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Seth wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure what bothered him most. The possibility that Raider’s quicksilver was tied to something bad? Or the simple fact that Raider wouldn’t fucking talk to him about it?
He rapped on the latticed door into Raider’s room. When there was no answer, Seth called Raider’s name. At the continued silence, Seth opened the door and found the room empty. Frowning, he returned to his own room and walked through to the hallway door. He opened it—and found Raider waiting in the foyer with a dhoti-clad servant.
Damn it, now Seth couldn’t talk to him.
This wasn’t the first time that Seth’s hesitancy had cost him a chance to speak with Raider. It had happened before, when they’d first arrived in Aqarat. Seth was never this hesitant. What the hell was it about Raider that twisted Seth up inside and made him afraid?
Raider’s amber eyes flicked to Seth and away. Like maybe he, too, was afraid.
But of what? Of Seth?
Surely not. And yet, it kind of felt that way as they both fell into silent step behind the servant as he led them through the palace to the prince’s private garden.
The summons, which had arrived as Seth was bathing, had indicated the private nature of the dinner, more exclusive than the usual nightly feast in the grand dining hall. It wasn’t out of line, not after the defeat of the sand serpent, but Seth was still relieved, as the servant led them along the grassy pathway to the garden’s wide lawn, to see the long, low table already crowded with courtiers.
Why should the presence of others be a relief? Seth couldn’t pin down a reason. All he knew was that he felt uneasy.
It was a shame, really, to be on edge right now because even Atri, goddess of love, beauty, and the arts, would have given this garden dinner her blessing.
Bright, multicolored birds twittered in wicker cages. Peacocks strutted through the grass. Courtiers as colorful as the birds sat on silk cushions around the long, low table covered in a white cloth. A woman clad only in ropes of pearls sat apart from the others on a plump cushion, playing a pear-shaped, stringed barboud, filling the air with its deep, hauntingly romantic tones.
On the table, golden bowls held grapes and quartered oranges, candied almonds and plump dates. Servants in gauzy robes or white dhotis poured dark wine from silver carafes, and steam billowed within the glass bellies of several hookahs. Smoky incense threaded through the air, heady frankincense and myrrh and something sharp that Seth couldn’t identify, all of it mingling with the garden’s sweet scents of jasmine and rose.
Their guiding servant bowed them toward a pair of tasseled cushions at what would clearly be the prince’s end of the table, judging by the extreme opulence. Crystal cups and golden utensils. A veritable mountain of cushions. A slender boy standing ready with a palm-frond fan.
To the left of the empty cushions sat Lord Malik, who gave them a sharply elegant smile from within the tidy frame of his goatee. The arcanist was dressed in a kaftan of deep purple silk embroidered with green and silver over matching shalvar pants. Gold bangles clinked together on his slim wrist as he raised his cup of wine.
“I was right,” Malik observed over the rim of his cup.
“About what?” Seth asked sharply as he seated himself beside the arcanist, too edgy to mind his tone.
Malik, however, didn’t react to his sharpness. He smiled. “A bath improved you both.”
“Oh. Yes.”
Malik was referring to their first conversation when he had extended Prince Rahim’s invitation to the palace, when Raider had questioned why the prince would welcome two ragged travelers.
Raider certainly didn’t look ragged now. He was dressed in shalvar pants of rose-colored silk and a sleeveless shirt of fine white linen. He wore no adornments and didn’t need them. He was absolutely, completely beautiful.
Sitting here beside him, amid all the romantic splendor of the garden and the elegant table, with the music and the heady scents, Seth wanted him, fiercely and abruptly. He wanted to tear off his own green silk tunic and pants, wanted to tear off Raider’s clothes right here, right now, and bear him down into the grass. He wanted to grind his thickening cock against this man he still, somehow, couldn’t trust but still, in spite of that, loved.
Seth shook the thought away. Gods. What the hell was wrong with him? This was neither the time nor the place for such thoughts.
As a slim male servant poured wine into Seth and Raider’s cups, Malik idly chatted about the garden’s exotic plants and the table’s succulent offerings, his conversation weirdly sidestepping the monumental events of the afternoon.
It wasn’t that Seth had anything he wanted to say to Malik about it, but it felt strange to have it hovering in the background, unacknowledged, while the sand serpent’s body lay just beyond the city wall.
As the dusky light faded away, glass-globed lanterns bloomed, casting a mellow, wavering light over the gathered company.
When Prince Rahim entered the garden dressed in silky white, wearing a cloth-of-gold turban studded with diamonds, everyone rose from their cushions, bowing until the prince seated himself at the head of the table. The musician had stopped but began to play again at Rahim’s impatient flick of a finger. Then servants brought out tureens of soup, baskets of bread, and platters of meat and seasoned vegetables.
While they ate and drank, Malik made frequent contact with Seth, laying fingers on his arm, leaning near to speak. In fact, there was a lot of that happening around the table.
And Seth … goddamn it, but he could not get his erection to go away. All it had taken was that brief fantasy of bearing Raider down into the grass, of seeking the hard length of him, of watching his body arch—
What the hell was wrong with him? He needed to talk to Raider, not fuck him. Even if that weren’t the case, it couldn’t happen right now anyway. He didn’t know why his thoughts were running that direction.
Besides, it was Malik’s fingers brushing his as the arcanist reached for the bowl of candied almonds. It was Malik’s chuckle in his ear.
