Black Lion’s Bride (Warrior Trilogy #2)

Chapter 14

Zahirah did not wake until the first prayer call sounded that next morning, well past her usual hour to rise. Her sleep had been hard-won, but once it had come, it was deep, so deep that waking now seemed a rude and jarring event. Her head and tongue were thick, the light in the room almost blinding, pouring in through the window grate.

She rubbed her eyes and glanced to the table beside her bed, frowning at the hardened leather drink flask that lay atop it. Hoping it contained water, she uncorked it and brought it to her lips, only to recoil a moment later when the strong and oddly familiar aroma reached her nose. Wine! Who would have brought their heathen's drink to her room?

She put the flask back and rolled away from the light, burying her face in the bolster. She had been dreaming, she remembered now. Dreaming the bad dream. The memory of it was distant, but still heavy in her mind: the terror and sorrow, the sand and wind. The strangers.

And Sebastian.

Zahirah sat up in her bed with a start, clutching the edge of the coverlet to her chest. Had he been in the room with her last night? She wondered at the idea, feeling a queer stirring in her belly as an image of him lying beside her sprang into her head. She tingled everywhere all at once, as if she were being caressed by some ghostly presence, touched in places that still sang from the contact.

There had been another dream, she realized suddenly. A wicked dream that was too scandalous to imagine in the bald light of day. She considered the moist warmth between her legs, the quivering aliveness of her body, and could not dismiss the feeling that she had experienced something magical in the hours before dawn, something she could not fully understand.

“Sebastian?” she whispered, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand, for merely saying his name was enough to bring a flush of heat to her face.

If he had been present at some point, Allah, preserve her, but if he had anything to do with the strange feelings she awoke with, at least there was no trace of him in the chamber now. There was no trace of her fit of destruction, either. Someone had swept the floor clean of the glass and pottery pieces she had shattered the night before. Vaguely, she remembered the soft brush of a caress. Soothing words whispered in the dark. Strong arms wrapped about her, making her feel safe and warm.

Impossible, she thought, casting aside the notion with a shake of her head. There was never comfort to be found where her nightmare struck. No one was ever there to console her or wash away her tears. Perhaps that, too, had been part of last night's dream.

Perhaps all of it had been, she thought suddenly, feeling a surge of hope.

Perhaps the entire past day—her encounter that morning in the bathhouse with Sebastian, her meeting in the mosque with Halim, Abdul's terrible murder—perhaps all of it had been naught but vapor, the product of her imagination.

“Please, let it be so,” she whispered, flinging off the coverlet and slipping her feet to the floor.

In the corridor outside her chamber she heard activity: the scuff of someone's brisk gait, the clink of pottery rattling on a tray, the low murmur of softly spoken Arabic. She bit her lip and opened the door to peer around it, praying she would find Abdul on the other side, ferrying something to or from the palace kitchens. Instead, two passing male servants paused in the hallway to stare at her crestfallen expression as her eyes lit on them.

“Allah's blessings be upon you this morning, mistress,” one of them greeted soberly. He bowed his head in deference. The other hesitated an overlong moment, half glaring, before dipping his chin to offer like courtesy.

“Please, excuse me,” she said. “I thought you might have been Abdul.”

The men exchanged an awkward look. Then the first one cleared his throat and addressed her with somewhat forced civility. “I am Maimoun, mistress. If there is anything you require, it will be my honor to serve you.”

That proper statement, coupled by the uncomfortable, almost condemning, stares of the two servants, told her all she needed to know. It had not all been a dream; yesterday had actually happened. Abdul was gone, never to return, his kindness certainly never to be replaced by these tight-faced men. She closed the door on their damning silence, miserable as she listened for their departure.

Once they had gone, Zahirah changed out of her shift and into a fresh tunic and shalwar . She could not stay in the confining chamber when the weight of her thoughts bore down on her so heavily. She quit the room and headed for the roof terrace of the harem apartments. She needed open space and fresh air, room to think about what had transpired the day before . . . and what her mission would demand of her from this point forward.

Deep in contemplation of that matter, Zahirah navigated her way along the labyrinth of corridors to the sultana's vacant chambers. She had been unaware of her haste until she stepped, nearly breathless, out onto the balcony that overlooked Ascalon's walled city. She had forgotten her veil, but hardly missed it at that moment. Bracing her hands on the stonework railing of the covered perch of the balcony, she tipped her face up into the sun and closed her eyes, breathing in a deep, cleansing draught of the clean ocean breeze that blew in from the harbor beyond. It left her lungs in a long, thought-laden sigh that sounded more than a little shaky, expelled into the stillness of the morning.

Zahirah suddenly realized she was not alone. She sensed that fact, even before she heard Sebastian's voice from the flat space of rooftop to her right.

“I see you've discovered one of my secrets.”

She whirled to face him, unsure what startled her more: the fact that he was there in the first place, or his low, casually drawled suggestion that he might have something to hide from her. “Your secret, my lord?”

He was sitting near the ledge of the roof terrace, leaned back on his elbows, reclining with his knees bent, his thick-muscled thighs spread slightly apart. His tunic was unlaced at the neck, indecently baring some of the dark hairs that covered his chest. Even at rest, there was sheer male power in his form, although this was hardly the first time she had noticed.

There was danger in him, too, a truth that had never seemed more evident than it did now, when his gray-green gaze was fixed on her, unwavering. Studying her. Making her think of scandalous whispers and dark, forbidden caresses that made her limbs feel oddly boneless beneath her. Zahirah felt a peculiar flood of heat course through her the longer Sebastian stared at her. She tried not to squirm.

“This roof affords the best view of the city,” he said, his deep voice and sudden smile doing little to assuage the queer fluttering of her heart. “I come here when I need clarity to think about things. Or when I want to be alone.”

Welcoming any excuse to leave his unsettling presence before he noticed her discomfiture, she started to back away from the balcony. “Pardon me for intruding, my lord. I will leave you to your peace.”

Before she could retreat into the shadowed vacancy of the sultana's chamber, Sebastian got to his feet, fluid as a cat. “Stay, Zahirah. We need to talk.” He held out his hand to her. “Come.”

She glanced to where he was standing, his long legs braced apart, perilously near the edge of the high terrace, waiting. What was he about? Zahirah hesitated, not at all sure she should join him as he requested, yet strangely unable to refuse him. He did not repeat his command, as if he knew there was no need. His expectant, outstretched hand was enough to compel her forward even when her every sensible instinct urged her to turn instead and make a prudent escape back into the palace.

She climbed down from the balcony and onto the roof terrace. A light breeze skated across the flat overlook as her sandals touched ground, tickling her ankles as it ruffled the cuffed pant legs of her shalwar . Zahirah shook a little despite the warmth of the morning.

Barely a half dozen paces separated her from the ledge where Sebastian stood, his broad shoulders and dark, wind-tousled head framed by a wall of empty blue sky, waiting. Watching. Zahirah considered the challenging arch of his brow, the subtle flattening of his mouth that said he likely sensed her apprehension.

Perhaps intended it.

The singular thought spurred her into motion. Lifting her chin and taking care not to let any bit of her unease show, Zahirah walked the short distance of the roof terrace. She slowed as she approached the ledge, her wary gaze fixed on Sebastian, who had since turned his attention to the sprawling city and the horizon beyond.

She did not have to hazard a glance over the roof's sharp edge to see what lay directly below. The large palace courtyard, with its brick walkways and gurgling marble fountain spread out some fifty feet beneath them, every square inch of it paved in hard, unforgiving stone. One careless misstep, the slightest slip, and—

Sebastian's voice rumbled from an arm's length beside her, startling her out of her grim musings. “When I was a boy back home in England, I used to climb with my father to the highest tower of our castle at Montborne and look out over the vast hills and meadows that comprised the demesne. He would lift me up onto the ledge and instruct me to lean out as far as I could, letting me breathe the air and marvel at the land that would one day be mine, while he held me about the waist to keep me from toppling off.”

“You Franks have strange notions of amusement,” Zahirah replied archly, but she found it easy, and somewhat endearing, to picture him as the reckless lad he had likely been, a raven-haired wildling who would race pell-mell to the edge of a castle parapet only to thrust his face into the howling northern wind. The man standing beside her seemed not so far removed from the inclination himself. She frowned, chiding herself for admiring him, then or now.

“It wasn't so much about amusement as it was about trust,” he replied, turning his head toward her. “You see, as a child, I had a terrible fear of high places. My father saw that it bothered me, and so he taught me to face my fear and overcome it. He took me to the top of the tower each morning and promised he wouldn't let me fall. I trusted him to keep that promise.”

A pigeon took flight from a perch somewhere below, its gray and white wings beating furiously as it rose up over the rooftop, then careened toward the sun-dappled city in the distance. Zahirah watched the bird until it was gone from sight, grateful for the excuse to break contact with Sebastian's intense stare.

She considered all the mental games she herself had played while growing up at Masyaf—the taxing exercises she had employed to make her stronger, the relentless training that had given her the will to accept any challenge sent her way. She had certainly had her share of fears as a child, but there had never been anyone to help her through them, not even her father. Rashid al-Din Sinan saw fear as weakness, and weakness was not to be tolerated.

Zahirah had been forced to cope on her own, and she had, understanding early on that she could rely on no one, save herself. It was easier that way, less margin for error. Less opportunity for hurt or disappointment.

She was so caught up in bitter memories, she did not realize Sebastian had reached out to her until she felt the firm warmth of his hand on her arm. “Come here. Stand beside me.”

She drew back slightly, and gave a small shake of her head. “I think I'd prefer to remain at a safer distance.”

“From the ledge, or from me?” he asked, a devilish smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Come, Zahirah. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

Abruptly, her gaze flew up to meet his. Had he said that very thing to her before? Recently, perhaps, as though not but a few hours had gone between? She was certain he had, certain she could hear that very assurance murmured softly beside her ear, his breath warm on her skin, soothing, seductive . . .

Zahirah shook herself back to the reality of his present challenge, thrusting her chin up as she regarded him straight on. “I am afraid of nothing, my lord.”

His gaze seemed to say he thought otherwise, but nevertheless, he tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Then come, my lady.”

She presented no further resistance, allowing him to take her hand and guide her to stand before him, the toes of her sandals mere inches from the sheer drop of the ledge. Her heart immediately began to pound against her ribcage, every muscle going taut and alert to the precariousness and absolute awe of her surroundings.

From this vantage point, Ascalon was a visual wonder, a paradox, seeming both enormous and minute at the same time. Like a large bowl, the city's wide perimeters arced toward the sea, hugging a tight-packed collection of buildings, streets, parks, and holy places. Flat, tiled rooftops of varying heights marched crazily in all directions, like a giant's staircase with no beginning or end. People moved about like ants below, small colonies swarming in the markets and the public squares, their chatter blending to rise over the city in a never-ending hum of activity.

Zahirah took in these new sights and sounds, feeling as if she were suspended above it all, an eagle riding the wind. She did not fear falling, not even for an instant, for Sebastian's arm was firm around her waist, the solid warmth of his body behind her providing all the security she could ever need.

Although it troubled her to no end to admit it, she could not help but notice how easily he held her against him, how natural it felt to be pressed to his body, held fast in his arms. His breath stirred the fine hairs at her neck, and for an instant, she closed her eyes, imagining that they were both flying, soaring high into the clouds together, and leaving the troubles of the earthbound world behind.

“You see? You can trust me,” Sebastian drawled beside her ear, the low rumble of his voice sending a quiver of awareness through her very core. He chuckled as if he well knew his effect on her, but when he spoke his tone was darkly serious. “The question remains, Zahirah, can I trust you?”

She sucked in a startled breath. “M-my lord?”

“Do you want to tell me what happened yesterday in the mosque?”

She tested his hold on her and found it troublingly firm. “What happened yesterday was a hideous tragedy, my lord. I would rather not think on it at all.”

“Then think on it this once, and I will not ask it of you again.”

Clearly, he was not about to let her go until she gave him sufficient answer. “What is it you want to know? It all happened so quickly, I'm not sure I will be able to remember very much,” she hedged, her fingers clawing at the arm that bound her like iron between Sebastian's body and a deadly plummet off the roof. She was too trapped, too close to the edge. Too frightened by the power of the man who held her so helpless. “Please!” she gasped. “I cannot think like this. Release me at once, I beg you.”

He gave a dubious-sounding grunt and whirled her off her feet, sweeping her away from the ledge. She was no longer teetering above the courtyard, but if she thought she would feel safer on the inside space of the terrace, she had been sorely mistaken. Sebastian now faced her, his sheer size and scorching gaze forcing her backward against the rising wall of the palace, hemming her in and permitting her no easy route of escape from his questions or his person.

“In England, my lady,” he told her very calmly, bracing his arms on either side of her head, “when a vassal seeks his lord's protection, he offers him his pledge of loyalty, a vow that he will hold the lord's trust in highest esteem. This vow is sacred—as sacred as any given in marriage—for in exchange of that trust, the lord pledges to provide for his vassals, guarding them with his own blood and sweat. Even his life.”

She wanted to scoff in arch defense, but to her chagrin, her voice would not cooperate. It leaked out of her like a plea. “A Muslim's vow is no less binding than a Frank's, my lord.”

He raised his brows. “I am glad to hear it, because I would have yours here and now, my lady. The truth, all of it. What happened yesterday afternoon? You met someone in the mosque—a man. I want you to tell me who he was.”

Zahirah blinked nervously, certain he could read the guilt in her face. Her mind rushed to replay the events of the day before, assessing her potential exposure. How many people might have seen her with Halim? Had someone overheard their argument, or seen the confrontation that led to Abdul's death? She could not be sure of what precisely Sebastian knew, but she was determined to deny her involvement. “There were many people at the Sabbath service, my lord. Am I to remember them all?”

“Just the one,” he replied, his unwavering gaze too intense, his voice too civil, to be trusted. “There may have been a thousand people at the mosque, but it took only one man to murder Abdul in cold blood. I would have his name, Zahirah.”

She squirmed, finding it impossible to maintain any semblance of innocence when he was staring at her so closely. “Sebastian, please. You are asking me questions I cannot answer—”

“Can't,” he challenged, “or won't?”

She saw the danger she was stoking with her evasiveness, acknowledged the angry flaring of his nostrils, the slow knitting of his brows that bespoke the storm doubtless soon to come. “I-I would tell you if I could,” she stammered. “I wish I could tell you what you want to know. Would that I could be of more help.”

Sebastian seemed less than convinced. He searched her eyes, his face so close to hers that his breath stirred the fine hairs at her forehead. “Am I to understand, then, that you did not know the man at all? That he was a stranger to you?”

She nodded, and lowered her gaze. “That is what I am saying, yes.”

He grunted. “Would it surprise you to know that the descriptions I've gathered seem to match your brother? Is that what you're afraid to tell me—that he is somehow involved in this?”

Zahirah considered the lie that had bought her passage into the crusaders' camp, the falsehood that had made her kin to Halim in Sebastian's eyes. The irony of it now made her exhale a small, wry-sounding laugh. “My brother did not kill Abdul.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes,” she said, the flimsy denial bitter on her tongue.

“When I came upon you in the mosque, my lady, you said Abdul had been trying to protect you. Protect you from whom—this stranger? A man you do not know and who had no good reason to accost you on your way to the prayer service?”

She was slow to confirm her statement, hesitating as she thought about the tangle of deception into which she was knitting herself. She should not feel remorse for her actions, no more than she should feel sympathy for Sebastian's friend for having been another casualty in her mission for Sinan. She should not feel anything, but she did. Allah, she was miserable with herself for what she had done—for what she had yet to do by her pledge to her clan.

“What do you know about the Assassins, Zahirah?”

She looked up, praying her indrawn breath did not sound as startled as she was by his abrupt query. “The Assassins, my lord? ”

“The fida'i of Masyaf,” he said, watching her expression too closely for her peace of mind. “I've found their stench all about this city of late. Which leads me to wonder if the man in the mosque was one of Sinan's agents. Mayhap your face is known to them from the morning you were held hostage in the market.”

The day Sebastian found her and carried her to the palace in his arms.

She gave a weak shrug, forcing herself to hold his steady gaze as the frayed threads of her many deceptions threatened to unravel around her. “Perhaps you are right, my lord. It could have been an assassin in the mosque. All I know is, Abdul is gone, and as much as I wish I could change that—as much as I wish I could tell you who is responsible, I . . . I cannot.”

Sebastian frowned in apparent consideration. “This is your word, my lady? You swear that what you've told me here today is the truth?”

She tilted her head, offering him the slightest nod.

He grabbed her chin and made her face him straight on. “Then say it, Zahirah. Give me your oath that I can trust you in this.”

She stared at him and found she could not make that vow. She could not, to her utter bewilderment, look him in the eye and swear to him that the lie she fed him about Abdul's murderer was anything else than what it was. Cursing herself a fool for not being able to swear to the falsehood and be done with it, she thrust her chin out, praying she could mask some of the turmoil and confusion that had suddenly begun to churn inside her. “You demanded an answer, my lord, and I gave you one. I am not one of your English vassals to be made to kneel before you in obeisance—”

He backed off, quirking a brow as if to mock her indignation. “You're not my bride, either, but that didn't seem to matter last night.”

Zahirah's face filled with a terrible heat. She gulped down the squeak of disbelief that rose to her lips, shocked to hear him reference the past evening—horrified to hear him put words to the fear she had been nursing since she first awoke.

Sebastian had been in her room after all.

He had been there, and she was loath to think of what might have transpired between them. But oh, she knew. She knew with a certainty that bordered on the sublime. She had but to see the wicked gleam in his eye to know that he had come to her in the dark, not as a dream, but as flesh. A man who gentled her out of a nightmare with soft words and tender hands. A man who coaxed feelings and pleasures from her like none she had never known before.

It was sinful, the things he did to her. Sinful and wicked, and Zahirah should hate him for it with every fiber of her soul. But she did not, far from it. To her utmost shame, she burned just to think on the astonishing things he did to her body, things he did when she was too weak to resist—too dazed with wine, she suspected now, recalling the flask she had found beside her bed that morning.

Allah, she prayed it was the wine to blame, and not her own traitorous longings. Longings that stirred to life like embers fanned to flame under the intensity of Sebastian's knowing gaze.

“How dare you,” she breathed, aghast with embarrassment. “How dare you jest about the fact that you would creep into my private chambers with your heathen drink and proceed to drug me senseless for your own base amusement!”

He chuckled, raking a hand through his thick black hair. “Drugged you? Is that truly what you believe?” When she did not answer, he shook his head. “You were having a nightmare. I heard you on the other side of the door and I went in to make sure you were all right. You were crying, nearly hysterical, so I gave you a taste of wine. A taste, no more. What happened next had nothing to do with the wine. It wasn't planned, and if I had known—”

“What?” she asked, not at all sure she wanted to know what he was hesitant to say. “If you had known what, my lord? ”

“If I had known that you had never . . . that you were untouched, I would not have let things go as far as they did last night.”

She scoffed, feeling oddly wounded by his regret. “Is that what passes for a Frankish apology, my lord?”

“If that is what you seek, then, yes.”

“What I seek is leave from this conversation. Excuse me, please.”

He did not try to stop her as she made to brush past him, but his voice was enough to make her pause, halfway to the balcony stairs. “A word of warning, my lady: If you're hiding something from me, I will find it out eventually—you know that. Secrets can be dangerous things. They destroy lives. Think on it, and let me know if there is anything else you wish to tell me.”

Zahirah stared back at him, uncertain what to say. Already she had revealed far too much. And she did not fool herself for one moment into thinking that she would be able to continue outmaneuvering him for long. He was a match for her in wit and skill. But what was more confounding—some hundred times more disturbing—was the fact that it ate at her heart to deceive him.

Despite all she had been taught to think about the Franks, despite her prejudices, she liked this one. She respected him.

There was, she admitted to herself, more to her regard for Sebastian than simple fondness or respect. Much more. But too soon, none of it would matter. He would discover the whole truth about her eventually, just as he said. And Allah help her when he did. Thinking on that black day soon to come, Zahirah weathered a bone-deep pang of regret, and not a little fear.

“If you are quite through with me, my lord?”

He gave a vague nod, then seemed to reconsider. “No, actually. There is one more thing before you go, Zahirah.”

She met that cool, level stare, dreading another round of his questions. She expected him to press her further about the events leading up to Abdul's murder, perhaps question her alliances or demand some proof that what she said was true. She expected any number of interrogations, but never the query he posed to her then.

“Who is Gillianne?”

He said it so casually, at first she did not think she heard aright. But one look at him and she knew her ears did not deceive her. Zahirah bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming. She knotted her hands in the hem of her tunic to keep from striking him. Steeling herself to the tumult of emotion that rose like bile in her throat, she schooled her voice to deceptive disregard. “Should I know this person, my lord?”

“I think you must. After all, it is her name you cried out in your sleep last eve.”

If she had doubted it for so much as an instant before, there could be no denying it now. Sebastian had been in her chamber last night, but worse than his seduction was the fact that he had been there through her nightmare, there to witness the terror that always left her trembling and broken. Allah, preserve her, but this man—this Frank—now knew the accursed name that came to her in dreams like a long-buried ghost.

The name that had haunted her nearly all her life.

Gillianne .

Zahirah tried to shut it out of her mind. She did not want to face that demon here, now. Not in front of him.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said, inwardly cursing her voice when it came out hardly more than a whisper. “The name means nothing to me.”

“Another secret, is it, Zahirah?” His dubious gaze narrowed on her. “I am to believe that you clung to me, weeping and crying as if to perish of terror, fearful over this name—this person, Gillianne—but none of that means anything to you at all?”

“It means nothing,” she answered, firm in her denial. Desperately firm .

She pivoted to leave, refusing to let him get close to her. Refusing to let him past the barriers of secrecy that always kept her safe.

“It's English,” he informed her before she could take the first step.

Zahirah froze.

English? No. It could not be. She had always thought the name peculiar—definitely foreign—but to think that it was Frankish? That it was likely Christian . . .

Behind her, she felt Sebastian watching her too closely now. She knew he waited, expecting to spy a fissure in her composure. She would not allow it. He was treading too close to the bone, probing where he had no right. Zahirah turned to face him, calling on every dram of composure at her command as she met and held his studious, thoughtful gaze.

“It's an English name, Zahirah. I find it curious, don't you? That you would hear this name in your nightmares?”

She stared at him for a long moment, tamping down the rise of emotion that hung about the queer name like a stench of carrion. Gillianne. The very thought seemed to sit in her throat like a stone. “I know all I need to know about it,” she answered at last. “It is English, as you say. It's English, and it's ugly, and I hate it. The same as I hate all things English.”

At her venomous avowal, he drew his head back. “Even me?”

She did not know where she found the will to hold his level gaze. Nor could she fathom the font of resolve that allowed her to open her mouth and utter yet another hideous lie, told in a desperate attempt at self-preservation. “Yes, Sebastian. Especially you.”