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They paused to catch their breath, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I'd swive you against this wall if you weren't armored to your back teeth and there wasn't a mob of thousands about to descend on us.”
She smiled, her eyes bright with a firefly's glow in the dim hall. The smile faded a little. “It doesn't have to be real. This hasty marriage. It was Brishen's idea to lower your standing among the Beladine people. A formality only. We can figure out the rest when we leave...”
She paused when he placed a finger across her lips. “I want it to be real in every way. Do you?”
Even the fear of having a scarpatine barb impale him didn't compare to the terror of waiting for her answer. The smile returned. “Yes. Very much.”
They kissed again, lost in each other until the thunder of numerous footfalls reached their ears. “The crowd,” Serovek said.
“And the king awaiting us,” she replied.
They fled the forum ahead of the surge of humanity filing out of their and hurried to the palace. A few hailed them as they passed, offering shouted congratulations, but no one stopped them. An entourage of guards led them to the antechamber where they waited for Rodan.
He didn't make them wait long. He wore the same sour look he'd given Anhuset at the forum, and he didn't waste time on good wishes or congratulations. “Whether or not this marriage is a sham is of no concern to me, but here's how it will work from now through the end of my reign and those of my heirs, margrave.” His eyes narrowed, their murky irises glittering with threat. “If you put aside your Kai wife to marry a human one, you forfeit High Salure. If your Kai wife dies, and you take another human wife, you forfeit High Salure. If you die before your Kai wife does, she inherits nothing and will return to her people. If some strange sorcery makes it possible for you to sire children off your Kai wife, you forfeit High Salure.” He paused and his brow lowered even more in a scowl. “And if you ever ally yourself with Bast-Haradis against Belawat for any reason, you forfeit High Salure, because I will have you put to death without trial. Are we understood?”
Serovek didn't hesitate. “Perfectly, Your Majesty.”
The king stared at him and then Anhuset in grim silence as if he weighed the sincerity of Serovek's answer. Seemingly assured, he spoke again. “I've already sent a message to my regiment at High Salure. By the time you arrive, they'll be gone and on their way back to Timsiora. You may even pass them on the road.”
A small voice urged Serovek to accept the king's terms, bid him farewell and leave the capital with all speed, Anhuset by his side. A greater voice pushed him to request a favor. “Your Majesty, I would claim redress of the false charges made against me by my steward Bryzant.” His fury over Bryzant's treachery hadn't gone away; it merely settled in his gut like a stone, pushed down while he tended to more urgent matters.
One of Rodan's eyebrows arched, and the same gloating half smile from earlier played across his mouth. “Were they false? Truly? Maybe in practice but possibly not in spirit.” He shrugged, obviously savoring what he was about to say. “You'll have to get your revenge on Bryzant another day. I've sent him home to his father's estate. I suggest you put aside your desire for vengeance for now and return to yours.”
Were he not the king or if Serovek didn't value his own skin, he would have flattened Rodan in that moment with a punch to the face. He reached out to hold Anhuset's arm, feeling the quiver of muscle there, half fearful that even if he restrained himself, she might not do the same. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said, his voice calm. “Then if you require nothing else...”
Rodan dismissed them with a short “Go,” and turned his back on them.
Anhuset waited until they were halfway to the stables where she'd left her horse before speaking, and her tone would have curdled milk. “Spiteful old bollocks bag,” she spat. “He did that on purpose. He knew you'd want Bryzant's head on a pike.Iwant Bryzant's head on a pike.”
Her outrage for him made Serovek smile inside though he didn't dare display it. “He'll not get away with his treachery. There's always consequences. It's just a matter of when, not if.”
At the stables, Anhuset traded her mail hauberk to the stablemaster for a second horse. Serovek groused over the trade all the way to the gate. “He'll resell it in the market and get fourtime what this nag is worth.”
“Think of it as one less thing you'll have to strip off me for a good swiving,” she said. And with that, he no longer complained about the trade.
They put Timsiora behind them without looking back and Serovek followed Anhuset to a place deeper in the conifer wood, on a rise that gave a view of the road below but was hidden by the trees. A tent stood within the shadows, its gray canvas blending in with the patches of snow and the understory of winter-dead brush. The remains of a fire lay in front of the tent.
“Home for now,” Anhuset said. “Unless you'd rather return to Timsiora for a day of rest.”
If he never saw the Beladine capital again in his lifetime, it would be too soon. He was exhausted, in pain, lusting for his wife, and desperate for true sleep. The tent seemed the most inviting place in the world to him, even it did look rather narrow. “Are we both going to fit in there?”
Her eyes shone golden in the shadows. “One of us will probably have to sleep atop the other.”
“As I'm still recovering from having the breath knocked out of me when you fell on me, I call top.” She laughed at his wink before urging him to dismount so she could see to his blistered skin.
He sat patiently while she physicked the blistered patches of flesh where the scarpatine venom had burned him. Bare to the waist, he shivered in the cold, skin pebbled with gooseflesh under her touch as she made a quick salve from supplies she kept in a satchel. “It's just a comfrey ointment,” she said. “I'm sure there's an apothecary in Timsiora who can sell a better concoction, but this will do for now unless you want me to ride back.” She spread the ointment with careful fingers, pausing at intervals to brush her lips across the uninjured places on his body.
“This will do fine,” he said, shivering, unsure if it was from the cold or the sensual pleasure of her affection. That, more than the ointment, made him forget his discomfort.
He soon forgot everything except the weight of her limbs on his, the smoothness of her skin, her scent in his nostrils, and her heat as she sheathed his cock deep in her body and rode him into oblivion, reaching her climax before he reached his. Her moans and the grip of her thighs coaxed him to join her, and he uttered her name in prayer as his eyes rolled back and he came hard inside her.
The tent was indeed narrow and half collapsed on one side thanks to their exertions, but neither cared. While Serovek had claimed his place atop Anhuset, they ended up on their sides facing each other, legs and arms entwined, skin to skin, breasts to chest. He kept an arm around her hips, holding her close to stay inside her. Her lamplight eyes burned softly, and Serovek wiped away a streak of sand granules from her cheek with his thumb.
“How are you, wife?” he said, savoring the term.
Her features gentled even more, and the corners of her mouth curved upward. “Slippery.”
He chuckled, then stopped when he felt himself sliding out of her. He gripped her hips even tighter, not ready to leave that sweet place just yet.
