Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (38 page)

“No. Not usually.” He didn’t bother to explain how much more pleasurable feeding was, or even the kind of slaughter he’d indulged in at Peysimun Mansion; she had no way of understanding that physical orgasm was
—grey
by comparison.

She shut her eyes, a shudder working through her. “I thought feeding was the most revolting part,” she whispered.

“I don’t enjoy inflicting needless pain,” he said, still not moving. “That hasn’t changed, Alyea. And I don’t
care
who else you take to bed—as long as they’re not a threat to me. You don’t have to stay by my side for the rest of your life. You’re not my whore, you’re not my slave. But you can’t back out of being a desert lord, and one of the consequences of that is that you never,
ever
say
no
to a ha’ra’ha or ha’rethe. No matter
what
we ask of you. You don’t have that choice any longer.”

She drew into a tight ball, her forehead on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, and let out a hoarse sob.

“Eredion warned me,” she said, the words muffled. “He
warned
me not to call it love.”

“He was right,” Deiq said, remorseless. “And you’re very lucky that I’ve been handling humans who didn’t understand that concept since before either of you were born. Any other ha’ra’ha would have killed you over that slap.” He paused, watching her pull into a tighter huddle of misery, and sighed. “I didn’t want to make you face this yet,” he added, more gently. “I know it’s unpleasant. I’m sorry. But I can only let you fight me so far before it has to stop, and you’ve hit that line.”

To himself, he admitted that he’d wanted that line not to exist with her. For a while, he’d thought the miracle of feeding from her without pain would extend out to erase this restriction as well. And his temper had been pushed much further than ever before: but not far enough. Not nearly far enough.

As he’d expected—it hadn’t lasted.

He turned away and went to the small table to refill the mug of tea. A moment’s attention brought it back hot, although nothing could save the flavor. He sipped, grimacing at the sourness, then brought the mug over to Alyea, sat beside her, and handed it to her without speaking.

She wrapped her hands around the heavy mug as though considering whether to smash it across his face; finally raised it to her mouth and gulped most of it down before lowering it to rest on one thigh.

“What do you expect me to do?” she said then, her fingers tight around the mug. She didn’t look at him. “Do I just—” Her throat closed, her mouth working in a refusal of the words she’d been about to say.

He saw them anyway, the choked off, agonized echoes:
be your whore, kiss your ass—

Deiq sighed. “No.” He reached out and lifted the mug gently away from her grip, drained it, then set it on the floor, using that time to think of how to explain. Like all humans, she wouldn’t really understand. She was already going back to thoughts of rape and domination, as he’d expected.

At least men could manage some vestige of understanding. Women always got stuck at this point.

He forced his tone to remain unemotional as he said, “I’ve taught you enough about handling passion that you can safely take whatever lovers you like. Your temper is going to get you in trouble still, but I’ve done all I can with that. You’re young, ignorant, and stubborn. If you had gone through the years of training most desert lords go through, you’d have a better chance of understanding what I’m trying to tell you. Right now all you’re thinking is that you have to do as I say, and it’s much more complicated than that.”

“Is it?” she said bitterly. “Isn’t it just so simple at the end?”

He shook his head. “You chose to get into this,” he reminded her. “I promised to train you, and I have. I promised not to hurt you, and I haven’t.”

She glanced down at the livid marks on her ankles.

“You did that to yourself by fighting me, and it’s a minor consequence,” he said without any particular remorse. “Those bruises will be gone in less than a day.”

She glared at him. “I liked you better when you were starving.”

He smiled, amused by that. “I was close to human then. I won’t be that weak again for a long time.”

Her face flared red, then mottled white. “Because of me.”

“Yes.”

She shut her eyes, despair radiating from her.

“Alyea,” he said softly, enough to make her look up at him. “I need you to understand something very important.” He paused long enough for her despair to shift into a bleak curiosity, then went on, “I’m a First Born ha’ra’ha. The only one left. My lesser cousins couldn’t care less if they rip you apart with agony during a feeding. My ha’reye ancestors certainly don’t think about it. I
do.
I have thought about it for—” He decided at the last moment to keep the time spent scaled back to a number she could comprehend.”—for over a hundred years, and looked for ways to make it
not hurt.
You are the first success with that. The
only
success.”

“Why?”

“I. Don’t. Know.” His frustration brought the words out rougher than he intended. He drew a sharp breath and forced himself to calm down. “Until I do, I want you to stay with me.”

Her expression soured into bitterness again. “As a safe feeding stock. Of course. And are you going to try breeding me, too, and see if my children carry the ability?” she demanded. “Oh, that’s right, I probably can’t
have
any more, can I? So that’s no good—”

He shook his head, letting go of the temptation to respond with a matching, and far too human, anger: excessive emotion wasn’t necessary, and her fury didn’t matter. A faint ache passed across his chest for a moment, then disappeared.

She was young. Resilient. She’d come around, given the time. Right now, she just needed to rest; she’d had a number of nasty shocks and was feeling overwhelmed. He decided to believe that.

“Alyea,” he said, weaving his voice beneath her anger, reaching through to the bedrock of fear beneath, “easy. Breathe—think aqeyva—breathe. Easy. Easy. Good.”

The splotchy color of her face evened out, her pulse steadying. He eased her back to sprawl on the couch and against him, drawing warmth over them both, then nudged her gently into a thick doze.

Her limbs slowly loosened into true sleep. He allowed himself a light doze of his own, tracking the shudder of her heartbeat and the tiny twitches of her muscles as her sleeping mind sorted through what he’d told her. He could sense her rearranging the truth he’d given her to a more palatable slant, as humans always did;
I will be different, I will break past what he expects
surfaced briefly and swirled away. He smiled in sad acknowledgment.

His prior hopes aside, things would never be
that
different. But by the time she awoke, her subconscious would have half-convinced her that it was possible to be so exceptional as to change his very nature. It would take her years for that protective romantic edge to harden into the rough cynicism of a mature desert lord.

Even after all she’d been through, she still wanted the world to be a nice place. He would have laughed if he’d been able to find enough humor in that.

In the wake of that thought, something that had been nagging at the back of his mind for some time came clear. He lay still, thinking it over, then nudged her awake and said, “Alyea, when did you talk to Kippin?”

Lord Evkit sauntered through the door onto the patio, looking as smug as a teyanin could get. Two guards followed him, their dark stares never leaving Deiq.

“Ha’inn,” Evkit said, bowing. “You call for me?” His gaze flickered to Alyea, to the couch and rumpled blankets on which she sat, back to Deiq; a faint frown wrinkled his dark face.

Deiq gave no return courtesy. “Kippin,” he said. “He’s mine. I’m claiming blood-right.”

“On what grounds?”

“The little fucker kidnapped an elder ha’ra’ha,” Deiq said flatly. “He’s
mine.”

“No,” Alyea said, just as flatly.

Deiq turned slowly to look down at her. She sat still, feet firmly on the chill stone, head up, matching his stare with her own intensity. In the background, Evkit yipped a thin chuckle.

“I
took Kippin’s surrender,” Alyea said.
“I
have a prior claim.”

“But he was never yours to accept, Lord Alyea,” Evkit said. “I told you that already.”

Deiq moved forward one long step, reached down and put a hand under Alyea’s chin, tilting it gently up until her head was as far back as it would go. He leaned over to stare into her eyes again: trailed his fingertips lightly down the surface of her exposed throat.

It wasn’t even remotely an erotic gesture. Alyea held still, watching blackness flaring in his eyes, and tried not to breathe too loudly.

“Mine,” Deiq said, in a low voice.
“Mine,
Alyea.” He studied her face for another lazy moment, then straightened and turned away.

She stayed still for a moment, teeth tight; sat up slowly, feeling muscles creak and catch in protest. Her heart hammered in her chest. A wave of lightheadedness and nausea swept through her. Vision hazed.

“I think perhaps Lord Alyea needs a rest,” Lord Evkit said from somewhere far away.

Deiq didn’t say anything. Or maybe he did and she couldn’t hear him. Her whole body was shivering as though dumped into icy water.

Teyanain hands guided her to her feet. Teyanain voices directed her. She stumbled into motion, wondering, hazily, if they were going to walk her right off that cliff. Anything seemed possible just at the moment.

A door shut behind them. Not the cliff, then. And Deiq wouldn’t be following. He had business with Lord Evkit. With Kippin.

Her thoughts tumbled, chaotic as a flock of whirling seagulls:

Deiq almost killed me. He was that close to it. Not out of anger—out of cold—something, something so cold. And nobody would have stopped him. All because I got in his way—because I claimed something he wanted.

“The little fucker kidnapped an elder ha’ra’ha.”

Not:
He almost killed Lord Alyea.
No hint of anything but personal outrage had been in Deiq’s tone or attitude.

So much for “he cares”,
Alyea thought bitterly, then shook her head, recognizing that she’d been about to put human interpretations on the matter again. Maybe it was best to simply treat Deiq as...as a kind of semi-intelligent tornado that wrecked everything it touched without understanding the debris it was leaving in its wake.

I’m being melodramatic again.
But the yawing breach in her self-confidence made it hard to think clearly. She allowed the teyanain to guide her through the hallways, barely noticing her surroundings. If someone had attacked her at the moment, she’d have been dead without defense.

They were right. I thought I knew what I was doing, what I was getting into; but I’m still a horse crashing around in a glass shop. I’m still being pushed around instead of being in charge.

Past time to turn that around—if she could just figure out how.

A door opened in front of her; she went through without prompting, stepping into a cloud of delicate orange scent and an overall impression of
whiteness.

She stopped, shocked out of her brooding melancholy, and stared in disbelief. The walls of the large room had been almost completely covered with sheets of rare white satin; the floor, with thick rugs in muted grey and green colors. A large, contoured metal bathing tub stood in the center of the room, steam rising from within; from where Alyea stood, she could see white petals scattered across the surface of the bath water.

Two young teyanain women stood by the tub, both dressed in white robes, their eyes politely downcast and their hands folded together. A wide table between them held a tray filled with bath-brushes, small bowls of what looked to be soaps, scrubs, and lotions, and a few items Alyea had never seen before.

“You rest,” one of the teyanain guides said quietly from behind her. “You honored guest, you desert lord. You rest, you enjoy, you safe.” The door shut softly behind him.

Alyea stood still, remembering Teilo:
Do not trust the teyanain,
the old woman had said.
Not when they say hello, not when they say goodbye.
That brought up the image of the old woman writhing in a teyanain bathing tub, the surface slick with blood.

She drew in a deep breath, the citrus scent soothing the back of her throat; fisted her hands and turned around. Opening the door brought, as expected, two teyanain guards before her, their expressions politely attentive.

“Am I a prisoner?” she said bluntly.

“No,” one said. “You are honored guest. Do you wish to go elsewhere?” He tilted his head to one side, watching her with bright eyes in an expressionless face. “We take you anywhere you are allowed. You want to go walking?”

“I want—” She stopped, not at all sure what to do next, then said, very quietly, “No. I’m fine. Thank you.”

She shut the door and turned around to look at the bath again. The attendants hadn’t moved. They gave the impression that even if Alyea left the room, they would remain in the same silent, patient stillness.

Alyea let out a breath and said, “Hello.”

The two attendants bowed in perfect synchrony, then broke ranks. One came towards Alyea, motioning to a small bench by the door she hadn’t noticed before. “Please to sit, I take boots,” the girl said in a soft voice.

“I can—” Alyea stopped again, giving up. She sat down on the bench and allowed the servant to remove her trail-dusty boots and socks, then stood to permit the rest of her clothing to be removed. She pulled her shirt off herself, which obviously upset the servant; but it was that or practically kneel to let the short teyanain woman do it.

“Please,” the young woman by the bathing tub said as the first, arms laden with Alyea’s clothes and boots, ducked out of sight behind a curtain of white. Obviously, other rooms were hidden behind the draperies. The remaining servant motioned to the tub and repeated, “Please.”

Alyea climbed into the hot water without argument, discovering that the contours provided a perfect slant to lean her back against and that her legs stretched out without any need to bend at knee or ankle. The water covered just above her shoulders, and the smell of oranges was almost overwhelming. She shut her eyes and leaned her head back, feeling the heat releasing all her muscles, and gave a low moan of contentment.