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  Must be the approaching spring stirring his blood and clouding his thoughts. This wasn't about forever. This was about dalliance, about mutual ecstasy, about honoring the Lord of Grain and Lady Sun. And more than a little bit about teaching a lovely brat a lesson—a lesson that would be pleasurable for both of them—about her own desires and needs.

  Nevertheless, he'd taken a risk the first time his hand connected with her heart-shaped butt. In most of the Empire, such games were spoken of only in whispers. She could have—should have—been shocked, disgusted. Should have cried out for help, and although individually the caravan guards were no match for him, the lot of them would have proved problematic.

  Instead, her fair skin had flushed, and she'd squirmed, trying to get away but not very hard, and her little gasp, however indignant she may have thought it sounded, was the music of arousal.

  His instincts had been sound.

  He glanced up at her, still cutting herbs with unnecessary vigor and trying to pretend he wasn't there. She was on her knees, and the position conjured delicious images in his mind. Miryea kneeling before him, taking his cock deep into her mouth, sucking and licking and driving him wild. One of her small, strong-looking hands cupping his ballocks, the other working his cock, stroking him into her eager mouth.

  He groaned, let his hand stray to his aching crotch.

  If she were Kulchu and unclaimed by a man, he could drop his salvar and gesture, and she'd be there, ready to serve him. Not that he'd often done so, but at a moment like this, it had its appeal.

  But Miryea was a Soranian woman. Raised by a female Imperial officer, no less, and those women demanded respect from men and got it—at sword's point, if you were stupid enough not to give it to them more politely. Miryea wanted him, that was obvious, but if he treated her like one would a Kulchu lass, she'd probably bite his prick off. She might regret it afterward, mind you, but that wouldn't do him a bit of good once the deed was done. She'd come to him when she was ready, or not at all.

  And he was fine with that, although he'd certainly do everything he could to encourage her. He could practically hear his Kulchu ancestors mocking him from the afterlife, but during his time with the Kulchu, he'd learned that a woman who yielded out of custom wasn't nearly as much fun as one who genuinely wanted him.

  Still—seven hells, he ached for relief.

  He could step further into the woods, but that would leave Miryea alone in the gathering dusk. Even if he'd had ulterior motives in following her, there'd been truth in what he'd said about wild animals and wilder men.

  He could wait, walk her back to the encampment, and then slip off and find some privacy.

  Or he could show her what she was missing.

  He angled a bit away from her, untied the drawstring of his salvar, and lowered them as if he needed to answer a call of nature. She wouldn't look at that too closely. Not at first, anyway. Not until she realized she wasn't hearing the expected sounds.

  His cock lay hot and heavy in his hands, and he wished it were Miryea's hands on it instead of his own. Hers were small. They'd wrap around it only with difficulty, look sweetly pale against the stiff, purpled flesh.

  He began to stroke, imagining her. Her body, the way her skin tasted, the slick heat of her sex, the way her hands, her mouth, her sex would feel clutching his shaft. She'd be tight around him, gripping down on him in her excitement, squeezing and releasing him in her silky pussy, milking him.

  He glanced over Miryea. She was still bent over the bonestrength, knife in hand, but was definitely looking at him instead of the plants.

  Sooner than he'd expected.

  Either she suspected what he was up to, or she was that curious to see his cock.

  Might as well give a good show, then, if she were so interested.

  All his nerve endings begged him to work it hard and fast, to bring himself to climax as soon as possible and end the sweet, aching torment. To explode onto the grass as if into a woman.

  Instead, he made himself stroke slowly, showing off his size. His girth.

  And at least as important to a woman, his self-control. No green lad, he knew that size captured a woman's imagination, but staying power and skill were what brought her pleasure.

  Miryea watched, slack-jawed. Her mouth opened slightly, and the sight of her wet, parted lips added to his arousal, making him think again about the joys that mouth could bring him.

  Her hands clenched, working nervously on the hem of her light wool tunic, and that made him smile.

  When her hips began to rock forward as if she were on top of him, riding his cock, though, the images that flooded his mind were too much to resist.

  Watching her, thinking of him, imagining himself fucking her or getting fucked by her, as she was so clearly imagining, he let the orgasm rip through him, so hard it almost hurt.

  He came back to himself as she tapped him on the arm. “Here,” she said dryly, handing him a rag that smelled of herbal liniment. “Clean up. And if you're quite through, we might as well walk back to camp together. In case there really are wild animals about."

  She tried to put disgust in her voice, but he noticed how hungrily her eyes glanced from his cock—satisfied now, but still mostly hard—to the hands dripping with his own seed.

  What a woman!

  * * * *

  “What a barbarian,” Velari giggled softly, so as not to disturb those who were actually trying to sleep instead of lying awake chatting. “A gorgeous barbarian, granted. But a barbarian. One kiss—and a smack on the butt as if you were a toddler—and he thinks you're married. Or enslaved. I think it's pretty much the same thing to a Kulchu."

  Miryea felt herself blushing. “He's not pure Kulchu. I think he was raised here. And it was more than a kiss."

  “You didn't—"

  Miryea shook her head (not that Velari could see it in on this moonless night) glad that she could honestly say no to what her friend was thinking. “Just a bit of groping.” She might, if Velari pressed her, admit to the caressing, the explosive orgasm. Not to watching him milk himself until he came—watching him and longing to be the one whose hands moved on that thick, long shaft, that circled the plum-like head, that caught the seed that poured out, pearlescent in the fading light. “He wouldn't take no..."

  “Did you actually say no?” It figured Velari would be concerned about that. The clergy of Lady Sun enforced the law, and legally speaking, listening to no marked the boundary between over-enthusiasm and assault.

  “To the spanking? Of course I did!"

  She thought back over the scene. “And he did stop. Kept on scolding me, but stopped spanking. To the kissing and such ... I didn't say no.” They were already whispering, but she dropped her voice even more. “I didn't want to say no. Now I feel like a prize fool, but at the time I just wanted him to keep going. Until he got into the whole claiming me on the Equinox thing and I remembered men from Thelana are bad enough and Kulchu men are worse."

  A cough in the darkness, and then a deep voice, laced with amusement, said, “Is that so? You didn't find me so terrible when you were writhing on my fingers, coming from my touch, little rabbit, or when you begged me for more.” Adimir loomed over the two women, a darker shadow against the night's dark background.

  Anger flared in her.

  Not that Adimir was lying or mistaken. That was just the problem.

  She wanted him, and she'd given in to that attraction for a few blissful, but insane moments. Even rather enjoyed the spanking, which must be some odd kind of Kulchu or Thelanese courtship custom.

  But beyond the purely physical draw, they had nothing in common, no reason to respect or like each other enough for even a passing encounter. Her grandmother had, for all she knew, fought against his grandfather. And now he was embarrassing her, as if to ensure they couldn't possibly find common ground.

  Miryea sprang to her feet (thanking the Lady that she didn't get tangled in her blankets and spoil the effect) and delivered a ringing slap
to Adimir's face.

  It probably hurt her hand as least as much as it did him, but it vented her feelings, let her feel more in control of the situation.

  Then he grabbed her wrist, pulled her against him, and kissed her soundly.

  Time stopped, along with all thoughts of control and dignity. Somewhere in the background, she heard Velari either protesting or mocking—possibly both—but she couldn't make out the words over the roaring of her blood.

  His hands ran up and down her body, pressing her close to his hardness, shooting fire through her. She moaned into his mouth, straddled his leg. Her salvar were thin linen, lightweight and soft, and the warmth of his body, the feel of his hard muscles against her sex (damper than she would have admitted from thinking about their earlier sport) made them seem fragile enough that they might melt away from their shared heat.

  Certainly she'd want a clean pair in the morning, judging from how damp she was getting.

  Adimir put his hands under her butt, lifted her up so she was above the ground, her weight in his hands and on his thigh.

  And what would have happened next would have been humiliating and hot in equal measures, except for the cry that split the air: “Brigands!"

  He set her down with surprising gentleness. “Probably slavers!” he shouted in response. “Guard the women!"

  Miryea had already snatched up her staff. “We're not all helpless!” Velari pulled her knife, as if Miryea's words had reminded her it was there, but even in the darkness, Miryea could see her friend's hand was shaking.

  Her own hands weren't. Her brain was whirring, panicked, but her body seemed quite calm.

  “I know, little rabbit. But you are targets. Pretty young women bring the largest profit, for those who trade in human flesh."

  Velari hissed “You'd know!” but he was already off at a run into the night, toward the screams and sounds of fighting, which were coming from all directions, but seemed loudest on the forest side. “He turned up here to spy—probably guided the slavers right to us! Everyone knows the Thelanese...” She was scrambling between a bush and a rock as she argued, the best hiding place available on short notice, although neither bush nor rock was really big enough to provide much cover.

  “Later!” Miryea hissed. For her own sanity, she had to assume there would be a later, and one in which they'd be free to argue such matters.

  But right now, she had other things to worry about.

  For all her drilling with the staff, Miryea had never had to use it in combat. To her amazement, when a stocky bear of a man came running to her, brandishing a staff of his own, she automatically parried, then pulled off a fancy feint that made it look like she was going for his head, but ended up connecting with his knees instead.

  Her grandmother had always told her to pull her blows when practicing that particular move. Now she saw why.

  Shattered kneecaps were ugly.

  He screamed and dropped like a rock, to roll on the ground in pain.

  She felt ill, but the alternatives were more sickening. She wasn't going to be enslaved or let Velari be.

  Unfortunately, her fallen foe wasn't the only one of the brigands to reach the two women. The second one was a bit brighter than the first, and the one who joined him was armed with a sword, not a staff.

  As the fight continued, Miryea's arms started to ache. Her brain ached from trying to predict the slavers’ movements in the dark and keep one step ahead of them. She suspected she had more formal training than her raggle-taggle opponents, but they more than made up for it with reach and strength and experience. Her only advantage was sheer desperation.

  Velari, curled into the smallest ball possible behind her shrub, was praying. Loudly enough that it rather defeated the purpose of hiding, but some divine invention could come in handy right about now. Human intervention would be good too.

  Should she call for help? It hurt her pride, knowing her grandmother would have laughed at these ragged, ill-trained men even as she defeated them. But if she fell...

  Crack! She missed a parry and took a good blow that, fortunately for her, landed on the strong muscle of her thigh. Nothing broken, no real damage except what would certainly turn into a walloping bruise, but the impact threw her off-balance, knocked her to the ground.

  Pride was one thing. Stupidity was another. “Adimir, help!” she screamed, and was rewarded by the sound of running feet.

  A caravan guard and one of the other travelers, both armed with swords.

  The help she needed—but not Adimir.

  She allowed herself the luxury of being disappointed, before she used the cover provided by her two companions to pull herself upright and rejoin the fight.

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  * * *

  Chapter Four

  The fight seemed to drag on forever. However, once the slavers were routed and the travelers began to regroup, Miryea realized it had really taken only moments.

  Moments for so much to have happened, moments for lives to change.

  Her own life, for one, or at least her sense of herself.

  Adimir was definitely right about one thing. She was no warrior. She was a physician-in-training who had some skill with a staff. Invaluable skill: without her grandmother's training, she and Velari might have been dragged off into the darkness, never to be seen in the Empire again. But she no longer had the illusion that her training was enough to save her from all dangers. With luck, it could keep her alive long enough for help to arrive (assuming there was help to be had) or for her to come up with some trick or distraction for getting away. But to defend herself against all comers? No. Her grandmother, at Miryea's age, could probably have fought brigands all night and then gone drinking, but she wasn't her grandmother.

  And her grandmother wouldn't have thrown up once the fight was done. Realizing that she'd hurt people, at least one of them badly, had left her thoroughly shaken. It had been necessary, certainly, but seeing a man writhing in pain and realizing she'd made him that way had twisted her gut.

  She'd do it again if she had to—but only if she had no other option. For a physician's apprentice, she probably wasn't a bad fighter, but she wasn't her grandmother.

  On the other hand, her grandmother wouldn't have been much use in the aftermath. No one from the caravan had been killed or gravely wounded—the slavers had been interested in prisoners, not corpses—but there were injuries aplenty. Cuts, broken bones, cracked skulls, muscles torn while trying to run away, shock and all its side effects. The precious bonestrength she'd gathered earlier was brewing into tea. In another pot, valerian was steeping. It smelled like dirty laundry and tasted even worse, but would soothe shattered nerves and let people sleep. She'd broken into her stash of spider webs to pack wounds, and had gotten several people to sacrifice some of their spare clothing for bandages.

  To her surprise, everyone seemed quite happy to let her, a mere student, organize them, draft the calmer unwounded to help deal with minor injuries, wrap the unhurt but hysterical in blankets and give them valerian tea.

  Plus there were the fallen slavers to deal with. “We can't just leave them bleeding and in pain,” Miryea argued. “I'm only a student, but I know that goes against the oaths I'll be swearing."

  “They'll just be hanged anyway,” one man argued, and several others backed him up. “Why waste the time and supplies? Let the scum live or die on their own."

  Rather to Miryea's amazement, though, Velari argued that both justice and mercy needed to be served. “Besides, they have to be working with people on the other side of the Kulchu border,” she added on a more practical note. “In hopes of saving their own sorry hides, they may give information that will save other travelers."

  When Miryea bent over the man with the shattered kneecaps, he roused himself from the dullness of shock to spit at her.

  She wiped it away, forcing herself to keep a calm demeanor. From his point of view, she supposed she deserved that.

  She felt sick seeing
him up close, remembering the dull thud as her staff connected with his knees—but it was a remote sickness now. She suspected she'd feel it again later if she let herself, but right now she had work to do.

  “Gonna finish me off, bitch?” He tried to lash out, but slowed by pain, he was easy to dodge.

  She took a deep breath, swallowed any urge to protest, to say she'd acted in self-defense. That was relevant, but not timely. “Your life's in the hands of the priests of Lady Sun now. I'm going to try to take the edge off your pain. Drink this and then lie still."

  She administered wine doctored with willow bark and splinted the bandit's legs to immobilize the shattered bones by the light of a torch held by a man old enough to be her father.

  After everyone had been treated and made comfortable, after she'd spoken with the caravan-master about the possibility of staying put for a day and night to let the wounded rest (he was unsure of that, not feeling exactly safe in a spot where they'd already been attacked, but eventually agreed), she finally sat down, hoping for a few sips of wine before falling over.

  And realized that Adimir was missing. Nowhere to be found among the wounded or the unhurt. “Has anyone seen Adimir—the Thelanese man?” she called out to the group.

  A chorus of no's.

  “Probably off taking a piss when they attacked,” a guard suggested, “and now he's hiding in the woods shaking in his boots."

  “Who knew that such a big, tough-looking man would be cowardly?” one of the women said, cradling her splinted arm.

  “Give him a break. You don't always take your weapons with you when you go to water the trees, and there's not much point in wading into a fight where you'll only get hurt.” That was one of the older caravan guards, his voice gruff, but kindly. “Besides, just because a man's big doesn't mean he's good in a fight. Might be he's clumsy as an ox."

  “He was here when they attacked,” Miryea protested. “Remember, he called out to protect the women. Then he disappeared."

  “I told you so,” Velari said blandly. “Either he was helping the slavers or he just bolted. He's from around here somewhere. Might be he just ran on home to his mama."