Blood Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  He made the mistake of letting go of her wrists. She caught his hand in one of hers and bit the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb. Tallis thrust harder, but she kept her primal hold on two inches of his flesh. He liked it, too, that blend of possessive pain and the utter pleasure of knowing he’d taken her down this road toward sexual madness.

  “Keep that,” he said. “Yours. Show me what you do with things that are yours. How you own them.”

  She tightened her jaw. Tallis felt as if she’d break skin with her sharp little teeth, but he knew what his skin could take. He could take anything she wanted to give. She let up and licked, sucked, started again.

  He dragged her up to all fours. Only briefly did he remove his hand from the vicinity of her mouth, so that he could hook that arm under her body. He supported her torso, with his forearm between her breasts—and put his hand back where she needed him. She kissed his palm, his fingertips, and the twin crescents of teeth marks she’d embedded in the lower stretch of his thumb.

  She was the most unexpected woman. Erotic. Needy. Fearless.

  With a last pull toward restraint, Tallis pushed her hair away and nuzzled his mouth at the base of her hairline. “I want to bite you here,” he said against her skin. “How much could you take?”

  “Anything you can give.”

  His mind was splitting in two: good sense on one side, greed on the other. If he sank his teeth into her flesh, right there . . .

  He’d claim her. By Pendray tradition she would be his, and she wouldn’t even know it.

  Tallis groaned, tossing her hair so that it covered that temptation. He returned to mating their bodies in a fierce dance. No more foreplay, even if that foreplay had involved some of the roughest sex he’d ever indulged. At that moment, he’d tear her open and live inside her skin, burrow into her bones, swim in her veins along with the blood that powered her heart.

  He gasped in relief and surprise when she thrust her hips back to meet his, twice, three times, and thrashed her head. Chin toward the ceiling, she cried out her release. Every ligament and joint tightened. She was frozen in the grasp of the orgasm that washed over her and through her and up into Tallis.

  It was the permission he’d waited for.

  Pulling her up to a kneeling position, he crossed both arms around her torso. Big hands. Full breasts. Tight hold. He was all body and force of motion. One hand crept up to her throat and held her chin to the ceiling in a mimic of how she’d arched when she came. Tallis pressed his lips against her throat and took, took, took. The brilliant colors that danced behind his eyes were almost distracting, until there was nothing left but a blaze of red so strong that it rivaled the burst of his orgasm. Sensation shot from his balls and the base of his shaft, until nothing was spared—no nerve centers, no hidden places. He was blasted open by pleasure as potent as moonshine and as pure as his rage.

  Only he wasn’t a Pendray in the midst of a berserker rage.

  He was a devastated man.

  —

  Kavya didn’t sleep, and neither did Tallis. They lay together in the near-darkness of twilight, as the city’s electric rainbows played over their bed. The room was cold. Wrapped with Tallis beneath the covers, Kavya idly caressed the varied textures of his skin. Smooth shoulders. Rough cheeks. Silky hair down the length of his chest, the hair changing texture around his sex. She touched him because they both needed her to, just as she needed to be touched. Connection.

  The frustration of being unable to read his thoughts had given way to fascination. So many other ways to communicate. Some were inept by comparison to the streamlined sharing of knowledge between one mind and another, but she was known as the Sun. Her speeches were all delivered orally. She’d long since learned the value of intonation and hesitation and cadence.

  Now she was communicating with Tallis in a way that was so intimate that she reminded herself to breathe. She was pressed flush against him from the calves on up, with her head pillowed by the hollow below his shoulder. She was fatigued and felt utterly pampered. What a strange thing to find in the arms of a Pendray.

  “Are you sore?”

  It was the first he’d spoken since having finished what had been . . . astonishing. Kavya hadn’t known that ferocity lived within her. What the Sun gave her followers was an insipid, limp thing compared to how she and Tallis had become as mighty as lava hitting cold ocean water—gusts of steam and fire that wouldn’t die.

  “I think I will be,” she said quietly. The darkness made for a reliable confidant. She could talk to him without too much latent embarrassment. She didn’t feel embarrassed, but her throat closed and her face heated on a wash of memories. Talking to him within night’s shadows was nearly as private as being able to speak into his mind. She kissed the outer curve of his chest muscle. “We didn’t hold much back. Unless . . . Did you?”

  He chuckled softly. The amusement rumbled in a low hum that infused her bones. “Hold much back?”

  “Yes. Was that a leisurely stroll for you?”

  “I wouldn’t say a stroll, no.” Tallis tightened his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “But yes. I did.”

  Kavya searched her memories for any sense of hesitation. Only one came to mind. “You wanted to bite the back of my neck. I even dared you.”

  He took a deep breath. “That would’ve been more than sex, Kavya. For a Pendray, anyway. Had we done that after the blessing of my family, we’d be married.”

  A shot of adrenaline threatened to burst her skin with that single word. Married?

  To this man?

  To any man?

  No, not just anyone. Tallis was unique in that.

  “How . . .?” She needed to swallow. “How do you mean?”

  “My clan’s tradition.”

  His voice sounded trapped between affection and resignation. It was the tone people used when speaking about family, religion, and cultural differences. Sometimes there was no denying that even the most treasured customs could appear ridiculous. Kavya had felt it—that urge to apologize for aspects of Indranan life that flummoxed outsiders.

  “The man and woman are blessed by an elder,” he said. “That person could be anyone of standing in a community, even a senior member of a household. A trusted guarantor acknowledges the union on behalf of the clan.” His fingers climbed her spine and settled at the base of her skull. Her nape tingled. “After that, the deed is consummated. There’s no ceremony. No structure. Nothing witnessed by anyone else.”

  “Just sex?”

  “I know you didn’t have experience, but did that feel like ‘just sex’ to you?”

  Kavya shook her head. He continued to stroke the back of her neck, which had suddenly taken on more significance. He seemed to catch himself doing so, but he didn’t stop. He pulled back loose strands to bare her skin completely.

  “No, not casual. It was . . . intense. Concentrated? A thousand things distilled into one moment.”

  “Which moment?”

  His chest had stilled. He wasn’t breathing, awaiting her answer. She didn’t know what he wanted to hear, or whether knowing would change what she said.

  Truth or lie. Both held separate dangers.

  The truth was all that mattered.

  “When you could’ve bit my nape,” she whispered.

  A shudder worked up his long body, with its elegant bones and lithe, taut muscles. “It would’ve been . . . uneven. I can’t explain it any more eloquently. For you it would’ve been just another part of the experience. For me . . .”

  Kavya pushed onto her elbow and found an angle where the lights from the slatted window shone across his face. Just his mouth. She would’ve liked to see his eyes, but his lips were so expressive. Everything about him was expressive. Were all the Pendray this way? So open? Not so constantly guarded? She envied them, if that was true.

  She cupped his cheek, feeling for truth. “It would’ve been the act of joining without the meaning. That significance must be woven throug
h every fiber of your ancient soul.” She softly kissed his mouth. “You stopped to protect yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. A life ritual with nothing behind it. I couldn’t do that. I would’ve thought I had more claim to you than I do.”

  Kavya shivered. Again she was overcome by the idea of being bound to Tallis. Married? How could she even think the word if she didn’t love . . .

  Oh, by the Dragon.

  I do love him.

  The back of her neck practically burned with the passion and possession he’d kept from them both.

  Her entire life, all she’d wanted was the right to make her own choices. She didn’t want to be another Indranan woman caught in the net of vicious traditions and deadly cycles. With Tallis, however, she almost wished he had taken that choice from her. Then she could love him, have him, keep him, without the staggering fear of picturing their future. One on the run? Constantly? They’d break into hotels and fly airplanes through snowstorms—not because they wanted to, but because external forces toyed with their lives.

  She wouldn’t accept him on those terms. She wouldn’t let him accept her on those terms.

  Kavya loved Tallis of Pendray. As with so many instances, she was glad he had no access to her thoughts. She needed to bury that realization so deeply that even she couldn’t bring it into the light and admire its bright prism of colors and hope. Keeping her heart intact depended on it.

  He turned his face so that his mouth nestled in her palm, pulling her free of her trembling reverie. “How do the Indranan marry? No one would ever tell me.”

  Ah, the Indranan way. That would help keep her fancies in check. She wanted nothing to do with love and a forever partner if it meant doing so by the dictates of her clan.

  “Kavya?” He kissed her fingertips.

  “The Indranan are bound with their minds. They . . . open themselves. All their thoughts. They throw open the doors and cupboards and boxes—everything that holds a piece of a secret. It can take days. Imagine how much of your life resides in your mind. All that makes you Tallis. And all that makes me Kavya.” She hunched her shoulders to wiggle deeper under the covers. “I’ve never been able to fathom that.”

  “Revealing every detail? No, I can’t even imagine.” He laughed a little. “But look what we did here. You were a virgin. You offered me that rare gift, and I managed to believe I could make it worth your while.”

  “You worried about disappointing me?”

  “And hurting you, yes.”

  Stated so bluntly, Kavya realized just how easily he could’ve taken advantage of her willingness. Knowing his strength, his size, his passions—now she understood the care he’d taken to keep her safe. Another man might not have been so vigilant, while still being generous in giving her exactly what her body had demanded: a frenzy of release.

  “You made me wild, Tallis. That was a gift.”

  “It was in you the whole time. But it was fun to see you let loose with me.”

  “I felt like a different woman.” After a deep breath, she kissed him again and closed her eyes. Darkness. Safe to say whatever she needed to say. “The woman in your mind. Did she ever bring out that impulse in you? To bite her?”

  He sat up, leaving her cold. “No.”

  “And she never offered it as temptation?”

  “No.”

  Each refutation was stark. His skin became a field of goose bumps beneath her hands.

  “Then she might not have known the ritual,” she said. “Is it well known? You had no luck learning the Indranan way.”

  “I can’t imagine many Pendray bragging about our customs, not among the Five Clans. We’re already considered little better than dogs. All those werewolf stories through the years. Rabid canines. Wouldn’t the other clans love to learn how close to home those stories hit? We fuck like animals.”

  Her chest was tight. Breathing had become some magical skill possessed by other people. “So you said.”

  “And we marry like animals. Biting and scratching. If a couple doesn’t emerge the next morning wearing each other’s war wounds, people start to talk.”

  “No passion?”

  “No trust.” He turned on the bed and caught her face in his hands. The gentleness he was capable of demonstrating was all the more potent when contrasted with his hurricane potential. “How deep to bite. How long. How much pain to inflict and take. I suppose it’s the physical flip side to what you Indranan do. Lay everything bare and see if a union withstands the process.”

  He kissed her, licked her bottom lip, delved inside to stroke his tongue over hers. She exhaled through her nose and sank more deeply into his attentions.

  Only when he pulled back did she find the presence of mind to bring reality back into their room. “But that wasn’t us. Not here tonight. This was . . . Thank you, Tallis.”

  “You thanked me in the laundry.”

  “I meant it then, too.”

  With a lopsided grin, he ran his hands through his hair. The motion lifted his arms, stretched his chest, bared the undeniable masculinity of his underarms. “Anytime, goddess. I’ve never been thanked for something so easy to give.”

  “Easy? I don’t believe that.”

  They held each other’s gaze in darkness shredded into strips by rainbow beams of light. “You probably shouldn’t, no. But the issue remains: What now? Morning will come and, as much as I hate to admit it, we can’t stay here for weeks and continue exploring each other until we’re half crazed.”

  “Among the Pendray—does that crazed feeling wear off?”

  “Let me ask you one in return. Among the Indranan—do the doors close again, barring off secrets?”

  “No,” Kavya said carefully. “Minds open. For the rest of their lives.”

  Tallis stood with a shrug. “There’s your answer.”

  She shivered with the loss of his heat, and the implied knowledge that what had taken place between them would be how Pendray men and women . . . made love. Vicious and needy and daring. The prospect was exciting but intimidating. She had been a wild woman for a night. That didn’t mean she could be that person forever.

  Forever. With Tallis.

  She cleared her throat. “So what was this grand plan of yours? The one you said could wait for later?”

  “We’ll need warmer clothes for you. And another moped if ours isn’t there in the morning. The airport’s some ways south?”

  “About twenty minutes by the main roads. Why? You have someplace in mind?”

  “I do.”

  Kavya frowned. “Out with it, Tallis. I don’t want to play guessing games about something so important.”

  “No matter what we decide about my dreams or your clan, Pashkah will come for you again. Isn’t that so?”

  A shudder replaced the giddy, almost girlish joy she’d experienced with Tallis’s attention—and the hot-cold terrifying joy of realizing that she’d fallen in love with him.

  But no. Pashkah. Always intruding. Always.

  “Yes, he’ll always come for me.”

  “Then you’re right. We’ll face him, but on our terms.”

  “There can be no ‘our terms’ when we’re here. Even now, among six million people, his personal army could be fanning out through the streets and alleys. We may have accidentally picked a place that will take some time to find. But he has the Dragon-forged sword he stole from my parents, and he won’t stop.” She threw up her hands. “In that, I’m out of luck. I’ve never been part of a pod to share a sword with people who’d protect me.”

  He turned and looked down at her, suddenly so calm and ethereally beautiful. “I have a Dragon-forged sword.”

  Kavya’s heart leapt, only to be stilled by doubt and lit by a flicker of fury. “Don’t joke, Tallis. Not about that.”

  “Especially not about that.”

  “So tell me, where have you been hiding it?”

  His grin was slow and sultry, like a cherry-red sun taking its time to rise in the east. “I think it
’s time you visit Scotland.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. At my family estate.”

  “But . . . you haven’t been back in twenty years. You’re the Heretic.” She joined him in standing and wrapped her arms around his trim waist. “A straight answer, now. What will it cost you to return there?”

  He exhaled heavily. “All these years, I thought that if I truly wanted to, I could go back. Defend my actions. Stand trial, if I needed to. Face execution. Whatever the punishment, I’d at least be able to say good-bye to my family. At least I’d be home.”

  “Staying away means never having to know for certain.”

  “That’s right.” He retrieved one of his seaxes, then held it nearer to the window. A shaft of light made the steel gleam. He pressed her fingers against a circle in the hilt. “Do you feel where the metal’s raised? It’s a concealed gold inlay that can be removed in emergencies, like how pirates of old wore gold earrings to cover the cost of their burial. It hasn’t been an emergency until now. We have the means to get to Scotland. If you want that sword . . . If you . . .” He shrugged.

  Kavya curled against his side on the bed and stared at the gleaming metal, at how right it looked when Tallis held it with such assurance. “If I what?”

  “If you want my protection. That’s the only reason I’d be willing to return to a place that may never again be home.”

  Yes, she loved him. And yes, he had a plan. She could see it burning out of him as if his golden skin had been lit by a thousand candles. But she needed to hear an answer to the question she could barely form. “Why for me?”

  Tallis didn’t say anything. He only kissed her temple and settled his hand around the back of her neck, with his thumb gently caressing her nape.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Tallis emerged from the taxi and looked out over the barren waste of a long, long valley. There was no end to it, just gray-green grass that faded into the fog-shrouded place where the land met the sea.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Kavya said at his side, her words hushed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”