Untouchable (5 page)

Verity looked up at Laris, catching his lovely dark brown eyes and holding them with her own. “I am ready for summer. As soon as the sun sets, I grow cold.” She hugged herself, and very soon Laris was there, wrapping his strong, warm arms around her. She let him. She even rested her head on his chest and listened to the beat of his heart.

All her life Verity had been told that she would be the wife of a great man, so traveling to the capital city to become empress did not scare her. It did occur to her, however, that Mavise had never told her she’d be happy in her new position. Not once. That didn’t mean she couldn’t or wouldn’t be happy as well as powerful. Mavise should’ve been more thorough.

Verity should’ve thought to ask before leaving home, but she’d only recently begun to consider the matter.

When she was in a position of power, she would make herself happy. She would
insist
upon happiness. With the help of the love potion, she could be assured that the emperor would adore her, but would she adore him? Would she feel a real, true love for the man she’d call husband?

The future was uncertain, but Laris made her feel steadier and less afraid—even though she was
not
afraid. Not at all.

His heart thumped steadily in her ear, and she took comfort from the sound. “Sometimes I get cold at night, too,” she said hesitantly.

The heartbeat she listened to grew a bit faster. “Do you?”

“Yes.” And sometimes she could not sleep. Some nights her thoughts spun and spun and spun, and all she wanted was something—or someone—to hold on to. “Perhaps when it is your watch you could...”

“I could not,” he said hotly, before she had a chance to finish the invitation.

What good was a love potion if she could not compel the afflicted man to do as she wished? “Please,” she whispered, “just visit me for a while. We cannot . . . well, you know what we cannot do. It wouldn’t be proper at all.” Very nice, judging by the way he held her, but not at all proper. “I don’t want you to think that I desire anything more than a friend’s comfort, but it’s a comfort I would very much like to have. Please, Laris. Please.”

He sighed. “If you truly wish it.”

“I do.”

“I’ll visit you tonight if I can.”

With her face against his chest, she smiled. Yes, the love potion Mavise had provided was quite effective and
very
handy.

HE
argued with himself on occasion, but Alix couldn’t bring himself to entirely dismiss Sanura’s warning about violence within Vyrn. If she saw his own struggle, a struggle he successfully hid even from those who knew him best, then how could he dismiss what she claimed to see in others? As the days passed and the traveling party moved toward Arthes at an achingly slow pace, he kept a close eye on the young sentinel, trying to see for himself what Sanura claimed was there. All he saw was a smiling, flirtatious, seemingly reckless sentinel who made small talk with the Tryfynian maids whenever the opportunity arose and happily took on whatever chore he was assigned.

Maybe the blue seductress was wrong. Worse, maybe she was lying. Maybe, for some reason which was thus far hidden, she wanted to create a division between him and his men. Divide and conquer, was that her way?

Alix took a deep breath to calm himself when he saw Princess Edlyn stalking toward him, two humorless and dedicated Tryfynian soldiers at her heels. The skirt of her green traveling gown snapped behind her, and her mouth was set in a hard, straight line. For all her physical beauty, she was as drab and unappealing as the color she wore. For a moment he imagined himself married to this sour woman, enduring her demands and petulance day after day, keeping his temper in check in the name of diplomacy and peace. He tried to imagine her lying beneath him, lost in the throes of passion, but he could not. From what he could see, this woman had no passion within her, no warmth, no love. She was as hard as any sentinel, in her own way.

His eyes were drawn over the princess’s shoulder to watch a still and serene Sanura. She waited silently as her guards set up her small tent. Behind her the sun was setting, coloring the sky pink and orange and violet. A gentle breeze caught her skirt and made it dance, and even though he was too far away, he was certain he heard that music her jewels made when she moved. He could very well imagine her beneath him. She would cry out in pleasure, she would laugh in bed and in his arms, she would scream, and she would likely make him scream as well.

And she would see all of him. She would know every secret, see every lie. Marriage to a cold princess would be better.

“Would you do me the courtesy of
looking
at me?” Edlyn snapped as she came to a halt before him.

Alix dragged his eyes from Sanura and pinned his gaze on the princess. Again he imagined himself married to her, shackled in the name of diplomacy, once again a prisoner in the name of doing what was right, and he felt a rush of anger as he caught and held her eyes with his own.

The princess blinked hard and took one step back. “I . . . I’m sorry.” She glanced to the side and down. “Obviously I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

“Not at all,” Alix responded. “What can I do to make your journey more comfortable?” His voice was sharper than he’d intended, but perhaps that was for the best.

Edlyn frowned and wrinkled her nose, then she cautiously stepped forward once more. “It is that heinous blue creature my father insisted upon sending along who causes my distress. Having her along for the journey is a punishment, ” she muttered. “My own father hates me.”

Did the spoiled princess want Alix to do what her step-mother had not? Did she wish to be rid of Sanura before they reached Arthes, and if that was the case, did she expect he’d do the dirty work for her?

“Perhaps you should take your complaints to Sanura herself,” he suggested, knowing that she would not. Haughty and arrogant as Edlyn was, she was more than a little afraid of Sanura.

“I’d rather not,” Edlyn muttered, confirming Alix’s suspicions. Her chin came up. “In the early days of our journey she rode near the front of the procession, but lately she’s taken to riding alongside my carriage. It’s unbearable, I tell you, to look out my small window as the carriage bumps and rattles along and see
her
. She’s taunting me. She’s . . . she’s . . . she’s harassing me!”

“By riding too near to your conveyance,” Alix said without sympathy.

“Yes,” Edlyn whispered.

Edlyn surely knew that as a woman she paled beside Sanura. In character, in appearance, in sensuality, there was no comparison—at least, none which favored Edlyn in any way. Next to Sanura, Edlyn—pretty as she was— disappeared. What woman would not? Did the princess look at the gift her father had sent and realize that no man, emperor or not, would remember she existed after he’d had a look at a woman of the Agnese, after he saw Sanura’s blue curves and heard the music of her steps?

“I will speak with her,” Alix said, bowing curtly and with more than a touch of disdain.

Again Edlyn frowned. It seemed to be a normal expression for her. “I thought your eyes were a rather ordinary shade of pale green,” she said as she studied them with a squint.

“They are,” he replied.

“Oh.” Edlyn backed up, and so did her soldiers. “It must be a trick of the light.” With that she turned and walked away, her steps a bit quicker than they had been on her approach.

It was easy, very natural in fact, for Alix’s gaze to return to Sanura. She did not move, and even if she did, he would likely not hear the music from this distance. And yet somewhere inside he did hear. Even though his body remained motionless, even though no one could see his reaction, he danced to the tune Sanura sang. The dance was internal, private, and as hidden as the shadows he fought.

Perhaps it would be a kind of torture, but he would ask Sanura to ride with him in the morning. He would insist that she once again place herself at the front of the party. He would do as the princess demanded and put as much distance as possible between the two women for the duration of the journey, no matter what the cost to his own comfort and sanity.

He might cross the camp and ask Sanura about the new traveling arrangements now, but he didn’t feel quite himself.

IN
the confines of her tent, long after darkness fell and the camp grew silent, Sanura caressed the square box which held her cosmetics, brushes, and oils for scent and cosmetic repair. At home, maids would fight for the honor of assisting her in the application of the sacred blue paint. Here she did the work herself, calling upon others only when she could not reach a patch of skin which needed repair.

Lamplight flickered over the intricately carved box, which was a work of art like no other she had ever seen. Delicate flowers with curling stems covered the wooden container, and in many places there were inlays of shimmering stone which caught the lamplight and felt warm beneath her fingers. At home, this box was considered a treasure, as she was. Here no one seemed to pay it much mind. They did not know the years of work which had gone into the creation of the box. They did not realize how the craftsman had so lovingly carved the wood and shaped the stones. Like her, it was dismissed as beautiful but odd.

As Sanura caressed the box, she wondered if the emperor who now possessed her would be anything like his brother. If so, then Arthes would become her new home. She would forget all she’d left behind; she’d forget her old home and make a new one. Perhaps the emperor would treasure her as she was meant to be treasured. Perhaps Columbyana would be different from Tryfyn. Less cold. Less lonely. Perhaps someone there would recognize her worth and the worth of her meager possessions.

Thinking of Arthes and the emperor naturally guided her mind to Prince Alixandyr. She had never longed for anything which was not hers. Not freedom. Not love. Certainly not a particular man to whom she did not belong. And yet she thought of Alix as she sat in her tent and pondered treasures of the past and things she could not have.

Sanura was surprised when the flap to her tent opened and the prince himself slipped inside, his manner and his movements surreptitious and furtive. He glanced at her and smiled—she had never seen him grin this way—and he laid one long finger over his mouth, cautioning her to be silent.

Her heart skipped a beat. His eyes were too dark, his smile too wicked.

The shadow walked again tonight. The darkness Prince Alixandyr fought lived while the man he had become slept inside that body.

He dropped to his knees beside her, his body long and muscled and strong, a man’s body as certainly as hers was a woman’s. “I could not stay away,” he whispered.

“You should go,” she answered, her voice even softer than his own. “If you are found here, you’ll be killed.”

“Only if there is blue on my skin, isn’t that the way of the rule? Only if I touch you is my life forfeit.” He leaned toward her, and she could see that his eyes were still green, but they had taken on a darkness which made them resemblethe forest at night, or an angry sea. Lamplight flickered over one side of his face, which was so close she could see the small lines at the corners of his eyes, the creases by his mouth. His dark hair was more mussed than usual, loose and waving thickly to his shoulders and beyond. He was a hard warrior in many ways, outside and in, and yet he was also very much a man. A good man. A needful man.

“You want to touch me,” she whispered.

“I do,” he admitted with a smile. “So does he.”

“Prince Alixandyr,” she said softly.

“Yes, that cowardly, uptight, do-gooder Alix.”

She wanted, so much, to reach out and touch him. “Like it or not, you are, in many ways, one and the same.”

His eyes grew darker, and his mouth went hard. A long hank of hair fell across the illuminated side of his face, hiding so much. Too much. “We are not one. We are two very different men in one body, and I have been silent for far too long. I’m done with being silent, with being constantly imprisoned.”

The prince’s hand skimmed a fraction of an inch from her cheek. She closed her eyes, and still she could almost feel the touch of his hand. Even though it was forbidden, she wanted his warmth as much as he wanted to touch her. She held her breath as his hand moved so close, and beneath closed eyelids she felt her eyes roll up and quiver. A mistake on her part or his could mark him, so she was very careful to remain still, to soak in the closeness without losing control and reaching for what she wanted.

The part of him he had just denied—Alix, he said— remained within, sleeping but certainly not dead. Resting, not gone. The darkness and the light which had done constant battle from the time of his birth were a part of one soul, one man. He wasn’t ready to hear that, however. In his eyes, in his heart, they were two.

In hers, they were one. One man who struggled. Which part of him would win? He thought the battle was over, but she knew it had just begun.

“You could make a man crazy.” His hand floated over her chest, almost touching, almost condemning. “You could get inside a man’s head and overshadow everything else he holds dear. Duty. Family. Honor. Life itself. All gone, in the name of Sanura. Are you a witch who’s cast a spell upon me? Upon him?” She felt and heard his sigh. “Upon both of us?”

“No.” She breathed her answer. A shout would bring her guards to her, but she didn’t want this encounter to end. Nothing could come of it, nothing could come of them . . . but she enjoyed having him so close. She enjoyed it much more than she should.

He buried one hand in her hair, catching the strands fast and holding on. She felt his fingers against her scalp, felt the warmth of his hand against her head. His cheek rested against her hair, but he touched her nowhere else and she could not touch him.

“If you claim you are not the man I know as Prince Alixandyr, what shall I call you?” she asked.

“You needn’t call me anything at all,” he whispered against her hair. “Simply snap your fingers and I am yours. Crook one finger in my direction, and I will come running. Even your hair smells good,” he added. “Like flowers and sunshine and...woman. You smell like a woman, Sanura. ”

“I wish to call you something,” she said. “Alixandyr or Prince, perhaps.” Dearest or lover, even better.

He sighed, and she felt his warm breath in her hair. “Call me Trystan, if you insist upon giving me a name.”

“Trystan.”

“He was Trystan for many years before he became Alix.” A thumb touched her nipple, not coming into contact with her forbidden bare flesh but warming and arousing through the thin fabric that covered her breasts. Sanura closed her eyes and held her breath as Alix—Trystan— made small circles with his thumb, circles which made her nipples grow hard and her body tremble. No one had ever caressed her this way, and she had been so long alone that her reaction was unexpectedly intense.

“Have I found a flaw in the laws that protect you, Sanura? ” Trystan teased as his touch grew harder. “I can touch you very well.” He removed his hand and a moment later his mouth was there, carefully and expertly suckling at her breast through the gold fabric. Her body shuddered. Her toes curled. His mouth lifted away and he blew a long, slow breath onto the damp fabric before saying, “If I’m very careful, I can pleasure you without getting a particle of that damned blue paint on my skin.”

“You do not understand,” Sanura said, her voice breathless and uneven. “The women of the Agnese do not take pleasure, they give it. The men who own us do not keep us for the offering of gratification, but for the taking. You can touch me thus without condemning yourself with the blue, but I cannot touch
you
.” And she wanted to touch him, shadows or not. Alix or Trystan or Prince, she did not care.

He seemed amused. “So, no man has ever touched you like this?” Again he kissed her through the gold fabric. He caught a nipple between gentle teeth, and she gasped.

“No.”

“What about this?” He reached between her legs and, with the fabric of her skirt against his hand, stroked her where she trembled for him. She could very easily clamp her thighs against him and spread the blue paint on his hand and his forearm, but instead she opened herself for his touch. His stroke continued, rhythmic and beyond arousing.