The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(72)

"It is a matter of courtesy. But perhaps as the elder, I should begin. I am Ilianwe."

"My name is Erishen."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Erishen." She smiled and said something in what sounded like a skrayling tongue.

"I am sorry. I remember little of our language. My transition was… painful."

That at least was no lie. The nightmares still troubled him from time to time, even now that he understood what they meant.

"No, it is I who should apologise," she said. "I was so glad to learn that another of my kind was in the city, I just thought…" She sighed. "You are not her."

Mal smiled. "Not her, certainly."

She smiled back. "Have you ever been female? Or are you one of those who prefers to be the same sex each lifetime?"

"I cannot remember."

"No matter. Though you really should try being female one day. These human bodies–" she guided his hands to her waist "–are pleasingly soft."

Before he could reply she shifted on the chaise and straddled his lap, draping her hands over his shoulders. Her breasts were level with his eyes now, and the silken curves of flesh spoke to his need more eloquently than words.

"No," he whispered. "I am pledged to another." He wasn't sure why he said it. He and Coby had exchanged no betrothal vows; indeed she rejected him at every turn. And yet he had always hoped…

"Then you are fortunate." She looked away but did not abandon her seat on his lap. "My amayi is dead. I am the last of our kind here in Venice."

Relief washed over him. If she was telling the truth, at least he did not have to worry about dealing with two guisers at once. The one in front of him was handful enough. Two hands full, at least. He chided himself for this unseemly thought, but she was after all very beautiful and he had been chaste these many months.

"When I die," she went on, "I must take my chances and hope to survive childhood, unprotected and unguided. Have you ever died in childhood?"

Mal shook his head. An odd question anywhere else, but here with her it made perfect sense.

"I have, many times. Plague, most often, though once my careless nurse let me fall into a canal and drown."

She spoke so matter-of-factly, but Mal could see the pain and loneliness in her eyes.

"How long have you been alone?"

"One hundred and forty-seven years," she said without hesitation. "My amayi was assassinated by a political rival. A human." She spat out the word.

"When did you come to Venice?"

"Four centuries ago, near enough. We fled to England after the Birch Men tried to sell us as slaves, but that was not far enough. They were everywhere in those days. Then we found this little group of islands in a lagoon, in a forgotten corner of Christendom. And so we made our home here."

She began to unbutton his doublet.

"Why don't you take this off?" she murmured.

"The doublet?"

"That too."

He slipped his hands under her skirts and up her thighs, expecting to feel the soft folds of stocking tops and then bare flesh, but instead his fingertips encountered smooth silken fabric, loose but enclosing, like–

"Breeches?"

She smiled and stood up, raising her skirts to waistheight to reveal rose-coloured breeches, like a boy's. Like Coby's. Mal shoved the guilty thought aside. This was business, even if it promised pleasure.

"Why do you think they call them Venetians?" Olivia said. "Even we women wear them, to protect our virtue."

Mal parted his knees so that he could pull her between them, and began unfastening the points that held the silken breeches in place. At last the flimsy garment fell away, sliding over the graceful curve of her hips to the floor. Mal swallowed as his prick stirred more insistently. Olivia ran her fingertips over his groin, making him gasp, then she unbuttoned his slops and tugged the waist-string of his drawers loose. As soon as his prick was free she climbed astride him once more and caught his gaze with her own as she lowered herself onto him. Gritting his teeth in an effort at self-control, he pulled her closer and bent his head to her bosom, tongue slipping between bodice and flesh to seek out her nipple like a bee questing for nectar. Sweet Mother of God, it's been too long…

"Take this out, and we can be as one," she whispered, fingering the pearl in his ear.

He made an affirmative noise, and felt her deftly unfasten his earring one-handed. He tensed, expecting some kind of magical assault. Nothing, only the warmth of her lips on his earlobe, her teeth nipping the edge of his ear… With a groan of pleasure he surrendered to the moment.

The world dissolved around him, not into the darkness of the dreamworld he knew so well, but a sunny glade by a brook. He and Olivia twined naked in the grass, the sun warm on their flesh. Above them, red and gold leaves fluttered in the breeze. She rolled over on top of him, silhouetted against the light. Her hair was short and spiky now, like Kiiren's… Mal's stomach constricted as he gazed up at her. Greyish skin and slit-pupilled yellow eyes. A skrayling. He pulled away.

"No!"

"What is wrong, my love?" She looked around the glade. "This is your dream, not mine."

"What have you done to me? Have you been haunting me from afar?"