DarykRogue (27 page)

“And?” Rayder asked. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“If I help you, my empire has the potential to crumble.
Drakus Fina has asked me to join his quest against the Daryk Ones. He knows
that my people would follow me into the hells if I asked.”

Rayder feared this moment but had suspected it might come.
“You would do that?”

Marc sighed. “No. No matter what I might have done or what
evils most think I’ve committed, I’m not the man Drakus Fina thinks I am. I
won’t help him fight the Daryk Ones. My life is independent of the Daryk Ones
and
Drakus’ rogues. I don’t belong to either world.”

Relief filled Rayder. “Then I need to ask something of you,
but if you think I’m responsible for my sister’s death, you might refuse.”

Marc stared at Rayder as if he’d lost his sanity and perhaps
he had. “Aknada was a grown woman. She knew what she was doing. When I first
heard she’d been murdered, I was…bereft.”

Marc’s words were sincere. His eyes haunted, his mouth grim.

For a few moments Rayder thought that maybe Marc had lied to
himself for three years. Rayder saw it in Marc’s eyes no matter what the man
said. He’d loved Aknada.

Rayder planned to use that love and laid it all out on the
table. “Help me destroy Aramus once and for all.”

Marc glanced at him sharply. “You are serious. How do you
propose we do that?”

“Use your people. Pay them if we have to. They’ll become our
personal army against him.” Rayder went on to explain his plan of marching on
the
Beast
under the pretense of buying slaves. “The men on the
Beast
are weak. We could easily defeat them and take over the ship.”

Looking more interested than Rayder had expected. “Then you
have the ship as your own personal slaving vessel.”

Rayder’s stomach turned at the idea. “No. I leave the slaving
life forever. I have a wife now. A mate.”

Marc grunted. “Really?” He laughed. “A woman wanted to mate
with you?”

Not taking offense, Rayder grinned. “Yes.”

“Huh. I never would have imagined that.” Marc’s tone wasn’t
spiteful but filled with amusement.

“Do not try.”

“Very well. Tell me more.”

“She’s a Magonian. A passenger ship on the way to Opali in
Magonia was destroyed by a wave. I pulled her out of the ocean.”

“Lucky woman.”

Lucky man.
He’d almost said it out loud. But was he?
How lucky could he really be if he’d mated with a woman who couldn’t bear him
children and help him complete his vow to his mother? Bollocks. It was all
bloody ridiculous.

He wanted the children and would have wanted them even if
his mother hadn’t begged him to have them.

“Hmm.” Marc’s grunt was filled with a man’s certainty. “If
you found a mate, then you are fortunate. Aknada was…” He swallowed hard and
for a few seconds the pain in his eyes was stark. “Never mind. That is behind
me. But if what you say about Aramus is true, then I will help you. Tell me
your plan.”

“First, tell me what my men are facing if they fuck the
whores at the tavern.”

Marc’s eyebrows went up. “The women I mentioned can more
than handle their shite, that is all. Don’t be surprised if your men come back
beaten to a pulp or missing body parts.”

Rayder laughed. “Oh?”

“They have no scruples about who pays them for a fuck. They
just like to copulate. They sit on men and have their way with them. Bavarda is
particularly nasty. You don’t even want to know what she’s done to men who fuck
her.”

“By the god.”

“Indeed. It’s also possible that your men will be imprisoned
by these ladies if I don’t persuade the women to let them go. Would that be a
problem?”

“Pay the women to keep them.”

Marc laughed. “It is done.”

Relief again flooded Rayder. With Marc’s help, there might
just be a chance this situation would turn out just fine.

* * * * *

Xandra wakened to a throbbing headache that pulsed down the
back of her neck. Impressions came slowly. Her body felt limp, powerless and
dangling. Her eyelids were weighted down and refused to open. Rough texture
poked her in the stomach. An ache plagued her lower back, and she wanted
desperately to wake. By the god, what had happened? With a jolt she recalled
the tea Yoanda had given her. Maybe everything Phili had stated about Yoanda
was true. Feeling betrayed and angry, Xandra knew she had to defend herself
from whatever Yoanda had in mind for her. As a thousand questions ran through
her mind, she forced her eyes open.

And got the shock of her life. She was draped over a man’s
big shoulder, head hanging down his back. From her vantage point, she saw vine
tangled ground and leafy jungle. She pulled hot, humid air into her lungs. Weak
and thirsty, she couldn’t make an effort to struggle. Fear didn’t come into her
mind—grogginess kept her unable to respond to what she saw.

She sensed several men in front of and behind the man who
carried her. She smelled rot or bad body odor, but carefully made no reaction.
She decided against letting the men know she was awake. Better to see what was
going on first.

Her discomfort increased as time dragged. She kept her eyes
closed. The men didn’t talk at all, which seemed odd to her. Better that she’d
stayed unconscious. Not too long after, the air changed from hot and sticky
jungle to hot and dry. She dared to open her eyes just as a familiar voice
spoke.

“Put her down here,” Taris Elian said.

Chapter Nineteen

Xandra stiffened. Taris had survived the shipwreck.

She’d never believed, short of a few moments after she’d
awakened on the
Beast
, that this man could have survived.

Why not? She had.

The horror climbing up her throat threatened to choke off
her air.

The sky and ground went topsy-turvy as the man who carried
her laid her down on the ground. She kept her eyes open, her surprise and fear
rising to panic level. She gulped in a breath and forced her paralyzed body to
cooperate.

About twenty men surrounded her, some looking away as if
they guarded against a threat. The jungle seemed eerily quiet here, and that’s
when she saw they were on the edge of the jungle and a wide expanse of desert,
where dunes obscured the land with black, cream and white sands. It was the
strangest thing she’d ever seen—Magonian deserts came in various shades of tan
and nothing more. The dictomy of jungle turning into instant desert amazed her.

Even that surprise couldn’t drag her attention from Taris
for more than the few moments it took to notice the landscape.

Taris glared at her. For a man of near fifty, he’d preserved
well. Midnight-black eyes, unusually white skin, black shaggy hair and
pock-marked face went with the cold look on his narrow face, but he had few
wrinkles. Despite his paleness, which she’d never understood since he’d lived
in the deserts of Magonia all his life, he wore no hat. His tunic was rumpled
and stained, his trousers stained as well. From her position, he looked tall,
but in truth, he was a bit shorter than her. His stocky build more than made up
for his short stature.

“You thought you’d escaped me,” he said, voice low and
husky.

Some women would find that low and melodious sound arousing.
She, though, knew the violence he could do, and her heartbeat thudded in her
ears.

Drawing in a deep breath, she kept her answer cold and
unemotional. She’d learned that he knew how to use a person’s emotions against
them. “It appears not.”

His slow, lopsided smile made her stomach curl. She felt
ill, but it could have been the drug.

He put his hand out to help her stand, but she ignored it
and hauled herself to her feet. By the god, she wouldn’t give him the
satisfaction of showing weakness. She wanted to scream at him, to kick, to
growl, to scar him in some way. Hate grew within her as high as the wave that
had taken down her ship.

Her legs almost gave out, and the huge man who had carried
her reached out to grab her upper arm. He kept her steady, and she felt so ill
at first she didn’t shake off his help.

Taris smirked and planted his big hands on his hips.
“Xandra, you know there is no escape from me.”

For a terrifying moment she believed him. After all, he’d
found her once before and now he’d found her again. She licked her dry lips.

Taris gestured at the man who held her arm. “Give her as
much water as she wants.”

The man released her long enough to give her a water skin,
and she drank gingerly. She didn’t know how her stomach would react. After
she’d had her fill, she handed it back to the gallute. When she looked at the
man who carried her, she didn’t expect what she saw when she really paid
attention to him. He was enormous, yes, but there was an odd gentleness in his
eyes. His round face had a sincerity and kindness that didn’t match his brutish
size. His blue eyes held no malice for her.

“Mangalor, scout ahead and see if the caravan has arrived
yet,” Taris said to one of the other men, and the man did as he was asked,
running east through the foliage lining the last of the jungle.

Curiosity demanded answers. “How did you survive?”

“I swam. Struggled. I almost drowned but ended up on shore.
I found my way to Grimnald Castle and got help there. The people are amazingly
civilized there for complete barbarians with blasphemous ideas. These
Dragonians make good slaves.” He looked around at the men making a circle
around them.

“How did you get them to follow you?” she asked.

“
Triand
. You know I had a lot of coin with me, and
even the ocean can’t drown coin.”

Triand
had always been the only thing he loved. Her
stomach roiled but she ignored it. “How did you find me?”

He walked toward her. She took a step back and bumped into
the bruiser behind her. His meaty hands clamped on her shoulders and held her
in place. She froze.

“It took time, but bribes work even in Dragonia. There were
a couple of men on board who have a grudge against your lover. They told me all
about your heinous marriage to this Rayder Tyrus.” Taris’ eyes turned colder.
“Then there is the sweet little wife of the ship’s admiral.”

“Yoanda.”

“She seemed eager enough to be rid of you for the right
price. When your ship docked, I spoke to the right people at the right time.”

Her mind wanted to reject that Yoanda could have done such a
thing, but Phili had warned her. “She plans to escape the
Beast
and the
admiral.”

“Just so.”

She closed her eyes a moment and swallowed hard. “Why are
you doing this, Taris? You don’t need me. Dragonia is full of women who’d be
eager to do whatever you want for a price. And there are plenty of Magonian
women who would have your children. Why do you want me when I can’t have your
children?”

He was too close now. “What a stupid bitch you are. Do you
think this is really about children? That you are cold and barren because of
your traitorous actions? I want to make you suffer for what you did.”

She could imagine only too well what he might have planned
for her, and her heartbeat picked up speed.

“I am married to Rayder Tyrus and he will never give me up.”
She didn’t know if that was true anymore, especially after he’d learned she
couldn’t have children.

He laughed. “Really? Did he tell you that when he took the
most precious gift a woman has to give her husband?” He pointed at her. “You’re
a slaver’s whore and that’s all you’ll be now. I want no more of you now that
he’s sullied your body.”

“Then return me to the ship. What difference does it make to
you if I’m on a slaver ship if you think I’m a slaver’s whore?”

His smile held contempt. “Because whatever is mine is mine
to do with what I want. You’ve been sullied, yes. Used, yes. But you are still
my property to do with what I choose.” He leaned in closer until his breath
brushed her face. “Do not worry, Xandra. I do not take soiled goods. Your
purity is no longer.”

Thank the god for that.

He shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s a pity though.
I don’t think the particular slavers I have in mind for you are quite as
civilized as these jungle people. I guess the desert does strange things to
them.”

She didn’t want to know.

His grin widened, as if he could read her mind. “They wrap
their women up to protect them from the desert, but they have no compunction
about trading them for beasts or other goods. At least we didn’t do that on
Magonia.” He shrugged. “Still, if I was going out into that blazing desert, I’d
do the same. I’d make certain I had plenty of women in case I needed to trade
for something vital.”

Her contempt for him grew, if that was possible. “If you
have no use for me, just let me go.”

He laughed.

Fury exploded from her as she shrugged off the bruiser’s
grip. “Let me go!”

“You have caused me no end of trouble. And for that you’ll
pay dearly. I have no doubt this Tyrus will come looking for you, if only to
save face. Not because he loves you, whatever that is.” Taris pointed a finger
in her face, shaking it with each word. “Cooperate and I won’t hurt you. After
I’ve traded you for a valuable item, I am done with you.”

An odd relief flowed through her even though it didn’t
settle her desire to throttle him. “Then get on with it. Better I am with
anyone else than with you, you murderous—”

His hand flashed out, and sharp pain lanced through her
cheek and jaw as her head snapped back. Bruiser caught her before she could
fall. He picked her up in his arms. Her hand went to her cheek as the pain
throbbed and stung. She almost swung at the bruiser then thought the better of
it. If he decided to hit her, she might not survive.

“Let’s go. Mangalor is slow,” Taris said. “If the caravan
has arrived, I will dump you off and be done with you. If the caravan isn’t in
the area, maybe we’ll take you all the way to Austos Castle.”