Oh, the satisfaction of seeing Bazir at a loss for a response. Not nearly as satisfying as gouts of blood would have been—or as satisfying as Maddek’s fierce grin. Yet still better than all that had come before.
His hot gaze upon her, Maddek licked his fingers, then shoved away from the table. Yvenne held out her hand, but he helped her not to her feet. Instead he gripped her backside in his brutish hands and hauled her up, her face to his face, and urged her thighs around his waist.
“Then let us wait no longer,” he growled.
Riding him already. Yet not straddling his hips, as he’d sometimes carried her before, so that she might feel the steel of his arousal between her thighs. Higher now he held her, and she understood why when he turned away from the table and said in low voice, “Give me warning if your brother practices his aim.”
And throw a knife at Maddek’s back. With her arms wreathing his strong neck, her fingers tangled in his thick loose hair, she watched over his shoulder. Only after they passed out of the prince’s chambers and Danoh and Banek fell in behind them did she let go a shuddering breath and bury her face against his warm throat.
His sword hand slid up her silk-covered spine to gently cup her nape, the brace of his forearm against her back holding her against him. “Strong allies we make, you and I.”
That was truth. Though he’d angered her, he’d also seen that she was faltering and had waded in to help. Just as she’d frustrated him earlier that day with her decision to seek Cadus’s protection, but had also found a solution to stopping her brother that did not require his warriors to sacrifice themselves fighting two hundred soldiers.
Yet Yvenne feared that any reply might be more sob than word, so she only nodded against his neck. He smelled of the same coconut soap that she’d used. Only the faintest scent of his sweat and horse that she’d become so accustomed to lingered on his skin.
“You learn lessons more quickly than I. And in a cleverer manner, too.” A deep breath lifted his chest against hers. “I should have heeded your caution against underestimating him.”
Embarrassment flooded her face. Ashamedly she admitted, “You were more prepared than I was.”
“No. Will you not look at me?”
She shook her head against his throat.
His smooth stride hitched. “Are you hurt?”
How to answer that? Did she tell him of the burning in her eyes, the hot lump in her throat, the rage that still felt like a blade in her heart?
She could not. But she could give him partial truth. They had just seen battle, and she’d vowed to reveal a warrior’s wounds. “My pride has suffered fatal injury.”
His silent laugh rumbled against her and he pressed his face into her hair. “It may seem fatal. But from repeated injuries to my own pride, I know that it quickly recovers—and often swells larger after the healing.”
Her lips curved against his neck. Still she did not look up but tightened the embrace of her legs and arms.
“I underestimated him,” Maddek said again, voice gruff against her ear. “Never did I think a man such as Gareth could be persuaded by your brother’s lies. He and Bazir have served on the council many years together. He well knows how sly-tongued the Syssian royals can be. Cadus, too, and I had perceived him as another reasonable man.”
“He is,” Yvenne whispered thickly.
“I am not so reasonable. This I know. So if I had not already set my cockbrained mind against him, he might have persuaded me, too.”
Painfully she said, “It would not be the first time you doubted my motives and intentions.”
“It would not.” The muscles of his throat worked as if he swallowed gravel. “Better that the only sounds I hear from your brother are screams from his tongueless mouth.”
Yvenne nodded in agreement. She would like to hear those, too.
His rough voice continued. “There is no shame in his provoking you. You are also no impulsive fool. You cleverly persuaded me to marriage even while my claws dug into your throat. But with family, it is not so easy to maintain reason. In that, Cadus spoke true. Every cut is deeper, every pain sharper.”
Whether she loved them or hated them. “That is so,” she said thickly, and he held her tighter.
Also true was that every wound inflicted on an entangled heart bled more. For Maddek’s words had been a soothing balm, yet they also reopened another wound. All this day, she’d been so eager for her moon night, awaiting all the pleasure he’d promised her. But it was more than simple pleasure she wanted from him now, as he held her so tightly and tended to her warrior’s wounds after their battle. She yearned for the love and affection that Maddek already warned her that he would never give.
But her would-be husband was a strong ally. And he would ease her need.
She would be content.
In the terraced gardens, she had no view of the moon peeking above the eastern horizon, but Vela’s full face always rose with the closing of Enam’s eye. Yvenne watched it sink into a fiery sea of red and orange. As the last glare of gold vanished, she turned her face against Maddek’s neck again and licked a hot path up his throat.
His groan in response was such satisfaction, as was the possessive grip he took of her bottom again, squeezing her soft flesh with both hands. In full sight of the warriors, never did Maddek expose what he did to her. Yet Danoh and Banek walked behind and she was at his front, so they could not see how he tugged free her breechcloth, leaving her bare beneath her robes, or those brutish hands lifting and lowering so that her swollen wetness rode over the ridged muscles of his stomach. Yvenne panted at his throat, and when licking was not enough she sucked at his skin as he sometimes sucked on hers, with open lips and pressure that pulled at every sensitive part of her. At the first draw of her mouth, he grunted as if in pain, and she did it again and again, until it seemed not like sucking but kisses that she bestowed the length of his neck.
At the spiraling walk that led to their quarters, he stopped the slow ride that rubbed her most intimate flesh against him, and she knew it was because they were nearing the other warriors. She hid her flushed face against his shoulder.
He could not take her to bed now. Though Bazir was still at the prince’s dinner, and would likely wait to attack until he believed most of the Parsathean warriors slept, he might send his Rugusian guard ahead.
Yet the bed was where Maddek seemed to be taking her. He passed Kelir with a gruff, “All is ready?”
“It is,” the other warrior said.
“Then douse the lamps and send our invitations.”
In the dark Maddek carried her past the parlor, then through the vestibule that led to the bedchamber. From beyond the open balcony came the crash of waves. A cool breeze slipped through the chamber and rippled the curtains surrounding the bed.