by Treva Harte
“Ouch!” He yelped as one of her hands slipped, scratching at his nipple.
“Huh.” She shuddered almost at the same time as she heard his low, shaken sigh.
He was big and sweaty and he completely filled her. His harsh gasps captured her brain, sucked the air from her own lungs. Oh, Quinn. Quinn.
He bit the lobe of her ear.
Her climax almost hurt, she came so hard. Sharp flickers of sensation swelled into pulsing waves of delight. The relief of having her own tension eased was too much. She let out another whimper and then fought for silence. As Ara gasped for air, she wondered if she would ever recover.
Quinn’s arms slid around her. His body, slick-wet and shaking, was still strong enough for her to rest against until she could think again.
Her first real thought wasn’t a sensible one. He wasn’t pushing her away. He’d wanted her that much. He still wanted her near him, even afterward. Joy splintered through her, almost as delightful as the orgasm they’d shared.
“Oh, Mighty Name.” His voice was thick, but she saw awareness start to hit him, too, as he let her slide down his body, still keeping her tightly against him. His eyes widened a second. “We’re on the path in the middle of camp.”
He wasn’t pushing her away even now. Even though he knew what they’d done. For a moment that was all Ara could think. Then Ara drew in a quick breath. “Oh, Goddess! Anyone could have seen us.”
They stared at each other, the shock almost giving her enough strength to stand alone. What had they been thinking?
About mating, of course. Ara gathered her wits. They were done with that now. He was still the enemy. Where had they been before ‑‑ before they acted? She’d needed to ask him something.
“Save you? How are we to save you?” Ara touched his face. He was still the enemy, of course, but since she was now feeling less inclined to rage, she could see he could use comfort.
“You’re valuable merchandise to us. With the price you’ll bring I can afford some of the medicine your people have. Your armies came and let loose a plague on us. We’re dying by inches but no one will let us buy the antidote unless we can get it illegally. Bribes are expensive.” Quinn refused to look at her but his hands stayed on her shoulders. Perhaps she wouldn’t slap him for the merchandise comment. After all, he’d just said he was…no, she wouldn’t believe he could be so sick. Not when he’d just shown how strong he could be.
“And so you’ll sell us? Throw us all to Goddess knows who as long as they have enough money?”
“I intend to save those I can. So far my own house hasn’t been decimated only because it is so far away from where most of the disease rages. But it already creeps in. My soldiers caught it from others. So have I. My people won’t be killed if I can stop it. I owe that to my House. I mean, to my mother’s House.”
“What is this disease? And what is the medicine? Maybe Jewel has it. She’s a healer.” Ara bit her tongue. She shouldn’t help him. He was the enemy. She shouldn’t single Jewel out, either. Goddess, the man had shaken her wits with sex.
The rain that had fallen in small drops here and there, too lightly for them to notice while they were absorbed in each other, now began to fall harder. Ara wiped water from her eyes.
Quinn ignored the rain. He looked up, directly at her at last. “Bring her to me.”
He was emotionless. Back to being the leader. The other, passionate Quinn ‑‑ the one she dreamed of at night ‑‑ was gone.
What did he have planned for Jewel? Ara knew it would do her no good to ask now.
Too late for second thoughts. Ara nodded, silently, inwardly cursing her own folly.
* * * * *
“Greetings, Ka. I’ve been waiting all day to see you.”
Ka looked up into the mirror, pausing before he put on his whitening skin crème. His eyelids already shaded purple, his lashes heavily sprinkled with silver color. He stared into the reflection, surveying the man who stood behind him.
“Greetings to you, darling man.” His voice held no inflection. His face was as devoid of expression as if he had already heavily painted a mask on his face. “I’m touched, truly. But somehow I don’t think your eagerness to see me is quite the same as those who usually pay for my time.”
He circled the round lid of his makeup jar with the index finger of his right hand, idly tracing the edges of the container over and over. The man glanced down then back up again.
“I’m not here for pleasure.”
“You came for pain then, my man?” Ka’s smile was almost as wide and just as unwelcoming as the legendary crocodile’s.
“I came to talk to you. For my master.”
“For your master. I see.” Ka tilted his head to the other side, opening another glittering bottle and began to apply white base to one cheek. “You’re a fearsome big dog, but bitches like me know how to tame dogs like you. Be kind to yourself. Just go run and tell your master that I don’t need his protection. I can’t be frightened into it. I certainly don’t intend to pay for it.”
“You took his diamond.”
“I worked for his diamond. He didn’t want to pay for my efforts. I can’t help that.” Ka smoothed the paint down.
The thug laid his hand on Ka’s shoulder.
“Hands off my merchandise, darling.” Ka’s voice went lower.
“It’s not yours any more. Whore.”
Ka whirled, flinging the jar’s contents into the intruder’s face. The man stumbled back, waving at his eyes. A half second later, Ka had twisted the knife from his assailant and placed it against the man’s balls.
“Hasty words lead to such ugly actions.” Ka whispered the words almost lovingly in his ear before he bellowed, “You, out there! Come in.”
The two men who lurked outside were as big as the man Ka held motionless against him. All three stilled when Ka snapped the fingers of his free hand.
“Tell Bran the diamond is gone. If he sends any more pathetic attempts to get it back, things will go worse for him and them.” Ka let his knife hand slide, just a quarter inch. “Because I’m kind, I’ll only cut off one nut. This time. It’s so small and useless, you’ll barely miss it.”
Ka’s apartment was sound proofed. He hated to disturb the neighbors with the noise some of his clients could make. But perhaps it was just as well that another torrential storm hit the City of Thieves at that moment. The sound of the thunder covered any other noise.
* * * * *
“Well then? Can you do anything for me?” Quinn forced the words from his throat. He’d never been questioned, prodded and scrutinized by a female. Certainly not the way this thin, unsmiling female did.
“No. It’s incurable.”
Ara gasped.
“All right then.” Quinn stared down at his hands, refusing to accept Ara’s grief or show any of his own. “Can you do anything for the others?”
“No, fool. I mean you’re an idiot. I’m afraid that’s incurable. This? I can clear it up easily enough.”
His chest hurt suddenly. He wasn’t going to cry. Not over this. Was he?
“How?” Ara cut in, her voice as anxious as his would have been, if he could talk at all.
“He has a mix of what in ancient times they called camp fever. Maybe a touch of malaria but I think not. Idiot men. They have no idea how to care for themselves. I don’t doubt scores of them are dropping throughout the globe. All that’s needed will be a few greens, some quinine to make sure…and rest.”
It sounded too easy. Then again, when was the last time they’d eaten a real meal? Really rested? It had been back at his mother’s House.
Home.
Quinn let a shock of home hunger run through him. He could allow himself that feeling at last, now that he might actually see his family again. “I can go home then.”
By rights, he should be a familyless bastard. His mother could have thrown him away after her rape, refusing to acknowledge him. Crispus and his brothers could have rejected him. He’d p
rided himself on not needing any of them when he left to soldier. Of course he hadn’t. They’d already provided for him as a child, then taught him to be a man who could manage for himself. Without their care, he’d have been nothing. He didn’t need them. Now that he’d proven that, he was simply proud to be considered one of them.
The woman was right. He’d been an incurable idiot for years. But he could learn.
“Let’s start with the quinine. I have some in my supplies. Ara, do you still have some of the sallet you made for our dinner? Feed it to him.”
Sallets. Who know what other delicacies they had? They ate better than he and his men did. He should have known that his idiocy extended to more than his family. The women were living their own separate lives, doing pretty much what they wanted, even while his men thought they had captured them. Quinn wondered if he should try to assert his authority.
Over a woman who was going to save his life and another who had made him lose all control not an hour before? Truly, he was stupid, but perhaps not that stupid.
“Thank you. You can go.” The world was graying in front of him. He wasn’t going to pass out at their feet. Some shred of his leadership had to remain.
He heard the rustling noise that meant feminine departure but couldn’t see through the haze of his own weakness.
“Quinn?”
Ara hadn’t obeyed him. Of course she wouldn’t.
“Stay. Here.” Just her voice sent out a shimmer of silver, piercing through the gray. Quinn wanted to cry. He wasn’t even sure why ‑‑ for the others who had died? For himself, who had done so many ruthless things only to gain an answer that seemed almost too easy?
“I’ll stay.”
Perhaps he should weep for Ara, because she was a hostage to him now, when he wanted her to be with him freely. Hostage or not, he wanted her to stay anyway. The ribboned silver wrapped around him, scattering a shiver of lust through his whole body.
If he wasn’t dying, everything was different. He could be different.
Some of his blind stupidity was gone at last. Without it, and given the hope of good health, he could envision a House of his own now. He corrected himself. A House of his wife’s own… A wife. Children. His future. A Bellizan life he’d thought beyond him.
”Bellizans know when they’re suitably mated, even if they marry for practical reasons. My family is odd, though no odder than some. We see auras reflected from our rightful mate. When Crispus was introduced to me…I knew.”
”I’m only half Bellizan. Perhaps I’ll see nothing.”
“That, my dear, is something you’ll know in the future.”
His mother had told him, but had only hinted how strongly it could affect one of her House. Perhaps it was different for him, half-Bellizan, half-bastard Sylvanian. But Sacred Name, Ara affected him. He could let himself believe that now.
It wasn’t impending death that had made his vision change, made the colors dance before him. It was Ara.
His mate?
She wasn’t Bellizan. He’d longed to have a proper wife. To be totally absorbed into his Mother’s world when he married. Was that such a wrong thing to want? A wife-decision wasn’t just for him. He had obligations if he proposed a wife to his House. He had his half-brothers.
Many half-brothers. Quinn’s fingers twitched. Ara would have to be suitable for them all.
No doubt they’d agree if he brought her before them. Most men agreed to any woman who was proposed for their bride. She didn’t look like them, but it wouldn’t matter. Odd, ill-tempered or foolish, what the bride was wouldn’t matter. Not to men who had never had a woman before. There were so few women left in the world that any woman was a prize. She’d be their wife. Lust-driven idiots. They’d throw themselves on her ‑‑
They would do what Bellizans did when they were fortunate enough to achieve a wife who the present Lady of the House sanctioned. They married her. They honored their wife with their lives, their labor and their bodies. They had children by her, if fortune was good. Ara hadn’t borne children before this, but with some real men to aid her, Quinn was sure she would be able to have many sons. Perhaps she might even have a daughter.
So what if the thought of many men made him oddly uncomfortable?
In any House, no one knew which one of the men actually sired the Lady’s children. It didn’t matter. All children of the House had one mother, many fathers.
If he could persuade Ara to share his life, he would have to share her with others. “Ara?”
Was he willing to try to woo her to become his House’s wife? She’d say no. What alien woman considered life in Belliza? Bah. He could change her mind.
“What are you thinking, Quinn? I’m never sure.”
What was he thinking? She smiled at him, looking just a little uncertain, and once again, just from the sight of her, he was sure of his thoughts.
“You’ll live here in my tent.” He’d made rules about the men staying away from the women. This was different. Ara was going to be his wife. He’d known that when she accepted him into her body. When he spilled his seed inside her. She’d be his wife, not some enemy hostage to be hurt and cast aside. Not someone left pregnant and alone. He was more than his father. He’d honor her.
Eventually he might even know she bore his child. His alone.
“Your --” Ara swallowed. “What of all your fine words before this? About how we were to be treated carefully?”
“I will treat you with utmost care. But I can say finer words than those. Will you engage yourself to me?”
“Engage? What is that?”
He’d asked Ara the most important question a woman could be given and she didn’t know what he meant. Zzzzz. Then again he’d have to wean her from her own land’s foolish customs. Why would a woman be willing to mate with any man who won a contest? His ways were better. More settled. Held the woman in greater esteem. She’d learn.
He’d wait to explain that engagements were finalized by the current Lady of the House. He’d have enough problem explaining marriage to Ara.
Before any explanations, they’d mate. Over and over. Until she knew she had no choice. Just as he had none. Quinn licked his lips, just barely kept himself from shuddering with desire as Ara watched his mouth, looking fascinated.
Oh yes. The taste of Ara had settled on his tongue and mouth. She was addictive. He wanted more. Would want more and more until their lives ended many years from now.
No, there could be no other choice. Not after he first saw her. To think differently had just been another lie he’d told himself.
“Stay with me. I’ll show you, Ara.”
“Show me what?”
“Everything.”
Silver shimmered, almost blinding him. Ara tilted her head, staring at him. “I’d like that.”
She touched his hand. Without thinking twice, Quinn took her palm and kissed it. He’d seen his fa ‑‑ seen Crispus do that a million times to his mother.
“So would I. As my wife ‑‑ as wife to our House ‑‑ anything you want of us, we would be honored to do. I can begin showing you tonight.”
“I ‑‑ I’ll bring you some sallet. We need to make you healthy so you can show me.”
* * * * *
“It’s Sixth Day.” Domini stood up as she made the announcement. Her men kneeled.
They were all getting older now. Blessed Mother, so was she. But they were still in their prime ‑‑ tall, broad-shouldered, and ferociously able to defend her and all that was hers. Her warriors.
“Very well then.” There were five left now, since Oscar had died of the foreign fever. Four brothers, one cousin who had been taken in when his mistress was gathered. “Crispus.”
Crispus looked up, unsmiling. She always chose him first, above the others. If the others resented it, they never let it show. He was the man closest to her heart. Always. She had established the pattern long ago. Each man had their night with her. Who stayed with her on Sixth Day was up to her entirely.<
br />
She looked at the other four. They kept their eyes lowered, respectfully. Except for Crispus, she tried to show no favorites. Who had she picked last anyhow?
“Hawke.” He looked up quickly, his slight smile betraying his eagerness, before he hastily lowered his head again. It was nice to know she could still evoke that reaction. His need, like the other men’s, created her own power. But his need also created her own duties to him ‑‑ to them all.
Hawke was quieter than some of the others. Slower to take offense. She would hate to overlook such a good man. She’d made a wise choice in taking him this time.
“Look at me, sir.”
“You honor me, my mistress.” Hawke raised his head, eyes gleaming.
“Nonsense. You and Crispus are my honored choice for Sixth Day.” She held out both hands. Her two men kissed them, Hawke to her left and Crispus at her right. “Come to my bedroom.”
They all knew the beginnings of their mating so well that it was close to a ritual. Domini lit the aromatic candle. Its warm scent always evoked sex to her. Crispus unfastened the hook at her gown. It gaped open, sliding down one shoulder. He kissed the hollow of her shoulder, softly.
“May I?” Hawke stepped forward, removed the fabric that still clung to her hips.
She was naked, but for the glittering gems at her ears, throat and hands. The jewelry showed her authority, the riches her House had to command. The ornaments she still wore were more important than the clothing. She was Domini, Mistress of her House.
Mistress of the two men who waited before her.
“Strip.” She kept her voice soft but authoritative. In this, as in all things, she had a duty to perform. A welcomed duty, but a duty nonetheless.
Her men pulled their clothing off. Beautiful. They were beautiful. All this time and the sight of their strong bodies, muscled from fighting and work, still made her quiver.
Narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered. Crispus was lightly furred, the hair growing silver in patches. Hawke was almost hairless, his skin gleaming as the light of the candle flickered.