Negotiation: A Twelve Kingdoms Novella (The Twelve Kingdoms) Read online

  “You don’t talk like a sailor.”

  “Another gambit to hint how much more you know about me. What is it you’re really trying to tell me, Salena of the nonexistent Tala?”

  “That I do know more than you do. Because of that I can help you, Uorsin, late of Elcinea, failed leader of Duranor’s now decimated forces.”

  The blood leapt under the thin skin of his broad cheekbones, that anger flaring like the flames between them. Over and over, she’d seen in her visions how the rage drove him—out of his poor fishing village, into greater and more important roles in the war, a strategist and blood fury warrior. It would also drive him—and all the Thirteen Kingdoms, counting Annfwn—into shattered fragments of what could have been. The double-edged blade that could unite or destroy.

  And both at once.

  “What?” She needled him with her mocking tone. “Did I speak an untruth—or can you not bear to face what is real?”

  “I know the truth!” His hand flexed on the hilt of the sword by his side, a grimace of pain glancing over his face. Pain from the wound or of the defeated general—which was worse? “Believe me, Witch, you cannot know what it’s like to watch your troops die because of your failure. To see your own dreams and the dreams of millions crumble to dust along with it. Foolish is the warrior who cannot recognize when he is vanquished.”

  “Then you have surrendered?” She knew he hadn’t, but she wanted to plant that word in his mind.

  “No.” He said it softly, releasing his grip on the hilt to stroke it with near affection, then flicked his eyes up to her. “That’s why I want Annfwn.”

  “You will never have it.”

  *

  “Who are you to say so?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  Which told him nothing, as she knew perfectly well. She looked beyond beautiful in the firelight. Uncannily so. She was probably the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen for himself, like an image from one of Glorianna’s chapels. No, not Glorianna, with her sunshine and pink roses. This woman would be in one of Moranu’s night temples, moonlight and shrouded in shadow, her flame-black hair blending with the night and those storm grey eyes full of knowingness, like the goddess herself.

  Something about her too, made the small hairs on his arms stand on end, as if a lightning bolt poised to strike nearby. His own unease irritated him. He’d left those superstitions behind with the nets and the fish and the ceaseless, meaningless toil.

  He wanted her, though, on a visceral level, with a deep craving that alarmed him more than any other part of this. Lust meant nothing. More—it could be a trap. Like all of this.

  “You’ve told me nothing of any significance, except that you intend to keep me from Annfwn.”

  “That is the salient point.”

  “To your mind,” he said.

  “My mind is the one that matters.”

  “And why is that, Witch?”

  “Why do you call me ‘witch’?”

  He leaned back on his good elbow, drawing the sword with him and stretching his legs out. Full night had fallen outside, but a flurry of snowflakes blowing a good arm’s length into the cave showed that the blizzard raged on. “Because,” he watched her face, “you make my skin crawl.”

  That serene expression didn’t flicker, but her full lips tensed, ever so slightly. A hit.

  “And what do you imagine I can do?” She dropped her tone. Bed-voiced, trying to seduce him. He cut short those images she so deliberately stirred in his mind.

  “Other than command beasts of the forest to drive a man’s steed into a frenzy so that he’s trapped in a cave while you work your wiles?” He laughed. “Isn’t that enough?”

  The satisfied glimmer in her eyes did not escape his notice. She could do much more than that. He leaned forward on his elbow, ignoring the twinge in his side. “Or is there more—perhaps you muddle my mind, making me want you.”

  She didn’t smile, like a court woman would. Instead she returned his scrutiny with grave intensity. “And do you want me, Uorsin?”

  “A man would have to be half dead not to.”

  “Ah, but aren’t you half dead? Even now your wound festers, poisoning your blood.” Her nostrils flared, like an animal’s scenting prey. The unconscious reflex sent atavistic shivers down his spine. “Maybe I should let you climb the mountain. You might well die on the way, having never reached Annfwn.”

  “Which doesn’t exist,” he reminded her.

  “It is a myth,” she replied.

  “I am not half dead.”

  “No.” She did smile then, a cruel and taunting twist to that full mouth. “Which means I cannot let you climb this mountain.”

  “Are you offering me yourself instead?”

  Her smile widened, showing a glimpse of teeth brushing her bottom lip. “Would that suffice?”

  “Do you compare your worth to paradise?”

  “Let’s see, shall we?” She rose to her feet, a boneless unspooling, and unfastened her cloak, letting it drop like shed skin around her.

  Her naked body glowed as if lit from within, breasts full and waist narrow. She was no unspoiled maid, but full woman. Feral. Sexual. His cock hardened, draining the blood from his head. Fool.

  “What do you think?” Her mouth lifted on one side, well aware of her effect on him.

  “I am no idiot youth to be overcome by the sight of a woman’s nakedness. I am a man and a warrior.” It was true. He despised those men who claimed to be swept away by desire for a woman’s sweet limbs, who used that as an excuse not to control themselves in the most basic way. “I can want without acting.”

  She raised one eyebrow and shook her hair back, bending to don the cloak again and sitting as before. “I do admire your will, Uorsin. It’s quite your most redeeming quality, in truth.”

  *

  It had been worth a try.

  And good for her, to practice being vulnerable to him. No man had seen her naked since Tosin and it was time to lay that in the grave along with him. He’d taken the coward’s way out, too weak to face the pain of living. She would not fold like he had. Her duty—her sacred obligation—required her to soldier on.

  Her lonely army of one.

  “So what else do you offer me?” Stretched out as he was, Uorsin was not unappealing, with his long legs and broad shoulders. She could stomach bedding him, despite his brutal streak. Long enough for her purposes, anyway. “I assume the use of your body remains on the table.”

  Cad. His satisfied smirk confirmed it. It seemed to be wound into the male psyche—use her sexuality as a lever, try to make her feel like nothing more than a tool. She laughed and shook her hair back. “You wish, General. Let’s make something clear right now. No matter what other terms we settle upon, I will never be something you use. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until the day I pass from this body forever.”

  “You speak of years.” He frowned, discomfort deeper than his wound.

  “Yes.” She held his gaze. This would be a deciding moment. “Yes—what we are deciding tonight is your future and mine. Our shared destiny, if you will. Our mated fates, if you won’t.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  If he only knew. What a blessing it would be, not to know. Seeing future suffering meant you felt the pain in your bones, the anticipation as grinding as grief over the past.

  “My own vision of the world. For me, destiny is good fortune. Fate is doom.”

  “I don’t believe in either.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yet you’re asking me to make decisions now—not just choices, but lasting vows—based on some vague predictions of the future.”

  “Not vague!” She snapped the words out, her own temper rising. Galling that this mossback could not come close to understanding the searing reality of the visions she’d seen. That future devastation was as tangible to her as the sword lying by his side and he dismissed her warnings. The anger might be his fatal flaw, but this�
�this total disregard that other people possessed understanding he did not—this made him capable of so much destruction. Forever a careless boy in his mind, he would never gain the true maturity needed for the position he’d rise to.

  He could only be moderated, for a time.

  “You want proof, ignorant mossback? When you were nine, you killed your sister’s cat, just to see what would happen.”

  Shock—and a slice of horror—crawled over his face. “That’s a lie! No one could know that.”

  She allowed herself to smile at his inadvertent confession. “No—because you threw the cat’s body into the sea, didn’t you? When the tide was going out, so there’d be no danger of it washing up again.”

  He’d levered himself into a sitting position while she spoke, eyes flicking to the mouth of the cave, as if he might escape.

  “You are a witch.”

  “No, but close enough. I saw you do that, just as I’ve seen the other heinous things you’ve done and the worse things you will do, if I don’t stop you.”

  “Stop me? With what—these stories. Dread tales of the future?” He sneered, taking refuge in scorn. “What—will you fuck me to death?”

  “No,” she leaned forward, letting the cloak slide open enough for one bare leg to slide through, “the fucking will be to keep you content and give us heirs. I have other ways of making sure you don’t cross any sacred lines ever again.”

  “Killing a cat is hardly sacred.”

  “That you think so is what makes you a brute.”

  “I’ve done far worse.” He flung that at her, as if to shock her.

  She tilted her head and tapped her temple, reminding him. “I know.”

  His mind churned, a bubbling pit of dark anger, shame and secrets like rotting meat falling from the bone. At last, she’d made her point.

  *

  Fear choked in his throat. And he was not a man to feel fear. He’d seen it in others, but always as a sign of weakness. Fear came from lack of confidence. Somehow this witch, this snake of a woman had crawled beneath his guard and undermined him. She had to die. Not just for that, but because she knew too much.

  A slim thing, leanly muscled—she couldn’t be that strong or trained in battle. Even in his weakened state, he could take her.

  With a roar meant to startle thought from her prescient brain, he leapt across the fire, strong-heeled boots crushing the embers, bringing his broad-bladed hunting knife up in an upper-cut that would drive through her fragile ribcage and into her black witch’s heart.

  Those storm-grey eyes flashed diamond bright, not in shock or terror, but in . . . triumph?

  The thought barely registered before he was on her, the blade slicing through the air where she’d been.

  He rolled, his wound splitting open.

  No, that was the slice of claws.

  The liquid snarl of the jaguar pierced his skull even as the jaws fastened on his throat, razor claws dug deep into his shoulders and back haunches poised to eviscerate his vulnerable belly.

  It was her.

  His thoughts jangled around the idea. She became the cat. She didn’t control the forest animals, she was them.

  And he was dead.

  Only he wasn’t. The moment stretched out with timeless intensity. The hot breath on his throat, the nauseating feel of those claws deep in muscle that should never feel such a thing. She could have disemboweled him with one careless kick of her hind leg, but she had not. She was waiting.

  “I surrender.” He barely gasped out the words, the shame of his easy defeat paling against the desire to live through this night.

  She released him, moving her crushing weight with a single graceful leap. The jaguar sat, gazing at him with unnatural bright-blue eyes, like jewels. She licked her chops, clearing away the blood. His blood.

  He tried to sit, but failed, the blood seeping from his shoulders and opened wound, draining his head, leaving only blackness behind.

  *

  That had gone very well.

  Salena busied herself while Uorsin was unconscious, unpacking the supplies she’d hidden in the back of the cave. Such was the value of foresight. The upside of dealing with such a predictable man was that every possible scenario had shown him trying to kill her. She shook her head to herself. He’d thought so little of her that she’d seen it coming for long moments before he moved. Unlikely she’d have that advantage ever again.

  She donned her working clothes, ones she didn’t mind getting some blood on, and set out her tools and potions. Then she sat beside him and waited for him to wake up. Healing him could happen without his being conscious, but she wanted him to ask for it.

  Beg a little.

  Something for her to remember when things got bad.

  Unlike other men, he didn’t look younger or sweeter asleep. Even unconscious, he reminded her of the bear he was named for. Hibernating, perhaps, and all the deadlier should you awaken him.

  He groaned before opening his eyes, pressing a hand to his side. His gaze fastened on her—fear and disgust quickly buried by that anger. It galvanized him, a meaty hand reaching for her throat before he remembered how things stood.

  She raised an eyebrow at him, deliberately cool.

  “What are you?” He ground it out, a demand for information.

  “I told you. I am Tala.”

  “You’re a demon.”

  “You believe in demons?”

  “No, but I don’t believe in shapeshifters either.” He stared at the ceiling. “It was you in the forest.”

  “Yes.”

  “The eagle.”

  “More of a large hawk, but yes.”

  “Can you be any animal?”

  “I’m more practiced at some than others, but theoretically, yes.”

  He rolled his head and eyed her. “That cat was bigger than you are.”

  “Yes. Size is irrelevant.”

  “How can that be?”

  This still gave her pleasure, a small measure of joy. She allowed herself to grin at him. “Magic.”

  “And you magicked those clothes, too?”

  “I can take clothes with me when I shift, but no—I had these already stowed in the cave.”

  “You saw all of this, beforehand.”

  “Yes.”

  *

  He’d been cleanly outmaneuvered. It didn’t take much of a strategist to recognize that.

  A sick despair preyed through his soul that he might die here. All his bold dreams of glory, of a better life, crumpled into nothingness. Worse—it would look like he’d slunk off the battlefield and ended his own life rather than face his superiors or a world where he shared Duranor’s final defeat. It rankled that he’d be thought a coward.

  But, between the wounds, the blood loss and his deadly captor—for surely there was no better word for her—he could not survive this. Why did she delay the inevitable?

  “Why didn’t you just kill me in the forest?” He spoke wearily to the shadowed ceiling, unable to bear looking at her again. “Why the elaborate charade?”

  Her hesitation was palpable. Already he began to know her, those pauses when she chose which words to prick him with.

  “I wanted to. I still want to.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Coming from the man who just tried to kill me.”

  “True.” He breathed out the pain. “But?”

  She moved, a bare rustle of fabric, and came to lean over him, her dark red hair falling down to shadow her face. “Listen to me very closely. This is important. If you live, I can make you not only a victor of Duranor’s ill-advised conquest, but High King of the Twelve Kingdoms. You can end this endless conflict and bring the next best thing to peace to the realm. For that reason, and for that reason only, I have not killed you as I so long to do.” She stroked his cheek in a strange parody of affection, her hand cool on his fevered skin, her grey eyes intent. No sweetness in her. Had there ever been? It seemed impossible that she had ever been a young girl.r />
  “What do you care? The Tala—if they exist—are not among the Twelve Kingdoms.”

  She smiled, as if tucking a secret behind her lips. “My reasons are my own.”

  “I will be king of nothing if I die in this cave.”

  “Ah yes.” She slid her hand down to the claw marks carved into his shoulder, watching his face to see him flinch. “Would you like me to heal you?”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes.” She prodded the wound and he clenched his teeth to keep from showing her how much it hurt. “If you agree to my terms.”

  “You are a cruel woman.”

  “Yes. A fit queen for a brute like you.”

  It took him by surprise, choking his breath in his throat, making him cough. Which sent agonies through his belly. This was torture, he realized. Subtly arranged, but torture nonetheless.

  “That’s what this is about?” he asked, when he regain himself. “Power? You’ll make me High King just so you can be queen?”

  “I thought it might be a motivation you’d understand.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and sat back on her heels. “These are my terms: I will heal you now. I will offer the services of the Tala to win your war. I will become your queen and give you three heirs.”

  She tapped him on the nose and he felt like biting off her finger.

  “All you have to do is beg me for it.”

  *

  He hated her in that moment. It shone clearly on his face and the satisfaction rippled through her.

  That’s right, my brutal husband, hate me now so I will always know where I stand with you.

  “I will never beg.” He wouldn’t look at her, clinging to his pride, even as he lay at her mercy. She’d known when she made her plan that he would never forget that she’d brought him to this, that she always could. It would be vital for their marriage, that he would always know, despite the vast power he would attain and wield like the sword forgotten on the other side of the fire, that she could bring him to this.

  She would comfort herself with that in the long days ahead.

  “Beg me,” she commanded him. “Or I won’t.”

  His fever-bright eyes caught hers and he grinned, a baring of his teeth. “Oh, yes you will. Because you don’t want me to die. Whatever your mysterious reasons—and I don’t for one bleeding moment believe you want peace for a realm that isn’t yours—it’s enough to bring you here, to make this bargain. I don’t want a queen, or a wife, for that matter.”