by C A Nicks
“I refuse to hide like a coward.”
“Go to the attic. And that’s not a request. We’ve got to do something to confuse his senses.” She pointed to her chin. “Hit me. I’ll tell him I fell. That should throw him off.”
She’d asked, but the blow still took her by surprise. Fabian’s fist bounced off her chin, so fast she didn’t have time to cry out. Blood trickled, unhindered, from her split lip to splash onto her shirt. Already, her cheek was swelling. Fabian studied her, his face inscrutable. A drop of her blood stained his knuckles and Tig blessed his decisiveness.
“Thank you,” she said with more than a hint of irony in her voice. “Now hide.”
He went without protest, for which she was thankful, but the mutinous glint in his eyes told her there would be an inquest, later.
In the kitchen, she grabbed a drying cloth to dab at her thickening lip, while in the yard Hal called the dogs to heel. She’d stalled him for long enough. He knew better than to come into her house uninvited, but he wouldn’t leave until he’d seen her. Hal liked to keep a finger on everyone’s pulse.
“Hal,” she said, extending her arms wide to exchange a mutual hug. She pulled out of his too-familiar embrace and bent to acknowledge the over-excited dogs, now threatening to knock her flat with their enthusiasm.
“Tig.” Hal stepped back, studying her closely, as always. Her spine crawled. “I knew there was something wrong. Minute I drove into the yard. What happened?”
“Tripped over my own feet. Fell against the dresser in the bedroom. Where’s Sunas?”
“Leg trouble. She asked me to bring the dogs back on my way to the Settlement.”
“New wagon?” Tig placed herself between Hal and the open kitchen doorway. Any moment now, he would make his usual request for a drink to see him on his way. She would have no option but to comply. Humouring Hal was a delicate but necessary business. A man on the make was more of a danger than a man on the run.
“Oh, this old thing?” Hal waved a dismissive hand. “Lucky buy at a farm sale.”
“Give Sunas my love.” Keeping her mind neutral was impossible, given what she had hidden in the attic. Tig smiled widely, deliberately splitting her lip further. Immediately her thoughts re-focused on the pain. Hal frowned with concern.
“You took a nasty knock. Come with me to the Settlement. Get it stitched up.”
“It’s really not that bad. Do you have my flour and oil?”
“Oh, yes.” Hal turned for the wagon. “Price has gone up again,” he said with mock regret. “Ten kadoums a bag, would you believe?”
Thief. But still, buying from Hal was safer than taking her own wagon into town and attempting to haul the goods home without being robbed on the way.
“Ten plates, ten mugs and a vase. Best quality.” She waited for his counter-offer. Hal took his time hauling down the oil-jar and two small flour sacks. He stacked them pointedly at the closed kitchen door, brushing close as he passed her. She felt the jolt of his aura probing hers and had she imagined him glancing up towards the attic window?
Hal returned to his wagon and made a show of tightening the straps. “Price of everything is increasing. You know how it is?”
“Twenty plates,” she countered. No time for bargaining today. If she went straight in with the best offer, Hal would be on his way before Fabian took it into his head to soothe his bruised ego with a confrontation.
“Ten plates will be sufficient.” Hal’s right eye twitched. “I know you don’t have much, Tig. Happy, as always, to take payment in kind.”
“Not today.” Tig pointed vaguely to her split lip. A taste of sour disgust in her throat at the memory of the last time. To her dismay, Hal was already throwing off his jacket.
“When are you going to let me in?” he said walking deliberately towards her. “Give a little, and you’ll find me most generous. Been meaning to take another wife since Alie died.” He leered down at her, drenching her with the smell of perfume and sweat.
“Sunas is my friend.” Tig backed farther into the doorway, noticing this close, the neatly trimmed beard, the braided hair-ribbon, the Sunday best clothes. “It wouldn’t feel right.”
Hal pulled off his gloves and threw them down. They’d been playing this game for a while now. He pushed, she tolerated, longing to slap the arrogant smile from his face. She gave a lop-sided smile instead and removed the hand he’d placed so casually on her breast.
“I’ll think about your offer. Right now, I’m in pain and I need to work. The pottery’s stacked in the workshop. I’ll fetch it for you.”
Hal held up his hands in a gesture of peace, stepping away to allow her to wriggle past him. She made a mental note to talk to Carson, her ex, about Hal’s little business side-lines. Gain a little leverage to get his slimy ass off her back. Hal sauntered after her, leaning on the door-frame as she stacked a week’s worth of hard work into a wooden crate.
“Talking of Carson. You knew he’d been killed?”
Tig almost dropped the mug she’d been wrapping. A pang of genuine regret gripped her, both for the man and for what he represented to her life. “No. I hadn’t heard. How?”
“A leadership challenge, what else? Everyone knew he was going soft. Can’t say I was surprised to hear the news myself. Tig, something’s troubling you. You know I can feel it. I’m in with the new leader, a man of influence now and if you make it worth my while, I can cut you a deal on the protection.”
“Your payment. Hal, my head is bursting. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Tig pushed the crate at him. Hal took it, his expression resigned, for now. Not yet a man of so much influence that he could impose further on her. But he would be one day, she could see that.
“Come on.” Hal remained, blocking the doorway. “Don’t you want to know who’ll be collecting the tribute from now on?”
“Warrington,” she said wearily. “Who else but Warrington? I bet he didn’t even issue a formal challenge.”
“And didn’t I tell you?” For a moment Hal sounded angry. He checked himself quickly and nodded her to walk ahead of him. “Didn’t need to be a seer to know it was on the cards. I’ve been his man since last winter. He’s already given me permission for the marriage.”
“What marriage.”
“Ours, Tig.” He threw the crate onto the cart. The sharp crack of pottery breaking told her that payment was irrelevant. He only wanted one thing.
“I told you I’d think about it.”
“You’re a bad liar. Your tribute’s doubling this summer. And again come winter. And no more inside deals on the markets now Carson’s gone. How will you survive?” Briefly, Hal looked genuinely concerned. “Tig, I was proud to call your father friend, fool though he was. He asked me to watch out for you, and that’s what I’m doing.” He touched a finger to her cut lip. Gazed at the blood spotting his finger. “We all have to survive this world in the best way we can. You’re not a stupid woman and believe it or not, it’s more than lust. I’ve always cared for you.”
Survival. That’s what everything came down to in the end. How could she judge Hal for drawing his moral lines in a slightly different place to her own? Refusing his marriage offer would buy her time, for now.
“I don’t deserve your kindness, Hal. Let me think about this.” She raised her face to his. “You know I’ll do the right thing. Just give me time.”
Hal stooped for his gloves. Donned them with careful deliberation. “One month,” he said and reached out to touch her hair. Another jolt of awareness. Tig frantically filled her mind with images of a prize pig her father had once walked all the way to the market at Arminet. Hal let out a burst of laughter.
“And after all that effort, it was stolen from under his nose.” Hal shook his head and hauled himself up onto the wagon. “Don’t be the fool your father was,” he said by way of a parting shot. “We’re survivors, me and you. That’s why we’re still alive. And why we’ll still be alive when the others are dead. In a month, then.”
He touched two fingers to his head in salute. An astute man who knew when to push, when to withdraw and regroup.
Tig watched the cart trundle across the yard and out onto the dirt road. The dogs nudged her impatiently for attention, and food. In the sky, clouds darkened, ready to unleash another spring deluge onto the winter-hard earth. A week’s worth of work for a jar of oil and two bags of flour? Existence didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Shit!” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.” What the hell to do now?
One of the dogs had her shirt-tail firmly gripped in its jaws, tugging her towards the shed where the dog-biscuits were stored. “Sorry,” she said, pushing it away. “Got to make them last. Go hunt!” she ordered, followed by two clicks of her tongue. “Go catch yourselves something.”
They left, reluctantly, stopping and looking back occasionally to see if she would follow. She waved them on. No time for play today.
She entered the house distracted by the desire to act but with no idea how to solve her immediate problems. She found Fabian lurking behind the door.
“Oh god in the heavens! How long have you been there?” Quickly, she stepped away biting her tongue to stop herself venting her anger and frustration on this man who claimed to have fallen out of nowhere, just, it seemed, to further complicate her already complicated life. “I told you to stay in the attic,” she said, quieter now she noticed the concern on Fabian’s face. “Hal knew I was hiding something. We mustn’t give him any more reason to come snooping.”
Fabian’s expression turned dark at the mention of Hal’s name. “I did not like the way he spoke to you. You will not marry that man.”
“No.” That much they agreed on. “I won’t marry him anytime soon. But it may come to that.”
“He spoke of a leadership challenge. I have good hearing,” Fabian added at her look of surprise.
“Then you know my ex is dead?”
“Yes. This Warrington, the new leader. What kind of man is he?”
No words of sympathy for her swollen lip? She moved to the sink and pumped water into a bowl. Took a cloth and cleaned her lip while she talked. “He’s like all new leaders, I should think.”
“Then he will want to make his mark early on. Reward his supporters and flush out his enemies. Some will rise, some fall. Fortunes will be made. Heads will roll.”
“You know your tyranny. I’m impressed.” She handed Fabian a pot of salve, unable to resist fishing for a little sympathy. “Dab a little on the cut. Hard to see what I’m doing without a mirror.”
Still, he didn’t comment. Fabian’s only reaction to her pain was a softening around the eyes when she sucked in a breath, rather too theatrically. She might have imagined the slight gentling of his finger as he dabbed on the salve, but she straightened her spine and endured it. Fabian wasn’t wallowing in self-pity and neither would she.
The lost, confused air he’d arrived with was fast being replaced by a formidable focus. Like a man who was slowly remembering his strength. A man already ruthlessly assessing where he might fit into this world.
“It’s a time of opportunity. The new leader will be at his most vulnerable now. It is a good time to strike.” Fabian regarded her for a moment, lingering on her lip with perhaps a little regret. “How strong is he?”
“Pretty strong, I guess. What is this? Plan B? In case you can’t get home?”
Warlord material, if ever she saw it. More in Fabian’s bearing and attitude than in the size and the shape of him. A man who went into battle assuming, not hoping, he would win the day.
“I will more easily return home from a position of power than weakness. This Warrington will no doubt attract the best of the mages?”
“Flawless logic,” she replied, oddly disappointed that Fabian already had his future neatly planned. One that didn’t seem to involve her. But then, why should it? She set about clearing the table of breakfast. Fabian made no effort to help, still obviously wrapped in his plans for world domination.
“There are two flour sacks to bring inside. I'd appreciate some help.”
Fabian raised his eyebrows, pulled from his musing by her sharp tone. “You’re angry with me because I struck you?”
“Not at all,” she said, wiping crumbs from the table. “I asked you to do it.” She barged past him to snatch up the sweeping brush.
“Then you are angry because I have not had you yet?”
A brave man, to say that to her while she was holding the corn-broom. He stepped nimbly out of her way as she advanced, sweeping crumbs before her. “Believe it or not, my every waking thought doesn’t revolve around you and your manly physique, Fabio. I have much more important things to worry about, like staying alive. And avoiding a life of servitude with creepy Hal. If you have any suggestions as to how I get out of that one, they’ll be gratefully received.”
Fabian disappeared and then reappeared with the flour sacks, one under his arm, the other clutched with his good hand. He dropped them onto the table.
“When a woman does not want to marry a man, she generally marries another.”
“Oh, I’ve read this book.” Tig leaned on the broom. “This is the part where you very nobly offer to marry me to save me from the marriage from hell.”
“You would be a fool to refuse if I did.” Fabian disappeared again. Came in with the oil-bottle.
“And what happens to me when you’re killed challenging Warrington? Hal won’t want me. I’ll be spoils of war and given to the troops for amusement. I’ll lose everything.”
“I will not be beaten.”
“You were before. Why is this different?”
Fabian placed the oil bottle onto the table. “Because this time, for the first time, I will be fighting for my life.”
* * * *
And yours. He should have added that sentiment but couldn’t do so now without sounding insincere. Tig was at the door, briskly sweeping the crumbs into the yard. Disappointed in him, no doubt. One moment direct as an arrow, the next wanting him to play the troubadour. Over the years and many conquests, he’d learned to read a woman’s moods and knew he would bear the brunt of Tig’s built-up frustrations and anger simply by being there. He also knew that the best way to be rid of this all too-human angst was to build it up and then release it in one glorious, explosive blaze. Whether on the battlefield, or in bed, the end-result was the same.
“We should lie together. The need is hanging too heavy between us. Clouding the issue when we require clear heads to think of the next move. It will help.”
Tig made a choking sound, somewhere between laughter and disbelief. “What makes you think I want to lie with you?” she said without turning around.
“Your body talking to mine.” He moved closer, enough to invade her personal space. Tig shivered visibly. Fabian lowered his voice to a deep bedroom rumble. “You wore the gown so I would notice you. To arouse me? Is that not true?”
Tig absorbed the blow, shook off the embarrassment. Turned to face him; he already knew she wasn’t a coward. Brush in one hand, the other hand on her hip, she said, “Did it work?”
He moved closer. Not touching. Yet. Pointedly, he glanced at his crotch. “It worked. It’s working.”
Tig kept her gaze studiously above his waist. “Which is what I should be doing. Working. Hal took most of my current stock. Need to replace it.”
“It can wait.” Coaxing would succeed, to a point. Tig, he suspected, was stubborn enough to refuse simply to retain the independence she’d fostered so fiercely. “I’m injured, and I haven’t had a woman in a thousand years, which probably means I’ll last barely an hour.”
“An hour?” Tig mouthed the word, more to herself than to him. A shrug of indifference followed the brief look of awe she’d been unable to hide.
“Hardly adequate. But I think you will find that even my worst is more than you’ve ever had.”
Tig leaned the broom against the wall. “When did you get to be so modest?”
“I don’
t believe in modesty,” he said, taking her words as a cue to further the dance. “There’s no shame in two people finding relief when they need it. Even now your body is preparing itself for me.” He leaned close, his lips barely brushing her ear. “I can smell it on you. It’s making me hard as an iron post.”
He withdrew. Her turn to move and by moving, give her consent. He tried to match her indifference, but the heavy throb of his loins was impossible to ignore. Mind and body were slipping smoothly towards a single thought and goal. Release.
“So, you make me horny? Look at you, Fabian. What woman wouldn’t want to jump your bones? Just because I want to, doesn’t mean I should.”
Bravado with a deep blush. A beguiling combination. “It’s here for the taking. You need only step over that imaginary line you draw for yourself. Have you ever attended an orgy? Immersed yourself so deeply in decadence, that you lose all sense of who you are?”
“Once.”
Her reply surprised him, pleased him. His cock strained painfully against the confines of the pants. “Then you know what bliss there is in forgetting and simply being.”
Tig’s gaze slid below his belt. “I do. I also know that it makes the remembering all the more painful. At some point you have to come back, pick up the threads and keep going.”
Fabian crooked his fingers, the slightest beckoning motion. Tig hesitated and then nodded, giving herself permission to move. She touched the splint holding his arm. “You have only one arm and I have a split lip. How is this going to work?”
“Like this.” He pressed a light kiss to the unblemished corner of her mouth. Took her hand and guided it to his erection. “Be gentle with me, as I will be with you. I think that’s what we both need right now.”
Tig’s fingers twitched. Fabian pushed into her hand. “You’re a silver-tongued rogue,” she said and began a slow stroking that sent his temperature soaring.
“I know,” he gasped. “And you’re an enigma I mean to unravel, very slowly.”
Tig’s eyes clouded. “Don’t promise things like that. This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just stranger sex, nothing more.”