Page 29 of Blood Slumberm

She sucked in a breath. “And what would I have to bargain to Hespera for a life like that?”

“Nothing. No expectations. No demands. Simply come with me and see for yourself if you could be happy there. I know we’ve known each other for less than a fortnight, but we needn’t make any decisions or commitments. We can live as lovers without a care, and no one will judge us. You wouldn’t be dependent on me. Women can make their own way in Orthros on whatever path they choose.”

She traced her finger over his ring. A new emotion fluttered inside her that felt suspiciously like hope.

He kissed her neck. “If one night you tell me you want the Gift of immortality, I will give it to you the same way I gave you everything in this bed. If power is what makes you happy, Celandine, I can give you power that will last an eternity, and no one can ever take it from you.”

“Are you happy as a Hesperine?” she asked.

He hid his face against her hair. The worst question she could ask, but the most important one. “I could be, with you.”

She rolled over to face him. “Will you tell me what really happened the night of your transformation?”

“If I answer that question, then you will think the worst of me.”

“You just fucked away my chastity and drank my blood, and after this, we intend to commit two murders. You needn’t worry about my opinion of you.”

In spite of himself, he grinned. He would rather fuck again and forget everything else. But if he had any hope of persuading her to consider a future with him, he had to give her the truth about his past.

His smile faded. He lay back, staring at the ceiling while he considered his words.

“My mother was a Hespera worshiper,” he began, “like all the women of her line. That much of the legend is true. She lived the life of a Cordian princess while secretly preserving human worship of the Goddess of Night. The manor where you found me was property she brought to her marriage with my father. Their political union proved to be a love match.”

“How rare that is.”

“Indeed. He adored her. She was his world. And when she gave him a male heir in the first year of their marriage, his happiness was complete.”

Celandine stroked Troi’s chest. “What went wrong?”

“She trusted him with her secret.”

“Oh no,” she whispered.

“I was twelve. It took that many years for her to feel safe revealing her beliefs.”

“He didn’t take it well, did he?”

“It destroyed him. And he destroyed her.”

Celandine twined her fingers in Troi’s. The hand he had thought might murder him mere days ago now offered him comfort. He would have thought it nothing but a play in the game of seduction, but her aura didn’t lie. His tale pulled at her heart.

“He couldn’t bear to turn her in and see her executed for heresy,” Troi continued. “He was too in love with her. So hedecided it was his responsibility to protect the world from her. Perhaps it was his way of protecting her from the Orders, too. He sent her away to one of our remote estates and kept her there under guard. She lived in exile, isolated from everyone she loved.”

“What a wretched existence.” Bitterness welled in Celandine. “Did you ever see her again?”

“I was permitted some time with her on the rare occasions when my father visited her and begged her to repent.”

“So he used you for bargaining power.”

Troi nodded. The familiar, oppressive anger made it hard to find words for a moment. But he kept talking, telling Celandine more than he’d ever confessed to the mind healers in Orthros during all their well-meaning, maddening attempts to help him stop hating his Hesperine existence.

“My father raised me strictly. Molded me into the model of Anthrian manhood. He was always watching for any sign that my mother’s ‘corruption’ might manifest in me.”

“All the songs agree you were everything Cordium admires in a man. Is that part of your legend true, too?”

“Yes.”

Memories of war invaded Troi’s mind. After all this time, they should be easier to push away. But somehow his long sleep seemed to have weakened his ability to forget them. Iovian, Remus, and Marto were no longer here to drag him out of his thoughts. Or push his head in a barrel of cold water after he tried to destroy his memories with drink.

---