"Perhaps it is love," he said, his finger deserting her wrist to trail over the tender flesh of her inner forearm. "Perhaps it is insanity."
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She could barely breathe. He continued his ministrations, talking to her, telling her things she couldn’t hear, couldn’t absorb, couldn’t comprehend. His words became a blur. There was only sensation, only the feel of his fingers, slightly calloused, yet not rough, urging her senses beyond reason.
He lifted her hand and closed his eyes. His tongue replaced the roaming fingers, and tasted her as if she were the finest brew to be savored slowly. She heard herself moan, wanted to plead for more, but she couldn’t find her voice. She could only submit to his moist mouth, sucking her fingers one by one, his tongue licking her throbbing pulse, then swirling around her inner palm.
Sahra couldn’t catch her breath. She began to pant, closing her eyes and seeing images in his mind, finishing what they had started the night before, seeing what the conclusion would entail and somehow succumbing to that conclusion without him doing anything, but this gentle persuasion, this tender touching.
She tensed, felt his arm slip behind her, bracing her as her pulse stilled and the world paused, and then she shattered on waves of orgasmic pleasure as his mouth moved up her arm, over her neck to settle upon her lips in a soft kiss until her tremors eased into nothing. His free hand continued a gentle pattern along her fingers until she stilled.
"Oh," was all she could muster in a tattered, breathless tone.
He smiled softly, then stood once she stopped shaking and offered her a drink from his flask of water. She accepted and swallowed as if her thirst couldn’t be assuaged.
"Good night, Sahra," he said, once she handed the flask back.
She watched him curl up near the fire, using his cloak as a headrest. He didn’t offer for her to join him. He didn’t attempt to consummate their marriage. He had simply elicited an orgasm from her without penetration of any kind, and then walked away.
It unsettled her on so many levels that all she could do was stare. He opened one eye. "Go to sleep, child. According to you, we’ll have a long day tomorrow."
She wanted to spit out that she thought she had just proven she wasn’t a child at all, but a passionate and fully adult woman. Instead, she grumbled a few derogatory words, kept her distance and unwittingly surrendered to sleep.
Ry would have smiled at her behavior if he didn’t feel like such a scoundrel. From the moment he had agreed to her plan, he had intended to seduce her, for if she fell for him hard enough, she just might forgive him for going back on his word. That was before he realized who she was. His family had wronged hers grievously. Yet, as he told her, it was their way of life, and he couldn’t apologize for that life. There had been a time her birth clan had been first among clans. They had claimed their share of slaves and possessions through slaughter. There were no innocents on their world.
Still, Sahra said there was another way, that she could prove it. Only dare he risk getting back in time to train with Dagda? And what if the senior council of the A’tril decided to imprison him or kill him? What chance did his clan have without their best rider and no suitable stallion?
He hadn’t expected the A’tril encampment to be so organized or abundant in not just life’s necessities but in luxury. And nothing bore the mark of any clan. These people produced their own goods and had a simple but enviable way of life. Still, he had considered the encampment an abnormality among the A’tril until Sahra said they were among one of the smaller encampments, and that the senior council presided over a full city.
If clansmen heard of this, they would destroy the A’tril, for their way of life would be an affront to clan traditions. For the first time in his life, Ry questioned those traditions and wondered if there might be a better way to live. Still, he had a responsibility to his clan. After the race, he’d have the time to meet the senior council and perhaps consider the notion that another path could be better. If they killed him, then at least he would have kept his clan safe for a while longer.
The one thing he would not do was betray the A’tril’s secret. He didn’t wish to have any more blood on his conscience than necessary.
His biggest problem was that if he betrayed Sahra now, she’d never trust him again, and he longed for that trust. He wanted the love she had confessed to grow into something spectacular and lasting, but he couldn’t bring himself to pay the price, for he thought of his sister, and the responsibility he had to protect her. His jaw clenched, and his fingers felt for the chi’nyr tucked under his belt.
"Forgive me, love. Forgive me."
* * * *
Sahra expected to wake to the sound of birds and the feel of sunrise. Instead, she found herself in a round chamber with reddish stone walls and intricately woven tapestries. A fire blazed in a hearth large enough to fit five grown men, and the dark golden sunlight of late afternoon slanted in through a narrow window. The bed beneath her had the plush, luxurious feel of feathers, and the cerulean quilt covering her possessed the softest down. A platter of fresh bread, various cheeses and fruit squatted on the polished bedside table, along with a glass pitcher of citrus juice.
"Where…?" she began.
"You’re home, love," Ry said, from several feet away. "I drugged the water in my flask and kept feeding it to you until we reached home. You have been unconscious for two days."
She bolted upright and cursed him with words she hadn’t even realized she knew. He flinched as if she had slapped him. Then suddenly, as if in defeat, she flung herself backwards on the bed. "I trusted you," she gritted out between her teeth, then with heart-wrenching loss, she added in a suffocated voice, "Dammit, I loved you."
"I didn’t have a choice. You must understand that."
"We always have choices. And mine is to leave here. You broke your part of the bargain. I have every intention of breaking mine. I have to warn my people."
"I told no one what I saw."
She eased back up, studying him with acute wariness. Her mind reached out to his, sensed his sorrow interlaced with uncertainty and a confused tangle of mixed loyalties. She realized just how torn he was. She recognized he truly thought this was the only sensible path for him to take.
However, she had people who had trusted her and she needed to come through for them. The council had known betrayal was a possibility, and the alternate plan they had devised would now come into play. This time, though, she wouldn’t share her tactics with Ry. She didn’t dare trust him again.
"I’ll go back with you after the race is won and I will talk to your council, see what you wished to show me," he said, trying to win back an iota of the love he had lost.
She didn’t tell him that it would be too late. What if his powerful sense of loyalty to his clan compelled him to reveal the A’tril’s wealth? She no longer trusted him with the knowledge she had been so willing to share. He would never change, and neither would she. She couldn’t. She knew her destiny too well.
Perhaps fate had meant for them to be together, but Sahra was the storm, and fate best tremble before the storm’s wrath.
"I suppose if I don’t help you bond with Dagda, you will reveal all you know to your father about the A’tril. That way if you don’t win the race, he could raid the nearest encampment and thereby have the coin to buy some mercenaries to protect your precious clan."
He winced, but didn’t deny her harsh, accusatory words. He hadn’t intended to use that as leverage, and he had no intention of disclosing anything, regardless of the race’s outcome, but the threat hung there and he used it. "I need to win that race."
"I will help you," she said, "but when the race is won, you will lose your wife."
* * * *
Sahra was true to her word. The next day she had a long row of obstacles set up in the vast courtyard of the castle. Since Dagda’s antler was still very much in evidence, it was necessary to keep him inside the red stone walls, out of the view of spie
s for other clans. At any rate, it was safer for him to remain inside, so that other clans were ignorant of his presence. She didn’t want the same fate to befall him that had befallen Rykstra, the Clan of Blood’s best stallion.
As she walked out to the courtyard, Dagda at her heels and Ry by her side, she was surprised to see a large crowd awaiting them. The unbroken sea of crimson showed that the crowd was comprised of members of the Ror q’Trall. She hesitated and cast a puzzled look at Ry.
"They know that this race is their only hope," he said softly, for her ears alone. "They wish to watch."
She frowned. "I am concerned that they will distract Dagda. I am also worried that Brec might have found another assassin."
He didn’t allow his expression to change, but pleasure at her concern welled up in him. "We are well-guarded here. And Dagda must learn to listen to me regardless of the presence of a crowd, Sahra. At any rate, their fate is riding on Dagda’s back. Do not ask me to send them away."
She looked over the crowd, seeing ancient, bent crones, strong young men, and small children, seeing robes of silk and robes of coarser material. The common people as well as the royal family were invested in the outcome of this race, she realized. And they had every right to watch.
"Very well," she said. "Let them watch. But if they let slip to another clan the fact that Dagda is a unicorn--"
"None of my people would ever betray me in such a fashion," Ry interrupted, looking offended. "Not even the youngest among them."
She heard the pride in his voice and realized once again the depth of his love for his people. "Go ahead and mount, then."
Ry called the unicorn to him. He still had to use his voice in order to get the beast to listen to him, she noticed. Dagda pranced toward Ry, but with a mincing gait that suggested he was not eager to obey. There was little enough bond between them yet. She opened her mind to both the unicorn and Ry, allowing psychic energy to flow between them.
Dagda paused next to Ry, and Ry swung up on the animal’s bare back.
"Gallop him around the enclosure," Sahra said.
She purposely closed her mind to the unicorn to see what would happen. Ry sat for a moment with a look of intense concentration, then sighed and squeezed the beast’s sides with his legs. Dagda’s head jerked up, and he half-reared, snorting angrily.
"You cannot tell him what to do," Sahra said, a touch of impatience in her tone. "You must ask him."
"I did ask. He ignored me."
"You must convince him that what you want to do is what he really wants to do."
Ry sighed. "All he is thinking about is grazing."
Sahra bit back a smile at his annoyed tone. "That is hardly surprising. He is a unicorn, after all, and grazing is what he does most of the time. But try to convince him that a gallop would be pleasant. Remind him of the wind blowing through his mane and tail, the feel of the grass beneath his hooves. If you can make him want to gallop, he will do it."
Ry frowned in concentration. The unicorn pawed the ground restlessly, then suddenly leaped forward at a gallop. Sahra watched as the beast’s long legs skimmed across the blue grass effortlessly, as the muscles rippled beneath his iridescent coat. Dagda’s long, ebony mane streamed in the wind, all but concealing Ry from view. A noise of awe, almost of reverence, rose from the crowd as the stallion circled the courtyard with enormous, easy strides.
A moment later the unicorn approached her and slid to a stop. Ry looked down at her, beaming with boyish delight. Despite her vow to remain aloof, she could hardly prevent herself from returning his broad smile. "He didn’t want to stop," Ry said breathlessly. "He could have run forever."
"It may seem that he can run forever, but remember that he is a mortal animal, not the unicorn of legends," Sahra cautioned. "You will have to learn to convince him to rate his speed, or he will kill himself before the end of the race."
Ry nodded, his dark eyes alight. "I managed to convince him to stop, even though he did not wish to."
That was a small achievement, yet promising, Sahra thought. She nodded briskly. "Now see if you can convince him to weave through the obstacles I have set up."
Ry turned his head and frowned at the piles of stone, hay, and sticks that had been placed at intervals across the courtyard. "You want him to zigzag through the obstacles?"
She nodded. "You will have to be able to steer him during the race. Sheer speed means nothing if he cannot be guided."
"Yes, but … how in the name of the Creator am I supposed to convince him to do that?"
She grinned at his disgruntled expression. "That is something you and Dagda will have to work out between you."
* * * *
"May I pat him?"
Sahra stood in the roomy box stall, rubbing Dagda’s silken neck and breathing in the scent of straw and horses, when she heard the small voice. She looked up and saw a young woman, shorter and more slender than she herself was. Like everyone else here, she was clad in crimson robes, but hers were of costly silk, showing that she was of the royal family.
"Are you Ry’s sister?" Sahra asked, stepping toward the wooden door of the stall.
The girl smiled and nodded. "My name is Raya."
Looking at the girl, Sahra could easily see why Ry was so protective of her. She was lovely, with Ry’s dark eyes, but her face was far more delicate, more finely etched than his strong masculine features. She was so slight that she gave the appearance of being fragile and easily shattered, like a child’s porcelain doll. There was a sweet innocence in her expression, the innocence of a young woman who has been sheltered and pampered without being spoiled in the least. Her smile was open and friendly, utterly guileless.
"I am Sahra."
"Everyone knows who you are," the girl said, her brown eyes wide. "We watched you work with the unicorn this morning. Everyone knows you were the one that tamed him."
Sahra glanced back at Dagda, whose head was held arrogantly high. "I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have tamed him."
"Oh, but you have. And you’ve tamed my brother as well."
Sahra looked back at the girl, startled to see an impish glint in the dark eyes. "I hardly think so," she said with as much hauteur as she could manage.
"Of course you have. He watches you all the time. Surely you have noticed?"
An odd sensation of pleasure washed through her. "Not at all," she said stiffly.
The girl shrugged. "It’s true." Her forthright gaze shifted to the unicorn. "May I pat him?"
Sahra frowned at the thought of this tiny, fragile young woman anywhere near the unicorn’s long, savagely sharp antler and heavy hooves. "I’m not sure he will permit it," she said honestly.
"Of course he will." The girl stretched out her hand, and Dagda pricked up his ears, then stepped forward and allowed her to stroke the velvet softness of his muzzle.
Sahra watched in perplexity. She hadn’t opened a psychic connection with the unicorn, and the wild creature should have reacted with fear and anger. Instead he was allowing himself to be stroked like a child’s pony. "How did you do that?"
The girl smiled her guileless smile. "I like animals."
Although the slight curves of her body beneath the robe betrayed her maturity, she sounded so much like a child that Sahra felt her heart wrench. The idea of this defenseless young girl torn from her clan caused a physical pain in her stomach. She recalled the crowd that had watched this morning, recalled other sweet, innocent faces that didn’t deserve to lose everything familiar to them. Other girls that didn’t deserve to be ripped away from family and security and cast into an uncertain future.
Despite herself, she was coming to understand Ry’s stubborn determination to protect his people. For the first time, she realized that crowd had not simply been the Ror q’Trall, a faceless horde of red-robed strangers. They were people, individuals, just as her own beloved A’tril were.
She couldn’t prevent the feeling of respect that was growing in her heart for Ry, who was willing to s
acrifice everything to save his people.
* * * *
Sahra worked with Ry daily, allowing the bond to increase between the unicorn and her husband. Although she had met his family, all but Raya barely acknowledged her as clan. It mattered not to her. She shunned them with as much vigor if not more, except for Raya. Sahra couldn’t help but be kind to the young girl, and before long came to fully understand Ry’s loyalty to her. She had a pure heart, a beauty like none Sahra had ever encountered, but her mind was innocent to the point of childishness. She would break under sorrow or harsh treatment, and Sahra found herself a willing accomplice in trying to protect the young girl.
The one thing Sahra wouldn’t compromise was her intention of following through with the council’s plan. For every bit of bonding she allowed Dagda and Ry, she claimed double the bonding for herself.
Before long she could read the unicorn’s thoughts, alien and inhuman though they were, as if they were her own. She could see through his eyes, hear through his ears, sense his every impression more clearly than she had ever sensed her pet jaguars. He responded to her commands as if they came from his own mind.
By the time his antler shed and the day of the race arrived, Sahra was more than ready to fulfill the legacy of the storm.
Although she had submitted to wearing the clan’s crimson colors, this day she wore her own lavender, purple and gold A’tril outfit, the very robes she had worn the day he drugged her. Ry didn’t say anything, but his heart bled.
The more he got to know Sahra, the more he wanted her to truly be his wife. It had taken every ounce of restraint not to seduce her as he originally intended. Although he knew he could have had her in his bed, it wouldn’t be right. She’d end up despising him even more for using her emotional attachment to assuage his lust. Still, it wouldn’t take much to arouse her. Despite her attempts to shut him out, he sensed her passion as well as her love and he knew she sensed his as well.
Somehow, he couldn’t believe she’d walk out once the race was over, but seeing her dressed as she was, he knew he had lost her. He couldn’t allow it. Once he fulfilled his obligations, he’d walk right out with her.
Unicorn Quest Page 6
