Light of Kaska (3 page)

“You’re a nervous little thing,” Stryker rumbled, reminding her of the other danger in the room. She managed to suppress the urge to scuttle to her previous place against the opposite wall and merely looked at him over her shoulder.

“He has the power to lock me in here with you. And they haven’t been happy with me taking your side. I’m—another outsider to them.”

He didn’t answer, just looked at her with those steady dark eyes. Unable to hold his gaze, she looked away and pushed to her feet, willing herself not to shake so much. Pretending not to flee, she strode to the door and tried it, breathing a sigh of relief when it opened. She’d had a momentary fear that Clavis had locked her in anyway.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said over her shoulder, not quite meeting his eyes.

“When’s the bonfire?”

She flinched, a sudden horrible image of him in flames searing her mind’s eye. “They—they’ve started building a—a pyre on the edge of town. Clavis thinks they’ll be ready tomorrow night.”

He said nothing and she slipped out the door with an icy knot in her stomach.

Chapter 2

Sukeza stood outside Suni’s stall and studied the creature with a frown. Suni rested her block head on the top of the stall door and studied her in return. Her soft brown eyes with their ridiculously long eyelashes moved over Sukeza with gentle interest as she stood quietly and waited to see what the human had in mind. Her long neck and sleek, six-legged body showed no sign of the stress from the night before—the sweat lines and quivering muscles were gone. She’d been a spotted
chuling
when Sukeza had first found her, barely past her birthing and trusting as her older, wild herd mates had not been. She had flourished under Sukeza’s attention and had become a dominant in their domestic herd. She’d called the alarm the night of the murder. But why?

Sukeza turned, her stomach clenching when her eyes found the spot where the boys had lain. The blood was gone as was most of the wood floor. Just a ragged dirt patch gave evidence of the crime site. Baka, the other dominant in this barn, was halfway between Suni and that spot. It should have been his call that carried on the night to Stryker. Granted, they both could have been calling and Stryker only heard the one alarm before he was set upon by the grief-stricken community. Still…

Sukeza looked into the stall but could see nothing out of place. Then she tilted her head back, looking up into the rafters. There was a shadowed area above Suni’s stall even in the bright light of day. At night, a person could have hidden there without much fear of detection through the search of the barn. Especially when they’d called off the search on account of having caught “the murderer.”

“Suki? Is something wrong with Suni?”

Sukeza jumped and turned to smile ruefully at Stockton, a short, stout gentleman of middling years. His usual open-faced cheer was knotted into a worried frown.

“No, she’s doing well. Better than I expected. They all are. After the night they’ve had…after the night we’ve all had.” She shrugged and looked away, blinking back the sudden sting of tears.

He patted her on the shoulder with a calloused hand, his movement clumsy but well-meaning. “Well, yes. We’ve all had a rough night of it. When I saw you with your bag, I thought we were going to have a bad day, too.”

Sukeza remembered the medicine bag in her hand and winced. “I’m just glad I didn’t need it,” she said with breezy nonchalance. “I’d best be off now. I’ll come back later and check on them again.”

“You’re always such a dedicated handler. We were lucky to lure you to our little backwater community.” He smiled, his lined face warm.

“Thanks, I always felt lucky to be here.” The standard answer. He was a good man and hadn’t seemed as caught up in the previous night’s madness as the others, but his vaguely patronizing compliments had often grated on her nerves. “I’ll see you later.”

With a pat on Suni’s soft nose she strode toward the exit, careful to keep her movements easy and casual. The sun struck her the moment she stepped from the cool, ventilated shade of the barn, heat and light dousing her like a wave. Pausing to let her eyes adjust, she put up a hand to shade them and glanced down the main thorough-way. Only part of it had been cobbled near the business sections of the community, the parts of town that were most traveled by pedestrians. Other than that it was dirt, dirt, and more dirt, broken only by individual gardens next to houses. Beyond the town lay cultivated fields, patches of forest, and rolling lands, meeting forested hills that led to a line of mountains in the distance, covered by a brilliant blue sky and blazing sun. Not a metallic structure or vessel in sight.

Pressing her lips together and avoiding the pinched gazes of a pair of matrons walking on the opposite side of the main way, Sukeza quickened her step. The day was becoming a scorcher. Stryker would bake in that airless little room. She felt a squeeze of distress when she pictured his sweat-dampened form and grim gaze. Whatever he had done, he didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. Even the Collectors wouldn’t be so inhumane.

On a repeat of her earlier visit but without the stealth, she let herself into the town hall and made her way past Clavis’s office, keeping her eyes forward and her head high. She could feel his gaze like a brand when she passed. Walking quickly through the central hall, she found the makeshift prison and opened the door.

Furnace heat struck her like a blow. She sucked in a breath and slipped into the room, alarm racing through her at the sight of Stryker slumped on the bench, his head down and hair dripping with sweat. He tossed his head back and stared at her in silent fury, blinking fiercely when sweat ran into his eyes.

“Sorry,” she blurted, fumbling her bag open while she moved toward him. “I’m sorry, I had to go back to my place for my bag and stopped for a minute at the barn. Here, drink this.” She pulled a jug from her bag and uncorked it, tilting it to his mouth.

His eyes narrowed as they fixed on hers, but he accepted her offering after a fractional hesitation. Then his eyes slid closed while he gulped the fluid with desperate greed. In fascinated wonder, Sukeza watched the strong column of his throat moved with long swallows, the fan of his eyelashes a strange vulnerability in that hard face. Even through the heat of the room, she could feel the warmth his big body generated, heating the air around her until she felt flushed with it. She could smell the sweat on his skin, a musky, male animal scent that reminded her of long nights spent soothing newly captured animals. Her guilt surged.

“Slow down or you’ll cramp your stomach,” she said softly, lowering the jug. Setting it down next to her bag on the floor, she used the front of her shirt to wipe his face and push back his hair. The feel of his flesh and bones through the thin cloth was an arresting sensation. Avoiding his dark gaze, she turned and hurried from the room. Returning a moment later with a stool, she settled it under the window and climbed up to open the portal. Instantly, the room began to cool as fresh air flowed in.

“There, that should help some,” she stated, climbing down and returning to crouch at his side. “I’ve got some meat pastries, if you don’t mind being fed by hand.” She gave him a dubious look, pausing in the act of opening her bag.

“I’m hungry enough to eat off the floor,” he said with an ironic twist of his mouth. “But I could use more of that water first. What’s in it?”

“Electrolytes, supplements, and glucose,” she answered, grasping the jug and rising to her feet. “It probably tastes a little funny, but it’ll decrease dehydration better than straight water.”

He nodded to indicate that he heard, but his eyes were trained on the jug and his throat moved in a hard swallow. Sukeza raised the container to his lips again. He didn’t close his eyes this time, watching her instead, a thoroughly disconcerting experience.

This is why I don’t work with predators,
she thought with a nervous inner grimace. They saw too much—they recognized prey when they saw it. And she felt like prey under the impact of that dark gaze, reminded forcefully of his crimes and her dangerous proximity. She had to stand close to handle the jug, her thigh brushing his, her slight form eclipsed by his powerful body. She had a sudden, shocking image of what he might do to her if his arms were free and her gaze darted to the shackles of their own volition.

He made a sound and she realized she was spilling fluid down his chin, the container unstable in her trembling hands. With a whispered curse for letting her imagination run wild, she quickly lowered the jug and wiped the water from his chin, grimacing in silent apology. The sensation of sandpaper-rough skin and firm flesh under her bare fingers snagged her attention and her movements slowed. She watched her fingertips move over his hot, dark skin with fascinated wonder, until she realized what she was doing and turned away, heat beating in her cheeks. What the hell was wrong with her?

Making her movements brisk to hide the tremor in her limbs, she set down the water and retrieved a bundle from the bag. Unwrapping the wax paper, she revealed a meat pastry and broke off a chunk, keeping her eyes on the food and not him. “I’m a terrible cook, but you’re in luck—my neighbor made these,” she said to break the oppressive silence. “He’s a genius in the kitchen and doesn’t mind sharing.”

She offered the first bite, watching his mouth as his teeth captured the bite and removed it from her fingers with a gentleness that surprised her. There was an intimacy to the act of feeding this man that made her distinctly uncomfortable. She tried to associate it with the many hours she’d spent coaxing a new capture to feed from her hand, to reduce what she was doing to a simple humane act, a part of her job. It didn’t work. He affected her too powerfully, the force of him surrounding her as if he held her hostage and not the other way around.

She broke off another bite, focusing hard on keeping her fingers from trembling when he took it from her. As he did, a lock of hair slipped forward into his eyes. Without thinking, she brushed it back and was captured again by the feel of him under her fingertips. The strands of his dark hair were amazingly soft, curling a little with the dampness of perspiration. The contrast of the silky strands with the remembered sensation of hard, stubbled chin enthralled her.

“You’re petting me again,” he said in his deep voice, the neutral tone impossible to interpret.

She jerked away as if burned.

Stryker silently cursed himself for opening his mouth. His little rescuer was skittish as hell, unnerved by the slightest move he made, even though he’d been as circumspect with her as he knew how to be. He didn’t want to scare her away, since she was his source of food and water. That was enough to make him feel charitable toward her, but she’d also given him a way out, a method of escape if Clavis followed her suggestion. As a result, he was feeling almost fond and reluctant to cause her alarm. Worse though—she’d stopped petting him.

He would have snorted in dark humor if he didn’t know it would send her running. The first time she’d stroked him, he’d been too incredulous to appreciate the sensation of being gentled like a high-strung animal. It was laughable, this terrified little woman trying to soothe him like a beast in her care. It should have been insulting, but her fingers in his hair hadn’t felt like an insult. He’d watched her face, watched her absorbed concentration when she touched him, and he hadn’t wanted her to stop. At that moment, there’d been no fear in her.

She offered him another bite without a word, fingers trembling hard enough to shake crumbs from the pastry, her gaze lowered and cheeks a delicate pink color. He had the sudden urge to lean forward and close his mouth on her fingers, to taste her skin and feel her flesh between his lips, his teeth.

Gratitude,
he thought as he took the bite without touching her. That was why he was feeling this sudden, weird affinity toward her, why the sunshine smell of her skin, the warm, sweet female scent, was having such a profound affect on him. His women were usually bigger, bolder, brassier. They weren’t small, mousy creatures who jumped at his slightest movement. It was just gratitude for her help that made him want to kiss her feet. And nibble her toes. And sink his teeth into the flesh of her calves and lick the backs of her knees and spread her thighs…

The image of his hands sliding down the inside of her thighs as she lay open to him sent a violent shaft of lust through his body, making him jerk in his chains and inhale sharply. Coughing a fragment of pastry from his airway, he tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, nonplussed.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, just…stiff,” he answered with an ironic twist of his lips and a roll of his shoulders. If she looked in his lap, she’d know he wasn’t referring to his shackled arms.
Pretty strong friggin’ gratitude.

“Damn it,” she breathed. “Why do they have you stretched out like that? It’s not humane.”

He lowered his gaze to see her frowning and nibbling on her lip while she studied his outstretched arms and encased wrists. “Keeps my hands apart so I don’t work the locks. Your farmers aren’t as stupid as they look.”

She said something under her breath that sounded like a curse and broke off another bite, offering it to him without taking her attention from his restraints. He took it with a quirk of his mouth, watching her while he chewed. She had that focused look again and he wondered if she was back in a petting mood. Setting the rest of the pastry on the bench, she crouched by her bag and began to remove bandages and medicinals.

Rising, she shifted to his right wrist and studied it while she laid out the supplies on the bench below. Silky dark hair escaped, swinging forward against her cheek. She tucked it behind her ear, a light frown creasing her brow. In profile, the delicate line of her absorbed features became lovely rather than country cute. He studied the sun-sprinkled curve of her cheekbone and wondered if he was losing his mind.

“This won’t work,” she muttered and straightened abruptly, heading with brisk strides to the door. She paused just outside the door and hollered a startlingly loud,
“Clavis!”