The Lone Warrior

by Denise Rossetti

  Two strides and Walker was at his shoulder, following his gaze. The swordmaster’s mouth fell open, the scene below seared into his retinas.

  Wearing only a soaking shift, every line of her lush body clearly displayed in the sunlight, Mehcredi the assassin stood thigh deep in the crystal-clear water of his special contemplation pool, holding that filthy dog by the scruff of its neck. The skinny boy that Prue had taken in at The Garden was with her. He scrubbed at the animal with a big bar of rough soap, his industry producing a thick scurf of bubbly foam. Even from up here, Walker could feel the daffydillies wilting, the shy little water plants choking and dying.

  Dai reclined against the trunk of the venerable cedderwood that shaded the area, the remains of what was clearly a lavish picnic scattered about on the grass. His face was alight with laughter, though he had a protective hand covering his throat. They were all laughing,’Cestors take them. As Walker stared in horror and disbelief, the boy compounded the disaster by losing the soap in the water. Completely uninhibited, Mehcredi threw her head back, laughing from the belly like a man. The action lifted her glorious breasts, pushing them hard against wet, semitransparent cloth.

  Gods.

  He could see every swirling line of his Mark, the pout of pink nipples pebbled by the cool of the water. Even though he curled his hands into fists, every nerve beneath the skin remembered the heft of her breast, the trusting satiny weight of it cradled in his palm. Worse, the shift delineated the curve of her waist, the swell of womanly hips. Unable to help himself, Walker tracked downward over the slight curve of her belly, tracing the drape of material to the sweet space between strong slim thighs. Fuck, even the rise of her mons was visible, but no pubic hair. Or none that he could see.

  And he’d thought that part of him was dead. Shit! The breath rasped in his lungs.

  Lips smacked noisily right next to his ear. “Yum, yum,” said Deiter, amid hoarse chuckles. “You should see your face.”

  Walker snapped his jaw shut so hard it hurt. Whirling, he shoved past the wizard, leaping down the stairs three at a time.

  Behind him, he could hear Deiter’s mad cackling, broken at intervals by racking coughs. With any luck, his own amusement would carry the old bastard off, but in the meantime—Walker ground his teeth—he was going to make the assassin sorry she was ever born.

  Some streetwise instinct of self-preservation made the boy spin around to face him, but Mehcredi remained oblivious. It wasn’t until she’d clamped the wriggling dog firmly under one arm that she noticed Florien’s curious immobility. She turned her head and some of the humor faded from her expression. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “Mehcredi.” The effort of self-control cost him so dearly, all Walker could produce was a menacing whisper. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He never swore aloud.

  Her brow knitted. “Washing the dog,” she said, as if to a senile uncle.

  “In my pool. With”—Walker forced the word out—“soap.”

  “You said yourself he was filthy.” With one hand, she grasped the dog’s dripping jaw and pushed his head up, looking into miserable brown eyes. “And he had bitemes, poor thing.”

  “Out.”

  Clad only in a pair of drawers, the boy scrambled onto the grass and hunkered down next to Dai, shivering. The swordsman’s expression remained grave, though he kept rubbing one thumb across his lips and his eyes danced.

  Mehcredi gave him a dismissive wave. “Just a minute.” Before Walker could stop her, she bent and dunked the dog all the way under the water.

  “Now!”

  This time, she did jump. “He needed rinsing,” she said resentfully.

  Walker set his hands on his hips and shot her a flat black glare.

  7

  “No, wait. Get the soap,” gritted Walker, his head ringing with the assault on the ch’qui of his garden, his scrotum tightening with every breath the assassin took. She was so pale, she could have been sculpted of marble. But only the most expensive stone, the top grade that came from the Grand Pasha’s private mines in Trinitaria, would come close to replicating the fine-grained beauty of her skin, the glow and luster of life. Long, supple muscle ran smooth beneath it, strong and yet ineffably female.

  Mehcredi grumbled under her breath, but she dropped to her knees and felt around with her hands. The dog paddled past, cast her a glance that showed a thin rim of white and hauled himself out onto the grass near Walker. There he stopped, setting all four feet. The swordmaster fixed the animal with a gimlet eye. “Don’t.”

  The dog cocked an ear, then trotted over the bridge toward the approaching figure of the Purist Deiter. A foot away, he shook vigorously, water spraying in all directions.

  “Aaargh!” The wizard recoiled, brushing frantically at his robes.

  “Serves you right,” snarled Walker. Bending, he whipped a checkered tablecloth off the grass, scattering plates and utensils. “Cover yourself.” He shoved it toward the assassin.

  Four pairs of eyes regarded him with varying degrees of wariness—five if he counted the dog. Ignoring them, Walker went to one knee by the pond, feeling the grass cool and damp beneath his palm, the rich deep soil below, the huge healing strength of the ch’qui, infinite because there was an entire world of it.

  He’d flown into a rage over a body of water the size of a large bath. This was ridiculous. He was ridiculous.

  The daffydillies might wilt, but godsdammit, his pool would recover from a little soap. ’Cestors save him, he’d lost control. A man famous for his icy calm under pressure, his impenetrable reserve. The incarnation of Shar vengeance and he’d raised his voice, shouted—

  His gaze zeroed in on the assassin and narrowed, thoughts skittering about inside his skull like bitemes on a hot griddle. She’d passed the tablecloth to the boy, gods damn her, which meant he mustn’t permit his stare to drop below her neck. She was shivering, lips paler than ever. Why aren’t you the way you’re supposed to be? he thought savagely. This is all your fault.

  As if she’d heard his thought, Mehcredi tilted her head to one side, her silvery eyes huge. “Sorry,” she said. “But I thought you wanted—”

  “You have no idea of what I want.” Walker ripped the shirt off over his head, balled it up and threw it at her.

  “I know.” Her hands closed hard on the garment, but she made no move to put it on, frowning. “You have to tell me, you see,” she said. “I’m stupid, I don’t always understand, so you have to—”

  “You are not stupid!” Walker breathed carefully through his nose. “Don’t pretend with me, assassin. It won’t work.”

  “I’m not pretending.” Her features went stiff with offense, but she rubbed the soft fabric against her throat, blotting up the drips.

  Dai was shaking his head. Beckoning Walker closer, he grasped the hand the swordmaster offered and hauled himself to his feet. “She . . . meant . . . well,” he rasped, pulling a small pad of paper from a pocket.

  “But it was my idea.” Mehcredi raised a hand as if to touch Walker’s arm, then thought better of it. She stuck her chin out. “All of it.”

  “Nah,” said the boy through chattering teeth. “T’weren’t just you. Me too.”

  Dai dug Walker in the ribs and handed him a note. I asked S. for picnic, it said in a slashing scrawl. Dog washing mutual idea.

  ’Cestors’ bones, they were defending her. How had she done it? But then—she seemed to be trying to shield them too, in her own strange way.

  Godsdammit, what did they think he was going to do to her?

  “Allow me to help you with that, my dear.” With a snaggletoothed grin, Deiter stepped past him, reaching for the shirt.

  Walker clamped iron fingers around the old man’s wrist. “Don’t touch her!”

  Deiter swore. At every point of contact between them, Walker’s flesh burned with Magick, so much so that it took every ounce of discipline he possessed not to jerk away. Instead, he released the wizard as slowly as possible
and turned to Mehcredi. “Go to your room,” he said coldly. “When you’ve changed, return to your duties.”

  “But Dai should—”

  “I’ll take care of Dai. And you, lad—” The boy scowled up at him from under an unruly black fringe. He’d struggled into his trews, standing with one hand hidden behind his back. A slum rat if ever he’d seen one, blade at the ready.

  “Florien, isn’t it?” Gods, if he had a mind to, he could count the child’s ribs.

  A nod.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Sybaris.” His lips barely parted, the word grudgingly given.

  “Your parents? Family?”

  A shake this time. “Cenda,” the boy said after a pause. “I guess. Mebbe Erik.” A frown. “An’ I work fer Prue, fer ’em all.” He squared skinny shoulders.

  Deiter snorted. “Boy’s a guttersnipe. But Cenda insisted on bringing him. The gods know why.”

  Florien curled a lip, though Walker noted the trembling hands, the pulse beating in his thin neck. The child was terrified, as well he might be. “Wouldn’t work fer ye, old man. Not iffen ye paid me.”

  But he had balls. Fleetingly, Walker saw another face, a girl with hair as black as his own and a wheedling grin. C’mon, big brother, I’m tall enough now. Teach me quarterstaff. Mam won’t know, I swear.

  Casually, he stepped between Deiter and the boy. “Get Dai to show you the basics, without the knife, mind. When he says you’re ready, come to me.”

  Florien’s mouth dropped open. Then he flushed a deep scarlet, eyes as black as Walker’s own sparkling like polished jet.

  “No,” Mehcredi said immediately. “Dai’s not up to anything like that.”

  Walker ignored her. “Dai?”

  A nod and a smile. Sure.

  “Good.” Walker turned on his heel and headed back toward his accounts.

  Her skin still flushed with warmth after another stolen bath, Mehcredi lit the stub of a candle, lowered herself to the edge of her bed and stared at the swordmaster’s shirt. The moment he’d disappeared into the building, she’d stopped using it as a makeshift towel. And once she gained her room, she draped it carefully over the back of the single chair to dry.

  She was trembling now, with the oddest mixture of excitement and trepidation. All day she’d been thinking of that piece of linen, a secret pleasure that filled her with glee, naughty as a child with stolen candy.

  Biting her lip, she reached out to finger a dangling cuff. It wasn’t a good shirt, she’d done enough laundry to know that, just something he chose for rough work. The fabric was worn and soft, with a couple of neat darns. One of the laces was frayed at the end. Not a garment he was likely to miss.

  Letting out a gusty breath, she rose and spread it out over the bed, patting and twitching it into place as if it were a fine satin quilt. Then she jammed the back of the chair under the doorknob, as she did every night. Without giving herself time to think, she reefed the shift over her head and flung it to the floor.

  Her heart banged about behind her ribs, the sonorous beat so loud it echoed in her ears.

  Now. Sweet Sister, now!

  Before she lost her nerve, Mehcredi grabbed the shirt, squeezed her eyes shut and slid into it the way she slipped under the deep water of her bath, fumbling her arms into the sleeves. Walker was broader across the shoulders and the chest and the cut of the garment was loose, so it slithered down over breasts, hips and buttocks without hindrance, a whispered caress that finished midthigh.

  It smelled of man—not just any man—of him, his skin, his body, his uncompromising masculinity. As if he’d put his arms around her and drawn her close, her nose buried against the soft skin behind his ear. The sensation was more overpowering than she’d anticipated, so much so that she swayed where she stood. When she raised an arm to brace herself against the low ceiling, the soft linen shifted, sliding against the sensitive skin under her arm, brushing the shaman’s Mark on her breast, the curve of her stomach.

  Silvery heat flared low in her belly, so bright and clenching, she doubled over, stumbled and fell back on the bed with a choked cry. Pressing the heel of her hand against the mound of her sex made it worse, even more intense. Gods. Every swirling line of the Mark on her breast tingled. The tender flesh swelled, the skin tightening. Her nipples ached as if compressed between hard fingers. Shaking, she stroked fingertips over the fabric, tracing every line of the Mark beneath. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine it was the swordmaster, hunter’s face intent, Magick flowing from his fingers, soaking into her skin in the wake of his skilled touch. With his other hand, he’d cradle the breast, pulling the skin taut with a thumb to create his canvas.

  He’d only done it because he had to, she knew that, and he’d probably been disgusted, but for these few moments, all her senses wrapped up by the fabric that had touched his skin, she’d allow herself the fantasy.

  The soft folds between her legs were wet and swollen, puffy with lust. She might be a half-wit slut, but she wasn’t completely ignorant. Because lust was all it was, pure and simple. Or not so pure. The half-formed chuckle morphed into a long groan. She knew what she was about to do, knew how stupid it was, but she’d never felt so . . . so . . . lit up. She almost expected the heat to be visible through her skin, a luminescent glow like a fire blazing behind a screen.

  If there was one thing she’d learned at Lonefell, it was the comfort her own body could give her. The only names she knew for what she did were ugly or childish, or both—frigging, beating off, jerking off. Taso called that soft, sensitive place a cunt, spitting out the word as if it tasted foul in his mouth. But when she lay hunched in some hideyhole at the keep, cold and miserable and unable to sleep, stroking it helped. The fingers of one hand busy, she’d achieve release, the other fist shoved in her mouth to stifle her cries. Afterward, she’d drift off, telling herself it didn’t matter, that at least one person cared enough to gift her with pleasure—even if it was she herself.

  Mehcredi fixed her gaze on the square of night sky framed by the window under the eaves, but what she saw was the swordmaster dancing with his swords on the green grass, his near-nude body so brutally male the impact of its beauty made her heart ache. He wore what she’d come to think of as his inward face, all his attention focused within, hard with concentration. Try as she might, even in her mind’s eye, she couldn’t change that expression to something softer. She tried to imagine how he’d look if he cared about the woman he was fucking, but it was beyond her. She couldn’t even make her mental image smile.

  Her eyes stung. Godsdammit, she’d take what she could get, pathetic though it might be.

  Inhaling deeply, she filled her lungs with dark spice, allowing one hand to drift down, down, over ribs and belly, to the satin skin on the inside of her thigh. Back up, the hem of the shirt riding on her wrist. The muscles in her legs went slack and her thighs lolled open. With her fingertips, she furrowed through sparse curls, quivering when she encountered wet flesh.

  He was wrapped around her, his body a welcome weight holding her down. His muscled forearm brushed the tender skin of her inner thigh, the touch of his fingers on her most secret place arrogantly confident. His command of her body was absolute. He understood the import of every gasp, every quiver. He was going to make her feel good, so good . . .

  Mehcredi threw her head back when he circled a finger around the sucking entrance to her body and slid it deep inside. With his other hand, he plucked at a nipple, rolling it between his fingers, pinching to an exquisite point that hovered between pleasure and pain.

  “Please,” she whimpered to the silent room, lifting her hips in yearning. “Oh, please.”

  He took pity on her, adding another finger, and finally, finally, strumming the little bump of hot aching flesh at the apex of her cleft with his thumb. How so much sensation could be concentrated in such a small area she had no idea, but Walker knew.

  Tension grew unbearably, a solid wall of heat behind her pubic bone. Us
ually, she experienced release as a whiplash of uncoil and recoil, but this time—with him—it was different.

  It began as a bud, tightly furled, hard and new. Rapidly, it grew and blossomed, putting out tendrils of heat that twined around the base of her spine, spiraling up and up until she was light-headed with pleasure, writhing beneath him, almost frightened. Every line of the Mark flexed like a living thing, strong as the first growth of spring, but all she felt was an excruciatingly pleasurable tingle, as if her skin were enclosed in a net woven of silky rose petals. She could swear the Mark was expanding, cradling both breasts, brushing the nerve-rich flesh of her nipples, gentle but completely inexorable.

  Every muscle in her body went rigid, panic and arousal combined. She couldn’t, she couldn’t—Someone groaned, so deep it had to be him.

  “Ah, Mehcredi,” he murmured, the strange accent more marked than usual.

  With the last fragment of her sanity, Mehcredi turned her head and bit the pillow.

  Everything dissolved. White lightning flashed across the inside of her eyelids. As she shuddered and arched, the earth spun, trees grew tall as the sky, spreading their branches in canopies that covered the world, withered, died and sprang forth again. More silvery flashes, slowly dissipating, until they became simple spasms of pleasure and then no more than the reminiscent twitching of exhausted nerve and muscle.

  She clamped her eyelids shut, riding it out, moaning and gasping into the pillow.

  When she opened her eyes, an eon later, the stars in the window were watery smears. She could smell herself, her body sheened with sweat, thighs shiny with her own juices. Every muscle ached.

  Sniffing, she wiped her eyes and removed the shirt. Carefully, she hung it over the back of the chair and wiped herself down with a corner of the threadbare sheet. Her knees felt like water, the pulse still drumming in her ears.

  That had been . . . She swallowed hard. Sweet Sister, she’d thought she was going to die—and she hadn’t cared.

  Tears dripped down her cheek and off her chin, hot and salty. She’d felt . . . exalted, as though her passion was holy and beautiful, a force of Nature. But now, she sat in a bare little room in the House of Swords, sweat pooling in the small of her back, the muscles of her legs protesting because she’d frigged herself into a stupor like the half-wit slut she was.