Page 21

“Consort Airón,” a throaty voice said.

I glanced at Asahi, but in the shadows, I couldn’t even see his eyes. Still, he hadn’t tensed, meaning whoever was behind me was no physical threat.

I turned. Chiti Bechi was dressed in nearly all white.

His pants fit more snugly than was popular with the court and showed off his impressive leg muscles.

The pale color of his clothing emphasized the gleam of his skin, giving him a sparkle of precious metals.

He’d powdered himself to near perfection, the sheen making him look ethereal, a god come down from the paintings of old.

And if anyone knew he looked like a god, it was Chiti Bechi himself.

“Mr. Bechi. A pleasure to see you.”

“We keep seeing each other in dark corners,” Bechi said. I noticed that he didn’t bother to bow. Instead, he prowled forward, a wolf who had sighted an injured deer.

“Well, these tapestries are fascinating.” I gestured at the one in front of me. “The stitching on this one is unique.”

“I’m sure I can find out who made it, if you would like to talk to the artisan.” Bechi continued his approach, and I didn’t back away, only raising my eyebrow in surprise at his brazenness.

When he was nearly touching me, he reached past to brush his finger over the fringe of one of the tapestries. “So delicate.”

I almost laughed at his purred words. This was not how we did things in the north, and it was not how Tallu had approached me.

Our night of passion after our wedding had resulted in nothing but intense looks and my own desperate pulls on my cock once I was safely back in my room at Turtle House. I supposed I deserved the punishment for having assumed that what meant so much to me meant the same to him.

He might have destroyed twenty-three years’ worth of emotional walls with his cock, but I was a fool to think that my body had done the same to his iron control of himself. The man who had nearly destroyed the Imperium single-handedly wasn’t about to lose his composure for a northern hunter.

Still, when I was touching myself, I desperately wondered what it would take to have him take me again.

Bechi was well inside the boundary of space most imperials seemed to keep as a matter of course, and he gazed at me with the look of a very hungry cat.

Maybe he thought it was attractive, but I just wished I was tucked safely inside Tallu’s rooms, watching him explain some complicated imperial politics.

“Did you need something, Mr. Bechi?” I asked.

“I’ve told you to call me Chiti. I thought perhaps you could tell me more of your people.

Is it true you need more than one to find satisfaction?

That during the winter months, you lock yourselves in the Silver City and take as many as you need?

” Chiti whispered the last into my ear. “I would very much like to hear about that.”

I doubted he wanted to hear the reality: that my mother had taken as many wives and husbands as she needed to create a stable clan and only slept with one or two: with my father out of the necessity of bearing an heir, and with Yor?mu by choice.

The rest of her wives were free to sleep with whoever they wished, and any resulting children were Silvereyes Clan; any resulting drama was a headache my mother, as clan leader, had the dubious pleasure of untangling.

The winter was a nightmare span of three months during which it was too cold for children to do anything other than get in trouble and for adults to create even more complicated relationship theatrics.

My mother resolved these multifaceted relationship puzzles until her patience came to an abrupt end and she declared that the next person who wanted to complain about a lover would be thrown in the Northern Ocean and be left to the sea serpents.

But that wasn’t what the rumors said about us, and it definitely wasn’t the erotic tale that Chiti wanted to hear.

“I’m sure you have even more interesting stories.

Doesn’t your husband keep a household of Ariphadi slaves?

” I let my mouth twitch into a smile and trailed my gaze down from his high collar to his snug-fitting shirt and jacket.

He’d worn his shirt with the lacing undone at the top, revealing a slice of his golden throat.

“Oh? The gifts from General Bemishu?” I could practically see Chiti recalculating his plan of attack. “If you would prefer, I’d be happy to introduce you to some of my favorite goblins. Perhaps we might enjoy a taste of the south together.”

For a moment, I thought about it. Chiti’s husband, Detipo Bechi, was General Bemishu’s greatest supporter in court.

His mechanical sand crawlers were the expensive requirement of fighting in the south, and given his close relationship with General Bemishu, I was convinced that General Bemishu’s plans were an open book to him.

Detipo had the mechanical creativity to build the airships, but if he wasn’t creating them, he likely knew who was making them. There was no way he would let someone steal his greatest customer from under his nose.

Now, the question was whether his husband knew anything about it. Or if, upon being let into Detipo’s home, I could find any evidence that would be useful.

Chiti’s body took up my entire eyeline, his broad shoulders blocking the view of the party; his gaze, which was going for enticing, came off as grossly lecherous.

He reached out, touching the side of my neck, his fingers trailing up to cup my cheek.

It took concentration not to shudder. Then, someone yanked his hand back, pulling him off-balance.

Chiti yelped, trying to turn, unable to because of the punishing grip on his hand. Tallu stood behind him, twisting Chiti’s hand until the other man whimpered, going down on his knees to find an angle that alleviated the pressure.

His eyes widened, and he raised his free hand in half a triangle. “Emperor!”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Tallu corrected. He stared at Chiti coldly, and I heard a bone pop as he continued to twist.

Then he released Chiti, and the other man cradled his arm, dropping to the floor to grovel. “Of course. My apologies, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Tallu regarded him, his eyes narrowed, his mouth so thin I could see the pale outline of it. “Chiti Bechi.”

The man on the ground trembled, and Tallu’s voice dropped even lower, the words coming out as a growl. The party was deadly silent, and I felt every eye on us.

“Do you enjoy your time at court, Bechi?” Tallu’s royal robe fluttered, the hems of it seeming carried by the invisible breeze of his anger.

“Of course, Your Imperial Majesty,” Chiti said. “Your Imperial Majesty runs his court to unsurpassed standards.”

“Do I?” Tallu tilted his head. “And yet, despite the grace I have given my entire court, the use of the palace, the beauty bestowed on you, you dare try to take from me?”

The air around him seemed to crackle, snapping with unspent electricity. The hair on my arms rose, and, on the ground, Chiti jumped. He didn’t look up, his forehead pressed onto the wooden floor as though it could save him.

“I did not think… That is, I am accountable…” As he trailed off, I could hear him swallow. The silence in the room was all-consuming.

Tallu didn’t look at me, and I wanted him to look at me. I needed to see his eyes, I needed to know if this was an act or if he was jealous that someone dared to touch me. Distantly, I wondered what others were reading on my face as I watched my husband save me.

I don’t deserve this , Tallu had said. I don’t deserve you.

He had meant those words. They had not been said only because he desired release. I struggled anew to breathe with the knowledge. Who was I that he thought me so important? Even my own mother had seen me as a tool, and no man would do this for a tool .

The circlet of gold on Tallu’s brow seemed to spark with impossible electricity, and he ground out, “You will not touch him. You will not look at him. You will not ?—”

As though my hand belonged to someone else, I reached out, covering his hand with mine. Power vibrated through his body, the electricity seeming to move through his bones. He looked up.

Finally, I had his attention, and I nearly regretted it; Tallu looked at me as though I was made of everything he wanted and could never have.

He’d break Chiti for daring to think he was worthy of me, but he believed that he wasn’t worthy of me either. His hopeless face hardened, and I saw him become the Emperor of the Southern Imperium again. An emperor had no mercy. An emperor gave no grace to those who had wronged him.

Tallu’s father had killed and exiled the most powerful men in the Imperium for transgressions against him. The court hung on his every word. What would Tallu do to a man who thought to steal from him?

“Husband,” I said quietly.

“Would you have me grant him mercy?” Tallu’s words were individual, each clipped out as though they pained him. “Do you like him that much?”

“No,” I said. I thought of the Ariphadi slaves Bechi and his husband kept. How easily he’d implied I could take my pleasure from them, regardless of their preference. “I bear no love or affection for him.”

What was the right play here? What did Tallu and I need? We needed to search the Bechi household. We needed to know what General Bemishu’s most ardent loyalists knew. Tallu’s eyes bored into me, and I could see his jaw clench; this confrontation had spiraled, and now he didn’t see a way out.

My heart pounded. But I had been bred to kill. How was this different than my blade slicing through Tallu’s throat?

“Husband, if Chiti Bechi thinks he can take from you, it is not a thought he has had alone. His husband, who suckles at the teat of the Imperium’s war coffers, believes it as well.

Why else send Chiti to try to seduce me?

” I tilted my head, smirking, even as my stomach gurgled, twisting unhappily.

“Should not both members of House Bechi face the consequences?”

The feeling of lightning in the air began to fade. Tallu’s eyes lit on me with something like relief. He exhaled, his chest falling. Under my hand, his palm twisted, and he clenched my fingers tightly. I felt the press of his patterned rings against my skin. Tallu brought my hand to his lips.

“As you wish.” Without looking away from my face, he said, “Bring me Detipo Bechi. Put this one in chains.”