VirtualWarrior (25 page)

“Oh, Lien,” she said, and buried her face against his chest.
“Teach me what else I may do to please you.”

“Your turn,” he whispered at her ear, but she pulled out of
his embrace and sat up.

“Nay, Lien. I want to give you more happiness.”

Cold thoughts doused his ardor. “Ardra. Do you think that if
you please me here in bed, I’ll stay with you?” Her eyes shifted away. “Damn
it. So this was—”

“From my heart, Lien. Nothing more.”

“Sure.” He moved her hand off his thigh and stood up. He
paced the chamber. Her silence screamed the answer he dreaded.

When he reached the bed, he lifted her chin and ran the ball
of his thumb across her wet lips. “You’ve never done that before, have you?”

Her negative was no more than a shimmer in the gold lull of
her hair.

“Great.” He sat down and dropped his head into his hands.

She knelt beside him and touched his knee. He could smell
her. Flowers. Woman. Heat. “What is wrong?”

“Look, Ardra. A man wants to think that when a woman does
something as intimate as what you just did, it wasn’t a payment for services
rendered.”

“Is that what you think? I am paying you as I might when I hand
a purse to Ollach or…or—”

“Exactly. Here’s how I see this. You think, ‘Gee, maybe if I
lie down for him, he’ll stay.’”

Ardra pulled the robe about her. “Your words are hard.”

“You’re that desperate?”

“Desperate?” She climbed off the bed and walked away from
him. She was desperate, but not as he implied.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him of her father.
But the words would not come. If it got about that her father was alive, Samoht
would have him captured and killed. She might not want her father to rule, but
neither could she be the instrument of his death.

“I must tell you how desperate I am, Lien. I have but three
more days. Each movement of the shadow on the sundial marks the time until
Samoht takes all I have. If you want to understand payment, understand how I
paid for my people at my mating ceremony. What I did with you, I did with joy
in my heart.”

Lien stood and tried to take her into his arms. She avoided
him, hugging her waist, stepping away out of his reach.

“Cidre told me about your mating ceremony. It was barbaric.”

“Killing men and women to enlarge the boundaries of one’s
chiefdom is barbaric.”

“Can we start this conversation over again?” he asked.

“Which one? The one where you tell me that what I did
insulted you, or the one where you tell me how pathetic and desperate I am?”

“The one where I humbly apologize for misunderstanding.”

A smile traced her lips. “We have not yet had that
conversation, Lien.”

“Then I’ll start. I insulted you. I humbly apologize.”

“I do want you to stay. I will not pretend otherwise.”

He took a cautious step toward her and was thrilled when she
stayed in place. “And I want to go back to the spot where we were a few moments
ago before I put my foot in my mouth.”

She smiled. A real one this time. “Impossible. Your feet are
so huge.”

“Come here.”

Ardra stepped into his embrace. Her shoulders were stiff,
her back rigid under the sweep of his hands.

“Ardra, what you did to me was…words can’t describe how it
felt.”

He boosted her onto the table. Some of their frenzy had
died. He wanted it back.

Before she could object, he lifted her hair away and kissed
her throat, edged her robe off one shoulder, kissing the flesh he bared.

“Lien.” She stroked her fingers through his hair. “What you
will do to me—is it payment for your mistake just now?”

“What?” He straightened up and frowned.

“You were about to give me happiness, were you not? Were you
doing so because you are sorry you insulted me, or because you truly desire
me?”

“Ardra. You think too much. Try to be more like a man. We
hardly ever think.” He put his hands on her knees and moved them apart. “I
think it’s pretty obvious I desire you.”

Her gaze dropped. She shook her head, and her hair flowed
over her shoulder. Her eyes widened.

“I really like your hair,” he managed to choke out.

“Some men would say it is not the lovely color of a Tolemac
woman’s.”

He scooped her up, and she wrapped her legs around his
waist. He deposited her on her back on the side of the bed. “Some men must be
mad,” he managed when he sat back on his heels and contemplated her body,
displayed for him, the lavender silk robe half on, half off, one breast
exposed, one covered. He felt humbled.

He leaned forward and kissed her inner thigh. “If I give you
happiness, it’s because you’ve renewed my belief that a woman can be as good
inside as she is beautiful outside.”

Her thighs quivered. Gently, so he didn’t scare her, he
lifted her legs and placed them over his shoulders. When he touched her, she
gasped and locked her hands in her robe.

“You must be magical,” he said before sliding his fingers
over her swollen flesh. “You’ve conjured some sense of responsibility out of my
hard, cold soul. And cured my rash.”

He blew against her skin, held her hips for a carnal kiss
that arched her off the bedding, hard against his mouth.

“Lien,” she wailed. “What are you doing to me?”

But he couldn’t answer. Her essence seduced him, the scent
of her, her taste, the gasps from her lips as he touched and kissed her.

He fought the need to stand up and push himself inside her,
won the battle only because after she came, she sat up abruptly and wrapped her
incredibly hot hands around him and pulled him between her breasts.

A pearl necklace it was called.

And he would remember it forever—her amber eyes wide, the
lavender silk robe half off her shoulders, her nipples small, hard marbles, and
the drops of his essence across her skin.

Ardra watched Lien sleep. He reminded her of an exhausted
child lying on his belly, his arms and legs stretched out so she had but a
small corner of the bed to claim.

He had long limbs and strong muscles. All signs of his
injuries had disappeared, though his skin was far from flawless. There were
brown dots clustered on his shoulders and sprinkled through the dark hair on
his legs. She resisted an urge to run her fingers in one continuous journey
from his shoulder to the calloused sole of his foot.

She could not sleep any longer. It must be near sunrise.

Two days left.

She edged her way from beneath his arm.

“Where are you going?” He hooked her wrist.

“To bathe.”

He released her to the task, but rolled over, drawing a fur
over his body. She felt his scrutiny as she bathed in the cold water of her
basin. Each sweep of the linen cloth reminded her of the touch of his hand and
mouth. Aches tingled in the oddest places as she patted her skin dry. When she
placed the block of soap in her coffer, she saw her silver pendant.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

When she returned to the bed, she showed it to him. “This is
not just a pretty bauble. It is the key to negotiating the labyrinth beneath my
fortress. My son hides there now.”

“You have a labyrinth?”

“It is not truly mine, Lien. It existed long before the
fortress was built. Many suspect it was made by the ancient ones to escape the
cold. There are hot springs beneath the ice. A man could hide there for years
and never be found.”

He closed his fist over hers. The pendant’s edges were sharp
in her palm, as sharp as the pain in her heart that her father would return and
undo all she and Tol had accomplished for her people.

Lien said, “It will all work out. We will find the vial and
cut Samoht off at the pass.”

She dropped the pendant over her head. It lay on her chest
as his glass roses lay on his.

“Where do we look next? We have searched the herbarium. I
have Deleh listening to gossip. What hope is there? Cidre must be persuaded to
give up the vial—or tricked into it, for I have nothing with which to bargain.”

“If Nilrem is correct and Cidre is looking for a new
consort, she must have someone in mind. It’s not as if caravans of prospects
were coming by for her approval.”

It was on the tip of Ardra’s tongue to tell Lien that her
father was Venrali. How she wished to lay her troubles before Lien, to ask him
what he thought would become of her father when Cidre cast him aside. And tell
him, too, her fears of her father’s fury if he was passed over for another man.

But she couldn’t tell Lien any of it. It would mean
revealing all the shame of her father’s reign at the fortress, all the shame of
his final days. Then Lien might think what Nilrem sometimes said. “Like father,
like daughter.” Would she be painted with the brush of her father’s crimes?

Instead she said, “There may be no caravans of prospects,
but there are so many here
now
who might please her. You, Ralen, Ollach,
other warriors.”

“But to use the potion against us would be dishonorable. I
can’t speak for Ralen and the others, but I’m not going to be Cidre’s boy toy.”

Ardra touched his cheek. He cupped her palm and kissed it.

“Boy toy? Such unusual phrases you have in Ocean City! You
are a riddle,” she said. “You profess no wish to be involved, but when you
speak, you are so decisive.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Men can be that
way. They can say, ‘This is what I think, or this is what I will do,’ and
everyone accepts the decision because the words are spoken by a man.”

“You said Tol allowed you to rule. Didn’t you speak your
mind?”

Ardra jerked her hand away. “Allowed? He did not
allow
me anything.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you. Again.” He sat on the edge of
the bed, the fur over his lap.

She bowed her head. “You need not apologize. It is what most
men would think.”

“Ouch. I don’t like to think of myself as most men.”

“Aye, Lien. You are not as other men. You say things no
Tolemac warrior would ever say. You…are so alien to me and what I know. As much
as I might wish to take credit for all the good that has come to pass in the
last three conjunctions, I cannot. Tol used the force of his position to bring
order and peace to the border. Then he taught me to rule.”

“And you want that responsibility?”

“Who else can take it?” She stood before him clad only in
her hair, and yet felt more naked inside than she ever could on the outside.

“Hand it off to someone else,” he said.

She shook her head. “I cannot.”

He put out his hand.

It was symbolic of what he had told her to do.
Hand it
off.
She could not. And he wanted no part of her dilemma.

To take his hand meant only a physical giving. She knew he
wanted her. But she had not the will to place her hand in his, to drain all her
strength in such a way again.

When she did not move, he slowly dropped his hand to his
lap.

“Lien, I may not have shared Tol’s bed, but I shared the
table when he judged the matters of the fortress. Over time, he deferred small
matters to me, so my people would begin to accept my decisions. They distrusted
me not only for my womanhood, but for being my father’s daughter.”

She put on her robe, now a wrinkled mess. “At first the
matters involved the women or servants; then they became more complex matters
of mines and treaties.”

Lien shrugged. “Better you than me.”

“You said you were once a warrior and now a merchant. How
did you choose that path?”

“Oh, I went to a huge city, like the Tolemac capital, and
sold something called stock—shares in businesses that make or sell other stuff.
But I hated the job. Then my mother got sick, and it seemed a good excuse to
leave that job and return to Ocean City. It gave me a chance to go back to
school and learn to do something more appealing—like teaching. Graduate school,
it was called.”

“You went to school with children?” She tried to suppress a
smile, picturing Lien on a bench before a wiseman.

“Where I’m from, there are schools for all ages. You can
keep learning even into old age. However, I had to quit school—my mother took
so much of my time—so I looked after her and worked in a shop I own with a
woman.”

“You owned a shop with a woman?”

He touched her chin. “Close your mouth. Yes. Where I come
from, a woman may own a shop. You know the owner. Gwen.”

Ardra gasped. “Gwen? Vad’s Gwen.”

“The same.”

Ardra clasped her hands and touched them to her lips. “I
prayed they had survived. So, it is possible?”

“What?”

“To cross the ice fields?”

“That statement says you don’t believe me. Maybe I am what Samoht
said—just a runaway slave.”

His eyes were cold. She took his hand. His fingers did not
close around hers. “Nay, please, Lien. I believe you, but you must realize that
what you say is the same as if…as if you said you had come down from one of the
moons. ‘Tis so hard to accept.”

“Accept it, Ardra.”

And she knew, in that moment, that he could be as unyielding
as any other man.

“Lien.” She stared into his dark eyes. “Do not be angry that
I am doubting. I doubt everything. Everyone.”

His shoulders shifted. He pulled his fingers from hers, and
she felt the rejection almost as a physical pain in her breast.

Then he reached up and tugged on her hair. “Come closer.”

The temptation, his physical arousal, a need for his
strength, drew her down on her knees by his side.

He stroked his fingers through her hair. “You are far too
vulnerable. You need to grow a shell.”

“I may have no shell, Lien, but I have one thing. I am right
and Samoht is wrong. Should not right triumph?”

“Sadly, if often doesn’t.”

She needed to change the subject or she would weep for the
loss of her freedom and that of her son. “Tell me about your crossing, Lien.”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t remember what happened. I just
woke up here.”

“But Gwen and Vad crossed. What tales did they tell?”

“Yes, they crossed, but it is an experience that leaves you
without any sense of how it happened. I guess the cold affects your brain or
something.”

“If Samoht believes you are from beyond the ice fields, it
is no wonder he is so anxious to take my fortress. It puts him in control of
the way across. Is it not true you have fantastic weapons there?”

“We have some pretty devastating weapons, yes.”

“And those weapons could subjugate us to Samoht’s will.”

“He’s not going to succeed. The ice is too treacherous.”
Lien tucked some of her hair behind her ear.

“You are living proof he can do it,” she said. “You need
never fear he will kill you, Lien. To do so would be to lose the one being who
could lead him across the ice.” She bit her lip. “Could Samoht convince you to
take him across the ice fields? To gather those weapons and return to conquer
us?”

A tear ran down her cheek. He skimmed it off with his thumb
and touched it to his lips. She must not let him see her weakness.

“No.”

“What a simple answer. But life is never simple. What if he
put you to some terrible test? Threatened to cut off your—”

“Shhhh. Just stop. Let’s deal with each problem as it
develops. Concentrate on the Vial of Seduction.”

A terrible thought swept through her.

“Did you sell those weapons, Lien?” she whispered.

He cupped her face and brushed his lips across hers. “I
didn’t sell weapons. I sold games.”

“Games?” She pulled back and stared at him. “You jest.”

“That’s what I sold. Games.”

“Such as the one Samoht and Ralen played in the hall?”

“More or less. Where I’m from, there are more games than you
could possibly count.”

“I have no time for games.”

“Neither do I.”

He pulled the fur from his lap and let it slide to the
floor. She felt heat rush through her. He was aroused. When he took her in his
arms and drew her down on her side, she forgot her resolve to keep her
distance.

“Ardra.”

It was all he said. His mouth said the rest. He cupped her
buttocks and pulled her against his rigid manhood. This time, she mimicked his
actions, spreading her palms on him. Would she ever again feel the wondrous
sensation he evoked with each caress of his hands and lips?

They rolled over one another, mouths hungry, trying to
remove her robe, but only knotting it more securely. She ended up flat on her
back with him on top of her. Laughter died in her throat when he finally
released the tie and spread the silk open. His gaze was as tangible as a touch
on her breasts, hips, and thighs.

She needed to bite the coverlet to stifle a cry as he ran
his hands over her.

Then he put his hands on her knees and separated her thighs.
He explored her with his fingers, each touch spreading warmth and anticipation.
He kissed her breast. Heat flowed from his mouth like a fire that had jumped
its hearth.

She smoothed the soft short hair around his ear and squeezed
her eyes shut. A moan escaped her lips as he found the slick wetness within
her. The languid caress of his fingers became more urgent, moving in and out of
her in deep strokes. A small harbinger of that greater sensation rippled through
her, and she arched against the thrust of his fingers.

“I want to be inside you,” he said. He stared into her ryes,
his so black in the dim light they were like an abyss, a place to be lost in
forever.

She saw the dark hair of his beard, the strange hole in his
earlobe. Fear and desire entwined through her being, all knotted together as
the design on his arm.

“It is not possible,” she whispered. “If I bore a child—”

“You would be in deep trouble,” he finished for her. His
hand fell still.

All she could do was close her eyes against his intense
scrutiny. “If I quickened, Samoht would use it against me. I would be called
wanton—may yet be if he learns you are here with me now.”

She held her breath waiting for Lien to withdraw, but
instead he drew her on top of him, settled her thighs about his hips so she
straddled him, and nestled his manhood against the wet folds of her femininity.
She shrugged off the robe, letting it drop to the floor.

He lifted his hips. His eyes closed, his lashes thick and
black on his cheeks. She saw the serpent on his arm shift and ripple as he
gripped her hips and held her down. This time she felt no fear.

She leaned over to kiss the warm column of his throat. He
entwined his hand in her hair as she licked along his shoulder, his arm, to the
snake.

A swirl of heat and energy surged through her body. He
gasped, and his hand tightened on her scalp. He tried to move away.

“Nay, Lien. There is something between us. Some magic.”

“I don’t believe in magic.” His shoulder and arm muscles were
clenched tight, his fingers in a fist.

“Nor do I.” She explored not the design this time, but the
contours of his fine musculature. His muscles tensed and flexed as she laved
his skin. She lingered in the warm hollow of his elbow, licked the skin there,
breathed in his scent.

When she returned to the snake, she was ready for the surge
of heat, absorbed it into her being, and knew they were as connected as the
lines that twisted along the snake’s coils.

Sweat broke out where his skin touched hers. He held her
hips. Her skin was so white in contrast to his hands and chest; the hair at the
apex of her thighs was gold against his black.

She rocked on his manhood, soothing an ache between her
thighs that made her feel wanton, wild, and wonderfully wet.

When she gripped his arms, her hands spread over the design,
anchoring her against the storm building within.