A Lotus for the Regent (8 page)

It was enough.
The Tamari added blood to the oath, but no other Ausir did. It was binding. She
was wedded. She belonged to Evix.

“
My little pet.” Evix dropped his kiss from her brow to her lips. His
tongue slipped between her lips, and Ajalira opened willingly to him. He was
now her husband, and though a Lotus-trainer was the last husband she would have
chosen for herself, at least he loved her.

There was no
shame in coupling with him.

Evix seemed to
taste her willingness, for he pressed against her further. His kiss grew more
demanding, and Ajalira let him take what he would. His hand skimmed her flank to
rest on her breast. The nipple was hard, and it poked out the thin cotton of
her gown.

“
I haven't forgotten how you like to play.” Evix pulled off his silk
sash and wound it around her wrists.

Ajalira relaxed
into Evix's clasp, and for the first time she felt no shame as his hands played
over her. As he pulled her hands above her head and secured the knots Ajalira
closed her eyes.

“
Yes, I know.” Evix produced a second sash, and Ajalira wondered for
an instant if he had been so certain of her as to come prepared for this. But
then the comforting darkness dropped into place with the blindfold, and Ajalira
found that her heart was racing. When Evix's lips crushed hers once more, she
opened her mouth of her own accord, drawing him in. Even the heavy weight of the
chains on her ankles contributed to her desire. The blackness around her was
soft, soft like the Regent's eyes, and Ajalira moaned through her kiss.

“
Now, pet, I shall taste what is mine.” Evix's mouth separated from
Ajalira's, and she was in the dark. He was not touching her, and a sudden spike
of fear darted through her. She was not entirely sure if she trusted Evix any
longer, but then she resolutely pushed the doubt from her. He was her husband
now by oath, and he had the rights to her flesh. Warm, soft lips pressed
against the hollow of Ajalira's throat, and she shivered. The lips moved down,
leaving damp spots in their wake, until they closed around her nipple. Just as
the suckling became a stinging bite, two long, strong fingers slipped inside her.

Ajalira bucked
against Evix's hand, and she heard the same low chuckle that she knew as well
as she knew her own face in the glass.

“
Good, pet.” The fingers thrust harder, and the mouth moved to her
other breast. “I think we won't need oils tonight.”

Ajalira felt the
thick hardness of Evix's phallus pressing against her pussy, and for the first
time she did not dread it. This was not shameful; it was right. She opened her
legs as far as her chains would allow, and when Evix slid home inside her,
Ajalira sighed. He filled her, stretched her, and she wanted more.

As always, Evix
must have noticed her desire and read it with the skill of a true
Lotus-trainer. His fingers, those strong, skilled fingers, closed over her
nipples with a stinging pressure. He pulled on them until she bucked her pelvis
against his, again as far as her bonds would allow. That must have pleased
Evix, though Ajalira, blindfolded as she was, could only infer his pleasure
from his increased pace.

“
That's my pet.” The thrusting sparked a flame of pleasure in
Ajalira's pussy, and the flame began to spread. His hands left her breasts and
then closed over her throat. The pressure slowly increased, even as the power
behind Evix's thrusts also increased. The flame grew, and just as she thought it
might burst out, she felt the pressure on her throat alter. Evix was not
playing with her; he was trying to kill her.

Spots swam
before her eyes, white spots against the blackness of her blindfold. Evix was
still buried deep inside her, and he was on top of her. She had no leverage,
and her hands were bound, her feet shackled.

But Ajalira
refused to die here, to die to a man she now at last realized had always lied.
Though her hands were bound, they were not hooked anywhere, and with her last
strength, Ajalira locked her hands together and brought them crashing against
the side of Evix's head. She could not see him, of course, but she knew where
he was by the position of his hands on her throat.

She hit his ear,
and Evix grunted, losing some of his grip on her throat. Ajalira brought her
legs upward, and the heavy chain between her ankles struck the back of his
head.

Evix lost his
hold on her throat altogether, and Ajalira twisted beneath him. His phallus
slipped out of her, and she was on her hand and knees. She bent her head to her
hands, pulling the blindfold from her eyes just as she felt Evix's hands
closing over her throat again.

“
Die, you horned bitch. Die!”

The raw hate in
Evix's voice was no longer a shock to Ajalira, and she head-butted backward, smashing
into his face. For the second time, his grip faltered, and Ajalira dropped to
her belly, sliding both her bound hands beneath the pallet. Her fingers closed
over the blade of her knife, and she slid her grip downward, ignoring the cuts
that resulted. She did not want to risk losing hold of the steel. When she
reached the handle, she flipped over onto her back. As she had hoped, Evix was
still trying to keep hold of her throat, and he allowed the flip that he might
more easily sit on her hips and keep his throttling grasp on her.

Glad that she
could at least see, Ajalira aimed for Evix's neck. She caught the slight flash
of the steel, but Evix's eyes did not move from her face. The knife sliced
through his flesh, through the muscle and sinew until the blade struck bone.
Blood poured down Evix's side, down on to Ajalira, and she felt a surge of
pride. He fell over and moved no more.

“
To Alaxton Battlebringer I offer this blood,” she said. She slid out
from beneath Evix's corpse, and, holding the knife between her knees, she
sliced through the silk that bound her.

As she looked
down at the cooling body of her lover, Ajalira's mind whirled. Why? Why had he
done this? His hatred was, she was sure, genuine, but then she had believed in
his love, too. Why would he kill her?

As her breathing
calmed, a sliver of understanding broke across her darkened mind. Evix probably
had hated her, true, but he would not have slain her without the Guildmaster's
permission. It was doubtless the Guildmaster who desired her death.

And then
everything was clear. Keeping her as a kitchen slave had never made sense. She
was, as the Guildmaster knew perfectly well, recalcitrant. But the Guildmaster
had admitted to her earlier that he had hoped to rehabilitate her. Ajalira
looked down at Evix's corpse and laughed bitterly. By rehabilitate the
Guildmaster had meant break. He had hoped to break her pride and her spirit,
making her grateful to be restored to the privileges of a Lotus. When her
defiance before the Regent had ruined that plan, her death was all that
remained. But with Ausir still within Zenji waters, the Guildmaster would not
have wanted it commonly known that he had had an Ausir kept as what they would
consider a slave. No, he would have wanted that knowledge to stay with Evix.
Evix had been the only one in the guild aside from the Guildmaster himself who
knew of Ajalira's true species.

The battle had
been short, but Ajalira did not doubt that someone, somewhere had heard it. In
a compound full of Lotuses, all trained to listen as spies, someone would be
coming for her. She stepped away from the corpse and stumbled out into the
kitchen itself, almost tripping over her chains.

She had never
killed anyone before, and she leaned over the dish-washing tub. Her stomach
heaved, but she did not vomit. She had slain her first enemy. Forcing her
breathing into evenness once more, she went back to the corpse of the one man
who had ever tasted her body. She knelt down and, with one swift move, severed
his forefinger.

She was boiling
the flesh from the bone when the Guildmaster, flanked by four Lotuses, swept
into the kitchen.

“
You've killed Evix!” The shock on the Guildmaster's face was,
Ajalira suspected, the only genuine emotion he had ever shown her.

“
He tried to kill me.” The flesh was separating nicely from the bone.

Silence fell, a
silence broken only the bubbling of the pot on the stove.

“
Your life is forfeit,” said the Guildmaster at last. “You will be
executed.”

Ajalira nodded.
By this time, doubtless, the Ausir ships were well away from the shores of the
Dimadan. Even though her true species would be noticed when they buried her,
she doubted that any news of it would reach her people—and she doubted they
would care. No one would know who she was. “Come then, and kill me.”

“
You'd like that.” The Guildmaster spoke with dispassion. “But no.
The Lotuses will paralyze you, and you will die in the courtyard before all of
these flowers whom you have shamed with your failures and your murder of Evix.”

“
I did not murder him.” Ajalira spooned out the bone onto the hard
wood of the table. She dried the bone on the bloody cotton of her gown as she
went on. “He tried to murder me. That, no doubt, I may thank you for.”

The Guildmaster
did not respond to her broad thrust, but Ajalira had not expected that he
would. He was like the Lotuses, skilled in the parry and jab of verbal
sparring, and he would not bother with her. She picked up the dried bone and
braided a small lock of her hair around it.

“
Come then, and kill me,” she said again. She held out her knife
before her, and the Guildmaster, with a weary sigh, gestured the Lotuses
forward.

Ajalira kept her
eyes on her advancing foes, kept her knife dancing in the air in front of her.
She felt five jabs in her back, and as she fell into the arms of the fifth
Lotus, the one she had never seen until this moment, Ajalira knew that her life
had come to an end.

****

Ajalira's
chains were iron. Her ankles were shackled together, and heavy manacles kept
her hands behind her back. She had not even been changed into a fresh gown, and
she would die in the white cotton shift that bore Evix's bloodstains.

She was glad
that the paralysis had worn off. She did not want to die still unable to lift
her head to the sky. She looked out across the guildhouse garden, across its
calm serenity, and she saw only enemies. Not one of these Lotuses would mourn
her death. Even had she not killed Evix, a favorite trainer, she had never made
even a single friend here. How could she when they considered themselves proud
and honored women, and she considered them—and herself—slaves and whores?

The smoothness
of Evix's bone against her cheek was the only pleasure she had. She would die
as a Tamari should, with the bones of her enemies braided into her hair.

Then the sound
of the harbor horn carried on the breeze, and Ajalira jerked her head up to see
the dark masts and broad sails of the Sunjaa flagship silhouetted against the
dawn-blushed sky.

Chapter Four

Once Kamen stood
on the Dimadan beach again, a thousand excuses ran through his mind. He had
returned for Ajalira. He had come back to look into her eyes one more time, had
come back for the chance to touch her golden tresses. But he certainly could
not tell the Guildmaster that. Kamen was the acting head of state; to return for
a kitchen slave—Kamen shook his head and laughed. The mystery of Ajalira
compelled him; her beauty brought him back. There was more, however. Her sense
of honor. Her courage. Her selflessness. He had to see her again.

Kamen whistled,
and four royal guards fell into step on either side of him, their bare chests
soaking up the morning sun, their spear-tips glinting in the strengthening of
dawn's light. The Sunjaa marched up the beach, and just before Kamen
disappeared into the trees that separated the beach front from the city beyond,
he looked back at the
Aramina
. Ruben saluted him. Kamen scratched his
thick sideburns, tied his dreadlocks back, and resolved to go with what they
had discussed: he would pretend he had come back to offer the Zenji ships for
protection.

The Guildmaster,
surrounded by meek servants and lovely, painted Lotuses, met Kamen
richly-dressed at the gate to the compound. The high wall that encircled the
grounds kept prying eyes out, but through the gate, Kamen saw some commotion in
the courtyard of the main hall. He craned his neck to see what was happening,
but the Guildmaster prevented him. He was all smiles and fawning kindness.

“
Regent, you have returned.” He bowed low, and all his servants and
Lotuses did likewise.

“
Yes.” Kamen tried to look past him, but the Guildmaster thrust his
grinning face in the way.

“
How is it that the Red Lotus Guild is doubly blessed with your
visit?”

Kamen gave up.
“I've come back for one final point of business.” He cut off the Guildmaster's
unspoken objection. “I thought it best to make my proposal in person instead of
sending a messenger.”

“
I see. And how may we serve you, then?”