Bounty (33 page)

A surprised silence put a moment of awkwardness between them.

“Have I degraded that much since the last time?” Catris inquired, half teasing. It was evident as well, though, that she was not accustomed to being turned away from.

Of course not, Godren told himself. Given the chance of receiving the princess’s affections, who would ever even turn her down?

“No, your Highness, it’s not…” he tried to assure her, but only ended up sounding choked with weariness.

“Well what
is
it?” Catris inquired, trying to sound gentle while applying enough authority to get an answer from him. “You did come because you were ready to talk. So you can start by explaining why, upon taking to my company, the sadness of the world fills your eyes; and why, upon receiving the luxury of my rare affections, you turn your back on the princess of Raven City.”

Pain welled up inside his chest at all the associated truths that she sought to draw out of him. How did one do this? How could he willingly open his mouth and lose the secrets he had locked away for so long? He didn’t want to span the bridges he thought he had burned. How he wished some things could just be put in the past and didn’t have to lurk concealed as the secrets that would never die. He would give anything to be stained by the ashes of these things, rather than haunted by their keen essence.

“Your Highness…” he struggled to begin. Then he dropped his head. “Forgive me for turning away; I know you expect a very different response when you seek something. I would not deny you what you imply to wish, except…except I am empty – I
am
dormant, cursed of physical sensation – and I cannot bear to have that emptiness played on, not by you.” He looked at her then, met her eyes as she strove to divine what he was saying. “I am inhumanly numb. Such a fate is…the
effect
…of being penetrated by the kin of the device you charged me with explaining to you. The dart you possess.”

She considered him with a grim, skeptical expression. “The wolf you shot off of my being did not go
numb
, Ren – it as good as dropped dead,” she pointed out.

Godren lowered his eyes and nodded. “You only escape as I did if you’re very lucky,” he said, with all the sorrow of one who had no purpose.

Lucky indeed.

“You were shot by one of these,” Catris wanted to confirm, appalled.

Godren dared to meet her eyes. “I was.”

“With what?”

“A newly-developed, manual gun being passed around among the highest-rating menaces of the streets.”

“Guns?” she asked in potential alarm.

“They always said you couldn’t stop progress. I suppose it doesn’t really matter whose side it’s born from. The world becomes more mechanical…” His brow creased. “And the people as well, as the result.”

To that, something in Catris’s face responded and crumpled. The alarm at his revelations was washed out to the distant sea of her eyes, as a tide of pity swelled in.

Then she was advancing on him, and fastening her arms behind his neck – and kissing him as if she wanted the very bones of his soul to resonate with the radiant force.

This time, he felt it inside. The first flutter of surprise pitched into a wave of tantalizing emotion so strong it almost hurt. He kissed her back, not caring if he couldn’t harness the corresponding physical sensations, just latching onto any feeling of any kind that aspired to bloom in the fields of his being. Stripping her of her mask, he caressed her face, delighting in the evident contours where he couldn’t feel anything more.

But then, in some wayward shadow of the fantasy, he remembered who he was – a corrupt figure of a twisted dark life, who could be used against the princess as it was; and who he wanted to be – a man of honor, who righted all that was askew with his life and himself before touching anything else he wanted, lest he mar any of the pure things he could still have.

He broke away even more violently than the first time, leaving both of them breathless. “Cat, no,” he pleaded with her, needing her to understand. “Not like this.”

And then, of course, reality came back in full, and he remembered all the rest.

“Your Highness…” He swallowed. “I know I’ve no grounds to advise you, and no way to make or expect you to trust me – but I’ve saved your life twice, so maybe that will account for something.” At that point, the words became more reluctant. How could he make her see the gravity of the situation and influence her to be more likely to listen to him? He had to get this right.

“My lady, I would ask you…to sever your contact with Ossen.”

Startled recognition entered the princess’s eyes at Ossen’s name. “What?”

“He’s immeasurably dangerous.”

Face growing guarded, the princess’s stance became ever so slightly more rigid. “How do you know Ossen?”

“Please, just…don’t see him anymore.”

“What are you talking about? He’s never done anything to me, Ren. Forgive me for challenging your warning sentiments, but I don’t think he ever would–”

“He works for Mastodon.”

Catris went still. For a moment, it seemed as if she ceased breathing. “What?”

“He is a servant of Mastodon. There’s ambition for the crown somewhere in this, Cat – you have to see that. You have to be aware of that. But I’m worried about you.”

At that, a familiar spark of rebelliousness lit the candles in the princess’s eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And as the princess of Raven City, I’ll see who I want to.”

“He’s a killer and ruthless betrayer, my lady.”

A challenge brightened her cheeks. “How do you know?”

Faced with the question, he stared hard at her and resigned himself to it. “Because I work for Mastodon too, and he shot me.”

If that revelation didn’t kill two lovely doves with one stone, he didn’t know what did. And if Catris had gone still before, now she went unnaturally so – as if embodying the very essence of the uncanny calm before a storm. As if, instead of merely still, now, she had gone poised – poised to flee, but without changing.

“And of course I realize I have no more claim to you than he should,” Godren forged on before she could do or say anything that could prevent him from finishing. “I realize this has to stop. So even if you can’t…be with me; even if you can’t forgive me… You have to trust me, Cat. Stay. Away. From Ossen.”

28:
Personal Inconvenience

N
ot thinking it would be wise to prolong his presence on palace grounds after revealing such condemning information about himself, Godren left the princess standing grim and rigid in the grove and breezed across the estate to the gates. He stole himself against the rotten feeling in his stomach for a moment to plaster a fraudulent pleasant look on his face.

“Gentlemen,” he acknowledged the guards, the essence of carefree and polite.

“Leaving so soon, Lord Lamont?” the more personable guard asked.

“It seems the royal family shares your sentiments toward the distinct lack of fish at these occasions,” Godren said. “I’ve heard about nothing but that since I set foot on these grounds, and I simply can’t be bombarded in these clothes. If they want fish, they shall have fish. I’m going to catch some fish.”

With that he was through the gates and starting across the avenue.

“But you’ll catch
fish
in those clothes?” the guard called after him, jesting again, but Godren did not make the effort to sustain his cover and respond. He was beyond them now, so it no longer mattered.

It was just growing dark, and as he made the transition from the twilight of the avenue to the closer shade of the apartment network across the way, he blinked against the reluctance of his perception. He felt along the wall for navigation, not in the mood to wait on his senses. His senses weren’t much for waiting on these days.

The heavy feeling of the consequences of his actions weighed in his stomach, and a part of him wanted to ask,
what have you done?
But a greater part of him felt like he had done the right, necessary thing.

The right thing just wasn’t a walk in the park to his emotions. But the right thing had never coincided with his circumstances, so he wasn’t going to start complaining now. Better not to agonize over the inconvenience, or second-guess the risks he had taken.

Besides, there was promptly someone else there to give him a hard time.

“You know, I almost like watching you getting yourself in deeper and deeper,” Ossen’s voice cut through the disorienting shadows of the complex’s ground level. “It’ll make it that much more gratifying to watch you unravel when it all catches up with you. It’s great to see a marred image, a humiliating failure…but it’s a delightful bonus if a heart breaks and a future crumbles as well.”

Godren lifted his head and pinpointed Ossen’s location. It wasn’t hard now that his eyes burned with loathing. It was as if the shadows bent to his gaze. “You look in the mirror too much, Ossen,” he said bitingly, and kept walking.

An intolerant hand closed around his forearm as he tried to pass, and Ossen dug his fingers into Godren’s damaged flesh.

Whipping back around, Godren slammed him into the nearest wall and won his release. “You forget,” he said, grinding out the words with mordant force, “I don’t feel.” Then he continued on his way with un-tempered purpose, leaving his surprised rival to recollect himself. No doubt Ossen had expected him to howl and crumple in pain. Healing wounds were tender entities, after all.

“You will,” Ossen called after him, voice sure and promising. “Numb or not, I’ll teach you how.”

Godren knew better than to take the threat as empty, regardless of if Ossen was just saying it to get the last word in or not, but he ignored it for the sake of his stoic image and kept walking. Walking toward the source of all that was tearing him asunder. How illogical, he thought, to keep going back there.

“You keep walking, Godren,” Ossen projected keenly in encouragement. “You do make the rest of us happy, always trotting right home for your punishment. The morbid ones are on the edge of their seat with anticipation this time. It’s bound to be good.”

Still not responding, Godren decided to tune him out.

“You’ll have to tell me how it went, though,” Ossen’s persistent voice began to fade into the void he created for it. “I have a visit to make before my perfume wears off.”

That last bit filtered through before Godren’s mental wall was completely in place, and he stopped dead in his tracks and spun in a heated rush, striding right back the way he had come. Ossen looked pleased for getting to him, but Godren had stopped thinking about himself.

“If you dare even touch her in the fondest of ways, I will hunt you down in the moment and drown you in your own blood,” Godren threatened vehemently, advancing on the spiteful silhouette that awaited him.

Instead of realizing he had called Godren’s wrath back around and making some salvage attempt to shirk going up against a fearless opponent, Ossen stood rooted and surprised him with a hard punch square in the face as soon as he was within range. Godren stumbled back, stunned out of proportion. Painful or not, the world spun, and a sense of nausea bloomed in his stomach.

Ossen didn’t wait for him to recover. While Godren was seeing black spots, he hit him again. “You mean
especially
if I touch her fondly?” Ossen corrected. “It makes you jealous, doesn’t it?”

Having his other senses jostled in addition to being numb, Godren found himself perilously disoriented, unable to design a move of defense against his attacker.

“Drown me in my own blood, huh? Correct me if I’m hopelessly off the mark, but if bleeding me that much didn’t kill me, I daresay the drowning me would. I thought you weren’t a killer, Godren? Or are you finally getting careless and letting your emotions provoke that condemning testimony of unfortunate truth out of you after all? A little jealousy to loosen the tongue, and the truth comes out: you’re a jealous dolt
and
a murderer.” He tsk’d his tongue. “Your character is degrading fast, Godren. Better be careful who sees you like this. You wouldn’t want condemning information falling into the wrong hands.”

Once more, he struck his grasping victim.

“Aren’t you going to defend yourself? Or am I actually getting at something, and you’re too humbled by moral guilt to deny it? You and your pathetic morality. A man shouldn’t be ruled by anything so restricting, so crippling. Especially willingly.” Dragging Godren up, he thrust him against the wall and pinned him there, achieving a nice resounding impact between the stone and Godren’s skull.

Stars cascaded sickly though Godren’s head, but being so forcefully positioned allowed him to focus on the man before him. “At least my soul isn’t crippled like yours,” he said, composed even as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“Soul?” Ossen asked pointedly. “I don’t
have
a soul. And if babying one makes someone weak like you, I should be thanking my godforsaken mother for neglecting the concept.”