Heart of a Warrior

48

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IT NEVER SEEMED TO CHANGE, THE COMPLETE AND utter distraction of Dalden's kisses. From the moment his mouth claimed hers, everything else was forgotten. Where they were, what they'd been discussing, her annoyance-all gone with the touch of his lips.

That was quite a power he had over her. If she didn't trust him, it might worry her, that power.

He stripped her in his lap, a task made too easy by the chauri. He merely placed his hands by her neck, moved them over her shoulders and down her arms in a slow caress, and the chauri went with them, baring her to the waist. She barely noticed because he was still kissing her, a deep "you're mine" kind of kiss that instantly ignited her passions-which was a good thing. His hands might be slowly caressing her, but the rest of him was on a much faster time schedule. A slight change in her position and she was impaled and exploding with pleasure. All within a matter of minutes. And still sitting on his lap!

Dazed, breathless, still throbbing, she barely had a chance to notice his grin before he began anew. And thus it went for most of the night. She lost count of the many different pleasures she received. Her barbarian was inexhaustible. She wasn't, but sleep wasn't on the agenda. He had only to touch her again, to start the kissing again, and she was fully awake and in need.

Overdosed on pleasure. Absolutely amazing. This was his way, she knew, of making up for all the harsh "realities" of his world that she didn't like, by reminding her of the benefits-the benefits of being a woman. What he should have said was the benefits of being his woman.

She was hard pressed when she finally awoke the next day to get rid of the silly grin she was wearing. It was late. They'd slept the morning away, or at least she had. He was already awake and simply holding her next to him when her eyes opened. And he seemed no more inclined than she was to start up that depressing "this is how it is" conversation again.

He fed her leftovers from the night before. He wanted to know about fishing, which she'd mentioned more than once. They apparently had fish in their lakes and streams, but no one had ever bothered to think of adding them to their list for daily consumption. She didn't buy that, but had fun whittling a fishing pole with one of his daggers, borrowing some hataar tail hair to braid for a line, and showing him how to use the finished product in the stream nearby.

He was impressed, but he concluded there was no challenge in hunting fish, as he put it. He preferred larger game that would provide more than just one meal. She'd already figured out that he would be doing some of that kind of hunting on this trip, and he left around midafternoon to take care of finding their dinner.

She wasn't sure why she'd thought she'd be allowed to go with him. Actually, it was probably because when she'd hunted with her brothers, they'd all done it together. But women here weren't allowed to hunt whether they knew how to or not. Nor was it open to discussion. She was ordered to stay in the tent while he was gone, to not leave it under any circumstances, and that was that.

He did pause long enough to explain that the tent was her only protection while he wasn't with her. It would be considered her home, and as long as she was In It, any warriors who might come by wouldn't intrude without Permission. It was also built sturdily enough to keep out any animals, so she'd be safe as long as she stayed in it.

She'd had to agree to do that before he would leave. She felt he was making too much out of nothing. She'd been outside while he was there, down to the stream, around the edges of the clearing. It was a peaceful setting. She wasn't worried about being left alone there, was more annoyed at being restricted to the tent than anything else.

But he assured her he wouldn't be gone long, gave her a parting kiss to give her something else to think about, and rode off. She paced about the tent for a bit-prowled was more like it-until she finally shrugged off her annoyance and decided to grab a short nap to pass the time.

She'd no sooner laid down on the soft fur rug than she heard the hataar that had been grazing in the clearing run off. She didn't think much of it. If it was anything at all like a horse, even a bird flying past could spook it. The animal should have been staked. Dalden would just have to go chase it down when he got back. But then she heard other noises closer by, the sound of clicking, of something dragging on the grass, a couple of thumps.

She got slowly to her feet. She'd heard Dalden's hataar leave. She would have heard it return. It wasn't Dalden out there making noises around the tent edges. The sounds were too strange to be coming from a human anyway, so it was some animal investigating the tent. She still wasn't that alarmed. If it was a predator, it would have chased after the hataar-unless it counted the hataar as too big to handle.

She had no weapon other than her fishing pole, which wouldn't do her a bit of good against the two-legged kind of predator, but might scare off the four-legged kind. But she was more curious than anything else. This was an unplanned visit, so no illusions or costumes would be involved. She had a chance to see a perfectly normal-looking animal from her world, a deer maybe, or a bear, something to reinforce her version of where they were.

She just wanted a quick look. Dalden wasn't there to see her disobey his order, and she'd be back in the tent before he was. She unlatched the tent flap. The animal was on the left side of the tent. She stepped outside, moved slowly to that corner, and peeked around it-and stared wide-eyed at yet another oddity that defied belief

It was a long, spiked tail that had been dragging on the ground. Her gasp drew slanted yellow eyes to her. She ducked back and dove back into the tent, but it used powerful legs to leap over the corner to try to stop her. It was so swift it had turned and landed in time to see where she went, and pushed its way in behind her. She didn't know that until she turned to secure the flap and saw it squatting there just inside the tent, staring at her.

She had absolutely no idea what it was. The animals she'd seen so far, though weird, still bore some resemblance to animals she knew. Not this thing. It was big, about four and a half feet tall, and fat, at least on the bottom half of it. The top half tapered to thin shoulders and a round head with pointy ears, no visible nose, those slanted yellow eyes, and a jutting jaw with lots of teeth. Its arms were misshapen and seemed too short compared to the rest of it to do anything. It maneuvered and balanced itself with the long tail and powerful, squat legs, each with three clawed toes. It was gray and hairless, its skin wrinkly. If not for all those exposed teeth, it would simply look funny.

She was nervous, but she didn't think anything that looked that weird could be dangerous. It could have just followed her out of curiosity. A lot of animals were more afraid of humans than vice versa, and this one might just need reminding of that. With that in mind, she picked up the fishing pole at her feet and thrust it forward like a sword, at the same time screeching really loudly. Nothing. It just stared at her.

Annoyed now, she poked her whittled stick at it a few more times, growling, "Get the bell out of my house. Go on. Scot! Shoo!"

One thrust actually touched it. It didn't like that, started some growling of its own, and that clicking sound again. Its teeth? The claws on its stubby arms? She couldn't tell, but decided one of them had to leave. And if it wouldn't…

She moved slowly to the front of the tent, forcing it to turn to keep its eyes on her. She hit her stick on the floor a few times, trying to get the thing to move back away from the opening that it was blocking. It did, but its growling increased. It was getting angry. It lowered its head nearly to the ground, raised it again.

She was afraid it was getting ready to rush her. She would have liked to back it farther into the corner before she exited, her hope being that if she made enough noise on that side of the tent from the outside, it would turn in that direction rather than follow her, and trap itself in the tent long enough for her to get away.

She ducked outside, screamed Dalden's name, ran her stick along the side of the tent as she raced toward the back, then ran straight for the stream. Water. A scent masker. And she'd noticed a few pockets deep enough where she could submerge if necessary. She just had to reach it while that thing was still trying to find its way out of the tent.

It landed in front of her. It had leapt an incredible distance to land right in front of her! And there was no stopping, as fast as she'd been running. She collided with it, tumbled over it, and rolled down the rest of the bank, coming to rest half in, half out of the stream.

She was dazed, but too frightened now for that to stop her. She sat up. It was foremost in her mind that she had to get to the other side of the water. It might be afraid of the water, or at least wary enough not to cross it. That could be her only salvation.

It landed on top of her, breaking half of her rib cage, crushing one lung. There was no breath left for screaming, no breath at all. She fainted for a moment, and woke up to excruciating pain… wet, warm, bloody, She wasn't dead yet, but wished she was. Its hands really were useless. it was dragging her out of the water with its teeth, feeling like it was ripping off half her leg in the process.

Her last thought before the pain sent her back into blessed nothing was that Dalden had brought her across the universe to be eaten by a stupid beast. He wouldn't be pleased.