“Would you like to play a game?” she invited, smiling coyly.
Rathe grinned back, his lidded gaze following her fingers as they moved with a lover’s touch over the inner swells of her breasts. “What game?” he asked, voice throaty.
“We will pretend I am a highborn lady with a very, very jealous husband.” The way she spoke suggested those words were closer to truth than a contrived lark. Before Rathe could reply, Lisana spun away and went wide around the fountain, then passed under a horseshoe arch and into a corridor leading deeper into the palace.
Despite a voice of caution in the back of his mind, Rathe fell into the sport, belatedly making sure neither he nor Lisana were under scrutiny. The game’s hinted risks cleared his head a little.
As if stalking elusive prey, Rathe went after her, wending amid groups of highborn and wealthy merchants from lands near and far. All nibbled exotic dainties plucked from golden platters held by barely clothed servants, and sipped wines from gem-crusted goblets worth more than the lives of a dozen crofters. Laughing and jabbering, the nobles leered at each other’s displayed wealth with wooden smiles and eyes glittering with either envy or condescension.
Lisana led him a merry chase through various halls, courtyards, and open gardens replete with babbling fountains, guests and servants. Rathe paid them little mind, his attention on catching fleeting glimpses of Lisana.
She eventually passed into a corridor that led to a set of richly appointed double doors worth more than he would earn in a dozen lifetimes. Doubtless, Lord Osaant’s private quarters waited beyond them. Lisana, you are a wicked girl. With a grin that set his heart to racing, Lisana slid into the room and closed the doors behind her.
Feigning interest in a marble figurine, Rathe waited a slow hundred count-both to calm his excitement, and to make doubly sure he was not seen entering Osaant’s most hallowed domain. Guests laughed overloud from a nearby garden, but no one was watching him.
Moving to the doors, Rathe took a deep breath, and entered the last place a wise man would have wished to find himself uninvited.
Chapter 6
Rathe’s reservations faded when he shut the doors. Incense perfumed the air, and oil lamps sitting atop ornamental bronze stands burned low around the pillared chamber, casting an intoxicating, mellow glow over mosaicked floors and alabaster walls embossed with erotic scenes. An archway hung with sheer white drapery let out onto a balcony facing the palace of King Nabar, which blazed like a golden crown in the night. Lisana, a precious flower blooming at the center of all that carnal extravagance, waited on a gargantuan bed with only with a thin coverlet drawn over her.
What am I doing? Rathe wondered absently, even as the detached, spinning feeling he had observed since drinking the wine from Girod’s hand whisked away his concern of violating the bed of a highborn.
Lisana eased one bare leg from under the coverlet, a silent appeal for Rathe to join her. After a moment’s more hesitation, he cast aside his concerns, stripped out of his formal uniform, and fell into her welcome embrace. She brushed her full lips against his ear, his neck. One breast pressed against his palm, the other against his chest. A tingle of arousal flashed over his dark skin as her fingers slowly wandered over his nakedness. When their lips met, Rathe thanked Ahnok for such a blessing as-
The doors to the bedchamber crashed open, and Rathe threw himself between Lisana and unknown danger. His head spun at the sudden movement, but he made ready to fight.
A shadow moved through the doorway and drifted into the light. Lord Osaant’s wizened face showed no emotion. “You dare defile my bed?”
Lisana snatched a pillow to her breasts. “Milord,” she stammered. “I-”
“You filthy, ungrateful slattern,” he said in an improbably bored tone. “I brought you into my home, sparing you from gods know what sort of wretched life you might have had, made you my concubine, and you repay me by rutting in my own bed with this lowborn scum?”
Concubine … impossible! Rathe tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick in his mouth. His head whirled worse than ever, making concentration nearly impossible. He looked between Lisana’s horrified expression and Osaant’s bland visage, and saw the undeniable light of recognition in each of their eyes. Dread boiled up in him. Commander Rhonaag’s words rose like a poisonous vapor within his skull. “I have seen men like you rise, but ever they fall because of unseen weaknesses. You are no different.”
“What is your will, father?” Girod asked, moving next to Osaant with a wicked smile turning his lips. Gone was the brutish dullard, replaced by a man of terrible cunning.
Osaant smirked. “He’s dangerous, everyone knows it. All will understand that much force was needed to subdue him-but keep him alive.”
“Better to kill him,” Girod argued, a jealous heat burning in his gaze. “He is tricksome, and despite his treasonous actions against Noor and the king, he seems favored by some black fortune. Best cut his throat, rather than risk him ever gaining freedom again.”
Osaant shook his head. “I want our newly risen king to understand that even beloved champions can have a betrayer’s black heart. Nabar must learn to never make the mistake of raising a commoner to heights reserved by the gods for men of noble blood. By King Nabar’s tongue alone, this puffed up fool will die. After that death you, my son, will take his place.”
Rathe looked between the two men, struggling to overcome the debilitating potion in his veins and mind, trying to understand how he had never seen the plots against him.
“Mercy!” Lisana blurted. Still not understanding that she had been duped along with Rathe, she pointed at Girod. “It was not supposed to be this way! Rathe was only to be dishonored, taught a lesson. Your son said nothing about death.”
“You are beautiful, Lisana,” Osaant murmured, his voice all the more dangerous for its calm, “but yours is the heart of a greedy, imprudent whore. I’d hoped you would not accept my son’s offer to engage in this game, so that another might spread her legs for this cur. As you did accept, the penalty for betrayal is yours to bear.”
Osaant glanced at Girod. “She cannot be allowed to tell her tale, but again, mind that you spare the Scorpion.”
Girod was already moving. Too late, Rathe threw up a hand to block the man’s boot from slamming into his face. Dazed and bleeding, he reeled off the side of the bed and crashed to the floor. The blow shocked him into awareness. With clarity came the implacable killing rage he had embraced for so many years when joining battle. As he moved to rise, Lisana screamed. The sound of steel striking flesh ended her cry.
Rathe bounded off the floor, eyes burning like black fire, and found Girod balancing on the mattress above Lisana, her pale white neck parted like an obscene pair of crimson lips. She made choking sounds as blood poured over her chest and clutching hands. The blow had nearly decapitated her. Girod’s sword rose to finish its grisly work, and Lisana’s glazing eyes followed the glimmering blade.
Howling, Rathe leaped, naked and dreadful. Girod whipped around. Rathe saw the sudden fear in the bastard’s face, and rejoiced at the horror he wrought. He slammed a fist into the man’s groin, and Girod’s mouth sprang open. Rathe caught Girod’s wrist before he could swing the sword and take off his head. The effects of the drugged wine still surged through him, but for now wrath overpowered it, and he drove Girod back against the headboard.
“You will not live long enough to benefit from this treachery,” Rathe growled, squeezing Girod’s wrist until the joint under his palm cracked. As the sword fell, Rathe reached across himself and caught the hilt. With a roar, he rammed the blade through Girod’s bowels and deep into the carved wood at his back, pinning him there.