Nearly four dozen men on horseback were lined up at the edge of the encampment. A large crowd stood close by, already cheering. The horses sensed the excitement, and were eager to run, Gabriel’s mount included. His stallion tugged at the reins, wanting to let loose the power of his legs. Familiar faces from the night before greeted Gabriel as he took his place between some riders. He called out his own greetings in painfully awkward Mongolian, but no one seemed to mind his butchering of the language. Everyone was too caught up in the thrill of the moment. Gabriel even felt himself smile. He loved action, loved doing, and after waiting and agonizing over the Heirs’ next move, finally taking charge of the situation was bloody marvelous.
Bloody marvelous didn’t come close to describing the night before. Thalia. Finally. After an eternity of days, a misery of wanting but not having. Good Christ, even waiting for the race to begin, when he should be thinking about how best to take the course, his body demanded more, his pulse sped with desire. He wanted nothing more than to gallop up to Thalia, throw her over the saddle, and ride away with her to some secluded spot where he could take her sweet body again and again, making her come relentlessly, until she was hoarse from screaming, until they were both tapped dry. Last night hadn’t even approached dulling his hunger for her.
When he’d cleaned himself later, he’d been surprised not to find any blood. But there had been no tearing, either. She had been a virgin. He knew that completely. But she was also a horsewoman and no English sidesaddle for Thalia, and he was grateful that had tempered her pain. He couldn’t stand causing her any pain.
Gabriel’s attention snapped back to the moment when Bold came forward. He addressed the riders, saying something in Mongolian that Gabriel could only assume meant, “Ride well, and watch your arse.”
He saw Thalia and Batu join the crowd, and his heart knocked into his ribs to see her and the encouraging smile she gave him, but he made himself focus on scanning the territory ahead, learning the landscape so he could be prepared. But nothing prepared him for what he saw next.
Muscling between two riders, mounted on his own wild-spirited horse, was Tsend, the Heirs’ henchman. Jesus, how close were the Heirs, to send their thug? They’d kept themselves hidden, somehow, and belated recognition of danger turned to fire up Gabriel’s back. So near. The Heirs had been so near, and Gabriel unknowing the whole time. Christ and devils.
The large Mongol mockingly saluted Gabriel with his riding crop, then flicked his greedy eyes to where Thalia stood. Gabriel followed his gaze, and saw that a surprised and angry Thalia recognized him, too. She took a step toward them, as if she could somehow fight the vicious Mongol herself. But Tsend just smiled coldly. Black rage poured through Gabriel. Not only was Tsend leering at Thalia, but the bastard was going to vie for the ruby. Probably easier than trying to steal it outright from several hundred tribesmen. He’d win the Source and give it to the Heirs.
“Like hell,” Gabriel muttered. He started to wheel his horse toward Tsend, maybe try to knock him down, but there was a shout from Bold, and suddenly the race had begun.
Every day in the army hadn’t been a battle. In fact, there could be months on end when almost nothing happened, and the soldiers had had to find a way to amuse themselves or else go barmy from boredom. Horse races had been just one of the entertainments they’d devised. Gabriel had competed in, and won, his fair share.
But none of those races had the urgency, the necessity, of this one. Only the first eight men to finish this race would advance to the next stage in the tournament, and Gabriel had to be one of them.
Sounds of hooves beating hard into the earth rumbled on every side as riders galloped hard across the fields. Gabriel bent low over his horse’s neck, while dust rose up in huge, choking clouds. The first part of the course was nearly flat, half a mile of steppe without interruption. Gabriel pressed his heels into the stallion’s sides, kept the quirt resting lightly on its flank as a reminder for speed. He didn’t want to tire his horse too soon, but had to establish an early enough lead to separate out from the throng of riders.
He chanced a quick glance around and saw that already half of the competitors had fallen behind. That still left nearly two dozen men, all of them whipping hard at their horses. Tsend was among them.
They forded a stream. For half a moment, Gabriel wondered if the Heirs might summon more water demons to sweep the riders from their saddles, but, in an instant, everyone had crossed the stream. Flat steppe swelled up to rolling hills dotted with birch trees. Gabriel wove his horse through the trees, nimbly dodging them. By the sounds of horses neighing and men shouting, followed by a few crashes, other riders hadn’t been so careful.
He ducked under a low-lying branch and felt a few twigs brush his hat, which almost came loose. From the corner of his eye, he saw a few other riders keeping pace deftly, including Tsend. Somehow, the Heirs’ Mongol had found a horse large enough to support his bulk. Folded awkwardly over his own knees, Gabriel wished he’d been able to do the same.
Abruptly, the hills and trees gave way to a steep and rocky slope. Some of the horses were unprepared, and they and their riders stumbled as rocks blocked their descent. One pair even toppled over completely, rider and horse somersaulting together. Gabriel almost swung his own mount around to help, but saw the fallen horse immediately get up and trot away while the dazed rider tottered to his feet.
Gabriel leaned back in the saddle as his horse careened down the hill. Without a firm hand on the reins, the horse would have galloped madly, directionless, heedless, but Gabriel held tight, guiding the beast around rocky outcroppings when possible, or urging it to leap over smaller obstacles in his path. The bright blue sky seemed to reach down to meet him as wind pushed against his body. A strange, wild joy thundered in his chest in those brief, airborne moments. His mind and body both pulsed with life. He laughed aloud.
He took that thrill and directed it toward staying on his horse and toward the head of the pack of riders. The stone-covered slope ended, stretching back into grassy steppe, which meant it was time to bring the horse about and complete the course. Quickly, Gabriel counted eleven other riders, with Tsend part of that number. At least three riders couldn’t cross the finish line ahead of Gabriel, or the battle would be lost. This wasn’t just for the ruby, not merely for the Blades of the Rose, but for Thalia. The thought spurred him on.
Like a booming flock of birds, the competitors wheeled around en masse. The rest of the course was flat steppe, so it was an all-out sprint to the clusters of gers off in the distance. Gabriel lifted up, crouching in the stirrups, and his horse caught his urgency. The sight of the other horses around it spurred it onward, ears folded back, neck stretched out, sandy hide flecked with foam. Tsend managed to pull up alongside Gabriel. The Mongol’s horse’s flanks were striped with red welts from his indiscriminate use of the whip.
Then Tsend moved closer, snarling. Gabriel anticipated the blow, and caught the strike of the whip on his forearm as he shielded his face. Tsend struck again and again, the force of the blows almost knocking Gabriel from the saddle. He grimaced in pain as the leather bit through the fabric of his jacket, catching flesh. He cursed, as the attacks were causing his horse to fall back, losing ground. More riders passed, either unable or unwilling to help, and Gabriel had to act.
The next time Tsend slashed with the whip, Gabriel managed to wrap his hand around it. A struggle ensued as the Mongol mercenary and British soldier fought for dominance, their bodies suspended over the racing grasses beneath them, each tugging furiously on the whip. Gabriel felt as though his arm, burning with exertion, was about to be torn off. With a growl, he pulled hard. Tsend shouted. The whip went flying, cutting the air, and was lost somewhere on the steppe behind them.
Gabriel spared neither the lost whip nor the swearing Mongol any further thought. He was a few hundred yards from the finish line, could already hear the crowds shouting encouragement, but there were ten riders ahead of him. The race could be lost or won in the next moments. He nudged his heels into his horse, and the animal, wanting to taste victory, hurtled forward.
Shapes of the other riders slid past Gabriel as he bridged the gap between himself and his competition. He didn’t look to his left or right, didn’t look behind. His sole focus was the blue silk banner that marked the finish. As he pushed onward, sweat formed and cooled on his back. Closer. Closer. He felt himself, his horse, begin to flag. Now he could give the horse’s flank a swat with the quirt, and did so. The animal broke out of its complacency, drawing upon reserves of energy Gabriel had carefully tended throughout the race. The crowd’s indistinct roaring became individual voices as he neared. And in the midst of that sound was Thalia, yelling in English, “That’s it, Gabriel!”
Her voice was all he needed. With a final push, he dug in. A flash of blue silk moved and was behind him. The crowd shouted. It was over. He’d crossed the finish line, but not knowing in what position he’d placed. Had other riders passed him at the last minute, edging him out?
Pulling up on the reins, Gabriel eased his horse into a canter, then a trot, and finally a walk. He brought the horse around, and in the haze of dust kicked up from so many other riders, it was impossible to know. He squinted through the swirling yellow dust.
Then, appearing like a summoned spirit, Thalia ran toward him. She dodged the horses milling in excited confusion, never breaking stride, until she was beside him, beaming up at him with a beauty and radiance that stung his eyes. He’d made her happy.
“You’ve done it,” she cried. “Tied for second. Wonderful, wonderful Gabriel.”
He bent down, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hauled her up so that her hip touched his. And then he kissed her. Hard.
She seemed startled at first, hands suspended in the air like birds, but then she gripped him, kissing him back with the same ferocity. The race had his heart already thundering in his chest like heavy artillery. And now, he was sure every cannon in the British army fired simultaneously underneath his ribs. The excitement of the race was nothing to holding Thalia, kissing her.
When her hands gripped his upper arms, pressing into the fresh cuts from Tsend’s riding crop, he couldn’t help the hiss of pain that escaped between his teeth. Hearing this sound, Thalia broke the kiss and leaned back. When she saw the injuries he’d sustained, she scowled and wriggled free until her feet touched the ground. He hated letting go of her, but she was determined, and he was more than a little sapped from the race and from defending himself against the Heirs’ Mongol. He swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted.
“I’ll rip his guts out, starting at his toes,” she growled, gently examining Gabriel’s wounds.
He couldn’t help but smile at the fierce panther that was Thalia. “Against the Blades’ rules, isn’t it?”
“Not if it’s justified.” She shook her head at his bleeding skin. “I can bind these, put some herbs on them to help the healing. Do you think you’ll be up for wrestling later?”
Gabriel decided he wouldn’t tell her about the time he’d almost had his arm shot off, though he had the scars on his shoulder to prove it. Bragging never did anybody any good, except make him or her look like a bleating fool. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Just then, Tsend rode slowly past them, chuckling. Gabriel started after the Mongol, but a restraining hand from Thalia stopped him. “He finished just after you. So save that fight for later. If he places in the top four of the archery competition, you’ll get your chance. Besides,” she added when Gabriel let out a stream of rather unpleasant oaths, “we don’t know what the Heirs are planning. If we simply take out their heavy muscle, they’ll surely have someone or something else ready. At least Tsend is a known commodity, and one that can be bested.”
It wasn’t as satisfying as beating the Mongol’s skeleton into a paste, but it would have to do for now. Other things also left Gabriel unsatisfied, such as the kiss he and Thalia had just shared, the kiss that flooded him with thick heat.
She seemed to recall it at the same moment he did, because her already pink cheeks turned nearly ruddy as she blushed. Kissing in public wasn’t something she was familiar with. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you bandaged. The archery is about to start, and I don’t want to be distracted by thinking about you.” Thalia turned and began to walk toward the chieftain’s ger.
After handing the reins of his horse to a waiting boy, Gabriel followed, watching the sway of Thalia’s hips. He knew it would take more than a few bandages to keep him from thinking about her.
Thalia rubbed her palms against her thighs, trying to dry them. She’d shot a bow many times in her life—it had been one of the first things Batu had taught her, soon after she’d arrived in Mongolia, and not long after that, she’d surpassed him in ability—so she didn’t doubt that she could shoot well. But Thalia had only hunted, as well as shot at targets for amusement. Now, if she failed in this task, she and Gabriel would be out of the running for the ruby. If they didn’t win the Source they might have to steal it, or make a stand out on the exposed steppes against the relentless Heirs; the mission might be a failure with all its attendant disaster, and her first opportunity to join the Blades would be her last.
To keep her mind from dragging her under, Thalia checked and rechecked her bow. It wasn’t the one she usually shot with, but it would suffice. She’d borrowed it from Bold’s youngest brother, who smiled at the thought of a woman competing against the area’s most skilled men. Thalia shook her head to clear more doubts. It was a typical Mongolian recurve bow, once the weapon of the unstoppable Mongol horde. She, like those warriors and any self-respecting herdsman, could shoot both on the ground and from horseback. But all she needed today was distance and accuracy on her own two feet.
After checking the fit of the leather bracer she wore on her right forearm and the ring of horn protecting her thumb, she glanced around the ger that had been set aside for the archers to prepare themselves. Every now and then, one of the competitors would look over at her and shake his head, yet, so far, no one had outright complained about or disparaged her presence in the tournament.
No, she’d been premature in that assessment. Tsend stalked into the ger, carrying a bow, and glared around the tent. Thalia wanted to run up and shove her elbow into his throat. The wounds that Gabriel had suffered at his hands hadn’t been severe, but any injury that Gabriel sustained was one too many, and to have the Heirs’ bully be the cause of those injuries was beyond endurable. She managed to restrain herself, though. Brawling wasn’t allowed in the nadaam. All her hate would have to be channeled into winning the archery competition.
When Tsend’s eyes fell on Thalia, he burst out into harsh laughter and pointed derisively. Most of the other competitors looked away in embarrassment.
“You?” he snorted. “Are Englishmen so feeble that they must have their women fight for them?”
“And you must doubt your own skill,” Thalia countered coolly, “to belittle someone so clearly beneath your attention.”
“I doubt nothing,” he snarled back. Clearly, he was a man unused to being called out.
“Today is a good day to start.”
The giant Mongol took a threatening step toward Thalia. He was easily a foot taller than she, with a sizable weight difference. She did not back away, but stared straight at him, looking just a little bored. When he saw that she wouldn’t be easily cowed, he turned away and muttered something under his breath, and made a big show of adjusting his bow.
Thalia slowly let her breath out and forcibly kept her hands from shaking. She would not let him rattle her.
A tribesman poked his head into the ger. “The competition begins now. Please come out to the field.”
She and the seven other archers filed out of the tent, each carrying his or her bow and a quiver of marked arrows. Thalia made sure to put several men between her and Tsend. She refused to let him bully her, but she also wasn’t stupid. The crowd erupted into cheers at the emergence of the archers. Immediately, Thalia sought out Gabriel in the multitude. He was difficult to miss. Tall, broad-shouldered, radiating a soldier’s focused energy, and looking directly at her with crystalline, alert eyes. An immediate hunger curled through her like incense, and her trepidation about the archery contest disappeared under the thick blanket of desire. Just after the horse race, that kiss…and the night before, the things they’d done…how he’d made her feel…
That way led to madness. If she misplaced her concentration before this, possibly the most important moment of her life, everything would be lost, including her own self. And then it wouldn’t matter if she could have Gabriel touch or kiss her like that again. Nothing would matter.
She spared him a slight nod, which he returned, but his was just as terse. Even from a distance, it was impossible to miss how tightly he held his jaw, the fists he clenched at his sides. Did he doubt her?
Thalia turned her gaze upward, and she watched the clouds as they slipped across the sky. To make sure she had the wind’s direction exactly right, she scooped up some dust and let it scatter in the breeze. Her mind went through its quick series of calculations. The wind wasn’t strong, but it was enough to make a difference, and she would need to make adjustments with her arrow.
Steeling her shoulders, she turned her attention to Bold, who addressed the competitors.
“Your targets are there,” he said, gesturing almost a hundred yards away. Thalia noted the small leather targets, placed at a greater distance than at most nadaam festivals. She’d never shot a target at that distance. “You may shoot three times. Only four of you will move on to the next stage of the tournament. Fire only on my signal, and may the gods guide your arrows.”
Thalia swallowed hard as she and the other archers took their positions. The sun was hot on her shoulders and back. She positioned her arrow, lifted her bow, and drew back the string with her thumb, but it was more difficult than usual. Her arm shook a little. It felt as though every member of the Blades of the Rose, plus the Heirs of Albion, as well as Gabriel and her mother were all holding tight to the string, weighting it with their own expectations and agendas. Worse still were her own hopes, now building to a pressure that was almost insupportable.
Two hundred people watched her. So did Gabriel. And, from hundreds of miles away, so did her father. Her breathing grew shallow. The point of the arrow dipped and danced as her grip faltered. Could she do this?
Thalia lowered her bow and again rubbed her hands on her del. She refused to look at Gabriel, but felt his eyes on her all the same.
“What’s the matter, girl?” sneered Tsend from the end of the line. “Something wrong with your equipment?” He grabbed his crotch and laughed. Thalia remembered his bearing down on her beside the river outside Urga, the menace in his eyes, his very real threat. She felt cold.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Batu restrain Gabriel. She struggled with the impulse to run to him, hide behind him. No. Thalia would do her own fighting. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds of the wind ruffling the grass. She imagined herself an eagle, wings open, riding the currents of heat and air, lifting up and high over the plains.
I am a Blade of the Rose, she thought. I help protect the world’s magic.
Opening her eyes, Thalia raised her bow high. She drew back the string as she aimed. It pulled easier now. The world was quiet, her mind was quiet. The target waited, silently calling to her.
“Now!” Bold shouted, and at almost the same time, the crowd yelled, “Hit the target!”
Thalia fired, as did the men standing on either side of her. Arrows whistled as they split the air, hurtling up in an arc before sweeping back down to earth. Then came the distant, meaty sound of the arrows hitting the targets. The crowd cheered. She wanted to look at Gabriel, but knew that the sight of his face would only distract her.
There was no time to know how she’d done. Bold signaled for the archers to raise their bows and aim. Thalia let herself think only of the target and her arrow, the movement of the wind, the feel of the bow in her hands, the strength of her arms as she drew back the string. And then Bold cried out to fire, the crowd yelled, and her arrow sang in its voyage across the field.
Two of the archers groaned as their arrows fell short. Unfortunately, Tsend was not one of them. Thalia could tell that she, Tsend, and the other four competitors had struck the targets, but only the judges would be able to tell who was the closest to the center. At this distance, she could not see. She’d hit the target, yes, but she could still be edged out. She grappled with an uprising of fear and doubt. What if she failed the Blades? Failed Gabriel? What if she failed herself?
She heard Gabriel shouting his support from behind her, yet, while his words warmed her, she didn’t take her encouragement from him. It had to come from within. If she relied on something, someone, outside of herself, then she would be no good to the Blades. She must be strong on her own.
The signal came to raise bows. Thalia did so, keeping her eyes trained solely on the target. She would be her arrow, and when she released the string, she would fly strong and true. The archers were commanded to shoot. The string leapt forward, propelling her arrow. How beautiful it sounded, whistling like a child.
Every arrow struck home, and the judges came hurrying out to examine the results. The judges consisted of Bold and several tribal elders. Four of the judges carried blue silk banners, which they would wave next to the winners’ targets. She and the other archers, with the exception of Tsend, exchanged concerned looks as the judges gestured and shook their heads. That could mean anything. Thalia risked a glance back at Gabriel, and the smile he offered her, small but proud, broke her heart a bit. No matter the result of the competition, he knew she’d done her best, and that was enough to satisfy him.
But she would not be satisfied if she cost them the ruby.
Thalia clutched at her bow as the first blue banner unfurled next to one archer’s target, a small sapphire flag waving across the grasses. The man grinned triumphantly as his family applauded. Then the next banner was waved beside another target, and the winner couldn’t stop himself from dancing in place with glee. As this was happening, Tsend muttered and swore under his breath. Only two more competitors could progress to the next round of the tournament. But when a judge ran next to Tsend’s target and waved the blue silk, he stopped muttering and laughed at Thalia with a vicious spite.
“Looks like your English fool should have left the shooting to the real Mongols,” he jeered.
A hard knot lodged in Thalia’s throat. She and four other archers remained, vying for a single slot. She wanted to close her eyes and pray to whatever deities listened, but she dared not look away from the judges. Bold, carrying a banner, walked slowly past her target, and she felt her eyes burn. She had failed.
Then Bold stopped, and turned back. As her breath abandoned her, Thalia watched as Bold ceremoniously unfurled his silk banner next to her target. He grinned, enjoying his theatrics.
The cheer that rose from the crowd was louder than any that had come before. Turning, Thalia saw that all the women watching the nadaam were yelling with an almost manic delight, while the men appeared more than a little puzzled. All except Gabriel, who was making so much euphoric noise—clapping, whistling, and even, good Lord, cussing—that she felt her face heat with happy embarrassment. Joy careened inside of her. She’d done it. Really done it. They were another step closer to the ruby.
Thalia turned to Tsend, who looked ready to commit murder then and there, if not for the presence of the tribesmen. She gestured to her del. “This is not a costume,” she said to him. “I am a real Mongol. More than you, traitor.”
With a foul oath, Tsend stormed off, shoving people out of his way.
Thalia barely noticed, because Gabriel was suddenly beside her, wrapping her in an embrace so tight, she saw stars. She tried to think of a time when she’d been happier, but couldn’t.
Thalia was already exhausted, wrung dry from the horse race and archery, but there was still one more competition to go before the ruby’s guardian could be determined. Even the short pause while everyone had some food and drink wasn’t enough to revive her. But her hardest work was over. The final challenge belonged to Gabriel alone.
“Does your Englishman know how to wrestle the Mongol way?” Oyuun asked Thalia. The chieftain’s wife and she waited with the rest of the crowd for the competitors to change their clothing and emerge once more.
“Batu and I explained the rules to him,” she answered.
“Explaining and doing are quite different things,” Oyuun pointed out. Thalia shot her a warning look, already close to her breaking point. She didn’t need anyone adding to her anxiety.
“He was a soldier for most of his life.” It still felt odd to speak of Gabriel’s military service in the past tense. In her mind, in her heart, he was a warrior, and always would be. “He knows how to fight.” She hoped his skills, and determination, would be enough.
The spectators cheered as the wrestlers began to come out of their private ger. When Tsend emerged, as massive and terrifying as fear itself, Thalia gulped. In the skimpy traditional wrestling costume, he appeared a barely civilized brute who used higher reasoning only when all other options had failed, and even then with resentment.
“I do not know who this Mongol is,” Oyuun whispered, “but his eyes are terrible and dead.”
For a moment, Thalia almost confessed that she, Gabriel, and Batu knew Tsend all too well, but then Gabriel came out from the ger, also wearing the prescribed wrestling costume. Her own ability to use higher reasoning disappeared instantly.
“Ah,” Oyuun said on a breath, “that man is not dead. And neither am I.”
Having been to numerous nadaam festivals, Thalia was well-used to the clothing that the wrestlers wore, even if other Europeans found the outfit somewhat shocking. Classical Greek and Roman statues were only slightly more bare. Mongol wrestlers were shirtless, except for a very short jacket that was completely open in the front, and instead of trousers or even breeches, the wrestlers wore trunks much smaller than even the scantiest pair of men’s underdrawers. Typical boots and the pointed hat completed the rest of the costume, such as it was.
When she’d started to come of age, Thalia had been intrigued by male bodies, so unlike her own. There was a degree of openness and frankness with the Mongol people that allowed Thalia to see and learn as much as she wanted—within reason. She did have a father, after all. Then she and her father had traveled to Britain. What English girls knew, or rather, how much they didn’t know, about men and sex had shocked her, and she had happily returned to Mongolia. Certain gaps in her education had been mostly filled in, not literally, of course, by Sergei. They had never seen each other naked, but through their heated pettings and pawings, Thalia came to know the feel, shape, and size of a man. All of him.
And then there was Gabriel. She’d seen him partly covered the night they had taken shelter in the cave. The night before, he’d been almost completely clothed, but she’d felt him, their bodies pressed as close as possible, and him, inside of her. Thalia had a fairly good idea what he looked like undressed. It was a very pleasant idea, and one she couldn’t stop herself from returning to again and again in quieter moments.
Sometimes imagination did not do justice to reality. Gabriel in the extremely revealing wrestling costume was one of those times.
He was the mythic Warrior, the protector of magic, defender of causes, even those not his own. His body was a weapon, and a beautiful one.
Every year he had spent as a soldier showed. Each of his muscles were developed to their apotheosis, the ideal of form and use—the defined shape of his chest, made even more seductive by the light dusting of golden hair, the ridges of his stomach, undimmed by extraneous fat or flesh, some delicious muscles that curved from his hips under the waist of the trunks. Thalia had touched them through fabric, and they had felt marvelous, but she hadn’t known that they could rob her of the ability to remember her own name.
And what the wrestling trunks covered…Heaven and Earth…the man wasn’t even aroused, and Thalia couldn’t keep herself from staring. She’d touched him, he’d filled her, but she hadn’t seen, and was almost glad she hadn’t. She would have been terrified. At least she had the comfort of knowing she could accommodate him. Dimly acknowledging that she shouldn’t leer at Gabriel’s crotch, she forced her eyes lower, taking in his legs, tight and powerful. No wonder he rode horses so well, with thighs like those. They had been beneath her, between her legs. She had been the one riding him last night. A hot shudder of blazing desire coursed through her.
“You say he was a soldier?” Oyuun asked beside her. Thalia managed to pry her gaze away to look at the chieftain’s wife and nod. “I can see that now. He carries stories on his body.”
Thalia turned her attention back to Gabriel and saw, in the golden light of afternoon, that scars marred the perfection of his form. There, on his left shoulder, a round, puckered mark showed he’d been shot. And stretching from just under his ribs, on the right, a long, raised ridge made by—a jagged knife? The flesh there had closed without finesse, and Thalia winced to think of the lengthy, unpleasant recovery from such a wound. But these were only the two most obvious. There were more scars, more tales of battles and meetings with death, on his legs, his back. Horrible. Her fingernails bit into her palms as she realized, at last, what Gabriel had been doing every day for the past fifteen years. It was miraculous that he was alive.
Not miraculous, but a testament to his capability, his will to survive.
Gabriel caught Thalia staring at him. Her face turned completely and obviously red, but she did not look away. For the barest moment, he seemed a little discomfited, despite their intimacy of last night. He would probably never consider wearing such an outfit in front of a European woman. But that awkwardness lasted less than a blink, and he slowly smiled at her. A carnal, deliberate smile. He knew she liked what she saw, and seemed more than ready to let her look her fill. And later, more than look.
He started walking toward her. In motion, barely clad, he would make any woman renounce all vows. Thalia couldn’t suppress a measure of pride as women, from the blushing maiden to the wizened grandmother, watched him pass, but he saw no one but her.
“Perhaps there is a camel that needs milking.” Oyuun laughed, and mercifully slipped away.
“You think the British army might take this up as their new uniform?” Gabriel asked, coming to stand in front of her.
“Only if they want to inspire lust in their enemies,” she answered.
He grinned. “Is that what I do?”
“I won’t answer that. I don’t want you to get a swollen head.”
“Keep looking at me that way, and my head won’t be the only thing swollen.”
Thalia laughed, and said, lowly, “Hang on to that costume. It might be useful later.” Her smile, she knew, was pure feminine provocation.
Something like a growl rolled from the back of his throat as he stepped nearer.
“Huntley guai,” Batu said, jogging up. “I am to serve as your zasuul, your second. You will face that man”—he gestured toward a competitor—“and if you win, you will wrestle whomever wins that match.” He pointed toward where Tsend glowered at a rather intimidated-looking wrestler. “Let us hope that the Mongol defeats the Heirs’ ruffian.”
Gabriel looked toward Tsend. “I’ve got something that he doesn’t.” He turned back to Thalia, his eyes golden vows. “Someone to fight for.”