by Cara Bristol
A blood sacrifice for Honna’s suffering. Reena hadn’t known how lucky she was to have avoided the fever. Fortunately, Honna’s days of churning with involuntary lust, of being violated had ended. She’d fulfilled the Goddess’s and the queen’s requirement. Her crystal proved it. The morning after she’d killed Reena, she’d awakened to discover it had darkened to black. A sure sign she was relieved of mating obligations.
Blessed be.
With the Goddess’s approval, how could her plans not succeed?
Honna rinsed out her canteen then rose to her feet and resumed the hike to the palace. She’d strayed farther than originally intended because, after Reena’s failure to collapse, Honna had been forced to keep them moving. They’d ended up only a few miles outside the Lahon settlement. It meant for a long trek back, but she could use the time. A joyful messenger of bad news, she needed to practice her sad face. She dug her fingernail into her thigh until she drew blood and tears and recited her tale. “I’m so sorry, Shara…so sorry…I would have given my life if it would have saved Reena…”
So tragic. So perfect.
Upon reaching the palace, she would seek out her aunt and deliver the news.
When the grief-stricken queen retreated into seclusion, Honna would slip out to the pools for a proper bath to wash away the mating stench. Where had all the water gone? The ponds she’d remembered had dried up. She shrugged. An inconvenient annoyance. She had much bigger matters to attend to.
Ellynna was too old to produce another daughter—she had not suffered the fever for many consecutive years. With her sole daughter dead, the queen would grieve and would rely more heavily on her. And when grief transmuted to the same wasting sickness that had afflicted Reena, and she passed, Honna, the sole surviving royal, would be crowned Shara.
She skipped along the path. “My heart grieves so, Auntie. The Lahon leaped from the wood and attacked Reena…”
* * * *
The ewer bounced off his raised forearm, and Garat grabbed Reena. She fought like a wild thing, kicking and clawing, but he hoisted her over his shoulder and dumped her on the bed. She bounced to her feet and flung the bedclothes at him, and everything else she could grab.
He let her toss things about, moving only to block her flight. Pumped up on fear, she showed little sign of tiring, and he worried she would injure herself. He needed her and could not let her leave, but he didn’t want to hurt her either. She’d been harmed enough.
So small, she was eye level to him only because she stood on the bed. Being outmatched didn’t stop her from aiming a punch at his nose.
He deflected the strike. “Enough. Settle down.”
She kicked at him, and, unbalanced by the softness of the straw mattress, fell on her back. Garat pounced, straddled her legs, and pinned both arms over her head.
Her eyes flashed. “You can’t keep me here. I am the queen’s daughter.”
“Then I suggest you act like it,” he said.
She bucked. “Get off me!”
“Stop fighting and I will.” She could struggle all she wanted—she didn’t have the brawn or strength to win, but her thrashing caused him to imagine her writhing in the throes of passion, and desire coursed through him despite his hatred of the Sharona.
The problem was he did not hate this one. He empathized. She’d been betrayed, attacked by the same woman who’d killed his son. And he would have to victimize her to secure water for his people. He could not expel her from the palace. Call it weakness, but he couldn’t render her defenseless and homeless, although he would force the Sharona to build an aqueduct, and would keep the queen’s daughter until they finished it.
She howled and tried to bite his arm. “The Goddess will make you pay!”
He recalled his son’s frozen body. “I’ve already paid.” He’d asked himself many times what he might have done to have deserved such heartbreak.
Reena twisted beneath him. What indomitable spirit she had. No wonder she’d been able to withstand the evil unleashed upon her.
“You can’t return to the palace or your cousin will kill you.” Perhaps he should have softened his delivery, but regret, guilt, a pressing lust, and worry she would hurt herself if she continued to fight made him abrupt.
“How dare you accuse her! She has been helping me. If not for her, I would have died by now.” She renewed her struggles.
“If not for her, you would not have fallen ill. Would not have been so nauseated you could not keep food down, would not have been vomiting and wasting away. She poisoned you with her medicine.”
“That’s not true. You lie.”
“Why would I lie?”
“To turn me against my own people so I’ll help you.”
“You already offered to help me,” he pointed out. “And if you don’t believe me, why did you dump out the medicine at the spring?”
“Because it tasted horrible.”
“It tasted horrible because it was poison.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I retrieved your canteen. Meloni, our healer, confirmed it. You’re alive because he channeled the Goddess and drew the sickness and evil from your body. You almost didn’t survive the disruptor blast because you were so weakened. He assures me you will recover and live a long life.”
“Prove it. Where is the container?”
“He buried it to prevent the malevolence from injuring anyone else.”
“How convenient!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My people must have water. I can drive the Sharona from their home—or I can trade you for it. That is one reason why you can’t return. The other is that your cousin will kill you.”
“You’re crazy.”
“She already tried twice. Once with poison then with the disruptor.”
“She didn’t blast me!”
“Then who did?” he countered. If someone tried to convince him his brother Kor had betrayed him, he wouldn’t believe it either. Unfortunately, Reena had bestowed her trust in the wrong person.
“I don’t know. But it wasn’t her.” She glared at him. “Say for the sake of argument she did, and you do exchange me for water. Aren’t you delivering me into her clutches? If you care so much for my safety, why would you do that?”
She’d hit on his biggest source of guilt. “By then, perhaps you will have come to accept the truth and will be strong enough to stand up to her.” Perhaps he could buy her enough time to give her a fighting chance. Perhaps.
“How long are you going to keep me?”
That depended on how long it took Ellynna to capitulate and the time required to build an aqueduct. The ground would freeze soon, so construction couldn’t even start until spring. “Perhaps through next winter.”
“Next winter?” she gasped. In her eyes, he could read her ticking off the months. “No.” She flung her head from side to side. “I have to get back. I won’t be alive by next year.”
“Of course you will.”
“No. Because my illness is fatal. There is no cure.”
“Whatever you had—Meloni cured you.” Had undone the poison and hex Honna had inflicted upon her.
“That’s not possible.”
“I promise you’ll be quite comfortable. No one will hurt you.”
“Says the kidnapper!”
The accusation stung. While his intentions were honorable, he could not claim his methods were. He studied her angry face. Ire had painted her cheeks with a becoming tint and added fire to her eyes. Her hair splayed out across the pillow. Facts noted by his erection, which had refused to subside. Again. This lust wasn’t the instinctive, programmed reaction to carnal hormones, but a genuine response to her. Somehow this waif, not even in fever, had melted the icy numbness. The unguent had already proven its ineffectiveness against her. All the more reason to hasten the process, send her back as soon as possible. Give Ellynna time to worry, then make a deal and get Reena out of the settlement before she did come into fever.
&n
bsp; That would be best. Best for her. Best for him. Wouldn’t it?
What would it be like to be awash in passion for one I genuinely desire? He brushed his thumb over the colorless crystal.
She jerked. “I hate you.”
Her angry words shored up his weakening resolve. “You need more food to build your strength,” he said tonelessly. “I’m going to release you and prepare something to eat.” He shot her a warning look. “You will not be able to escape. Even if you get out of the hut, my kinsmen will stop you.”
Chapter Eleven
The little one stared with unabashed curiosity. “You’re a Sharona, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she replied. He was one of them. A barbarian. But a child, and she couldn’t bring herself to glare at him.
“Why are you tied up?”
Because after she’d “agreed” to behave and the Lahon had escorted her to the main room of his dwelling, she’d sprinted for the door as soon as he relaxed his guard. She had expected one as large as he to move a lot slower, but his reflexes were as fast as he was strong. He’d grabbed her, hauled her to a chair, and strapped her into it. “It wasn’t by choice,” she replied, curving her lips into a beguiling smile. “My name is Reena. What’s yours?”
“Jerak.”
After tying her up, the barbaric lout had stomped around the kitchen, muttering, banging cooking pots. He’d chopped some root vegetables and sliced off some meat and had set both to cooking on the stove when the boy and another Lahon had arrived. Their resemblance to the lout suggested blood relations. Brother? Nephew? Her captor had lowered the heat on the stove before he and the adult male disappeared into the other room, leaving the boy with her. She could hear the low rumble of their voices but could not make out the words.
She sized up the child. “I’ll bet you’re real good at untying knots, aren’t you, Jerak?”
“Uh huh.” He nodded.
“Why don’t you show me by untying me?”
He shook his head. “Uncle Garat wouldn’t like that.”
Garat. She finally had a name to apply to the boorish troglodyte besides the epithets in her head. He intended to keep her hostage for over a year and hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself.
“How will he know?” she asked.
“I’ll know,” came Garat’s voice from behind her.
Reena stifled a curse. She hadn’t heard the door open.
The brother met her gaze and smiled. “I’m Kor.” At least one of them had manners.
“Reena,” she answered. “I’d say nice to meet you, but under the circumstances…”
He laughed, his eyes crinkling. She got the impression he found humor in many things, and despite her situation, found his wide, white grin engaging. Unlike his dour kidnapper brother. She glanced at Garat. Yep, glowering.
She smiled at Kor and was rewarded with an even darker scowl from Garat.
“You’d better be going.” Garat walked toward the door. He’d donned a tunic and was fully clothed, right down to boot-shod feet. Thank the Goddess. There was something unsettling about his broad, hirsute chest. She wrinkled her nose, remembering the tickle of hair. The enticing smell. No, not enticing, different. Of course she’d been curious.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to stick around and help?” Kor offered.
“I’ve got it under control.”
Kor eyed the ropes binding Reena’s hands behind the chair back and tethering her ankles. A mocking grin twisted his mouth. “Yes, I see.” He beckoned to Jerak. “Come on. Let’s go.” He handed his son the smaller of two packs he’d brought from the room where he and Garat had conferred. “Here. Carry your stuff.”
“Where are we going? We just got home.”
“We’ll stay with somebody else while Reena is here.”
“Why?”
Yes, why? More people, more eyes to watch her. Of course the young one might be persuaded to help her…maybe that was why.
“Don’t ask any more questions,” Garat said.
Jerak must have been used to his uncle’s brusque manner because he didn’t appear offended. “You always say that.”
“You don’t always listen to me,” he replied. His tone held affection and Reena hated that it threatened to soften her dislike.
The delicious aroma wafting from the bubbling food elicited an involuntary rumble from her stomach. Suddenly she was ravenous, and, she realized, she’d bungled her escape attempt in more ways than one. She should have waited until she’d eaten, shored up her energy, used the time to win his trust, and then fled. Even after being zapped, she felt better than she had in a year. Not quite normal, but close.
Of course, she hadn’t been taking the herb either. Pain stabbed at her heart. The things he’d accused Honna of…not true, so not true. Her cousin loved her; she would never try to kill her. Didn’t the herb make you ill? Didn’t you rebound when you skipped it?
Coincidence. One couldn’t expect a medicinal concoction to taste like nectar. Bitter illness required bitter medicine.
You got the cramp at the pool after drinking it.
My illness caused the cramp. Not the medicine.
So why didn’t Honna jump in and save you? She can swim better than you.
She panicked.
A healer with nerves of stone?
Reena shook off the doubts; she was letting captivity get to her. The Lahon were devious as well as brutish. Honna had been right about them all along.
Grudgingly, she admitted he hadn’t hurt her. Not even when she’d fought him. Even more surprising was that she’d been well enough to wrestle with him. She glanced at her tied feet. A fortnight ago, he could have flopped her in a chair and left her there. She would have been too weak to move.
What did that prove? Nothing. Except maybe the Lahon medicine man had succeeded where Honna had failed. Not failed. She tried her best.
“Whatever you had—Meloni cured you.”
Could it be true? Could she have been cured? She’d lived with the expectation of imminent death for so long, she hardly dared to hope. How would she bear the grief and melancholy if it turned out not to be true? And if she was still terminally ill, well, that was all the more reason to return to the palace so she could spend her last days with her mother and cousin.
With trepidation, Reena turned inward, tuning into her body. In the darkest part of the night, in the quietest part of the day, she had felt the sickness breathing and pulsing inside her, and she had avoided confronting its ugly, dark presence. Now…there was only her heart beating, her stomach rumbling, and her breath hitching. The sickness had vanished—or had it been vanquished?
But gone. Definitely gone.
“You’re quiet all of a sudden,” Garat spoke.
Reena jumped. She looked around. The others had left. “I was thinking,” she said.
“About how to escape?” He folded his arms. “You can’t.”
She glared at him. “No, I was thinking about what you said about your healer. That he had cured me.” She’d thought she could be strong, but tears crept up behind her eyes. “Is it true? I am going to live?” A droplet trickled down her cheek.
Garat knelt to brush the wetness with his thumb. “I swear in the name of the Goddess that it is.”
She believed him. A torrent of relief poured out. Moisture ran like a cleansing rain down her cheeks, and her body shook with the storm.
Garat attempted to hug her, but the chair hindered him. He hesitated then untied her, scooped her up like she weighed nothing, and settled on the chair with her in his arms. She curled up against him and sobbed, releasing pent-up dread, terror, grief.
“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” He rocked her like she was a child no older than little Jerak.
Sobs dwindled to hiccups, and Reena clung to him, safe and secure. Then he pressed his lips to the wet corner of her eye. Her imagination ran rampant, conjuring a sensation of him tasting her tears with a flick of his tongue. He hadn’t real
ly done that, had he?
He takes liberties. Demand he release you.
Except she wanted to savor the sensation of being alive, relish the knowledge she would live to enjoy new possibilities. Instead of what if I die today she would awaken to new what ifs: what if I stroll in the garden, what if I dance, what if I weave a crown of flowers, what if I catch raindrops on my tongue? What if I allow this Lahon—Garat—to hold me for a moment longer?
He lifted her arm from around his neck and studied the inside of her wrist, before pressing his mouth to her sensitive skin. The brush of soft lips and bristled jaw sent tingles all the way up her arm. And between her legs. She caught her breath.
“Have you ever had mating fever?” The vibration of his voice sent a disturbing jolt through her, like an impulse disruptor, only pleasurable.
Couldn’t he tell? Her gem was as clear as water. Once a crystal changed to cyan, it never reverted to its virgin state. It always retained at least a hint of color. She rocked her head from side to side, not trusting her voice.
He kissed the inside of her wrist again, and, this time, she did feel the flick his tongue.
He released her, and she stared at her hand like she’d never seen it before. For sure, it had never felt like this, the sensation of his touch still present. She didn’t know what to do with her arm now, couldn’t very well curl it around his neck again, so she let it fall onto her lap.
“I-I should, uh, get up,” she croaked, and then stifled a squeak when his manhood pulsed beneath her bottom. Could it move?
“Yes,” he agreed, but slipped his hand beneath her hair and cupped her jaw, and it was the most natural thing in the world to raise her face.
This time he tasted her mouth, brushing her lips with his, teasing them with the merest flick of his tongue to make her shiver with possibilities, with questions. Was this a prelude to mating—or something else? When he lifted his head, his green eyes blazed with a golden fire, and she melted like a candle, wanting to lean into him for more. The core of her womanhood pulsed with need. She stole a glance at her gem. Clear.