VirtualHeaven

by Ann Lawrence

  “I saved your life because I had the means.” He was so close, his hand so warm. He drew her near and she had to place a palm on his chest to prevent herself from falling over him.

  “Your master. Did he teach you to use the weapon?”

  Kered’s turquoise eyes darkened to the color of a tropical sea. Maggie gulped. Beneath her palm his skin was warm, the hair on his chest soft, his nipple a tight point against her fingertips. Fighting an urge to stroke it, she curled her fingers into her palm.

  “It’s called shooting and my father taught me. In a land not unlike this. He would set out bottles as targets. I beat my brothers, Joe and Jason, every time.”

  “Father? Brothers? Joe? Jason?” Kered placed his palm over her hand, pressing it against him.

  “Yes. I have two brothers. They’re thirty-one and twenty-seven. I’m twenty-five.” Maggie ground to a halt. He drew her closer, their lips inches apart.

  “Slaves have no families.” His warm breath bathed her face. His heart thumped slowly beneath her palm.

  “Huh?’’ Maggie lost her train of thought, closed her eyes, and waited as if in suspended animation for what she knew was coming.

  His lips were dry and warm. They whispered across hers, brushing lightly in a gentle caress. Maggie sighed. Kered made a low sound in his throat.

  Maggie opened her eyes. Kered’s eyes drifted closed, depriving her of those gorgeous turquoise pools. She puckered up for another foray into the sensual realm of Kered’s mouth when an unmistakable noise issued from his throat.

  Snoring!

  Maggie gently shifted out of his hold, easing her fingers from his grasp. She draped his cloak over him. He couldn’t possibly be comfortable lying bare-backed on a stone floor, but he looked so peaceful, she didn’t dare wake him.

  Questing warriors needed their beauty sleep.

  Fair maidens needed questing warriors at full strength to battle slobbering night creatures and grimy Wartmen. Maggie hoisted the game gun in her hand and crept to the edge of the cave’s entrance and peered over, then drew quickly back into the shadows.

  Three other beasts were feasting on the one lying supine at the cliff’s base. Maggie edged from the entrance, hoping they’d not seen her. Obviously they could climb as well as Kered, and she didn’t want to battle three of them. She had no idea how long the gun’s charge lasted. It was a miracle it worked here—wherever here might be—anyway.

  Maggie worried that hidden entrances to the cave made them vulnerable to other carnivorous beasts, so she built up the fire and settled at the opening to their small chamber, the gun held loose and ready in her hand. She kept a silent vigil, rising only to relieve herself and to fetch Kered’s shirt for mending. Kered slept the sleep of the dead, never stirring for what seemed hours. Occasionally he groaned or snored, but he never moved.

  Maggie rationed herself to staring at him only once each hour. Glad she’d covered him, she shivered at her post. Better cold than torturing herself with the view.

  She glanced over her shoulder every few minutes for danger. As night fell again, seeping from red to purple shadows, she kept her eye on the movement of the unfamiliar stars through the ceiling aperture.

  There was little point in denying her reality. She was the Shadow Woman in the Tolemac Wars poster. Her black hair, her black gown, her bare arms all fit. She was fated to look after the warrior.

  After all, Gwen had told her to defend his back. And she would. For during the night she’d dreamt a terrible dream, only to awaken to find Kered under attack.

  In her dream, however, it was not some creature who threatened him. No, in her nightmare, Kered knelt naked in opulent surroundings. All the important male parts were foggy and indistinct, but the sensations were sharp and clear. Just as she reached for him in the dream, he was snatched from her arms. Her next memory was the stench of blood. Kered’s head hung forward, his chin on his chest, blood dripping from his forehead, his arms, and his chest. The bright red blood ran in narrow rivulets down his beautiful body and pooled at his knees.

  In her dream, she had raised the game gun and defended him. There was no remorse in her dream, no regret. Kered’s blood slicked the hands that held the gun. The finger that moved with swift assurance to the buttons was as red as the button selected. Whoever hurt him deserved death. His face was hidden, this enemy of Kered’s, but in her dream, Maggie had killed him.

  Maggie shivered. She would never forget the dream.

  Her Navajo grandmother would tell her the dream held meaning.

  Maggie agreed.

  She must watch over him.

  Kered swam to consciousness, groggy from induced visions of battle, starvation, and pain. “Nilrem’s knees! How long have I slept?”

  “The moons are rising.” Maggie pointed overhead.

  He settled back on his haunches and stared at her. She sat like a guard on duty and a curious sense of unease took hold that he had surrendered himself to a vulnerable sleep state.

  “You have remained thusly? Watching?”

  “Yes. Some more of those things were down at the cliff base eating their friend, so I could hardly go shopping, could I?”

  “Shopping? What is shopping?”

  Maggie laughed as if she knew something he did not. “Shopping is a useless pastime—”

  “Like attaining the fourth level of awareness is to slaves?” he interrupted, piqued by her humor.

  “Grumpy, aren’t we, when we wake up!” Maggie lifted Kered’s shirt from her lap. “I stitched the tear. I’m not much of a seamstress, but it helped pass the time.”

  He inspected the work. The stitches were clumsy and crooked. A Tolemac child could do better. Yet the fact that she had done the work without an order touched him. “Thank you. It seems I am destined to break all the laws of slavery, thanking a slave three times in one sun rising.”

  “Don’t bust a gut over it.” Maggie snatched her hand away. “Now sit down and let’s see your wounds.”

  Kered submitted to Maggie’s treatment. He willed himself not to wince as she loosened the bandage crusted to the long slashes.

  She gasped. “I can’t believe it. This looks almost healed.”

  He met her eyes. “The herbal is most effective.”

  She applied fresh bandages and just before he moved away, she placed her hand on his chest.

  Kered froze. The gentle touch of her hand on him and his continued fatigue almost made him tremble.

  “What’s this?” she asked, her finger stroking over the birthmark that lay hidden in his chest hair.

  He shook off her hand and pulled his shirt over his head, drawing the laces tight. “‘Tis nothing.”

  She drew his cloak about her shoulders. Protecting herself from more than cold, he thought, when she rubbed her arms briskly with her hands.

  His groin throbbed. He had ceased thinking the ache resulted from the creature’s assault and now admitted it was directly related to kissing a pleasure slave. After all, if she was twenty-five conjunctions, she had been giving pleasure for ten of them.

  Kered gulped, imagining her skill after ten conjunctions of practice. With predictability, his manhood stirred. Perhaps if he concentrated on repeating the names of his adopted ancestors back to the dawn of time, he could control the ache, just as his awareness master had taught him. But, if he was honest with himself, he was bored with the recitation and happy in a most base manner with his response to the slave.

  He frowned. Maggie’s wildflower scent tantalized him now, just as it had when he’d carried her in his arms to Nilrem’s hut. He had promised her that when the quest was ended, he would return her to Nilrem’s mountain. Perhaps by then, she would not want to go. A warmth settled in his chest at the thought. Another thought in­truded, driving out the tantalizing warmth.

  Lifemating.

  Shouldering his pack, Kered took Maggie’s small hand, and led her along the winding path to the cave entrance. When the quest ended he would have her. That is, if her m
aster had not claimed her and if he had not lifemated. For a moment Kered contemplated the intricacies of claiming a slave without papers. Registering her would be fraught with difficulties.

  Kered turned and faced Maggie. She was frowning at the gun in her hand. “Perhaps that should be in my pack?” he suggested.

  “I suppose. I was just worrying about how long it will last. There’s no way to recharge it.”

  “Recharge? How does one recharge? I understand charging. A military tactic. But recharge? Is it a tactic from beyond the ice fields?”

  “No, recharge means making sure the weapon is at full power. When it loses that power, it will be useless.”

  Kered plucked it from her hand. “Useless,” he murmured. “We will save it as if it were the last jug of water in this dry land.” He tucked it into his pack. “Are you sure it is not magic?’’

  “Magic? I don’t believe in magic.” Maggie shook her head, sending her hair tumbling over one shoulder. “Do you?”

  He chafed under her scrutiny. “No…but strange things happen. For those who believe, those strange things may be seen to be the work of magic, or witchery.”

  “I’m not a witch,” Maggie said softly.

  Kered did not sense the presence of evil in this alluring black-haired slave. No evil, just warmth and, perhaps beneath the surface, a smoldering passion. “No, but your weapon could be proof of witchery to others who may have a less practical view of life than I.” He swept a hand out to indicate the vast wasteland before them. “The Scorched Plain is often cited by the fearful as proof of strange and curious events at work in our lives.”

  “How so?” Maggie asked, moving up close beside him and peering over the precipitous edge.

  He held her by the back of her cloak and itched to release the scent of flowers by crushing her hair in his fist. “Legend has it that an ancient chief of the Selaw lay with his friend’s lifemate. In an ensuing battle, the friend struck the chief in such manner as to,” he fumbled for an inoffensive word, “as to prevent the chief from bearing heirs. With the loss of his virility, the land, too, lost its fertility, withering and wasting to what you see today.”

  Kered thought of heirs, heirs as unusual as Maggie. Heirs with changeable skin. First the purity of alabaster, then the blush of a new, pink rosebud. His knuckles itched to stroke her cheek or to see if, by a touch, he could raise those tiny bumps of the goose on her arms. He fought the urge. Children begotten of slaves were slaves—not heirs. “The way down is clear. We will continue our journey. Get behind me.”

  “Back to giving orders, Ker?” Maggie asked, a frown knitting her brows.

  “Only one may lead. You, by your paltry size and strength, must follow.” He grinned to soften the insult.

  “Then lead on.” Maggie curtsied to him, her frown vanishing. Then with a trust he sensed came hard to her, she climbed onto his back and wrapped her arms and legs about him.

  He descended the cliff, leaping the final few feet in a single bound, and then dumped Maggie to the ground. Without so much as a backward glance, he struck off across the plain, parallel to the mountains. It would not do to allow a slave to become too haughty.

  Hours later, Maggie hoped something would eat him. The man set a relentless pace. Her legs ached and her head throbbed. The scenery was beginning to waver before her eyes as fatigue took its toll. She decided not to walk another step. After all, she deserved a rest—saving a life and being a guardian angel took a lot out of a girl. At least if they rested, she could give him a piece of her mind! Why, at the moment, she could rival a Wartman for disgusting dishevelment.

  Maggie looked up.

  Kered had disappeared.

  Chapter Eight

  “Oh, my God!” Maggie ran forward, then backward, then forward, then in circles. “Ker! Damn you, Ker-ed!”

  Her voice echoed off the sheer rock face. “You can’t just vanish.” She whispered prayers and inched slowly forward, sliding her feet cautiously in case a wretched, invisible quicksand had snatched him. Then she saw it, a narrow crevice in the rocky wall. Peering through, she screeched with anger.

  Turning sideways, she squeezed through the narrow gap, wondering at his ability to slip like a wraith through the crack. Before her yawned a deep chasm. It opened up on a long valley, verdant and hidden from the Scorched Plain. Kered moved across the valley, several hundred yards away—at the same Kered pace.

  Maggie cupped her hands and shouted.

  “Ker-ed. Oh, Ker-ed.”

  He stopped and turned around, then propped his hands on his hips in what Maggie assumed was impatience. She began to slip and slide down the narrow cut to where he stood like a giant redwood in the green valley. “I suppose you didn’t notice a little thing missing—like me?”

  “I knew you would come.”

  “How? You just vanished.” She fisted her hand and slugged him on the arm.

  He grinned. “You are here, are you not? You found the opening. Striking a warrior is a crime punishable by flogging.”

  Maggie ignored him, gasping with joy as she saw the herd of horses grazing in the grassy meadow. She ran toward them, then slowed as she neared the closest. They were shaggy beasts standing on huge feet with thick hair about their hooves. Long manes trailed along their necks. Maggie knew horses. These looked like the ancient ancestors of the Clydesdales.

  A mottled brown mare lifted her head and whickered at her approach. Maggie stood still a moment and let the mare adjust to her. Then she reached out a hand and stroked the long black mane.

  “What charm did you use?” Kered came to her side.

  “None,” Maggie said as she stroked the horse’s neck and murmured words in her ear. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? I’m so glad you have horses here.”

  Kered grunted. “Tolemac may have no curs, but horses we have aplenty.”

  “Got any dragons?” Maggie teased.

  “Of course. They are common as dust.”

  “Oh, my God! Dragons?” Maggie ran behind Kered and peered from around his arm, searching the horizon, remembering the Gulap from Nilrem’s mountain.

  Kered bellowed with laughter. “Have you no dragons beyond the ice fields?”

  “No,” Maggie said with a sheepish grin as she slipped away from Kered’s protective bulk. “Of course,” Maggie’s voice dropped, “there was that sixth grade teacher—”

  “You mumble. ‘Tis disrespectful.”

  “Never mind.” But Maggie found herself speaking to Kered’s back. He strode away, past the horses, to a daub-and-wattle hut nestled beneath a spreading shade tree. He ducked inside and Maggie’s curiosity began to gnaw as the time lengthened and he didn’t return. She crept up to the hut’s doorway.

  “Oh, my heaven!” Maggie spun around. She clapped her hands over her face. Kered stood naked, back to the door. Gulping down her embarrassment, she marched back to the horses and moved among them, finding the brown mare and patting her flank. “Wow. You wouldn’t believe what I just saw,” she whispered. The mare snorted down her nose and tossed her head. “He sure is magnificent.” The mare snorted again as if in agreement.

  When Kered finally emerged, Maggie gaped in astonishment. He had discarded his rough clothing. His new shirt, a tunic, was of a fabric like fine linen, heavily embroidered in black and gold about the neck and hem. His trousers were supple black leather, as were his boots. The trousers clung to his thighs and hips in what Maggie considered a blatant lack of modesty.

  Sheathed at his waist was a long knife. Its engraved hilt echoed the ornate swirls surrounding the gems in the dagger protruding from his boot. He had slung a blue cloak across his shoulders that looked like velvet and was shot with gold thread. As if they weighed nothing, he held a polished leather shield and a gleaming sword in one arm.

  Kered ignored Maggie and strode past her to a giant black horse who trotted in their direction. It stood at least nineteen hands. As Maggie watched, the black beauty bumped its head against Kered’s shoulder. The two indulg
ed in a childish head-butting routine for a few moments, then Maggie noticed the saddle riding a low branch of a nearby tree. A deep brown leather, embossed with a design like a Celtic interlace, it surely would fit the oversized stallion.

  Kered rested his shield and sword by the tree and took up the saddle, laying it over the horse’s back with one fluid movement. In moments, the girth and bridle were secured. He returned to the hut for his pack and this he slung over the horse’s back. Finally, Kered strapped on the shield and slid the sword into a scabbard that formed part of the saddle. He swung up onto the giant stallion.

  “Come.” Kered extended his hand. Maggie approached on wary feet. She felt like a homeless person from a subway next to his obvious splendor.

  “If we were in such a hurry, why take the time to change?”

  “I humbled myself for wisdom. You may not approach a wise man ornamented as if concerned with trifles.”

  “And now?” Maggie continued to ignore his outstretched hand.

  “Now, we seek the sword. It is most important to display one’s status to the world. Those who think you poor treat you poorly. Now. Give me your hand.”

  “Why can’t I have my own mount?” Maggie laced her hands behind her back. She reeked of sweat and her legs and skirt hem were grimy with dust. Although she imagined he’d not bathed, he looked clean and tidy—even his hair lay neatly bound at his nape.

  “Slaves do not have mounts.” He slapped his thigh with his palm and extended his hand.

  “I am—”

  “Not a slave. So you say. Mount now.”

  “No. I want my own horse. I ride very well, even bareback!”

  Kered sat in silence and stared down at Maggie. He was chanting a litany of ancestors to prevent snatching her onto the saddle.

  “Stop swearing!”

  “Swearing? I do not swear!” Kered blinked as if in disbelief.

  “Then what are you muttering? Sounds pretty bad to me.”

  “I am repeating my father’s ancestors’ names, in order, back to the beginning of time. Pray I succeed in reciting the list, else I will most likely throttle you!” Kered swung his leg over the neck of the horse and slipped to the ground. Before Maggie could turn away, he grasped her by the waist and heaved her into the saddle. Her breath whooshed out and before she could inhale, Kered had mounted behind her.