“You couldn’t kill me any more than you could have killed her.” Rayder’s ire came on full force. He glared at Marc. “I never told you why I became a slave trader, why I went rogue.”
“No you didn’t, but I always saw the potential in you.”
“After my sister and her betrothed were murdered, I knew I needed revenge, and I plotted it from end to end. You know Aramus killed her, don’t you?”
Marc leaned back in his chair, eyes hard as ice. “Yes.”
Rayder wondered if Marc’s desire to avenge Aknada could match his. “You may not have loved her. But my guess is you cared for her enough to want the man who caused her death to pay.”
Marc stared at him silently.
Rayder pressed onward. “I joined Aramus’ slave trading ship to ingratiate myself with him so he would trust me. Now that I’ve accomplished that, I need help completing revenge. I should have asked for your help a long time ago.”
“That’s the only reason you went rogue?”
“You didn’t think it was because you wore off on me when we were little kids, did you?”
Marc laughed, the sound genuine and hearty. “Yes.”
“Bollocks.”
They both laughed.
Marc gestured to the big room around them. “Look at all this, Rayder Tyrus. My father built this place and built our empire. I maintain this abode because of the way I treat my people. No matter what the Daryk Ones think, I am not a bad man. I am good to my friends and probably better to my enemies than I should be.”
Rayder glanced around the enormous great dining hall with the two-story ceiling, the large fireplace at one end, and the ruler sitting only one seat away. The twenty-person table in the center of the room looked lonely with only the two of them sitting there, and the building seemed amazingly quiet. Rayder wondered why the man had never married and filled the place with children.
“And?” Rayder asked. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“If I help you, my empire has the potential to crumble. Drakus Fina has asked me to join his quest against the Daryk Ones. He knows that my people would follow me into the hells if I asked.”
Rayder feared this moment but had suspected it might come. “You would do that?”
Marc sighed. “No. No matter what I might have done or what evils most think I’ve committed, I’m not the man Drakus Fina thinks I am. I won’t help him fight the Daryk Ones. My life is independent of the Daryk Ones and Drakus’ rogues. I don’t belong to either world.”
Relief filled Rayder. “Then I need to ask something of you, but if you think I’m responsible for my sister’s death, you might refuse.”
Marc stared at Rayder as if he’d lost his sanity and perhaps he had. “Aknada was a grown woman. She knew what she was doing. When I first heard she’d been murdered, I was…bereft.”
Marc’s words were sincere. His eyes haunted, his mouth grim.
For a few moments Rayder thought that maybe Marc had lied to himself for three years. Rayder saw it in Marc’s eyes no matter what the man said. He’d loved Aknada.
Rayder planned to use that love and laid it all out on the table. “Help me destroy Aramus once and for all.”
Marc glanced at him sharply. “You are serious. How do you propose we do that?”
“Use your people. Pay them if we have to. They’ll become our personal army against him.” Rayder went on to explain his plan of marching on the Beast under the pretense of buying slaves. “The men on the Beast are weak. We could easily defeat them and take over the ship.”
Looking more interested than Rayder had expected. “Then you have the ship as your own personal slaving vessel.”
Rayder’s stomach turned at the idea. “No. I leave the slaving life forever. I have a wife now. A mate.”
Marc grunted. “Really?” He laughed. “A woman wanted to mate with you?”
Not taking offense, Rayder grinned. “Yes.”
“Huh. I never would have imagined that.” Marc’s tone wasn’t spiteful but filled with amusement.
“Do not try.”
“Very well. Tell me more.”
“She’s a Magonian. A passenger ship on the way to Opali in Magonia was destroyed by a wave. I pulled her out of the ocean.”
“Lucky woman.”
Lucky man. He’d almost said it out loud. But was he? How lucky could he really be if he’d mated with a woman who couldn’t bear him children and help him complete his vow to his mother? Bollocks. It was all bloody ridiculous.
He wanted the children and would have wanted them even if his mother hadn’t begged him to have them.
“Hmm.” Marc’s grunt was filled with a man’s certainty. “If you found a mate, then you are fortunate. Aknada was…” He swallowed hard and for a few seconds the pain in his eyes was stark. “Never mind. That is behind me. But if what you say about Aramus is true, then I will help you. Tell me your plan.”
“First, tell me what my men are facing if they fuck the whores at the tavern.”
Marc’s eyebrows went up. “The women I mentioned can more than handle their shite, that is all. Don’t be surprised if your men come back beaten to a pulp or missing body parts.”
Rayder laughed. “Oh?”
“They have no scruples about who pays them for a fuck. They just like to copulate. They sit on men and have their way with them. Bavarda is particularly nasty. You don’t even want to know what she’s done to men who fuck her.”
“By the god.”
“Indeed. It’s also possible that your men will be imprisoned by these ladies if I don’t persuade the women to let them go. Would that be a problem?”
“Pay the women to keep them.”
Marc laughed. “It is done.”
Relief again flooded Rayder. With Marc’s help, there might just be a chance this situation would turn out just fine.
* * * * *
Xandra wakened to a throbbing headache that pulsed down the back of her neck. Impressions came slowly. Her body felt limp, powerless and dangling. Her eyelids were weighted down and refused to open. Rough texture poked her in the stomach. An ache plagued her lower back, and she wanted desperately to wake. By the god, what had happened? With a jolt she recalled the tea Yoanda had given her. Maybe everything Phili had stated about Yoanda was true. Feeling betrayed and angry, Xandra knew she had to defend herself from whatever Yoanda had in mind for her. As a thousand questions ran through her mind, she forced her eyes open.
And got the shock of her life. She was draped over a man’s big shoulder, head hanging down his back. From her vantage point, she saw vine tangled ground and leafy jungle. She pulled hot, humid air into her lungs. Weak and thirsty, she couldn’t make an effort to struggle. Fear didn’t come into her mind—grogginess kept her unable to respond to what she saw.
She sensed several men in front of and behind the man who carried her. She smelled rot or bad body odor, but carefully made no reaction. She decided against letting the men know she was awake. Better to see what was going on first.
Her discomfort increased as time dragged. She kept her eyes closed. The men didn’t talk at all, which seemed odd to her. Better that she’d stayed unconscious. Not too long after, the air changed from hot and sticky jungle to hot and dry. She dared to open her eyes just as a familiar voice spoke.
“Put her down here,” Taris Elian said.
Chapter Nineteen
Xandra stiffened. Taris had survived the shipwreck.
She’d never believed, short of a few moments after she’d awakened on the Beast, that this man could have survived.
Why not? She had.
The horror climbing up her throat threatened to choke off her air.
The sky and ground went topsy-turvy as the man who carried her laid her down on the ground. She kept her eyes open, her surprise and fear rising to panic level. She gulped in a breath and forced her paralyzed body to cooperate.
About twenty men surrounded her, some looking away as if they guarded ag
ainst a threat. The jungle seemed eerily quiet here, and that’s when she saw they were on the edge of the jungle and a wide expanse of desert, where dunes obscured the land with black, cream and white sands. It was the strangest thing she’d ever seen—Magonian deserts came in various shades of tan and nothing more. The dictomy of jungle turning into instant desert amazed her.
Even that surprise couldn’t drag her attention from Taris for more than the few moments it took to notice the landscape.
Taris glared at her. For a man of near fifty, he’d preserved well. Midnight-black eyes, unusually white skin, black shaggy hair and pock-marked face went with the cold look on his narrow face, but he had few wrinkles. Despite his paleness, which she’d never understood since he’d lived in the deserts of Magonia all his life, he wore no hat. His tunic was rumpled and stained, his trousers stained as well. From her position, he looked tall, but in truth, he was a bit shorter than her. His stocky build more than made up for his short stature.
“You thought you’d escaped me,” he said, voice low and husky.
Some women would find that low and melodious sound arousing. She, though, knew the violence he could do, and her heartbeat thudded in her ears.
Drawing in a deep breath, she kept her answer cold and unemotional. She’d learned that he knew how to use a person’s emotions against them. “It appears not.”
His slow, lopsided smile made her stomach curl. She felt ill, but it could have been the drug.
He put his hand out to help her stand, but she ignored it and hauled herself to her feet. By the god, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing weakness. She wanted to scream at him, to kick, to growl, to scar him in some way. Hate grew within her as high as the wave that had taken down her ship.
Her legs almost gave out, and the huge man who had carried her reached out to grab her upper arm. He kept her steady, and she felt so ill at first she didn’t shake off his help.
Taris smirked and planted his big hands on his hips. “Xandra, you know there is no escape from me.”
For a terrifying moment she believed him. After all, he’d found her once before and now he’d found her again. She licked her dry lips.
Taris gestured at the man who held her arm. “Give her as much water as she wants.”
The man released her long enough to give her a water skin, and she drank gingerly. She didn’t know how her stomach would react. After she’d had her fill, she handed it back to the gallute. When she looked at the man who carried her, she didn’t expect what she saw when she really paid attention to him. He was enormous, yes, but there was an odd gentleness in his eyes. His round face had a sincerity and kindness that didn’t match his brutish size. His blue eyes held no malice for her.
“Mangalor, scout ahead and see if the caravan has arrived yet,” Taris said to one of the other men, and the man did as he was asked, running east through the foliage lining the last of the jungle.
Curiosity demanded answers. “How did you survive?”
“I swam. Struggled. I almost drowned but ended up on shore. I found my way to Grimnald Castle and got help there. The people are amazingly civilized there for complete barbarians with blasphemous ideas. These Dragonians make good slaves.” He looked around at the men making a circle around them.
“How did you get them to follow you?” she asked.
“Triand. You know I had a lot of coin with me, and even the ocean can’t drown coin.”
Triand had always been the only thing he loved. Her stomach roiled but she ignored it. “How did you find me?”
He walked toward her. She took a step back and bumped into the bruiser behind her. His meaty hands clamped on her shoulders and held her in place. She froze.
“It took time, but bribes work even in Dragonia. There were a couple of men on board who have a grudge against your lover. They told me all about your heinous marriage to this Rayder Tyrus.” Taris’ eyes turned colder. “Then there is the sweet little wife of the ship’s admiral.”
“Yoanda.”
“She seemed eager enough to be rid of you for the right price. When your ship docked, I spoke to the right people at the right time.”
Her mind wanted to reject that Yoanda could have done such a thing, but Phili had warned her. “She plans to escape the Beast and the admiral.”
“Just so.”
She closed her eyes a moment and swallowed hard. “Why are you doing this, Taris? You don’t need me. Dragonia is full of women who’d be eager to do whatever you want for a price. And there are plenty of Magonian women who would have your children. Why do you want me when I can’t have your children?”
He was too close now. “What a stupid bitch you are. Do you think this is really about children? That you are cold and barren because of your traitorous actions? I want to make you suffer for what you did.”
She could imagine only too well what he might have planned for her, and her heartbeat picked up speed.
“I am married to Rayder Tyrus and he will never give me up.” She didn’t know if that was true anymore, especially after he’d learned she couldn’t have children.
He laughed. “Really? Did he tell you that when he took the most precious gift a woman has to give her husband?” He pointed at her. “You’re a slaver’s whore and that’s all you’ll be now. I want no more of you now that he’s sullied your body.”
“Then return me to the ship. What difference does it make to you if I’m on a slaver ship if you think I’m a slaver’s whore?”
His smile held contempt. “Because whatever is mine is mine to do with what I want. You’ve been sullied, yes. Used, yes. But you are still my property to do with what I choose.” He leaned in closer until his breath brushed her face. “Do not worry, Xandra. I do not take soiled goods. Your purity is no longer.”
Thank the god for that.
He shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s a pity though. I don’t think the particular slavers I have in mind for you are quite as civilized as these jungle people. I guess the desert does strange things to them.”
She didn’t want to know.
His grin widened, as if he could read her mind. “They wrap their women up to protect them from the desert, but they have no compunction about trading them for beasts or other goods. At least we didn’t do that on Magonia.” He shrugged. “Still, if I was going out into that blazing desert, I’d do the same. I’d make certain I had plenty of women in case I needed to trade for something vital.”
Her contempt for him grew, if that was possible. “If you have no use for me, just let me go.”
He laughed.
Fury exploded from her as she shrugged off the bruiser’s grip. “Let me go!”
“You have caused me no end of trouble. And for that you’ll pay dearly. I have no doubt this Tyrus will come looking for you, if only to save face. Not because he loves you, whatever that is.” Taris pointed a finger in her face, shaking it with each word. “Cooperate and I won’t hurt you. After I’ve traded you for a valuable item, I am done with you.”
An odd relief flowed through her even though it didn’t settle her desire to throttle him. “Then get on with it. Better I am with anyone else than with you, you murderous—”
His hand flashed out, and sharp pain lanced through her cheek and jaw as her head snapped back. Bruiser caught her before she could fall. He picked her up in his arms. Her hand went to her cheek as the pain throbbed and stung. She almost swung at the bruiser then thought the better of it. If he decided to hit her, she might not survive.
“Let’s go. Mangalor is slow,” Taris said. “If the caravan has arrived, I will dump you off and be done with you. If the caravan isn’t in the area, maybe we’ll take you all the way to Austos Castle.”
She could only hope he told the truth. Few people would relish being left with more slavers, but she would do almost anything to escape this man. “Where is this Austos Castle?”
The man who cradled her in his arms set her on her feet and waited until she reg
ained her balance. Her cheek still throbbed, but at least Taris hadn’t broken her jaw.
She glanced at Bruiser when Taris didn’t answer.
“A day into the desert, my lady,” Bruiser said. “But the caravan isn’t that far away.”
Taris threw a disgusted glance at the man. “Don’t talk to her, Clada.”
The bruiser’s eyes turned cooler, as if he wanted to detach from caring. How had this gentle giant become a minion to Taris so quickly?
They marched into the jungle. But though Clada walked along by her right side, he didn’t release her entirely. His meaty hand circled her upper arm.
Before long, she wished she’d allowed Clada to carry her. Her first experience of a jungle threatened to overwhelm her senses. Strange animal sounds she couldn’t identify echoed, screams that sent skitters of apprehension over her skin. Terrain snarled with vines and creepers as thick as her wrist threatened to trip her at every step. The heavy heat that came with a moist environment sucked at her energy. Perspiration trickled down her scalp and onto her face. Air felt heavy and hard to breathe. Her head started to throb. Was it from heat or the drink Yoanda had given her?
I was a fool.
She shouldn’t have trusted the woman.
Rage surged as betrayal cut deep. Good. Anger would keep her moving, keep her will to survive high.
Rayder will come for me.
She knew it in her gut. After he realized what had happened, he would comb the continent for her. Strength returned to her legs at the thought. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind. She’d need all her wits to survive what came next. She’d survived a shipwreck. Slavery. Marriage to a man she didn’t know.
I do know him.
She knew him now, and the sweet pang of yearning tearing her apart brought hot tears to the surface. She wanted him more than life itself even though she knew he would eventually discard her.
She stumbled and Clada tightened his grip on her. She straightened, determined to persevere without complaining. She refused to show weakness.
A strange noise, the trill of an animal, echoed nearby. Hints of desert showed through the vines and trees.
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