The Inadequate Heir, page 30
Silence.
“He said he doesn’t believe that Lara will take your bait.” The words came out in a rush of annoyance. “But he was clearly lying. I saw the fear the idea inspired in his eyes, and if he fears her trying to rescue him, it’s because he believes it’s possible.”
“Do you?”
Keris held his breath, waiting for his aunt’s response, for it would validate the information Valcotta had given his father about Lara.
“Yes. I think she’ll come for him and that you’ll be forced to face the monster you created, Silas.”
His father smiled. “You are rarely wrong about such things. Did you learn anything else of use from him?”
“Indeed. Your father married a woman named Amelie Yamure. You might not recall her, for she was only in the harem for a short time before she went missing, presumed dead. I learned tonight that she was an Ithicanian spy sent to infiltrate the inner sanctum. I also learned she is Aren’s grandmother.”
Keris didn’t bother hiding his surprise at that revelation. His grandfather had been wed to an Ithicanian spy?
“Why would Aren tell you this?” his father asked, posing the very question Keris was thinking.
“He has strong opinions on our customs, and when I suggested he had no basis for his views, he offered her experiences up as an example. It’s been an age since she was here, but we can only assume that she’s the source of Ithicana’s information on the inner sanctum’s defenses. Consider her perspective and you might better defend against their continued intrusions.”
Frustration boiled in Keris’s veins, because his aunt was achieving the exact opposite of the ends he’d hoped for. And there was nothing he could do about it.
His father rubbed his chin. “You’ve learned more from him in a few minutes of idle chatter than Serin has from weeks of torture.”
Coralyn snorted softly. “The man is trained to resist Serin’s techniques, but I do not think a lifetime isolated within Ithicana prepared him for political machinations.” Then she rose to her feet. “I did what you asked. Now you’ll hold up your end of the bargain. Give your word that you’ll allow the other girls to live out their lives in peace. That you’ll call off Serin and threaten him with consequences if any of them are harmed.”
“Done.” His father rose to his feet and left the room, leaving Keris alone with his aunts. Lestara rose and retrieved a drum the musicians had left behind, beating a rhythm and singing in the language of her homeland loud enough that any listeners would be unable to hear the conversation within the room.
Keris leaned back in his chair. “Well played, Auntie. What does Aren think he’s getting in exchange for this information?”
“What he believes he’ll receive matters little, given that I have what I want.”
“So … you lied to him?” Keris didn’t know why that surprised him, but it did. Coralyn was most certainly not above deception, but this felt … off.
She lifted one brocaded shoulder. “For the ruler of a nation that depends on trade, he’s a poor negotiator. One should always hold back full payment until the goods are delivered.”
Sickness filled Keris’s stomach, along with frustration with himself for not anticipating that she’d have her own agenda. “Did he give you a method to reach his people?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Her head cocked. “Why do you wish to know, Keris? I was under the impression you were ambivalent about Aren’s fate.”
“I am. But I grow weary of my family being surrounded by corpses. Give me the contact and I’ll put an end to this.” It was risky, because Serin’s men always followed him outside the palace, but what choice did he have? He needed the Ithicanians to help him free Valcotta.
“It’s not worth the risk of your father catching you meddling, Keris. Serin is watching you, looking for any possible mistake. And if you believe I’ll risk you for the sake of my gardens smelling more appealing, you don’t know me in the slightest.”
His panic was rising, because he was losing control. Had lost control. “I need to do something.”
“Why? Why is this so important that you’d risk everything? Not only yourself, but your sisters, for if your father realizes I was the one who told you the information, which he will, he’ll renege on his promise to stop hunting your sisters. We can endure the corpses, but we cannot endure more of our children dying.”
Because I cannot endure her dying! was the thought that screamed to be voiced, but he couldn’t. The harem hated Valcottans. They hated Zarrah. “Because it’s too much like what was done to my mother.”
Coralyn’s expression softened. “I know it is, dear one. But it won’t last much longer. Once Aren realizes I haven’t helped him, he’ll put an end to this himself.”
“You’re crueler than I’d believed, Auntie.” And he hated it. Hated that the one he loved like a mother was capable of this.
“Family is everything.” Coralyn motioned for the other women to follow her toward the door, though she paused to pat his cheek. “And there is little I won’t do to protect the harem’s children. Goodnight, Keris. Perhaps tomorrow will bring an end to all our woes.”
THE HAREM HAD been up to something tonight at dinner—even without the note Keris had written in his book, that would have been obvious. But Zarrah didn’t dwell on what the conversation between Coralyn and Aren might have achieved as she allowed the servants to prepare her for bed because after tonight, none of it would matter at all.
The clock in the tower struck the first toll of the ninth hour, announcing the harem’s curfew had begun. It was time. Zarrah swallowed down the twist of emotion in her stomach, but her grief refused to be vanquished. As did her regret.
What she wouldn’t give for the chance to say goodbye. To apologize for the grief her actions would cause. To tell him—
Tap.
Zarrah jumped, whirling around to face the window.
Tap.
Her pulse roared with equal parts anxiety and anticipation, and she extinguished the lamp and went to open the window. Faint mist rolled over her, and in the distance, lightning crackled across the sky.
Zarrah pressed her forehead against the bars and looked down into the darkness, her heart rivaling the thunder that rolled across the city.
And then he was there.
Keris swung himself up so that he was seated sideways on the ledge, one arm through the bars to hold him on the narrow perch. Then he said softly, “I’ve got news.” Zarrah’s heart skipped with the sudden certainty that her aunt had agreed with Keris’s terms. That she was to be freed, and her opportunity for vengeance was lost. But then Keris said, “Aren Kertell provided Coralyn with a way to contact his people in exchange for her giving them his orders to stand down in their rescue attempts.”
It wasn’t at all what she’d expected him to say, and for a moment, she was lost for words.
“She won’t act on it. She made a side deal with my father and revealed much of what Aren told her in exchange for him agreeing to make Serin cease his hunt of my half sisters.”
“Backstabbing old bitch.”
Keris shrugged. “She held back critical details from my father, the most significant of which was that Aren gave her a way to contact his people in Vencia. She has refused to share that knowledge, but that’s of no matter. I’ll get it from Aren himself, meet with his people, and give them the information they need to make a successful rescue attempt.”
Zarrah blinked, then realized his intent. “Your plan is for them to rescue me as well.”
“Yes.”
“Keris …” She exhaled. “This is a mad plan. What the Ithicanians are most likely to do is either kill you on first sight or kidnap you in an attempt to ransom you for Aren.”
He laughed. “They’d have better luck kidnapping and ransoming my father’s horse.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t risk it. It won’t work!”
“It might. The Ithicanians are desperate. They’ll agree.”
“It won’t.” Her heart was thundering in her chest. “Don’t pursue it.”
Keris was silent for a long moment, then he said, “If I didn’t know better, Valcotta, I might think that you didn’t want to escape.”
Zarrah’s hands turned to ice, because if Keris suspected her intentions, he’d try to stop her. Would pursue this mad plan to save her no matter the price. A price that didn’t have to be paid.
Yet she didn’t want to lie to him.
“My freedom isn’t worth your life, which is very likely the cost of all this.”
“On that, we’ll have to agree to disagree, Valcotta. If falling on my own sword would miraculously get you free of this mess, I’d do it. But given it would prove ineffectual, I’ll take what risks I must to secure the help of those who can accomplish this task.”
His voice was angry, bitter, but given this might be their final moment alone together, she refused to deceive him with false hopes. Thunder rolled in the distance, the storm moving closer, and she knew that if she didn’t get underway soon, rain and wind would render the climb impossible. But instead of sending him away, she whispered, “Why do you still call me that?”
Silence.
“Because knowing your name didn’t change who you were to me. Didn’t change how I felt about you. And …” Zarrah heard him swallow. “And perhaps because I refuse to let go of the moment when all things felt possible, including being with you.” He hesitated. “I can stop calling you that, if it’s what you want.”
It was the last thing she wanted.
His hand slipped through the bars to cup her face. “I’d fallen for you before I knew your name. You are everything I can never be. You are powerful and strong and brave. You make me believe I can be better. You give me hope. You are my hope.”
“Keris …”
He moved his thumb, pressing it to her lips. “No matter what the future brings, know that you hold my heart.”
Zarrah’s own heart went wild in her chest, because God help her, it felt an eternity since he’d touched her like this.
She’d once believed there was no going back to the way she’d felt about him when he’d been the anonymous Maridrinian reading her stories about stars. Believed that moment impossible to reclaim. And in that, she’d been correct. Knowing the truth about him, seeing the true him, had created a storm of emotion in her heart that was a hundred times more intense. Of all the stars mapped in her mind, his burned the brightest.
“I should go,” he said. “I put you at risk by being here.”
Zarrah reached through the bars, catching hold of his shirt, her hands tightening into fists because she didn’t want to let him go. Didn’t want to lose him, either through her actions or his. Because though she was too terrified to name the emotion setting her heart on fire, she felt it nonetheless. “Don’t go.”
Every breath she inhaled carried the scent of spice, and it triggered a flood of desire, flashes of memory rolling through her mind. Of his lips trailing over her body, fingers tracing lines of fire over her skin, of his tongue teasing her aching sex. Of his cock thrusting into her until she screamed, echoes of that pleasure sending a shudder through her.
There’d never be another chance to have him touch her, because regardless of whether she succeeded in killing Silas tonight or not, she was unlikely to survive long to revel in it.
This was it.
This was the end.
“I want you.” She caught hold of his hand, interlocking his fingers with hers, sliding his palm over her breast and hearing his intake of breath. “I need you.”
“Valcotta …” His voice was ragged, and because she sensed protest on his lips, she reached through the bars. Slid her hand down the front of his trousers, taking hold of his already stiffening length, his skin hot against her palm. “I want this.”
She stroked her hand up and down, remembering how he liked it, which was not gentle. Her eyes drifted shut and she listened to his breathing accelerate as he hardened beneath her touch.
He groaned, letting go of the bars with one hand to catch hold of her wrist, his fingertips tracing over the veins and making her body ache with need. But then his grip tightened, and he drew her hand out of his trousers, pushing her arm back through the bars. “I won’t take pleasure from you while you are a prisoner. You might have morals beyond measure, Valcotta, but I suffer such a dearth of them that I fear in sacrificing this one, I’ll have no morals left at all.”
“That is such a lie.” Her core throbbed, her thighs slick with desire. “And you seem to forget that in denying yourself, you deny me as well.”
He didn’t answer. Frustration filled Zarrah, because he was going to deny them this moment, not realizing it was the last chance they’d ever have.
“You make a valid point.” He reached through the bars to catch hold of her waist, his hand hot through the thin silk. “You are an excellent negotiator.”
“It helps when one knows what one wants.” She pressed her face to the bars, sighing as his hand moved over the curve of her ass, her eyes drifting shut. “Kiss me.”
She felt his breath, heard the raggedness of it, and then his lips were on hers, tongue in her mouth, kissing her with the desperation of one too-long denied. She slipped her arms through the bars, dragging her nails over his shoulders and digging them into the hard muscles, relishing his groan.
“God help me, Valcotta, you undo me like none other.”
“Because you are mine.” She didn’t care that logic said such a dream was impossible. “And no one else’s.”
He caught hold of the straps of her nightgown, the silk spilling around her body to pool over the curve of her hips. She whimpered as his thumb brushed over the tip of one breast, allowing him to pull her against the thin bars, his mouth lavishing one nipple, then the other, the scrape of his teeth on her sensitive skin driving her to madness.
Lightning splintered the sky, wind brushing against her naked torso, her skin cold except where his mouth turned it to fire. He gripped the bars with one hand, but the other was under the skirt of her nightdress, fingers trailing up her inner thigh. Higher and higher, and then they brushed over her silk undergarments, the growl that exited his lips telling her that he’d found them soaked with lust. “I want to see you.”
She spread her legs, knees moving to brace against the sides of the window frame, her hands gripping the bars as she leaned back, feeling his eyes drink in her body with every flash of lightning.
He stroked a finger over the sodden silk, the fabric rubbing against the apex of her thighs and sending shudders through her, tension growing in her core.
“Please.” She needed more. Needed all of him. “This is torment.”
“Which you deserve.” His finger slowly circled the center of her pleasure. “You have caused me a great deal of frustration.”
“Not on purpose.” She was shaking, wild with need. “Whereas your torment seems quite purposeful.”
He laughed softly, and then his finger slipped behind the fabric, the feel of his skin against hers nearly shattering her. She sobbed his name as he stroked her, finger moving down to tease her entrance before sliding inside of her.
Her body bucked, and she gripped the bars, thrusting herself against him and nearly sobbing as he slipped a second finger inside her. “Is this more what you had in mind?”
“Yes. God, yes.” She rode his fingers like a wild thing, moans tearing from her throat as his thumb rubbed against the knot of nerves, her tension mounting even as the storm moved closer. Then she felt his fingers curve inside her, stroking as she thrust down, and her body shattered. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, forcing her to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle the screams of his name, the climax leaving her spent.
But not sated.
She was coming to realize that she never would be. That she could never have enough of him. That a lifetime wouldn’t be enough and that even in the Great Beyond, she’d need his touch.
His arms moved around her, pulling her against the cold steel of the bars. Holding her until her breathing steadied, one hand gently stroking her spine.
“We’re going to win this, Valcotta,” he finally said. “You and I are going to beat them. It can be no other way.”
I will win, she thought, her eyes burning. But we will lose.
She whispered, “You should go. It’s going to rain.”
He kissed her once, long and lingering and so full of passion that she felt her resolve falter. But before she caved entirely, he pulled away and slipped into the night.
Grief threatened to overwhelm her, fueled by guilt that she was deceiving him. That he’d have to deal with the fallout of her actions. Yet it had to be this way, so Zarrah built up walls around every emotion, allowing only her anger to walk free.
As she cast her eyes upward to the tower, like clockwork, a glow flickered to life in Silas Veliant’s chambers.
It was time.
YOU SHOULD NOT have done that, he berated himself as he slipped through the gardens. Never mind if you got caught—it’s immoral to touch her while she’s a prisoner.
Yet denying her anything that she wanted, especially pleasure, bordered on impossible for him. He’d do anything to make her smile. To make her laugh. To take her away from this awful circumstance, if only for a moment.
Hands closed on Keris’s shoulders, and a voice whispered, “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
He twisted, nearly punching whoever it was in the face before recognizing his brother. “Otis? What are you doing here?”
“Hardly the most pressing question.” Otis scanned the dark gardens, his face barely visible in the shadows. “What were you thinking? If you were caught, Father would gut you like a fish.”
Keris felt the blood drain from his face. “Caught doing what, precisely?”
“Don’t play coy. Not with me.” His brother leaned closer. “I followed you out into the gardens to talk to you, but you disappeared. Only I know you, so I had a mind to look up. Or listen up, as the case might be.”
