Wasteland: The Wanderer

by Crystal Jordan

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she choked, jerked back and stumbled a few steps away. Her tattered breathing was the only sound for endless moments while she struggled to regain her composure. He let her go, knowing a show of weakness would wound her more than anything else, and he respected her pride as he did everything else about her. In her place, he would want the same respect.

  When the tension escaped her, and she sighed, he approached to set his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back into his arms. “Come to bed.”

  “I’ll have nightmares.” The bleakness in her voice sliced through him.

  He kissed the back of her head, the nape of her neck. “No, you won’t. I’ll keep them away from you.”

  Turning in his arms, she looked up at him, something almost desperately hopeful in her eyes. “You’ll help me forget tonight?”

  As an answer, he settled his mouth over hers, putting as much tenderness as he could muster into the gesture. He was a warrior, an inventor—a man of mind and body, but for her, he would sacrifice his very soul if it were what she needed.

  Anything for Kadira.

  Chapter Five

  The strange whirring and thumping noises coming from Ezra’s tent might have worried Kadira a few weeks ago, but not now. She was unsurprised when she slipped inside to see him sitting cross-legged on the grass mat with a mechanical contraption on a low table in front of him. He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, muttered to himself and used a multipronged tool to adjust something on his invention. The thumping stopped, and the thing purred like the hunting cats her clan raised.

  A satisfied grin flashed across his face, and he rotated the machine on the table to fiddle with something else. She bit her lip to hold in a laugh when she saw a smudge of grease marred his untattooed cheekbone. Her heart squeezed.

  Goddess, but she loved him.

  The thought came easier now that she’d had some time to accept it, and even easier than it ever could have before she’d told Ezra about her past. It eased some of the burden to have shared her pain with him. She hadn’t wanted to, but he’d told her of his childhood, and she’d been unable to refuse to reciprocate. She’d never spoken a word of it before, not even to the warriors who had saved her, so she hadn’t had an inkling as to how he’d react, but then, he was Ezra. He was unlike any other man, and nothing had ever felt as sweet as his arms around her. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes, and she hurried to blink them away. He’d been right, her genius. She had tried to run from her past and be only a Wanderer, but that wasn’t who she was, no matter how she fought against it or denied it or tried to overcome it. As if she could. She was a trader’s daughter, a survivor who’d become a warrior, a shaman, a Wanderer, but that didn’t erase where she’d come from. She didn’t even want to erase it. To do so would negate people who had loved her.

  “Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come in and talk to me?” Ezra’s welcoming smile took any sting out of the words.

  She grinned back and left the doorway, unbuckled her belt, and propped her sword against a tent pole. Strolling over to him, she bent forward and kissed him with slow relish. “We don’t have to talk. We can occupy ourselves in other ways.”

  It was their last night together, the last night of Spring Rites. Tomorrow, there would be nothing left to mark their passing but the remains of the great bonfire and the tracks of departing clans. A few days in the relentless desert wind, and even that evidence would disappear as though it had never been.

  Ezra’s mark on her would be longer lasting. Indelible, like one of the kabu marks she left on other people’s bodies.

  And it felt like a huge, gaping hole opened in her chest because she knew he’d never be hers again. Even if they slept together at other Rites, it wouldn’t be the same. She didn’t even know if he wanted that much from her, and she’d found herself unable to ask. They’d grown closer than just sex partners in the last weeks, but proximity would do that. He’d said nothing about remaining together, never indicated he wanted anything more than what their bargain had originally specified. She’d dared to hope after he’d allowed Gamal and Sahar to join them, that perhaps they could give each other what they needed, that they could bend enough to fit together. She had certainly bent all her rules, falling hard and deep into the kind of love she’d sworn she’d avoid. But his silence was damning. He cared for her, she had no doubts about that, but he didn’t want her enough to confront his own fears about bonding. The beautiful, shining connection she had with him, all these wild and wonderful feelings, were one-sided.

  El and Ela, but it hurt to lose this, to lose him. A mortal wound that bled slowly.

  “There was something I wanted to speak to you about.” He caught her shoulders and pulled her down into his lap, his lips still sipping at hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight, frantic for the taste of him, needing to relish every second they had left.

  He licked his way down to bite and suck the pounding pulse point at her throat. She let her head fall back and moaned. He smiled against her skin, and she felt her own lips curve. He loved it when she was loud during sex. Sliding his hand up her leather-clad leg, he traced the laces that held her pants closed, but didn’t unfasten them. Disappointment raged through her, but if he wanted to extend their love play, she wouldn’t protest. Anything to put off the morning as long as possible.

  He lifted his head and met her gaze. He swallowed, looking almost nervous. “I’ve been thinking. About after Rites.”

  “Yes?” Her heart slammed into her rib cage, and dizziness swamped her. She grabbed tightly to her control, tried to master the sudden geyser of hope that burst within her.

  He glanced away, focused on his hand toying with the laces on her breeches. “You know, the Haroun kabu shaman died this past winter.”

  She blinked, sat up straighter in his lap. “Yes, I know.”

  “Doesn’t the Badawi shaman have a nephew he’s training to take his place?” His words rushed out, tripping over each other. “You will never be—”

  “I know.” Pain shafted through her soul, and she realized his offer wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed from him. “I’ll never be the Badawi shaman. I’ll always be second.” A part of her suspected that was why they allowed her to train with him, but she set aside those doubts and fears. Perhaps it was true, but perhaps Ezra was right and no one cared about her differences except her. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was proud of her accomplishments, and she was good at what she did, both with her sword and with her kabu tools. El and Ela had blessed her in many ways, both before and after she’d joined the Wanderers, and she was grateful.

  “The Haroun would honor you the way you deserve.” Some desperate emotion flickered to life in those amber eyes. “Many of my clan came to you during the Rite to ask you to mark them.”

  A sad smile curled her lips, and she slipped out of his arms to stand. “I know.”

  “And, yet, you will still refuse.” Hurt shot through his expression as he climbed to his feet.

  She spread her hands, trying to find a way to ease his pain without causing him more. “The Badawi saved me, took me in, adopted me, trained me and fed me.”

  “You have more than returned their generosity to them.” He snatched up her hand, squeezed too tight, his intense gaze burning. “You’ve served them nobly in battle, performed many kabu rituals and just this month have ensured their fuel supply for a full annum. They could ask no more than what you have already given as repayment.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Of course.” He barked out a hoarse laugh. “Why would I think you would choose to stay with me? The curse of the Haroun chieftain—to want a woman who walks away.”

  “That isn’t it, and you know it.” Her tone was just as harsh as his, anger bubbling up inside her, twining with the anguish. “You are not your father, and I am not your mother. When I make a vow, I keep it. You are not cursed. You’re a good man,
a good chieftain to people who should have cared for you more as a boy instead of thinking you freakish. Do not lump either of us together with those who threw away their honor.”

  “Then, why?” His voice cracked on the question. “Why won’t you stay with me?”

  She realized she owed him the truth, even if it hurt him, even if it pushed him forever beyond her reach. Her heart bled, and she had to press her shaking lips together for a moment before she could speak. “You aren’t asking me to stay with you for you—you’re not offering me a bond. You’re offering a shaman position in your clan. You…you were the one who said I deserved anything I wanted. You were the one who said my trader blood didn’t matter, and I believed you. You changed things, made them different, made me different, and I cannot be the woman I was when this Rite began. Not even for you.” She swallowed, shook her head. “I cannot simply be a member of your clan, even if I were its religious leader. I want more. I deserve more. I-I want what my parents had together. No matter how they played with others, with my uncles, their bond was to each other, permanent and unbreakable. Even if their death was one of suffering, the life they had together was one of joy. You were the one who reminded me to think of them as they lived, and the parents I knew would have made the same choices, even knowing how it would end. To them it was worth it. To them, love was a strength, not a weakness.” She met his gaze, open and honest, her soul stripped bare for him. “And I want such a love. I deserve it. I deserve everything. You told me so, and I believed you.”

  His mouth opened and closed, opened again, but no words came out. For a heart-stopping moment, he looked as if he were going to cry, but then he nodded, wheeled around and stumbled out of the tent and into the night.

  She sagged to the ground, pressed her forehead to the woven mat and choked on a sob. For the first time in her adult life, she’d allowed herself to be vulnerable, and she’d been shattered by the blow she’d had no armor against. Pulling in a deep breath, she picked herself up off the ground. It was no more than what she’d expected, no matter how much it hurt. And, god and goddess, but it hurt. She loved him, and nothing would ever change that. There were no defenses to be had against him, and she didn’t want defenses—she wanted him. She just couldn’t have him. She hadn’t even gotten to enjoy her last night in his arms.

  Hours too soon, it was over.

  Misery twisted like a blade in his heart. How could she do this to him? To them? What they had was good. Why wasn’t what he could give her enough? The thought sickened him, made him want to pummel himself into the ground. If someone else had said anything of the kind about Kadira, offering her less than everything she wanted, he’d have flattened them.

  A harsh, painful laugh ripped out of him.

  Wasn’t everything different with Kadira? Hadn’t it always been so? As she’d told him, things weren’t just different with them, they had the power to change a person. Pride filled him that she had come so far, been so strong, survived so much and yet had managed to accept her past and integrate it into what she wanted for her future.

  She amazed him, humbled him.

  He wasn’t certain he could do the same. To his mind, he had accepted and overcome his past, fought through his father’s shame, his own strange mental processes and people’s reactions to them, everyone’s doubts about his cursed nature, and taken his place as chieftain of his clan. He’d decided the most logical way to avoid his parents’ fate was to never follow their path into bonding. If he never took a mate, he could never have a failed bond and would never have to live with more of that disgrace—this time disgrace he had earned himself. It was rational, reasonable. As easy as piecing together one of his many machines.

  Until Kadira.

  How was he to avoid his parents’ fate if the one woman he wanted would accept nothing less than everything? How could he offer a woman who meant everything to him less than she deserved?

  He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. He no longer knew what the right path was, which route to follow. Keep the woman and risk himself, or walk away and never be tempted to stray from his set course again. No one would ever be Kadira. There was no one who could make him wish he were a different man with different experiences. A man who didn’t know what bonding could cost.

  So, he walked, his thoughts spinning in circles, his gut churning with disquiet. He just put one foot in front of the other and made himself continue. He knew not how far or how long he traveled, just set his feet to moving, needing the physical activity as his thoughts roiled. Hours. Miles. Not far enough or long enough. When he approached the camp again, saw the bonfire, the wildness of Rites, he stopped, turned his back and sat in the sand. He wasn’t ready to return. Not yet. He sighed and let his head drop back.

  The wavering green and purple, red and blue of the gloaming lights shot above the mountains in the distance, danced across the night sky, fading into the brilliant sea of endless stars. The lights were always brighter during Spring and Fall Rites, a blessing from El and Ela.

  Soon the sun would rise in the east, and the yellow sky would heat the ground around him to unbearable levels. Legends said the sky was once blue during the day, but legends were not always to be believed. They also said there had once been as many women as there were men, and that all of them had been fertile, and children had been so plentiful, some had even been discarded as unwanted. Such was beyond his comprehension. Women were few and children were rare, and it was good fortune for a clan to possess either. And Wanderer women were more hardy breeders than any in the city. Perhaps that was why the Sun Guards coveted them so much, tried to recreate them by capturing Wanderer men. Only a fool would steal a Wanderer woman…likely every clan would go to war with the city to retrieve her. And if she were a warrior woman, like his Kadira, and lost honor for having been captured, she might tear the city to shreds just for the pleasure of her vengeance.

  Kadira.

  Even distracting himself with other thoughts just lead him back to her. He felt her behind him, knew it was she who approached. She didn’t announce herself, just lowered herself beside him and opened her soft woolen blanket to wrap around him. Her flesh was so hot it seared him, and until that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d been freezing, so lost in his musings was he. Instead of flinching away, he jerked her closer, situated her between his legs, her back to his front, and pulled the blanket tight around both of them.

  She gasped as their bodies touched. “Your skin is like ice.”

  “Yes.” Some of the tightness in him eased at having her near again.

  Rubbing her hands up and down his arms, then his legs, she made a disgusted noise. “I should have brought bla grog. It would have warmed us.”

  As though he cared about drinking or warmth. “How did you know I was here? Why would you come to me after I—”

  She shot him a sulfuric glance over her shoulder that didn’t quite disguise the hurt, and her fingers bit into his thighs. “This is our last night, and we will spend it together.”

  “Even if it means we’re fighting?” He set his hands over hers, squeezing them until she relaxed her grip.

  Arching an eyebrow, she jutted her stubborn jaw. “We are warriors. It is what we do.”

  God and goddess, how could he let her go? How could he live without her, take a single step away from her?

  He couldn’t.

  And just that quickly, everything stopped spinning and settled into place. He couldn’t lose her, would do whatever it took to keep her, he wanted her that much. He wanted to bond with her, wanted her mark on his skin, a mark that meant no matter what happened, no matter how far they roamed or how many they shared each other with, she belonged to him and he to her. Couldn’t they give each other everything they needed? Hadn’t he enjoyed their time with Gamal and Sahar? Didn’t they both crave the pleasures of their own sex? She was right…why should they give any of that up when they could experience it together?

  The future opened up into something brighter and more wonderful than h
e had ever imagined. A woman who understood him, who stood by him and believed in him, who had never doubted him or thought him cursed. A woman with a past that haunted her, that set her apart and made her as different as he was. They were stronger together, and as she had told him, when she took a vow, she was honorable enough to keep it. So was he, and he would regret it all the days of his life if he let her leave without knowing how much he loved her. He rested his chin on top of her head, breathed in her feminine Kadira scent, and felt more at peace than he ever had before. “We are not just warriors, neither of us.”

  “No. We’re not.” She sighed, and the sound was sad. He squeezed her fingers again, just for the pleasure of touching her. How to say all the things he had to say? He knew where he should start, but everything after that wasn’t so clear.

  “I’m sorry, Kadira.”

  She stiffened. “Don’t be. I’m not. I have no regrets.”

  “I do.” When she flinched, he was sorrier than he could say. He brushed his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “I never wanted to hurt you, and I did when I walked out without saying anything—” She made a noise as if to speak, but he had to finish this. “No, I know I did. I am sorry. I just needed to think and…sort things out in my head. I’m ready to talk now, if you’re willing to listen.”

  “Is this the part where we fight?” The lightness in her voice was unlike her, false and brittle. “Because I’m still not going to be your shaman.”

  “No?” He dropped his chin to her shoulder. “You don’t want to mark me? I would swear you’ve given my skin the kind of look that said the goddess was moving you to do so.”

  Her short laugh was disbelieving. “You’re offering up your flesh for my kabu chisel? That’s…not what I expected.”