A sound that may have had some faint resemblance to a squeal jumped out of Karris’s mouth. She froze, her lips pursed.

The White opened her eyes and grinned. “May Orholam have pity on us for whom we love, child. Now go find that incorrigible man, and keep him alive. I fear we’re going to have great need of him in the coming days.”

Karris hugged the old woman tight and ran from the room, pausing only to send the other Blackguards in.

Chapter 86

Gavin climbed out of the hell of his own making one foot at a time. The pulley and counterweights made it so he could go much faster, but the pulley made noise. From the depths, he couldn’t know if the noise high above would make any difference, so he had to err on the side of caution.

Some time later, he got to the top. He climbed through the hole, reset the floor as quietly as possible, dissolved the yellow luxin board, and listened at the door. Nothing.

After listening for a full minute, he opened the door a crack. Then more.

There was no one in the room except Marissia, kneeling silently on the floor.

“Marissia,” Gavin said, warmed by the sight of her. “I told you to go,” he said gently.

She looked at him then, and he was surprised to see a wash of fresh tears run down her cheeks. “I knew you’d come back. Please, my lord, don’t send me away. This is all I know. I—Please don’t reject me.”

Reject? “No, no, no,” he told her. “I’m not sending you away. But… Marissia, I’ve given you your freedom. I would be a faithless man if I tried to take it back from you. It’s a gift—”

“And I don’t despise it, my lord. Not at all. I treasure it. But I can’t accept it and still be your room slave. You would be lost without me, my lord.” She ducked her head. “My apologies. That was very presumptuous.”

“The truth often is. You’re right. I need you. But you could become my secretary. Orholam knows, your duties have already included everything a secretary does.”

“And more,” she said quietly.

“Well, yes, of course. And the more has been accomplished with aplomb,” he said, giving a little smirk. Then the smirk froze.

He’d just killed his brother, and the rest of life went on, not even pausing to notice.

“My lord…” she said, as if he was being dense.

“Yes?” he said.

“You love Lady White Oak.”

“Yes, I do.”

“It is one thing for a lady to tolerate the man she loves enjoying the companionship of his room slave. It is quite another for him to cheat on her with a free woman. Especially if you had made your favor obvious by freeing me.”

Ah. It was so much easier to free a slave when you thought it wasn’t going to cost you anything. Damn.

Good thing I don’t have anything more pressing to deal with than my loins.

Gavin rubbed his jaw. Popped his neck right and left. “Marissia, I made you a promise, and I would be a small man to—”

“I have a solution, my lord!”

“A solution?”

“That doesn’t dishonor the gift you’ve given me, but doesn’t make me go.”

Gavin cocked an eyebrow. “You want to stay? I mean, you really want to stay? Or are you just afraid of things being different? If you need more money…”

“My lord, I’ve already written up the contract. It’s not manumission, but it’s a promise that I can buy my manumission for one danar, whenever I want. That way, you’ve still given me the generous gift, and when I want, I can take it, without depriving you or making things difficult between you and Lady White Oak.”

More difficult, anyway.

“I still don’t… you’re a room slave, Marissia. You don’t even have rights to your own body. If you weren’t a slave, you could be a satrapah, a merchant queen, whatever you wanted. Instead…”

“What could I do in this life that would have more meaning than serving you, my High Lord Prism?” she asked.

“How can you say that? You know me. You know what I am.”

“Yes, my lord, I do. And I—” She closed her mouth, then said instead, “Please don’t make me leave.”

“I’m not going to make you leave,” Gavin said. She was brilliant. An amazing woman. He walked over to his desk, signed the new contract, and brought it to her. She’d already torn up the old one.

Strangely, she was weeping. He handed her the new contract and she took it, still kneeling, and hugged his legs.

He’d slept maybe one hour last night. He’d had interrupted sex with a strange woman whom he’d then killed. He’d lost the love of his life. He’d prepared himself to die. He’d realized everything he’d believed for the last twenty years at least had been a lie. He’d killed his own brother. He was fucking exhausted.

And yet, with this beautiful woman pressed against his groin, his body reacted. Sometimes he hated being a man.

After all the trouble you got me into last night, you’re really going to do this to me?

Marissia noticed immediately, of course. But then, maybe she’d intended it. Usually she was reactive; there would be a question in her initial touches. Not now.

Gavin stepped back, and she stood smoothly in front of him, shrugging her wrap off her shoulders, leaving her sheathed in a pretty chemise. He said, “Maybe I should—”

She kissed his lips, pushed him backward, pulling his trousers down. She guided him to a chair and he sat abruptly as it hit his knees. And then she was on him, her eyes on his, holding him down, possessive. Her lovemaking was a whirlwind, hard and aggressive and fast and hot and sweaty and overwhelming. She rode him until he finished, light exploding in front of his eyes, but she didn’t stop like she normally did. If anything, she bore down on him harder until he was worried the chair would break and spill them both on the floor. Her fingers were laced through his hair, holding his head in place, demanding he look into her eyes. Then those stunning green eyes flared and her hips bucked uncontrollably. Her fingers dug into his arm and twisted his hair painfully, and then she collapsed against him.

Gavin was left breathless and stunned. He stood and carried her to his bed. She burrowed into his arms, and gave him up only with a little mew of protest when he released her. He walked over to his own side of the bed and sat on the edge in the dim lamplight.

Though he’d reached his satisfaction, his body was still eager for more. Maybe it had just been too long on the trail with Karris. Maybe it had been Marissia’s startling, utterly alluring intensity. He thought of taking her again and numbing his uneasiness. Tomorrow was going to be hell. He just wanted to sleep. For a few hours, he wanted to feel nothing.

Instead, he felt somehow like he’d done something wrong with Marissia. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of what it was. Maybe he was just feeling guilty about Dazen.

He lay down, blinking at the ceiling, wondering how the hell he was going to dodge the many flaming arrows coming his way on the morrow. The Spectrum had either already met to discuss the murder or would do so the first thing tomorrow. There was nothing he could do about that now. And since the guards had already searched the room with their usual thoroughness, no one would think to look for him here.