“My lord, I’ve already written up the contract. It’s not manumission, but it’s a promise that I can buy my manumission for one danar, whenever I want. That way, you’ve still given me the generous gift, and when I want, I can take it, without depriving you or making things difficult between you and Lady White Oak.”
More difficult, anyway.
“I still don’t… you’re a room slave, Marissia. You don’t even have rights to your own body. If you weren’t a slave, you could be a satrapah, a merchant queen, whatever you wanted. Instead…”
“What could I do in this life that would have more meaning than serving you, my High Lord Prism?” she asked.
“How can you say that? You know me. You know what I am.”
“Yes, my lord, I do. And I—” She closed her mouth, then said instead, “Please don’t make me leave.”
“I’m not going to make you leave,” Gavin said. She was brilliant. An amazing woman. He walked over to his desk, signed the new contract, and brought it to her. She’d already torn up the old one.
Strangely, she was weeping. He handed her the new contract and she took it, still kneeling, and hugged his legs.
He’d slept maybe one hour last night. He’d had interrupted sex with a strange woman whom he’d then killed. He’d lost the love of his life. He’d prepared himself to die. He’d realized everything he’d believed for the last twenty years at least had been a lie. He’d killed his own brother. He was fucking exhausted.
And yet, with this beautiful woman pressed against his groin, his body reacted. Sometimes he hated being a man.
After all the trouble you got me into last night, you’re really going to do this to me?
Marissia noticed immediately, of course. But then, maybe she’d intended it. Usually she was reactive; there would be a question in her initial touches. Not now.
Gavin stepped back, and she stood smoothly in front of him, shrugging her wrap off her shoulders, leaving her sheathed in a pretty chemise. He said, “Maybe I should—”
She kissed his lips, pushed him backward, pulling his trousers down. She guided him to a chair and he sat abruptly as it hit his knees. And then she was on him, her eyes on his, holding him down, possessive. Her lovemaking was a whirlwind, hard and aggressive and fast and hot and sweaty and overwhelming. She rode him until he finished, light exploding in front of his eyes, but she didn’t stop like she normally did. If anything, she bore down on him harder until he was worried the chair would break and spill them both on the floor. Her fingers were laced through his hair, holding his head in place, demanding he look into her eyes. Then those stunning green eyes flared and her hips bucked uncontrollably. Her fingers dug into his arm and twisted his hair painfully, and then she collapsed against him.
Gavin was left breathless and stunned. He stood and carried her to his bed. She burrowed into his arms, and gave him up only with a little mew of protest when he released her. He walked over to his own side of the bed and sat on the edge in the dim lamplight.
Though he’d reached his satisfaction, his body was still eager for more. Maybe it had just been too long on the trail with Karris. Maybe it had been Marissia’s startling, utterly alluring intensity. He thought of taking her again and numbing his uneasiness. Tomorrow was going to be hell. He just wanted to sleep. For a few hours, he wanted to feel nothing.
Instead, he felt somehow like he’d done something wrong with Marissia. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of what it was. Maybe he was just feeling guilty about Dazen.
He lay down, blinking at the ceiling, wondering how the hell he was going to dodge the many flaming arrows coming his way on the morrow. The Spectrum had either already met to discuss the murder or would do so the first thing tomorrow. There was nothing he could do about that now. And since the guards had already searched the room with their usual thoroughness, no one would think to look for him here.
Five minutes later—or at least it only felt like five minutes later—he woke. Marissia was gone. Working, no doubt. He lay in the quiet, idly picking up his problems, then setting them down with no particular urgency. He did some of his best work this way. He remembered that Demnos Jorvis didn’t get along with his wife, Arys’s sister Ela. He thought about the rate of growth of a bane. Balancing had been done manually before, drafters of one color being instructed to use more luxin for a year, drafters of the color out of control instructed to use less. The Chromeria had quite a reach. He thought of the High Luxiats, the men who determined doctrine that would be promulgated throughout the satrapies, who would no doubt be itching to meet with him after all the strange reports. They loved and feared him, but could he push through a change to the religion itself? He thought of Karris. He would win her back. It was possible now, he was sure of it.