Shock.
He needed to remember that she was not accustomed to battle. Her first encounter with the Fragment had resulted in her father being killed in front of her. The second was with Calia. And with the third, her innocence had been tarnished against her will.
Maddoc drew her against him. He breathed soft words against her ear. “You were brave. We can escape this place, but I need one more thing from you, one more brave thing, my Evie.”
She whipped her head back and forth in denial. Taking her face in both his hands, cradling it like a delicate egg of exquisite worth, he said, “I can kill them all, but I must have you act as catalyst.”
Evie's heart sank.
Finally, she nodded and stepped away from him. They regarded one another, and Maddoc knew that what he asked might steal her away from him.
Yet she would live.
And protection trumped love. If she would not love him, Maddoc would at least have done his duty to protect her.
Love might find her again, but it would not have that chance if she were dead.
Evie walked to the opening and stepped out of the tent.
She saw six Fragment sitting around a fire in various stages of drunken vileness and digression. Evie moved toward them.
Evie lowered the undergarment and felt the whore. She also felt terror like ice on her spine.
Behind her, Maddoc watched, his heart racing in anger and fear for her.
He did not entertain failure, his eyes nailed to the blade of his long sword.
He must wait until all six found their way to his future mate.
That was… if Evie would still have him after what he’d forced her to endure.
*
Clara ran her fingers over her embossed Wedded Joining invitation and sighed. The event was but a scant two months away, and yet things were in such turmoil she did not know if it could come to fruition.
Matthew came up behind her and slid his strong arms around her smallness. He loved that she was no longer rail-thin and felt safe enough to eat with her dreadful false mother and prince no longer there to hurt her. She was not running from Travelers or Fragment but secure in her own sphere with her intended.
“Do not think of postponing our joining,” Matthew said softly, pressing a soft kiss to the silken flesh beneath her ear.
She shivered, and his body responded to the delicate trembling of her need, which matched his own. “It will always be tumultuous, ruling this many, with the climate of this new world changing all around us. I wish to hold the burden alongside you. It should not be only your struggle.”
Matthew kissed Clara again. He moved her hair to the side, pecking a trail like a necklace of invisible pearls across where the top of her neckline met the swell of her neck.
She groaned when he swung her around and took her mouth.
The invitation fluttered to the ground as Matthew assaulted her worries with his lips and stole the sounds of Clara's passion from her mouth.
After dotting a solid kiss on his full lips, Clara lifted her mouth from his and stepped back. “You are right.”
“I hear hesitation,” Matthew said, alternating kisses and small nips under her jaw that caused her breath to come faster. He slid his hands down to her narrow ribcage, holding her still while he worked back and forth underneath her delicate jaw.
Clara nodded, head tipped back to give him better access. His kisses were like silken wings of butterflies, soft, insistent, and perfect. They made her long for more. She entwined one leg around his, her skirt falling away.
Matthew never paused, taking the leg that rode his thigh and lifting her up with a palm at her behind, as her other leg wound itself around his back.
“Clara,” he breathed. “You make it so I cannot wait for the joining.”
Clara gave a soft chuckle into his mouth as she grabbed his smooth face between her hands. His golden-brown hair swung forward like a curtain to shroud their passion.
“I know,” she replied and dove at his mouth again. “Maybe we should not wait?”
Matthew raised an eyebrow.
His passion had not cooled, but his intellect reasserted itself.
He placed Clara on the small writing desk and met her earnest gaze. Moving a hand over the bare skin of her chest, he traced her collarbone with one finger.
He stopped in the hollow where the trapped bird of her heart beat frantically, meeting her eyes.
She peered at him from beneath her long lashes. “I have heard a word that has been used infrequently.”
Matthew paused, her heartbeat underneath his fingertips.
Clara had his curiosity peaked, and Matthew refrained from kissing those full lips once more, though they begged for his attentions.
He clenched his hands to keep from tearing off her clothes as she sat there like a fruit ripe for the taking.
“Elopement,” she whispered, grabbing his hand.
She planted a kiss in the center of his palm, her red hair falling forward to obscure the view, but he still felt the heat of her breath against his flesh. She turned his palm over and stroked the top of it with her soft cheek.
“I do not think I can wait to feel you against me. Inside me.”
His basest nature roared up inside him, the feel of their union screaming for him to have her, to make Clara his.
Matthew set his jaw.
He could hardly endure her delicate body pressed against the proof of passion he was unable to camouflage. “What does this… elopement mean?” he asked as she continued the subtle torture of her mouth against his hand.
“That we join now, in secret. Then later in ceremony.”
Matthew waited for the caveat. When none came, he asked, “Truly?”
Clara nodded, her clear turquoise eyes steady on his. “On my word.”
Matthew said nothing, so bombarded with complex emotions he could not find one to assign at present.
Clara's face screwed up in question.
“What say you?” she asked.
Matthew grinned, erasing that puzzled look from her face like sun through a cloud.
“Yes.”
They held each other for the last time apart.
For soon, they would be one.
CHAPTER 16
Dale
Dale sucked the juices off his fingers. The feathers had been tucked into a bag for a girl to clean then use for the travel bedrolls.
Dale had always been partial to pheasant, and after a satisfying acquisition, he was all kinds of pleased to sit on his ass and eat until he could stuff himself no more. As a matter of fact, he was currently stuffed to the gills.
Dale laughed at his own cleverness, thinking of the huge Band they had strung up.
Those Band got quite enthusiastic about their women. In all his time, he had only captured one other.
It had taken ten Fragment to subdue the Band when they began on his woman. That had been a night to remember, and not in the best way, though Dale would never show it. He was personally careful never to touch or enter into the sport with a female of the Band. Too risky.
Dale only did what he had to in order to survive as a hidden mixed-blood amongst the Fragment.
Dale laughed at something Harold said. Harold was a dull tool, but every so often, the jackass would say something that lifted the foul spirits of their nomadic existence.
Trading and violence were the gypsy ways of their group.
It had been six months since they had captured the last female, and she had been too young even for them. They were using her as a servant, and when her menses was upon her, they would make her into a breeder or sell her at auction.
A twig snapped, and Dale eyes pierced the gloom. The bone he'd licked damn near clean dropped out of his loose grip and rolled into the perimeter of ash around the fire.
The girl had somehow escaped her bindings. Dale froze.
This one has the blood of the Band in her veins.
Some couldn't sense it. Dale was one of that tiny percentage t
o have enough Band blood to cause a strange burning inside him when close to another of the Band. Genetic recognition, some called it.
Dale wouldn't admit to his ability. Confessing such could mean losing his standing amongst the Fragment or possibly his life.
He also felt the powerful urge to protect. He could be brought low to one who carried the blood of the Band. He usually made a point of avoiding any female suspected of carrying that precious blood. He wasn’t sure he could fight his instinct.
Dale gave a hard gulp and stood.
Her nakedness was the only thing he could see. Her beauty and fragility made that primitive drop or two of mixed heritage rise in his brain like an imperative command. Understood but unuttered.
The others turned to see what had gotten his attention. Their eyes filled with lust.
Dale's shoulders dropped. They would ravage her, as he wanted to do. But his urge to protect was stronger.
It did not matter that Dale would die in the doings of it. He could not help but give his life to save hers.
Evie took stock of the Fragment and felt her heart constrict inside her chest. They would have her. Only one of them looked unsure.
She made a split decision and raced toward that one.
Dale saw the female coming, her perfect breasts swinging with her gait, and he tore his eyes away. He knew what he must do.
He unsheathed his dagger and spun, plunging it into the Fragment he'd just broken bread with.
Harold staggered forward, his hand brushing Dale's tunic. He moved backward and grabbed the female's small wrist.
Dale put the female behind him and readied for a battle against an insane male. Like a possessed demon, the huge man charged. He took the head off one of the Fragment with a broad sword then came straight for them.
“Maddoc!” Evie yelled as a blade sank into Maddoc's back.
Maddoc turned and stabbed his attacker.
The entrails of the Fragment slid out as Maddoc's blade exited his body.
The smell of raw meat hit Evie's nose, and she vomited as the sounds of splashing innards rendered to gore reached her ears.
The music of death played all around her.
“Let her loose, Fragment, or join the others!” Maddoc ordered.
Evie looked up at the Fragment gripping her wrist. The fire lit his face in profile. His eyes held manic glee. Maddoc raised his long sword like a gavel of justice when the Fragment did not immediately release her.
Evie put up a hand to stay him.
“Maddoc, no!”
The blade trembled in the air for a moment. Then Maddoc brought it down. The tension of the metal sang as it made its way toward the Fragment who held her.
The Fragment arched his back, causing the blow to swing past them. “I will not harm her, Band.”
Maddoc bared his teeth and advanced.
Though no small man, the Fragment male was no match in size to Maddoc.
Evie began to cry as the Fragment again moved to stand between her and Maddoc.
Maddoc paused, sensing the blood inside the Fragment.
The Fragment said, “I have a horse. Take it.”
Maddoc let the blade fall to his side. A burning in his upper back like a kiss of fire distracted him. And Evie wept.
“Get ye gone,” Maddoc said, reaching for Evie.
“No, what do ya plan to do to the girl?” the Fragment asked, even as his restless eyes scaled the darkness.
Maddoc frowned.
“Do? Why, naught, vagrant!” Maddoc said, his hand coming down in a chop to the man's wrist.
The Fragment immediately released Evie. She raised the shredded bodice to cover her nakedness.
Maddoc swayed, and Evie ran to him. She turned to the stout Fragment, making a snap judgment. “Get your steed and let us be gone from this place.”
Maddoc nudged her. “Leave me, Evie. Take the horse and go far from here.”
“You stupid male, I shall not leave you,” Evie said through her tears. The Fragment advanced toward her with a stealth that was not of his people. There was something ghostlike about him, something familiar.
Then it hit her. He was part Band and disguising it well. He was meatier and shorter than full Band and lacked the refined yet brutal edge to his features, but his Band-ness roamed like an echo about his body. He had too much Band blood to attack her.
How dreadful to live as Band amongst the Fragment. But Evie was aware that such situations occurred more than they knew.
The Fragment blurted, “I am called Dale.” He fetched the nearby horse and led it to Maddoc, who looked like a man who had partaken of many cups.
She and Dale landed Maddoc on the back of the horse, his belly across its back and his head and legs draped.
Blood seeped through Maddoc’s shirt, and Evie slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the hysterics at bay.
“He won't pitch over and die,” Dale said with a tight smile.
Evie raised her eyebrows. She was not entirely sure of what he had said.
Dale frowned. Then, taking a furtive glance around, he said, “Let's go.”
Evie might have had a hard time understanding his words, but the meaning was clear.
Dale pulled the horse to the outskirts of the camp. He stopped at the Fragment's temporary stable.
Dale whistled, talking softly as he approached the horses so they wouldn't startle and ruin his escape.
He had no options. He would have to leave and place himself at the mercy of new people.
He grabbed the reins of a second horse and turned to the female. He realized she was hardly more than a girl, and he swallowed hard.
She was old enough to be sold.
He handed her the reins.
He threw a woolen blanket and a strap over the horse.
He tightened the strap then lifted her onto the horse’s back. She seemed to weigh almost nothing. Evie looked down at him, finding every wound he had endured within the horrible Fragment.
“I am Evie.”
Evie quickly glanced around, her terror so real she could taste it. “Let us be gone from here.”
Dale began to lead the horses away from the camp. He would not ride until they were farther afield.
Evie clutched the remnants of her clothing to her breasts. She did not trust the mixed-blood Fragment, but Maddoc lay as though dead atop the borrowed steed, and she had no other choice.
When they were a mile away, Dale helped her down from the horse and indicated that he wished to remove the dagger from Maddoc’s back. Evie looked at Maddoc and knew they must. She certainly couldn’t do it. At her nod, Dale grasped the handle. The blade came free with a sucking sound.
Evie wanted to scream and cry, but she had to be brave. She ripped the hem from her skirt and made a makeshift dressing. With Dale’s help, she tied the material over the wound.
Afterward, Dale reseated Evie on the horse and mounted behind her.
Maddoc opened his eyes. “You hurt her, and you shall die.”
Dale laughed, pulling the reins to the left.
“And you're going to stay put, Band. One, you're not in any condition to make threats. Maddoc glowered at him. Two, if I had wanted to hurt this female, I could have easily done so, as well as kill you.”
Dale shook his head. “I am like all Fragment—opportunistic. But I see something better and I'm taking it. And right now, there's nothing you can do to stop me.”
Dale's gaze narrowed on Maddoc. “You best remember that, Band.”
Maddoc grimaced as he tried to right himself on the animal. He could not refute the Fragment’s charge. Maddoc had been weakened by his wound. The Fragment had helped them, unbelievable as that was, but they were headed in the right direction—away from the other Fragment, and if Evie had her say, to Clara's sphere.
Maddoc was grateful but cautious. After all, it was against the nature of the Fragment to assist.
They were known only to conquer.
That the man had Band blood runn
ing through his veins was no small thing. Most likely, he was unable to bring himself to hurt Evie. At least, that was the answer that set best with Maddoc. There was no other that would do.
The Fragment took. That was who they were. They did not give or show mercy.
Maddoc was thinking all those thoughts when he lost the battle to his fatigue. The healing of his body took over, forcing sleep on him.
When the faintly glowing sphere came into view, Evie thought it the best sight she had ever seen.
Tears trailed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin, wetting the hands of the man who held the reins of the horse.
Dale pressed his heels into the horse's side, and they began the descent into a valley that held the strangeness of the sphere-dwellers.
*
Elise had much to acquaint herself with and found she could do none of it out of the shadow of Adahy.
His protection did not steal the sunlight as true darkness would but allowed the warmth of hope to cast its glow on her as she made new discoveries in the days since they had arrived in this strange place.
Elise entered the animal sanctuary and went to her favorite place. Many animals were kept in the strange shelter of compartmentalized spaces that resembled a maze. However, it was the melody of bird song that she heard while Elise weaved her way through the many paths that finally led her to the walls that housed cage after cage of intricately fashioned metal, all of them filled with birds. Ornate wrought-iron obscured brightly colored feathers as she peered through the bars.
Elise turned and headed for the bucket of seed. She had been told that another of the strange dome-shaped kingdoms grew wheat and seeds. Fortunately, a recent trade had been made.
There were still kingdoms that did not have the degradation caused by the salt. Everything inside and pertaining to the sphere was a wonder to Elise, a marvel of proportions unimagined to her.
“You like bird?”
Elise whirled around, bird seed scattering like wheaten rain at her feet. She brought her hand to her chest while her heart slammed against it.
She immediately recognized the unique cadence of his speech. When Elise noticed embarrassment cloud his striking features, she rushed to appease him, though she knew not why.
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