Selected for Sport Ch. 20

"If this is a girl, will you order Zander to do it next time?" she cursed him. "Or an unsatisfactory son, like the first?" Xanir winced, a lost, worried look crossing his face as he shook his head, continuing to shake it, staring at her.

"Alann-."

"You want to know what my nightmares are?" she was shouting now, waving her arms, backing as she circled away from his step towards her. "I'm drugged again; can't move or speak, and you are holding me down while he does it to me. The others are watching too, like they did on my wedding night - like they always do - like you like them to."

Xanir blenched. A hand reached out to her, hesitant. "Calm down. This can't be good for you, for the baby. We can talk about this calmly."

"I hate this baby!" Alanna shouted. Her own face whitened and crumpled, throat locking as she whispered, a protective hand nevertheless dropping to her belly. "I hate it I hate it I hate it."

She spun away and hauled herself into Rigal's saddle, leaning forwards to bury her face in his mane. "I hate me."

The silence stretched. Xanir was standing white-faced in the moonlight, staring aghast at her when she eventually sat back up and wiped her face, although the tears continued to run silently.

Alanna looked down, ashamed, pulling her fingers through Rigal's mane. "I used to love it," she sniffed. "I adored it. I know I should. I hate that I don't. And I know it's not its fault that its Dad drugged and raped me." Her voice was sinking as the fire fled, and she sank with it, drooping across her horse again. "On your orders. But I don't want it." Her whisper was dull, back in the pit where he couldn't reach her. "I don't want to play your games any more. I want to go home. But I can't."

She cried into her patient horse's neck. "I want to go home."

Rigal stood staring at Xanir, muscles taut, ears back and teeth bared in challenge.

Frozen, Xanir continued to watch the sobbing heap flopped along the alert stallion's back, his face blenched but eyes raging with emotions.

After long moments he sank back onto his haunches, features haunted as he reeled, facing up to the truth.

"Alanna."

Not a sound escaped her, but he could see the sobs shaking through her.

"Alanna, I'm sorry."

He had asked her to speak to him: now it was his turn. This was his fault. He had to try to fix it. His heart was burning with what had been staring him in the face all along: she had never lied to him - the subterfuge, the games with language, those didn't count. If he asked her a question, she would either not answer, or she would tell him the truth. Whether he would like it or not. Always. And even if he didn't ask - she would tell him what she thought he needed to know. Right from the start, the arrow.

No wonder she had stopped speaking to him. She couldn't. He had told her he didn't want to hear what he had thought of as lies. And Limaq-.

Xanir let out a long, harsh breath. His voice was low, but clear in the still early morning.

"Limaq would never have dishonoured you, me or himself by drugging you. You know this. Trust your heart about him, it is true. And you - I know. You also have always been true, you also know honour. I just - I knew that he cared for you. And I -." His voice broke off, thickened as he forced himself to continue.

"I could not believe that I had fathered a child; that I had been given what I wanted so much: you. The gods are never so kind."

Her hiccupping sobs had quietened a little. He prayed that she was listening.

"I had a brief moment of such joy - such raw, incandescent joy when I first heard - because you could be mine, and I despatched Raqi immediately to secure your safety."

She was still now, listening, face hidden against her horse's neck.

"Yet Limaq's words echoed with bitter clarity, and the years of -," he trailed off, but forced his strangled voice to continue. She had shared her hurt. "Years of failing and failing and failing to beget a child; the sneering whispers, the sidelong looks. Secret consultations with every healer of renown far and wide, the vile potions for virility, exercises, bitter moon-madness - all while a quarter of the world watched with bated breath each time I took a new bride because of that ridiculous fucking law."

The wet woebegone face had lifted and was watching him rake the sand underneath the coarse grass with his fingers. He glanced at her and looked away, the hurt curdling through him.

"I was - I was just too afraid to believe that your child was mine; it was too good to be true. There is - was such a heavy barrier in my head, built from the years of impotence." His voice was trailing off "I could not want to face the hope, the loss, that failure again when it turned out to be a lie, as all the other times."

A long, bitter, silence. Her heart ached for him.

"And then Limaq had said that he had fucked you."

The sombre, drenched blue eyes met his when he forced himself to look back again at her miserable face. She blinked.

"What did he say, Xanir?" Her whisper was also hoarse, tear-roughened.

The Tahl's face twisted. His breathing became more harsh: three long, rattling breaths, and then he quoted: "Xan - forgive me. The Tahl-maia, your maia. I didn't want to - need to tell you, have to tell you. Forgive me. Every night, since you left, I took her."

Her face whitened, and Alanna slid from her horse. Swaying, with a hand on Rigal's mane, she whispered, "Those were his words?"

Xanir nodded soberly back and cleared his throat. His brows were fierce over eyes gleaming wet.

"I would have believed him," she agreed flatly. "Believed that we-."

"Took your what?" Xanir interrupted fiercely. "His last words, so, Alanna, what was he going to say? What did he take from you? Every night? Not your honour, so what?"

Alanna closed her eyes, face creasing as more, interminable tears welled up, heart swelling. "Xanir -."

"I'm so sorry, Alanna, my princess - I have been so blinded by my fear, my loathing of my own failures, my infertility, that I refused to accept what was staring me in the face. You are true. Limaq was true; therefore -," his voice broke again. "I'm sorry. You never have lied to me. You have endured so much for me."

Rigal's voice rang out a challenge and his muscles bunched under palm. Alanna opened her eyes to find Xanir halted two strides closer to her, eyeing her horse a balefully. She sobbed a watery laugh.

Her husband's face was haunted, drained when he looked back at her. His voice was hoarse. "I'm sorry I have strangled your joy in carrying my child. Our child. I'm so sorry, Alanna."

She choked and stumbled forwards into his arms, feeling them close around her as she pressed her face into his shoulder, sliding her own around his waist. So safe. Her haven - she had it back. Trembling, she forgot everything, just pressing into him. She had missed him so. The long, long months. More tears leaked into his shirt, and she felt rough lips press against her temple.

After long moments of solace, leaning into him as she cried out her loneliness, Alanna eventually gulped and sniffed, "I'm sorry, Xanir, so sorry about all your fruitless stud -."

He tilted her head back and shut her up with his mouth. "I'm not. I'd never have got to fifteen if everything worked fine."

She sobbed a broken laugh, while he wiped her wet cheeks with his shirt sleeve. "But the years of -."

He kissed her again.

Breathing hard when he drew back, she grimaced at him. "Okay, Mr Talkative. How is your head?"

"Fine." Xanir said impatiently. He lifted her and sank cross-legged to the ground, folding her in his arms, kissing her temple, her cheekbone, her tears.

She stroked her fingers through his hair, tracing lightly over his cheekbones and neck while she tried to sneak in kisses of her own along the rough skin of his jaw and throat. After a while she poked him in the chest. "Let's take turns."

"Of course." Xanir immobilised her head between his palms to nibble little kisses over every inch of her face and neck, whispering, "I love you. I love you. I love you."

"You're not very good at taking turns," she whispered back.

He snorted and hugged her tightly to him.

Then he heaved a sigh, sobering, and settled her on his knees.

"Let me set your mind at rest about a few more things, my princess: I will never again let anyone else see you, hear you, or touch you - I know this hurts you. And never ever would I command anyone to." His voice was fierce and he glared down at her. She looked back up, head aching. Something was rising inside her, the pain leaking out, but her throat was choked. So she kissed him instead.

Xanir sighed against her lips, took a deep breath, and drew back again. "The true father of my presumptive heir, Lord Bethim, remains loyal because he believes that he will be able to rise to power when his son takes the throne." His wife blinked, eyes suddenly sharpening in a different way as she sat up, keen mind racing through the implications while Xanir continued, "I have let this subterfuge continue for political expediency, having no true children and no wish for another rebellion. I don't think he knows that I know."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

Xanir rolled his eyes. "I would've had to have been blind to miss Hajima's behaviour but I was really overwhelmed in my teens, trying to stay alive and stitch the realm back together after the attempted coup by my brothers. I didn't really care that she was entrancing a powerful backup for when I failed. I thought I'd get my own heir on another wife and put her aside."

Alanna growled. Xanir grinned a bit sheepishly and cast her a sideways look. "That was when I instated my one wife policy; the law says I have to have a wife, but it doesn't say I have to have more than one."

She'd heard a few comments about that out here: only about half of the desert lords she had met had only one wife, the older lords nearly all had multiple. Xanir was setting a new trend, disapproved of among the older set. Still: "Yes, you are renowned for holding back your appetite for women," Alanna replied sarcastically.

Xanir squirmed slightly, looking out over her head. His voice was soft. "I wanted my children to grow up free from having to fight to prove who is better; whose mother would be Tahl-Mat."

Alanna halted the next sarcastic comment at her lips, looking up into that blanked face, remembering. "As you did?" She kissed him softly when he hesitated.

"I -," he blew out a harsh breath. "Yes. My younger brothers seemed to dedicate their lives to trying to undermine me, always trying to show me up, trip me up, get me into trouble - or danger. Aunt Osmea mother encouraged them."

His father's second wife. And also his aunt - Panya's sister. "Not Haman? Only you?" Alanna asked softly.

Xanir sighed. "Haman was the oldest; by another four years. And -." He broke off, trying to compose himself. Alanna ran a finger over the taut muscles in his forearm. He looked down, grinned again, and kissed her hard, quickly.

"I am not Panya's son," he bit out, very quietly.

Alanna gasped, looking up into those bleak features. For all the skill of the Kjeldahl network, this they had never uncovered.

Xanir met her look with a twisted smile. "I know. I didn't know myself until Emf -." His voice hitched and face twisted as he thought of his cousin and spymaster, still unconscious despite the best the healers could do for him. The weeks of torture followed by that last, cruel attempt to break him had driven Em Feliz into a coma from which no-one was sure if he would awaken. "Emf told me, after the attempted coup when my father was killed: my mother was one of Panya's attendants. Both women retired to Panya's estates for the birth, to conceal the pregnancy, and pretend another. My mother didn't survive. I had always been Panya's, as far as I knew. But I always knew she favoured Haman. He was the oldest, the brightest, the best."

One of Panya's attendants. Hmm. Alanna's suspicions hardened. She had to tell him.

"And yet you two are friends," she mused.

"Haman has always been - non-confrontational."

"Unlike some."

Xanir grinned again, a little sourly. "He didn't have to be; not all the time."

Alanna sighed, entwining her fingers with his. He kissed the tips gently and nuzzled his nose against her hair.

"Did you get my note?" Alanna asked softly.

Xanir tensed violently, face going blank. His voice was austere, and he drew himself upright to face her. His hands slid down her arms to cup hers.

"I will send you home as you wish," he promised, deep voice harsh and cold with hurt. "We can work out a way, but an official one, so that you - and the child - will be safe from repercussions." "Safe on the journey," he added, glancing darkly at the dead horse and rider yards away, "and in your home."

Alanna sniffed, poked his chest. This was home. "No, silly. That note was about the plot in the palace. It's - I didn't feel like I could speak to you about it."

A frown crossed Xanir's face and he cast her a look, throat working. "You do now?" his voice was hesitant, hopeful. She nodded, smiling, splaying her palm on his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart.

"I do not deserve you." His eyes flickered over tear-streaked face, and voice softened. "Let me make you comfortable first, you and the horses."

Alanna choked a laugh again at the mutual looks of distain Xanir and Rigal exchanged when he insisted on carrying her over to unclip her waterskin from the saddle.

Fifteen minutes later, face washed and throat less raspy, Alanna was again seated on Xanir's lap, in his arms, head resting back on his shoulder while she watched the water glide past in the glimmering dawn, the unfettered horses tearing up lush grass on the riverbank. They had moved across the glade so that the bodies were no longer visible, although Xanir had first retrieved the arrows of the fallen, sniffed the black-coated tip of one, licked, and spat. No, he had said, he didn't recognise the poison.

Leaning back against a tree, Xanir closed her fingers around the third strip of dried, smoked meat he had retrieved from his own saddlebags, insisting that she eat it, he was not hungry. "Or more hungry to see you actually eat something voluntarily," he added grumpily. Alanna smiled and kissed his fingertips, munching on the snack while she quickly explained what she had seen from her prison.

"The tree is not native to Kjeldahl," she finished, running her fingers over the veins in the muscled forearm draped protectively over her little bulge. "I have never seen one before: where is it from?"

Xanir breathed out a sigh. "I do not know. I know it is named the Queen's tree because it was planted for her, as a wedding gift. It has grown swiftly in the last forty years. I do not think I have ever seen another, either."

Her little bulge poked her. Alanna smiled and traced gentle fingers over the tiny protrusion, then drew Xanir's palm sideways to rest over the nudge. He drew a long breath, and she turned her head to watch his wide-eyed, awed, almost daunted expression. "I suspect the seeds may stop this happening. Say hello properly this time, Dad," she whispered.

Xanir's expression was both stricken and fiercely proud as his eyes devoured her face, and then his lips were on hers: demanding, needy, and oh so forceful as he lowered her back onto his other arm across the grass, following her down without breaking the kiss. His child kicked his palm and a half-choked laugh gasped against her lips. "Hello," he whispered, looking down. Tears fell on her chin, and they weren't hers.

Parting her robe, his kisses feathered over her belly as he spoke softly to the tiny life within. "We will find out how you made it, little miracle. And I will keep your mother so safe and warm and happy, look after you both." His head tilted up and eyes met Alanna's, shining with emotion.

"Can you forgive me? Will you forgive me?" Xanir was whispering almost inaudibly. "You can't forgive me, but please, please forgive me. I love you so much."

She held his gaze, sitting up, away from him, but keeping a palm on his chest. "Xanir," her voice was prosaic, a little dry. "This morning I have shouted at you, laughed at you, cursed you, cried at you, accused you, and cuddled into you for comfort. Somewhere, my genius subconscious must have worked out that you hadn't meant to hurt me - wouldn't hurt me. That you love me."

She paused, feeling his heart thundering, "You threw yourself down a cliff last night to stop me being killed: maybe that had something to do with it." She dug her nails in lightly. "Reckless idiot."

His eyes flashed. "I will protect you however necessary."

She poked him again. "I don't want to be a widow. I miss you enough when you are away!"

"Then don't escape your guards and gallop off into the night, reckless idiot," he hissed back.

She humphed. "I really wasn't thinking. I was just so miserable that I didn't care. About anything." She cast him an angry look.

Xanir slid back up alongside her and folded her in his arms, kissing her cheek, her neck, hiding his face against it. "I'm sorry," he choked. "But I swear, I would never have ordered Limaq to do anything like that. It would have been anathema to both of us; to all of us."

She soothed a hand over his back. "I know," she agreed softly. "I knew him too, remember? I've just gotten really confused - tired - it's so hard to hold onto the truth when everyone else is telling you it isn't. For months. And then you did too and I just - lost myself in dark thoughts. I knew some of them were insane, but I couldn't stop thinking them, round and round in circles, deeper and darker."

Xanir shuddered, and she felt tears on her neck again. "What do you want me to do now?" he grated out against her skin, limbs tense for rejection. "I will arrange for you to return to Kjeldahl safely if you wish. Both of you."

He really did love her. The idiot, she had already forgiven him. Her heart ached for him, for the years of being treated as a stud stallion, as Haman had once said, and of failing again and again and again. What had that done to her proud Xanir? She didn't blame him for his disbelief; I mean, they still hadn't fully worked out why he had succeeded this time. Maybe it was just serendipity, but she doubted it. Really, really doubted it - the tree must have something to do with it. They would work it out. Because she wanted more than one child, although she wasn't going to put that pressure on her stud by telling him.

"Well, I want you to let me ride my horse whenever I like," Alanna negotiated. "In the city, too."

Xanir's head lifted and he stared down at her, a faint spark of hope in his eyes. "Done."

She kissed him. "And get rid of your harem," she added.

Xanir sat up, turning her to face him, sitting back cross-legged with his hands supporting her back where she sat folded on his feet. "Already done." The light in his eyes was warming.

She kissed him again. A few more times. "And not marry anyone else, ever," she cast him a darkling look.

His lips lifted into a faint smile. "I told you, only one." She glanced at him sharply, and he added, "The betrothal with the Inchotan is only until we finish the watch tower on Nahra Rock; then we will have sufficient advance warning of any future Sianese fleet, and I can break it."

"No others," she repeated fiercely. "Even betrothals."

"No," he agreed seriously. "I'm not installing anyone else in the palace who would be a threat to you." His eyes dropped. "Or our child."

She lost herself in the kisses this time, as he sat trembling under her exploration, waiting. Her heart thumped, and she leaned her forehead against his chest. IT was so unlike Xanir to be so unsure of himself. "And I want you to repeal some of the more ridiculous, sexist laws: your people came from the desert; when did the city dwellers lose sight of the balance of life out here?" She sat back and pulled a face at him.