* * * * *
The king was quiet, the next dawning, as he picked at his firstmeal, a little too angry and far too edgy to eat. “Dunn,” he said suddenly, to the soldier serving at his elbow.
“Sir?”
“What do you think would be the worst assignment I could give a soldier?”
“My Lord? Have I done something to anger the king?”
Dye shook his head. “Be easy, Dunn. I’ve no complaint with you.”
“In that case, My Lord, digging privies,” the old man suggested. “No,” he revised his opinion, “filling in privies that have been in use for a while.”
Grimly, the king nodded, then shook his head. “I don’t want it to appear a punishment. Just an unpleasant assignment.”
Dunn stopped to think about this. “Well, sir, speaking for myself, I don’t envy the men assigned to guard the mine. Damp. Wet. Dark. Don’t like tight places.” The man stopped. “Well, other than the obvious exception, sir. ‘Course a man my age doesn’t get many exceptions, without he pays for them. And a paid woman isn’t the same as…well, you know what I mean, sir.”
After giving some thought to the old soldier’s response, Dye sent Dunn to bring Martigay.
Pushing away from the table, he paced as he waited. He had every right to be tense, angry. Martigay’s stunt had endangered the lives of his men, as well as his life—and her own!
He steeled his body to fight off a shudder of revulsion. Mithra, she’d been that close to being fucked by nine of his Thralls. His hands fisted at his sides as he paced. And after that, he’d have been forced to watch worse.
Dye shook his head. He’d not have watched. He’d have died with a bolt through his heart before he’d have stood there and watched another man touch her, let alone hurt her. And he’d have made sure he took that smug bastard, Behzad, with him.
When he heard a rustle at the doorway, he turned to face her, smoothing the hard edge of anger from his features.
“Martigay. Thank you for reporting. I’m sorry,” Dye told her, forcing a serious, sympathetic mien onto his face, “but your fear of heights makes you ineligible for the promotion I’d planned for you.”
At this overt lie, he watched her carefully, wanting to experience every minute nuance involved in her reaction. “I was going to move you back into the messengers.” For an instant she appeared surprised, opened her mouth, and closed it again quickly. Dye almost laughed. If she wasn’t going to help herself, and admit to her earlier deception, he damn well wasn’t going to give her a hand. “However, I have another captaincy open.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” she said carefully, wary suspicion in every word.
Dye rolled up two sheets of parchment and put the scroll in her hand. “I’m sending you to the mines.” Watching her face carefully, he found it expressionless, but thought she paled. She said nothing, however. “You’re in command of a unit of fifty. There’s a map in there of the mine as well as your orders admitting you—only you—to enter the mine. Inside the mine, there’s a particularly rich vein that I want guarded.”
He pointed to the scroll in her hand “I’ve drawn a circle around the drift. Its location must remain a secret. The men already assigned there, as well as the unit you’re taking with you, mustn’t know its exact whereabouts. You, alone, are to guard it and, in order to assure its secrecy, you’ll have to stand sentry without lamp or light. The soldiers posted at the mine have orders to admit no one. But your orders give you permission to enter and you’ll outrank everyone up there so your actions won’t be questioned.”
He dangled a blue ribbon in front of her.
“And my men,” she stammered, “my unit of fifty. What is their assignment?”
“They’re to reinforce the guard at the portal.”
Nodding distractedly, she reached for the ribbon and turned.
“Martigay.” When she turned back, Dye saluted her with two fingers. Apparently still rattled, she hit her forehead with her fist then turned again to make her exit.
* * * * *
Dye was still awake when his guards tried to stop the man forging into his tent. Snatching his steel from the baldric on the chair beside his cot, Dye was out of bed and crouched, steel in hand, as the intruder fought his way in past the guards. It was the girl’s friend, he realized, as his guards struggled with the man just inside the tent’s opening.
“Where is she?” Palleden demanded.
“Release him,” the king commanded his guards. “Leave us.”
Palleden straightened his rumpled sleeves as he glared at the king. “Where is she?”
“Join me in a drink, soldier?” After pulling his doeskins up his legs, Dye stepped toward the table and picked up a jar.
“Where’s Captain Martigay?”
Dye glared at the man’s blatant display of disrespect. “Watch yourself, soldier.”
“Listen, My Lord. I don’t have time to dick with you. Tell me where she is.”
Dye’s eyes narrowed on the man in angry disbelief.
“You can dismiss me tomorrow, flog me tomorrow, hang me tomorrow if you like. Tell me, tonight, where she is.”
“She’s at the mine. Guarding one of the drifts.”
“Inside the mine?” Pall turned toward the door, then turned back. “How long has she been in there?”
Dye’s stomach clenched with a sudden, sick foreboding. “The day and the night.”
“Write me an order of release. Now.”
Folding his arms stubbornly, Dye stared at his soldier.
Pall returned his look with a cold blaze of fury. “When Martigay was a child,” he started, his voice like a razor, “she woke to screams in the night. She was raised on the side of a cliff. Her family made their home in a cave. It’s not unusual in the south.
“Something was in the cave, some kind of animal, tearing her family apart. She spent that long, terrifying night hunched inside the legs of a stool, staring into the blackness, waiting her turn at death while the monster fed on her family. She could hear its jaws working, rending at flesh and bone. She could feel the creature’s breath, hot on the forearm that covered her eyes—just before it picked up the stool and tried to shake her out, then threw the stool across the room.”
Dye’s stomach tightened into a knot, recalling the long, evil scar ripping down the back of her arm. “What was it?” he asked, reaching for his linen jerkin.
“Probably a Koshiak, or something like it. She never saw it. She waited alone through the night. What she saw in the dawning was worse than anything she’d feared in the night.” Wrenching the jerkin over his head, Dye yanked his vest up to follow. “She’s afraid—she’s terrified of the dark.”
“Fuck.” The king shrugged his baldric over his shoulder and dropped into his chair as he shoved his feet into his boots.
“Are you going to write that release?”
“I’ll go myself,” he grunted, yanking at his boots.
“You can’t do that!” Pall burst out. “You’ll…she’ll…she’d not want you to know.”
“She didn’t mind my thinking she was afraid of heights.”
“She what?”
“The girl pretended she was afraid of heights.”
“That…then that would be different!”
“Why?”
“Because she isn’t!”
Grabbing his cloak, the king strode toward the tent’s opening. “You’re coming with me,” he said curtly.
Normally he would have ordered his horse to be harnessed by one of his men, but Dye didn’t have the patience to stand idle and watch someone else fumble in the dark, struggling to do what he could easily accomplish with the aid of his Westerman eyes.
“Take the chestnut,” he told Pall, thrusting a halter into his hands then reaching for his own. “How did she survive?” he asked, pulling the halter up the horse’s face. “You said she was only a child when she lost her family. What did she do?”
“What any child would do,” Pall answer
ed, fumbling in the dark. “Headed downhill until she found a river and followed it downstream. Upon reaching a small farm, she offered herself and the people took her. She got lucky—they were nice people. Worked her hard, from the sounds of it, but…it could have been worse.”
Reaching for a saddle, Dye shoved it at Pall before grabbing his own. “How about when she’s riding at night?” he grunted.
“She’s all right if she’s in a crowd, with someone else,” Pall answered, yanking on the girth rope. “When she’s alone, she counts on her horse for company—and to warn her of any danger.”
“And that’s why she keeps a lamp burning all night?”
Pall shook his head. “An open flame is too dangerous in a small tent. She has a glow stone.”
“She has a glow stone,” Dye repeated, wonderingly.
Pall nodded. “You can imagine how long it took her to save up for that. Ten hours exposure to the sun will deliver almost that length of light come dark. It’s the only way she manages to get through the night.”
“I’ve never seen it on her belt.”
Pall shook his head. “She hangs it on her saddle to recharge. The rest of the time she wears it around her neck and tucks it inside her jerkin.”
“What does she do on overcast days? When the stone doesn’t have a chance to recharge,” he asked, stooping to release the horses’ hobbles.
When Pall didn’t answer right away, Dye cut a sharp glance up at his sergeant. “I sleep with her,” he confessed.
With one knee on the ground, Dye’s hand froze on the hobble twist as he stared at Pall.
Pall frowned down at him. “It isn’t easy,” he admitted in a low mutter. “I’d like to get between her legs as much as,” he looked at the king and hesitated, “…the next guy. But—so far—she won’t have me.”
“And if she did?”
“If she gave me half a chance, I’d not waste it, My Lord.”
* * * * *
Pounding into the mine’s camp at a thundering gallop, Dye was dismounting before his horse had come to a complete stop. Dye hit the ground at a run. “Is the girl inside?”
“Sir?” The startled soldier standing guard at the mine’s portal hurried to attention.
“Captain Martigay. Where is she?”
The soldier gave his superior a blank look and Dye grabbed the man by the shoulders as he jerked him forward. “Is Captain Martigay inside the mine?”
“My Lord! Yes, sir. She…she had orders,” the man sputtered.
“Shit!
“Bring a torch,” he shouted at Pall. “Martigay!” he shouted as he ducked to enter the mine’s mouth.
Racing along the mine’s rough, rutted track, Dye hurtled through dank, gleaming corridors hacked out of jagged rock. Knowing in exactly which drift he’d find Martigay, his night vision guided him unerringly toward the correct turning. Making a right into a narrow drift, he stopped his headlong rush, chest heaving as he searched wildly for some trace of her—then caught back a groan. He found her sitting against the wall, her knees drawn into her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs.
“Martigay,” he whispered—and had her in his arms in two steps. She screamed just before she turned to dead weight in his arms. She’d fainted. Looking down on her, he watched her arms uncurl from her chest to droop toward the floor as her knotted hands loosened. He heard a small clatter and watched a smooth, round stone roll a few inches and rock to a stop. Staring down at the stone, he winced with regret.
It was her glow stone. As dull and lifeless as the woman he clutched in his arms. Stooping carefully, he reached for the stone and wrapped it up in the center of his palm.
* * * * *
Upon returning to his camp at the river, Dye threw his mount’s reins to one of his men. With the unconscious girl still in his arms, he slid carefully from his horse and carried her into his tent where he sat with her, the fingers of one hand inside her jerkin, beneath her chemise, tucked into her warm cleavage where he could feel the reassuring pulse of her heart. When Pall was announced, he looked up at the young sergeant. “I’ve broken down her mount and raised her tent,” Pall told him.
Dye nodded as his arms curled to hold her possessively.
“She’d not want you to know…about this,” Pall persisted.
“She shouldn’t be left alone,” Dye informed him.
“I wasn’t going to leave her alone,” Pall answered in challenge.
The two men stared at each other, neither giving ground. “She won’t know one man from another in the dark,” Dye finally said, making his intention clear as he stood with the girl in his arms, brushing past his sergeant on the way across the tent. “I’ll be out of her tent at first dawning. Her glow stone’s on the table. Make sure it gets recharged,” he ordered.
Chapter Fifteen
The king’s guards exchanged grins as they watched their commander stoop to enter Martigay’s tent.
Although it was black inside her shelter, Dye’s night vision allowed him to see Martigay as plainly as if it were midday. Carefully, he eased the limp girl out of her jerkin and lowered her onto her mat. When he unlaced her leggings and drew them down her legs, her shorts were dragged away along with the doeskins. Pleased with this result, as well as the view, he didn’t bother to rectify the situation.
For a long time he just watched her. She was art for the eyes, the sensuous lines of her perfect form rounding over her naked hips on their way to her thighs, curling into her knees and sweeping down to her ankles. Slowly, his eyes followed the gentle curves along the inside of her legs back up to where they merged, then split at the delta of her sex, darkened with the rich, red velvet curling in her groin.
Only her thin cotton chemise covered her, and nothing else. Painfully threadbare, the worn fabric that strained to cover her nipples was almost transparent. Laced down the front, it was probably originally closed with a ribbon but now a tattered bit of string was all that kept it together over her full, round breasts.
Stretching out carefully, Dye lay down beside her.
Despite the fact that he moved carefully, he must have roused her, because she reached for him as soon as he was settled. She woke suddenly, calling for Pall and clutching at his leather vest as she pulled herself into his arms.
Automatically, every muscle in his body tightened—one muscle in particular—as his hand hovered uncertainly in the air above her hip. When he let it fall, his palm followed the rounded flesh over her hip to curve and hold her bottom. Years of habit, as well as strong male instinct worked on him to pull her lower body tightly against his. He thought he would be content then, with her body close to his.
He wasn’t.
His hand kept moving and he couldn’t stop himself to save his place at Hadi’s Hearth, let alone his principles. His fingers spread and traveled over her bottom, up into the small of her back, drawing her closer, returning to her bottom, pulling her thigh toward him.
Martigay roused slowly to the pleasant sensation of a man’s fingers in her crease then on her thigh, dragging her leg to drape over his hip.
“Pall?” she murmured. The hand on her thigh hesitated only an instant before it continued. Stroking gently, but insistently, the hand pulled her up into the man’s hard, heated advance. Opening her eyes, she frowned into the darkness, but could see nothing of the man beside her. The darkness made her shudder and he pulled her closer. “Th…thanks for g-getting me out of that m-mine,” she stammered as she shivered. “I was…it was—”
“Shhh,” he breathed against her ear.
“Bastard,” she gritted out. The hand on her leg stopped. “The king,” she clarified. “Effing, pronking bastard.”
All at once, she was on her back as his upper body covered hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and his lips covered her mouth.
Suddenly desperate to feel her naked breasts beneath his palms, Dye broke away from her lips as his fingers tangled with the ties that drew her thin chemise tight across her nipples. She murmu
red a protest as she pushed away from him but the action did nothing to reduce his lust or halt his advance. Tugging at the ties, he got several fingers through the laces to stroke over the round, warm curve of her breast. When his rough thumb grazed her nipple, he held his breath as her eyes opened, searching the darkness.
“No,” she murmured uncertainly. “No, Pall.”
Watching her face, Dye pushed his hand further into the chemise, forcing the opening to widen until the pale peach of her nipple was partly exposed at the edge of the chemise, beneath the loosely crossed ties. His hand rounded the far side of her breast and he lifted the plump weight in his palm as the whole of her nipple was bared in the loosened opening of her chemise.
Her eyes were wide and fixed on a point just below his as she frowned in the darkness. “No,” she breathed, her hands against his chest.
Sliding his hand back over the smooth skin beneath her chemise, he knotted his fingers in her ties. One yank and the strings were out. Pulling his body away from her, his hand shook as he laid the chemise open, exposing her beautiful breasts. Warm peach nipples were centered on the full, heavy breasts that slipped to the sides of her chest.
Heart racketing, dick pounding, he watched her sleepy attempt to pull the chemise closed again. His hands tangled briefly with hers as he pushed them aside to scrape his palm over one of her nipples. Under his persistent, teasing touch, her nipples tightened into knots that caught at his fingers and, slowly, he lowered his mouth to the circle of petal-peach.
Her hands tugged at his hair as his lips tugged the nipple to a rough point, and when she pulled his hair beyond the point of comfort, he took hold of her wrists and pinned her arms wide while he dipped his head and licked each of her nipples into hard, glistening peaks.
Sucking areola and nipple suddenly into his mouth, he felt her feeble struggles cease beneath him as her body stiffened and her back arched to push her breasts up into his mouth. With a small grin of satisfaction, he raised his eyes to her face, brushing her wet nipples with his stubbled chin. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes closed as she gave—and he accepted—her total surrender.
Dye's Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Page 11