The Charmer (29 page)

Jasmine raised up and looked at him,
frowning. “My abduction? I wouldn’t worry about that, hon. It’s not
likely to happen twice in a lifetime.”

He sat up, spilling her off his chest and
leaving her bewildered. “It should not have happened once.”

“How could we have known what was going to
happen?” she protested, watching him pull on his pants, arming
himself. “It’s not your fault.”

Pulling on his vest and answering her with a
carefully neutral tone, he asked, “Then whose was it?” Before she
could defend him further, he went on, “I am not only your husband,
but Master of the Hunt. Your theft was my responsibility.” He went
to her wardrobe and collected a clean pair of pants and a shirt for
her. “Come, I want the medic to examine you.” He glanced at her
forearms. “We will see if he can remove the symbiont while we are
there.”

Troubled by his attitude, Jasmine pulled the
covers closer and asked with deceptive quietness, “What if I don’t
want it removed?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “That is not an
option, and you are seeing the medic regardless. I want to be
certain of your health. Come.” Again he held out her clothes, and
this time she reluctantly took them, responding to the note of
genuine concern in his voice. They could fight about the symbiont
latter.

“She’s in perfect health,” the medic
pronounced, looking at his clipboard. “In fact, she’s better than
ever. Her blood contains more oxygen, her lungs no longer function
below average, her circulation has improved, and.…” He looked at
Keilor significantly. “Pivotal changes have occurred in her
reproductive organs.”

A muscle ticked in Keilor’s jaw. “How
pivotal?”

“Crucial,” The medic answered just as
cryptically.

Keilor’s face darkened. “Can you remove the
symbiont?”

There was a pause. “Well, if—” the medic
began, but Jasmine cut him off.

“What are you saying?” Jasmine demanded. Had
the symbiont somehow made her fertile? Hope surged within her.
Maybe… “Can we have children now?”

“No,” Keilor answered, and turned to exit the
medic’s office.

Alarmed, Jasmine hopped off the examining
table and bolted through the door after him. What was the matter?
“Keilor! Wait.” He slowed a bit, but he didn’t look at her. “Don’t
you want to have kids?” she asked anxiously. If so, why would he be
angry about it, unless…

“There will be no children,” he told her
flatly.

She jerked to a halt, her face paling as she
absorbed the shock of his rejection. Feeling wooden, she followed
him, holding in the hurt, and a tiny piece of her spirit walled
itself away.

“There are political repercussions to your
producing a child I am not willing risk at this time,” he
explained, his eyes facing front.

Jasmine halted and grabbed his vest, forcing
him to face her, uncaring that their escort could hear every word.
“I don’t care about politics,” she told him, her throat tight. She
searched his eyes for something of his feelings. There was
nothing.

“I do,” he told her with cold-blooded calm,
not a trace of hesitation in his manner. Jasmine’s heart shriveled
within her, and when he made no move to walk on, she left him.

“I’m two months pregnant,” Rihlia informed
Jasmine with a radiant smile. She’d nearly squeezed her to death
when she’d first seen her and scolded her about taking so long to
come home, as if it had been in her power to hurry up. “If it’s a
girl her middle name will be Jasmine.”

Jasmine smiled and hid the sadness in her
eyes by reaching for a cookie she didn’t want. “I bet your mother
is ecstatic.”

Rihlia grinned. “And then some. I catch her
looking at my stomach and tearing up all the time. I swear she’s
walking on air. And Jayems…” She sighed dreamily. “He’s like a
little kid counting the days until Christmas.

“But enough about me! Keilor almost drove us
crazy, running around as grim as an undertaker the entire time that
you were gone. I’m surprised he’s let you out of his sight
already.”

Jasmine’s smile froze. “We’ve already said
our hellos, and he had some important business to take care of, so
I came to see you.” Then, before Rihlia could ask any more, she
launched into a recounting of her adventures, exaggerating and
playing down the danger where appropriate. By the time that she was
through, her trek through the swamp had taken on the glamour of an
adventure, and Rihlia was completely enthralled.

“Wow,” she breathed. “I had no idea when
Jayems told me about the People-Who-Came-Before, the Ronin, I’d
ever get to see one of their critters up close.”

Uncertain what her friend was referring to,
Jasmine frowned.

Seeing her confusion, Rihlia exclaimed, “The
Ronin are the humans who found this place, and the symbionts,
before the Haunt arrived. There was a big war over who would keep
the land, about sixty years ago. Finally it became clear there
wasn’t going to be a winner in the situation, and both sides
decided it was a stupid waste of time. They moved into the swamps
after signing a treaty with us.”

Looking like she was about to hand Jasmine a
gift, she leaned forward and told Jasmine, “Because of the
symbionts, they live as long as we do.”

Jasmine stared at her, ramifications and
possibilities jogging through her mind. “Are they still there?”

“Sure.” Rihlia leaned back and smiled with
satisfaction. “I’m surprised you didn’t see any.”

Jasmine stared out her window, watching the
sunset gloss the sky over the sea with bright fuchsia and gold. Her
room had been thoroughly cleaned and Keilor’s stuff transferred
back to his old quarters. The door was locked, and she was in the
mood to reinforce her solitude with charmer commands, if
necessary.

She would not be the one rejected this
time.

What a shame she hadn’t figured out Keilor’s
game before she submitted to a “marriage” with him. Nice and tight,
legal and binding, at least here, or so he’d led her to believe.
Thanks to a little investigation, she‘d discovered that wasn’t
true. The bond they’d created could be severed with about a year’s
worth of abstinence.

Tonight would be day one.

No doubt Keilor would put up a fuss. Her lip
curled. Honor or some sense of ownership would compel him, not
affection. This morning had proven that.

Keilor halted in shock when he saw the red
rune of divorce on Jasmine’s door, between two unhappy guards,
there for the world to see. It had taken most of the day to collect
himself after the crippling blow the medic had dealt. To know that
his wife could have his children, but to be unable to give them to
her because of a law passed years ago...

The devastation had nearly killed him, and he
hadn’t been as kind to her as he should have been. There had been
no way he could have explained to her at the time, though. He’d
hadn’t had the strength.

Closing his eyes to still the fear and hurt
the sight of the rune caused, he stiffened his spine, prepared to
erase the battle lines between them. As soon as that was done, he’d
erase the cursed rune and get on with their lives as if it had
never appeared.

His loose hair brushed against his back as he
called through the door to the wife he knew still loved him.
Knowing how much she loved it, he’d worn it loose for her.
“Dragonfly?”

“You have been served with a divorce, Lord
Keilor, given by authority of the Lord Jayems on the basis of your
refusal to provide your wife with heirs,” his wife’s cool voice
answered. “It will not serve you to use that name now.”

A cold rush flowed through him, but he forced
the worst of it back. Jayems hadn’t had a choice. No doubt Jayems
had already tried to dissuade her with the facts, but Keilor told
her anyway, “There is a law against me doing so, as well,
wife
. The penalty for breaking it is fatal.” When she didn’t
answer right away, he added, putting as much conviction in his
voice as he could manage, “I would anyway, if a way could be
found—”

“There’s no law on my world,” Jasmine
answered.

Betrayal slapped him. How could she ask him
to go to a place where his kind was hunted and feared? To give up
the Haunt? What kind of life could he or their children have there?
“I have no place on your world,” he answered, his voice taunt. “Is
our desire to conceive children worth starting a war?”

“Do you really want my answer to that?” came
her flippant reply.

“So speaks a woman who has never seen blood!”
he snarled, pressing his palms to the door. “Have you ever been in
battle? I remember the Symbiont Wars. I will not be the cause of
another.”

Why could she not understand? The very
creature that gave him the ability to give her his child also made
her his political enemy. Peace depended on strict segregation of
two such volatile races, and as the Master of the Hunt, he couldn’t
ignore that.

“All the more reason to go our separate
ways,” came the slightly shaky response.

Hearing her uncertainty, he pressed, “I do
want children, Jasmine. There is still no reason why we can’t
adopt—” Something heavy slammed against the door, shaking it, and
he snatched his hands away.

“That’s not the issue!” she yelled back.

“
Then what is?”
he roared, frustration
getting the better of him. Thundering rains, what was her problem?
No answer came, and he reached for the door. Enough of this. She
was his wife!

One of her guards, looking extremely unhappy,
got in his way, and the other tensed in readiness. White-hot fury
slashed through him as he realized he was legally bound to remain
outside his own wife’s door until given permission to enter.

Only a lifetime’s discipline kept him from
thrashing the soldiers

his
soldiers!

and doing it anyway.

Instead, he banked his rage and called to his
woman with the age-old challenge of the wronged husband. “You are
my wife. I am your husband. Promises given, promises taken,
Jasmine. You will acknowledge me again, once and for all time. That
is
my
promise.” The guards grinned fiercely and saluted him.
Keilor nodded back and spun on his heel.

He had a battle to plan.

Jasmine soon found she had no supporters. Her
best friend wouldn’t speak to her, her adopted family was coldly
polite, and all of Keilor’s friends, with the exception of Mathin,
whose brooding face discouraged discourse, shunned her. Urseya was
the only one willing to spend time in her presence, for the express
and pointed purpose of fulfilling her promise to train Jasmine.

Keilor did not ignore her. Everywhere she
went, she felt his eyes on her, until she began to feel stalked. A
week went by, but he never said a word to her, just joined her as
she strolled in the gardens, watched her as she practiced with
Urseya, or mounted his ugly brute of a stag when she chose to
practice riding. He was as unshakable as the plague and as
impervious to chill as a mountain.

There was nothing cold about his eyes,
however.

Constantly she felt his eyes strip her, and
they spoke eloquently of the touches that followed in his mind,
torturing her with reminders of a desire that never died, only grew
until it coalesced in a seething ball of fire that threatened to
escape her command at any moment. Constantly she saw his eyes
ignite and his nostrils flare as he drank deep of the scent of her
desire. The sight caused her to tremble, and the tiniest of cracks
appeared in her wall.

All her life she’d wanted something of her
own, something good she’d created that no one else could ever take
away. Her logical mind began to nag at her that Keilor and her
marriage was that something good, a creation worth saving, but her
emotional self refused that logic, bringing the image to her again
and again of Keilor’s face when he’d asked if the symbiont could be
removed. He doesn’t want you, that other self whispered.

Rejection. Humiliation. Old foes with heavy
chains bound her. Days went by as she let them torture her,
wallowing in emotional filth until she couldn’t remember what it
was like to feel clean and bright and full of hope. Nausea began to
plague her, and she didn’t want to eat. The exercise she forced on
herself in her attempts to forget Keilor wore on her, and she took
to sleeping until nearly noon.

It wasn’t until two weeks into her emotional
paralysis that she finally noticed how tender her breasts had
become and recalled that her period should have occurred some time
ago.

Relief swamped her. The decision had been
taken out of her hands. She was pregnant.

There could be no divorce.

Isfael slapped Keilor on the back, nearly
sending him sprawling over the scarred tavern table he shared with
Mathin. “I never doubted you for a second!” he told Keilor,
grinning fiercely as he claimed a seat.

A waitress set down a pitcher full of strong
barley beer, avoiding Raziel who thumped Keilor with bruising
enthusiasm. “I have only one question,” he said, spinning a chair
around and straddling it. “What are you doing here when you could
be bedding her?”

“Who?” Keilor asked with a frown, totally in
the dark and a little annoyed at the pounding. What were these
fools going on about?

“Your wife, you fool!” Raziel retorted,
taking a swig of amber beer and wiping his mouth with the back of
his hand. “The symbol’s off her door.”

Keilor froze. It had still been there when
he’d walked by, just an hour ago. “What?”

Raziel smirked. “The stubborn woman has
finally come around. Go get her!”

Wary, yet hopeful, Keilor rose from the table
with the merry jests and naughty suggestions of his friends ringing
in his ears. Could it really be this easy?