The Arrows of the Heart Page 13

I nearly flung my bowl at him. But it would be a waste of the excellent stew, and I was still hungry, curse the man. So, I ate, biting down on the meat and chewing savagely.

  “It’s not good for you to keep all that anger bottled up,” Zyr observed. “Bad for your health.”

  “I am not angry,” I replied evenly, even sweetly, to prove I could.

  He barked out a laugh. “Yes, you are, gréine. You have lots of anger that you like to pretend away.”

  “I thought I was the saddest person you ever met,” I reminded him, setting down my empty bowl.

  “That too. They probably go hand in hand.” He was watching me, his intent gaze hotter than the fire.

  I shifted restlessly, wishing he would just finish eating and move on to sating his other appetites. Did prey feel this way, longing for the stalking to be over with already, even if it meant they’d be devoured in the end?

  “Sometimes I really wish for my cousin’s ability to read thoughts,” he observed in a wry tone.

  “Ursula?” I asked, surprised enough to forget her title, then jolting a little when he burst out laughing.

  “Moranu spare us, no!” He laughed more, then caught his breath. “That’s all we’d need—her high majestyness able to read our minds on top of ruling everything in sight. No, I meant Queen Andromeda. She’s also my cousin, as she is Ursula’s sister. Also Ami. All three are Salena’s daughters. Salena was my aunt,” he added, with a slight frown, though I didn’t know what for.

  I kept quiet, heartily grateful that he couldn’t read my thoughts.

  “So, you’ll have to tell. What makes you sad and angry?” he asked, setting his bowl aside, too.

  “I never said I was.”

  “Karyn.” He sounded disappointed in me, and when I peeked through my lashes at him, he had a determined look on his face.

  “My life hasn’t gone according to plan,” I bit out. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s a start. What was your plan that things didn’t go according to?”

  He had such a twisty way of phrasing things sometimes. “It’s a long story.”

  “We have time.” He waved a languid hand at the campfire.

  “I should clean up the dishes.”

  “Leave it,” he ordered, sounding annoyed again. “Quit fabricating chores to avoid dealing with me.”

  I glared at him in rising and impotent fury, frustrated enough to stare him down. “Can we just get this over with?” I demanded.

  He didn’t move, instead blinking long and slow, realigning his thoughts. The way cats do when foiled in an ambush. I almost expected him to nonchalantly lick a paw. So odd how I could see the animal forms in him, the same way I could see his man self when he was the gríobhth or the panther.

  “What, exactly, are we talking about?” he finally asked.

  “Sex!” I huffed at him.

  He cocked his head in that way of his, interest sparking, but also as if sifting through an unfamiliar scent in the air. “I thought we agreed to be friends only. No sex.”

  “But here we are.” I gestured to the night hemming us in. “Stop toying with me. I’m not an idiot, Zyr.”

  “Of course you aren’t, but you are a strange and confusing woman. What happened to clinging to your rules and virginity?” He still sneered the word, as if it tasted foul.

  “I may be a virgin but I know what happens when men and women are alone together,” I said, very reasonably, considering.

  He looked around our little camp. “Swimming, cooking stew, and eating?”

  “Oh, for Sól’s sake,” I snapped, jerking myself to my feet, unable to take the suspense any longer. I pulled my dress off over my head, the upper layer of my hair snapping and crackling from drying by the fire, the underneath snagging in still-damp snarls. It would be completely unmanageable, but that was the least of what I’d have to face in the morning. I struggled with the next layers, finally tossing them aside, too. The final two shifts were horribly damp and stuck to my skin. I tugged at them and found them all twisted up. Yanking harder, something ripped and a sob of frustration broke out of me.

  Zyr was there—startling me, he’d moved so silently—hands gripping my shoulders, sternly enough to quell my struggles. “Karyn.” He said my name in that same tone, maybe not annoyed so much as voicing his determination not to be annoyed. “I think I need for you to explain exactly what’s going on.”

  I couldn’t meet his gaze, but so close like this, very nearly embracing, we stood almost the same height. So I looked at his nose. Not a handsome nose, by any stretch, too big, arched like a beak. Like his cousin Ursula, I realized. I shouldn’t find him so beautiful when he had such an unlovely nose. “Sex,” I got out.

  “So you said before, but I’m still confused by this change. Why are you suddenly eager to get naked with me?”

  I felt like an idiot after all and on top of everything. If only I’d waited patiently for him to make the first move, the way a proper woman should. Perhaps I’d offended him by appearing eager.

  “Karyn,” he said, squeezing my shoulders a little, prodding me to reply.

  “I thought if I undressed, you’d be aroused enough to stop your games and take me already. I can’t—” To my horror, I sobbed again, a wrenching sound of grief this time. “I can’t—” I tried again and couldn’t breathe. Tears clogged my throat and filled my eyes. I choked them back, mortified to be weeping, and started coughing on the phlegm.

  “None of that now. Calm down.” Zyr sounded surprisingly kind. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. Good. At least this would be over with. I let him hold me, but he didn’t do anything else, just held me, patting, then stroking my back when the coughing subsided, sliding his fingers through my hair, and murmuring something in Tala, something low and rumbly that reminded me of his purr in gríobhth form. He swayed a little, too, his unintelligible words almost musical. After a while, my tears stopped trying so hard to escape. He felt warm and strong, and I realized I’d kind of melted into him.

  When had someone last held me like this? My mother, when I was a girl. I couldn’t remember a time since. I’d grown up, too big for such coddling. And Kral, of course, had never touched me beyond a kiss on the hand, or at most putting my arm through his—and even then he maintained a formal distance, making it clear that we enjoyed no intimacy of any kind. Only wise, in Emperor Hestar’s dangerous court.

  Never by a man. It felt … remarkable. The long, lean lines of his body somehow fit into mine like a missing puzzle piece. As if I belonged there. The thought made the too-easy tears rise again. I didn’t belong anywhere and I needed to get that through my thick head.

  “Your clothes are wet,” Zyr murmured.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to pull away. He let me, but only far enough so that he took my shoulders again, keeping me there.

  “Don’t be sorry. Why are you wearing wet clothes under dry ones? Let’s start there.”

  He had a point that it was a simpler question to answer. “Because I swam in them, of course.”

  “You swam… in your clothes?”

  “Yes, but they hadn’t dried yet when you summoned me, so I put my dry clothes back on top.”

  “When I summoned…” He trailed off, frowning. Then let go of me to scrub hands over his forehead as if he had a headache. “I think we have a communication problem.”

  “It’s true I’m not yet fluent in Common Tongue.”

  He laughed, but in exasperation, blue eyes full of some emotion I couldn’t interpret. Remembering, I averted my gaze, and he growled, very softly. “For a start, stop doing that—averting your gaze and being all submissive.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t apologize,” he snapped.

  I glared at him, angry enough to at least obey him by looking him in the eye. “Perhaps you’d prefer to issue me a list of rules that I can memorize so I won’t offend you.”

  “Better.” He did look relieved, as if some tension had
been removed. “Let’s sit, so I can explain something to you. And so your clothes and hair can dry. Sit with your back to the fire.”

  I obediently sat, staying still while he arranged my shifts around me, then spread out my hair, to maximize exposure to the heat. That meant I stared off into the night, which frankly came as a relief.

  “Your hair is so soft,” he remarked, combing his fingers through it. “Like silk. And so pretty. It catches all the different colors of the firelight, red-gold here, almost white there. I had no idea that it’s so curly, the way you have it in a braid all the time.”

  I relaxed a little, his touch—and flattery—warming me. “That’s why I braid it,” I offered, “because the curls and waves make it unmanageable.”

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He came to sit in front of me, cross-legged on the grass in easy flexibility. “Offering me a bit of personal information,” he clarified when I frowned at him.

  When I didn’t say anything—what was I supposed to say to that?—he sighed and took both of my hands in his. “I don’t mean to give you rules,” he said. “In fact, I’m finally figuring out something about you. If I say anything that sounds remotely like an order, you think you have to obey me. Is that right?”

  This felt like a trick, but I played along. “Of course.”

  “Of course,” he echoed with a pained look. “And why?”

  “Because that’s the way of things,” I replied, puzzled.

  “I’m really getting so I hate that phrase. No, don’t apologize. Eh—it’s really hard for me not to phrase things as orders. I’m not your superior, not a lieutenant of the Hawks.” He sneered that and I smiled a little. “I’m not royalty,” he continued. “Why is it the way of things that you think you have to obey me?”

  “Because you’re a man and I’m a woman,” I answered slowly, still looking for the trick.

  He squeezed my hands, dipping his chin in a sharp nod. “Aha! We’re getting somewhere, even if it is a really stupid, ridiculous place.”

  ~ 12 ~

  I tried to pull my hands away, but he hung on. “I’m not criticizing you,” he said. “I’m saying it’s ridiculous and stupid that you think—that is, that your culture makes you think … Eh! I’m not saying this well.” He paused for a deep breath. “You don’t have to obey me, Karyn. We’re partners in this mission. I’ll try not to phrase things as orders—which is an unfortunate habit of mine, apparently—and you’ll try not to take what I say as a command that must be obeyed, no matter how I phrase it.”

  “Is that an order?” I replied dryly.

  He laughed and I found myself smiling back. He had a wonderful laugh, uninhibited and musical—when he wasn’t being exasperated with me. “Well played, gréine. Well played. See? I think you have it in you. When you forget to be all submissive—when I make you mad enough to fight back—you do just fine.”

  I hitched a little at that. I didn’t think of myself as a submissive person, but Zyr did bring out an unusual defiance in me, which he said he wanted. “So, no averting my eyes, deferring, being submissive—and you want me to fight with you.”

  “It sounds odd summarized that way, but yes.” His thumbs rubbed over the backs of my hands and he studied them. “It’s also strange to try to explain something that’s second nature to me—”

  “Exactly,” I inserted in a wry tone, and he smiled briefly, meeting my gaze and sobering again. The firelight played on his face and his remarkable eyes caught the dancing flames, making them seem to glitter.

  “The thing is, Karyn,” he said slowly, “the thing to understand about us Tala is that our animal forms … inform our personalities in certain ways.”

  Just as Andi had tried to explain, but I kept silent, thinking he might not like it that I’d discussed his nature with his queen.

  “Most of my forms are predators,” he continued. “Not that I can’t take other kinds, but those are the ones that fit me best. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded, my throat dry for no good reason. Something about the intensity of his gaze made me aware that the firelight probably also silhouetted my body, the light cotton shifts drying and no longer clammily sticking to my skin. My nipples tightened with awareness and I only hoped he couldn’t see.

  “For a predator…” he trailed off, searching for words. “When you act submissive, it… it excites that part of me.”

  My heart picked up pace, the cotton of the shifts scraping my sensitive nipples. He spoke so simply of that excitement that it roused something in me, too. “I sometimes feel like prey around you,” I confessed, my voice coming out throaty. “When you look at me a certain way.”

  His gaze sharpened, that feral hunger in it. “Like this?”

  “Yes.” I could only whisper that, suddenly certain that I played with fire.

  “Karyn…” This time he said my name on a groan of need, that blazing gaze roaming over me, making me suddenly and absolutely certain he could see—perhaps sense—my arousal. “This is what I mean,” he said, setting his jaw, gaze resolutely meeting mine. “If you want me to respect your wishes, then you must be firm with me. No acting soft and submissive, because it only whets my hunger for you—do you understand?”

  I did, but only just then. “You mean, you don’t plan to take your pleasure of me tonight?”

  At least his bewilderment acted to diffuse the tension building between us. “This is what you kept anticipating—that I’d, what, rape you?”

  Ah, not just surprise but growing anger. “We’re alone out here,” I explained. “And I know men have needs. There’s no one else, so…”

  Abruptly he dropped my hands, on his feet before I saw him move. He paced a tight circle, and I could almost see a long tail, lashing with a whiplike crack. “So.” He rounded on me, fury crackling in the air. “So this is what you think of me. Or is it how you view all Tala? I’m just some animal who can’t control himself. That the moment we’re alone, I’ll just force myself upon you, willing or not.”

  I decided not to point out that his whole “I’m a predator and you act like prey” talk didn’t exactly contradict that impression. “I don’t know, do I?” I said through gritted teeth as I stood again, watching him warily. “You Tala have no rules, no laws, no etiquette at all that I can see. How am I supposed to know what you think is allowable?”

  “We don’t rape people!” he nearly shouted at me.

  “No, you just warn them not to ‘excite’ you too much!” I yelled back.

  He stopped. Stared. Then grinned. “Moranu, how I love it when you yell at me,” he said, almost reflectively. “What is wrong with me?”

  “I’ll make a list,” I shot back, which only made his grin widen.

  Then he sobered, coming toward me, slowly. “You should sit,” he told me, very gently.

  “Why?” I sounded suspicious but his quicksilver changes of mood confounded me.

  “Karyn, gréine, with the fire behind you, I can see every detail of your gorgeous figure. I would never force you—I promised to abide by your rules, and I will—but it’s no secret that I want you, rather dreadfully. I’m not above trying to seduce you, you know,” he almost purred it, so close to me that it would take only a breath for us to touch. “And now that I know you’re inclined to obey commands…” His tongue darted out, wetting his lip, and I watched in helpless fascination.

  “That’s what a Dasnarian man would do,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t have to force me. Just order me to submit.”

  “What?” Shock had Zyr gasping the word.

  “It’s the way of—”

  “Don’t say it.” Zyr blinked, revulsion crossing his face, and he stepped back. His turn to avert his gaze. “Excellent way to douse my arousal. Well done. Ouch.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t apologize,” he snarled, then jerked his gaze away and stared into the night. “And for the love of Moranu, would you please sit down?”

  Hastily, I sat. For good measure
, and since my shifts had thoroughly dried, I grabbed my overdress and tugged that on, too. Zyr glanced over and smiled without amusement.

  “Wise,” he observed. Then sat, heavily for his lithe grace, and put his chin in his hands, propping his elbows on his knees. “So, tell me about this person you plan to marry.”

  “Who?” I asked, confused by the sudden change of topic.

  “This mystery man.” The way Zyr said it made that sound questionable. “The one you’re saving your virginity for.”

  “Oh.” I busied myself lacing up my dress over my bosom, reasoning that the more barriers between us, the better. But when I looked up, Zyr yanked his gaze away, staring over my shoulder. Probably I should try not to draw his attention to such places. “I don’t know who it is. I have to find him.”

  “You sound like Dafne,” Zyr observed. When I raised my brows, he waved a hand. “I tried to seduce her, too, you know. Another professional virgin,” he added, with a note of disgust.

  I hadn’t known that, of course, but I didn’t say so. I’d seen Queen Dafne Nakoa KauPo when we stopped at Nahanau. She seemed very happily married to the king—and anything but virginal, judging by the way they touched each other. “I don’t think she is anymore,” I said judiciously.

  And he laughed, ruefully. “No. She found him. She felt she was waiting for someone special—her whole life, she’d waited—and boom! Off she goes to Nahanau and there he is. It wasn’t me.”

  “Did you love her?” I ventured.

  “Don’t be silly. Most of us don’t have to love people to want to take them to bed.”

  Ah. Point taken.

  “Did you love Kral?” Zyr asked suddenly, straightening. “Or, do you?”

  “No!” I burst out, then realized how it sounded. “I mean, I admired him. I was very young when we wed and I was so flattered…” I shook my head. “My family and the emperor arranged the marriage for us. No one meant for it to be about love.”

  “So that’s what you’re holding out for in your second marriage.”

  I drew up my knees under my gown and wrapped my arms around them. “My second marriage—that sounds so bad. I just wanted… a real marriage.”