To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2) Page 9

  “She will need him by her side in the coming days.”

  “Yes, I think you are right. They are madly in love.”

  Jiandra laid a hand on Rafe’s arm. “Rafe, Yavi and Yajna are here to see you as well.”

  Rafe looked up at them as they ducked inside the room. He pressed his palms together and bowed deeply.

  “Brother,” Yajna said, extending a hand to him.

  Rafe accepted it. “Sire.”

  Yavi shook hands with him and patted his shoulder. “Is it Master Rafe yet?”

  “No, Sire. I have much more training to complete.”

  A monk appeared at the doorway, clearing his throat to interrupt. “We have prepared a tea for you. Follow me.”

  §

  “The foreign queen is with child,” Zelbikan announced in a wheezy, rattling voice as she rearranged her runes on her tablecloth with her long, crooked fingers.

  Uman stared at his mother. “Are you certain?”

  “The Zulfikars will produce an heir in eight months.”

  “No!” Uman snarled, slamming his fist on the table. “And we can’t kill her unless we get her stone.” He whirled to face Terijin. “Curse the day I sent you to capture her sister, you incompetent piece of rubbish!”

  Terijin wrung his hands nervously. “Sire, the babe will not be old enough to be a threat for many years. In the meantime, we can still take over the rule of Nandala if we kill the two emperors. Her stone does not protect them. Only her.”

  “Fool!” Uman glared at him. “Most Nandals are fiercely loyal to the Zulfikar line. As long as there is an heir, they will fight us tooth and nail.”

  “Sire, as soon as the child is born and separate from the queen’s body, I am certain we can execute him as well.”

  “By then it will be too late. As soon as word gets out that she will bear a Zulfikar child, it will be difficult to squash the counter-rebellion that will surely rise against us.” Uman paced to the fireplace. “We must get the sister in order to get the stone. You failed before, but we will not fail again.”

  Terijin nodded. “Yes, Sire.”

  Six

  Later that night Yavi lay on his back, hand resting on the emperor’s ruby that lay between his chest muscles, staring up at the canopy over his bed. Staring, but not seeing, because all he could envision was an image of Graciella’s lovely face, her pale-hazel eyes lit up with laughter, her dark, shiny hair escaping her hairpins to fall about the slender column of her graceful neck.

  Grace and light, Master Volkan had called her. Bringing good fortune and hope to Nandala. All Yavi knew was that her presence in the palace had already changed things for him, at least. He’d discovered his own laughter again, for one, and a fierce protectiveness he hadn’t felt toward a woman since…no, not since Svana, for he hadn’t truly felt that protective over her. If he had, he would never have left her alone with Gerynwid and gone with Yajna to hunt Jiandra.

  It was part of the reason for his dark guilt over Svana’s death, the fact that he’d given in to his lust for the servant girl, and wasn’t deeply in love with her. She had died because he had been weak.

  But things were different now. He was thirty, not twenty-five, hardened by battle and loss. He was the emperor of his homeland, not an overconfident assassin for hire who thought nothing of taking willing young women to his bed. He was not the same selfish man Svana had known—he had learned to control his impulses, his desires. He’d remained celibate for almost six years as proof of that fact.

  But…Graciella. That evening at dinner, they had conversed about the trip to the monastery, and later in his study over a glass of katsuri she’d confided in him about her fears and sadness concerning Rafe. How she felt his kidnapping was partially her fault, because she’d sent him outside with a bucket of her used dishwater to dump on the herb garden when Gerynwid took him. Yavi had tried to soothe her misgivings, assuring her that Gerynwid would have found a way to take Rafe anyhow. He’d confessed to her his own feelings of guilt about his father’s death at Thakur’s hand, because he had not been able to reach him in time to stop it, even though he’d run as fast as he could. As he’d spoken of those painful memories, Graciella’s enchanting face held such a compelling look of understanding and compassion that he’d found himself desperately aching to gather her into his arms and hold her, to comfort her as well as feel her comforting him.

  If not for the presence of his brother and Jiandra in his study, he might have done just that, and then—then what? Graciella was the last woman on earth Yavi would want to hurt intentionally. Gods forbid. He could never forgive himself if his desires caused her pain and suffering somewhere down the road.

  Stop this now, Yavi, before it goes any further.

  She had leaned close enough to him tonight for him to smell the lavender-lilac soap on her skin. She had touched him briefly as he spoke of his father, laying her delicate, feminine fingers over his forearm. He could imagine feeling that touch on his bare skin, feeling her sweet lips pressing kisses to his neck, his chest, and…lower. He slipped a hand down to his stiff cock, massaging it a moment.

  You sicken me! his conscience screamed at him. Oath-breaker!

  “Calm down,” he whispered aloud to himself. “I haven’t broken any oaths yet.”

  He closed his eyes and slowly stroked himself to climax, then lay still until his heart rate returned to normal. He rolled over to his stomach, bruising his upper ribs a bit on the ruby when he crushed it against the mattress. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, moving the heavy stone out from under his body, then smiled.

  §

  After lunch the next day the twins left to visit the farms and the guard outpost at Hajan, in the foothills of the western slopes of Nandala, and Jiandra went to her quarters to take a nap. Graciella decided to do a bit of snooping in hopes of learning something that would help her better formulate a plan for seducing Yavi. She tiptoed down the hallway of his wing of the palace and opened the door to his room, slipping inside to have a look around.

  A huge, tall, four-poster canopy bed stood in the center of the room, draped with off-white curtains that hung to the floor on either side. She avoided the bed for the moment, surveying the room’s other furnishings. There was a red-and-gold rug on the stone floor next to the bed. His washstand stood in the far left corner, near a bookcase that held knives, shortswords, and pieces of leather armor, all carefully laid out and arranged. Next to the bookcase stood a weapon rack holding one very ornate greatsword forged from some type of strange grayish-black metal, its hilt decorated with intricately carved designs. She traced the carvings for a moment, then stepped closer to the washstand and scooped up his cake of soap, sniffing it. It smelled of musk and bergamot, a scent she recognized as part of his personal fragrance on the few occasions she’d been able to get close enough to him to detect it.

  She went to his armoire and opened it to look inside. A couple of clean white lawn shirts hung there along with a pair of black leather trousers. She felt the soft fabric of one of the shirts, then the sleek leather of the trousers.

  She wandered back over to his bed, still unmade from the previous evening, and bent down to run her hand into the indentation in his feather pillow.

  The door swung open, and Graciella jerked upright. “Oh!”

  Kitran stood in the doorway, holding a basket of fresh linens. Her silver eyes narrowed.

  “Hello, Kitran, I, ah…I was just…looking for something.”

  The Nandal girl didn’t respond, but continued to stare at her.

  “I didn’t find it, so—I’ll just be on my way.” Graciella moved toward the door.

  Kitran didn’t step out of her way. “Emperor Yavi doesn’t allow anyone into his room.”

  Graciella glanced over her shoulder at the room. “He told me I could look in here for the—um, book. He was loaning me a book.”

  “There are no books in the bed.”

  “Yes, you are correct. Well, if you’ll excuse me—” Graciella tri
ed to move past her to get through the door, but the other girl stood firmly in her way.

  After an awkward standoff, Kitran finally moved aside, and Graciella hurried down the hallway toward her own quarters, eager to take refuge from the washing-girl’s evil eye.

  §

  Graciella sat with her sister in the library having afternoon tea. “Jiandra, I have a question for you about Kitran.”

  “Yes? What about Kitran?”

  “Do you know if she and Yavi have some sort of romantic connection with one another?”

  Jiandra looked down and studied her teacup.

  Graciella sat up straighter. “What? What do you know?

  Jiandra set her tea on the table. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, it was just an impression I got from…” Graciella faltered. “All right, confound it. I don’t want to lie to you about what I was up to while you were napping today, so judge me as you will.”

  Jiandra couldn’t hide a smile. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I went snooping in Yavi’s room.”

  “Gracie! How dare you do such a thing!” Jiandra lobbed a pillow at her. “I thought I taught you better than that.”

  Graciella caught the pillow and laid it in her lap. “You did. You did teach me better than that, but I couldn’t help myself. I just want to be close to him, know about him. I couldn’t resist.”

  Her sister chuckled. “Well? What did you find?”

  “Nothing. His room was very boring, and he has minimal belongings in there, barely owns anything but knives and swords.”

  Jiandra chuckled. “Yes. Sounds about right.”

  “He does have this one very beautiful greatsword. It’s made of a strange dark metal.”

  “Yes. That was his father’s sword. It’s black zirconium.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yajna has his mother’s emerald brooch, and Yavi their father’s sword. Those are the only two mementos they have from their parents.”

  Graciella swallowed. “I see.”

  “But you were saying. About Kitran.”

  “Yes. She opened the door and caught me touching his pillow.”

  Jiandra raised an eyebrow. “Touching his pillow? And just how were you ‘touching his pillow,’ pray tell?”

  “Touching it with my hand. That’s all.”

  “All right. Go on.”

  “Kitran and I have worked together in the kitchen for the past three days, and she has never been anything but polite. But today, when she walked in on me snooping in his room, she glared at me.”

  “Glared?”

  “Glared, yes, and informed me that ‘the emperor doesn’t let anyone into his room.’”

  “That much is true. Still, it was not her place to chastise you.”

  “Then she blocked the doorway so I couldn’t escape. I thought I was going to have to shove her aside.”

  “Oh, dear!”

  “So, it got me thinking. For her to react so territorially over Yavi’s quarters, she must have some sort of reason to feel possessive over him.”

  Jiandra pressed her lips together.

  “What do you know, sister? Please tell me. I’m dying of jealousy. Is there something going on between the two of them?”

  Jiandra released a breath. “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure? What do you mean? So it’s true that they might possibly be having an affair?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Oh, Gods.” Graciella’s heart sank. “No wonder he’s so formal and stiff around me!”

  “Shh! Lower your voice, sister.” Jiandra glanced at the library doors. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Yavi is reserved and formal around everyone nowadays, so that doesn’t mean he’s involved with Kitran, although yes, there is a possibility that he is.”

  Graciella couldn’t help it—tears stung her eyes at her sister’s revelation.

  Jiandra relented. “Look, I’ll tell you what I know, but only if you swear you’ll keep it to yourself, in strict confidence. You can never tell anyone what I saw, because I saw it with the Omaja stone, and I try never to invade a person’s privacy unnecessarily. Much less share their private thoughts with others when it’s none of their business.”

  Graciella nodded mutely.

  “It’s wrong for me to tell you, and may Zehu forgive me. But, I know that if I were in your shoes, I would be desperate for my sister to alleviate my misery too.” Jiandra took a deep breath, then lowered her voice. “I was reading Kitran’s thoughts several days ago, looking for the palace traitor. She was making Yavi’s bed at the time and didn’t know I was at the door.”

  Graciella braced herself for the worst.

  “Well, she was thinking about Yavi. They were—”

  “They were what?”

  “Making love.”

  “Making love, how? Just embracing and kissing, or really making love?”

  “Really making love. Naked, groaning, rubbing against one another. Well, come to think of it, it was mostly Kitran who was groaning and rubbing. Yavi was just lying there looking up at her.”

  “Looking up at her? She was on top?” Graciella was scandalized and envious. She didn’t want anyone to be naked on top of Yavi but her. Ever. A dagger pierced through her heart at the thought of Kitran on top of Yavi, groaning and rubbing herself on him.

  “Yes,” Jiandra replied. “Anyhow, I couldn’t ask him about it, because I would be invading both his and Kitran’s privacy. I never intended to tell anyone, in fact, and you must promise not to use this information against him or Kitran.”

  “Why didn’t you at least tell me you thought he might be involved with a woman when I arrived? You could have kept her identity secret. Here I’ve been pining for him, fawning over him for the past three days! I must look a fool.” She hugged the pillow against her chest and pressed her face to the top of it, wanting to curl up in a ball and hide.

  “To be honest with you, things were so hectic around here that I hadn’t given it a second thought until you brought it up just now. At the time I decided it was probably just a fantasy on Kitran’s part, because Yavi made a vow that he wouldn’t get involved with another woman since Gerynwid killed the servant girl he loved six years ago. I’ve never seen him giving Kitran any special attention.”

  Graciella didn’t take much comfort in her sister’s words. Plus, now there was a new worry. “He made a vow because of a servant girl he loved?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you that either.”

  Graciella fell silent, hopelessness crushing in on her, constricting her chest.

  “Look, more than likely it was all in Kitran’s head. It wouldn’t be that surprising for the girl to have fantasies about him. He’s dashingly handsome; he’s the emperor; he’s brave and valiant. He’s every girl’s dream. I should know; I feel the same way about his twin.”

  Graciella lay on her side on the couch and stuffed the pillow over her head. Her voice came out muffled from under it. “This is a nightmare.”

  “Now, now,” Jiandra soothed. “Don’t assume the worst until we know for sure.”

  “How can we know for sure?” Graciella complained from under the pillow. Then she sat upright, an idea occurring to her. “Jiandra. You can read his thoughts with the Omaja.”

  Jiandra shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. That would be a total breach of trust, between him and me as well as between me and Lord Zehu.”

  “You’re right.” Graciella dropped her gaze to her hands. “I’m sorry I suggested such a thing.”

  “Look, if it’s any consolation, Yavi has shown far more interest in you since you arrived than what I’ve ever seen him display toward Kitran. Or any other woman, for that matter.”

  Graciella frowned. “He has?”

  “Last night in his study, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”

  “We were having a conversation, though. Of course he was looking at me.”

  “Yes, but it was more than just looking at a person while they talk. He
was very deeply involved in whatever the two of you were talking about, completely engrossed in you. That’s how it appeared from my vantage point, anyhow.”

  Graciella thought about that. It was true that during last night’s lengthy conversation he had not only listened to her attentively, but had also offered his opinions on what she’d said, as well as confided in her about his own experiences and feelings.

  “Gracie, for now, I advise you to just stay the course. Be the wonderful, sweet girl you are, and soon you’ll know whether you are breaking through the fortress he’s built up around his heart or not.”

  Graciella thought about that, realizing she had to face a terrible possibility. “But if Yavi is having an affair with Kitran, then I must wrench him out of my heart, the sooner the better. Because either he’s having the affair purely to satisfy his lust, in which case, I wouldn’t be able to think of him in the same way, or he’s in love with her, in which case I would be encroaching upon their commitment to one another.”

  “I beg you to withhold that decision until the facts become clearer. We will have to try to find out what may or may not be happening between them on our own, not with the power of the Omaja. But I believe that eventually the truth will be uncovered.”

  Yes, kind of like Kitran’s body while she’s “rubbing” on him, Graciella added mentally, sighing.

  §

  Later that afternoon, Graciella taught Wilten how to make dumplings. The young Nandal girl was a quick learner, both in cooking techniques as well as understanding and speaking Villeleian, and Graciella was enjoying her company in the kitchen immensely.

  “You…roll? Like this?” Wilten asked in her thick, sweet-sounding Nandalan accent.

  “Yes, and then you just cut the dumplings into pieces with a knife.”

  Wilten picked up her knife. “Knife?”

  “Yes, we call that a knife. What do you call it?”

  “Shel.”

  “Shell?”

  Wilten chuckled and pronounced it again, emphasizing the “l” sound at the end of the word. Graciella tried to mimic her pronunciation.