She backed up, feeling like she was far too close to him. “I’m not suggesting that…”
“We don’t take ‘suggestions’ either.” He pressed towards her again. “We just tell people what to do.”
She swallowed, starting to feel like she was being hunted or something. The sensation was rather exciting. It made her feel alive and desired. Recognizing that if she ran away right now, he’d chase her down and probably take her right here on the rocks.
Her body warmed at the thought.
“And… and are you going to tell me what to do?” She whispered, almost wanting him to. No. Honestly hoping that he would.
She licked her dry lips, imagining the kinds of things she’d do if he told her…
His eyes moved up and down her body, undoubtedly planning those very same sensual acts. “Tomorrow.” He promised, then met her gaze. “Tomorrow, you’re going to do everything I want.”
“I don’t… I don’t think I remember promising that.” She got out weakly.
“Well, you did.” He insisted.
“Okay.” She nodded immediately. “I’ll add that to my notes.”
“Yeah, you do that.” He agreed, running his hand through her hair and pressing his face to it. “Your hair smells nice today.”
“That’s… that’s a non sequitur.” She whispered. “I don’t… I don’t know how to respond to…” She looked up at him, feeling hopelessly lost in his dark eyes. “Wait… yes I do.” She grabbed him and pulled him closer to kiss him.
He staggered back, not expecting that.
Tandy used his surprise to her advantage, pressing herself against him. The movement caused him to stumble and almost fall onto the sharp rocks. He was forced to break the kiss, staggering on one foot in an effort to keep from toppling into a deadly crevice and being impaled by a dozen razor-sharp pillars of broken glass.
Tandy reached out to grab him before he went headfirst into the gap.
He shook his head to clear it. “Wow…” He breathed.
She nodded. “You almost fell.”
“Not what I’m talking about.” He assured her. “That was a fucking kiss! I like it when your brain is in the game!” He smiled widely. “We are going to have so much fun tomorrow! Praise be to Science!”
She was unable to argue with that prediction. “You are a very pretty man. And I really like it when you touch me.” She informed him nonchalantly. “I think we will both enjoy the experiment.” She paused to think about it again. “A lot.”
“We’re in complete agreement.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’d try to move the schedule up a day, but I know you wouldn’t like that.”
She shook her head. “We have an appointment.”
“I know, I know.” He reached down to lightly caress her rear. “But you can’t blame me for asking, right?”
Every time he touched her it got harder and harder to resist him, so yes. Yes, she could blame him for asking.
She closed her eyes, trying to keep her senses and not just start ripping both of their clothes off in a mad sex-crazed frenzy.
Tandy wasn’t used to feeling this way. There was something about him that… touched a piece of her that no one else ever had.
He had her.
He had her completely, heart and mind, and he always would.
She recognized that. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to break free. Hell, she was sure she didn’t want to even try! The thought was utterly inconceivable.
He started up the next hill. “I don’t think we’re growing stale, we’re just both anxious to move on and take the next step.”
She took several more calming breaths, wishing they would stop talking about this. “I’m still terrified of that, actually.”
“I honestly don’t know why.” He sounded amazed again. “Nothing is going to happen unless you want it to happen, you know that. And it’s not like we’ve never…”
“I know exactly what we’ve done, thank you.” She cut him off, trying to push the tantalizing memory of his mouth on her body from her mind. “Reminding me is just going to make the next day unbearable.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Unbearable in a good way? Or unbearable in a bad way?”
“How can something be unbearable in a good way?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Am I mistranslating that?”
“Oh, Prize.” Tzadok smirked at her in complete sexy confidence. “I’m planning on doing sooooo many ‘unbearably good’ things to you.”
She just stared at him, having no response. There was just… Wow.
He started up the hill again, now beyond the borders of the evil tower. Even the ground here looked better. Less… haunted. “She’s probably killed him by now, you realize.” Tzadok prophesized yet again. “She’s probably making his skin into clothes as we speak.”
Tandy regained her composure and trudged after him. “How do you do that?”
“Huh?”
“How do you do that?” She asked again. “To me?”
“I have not done anything to you. Yet.” He gestured to the sky. “But the sun is setting, My Prize. A new day will soon dawn.” He turned back to look at her. “And then? I make no such promises.”
“I don’t know how you’re able to… make me…” She gestured to herself. “…feel that.”
“I can make you ‘feel that’ because you’re the Keeper of My Heart.” He reminded her calmly. “You are me. You’re my soul. Which means that there is nothing I feel which you do not.”
“Biologically, I don’t think that’s true.” She protested.
“Well, you said you wanted the Saltmen to be more poetic, and this is as poetic as we get.” He shrugged. “I’m not trained in medicine or language. I have no skills in art and I don’t worship Science. I have simply spent my entire life learning how to recognize my Keeper of Heart, should such a miracle ever be given to me.”
“Do you have books on it?” She asked, suddenly more interested. “Can I read them?”
“You want to read books on how to recognize your Keeper of Heart?” He sounded confused.
“Absolutely.”
He made an annoyed sound. “You don’t need to learn how to find him, because he’s already here!” He held out his arms in exasperation. “I just don’t understand you, Tandrea! You are really requesting that your Keeper of Heart help you find another Keeper of Heart!?!” His voice went up an octave. “Why would I do that!?! What would be in it for me!?!”
She pursed her lips in thought. “Are they scrolls or are they bound editions?” She pressed, still very interested in seeing them. She wasn’t aware of The Wasteland having “books” in the strict sense, she’d always assumed they were more of an oral culture. But they did have a written language, so it only made sense that they’d be writing down the thing which meant the most to them. “Does your uncle have them?”
He shook his hands in the air in annoyance. “You’re just… You’re just…” He made a helpless sound. “Crazy! I don’t know what you want from me here!?!”
She reached the top of the hill and stood next to him. “I’m interested in the books.”
He squinted, obviously trying to understand her thought processes. “Not the contents of the books.” He stated, looking for confirmation.
She shook her head. “No. Well… culturally, I’d be interested in reading it, obviously. But I have no intention of using the information to go out searching for another Keeper of Heart, no.”
He clapped his hands together and pointed at her. “You said ‘another’!” He practically chortled. “’Another’!”
“I have a Keeper of Heart.” She nodded. “As soon as he fulfills his end of the agreement and brings the rest of my books to The Wasteland.” She paused. “And my diploma.”
He let out a long breath. “Well… I am still going to call that a ‘win.’” He decided. “I stand once again victorious, as always.”
“Good. I’m glad for you.” She paused for a beat. “So are the
y scrolls or bound copies? I’d really like to know.”
“They’re bound copies, Tandrea.” Tzadok sounded like he thought he was being the most patient man in the world. “I will add them to the pile, once I’ve obtained the rest of your library.”
“Excellent.” She bobbed her head. “You can never have too many books, you know.”
“I’m recognizing that, yes.” He agreed humoringly. “Frankly, if I’d known they would be so fucking important to my life and happiness, I’d have traveled the world stealing them all these years.”
She considered that. “Is that still an option?”
He stopped in his tracks. “You… you want me to become a barbarian who steals… books?”
“Well, I’m not telling you to steal them,” she hedged, “just that… you know… if the books are there and you’re killing their owners anyway…” She trailed off meaningfully.
He gaped at her for a long moment. “I…” He opened and closed his mouth several times, obviously searching for a reply to that. When he couldn’t come up with one, he simply walked away.
“What?” She started after him. “What did I say?”
“You’re ideas are just…” He made a low whistling sound.
“You’re going to lecture me about morality now? You’re a barbarian! You kill people if they look at you wrong!”
“Because if I don’t, it’ll be seen as weakness and they’ll kill me!” He explained, like she was being unreasonable. “I happen to like living, thanks!”
“I’m not criticizing your culture, as I’ve said, I find it very fascinating.” She stood at the edge of a canyon which blocked their way. “I don’t know why you always look at me like I’m crazy whenever I suggest a course of action.”
“Because your suggestions are always bloodcurdling!” He lowered her into the canyon until her feet touched the ground, then prepared to jump down himself. “If I can make it through a day without a fight to the death, that’s a rare treat. But you, you’re willing to drop a man for books! Or because you think it might one day be politically expedient or…”
“Those were options we could have taken, I wasn’t telling you to…”
“Your lands have pits filled with bureaucrats your people don’t like, and libraries filled with books they want to burn, and armies made up of warriors who couldn’t fight a crippled child to a stalemate. They view the Keepers of their Hearts as ‘experiments’ and they live in fear of living.” He pointed at his own chest. “You know what my people say? We live. We might not live for long if we’re not strong, but we make the most of all of the time we can pry from this indifferent world.” He jumped into the canyon behind her. “If you want something, you fucking take it or die trying. If you need something in this life and don’t try to get it, you might as well not even be alive in the first place.”
She rolled her eyes. “My people have a troubled sociopolitical landscape at the moment, but I resent the implication that their attitudes about the value of human life has somehow twisted me.” She continued down the narrow sandstone canyon, which curved around a corner. “My ideas on the matter are perfectly reasonable and measured, considering the situation. No one cares more about people than I do…” She stepped out into an open area of the canyon, where a dozen armed men were sitting. They instantly jumped to their feet, preparing for a fight. Tandy turned to Tzadok. “You’re going to have to kill them.” She advised seriously.
Chapter Twenty-One:
As Crafty as a Panther
Tzadok looked around at the men filling the space, silently determining which of them he should slay first.
The men standing above him on the ledge of the canyon represented the biggest threat at the moment.
They would die first. Perhaps with the spear sitting against the wall to his left…
In retrospect, since this was a scouting mission, he probably should have been paying more attention to spotting enemies, rather than allowing himself to get distracted by his prize.
But the Saltmen didn’t do “stealth.” That was the same as telling someone you were afraid of them. And being afraid of someone was the same as telling them they were your superior. No, the Saltmen believed in going wherever they wanted, and if someone tried to stop them, they believed in killing that person as quickly as possible.
Tzadok didn’t look for trouble, but it would have no difficulty finding him if it sought him out.
Tzadok had been very mindful of watching for signs of Coastal People activity in the area… but these people weren’t Coasties. They were something else. Tzadok wasn’t entirely sure what, but he knew he could kill them fairly easily.
The good part about being Lord of Salt was that you didn’t really need to worry about randomly finding someone tougher than you were. Generally speaking, odds were that you would easily crush any dishonorable men you encountered in your travels. His ability to do that was the entire reason why he was Lord of Salt in the first place.
He wasn’t worried.
Tandrea, for her part, seemed to be treating this latest standoff as an inconvenience. “How long is this going to take?” She asked seriously. “Because I don’t feel like spending days here. I’m still not over how incredibly long the last meeting was.”
Tzadok shook his head. “It will not take me long, I assure you.”
Ahead of them in the narrow canyon, a man stepped from the darkness. Dressed in armor which had obviously been scavenged from some long-dead corpse, he prowled towards Tzadok like he believed himself threatening in some way.
“You folks are on the wrooooong road.” He informed them, doing his best to sound sinister. “We don’t get many visitors way out here.”
“I am not a visitor.” Tzadok shook his head. “I am Lord of Salt.”
The man’s eyebrows soared. “Aaaaare you now.” His smile grew wider, evidently thinking that Tzadok’s proclamation was most amusing. “And what brings The Wasteland’s esteemed leader all the way out here? Lost? Because we’d heard that you were simple, but going so far in the wrong direction would be a pretty impressive level of ‘lost,’ even for an idiot.”
“Are we really going to have another debate where everyone threatens each other for hours?” Tandrea asked Tzadok simply. “Because I still don’t understand that. It seems like it would be a lot quicker to just kill them and be done with it.”
The man’s eyes cut to Tandrea, stayed there for a long moment, then refocused on Tzadok. “What the fuck is wrong with your woman? Why does she look like that?”
“She’s green.” Tzadok stated the obvious, because it was a stupid question and it deserved a stupid answer. “I like green. So Chox found me a green woman.”
“Ah.” The man nodded, considering that. “Personally, I would have asked him for something normal. Like twins.”
“
Tandrea cleared her throat, preparing to translate that for Tzadok, unaware that it was a dialect he actually spoke. “Green is the color of…” She began, then trailed off. “You know what?” She pointed at the man who’d spoken. “Fuck off. I’m sick of translating mean things people say about me. You don’t like me? That’s too damn bad.” She pointed at Tzadok. “Because he does! He thinks I’m perfect! And if you don’t step out of his fucking way, he’s going to tear you apart.”
Tzadok smiled, utterly pleased with that. He liked it when his prize cursed. Profanity sounded so erotic in her pretty little voice. “Yes.” He nodded to the men. “I do and I will.”
“Get fucked by wild horses, green bitch!” A woman yelled back, stepping forward to stand next to the leader. “You don’t get to yell at him!” She pointed at the man. “Jairo will fucking end you!”
“I am going through this canyon to the mountains.” Tzadok informed the leader darkly, recognizing that he was the only person in the group who mattered.
“I have business with my kin. And there is simply nothing which will stop me from getting there.”
“You bastards, you sit up there on the plateau,” Jairo, the leader, pointed towards the mountain to his right and the edge of The Great Nothing, far above, “and you don’t have to fight with the Brightlighters and Coastal People every day. You don’t have to worry about them slitting your throats in the night, because they have to go through my people first before they even get to yours!” He gestured to their surroundings. “MY people have lived in this hell since the time of the Wizard of the Glass Tower! MY clan was enslaved by your River People, and now we’re starving because your Coastal People steal our food and take us as slaves! MY people have been forced to deal with hungry beasts carrying off our young and the rains washing down our canyons, drowning us!” He pointed at the plateau again. “While you sit up there in splendor, like Chox himself, deciding the fate of this land!” Jairo shook his head. “If you really are Lord of Salt, that just makes me want to kill you more.”
“Yeah, we’re living up there happy as calves…” Tzadok nodded in agreement, “in a fucking desert, you dog-fuck! That’s why no one invades it or bothers us: because there’s no fucking food or water! No one wants to live there! Nothing even grows!” He made a show of looking around the area. “You drown in the rain? Boo-fucking-hoo. I’ve watched men dream of a single drop of water, as they die from thirst. River People enslaved you, huh? They’ve tried to fucking kill me for years, so you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t exactly give a shit.” He took a step towards the man. “Now, I will repeat: I am going to contact my kin, who are waiting through the pass to The Great Nothing. I am going to speak with them, because I am at war. If you do not step aside, I will kill you as well, while I am here.”
“Challenge.” The other woman urged Jairo. “Challenge and then we would be the ones running this land!”
Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian Page 42
