Lion's Bride by Iris Johansen Read Free Book Online

chair half blocked her view of the sheepskin pallet spread before the fire, but she could glimpse a shapely bare leg.
    “Now, Tasza, you must not be unwelcoming. It’s partially due to her that you’re here tonight.” He waved a hand. “Come and have a goblet of wine. Tasza will play for you. She’s very accomplished on the lyre.” He smiled down at the woman. “But it’s not her primary skill.”
    “I don’t want to play for her. Send her away.”
    He frowned. “You’re being rude. It does not please me.”
    “I don’t wish to hear her,” Thea said quickly. She should not have come. It was clear what was transpiring in this room. The air was heavy with the scent of incense, wine, and musk. Yet she could not leave without accomplishing her purpose. “I came to speak to you.”
    “I’m not sure I can speak. I seem to be having a slight difficulty. Are you sure you’d not prefer another form of communication?”
    “No!” Tasza jumped to her feet. She, too, was without clothes and very beautiful. She was in her middle twenties, with smooth golden skin, and long dark hair half veiling large, voluptuous breasts. “Send her away, my lord.”
    “You’re beginning to annoy me, Tasza.” Ware waved a slightly unsteady hand. “If you cannot be courteous, then you’ll be absent. Go to your quarters.”
    “But, my lord—” She stopped, glowered at Thea, and marched from the room.
    “You should not have sent her away.” Thea moistened her lips. “I didn’t come here to pleasure you.”
    “No? Pity.” He lifted the goblet to his lips. “No matter. I’m not sure I could perform at the moment anyway. I’ve already indulged myself a number of times tonight, and I’m a little drunk.”
    “More than a little.”
    “Sometimes it eases me.” He drank deep. “Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I require”—his gaze went to the door through which Tasza had disappeared—“other means.”
    She felt a sudden flare of anger. “A woman should not be used for such a purpose. It’s cruel and—”
    “Did she seem to be suffering?”
    “Because she knows no better than to lie down and spread her legs for you is no reason for you to rut with her.”
    He threw back his head and laughed. “You have a tongue like an asp. It’s good that I’m drunk; it mellows the sting.”
    It mellows the sting.
    Her last qualm about being here vanished at his words. If wine mellowed and removed that hard edge, perhaps this would be the best possible time to talk with him. It might be possible for her to wrest a promise from him he would not give if sober. “Are you too drunk to listen and understand?”
    His gaze went to the window overlooking the mountains. “I never let myself get that drunk.”
    “Then I’ll stay and talk to you.” She strode over to a cushioned stool to one side of the hearth and seated herself.
    “How kind of you.”
    She was now at eye level with his lower body, and she tried to keep herself from staring at him. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you garbed yourself?”
    “No.” He sipped his wine. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Kadar will be upset if you lose strength.”
    “I couldn’t sleep until I saw you.”
    “Yet you say you don’t wish to couple with me.”
    She repressed the flare of annoyance. “Women are not only for coupling.”
    He leaned back and gazed at her from beneath half-closed lids. “Not all women. But you’re very suited for the sport.” Frowning, he gazed at the thick single braid that lay on her left shoulder. “I don’t like to see your hair bound. I want to see it flowing around you as it was this afternoon.”
    She flushed as she remembered that scene upstairs. “I always wear it this way.”
    “Take it down.”
    “It gets in my way.”
    “If you want me to listen, take it down.”
    She clenched her teeth in exasperation. Perhaps she should leave him after all. Yet the demand was more sulky than arbitrary. Like that of a little boy who was being