Fyne Sisters - The Star Witch Part 11

"Am I smiling?"

"Yes," she answered with a wide smile of her own.

"I was just thinking," he said honestly.

"Of swords and lessons?"

"Not exactly."

Her dark eyes flashed. She knew exactly where his mind had taken him. She understood him too well, considering the short amount of time they had known one another.

He showed her how to grasp the grip, how to swing the sword with control, how to protect herself with the blade and the angle of her body. They started casually, but before long he was teaching her in earnest. The idea of Isadora being confronted in such a way that she needed these lessons angered him, and she began to listen to his instructions with sobriety; as if she, too, was wondering what it would be like to be called to fight.

Isadora learned quickly, and before long she was moving with grace and ease. The weight of the sword was not too much for her, and she was not afraid of the power of life and death that she wielded. There was some trepidation. She asked for instructions on how and where to make nonlethal blows that would stop an opponent without taking his life.

Women like Isadora should not have cause to fight, but war was coming to Arthes, and she needed to know. Lucan did not like the idea of Isadora coming face-to-face with a soldier. As the lesson continued and she grew quicker and more graceful, he could not wipe the thought from his mind. If rebels stormed the palace, one woman with one sword-no matter how well wielded-could not stop them. Especially if she refused to kill.

In that instant, he made his decision. The Circle would side with Sebestyen in this war. He and his men would keep rebels out of the palace and away from his woman.

He had never thought of a woman as his before, and the notion stopped him cold. Isadora was not the reason for his presence here, and his alliance with her would not bring peace to Tryfyn. He was simply infatuated with her because she was unlike the other women he had known. If he were not meant to be Prince of Swords he would pursue her with the same determination with which he had always fought and led and learned.

But of course, that was not to be.

"Enough for today," he said. The simple exercises had made Isadora sweat, and her breath came hard. Even though she took to the sword well, she was unaccustomed to hefting such a heavy object in her delicate hands.

She was made for finer things than this.

He sent Franco ahead to prepare his bath, and then he and Isadora walked into the palace. The sentinels followed. Three of them went to the lift. The other remained, guarding the entrance to the courtyard. There was a larger, more well-armed guard at the other entrance to the building, but this sentinel remained at the courtyard door. His eyes flitted to Isadora more than once.

The truth hit Lucan like a thunderbolt. The emperor's sentinels weren't keeping Isadora safe; they were making sure she didn't run away.

"We will take the stairs," he said, grabbing Isadora's hand and heading for the stairwell that wound up the full ten floors. Not one of the sentinels followed, confirming his suspicions. Isadora wasn't under protection, she was under guard.

Lucan walked quickly, and Isadora had to run to keep up. When they reached the landing at Level Seven, she tugged on his hand and breathlessly asked him to stop. He turned to find her leaning against the stone wall, her breath coming hard.

"We could have taken the lift," she said as he moved in to hover over her, their bodies so close he could feel the heat radiating off of her.

"I do not like the lift," he responded.

"Why not?"

"Because I do not fully understand how it operates."

"A large, noisy machine on Level Eleven powers it. Is that not enough of an explanation for you?"

"No."

"Just let me catch my breath." She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her cheeks were pink, her hair mussed, her lips full and wide, and so it made perfect sense to kiss her.

His attraction to her was as puzzling as the emperor's lift. Both were new to him and not easy to define. He didn't like that which he could not fully explain. s.e.xual need was one matter; needing one specific woman to distraction was another entirely.

Lucan pressed his hand to Isadora's heart and felt the even, quick thud against his palm. The swordplay, the run up the stairs, and the kissing made her heart beat fast. His fingers brushed against her breast, and he felt the hardening of her nipple against his fingers. She did not wear the undergarment he despised today. There was very little between his body and hers. Very little.

For a while the kissing was enough, but as was always the case with Isadora, it soon was not. He needed her in a way he had never needed anything but air to breathe and water to drink. She had become quickly and annoyingly necessary.

"Who resides on this Level?" he asked as he slowly lifted her skirt.

"The emperor's witch, Gadhra, and her apprentices," Isadora answered. Her arms were draped around his neck, and she kissed his throat as he lifted her skirt higher. "They do not wander the palace at will, so it is extremely unlikely that any one of them will walk into the stairway and disturb us."

Lucan glanced at the door behind him, a door that would open onto witchcraft. His distaste for witches was both instinctive and learned, and so it went deep and complete within him.

"It is unlikely, in fact, that anyone will come this way at this time of the day." Isadora took his face in her hands and kissed him again, and he forgot what sort of witchery and deception might be lurking behind that door as he touched her intimately.

She brushed fingers along the length of his arousal as he caressed her and said, "And yet, we should not linger, Lucan."

At last she called him Lucan instead of Captain. He did not make verbal note of the fact, since he did not want Isadora to stop what she was doing to take it back or argue about her slip of the tongue.

Her mouth pressed against the pulse at his throat, and she rose up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "We should not waste time." Her fingers began to fumble with the fastenings of his trousers. "Hurry, Lucan," she whispered. "I need you now."

Against the stone wall of the palace stairway, with witches at his back and a woman he did not understand wrapping herself around him, he gave Isadora what she asked for.

ISADORA LEANED OVER a particularly irate empress and checked the pregnant woman's temperature. Liane did seem a little warm, but not alarmingly so. A special tea would calm the empress and lower her body temperature to a healthy level.

When she was finished here she'd go to Lucan's room, via the hidden stairway. He would be waiting for her.

"You have changed," Liane said softly.

"I have not." Isadora sent Mahri to the kitchen for the ingredients for the tea that Liane needed, and then set about straightening pillows.

"You have," Liane insisted. "Now and then I catch you smiling for no reason at all, and you are no longer so pale, and your mind wanders-"

"My mind never wanders."

"In the past few days, it has wandered quite a bit." Liane struggled into a straighter sitting position. "And you will share nothing with me. It's so unfair. I should order you to tell me everything that man has done to you."

"And what would you do when I refused?" Isadora asked, unafraid.

Liane relaxed against her pillows. "I'm bored. I grow weary of staying in this bed all day, of not being

able to touch my husband, of coddling myself as if I were an old woman. I want to dance, and make love, and go where I please when I please."

"Soon enough," Isadora said, trying to ease the empress's mind.

"How soon?"

Isadora placed her hands over Liane's belly and closed her eyes. Her powers had grown stronger in the

days Lucan had been her lover. Was he responsible for the changes in her? Perhaps. It seemed that every time she found pleasure in his embrace, her strength grew. She didn't understand how or why, but she could not deny that it was true.

"A week, give or take a day."

"And the babies will be ready?" Liane asked, her voice hushed.

Isadora smiled. "Yes. They will be ready." She sat on the bed and leaned closer to Liane, so no one

could hear. "What are we going to do when they come?"

"I have been giving the matter some thought. No one can be in the room when the babies are born, but you."

"The priests will insist on being here to verify that the baby who is presented to them as the next emperor

is truly yours, and not a replacement for a son who died at birth."

"They can insist all they want," Liane interrupted sharply. "No one but you." Her eyes met Isadora's.

"We will bar the doors, if we must."

"After the babies are born, how will we explain-"

"We will explain nothing. You will take one of the babies and carry him, by way of the hidden stairs, to

Ferghus."

"I don't understand."

"Ferghus will take the baby to a safe place, to a couple who lives in the country. They can't have children

of their own, and the baby will be well cared for."

A chill walked up Isadora's spine. "You're going to give the child away."

Liane glared at Isadora. "If Sebestyen knows there are two, he will kill the weaker child."

"He would not-"

"In his mind, he would have no choice. Such an act would save Columbyana from war in twenty, thirty,

forty years. We will send the stronger child with Ferghus and keep the weaker here. A stronger child will have a better chance of surviving the trip and the separation from his mother." If her lower lip didn't tremble slightly, Isadora would think the empress completely cold about the decision to send one of her sons away.

"You have already made arrangements with Ferghus?"

"Yes," Liane answered. "He is loyal to me, even above Sebestyen. He will do as I ask."

Ferghus would do as Liane asked because he was in love with her. Isadora had realized that the first time she'd seen the two of them together. Liane seemed to be completely oblivious to the man's infatuation.

"I will tell him to prepare for this event to take place in a week," Liane said.

Mahri returned with the makings for tea, and Isadora prepared the empress one small, hot cup of the medicinal brew. There was no magic in the tea, just good common sense and useful herbs. The maid left, and once again Isadora and the empress were alone.

As Isadora handed the cup to Liane, the empress once again looked her in the eye. "It is not an easy thing, to send my child away knowing I will never see him again. We all do what we must."

In that instant, Isadora realized that Liane's heart was breaking for the child she would send to live with strangers. The empress did not display her feelings with abandon, so most would not have seen the heartbreak. But Isadora saw.

In true Liane fas.h.i.+on, the empress dismissed the unpleasant subject and turned to other things. "I can't believe you won't tell me anything about your trysts with Lucan Hern. You don't have to share everything, but since I was such a diligent matchmaker, I don't think a juicy tidbit or two is too much to ask for. Really, Isadora, what kind of friend are you?"

She had never been a friend, she had never had a friend. Her sisters did not count, as they shared blood and home and history. In truth, she and Liane were so dissimilar it was amazing that they could stand one another, much less become confidants.

Isadora sat on the side of the bed once more, and again she lowered her voice. "He is magnificent."

In a scene she had never imagined possible, she and the empress erupted into peals of girlish laughter.

SEBESTYEN ENJOYED SURPRISING Isadora Fyne, so his brief visits to her were made at different times of the day. Today he chose to walk into her room as she was preparing for yet another evening with Lucan Hern.

The witch was half dressed. Or rather, half undressed. Apparently Hern had been giving her lessons in how to fight each and every afternoon, and sweat clung to her skin and the unruly tendrils of dark hair that framed her face and the frock which was more off than on. Women should not know how to fight; it went against their natures. Liane was the exception, of course.

Isadora's bath awaited her, steaming hot and sweetly scented. On Sebestyen's abrupt arrival she'd twisted the bodice of the gown she had half removed, and held it before her, covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I have seen women naked before," Sebestyen said as he shooed the skittish maid out of the room and closed the door behind her. "There's no reason to be timid."

She did not drop the bodice. "What do you want, my lord?"

"A report," he said succinctly. "Surely in the week that you have been sharing Lucan Hern's bed, he has said something of consequence."

"We do not talk very much, my lord," she answered, blus.h.i.+ng.

"No, I don't imagine you do." He had never found Isadora Fyne overly attractive, but since she'd become involved with Hern that had changed. She was prettier, somehow, more a woman... as well as

a witch. He would do well to remember that fact. Gadhra looked like a proper witch, and he was never tempted to forget what she was when he looked at her.