A knock on the door. Again. Wait, this was the second knock, wasn’t it?
He hit the light control, and his knees almost buckled as the light seared his eyes, burned like rock salt stomped into his open wound of a brain. He leaned against the doorframe, gasping, and opened the door.
“Kip? Are you all right?”
Oh hells. It wasn’t Teia. Why had he thought it was Teia?
Because Teia’s the only girl who ever talks to you on purpose.
It was Tisis. “Are you hungover?” Tisis asked.
I’m a giant, wakened from my bed by assassins. With a roar, I grab the man leaning over my bed and ram him so hard into the marble wall that his skull shatters, blood spraying. Sharp steel parts the muscles of my leg, deep, hot. I jump out of bed, but my head is aflame with a hangover, black spots dancing in front of my eyes.
There are four of them left, grubby, not professionals. The nearest stabs—deflected, albeit with blood. Armlock, his arm dislocated, fist up to his face so hard bones crack—dammit, both his face fractures, and my knuckles. I know better!
I bellow, and see the fear go through the other—
“No,” Kip said. “Bit, uhm, lightsick.”
Her face softened. “Takes a while to get used to drafting, huh? So easy to do too much at first. I got lightsick a few times myself, early on.” And despite the worry that perched on her shoulders like a cougar bearing down on its prey, she grinned. “Well, maybe more than a few times. Green, you know.”
She’s beautiful.
And I can have sex with her. As much as I want. Well, as much as she’ll allow. Which may not actually be that much, now that I think of it, but surely it would be more than zero times. Have to consummate the marriage at least.
Andross Guile had been wrong. If there was anything wrong with Kip’s libido, it was that he had too much. He just didn’t think satisfying it was a possibility anytime soon. It was a ‘someday, who knows when, don’t think about it, you’ll just get more depressed than you already usually are.’
But as bad as he wanted it, he didn’t want it to be bad. Forcing it from Teia back when she was a slave would have been wrong.
Not that forcing it from her now would be good—ugh, his brain was only working for one purpose now and that seemed to be to hurt as much as possible.
What if he went to bed with Tisis and when he took off his clothes, he disgusted her? What if she saw his fattiness and despised him? How could someone so beautiful, someone who could do so much better, bear to be with him?
Ah, so you’re not chaste. You’re just afraid.
“Kip, I know I said you had a week to decide about … you know, my proposal. That didn’t really happen how I’d ever imagined it, by the way, and I certainly—anyway. I know I said you had a week, but I need your answer sooner.”
“Sooner?”
“As in, now.” She winced apologetically. “I have to leave the Jaspers. I’m going to walk to the docks as soon as I leave you.”
“You don’t have any stuff. Clothes. I don’t know. Jewels, cosmetics? Whatever it is you have.” Kip felt stupider the more he said.
“My slaves have already smuggled it out to the ship. I’m technically the Chromeria’s hostage, so I’m forbidden to leave without permission. I can’t carry anything on me lest your grandfather’s spies figure out that I’m leaving.”
“Oh.” Obviously, a little late for that. Andross knew everything. He always knew everything. Damn him. Damn him to a thousand pits of fire.
Fire. Fire engulfs the woman, her skin curling, blood hissing as it boils—
Breathe. Breathe. Back in the now, stay here, Kip.
And Kip still hadn’t decided what to do. He should have been weighing the pros and cons in the last few days, when he might have had a chance to think without the total distraction of a beautiful woman standing right in front of him.
Kip the Lip. Use it to your advantage.
“You know,” Kip said. “I actually haven’t decided. I should have been weighing the pros and cons in the last few days, when I might have had a chance to think without the total distraction of a beautiful woman standing right here in front of me. You’re beautiful. You know you have an effect on men. Are you seducing me?”
“Pardon me?” she said, incredulous. “I mean, thank you, but what are you talking about?”
“Are you trying to seduce me?”
She looked suddenly awkward. “I thought you weren’t interested in women.”
“What?!”
“I asked around while I was procrastinating and trying to figure out how to talk to you, and no one could even remember you expressing interest in a girl. They said you had a room slave that you never bedded, so I thought you either didn’t have any interest at all either way or you liked boys. That’s why I, um, tried to appeal to your better nature. Believe me, if I’d thought it would be as easy as flashing some cleavage at you, I’d have done it in a second.”