Lovers in the Woods (26 page)

Sajitar had trouble breathing. All Horlyn
nightmares together could not compete with the sight of the lady
getting closer with the ease of someone who owned the world.

The woman took off the sunglasses and
switched on a smile that was as false as a friendly Tusk-turner.
From the potential of aggression, Sajitar knew, she would bite that
beast’s head off, crunch it and comment how tasty it was.

“
How can that be?” He looked to his right.
Rayenne had dismounted, avoiding eye contact, head lowered in
defeat. “Ray, what’s happening here?”

One of the men pulled him out of the saddle
and twisted his right arm on his back. He grunted with pain.

“Let me go! Ray? Ray, damn it, what’s
happening here?”

He struggled in the man’s grip to no
avail. His lover did not turn and he watched in helpless
frustration as Rayenne shook hands with the small woman, as if
meeting an old girlfriend. His stomach turned to ice. He still
could not breathe and all of his hopes shattered in one
second.

“Ray, what are you doing?”

The small woman licked her lips, approaching
with small, well-measured steps. Ray was beside her, still looking
down, still doing nothing to help him. When Sananda glimpsed at
her, she took a deep breath and forced a smile on her face.

“As I promised. Here he is.”

“
You truly brought him
back to me,” said the woman and turned her sunglasses between her
fingers. She took a deep, satisfied breath. The word
petite
had been created for
her and she filled the letters with life. Her oblong face was
decorated by dark brown almond-shaped eyes with heavy lashes and a
small, slightly upturned nose. Her lips were full and red, made for
kissing. Wind touched her black hair and blew a long strand over
her shoulder. A touch of bronze created an exotic expression to her
complexion. She knew she looked great and played with men as she
pleased. Even her voice was all seduction. She outstretched her
polished hand to touch his chin. He shivered with the memory of
what her touch meant to him. “I missed him so much. You can’t
imagine how much, my dear Ray.”

“
Dear Ray? You know her?” Sajitar could not
grasp the consequences. Pressed between two of Wang’s men, he could
not evade Sananda’s touch. His arms were both locked behind his
back and when he struggled too much, one man kicked him in the back
of his knee to bring him down. “What have you done? Don’t you know
who she is?”

Ray’s eyes stayed wary, but she smiled at
him like a cat with cream. She even stroked his cheek, portraying
affection. Sajitar felt worse than if he’d been punched by the two
hoodlums holding him.

“Of course, I know who she is. I promised her
to bring you back and, well, I did.”

“This was all a scheme? Ray, no, don’t tell
me you made this all up!”

She hit him with the back of her hand.

“What was there to make up? I pulled your
sorry ass through the woods! Without me you’d have been dead the
first night with all the predators around! You should be a tad more
grateful!”

Sajitar flinched. The backhand
had not been as hard as expected, but the words with it cut
deep.
So it’s
just a game for her! Why have I never demanded any proof for her
occupation?
With the next breath he realized that killing Felberi must
have been in her plans from the beginning! She had had to get rid
of him before reaching Emerald Green. Sajitar felt sick, abandoned.
How could he have been so naïve and blind? He hung his
head.

“What did you find out about him?” Sananda
asked casually.

“He knows very much about the woods. And
somehow he knows more than others about the Horlyns.”

“Oh. Very nice. Very useful indeed.” She went
to caress the B-horse. Tessla stood at ease, tired after the long
ride. “You still have her. I feel honored.” She glanced at Sajitar
and back to Ray. “That day he wanted that B-horse so badly, he had
no mind for anything else. So I bought her.”

“You bought Tessla for him?”

“Yes, why not?”

“He told me he had won her.”

Sananda laughed and ran her fingers along
Sajitar’s cheek. He jerked his head away.

“Won it! That’s so typical for my Saji. He
never admitted that I gave him what he needed most.”

“All you gave me was pain!”

“
And everything else.” Her voice turned
cold. “Bind his hands and take him to the coach. Blindfold him. I
don’t want him to know where we are going. Not this time.” Sananda
pivoted like a model on a catwalk, nodded toward her men, then to
Rayenne, and strutted back to her coach.

Sajitar watched her leave while his hands
were cuffed and the blindfold put in place. He knew there would be
no one reporting this to the police. Irrationally, he was more
concerned about Tessla’s wellbeing than about his own.

He knew what he had to expect.

His clothes were gone and the
room’s furniture looked as if here, too, someone had taken
important things away. There was a table and a chair and a narrow
cot by the wall, covered with nothing but a straw mattress. The
wooden grates toward the corridor would also not have been his idea
of decorating a guest room. The barred window overlooked a large
yard and, earlier in the day, he had seen Tessla play with five
other B-horses. He could not tell if it was out of Sananda’s
strange idea of cruelty or compassion that he was allowed to watch
his mount. He had never been able to look behind the façade of that
woman’s beauty. Once he had thought he would make her
happy
—now, he
wished he’d never met her.

It was too late for everything.

Being caught by Sananda Wang would not
have been so painful if it had not been for Rayenne’s cruel
betrayal. All through the night he had wracked his brain why the
police officer had given him away and every thought returned to the
same result. She had played with him the whole time, had found out
what he knew about Emerald Green and that he had a connection with
the Horlyns. There was little doubt she would be greatly rewarded
by Sananda and earn many more credits than she could have while
working for the police her whole life.

Frustration and helplessness had
kept him awake. He was bereft of choices and his dream of being
free once the trial was over was gone. Being stupid once was
tolerable. Being stupid a second time showed he had learned
nothing. The punishment to come was self-inflicted. He should have
stayed away from women in general and not been lured by beauty and
a wonderful body. He had to admit that Rayenne had intrigued him
with her intelligence and the way she had defended him when he had
been in need.
Was all of this just a game for her?
Did she laugh about me when I
fell asleep beside her?

Sananda’s guards appeared and brought two
more men. They carried a bucket and two large paint brushes.

“What do you want?” He stepped backwards
until he touched the wall. The room was much too small to evade
anyone larger than a Dikis effectively. They entered and put the
bucket down, telling him without words they were here to do their
job, not discuss daily politics with him. “Tell me, what’s this
for?”

“Stand still and don’t fuss around.”

“I’d be much more patient if I knew what’s on
your mind.” Sajitar lifted his hands in defense, panting. “Come on,
Sananda does nothing just out of fun.”

“You’ll be clean afterwards, that’s all.” The
men took the brushes and used the clean liquid to cover Sajitar’s
body. He endured it, stiff as a puppet.

“It doesn’t smell like water.”

“
It’s scented, of
course
—she wants you to smell great.” The first man wiggled his
brows. “You want to look your best, don’t you, Saji? She’ll come
when you’re ready.”

“She’ll come to torment me, that’s all.”

“All men living here love her. Don’t forget
that.”

The conviction in his words made Sajitar
cringe. He remembered how he had once thought just like
them.

They finished washing him and left. The
guards checked whether the grate was closed and went down the
corridor. Sajitar shook out his hands. He shivered. There was no
towel to wipe him dry and the liquid not only smelled strange, but
also felt different. It left a shiny substance when dried. When the
itching started, Sajitar scratched and came off with patches of a
transparent film that had pulled the hair from his arms. He sighed.
He had forgotten that Sananda, being such a small and sensitive
woman, liked her men smooth to the touch. He remembered his first
shaving, how she had cooed and walked around him, flirting with her
eyes. And he had been happy to be at her service like many other
men. His body hair had been shaven, then his stubbly beard and at
last she had ordered a hair dresser to style him. Sajitar had felt
like the most important person in Sananda’s villa and right now, he
felt a twang of memory of how good it had been to be close to
her.

A part of him whispered that it was a good
sign to be shaven. She was truly out to meet him. She would come
and flirt with him once more and maybe he would recall the old
feelings she had evoked in him. Everything would be better than
fearing the next hour, the next day. He could only live in fright
for so long.

He looked up when the guards returned with
another man, who looked tight as a bow string as he approached the
guest room with short steps. He was dressed in the casual clothes
of an artist, fancy orange pants and slippers paired with a wide,
yellow shirt with puffy sleeves that left his thick arms bare. He
had his tool kit in both hands and looked nervously left and right.
His round face was covered with sweat and his artificial locks hung
down miserably like the thin moustache that tried to flee across
the double chin. His nose twitched like that of a rabbit. As he
approached Sajitar, his eyes widened.

“Don’t you agree that some clothes would be
more…civilized on him?” he accused the guards. “After all, you
expect me to do my best to make this man presentable again.”

The guard grunted a reply. The hair
dresser flinched in response to the rough tone and waited without
looking to Sajitar until the bars were opened and a second, large
chair was brought in.

“Sit.” The guard nodded toward the chair and
Sajitar followed the order. His hands were fastened on the armrests
while the second guard brought a blanket to cover him.

“
Thank you,” the hair dresser replied
politely and put down his tools on the table. His hands were
trembling and he waited to calm down.

The guards stepped back, giving him some
air to breathe. He sighed, but raised his brows when Sajitar
smiled.

“
Usually, I work under different
circumstances,” the hair dresser said indignantly. “This is the
first time that I’ve done such a house call.”

“
If you do it right, Mrs Wang will
certainly hire you again,” Sajitar replied, craning his neck to
watch the stout man arrange his tools. The hair dresser’s fuzziness
lifted his mood in an unexpected way. “But if you cut up my face…”
He wiggled his brows. Outside the guards chuckled.

The hair dresser let out an exasperated
sigh.

“By all means, being carried here blind
wasn’t to my liking. And then I have to see you and…”

“Don’t say I’m an insult to your eyes.”

“
Ah, no. You are a fine built gentleman, no
doubt. Still, I like for my customers to wear something, at least.”
He pulled the table close to the chair and arranged his tools
anew.

“I’m Sajitar. Do you have a name?”

“
Terendolo. I have a large
hair salon downtown.” He wiped his moustache with a practiced two
finger move. “You’ve probably heard of my shop before. Many
important customers. The executive chief of
2Harvest
, for example.” The comb in his hand danced until he
brought it to use on Sajitar’s wild mane. “And some of the
politicians, of course. Last week we had Alicant in town. He was…”
He made a gesture with the comb and his hand as if reaching out for
the right words. “Ah, he was a tad complicated. But I
managed.”

“
I’m impressed. With Mrs Wang, you have
gained a new height of importance.”

“Maybe, yes,” Terendolo replied quietly and
worked through Sajitar’s hair until his hands were calm again. “You
live here?”

Sajitar couldn’t help laughing and lifted his
bound hands.

“Is that your attempt at conversation? Do I
look like I wanted to be here?”

“Ah, no. But, anyway, so far I have seen some
men in this building who did not appear to be unhappy about
their…living circumstances.”

“Very fitting wording. Yes, there are some
who want to be treated like…” He let the sentence trail off,
feeling odd separating himself from the other male guests, who
loved to sit at Sananda’s feet and kiss her everywhere she allowed
it. He had not been any better during his first stay. It was wrong
to look down upon those who liked to spend their lives as servants
for a mighty woman. He cleared his throat. “I would like to have a
different abode, as you can imagine. But the time will come.”

“
I’m certain.” Terendolo took up the pair
of scissors. “She is a very influential woman, and a beauty, too.”
The scissors went to work. “I heard she makes millions every
standard year. Seems she’s a clever woman, too.”

“I don’t remember telling you how I want my
hair cut. Don’t you ask?”

Terendolo stiffened, a strand of hair between
two fingers.