Tales of the Djinn: The Double (12 page)

“Per usual, Iksander’s mother put the fear of God into everyone.” Cade’s eyes twinkled. “Everything is functioning efficiently.”

“I imagine,” Arcadius said.

Murat rose to greet Elyse and Cade. “Do the food banks have enough supplies?”

“More than,” Cade said. “The sultana also put the fear of God into a few of the city’s wealthier families. They’ve all made donations.”

“You should leave that job to her,” Elyse said. “We weren’t needed at all.”

“You mean
I
wasn’t,” Cade countered with an easy laugh. “Females were running the whole operation. I had to sit on my hands while Elyse talked to everyone.”

That
didn’t sound right to Arcadius. Some male ought to oversee the business. Seeing that people were fed in this trying time was critical. He opened his mouth to say so. Elyse looked at him and smiled.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he accused.

Her smile broadened. She walked to his chair, hesitated for a second, then bent to kiss his cheek. He stiffened in surprise. Her lips were soft and warm.

“I don’t know,” she agreed, “but I can guess.”

Murat watched this exchange with raised eyebrows. Arcadius concluded Elyse was trying out their fiction that the three of them were involved. Seeming
almost
natural, she sat on the arm of his chair facing him. She laid her hand on his aching shoulder. Though he would rather have had the strength to rise, gazing into her soft green eyes was pleasant.

“The women will be fine,” she said. “Iksander’s mother gave the workers special golden badges, saying she’d picked them and they were under her protection. I don’t think anyone, male or female, will dare put a foot wrong in their presence.”

“I hope that’s true,” he said gravely.

She patted his shoulder. “We’re going to call for dinner. Are you able to join us?”

Philip’s father could be trusted to keep any vulnerability to himself. He’d already figured out which double Arcadius was. Arcadius could have suggested he eat with them as well. Nonetheless, he had a strong and sudden preference not to add even one extra person to their company.

“I believe that’s my cue,” Murat said. “If it suits you, commander, I’ll meet with you again tomorrow.”

Arcadius nodded and Cade clapped the vizier on his shoulder.

“Good night,” Murat said as he bowed himself away.

~

Keeping up the front that everything was normal seemed to have drained Arcadius. He didn’t argue when Elyse and Cade helped him up the back stairs to Iksander’s rooms. How heavily he leaned on them worried her. Joseph had admitted they didn’t know how the doubling process affected djinn. What if Cade’s original didn’t have sufficient resources to recover from the stress to his system? Was there a way to divvy up the men’s shared spirit more evenly? But maybe that would put both doubles in danger. Elyse dreaded the thought of Arcadius getting worse—or even not returning to the vital person he’d been when she first met him.

In the brief time they’d spent together, she’d grown attached to him.

The back stairway took them to a door concealed in the paneling outside the sultan’s apartment. Cade held Arcadius upright while Elyse opened the double doors.

“I’m fine,” Arcadius huffed when she looked anxiously back at him.

That made her smile. She liked his growly antediluvian personality.

That gave her food for thought while they ate their quiet dinner around the long table. Arcadius was too tired to snipe, merely nodding at Cade’s report on how they’d spent their afternoon. His motions had slowed noticeably by the time the servants cleared the meat course.

“No dessert,” Cade instructed as they withdrew. “We won’t need you again tonight.”

He’d noticed Arcadius fading too.

“Keep an eye on him,” Cade said. “I’ll make up an extra bed.”

When Elyse glanced back at Arcadius, he was asleep in his chair. Slumped like that, with tracks of weariness on his face, he looked ten years older than his copy.

Cade came back in a few minutes, pausing in the doorway. Elyse couldn’t identify the full range of his emotions as he gazed at his duplicate, but among them she certainly saw worry.

“I can feel you staring,” Arcadius warned without opening his eyes.

Could he? He hadn’t seemed to feel her.

“Help me up if you’re going to,” he said. “My knees are stiff from sitting.”

Cade helped him, giving her a small headshake when she would have assisted. He was strong enough to handle Arcadius on his own and probably knew his preferences. Elyse debated leaving them to it but decided she’d rather know what happened. She followed the men into the vast bedroom.

Cade had pulled a large divan close to the sultan’s bed. Sheets draped its well-stuffed cushion and a fresh white pillow lay at its head. There was room for all of them on the huge mattress, but she supposed Cade wasn’t ready to share his territory to that extent.

Arcadius wasn’t ready either. “You think I
want
to spy on you two snuggling up?” he exclaimed when he saw the cozy arrangement. “Just put my bed in the dressing room.”

“You heard Joseph. Sticking close to me might help you recover.”

“Time will take care of that.”

Arcadius scowl would have intimidated a lesser man. Cade set his jaw stubbornly. “Time is going to pass no matter where you sleep. You may as well hedge your bets.”

Cade settled the matter by letting go of Arcadius, thereby forcing him to drop onto the divan. Arcadius glared at him.

“Do you want help undressing?” Cade asked sweetly.

“If you want to help,” Arcadius enunciated, “find me something to use as a walking stick. Unless you’d rather drag me across this stupid ballroom every time I have to pee.”

Cade offered him a crisp but mocking salute, then turned on his heel and left.

“Bastard,” Arcadius muttered under his breath. A moment later, he remembered she was there. “Pardon. I shouldn’t use such language in front of you.”

“I’ve heard worse. And said worse, for that matter.”

Arcadius surprised her by smiling. As it turned out, her words weren’t what amused him. “That man of yours is forgetting I know exactly which buttons to push to revenge myself on him.”

Elyse smiled back. “I guess that man of mine better brace himself.”

She pretended not to see how shaky the battle of wills had left Arcadius.

She was relieved when Cade returned. With all the things she wasn’t saying, waiting with his original was awkward. Cade grinned like a triumphant hunter, a pair of bejeweled golden crutches held up in one hand.

“I found these among Iksander’s father’s things. I tried them out. They seem like they’re tall enough.”

Arcadius accepted them without rising from the divan. “I don’t remember these.”

“And you would, gaudy as they are. I think Iksander’s father must have died before he got a chance to use them. His final decline was pretty swift.”

“That I recall.” Arcadius set the crutches on the floor where he could reach them. “Iksander losing his father and taking the throne that young seemed like the the biggest challenge he’d have to face.”

“And then he fell in love with Najat.”

“And then he lost her.”

The two men looked at each other, their faces matching pictures of sadness.

“I believe he’d have married her even if he’d known where it would lead.”

“Yes,” Arcadius said. “Which may be the difference between Iksander and ourselves.”

Elyse realized he meant marrying Najat had led to the sorceress cursing the city, not that marrying her had led to personal loss.

“Well,” Arcadius said, shaking off the solemn moment. “Let’s hope these crutches don’t signal
my
last decline.”

Elyse didn’t think the joke was funny. It was even less amusing when Arcadius eased stiffly down on his side, closed his eyes, and went unconscious so swiftly it looked like he’d passed out.

“Is that normal?” she asked Cade. “Maybe we should call Joseph back.”

“I suspect we’ve fussed as much as he can tolerate.”

Cade would know, she supposed. She bit her thumbnail.

Cade hugged her from behind. “Why don’t you and I wash up and get some rest ourselves?”

This was a reasonable plan. As they followed it, they didn’t fool around the way they might have. That seemed insensitive with Arcadius there. Rather than sleep naked, Elyse threw on a loose silk tunic for modesty. Dressed and clean, she crawled onto the big bed and under the covers. Cade settled in behind her. She was nearest to Arcadius, but both of them faced him. Though he slept, his features remained strained. Proud too. Maybe that quality never went away.

“Is it okay to admit I like him?” she asked impulsively.

Cade’s arm tightened around her. “Of course it is.”

“I think—” She gathered her thoughts. “I think it’s like if I met your mother and she showed me pictures of you as a kid. I’d have thought you were adorable even if your ears were big. Not that Arcadius is a kid.”

Cade’s soft laugh rumbled in her ear. “I understand what you mean, though I should disclose my mother wasn’t the picture taking type.”

Elyse squirmed onto her back so she could look at him. They’d talked about her childhood but not his. At the time, Cade had been trying to discover what she knew about the portal hidden in her basement. They’d had a strange courtship—an incomplete one, in her opinion. Maybe this was her chance to address that.

“What was your mother like?” she asked.

“Strict. She wanted me to be a soldier like my father. He died in battle when I was five.”

“That must have been hard on both of you.”

“I suppose.” Cade’s expression was distant. “I don’t know if she truly loved him. Looking back, I think she was happy to be able to train me without his interference, according to her ideal of what a warrior should be.”

“She
trained
you?”

“Not to fight. For that, she hired tutors. She trained me to be tough, to withstand deprivation and accept discipline. She’d make me live on half rations for a week and march around our village with loads of firewood strapped to my back. The other children teased me over that. ‘Arcadius the Burro’ was the nickname I recall. I hated it at the time, but she proved to me I could survive that and more. She wanted me to have confidence in myself. I can’t deny she succeeded.”

“Goodness,” Elyse said, unsure how else to comment. Though he’d traveled a lot, her father had treated her like a cherished princess. Cade’s description of his upbringing sounded horrible, but he didn’t seem bitter. “Is your mother alive?”

Cade shook his head. “She lived to see Iksander appoint me his commander, which didn’t please her as I expected.”

“It didn’t?”

His mouth slanted with memory. “No. She warned me not to let it make me soft. That was her idea of a sin.” He turned his eyes to Arcadius’s sleeping form. “I know why he is the way he is. He’s what I would have been if I hadn’t fallen in love with you.”

His voice thickened with emotion. Did he really think she’d had that much effect on him? She didn’t see how this was possible even if, as he said, he was in love with her.

“Arcadius isn’t a bad man,” she felt compelled to say. “Honestly, I think he’s quite a good one. His perspective is just different from yours.”

“So you would have loved me, big ears and all,” he teased.

“I would,” she said.

She’d answered easily, but once she had, the truth of the words shocked her. What exactly had she admitted to? She knew Cade’s original attracted her. She’d been trying not to make too much of that. Probably, it was natural. Being with someone didn’t mean you never thought another man was hot, especially when the man in question had many of the same characteristics that had drawn you. To say she could love Arcadius, however, was a more serious matter than attraction.

Cade didn’t seem to notice what she’d implied. He’d moved to hang slightly over her, his thumb stroking her right brow’s arch as he gazed into her eyes. “You have no idea what I’d give to make love to you right now.”

Elyse’s pulse accelerated. His thumb moved to brush her lower lip, causing her skin to tingle there—and between her legs as well. She reminded herself there couldn’t be a worse way to make Arcadius feel like the odd man out.

“That wouldn’t be considerate,” she said breathily.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

Cade pressed his lips softly over hers. Her body knew what his had to offer. Though the touch was light, her pussy flooded as the tip of his tongue touched her. He backed off but slid his hand up the silk she wore. The way his fingers covered her breast felt incredible.

“Better turn around,” he murmured. “Before I change my mind.”

She couldn’t right away. He was warm and big and, unlike her, he was naked. She dragged her hand down his chest, her touch pulled irresistibly over his ribs, around his navel, and onto one lean hipbone. His erection jerked, the bare head bumping lightly against her thigh.

She knew precisely how satiny that skin felt pushing inside her.

“Elyse,” he said even softer than before. “If you don’t turn away, I won’t be able to.”

She thought of his double, mere feet away on the divan. Arcadius seemed asleep but could conceivably be feigning out of politeness. It wouldn’t be nice to make him watch them have sex, not when he couldn’t get away, not when he might become aroused himself. Desire gripped her body at that idea, the sudden intensification of her lust causing her to shudder. Oh, that was wrong for sure.

She wriggled around so that her back faced Cade.

He spooned himself to her, groaning softly as he pushed his groin against her bottom. His erection was long and thick, and he rubbed it in little passes over the silk that draped her butt cheeks. She’d noticed how much he liked her ass before. Maybe she could suggest he take her from this position. Just ease her leg up and slide his throbbing cock into her. They could be really quiet. Arcadius would never have to know.

No,
she thought, curling her hands into fists. Her pussy ached but she ignored it. They’d had plenty of sex since coming here. It wouldn’t kill them to go without for one night.