Chapter 27

"Where is your brother again?" Amyr paced impatiently, swiping at the air with his sword while Stryfe was bent over a parchment as he instructed Yori and Jeshed in reading the symbols of his writing.

The other Calabrian men were sparring with each other but not with the intensity that Taeron demanded, or used to demand up until the night of the feast. Since that night several days ago, Taeron was often absent from the castle or from training and when he was there, his mind was elsewhere. Amyr had heard the gossip among the females about what Taeron had been up to with that repulsive woman from Teralon and he could not believe that once he had satisfied his most basic urges he would have any further interest in her. He hoped that all his imperial guard was doing with the wretched female was offering his blood. The few times Amyr had seen her since that night she had been looking better so he guessed that Taeron was responsible for her healthy glow.

Stryfe did not look up from the parchment. "Don't worry about Taeron. We all know he can take care of himself."

"I am not worried about him! He is neglecting my training!" Amyr swiped his sword in the air again.

The other man chuckled. "I see this is about you and not him."

Before Amyr could think of a scathing retort, Yori wriggled off the log on which he sat near his mother's brother and he came to pluck at Amyr's sleeve. "We can train."

Amyr glanced about to see if anyone had heard his innocent remark. He was embarrassed enough to be training with Taeron, but if anyone knew that Yori was secretly teaching him to use his Guerani powers, he would never live long enough to hear the end of it.

Sighing, he went down on one knee before his son and he brushed back his dark hair before caressing his cheek. If anyone would have told him a month ago that he would feel the love he felt now for a small child he would have laughed in their face.

I love you too, papa.

Amyr smiled at him and leaned down to touch his forehead to Yori's. We will continue tomorrow, he assured him. I treasure our moments together.

They spent many hours together in trances when they pretended to be resting during the hot afternoons. Mordrad had taken a large number of his men to a nearby planet and the remainder kept busy with their day to day activities, and with the Calabrians working on the ship with Quynn, Amyr was free to do as he pleased. So no one was surprised that he chose to spend his time lounging lazily in his sumptuous bed. The only one who might complain was preoccupied.

Which brought Amyr's thoughts back to his imperial guard's uncharacteristic behavior. Do you know where Taeron is? he asked Yori.

Yori shook his head. I saw him this morning when he left behind the food, but he has not returned.

Thinking of the pouch that Taeron had left behind for Amyr and Yori to enjoy, Amyr realized that Taeron must be spending a lot of time in the woods. Since the cottages in which the females resided were on the edge of those woods, Amyr concluded that Taeron must be staying with his sister instead of returning to the castle so that he could be near that dreary bird woman. Princess Dijana could often be found during the day with Lady Saranda, Mordrad's wife, so that left Sharisse on her own. What was Taeron doing with her?

His patience had worn thin. "I am going to find him."

"I should accompany you," stated Jeshed solemnly and Amyr rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was the useless dragon man tagging along. Taeron was derelict in his duty after relegating his safety to this fool who did not even have the strength to lift a woman to carry. His first mistake that night had been to intervene when Amyr had wanted to take Quynn back to her cottage. She had been right to be wary of his motives since Amyr had planned to take advantage of her lack of inhibitions. In retrospect, Jeshed had saved him from making a terrible mistake because she would not have forgiven him for his shameful behavior.

"Where are you going?" asked Stryfe, setting aside the parchment.

"He is with that female, so I am going to her cottage to drag him out of her bed." Amyr didn't understand why Taeron continued to cavort with her. She was not even beautiful. How many comely females had he directed towards his imperial guard to distract him and none of them had remained longer than the time it took to pleasure him. Sharisse was nothing compared to them, no matter how pretty she was starting to look, especially wearing the green tunic Taeron had given her from his collection.

"Can I visit my mother?" asked Yori, his eyes wide with hope.

Amyr had not forbidden Yori from visiting Quynn, had in fact sent a few messages requesting her to come to the castle to see their son, but she had sent one of the men to tell him that she was busy with the ship. If he had not heard that she spent her days from sun up to sun down tangled in the innards of the derelict craft, he would accuse her of abandoning Yori. Stryfe assured him that the absence of her son hurt but that Taeron, of all people, had convinced her that Amyr's bonding with Yori was too important for her to interfere.

Although he suspected that he would end the night arguing with Taeron, Amyr did not refuse Yori and the four set off for the small row of cottages where Mordrad's workers, including his mercenaries, made their homes. No one spoke as Amyr stomped directly to the cottage where the princess and her sister chose to stay, refusing the hospitality of Lord Mordrad for what reason Amyr could not fathom. Since Princess Dijana spent all her time at the castle, Amyr guessed that her manipulative bastard sister kept her in the shabby cottage they stayed in despite the princess' insistence that they wanted their privacy. That cottage was dark now. The princess was at the castle and Sharisse was probably with Taeron. But where?

He saw the faint light from the direction of the pond before Jeshed pointed it out. Knowing there would now be a confrontation that he did not want Yori to witness, he ordered Stryfe to take him to visit his mother.

Jeshed followed until Amyr turned and the dragon man ran into him. "What do you think you are doing?"

"My duty?" Jeshed blinked stupidly.

"Your duty is to go back and watch over my family. I will deal with my imperial guard." He turned to leave him, but Jeshed reached out to put a hand on his arm. The sensation from his touch spread out over Amyr in waves of calming magic that a Guerani even of his limited skill could recognize.

"Trust in the will of the gods."

"The … the will..." Amyr was outraged. "The will of the gods? Are you their messenger now?" He shook off Jeshed's hand. "Leave me! I will deal with Taeron."

With a sorrowful shake of his head, Jeshed turned on his heel and headed back in the direction of Quynn's cottage. Amyr watched to make sure he did not turn back and then he continued on his way to the pond. His heart was pounding and his throat was tight, and Amyr had a sick feeling in his gut even before he crept to the bushes shielding the pond from others. At first he did not see them in the light from the torches placed around the steaming pond, but then he heard a soft moan that drew his attention to the mossy bank on the far side. There he saw two pale bodies entwined, moving in a rhythm that he could not mistake for anything other than what it was.

The Teralonian whore was beneath Taeron, rising to him and Taeron was oblivious to anything but the female beneath him. Amyr could not tear his eyes off them, could not believe what he was seeing. And they were obviously well practiced with what they were doing because they seamlessly shifted positions until she was riding him. That was when he saw the wound on her shoulder near her neck and Amyr stumbled back, leaving behind the erotic scene at the pool that only served to sicken him.

He staggered away, putting as much distance as he could between him and the pond, his thoughts jumbled and incoherent until he ran straight into a thick tree and he turned with his back to it, sliding to his backside to the ground.

"Taeron," he groaned as he reached up to grasp handfuls of his hair. "What have you done? How could you?" He was shocked by the intense feelings that overcame him now in realizing the disaster that Taeron had brought upon himself.

Taeron had broken his vow to marry Princess Dijana, completely and irrevocably. Amyr never would have believed him capable of such a thing, had believed him in control of whatever it was that drew him to that repellent female. Despite Stryfe's assurance that she was not capable, Amyr wanted to believe that she had enthralled him as Kai had done her, and yet that would be admitting that Taeron was vulnerable Amyr knew he was not. Taeron had been seduced into dishonoring not only himself, but his father's house and the emperor. Amyr knew his father would be unforgiving. Taeron's father would be unforgiving. Taeron had no future in the empire if he were not made to pay for this betrayal of the emperor's trust with his life.

And that was what Amyr could not bear now despite his past with Taeron. As children he had been annoyed to be charged with him and Staefyn, disgusted that he had to suffer the bastard's presence. And after what had happened with Quynn, he had hated Taeron enough to try to kill him, but now with the very real threat of losing him, Amyr realized how much Taeron truly meant to him. Taeron had tried to make him better than he was, had stood at his back, slept at his feet, saved his life again and again and received nothing but scorn for his efforts. His own Guerani powers made Amyr realize what he never would have without them. He loved Taeron more than he ever had his own brother, and now he was heartsick to realize that he could do nothing to prevent Taeron from destroying himself.

How had that woman gotten past his defenses? Taeron had behaved like a primitive in claiming her, biting her to mark her like some Wasteland savage. He was an imperial guard! He was the Lord of Varoonya, liberator of Teralon! He wasn't one of those filthy tribesmen who lived the old ways and had settled on Lord Duo's moon. Taeron had grown up in the emperor's civilized palace and he knew better. No one forced him to do that to her, no one had tricked him with a thorny bloom. Taeron should have stood before the court with his bride and taken her blood in the marriage cup as Amyr would do with Quynn.

The memory of how he had been tricked by Staefyn into bonding with Quynn made him think of her now. She must have known what Taeron had done. The torches by the pond were not made with real fire, but with fire magic, and the pond was heated with the same magic. Who but that duplicitous sorceress could have done such a thing? The thought that she had a hand in Taeron's disgrace infuriated him beyond reason.

Wiping tears from his face with his sleeve, he stood, and seeking out the light from the cursed pond, he oriented himself in the dark and headed in the general direction of Quynn's cottage. Soon enough he saw the light from her windows in the distance and as he strode toward it, he delighted in fantasies of putting his hands around her neck and shaking her till her teeth rattled. Then he would take what he wanted from her and she would thank him for not beating her to within an inch of her life for what she had encouraged his imperial guard and brother of his heart to do.

But the moment he swung open the door and saw Yori sitting on her lap taking a beetle from her slender hand, the violent rage that had filled him melted away. He could never hurt her. She was the mother of his son and he loved her.

Quynn turned to look at him and by her raised brows and the challenge in her dark eyes, she knew what he had found.

"How … how could you do such a thing to your own brother?" he demanded, his voice raw with emotion.

Stryfe blinked and looked between them. "What are you talking about?"

"You didn't tell him?" Quynn looked away guiltily and Amyr looked at Stryfe. "Taeron has mated and bonded with that disgusting thrall from Teralon."

"What!?" Stryfe at least could feel the proper level of horror at such a thing. "By the gods! He cannot have done that! You must be mistaken!" Stryfe sounded even more horrified than Amyr felt.

"I am not mistaken. I saw his mark on her. He has taken her blood and is bonded to her."

"No!" Stryfe put his hand to his head, shaking it as if that could change the facts. "No! No!"

"What is the matter?" Quynn shrugged. "They are happy together. I don't think I have ever seen Taeron this happy."

"I have!" shouted Amyr furiously. "You weren't there when he received his imperial sword! You weren't there when your father claimed him and gave him his personal dagger! But you have destroyed all that with your meddling!"

"Taeron loves her," she said, still unaffected by his anger. "I only gave him a little push in the right direction and he did the rest."

"Taeron doesn't have the luxury of loving her," Stryfe told her, his voice uncharacteristically hard. "The treaty with Teralon hinges on his marriage with Princess Dijana. It was the one stipulation that Queen Neria would not back down on. The emperor himself accepted the pact with the queen, and he would not have pledged Taeron if it were not of vital importance to the empire and to Teralon."

Amyr's heart was thumping painfully in his chest, the fear for Taeron more real than it was before. "How ...how important..?"

"He will never forgive Taeron," Stryfe told him.

"Maybe Taeron and Sharisse can stay here," suggested Quynn, not sounding as certain as she had been a moment ago. "Another Calabrian can marry Princess Dijana. Maybe even you, Amyr."

"Me!?" He was so outraged he could not even speak to tell her how ridiculous her suggestion was.

Stryfe filled the void. "Don't be stupid, Quynn! You are his wife whether you want to admit it or not." He nodded to Yori who was watching the adults argue with confusion. Amyr imagined that all the emotions in the room were disorienting his young son. "You have a child together. This isn't our culture, Quynn. If you reject Amyr..."

"I have every right to reject him!" she said angrily.

Jeshed, who had been quiet through the argument stood. "Yori, I will take you up to the castle. It is getting late."

Well, at least his new imperial guard was good for something. He made an adequate nursemaid for his son. They did not speak again until Yori and Jeshed were a reasonable distance away, and then Quynn burst into her angry tirade.

"You never wanted me as a man wants a woman! You were sleeping with whores even when you were courting me! Just how many times did you leave women in your bed to take me for a walk in the garden? And were they still there when you left me respectfully in my father's care without even so much as a kiss on the cheek?"

That bastard Taeron! At least he waited this long to tell her, but then he should not have opened his oath breaking mouth at all! "Do you think I ever slept alone? Ever since my coming of age ceremony, in fact that very night I had a female in my bed. She was a bit older than me, but so very experienced in the way of pleasure between men and women. She taught me quite a bit."

Quynn made a sound of outrage.

"I did not know that," commented Stryfe and Amyr regretted admitting such a thing in front of the scribe. His father would find out, if he had not, in fact, sent the woman to him although he thought it more likely that Apolo had done it. But if Stryfe did not know about it, then neither did his father. As he considered it now, that sort of thing was not done in the imperial household. His mother would not have tolerated it, had in fact dismissed so many young women from employ at the palace for having known him intimately that he soon noted that many of the females working at the palace were old and unattractive.

"Regardless of what I did before..."

"Or what you will do in the future ..."

"Stop!" Stryfe put up his hand. "I am going to leave so that I am not forced to tell the emperor what you two discuss. But before I go, I want to tell my sister that if she persists in the ridiculous notion that she is not your wife, she will find herself without a family." He turned to Quynn. "Our father will turn his back on you."

"Mama will not …"

Her brother cut her off. "She will turn her back on you as well! She tried to get you to see reason, but you ignored her like you ignored everyone else."

She clenched her fists at her side and she glared at Stryfe. "You knew what he was doing behind my back too, didn't you? And our mother? And father? Everyone knew but me! You all let this happen!"

Stryfe's shoulders slumped and he sighed deeply. "You would not have believed us, Quynn. Your judgement was clouded by love." He headed to the door, but he stopped and he did not turn around when he said, "I love you, sis, but you are wrong now. The dishonor of Taeron's broken oath coupled with yours will destroy our father and the place he has made in the empire. I will stand with them against you if you reject Amyr."

With that, he left the cottage and Amyr felt his pain. Along with his own tumult at Taeron's disgrace, Amyr found the addition of Stryfe's sorrow hard to bear. He wondered again how his sister could stand this, how his mother and uncle had spent so many years exposed to so many deep feelings of the people around them and not been driven mad.

"Leave me," snapped Quynn, turning away from him and now he could feel her emotion, the sadness, the resignation that she would be forced to spend the rest of her life with him. Guilt washed over him for all that he had done to make her feel that being with him was the worst future she could imagine.

She turned to look at him and he saw that her eyes were watery. "I only wanted Taeron to have the happiness that I can never have."

There was nothing he could say to ease her sorrow, nothing he could do but leave. The trail to the castle was hard to follow. Although the light from the moon was bright enough, tears filled his eyes and fell as fast as he could wipe them away. He refused to cry for a lost love, and yet he did, cursing the Guerani magic that had forced him to feel her pain and humiliation. He wobbled and stumbled, falling flat on his face in the road when his foot bumped a stone. He lay there on his back weeping with the sorrow he felt, his own, Stryfe's and especially Quynn's. His misery knew no depth and grew with each moment that he lay there overwhelmed by his own powers. His life had been so much easier without the empathy forced on him by the ancestors.

"Have you been drinking wine?" A booted foot nudged him and he turned to see Taeron standing over him. His dearest friend, the brother of his heart, was smiling down on him as if he was befuddled with fermented fruit. The whore was not with him, but his hair was wet and it looked as though his clothing had been hastily donned.

When Amyr did not respond, Taeron commented, "You are filthy. What have you been up to? Were you training? I was on my way..."

"Do I look like I have been training?" he snapped, his voice catching on a sob that he gulped back. Taeron's happiness was an unbearable intrusion on his heartache. "I was waiting for you! Who else would train me? Stryfe? Danlaer? God's forbid, Jeshed?"

"I am sorry. I have been distracted."

"Distracted?" Amyr dragged himself to his feet and he wished he could tower over Taeron, but while he was taller than most men, he was still half a head shorter than his imperial guard. His runny nose did nothing to improve his indignant pose. "Is that what you call it?" He wiped his nose with his sleeve and mused briefly that he had ruined another tunic, that it was stained and torn beyond repair. The oathbreaker did not deserve to have such a devoted mother!

Taeron opened his mouth to speak, but Amyr did not want to hear him lie. That would be too much for him to bear.

"I came looking for you! I saw you with her! I saw what you were doing!"

Taeron blinked in surprise. "I ... I ..." He couldn't speak. What could he say that would explain how that female had managed to manipulate him?

"Do you have any idea what you have done?" he shouted at him. "You have destroyed your life because of that worthless whore!"

Taeron leaped at him and Amyr was unprepared for the blow that knocked him silly. Taeron hit him again before Amyr's self-preservation kicked in, knowing that he had gone too far in grossly insulting the man's mate. He ducked Taeron's next blow and threw his arms around his waist, using the strength he had gained from his years in the arena to grapple Taeron to the ground. Amyr could not hope to keep him pinned for long, but he prayed it could be long enough to say what he had to.

"Forgive me, Taeron! Gods above, forgive me for my wicked tongue!"

Taeron flopped weakly back, going slack in Amyr's hold. "I love her."

The anguish in his voice, the anguish in his heart nearly undid Amyr again. He hugged Taeron to him, and for several moments they did not speak. Then Amyr pushed himself away and sat back on the ground and Taeron pulled himself up to sit facing him.

"I don't know what to do," Taeron admitted.

"Carrinda ..."

"I could not do that. I love her. I want her. I could never be with another woman."

"You feel that way now, but it is the blood bond that is making you feel this way." Amyr knew it was a lie the moment the words left his mouth. Carrinda had broken his bond and he still wanted Quynn.

"And before?" asked Taeron. "I knew the moment I first saw her board my ship in Teralonian space."

Amyr managed a smile although he felt tears watering his eyes again. "Like I knew when your sister threw those flowers in my face. She hates me now and I love her."

Taeron reached out and grasped his hands. He, of all people, knew how intrusive Amyr's touch had become so he was asking him to read his feelings. The love Taeron felt for Sharisse was pure and deep. There had never been another for him and there never would be another.

"I will make my father understand," Amyr told him earnestly.

Taeron chuckled. "When have you ever been able to persuade your father of anything?"

"I have changed."

"You will have to prove that to him and to the entirety of Calabria." Taeron squeezed his hands. "You will have to prove it to the woman you love."

They stood together and Amyr said, "Let's celebrate your bond. I think Stryfe can find us a bottle of wine." He saw Taeron's reluctance. "I have it on good authority that it can soften the sharp need of the bond. I have heard Lord Duo comment that my father was often stoned and it was the only thing that got him through the separation with my mother, although I am not sure what he meant."

Taeron smiled. "I do. But since we don't have any weed, I suppose a bottle of wine will suffice."

Amyr knew that one cup would enough for them. At least for the night they could set their worries aside.