Chapter Seven
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Jileana was sitting in the stands that ringed half the practice circle.
They were wooden and rough, and rose up only to about six levels, but it was enough to afford each person a good view of the arena.
The stands were crowded save for the seats on either side of her.
It seemed no one wanted to sit too close to her.
No one Krizan, that is. Which was to be expected, really.
However, it was only a short length of time before a couple of Jaykun’s men, two of the men who had been seated at the table for lunch earlier, filled in the places beside her.
In the practice circle, Jaykun was giving his sword several test swings, He was stripped down to his bare chest and a pair of breeches, his pants tucked into his knee-high black leather boots.
The snug material of those pants clung to every thick muscle in his legs and Jileana found herself staring at them with increasing covetousness.
His bare chest and arms were nothing to sneeze at either.
She had never seen a man with so many well-developed muscles; her people tended to be sleeker and leaner.
His skin was tanned and smooth, nearly flawless now that he’d had an entire day to heal from his trial of the night before.
It seemed that his body healed to a certain point of perfection.
Each night she had watched him burn away until he was nothing but a skeleton, and by the time the next night approached he looked as though it had never happened.
Magic. It was some kind of magic. He said it was the curse of the gods and she believed him.
Only the touch of the gods could make this happen to a man.
She found herself wondering exactly what a man had to do to cause a god to exact such a vicious sort of vengeance on him.
Her father and brothers would have wanted her to put as much distance between him and herself as possible, probably for fear of attracting the attention of an angry god toward her.
But they had always been over protective.
To her mind, that made no sense. Surely a god wouldn’t become angry with her just for being near someone they had cursed. Would a god be so capricious?
Then again, the legends of the gods told all kinds of stories about their volatile tempers. They were more apt to take vengeance on a mortal than they were to bless or gift that mortal, if the stories attributed to them were to be believed.
And even in her distant world, she thought she’d heard the story of immortal brothers cursed by the gods.
The story of four men who had found and stolen the gifts of the Fount of Immortality without truly earning the blessing from the gods.
In their rage the gods had cursed each brother to a torment worse than any imaginable: one brother cast into the pits of hell; another chained to that very mountain, doomed to freeze again and again; and the third chained to a star.
A star.
Bright as a star. He burned as bright as a star. Somehow he had been released from the star and yet still suffered as though he were still chained to it.
She wondered about the fourth brother. The legend had never been specific about the fourth brother’s torment, only that the god Sabo had been in charge of the reckoning and that it was an unspeakable torment just like his siblings suffered.
And yet three of the four immortal brothers must have been sitting at luncheon with her today. How amazing that she was touching such an unbelievable legend.
And how sad. How sad she was for Jaykun, that he must suffer so. Did his brothers still suffer as he did? How had they come to be free? There was a story there and she craved the hearing of it.
But it would come in its own time, she realized, trying to force patience on herself.
Jaykun would reveal himself to her just as slowly, no doubt, as she would reveal herself to him.
They both had their stories, both had their mysteries.
Both would tell their tales as they got to know each other better.
And she truly did want to know him better.
She could not say exactly why she found him so compelling, why she had immediately allowed herself to be drawn in by him and his world, only that these were the most exciting moments of her life thus far.
She was tired of her sheltered existence.
Running away, in her opinion, was the best thing she had ever done.
Oh, she knew she would have no choice but to go back in three days’ time, but at least she could say she had done this, that she had come away from her protected world and done something exciting and different and new.
And who knew? Maybe she would do it again someday.
But the odds were that there would be no Jaykun at that time.
He no doubt would have moved on by then. Never looking back.
Well, she would look back. She would make these three days into something so wonderful that she could look back on them with awe and delight.
And so far she was succeeding famously. She had eaten wonderful food, had shopped for beautiful things, and had acquired a fine lover.
A lover, she realized, she had only just begun to sample.
And as he entered the ring and faced off with his youngest brother, her heart pounded with excitement at the very thought.
Jaykun must suffer his nightly torment at dusk, but afterward …
afterward he would be hers to do with as she pleased.
Garreth was faster than Jaykun—it was true—but it quickly became obvious that he was outmatched. Jaykun moved with sleek grace but also a thunderous power that beat Garreth back over and over again. In the end, he simply wore the smaller man out with his unrelenting barrage of sword strokes.
Garreth yielded. Jileana cheered Jaykun loudly, clapping her hands and whooping with victorious delight as if she had been the one to personally win the battle.
She saw Jaykun grin and he saluted her with his sword.
Jileana heard the men beside her chuckling, but she didn’t care.
Jaykun had won! Couldn’t they see how magnificent he was?
“He is a fine warrior,” she said aloud and to no one in particular.
“He is the best there is. Closely rivaled by his eldest brother,” the man seated on her right said. “But Dethan is fresh and Jaykun has just done battle. I doubt he can withstand Dethan’s attack.”
“You are wrong. He will win,” she said with all the confidence in the world—this in spite of the fact she knew nothing of Dethan’s fighting style or strengths and little of Jaykun’s.
All she knew was what she wanted. She wanted him to win.
She wanted him to be victorious. Not that she didn’t like his brothers—it was clear they were fine men, if a bit too serious.
She simply wanted victory. A victory to be celebrated.
Dethan was a powerful fighter. His overhand barrages sent echoes of metal ringing hard through the air as Jaykun parried every blow.
His body flexed beneath each contact, straining to shove his brother off him each time.
Ever wily, he made certain half of Dethan’s strikes never found a sticking point to begin with.
These moves made her cheer some more, as loudly as she could.
She wanted him to know she was in his corner, that she was by his side in spirit if not in body.
Her faith was rewarded. Jaykun turned swiftly, and suddenly Dethan hit the ground face-first, his sword flying from his hand. Jaykun put the point of his sword to his brother’s neck and Dethan laughed. He could hardly be heard over the woman shouting wildly from the risers across the way.
“You have me, brother,” Dethan said, holding up his hands in submission.
“I do indeed,” Jaykun said, holding a hand out to his brother and helping him to his feet.
Both men were covered in sweat and dirt, and both were breathing hard with their exertions.
Dethan bent to fetch his sword and looked over at Jileana, who was fumbling her way out of the crowd of people seated around her.
“You’ve made someone very happy,” Dethan said with a chuckle.
“How can you tell?” Jaykun asked with amusement.
“Whatever have you done to inspire such fast loyalty, I wonder,” Dethan baited.
“Hush,” Jaykun scolded, smacking his brother’s leg with the flat of his blade.
Jileana was across the ring and launching herself into his arms in the next instant. She was a projectile of black, flying hair and loud, delighted excitement.
“You’ve done it!” she exclaimed. “It was wonderful!”
“I am glad you thought so. I could not tell,” he teased her.
“I know I promised to do so only at night,” she said breathlessly, “but I would very much like to have sex with you right now!”
Dethan burst into laughter and Jaykun felt his neck flushing red.
On the other hand, his body was instantly reacting to the suggestion.
He jerked her up close and tight to his body and caught her audacious mouth with his own.
He kissed her until she was breathing as hard as he was and his blood was singeing with a heat that had nothing to do with his exertions of just minutes ago.
“Well, it’s all right with me,” Dethan said, still laughing. “How about you, Garreth?”
“Shut up,” Jaykun warned before his youngest sibling could chime in.
He tossed his blade to Dethan and grabbed hold of Jileana.
He swung her up off her feet, into his arms, and carried her from the practice ring into the castle.
At the first shadowed hall he could find, he backed her up against a wall and pressed his body along the front of hers.
“You have to stop doing that,” he growled against her ear.
“Doing what?” she asked, her soft breaths panting into his hair as he nuzzled her hotly.
“Talking about sex.”
“But it was the truth. Do you not prefer when I tell the truth?”