And again.
Her body was still shuddering as he rose up, her legs draped over his shoulders, pushing her knees toward her chest. Sweat glistened over her pale skin. Her limbs trembled and her grip was weak. He caught her left ankle as it slipped from his shoulder, holding her open to him, watching her jade eyes widen when she realized how he’d maneuvered her into a defenseless position.
Then she almost defeated him by simply urging him closer. Welcoming his invasion, she surrounded him, embraced him, and the savage ecstasy of her possession threatened to overwhelm his purpose.
By the Eternal Sky, her body held him so tight, as if it couldn’t bear to let him go. Until her heart held on to him as passionately as her flesh did, he would brand himself on her with pleasure. His own need had no place here. His own arousal didn’t matter. He couldn’t let the fierce grip of her sheath shatter his focus.
His heart was iron. His will was steel.
He surged forward, driving his cock into her yielding depths. Burning heat seared up his spine. Her strangled cry joined the desperate clench of her fingers on his biceps.
Ariq stilled. Chest heaving and voice raw, he asked, “All right?”
“Yes!” She all but sobbed the word through gritted teeth. “You’re just so
deep
.”
And immobilized by her position, she couldn’t curb his relentless penetration. That only led to a victory if it brought her pleasure. She gasped as he began a slow retreat. Her slick passage clamped on his shaft, ripping at his control, tearing a groan from his chest.
But his heart was iron. “Like this?”
“Yes.
God
, yes.”
Then his slow withdrawal wasn’t a retreat but another advance that forced her to feel every inch of his length before he plunged deep. She cried out again, then again, until her cries became an uncontrolled, endless moan that rose sharply with every powerful stroke. Her toes curled beside his head. Her fingernails dug into his arms and the faint pain pierced the shields he used to keep his own need at bay. He couldn’t give in to it. But the heavens help him, she was so wet, her arousal hot and vibrant. He wanted to forget his purpose and lose himself with her. He wanted his mouth on hers and her cries vibrating against his lips, but he couldn’t kiss her in this position, and he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t abandon this battle, not even when she tensed beneath him, her body arching on a guttural scream and her sheath squeezing his cock like a sleek pumping fist. He couldn’t let up, though he wanted to bury himself inside her and find his own release.
His will was steel. But Zenobia had heated his iron heart to molten—and although his flesh had been created for battle, his body was still a man’s. Even he couldn’t withstand this.
And his control slipped, bit by bit, vanquished by his own need. Vanquished by the flush of her skin when she shattered beneath him again, and the dazed expression in her jade eyes. By his name, a whisper roughened by her screams. By the taste of her when she cupped his jaw and her thumb slipped between his lips.
He didn’t want to stop. Her hunger for him was the only advantage he had. But continuing on wouldn’t win her heart. He would only hurt her. He would only drive her away instead of persuading her to stay.
He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t hurt her.
With a tortured groan, Ariq relinquished the last of his control and let the calm he’d worn like armor drop away. Fire raged through his veins, a building explosion edged with ragged pain. One final time, he lost himself in his wife before retreating, and as he abruptly withdrew, the orgasm detonated through him. His seed spurted into his left hand.
Chest heaving, he let her ankles slip from his shoulders. She grimaced faintly as her legs fell to either side of his waist, then smiled as he leaned in. Her arms encircled his neck. Her panting breaths were quick and hot against his lips, her mouth sweet and warm.
When he lifted his head again, she looked up at him with an exhausted laugh. “I think I truly will need three days to recover.”
She would have the time if she needed it. Ariq didn’t know when he would have her again—only these next two hours. He could hold her until it was time to leave.
But not with come on his hand. After another kiss, he rose and moved to the washstand. Zenobia rolled onto her side and watched him, a frown slowly creasing her brow.
“You didn’t spend inside me?”
The molten iron in his chest was burning, heavy. “No.”
She was silent for a long moment. Her voice was carefully even when she finally said, “That’s what you would have done in Krakentown—when you thought our entanglement would be temporary. Is that what you think now?”
“I hope it’s not.” He prayed it wasn’t.
“Then what was this—a tactic? A punishment?” Her brows arched as she said it, and she smiled faintly, but the amusement in her tone was undermined by a rising note of worry. “Because if you’re going to punish me like that, I’ll probably continue doing whatever I did wrong so that you’ll punish me again.”
Not a punishment. He didn’t know what it had been. Just jagged, burning pain.
His bathing robe hung over the top of the dressing screen. He yanked it down and stabbed his arms through the wide sleeves.
“You’re
angry.
” Abruptly sitting up, she hauled a blanket over her breasts. Hiding from him already? Then it probably wouldn’t be long before she ran. “At
me
.”
No. At himself, for believing that she wanted more than she did.
“You are not the only one who took a risk by sharing my bed. I risked much, too.” His heart. His seed. His future, because he couldn’t imagine one without her. “But I did not keep options. If this marriage doesn’t work, have you already planned what you’ll do? Have you figured out your way home, already know the arrangements you’ll need to make?”
Her face stilled. “What?”
“You already know what you’ll do? Have you thought it through?”
She looked away from him and her chest lifted on three quick breaths before she said, “Yes. Of course I did.”
Of course she did. She was a woman who had taken her own glider onto a naval airship.
“Even if you’re with child? Did you plan for that, too?”
“Yes.”
Her soft whisper tore open the ragged ache in his chest. Tengri help him. He would never have spent his seed inside her if he hadn’t believed she would stay. It would be torture enough to lose Zenobia. To lose Zenobia and their child?
He’d been a reckless fool. Hot frustration and raw agony were hammers that pounded each word into a hard edge. “And what was the plan? Your brother would come, then you would leave for Fladstrand? Maybe you’d send me letters from home. You would describe how our child is growing, then sign your name at the end and wish me a long life.” A life without her. Unbearable. He ripped his hands through his hair and thundered, “You would consign me to hell!”
She flinched, clutching the blanket tight to her breasts before color rushed into her cheeks. Jade eyes like stone, she stared at him. “Should I
not
be prepared for what I must do if I’m ever alone?”
You won’t be,
he almost said. But she would. In less than two hours.
The anger drained away. Only the pain and the dread remained. He couldn’t fight two battles at once—and her walls were as strong as ever.
By showing his anger, he might have made them even stronger.
“Ariq.” By her smile and voice, she was striving for a lighter tone again. Yet her fingers were clenched tightly at her chest and her body utterly still. “They’re only plans. Not intentions. And you’re the Kraken King—so even if I did try to go, you wouldn’t let me. Would you?”
He froze. Yes, he was the Kraken. The man who held on until the end. And Zenobia was a woman who feared being trapped. Who was terrified of losing control and losing her options.
If he held on when she tried to go, if she believed he would trap her, then the heavens help him—she would only leave faster.
Hoarsely he said, “I would.”
Her face whitened. “You . . . would?”
Throat aching, he nodded.
Her hand flew to her mouth and she stared at him above her splayed fingers. “You would let me go?”
Did he have any choice? “Yes.”
All at once she seemed to shrink in on herself and a soft sound escaped her, like a mouse crushed under a boot. But she didn’t move, only stared at him with her hand still covering her mouth, her face a white mask and her eyes glassy with tears.
His heart on fire, Ariq started for her—then stopped, because he was a liar. Never would he let her go.
Never.
If she ever left, he would follow her to Fladstrand and continue fighting for her heart.
How would he console her now? With a lie that left her shattered? Or with the truth that he wouldn’t honor her choice to leave? He lost either way.
He
wouldn’t
lose her.
At the mere thought of it, the anger was rising again. The frustration and pain. He couldn’t push them aside—and both might push her away. Every time he slammed into her walls, they only grew stronger.
He abruptly stalked to the chamber doors and slammed through them, instead.
***
So the world could drop out from beneath her, and she would live. She would live.
But Zenobia didn’t want to live like this.
The crash of the doors was still echoing through the chamber when her first tears fell, when a sob ripped from her chest. Pain crushed her heart.
Ariq would let her go.
He’d said he wouldn’t.
Liar.
He was a damned slithering liar and she was stupid, so stupid for believing him. After he’d already betrayed her trust once. And rescued her. And made certain she had everything she needed.
And loved her.
Just as quickly as they’d started, her tears dried, leaving her stomach in a knot and her chest hollow.
Her head felt as empty. He
had
always made certain she had everything she needed. He
had
said he wouldn’t let her go—and it wasn’t in his nature to let her go. Yet he’d just told her that he would. So why had he believed she needed to hear that? Blindly she stared at the closed doors, her brain desperately trying to make sense of his abrupt departure before she got up and went after him.
And she
would
go after him. She wasn’t letting him leave for Krakentown with this between them.
Why had he thought that
she
would be leaving? She’d explicitly said that she didn’t intend to. But had he misinterpreted something that she’d said?
Or something that she hadn’t said.
The realization dropped like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. All this time, he’d been fighting for her. In the jellyfish balloon, he’d told her that his every action was designed to break through her walls. Too afraid to expose her heart, she’d never told him he was already in. Did Ariq believe that he still needed to fight? Yet now he was being forced to leave. To give up.
Oh, she was
such
a fool.
Heart pounding, she surged to her feet. Her robe hung on the screen but the blanket was enough for this. Who cared if she exposed herself now? Her heart, her body. She would fling it all at him if necessary.
Gripping the cover to her chest, she hurried past the screen and—
Someone was on the balcony.
The glimpse of blue silk and black hair sent her stumbling, her feet tangled in the blanket. She caught herself before she fell, then stared at the elegant figure striding into her chambers and the guards silently filing in after her.
Lady Nagamochi and her imperial guard—and there could be no possible
good
explanation for their choosing to infiltrate her chambers in this way.
Slowly, Zenobia straightened. Ariq had been right. Towers had too many access points and not enough defenses.
Whatever happened now, she hoped that hers held strong.
XXVII
Dregs and hell,
what had he done?
Now she would run, just as she’d tried to run every time he’d hurt her before. In her bedchamber at the embassy after he’d admitted to reading her letters. On the balloon when she’d discovered the motive behind his declaration. She wasn’t yet racing out of their chambers with her belongings in hand, but she wouldn’t have to. This time, he wouldn’t be here to stop her. She just had to wait for him to go.
His heart an open wound, Ariq stared out over the water. Each morning after she’d woken in his arms, he’d stood here on the eastern terrace with her, watching the sunrise. He wouldn’t again. And before the sun set, he needed to undo the damage he’d done. He’d use any tactic, any strategy.
He didn’t yet know what it would be. But he didn’t have much time. The sun was getting lower, the shadows longer . . . and an airship approaching the tower from the north abruptly changed course, altering its heading from south to southwest.
The back of Ariq’s neck tightened. Pilots didn’t fly roundabout routes. Nothing but sea lay beyond the quarantine—if an airship had been headed in this direction, then the tower had probably been its destination.
He listened. Only the ocean and birds. He glanced down. No airships were docked at any of the lower levels.
That wasn’t unusual. And an airship altering course wasn’t alarming on its own. Combined, they rang a strident warning in his head.
From the terrace, Ariq couldn’t see the northern or southern sides of the tower. Swiftly he returned to the courtyard and pushed through the doors of the first chamber, ignoring the startled gasps of the attendants sitting down to their meal. Before they could rise to their feet, he was on the balcony, his gaze scanning the sides of the tower. He glanced up and his blood seemed to slow and thicken, pumping heavily through his veins.
Two imperial airships hovered alongside the uppermost level, the red bellies of their cruisers as distinctive as the flags fluttering at their bows. Their engines were quiet, their sails extended.
So they’d flown in silently, concealing their arrival. Most likely they were signaling other airships to head in another direction. Only one reason for that—making certain no one in the tower had a means of escape.
An ambush.
Were they already in? Or were there still airships at the western side of the tower that needed to be cleared first?
He wouldn’t take the time to look. The attendants quickly averted their eyes as he came into the chamber again, as if they’d been staring at him in shock behind his back, a madman wearing a simple bathing robe and loose hair.
“Bar the doors when I’ve gone,” he told them, but it wouldn’t matter. Not against the imperial guard.
His heart drumming a powerful beat, he tore across the courtyard. Why had the empress and her guards taken this course? They knew he would appeal to them. The empress had the stronger hand, not Ariq. An ambush wasn’t necessary; she already held all the power. Ariq would make almost any concession if it meant his people would be safe.
Any concession but one. He wouldn’t give over the Skybreaker.
Unless they got their hands on Zenobia first . . . and they knew where her chamber was.
Tengri help him.
But it was too late. Ariq knew it was too late before he reached the chamber doors. Terror greater than he’d ever known gripped his heart before shredding it, then the calm of battle descended, utter calm. She needed him. He wouldn’t give into anger or fear. He would bear any pain.
He opened the doors.
Twelve masked guards. All with blades, some with crossbows, and spaced so that defeating them all at once would be impossible. Four guards searched through the trunks that had been packed and left at the corner of the chamber. An unmasked woman sat in front of the low table that served as Zenobia’s desk, scanning a stack of typeset pages. Lady Nagamochi, most likely. And where was his wife?
Rage began to spill through a crack in his calm, then Zenobia emerged from behind her dressing screen, her face set and flushed with anger, her green eyes bright and fierce. Sheer relief slipped over her features when she spotted him.
“Good afternoon, Governor.” The captain of the guard smoothly rose to her feet as she greeted him. “Madame Fox and I were about to discuss her work. Please join us.”
Her work? He glanced at Zenobia. Tight fear had already replaced the relief, her fingers twisting tightly in the folds of her tunic.
“I will,” he said.
Lady Nagamochi’s gaze swept his length. “I have already extended my apologies to your wife for interrupting at such a time, but now I must beg your forgiveness, as well. Perhaps you would also be more comfortable in the proper attire?”
“I’m comfortable now.” He wouldn’t leave Zenobia alone and suspected they wouldn’t let her accompany him behind the screen.
He caught her hand as he crossed to the table. Her palm was clammy with fear, and he entwined his fingers with hers, hoping to offer reassurance. Whatever the captain of the guard had claimed, this wasn’t about Zenobia’s work.
With Zenobia at his side, he knelt facing Lady Nagamochi across the small table. She’d already moved the typesetting machine out of his reach. The heavy device could become a weapon as easily as any other. So could the table.
And Lady Nagamochi knew. Her eyes met his, and Ariq could see that she knew exactly every move he might make, every method of attack he’d already imagined, every escape he’d planned. This wasn’t a woman who’d come unprepared.
One of the guards who had been searching through the trunks rushed up to the captain’s side, a collection of pamphlets in hand—each part of
Lady Lynx and the Floating City.
Zenobia’s fingers tightened convulsively on his.
Lady Nagamochi discarded the first parts of the story and thumbed through the last pamphlet. “This is not the altered ending,” she said softly.
No. It was the ending that had been declared seditious and was banned in Nippon. Ariq saw the course this would take now. The Khagan had often employed this tactic against his enemies, using the excuse of a minor infraction to justify any punishment, no matter how unequal it was to the crime. To keep his wife out of prison—or worse—he would have to give up the machine.
“Those are mine,” Ariq said, and though Zenobia’s fingers crushed his in protest, she remained silent, as if trusting his decision. “I brought them across the Red Wall. My wife can’t even read them.”
“Yes, but she wrote them. Did you not?” Lady Nagamochi looked to Zenobia.
Her chin lifted. “I did.”
“Did you know that it is illegal to possess this book?”
“I don’t know that I was ever explicitly told that it was illegal,” Zenobia said. “But after Admiral Tatsukawa abducted us and I was imprisoned on Ghazan Bator’s ironship, the general told me that my work had been deemed seditious.”
His clever wife, redirecting an answer to remind them all why Ariq and she were here to begin with. But Lady Nagamochi would not be so easily diverted.
“Yet you knew your husband was reading it. That he was reading it even as he crossed through the gate at the Red Wall. You didn’t warn him?”
Lady Nagamochi had been watching them even
then
? Beside him, Zenobia stiffened. By the stillness of her face, Ariq thought that the same realization must be racing through her mind—that it was probably not
all
the captain of the guard knew, and the understanding of how easy it would be for Lady Nagamochi to catch them in a lie.
Ariq didn’t intend to lie. But to protect herself, Zenobia often did.
Now she didn’t attempt to. “It didn’t occur to me,” she admitted.
Lady Nagamochi’s gaze remained sharp, as if pinning Zenobia at the end of a blade. “I suppose that even if you had told him of the ban, your rebel of a husband would have disregarded it. But why did it not concern
you
? Her majesty is the heavenly sovereign. Are you so disdainful of her laws?”
“No.”
“Yet you disregarded them. Do you think the ban is foolish?”
Zenobia’s grip became a vise. “I suppose that I find it difficult to imagine the story as seditious because I know too well the origin. It was only an adventure based upon the travels of my brother and his wife. So when I saw my husband reading them, I didn’t think of how they might be illegal. I only worried about whether he enjoyed the story.”
“I did,” Ariq said. Especially the end.
“As did many others.” Her posture easing slightly, Lady Nagamochi seemed to soften with amusement, but Ariq knew an iron heart and steel will when he saw them. The captain of the guard might feel that amusement, and might even be predisposed to like his wife. But she had a purpose here and she
would
see it though. “One of her majesty’s attendants was the first to bring your work to the attention of other women within the palace. You have a devoted following among the ladies there—especially after a woman began to lead the adventures. But her majesty only read them after the grumblings from the ministers began, because she wanted to judge for herself whether they posed any danger.”
Zenobia frowned. “What danger?”
“Among those who would create disorder, this story is being read as a call to arms.”
“It isn’t.”
“Perhaps that is not the intention. But who can control how someone reads a tale?” The other woman’s hands lifted and spread as if to say
What can one do?
before folding to her lap again. “They read into it what they want to read. You presented a tyrant who destroyed anyone who didn’t conform to his customs. There are those who would say the same of her majesty, but they would not dare speak of an overthrow. Yet your story spoke of it quite loudly and motivated them. Any other story might have done the same. Yours was simply the one that arrived at a critical time, when the discontent over halting the war with the Golden Empire and the opening of the Red Wall was at its sharpest. Now tell me what you are thinking, Governor.”
He was thinking that Zenobia’s story had arrived at the right time. “That any answer I give couldn’t be read any differently than how I intended it, so I should be silent.”
Lady Nagamochi smiled slightly. “And what if I told you that the nobles are stirring most of the discontent? You have encountered many of them. Now you are not so sympathetic to their cause, I think.”
Ariq wasn’t, but he didn’t say so. He didn’t need to.
“Yes, you are as easy to read as this tale,” she said. “I see why it appealed to you. Some call you barbarian and rebel, as if you are a warrior adrift without a master—and I think it is true that you do not have any loyalty to your superiors. But you are loyal to your people, just as, in the story, Lady Lynx is loyal to no one but her crew and the people she helps. It is the same.”
Maybe it was. “So it wouldn’t appeal to you?”
Her smile sharpened. “It did, though for different reasons. If I compare Lady Lynx to myself, I find her situation pitiable, for I am nothing when I do not serve her majesty. Yet if I read Lady Lynx as an empress . . . ? There is more of interest to me. She keeps absolute order aboard her airship, protects her crew and her friends, and destroys everyone who would harm them. That is a woman to be admired.”
“Some airship captains inspire mutinies,” Zenobia said softly.
“Yes. But not if that captain is well respected. Then even her most difficult decisions and commands are respected, as well, even if they are not to the crew’s liking.” All pretense of ease dropped away from Lady Nagamochi’s posture. “That is what I need to know now. Madame Fox, I believe that you meant no disrespect to her majesty with your writings. Did you?”
“Of course not. I didn’t think of her at all.”
Ariq stiffened. Though obviously unintentional, that was disrespect of another sort, but Lady Nagamochi didn’t pursue it.
She looked to him. “And you, Lord Rebel? Will you show her majesty any disrespect?”
“Is disagreement considered disrespect?”
“It is not.”
“Then I’ll trust she understands that I serve my people as best I can. I understand that she is serving hers, as well—and that we might not agree on what is best. At this moment, her fleet is threatening my people.”
“As response to a threat against hers.”
“But that response doesn’t serve Nippon. It only serves the interests of Ghazan Bator and Admiral Tatsukawa.”
“So you have claimed,” Lady Nagamochi said. “If her majesty hears you out, know that her decisions might not be to your liking.”
“And my decisions might not be to her liking,” Ariq said. He knew they wouldn’t be. “But they will not be made out of disrespect.”
She studied him for a long moment before signaling to one of the nearby guards. “We will prepare for her arrival, then.”
Her arrival? Dregs and hell. He had begun to assume that they would be taken to the palace instead. Yet she was coming here and, clothed as he was, Ariq
would
show disrespect. “I will prepare, as well.”