David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Maggie frankly felt surprised by the nobility inherent in Zeus’s convictions.

“What other choices do I have?” Zeus agonized.

“Perhaps you should stop Felph,” Maggie said.

“Stop him, yes, but how? Nothing short of murder would stop him-and even then, assuming that I could be rid of the man, how free could I be with such a thing on my conscience?”

So, he spoke of killing. Maggie suspected it might be necessary. Usurpers were the same across worlds, whether human or dronon. Good men like Zeus could not tolerate their deeds, yet found the idea of eliminating such men repugnant.

“There are laws to protect you,” Maggie said.

“On other worlds, not on this.”

“You could fight to change those laws. A world cannot subsist under tyranny unless its people capitulate.”

“What could we do? Father needs nothing. We have no economic clout to force him into submission-his workers are nearly all droids, under his control. Nor do we have any military might. He controls the arsenals.

“Even if we could rouse a dozen people, marshal them against Felph, he could buy the sympathies of the majority. He treats them well enough now. What do they care if he is a tyrant only within the walls of his own palace?”

Of course, Zeus was right. Felph was, for all practical purposes, unassailable.

“I’ve pondered how to win my freedom for years, and I can see no way, though Felph has loosed my bonds,” Zeus said. His voice sounded strained; Maggie yearned to comfort him. He turned away. Maggie reached to massage the tension from his back. His muscles felt astonishingly tight. She had not guessed at the strength under his silk shirt.

Maggie recalled her own imprisonment at the hands of Lord Karthenor. Of all the ugly and wretched incidents in her short, dark life-of all the abuses she had suffer-that outweighed them all. She’d watched her mother die, had felt the weight of grief when a father and three brothers drowned. She’d watched Veriasse die in single combat, his face burned with dronon stomach acids, his bones shattered. She’d seen Orick nearly sliced in two, and recalled the look in Gallen’s eye when the Inhuman’s agent burrowed into his brain. Yet when Karthenor had imprisoned Maggie, the agony felt greater than the sum of all her other torments. She’d nearly perished. To salvage her, Karthenor had forced her Guide to suffuse her with endorphins. Even that would not have kept her alive. She’d have perished at Karthenor’s hands, had Gallen not rescued her.

“I’ll help you get free,” Maggie said vehemently. She knew it was insane. She’d planned to be more careful. “I can get you free.” Immediately she regretted the words. She might have to eliminate Lord Felph. Maggie could not easily stomach the idea of murder. Yet Felph’s actions will bring ruin on his own head, Maggie justified her thoughts. If he dies, it will be a deserving death.

Zeus turned, his face now in shadow. Maggie could see only a gleam of his eye. “You would do that for me?”

“Not just for you,” Maggie said. “For Hera and Herm, Arachne and Athena. All of you, whether your brother and sisters value their freedom or not.”

“Thank you,” he choked, awe in his voice.

Zeus reached up his right hand, stroked her jaw. Maggie felt surprised. One did not notice it until standing next to Zeus, but he was huge. Muscular. Maggie had thought him rugged before, but somehow the starlight softened his features. Perhaps it was because she knew him better, felt his suffering, but she found him attractive.

Perhaps that is why when he leaned down to kiss her forehead, she did not startle backward.

When he kissed her lips, she did not retreat. What am I doing? she wondered. This isn’t like me. This is innocent, she told herself. This is innocent. This is only a kiss of gratitude.

Zeus wrapped his left arm around her shoulder, held her head. His lips tasted so sweet. Maggie knew this was wrong. She wanted to back away, yet she felt curious and surprised at this turn of events. Zeus was handsome. She felt flattered he found her attractive.

His kisses tasted so sweet. She felt so drawn to him. It must be the wine, she thought. It’s clouding my judgment. Zeus held her tighter, and Maggie tasted those lips, and remembered … two thousand years back, in a lifetime she remembered from Tremonthin, she’d been Kweetsah, a slave girl to a race called the Yamak’hai. On her first night as a slave, her masters had dressed her in red linen and placed bells on her wrists, then escorted her to Overseer T’nok, a huge man with long arms, covered in red hair.

T’nok was not of the Yamak’hai. His subspecies was unknown. Yet his masters valued T’nok, for his kisses drove women mad with lust.

So the overseer kissed Kweetsah for a long sweet hour, fondled her until she felt giddy and overcome with desire. Then T’nok delivered her to her new husband, an old man who was quite plain. Yet she felt so overcome by lust, felt such a need for lechery, she’d slept with the new husband willingly. T’nok’s kisses could do that to any woman.

Pheromones, Maggie realized, heart pounding. Zeus’s kisses were laced with the same pheromones T’nok’s had been. She stepped back from Zeus, dizzy. She was quivering with anticipation, almost blind with desire. It took all her strength to back away.

Zeus stepped forward, kissed her once more, and stroked her left breast with his free hand. She nearly melted into his arms.

Maggie knew that if she did not leave now, she would not be able to. She shoved Zeus in the chest. He backed off.

“Forgive me!” he cried. “Oh, Maggie, forgive me!”

“No, it’s all right,” Maggie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. He’s nothing but an innocent child, she thought, still dazed. He feels gratitude for his freedom and confuses it with something more. I should know better. I must be drunk.

“I did not mean to take advantage,” Zeus whispered hurriedly. “It’s just that … I think I love you.”

“What?” Maggie said, still shaking her head. Zeus’s kisses had done something to her, nearly blinded her. She tried to make out his form, but little flashes of light seemed to baffle her vision.

“I know it sounds crazy … premature,” Zeus hurried, “It even sounds strange to me. You’re one of the few women I’ve ever met, aside from my sisters. At first I thought it was only the, because you are so exotic and beautiful that I felt this way.

“Yet, when I look in your eyes, I can see goodness in you. When I smell your hair, I smell your strength. How can I deny what I feel now? You’ve made me crazy!”

“Stop!” Maggie shouted. She knew she should not have got herself get into this predicament, yet she wanted this man now in a way she’d seldom wanted Gallen. “I’m married.”

This was all happening too fast. She’d planned to be more careful, to weigh Zeus, evaluate him over days. Yet in only a couple of hours, she’d found herself bending to his every whim. She’d promised to free him. She’d even thought of killing his father. She’d nearly bedded him.

This was all happening too fast. The pheromones had undone her.

“But-what does your marriage have to do with anything?” Zeus asked. “You could love two dogs, and no one would think ill of you. You could love two flowers or two colors. Just because you love Gallen, does not mean you can’t love me, too, the way that I love you.”

Zeus gazed at her imploringly. Maggie wanted to go to him, but she remembered how Gallen had hurt her, on a night much like this, with a woman as beautiful in her way as Zeus appeared now, a woman whose kisses had also been laced with pheromones. Maggie could not betray a trust so deep.