Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (31 page)

“He did,
did he?”

“Thought
he got the slip on me. Look! His fangs are still out!”

“We know how to cure that, don’t we?” The soldier gripped
Hurust by the collar and brought him to his feet. He called across the parade
ground for help.

“Yeah, let’s teach this snake a lesson!” QuiTai said.

Her bravado seemed infectious. The guards puffed out their
chests. Their grip on him got rougher.

“Show them they can’t get away with showing their fangs,
the perverts!”

She smirked as three soldiers dragged him out into the
sunlight. One was calling for a rope. He was going to die. Goddess of Mercy, he
was going to die.

~ ~ ~

Cuulon turned his hands over and stared at them. They
looked normal. Why had he been thinking that they were odd? He remembered them
seeming so very odd and giggling at the way his thumbs bent. That puzzled him
because that instant of thought felt as if it had stretched over a long period
of time.

The hushed clink of metal drew his focus away from his
palms.

Oh, yes. He was at the fortress. Why was that something he
had to recall?

QuiTai was shackled to the torture board. She looked ill,
as if her head ached. Being on the board did that to you. At that slightly
reclined angle, you couldn’t quite stand, but you couldn’t lie back either. It
felt as if you were perpetually falling backwards. Your shoulders bore most of
your weight while your toes strained to push against the ground.

She gasped so frantically he almost rose to free her, but
his leg muscles felt weak. She was probably acting. Her face went purple and
foam gathered at the corners of her lips.

She was an amazing actor. He’d always thought so. But she
looked so ill that it worried him.

He gripped his head to stop a wave of dizziness that made
him reel. His skin was clammy. There was something he’d forgotten. He knew there
was, but his thought was a shy thing that would not come back to him.

He was in the torture chamber. QuiTai was here.

Torture implements hung on an iron grid against the stone
wall. If he used the spiked iron ball gag, he could pin her tongue down and
silence her.

He remembered thinking that only a moment ago.

As quickly as the dizziness engulfed him, it passed. His
mind was clearer. He was thinking of using the spiked ball gag on QuiTai. He
remembered now. Putting that in her mouth would make it clear he wasn’t there
to ask questions, though he rarely pretended to anyway. This room was about
suffering. It was about being cruel because he could be.

He began to rise, but his eyes couldn’t focus, so he slid
back into the seat. Doubt oozed into his mind.

She would always have the upper hand, no matter what he
did. She’d find a way to disgrace him. Colonel Hurust would tell everyone about
it. The gossip would spread beyond the fortress to the government building and
into the family compounds, and those damn
thirees
would laugh behind their hands and say they had always known he was nothing but
dirt.

She could probably smell his fear. He wiped his upper lip
as he forced himself to his feet. He looked around the chamber.

Where was the Colonel? He’d been here only a moment ago.
Cuulon felt as if he were shrugging off dream, but the flavor of vapor wasn’t
in his mouth. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stared directly
into her gaze.

Cuulon stumbled back a step.

He’d dreamed of revenge for so many years, but revenge
against what? She’d told him many times she didn’t care for him. Back then, he’d
believed it to be a lie she told to hurt him, but now it struck him as the
truth. He’d loved, worshiped, adored her, and she’d never cared for him.
Nothing he did would change that. He couldn’t beat love into her heart.

Cuulon wanted this day to be over.

“Where is the Colonel?” he asked.

She glanced to the door and shrugged, a movement that must
have sent jolts of pain through her shoulders. She winced but hid it well. Only
the tightness of her mouth and deepening lines around her eyes betrayed her
exhaustion.

Cuulon perched on the edge of the working table and let
his leg swing. How any times had he dreamed of torturing her to death? How many
times had he savored a look of surprise in her eyes as she realized he’d
finally overcome her? Many times a night he’d resurrect her only to kill her
again. He was only getting one chance this time.

He didn’t
think he’d be able to surprise her. That had been childish fantasy. She looked
as if she thoroughly expected him to kill her, and she seemed not to care.
Dreams were so much more fulfilling than reality.

She was
watching him. The corners of her mouth curved.

“Shall we
begin, sea dragon?” she said.

~ ~ ~

Cuulon wanted to strike QuiTai, but he imagined her
laughing at him in triumph. Why did she have to be so difficult? Why did she
have to be so cruel?

“We have nothing to talk about, bitch.”

He reached for the device that crushed fingers. She’d once
told him that she had no doubt she’d break under torture, that believing you
could withstand it was the first mistake. He’d show her she’d been right.

She must have been frightened, but she didn’t show it. The
metal tool in his hand seemed to provoke only a mild interest, not the terror
he’d hoped to inspire. Tired – she looked tired, as if it had been a very
long day for her too and only stubborn pride kept her going. She didn’t even
try to clasp her hands into tight fists so he’d have to pry her fingers apart
before he crushed them. Was all the fight already drained from her?

“How much punishment will be enough, Cuulon? How much must
I suffer for not loving you? My family. My daughter. My Jezereet. And now my
life too.”

“You made me do those things.”

She clearly didn’t believe him. “A year from now, will you
feel you had complete revenge? Or will you wake in the middle of the night with
a thirst that can’t be quenched?”

“As you said, it is time to begin. And it is time to end
this.”

“Absolutely. And now that we’re alone, we can be honest,
yes?”

“About what? Where is Colonel Hurust?” He didn’t want to
share her with anyone, but he didn’t trust himself alone with her. She had a
way of getting into his brain and making him do things he’d never intended to.

“He had to go.”

Cuulon didn’t remember the Colonel saying goodbye. Had he
been that preoccupied with his hands? What sort of man drifted off into
daydreams when he was about to get revenge? It worried him that time seemed to
have slipped away from him. The harder he looked for it, the most disturbed he
was. The immediate past was blank, like a blink that stretched an hour.

“Are you
afraid of me still, little boy? I’m shackled. At your mercy.” It sounded as if
she were trying to recite serious lines but couldn’t quite suppress her
laughter.

“Don’t
mock me!” His pride ached. “I will not get on my knees for you, ever.”

“You were
always far too invested in the idea of sex. Think, Cuulon. I’m obviously not
here to seduce you.”

What did
she expect him to think of her? She’d worked in a brothel, yet she made him feel
as if he were the one in the wrong. He’d forgotten what it was like to talk to
her, how she could read the merest shift of his feet or hear confessions in a
sigh.

He had her complete attention again. That’s what he’d
craved all those nights when he’d missed her. She was the only person who could
reveal his truth to him. His eyelids were the ones peeled back now. He was the
one staring into the starkness of his soul. That was her art.

“You could have softened my edges, my lady. Instead, you
hardened them. You were the anvil and the fire, and the hammer.” His voice
caught as anguish rent his chest. She’d pay for making old wounds fresh again.

“It’s always about you, isn’t it? Your friend Turyat is
dead, and you’re whining about your broken heart.” Her anger was chilling.

“Do you know who killed him?”

The slightest hint of approval played over her face. He
hated himself for being elated by it, but it was a drop of rain on a sere
desert.

“I have my suspicions,” she said.

“Tell me!”

Thank goodness Colonel Hurust had left. What if she said
it was his Ravidian masters? What if it were his fault they’d made an example
of Turyat? Fear of getting into trouble washed away with his rising anger.
Turyat had died because she’d refused to.

He pushed his face close to hers. “Tell me.”

“Ooh, you’re so commanding and forceful when your spittle
flies into my face. I may swoon.”

“Whore! Bitch!”

Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, or was that mirth?

“By the way, your Ravidian masters say hello, and they
also say that if you kill me, there is no death painful enough for you.”

He
gasped. “How do you–”

“If you
don’t believe me, verify it with them. But until you can, you should be very
careful about harming me. You might find out how they turned Petrof. Imagine a
werewolf so frightened of the jungle that he couldn’t bear to run with his
pack. Your thugs made it worse when they tortured him with the ants, but he was
already broken. I wonder what the Ravidians might do to make a sea dragon too
afraid to ever touch the ocean again?”

Cuulon stumbled back to the table and gripped it for
support. No matter where he turned, she was there, waiting to attack.

“Did you know that after I moved to the continent, I
worked as a magician’s assistant? I survived being impaled by seven swords
every night. Twice for matinees. The job sounds more fascinating than it was.
Once you know how a trick is done, well, life’s one disillusionment after
another, isn’t it?”

What was she talking about? He didn’t care what she’d done
after she ran away from him. “What are you getting at?”

“That sometimes we lose people we love in senseless
violence, and when we find out why, all it does is add to the frustration and
anger. Trust my words of experience.”

“I want to know anyway.”

QuiTai donned her cruelest smile for him. “I know you do,
pet.”

She had him twisted around her finger again. It was like
before. Because she was telling him that he didn’t want something, he wanted it
with all his heart. She was usually right, though. Once he got it, it was
nothing like he’d dreamed. Still, he had to have the answer.

QuiTai grinned. “I’ll gladly tell you what I think
happened at the Red Happiness this morning. You don’t even need to torture me.”

Three
militia soldiers
slouched at the Dragon Bridge’s railing, watching the road
like sulky delinquents waiting for someone to bother.

Voorus got a bad feeling. He pulled Nashruu off the road. “Cuulon
must have sent them to make sure you couldn’t contact Grandfather,” he said. It
was odd calling a man he’d never met Grandfather, and even odder that he and
his lover should share that relation. The Zuls were a strange clan. For years,
he’d dreamed of finding his real father. Now he wasn’t so sure he wanted
anything to do with that side of his family.

“You can’t possibly know they’re going to stop us. What if
they were simply patrolling the town, met on this bridge, and decided to pause
for a bit of gossip?”

He wasn’t sure how he knew, so explaining it to her wouldn’t
be easy. “I just–”

“Let me at least try to walk past them. I’ve only been in
Levapur half a day. Surely they have no idea who I am yet.”

What was
he going to do with her? She didn’t seem to understand that she should be
afraid, or at least concerned.

“Wait–”

It was
too late. He paced a quick circle as he tried to figure out if he should follow
her. Women were turning out to be far different from what he’d been told they’d
be.

Hating
himself for being a coward, he ducked behind a glossy leaf and peered through a
gap on the frilled edge. Nashruu sauntered toward the bridge. The soldiers
slowly stood up straight. Her parasol hid her face, but he could read the
conversation well enough from her movements.

She pointed down the lane on the other side of the bridge.
The soldiers shook their heads. She tried to walk past them anyway.

He pushed through the plants as one grabbed her arm.

She lowered her parasol, snapped it shut, and swung it at
the soldier’s legs. After a tight little shake of her shoulders, she walked
back toward Voorus, passed him, and then ducked into the thicket beside him.

“I stand corrected, darling. You were right. They’re very
sorry, but they can’t let me pass. Some nonsense about a dangerous snake being
seen in the neighborhood. I’m not sure if they meant a Ponongese or an actual
snake. There must be another way to the compound other than crossing the
bridge.” She picked flowers out of the folds of her parasol and flicked them to
the ground.

“There is, but it’s a long walk around the hills, and that
entrance is probably guarded too. Maybe we should simply find another
farwriter. I have no idea where, since we’ve been blocked from almost every
place I can think of.”

She placed her hand on his forearm and leaned closer to
him with a look of earnest feminine distress. She’d had that same look on her
face the first time they’d met, when he’d rescued her little nephew from a tree
in the park. She’d seemed so sweet and innocent back then. He gulped when he
realized he’d been her prey that whole time. Had she shoved the poor little boy
up onto the high limb?