Byzantine Heartbreak (10 page)

Cáel hid his smile. He wondered if Nayara was aware of the familiarity in what she had just done.

From the surprise in Ryan’s face, he didn’t think so.

Cáel looked at Ryan. “At lamplight?” he prompted.

* * * * *

Constantinople. 1443 A.D.

Lathe and Ryan lingered in Ryan’s chamber all day. They made love interspersed with talk, caresses and more talk, for now they were free to acknowledge their feelings and what lay in their hearts.

The only thing they did not speak of was what would happen in the future and as the shadows lengthened and the day drew to an end, the silences between their talk also grew in length and became more tense.

As the criers called the sunset, Ryan moved to the edge of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Lathe demanded sharply.

“It is time, Lathe,” Ryan said quietly. “She will be back soon, if she isn’t already. We’ve had our day.”

“And that is the end of it?” Lathe demanded.

“I don’t know,” Ryan replied honestly. “I can’t see how any of this can end happily for anyone. But I do know I don’t want her to find us here a second time. I don’t want to rub salt in the wound.”

“Too late, Ryan,” Nayara’s voice murmured from the vestibule.

Ryan turned to face the shutters hiding the vestibule from his view, his heart sinking, much as it had this morning when he realized that Nia had watched and heard him and Lathe speak truths she would find unbearably painful.

“Nia...” he began, but could find nothing else to say.

“Nayara, you have returned when you said you would,” Lathe said. “I can’t tell you how that pleases me.”

She pushed open one of the shutters and stepped through.

Ryan’s breath locked in his chest at the sight of her.

She wore an old fashioned tunic, like the women would have once worn when this city had been called Byzantium, before Constantine renamed it New Rome and the citizens called it Constantinople after him, instead. The tunic swept the ground, but it was made of the most diaphanous, soft white fabric to ever leave a loom. Despite the drapes and folds of the garment, Ryan could see Nayara’s long slender body clearly behind it. She wore no belt. The tunic hung from two brooches holding it together at her shoulders and apart from the twin rises of her breasts, it fell straight to the floor.

Her hair was loose and free, with one red curl lying over her shoulder, the rest tumbling down her back.

In her hands, cupped in the palms, she held a bronze chalice.

Peace offering? Temptation?

Her green eyes were afire, blazing with an inner light, as she walked toward them slowly. Did she give them time to take in her beauty, the ethereal quality of her appearance? Or to tease them?

For her appearance had the effect of an hammer against Ryan’s heart and storm for his sails. He had thought himself utterly replete, but now he found himself back to a agonized state of wanting again.

Lathe gave a wheezy exhalation and Ryan knew he felt the same.

Nayara stopped before them. The last of the red light of a hot summer’s evening flooded the room and bathed her in an unearthly glow that made her look like she was ablaze.

Ryan was afraid to speak. He didn’t want to break the spell.

Nayara lifted the cup to her lips and appeared to sip the wine in it. Then she wordlessly held the cup out to Ryan.

Understanding blazed in his mind and heart. The old pagan symbolism of this little ceremony reached back not just into his people’s myths, but tapped into Byzantine roots, too.

She had found a way to unite them all.

Ryan’s hands trembled as he reached out for the cup and took it from her. It didn’t surprise him that the wine was red. It was a substitute for blood. He lifted the cup to his mouth and let the wine touch his lips. Then he handed the cup back to Nia.

She turned to Lathe and gave the cup to him. He was solemn as he took it and sipped, then handed it back.

Nia turned and placed the cup on the table by the door and returned to the bed.

Ryan got to his feet. “Lathe,” he said softly and lifted his hand, indicating Salathiel should stand, too. Ryan moved to Nia’s side, knowing what he needed to do next. He reached for the brooch on her shoulder. “You honour us,” he told her.

Salathiel slid the pin from the brooch on his side. “Indeed. Beyond our hopes or expectations.”

Nayara closed her eyes as the tunic fluttered to the ground in two separate pieces. “Or mine, when this day began.” She smiled.

They pushed the tunic away from her naked body. Ryan bent and kissed her, turning her face up to his. It was an outpouring of relief, gratitude and love.

And happiness.

For there was the stirrings of happiness deep in his soul. Salathiel’s mood was infectious and now Nayara had removed the last shield against that infection. Ryan was free to love and enjoy that love, if he dared to break with the ingrained habits of a long life of looking over his shoulder.

Salathiel’s hand briefly touched Ryan’s where he held Nia’s face. Then Nia gasped. Ryan lifted his lips from hers.

Salathiel was behind her, his big hands cupping her breasts, tugging and rolling the tips, elongating them. Just watching Lathe’s fingers on Nia’s breasts was erotic and arousing. Ryan let out a heavy breath.

“Touch him, Nia,” Salathiel whispered in her ear.

Nia’s eyes opened wider. Then the corners of her mouth lifted as a wickedly sensual look came over her face. She leaned back against Lathe and reached out to rest her hand against Ryan’s chest and caress it. But her fingers swiftly dropped lower, to his jutting, throbbing shaft. Her hand circled around him and stroked. Then she lifted her other hand and cupped his balls, squeezing.

Ryan curled his hands into fists, hissing in his breath. Nia’s light touch was nothing like Lathe’s but it was a powerful goad, all the same, especially with Lathe watching.

At the last minute, Ryan pulled Nia’s hand aside, before it was too late. He was trembling. “I’d rather come inside you,” he said quietly.

“So would I,” Lathe added.

“Both?” Nayara looked startled. Then her eyes took on the half-lidded sleepy expression Ryan had learned meant she was deeply aroused. “Now,” she said, her voice blurry with excitement.

Salathiel smiled and his smile was full of sensual promise. “Pick her up, Ryan.”

Ryan guessed what Salathiel intended. So he wrapped his hands around Nayara’s waist and picked her up. For a vampire it was no effort at all. Salathiel had counted on that.

“Put your legs around me,” he told Nia.

Nia wrapped her legs about his waist and her arms around his shoulders. Ryan kissed her while he held her. His shaft was throbbing with readiness, so he slowly lowered her onto it.

Nia sighed as her tight sheath enclosed him.

“Gods!” Salathiel breathed. “I thought I might feel discomfort watching you with Nia, Ryan. I thought perhaps I might feel awkward. Or fear. Or nothing at all. I did not for a moment think I would feel this...rush. This
pleasure
.”

Ryan’s pulse leapt.

Salathiel stepped to their side and turned Nia’s face toward him. “I want you now more than I have ever wanted you.” He kissed her, then looked at Ryan. His blue eyes were glittering in the growing dark. “And I want you, more than I have all day.” His kiss was hard and fast...and arousing.

Ryan heard Nia’s tiny gasp.

Salathiel moved away and he glanced at her. She licked her lips. “I have...that is the first time I have seen you...kiss,” she said.

“It is not to your taste?” Ryan asked.

Nia’s smile was slow. Wicked. “Yes, it is. It very much is.”

Ryan’s heart seemed to leap in his chest, like it was trying to escape.

Salathiel pressed up behind Nia and she stiffened. Lathe kissed her shoulder. “Relax.”

“You startled me,” Nia complained.

“You were too busy seducing my lover,” Lathe replied.

Nia stiffened for a heartbeat, then relaxed and smiled. “True.” She gasped. “Oh!” She arched against Ryan. “Oooh...”

“That is oil,” Lathe said. “Where I will take you, I will need oil. So I must spread it first and spread you, too.”

Nia’s eyes drifted slowly closed as Lathe worked the oil into her anus and stretched the opening. But Ryan could feel her responding, as her body clenched around his shaft in shifts and spasms, stroking him internally. Her nipples scraped across his chest as she arched and twisted.

Her breath quickened.

Finally, Lathe gripped her hips and pressed himself up against her. Nia clutched at Ryan, her eyes opening. Ryan could feel the advance of Lathe’s shaft against his own, for there was only the thinnest of flesh walls between the two channels.

Nia’s breathing became soft panting. She clutched at Ryan, her small hands clinging to his neck as she was claimed by the two of them.

Just the knowledge of what they were doing was so profoundly moving, Ryan knew the moment was not destined to linger. “Lathe, hurry,” he urged the human.

“Not this time. Not with Nia,” Salathiel muttered. Sweat dotted his brow, though, as he continued to ease himself into Nia a tiny portion at a time, to avoid any pain or damage.

Ryan fought to control his mounting excitement, to make it last. He watched Nia dreamily accept Lathe into her. She clearly felt no pain for her eyes had narrowed into aroused little slits and her lips were parted as her breath escaped in little gasps and moans. She clenched around Ryan as she reacted to the sensations they were producing in her.

“I never dreamed...” she whispered.

“Nor I,” Ryan replied.

Salathiel came to a rest inside her and kissed her cheek. “Nor I, love of my life. But we have you to thank for this.” He glanced at Ryan. “Together,” he said.

Ryan took a better grip on Nia’s waist and nodded.

Together they lifted Nia, easing their shafts from her, then sliding back in. Ryan expelled a quick breath of air as the sensations swamped him. “Oh...lord.”

Nia’s grip on his shoulders tightened. “It’s wonderful,” she breathed. “Again.”

They thrust carefully into her again. Salathiel groaned. “This will be the end of me. I cannot think of anything better than this.”

“More of it is better,” Ryan breathed.

“Yes,” Nia answered breathlessly.

Then he had no words and no air to speak them. The pleasure was too great and his time had run out. The excitement spiralled. He caught Lathe’s glance and saw the furrow between his brows that signalled he was close to climaxing, too. Ryan let the thrill envelope him and take him. He shuddered through his climax, his whole body feeling the sparkling intensity of it.

Nia’s hand were squeezing and working his shoulders. Then she screamed, as her peak hit and her body clenched around him. Ryan could feel the waves of her climax passing through her just like waves in the sea. They left her limp against Lathe’s chest.

Lathe looked at Ryan. In the last of the daylight his eyes looked very blue, almost fierce. “There’s no argument now. You’re staying.”

Ryan wasn’t sure where the laughter came from, but he let it free and it felt good.

Chapter Nine

Bourbon Street, New Orleans, 2003 A.D.

The barman was a three hundred pound black man in a black silk shirt. The only colour on him was a thick gold earring that glinted in the dim light of the bar. He poured two of the stiffest freehand shots Cáel had ever seen, from a bottle of Irish whiskey he had pulled out from beneath the bar. He nodded at Ryan, stoppered the bottle and put it back under the bar and walked away. Cáel didn’t miss the speculative glance the man sent him as he left.

Like Brenden, the barman was light on his feet, despite his size. So the bulk was deceptive. There was a lot of muscle under there.

Cáel made a mental note not to piss the guy off.

He settled on the stool next to Ryan. The stool was not an average bar stool. It had arms and a back to it, even though it was tall enough to belly up to the bar. It was a serious drinker’s stool, comfortable enough to stay seated for a good long while. There was plush red leather padding on the seat and a cushion of leather on the back and the rest of the stool was a dark, deeply grained and polished wood, that glowed with the same care and attention as the wood of the bar and the glass racks overhead. The stemware hanging from the racks gleamed, too.

Despite the late hour, ten p.m., there was a three piece jazz band just setting up in the far corner of the bar, on a handkerchief sized stage. Most of the tables in the bar were empty, but they were starting to fill up.

Someone waved. “Ryan!” he called.

Ryan lifted his hand in greeting, with a smile of recognition.

“You
are
a regular here, then,” Cáel said.

“Every Friday and Saturday night as far as they’re concerned, even if it’s weeks or months for me,” Ryan replied. He swivelled the stool to face the bar again. “They keep that bottle under the bar just for me and my friends.” He tapped Cáel’s glass with the back of his fingernail. “Drink up.” He picked up his own glass and waited.

“I’m not really a whiskey drinker,” Cáel warned him.

Ryan looked offended. “It’s not
whiskey
.” He lifted the glass a little higher, displaying the contents. “This is
Irish
malt. You haven’t tasted whiskey until you’ve tasted this. It comes from a distillery less than a mile from where I was born.”

“Where was that?” Cáel asked curiously.

“The village is long gone now. There’s a city where it used to be. Killarney.” Ryan waved his glass toward Cáel ’s. “Drink,” he insisted.

Cáel grinned. “Only if we get to do this in Athens next time.”

“Deal,” Ryan agreed.

Cáel knocked the huge shot back. It burned outrageously for fifteen seconds, but then the peaty, smoky taste came through and he breathed it into the back of his throat. He nodded, aware that Ryan was watching him. Judging.

“Not bad,” he ventured.

Ryan grinned. The barman had appeared like magic and was pouring another round. Ryan curled his fingers around the bottle. “Leave it,” he murmured.

The barman grinned. “It’s your hangover, Irishman.” He held out his hand. “Keys.”

Ryan shrugged. “I’m walking.”

“Keys,” the barman repeated stoically.

Ryan grinned and dug into his pocket. “Going to take my friend’s keys, too?” He pulled out a small metal ring that had old fashioned keys on it and threaded a single key off from the several that were strung on the ring. He put the key on the barman’s hand. “I need the others, don’t I?” he said reasonably.

The barman turned and placed the key on the shelf behind the bar, in front of a row of glasses. “It’ll be there tomorrow morning,” the barman said. He looked sharply at Cáel.

Cáel held up his hands. “I’m from out of town,” he said. “I
just
got here. I left my keys at home.”

The barman frowned. “It’s your life,” he said and floated down to the other end of the bar.

“Keys for what?” Cáel murmured.

“Car,” Ryan replied quietly. “No autopilot here and now.”

“Ah.” Cáel picked up his glass. “
Salute
.”

“No.
Slainte
,” Ryan replied.

Cáel shrugged. “
Slainte
.” He knocked the shot back and watched Ryan drink his. Ryan shook his head in reaction to the bite of the shot and put the glass down.

“It looks strange, seeing you drink. But yet, quite normal, too,” Cáel told him.

Ryan’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Drinking? Well, I’ve done a lot of it. Especially here.” There was a gleam in his eyes. “I should warn you. Drink hits us quicker than humans.”

“Because your metabolisms are so much faster when you’re back in time? I figured that out for myself.”

Ryan blinked, surprised. “Did you figure out the rest of it, human?”

They were speaking softly and keeping their heads closer together than normal so no one would overhear them. But it was safe enough, for no one else was sitting at the bar yet and the nearest table was a good ten feet away from them.

 
“The rest?” Cáel repeated. He thought it through. “I imagine if alcohol hits you faster, you also recover faster, too. You get to do it all over again, same night?”

“Exactly,” Ryan replied. He poured another round, clinked his glass against Cáel’s and drank. “
Feicfidh mé
deoch
dall
tú, agus
bodhar
,
mac
Hellas
.”

Cáel picked up his glass. He wasn’t entirely sure what Ryan had said, but he was an old hand at these sorts of situations and guessed Ryan had probably issued some sort of challenge. Something about out-drinking him. Well, Ryan could be in for a surprise. “Brace yourself, Irishman. You’ve picked on the wrong man tonight,” he said in his family’s private language.

“Is that right?” Ryan replied in the same tongue. He grinned. “Prove it.”

Cáel tipped his head back, drained the glass and thumped it on the bar. “Next,” he said in English. “And while you’re at it, do you think your barman there can rustle up something to eat?”

Ryan raised a brow. “Hungry?”

“Not yet. But you have a natural advantage I have to offset. Food will slow the absorption of the alcohol. This is New Orleans. They must surely have a pot of gumbo or jambalaya on a stove nearby?”

“My woman does a mean jambalaya, boss,” came the soft-spoken interruption.

Ryan and Cáel both looked up. The barman was standing opposite them, on the other side of the bar. He had arrived silently, unnoticed by either of them.

Ryan sat back. “Do you think she would spare a couple of bowlfuls, Barney? I’ve heard about Delores’ jambalaya before.”

“I’ll ask.” Barney moved away, cat-footed.

“Boss?” Cáel repeated.

“Figure of speech,” Ryan said, dismissively.

The band on the tiny stage swung into a quiet tune, finding their way into a mood and atmosphere they and the building audience liked. Cáel watched for a few bars then turned back to the bar. His glass had been filled once more, telling him Ryan was serious about taking his measure.

Cáel was more than happy to oblige. It gave him the perfect opportunity to peer inside Ryan Daniel
Deasmhumhain
. A headache in the morning would be worth it.

* * * * *

The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

Nayara let her boot heels hit the floor with less grace than usual, as she thumbed through the next page or two of manuscript.

“Oh, for...” she breathed. Horror was curling through her. Impending scenes of greater and greater disaster painted themselves in her imagination, the results of this garbage in her hands.

“
Ryan
!” she called, knowing that he would hear her even through the wall between their offices.

When there was no answer, she strode over to the door and into Ryan’s office. It was empty. She hesitated for a moment, then went over to the door to his private quarters and hammered on it. It was rare she imposed even that much on Ryan’s privacy, but what she had been reading outweighed any relationship delicacies.

There was no answer.

Vexed, she turned back to Ryan’s desk and jammed her forefinger against the comm link and sent the pulse for Brenden’s office.

“Ryan?” Brenden asked, sounding confused.

“Nayara,” she said. “Where is he?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Clearly, he didn’t. Why? Is his location a state secret?”

Silence. Nayara counted to three.

“I suppose not,” Brenden replied. “He’s in New Orleans. He’s usually only gone five minutes or so. You’ve just missed him.”

Nayara held back her impatience. “Fine. Is Stelios with you, then?”

Again, the silence. “He’s with Ryan,” Brenden replied.

“These stupid drinking games,” Nayara muttered. “Men!” She cut the connection and went back to her office to finish reviewing the size and shape of the disaster so that when the two of them arrived back in the 23rd century, they could help her deal with the fallout.

She certainly wasn’t going to handle it alone. It had been far too long since she had spilled violent blood and she didn’t want to start again now.

* * * * *

Bourbon Street, New Orleans, 2003 A.D.

“The bloody Normans swept in and changed everything, almost overnight it felt like,” Ryan said, staring at the lights behind the bar through the whiskey in his glass.

“Normans?” Cáel asked. He had his head propped on his hand, his elbow on the bar. “That was...they was...” He couldn’t narrow down the century, except that he knew it was early medieval. A bloody long time ago, to use Ryan’s word. He also knew he was absolutely feeling the effects of the whiskey. Except that it just seemed to be his body being affected. His mind was operating independently and was clear and clean of baffles. Thank heavens Ryan had slowed down the pouring of the shots. The bottle was just about empty, but Cáel guessed there was another one under the bar, where that one had been tucked away. He didn’t mind going shot-for-shot with the man, but it had been a very long time since he had pulled a stunt like this.

Remarkably, he was enjoying himself immensely. If he had to revert back to college behaviour he couldn’t have better company to do it with than Ryan’s.

“That was in twelve hundred and one,” Ryan said. “That was the year I left. So did Órfhlaith and Ezra, a month behind me.”

They were using old Greek, to avoid being overheard, so the names, spoken with Ryan’s native accent, made Cáel jump. He recognized one of them. “Ezra,” he said. “That is the one who died of stasis poisoning. The traveller who took me back to France last year.” He sat up. “He was as old as you?”

Ryan shook his head, still watching the light dance through his whiskey. “I was he and his sister’s maker.” He drank back half the shot and glanced at Cáel with a sideways look. “Her name is Órfhlaith Saoirse, but most people can’t get their tongues around it, like they can’t with mine.” He spelled it out and Cáel lifted his brows.

“That doesn’t look anything like the way you said it,” Cáel pointed out. “You called her ‘Or-la Seer-sha’.”

“That’s the way an Irishman says it,” Ryan replied. “But Órfhlaith gave up on trying to explain that and changed her name to Ophelia. You’ve met her, too.”

Cáel nodded, remembering the tall, sad, distant woman who had accompanied Ryan when they had found him wandering the streets of Imperial France. “I remember her well.” He lifted his glass and drank half the shot. “I didn’t know you had made anyone, Ryan. Certainly not anyone at the agency.”

“It was an exception,” Ryan said. He grimaced. “They were starving, being beaten by the English family who were using them like virtual slaves and when the master had finished with Ezra...” His expression was grim. Then he stretched his shoulders and glanced around, like he had just remembered where he was. He gave Cáel a small smile. “There wasn’t much of a decision to make.” He finished the shot with a jerk of his hand.

“So you headed for Europe to get away from the English, after that?” Cáel picked up the bottle and poured again.

“Aye. A long, slow wandering journey that ended in Constantinople, two hundred years later.”

“Where you stayed, for centuries more.”

Ryan nodded.

“Did you turn Salathiel?”

Ryan drew in a deep breath. “No,” he said, letting it out. “Neither of us would turn him. We refused.”

“He asked, then?”

“Of course he asked.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “It does not take too many years for a human who lives near us or with us to watch us never age and never change, while the human sees all the little signs of age accumulate in their own body, before panic sets in.” Ryan lifted his glass again and turned his chair so he was looking at Cáel. “Salathiel was already thirty-five when I met him. He lasted another five years before he asked. For a man that age, in those times, he was considered to be old. It was his advancing mortality that drove him to act.” He grimaced. “He didn’t want to leave us.”