by Ann Gimpel
“If you’re caught, they’ll chop off your hand.”
Breath caught in her throat. She wanted to argue she was just a child, but maybe that part didn’t matter. Besides, she wasn’t. Not really. Lost in thought, not paying attention, she heard the wolf’s warning just before someone closed a strong hand over her shoulder and pulled her into a deserted byway that stank of stale urine.
“You’re a ripe one,” the man said in accented Coptic. “New here, eh? I haven’t seen you before. Not in this sector of the city.”
She writhed against his grasp, but couldn’t break free. Twisting, she saw a man of perhaps thirty with strands of silver mixed into his long, black hair. Naked from the waist up, he wore loose fitting trousers that had once been tan but were covered with grease spots. His feet were bare, and he had Hindu markings painted on his forehead. Vertical stripes suggested he’d once followed Vishnu, but they’d faded with time.
“Let go of me.” She struggled harder, hissing and spitting.
“What’s in the bag?” The man stared at it and at her chest.
“Clothes.”
“What’s your name?” His tone was mild, but she read danger with her magic. He meant to hurt her, use her.
Of course he does. Why else would he have dragged me back here?
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Let go of me or I’ll start screaming.”
“Go ahead. I’ll tell whomever shows up that you’re my daughter. I dragged you away from the married man you were fucking and you’re not happy about it. Speaking of sex—” he leered at her “—you’d be a juicy addition for my business. Girl like you, young and clean, you’d be worth quite a bit to one of the temples or a rich patron with a taste for virgins.”
“How do you know I’m a virgin?” She leered back.
He shrugged. “I don’t, but you look like one. It’s good enough.”
“Shifting is a last resort,” the wolf said, “but if this goes much further, we won’t have any other options.”
“Yes, we do,” she replied. “Even if he drags me somewhere else, it will take him time to find someone to sell me to. While he’s gone, we’ll escape. I could kill him, but that might land me in the dungeons if anyone showed up at the wrong time.”
The man narrowed his black eyes to slits and drew his thick eyebrows together over a hawk-like nose. “What was that? Who are you talking to? I have power, I do.”
Ha! Not enough to light a candle.
“Let go of me,” Tairin repeated through clenched teeth. “Bruised merchandise won’t bring so fine a price.” She bared a mouthful of teeth. She should be frightened, but this joker was more of a nuisance than anything else. She thought again about flattening him with magic, but then she’d have to answer to the authorities—if they found out. People with magic had to register when they entered Cairo. She knew that from the caravan. It was something the elders had handled.
The man fished a length of rope from one of his trouser pockets and tied an untidy knot around one of her wrists. Satisfied she was trapped, he took off at a fast trot for the crowded square he’d abducted her from.
She followed along, pretending to be cowed, docile.
He’d make the mistake of believing her tractable, and then she’d escape.
Chapter 10
Tairin waited until they were in the midst of a crowd. No one would look twice at a man leading a woman roped to him. They’d believe she was his slave. She took stock of her options. No reason to delay escape until he locked her into a cage—or whatever he had in mind. He didn’t look as if he had enough coin to have access to an actual room to leave her in. Maybe he planned on a goat pen or a chicken coop.
She’d be gone long before then.
Once she found what she was looking for, she sent a quick jolt of magic toward the knot, suggesting the ends release each other. When it fell from her wrist, she ducked through an open doorway into a crumbling hovel, pushed her clothing sack into a dark corner, and cloaked herself in invisibility, barely breathing.
The man wasn’t very sharp, but he’d figure out soon enough she’d escaped and he’d return to look for her.
“Excellent. I’m impressed,” the wolf said.
“We’re not safe yet. Quiet.”
Her words weren’t exactly prophetic, but she heard an outraged shriek, even over the noisy marketplace. It suggested her absence had been discovered. She crouched in the corner where she’d shoved her cloth sack, shielding it from view with her body. Someone with strong magic would see through her spell. The man didn’t worry her, but maybe he had associates in his brothel business. She hadn’t felt afraid before, but she did now. Her heart thudded hard, and saliva pooled in her mouth. If he found her, he’d punish her. Fury would drive him; the same emotion had seen her mother tossed on a pyre and burned alive.
If he hurt her, she’d have to kill him. If it came to that, and killing was all that was left, she prayed to every deity she could think of that there’d be no witnesses around to drag her before the authorities.
Heated cries drew closer. The man was asking—no demanding—her return. Someone had stolen his property. His slave. He demanded her return. Immediately, or he’d summon the king’s guard. He had an in with them, he did. Whoever had tricked him would pay…
At first, he received a sympathetic response from the merchants and townspeople, but when everyone looked and no one found the woman he claimed to have lost, their patience wore thin.
“She’s given you the slip,” a male voice said, followed by a hearty slapping noise. “Best move on. Female slaves come cheap. Go get yourself another and give up on this one.”
“But I wanted her,” he wailed. “She was mine.”
“Move along,” a woman cried. “You’re driving away business. I haven’t sold a thing this whole time you’ve been kicking up a fuss.”
A chorus of move alongs followed, and Tairin began to breathe easier.
“We can’t leave yet,” the wolf said. “Unless you abandon your sack and remain invisible.”
“We could leave my things here.”
“If you do that, they’re as good as gone,” the wolf cautioned.
Tairin was loathe to abandon her sack. It was all she had left of her old life. It was hard to sit still, wondering whose hovel she’d stumbled into and when they’d return. She gave it an hour. The noise from the marketplace was dying down when she squared her shoulders and emerged from the alcove where she’d sheltered. She had no idea who lived there, but the goddess had been good to her because no one disturbed her hiding place.
The first few minutes were tense, but when she’d traveled a hundred paces without incident, she began to hope she’d make it to the town gates without problems. She’d have to convince the guard to let her out, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Getting in afterhours had to be harder than leaving.
Another ten minutes brought her to the edge of a part of town she knew. The old square was to her right. She recognized landmarks. Shops and restaurants lined streets that were wider than they’d been where she’d taken refuge. True to the wolf’s prediction, a caravan spread out at the far end of the square, and she stayed as far from it as she could.
Safely past the square, she figured she’d made good on her escape. Beggars on every corner mingled with gypsies who sang or played a variety of handmade instruments. She whistled a tune her mother used to sing, but it made her sad so she stopped.
Tairin caught glimpses of the gate and tried to hurry, but people clogged the main road. Some were going her direction; others just arriving. Night had fallen while she crouched in the grotto, and lanterns bloomed, lighting the darkness. People jostled her on both sides. She built a small perimeter with magic, but it didn’t help much.
“Ha! There you are!” rang from right next to her.
The man. How had he snuck up on her?
Easy. I dropped my guard and wasn’t paying attention.
She feinted away, but there was nowhere to go.
The crowd was thick around her. Tairin shrieked, tried to get away, but the man screamed louder. She was his slave. She’d escaped. A good beating was in her future. Her immediate future, and if she didn’t want to make it worse, she’d come along.
The crowd did part then, making sympathetic noises, but not for her. Everyone was happy the man had recovered his property.
“See?” he hissed right next to her ear. “You got no rights, girlie.” He dragged her down a side street, through heaps of stinking garbage until the path ended against an imposing wall.
Tairin glanced about. No one was near enough to help her. Not that anyone would. Women had no standing in the eyes of the law. She gathered her magic, ready to fight back. Maybe the lack of people close by was the goddess’s way of answering her earlier plea.
The man jammed her flat against the wall. She felt the bulge of an erection press into her buttocks, and he grappled with her skirt, lifting it out of the way. “Tried to do things nice,” he grunted, breathing harder. “But no. You didn’t want nice. Guess I’ll find out if you’re a virgin right now. Before I auction you off to the highest bidder.”
Lust rolled off him in thick, nauseating waves. Rancid breath curdled her stomach. He pressed a hand against her back, holding her flat to the wall. She figured he was using his other hand to free his cock from his trousers. No time to shift, but plenty to destroy him with magic. It was fast, easy, clean, and a whole lot less work than fighting his superior strength so she could claw his eyes out.
In addition to her native power, she called on the earth beneath her feet, letting its magic stream into her. His hardness pressed between her legs, seeking entry, but she was ready. Focusing her ability, she sent a jolt into his heart. Nothing happened for long, tense moments while he continued prodding her with his erection.
Tairin readied herself to send more power after her first blast. She had it captured, formed, and was ready to loose it when the man’s hold on her dropped away. He fell to his knees behind her, clasping his body and moaning.
“Finish it,” the wolf instructed.
“More magic?”
“No. Your knife.”
She’d never killed anything that wasn’t slated for food, but she didn’t stop to consider things. Drawing her dirk, she plunged it into one of the man’s eyes and beyond into his brain, twisting the weapon for maximum damage. No one had been there to witness her attack, which worked out well for the nameless man. Now it gave her the advantage since no one had seen her commit murder.
Not waiting for her luck to change, she sprinted toward the gate, taking a different route than the man had. A stream of raw sewage running down the last lane before she merged back into the throng of humanity provided opportunity to rinse the blood off her dirk. The method she’d used to kill meant she’d avoided being covered with his blood.
In case any of the people who’d parted to let the man lead her away in disgrace were still around, Tairin wove a glamour to disguise herself. Last thing she needed was for someone to recognize her and start asking a bunch of questions. Like what happened to her master? It wouldn’t take a genius to locate the body and tie his murder to her.
The gates were closed, which was why the crowd moved so slowly. A guard asked each of them a question or two before letting them out of Cairo.
Her turn came after a long wait. “Your name?” the official barked.
“Eshe.”
“Why were you in Cairo, Eshe?”
She cast her gaze downward. “I am a traveler, sir. Just passing through.”
“Why not go around the city, then, if you had no business here?”
She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. It wasn’t hard to look scared. “I did. It’s not a good place for a woman alone.” Tairin snuck a glance upward at the man and saw him frown.
“I thought we’d cleaned that up. Thank you for the information, Eshe. You’re free to go. Open fires and safe journeys to you.”
Tairin bowed her head. “Thank you, sir.” She scurried through the gate and broke into a lope, anxious to put distance between herself and her crime.
Murder. I killed someone. Worse, I used magic to do it.
There were stern prohibitions against raising power to harm another. She wasn’t certain if Romani law would absolve her since she was in the process of being raped, but she didn’t want to find out.
“You had no choice,” the wolf said. “I’m proud of you.”
She tried to glom onto some semblance of justification for her actions, but all she felt was a dull ache behind her breastbone. Was this what her life would be like? Men viewing her as fair game for their lust?
“Life on the road isn’t easy for a woman alone.” The wolf must have been inside her head. “Turn left at the next junction. The wolf pack your father calls home isn’t far from here.”
“What happens if they refuse us?” She reverted to talking out loud since no one was close enough to hear her.
“I don’t know. We’ll figure things out as we have to.”
She inhaled sharply, blew it out, and did it again. Some aspects of life in the caravan had rankled, but it was paradise compared with what she’d traded it for.
I didn’t trade anything. They’d have forced me out if I hadn’t run.
Tairin balled her hands into tight fists. Damn her mother and Jamal to everlasting fire. She replayed the conversation she’d horned in on—the one where Jamal tried to get Aneksi to leave—but stopped midstream. It didn’t matter who was to blame.
The only thing that mattered was that she was on her own with pathetically few resources. She needed a crash course in practicalities and survival. The time to react to the man grabbing her would have been right when it happened. Once he had her shackled to him, she was his in the eyes of the world.
“We learn as we go, eh?” the wolf commented. “Turn here. You almost missed it.”
Chapter 11
Tairin trudged uphill. She did her best to keep her mind blank, but every time she dropped her guard, she relived driving her blade into the man’s brain. He was scum and didn’t deserve to live, and he’d backed her into a corner, but her heart hurt for the life she’d taken. She’d stolen from the gadjo, but this felt worse.
Much worse.
Taking from someone who had so much they’d never miss the coin was in a whole different universe from murder.
“He would have raped you and sold you into slavery to a place where men use women,” the wolf said, sounding stern. “It was him or you.”
“Easy to say. Hard to believe. How much farther?”
“The distance we’ve come from Cairo one more time.”
Tairin glanced at the moon and stars. By the wolf’s estimate, it would be midnight before they came to the shifter settlement. “Will anyone be awake?”
“Of course. Shifters hunt at night.”
Tairin squeezed her eyes shut, opening them when she stumbled over a rock. Everything was different. Nothing was left of the life she’d known. Nothing at all.
Better get used to it.
Feeling sorry for herself, or worse hoping someone would drop out of the sky to take care of her and save her from the lonely existence stretching before her, weren’t options.
“Thanks for sticking by me,” she told the wolf. “This would be much harder if you weren’t here.”
“It’s what bondmates do. There’s a spring off to your right. Do you want to stop for a bit? Have some water and pull yourself together?”
Tairin tilted her head, nostrils flared to locate the cool dampness of a spring. Jamal had said he’d found an isolated oasis. Maybe he’d be willing to go there with her—at least until she was a little older and better prepared to take on the world by herself.
The spring was the merest trickle, but water was water, and she unwrapped the sack from her body and knelt next to it. Cupping the tepid liquid, she sluiced it over her face and drank her fill. She wished for the Nile to immerse herself and wash the sten
ch of the man from her.
Later. Once the next part played itself out.
She scrubbed her hands, making certain to eradicate any traces of the man’s blood. It might not matter to the shifters, but it did to her. Tairin rose to her feet and draped her sack over one shoulder. She stood straight and marched back to the trail, heading upward.
The wolf was silent until they came to several steep cliff faces blocking the way. “Stop here.”
“Doesn’t look as if I have any choice.” Tairin’s tone was surly, but this looked like a dead end.
“They know we’re here. Someone will come.”
“What? They live in these cliffs?”
“Something like that. I can’t divulge anything further.”
Tairin rocked from foot to foot, waiting. The night wasn’t cold, but she would have liked to curl up in her blanket and sleep. Except she’d left the blanket behind. It was too bulky to cart with her.
Yeah, wrapped in my blanket in my corner of the wagon. I need to forget that life ever existed.
Wary after what had happened in Cairo, she deployed her power settling it around her like a net. No one would catch her by surprise a second time. Time slowed to a crawl before magic kindled, alerting her, and she turned to face whomever approached.
A tall man with golden brown hair, a stern face, and green eyes moved toward her. He was dressed in form-fitting leather garments and knee-high lace-up boots.
“State your business here.”
“I’m hunting for my father, Jamal Jabari.”
The man’s eyes widened, but he wiped the surprise from his face fast. “Father, you say?”
“Yes. Use magic to check if you need to.” Tairin held herself straight.
Perhaps because she’d given permission, she felt a shock as what she now recognized as shifter magic probed her.
“Humph. I see,” the man muttered. “Your name?”
“Tairin.” She hesitated before adding, “Jabari.” No reason not to. It wasn’t as if Jamal had ducked out from beneath his role as her father. At least with the Romani.