Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (34 page)

Her hands slid up, slid higher, until they circled his neck, ready to pull him in, pull that mouth against hers, but she became aware again of the hands at her waist. She felt the hard stone on his finger. His ring. The sultan of Kad. The married sultan of Kad.

Embarrassment broke upon her like an ice storm. She’d lost all control of herself, had cried out her lust in public, just feet above a crowd. And spiking through it all was the extent of her reaction—they’d kissed and rocked against each other, fully clothed, and she’d gone into heat. She’d combusted for him.

She sucked air into her lungs, mortified, and glanced behind her to the lower deck. The gathered guests were still dancing and shouting below, and she saw no one was looking up. That should have mollified her fears, but it didn’t.

Zahlia had made her permission known, but what of his other wives? Even if they were willing to share Kuramos, Varene could not. She loved him.
Loved him.
No matter that their culture fostered the sharing of their man. How could she accept her beloved going to another woman’s bed, making love to someone else? How could she accept one-seventh of him?

She dropped her head, wishing for all the world that he were free, that their fates had not been so mismatched.

“Please. Stay away from me.” She stepped back, yanked herself from him, ripping her soul.

“What?” He reached for her, confusion and hunger roiling in his eyes.

“Stay away. I can’t be one of your many women.”

His head rocked back as though she’d struck him. “Varene, I—”

“No.” She didn’t want to hear his plans, how she was a temporary salve for his desires. The irony of it pierced her, for she’d wanted the same thing, too, such a short while ago—but that had changed in the last rays of the sun.

She no longer wanted to be his bedmate. She wanted to be his everything. And the ring on his finger, the symbol of Kad and of his six previous marriages, proved that could never be.

Tears burned the backs of her eyelids. She was a fool twice over—for betraying everyone she’d lost in Fallorm, and for ignoring everything she’d learned since.

He stepped toward her, but she held up a palm to ward him off. “Keep away from me. For my sake, Kuramos,
leave me alone.
” And she fled down the stairs as if the hounds of a demon snapped at her heels. She listened for sounds of pursuit, a part of her wanting him still, more than anything she’d ever felt in her life. But behind her lay only silence.

D
own the spiral stairs she scurried, nearly tumbling onto Hamar, who was just beginning an ascent. “I’m sorry,” she managed to the carefully blank-faced steward, and careened away at the bottom of the staircase whipping her long hair behind her.

It was so uncharacteristic of her to wear her locks loose that she raised her hands to her head. Kuramos had toyed with her hair, then tossed the band on the table. Not in ten thousand days would she go back up there to retrieve it. And thank Fate she’d left when she did, or Hamar would have seen…

But now she was trapped on the sultan’s ship, unable to escape from him or his household, unable to be alone where she could scream or cry in peace.

Around her, bodies whirled in joyful and sensuous motions to the beat of the pounding drum and flute. The musicians were only a few feet away, eyes shut and intense smiles on their faces as they rocked to the music. But how could they close their eyes to the view before them? The women’s hips gyrated in uninhibited delight, their movements mimicking the intimate ones of love. Varene stood beneath the upper deck with Kuramos’s kisses cooling on her lips and despair in her heart, mocked by the dance.

A hand clamped her arm. She whirled, both panic-stricken and yearning to meet the sultan’s eyes, but found herself in the grip of a smaller and more alarming opponent: Sulya.

The sultana’s nostrils flared and her eyebrows slashed down toward her nose. “Keep clear of my husband.”

A half-laugh, half-sob plummeted from Varene’s lips. “I’m trying to.”

“That isn’t good enough!”

“Then take it up with him.” She wrenched her arm from Sulya’s grasp and tried to step past her.

But the sultana’s bejeweled fingers stabbed out and caught her forearm again. “He’s my husband. My man, and not yours. Remember it!”

Varene’s hands fisted. She wondered what Kuramos’s other wives would think of Sulya’s statement of singular possession.

Varene understood her pain and hurt, and felt sorry for the woman scorned. But she still couldn’t understand why Kuramos had ever married a woman so spiteful and petty.

And how could he be married to
her
, when Varene would never be able to share his life?

A new movement caught her eye—Kuramos’s sandaled feet, descending the stairway. Varene twisted away, desperate to put distance between herself and Kuramos, but Sulya blocked her.

“Let me go,” Varene hissed, “or you’ll get the opposite of your wish!”

Blinking in astonishment, Sulya let her pass.

Varene wove through the crowd.
What does she think of me fleeing Kuramos? Hope it makes her happy. Not that anything could.

She headed for the stern, the farthest place, darting around gyrating bodies. Incongruously, she spied Mishka dancing near her mother. Mishka’s movements were already confident and graceful, clearly showing she had been practicing dance for years. She and Maitri twirled together, their rapt faces displaying their enjoyment.

Mishka spotted Varene and lowered her arms. “Royal Healer!” She skipped toward Varene, then glanced at her purple and diamond necklace. “Ooh, that’s pretty. But have the daisies died?”

Varene choked out a quavering laugh. “I’m afraid they’ve gone a little brown, yes.”

“I’ll make you another.” The girl smiled up at her. “I like your hair down. Now it’s like mine. See?” She twirled in place, her raven hair forming a whirling mane.

Varene smoothed her own hair back, wishing once more for the band. “Ahh. You dance so well.”

“It’s fun! You should try it.”

“Oh. No, that’s all right. I’ll just watch you.” She didn’t need more reminders of what had taken place upstairs.

Maitri swirled closer. Through the dancing, her demeanor had shifted from that of a pleasant, sweet-natured woman to a goddess of sex. “Are you sure, Healer? It’s so enjoyable.”

As is your husband
… “I’m sure it is.”

Zahlia’s laughter rang out as she neared them. “You’re not being a prude again, are you, dear Healer?” She and Maitri exchanged an enigmatic look.

“No, not at all,” Varene said. If they only knew.

Zahlia’s mouth curved up, then she turned and studied someone behind her, putting an amused finger to her lips. “Indeed, no, I’d say not.”

Wary, Varene twisted and spotted the sultan’s muscled back twenty feet away—with the fierce tracks of her own lusty nails scratched down it.

She sucked in a horrified breath. Her cheeks and ears flamed like a blacksmith’s forge. In that moment, she would gladly have plummeted through the deck straight to the river bottom.

Zahlia’s gaze twinkled as she surveyed the sultan’s marks. “Well done.”

Varene shielded her eyes with a flustered hand. “Oh. Oh, oh, oh.”

The sultana clucked. “My dear, prudery makes life so confining.”

Varene glanced at Maitri, fearing her reaction, but Kuramos’s Fourth Wife had gone back to dancing with her daughter and Varene couldn’t discern a response.

A joyful shriek drew Varene’s startled attention. She spotted Priya, her hands splayed across her face, peering between her fingers at Sohad.

“Come on!” Zahlia grabbed Varene’s hand and pulled her toward the commotion. Reluctant to move closer to the sultan, Varene forgot her resistance when she spotted the tears glistening on Priya’s lovely cheeks and sensed the anticipation of the crowd.

“Yes!” Priya declared. “Yes, Sohad of Gida. I will marry you!”

Varene watched, stunned, as Priya threw her arms around her new fiancé. Marry? Just this morning, she’d encouraged Sohad to tell Priya how he felt, and now her two assistants were…engaged. As simple as that.

Lonely envy exploded in her like shards of glass.

Encouraged by the whooping crowd, Priya pulled Sohad into a long and sensual kiss. When they parted at last and looked into one another’s eyes, the cheers and claps were deafening.

“Felicitations!” boomed the sultan, so near to Varene that if she just reached out… But his gaze stayed away.

The Physician’s Assistant and the handmaiden quickly bowed to him, their hands tightly clasped as if they would never again let go.

“In honor of your loyalty and service to me and mine,” Kuramos continued, “it would be my pleasure to host your wedding.”

Priya emitted a squeak of gratified surprise, and her glow intensified. Sohad glanced hesitatingly at his fiancé. “W-we don’t require anything elaborate, O Lord—”

“Nonsense,” Kuramos interrupted. “It will be as extravagant as you please, and held whenever you like. Tomorrow, even.”

“Tomorrow,” breathed Priya, her beautiful brown gaze luminous on her fiancé. “I could be your wife tomorrow, on Raliyam.”

Incredulity and bliss merged in Sohad’s eyes.

“Done!” said the sultan.

Rajvi slid next to Kuramos and touched his arm. “O Lord, unless I am mistaken, the ship is turning around. Isn’t it a little early?”

Varene glanced out and saw that indeed, they were swinging round on the wide river.

Kuramos nodded. “Unfortunately, yes, on my orders.” He raised his voice above the crowd, and even the musicians quieted. Soon only the oars could be heard, sweeping steadily through the water.

“I regret our festivities must be cut short this evening. I promise to make it up to you very soon. There is a matter to which I must attend.” He turned to Varene, and his implacable eyes showed no spark of emotion or remembrance of what had happened on the upper deck. His voice lowered. “Those who instigated the riot in the market have been found.” His gaze rammed through her. “You will be needed. There are…injuries.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

D
rums beat the rhythm for the evening, Varene noticed—first on the ship, and now, somberly, in the Throne Room. The sultan’s court spread down either side of the room on cushions, restlessly awaiting the appearance of the prisoners. Men sat cross-legged while the women tucked their feet beneath them. She did the same, on a crimson cushion below the dais on the sultan’s right, next to Priya and Sohad.

Kuramos himself sat on his dais as if carved in granite. Inexorable. Ruthless. His gaze focused on the open doors, through which the deep booms of the drum matched the rhythm of guards’ feet.

Buld, the Captain of the Guard, led his men into the hall in two lines, every guardsman’s expression mirroring the sultan’s. The prisoners between them limped, each man’s ankles chained to the next, in front and behind.

When all had entered, Varene counted eight ragged men kneeling before the sultan. Most were so filthy it took several moments to recall their appearances back in the market, though the drunken behemoth who’d stopped Sohad from taking the sugarwort was impossible to forget.

As she gazed at the final prisoner, Varene’s blood seemed to ooze in the wrong direction.

Bafar.
The odious merchant whose insults and insinuations had drawn the crowd and whipped them into insanity cradled his right arm, grimacing in pain. Sweat dripped from his brow to the dirty stubble on his chin.

Varene rubbed an uncertain hand over her temples. She admired Buld for his success at finding these men out of the hundreds who’d jammed the market aisles that day, but wondered what had happened in the hunt or the capture that had left them so disheveled and begrimed. And injured. Each bore marks of struggle, whether scraped flesh, angry wounds, or a broken nose. Bafar was the worst of the lot. She could see from his sweat-soaked grimace and the way he held his swelling, straightened arm that it had been dislocated at the elbow, a harrowing trauma. The joint would need attention, and soon, if it were ever to heal.

And of all those gathered in the Throne Room of the sultan, only she possessed the knowledge to do it. She, the woman Bafar had reviled. Icy needles prickled between her shoulder blades.