Chapter Eight #3
The full moon made it very easy to see their way back up the beach to the city.
The city wall extended all the way across the beach and into the water, and there was a beach gate in both the north and south ends of the wall.
Jaykun and Jileana approached the city via the south gate.
The wall and its gates were now manned and guarded by Jaykun’s men.
The gates—what remained of them and the wall after Jaykun’s offensive on the city—were closed after dusk to all comers.
The only exception to that order was Jaykun.
Once they were past the wall, they walked along the beach to the docks and then walked the wooden planks to the nearest ship.
Krizan ships were massive monsters, made for carrying a great force of men.
They were not built for speed, so it was possible to outrun a Krizan ship if the winds were in one’s favor, but it would take a skilled captain to do so.
But once a Krizan ship latched on to its target, the large raiding party was brutal.
Krizans were not known for their mercy on the high seas. Quite the opposite.
“They look so beastly,” Jileana remarked.
“They are. But that is exactly what I need. A fleet of beasts that can carry a great force of men over the waters.”
“These ships don’t seem as though they could carry your entire army,” Jileana said doubtfully.
“That is because a third of the ships have gone missing. But we will get them back. We will crew these remaining ships and spend the winter chasing down what rogue ships we can find. Once spring comes, we will be ready to move on.”
“Are you certain you can find them?”
“It is hard to miss a ship that looks like this,” he remarked.
Jileana thought he had a point. If not by the size of the thing, it would be known by its brightly painted colors.
Each ship was festooned with all kinds of colors on its carved railings and the spires of its masts.
On some of the ships, the decks were painted; on others, the sides were decorated.
Each had a style all its own. The ships were unafraid of being seen and it showed.
“You are right,” she said with a chuckle.
“Odds are, the ships were poorly crewed and poorly supplied. That means we will find most of them in ports either in Moroun or at some other nearby harbor. Perhaps even your island.”
“Oh no. Not my island. You can’t get there by ship.”
“Every island can be gotten to by ship,” Jaykun said with a laugh.
“Not my island. I promise you that.”
“Why not your island?”
“Remember the storms that kept you from seeing it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they are always there. They are violent and dangerous, and no ship can make it through them.”
“That’s … I’ve never heard of such a thing before. Surely the storms aren’t there all the time. They must let up every so often.”
“They are there all the time,” she assured him.
He didn’t believe her. If that were the case, how would she have gotten off the island and onto these shores?
He found himself bothered by the fib. Then he rethought the feeling.
He could understand her wanting to discourage the idea of traveling to her island.
He was, after all, an invader in command of a great army …
one that now included an armada. She was trying to protect her home from him.
For some reason that disturbed him. Why should it bother him?
It was his job as an invader to seize cities in Weysa’s name and he gave no quarter when it came to that.
He should be planning to get to her island after he attacked Moroun.
He would of course try peaceful methods first; he wasn’t a barbarian, after all.
Just like he would with Moroun, he would send an envoy to the rulers of her island, requesting that temples be raised in Weysa’s name.
The only condition was that on the island there had to be more temples to Weysa than there were to any one of the other gods.
If they refused … well … that was when war broke out.
From what he had gathered from Jileana, her people worshipped Diathus.
It sounded as though Diathus was worshipped to the exclusion of all other gods.
Since Diathus was in the faction that warred against Weysa’s faction of gods, to take worshippers away from Diathus and gain them for Weysa helped their cause twofold.
But he wasn’t focused on anything other than Moroun at the moment.
He could send envoys to Serenity at the same time perhaps and then decide in which direction to go.
But the idea sat ill with him for some reason.
He found himself not wishing to upset her by planning to attack her people.
Perhaps he was being selfish too, because he didn’t want to disrupt the rest of their time together, or perhaps he truly didn’t want to hurt her in any way.
The thoughts sat uncomfortably in him. He was a calculating man, a man who was forced to make cold decisions in the name of his cause.
It disturbed him to think he was losing that ability just because of a pretty woman.
Two more days, he reminded himself. She would only be influencing him for two more days. Then he would return to his clear-cut way of thinking and decide what to do as far as her island home was concerned. Until then, he would put it out of his mind and not let it come between them.
“Well,” he said at last, “I will take your word for it for now.”
“Come,” she said, taking up his hand. “Come to bed with me,” she invited, walking backward, away from him and toward the castle, pulling him along with her.
The invitation gave him a fierce thrill of pleasure and excitement.
He followed her all too willingly. By the eight hells, she could have been leading him to his death and he didn’t think he would care.
His vision narrowed completely at the idea of frolicking in bed with her for the next few hours.
By all rights he should be getting some sleep and preparing for the big day ahead of him, preparing to face the mountain of work that needed to be done before his brothers could safely leave him.
But all he could think of was that he would gladly face a day with no sleep if it meant a night of being ensconced within her.
He followed her to his fate. Once he was in his bedroom with her, she sat him on the bed and moved a short distance away from him.
Slowly she undid the laces of her dress and then wriggled out of it, baring inch after inch of luscious skin to his eyes.
Soon she was standing naked before him, her dress in a neglected pile on the floor.
He was glad of it. He should never have dressed her in the first place.
She was too beautiful in her natural state and such beauty should never be hidden away.
And yet he knew that if she remained naked as he had found her, he would never get anything done.
He simply would keep her in this room, locked away where no one else could see her and covet her beauty for themselves, and where he could make thorough use of her, satiating the rampant passions she so easily inspired within him.
As he watched her approach him, he marveled at her and his reactions to her. Had he ever been so hot for a woman before?
Yes.
He closed the answer off before it could disrupt what he was feeling right then. He didn’t want to taint the moment.
And yet … he had to be wary. He had to be cautious or he might find himself—
No, he told himself. This was different. This time he was not blindly in love with the object of his lust. She did not and would not have the power over him that Casiria had had …
“Now it’s your turn. Don’t you simply suffocate in all those clothes?”
He chuckled awkwardly. He wanted to focus solely on her, but these other things kept intruding, these thoughts of Casiria. Why he should think of her at a time like this was beyond him.
Or is it? an insidious voice within him asked.
He shoved all of that aside with a hard mental push and forced himself to focus on the woman approaching him.
In the end, it wasn’t that hard to do. He had never seen anything so lovely in his entire life.
Not even Casiria could compare. And anyway, Casiria was long dead and this woman was very much vital and alive.
But on the surface of it, he was glad Jileana was leaving him in two days.
It might be dangerous for her to linger any longer than that.
She came to him, reaching out for his hands and pulling him up from the bed.
She turned him and gave him a little push until he was at what she deemed was an optimal distance, then threw herself down onto the bed with a flounce of long limbs and ripe breasts.
She leaned back on her elbows and raised an expectant brow.
Feeling suddenly on display, he felt awkward again.
He shouldn’t. He was a man with a destiny, a warrior through and through who had no one to answer to save an all-powerful goddess.
He had just cut a swath through an army of men and had seized hold of a foreign city.
These were not the actions of a weak or awkward man.
Frustrated with himself, he shrugged out of the vest he was wearing with some measure of violence. Then, with equal temper, he stripped his shirt from his back, leaving himself bare chested before her.
“Very nice,” she said lasciviously, her mouth curving into a devilish smile.
Now he was determined to teach the saucy wench a lesson or two, so there was impetus to his actions as he kicked off his boots and stripped away his leggings.
He was naked then and he paused to display his fine masculine muscles before stepping forward to reach for her. But she held up a staying hand.