Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1) (23 page)

He blinked and lifted himself up on his forearms. “What day is it?” he asked.

Chapter 25

Anthony Tomaselli couldn’t keep the glint of victory from his eyes when Roark entered the cell. He was sure the papers the First Commander’s Prime Toady carried were for his release. With no survivors in his little band of miscreants, there’d be no one to contradict his story.

“It all checked out, didn’t it? Those boys were in it for themselves. Don’t feel too bad, though,” he said generously. “They had me fooled, too. Imagine them selling me stolen goods they said were scavenged.”

“Hmm, yes, imagine that,” Roark agreed. “There are a few more things I’d like to clarify before I have you escorted back to your place of business.” He motioned to his Prime and Harm passed him a sheaf of papers and a small box. “When you directed those Godan soldiers away from Mira’s children, why did you tell them to...” he referred to the papers, “Yes, here it is. You told them to watch their mouths.”

“I never said shit. All I did was point them in a false direction to save those kids. I didn’t even know they were Mira’s. I should have let them take the little bastards. Try to do something nice and it comes back to bite you in the ass. She hates me. I told you that. The little bit...” Having made the mistake before, he quickly changed his words. “She coached them, told them what to say.”

“I don’t think she would have told them to say f-bomb since I wouldn’t know what that was, and I know a Godan warrior wouldn’t say fuck to his buddies.”

Tomaselli gave Roark a look that said the First Commander was as stupid as he thought. “They’re soldiers, for Christ sake, not nuns. They...”

Roark spoke over his objection. “They would use the word bey or beyah, not fuck, but you know that, don’t you.” He opened the box and showed Tomaselli the translator and comlink unit inside. Your essence is all over them and, as Dr. Mason informs me, all human fingerprints are different, so we took those, too. Everything on them is being downloaded as we speak, but that might take days.” It was a lie. Both the translators and comlinks were simple devices that recorded nothing.

“You can save us time and tell us what you know about those missing children and still reap the reward I promised.” He handed the papers and box back to Harm and smiled at the prisoner. “Think about which side your bread is buttered on,” he said, using the idiom Mira had explained and then added a piece of his own, “Since I hold the knife.”

He touched the blade that hung at his side. Tomaselli’s face paled and then went blank for a moment while he calculated his odds.

“What day is it?” he asked.

~*~

The First Commander rolled up the paper map he’d used to outline his plan to the handful of newly arrived officers who had been invited to dine in his quarters. They each had a copy folded in their pockets. These were men he trusted with his life and the lives of his warriors. Each of them had come up through the ranks and had the blood markings to prove it.

“Remember, if the orders come through Harm or me, ignore them.” He pointed to Petrark, who’d not only found the traitors, but a way to use their own game against them. “If there are any changes, this is the face you’ll take your orders from. He’s one of us.”

“Can’t be one of us, First. He ain’t ugly enough.”

“Too smart is more like it,” Petrark finally defended himself. “As for my face, women adore it,” he grinned, “that, and the fact that I don’t grunt when I speak. I’ll be sure to send my leftovers to you lot.”

The table suddenly went quiet and Mira tensed as all eyes turned to Petrark whose pretty face had been the butt of their jokes since the dinner began. She didn’t let out her breath until, as one, they burst into laughter. Roark, she noted, was nodding in approval and laughing, too.

“He’s got a point.” He looked over to where she was curled in the corner of the sofa. “Anything left in the cabinet, Mirasha?”

This was her job for the evening; passing out plate after plate of food from the buffet spread along the kitchen counter and pouring glass after glass of beer and hard liquor. Wynne kept the children with her in her bedroom and they’d fallen asleep hours before. Mira was tempted to join them.

She would never understand these men. They ate and drank and hurled insults at each other, most of which she understood were vile only by the laughter that followed them. All this while Roark spoke of traitors and the Hahnshin massing at the southern border of Sector Three. It was like being in a room full of Mohawks, yet in between the food, drink, and laughter they asked serious and pertinent questions. Roark was right at home with them, his language just as colorful and his laughter just as coarse.

Petrark beamed like he’d won an award when his insult was accepted.

They were going to battle and they all seemed happy to hear it. How they were going to move all those men and their war machines into position in secret, she couldn’t fathom.

“Just like that time on Omaraka!” one bellowed and the war stories began.

Mira stopped by Roark’s chair when she’d finished pouring. “I’ve had enough blood and guts for one night, I’m going to bed. If they want more, you’ll have to pour.”

He pulled her head down and kissed her quick and hard. “Still like the big, ugly ones?” he asked.

It wasn’t that long before he was in bed, too, rousing her from her fitful dozing with roaming hands and the demand that she bow before her king.

She slapped at the hands and scowled at the king. “Your majesty’s drunk.”

“I am not drunk,” he declared, “Unless it be upon the sweet nectar of victory.”

“A poetic drunk at that,” she sighed and then closed her eyes and prayed, “Dear God, could you cut out the tongue altogether.”

“Without a tongue, I could not command, nor could I bring my woman pleasure.” He tickled her neck with the tip, then lifted his head and opened his mouth, offering his tongue. He snapped it shut and looked down at her. “See? Nothing. Your god agrees with me. He, too, will grant me victory.” He kissed the spot he’d tickled. “And you much pleasure.

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, your majesty?”

“How could I not be sure? The Goddess of War inspired us and your God confirmed. Weren’t you listening? Did you not hear the fine plan we devised?”

“It was in too many languages. I couldn’t follow.” Knowing she shouldn’t, Mira started to laugh. “I learned some new dirty words that you’ll have to help me with, though.”

“Then let me explain.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant the plans or the words until he rolled her to her back, lifted her teeshirt to her neck and started to draw his battle plan out on her body.

His finger circled her navel. “The battle begins here in daylight. Crows will swoop in from the north thinking the towers are down and there will be no early warning for the town, but they will be wrong,” he chuckled as he leaned down and ran the tip of his tongue around it. “I protect what’s mine and the crows will be blasted from the sky when my eagles fly in from the sun. They think to invade from the north, too, but we will be waiting for them.”

Petrark, along with some of Roark’s newly arrived security personnel, would use the traitor’s own methods to hide their intentions. If Mira understood correctly, they were recycling feeds and using bait and switch flights, similar to the heist movies she loved before the war.

It was hard to follow, not only because of the logistics involved but because she was becoming more and more aroused with each change in location and tactic. She was giggling too hard to listen as Roark’s finger bombs exploded against her ribs. Her breasts became the mountains to the west that Roark drew to sharp peaks with his lips, tongue and teeth.

The First Commander paused after amassing his troops in the valley between the mountains, but there was no rest for Mira. Roark looked at her with eyes that seemed to search the depths of her soul. Her heart was booming in her chest and her breath was coming hot and heavy when he began to speak.

“These priests you speak of, where can we find one? Will they perform the ritual that will make you mine? Is there a contract I must sign? I will pay whatever bride price your brother and sister ask including his freedom. I want you bound to me, to bear my mark, not the mark of my House, but mine alone. You are barren to my kind and Godan law prohibits our union, but I will pledge my life and my honor by the God you worship, that I will never replace you for the sake of an unborn son. You have touched my heart in a way no other could. I need you to remind me of my beginnings, to remind me that my heart still beats, that beauty and laughter still exist in my world. Even when you know me for what I am and grow to hate me, I will need you near. You are miku Mirasha and I cannot let you go.”

She’d stopped laughing when he looked into her eyes. At his first sentence, she’d caught her breath.

By his last, tears were leaking from her eyes. While his eyes searched the depths of hers, he’d exposed his soul as well. His words were a vow of love, but the torment behind them was unbearable.

Mira slid her fingers over his temples and along the close cropped hair at the sides of his head. Her thumbs followed the brows that arched or opened like the wings of the eagles that glinted in the starlight as they flew over the town at night. His nose was straight and maybe a little too large. The bones of his cheeks were sharply outlined against the flat planes of the face below them. He wasn’t soft and pretty like Petrark and she would bet he never had been.

It was his mouth that saved his face from cruelty. His lips were full and soft, and when he smiled, his face was transformed.

No, he never had the young Legion Officer’s beauty, but when Mira closed her eyes, she couldn’t picture Petrark handsomeness. Roark was always there. She could trace the ridges and arches and planes of his face with her fingers in the air. She could feel the soft and demanding pressure of his lips when he kissed her.

He was all the things she said he was; the warrior, the leader, the lover, and occasionally, the grumpy bastard. He was foolishly jealous and a master of the back-handed compliment, but he was also the man who made her heart beat faster at the sound of his voice. He was the myth, and the legend, and the fulfillment of a dream. He was her Viking and she loved him.

Leave him? She would have no life without him.

“You have touched my heart, First Commander Roark,” she whispered, “and you will continue to touch it all the days of my life. I could no more hate you than I could hate the air I breathe. I haven’t seen a priest since old Father Cavanaugh died in the first year of the war. His church is gone, too. It doesn’t matter. There is no ritual to bind me to you. The only thing that can do that is the love in my heart. I appreciate your offer, Roark, all of it, but your offer comes too late. My heart’s already bound to yours.”

She stretched her neck up just enough for her lips to meet his. Her kiss was light and quick. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow when you’re sober?”

He started to protest, but she stopped his words with two fingers to his lips. Her laugh was as quiet and soft as her kiss when his eyes flashed at her impudence.

“Yes, you’re drunk, Roarkiem mika. Whether it’s alcohol or the sweet nectar of victory doesn’t matter. You’re drunk, and this is not the time to have this conversation.” She kissed him again to show him her words weren’t a rejection.

Roark took her kiss and made it his. He deepened it, slanting his head while drawing her bottom lip between his teeth. He held her there, his hand fisted in the curls of her hair as he tasted and taunted. His tongue delved inside, not demanding in its invasion as it usually was, but softly searching out her tongue to tangle and dance.

His free hand sought her breast and his sigh mingled with hers when he ran the rough pad of his thumb over her nipple. It was already taut from the heat of his kiss and tightened further at this gentle touch. His hand cupped around her, kneading and molding her breast to his palm.

He lay on his side, his body half covering hers, one bent leg holding her thigh to the bed. The hand at her breast moved downward, thumb tracing the center line of her body, fingers splayed over her ribs. He traced the line of her hip, the concave of her belly and the rise of her mound. He was memorizing her body as she had his face.

When his search moved between her legs and he found her wet and wanting, he didn’t smile in his usual self-satisfied way. He shifted and positioned himself over her, but he made no move to enter. He raised himself above her, arms fully extended and looked down at her.

“Take me in your hand, miku Mirasha, take me in your hand and bring me home.”

He watched as she reached for him and wrapped her hand around his erection running her thumb through the moisture at the tip and then brought him to her body’s entrance. Her thighs spread further to accommodate his hips and her hips rose to welcome him. Calves wrapped around him, pressing him to her, Mira did as he asked and brought Roark home.

There was a beauty in this union that made her want to weep. Roark, as he always did, took over the rhythm of their joining. He didn’t take from her as he did in his post-nightmare need. That night he gave. With slow and steady movement, he found the angle that brought her the most pleasure and he enhanced it with kisses to her eyes and ears and throat. He brought her to the heights and only sought his own release when he felt her body soar beyond those heights into momentary ecstasy.