Teasing Danger

by Autumn Dawn

  His expression clearly stated that her reprieve was temporary.

  She fumbled with the black cord that held her dragonfly pendant and finally got the knot loose. Straddling his lap, she placed it around his neck like a choker, knotting the cord just below the bead that prevented it from slipping off and letting the black beaded tail trail down his spine. She smiled, pleased. “Now we’ve both given each other something of our own that no one else can give.”

  He fingered the pendant. “What did I give you?” he asked, thinking she would speak of the jewelry or clothes, and feeling rather self-conscious and silly with a symbol he was used to associating with her femininity hanging about his neck.

  With a shy but satisfied smile, she answered, “Well, you were a virgin the first time we—”

  He sat up so fast he nearly dumped her from his lap. “A virgin!” Highly insulted, he asked incredulously, “How in the name of all that’s holy did you ever come to that conclusion?”

  Squirming a little on his lap, she said defensively, “Well, Rihlia—” she stopped, sputtering. “You said yourself that you’d never, uh....”

  “I’d never mated,” he said firmly. “But I can assure you I’ve had more than my share of lovers. I am definitely not a virgin.”

  “But—” Before she could say anything else that would further insult him, he kissed her, stealing her words and her silly thoughts. If anyone had been close to a virgin last night, it had been her, and he was more than willing to demonstrate the gaps in their knowledge.

  He broke their kiss just long enough to promise with a wicked smile, “When tonight is over, you’ll never have cause to question my experience again, wife.” Then he settled himself more comfortably between her thighs and proceeded to blow her mind.

  It was several seconds before the pounding at the door registered.

  Keilor sat up, cursing the fact that he’d told Isfael and Raziel to take the night off and enjoy the feast. Both Haunt were likely curled up with a woman by now, and he hadn’t bothered posting any other guards. After all, Jasmine had him now.

  “It had better be a fire or a flood!” he snarled. “Who comes?”

  “Knightin,” came the instant reply.

  Keilor got up and headed for the doors. Knightin would not bother him now unless the matter was urgent. Flinging both doors wide, he said, “What is—”

  The Haunt at the door gutted him.

  Chapter 13

  She was so cold.

  Jasmine opened her eyes on the dawn breaking over the mountain camp and started to shake. She remembered everything. Curling up in her bedroll with the pain, she endured the burning tears and grief as she mourned for her love.

  Rocks crunched by her head and cloth rustled as someone knelt before her. Yesande stared at her dispassionately. “You’ll get over it,” she said. “Where we are going, I can supply you with many men to please you. You need never settle for merely one again,” Jasmine snarled at her, and she smiled. “Such a brave little Sylph. No wonder Keilor found you amusing. Don’t worry, pet.” She traced the curve of Jasmine’s ear and Jasmine recoiled. “No one is going to harm you. You’re far too valuable.” She stood up and called to the Haunt with them, “Break camp. We need to be out of here before Jayems’ trackers find us.”

  Jasmine scrambled out of bed, trying not to think about who had dressed her in her black pants and favorite tunic, bandeau and sash, and pulled on her boots, which were close at hand. She wouldn’t find a way to escape lying on her back, and danged if she wanted to give the creepy Yesande, or anyone else, ideas. After all, what other use could they have for a Sylph?

  No one touched her, though, during the seventeen hellish days that it took to reach Yesande’s citadel.

  Stags had never been Jasmine’s favorite animal, and she liked them even less after riding double all day, every day with Yesande for over two weeks. The hide wore off the inside of her thighs and her backside, and she could hardly walk for the first three days. After a week she started to saunter like John Wayne, and she was almost certain that she’d never be able to stroll with her legs together again.

  She only had one question for Yesande in the entire time. “How old are you?” she’d asked as they rode along a ridge on the third day.

  Yesande had looked at her over her shoulder in inquiry. “Sixty-seven.”

  Jasmine had said nothing else.

  “We will find her,” Mathin promised Keilor.

  Keilor closed his eyes and fought against the drugs. “If Yesande has hurt her—” he said, his voice dark with fury and pain. He should be the one going. Instead he was taking up space in a hospital bed while his enemies ran off with his wife.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll bag her and Knightin, too,” Raziel promised him. “He made a grave mistake when he merely splattered your guts all over the floor and neglected to slit your throat. You’ll be on your feet and ready to rip his heart out by the time we get back.”

  “Jasmine, it is Mathin.”

  Her eyes moved under her half-shut lids, but she didn’t move.

  It had taken weeks to track Yesande to this remote citadel, and nearly a day to convince his sister to let him have a go at the Sylph. Yesande’s medics had yet to isolate the pheromone responsible for her Sylph abilities, and they’d begun feeding her drugs to increase her libido in the hopes of increasing production. Unfortunately, the side affects were animal-like hostility and aggression, fed by her refusal to have anything to do with the men Yesande sent her to slake her thirst. Since the men were all unmated, none of them could force the issue, either. All Jasmine had to do was to tell them not to touch her, or to go away, and they went. Yesande was encouraged by that, since she liked to watch the encounters, and enjoyed seeing the power at work that she planned to make her own. Still, the Sylph’s stubbornness annoyed her, and she’d finally agreed to let Mathin try his luck.

  Blessing the fact that he was Yesande’s brother for the first time in his life, since it allowed him to proceed without an audience, he lifted the Sylph’s eyelid and peered into one dilated pupil. “Jasmine!”

  With a cat-like snarl Jasmine clawed at his face and retreated to huddle in the corner of her cot. He pulled back and clamped a hand over her mouth before she could order him away. Not believing for one second that Yesande wasn’t at least monitoring their conversation, he put his lips to her ear and breathed, “Wouldn’t you like to leave this padded cell and go with me, Dragonfly?” She froze, and he carefully lowered his hand a fraction.

  Wary eyes watched him through sweat dampened bangs. “Keilor calls me that.”

  “Yes.” He held her gaze. “He calls you that.” He held his breath, hoping that her drugged mind would comprehend what he was telling her.

  It didn’t.

  When he raised to his knees on the bed to block what he was doing from possible watching eyes, she shoved at him, her eyes rolling. “No! I want Keilor, only Keilor!”

  Mentally swearing a filthy oath, he clamped his hand just in front of the hinges of her jaw, forcing her mouth to open, and squirted in one of the antidotes the medics had sent with him, just in case. Then to hide her sputtering and to prevent her from spitting it out, he kissed her ruthlessly, clashing their teeth and bruising both their mouths.

  The kiss revolted him, not because he didn’t find the woman attractive but because he’d never forced his attentions on any woman, and he didn’t relish starting with the wife of a friend, even if it was the only way he could think of hide his actions and force her to swallow.

  When he was certain that enough medicine had gotten down her to clear her brain, he let her go. She shrank away from him with a cry and hid her face in the corner, sobbing.

  Pretending to reconsider his strategy, he wiped the blood from his lip where she’d bitten him and waited for her mind to clear and his body to stop shaking with rebellion.

  Her mind cleared first.

  In moments her eyes had opened and she looked at him with the cold stare of a
wounded cobra. Before she could tell him to go fry in hell, he grabbed her hair, yanked her to him and hissed in her ear, “Your husband sent me, you idiot. He’s alive, and if you ever hope to see him again, you’d better play along.” He allowed her to pull back. She watched him, openly distrustful, but said nothing.

  Figuring that silence was the best cooperation he was likely to get out of her under the circumstances, he stood up, pulled her to her feet, went to the door and ordered the guards to open it.

  Yesande was on the other side, flanked by ten of her Haunt, and she was not happy. “You raped her,” she said, taking one look at his blood on Jasmine’s lips. Her eyes narrowed, and she informed him with cold intent, “She is no good to me mated, fool.”

  Mathin pulled Jasmine in front of him and grabbed her throat before his sister could order the Haunt to attack. “She comes with me or you lose her, Yesande.” He was not failing Keilor at this point, not after making it this far.

  Smirking, Yesande chided him, “Come now, brother, cease these games. You may have forced the Sylph to spread her legs and mate with you—not that I blame you. I agree that something had to be done, but you’ll not kill her.”

  Mathin broke Jasmine’s arm.

  Even Yesande recoiled a step at her shriek.

  “Still think I won’t kill her?” he asked savagely, trying not retch at her gasping sobs. Jasmine deserved so much better than this.

  Yesande took a step back from them, pallor leaching her already pale skin. “Father’s madness,” she whispered with horror. “It did carry to you.”

  He allowed his eyes to gleam golden. This time the Haunt stepped back with his sister. “Go,” she told him hoarsely, too afraid to stand in his way now.

  He drew his sword and dragged the moaning Jasmine out of there. No one got in his way.

  “What happened to her?” Raziel demanded when they reached the stags.

  Mathin touched the sides of Jasmine’s neck over her carotid arteries, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain and putting her out of her misery for what was about to be a grueling ride. “I broke her arm,” he said grimly and handed her up to Raziel.

  Eyes wide, Raziel said, “If we live through this, Keilor is going to kill you.”

  “He’ll have to stand in line,” Mathin answered, as angry Haunt swarmed out of the citadel, and spurred his stag for the hills.

  It took them nearly two days of reckless dashes and miserable damp as they hid from Yesande’s soldiers, but they gained a lead on the other Haunt. By then Jasmine’s arm had been set, and she was taking painkillers, but the drugs coming out of her system combined with their grueling pace was taking its toll. Humans were never meant to keep pace with a Haunt.

  “If we don’t do something soon, she’s not going to make it back to Keilor,” Raziel said quietly as they ate. Jasmine was lying down during one of their brief rests on one of the higher pieces of swamp land. Thin insect netting shrouded her from head to toe, but they could still see her pallor through the veil and hear her harsh breathing over the calls of insects and swamp birds.

  Mathin looked off through the raised tree roots to where Isfael stood guard in the deepening gloom, somewhat protected from the insects by his thick fur. An insect bit him and he slapped at it, coming away with a hand covered with glowing bug goo. “I know. That’s why we’re going to start looking for a symbiont.”

  Raziel dug a shred of giant swamp snail out of his teeth with a sliver of wood and frowned. “What’s that?”

  “A creature that lives in these swamps. They don’t have much use for Haunt unless we’re wounded, but I think a symbiont may be just what our little patient needs.”

  She was dying.

  As Jasmine leaned listlessly against a the giant tree root where Mathin had propped her before going off to hunt, leaving Isfael and Raziel to guard her, she found that she didn’t care. She was so very tired, and she just needed to rest. She missed Keilor. Maybe, she thought fuzzily, if she went to sleep she might dream of him again. Her eyes began to close, and she almost thought she saw him, somewhere in her mind, beckoning....

  “Here you go,” A rude, raspy voice intruded, and Keilor vanished like so much smoke. She opened her eyes and glared at Mathin, who knelt beside her with a pouch. The pouch was moving. Thinking of the various forms of swamp life he’d forced down her during the last couple of days, she informed him with as much strength as she could muster, “If that’s dinner, you can have my share.”

  “It’s not dinner,” he assured her as he reached into the pouch and extracted a ball of liquid silver. Isfael and Raziel watched with interest. “This, my cranky little charge, is your new best friend.”

  The blob was about the size of a baseball and moved like a worm, stretching out and up as if scenting the air. Suddenly the creature stiffened, and its “head” slowly rotated in her direction. It reared back, as if in surprise.

  Then it zapped onto her.

  Jasmine screamed as the creature landed on her chest with a big warm splat and then spread out into a sheet of blood warm silver. With her undamaged arm and hand she frantically tried to grab it and pull it off, but the silver flowed through her fingers and eagerly slid down inside her sling. A tickling buzz spread from the sight of the break, and then up her arm and over her body. By the time it reached her head and buzzed through her brain she was on her feet, something she hadn’t been able to do unassisted for twenty-four hours.

  “Mathin!” she screeched, as she felt the wave move down her body and to the soles of her feet and back up to settle around her forearms. “Get it off!”

  “Why?” he asked, smiling as he watched her tear off her sling in her panic and try to pull the happy symbiont off of her forearms, where it had divided and settled like two filigree bracelets. It covered her forearms from wrists to elbow.

  “It’ll suck the life out of me!”

  “No, it will suck the life into you,” he corrected, watching her face flush with healthy color. Now he might just be able to get her back to his friend in one piece.

  It couldn’t happen fast enough for him.

  Keilor wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and sheathed his sword. Perspiration sheened his entire body, and he grabbed a towel to swipe at his chest and flawless abdomen, cursing the lingering weakness. The towel dragged on Jasmine’s dragonfly choker, and he flung the cloth away with an oath, assailed by a painful longing.

  It had been over a month since he’d sent others after his wife.

  “You’re going to damage yourself again if you keep this up,” Jayems observed from where he lounged in the doorway to Jasmine’s room. Keilor spared him a glance full of self-disgust but said nothing.

  Jayems wandered into the room, pausing to pet Casanova. The independent little villi was the only one not concerned about his mistress. “We know they got her out.”

  “With a broken arm and a bloody mouth!” Keilor snarled.

  Jayems winced, remembering his cousin’s reaction to that bit of news. Mathin would be lucky if Keilor didn’t break every bone in his body when next he saw him. “She was alive. Raziel and Isfael are with them.”

  “Small comfort,” Keilor answered morosely, looking at but not seeing Jasmine’s lemon tree.

  Jayems froze. “You do not think she would betray you, do you?” he asked in amazement. “In spite of the rumors, I do not believe she’d dishonor you, whether she’s away a year or a day. She is not the kind of woman to take her promises lightly.”

  “It’s not that,” Keilor said, but his words were half-hearted.

  Folding his arms with a touch of temper, Jayems inclined his head. “If you think her association with Mathin is likely to foster affection, think again, cousin. He can be charming on the surface, but you of all people ought to know that prolonged contact with Mathin is more likely to drive Jasmine into fits of rage, not passion. I’ve no doubt that she’s counting the days until she’s free of him.”

  Keilor sighed, a little cheered
. The grim warrior in him still wished to brace for the worst, but perhaps it was time to exercise some faith in his woman, as a husband should. It would help if he knew where they were, so he could meet them half way.

  This unending waiting in the dark was getting on his nerves.

  Jasmine pulled at her new “bracelets” again and sent Mathin another dirty look. It had been two days now, and they still couldn’t get the symbiont off her, not that anyone really cared but her. After all, they weren’t the ones feeling a pulsing, breathing, snake-like thing occasionally move on their arms.

  Mathin ignored her. He’d merely shrugged away her complaints, pointing out that the symbiont, as he called it, had not only healed her, but continued to supply her blood with extra oxygen in exchange for her carbon dioxide and bodily wastes, making her capable of sustaining the pace of the others. Her personal distress was of no interest to him.

  Fingering the pistol that Raziel and Isfael had given her for a wedding gift and brought with them at Keilor’s request, she turned her eyes back in the direction of home, somewhere past the foggy, muggy swamp. She couldn’t see a whole lot in the deepening gloom, and finally she gave it up to go apply some more bug repellent.

  Strands of greasy hair brushed her face as she squatted down, and she grimaced, pulling the tie out of her hair to tighten her ponytail. “If we don’t get a bath soon, Yesande’s Haunt are going to smell us coming a mile away.”

  “You’re welcome to take your chances in the swamp,” Raziel teased.

  Jasmine shuddered. No one was that desperate. Tugging the end of her ponytail over her shoulder, she began to finger comb the knotted ends, scowling as the split ends slid through her fingers. Apparently her symbiont didn’t do hair. “I need a haircut,” she grumbled.