Chapter Four
Benedict raked me up and down with a scathing gaze, the power of his magic seeming to flicker in the depths of his silvery gray eyes.
“What the fuck do you want?” he said, the curl of his lip suggesting he hadn’t found much to enjoy in his full-body survey. I resisted the urge to tug the lapels of my dressing gown together like a maiden aunt.
Not a vinegary, prudish prune quite yet, thank you.
“Let me in,” I said, and my voice came out raspier and breathier than I’d hoped.
Damn it. I should’ve tested a few words out loud before I left my rooms, except that speaking to no one but Fabian’s body would have had me screaming and running away after all.
Benedict stared at me for a long moment, massive shoulders tensed up like boulders, jaw clenched tight. He’d started out his life as pale as I was—or so I assumed, given his mother’s complexion and a portrait I’d once seen of his father. But that soldier’s tan he’d had as long as I’d known him had only deepened during his unexplained absence and his long summer of fighting in the northern hills. The livid slashes and blotches of the scars he’d accumulated over the decades stood out as starkly as fresh wounds would have.
Like badges of honor. Mute declarations, to anyone who valued brute force over sleepless dedication and endless thought and study, of his greater fitness for the throne.
Benedict huffed, sneered, and stood back to let me in.
For the first time in my life, I stepped into his suite. The door from the hallway opened into a sitting room, which looked precisely as I’d have expected if I’d ever deigned to consider the matter: bare walls, several large and shabby leather armchairs, and racks of weapons, plus a bookcase that I’d have been willing to bet contained little beyond treatises on magic and dry, tactical accounts of historical battles.
Fewer lounging, scantily-clad whores than I’d have thought, though. In fact, none. Although that doorway to my left presumably led to a bedchamber, and someone could be…
“Are you alone? Don’t lie to me, Benedict. I need discretion more than you do right now.”
Benedict raised an eyebrow to echo the scornful curve of his mouth. “As if I’d let you in if I had any excuse to bar the door and tell you to go jump off the battlements. We’re alone. My appointment’s in half an hour. Make it quick, I still need to dress.”
Gods, he did, because Clothurn would probably swallow his tongue if Benedict showed up like this, all ruby earring and brawny arms and honed, rippling stomach, looking like someone’s fevered conjuration of a lusty pirate.
Certainly Benedict’s dishabille had me in a state of distraction and discomfort. How did one go about telling one’s half-naked and much-despised stepbrother that a murder scene needed staging, and he was the lucky accomplice?
Benedict had taken up a position in the middle of the room, staring at me down that big nose with his arms crossed. Oh, he knew how he looked when he did that, the theatrical son of a bitch.
Fine. I could make him uncomfortable too.
“Fabian collapsed stone-dead a few minutes ago after drinking some of my evening wine,” I said. Benedict went utterly still, frozen mid-scoff—he’d started before I really began speaking in order to get a head start, I supposed. Oh, that was satisfying, even though saying it out loud had my heart pounding and my knees a bit shaky. “There’s blood coming out of his mouth,” I went on, wanting to horrify Benedict as thoroughly as I could. He deserved nightmares like mine. “All frothy and mixed with—”
Bile , I’d meant to say. Except that I choked on the word and on my own refluxing acids, and my scalp tingled, and that shakiness had become more of an inability to support my weight.
My father’s bloated face and Fabian’s slack lips mingled in my mind, superimposed and then one after the other, and the room blurred around me sickeningly, and gods, if I threw up all over Benedict or his belongings that would be fine, but from terror and weakness? No, I couldn’t.
I managed to side-stagger to one of the armchairs, dropping into it with a thud. Leaning back might’ve been more manly, but my spasming esophagus left me no choice but slumping over my knees with my head on my crossed arms. That meant I couldn’t see Benedict’s expression, damn it all. I’d at least wanted the pleasure of seeing him off balance. Fabian’s miserable death could give me that much, couldn’t it?
The wind seemed quieter in here, or perhaps it’d died down at last. My panting breaths echoed in the stillness.
“That can’t—no,” Benedict said at last, his voice heavy and harsh. “I don’t believe it. You’re certain he’s dead? Not drugged? Or that he didn’t faint?”
That deserved a withering glare, and I reached deep inside myself and found the strength to lift my head and deliver it. Benedict stood rooted to the same spot, apparently frozen in shock—far more of a reaction than I’d expected. He’d been fighting and killing his entire adult life, and he hadn’t had any particular attachment to Fabian, who’d been one of the few people at court to have no use for Benedict. That was perhaps all we’d ever had in common.
“Perhaps you’d like to go and stab him once or twice to make sure. Or speak to him for a few minutes. If he doesn’t respond, then he’s either dead or he’s been sent into a coma by your stupidity.” Benedict’s cheeks flushed, and…had he grown even taller? “Of course he’s fucking dead, Benedict! I ought to know what dead looks like by now, don’t you think?”
Benedict’s chest rose, held, and finally fell as he blew out a very long breath.
“I think that in your state of mind you could very well mistake unconsciousness for death, and it matters,” he gritted out. “If whoever meant you to drink that wine wanted you alive, to kidnap you or for some other villainy, that’s very different from wanting you dead.”
Ah. Well, he had a point there, one I hadn’t considered. Of course, why would I, when Fabian was clearly dead as a doornail?
“I heard him fall and groan, and I got out of the bath and found him stone dead thirty seconds later,” I said. “He’s dead. Expired. On the other side of the veil. In Dromos’s cold embrace. Do I need to sketch it for you?”
My irritation, and irritating Benedict in turn, had started to return a bit of warmth to my chilled body. I could almost feel my knees again. Sitting up enough to brace myself on them with my elbows made me feel slightly less like a pitiful object—not that Benedict had spared me any pity, or gods forbid, sympathy. He stood precisely as he had, eyes blazing. I could’ve collapsed to the floor instead of making my way to the chair, and he probably wouldn’t have moved any one of those huge muscles to catch me, even though he might only have needed a couple of fingers.
Benedict took a step forward, scowl deepening. Oh, there went my knees again. But I was sitting down, so it didn’t matter. I met his gaze with a lift of my chin and a continuing glare of my own.
“All right, he’s dead. I’m still not convinced it was the wine. Who would—and why are you here?” His jaw tightened. “Do you think I had something to do with it, is that it? Do you think—why are you here, instead of calling for the guards?”
That forced a laugh out of me, and it hurt my chest. “I already thought about that. You wouldn’t kill me that way if you were going to do it. And the guards? Really? You mean the ones who’d be more likely to draw their swords on me rather than a potential assassin, despite how much I pay them?”
Benedict froze again, this time with his brick-red flush going all the way down his neck.
“You already thought about that. I can’t fucking believe you. And you’re talking about the guards I command,” he said flatly. “The guards who answer to me as well as to you. You think they’re plotting to kill you? Or that they’d stand by while someone else had that pleasure?”
Oh, he had a lot of nerve, acting like my suspicion of him somehow offended or wronged him. And the implication that answering to him would keep them in line more effectively than answering to me, their duke and generous employer, stung like nettles.
Not that he was wrong. I’d thought about that already, too.
“Someone tried to kill me a few minutes ago. Right down that corridor. You and your guards seem remarkably unconcerned, not to mention completely oblivious!”
Benedict’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and he uncrossed his arms at last, fists flexing by his sides. “They have strict orders from both of us to be vigilant, but they have no reason to stop and challenge your own valet carrying a tray of wine, Lucian!”
Benedict only rarely used my name, probably because we were almost never alone, and it hung in the air between us, almost shimmering with the force of his anger.
Now that I thought about it, he usually didn’t call me anything at all in front of other people. No names, no honorifics, no titles. He simply spoke to me without them. As a member of my “family,” he got away with it—no one seemed to notice.
I hadn’t even noticed until now. That fucker. He hated me being his liege lord so much that he wouldn’t even address me as such.
“Your Grace,” I said. “If you think we have an intimate relationship that entitles you to use my name, think again.”
Benedict shrugged, a jerky, awkward motion that belied his attempt to look at his ease. “Trust you to give a fuck about what I call you in private when you have a dead man in your bedroom, Lucian . You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here, if you don’t trust me at all?”
My swallow did nothing to clear the lump in my throat. How could I explain my reasoning to him, my need for his help and protection, without sacrificing the veneer of pride that was all I had left to cling to? Best case, he’d burst out laughing.
How had my accursed life brought me here? Wearing only my dressing gown with my bare feet turning into blocks of ice on Benedict’s floor, alone in the night with him? With my mostly naked stepbrother, wild waving hair and stupid earring and big fists included, my only hope for staying alive?
“I need to make it look as if the attempt failed and Fabian died accidentally,” I said, unable to bring myself to spit out the rest of it quite yet. “Your magic would be of assistance. And I can’t move him alone without creating even more of a mess.”
“Move him—why would you—the attempt did fail. You’re alive. Sitting here and talking to me about moving the body as if — damn it,” he said, with sudden, shocking vehemence, and spun away from me, striding the length of the room to brace himself on the fireplace mantel.
He hung his head down, and the light of the candle set on his desk off to the side gilded the muscles of his back and shoulders as if he’d planned it that way. Most of the art in the palace consisted of stiff, cloth-of-gold-clad ancestors of mine, varied with the occasional fluffy landscape. But there were young artists living in the city’s dockside quarter who had begun to make a name for themselves by painting the human body: lingering on its gods-given glories and using light and shadow to pick out details most people wouldn’t consciously think to appreciate.
Maybe one of them could have done Benedict justice. Probably not. But any one of them would’ve given a less-used body part of their own to have the opportunity.
Or maybe they already had. He might have already fucked each and every one of them and posed for their paintings in between bouts.
At last he turned around, face set in hard, neutral lines.
“You’re hoping your would-be assassin will show his hand if you make it look as if you don’t suspect anything, and the wine simply spilled?” he asked, as if he hadn’t had his little outburst and then gone silent. “That’s your brilliant plan? At the very least, whoever wants you dead and a culprit in the kitchen knows about this, and likely a middleman or messenger between them, too. You can’t even investigate what happened without acknowledging that it did. You’re going to cover this up, and then blithely carry on being bait for the next attempt?”
I chose to ignore his insults to my intelligence—and his perfectly logical conclusion that everyone in the kitchen needed to be turned out of the palace gates if I wanted to live. Later. Dammit. My head ached.
“I’m thinking about our foreign guests. They already suspect—” I swallowed hard. That I’m weak. That I’m unfit to rule, and that they’ll be able to extort any concessions they want from Calatria by threatening our borders or hinting that they’ll ally with whoever kills me first. No, impossible to voice any of that aloud. Besides, Benedict would fill in the blanks perfectly well on his own. “Any sign of chaos here in Calatria could be disastrous for our diplomatic and military interests.”
There. That sounded far less whiny. The calculations of a duke, not the panic of a man with no supporters and too many enemies.
“I thought if we made it look as if he’d tripped and dropped the tray, perhaps hit his head on the way down, it might be plausible,” I went on. “He needs to be moved to the other side of the room. The mess cleaned up. Some blood smeared on the corner of a table, or the mantel.”
“And his head caved in to match,” Benedict said, grimacing. Right. I’d conveniently forgotten that. Ugh. “I suppose you intended for me to take on that enviable task.”
Sarcasm had to be one of Benedict’s least appealing traits, and it had stiff competition.
“You serve at the pleasure of your duke, and you’ve broken a hundred heads in your time. Surely it’s easier when the head in question isn’t trying to get away.”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed, and I held my ground without shrinking back into the chair through keeping a death grip on my knees, my knuckles aching.
“You seem to have forgotten something, Your Grace,” he said, very low. Oh, no. “I also serve at my own pleasure. I pretend otherwise in the presence of the court or the council, but I left Calatria without your by-your-leave. I returned when it suited me. And I know damn well you didn’t want me to take up my position again, but you didn’t have any choice, so you put the best face on it you could. If you knew—”
He broke off, breathing hard, and I held my own breath, desperate for him to finish that sentence. If I knew? If I knew what? But he shook his head, and his face set into implacable lines.
“It’s obvious how little you want to be here asking for my help, partly because you haven’t fucking asked. You wouldn’t be here at all if you weren’t desperate. If someone tried to kill you tonight, they’ll try again, or someone else will. And you obviously can’t trust any of the palace staff. You need more help than one broken skull and the careful placement of a body, and you’re damn well going to get it.” Benedict bared his teeth and pinned me with his gaze, and this time I knew I could see the power of his magic flickering in the depths of his eyes. “And pay for it.”
Pay for it? And damn well going to get it , as if Benedict was the one who meant to insist on helping me whether I liked it or not? I’d come here to command him, not be commanded! My immediate thought was that I’d rather die, even though this had been my idea in the first place.
Of course, I still could, simply by walking back to my rooms and waiting for someone to bring me more wine.
Time to go on the offensive, although Benedict had “offensive” cornered, in my admittedly biased opinion.
“You already receive a generous salary and perquisites for your service as Lord General,” I pointed out. “I do pay you for your help. You are paid precisely to protect me from assassins and uphold Calatria’s honor. All of this falls into—”
“And I do protect you, although clearly not well enough so far,” Benedict growled, and the rest of my words withered on my tongue. Forget poisoning me or stabbing me, he looked like he might eat me. Had he just admitted fault? Why the hell did he care? My whole body went hot and tight and odd, belly simmering with nerves. I couldn’t’ve moved a muscle if my life depended on it. “I risk my life for y—Calatria all the time without complaining about it, and I kill for Calatria, too. But if I’m going to drop everything else, watch you like a hawk, cancel my assignation—and shut up, Lucian, I need it to live, in case you’d forgotten—”
I snapped my mouth shut again as if he had it on a string. Damn it. I hadn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t as if he’d drop dead from one missed fuck!
“—or crack the skulls of dead valets and carry bodies around in the middle of the night like a fucking undertaker, I’m not doing it for a fucking salary! Absolutely not. That’s going to require…a lot more perquisites, as you put it. Provided by you personally.”
Perquisites. What? Me, personally?
Benedict wavered in my vision as I blinked, wobbled, and blinked again.
“You mean, hire whores for you,” I stammered. “Or—procure bedmates for you from among the courtiers or the servants? Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” he said grimly. “I’m completely sane. And if someone’s trying to kill you, you need constant protection. Better than what you already have. Your bodyguards can’t detect the presence of poison in a cup, for one thing. So I won’t leave your side except for my other essential duties, and only when I have you under guard by someone I trust. Which means no whores, no bedmates . You’re the perquisite, Lucian. You’re going to bend over, spread your legs, and so on, in any way and at any time of my choosing. You’ll take my cock and my spend and my magic’s curse as often as I tell you to.” He flashed me a feral grin, eyes wild, completely contradicting his assertion of sanity. “You’ll enjoy it, too. How long has it been since anyone turned you inside out the way you probably don’t deserve?”
“You,” I gasped. His cock. Spread my legs. That squirming in my gut had turned to full-on clenching, and my heart stumbled, stuttered, and picked up again at a pace that had my throat vibrating. His cock, between my spread legs, turning me inside out… “I won’t. I won’t do it. You’ll do your duty without this sordid blackmail, or by all the gods, I’ll—”
Benedict lunged so abruptly that I broke off in something horribly adjacent to a squeak, huddling back in my chair after all as he leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of it. His face hovered mere inches from mine, close enough that I couldn’t see anything but those silvery eyes or feel anything but the warm brush of his breath.
He’d been drinking sweet red wine too, only without the spices or the poison.
No escape. Nowhere to go.
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he said softly, his words wrapping around me like drugged temple incense, his tone the same as it had been earlier when he’d spoken directly into my ear with magic from across the courtyard. He hemmed me in, his strong arms to either side of me as unbreakable as iron bars. “You’ll only need to break your oath later. You will do it. Or you can go back to your rooms, arrange Fabian’s body on your own, and take your bloody chances by yourself the next time someone comes to cut your throat. And I’ll go bend Clothurn over his bed and make him squeal, and forget all about you.”
A flash of something went through Benedict’s eyes. Not his magic this time…and I sucked in a breath, everything below my waist tightening up. And worse. My cock twitched. Gods. Fear or anger could rouse a man. I knew that. I knew it. But I’d never experienced it before.
“You’re bluffing,” I whispered.
He leaned even closer, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. His mouth was only a whisper from my tingling lips, he’d take my mouth, I’d have to fight him, and he’d win… “You don’t want to find out. I’m tempted. He has a much nicer ass than yours. Rounder. Yours is too flat.”
My eyes popped open. When had they half closed? And there was Benedict, eyes gleaming with mockery, lips curled in a matching smile.
“Fuck you, Benedict,” I hissed, past the point of forming intelligent rejoinders.
He shoved off the chair and up, putting his hands on his hips and perfectly displaying the breadth of his shoulders and chest and the endless length of his tree-trunk legs, the only part of him actually covered by fabric.
Well, not quite the only part. The bulge between his absurd legs had black cloth stretched across it, too, but that didn’t do much to hide either the size of it or the way it’d grown a bit in response to bullying and coercing me.
At least, I hoped it’d grown. I already knew he had the personality of a sea slug and the character of a rabid goat, so I wouldn’t be shocked if his sexual preferences were horrid. But if that was what it looked like completely soft…no wonder he expected to make Clothurn squeal.
“Yes,” Benedict said. “I will fuck you. Tonight, in fact. Once I send Clothurn a message to let him know our assignation is permanently canceled, and after we’ve taken care of the skull and the blood and the wine stains. Up and moving, Lucian. I’ll do most of the work, but I’m not leaving you here to have the vapors while I take care of all of it. I meant it when I said I’m keeping you in my pocket from now on.”
The vapors? Fuck him twice. When I pushed to my feet, my knees held me without shaking at all. Vapors, ha.
Benedict snatched a shirt off of another chair—and why the hell couldn’t he have put that on before now, the exhibitionist asshole?—and flung the door open.
“After you,” he said, and stuck his arms through the shirt.
Tonight. Fucking me. Surely he’d change his mind. It didn’t seem real, a nightmare that had begun with the sound of Fabian’s groan and from which I couldn’t seem to break free.
I turned and strode out, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see me trembling.