VirtualDesire Page 16

  He touched her bent head. “I did not complete the act. You need have no fear of a child resulting.”

  Great. He did not complete the act. How cold he sounded, despite the way he smoothed her hair with his warm hand.

  “What stopped you?” He was a blur through her tears.

  “Ardra. We were most fortunate she called me back to my duty. Why are you crying? You will not bear a child.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about being pregnant.” What could she tell him? “I’m just having a delayed reaction to that hypno stuff. My eyes are bothering me. You probably don’t have problems like that here. Eat too much of something, drink the wrong stuff in Ocean City, and your eyes water, your nose gets all puffy and red—”

  “I see,” he said, but his voice said he did not believe her.

  “Anyway…I can’t get…have a child.”

  He rubbed away her tears with his thumb. “You are barren?”

  “In a way.” His hands were so comforting, but his voice had a hard edge that made her pull away from his seductive warmth. She extended her arm and tapped the inside of her upper arm. “I have an implant.”

  “Implant?” He took her arm. He skimmed his thumb along the inner flesh. Even through the heavy layers of clothing, he had the power to arouse her.

  “Yes. In Ocean City we’ve figured out ways to prevent…birth. When Bob and I first lifemated, we wanted to wait a few years until we,” her throat tightened, “we had children. I had this thing put in my arm. It keeps you barren for years—I mean conjunctions—until you have it removed.”

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “Then you are free to be where your whim leads you.”

  A heavy silence fell. The air between them crackled with something she didn’t want to explore—was afraid to explore. She had to push him away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You probably lie about all the time,” she said.

  He frowned. “You are my first in three conjunctions.”

  Now why would he lie about such a thing? “Sure. And pigs fly.” She jerked her arm from his grip.

  “Perhaps pigs fly in Ocean City, but here they merely trot. And I have not had a woman in three conjunctions.”

  Gwen inspected his face. The dark shadows hid much of his thoughts. His awareness training would probably hide the rest even if she could see him clearly.

  He raked his hand through his hair, snagged his fingertip in a braid, and jerked it free. The loose hair tumbled across his brow. “It is difficult to forgo pleasure.”

  Yes. She hadn’t realized just how difficult. How she wanted that pleasure again, wanted to experience the full measure of a man’s desire. She wanted to wrap herself in his strong arms and lose herself in that dream again, to feel his body moving over hers, to feel again the turmoil of emotions she’d not realized she so desperately missed.

  But he would feel none of those things. “Why did you make love to me?”

  “Hypnoflora.”

  Her head ached. “It was nothing more?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just…that you cared for me.”

  “I have always cared for my partner’s pleasure.” His voice was low, soft, sending a shiver down her spine.

  “Of course. If they didn’t find pleasure, that would reflect on your skill as a lover, wouldn’t it? That would be a real kick in the pants. It wouldn’t do for anyone to say the Tolemac warrior is a lousy lover.”

  She felt rather than saw him shrug.

  Bitterness swept through her. He could make love to any woman he wanted—a different one each hour, if he was capable. She pictured women lining up to take a number. And lousy or not, he’d probably remain in each woman’s dreams for years to come. Why should he care about their feelings?

  He rose and offered her his hand. She ignored it. She felt small and insignificant. A rising wind tugged at her cloak and his, snapping them in the air, punctuating her agitation. Ardra was forgotten.

  “I see my answer did not satisfy you. What is it you desire?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, and didn’t. Desire. It filled the air about them, touched them like wings beating against the imprisonment of a cage.

  He lowered his head, encircled her waist. His kiss was not the urgent, heated one of her dreams. No, this kiss was gentle, a whisper of a touch across her lips, like walking into a cobweb.

  “I know what you desire,” he said between kisses. His fingers were warm as they stroked up under her cloak to caress her. Ripples of sensation ran through her, making her shiver.

  He skimmed a kiss over her eyelids. Instantly her body trembled in a liquid rush. With a moan, she jerked away. “Don’t.” What had she done? She felt like a teenager caught in the backseat of a car.

  “Why do you stop? You want me, too.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You are protected. Your body wants me.” He pulled her hard against him. “My body wants you.”

  “But my heart doesn’t want you.”

  He reacted immediately. He stepped back as if burned. “Your heart?”

  “It’s just occurred to me that when I next make love, I want it to be with someone who wants only me. Someone who hasn’t had a thousand women.”

  Her words hit him like small daggers thrown from close quarters. A thousand women. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “I have only to look at you to know every woman in Tolemac has probably been panting after you since you were old enough to have a wet dream. And I’m sure you didn’t turn too many of them away.”

  “And how many men have you had with your protected arm?”

  “Two, if it’s any of your business. R. Walter and Bob. I loved them both—with all my soul.” And I lost them both. She closed her cloak and knotted her hands in the rough wool. “What do you desire, Vad? Just a quick tumble here, with Ardra only a few feet away? Well, that’s not the way I want it.”

  Without a backward glance at her, he spun away. The icy wind might scour his skin raw, but her words harrowed his spirit.

  What had possessed him to embrace her? To even consider making love to her?

  And how could he tell her how empty it was to lie with a woman who could not see beyond his face and form? Who cared nothing for the man inside, did not care if his heart was good or evil—was quite willing to excuse anything for what he might offer.

  How many women had he lain with in his short life? Too many to feel comfortable admitting the number. Too few who cared for him beyond the few moments he granted them the right to touch him, slide their hands over his body, draw from him that blissful spasm of ecstasy. The emptiness had driven him to make a vow that he would not lie with a woman unless she was to be his lifemate.

  In the space of one day, he had cast aside his vow as if it had no meaning. The hypnoflora was no excuse. He had wanted Gwen from the moment he had seen her on the ice fields.

  What was it she desired? A mating with a man who offered his heart.

  And what was it he desired?

  Why had he withheld himself from so many women for so long and then taken the first opportunity to lie with her? A woman who held him in contempt? A woman who demanded he work for her every kind word?

  The wind whipped the water to a white-capped froth. The purple cloud-covered sky illuminated nothing—including his inner turmoil. “I must see my awareness master,” he said to the wind. He touched the jeweled dagger at his hip.

  The map.

  The map inside would free him from suspicion, reinstate his respect.

  He knew now how to answer her. He desired one thing and one thing only. It was not a woman. It was not that hot, quick twist of the guts one received with the pleasure of lovemaking. No. He desired one thing only—the return of his honor.

  He would present the map, face the perfidy of the council, and show himself above it. Ancestors or not, he would make his own name, than lifemate with a woman whose lineage was a prized jewel. He could think of several. And as Gw
en had said, what woman wouldn’t want him?

  His face assured his success with whichever woman he chose. Other skills would see she spent her moments in his bed well contented, full with child at each conjunction.

  When Gwen could finally face him, and no longer resist the scent of the meat he was cooking, she returned. That they were waiting for her was obvious. They had eaten and were sitting idly by the boat. She ate quickly, licked her fingers, and sighed. “What was that?”

  “Eel,” Ardra said.

  “Uh…never mind.” In Gwen’s estimation, an eel was a leech grown to mutant size. “Next time can you tell me what the meal is before I eat it?” she asked Vad.

  He shrugged but didn’t respond.

  “We must be on our way,” Ardra said as she settled herself like a queen in the bow.

  Gwen took her place again and Vad cast off. Her insides churned with uncertainty at his silence. When he helped her hoist the sail, she took the opportunity to speak.

  “Vad? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I don’t know why I said those things. I guess I didn’t want to admit I was just like—”

  “All the other women I have had?” he said, acid dripping from his words.

  She secured the sail. “No woman likes to think she’s just another conquest.”

  “Then keep your distance…or you will be.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I know how we can get past the guards,” Gwen said as they moved into the center of the river. Vad and Ardra ignored her. “Okay. I’ll just shut up and sail the boat.”

  A few miles later, she tried again. “I have an idea.” When they ignored her, she fell into a state of irritation. She started humming.

  Vad swung abruptly around. He’d been honing his knives for the past few miles. “What are you singing?”

  “A song from a Disney movie.”

  A fleeting look of consternation crossed his face. “‘When you wish upon a star…’”

  “That’s it. You remember.”

  “What is it you remember?” Ardra asked, her own head tipped in question.

  “Nothing,” Vad snapped.

  “Vad. If you remember something, you can’t just ignore—”

  “It is impossible to ignore you. You are like this festering wound on my arm. You are the drip of water from a spigot. You are—”

  “I get it.” She took a deep breath, then softened her tone. Maybe his arm really did hurt. “Do you think your wound’s festering?”

  “Aye,” Ardra piped up. “I must get a potion from the healer once we are in the fortress.” She pointed.

  Gwen followed the direction Ardra indicated. She swallowed. Her stomach danced. A huge edifice seemed to hang from the black cliffs. It loomed over the horizon like a dark castle harboring bloodsucking vampires. Behind it loomed even larger jagged mountains. But it was the sight of Vad’s arm as Ardra checked his wound that filled Gwen with alarm.

  There were no telltale red streaks running up his arm, but the wound looked terrible. “Hold the tiller, Ardra,” she said. As Ardra took her place, she admonished her firmly, “Don’t change anything. Just hold her steady.”

  “This looks bad, Vad.” Gwen pressed the puffy area around his wound. “No wonder you’re so grumpy. Does it hurt much?”

  “A warrior is trained to ignore bodily discomfort.”

  She probed around the wound. Then her eyes fell on the knife strapped to his hip. Alarm turned to stomach-churning dread. The handle was dull, with a grayish tinge.

  She dipped his binding in the water and wiped some of the noxious ooze away. “You’re probably at the sixth level of awareness, aren’t you?” she said absently.

  “Seventh.” Despite his assurance that he was trained to ignore discomfort, she felt the tensing of his muscles beneath her hands.

  “Hold still,” she said, and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. He was cool. The heat that zinged through her each time they made contact was gone. “You don’t feel feverish, but we should do something about your arm. Soon.”

  “‘Tis unimportant.” He jerked from her touch. “We have more urgent matters to attend to. Such as entering the fortress.”

  “I think I can get us past the guards,” Gwen said. “If we don’t get there soon, this arm will be useless; you’ll be useless to the maidens.”

  He grunted. “Ardra’s healer will have a potion for the wound, but as you say, we will not be able to obtain it if we do not get past the guards. What is your plan?”

  “Oh, it’s pretty simple, really. I used to sneak out at night to walk on the beach. My mother and father never knew a thing. I used to stuff my bed to look like someone was sleeping there. If they peeked into my room, it looked like I was snuggled down in the covers—safe and sound.

  “I thought we could use the same ruse. We can masquerade as Ardra’s men. There are two of us, right? Besides Ardra, I mean. Well, she left with three men. We have plenty of extra clothes, and if we stuff them with furs and arrange them like a sleeping man, we could pretend it’s one of her men—say he’s wounded, sick, or just say nothing unless the guards ask.”

  “‘Tis a most wonderful idea,” Ardra said.

  “Vad can grease up his hair with some of the stuff he saved from his less than marvelous eel meal, and I can pretend to be Blind Eye. Don’t you think I could pass for him if I’m sitting at the tiller, Ardra? Vad’s the only oversize one here, and he can…I don’t know, kneel in the bow, scrunch down and tuck his legs under the dummy.”

  The grin that lit Vad’s face almost knocked her backward. He hoarded his smiles. The one he directed at her now was as powerful as the sun, as potent as straight Scotch to an alcoholic. Womankind had no chance near Vad with a smile on his face.

  “What do you think, Vad?” Ardra asked.

  “I think the idea as marvelous as my eels.”

  The boat drifted a bit as Gwen maneuvered it into the narrow cut that rushed to the deep labyrinth beneath the fortress. The river wound away from them and off to the front of the fortress. The rock base on which the fortress crouched was black, thick with lichens, encrusted at the water’s edge with tiny gray barnacle-like animals, and it all looked even more forbidding up close than at a distance.

  Arrow slits seemed to provide the only openings in the sheer rock walls of the fortress.

  The Fortress of Ravens.

  It looked deserted, brooding, aptly named.

  A cloud of black birds lifted from the high walls as their boat skimmed along with the tide. The flock circled, screaming, then soared off toward a distant expanse of white.

  “Great,” Gwen muttered. “Birds of ill omen. What’s that?” She pointed to a glaring white plain that lay snuggled in the vee between two high mountains dwarfing the fortress.

  “The ice fields,” Vad said.

  It looked like ants were crawling along the sheer face of the ice wall. “Are those people climbing it?”

  “Aye, they are cutting the ice. If you could see the base, you would see the wagons that will transport the ice to Tolemac. You would also see the necessary military escort.”

  “You were in charge of those escorts, weren’t you?” Gwen asked.

  He nodded and rolled his tunic down over his wounded arm. “It was an honor to be trusted with such a mission. I commanded men from each chiefdom and was entrusted to bring the ice back without incident. Under my care, no man lost his life, and no chip of ice arrived melted.”

  “Then you must know the fortress if you guarded the ice shipments.” Gwen said. Ardra stuffed clothing with the furs, tugging and pulling the garments into a credible humanlike shape.

  Vad shook his head. “Never did we have contact with the Selaw, save to direct them in the filling of the wagons. It was forbidden.”

  “Why?” As she asked, rain started. It came without warning, pelting them with stinging drops. Ardra and Vad pulled a fur over their heads. She remained face to the elements, the boat demanding all her attention.


  “This rain is a blessing,” Vad called above the hiss of rain on the river’s surface. “It will not look suspicious that we hide beneath the furs.”

  “Be careful of your hair, else this will wash off.” Ardra pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose as she dipped her fingers into the eel grease Vad had saved and wiped it through his hair.

  Gwen thought that with dirty hair, Vad looked almost evil, if you saw him from his scarred side. She shivered—and not from the rain dripping down the back of her neck. She also realized he hadn’t answered her question concerning the Selaw.

  The sky went night dark with the driving rain. A swirl of purple-edged clouds scudded along with the harsh sweep of wind. Ardra seemed to shrink into the fur lining of her hood. Her confident manner had disappeared.

  Gwen wanted to offer some encouragement, but knew her words would be whipped away. She held her breath and concentrated on her sailing. The rocky channel narrowed so that little more than an oar’s distance stood between them and the walls on each side. The sail flapped as the wind died.

  “They should call it the Fortress of Maidens,” she muttered. “They haven’t a chance—and neither have we.”

  Vad’s hair was clumped in greasy hanks. She could smell him from her place in the stern. “You’ve never looked better,” she quipped to keep her own spirits up.

  He grinned and winked, then pulled a fur forward. His face disappeared in shadow.

  She scrambled about, lowering the sail, securing it, letting the tide take them forward, using only an occasional push of an oar to steer them.

  They bumped on the rocky wall, scraped along for a few feet, and rounded a sharp curve. A hewn rock entrance to the cliff base faced them. A crenellated ledge ran across it. In the openings stood two men, bows drawn, arrows pointed right at them.

  “It is Ardra,” Ardra called. She stood in the bow, lowered her hood, and shook out her hair. She made a quick gesture with her hand to where Gwen plied an oar to keep them from splintering against the rocks, and to Vad, who hunched by the fake Selaw man.

  “You were expected days ago,” called one man. Neither lowered their bows.