by Cindy Dees
He answered grimly, “No thanks. I’m not going anywhere without you.” Then he added more lightly, “Besides. No way am I riding back down that cliff!”
She laughed quietly to cover up her shock at his bold statement. Not going anywhere without her, huh? Wow.
“So. Do you have a destination in mind, my lady fair, or was your goal simply to get away from court?”
She sighed. The medallion. In tonight’s insanity, she’d all but forgotten about it. “What lies to the south and east of here?”
“Mount Oeta. Beyond that, the Gulf of Euboea, which is a narrow body of water running down the entire eastern coast of the Greek peninsula.”
She said carefully, “My understanding is that Xerxes plans to march down the coast to Thermopylae and then south to Athens, while his fleet sails down the coast alongside.”
“That would be my understanding, as well,” he replied.
“Then we probably need to head inland before we make our way south.”
He chewed on his lip, the first sign of indecision she could remember seeing from him. “The farther inland we go, the more impassable the terrain becomes. Vegetation for the horses is scarce and water even more so.”
“What do you suggest?” she asked.
He sighed. “We could go west and hide for a few days, then circle back to the north behind Xerxes, once his army has passed.”
She shook her head decisively. “I definitely have to head south.”
“Why?”
And wasn’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question? She thought fast and finally answered, “Because merchant ships are avoiding Xerxes’s army but are probably still stopping at various Greek ports. I’m hoping to find one headed toward my homeland.”
“How long a journey is it to your home?”
“The distance isn’t the problem,” she mumbled.
He nodded. “Sometimes the best way home is not the shortest one, just as the shortest path between two points is not always a straight line.”
“You’ve studied geometry?” she asked, surprised. Her impression was that only a few Greek scholars were students of what was a relatively new form of math at this time. Hard to think of geometry as newfangled…but it had been in 480 B.C.
He shrugged. “I suppose we could parallel Xerxes’s army, but slightly inland from it. If we can get to Thermopylae ahead of him, maybe we can squeeze through there before the battle.”
She started. He said that as if it were a foregone conclusion there would be a great battle at the narrow pass, bounded by the sheer wall of Mount Oeta on one side and a cliff dropping into the sea on the other.
She had history to tell her what had happened, but how did he know? “You’re sure there will be a battle there, then?”
“Where else? The Greeks are vastly outnumbered. They dare not meet Xerxes on an open battlefield. But if they can reach a narrow gap first and plug it up, they might stop the Persian army. A tiny cork can stop an entire amphora of wine from pouring forth when it’s hammered into the bottleneck.”
She nodded. He was right, of course. “You can’t seriously be thinking of going through the pass ourselves, though. The battle will commence in just a few days. Won’t the Spar—Greeks already be there, setting up their defenses?”
That earned her a strange look. Dammit, she had to stop making comments like that! It was so hard to separate her foreknowledge of history from the moment she stood in now.
He said, “The two of us are well mounted. If we’re quiet and move fast, I think we can beat Xerxes to the pass and slip past the Greeks. It’ll be a close thing, but we’re up to it.”
“What about advance scouts from both armies? Surely each side will send out patrols to keep watch for their enemies.”
“We must avoid them. I did not say using the pass would be easy or free of danger, merely that it was possible.”
She grimaced, gazing out across the jagged landscape to the northwest. “I don’t suppose we have much choice if I insist on heading south, do we?”
“No,” he answered bluntly.
She sighed. “Thermopylae it is. Full speed ahead, then.”
He looked at her sharply. “You have experience aboard ships?”
She swore under her breath at her big mouth. “A little. You?”
If she wasn’t mistaken, that was a wistful look that crossed his mobile features. “Oh, yes,” he answered softly. “I have a great deal of experience with ships.”
A sailor? Yes, she could see him sailing the open seas. Pitting himself against the untamed elements…“You’d make a great explorer.”
He all but fell off Polaris. He whipped his head around fast to stare at her. “Why do you say that?” he demanded sharply.
She frowned. “You’re smart and strong and independent. You strike me as being brash enough to think that you could take on Mother Nature and win.”
He relaxed slowly in his saddle, but it looked as if he forced himself to do so, one rigid muscle at a time. He was silent for a long time after that.
They rode all through the night, Rustam and Polaris leading the way, she and Cygna following behind. It felt good to be moving, at any rate, to be taking positive action toward finding the medallion. Even if it was putting her smack-dab between two of the greatest armies of all time on the eve of their titanic clash.
Rustam and Tessa stopped periodically to rest the horses. A little before daybreak, they took a longer break, actually unsaddling their mounts in a small grove and letting the animals graze and drink at the tiny stream meandering through the sheltered spot. Rustam stretched out beneath a stunted olive tree that was little more than a bush.
“Aren’t you going to tie up the horses?” she asked in surprise.
“Polaris won’t leave me and Cygna won’t leave him.”
“But if you’re wrong, we’ll be in a world of hurt.”
“A world of hurt? An interesting turn of phrase. Where exactly do you come from, again?”
His eyes were closed, his big body relaxed beside her, his tone of voice casual. But something about his…aura, for lack of a better word, was on full alert, focused with predatory intensity on her answer to his question.
“I told you. Far away to the north and west of here, in what the Persians and Greeks consider untamed wilds.”
“Not so wild to have produced a female as intelligent and educated as you.”
“Ahh, but I attained much of my education on my journey to this place.” Which was also mostly true. Athena had planted in her mind much of the knowledge she was using to survive here during the time jump.
Rustam cracked one eye open. “Are you exceptional among your people?”
Sharply aware of his ability to sense when she was lying, she answered carefully. “I am not exceptional for my intelligence or education.”
“But…” he prompted.
Darn his perceptiveness, anyway.
“But I am not typical of the females of my people, no.”
“How so?”
He just wouldn’t leave it alone. She remembered what General Ashton always said—the best defense was a good offense. “What about you?” she asked. “You’re a sorcerer. Are you common among your people?”
Apparently, her tactic worked. He frowned deeply, looking nearly as uncomfortable as she felt right about now.
He answered slowly. “Among my own people, I am not strange. But among these Persians, I seem to be a rare and fascinating creature.”
“They did seem more than a little afraid of you,” she commented.
He abandoned his attempt to rest and sat up, plucking a long stem of grass and twirling it idly between his fingers. “I cultivate that fear. They leave me alone that way.”
She nodded. That made sense.
“Why are you not afraid of me? Are magicians commonplace in your home?”
She jolted. He’d turned the tables on her and gone on the offensive himself. She shrugged. “People like you are not common but neith
er are they unknown.”
“Do your people fear them?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, but you are a sorcerer, too, are you not?”
She gaped at him. A sorcerer? She supposed that wasn’t a bad label for her psychic abilities, to someone of this time period.
She shrugged. “I guess so. My talents don’t run in exactly the same vein as yours seem to, though.”
“What vein do your talents run in?” He pinned her with an intense look, making no effort now to hide his interest in her answer.
She sighed. “I have a talent for finding lost things. Or at least I used to. Coming here seems to have dulled my ability somewhat.”
He snorted, as if he knew exactly what she was talking about.
Was he implying that this place had dulled his psychic talents, as well? She asked eagerly, “Have you found your skills to be less here?”
He grunted. “You have no idea.”
Her jaw sagged. So it wasn’t just her! She’d been so upset that she’d let down the entire Anasazi Project. But it was this place that was the problem! She leaned forward intently. “Have you discovered any trick to magnify your skills here?”
He glanced up at her, startled. “I can still do things when I’m in close proximity to people, particularly when I touch them.”
She nodded. “Like that shape-shifting thing you did. Could you have projected the image to anyone outside that room?”
He shook his head.
Interesting. Maybe all she had to do was get closer to the medallion to be able to sense its exact location. Athena had sent her to Xerxes’s court because it was practically on top of the Karanovo piece, and indeed, that first night when she’d arrived, it had definitely been nearby. But since then, it had just as definitely moved away from her…and out of her sensory range, apparently.
Mightily relieved, she was suddenly eager to get going again, despite her aching legs and lower back.
Rustam laughed quietly. “Relax, Tessa. The horses need a good hour of rest and grazing before we continue. We have a long ride ahead of us. Be grateful for and take advantage of this stop, for you will not get much rest later.”
It was hard, but she followed his sensible suggestion. She closed her eyes, her thoughts spinning, and was surprised to find when she opened them later that some time had passed. She’d actually fallen asleep. The sun was up in the eastern sky and the air was already warming around them.
Rustam was not beside her.
She sat upright in alarm but relaxed when she spotted him across the clearing, saddling her mare. Polaris already was tacked up and ready to go.
“Good morning, fair goddess of my heart,” Rustam called teasingly.
Okay, he’d said that as a joke. There was no reason at all for her pulse to trip over itself and then take off racing like that. But there was no denying the fact that just looking at him made her heart beat faster. Almost as if he could sense her reaction to him, he grinned at her over Cygna’s back. She restrained herself from sticking her tongue out at him.
“Shall we be off?” he asked, after giving the girth a last tug. “If we ride hard through the day, we should have enough of a head start to stop for some rest tonight.”
“Why not ride at night when it’s cooler, and rest during the heat of the day?”
“Terrain’s too rough ahead. The horses need to see where they’re going. Besides, Polaris and Cygna were bred for and raised in this heat. They’ll be fine.” He added, “But thank you for your concern for them. Many humans care nothing for beasts of burden.”
Her joints creaking painfully, Tessa climbed to her feet. Note to self: sleeping on rocks did nothing for her overall health and well-being. But Rustam had suggested that the bare slab of rock would be less likely traversed by scorpions or spiders than the inviting patch of grass beside the stream. Besides, now that patch of grass was cropped short, and both horses bore green stains around their lips.
She moved over to take Cygna from Rustam.
“Need a leg up?” he murmured.
“One wouldn’t hurt. I’m depressingly stiff at the moment.”
Instead of reaching for her bent leg, though, he placed his hands around her waist. She glanced over her shoulder at him, startled.
Mistake.
Their gazes met.
She could no more have stopped herself from turning in his grasp to face him than she could’ve stopped herself from breathing. As a new day broke around them in this isolated little pocket of nowhere, it suddenly felt as if they were the only two people in the entire world. A sense of peace enfolded them. A songbird of some kind twittered nearby, and one of the horses snuffed quietly.
She gazed up at Rustam, and he gazed down at her, a slow, easy smile lighting his eyes. His hands continued to rest on her waist, warmth radiating from his palms. She laid her hands on his chest, and felt his heartbeat thudding, slow and steady against her fingers.
Oddly enough, her own pulse exactly matched the rhythm. She felt connected to him at the most fundamental level. As if one blood supply flowed between them, one circulatory system. One heart.
The sparkling display of fireworks she usually spied out of the corner of her eye whenever they touched each other was quieter this morning, a blue-and-violet swirl that flowed around them like water, caressing them both and drawing them gently closer to one another. Instead of the usual prickle across her skin, this morning it was a light tickle, like gossamer butterfly wings fluttering around her.
Rustam murmured, “Have I told you today how beautiful you are?”
Her lips curved. “No. And seeing as the day is a whole half hour old, I would have to say you’ve been seriously negligent.”
The smile in his eyes spread to his mouth. His right hand drifted up, his fingers slipping under her hair to cradle her neck, his thumb caressing the line of her jaw. “You are moonlight and marble, a goddess of beauty and love, as cool and pure as fresh fallen snow. And yet there is fire within you. The strength and heat of new-forged steel.”
Tessa inhaled in surprise, and he leaned down, capturing the sound with his mouth. His lips brushed across hers, undemanding yet beguiling. As tall as she was, she still had to rise onto her tiptoes to turn the touch into a full-blown kiss.
This morning a new tenderness blossomed between them. Maybe it was just her gratitude that he’d rescued her from the attack and had come with her on this uncertain journey.
But it felt like more than that. Much more.
His hands skimmed up her bare arms, chasing away the goose bumps caused by the chilly air, replacing them with goose bumps of delight. His languid sensuality enveloped her, expanding to fill the entire golden morning. She swayed against him, and he absorbed her weight easily.
“You make me think of romancing a woman,” he murmured. “Of courting you and winning you over.”
“Mmm. That sounds nice.”
His chest rumbled with a chuckle. “Yes, but I don’t do that. Women fawn all over me, and I grant them my attention.”
She frowned up at him. “I’m not much good at fawning. And arrogant men turn me off.”
“For you—” he dropped a light kiss upon her mouth “—I will do my best—” another kiss “—not to be arrogant. Or to make you fawn.”
Laughing against his lips, she echoed, “Make me fawn? You think you could make me do so?”
“Without question.”
“No way.”
His grin curved against her mouth. “I am really trying not to be arrogant. But it is a simple fact that I could do it.”
“Nuh-uh,” she mumbled, unable to tear her mouth away from his long enough to form words.
He lifted his head to look down at her. Abruptly, his gaze had gone black and inscrutable. “Tonight,” he murmured.
She blinked up at him. “Tonight what?”
“Tonight, I will make you fawn all over me. You’ll beg. I vow it.”
Her right eyebrow shot up. “Or else what?�
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He considered for several seconds. “I suppose you shall claim the right to say you are the only woman who has ever made me fawn over her.”
“You never fawned over Artemesia?”
He snorted in disgust. “She’s too power hungry for my taste. Too selfish.”
“She would say that for a woman to get ahead in this world, she has to be that way.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. But she lives to accumulate influence. After tonight, you will live to please me.”
Tessa burst out laughing. “I’ll never live purely to please any man. There’s a whole lot more to life than that.”
Rustam’s already dark gaze went even blacker. This time he smiled with his mouth, but the expression did not reach his eyes. “We shall see, shan’t we?”
Nine
The day’s trek was every bit as hot and dusty and hard as Tessa had expected it to be. What she hadn’t expected was to spend the entire day speculating on what Rustam had in store for her tonight. By lunchtime, she was in an agony of curiosity. By midafternoon, her imagination had run completely wild. She spent hours envisioning the best sex she could conjure in her mind’s eye.
She had to admit it sure helped the time pass.
The mountains around them continued to be jagged and mostly barren. Somehow, Rustam found game trails and nearly invisible paths, and they picked their way across the rugged terrain far more easily than she’d anticipated.
She was forced to admit to herself that she never would’ve been able to make this journey alone. As traveling companions went, he was a fine one, never complaining, and alternating between periods of pleasant conversation and silence.
He didn’t seem at all fixated on tonight’s promise. But she couldn’t get it out of her head. Every time she glanced at him, her thoughts galloped away with her, stripping him naked. Him stripping her naked, them stripping each other naked, them already naked…
At one point, he asked in concern, “Are you all right?”
She jolted back to the present moment. “Why do you ask?”