Chapter 15 #3
Choking on air, his face burned. "You forget yourself!" he hissed, trying to regain control. The lamplight gilded the curve of her shoulder; he looked away. "Are you not afraid?" he questioned, the sound barely carrying over the distant din. "Of my vengeance?"
He saw an unmistakable smile grace her glossy, tinted lips. His heart knocked against his ribs.
"If you wished for my head, my Lord," she whispered, the words like silk wrapping around his throat and tugging him forward, "you would have taken it by now."
My Lord.
It slid into his soul; it was sweet, venomous. A title of submission that felt like conquest.
"You dare play with devils, Khatun?"
The smile widened, a flash of white. "I dare many things, my Lord."
Her words dangled before him, as if offering him the delicious bliss of mutual ruin. It seemed he was in great trouble—the kind he'd walked into blindly, the kind he could still walk away from, the kind he had absolutely no intention of escaping.
Azul picked up a date from a small platter. "I know you wouldn't love a wife like me, so I'll offer you a contract. In exchange for your alliance, I will give you anything you wish, as long as you fulfil my wishes for me." The brief glimpse of her open mouth felt obscenely intimate.
"That sounds an awful lot like marriage, Khatun."
"It is, except once the contract is over, I will leave. You can marry whoever, live however. You need not give me an heir, and I need not nag." She reclined against the cushions, a picture of indolent sin that complemented the treason on her tongue. "So, what is it you wish?"
"What is it you wish?" he countered, his voice a low rasp.
"Hmm. I want to exterminate the Borjigin."
The raucous celebration outside swelled, filling the dead space between them with forced merriment. Ragnar’s blood went cold, then hot. He couldn’t help it—a short, breathless laugh escaped him.
"Crazy woman."
His gaze darted to the curtain, to Thane’s silhouette beyond. "Aren’t you afraid I’ll hand you over? Why discuss treason with me?"
It seemed she moved faster than his mind could process, or his mind was simply struggling to function in her presence.
Either way, he found her settled into his lap, her weight pressing down on him.
He went rigid, every muscle coiling. She picked up another date and pressed it to his lips.
Helplessly, he parted them, allowing her to place it on his tongue.
The sweetness exploded, coating his insides with overwhelming saccharine delight.
"My Lord," she purred, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. A violent shiver racked him, a jolt of unrestrained desire. Surely his body had been set on fire.
"Isn’t this a good deal?" she continued, taunting him. "You only need to pretend to be a dutiful husband, and I will return the favour."
One hand snaked up to capture both of her wrists, pulling them down behind her back until her spine arched, thrusting her chest forward.
A soft gasp escaped her.
"You’re all talk for such a weak mortal," he mused, his face inches from hers. He could see the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat. "You can’t even defend yourself. What use is your favour to me?"
Her body strained against his hold, and he lessened the pressure infinitesimally.
"See this as my betrothal gift," she whispered, "by the end of your stay here, you will be dead."
I…will die?
He wanted to laugh at the very notion that anyone in the Borjigin could successfully take a blade to his neck. But her eyes held a terrifying, vivid certainty, one he could not ignore.
The urge to distrust her was simply non-existent.
He loosened his grip on her wrists, giving her a way out; she did not take it.
"You have too much gall; are you really not afraid of death?"
"On the contrary, I’m very afraid, so it’s fortunate," she said quietly, her voice dropping to a whisper at his ear, "that I have you between me and Ukhel, my Lord."
She sat back on his lap; the world narrowed to her eyes, eyes that reminded him of death.
A goddess composed of nothing but temptation and utter condemnation. The goddess of chaos and beauty—
"—Tsenkhinn Narvaal."
She must be a follower of such a cursed woman or an incarnation. There was no other explanation for why he felt a pressing need to heed her words despite her snake-like disposition and why he struggled to draw his gaze away from such exquisite eyes.
But before he could move, the curtain was wrenched aside.
Light and noise flooded in. A young man with a face twisted by fury grabbed Azul under her arms, hauling her from Ragnar’s lap with a rough jerk.
"Great Khan," the man spat, vitriol dripping from every word. He clutched a dazed Azul to his side. "What do you think you’re doing to my sister? You should know better than to act like a wolf preying on the weak!"
Ragnar stared, stupefied, his lap suddenly cold, his hands empty. The scent of honey still clung to him. He looked from the brother’s scorn to Azul’s face, her mask of innocence flawlessly reassumed.
Wolf? he thought, the bitter irony a tang in his mouth. She’s the one who crawled into the den.
The girl was dragged out of the alcove, leaving him alone, trying to understand just what had happened to him.
Vixen. His heart trembled.
Truly, a vixen.