VirtualWarrior

by Ann Lawrence

  “Lien,” she wailed. “What are you doing to me?”

  But he couldn’t answer. Her essence seduced him, the scent of her, her taste, the gasps from her lips as he touched and kissed her.

  He fought the need to stand up and push himself inside her, won the battle only because after she came, she sat up abruptly and wrapped her incredibly hot hands around him and pulled him between her breasts.

  A pearl necklace it was called.

  And he would remember it forever—her amber eyes wide, the lavender silk robe half off her shoulders, her nipples small, hard marbles, and the drops of his essence across her skin.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ardra watched Lien sleep. He reminded her of an exhausted child lying on his belly, his arms and legs stretched out so she had but a small corner of the bed to claim.

  He had long limbs and strong muscles. All signs of his injuries had disappeared, though his skin was far from flawless. There were brown dots clustered on his shoulders and sprinkled through the dark hair on his legs. She resisted an urge to run her fingers in one continuous journey from his shoulder to the calloused sole of his foot.

  She could not sleep any longer. It must be near sunrise.

  Two days left.

  She edged her way from beneath his arm.

  “Where are you going?” He hooked her wrist.

  “To bathe.”

  He released her to the task, but rolled over, drawing a fur over his body. She felt his scrutiny as she bathed in the cold water of her basin. Each sweep of the linen cloth reminded her of the touch of his hand and mouth. Aches tingled in the oddest places as she patted her skin dry. When she placed the block of soap in her coffer, she saw her silver pendant.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  When she returned to the bed, she showed it to him. “This is not just a pretty bauble. It is the key to negotiating the labyrinth beneath my fortress. My son hides there now.”

  “You have a labyrinth?”

  “It is not truly mine, Lien. It existed long before the fortress was built. Many suspect it was made by the ancient ones to escape the cold. There are hot springs beneath the ice. A man could hide there for years and never be found.”

  He closed his fist over hers. The pendant’s edges were sharp in her palm, as sharp as the pain in her heart that her father would return and undo all she and Tol had accomplished for her people.

  Lien said, “It will all work out. We will find the vial and cut Samoht off at the pass.”

  She dropped the pendant over her head. It lay on her chest as his glass roses lay on his.

  “Where do we look next? We have searched the herbarium. I have Deleh listening to gossip. What hope is there? Cidre must be persuaded to give up the vial—or tricked into it, for I have nothing with which to bargain.”

  “If Nilrem is correct and Cidre is looking for a new consort, she must have someone in mind. It’s not as if caravans of prospects were coming by for her approval.”

  It was on the tip of Ardra’s tongue to tell Lien that her father was Venrali. How she wished to lay her troubles before Lien, to ask him what he thought would become of her father when Cidre cast him aside. And tell him, too, her fears of her father’s fury if he was passed over for another man.

  But she couldn’t tell Lien any of it. It would mean revealing all the shame of her father’s reign at the fortress, all the shame of his final days. Then Lien might think what Nilrem sometimes said. “Like father, like daughter.” Would she be painted with the brush of her father’s crimes?

  Instead she said, “There may be no caravans of prospects, but there are so many here now who might please her. You, Ralen, Ollach, other warriors.”

  “But to use the potion against us would be dishonorable. I can’t speak for Ralen and the others, but I’m not going to be Cidre’s boy toy.”

  Ardra touched his cheek. He cupped her palm and kissed it.

  “Boy toy? Such unusual phrases you have in Ocean City! You are a riddle,” she said. “You profess no wish to be involved, but when you speak, you are so decisive.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Men can be that way. They can say, ‘This is what I think, or this is what I will do,’ and everyone accepts the decision because the words are spoken by a man.”

  “You said Tol allowed you to rule. Didn’t you speak your mind?”

  Ardra jerked her hand away. “Allowed? He did not allow me anything.”

  “I’m sorry if I offended you. Again.” He sat on the edge of the bed, the fur over his lap.

  She bowed her head. “You need not apologize. It is what most men would think.”

  “Ouch. I don’t like to think of myself as most men.”

  “Aye, Lien. You are not as other men. You say things no Tolemac warrior would ever say. You…are so alien to me and what I know. As much as I might wish to take credit for all the good that has come to pass in the last three conjunctions, I cannot. Tol used the force of his position to bring order and peace to the border. Then he taught me to rule.”

  “And you want that responsibility?”

  “Who else can take it?” She stood before him clad only in her hair, and yet felt more naked inside than she ever could on the outside.

  “Hand it off to someone else,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I cannot.”

  He put out his hand.

  It was symbolic of what he had told her to do. Hand it off. She could not. And he wanted no part of her dilemma.

  To take his hand meant only a physical giving. She knew he wanted her. But she had not the will to place her hand in his, to drain all her strength in such a way again.

  When she did not move, he slowly dropped his hand to his lap.

  “Lien, I may not have shared Tol’s bed, but I shared the table when he judged the matters of the fortress. Over time, he deferred small matters to me, so my people would begin to accept my decisions. They distrusted me not only for my womanhood, but for being my father’s daughter.”

  She put on her robe, now a wrinkled mess. “At first the matters involved the women or servants; then they became more complex matters of mines and treaties.”

  Lien shrugged. “Better you than me.”

  “You said you were once a warrior and now a merchant. How did you choose that path?”

  “Oh, I went to a huge city, like the Tolemac capital, and sold something called stock—shares in businesses that make or sell other stuff. But I hated the job. Then my mother got sick, and it seemed a good excuse to leave that job and return to Ocean City. It gave me a chance to go back to school and learn to do something more appealing—like teaching. Graduate school, it was called.”

  “You went to school with children?” She tried to suppress a smile, picturing Lien on a bench before a wiseman.

  “Where I’m from, there are schools for all ages. You can keep learning even into old age. However, I had to quit school—my mother took so much of my time—so I looked after her and worked in a shop I own with a woman.”

  “You owned a shop with a woman?”

  He touched her chin. “Close your mouth. Yes. Where I come from, a woman may own a shop. You know the owner. Gwen.”

  Ardra gasped. “Gwen? Vad’s Gwen.”

  “The same.”

  Ardra clasped her hands and touched them to her lips. “I prayed they had survived. So, it is possible?”

  “What?”

  “To cross the ice fields?”

  “That statement says you don’t believe me. Maybe I am what Samoht said—just a runaway slave.”

  His eyes were cold. She took his hand. His fingers did not close around hers. “Nay, please, Lien. I believe you, but you must realize that what you say is the same as if…as if you said you had come down from one of the moons. ‘Tis so hard to accept.”

  “Accept it, Ardra.”

  And she knew, in that moment, that he could be as unyielding as any other man.

  “Lien.” She stared into his dark eyes. “Do not be ang
ry that I am doubting. I doubt everything. Everyone.”

  His shoulders shifted. He pulled his fingers from hers, and she felt the rejection almost as a physical pain in her breast.

  Then he reached up and tugged on her hair. “Come closer.”

  The temptation, his physical arousal, a need for his strength, drew her down on her knees by his side.

  He stroked his fingers through her hair. “You are far too vulnerable. You need to grow a shell.”

  “I may have no shell, Lien, but I have one thing. I am right and Samoht is wrong. Should not right triumph?”

  “Sadly, if often doesn’t.”

  She needed to change the subject or she would weep for the loss of her freedom and that of her son. “Tell me about your crossing, Lien.”

  “I can’t tell you. I don’t remember what happened. I just woke up here.”

  “But Gwen and Vad crossed. What tales did they tell?”

  “Yes, they crossed, but it is an experience that leaves you without any sense of how it happened. I guess the cold affects your brain or something.”

  “If Samoht believes you are from beyond the ice fields, it is no wonder he is so anxious to take my fortress. It puts him in control of the way across. Is it not true you have fantastic weapons there?”

  “We have some pretty devastating weapons, yes.”

  “And those weapons could subjugate us to Samoht’s will.”

  “He’s not going to succeed. The ice is too treacherous.” Lien tucked some of her hair behind her ear.

  “You are living proof he can do it,” she said. “You need never fear he will kill you, Lien. To do so would be to lose the one being who could lead him across the ice.” She bit her lip. “Could Samoht convince you to take him across the ice fields? To gather those weapons and return to conquer us?”

  A tear ran down her cheek. He skimmed it off with his thumb and touched it to his lips. She must not let him see her weakness.

  “No.”

  “What a simple answer. But life is never simple. What if he put you to some terrible test? Threatened to cut off your—”

  “Shhhh. Just stop. Let’s deal with each problem as it develops. Concentrate on the Vial of Seduction.”

  A terrible thought swept through her.

  “Did you sell those weapons, Lien?” she whispered.

  He cupped her face and brushed his lips across hers. “I didn’t sell weapons. I sold games.”

  “Games?” She pulled back and stared at him. “You jest.”

  “That’s what I sold. Games.”

  “Such as the one Samoht and Ralen played in the hall?”

  “More or less. Where I’m from, there are more games than you could possibly count.”

  “I have no time for games.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He pulled the fur from his lap and let it slide to the floor. She felt heat rush through her. He was aroused. When he took her in his arms and drew her down on her side, she forgot her resolve to keep her distance.

  “Ardra.”

  It was all he said. His mouth said the rest. He cupped her buttocks and pulled her against his rigid manhood. This time, she mimicked his actions, spreading her palms on him. Would she ever again feel the wondrous sensation he evoked with each caress of his hands and lips?

  They rolled over one another, mouths hungry, trying to remove her robe, but only knotting it more securely. She ended up flat on her back with him on top of her. Laughter died in her throat when he finally released the tie and spread the silk open. His gaze was as tangible as a touch on her breasts, hips, and thighs.

  She needed to bite the coverlet to stifle a cry as he ran his hands over her.

  Then he put his hands on her knees and separated her thighs. He explored her with his fingers, each touch spreading warmth and anticipation. He kissed her breast. Heat flowed from his mouth like a fire that had jumped its hearth.

  She smoothed the soft short hair around his ear and squeezed her eyes shut. A moan escaped her lips as he found the slick wetness within her. The languid caress of his fingers became more urgent, moving in and out of her in deep strokes. A small harbinger of that greater sensation rippled through her, and she arched against the thrust of his fingers.

  “I want to be inside you,” he said. He stared into her ryes, his so black in the dim light they were like an abyss, a place to be lost in forever.

  She saw the dark hair of his beard, the strange hole in his earlobe. Fear and desire entwined through her being, all knotted together as the design on his arm.

  “It is not possible,” she whispered. “If I bore a child—”

  “You would be in deep trouble,” he finished for her. His hand fell still.

  All she could do was close her eyes against his intense scrutiny. “If I quickened, Samoht would use it against me. I would be called wanton—may yet be if he learns you are here with me now.”

  She held her breath waiting for Lien to withdraw, but instead he drew her on top of him, settled her thighs about his hips so she straddled him, and nestled his manhood against the wet folds of her femininity. She shrugged off the robe, letting it drop to the floor.

  He lifted his hips. His eyes closed, his lashes thick and black on his cheeks. She saw the serpent on his arm shift and ripple as he gripped her hips and held her down. This time she felt no fear.

  She leaned over to kiss the warm column of his throat. He entwined his hand in her hair as she licked along his shoulder, his arm, to the snake.

  A swirl of heat and energy surged through her body. He gasped, and his hand tightened on her scalp. He tried to move away.

  “Nay, Lien. There is something between us. Some magic.”

  “I don’t believe in magic.” His shoulder and arm muscles were clenched tight, his fingers in a fist.

  “Nor do I.” She explored not the design this time, but the contours of his fine musculature. His muscles tensed and flexed as she laved his skin. She lingered in the warm hollow of his elbow, licked the skin there, breathed in his scent.

  When she returned to the snake, she was ready for the surge of heat, absorbed it into her being, and knew they were as connected as the lines that twisted along the snake’s coils.

  Sweat broke out where his skin touched hers. He held her hips. Her skin was so white in contrast to his hands and chest; the hair at the apex of her thighs was gold against his black.

  She rocked on his manhood, soothing an ache between her thighs that made her feel wanton, wild, and wonderfully wet.

  When she gripped his arms, her hands spread over the design, anchoring her against the storm building within.

  The strange pulse ran from her hand straight to her heart. It rippled down to where their bodies touched so intimately.

  “What is it like to be inside a woman?” she whispered.

  “Like being in a very warm, snug glove,” he said. Then he arched, pushing up as she pressed down. He cupped her breasts and captured her swollen nipples between his fingers.

  Ardra hung on as heat whipped through her. “I feel it. There is something happening between us.”

  “It’s all in our heads, Ardra.” Then he arched again and gasped.

  He spent himself, but she did not see it happen, nor know it.

  Her heart had stopped beating. Her world had gone white hot.

  When she could speak again, Lien had left the bed. He was using her basin of water, hastily, not looking at her. She stretched and pulled a coverlet near. It was wet, and a moment later he took it from the bed and dropped it beside her wrinkled robe and the other garments Deleh would have the washerwomen tend.

  “Does every glove fit every man?” she asked.

  He covered her with a fur, but he seemed distant now. His eyes did not meet hers. “Sure. Men are pretty indiscriminate.”

  So, only she found what they had done unique. “Have you worn many gloves?” She wanted to snatch the jealous words back into her mouth.

  “Not too many…all things
considered.” He pulled on his breeches and laced them.

  “Lien. It is best we not do this again. We might…complete the act next time. I cannot bear a child without a lifemate.”

  “What happened to all your talk of herbs?”

  “Do you wish me to ask Deleh to get them for me?”

  Lien smiled, but he looked at the pendant around her neck, not her eyes. “No. Not necessary. You won’t need them.”

  Lien sat on a chair by the door and waited for Ardra to wake. He probably shouldn’t have let her fall asleep again, but she’d looked exhausted.

  And he had needed to think.

  Finally, she stretched, yawned, and sat up. “What are you doing?”

  She shook her hair from her face. It cascaded all around her, and it was her hair, so wild, her small breasts pushing through the mass to tempt him, that told him he was doing the right thing.

  It was as inevitable as the rising of the Tolemac sun outside that he’d come inside her next time. Then he’d be so tied in knots he’d never get untangled.

  “I’m going to put on this robe.” He nodded to where the robe lay over his lap, his stick on top of it.

  “Nay,” she whispered, and knelt on the end of the bed.

  He had watched her sleep, how she had tossed restlessly, so filled with energy, needs, and frightening possibilities.

  “Why?” She bent her head and clasped her hands on the edge of the bed, not trying to cover herself in any way. She had grown too comfortable with him, shared too many intimate acts.

  “To make you understand, I’m going to tell you a story. A true story. I once had a lover named Eve. We both thought we’d get married—that’s lifemated to you.” He ran his hand over his head. “Let’s see. How do I make you understand?”

  “Aye, Lien, you must make me understand.”

  “Then my mother got sick, not old-age sick, but something lingering, something not solved in a day. There’s no one to look after her but me. She’s…self-destructive.”

  He slid his hands along the smooth stick. “And let’s say my intended lifemate can’t understand how responsible I feel. That I just can’t let my mother wander off into oblivion without trying to help her. Let’s say that woman finally says, ‘Choose,’ and I pick my mother instead of Eve. What do you think about that?”