She lifted her hand to her jaw. It was tender. Her lips felt hot and swollen. “Does it show?”
Ariq stilled. For one terrible second the calm descended over him again, as if he might break the world in half.
Then he nodded, and his hand left her face to work open the wide sash that belted his tunic.
“Blast his soul.” On a shuddering breath, she rested the back of her head against the wall. Her neck ached. “Helene is going to say, ‘It’s your own fault for going out.’ Mara is going to say it’s her fault. But it’s not hers or mine. Just him. That bastard. Thinking he could have something from me. I just wanted to walk down a street. Even here, I should be able to. Is it so foolish to want that?”
“No.”
His voice was like gravel. Carefully, he wound the sash around her waist, binding the cut on her side.
It hurt. Clenching her teeth, Zenobia turned her head. A crowd had begun to gather in the street, though no one had dared venture into the alley. Hysterical shouting still sounded in the distance.
Oh, Mara would hear that. The mercenary probably already had. And she’d been right. The world hadn’t left Zenobia alone for even a week.
“Maybe it was foolish,” she whispered. “But other women were out there. I thought if no one knew who I was, I’d be safe. But he recognized me.”
And Polley wasn’t the only one who had. She dragged in a quavering breath and looked up into Ariq’s face. His head was bent, but he was focused on tying the sash, not on her, and his expression was as hard as the wall behind her. A man who’d broken another in half, then patched her up so gently. He knew who she was.
Could she trust him?
She didn’t know. But at least she could trust him not to hurt her.
“You told him I was Zenobia Fox.”
His gaze met hers. “Yes.”
She laughed and sniffed up everything that she hadn’t already wiped on her sleeve. “Well, then. Will you help me carry my typesetting machine?”
“In a minute.”
His big palm cupped the back of her head. He drew her against his broad chest, his arm sliding around her back to hold her close.
Oh.
He said something roughly against her hair and she didn’t understand a word of it, but she knew the tone, and that this embrace wasn’t to reassure her. It was for him. Because she was all right now, but she almost hadn’t been.
With new tears clogging her throat, she clung to his solid form and buried her face against his shoulder. So strong. So warm. He smelled like smoke and the sea, and this was the only time, the last time she could hold him like this.
“I’m leaving tonight,” she told him hoarsely. “I’ve arranged for an airship.”
“I know. I’m leaving with you.”
Nonsense. But her fingers twisted in his tunic, holding him closer. “You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ll hire someone until Mara and Cooper come. You have a town to worry about.”
“And that business takes me to the Red City.”
Her heart squeezed. “Oh.”
“But I would go anyway.”
This time her heart gave a wild thump. “Oh,” she said again, and was smiling when he drew away.
But he wasn’t smiling. He cupped her face in his hands and his dark eyes searched hers. “When we left my town, I meant to let you go. I have to choose battles. You weren’t as important.”
Always blunt. She loved that.
“I tried to keep you away,” she reminded him.
“I tried to keep you out. We should have both tried harder.” His heavy-lidded gaze dropped to her lips and her breath caught. His head dipped closer to hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You will if you kiss me.”
His thumb brushed the corner of her bruised mouth. His voice roughened. “Yes.”
So he wouldn’t. Then she just had to hurt herself.
Her sore knuckles protested when she gripped his tunic front and dragged him down. He didn’t have to come. The Kraken King, formed of solid muscle and so much taller than she was. But he was a man who chose his battles, and denying her must have been a fight he didn’t want to win.
And it did hurt. But she expected that. She expected the pain in her knuckles and the burning sting of her lips. His mouth was what she’d expected, too. Warm and firm against hers.
No one had told her about the rest. She’d thought a kiss was just a pleasurable meeting of lips. No one said anything of the incredible prickling all over her skin or the sweet ache building beneath her breast.
She would have left without this? But now she would have no regrets.
Her fingers curled against his chest. A sigh escaped her.
As if he’d been waiting for that tremulous breath to part her lips, Ariq leaned in, surrounding her, his right hand sliding into her hair and his left flattening against the wall beside her shoulder. Dense muscle flexed beneath her fingers. His mouth moved tenderly against hers, as if taking delicate sips. Oh, but he might as well have been gulping, consuming her, hollowing her out. Her heartbeat filled all the empty spaces, throbbing deeper with every soft kiss.
With a low groan, he licked the seam of her lips. She gasped his name and he swept in, tasting her, his tongue hot and slick. Sudden need yanked her body up like a puppet, onto her toes, trying to get closer. Her arms rose to loop around his neck.
Pain ripped up her side.
She froze. Oh, God. She shouldn’t have lifted her arms so high. But it was too late now. Ariq was pulling away, his body rigid.
“All right?” His voice was taut with strain.
Zenobia nodded. Mostly all right. She wouldn’t be bowing or bending for a while. Hopefully there would be more kissing, though.
Even if it hurt.
A crimson streak stained his lower lip. She touched her own mouth. “Is it bleeding again?”
“Yes.” A sudden tremor wracked his body. His fingers tightened in her hair, his gaze intense on hers. “I won’t see you hurt again. You have to tell me the rest. Why this man attacked you. How much you know of my uncle—and how you know of him at all.”
She couldn’t follow. He knew who she was but didn’t know why Polley had tried to kidnap her? And she didn’t understand the rest at all. “Your uncle?”
“Temür Agha.”
The rebel general who’d sent assassins after her brother. He was Ariq’s
uncle
? Mutely, she stared at him.
What could she say without endangering Archimedes? Ariq thought his uncle was dead. He couldn’t know that her brother had paid his debt to the man.
What
did
he know? He’d called her Zenobia Fox. But did he know that she was also a Gunther-Baptiste?
“Not now.” Gently, his fingers brushed back through her hair, trailed down her spine. “I’ll give you time. Tomorrow night, we’ll reach the Red City. Tell me then.”
She shook her head. Not a denial. She just didn’t know how to answer. But she wasn’t going to lose her head just because a handsome man kissed her senseless. She would take the time he’d promised.
“Trust me,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you.”
Zenobia had heard that before. “And if you have to, it’s my own fault?”
A frown darkened his face. “No.”
“Then I’ll consider it.”
She pulled away and started toward the mouth of the alley, where the gathering crowd still stared. What a blasted mess she was. Face bruised, her green tunic ruined, and her hair hanging loose. A few minutes ago, she’d been no one while walking down this street. Now everyone looked and knew her name.
Well, no matter. Zenobia lifted her chin.
Ahead, the crowd parted like water. She didn’t need to look back to see why. Ariq had glowered at her before, too. If she feared him, that might have been enough to make her get out of the way—but knowing that he’d just broken a man in half would have convinced her.
Ariq caught up a moment later. His palm settled against her lower back, where the tips of her hair brushed against his hand. The fingers of his left hand were curled loosely around a few familiar objects.
“You found my hairpins?”
“No.” He met her gaze evenly. “I stole them.”
From her hair? “I want them back.”
“I’ll buy new ones for you.” He tucked the pins into his tunic as if daring her to go in after them.
Maybe next time. She couldn’t lift her arms to twist up her hair, anyway.
So she only sniffed, as if his taking her hairpins during their kiss didn’t please her, and Ariq grinned, as if he knew it did. His big hand felt like a brand in the small of her back all the way to the tinker’s shop. His fingertips lightly stroked circles through her tunic. If he meant that subtle massage to soothe away the pain of the attack, he was doing a blessed good job of it. Her side hurt, her mouth stung, and her neck ached, but she was only aware of his possessive touch creating a disconcerting tension all over her skin.
The tinker met them at the shop entrance with impossibly wide eyes and a wet cloth. Zenobia took it gratefully and pressed it to her lip before leading Ariq to the typesetting machine.
He frowned at the heavy ball. “This?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Even as he asked, he picked it up. Not denying her. Just wondering why
Zenobia Fox
would need a clickity-clackety ball that wrote evenly over a page.
He didn’t know who she was, Zenobia realized. He knew her name. But he didn’t know anything else about her.
That couldn’t last. Maybe she would even tell him herself. But not yet. Not until she knew how much she could say without risking her brother.
“I can write my letters more quickly with it.” She told him a half-truth. “But also because the clacking drives Helene mad. So when she chastises me for leaving the inn, I’m going to write as vigorously as I can until she lets me be.”
He gave a short laugh and hefted the machine under one arm, then offered the tinker a gold coin. The girl opened her mouth as if to tell him that she’d already been paid, but Zenobia stopped her with a sharp shake of her head. If he was going to assume that Zenobia hadn’t already given over a gold coin for that machine, then he deserved to be fleeced.
Besides, the girl had offered her a knife. “Tell her that if she goes to your inn, she can make her way to your town,” Zenobia said to him.
Ariq did. A moment later they were out on the street again, his hand at her back. She tried to ignore the stares. At least no one would try to grab her now. And no one blocked her way. Those who didn’t scramble back at Ariq’s approach stood as far to the side of the walk as possible when they passed.
“How does your search for the marauders go?” she asked him. Three days, without a word. She could make up for it now—not just talking, but looking. His strong profile made her almost stupidly happy. “What have you been doing when you aren’t breaking men in half?”
“Killing zombies and destroying the hopes of a good man.”
A grim note in his voice told Zenobia he wasn’t joking.
“No wonder everyone here fears you.” But not in his town. His people trusted him instead of fearing him. She looked toward the inn, where the balloon he’d arrived in still waited. “Where are Tsetseg and the others? They didn’t return with you?”
“They’re going home tomorrow. But today Tsetseg is teaching Jochi’s wrestlers how to disable a mechanical suit with their bare hands.”
“Why?”
“Because his zombies are dead. Now his men don’t have anything to fight tonight when the den lords attend the games. So he’ll ask the twins to send a few of their guards into the arena. The twins will, because they’ll assume their men will win.” Hard satisfaction firmed Ariq’s mouth when he glanced down at her. “And no one in that arena will ever forget seeing unarmed wrestlers defeat those suits.”
Her heart jumped against her ribs. “You said you couldn’t change anything here. But you just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“I can’t,” he admitted and his deep laugh made her heart leap again.
Oh, she loved the sound of it. Loved watching him—the rebel who no longer fought, but showed others how to.
“I wish I could see it.” Her gaze settled on the pair of guards patrolling the opposite side of the street. Guards who would report to the twins, but would never have helped her. “I suspect your days have been more interesting than mine. I should have gone with you.”
His humor fled. “I knew you had secrets to keep. So I didn’t want to give anyone reason to notice you.”
That would have been best. “They have reason now.”
“They have reason to be afraid.” Steel hardened his voice. “Because if anyone comes after you, first they’ve got to go through me.”
Kidnappers were more likely to come now that they all knew her name. But maybe the Kraken King’s name was terrifying enough to keep them away, even after she’d returned home. She wouldn’t need mercenaries to protect her then. She wouldn’t need anyone.