Stealing food was, in some ways, a far worse crime than stealing anything else when food was so scarce and so necessary to survival.
On the other hand, it was also necessary to her survival and it chafed to consider punishing her when it was clear she was in desperate need.
He shook the thought off. It wasn’t any part of his job to uphold or ignore the laws as he pleased. There were no extenuating circumstances as far as the judiciary was concerned.
She hadn’t stolen—yet—as far as he could see, though, and until and unless she did, she hadn’t broken any laws.
And he had far worse lawbreakers to contend with at the moment.
If she slipped through his fingers while he was dealing with the murderous, cutthroat gang that ran the village ….
Well, he couldn’t be expected to round up and punish every lawbreaker! It seemed doubtful there would be many of the primitives left roaming free if he gathered up every one that had ever committed any crime.
* * * *
When the stranger stopped in the middle of the street, Lexa stepped up onto the boardwalk and headed into the mercantile. Relief flooded her when she’d stepped into the dim interior but it didn’t last long.
One of the local gang members had the proprietor by the throat when she entered. Hearing her enter, he glanced over his shoulder and looked her over in a survey that took in everything from the top of her hat to her boots. Cold crept through her when she saw interest light his eyes.
She was in trouble and she knew it. Either he’d seen right through her disguise and figured out she was a woman or he liked boys and neither possibility boded well for her.
Visions of being knocked down and rutted by the beast danced through her head—images supplied by past experiences she’d worked hard to block from her mind. For a handful of seconds, she considered simply giving in to the inevitable in the hope that he would finish quickly and not do her too much damage in the process.
She knew that would be the smart thing to do. All she had to do was not resist. She didn’t have to try to pretend she wanted it—which she knew she absolutely could not do to save her life! If he hadn’t been half as revolting as he was she couldn’t carry that off. None of her experiences with men had made that anything less than repulsive or pure torture. It didn’t matter that it never took them long to get done. It made her skin crawl, revolted her to her soul, and it took forever to put it out of her mind.
He released the proprietor abruptly, turned, and settled his elbows on the counter behind him. Grinning broadly, he showed a double row of blackened, half rotted teeth. “Well,” he drawled. “What have we got here?”
She couldn’t do it, she realized in dismay. If he touched her she wasn’t going to be able to just let him do what he wanted to do. She’d fight. She wouldn’t be able to help herself and when she did he would either beat her into submission or kill her.
Either way, she wasn’t likely to make it out of the mercantile intact.
She intended to give it a damned good try, though!
Running wouldn’t do any good. He was fat—the soft, well fed look of the predators that never actually worked for their food—but less than two yards separated them. Barefoot, she thought she could’ve given him a run for his money even if he was tall enough his stride alone was more than a match for her speed. With the ill-fitting boots she was wearing she didn’t think she could get up to speed fast enough to evade the reach of those long arms.
“Don’t want no trouble, mister,” she said in a gruff voice. “Just lookin’ to trade for a little food an’ water an’ I’ll be on my way.”
“You got somethin’ to trade?”
It wasn’t the proprietor that asked.
Clearly the kid wasn’t the only genius the town boasted.
“Got a couple of things.”
“But you ain’t paid yer village taxes.”
Dismay settled in Lexa’s gut. It wasn’t uncommon for the gangs to demand toll but she knew from the way the man was looking at her that the toll he wanted wasn’t going to be anything she wanted to pay.
“I got somethin’ for that, too,” she said shakily, digging in the pocket of her pants and fishing out the tattered paper there. “It’s a picture book.”
For a few moments she thought she had the situation handled. Hope surged through her with a knee weakening sense of relief when his eyes lit with interest that seemed less personally threatening. “What kinda pictures?”
Lexa’s heart sank. He wanted one of the picture books that showed naked women and the one she had was just drawings—and they had all of their clothes on! Again, it flickered through her mind to simply run like hell and see if she could outrun the bastard. Instead, she girded herself, took a step forward, and extended her offering.
He glanced down at the tattered book and then met her gaze.
She stiffened, knowing he was going to grab her before the thought even fully formed in his mind. Before his hand could close like a manacle on her wrist, she dropped the book and snatched her hand back. She nearly fell over her own feet as she whipped around to run. Fortunately, her clothing hung on her. He managed to get a hold on the back of her shirt as she headed out the door, but the material was rotted enough that she left him holding the patch he’d grabbed as she shot forward. The tug was still enough to throw her slightly off balance and the necessity of regaining it delayed her for a critical second too many. He was practically on top of her as she charged across the boardwalk to leap down onto the dirt street. She spared the time to use her bag of trade goods as a weapon, swinging it around and slamming it into the side of his head hard enough she heard the tinkling sound of breaking glass.
Dismay flickered through her that she’d just destroyed about half her trade goods, but she didn’t have time to spare for a lot of regret at the moment. The blow didn’t stop him from making another grab for her, but it threw him slightly off balance. Lexa took advantage. She grabbed the arm he’d grabbed her with, slammed her shoulder into his midsection and kicked back against his nearest leg. It toppled him backwards as she’d hoped, but although his grip on her slackened as he fell, it was still enough to jerk her off balance. She tried to recover but her center of gravity was off enough that she only ended up running straight at the ground and rooting dirt.
She was stunned but frightened enough to throw off the shock and react, rolling to her back almost instantly. She didn’t get the chance to get up. She discovered she’d sprawled at the feet of the stranger that had so unnerved her. He looked down at her dispassionately and planted a booted foot in the center of her chest as she tried to rise, shoving her back against the hard packed dirt.
She grabbed the heel and toe of his boot, knowing his stance put him off balance and hoping she could put enough force in a twist to pitch him on his ass. Instead, he leaned toward her, shifting his weight to the leg she’d grabbed and slowly pushing the breath from her chest.
“What did you steal?”
Lexa gaped at him, too stunned by the strangely accented words he’d uttered to actually comprehend what he’d asked.
“Get off him. He’s mine.”
That voice and comment jerked Lexa out of her shock. “I paid the toll,” she gasped hoarsely.
“That ain’t the toll I’m aimin’ to collect,” the man said with a leer and then glared at the stranger menacingly. “I said move away, stranger.”
To Lexa’s relief, the weight disappeared from her chest. The stranger leaned down, however, grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet, nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process. His fingers tightened slightly when she was on her feet. “Don’t move. We aren’t done yet.”
Lexa gaped at him but he released her as if the warning was enough to cow her and turned his attention to the gang member just as the lout charged him. He side-stepped as the bull charged and planted a boot in the man’s ass as he passed, sending him sprawling. The brute let out a bellow of rage and then a loud grunt as he hit the dirt.
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She wasn’t certain if it was the grunt and the way he rooted the dirt, or the smooth way the stranger simply stepped aside and then booted the other man in the ass that triggered an insane urge to laugh. As completely inappropriate to the situation as it was, though, the urge still struck her.
The direness of her situation quelled it as quickly as it arose. Lexa glanced at the brute as he plowed up the dirt in the street and then whipped a look back at the stranger, peripherally aware that a crowd had started gathering, contrary to typical behavior. People usually ran for cover whenever violence erupted. She thought maybe they were as stunned as she was, though, and it was that circumstance that held her frozen to the spot, not the stranger’s command. That order had all but vanished from her mind the moment he provoked the wrath of the gang member.
The stranger stunned her even more when he looked down at the brute dispassionately and then raised his voice to a level loud enough to be heard by everyone who’d gathered on the street—as if he was challenging all comers.
“I am the Lawgiver, Gah-re-al. The penalty for the crime of assault with intent to rape is imprisonment for not less than five years. How do you plead, barbarian?” he growled.
In response, the ‘barbarian’ uttered a snarl of rage, surged to his feet, and rushed toward the stranger, pulling a foot long knife from his belt as he charged.
The stranger lifted his arm, revealing for the first time a bulky, strange looking band around his wrist. The gang member was within a yard of him when a blinding blue-white light shot from the stranger’s wrist. A hole the size of the man’s head appeared in the gang member’s chest. Blood and chunks of organs, shards of bone, and meat shot out of his back. His momentum carried him forward, however, and the stranger stepped out of the way as the dead body flew past him and plowed the dirt again.
He lowered his wrist and lifted his head, surveying his stunned audience. “The penalty for assaulting a Lawgiver with deadly intent—death.”
Chapter Three
“You aren’t a male and you aren’t a resident of this village. What are you doing here?”
Lexa had been too stunned by what had transpired to think to run while she had the chance. When the stranger spoke again, she focused on him and discovered he was studying her assessingly. Fear lanced through her and then her sluggish mind finally ‘translated’ what he’d said in his thickly accented voice and she lifted a hand quickly to check her facial hair. Without surprise she discovered she’d lost it in the scuffle.
A look that was almost amused flickered across the man’s face and disappeared so quickly that she thought she might have imagined it.
Not man, she corrected herself, too stunned to gather her wits. She felt hot, cold, and faint all at the same time and her thought processes seemed to crawl so slowly that it took a supreme effort to make any sense of them. He wasn’t a man. He was one of the angels, she realized, feeling terror make every muscle in her body go weak. People had called them angels when they had first arrived because they had wings but they were cold blooded alien creatures that only had the appearance of being human and most people now referred to them as demons from hell.
The bulk on his back wasn’t a hunch or a hidden weapon, she realized in dismay. He’d used the coat to hide the wings that would’ve given him away instantly.
“Humans aren’t very observant. I knew you were a female as soon as I smelled you.”
The insult was like a punch, piercing her cocoon of shock. Lexa felt a flash of heat flush her cheeks that was a combination of anger and embarrassment and so hot sweat broke from her pores. It would’ve been insulting even if it hadn’t been delivered in such a derisive tone, but his obvious disdain made it more insulting.
What the hell did he mean by saying she smelled like a woman anyway? Because if he was insinuating he could smell her pussy she’d have the bastard know that hers didn’t stink, by damn! It hadn’t been used by a man in a hell of a long damned time!
His eyes narrowed. “Speak. Or are you mute? Or too simpleminded to understand?”
Despite her fear, Lexa felt her lips tighten. She straightened, lifting her chin at him and narrowing her eyes. “I came to trade for food and water,” she said coldly, lifting the bag with her broken trade goods to show him she wasn’t lying.
Surprise flickered in his cold blue, nearly white eyes. Those eyes sent shivers through her and made her regret her moment of rebellion, made her regret the fact that she’d been too shocked to even attempt to hide the fury his snide comment had provoked.
She didn’t doubt that was why he was surprised.
His gaze flickered over her and then returned to her face. He met her gaze for several long moments. Lexa cringed inwardly, but she was still too angry to allow good sense to reign. She met his cold gaze with a steady, angry one of her own.
“Go inside and wait for me.”
Lexa hesitated but the appearance of compliance was all that had kept her alive these many years. It went against the grain. It irked her to have to pretend she’d been cowed by him. She would’ve preferred to tell him to kiss her ass and go to hell. She would’ve far rather knocked his teeth down his throat for the insult and the orders, but she didn’t have the muscle to back up her rathers. Stiffly, she nodded, although she had absolutely no intention of hanging around longer than it took to get the water and food she so desperately needed.
Fortunately, as he had before, he dismissed her and turned away as soon as he’d ordered her inside, giving rise to the hope that he hadn’t actually noticed her rebellious attitude. She would’ve bitten her tongue and resisted the urge to argue with him anyway, but, happily, it transpired that the order fit nicely with what she wanted to do. Now she had his permission to finish her business and be on her way. In any case, she discovered the moment he turned away and her gaze followed the movement that far more trouble was heading their way.
At least a dozen gang members were moving purposefully toward them along the street and it was clear that the one in the lead was the local king.
As stunned as everyone else had been by the very brief battle between the angel and the gang member they noticed trouble marching their way about the same time that Lexa did—clearly some moments after the angel noticed. Gasping with fright, everyone began to scatter. Lexa was suddenly anxious to comply with his orders as quickly as possible and hurried past the angel.
He caught her arm before she could dash past him and met her gaze with a hard look when she glanced at him fearfully. “Don’t make me hunt you down. You wouldn’t like it.”
So much for thinking he hadn’t noticed her rebellious attitude! Lexa gaped at him, wondering if the angels were mind-readers as she’d heard. She’d dismissed it. There were so many tales about them—each one more fantastic than the last—that she’d stopped believing most of the stories she heard.
He didn’t wait for a response—fortunately. She might’ve responded with something utterly stupid!—He released her the moment he’d issued his warning and moved toward the center of the street to meet the gang heading toward him.
“I am the Lawgiver, Gah-re-al, of the udai. The penalty for your crimes against the primitives known as humans is death.”
A shockwave traveled through Lexa. She wasn’t certain if it arose from the sheer audacity of the angel in issuing a challenge when he was up against so superior a force and completely exposed or if it was that he seemed to know everything they’d done. She felt a shiver skate down her spine, though.
Despite her anxiety to reach a safe distance before the violence she expected erupted, she paused in the doorway of the mercantile and turned to survey the scene playing out in the dusty street. Gabriel, as he called himself, shrugged the long, black coat off and dropped it in the dust at his feet, revealing his wings. He lifted and spread them, as if flexing the kinks out, like someone loosening up for a fight.
It sent another shiver skating down her back. At the same time a sense, almost of awe, swept over her. As man
y tales as she’d heard about them, she’d never actually seen one—not that she knew of, in any case.
The black wings had almost the same iridescent sheen of a crow’s wings. The udai was dark skinned—as dark as roamers, humans, that spent most of their days exposed to the hot sun but without the blistering red one usually saw and she wondered if all of the udai were as dark. His long hair hung nearly to his waist—nothing particularly unusual about that except that he didn’t have a beard nearly as long as his hair, in fact at all, and most male humans did—and the hair was the same iridescent blue-black as his wings.
The nearly white irises flickered in her direction again and Lexa recoiled reflexively, nearly stumbling in her rush to get inside.
The tableau she’d seen flickered through her mind as she rushed toward the counter.
Clearly the gang had lost some of their confidence when they saw they were rushing upon a dark angel, or demon, instead of a man. They’d halted in the middle of the street when the udai, Gabriel, removed his coat.
The Lawgivers: Gabriel Page 3
