by Treva Harte
“Me?” Ka laughed. “I’m only his long lost brother, not a miracle-worker. As long as he’s to be kept from you, my dear, he’s going to be angry with you. I quite understand his frustration.”
“But I don’t want him angry. Not over this.” She hated feeling so torn up over a man. She’d made the right decision ‑‑ the same decision Mio would have made once he knew about the problem. “It isn’t fair that he should be angry and frustrated with me!”
“Then let him work off his frustration on you. Men are such simple creatures. Sex is really the one sure way to make them happy.” Ka patted her chin. “And do leave now, dear, before I am tempted to work off my frustrations with you the same way.”
Chapter Six
“I won’t be able to see you in private after this so…good-bye, Jewel.”
“Don’t say it like that, Mio.” She wet her lips. “You sound so final.”
“I’m going to a strange keep through the jungle. You’re going off to the Hinterlands, through who knows what. It may be final.”
“I ‑‑ I have a way to communicate with the women of Castle M’Cee. They’ll know where I am.” If the electronic unit I hold can communicate from that far away. Don’t think about that. “We’ll see each other again.”
“If we stay safe and arrive at Castle M’Cee and if they choose to tell me where you are and if I can find my way to you and if you don’t get swallowed up by the aliens or ‑‑ or choose to not return.”
“Maybe I’ll come and find you instead.” Jewel’s chin firmed. “I’m not going to just let you go, you know. This separation wasn’t my decision. I won’t have you acting as if it is.”
“Perhaps. But it lets you keep wandering, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ll find some lizard man to help you on your travels. Why not? All I am is your guide to something new. You can find a replacement easily enough. He might be a little scaly, but I’m sure other parts of him will suit you well enough.”
“Mio!”
“It makes me wonder if I should bother to track you down again.”
“If you can’t be bothered to see me, I’ll manage without you.”
“I’m sure you could do that, Jewel. Very sure.”
That doesn’t mean I want to, you idiot! Jewel swallowed hard. “Are you saying you’re tired of me? Of travel with me?”
“I’m saying I’m tired of --” Mio shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving the city in a few minutes. Once we see you off safely, I’ll be heading the opposite direction with Ulrich and my mother. I don’t suppose there’s any reason for an argument now.”
“But you’re just itching to have one. Why? We could spend the last few minutes doing something much nicer.” Jewel took a half-step toward him and stopped. “No, I don’t suppose we can. All right. Good-bye then, Mio. I hope we do see each other again even if you don’t. I hope we can make love again. I’m going to remember how wonderful it is to be with you, even if you can ignore it. How your hands feel on me. How you kiss. H-how you groan when you come inside me.”
Mio’s hands grabbed her shoulders so hard that she almost fell over.
“Curse it, woman!” He whirled her around. “Forget what I just said. Take your clothes off. We don’t have much time.”
“Take your own clothes off.” Jewel was already fumbling at her buttons. “I’d hate to be caught by Maryam. She’d never forgive us for being so stupid as to not lock the door.”
“We don’t have time to lock ‑‑ ahhhh.” His cock found its way inside as if it belonged there. “Ah, yes.”
Jewel shifted, arched up below him. “Mio, it’s not like what you’re saying. You know that.”
“Hush. Mother would never forgive us for talking while we fuck, either. Someone would be sure to find us then.” Mio, her Mio, was back. His voice was amused and warm and had that husky note to it that meant he was absorbed in what they were doing. Absorbed in her.
Jewel moved her hips in a rhythm guaranteed to have Mio pick up the pace. Everything was all right again. They’d work things out. They always did.
“Mio.” The longing was already close to bursting inside her. She could tell from the glazed look in his eyes that Mio was close, too. “Mio, be careful.”
They were. Sometimes they came close ‑‑ all right once in a while, too close ‑‑ but they were always careful.
“I want you.” Mio’s eyes opened. There was a more dangerous tone in his voice. “I always do, Jewel. I don’t want to stop. I’d rather die than stop.”
“But --” Why did those words have to be the ones to push her over the edge into rapture? She gasped, losing the ability to speak, to think, to do anything but clutch at him as if she would never let go.
He came a half second after her, spurting hot and warm and filling her. Jewel let out a long, satisfied sigh as she eased back down to the ground.
“Mio!” She shoved hard at his chest. He grunted.
“That hurts, woman!”
“I’ll hurt you! Mio, you came!”
“Flaming truth, I came.”
“Inside me! Mio, you know how babies are made! You told me and I agreed, no babies.” His seed slowly leaked out of her body, spilling down her thighs as she wiggled to be free of his weight.
“I lost control.” Mio’s face changed from the almost vacant look of sated pleasure to a sharp awareness. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Jewel snapped it out before she thought. Then she stared back at him, shock mingling with tension. “Are you really? Or did you mean to make me pregnant?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t denying it. He was just looking at her, much the way he had when they first met. As if she were prey that he was waiting to pounce on. “I don’t understand you at all lately.”
“Then perhaps you aren’t trying hard enough.”
Curse Ka and his advice. Sex wasn’t an easy solution after all. In fact, Mio had just made everything much more complicated. “Well, don’t worry. I know about babies. I won’t be pregnant.”
Mio rolled off her. Stood up. He didn’t look at her as he began to pull his clothes back on. “I’m not expecting you to be. That would tie you down too much, wouldn’t it?”
Jewel swallowed what tasted like acid. “Exactly.”
Mio, I don’t understand any of this. I want the sweet Mio back, the one who cares for me.
* * * * *
“Do you think everything is all right? Can I stop pretending now and take these ridiculous shoes off?” Ara minced next to Ka. “We’re out of the city without an incident. If we don’t count when that man tried to rip your skirt off. Then again, you were inciting him.”
“I think you should stay just as close to those nice soldiers as I am right now.”
“But everything was quiet! I thought all of us women played shemen perfectly.”
“We left the City of Thieves with scarcely anyone making a peep. I’ve lived there too long to be happy about that, my dear. Everything was too quiet. Too easy. It’s time to stay near the men with the big weapons.” Ka fluttered his lashes. “There’s a reason Ulrich agreed to accompany us out of the place. The more men to guard you women on the streets, the better. But I don’t think we’re safe yet. Trust me on this. I can smell when danger is waiting. Why don’t you drift over to talk to our grim leader? He’s scowling and all but talking to himself. Perhaps he senses danger, too.”
At last I’m on the way home with my bride. Our bride. Why did the idea of a real marriage with Ara and his family grate even more the closer he got to his goal? He’d started having dreams at night. Erotic dreams. He didn’t want to think about Ara and he and his brothers…Flame his brothers. He’d wake up hard, sweaty and ready to slit Jaxxson’s throat.
“It’s rather different here than Sylvania.” Ara matched his step. “More desolate.”
“We were always an arid country, but the war has laid waste to whatever vegetation we have. The land near the city is the prettiest we have. When you
get to my home, you’ll see the salt mounds. Nothing grows as far as you can see. Piles of salt. That’s all that’s there.” Quinn glanced toward her. “My mother found it difficult to tolerate at first and she is from our land.”
Why did he want to scare her off?
“How did she learn to tolerate it?”
“Crispus and the others worked to make it prettier. They brought in flowers in pots. Decorated the way she asked.”
“It sounds as though she rules your house.”
“Of course.”
“I mean, she doesn’t just give orders. Her men want to please her.”
“Very much.” Quinn swallowed. “I want to please you, Ara. You’ll be the ruler of the house. The Queen. I swear it.”
“You frighten me a little. It sounds so ‑‑ so important. I promise to do my best to care for all of you. It won’t be as hard to care as I might have thought when I first met your men. I’ll admit I’ve gotten used to seeing their scales and hearing their alien tongue. It no longer seems so ‑‑ so foreign. They’re just people, after all. I suppose your brothers could get used to me, too.”
They’ll love her. And I will learn to be proud and glad of it.
Quinn bent his head toward Ara. “I --”
“Beware!” The shout came from the front of the troop. Quinn turned, half-crouched in a fighter stance, just in time to have twin furies hit him full in the face. A dust storm, blown up from nowhere, as dust storms did, swirled viciously as a sudden blur of attackers swarmed out from the large pile of rocks at the side of the dirt road.
There was no more time to assess the problem ‑‑ just deal with it. Quinn gutted one and kicked another aside before he had the chance to pull his sword out of the body. Ara cried out.
The women. The band of attackers were headed unerringly toward the women.
“Ayyyyy!” One man screamed. Quinn turned and peered through the cloud of dust to see what had happened.
The men were headed for the women and Ka. Mistaking the sheman for one of the women was a deadly error. Ka threw the dead body that had toppled on him to the ground and stabbed another.
“Circle the women!” Quinn yelled, hoping his men could hear through the noise of the storm.
“Steady there! Steady!” Ulrich’s rumble could be heard over the rest of the swearing and cries. Quinn glanced over. Steady indeed. Ulrich’s sword flashed out steadily, hacking down whatever was in his path. Nothing would get past that mountain.
“Over here!” Mio called from behind the rest. “Over here!”
Mio was struggling with a knot of men who had gradually edged three of the women away from the rest. Quinn cursed viciously. He was too far away. The other men were obeying his orders and surrounding the rest of the women.
“Yo, brother!” Ka was closer, faster.
The damned dust choked and clogged ears and eyes for an ugly minute. Quinn heard shouts and dimly saw a struggle. He thrust and parried, kicked and dodged.
Something ripped into his arm. Sand and blood ran together from the wound. Pain stung through him but he didn’t have time to worry about how bad his injury might be.
He heard screams and grunts from the men ‑‑ and women ‑‑ near him. Seven shades of hell! Ara. He was a fool, but he’d feel a lot less sudden panic in his gut if he knew she was safe and out of the way.
“Bad men! Bad men! Take that!” He heard Stefani shriek. Then he heard a male shriek in turn.
And then the dust storm died away, as dust storms always did. Quinn blinked the sand from his eyes and stared.
Bodies. There were bodies. None of his own men, thank Goddess. He saw the body of their former inn-keeper crumpled on the dirt road. The cursed sneak had doubtless told some of his vicious companions who the real inhabitants of the inn had been. That cursed rathole of a place! There was no one who could be trusted in it.
He searched and found Ara, who had what looked to be a large cooking fork in her hand. She bent and wiped it on the ground. Little Stefani was jumping up and down in excitement, brandishing what looked to be a bloody paring knife. Gor was yelling at the men.
Safe. They were safe. Quinn took a deep breath.
“Ka!” Mio screamed it. “They took him and two of the women.”
Flame the luck!
“Leesha and Reina. They’re all gone.” Ara looked up at Quinn. “We’ll have to find him.”
“Where? How?” Quinn scanned the area.
“How do we know the sheman didn’t plan all this in the first plazze?” Gor hissed. “To take the women and run?”
Believe me, I might be willing to try stealing all of you women if I was barred from you.
“He said as much before we left the city.” Quinn looked around again. “It sounds like something a tricky thief might do.”
“No!” Mio turned on him. “He promised to ‑‑ Never mind what he promised. My brother wouldn’t.”
“Take that back.” Stefani glared at Quinn. “Don’t you be mean to my brother. “
Family loyalty could be a trial. Ka’s siblings hadn’t even seen him in years and they were ready to lynch Quinn for speaking plain truth. Then again, Quinn trusted his brothers would do the same for him if he were in a similar situation.
Right or wrong, it didn’t make things any easier. Quinn decided to tackle the most difficult one of the hostile group.
“No offense meant, child.”
Stefani didn’t look appeased.
“So? Are you going to go find him and bring him back?” Stefani demanded.
Time to make a decision again.
Quinn gazed at Stefani carefully before he said, “Whether he did or didn’t mean to go, all of us have a long journey to make. We can try to search, which will take time and leave us vulnerable to attack, or we can go on our way.”
“Just leave?” Jewel asked.
Quinn shrugged. “Don’t you think Ka can take care of himself and the women as well?”
Ara’s smile was wobbly. “I think Ka will be fine no matter where he goes. That boy can’t help but thrive.”
“Then we move on.”
“You’re talking sense. Sad sense, but sense. We can’t afford the wait.” Ulrich spoke up.
“But Ulrich!” Stefani spoke up.
“Princess, your mother needs to get to where she’ll be taken care of. Quickly. Your Ka would see the necessity of it.” Ulrich looked out toward across the desolate landscape. “We’re strangers here. We’d be lost within hours. Time to get back home.”
Another ally of sorts gone. Quinn realized he’d almost miss the giant bear.
“Ulrich.” Quinn nodded to the other leader in the group. “Good luck. Goddess speed you.”
“Take care, Quinn.” Ulrich scowled. “Look to the women you have left.”
“I intend to.”
* * * * *
“You’re angry with me.” Ulrich unbuckled his sword belt then bent at the stool and began to massage Maryam’s feet.
“You’re the one who should have a massage. You carried me for the last stretch.”
“You were tired.” Ulrich swallowed. “And you are angry. You haven’t really spoken to me since we left the Hinterlands.”
“Come closer. I’m going to unbind your hair.”
“I look foolish that way.” He scooted closer anyhow and she began to dig into the coppery braids.
“You look more relaxed that way.” She untwined one tuft.
“It’s because I wouldn’t search for that boy of yours.”
“I understood why you didn’t. I’m not angry with you.” She carefully shook out his hair. Ulrich grunted and then sighed as she rubbed his forehead. “Doesn’t that feel better? I like your hair this way.”
Rusty red hair flowed past Ulrich’s shoulders. He would never look anything but tough, but with his hair down, he looked as unthreatening as a giant warrior could.
“You’re the only one who sees it so.” Ulrich pushed back a lock that fell into his eyes. “This
mess gets too much in the way. So…you aren’t angry?”
“I am angry. With myself. For being so weak that you had to choose to care for me. For not being able to insist that we look for Ka.” Maryam cleared her throat. “He was left alone and unaided once in his life. I would hate to have it happen again.”
“I won’t risk you. Look at you now. All white and exhausted.” Ulrich pulled her roughly to his knee. “You couldn’t manage any more than we’re doing now.”
“I’ve agreed with you. That doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I know.” Ulrich kissed her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do what you wished. I wish --”
““What?”
“I wish I could be everything you want me to be.”
“What are you talking about?”
“More refined. Able to take care of all your children. Better looking. Smarter.” He looked down at his feet. “Because you’re…ah…you’re everything I wish for.”
“Oh, flame male stupidity. I’m waddling with who knows how many babies in my womb because of you and you think you’re lacking in something?” Maryam gave something that sounded like a ladylike snarl. “I’m not enduring all this discomfort just to breed, you know.”
“No?”
“I’m also doing it for you.”
“You are?”
“I would have done my best to get pregnant anyhow, once I was told I had to try, but well ‑‑ there is some kind of rough charm about you, Ulrich. I rather wanted to please you, too.” Maryam stopped short. “And I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve annoyed me out of my depression. Take your leggings off, man.”
“We shouldn’t --” Ulrich’s hands were already at his clothing.
“I shouldn’t. You, lucky brute, have no such restrictions.”
“I’m not fu ‑‑ I’m not having intercourse without you.”
“I should rather think not. The exertion of killing you and your new partner would be very exhausting indeed. There now, you’re naked. Come closer.” Her mouth closed over his cock.
“Oh.” He hadn’t wanted to ask it of her, especially when she seemed so ill…and ill-tempered. A man didn’t put his cock where it wasn’t invited. Especially where there were sharp teeth nearby. But he’d longed for the invitation.
