“It didn’t feel like a lie,” she said, and he could only stare at her silently, willing her to let it go. But she persisted, relentless in her undressing.
“You didn’t kiss the wash woman. Why? Do men not find pleasure in kissing?”
His body tightened and he turned away, reaching blindly for the door.
“You said if I didn’t understand something I should ask.”
“Yes. Men find pleasure in kissing,” he ground out.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked, and he cursed, slamming his hand against the heavy wood, making it tremble and his resentment soar. He turned on her with his weapons drawn.
“Why?” he made his voice cold, but he didn’t wait for her to answer. “If I do not kiss you . . . are you going to take off your clothes and offer yourself to one of my men?”
She flinched and he cursed.
“Why would I do that?” she whispered.
“You are trying to survive. I understand that.” He did understand it, and he wouldn’t hold it against her, even if it bothered him. Survival was ugly, and she’d survived terrible circumstances. Still, such behavior would cause problems among his men.
“You are wrong. That is not who I am.” Her voice shook, and for the first time, he saw fury in her face.
“It is who we all are, Sasha. Every man and every woman. We are all just trying to survive.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” she asked, her voice level but her face flushed. Her eyes were molten, and he wondered how he had ever thought them blank. They snapped and sparked, radiating heat and life and emotion.
He closed the space between them and sank his hands into her heavy hair, lifting her chin to his so he could drive his words home. The angle parted her rosy lips, and he scowled down at them, their very color suspicious to him.
“I don’t hate you,” he choked out. “I don’t trust you. I don’t want to feel anything for you. And you are determined to make me your fool.”
She answered him with clawed hands, pulling at his hair the way he pulled at hers, her arms bracketing his face, her body crowding him. Her sudden aggression surprised him. For once, her anger rivaled his own.
“Do you feel this?” she asked, her hands tightening in his hair, making his scalp burn. “What about this?” She stood on tiptoe and sank her teeth into his lower lip, hanging on like a rabid wolf as he hissed and gripped her face between his palms to make her stop.
They were nose to nose, chest to chest, his lip caught between her teeth when he realized that her breasts were soft and her thighs firm, her temper hot and her mouth wet. Her face was delicate beneath his hands, the line of her jaw smooth and silky, her eyes as liquid as the blood that roared in his head. She released his lip from her teeth, but her hands didn’t loosen in his hair, and she didn’t retreat.
“Do you feel me now?” she asked, but her voice cracked, her anger melding into uncertainty.
It was something Lady Firi would have said—bold and imperious—but Ariel of Firi wouldn’t have released his lip, and she wouldn’t have watched him with the same mixture of expectation and vulnerability. Lady Firi would not have waited for him to kiss her with lips that trembled or eyes that begged. She would have bit him and scratched him and wrapped herself around him, taking what she wanted.
“No,” he lied, harsh. Hell-bent. But his heart betrayed him, quaking, terrified that Sasha would believe him—finally—and release him, shamed, as he intended her to be. Shame was a wonderful weapon. But she didn’t step back, didn’t pull away from him. Instead, she continued to lay herself open, an emotional obeisance that was unfathomable to him.
“How can I feel so much when you feel so little?” she cried, her breath moving against his lips, the mere inches between them a contradiction to the lies he told. He couldn’t answer her. He would give himself away. So he stared stonily, unflinching in his deceit. Her lids closed, as if his glaring refusal hurt her eyes. Her lashes, as black as her eyes, lay against her freckled cheeks and, freed from her gaze, he shuddered. She was precious to him. Precious and so . . . lovely.
She was so impossibly lovely.
Men who made their living with a sword were large and strong, or they didn’t last for long. Women who made their living serving others were lithe and lean, with very little left over for themselves. Kjell was a warrior, Sasha was a slave.
But he felt her.
She must have sensed his tremor, for her mouth returned. No anger this time, no teeth. She simply placed her lips on his, connecting them, as if by doing so she would see inside him, hear his thoughts, and know for certain that he was immune to her.
If she had lain with men, those men had only taken, not given, because she did not seem to understand the art of the act or the steps typically followed to create pleasure. She did not curl her tongue against his or even part her lips to invite him in. Hers was not so much a kiss as a need to get closer—to know—and her mouth was completely still against his. Soft. But still.
Then her lips parted slightly and she inhaled, drawing his heart from his chest, out his captive lips, and into her lungs. It was in that moment that he lost his grip on denial and plummeted into the warm abyss of acceptance.
The hands he’d never withdrawn from her face shifted, his fingers curling against her skull, holding her to him, and his lips began a frenzied game of seek and find, his tongue following the path of his soul, the soul she’d extracted with her indrawn breath. She welcomed him with thoughtless ardor, matching the press of his lips and the heat of his mouth with jubilance, arms clinging to his back, her body vibrating like a bow string.
Wrapped around each other, their mouths melded and mated, only to retreat and reclaim, colliding over and over again. He would not be able to let her go, he thought. He would never be free of her. The knowledge flitted past the black of his closed lids, a shooting star fierce and fleeting, only to be absorbed into his wonderment.
***
He kissed her like a starving man only to push her away like he’d had his fill. He hadn’t. He was still ravenous, still empty. She gazed at him with swollen lips and a million questions, and he felt the wildness in his eyes, in his heart, and in his head.
He strode to the door, changed his mind, and marched back toward her, deciding hunger was preferable to thirst. Being near her quenched something in him, and his chamber was a desert. “I don’t want to leave.” He folded his arms defensively, as if she would demand that he go. “I will stay . . . but I won’t . . . partake. I won’t touch you. And you won’t touch me.”
She nodded eagerly, clearly not as famished as he, and immediately pulled a thick fur from the bed and made herself a place on the floor.
“Sasha,” he barked. “You are not my servant. You are not my slave. That is your bed. You will sleep there.”
She instantly obeyed, but a smile played around her lips. She was laughing at him. He was a bloody fool. But still . . . he could not make himself leave.
He stayed with her, but he kept his word. He didn’t touch her again. Instead he stretched out on the floor, a pillow beneath his head, waiting for her to go to sleep so he wouldn’t be tempted to keep her awake.
“Do you want me to tell you a tale?” she whispered into the darkness.
“No,” he rasped. Her voice would destroy him. Shred him. He could only lay in silence, listening to her breathe.
“Will you ever kiss me again, Kjell?”
“No, Sasha,” he bit out, his palms pressing into his eyes.
“Never?” Her voice was so doubtful he wanted to laugh—damned fool—and he wondered if she saw kisses in their future. The thought drew him up short.
“Not tonight, Sasha,” he amended, and he knew he’d already begun to slip.
“Why?” she asked, and the word twisted in his belly like a sword. He thought he might bleed to death on her floor, confused and wounded, desperate to understand himself and be understood.
“Because I have loved and hated all the wrong people,
” he admitted.
“And you don’t know whether to love or hate me?” she asked, her voice almost tender.
“No,” he confessed.
“I have been hated before. But I don’t know if I’ve been loved. I think . . . once . . . I must have been, because I know how to love.”
“Do you know how to hate?” he asked, his voice sharp, ricocheting through the chamber. “If you don’t know how to hate, how could you possibly know how to love?”
“I don’t have to know how to die to know how to live,’ she said simply, and he found he had no response.
“Tell me who it was that you were so wrong about,” she pressed.
He considered feigning sleep, but felt like a coward.
“I hated Queen Lark. Despised her. And I was cruel to her,” he answered.
“Why?”
“Because I loved my brother, and I was afraid she would betray him.”
“But she didn’t?”
“No. She . . . saved him.” Sasha waited silently for him to continue. “I hated Lark—who deserved none of my dislike. But I loved my father.” The sword kept turning.
“Of course you did. I love mine, and I can’t even remember him.”
Kjell half laughed, half moaned, grateful for her sweetness even as he raged against it, but her next words had him writhing again.
“And you loved a woman who loved herself above all else.”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. And then her voice grew faint, as if she’d suddenly become drowsy but wanted to finish her thought.
“She was very beautiful. But she didn’t want to be just a woman. She wanted to be everything. She changed into a silky black cat and wrapped herself around your legs. You tried to pick her up, but she rent your clothes with her claws and made you bleed. She turned into a bird, and you tried to stay with her, but she flew too high and too fast. When you were about to give up, she called to you, and lured you closer, and you joined her on the edge of the sea. She walked into the water and became a creature from the deep, a shark with layers of teeth, and you followed her across the waters, begging her to change. She became a beautiful white horse and swam to the shores. She convinced you to climb upon her back. She said she’d carry you. But instead she changed beneath you and you were thrown to the ground.”
“I thought you didn’t see the past.” He wondered which of his men had seen fit to share their captain’s history.
“Maybe she is not the past,” she suggested, so softly he barely heard the words.
The humiliation and rage that always filled him when he thought of Ariel of Firi scalded his throat and made his heart race like he was being pursued.
“I do not love her anymore,” he whispered.
Sasha was quiet so long he thought she must have fallen asleep. He closed his eyes as well, knowing he should leave, knowing he wouldn’t. He’d spent too many nights sleeping close to her; now he didn’t want to sleep apart.
“I have seen her, Kjell,” she sighed.
He gasped and rose from the floor, approaching the bed so he could stare down at her. Her hands were curled beneath her chin, the covers pulled around her shoulders. Fiery hair spilled across the pillows and brushed her face. Her eyes were closed and she breathed deeply, lost in sleep or in visions, he couldn’t be sure.
“Where, Sasha?” he asked.
But she didn’t answer.
They left Enoch before the sun was high. Kjell’s men were bright-eyed and straight in their saddles, faking good spirits, a full night’s sleep, and strict abstinence. They knew if they wanted a repeat of the kind of freedom they’d experienced during the last two days, they would need to be convincing. Still, Kjell caught more than one man looking back at the bustling city; no one was especially eager to leave her behind.
Between the city of Enoch—named after the larger province—and the borders of Janda, there was little to see and less to do. Kjell had acquired another horse where he boarded his stallion, a pretty, brown mare with a strong back and a pleasant disposition. The horse had nuzzled his neck and eaten from his hand, and when he’d saddled and mounted her, she’d accepted his weight and direction with a docile patience he was sure would suit Sasha.
Sasha needed her own mount if he was to survive her company.
The mare didn’t cost him much—the stable master seemed eager to be rid of her—and he haggled with the stable master’s wife to fetch two riding gowns for him as part of the deal. She procured three, and he’d returned to the inn, shoved them at Sasha, and demanded that she change.
For once, he’d risen before her—he’d never actually slept—and left her chamber so he wouldn’t have to greet her when she woke.
“I cannot pay you, Captain,” she’d said, running her hands over the buttery cloth and marveling at the voluminous folds which disguised the breeches beneath.
She had resumed her subservient ways, making it easier for him to retreat behind his previous persona, the one who hadn’t seen her unclothed. Neither of them mentioned fevered kisses or his sojourn on her floor.
“I don’t demand payment,” he barked, and she left it alone.
Now she rode beside him, her eyes forward, posture erect, handling the horse with an ease that belied her history.
Jerick was unusually quiet throughout the morning as they followed the dusty road that would continue in a long, straight path toward Janda. When the way narrowed at a deep ravine, they fell into a single-file line, and Kjell sent Sasha ahead, holding back until everyone else had crossed. Jerick waited beside him, watching the others proceed.
“I thought you might find work for her in Enoch,” Jerick commented softly, his eyes on Sasha’s slim back.
“I am taking her to Jeru City. Wasn’t that your suggestion, Lieutenant?” Kjell answered darkly.
“Yes . . . but I saw you leave her chamber this morning, Captain.”
“You will do well to control your thoughts and your tongue, Jerick.”
“If you don’t mean to keep her, you cannot use her,” Jerick snapped.
Without warning, Kjell snatched his blade from his boot, striking out with a glancing swipe and nicking Jerick’s left cheek.
“You were warned, Lieutenant.”
Jerick reared back, his hand on his sword, his face bleeding, his ego clipped. The wound was shallow, but a soldier’s pride was deep, and Kjell waited, tensed for the young lieutenant to make another challenge. Jerick had never been able to hold his tongue. It was the thing Kjell both loved and loathed about him.
Jerick’s eyes flickered to the woman in question and back to his captain. Sasha’s presence among them was already wreaking havoc. Kjell was not a Seer, but he’d seen this moment coming. He would have to claim the woman for the good of his men, or he would have to let her go. Sooner rather than later.
“She is mine.”
Jerick’s eyebrows rose, and his hand fell from the hilt of his sword. His horse shimmied, mirroring his surprise, and Jerick wiped at his cheek, smearing the blood across his nose.
“She is yours?” Jerick asked, his venom notably absent. “What does that mean, Captain?”
Bloody hell if he knew what it meant. But he’d said it, and his stomach flipped once and then again before it settled.
“It means you will never again question my motives where Sasha is concerned.”
“Yes, Captain. I will tell the men.”
“Damnation, Jerick.” Kjell wanted to shove the man from his horse.
“It is better that they understand, Captain,” Jerick said gravely. Kjell cursed again, snarling at Jerick’s false solemnity.
Jerick mopped at his bleeding cheek again, and Kjell groaned, noting that Sasha and the rest of his guard now waited on the opposite side of the ravine, observing the exchange. He was fairly confident the conversation hadn’t been overheard, but the animosity—and the blood—was hard to miss. Raising a hand to his mouth, Kjell pulled his glove free with his teeth and placed his bare palm on Jerick’s cheek.
With a humming sigh, Kjell healed the wound he’d inflicted, leaving nothing behind but smeared blood and a smirk on his lieutenant’s face.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Cease speaking, Jerick.”
“You cut Jerick. And then you healed him,” Sasha said, after riding silently beside him for an interminable hour.
“Yes.” Kjell knew the question was coming.
“You giveth and you taketh away?” Her voice was troubled. He wanted to ask her what bothered her most . . . his anger toward Jerick or his casual use of his gift. But he didn’t.
“I chastised him . . . then I forgave him,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because everyone deserves healing.” He meant to mock her, but his delivery was weak and his target unfazed.
“Hopefully everyone won’t require healing.” Sasha’s brow furrowed, drawing her freckles together in unanimous disapproval.
She didn’t press the issue or needle him further about his quarrel with Jerick, but she had not forgotten his promise to answer her questions. Over the next week she peppered him with inanities, and he always answered, even when he would rather listen to her talk. His men kept a wide berth while they traveled, affording them an odd privacy that Kjell liked too much. Jerick had clearly informed them of their captain’s claim.
Fine. Just as long as he didn’t inform Sasha.
Whenever Kjell could manage it, he would turn her questions back around, saving himself from closer examination, and she answered him without artifice, without hesitation, and he found he wanted to know everything about her. Every miniscule, paltry crumb.
The terrain from Enoch to Janda was a continuous, slow climb that leveled out only to drop again, terrace after terrace, until reaching sea level in the center of the province. Kjell had planned to curve through Janda, assess any Volgar presence with a visit to the lord, skirt the hills on the border of Degn and the lower regions, and cut through the corner of Gaul before heading northwest back to the City of Jeru.
Along Janda’s southern rim, the terraces fell off suddenly, creating sheer drops to the sea five hundred feet below. The sea was named Takei, and the salt levels were so great a man could practically walk on its surface. The province of Janda had profited from the extraction of salt from the Takei Sea for a thousand years. The Bale River emptied into the Takei, which stretched east and west on the extreme edge of Enoch all the way to the middle of Janda. Kjell had considered that the Volgar might be nesting on the cliffs and on the beaches, but few creatures could survive on the salty water. The briny Takei was more suited to sea creatures than birdmen.