Untouchable (15 page)

“Vyrn won’t return to this village,” she assured him. “As I told you earlier, he does not like the numbers being stacked against him, and he does not want to take the chance that some of his comrades might believe you and the innkeeper, as Rolf did. There were many witnesses to the death of an innocent villager, and more than one witness to Rolf’s death. Even if he can round up all the others on such short notice, he cannot and will not bring them here, to the site of his defeat.” She reached the top of the stairs and turned toward the room the innkeeper had assigned them.

“You seem so sure,” Alix said in a low voice.

“Do you remember that I told you most men are very easy to understand?”

“Yes.”

“Vyrn is like most men, simple and even primitive in his thinking. He believes himself to be clever, but in fact he is little more than an animal in a man’s skin.” She shuddered. Vyrn was an animal who would kill without conscience anything and anyone who got in his way. He was the worst of men, worse even than the shadow Alix fought. Even though Trystan was primitive, Alix was always there to curb his appetites.

“Besides,” she added, “you need to sleep, and I crave a night in a warm, soft bed. Just a single night before we take to the road again.” She forced a haughty expression onto her face, and wondered how she might look without the blue which was so much a part of her. “I would also like a hot bath, scented oils, a dress which does not scratch, shoes which are not falling apart, my gold bracelets, and a bowl of freshly sliced
tangitos
.”

“What are
tangitos
?”

“A red and lusciously sweet fruit, which grows only on the island of Claennis, and a craving which is as unlikely to be granted as the others.” What she really wanted, the craving she refused to voice because she knew it would be denied, was Alix.

“We will leave before sunrise,” he said.

Before entering the small room they would share for the night, Sanura attempted to look deeply into Alix once more. At the moment he was not so complicated, not so difficult to understand.

Perhaps more than one of her wishes would come true after all.

THE
small inn where they found themselves for the night was situated in a village which saw few travelers or visitors, so he could’ve insisted upon a separate room for himself. He had not. Sanura was correct when she said he needed to sleep, and Alix knew he could not rest if she was out of his sight. She was positive Vyrn would not return to this village. He could not be so sure.

While the room they would share could not compare with the luxury and spaciousness of the palace Alix now called home, it was certainly acceptable. The chamber was small, but was large enough to accommodate the wide bed, a bedside table, a battered desk, and a chair. A tattered rug covered much of the wooden floor, and though the bedcovers and the curtain over the single window were thread-bare, they were clean, as were the sheets which covered the thick, sagging mattress.

The past two nights had been spent with the ground as a bed, so perhaps he was being too kind, yet Alix did take some comfort in this clean, private room.

He had not been able to obtain all that Sanura desired, but he had managed to arrange for a basin of warm water and clean towels, a better-fitting pair of walking boots purchased on credit from the innkeeper, a waterskin for their coming days of travel, and a warm supper which they had shared in the room. The innkeeper’s blushing daughter had delivered the food. She was no longer the child he had supposedly saved, but was a pretty and shy young woman who lived a quiet, safe life. Alix tried to remember saving her but could not. He had fought so many monsters in that damned war.

A single candle burned, and by its light Sanura slowly removed the dress she’d bought from Donia. The sight was enough to make Alix forget old battles—and new ones. Perhaps she did not intend her disrobing to be seductive, but it was, painfully so. She could not make a move which was not arousing. The way her freshly brushed hair swayed, the way her arms moved so gracefully, the way she turned her head . . . they were all seductive. Her sensuousness was a part of her, just as the darkness was a part of him. They could never escape who they truly were. Never.

When she was completely naked, Sanura opened the sack which held the broken leaves that would clean the blue stain from her skin—and Alix’s. She grabbed one and walked slowly toward the bed where he sat. His eyes were drawn to the blueness of her breasts and hips, to the line where her golden skin turned to blue. He could not forget being inside her, could not forget the sensation of her body swaying into his to meet his thrust. She did not demur, showed no hint of shyness, of modesty. She was entirely bare and comfortable with her nakedness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to present herself to him thus.

“Will you?” she asked simply, offering him the broken leaf.

Alix hesitated. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Is it working?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly.

She smiled, and her smile was as seductive as the sway of her breasts and the movement of her hips when she walked. Everything in him came alive, twitched and screamed for what he knew he could not—should not— have.

“I do not fool myself into believing that we can be mated forever,” she said sensibly, “but that does not mean we cannot enjoy what we both want in this perilous time. As I watched you fight with Vyrn, I realized with great clarity that our lives are very uncertain. If I die tomorrow, I will be very glad that this night was one of joy. If I find myself at the end of a hangman’s noose for a crime I did not commit, I might die with a smile on my face as I remember a finer moment.”

“The fact that our lives are uncertain does not free us to take anything we wish.”

“Not anything, perhaps, but we can have one another for a while.” Sanura sat beside him on the bed, offering her body for his attentions. He did not rush, but gently ran the broken end of the plant over the swell of her breasts until they were as rosy as her cheeks, unstained and unmarked. There were many other places on her body which remained blue, and he gave them all his attention. Her thighs, her hips, the rounded cheeks of her ass, they all needed his ministrations.

Now and then he lifted the plant from her and replaced it with his hand, stroking her bared and clean flesh, absorbing her heat and reveling in the comfort of simply touching her.

“I know you worry about him who lurks within you,” Sanura said as he stroked his fingers along her spine, “but you are so much stronger than he, Alix.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

She did not speak again as he finished tending to her. Often she closed her eyes and seemed to savor every brush of the leaf, every warming sweep of his hand. As he saw to the task, he studied every inch of her body with leisure, in a way he had not before. He had never allowed himself the luxury of admiring her this way. He had always been too cautious, too aware. Too afraid.

Now and then he gave in to temptation and placed his mouth on her, tasting the warm flesh she offered so willingly, losing himself in her scent, her warmth, the flavor of her skin. How could there be anything evil or wrong in something which felt so good? How could a darkness he had suppressed all his life keep him from taking something which was only right? If he walked away from Sanura, did that darkness win another battle? Did it make him die inside a little more?

When the job was done and her skin was entirely free of the blue stain, Sanura began to undress Alix, her movements slow as she removed his vest, his shirt, his belt, and then his trousers. Like her, earlier he had removed only the paint which was visible when he was dressed, and beneath his clothes he was well marked as one who had touched that which was not his.

At the moment he did not care that Sanura wasn’t his to take. He wanted her anyway. He certainly wished to believe what she said about taking joy while their lives were uncertain, and he wanted to believe that he was indeed much stronger than the shadows he had always fought. He’d lived his life restrained by caution, afraid to release what he knew slept within him. He was tired of being cautious, of not living fully and taking what that life offered.

There was joy in this, in touching, in pleasure, in the promise of so much more which danced just out of reach.

He waited for that dark part of him he denied to speak up, to urge him with a whisper to conquer or harm this woman who had changed his life, but the other remained silent. Maybe that part of him was sleeping. Maybe it was finally dead, killed by the myriad emotions Sanura brought to the surface.

Alix had always denied himself emotions, believing them to be a weakness which might awaken his demon. Perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps those emotions which marked him as entirely human meant the end of a darkness which was entirely unhuman.

Sanura removed the blue stain from his thighs, where those thighs had once rubbed against hers. She worked gently on a spot of blue on his side. Her fingers were warm, especially when they followed the touch of the cooling leaf. When all else had been cleaned, she rubbed a bit of the leaf’s substance onto the palm of her hand and stroked his erection. Alix closed his eyes and savored the fluttering of her fingers, the strength of her palm, the stroke which almost sent him over the edge. The touch was cold and hot, and it was possessive in a way he had not expected.

“In all my life, I have never had a choice like this one,” Sanura whispered as she stroked. “I was always told that I should feel honored and blessed to be a woman of the Agnese, that I should be pleased that men wanted to possess me. You tell me that it is somehow wrong, that I should wish to be free to make my own choices, to be my own woman. The idea of true freedom is frightening. What if I choose poorly? Who will take care of me if I make a mistake?” She leaned down and took a moment to kiss his throat, to run her hands slowly down his thighs and then back up again to grab his hard length and stroke it. “In my lifetime I have been sold and I have been given away, I have been treasured and pampered and taken care of. In Tryfyn I was feared and restrained and finally given away, as if my presence were a nuisance. In all that time, I have never chosen a man.”

She straddled him with strong pale thighs and guided him to her, into her wet heat. “I choose you, Prince Alixandyr. Because my body wants yours, because my heart feels something I do not understand, because in my soul I am yours . . . I choose you.”

She should not choose him. He was broken. The sad thought rushed through Alix even as he reveled in the feel of her warm body around him.

“You are not broken,” she whispered as she moved slowly, swaying into him and up, then plunging down to take him all again.

“You can read my mind?” he asked.

“No, I read your soul, Alix. When we are linked, I see your very soul, I see all that you are, all that you want. Together this way, linked and soaring, we are truly as one.”

She saw him, she saw all of him, and she was not frightened by all that he was.

Sanura’s words stopped and her speed increased. She rose and fell quickly, stroking him, taking him deep, accepting all of him, body and soul. She undulated over and against him until she found completion with an arch of her back and a strangled cry. As her inner muscles clenched and unclenched, Alix gave over to his own fulfillment, and in that moment everything else went away and there was nothing in the world but her body and his. Nothing.

Sanura collapsed atop him and settled her head on his shoulder. “I feel so much better,” she whispered, and then she sighed and pressed her lips to his neck. “Do we really have to bother to prove our innocence? How do we prove that Vyrn and Tari did the horrible deed? What if no one believes us?” She rose and smiled down at him. “I think we should collect Mali and make our way to the coast, where we will steal a boat and sail to an island near Claennis. This island is small and verdant and warm, and no one would ever find us there.”

It was a nice enough fantasy, and was very much like his own. “Would we live on
tangitos?
” he teased.

“
Tangitos
and fish and sex,” she clarified.

With one hand, Alix shifted her face so her lips were upon his. He very gently moved his mouth against hers, allowing himself to get lost in the simple touch. When he started to draw away, she stopped him with her hands on his face.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered almost frantically. “My first kiss should not be so quick.”

“FIRST
kiss?” Alix whispered.

Sanura nodded as she pressed her mouth to his. Kissing was very nice, and much more powerful than she had expected it to be. It sent chills down her spine, it sent a spark of fire through her blood.

Alix rolled her onto her back without breaking the kiss. He held her, kissed her, cared for her in a way no other man ever had.

It was nice not being blue, not being untouchable.

For tonight she had Alix alone, without the darkness of Trystan. Of course, Trystan knew that when they were joined, she could see into his soul, and he did not wish her to see him clearly. Why? Was there a weakness he hid? A vulnerability he wished to keep from her?

Alix’s tongue slipped into her mouth and she forgot Trystan. “This is so very nice,” she whispered, her breath mingling with his. “If we were to run away, we could kiss all the time.”

He did not have to say aloud that running was not his way. She felt it. He wished for the same simple things she did, the same simple life, but he denied himself, as he had always done.

“I know what I must do,” he said as he kissed his way down her throat.

“Yes, so do I,” she responded breathlessly as she caught his hips between her thighs.

He laughed—
laughed
—with his lovely mouth between her breasts. “That, too, but that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?” And how could he think of anything else when they were entangled so?

“I have been hesitant to go directly to my brother, because I don’t entirely trust myself. More correctly, I don’t trust the other, the darkness.”

“You are afraid of what Trystan might do if he rises while in your brother’s presence,” she clarified.

“Exactly so,” Alix said with a rush of sadness. “And yet, we cannot continue to run, we can’t hide forever. Like it or not, I need Jahn’s help. We will go to Jahn, through Sian Chamblyn if need be, and we will tell him everything.”

“You said it yourself. No one will believe us without proof. There will be war,” she whispered. She feared what would happen when they were no longer alone, when they had to face and deal with others.

“Perhaps, but as things stand, there will be war in any case. I don’t know how to prove our innocence, but perhaps Jahn will have some ideas. He’s very clever that way.”

The brilliant shine of her happiness dimmed. “So, we will go to Arthes and you will give me to your brother, as was intended.”

For a moment Alix was silent, and then he said, “No. I will not.”

He did not elaborate, and she did not ask him to. Instead, she snuggled against him and rested there, in a way she had never before been able to do. Her life was in shambles, yet she was not alone. Everything she knew of who she was, who she’d been meant to be, did not work in this new land. She did not want to think of that tonight, not when this man she had chosen held her so well. They settled onto their sides, still in one another’s arms. Her soft chest against his hard one was a comfort. His hands, hands which touched her as if she were truly precious, caressed and held and explored.

Soon Alix was ready again, and so was she, so she was not surprised when he rolled her onto her back and filled her quickly and thoroughly. “I will never give you away, not to anyone, not for any reason. You’re mine, Sanura.” He was still, deep inside her and so very still. “You’re mine,” he said again, truly believing the words for the first time. “Jahn will understand, and if he doesn’t, I will fight him for you. I will take you, if I must.” He began to move, to arouse her, to make her truly his own. “In our lifetimes he has possessed many things I wished for myself. I have never thought of fighting him for anything, I’ve never even dreamed of taking that which might be mine but was not. Not until now.”