Lucien's Khamsin (9 page)

Giles was an exception to the rule. As tall as any thrall ever shanghaied into a Revenant’s service, almost as brawny as Prince Lucien, and keenly intelligent, Giles had been the right man to pick for the job of spying at Duaric Castle. He was fiercely loyal to Lucien Korvina and willing to do what it took to keep his prince safe from Stavros Constantine’s maniacal plans.

The scent would not leave his hands and Giles cursed, taking up the basin and flinging it aside, splattering water over the stone wall. He sat down heavily upon his bunk and tried to blot out the ravaged face of the last woman he had helped remove from Prince Stavros’ bedchamber.

Burying his head in his hands, Giles wept. He had been a warrior—a tough and gruff soldier—before being captured by Prince Lucien’s men. He had known death and had looked it in the eye many times, dealing it out more times than he cared to remember. But the sight of that poor woman lying brutalized shook Giles Kolovis to his foundation.

“I’m going to do this to his woman,” Stavros had chirped as he danced around the thralls as they carried the dead woman away. “I’m going to make this seem like child’s play when I have his woman in my hands!”

The memory of the dead woman’s empty eye sockets, the vision of those pretty eyes sitting atop Stavros’ wickedly long fingernails with him waving those bloody trophies about, brought the bile to Giles’ throat and he bent over and vomited, going to one knee with the force of his retching.

If there was, indeed, a woman in Prince Lucien’s life now, a consort, a woman he cared enough about to claim as his own, that one had to be protected at all costs.

Chapter Six

Khamsin awoke feeling hot, and sweaty and confined. Before she opened her eyes, she thought perhaps she was back on the ship, wedged in behind Minerva and Portia, their overweight bodies jamming her against the bulkhead. She wriggled and felt the hairy arm lying atop her hip and reached out to lift it away.

“Move, Portia,” she mumbled.

It was the groan—deep and male—that brought Khamsin’s eyes open and she stared in horror at the face that was almost nose to nose with hers.

And the green eyes that were looking back at her.

Khamsin swallowed. She became aware of the heat that flowed down her body from thigh to calf and knew Prince Lucien’s leg was pressed against her.

“Does that entice you, wench?” he asked.

She jerked back, putting distance between them.

Lucien sighed. “You are going to hurt my feelings sooner or later,” he said, stretching.

Staring at his broad scarred chest with the thick mat of wiry dark hair, the rippled muscles along his abdomen and the solid mound of his pectorals, Khamsin felt a stirring between her legs she could not push aside.

“Why try?” he asked and his voice was low and sultry, filled with temptation.

“Of my own free will,” she said, putting out a hand to keep him from moving closer to her.

Lucien smiled. “Am I touching you?” he asked.

“Don’t use your powers on me,” she forbade.

“I’m not,” he said. “What you see is what you want. Can I help that?”

“Conceited oaf,” she muttered, forgetting to whom she was speaking.

Lucien propped his head on his hand and looked down at her. “You slept well?”

She felt rested and relaxed despite the niggling fear that poked at her. “Aye, well enough I guess.”

“You weren’t ravaged while you slept,” he said.

“Tell me you weren’t thinking of doing me,” she challenged.

His dark brows drew together. “You slept well,” he said.

“I said as much,” she reminded him.

“You were not awakened by me groaning or crying out in my sleep?”

“No,” she said.

Lucien stared at her for so long she felt naked beneath his hooded gaze. “What?” she asked for his look made her exceedingly uncomfortable.

“I’ve never allowed a woman to sleep untroubled through the night,” he said slowly.

Khamsin rolled her eyes. “Aye, I bet you haven’t.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “They’ve always awakened when my nightmares came.”

“Apparently you didn’t have any this time,” she said then realized he was looking at her with an expression that drove a wave of heat through her belly.

“You banished the nightmares,” he said, his voice filled with awe. “You kept them at bay.”

Khamsin shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s a good thing.”

He allowed her to get out of the bed and watched her as she looked around her. “What are you searching for?” he asked.

“A bathroom,” she muttered.

“Through there,” he said, pointing at a slender door to the right of the armoire.

As she made use of the bathroom, Lucien sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He was amazed he had slept the day through with Khamsin at his side and had not once wakened her with his groans and moans.

“A significant breakthrough, wouldn’t you say, my Prince?”

Lucien closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut. He knew that voice well though he hadn’t heard it in over a decade.

“Don’t be such a baby, Lucien,” Sibylline drawled. “Open those pretty eyes and tell me you like what I am wearing.”

He opened his eyes and then cursed. “You aren’t wearing anything!” he complained.

“No, I’m not. Do you like it?”

Lucien flung the covers aside. “That’s disgusting, Sibylline.”

“Disgusting? Well, then, so are you,” Sibylline chuckled.

Knowing he had been relieved of what he had worn to bed grated on Lucien’s nerves and he glared at the woman sitting demurely on his settee.

“Oh, all right,” she said and waved her hands, putting back in place the underwear that had covered him from her view. When he cocked an angry brow, she waved her hand again and the black britches he had been wearing when he’d lain down were once more fitting his lean frame snuggly. “Seems such a waste to cover all that potential though, Luc.”

Khamsin walked in at that moment. She spied the incredibly lovely nude woman reclining on the settee and came to a dead stop.

“She used to do this all the time. It got old then and it is still old,” Lucien snarled as he poured himself a goblet of water.

Sibylline smiled warmly at Khamsin. “I had a helluva time finding the right woman for him and there you stand as though he was contaminated with running sores. What’s wrong with you, sweetie?” She pointed at Lucien. “Go. Fuck that man! You know you want to.”

Lucien threw the crystal goblet as hard as he could against the wall where it shattered. “I’ve offered and she declined,” he snapped.

Khamsin looked from one extraordinary physical specimen to the other and felt ugly. Sibylline—and it could be none other than the queen herself—was an imposing woman with flaming red hair piled high atop her elegant head. Her face was flawless with vibrant blue eyes, long dark lashes and high cheekbones. Buxom with a slender waist and flat abdomen, she had the curves any man would enjoy and every woman would envy.

“You aren’t so bad yourself, dearling,” Sibylline suggested.

“She’s a hundred times more beautiful than you,” Lucien snarled.

Khamsin’s eyes widened. She glanced at the lovely woman across the woman as though she expected to be incinerated where she stood.

“Pay no attention to him, Khammie. That’s just his cock speaking for him,” Sibylline laughed.

“Get out, Sibylline,” he ordered, his voice low and dangerous.

“Not until she gets into your bed and spreads her legs for you, my love,” the Queen of Revenants declared. “I want to see you rock her world. I didn’t go to all this trouble finding her for you only to be denied watching you screw her, Luc.”

“Get out!”

Khamsin jumped, for the command was bellowed at the top of Lucien’s lungs and he was stalking toward the object of his anger. She backed away, fear pumping her heart.

One moment Sibylline was lying there—sticking her tongue out at Lucien—and the next she was gone, leaving behind the faint scent of jasmine.

“And stay out!” Lucien yelled.

Plastered against the wall, Khamsin watched as Lucien picked up the settee and tossed it across the room as though it was a feather. She flinched as it crashed into a mirror but relieved the surface didn’t break. More bad luck was not needed in this room.

“She came to taunt me,” he said, plopping down in a chair. “She’s good at that.” He buried his face in his hands. “Professionally so.”

Khamsin could find nothing to say so she stood where she was, wringing her hands though her mind was working furiously.

“No,” he said, lifting his head to look at her through the fan of his fingers. “I am not going to let you go and no, Sibylline poses no threat to you, wench. You heard what she said—she found you for me. I’d be stupid to throw her gift back in her face now, wouldn’t I?”

A flash of annoyance traveled through Khamsin’s blue eyes and they snapped with fire. “I am no man’s gift, milord. Not even yours!”

He settled back in the chair and lifted his foot to the cushion, resting his wrist on his crooked knee. “You know what Christina said about you?”

She shrugged.

“She said, ‘This one will give you a run for your money’.” He tilted his head to one side. “And I believe she was right. You are not the frightened, meek little girl I expected.”

Khamsin raised her chin. “I am scared to death of you, but I will not let you break my spirit. What you do to me, I can not prevent, but I can voice my abhorrence to—”

“Abhorrence,” he echoed. “You abhor me, wench?” Steepling his fingers, he thought about the meaning of the word. “You find me repugnant?”

A wave of wrinkles formed on Khamsin’s smooth forehead. “Perhaps I used the wrong word.”

“Then I’m not repugnant?”

She pursed his lips and tossed her head as though his question was silly. “You know full well you are not, milord.”

He half-smiled. “Do you find me appealing?”

“I find the situation abhorrent,” she stated, nodding firmly. “That was what I meant.”

“That isn’t what I asked, wench,” he countered. “Do you find me appealing?”

Khamsin shook her head but didn’t answer.

“You don’t find me appealing?” he asked, shock making his voice a bit shrill.

She almost laughed at the hurt look on his handsome face but sucked in a quick breath instead as he rose slowly from the chair and came toward her. Quickly she glanced behind her but there was nowhere for her to run. The wall was only inches away.

“You don’t think I’m a good-looking man?” he asked, his voice deep and sensual.

She backed up until she was pressed against the wall yet he kept coming, stalking her like a big graceful cat, the muscles in his shoulders bunching as he drew nearer.

“Is my hair unkempt?” he asked when he was but a foot away.

Khamsin knew he was playing with her. In her mind, she likened it to a cat teasing a helpless mouse and the illusion irritated her so she kept silent.

He was so close to her she could smell the warm male odor of him. It was a pleasant smell, even heady.

He braced his left hand on the wall beside her head and leaned into her. “Does my breath smell?” he queried.

No
, she thought and that surprised her. If anything she would have thought his breath would hint of the grave, of death—or at the very least—be iron-tinted from the blood he had consumed from the day before.

“So,” he said, standing so close to her their bodies were almost touching. “I have no body odor, my breath doesn’t stink and my hair doesn’t look like I jammed my finger into a light socket.” His eyes roamed her face. “What, exactly, is it you find unappealing?”

The heat from his body was causing her skin to prickle and she could not keep from glancing down at his chest. The livid scars drew her attention and she winced, knowing such mutilation would have caused immense pain.

“At least that part of me fascinates you,” he drawled. “I guess you don’t find it abhorrent.”

“Stop reading my mind,” she said through clenched teeth.

He held up his right hand as though surrendering to her command, but said nothing. He simply leaned further toward her so she was forced to put her hands on his chest to keep him at bay.

Electrical current passed through Khamsin’s palms and she groaned. He had automatically pressed closer so that now her hands were trapped between their bodies.

“Am I ugly?”

She shook her head, unable to speak, for her blood was racing so hard through her veins she could feel it pounding in her head—and between her legs.

“Am I too short?”

Again she shook her head.

“Am I deformed in some way you find intolerable?”

“You know you’re not,” she forced out the reply.

“Then—for the sake of argument—let’s say you find me handsome.”

Khamsin looked up into his eyes. He was a good foot taller than her, towering over her in such a way she felt even shorter. The backs of her hands were pressing into her breasts.