The Battle Lord's Lady (8 page)

“None of our women have your abilities. Their
arms aren’t strong enough to wield a sword, much less master the
bow. Although I will admit some have tried. Those who have shown
promise are part of our militia who guard our compound against
invaders.” The Battle Lord rubbed his hand along his chin where
several days’ growth of beard itched. “How strong are you,
Mutah?”

Sighing loudly, she shook her head. “I don’t
know. I went into the forest to prove myself, although now I
believe they made my indoctrination harder than they did for the
others. I slew a wolfen, as instructed, and I brought its head back
to the compound.”

She’d managed to get most of the shredded
pieces of rope from out of her wounds, all except for one very tiny
section which resisted her efforts, no matter how painfully she
tried to dig it out with her bare fingers. She never expected the
large hand to grab hers and twist it so he could see it more
clearly. Several drops of blood slipped over her arm and landed on
the front of his shirt, but he didn’t appear to notice. The dagger
reappeared; the blade slid out of its sheath as smoothly as melting
butter.

“This might hurt,” he muttered as he bent
over to get the errant shred out.

Atty closed her eyes and waited for the blade
to slice into her flesh. Her whole body was trembling, but not
because of her fear or the cold. No, she realized in a dazed,
almost disconnected way. The Battle Lord had pressed himself close
to her, almost to where his body touched hers. He smelled of sweat
and leather and the tang of metal from where his armor had rubbed
against his clothes and skin. And there was something else she
couldn’t place. Something more virile. More masculine. More
threatening.

When he bent over her wrists his head was
turned away from her. She could see that she had been wrong about
the color of his hair. It wasn’t orange-ish, but blond with red
highlights, a shade she’d once heard referred to as strawberry
blond. For a split second, before she could realize how perfectly
she could slip a weapon into the back of his neck from this
vantage, she wondered if anyone had brushed away the
shoulder-length hair and dropped tiny kisses along the
well-developed shoulder muscles.

The shard of pain that lanced up her arm made
her gasp, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. The Battle
Lord released her arm, almost tossing it back into her lap as he
stepped away. She watched as he wiped the blade on his thigh before
putting the dagger away.

“I’ll have our physician doctor those wrists
so they don’t become infected.”

“Thank you.”

“No. Don’t thank me. If you get sick, all of
this will be for naught. I need you well in order to face my
men.”

He turned to leave her when Atty realized
something had been left very much out of place. “You’re
not...you’re not going to tie me up?” she inquired with
disbelief.

The Battle Lord paused at the door, his hand
upon the latch. “I have nearly thirty men at my beck and call this
very second. There are two doors to this place, and I have guards
at both of them. No. You’re not going to retaliate because you’re
going to accept the terms of my conditions. You want to save your
compound. However...” He took a moment to give her another
painfully crooked smile. “However, I’m not as stupid as you keep
trying to make me,” he told her, mocking her earlier words.

Atty watched as he grabbed her bow and quiver
of arrows before letting himself out, leaving her alone and
defenseless inside the shop.

Chapter Eight

Hesitation

Yulen walked over to where the physician lay
awake in his roll. He threw down the bow and quiver of arrows
beside the man’s head, giving him a start.

“Medicate the prisoner’s wrists before they
become infected,” he ordered in a low voice. “The ropes have drawn
blood.”

Silently MaGrath reached for his pouch, then
turned and gave the Battle Lord a surprised look. “You haven’t been
down long enough to get the sleep you need,” the man berated
gently.

“I have too many things on my mind.”

MaGrath frowned. “You’re pushing your own
limits, do you know that?”

“I know,” Yulen nodded, suddenly relenting.
“When we get back to the compound, I promise to give myself more
time.”

“You won’t heal without the rest,” the
physician insisted, pushing his case. Yulen knew the man would keep
pestering him, or else the wounds he had suffered a few days ago
would never sufficiently heal. Even now it was evident MaGrath was
worried he wouldn’t be able to completely get over them.

Yulen waved a hand, as if to dismiss him.
“Just...take care of the Mutah. Her hands are her weapon. If she
gets ill or loses her ability to use them, then all of this will be
for naught.” That being said, the Battle Lord trudged off in the
direction of the compound.

Pausing beside a tree, Yulen rubbed his eyes,
then pressed the heels of his hands along his forehead. The ache in
his face centered him, a constant reminder now of his own
carelessness and rash behavior.

Maybe it was the pain that had kept him from
destroying the whole Mutah compound, he surmised. Maybe it was
because of the weeks he’d spent on horseback, and the exhaustion
overtaking them all that had given him a weak moment.

Or maybe...maybe it was the incredible
antithesis in the Mutah prisoner—

Her name is Atty.

—he’d found that intrigued him.

As he’d pulled the rope slivers from
her wrist, he’d deliberately exposed his back to her. It had been a
dangerous and stupid move on his part, but he’d been prepared for
anything. Yet, when nothing had occurred, he had been more
surprised knowing she wouldn’t have tried to escape. He
knew
she wouldn’t hurt him, and that
was when the bucket of questions had poured into his
brain.

She was a fascinating puzzle, he kept
repeating to himself. Her hands bore the hard calluses from her
skill with the bow, yet her face was as open and revealing as the
pages of a book. This was not a girl accustomed to deceit and
cunning. This warrior, who could slay her enemy as easily as she
slew game, was emotionally vulnerable.

Taking a deep breath, Yulen ran a hand
through his hair. His fingers met the knot at the back of his neck,
and he jerked the lacing free. It was only a few hours ago when
he’d pulled MaGrath away from the fire pit where the last of the
badger lay smoking, and asked him one simple and definitely
unexpected question.

“Is she a virgin?”

Without showing his shock at the question,
the physician had nodded. “Without a doubt,” he’d said, then
returned to finish his meal.

And why did he have to know that? Yulen
chided himself. Why did he need to know that intimate detail about
her?
Because it tells you more about your
enemy than a hundred probing questions could
, a little
voice in the back of his mind whispered.

But the questions came anyway, preventing him
from getting any kind of decent night’s sleep. Whenever he’d closed
his eyes, he saw the bloody bodies of his men, most of them with
the shaft of a single arrow embedded in some critical area. Despite
their body armor, despite the distance that had been between her
and his men, despite the early hour and the near darkness, she had
found their most vulnerable spots and pierced them without
hesitation. Her aim had been impossibly perfect.

And then, just as quickly, he saw the girl
sitting on the counter of the small shop, her face bruised and
swollen and bloody, her body beaten, her head hanging in pain, and
he’d felt this overwhelming need to touch the full lips with his
fingers. To cup her cheek in his equally calloused hand and lift
her face so he could see her eyes. Her eyes. What depths to her
soul would he find in her eyes?

Her soul? When it was known Mutah didn’t have
a soul?

My God.
He
shook his head.

He’d gone twice more to check on her, peering
through the window and watching as she fitfully slept. She shivered
from the cold, and a powerful desire to fetch her a blanket or,
even worse, to pull her into the warmth of his arms, came unbidden
into his mind.

It was when he saw the streaks of blood
running down her arm that he’d relented, using it as his excuse to
finally approach her one-on-one, without an audience.

And then...

Gritting his teeth, Yulen turned around and
headed toward the small grove of lemon trees someone had planted
along the dirt walk bordering the shops.

He stopped.

Someone had planted these trees. Someone had
watered them, and pruned them, and cared for them until they had
grown from saplings into fruit bearers.

He glanced around him. This compound wasn’t
one that had been abandoned years ago by normals, only to be moved
into by the unnaturals, much like a hermit crab moves into a larger
shell. Plus there were too many signs of upkeep. That building’s
paint job looked fresh. The curtains in the window...

Curtains?

Yulen gasped, his mind reeling.

A Mutah? Caring for their habitation?
Painting it and making curtains?

A
Mutah?

He hurried to find his Second who was
blissfully snoring in his bedroll, his back to the wall of another
shop.

“Karv, get up!” He kicked the man lightly in
the backside.

The trained soldier was instantly awake,
short sword in his hand. “Sir!”

“Step down. I want the men up and ready to
leave at first light. See to it.”

“Are we proceeding on?”

“No. We’re returning home, back to our own
beds.”

Scowling, the man got up from his bedroll and
proceeded to shake the dirt from it as he folded it back up. He was
used to the Battle Lord’s demands, but in the past few hours things
had changed.

Knowing Karv would be questioning his every
move on their way back home, Yulen went to fetch his own unused
bedroll and pack his horse, but not before ordering one of their
fallen to be doubled on another animal’s back so that their
prisoner could have a ride. That order elicited another protest
from the small but powerful Second.

“She should walk!”

“It’s a good five days’ journey. I need her
to be strong if she is to begin teaching our men upon our return.”
Lowering his eyebrows, Yulen added, “Why are you questioning my
every move, Karv?”

“Why have you become so obsessed with this
Mutah?” the Second responded.

“What is so unusual with us taking her
prisoner? We’ve plundered many Mutah villages and absconded with
untold wealth. Just...think of her as another form of jeweled pin.
A pin that is more valuable intact rather than melted down like so
much of the other gold and silver we’ve encountered.”

He trusted Karv’s instincts, although he
highly detested the man’s often ill-thought-out actions. It was
because of those instincts, especially when they coincided with his
own, that their compound had grown as powerful as it had. Which was
why he always let the little man have his say at anything, even to
contradict, argue, or question his motives whenever he felt it
necessary.

“Yes, but pins have sharp little needle
pricks that can draw blood. And if you stick one of those little
needle pricks in the right place, it can kill you.”

“True,” Yulen admitted, then said no more as
he turned and left his Second to comply with his orders. He would
not let the man know he’d gone into the shop unescorted and untied
the Mutah’s hands—

Her name is Atty.

—literally freeing her, yet still keeping her
safeguarded—

Safeguarded?

The Battle Lord fiercely shook his head,
hoping to clear the fog sifting through his thoughts. He needed to
be clear-headed and prepared for anything on their journey back.
The slash on his face throbbed, sending echoing pain behind his
eyes. Reaching into his saddle bags, he pulled out the tin of
powder once again and took another dose, washing it down from his
nearly empty skin of water. He paused to give the medicine a chance
to get into his system, then went in search of MaGrath to see if
there was something the man could do further.

More than anything, he needed his wits about
him. Karv was right about one thing. He was becoming obsessed with
this Mutah, although Yulen tried to convince himself it was because
of her incredible abilities. She was more valuable alive, more
valuable as a willing prisoner. More valuable as a—

My...hair. My hair is my sign. Its...its
color is...unusual.

Yulen slapped himself in the side of the
face, close to the pulsing wound. The pain that broke over him made
him double over in response, but it helped to clear his mind.

It was five days’ journey back to their home.
He would need to keep—

Atty.

—a respectable distance away if he was to be
of any use to his men during that time.

Sunrise was not far away, and the Battle
Lord’s anger at himself rose when he realized the only reason he
couldn’t wait for the first rays of dawn was because he needed to
see the girl warrior in the full light of day.

And see the truth about her difference.

Like...the color of her hair.

Chapter Nine