Mercy (4 page)

“I am your king,” Gabriel said firmly, and the statement seemed to ring out over the crowd. His eyes glittered in the dim light, daring anyone to challenge him. An unnatural silence fell over the celebration.

Vin chuckled. “I assumed, as did we all, that you would be an absent one. Iada is quite capable of remaining here to preside over the daily concerns of the people while you enjoy the rewards of your victory. You have won that fairly.” He gestured with his still-full glass of champagne, slopping it over the rim in Iada’s direction. “Very clever to preserve the girl to attend to the more tedious demands. It was well done. Very well done indeed.”

It was an offer of peace. A murmur ran through the gathered crowd, no longer even pretending not to hang on every word. They would recognize Gabriel as king, in name at least, an unexpectedly generous move on her uncle’s part, and Iada couldn’t help but wonder at it. They must be desperate indeed. They feared this man and the realization sent a shiver of desire through her. Gabriel’s nostrils flared as he recognized her response even as his eyes narrowed. Did he think that she was aroused at the thought of ruling in his absence? The fool. She let her fingers trace the smooth muscles that wrapped his flank just above his hip.

“And if the girl objects to that arrangement?” she asked her uncle, lifting her chin.

Three pairs of cold eyes settled on her, all of them promising some form of retribution if she picked the wrong side.

“She will not,” Arturo said firmly.

Gabriel watched her, eyes blazing. She could feel the tension in his body as he waited, silently urging her to deny her uncle and declare her support for him. She looked away. She could not afford to entirely reject her family. Not yet. Not for a stranger and not until she learned the truth. She could feel the dull rumble of disappointment in his chest when he finally turned back to Vin and Arturo.

“I don’t neglect my responsibilities,” Gabriel said coldly. “Your concerns on that front are entirely unfounded.”

Before they could say anything more, Gabriel turned from them in clear dismissal. Iada caught the look of disbelief in Vin’s eyes just as Gabriel turned her and led her toward the dance floor, which had been laid for the occasion. He signaled for the musicians to resume. One warm hand splayed on the bare skin of her back as he expertly guided her through the steps. After a time, a few brave couples joined them.

“You’re barefoot,” he said.

“So I am.” She balanced on the balls of her feet, enjoying the sway of his body, the firm, confident pressure of his hands, the occasional brush of hard thigh and chest. “You should have given them something,” she said. “They were willing to concede you the crown.”

“I won’t negotiate with them. They’ll learn to adapt. Their kind always does.” She hoped the derision she heard in his voice did not extend to her as well. Stupid hope—she knew which category she fell into in Gabriel’s mind.

“You’ve declared open war.”

He didn’t answer. A few moments later, the music ended and couples swept past them, exiting the floor. She started to follow but his hand closed on hers. His eyes, cool and assessing, bore into hers. “You need to choose a side, beauty. Don’t think to play us both. It is too dangerous a game even for you.”

She turned and left him standing there, watching her weave through the crowd. She spoke absently to friends and family, hoping that her responses were appropriate. Eyes and whispered speculation followed her every move. The tension crowded in on her, lodging between her shoulder blades and clenching around her neck. She found a glass of champagne and a quiet corner, which was where Beatriz, Mateus’s wife, came to her. Beatriz simply stood beside her for a moment, lending support and solace with her easy presence while the crowd kept their watchful distance.

“Quite the man, your husband,” Beatriz said with a small smile.

“I will be a widow before I am truly a wife.”

“I don’t think that one will be so easily killed.” Beatriz traced the shallow scratch along Iada’s cheekbone with one beautifully manicured finger. “You tried.”

“He was the better fighter,” Iada admitted and realized she was smiling when Beatriz laughed softly. Iada’s smile faded abruptly. It was horrifying to believe that you were invincible and then realize in a single day how pathetically weak you actually were.

“And here Mateus has been saying that you were the best he’s ever trained.” Beatriz sipped at the cool liquid, tipped back her head to take in the stars. The hanging lights danced in the mounting breeze. “You would never have accepted a man you could easily defeat as your mate, Iada. Will you help your uncles to destroy this one?”

“I want him gone, not dead.”

“Really? You’re looking for him even now.”

Iada’s eyes flicked up to meet Beatriz’s all too knowing gaze, her gentle smile. This woman had been mother to her since she’d lost her own. Iada shifted her weight uncomfortably and set her empty glass down on the wall behind them. Beatriz said, “I’ve seen the way he watches you too. The attraction is not one-sided.”

Iada averted her face and traced a groove in the stone with one finger. “I want him. I will take him if he offers himself. Physically there’s no problem.” She looked up. “He thinks that I am my uncles’ pawn, that I am a mindless fighter and that I will betray him.”

Beatriz said nothing.

“His opinion shouldn’t matter,” Iada said. “He’s a stranger. The way he says Silveira…Did you know the reason he entered the tournament?”

Beatriz was silent for a moment while she fiddled with her glass. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Your eyes and ears work just as well as mine, child,” Beatriz said and although her voice was hard, there was no judgment in it. “You didn’t want to know.” She pressed her hand to Iada’s arm. “Not that I blame you. Your uncles…”

She drifted off and Iada followed her gaze. Vin was approaching from the edge of the crowd, moving as smoothly as if he were stalking prey. Beatriz pressed a kiss to Iada’s cheek, squeezed her hand in support and whispered, “Don’t lose courage now, Iada.”

And then in mockery of those words, she slipped away just before Vin reached them. Iada watched her weave through the crowd to stand beside Mateus, who pulled her close against his side. That was what a husband and wife should be, a voice whispered inside her. That was what love looked like. Iada tilted her head back to smile grimly at her uncle.

She asked the only question that really mattered to her right now. “Did you burn down his shelter?”

Vin jerked back and his eyes narrowed to slits. “What does it matter?”

It mattered on so many levels but she gave him the reason he would understand. “It matters because it’s the reason he’s here.”

Vin sighed. “Don’t believe everything he tells you. He was trying to extort money from us for his pet project. He—”

“A little girl died.”

“A mutant,” Vin corrected.

He said it like it made a difference and her whole world shifted. Vin took her silence for acceptance and bent his head to her ear. “Just keep him distracted, child, and we’ll see to the rest.”

Gabriel closed the door, crossed to the bar and turned his back on her, leaving himself fully exposed. One of the first lessons taught at the academy was never to turn your back on an enemy. Gabriel’s disregard was an insult even the youngest Yaguara warrior would recognize. Either he did not consider her an enemy or he did not consider her a threat. Iada was tempted to drive a blade into his kidneys to teach him humility. But then, she thought, he was only a mutant. She could not really fault him for ignorance. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder and she could see by the gleam in his eyes that he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. The corners of his mouth pulled into a smile and her fingers twitched for want of a weapon.

“Drink?” he asked.

Iada shook her head and Gabriel turned with a glass of whiskey. He kicked off his shoes, dropped into a deep leather chair and lit a cigar. Tobacco. Alcohol. He was openly exposing his faults. She thought he might be baiting her. He wasn’t really a smoker or a drinker. She would have smelled it on him earlier. He exhaled slowly, sending the aromatic smoke swirling into the room.

“Your sister is Anna?”

She nodded.

His smile was hard. “Didn’t like it much that she got herself knocked up by a human stray, did you?”

“You’ve no right to speak of her. You don’t know her.”

“I know her well actually.”

She closed her eyes to shield her reaction. Anna had been gone for weeks before Iada had learned that she’d disappeared. When she’d confronted her uncles, they would tell her only that Anna had run off with her human lover and that she was to be considered an exile, barred from returning to the city. She’d been shocked by Anna’s desperation. She’d been glad that Anna was finally beyond the influence of Vin and Arturo. And a small shameful part of her had been relieved that her uncles could no longer use Anna as leverage against her. Iada looked at Gabriel, not wanting to ask the questions tumbling in her mind. Revealing that weakness would only give him power over her. Gabriel regarded her coolly, waiting to see what she would do. She realized she’d been fiddling with her necklace when his eyes fixed there and she dropped the stone, letting it fall back beneath her dress.

“Anna is doing well. I spoke the truth to your uncles. There were some…difficulties with the birth but she recovered and Michael is healthy.” Iada glanced up and Gabriel gave her that wide-open grin. “Loud.”

She tried to imagine Anna with a child living in the human world but she couldn’t do it. She nodded to Gabriel. “Thank you.”

“Tell me, Iada,” he said in a voice that raised the hair on the back of her neck. “How could you try to kill your own sister? Your own pregnant sister?”

Her head snapped up and her stomach dropped. “She ran away.”

He snorted in disbelief. Iada felt sick. They’d tried to kill Anna? Gabriel might lie in an attempt to divide her family. Except that she could see by his disgusted expression that he believed that Iada had been in on it. She would never hurt her sister. Anna had been so young when their parents had been lost to the river, only six, and Iada had always felt responsible for her.

The deaths had come right before Iada entered the academy. Her uncles had wanted to send her for training but her mother had believed that she was too young. They’d fought. Iada’s parents made arrangements to travel with the girls for a few years. And then they were dead, washed away in a flood, their bodies never found.

There was no proof that her uncles had anything to do with it. Iada had obediently entered the academy. She’d found Anna a home in the village outside of the main compound and then she’d done everything in her power to make Vin and Arturo forget that she ever had a sister. Anna had never understood that.

“If they’d tried to kill her, she’d be dead.” But she could hear the uncertainty in her own voice.

“You keep saying they, Iada. You’re a Silveira too. You can’t say that you really thought she would make it out of the jungle alive when you sent her off with no supplies, unable to shift because she carried a mixed-blood child.”

Iada stared. That they might do. “She’d been gone three weeks before I knew of it.”

“So I’m to believe that you lived with the Silveiras but knew nothing. Did they keep you chained in your room?”

“There was no chain.”

His eyes widened and his expression softened marginally but then he shook his head. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

She shrugged, becoming irritated by his accusations and his pity both. “Why should I believe
you?
”

“I have the proof to back my claims. Most of what I’ve told you is common knowledge—the shelters, my attempts to get the old king to support them. All you need to do is ask around. I can produce a witness to the fire. The rest…I am what you see. I don’t hide behind other people.” He took another long draw on the cigar. “What other proof do you need?”

“I want to speak to Anna.”

He nodded. “As soon as it can be arranged.”

“And your witness.”

“Done.”

A sinking sensation hit the pit of her stomach, followed by a sudden lightness. If he was telling her the truth, she’d be willing to support him, but it was a dangerous course. She had to be sure. Her uncles would do everything in their power to see him dead, her too if she betrayed them. “And what do you want in return, Gabriel?”

“I want your public acceptance of my plans for the shelters and for you to cut off contact with your uncles.” He grinned. “I also want to know that I can close my eyes tonight without you trying to drive a knife into my chest.”

She smirked. “I would want you awake. I’d use my own fangs and I’d go for your throat. The first two I’m willing to consider.”

He looked startled and then he laughed, a rich, deep sound that warmed her from the inside out. She pushed aside the way it made her want to smile back and asked, “What is your plan to deal with my uncles?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that, Iada.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I can’t afford to, not yet. We start here.”

She blew out a harsh breath in exasperation. “So I trust you, support your cause, defy my family and you give nothing.”

“I spared your life and I’m giving you a chance to slip your leash. Why would you fight me?”

She watched him warily, searching for the trap in the question. He looked right back at her. His expression was expectant and wary, but there was no malice there that she could see. Perhaps she’d taken a blow to the head. What she wanted to do was crawl into his lap, rest her head on his wide chest and let his arms close around her.

Finally she shrugged. “It’s all that I know how to do.”

They stared at each other, the silence stretching between them. They’d reached an impasse and she wanted to be the one to break it, to regain some control. She didn’t really want to keep talking anyway. So she reached back with one hand and released the catch of her dress, letting the slippery fabric slither down her body to pool around her bare feet. With a predator’s instinct, she noted how still Gabriel became, the subtle widening of his eyes and the soft, sudden intake of breath. She imagined she could hear the blood rushing through his veins. She smiled with genuine amusement. How curiously vulnerable he seemed. How powerful his response made her feel. The balance of power shifting on the whisper of silk.

For a long time, he simply stared. Then, carefully, he set aside his drink and stood. “Come here.”

She crossed the room, already having made a decision about this man and how the night would end. Her uncles expected her to feign submission. They didn’t need to know that she was willing, more than willing to accept Gabriel as her mate. The only question was whether he’d be willing to accept her. She didn’t know how to begin to convince him. She was not good with words and already they’d failed her.

Gabriel unbuttoned his shirt, shrugging it from his shoulders and leaving it where it dropped. When he began to loosen his belt, she closed the distance between them and took over that task. His posture was relaxed, his hands hanging open and loose, but his eyes were intently focused, narrowed on her. Another test, she imagined, but didn’t care. His suspicions wouldn’t interfere with what she wanted from him right now. She tossed the belt down, the metal clasp clanking against the iron leg of the side table and then she undid his pants, slipping her hands just inside the waistband and hooking her thumbs over linen and silk. The fabric snagged on his erection and she pulled at the front to release him.

His cock was hard, not overlong but broad tipped and thick. Crouching, she skimmed his pants down over a fine, firm ass and well-muscled thighs. His balls tightened when she accidentally grazed him with her fingernail. She let her bowed head hide a quick smile. Whatever reservations her mate had about her, this part of him clearly did not share in them.

He touched her hair, a gentle touch sifting through the loose strands at her temple. “Did your uncles direct you to do this?”

Yes, of course. But that wasn’t really what he was asking. “No.”

She stood up while he stepped free of his clothes. She stood just at his shoulder, maybe a little taller, and his chest was just below her eye level—smooth, sun-darkened skin with just a light furring of hair between his pectoral muscles, a thin line of it starting again on his lower abdomen. The skin seemed nearly stretched tight over muscle in places and she wondered if he was as hard everywhere as he looked.

He tipped up her chin and there was no missing the suspicion in his narrowed eyes. “You understand I will not force you to do this.”

She nodded.

“I want you.” A shadow of that wonderful smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “There’s no hiding that fact. If you accept this, you accept my claim over you. It’s time to choose a side, Iada.”

When she hesitated, he stroked her cheekbone with one blunt-tipped finger. She knew the right answer, the one that would give her what she wanted, but she hesitated, flinching away from the intensity in those strange pale eyes.

“You’re asking me to choose between a stranger and my family.”

“Your family was willing to send you to your death,” he reminded her and then his voice deepened in warning. “This is not negotiable.”

She placed a hand on his chest and looked up, meeting his level gaze. A muscle beneath her fingertips twitched then went still. “Tell me why I should support you.”

She expected him to extend his protection, such as it was. She expected promises of wealth and position. Instead, he said, “I would never use you and cast you aside if you became inconvenient. I wouldn’t send you to face death in my place.”

He sounded like he meant it. Before she could weigh the risks or calculate her odds of survival, she found herself answering, “I’ll help you as much as I can. You overestimate my influence.”

He didn’t look entirely convinced. Her hand fell away when he stepped back and reseated himself, regarding her coolly for several moments. He was taking back her control and she had no idea how to stop him. He had something that she wanted badly enough to keep her standing there meek and motionless awaiting his decision. There was his body, thick and blunt and powerful just like the cock jutting from his lap. There was his strength that she wanted to wrap around her and claim as her own. There was the impression she had of him that he was an honest man. Even though the logical part of her thought that his decency was an illusion, it seemed real enough for tonight.

She shifted her feet impatiently and he watched her silently. She’d never seen eyes like his in real life, not up close. Slivers of blue shot through the smoked silver. There was lust there, burning like banked coals, but there was also calculation and a good deal of mistrust. She didn’t blame him for that. He’d been expecting another fight from her and her compliance would make him uneasy. The ice shifted in his empty glass. His gaze, which had drifted down over her body, lifted again to her face. “Take me into your mouth, then.”

The look he gave her was hard and predatory and sent a delicious heat spreading from low in her belly. The light from the table lamp came from one side and left most of his face in shadow. The rest was highlighted harshly, all sharp planes and angles. For the first time since she’d seen him, there was not even the hint of a smile on his face. He went very still as she spread his knees and knelt between his muscular thighs. Had he expected her to balk? She’d only been waiting for the invitation. Gabriel had accused her of fighting him—and maybe it was true—but he wanted control as much as she did. He was wrong if he thought this would gain him an advantage.

She wrapped both of her hands around his base, fingers overlapping, thumbs stroking upward and angling the tip so that she could close her mouth over him. She could feel the pulse of blood beneath the hot, satiny skin and she met his eyes briefly before bending her head. She smoothed her lips over the knobbed head and explored him with her tongue, the soft slit and firm flared edge, the sensitive notch on the underside that made his breath pause when she pressed her tongue to it. She flexed her palms gently against his shaft in an idle massage and, when she made a second slower pass, she could already taste a bitter slick of pre-come.

She let him feel her teeth in a long, soft scrape, angling downward then sucking and nibbling her way back up to the top. She had to open her mouth wide—he was very thick. The thin skin at the corners of her mouth was stretched taut. She glided her mouth down his length, taking in as much as she could comfortably handle but not pressing any farther. When he lightly touched his hand to the back of her head and murmured “Yes,” she took a little more. He groaned again, a deep, rumbling growl that shook his body and she pulled back, sweeping her tongue up in a gentle caress.

She could feel him trembling, his great body held to stillness by the barest thread of control, every muscle as rigid as the flesh in her mouth. All of his attention was fixed on the stroke of her tongue. She could take that control away from him in an instant with just the pressure of her mouth.

She cupped his sac with one hand, testing its weight, feeling his balls draw in tight. She fell into a rhythm and his breath came faster. The sound of his breathing filled her ears, punctuated by the soft click of wet suction. Every hitch of breath, every little twitch of his body made her clit pulse in response. He murmured her name and she moaned at the plea in it. He’d asked her to do this as a challenge, she knew, a test demanding proof of her submission. But she was in control here. He was the one who was vulnerable. It was a heady feeling to master him but it wasn’t what she really wanted.