18. Areana
AREANA
A reana arranged the breakfast tray on the small bistro table, the same way she used to do when she and Navuh dined together in the harem.
The difference was that the small dungeon apartment didn't have a balcony overlooking an interior garden, the tiny living room could not compare to her luxurious harem quarters, and this time Navuh was the prisoner and not her.
This time, she was free to leave the prison anytime she wished and return to the penthouse with its expansive windows and magnificent views of the city.
She should have felt vindicated, glad that he was finally experiencing what he'd subjected her to for five thousand years, but all she felt was sadness and pity.
She didn't want him to be locked up down here any more than she'd wanted to be locked up herself. She wanted the five thousand years of life in the harem to disappear, and for her and Navuh to rewind history and do things differently this time.
They'd been gifted with the most precious gift of being truelove mates, but in their case, the Fates hadn't done it only as a reward for suffering, which they had both experienced a great deal of, but also as a lark.
They must have known how things would turn out because they were the ones who wove the threads of destiny.
They must have known that Areana and Navuh's relationship would be a perversion of the truelove mates lore.
A cosmic joke.
To stop the wave of sadness washing over her, she turned to look at the framed photograph of Darius she'd brought with her from the penthouse. There was no better cure for melancholy than the sight of that sweet, smiling face.
Her grandson was a serious little boy, but when he smiled it was like the sunshine bursting through rain clouds, or in her case, piercing through layers of earth, concrete, and self-pity over everything that could have been.
Navuh reached for the coffee cup. "You keep looking at that photograph as if that child is your salvation."
"He is." She let her smile broaden. "Just look at this adorable face.
It makes me smile every time I do." She turned the frame toward him even though he stubbornly refused to look at it.
"Darius looks so much like Kalugal did as a little boy.
He has just a little of Jacki in him. She jokes that she was only the oven. "
"Hmm." Navuh sipped on his coffee, deliberately avoiding a response.
Areana wanted to fill this tiny space of theirs with photographs of Lokan and Carol, Kalugal and Jacki, Annani and her children, but they would have to live only in her phone's photo library for now.
Darius's photograph was already testing the limits of what Navuh was willing to tolerate without his mood curdling and poisoning the whole day.
After all, the point of this apartment was not just to cage Navuh but to promote his healing.
Rehashing every grievance he carried against the sons he believed had betrayed him wouldn't be conducive to his recovery.
"You should eat." She waved her hand at the food she'd placed in front of him. "You'll need the energy today."
He grimaced. "I'm not looking forward to physical therapy provided by my lovely but unskilled mate."
He was so good at this, wrapping criticism in a compliment, but she knew all of his tricks and wasn't going to let them affect her.
She leveled her gaze at him. "It's not complicated. I watched all the videos that Hildegard had sent me several times, and I've worked out a simple plan for today. We are going to start with just a few basic moves."
"You watched videos of how it's done, and that makes you an expert?"
"It's not as complicated as it sounds," she said, and forced herself to believe it.
She waited for him to eat his oatmeal and the plate of fruit, to drink another cup of coffee, to eat the croissant, then ask for another refill of coffee, and she did not rush him even though she knew he was stalling.
"I need to get you into your swimming trunks," she said when he finally covered the tray with the napkin, signaling that he was done.
"I can manage the trunks, Areana. I am not entirely helpless."
He couldn't, and they both knew that, but she was careful never to remind him how limited his mobility still was despite the recent improvements.
The sensation creeping back into his legs was a secret he still hadn't chosen to share with anyone but her, hoarding it as some scrap of leverage against a day when he might need it.
His legs no longer refused him outright.
They simply couldn't yet be trusted to hold him, the muscles wasted down to almost nothing from disuse.
"Of course, my love. I'm only going to help if you need me." She rose to her feet and released the brake on his wheelchair.
Wheeling him into the bedroom, she parked him between the bed and the closet.
"Trunks first." She took them and the bathrobe out of the closet and dropped them on the bed.
"Lift for me," she said, crouching in front of him.
He braced his hands against the wheelchair's arms, lifting his hips with effort as she pulled down his pajama pants, and as soon as the pants cleared his bottom, he dropped back into the chair.
This was always the awkward part.
She'd seen her mate naked many thousands of times over the past five thousand years, and each time he had stripped in front of her, he'd had an erection. Now there was nothing, and not because he found her unattractive after all those years.
The mind-body connection just wasn't there yet, and his manhood lay flaccid and shrunken.
She turned around and folded the pajama pants, then put them on top of the bed and took the trunks.
Crouching next to him, she worked them up until they reached his hips.
"Lift for me, my love."
He did so with a grunt, and she worked the trunks up and over, quick and businesslike.
"There." She sat back on her heels. "Looks good."
"That's a matter of perspective."
Areana smiled. "I bought a pair that looks almost the same as the one you have in the harem. I thought you'd be pleased."
He grimaced. "You mean like the one I had in the harem. I'm never going back there, and my so-called sons have probably robbed my closet and are wearing my gowns. The ones you embroidered so lovingly."
He missed his gowns, and she could obviously get him new ones and embroider them by hand like she used to, but it would only make him look ridiculous.
Those gowns were fit for a king, but Navuh was now king of nothing.
Perhaps she could embroider his bathrobe.
She handed it to him and left him to arrange it over his shoulders himself. "I'll embroider your shirts. Would you like that?"
"No," he grumbled while struggling to work the bathrobe under his hips.
"Let me help you with that."
"I've got it." He waved her away. "Get changed yourself. I want to see you in that red swimsuit you bought."
That was the old Navuh, the one who had always lusted after her, who found her desirable and exciting no matter how many thousands of years they spent together.
She took her time changing, lingering a little longer than necessary before covering herself with the scrap of red fabric and enjoying the sound of his quickened breathing and low growls of appreciation.
Still with her back to him, she pulled on the one-piece swimsuit with deliberate slowness, then turned around and struck a pose.
"Well?"
"Stunning." He leaned forward and put his hands on her waist. "You look good in red."
She let him pull her closer and was tempted to sit in his lap, but she didn't know whether it was medically approved.
Instead, she leaned down and kissed him on the lips. "Save the thought for the pool."
His dark eyes began to blaze with inner light, eliciting a corresponding response from her.
Fates, how she missed making love to him.
Soon.
She straightened, and he didn't fight her. He never had, even when he'd been whole, and she was at his mercy. He accepted nothing less than her full participation, and it was one of the many things she loved about him. Those private things that belonged exclusively to the two of them.
Navuh was dominant, and he enjoyed her submission, but he never demanded it. It was always her choice.
The small sarcastic voice in the back of her head whispered that her choices had been very limited in every other way, and it was right, so she didn't argue with its logic.
Areana reached for the matching sarong she'd bought along with the swimming suit, a length of nearly sheer, red-patterned fabric that tied at the hip.
"What do you think?" She turned in a circle.
"That there is no way you are walking out of these rooms dressed like that, or rather undressed."
She laughed and slipped her feet into a pair of gold-colored flip-flops that had a bit of a heel to accentuate her long legs.
Navuh groaned. "You are killing me."
"On the contrary, my love." She put her hands on the wheels of his chair and leaned to plant another kiss on his lips. "I'm giving you motivation to recover as fast as immortally possible."
"That you do," he agreed without arguing and making any snarky remarks, which was nice. There was only so much sarcasm she could take.
"Where are you going to put your phone?" he asked when she wheeled him out of the bedroom.
"In the pocket on the back of your chair." She took the device off the table where she'd left it and dialed Daniel's contact. "We are ready for the pool."
"I'll be there in a moment. I'm entering the outing into the cuffs' programming."
The cuffs were set to activate if Navuh attempted to leave the apartment without authorization, and Daniel had to change the programming every time they needed to leave the predetermined perimeter.
A few moments later, the hiss of the locks releasing was followed by the heavy door swinging out.
"All set," Daniel said.
"Thank you." Areana pushed the wheelchair forward, and Daniel fell into step beside them, the three of them making their slow procession down the corridor's reproduction-lined walls toward the elevator bank.