Harlequin Nocturne May 2016 Box Set (7 page)

“Were there any others?” he asked. “Some of the old gods who came with you to Tanis?”

She frowned, a delicate crease forming between her brows. “There were a few others. When we came to Tartaros, one left us to make his way alone. There were a few who wished to rule by the old customs. We did not welcome them among us. And there was one other who came to us for a very brief time, not long ago. His name was Ares.”

“The Greek god of war,” Daniel said softly.

“Yes. I never met him in the past, and saw him only twice while he was here. He said he had come to find out if Tanis was what he had heard it to be, as you did. But he left soon after he arrived.” She searched Daniel's eyes. “Why do you ask?”

He left soon after
, Daniel thought. But where would he have gone?

“I saw Ares once, in Vikos,” he said. “He was one of the few Opiri who treated serfs decently. I didn't realize then that he might actually have been a ‘god.'”

“Strange. Ares spoke of coming from the region of Erebus, far to the west.”

Immediately Daniel was on his guard. “We heard he was traveling, but the rulers of Vikos would not have let him stay to challenge them. Rumors among the serfs suggested that he was seeking a place like this after leaving his Citadel.”

“We know that the rulers of Vikos are aggressive and greedy for power. Ares might have been lucky to escape with his life.”

But of course Ares had almost certainly never been there at all. It was all part of Daniel's invented backstory.

“He seemed wise and controlled when he came here,” Isis said, as if she hadn't noticed Daniel's silence. “If he once served as a god to humans, he had clearly left that life far behind.” She paused. “He had a mate with him when he came to us, a dhampir woman whom he treated with great respect. I believe her name was Trinity.”

Daniel kept his breathing to a normal pace. “Why did they leave?”

“I did not actually see them depart, but my last words with them were of making a new life.”

“They didn't say anything about their destination?”

It was clear from her expression that she wondered about Daniel's interest. “I was under the impression that they intended to return to their home.”

Daniel knew that it would be wise to drop the subject for now. “I hope he found what he was looking for,” he said.

“A pity he could not have found it here,” Isis said. She gazed at Daniel for a long moment. “Perhaps you will answer a question for
me
. Why did you react so strongly when you saw that Opir emerging from the depository?” She searched his face. “You dodged the question before. But surely the answer is not so terrible?”

“It doesn't matter,” Daniel said, looking away.

“It does to me.” She rose, and her bare feet whispered across the floor. “I saw the hatred on your face. Who is he?”

Daniel took a deep breath. “His name is Hannibal. He was a vicious Bloodlord, a close ally of my first owner.”

“Anu's advisor,” Isis said. “I have met him. Your description of him does not seem—”

“Everyone in Vikos knew his reputation. He was an evil man, Isis. He could never stay in a place like this without his own Household and serfs. He would never give up that life.”

“And yet he has.”

“He lives among the other Opiri in the towers?”

“Yes.”

“And he has never caused any trouble here?”

“Not that I have heard.”

“Opiri like Hannibal don't change,” he said. “If you're worried about spies, Isis, I'd watch him more closely.”

Her hand touched his shoulder. “An agent from Vikos?” she asked.

Daniel hesitated. He had chosen to say that
he
came from Vikos to keep the Tanisian's attention away from the western colonies near Erebus, in the event that the Opiri of Tanis proved hostile. Hannibal's presence could prove a danger to him, for the former Bloodlord would know who and what he really was. Daniel had no idea where Hannibal had been over the past several years, but Ares had fought Hannibal and exiled him from Erebus after the overthrow of the Citadel's original government. Hannibal would surely be very happy to take revenge on his enemy, by any means possible.

“You can't believe anything he says,” Daniel said.

“Even though he has acted only in good faith and followed our laws?” she asked. “A powerful Bloodmaster like Ares wanted something beyond serfs and divinity. Surely this one, too, can learn.”

He took her by her shoulders. “Is it that you only see the good in people, Isis? Is that your blindness?”

She pulled free. “And is yours constant suspicion, a refusal to see what is good or even to hope?”

Grabbing her slender waist, Daniel looked into her eyes. “I've been wrong before.”

He kissed her. She stiffened for a fraction of a second and then relaxed in his arms, returning his kiss fully and eagerly. She, a goddess once adored by millions, wanted a man like him as much as he wanted her. He had been a serf, helped found a colony, fought Freebloods, governed a compound where Opiri and humans lived in relative harmony.

But in the end there was nothing more than this.

He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the small bedroom off the living area. The bed's wooden footboard and headboard were decorated with ancient Egyptian motifs and carvings of human figures going about their daily tasks, from harvesting grains to fishing in the river. A woman held a child to her breast, and birds dipped and dived among the rushes.

Isis followed his gaze. “There are some things I do not wish to forget,” she said.

Daniel laid her on the bed, staring at the carvings. Isis pulled his head down and kissed him. At once he was inundated by dreams of another time and place, the cool of night on bare skin and the smell of a river as the flower-scented boat glided along, the oars pulled by bronze-skinned men in simple white kilts, singing as he held Isis in his arms.

Unembarrassed by their presence, he unfastened her gown and untied the sash. She wore nothing underneath. Her wide necklace glowed against the golden skin above her breasts, and her bracelets chimed softly as she stretched her arms over her head.

There were no words between them, nothing to break the spell.

She
wrapped her thighs around his hips and sighed as he eased inside her. Her breasts rose and fell with each short, sharp breath. She was smooth and warm and wet, drawing him in, and he began to breathe harshly as the pace quickened and she arched up to meet his thrusts. He kissed her breasts, one and then the other, and licked the warm skin of her shoulder. She pulled him closer with agile fingers and pressed her lips to his neck.

When her teeth penetrated his skin, he could hardly hold himself back. A different kind of ecstasy gripped him as the blood flowed, though some distant part of him knew that he should struggle, push her away, prevent her from taking what so many of her kind had stolen by force.

But the blood continued to flow, and he finished inside her with a low grunt of satisfaction. She came a moment later, her teeth still embedded in his neck, her arms holding him tightly against her.

He opened his eyes, and the fragrant deck was gone, the black arc of starry sky and the cool river vanished. He and Isis were naked, and Isis's lips were at his throat.

CHAPTER 7

P
ulling free, Daniel rolled off the bed, retreated to the door and stared at her. He had lost himself completely, and he still saw Isis as she had looked in the dream: glorious skin dappled by moonlight, nipples rouged; hair spread across the cushions; kohl painting her beautiful eyes.

“Daniel?” she said with obvious concern, rising on her elbow.

He touched the side of his neck. There was no blood.

“What did you do?” he asked hoarsely.

“I do not understand.”

“You used your influence. You made me see—”

“I did nothing!” she said, snatching up her robes and wrapping them around herself.

“I saw another place, with a river. An ancient time.”

Her eyes widened. “I had nothing to do with what you saw.”

Had it all been his imagination, then? Daniel wondered. An inner vision of another age, meant to distance him from this one, to hold reality and the painful memories at bay?

But at least some parts of it had been real.

“You were about to take my blood,” he said.

She sat straight up. “Do you think I would...unless you asked me, I would never...”

Daniel grabbed his clothes and pulled them on with short, sharp jerks. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't know what I was doing.”

She tied her sash as she rose, her body supple and soft and alluring. “You were always in control of your mind and your body,” she said, hurt and anger in her voice. “Are you saying that the only way you would want me is if I influenced you?”

Her words froze him in place. The thought that she would need to force him to make love to her was beyond absurd.

But he had felt her teeth on his neck. She could have licked away the blood and healed him before he emerged from his dream. They had been together long enough that she wouldn't be able to ignore his blood—the smell of it, the sound of his pulse, the ease with which she might claim it.

“I did not take your blood!” she said, eyes flashing. “I know your past. I would never force you to relive it.” Her lips thinned. “But it is more than that which troubles you, is it not? Perhaps if I were human, it would be different. How long has it been for
you
, Daniel?”

There was no mockery in her words, but Daniel flinched anyway. He should lie and tell her that this was simply a casual thing with him, as it seemed to be with her; that he took lovers as easily as he breathed.

“I think it has been a long time,” she said. She sat on the couch, her robes settling about her. “Even before the Nine came to Tanis, it had been many years for me.” She gathered up one of the hand-woven throws and bunched it into a ball. “Until you came, I was not even tempted. I am not like Ishtar, Daniel. It has never been so simple for me, even in my days as a goddess.”

“How could it be anything but simple for someone with virtually unlimited power?”

“And again the cynicism,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. “You have hardened your heart.”

“I am what I am.”

“What your time as a serf made you,” she said. “Again and again you test yourself, to prove...what? That nothing can make you surrender even a little of yourself to another?” She rose and drew very close; he could smell the clean fragrance of her air and the undertone of sexual desire. “What did they do to you in Vikos, Daniel? Why do you feel such shame?”

“I am not asha—”

“I saw the scars on your back. I know you suffered great brutality. But that is not all, is it?” She touched his face. “I want to help. I want to understand, and do what I can to show you that—”

Blind with unreasoning anger, Daniel walked out of the apartment. He strode back to the Center and went to his room, where he washed his face and stared at himself in the mirror.

Again and again you test yourself, to prove...what?
she had said.
That nothing can make you surrender even a little of yourself to another?

She saw into him so easily, Daniel thought. There had been a few lovers since his escape from Erebus, brief affairs with human women that had never lasted. His desires had always been under rigid control. Twice, Isis had punched through those barriers, and the second time hadn't been a seduction.
He'd
begun it.

Daniel glanced at the clock. It was late afternoon, and he needed somewhere to go...away from Isis and her soft, sympathetic reassurances, the murmured promises of a woman who was still Opiri. He made certain that he was presentable and walked out into the reception area. Nobody took any notice of him as he left the building and crossed the plaza. He turned immediately for the first human neighborhood Isis had shown him, Bes's ward. He thought of the people protesting at the depository, wondering if he might find them and speak to them.

Keeping his eyes and ears open, Daniel moved casually past the idle Lawkeepers at the border of the neighborhood. Men and women were coming home from their daytime employment, some dusty from the fields or stained with grease from maintenance work, others in trim clothes suitable to office jobs. Daniel leaned against the wall of an apartment block and watched without paying any particular attention, blending in as best he could.

He loitered as the workers entered their buildings, some greeting children who had been anticipating their return. They behaved like anyone glad to be home after a long day's work, without sullenness or resentment. But after night fell, Daniel noted some of the men and a few women leaving their apartments and moving in one direction, singly or in pairs. He followed one man along several well-lit streets to a building set apart from the others, the double doors flung open and the sound of music emanating from inside.

Soon after, Daniel smelled the unmistakable scent of alcohol. He recognized the place as a tavern, and when he cautiously entered he found the men and women engaged in loud conversation, drinking and even dancing to the rhythm of a guitar and drum.

The closest Daniel had been to such a place had been the mess in Delos, but alcohol was served only on special occasions. Here it seemed to flow freely enough and, again, nobody seemed to notice Daniel entering the large room. Communal tables were scattered all over the tavern, and the smell of cooking permeated the air, making Daniel remember that he hadn't eaten in some time.

But he didn't have any of the local scrip to exchange for food or drink, so all he could do was slip quietly into an unoccupied corner and continue to listen. The people were as varied as they would be in any crowd of humans; only a handful, he noticed, wore Bes's emblem of a sheaf of wheat sewn on their sleeves or the shoulder of their shirts or jackets.

For the most part, conversation was of the kind one might hear in any gathering: good-natured complaints about work, gossip about fellow humans, jokes and the occasional burst of song.

But at least one group was different. Daniel focused on their speech, blocking out the rest.

The complaints of these men and women were not so good-natured, and their faces were grave and discontented. They muttered rather than speaking loudly, and bent over their drinks as if they held secret messages to be guarded from prying eyes.

“The bloody Games,” said a thin man with a trace of a beard. “They should be done away with.”

“Won't happen anytime soon,” an older woman said. “As long as so many human citizens take them seriously...”

“And as long as it serves
their
purpose.”

“Keep the humans distracted, so they don't realize how much better the Opiri have it in the towers.”

“There's no proof,” the older woman said. “We can't know—”

“The human servants who work for the bloodsuckers say they live in luxury,” a big man said.

“Hugh, you know the human servants like to boast to make themselves feel better about working for the Opiri.”

“You've seen them parading around the plazas and walking on the causeway at night, dressed like royalty,” the man they had called Hugh said. “Where did they get the clothes and the jewelry? They've been keeping what was left at the fall of Tartaros just for themselves.” He swung his bearded head to glare at each of his companions in turn. “I say that we're lucky to get half the resources the bloodsuckers do, even if we're the ones keeping them alive.”

“The Nine favor them,” the thin man said. “And as
they
go, so goes the Council. We'll never be anything but peons to them.”

“Hush,” the woman said. “That's enough. It's too—”

She broke off just as one of the other men at the table noticed Daniel's clandestine observation and stared straight into his eyes. Daniel looked away, but his lack of food, drink or company was a dead giveaway. He rose and started for the door.

Hugh blocked his exit.

“Who are you?” the man asked in a deep voice. “You aren't from around here. What do you want?”

“Company,” Daniel said. “I'm new in Tanis, and I'm still getting used to the neighborhood.”

“Oh?” a young woman asked, her short hair dyed bright red and her sleeveless shirt deliberately torn to look worn and ragged. She looped her arm over the big man's shoulders. “I don't recognize him, Hugh. Don't they usually have welcoming ceremonies for newcomers?”

They
, Daniel thought. Other humans? Bes, perhaps?

“I asked them not to bother,” Daniel said. “In any case, I was just leaving. I didn't realize this was a private party.”

“Or maybe you just didn't want to be noticed,” Hugh said, matching Daniel's soft tone.

The woman smiled at him. “Why don't you tell us the truth? It'll make you feel better.”

The “truth” might serve him well this time, Daniel thought. “I wanted to see for myself if Tanis was what it's supposed to be,” he said.

“You don't know?” the man said.

“I've seen things—”

“What things?” the woman asked, leaning toward him.

“A demonstration,” he said, “at the blood depository.”

Hugh and the woman exchanged glances. “And that made you curious?” she asked. “Maybe you wondered why people were protesting?”

“Yes.”

“I'll tell you,” Hugh said, whispering close to Daniel's ear. “I think you came here to learn something, all right, but it isn't for yourself. You aren't welcome here, and if we find out you're spying for the—” He stopped, grinding his teeth.

“You think I'm watching you for the Opiri?” Daniel asked. “Why would they spy on you?”

“Just shut up and leave,” Hugh said. “Don't come back, ever.”

Daniel weighed the man's words. Hugh was certainly disaffected with life in Tanis, and his belief that the Opiri were spying on humans had clearly been sincere.

But was it a plausible fear, or merely paranoia based on habitual dislike of Opiri? Daniel knew that he was going to need to talk to these people again in the near future. He needed to find out exactly what lay behind their discontent. And he'd have to prove, somehow, that he wasn't what they thought he was.

“I'll go,” he said, backing out of the tavern. By now, every face was turned toward the door, and Daniel knew he wouldn't go unrecognized the next time he entered the area.

Hugh and the woman stood at the door and watched him walk away. He considered going on into Hera's ward, but he'd certainly stand out there, as well. Instead, he turned back to Isis's ward, wondering what she had planned for him now...or if she'd simply wash her hands of him once and for all.

He couldn't let her do that. She was still his best source of information, and she had met Ares. He would simply have to make sure that he didn't fall under her—

The sound of conflict behind him brought him to a halt just as he reached the ward's border. Raised voices were backed by the low rumble of an angry mob.

He glanced at the Lawkeepers at their station. They seemed not to hear. Instead of alerting them, he jogged back toward the tavern.

Arrayed in front of the building were perhaps a dozen humans, both men and women, some with fists raised and others with bottles in hand. Standing opposite them were six ordinary Opiri, white haired and pale skinned, their deep purple eyes filled with contempt. They wore finer clothes than the humans, and bore themselves with the common arrogance of their kind.

“The law says we can go where we choose,” one of the male Opiri said. “This tavern is open to all citizens of Tanis.”

Hugh stepped forward, fists working. “You come here to cause trouble, not to drink with us.”

“Your bigotry against us is apparent,” the Opir said.

The humans growled and shifted. The Opir gestured to his comrades and moved toward the tavern door.

“We've been curious to taste your human beer,” he said, “and find out if it is the pig swill they say it is.”

Another man in the crowd stepped forward. “You can't taste anything but blood,” he said. “And you won't find any here.”

The Opir bared his teeth. “You are ungenerous with your blood, you humans,” he said. “You would starve us.”

“And you would drain us dry,” Hugh said.

The two leaders strode toward each other, the human with a bottle in his hand, the Opir ready to attack. Daniel managed to get between them just in time, anger and contempt kindling in his chest.

“It's obvious that you
did
come here to cause trouble,” he said to the Opiri. “I suggest you leave before someone reports your behavior.”

“Reports?” the lead Opir said. “Where are the Lawkeepers? They care nothing for what goes on here.”

“Bes may feel differently,” Daniel said, working to keep his instinctive hatred under control.

“Bes,” the Opir spat. “He betrays his own kind for the sake of humans.”

And he clearly doesn't frighten these Opiri, god or not
, Daniel thought. He faced the Opir with his hands loose at his sides. “If you start a fight,” he said coldly, “nobody will blame these people for defending themselves.”