He kissed her like a starving man only to push her away like he’d had his fill. He hadn’t. He was still ravenous, still empty. She gazed at him with swollen lips and a million questions, and he felt the wildness in his eyes, in his heart, and in his head.
He strode to the door, changed his mind, and marched back toward her, deciding hunger was preferable to thirst. Being near her quenched something in him, and his chamber was a desert. “I don’t want to leave.” He folded his arms defensively, as if she would demand that he go. “I will stay . . . but I won’t . . . partake. I won’t touch you. And you won’t touch me.”
She nodded eagerly, clearly not as famished as he, and immediately pulled a thick fur from the bed and made herself a place on the floor.
“Sasha,” he barked. “You are not my servant. You are not my slave. That is your bed. You will sleep there.”
She instantly obeyed, but a smile played around her lips. She was laughing at him. He was a bloody fool. But still . . . he could not make himself leave.
He stayed with her, but he kept his word. He didn’t touch her again. Instead he stretched out on the floor, a pillow beneath his head, waiting for her to go to sleep so he wouldn’t be tempted to keep her awake.
“Do you want me to tell you a tale?” she whispered into the darkness.
“No,” he rasped. Her voice would destroy him. Shred him. He could only lay in silence, listening to her breathe.
“Will you ever kiss me again, Kjell?”
“No, Sasha,” he bit out, his palms pressing into his eyes.
“Never?” Her voice was so doubtful he wanted to laugh—damned fool—and he wondered if she saw kisses in their future. The thought drew him up short.
“Not tonight, Sasha,” he amended, and he knew he’d already begun to slip.
“Why?” she asked, and the word twisted in his belly like a sword. He thought he might bleed to death on her floor, confused and wounded, desperate to understand himself and be understood.
“Because I have loved and hated all the wrong people,” he admitted.
“And you don’t know whether to love or hate me?” she asked, her voice almost tender.
“No,” he confessed.
“I have been hated before. But I don’t know if I’ve been loved. I think . . . once . . . I must have been, because I know how to love.”
“Do you know how to hate?” he asked, his voice sharp, ricocheting through the chamber. “If you don’t know how to hate, how could you possibly know how to love?”
“I don’t have to know how to die to know how to live,’ she said simply, and he found he had no response.
“Tell me who it was that you were so wrong about,” she pressed.
He considered feigning sleep, but felt like a coward.
“I hated Queen Lark. Despised her. And I was cruel to her,” he answered.
“Why?”
“Because I loved my brother, and I was afraid she would betray him.”
“But she didn’t?”
“No. She . . . saved him.” Sasha waited silently for him to continue. “I hated Lark—who deserved none of my dislike. But I loved my father.” The sword kept turning.
“Of course you did. I love mine, and I can’t even remember him.”
Kjell half laughed, half moaned, grateful for her sweetness even as he raged against it, but her next words had him writhing again.
“And you loved a woman who loved herself above all else.”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. And then her voice grew faint, as if she’d suddenly become drowsy but wanted to finish her thought.
“She was very beautiful. But she didn’t want to be just a woman. She wanted to be everything. She changed into a silky black cat and wrapped herself around your legs. You tried to pick her up, but she rent your clothes with her claws and made you bleed. She turned into a bird, and you tried to stay with her, but she flew too high and too fast. When you were about to give up, she called to you, and lured you closer, and you joined her on the edge of the sea. She walked into the water and became a creature from the deep, a shark with layers of teeth, and you followed her across the waters, begging her to change. She became a beautiful white horse and swam to the shores. She convinced you to climb upon her back. She said she’d carry you. But instead she changed beneath you and you were thrown to the ground.”
“I thought you didn’t see the past.” He wondered which of his men had seen fit to share their captain’s history.
“Maybe she is not the past,” she suggested, so softly he barely heard the words.
The humiliation and rage that always filled him when he thought of Ariel of Firi scalded his throat and made his heart race like he was being pursued.
“I do not love her anymore,” he whispered.
Sasha was quiet so long he thought she must have fallen asleep. He closed his eyes as well, knowing he should leave, knowing he wouldn’t. He’d spent too many nights sleeping close to her; now he didn’t want to sleep apart.
“I have seen her, Kjell,” she sighed.
He gasped and rose from the floor, approaching the bed so he could stare down at her. Her hands were curled beneath her chin, the covers pulled around her shoulders. Fiery hair spilled across the pillows and brushed her face. Her eyes were closed and she breathed deeply, lost in sleep or in visions, he couldn’t be sure.
“Where, Sasha?” he asked.
But she didn’t answer.
They left Enoch before the sun was high. Kjell’s men were bright-eyed and straight in their saddles, faking good spirits, a full night’s sleep, and strict abstinence. They knew if they wanted a repeat of the kind of freedom they’d experienced during the last two days, they would need to be convincing. Still, Kjell caught more than one man looking back at the bustling city; no one was especially eager to leave her behind.
Between the city of Enoch—named after the larger province—and the borders of Janda, there was little to see and less to do. Kjell had acquired another horse where he boarded his stallion, a pretty, brown mare with a strong back and a pleasant disposition. The horse had nuzzled his neck and eaten from his hand, and when he’d saddled and mounted her, she’d accepted his weight and direction with a docile patience he was sure would suit Sasha.
Sasha needed her own mount if he was to survive her company.
The mare didn’t cost him much—the stable master seemed eager to be rid of her—and he haggled with the stable master’s wife to fetch two riding gowns for him as part of the deal. She procured three, and he’d returned to the inn, shoved them at Sasha, and demanded that she change.
For once, he’d risen before her—he’d never actually slept—and left her chamber so he wouldn’t have to greet her when she woke.
“I cannot pay you, Captain,” she’d said, running her hands over the buttery cloth and marveling at the voluminous folds which disguised the breeches beneath.
She had resumed her subservient ways, making it easier for him to retreat behind his previous persona, the one who hadn’t seen her unclothed. Neither of them mentioned fevered kisses or his sojourn on her floor.
“I don’t demand payment,” he barked, and she left it alone.
Now she rode beside him, her eyes forward, posture erect, handling the horse with an ease that belied her history.
Jerick was unusually quiet throughout the morning as they followed the dusty road that would continue in a long, straight path toward Janda. When the way narrowed at a deep ravine, they fell into a single-file line, and Kjell sent Sasha ahead, holding back until everyone else had crossed. Jerick waited beside him, watching the others proceed.
“I thought you might find work for her in Enoch,” Jerick commented softly, his eyes on Sasha’s slim back.
“I am taking her to Jeru City. Wasn’t that your suggestion, Lieutenant?” Kjell answered darkly.
“Yes . . . but I saw you leave her chamber this morning, Captain.”
“You will do well to control your thoughts and your tongue, Jerick.”
“If you don’t mean to keep her, you cannot use her,” Jerick snapped.
Without warning, Kjell snatched his blade from his boot, striking out with a glancing swipe and nicking Jerick’s left cheek.
“You were warned, Lieutenant.”
Jerick reared back, his hand on his sword, his face bleeding, his ego clipped. The wound was shallow, but a soldier’s pride was deep, and Kjell waited, tensed for the young lieutenant to make another challenge. Jerick had never been able to hold his tongue. It was the thing Kjell both loved and loathed about him.
Jerick’s eyes flickered to the woman in question and back to his captain. Sasha’s presence among them was already wreaking havoc. Kjell was not a Seer, but he’d seen this moment coming. He would have to claim the woman for the good of his men, or he would have to let her go. Sooner rather than later.
“She is mine.”
Jerick’s eyebrows rose, and his hand fell from the hilt of his sword. His horse shimmied, mirroring his surprise, and Jerick wiped at his cheek, smearing the blood across his nose.
“She is yours?” Jerick asked, his venom notably absent. “What does that mean, Captain?”
Bloody hell if he knew what it meant. But he’d said it, and his stomach flipped once and then again before it settled.
“It means you will never again question my motives where Sasha is concerned.”
“Yes, Captain. I will tell the men.”
“Damnation, Jerick.” Kjell wanted to shove the man from his horse.
“It is better that they understand, Captain,” Jerick said gravely. Kjell cursed again, snarling at Jerick’s false solemnity.
Jerick mopped at his bleeding cheek again, and Kjell groaned, noting that Sasha and the rest of his guard now waited on the opposite side of the ravine, observing the exchange. He was fairly confident the conversation hadn’t been overheard, but the animosity—and the blood—was hard to miss. Raising a hand to his mouth, Kjell pulled his glove free with his teeth and placed his bare palm on Jerick’s cheek. With a humming sigh, Kjell healed the wound he’d inflicted, leaving nothing behind but smeared blood and a smirk on his lieutenant’s face.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Cease speaking, Jerick.”
“You cut Jerick. And then you healed him,” Sasha said, after riding silently beside him for an interminable hour.
“Yes.” Kjell knew the question was coming.
“You giveth and you taketh away?” Her voice was troubled. He wanted to ask her what bothered her most . . . his anger toward Jerick or his casual use of his gift. But he didn’t.
“I chastised him . . . then I forgave him,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because everyone deserves healing.” He meant to mock her, but his delivery was weak and his target unfazed.
“Hopefully everyone won’t require healing.” Sasha’s brow furrowed, drawing her freckles together in unanimous disapproval.
She didn’t press the issue or needle him further about his quarrel with Jerick, but she had not forgotten his promise to answer her questions. Over the next week she peppered him with inanities, and he always answered, even when he would rather listen to her talk. His men kept a wide berth while they traveled, affording them an odd privacy that Kjell liked too much. Jerick had clearly informed them of their captain’s claim.
Fine. Just as long as he didn’t inform Sasha.
Whenever Kjell could manage it, he would turn her questions back around, saving himself from closer examination, and she answered him without artifice, without hesitation, and he found he wanted to know everything about her. Every miniscule, paltry crumb.
The terrain from Enoch to Janda was a continuous, slow climb that leveled out only to drop again, terrace after terrace, until reaching sea level in the center of the province. Kjell had planned to curve through Janda, assess any Volgar presence with a visit to the lord, skirt the hills on the border of Degn and the lower regions, and cut through the corner of Gaul before heading northwest back to the City of Jeru.
Along Janda’s southern rim, the terraces fell off suddenly, creating sheer drops to the sea five hundred feet below. The sea was named Takei, and the salt levels were so great a man could practically walk on its surface. The province of Janda had profited from the extraction of salt from the Takei Sea for a thousand years. The Bale River emptied into the Takei, which stretched east and west on the extreme edge of Enoch all the way to the middle of Janda. Kjell had considered that the Volgar might be nesting on the cliffs and on the beaches, but few creatures could survive on the salty water. The briny Takei was more suited to sea creatures than birdmen.
They could smell the salt on the breeze as they crossed the wide, Jandarian grassland, sitting high above the body of water, and Sasha was inspired with another round of questions.
“Land or sea?” she mused.
“Land. The sea is too elusive,” he replied easily.
“I love the sea,” she sighed.
“You remember the sea?” It surprised him. Quondoon was nowhere near the sea.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I do. I suppose I remember the sea the way I remember how to read or how to walk or how to breathe.”
“The seashore was beautiful in Kilmorda.”
“But not anymore?” she asked sadly.
“It will take some time for Kilmorda to be beautiful again.”
“Someday,” she murmured, and Kjell didn’t know if it was something she saw or merely wished for.
“Darkness or light?” she asked after a moment.
“Light.”
When he didn’t elucidate, she chided him. “It is not enough to choose, Captain. You must explain your choice.”
He sighed, but he didn’t mind terribly. “In the light everything is obvious. There are no secrets. You simply have to look in order to see.”
“What was your mother’s name?” she parried, keeping him off balance. It was an effective technique. He hadn’t lied once.
“Her name was Koorah. She was a servant in my father’s castle. She died at my birth.” In three simple sentences he’d told her everything he knew about his mother. Name, occupation, death. Nothing more.
She tipped her head at that, regarding him thoughtfully. He did his best not to squirm in the saddle.
“Bird or beast?” she asked, pivoting again.
“My brother is a Changer. He would tell you there is nothing like being a bird. But I have no desire to fly. I don’t have any desire to change at all. I struggle enough with who I am without shifting from one form to the next.”
“Song or tale?”
“I sing to heal, but I take great pleasure in hearing you speak, in hearing your stories,” he admitted gruffly.
She beamed, her smile lighting her face with such pleasure that he wondered why he hadn’t been trying harder to make her happy. She was so beautiful when she smiled.
“What gives you joy?” he asked abruptly, wanting to uncover ways to make her smile again. He immediately felt ridiculous, as if he were trying to woo her, and his hands tightened on the reins, making his horse whinny in protest and Sasha search his eyes.
She looked away rapidly, her cheeks growing ruddy, as if his question embarrassed her. Or maybe it was the answer that embarrassed her.
A gentleman would have apologized for making her uncomfortable, but Kjell was not—nor had he ever been—a gentle man. He was not educated in the art of flowery words, false sympathies, or fake sentiments.
She spoke quickly, quietly, as if she wanted him to listen but wasn’t brave enough to make sure he heard. “When you kissed me, I felt . . . joyful. In fact, I’ve never felt joy like that in my whole life. I’ve never felt anything like that. If I had . . . my lips would remember. My heart would remember. I want very much to feel that way again.”
Kjell’s heart swelled, filling his chest with a sensation that resembled floating. He drew Lucian to a stop. Sasha halted beside him, confused. Jerick tossed a puzzled look toward them.
“Take the men. Go on ahead. Sasha needs to rest for a moment. We’ll catch up shortly,” he instructed. Jerick immediately signaled the men to keep moving, assuming, as Kjell wanted him to, that Sasha required privacy for personal reasons.
Sasha didn’t dispute his claim, but her brows were drawn, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, biting back her words. He waited until the last man had rounded the crop of umbrella thorn trees ahead and slid from Lucian’s back, no hesitation, no second thoughts. His pulse roared in his ears and tickled the back of his throat, and he reached for Sasha, pulling her from the saddle of the docile, brown mare.
She squeaked, and he felt her surprise against his lips as he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
He didn’t close his eyes as he tasted her, not in the beginning. He didn’t want to look away. He wanted to see her pleasure, to witness her joy. The horses at their backs made a V behind them, the lemongrass brushed at their legs, and the cooing mutter of sandgrouse nearby registered only distantly, part of the flavor of the experience, a dash of sound and texture.
But Kjell heard only her sigh, felt only the silk of her mouth, and saw only the spikey tips of her lashes as they fluttered in surrender. Or maybe it wasn’t her surrender but his, for his legs trembled and his eyes closed, his lips moved in adoring supplication, his heart broke and bowed down before her, and his chest burned in elation.
Her fingers brushed his face, and her mouth sought his, even when he withdrew slightly so he wouldn’t fall down. Their breath mingled in frenzied dancing, tumbling over and teasing their sensitive lips. He pressed his forehead to hers, resisting the desire to make her sigh again. He’d let himself forget for a moment that he didn’t want her. He circled her waist with his hands and put her back on her horse so he wouldn’t pull her down into the grass.
“That is . . . joy,” Sasha whispered, looking down at him. “It has to be.”
“No. That is pleasure,” he replied curtly, stepping away from her horse. She stared down at him, her gaze knowing, absorbing his terse dismissal.
“Maybe pleasure feels like joy. But pleasure can be satisfied, and joy never needs to be. It is a glory all its own,” she said.
He turned away, almost ashamed of himself, and prepared to mount Lucian.
Suddenly, with no reason or provocation, the mare Sasha was seated on shot forward.
Sasha cried out and teetered, but managed to hang on. She pressed herself against the horse’s neck, grasping frantically for the lost reins. Kjell lunged for the mare, but was too slow. He shouted, alerting his men, and mounted Lucian, pursuing the spooked mare now racing toward the cliffs, bolting like she’d seen a rattler. Sasha could only cling to the horse’s mane, her veil whipping free, the panels of her yellow dress streaming behind her. Kjell spurred Lucian forward, covering the space between the galloping mare and his stallion. Lucian’s superior size and strength made the smaller horse easy to catch, but the mare was undeterred. They flew across the plateau, the drop looming closer, the mare heading straight for the ledge at full speed. Kjell attempted to turn the fleeing horse, to cut her off and change her course, but the mare simply charged ahead, dropping her head and, if anything, increasing her speed.
“Sasha!” he shouted, needing her to look at him, to know what he was about to attempt. She turned her head slowly, her face pressed to the mare’s neck, her eyes wide with horror. If she let go she would, at the very least, be badly hurt. If she didn’t let go, she would go over the edge with the crazed horse.
Kjell drew abreast of the mare, matching her pace. With the experience born of warfare on horseback, of wielding a shield and swinging a sword, of holding on with nothing but powerful legs and sheer terror, he lunged to the side and snaked his right arm around Sasha’s waist. With absolute faith, Sasha released the mare’s mane and hurled herself toward him as he dragged her free. Pulling her across his saddle, his thighs anchoring them both to the stallion beneath him, he bore down on Lucian’s reins, turning him to the left and demanding he halt.
“Whoa, Lucian! Whoa!”
The stallion drew up immediately, slowing until he could safely stop. Pawing and tossing his head, he whinnied desperately as Kjell and Sasha watched the brown mare, without ever slowing or altering direction, careen over the edge and disappear. There was no equine shriek of terror, no smattering of rocks marking her descent, no fading sounds of alarm. She was just . . . gone.
Kjell’s men had joined in the pursuit, fanning into a circle to corral the crazed animal, and they drew up around them, breathing hard, faces shocked. A gull, flapping wildly, feathers fluttering, rose up from beyond the cliff’s edge like it had been startled by the falling horse.
“We’ve disturbed their nests,” Sasha gasped, her face pressed into Kjell’s neck where she clutched him tightly.
She was breathless, panting, and Kjell was still lost in the horror of the narrowly-avoided tragedy. Then Sasha was pushing herself upright, her hands braced against his chest, trying to catch her breath and communicate simultaneously.
“Captain, the Volgar! We’ve disturbed their nests.”