He had indeed been without a woman too long.
“Perhaps you are right,” he managed after a moment. “I suppose I’ve seen enough to know the process would not be intolerable.”
“The process?”
“Of removing your innocence.”
Her cheeks were still flushed, but to her credit she didn’t look away. She held his gaze evenly, with that courage he’d had to admit never seemed to fail her.
“This is your price?”
Enough of this, Kane thought sharply, angered at her refusal to be intimidated, angered at his own body’s unruliness. He would have done with this, and now.
“It is.”
She took a deep breath, and spoke again. “You will teach—”
He cut across her words sharply, speaking what he must before he could get to the words that would surely drive her away. “I will teach you how to train your people to fight, with what weapons you can make yourselves. I will teach you tactics, planning, and how to withstand a larger force.”
Relief glowed in her eyes. And that angered him as well, as much for the way his blood was heating as for her silly innocence.
“And in return,” he said, his voice sounding as harsh as a raven’s cry, “you will become my woman. You will allow me the freedom of your body in whatever way I wish, whenever I wish, without complaint.”
Her color deepened. “I . . . know nothing of such things.”
“That is obvious.”
He said it tightly, hating the way his blood was pooling low and deep inside, until soon no amount of innocence could prevent her from realizing his own body was out of his control. He knew too well it was never good to let your enemy know they affected you in any way, yet his body continued to betray him, and he did not understand why. Yes, she was a strikingly beautiful woman, but he’d had those before. And never had he been so unable to conquer his own responses. This was a dismal side of his clever plan he hadn’t expected.
“Then . . . please . . . you must explain . . . exactly what you expect of me.”
By the heavens, what did she want from him? A crude, detailed description of every urge that had just swept him, urges that startled even he himself, and would no doubt shock her virtuous ears? Did she want a description of the images that had gripped him, of her naked beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, of her astride him, her hair streaming over them both?
He opened his mouth to give her just that, certain this at last would drive her away. Then he stopped, shamed by the sudden realization that he was so aroused that were he to voice those desires, were he to describe in intimate detail exactly what he expected of her, he would no doubt humiliate himself where he stood, without ever having touched her, or her having touched him. So instead, he gave her cold, ruthless demands. Surely they would serve as well to send her running from his mountain, glad of her narrow escape.
“You will stay here as my woman,” he said harshly. “And service me at my will. At least until the next full moon.”
She went pale, and Kane knew he’d succeeded. She was frightened now. And well she should be; if she knew how fiercely he wanted her at this moment, she would already be taking to her heels. And he would be left to deal with his aching body alone.
“The next full moon?” she whispered.
Of all he’d said, that was what she fixed upon? Kane stared at her.
“My people could be . . . beyond saving by then.”
Her people. Did this woman think of nothing else? Did she not think of her own welfare, to find only this to be concerned about in the words of a man ready to degrade her in this way? He was not, of course, but she did not know that.
“There are fewer than a hundred of us now,” she said in a pleading tone he heard from her only when she spoke of her clan. “And they are hunted like rabbits—”
“ ’Tis not long enough to even begin to train a novice in warfare,” he said, finding his voice at last. He eyed her once more with the most evil leer he could manage. “Let alone a virgin in other arts.”
“No, I—”
“You would not be able to save them anyway,” he said with a shrug. He’d known she would say no, and should have realized she would face him to do it, not run. He did not think this woman had run from anything in her life. “I could train you in all I spoke of and it would still be useless. There is nothing I could teach you in such a short period of time that could help you defeat a determined warlord.”
That he knew too well; he’d worked for the most determined, brutal, and ferocious of them all. He’d been his right arm, had done his bidding without question. And even the rest of his life was not enough to atone for that. All he could hope for was a higher rung in Hades.
“I know we cannot defeat him. All we wish is to make him think there is perhaps another, easier way to gain his path to the north.”
It was a pragmatic view he hadn’t expected from her. He’d thought her idealism and anger would have demanded they defeat the enemy who had taken so much from them. That she was able to temper her need for revenge for the murder of her family with such prudence spoke of a wisdom beyond even what he’d guessed at. He decided to test it even further.
“And what of the people who stand in his way to the north?”
She shivered. “I cannot think about that. We will try to warn them, but they must see to themselves. The Hawk clan must be saved before I can worry about anyone else.”
The implication that she had not rejected his obscene bargain out of hand staggered him. He’d been so certain this would work, that she would take to her heels at the very idea. He frowned; he rarely made tactical mistakes. Could he truly be so rusty? Or had he simply misjudged the determination of this woman?
The Hawk clan must be saved before I can worry about anyone else.
Perhaps he’d underestimated the value she placed on her dwindling clan. Perhaps he’d let her youth, her gender, her beauty blind him to the fact that none of that made her any less a devoted leader. He’d encountered leaders willing to die for those they led before, just never one in such a distracting guise.
He’d heard all his life women were weaker, worth a man’s time for only one thing. Could he have forgotten how his sister had shown him otherwise, and had driven the lesson home with her life?
His breath caught in his throat as his mind shied violently away from the too-vivid memory; he could not let it happen again, not here, not in front of this woman could he be swamped anew by the ugly visions—
“I wish to completely understand,” Jenna said, doing what his mind could not, pulling him back from the edge of the morass of seething, malevolent memories. “You will teach me how to train my clan to fight if I stay with you, and play your whore until the next new moon? And when that time comes, you will let me go, freely?”
He didn’t care for her phrasing, although why it bothered him he wasn’t quite sure. But he nodded, still hoping she would run.
“You will give me your word?”
His mouth twisted. “My word for your body?”
“The storyteller said above all else, you were a man of your word.”
Irritation sparked through him; this storyteller, whoever he was, presumed far too much. “Did he also tell you most times the word I kept was to destroy?”
“Yes.” She seemed unfazed. “Will you give it?”
Some small part of his tactical mind warned him to examine this more closely, but he couldn’t quite believe this lovely creature could truly outwit him.
“If you wish. Yes, I give you my word.”
Jenna drew in a very deep breath, held it for a moment.
“Perhaps I should ask in turn if you are a woman of your word, Jenna of the clan Hawk.”
When she looked at him then, Kane suddenly thought all his assu
mptions about her youth and naiveté a lie; these were ancient, weary, knowing eyes. Eyes that had seen death and destruction, eyes that had seen the burial of all close to her, the loss of all that mattered.
He knew that look. He knew it because he’d seen it in his own eyes every time he saw himself reflected in a pool of still water, or in the polished piece of brass he used as a mirror for shaving. He knew it because he felt it, felt it deep inside, emanating from the dark, shivery place where those haunting visions lived.
“I am,” she said quietly.
He studied her, suddenly aware that he had underestimated this woman. She would do what she had to do. And in the next moment she made his thought fact.
“I will do what I must, for my people. You shall have what you wish, although I doubt it will be what you want.”
He lifted a brow. “An odd thing to say, under the circumstances.”
“It doesn’t matter. Do we have a bargain?”
She truly was going to do it. She was going to agree to become his leman.
Heat blasted through him, so swiftly he didn’t have time to protest that he didn’t really want this, that her actually accepting his debauched offer had never been part of the plan, that all he’d ever wanted was to be rid of her.
She was looking at him, the blue eyes that only moments ago had been so discernible, so rife with that ancient knowledge she seemed too young to possess, masked and unreadable now. Looking at him as if she cared nothing about the bargain she was about to make.
Cared nothing about the price she was about to pay.
“You don’t truly want this,” he said, his voice sounding oddly thick even to himself.
“What I want,” she said in a tone so flat it sounded as dead as he’d felt last night, “is nothing against the survival of my people.”
His mouth twisted. “And your people will let you make this . . . sacrifice?”
“They need only know that they will have what they need. What I . . . pay to get it is my concern.”
The hesitation was barely noticeable, but it told Kane the words were not quite as effortless as she tried to make them sound.
“Do you value yourself so little?”
“I value my people more. Do we have a bargain?” she repeated.
Kane wondered what had happened to the cool, analytical man who had gone into armed combat without a second thought. He’d come here to bury that man, but he’d thought he would never succeed. Until now, when he could use some of that ruthless decisiveness and couldn’t find it in him.
“Will you renege now on this . . . trade you offered?” she asked, looking at him as if he were a merchant quibbling over the price of a loaf.
He had, it seemed, seriously miscalculated. She truly would do it. She would sacrifice herself for her people. Nobility ran deep in her. And nobility, Kane thought, was a fool’s game. He had a sudden flash of insight, that if it were her life that was demanded, she would give that, too.
Which could easily happen if she went back, whether it was now or at the next full moon.
Unless he refused to let her go. Unless he kept her here, until the inevitable destruction of her home was over. The idea held a certain appeal that he could not deny. And that it did made him very nervous. But the thought of sending her, with her bright, extraordinary courage, back to die a useless death made him feel ill.
“Well, Kane the Warrior?” she prompted, clearly too caught in her own crisis of decision to notice his.
“You will regret this.”
“I should regret the death of my people more. Do we have a bargain?” she asked a third time.
Kane was amazed at the resolve it took to voice what should have been a simple answer, an answer that gained him what his body was aching for and would cost him little. She deserved better than to be dishonored by the likes of him. The kind of blood that was on his hands should be kept far away from one so unsullied.
He’d once been the kind of man who would have scoffed at such reservations, and at paying in any way for what he wanted and could simply take by sheer force. He wasn’t sure that the change was an improvement. If he’d become the man he wanted to be, he would have sent her away untouched.
If he’d become the man he wanted to be, he would have left his mountain, fought her battle for her, and if he died as the prophecy foretold, then so be it. He would be at peace at last. At least, as much peace as he would likely find in the fires of Hades.
But he was not that man. He was not even man enough to say no to this.
“We have a bargain,” he said roughly.
Jenna let out a long, sighing breath. “Thank you.”
“You won’t thank me, before we’re done.”
She lowered her eyes. “Nor will you. You’ve made a sorry pact. But when you are dissatisfied, I will hold you to it still.”
“Dissatisfied?”
“ ’Twill happen,” she said with a shrug. “You wish a female for the indulgence of carnal passions. Instead you have one without any passion at all.”
Kane blinked. Without passion? This woman who had found the place where he’d been hiding, when no other ever had? This woman who faced down a man she should by rights have been terrified of? This woman who felt so strongly about her clan she would die for them? She, passionless?
He couldn’t help himself; he laughed aloud. She gave him a startled look, color flaring anew in her face. Then she turned away, and for the first time, fled from him. He watched her go, watched the barely noticeable limp caused by her still tender ankle, watched the gentle sway of her body, the movement of the waist-length fall of her hair.
Passionless?
He was beyond rusty; he was half-witted if he’d misjudged that.
JENNA WONDERED if it was part of the torture. If, in addition to the exhausting, bruising, muscle-burning work he’d been putting her through, he intended the other as some kind of exquisite mental torment.
She’d expected, after the way he’d spoken, to be summoned to his bed that first night. Instead, the opposite had happened; he had ordered her out of his bed, telling her if she wanted to train like a warrior, she would do it completely, and that included making do with a blanket on the ground. She’d managed not to question his bed of soft furs, but he’d answered her as if she’d spoken.
“I’m no longer a warrior.” And then, as if reminding her yet again, he added, “Nor will I ever be again.”
She was relieved enough at apparently being spared paying her part of their bargain for the moment that she retreated without a word.
And every night since then, she’d been too tired to do anything but roll up in the heavy blanket he’d used himself and fall into exhausted, happily dreamless sleep, heedless of the hard ground beneath her. Twice she’d fallen asleep in the middle of his lesson on tracking, but to her surprise he didn’t berate her, merely started anew when she awoke.
She’d never expected this. Her body had never betrayed her in any significant way, and she’d never thought herself weak, but Kane was making her feel that way. He drove her mercilessly, ordering her to do things she never would have thought part of their deal. He made her run endlessly through the trees, down his precious mountain, then, when she was winded, turn around and run back. Uphill.
He made her do exercises lifting heavy logs and rocks that she saw no point to until he handed her a bow and told her to pull back the bowstring. She managed a bare inch of movement. Silently, Kane took it from her, fitted an arrow to the nocking point, and drew it back, all in one smooth movement. Drew it back so far, and with such ease, Jenna’s eyes widened in amazement. He sent the arrow flying, fast and straight, and so far that it disappeared far into the trees before, seconds later, she finally heard the thwack as it struck a distant tree.
She went back to the rocks and
logs without complaint.
And that was only the beginning. No sooner had she begun to feel not quite so exhausted while running, he loaded a pack with some of the rocks and made her carry them. And still he made her lift them repeatedly when they returned. And not once, other than when he’d used the bow to quiet her questions, had she been within arm’s length of any kind of weapon.
And not once had he called upon her to fulfill the carnal side of their bargain. While she was too weary to linger upon it as she lay alone in her blanket by the night fire—after being lectured sternly by Kane never to stare into the flames, for it ruined your night vision—it never ceased to nag at her while she was awake. The only thing powerful enough to supplant it was the knowledge that every day she spent here was another day away from the people who were depending on her. Still, she was ever conscious of Kane’s eyes following her every move, and helplessly wondered what he was thinking. Wondered if this would be the night he would summon her.
And being poignantly thankful that there was no one left of her family who might feel bound to defend the honor she was handing over to Kane the Warrior. If he ever took it, that is.
She knew men found her attractive enough; many in the clan had approached her mother asking to pay court to her. Thankfully her mother had always said such things were her daughter’s choice, and Jenna had made that choice easily; she had no interest in such things. It was not that she did not like the boys of her acquaintance. Some of them were her dear friends; it was only that she would much rather walk for hours through her beloved forest, go fishing in the stream, and in the evenings listen to the storyteller weave his magical spell with story and song.
As a girl, after overhearing an older boy suggesting her fiery hair must indicate equally fiery passions, she’d once asked her mother why she never felt the way her friends seemed to, why she’d never looked at a man with longing as Cara and the others did. Her mother had smiled and said something about the greatest of passions requiring the greatest of sparks, which made no sense to Jenna. Her mother had laughed then, and told her to stop worrying; she was fine as she was, and the women of her family were often late to bloom.
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