Iris didn’t know quite what she was going to say, or what she was going to do. Confusion pumped through her like every drop of Abacleon blood, whether she would be believed, or suspected, or… interrogated… what could she say to help him understand? Nothing came to mind, but the soft silky material battered her thighs and carried her into the bedroom of the strongest in the world.

She found him sitting up on the bed, half naked and with his forearms resting on his thighs. His voice was slow, heavy, but urgent, he didn’t look up at her. “Welcome… I’m glad. You’re here.”

Iris gently set her little leather bag aside, and then set the little pine chest down beside it. The red vials within rattled against each other, and that snapped his head up, his blue eyes were like storm clouds about to rain, a rumble in the way they shone at her, stopping Iris before she could straighten up.

“My mother… She came to see me today. She says you would kill me if you were able to… that you’re an Abacleonian whore do- doing her job.” Gottfried said, his eyes held the stormy gray of her own, and she could not move through the tide of words tumbling from his lips.

“That you couldn’t possibly care for the man who ruined your life… and I can’t pretend I didn’t. So tell me… noble of Abacleon…” Gottfried’s powerful voice fell to a whisper.

Iris, at a loss for words, could only say, “Tell you what…?” She took a step forward, regaining the power of movement.

He raised his arm with agonizing slowness and pointed, not at her, but at the little pine box, “Silphium Tea, that’s what’s in there, right?”

“It- is.” She answered and took another step closer.

“You had some today? Before coming to see me?” He asked again, his shaking hand still pointing at the box.

“I had a client before you, so it was earlier, I have enough for our-” She stopped her words, and made an effort to explain when his heavy hand fell away from the aggressive pointing gesture.

“And you screwed him?” Gottfried asked.

She put her hands on her hips, her stormy gray eyes flashed with anger at the implied insult. “What if I did? What if I did… Conqueror? Do you want some random person to-”

“I want to.” Gottfried’s sudden words stopped her dead.

“When you took it the first time, made yourself sick… you always make yourself sick just to be with me… are you just glad not to-” His eyes fluttered and his fists clenched at his sides.

‘He’s still got the effects of it in him…’ Iris realized, and she came closer, she put a hand on his shoulder and then a delicate hand beneath his iron jaw and tilted his head up. “I make my living by lying to men, every man, they think I want them, when I just get them drunk and stupid to make my owner rich. But Gottfried, if you can believe a treacherous noble of Abacleon, a wh-whore… yes, I take this to come see you. But when my owner made me take it the first time… after our first time, I felt very… very sad.”

“I doubt even you will remember everything I’m saying now, so while I can… that’s what I felt. I never once felt like you were poison in my body… and having to take that poison,” she inclined her head toward the little bottles, “hurt worse than the sickness it induced. That’s the truth, my cohort.”

“That’s why… she’s wrong, I know she is.” Gottfried’s arms went around her and pulled her forcefully into his embrace. She lost her breath for a moment.

“I don’t care… that you’re a whore… or an Abacleon… or the child of a traitor… or a slave… you’re my Iris. I don’t care… because I love you.” His words tumbled out and his hands, their accuracy lost, tore at the fabric of her garment.

Iris’ head spun as if she had consumed the opium cakes instead of him, she briefly tried to stop him, “You can’t… you can’t mean that!” She said and tried to press him back, he pulled her into his lap and his hand touched her cheek, they froze and yet he could have pulled back, she could have removed herself. But their gazes locked.

“I do… I’ve fallen in love with someone born to be my enemy… and no matter what my mother says… I would risk anything… anything, even the danger she insists you are… to never let you go!” Gottfried insisted.

Iris searched the face before her, willing there to be a lie, willing there to be an untruth she could latch onto.

There was none, ‘He means it… as he is… he really means it…’ She kissed him, fiercely, his desire rose between his thighs, ‘A champion through and through, to come through a Xanadu and still get it up.’

She tore down his pants and allowed herself to be unwrapped, she impaled herself on him as soon as she was able, their urgent desires for a union of flesh drove them to heady, violent clashing of thrusts and rutting, his hands explored her contours as if he’d never known them before, it seemed that nothing could ever have been enough.

They did not slow their constant clawing, she felt him bruise her where he grabbed, in his heady blissful state, his massive divinely gifted strength was too hard for him to control. Iris didn’t care, every hold was there to show he did not want to ever let go of her, she tasted his lips and dueled his tongue and when she felt his shaft tense when plunged as deeply as he could go within her body’s depths, she pushed herself against him in turn as hard as she could.

His groans of release and the feel of his fountaining desire within her was matched by the gushing pleasure of her loins and a release so powerful it made tears spring to her eyes.

“Gottfried… Gottfried…?” She pressed and began to touch his chest.

“Yes…” He asked and pulled her into his embrace, so that her head was nestled into his neck.

“Listen… I was trying to tell you… before, about my client from today…” Iris said, but Gottfried lifted her up to look at her face. His fingers on her lips stopped her from speaking again.

“I don’t care. I don’t care what you did with him, or anyone… I have no right to care. My mother was right about that. Where you are now… I have no right to…” His hand, which so gently touched her lips, traced down between the valley of her breasts to rest on her belly over her womb. “I didn’t know it was literally hurting you to see me… I swear I didn’t know.”

“Gottfried, listen to me…” Iris said with urgency, his hands were slow, his motions less than sure and his voice still somewhat sleepy, languorous. “The client wanted me to help kill you.”

That had Gottfried’s attention. “He had people watching, you were seen, somehow when visiting the White Stag. They caught you seeing me. They gave me a paralytic, they wanted me to slip it to you… they think they can handle Xagen and Xagin, and… a paralyzed, naked Godsheir.”

“And you were…” It was her turn to cut him off, his words stopped when her fingers were on her lips.

“No.” She said with finality, and a bitter smile touched her lips. “Traitors must betray, yes?” She sighed, “I did what I had to do to make him think I was willing to help them, that’s all. Now I’m going to betray them… or that was what I was thinking.” She slowly rose, letting his rod slip from her body as she sat up on the side of the bed.

“But I’m. Not good. In a fight. Right now.” His sluggish words were very matter of fact.

“I thought we could just… catch them but… maybe we should get you out. Your mother is in this city. Go to her for the night, I’ll stay here as a cover. Send some guards, maybe we can catch them…” Iris threw the idea out in haste, but one look at Gottfried’s face told her he doubted that would work.

“Opium cake. Can you buy me time?” He asked.

Iris clenched her jaw as she thought over a dozen scenarios.

“Yes.” She said with finality. “It’s a risk, but yes. Let me go talk to Xagen and Xagin… I can make this work.” Iris said with a confident hiss.

Gottfried let her go, and she slipped from his grasp. She went to the dark wooden wardrobe, reached in, took out a robe fit for a man and slipped it on. She tied the purple silk around herself and walked out of the room.

Gottfried couldn’t hear what she said, her words were muffled through the door, but affirmative grunts were answer enough.

When she returned, Iris asked only one question. “Where is your armor?”

“Beneath the bed…” He drawled, and she got down on hands and knees to look.

Iris calmly declared, “Just relax, I’m going to get you ready, help however you can.” She grunted and hauled the heavy scalemail armor out, tugging it from beneath the bed, she braced both of her bare feet on the floor as her muscles strained… “What is this?!” She grunted out when he began to sit up and make room for the armor to sink onto the bed.

“Mystykeel.” Gottfried explained. “Looks- like steel to the naked eye. But it’s made from a combination of- adamantite and magic drawn from platinum.” Drawn out as his words were, there was still no mistaking his pride. “Powerful, but a weight penalty. No problem, for me.”

He helped her as best he could, slow as he was, with grunt after grunt of effort, he was finally put into his mailed shirt. It seemed to take forever to get him ready for battle, the irony that he was unfit for what he was being prepared for was not lost even to his hazy and pleasure fogged mind.

“How long do you need?” Iris asked when he was finally ready.

“Hours. Less?” He shook his head, uncertain.

There was a knock at the suite, and Iris’ grey eyes filled with fear. “If they… if I… if this doesn’t work… I love you.” She said, and straightened up, the fear in her eyes became as steel, and she put him at her back to go and answer the door.