A ripple in the leaves of a turquoise tree in the path drew Klym’s attention. Janna stood there, her hands twisted in front of her, her brows drawn tightly together. Staria stood beside her.
Klym dipped her finger in the water. “Does Janna still report to you about me?”
A half smile curled over Layanna’s cheek, and a dimple flashed. “No. She tells me only what you tell her to tell me.”
Klym shook her feet off and rewrapped them in their bandages. “I don’t need help getting away. At least not from you.”
She rose to stand on unsteady feet, and Layanna closed a brittle hand around her wrist.
“I know my son,” Layanna said. “He wouldn’t have taken you unless he wanted to.”
Her stomach twisted again. Sanger had said the same thing. But they didn’t know Tor, not really. The Tor they knew was the old one, the one who’d laughed and brawled and done as he pleased. She’d known Tor only as a regio, and regios, like kings, were the least free people of all.
They didn’t get to fall in love or marry for themselves.
“It doesn’t matter. Tell Tor I left because I found someone who could take me home.”
She almost laughed then, because it was so simple. She didn’t need anyone to take her home. She would take herself home. She touched her mother’s pearls.
She wanted her own freedom enough to take herself home. With a little help.
She hesitated, unable to resist. “Wish him luck with the peace deal,” Klym said, and turned toward Janna and Staria.
Janna wrapped her in a fierce hug.
“I’m coming with you.” Staria crossed her arms. “You’d miss me. And I want my science serum.”
35
Gone again?
“WHERE’S KLYM?” Tor asked Gaspart, after Jeor departed. He leaned back experimentally in his new chair.
It was much better than the old one—new leather, so no one’s balls but his own had touched it. It didn’t squeak, plus it was bigger. A solid chair for a ruler. Comfortable, but not too comfortable. Not quite as good as his seat on the ship, which he’d have to sell soon, but good.
“She eats with the felanas now,” said Gaspart.
Tor drummed his thumbs on the armrest, pleased. She was making efforts to fit in here. Whether she knew it or not, every step she made to befriend someone was part of adapting to accepting Vesta as her home. She needed to see it as a place she could belong, rather than a place he’d trapped her.
He’d left her with a decision to make because he’d known she needed the ultimatum to force her to face it. She needed to believe that she came to him on her terms, and more than that, she needed to see what they had without being blinded by their connection.
And he had to admit, he’d needed a break himself. A state of permanent arousal was an uncomfortable one, and whenever he was in her presence, he lost focus, and his whole body just wanted to rut. Whatever pheromones she released, they were as strong to him as the ones the felanas released when they went into heats, only sweeter, and under-laced with that mystifying fruit.
The night she’d come back from the riot, it had taken every last ounce of self-control he possessed not to fuck her, but he’d known somehow, that deep down, if he did, if he took the choice away from her, she’d hate him for it. She’d feel trapped forever.
“She’s befriended them?”
“Getting closer. She is close with Staria and Janna, and with them come a few more. She’ll get there. Even Mother seems to have softened.”
Pride surged through his chest, and he covered his mouth to hide a growing smile. “Mother hates everyone.”
“She seems to hate Klym slightly less than everyone else. She had someone come up from the city to cut her hair.” Gaspart rested his elbow on his knee, leaning forward. “You’ll claim her tonight, Tor? No more of this bullshit. Whatever softness you feel for her, it’s not worth risking Tamminia.”
“I know that,” Tor said, the words layered with a warning growl.
A growl which Gaspart ignored. “Do you? Make no mistake, Pijuan is coming. There have been whispers. People are talking. They don’t trust you.”
“The men trust me.”
Gaspart made a face. “Some of them. The ones who remember you, the ones who saw you the last few days, who fought beside you, but their wives don’t. They see a man who rejected felanas, who keeps a foreigner by his side. And the other rulers don’t understand her hold over you. Get it done tonight, so when Pijuan comes, he can’t take her.”
“Enough,” Tor growled, rising from his chair, glaring down. Normally, a humani, standing in front of an angry, bristling Prime, would cower or apologize, but Gaspart did none of that.
He merely leaned his bulk back in the sofa, slapped his belly and grinned.
Tor didn’t bother saying goodbye, just left Gaspart so he could go find his wife.
HE’D BE LYING if he didn’t admit that he’d enjoyed the three days sleeping under the stars, sweating under the sun, listening to stories that only a soldier could understand, but he’d missed her.
He wanted her under his hands, in his arms, under his body. They say Argenti women had pheromones that ensnared a man, and he believed it. He’d barely been able to think without her the past couple days.
She was not in the felanas dining quarters.
“Where’s Klym?”
The felanas shrugged and shuffled, but no one knew.
“No one has seen her?”
One of them—Monna, he thought—rose to her feet. “The steward came to get her an hour ago, maybe two. To tell her you’d come, but hadn’t sought her out.”
Tor didn’t imagine the note of censure in her voice.
Nor the look on Kiava’s face.
He backed out of the room.
He checked the bedchamber.
Empty. The plant sat in the
