by C A Nicks
“Don’t be angry with me, Tig. You know what I must do.”
His hand moved, gentle on her hair, almost as if conferring a blessing. She knelt at his feet, gazing up at the man towering over her. No, not a man, a king. For the first time, she saw the king he might have been. The king he might be once again.
His fingers lingered in her hair, as if reluctant to let her go. Or was he deciding her worth in this grand scheme of his? She already knew exactly how one version of this story went.
“Go home, Fabian. I know you want that. But don’t sell me out to Hal. Don’t do that to me.”
His gaze was fixed on the open window, to some far distant place she would never see. “He can protect you. Keep you safe. I would leave you safe, Tig.”
“But not with him. I saved your life. You owe me for that.”
She saw him recoil, feel the barb like a physical blow. “Then that debt will be paid. Hal will not have you. Not while I am here to stop him.”
“And when you’re not, I’ll be long gone.” She let him pull her upright. Dusted herself off. Pushed away Cafino’s enquiring nuzzle. She didn’t do martyr, and she didn’t do damsel in distress. She’d married Carson for her family and to protect the farm. You did things like that when you had people to care about. Well, now she had no one but herself.
“Go wash your face,” she said, shouldering the rifle. “You’re scaring the dogs. And next time you fall through that rift thing of yours, do me a favour and land somewhere else?”
“There will not be a next time.”
She had no one to care about except for this surprising, stubborn man who still claimed to have fallen from the sky. Who might still sell her out in a heartbeat to get what he wanted. Despite his protestations, he’d be tempted. She just had to make sure she was as far away as possible when that time came.
* * * *
They checked the house together, making sure none of the raiders had sneaked inside. They’d taken their wounded comrade, but the two corpses still lay in the barn. They would need disposing of before wild beasts came scavenging.
Satisfied the house was empty save for them, Fabian searched the yard and took a few moments to douse the embers smouldering at the edge of the log-pile. Only a few logs lost, the wall and air-vents blackened with ash. The fire had been laid to smoke them out rather than kill them.
Was this a warning, a challenge? A message perhaps?
Entering the house, Fabian saw Tig sitting at the kitchen table, head resting wearily on her hands. Now came his punishment for daring to consider her the price of his freedom. And he had thought it. For one brief moment he knew she might ease the first step on his return to power. Hal would ask for her as price for helping him.
Once he would have considered that a bargain. Now it was a price he could not afford to pay.
“You look exhausted. Go to bed and I will keep watch.”
“If Hal’s behind this, he won’t turn up till the morning so he can pretend that news of the raid has spread. You go to bed, I’m too wired to sleep.”
He pulled out the chair opposite, strangely unsure of his welcome after all this time with her. Still taut and tingling from the kill. A long time since he’d felt the satisfaction of sending an enemy to his own personal hell.
“By which you mean the excitement of the encounter has not yet left you? I feel the same. I will keep vigil with you.”
“So, how does it compare?”
“Fighting as a mortal? It felt altogether too real.”
She gave a snort of laughter. “One way of looking at it. Was your capture the first time you felt fear?”
“No.” He’d never wavered, not even in defeat. His pride hadn’t let him. “About a hundred years into the Fall, when it was starting to feel like it would never end. When the cries of my victims were starting to deafen me, when their pleas for mercy started to tear at my heart, that’s when I felt my first fear.”
“Will you give me the whole story to put on my plates? I’m leaving, taking my chances in one of the townships. Need to present something to get my artist licence and the warrior who fell from the sky, might just do it.”
“Of course. Take from it what you will.”
Little else to say. Tonight had drawn a line under the next episode of his story. Defeat, the Fall, learning what it was to be human. The hardest lesson of his long life. He had thought this to be a period of running in place, of waiting for something to happen. He had not reckoned on becoming a different man.
“Drink with me,” he said and rose from his chair to fetch two cups and the pottery jar of fermented grain spirit. In his world they would have used this to light fires. Here it was the finest Tig had to offer. He poured two generous measures and pushed one across to her.
“Drink. It will steady your nerves.”
She regarded the cup before reaching out for it. “My nerves are just fine.”
“Then drink for companionship. My people consider it bad luck to drink alone.”
“Companionship?” She raised the cup in salute, the brave mask still in place. “Now there’s a precious commodity. Worth a toast.”
She touched cups with his as was the custom on her world, said the words of salute and tossed back the fiery liquid. He did the same, draining his cup in one. Had he really just served her, like a common vassal? He who had only to think it and it was done for him? Tig’s shoulders drooped, her head lolled forward, exhaustion fast overtaking her.
“For two thousand years I thought I was alive. But I know now that I was merely existing. Growing richer in all the things I thought mattered until I became so wealthy, so powerful and so darned invincible, that I lost all perspective. My arrogance brought down a dynasty. And I know that Marcellus hates me for that. I wish…”
She’d fallen asleep, head on the table resting on her folded arms. Just as well since he spoke words that should never have been uttered. Quietly he rose and went to her. Pulled back her chair and hooked an arm under her knees, the other about her back. Her hair swept the floor as he carried her up the wooden stairs to her bed. His fierce little warrior had earned her sleep. She did not appreciate or care that it was the most high lord of Anxur who slid off her boots. That the most exalted one covered her with the quilt.
That’s what he admired the most about her. She had steadfastly refused to flatter him, to cajole with forked tongue. She did not fear him, yet she feared for him. With her he would always know exactly who he was.
She turned onto her side, taking the quilt with her. Small and feminine, but there was nothing delicate about her. With or without him, a survivor, he had no doubt of that.
“I wish I could take you with me.” He too was feeling the crash. After the high tension of the evening, his spirits were plummeting and he wanted nothing more than to sit around a fire and drink himself into oblivion while singing sad sagas and songs.
He would allow himself the feeling for this one night. Indulge this human melancholy, sink a few more drinks and keep vigil like a squire contemplating his impending knighthood.
Back downstairs, he took the jug and his cup and threw himself into the armchair by the hearth. Dogs at his feet, he tipped back his head and turned his thoughts to home. To his golden palaces and silken bed-sheets. His harem filled with the most beautiful women in the land. His stables of the finest thoroughbreds. The only things missing from the picture were he and his brother. And try as he might, he could make neither himself, nor Marcellus appear.
Chapter 9
She awoke to the sound of singing, which chased away the last fragments of dreams already forgotten. Too deep to be her brother Jan, who would sit on the porch steps with his guitar and sing for them after supper. Too deep even for her father, who only sang when drunk.
Untangling herself from sleep, Tig pushed the hair from her eyes and wondered why she was in bed, fully dressed. The voice sang on and she remembered Fabian and the raiders who’d left without taking anything but the knowledge that she was hiding someone here
on the farm. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, shook away the last of the cobwebs in her mind and stood, shivering in the chill of the early morning.
Silly man, the last thing he needed right now was a hangover. With the quilt wrapped around her shoulders, she padded down the stairs and stood for a moment watching him pour another drink and raise the glass to the two dogs who were watching his every move with rapt interest.
The words were strange, the tune soulful and full of longing. She’d tried so hard not to fall for this man. Had given herself stern lectures and debated the consequences of developing feelings for this stranger who’d appeared from nowhere. All to no avail. Her head pulled one way, her heart the other. She couldn’t stay away from him.
When he finished his song, she crossed the room to his chair. She couldn’t blame him for the wary expression with which he regarded her. He was used to women falling at his feet and staying there, whether by choice or by force. These past few days, she must have confused the hell out of him.
“What was the song about?”
He took a moment to answer. Maybe feeling the same awkwardness as she. “About a man who finds himself far from home.”
“You made it up?”
“No, it’s a very old song.”
“Sounds kind of sad.”
“It is.”
“You look tired. Let me take over watch, and you go get some sleep.”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes, shook his head. “I’m not tired.”
“Lord, and I thought I was stubborn.”
“Are you still angry with me?”
“No, just at myself for wanting what I can’t have.”
Fabian raised his dark eyes to hers. “You anger, you hurt, but you always find yourself again.”
“I sulk and I get over it. Earlier on, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Hal made his intentions clear long before you arrived. You’re just a convenient leverage. If you weren’t here, he’d find some other way to persuade me.”
“You’re saying this to spare my feelings?”
“Partly. He asked me again to marry him while I was visiting Sunas. Only way to be free of him is to leave and start a new life in the town. Want me to fetch you a shirt? You must be cold.”
In response, he extended an arm, took her hand and tugged lightly.
“Sit with me and we will each warm the other.”
She closed her eyes. “We keep telling ourselves this is a bad idea, but we don’t seem to be listening.”
“Because I seem unable to resist you.”
She swayed, turning to liquid in his arms. “Nor I you. Every time I jump off this carousel, I jump right back on.”
“You have the strangest turn of phrase.” His voice, pitched at a low whisper, sent shivers racing over her skin. And he wasn’t cold at all. An astounding heat radiated from his solid body. She felt his fingers sifting through her hair, lifting it from her neck. Warm lips placing light kisses on her nape, sliding round to the lobe of her ear, to the angle of her jaw. Kisses that gave but asked for nothing in return. They were both too tired for anything more than this.
Twisting in his lap, she framed his face with her hands and placed a kiss of her own on his lips, tasting the lingering fire of the grain spirit.
“The kiss you promised me. I guess this is afterwards?”
“I have learned in my life that afterwards is a moveable feast. Whatever task you complete, there is always another to take its place.”
“Yes, life is like that. Never seems to stand still long enough for a body to take it in.”
“This peaceful interlude, I believe it is about to end. I would like you to know, Tig…”
She stopped the words with her fingers. However resigned she might be to his leaving, she didn’t want to hear the details. A leaving speech was a little too much to cope with tonight.
“In my world, some things are better left unsaid.”
“Before I leave, I will tell you how much you have done for me.”
“And I you.” His appearance had affected her life, but she only now realised what a difference it had made to her. She’d been going through the motions, getting through the day without remembering half of what she’d done. Riding into town to buy some time with a man. Making the same old excuses to Hal.
Existing, as Fabian had, only on a much more basic level. She laughed at that, earning herself an enquiring frown.
“Something you said earlier. When you thought I wasn’t listening.”
“Words I never thought to hear myself say.”
“Hey, come on. Melancholy doesn’t suit you. We all have our faults. Pick the best of who you were and run with that. Become a better man, not a completely different man.”
“Being human is confusing. I will admit to that.” he nodded at the window. Dawn is breaking. We must rid ourselves of the evidence. Where should I bury the bodies?”
Outside, a lone bird had begun a tentative song. It was soon joined by others greeting the new day and whatever it would bring.
“They’ll be all right for now, long as the barn door remains closed. If Hal, or any of Warrington’s men turn up, they can return them to whatever family they may have.”
“They do not deserve such generosity.”
“We can afford it since we’re the ones alive. Even the bad guys have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.” She slid from his lap to kneel between his legs, a hand on each of his thighs. The muscles tightened in response.
“You were very generous to me last night. I want to return the favour. ”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
Settling back, he spread his legs a little wider, gripping the arms of the chair. A position he’d been in no doubt countless times. He watched her intently, his face betraying nothing. Almost as if challenging her to make him smile.
“Well,” she said, suddenly feeling very wicked. “First I thought I’d do this.” Still on her knees, she leaned forward, sweeping her hands along the length of his thighs to the rapidly-growing bulge in his pants. That she only skimmed with the tips of her fingers before retracing her journey and sitting back on her heels.
Not smiling yet, but only a matter of time.
“Continue.”
“As you wish, most exalted one.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Kudos to him for his iron control.
The crescendo of bird-song increased as the growing light chased away the lingering shadows of the night. Not enough time to torture him the way she wanted to. To really put that iron control to the test. He lifted his hips a fraction when she unbuttoned his pants and smoothed aside the faded material, pulling them down over his hips to expose him.
She’d seen him, touched him but this was her first taste of him. The first time she was doing this by choice rather than for survival.
“What is it?”
He’d caught her hesitation. Had her thoughts shown so plainly on her face? She shook her head. “Nothing. You’re beautiful, Fabian. I would be honoured to do this for you.
He smiled. Praise a man’s private parts and he was putty in your hands. But Fabian was no Hal. He let her set the pace and take as much of him as she felt comfortable with. No forcing or grabbing at her hair. No babbled words of lust. No urging her on with promises he didn’t intend to keep.
Slow and easy. A gift given freely and taken with gratitude. Everything it should be when you did this with the person you loved.
A traitorous thought, yes, but no harm in thinking it. When he left he would take a part of her heart with him, even if he didn’t realise. She brought him to an explosive climax, knowing that at that moment he was entirely hers. He subsided back into the chair with a long contented sigh, eyes fogged, the smile a little lopsided and dreamy.
She laid her head on his thigh and curled her fingers into his, listening to his breathing calming and returning to normal. If only every night could be like this.
Another thought she shouldn’t b
e having. Better to keep it light and fun and pretend it didn’t matter.
“My lord is pleased?”
“My lord is very pleased.”
“You certainly look it. Better go and get dressed. And cover up the bodies, will you? If no one comes for them by night-fall, we’ll bury them. If you need me, I’ll be in the pottery decorating plates. Got myself way behind, what with one thing and another.”
He rose too, tucking himself away and buttoning up as he spoke. “Do you wish me to hide the rifle again?”
No use pretending he hadn’t seen it. Or that she could stop him from taking it with him.
“Hide it, but not under the floor. Keep it handy, just in case.”
“You will show me how to use it?”
“Yes. But not today. Whatever last night was about, I’m not capitulating as easily as they think I will. Stay hidden and if Hal, or anyone comes, let me deal with them.”
“What use is discretion now?”
“You come out on your terms, not theirs. We get to set some of the rules in this game, too. Promise you’ll only show if I’m in danger?”
He moved to the stairs, his stride purposeful, broad shoulders filling the doorway. Hal, he would have no trouble with. Warrington was a different matter. A man of equal strength, a former champion of the bare-knuckle fight pits. Untroubled by conscience. She’d seen him shoot the head from a rabbit, blindfold. Gut a man for stealing a pie. In a fight between him and Fabian it would come down to who wanted it more.
She waited a few moments before climbing the stairs to fetch her boots, the dogs at her heels reminding her breakfast was due. More danger in this night of indulgence than she realised. Fabian needed to believe with all his heart he would make it home. That’s what would give him the edge. He needed to want that with everything he had.
And she was distracting him from that goal. Quickly, she tied back her hair and went downstairs to prepare a bite of breakfast.
Damn, but this loving thing was complicated. Before, her need for him had been selfish. She liked having him around, enjoyed the banter and yes, the sex. She’d wanted him because of what he could give her. She picked up the stale loaf, wrinkling up her nose at the blue mould on the crust. Now she wanted whatever would keep him safe.
