Firestorm (25 page)

***

The storm broke at sunset, pouring down from the leaden sky, sending all scurrying for their tents. Though an invitation was sent by Najirah to join her and Bahir for the evening meal, it was tersely refused by both Raina and Teague.

They sat in their tent, never speaking, both wrestling with their private anguish. Overhead, thunder cracked. The wind battered the tent, setting the tautly stretched sides to flapping. The natural waterproofing of the woven capra hair held, however.

Sometime during the storm's unrelenting fury, the evening slunk into night. The tension rose, becoming a palpable entity. Finally, Teague shot Raina a seething glance.

"Is that what you want, then?" he demanded. "To mate with me over any of the others?"

Her gaze, lowered in pensive contemplation of her tunic, lifted. "Wh-what?" She stopped short. "Are you saying you'll mate with me?"

"Yes. But I don't want you ever throwing it in my face once we're back on the trail. Not then, or ever again."

Raina managed a wan smile. "Does it promise to be such an unpleasant experience, then?"

That query startled him. "I-I don't know. I just thought . . ."

"That I didn't want you? That I find you repulsive?" she gently supplied. A most becoming flush stole into her cheeks. "Well, I do want you, and I find you most attractive. I believe I thought that from the first moment I saw you." An image of him, stripped to his red loincloth, sweat slicked and clasping that long blade in his hands, rose in her mind's eyes. "Yes," she murmured. "Most definitely from the first moment I saw you."

It was his turn to flush. "I didn't know, didn't dare let myself wonder . . ." He swallowed hard. "I must tell you true, Raina. I know nothing, save for the technicalities, of the mating act. I ... I am a—"

"I know. For all practical purposes, so am I." She gave a bitter laugh. "And I certainly don't know what to teach you. I hope, though, that this time the mating act will be more gentle and pleasurable than what I once experienced."

Teague smiled, the look in his eyes tender, compassionate. "I would be gentle with you, Raina. I would try, to the best of my ability, to please you."

"Would you, Teague?" She rose and scooted over to him. Ever so gently, she stroked his face. "As would I with you."

Fire leaped through his veins. His mouth went dry.

His pulse pounded. With a superhuman effort, Teague pulled away. "I must go to Bahir," he said thickly. "Tell him of my decision."

Raina leaned back. "Yes, I suppose that would be wise. Before he makes the decision for you. One, I'm certain," she said with a crooked grin, "would disappoint me greatly."

Teague climbed to his feet and smiled down at her. "As it would me, sweet femina. As it would me."

He made a motion to turn and leave, when Raina halted him. "Teague."

"Yes?" He glanced back at her.

She held his cloak out to him. "Take this. It'll keep at least some of the rain off you."

For the first time in the past few minutes, he became aware, once more, of the storm. He accepted the cloak, surprisingly pleased at her concern for him. "Well, I'll wear it, for what it's worth, but don't be upset if I still return soaked to the skin."

"As long as you return." She managed a tentative smile. "That's all that matters."

He slung the cloak over his shoulders, turned, and wordlessly strode from the tent.

A deluge of chill water slammed into him the moment he stepped outside. Gritting his teeth against the cold and rain, Teague sloughed through the ankle-deep mud to Bahir's tent. He rapped on the tent flap. "Bahir, may I enter?" The shout was all but drowned in the tumult of the storm.

Bahir, however, either heard him or was expecting him, for he stood at the tent opening in but a few seconds. He eyed Teague wryly. "It must be important, for you to come out in such a storm."

Teague graced him with a withering look. "May I come in?"

The Tuaret leader stepped aside. "Please."

The interior of Bahir and Najirah's tent was brightly lit by several hanging oil lamps. Long, gaily colored rugs covered the ground. A big wooden chest and a low table stacked with cooking and eating utensils stood against one tent wall; a bulging water bag, moist with condensation, dangled from a hook on the center tent post.

The sleeping pallet, piled with cushions, sat off to one corner. Bahir walked over to it, picked up two cushions, and tossed them onto a rug that lay directly below one of the oil lamps. Najirah shot Teague a nervous, uncertain glance, then took her place nearby on the sleeping pallet.

The monk strode over and lowered himself to one of the cushions. Bahir sat on the other. "Would you care for a cup of cerevisia, or a plate of palmas fruit?" he asked suddenly the solicitous host. "Najirah can fetch us-—"

"No." The reply was curt. "Thank you, but no." Teague impassively met his gaze. "I didn't come here to pay a social visit, and you know it."

"You've made your decision, then, I take it?"

"Raina will stay with me."

"And you'll make her your mate in all ways?"

"That was the'point of this, wasn't it?"

Bahir smiled. "Yes. Yes, it was." He hesitated. "May I ask what made you change your mind? You seemed quite determined last night and earlier today."

Teague subjected him to a long, cold scrutiny. "No, you may not. My decisions are my own. You got what you want, though I've yet to fathom what your true motives were. Let that suffice."

"And suffice it will, for the time being."

A frown creased the monk's brow. What exactly did that mean? he wondered. Briefly, he considered confronting Bahir about this cryptic statement, then thought better of it.

At this moment, Teague wanted to get as far away from Bahir as he could. He didn't like being manipulated, and that was exactly what the Tuaret had done. No one used him. No one.

No one . . . but Malam Vorax.

Raina's words last night returned with an unnerving impact. . . . If you allow the horrors of your past to continue to influence you, you've allowed Vorax ultimately to triumph. But it's always been your right to choose . . .

And then Rand's blunt statement today. . . . Vorax will triumph if you don't face yourself. . .

As much as he'd managed to accomplish as a monk, as much personal satisfaction as he'd found in that life, there was still some truth in their words. Though Vorax had feared killing him, thanks to the strange utterances of some ancient prophecy, he had done the next best thing. He had tortured him, both mentally and physically, in the hopes of breaking his spirit and crippling his mind. And though Teague had lived, Vorax had strived to ensure that he'd never be the same, never be fit to rule.

Anger swelled within Teague. He'd thought he'd escaped Vorax and the horrors of his rule when he'd left Incendra, begun a new life. But he hadn't. The horror had followed him, because he'd failed to overcome the lasting effects of the man's shrewdly wrought tortures. In the end though Vorax had spared his life, he'd sent him out to a living death. A lifelong one.

The realization pressed down on Teague. The old panic rose; it encompassed and smothered him. He couldn't breathe. His heart thundered in his chest. Get away ... he had to get away.

"Your leave," he choked out. "Have I your leave to return to Raina?"

"Yes, most certainly." Bahir halted him when Teague turned to leave. "One thing more, Tremayne. Play no further games with me. Your mate will be examined on the morrow. A mating will occur this night, or she is lost to you forever."

"It won't be necessary, I tell you," Teague gritted.

"Nonetheless, I—"

"No! Do you hear me, Bahir? No!" Teague took a threatening step toward him, his hands fisted at his sides. "What you force on Raina in coercing me to mate with her is torment enough. I won't permit her to be degraded by some . . . some examination afterward. I give you my word. If that isn't enough—"

"It's enough." Bahir cut him off, a hard, taut expression to his face. He motioned toward the door. "Go. No more games."

"No more games." Teague wheeled about and bolted, desperately needing the open space, freedom from the suffocating confines of the tent.

Outside, the storm swirled around him. The wind plucked at his cloak, tugging it open and flinging the ends up into the air. The rain fell, drenching him, until his hair clung to his face and neck in lank, sodden cords and his clothing molded wetly to his body. Teague slipped and fell in the mud, his hands sinking deep into the oozing muck.

He crouched there on his hands and knees for a long moment, taking the full brunt of the storm. It felt good.

The realization surprised him. It was almost as if he was being cleansed, purified, however crude the ritual might be. Cleansed and purified as he'd been so many times before by his monkish rituals.

But this time it was different. This time he needed nothing but the fresh rain and strong, clean wind. The rain and wind of Incendra ... his land, his home.

Sixteen

He returned to Raina drenched, muddy to his knees, and shivering. At the sound of his entry, she wheeled from her position kneeling on the floor. One glance at Teague and she hastily put aside a pottery plate of cooked grains and roasted fowl and vegetables she was carefully warming over a small, coal-stoked brazier. Najirah had sent the food earlier, when they'd refused her and Bahir's supper invitation, but Raina had hoped Teague's appetite might have improved.

Grabbing a drying cloth from the small chest sitting by the sleeping pallet, she rose and hurried over to him. "By the five moons," she exclaimed, "I expected you to be a bit wet, but not soaked to the skin and filthy to boot!"

"Th-the camp is treacherously s-slippery," he said, his teeth chattering. Teague glanced down at himself, then began to shrug out of his cloak. "I am a mess, though."

Raina stepped up. "Here, let me help you." She flung the drying cloth over her shoulder, and began to tug off his cloak. The sodden garment fell at his feet. Next, she pulled off Teague's tunic and tossed it aside.

The cool night air gusted over his bare, damp torso. His nipples tightened. His pectorals quivered, flexing the claws tattooed across his chest. A thin stream of water dribbled from the wet hair lying on his shoulder, trickling down the powerful expanse of bulging muscle, around his chill-tautened nipple, until it finally descended to his hardened belly and disappeared into the-waistband of his breeches.

Fleetingly, Raina's gaze followed the errant rivulet, mesmerized by its slow, sensuous passage down Teague's body. A crazed impulse, to follow that bold little stream with her tongue, filled her. She flushed and dragged her attention back up to him.

He watched her, his silver-blue eyes glittering, wary, and waiting. They stood there for a long moment, their glances locked, silent and tension-fraught. Then another errant breeze gusted Teague's skin. He shivered again.

The action broke the spell, something Raina was deeply grateful for. She grabbed the drying cloth off her shoulder and began fiercely to towel him dry. The cloth rasped across his chest and abdomen, then up and down his arms. Next, she used it to squeeze out as much moisture from his hair as she could.

"Turn around," Raina then ordered.

Teague's mouth quirked at the slight quaver in her voice, but he did as she'd asked. She was already as stirred, as anxious as he, he thought, reveling in the rough chafe of the drying cloth across his shoulders and back. But who could blame her? The moment they'd both desired yet feared and fought so hard against would soon be upon them.

When her efforts to dry him ceased, Teague turned. Her glance dropped down his body to his breeches and mud-covered boots. "Do you have anything on beneath them?" She choked out the query on an unsteady breath, gesturing to the lower half of his body.

Teague looked down. "No."

Raina forced her gaze back up to his. "Well, sit and I'll help you with your boots. Then I'll fetch you some blankets to cover yourself while you take off your breeches."

He managed a ragged breath. "Not quite ready to see me naked yet, are you?"

Her eyes widened. She swallowed convulsively, then nodded, the action jerky, nervous. "No, I don't suppose I am."

His mouth twitched wryly. "Well, I suppose I'm not all that ready to stand naked before you, either. I'll tell you this now, though. The pace of the night is yours to choose." Teague reached up tentatively to stroke the side of her face. "We can go as fast or as slow as you wish."

She trembled at his touch, pulled away, too moved, too stimulated by the feel of his fingers on her skin and the anticipation of what was to come. "And what of you? How fast or slow would you like it?"

The query seemed to take Teague aback. "I really don't know." He laughed again, sheepishly this time. "I suppose I'll have to learn that as I go."

With that honest, self-conscious remark, the spiraling tension between them eased a bit. Raina joined in the nervous, uncertain laughter. "Well, we've the whole night to discover the answers to such exalted quandaries, don't we? In the meanwhile, let's get your boots and breeches off, warm you a bit, and have some supper." She quirked a slender, auburn brow. "You are hungry, aren't you?"

Teague pondered that question but an instant, then nodded. "As a matter of fact, yes, I am."

"Then sit. First the boots and breeches, then the food."

He did as he was told tugging off his wet breeches as Raina went for the blankets. By the time she returned, he stood there quite naked, save for the soggy wad of cloth he held over his groin. At the sight of him, for all practical purposes as unclothed as that night at the hermitage on Bellator, Raina's heart did a little flip-flop.

She shoved one blanket toward him. "Here, put this on." As he dropped his breeches and took the blanket from her, she averted her gaze.

Wordlessly, Teague wrapped the covering around his waist, knotting the ends snugly. Raina handed him the other, which he slung about his shoulders. He subjected her to an amused scrutiny. "Am I decently attired now?"

Still mesmerized by the fleeting image of him, bare of chest and arms, the sculpted sides of his hips and iron-thewed thighs gleaming damply in the lamplight, Raina was slow to reply. "What?" she murmured distractedly.

"Am I decently attired?"

"Oh, yes," she muttered, not at all happy with her flustered response. Turning on her heel, Raina strode over to the rug where the brazier sat, smoking away. She pulled over an extra cushion and motioned to it. "Come. Sit. The meal is almost ready."

Teague took his place across from Raina, unsettled by her uncharacteristic behavior. She seemed rattled, off balance, and most definitely nervous.

A niggling worry insinuated itself into his mind. Perhaps Raina regretted her earlier insistence that he mate with her. She was, at the very least, fearful of the act. She couldn't help but be.

He silently accepted the cup of cerevisia she offered him. Lowering his gaze, he stared down at the rich, amber-colored liquid, preoccupied with his own tumult of thoughts. He was fearful himself of what the night would bring, but it was more a fear of hurting Raina, or failing adequately to pleasure her. What he turned his back on in breaking his vows he blocked firmly from his mind. The morrow was soon enough to pick up the pieces of what remained of his monastic life.

Fervently, desperately, Teague wished for a male friend whom he could talk with, from whom he might learn at least some of the rudiments of loving a woman. But there was no one—not before, in the days of his monastic life, and not now. He didn't trust Bahir, and he doubted Rand had had the opportunity for such an experience even when he had possessed a body.

It was too late now, at any rate. He must try the best he could and hope that sooner or later, those fabled primal instincts took over. In the meantime, he would try to alleviate as many of Raina's fears as he could, and hope his concentration on her would ease his fears as well.

Raina placed the plate of grains, fowl, and vegetables between them. Teague smiled. "It looks quite tasty."

She shot him a startled look. "Er, yes, I suppose it does." She gestured to the big platter. "Take some, please."

Teague did just that, scooping up a generous portion with his fingers and lifting it to his lips. Raina's gaze followed, coming to rest on his mouth. Suddenly, he was acutely conscious of what he did, of his own fingers upon his lips, of their fullness, softness. Soft, sensitive, aching for something far more delectable than food.

With an effort, Teague forced the crunchy grains and tender bit of fowl down a throat gone dry. He took a big swallow of his cerevisia to wash the food down, then instantly regretted it as the fiery liquor seared his throat. It made him cough, choke.

Raina leaned forward, immediately solicitous. "Are you all right? Is there anything—"

He silenced her with an upraised hand. "N-no. I'm f-fine," he sputtered. "J-just give me a m-minute."

She reared back and shot him an uncertain glance then to distract herself from her rising anxiety, dug into the plate of food. Gods, Raina thought, this was sure to go down as one of the most miserable, tension-fraught meals of her life.

Shoving a morsel of meat into her mouth, Raina forced herself to swallow it. The fowl tasted like a piece of dry clay. She drained her cup of cerevisia, then poured herself another and emptied it as well, thinking the potent spirits might relax her. The liquor did little more than upset her stomach.

There was nothing to be done, Raina decided falling back on her warrior's training, but face the inevitable with courage and get it over with. The mating shouldn't take but a few unpleasant minutes, if memory of the one and only other time served her correctly. She glanced expectantly at Teague, who was still gamely, but equally unenthusiastically, trying to eat more of the meal.

She scooted over to kneel beside him. He paused, a tidbit of grain and vegetables halfway to his mouth. Gently, smilingly, she took his hand and guided it to her, taking the food from him with her lips. Teague's eyes widened, then narrowed his pupils dilating until they took up the full span of his irises. He went very still.

"Why did you do that?" he asked warily, when she was done.

She met his gaze with a direct one of her own. "Because neither of us is all that hungry. Because we both wish for this to be over. And, I say, let us begin."

He considered her statement briefly. "Yes, I suppose that would be best." His glance skittered to the pallet, then back to her. "Would you like to lie on the pallet, or the rug, or what?"

Raina cocked her head a soft smile playing about her lips. "I think first, Teague Tremayne, I'd like you to kiss me."

Teague stared at her until Raina felt the first telltale warmth flood her face. Gods, had she offended him with her boldness? Had she been too forward for his masculine sensitivities? Frustration filled her. Must they play games, then? She, the shy maiden, and he, the aggressive hunter?

Then a lazy grin stole across Teague's face. "I think I'd like that, too. Very much so."

He shoved to his knees and turned grasping Raina by the shoulders. He leaned toward her until their mouths were but a hairsbreadth apart, lingering there for long, agonizing seconds. Raina thought her heart would burst from the pounding it took against her breast, thought she would scream aloud if he didn't close the space between them and kiss her. Yet still he hesitated.

"I ... I don't know how well I can do this," he finally spoke, his voice harsh with his own anxiety. "I think you should—"

Raina leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. Teague went rigid. His grip on her shoulders tightened, compressing the flesh and bone in a bruising clasp. Then, with an inarticulate sound, he encircled her in the clasp of his arms, pulled her to him, and opened his mouth hungrily over hers.

She gasped with startled pleasure. His tongue, in a wild frenzy of escalating greed and excitement, inadvertently plunged into her mouth. Both froze, neither quite certain of where this might lead, or if it was even acceptable. Tentatively, league probed the velvety warmth of her, rasping gently over her tongue, teasing and tantalizing her.

Sharp bursts of fire shot through Raina's veins. Her tongue arched forward to meet his, touching, teasing, twining. She shoved off the blanket covering his shoulders, running her hands over his upper arms and chest, reveling in his sleek, smooth skin and bulge of muscle. He trembled at her touch, groaned.

Fearful she'd harmed him in some way, Raina pulled back. There was no sign of pain in his eyes or contorting his features. Only a dark, heated, wanting look. She smiled. "Do you know you talk too much? You do much better when you just give things a try."

A puzzled expression flashed across his face. His finely chiseled, sensual mouth twitched. "Do I? Then I'll try to do just that." He hesitated a sudden look of doubt in his eyes. "How was the kiss?"

Her smile widened. "Wonderful for a first kiss, but I think a bit more practice is in order. Could we perhaps try it again?"

"Most certainly," Teague rasped. "This night is yours, sweet one, for whatever and however you want it." He grinned. "Of course, you'll have to tell me what and how you want it."

"As will you. This is our mating, not just mine."

Her statement gave him pause. She didn't understand. He'd give her what she wished to ease the eventual coupling, but the mating was for her, not him. Though his body would ultimately join with hers, he must and would withhold his heart.

He'd given his word made his vows. He might violate them in the flesh, but never, ever, in the spirit. He mated with Raina, Teague fiercely told himself, out of an act of charity, of kindness and compassion, to do penance for the man who'd sinned against her, a man who would never know or care about the harm he'd wrought. But never, ever, for himself. In this way, and only in this way, could he keep himself pure and maintain the spirit, if not the letter, of his vows.

Raina didn't need to know that, though. Perhaps if she imagined he did this for himself as much as for her, it might help ease her discomfort and add to her pleasure. And he'd do anything to make her happy.

The realization startled Teague. He truly cared to make her happy. Raina deserved it, after all she'd been through on this mission as well as in her life.