Gift of the Goddess (28 page)

The urge to impale her soft, swollen flesh on his rigid length was overpowering in its intensity, a relentless consuming fire. But it was no greater than the aching need to rock him in her arms, to ease his pain and confusion and keep him safe.

Anje risked a glance over her shoulder at the ClawCaptain. It lay back in the wallow, only its eyes exposed, the third eyelid drawn across. It could be watching or sleeping, who knew? Either way, it was clearly indifferent.

She turned back with a muttered prayer. Licking her lips, she nodded. “Finish him.”

Trey lifted one hand toward her. Guessing what he wanted, she bent and laved his index finger with her tongue. She was exceedingly thorough, her eyes locked on Brin’s as she did it.

The hectic flush receded from his cheekbones, leaving him near as pale as Trey. “
No
!” he snarled. The chains rattled as he writhed, muscles bunching under the bronzed skin. The link burned with lust and an aching sense of loss.

Trey blew lightly across Brin’s plum-colored cock head and the muscles in the shaman’s thighs corded. So slowly it was excruciating to watch, Trey lowered his mouth over the shaft and drew it into the warm, wet cavern of his mouth, eyes sliding shut with the luscious solidity of what he was doing.

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Anje watched his hand glide between the firm cheeks of Brin’s ass, his progress clear to read on the shaman’s face. As Trey’s finger probed and wriggled, Brin tried to control his breathing, hissing between his teeth, gasping bloodcurdling curses.

Unable to prevent herself, she stepped close and laid her fingers against Brin’s cheek. The flames of the goddess raged in his eyes when Trey hit the spot he was aiming for.

“
Lufra!
” Brin pressed his jaw hard into her hand as the groan was torn from him like heart’s blood. His beard prickled her palm.

Tears filled her eyes. She licked the corner of his gasping mouth. “We love you, Brin,” she whispered, knowing he would feel the truth of it in the link. “Give yourself to us. Everything you are.”

He shuddered violently, every nerve and muscle, but his eyes didn’t shift from hers.

She took the final risk, committed her heart. “
I
love you.”

His pupils dilated and Lufra’s fire blazed.

With a roar like a dragon in torment, he flung his head back, his hips bucked and the seed jetted from him in long, vicious spurts, hard into the greedy depths of Trey’s throat.

The release was so complete, so devastating, Anje’s knees went to water as the link surged. She staggered, supporting herself on Trey’s shoulder. He let go Brin’s cock with a last, gentle lick and pressed his forehead into the notch of the other man’s hip, his chest heaving.

But when he raised his head to look into the shaman’s eyes, Brin turned his face away.

Mother save her from men and their precious honor!

“Don’t move, either of you!” she snapped. “You look pretty.” Deliberately, she shifted her gaze to Trey’s left boot and arched a brow. He nodded infinitesimally and Anje raised her voice, walking toward the wallow. “ClawCaptain!”

The Hssrdan opened one eye. “Finisshed?”

“He’ll do.” Anje opened her belt pouch, extracted two gold marks and held them up. The ClawCaptain’s gaze followed the glitter of the yellow metal and Anje moved closer, praying that its peripheral vision wasn’t good.

“Sslave iss fifty markss.”

“Your gall is astonishing.”

“Sss?”

Anje sighed, shifting subtly to block the Hssrdan’s view of Brin and Trey. “That is too much for a slave in such a damaged condition. I will pay a deposit of two gold marks on a total price of twenty.”

“Fifty.”

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On the very threshold of her hearing, there was a tiny snick. Anje let out a huff of relief and hurried into speech. “Twenty-five marks then.”

She thought the Hssrdan’s eyes gleamed. It said flatly, “Forty.”

Anje risked a look over her shoulder. The two men were frozen as she had ordered, Trey’s arms wrapped around Brin’s hips, his face buried in the dragon on the shaman’s belly. The lock pick in his fingers was out of sight, behind the post.

She moved to the very edge of the wallow and raised her voice to cover any incidental noise. “You drive a hard bargain, ClawCaptain. Thirty.”

“Miness pay thirty. Do better.”

Anje glanced back. Trey sat on his heels at Brin’s feet, hands folded neatly in his lap. Her heart soared. “Very well. Thirty-five. And that’s my final offer.”

The Hssrdan considered her in silence, its stare fixed on her belt pouch. “Cassh?”

She tossed the gold coins into the air above the wallow. With astonishing speed for a creature so bulky, the Hssrdan snagged them, one after the other, in a taloned fist. Anje drew herself up and curled her lip. “You must think me a fool, ClawCaptain. I have guards waiting a hundred yards beyond your camp. They have my strong box.” She clicked her fingers and Trey came to kneel at her feet. “I will send the slave with a message.”

“Cassh disscount, yess? Thirty-five markss.”

Anje bared her teeth. Killing the ClawCaptain would be a pleasure. “You have two already. Thirty-three. Agreed?”

“Yess.” The Hssrdan’s teeth showed in what could have been a smile, but looked more like a hungry leer. “You wait here, flesshy one.”

Anje beckoned to Trey. “You know what to do.”

He pressed his forehead to her boot. “Yes, Mistress.” A last glance, flicking between herself and Brin, and he left the chamber at a trot.

Anje released the breath she’d been holding. Silence fell, as thick as the warm mud in the wallow. Slowly, she turned to face Brin. He’d lost weight in the pen. His face could have been carved from stone, it was so hard and gaunt. His cheekbones and the line of his jaw were starkly defined, his eyes dark pits where the goddess flame still smoldered.

The shaman was in a killing rage.

Anje sauntered back to his post and reached up to brush her knuckles across the hardness of his chest, just above the tight, brown nipples. The muscles bunched. Very slowly, she put out her tongue and licked a drop of sweat from his collarbone. Into his skin, she breathed, “Not long. Wait.”

“Run,” he whispered. “Now!”

“No.” She circled behind him, trailing her fingertips over hard biceps and around to his shoulder blade. Cupping the firm cheeks of his ass in both hands, she said loudly, “Very nice.”

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The loose chains at Brin’s wrists clattered as he shifted. He had them held fast in one fist.

As she knelt to nip at skin between buttock and thigh, where the dragon’s wing flew, she slipped her forearm knife into the fingers of his other hand. Immediately, they clenched over it so hard, his knuckles went white.

The ClawCaptain rose from the wallow, mud flowing thickly over its scales. The shaman tensed. A fierce warrior’s joy suffused the link, together with a surge of instinctive protectiveness. He wanted to shove her behind him and kill and kill and kill.

From beyond the chamber, there was a muffled thump, a long way away, followed by two more in quick succession. Anje exhaled with a whoosh of relief. Braithie and the miners’ blast powder had done its work. After a second of silence, a wave of noise rolled through the cave complex—the thud of running feet, the hissing of Hssrda, angry human voices shouting and swearing.

Trey erupted into the cave, the two SpurSoldiers on his heels. His eyes were wide with fear and excitement and his chest heaved. “Mistress! An attack!” He grabbed her arm and made as if to hustle her toward the passageway. “Come, come, quickly!”

148 Gift of the Goddess

Chapter Twenty-Two

Majesty,

You have charged me with the duty of selecting candidates for the post of Bodyguard to the Royal Person. I respectfully append a list of the winners at the Games of the Mother. In my opinion, their fighting abilities and aggression are equal to those of any man presently in your Guard. Diplomatic skills, however, are not so evident.

Memorandum to Emilena XIIth, Queen of Kingdom of the Leaves of the Sea, from HighColonel Kam Kahili, retired commander of the Honor Guard, 10235 ATF.

They’d never have a better chance.

“Now, Brin!
Now
!” Spinning around, Anje hurled her knife at the nearest SpurSoldier. She’d aimed for the throat, but the weapon struck its armored shoulder and clattered to the floor. As the Hssrdan turned, startled, a whirlwind of berserker fury roared past her.

Brin took the creature before it had time to raise its halberd. Grasping its snout in one huge hand, he slashed his knife across its throat with the other. Green blood sprayed over his broad chest and all hell broke loose.

The ClawCaptain opened its fanged jaws in a shattering bellow and surged out of the wallow, incredibly fast for such a hulking creature. Towering over Brin, it advanced shoulder-to-shoulder with the remaining SpurSoldier, two monsters from a nightmare. The shaman snarled, lips lifting over strong, white teeth. He dodged and spun, the blade flickering as he feinted and taunted, drawing the Hssrda away from Anje and Trey.

Time seemed to slow and stretch. He must be a fine dancer, she thought in a small, detached corner of her mind, as she pulled another blade from her corset and tossed her cane to Trey. He caught it neatly and wrenched it apart to reveal a short sword. With a vicious grin, he pulled a small dagger from his boot and advanced on the fray, a blade in each hand.

Impatiently, Anje ripped off her trailing scarf and tore her skirts away. Underneath she wore her trews. Reaching around to the laces in the small of her back, she tugged a throwing star free. For the moment, she was completely ignored, the men and the Hssrda intent on each other. So she took her time, flipping the evil, razor-sharp thing into the eye of the remaining SpurSoldier with chill precision.

It screamed with the pain, the sound carving though her brain like an ice spike. But it didn’t fall immediately, instead its tail whipped around with incredible force, smashing Trey’s knees out from under him. Brin darted forward, almost into the

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Hssrdan’s embrace. He flexed his knees and thrust, the long muscles of his thighs rippling with power. Skewered through the throat, the SpurSoldier toppled and fell, its bulk pinning Trey’s ankles.

As Trey thrashed and swore, Brin straddled his body, swaying back from a blow of the ClawCaptain’s fist that should have removed the head from his shoulders.

The noise of human shouts, reptilian hisses and the clashing of metal increased in volume. Anje cast a hopeful glance at the dark opening to the passageway. It sounded as if the male slaves were on the loose. Chaos and confusion. Exactly what they’d intended.

But only stupid Hssrda got eaten young. As Anje turned back, she saw the ClawCaptain wrap its huge paw around Trey’s jaw. It hauled his head back, exposing his throat, dug a single gleaming talon into his flesh and froze, its head angled up at Brin. The message was clear. Brin growled, but he lowered his blade. Keeping a wary eye on the shaman, the Hssrdan pushed the corpse of the SpurSoldier off Trey with its tail. It lifted him as if he were a child and began backing toward the passage.

For the merest second, it had its back to Anje, its attention fixed on Brin. He stood with his massive chest heaving, a green-stained blade naked in his hand and bloody murder in his eyes. Without hesitation, she took her chance. Sprinting hard, she launched herself at the creature’s back with a wordless scream.

The impact with its scaly body rattled her teeth. The Hssrdan roared and shook itself like a dog, but she clung, knowing it couldn’t dislodge her without losing its grip on Trey. Her fingers slipped. She dug in with her toes, thrust the point of her dagger into the notch between its neck and shoulder and shoved.

The blade bowed and bent in her hand, then fell with a clatter. Mother! The Hssrdan hissed with rage.

“
Jump!
” roared Brin.

As she leaped aside, he lunged forward with a SpurSoldier’s halberd. The serrated edge dug viciously into the soft skin of the ClawCaptain’s armpit and lodged there. The Hssrdan bellowed with pain, dropped Trey and wrapped both taloned fists around the shaft of the weapon.

The creature’s maddened gaze met that of the shaman as it clutched the halberd, holding off the killing blow. Green ichor dripped from the wound and coursed down the shaft. Brin bared his teeth, reduced to the elemental warrior, an awesome killing machine. The muscles in his chest and shoulders bunched, his massive biceps swelled. He took a step forward, grinding the metal point deeper.

The ClawCaptain hissed its agony.

Brin’s fists clenched on the slippery shaft. The muscles in his thighs corded. Another step.

In her ear, Trey’s voice whispered, “Come on!”

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Anje shook herself out her trance and grabbed the dagger he offered. At his nod, they leaped on the Hssrdan, one on each side, clambering up its huge body, stabbing and cutting, distracting it.