Читать книгу Nightmaster - Susan Krinard - Страница 9

Chapter 3

Ares heard the shifting and barely audible murmurs of the other Opiri. They knew he would not address a serf in such a way before his peers if he were not utterly secure in his power.

The female seemed to know it, too. “I’ll come,” she said, lifting her chin.

Turning to the attendant, Ares pressed his ring seal onto the tablet the Freeblood presented. He became aware once more of the silent audience, waiting for him to complete his claim with the serf’s blood.

“Bend back your head,” he told her.

She did as he commanded, baring her throat. Hunger flooded Ares’s mouth and desire hardened his body. He took her by the shoulders, and she didn’t resist.

Most Opiri would be satisfied with physical submission. But that wasn’t enough for Ares. He sensed that she had accepted his power over her because she had no choice—and, perhaps, because she was grateful.

But he still smelled her defiance, saw it in her posture, in the clenching of her fists and the set of her jaw. He would never attempt to break her as Palemon would have done, so it was quite likely that she would always keep some part of herself away from him.

That would be a mixed blessing for what he had in mind. He wanted her thoughts free enough so that she would be of use to him in his study of human behavior and emotion, but at the same time he recognized that part of him craved another kind of challenge.

It would be a kind of game he played with himself, keeping that uncommon lust for her in check and rising above his species’ predatory nature. He would call upon the discipline, persistence and resolve that had kept him alive over the centuries and allowed him to fend off every Opir who would take what was his.

“Daniel,” he said, releasing the female’s shoulders, “take the staff and return to the Household. Have them prepare for a new arrival.”

After the servant left to do his bidding, Ares nodded to the woman and walked out of the Claiming room. She fell in step behind him, and he could smell her arousing human scent. Once they were out of the Claiming room and in the lobby, she abruptly stopped.

“Why didn’t you bite me?” she asked.

Ares continued on without looking back. “I chose not to.”

“What about the others?” she asked, changing subjects so quickly that it took him a moment to realize she was referring to the remaining serfs.

“They will all be claimed,” he said, slowing his pace. “You are said to be a female of some intelligence. Were you unaware of what would happen to every human in your party when you arrived in Erebus?”

“I was aware,” she said. “But Palemon...”

Ares stopped and turned to face her. “Palemon will be in no condition to claim any serf today.”

Her shoulders slumped in relief. Ares knew she had been deeply worried about her fellow Homo sapiens, afraid they would fall to a cruel master as she almost had.

“Why do you care?” he asked. “Did you know these humans before you were sent here?”

“No,” she said. “But maybe that’s something you wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps I wish to learn.”

She blinked, clearly surprised. “You wish to—”

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Trinity,” she said in a husky voice. “I know you can change my name if you want to. But I’m hoping you’ll let me keep one thing that still belongs to me.”

“You very nearly lost your life,” he said, absurdly angry when he had no cause to be. “You interfered in a Challenge.”

“I thought you were about to lose.”

“I would not have lost.”

“It looked bad to me,” she said. “I knew what Palemon would do to me if you didn’t win.”

That was exactly the motive Ares had expected. “You made a grave error,” he said, holding fast to his temper. He turned away again. “Come.”

Her hand darted out to touch his arm. An instant later he had her by the throat. She dropped her hand from his sleeve and coughed, but her gaze never left his.

“There is something you must understand,” he said, releasing her almost instantly. “You saw what happened during the Claiming when I touched Palemon. No serf touches an Opir unless she is commanded to do so.”

“Commanded?” she whispered, rubbing her throat. “Is that what you plan to do to me?”

“No,” he said. “That is not how I handle my humans.”

“You mean by the throat, or are there other ways?”

It was hardly possible for an Opir to feel shame over the treatment of a serf, but Ares knew he had behaved no better than Palemon by giving way to his instinctive rage at her unexpected touch. He had hurt her, though he should never have expected her to fully grasp the taboo against unwanted physical contact when humans were so drawn, even compelled, to initiate it.

And her touch had done more than enrage him. It had aroused him to such an extent that he would gladly have dragged her into one of the private rooms off the lobby and taken her then and there.

He would not fall prey to such primitive urges again.

“Are you in pain?” he asked more gently. “Do you require medical assistance?”

She touched her throat again. “I know you could have broken my neck. But you didn’t. I don’t think you plan to kill me anytime soon.”

Ares couldn’t help but admire the courage that allowed her to behave with such composure when she had twice come so close to death. He pulled her hand away from her throat and bent close to examine her skin. The marks were nearly gone, but her pulse still beat very fast in the hollow of her neck.

She did not need healing. But still he felt...

Regret. That was the proper word. Regret for touching her in anger, for marking that delicate flesh. And there was a small, hard knot in his stomach, like the grain of sand that becomes a pearl within an oyster’s mantle.

His gaze fell to her parted lips and the small cut where Palemon had struck her. The soft, pink skin still held a trace of blood.

He glanced down at her chest, rising and falling with each harsh breath, her erect nipples pushing against the shift’s thin material. He stiffened, imagining those breasts in his hands, those sweet, rosy nipples in his mouth.

Then he remembered the vow he had made to himself. He would not take her in any way, body or blood; she must come to him of her own will. She was an intellectual puzzle to be solved, her bewitching essence a challenge to his self-control. A challenge he intended to win.

“You must understand,” he said, “for your own safety. You are my property. Step outside of the boundaries set for a serf when we are in public, and you must suffer for it.”

“Because of your pride?” she asked.

“Pride, as humans understand it, is not a factor.”

“Of course. It’s because you have to maintain the respect of those who would be happy to take you down.”

“You understand our culture, then.”

“I’ve studied it,” she said. “But I still don’t understand it.”

“Perhaps you will come to, in time.”

She gazed into his eyes. “I’m a little confused,” she said. “Why did you claim me, if you’re not going to use me the way most of your kind use humans?”

“Your spirit intrigued me. You speak our language well, and I have some interest in the human perspective. Perhaps you can provide me with a new one.”

She looked at him as if he were mad. “Will Palemon Challenge you again?” she asked.

“Perhaps. But that will not be your concern.”

She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, though nearly all of Erebus was kept warmer than most of her kind preferred. “I know I have no rights,” she said. “I know you can kill me on a whim and no one will care. But I am...glad you won me. And not just because you saved me from him.”

Ares wondered if she was confessing to some kind of attraction. It seemed very sudden, but then so was his lust for her. Perhaps, in a way, her admission allowed her to keep some dignity, some small control over her situation, even though she would never again set foot outside the Citadel.

Yet her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, her face flushed as if with desire. The unmistakable scent of sexual arousal rose from her body.

Ares grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her face and kissed her. His teeth grazed her lower lip, giving him the smallest taste of her sweet blood. She struggled for a moment and then went limp in his hold, her eyes losing all expression.

Disgusted again at his own behavior, Ares altered the composition of his saliva and took her lower lip into his mouth. The bleeding stopped instantly. Soon there would be no trace at all of what he had done.

Not on her body. But frightening her, making her believe he would use her whenever he liked, was not at all what he wished.

“I...did not intend—” he began. He hesitated, knowing he could never apologize to a serf, and yet wanting her to know he regretted his actions. “It was not my intention to harm you.”

Her eyes focused on him again. “I know,” she said softly.

He nodded and continued along the corridor. She followed, her footsteps a little slower than before.

Ares knew curses so ancient that no human remembered them. He must... He would conquer this savagery within himself. As he would conquer Trinity—without ever again touching her against her will.

* * *

It had not gone quite as Trinity had expected.

Ares strode ahead of her without once looking back to make sure she followed. He wouldn’t have had to worry even if she hadn’t promised to go with him willingly. Getting to this point had been difficult enough, and she wasn’t going to ruin what she’d managed to achieve against all the odds.

She watched the play of Ares’s muscles under his clothes, the grace of his long stride, and marveled at her luck for the dozenth time. She never would have expected that her new master would ask her if she should be bound, as if she were free to make the decision. That he wouldn’t bite her after he’d won his Challenge, when she knew Opir custom demanded that he complete his claim. He’d only tasted her blood when he’d—

She probed at her lower lip and then at her throat. It felt as if Ares had never touched her. She couldn’t hate him for half choking her; it was as much her fault as his.

More her fault. She’d done it deliberately, as a kind of test, to see just how far she could push him. She’d discovered his limits the hard way.

Ares had simply acted out of sheer Nightsider instinct. Vicious, animal instinct that ran in all Opir blood like a poison. A poison she’d known must be hidden under the skin of the black-haired Nightsider, even when she had chosen him as the master she must win.

Walking obediently behind him, Trinity could still remember how she had felt when she had first met his gaze. She remembered her inexplicable emotions, the way her whole body had lit up inside like a Fourth of July sparkler even while he had been assessing her as he would a broodmare, his surprisingly light eyes taking her in with unnerving interest. Unnerving because there was no naked lust in his that gaze, not at first. Only remote curiosity.

Not like Palemon’s greedy stare, his undisguised hunger when he had forced her to strip and had seen only a female to service him, a human to break with casual cruelty.

Until that moment, she hadn’t been ashamed...not of her nudity or her vulnerability. She had always thought she was ready for anything that might occur during the Claiming.

But she hadn’t been prepared for Palemon. When he had begun to show interest in her, she had fully realized how much she could lose if the black-haired Nightsider didn’t choose to claim her. She could still feel the crack of Palemon’s hand against her face, sending her to the floor with the taste of blood in her mouth.

Trinity stumbled, though the floor of the corridor was smooth as glass. She knew now that she should have worked more diligently to appear submissive, even frightened—the kind of serf that would bore a creature like Palemon. But when she’d seen Ares’s interest, she knew that ploy wouldn’t work with him. She needed to arouse more than his lust; she had to intrigue him, engage his intellect and admiration as well as his desire.

But she’d also have to “negotiate” with that dark, animal side. The side that had reacted so violently to the touch of a human hand.

Yet his hand had caressed her so gently afterward, and she’d felt his regret. “Sentimental,” Palemon had said. Ares had come as close to an apology as any Opir could.

Trinity smiled grimly as she put one foot in front of the other, careful of her strangely uncertain balance. Most humans believed that Nightsiders couldn’t experience emotions that weren’t directly related to survival or protecting their status in the Citadel. Perhaps it would be easier to manipulate Ares than she’d had any right to hope.

But she knew she’d be lying to herself if she denied her own loss of emotional discipline. And it wasn’t getting any better with time. She was reminded of her unwilling attraction every instant she was in Ares’s presence. He smelled not of blood but of wholly masculine scents she couldn’t quite name. His uncommon black hair, drawn into a simple queue at the back of his head, framed his starkly handsome face like raven’s wings, making her ache with the need to bury her fingers in it. His nearly human eyes had an almost metallic sheen that reminded her of a dagger’s blade, yet she could imagine she saw warmth in them.

And his body... Under his loose clothes his physique had been a mystery, but once he had removed his shirt she had seen a chest, shoulders and arms hard with muscle and honed for battle. She remembered how powerful he had been, how graceful and deadly his every move as he’d fought for her.

She could so easily imagine herself in those strong arms, her nails raking his back as he entered her, as she cried out in pleasure and...

A sudden wave of nausea made her stumble again, and she fell against the nearest wall. Ares stopped immediately and turned to grasp her arm.

“You are ill,” he said.

That was concern she heard in his voice, though his speech was harsh and clipped. He caught her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his.

“Are you still in pain?” he demanded. He brushed her lips with the pad of his thumb, and she shivered violently.

Ares scooped her up into his arms. Hovering on the edge of consciousness, Trinity only became aware of her surroundings again when she heard the hum of the elevator hurtling upward into the highest levels of the Citadel. Ares had set her on her feet, but his arm around her shoulders prevented her from falling.

She breathed in his scent, her cheek resting against the velvety fabric of his tunic, aware of the slow thump of his heartbeat. The elevator came to a smooth stop, and Ares held her tighter against him.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

Bracing herself against the wall, she pulled away from him. “Yes,” she said. “I...don’t know what happened.”

He frowned. “I will have my human physician examine you.”

“Please,” she said. “I’m all right. I...I’m grateful for all you’ve done.”

“You will be given every opportunity to display your gratitude.”

And she was ready to show it, to play the part, to become whatever Ares wanted her to be.

Play the part, she thought. Nothing more....

The elevator door opened onto a grand lobby faced with black marble and punctuated with alabaster busts of presumably important Opiri, each one a stylized depiction carved of planes and angles that she guessed were representatives of Nightsider “art.” Ares urged her down the hall to another set of elevators—three this time, each one marked with an Opir name and an emblem that represented the Household of the Bloodlord to whom it belonged.

Ares helped her into the one identified with the design of a Corinthian helmet. Its interior was padded and gilded like something out of a grand nineteenth-century hotel. It began to rise without any move on Ares’s part and opened to yet another lobby. But this one was not decorated with busts, and it wasn’t empty.

Three humans, two men and a woman—all dressed in deep blue tunics and pants belted with tooled leather—were waiting as if they had expected their master’s arrival. The younger man was missing one eye, and the elder was scarred across the face but standing foursquare against the pull of his years. The woman was middle-aged with a round, pleasant face.

The three serfs bowed, and the scarred man offered a large silver goblet of liquid as fresh and red as the petals of a newly opened rose. Ares accepted the cup and sipped, barely wetting his lips, and then returned it.

Neither of the men paid any visible attention to Trinity, but she could feel them observing her out of the corners of their eyes. She took the opportunity to study them, wondering if any of the three might be connected to the Underground. There was no guarantee that a member of the Underground lived within this Household, but it was her task to find out as quickly as possible.

After introducing Trinity, Ares glanced at the older woman. “Elizabeth, she is unwell,” he said. “Take her to Levi and see that she is cared for. Send Abbie to find suitable clothes.”

“Yes, my lord,” Elizabeth said, bowing again.

“Diego,” he said to the man with the cup, “I will have your report in two hours.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Jonathan,” Ares said, turning to the scarred man. “Ask Cassandra to attend me in my rooms.”

The serf responded with a bow, and all three retreated, Elizabeth supporting Trinity toward a door at the end of the hall. Trinity balked, looking over her shoulder at Ares. He looked back at her, his light eyes unreadable, and disappeared through the double doors.

“Do you need more assistance?” the middle-aged woman asked in a gentle voice.

“I’m all right,” Trinity said, touching her pounding temples. “I’m just a little dizzy, and I have a headache. If you have any pain relievers...”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said with a slight smile. “The Opiri don’t need them, of course, but we do.”

“Who were those men?” Trinity asked as they reached the door.

“Two of the senior serfs. Diego—the young gentleman—is the majordomo of the Household, and Jonathan is the Master of Serfs.”

“Wouldn’t those jobs usually go to vassals?”

“Ares hasn’t any vassals,” she said.

Surprised at Ares’s flouting of Opir custom, Trinity raised a brow. “And what are your duties in the Household?” she asked.

“I guess you could say I look after the women’s matters. You’ve been through a lot today, and there’ll be plenty of time to learn after—”

She didn’t finish, but Trinity knew what she meant. After Ares had done what he’d failed to do at the Claiming. After she’d shared his bed, and he had marked her as his.

No emotion, she reminded herself. No fear, no desire, no admiration. Nothing existed but the mission.

And that mission had well and truly begun.