The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  “Ah.” The Necromancer used a fold of his head cloth to blot the sweat on his face. His nose wrinkled with distaste. Nyzarl had liked his food heavily spiced and fatty, and although he’d startled the cook by demanding plain, well-cooked fare, his new body still sweated like a vanbeast. As the spices worked their way out through his skin, he smelled like one too.

  “What did you see?” he asked an old man with a toothless face so seamed with lines it looked like a badly cured hide. “Who did this?”

  “D-djinns,” quavered the old man. “Hundreds of djinns.”

  “Describe them.”

  But he couldn’t, not to the Necromancer’s satisfaction. The djinns had apparently ridden into the camp on the wind, invisible and deadly. None of which was any use.

  With an irritated grunt, the Necromancer swung down heavily from his horse. “Come here.”

  The ceaseless babble dried up when the soldier shoved the old man forward. A skinny middle-aged woman stepped up with him, her arm around his waist for support. The Necromancer flexed his thick fingers. It had been so long. Could he still do it?

  “P-Pasha?” said the old man. Tears glittered in his rheumy eyes, made streaks in the dust on his cheeks.

  “Think of the djinns.” The Necromancer wrapped his whole big hand around the man’s face. “Oh, and keep breathing.” He closed his eyes, concentrating.

  The Sibling Moons had been high. They’d been celebrating something, a marriage perhaps, grouped around the fire, their plaintive music echoing across the stony plain. A young woman played a finger drum, a man blew notes on a simple wooden flute.

  Death swept in an acrid cloud down the wadi, the djinns fanning out over the open ground in vortexes of roiling light, barely visible despite the soft brilliance of the Siblings. Rising swiftly from below the threshold of hearing, a whine built to a piercing shriek that penetrated the bones of the skull. Men and women grimaced with pain and slapped their hands over their ears. An elder stumbled to her knees, the eyes rolling back in her head. A vicious, metallic stench rolled over the desert, clawing at throats and making eyes tear.

  Like the rest, the young woman fled, the small drum slipping from her grasp to bounce away across the pebbled ground, tassels waving. She was kin to the old man, close, possibly a daughter. A pulsing thickness formed in the air, one of the djinns hovering directly in her path. It swooped. Her shrill cry was cut off by a cracking report, echoing above the unbearable wall of noise.

  By the time the old man reached her, every muscle was racked and bowed, her spine arching hard with pain. A swelling the size of a small bird’s egg trembled beneath the skin of her shoulder. When he touched it with a fingertip, the dreadful thing skittered, burrowing deeper into the woman’s flesh.

  Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her eyes stretched wide. “Knife,” she gasped, her clotted gurgle an obscene parody of human speech. “Da. Kill. Me.”

  She made a supreme effort. “Da, as you love me. Argh!” The last word emerged as a bubbling shriek. “Please! ”

  The old man’s fingers clenched on the hilt of his blade, but before he could move, his daughter’s ribs parted with a sodden crack and her heart exploded outward in a shatter of bone and torn flesh.

  Well, that explained the extraordinary pattern of the injuries.

  The night sky boiled and stank as the creatures rolled away across the plain, the cruel whine of their passage diminishing as the distance increased.

  The old man wiped his daughter’s blood from his eyes and stumbled to his feet. His fingers were icy cold and spots gathered before his eyes. Before the wave of darkness could pull him under, the Necromancer let him go. The old man collapsed, the middle-aged woman trying desperately to support him as his body convulsed with grief and horror.

  “I’ve seen enough.” Remounting, the Necromancer commandeered the guard captain’s shoulder as a crutch, enjoying the man’s instinctive flinch.

  “My lord?”

  “What?”

  The guard captain’s throat moved. “Was it djinns? Truly?”

  “Oh yes.” The Necromancer gathered up the reins. “But it’s all one.”

  “Yes, my lord. Ah, my lord?”

  “Now what?”

  The man indicated the sorry little group. “What about them?”

  “Bring them.”

  The woman fell to her knees, making the sign of the Three, over and over. “Oh, thank you, Pasha. Thank you.”

  The Necromancer’s smile showed all Nyzarl’s large white teeth. “Don’t thank me yet,” he advised, and trotted away.

  Mehcredi’s eyes were so wide, Walker could see the whites all around.

  “Doing? Uh. I was . . .” A violent flush stained those glorious tits with rosy color. “I was only looking. I didn’t touch anything, I swear.” Her gaze swiveled back to his groin as if drawn by a magnet.

  His hips arched instinctively, his cock hardening under her attention, the stupid godsbedamned thing. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, a battle going on in his throat. He had the strangest desire to laugh, but it was accompanied by a tenderness so piercing it very nearly choked him.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.” Mehcredi laid warm fingertips on his thigh, the muscle jumping beneath her touch. “Are you angry?”

  “No,” he said. “Not with you.”

  There couldn’t be any doubt Mehcredi of Lonefell was the strangest woman on all of Palimpsest, but godsdammit, she was also so brave and so beautiful it was painful to watch her. After a childhood like hers, let alone a career as an assassin, how could she remain so essentially unsullied, so . . . sweet?

  “Are you sorry?” he asked, knowing whatever tumbled out of that pretty mouth would be the unvarnished truth. “For what we did?”

  Her luminous gaze went wide again. “Are you joking? Of course not.” She twinkled at him. “What about you? Any regrets?” But the smile slipped a little on the final word.

  There was a stain on the ceiling shaped roughly like a map of the Isles. “I took a gift that wasn’t meant for me.” He lowered his gaze to her face and kept it there. “If I was a better man, I’d regret it.”

  He didn’t expect the lick of temper that had him pulling her back into his arms, her long body supple and warm against his. She landed on his chest with a muffled yelp of surprise. “But I’m not and I don’t.”

  Walker speared his fingers into her cropped hair and pulled Mehcredi’s mouth down to his, plundering. Such a silky, desperate little tongue, twining with his, growing bolder with every passing second, such gorgeous incoherent noises, deep in her throat. ’Cestors’ bones, he didn’t find her endearing, he positively didn’t—only delightfully fuckable.

  24

  She was trying to keep up, but godsdammit, a woman had to breathe. Walker would let her up for air, then drag her down again until she was drugged with kissing, his clever lips and tongue luring her further and further from safety, to a place where nothing existed but his warmth and heat, one hand holding her head at the angle he required, while the other plucked at an aching nipple.

  Then he gripped her ass in both hands and hauled her even more firmly on top of him. There went that amazing sizzle again, from shoulder to thigh, lighting her up like tiny firecrackers just beneath the skin. His cock dug into her stomach, as hot and as hard as a brand. When a heavy hand in the small of her back pressed her down against it, everything in her belly clenched.

  Gasping into his mouth, she took a fistful of raven hair and tugged. Lingeringly, Walker withdrew, nibbling her lower lip, licking the corner of her mouth. Finally, he dusted feathery kisses over her cheekbones, her brows, her eyelids. Sister, if he didn’t stop it, the slew of emotions bubbling inside her would spill over and she’d be weeping all over him like a half-wit.

  “I c-can’t—” She gasped.

  “Can’t what?” The thumb stroking her brow stopped in midcaress. Walker frowned. “I thought—Shit, does it still hurt?”

  “What? No, I’m fine.
It’s just—Oof!”

  With no apparent effort, he flipped her over and kneeled up between her legs, scanning her body. Warm callused palms skimmed up the inside of her thighs and urged her legs open.

  Mehcredi squirmed.

  “Hold still.”

  Oh, that was his swordmaster’s voice. She glanced up from under her lashes. Well, hell. There was no expression on his face, or none that she could detect. His eyes were completely black, fixed on her most private place. Instinctively, she slipped a hand down, intending to cover herself.

  “No.” Gently but firmly, he moved it aside.

  Exposed. Vulnerable. A silvery jolt of sensation hit her behind the pubis, seemingly out of nowhere. Quite distinctly, she felt wetness seep out of her, the lips of her sex grow plump and moist. A tiny noise escaped, panic and arousal mixed. She thought his mouth softened, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered, desperate.

  Walker came down on his elbows. He drifted a forefinger over the crease where hip met thigh. “There’s an orchid that only grows where there’s water in the desert,” he said, deep and almost meditative. The finger skimmed across the outer lips of her sex and she shivered. “It’s shy and rare and very lovely.”

  “What are you talk—?”

  “Sshh.” He flicked a stern glance at her. “You will tell me at once if there is pain.” Then he settled even closer, so close his breath puffed across wet flesh and she couldn’t hold back a whimper.

  “The petals are ruffled and delicate, a pale pink.” Featherlight, he stroked all the way from the top of her cleft to her anus—and back again. He dabbled a thoughtful finger in the juices now spilling out of her, holding her down with the other hand when she bucked. “But they deepen to rose at the throat.” Very gently, he spread her inner lips with his thumbs, massaging with light circular movements.

  Godsdammit, the fluttery feelings behind her pubic bone were piling up, one on top of the other, coalescing into dark waves of erotic heat, coming at her over and over, robbing her of the ability to think. “I’m—” Her voice cracked. “I’m a flower?”

  “Mm.” One finger advanced a careful inch, resting just within the entrance to her body. His head dipped. “The nectar is plentiful, honey sweet, and . . . intoxicating.”

  Without warning, his tongue flicked out and curled around the ultrasensitive bump of flesh at the apex of her cleft.

  Mehcredi shrieked, writhing. With a rusty chuckle, Walker pinned her down with both forearms on her thighs. “It’s also”—he inhaled deeply—“said to be a potent aphrodisiac.”

  Then he dragged the flat of his tongue along the same path his finger had taken, again and again, licking and laving, nibbling and stroking. Every fold, every ruffle and crease. A kind of continuous purr-growl rumbled in his throat, buzzing against her.

  Oh gods, oh sweet Sister of mercy. Fuck!

  She’d never imagined anything so exquisite, so excruciating. Hadn’t known this was possible, that a man would do this, take pleasure in it. Because even she couldn’t doubt that he did. On one level, the muscular warmth and wetness was comforting against her most sensitive tissues, on another, it was torture. Because for some reason, he kept missing the burning knot of flesh where she needed pressure so badly.

  She sank desperate fingers into his hair. “Please! Shit, please!”

  A dark chuckle, a caressing nuzzle. “What do you need, carazada?”

  “I don’t know!” she wailed. With her last remnant of sanity, she glared down at him over the curve of her belly. “But you do.”

  Walker didn’t answer, but he licked his lips, shot her one of those unexpected, earthshaking smiles and bent his head.

  “Such a pretty little clit,” he crooned, sucking the place that ached right into his mouth, pressing the hood back with the pointed tip of his tongue.

  “Nngh!” Mehcredi sucked in air. “Clit? What’s a—?” He did some kind of spiraling lick thing and her pelvis lifted clean off the mattress. “Oh, gods!”

  The sensations were so intense, it took her a moment to realize he’d slipped a finger deep inside her. “C’mon, little one,” he murmured. “For me.” He twisted his wrist, his fingertip stroking against an achingly sweet spot she hadn’t known she had. It pressed up against—what was it?—her clit from the inside, and when he drew the jut of it into the wet heat of his mouth to suckle, her head thrashed on the pillow, her mouth falling open to scream. But because there was no air left in the world, all she could produce were embarrassing noises like an incoherent kitten.

  Not that the swordmaster seemed to care. Humming with apparent delight, he kept up the rhythm of mouth and finger. Oh gods, fingers, because now he was circling the pucker of her anus with his smallest finger, wet with her juices. She’d never heard of anything so thoroughly wicked, so dirty, in her life.

  She was going to fly apart, disintegrate, dissolve. He was killing her. Hadn’t she said she’d die if it got any better? It wasn’t possible for one body to contain this much sensation, let alone for one human being to do this to another. Her heart beat like a gong, reverberating between her thighs.

  “Walker.” Thrashing like a sapling in a storm, she stretched out a hand, seeking. “Gods! Ah!”

  Warm, strong fingers closed over hers. And suddenly, she was anchored, as securely as the world tree she’d dreamed of, with its great taproots reaching deep into rich soil.

  For the space of two heartbeats, Walker continued to push her to the very brink. For a timeless instant, she hovered. Then, without fuss, all the tension released, a luscious swell of honey heat spreading through her loins and sweeping up her spine to make her head spin. Stars twinkled behind her lids and the breath whistled out of her on a long exhalation. Slowly, she sank back into her body, the mattress soft beneath her.

  Down the street, she heard the clank of someone opening shutters, and closer, the scrabble of claws on the stairs, a snuffling whine under the door. She cleared her throat. “Was I loud?” she said without opening her eyes.

  “You screamed very prettily.” Walker’s voice sounded tight, each word bitten off.

  Mehcredi levered her eyes open.

  Shit! Her legs were draped over his shoulders and her fist was buried in his hair. How had that happened? Releasing him, she struggled up on her elbows, a ferocious blush suffusing her whole upper body. Walker cooperated by straightening, allowing her legs to slip to the bed.

  “Oh gods, I’m sor . . .” The words trailed off.

  He knelt between her spread legs, his high cheekbones ruddy with a sexual flush, thighs rock hard with tension. “Don’t move,” he grated, taking his cock in a businesslike grip. “My . . . turn.”

  Mehcredi watched open-mouthed as he jerked his fist up and down, his thumb sweeping over the head, now a deep rosy red and shiny with juices, on every pass. Gods, it looked brutal, but also wonderfully . . . raw. Such a private man, yet he was exposing his soul as much as his body. How many other women had seen him like this? The thought was a canker, a worm in paradise. She pushed it aside. Enjoy the moment, only the moment.

  “Fuck.” His hair whipped about his shoulders, the tendons in his neck standing taut. “Ah gods, fuck.”

  He froze, caught at the exquisite apex of his pleasure, unapologetically starkly male, an image she knew she’d carry to the grave. Then his cock rippled, spurting warm globs of cream across her belly, Walker squeezing, milking it to the end. He cursed in Shar, his chest heaving.

  At last, his lashes fluttered down on a cross between a groan and sigh. “There,” he murmured, coming down over her so their skin was sealed together. “What do you think, Mehcredi of Lonefell?”

  “Messy,” she said, taking a surreptitious nibble where neck met shoulder.

  One of those rusty chuckles. “Sex is. Inevitably, gloriously messy.”

  She hesitated. “Is that how most people fuck? Like we did?”

  She felt him shrug. “Some do, some don’t.”
r />   Her voice rose. “You mean there are other ways to do it?”

  “It’s a physical skill like any other.” Walker reached out a long arm and snagged the damp cloth. His lips twitched. “Think of it as being like the nea-kata. There are many levels to master.”

  There was more? Sister save her!

  Sitting up, he swabbed at her skin, while she suppressed the impulse to drag him back down.

  “Walker?”

  “Yes, Mehcredi?”

  “Do you think—Could I learn to be good at it?”

  He froze, every muscle rigid, and she could have wept.

  After an interminable pause, he passed over the towel and rose to shake out his trews. “I suspect,” he said in a voice as dry as the desert, “that you’re naturally gifted.”

  As the last guttural syllables of its name died in the air, Xotclic stepped out of yet another green cloud, this one tinged with streaks of a rusty red. It had fed then, and within the last few days.

  The Necromancer pursed his lips. The local village was too useful for the demon to use it as a feeding ground. The headman was eager to please the new Pasha, his people a handy source of labor.

  “We need to talk,” he said shortly.

  The huge dark eyes regarded him with detached curiosity. “Ss?”

  “You took a child from the village two days ago. Another one.”

  Xotclic’s nostril holes flared, but that was the only reaction.

  The Necromancer took a careful sip of his chilled manda juice. “Don’t do it again.”

  The demon hissed its displeasure, the forked tongue flickering over the lipless gash of a mouth. For a hideous moment, the leering face of Tolaf shimmered behind its scaly visage.

  Controlling his instinctive flinch, the Necromancer set the cup aside with a decisive clink. He was pleased to see his hand remained steady. “I do not doubt your intelligence, Xotclic. As I will explain in a moment, the villagers are useful. I have given you your freedom. You can step out of your mist and feed anywhere you please. Is that not so?”