“Don’t do that.” Tor’s voice was quiet, so quiet his words were snatched up by the wind. “Don’t defend what he did. He’s dead now. We can all admit the truth about him.” He turned toward the massive, rambling fortress in front of them, soaring into the dusky sky. “Let’s eat. The selissa is hungry.”
He looked back to her, and she must have made a face because his eyes crinkled up like they did when he was laughing at her. “And her plant needs water.”
His mother’s flinty eyes settled on her.
“And a table.” Tor gestured for her to precede him, but a girl of seventeen or eighteen stepped up beside her, and Tor’s mother moved in beside him, and somehow, they were separated.
The girl—one of his sisters, Klym learned—guided her into the dining room. She was tall, with hair in long, spiraling curls that fell below her waist. She introduced herself as Janna and chattered so much Klym’s head spun.
Janna led her to a chair in the center of the long banquet table, while Tor’s mother led him to an enormous throne at the head. Servants whisked away the linens at her seat and replaced the golden platters and goblets with austere efficiency.
Seventeen diners separated her from where Tor now sat.
His mother raised an exultant brow from her seat on Tor’s left.
He turned away from Gaspart, looking around him before scanning the room and settling on her, a dark scowl forming between his brows.
He rose from his seat, but she held up a hand to stop him.
He was farther away than he’d been since they’d left Frigorria. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, annoyed at how uneasy that made her.
Only sickening logic could justify her finding comfort in the proximity of her captor. But after so many days in the close confines of his ship, the distance yawned and stretched like a time warp.
The room brimmed with the noise of hundreds of people, men in short white dresses that left one side of their chest and shoulders bare, and women wore loose, colorful pants and skirts. Music and incense, chatter, brisk servants, the tinkle of glassware.
Janna smiled and left her alone.
Klym lifted her water goblet to her lips.
The woman on her right leaned in so close that her breath, with a scent like roses, brushed hotly over her upper arm. “What kind of lover is he?”
Klym managed, just barely, not to spit water over the table, but it was a near thing. She turned to look at Tor at the head of the table. Amidst all the men in their short dresses, he looked more dangerous than ever, like a predator hiding among the flock, in the black shirt that clung to every one of his muscles. There was something about him. It was as if he were lit from within. A study of contrasts, black hair and pale skin, black eyes, white teeth, black tattoos curling and twisting over hard planes.
The woman on her other side leaned in closer. “We’ve been so curious. Waiting for him to come back.”
Klym lowered the glass. Waiting?
Waiting for what?
His gaze was hard upon hers, eyebrows low. His hand wrapped around the armrest of his chair.
“What do you mean you’ve been ‘waiting’?“ she asked.
The woman slanted a coy glance, sending dark hair cascading over her shoulder. “He left so long ago. Before I even came of age. I loved Dillan so much. He was so patient during my heat cycles.” She stared down the table at Tor, her face positively lusty.
Klym’s fingers tightened around the goblet.
“He’s so different from Dillan,” said the woman. “His brothers are nothing like him.”
“No one is anything like Tor,” Klym whispered, still staring at him.
Heat cycles… Tor had mentioned that felanas needed Primes for breeding, and that they went through cycles when they needed a Prime. He’d failed to mention that they expected such servicing from him.
The thought made her irrationally angry. She sipped her wine, glowering down the table.
He raised a brow in silent question.
The other woman leaned in closer. “Elliara and Tiava say he’s very... what word did they use, Kiana?”
“Exuberant,” said Kiana, nodding sagely.
“Exuberant?” Klym echoed. Oh, she’d show him exuberant.
“They say he’s very exuberant in bed. Is that true?”
It hurt. A sharp stab. She traced her fingers along the golden filigree charger.
Why did she care if he had slept with women she’d never heard of, long ago? She wasn’t really his wife. Ten years ago, she’d been back at the Institute. And evidently, while she’d been learning pirouettes and flower arranging, he’d been sleeping his way through all of Tamminia.
“And Sylese says he made her climax three times in a single round.”
This was getting ridiculous. Just how many women had he slept with? And were they all in this room?
A platter with an elaborate tower of food was lowered in front of her. Spiky green leaves, mixed with purple berries in a geometric tower. She speared a bite and brought it to her mouth. If it had a flavor, it was lost on her. It lodged in her throat.
She forced herself to smile gaily. Hundreds of eyes were watching, after all. “He’s very thorough, I’ll give him that,” she said, and the two women squealed happily.
He wound a tendril of her plant around his finger, the blue flowers standing out amid all the gold and amber of the room.
“I can’t wait until my next heat so I can find out.”
Next heat?
“Pardon me?”
The other woman stared down the table at Tor, face nauseatingly adoring. “He’s so handsome. All those tattoos.” She sighed wistfully. “He fought at Punt-Rayabad. He was only a boy. They say he killed hundreds. That’s what the tattoos mean, and the scars. They sa—”
“No. No, no. What did you say before that?” Klym asked, the blood rushing in her veins, making her head swim. “About your next heat?” Next as in coming soon. Next as in sometime in the future. Next as in not the past.
The woman’s red
