Taking the Stage

Chapter Twelve

“So how does one get an audience with the Overseers?” Anthony stopped her heart with that question. She stared at him, scrambling mentally. “And don’t try to placate me. The sun rises in two hours. You will leave me for that gray, lifeless hell.” The growl in the last words betrayed his lack of patience.

But could she blame him? For the last week, they’d fallen into a pattern. Rehearsals for hours, returning to his suite sometimes with just a few precious minutes before the sun rose and the world would fade away from her. He waited for her to wake at sunset, making love to her as soon as the blood coursed through her veins again. They’d been fortunate this evening that the show seemed nearly complete and Heidi released them all early. Most of the girls escaped into the casino proper to play, but she and Anthony took his cats back to the suite. She lay with her chin tucked against his chest, wrapped around his sleek body, soaking up his heat.

He’d waited. He’d been patient. But her cat was done.

Dammit, he’s not my cat. But no matter how much her mind resisted, it didn’t change what her heart and her soul already embraced—Anthony was hers. She went to Heidi because she worried about this moment—the moment he would push to see the Overseers. When he would interfere in the only bargaining chip she had to protect her sister.

Because if forced to choose—how could she not choose him? “If I asked you to leave it alone, would you?”

“I have left it alone. I’ve left it alone for a week. I share your body and your heart, but not your mind and not your burdens. You keep holding yourself back and…” A growl interrupted the purr vibrating through him and his hands flexed against her. “I want you. All of you. Not just the pieces.”

“It’s my burden, Anthony.” Gods, why couldn’t he understand that? She didn’t want to trap him in this interminable hell with her—even this brief respite—it would end. He would have to leave unless he wanted to negotiate with the—

She refused that thought any more purchase in her mind. She didn’t want the Overseers to get their hands on him. She would kill them all.

The violence burst free of the cocoon of servitude she’d forced herself into. If she could have fought her sister free all those years ago, she would have. She’d adopted the wait and see—the game of service—to stay close to her so that when Cerveau was Jamiela again, they could be free.

But as long as Cerveau existed, her shield-sister would not be free. A warm, callused hand tugged her chin, lifting her from his chest until she was forced to meet his gaze. “Then share the burden of that oath with me. You’re my mate. Your oaths are mine.”

“An oath I made when you were a boy can’t be yours.” She pulled her chin from his hand and pushed up. She could barely think when she touched him.

“Mates, Roseâtre.” He pulled her around, refusing to let her retreat and their gazes clashed. “Mates in everything, not just bed, not just a show. Your burdens are my burdens. Would you let me face down my uncle alone?”

“Of course not.” The answer swift and immediate sent a look of satisfaction across his face.

“Then why do you demand that I let you shoulder this alone? I lost my bid to lead when I was not much more than a boy. Arrogance and pride made me walk away from my Pride rather than bend a knee to him that bested me.”

“We’re all subject to the mistakes of our youth…”

“Then you can tell me the truth of why it is you’re here. Why you refuse to remove the slave bands—why you’ve submitted to the control of another, or I’ll get my answers from those you submit to when I challenge them for the life and safety of my mate. I won’t leave you in servitude.”

Challenge.

With that one word, he bashed down the great wall of Troy holding her soul captive. If he challenged the Overseers, he risked his freedom. Worse, he would risk his life.

“Cerveau is the librarian of the tribe. She is bound by debt to serve the Arcana Royale until she surrenders the knowledge she took from their Sphinx.”

Surprise rippled across his features. “How did she…?”

“I don’t know.” Roseâtre sighed. Relief at letting it out relaxed her and she settled her body against the long length of him, a masculine cushion to the harsh reality of her condition. She indulged in the way her curves seemed to fit to him, the lazy possessiveness of his leg thrust between hers, the heat of his thigh nestled against her sex.

A week ago, she would have snorted. This moment, she could imagine no other way. Her mother would kill her. But she banished the queen from her thoughts.

“Tell me,” he murmured, stroking his hand through her hair. He was petting her like she was one of his cats and, odder still, she enjoyed the soothing display of ownership.

“Cerveau’s real name is Jaimela.” The answer easier to speak than she imagined. “We were raised together, trained together and in every way, she is my shield-sister. Her shield. My sword. We were inseparable. But at our majority, it was knowledge she longed to conquer, not the battlefield. I didn’t mind the change of direction. In fact, I admired it. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Her mind deciphers puzzles the way Castilian steel severs flesh.”

The story flowed from her easily, bearing no hiccup of shame. That ease, more than any mark his sexy mouth left on her flesh, revealed the imprint their mating left on her soul. A flash of regret died a simple death at the happiness cascading into her heart. She would never be alone again. Her shield-sister and her mate would bracket her, protect her from all sides.

Her mate.

She rubbed her hand against his belly, tracing the ridges of his abdomen. She would mark him here. Where it would be plain to all.

He was hers.

“Ruth?” Her name sounded both delicious and odd on his lips.

“Ruthie,” she whispered. It was an almost shy confession. “That’s what my friends call me.”

“Ruthie.” He tested the syllables. “Ruthie. I like it. Softer. Sexier.”

She laughed. It was hardly a sexy name, except that it turned her inside out when he said it.

“Jaimela loves knowledge,” he prompted.

“Yes. She visited the Oracle at Delphi and spent several nights in the temple of Athena. She told me that the goddess visited her dreams.”

“A rarity in these times.” His understanding unlocked another seal inside her heart. He was quickly nesting himself inside of her, becoming as vital to her existence as air.

“Yes. A great honor. When she came before my mother and begged leave to quest, the court was stunned. No Amazon had been called to quest in five hundred years, since the time my grandmother ruled. It was without question that Jaimela would be granted the leave to go.”

“And you took the oath to go with her. To protect her on her quest.” Of course he understood.

Gods, she loved him.

She loved him.

“Yes.” The emotion rolled through her, a pervasive wind that shattered what remained of the wall. “Her quest took us around the world. We visited temples throughout Asia Minor, the Pacific and deep into South America. We watched the sun climb the sides of Machu Pichu and the moon achieve her zenith over the lost jaguar temples of the Maya. But we pushed on, forever roaming, as Athena’s messages arrived in the form of owls.”

“Until you arrived here.”

“Yes.” Roseâtre dropped her head to lie against his chest, the thump of his heart beating in her ear a sweet reminder of shared passion. Her heart echoed the cadence of his. He was everywhere inside of her, she could almost feel the sprout of his fur, caressing her, comforting her.

“What happened when you arrived at the Arcana Royale?”

“I don’t know.” The confession hurt, but truth often did. “We walked inside the lobby. Jaimela practically bounced with excitement. She kept murmuring ‘it’s here, it’s here’ and then she just went still. Her eyes glazed. Her mouth slackened and nothing I did could rouse her.”

Her throat clogged with remembered frustration, anger and even a tinge of fear. She’d been faced by nothing to battle, nothing to strike down, only the empty eyed face of her sister. Helpless.

Anthony’s arms caged her, his hands stroking and petting. Tears slid down her face in earnest. The loss as poignant now as it had been then. “The Overseers summoned me before them. Jaimela had broken a covenant, stolen knowledge, and by the laws that govern this place, she would serve until she surrendered what she had taken, returned it to its rightful place.”

“Why doesn’t she just do it then?” It wasn’t callousness or anger in his tone, but true question.

“Because, she doesn’t remember. The person she became—Cerveau—she doesn’t remember what Jaimela did. It’s as though another exists there—she is and is not my sister.” Roseâtre lifted her head, sniffling back the tears. “Despite their claims and what I heard, she offers no recollection of what happened that morning when we walked in and barely remembers the life we shared before that moment. It’s as if Jaimela died when she entered the lobby and only Cerveau remains.”

“She’s not dead.” He stripped away the veil of sadness.

“What?” Lifting her head, she gazed at him, searching. “Why do you say that?”

“She came to me and she smelled different—looked different—hell, she even sounded different. She told me to take you away from here, to convince you to go. But then she went cold again, ice in her eyes and the other told me you would never leave.”

He’d spoken to Jaimela. In all their years here, she’d seen almost no evidence of her sister. Only the hard possession of the other.

If she woke now—what did that mean?

He caressed her cheek, smoothing her hair back and tucking it behind her ear. “So they consigned her to serve as a showgirl?” Bafflement creased his expression.

“It was the safest route they offered.”

“And your slave bands?”

“I wouldn’t leave her. I won’t.” There. She’d confessed it. The oath that bound her to the sister who couldn’t even remember the crime she’d supposedly committed. The sacrifice of her own freedom to remain at her side. The interminable journey with no light at the end.

“You’re amazing.” Anthony’s words startled her as did the fierce kiss he stroked over her lips. “Abso-freaking-lutely amazing.”

“Why? Because I failed?”

“Hardly.” His expression hardened. “You’ve maintained your oath, given up that which is vital to the existence of a being, willingly tendered your body and soul to stay at her side and I love you for it.”

His declaration decimated the fragments of the wall around her. She could almost feel the cat stretching inside of him, purring up against her skin.

“But you can’t serve this oath like this any longer.” He pressed his fingers to her lips, stifling the objection. “If you’re right and your sister has been locked beneath that other all this time and she’s rousing—who’s to say that your staying in those damnable bands is not holding her captive as well?”

Logic and reason collided with fierce emotion. Her gut choked at the idea of leaving, her heart rent in two and yet… “How could my staying affect her?”

“I don’t know.” At least he was honest. “But you’ve trapped yourself to protect her and if you won’t leave, maybe she won’t either. You don’t know if she understands why you’re here. And if she wants you to go…does that not release you from your oath?”

The twisted suggestion appealed to her. “What if that’s just what I want to hear? What if I just want a reason to go so I don’t feel like an oath-breaker?”

“You don’t need a reason. Those damnable bands bind you so that you can’t leave. But if you remove them, then your choices become your own again. What is the more difficult battle? The one where you follow orders or give them?”

Roseâtre rubbed her face. She knew the answer to that one. “Following orders is easy.”

“Exactly. They have to come off, Ruthie. You belong to me and I to you. No one else. We won’t give up on your sister and we have months of the show left. But if she’s waking now, then now is the time to act.”

“But I can’t stay here without them.”

“Yes, you can. We’ll find a way. I don’t care how long it takes. But the bands come off.”

The order should have rankled. But it didn’t. Instead, a new sensation bloomed in her breast. One that vaguely resembled hope.

“Will you let me remove the bands?”

Would she? Could she dare?

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Afraid of the battle?” he challenged, his blue eyes dark and assessing.

“No.” Absolutely not.

“Then we face each battle as it comes. But you’re mine and I don’t share. Will you take the bands off?”

“I don’t share, either.”

“Trust me, princess. You don’t have to. Now, will you, for the love of the gods, take the damn bands off?”

“No.” Roseâtre exhaled. Determination surged through her, a fierce pride and sense of self that she’d nearly forgotten. “But I will take them off for the love of you.”