Scrambling up next to her, Zarrah looked at the climb that would be required and then back to Keris, who had wrapped the towel around his waist. “Not happening. He’s injured.”
“I’ll manage,” he said, but she didn’t miss how his jaw tightened as he looked out.
“You’ll end up broken on the cobbles.” Zarrah pulled the window shut. “We’ll hide.”
A knock sounded, and a man dressed in silk trousers that left nothing to the imagination appeared.
“Miri, they are here to search. General Welran is in the streets, covered with blood. They say he was stabbed by a Maridrinian.”
Zarrah felt her eyes bulge. “What?”
“That’s a lie.” Keris tried to cross his arms, only his towel slipped. “The blood is from the man he Slush splashed her legs, her robe flapping as they ran, the shouts of pursuit loud, but she didn’t turn beat to death.”
“God have mercy on us all.” Miri waved her hand at the man. “Slow them down, but don’t be
obvious about it.”
“I’ll climb,” Keris said. “There’s no other choice. There’s nowhere in here to hide.”
“No.” Zarrah scanned the room, but it offered no solutions. “We need to backtrack. Get to the streets.”
The moment the words left her lips, the thud of boots on stairs filled the air.
“If you won’t climb, you’ll need to hide in plain sight.” Miri gestured at Keris. “In this house, women are served, not men. She is the patron.”
Zarrah’s stomach flipped, and Keris gave a sharp shake of his head. “I’ll climb.”
He moved onto the bed, reaching to unlatch the window, but Zarrah caught his wrist. “Now is not the time to cling to morality. Too much is at stake.”
Zarrah hesitated, distrustful of any offer of help, but what choice did they have? Hauling on Keris’s
“It won’t work,” he said. “They saw my face.”
“Then I suggest you keep it well hidden,” Miri snapped. Going to a closet, she dug through the contents and threw a mask at Zarrah. “Most of the highborn women wear them to hide their identity.”
The interior smelled strongly of scented oils, and from somewhere, a drummer pounded a rhythmic Then she went to the hearth, picking up a handful of ash, which she rubbed into Keris’s hair, turning it from blond to grey before knotting it behind his head. With a bit of soot, she swiftly rimmed both his eyes. “I could use a pretty face like yours, if you’re ever in search of work. We would have you trained, and you’d fetch a fortune.”
Zarrah’s face burned, but Keris said, “It’s always nice to have options.” His smirk vanished as Miri ripped away the towel, using it to wipe clean the mud splattered on his legs before tossing it into the fire.
She handed a lace robe to Zarrah, the one from the bathhouse joining Keris’s towel. “On the bed, girl. Against the pillows.” Heart pounding, Zarrah obliged, allowing the woman to arrange the robe artfully so that it covered her breasts, though her whole body burned as Miri parted her knees.
The tread of heavy boots drew closer, orders to search every room clearly audible, but Keris remained where he stood, eyes on the opposite wall. “Your prudishness will get you killed,” Miri snapped at him. “Face between her legs, now!”
making it seem as though the building had a heart throbbing at its core. They passed an open door, and A soft growl escaped his lips, but as Keris shook his head, Zarrah said, “We are out of options.”
Zarrah glanced inside, her eyes widening at the sight of a masked woman with three men before Keris
“Fine.” He knelt before her. Lowering his head, he rested his cheek against the inside of her thigh.
Miri lifted one of Zarrah’s legs to wrap it around his neck, murmuring, “To hide the injury.”
Stepping back, she straightened her leather skirts as she eyed the scene. “They’ll have seen similar in the other rooms. Make it convincing.” Then she turned on her heel, the door clicking shut behind her.
Zarrah tried to relax, but her whole body felt stiff as a board, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Where did you go?” she whispered, because the thought of remaining in this position in silence was more
than she could bear. “What happened? Why did you attack Welran?”
More importantly, why was her aunt’s most trusted soldier and bodyguard here?
“I saw some officers going into the bathhouse with the glass tigers.” His breath was warm against her naked skin, each exhale sending a quiver through her. “I followed them in and was listening to their conversation, their plans, when a messenger arrived with news about what transpired on Devil’s Island, including Bermin’s fate.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed, understanding filling her.
“The big one, Welran, lost his head. Beat the messenger to pulp while he cursed the rebels and their Maridrinian master. I was attempting to extricate myself when the barber kindly pointed out my nationality to save his own skin. Welran went after me, and I fled. You know the rest.”
Zarrah squeezed her eyes shut, horror filling her. “There will be a reckoning.”
“You know him?”
“All my life,” she whispered. “He’s my aunt’s bodyguard, and for as long as memory, the rumor has been that it was Welran who sired Bermin.”
“Fuck.”
“An apt assessment.” The boots were coming closer, the drums now silent, and Zarrah stared at the door as she listened to the shouts of protest as trysts were interrupted. The search progressed down the hall, her heart throbbing faster and faster.
“If it doesn’t work,” Keris said, a loose strand of his hair brushing her thigh, “you get out that window. I’ll hold them off.”
“We are allies,” she answered. “That means we stand together. And if it comes to it, we die together. Now make this convincing.”
Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled him against her right as the door exploded inward.
Then she went to the hearth, picking up a handful of ash, which she rubbed into Keris’s hair, turning it Zarrah screamed with outrage as two soldiers strode inside. “What is the meaning of this?”
“A would-be assassin attacked General Welran,” one of them answered. “A Maridrinian. We are searching the quarter for him.”
“Well, he’s not in here,” she spat. “Get out!”
“We need to search the room.”
Miri ripped away the towel, using it to wipe clean the mud splattered on his legs before tossing it into
“Then be quick about it. And you”—her fingers tightened in Keris’s hair—“finish what you started.
I didn’t pay a fortune for your tongue to watch you gape at soldiers.”
Said soldiers were staring, obviously considering his fair skin as reason for further investigation, and Keris was not helping the situation. His lips were pressed against her sex, his breath ragged and hot, but he remained unmoving. Unconvincing.
Tightening her grip to the point it probably hurt, she said, “Did you hear me?”
He lifted his head ever so slightly, soot-rimmed eyes meeting hers. Despite their lives being on the line, there was no fear in his blue gaze, only pure masculine lust. Lust that Zarrah knew was only held at bay by the promise that he’d made to her. “Finish me,” she ordered, hearing the breathiness in her voice.