Chapter Fifteen Amunet
FIFTEEN AMUNET
It was night by the time I drew my camel to a halt at the top of a hill outside Reeda.
Mercifully, we’d not run into any other assassins.
Either the one from the trading post was a shit tracker or the broken nose was enough to put him off the job entirely.
Whatever the reason, I drank in the sight of the town below as if it were an oasis snug between the dunes.
Minus the water. And the lush trees. And beauty in general.
I’d accompanied the Khada Guard on patrols, many of which went to the principalities, multiple times in my ten years of training, but Reeda was smaller than I remembered.
Lanterns and the moon offered just enough light to see the houses built of straw along gravel roads, and a few people in poorly stitched linens milling around.
The consistent sound of chink, chink, chink resounded over the city like its personal orchestra, from a mine located somewhere to the west.
“We’ll draw less attention if we enter on foot,” Jasim said as he dismounted.
He pulled on my camel’s reins, guiding it to lie down so he could help me.
His hands were careful of the still-healing wound in my side, and he released me the moment I was on my feet.
Just as he’d been doing for the past several days since the near chimera attack, he avoided my eyes.
It rankled me. As Jasim tied our camels to a post, my annoyance rose until I could taste its sourness on the back of my tongue. His eyes were always on me. I wanted them back. Especially now. “What is it?”
He paused. Didn’t turn around. “What?”
My nails dug into the back of my neck. The itch was now a consistent burning, my blinks synced up to the claws tapping in my ears. “You’ve been acting weird for days. Why?”
He shrugged as he gathered our supplies off the camels. “Just trying to prepare myself.”
Ice sliced through my veins. He knew my plan. Somehow, he knew.
But then he said, “You’re going to negotiate with Prince Nasir. Figure that’ll be easier for you without any romantic entanglements to worry about.”
My shoulders lowered as his meaning hit me.
Earlier I’d said there were two thoughts about the Gods-Chosen.
Spawn of evil or savior. I lied. There was a third: supernaturally divine fuck.
And the three categories were not mutually exclusive.
Many men were easily able to think of me as a demon and something pretty to stick their dicks into, and I was not above using their simple animal brains against them.
A flirt, a smile, a touch. If they weren’t a total piece of shit, maybe I actually would let them into my bed.
I just… hadn’t considered I’d have to do so with Nasir. It aggravated me that Jasim had.
I scratched harder. “Right. Thanks for being so accommodating.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, brown eyes reflecting the stars above. “You’re angry,” he stated incredulously.
“Well, should I be happy you called me a whore?” I bit out.
Jasim turned around, giving me his full attention, and I really was a twisted bitch because part of me preened to have it again. He strode back to my side, pausing a handful of inches away. “Should I ask you nicely not to fuck him? Should I bother? We both know you’ll do what you want anyway.”
An uncomfortable heat rose in my cheeks. Vicious, cutting words filled my mouth. I clenched my jaw against them, trying to think around my temper.
The princes were scheming. The Kaldfolk were hunting.
Shaya was waiting. We were about to enter Nasir’s territory without any guarantee about how he would react.
Jasim was my only protection. And when we reached the Temple of Shaya, I would truly need him then, too.
I could not spew venom at him. I needed him close, loyal, docile.
I drew a single breath. It burned like fire. “Ask me.”
Jasim stared at me a beat before he huffed a humorless laugh.
With a shake of his head, he said, “You force me to speak, get angry at what I have to say, and then mock me for it? Fine. Let me just save us both the time, shall I? You will tell me that this is necessary for our safety, that I am pathetic for allowing any entanglements to jeopardize—”
“Stop using that word.”
“It’s your word!” he burst out with enough vehemence to make me flinch. “You’ll tell me that I have no say in this because you are queen, you are Gods-Chosen, and I am nothing, so why make me say it at all?”
I stared up into his face, his chest rising and falling with the force of his emotion, but in the tightness around his eyes, I saw hurt. Something inside me twinged at the realization.
Jasim was my personal guard. He was there every moment of my life, for every wooed adversary, every man I’d marched past him into my room. He’d never said anything about it until now. I didn’t know what made Nasir different, but the fire of my temper dwindled.
Quietly, I ordered, “Kneel.”
Confusion broke through Jasim’s righteous fury. “What?”
“Now, Jasim.”
For a moment, he looked like he might disobey.
Silence descended between us as his throat worked, the muscle in his jaw feathered furiously.
But he balled his hands into fists and slowly lowered himself to his knees in the sand.
He stared through my sternum. “Forgive me, my queen,” he said.
“My outburst was unfair. I should not have said—”
“Now ask me, Jasim.”
His eyes snapped up to mine.
I stared right back.
“I’m on my knees. I’ve apologized. You don’t have to humiliate me further—”
“Jasim.” I cupped his jaw and leaned closer. My voice was a gentle murmur when I repeated, “Ask me.”
His brows twitched toward each other as his gaze flicked all over my face. Looking for deception or laughter.
While I was still furious at his implication, it was not based on thin air.
And it was not necessarily a bad idea, either.
Seducing Nasir Miqaf might, in fact, be the fastest route to the Temple of Shaya.
But after days in the wilderness, with a gash in my side and persistent bees stinging the back of my neck, I was not much in the mood for it.
Not to mention the wounded gleam in Jasim’s eyes that made my chest feel too tight…
I shook myself. More important was securing Jasim’s loyalty. Yes, much more important.
Jasim’s jaw popped beneath my palm. He whispered, “Don’t. Please.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
His eyes bored into mine for several seconds before he saw that I meant it. Then they dropped to my lips. “Thank you, my queen,” he rasped.
My gaze dropped, too, to those full lips I’d tasted more times than I could count, and a flush spread over my skin.
Unconsciously, my thumb grazed his bottom lip, and they parted ever so slightly.
He hadn’t kissed me after the chimera attack, but he’d kiss me now.
All I had to do was lean down one more inch.
In that moment, with him looking up at me as if I were one of the stars in the night sky, recalling how much he loved being on his knees for the Gods-Chosen, I wanted nothing more than to indulge in the oblivion his dark gaze promised.
But a strange pit in my stomach blocked the heat in my blood from funneling any lower.
A gnawing sensation that felt a lot like guilt.
I was no longer thinking about how messy it’d be to fuck in the sand but rather what expression he’d wear when I put him on his knees in the Temple of Shaya.
If it would be that same wounded look. If it would be so much worse.
I swallowed hard and pulled away. “Come on. Before someone sees us.” I turned and strode ahead into Reeda, not waiting to see if he followed me. I knew he would. He always did.
That gnawing feeling remained, infuriating me with every step. I shouldn’t care about wounded looks or a kiss. I didn’t care. I cared about Shaya and what he expected of me. I cared about feeling his breeze again, feeling his love, his security, his acceptance.
Nothing else.
Because if I did…
I scratched my nape. Hard.
We headed toward the largest house in the center of the city, with a pair of guards posted outside the door. Their leather armor was Reeda orange, with a vague rendering of a man with suns for eyes in the center. Ketet’s husband, Phadar, God of the Sun. They watched our approach with narrowed eyes.
When we were close enough, I pulled off my wig and proclaimed, “I am Amunet Khada, and I’d like an audience with Prince Nasir Miqaf.”
Shock flashed across their faces, and the guard on the left dropped his gaze to Jasim’s scimitars’ hilts, where the royal seal was stamped, a lotus flower floating in a lake of fire.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he said quickly, and opened the door that led into the entryway—if the cramped space could even be called that.
A glance to the right revealed a sitting room. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture or decoration, and what was present was unimpressively fashioned out of wicker. The cushions were threadbare, feathers or cotton puffing out of the holes like they were actively fighting their fabric prisons.
But the guard turned to the left and announced, “Queen Amunet Khada to see you, my prince.” Then he stepped aside, and I entered the dining room.
A table with a meager six chairs swallowed the space.
Five of the occupants wore the Reeda uniform.
Prince Nasir was easy to recognize, with the pointed ears that poked through the forest of braids hanging on either side of his face and the gold-flecked brown eyes that hinted at the jinni magic in his veins.
Those unique eyes flew wide at my appearance. “My queen!” Nasir exclaimed in shock before lurching to his feet and slamming both his legs into the table, sending bowls of indeterminate food sloshing. I cringed.