Fire Hawk (7 page)

His own remembered thoughts put the seal to it. Although she was clearly, as she had said, a woman grown—most delectably grown—she was an innocent. And she was proud. Rightfully so, he would grant her; he’d already admitted it would take an amazing woman to make the journey she’d made.

And there was one sure way he could send a proud innocent running.

He looked at her, his eyes narrowing intently. He let his gaze move slowly over her, from tiny bare feet upward to the glorious waves of red gold hair. The tunic she wore over slim, travel-worn leggings was loose, shapeless, but his mind too well remembered the shape of the body beneath; that image of her as he’d stripped her naked, before he’d covered the tempting vision with his own shirt, had never left him. ’Twould not be hard to feign the mood he needed to take on now.

’Twould be harder to convince himself he was only feigning.

“Such lessons do not come cheaply,” he said, beginning slowly.

“I did not expect them to. We had intended to pay you for your help. Not in money, we need and have little, but in the riches of the forest.”

“I have the same here.”

“Then whatever we have that you wish is yours.”

“You cannot afford my lessons, Jenna,” he warned.

“You are our last hope. I will pay what I must.” She took a deep breath. “Even the greatest of prices.”

Kane drew back, surprised she had brought it up before he had. Had he betrayed something in those moments just now when he had looked over her body? Or had he somehow betrayed himself when those memories of her naked body had intruded upon him? Was his plan about to miscarry?

“Even that?” he asked softly.

She shivered slightly, grimaced in apparent self-disgust, then lifted her chin as if in denial of her own weakness. He understood her repulsion—his scarred face was hardly the kind of countenance women swooned over—at the same time he admired her courage. Even this, it seemed, she would do for her people.

“The golden Hawk is worth a great deal, no matter where you might take it. ’Twill more than compensate you for what time you will spend.”

Kane drew back again, staring. “The golden Hawk?”

She bit her lip. “ ’Tis literally that. Gold.” She held out her hands to measure an astonishing size for what she spoke of. “ ’Tis that large. And it is also the heart of my people.” Her chin came up, jutting out with renewed determination. “But better to lose it than to see them all dead, to see the end of a people who have managed to live in peace for generations.”

“The golden Hawk,” he said again, this time stifling a chuckle; his plan was intact, and he would soon be alone again. As he wished to be. “You are an innocent, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have no wish nor need for your precious golden Hawk. I do not covet such things, and the wealth it might bring would be meaningless here.”

Jenna stared at him. “But I . . . we thought all outside our village treasured such things.”

“Not all. Most, but not all.”

Distress darkened the blue of her eyes. “But then what will you take? All we have is the glade, and what is the difference between giving it up to you and losing it to the warlord?”

“I do not want your land, either.”

He said it evenly enough, although there was a time when the accumulation of land had been his only goal, when fulfilling the wishes of one who coveted land above all else had been his sole aim in life.

“But then . . . what can we offer?”

“I care for nothing from your precious people, Jenna of the clan Hawk.” He rose then, and went to her. He crooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head. “But you . . . you can offer me something I want.”

“I?” She looked utterly bewildered.

Innocent
 . . .

He smothered the qualm and went on; despite his body’s urges to the contrary, he had no intention of despoiling this innocent, only of finally and forever frightening her away. And he would ignore the sudden burst of heat that had shot through him at the thought of teaching this particular innocent much more than the ways of war.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been a long time without a woman,” Kane said, his voice suddenly husky in a way he couldn’t seem to control. “So long that, although I’d prefer one with experience in pleasing a man, I will settle for one who knows nothing.”

Jenna’s eyes widened as his meaning reached her.

“Me?”

“You, Jenna.”

“You want me . . . as a man wants a woman?”

A flick of irritation nudged him; were the men of her blessed Hawk Glade eunuchs, that this was so astonishing to her? She was looking at him as if he were the first man ever to look at her with desire. He could not believe that was true.

He did not want to believe his own reaction was true. And he tried hastily to tamp it down, bury it beneath cruel words.

“What other use could I possibly have for you?”

Chapter 6

“I . . .”

She lowered her eyes. Two spots of high color stained her cheeks. He had her now, Kane thought. A few more good thrusts and she’d be out of his way.

He could wish, he thought wryly as heat jammed through him again in a rush, that he’d used a different word. Still, he pressed on.

“ ’Twill be annoying, virgins are far more trouble than they’re worth. In fact,” he said thoughtfully, “perhaps I’d best be sure you are worth it first. If you’d remove your clothing, so I may inspect you?”

He said it in the polite tone of an order masked as a request. Her head came up, and he knew she’d heard the steel in the words. He had expected her to be cowed, as armed and armored men had been by that voice of command, but he quickly saw he was mistaken.

“You had more than enough chance to
inspect
me
when I was lying senseless in your bed.”

It was all he could do not to laugh with pleasure at her spirited retort. Had it not been for the vivid image her words called up, he might have done it. But he found himself instead having to concentrate on controlling his body’s fierce response to the remembered shape and feel and look of her.

He had indeed been without a woman too long.

“Perhaps you are right,” he managed after a moment. “I suppose I’ve seen enough to know the process would not be intolerable.”

“The process?”

“Of removing your innocence.”

Her cheeks were still flushed, but to her credit she didn’t look away. She held his gaze evenly, with that courage he’d had to admit never seemed to fail her.

“This is your price?”

Enough of this, Kane thought sharply, angered at her refusal to be intimidated, angered at his own body’s unruliness. He would have done with this, and now.

“It is.”

She took a deep breath, and spoke again. “You will teach—”

He cut across her words sharply, speaking what he must before he could get to the words that would surely drive her away. “I will teach you how to train your people to fight, with what weapons you can make yourselves. I will teach you tactics, planning, and how to withstand a larger force.”

Relief glowed in her eyes. And that angered him as well, as much for the way his blood was heating as for her silly innocence.

“And in return,” he said, his voice sounding as harsh as a raven’s cry, “you will become my woman. You will allow me the freedom of your body in whatever way I wish, whenever I wish, without complaint.”

Her color deepened. “I . . . know nothing of such things.”

“That is obvious.”

He said it tightly, hating the way his blood was pooling low and deep inside, until soon no amount of innocence could prevent her from realizing his own body was out of his control. He knew too well it was never good to let your enemy know they affected you in any way, yet his body continued to betray him, and he did not understand why. Yes, she was a strikingly beautiful woman, but he’d had those before. And never had he been so unable to conquer his own responses. This was a dismal side of his clever plan he hadn’t expected.

“Then . . . please . . . you must explain . . . exactly what you expect of me.”

By the heavens, what did she want from him? A crude, detailed description of every urge that had just swept him, urges that startled even he himself, and would no doubt shock her virtuous ears? Did she want a description of the images that had gripped him, of her naked beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, of her astride him, her hair streaming over them both?

He opened his mouth to give her just that, certain this at last would drive her away. Then he stopped, shamed by the sudden realization that he was so aroused that were he to voice those desires, were he to describe in intimate detail exactly what he expected of her, he would no doubt humiliate himself where he stood, without ever having touched her, or her having touched him. So instead, he gave her cold, ruthless demands. Surely they would serve as well to send her running from his mountain, glad of her narrow escape.

“You will stay here as my woman,” he said harshly. “And service me at my will. At least until the next full moon.”

She went pale, and Kane knew he’d succeeded. She was frightened now. And well she should be; if she knew how fiercely he wanted her at this moment, she would already be taking to her heels. And he would be left to deal with his aching body alone.

“The next full moon?” she whispered.

Of all he’d said,
that
was what she fixed upon? Kane stared at her.

“My people could be . . . beyond saving by then.”

Her people. Did this woman think of nothing else? Did she not think of her own welfare, to find only this to be concerned about in the words of a man ready to degrade her in this way? He was not, of course, but she did not know that.

“There are fewer than a hundred of us now,” she said in a pleading tone he heard from her only when she spoke of her clan. “And they are hunted like rabbits—”

“ ’Tis not long enough to even begin to train a novice in warfare,” he said, finding his voice at last. He eyed her once more with the most evil leer he could manage. “Let alone a virgin in other arts.”

“No, I—”

“You would not be able to save them anyway,” he said with a shrug. He’d known she would say no, and should have realized she would face him to do it, not run. He did not think this woman had run from anything in her life. “I could train you in all I spoke of and it would still be useless. There is nothing I could teach you in such a short period of time that could help you defeat a determined warlord.”

That he knew too well; he’d worked for the most determined, brutal, and ferocious of them all. He’d been his right arm, had done his bidding without question. And even the rest of his life was not enough to atone for that. All he could hope for was a higher rung in Hades.

“I know we cannot defeat him. All we wish is to make him think there is perhaps another, easier way to gain his path to the north.”

It was a pragmatic view he hadn’t expected from her. He’d thought her idealism and anger would have demanded they defeat the enemy who had taken so much from them. That she was able to temper her need for revenge for the murder of her family with such prudence spoke of a wisdom beyond even what he’d guessed at. He decided to test it even further.

“And what of the people who stand in his way to the north?”

She shivered. “I cannot think about that. We will try to warn them, but they must see to themselves. The Hawk clan must be saved before I can worry about anyone else.”

The implication that she had not rejected his obscene bargain out of hand staggered him. He’d been so certain this would work, that she would take to her heels at the very idea. He frowned; he rarely made tactical mistakes. Could he truly be so rusty? Or had he simply misjudged the determination of this woman?

The Hawk clan must be saved before I can worry about anyone else.

Perhaps he’d underestimated the value she placed on her dwindling clan. Perhaps he’d let her youth, her gender, her beauty blind him to the fact that none of that made her any less a devoted leader. He’d encountered leaders willing to die for those they led before, just never one in such a distracting guise.

He’d heard all his life women were weaker, worth a man’s time for only one thing. Could he have forgotten how his sister had shown him otherwise, and had driven the lesson home with her life?

His breath caught in his throat as his mind shied violently away from the too-vivid memory; he could not let it happen again, not here, not in front of this woman could he be swamped anew by the ugly visions—

“I wish to completely understand,” Jenna said, doing what his mind could not, pulling him back from the edge of the morass of seething, malevolent memories. “You will teach me how to train my clan to fight if I stay with you, and play your whore until the next new moon? And when that time comes, you will let me go, freely?”

He didn’t care for her phrasing, although why it bothered him he wasn’t quite sure. But he nodded, still hoping she would run.

“You will give me your word?”

His mouth twisted. “My word for your body?”

“The storyteller said above all else, you were a man of your word.”

Irritation sparked through him; this storyteller, whoever he was, presumed far too much. “Did he also tell you most times the word I kept was to destroy?”

“Yes.” She seemed unfazed. “Will you give it?”

Some small part of his tactical mind warned him to examine this more closely, but he couldn’t quite believe this lovely creature could truly outwit him.

“If you wish. Yes, I give you my word.”

Jenna drew in a very deep breath, held it for a moment.

“Perhaps I should ask in turn if you are a woman of your word, Jenna of the clan Hawk.”

When she looked at him then, Kane suddenly thought all his assumptions about her youth and naiveté a lie; these were ancient, weary, knowing eyes. Eyes that had seen death and destruction, eyes that had seen the burial of all close to her, the loss of all that mattered.

He knew that look. He knew it because he’d seen it in his own eyes every time he saw himself reflected in a pool of still water, or in the polished piece of brass he used as a mirror for shaving. He knew it because he
felt
it, felt it deep inside, emanating from the dark, shivery place where those haunting visions lived.

“I am,” she said quietly.

He studied her, suddenly aware that he had underestimated this woman. She would do what she had to do. And in the next moment she made his thought fact.

“I will do what I must, for my people. You shall have what you wish, although I doubt it will be what you want.”

He lifted a brow. “An odd thing to say, under the circumstances.”

“It doesn’t matter. Do we have a bargain?”

She truly was going to do it. She was going to agree to become his leman.

Heat blasted through him, so swiftly he didn’t have time to protest that he didn’t really want this, that her actually accepting his debauched offer had never been part of the plan, that all he’d ever wanted was to be rid of her.

She was looking at him, the blue eyes that only moments ago had been so discernible, so rife with that ancient knowledge she seemed too young to possess, masked and unreadable now. Looking at him as if she cared nothing about the bargain she was about to make.

Cared nothing about the price she was about to pay.

“You don’t truly want this,” he said, his voice sounding oddly thick even to himself.

“What I want,” she said in a tone so flat it sounded as dead as he’d felt last night, “is nothing against the survival of my people.”

His mouth twisted. “And your people will let you make this . . . sacrifice?”

“They need only know that they will have what they need. What I . . . pay to get it is my concern.”

The hesitation was barely noticeable, but it told Kane the words were not quite as effortless as she tried to make them sound.

“Do you value yourself so little?”

“I value my people more. Do we have a bargain?” she repeated.

Kane wondered what had happened to the cool, analytical man who had gone into armed combat without a second thought. He’d come here to bury that man, but he’d thought he would never succeed. Until now, when he could use some of that ruthless decisiveness and couldn’t find it in him.

“Will you renege now on this . . . trade you offered?” she asked, looking at him as if he were a merchant quibbling over the price of a loaf.

He had, it seemed, seriously miscalculated. She truly would do it. She would sacrifice herself for her people. Nobility ran deep in her. And nobility, Kane thought, was a fool’s game. He had a sudden flash of insight, that if it were her life that was demanded, she would give that, too.

Which could easily happen if she went back, whether it was now or at the next full moon.

Unless he refused to let her go. Unless he kept her here, until the inevitable destruction of her home was over. The idea held a certain appeal that he could not deny. And that it did made him very nervous. But the thought of sending her, with her bright, extraordinary courage, back to die a useless death made him feel ill.

“Well, Kane the Warrior?” she prompted, clearly too caught in her own crisis of decision to notice his.

“You will regret this.”

“I should regret the death of my people more. Do we have a bargain?” she asked a third time.

Kane was amazed at the resolve it took to voice what should have been a simple answer, an answer that gained him what his body was aching for and would cost him little. She deserved better than to be dishonored by the likes of him. The kind of blood that was on his hands should be kept far away from one so unsullied.

He’d once been the kind of man who would have scoffed at such reservations, and at paying in any way for what he wanted and could simply take by sheer force. He wasn’t sure that the change was an improvement. If he’d become the man he wanted to be, he would have sent her away untouched.

If he’d become the man he wanted to be, he would have left his mountain, fought her battle for her, and if he died as the prophecy foretold, then so be it. He would be at peace at last. At least, as much peace as he would likely find in the fires of Hades.

But he was not that man. He was not even man enough to say no to this.

“We have a bargain,” he said roughly.