Tiger Prince

"Presently." He moved the mask down and brushed it lightly back and forth over her lower abdomen.

She felt a hot tingling begin between her thighs. Not again, she told herself despairingly. Lie still. Don't give him any more response than he can take from you.

"Zabrie was very clever. She knew that in a house of pleasure a man doesn't care who a woman is as long as she gives him what he wants," he murmured. "There's nothing more anonymous than a mask, is there, Jane?"

She didn't answer.

He moved over her, parted her thighs, and entered her again, sliding slowly to the hilt. "Ah, you're ready for me. I thought you would be. You're proving very accommodating." He placed the feathered mask on her face and leisurely tied the velvet cords behind her head before arranging her hair to fan around her on the pillow. He sat quite still, gazing at her. "You look quite splendidly erotic." His tone was mocking, but his voice had thickened, hoarsened.

Sweet heaven, she was clenching around him.

"And evidently that's also how you feel." He smiled faintly. "I approve. That's how a woman of pleasure should feel and behave. You're learning fast, Jane. When we've taken the edge off this, I'll give you another lesson." He began to move with excruciating, teasing slowness. He whispered, "There are many other purposes and places for feathers than the obvious."

"You didn't do it right," Jane murmured as she gazed at the window through which the first gray light of dawn was begi

"Really?" Ruel gathered her closer, his fingers idly toying with her red hair spread across his shoulder. "I | would never have known it by your response."

"Oh, you made me feel . . ." She trailed off. He already knew how he had made her feel during these last hours. Possessed, completely in his power, bent to his will like a twig in a windstorm. Her body ached with that possession, and yet she knew he could arouse her again if he chose to do so. Yet, gradually, she had begun to realize something that had filled her with infinite relief. "But I'm not afraid of you anymore."

"I didn't know you ever were."

"I think you did. I'm not very clever about hiding my feelings." She gazed unseeingly at the patterns of pale sunlight on the royal-blue and cream carpet. "But you didn't know why."

"Are you going to tell me?"

She whispered, "I was afraid you'd make me love you again."

He stiffened. "Love?"

"I did love you ... a long time ago. I was afraid it would come back."

"I'm sure that possibility no longer exists."

"No, it's gone now. I feel hollow inside, as if I had been filled with sand and it had all poured out of me."

"A great relief, no doubt."

"Yes, it would have been terrible. I thought for a while back in Kasanpore that you could be—"

"I could be what?"

"It doesn't matter." Nothing seemed to matter. She felt as if she were floating. Fever? she wondered. She would have to remember to take her quinghao tomorrow morning. . . .

"On the contrary, I find this confession of devotion fascinating."

"You were so different from me, different from anyone I'd ever known. I used to think of you as one of those Chinese mandarins."

"What the hell is a mandarin?"

"Li Sung says they're men of power in China. In ancient days some of them gained their influence with the emperors through magic."

"I'm hardly a magician."

"No one else had ever made me feel like you did. But you also made me feel . . . helpless." She whispered, "I was afraid you'd turn me into her."

"Your mother?"

"Yes, I guess I've always been afraid that I really belonged in one of those places and fate was only waiting to find a way to pull me back." She smiled sadly. "What better tool could fate use than a mandarin? But now I know you can't do that. It's only my body, not my mind. You can't really change what I am. When I leave here I'll be the same person I was when I came. I've cheated you, Ruel."

"Don't be too sure. I've only just begun."

"But it's too late now. You might have succeeded if you'd done it right, if you'd made me remember the old days." Her gaze shifted to the crumpled mask on the bedside table. "Silk curtains and scented rooms . . . exotic feather masks. That's not what I remember, that's not what I've been afraid of all these years."

"It seems I've been remiss in my preparations. Would you care to tell me a few of those fond memories?"

"Sheets that smell of dirt and sweat and urine, the red glass bowl of the opium pipe my mother smoked, watching Frenchie counting the money . . ." She closed her eyes. "I'm very tired. May I go to sleep now?"

"Aren't you afraid I'll try to duplicate those charming surroundings now that you've confided in me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. You're not—" She was so tired, she could barely think, much less talk. "You're not Frenchie."

"Thank God." He didn't speak for a moment and then said lightly, "As it happens, I'm much too fond of my own comforts these days to want to undergo that ordeal. I'll have to find another way of accomplishing my ends."

"It's too late. I'm not afraid anymore. You can't hurt me if I don't feel anything for you. I'm free of you, Ruel."

He ran his hands through her hair. "Are you?"

"Yes, I know what I am now. . . ."

She was asleep.

Ruel's hands ran slowly through her hair again.

You didn't do it right.

He had to ignore the picture she had drawn for him with those few sentences. He would not let pity turn him from his purpose. The punishment he had chosen for her was trifling in comparison to what she had let happen to Ian.

He had hurt her as he had told her he would; he had made her feel used, without dignity or pride, a mindless object of lust and pleasure.

No, she had not been without dignity even at the end. She had just kept her word and given whatever he asked of her. He hadn't expected anything else. She had never broken faith since the day he had met her.

Except when she had built the bridge over Lanpur Gorge. She had traded in iron instead of steel and Ian had been the one to suffer for it. If she had to falter, why the hell couldn't it have been at some other time, some other place. He could have forgiven anything but what had happened to—

Forgiven? It was too late for forgiveness between them. He had taken his revenge and would take it again until it was time for her to leave. What he had done was just. It was not right for Ian to suffer and no one else.

I know myself now, she had said.

But did he know himself? Did he know how much of what had happened tonight was revenge and how much the fever of lust? The more he had of her, the more starved he became.

Starved and enchained. At times he had felt more enslaved than Jane during these past hours.

He would get over it. The first wild burst of passion was always the strongest. By the time she left the summerhouse, he would surely slake himself of both lust and revenge.

I don't love you anymore.

I'm free of you.

He pulled her closer with a movement unconsciously possessive. She murmured something inaudible into his shoulder and was asleep again.

He did not sleep for another two hours. He was too filled with anger and frustration and— It was not pity. You didn 't do it right. . . .