Heart's Lair (12 page)

"But where are you going?" Liane searched his suddenly pain-wracked features. "What is wrong, Karic? And why can't I go with you?"

He released her with a jerk. "You can't. You'd be in too much danger. Swear you won't run away!"

Concern, mixed with growing fear, flared in Liane's heart. There was something wrong, very wrong here, and Karic refused to include her. But she couldn't deny the urgency of his request.

She tenderly brushed back a long lock of tawny brown hair that had fallen onto his face. "I swear, Karic. I won't run away."

With one last, wild look at her, he turned and sped across the rolling farm land, back toward the village they'd left behind. Liane watched until he disappeared into the nocte. Then she turned toward the mountains, to seek out what he'd seen there to fill him with such agitation.

Rising above the distant peaks were the three moons of Agrica, each in perfect alignment with the other.

Karic couldn't go on. Fire consumed his body, burning him from the inside out. His groin was heavy, a leaden weight that throbbed in unison with his pounding heart. The rapidity with which the unrequited mating urge had weakened him was surprising, even terrifying. He'd thought his strength enough to deal with it until he reached the village, but he had been wrong.

He stumbled and fell, his sweat-dampened body shivering in the cool nocte air. He struggled to his feet, took a few faltering steps, then fell again. This time his limbs failed him, and he began to drag himself along.

The pain! Karic never realized how bad the pain of denying the primal mating urge could be. It rose to blinding heights as he crawled along, the sound of the blood pulsing through his body growing louder until it deafened him. He covered his ears, writhing in agony. He was dying. It was killing him. But first, the madness would come.

He thought of Liane, waiting for him in the trees. There was nothing more he could do for her. She'd be alone now, all but defenseless, but at least he had spared her seeing him like thisturning on her.

Blood pounded through his brain, swimming before his eyes. Karic beat his head against the ground in an effort to ease the excrutiating torment. It was futile. He fell into a whirling black pit of madness, a hoarse cry on his lips.

Something was wrong. Liane climbed to her feet, her psychic powers scanning the nocte for any hint of trouble. Something was very wrongbut what? She concentrated harder, straining her abilities to their utmost capacity. A fleeting glimpse of Karic, writhing on the ground, flashed through her mind.

She choked back a cry and ran out into the moonlit nocte in the direction Karic had gone. Panic engulfed her. What had happened to him? Had some trackers found him? Were they even now torturing him to death?

The thought of what she could do to help, once she reached Karic's side, never entered Liane's mind. All she knew was that she must go to him, no matter what the consequences. To leave him out there alone, dying in the nocte, was inconceivable. The horas wore on as Liane drove herself onward, walking when her lungs could no longer bear the demands of her rapidly churning legs. She had to reach Karic before it was too late, yet the fear it might already be so gnawed at her heart, quickening her pace.

A dark form sprawled near an outcropping of boulders caught her eye. Wild hope flared in Liane's breast. Could it be Karic? She slowed, reason gradually replacing emotion. Was he alone? She scanned the nocte for sign of others, perhaps hiding in the boulders beyond the motionless man. There was no one.

Liane stealthily crept closer. She sighed in relief. Karic's tousled mane and powerful form gave him away. She knelt and gently touched him.

A jolt of something dark and powerful shot through her. Liane jerked away. Though it had emanated from Karic, the sensation was foreign and totally unlike the man she knewso hot, seething and frighteningly savage.

But it
was
still Karic. Liane forced herself to once more touch him and turn him over.

"Karic? Karic, are you all right?"

He groaned, his lids fluttering open.

She sucked in her breath.

Crazed eyes, eyes that gleamed with an uncomprehending light, stared back at her. Hands, fierce and clasping, gripped her arms. With a feral snarl Karic pulled her down, pressing her into his damp, heated body. A hand roved over her back, ripping at her tunic.

"Karic, stop it!" she cried, struggling to free herself from his iron grip. "It's me! Liane!"

The tunic shredded in his hand, and Liane felt the cool air flow over her back. The sensation galva- nized her to more desperate measures. She slapped him, hard, across the face.

''Stop this, Karic! You don't know what you're doing!"

She slapped him again, but it seemed to make no difference. Instead, he rolled over with her, pinning her beneath his heavier weight. His hand moved with lightning speed to tear away the front of her tunic.

With a horrified cry, Liane lifted her arms to cover her nakedness. Karic wrenched her hands down to her sides, his head moving to her breasts. His lips closed around a soft nipple, drawing hard, suckling it to a taut peak. She shuddered at the roughness and the cold impersonality of his touch, something dying deep inside her. Tears welled in her eyes.

The nagging unease of the past sol crystallized with a sudden, terrifying clarity. The animal blood that flowed through Karic's veins had surfaced at last. He was blind to her except as a receptacle to be mated, an object to satisfy his bestial cravings. All the tales she'd heard whispered about the Cat Men were true. If she didn't find a way to stop him Karic would surely rape her in his unthinking, unseeing lust.

As his mouth continued to hungrily suck her breasts, his hands snaked down to her breeches. Liane desperately looked about for a weapon, a rock or stick with which to hit Karic. She squirmed a little from beneath him, frantically straining for a nearby stone, but a hand savagely jerked her back. Her breeches tore under the force of his powerful hands, ripping them down the middle to expose her.

His breath came in ragged gasps now as his knees forced her thighs apart, wedging himself between them. She stared up at him in a fleeting moment of disbelief. He freed his loin cloth, and his member sprang forth, thick and engorged. Terror surged through Liane.

"No!" she screamed. "Please, no, Karic! Don't do this! I beg you!"

A stranger's eyes glittering with a mindless light gazed back at Liane. With a gutteral growl, he lowered himself onto her. His hand slid between her thighs to her soft mound of hair, his questing fingers parting her to find her secret core.

Liane went mad then, a nameless panic gripping her. She kicked and clawed, leaving deep gouges on Karic's chest and shoulders. In his frenzied lust he felt nothing. He grasped her hips, lifting them to fit her to his need. And Liane, fighting with all the strength she possessed, could do nothing to halt the inexorable progress of his manhood as it found her opening and forced its way inside.

His hips began to move in rhythmic thrusts as he sheathed himself within her. Liane tensed, then arched in soundless agony as he rammed his way past her tight virginal passage. Her nails sunk into his upper arms.

Karic never noticed. He was unaware of anything but the hard thrust of his hips and burgeoning sense of pleasure. His breath came in low grunts now as he labored against her, his sweat-matted body brutally plunging into hers.

With each thrust, a little more of the fight ebbed from Liane. He ground her heart into a million pieces as cruelly as he ground his hard shaft into her. Her hands fell from his arms to lie limply at her sides. The tears flowed, unchecked, from her eyes.

And all the while Karic rammed himself into her. Finally, he threw back his head, the cords of his neck straining with the force of his release. A harsh, gutteral cry escaped his lips. He shuddered above her, his muscles taut and straining.

She watched him, the hatred and revulsion for his cruel act growing within her. He had taken what was most precious from her without a moment's regret or hesitation. In his bestial lust he had finally lost control, mating with her like the lowest of animals.

A rage, like none she'd ever experienced, whirled within, gaining shape and substance as the Bellatorian blood of warriors surged past the cycles of Sententian training. No man was permitted to take what she did not choose to givenot if he wanted to live. Respect for the sanctity of life shriveled and died, shattered beyond hope of reclamation in light of this nocte's brutality. She would have her revenge, and it would be a Bellatorian one.

Karic groaned and rolled off her. Throwing an arm across her body he promptly fell asleep. Liane lay there for a long while, listening to the soft sound of his breathinglistening and plotting all the ways she'd make him pay, before she finally killed him.

Karic woke to find himself sprawled, naked, on the ground. His shoulders, chest and arms hurt. He glanced down at himself. Raw, ragged scratches marred his skin. How, by the three moons, had he gotten those?

He awkwardly sat up, blinking in the bright sunlight. What time was it? What was he doing here?

In a sickening rush, the memory of the past nocte came flooding back. Karic shook his head, struggling to clear his mind and fathom the turn of events. How was he still alive? He'd not reached the village.

Behind him came a soft moan. Karic whirled around. The sight of Liane, curled in a fetal position, her torn clothing barely covering her, was like a knife ripping through his insides. How she had gotten here didn't matter. The fact that she'd come to him, and he'd repaid her by raping her, seized him with a breathless intensity. Something shattered inside Karic, splintering his heart into quivering shards of remorse. He groaned, buried his face in his hands and wept, harsh sobs that tore out of his body in great, wracking shudders.

The sound woke Liane. She drowsily glanced up and stiffened. Karic's long, powerfully muscled form gleamed in the sunlight as he lay there, fighting to bring himself under control. The realization he was weeping struck her. Strangely, its cause didn't matter.

There was nothing left with which to feel anything. Her insides had been gutted, her emotions torn away last nocte with each savage thrust of Karic's body. She sat up, pulling together the ragged edges of her tunic and breeches.

Karic must have heard her movement, for he suddenly tensed and lifted his head. Tears glistened on his face, and his anguished eyes gazed at her.

"Liane," he whispered.

She stared at him, her eyes flat, her mouth grim. "Don't say anything. There's nothing
nothing
you can ever say to change what happened."

He shot her a raw look, then rose and dressed. Walking over, he squatted before her. When his hand moved to touch her, she pulled back, revulsion twisting her features. Karic sighed and withdrew his hand.

"I am sorry, Liane," he huskily began. "I didn't mean for it to happen, and certainly not like that, but I had no control."

"Then that's the saddest part of all," she cried. "That you're such an animal you can't contain your primitive urges!"

"Only that one nocte, Liane. Only that one nocte every three cycles. You know I'd never willingly hurt you!"

Liane backed away, climbing to her feet to glare down at him. "No, I don't know that, not anymore. You betrayed me, betrayed my trust, our friendship. And for what? One brief moment of lust? Do you even remember it?"

Karic averted his gaze.

"Do you?"

Her demand was low, threaded with rising disbelief. The answer to her question filled him with self-loathing, for her words were true. He had been an animal, driven by wild, crude urges, and he didn't remember any of it.

He climbed to his feet, meeting her glance. "No, I don't."

She hissed in rage and struck him, the force of the blow swinging his head around. For a long moment he held it there, the reddening imprint of her hand on his face. The action, so foreign to her Sententian nature, shocked Liane. She stared down at her hand, then back up at him.

Karic's head swung around, his eyes brimming with emotion. "Hit me again and again, Liane, if it'll help."

Pain, sharp and searing, rushed into the empty space in the middle of her chest, swirling chaotically with her fury. He hurt, she knew that, but it was not enough, would never be enough until he died from it. She was defiled and would never be clean again, mutilated at the hands of the man she'd once loved. The realization of her utter stupidity in loving him made her feel suddenly giddy.

She laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. "Nothing will help. Nothinguntil I see you dead." Liane turned to walk away. Karic's hand shot out to grasp her arm. With glittering eyes she glanced down at his hand, then back up to him. Still, Karic refused to let her go.

"None of this changes anything," he rasped. "You're still going back with me."

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. You won't live to reach your lair."

A chill ran through him at the flat, expressionless pronouncement. Something had changed in Liane. He knew she meant what she said and knew as well, despite her special upbringing, that she was now capable of carrying it out. But it still changed nothing. She was going back with him. As much as she might hate and now dread it, it was still the safest course. He'd just have to be more careful around her.