We didn’t get to talk much after that, as there always seemed to be people lining the road, crowding onto rooftops—even hanging from the trees, like more of Lia’s exotic orchids. I tried to wave now and again, especially when Lia gave me a pointed stare and I realized I’d sunk into my thoughts again. So many questions she hadn’t answered fully. Though even if we had a lifetime together—not likely, the way things looked—I’d probably never fully understand her.
At least trying to be nice to the crowds gave me something to focus on, so I didn’t fall into staring at Lia’s temptingly displayed figure—and imagining the parts that didn’t show. Did other men’s wives do that teasing shit, like lifting their dress and showing them all the naked bits beneath? I doubted it, because I was sure I’d have heard guys brag about it. Lia wasn’t quite naked under there—she’d had on some kind of pink ribbons holding up her stockings and a scrap of lacy silk that showed off her sex instead of hiding it—and she’d been clearly as aroused as I was.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that vision, or about having her. Probably one of the crafty little games she played to amuse herself. Teasing me seemed to be her new favorite pastime, and she no doubt enjoyed making me stew in my thwarted desires the whole way. To pass the time, I plotted a bit of retaliation of my own. I’d already gone over and over in my head what I needed to see at Cradysica, in what order—and it would have to wait for morning light, regardless. We’d have time tonight and I didn’t intend to waste another with her.
Calanthe was big as islands went, but that wasn’t saying a lot, so we arrived at the “village” just before sunset. More like a city. As I’d figured from the depiction on the map, the settlement was quite a bit bigger than Lia had made it out to be. A temple crowned the hill—its dome reflecting the light with near-blinding gold that had to be real—a narrow road winding up to it. Little houses bordered most of the road, except at the last third or so, which looked too steep for building on. Mostly moss-covered rock up there, by the look of the terrain where we came in along the coastal road. From the lower two-thirds down, the village spread out along a hilly ravine, then cupped the harbor below.
Squinting against the angled light of the setting sun, I saw no rocks or reefs, only deceptively calm water between two arms of the island, the high and narrow ridges spurring out into the water above and below this reach of coast.
Perfect.
“Is this the only road in and out?” I asked Lia, just to be sure, though I’d seen that on the map.
“Yes.” She raised a brow at me. “Planning your escape already?”
Sondra, who’d ridden up beside us now that the road allowed for it, made a snorting sound. “We plan for all possibilities, Your Highness. You’ve clearly never had to think about exit strategies.”
“No, indeed.” Lia made a show of yawning into her pink, sparkly nails, demonstrating a boredom I knew she didn’t feel. “That’s why I married this one.” She flicked a careless gesture at me. “My father taught Me early on to delegate mundane tasks to others.”
“To your inferiors, you mean?” Sondra’s anger flared as she took Lia’s bait, swallowed it whole, and fought the line. I shook my head. Sondra still underestimated Lia. She looked at the Queen of Flowers and saw a younger woman, of similar station—but who hadn’t been tested by the same fires of hell—and made the critical mistake of thinking Lia wasn’t a warrior, too. Sondra never even saw the blade coming. “Conrí exceeds you in every way. Your Highness.”
Lia had turned her lazy gaze onto me, making a show of assessing me with a dubious quirk of one elegant brow. “Yes, but thickness of skull only counts for so much. Now, there is the matter of his masculine endow—”
“Sondra,” I interrupted. “Why don’t you go see if General Kara has sent any messages ahead?”
She flashed me a wounded look. “Conrí, I—”
“That’s an order.”
Pressing her lips into a hard line and leveling a glare worthy of a fistful of daggers at Lia, she galloped off. “Protecting your lieutenant from Me?” Lia asked, greatly amused.
“The bite you had of her was enough—I didn’t want you to spoil your supper.”
She laughed, a real one that made her eyes sparkle. “The Lady Sondra has a point that your wit is unexpected.”
“Sondra is also making a potentially fatal error by falling for your tricks. She doesn’t understand who you are.”
“And you do?”
“I’m getting there.” I paused, thinking how to ask it. Then decided there was no good way. “I’m wondering if you would make an effort to befriend her, as a favor to me.”
Lia made an O of her mouth that didn’t quite conceal her very real surprise. Yeah, I was getting better at reading her. The exaggerated expressions showed how she truly felt, but stretched to the point of comedy so the observer would think she was being sarcastic. The one that bore watching was the perfectly calm face she could put on like a blank mask. Then she had complete control, her poisonous thorns at the ready.
“Are you claiming I’ve been unkind to the Lady Sondra?” she asked archly, a hint of that venom beneath.
“No, you’ve been nicer than I’d have expected. Giving her a place at court, clothes that makes her happy, introducing her to like minds. I’m saying Sondra could … use a friend.”
“I believe she’s become friends with the Lady Brenda. Perhaps lovers.”
I shook my head sharply enough to have Lia raising a brow at the abruptness. “That won’t happen. The lovers thing. Friends maybe, but … Sondra could use someone with your insight. You understand how people tick. She needs that.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Lia replied after a significant pause. “I think I’m flattered by your good opinion.”
“Not flattery. I know something about people, too. You could help Sondra.”
“And why would I bother?” She drawled the question, lazy and bored queen again.
“Because I’m asking it.”
“Hmm.” The look she gave me wasn’t persuaded.
“You never gave me a wedding gift.”
“And here I thought I gave you an island paradise and a free pass to fuck the most beautiful woman in the known world,” she shot back.
I laughed and, though her disdainful expression didn’t alter, her eyes sparkled with that wicked humor. “Thank you,” I said.
“Save your gratitude. I may not grant your petition,” she replied airily.
“True.” I grinned at her, thinking of what I planned to do to her. Soon, very soon. “But you’ll do it, for me.”
She sniffed. “Maybe.”
“You will,” I insisted. “Because you can’t resist my masculine endowments.”
Rolling her eyes, she managed not to smile. “Such arrogance.”
“We’ll see.”
We pulled up in the circular drive of the leading family’s “bungalow” not long after that. It was, of course, a palace by most standards, with a cheering crowd of people turned out to receive their queen. Anure likely had no idea how much Lia’s people loved her. I doubted Anure could get to her, all things being equal, which of course they weren’t. Anure always had the advantage, Lia was right about that much. And Lia’s people could only protect her if she let them die for her, which she wouldn’t. She didn’t know it, but that’s why she had me.
She might worry about blood shed in violence, but I’d seen so much of that it barely registered anymore. Lia needed me to be ruthless where she couldn’t be. If I could extract Lia from this doomed enterprise without destroying her, I would. Calanthe and its people were another matter—and not my responsibility.
The head family of Cradysica greeted us lavishly—including me in their rituals, offering the intricately woven wreaths of flowers, as Lia’s people had done when I’d first landed with Sondra and Ambrose—and this time I accepted them, though I felt like an idiot. I was doing my best to be a decent consort for Lia. If that meant being draped in flowers, fine. The sideways speculative glances she slid me provided some reward. She wasn’t sure what I was up to, which I figured worked to my benefit.
If I kept her guessing, she couldn’t outmaneuver me. Not as easily, anyway.
Ambrose and Merle were received with delight, especially when Merle apparently laid an egg in the hands of one of the leading family’s daughters, which then hatched into a small fluffy birdling. He repeated the trick for each child present. Lia kept a polite smile pasted to her perfectly painted lips, but the glimmer in her eye revealed her disapproval. She worried about Ambrose being noticed.
That discussion about Anure having wizards of his own—which went against what I’d always been told and what the world believed—would explain a great deal about the Imperial Toad’s uncanny luck in war. Would Ambrose be a match for four wizards, if Agatha was accurate on that number? The wizard had seemed unconcerned, but I needed to talk with him about it, no matter how frustrating that conversation might be.
The lady of the house personally led us to the rooms set aside for the queen. We formed another parade, leading while Lia’s ladies followed, and servants brought up the rear with the many trunks Lia couldn’t travel without. I would’ve preferred to do a security sweep first, but I didn’t even suggest it, easily able to predict her reaction on that one. Who said I was a slow learner?
Besides, I figured I could rely on our move to travel to Cradysica being fast enough that Anure wouldn’t have been able to anticipate it. Even if the false emperor had been close enough to attack—and according to the letter from Lia’s spy he wasn’t yet, assuming the information really wasn’t compromised—then it would take Anure at least a full day to adjust. And even if the spies he had in Lia’s court sent a bird as soon as we left, we should have until the next day for him to change his own plans. I doubted Agatha and Zariah could have spread the news any faster than that, either. I calculated that that gave us all of the following day and night, at a minimum, to set our trap. I wouldn’t hope for more than that.
I was also counting on Lia’s arcane abilities to suss out any local danger. At least, I assumed she’d be alert for that. So far everyone treated this excursion like a big party, so I’d go along with it. I had to admit, Lia’s strategy for that had worked well enough so far. No one seemed to suspect our real motives for being there.
Still, I couldn’t help scanning the shadows—so many open windows that anything could come in—though I made myself take my hand off the bagiroca at my belt at Lia’s sideways glare. Ambrose elected to stay outside to play with the kids, saying he didn’t need to change for dinner. Neither did I, for that matter—though Lia might have other ideas—but I knew she would want to, and that fit well with what I had in mind.
The hostess showed Lia through the extensive spread of rooms, the ladies-in-waiting marshaling the servants to deposit trunks and goods in various places. Would Her Highness like to bathe and change clothes before supper? Oh yes, she certainly would.
I smiled to myself—and checked all the alcoves and balconies under the guise of appreciating the fine curtains and balmy night air. It had grown full dark—Calanthe sat near the equator, which made the days as stable as the weather, the sun always rising and setting at the same times—but the exterior of the house was well lit with torches and bonfires. No one could sneak by in shadows anyway.
No apparent danger, so I relaxed a little, finding Lia in conversation with her ladies on the dress she planned to wear, the hostess and servants having left.
“Dare we relax our guard now?” Lia asked with an arched eyebrow.
Of course I hadn’t fooled her. I gave her an easy grin, letting her see the wolf in it. “I can, but you might keep your guard up.” I flicked a glance at the ladies. “Leave us.”
“Excuse Me—” Lia began, but I ignored her, speaking over her to Lady Calla, the operational first lady-in-waiting now that Tertulyn was gone, if not the titular one.
“Her Highness will summon you when she’s ready,” I said as I’d order my soldiers, and I pointed at the door.
The ladies hustled out with gratifying speed—enough that I didn’t mind that they checked for Lia’s impatient nod first—and I followed, locking the door behind them.
“Conrí, if you wanted to speak privately with Me, then—” Her eyes got big in a real reaction, not a manufactured one, as I advanced on her, and her indignant reprimand ended on a squeak when I picked her up by the waist and sat her on one of the pretty couches. Pulling up a chair, I sat across from her.
“Do it again,” I instructed.
She gaped at me, and I might’ve enjoyed taking her so thoroughly off guard if the painful need hadn’t been riding me so hard. So far, my plan was going exactly as I’d plotted all that long day.
“Con,” Lia said in a coolly placating tone. “I don’t know what—”
“Do. It. Again.” I spaced out the words so I wouldn’t growl them too much, but it didn’t work. And repeating myself hadn’t made her understand. “What you did in the carriage.” I gestured at her skirts, motioning for her to lift them.
Her lips parted, eyes softening from snapping anger, arousal taking its place. “Why should I?” she sniffed haughtily, not fooling me for a moment.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll do it for you,” I promised darkly. Oh yeah, that wiped the superior smirk off her pink lips.
Her breasts rose with the breath she caught. Keeping her gaze on me, she reached down and lifted the shifting mass of lace and ruffles, spreading her thighs as she did. The way she looked, her swelling sex so carnal in that frame of pretty feminine floof … My cock shouldn’t have been able to get any harder, but it sure felt like it. I flexed my hands, finding that I was the one floundering, no longer sure I could control myself.
“Well, Conrí?” she purred, widening her thighs, her pointed heels lifting her knees. She had her face composed again, all pink and blue and winking jewels, the crown perched daintily on her elegant head. “What are you going to do about it?”
With a snarl, I launched myself at her, loving the way she gasped, a mewling sound of surrender as I tore away that bit of lace and silk and put my mouth on her. She tasted of flowers and the way broken leaves smell, somehow sweet and green at once, and I lifted her slim hips, holding her there while I fed on her.
She shuddered into a climax, sobbing my name and other words, but I didn’t pause. Thrusting fingers inside her hot passage, I stroked those quivering muscles as I nipped at her bud of pleasure, then licked in long strokes, driving her up and shredding her composure again and again. Her nails dug into the back of my neck, holding me in a cage of them, and I fought back by biting the soft flesh of the inside of her thigh. She let me go and I rewarded her with a kiss there, and then on her slick woman’s folds again, but softly, easing off, teasing and titillating her sensitive flesh until she begged me with little inarticulate cries, thrashing in my grip. As much as I’d let her.
When she was desperate to climax again, I let her go. But only long enough to release my cock. She watched me with hot eyes, and with great satisfaction I saw they’d reverted. Sapphire and emerald. A sure sign I’d stripped away her icy reserve and clever masks. I wanted to tell her not to wall me out again, but if this was the only way I could reach her, then so be it. I picked her up and she fastened her mouth on mine, wrapping arms and legs around me like a wild thing, her dress bunching between us. “You wear too many clothes,” I muttered in frustration.
“True,” she panted, writhing. “Let’s change that.”
“Just let me—”
“In Me, now,” she ordered and bit my lip, hard.
All those plans I’d made fled my brain. “The dress…”
“Fuck the dress,” she growled, grinding her hips against me as best she could.
I set her on a table, fighting my way through the floof. With a savage curse, I pulled my knife and started slicing. She laughed hysterically, then threw her head back on a strangled scream when I found my way to her, slamming myself home. It staggered me for a moment, how right that felt. Home. A feeling I thought I’d lost forever.
“Con, My wolf, please…” she moaned, bringing me back to my senses.
Bracing myself, I thrust into her, losing all thoughts, all sense of anything else, only needing her, being in her. She urged me on, those bicolored eyes glowing as if with their own light.
When the orgasm crashed over me, my vision went black, stars sparking through me and draining all of myself into her. In its place, her essence, vital and magical, flowed into my being. And I gave myself into her keeping.
Sometime later, she laughed in my ear, husky and amused. I realized I’d collapsed on her, still standing with my pants around my ankles—and surrounded by shreds of her ruined gown. With effort, I levered up, but she held on, pressing a kiss to my ear and then biting it so I hissed.
When she released me, draping her arms over her head, she watched me from slitted eyes as I pulled up my pants. She stayed as she was, legs splayed in wanton disarray, languid, smiling, her makeup such a smudged mess I knew I must have it all over me. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I noted a big smear of pink, a jewel sticking to it.
“What brought that on?” she inquired, sitting up and surveying the damage. It looked like we’d had a brawl.
“You shouldn’t tease me.”
“Oh, warrior man of Mine,” she replied in a sultry voice, “if that demonstration was meant to dissuade Me from teasing you in the future, you’re going about it all wrong.”
In the future. That phrase arrested me in the midst of helping her down from the table. Would there be much of that? This journey to Cradysica had set events into motion. When we left this place—if we both left it alive—we were unlikely to leave it together. Had that driven some of my desperate hunger for her, the clawing need to bury myself in her?
“What’s wrong?” She sharpened, losing all the languid sultriness. “Why do you look like that?”
I gestured at the shambles of her gown. “Sorry about your dress.”
She regarded me a moment longer, assessing. Then held up her arms. “You might as well finish cutting Me out of it. Then you can summon My ladies to commence repairs to My appearance.”
Taking up the blade I’d dropped, I motioned for her to turn, then sliced the fabric at her back. I’d had some idea of having my way with her under all those skirts without disrupting the rest of her. No such luck there. When she faced me again, standing naked in a pile of foaming cloth, still in the wig and crown, her eyes showed her wild self still and a spray of flowers gleamed through her skin over one shoulder. Marks from my rough hands showed on her, too.
“I should get dressed for dinner,” she said gently, like you might talk to a wild animal you were afraid of spooking.
“What will your ladies think?” I gestured at the mess I’d made of her, the gown, hell—the room. With the grinding need backed off, I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking.
“I’m pretty sure they know we have sex,” she replied with an arch expression.
“Your eyes are two colors,” I said.
She narrowed those eyes, then lowered her lids and opened them again. They were back to their covert shades.
“That did it,” I told her, and went to summon her ladies. Then I turned back. “Lia?”
She was unpinning her crown, still unselfconsciously naked in the ruin of it all, and she paused, giving me her full attention, a question in the line of her body.
“What you asked me about in the carriage? In case I didn’t make it clear: I don’t want anyone else in our bed,” I said.
Smiling a little, she nodded in acknowledgment.
“Or anywhere else,” I thought I should add, since we hadn’t made it to a bed the last couple of times. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
“You could have just said,” she pointed out coolly, but her smile was warm.
“Yeah. Me and words, you know. Not so much.”
“You’re eloquent enough in your own way,” she corrected, setting the crown aside. “Anything else?”
Might as well say it. Who knew how much time we had, but … “Would you promise me the same?” It came out more gruff than I’d expected.
She strolled over to me, still in the wig, but nothing else, besides the orchid ring that swayed with the same silky grace that she did. Laying her palms on my chest, she rose on tiptoes to kiss me. I slid my hands down her back and over that tiny, gorgeous ass, marveling that I had the gift of a woman like this. Some kind of reward I didn’t deserve to savor before I died.
Or something for the gods to rip away as a last torture before they killed me.
“Yes,” she whispered. For a moment I thought she agreed with my thoughts; then I realized she’d answered my question.
“Good,” I said, which felt inadequate. I searched for something else to say, something to express the wild voices in my heart, but a smile bloomed on her face like I’d said the most romantic thing ever. Maybe I was getting better at this wooing thing.