savage 05 - the savage protector Read online

  Evie's spirits began to brighten as she plucked a leather tie from her rucksack and bound her pale blonde hair at her nape.

  Soon she would reunite with her friend Jonathan. He would see her reasoning perfectly. He was not of the prickly persuasion of the Band. Though they were her protectors, they might not be the best sorts from which to choose a mate.

  Evie huffed and crossed her arms.

  Blast that bit of Band blood she had running through her veins! It practically forced her to belong to one of them eventually. She was select enough to feel the call of their blood but willful enough—due to that same blood—to not want their attentions.

  It was all a daft set of contradictions.

  Calia looked at young Evie with barely contained impatience. The impudent girl made little noises of discontent as she shivered atop her bed sack.

  Calia put her back to the open of the Outside, facing the forest and Evie. When she lay down her weapons, she would face that openness. She glanced over her shoulder once more, happy with their high position on the knoll that bordered the thickest part of the forest. It would better to be attacked from below than from above. More defensible.

  Calia was chilled but did not dare a fire outside of a cave. She pulled a woolen cloak, with slits for arms, from her rucksack and threw it at Evie, who caught it in midair. Calia smiled. Nothing wrong with her reaction time. Evie was surely Band enough to have some of the attributes.

  Like a vile temper. Not one for introspection, Calia easily steered her thoughts away from their similarities. She had larger things to consider, like surviving the next day's walk to the Clan of Ohio. It was early winter, and there simply were not enough wind breaks, save the trees that stood like evergreen sentinels. But they did little to halt the frigid breeze that raped the meadow of its lone pockets of warmth. The cold stole the breath and froze the body.

  Calia's tunic was lined in wool and sheathed in a leather exterior. She wore a light knit under-piece of silk that had been gotten from a trade with the Red Men.

  The tribe possessed skilled women—as they called themselves—who wove such things. The garment was lightweight and repelled moisture, yet had insulating properties.

  Dyes were rare to find in Outside, but Calia had allowed herself the luxury of scarlet, a color so deep a red it was usually only found on the ground beneath her slain enemies. Calia had traded much to have it, though it showed only to her. Even with the layering accoutrements of her attire, she still felt the scathing bite of the wind as it nipped along every bit of exposed skin.

  Ignoring Evie’s stare, Calia dropped on her bedroll and folded her body, tucking her legs inside in one smooth, practiced motion. Her fatigue was profound after the ten hours of hard pacing to reach that coveted position.

  Calia did not even chastise herself from breaking her most stringent rule of never bedding down in the same place thrice.

  Survivors such as she varied their habits to remain anonymous, to be as ghosts upon the plane. She lay on her bedroll, relaxing in bits and pieces from the tenseness of the journey. But she fought the heaviness of her lids.

  “Do you not take food?” Evie asked softly.

  Calia's eyes snapped open. The moon only half gone to full, all she could see of the young girl was the silver mass of her hair. The dappled light was faint but bright, winter giving it brilliance it would have been robbed of in summertime.

  Calia rolled to her side, tucking her sheathed dagger inside her bedroll. “It is not conducive to travel. If I am on the better side of hunger, it aids with alertness.”

  She did not elaborate on how heavy sleep would take her if she partook in a large evening meal before bedding down. Stuffing herself was a recipe for vulnerability.

  Evie rolled her eyes. Stuff it all. She was starving. When the small bag of food flew toward her, she grabbed it out of the air with a deft hand. She had always had a keen sense of balance and what the men called “hand and eye coordination.” They claimed it was the blood of the Band. Males. Mayhap Evie was just that way naturally.

  She groaned with pleasure as the first dried fruit burst its out-of-season flavor inside her mouth.

  The crinkling of the bag and the little noises of contentment that Evie made as she ate caused Calia's mouth to water.

  Calia rolled over, putting her back to Evie, and pounded her fist into the small pillow. She stared out at the downward sweep of the hill. The snow glittered like stars going to sleep on the icy ground.

  “I will save some for you, Calia,” Evie said. She knew she had been a less than ideal companion and was determined to improve her demeanor. After all, she was the one who had begged to go. But she had behaved the classic wretch in return.

  Evie saw Calia's shoulder lift in a shrug of dismissal and frowned. Calia was most stubborn and not particularly friendly. A memory of the scars that littered Calia's body rose in Evie's mind in an unbidden reminder.

  Calia had never had time to relax and make the acquaintance of other women. She endeavored to save her gender but never to become one of them. She had never been allowed.

  Evie found Calia’s choice to leave confusing. She had run from the one chance she had received to be with other women—and to find love.

  Evie had seen Philip gaze at Calia when Calia was not looking. There had been whispers that the two were bound, matched by fate, even without the Rite of the Select to solidify it. Yet Calia had run from that promise of commitment, and likewise the entrapment of her brother, Edwin. At twenty and two years, she had discovered that she had true family, yet she had left without so much as making his acquaintance. Evie could not fathom the other woman’s reasoning.

  Of course, Evie could not cast stones, since she had partaken in the mission in a most foolhardy way.

  She uncapped her canteen and consumed the precious little bit of water that remained.

  “Be of care, Evie. We do not have a river until half past the morrow.”

  Evie replaced the lid and bit back her retort about the meager amount of food and water. She remembered very well Calia’s explanation that they needed to travel light. She also recalled Calia’s jibe that Evie had enough meat on her bones not to waste away anytime soon.

  Calia presumed Evie soft, mainly because of the truth of the assumption. She tucked the food and canteen inside her rucksack and lay back on her bedroll, promising herself she would do better on the morrow.

  Calia stayed awake long after Evie's breaths became even and deep, her gaze trained on the meadow. She was so tired her eyes felt filled with sand as the shadows lengthened on the white carpet of a thousand sparkles.

  Calia had heard her people came from a place where water went on endlessly, with no land in view, and that her gills could be used to travel beneath those forever depths. She closed her eyes against the thought of parents that she would never know. The cost was too high for her to pay.

  There was too much death in her life so far to succumb to idealism and hope—sentiments that wouldn’t help keep her alive.

  Calia lay inside her cold bedroll, recalling the feel of that male who had held her. Their collective sameness had been a tight, stolen rush of breath and coalescence, weaving its magic in that in-between of wakefulness and true sleep.

  Fifteen miles northwest, Philip felt a tug and looked in the direction of Calia’s camp as he and the other men of the Band crossed the valley.

  *

  Adahy

  Adahy bent over, his plaited hair swinging forward as he pressed his palm into the soft depression on the forest floor. He looked up at Chasing Hawk. Adahy was struck by how strange the chief looked out of his war dress, with only the bareness of his winter scouting clothes.

  “What do you see?” Chasing Hawk asked.

  It was a frightening thing when their leader took after the scourge of those who traveled the land between clan, tribe, and sphere. Yet, with so many of the white skin of different origins, they must know which group had traversed so closely to their tribe.
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  After all, if it was the Fragment, that vile contingent of female thieves who had killed Adahy’s wife five years past, it was critical they were aware of it.

  Though in truth, Adahy had been the one to kill her. The act had been the most tender mercy he had ever executed—and the most horrific. He had never taken another wife. Adahy felt his mind could not survive it again.

  Adahy shook off the vile memory with an effort and straightened.

  He jerked his chin in the direction of where the unknown Calia lay sleeping as the Fragment drew closer to her position.

  “It be the Fragment,” he confirmed in the clipped tone of the Iroquois.

  Chasing Hawk's intense gaze met Adahy's. He was briefly taken with how strange Adahy looked compared to his brothers. His skin was that of his red brethren, but his body was tall and muscled. Many years had passed since they had assisted the ones who were like Adahy, when Adahy had made the white words that matched theirs.

  They had been kin to Adahy somehow. But it was the red man who he shared blood with. Food… and war. When Adahy raised his tomahawk in battle, it was against a common enemy—the Fragment.

  Adahy was what they had called Band, but he was also Red Man. Always in his heart he remained Iroquois. He knew not what Band was. They were not enemies, yet not friends. Kin or no, Adahy remembered well the pleasant fire from their acquaintance and the words which had accompanied it—kinship recognition. They shared his blood.

  The knowledge was good. Yet it did not bring food to the tribe, and it did not make battle cease.

  It also did not alter the brutality of his wife's passing.

  Adahy swallowed hard. The common enemy had made a pass close to the tribe. That would mean a small war party. Only the skilled would seek the Fragment.

  Their tomahawks would not rest until they were stained with the blood of their enemies.

  They grinned at each other. They were not a people of words but of actions.

  The two Iroquois warriors returned to bring news of their plans of stealth. They would fight the enemy that would stop at nothing to kill them all and steal their precious females.

  *

  Theodore

  Theo was delighted, if such a thing were possible. For once, things seemed to be going his way. That strange tightening inside his chest, a most pleasant burning, had begun as they started to climb the steep knoll. A couple of miles back, he had felt a twinge and had heeded the warning immediately. Theodore was careful never to dismiss those little twitches of intuition.

  If the Fragment were to become aware of Theo relying too heavily on gut instinct, they would have seen it as a weakness. The Fragment held to simplified logic: high numbers for quick and severe incapacitation of their target.

  Yet the one who they trailed was clever.

  Theo had left ample dead as carrion for vultures and others needing sustenance as they wandered through the open icy fields. The bodies of the conquered would be frozen through in forty-eight hours or sooner. If the creatures of the wild did not get to them quickly, they would thaw in spring and offer sustenance at that time. Either way, it didn't trouble Theo.

  He knew where the greatest lair of the Fragment resided, and he had been bent on making his way there when a light path had crossed his. The appearance of that trail had utterly changed his plan.

  He had nearly missed it when that thread of the Band that wove through the fabric of his being was plucked.

  It was as if he were an instrument that lay dusty on a shelf and just the right individual had come by, one who knew which chords to strum.

  It had been just such a person who had found that unsung melody.

  Theo would never forget the sensation of heat crawling through his body and settling in his chest. At the unspoken summons, he had stopped abruptly, whipping his head in the direction from which it called most strongly.

  Harvey, unable to stop in time, had run into and bounced off Theo’s broad back. When he asked why they didn't continue to the heart of the Fragment stronghold, Theo had turned his face to Harvey's.

  Whatever Harvey saw there convinced him to cease asking questions and to cooperate.

  They had made their way toward that heat… that calling.

  As Theo climbed the hill, that heat became unbearably tight, like a knotted, searing flame. And Theodore understood down to his toes that if he could lay hands on the person who was calling to him, that unmerciful ache would abate.

  Theo could hardly think for the pulse of it.

  *

  Calia

  Calia thrashed in her bedroll, and a low moan escaped, a mewl of fear she would have been ashamed of uttering had she been awake to hear it. But Calia was too deep in her self-imposed exhaustion to rouse herself. It was in the midst of what felt like a nightmare from which she could not free herself.

  Theodore caught sight of her.

  His eyes widened, and his body instinctively responded to hers.

  It was at once terrible and beautiful, for she would have to die. And Theo wished not for her death.

  There was no way that he could be tied to a female in that way. He felt flames of heat consume him. His heart seemed to beat only for her. He stayed Harvey with the blade of his dagger at the other man’s chest.

  “Do not, my friend.”

  Harvey's eyebrows rose, knotting at the center of his prominent brow ridge, which shadowed his beady eyes perfectly. Those dull eyes studied Theo, then Harvey cursed under his breath. He didn't understand two women lay steps away, and his new leader was stopping them from their normal pursuit as Fragment. Where there be females, there be trade.

  However, Harvey was not as slow as some, and he halted when that cold steel leeched its warning through his tunic.

  Theodore stealthily moved toward the sleeping women. Harvey had never seen one of the Fragment move in such graceful silence or with such deliberate surety.

  Of course, he had also never met one of the Fragment who was that much Band.

  Theodore crouched beside the woman. The throat slits on his neck flared as he scented her, and his knuckles turned white around the hilt of his dagger. Her eyes opened.

  The rage in them could be seen even from where Harvey stood.

  But even she could not deny the cold press of metal at the slits that matched his.

  A beat of time passed, then Theodore turned and beckoned Harvey forward. Harvey unsheathed his blade. He knew fear as those golden eyes blazed into his, unwavering… like ice on fire.

  CHAPTER 3

  Calia awoke to a burning in her shoulders that stole every thought from her brain. She stifled a groan with a vicious bite to the inside of her lip.

  She knew where she was without opening her eyes. She heard the creak of the ropes and tried to lift her lids. Well… the one that would cooperate as the other was swollen shut. Evie was strung up beside her, small wrists bound and knotted together above her head. Guilt and shame slammed into Calia, and she hissed, bereft over her charge hanging from a low tree branch like a slab of meat for curing.

  Calia shut her good eye again and let her head fall to her chest. She tried to find purchase against the frozen ground with her toes to relieve her numb shoulders.

  She could not, though she knew her toes were a fraction above the surface. The cold leeched up into her feet, bathing them in their icy indifference.

  The winter breeze greeted her as dawn broke across the barren tapestry of the valley, sweeping up to seek her skin with frozen fingers. Calia shuddered. She swung slightly, feeling light and knowing that her weapons were gone.

  Save one.

  The fools.

  She clung to that knowledge and let it comfort her.

  A twig snapped, and Calia opened her eyes. Her gaze met with a vile specimen of the Fragment. He smiled, and she noticed many gaps in his mouth where teeth should have been.

  Calia shoved her revulsion aside. She needed him close.

  His grin widened. “Gonna have me some Band woman.”


  Calia smirked. She should have been terrified. Yet she knew from brutal experience that fear was crippling. Bravery was simply ignoring terror to advance her goals.

  His eyes moved from Evie to Calia, back and forth, and a flutter of sheer panic set itself in her breastbone. Evie had awakened and begun to move in earnest.

  “Do not flail about.” Callie used the high language of the clan in the hope that Evie would cease and desist. Her fear would be an aphrodisiac to the male vermin. “He but waits for who fears him most. And do not be alarmed, whatever occurs.”

  Evie turned wide eyes to Calia. The Fragment appeared confused by the cadence of her speech, trying fruitlessly to understand. Perfect.

  Calia tried to look soft and helpless, which was rather easy, given her bound hands.

  The male stepped closer. “You will be my whore, and Theo don't need to know.”

  Calia held her smile. Female flesh before him, he would queer the trade to molest her. The simpleton. But it was a wonderful opportunity to manipulate for her benefit.

  When he was within half a horse length, he grabbed her unbound legs. The feel of his sickening flesh through the side ties of her breeches was a memory trigger that brought such a panic Calia started panting.

  Attempting to moderate her breathing, she looked down into his mud-brown eyes. They contained nothing but lust. When his hands slithered up to her hips, she swung her feet over his shoulders and locked them behind his head. Her arches slid to the sides of his neck with a precision borne of practice, locking his throat in a vise. With a deft heel swivel, she jerked his jaw swiftly to the left.

  He slumped to the ground. Calia snapped her eyes to Evie, begging her not to make noise. The girl's eyes were round in her face, shock settling in soundly.

  Calia could not afford to have the girl lose her composure. That male was the first of many who would defy whatever leader was in place. Where there was one rapist, more would come. Calia knew her value. Evie’s breathing came rapidly. Calia knew the girl would hyperventilate if she did not get it under control.