The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  Walker stared. His chest rose and fell with the force of his respiration, color high in his face.

  “Gods, it’s gorgeous.” For some reason, she had to whisper. Stooping, she tipped the dog out of her arms. With a joyous yip, he disappeared into the long grass, his passage marked by wildly waving tassels.

  “I’d forgotten,” Walker murmured, almost as if he spoke to himself. “How could I have forgotten?” Dropping the reins, he took a few steps forward and sank to his knees in the grass. He sank the fingers of one hand into the dirt, his head bowed. “The ch’qui is so strong here.”

  “The chi what? You’ve said that before. What is it?”

  Slowly, he rose, tilting his palm to let a stream of dark soil trickle down. “It’s what makes me a shaman,” he said at last.

  “You get your Magick out of the dirt?”

  His lips twitched. “A gross simplification. The ch’qui is the soul of the world, its life force, if you will.”

  Mehcredi released her pony to wander down to the pool at the base of the falls. Its fellow was already there, nose buried in the foaming water.

  She thought about the chi thing for a moment. “That’s why you love your garden.”

  “Yes.” Walking up to a magnificent widow’s hair tree, he reached up to run his fingers over a dangling twig verdant with green. The tree swayed in the breeze, bending over him. Another twig swayed down to brush his cheek as gently as a lover. His throat moved as he closed his eyes.

  “It’s why your garden loves you,” she said, her pulse thudding with another flash of insight. “It’s what you use to grow soft beds out of ordinary feathergrass. Gods what else can you do?”

  His black gaze dropped to her breasts. Immediately, the Mark flared to life, not burning, but tingling soft as the brush of orchid petals. She moistened her lips. “Apart from that.”

  “You sure you want to know?” He moved away, the grass swishing around his knees. From somewhere deeper in the trees, a bird chorus started up, shrill and scolding. Walker smiled. “Ganglebirds. I haven’t heard that call in years.”

  Scrounge barked, hysterical with excitement. With a whoosh, four of the most extraordinary birds Mehcredi had ever seen took to the air. They were solidly crimson, with thin snaky necks and bright yellow beaks. Long, stick-thin legs trailed beneath them as they honked their displeasure, while the dog capered about below, barking furious threats.

  “We’ll tether the ponies here. They’re safe enough. I want to set up camp and get clean.” Bending, he retrieved something from the grass. “Here.” He handed her a single red feather.

  Absurdly pleased, Mehcredi stammered her thanks, but he was already several steps ahead of her, his hair shining blue black in the sun.

  Half an hour later, he’d woven another spacious bower out of willing ticklewhisker bushes, but this time, in what she could only suppose was a fit of whimsy, he coaxed a wild lover vine to knot it all together.

  “We have to be back up the cliff path before it’s dark, but there’s time to wash and eat and sleep.” He pointed toward the waterfall. “You go that way. I’ll be downstream. Yell if you need me.”

  Mehcredi surveyed the sun-shot water of the pool with the deepest misgivings. It ranged from a golden brown at the edges to a solid dark green in the middle. The swordmaster hadn’t asked if she could swim. She couldn’t, of course, but gods, how she longed to be clean.

  After a little, she shrugged, stripped and waded in where the stream flowed quick and shallow over a big flat rock. Gasping at the first chill, she splashed water over her breasts, while her nipples crimped and the Mark glowed a darker shade of green bronze beneath the white of her skin.

  Scrounge appeared out of the bushes, stretched out on a sunwarmed rock and watched her with a wary brown eye. Mehcredi giggled. “Relax.” She showed her empty hands. “See? No soap.”

  Instead, she scooped up handfuls of fine river sand from between the rocks and used that to scrub her skin. Sister, it was good to feel clean! Greatly daring, she dipped her head below the surface and opened her eyes, watching tiny, silver fish dart for cover among the rocks. Where did they come from, out here in the desert?

  Climbing out, she joined Scrounge on his rock. In the dappled shade, the sun was no more than pleasantly warm on her shoulders, the coolness coming off the water keeping the temperature comfortable. When a crimson cloud of ganglebirds returned to stalk in the shallows on their improbable legs, Scrounge growled, but she dug her fingers into his ruff and gave him a warning shake. Eventually he subsided, yawned and went to sleep.

  Deeply content, Mehcredi watched the ganglebirds fish, while the sun and the breeze dried her skin.

  Walker floated on his back, spread-eagle, buoyed up by the water, and found a small measure of peace. Once he’d thought this hidden valley was his heart’s home. Now he knew no such place existed, but the beauty of it, the whisper of Ancestral voices in the waving grass—all that eased his soul. Clouds scudded across the sky and the widow’s hair trees that fringed the pool tossed their translucent pale green leaves in the light breeze.

  It was so quiet he heard Mehcredi and the dog pushing through bushes and grass for some time before they appeared. He should teach her to walk like a Shar. A few words of encouragement, and she’d pick it up quickly enough. She did so much better when he praised her.

  Lazily, he let his feet sink so he could tread water, enjoying the silken swish of it over his chest and shoulders, the chill closing like a cold fist around his ankles where the pool was deepest.

  The touchme bushes chimed a greeting and Mehcredi stepped forward to perch on a rock. By way of greeting, she held out her hat, full of ripe, red summerberries. “Look what I found. Want some?”

  Her lips were shiny with juice, her fingers stained. ’Cestors be thanked she wasn’t nude, as he’d half feared, but all she wore was an unlaced shirt.

  “No.”

  Actually, the shirt made it worse, concealing and enticing, exposing a pale mouthwatering length of endless leg. Godsdammit, she even had pretty feet—way too big to be called dainty, but nicely proportioned with high arches. She’d tucked the crimson ganglebird plume behind one ear, where it bobbed jauntily. Ridiculous, especially with her two-tone hair. Walker’s gut clenched and his cock filled, a heavy, unwelcome pull in his groin.

  Irritation made him snappish. “You’ve ruined your hat.”

  “I’ll wash it before we go.” A grin lit her face. “Won’t take more than a minute to dry. You clean yet?” Her eyes twinkled.

  A Shar had his pride. Gritting his teeth, he dived deep, sculling down through the shadow of the cliff, where the water was shockingly cold. In a single motion, he burst out of the water, stepped up onto a handy rock and grabbed his shirt from a bush. His back turned, he shrugged into the sleeves, gathering his hair into a heavy rope and squeezing out the moisture.

  “Walker?”

  “What?” He heard her move, felt her breath against his shoulder blade.

  Sticky fingers brushed fabric aside, glanced over the scars on his hip. “How did you get this?”

  Smoothly, he made a half turn, shifted away. “I met a demon—with claws—and I was careless.” He breathed in through his nose, reaching for his battle self, cold and hard. Shit, wrong word. Not hard, not—

  “It must have been huge. Look”—stepping right into his space, Mehcredi tried to match her fingers to the ugly furrows—“my hand doesn’t even come close.”

  Walker stared, half mesmerized by her touch. She must have gobbled up summerberries as eagerly as a child, the evidence was all over her fingers, and now on him. But ’Cestors help him, she was no child.

  He wanted to tug at his hair to still the clamor. Justifications, arguments, rationalizations—they flew at him like corpsebirds, jeering and jangling and squawking so loud he couldn’t think straight. Yes, Mehcredi was a woman grown, but her heart was as innocent as a babe’s. Yes, he was the first man to treat her with any sort of consideration wh
atsoever. Yes, she was magnificently strong and healthy, driven by natural physical needs. No wonder she’d lighted on him to break her drought. Gods, yes, look at the damage he’d done with proximity and a little misplaced kindness. And then he’d compounded the disaster by making love to her, though she’d called it fucking. So direct.

  His breath caught at the memory. Carazada . . .

  Even worse, he’d let her see further into his soul than . . . well, than anyone. And wasn’t that an even more unwelcome realization? ’Cestors save her, he was so dark, so broken, and she thought of him as a hero to be healed as if they were characters in some stupid romance.

  But he wasn’t. He was beyond salvation, cynical and cold. Empty, save for his vengeance. By the seven million Songs, he’d grown used to the shape of his life. It was like wearing in a pair of ill-fitting boots—there’d be discomfort, pain even, until bones and flesh conformed to leather. In the end, the shoes hardly pinched at all.

  But the crippling damage was done.

  “Don’t—” he growled, but she lifted a summerberry to his lips, leaning right into him to do it, bracing herself with a hand on his hip. She could hardly miss the rigid length poking into her stomach.

  Sweetness burst across his tongue, exploding in his bloodstream, making him light-headed. Brutally, he quelled the urge to lick every trace of juice from her fingers. Instead, he gripped her wrist, staring down into wide eyes gone dark as pewter.

  Mehcredi smiled, though her lips trembled. “Good, aren’t they?” Her lashes fluttered. The hand on his hip fumbled down to his cock. Despite everything he could do, it leaped into her fist. By the time he closed hard fingers over hers it was too late.

  An incredible suspicion entered his mind. “Godsdammit, Mehcredi, are you playing me?”

  “Um, yes?” When nervous tension made her grip tighten, he had to bite back a groan. “Is it working?”

  27

  Trapped, as neatly as a sandmat in a snare. But unlike the sandmat, Walker was no dumb beast. He understood the consequences of capture, knew he should be making frantic efforts to escape, yet he had not the slightest inclination to do so.

  Whatever you do, you’ll hurt her, whispered the voice of temptation, clear as a bell through the corpsebirds of confusion. But you can teach her, love her—fuck her—right here, right now. Why not?

  “Mehcredi,” he said hoarsely. “Last chance. Back off. ”

  She had her cheek pressed into his chest, fucking purring, her hips undulating against his. When her thumb began to brush absently over the head of his shaft, it was simply beyond him to stop her.

  “You’ve never lied to me, Walker,” she said against his thundering heart. “Not once.” She raised a flushed face to his.

  “You’re the person I know best in the whole world—the gods know I’ve tried to understand you with everything I have.” She drew a shuddering breath that vibrated through him, sending hot chills up his spine. “Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll stop, I promise.”

  “That’s not the point!” The cry was wrenched out of him.

  They were both shaking now, dragging in air with great hard heavy gulps.

  “No,” whispered Mehcredi, “this is the point.” Quivering like a tree in a storm, she pressed trembling lips to his, simultaneously giving his cock a shy squeeze.

  Gods! Sweeter than summerberries, hotter than the desert at noon, with an undertone of wild Magick that raced through his blood like the ch’qui gone mad. A roaring in his ears, Walker wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and sank into her mouth like a man dying of thirst.

  More, more! The beat echoed in his head, in his heart, his cock, his balls. His soul answered: Never enough. Never, ever. Gods, he’d never have his fill of her.

  Mehcredi gave as good as she got, writhing against him. When he squeezed the fingers beneath his, guiding her in the rough rhythm he liked, she growled deep in her throat, gripping him gorgeously hard, and hiking a leg up over his hip. His knuckles slid over the slick flesh of her core, shockingly hot and wet. Open for him.

  Walker froze, every rational thought lost in a soft red explosion, a drumming refrain of want, want—want. The next few moments disappeared, just . . . fell out of the world. When he came back to himself, he had Mehcredi slammed up against the trunk of a widow’s hair tree—’Cestors be thanked they were smooth-barked. Her long legs were wrapped tight around his waist, his hands full of the creamy curves of her buttocks and she was raising herself to take him, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  Gods, she was mewling like a godsbedamned tygre cub.

  He’d never seen anything so erotic, so earthy and splendid in his life.

  Animal instinct had him surging forward. He was wedged halfway before he had time to think, the seed boiling in his balls, at the base of his cock.

  When their eyes met, her face bloomed in a wild wicked grin. “More!” she gasped. Then she threw her head back and laughed, the sound ringing around them like pure joy.

  The slide home was so sweet, so dirty, Walker rested his forehead against hers, panting. “Won’t last.” He sucked in a huge breath. “Sorry.”

  “Nngh.” She wriggled and clenched, sighing with pleasure. “We can do it again, right?”

  Walker flexed his hips, trying to keep it slow, reaching for the control he was sure he’d left some-fucking-where. “In a . . . little . . . while. Oh gods.”

  He’d be fine if she’d damn well stay still, let him catch his breath, but gods no, Mehcredi the assassin was too strong, too willful for that. Like the green summer surge of the ch’qui, a time when the sap rose and buds and leaves burst forth in wild profusion, she was what she was, a force of nature.

  “Let yourself go,” she whispered, nipping his earlobe, a sharp stinging sensation. “I won’t break.”

  “Stop . . . pushing.”

  Her chuckle was deep and rich. “I think you like it.” With no more warning than a soft intake of air, she clamped down hard on his girth.

  Walker’s head swam. He powered through the hot clasp, thrusting again and again, harder and harder, slamming her against the tree. A small part of his brain was conscious of Mehcredi’s voice, urging him on with keening cries that grew higher and more desperate with every thrust. Ah gods, how he loved those sounds, so quintessentially female! Her heels drummed in the small of his back. His wet hair fell in his eyes, but he couldn’t spare a hand to tuck it back.

  Nothing mattered save the godsawful, wonderful pressure in his balls and the woman in his arms, alternately shuddering and calling his name as they worked closer and closer toward a shattering climax. Growling deep in his throat, he hitched her higher, stroking hard and deep as she raced him to the finish.

  “Argh, gods! There . . . ah, there!” Her legs tightened around him like a vise and her body arched up in a long beautiful bow. “Walker! ”

  Thank all the gods. Walker released the last vestiges of control. His buttocks hollowed as he tensed, caught by the searing intensity of the boiling rush from balls to cock. But even as exquisite pleasure rippled the length of his shaft, even as he squeezed his eyes shut, groaning his relief into the curve of her neck, he knew.

  He’d done precisely as she’d asked—he’d let go. Somehow, somewhere along the line, he’d surrendered some part of himself—his heart, his soul—who the hell knew exactly? Still reeling, he turned his head to nuzzle at Mehcredi’s neck, getting a breathy mumble in response. Worse, if he wasn’t careful, he’d compromise his duty to his people. Because for the first time since the death of the Shar, he had a vulnerable spot.

  You had nothing left to lose before, whispered the voice of reason, the voice he was coming to loathe. Now you do.

  All because of a child-woman, a person with no earthly idea of how relationships worked. Not that he was any pattern card in that respect, he had to admit. A fine pair.

  He eased back, supporting her until she could stand. Mehcredi leaned against his shoulder and gave a long low whistle,
like a boy. “My knees don’t work anymore.”

  Just like that, she made him smile. Father’s balls, this had fucking disaster written all over it. He must have been mad to think of bringing her within a hundred miles of Nyzarl . . .

  The gods hold hostage the ones we love. The Ancestors had a proverb for every occasion. Very wise.

  From where he stood on a rocky eminence, the Necromancer could see a storm building to the west. But the clouds behaved strangely, roiling about close to the ground, distorting the air so that it shimmered. The breeze picked up, bringing with it an acrid flavor that caught at the back of the throat.

  Ah. The old man had done well, guiding them through the endless arid hills. This was the spot.

  His robes fluttering, the Necromancer braced himself against the increasing wind, enjoying the sensation of strength. “You are watching, Xotclic?”

  That feeling at the base of his skull, like the brush of abrasive fingertips, a whisper on the rising wind. “Ss.”

  “Pasha.” The old man appeared at the Necromancer’s side as if he’d sprung out of the stony soil. He wrung his gnarled hands. “Please. Send a man to warn them.” He indicated the small settlement below, a collection of mud huts and crude animal pens, crouched next to a muddy seep.

  “Too late.” The Necromancer glanced at his guard captain. “Keep our people behind the ridge, out of sight.”

  Hopping from foot to foot in his agitation, the old man broke into a torrent of incoherent words, curses and pleas, even tears.

  “Quiet.” The Necromancer closed his eyes, extending his other senses. The space creature seethed with the agony of separation, radiating its own strange Magick. Driven by blind all-consuming hunger, it didn’t kill for pleasure. It had no intelligence as such, no moral sense. All it knew was that the energy released by death eased the pain. But he’d guessed right enough. Without his intervention, the space djinn would die in the dry desert heat.