to loving a man she couldn’t save.

He looked into her eyes as he gave himself to her. And it was almost enough.

~

Nightfall. Wendel didn’t leave, as he had promised, but stayed at the Pera Palace.

They lingered over dinner in the hotel restaurant. A delicious dinner, no doubt, though it tasted bland in Ardis’s mouth. She sipped water to wet her parched throat. Wendel divided his food into ever smaller pieces.

“I wasn’t joking,” Ardis said, “about running to Switzerland.”

Wendel shrugged and nudged a pea around his plate.

“Or France,” she said. “We could seek asylum there. Enemy of my enemy, you know.”

“Not France.” He flattened the pea beneath his knife. “I hate French.”

“How do you feel about English?”

He ate the pea. “Indifferent.”

“Then we can go to England. If we survive.
When
we survive.”

“This might be my last supper,” he said, with a fleeting smile.

She swallowed hard. “Wendel.”

“Maybe they will make a painting out of it,” he said. “
The Last Supper of the Necromancer
sounds a bit ludicrous, don’t you think? A statue might be more appropriate. Though I doubt anyone will give a damn.”

“This isn’t funny,” she said, and she glared at him.

He stared out the window. He was quiet for a long time. The clink of silverware on china scratched at her nerves.

“Say something,” she said. “Please. Don’t be silent after—”

“I love you.” He looked into her eyes, his cheeks flushed.

She forgot to breathe for a moment. Shakily, she wiped her mouth on her napkin.

Finally, she said, “You could have said that earlier.”

“I tried.”

His eyes looked intense, but there was a softness to the way he held his mouth.

“You took it back,” she said.

“And then I took
that
back.”

She glared at him for waiting until the last moment to say this. She had almost forgotten how frustrating the necromancer could be.

Wendel flagged down the waiter. “Check, please?”

Ardis’s stomach somersaulted, and she wished she hadn’t eaten a thing. Was this really happening? Was she really so powerless?

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

He didn’t even answer. He paid for their dinner, with what might have been his last coins, then stood and pulled out her chair for her.

She gripped his arm. “Wendel.”

He met her eyes. “You don’t have to come with me.”

He wanted this to be goodbye?

“No,” she said. “Hell no.”

He pried her fingers from his arm. “Then let’s go.”

Her throat tightened. She had to stop him somehow. She didn’t know if the Grandmaster even wanted his prize necromancer alive at this point, which meant that Wendel was far too confident about his chances.

Unless the dead look in his eyes meant he was beyond caring.

Wendel walked from the restaurant, and she followed at his heels. She was afraid that if she fell behind, he wouldn’t wait for her to catch up. Together they strode through the twisting nocturnal streets of Constantinople.

“Where are we going?” she said.

“The Galata Bridge,” he said.

“Why?”

“To find a boat.”

The waters of the Bosporus glittered like a thousand silver coins beneath the moonrise. The spire of the Maiden’s Tower soared against the opposite bank. Not too far away, far too close, the Serpent’s Tower loomed.

Ardis felt sick. She tasted acid creeping from her stomach.

Fisherman lined the Galata Bridge, casting their lures into the rippling of reflected lights. Wendel surveyed them, then shouted in Turkish. One of the fishermen stepped forward. Wendel dropped coins into the man’s hand. Gold coins, she noted, which seemed like a steep price to ferry them across to the Serpent’s Tower.

“His boat is ours,” Wendel said.

Her eyes widened. “You bought the boat?”

“So we won’t be stranded there.”

She nodded. Thank heavens he thought there was a return trip.

The fisherman trotted down the Galata Bridge to the bank. A sleek little skiff bobbed in the water. Ardis lowered herself into the skiff and clasped her hands between her knees, her knees pressed together tight. Wendel climbed into the back, shoved off from the bank, and started rowing toward the Serpent’s Tower.

Ardis cleared her throat. “Let me talk to the Grandmaster. Before you—”

“No,” Wendel said.

“No?”

“He isn’t the kind of man who talks.”

She glowered at the water. “I’m his daughter. He won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I only had one chance to talk to him. Let me talk to him again. Please.”

Wendel’s sigh stirred her hair. “If you insist.”

“Thank you.”

“If only so you will understand the inevitability of the situation.”

She shook her head. “There has to be a future where nobody dies.”

Wendel was silent. Waves slapped against the sides of the boat.

“Ardis,” he said, “somebody always has to die.”

She clenched her fists and stared at the Serpent’s Tower as they approached. Lights glinted through the narrow windows of the fortress. Scrubby pine trees clung to the rocky island, the only cover besides boulders.

Almost there.

The bottom of the boat scraped along the gravel beach. Wendel jumped out and steadied the boat for Ardis to disembark. She helped him drag the skiff onto the beach, and they hid it under the branches of thorn bushes.

The moonlight shone on Wendel’s pale face and highlighted the hard set of his jaw.

“At the very top of the tower,” he said, “we should find the Grandmaster.”

“And then?” she said.

The muscles in his neck tightened. “I don’t expect you to watch your father die.”

His cold confidence shook her. She backed away from him and bowed her head. Think. There had to be a way out.

“I’m here to help you,” she said, which wasn’t a lie.

Never mind that she had no idea how. Never mind that she felt a rising tide of panic.

“Ardis.”

Wendel stepped closer and slipped his hand behind her neck. He dragged her into a kiss. Icy fire swirled over her skin and curled around her bones. It knocked the breath right out of her. When he withdrew, she gasped.

His necromancy?

She panted for air. “What—?”

“Stay with me,” he said, “no matter what happens.”

“I will.”

“Take my hand.”

She twisted her fingers with his, the strange sensation still tingling in her ribcage.

Wendel drew his black dagger, and Amarant’s shadows cloaked them both. Silently, they strode toward the Serpent’s Tower.

“All the doors will be locked,” he muttered.

She nodded. “Obviously.”

“But he will be our key.”

Wendel pointed to a man patrolling the fortress perimeter. The guard’s gray cloak fell away to reveal the scimitar at his belt.

“Stay here,” Wendel said.

Ardis nodded and dropped behind a boulder as the shadows faded from her skin.

Wendel ran ahead, all but invisible, and she lost sight of him. The guard staggered, then straightened and continued his circuit around the tower. She squinted in the moonlight. Blood darkened the back of his cloak.

Ardis couldn’t help but grimly admire the necromancer’s finesse.

The dead man lingered at the foot of the fortress. He stopped by an arched door and rapped against the wood. Straining to hear, Ardis caught some muttered Turkish on the breeze. It might have been the dead man.

A thin beam of light sliced the darkness as the door opened.

The dead man sidestepped. A shadow whisked past him. A strangled gasp, then silence. Ardis froze behind the boulder, her heartbeat hammering, and fingered the hilt of Chun Yi. Footsteps crunched the gravel.

She whirled into a crouch, her sword already half-drawn.

“Ardis.” It was Wendel. “Give me your hand.”

Grimacing, she sheathed Chun Yi and held out her hand. His fingers gripped hers and smeared the slick heat of blood. Amarant’s shadows clouded her vision, nearly suffocating, and she struggled to breathe steadily.

“The door is clear,” he said.

“I can’t stay in the shadows forever,” she said. “I need my sword.”

“Wait.”

He loped to the door, his breath quick, and she followed in his footsteps. They ducked into a small, bare room carved from stone. Kerosene lamplight flickered in the empty eyes of the two dead men waiting for them there.

Wendel clenched her hand so hard, she almost didn’t realize he was shaking. Badly.

“Let go,” she whispered. “You’re cutting off the circulation.”

He glanced into her eyes. “Sorry.”

When he dropped her hand, she drew her sword. Flames blazed down Chun Yi.

“Where are we?” she said.

“The western wing of the fortress.” He jerked his chin toward a door on their right. “We head through that door, go down a corridor, and hit the bottom of the tower itself. Six flights of stairs to the top. Are you ready?”

“How many assassins?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“Great.” She blew out her breath. “Let’s find out.”

Ardis stepped forward, but he stopped her with a hand across her chest.

“Ladies last,” he said, “in these circumstances.”

The necromancer snapped his fingers, and his dead men flanked the door.

“Locked?” Wendel said.

“Yes,” a dead man said, and Ardis startled at the sound of his hollow voice.

Wendel curled his lip. “Do you have the key?”

“Yes.”

“Then unlock it. Kill anyone you find.” He glanced at Ardis. “Keep her safe.”

Undead bodyguards? She wasn’t sure she liked this idea.

The talkative dead man fumbled with a key. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about rigor mortis for another three or four hours. The thought crawled from a dark corner of Ardis’s brain, and she blinked it away.

The dead man unlocked the door and marched through. His comrade followed.

“Ardis,” Wendel said calmly, almost conversationally, “I will likely need to kill several dozen assassins. I need you to help me.”

She nodded. “Of course. But let’s not jump out of the frying pan.”

He stared at her.

“Into the fire?” she said. “Never mind. I want a plan, I mean.”

He held out his hands as if weighing their options.

“We kill anyone who tries to stop us,” he said. “Does that work?”

“Damn you, Wendel,” she growled.

He flinched, his eyes distant for a second. “My minions have company.”

“How…?”

“I can feel it. Better help them out before they get beheaded.”

Wendel disappeared into the shadows.

Ardis stepped through the doorway and into a fight. An assassin hacked at the neck of a dead man, his teeth bared, while the other dead man lunged with a clumsy sword blow. The assassin blocked him with his shield, whirled, and found himself face-to-face with Ardis. He bashed aside the minion and attacked.