At her signal he inclined his head and she lifted the leather thong from around his neck, hanging the masculine symbol next to the feminine.
“They burn the bower afterwards, along with the symbols.” Her voice was raw, bereft of all pretense.
Afterwards.
The significance of the word hung in the charged air.
Imoshen wouldn’t meet his eyes and he wondered if she was suddenly shy. But she took a quick breath and stepped into the bower without any urging from him. He followed her, letting the flap fall so that they were alone in the half dark.
Tulkhan marveled. It was so strange to find himself here in a primitive dirt-floored hut, alone with the deposed princess of the mythical T’En. He had only to lay a hand on her to claim her as his prize. She had been untouchable, unattainable. But for tonight she was his. Surely the fates were playing with him, promising him heaven only to dash his hopes.
Her pale hair and white gown glowed as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He smelled fresh herbs, dried flowers.
Imoshen stepped forward into the center of the hut, under the smoke hole. The twin moons’ brilliant light fell on her, bathing her in its silver glow. She lifted her hand, beckoning him. To him she was an ethereal glowing object, enticingly Other.
Tulkhan tensed. This was Imoshen, a girl not yet a woman. Why was she so matter of fact? Did she know no shame? A woman of his own people would have wept, begged him not to dishonor her. A woman of his own kind would not have accepted the corn sheaf.
Anger sparked in him. He could smell her distinctive scent, so familiar yet so unlike Ghebite women. There was no point fighting it. He had to admit her differences aroused him. But he also desired her simply because she was who she was. He had never met anyone like Imoshen of the T’En.
Tulkhan hesitated, strangely reticent now that they were alone.
She touched the shoulder clasps on her gown and the material fell to her feet in a pool of pale luminescence.
He heard his own sharp intake of breath. His body carried him forward two steps, so that he joined her in the circle of radiance. Her pale hands lifted to his chest as if to help him disrobe but he caught her hands in his.
“I don’t understand. You held me off at knifepoint last night.” He gestured to the bower around them, the furs on the floor. “Why does this make me acceptable?”
Silently, she placed her cheek on the back of his hand. He felt dampness, tears on his skin. Something twisted inside him and he despised himself. Was she weeping because she hated him, because he had given her no choice?
What did he want from her? Forgiveness? An invitation?
A surge of desire seized him and he had to admit it to himself. He wanted her to want him, to welcome him into her arms and into her body.
She kissed his knuckles. He felt her warm breath caress his flesh. Her tongue rasped across his skin and a ragged groan escaped him. He pulled her to him, feeling the warm curves of her body wrapped in the silken cloak of her hair.
Outside he could hear the dull roar of the people’s chanting—the knowledge that they were waiting for him to lie with her before continuing their ceremony irritated him. He knew he could not take Imoshen against her will as part of a ritual, yet he could no more stop breathing than call a halt to what was about to happen.
He could not fail now.
When his hands tugged at the laces of his jerkin he found his fingers strangely numb. Her deft hands undid the ties and slid the material over his shoulders. His shirt followed.
He held his breath as her flesh pressed against his bare chest. He could feel the tips of her breasts on his skin.
Suddenly she stepped back, pressing the fingers of one hand to her chest as if she was short of breath. He could see her eyes glittering strangely. She stood just out of reach.
Heart pounding, he drew off his boots, unlaced his breeches and freed himself. Naked at last, he stood before her. The little bower was full of heated air, the heady scent of arousal. Impatience seized him.
He caught her hand and pulled her close against his hard body. She shuddered on contact, malleable but not taking the initiative. It was as if she wanted him to claim her, as if she was holding back.
He wanted her to touch him, to want him. He willed her to seduce him so that he could despise her. But she remained passive, his captive, betrayed into this. He guided her hand to cup his shaft, closed her fingers around his length, felt the outrush of her hot breath on his throat. Even so her hand remained still, encased in his.
He recalled the strangely gentle touch of her lips on his closed lids. Had it only been an illusion? Why wouldn’t she touch him like that now? He craved her willing touch.
The pallet of furs was at his feet. He sank slowly to his knees, inhaling her scent as he went. Her breasts brushed his face. His lips traced a path across the silken flesh of her abdomen. His tongue dipped into the indentation of her belly button and he felt her tremble.
Lower still he sank. The soft curls of her mound tickled his face. He wanted to taste her, but was suddenly afraid to invade her so intimately. He knew instinctively that to take would negate the prize.
Sinking back onto the furs he pulled her with him, bringing her body over his, her face to his throat. Her hair spilled across his chest, a silvery blanket.
“Touch me.” Naked desperation laced his voice.
She slid away from his body to lie beside him, her weight supported on one elbow. One of her thighs lay over his. He could feel the heat of her on his flesh.
He had revealed himself with that plea and he felt utterly vulnerable, afraid she would mock his need.
Cupping her cheek in her hand she peered down into his face. Her features were bathed in the upglow of the moons’ twin light. Her eyes, usually so dark, were pools of silver radiance. He saw the flash of her teeth as she licked her lips. If only she would touch him.
As if curious, her warm, dry fingers caressed his face, traced the line of his eyebrows, defined the curve of his lips. Her touch was balm to him. It held a degree of intimacy, yet was almost asexual in its tenderness.
“Why do you hesitate?” she asked softly. “You chose me. For this one night I am yours.”
It was enough. Desire flared into action. He felt the fragile bones of her shoulders as he caught her to him, claimed her lips. Even as he kissed her he seemed to hear her laughter in his head. Then he couldn’t think for the urgency in his body.
Somehow she was under him, slender and soft, yet surprisingly strong—although this time she was not fighting him. She met his need with a need of her own which made him strive to conquer her. As their bodies joined he felt her resistance but instead of tensing, she welcomed him.
When he buried himself deep in her it was enough for a heartbeat. Then the urgency took him again.
Their limbs entwined, their breath mingled, their bodies strained against each other. Before he even realized the moment was upon him he was swept over the edge into a cascade of ecstasy so intense that when he regained control of his body he was surprised to find her beneath him, the world unchanged. He knew a moment’s savage triumph. She might be T’En and sacrosanct, supposedly too pure to tolerate a man’s touch, but she was still a woman.
Her body had welcomed him despite the pain he caused her.
“You were untouched.”
She closed her eyes in silent agreement. When she did not open them he watched her face. She seemed to be concentrating. The air inside the bower shimmered around them. Tulkan’s heart skipped a beat.
He knew that sensation all too well. The Dhamfeer was calling on her gifts and he didn’t want to be a part of it. But when he tried to withdraw and roll to his feet her thighs locked around his hips, trapping him.
Startled, he looked into her now open eyes only to find they glowed with an inner radiance. The sight both fascinated and repelled him. There was a strange taste on his tongue and his head ached as if a thunderstorm were about to break.
Suddenly she ga
sped and tensed beneath him. He felt her inner muscles convulse around him. A groan escaped him. He could feel the tension solidify within him once more. He wanted her again.
This time he needed to affirm she was his.
Tulkhan tried to speak but she embraced him, drawing his face to meet hers. Her lips sought his, eagerly, hungrily. The strange metallic taste was strong on her tongue.
Was this the taste of T’En magic?
He couldn’t think. She was in his mouth, in his head. Her scent was in his nostrils, her heat enveloped him. Her laughter rubbed across the back of his skull like velvet. His every instinct screamed Beware but he couldn’t escape her, couldn’t escape her triumph.
“I felt the flare of your son’s life force!”
Her words were sensation, nonsensical slivers which barely registered in his fevered mind. His body urged him to claim her once more, yet his head warned him to stop while he still could.
He had tasted her and he was drunk to have her again. Why was she so triumphant. What had she said?
“What?” His voice was slurred.
Little ripples ran through her body and her inner muscles tugged on him so that even though he made the effort to still his urges, she drew him deeper into her.
He couldn’t afford to drop his guard. A short bitter laugh escaped him. Was it already too late?
“What did you say?” He tried again, his voice harsh.
Moonlight brimmed in her eyes, illuminating her face. She answered him, so sweetly serious. “I have your son. I felt his life begin just as I was taught I would—”
“Impossible!” The exclamation was out before he could stop it.
She tilted her head curiously. “No, I would have said inevitable considering.”
Stunned, he pulled away from her and this time she released him, observing him curiously.
Rolling out of the circle of moonlight he crouched defensively in the shadows, watching her.
She sat up, negligently naked, her hair draped over her body like a pale silken shawl. At that moment she was totally Other, alien and implacable yet ... her luminous form still called to him. His traitorous body urged him to rejoin her and bathe in the radiance of the twin moons’ glow.
Mouth dry and heart pounding, he clenched his fists, determined not to fall under her spell again.
This was a trick.
He knew she must be able to smell the fear on his skin and hated himself for the weakness. Tulkhan sensed that if he went to her now he would belong to her, body and soul.
“What is it?” In one fluid movement she came to her knees, flicking her long hair over her shoulder. “Why do you fear me?”
He could not answer. Had she plucked from his mind his impossible dream, buried deep behind walls of bitter denial? His shame revealed, did she now seek to manipulate him?
She tilted her face to the opalescent glow, held out her hands and bathed in the silver light. A soft laugh escaped her as she played with the moonlight.
“I can feel their power. I’ve never felt like this before. I have been half asleep all my life.”
In her voice Tulkhan heard innocent wonder and the Imoshen he had come to know returned. He lunged forward and caught her, pulling her into his arms, out of the moons’ direct light as if they were the enemy. When he touched her he knew she was only flesh and blood, distractingly beautiful flesh and blood, but real, capable of fear and pain like himself.
“What do you mean, you have my son?”
The moonlight still seemed to live in her eyes and their luminous quality captured him as she looked at him almost pityingly.
“Every act has its consequence, General. You came to me willingly, you gave him to me.”
“Impossible!”
“How can you say that? You chose me for this bonding.”
Tulkhan shook her, feeling the tensile strength of her body. She did not have the brute strength he had, but there was a tenacity to her flesh as if her fierce will imbued her body with an added power.
Power?
“How can you know when a life starts?” he demanded.
She tilted her head, studying him. “Don’t your women know when they are with child? This is my fertile night. I felt the new life flare within me, just as I was taught—”
“You planned this, but you can’t trick me!” He thrust her aside so violently that she fell back into the patch of moonlight. He sprang to his feet, rigid with fury but still unable to ignore her beauty as she crouched there in the circle of silver moonlight. He paced back and forth across the dirt floor.
Imoshen watched the Ghebite General, unable to understand his reaction. He was deeply disturbed, distressed almost. Prowling back and forth he spun to face her, chest heaving. She could see a glowing form reflected in his dark eyes like the twin moons and realized it was herself.
Why did he deny she carried his child?
He swore softly and appeared to come to a decision. Imoshen watched as he fumbled in his haste to pull on his breeches and boots. She could have sworn he was shaking with anger—or was it fear?
Had the Aayel miscalculated when she Read General Tulkhan? Apprehension settled in Imoshen’s core, drowning the last warm flare of the new life she had felt quicken. Had she been mistaken? Was it simply hope she’d felt? No. That flare of new life was too intense to be misunderstood.
Why then was the General denying her?
He scooped up his jerkin and thrust his arms in, not bothering to lace it before he turned to look down at her. “Well, get up. We have to walk out there together or this thing won’t have served its purpose!”
Imoshen flinched but rose to her feet. He had purposefully and cruelly distanced himself from her. As she pulled her shift over her head and tugged her hair free, letting it drop down her back, she sensed him watching her. He was devouring her with his eyes. His gaze caused a physical sensation on her flesh. She was glad the moons’ silver radiance did not reveal her flaming cheeks, her tear-laced eyes. For all the world she would not admit he had hurt her.
His desire for her was like a heady drug. She could feel her body responding to his unspoken need. He wanted her, but it was her own response which surprised Imoshen. She had naively thought once the moment of conception was passed, she would be free of this distracting desire for him. But it was not to be.
“Come.”
The Ghebite General stood by the door flap of the bower, a dark, brooding presence. Try as she might she could not begin to understand him. She wanted to refuse, to make a stand, but it would negate what she had achieved so far. The fragile peace must be kept and her hold on the General must be tightened.
So she stepped into the shadows by the bower entrance to join him, mentally preparing herself for what was to come.
The General caught her hand and pulled her close to him. She’d thought he meant to march straight out, but his hands encircled her waist, then slid down to cup her buttocks.
She felt him swell, pressed into the soft flesh of her belly. His need for her was like a fever, contagious, consuming him and her, consuming all rational thought.
He cursed and plunged through the flap. There was a ragged shout, which turned into a cheer and by the time they had climbed astride his war horse, the bower was aflame.
Amid a sea of celebration, Imoshen watched the bower burn, isolated, alone. Somehow it seemed fitting to her that her son should be conceived on the field like this, caught betwixt the invader and the conquered, under the twin harvest moons.
A flush of fierce determination inflamed her. In that moment Imoshen understood what she had begun. A helpless new life depended utterly on her. She knew she would do everything in her power to see that her child lived to claim his place. It amazed her to discover that without a qualm of conscience she could contemplate lying, even murder, to protect her flesh and blood.
Was this why the Aayel wanted her to get pregnant, because it would focus her will? Imoshen did not know. Suddenly she felt terribly vulnerable. How wa
s she to save her unborn child when her own life hung by a thread?
Flames leapt high into the night sky, sparks spiraled upward. Tulkhan felt Imoshen stiffen in his arms. She turned to him. The leaping patterns of the fires illuminated her pale skin, creating shadows which haunted her features.
A shudder ran through her body and she surprised him by pressing her face into his chest. Her arms slid around his body. Wordlessly, she clung to him and he felt a surprisingly strong protective urge.
Around them the gathered refugees mingled with his own Ghebite soldiers. They watched the bower burn in almost total silence. When the roof and walls collapsed and sparks flew upward into the still air, a sibilant sigh of satisfaction traveled through the masses.
Someone struck up a tune and the dancing began.
Tulkhan knew the night would get wilder and wilder, even by Ghebite standards. He turned his beast toward the Stronghold. Imoshen rode across his thighs, her face buried in his chest. He guided the horse with his knees, holding her in one arm.
No one paid them any attention as they entered the stable courtyard. The servants had done their duty and been dismissed, and now the night was turned over to revelry. Already he heard raucous laughter and shrieks from the stables.
The anger which drove him to distance himself from Imoshen had dissolved, departing with the sparks of their bower on the still night air. The Dhamfeer had tried to trick him, but he would not be taken in. He would not allow himself to hope for the impossible.
The twin moons’ light fell so strongly in the courtyard before the stables that Tulkhan cast a shadow as he swung his weight off the horse’s back. Imoshen slipped down before he could help her and ran inside. Strange, he had expected another confrontation. It was out of character for her to avoid him.
He had to admit he wanted another confrontation, another reason to rail at her, to take her in his arms and . . . his face grew hot at the thought. He must have been a fool if he thought one bedding would get her out of his blood.
Impatience raged in his body but he forced himself to tend to his horse, to leave it safely stabled and rubbed down. Before he could make his way through the great hall he was hailed by several of the Elite Guard who wanted to drink to his health. Much ribald comment was directed to him concerning the Dhamfeer. They wanted to know if she was as wild as rumor had it.
Broken Vows Page 16
