Torn (5 page)

“I’m sorry you’re here,” she said. “But it might not be forever.”

“No. Eventually we all get to die.”

* * * * *

Honey Wine awoke in blackness to the unfamiliar but pleasant sensation of another’s warm flesh beneath her cheek. She realized that sometime during the night, she and Torn had moved to the couch. Her body was half draped over his, and he’d spread her cloak over both of them. Honey Wine lifted her face from his chest and strained to see in the darkness.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his hand touching her hair. His voice sounded deep, penetrating, even though he spoke softly.

“I should be asking you that question.”

“I’m fine now. The Lady,” he sneered her name, “is very skilled at her craft.”

There was a question that had to be asked. “Why have you never spoken before?”

“Would it have done me any good? We’re just beasts. No one here cares, except you.”

Honey Wine wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally she said, “I didn’t act like I cared. Fear does that to a person. I never used to be afraid, but I was young and stupid. I thought I was so strong because I was a guard.”

“The ability to fight is one kind of strength.”

“Not the kind that matters. I don’t see any guards rebelling against the Entertainment.”

“You did.”

“And look where it got me!” she snapped. “I’ve learned to be smart, Torn.”

“Not a fool like me?” He flung her own words back at her with such gentleness that anger eluded her.

“I still think you’re a fool,” she whispered, “but a strong one.”

“Because I can fight?”

“Because I’ve never seen anyone defeat The Lady. How did you get caught, Torn? How did my sister’s guard capture you?”

“I was passing through your land on my way back to the Order. Fire swept through a small village, and I stopped to help. A troop of your soldiers must have seen the smoke and rode up to investigate. I was in the middle of tending some of the burn victims when one of the guards noticed by my clothes that I was of the Ruby Order. That’s how I was taken.”

“You said earlier you thought I could do something about the Entertainment. Why would you think that?”

“It was the look in your eyes. You hated what was going on around you, and you’re strong.”

“Like I said before, I was once…”

He cupped her chin in his hand, though she didn’t know how he managed to find it so quickly in the darkness. “At first I didn’t think you were a prisoner too, but you are. When you offered me those herbs this afternoon, it was the most selfless act I’d ever seen. Thank you, Honey Wine.”

The sound of his voice caressing her name made her tingle.
You’re
becoming a fool for this man, Honey Wine!

“You were more courageous for not accepting them,” she said. “If I could have killed both of those bitches and gotten away with it, I would have, but we never would have made it past the guards. We have to find another way.”

“Another way?”

“To escape from here. You don’t really want to spend the rest of your life here, do you?”

“No!” he answered so quickly she would have laughed if their situation hadn’t been so grave.

“Then we’ll find a way out,” she said.

“You’ve already risked enough for me. I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you already have been.”

She blinked in the darkness. She’d been hurt? He was the one who’d resembled an embroiderer’s pincushion that night!

“You won’t get away without my help,” she said. She knew one way or the other, this place would kill him, and he didn’t deserve to die here. “Besides, I’ve had about all I can take of licking my sister’s boots. One of these days, I really will kill her, and she’s always surrounded by guards, so where would that leave me? You can either help me get out of here or not.”

“Where will you go once you get away?”

She shrugged. “I’ll find a place.”

“You’ll be safe at the Order, at least until you decide what you want to do.”

“You’re asking me to stay with a bunch of Knights?”

“Why not? You once stayed with your sister’s guard.”

“Stayed with?” Honey Wine huffed. “I
commanded
my sister’s guard.”

“If we escape, will you come home with me, Honey Wine?”

“When we escape, I will.”

“Honey Wine, please understand if I don’t speak again. I can’t in front of them. If I did, I might succumb –”

“I understand,” she whispered. “It’s our secret.”

The cloak had fallen off her shoulders, and she shivered in the coolness of the chamber. She pulled the garment over them and lay back on his chest. His arms encircled her, and she moved a hand over his hard pectoral muscles. She allowed herself to fantasize about what it would be like to make love with him, to have his tall, lean body dominate hers. What would it feel like to kiss that funny, sensual mouth of his?

As if sensing her thoughts, his hand caressed her cheek, his fingertips traced her lips, and he tilted her face upward.

His soft lips brushed hers, and she closed her eyes. He kissed her upper lip, her lower lip, and then full on the mouth. She entangled her fingers in his hair, opening her mouth to his gently probing tongue and meeting it with her own.

“Honey Wine,” he said in a husky whisper, his hands caressing her back.

She trembled. How many nights in her dreams had she kissed and touched him? Now it was really happening, and in spite of the horrors of earlier that evening, she felt weak with desire.

“Oh Torn,” she breathed, changing her position slightly so she could touch his chest. Where Alva had bitten him, the wound felt sticky. She’d completely forgotten about it but had been more concerned with his wrists and the after effects of the needles. Groping blindly for her healing supplies, she managed to wet a cloth with water from a flask and sat on her knees beside the couch, cleaning the savage teeth marks on his chest. When she’d finished, she touched her lips to the injury while her hand splayed across his hard pectorals. She felt his nipple against her palm and stroked lower, her fingers caressing the nub.

Placing a hand behind her neck, he drew her face to his for another kiss.

This time his tongue slipped into her mouth, exploring every corner, every moist nook. Honey Wine closed her eyes tightly and uttered a soft moan as she climbed on top of him.

Her throbbing pussy felt so hot and wet, and more than anything she wanted to feel him inside her. She felt his cock pressing against her clit, even through her dress, and she began rocking upon him as his deep kisses continued plundering her mouth.

She heard his chest rumble in a groan of pure desire, and that sound combined with the feeling of his rock hard body beneath hers sent her over the edge. She throbbed and gasped into his mouth, feeling blissful waves of orgasm warming her against the coolness of the chamber.

This time when she fell asleep, she didn’t need to dream. Her body was already entangled with the Knight’s.

Honey Wine had hoped to plan her escape before Torn was sent to the Entertainment again, but their actions would have to be certain before they moved or else it would lead to their deaths. The below ground prison was well guarded, and escape seemed almost impossible.

That night in The Lady’s chamber was the only time of privacy the two of them shared. Other than while routinely healing the minor injuries he sustained in the Pit and during Entertainment, Honey Wine communicated with Torn through words whispered through the bars of his cell in the middle of the night.

“I can’t think of a way out of here,” she murmured in frustration one evening.

“There’s got to be,” he whispered. “We’re just not seeing it.”

His hopeful attitude amazed her. Even though he’d never lost a fight and, to The Mistress’s dismay, he had yet to kill in doing so, Honey Wine knew one day he would meet someone who would match his skill and destroy him. It happened to all the beasts eventually. The life of a champion was short.

Either he’ll be killed or end up a beast like the rest of them
, she thought. No matter how firm his beliefs, in time such a life of violence would take its toll. To survive, he would surrender to that which he hated. Then Honey Wine’s Knight would truly be dead, more so than if he was slaughtered in Entertainment.

Somehow, her sister guessed Honey Wine’s interest in Torn, or else she was told by Bron who had remarked several times on her fondness for the beast.

“I do believe you’re starting to think of him as a pet.” Bron’s breath was hot on Honey Wine’s neck as he leaned close to her one afternoon by the well. “It’s all right, Honey Wine. I once had a favorite guard dog. He was half wolf and had to be destroyed for killing sheep. Yes, I certainly liked that dog. . . “

Bron’s voice drifted off as he walked back to his post.

Soon after that, Honey Wine was “invited” by Alva to observe the next Entertainment. She said that the Master of the kingdom just south of Sophianna had a match for the Knight, one that was sure to challenge him, unlike the other ill-bred beasts he’d been pitted against.

“So who is it, Alva?” Honey Wine demanded the evening before the Entertainment. She’d sought a meeting with her sister since receiving her message, but The Mistress been deliberately slow in granting her an audience.

Alva’s sensual mouth smiled at The Lady who perched beside her on the velvet couch. “Isn’t she beautiful when she’s angry?”

The Lady shrugged, her narrow eyes raking Honey Wine from her demurely braided black hair to the tips of her worn leather boots. Even in slave’s clothes, Honey Wine sensed The Lady’s jealously of her strong, curvaceous body. Honey Wine might not be as exquisite as Alva, but she knew she was not a woman to be passed over, and all the lip paint and fine clothes couldn’t give The Lady the physical beauty she craved.

“I suppose you want to know the sort of beast the Knight will be fighting?

Sorry,” Alva yawned, “but I can’t disclose that information. It would ruin the surprise. Just know there will be no more of his obstinacy. With this new opponent, he will either kill or be killed.”

“You’re sick, Alva, beyond the help any mere healer can give.”

Alva stood, her face almost touching Honey Wine’s, her white teeth grinding. “Your problem, sister, is you never learned how to have fun. All that training for war. You’re like a man. A boring man. Now get out of my sight, or I’ll give you to The Lady to practice her craft.”

At this, The Lady did smile.

Honey Wine’s fists clenched, and her eyes darted from Alva to The Lady.

She could kill them both in seconds, but two guards stood by the fireplace, and two more waited outside the heavy oak door.

She turned and left the women on the couch, their fingers entwined, ignoring her like she was one of the caged yellow birds in the corner of the chamber.

* * * * *

Honey Wine was in the midst of a terrifying dream of Torn being slaughtered by twenty beasts armed with hatchets when she was awakened by knocking on her door.

“Honey Wine!” Bron bellowed.

Slipping on her robe, Honey Wine flung open the door. “What? Eh! What are you doing?”

Bron had motioned for two guards to chain Honey Wine and drag her down the hall towards the mating chamber.

The guards flung her inside and slammed the door shut. Bron leered at her through a slit in the door. “You’re to mate with the Knight, per your sister’s order. If he dies tomorrow at the Entertainment, she at least wants to breed him once.”

Honey Wine’s heart pounded with combined anger and desire. Anger at the idea of being forced to make love with Torn and desire at the thought of doing so. She’d dreamed of him for so long, had even kissed and touched him, but the thought of feeling him deep inside her made her legs weak and her belly clench with desire. Yet there was no way they would put on a show for Bron who would most likely watch the mating through the slit in the door. Never would either of them engage in such a lewd performance! Yet what choice did they have? If they didn’t make love, she was certain they’d be punished.

“We know he’s your favorite, Honey Wine.” Bron continued taunting her.

“You’ll love every minute of being the beast’s slut, I’m sure.”

Moments later, the door opened, and several guards dragged Torn inside.

They shackled him to the wall, and he stood, sympathetic eyes fixed on Honey Wine.

The door slammed, and Bron’s piggish eyes continued staring at them through the slit. He sneered, “I have to watch to make sure you mate.”

“Damn you to hell!” Honey Wine roared, throwing herself at the door, her fingers jamming through the slit. If Bron hadn’t leapt away, she would have blinded him.

“You bitch!” he growled. “If you don’t do what you’re supposed to, I’ll put you in the open cell and you can put on a show for the every guard down here!

Now either lift up that dress or take it off!”

“I’d rather be tortured by the Lady!”

“Well that’s what’s going to happen to you, per the Mistress’s order, if you don’t fuck that beast!”

Honey Wine froze, her heart throbbing her chest before she gathered the courage to shout, “Fine, let her –”

Torn’s hand clamped over her mouth and he dragged her to his chest. She turned, glancing up at him and saw the fear in his eyes as he shook his head.

“It’s all right,” she told him, her entire body trembling. “You went through it.”

“But not you!” He embraced her so that he could whisper in her ear without the guards noticing. “I would rather be dead than see you at her mercy.”

“Torn,” she whispered back, slipping her arms around him and holding him tightly. “What are we going to do?”

“Pretend.”