Duty Bound Read online

  “Careful,” Zenia said, watching the water churning around Jev’s thighs. “There might be crocodiles in there.”

  He jumped, looking down in alarm, then glared over his shoulder at her.

  “Sorry.” She lifted an apologetic hand, remembering that he was less than fond of the creatures. “I’m sure there aren’t. There wouldn’t be anything for them to hunt.”

  “Except nosy agents,” Jev grumbled, his voice barely audible over the waterfall.

  Zenia leaned out and turned her chest toward the fall, trying to provide more light for him. She wasn’t yet ready to jump in after him. The spray droplets reaching her cheeks were icy cold. The Jade and Little Jade flowed straight from the snow-capped peaks of the towering Erlek Mountains.

  Jev found a gap between the waterfall and the stone wall, stuck his head inside, and then climbed up into it. Zenia blinked as he disappeared from sight.

  Assuming it was some tiny niche behind the waterfall, she waited for him to reappear. But long seconds passed, and he did not. Did a new tunnel start up back there? Could he see without her dragon tear?

  Reluctantly, she removed her shoes and stockings, hiked up her dress, and eased one foot into the water. She gasped at the icy water and how strong of a current whipped past her bare legs. Rocks slick with underwater growth licked at the bottoms of her feet, and she bared her teeth. Maybe taking her shoes off hadn’t been a good idea.

  Still, she made herself continue on, the frigid water rising almost to her waist. The spray from the fall grew stronger, and she gave up on holding her dress above the pool. The hem ballooned out around her on the rippling surface of the water.

  By the time she reached the spot where Jev had disappeared, her legs were numb. She patted about on the slick rocks, looking for a way to pull herself up as spray spattered the side of her face.

  A hand extended from the dark niche, and she almost lost her footing. Jev lunged and caught her under the shoulder. Before she could thank him, he gripped her other armpit and hoisted her into the air. She squawked and grabbed his shoulders. He lifted her easily, carrying her behind the curtain of water before setting her down.

  “Thanks,” she said, her teeth almost chattering. “I think.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “If I should thank you for disappearing and forcing me to follow you through an icy pool?”

  “I’m sure I didn’t force you.” Jev smiled, his dark hair plastered to his head. He lowered his arms to her waist but didn’t let go, as if he feared she would topple over if he released his support.

  But she was fine. The rough rock floor was relatively even back here and wet but not slick like the bottom of the pond. She didn’t step away from him for she could feel the warmth of his hands through her wet dress. They were the only warm thing around, and she wanted to press herself closer rather than pulling away.

  “Are you all right?” His brow creased, and he looked down at her.

  “Yes.” She realized she was still gripping his shoulders and could once again feel hard muscle beneath his clothing. She ought to let go.

  Instead, she made the mistake of looking down. His hair wasn’t the only thing plastered down by water. Her dragon tear continued to glow, and she could see every muscle of his chest through his thin wet shirt. Her mind jumped back to the night in Iridium’s lair when she’d seen him naked—all of him naked. Odd how she could barely remember the faces of the men who’d held them prisoner, but she remembered his every contour.

  Blushing, she jerked her gaze up, certain he’d noticed her gaping at his chest. But his gaze was still cast downward, toward her chest. She was almost as soaked as he, and her dress clung to her breasts and hips, leaving little to the imagination.

  Maybe he felt her gaze upon his face, for he lifted his eyes. He didn’t appear embarrassed at having been caught looking. When his eyes met hers, a zing of energy seemed to leap between them, and she no longer felt the cold. His look smoldered with heat, and she felt that warmth pour into her. With no conscious thought, she stepped closer until their chests touched.

  His gaze shifted to her lips, and she knew with all her heart that she wanted him to kiss her. Wanted him to slip his arms around her.

  That would be the right thing, the back of her mind said. She’d been foolish to push him away. He wasn’t some cad who would abandon her once they had sex. He was honorable. He wouldn’t treat her poorly. There was no reason they couldn’t be enjoying each other’s company every night. They could be enjoying each other’s company right now.

  She parted her lips and tilted her head back, inviting him to kiss her. Inviting him to wrap his arms around her, his entire body around her.

  Jev blinked, then jerked his gaze from her. He cleared his throat and stepped back, dropping his hands.

  As soon as his body separated from hers, icy air swept in, leaving her shivering in her wet dress. Disappointment flooded her as Jev turned his back on her. His shoulders rose as he took a deep breath.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said, still not looking at her. “I could use your light.”

  He pointed toward the far side of the small cave Zenia had barely noticed after he’d pulled her inside. She made herself peer around now. It was more of a shelf than a cave and didn’t extend far behind the waterfall, only about six feet before slanting down to meet the ground. He stepped up to the damp rock on the far side and waved for her to join him.

  “You might want to make the glow softer if you can,” he added, leaning his head against the wall.

  No, she realized. He was looking at something. Into something.

  She had to stand shoulder to shoulder with him to see what. A horizontal gap a couple of feet long and three or four inches high ran through the wall. Jev glanced at her shoulder, then shifted sideways so she could see. And so they weren’t touching.

  Zenia peered into the gap, surprised to see light on the far side. Not a lot of it, perhaps only the illumination of a single lantern. The rock wall was only a few inches thick here, and she could make out a large room carved into the stone beyond it. A wood door stood closed on the far side.

  “What—” she started to ask, but the door opened, and she shut her mouth.

  Two men walked into view. She recognized the face of one before they came closer to the crack—to this conveniently placed peep hole—cutting down the view to only their chests. It was one of Iridium’s guards, one of the ones who’d escorted Zenia to that cell.

  Two more people stepped into view from the side, both carrying crates. Zenia thought she heard voices but barely. With the waterfall roaring in her ears, she couldn’t make out words.

  She wrapped her fingers around her dragon tear, both to dull its glow and in the hope that it could augment her hearing somehow.

  “Put them over there,” she instantly heard one of the men say. “The boss’ll want to inspect this shipment firsthand before we fence anything or store it in the vault.”

  “No kidding, brains. Get out of my way.”

  When the men stepped out of their limited view, Jev leaned back—he probably couldn’t hear anything. Zenia lifted a hand toward him as she willed the dragon tear to show her the room, just as it had the tunnel.

  Its earlier eagerness had faded, and a sense of boredom came from it. Were people carrying boxes around uninteresting? Or did it believe she wouldn’t get anything useful out of the spying?

  She added a hint of sternness to her mien as she once again envisioned it showing her what lay beyond the wall. This time, the gem did so, and she grew aware of a large room used for storage with boxes, barrels, and bolts of silk stacked along one wall. But that wasn’t all. The room opened up into a cavern that appeared natural, long ago carved out by the Little Jade River flowing through it.

  Two longboats had been dragged to a stone bank. Zenia’s vision changed as the dragon tear zipped past the boats, out into the water, and down a winding underground channel. Light came from ahead, an opening with doze
ns of roots dangling down over it. Someone had cut just enough of them away for a narrow boat to access the open water of the Jade River, a mile inland from its delta.

  Jev touched her shoulder, and she was vaguely aware of him asking if she could hear him. She struggled to pull back her consciousness. The gem had almost seemed to want to sweep her down the river and out to sea to soar over the waves. She shook her head. That was her imagination, she was certain.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, growing more aware of her own body again and also of Jev standing next to her.

  When she was once again viewing the world through her own eyes, she couldn’t see the people through the horizontal gap anymore. Nor, she realized, could the dragon tear sense them in the room. They’d stored their boxes—goods pilfered from some innocent person, no doubt—and disappeared through the doorway. That door was closed again, but she did sense tunnels behind it. The tunnels to Fifth Dragon’s lair? Was Iridium the “boss” to whom the men had referred? Zenia believed so based on her brief stay in Iridium’s tunnels. This was the same part of the city.

  “You must be finding that crack a lot more interesting than I did,” Jev observed. “Aren’t you cold?”

  He rubbed his own arms. She kept herself from looking at them or his chest again, merely stepping back from the crack.

  “Yes.” And she was. She hadn’t been aware of the cold when she’d been swept up in the magic, but her teeth chattered after she spoke. “I think that’s Iridium’s lair and someone—that Morash, I suppose—comes back here to spy on it.”

  Jev nodded. “I assume so.” He glanced at her, though he shifted his gaze away quickly. Maybe he was trying not to look at her chest too. “I’m sorry I don’t have a dry cloak to chivalrously offer you.”

  “I think I’d rather have a towel, chivalrously acquired or pilfered from a laundry basket.” Zenia pointed toward Iridium’s room. “It’s attached to a waterway that leads to the river. They’re able to row their stolen goods in from that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took things off ships docked in the harbor, then disappeared up the Jade and into the caverns.” She gritted her teeth at the notion of such blatant thievery. “I’m going to tell the watch about this.”

  “Not a bad idea, but maybe it should wait. Although it was interesting to learn that the Night Travelers spy on Iridium’s people, it’s a dead-end as far as finding Cutter and Grindmor. We may need to ask Iridium for a favor.”

  “I’m not asking that woman for anything.”

  “Then I might need to ask her for a favor.”

  “I can guess what she would want in return.” Zenia felt a flare of repulsion as she imagined Iridium stepping close to a naked Jev and running a hand over his chest. Or maybe that was… possessiveness? No, she simply didn’t want some snake of a woman manipulating him.

  “That wouldn’t be on the table as an offering,” Jev said coolly.

  Zenia looked into his eyes, worried she had offended him. “I just meant that it’s what she’ll want. You told me about her bedpost, remember? She may not be willing to trade information for a lesser offering.”

  “Once, you couldn’t imagine a woman wanting me at all,” Jev said, his tone turning dry. If he’d been irritated at the unintended slight to his honor, he got over it quickly. “I’m glad you see me as a greater offering now.”

  “Well, you were scruffy at the time.”

  He looked down at his sodden form. Zenia perchance did, too, and immediately regretted it. He might be bedraggled at the moment, but she would definitely insert the word sexy for scruffy.

  He looked up, and she jerked her gaze back to his face. Damn it, why couldn’t she feel normal around him? Not awkward and stupid?

  “And you still are scruffy,” Zenia said, trying to cover her discombobulation with a joke. “That woman has odd tastes.”

  “Yes, no doubt. Come. We both need dry clothes, and it’s probably almost dark out by now. Let’s go back to the castle and call it a day.”

  He offered a hand to help her down from the waterfall shelf and through the pool, but she waved him back. She could manage on her own. Besides, touching him stirred up too many temptations.

  6

  When Jev headed down to the Crown Agents office in Alderoth Castle, after a short stop in his room to change into dry clothes, he found Zenia standing outside the door talking to Rhi.

  Back at that waterfall, he’d suggested they both call it a day, but he’d felt he should check his desk for new reports that might have come in. He wasn’t surprised that Zenia must have had similar thoughts. He was surprised she’d changed more quickly than he had and beaten him down here.

  So much for the notion that women took forever when it came to clothing and getting ready. Not that Zenia was a typical woman. The only time he’d seen her wear makeup had been for their brief date, and she usually pulled her hair back into a ponytail or simple braid. Not that the simple attire detracted from her beauty. She didn’t need makeup to pique his interest, as that foolish moment behind the waterfall attested.

  He’d been so close to kissing her, to more than kissing her. And he’d been certain she wanted it. The way she’d stepped close to him, her soft, full breasts touching his chest, her hands gripping his shoulders, her face tipping up toward his, her lips parting. He’d been a hair’s breadth from capturing that mouth with his own when he’d remembered her words from the other night, her confession of the promise she’d made to herself not to have sex until she married.

  For a selfish and dishonorable moment, he’d thought he might be able to convince her to break that promise, that she might find him so irresistible that she would gladly do so. Thank the founders, he’d been able to flog that notion out of his brain before he acted upon it. Convincing Zenia to break her word would be as bad as breaking his own.

  But why did she have to be so sexy? And he so… lonely, damn it.

  He hated to think he needed a woman to be happy, but he admitted that he dearly longed to blow off some sexual steam. Not, he thought firmly, with any zyndari woman his father wanted him to marry. But maybe he should wander out into the city and try to find someone to date. Someone to take his mind off—

  Rhi and Zenia stopped talking and turned to look at him as he approached.

  Jev strove to wipe any thoughts about sex off his face and give them a venerable and regal nod. He also made sure not to slip on the spot where Garlok had fallen earlier. It was hard to be regal while resting on one’s backside on the floor.

  “I’ll let you know if I find out anything around the dinner table,” Rhi said, finishing her conversation with Zenia. “I got invited to eat in the castle by that handsome steward Korik who thinks I’ll be good company.” She winked, then waved and headed up the hallway, nodding at Jev. “Good evening, Zyndar.”

  “Rhi.” He nodded back and stepped aside so she could pass.

  She seemed to sway her hips more than usual and offered him a flirtatious smile. He supposed he wouldn’t have to look too far to find someone willing to go to bed with him, though on the chance it would disturb Zenia, he wouldn’t consider her friend. Even if she was willing.

  Rhi had taken to wearing loose gray and green trousers and a tunic that she could punch and kick in as easily as she had in her gi. At least, he thought they were gray and green, rather than two shades of gray. Colors were always muted in his eyes, and there were shades of blue and green he only recognized as such because people had told them they weren’t gray. He was positive Zenia’s eyes were green, but he wondered if they were more vibrant to others than they were to him. He found them perfectly appealing as they were, but he remembered being startled as a boy when one of his cousins had promised him the grass around the pond was a vivid green. Unfortunately, there weren’t many colors he saw as vivid. He decided Zenia’s eyes must be vivid. The rest of her was memorable, so why wouldn’t they be?

  “Heading in too?” Zenia nodded to him and reached for the knob.

  Jev snorte
d to himself, realizing it would be hard to find another woman to fall for if he was busy contemplating Zenia’s vividness.

  “Yes, I want to see if any reports from foreign agents have come in while I’ve been gone.” Since meeting with Targyon that afternoon, Jev had a heightened interest in the goings on in other nations, especially the dwarven nation of Preskabroto. For the last ten years, he hadn’t worried about more than Taziira, other than to watch for possible allies from other kingdoms coming to reinforce the elves. He would have to spend time researching how other nations—elven, dwarven, and human—currently felt about Kor.

  “Me too.” Zenia opened the door. “Though my reports would be from agents from around the kingdom. Maybe it’s possible Master Grindmor was taken out of the capital. She—”

  Zenia halted, and Jev, walking in behind her, immediately saw why. The work day had ended an hour ago, and there was only one agent left sitting at a desk in the office, but it was the irksome Zyndar Garlok.

  Jev stepped up to Zenia’s shoulder, prepared to defend her if Garlok launched snide comments at her. Or maybe support her was the better word, since she’d proven that morning she was capable of launching snide comments right back.

  “Nice of you to come in to work today,” Garlok drawled, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. “Do you remember where your desks are? I can show you if you’ve forgotten.”

  Jev had no idea why the man hadn’t followed Targyon’s suggestion of retirement. It was obvious he didn’t like working for Jev or Zenia.

  “No need, Zyndar,” Zenia said, heading for their two desks in the back of the office. Maybe she didn’t intend to launch comments, snide or otherwise, at Garlok this evening.

  Too bad. Jev enjoyed seeing her in defying-zyndar-pomposity mode.

  “Dharrow,” Garlok said, “it may have escaped your notice, but you and your girlfriend are in charge of the office. That means you’re supposed to spend your days in the office where people can deliver reports to you and ask questions.”