The Rose of Shanhasson

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  She thought he would sink into her immediately and slake some of the brutal lust blazing in his body. She even arched up against him, urging him to greater speed. Instead, he slid down her body and buried his face between her thighs.

  Teeth, tongue, as hard and demanding as his hands. Within moments, she clawed at his hair, shuddering beneath him, her cry echoing in the silence of the Plains. Blinded with crushing need, it took her a moment to realize he left her.

  Bewildered, she let him haul her to her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Fight me.” He unsheathed his knife and jerked his head at her sword. “Challenge me. I need it. Those dogs couldn’t draw my blood to save their lives, but you can. You will.”

  At her hesitation, he raised his right hand to his mouth and pointedly licked his fingers. “This was just an appetizer. Now I need to bleed before I can continue driving you mad with pleasure.”

  “You want me to challenge you. Now? You actually want me to bleed you?”

  He bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “I welcome you to try.”

  He leaped at her, rahke flashing. Dodging aside, she drew her sword. He lunged again, and she barely blocked his strike. He was serious. Deadly serious.

  Heart pounding, she crouched lower and concentrated on protecting herself. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly, but the risk was great. What if he managed to arouse her own blood hunger? She might actually gut him or slice his heart open.

  He gave her no time to contemplate strategies. The knife darted high, snuck low, as fast as she could twist the sword in her hand from side to side. Back-pedaling, she blinked sweat from her eyes, already breathing hard.

  Unlike before, he didn’t spare any of his phenomenal strength. “Come on, woman. You can do better than this. You’re faring no better than Lyell.”

  Whirling away from the arcing blade snaking toward her face, she felt the first burning slice high on her shoulder. Surprised, she couldn’t stop him from putting another long shallow cut on her other arm.

  “You cut me. You actually cut me!”

  “Of course I did.” He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring, and he gave her a look of arrogant satisfaction that made her grind her teeth. “I want to smell your blood and your need. And then I’m going to taste both again.”

  She knew better than to allow any emotion to skew her concentration during battle, let alone anger. Or desire. The bond blazed between them, searing the cool calm Lake shining in her mind until it boiled with storm-tossed waves. Blood pounded in her veins, surging with fury, desire, frustration. A need so fierce, so primal, so overwhelming, she threw off her last hesitation and attacked him with every skill she possessed.

  Using her longer weapon, she forced him to give her more breathing room. When he dodged inside her defenses, she elbowed him square in the chest hard enough his next breath wheezed, and followed up with a kick to his shin. He grabbed at her and she twisted away desperately. If he got those big hands on her, she’d be finished. In more ways than one. And she had yet to draw his blood.

  She swung at him again and he knocked her blow wide with his forearm. Staggered off balance, she saw the wicked knife gliding so gracefully toward her chest. Too late to change direction, too late to bring her sword up, there was nothing she could do to prevent the knife from sinking into her heart.

  Her trapped breath exploded from her lungs when he missed, or so she thought until she felt the breeze on her bare skin. The vest sagged open, baring her breasts. The close call froze her in a moment of sheer shock.

  He could have killed her. He could have sunk the knife to the hilt in her heart, just as Devin had done.

  Molten gold eyes locked onto her breasts and a rumbling growl rolled from deep in his throat.

  “You want my heart?” She whispered, her breathing ragged. “That’s as close as you’ll ever get again. I’ll cut your own heart out and feed it to Varne.”

  The barbarian laughed. “As I said, you are welcome to try.”

  Cold fury ignited in her. “Maybe I should try Gregar instead.”

  Ah, that blow struck home, if the smoothing of his face to granite was any indication. “You have already cut out my heart, na’lanna, and you use Gregar’s ivory rahke to accomplish the task.”

  She refused to feel guilty for something he forced upon her time after time. She refused Gregar’s attention. She refused to discuss any “arrangements” with Rhaekhar. What more could he want? She couldn’t help the strange, dangerous attraction to the Shadowed Blood any more than this desperate, aching need for the Khul. He was the one who had left her with the wicked Blood, who had insisted he protect her at all times, who had nearly thrust her into the other man’s arms.

  The fierce pounding need she felt from Rhaekhar lessened, as though he regretted his words just as much. Playing on his emotions, she turned partially away and let her shoulders droop. She allowed the sword tip to sag to the ground. “I should never have come here.”

  “Na’lanna, my heart, forgive me. Please— ”

  She snapped the sword up toward his throat, catching him beneath the chin. He jerked backward, but her blow was true. Blood dripped freely down his neck to his chest.

  Stunned, he searched the wound with his fingers to check the severity. “You could have slit my throat.”

  “Aye,” she answered mockingly, letting fury flash in her eyes. “You know my fear for your safety, the Shadow I carry. Yet you play with fire every time you challenge me to these fool fights. This is all fun and games to you, isn’t it?”

  He took a step toward her, stretching out his empty hand imploringly. “Shannari… ”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.” She averted her gaze, determined to refuse him fully. The scent of blood and sweat was thick in her nose, drowning out the scent of the Plains. “Let me go, Khul, before it’s too late for you.”

  He seized her, wrapping those mighty arms around her, pinning her arms to her side. “You’re mine, Shannari, Rose of Shanhasson. I refuse to let you go!”

  Furious, she screamed and drummed her heels against his legs, but his thighs were like massive oaks. With her arms pinned, she couldn’t get her sword up. “Bastard! Let me go!”

  Instead, he squeezed harder, making it impossible for her to breathe. The sword fell from her numb fingers.

  “What do you want from me, Shannari?”

  Right now she was so angry she wouldn’t be satisfied with simply nicking his throat. She’d take his head off. “I want nothing from you!”

  “Nothing?” He growled in her ear, grinding his groin against her. “Your scent says otherwise. You smell like smoldering flowers and steaming summer nights. What can I do to earn your love?”

  “I’ll never love you!”

  “My heart is yours. My Camp is yours. My own Blood is yours. What else can I give you?”

  She sagged in his arms, trying to unexpectedly drop her weight through his arms. He wasn’t fooled. “I don’t want you, let alone your Blood!”

  His anguish sliced through the bond, choking her. Fighting back tears, drowning in remorse and guilt and fury, she slammed her skull back into his face. He grunted and released her, momentarily dazed.

  Scrambling on hands and knees, she tried to flee, to find her feet, but he slammed into her and carried her to the ground. Her head recoiled on the packed earth and she tasted blood in her mouth. Crushed beneath him, she couldn’t breathe. Darkness threatened.

  He wrenched her head around so he could plant his mouth on hers. He sucked on her split lip, his chest rumbling against her back. Her blood rekindled the fierce driving need in him. In her. The bond kept no secrets from her. From him. His desperate fear he would lose her sliced viciously through his emotions, but the need for blood and sex was stronger. Her need for him was stronger than the Shadow festering in her heart.

  He forced her face up beneath his chin, smearing blood on her mouth. “From the start you wanted me to act the dominant herd stallion, to take so you wouldn’t have to ch
oose to give yourself of your own accord. You wanted bloodlust. Now you have it.”

  His blood fired through her body, just as hers stirred him to greater lust. Lady help her, she wanted him so badly. She wanted his blood pouring into her mouth while he took her savagely. She sank her teeth into his throat, gnawing at the wound, his skin.

  “Aye. Tear me up.” Shifting against her, he plunged hard and deep. “Shred me as you shred my heart.”

  She screamed against his throat, her neck aching with strain to keep her mouth pressed to his wound. He took her viciously, his body slamming against hers, forcing a guttural cry from her with each thrust. His jaw locked on her shoulder so hard his teeth broke the skin and dug into the muscle beneath. A shudder wracked his body against hers at the taste of her blood.

  Pinned beneath him, she quivered and cried with pleasure until her throat was raw and darkness claimed her at last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Rhaekhar struggled to open his eyes, trying to remember where he was. Why he was asleep with the sun glaring so harshly into his eyes. Why his entire body ached and yet hummed with sensuous pleasure at the same time.

  Why he tasted blood.

  Sweet blood.

  Shannari.

  Jerking awake, he started up only to find her staring down at him. She leaned over him, draped across his chest. Blood and dirt streaked her face and her lip was split and swollen. He might be mistaken, prayed he was, but the shadow of a bruise darkened her chin and jaw line.

  Yet she smiled at him with a satiated gleam in her midnight eyes. Lazily, she stroked fingers through his hair. “I thought you might not wake until nightfall.”

  “Forgive— ”

  Pressing her fingers against his mouth, she shook her head. She traced his lip, staring at his mouth with such tenderness…

  Terribly afraid he’d injured her, he sat up and gently shifted her onto his lap. Heavy limbed and languorous, she let him arrange her to his wish, draping herself loosely on him, which only alarmed him more.

  “Shannari— ”

  She nuzzled his neck, clinging to him when he tried to hold her away enough so that he could examine her for injuries. “So that was bloodlust.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “Some.”

  His heart stuttered, drowning in remorse. A warrior never hurt a woman, let alone his woman, his heart. Bloodlust was unforgivable. He couldn’t bear the dishonor.

  Clenching his jaw to keep back the cry of anguish, he reached up and began unbraiding his hair. He would strip his kae’valda and submit to her judgment. He would accept nothing less.

  “What’s wrong? It was wonderful.”

  His chest ached as though Khan trampled him. “I hurt you.”

  “Not seriously. I’m fine, really.” She tugged his hand away from his hair. “Did I hurt you?”

  He began to answer negatively, but then realized he did bear injuries. The cut on his throat burned like the Three Hells, and his jaw felt tender when he opened his mouth. Injuries she had dealt him.

  Details of their challenge flooded him. Her courage. Her pride. Her rage. Why had she been so angry?

  “You did something no other man has been able to do. You looked my Shadow in the eye and resisted its call.” Her voice trembled and she buried her face tighter against his neck. “You didn’t try to kill me.”

  Gently, he tilted her face up to his. Tears shimmered in her dark blue eyes. She smelled as soft and fragile as a new spring blossom kissed by rain. If love had a scent…

  Heart racing, he stroked his fingers carefully along her face, lightly so as not to frighten her away. “I would sooner slit my own throat.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” She smiled sadly, turning her cheek into his caress to rub his palm more fully against her. “Not even your wicked Blood could have done it. You were enraged with bloodlust, possessing none of your normal phenomenal control, and you still didn’t put your rahke in my heart.”

  Horror choked him and he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend her pain. The betrayal. Never able to trust. Doubt justified again and again as yet another tried to kill her. Even lovers. So that was how she received the scar on her breast.

  “I’ve finally found someone I could trust. Someone I could… love.”

  His eyes flew open. For such happy words, words he had longed to hear with all his heart and soul, through the bond he felt only grief.

  “I must leave you.”

  Tightening his grip on her, he glared with all the fierce love roaring in his heart. “How can you even think of leaving me now?”

  She kissed him lightly, her lips trembling against his. “Have you ever felt bloodlust before me?”

  As a lad not yet a warrior, he had thought to never outgrow the great shame he’d brought himself. “Once, a very long time ago.”

  Carefully, she touched his neck, flinching at her handiwork. “Like this?”

  “Not exactly.” He frowned, trying to understand her worry. “I was not yet a warrior, but my Father was Khul. I grew up with great responsibility, great hope for the future. A woman wanted to be a part of that future, but I didn’t return her affection. She deliberately involved me in a dispute with another lad, and somehow… ” Despite the years, it still shamed him to admit the truth. “I lost control at her insults. Enraged, I nearly killed the other lad who defended her. I still pay for that mistake this day, for Tehark is my greatest opponent. The young woman we fought over is now his mate.”

  “Did you make love to her?”

  “I never touched her. I had no desire for her. I lusted for blood, though, and nearly killed her mate in my rage. Father drilled me ceaselessly for months after and worked me to exhaustion day after day so I couldn’t even lift a finger against another. He prided himself on making me into the warrior I am, but in all honesty, it was a vision of you that saved me.”

  She laughed uneasily. “You couldn’t have known of me so many years ago.”

  “I was so ashamed that I couldn’t face the Summer Gathering and instead camped alone in the foothills of Vulkar’s Mountain. I hunted and sat on a rock mostly feeling miserable, until one afternoon I found an unusual trail. Hoofprints unlike any I ever saw before or since. I followed them to a strange green valley where I saw… ”

  Reverence filled him. He saw again in his mind’s eye the mighty Stallion trotting across an ocean of fire. His Mare shimmering in a rainbow of moonlight with Her black mane and tail like a velvet night sky. “Both Vulkar and His Beloved Dark Mare spoke to me. She promised me a love like no other. You, Shannari, the Rose of Shanhasson. I saw a deep red flower dripping blood, locked within impenetrable shining white walls. Heavy, thick shadows hung all around, but you… I smelled your scent, and I hungered for your blood, for your love, even then.”

  Shannari bowed her head. “Even in your vision I carried Shadow. Don’t you see? I’m tainting you. I’m tainting your Plains. I bring you blood hunger and suffering, I worsen your enemies, and I ruin your friendships. You must let me go before it’s too late.”

  Forcing down the driving instinct to dominate her into acceptance and surrender, he fought for a reasonable tone of voice. “There is no taint. Why would Vulkar send me to your Green Lands if not to love and protect you?”

  Her brow creased. “Even if this were true and your God did send you to me, why torture us with happiness that can never be permanent?”

  “Who says it cannot be permanent? Live on the Plains, Shannari. Become my Khul’lanna. Carry my honor and my children.”

  “And let my people rot and die of starvation and disease? Eventually the Shadow will spread beyond the Green Lands. Even here to your Plains. Do you want your Camps falling into eternal darkness? Alea and Drendon wasting away with some horrible disease? Your warriors starving to death, ill, murdering each other for a loaf of bread? That’s what will come if I don’t wear the Rose Crown. I told you my destiny from the beginning.”

  She presse
d her face against his chest and fisted her hands in his hair. “I… I care for you too much to tarnish your honor. To break your Camp. To destroy your people. If not for your own sake, then for all Nine Camps of the Sha’Kae al’Dan, you must send me back to the Green Lands.”

  * * * *

  Heart aching, Shannari tightened her arms around Rhaekhar. His scent in her nose, his skin like velvet against her mouth, his arms so protective and demanding around her. Every warrior instinct he possessed told him to fight, rage, refuse to let her out of his sight for a moment. To sink into her, claim her body so hard, so furiously, that he would claim her very soul.

  Yet his hands were incredibly gentle on her back. His blood sang in her veins, drawing her closer to him. Tying her to him.

  Freeing herself would tear her apart and leave her empty and wounded. Again.

  “You don’t have to leave me, na’lanna.” He stroked a big hand through her hair, his voice low and soft against her ear. While through the bond, his heart roared and screamed and fought to keep what was his. “I’m warrior enough to keep you safe.”

  “I’m not worried about me.”

  “You should be. After everything you’ve told me about your Green Lands, the cur your father would have you mate, you should be very worried. Why would you willingly return to such a trap?”

  Dread strangled her throat. He was right, so right. She couldn’t wed Theo before she’d felt this barbarian’s love and tenderness. Could she now marry for politics, no matter the necessity?

  “They’ll chain you, na’lanna. They’ll dishonor you. They’ll try to murder you, break you, kill your spirit. You would be forced to hide the strength of your heart, deny your courage, suppress your sweet passion. You would live a lie every single day.”

  “I have no choice!” Her words came out in a wail, muffled against his chest.

  “Think of the love we have shared, my heart. Think of the blood. Every time you shared blood with me, your heart drew nigh to mine. I know your body. I know your very heart. My heart lies open to you every moment of the day.”