Harlequin Nocturne May 2016 Box Set (11 page)

The second Opir had somehow become much smaller, clearly of no mind to fight Daniel again.

Isis raised her voice
.
“The Nine find you innocent,” she said without looking at Anu.

Daniel straightened and released the Opir, who staggered away. When he seemed ready to come at Daniel again, Anu raised his hand and four of his guards escorted Daniel's opponents out of the room.

“It was
their
idea,” Anu remarked. “They wanted another chance to kill you, if possible. I told them that if you were to beat one of them, they would confess their guilt in attacking Bes's humans. Now it is done.”

“And you had your entertainment,” Daniel said, pulling the collar closed around his bleeding neck.

Anu chose to ignore Daniel's insolence. “I will have someone look after your wounds,” he said.

“That is not necessary,” Isis said. “I will do it myself.”

“Very well,” Anu said. He looked at Daniel. “The Council must, of course, agree with our decision, but I believe they will accept the aggressor's confession and deal with them appropriately. I advise that the next time you find yourself in a similar situation, you contact the Lawkeepers instead of taking matters into your own hands.”

“Do you expect there to be a next time?” Daniel asked. He held Anu's gaze for a moment, and then turned to Isis. “If you have no objection, I think it's time we left.”

“By all means,” Anu said, his voice indifferent, though Isis could still feel the raw edge of his power. And anger. “Isis, please stay for a moment.”

Firmly dismissed, Daniel strode out the door. Isis heard it close and turned back to Anu.

“You treated him little better than a serf,” she said.

“But he acted with courage and dignity,” Anu said. “That is much to be admired in a human. And his innocence in that matter has been established.” He stroked the arm of his chair. “Have you learned anything more of his time in Vikos?”

Isis thought of Ares, but said nothing. “No more than I knew when we last spoke.”

“He is a most unusual human. See that he remains in Tanis until the Games and the Festival are over. That should not be difficult for you, since you have chosen him as your consort.”

“I have
not
,” Isis said. “It is merely that...he and I—”

“Find any excuse,” Anu said, “but keep him by your side. If he has not attempted to escape by then, and has taken no action against us, we will know our suspicions are unfounded.”

“Your suspicions
are
unfounded,” Isis said. “There are no spies in Tanis. But I shall do what you ask.”

“It will surely not be too great a sacrifice,” Ishtar said with a throaty chuckle. “Send him to me if you tire of him, and I will keep him for you for a little while.”

Isis didn't bother to answer. She left without another word. When she reached the door, she knew that something was wrong.

She opened it carefully to find Daniel facing a prosperous-looking and strikingly handsome Opir. Daniel was very still, the pulse beating hard in his throat. Man and Opir stared at each other with bitter recognition. Daniel's fists clenched. The Opir smiled.

“It has been a long time, has it not?” the Opir said. He inclined his head to Isis. “Don't bother with introductions, Daniel. Of course I know the Lady Isis.”

“Hannibal,” Isis said.

“I am flattered to have attracted the lady's notice. Perhaps Daniel has told you that he and I are old...acquaintances.”

CHAPTER 11

D
aniel's fury burned so hot that Isis almost recoiled. “Be careful, Hannibal,” he said to the Opir before him. “I am not what I used to be.”

“That is obvious. But then you had Ares to help you.” He smiled. “Odd that he visited us and then vanished so suddenly. Are you looking for him?”

Daniel took an aggressive step forward. “Where did he go?”

Hannibal shrugged and nodded to Isis again. “Goodbye, Lady.”

He pushed past Daniel and entered Anu's suite. When Isis touched Daniel's arm, she found that he was shaking.

“Come,” she said. “Let us leave this place.”

Like an automaton, he went with her, his eyes blank and the muscles of his jaw standing out in harsh relief. It wasn't until they'd left the tower that the tension began to go out of his body. She could hear the sound of his teeth unclenching.

When they were at the base of the tower, she put her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his chest, trying to ignore the smell of his blood.

“I thought you would die,” she whispered.

He touched her hair. “I wasn't so sure about it myself,” he said, his voice unsteady.

“I am so sorry, Daniel. I do not know why Anu behaved as he did. I have never seen anything like it before.”

He set her back to study her face. “It isn't your fault.”

“If I had known something like this could happen...”

“It's all right.”

“It is not,” she said. “I thought you would see that he was a just Opir.”

“You've known him for years, and you obviously didn't doubt him before.”

“I knew he was arrogant,” she said, “but I believed he would be fair.”

“I felt what Anu was throwing out into the room.”

“Yes,” she said. “I am sorry. I know he turned his influence against you, but I do not understand—”

“I've known only a handful of Opiri with so much charismatic power. You're one of them.”

“I told you before that I did not intend—”

“I know. You aren't like him at all. He could probably convince anyone, even other Opiri, to see only what he wanted them to see.”

“He did not compel you to fight?”

He curled a lock of her black hair around his fingers. “Knowing what he was, I was prepared. He couldn't force me to do anything. But he was willing to try.”

“And this gives you good cause to dislike him.”

“I don't trust him, Isis.”

“Because of this incident?” she asked, looking up.

“Because he reminds me too much of the Bloodmasters in the Citadel,” he said.

Isis framed one side of his face with her hand. “Why
did
you agree to fight? Was it only to defend your innocence, or to prove something to yourself?”

His hand dropped to his side, and she knew he wouldn't answer. Not now.

“I apologize for attempting to command you,” she said, changing the subject.

He smiled crookedly. “Habit,” he said. “We're all at its mercy.” He met her gaze with the warmth that had been missing since they'd come to the tower. “You didn't make a mistake in bringing me here.”

“We must see to your injuries,” she said, turning toward the ramp leading down to street level. “There is a human medical center—”

“No doctors, Isis.”

“Then I shall do my best to help you myself.”

* * *

Isis's best proved to be good enough. Once they reached her apartment in the administratve district, Daniel expected her to do the obvious and offer to use the chemicals in her own saliva to help heal him. But she obviously remembered his reaction to the prospect of her bite, and set to work with a needle instead.

Working quickly, she stitched up the lacerations Daniel's opponent's teeth had left on his arm. She offered him wine before the makeshift surgery, but he refused, grateful to be reminded that he could bear pain without flinching, even though his brief time in the tower had nearly broken all his defenses.

At least Isis knew only what she had observed. She hadn't felt the worst of it. She didn't know how he had frozen inside when he'd been among Anu's company, how he'd snapped back to the old days as if those years of freedom had never happened. She didn't realize that his rage had almost overcome his promises to her, how close he had come to turning on Anu when he had been asked to fight.

There had been such fights in Erebus, before Ares. It had amused Palemon to pit his serfs against each other, and when Daniel had refused to kill, he had paid for it.

Since then Daniel had become adept at every kind of combat against humans, half-bloods and Opiri. But only when it was necessary, and never for the amusement of an audience.

No, Isis could only guess what had driven him. And she didn't know that Hannibal could easily refute many of Daniel's claims about his past. He would have to decide whether or not to tell Isis that he'd never been to Vikos in his life, and why he'd lied to her.

Deep in thought, he hardly noticed when Isis peeled back his collar and examined his neck, gently touching the bruises, shallow punctures and smaller cuts.

“He never got a firm grip,” she said, dabbing at the wounds with a herb-infused cloth.

“If he had,” Daniel said, “I wouldn't be here.”

Her teeth pressed into her lower lip, and he knew she still felt guilt that he had no power to assuage.

An Opir who could feel real guilt was rare enough. A woman like Isis was one in a million. She claimed responsibility for him, but he felt the same for her.

He had no right to keep her in ignorance.

Isis leaned over him, her lightly covered breasts brushing his bare chest. Daniel came to full arousal, but Isis seemed unaware..

Still, she clearly wasn't indifferent to their intimate situation. She seemed to be trying to avoid touching any part of him that she wasn't stitching or bandaging, twisting her body into positions that would have been awkward if not impossible for a human.

Self-disgust formed a knot in Daniel's chest. Isis was afraid to start anything, and he couldn't blame her after the way he'd acted the previous times.

“Isis,” he said, gently pushing her away. “I'll heal.”

Her dark eyes reproached him. “You bear enough scars already,” she said.

Daniel reached up to touch his neck, the ridges of old bite marks that striped his skin. “They don't bother me,” he said.

“The vicious Opiri who did this to you...why would they not heal you after they took your blood?”

“Some of them did,” he said lightly. “There'd be nothing left of my throat if they hadn't.”

He regretted his words immediately; Isis gazed at him, appalled, and placed a herbal plaster over his neck. He caught her wrist gently and kissed the underside.

“There's another way you can heal me,” he said.

She pulled free and rose from the chair beside the bed. “You should take food and drink,” she said. “You cannot recover if you do not—”

“Come here,” Daniel said.

“I will send for—”

He grabbed the trailing end of her robes. “Isis,” he said. “I'm asking for your help.”

Spinning around, she jerked the robes from his hands, pulling the wide straps of her gown halfway off her shoulders. “Do not tempt me!” she cried. “I will not do to you what those others did.”

“You won't.” He sat up, willing her to look at him. “I know what I said before. I regret it, Isis. I'm sorry.”

“Daniel—” She looked at him with exasperated bewilderment and sat down again. “I do not blame you for your reluctance to give your blood. You may tell yourself that those scars don't matter anymore, as it doesn't matter that you had to fight for your life at Anu's bidding. But you can never convince me that the past is gone, Daniel. Not for you.”

Taking her hands in his, he said, “You have no part of that past, Isis. Maybe you don't want any complications between us. But if it's because you think you'll remind me of bad times, I can set your mind at rest. You can never do to me what the others did, because you're nothing like them. You could never be.”

Her eyes were like deep twilight, complex and beautiful. “I want it too much,” she said.

Daniel's pulse rose. “I've done this willingly before, Isis. But I would never give my blood out of obligation. It's what I want, too.”

“You trust me so much?”

He let go of her hands and lay back on the bed, pulling her down across his chest.

“Are you certain?” she whispered.

“Take only what you want from me, Isis. I won't demand more of you.”

Closing her eyes, she bent over him, her breath warm and soft on his torn skin, her lips brushing old scars. She tasted his neck with the tip of her tongue. He stiffened and then quickly relaxed before she could register his instinctive response.

When her teeth grazed him, not yet breaking the skin, he cupped his hand behind her neck and gently urged her on. Her teeth pierced his flesh, and he expelled his breath slowly. A moment later she was drinking, lapping at his blood with her tongue, sucking so lightly that he barely felt it.

He let himself drift, keeping his mind blank, and so he wasn't fully prepared when her fingers found his fly and released him. She stroked his length with the very tips of her nails, sending wild shivers through his body. She continued to drink as she pushed her robes apart and straddled him, eased her wet heat over him and took him inside her.

Moving in a steady, firm rhythm, he filled her up, holding her in place with his hands on her hips. Her breasts, nipples erect, pressed into his chest. She moaned as he moved his hands to her bottom and caressed it, massaging the firm, rounded shapes with his fingers.

Abruptly she stopped drinking and reared up over him, her breasts swaying. He pulled her down and took one nipple into his mouth, rolling his tongue around the firm bud and withdrawing slowly to flick the tip with his tongue. Isis gasped as he did the same with the other breast, welcoming the way she slowed her movements to make the most of his ministrations. He wanted it to last, to give her all the pleasure he could. And to fully realize for himself just how much he had rejected because of his pride.

After he had given full attention to each delectable breast, he lifted her off him, to her faint protests, and laid her on her back. He stretched out just below her parted thighs and dipped between them, putting his tongue to work again. Her breath came fast as he ran the tip of his tongue between the delicate folds, tasting the honeyed nectar that emerged from her glistening lips. He pushed deeper, seeking the center, and found it. He pushed his tongue inside her and withdrew quickly, giving her a preview of what he had denied her a few moments before.

Isis began to squirm, clearly unwilling to let herself come. When she made another low protest, he worked his way up her body, licking and kissing her belly and just beneath her ribs, lingering over her breasts again as he moved into position. Her thighs came up around his hips, welcoming him. She gave a little cry as he entered her, urgently, pushed to the edge of his own endurance by her honeyed warmth and her moisture on his lips.

She arched to meet him just as urgently, and after a moment her teeth closed on his neck again. A kind of ecstasy came over him, and some faraway part of him wondered if she was using her body's natural aphrodisiacs to enhance his experience.

At the moment, he didn't care if she was manipulating him. He reveled in the feel of her body gripping his, the smooth glide of flesh in flesh, the rhythm growing faster and faster.

Isis reached her completion before he did, but he wasn't long behind her. He moved hard for a few seconds and then slowed and stopped, letting her cradle him within her as the urgency passed into glorious lassitude. He sought her lips and kissed her gently, moving his mouth against hers and skimming the inside of her lips with his tongue. He tasted a little blood, and something else that filled him with quiet joy.

Slowly he rolled over, carrying her with him so that her body was half-sprawled across his. Isis kissed his chest and his throat and his mouth. She kissed the wound on his neck again...but there was no wound. She had healed his flesh. And, for a moment, she had healed something else.

“Will you tell me now?” she murmured.

“Tell you what?” he said, stroking her damp hair away from her face.

“What it is about Hannibal that you hide from me.”

Daniel slid into a sitting position, moving the pillows so that he and Isis could remain as close as possible.

“I have to ask you something first,” he said, kissing the corner of her mouth. “What I say has to stay between us. Can you agree to that?”

Gazing into his eyes, she ran her delicate forefinger over his lips. “I promise you that I will keep any secret you share with me. I will never betray you.”

Daniel sighed and pulled her closer. “I didn't come from Vikos,” he said, “but from a place much farther west, in California. A place called Avalon.”