Chapter 11

 

The ruins around him meant nothing, not when his hands, his gaze, his mouth were full of Lishelle. Tynan lifted her and spun around to settle his backside on the seat, letting her straddle his lap.

The last time he’d ruled from this throne…

Didn’t matter, because she clamped her knees around his hips and impaled herself.

He threw his head back, clonking his head against the carved stone and metal, as her wet heat engulfed his swollen flesh. His hips strained upward, lifting her and driving deeper into the plush inner curves of her thighs. He groaned at the sleek, powerful pleasure of her muscles clenching around him in a rhythmic caress that matched their shared gasps, their echoing heartbeats.

By all the gods of Thorkon—of which he was just one—she was splendid. Her dusky-dark skin glistened in the captured solar power of the lanterns, the different colors flirting on the taut angles of her cheekbones, tracing the gentle mound of her belly and the hollow of her navel, lost in the shadows under the swells of her breasts. She leaned back, trusting his hands at the small of her back, her head tilted to one side and her eyes half closed in bliss. Her hair, which had been hidden earlier in the scarf, exploded around her face in tight coils, holding their own joyful energy. She rode him gently at first, then urgently, and the beat of their hearts and their bodies kept pace.

Let the rest of the ruins fall around him, he had eyes and hands and lips for nothing but her.

When she lunged forward to clamp her fingers on his shoulders, digging through muscle toward bone, he gazed up at her wide, dark eyes staring down at him as if she would swallow his soul like her slick channel took the entirety of his straining erection, all the way down to his groin so she was grinding against him. He thrust up into her with all his might, finding the balance of friction and pressure that made her keen with pleasure. Her whole body began to tremble with the oncoming rush of her orgasm, and he held her up with his hands full of her heaving breasts, the thickened nipples jutting between his knuckles. He squeezed—with his fingers, with his thighs pushing higher—until she screamed out hoarsely and shuddered, her inner muscles spasming.

Her breaths still seething, he laid her down on the throne and took her with the ferocity of a warlord, the might of a god, the passion of a man who had found—

The paroxysm of his release erased all conscious thought and froze him like a ruin caught in time in the paradise of her body.

For that suspended moment, he saw stars.

And then he was collapsing down on her soft form, one knee wedged into the arm of the throne, the other half braced against the carved base. His muscles trembled at the strain, but he decided he’d never move…

“Urf,” she squeaked.

With grand reluctance, he levered himself off her. He patted one hand blindly around the dais behind him, found by touch the embroidered shawl, and pulled it around them both as they slumped across the throne.

After a long, slow exhale, she turned her head where she’d made a pillow of his shoulder. “Is this why your throne is so big?”

“It is this big because I was a mighty warlord.” He snuggled her closer, burying his nose in the puff of her curls. “I never knew it was big enough for two.”

“Aww, should I feel special that I broke it in with you?”

An edge to her question sent up a warning flare in his mind, but his vigilance was blunted by repletion. “It’s the only thing that isn’t broken.”

She was silent for a moment, then petted her hand down his bare chest. “It must be hard to see your home wrecked and forgotten.”

“This was always a rough land, one of the reasons I chose it for my stronghold. But I’m surprised in all the centuries that have passed, no one else wanted it.”

“I know the dukes before Raz weren’t always as fiscally responsible as one might hope for ones overlords. He’s pledged to do more to develop opportunities for his people.”

Tynan grimaced. “I suppose I am one of those dependents now. Assuming I can convince him I’m not Blackworm.”

As soon as he said the name, he regretted bringing up that ugly past. Except it wasn’t really the past, was it? Not when he’d inherited the face and the enemies of a criminal.

Lishelle’s idle caresses didn’t change, but he thought he sensed a stiffening in her spine, as if she were bracing herself.

“There must be something here in the castle that only the warlord—only you would know.” She rolled her head to look up at him, the springiness of her hair tickling the underside of his jaw. “Do you have a secret treasure or something?”

He quirked his lips. “Ah, now I know why you have lured me here.”

Her petting turned into a light pinch at his ribs. “Abducted,” she reminded him. “You stole me. Not the other way around.”

She had taken something from him, though—

But she was still talking. “It doesn’t have to be worth anything in today’s galactic credits, but if you can show Raz that you are Tynan, I know he’d keep the bounty hunter away from you.”

“Is that a note of worry in your voice?” he teased.

Her dark eyes narrowed, unamused. “Blackworm escaped from prison. And he owes mercenaries money. That’s not going to be easy to get out from under by yourself.”

He shrugged one shoulder, not the one serving as her pillow. “I was by myself before.”

“And how’d that work out for you?”

He’d been lonely, full of himself, and he’d been killed.

He thought for a moment. “These trinkets and offerings—charming though they are—aren’t going to prove anything.”

She huffed out a breath that whispered across his throat. “Are you sure you don’t have any godly powers besides blessings?”

He kissed her temple. “My loving was not enough for you?”

A grumble under her breath vibrated against him. “You want to try that on Raz and Nor?”

He gulped back a laugh. “I share blessings with all beloveds, but…I concede the point. We’ll explore tomorrow in the light and see what remains.” He traced his fingertips down her spine to the dip of her waist and rested his palm on the full curve of her hips. He didn’t want to let her go, ever, but reluctantly, he said, “We’d probably be more comfortable”—he wouldn’t mention more secure—“back in the shuttle.”

With another grumble-breath, she pushed herself up onto one elbow, looking around. “It’s cold and dark and wet out there. We have food and drink here, so let’s just stay. Although I wouldn’t mind a more defensible bedroom.”

She was splendid and sensible.

They pulled on their various clothing pieces and gathered some comforts from the offerings—that had been left to the God of Beloveds, she explained, so it was all right that he was using them—before he led her to a smaller room behind the dais.

The spy room was hidden behind a false door that took both their muscle to force open after centuries of disuse. As the portal cracked open, a whiff of ancient air swirled out, still faintly scented of the sweet oils and incensed smoke that had once perfumed his hall. Or maybe that was his imagination. The longing that swept through him was more bitter than sweet, and suddenly he felt the weight of those centuries.

While he fastened a few of the solar lanterns to the frame of the doorway, Lishelle poked around the room, mostly empty except for the benches along the spying wall and the sidetable stock with decanters, some long evaporated, some still sealed. He’d never cared much for spying so he’d kept the room for, ah, entertaining.

Now, with the memories of those hundred angry maidens and the smell of sex clinging to him, he just wanted to rest.

He triggered one of the devices he’d brought from the wealth of gifts on the dais, and a lightweight temporary sleeping pad unfolded and began to rapidly inflate.

Lishelle arched one eyebrow. “We coulda had sex on a bed?”

“Somebody was obviously hoping the God of Beloveds would grant him luck with his lady.” He flashed her a grin. “But wasn’t being on the throne more subversive?”

She lifted her chin to an imperious angle. “I didn’t know we were being subversive. I thought we were just going for extra bruises.”

Instantly contrite, he gathered her into his arms. “Show me where you hurt. One of the offerings left behind is a bottle of massage oil.”

Which was how they ended up christening the unused mattress before they fell into an exhausted tangle under the embroidered shawl. They snuggled together, tentatively fitting curve to hollow like pieces of an unfamiliar puzzle.

“Is it strange being home?” She was resting on his other shoulder this time, and he thought it felt even more right. “I’ve only been gone from my home for three years, and I think it would be very odd to return now.” She glanced up at him. “To be gone for a few thousand years…”

He held her a little tighter, partly so that she wasn’t looking at him so closely and partly to take comfort in her proximity. “It’s harder with every passing day,” he admitted. “At first I didn’t really remember, and with each day that I do remember…” He nestled his face in the thicket of her hair, wilder now than when she’d first unveiled it, as if he could hide from what he needed to say. “Everything I remember makes me think the goddesses were right to stop me.”

She stiffened, pulling a little away from him. “To slay you?” Her tone was incredulous. “Okay, you were a manwhore, and you broke some hearts—about a hundred of them, from what I hear—but ripping out your heart seems a little extreme.”

He closed his eyes, wondering which lurid version of his legend she’d read. Maybe all of them; Lady Lishelle excelled at her studies. “Murder might’ve been extreme,” he conceded. “But my days were…less nuanced than these times.”

She gusted a sigh across his chest. “We always think the past was simpler.” She traced some idle looping shapes over his belly. “When I was a kid, my home was…chaotic, so everyone thought it would be simpler if I went and lived with my aunties. And it was simpler. I told myself I’d never get caught up in that sort of chaos again. If I studied hard and excelled, I’d break free of the path everyone believed I was doomed to follow.” She flattened her palm on his chest, above his heart, her fingers pressing in as if she was holding herself fast. “But in the end it wasn’t as simple as that. I did everything I thought I was supposed to—better than—but when it all went bad, I realized I’d ended up right where I was most afraid: with nothing and no one. And then Blackworm took me, it seemed like the rotten cherry on the shit sundae.”

His universal translator struggled with the image and gave up. As she’d given up, apparently.

“I didn’t fight,” she whispered, giving voice to what he’d surmised. “After all those years of fighting, when it most mattered, I didn’t even struggle.”

“You were overmatched,” he reminded her. “Frightened, drugged, not even on your planet anymore.”

Her spine was straight and stiff under his hand. “Is that what you would tell your troops, warlord?”

“I am not a warlord anymore.”

And that loss bit at him as cruelly as her moment of weakness haunted her.

Finally, she curled into his side. “I want Rayna and Trixie to be happy. They fought and won—Rayna got us the space station, Trixie got rid of Blackworm—so they deserve their happiness. But me…”

When she didn’t continue, he wanted to shake the rest of the words out of her. But what made him think he had that right when he was a failure himself? “As a one-time warlord, I can tell you war and reward are not always matched.”

“And that’s why we’re hiding here in a ruined castle, stealing love tokens.”

He wanted to argue with her, but… She was right. This wasn’t a battle he could win. Fighting her friends would only make him more like Blackworm when he was trying to prove the opposite. The best he could do was unearth some ancient testament of his identity from a life that was no longer his.

As his hope for a future went, it seemed the chains of the past were stronger even than the fatal abyss of a black hole.

 

***

 

They didn’t sleep long, although their makeshift bed was cozy enough. Tynan sensed the coming daylight even before it drifted through the door they’d left ajar. As long as he’d been gone, the rhythms of the mountain were still the same.

Lishelle shifted, easing away from him.

“Good morning,” he said softly.

“Oh, hey.” She pushed upright, nudging springy curls out of her eyes. “You’re awake too. Good. It’s a race whether my stomach is going to cave in first or my bladder explode.”

“Either way, sounds messy.” He rose and held one hand back to her, tugging her to her feet. “Let’s see if the bathrooms still work and then scrounge the offerings.”

She tagged along behind him, not trying to pull her hand out of his. “I’m scared to ask, but…”

He glanced over his shoulder as they stepped out into the great hall. “You can ask me anything.”

Her brow furrowed. “What kind of bathroom exactly?”

His bark of laughter echoed in the big room.

By the time he showed her the bathing options—which had only a trickle of water, but enough to do the job—and explained how the castle had been plumbed with gravity-fed runoff a millennium before he took it by right of conquest, they were good and hungry. They found a selection of unexpired food pouches in the gifts strewn around the dais and took their haul outside to the front steps.

The morning sun had climbed high enough to shine down through the jungle. The storm last night had left raindrops everywhere, glistening like the world had been dipped in jewels in every hue of green with a few pops of blossoming color. Though it was still early, the heat was gathering, and silvery wisps of fog spiraled up from the ground to dance among the vines.

“It’s beautiful,” Lishelle murmured. “So unlike the Azthronos estate.”

“The estate planet was always the proper head of this system,” he said. “This world was its wild heart.” He stared up as a small flock of local avians flew across the courtyard, chirping a morning song. “I’m glad this at least hasn’t changed.”

When a less musical gurgle came from his companion, he turned his attention back to her.

“Sorry.” She clamped one hand over her belly. “Tell me more.”

He smiled. “While I feed you.”

They tore open the packets of food. As befit gifts for a god, everything was high quality, maybe too rich for a picnic breakfast. All the bottles they tried were various strengths of ghost-mead and even more exotic liqueurs. Except they found one bottle of a delicate fruit nectar that hadn’t been fermented and one suspiciously dark carafe—

“Coffee!” Lishelle hugged the carafe to her chest. “Thank god!”

“Thank this god,” he said smugly.

She grinned. “I suppose I should share.”

He waved it away. “I’m feeling benevolent.”

While they dined on Thorkon delights, he told her about growing up in a jungle village near the castle. When he’d been denied a servant’s position at the castle because of his jungle upbringing, he joined the army of a neighboring warlord and worked his way up through the ranks where his rough ways hadn’t mattered.

“When the warlord died in battle with the next Thorkon galaxy over, I took his place. I finished his war and decided to come home.”

“I can’t imagine the castle’s lord at the time was happy to have an army camped on his doorstep.”

“On his dais, actually.” Tynan smirked. “I told him I still needed a servant, but he declined and took his household to the more civilized estate planet.” His grin faded. “I loved it here. Until the goddesses came.”

She set aside the carafe to squeeze his knee. “That’s over and done.”

He gazed at her, her kindness and her forgiveness piercing him more deeply than the goddesses had. “Now I have someone else’s past haunting me.”

“I’ll explain to Raz that you’re telling the truth about who you aren’t. And who you are.” She jerked one thumb toward the castle behind them. “God of Beloveds.”

He crinkled his eyes doubtfully. “Neither the duke nor his enforcer seem particularly devout.”

“Not really,” she admitted. “But Raz is the Avatar of the God of Oaths. Doesn’t that mean he has some way to verify if you swear it’s true?”

“Maybe if he was actually a god.”

“Now don’t get all pompous and proud.”

“I’m not,” he protested. “Not when the plumbing’s only good for one, maybe two more flushes.”

“Good thing we still have the shuttle,” she said.

He watched her closely when he said, “I should take you back, shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t need to pee yet,” she said.

“Back to the station,” he clarified.

She stilled.

In the warm, dewy light filtering through the wet jungle, her dark eyes were mysterious. Instead of the night robe she’d been wearing in her suite (when he’d abducted her; he winced at that truth) she’d swapped for a lightweight sampler of the sort Thorkon girls used to weave for their dowries. It was an antique that she’d found under the throne, protected from the elements in a plasilk bag. She’d wrapped it around herself in a simple style that crisscrossed over her breasts—one side in the brilliant yellow with crimson threads of a lamanya flower, the other in a perfect blue—and tied behind her neck. With her headscarf confining her curls in an upswept column, she looked like a goddess of bold color.

And she looked like she was thinking of smiting him.

He did not have good luck with goddesses…

“Back to the station?” For all the tropical warmth around them, her tone was frosty. “So you bring me to your stronghold, bone me on your throne, and now want to send me on my way. What, so you can summon ninety-nine more lovers to be your lady?”

He recoiled. “No! Why would you think—?”

“You have a history here, don’t you?” She rose to her feet, which she’d left bare. Framed against the vibrant lines of the forest behind her, she widened her stance. “But you’re right. What was I thinking?”

When she spun away from him, he stared after her, confused. How was he supposed to know what she was thinking? He might be a god, but he couldn’t know the female mind.

All he knew was he couldn’t hope to hold her when his future was as hazy as the morning fog and the past everyone believed was his left him mired in darkness. She might believe that because she hadn’t fought she’d never find her happiness, but if the goddesses had taught him anything, he knew everyone deserved to be loved.

He shoved upright and jolted after her. “Lishelle. Wait.”

She strode toward the path to the landing pad, her heels flipping up the hem of her improvised skirt. “Don’t worry. I’ll still vouch for you to the duke. I can swear, cross my heart and hope to die, you aren’t Blackworm since at least he was trying to win back his true love.”

“True…?” True love? Wait wait wait. Was she saying that she wanted to be his—?

While he’d dithered, she’d hurried a short distance ahead, lost around the curve of the path. He raced after her, his heart seemingly one step ahead of him. “Lishelle! Just—”

“Take me back,” she called. “Actually, you know what, I’ll just get the EVA suit and spacewalk back. You can stay here. Since you’re home now.”

His throat tightened. Yes, he was home, unlike her. But…it wasn’t like what he’d remembered. He wasn’t what he’d been.

He faltered a few steps. She already believed he wasn’t Blackworm, but could he convince her he wasn’t Tynan either, or at least not the reckless warlord he’d been who’d broken hearts and spaceship blockades with equal abandon?

She was almost to the overgrown clearing where they’d landed the shuttle. Not that she could fly away without him. He hung back for a moment, knowing he’d have to risk her anger to court her favor.

But the chance he was taking blossomed inside him like one of those improbable lamanya flowers under the black hole’s radiance from the first time he’d seen her.

He hustled forward, not sure exactly what he was going to say but trusting the power of his godhood would save him.

About to step out into the clearing, she hesitated, her face turning up toward the sky. The sun shimmered in the corner of her eye, and his heart seized to think he’d made his strong lady cry. “Lishelle.”

He reached for her arm just as she spun toward him, her dark eyes widening with terror. “Run!”

Behind her, a vicious orange beam of light speared down from the heavens, and the shuttle exploded in a rain of ruin.