Crystal Fire (24 page)

Marissa whirled about to face him. "What's in that incense?" she demanded. "If you mean to drug me"

"Calm yourself, femina." His voice was low and strangely soothing. "It's nothing more than a scent to take the edge off the stone damp."

"Then put it out!"

The corner of his sensuous mouth curled, then Ferox strode to the brazier and poured a dollop of his ale on the coal. With a snap and a sizzle, the smoking incense was extinguished.

Ferox turned. "Satisfied?"

Marissa nodded warily.

"Good. Now, please," he said with a sweep of his hand, "sit down."

Reluctantly, she complied, then watched as Ferox took his place across from her. He sipped his cup of ale and eyed her.

The room closed in as Marissa sat there, the air becoming heavy, smothering. The tension grew and it was all she could do to mask her rising anxiety. Her fists clenched in her lap.

He was studying her like some specimen on a lab plate, she thought in rising anger, like some predator contemplating its prey. And there was nothing she could do but wait for the first strike, then fend it off as best she could. Her warrior's instincts sharpened, readying for battle, yet the attack, when it finally came, was from such an unexpected quarter that Marissa was momentarily taken off guard.

"Your sister is terrified of men." She stared at him, speechless, unable to fathom his meaning or intent. Was he implying that someone had raped Candra? But that couldn't be! Candra would have told her. Or would she? There'd have been nothing either of them could do about it, and Candra might have meant to spare her.

Fear rushed in to chill the very marrow of her bones. Then came the hot surge of rage.

"What did you do to her, you slime-rotted fiend?" Marissa cried, leaping to her feet. "If you or any of your men laid one hand on my sister, I swear I'll"

Ferox held up a placating hand, chuckling all the while. "Ever the rescuer, eh, Marissa? Well, calm yourself. No one has touched her. I value her special talents too highly to mar them in any way."

He paused, visually ordering her to retake her seat. When she finally did, he continued. "I was but making an observation. I just find it very odd how you two can look so much alike, yet be so opposite in character."

He set down his cup to temple his fingers beneath his chin. "She's so timid, so gentle, so afraid of her own emotions and you . . . well, you're a refreshingly strong and vibrant woman."

Unease coiled within Marissa. Ferox was leading up to something. She forced herself to sit there and wait.

The secundae ticked by. Gradually Ferox's expression transformed from one of avid in- terest to that same haunted, almost vulnerable look he'd had just before he kissed her. And still he said nothing. The anticipation grew, clawing at her tightly strung nerves until Marissa thought she'd scream.

''Ardane's very lucky," his deep voice suddenly sliced through the heavy tension. "Very, very lucky to have a woman like you to love and nurture and protect him. Just like a mother . . ."

Marissa blinked in surprise. There was almost a pensive note to his words, words that suddenly appeared fraught with a deeper, darker meaning. Realization flared to life, fanned by her desperation into a wild flame of hope. Perhaps Ferox did indeed have a chink in his armorand perhaps, just perhaps, it had something to do with his mother.

Well, she had nothing to lose. Marissa wet her lips.

"You loved your mother, did you? Want to find a woman just like her?"

"Wh-what?" Ferox nearly strangled on the word, a stunned look on his face. Then his handsome features softened. "Yes," he breathed. "She was the most beautiful woman I've ever known."

"What happened to her?"

The door slammed down on his loving memories. Ferox's face hardened, resuming their familiar, shuttered look. "She's dead."

The flatness of his reply startled her. "II'm sorry." Marissa hesitated, her thoughts racing. She had to get him to open up, to again reveal that fleeting moment of vulnerability, if she were to have any hope of influencing him. But how?

"You're a very attractive man," she ventured carefully. "Some sol you'll find a woman to love you like she did."

His harsh bark of laughter reverberated through the room. "No. It's too late."

"Too late? Why?"

He shot her a smoldering glance. "Don't play games with me, femina. You know as well as I that my life is on a set course. I long ago made my decision. And I won't stop now until I've won control of the Imperium and mastery of the Knowing Crystal."

He shook his head fiercely. "There's no time left for tenderness, for love. Indeed, there never was . . ." His eyes darkened with some fleeting memory. "I almost had it once. I almost won my mother's love."

Excitement coursed through Marissa. Here was her chance, if she could just win his trust!

"You
almost
won your mother's love? Didn't you always have it?"

"No. Never." Once more his features hardened, and his voice lowered to a harsh whisper. "I was always perfect, from the moment of my birth, and still she rejected me. Rejected me, just as my father had. But he didn't matter. I never knew him. It was my mother I wanted."

He glanced up. Marissa was struck by his expression of childlike innocenceand the deepest anguish she'd ever seen.

"I tried all those cycles to win her love, to be worthy of her," Ferox continued softly. "And I almost succeeded when I entered the Imperial Academy and became its finest student. She noticed me then. As I reaped honor upon honor in my early cycles there, I finally realized that only the very best would ever be good enough for herand that I had finally achieved it."

Bitterness transformed his face and voice. "Then Teran Ardane came. He stole my glory, my honors. Just as greedily as he'd taken everything else of value in my life. Then, my mother turned from me forever. Turned from meand straight to Ardane."

His voice changed, becoming shrill, peevish. "She told me she wanted him, was in love with him, but I knew the real truth. She'd been obsessed with the Ardanes her whole life. Teran was but another chance to achieve her dream. And she was still a very beautiful, very desirable woman, even twenty cycles his senior.

"But still he rejected her. Can you b-believe it?" Ferox nearly choked on the words. "Ardane rejected my mother's lovethe love she'd never given to me! He had what I would never have, and tossed it aside as if it were of no value! I hate him most of all for that!"

As she listened, horror rose in Marissa. She understood now the full extent of Ferox's lifelong enmity toward Brace's brother. In the end, Teran, however unintentionally, had taken everything from Ferox. From boyhood on, the fatherless Ferox's entire self-concept had been tied into pleasing his mother and winning her love. Then Teran had entered the picture and not only bested him academically, but had also easily gained the only thing Ferox could never have and so ardently soughthis mother.

It was all so tragic, an utter waste of a brilliantly talented lifea life now twisted to such evil, maniacal intent. And the intent, she realized with a sinking feeling, ran too deep to ever be turned from its inexorable course of self-destruction.

Marissa lifted her gaze, a gaze filled with compassion. "I'm so sorry."

Fury exploded in Ferox's eyes. "I don't want your pity! I don't want anyone's pity!" A crazed, haunted expression contorted his face. "They all guessed, you know. That my mother never loved me. That I was only half the man I was born to be. And they laughed at me behind my back."

He inhaled a tremulous breath. "But they'll not laugh much longer. Soon I'll be ruler of the Imperium and master of the Knowing Crystal.
Then they'll never laugh at me again!
"

The blond head suddenly dipped; the broad shoulders slumped. "My mother won't ever laugh at me again, either," he whispered in that eerie, little-boy voice. The sound sent a cold prickle down Marissa's spine.

"She laughed one time too many, that sol I went to her and begged her one last time to love me," Ferox said. "And I . . . I finally killed her for it."

Somehow Marissa had known what was coming. It seemed the inevitable culmination of his unfortunate, twisted life. Yet his mother's murder hadn't exorcised Ferox's personal demons. It had only turned him from one violent path to another. And only death would end his tormented madness.

"I sicken you, don't I?"

The harsh rasp of Ferox's voice sliced through Marissa's rising despair. She forced herself to meet his steely gaze.

"No, you don't sicken me. What you've done, allowed yourself to become, sickens me. Your mother, the father who rejected you, are the ones at fault. Not Teran Ardane. Not the Imperium."

He howled with laughter, the sound wild, frightening. "And you
presume
to judge me? You, who have been cheated out of your own birthrightand had to watch another, far less worthy person, claim it? I thought better of you, Marissa. Thought that you, of all people, would understand."

"II'm trying to understand. Truly I am."

"Are you, Marissa?" Ferox shrugged. "Well, no matter. In the end, only one thing is of any import. Obedience." She swallowed hard and returned his half-mad gaze. "Then why tell me this, if all you want is obedience?"

"We are partners now, my sweet little femina. And I
will
have your cooperation, your understandingand your love." His eyes narrowed to glittering slits. "You
do
love me, don't you, Marissa?"

There was something in his voice, in his eyes that boded ill if she denied him what he asked. And there was far too much at stake to quibble over a few meaningless words.

Marissa wet her lips. "Yes, I love you."

He smiled then, and it was heart-stoppingly beautifuland disconcertingly familiar.

"Good. I knew you wouldn't fail me. Now, there's one last thing I need from you, to ensure the success of tomorrow's undertaking."

A vague uneasiness snaked about Marissa's heart. In that fleeting moment when Ferox had smiled, he'd reminded her of someone. But who?

She forced herself to reply. "And what's that? What do you want from me?"

"I want Ardane primed to cooperate. It'll save us all valuable time." He paused to take one last swallow of his cup, then again set it aside. "It's all quite simple, really. I want you to regain Ardane's trust and affection this nocte, so he'll be more amenable on the morrow."

It was Marissa's turn to laugh. "You're mad. After what's happened, do you seriously think he'll ever trust me again?"

Ferox rose from his chair. "Prove your love for me, sweet femina. Regain his trustin any way you can. You won't regret it."

He offered her his hand.

Marissa eyed it warily. "Where are you taking me?"

"Why, nowhere but to Ardane. He's sure to be lonely this nocte. It's the perfect opportunity for you. And you do want to please me, don't you, Marissa?"

She stood, her fists clenched at her side. By the Crystal Fires, how much further must she debase herself?

"Yes, more than anything, I want to please you," Marissa cried, nearly strangling on the lie. "That, and win Candra's freedom!"

Ferox motioned her forward, a bitter, knowing look in his eyes. "Then you have the perfect opportunity this nocteworking the ageless deceit of a woman's love."

Brace shifted his position on the hard stone floor, but it did little to ease his discomfort. The rocks dug sharply into his back, and his arms, electronically secured in the beryllium shackles to the wall above his head, were already growing numb. The cell was dark, damp, and cold. Brace envisioned a long, miserable nocte ahead.

A nocte without much hope of rest, with plenty of time to replay the brutal recollection of Marissa's betrayal. He'd thought he'd known her, thought he'd begun to win her heart, if only a little. Her passionate response during their mating hadn't been that of such a calculating woman.

He'd been a fool. A love-besotted fool.

Perhaps that was what hurt most of all. He had given Marissa his love, with all the tender ardor of his heart and body if not yet his words, and then watched her toss it asideas if it were an insignificant thingand run to Ferox's arms.

Brace groaned and closed his eyes. How could Marissa find anything to care about in a man such as Ferox? What manner of woman was she really? He had never known her. Never . . .

Hollow footsteps thudded down the tunnel. Brace listened dispiritedly until they paused outside his cell. The lock clicked and the door swung open. Brace turned.

There, her face shadowed in the dim light, was Marissa. Beside her stood Ferox. Brace tensed.

"What do you want?" he rasped. "Haven't had your fill of gloating?"

"A lifetime would never be enough!" Ferox snarled. "As you'll soon see. But a doomed man is entitled to one last nocte of comfort, and I knew you'd want to spend it with the femina. Renewing old friendships, reminiscing about passionate encounters"

"Get her out of here!" Ferox shoved Marissa forward. "Go to him, sweet femina. Soothe his tired brow, and any other part of his body that may need comforting. He wants you, even if his pride won't allow him to admit it. And it'll be the last nocte he'll ever have with a woman."

Brace watched Ferox exit the cell. A pained, angry frustration churned within. Curse the man, but he was right. Even in light of Marissa's betrayal, he desired her still. Even now, his body ached for her. If she came to him, touched him in any way, Brace feared he might shame himself and beg her to kiss him, hold himlove him.

He fought back against the tender feelings and hardened his heart. He had to, or he was lost.

"Whose little idea was thisyours or Ferox's?" Brace demanded.

Marissa winced at the icy contempt dripping from his words. "Ferox's."

"Couldn't face me, eh? Strange, I never thought you a coward. But then," he growled, "I never thought you such a sneaking little conniver, either."

"I didn't mean to betray you!"

"Liar!"

She moved to his side, sinking to her knees. "You must believe me, Brace. I meant to tell you last nocte, but you wouldn't let me. And then, just before we fell asleep, I vowed to myself to tell you on the morrow. But when we awoke, Ferox was there." "How convenient for you."