Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (28 page)

He stared again at the throne, brooding, then held out his hand to her. “I tire of this room. Come. Have dinner with me in my quarters.”

Food.
She clasped her belly. “I’m starving, actually.” She’d left her lunch tray at Maitri’s before she’d had a chance to eat.

But should she go with him to his quarters? It sounded all too…tempting. She eyed his powerful fingers and extended palm, open and waiting for hers to clasp them.

“We’ll break bread together,” he said. “And celebrate your hard-won triumph.”

She recalled standing before him as he’d poised the dagger at his chest.
“I fight to save lives,”
she’d argued, “
not to see them end. I strive against death.”
So many times over the decades, she had fought that almighty enemy. Kuramos, of all people, understood her victory, as well as the agony of the battle.

And perhaps along with the illness, she’d helped to slay some of Kuramos’s demons. She took his hand.

V
arene and the sultan walked silently to his quarters. Though it pained her, she slipped her hand from his. He didn’t comment, which somehow disappointed her.

Don’t be stupid
, she told herself. But as they entered his rooms, stopping only for Kuramos to request a meal for them both, her second guesses were already overtaking her first ones. Anticipation tingled in her blood and all her senses tuned to the man beside her—a man forbidden to her by her own morality. Going to the lion’s lair was the epitome of masochistic temptation.

The dagger of Ayaaz gleamed in its brackets on the wall, eliciting her uncomfortable glance. She turned her scuffed ring absently with her thumb and crossed the room to stare out the waist-high arch overlooking his garden.

“That ring,” he said at last, following her. “Who gave it to you?”

She peered up at his inquisitive eyes. For a moment, she considered lying and telling him she’d bought it herself. Instead, she shrugged and said, “It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t wear it on the marriage finger.” Though his words were a statement, the question was clear.

She returned her gaze to the garden. “No, I don’t.” She sensed the small hesitation in his breathing.

He tried again. “Have you no man waiting for you back in Teganne?”

Findar had never waited for her. No one ever had. As for the ring… “No.”

“You realize I find that hard to understand.” He stepped closer, and her body warmed as if he were the sun.

So seek the shade, Varene.
“There was a man. In Teganne.” A rose outside the arch quivered in the breeze.

He tensed in her peripheral vision, his taut body at odds with his quiet voice. “Oh?”

“Death won him.”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned his forearms on the top of the wall and folded his hands together. Roses in saffron and cranberry hues sent fragrance aloft to mix with jasmine. The last of the afternoon sun slanted its rays into the garden, bathing the bushes and blossoms in a warm light. Fountains murmured in the hush.

The jewel of his ring, the sapphire lion’s eye, flashed at her. “What does
your
ring mean?”

He cocked his finger up and surveyed it. “It’s the symbol of my sultanate, handed down from father to son for generations.” He paused. “And it is my wedding ring.”

She merely nodded. Too many things might rush from her mouth. She yearned to reach for his ring and slide it off his finger. To turn him into a free man—neither a sultan nor a husband.

A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of their meal, and Kuramos pointed into the garden at a low stone table inlaid with tiles in azure and ebony. “Would you mind if we ate there?”

“That would be wonderful.”

Five servants entered bearing trays, and her eyes widened in amazement as she took stock of all they carried. “I may be hungry, but we couldn’t eat all that even if we were hollow!”

Kuramos chuckled. “A meal fit for a sultan and his guest.”

They seated themselves on silken cushions at the table and surveyed the feast: kebabs of spiced swine and tomatoes, oven-hot pitas, rice with almonds and dates. Mango chunks and grapes piled high in a silver bowl while honeyed dumplings nestled together for dessert. She closed her eyes and sniffed the aromas in delight.

“I’m glad this pleases you.” His sensual growl tickled her spine.

“Pleases?” Mischievously, she looked at him through her lashes. “If this tastes as good as it smells, I may have to admit your divinity after all.”

The look he gave her sizzled with unspoken words:
There are so many more ways I could prove that to you, Varene. In your bed, in my hammam, right here in the garden…

She dropped her gaze and popped a grape into her mouth.
Dumb, Varene. Don’t tempt the lion in his own den.
But her body vibrated with a delicious tension.

They ate together, amusing themselves with small talk about the palace residents and the food. The bliss of her taste buds only inflamed the cravings of her other senses. Surreptitiously, she studied the rich timbre of his voice, the fine onyx hairs sprinkled down his arms, the play of light across his bare shoulders and muscled chest.

She swallowed one last bite of juicy mango, aware deep in every nerve that he was watching and savoring the sight of her.

“Dusk will come soon,” he said. “Shall we walk in my garden?”

She rose from her pillow and ambled with him, reaching out now and then to touch a bud or smell a blossom. The air cooled and dimmed around them and crickets began to sing in the hollows.

Her thumb moved against her ring, twisting it around her finger. The night felt intimate. Dangerous. Her conscience battled her avid senses for a topic that wouldn’t lead to her downfall. “This thing you did…to anger your goddess.” Her thumb rubbed the worn silver. “Would you do it again?”

He gave a long sigh. “I’ve asked myself that, time and again. It is one of the hardest things to accept.” His head tilted up and he gazed at the faint traces of stars. “The answer is yes.”

“Even after fearing you and your family were cursed?”

His mouth thinned to a contemplative line. “I did what I felt I had to do—in the service of Naaz, my family, and all Kad, despite everything. Sometimes there are no choices.”

She nodded. She’d felt the same when she’d agreed to come to Kad.

After a few more paces, she noticed he’d been watching her twist the ring. She stopped and clasped her hands behind her.

“Varene,” he said, now looking down the path, “the first time you came to my quarters, you told me you’d heard of the dagger of Ayaaz, my ancestor. Do you know his story?”

“No. What is it?”

After a pause, he began, modulating his voice into the captivating tones of a trained storyteller, “The Great Sultan Ayaaz, descendent of Naaz and Idu through their son Kismet, was much revered by the people of Kad as a wise and just sovereign. He brought trade and prosperity to the realm, and with them, peace. The only difficulty in his shining reign was his three children—a daughter, Lakshya, and two sons, Zeyed and Sefar. Even as they grew to adulthood they fought incessantly, competing in every aspect of their lives, to the detriment of themselves and his Royal House.

“Ayaaz put off choosing his heir as long as he could, hoping his errant children would mellow, to little avail. When he lay at last on his deathbed, he summoned his children before him and named Sefar, the youngest, as the Crown Prince.

“Though Lakshya was a daughter, she was also the eldest child, and craved the Throne for herself. Fury inflamed Zeyed, as well; as eldest son, he expected to be the heir. From that day, bitterness has run in the blood of the Lakshyya and Zeyedi—the Houses of Lakshya and Zeyed—and these families have striven to return the Throne of Kad to their own lineages. Much of the carnage in this realm began that day so long ago at the sultan’s deathbed.”

He plucked an orange blossom and held it in his cupped hands, his strong fingers surrounding the delicate petals, caressing them. “My realm is much like a flower. Given protection and care, the blossom will grow and flourish in the sun. But it bruises easily. If the gardener isn’t careful, it can be killed by frost or razed by fire or devoured by tiny insects, bite by bite. A cautious gardener keeps a close watch, so his buds bloom into glory.”

He lifted her palm and placed the blossom there, a scented gift. Her gaze sought his, wonderingly, but he’d already turned back to the path. She stepped after him, noticing his smile twist to a frown as he continued his story. “Sulya is a Zeyedi, as is Firoz. When Firoz brought his sister to me and offered her in marriage, I’d hoped to heal the chasm, the generations of rancor between our families. But just as the House of Zeyed has suckled on the bitterness of their defeat all these generations, so has Sulya. She tasted it at the bosom of her mother, and her family molded her for the position of Sha’Lai—and mother of the Crown Prince—all her life.”

Varene halted. “The Sha’Lai? But you and Rajvi were married long before Sulya, so surely—” Her mouth dropped open. “Her family would be willing to
murder
for that? Or Sulya would be?”

“No! Sulya would not—though I cannot trust the rest of the House of Zeyed to keep their daggers sheathed. To make Sulya my Sha’Lai, I would only have to place Sulya First in my eyes and announce her advancement publicly.”

“Oh.” She resumed her steps and fell in beside him again. “I thought wives in Kad were ranked by the order of marriage.”

“They are for lesser men, and even for my other wives—but as the sultan, I have the privilege of making a different wife the Sha’Lai of Kad, if I wished. Sulya certainly does.”

“Her family didn’t negotiate her rank when you two were betrothed?”

“They tried.” His eyes glittered in the dimming light. “I was fascinated by her, but not yet a fool. Sulya’s ambitions were too evident, too quickly.”

“And still you married her.”

He locked his gaze with hers, his expression simmering with sensuality.
Promises given, promises kept…
“So I did.”

She folded her fingers around the orange blossom. “So there are jealousies among your wives.”

An odd smile twisted his lips, and a gleam touched his green eyes. “Aren’t there often jealousies among women?”

“Perhaps,” she said tartly. “Though all the more, when men deliberately stir them.”

His eyes laughed a silent response. He crossed the path to a stone bench and picked up the goblet-shaped drum beside it. He slid his fingers over the surface of the drum skin and the sinews that bound it.

Somewhat miffed by his sudden absorption in the drum, she moved closer. “Jealousy is an ancient tradition among men, too, you know. Yours toward Firoz, for example…” Her heart whumped in her chest. Had she guessed true? Did she mean enough to Kuramos for him to have been jealous of the man?

His eyes flicked to hers and held for a moment, then the corner of his mouth lifted up. He placed the instrument under one arm and tapped the drumhead. “You’re barely three days in Kad and already you are judging us.”

“Am I?” she asked, the same one-sided smile growing on her face. “It was just an observation.”

He didn’t answer her, just stared off into the garden, rapping the drum with nimble, rolling fingers. The beats coiled up from beneath his palms, forming a slow, complex rhythm that made her feet long to shift and dance, her hips to move and sway in a sensuous circle, mesmerized by the power of those hands…

She yanked her gaze away and swallowed, her throat gone dry. She steered toward the nearby pitcher of pomegranate juice as if it were her lifeline.

He played for another minute as if lost in the music himself. When he ceased, he smoothed his fingers over the drum, then laid it on the bench.

“You didn’t like my playing?” he asked mildly.

“I did. Very much.” She couldn’t look at him or she would blush, so she stepped back into his torch-lit quarters. She hadn’t felt this way, this
giddy
, since she’d first entered Teganne.

Findar had been so kind when she had shown up to apprentice to the Royal Healer, newly escaped from Fallorm and a survivor of terrors she’d helped to bring on herself, scared and foolish with raw talent and little control over it.

Those first months had been so painful, but Findar had helped her practice with her kyrra, had asked how she was progressing and encouraged her to seek help when she needed it. So she’d faked that need to be able to spend time in his soothing, tranquil company. She felt better around him—like she was floating in a peaceful lake, rather than being smashed by the waves of life’s oceans. And her crush had never left her.