VirtualHeaven

by Ann Lawrence

  A sigh escaped her lips. What lips. He could still taste their one kiss. He could still feel her tongue. When he wished to satisfy his needs, he paid coin. Most often, he used the female slaves at a pleasure house. The pleasure houses were costly in gold and time, but well worth the expense. The slave and her attendance were merely one facet of a complete sensual experience of food and wine and music.

  To seek an independent fornitrix purely to relieve lust had always seemed an empty experience. At least his one time had been so. The woman had been lovely and quite adept at wringing a shattering climax from him. But the exchange of coin from his hand to hers had tainted the moment. At a pleasure house, the coin went to the proprietor and the illusion remained that the female came willingly.

  Kered touched Maggie’s hair. Perhaps she ran from a master who beat her. No. Her skin was nigh unto perfect. No man had abused her in such a way. But there were worse ways to abuse a woman. Words could flay the soul. Leon had a rapier tongue. Samoht wounded with a glance and a word. Aye. Perhaps Maggie ran from a master who abused her mind and heart.

  His blood beat a tattoo in his groin, and he ceased fighting it. He let his lust rise as he caressed the weight of her hair. He bunched it in his fist and let the ebony strands arouse him. He no longer detected the floral aura. Time, sweat, and his shirt’s odor had overpowered her womanly scent. A cooling breeze lifted his own hair. He remembered the sensual experience of Maggie tending his hair, remembered the stroke of the brush, the nearness of her heat, the soft caress of her breath as she bent to the task.

  He shook off her hair like a man wiping some noxious dirt from his hand. He shot to his feet and left the circle of fire. Her master had taught her to use her tongue to bring pleasure, something he had never experienced before. An emotion he refused to recognize as jealousy smote him—hard. If a pleasure house or common fornitrix used that exotic trick, he would have heard tell of it. His desire leapt, and he thrust aside his thoughts.

  He kept his back to the fire—and Maggie—until his blood slowed and his thoughts cooled.

  “Ker?” Maggie stretched. He scowled at her over the glowing coals. The harshly delineated planes of his cheeks and jaw were hard and possibly cruel. The shadows painted on his face made him seem almost evil. She shivered. Her hands shook a bit as she drew his fur cloak about her shoulders. His fine shirt, wrinkled now, the gold of its embroidery not gleaming as it had, stretched taut across his shoulders and chest. Surely, he must miss his blue cloak. “Are you cold?” she asked.

  “No.” He looked away from her.

  “You’re angry.”

  “No.”

  She huddled in the heavy cloak, no longer noticing the scent of it. It had become part of him, part of her world. The scent of his skin, of his sweat, were now an amalgam of what made up her experiences, along with the rich, earth scent beneath her and the sharp, smoky smell of the burning wood. Windsong snorted in the darkness, close by.

  “Tell me what made you angry,” she persisted.

  “I am not angry.”

  “Then what troubles you?”

  “You. You have not eaten. You sleep for many hours. You do not prick me with your taunts.”

  “Ah, you miss my conversation.” She smiled.

  He smiled in return. Dimples deepened, banishing his fierce scowl and most of her worries.

  “Aye. I miss your conversation, slave.”

  “Please. My name is Maggie.”

  “Your name has sharp edges. It is not feminine.”

  “Say my name, Ker.”

  “Maggie.”

  The air hung heavy between them, filled with something unspoken and expectant.

  “You give it an accent that is pleasing to me.” She heard his professorial cadence taking over her speech’s rhythm. “I like to hear you say my name.”

  He growled, his eyes narrowing.

  “Do you make that noise in anger or from frustration?”

  He didn’t respond to her question. They lapsed into silence. The fire crackled and the wind blew sparks into the air, where they disappeared, floating like miniature fireworks over their heads.

  “We will soon reach the Isle of N’Olava where, by legend, the cup of Liarg is said to be.”

  “Is that why you’re so pensive?” Maggie sat up and threw the cloak about her legs. It was much shorter than before, being the source of boots and belts for her.

  “Perhaps. How strong is the power of your weapon?”

  She rested her chin on her knees. Of course, he thought only of the quest and weapons. Planning strategy. Too much to hope that his throaty noise signaled anything more. Her head felt heavy on her neck and her stomach rumbled. For the first time in hours, she felt hungry. The lethargy that had stolen her will and deadened her thoughts seemed to be seeping away in the chill air. The dreams weren’t gone, just softened and stored, rationalized into a compartment where she could deal with them. “I don’t have any idea of the gun’s capacity to hold power. It could shoot one more time or a thousand.”

  “Tell me of the ways in which your master used it.”

  She bit her tongue on a sharp retort. Obstinate male. “I never saw it used. I saw it demonstrated—once. I can’t help you.”

  “So be it.”

  She shot to her feet. “I hate that expression. It’s so fatalistic. It tells me you just accept what comes. I hate it.”

  “Sit, Maggie.”

  He scowled up at her as she paced by the fire, the cloak falling in a heap by the stones. She ignored his expression and stormed back and forth, needing the movement to calm her agitation. “You can’t just say, ‘So be it.’ You have to seek change, try to alter events, not wait for some seventh-level thought to occur to you.”

  “Sit!” he thundered.

  Maggie jumped and then collapsed to the ground. Kered flipped open his pack and drew out the ubiquitous heel of bread. The loaf seemed ever fresh but, by now, boring. She accepted it with ill grace as her stomach rumbled another protest.

  “I have led an army since my twentieth conjunction. I am renowned for my tactics. I do not excel on the battlefield because I jump at every thought that crosses my mind. I think; I plan. I contemplate and consult those wiser than I am. Perhaps a female would perceive this as wasting time, but that is why men rule. They think first.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!”

  “Do not swear!”

  “Look who’s talking! You swear constantly, you swear a blue streak—”

  “I do not swear.”

  Maggie began to laugh. She rolled to her side in hysterics. “You do.” She gasped. She sat up and counted off her fingers. “Let’s see…Nilrem’s beard—ever popular and number one. Nilrem’s knees—almost as colorful, but definitely second. By the sword—dull and number three. Your mighty ancestors—in order yet, back to the dawn of time—number four.” Her laughter subsided into chuckles.

  He unfolded his long frame and stepped directly over the fire and swept her off the ground. He held her dangling from her underarms, her feet flailing the air, their eyes level. When his mouth crushed down on hers she shook to her toes and collapsed against him. He made no attempt to be gentle. He conquered her slightest protest, his thumbs pressing painfully into the sides of her breasts.

  Maggie’s heart slammed frantically in her chest. She kept her lips demurely together so as not to shock him again. A lightning bolt of sensation streaked from her navel to her groin. She wriggled in his arms, her body brushing his, his heavy belt buckle rubbing the juncture of her thighs. Lying beside him, sleeping in his arms, she knew how his body felt and she craved the hard length of him, arching in his hands to get closer. Her nipples, chafed raw by his woolen shirt, burned at the contact. She cried out against his mouth.

  He dropped her to her feet. Maggie’s hands crept to her breasts, pressing against her sore nipples. They stared at each other. His hands opened and closed. His dark eyes reflected the dying flames of the fire behind her.

  “Would
you lie down for me? Tell me your price?’’ he whispered.

  The crack of her hand on his cheek tore the dawn quiet. He neither flinched nor moved. Her hand stung from the force of her assault and she turned away, hurrying into the tall, shrubby undergrowth, clutching her hand to her belly.

  His words slashed like a knife opening a wound, drove home most graphically how little he thought of her, a paltry female. A pleasure slave—slit lips and opened cheeks her punishment for leaving her master. Probably well-deserved punishment in his mind.

  She watched the dawning light pinken the indigo sky. Somewhere a bird twittered good morning. For a brief moment the pink-purple streaks and birdsong held an unsurpassed beauty. Then Tolemac’s crimson sun rose and the pink diffused to copper streaks and only served to remind her again of blood. She heard the crackle of twigs under his boots when he came to stand behind her. If he touched her, she would weep. If he didn’t, she would weep.

  The tears edged down her face, gathering and falling as she nursed her sore hand. She wouldn’t betray her feelings by raising her hand to her face. A tear dropped on a long patch of gray salve he’d so carefully, so gently, stroked on her forearm. She watched the bead of moisture travel along the herbal, then trickle onto the undamaged skin of the back of her hand.

  Kered thought she was a slut. Little did he know. Tony would laugh if he heard that. Uptight virgin, he’d called her, then frigid bitch. Her determination to wait for marriage seemed ludicrous now. If Kered had not asked for a price, had merely fallen to the ground with her, she’d have made love to him with wild abandon, consequences be damned. Maybe she had sought excuses with Tony—had not really wanted him the way she now knew she wanted Kered.

  But he thought she was a slave—one who gave sex for coin. A slut. No, a slut gave it away for free. A prostitute. Who cared about semantics? Both meant no respect. Just contempt.

  The tears flowed and dripped off her cheeks, staining Kered’s shirt and muddying the gray paste. He moved away as quietly as he’d come—to Windsong. She heard him murmuring to the stallion and knew he was saddling the horse.

  Maggie wiped her eyes with her hands, then dried them on the grass by her feet. She took a long calming breath and returned to camp, doing the chore she imagined Kered considered slave duty, smothering their fire with dirt. When Windsong trotted to her side, her eyes were dry. Kered extended his hand, but she ignored it. He fisted his hand on his thigh and sat in silence.

  Maggie did as she’d done since her earliest days of riding behind her father when they visited her grandmother on the reservation. She grasped his shirt and placed a foot on his boot. Her leg was extended to the cracking point, but she managed to drag herself up behind him. She sat on Windsong’s broad rump and grasped Kered’s belt. It was just like riding on the back of Tony’s motorcycle. Kered shrugged and kicked the horse’s flanks.

  They flew into a gallop. No more sheltering in his arms. No more small kisses on the top of her head, or laying his cheek on hers to point out some change in the terrain. No, she would choose the moments of contact, she would choose the time to speak. When the horse slowed to a canter, she slipped her hand into his pack, retrieved her gun, and thrust it into the tie about her waist. Never again would she relinquish her safety to this man. How could she trust him to save her from some disgusting fate? How could she even sleep soundly knowing he had so little regard for her?

  Kered was inordinately pleased. A stupid grin stretched his mouth, he knew, but she could not see it or comment. She had refused him. She had passed his simple test. Whatever she was in her land, giving pleasure for coin was not her way. If he had continued, lain with her, not spoken, he would never have known the truth of it. Now he knew she did not easily dispense her favors. Perhaps loyalty to her master kept her from yielding, but he was sure she had wanted him as much as he had wanted her. He touched his face. A strong little slave, for his jaw ached. Aye. He was inordinately pleased.

  Windsong cropped the long grass. Kered watched Maggie crouch down and slosh the length of cloth in the clear water. For a moment she turned her face to the pure white clouds scudding across the lavender sky. Wringing out the cloth, she wandered through the thick ground cover of tiny, white star-shaped flowers. Each step she took crushed some of the petals and their strong scent came to him, sweet and, at the same time, citrus-tart.

  She rubbed at the gray patches on her arms and then scrubbed at her cheeks. He knew the moment had arrived—the time to see if her sores were showing the suppuration that signaled rot, scarring, pain, and disfigurement. Kered met her in the middle of the flower-strewn meadow. He took the cloth from her hands. With gentle motions he wiped away the last of the herbal. “Am I okay?”

  He met her eyes. “Okay? You say this often. I do not know the meaning of this word.” Kered smiled down at her, then touched the tip of her nose. “You are still beautiful. Some red marks, but they will soon disappear. We acted in time.”

  “Why didn’t the venom hurt you?”

  He raised and dropped his shoulders, trying to be nonchalant as he touched each red mark, turning her chin to the left and right. “I am not sensitive. I am made of sterner stuff.”

  Maggie swayed and staggered closer to him. He grasped her and hoisted her into his arms. “Come, we have lingered too long in the hypnoflora. It seems you are sensitive to its seductive scent, just as you were sensitive to the venom.”

  “Hm?” she murmured against his neck. Her head lolled heavily against his neck and her arm fell off his shoulder to dangle at her side. She tried to lift her head, but it fell limp against him. “Ker?”

  “Aye, little slave.” He placed her gently near his pack on the soft carpet of grass. They should be eating, not resting.

  “Ker?”

  “Aye?” He stretched at her side and gathered her against him. They lay belly to belly, her face nestled in the warmth of his throat. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Are you a dream? Are you real?” Her breath caressed his skin at the open neck of his shirt.

  “I am real. ‘Tis you who are a dream. A man’s pleasure dream.”

  Maggie lifted her head, and he drew her up until their lips met. The kiss grew slowly from a languid foray to a deeply arousing caress. Like a pot lingering on a boil, like the tiny bubbles seeking to break the water’s surface, his desires churned.

  He halted the kiss. She was deeply under the influence of the floral aura. If it wore off, she might despise him for taking advantage. One last touch. He lifted his hand and for a brief instant let his fingers graze over her breast.

  Her cry of pain startled him. “What hurts, little one?” He rose on his elbow and plucked open the tightly laced neck of her shirt, spreading the edges and looking down on her. His breath caught in his throat. Her breasts were small and perfect, but her nipples stood out angry and red, chafed by the coarse cloth of his shirt. “Nilrem’s beard.” He placed his cool palm to her. She groaned.

  Kered edged the shirt up her hips. She lifted and assisted in a languid manner that seemed uncaring or half asleep. Or inviting. He shook off the notion and worked the shirt from her arms. She lay nearly naked before him, one hand clutched tightly about her pendant.

  Her breathing slowed to a barely perceptible sigh as she succumbed to the deep hypnofloral sleep. Whatever control he had, had fled. He grew turgid with desire. Her smooth belly above the scanty scrap of cloth that was her undergarment drew him. He skimmed his fingers along her ribs and over her belly. Like a butterfly kissing a petal, he traced the borders of the unusual undergarment, traced the low band that edged her raven-black feminine hair.

  He grew bolder, spreading his palm on her thigh and caressing down its smooth length. It occurred to him that she knew bathhouses. The hair on her legs had been removed, was growing back soft as a babe’s. ‘Twas a common occurrence at a bathhouse to have one’s body hair removed.

  Was she a bathhouse attendant? The thought knotted his stomach, made his skin break out in a swea
t. Her reactions did not seem those of a practiced fornitrix. No, she attended one man. Her master. He pictured this man. If necessary, he would battle the man for possession of her.

  Slowly, he surrendered a tiny corner of his control, leaned forward and kissed her breast, feeling her heart beat against his cheek. She arched and moaned beneath him, moving her hand from her pendant to stroke languorously through his hair. He grew bolder, taking the sore bud of her breast between his lips and soothing it with his tongue.

  Windsong lifted his head and snorted.

  Kered leapt to his feet. “My mind is muddled by the hypnoflora, else I would never allow my attention to wander from my goal.”

  He opened his pack and searched about for the last of the herbs, then mixed a thin paste, for there was little left. In a few moments he had spread the meager amount across Maggie’s nipples. He unfolded a long bandage and bound it about her breasts, then worked the shirt onto her arms. When Windsong tossed his head in a jangle of bridle and reins, Kered looked up and grinned.

  “Thank you, my friend, for reminding me of my responsibilities!” He shook Maggie awake, then forced water and small pieces of bread down her throat until she pushed his hand away.

  With stoic deliberation and a self-righteous sense of accomplishment that his desires were under seventh-level lock and key, he planted his back against a tree as she regained her senses. He watched her listlessly tear bread and chew it and swallow it. Even that simple act seemed fraught with some hidden sensual meaning.

  He must see his awareness master when the quest was through to retrain himself to resist these thoughts. ‘Twould be for the best. Maggie would wish to return to Nilrem’s mountain. Could he take her there and never see her again? Could he let her go? He shook away his thoughts. The deprivation of sleep and nourishing food were taking their toll—that was it, nothing more.

  When they reached the Isle of N’Olava, he must be ready or Maggie’s dream would come true. For on N’Olava, he would fight mortal men. Sly and evil men.