savage 05 - the savage protector

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  “Philip!” Maddoc roared, leaping from his horse and sailing onto the back of one who looked Band but moved like Fragment.

  Maddoc determined in seconds what Philip had considered overlong and knew the luxury of questions could wait. For the moment, only killing was necessary.

  Maddoc slung an arm around the attacker and hung on, giving Philip time to recover.

  Maddoc loathed what he must do next, but the one beneath him was a proven enemy. He sank his fingers inside the man's throat slits and tore with all his might, though his position was awkward.

  The male bellowed in agony and stumbled back, dumping them both onto the forest floor.

  Blood welled in Theodore's throat slits, yet he could breathe. He gasped and stuttered as he stumbled around, half drowning in his own blood. He knew he must flee, for the healing provided by his unusual genetics would be challenged by such a wound.

  He staggered and swung his blade into the ribs of the young Band.

  Then, Theo whipped his head around, looking for the best way out. His gaze landed on a horse, white with gray-frosted tips on its mane. He sprinted toward it.

  Briar Rose scented Band, not Fragment, and stood her ground. She also smelled blood, so she knelt on one leg, head bowed to assist the rider for passage onto her back.

  Theo could not believe his luck. He slung his leg over the beast and nudged her with a deft heel to her side. She rose and turned smoothly.

  He dug in both heels, and she cantered away from the Band she knew.

  Bracus looked up, blood and sweat blurring his vision. “No!” His hair had come unbound and fallen over his eyes. He brushed it away and tore his long sword from an embrace of ribs at his feet.

  “Yes!” a Fragment yelled from behind him. Then, he stabbed Bracus in the back.

  Daniel cursed upon seeing the tide running against the Band. He whistled a high shrieking bird-like call that stopped the Fragment in their tracks.

  He grinned so wide his cheeks creaked, then he gave them a little wave accompanied by an abbreviated bow.

  The Band understood what he had accomplished via distraction. They turned as one into the stalled enemy, slashing and stabbing.

  The Band swam back to victory, but it was a near thing. They lost three warriors.

  Two of the Band, Daniel noted. One Red Man and… Calia.

  Daniel rushed through the holes the bodies left until he reached a female unknown to him. She had raven's wing hair and eyes to match. He dropped to his knees beside her. Maddoc knelt next to the frantic-looking female. Edwin and Evie appeared to be missing.

  Elise lifted her hands cautiously from the wounded side of the female select, revealing smooth skin. The female’s tunic was shredded and soaked with blood.

  Calia looked into the healer’s eyes and burst into tears. She sobbed, right there in front of the men of the Band and a female she had never met. She wept on the ground of the battlefield where she had almost lost her life.

  And the life of Evie.

  Calia could not remember ever having felt reliant on another person. But she owed her life to several. Shame and joy met in an unlikely catharsis.

  Her tears spent, she scanned each face in panic, searching for Evie. Her gaze snagged on Philip. Blood poured from a hole in his side, and Calia gasped before he roughly pulled her into his lap.

  Elise reached for the male’s side. He grabbed her arm, and she flinched. His face was so fierce, his body huge.

  “I am here to help,” she explained, her wide eyes dark in her pale face and her hands red with blood.

  The healer’s hand connected with Philip's side, and he hissed.

  “I am so sorry,” Calia whispered.

  Elise slid her hand through the gap the weapon had made in the seam of the mail. She felt the grievous wound beneath her palm and sank her fingers into the center of it. He exhaled sharply and jerked away from her.

  Elise kept her voice calm and said, “Be still so that I may heal you.”

  “She is a Healer?” Maddoc asked in wonder.

  Elise nodded even as she bit her lip in concentration, mangling the soft flesh in her teeth. Her fingers groped and prodded while the flesh began to knit itself beneath her touch.

  The wound closed, pushing the tips of her fingers out of the thick flesh of tragedy.

  Philip exhaled and lowered his head, touching his forehead against Calia’s. “You stubborn wench.”

  Calia smiled.

  It was too much a truth to deny. “Aye.”

  He pulled back, his dark eyes meeting her golden ones. He pushed the damp hair out of Calia's eyes, scanning her for injury. Though the worst of the wounds had been healed by the magician at his side, bones jutted out wherever his hand fell on her body. She simply did not eat enough food. Nothing sustained her.

  His eyes snapped to hers. Except perhaps fear.

  Philip opened his mouth to say many things to the woman he had dragged himself everywhere for. He would move heaven and earth to defend one who wished for it naught. Her finger on his lips silenced the unspoken and sharp words he had been prepared to utter. She gripped his shoulders and moved her face close to his, an invitation of heat and desire hovering near his mouth.

  Philip closed that precious distance.

  That kiss was the bravest thing Calia had ever asked for. Without voice, she accepted what he offered.

  Philip wrapped her in his arms, careful of her injuries, and felt the warmth of sadness burn the backs of his eyes as he sealed his lips over hers.

  Instantly, the heat of the bond that had taken fragile hold once before—the one she had run from out of fear—closed in a sealed rush of warmth and souls knitting together to never come unbound.

  It was more than the Rite of the Select. It was two who were destined to find one another. Her need for caretaking was terrible and unknown to her; Philip's need to protect and avenge was its match. They balanced each other.

  “We must go.” Bracus shattered their tremulous union. The dead lay everywhere, Edwin and Evie were missing, and his steed had been used as an escape for a dangerous Fragment who was Band enough to have throat slits at his disposal.

  If he was Band enough for that, there would be other traits that could be used against them.

  He grieved for Briar Rose, who had not scented the Fragment for a traitor.

  “Please,” Chasing Hawk said from behind them.

  They all whirled around to face the Red Man.

  Philip stood, the wound becoming a scar inside the window his punctured mail made.

  “What say you?” Maddoc asked. Whatever the Red Man had uttered was not comprehensible to him.

  Philip stood with Calia cradled protectively against his chest.

  “They are not foe,” she said. Feeling weaker than she cared to admit, she let Philip hold her as she frantically looked around the meadow for Evie.

  Maddoc jerked his chin toward a fallen warrior of the Red and sucked in a breath. The man was far gone, his skin ashen and the life blood of his body more out than in.

  Elise looked at the chief of their tribe. She knew the ranking of the Red Men better than some, since she had participated in the healing of those the Fragment tortured.

  She stepped forward, but Daniel stayed her with a hand, shaking his head.

  “I know some of the Red Men language,” she replied, looking significantly at his hand.

  Daniel's eyebrows popped up, and she chuckled at his bewilderment.

  Moving away from him, she stepped closer to the Red Man and said in halting Iroquois, “I am Elise, Healer of the Clan of…” She did not know whence she came, only that she had been from a clan. Somewhere.

  His eyes softened, and he seemed to intuit her discomfort. “I am Chief Chasing Hawk.”

  Elisa said without turning, “His name is Chasing Hawk.”

  “How can you understand that?” Maddoc scoffed, irritated by the delay in finding Evie. The Red Men had fought beside them, but there was obviously nothing
they could do to save their warrior. Anyone could see that he clung to life by a thread.

  Elise pursed her full lips. Straightening her shoulders and pushing her inky black hair to her back, she moved forward.

  Chasing Hawk nodded, and his warriors parted to make way for her. Adahy's huge blood-covered body lay still on a bed of moss that ice and snow clung to.

  Elise gathered her skirt and ran the short distance to him. She dropped to her knees and pressed her ear to his chest. She heard his heartbeat slowing. Her hand crept up to his thick neck, and she curled her small cool fingers around flesh that had grown too cold. Shock had taken his body somewhere neutral.

  She straddled his body. Heat roared up into her palm. Elise gasped as the lightning-like pulses of surging warmth wound from her hand to the center of her chest. Elise flung her head back when that flame burst in the center of her then leaked out as though released from an underground spring.

  Adahy took a shuddering breath, and his eyes popped open in surprise. One moment, a brilliant light of searing intensity and joy had been upon him, beseeching, summoning. Then, something else had called, making him feel as if a whip had struck his flesh with a kiss of velvet fire.

  He searched for the wielder of such a thing and fell into depthless eyes of liquid black.

  Death had been cheated again that day. Adahy had been well met with the Reaper and denied him his plum.

  She was a white skin. His eyes narrowed as he sensed many things.

  Elise smiled down at him, her hips intimately cradling his body. He could not help his physical response, and it made him angry. He would not disrespect his dead wife's memory with a witch who sat upon him with her devil's magic that had roused him from his meeting with his wife in the place where the elders ruled in glory.

  Adahy struggled to sit up, dumping the small female from his traitorous hips. He dragged a discarded tunic over his body, glaring at her.

  Elise cautiously moved backward.

  “Not very grateful,” Daniel murmured as he pulled Elise up by her elbow.

  The Red Man tracked Daniel's hand on her with a scowling intensity he was most likely unaware of.

  “Let us leave this place,” Maddoc said, noting the uneasiness between the new female and the Red warrior. “Elise has saved their warrior, and we need to find Evie.” The Red Man stood, and Maddoc whistled low in his throat, taking in the warrior. The Red’s skin held a hint of bronze, promising to tan into gold during the summer. He had no gills, but if he did not have Band in those veins, Maddoc was a female. He was the size of the Band, the bones of his face arranged in that familiar countenance: straight nose, square jaw, high cheekbones, and deep-set large eyes. A thick inky braid hung midway down his back. Eyes the shade of green spring grass stared unblinking anger at them all.

  Bracus did not like how angry the Red Man seemed. Instead of gratefulness to the healing female, he seemed agitated.

  He had just started gathering the horses when Elise made a small noise of distress.

  Adahy glared at the white skin who was not. A female with innocent eyes and hair like night, she was a witch and deserved no thanks from him.

  So it enraged Adahy when she seemed to sway, her creamy skin paling. The one who held her arm missed it as she was facing Adahy. Those chocolate eyes slipped closed. She began to fall, and Adahy leaped forward to catch her.

  Chasing Hawk noticed the soft horror in Adahy's eyes as he cradled the female who had saved his life. It was obvious that the woman had rattled Adahy, though Chasing Hawk was unsure why. She looked like any other female—rare, as they all were.

  The woman’s head tipped back in unconscious exhaustion, and Adahy lifted it carefully, as if it would break, and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  “No,” Daniel said, moving forward.

  Adahy drew his dagger with his left hand, ignoring the sting of his injuries that had not finished healing. His eyes pegged the one who was like him—mixed. But a twinge of warmth ignited within his chest, and he knew that the male was like the others of the Band he had met long ago.

  He spared a glance at the dark witch he held in his arms. Her flesh burned him wherever it connected with his own. Her skin begged to be touched, held… possessed.

  Adahy clenched his eyes closed against that primal response, the painful dominance of it. When Adahy opened them again, the feeling remained.

  He groaned. It was a terrible trap.

  Philip understood the Red Man's pain. He was Band enough to get a taste of select blood. However, it was not the time to explore such things. The females were exposed, the Fragment dead. But not all. The leader, who was nearly full Band, had stolen his brother's horse. Dead Fragment littered the ground, but more would come. It was their way—numbers. The Clan of Ohio was nary a mile from their current position. Philip knew if they paced hard, they could arrive in minutes. They also had the problems of the female Healer, the Red Men, and the greater issue of Edwin and Evie's absences. It was a fine quandary.

  Bracus settled it. “We go to the Clan.” He would send a carrier pigeon to alert Matthew of what had occurred as soon as they entered the gates of the fort.

  They tried to explain their intent to the Red Men. If the Reds presumed to attack them within the fort of the Clan, they would die. The Band was unconcerned. In the end, they drew directions on the snow and made hand gestures to the females. Eventually, the leader seemed to understand what they were offering—cautious hospitality.

  Bracus headed up the rear, his soul despairing. Evie was missing, and the only thing that eased him was that she might be with Edwin. It was selfish of him, but he could not help the gratefulness he felt that Rowenna was safe inside the sphere. Her begging to accompany him had moved him not, and she had stalked off in a pout. He would have been crippled had she been Outside, too much to defend. But he was also crippled without her. Such was the way of Band and select.

  Maddoc stomped ahead, his quest coming up dry. He knew where the lad's heart lay and felt a twinge of empathy. However, what mattered was securing the women that he could save. All other things—including his kidnapped steed and a Fragment more Band than many—would have to be put aside until they could regroup and scout again.

  He sighed and released his anxious thoughts of separation from Rowenna.

  The group, victorious but weary, made their slow way to the Clan of Ohio.

  When the spears of wooden poles that signaled the fort were unveiled before them, the Red Men murmured their uncertainty and discontent.

  Bracus could not blame them, for trust did not come easily to him.

  Or to the Band.

  CHAPTER 5

  Clara leaned back against Matthew, her heart heavy and her lips closed against the words that lay in unspoken sadness.

  He stroked the hair left unbound from the elaborate pearl twine upon her head and spoke quietly by her ear. “What say you, Clara?”

  She turned in his arms. Her luminous eyes stared up at him, and it took his breath that such a fragile creature was his. In just a few short months, they would be joined permanently. Becoming king did not move Matthew, for that was not what provoked his emotions. Clara did, every day, every minute in her presence and outside of it. She moved him, body and soul.

  Matthew bent his head to meet her mouth, and she rose on tiptoe so it was easier. Though Matthew was not as tall as some of the band, he was over a foot taller than she. In fact, he had often wondered how a woman as select as Clara had managed to be so diminutive. It was one of many mysteries in the strange life they led.

  That searing heat tore them asunder as his lips moved over hers, his hands holding her nape as he pressed her against the soft wall of the sphere. To the casual observer, he would seem to be strangling her, not a breath of the flesh of her neck seen. It was all hands and heat. His head was against hers, his knee placed intimately between her thighs, her skirt wrapping his breeches.

  Matthew lifted his mouth from the kiss he wished to never end. He stro
ked the front of her neck, his thumb feeling the push of her rapid heartbeat when it brushed the hollow.

  “I cannot take much more of this abbreviated affection, Clara.”

  He grew impatient to claim her and could not take back his words.

  “We are so near, Matthew. Our Wedded Joining is but three months hence. Do not let your mind stray from the accomplishments that must occur before then.”

  Matthew's face broke into a wide grin, and she raised bronze eyebrows in a high arch that almost touched her woven hairline.

  “What is remotely funny about this?” Clara asked, stupefied.

  Matthew puzzled her sometimes. Yet, for the most of it, she was too sure of his motivations to question him.

  Matthew trailed his fingers across her high-cut bodice of navy velvet and allowed another small smile to match his next words. “So serious, my Clara.”

  Her mild frown deepened.

  “We have not heard back as to Evie and Calia's whereabouts. They are undefended Outside.”

  Matthew let his hands fall when all he wished was to yank her against him and bury his body against hers.

  He raised a massive shoulder in dismissal. “My brothers of the Clan have it.”

  “Pffft! You have been with Daniel overly, and I hear the tenor of his speech within yours.” She faced away from him, arms crossed beneath her ample bosom.

  Matthew could not deny his love of Fragment slang. There were some expressions that seemed to exemplify perfectly what needed to be communicated. And as it were, Matthew did not embrace speech as some. He found chatting to be tiresome.

  He was much more a doer. Clara thought about such things with careful deliberation. To her credit, Matthew knew that the abuse she suffered at the hands of Queen Ada, who had taught her that she could do nothing physical, but there was nothing wrong with that fine mind.

  Actually, Matthew thought as he studied her, there is naught wrong with her figure, either.

  The grin came back, and he did not stop it, though Clara scowled at his humor, thinking it was at her expense.