Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Verna's first instinct was to brush past her to let her know that a conversation wasn’t going to happen.
But when Kalen remained blocking the doorway, she was forced to stop. "You're in my way," she said briskly.
"I am," Kalen said and didn't move.
Verna held her gaze with the steady composure that had served her well in twenty years of managing difficult people. "I imagine you want to discuss the format of the Trials. I can tell you what—"
"You're getting married," Kalen said abruptly.
Verna blinked at her. "That's correct."
"To a man you don't love."
"Excuse me!"
When Kalen just glared at her, Verna’s temper rose. "You forget your place, Kalen. My business isn’t your concern," she snapped. "Now step aside so I can pass."
Kalen's arm came up, her palm flat against the stone of the archway, keeping the path blocked. Verna was forced to stop, near enough that she could see the sweat on Kalen’s top lip, the rise and the tight line of her mouth.
"Move your arm," Verna commanded, furious.
"No."
Verna drew herself up to her full height, which was still considerably less than Kalen's, and ground out, "You are here at my invitation and under my protection. You will—"
"I will tell you what I see," Kalen said, and her voice, though low, had an edge to it now. "Because no one else here will say it to your face, and someone should."
"Be very careful what—"
"You’re lying to yourself if you think Lord Lanath will make you happy. Or any man for that matter. You haven’t married because you don’t want a man in your bed."
Verna gaped at her. Of all the insolent… "How dare you speak to me like that."
Kalen took one step closer, and Verna held her position. That was a mistake. They were so close now that she could feel the warmth radiating off Kalen's skin, and Verna was acutely, and inconveniently, aware of every inch of that body.
"You buy women from slavers and give them their lives back," Kalen continued, her voice dropping lower, which made it worse, not better. "But you won't give yourself the same freedom you give them."
"That’s absurd."
"Is it?"
Verna was so angry she felt like stamping her feet. "What I do here, what I've built here, has been—"
"I'm not talking about the estate," Kalen interrupted.
Her eyes hadn't moved from Verna's face and her intensity was stifling.
"I'm talking about you. The woman in the vat, standing in the sun with purple feet, with her hair falling down and laughing.
The woman who comes down to this arena every morning and thinks she's hiding in the shadows.
" Something changed in her expression, the anger softening at its edges into something Verna found considerably harder to ignore. "She's not hiding at all."
"Don’t flatter yourself," Verna snapped.
Kalen pressed on, ignoring her anger. "You watched me all morning."
"I needed to see how you fight. Thom told me the fighters you’ll be up against," Verna said, and hated that her voice wasn't quite steady.
"So you say," Kalen stated flatly.
Verna took a breath and chose her next words with care.
"What I feel or don't feel is irrelevant. There are a hundred women on this estate who depend on me. I have an emperor who is looking for any excuse to claim my land and dismantle everything I've built. Thom is a good man who will protect this place and everyone in it, simply by being my husband. That’s not lying to myself, it’s being realistic. "
"Realistic," Kalen said the word as though she were turning it over and finding it wanting. "You'll chain yourself to a man you don't want in order to protect women you've unchained from men they didn't want."
The accuracy of it landed like a blow. Verna felt it move through her chest and kept her expression still through sheer force of will. "It’s not the same."
"Of course it is. You’re condemning him to a life of misery as well. He will expect passion in his bed."
"You go too far, Kalen," Verna said sharply. "Thom and I are the best of friends. We will do very well together."
"But not in the way it matters most." Kalen's voice dropped further, and the quieter it got, the more dangerous it became.
She pressed her back against the wall and placed both palms flat against the stone on either side of her head.
"You've spent so long making sure no one can trap you you've built a wall around yourself.
" Her eyes moved over Verna's face. "But a cage is still a cage, Lady Verna. "
Verna looked up at her. Her heart was doing something unruly in her chest and the ring on her finger was pulsing wildly.
Though she was furious at the utter gall of this woman, her body wasn’t reacting like it should.
"You haven’t the right to say these things to me, Kalen," she said bitterly.
"And what do you know? You've been here all of six weeks. "
"I've been watching you closely for those six weeks," Kalen said.
Verna narrowed her eyes. "And what exactly have you seen?"
Kalen's expression changed from anger to something open and unguarded. "A woman who is magnificent," she said quietly. "Who has no idea that she is, because she's been too busy making herself useful to everyone around her to notice."
A silence fell between them.
Verna was aware of the stone wall at her back, and Kalen's hands flat against it. She was aware of the rough sound of her breathing, the loose dark strand of hair at her jaw and the complete absence of any sensible thought.
"Kalen," she said. Her voice came out differently than she intended. Not cool or level.
"Don't," Kalen said softly, "say something sensible." And then she bent her head and kissed her.
It was nothing like Thom's kiss. There was no gentleness in it, no careful handling of something precious and fragile.
Kalen kissed her the way she did everything else, with complete attention and absolute commitment.
One hand left the wall to stroke Verna's jaw, that sent something hot and electric down the length of Verna's spine.
Verna raised her hands to push her away. Instead, they found the front of Kalen's training leathers, and her fingers curled around them, and she pulled her in.
A low sound came from Kalen's throat, a sound that undid Verna’s tight control. She kissed her back with a ferocity that surprised even herself, twenty years of careful composure dissolving against Kalen's lips.
Kalen pressed closer until Verna felt the stone wall dig into her back but she was beyond caring. Kalen's tongue was inside her mouth now and one hand cupping her breast.
Verna had been kissed before by men, and had endured it with the good manners of a woman who knew what was expected of her, but had never understood what the poets made such a fuss about.
She knew now.
A craving moved through her like the first heat of good wine except that it didn't stop at her stomach.
It kept going, spreading downward and outward through every part of her, to the ends of her fingers still gripping Kalen's leathers, to the soles of her feet flat against the cool stone floor.
She felt it lodge between her legs, lighting her up from the inside, like the great gold dome of the emperor's palace when the sun hit it at midday.
She moaned against Kalen's mouth, something between a breath and a word, and Kalen answered it with a groan of her own.
When they finally broke apart, Kalen dropped her forehead gently to rest against hers. They stood like that in the shadowed archway, breathing heavily.
Verna's hands were still in Kalen's leathers. Then she became aware of them and slowly let go. The sounds of the estate hit her ears when the roaring in her ears settled: the thumping of the press house, the singing in the vineyards. They brought Verna back to reality with a thud.
She looked at Kalen’s face now stripped of any arrogance, and said softly, "That was…special, but it can’t happen again.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you back.
You and I both know it can’t go anywhere.
We’re worlds apart and I have my responsibilities.
When the Trials are over, you will have your freedom immediately, Kalen. "
Kalen frowned and said in an almost pleading voice, "You won’t marry Lord Thom."
Verna shook her head, feeling completely lost. "I have no idea."
With a strangled growl, Kalen stepped aside to let her pass.
Verna went back to the house the long way.
She told herself it was because she wanted the air, the extra minutes of sea breeze and open sky before the day closed in around her with its ledgers and the hundred small demands of running a large estate.
Though this was partially true, the other reason she didn't want to examine too closely.
Her lips still tingled. She pressed two fingers against them briefly, then dropped her hand, annoyed at herself, and kept walking.
The path along the upper terrace curved past the whispering trees, and they were murmuring more this morning, their silver-green leaves catching the light in that particular way that had always made her feel they watched her.
She walked past them without slowing and took the steps up to the main portico two at a time.
Her rooms were quiet when she reached them. She went to the window and stood looking out over the vineyard terraces for a long moment without seeing them. Her mind kept returning, with a stubborn persistence, to the amphitheatre. To Kalen's hands flat against the stone on either side of her.