VirtualWarrior (26 page)

The strange pulse ran from her hand straight to her heart.
It rippled down to where their bodies touched so intimately.

“What is it like to be inside a woman?” she whispered.

“Like being in a very warm, snug glove,” he said. Then he
arched, pushing up as she pressed down. He cupped her breasts and captured her
swollen nipples between his fingers.

Ardra hung on as heat whipped through her. “I feel it. There
is something happening between us.”

“It’s all in our heads, Ardra.” Then he arched again and
gasped.

He spent himself, but she did not see it happen, nor know
it.

Her heart had stopped beating. Her world had gone white hot.

When she could speak again, Lien had left the bed. He was
using her basin of water, hastily, not looking at her. She stretched and pulled
a coverlet near. It was wet, and a moment later he took it from the bed and
dropped it beside her wrinkled robe and the other garments Deleh would have the
washerwomen tend.

“Does every glove fit every man?” she asked.

He covered her with a fur, but he seemed distant now. His
eyes did not meet hers. “Sure. Men are pretty indiscriminate.”

So, only she found what they had done unique. “Have you worn
many gloves?” She wanted to snatch the jealous words back into her mouth.

“Not too many…all things considered.” He pulled on his
breeches and laced them.

“Lien. It is best we not do this again. We might…complete
the act next time. I cannot bear a child without a lifemate.”

“What happened to all your talk of herbs?”

“Do you wish me to ask Deleh to get them for me?”

Lien smiled, but he looked at the pendant around her neck,
not her eyes. “No. Not necessary. You won’t need them.”

Lien sat on a chair by the door and waited for Ardra to
wake. He probably shouldn’t have let her fall asleep again, but she’d looked
exhausted.

And he had needed to think.

Finally, she stretched, yawned, and sat up. “What are you
doing?”

She shook her hair from her face. It cascaded all around
her, and it was her hair, so wild, her small breasts pushing through the mass
to tempt him, that told him he was doing the right thing.

It was as inevitable as the rising of the Tolemac sun
outside that he’d come inside her next time. Then he’d be so tied in knots he’d
never get untangled.

“I’m going to put on this robe.” He nodded to where the robe
lay over his lap, his stick on top of it.

“Nay,” she whispered, and knelt on the end of the bed.

He had watched her sleep, how she had tossed restlessly, so
filled with energy, needs, and frightening possibilities.

“Why?” She bent her head and clasped her hands on the edge
of the bed, not trying to cover herself in any way. She had grown too
comfortable with him, shared too many intimate acts.

“To make you understand, I’m going to tell you a story. A
true story. I once had a lover named Eve. We both thought we’d get
married—that’s lifemated to you.” He ran his hand over his head. “Let’s see.
How do I make you understand?”

“Aye, Lien, you must make me understand.”

“Then my mother got sick, not old-age sick, but something
lingering, something not solved in a day. There’s no one to look after her but
me. She’s…self-destructive.”

He slid his hands along the smooth stick. “And let’s say my
intended lifemate can’t understand how responsible I feel. That I just can’t
let my mother wander off into oblivion without trying to help her. Let’s say
that woman finally says, ‘Choose,’ and I pick my mother instead of Eve. What do
you think about that?”

“I think you have an obligation to your mother. Your
lifemate should understand that or she is not worthy of you.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Yeah. Maybe here. But
where I’m from, it didn’t really work out that way. Eve left me. She said my
mother had made her own problems, and I needed to let her find her own
solutions.”

“I do not admire your intended, Lien.”

“Yeah, well. I told Eve I wanted to feel that I’d done
everything I could. So Eve left.”

“I am sorry, Lien.”

“I feel like I’m at that same decision point again.”

“I have not asked you to choose.”

He sighed. “I’ve come to realize over the past few days as
I’ve watched Ralen that he wouldn’t run away from the challenge of helping you.
He might stick with you for reasons that are self-serving, but he would stand
by you. So I feel I have to do this, see this quest thing through.” He touched
the robe.

“But why as a pilgrim?”

“That’s the other half of my story. See, where I come from,
things are not black and white the way they are in Tolemac. Here, something’s
honorable or it’s not. Something’s right or it’s not. I’ve been sitting on the
fence as if I were at home. I’ve been saying, ‘Okay, I don’t want any hassles
over my lack of arm rings, so I’ll hide behind the idea I’m a pilgrim.’ That’s
what I’ve been doing, Ardra. Hiding who I am.”

“And who are you, Lien?”

“I’m either a pilgrim or I’m not. I’m not going to be
unknown
any longer.”

“Lien. You can’t do this. Put aside the robe—”

“Stop. One day you’ll meet the perfect man and he’ll—”

“The perfect man. Not you,” she whispered.

He walked over to the bed and pulled her up into his
embrace. “Earlier this evening you asked me not to leave you, and I said I
wasn’t going anywhere. I meant it. I’m not leaving you.”

“But why a pilgrim?”

“Because I’m not going to sit on the fence anymore. I’m
going to put on this robe and be a pilgrim, with all the problems and
deprivations that come with that status. It’s the only way I can help you. If I
remain as I am, I will make love to you again.”

“Love. Was it making love?” she asked. A tremor ran through
her that he might love her.

“Call it whatever you want, either way you will suffer
because of what we do here. Samoht will use your behavior—sleeping with a man
who’s not your lifemate—to prove you’re not the fine woman I know you to be.”

So it was merely copulating, not lovemaking, to which he
referred. The room was suddenly cold. “Lien—”

“If I don’t choose this path, Samoht is going to challenge
my status again, and I’ll no longer be able to help you.”

“You bested him at the feast.”

“I didn’t best him. I took advantage of your advice and the
fact he’d had too much wine. Next time, he’ll insist on swords. And he’ll be
sober.”

She shook her head. “To kill a pilgrim is—”

“Bad luck. True, and you said he won’t kill me because he might
be killing his only way across the ice fields, but I saw his face when I
knocked him down. He wants blood. He won’t let anything stop him.”

“So you will play the pilgrim.”

“I will not be playing. As long as you have nothing to
bargain with, you have only the vial to save your fortress. And while you
search for it, I’ll try to protect you.”

The pilgrim robe would separate him from her forever. Tears
welled in her eyes, so she turned her head away that he would not see her
grief.

Nothing to bargain with…

Lien was wrong. She did have something to bargain with now.

Cidre hummed a song as she dropped some morning dew into her
persuasion spell. Ardra must be put out of the way. It was obvious that Lien
would never accept his place as consort if Ardra remained available.

A shiver of desire ran through Cidre’s veins, a desire she
had not felt with any man—ever. It was so strong, she had to pause and lean on
the table to wait for her body to return to a serene state.

It was Lien’s dark hair, his nearly black eyes, that drew
her. What powers the Daughter of Darkness would have if she was conceived of
such a man’s seed.

After the persuasion spell simmered precisely one rise and
fall of the night orbs, she could put her plan into action.

Cidre lifted a goblet and sipped another, more bitter, brew.
She must be sure that no child already took root within her. No child of
Venrali’s could equal one of Lien’s.

Lien would not easily come to her bed. If she had been able
to get to him before he’d spilled his seed over Ardra, then perhaps the usual
persuasion spell would have lured him to her.

But it was too late to rue such misfortune. Deleh had told
her of Ardra’s time with Lien. Deleh was so easily persuaded. Cidre had needed
little of the spell to get Deleh to turn over her mistress’s secrets.

Now Cidre knew that even if Lien and Ardra were under the
persuasion spell, they might not do as she directed. Ardra might not refuse
Lien’s advances, and even if she did, Lien might not turn to another. The
spilling of seed between lovers created a powerful lure of its own, hard to
counteract.

A knock came at the door. Cidre glanced about. There was
nothing to indicate she was preparing a persuasion potion.

“Come,” she called out.

Einalem, garbed in a turquoise and ivory gown with chains of
gold at her waist, glided into the herbarium. “I bid you good day.” As was
proper, Einalem curtseyed and waited for the touch of greeting on her shoulder.

“Sit. Rest a moment while I finish my work,”-Cidre said.

Einalem curled her feet beneath her as she sat in Cidre’s
favorite chair, a broad one with wide arms. “What are you brewing?”

“Oh, just something for one of the kitchen boys who burned
his thumb.” Cidre lighted the wick beneath the persuasion spell, then stood
back with a smile of satisfaction. For a moment she lost herself in
contemplation of Lien’s passion. She could almost taste it on her tongue.

To cover her delight, she drew up a stool. She sat lower
than Einalem to give her a false impression of importance.

“Now,” she patted Einalem’s hand, “how may I help you?”

“I have done a very bad thing. Or a good thing, as some may
view it.”

“Ah. Am I one who will be pleased with what you have done?”

“Aye. You see…that is, I have the Vial of Seduction.”

“By Nilrem’s knees!” Cidre forced herself to show the proper
dismay. Why had she not guessed? And how could Samoht be so blind as not to see
the thief in his own nest?

A little tear ran down Einalem’s cheek. “I regretted it the
instant I took it. You see, I had shamefully peeked in on the council session
the day they were discussing the fate of the treasures.” She chewed her
thumbnail. “It tortured me, that potion. But I
did
resist for a very
long time.”

Cidre held Einalem’s hand still. “What made you succumb?”

Einalem leaped to her feet. “I could no longer stand it. All
around me, men and women are making love—feeling some tender emotion that
eludes me.”

“Surely you have many fine lovers? Ralen? Is he not one of
them? He is very fine.”

“Ralen!” Einalem said. “It was Ralen who pushed me to steal
the potion.” She sank into the chair and leaned forward. “It is Ralen who is to
blame. If he had but understood the great honor accorded him if he lifemated
with me…but nay, he must reach higher. It is his fault, is it not?”

“Oh, aye. ‘Tis Ralen’s fault. How could he not want you?”
Cidre smoothed a finger over Einalem’s furrowed brow.

“I do not understand what went wrong. I please him in bed.
But he makes love as he makes war—”

“He is cold.”

“As cold as Ardra’s ice.”

“Then it is not your fault,” Cidre said. “It is a fault of
Ralen’s that he cannot give you his heart. And so, you stole the Vial of
Seduction to turn Ralen’s heart warm.”

“Aye. I knew just the size and shape of the bottle. I asked
my brother to show me the treasures, and when he was not looking, I substituted
another, similar bottle. It was almost a conjunction before anyone noticed the
switch.”

“But the potion has failed.”

“I have used it on Ralen twice. There is so little of the
powder left that I feared if I did not seek advice, I would waste it. When I
heard that Ardra was coming to you for this vial, I was amused. Then I thought
‘twas an answer to my prayers. You alone might be able to help me. When Lien
insisted he should escort Ardra, I begged to come along. I thought you might
help me find a way to make the potion work.”

“What of your brother? Has he any inkling you have the
potion?”

Einalem’s eyes welled with tears. “Samoht has no idea I have
the vial. He is sure you have it.”

Cidre looked at the potion bubbling on her table. It was
like water to the power of the powder in the Vial of Seduction.

Once administered to Lien, Ardra could crawl on her knees
naked to him and he would kick her aside. The image snatched Cidre’s breath.

“I will help you use the potion, Einalem, but for a price.”

“Some of the potion.”

“Ah. You understand the value of what you have.”

“I will share, but can you make the potion work?”

Cidre took Einalem’s hand. “You poor woman. Did no one tell
you that only an honorable person can use the potion? Just by stealing the vial
you ensured you could never use it.”

Einalem’s shock amused Cidre. What a stupid woman. To steal
something without understanding its true nature.

When Einalem had recovered, there was a tremor in her voice.
“How will we make it work, then? How? It seems impossible.”

Cidre found it amusing that Einalem assumed she, too, could
not use the potion. She said, “Oh, I shall find an innocent to administer the
potion for us.”

“How can any woman, innocent or not, give the potion to a
man, exchange a kiss with him, and then stand aside to allow his seduction by
another?”

Cidre stood up. She adjusted the wick beneath her persuasion
potion. “I will think of something. Come here after the midday meal on the
morrow and I will have an answer for you. Ralen will soon be yours.”

Einalem went to the door. On the threshold, she turned back.
“Oh, Cidre, it is not Ralen I want anymore. Nay. I have found another.”