Silken Rapture (Princes of the Underground 2)

“What do you know of her?” Blaise demanded, his tone so sharp that Margaret started.

“I know many things.” The Magian’s eyes sent a chill through him when he met his gaze. Usan stepped back and held out his hand toward the door. “Shall we adjourn to your quarters?”

Blaise swallowed and glanced back at Isabel sleeping on the bed.

“I have told you Isabel would be fine. Have I ever lied to you?” Usan asked quietly.

Blaise leveled a cold stare.

“Isn’t silence the biggest lie of all, Old Man?” he grated out bitterly, before he headed for the door.

“You cannot leave Sanctuary, Blaise,” Usan said a half an hour later.

Blaise paused in the process of wearing a hole in the carpet before the fireplace with his pacing feet. He felt as if an animal were in him, rearing and clawing, demanding release. He kept picturing Isabel’s malaise, her piercing hurt when her confused mind understood they were about to be separated. How could he have known he was harming her by making her forget their nights spent pressed together, skin to skin?

“Are you forbidding me?” he challenged Usan, his frothing anguish and bewilderment requiring a target for release.

“No. I have never forbidden you anything. You possess free will, Blaise. If you did not, my research would mean nothing.”

“Damn your bloody research,” he bellowed. “You say you don’t lie to me, but look what you do now? The mandate you have set in my blood to control Morshiel prevents me from any sort of free will, and you know it!”

Usan’s nonchalant shrug infuriated him farther.

“Come on,” Blaise said.

“What? Where are we going?” Usan asked.

“To fight,” Blaise bit out. “Right here. Right now. I don’t know why I haven’t ever wanted to knock your head straight to the earth’s soul before.”

“Oh, but you have,” Usan said, seeming unaffected by his surge of aggression. “After Elysse died you wanted to fight me, don’t you recall?” His tone gentled when Blaise continued to glare at him. “Besides, Isabel is not dead. She’s not Elysse, either, but something much more powerful, as we both know.”

He settled back on the couch and smoothed his robes contentedly, the fringe on his odd hat brushing his classically sculpted cheek. Blaise often referred to him as “Old Man” although Usan possessed no features of advanced age. His skin was vibrant and smooth, and not a single strand of gray ran through the jet black of his hair. A human might have guessed he and Usan were the same age, but Blaise instinctively understood the truth.

The male who sat before him was more ancient than he could fathom.

Blaise unclenched his fists and began to pace again. Pounding in Usan’s face would accomplish nothing, and it might even prevent him from attaining one of the meager little morsels of truth Usan occasionally tossed his way like a human threw scraps from the table at a dog. He hungered for facts—some guideposts in this new confusing territory he’d entered with Isabel. He wasn’t too proud to refuse Usan’s leavings.

“If you understand about Isabel, then you know why I must go,” Blaise said gruffly.

“Because you have mated with her, you must leave?” Usan asked, bewildered.

“The Sevliss aren’t meant to take mates. You have told me this yourself. We are sterile. We cannot…love.”

Usan gave a little apologetic smile. “I wasn’t lying. The truth changes over time, Blaise. Nature is not a fixed process. Thank the Empre

ss for that.”

“I am harming her.”

Usan sighed. “The harm you cause her is from your habit of making her forget the moments of mating, not the mating itself. The body, spirit and mind suffer when they are forced not to recognize one another. You cut off a portion of her very soul by making her forget your mating, by forcing her to forget her intimate knowledge of you. It is depleting her vibrancy, but not to the point of harm. Not yet, anyway. But her soul longs to be with you so much, that she forces herself into unconsciousness, where she knows she will find both you and her buried memories of you.”

Blaise blanched at the news. How could he have known? He noticed Usan studying him and resisted another urge to lash out.

These were not the particular truths he wanted to hear at the moment.

“I can’t seem to stay away from her, as much as I know I should,” he mumbled.

“She has a brilliant soul…breathtaking,” Usan said.