They’d been tracking the Noman for three days when RuArk was yanked out of his sleep. His hands silently gripped the hilt of a dagger as he squinted into the darkness. He held his head and body completely still while his eyes roamed left and right across the small clearing where they camped. He saw nothing but trees silhouetted against the night sky. Heard only the breathing of his men as they relaxed in sleep.
He feigned a snore and a grunt while the hackles on the back of his neck danced. Body poised for battle while pretending to quiet down in deep slumber, RuArk allowed his senses to reach out into the darkness. They told him what his eyes could not. Blood. Putrid, foul, old blood. On breath. On clothing.
Noman.
The air, mild and humid, held the stench like spoiled fruit on a rotten tree. He waited. The scent faded. No one and nothing appeared. But the danger was out there somewhere. He could feel it as keenly as he felt the misty dew floating across the grass against his skin.
Then the life bond flared within, pulled at his insides and lit up his consciousness like a blaring distress beacon.
Rhia.
The real threat centered on her and she called out to him urgently.
The thought of Rhia in danger pushed his temper up. On the brink of tossing away his legendary self-control, he forced himself to be still, reached for his Source, then called on his Gift of Vision. And unfortunately, the Gift did not disappoint him. Suddenly, everything was clear. They were being baited. Noman allowed them to get just close enough to follow their tracks before disappearing again. He shot out of his blankets and called to his men.
“Get up! We break camp and ride east in five minutes.”
“Wind Storm, what is the matter? What has happened?” asked a groggy Dalmore as he rolled from his blankets with a double-edged long knife at the ready.
Gaian were a dangerous lot, sleepy or not.
“Rhia is in danger. This entire hunt has been nothing but a distraction.” Five minutes were up. He vaulted into the saddle and headed to the road at breakneck speed, a pack of angry warriors at his back.
* * * * *
Rhia jerked out of a restless sleep when a body fell heavily across her hips. She lay completely still, stifling a yelp as the blood of an unfortunate person poured through a gaping wound in his chest. The sticky fluid oozed onto and through her clothes and ran freely down her side, forming a thick puddle under her back. The hot liquid cooled quickly in the early morning air and made her skin crawl.
She frantically reached for the bond as she had several times during the night. ‘RuArk!’ she called over and over. A familiar awareness brushed against her mind, and the next instant he was there, larger than life. And from her position on the ground, underneath a stiffening body, he seemed really large!
The corpse tossed aside, he cut the bonds from her wrists.
“RuArk!” she yelled. He moved slightly to the left as she rolled to the right, and a heavy curved ax hit the ground between them with a sick thud.
Without bothering to look back, RuArk brought his blade around in a sharp arc, catching the ax wielder in the midsection with one hand, while he had a long knife at the ready to deflect another blade aimed at his neck.
Rhia wasted no time. Relieving the corpse next to her of his weapon, she joined the battle. She turned to see Linc with his back to Marth, the two warriors fighting off three of the Draeman. The lush leaves and foliage hid another soldier sneaking along the wide limbs of a huge tree overhead. She ran as fast as she could, trying not to slip on the blood soaked leaves covering the ground. The sneaking soldier swung down by his knees intent on planting a long knife firmly in the skull of one of the O’dann brothers.
Snatching a bow from a fallen foe as she ran, she let fly. Her aim was true, thanks to all of Sharyn’s tutoring with the weapon. The O’dann’s were a bit startled when they’d dispatched what they thought was the last of their enemies just to watch another fall from a tree not three feet away from them with a lovely piece of jewelry firmly imbedded in his neck—Rhia’s arrow.
* * * * *
By the time the sun was fully up, the fighting was almost done. There was only one more piece of business to be handled.
Bryan and RuArk faced each other, blades drawn. Rhia knew it would be no contest. The look in Bryan’s eyes said that he knew it, too. But if he was going to die he would do so bravely. Or at least appear to be brave.
“Do your worst, you filthy barbaric Gaian!” he taunted.
RuArk gave him no response. Instead, he turned and took in the bruises and blood, her tattered clothing, and dirty boots. Rhia knew in that moment that he was remembering a similar time—her face, bloodied and bruised the night he’d thrown this same piece of trash out of her apartments in Draema Proper.
“Rhia, come to me.”
She made her way through the wall of warriors that had encircled RuArk and stepped to his side, relieved that none had fallen in the fighting. “Yes, RuArk?”
“I have the right to kill this man for laying hands on you. However, seeing how he has wronged you most gravely, I will give that right over to you, if you wish.”
Her eyes traveled up to RuArk’s unreadable face. She could tell, could feel there was something more to his question. Was he asking if she wanted to fight Bryan because he felt she should, or because he hoped she’d let him do the honors as her Protector? Or... Hell. she had no idea. And just how was she supposed to think at a time like this? Emotions soared as adrenaline and bloodlust pulsed through her body, making truly rational thought almost impossible.
RuArk repeated the question, his voice hard, cold as he looked Bryan up and down, “Rhia, do you wish to challenge him?”
Her amber cat eyes peered into Bryan’s cold gray ones. “He’s mine, RuArk.”
One of the warriors found and tossed her her blade. Snatching it deftly out of the air, shoulders squared, Rhia stepped into the circle and laid out the terms of the challenge.
“Bryan, I challenge you for kidnapping me and for your previous attempts to rape me.” Every Gaian warrior growled at those words. “For beating me, and basically for being an all-around bastard. The rules—no Draeman weapons, no laser cannons. Blades only.” He didn’t answer her right away, and looked almost puzzled.
“Are you trying to say I’ve done something wrong?” he asked. Sarcasm? Not a good thing right before you died. She knew the idiot was goading her and it took all her will power not to skewer him on the spot and be done with it.
She ignored him and said, “If I win, you will...” The words died in her throat as he engaged without warning.
A slender blade flashed out at her midsection. She recovered quickly and countered with a smooth strike of her own. Their blades met with a loud clang in the still morning air. He poured all of his strength into each thrust, each stroke. Rhia welcomed it, letting him dish out all he wished while she measured, observed, and calculated the moves that would take him out.
When she didn’t die immediately, he grew wild and reckless, yelling obscenities while she continued in her smooth, unhurried style. To this point, Rhia had only blocked Bryan’s blade, now she would give him something to block.
Moving forward to meet his thrusts as before, but this time she continued her advance with precision at twice the speed of her opponent. Bryan was quickly flustered and bleeding, able to block only one of every three strokes.
A loud yelp resounded through the trees when cold steel cut him across the chest. His heavy battle tunic now hung in two large pieces. He continued to curse her, but she heard nothing, felt nothing, except the need to finish this.
Her next stroke sent him reeling. Before he could regain his footing, Rhia’s fist shot out and punched him square in the eye.
“Now we’re even, you creep.” She spat on the ground at his feet as the pale flesh below his eye began to immediately redden and swell. “When they find your cold dead body, at least it will have a little color to it.”
He ran at her with a wild, blood curdling yell.
Spinning deftly to the side with her sword trailing behind her, she caught him across the back of his thighs as he went flying by. He turned back toward her screaming, his hand reaching for his hamstrings, where skin and muscle were sliced clean through.
She’d taunted him with death during their little fight, but she didn’t really want to be the one to take his life. With her blade pressed to his throat, she ground out, “Do you yield?” She hoped he wouldn’t push her into actually killing him.
“Never!” he screamed, as the blood flowed freely from his body. Hobbling pitifully, he yelled back, “Do you yield, you bitch!”
Sword lowered, she waited.
He raised his blade, but the stroke never completed. The next moment, Bryan Collaidh was face down in the dirt, his throat cleanly sliced through. Rhia wiped her blade on his ripped and torn clothing and walked away, leaving his body where it fell.
Seeking solitude, she found a quiet place away from everyone and sat down on the ground, her weapon at her feet and thoughts scattered to the four winds.
She looked up when RuArk squatted next to her just as Bryan’s stiff body was being dragged away. The man’s cocky swagger was now a thing of the past, and his pristine black-on-black clothing now covered with dust, grime and blood.
RuArk reached for her, enfolded her in his arms and whispered against her filthy hair. “You fought well, Rhia. I understand how you are feeling. In time it will pass.”
“God, RuArk, I don’t know what to feel. Why did he make me do it? Why did he make it necessary to kill him?”
“I am relieved he is being dragged away instead of you. That his family will receive news of his death rather than your father, and your friends, and...me.” She felt a slight shiver course through him as he held her.
“I feel so stupid. I actually fell for his ruse and walked into this nightmare. Oh, RuArk, I’m so sorry,” she wailed. “This is all my fault. I’ve been in too many fights to count, but never have I been the cause of one. I mean, all those Draeman soldiers that died today, it could have been the other way around, you know? Then what would I have done? It’s just... Hell, I don’t know.” She sighed against his chest and stifled a loud sob. She might refuse to allow a warrior to see her cry, but right now this was her husband, and she would allow him to see her truly, emotionally naked.
After a few minutes of blessed silence, her muffled words sounded against his chest. “Are you mad at me, RuArk?”
“Yes, I am very angry with you,” he replied softly.
“But RuArk...” she pleaded.
“It is a conversation for another time, Rhia.”
“I know I shouldn’t have left the security of the township by myself, but I thought that my father...”
“Rhia. Leave it.” He paused, hard gray eyes conveying he was much closer to losing it than she’d thought. “I have never seen you in a true fight before, other than the time you tried to kill me in your father’s training pavilion. Right now, let us thank the Ancestors that you are indeed as deft with a blade as you are with those feet of yours.”
Eye closed, she felt his jaw move and knew he was smiling.
So why didn’t she feel any better?