Blood Warrior

CHAPTER THREE

Tallis shed his heavy leather jacket and levered over where she sprawled on the ground. He edged his thighs between hers, then shifted so that his pelvis fit snugly against hers. He wore sturdy military-style cargo pants, while Kavya still wore only silk. She would be able to feel his desire taking physical form.

“Should I kiss you again?” He only touched her from the waist down, where he used the weight of his pelvis and thighs as more threat than seduction. Arms straight, he braced his hands on either side of her head. “I’d learn secrets about the Sun you’re too arrogant to admit possessing.”

“More of the so-called justice you seek? I’ve done nothing to you!”

“You know my weaknesses better than I do. Every fantasy—even those I can’t arrange into thought.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve used that knowledge against me for years,” he said, his voice deepening with anger. “If I resisted, you invaded dream after dream like a monster. You’d raid another locked closet in my head to find more secrets. You even profaned the Dragon to legitimize your crimes.” He was still aroused. Kissing her had been calculated, but he’d been swept into the vortex where fantasy swirled with reality. “I have the power now. Is it any surprise that I desire to use it against you?”

A clamor of voices came from beyond the tent’s dingy white canvas. For a moment Tallis thought she’d managed to telepathically call for help, but she wore no expression of triumph. Then came more voices, more chaos.

He edged away and grabbed the deadly Norse seaxes he’d kept out of her reach. Tallis parted the canvas and peered through.

His sense of hearing gave away her attack from behind, as Kavya swung a cooking pot. The determination and, frankly, the vehemence in her glittering brown eyes were pure surprise. Ropes around her ankles meant she had one chance before losing her balance, but she made the most of it. The bulk of the pot hit his shoulder. One seax with its etched blade and honed edge skidded along the bare rock floor.

She rolled onto her back and grabbed the hilt in both bound hands. A quick slice parted the ropes at her ankles. She spun so that she knelt again, bloodying her knees. Shins braced against the ground gave her more stability. The split skirt of her sari bared the sleek skin of her thigh.

He rubbed the slight ache in his shoulder. “I’d hoped there was more to you than words and specters.”

“Why would you think that of an opponent you profess to hate?”

Her eyes were bright and widely spaced, wedded to the high, rounded apples of her cheeks. She had a tiny nose and a chin that, for all her defiance, was softly shaped. Tallis shivered. This was her, really her, not the witch who’d infected his dreams for two decades. The real Sun, this woman Kavya, was the perfect compromise between truth and fantasy, virgin and whore—a bound innocent holding his blade.

Although she remained still, ready for the attack he would surely make, she vibrated with near-visible energy. Tallis could practically smell the heady cologne of her fear and focus. He would’ve bet the rest of his life that she hadn’t smelled that way on the altar. There, she’d been focused but unafraid. Her telepathic invasions were vile, even though the surprising resilience of her fighting spirit made him smile deeper.

“I like to think,” he said, “that when I break you, I’ll have broken someone who deserved the worst I can dish out. Seems you’re in the mood to make me a happy man.”

“Happy? I want you dead.” A look of horror crossed her face. She inhaled sharply, which lifted the supple curve of breasts draped in silk. She appeared ready to vomit.

Tallis chuckled. “You didn’t mean to say that, did you?”

Exaggerating the ache in his shoulder, crouching before her, he shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. Rather than leap, he leaned and swept his right leg. The toe of his boot caught behind her upper thigh with a hard kick. He yanked. Between the blow and the pull, she fell hard onto her side.

She coughed, struggling for air. He pushed forward with two crouched strides and snatched the stolen blade from her bound hands.

“The Sun has some fight. Gratifying, but it won’t change anything.” The gathering ferment outside the tent renewed its hold on his attention. “Stay. Unless you want to remain unaware of what’s happening among your flock.”

Her mouth was . . . gorgeous. There was no other word. Bee-stung lips twisted into a sneer. “Do it.”

“That’s the only command of yours I’ll obey.”

Intending to piss her off, he took one more taste of the lips he’d never believed could be real. Seeing her in the flesh, tasting and smelling and touching her—those intimacies made her night visits more ephemeral. They were mere shadows compared to the sweet bitterness of the kiss he took without permission.

She bit him. Tallis reared back. He swiped a hand against his mouth and came away with blood.

“That wasn’t very nice, goddess.”

But he was still grinning.

Both seaxes firmly grasped, Tallis peered outside again. Dusk approached to take the place of full sunlight. Amiable pods of Indranan had been gathered around their fire pits. Now they hurried around wearing frightened expressions.

Strange.

Tallis’s own clan, the Pendray, suffered from historic self-esteem issues, but at least they displayed what they felt without pretense. They were boisterous and unapologetic. The Indranan, however, were made of mystery. To see the camp transformed into a frenzied, buzzing collection of scared souls was shocking—so many emotions laid surprisingly bare.

“Let me go,” came the persuasive voice at his back. “Whatever grudge you hold against me, you know I can calm them.”

“No. Their panic will remain unaddressed by their savior. Seeing you discredited and ruined has always been my goal, no matter that I enjoyed kissing you.” He couldn’t help another mocking smile. “But that was absolutely necessary.”

“You’re crazy and spiteful and, to be honest, a sickening excuse for a Dragon King.”

“To be honest? An interesting choice of words.”

He turned away, chagrined by the power she wielded without thought to the consequences. The fervor had died down, but only because hurrying worshipers had frozen solid, no matter where they stood. Their attention was focused on the altar.

Tallis narrowed his eyes. A man stood where the Sun had delivered her pandering benediction. He was tall, with a commanding presence. His hair was brown, his features sharp, his clothing black on black. Among those gathered in the valley, his layers of leather and protective plates of silver armor stood out like a burn on a child’s skin.

The Sun was a warmonger in silks, but this stranger was pure violence. No pretense. Grim lines flanked his mouth. A sharp, narrow nose and brow that was no lighter for its elegance. Those features weren’t masked. They were solid and brazen and true to Tallis’s every sense. And what he saw was a remarkable resemblance to the Sun.

“You were expecting someone else,” the stranger intoned, his words hypnotic. They echoed back across the valley like a one-two punch of spellbinding power. “You were expecting a savior. I’m here to say there is no such thing. And there’s no such thing as reconciliation between the factions of the Indranan. There never will be.”

Tallis turned and grabbed the Sun by the scruff and dragged her to the tent’s opening. Her face had gone chalk white. The color looked sick and unnatural on a Dragon King, but it was especially disturbing when it leeched the soft charisma of her beauty.

“Who is that?” Tallis was more agitated than he would have liked, but the unexpected was always a threat.

“That.” She swallowed. “That is Pashkah of the Northern Indranan. My brother.”

—

If skin could turn to ice, Kavya’s would have had more in common with the glaciers up the Rohtang Pass.

She hadn’t seen Pashkah since she was twelve years old. No matter that span of years, she would never mistake his stance, his face—the face he hadn’t bothered to disguise. He’d never needed to. Even as a boy, he’d been able to hold a freakishly blank expression so well that not even she or Baile, their sister, could gauge his emotions. Demons and monsters and ghouls were nothing compared to his uncanny nothingness. Had she been able to understand him, with telepathy or her senses, she might have been able to save Baile.

But in those final moments of her life, Baile hadn’t wanted to be saved. Before Pashkah had taken her head, she’d wanted his just as much.

The triplet who wielded the sword gained the power, leaving Kavya unaffected. She hadn’t just remained in her childhood home so she could become his next victim. She’d run.

Now, having reduced their family to a series of grim victories, Pashkah stood within a few hundred yards of success. He would take Kavya’s gift and add it to the power he’d stolen from Baile. He would become thrice-cursed with his true potential sewn together in violence—while the shrieks of two dead sisters would destroy his sanity.

Tallis shook her by the hair. “What is this, part of your big announcement? Bring in muscle to make sure everyone complies?”

“This is my brother having found me after decades of searching. This is . . . this is the brink of chaos. Worse than you even thought of threatening with two barbarian swords.”

She jerked free of his hold and stared him down. At least now she knew who he was. His true identity.

Tallis of Pendray. The Heretic.

She still wasn’t able to read his mind, but his seax held residual memories so strong that she’d caught flashes of his true self. His identity. His life on the run.

A man of myth. But still a man.

“You don’t need telepathy to sense the panic.” She tipped her chin toward where Pashkah owned the altar—the altar she’d hoped would be host to an evening of peaceful triumph. “Those are lambs being herded toward a butcher’s knife. This man is fear and danger. Nothing I’ve done, no matter your delusions, will match the crimes he’s capable of committing.”

“He’s your brother. I wouldn’t expect anything less than deceit and mind-warping delusions.”

Kavya’s heart was expanding with each beat, until it shoved against her trachea. Everything she’d worked for was at Pashkah’s mercy. “Do you hate me so much that you deny the obvious? Look at the men at his back. Every one of them is twice-cursed.”

“You can tell? You’re reading their minds?”

“I don’t need to. They’re Pashkah’s Black Guard. Whole communities have been rolled over by their arrival.”

“He kills Dragon Kings? The Council and the other clans would’ve heard about that.”

Kavya shook her head, her eyes filling. “Not killing. Trying to breed. The Black Guard was responsible for the Juvine forty years ago, when women were stolen from the South and held captive here in the mountains. Retaliation after retaliation followed, reviving the same deeds and the same hatreds that split our clan three thousand years ago. By trapping me, you’ve given him unchecked permission. The Black Guard will continue its spree.”

Tallis had fascinating skin—smooth except for those places where emotions pushed to the surface. So animated for a Dragon King, he frowned with his whole face until it took on the gravity of a pending typhoon. Finally he seemed to be taking her fear seriously.

“Unbind me,” she said, pressing her advantage.

“So you can flee? What do you think I am?”

“An idiotic, brainless thing. All I want is to face my brother without ropes around my wrists.” She forced strength into her voice just as she’d forced calm into her body. “You wanted me discredited, not martyred, remember?”

“That I can agree with.”

“First obeying me, now agreeing with me. You’ll be undone by dawn.”

“Suddenly you expect to live that long,” he said with an edge of a smile.

“You have no idea the consequences if I don’t. Forget martyrdom. I’ll be the dead soul that gives Pashkah what he’s always wanted: the powers of a thrice-cursed Indranan.”

He shook his head. “Legend.”

“No, fact. Just like how the Heretic seems to have graced me with his presence.”

That caught him off guard, but only for a moment. “So you admit it. You’ve known who I am.”

“For the last few moments, yes. Your weapon tells tales to a telepath, even if I can’t read your mind. But none of it means your accusations hold merit.”

He silenced her by dragging a seax nearer to her flesh. Although she shuddered, she appreciated the knife more than his kiss. She could endure pain. Life had taught her those lessons and the means of coping with what no one should have to endure. The surprise of pleasure, however, was still frothing through her veins. Every hair stood on end. Her skin pulled toward his touch and his Dragon-damned kisses.

The conflicting emotions were too much to process.

The tip of the seax was as fine as the point of a needle. Engraved scrollwork along the blade caught the last of the dying sunshine. She recognized the etchings as the ancient language of the Pendray but had no idea of their meaning. Tallis slid the tip between her wrists and sliced the ropes with one swift cut. No wasted motion. Perfect mastery of his weapon.

“Members of the Sun Cult,” came the voice that sent hot dread up her spine and ghostly chills back down. “Your leader is no longer here. Because I am her brother, Pashkah, you can imagine the consequences if I take her life—or if I already have. Perhaps she’s merely fled, leaving you to my mercies.”

The Black Guard marched to the edge of the altar.

Pashkah didn’t smile, but contentment shimmered around him in a swirl of charcoal fog. “I have no mercy.”

Additional members of the Guard dragged a pair of men into sight and thrust them to their knees, flanking Pashkah.

Kavya gasped. “No, no, no . . .”

A hand wrapped around her mouth. She struggled until Tallis’s words found their way into her short-circuiting brain.

“Quiet,” he hissed softly. His arms were strong around her, which was welcome rather than abhorrent. She was ready to shudder apart, disintegrated by fear and utter outrage.

Tallis ducked her back into the tent. They could see through a small sliver that parted the folds of canvas. He kept his mouth near her ear, as if any stray syllable could be a death sentence. Still a Pendray, relying on words. For the Indranan, thoughts were louder.

“Who are they?”

“Representatives to the factions’ Leaderships,” she replied. “My allies. Oh, Dragon save them.”

Pashkah was a man of his sick, malevolent word. He stood over the representatives and spread his hands with a flourish. “These are the presents the Sun was going to offer at dusk. Omanand of the North. Raghupati of the South. She would’ve stood behind them and smiled that tranquil, happy smile and watched as they shook hands. Ended the civil war. Healed the breach. Wouldn’t that have been lovely?”

“Is that true?” Tallis asked against Kavya’s cheek.

“Yes,” she whispered. “A foundation for lasting peace. But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing will matter now.”

One of the Guardsmen handed Pashkah a sword that gleamed with a golden sheen.

Tallis drew in a sharp breath. “That’s Dragon-forged.”

Her lucidity was slipping away, along with her hopes. She was physically ill, so painfully, violently ill. “Yes.”

Pashkah lifted the blade. With one blow, he beheaded Omanand. With another, he separated Raghupati’s head from a body that flopped onto the altar. Terror echoed through the valley like the shrieks of demons.

Kavya saw only blood.