Page 7

She arched a brow at him. “Is that an invitation to sit on your throne, slugabed?”

“Make yourself comfortable, Your Highness.” He held out his hand, making no move to close the distance between them.

She let him help her up the step onto the dais, but vulnerability throbbed in her aura. He had seen her in a moment of weakness, and she still feared he would exploit it.

Troi was many things, but neither as a man nor an immortal had he ever taken advantage of those less powerful than himself.

And when a woman had told him to stop, he always had.

That much of his mother’s code of honor had somehow become ingrained in him, despite his efforts to become the man his father wanted him to be.

He pulled out the golden chair for Celandine, then settled into the seat beside her. As if he were her suitor at a feast, he filled her flagon and heaped her plate with morsels he thought she would enjoy. “How are my table manners?”

“I cannot fault them. Formal feast traditions have not changed very much.”

“Not all of my renowned skills are rusty.”

She caught his innuendo, judging by the gleam in her eye. “A bold claim from someone whose blood flow has been insufficient for years.”

It was a relief to hear her insulting him again without fear. He leaned closer, holding a plum tart to her lips. “If you take more measurements, you will not fault me there, either.”

“Hmm. It takes a great deal to impress me.”

He didn’t doubt it. At the height of her power, she must have been a merry widow who enjoyed her secret liaisons. The kind of woman who could inspire a Taurus prince to inflame the feud for an affair with a Pavo princess that wouldn’t be forgotten for generations.

Goddess, she must be fire in bed. But fire was a Hesperine’s greatest weakness.

She bit into the plum tart, savoring the bite in her mouth. Her tongue darted out to capture a trickle of dark red filling along her lower lip.

When had watching a woman eat become so erotic? Unbidden, the image came to him of her licking a trail of his blood from her mouth instead.

When had his fantasies become so Hesperine?

He gestured to the corner of his mouth. “You have a dab of jam just there.”

“Don’t you dare tell me my table manners are rusty.” She frowned and reached for a cloth to wipe her mouth but only succeeded in smudging it.

“I’m sure you got plum tart on your face intentionally, to test my decorum.” He held up his own napkin. “May I?”

She hesitated an instant, then leaned closer. Gently, slowly, he dabbed the sweet filling off her face.

A searching look came into her big brown eyes. “Where did you learn to ask a woman’s permission before you touch her? They don’t teach those manners here in Cordium.”

“Orthros,” he replied.

“You’ve been to the Hesperines’ kingdom, then?”

“It’s a queendom, you know. That’s where I spent my first ten years as a Hesperine.”

She propped her hand under her chin to study him. “Is Orthros as hideous as it sounds in the tales?”

“No,” he said truthfully. “It puts Cordium to shame.”

“That is not what the legends say at all.”

“You prefer the truth, do you not?”

“And why should I trust a Hesperine to tell the truth?”

He sighed. He had once wondered the same. Troi fiddled with the ring on his smallest finger, then decided to show it to her. “You surely have an eye for fine jewelry. Tell me, was this made anywhere in Tenebra or Cordium?”

She took his hand. Her fingers, wrinkled from her long bath, teased his palm as she studied the gold band and red moonstone. Her aura tugged at the ring, testing the spells on it.

“I have never seen such a jewel anywhere in mortal lands,” she admitted at last, “nor sensed the magic that crafted this.”

“All of Orthros is like this ring.”

Her eyes glittered with challenge. “I should not be surprised. Hesperines are known for being beautiful and seductive. And dangerous.”

“What does the magic in this ring feel like to you?”

She paused, as if searching for words.

“The truth is more dangerous, Celandine,” he reminded her.

“The magic feels pure,” she murmured.

“Under Orthros’s beauty, there is more beauty. In truth, Hesperines are disgustingly honest and annoyingly good-hearted. I have no idea how I became one.”

Her lips twitched. “No violent females wreaking havoc? No deadly orgies?”

“Sorry to disappoint you. The Queens are the most peaceful beings I have ever met. And none of my Hesperine lovers ate my heart.”

She raised a brow. “Making conquests in immortal beds as well, I see.”

“If I regarded a Hesperine woman as something to be conquered, she would toss me out on my arse. And with her magic, that would hurt.”

He was rewarded with Celandine’s sparkling laughter. “Perhaps I would like Hesperine women.”

He refilled her wine, but her gaze was on his face, not the pouring liquid. He felt the rush of knowing he had captured her attention.

“When Hesperines share blood and pleasure,” he said, “it is anything but a conquest.”

She lifted her wine to her lips, breaking her gaze from his. But he heard the way her pulse raced.

“Men and women are equals in Orthros,” he went on, “although the greatest power rests in the hands of the Queens and the Goddess.”

“I have lived in a temple where a goddess and her devotees hold power, and it was anything but beautiful and pure. Why is Orthros different?”

“Hespera worshipers stood against the Orders in the Last War, while the mages of Chera bowed to them.”

“And the temples of Hespera were razed for their trouble.”

“Ask yourself why the Order of Anthros banned worship of Hespera. The mages of war and order could not allow a goddess of peace and freedom. Everything about the cult of Hespera is a threat to them. Especially powerful women.”

Bleakness filled her aura. “All they achieved by resisting was exile.”

“They achieved a land free of the Orders’ influence.”

Troi had run so far to escape Orthros, only to meet a woman who would thrive there.

“What will you do when your revenge is complete?” he asked.

Her gaze shuttered, and her inner defenses hardened over her emotions. “Have you thought that far ahead yet?”

“No.” He could not see past the moment when he would hear Rixor’s heart stop beating. “The ball is tomorrow,” he said, striving for a lighter tone. “This is our last night to prepare. Any rough edges on me you still wish to file down, Your Highness?”

“My compliments on your table,” she replied, the traditional words of appreciation guests gave their host at the end of a banquet. She set aside her fork. “Keep your fangs to yourself tomorrow night, and you shall do quite well.”

He levitated the nearby lute into his hold and began tuning it. “In that case, we have time for some diversion.”

“Where did a prince learn to play the lute?”

“I have always been a man of many talents.”

“Do you remember how to tune that, after sleeping for a hundred years?”

He tightened another string and tested it, rewarded with a pure, high note. Much better. “There are some things one remembers forever.”

How many nights had he played for his men to lift their spirits?

Then there were the earlier memories he preferred to forget. His mother’s smile on those rare occasions when he could play for her. His father’s admonitions that a lute was useless in a warrior’s hands.

Troi found himself playing the opening chords of a Hesperine dance.

He had picked it up in the coffeehouses on the docks of Orthros during long, wild nights of dancing, which usually ended in private upstairs rooms. He had tried to drown his inner battles in blood and pleasure until the night when he had been powerful enough to come back here for his last stand against his enemies.

That confrontation had been one hundred and ten years in the making. So why, instead of strategizing on the eve of battle, was he sitting here playing a Hesperine song for Celandine?

Her foot tapped on the floor under the table. “This song is like your ring.”

“It is made for dancing.”

“I don’t know the steps.”

“Why not choose your own?”

She left the table and stepped down into the open center of the hall. Pausing, she closed her eyes, tapping out the beat of the song against her hip. Then she began with the opening steps of a Cordian dance he recalled from his day. Its restrained sensuality had made it his favorite.

She adapted and blended the steps to suit the Hesperine tune, and as she found her rhythm, her moves became more confident, more passionate than any woman would dare before an audience other than a Hesperine.

He watched her rediscover the joy of movement without pain. She was lost in the music, her robe swirling around her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the sway of her hips and the sensual motions of her hands. He could imagine how she would move under him and how her touch would feel down his back.

Troi had been burned by lovers before. Had he ever let that stop him from playing with fire?

None of them had been as dangerous as Celandine. But this hunger for her was more consuming than anything he had ever felt before.

He levitated down to join her. A flinch went through her, becoming another beat in the dance. Strumming hard on the lute strings, he circled and leapt with her, close enough to touch.

Her blood was rushing from the dancing, but it was his nearness that made her heart kick against her ribs.

All the other sounds in the world seemed to fade as his hearing filled with the thrum of her blood pumping through her body.

He forgot the rhythm of the song, and he played to the beat of her heart.

They turned again, and the room whirled. The floor tilted. He ran into the table, and the lute slipped from his hands with a melodious thud. Celandine caught him, falling back, her hair spilling wild across the golden linen tablecloth.

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “You were stronger than this last night.”

He sucked in a breath, trying to think through his thirst and desire. “I used magic.”

Her court mask slipped. “Healing me weakened you?”

“You don’t owe me anything.” That seemed so important to say, somehow.

But all coherent thought fled from his mind when Celandine pulled her robe aside to reveal her throat.