The Invisible Ring bj-4 Read online

  He leaned over and covered her hands with his. The moment he touched her, he knew.

  “How many were you supposed to bring back, Lia?” he asked softly, baiting her. His anger was rising again. And beneath the anger was grief.

  So close, he thought. So close.

  “We didn’t set an exact number,” Lia mumbled.

  “How many?”

  She trembled beneath his hands and wouldn’t look at him.

  “Who were you asked to look for?” Jared asked, struggling to keep his voice gentle.

  She swallowed hard. “Eryk and Corry. Blaed and Thayne. Polli.”

  Jared’s hands tightened until she made a small, hurt sound. Not trusting himself, he released her and shoved his fists into his pockets. “If you were supposed to bring Polli back, how could you give her to that rogue bastard?”

  Lia’s head snapped up. “Prince Talon is not a bastard— of any kind,” she said hotly. “He’s a good, honorable man. Besides, he’s Polli’s uncle. Since he was the one who asked us to look for her, why shouldn’t I send her with him when there was the chance?”

  Jared stared at Lia and then shook his head to clear it. That hard-eyed Warlord Prince was Polli’s uncle? Well, that explained why she’d been willing to go with him.

  “That’s how I know the message wasn’t a trick,” Lia said, bristling. “The escorts who were waiting for us at the western Coach station were attacked. When we didn’t meet Talon as planned, he and some of his men started looking for us.” Tears filled her eyes. She slumped, as if her body couldn’t stay upright once anger no longer supported her. “My uncle was leading the escorts who were supposed to bring us home.”

  Jared moved to her bench and put his arms around her. He stroked her hair and rocked her, murmuring soothing noises while she cried out the fear and grief she’d had to hide.

  When she finally quieted, he called in a handkerchief and let her sniffle into it for another minute before slipping a finger under her chin, forcing her head up.

  “Want to tell me the real reason you didn’t buy passage?” he asked gently. Before she could say anything, he pressed a finger against her lips. “Let me tell you what I think happened. You arrived at the auction ground as soon as it opened and spent the day going from auction block to auction block until you found all of the people you’d come for. Probably took you the best part of the day, too. I imagine you bought a couple of the others while you were searching so that it wouldn’t be obvious you were waiting for particular slaves to come to the block, but you would have been careful not to overspend at that point. Then, once you had the five you came for, you still had enough marks to buy three or four more slaves. But you wouldn’t have settled for the first ones who came on the block after that. You would have looked for people who could still appreciate the gift of freedom. Since there were so many and you could take so few, making those hard choices took some time. Right?”

  Reluctantly, she nodded.

  “Now, by the time you’d made your next-to-last purchase, there were still plenty of gold marks left to buy the double passage that would get you to a Coach station close to the Tamanara Mountains. And don’t give me any nonsense about the escorts bringing the marks with them for the next step of the journey. I had originally trained as an escort, Lady, and no man who serves in that capacity would have let you leave without making sure you had the means to get home on your own.” He raised his voice to drown out her indignant sputters. “So there must have been a secondary plan if you couldn’t meet them as agreed. Which meant you had the funds for that second passage.”

  “I told you—”

  Jared pressed his finger against her lips again. “You came to buy five, and they were expensive purchases. Brock and Randolf would have been expensive, too. But Garth? You might have paid more than a simple, expendable laborer was worth, but it wouldn’t have lightened your purse by much.” When she started to protest, he held his hand firmly over her mouth. “Raej might be the prime slave fair and slave-owning might be an aristo indulgence, but even there a young, half-Blood male like Tomas wouldn’t go for much. With the way aristo Blood males have been mounting landen females, you can go into just about any village and buy a starving little bastard of either sex. And little Cathryn— a pretty Blood female that an aristo male would use as a breeder after his broken wife produced the one child she’d be capable of bearing. But Cathryn’s only nine, and if healthy offspring are the intention, she isn’t going to be useful for several more years. So she wasn’t going to go for much either. Thera? I can’t imagine you had much competition bidding for a broken Black Widow with a vicious temper. Which leaves me.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed.

  Jared took his hand away from her mouth and found he needed a moment to steady himself. “It was me, wasn’t it? Until you bought me, you still had the funds to buy passage on another Coach.”

  Lia shook her head, but he saw the truth in the shadows that darkened her gray eyes.

  “I know where the bidding starts for a fully trained pleasure slave—even a vicious one. And even though you weren’t bidding against anyone, the auction steward wouldn’t have accepted a price that was much less than the starting bid would have been. So I was the purchase that emptied your purse a little too much.”

  She wouldn’t look at him.

  “You can’t tell me I have things in the wrong order, Lia. It was almost closing when you came down to those pens. So I was the last one.” Taking the handkerchief, Jared wiped the fresh tears from her face. “Why, Lia? Why were you even down there?”

  “I don’t know,” Lia said, her voice catching. “I just needed to go down there. I knew there was something I needed to see.” She gave him a defiant look through eyelashes that were spiky from the tears.

  Jared frowned. “A compulsion spell?”

  Lia jerked. Her eyes widened, then narrowed thoughtfully. After a moment, she shook her head. “I would have sensed it.”

  “Would you? If a darker Jewel—”

  “You wouldn’t believe the drills I was put through,” Lia replied sourly. “No. I know what compulsion spells feel like. And I was drilled in how to look for all kinds of illusion webs, which is why I sensed something odd about Thera.” She shook her head again. “If it was a compulsion spell, it was awfully subtle.”

  He wouldn’t have expected any other kind if it came from Hayll. Subtle and twisted. Now was probably not a good time to remind her that being able to recognize a kind of spell didn’t guarantee being able to recognize a particular spell.

  Had he been the bait for a trap? Had Dorothea deliberately warned Lia away from that Coach station so that she’d be stranded still within Hayll’s reach, forced to travel overland instead of riding the Winds?

  “Wait,” Jared said. “If you were planning to let us go, why didn’t you tell us at the inn? Why did you buy the wagon at all? No, look.” He gripped her shoulders. Remembering her bruises, he lightened his hold. “If you’d told us then, there were five of us who could have ridden the Winds and you would have had plenty of marks to buy passage for the others.”

  She searched his face and, after a moment, reached a decision. “There’s a . . . wrongness . . . here. I can’t explain it better than that. I didn’t sense it until we were all together. In a way, I still can’t sense it, but . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “At first I thought it was the illusion webs Thera and I were using, but it’s more, Jared, and I can’t pinpoint the source. It’s like catching something out of the corner of your eye but not being able to see it when you try to look directly at it. I couldn’t risk bringing that wrongness into Dena Nehele. I couldn’t risk having someone who might be full of Hayll’s kind of poison living freely among my people. So I decided to keep everyone together and let them think they were still slaves until I could find the source.”

  Jared leaned back. “You let Polli go.”

  Lia took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I told Talon about t
he wrongness. He’ll take . . . precautions.” She smiled bleakly, her eyes so full of shadows. “Besides, the wrongness is still here.”

  He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Then he stood up. “Come on,” he said. “You’ll sleep better on a mattress in front of the fire than on a hard bench out here in the cold.”

  “No.” Lia hunched her shoulders. “I’ll stay here.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  There was more snap than shadow in her eyes now. “You can’t—”

  “I’m claiming Escort’s Privilege.” Checkmate, little witch, Jared thought as he smiled at her. When a Queen’s escorts weren’t available, another male could take on the duties of looking after the Lady. Since it was a temporary arrangement, Queens rarely refused a male’s claim—especially if his Jewels happened to outrank hers.

  She muttered and sputtered while he bundled her up and carried her out of the wagon. Her comments about escorts poking their noses into personal concerns became more pungent after he asked her if she needed to use the privy hole.

  “There were extra mattresses, so I put down a double thickness for you,” Jared said as he carried her to the building.

  “I don’t need—”

  “Thera got a double mattress, too.”

  That shut her up so he didn’t mention Thera’s reaction to Blaed’s proprietary courtesy, or that Thera had tried to bite Blaed when the young Warlord Prince tucked the covers around her. No point giving the little witch ideas.

  The men were all awake when he brought Lia into the building, but no one spoke, no one stirred. Subdued by their presence, she let him settle her on the mattresses and fuss with the blankets. Her only response when he snugged his mattress up to hers was to turn her face away from him.

  The rejection stung a little, but he stretched out beside her and tried to ignore it.

  A few minutes later, the slow, steady breathing told him everyone else was asleep.

  Jared propped himself up on one elbow and watched Lia.

  Knowing he would be free once they reached Dena Nehele felt like a different kind of slavery. He couldn’t run now, couldn’t escape, couldn’t go home. Her explanation had been fine as far as it went, but she hadn’t known about the wrongness when she bought him—which meant she had risked herself and the others to keep him from going to the salt mines of Pruul. How could he walk away when she needed his strength?

  He couldn’t. As much as he wanted to go home, he couldn’t leave her now.

  As he blinked back tears, he slipped his hand under Lia’s blanket, searching for her hand. She might have turned her face away from him, but her fingers curled trustingly around his.

  Lying there, watching her sleep, he was torn between what he wanted to do and what he had to do. He no longer needed any tangible proof that the Invisible Ring existed, because the Ring no longer mattered. There was only one choice he could make now and live with. Until this journey ended and Lia was safely home, his strength, his maleness, belonged to her.

  Sighing, Jared settled down and closed his eyes.

  My father would say you haven’t grown into your skin yet.

  He’d barely had time to get used to the feel of his Red strength when he’d been tricked into slavery. So maybe Blaed’s father was right about that. And if that was true . . .

  Had being enslaved somehow frozen him in that transition between youth and man? If he’d remained in Ranon’s Wood, would he have eased into the more aggressive nature of an adult Red-Jeweled male, the change happening slowly so that what he felt inside was just more instead of other?

  Jared opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling above him.

  Other. Like the wild stranger. The part of himself that had been suppressed for nine years, until rage had let it burst free. The adult Warlord who kept pushing at him to embrace it, accept it.

  He would have to embrace it, would have to accept it, no matter how much he feared it. He needed that strength and aggression if he was going to keep Lia safe.

  Two nights from now, the full moon after the autumn equinox would rise. For a Shalador male, it was the night of the dance.

  And the dance would be the right time to call the Warlord back to himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Settled into one of the dainty chairs that were scattered around her sitting room, Dorothea SaDiablo sipped her morning coffee while she studied her Master of the Guard. She had one leg tucked under her, which made her red-silk dressing gown split enticingly high. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, creating a sleek, black frame for her half-bared breasts. She looked more like a whore in the most expensive Red Moon house than a High Priestess.

  Then again, Krelis thought, all women were whores. Some were just honest about it.

  “Have you any news?” Dorothea asked, setting her cup on the low table in front of her. She picked up a warm breakfast pastry shaped like a crescent, broke it in half, then delicately licked the torn edge. And all the time, she watched him.

  It took effort not to shift his weight from foot to foot, but he reminded himself that he was no longer a Third Circle guard who didn’t understand the dangers of accepting an aristo witch’s sexual lures.

  “Well?” Dorothea put the half crescent in her mouth, closed her lips around it, pulled it out again. Slowly. While she watched him.

  Krelis had to clear his throat before he found his voice. “No, Priestess, I have no news. But even riding the Winds, it takes time to reach Hayll,” he added quickly.

  “Of course,” Dorothea purred. “I’m simply concerned that the more time it takes to complete this little task, the more chances she’ll have to slip away.”

  He understood the threat beneath the pleasantly spoken words. “She won’t escape, Priestess. I swear it on my life.”

  Dorothea smiled brilliantly. “I’m sure you do.”

  Krelis’s legs turned to jelly. Before he could think of some way to respond, the door between the bedroom and sitting room opened.

  The Warlord toy-boy didn’t look sulky or defiant this morning. And he didn’t have the sated look of a man who had spent a hot night in bed. He looked haunted, numb, as if he’d passed beyond fear sometime in the early hours and was only beginning to feel the tingle of reawakened emotions. The hunger in his eyes was focused on the coffeepot and basket of pastries, not on the barely dressed woman.

  Krelis watched Dorothea’s expression change. She reminded him of a satisfied cat who had just remembered the mouse beneath her paw.

  “It’s still early, darling,” Dorothea purred. “Go back to bed.”

  Flinching, the Warlord obeyed.

  After tossing the half crescent back into the basket, Dorothea raised her arms and stretched luxuriously. “There’s nothing quite like staying in bed on a rainy morning, don’t you think?”

  For a moment, just a moment, Krelis pictured the three of them tangled in satin sheets and wasn’t sure if he felt revolted or aroused. Then common sense—and a healthy dose of fear—grounded him. Hoping she’d overlook his hesitation, he tried to smile. “It’s a necessary indulgence for Ladies. Unfortunately, the mundane tasks we males perform don’t disappear in rainy weather.”

  “And I’ve kept you from your tasks long enough,” Dorothea said with a knowing smile. “I imagine your mother enjoys rainy mornings.”

  The verbal knife slipped past all his defenses and left him bleeding. “I imagine so, Priestess,” he said weakly.

  A muffled, pitiful weeping came from behind the bedroom door.

  Turning toward the sound, Dorothea stroked her breasts.

  Krelis fled.

  He walked back to the guards’ quarters, completely unaware that he was getting soaked to the skin.

  Aristo word games. Sentences with layers of meaning.

  He remembered the mother of his childhood as a lovely woman content with her life; a woman who filled the house with her laughter and singing; a woman whose eyes lit up when his father was in the room.

 
He remembered the woman who fought with a witch’s passion when the Healer tried to refuse to help Olvan; the woman whose pride and courage had shamed the merchants when they tried to insist that she pay immediately instead of sending her a monthly account as was customary; the woman who looked her neighbors in the eye until they avoided her.

  He remembered the woman whose courage finally crumbled after so many years of isolation; the woman who became emotionally bitter and brittle; the woman whose eyes were full of contempt for the man she’d loved; the woman who kept her distance from her son, as if he, too, would place a burden on her that was past bearing.

  He remembered the woman who crept back to her family, leaving him to deal with the merchants and face the neighbors, leaving him with that soul-withered husk of a man who spent his days rereading beloved books and never going beyond the garden gate, leaving him to share in his father’s shame for no other reason than because he was male.

  And he remembered the woman who brought him back into her family once he’d severed all ties with Olvan; the woman who had looked at him out of dead eyes; the woman who flaunted a string of lovers, who spread her legs for any male who had some position and power.

  Oh, yes, he imagined his mother stayed in bed on rainy mornings.

  Krelis reached his rooms and stripped out of his wet clothes.

  Aristo games. Witches’ games. He still didn’t really know the rules. Despite having ties with the Hundred Families, his people had been countryfolk. He hadn’t been raised to play these games. Dorothea must have known that.

  Which made him wonder, for the first time, why she had chosen him to be her Master of the Guard.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jared slipped out of the stone building, pausing to take a deep breath of crisp night air. No one would follow him. He’d made it clear since the evening meal that he wanted to be alone. Lia was settled for the night and wouldn’t need him for a little while.