“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You are the flower of my heart.”
She thought that should have made her cry some more, but found her eyes had cried all the tears they could. “I chose you,” she murmured miserably.
“No.” He reached out, touched just a single strand of her hair with a fingertip. “You wanted to choose me, perhaps. You tried to. I love you. I take this wife for my people, and to assure that you have every chance at getting the jewel, but I do not love her.”
She wiped at her face and lifted her head. “I don’t even want the jewel anymore.”
He smiled, sadness in the curve of his mouth. “Yes, you do. You want your ship.”
“I want you,” she insisted. “I have, since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“And I have wanted you,” he assured her. “But it is not to be. This is my place, where I belong. You belong…” He gestured to the sky, to the sea beyond the jungle, she thought.
“Nowhere,” she finished for him. “I belong nowhere.”
He sighed. “You make this harder than it has to be.”
“No, I think it needs to be very hard,” she snapped. “I think it needs to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”
“It is,” he said, rising to his feet, frowning. “How can you not see that?”
“Fine.” She struggled up to her feet as well. “Marry the chieftain’s daughter, whoever.” Then she stepped into him, her hands on his chest, and looked into his eyes. “And then leave with me when we get the jewel.”
She watched the conflict twist about in his eyes, his features contorted, and she knew that she had no right to make this demand of him. Before he could say no, she leaned up and took his face in her hands, and kissed him. Their lips crashed together and she felt him wrap his arms about her, felt the sizzle of desire spark between them as it always did. He pressed her back against the tree, mouth warm and wanting against hers, and she made a sound that she knew was halfway between a sob and a moan.
The kiss broke and he buried his face in her throat, breathing hard, and she blinked a fresh round of tears from her eyes and just held onto him, their hearts pounding in unison. This could not be the end of it. But she could tell he thought it had to be. He kissed her throat, the curve of her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her skin. “You freed me. My heart will always be yours, Cressida, but the rest of me cannot be.”
With a furious noise, she tried to push him away, but his arms were too strong for her to break free.
“It’s not safe for you out here,” he said. “Let me take you back to the village.”
“I hate you,” she gasped. “I hate you, let go of me!”
“Cressida, please,” he whispered.
But his arms loosened and she shoved away from him, stumbling against the tree and then wiping her face, breathless with anger and frustration and desire. She didn’t run from him, though, wasn’t so stupid as to go barreling deeper into the jungle where she would surely get lost and eaten by some horrible beast. She just nodded, wrapping her arms about herself.
“Go on,” she muttered. “Lead the way.”
He looked down and walked ahead of her, and did not look at her again or reach to touch her. He simply took her back to the village and deposited her in one of the huts they’d set aside for their strange visitors, a set of interconnected rooms. Cressida’s was singular; as she was a woman, she would not share her space with the men. Reza left her alone there, and she sat in the gathering darkness, on the floor of the little room, and put her face in her hands again.
Chapter 8
It destroyed him to say no to her. Reza wanted desperately to kneel before her and promise that he would go with her, but he couldn’t. He had to think of Kamala now, and what was left of his family’s legacy. He had to stay with his people, and she could not stay with him. They both knew that. She might have been content with him for a year or two, but eventually her heart would wander and her soul would seek the tides, no matter how much she might want him. No matter how much she might love him.
It was with heavy heart and throbbing regret that he left her in the hut, but Sajja had been quite clear. He could see them on their way, but his priority now was to the tribe, to rejoining them completely, and to preparing for his wedding to Prija. He only had vague memories of the girl; she’d been but a child when he’d left the island, preoccupied with giggling and flowers and creating jewelry, singing and running through the jungle chasing butterflies. Reza had already been a man grown, too self-absorbed and grown-up feeling for such silliness. He hardly remembered what she looked like, so much more interested in besting her brother with spear and bow than he had been in choosing a wife. That would have been his father’s purview anyway, and back then he’d had no care for it.
Now that his heart was a raw wound in his chest, he had even less interest in wedding anyone. Anyone but Cressida. But Sajja had been clear enough that he would have her and the pirates put to the spear if Reza did not comply. This was, Reza knew, Sajja’s way of establishing his power as chieftain. The son of Ruang Sak would be seen to do as he was told immediately upon his return, and then Sajja’s rule was solidified for good. Of all the things Reza had thought about when he’d thought of coming home, being forced into a political marriage on the spot had never once entered his mind.
But there was Kamala, at least, a gentle consolation. He left Cressida’s hut and traveled across the village, memorizing its layout and the differences now, and passed by the waterfall on his way to his sister’s hut. Though she shared it with Chaiya, of course, he would be back with his father, planning the wedding. Sajja said he wanted it to happen in two days, at sunset. The celerity of it was not unexpected, but Reza felt himself reeling with all the changes. He needed to hug his baby sister and remember what family felt like.
He knew the hut by the markings above the door. Chaiya’s name interwoven with Kamala’s, inscribed there to protect them and to welcome their guests.
“Kamala?” he called as he ducked inside.
“Reza!” She flew to him. She must have heard that he had returned, and it was so like her to have just been standing in the middle of her hut, waiting for him to come to her. She all but tackled him in a hug and he laughed, something in his heart soothed, and got his arms around her to hug her tight.
“Hello, salamander,” he murmured into her hair.
“I can’t believe you’re back!” she cried, squeezing him. “I can’t believe it! This is so wonderful! I’ve missed you!”
“And I you.”
He thought he’d have been content to stand there and hug her for hours, and he was relieved to find that marriage and the death of their parents had not changed her bubbly personality. Kamala was built of smiles and sunlight, ever the brighter of his parents’ children. He had never resented her ability to find happiness in the strangest places, only envied it. He let go of her and took her shoulders, easing her back a step so he could look at her.
Wide brown eyes, ringed with gold, inquisitive and shining. The same huge smile and lovely little face. He smiled, satisfied. “You’re beautiful.”
“And you smell like a bog,” she laughed. “You need a bath.”
He nodded. “I definitely do.”
“Hello, Reza.” He turned, having not even realized there was someone else in the hut, and a breath left his chest at the sight of her. Certainly not. This couldn’t be…
“Prija?”
She smiled. She was stunning. Tall for a woman, among his people. Full-figured and dressed in a light sarong of vivid blue, one heavy breast exposed as was their custom, along with a wealth of richly tan skin. Her orange hair was woven back from her face in a braid, decorated with flowers and little baubles, bits of seashell from the shore. Wide-set green eyes sparkled at him, and she smiled with pouty pink lips. A scraggly little girl no longer. Not at all.
But nor was she Cressida, and Reza found hi
s mind comparing the two, unbidden. His eyes wandered over her figure, from a lush thigh exposed by the sarong to a curving hip, the delicate peak of a dark nipple and the valley between her breasts, draped with a chain of dried flowers. He tried to imagine Cressida wearing the adornments of his people and couldn’t make the image work in his mind, though of course instead he simply thought of her naked underneath him, and desire caught him up unawares. He cleared his throat and looked away from Prija, back to the suddenly wry expression on his sister’s face.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” Kamala told him.
“So am I,” he heard Prija say, but he dared not look at her again.
It should not have been that he was unable to let himself look upon his future wife with want in his eyes. But it still felt like a betrayal, that his lust quickened so immediately for her. Or was it lust brought on by his thoughts of Cressida instead? The confusion was worse than the wanting itself.
“I need to lie down,” he told Kamala. “Do you have a pallet for me, salamander?”
“Yes, in the back,” she told him, nodding. He caught her glancing at Prija, but then she just took his arm and led him into another room.
He bedded down, listening to the women move about, watching their shadows flicker as the torches were lit and night settled thickly across the village. He heard them whispering to each other but could not make out the words, and settled for simply enjoying the lilt and song of his own language, so long removed from his ears. When exhaustion finally overtook him, he passed into dreams of pale hair and fiery blue eyes, though they twisted and turned, dancing back and forth, and sometimes he held an orange-haired woman in his arms, and sometimes he was sinking his teeth into the flesh of a white neck. His sleep was fitful, but deep.
Chapter 9
Kelly couldn’t sleep. He wanted to blame it on how Harry snored, the sound practically a death rattle, but he knew that his mind was troubled by greater things. His mind and his heart. He’d tried to go after Cressida when she’d fled the hut, but Reza had stopped him and gone himself. He’d nearly taken the man’s head off, but Cort had talked him down. It would do no good to die now, not when they were so close at last to treasure.
The hut the tribe had set them in was just one large room, bamboo partitions erected to afford each pallet the farce of privacy. Kelly couldn’t see Harry snoring but it didn’t make the damnedest bit of difference. He could hear every time Cort tossed and turned. He could practically smell Fat Tom’s feet. But the pallets were dry, and the room was warm, and the torchlight flickering beyond the door was something of a drowsy comfort. It felt strange to try and sleep like this, on land, with the ground firmly beneath one’s back, after so long being rocked to sleep by the waves.
Kelly closed his eyes and tried to focus on drifting off. They would not have lodgings so comfortable in the nights to come. Just what little rest they could find in the jungle as they worked their way up the mountain. He was to meet in the morning with Reza and the chieftain, to acquire their supplies and, he supposed, receive a last bit of warning before they set off. But he would heed no warnings. He would succeed in this or he would die trying, he’d already decided. Traps, monsters, quicksand, he didn’t care. He would brave it all if it meant restoring his people to a land they could call their own. In that way, he envied Reza and his tribe desperately. It was not the kind of primitive life Kelly could be happy with, but that they owned it was the point. That was how men were free.
He heard footsteps, soft and light, enter the hut. Bare feet, he thought, small, and then a shadow skirted the bamboo wall beyond his pallet. A breath caught in his chest as he watched Cressida sneak around the partition.
She put her finger to her lips when their eyes met, and she crept over to him. All she wore was her blouse, Kelly realized as his eyes traveled over her. Well, his blouse, a chemise he’d given her. It was so big it covered her to mid-thigh. Long, shapely legs and that chemise, the golden tumble of her hair. He started to sit up, but she reached down, a hand on his shoulder, and held him to the pallet.
“Cress,” he whispered. There were tear stains on her cheeks. She’d been crying; he wanted to know why she’d been crying. But then he supposed he knew why.
Then she climbed atop him, straddling him, and he hauled in a breath as she settled her weight on him and reached down, unfastening the front of his trousers. His hands slid to her thighs, fingers coursing up beneath the hem of the chemise, gripping lightly. He wanted to sit up and kiss her, tell her it would be all right, that he loved her, but she’d already pushed him down once and he knew that wasn’t what she wanted of him now. She lifted to her knees, eyes meeting his as she tugged the waistband of his trousers down on his hips.
He shifted, helping her, and realized his heart was pounding in his ears already, mouth dry with anticipation and cock hard even as she freed it from his pants. His desire for her was an ache in his heart and his loins, and he squeezed her thighs as she settled herself above him, the head of his cock at her entrance, and then sank with a delicious, maddening slowness onto his length. He let his head fall back against the pallet as she rocked her hips against his, bringing him deeper inside her slick, hot sex. He heard her gasp softly, and slid his hands to her hips, holding her there a moment before he lifted her slightly and then brought her back down again. Her hands were on his chest, at once to hold him to the pallet and to hold onto him, as she began to bounce more quickly upon him.
He started to try to sit up again, more than once, but she pushed him down, riding him, her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps as she slid him in and out, plunging herself upon his cock, and he at her mercy. He gripped her waist, her breasts beneath the chemise, biting down on a groan of simultaneous pleasure and frustration, but he didn’t fight her. He let her control this, whatever this was, and felt his lust for her all the more for being thusly beneath her.
At last she bent over him, her hair spilling like a curtain against his chest, and tucked her face into his throat to quietly moan against his skin. He took that for the cue it was and gripped her buttocks instead, holding her to him as he bucked rapidly up and into her, driving himself inside her as she lay upon him and clutched at his hair, panting in his ear. No sweet foreplay or gaming smiles this time, no taunting looks or teasing touches.
“I need you,” she whispered, breathless.
He gritted his teeth and fucked her until she had to bite down on his shoulder to keep from crying out. A flash, in his mind, a deep-rooted roar from the beast within, and as he came inside her, he lifted his head to her throat, but managed to stop himself from biting her back at just the last second. Instead he arched, growling against her, and squeezed her as he climaxed before relaxing back with her still trembling atop him.
She stayed like that for a long while. He kept his arms around her and said not a word, just let her stay slumped as she was, his length still inside her, knowing full well that she would move when and as she liked. He knew too that he was a consolation. That this was how she left Reza behind. He understood the sentiment well enough, and knew he’d never turn her away.
Eventually he turned his face and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away with a grimace, shaking her head a little. And it was then that she separated them, tugging the hem of the chemise down, and got to her feet. She looked down at him for a moment, as though trying to decide a thing, and then without a word she turned and left the hut. He lay as he was a moment, defeated and abandoned, nerves on fire, and then hauled his trousers back up and rolled onto his side, hoping perhaps the exhaustion of the moment would ease him into sleep.
It did. But of course he dreamed of her.
Chapter 10
In the morning, they were brought before the chieftain, and Cressida did her best not to look at Reza or Kelly. The former was difficult, because he was translating for the chieftain, but the latter was arguably just worse because she could feel it every time he looked at her. She didn’t want to talk to Kelly ab
out the night before. She didn’t even want to look into his eyes and see any kind of smugness or satisfaction. She’d needed to feel wanted. She’d needed not to be alone. She’d needed to be able to pretend that one of them loved her, and he was the one she could go to. She told herself that over and over again, and did not let herself unpack the truth of it.
“Here is the map,” Reza was telling Kelly, sliding him a piece of parchment with strange markings on it. “The landmarks are noted. This will lead you up to the mountain, to the Keeper.”
“Keeper?” Kelly frowned.
“The jewel has a guardian. You must defeat the guardian’s trials to claim the stone.” He sighed. “And no one ever has.”
Kelly folded up the parchment and tucked it into his inside coat pocket. “Well, we’ll see about changing that.”
“I hope you do.”
Cressida did not need to look at Reza to know that he was speaking directly to her.
Kelly ignored it. “Is that all?”
“The shamans say that there is magic,” Reza said after a long pause. “Protecting the jewel.”
Kelly scoffed. “Well, if men who turn to beasts are not magic, then what is? If anyone can take the jewel, it’s us.”
“Don’t be arrogant,” Reza advised. “Arrogance will see you to your death. All of you.”
“Come on.” Kelly turned from the table, striding for the hut’s exit. “Time to head out.”
Outside, just at the edge of the camp where the perimeter bled into the jungle, Cressida stood aside while the men divvied up the supplies, sharing them between cloth sacks that the tribeswomen had provided.
Reza had followed her from the chieftain’s hut. “Please be careful, Cressida,” he said softly.
“I don’t know what makes you think I have developed a death wish,” she muttered sharply. “I’ll be fine. Leave off.”
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