Taken by the Enemy (8 page)

“Respect? You want to talk about respect?” He laughed. “All I’ve been telling you since I fucking
rescued
you from being gored to death by a boar is that you just need to be respectful!”

“You mean keep my mouth shut and my legs open,” Emmie growled.

“When has anyone ever told you not to participate in a conversation where you were treating the other person with respect?
Everyone
here has a voice, no matter their position. From what I’ve heard,
you
have always been the rude one! A spoiled brat!” Lucian’s voice was rising, color meeting his cheeks.

“I was a spoiled,
virgin
, brat when I met you!” she screamed, and he went still. Emmie kept pushing. “You try to act so noble, and these people treat you like some hero, but you’re
not
. You’re an animal. You’re exactly how the raiders have always been described, and I’m
glad
my father exiled you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucian whispered, his face turning to stone.

“I know what you’ve done to me, and that’s enough.” Emmie turned away from him, ready to walk out of his house, completely naked, but he grabbed her arm hard.

“
This
is your role in the village right now! There are rules, Emmie, and —”

“Don’t use my name like you’ve
earned
the right to,” she hissed and tried to jerk her arm from his grip. “All of you and your ridiculous rules. I never agreed to follow them, and no one has handed me a fucking list to even figure them all out so I could know before I broke one!”

Lucian threw her towards the bed, blocking her way to the door. “That’s because almost no one here can read, or write. So getting them on paper would be both difficult and useless, but our rules are incredibly important.”

“Believe whatever fiction you’ve created that lets you sleep at night.”

“You have no idea what it was like when I was exiled!” Lucian shouted, raw emotion ripping at his voice for the first time, and the sight of him turning away from her to hide his face stalled her ranting. “All those stories of the raiders, the terrifying ones that you’ve heard, likely the same ones I grew up with – they used to be true. Six years ago these woods were full of scared people willing to kill to live one more day. A woman, or one of the elders, or a young one who was exiled was lucky to survive a week before something gutted them. We had a war of our own making out here, and each day was a question of whether or not we’d see the next sunrise.”

He turned around and kicked something across the floor, his hands finding their way into his hair again.

“I was seventeen when I was exiled, with no skills, but
somehow
I scrounged and kept myself alive for an entire month before I stumbled into Mathias’ camp. If I hadn’t been half-dead already, they would have probably killed me on the spot, but Mathias stopped them.
He
saved me that day, and he had a vision. A way to bring all of the exiles together, in safety and peace, to have a place for new exiles to come to so that the council’s ruling was no longer a death sentence.”

Lucian walked over to his chair and dropped into it, staring at the ground in front of him as he spoke, and Emmie found herself too curious to interrupt.

“It took us
years
to build this place. It started with Mathias’ camp. We made the shelters sturdier, and he taught me how to hunt. Whenever we encountered someone else, we talked to them instead of attacking them. We asked them to join us, to hunt
with
us. More hands, more spears, more food. Several of the men we found had already chosen a woman to protect, and she had chosen him too – and they were all welcome.” He laughed quietly. “The
rules
weren’t all written at once, they were built, one on top of the other as we needed them. And we
did
need them. Not every man we found wanted to respect the boundaries of another’s relationship. A woman was a woman, and if they wanted one…”

“They took them,” she finished for him, and he nodded. “That’s where the idea of mates came from, isn’t it?”

Lucian looked over at her, a wrinkle appearing between his brows before he nodded again. “Yes. There had to be boundaries that everyone understood, there had to be some structure, or none of the women would stay. And if they refused to stay, if they took the children, the men would leave too, and it would all fall apart because we
are
stronger together. We need each other.” He took a breath. “So, Mathias and I made rules. Once a woman was mated to a man, if they had both freely accepted the other, then
both
were forbidden to be with anyone else. It kept the woman safe, and it meant the other men had one less competitor for any free females. The penalty for breaking that rule is, and always has been… death.”

Emmie swallowed, her head spinning. It was not a rare occurrence to hear of both men and women breaking their marriage pacts in the city. In fact, it was so common that it was some of the favorite gossip among the few friends she and Gabrielle had.
Who was sleeping with who? Did the wife know? Did the husband know?

How different would it all be if a marriage pact was taken as seriously as the exiles took the idea of a mate?

Lucian’s voice rose up again. “New female exiles are free women. They have no mate, and so —”

“Any free man can have them.”

“Yes.” Lucian swallowed, lifting his eyes to the closed roof. “Everyone starts out at the bottom. There are no exceptions, because exceptions would break all the rules.”

“But what about the men? The new male exiles? They just get to do what they want?”

“No. They have to earn the right to be a member of the village. We keep them bound, and they work in the gardens during the day, or help with maintenance, and sleep staked to the ground at night until they learn the rules, until they accept them.” Lucian spoke gravely. “There is no gray area outside the walls. You are either with us, a functioning and contributing member of this place Mathias built, or you die. We won’t risk a threat, especially not now. Not when we’ve built so much, not when there are children at risk. All of us have survived too much to let one person bring it all down.”

The words hung heavy in the air, and Emmie looked over at the picture of her and Gabrielle. So happy, so blissfully unaware of the world outside the city, so ignorant to the dangers within the walls as well. “You think I’m going to bring it down,” she spoke softly, and he turned towards her.

“I’m sort of hoping you have other plans.”

“My plans ended the moment I landed on the ground outside the walls.”

He shook his head slowly. “You really didn’t think we’d find you?”

Emmie let out a soft laugh, realizing now how foolish she had been. “I had hoped I’d be able to avoid the exiles.”

“Didn’t quite work out that way, did it?” Lucian’s voice went flat as he cut himself off, and he stood before she could respond. “Your clothes are still at Mathias’, I’ll go get them.” He didn’t give her a chance to speak as he stood stiffly, pulled the door open, and left.

For a moment, she was shocked by his quick exit, but then Emmie scooted back on the palette of his bed, reaching for a blanket that was bunched against the wall. It was rough, but warm, and she draped it over her legs as she picked up the photograph again. “Well, he knows everything, Gabrielle…” Emmie whispered and sniffled. “But I think I’m in more trouble out here than I would have been staying with you, and at least I’d know you were safe. That no matter what happened to me, you and Sarah were okay.
I’m sorry
, I’m so very sorry...” The last words made her voice break, and she was busy drowning in her own misery when Lucian shoved the door open again.

“Here, I’ve got —” He paused, and she quickly wiped at her eyes and nose, trying to hide her crying. “Shit.” Lucian moved towards her and set her clothes on the end of the bed before taking a slow breath.

Emmie sniffled. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, all the newbies break down at some point.”

“I’m
not
breaking down,” Emmie grumbled defensively.

“Okay, well, here are your clothes, and you’re welcome to stay in here as long as you need to finish
not
breaking down.” Lucian’s cocky voice was back, and she grabbed her shoe from the pile and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand with infuriating ease and held it at his side. “Is this a tantrum?”

“Fuck off.” Emmie rolled her eyes and dug her panties from the pile of clothes. Standing, she turned around to pull them on, well aware of his gaze on her backside. It wasn’t until she was drawing her panties up that she remembered the welts he’d given her from the switch. The fabric grazed them, and she hissed between her teeth as Lucian groaned behind her. When she turned, he slowly brought his hands in front of his crotch, her shoe dangling from one of his fingers.

“Really?” she asked, exasperated.

“What can I say? It’s a spectacular view.” Lucian grinned, and it was the kind of wild grin that made his youth apparent.
Twenty-three
. She’d done the math in her head after his story, and although he was normally commanding, and serious, and sort of an asshole – when he grinned like that, he looked exactly his age.

“Pandering doesn’t suit you,” she retorted, beginning to wrap the cloth around her breasts.

“You’re gorgeous, Em —” he stopped himself from using her name and laughed before he continued, “-
little bird
. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”

“Whatever you say.” Emmie pulled her shirts on, layering them again and tugging at the fabric until they were comfortable. She thought of grabbing the fresh clothes from her bag, but didn’t want the argument. Just as she was pulling her pants over her hips, she felt his presence behind her, and she turned to find him so close that they were almost touching.

“Are you always this mouthy, or am I special?” His grin was still there, and as he tilted his head to look down at her, his hair fell across his forehead.

“You’re definitely not special.”

“Good to know,” Lucian muttered, and then he kissed her. The shock of it froze her, but then his hand gently moved into her loose, brown waves and she found herself opening her mouth to his. He nibbled her lip, leaning her back a little until she had to grip his shirt to stay steady. That drew a growl from him, and the kiss intensified, his tongue delving into her mouth to meet her own for a moment before drawing back so he could nip her lip again. Emmie mimicked him, dragging her teeth carefully over his bottom lip the next time he pulled back to change the angle of the kiss. His grip tightened in her hair, and a moan slid from her before he silenced it with his mouth against hers. Suddenly, he tore himself back with a low growl, breaking her grip on his shirt. “Fuck.”

“I —” Emmie raised her hand to her swollen lips, unsure of what to say as Lucian stepped back to drop into his chair.

“I didn’t mean to – I just…” Lucian cursed and looked at the roof as he ran his hands over his face. “You’re irresistible.”

A blush crept into her cheeks as Emmie turned away from him, buttoning her pants before sitting on the bed to pull her socks on.

“I’m losing my mind,” Lucian muttered to himself, the words half-muffled against his hands.

“If it helps, I already thought you were insane.” Emmie smirked when he dropped his hands and stared at her, open-mouthed.

“Thanks.” His sarcasm was obvious, but it just made her grin behind the curtain of her hair as she leaned down to tug on her shoe. “Here,” he called over to her and she looked up just in time to catch her other shoe as he tossed it.

Soon she was fully dressed, and an awkward silence descended between them. She needed space. Space to process everything that had happened, everything he had told her, everything
she
had told him. “Okay, so what happens now?”

“You can go, I won’t stop you.” Lucian gestured to the door, leaning on his table.

“And what about who I am, you know —”

“Oh.” He straightened up, the leader of the village taking over as the real Lucian, the young, grinning man who had kissed her, seemed to fade away again. “I don’t think anyone needs to know about you. Right now, anyway. There are some people in the village that would not be
open
to the idea of you being here, and they have their reasons. Good reasons, but until we figure out what this means for us, for the village I mean, I’ll keep it to myself.”

“What about Mathias?” she asked.

“I may tell him the truth, I may not. I have to figure out why he wanted the information so badly first. Either way, he’s going to want your skills to read and write, and I think I can use that if he’s against the idea of you staying here.” Lucian was deep in thought, but the words sent a shiver down her back.

There is no gray area outside the walls.

“What happens if he
is
against the idea of me staying here?”

His eyes met hers and they were a beautiful gray, somehow warm and serious at the same time. “Let’s not talk about that. I won’t let anything happen to you.”