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Now he d be lying to her, and not just some small lie of omission but a huge,
fundamental lie. How did you go from We were meant to be together to I shagged a
barmaid?
He paced. He punched the wall. He turned himself into an eagle and went flying
around the city, but it didn t help. None of it helped.
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He d betrayed Kett. He wasn t her mate, and she should know. Imagine twenty years
down the line, he thought, she s been with you, resenting being tied to you, hating you and all
the time she could have been free.
Did he want her to be so unhappy?
At least give her the choice. Tell her you made a mistake, and let her decide whether or not to
stay with you.
He turned himself human again and set out to track her across the city. He d gotten
halfway there when it occurred to him that Kett was almost certainly going to ask him
how he knew he d made a mistake, and sooner or later Marisa was going to come up in
conversation. He cringed, automatically covering his groin. Well, maybe if he told it
carefully&
She drugged me, right, and I woke up in bed and she was sucking my cock
She d still never believe it, even if it was the truth. Maybe if he took Kett back to the
inn and introduced her to Marisa, then& then Kett could threaten Marisa and the truth
would come out. Kett loved threatening people. Happy ending for everyone.
He found her at a brothel which slightly confused him, but then she d said she
was on business for Chance, who had once been a courtesan and followed his nose
past the scents of sex, cigarettes and alcohol to a room on the upper floor. Squaring his
shoulders, taking a deep breath and preparing to look as sorry as he damn well felt, he
opened the door.
* * * * *
The place was filling up now, more and more beautiful men and women
negotiating the price of their affection with a crowd who seemed to treat prostitution
with the same casual attitude as an after-work drink.
Kett had been in the bar for several hours, her glass never emptying. Like Bael s
tankard, she thought miserably, only this time no one was pouring sleeping powder into
it. Currently she was drinking a highly toxic local spirit that had once, apparently, been
introduced to a lemon, and then corrupted it horribly into a drink so potently alcoholic
that a single drop made the bar surface steam.
Kett knocked it back in one and rested her head on the bar. She still didn t feel
drunk enough yet. Depressed as hell, yes, but not actually drunk.
 Signora, said the bartender, and she lifted her head.  Something else?
She focused on him.  You re not Giacomo, she said.
 No, signora. He takes clients in the evenings. I am Rocco.
 Fill  er up, Rocco, Kett said, holding out her glass.  Whatever s next.
What was next was a horribly sickly concoction, also apparently made from lemons
(how did they do it? They were halfway up a mountain, it was freezing, how did they
possibly grow lemons here?). Kett took a sip and made a face, but the bartender had
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already moved on to serve a large group of men in business wear, apparently fresh
from work and ready to make trouble.
Time was, Kett might have joined them. The first thing she used to do on arriving in
a new town was check out the bars, and who frequented them. She rarely went home
alone. A different man every night.
She didn t even know how many there d been.
Now she looked at them with some revulsion. Loud, brash, rude. One of them
pinched the backside of a waitress and they all guffawed. Kett rolled her eyes. They
were in a fucking brothel, and pinching a woman s butt made them giggle like
schoolboys.
Turning her attention away, she saw Giacomo, shirtless and cool, sitting at a table
with a composed older woman. Kett knew her type, the neglected wife looking for
some thrills.
Standing up, Kett picked up the glass of vile sugary lemon and carried it to
Giacomo s table. Her footsteps were steady. She didn t waver once. Kett didn t know
whether she d inherited the ability to hold her drink from her father or whether it had
just come of long practice, but she should have realized that even two hours of drinking
spirits wouldn t have gotten her drunk.
Setting down the small glass, she caught Giacomo s eye then walked away. Five
minutes later, Giacomo got up, let himself behind the bar and set out a bottle of wine
and a large glass in front of Kett. He left, saying nothing.
Kett tried a glass of the wine. It was good, at least by her low standards. Probably
not local.
She drank it all, watched Giacomo leave with the well-dressed woman then poured
another large glass.
It warmed her in a way the spirits hadn t. Maybe the Sisilians were on to something
here. But it still didn t make the hurt go away. Kett wasn t a stranger to pain, but she d
never felt guilt like this before.
When the bartender caught her attention and said,  Signora, Signor Giacomo has
finished with his client, Kett nodded, gulped the rest of the wine and got up before she
changed her mind.
Giacomo was waiting for her in a large, pleasantly decorated room upstairs. He was
naked, handsome in the low lighting, and Kett wordlessly stripped as he stood still,
watching her.
 Signora, he began, as she moved to the bed.
 Kett, she said.
 Kett. He inclined his head formally.  Are you sure?
She looked up into his dark eyes, calm and utterly foreign. He was nothing like
Bael.
 Make it go away, she said.
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Giacomo nodded, joining her on the bed and taking her into his arms. He kissed
her, stroking her arms and her back, making no comments about the thick scars he
encountered. Kett supposed he must have seen much worse than a few scars.
His body was hot and hard, and smelled pleasantly of some woody scent. He
touched her with strong, assured hands, stroking and caressing with expert skill. He
kissed a hot, wet trail down her body, tongue tracing erotic patterns on her skin.
Kett had felt more aroused during medical exams.
She was just about to suggest he give it up as a lost cause when the door opened
and her eyes slammed open to see Bael standing there.
In about a second, his expression went from tortured and sorry, to disbelieving, to
shocked, and then cycled up through the stages of anger until he got to absolute fury. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]