Veil of Shadows (42 page)

“Okay, so if that’s not the problem, then what—”

“It’s his witch,” Laithe said.

Lee looked at him, scowling. “Syn?” She didn’t understand, at first. But the longer she thought about it, the more she understood. After a minute, she slumped against the windowsill and muttered, “Shit.”

Xan—Xanthe—whatever he called himself—had come here with an agenda, and it was one he’d kept hidden. Then he’d gone and gotten involved with Syn. While Lee couldn’t speak for the other woman, she had an idea how she would feel in that situation.

Very much used, and very much the fool.

But she’d seen the way he looked at Syn.

Sighing, she crossed her arms over her chest and muttered once more, “Shit.”

Xanthe reached up and caught her wrists, easing her hands down. “Laisyn, this is hard—please don’t make it harder.” He pressed a kiss to her hands and then let her go.

“Oh, I plan on making this damn hard,” she snapped. She reached up and caught his tunic with one hand. The other, she twined around his neck. He didn’t lower his head for her, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her, it seemed.

While he stood there, trying to find the strength to walk away, she was pressing a hot little line of kisses all the way up his neck, pausing to nibble at his chin, at his jaw. “Answer me,” she said, her voice challenging. “If you meant it, then why in the hell are you so determined to walk away?”

Then she pulled back and glared up at him, her cat eyes all but spitting fire at him. “And don’t you dare throw my words back at me, Xan. Considering the surprise I had dumped on me, I was entitled to be a little bitchy.”

How did he respond? What did he say? He needed to get her away from him—perhaps if he did, he might be able to make himself think. With that thought in mind, he rested his hands on her narrow waist—his intention was to ease her back. That had been his intention anyway. Yet he found himself pulling her closer, staring down in her upturned face and fighting the urge to kiss her.

“Got an answer?” she whispered, pressing her mouth to his neck, then drawing his face to hers.

Xanthe groaned as she kissed him, nibbling on his lower lip, sliding her tongue into his mouth. Shuddering, he tightened his hands and hauled her completely against him. She hummed against his mouth and brought her legs up, wrapping them around his waist. He raked his teeth down her neck and forcibly reminded himself they were standing out in the open, in full view of the entire camp. Anybody could see them—

He should care about that. Really, he should.

Tearing himself away, he forced a few feet between them and stared at her flushed face.

“What in the hell do you want from me?” he demanded. Need, love and guilt twisted through him, tearing into him, greedy little blades that threatened to shred his heart. “Damn it, what do you want?”

“Right now, just an answer,” she said, shrugging. “You tell me I’m your soul, but then you walk away . . . but if I mean much of anything, how can you walk away so easily?”

“You think this is
easy
?” he bit off. He felt as though he had ripped his heart out, as though half of it lay at her feet.

“If it’s not, you could have fooled me.”

“I can’t stay here.” He couldn’t. Why couldn’t she see that? He stared at her, his throat tight and his blood roaring in his ears. He couldn’t.

“You can. If you want to.” She licked her lips and uncertainty flickered across her face. “If you want
me
.”

She shook her head and said, “But I guess I can’t really make you stay. I can’t make you want me. If I’m your soul—whatever you meant by that—then I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to be with me. But since you’re so damned intent on walking, I guess I’m seeing this wrong.”

“If you think I don’t want to be with you, then you are very much mistaken. But can’t you see how impossible this is?”

“No. I see the man I love—I’ve waited my entire life for you,” she whispered, and her voice broke as she spoke. “Whatever you think the problems are, we can work it out. But not unless you want it. I guess maybe you don’t.”

But Xanthe hadn’t heard anything after the words,
I see the man I love
. Stunned, he closed his eye.

Her words echoed inside his head, danced through his blood.

Had she truly just said that?

Love. It wasn’t an emotion he had much familiarity with. He had loved his mother. He did love his brother. And although he barely knew her, he thought he probably loved his sister. But until Syn, he had never known anything like this—never felt an emotion that destroyed even as it remade, never felt such pain even as he felt such pleasure, never known such hope even as he discovered what it was to feel completely hopeless.

She loved him.

The soft brush of a shoe over the broken road had him opening his eye. She was walking away . . . walking through the secondary gates.

“Syn.”

This time, she was the one to stop and barely glance at him as she said, “What?”

The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on him. He caught her by the arm.

She whirled around, glaring at him. With a twist of her wrist, she tore away from him, backing away. Her cat eyes gleamed behind a veil of tears. “What, damn it? You can walk now. That’s what you wanted. So walk already.”

“What I want is
you
,” he rasped. He advanced on her, watching as she backed herself right up against the gate’s wall. Bracing his hands on the rough surface, he caged her in and stared down in her face. “Did you mean it?”

Syn sneered at him. “Mean what?”

Narrowing his eye, he pushed his fingers into her hair, gripping the short, silken strands. “Answer me, Laisyn . . . did you mean it?”

“If I say it, I mean it.” She fired his words back at him and gave him a tight smile. “Not that it matters. You want to walk away—you think this is impossible.”

“What in the hell do I know?” He dipped his head and nipped her lower lip. “Don’t you know? I can very often be an utter fool. You meant it.”

Syn jerked her face away from him. “Oh, yes. I imagine you can be an utter fool.”

But the line of her mouth had softened . . . he thought. He rubbed his cheek against hers, breathing in the scent of her. He wanted to kiss her, needed it. But self-preservation kept him from doing so. If he kissed her now, unless she had the presence of mind to stop him, he just might take her here, and now—right where any damn soul could see.

“You love me,” he said, staring down into her eyes.

Her hands came up, hesitantly cradling his face. “Yes, I love you.” A weak smile curled her lips and she shrugged. “I was actually sort of thinking about telling you soon, but life sort of got in the way.”

“It has a way of doing that.” He pressed his brow to hers. “You love me.”

Syn blushed and rolled her eyes. “Yes.” Her slender arms twined around his neck and he boosted her up, cradling her close. “I think we more or less got that clear.”

“I could still listen to you say it again. Possibly another ten or fifteen times would satisfy me. For now.”

Syn laughed. “You haven’t even told me once . . . but I’m supposed to say it another ten or fifteen times?”

“Haven’t I said it?” He eased her to the ground and reached up, laid a hand over her heart. It raced furiously, pounding against his hand in strong, fast beats. “In your language, love is linked to the heart. In mine, it’s the heart . . . and the soul.
Avi
means heart, soul. You are my heart, my soul. I announced it in front of men I barely knew.”

Her eyes went soft, a smile curling her lips. “Well, if you could announce it in front of a bunch of men you barely knew, men who really wanted to rip into you, by the way, then maybe you could tell me.”

“Maybe I could.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “My heart. My soul. You’re my everything, Laisyn. I love you.”

“Then why are you walking away?”

Cradling her face in his hands, he murmured, “In this moment, every last soldier here couldn’t drag me away.”

“Good.” She smiled and arched up, pressing her lips to his mouth.

He turned his face aside. “Bleeding sands, not here,” he muttered, glancing all around.

“Not what here?”

He grabbed her hips, held her close and leaned into her. “Touch me, kiss me, it’s entirely likely I’ll forget anything, everything but you. Should we give your men that show?”

“Ummm . . . no. Let’s not.”

It took more than an hour to get to her dormer.

They’d been waylaid—by Elina, who had looked unsettled—weird for her. By Lee, who had stared at Xanthe as though she’d never seen him before. By Kalen, who had glared at Xanthe and walked away with just a shake of his head. Bron, Gunner . . .

By the time they reached her room, she was ready to shriek, and when she closed the door, she sagged against it with a groan. “How can a ten-minute walk take an hour?”

“When you keep getting stopped every ten feet, it isn’t a ten-minute walk.”

“Yeah. Good point.” She shoved away from the door, itching to touch him, but nervous . . . so nervous. “I didn’t see your brother.”

“He’s near. Somewhere.” Xanthe shrugged his shoulders.

“I imagine you two have some catching up to do. I get the feeling you haven’t spoken in a while.”
And exactly why am I talking about this now?

“It’s been some years.” Xanthe unsheathed the blade he wore at his back.

The black stone glinted under the light, and she realized he still had that black metal chain wrapped around the blade. No—not just wrapped. It looked as though the chain had been designed to wrap around the blade’s hilt. Slowly, he freed it and then he laid the sheathed blade on her desk.

“What’s the stone for?” she asked, watching as he cupped it in his hand, stared at it.

He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “In Anqar, it’s a mark of what I am. Here? It’s naught much more than a trinket.” He tossed it onto her desk beside his blade.

“Looks like a fancy trinket.” Then she looked at him. “But I really don’t care too much about trinkets right now.”

“Really?”

Xanthe stood in the middle of her room, staring at her.

Staring . . . but not touching. Nowhere close to touching, and that just wasn’t a good thing, Syn decided. She unfastened her tunic, rolled her shoulders. It fell to the floor with a muffled thud. “Yes, really.” Stroking her tongue along her lower lip, she murmured, “You made love to me when we woke up . . . yesterday. It was only yesterday. But it seems like years.”

“Years.” He crossed to her and pulled her into his arms. The feel of him chased away every last echo of icy cold, and she tipped her head back, smiling at him.

“Too long.” She reached between them and stroked him. “Make love to me.”

Their clothes fell away, littering the floor around them as they made their way to her narrow bed.

“Xanthe . . .” She reached between them, wrapping her fingers around his cock. “Now.”

He stroked her, rubbing his thumb against her clitoris, then dipping inside, testing her.

Syn shuddered as he eased one finger inside her damp sex, flinched as he added a second. “You’re not ready.”

“I don’t care.” She steadied his cock, tucked the head of it against her entrance. “I don’t care.” It hurt and she shuddered, forcing her body to relax, to accept him. She wasn’t ready—not ready enough, at least. But she didn’t care.

Xanthe continued to stroke her, drawing forth the slick, wet heat and watching her with a hooded gaze.

Under his touch, under his gaze, her body warmed and began to welcome him. Bracing her hands on his chest, she took him deeper, then stroked upward, each time taking more until she’d taken him all.

Xanthe lay under her body as she started to ride him, rocking back and forth, her nails biting into his shoulders. “You’ll drive me mad,” he whispered, watching her with a wide, wondering gaze.