Kingdom of Yute: Tor's Betrayal Read online

  After that, I saw Tor for a short while every day. Most of the time I slept and, while Tor urged me to eat and assured me he was cutting back the drugs, still most of my time was spent in a haze of dreams.

  I still had nightmares. Hugo had me pinned against the alley wall as he casually explained to Tor, “She’s just a good fuck and I’m keeping her.”

  One day I woke to find Whit sitting in Tor’s chair, watching me with a faint smile. Automatically, I looked around for Hugo.

  “Tor’s taking the morning off.”

  I nodded. “How do I look?” I asked him.

  “Shall I bring a looking brass?”

  I shook my head quickly. “I don’t want all the details, just a rough idea.”

  “You look rough,” he said unkindly.

  I tugged the sheets off my legs. “You can help me walk,” I informed him and, with an arm at my elbow, Whit helped me limp out a small circle in the large room.

  “Tor’s a nob,” I told him.

  Whit slid me a sardonic look of congratulations. “You’ve puzzled that out, have you? All on your own? But Tor said you were bright.”

  “What about you?”

  Whit grunted. “If you’re asking about my rank, I can boast only the slightest claim to nobility. If you’re asking how I feel about your being here, slagbit—if I support your cause, as Tor appears to—better to not ask.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “With your virtue?” He cut me a look of haughty disdain. “Shall I bring that looking brass?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “You can trust me,” he answered my question with quiet finality. “Because you belong to Tor. But that’s the only reason,” he added.

  I thanked him. I’ve always liked an honest man. It’s not as though they’re all that common.

  “Would you like to use the water closet?”

  “What’s that?”

  He gave my elbow a nudge. “I’ll take you there and let you figure it out.”

  They had an in-house outhouse. Now that is luxury. As I sat in the little room, I wondered who’d been…caring…for me these last several weeks. I grimaced, but it was a little late for embarrassment.

  “Who’s Neels?” I called through the closed door.

  “His brother.”

  I stood up and saw…myself…I realized. A looking silver was fixed to the wall above a basin. I could have cried.

  “Older brother. His parents died of the coughing flux. That was several years ago.”

  At one time, I had been attractive enough. Now I was just skin and bones with a nose far too huge for my narrow face.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Whit pointed out as I crept through the door.

  “That’s one way of putting it.” And that’s how I felt, a faded ghost of my former self. “Whit? What happened…to me?”

  “You broke your leg.”

  “I know that! How did I break it?”

  Whit’s face was grim. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”

  * * * * *

  Tor

  “Of course I want you.” I watched her eyes fill. It was the drugs. Coming off the drugs, actually. Over the past several weeks I’d reduced her daily dose to almost nothing. She’d soon be clear of them. That’s why I needed to get the next words out. Every one of those words was going to be a challenge. I had a lot to explain to her.

  It was only the drugs that had delayed her questions, about her leg, about me, about The Glove and her friends. But she was almost clear of the narcotics and I needed to explain everything to her before she drew her own conclusions.

  I watched her teeth in her lower lip, wanting to stop her tears before they ruined all the effort she’d put into fixing her face. She’d rouged her lips and painted her eyes. Whit must have brought her some of Cherindra’s makeup.

  I didn’t want her to cry. Tears would only streak her face and make her more miserable than she already was. “Of course I want you. I just don’t want to hurt you. And we need to talk.”

  “I’m so thin,” she whispered. She looked down at her breasts, clearly outlined inside the thin gauze shift she wore. “And small.”

  “Fragile,” I corrected her gently. “Delicately fragile.” I pulled a chair up close to where she sat on the bed’s edge and captured her legs between my own. Taking her hands, I pulled them into my lap and dragged the back of her fingers up along my ties. “Of course I want you.”

  Mithra. It had been too long.

  There is nothing so motivating as a woman on a bed in the early morning, wearing something filmy that promises a great deal but leaves more than a little unsaid. Tissue-thin, the fragile white fabric nestled around her elegant lines, displaying her body like a precious gift. Where the wide neckline of the nightdress slid off one shoulder, a bare ivory curve was exposed. Inside the shift, her tiny breasts were evocative shadows that called to me on every level, but most particularly on the lower level. I was motivated. Her fingers dragging the length of my cock just increased what was already a growing problem. I closed my eyes for an instant and she used that opportunity to move into my lap. I held her carefully and let her kiss me and could do nothing to stop her from nestling her bottom into my lap.

  “Of course I want you,” I breathed when she let me up for air.

  By now, I probably had her convinced of that as my cock stretched and pulsed against the curves of her bottom. I gave her a little room, enough room for her to slide her hand down between my legs and, with a little coaxing on her part and a little cooperation on mine, my legs moved apart and my dick played right into her hands.

  I had a lot of things to say but couldn’t get one word out as she tried to untie me with one hand. I helped her. And when she pulled my cock out of my leggings, I slid the shift up over her legs and helped her to mount me. As her tight, wet heat sheathed me, I choked out a gasp that had been building for over a month. Fighting the instinct to push into her and move myself toward climax, I remained still although I was aching to grind against her, to clamp onto her thighs and thrust up into her.

  It had been too long.

  I was afraid I’d hurt her. And not only physically. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand why I’d taken the steps that had led me back inside the highwall. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand what was going to happen next. What I had to tell her. But she was sensible and strong and I knew I had her trust. I valued that trust more than anything. I knew she’d listen to my explanation before she started to judge me.

  But all of that didn’t make it any easier to say. My throat ached, stretched tight around the difficult words. But the ache in my throat was nothing compared to the throbbing need in my balls, in my tightly stretched cock.

  With her back against my chest, I carefully lifted her legs to the bed in front of the chair. With shaking hands, I pulled her good leg open a bit, enough to get my hand in her sex. “Don’t move,” I told her, “don’t move until you’re ready to come.”

  With one hand sliding into her slot and the other beneath her, pulling her cheeks open as gently as I could, I tweaked her to within an inch of arrival. She did the rest when she used the chair’s arms to leverage her body on my dick. She came down on me a few times and I was fucked.

  Mithra, it’s hard to be gentle at a time like that and I must be given credit for my restraint—and for restraining the girl—when my dick wasn’t disposed in the least to be gentle with her. Knowing her proclivity for contortions, I held her body tightly against mine as she shuddered through orgasm, and where she would normally have thrashed on my shaft, I allowed her only the most confined tremor.

  Afterward, I kissed every part of her body I could reach and told her I loved her. But I think she was asleep by then. I fell asleep too, with her damp bottom in my lap…and almost missed my own wedding.

  * * * * *

  Spark

  When I woke, Tor was gone. I found myself outside on his balcony in a leaning chair. Stretching o
ut in the glorious golden warmth that beat down on the balcony, I sat with my good foot on the rail, soaking up the sun. It was a bright, sunny corner, the newly whitewashed walls clean and bracingly fresh. A silver set of chimes hung from a stand, winking in the sun as they tinkled out a random melody.

  “Hello slagbit.” The voice behind me turned me around. I thought it was Tor at first. The voice matched his, exactly. But the man, dressed in white, was too pretty to be Tor.

  Neels.

  Something about the man made me shrink from Tor’s beautiful brother.

  “No, don’t get up.” He stepped out into the sunshine. Leaning with his back against the rail, he shook his head at me. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

  He’d been drinking. I arched my eyebrows and looked at his white clothing. “Someone get married?” I asked him.

  He smiled slowly. “Yes, someone got married. And it wasn’t me.” He pointed at me with an unsteady finger. “It wasn’t you, either. Which leaves the two of us an unmatched pair. What do you say slagbit? Do you fancy the groom’s brother?” He sighed with drama and cynicism. “I, myself, fancied the groom’s bride, but at this point—having drunk this much—I’d be willing to settle for the groom’s little whore. He said you were a good fuck. And Tor never lies.”

  And up until he said Tor’s name, I hadn’t caught on.

  The sun was swirling unsteadily in the sky as I got to my feet and backed away from the man, favoring my bad leg as I did so.

  She’s just a good fuck.

  That was the only thought in my head. Tor’s voice saying She’s just a good fuck.

  Then another man stepped out onto the balcony. “Get out of here, Neels.” Dressed entirely in white, Tor stood in the harsh, cruel sunlight, his voice terse. Outfitted in a complete suit of embellished satin, gold wedding coins jingled at the edge of his vest. They flashed and sparkled as they caught the sun’s rays.

  I raised my wrist to protect my eyes as Neels shot a slow smile in my direction, passing Tor on his way into the house’s dark interior.

  I limped another step backward as Tor blurred before me. Hot tears skimmed my eyelashes and began to wash onto my face. I’m ashamed to admit I cried. But I was naïve and so much in love with the first man I’d ever…been a good fuck to.

  I threw up my head. “I’m remiss. My congratulations to you on your wedding day. I have no gift, other than that which you took from me earlier today.”

  “Stop it, Spark,” he said as though chastising a child. “The wedding wasn’t exactly a love match.”

  No. I hadn’t imagined it was. It was probably a wise wedding, however. One sensibly and politically motivated to assure his ascendancy in the nob world. I looked down at my leg. “It’s time for me to go,” I informed him, as my tears dropped to make shining spots on the balcony’s floor.

  “Spark.”

  He took a step toward me and I backed up again, shaking my head. “It must have been all the drugs,” I started to babble. “How could I not have questioned—” I looked up at him suddenly. “Jet and Thane.” It had been weeks and I hadn’t even thought of them. “It must have been the drugs,” I repeated. My eyes went to the wall that separated our worlds, to the little shed standing hard against that wall.

  “Spark. I tried to tell you…earlier.”

  I shook my head. “You tried to fuck me earlier. And succeeded.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Spark.”

  “Thane,” I insisted, “and Jet. It’s time I got back.”

  Now he took a step backward and turned to lean with elbows on the rail as he watched the highwall. “They’re not there,” he said quietly.

  My heart thundered in my chest.

  “They’re in prison.”

  “Why…why haven’t you bought them out?”

  His lips turned downward in a frown. “Because I’m the one who put them there.”

  “You’re not a spy,” I whispered to myself. “You’re not a spy,” I told him, and shook my head, certain at this point that he was, in fact, a spy.

  He shook his head, but by then I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe in Tor Harnesson. “Don’t be foolish, Spark. You needed doctors, drugs. I had to sacrifice them to get a foot back in the door, the door to this world.”

  I must have stopped breathing because I felt very faint. “How did I break my leg?” I asked him.

  But he didn’t answer. “I’ve been trying to find them, to buy them out, but I can’t do it openly without raising suspicion. I’m too highly placed.” He blathered on, but by now I hardly listened. “The Nobles think I’m angling for a coup with the streetslag as my army. I can’t talk to any of The Glove. I don’t dare.”

  I looked over the balcony’s edge and wondered if my leg would survive the jump.

  “I got a few words to Burro once, got him to lift my pouch. There was fifty gold in it. It should be enough to buy the guys out, assuming they can be found.”

  “Assuming they’re still alive,” I said faintly.

  He gave me a grim look.

  “I’ll find them,” I told him.

  He looked at my leg and shook his head.

  I wiped my cheeks and smiled gamely, but it was probably more of a grimace than a smile. “I’m not staying here,” I told him with fierce stubbornness. I looked him in the eye. “I’m not just another pretty face,” I said, with an attempt at humor. “And I’m not just a good fuck.”

  His face fell. “Don’t be silly, Spark.”

  “I heard you tell your brother…weeks ago… I thought it was the drugs. I heard you,” I insisted as I looked up at him. “And Neels says you never lie.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “I heard you.”

  “That’s not what I said. And I didn’t lie. But I couldn’t let him find out I was in The Glove. I couldn’t let him know you were anything more than—”

  “A good fuck.”

  “That’s right!”

  “Get out of my way, Tor.”

  “Spark.”

  “I’ll go over the balcony if I have to.”

  He gave me a look what I guessed was supposed to represent shocked hurt. But I was beyond it at this point. I was beyond Tor Harnesson.

  Tor Harnesson!

  “I thought you didn’t lie!” I spat. “Tor Harnesson, my ass.” I backed him in off the balcony and into his room.

  “Tor Harnesson Gunnar,” Neels spoke from the shadows within the house.

  Having just come off the bright balcony, the room was dark to my eyes.

  “Gunnar.” I stopped. “That does place you highly, doesn’t it? Get out of my way, Gunnar.”

  “Spark, listen to me.”

  “Let her go, Tor.”

  “Shut up, Neels.”

  “If you don’t help her over the wall and through the gates, she’ll only hurt herself. And if you don’t help her, I will,” Neels informed his brother. “Today, tomorrow, next week. Let her go, Tor. She’s figured you out. She’s decided you’re an opportunist only out for yourself, haven’t you, slagbit?”

  Tor stared at me as if for direction.

  I nodded my head.

  “And once she sees your wife—” Neels whistled. “Once she sees Cherindra. It’s going to be all over.”

  “Are you going to listen to him, Spark, or are you going to let me explain?”

  “I’d listen, Tor, only I might start crying again, especially when you start explaining Ayden’s death, and how you used his death as an excuse to fuck me that first time.”

  Again that faux look of disbelief. Tor stiffened. “You know that’s not true,” he whispered. But there was so much disbelief in his voice, it sounded like a lie.

  “The nobguard were waiting for us as we left that meeting with your nob friend.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “You killed Ayden.”

  He turned away. I watched his shoulders twitch.

  “How was my leg broken?”

  He w
as still a moment. Then gave his head a half-shake. “Go,” he said. “Get her through the gates in a litter,” he told his brother. “Take her to the other side.”

  As he left the room, I slumped against the nearest wall. Turning my face, I put it against the cool plaster. “Why do you let him push you around like that?” I grumbled in sobbing bits of broken words. “Aren’t you supposed to be the eldest?”

  “Why do I let him push me around?” Neels said with easy amusement. “Because, my darling slagbit, I’d just as soon he didn’t kill me. Have you ever seen my brother angry? Really angry? Have you ever seen him lose his temper?”

  I shook my head against the wall.

  “No? Well, he lost his temper the day your leg was broken.” Neels laughed. “Too bad you missed it.”

  * * * * *

  I left the walled city in a covered litter. Despite the time I’d spent inside the highwall, I knew no more about life inside the walls than the life inside knew of me. Neel’s men left me in the central market and there I sat, waiting for someone to find me. “Take me home,” I told Jerra when she stumbled across me.

  She took me to the deserted boathouse, a familiar haunt, but one we hadn’t used in a while. I was glad it wasn’t the cellar. The cellar would have been filled with Tor’s memory. A lonely old boat moved gently in the middle of the enclosed structure as tiny waves lapped quietly at its battered hull. Burro had been fishing with a line from the wharf that ran along both sides of the building, but he jumped up when he saw me, wrapping his line around his fist as he searched behind me. I turned away before he could question me with his eyes.

  Thane was there. They’d only recently bought him out, and Jet. Thane wrapped me in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked in a deep voice of concern.

  I nodded my head into his chest.

  “Where’s Tor?”

  I peered up at him, appalled. “He’s had you in prison these past weeks!”

  Thane appeared stunned. “It wasn’t like that.”

  But I put two fingers on his lips. “We’ll not speak of Tor Harnesson,” I told him.

  A few weeks later we moved into our first real headquarters. By that time, I knew I was carrying Tor’s child. I bedded Thane immediately.