Pathfinder's Way (50 page)

It was also the reason she could never take
Fallon and his men across the mist. Her people were just
disorganized enough that he would have a real chance at conquering
the Highlands, that and the weapons left over from the ancients
made her cooperation with him impossible. Although it would make
sense to unite the lands under one ruler, Shea could not see her
people ever submitting to being the servants of another. It would
never work. They would fight to the last man, and she could not
subject them to that.

“You know I will never take you past the
mists,” she told Fallon. The steel resolve in her voice filtered
through. Something about the wilder berry clarified things for her,
if there had been any doubt about this fact in her before, it was
gone now.

She needed to get this over with. She needed
him to understand that no matter what he did, show her the world or
torture her, she was never going to help him.

Her loyalties weren’t divided anymore. She
felt no regret for helping them in the Lowlands but she would never
take them to the Highlands.

“I would rather die.”

She tightened her grip on her knees and
waited.

A light touch ran up and down her back, and a
pair of lips pressed against her head.

“I know that you believe that,” he told her
softly. A finger turned her head towards him. “You’re Trateri now.
The wilder root assured that. It would be best to forget past
loyalties. It’ll only make things more difficult on you the harder
you hang onto your previous life.”

She’d never been accused of taking the easy
way.

After a moment of silence between them, he
said, “Come. Rest by the fire. Tomorrow is early enough to start
fighting.”

She smiled softly and let him pull her up. In
this, he was right. The battle could begin again tomorrow.

Fallon placed her close to the fire and then
sat behind her, pulling her back into his arms. They were alone.
Sometime in their conversation Caden and Meynard had drifted out of
sight.

Fallon stroked the skin of her arms gently
and pressed a soft kiss against her neck, nearly searing a brand
into her flesh for all the heat the soft touch generated. The feel
of his lips lingered long after they left her neck. He rested his
chin on top of her head. His arms tightened around her slightly,
tucking her more firmly against him. The evidence of his arousal
was firm against her hip.

Shea’s breath shuttered in her lungs as her
eyes drifted shut. She wanted this man. Even given the very real
possibility that he’d kill her when he realized she wouldn’t give
him what he wanted, she craved him. The wilder root had helped
clear the veil from her eyes on this subject too. She’d wanted him
for a long time. Before the glimpse of his naked body at the pool
by the water fall. Perhaps since the first moment she’d caught his
eyes in Edgecomb.

What she did with that knowledge was entirely
up to her.

He was still behind her as he waited for her
choice. She smiled slightly. Who would have thought the conqueror
would be so considerate. Or patient.

She was tired of denying herself what she
wanted.

She turned in his arms and pressed her lips
against his. Like that, whatever had been holding the warlord in
check went up in flames. With a growl, he attacked, conquering her
lips with his in a feverish rush as his tongue sought entrance. She
quickly opened her mouth under his, and he surged inside.

His hands roamed over her body, sending
flames racing down her nerve endings. He maneuvered her to her back
as one hand slid over her breast band, caressing her through the
cloth. It wasn’t enough. Not near enough.

It had been so long since she’d been with a
man. Years. Her one glimpse of him months ago had inspired several
vivid, sweaty dreams. Now, it was all she could do to keep from
tearing his clothes off.

He agreed and ripped the constricting fabric
of her breast band away, revealing what lay underneath. She groaned
as warm lips closed over one nipple. She keened and arched her back
as he rolled it against the roof of his mouth. A sharp nip brought
a cry to her throat and sent a rush of sensation down to her core
before he soothed the injured area with gentle kisses.

Her nails dug into his back as he palmed her
through the loin cloth. She tilted her hips to give him better
access and felt her sex pulse as he cupped her firmly while his
other hand rose to tweak the other nipple.

“I have wanted to do this since I spotted you
in Edgecomb,” he rasped against her skin.

His hands moved between them as he dragged
the scrap cloth down her legs. Her hands busied themselves undoing
the laces of his pants.

In very little time, they were both
naked.

The fire was just enough to see shapes. Shea
panted as she stared up at him, his cock jutting proudly as he
knelt over her. He leaned down and claimed her lips, his passion
consuming her. She whimpered as his hands skated down her body.

His fingers parted the lips of her sex and
rubbed firmly against the sensitive bundle of nerves there. As if
it had a mind of their own, her pelvis rolled against his fingers.
A long, thick digit penetrated, before moving in and out. The pace
quickened as her breath became heavier.

Her breasts swelled, her skin heated from the
inside out. If the night was chilly, she couldn’t feel it.

“Please. Hurry.” Her hands wandered over his
skin caressing and clutching as her need built.

She tried to pull him down on top of her. He
resisted with a chuckle.

“So pretty. Come for me, pretty girl.”

With a loud keen, she did exactly as he
asked. He kept working her as she came down from her orgasm,
wringing every drop of pleasure from her.

Finally her breath evened out. She blinked up
at him as he moved between her legs, feeling her heart start to
race again.

“My turn.”

He began to push inside. She couldn’t help
wriggling a little at the discomfort. It had been a long time since
she’d last shared her bed. But finally, he was fully inside her. He
reached and drew her legs up to either side of him and slowly, oh
so slowly, began to withdraw until just the tip of him rested in
her. With a powerful thrust, he sank his shaft deep, only to
withdraw slowly.

She moaned as he set the pace, alternating
slow strokes with fast ones, and driving her mad with desire.
Unbelievably her pleasure began to climb again, until she was
meeting his thrusts with ones of her own.

“Faster.” She clutched at his back to her
urge him on and tilted her hips towards him.

“I set the pace, little one.”

“You’re killing me.”

A rough chuckle was her only response.

How did he have so much stamina?

Planting one foot, she pushed up with her
hips and then heaved, rolling him onto his back. She ended up on
top with him fully inside her. She closed her eyes at the delicious
feeling.

With a wicked smile she lifted herself before
grinding down. That felt good.

She did it again and again, adding a slight
twist to her hips. That felt really good.

He let her set the pace for a moment before
rolling her onto her back and pinning her hands beside her
head.

“I decide when to finish this,” he
growled.

She didn’t think she could take much more and
whimpered.

His hips thrust came faster and faster. She
was almost there. Almost.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

Her eyes opened to stare into his fierce
ones. The moment became all the more intimate. She felt as if he
could see into her soul. She wanted to hide but couldn’t. His gaze
held her spell bound.

He reached between them and rubbed her
clitoris. Every nerve in her body drew tight and then exploded as
her vagina gripped his cock with rhythmic pulses. He thrust harder
and faster as she reached her finish, his own building.

She wrapped her arms around his back and held
on as he found his own release. His eyes drilled into hers as he
thrust once and then twice more, spending himself.

“You are mine.”

Shea started to turn, breaking the gaze. He
caught her chin forcing her eyes back to his. Whatever he saw there
must have pleased him. He dropped a kiss on her mouth and pulled
out, then rolled over. She could hear him rummaging through
bags.

He lay back down and settled her head on his
chest before spreading a blanket over the both of them. His arms
were warm around him and, as she drifted off to sleep, his words
kept repeating in her head. ‘You are mine’.

She very much feared he was right.

The pillow under her cheek was firm and
lumpy. Shea rubbed her cheek against it and opened her eyes to see
a smooth chest. Shea went very still for a long moment. When
Fallon’s arms did nothing but tighten slightly before relaxing
again, she lifted her head to look at his sleeping face.

It was relaxed with a softness she’d never
seen on him before. When he was awake, the force of his personality
animated every feature. This wasn’t the warlord but simply a
man.

When he woke, he’d go back to being a leader,
and Shea’s enemy.

She dropped a light kiss on his chest before
gently extricating herself from his arms, making sure to cover him
again with the blanket.

She shivered in the predawn air as she
quietly pulled her clothes on. The moon had set but the sun hadn’t
quite risen high enough to relieve the black.

Finished tying her shoes, she stood and, for
a long moment, looked down at Fallon. A big part of her wanted to
crawl back into his arms and wait for him to wake her once the sun
had risen.

But that wasn’t who she was. It was best to
hurry back to camp and pretend this never happened. It’d be
difficult. Fallon didn’t seem like the kind of man who took
rejection well.

She pondered that thought as she headed back
to the camp. Managing others wasn’t exactly her strong suit.

Caden watched the woman disappear into the
darkness from his seat next to the cold campfire.

“She’s more stubborn than I thought,” he told
the still figure on the ground. “Not too bright, if she thinks this
will be the end of it though.”

Fallon sat up, the blanket sliding to his
lap, and stared in the direction Shea had disappeared.

He’d woken as soon as she started moving but
feigned sleep to see what she would do. As usual, she had surprised
him.

He’d won the battle, not the war. A slight
smile stole across his lips. He so enjoyed a challenge.

“Continue with the previous plan,” Fallon
ordered. “If she wants to be a guard, treat her like a guard.”

“Your duties from now on are to attend to the
warlord’s needs. You’re to be by his side whenever he needs you.
You’ll sleep in his tent on a pallet in case he has a task for you
in the middle of the night. The only times you’re to be away from
him is for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening when
you’ll attend a special course of training or if he sends you on an
errand.” Trenton shoved a pile of clothes into Shea’s arms. “These
are your uniforms. It is your responsibility to keep them clean and
orderly. Ask one of the guards if you have any questions.”

Basically, Shea was to be at Fallon’s beck
and call. She was so good at taking orders, too. She’d be dead in a
week. If Fallon didn’t kill her, the other guards just might.

Maybe she was being too pessimistic. She
thought she’d been making progress in her people skills with Eamon.
If she kept those in mind, she might survive. Maybe. She just
needed to keep her mouth closed and not insult anyone.

She was already wearing the same uniform
she’d seen the other guard’s wear. By the feel of the clothes in
her arms, she figured she’d been given three spares. That was
better than what she’d had as a scout.

She hoped whatever had possessed her last
night was well and truly gone because from now on she was treating
Fallon as an enemy captor. Someone she had to show respect if she
wanted to live, but not someone you shared your body with.

“You’d better get to work now,” Trenton said.
“He’ll be expecting breakfast shortly.”

“Uh, right.”

She stored her gear and grabbed a warm
biscuit from one of the cooks. Shea tugged at her uniform one last
time as she stared at the entrance to Fallon’s quarters. She
ignored the examining look the guard was giving her.

She could do this. She could. She’d just go
in there, figure out what Fallon wanted to eat and get it for him.
This was nothing. It would be like every other morning for the past
few weeks.

“Food won’t serve itself.”

Shea looked sharply at the guard. He stared
back in challenge.

“A word of friendly advice, the warlord
doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He scoffed. “Don’t just keep it in mind. When
he’s in a mood, everybody suffers. We don’t need to suffer because
you can’t do your job.”

His tone wasn’t hostile. At least not
totally. It was more that he was giving it to her straight, with no
regard to feelings or dancing around the issue.

It had the welcome effect of quelling some of
Shea’s nerves. His way of talking was something Shea was familiar
with.

“I understand.”

“If you understood, you’d quit flapping your
gums and get your ass inside to attend to your warlord.”

Shea sighed inwardly. Yup. This was
familiar.

She kept what she might’ve said to herself
and walked into the tent.

It appeared empty at first glance. The table
had an assortment of food, enough to feed Shea’s entire squad for
days. Warm biscuits, sweet pastries, wild berries, thinly cut ham
and several types of cheeses gave off a tantalizing aroma that set
Shea’s mouth to watering. That biscuit she had gobbled down was a
faint memory in the face of this feast.