Sufferance Ch. 13

His expression became pinched; he was being backed into a corner in more ways than one and he knew it.

"You said you would not lie by omission," I added. "This is your last chance to uphold our agreement."

He frowned, showing his disagreement on who was straining the agreement, but, come now, I hadn't touched him. Yet. He was trying to think of something evasive to say, as he so often had.

"Does your probing my past have anything to do with Wilsirathon?" I asked directly, because it was what I really wanted to know and I figured he'd take the guidance.

He blinked, seemed to try to swallow with little moisture in his mouth, and said, "Yes...but...not on her behalf. I am trying to find out more about her reach."

"To what purpose?"

"So I know where not to step," he said reasonably, but it sounded too light compared to that pinched look from earlier.

I paused, both in my conversation and my step, and he stopped roaming the room as well. "What if you found out something that compromised her, or might threaten her power? What would you do with it?" His eyes slid to the side and I clapped in front of his face, startling him. "Look at me. Answer."

He shook his head, watching my face carefully. I imagined he could read me quite well by now. Instead, he asked, "What would *you* do with it?"

I smiled a little, and took a risk that I trusted in my gut was not too large. "I'd bring her down before she comes after me again."

Auslan blinked slowly, his expression carefully controlled. He did not try for either defense or shock. He had said that he had been closer to his first Priestess, who had been brought down by Wilsirathon and he had been given to winner. I hadn't thought a Consort would ever directly seek revenge for something like that, but...depending on the strength of the initial bond, I could see someone like Auslan being indirect about it.

"What will happen to you when she falls?" I asked.

I fully caught his attention with my inevitable wording; it was intentional. He understood what I was saying for certain now, and his next answer mattered quite a bit.

"It would depend on how she falls, Sister," he answered, "but, as you have said before, I am not made of glass. I would let her face her fate, and accept what came for me."

I narrowed my eyes slightly and smirked. "Not so afraid as to try to prevent it?"

He shook his head. "No, Sister."

"Why not? Does it have anything to do with the wizard I saw you talking to when last your Priestess was here?"

I managed to shock Auslan, I knew I had, but I had to commend his recovery time.

"No, it is still for my first Priestess," he maintained, then asked forthright, "Who knows about the garden, though, other than you?"

That was a deft response, I realized. If I admitted to him no one knew, I'd be telling him I withheld that information from my Elders. If I told him otherwise, I could scare him badly enough that our conversation would essentially be over. I'd impulsively dropped a flare at his feet but he managed to deflect it back at me like a mirror, blinding me as well, and I hadn't a reply at the ready. It would likely lead us into other deal, another secret...

Damn. I *must* curtail my own desire to see honest responses out of Consorts in the future.

"If I said that no one did, would it save your life?" I said in mild threat.

"Meaning you did not report that part of your journey to your Elders." He nailed it immediately, watching me with a fascinated and self-satisfied little smile.

"Not yet," I said deliberately. "I did not have enough information yet."

"Meaning you wanted to find out more before they did," he interpreted, and if his tiny smile got any wider, I'd probably slap him.

"Do you know who the wizard is?" I retorted.

"How can I not be aware of that when the Sanctuary is one large hive of gossip? The children conceived outside of it are talked of the most."

"Then surely the Sisterhood already knows that you know him."

"They do. I do not believe that they care."

Meaning I probably could have told D'Shea about Shyntre and Auslan talking in the garden, and it would not have made a lot of difference. I only hadn't understood the connection well enough at the time. Now I would have difficulty explaining it, if D'Shea ever found out, and Auslan had just gotten more than I had.

Damn him. He was good at this.

"Perhaps none do care, except for me."

"Why?" he asked. "Because of Wilsirathon?"

"No, because you were giving him advice on how to deal with me," I said, deciding to show my irritation. "I did not appreciate that. He was my prey, you meddler!"

I was sure I was not in complete control of the conversation here, but neither would I allow Auslan to be. Better that we both reveal more than we intended.

He looked very, very confused. "Your...prey?"

"Come, you knew that already, I heard you. You told him I'd lose interest the sooner he submitted."

"He only mentioned having some difficulty with the newest Sister on that particular trip. Yes, I knew it was you, but I was thinking more of the previous time he had difficulty keeping a Sister off him."

"When was this? And who?"

He shrugged. "I don't know her name, and he hasn't mentioned her in years. She may have been killed in action, for all I know. It was shortly after he appealed to your Elders for some type of service to them. He wanted out of the Sanctuary and convinced Wilsirathon he would spy for her, initially. For some reason, she agreed. I do not believe he followed through as promised."

"How did he end up at the Tower?"

"More difficulties between the Sisterhood and the Priesthood, as I understood it, he had witnessed something. However, I was serving the Noble Houses by then and was often far away. I know few details." Auslan was watching me intently. "Shyntre has been of...lasting interest to you?"

"Jealous?" I teased, mostly to block him.

He shook his head. "That is one of the least useful emotions for a Consort, Sister."

"How pleasant for you that you are able to pick and choose your emotions," I commented.

"Were you born in my place, you would know the same."

"Except you seem comfortable with a very hot-tempered Drow. What did you mean that Shyntre should be satisfied to see you 'torn' when you said he would be the one to make the choice?" I probed more.

I was vaguely stitching together the last thing I'd overheard in the garden, which had been right after that secret that Auslan had passed on, that Shyntre had said he didn't want to hear—and that I hadn't regardless.

Having had the warning now that I'd been there, the Consort did not give anything away on his face. When he swallowed, I thought it looked too deliberate. "Only as you said, Red Sister, that I do not know what will happen to me after Wilsirathon. But I will tell you Shyntre may have a hand in it; he knows more. Wilsirathon has made her enemies on her rise, and she will be the next to fall if she continues dabbling in Abyssal breeding."

Of course, I remembered telling him that Curgia had been forced and Wilsirathon was behind it. "Do you know anything else about that?"

"I confirmed what you had told me. Curgia confessed to me it was not as Wilsirathon had told her mother about how she conceived by Kerse. She said that she'd been made to accept him while completely sober. She also commented more than once that her magic felt weaker. They were not said together in the same conversation, but I think perhaps they are connected."

I smiled and nodded. Good to have that confirmed as well. "Yes, you told me about a Priestess losing power if her demon-bred dies."

"So even a half-formed child has that price to pay," he said. "That makes it a magical symbiote."

"Not a parasite?"

"I think not. The mother gains power as well, correct?"

"You do a lot of thinking, Auslan."

"I have a lot of spare time, and my opinion counts for little anyway."

I nodded. "And Shyntre? How well do you *actually* know him?"

I waited expectantly and did not open my mouth again until he answered the question. No more distracting myself or making it so easy for him.

Auslan watched me carefully for several moments. "You never told me what he is to you."

"Why would that matter?"

"You are asking me the same thing."

"So he means something to you."

"Implying he does to you, as well. If you saw us in the garden, you could not see that yourself?"

"I'd say you were allies, yes."

"More brothers."

I blinked; it was a surprising qualifier to admit. "It could not be in blood...?"

"No. But we were raised together." My Consort shrugged. "The Consorts are encouraged to listen and watch the Nobles but not to interact much beyond mating signals and seduction. Nor are we encouraged to draw too many conclusions. Though I was older than him, his thoughts were challenging well before I eventually realized how mine... were not."

I smirked. "And you have a latent competitive streak."

Amazingly, he smiled at me and looked pleased. "Perhaps. Having him around certainly made my existence more interesting, and indirectly made me one of the more useful Consorts when I used my mind on occasion. But as I said, I do not believe either the Elders or my Priestess care that much about our past association."

*Perhaps they should,* I thought, and considered what little I could remember about what I overheard. Words had been so disjointed that I had few conclusions of my own. I also couldn't be certain I'd gotten what I came for; Auslan had been so evasive while seeming to be straightforward, I didn't know where the holes in his story were. I only suspected they were there.

He was almost someone from whom to learn. If I had thought the Court was good at saying much while telling very little, Auslan's relative lack of emotional involvement in whatever observations he made hid much more than the sly comments and backhanded compliments of the Court.

I slowly let out a breath, moving closer without threatening his space, matching gazes with him for several moments and not looking away. I enunciated my words, "I am searching for anything to bring about Wilslirathon's decline sooner rather than later. Will you offer anything?"

Auslan was quiet for a few moments as he considered, and he smiled a bit. Then he did something counter-productive for us both, I thought.

He reached out and touched my face.

The warm, soft palm cupping my jaw and smooth fingers sliding just behind my ear felt far more intense than it should have and I sucked in my breath, frozen for an endless instant. Almost like Shyntre's fingers sending a magical charge through my sex while he serviced me, Auslan gently and chastely touching my skin shocked me in the most pleasant of ways, deep and intimate.

At the same time, I did not know what he was doing. My gut told me he was doing something; his eyes were slightly unfocused as if he was thinking of something else.

I found the will to knock his arm to the side and I stepped back, glaring and hating how my breath was audibly shaking for that one moment. Lolth, I wanted him. "What was that?"

He blinked and focused on me. I saw his throat flash as he swallowed. "I'm sorry, Sister, I just wanted to.... thank you, if the Sisterhood is targeting Wilsirathon now."

"So I should treasure a touch from you that much, hm?" I said irritably. "You cunt tease. Don't do that again unless you're prepared to show your thanks *much* more than that."

"My humblest apologies. I'd forgotten to ask...what of Kerse's interest in you? Has that changed?"

I shrugged impatiently; I could focus on that bizarre answer to an odd but ultimately harmless touch, or I could accept the change in direction. If it *was* a change in direction. "I don't know. I haven't seen him since we left here."

Auslan nodded. "I will wager that if it hasn't, then I cannot give you a better key than that which you already have, Sister. Though it can just as easily get you killed." Or worse, his expression seemed to add.

"Tell me something I don't know, Auslan," I said. And I meant it. I stared at him.

He frowned slightly.

"Tell me something new," I repeated. "Surprise me. Or I'll surprise you."

I let a deviant lust show in my body language, not unlike how I'd been when I attacked him the first time.

"That is hardly a surprise, Red Sister."

"Try me. I'll remind you that you touched me first, I should get a return touch."

He finally looked more wary. "That is not a good idea."

"Then surprise me."

His lovely mouth was open; he seemed to be trying to decide what to say, when the ward on the door sounded. We both jumped.

"Enoqis?" I heard Curgia's voice through the door. "Are you awake?"

Fuck!

I scowled at the Consort—*Enoquis? Really? Surely they could do better than that!*—but he signed quickly in front of my eyes, his expression intense:

*She can break the ward if she wants. She has sometimes come in while I slept.*

Lolth damn her.

*Answer her,* I signed grudgingly. Or she would wonder why he didn't when she realized he had not been asleep.

I started moving for the dark corner where I usually entered and exited by way of his laundry shaft. A false panel just above my head led to the roof of the manor, on the back side above the garden. Someone on his balcony wouldn't be able to see me sitting up there, and the magically curved design of stone and fired clay afforded one or two blind spots even to any standing in the garden—if one knew where they were. The Red Sisters did.

"No, Mistress, I am awake. Allow me a moment, please."

I couldn't escape quite yet, though; the panel would make too much noise to move right now. Instead I pulled myself atop his wardrobe right next to the laundry shaft. Its flattop frame was solid stone, decorated high with ornate whorls of fruit and fertility signs, with sliding, fiberstalk doors of a polished, mirrored surface. I could lie down on my belly and, with my cloak and hood covering me and dampening my energy, I was invisible to the casual observer.

Auslan quickly lit two extra candles with a spark rod which, given their placement, further helped to mask me by casting longer shadows above the wardrobe and obscuring life energy from sensitive eyes with their bright, burning heat.

How ironic that more light meant that we would see less.

Curgia was allowed in, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, and I had gone very still with an internal groan. If Auslan didn't somehow persuade her to leave quickly, I could be in for a long and potentially frustrating spy.

"You are up late," she commented.

"I was awakened," he admitted, which surprised me because that was exactly what happened. I'd startled him out of reverie.

"Dreams again?" she asked. "Poor lovely."

She stroked his arms and looked at his silken, white robe that he'd used to cover himself when I'd arrived. Otherwise he slept nude—which had been pleasant to discover. She was wearing a robe, too—a rich blue—and her baby bump was obvious.

"I am having unsettling dreams as well," the Noble daughter said, still holding on to him. "Do as you have done and make me forget them for a reverie?"

"Are the techniques I taught you not working, Mistress?" he asked, his voice soft although his body language wasn't exactly melting into her.

"I've told you, use my name when we are alone, Enoquis. And I have tried but I still dream of that terrible place before you saved me from it. I feel so weak still..."

I heard the unbecoming whine in her voice. It occurred to me that she could be playing the weakness part up a bit; personally, I was not impressed by those who feigned helplessness to get what they wanted. It was a distinct quality of the privileged or the lazy. No one who made it into the Red Sisters possessed that learned quirk, or if they did, it was quickly unlearned.

The Noble's hands slid up to Auslan's collar bones and fingers slid beneath his robe as she parted it to expose more of his chest.

"Mistress...Curgia, would you like me to instruct you how—"

"No, I want you to do what you did once to save my life, do it again."

His face tensed. "I cannot, Curgia, I've said before...that's the divine influence, I cannot use it at will. Lolth saw fit to have it happen."

She kissed the skin of his chest, inhaled his scent, and moaned softly, taking his wrists and placing his hands on her swollen belly. Auslan's face was expressionless and he took little initiative, but he kept his hands were she had placed them and let her continue to taste his skin as she licked his nipples.

"This baby is yours...conceived that night, I'm sure of it. We are truly blessed, Enoquis."

"You are blessed, Curgia, your House is," he said quietly. "I have many offspring and know none of them. They are the Goddess's gifts to you, to the mothers who bear them, not to me that is just the spark. You must wean yourself from me because I won't be here much longer."

The Noble looked up angrily then and the Consort took his hands from her middle. After a moment, she reached to tug loose the knot at his waist.

"Curgia, this isn't going to help," he said, some alarm in his voice as she stripped him of his robe and pushed him toward his bed. "The more often you visit, the worse it will be later, and that will not be becoming behavior for a First Daughter."

"Be silent. We have time yet, I'm not going to waste it!"

I wished I could have left then; I didn't like entertaining thoughts of violence against a pregnant Drow just so she would leave the Consort alone. Curgia was clearly making a mistake in her judgment becoming overly attached to the sire of her child, particularly this one. But then, some of my best lapses in judgment had been both under some impairing influence and when I should have known better.

I looked around for something, anything, to distract Curgia and stop what was happening below me, but anything I could have done would be at the expense of revealing myself. She still owed me a favor—perhaps I could insist that she never entered his room again...except that I could not enforce it and, as I watched, I did begin to think that this was very...unusual behavior for one I'd been watching for a long time. I almost didn't recognize her.

Auslan had been slow in becoming erect despite her frantic fondling, so the Noble had stripped herself, showing her belly proudly, and straddled him on the bed. She ground herself on him as she reached to wrap both hands around his neck.

I already understood playing with air deprivation during sex, and generally it did help a male increase his stiffness, but there was a little too much desperation in her body language for it to be just play. Her control was not there and it was too violent. It was as if she thought: if she could not get him to give her what she needed, she would wring it from him instead.

I tensed, my eyes locked on the coupling pair as I read his signs of distress, watching for true danger. I decided I would reveal myself if she threatened his life, if his struggles weakened to a certain level, and deal with the inconvenient consequences later. I tensed.

Then the Consort did something to save himself, though I was not completely sure what. His hands left off trying to loosen his Mistress's hold around his throat and went to her belly first, stroking her like one might brush a Uroan's coat to make it shine, then one hand slipped beneath the bulge to her hidden white thatch, the other to her pregnancy-heavy breast, stroking that, the first going next from her snatch to stroking her side, her waist and back, the other her buttocks and thighs.

He couldn't speak and he was wheezing, but the touches were bizarre, deliberate and complex enough, repeated in the same order starting with the belly again—very much like a spider weaving an invisible web—that the actions themselves seemed like the cause when Curgia began to calm down, to ride him less frantically.