Page 18 of WarBride

I open my mouth, prepared to tell the prince I’ve changed my mind and will not accept her. But then I see Lurodos’s leering face in my mind’s eye. He will take her and break her within the hour, laughing as he does so. She may be human, but I do feel some degree of responsibility for her plight. After all it was I who took her captive, I who put her in that cage. Now her life is once more in my hands, as though the gods themselves have placed her here. Can I, in good conscience, abandon her to certain doom?

No one, not even my worst enemy, deserves to be turned over to the likes of Lurodos.

“So be it,” I say, my words clipped and final. Maneuvering the girl, I begin to march her away from the crowd and the spire in the direction of the Licornyn encampment.

“Taar!” Ruvaen calls after me.

I look back, eyes narrow.

“I’ll send some of my people to freshen her up a little. Just to help matters along.” He smiles, his eyes flashing in the glow of the nearestincantisorb. “And you may have use of my personal pavilion for tonight. If you require it.”

My gut knots, but I offer a single nod. Then, grimacing, I steer the girl onward. Neither of us speaks, but occasionally she pulls against my hold, determined to break free, though there’s nowhere for her to run. “Stop struggling,” I growl at last. “You’ll only cause yourself pain.”

As though in response, she yanks hard enough that I risk breaking her arm if I hold on. Instantly I release my grip. She wrenches away from me, staggers back, turning to face me as though to meet my attack. Her hair tumbles over her face, but she throws it back, and I’m met with a pair of flashing dark eyes, limned with pain. For a moment she stands there, four paces from me, breathing hard.

Then she turns and takes three running strides. And stops. Before her stretches miles of Noxaurian encampment, full of monsters and flickering fires. She backs up, then turns and takes three more steps in the opposite direction. More monsters, more shadows, more glaring red flames. She looks like a hare, foot caught in a snare, running in circles. Not yet willing to accept the inevitable.

Finally she turns and looks at me again. Her full lips are parted and colorless, but a red stain brightens her pale cheeks. Defiance dances in the depths of her eyes even now, despite the hopelessness of her circumstances.

I fold my arms, meeting her gaze firmly, calmly. “You can come along quietly,” I say, my voice pitched low and, I hope, nonthreatening, “or you can run. I’ll not stop you again. But if you run, you lose my protection henceforth.”

“Protection?” Her lip curls. “What protection?”

Even in just those few syllables, her low, throaty voice calls to mind the song she sang in the heat of battle and terror. The naturally melodic quality is intoxicating, no matter how viciously she spits the words. But I must be wary. I must not forget how she transfixed me, rendering me helpless for those few moments in the heat of battle. And Elydark is not here now to break the spell should she try it again.

I take a step toward her. She flinches, but when she doesn’t flee, I take another step and another, until I stand mere inches from her. A glare of red light from a nearby campfire dancesacross her delicate features. She has a dark mark on one cheekbone, a blemish some might say. Not worth the price of a hundred silver heds. Any fae would glamour it away in a heartbeat, unwilling to look upon such a spot. And yet that slight imperfection adds an undeniable interest to her face in defiance of the laws of conventional beauty. It suits her somehow. She is defiance personified.

Many Noxaurian warriors surround us, some eyeing us with more than casual interest, waiting like hounds to see if my prisoner will make a break for it and give them an excuse to give chase. Aware of their interest, I drop my voice low so that no ears but hers might hear: “As long as you are with me, you are safe. No man, woman or creature in this whole encampment will dare lay a finger on anything that belongs to me.”

She bares her teeth. “I don’tbelongto you.”

I lift one brow. “I just paid a hundred silver heds for you.”

“I thought it was a hundred and one?”

“Exactly. Which means, in the eyes of all you see around you, you are my property.”

She draws a long breath through flared nostrils. Then, with a vicious, “Skewer you!” she lunges at me with both hands, pushing as though to throw me off balance. She succeeds only in jarring her bones; I don’t move an inch. Her wide eyes flare, staring me up and down, at last returning to my face. With a little, “Oh!” huffed through parted lips, she turns and takes two steps.

A pack of horned kobolds, each standing as high as her waist and leering with lascivious attention, block her way. They stretch out their three-fingered hands, long black tongues lashing from wide-opened jaws. The girl stifles a scream and staggers backwards until she bumps into me. The temptation to wrap my arm around her, to pin her against me, is strong. But I resist. I merely glare at the kobolds until they retreat, then smooth mybrow into a mild expression when the girl turns. She’s so close. She puts her hands up and presses them to my chest to keep a little distance between us. For a moment she can only stare at those hands, white against my sun-browned skin.

Finally she lifts her big eyes to mine. I hold her gaze, determined that she should see the truth in my face. “I will not harm you. You have my word.”

She presses her lips into a tight line. Then she holds up her wrist, rolling back her sleeve to reveal the dark bruises dotting her skin. “You’ve already harmed me. More than once, I might add.”

“True. Though I would like to point out that, in those instances, had I not exerted some force, you would have landed yourself in situations far more deadly. Do you deny it?”

She can’t deny it. But that doesn’t stop the hatred burning in her soul. There’s little enough I can do to douse that flame. Gods, how can I persuade her? How can I assuage both her fears and her suspicions? She does not yet know the true depths of her peril . . . or all that this night holds for the two of us.

At this thought, fire, low but insistent, stirs in my veins. But no. I’m not going to think about tonight or Ruvaen’s offer of his pavilion. Nor am I going to consider the possibility of simply handing this girl over to Lurodos here and now. There must be some alternative as yet unexplored. But for the moment . . .

I cross my arms, as much to keep myself from grabbing her again as anything. “While neither of us may care for the situation in which we find ourselves,” I say, my voice level, “I believe I can get you out of this in one piece and—eventually—return you to your own people. But you’ll have to trust me.”

“Trustyou?”

I breathe out a short sigh, almost a curse. “Or don’t. It makes no difference. But follow my lead and stay close. Is that too much to ask?”

The girl says nothing. She swallows hard, the muscles of her slender throat constricting. While she doesn’t answer me, neither does she turn and make yet another hopeless attempt to escape. I’ll take that for what it’s worth.

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