by Susan Grant
“Don’t waste your breath on the absurd!” His sharp indignation at her fear of assault left her almost embarrassed for having brought it up. “Now, will you cease your wrestling?” he asked, and gave her arm a push.
She wondered how many additional versions of “screw you” she could transmit with her eyes.
He jerked on her bent arm. Cam’s mouth drew back in a grimace. She didn’t like losing, and she’d capitulated too few times in her life to be any good at it.
“Well?” The pressure increased another notch.
Pain shot into her neck. “Give,” she choked out.
Gasping, they treaded water, their legs colliding. His skin somehow felt hotter than the water. She wanted to swim away, to put distance between the Rim rider and her unnerving awareness of him, but not at the expense of an arm.
“Relax, then,” he ordered, his body pressed close.
“I am fucking relaxed!”
He laughed—deep, masculine, and heartily condescending.
She kicked him in the shins with her heels. He flipped her in front of him, keeping her arm in a vise behind her back. His foot shoved hers away before she had the chance to crush his balls with her knee. This minion was expert in unarmed combat, much more than she. It was like salt in the wound after how neatly he’d turned the tables on her.
Immobilized by the painful armlock, she gritted her teeth, struggling to fill her lungs with air. The fight had taken most of her strength. “Okay . . .” She relaxed only enough to convince him to relieve the pressure on her arm.
He waited before loosening his grip this time, making sure she got the message. “Are you quite over yourself yet?”
Asshole. She glowered darkly at him. His face was inches away from hers, giving her a close-up view of the design etched into his golden skin, miniature snakes intertwined until she couldn’t tell where one began and another ended.
“You look as if you are plotting my demise,” he drawled.
“Actually, I’m just trying to imagine you with a personality.”
Irritably, he pushed her along toward shore. As they transitioned from swimming to sloshing toward the beach, the water sank lower and lower on his torso until he emerged sleek, hard-muscled, and completely, utterly unself-conscious about his lack of clothing.
Well, he did have one small strip of something covering his privates, a scrap of black underwear with a small blade strapped to the hip, but it didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. He was a big, solid man in top physical form. He didn’t go hungry too often; that was obvious. The emperor took good care of his minions.
The other Rim Rider thundered down the road on a stallion, black and equally magnificent as the one galloping behind him. “Kublai!” the newcomer called out.
Her captor’s name was Kublai? As in Khan? The bounty hunter was named after Genghis-the-infamousbarbarian’s grandson. Oh, boy.
The Rider tossed Kublai a towel. Turning his back to her, Kublai pressed it to his face. Steam rose from his bare shoulders and hair. His broad back steamed, too, the muscles working as he wiped himself dry.
A cold wind blew down from the mountains. Now that death wasn’t imminent and she was out of the warm water, Cam started shivering. It was not going to be a good night; she could tell by the groans and creaks settling into her bones, and the trembling in her overworked muscles. “D-do I get a towel, or do I have to w-wait for sloppy seconds?”
Kublai swiped the towel over his chest one last time and threw it at her. “Sloppy seconds.”
He stalked away without seeming to give a hoot that he’d left her staring after him. “Throw her some clothing, Nazeem, before she freezes to death.”
“Maybe that w-would be more c-c-convenient for you, Rim Rider. Then you won’t have to worry about bringing me anywhere.”
He scoffed at her offer. “The emperor demands that you be brought to him. No more, no less. And that, pretty one, is what I intend to do.” He turned his back to her to dress in rugged midnight-black riding gear.
Nazeem handed her a coat, shirt, pants, boots, and long underwear. “Change,” he said.
She started walking back to the farmhouse. “No,” Kublai ordered. “You will dress here.”
She was about to tell them they were dreaming when both men turned their backs. It was too damn cold to argue. Besides, having grown up surrounded by brothers, she was used to changing with men around.
She stripped off the sodden peasant wear. A few pieces of soggy hay fell on the ground. She hoped they didn’t have hay where the men were taking her. Or goats.
The full-body underwear the men had provided turned warm even before she’d pulled it completely on. It was too good to be true. The heat reached deep into her aching bones and stopped her shivers. “Stupid question, but are these clothes supposed to get hot?”
“Once the nanofabric regulates your body temperature, it won’t be quite so warm,” Kublai said over his shoulder. A small clasp now held the front portion of his wet hair away from his forehead, keeping it off his face. The rest swung over his broad shoulders, glossy and black. The man had hair that was not only nicer and thicker than hers, but longer, too.
“Nanofabric. As in tiny computers?” She’d heard the term nano before, but that was back in the days of technology.
“Billions of them. They are embedded in the material of your innerwear, and react to air and body temperature to regulate comfort.”
Cam’s emotions bungee-jumped from elation to despair and back again. “There is technology . . . ?”
“Beyond your wildest dreams. Just because the technology-reviling fools who live here choose not to make their lives easier doesn’t mean the rest of the world doesn’t.”
The rest of the world was still around, too! She wanted to sigh and weep and scream and laugh. “They said nuclear war destroyed everything. . . .”
Kublai’s eyes flashed like heat lightning. “They lied to you. The war was between India and Pakistan only. Thank God the world of my forebears came to its senses before it spread farther. It was both the darkest and the brightest time in history.”
Cam slid her hands into her wet hair as a sickening sense of betrayal replaced her initial elation. Zhurihe had lied to her. Why?
“We’re riding to the capital city,” Kublai told her. “The journey will take many days. Again, you need not fear me: I don’t want or need your body to play with.”
“Thank you for sharing that.”
“To accomplish my mission with the least amount of trouble, I can keep you bound and gagged the entire time, or you can follow a few simple rules and stay free. There will be no trickery, running off, kicking, biting, punching, faked seduction, or refusing food.”
“That’s all?” she queried sarcastically.
“And there will be no stealing a blade to slit my throat in the middle of the night.”
“Hmm. That’s a lot to remember. Maybe you ought to write it down.”
He barked out a laugh, but this time it was a fraction less pompous than before. The minion had a learning curve; he remembered his shins. “Why, you’re a sarcastic one.”
“Just one more service we offer.”
One dark brow lifted imperiously. “Now, what are they?”
“My services?”
“The rules! Repeat them to me.”
She had the strangest feeling that she was supposed to cower when he bellowed like that. She had the equally strange sense that it startled him that she didn’t. “Let’s see . . . no running, no tricks, no kicking, biting, punching, or faked seduction—who do you think I am, Mata Hari? No refusing to eat, either, although I don’t think that’ll be a problem. In exchange, I get to go around without cuffs or a gag. And now for your end of the agreement. In return for my cooperation, you will not hurt these people, to include but not limited to: raping, pillaging, burning the house and livestock, poisoning the springs, toppling the shrine—or committing aforementioned atrocities to the village up the road. That’
s a deal breaker, by the way.”
He uttered a loud sound of outrage and insult unidentifiable as any word in the English language. “Of course I would not commit such acts. Do you think I am a barbarian?”
“Aren’t you?”
He threw her a glance hot with astonishment. “Do you always say what you think?”
“This bothers you, I take it.”
“I don’t yet know you well enough to say,” he growled.
“And you won’t.” It came out sounding like a challenge, but it was too late to take it back.
“Such confidence, pretty one.” His eyes were so brown and so dark that she couldn’t tell where the pupil ended or the iris began. They grew even darker. “We’ve a long ride ahead of us.”
The Rim Riders were taking her to the capital city. Before, she hadn’t wanted to go. Now her view had changed. Where there was technology, there was information—information that might lead to Bree.
Kublai brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled for his horse. It was big—at least eighteen hands tall, with a massive neck and chest, muscular hindquarters, and a long, flowing mane and tail. With no visible effort, the Rim Rider pulled himself up in the saddle. In the colors of late afternoon, he resembled a mythical warrior. There were several races in his ancestry, and he appeared to have inherited the best of them. She’d have to be dead not to notice that he was an exotically handsome man. As his stallion pranced in place, Kublai extended a gloved hand toward her.
“I’m riding double with you,” she said. It came out too flatly to be a question, too doubtfully to be a statement. She’d be seated in front, wedged between his thighs, surrounded by acres of hard, leather-clad flesh. The man had enough of an effect on her. She didn’t need to drown herself it.
Kublai seemed to take note of her dismay. “Unless you’d rather ride with Nazeem.”
It was all but impossible to hide her relief. Nazeem, at least, didn’t have a body of which she remembered every detail. Every visible detail, that was. “Nazeem it is.”
Nazeem made a muffled noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Again Kublai thrust out his arm, his big gloved hand upturned, fingers fanned out. His ever-so-slightly-almond-shaped eyes were dark, impossibly dark. They broadcast his unhappiness at her snub. “You will ride with me,” he decreed. “By order of the emperor.”
“By order of the emperor?” That was the last response she’d expected. And he didn’t seem to be kidding.
Kublai gave her his hand. With a strong tug he pulled her up. She dropped down in front of him, landing hard in the saddle. Her spent, sore body screamed in protest. “It would seem to me that if your emperor has time to micromanage who rides on your horse, he doesn’t have enough to keep him busy,” she muttered.
She heard the Rim Rider’s voice, low in her ear. “Saying what you think again, eh?”
I can’t help it, she wanted to shoot back. Provoking him was irresistible. He was too full of himself, too sure of himself, and too arrogant. Even if she was his captive.
Locking an arm around her, he kicked the horse into a full gallop. “The mighty emperor has far more important matters than you to take up his time, Scarlet.”
Scarlet? Cam nearly swallowed her tongue. He knew her fighter-pilot call sign!
Of course. Why else would the emperor dispatch a pair of Rim Riders just to pick up a stranger? The emperor wanted her because of who she was. How could she be so dense and not have seen it in the first place?
If the Rim Riders knew of her existence, did they know of Bree? Hope surged inside Cam, hope as she hadn’t felt in all the weeks and months spent recovering. What if the Riders had already picked up her friend and leader?
What if they hadn’t?
She didn’t voice the question. As an air force pilot in a capture situation, she knew never to volunteer information. Since neither Rim Rider had brought up Bree, there was a good chance they didn’t know about her. If Bree was in hiding for whatever reason, Cam didn’t want to give her away.
Options . . . There were two necessities she could see so far. One: keep quiet about Bree. And two: stay with the Rim Riders until they reached their destination. If the warlord emperor or anyone else had Bree and planned on doing her harm, Cam sure as sugar was going to find out.
As they rounded the bend on the road, Cam threw one last glance back at the farm before it disappeared from view. No Zhurihe. The little liar hadn’t shown up to say good-bye. There was anger in that thought, yes, but regret, too. She’d never again see the girl who could dry her tears and kick her butt with equal skill. I hope you had your reasons, Zhurihe.
Cam returned her attention to the road ahead, and her thoughts to a future that was as much a mystery as ever.
After a few hours of hard riding, the men found a place they deemed appropriate for a break. A fast little stream cut through an alpine meadow, brown and dry with small patches of snow.
Cam could only partially appreciate the stark beauty. A long ride on horseback was draining for anyone. She was far from ready for such grueling physical activity, and her body was all too happy to let her know about it. The demons were back. Wreaking havoc with her muscles, they played Tarzan on her hamstrings and “Dueling Banjos” on her biceps. She tightened her stomach to brace against the pain.
Kublai slid off the horse first. Then he caught her around the waist and lowered her to the ground. Her leather clothes slid over his leather clothes all the way down until her boots landed on the grass. He took a look at her face and said, “You’re in pain.”
“A little.”
“A little? I think not.” He let go of her to open a saddle pack. Cam’s legs buckled, and she grabbed hold of the saddle to avoid grabbing hold of the Rider.
“I’m angry with you.” Kublai steadied her with a firm grip on her arm. “You should have said something.”
She hadn’t said much of anything the entire ride. “Would it have changed the plan? I thought we had to reach a certain place by nightfall.”
“We do. And, yes, it would have ‘changed the plan,’ as you say. I would have given you this sooner.” He opened a gloved fist. A flat pink oval lay in his palm. “Pain blockers.”
“No, thanks,” she said. Her body protested the decision, howling: Yes, yes, yes!
Shut up, she told her shrieking muscles.
For once the demons took her side. Painkillers will dull your reactions, they warned. You won’t be able to think.
Cam realized Kublai was regarding her strangely. “Internal argument,” she explained.
“Take this orally and the pain will ease. It’s very powerful.” The pill sat in his hand. She stared at it, tempted, sorely tempted; then she shook her head.
“It’s not poison,” he said dryly. “My orders are to bring you to the capital, or I’d have killed you already.”
“Nice,” she shot back sarcastically. “Love you, too.”
“Do you now?” he retorted, in what was unmistakably a bedroom voice.
She’d have to be a nun not to react to it.
And like hell if she was going to let him know. “Do you often have this much trouble separating fantasy from reality, Kublai?”
“Do you often have this much trouble exchanging stubbornness for common sense?” he shot back.
“Ooh, touché.” His comeback was swift, decisive. He was as good with words as he was in the water.
“Take the pain blocker. It will make the ride easier—and my life easier—if you do. We have many hours to go before we stop for the night.”
“I don’t want to be doped up on painkillers. I want to be alert. I want to know . . . what’s happening to me,” she added with an honesty that surprised her.
“Ah. I see the problem now.” He held the oval between two fingers. “This isn’t your twenty-first-century medicine. We’ve come a long way since then. Taken orally, this pill will distribute smart medication throughout your body, targeting pain receptors in your central nervous system witho
ut dulling the senses.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
With each new miracle Kublai revealed, with each small act of kindness, he moved farther from the mental image Zhurihe had placed in her head about Rim Riders. Cam’s initial belief that Rim Riders were a terrible threat was based on information Zhurihe had given her. Now Cam knew the kind of lies the girl was capable of perpetuating. Kublai wasn’t a captor. He was an escort; maybe even a liberator. By bringing her over the mountains, he and Nazeem were handing her the kind of freedom Zhurihe had either refused to or couldn’t provide.
Unless the emperor planned to steal it away when Cam reached the other side.
Her stomach gave a twist at the thought. There were so many uncertainties. Best not to let herself get overconfident. It could prove to be a mistake—a fatal one.
Warily, she took the pill from his fingers. For so long she’d endured the arthritislike pain and the aches in her muscles. All Zhurihe and her people could offer were herbs that helped, but never for long enough periods, and often left her feeling drugged or sick to her stomach.
“Put it under your tongue.”
Cam took the plunge, hoping she wouldn’t regret doing so. It had no taste at all, the pill, and it dissolved within seconds. Then it happened: a soft, plush blanket fell over the demons, blunting their blows.
“Wow,” she said almost reverently. If she had a doubt that anything he was telling her about technology was true, it was erased in that instant. He let go of her and she took a few steps. The stiffness was still there, the rigidity in her joints, but, despite the grueling ride, she felt . . . well, human. And clearheaded, too.
Meanwhile, Nazeem walked away, seeking privacy as he spoke softly into something that looked like a cross between a handheld computer and a cell phone. Hmm. Calling the emperor to let him know she was coming to dinner? Or that she was dinner?
