by Ann Raina
When he could move again, he watched Rayenne and Bunty being carried over the gap. Her expression matched what he had felt. The Horlyns could so easily smash the humans it was amazing that they did not do it. Why do they keep men in that village? What’s the greater purpose?
Rayenne shrieked when the Horlyn dropped her hard on the ground. For a few heartbeats, he just heard her breathing. We will joke about that adventure tomorrow, but surely not today. He crawled toward her and stroked her hair.
“Are we safe?” she asked and spat out sand and leaves.
“As safe as we can get today,” he replied and kissed the tip of her nose.
Bunty was flown in and whinnied pitifully. Rayenne made an effort to get up and take care of him. All four members of their small expedition group had no intention of riding on. Instead, they prepared a meal, fed the B-horses and sat at the canyon rim with a cup of tea in their hands. Sajitar put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“We are still alive,” Rayenne stated the obvious. “And not because we were so damn brave.”
Chapter Twelve
Sajitar blinked into the sun. While taking a deep breath he recalled how long it had been since he had seen the sun shining over Belthraine. He felt like a man clambering out of a deep cave only to find that the planet had turned without him and that everything was still at the same place. He smiled about his stupidity. Of course, nothing had changed. Maybe a few more houses had been built and some more people had moved to Belson Park, but the skyline still looked the same. He turned in the saddle. Emerald Green looked like a mighty wood even from the outside. The tallest trees competed with the height of the buildings, waving their mighty tops in orange and purple toward the settlers daring to get closer from year to year. He could hardly imagine the forest would diminish. It was huge and impressive and held many dangers. He had seen his share and still wondered if he would get back in later in his life.
Beyond the dusty road a coach had stopped and men with axes jumped off to head for the outer edge. Sajitar flinched. The Horlyns would watch them with critical eyes and decide if they were allowed to return or not.
Hands on the saddle horn, he watched more coaches pass by, heading for the city. The B-horses’ monotonous clacking on the street was music to his ears. For so long he had listened to the woods sounds to filter dangers. Now he was out to lean back and enjoy the modern life in Belson Park for a while.
He looked at Rayenne and his smile evaporated. He had to make his entrance at court. The judge could hold it against him that he had fled the city when it had been the proper decision to accuse Sananda Wang. He could accuse him of being an accomplice to more crimes Sananda had committed. Even though it had not been his intention, he knew of Wang’s enterprises and had the faint idea that not all of them were legal. He might end up in jail. But then there was Rayenne and her decision to speak up for him. The weeks in the wilderness had been hard and she claimed that without Sajitar she would not have made it out alive. It was up to the judge to be impressed or discount Ray’s statement.
A large coach passed by and stopped. The B-horses were both a beautiful, shining brown with carefully trimmed manes, and the coach gleamed like jewels in the setting sun. The polished wood looked very expensive. He shaded his eyes to see clearly.
“Wow, that’s a lot of credits on the street,” he muttered.
Rayenne turned to him, smiling.
“Finally back in the civilized world, and the only thing you think of is credits.”
“Reminds me that I have none.”
“You will have money once the trial is through.”
He turned to her.
“How do you know?”
“I’ll help you get back your job.”
“And how—” He stopped.
Four men had left the coach and crossed the street, air pressure guns at the ready, directed at him. They wore long, black coats and sunglasses and looked determined enough to shake Sajitar’s self-confidence. His heart raced suddenly.
“Ray, do something.”
“I can’t.”
Her calmness frustrated him, but still he did not move. What if they hurt Rayenne? She was a police officer, hated by those who had just crossed the street.
“Ray, please, we have to get away!”
“They’ll shoot our backs if we try. It’s too late.”
A petite lady in dark red pants and a close-fitted jacket followed on high heels that would make any other women stumble. She walked as if she wore them all day and night. Her hips swung elegantly with every step.
Sajitar had trouble breathing. All Horlyn nightmares together could not compete with the sight of the lady getting closer with the ease of someone who owned the world.
The woman took off the sunglasses and switched on a smile that was as false as a friendly Tusk-turner. From the potential of aggression, Sajitar knew, she would bite that beast’s head off, crunch it and comment how tasty it was.
“How can that be?” He looked to his right. Rayenne had dismounted, avoiding eye contact, head lowered in defeat. “Ray, what’s happening here?”
One of the men pulled him out of the saddle and twisted his right arm on his back. He grunted with pain.
“Let me go! Ray? Ray, damn it, what’s happening here?”
He struggled in the man’s grip to no avail. His lover did not turn and he watched in helpless frustration as Rayenne shook hands with the small woman, as if meeting an old girlfriend. His stomach turned to ice. He still could not breathe and all of his hopes shattered in one second.
“Ray, what are you doing?”
The small woman licked her lips, approaching with small, well-measured steps. Ray was beside her, still looking down, still doing nothing to help him. When Sananda glimpsed at her, she took a deep breath and forced a smile on her face.
“As I promised. Here he is.”
“You truly brought him back to me,” said the woman and turned her sunglasses between her fingers. She took a deep, satisfied breath. The word petite had been created for her and she filled the letters with life. Her oblong face was decorated by dark brown almond-shaped eyes with heavy lashes and a small, slightly upturned nose. Her lips were full and red, made for kissing. Wind touched her black hair and blew a long strand over her shoulder. A touch of bronze created an exotic expression to her complexion. She knew she looked great and played with men as she pleased. Even her voice was all seduction. She outstretched her polished hand to touch his chin. He shivered with the memory of what her touch meant to him. “I missed him so much. You can’t imagine how much, my dear Ray.”
“Dear Ray? You know her?” Sajitar could not grasp the consequences. Pressed between two of Wang’s men, he could not evade Sananda’s touch. His arms were both locked behind his back and when he struggled too much, one man kicked him in the back of his knee to bring him down. “What have you done? Don’t you know who she is?”
Ray’s eyes stayed wary, but she smiled at him like a cat with cream. She even stroked his cheek, portraying affection. Sajitar felt worse than if he’d been punched by the two hoodlums holding him.
“Of course, I know who she is. I promised her to bring you back and, well, I did.”
“This was all a scheme? Ray, no, don’t tell me you made this all up!”
She hit him with the back of her hand.
“What was there to make up? I pulled your sorry ass through the woods! Without me you’d have been dead the first night with all the predators around! You should be a tad more grateful!”
Sajitar flinched. The backhand had not been as hard as expected, but the words with it cut deep. So it’s just a game for her! Why have I never demanded any proof for her occupation? With the next breath he realized that killing Felberi must have been in her plans from the beginning! She had had to get rid of him before reaching Emerald Green. Sajitar felt sick, abandoned. How could he have been so naïve and blind? He hung his head.
“What did you find out about him?�
� Sananda asked casually.
“He knows very much about the woods. And somehow he knows more than others about the Horlyns.”
“Oh. Very nice. Very useful indeed.” She went to caress the B-horse. Tessla stood at ease, tired after the long ride. “You still have her. I feel honored.” She glanced at Sajitar and back to Ray. “That day he wanted that B-horse so badly, he had no mind for anything else. So I bought her.”
“You bought Tessla for him?”
“Yes, why not?”
“He told me he had won her.”
Sananda laughed and ran her fingers along Sajitar’s cheek. He jerked his head away.
“Won it! That’s so typical for my Saji. He never admitted that I gave him what he needed most.”
“All you gave me was pain!”
“And everything else.” Her voice turned cold. “Bind his hands and take him to the coach. Blindfold him. I don’t want him to know where we are going. Not this time.” Sananda pivoted like a model on a catwalk, nodded toward her men, then to Rayenne, and strutted back to her coach.
Sajitar watched her leave while his hands were cuffed and the blindfold put in place. He knew there would be no one reporting this to the police. Irrationally, he was more concerned about Tessla’s wellbeing than about his own.
He knew what he had to expect.
His clothes were gone and the room’s furniture looked as if here, too, someone had taken important things away. There was a table and a chair and a narrow cot by the wall, covered with nothing but a straw mattress. The wooden grates toward the corridor would also not have been his idea of decorating a guest room. The barred window overlooked a large yard and, earlier in the day, he had seen Tessla play with five other B-horses. He could not tell if it was out of Sananda’s strange idea of cruelty or compassion that he was allowed to watch his mount. He had never been able to look behind the façade of that woman’s beauty. Once he had thought he would make her happy—now, he wished he’d never met her.
It was too late for everything.
Being caught by Sananda Wang would not have been so painful if it had not been for Rayenne’s cruel betrayal. All through the night he had wracked his brain why the police officer had given him away and every thought returned to the same result. She had played with him the whole time, had found out what he knew about Emerald Green and that he had a connection with the Horlyns. There was little doubt she would be greatly rewarded by Sananda and earn many more credits than she could have while working for the police her whole life.
Frustration and helplessness had kept him awake. He was bereft of choices and his dream of being free once the trial was over was gone. Being stupid once was tolerable. Being stupid a second time showed he had learned nothing. The punishment to come was self-inflicted. He should have stayed away from women in general and not been lured by beauty and a wonderful body. He had to admit that Rayenne had intrigued him with her intelligence and the way she had defended him when he had been in need. Was all of this just a game for her? Did she laugh about me when I fell asleep beside her?
Sananda’s guards appeared and brought two more men. They carried a bucket and two large paint brushes.
“What do you want?” He stepped backwards until he touched the wall. The room was much too small to evade anyone larger than a Dikis effectively. They entered and put the bucket down, telling him without words they were here to do their job, not discuss daily politics with him. “Tell me, what’s this for?”
“Stand still and don’t fuss around.”
“I’d be much more patient if I knew what’s on your mind.” Sajitar lifted his hands in defense, panting. “Come on, Sananda does nothing just out of fun.”
“You’ll be clean afterwards, that’s all.” The men took the brushes and used the clean liquid to cover Sajitar’s body. He endured it, stiff as a puppet.
“It doesn’t smell like water.”
“It’s scented, of course—she wants you to smell great.” The first man wiggled his brows. “You want to look your best, don’t you, Saji? She’ll come when you’re ready.”
“She’ll come to torment me, that’s all.”
“All men living here love her. Don’t forget that.”
The conviction in his words made Sajitar cringe. He remembered how he had once thought just like them.
They finished washing him and left. The guards checked whether the grate was closed and went down the corridor. Sajitar shook out his hands. He shivered. There was no towel to wipe him dry and the liquid not only smelled strange, but also felt different. It left a shiny substance when dried. When the itching started, Sajitar scratched and came off with patches of a transparent film that had pulled the hair from his arms. He sighed. He had forgotten that Sananda, being such a small and sensitive woman, liked her men smooth to the touch. He remembered his first shaving, how she had cooed and walked around him, flirting with her eyes. And he had been happy to be at her service like many other men. His body hair had been shaven, then his stubbly beard and at last she had ordered a hair dresser to style him. Sajitar had felt like the most important person in Sananda’s villa and right now, he felt a twang of memory of how good it had been to be close to her.
A part of him whispered that it was a good sign to be shaven. She was truly out to meet him. She would come and flirt with him once more and maybe he would recall the old feelings she had evoked in him. Everything would be better than fearing the next hour, the next day. He could only live in fright for so long.
He looked up when the guards returned with another man, who looked tight as a bow string as he approached the guest room with short steps. He was dressed in the casual clothes of an artist, fancy orange pants and slippers paired with a wide, yellow shirt with puffy sleeves that left his thick arms bare. He had his tool kit in both hands and looked nervously left and right. His round face was covered with sweat and his artificial locks hung down miserably like the thin moustache that tried to flee across the double chin. His nose twitched like that of a rabbit. As he approached Sajitar, his eyes widened.
“Don’t you agree that some clothes would be more…civilized on him?” he accused the guards. “After all, you expect me to do my best to make this man presentable again.”
The guard grunted a reply. The hair dresser flinched in response to the rough tone and waited without looking to Sajitar until the bars were opened and a second, large chair was brought in.
“Sit.” The guard nodded toward the chair and Sajitar followed the order. His hands were fastened on the armrests while the second guard brought a blanket to cover him.
“Thank you,” the hair dresser replied politely and put down his tools on the table. His hands were trembling and he waited to calm down.
The guards stepped back, giving him some air to breathe. He sighed, but raised his brows when Sajitar smiled.
“Usually, I work under different circumstances,” the hair dresser said indignantly. “This is the first time that I’ve done such a house call.”
“If you do it right, Mrs Wang will certainly hire you again,” Sajitar replied, craning his neck to watch the stout man arrange his tools. The hair dresser’s fuzziness lifted his mood in an unexpected way. “But if you cut up my face…” He wiggled his brows. Outside the guards chuckled.
The hair dresser let out an exasperated sigh.
“By all means, being carried here blind wasn’t to my liking. And then I have to see you and…”
“Don’t say I’m an insult to your eyes.”
“Ah, no. You are a fine built gentleman, no doubt. Still, I like for my customers to wear something, at least.” He pulled the table close to the chair and arranged his tools anew.
“I’m Sajitar. Do you have a name?”
“Terendolo. I have a large hair salon downtown.” He wiped his moustache with a practiced two finger move. “You’ve probably heard of my shop before. Many important customers. The executive chief of 2Harvest, for example.” The comb in his hand danced until he brought it to
use on Sajitar’s wild mane. “And some of the politicians, of course. Last week we had Alicant in town. He was…” He made a gesture with the comb and his hand as if reaching out for the right words. “Ah, he was a tad complicated. But I managed.”
“I’m impressed. With Mrs Wang, you have gained a new height of importance.”
“Maybe, yes,” Terendolo replied quietly and worked through Sajitar’s hair until his hands were calm again. “You live here?”
Sajitar couldn’t help laughing and lifted his bound hands.
“Is that your attempt at conversation? Do I look like I wanted to be here?”
“Ah, no. But, anyway, so far I have seen some men in this building who did not appear to be unhappy about their…living circumstances.”
“Very fitting wording. Yes, there are some who want to be treated like…” He let the sentence trail off, feeling odd separating himself from the other male guests, who loved to sit at Sananda’s feet and kiss her everywhere she allowed it. He had not been any better during his first stay. It was wrong to look down upon those who liked to spend their lives as servants for a mighty woman. He cleared his throat. “I would like to have a different abode, as you can imagine. But the time will come.”
“I’m certain.” Terendolo took up the pair of scissors. “She is a very influential woman, and a beauty, too.” The scissors went to work. “I heard she makes millions every standard year. Seems she’s a clever woman, too.”
“I don’t remember telling you how I want my hair cut. Don’t you ask?”
Terendolo stiffened, a strand of hair between two fingers.
“Ah, your question puts me in deep, deep trouble because the lady of the house already told me what kind of style she wanted done.”