Night Shift

PROLOGUE

Victory made gods of men.

So had claimed the first man who’d hired Kavik’s sword. At the end of the day, the man’s gold had filled Kavik’s purse and the blood of his enemies had stained his armor, but Kavik knew little about gods and couldn’t imagine what it must be to feel like one. After years of swinging his blade to no avail, however, he finally knew what it was to defeat rather than be defeated.

By midnight, victory tasted of too much ale and ached of the urgent need to piss.

Stomach roiling, he stumbled out of the inn and into the courtyard. The heat of this kingdom fed on a man’s sweat even at night. He wiped his brow and turned away from the noises of rutting coming from the shadows. Two other warriors celebrated their victory with more than ale, and he couldn’t stop the sour bile from rising into his mouth as the sounds resurrected memories that he’d buried again and again.

Blindly he walked until the warriors’ grunts no longer echoed in his head. The streets twisted through the city like Blackmoor’s maze of stone. He retraced his path. Nothing was familiar. The courtyard that he thought sat in front of the inn was overlooked by a tower of white marble instead. Runes marked the door.

A temple to the moon goddess, Vela. Kavik had never seen one before. All temples in Blackmoor had been destroyed before he was born. In this land, they must have been, too. This temple had been newly built. The marble still shone like polished ivory.

As he stared, dim recollections crowded his throbbing head. Whispered tales of warriors who earned the goddess’s protection and great reward. They only had to complete a dangerous task in her name.

Kavik had a task to complete. He’d dedicated half his life to it—only to know failure each time.

But today he’d finally known victory. He would soon know it again.

The temple doors were unlocked. He staggered through them and into a dark rounded chamber. No torches or candles burned. The only light shone through the temple walls, where the phases of the moon had been carved through the marble. The carvings circled the chamber, a full turn of the moon, from a thin crescent to full and then waning.

A silver offering bowl sat on a pedestal in the light of the full moon. Kavik started toward it and tripped over an unseen stair. His steel helm slipped out of his hand, dropping onto the stone floor. The loud clatter broke the reverent quiet.

“You are drunk, boy.”

A woman’s voice. A priestess. Through the darkness, he made out the shape of a chair beneath the carving of the new moon.

Boy. She couldn’t know how young he was. Though he’d only seen fifteen winters, Kavik had already grown larger than most men. He stepped into the light shining around the offering bowl so that she could see him better.

“Not a boy. A warrior.” He tossed a coin into the bowl. “With gold earned by my sword.”

His first coins. When he had enough, he would have an army. But he wouldn’t need an army with a goddess by his side.

The priestess’s voice came from the darkness again. “Have you come to pray that you will survive your next battle, then?”

“I want a quest.”

“A quest?” The woman stood, a slim shadow in long black robes. “That is a dangerous thing to ask for, young warrior. No quest comes without great pain. And if you fail, you will wear Vela’s Mark.”

Kavik already had scars. Some on his flesh, some deeper. And some wounds that weren’t scars yet, but still raw and dripping agony from his heart like blood. “The goddess must send me to Blackmoor to defeat the warlord Barin.”

The priestess’s light laughter sounded through the chamber. “You do not dictate what your task will be. Vela will determine what needs to be done and will work through you. You can ask for a reward, though it does not always take the form you expect.”

“I will do anything she requires of me. In return, I want the power to defeat him. If not strength, then the knowledge. He cannot be touched by blade or fire.”

The priestess’s head tilted, as if considering his words as she came closer. She was small, not even of height with his shoulders. A black veil concealed her hair and face.

When she spoke again, her voice was no longer as light and as amused as it had been. “Is he a demon, young warrior?”

“Only a man,” Kavik said. “Though a demon who was freed by the Destroyer also plagues our land. If the goddess has power, she will know what to do.”

“If?” the priestess echoed. He could feel her studying him through the veil. Finally she said, “Vela has no quest for you.”

No quest? How could she refuse? His fists clenched. “My people need help. Too many have died. More still suffer.”

“That is true everywhere, young warrior.”

“Why is it true? You say to me ‘if.’” He spat the word back at her. “If your goddess truly had power, she would have stopped the Destroyer. She would have stopped Barin. So many need not have died.”

“You blame her for what they do?”

“I blame her if she had enough strength to destroy them and didn’t.” Sudden desperation joined frustration. What would persuade her? Gods and priests wanted worshipers. Kavik would crawl on his knees if it would help. “You can prove she has that power. Send me on this quest. When I hold Barin’s bloodied head in my hand, I’ll believe in her.”

Her laugh was light and amused again. Turning away from him, she said, “Vela does not seek the belief of one angry boy and she does not give quests to those with no real faith. Your only task is to leave this place in peace.”

Jaw clenched, Kavik stared at her retreating back, then retrieved his coin from the offering bowl. He would need the gold for his army. Better to leave an offering suited to charlatans who promised help and sat on their asses, instead.

Swaying, he pushed down the front of his brocs and took his cock in hand. The ache intensified, then released in a liquid rush onto the silver plate.

In the center of the chamber, the priestess froze mid-step. Slowly her veiled head turned.

Kavik stared back at her defiantly. This was victory. Now he felt like a god, because he had no power to stop this even if he’d wanted to.

The black veil fluttered as her whisper floated through. “Vela. Look upon this.”

A pale glow at the woman’s side drew Kavik’s gaze. The priestess’s hand. Though her skin was as dark as his, light shone through it as if viewing the moon through finely woven cloth.

All at once, a blast of icy air tightened his flesh. His breath billowed in a steaming cloud. His balls shriveled, and the seemingly endless stream of piss reduced to drips. Pulling up the waist of his brocs, he spun toward the door.

The priestess stood in front of him. Her hand shot up and gripped his throat.

As if he weighed no more than a boy, she lifted him off his feet. The glow through the veil almost blinded him, yet he could see her clearly, the shining skin and the eyes filled with cold moonlight.

“You little beast,” the priestess said, but now her voice was as clear and as cold as the ring of steel against stone. Each word echoed in his bones. “Even a dog knows better than to do that within his mistress’s home.”

Wheezing, Kavik tried to pry her frigid fingers away from his neck. They might as well have been made of iron. Terror splintered through his racing heart.

He could not die now. He hadn’t yet killed Barin.

“Heed this, Kavik of Blackmoor.” Her grip tightened, cutting off his air. “You have suffered, but you have suffered no more than any other that the Destroyer has touched, and many have suffered worse. I help those I can, and who ask it of me, but you will know what it means to have no help at all. Leave this temple. Buy your army. Do all that you can to save your people. And at the moment when you have lost everything, I will come to you again to twist the knife. Wait for the woman in red. When she arrives, you will know that the end is near, and that you will soon be on your knees again.”

She released him and flicked her finger against his armored chest. The blow hit him like a charging tusker, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying through the temple doors. He landed hard in the stone courtyard, back slamming into the ground, and he lay there, ears ringing, his lungs caught in an agonizing vise.

Pain still circled his throat, as if her cold hand was still upon it. Like a collar.

He rolled onto his side and retched. His eyes closed, but he could still see hers. He was suddenly certain he would dream of those cold eyes forever.

But when he finally fell into restless sleep that night, Kavik of Blackmoor dreamed of another woman, instead.

CHAPTER 1

Aragged cloth hung between the tall stone pillars at the head of the bridge. The frayed edges flapped in the spring wind, the snap almost drowned by the rush of the swollen river below. Whatever message that had once been written across its fluttering length was lost; the ink—or blood, more likely—had long since faded. Only a trace of the runes remained.

It mattered not. Mala could guess what the sign had said. She only had to look beyond the bridge and the message was clear. Turn around, fool. Death lies in Blackmoor. Or perhaps, Beware the beast!

Bones littered the roadside beyond the river. Rags still clung to rib cages, the limbs rived from their torsos and scattered by animals. Wagons lay in splintered ruins—but only on that side of the bridge, as if the travelers had been attacked as soon as they’d crossed over . . . or, if they’d started out from Blackmoor, attacked before they could escape the cursed land.

But if the beast that Mala had been sent here to tame had slaughtered these people, it hadn’t been recently. No flesh remained on the bones. The splintered wood from the wagons was pale and weathered. Surely the beast didn’t wait on the other side—and surely Mala’s quest wouldn’t end so quickly. Of all goddesses, Vela was the most generous, but she wasn’t the most kind. Those who completed their sacred quests and received Vela’s gifts usually endured far more pain than Mala had on her journey thus far.

So that pain still awaited her. When Mala crossed the river, it would soon find her.

She was ready to meet it.

Her companion didn’t seem as eager. Stamping the ground with one massive hoof, Shim tossed his head and snorted, the sound heavy with discontent—obviously unhappy with their destination now that he’d seen it. The bones wouldn’t disturb him. The big Hanani stallion had killed more than a few men during their travels, and he cared little for humans in general. More likely, the stallion’s disgruntlement sprouted from his stomach. Lush spring grass blanketed the valley behind them. A barren waste lay ahead.

Mala rolled her weight back in the saddle and loosened her posture, so that if Shim decided to buck her off and be done with her, she wouldn’t hit the ground so hard. “If you don’t like the look of it, you can stay here while I press forward.”

She couldn’t mistake the derision in his snorted response, as if his opinion of her brains had plummeted when she’d uttered the suggestion. Grinning, she patted his muscular neck. Her fingers came away covered in coarse hairs. His heavy winter coat had been sloughing off in patches since they’d trekked out of the mountains, leaving reddish brown clumps along their trail. He needed a thorough grooming, she needed a flagon of dark ale, and neither of them would get what they needed while tarrying here.

As if Shim had come to the same conclusion, he started forward. On the bridge, Mala kept a wary eye on the river and her right hand on the pommel of her sword. Even if the beast she sought didn’t lurk in the rushing water, many other creatures made their lairs beneath the surfaces of rivers and lakes. She bore scars from encounters with several.

If any beasts with stinging tentacles or poisoned jaws waited here now, however, they weren’t hungry. Nothing stirred as the clap of Shim’s hooves crossed the stone bridge and became a rhythmic thud against the hardened ground. Safely across. Still, Mala kept her sword arm ready.

A more somber land she’d never seen. If the valley behind them had been scooped out by a loving hand and seeded by a gentle breath of wind, the terrain ahead had been clawed out between sullen hills and stamped flat beneath an angry boot. Leaden clouds piled overhead. A chill breeze scraped across slabs of protruding stones and skimmed the back of her neck. With a shiver, Mala drew the hood of her heavy red cloak forward. Only this morning she’d considered shedding her winter leggings, but this land seemed to shun the sun. She would be wearing her furs a while longer.

The silent road stretched south through the barren flats. By midday a drizzle began to fall, and she hadn’t seen another living being aside from a crow and the biting gnats that plagued bare skin.

At least the rain chased away the gnats. Pushing back her hood, she asked Shim to stop. Better to eat now than before the drizzle worsened.

The jawbones hanging from her belt rattled when she dismounted. Chewing a strip of dried venison, she studied their route while Shim devoured a sack of grain. Ahead, the shadowed hills to the east and west converged, their faces abruptly changing from shrouded swells to bleak cliffs. The road led to a deep crevice between them, the entrance to Vela’s Labyrinth—a maze of canyons dug out by the goddess’s fingernails as she’d writhed in the agony of labor and gave birth to the twins, Justice and Law. This gaunt landscape had been their first cradle. It seemed better suited to a grave.

The labyrinth would not be Mala’s grave. She scratched Shim’s withers. The Hanani stallion could follow a scent as well as a wolf. Any travelers who had passed through the maze might have left markings to indicate the route, but even if they hadn’t, Shim should be able to guide her through.

She poured watered mead into her cupped hand and let him quench his thirst before taking her own swig from the wineskin. Despite the rain, this land was as dry as it was gray. Since leaving the river, not even a stream had trickled across their path.

But there would be plenty to drink when they reached the city beyond the maze, which still lay five sprints distant. She swung up into her saddle again, but before Shim had taken a step, his body tensed beneath her.

A rider on a gray horse emerged from the crevice ahead. An oxen-drawn wagon followed, then several more. A caravan—obviously headed for the bridge and the lush valley behind them, because unless they planned to settle on this barren waste, there was nowhere else to go.

Eyes narrowed, Mala studied the train. The law of the road demanded courtesy between travelers. Most of the people she’d encountered followed that code. The eyeteeth of those who hadn’t decorated her belt like pointed beads.

She probably wouldn’t be adding more today. The arrangement of the wagons suggested that they were driven by families who had banded together for safety. Almost all of the horses were pulling wagons and carts. Packs burdened both humans and animals. A few dozen people walked behind on foot, some of them children.

And perhaps one hired soldier. A mercenary, maybe, or a roaming warrior who earned his coin as he traveled. A dark figure mounted on a gray horse, he halted on the side of the road, as if studying her as Mala studied him. He would see no more detail across the distance than she did—Mala would be a red-cloaked figure atop a brown horse—but the color of her cloak would tell him enough. Only those who quested for Vela wore such garments.

For good or ill, the cloak always drew notice. The goddess favored and protected those who served her, and seeing Mala inspired in some strangers the hope that the terrors wrought by Anumith the Destroyer were coming to an end. But Mala had also encountered those who had challenged Vela’s protection, most of them determined to prove that the goddess was weaker than the demons and demigods they worshiped.

Mala wore those challengers’ teeth, too. She hadn’t even needed to call upon the goddess to defeat them. When she’d faced groups of more than three or four, Shim had come to her aid, instead.

Now she told him, “Be easy, friend.”

The appearance of these strangers was an unexpected boon. Shim would have a fresh trail to follow through the maze, and if they weren’t averse to talking, Mala could learn more about the beast she’d come to find.

As the stallion started forward again, Mala’s attention returned to the mounted warrior. He’d ridden to the tail of the caravan, waiting near the crevice as the last of the travelers emerged. Mala frowned. Instead of walking at a steady pace, now they rushed ahead. The caravan had stopped, the train breaking apart as wagons and carts drove off the sides of the road and clustered into a group.

Circling, she realized. Creating a defensive wall. Against what?

The warrior’s gray horse pranced uneasily. Steel glinted at its side. His rider had drawn a sword, and he backed his mount away from the crevice.

Shim suddenly pitched to a halt, ears laid flat against his head and nostrils flaring. Mala’s thighs gripped his sides, her body swaying with the abrupt motion. Furtive movement drew her gaze to the cliffs surrounding the maze’s entrance. Shadows crept across the bleak stone face.

Dread filled her stomach. Revenants.

The creatures would rip the humans apart.

“Shim!” she cried, crouching low over his neck and gripping his thick mane in her left hand.

The stallion surged forward. The beat of his hooves quickened, each powerful stride cleaving the distance. The wind and rain blasted Mala’s cheeks and whipped tears from her eyes, but she kept her gaze on the slinking shadows. While unmoving, they had only appeared as crags on the rock face, but their hunt betrayed their positions. Almost three dozen of the creatures. Once, they might have been goats or dogs or ponies. Befouled by demons, revenants only faintly resembled the animals they’d once been—and most animals couldn’t have traversed that sheer cliff face, yet they slithered across it like sinuous spiders.

Still four sprints away. Each sprint measured the distance that a good horse could race without flagging, yet Shim was still gaining speed. Few mounts could have matched his swiftness or endurance.

But they wouldn’t be swift enough. The revenants were gathering high above the warrior’s head, beyond the reach of his sword or spear. If they charged him one at a time, he might stand a chance. But that wasn’t how revenants fought. They would strike all at once to overwhelm the strongest foe, then individually pick off the weaker prey. Only when the slaughter was finished would they return to devour their kill.

Hold them off, warrior. Unslinging her bow, Mala didn’t tear her gaze from the man who faced his oncoming death with his sword held firm. Stay alive as long as you can. I am coming.

The warrior continued backing his mount farther from the cliff, gaining more distance and more time to prepare for the creatures’ inevitable attack. Behind him, other men and women abandoned their attempts to corral panicking livestock behind the safety of the wagons. It didn’t matter. Whether running free or tied to a cart, the animals would find no protection after the humans fell, and their barricade would not stop the revenants.

Perhaps the travelers’ arrows would. Three figures had clambered atop the wagons with bows in hand. Others stood with pitchforks and scythes. The mounted warrior raised his sword high in the air. The archers aimed at the squirming mass of gathered revenants and drew back their strings.

The warrior swept his blade forward. The archers loosed their arrows.

Like pus from a lanced boil, the revenants burst away from the cliff and poured down its stone face in a dark flood of teeth and claws.

Mala’s heart bolted against her ribs. “By Temra’s fist, Shim—faster!”

Flying couldn’t be faster, yet Shim’s huge body surged ever harder as the wave of demon-fouled creatures swamped the warrior. The gray horse reared, forelegs striking. For an instant, its rider was raised above the swarming mass. His sword flashed in powerful strokes.

He was still swinging his blade when the revenants overwhelmed his horse and pulled him under.

Teeth clenched, Mala held back her shout of rage. Silver-fingered Rani would soon carry that man into Temra’s arms—and the revenants’ blood would soon spill in a river over Mala’s feet.

Only two sprints remaining. Still too far for her arrows.

A revenant slipped from the writhing pile atop the fallen warrior and streaked toward the wagons. Another followed. Another.

Screams pierced the distance. Terrified women, men, children. The revenants’ skin-crawling shrieks and howls joined in. As if to escape the horrifying cacophony, a frenzied ox fought against its harness, whipping its hooked horns from side to side. The wagon behind it jolted forward. Suddenly unbalanced, an archer standing on the driver’s bench toppled to the ground and scrambled underneath a nearby cart. A revenant followed him. More of the creatures climbed over the sides of the barricade and slipped beneath the wagons.

Pulse pounding in her ears, Mala counted the beats as Shim’s swift strides carried them nearer to her arrows’ range. Only a few more breaths.

A revenant bounded from the left side of the barricade, dragging a small child by the arm. A screaming woman ran after him, her shoulder stained with blood. The boy was still moving, toes and knees digging at the ground as if trying to find purchase on the rain-slicked earth.

Swiftly, Mala sat up. Her wet bowstring released with a taut flict, spitting rainwater over her wrist. The arrow fell short of the revenant—and the next would only fall shorter as the foul thing raced toward the cliff.

She crouched over Shim’s neck again. “Carry me to the caravan!” she shouted into the wind. “Then save the child if you can!”

At a full gallop he approached the wagons. Arrow notched, Mala searched for a target, but the barricade blocked her view of the people and revenants within the circle, and she dared not loose her arrows on the creatures fighting the humans atop the wagons. While riding at this speed, her aim was not so true, and she might hit the travelers, instead.

Her blade would not miss. Slinging her bow, she reached for her sword and fixed her gaze on the nearest wagon. “That one!” she cried.

Without slowing, Shim struck a course that would take her past it. A yellow-haired youth crouched atop the sacks of grain stacked high on the wagon’s bed. With a small knife, he slashed wildly in the direction of a revenant stalking him from a nearby cart, as if to keep it at bay. At his back, another revenant scaled the side of the wagon in a single leap. Once, it might have been a long-toothed snow cat. Now nothing remained of its thick white fur, and its blood-blackened hide hung loosely over emaciated flesh. Jute sacks ripped open beneath the creature’s talons as it clawed its way closer to the boy. Alerted by the noise, the youth spun to confront it, his eyes wide and his mouth a pink rictus of terror. His blade was shorter than the revenant’s canine teeth.

Mala’s blade wasn’t—and she was only a breath away. The revenant abruptly froze, its ragged ears flicking backward, as if the creature suddenly recognized the danger thundering closer.

Gathering her legs beneath her, Mala vaulted from the saddle. The revenant whipped around as she flew toward it, propelled by Shim’s speed. Teeth like daggers, the creature lunged. Grunting, she swung her blade with enough force to spin her body in mid-air, red cloak flaring open. Her weapon razed its emaciated neck, steel slicing through the gristle and slinging its stinking blood in a wide arc.

She landed hard halfway up the piled sacks of grain. Seeds spilled over her boots like sand. The revenant’s head rolled past her feet. Atop the stack, the youth stared down at her with the creature’s rancid blood splattered in a crimson path across his chest.

Mala leapt over the long-tooth’s headless corpse and scrambled up the pile. “Get down, boy!”

As if suddenly remembering the revenant stalking him from the cart, he paled and spun to face it, brandishing his small knife. Not getting down, as she’d told him to.

Curse it all. She snatched up a grain sack and flung it at the backs of his knees. His legs collapsed at the same moment the revenant pounced at his head. Mala braced her feet and greeted the creature, instead. Her blade rammed into its chest. Fetid breath gushed from its snapping mouth, only a handbreadth from her face. She ripped the steel through its heart.

With her foot, she shoved the creature’s convulsing body off her sword and stole a glance toward the cliffs. Shim had caught up to the revenant dragging the child. Most of the creatures still swarmed over the warrior and his horse—as if in the shrieking chaos of their numbers, they didn’t realize their opponent had already fallen. Mala didn’t know whether she had the rot in the revenants’ brains or the goddess Vela to thank for their confusion, but it meant that the caravan wasn’t yet overwhelmed by the creatures, and she could more easily cut down the handful of revenants attacking the travelers. When Shim returned, together they would slaughter the ravenous swarm, but the people within the barricade needed her help first.

On the ground, a gray-haired woman clutched a pitchfork in her wizened hands. Her shoulders butting up against the wagon’s side, the crone desperately held off a wulfen revenant, stabbing the tines at its slobbering jaws. Two shouting men clubbed a befouled spitting lizard, smashing the spines circling its leathery neck, though it was too late to save the woman pinned beneath its claws. Children screamed and scrambled and hid. A frantic horse pitched and bucked, striking a revenant in the throat, then a glancing blow to a fleeing woman’s hip, sending her sprawling to the ground. Everywhere Mala looked there was blood, and the air was filled with cries of terror and the stench of death.

No more. Gripping the hilt of her sword in two hands, she took a flying leap off the wagon and into the fray. A single blow cleaved the wulfen revenant’s spine. Rain pelted her face as she charged the next, meeting razored fangs with hard-edged steel, and the creature’s hot blood sprayed over her hands.

Each breath, each step, another swing of her blade. No slowing, no stopping. Too late, the revenants within the barricade understood that they’d pursued their individual prey too quickly, that they should have mobbed this new foe, but by the time the creatures began attacking her in twos and threes, they were the last—and two or three would never defeat her.

Sweat mingled with the rain and blood by the time she kicked away the final stinking corpse and faced the wagons nearest the cliffs. Around her, the travelers cried out in relief, but Mala could not join them. This wasn’t finished; the second wave of creatures should be coming. Yet no new revenants were storming over the barricade.

Did they still swarm over the fallen warrior? She couldn’t hear their shrieking now. Over the travelers’ din, all else was quiet.

Carefully, she slipped between two loaded wagons and glanced out. A revenant’s head flew past her shoulder and thunked against a buckboard. Astonishment pulled her up short.

The warrior still lived. Knee-deep in slaughtered revenants, his blade gory and his body soaked by the carnage. He chopped through the neck of the last and swung toward her, his face a mask of blood and the unseeing madness of battle still burning in his eyes.

And she was a stranger. Mala immediately spread her hands, the haft of her sword dangling from her loosened fingers, trying to present as little threat as possible.

“It is finished, warrior!”

Weapon raised, he stared at her, his body frozen in place but for the heaving of his broad chest. Studded leather bracers guarded his forearms, but the corded muscles of his upper arms were bare. The revenants’ claws had scored ragged furrows in his flesh.

Not just blinded by the frenzy of battle, she realized, but by pain. Viscous crimson matted his dark hair and lay thick over his clothes and skin. She couldn’t tell how much of the blood was his, but he hadn’t fought through the swarm of revenants and emerged unscathed.

Vela, help him. And Mala, too. She had defeated men of his size before—men who had been so certain of victory when they’d faced her, simply because of their great heights and the strength in their thickly muscled arms. She had defeated men more heavily armored than this one. But when battle-madness possessed warriors, it bestowed upon them a wholly different kind of strength, one that did not falter with injury. Pain fed the bloodlust and rage, and they couldn’t be stopped except by death.

The bloodlust had probably saved his life. Even Mala could not have survived so many revenants. Not alone—unless the madness of battle had possessed her, too. But if he came for her now, one of them would die by it.

Mala didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to kill the man who had stood firm and risked everything to protect the people in the caravan. Such warriors were far too rare in these cursed lands.

“It is finished,” she repeated, more quietly this time. “Your sword has feasted on the flesh of every revenant at your feet, and those that made it over the barricade have been slain—”

“You have come.” His harsh interruption startled her to silence. “Finally come.”

He dropped his sword. Mala’s heart jumped against her ribs, and she started forward, thinking that she would have to catch him before he collapsed into the pile of corpses, but he began to wade through the carnage, instead.

Wading toward her—and the bloodlust in his eyes had been joined by fierce hunger.

“I waited for you, little dragon,” he said roughly. “Every night, I dreamed of you. And now I will have you.”

CHAPTER 2

No. Mala would not be had like this.

“Warrior, do not come closer,” she warned. “You’ve waited for nothing.”

“Nothing? No.” Triumphant laughter filled the warrior’s eyes and voice. “You have come and it is not the end.”

Easily Mala spun the haft in her palm and gripped her sword properly. “It will be.”

He grinned, his teeth white in that face of red. Bits of flesh and blood dripped in a trail behind him. “You know me, little dragon.”

Little dragon. He spoke the name as if to a loved one. Did he even see her, or did he see someone else? Was the madness putting a false vision behind his eyes?

Curse it all. Mala didn’t want to kill him. Yet if he took a few more steps, she would rip open his throat. It didn’t matter that he was unarmed. He was tall, towering over her, and his shoulders were twice the breadth of hers. Combined with the bloodlust, his strength and size made him as dangerous as ten men with swords.

She raised her blade and hoped either the sight of her weapon or the steel in her voice would pierce his senses before it was too late. “I don’t know you, warrior. But if you come closer, I’ll be on intimate terms with your still-beating heart.”

His grin faltered—as did his step. Hoarsely, he asked, “You don’t know me?”

So he had heard her. “I don’t,” she said.

He halted. Confusion darkened his laughter into a frown, then sudden awareness flared across his face in a painful spasm. Abruptly his fists clenched at his sides and he closed his eyes, as if shutting out the sight of her. His heaving breaths became slow and controlled.

The madness was passing, she realized—and he must be feeling his injuries. Mala’s tension eased, but although she lowered her blade, she didn’t glance away from him and didn’t drop her guard.

Finally she asked, “Are you yourself again?”

Mala didn’t know who that was, but she suspected it was not the man who had come for her with that wild and ecstatic grin. That suspicion was confirmed when he looked at her, and instead of laughter there was only the hardness of stone.

When he spoke again, his voice was as rough as the side of a mountain and as bleak as the cliffs. “How many?”

He did not ask how many revenants, Mala understood. This was every honorable warrior’s curse—to never remember the number of lives saved, and to never forget how many he hadn’t. The sounds of relief coming from within the barricade had given way to the grieving wails of the living and the agonized cries of the wounded. Now that the bloodlust was fading, he must hear them.

“Three,” she said softly. “Two men and one woman. Two others will only survive the night with Nemek’s blessing. There are a few who might lose a limb, or who might not rise from their sleep until many days have passed, but they will live. Some livestock will have to be put down before the revenants’ poison transforms them.”

Hoofbeats neared. Shim. Mala glanced at the stallion. Sweat lathered his flanks and crimson spattered his legs. Nearer to the cliffs, a revenant lay pulped on the ground, and the woman with the bloodied shoulder was carrying the sobbing child back toward the caravan.

She looked to the warrior again. He was watching her with an unwavering gaze, the whites of his eyes a piercing contrast to the red masking his face. A thick and tangled beard hung to his chest and dripped blood onto his molded leather breastplate. If he wore a crest upon his armor, the gore concealed it.

The blood couldn’t conceal the rips in his woven tunic and slashes in the winter furs belted over his loose brocs. What hadn’t been protected by armor had been shredded by the revenants’ teeth and claws. Though she couldn’t see the flesh beneath his clothing, the muscles of his legs and back must have been gashed as badly as his arms.

That might be why he hadn’t yet taken a step since the madness had passed. He had to be in agony. “Have you anyone in this caravan who will see to your wounds, warrior?”

He abruptly looked away from her. “No. I only ride alongside them.”

As a hired man. But she’d already guessed as much. Though a few travelers had peered over the wagons, none had called to him with concern. They’d only been making certain that the revenants were dead.

So she would tend to him, warrior to warrior. Not yet. He still hadn’t moved—probably because he didn’t know if his next step would bring him to his knees. Mala’s pride would have pinned her in place, too. If he had to fall, best to give him privacy to do it.

She turned away. “I’ll see to the livestock.”

No response from the warrior. Instead his penetrating gaze returned to her face, and he silently watched as she gestured Shim closer and retrieved the single-bladed axe lashed to her saddle. She pushed the handle into her belt, then dragged the tack from Shim’s sweating back.

“Scout the entrance to the maze to make certain that no other revenants are lying in wait,” she told the stallion. “Then take your ease. I’ll rub you down when we’ve finished here.”

With a nicker and a soft butt of his head into her chest, he trotted off. Glad to be away from the stinking pile of revenants, most likely. Probably glad to be away from the wailing humans, too.

She glanced at the warrior. Shadowed by heavy black brows, his dark gaze followed the stallion before he suddenly turned his head, searching the ground. He stilled again when his gaze lit upon the heap of corpses, and all expression wiped from his face, as if a cold wind had scraped across a bare rock.

His horse, Mala realized. His mount’s body lay beneath the carnage. Perhaps he’d been attached to the animal, and perhaps it had only been useful to him—but a hired warrior was only worth as much as his steed, and if his mount died, often several seasons passed before he could earn enough to buy another. Sometimes years.

Mala only had to look at this warrior’s face to know the gray horse’s death was a devastating loss . . . and to know that he would not welcome her sympathy.

Her chest tight, she strode around the wagons, the red cloak sweeping out behind her. Ahead, two men squabbled over a limping ox. A gray-hair held a butcher’s blade. The younger barred his way. They both fell silent when Mala pushed past them, and she ended the argument with a swing of her axe. Another valuable animal dead—but this one not a complete loss.

She pointed to the teeth marks on the ox’s flank. “Cut away the poisoned flesh. The remaining meat can be saved.”

Without waiting for a response, she sought the next infected ox. The old butcher followed her—his knife sheathed now, and his gaze on Mala, not the animal. “It has been many years since anyone wearing the questing cloak has passed through Blackmoor.”

Probably not since Anumith the Destroyer had razed Vela’s temples and slaughtered her oracles. A full generation. Mala did not say that in her homeland of Krimathe, old men such as he were just as rare. The Destroyer hadn’t left any young men alive, so there were none to grow old.

She only said, “I am not passing through—and don’t eat this one.” Teeth clenched, she silenced a bloodied and bleating goat. The animal’s eyes had already begun to redden; the poison had infected its brain. “What fouled these creatures?”

“A tusker,” the old man said.

Her breath stopped in her chest. A long-haired mountain of an animal, tuskers were strong and aggressive, with enormous jaws guarded by long, razored tusks. A beast, if ever there was one. “Possessed by a demon?”

“It is.”

Then unlike the revenants, the tusker wasn’t poisoned. A demon’s evil inhabited the beast’s flesh, instead, giving it terrible strength beyond its own. Because a demon had great power, but like a god, it needed flesh to use that power. Unlike gods, however, the demon didn’t work through the living or the willing; demons possessed dead flesh, which could give no consent—and could not withdraw it. After a demon inhabited a body, its corruption fouled all that it touched. The possessed creature could only be stopped if its magical protections were breached and the demon within slain, or if a sorcerer released it from the flesh.

For the first time since visiting Vela’s new temple and receiving her quest, real unease stalked Mala’s heart. She expected pain. She expected to be driven to the edge of her endurance. But she’d also expected to find an animal in Blackmoor, not an abomination.

Why hadn’t the goddess asked her to slay the demon? Such a dangerous and laborious task was well worthy of any quest. But to tame a demon? It would be easier to tame one of the thunder lizards in the southern jungles—if such a thing was possible at all.

But it must be, or Vela wouldn’t have sent her here. The goddess wouldn’t have given her a task that couldn’t be completed. Only those who doubted her or who proved unworthy failed their quests.

Mala wouldn’t fail. If she had to tame a demon, then she would tame a demon. “How long has it plagued these lands?”

“It is said that the demon was imprisoned beneath the fiery mountains to the north until the Destroyer released it from that prison and helped it possess the tusker’s flesh.”

Many evils were said to be the Destroyer’s doing. Often, it was truth. But that sorcerer was not responsible for every evil laid at his feet. “‘It is said’? You don’t remember?”

The lines in the old butcher’s face deepened, and his voice hollowed. “When so many evils come to your home at once, where they hailed from ceases to matter. It only matters when they leave.”

The demon tusker hadn’t left. But if Mala tamed it, perhaps she could send it away.

With renewed determination, she continued past the caravan, to where a brown horse lay thrashing on the wet earth. Another swing of her axe finished the grisly task. The rain was subsiding when she returned to the wagons. Those travelers who were not grieving or tending the wounded had begun to restore order to the train, and she felt their gazes upon her. Some appeared curious. Most were wary and wore an air of resignation—as if they wouldn’t have been surprised if Mala had only helped save them from the revenants so that she could destroy the caravan herself.

As if they had learned never to trust those with strength, or those who were supposed to protect them.

Including the warrior who had risked his life for theirs? But at least one person seemed to trust him. Mala paused at the edge of the barricade. Still on his feet, he was wading through the heap of revenants, a gore-covered saddle slung over his shoulder. So he’d gone in after his horse—and his sword. With a blue scarf now covering her yellow hair and a sling supporting her arm, the woman who had chased after the boy was offering him a large wineskin, but the warrior didn’t take it.

The woman thrust it toward him again. Her voice rose with frustration. “You will soon need this more than we will, Kavik.”

Kavik. He knew Mala stood watching; he’d spotted her the moment she’d come around the wagon. His gaze rested on her face for an instant before he shook his head and responded to the woman. Mala could hear the deep gravel of his voice, but couldn’t make out his reply.

But he’d clearly refused the wineskin again. When the warrior walked stiffly past the woman, striding across the thickening pools of blood toward the wagons, she determinedly stalked after him. “What harm will come to me? Lord Barin’s reach doesn’t extend past the river.”

This time he was close enough for Mala to hear his answer. “And your family? Your husband’s family? Even after you have gone, they will still reside in this land.”

All at once, the fight seemed to leave the woman. Despair and helplessness darkened her expression as she turned her face away, her jaw working as if she could taste the words she wanted to say, but knew uttering them wouldn’t make any difference.

The warrior looked to Mala again, but he came no nearer. With a heavy sigh, the woman brushed past him. Tears glittered in her eyes when she stopped in front of Mala and bowed her covered head.

“I am Telani, and I stand forever in your debt.” Her voice was thick. “My boy only lives because you helped us.”

All of these people lived only because of the man behind her, but Mala would not be so quick to reject the woman’s offering.

“My mount needs to quench his thirst,” she said, then gestured to the wineskin. “What do you carry?”

“Water.” With renewed irritation, the woman shot a glance at the warrior, whose dark gaze had not left Mala’s face. As a stranger to them, she expected to be watched. Unlike the travelers, however, Kavik didn’t appear wary. Instead he looked at her with an expression both haunted and fervid, as if he saw his death approaching, yet could not bear to glance away from it.

“Water will do.” And she wanted to know why this woman had told the warrior that he would soon need it, but only asked, “How fares the boy?”

“We will know when the fever passes.” With dirty fingers, Telani touched her injured shoulder. “Several of us will.”

Though humans couldn’t be transformed into revenants, the creatures’ poison produced a dangerous fever. There were remedies for it, but Mala supposed that few of Nemek’s healers journeyed to Blackmoor to sell their wares—or if they had, their bones were littered beside the river. Fortunately she had encountered several during her travels.

“Go and tend to him, then,” Mala told her. “I will see to my horse and this man, then come to you with a salve to draw out the venom.”

The woman’s renewed gratitude sat uneasily on Mala’s shoulders. If Mala was to tame a demon, and if the salve was not readily available in Blackmoor, she might soon be in dire need of it. But Vela never offered the easy path. If giving the salve to these travelers meant that Mala would soon suffer a revenant’s fever, then she would suffer it—and trust that her own strength and the goddess’s generosity would see her through it.

Wineskin in hand, she retrieved the salve and an oiled cloth from her saddlebag. The warrior didn’t look away as she approached him, but his big body seemed to stiffen with her every step.

Mala stopped an arm’s length away and extended her hand. “Your sword.”

His grip tightened on the weapon. Roughly he said, “I won’t harm you.”

“I didn’t fear you would,” she told him. “Your blade needs to be wiped clean, and you’ve been standing with a saddle on your shoulder for so long that the blood has begun to dry. I suspect that you remain still to avoid tearing open one of your injuries. So give the sword to me, and I’ll see it cleaned.”

His mouth flattened. Without a word, he reached for the saddle and lifted it from his broad shoulder. His gaze never left hers as he held the heavy tack out to his side for one breath, two—then deliberately dropped it.

Stupid, stubborn man. But Mala couldn’t say that her reaction would have been any different, so she offered him the oiled cloth.

He abruptly crouched and slammed his sword hilt-deep into the ground, as if driving in a stake. The muscles in his arms bulged as he ripped the blade to the side through the dirt, then hauled it out again. Aside from a ring of blood and mud near the hilt, the weapon had been scraped clean.

His jaw was tight when he stood again. “It is done.”

She looked to his arms. The gashes were bleeding again, and he stank of revenant. With a sigh, she opened the small pot of salve.

He shook his head. “Don’t tend to me.”

“You will be fevered, warrior.”

“I’ve lived through a revenants’ attack before.”

That was not all he’d lived through. Closer now, she could see the ridged scars that marked his skin. A wide slash on his left cheek, as if from a blade. The pucker of an arrow in his upper biceps. A ragged half moon from some animal’s teeth lay above his elbow—and there were probably far more scars that she couldn’t see beneath the blood, his beard, and his clothing.

She dipped her fingers into the cool salve. “This time you will live through it more easily.”

“No.” His big hand shot out, covering the pot, his bloodied fingers trapping hers. “Do not tend to me. You will pay for your kindness.”

It wasn’t just kindness; it was a warrior’s honor and duty to care for another’s injuries. Even in Blackmoor, it must be. But she only asked, “Why?”

When he didn’t answer, she studied him for a long moment. He wasn’t much to look at—just a huge bloody mess of matted hair and gore. He reeked like a putrid corpse, too, but his eyes were the warm brown of a good beer. That would be reason enough to like him, but Mala appreciated warriors who used their strength well even more than she appreciated her ale.

And she was more aware of his hand on hers than she’d ever been of any man’s touch. Usually she was prying their fingers away or chopping them off. She didn’t mind his.

He must have run afoul of someone, though, if he believed she would regret helping him.

“Are you ill-favored by a god?” she wondered.

“No,” he said bleakly. “Just forsaken.”

If he had been truly forsaken, it might be his own fault—or it might be undeserved, if he suffered from a god’s caprice. It mattered not. Mala was not a god, and she was not in the habit of forsaking warriors who had stood against dozens of revenants in the hope of saving a small group of travelers.

Travelers who were apparently escaping the reach of one man, though their families had been left behind. What name had Telani spoken earlier?

“Should I fear Lord Barin?” When his chest lifted on a sharp breath and his gaze hardened, her guess was confirmed. “What have you done to offend him, that he would punish anyone who helps you?”

Anger tightened his face. But he didn’t offer a reason. He only said, “Don’t risk it.”

“Why? Who will tell him?” She smiled and looked up into the gray sky. “The birds? Or will he read the truth in the revenants’ bones? Or perhaps I will tell him myself, because I have no wish to hide it. I don’t wear this cloak lightly, warrior—and I won’t risk Vela’s wrath by ignoring someone in need.”

She wouldn’t have ignored him even if she hadn’t been wearing the cloak, but he might be less likely to refuse her if he believed it would inspire a goddess’s anger. But old scars were sometimes more sensitive than new wounds, and whatever his reason for denying her—and denying the other woman’s simple gift of water—the pain of his injuries must have paled in comparison to whatever retaliation he thought the kindness would bring.

He shook his head and released her, his fingers skimming the back of her hand. “Give the salve to me, then. I’ll see to the wounds myself.”

That would have to be enough for now. She poured water into a clay bowl, left the wineskin at his feet, and called for Shim. Mala kept her back to Kavik as she rubbed down the stallion’s legs. Shim would watch for any danger from behind, but she didn’t think that the warrior would pose any threat now. Turning her back gave him privacy to feel his pain. By the heaviness of his breath and the long catches between, she suspected that the agony of removing his armor and tending to his wounds had all but immobilized him.

Yet the rest of the caravan seemed to be preparing to move again. Not right away—there was still much to be done—but no one was setting up camp. “How far do you intend to journey today, warrior?”

“To the river.” The response emerged on a grunt, then he hissed before adding, “Beyond that, they travel alone.”

Then he would return to Blackmoor? But the question died on her tongue when she looked behind her.

Though Kavik had refused her help, he apparently wasn’t such a stubborn fool that he would haphazardly slap the salve over his injuries rather than properly attend to them. To better reach the wounds, he’d removed his breastplate, tunic, and loose brocs, leaving only the winter furs belted around his hips to cover his loins, and the leather-wrapped boots hugging his strong calves. With one arm crooked behind his head, he slicked the cream down a slash alongside his ribs, glistening fingers smoothing over taut muscle.

Her own fingers curled against her palms. She’d known he was strong. She hadn’t known that seeing the evidence of his battle upon his flesh would call to hers so forcefully, but her pulse pounded anew.

Hanan be merciful—but that god rarely was. He’d sprayed his seed throughout the world and rocked the earth with his fuckings. Under his influence, she would be rolling in the blood and mud with this warrior.

She thought that Kavik would roll with her. His head suddenly lifted, and his body stilled as his gaze met hers. No pain in his eyes now. Only the same hunger as before, and no madness with it.

Little dragon.

A fire burned in her now. Not for the first time since she’d earned her sword, Mala wished that she wasn’t bound by the obligations of her rank and could seek the same pleasures that her fellow warriors and friends often did.

Still holding her gaze, Kavik covered the pot of salve. “It is finished,” he said gruffly.

No, it wasn’t. “Do not move, warrior.”

She walked slowly toward him, her gaze following the trail of blood over his rippling stomach. His belt hung low on his hips, the line of it bisecting the ridges of muscle that defined his pelvis and the flat plane of his lower abdomen. He’d rubbed salve into a gash on his heavy thigh, smearing the blood around it. He’d had to spread so much on his arms that his skin appeared oiled. His sides had not been spared the revenants’ teeth and claws; only his chest, which the breastplate had guarded.

“Do not move,” she said again. She was close enough to touch him now, and his hands were clenching as if he stopped himself from reaching for her.

She slipped around his broad shoulder—and sighed. Just as she’d thought. He wouldn’t let anyone attend to him, but he couldn’t reach his own back.

Mala held out her hand. “The salve,” she said.

He began to turn. “Don’t risk—”

She jammed her thumb into his torn flesh—a bite wound, already swollen and red. Every muscle in his back went rigid. His breath hissed.

“I am not tending to you,” she said. “If your Lord Barin sees this, then it will be said that I am torturing you. Can you withstand it?”

Mala knew he could, because the evidence on his back told her he’d withstood far worse. Not just the revenants’ claws and teeth, but more old battle wounds, and the pale stripes of a whip. Had he been enslaved? If so, he must have been young. The edges of the scars had softened with age.

From what she could see, it was the only part of him that had softened. The rest was hard. So very hard. “The salve,” she repeated.

Jaw clenched, he lifted the pot over his shoulder, as if to pass it to her.

“Hold it there for me,” she said and dipped her fingers in. His back stiffened again as she smoothed the cream over the bite.

A frown darkened his blood-masked face as he looked over his shoulder. “That is not torture.”

She hadn’t said it would be painful. Her hand slicked forward around his side, her fingers skimming the skin at the edge of his belt. His big body tightened all at once, thick muscles straining. A laugh rumbled from him, cut short by a groan, then he hung his head and was silent.

Mala grinned and soothed salve across parallel slashes low on his back, then slipped her hand beneath the furs to test the hardness of his ass.

Like glorious steel.

“If you didn’t stink of revenant, I’d taste you all over,” she told him.

A rough sound reverberated through his chest, like another laugh that was strangled before it emerged. Hoarsely he asked, “Will you have me? Will you destroy me completely?”

“I cannot,” she said with real regret.

“Then your touch is torture enough.” A shudder ripped through him, then he stilled again. “Will you give me your name, red one?”

“Mala.” High Daughter of the House of Krima, second in line to the Ivory Throne, and one of Vela’s Chosen. “And yours is Kavik.”

“Only to those who’ve known me longest.”

“And what does someone call you if she’s known you a day?”

His hesitation told her that he took no pride in his current name. “I would have you call me Kavik.”

So she would. “Why do you only escort them as far as the river?”

“The revenants attack anyone leaving this land, but they don’t follow any travelers beyond the bridge.”

“You expected to fight them.”

“Yes. But never so many before.”

“How many times before?” She recalled the bones and shattered wagons littering the sides of the road—and how they’d been weathered and old. “When did you begin?”

“I returned to Blackmoor five summers ago. Since then, those people who want to leave this land come to me.”

Most of those bones had been there longer than five years. So Kavik had stopped the revenants from slaughtering the travelers. Yet the creatures still continued to attack—and though other people risked their lives to leave Blackmoor, he had come back.

But Kavik didn’t give her a chance to ask why he had returned. He slowly tensed again, but not by her touch—instead he was frowning at Shim. “Your mount was bitten.”

Mala had already seen to the shallow wound on the stallion’s chest. But that likely wasn’t what concerned the warrior. “He won’t become a revenant.”

Disbelief filled his voice. “He’s one of the Hanani?”

A descendant of the god Hanan, who had not only speared his cock into humans but had also fucked every animal he encountered, no matter how big or small. Those born of his seed were often gifted with abilities beyond the natural. Shim was far stronger and smarter than any other horse she’d ever encountered—but most Hanani animals didn’t associate with humans. Shim’s herd had resided in the highlands west of Krimathe.

“He is,” Mala said.

“He allows you to ride him?” Slowly he turned to face her, his shadowed eyes searching her features. “You must be favored by the gods.”

“No. I am only favored by one horse.” And only because Mala was patient and stubborn, and she’d promised Shim that he would stomp on many men’s heads during their travels.

“And a goddess.” His gaze fell to her cloak. “You are a Narae warrior?”

One of the wandering women who served Vela and enforced her laws. Those warriors wore dark crimson cloaks—and most traveling women who claimed to be Narae were not, but simply used the cloak to protect themselves from assault. A bandit couldn’t risk being mistaken, because any man who attacked the wrong woman wearing a crimson cloak was a dead man.

But this man knew Mala wasn’t a false warrior. “No. I travel on my sacred quest.”

“From Vela?” The words were rough. When she nodded, his eyes closed. “Did she send the quest to you in dreams?”

“No, warrior. She speaks to some that way. Not to me. I visited a priestess, instead.”

Her reply seemed to open some torment within him, and for an instant the agony in his gaze was deeper than any wound he’d received. Then his face hardened, as did his voice, though the grittiness remained. “And she sent you here?”

“Apparently I am to find the demon tusker.”

The scar in his cheek whitened. “She sent you to die?”

“I hope not.” Mala trusted the goddess hadn’t. “Have you faced it?”

“Yes.”

“And lived?” Perhaps it wouldn’t be as difficult a task as Mala feared.

“Barely. Many of the men I fought with did not.” His gaze searched her face again, his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, and Mala realized that he was stopping himself from forbidding her to go. He must have realized that she would, anyway. “Keep away from it, if you can. No blade or arrow can breach its hide and I’ve seen warriors cut in half by a blow from its tusks. Find some way to kill it from a distance.”

Mala didn’t intend to kill it, only to tame it. But she wouldn’t explain now. “Where will I find it?”

“It usually comes down from the mountains when the goddess turns her back.”

During the new moon—and the next was almost a full turn away. “Then it seems I will be in Blackmoor for a while. Perhaps I’ll see you again, warrior.” She hoped to. “Who should I ask for if I wish to find you?”

Eyes like stone, he took a full step back from her. “You would do best to say you have never spoken to or helped me.”

Perhaps. But she didn’t like that he retreated from her now, so she would see him again. “I don’t always do what is best. I only do what must be done.”

Kavik didn’t immediately respond. Instead he looked to the wagons when a hail came from that direction—the caravan was preparing to leave, and Mala still needed to give the salve to Telani and her injured boy.

He drew back another step, his gaze still on her. “Don’t drink or bathe in any of the rivers and lakes beyond the maze—they’ve been fouled by the demon. You’ll only find safe water in the wells dug in the city and villages.”

So that was why he would need the wineskin full of it. Mala didn’t. She would not always be in the city or villages if the beast was in the mountains, but she didn’t travel without protection. “Whilst I quest, Vela will bless and cleanse it for me.”

Though only if Mala asked. And if she was foolish enough to drink without asking, then she would get what she deserved.

Eyes like stone, Kavik shook his head. “The goddess has abandoned this land.”

“I am here, warrior.”

“That only means it is almost the end,” he said, and his voice was that of a man who did not dare to hope anymore. He only braced himself for worse. “Try to avoid the notice of the warlord.”

Lord Barin? Mala would not be able to do that, either. “Why?”

“You’re strong.” His dark gaze lingered on her features. “He’ll want you—or he’ll want to break you.”

The man standing before her was strong, too. But she wouldn’t ask now how Barin had tried to break him. They’d meet again, and perhaps Kavik would tell her. “He can want all he likes. Only I choose who will have me. But I thank you for the warning.”

He nodded and, after a final look at her face, turned away.

Curse it all. She called after him, “Are there markings to guide me through the maze?”

It didn’t matter if there were. Shim could follow the path. But she wanted the warrior to look at her like that again, with that strange combination of hunger and bleak torment—because she might understand why he looked at her that way if she could hold onto his image a little longer.

“You don’t need markings.” He bent to his saddle and slung the bloodied tack over his broad shoulder. “Just follow the bones.”

CHAPTER 3

Mala could follow the bones all the way to Lord Barin’s citadel.

Beyond the maze, the bones no longer littered the ground, but they stood in the people on the road to Perca who watched her with wary eyes. They stood in the fallow fields and the sagging walls of the crofters’ huts. They stood in the thousands of bowls and vases set out to catch the rain, and in the desperate faces of the children who quickly backed into the shadows and alleys as Shim carried her into the city.

This was a land stripped bare, with hope carved away. Mala’s mother had once told her that Krimathe was the same in those months after the Destroyer had passed through their lands. But Mala’s home had recovered. Blackmoor had not, though it had obviously once been strong. Mala could see those bones once she reached Perca, too—in the high walls surrounding the city, the wide roads, and the heavy stone of the city’s fortress. They had all been built to last, by careful planning and knowledgeable hands. Now the flesh was gone, and the skin stretched over those durable bones was thin.

Guards were lighting torches at the citadel’s gate when Mala rode through. None attempted to stop her or to question her presence there, as if Barin did not fear anyone who might enter his fortress.

She dismounted in the courtyard. Beside her, Shim raised his head, sniffing out the horses tied in front of the garrison on the eastern wall. Saddled, they stood with their backs to the rain and heads down. Two of the mounts responded to his whinny, but all moved uneasily against their tethers, as if they’d caught wind of the revenant blood still staining his legs and Mala’s cloak.

The musty scent of peat smoke hung in the air. Two servants crossed the yard, heading for the garrison and carrying a heavy soup cauldron between them. She had apparently come during the guards’ supper. Mala pulled up her hood, marking the remaining guards’ positions. The courtyard was large—too large for the scarce number standing watch. Most of those who weren’t eating waited near the keep’s entrance, and a few others walked the battlements.

No vessels stood atop the walls to catch the rain. The people within the citadel must have no trouble procuring water. That couldn’t be true for everyone within the city. How desperate must that make them?

Her gaze fell upon the pillories standing in the courtyard’s northwestern corner. A dozen of the devices stood silhouetted in the torchlight. She’d never known any city to need so many. Half were in use, the prisoners bent over with their heads and wrists trapped between slabs of darkwood, their pale faces and hands visible through the gloom. Two more guards watched over them, and—

Mala’s step faltered. It could not be. Yet she could hear the pained cries from one of the prisoners now.

Her blood seemed to thicken. Pulse pounding in her ears, she turned toward the pillories. Shim kept pace beside her, yet she barely heard the clop of his hooves. One guard watched as the other rutted behind an imprisoned man. He spared her a glance as she approached, but must have thought that she was there to pelt the prisoners with offal or to stand as another spectator. His gaze returned to the rutting pig. It was the last thing he saw.

The scrape of her blade across the bottom of his helm went unnoticed by the grunting pig, but the pilloried woman closest to Mala shrieked when the guard’s helmeted head dropped in front of her.

The other guard looked up. He stumbled back one step, brocs falling to his ankles before Mala reached him. She struck twice, and the pig only had a blink to realize that his cock had been separated from his balls before his head joined it on the muddied ground.

Shouts echoed across the courtyard. With rage boiling in her veins, Mala shattered the pillory lock with the butt of her axe. Whatever this man’s crime, he’d been punished as no one ever should be and had served sentence enough.

All of these prisoners had. Sick fury rose from her gut as her gaze raced over their soiled clothes, the bruises and stains. She stalked to the first pillory and kicked the guard’s head away from the imprisoned woman’s feet. Teeth clenched with every bone-jarring swing, she moved down the row, destroying each lock.

“Halt!”

A handful of guards marched toward her. Mala gave them no note beyond a glance. Like any other horse, Shim stood with his head down and his back against the rain, yet his hooves would bash in the guards’ helms if they came too close. She continued to the last pillory, where a slam of her boot sent the blackwood slab flying open on the hinge. As if the prisoner’s legs were too weak to hold her, the woman dropped into the mud.

Chest heaving, her heart like ice, Mala tossed back her hood and stood waiting in the torchlight, sword and axe in hand. A brute of a woman with greasy lips and a ragged scar over her pale left eye led the guards.

Mala punted the rutting pig’s head to her. “Are you captain of these men?”

The gore-stained helm landed at the woman’s boots. Shock and anger painted her cheeks red. She reached for her weapon.

“Stay your hand!” Mala snapped. “Are you captain of these men? Heed the cloak I wear and answer well, or I’ll spill your lump-weeded brain into the mud with them.”

Lips pinched, the woman gripped her sword. Mala grinned. So this guard wouldn’t heed the warning. Good. Near the pillories, a bowl of grease and a rod strapped to a belt had told Mala that not only the male guards had been raping the prisoners. By Vela’s moon-glazed blade, she would enjoy gutting every one of these bum-birthed scuts.

A guard behind the woman caught her forearm. “She is Vela’s,” he hissed.

Unease slipped over the woman’s anger and she hesitated. Curse it all. Mala would have preferred that these pigs were among those who didn’t fear the goddess and attempted to challenge her power, instead.

But if they defied her laws and forced themselves on these prisoners, they obviously didn’t fear her enough. Before Mala left this land, they would.

The guard’s hand fell away from her weapon. “The captain is at his supper.”

“His name?”

“Heddiq.”

“Then this will be Captain Heddiq’s last easy meal. You will announce me to Lord Barin, then you will visit the garrison and tell your captain to begin running as far from Blackmoor as he can, because if ever I see him, I will not stay my weapon. Perhaps your next captain will know better than to risk Vela’s wrath by allowing his guards to violate the prisoners under his charge.” She pointed her axe at the other guards. “You three will help these men and women to the citadel gates and release them. One more bruise on any of them and I come for your heads.”

Shim would keep watch outside and let her know if she needed to.

The guards exchanged uncertain glances. “But our Lord Barin—”

Mala interrupted them. “Will allow it.”

And if possible, would suffer the same fate as the guards. The captain wasn’t the only one who should have prevented the guards from raping these prisoners, but Mala wouldn’t make threats that she couldn’t be sure of carrying out. Earlier that day, when she had returned to the caravan to give Telani the salve, she’d learned from the other woman that Barin had ruled over Blackmoor since the days of the Destroyer—and that the warlord couldn’t be killed, though many had tried.

That couldn’t be true; even gods could die. But Mala wouldn’t test her blade against his neck today.

The guards hastily backed out of her way when she started toward the keep. Solidly built, the towers rose like spears against the night sky. The greasy-lipped guard rushed ahead—most likely to warn Lord Barin and to report what Mala had done at the pillories.

Mala gave the woman time and followed at a slower pace. As she passed through the inner gate, a chill raced down her spine. The rain? By Temra’s fist, she hoped it was. But the cold weight in her belly and the sudden urge to draw her sword warned her that this trepidation was nothing so simple.

She’d sensed magic before. Never had such an icy dread accompanied it, but she’d heard this reaction described by her mother, upon first seeing Anumith the Destroyer.

He wasn’t here. But either his sorcery was still at work, or someone here abused the same foul magics.

Perhaps it was someone who couldn’t be killed.

The lilting notes of a hornflute and the distinctive mossy fragrance of roasted constrictor greeted Mala at the entrance to the great stone hall. So the warlord was at his supper, too.

She paused between the stone columns at the head of the chamber. The hornflute player danced in the center, the silver threads in his embroidered tunic catching the firelight from the torches. On either side of the room, two darkwood tables ran the length of the walls, each heavily laden with platters of sugar-dusted fruit, steaming soups, and a portion of the roasted snake. The benches were filled—by courtiers, she judged. Intricately woven garments in bright colors adorned many of the men and women, and even those who were dressed more simply wore finer cloth than any Mala had seen outside the citadel.

At the far end of the chamber, thirteen men ate at a shorter table atop a stone dais. Lord Barin sat in the center upon a tall, carved chair—but even if he hadn’t chosen to raise himself above the others or wrap himself in yellow robes edged in gold, his position would have been impossible to mistake. The fanged head of the giant constrictor gaped open near his left hand, and the first portion of its roasted body stretched to the end of the table. The longest portions fed the courtiers at the other two tables, but the tail ended at the warlord’s right hand, as if the snake’s body had circled the room. The message was clear: even the very food these people consumed began and ended with Lord Barin.

Though he had ruled this land for almost thirty years, the warlord didn’t appear much older than Mala. No gray threaded his brown braids or his short beard, and his tanned skin appeared smooth and unlined, marked only by the sun tattooed around his right eye.

The cold dread in her stomach sharpened. That tattoo marked the sun god’s disciples. The Destroyer had been one, too—before claiming that he was Enam, freed from his fiery prison in the heavens and reborn. Not all who wore that mark believed it. But many did.

At the east wall, the greasy-lipped guard was speaking to a tall, wiry man dressed in simple robes. The marshal, perhaps, who would relay the guard’s news to Barin. Smug anticipation lit the guard’s face as she spoke, and her gaze upon Mala was that of a child’s tattling to an elder and hoping to watch the inevitable punishment.

Mala didn’t fear it. She strode past the columns. The sound of a sharp breath to her left made her glance in that direction. A dozen people sat naked and leashed, each one wearing a thick leather collar.

Hot fury exploded through the icy dread, but she forced herself to continue on. She didn’t know what purpose or punishment those people served. But she would find out.

Silence fell over the hall. His pale gaze upon her, Barin had raised his hand for quiet. For a long moment, there was only the light sound of her footsteps, the rustle of cloth as the courtiers shifted to better see her, and the faint crackle of the torches. The marshal bent his head to Barin’s ear.

She reached the dais. After a nod from Barin, the marshal straightened. His deep voice sounded through the hall. “Our glorious liege welcomes the High Daughter of Krimathe to Blackmoor!”

Mala hadn’t told them who she was, yet she wasn’t surprised that he knew. Rumors traveled the roads even faster than Shim did. “You were expecting me, my lord?”

He leaned forward slightly, his glacial eyes arrested on her face. His angular features were handsome, almost beautiful, yet she preferred the fanged grin of the roasted snake near his elbow to the small smile upon his lips. “It is said that a red-cloaked daughter of Krimathe has journeyed across the mountains on a quest, and that as she travels, she has been renewing alliances that have long lain fallow. When I heard of you, I hoped that your quest would lead you through Blackmoor. Do you intend to form an alliance with me, as well?”

Not in a thousand years, not as long as this man ruled this country. Alliances had only foundered because the Destroyer had corrupted so many royal houses, or killed them and replaced their heads with his own men—and because it had taken a full generation for Krimathe to gain the strength to look outside of its own borders again.

But Mala only said, “It is true that your predecessor, Karn of Blackmoor, was once a strong ally, and I hope that we might once again renew ties with your people. But I have also come for another purpose.”

“Your quest? And what is it?” His brows arched with amusement. “To kill more of my guards?”

“If necessary.”

“You must believe it is.” Indolently he leaned back in his chair. His golden robe fell open, revealing a smoothly muscled chest. More runes had been tattooed down his throat and across his pectorals, but Mala recognized none of the symbols. “As a daughter of Krimathe, you must be especially sensitive to such punishments.”

Because after the Destroyer had killed every man and boy that he hadn’t already enslaved for his armies, he had set his soldiers upon every remaining woman. But although Barin’s careless reference to the most horrific assault her people had ever endured steamed Mala’s blood, she would not be baited.

“I administer Vela’s justice,” she said. “And before we ever speak of an alliance, I must first know if I must administer it again.”

“Upon me?” Barin’s grin seemed to crawl up her spine and was answered by a few uneasy titters from the listening courtiers. “For what offense?”

Probably more than the one she was about to name. “You have men and women leashed in this chamber.”

“And you wonder if they are enslaved? Let me set your avenging mind at ease, Krimathean. To pay their debts, they have chosen to serve me in this manner.” He rapped upon the table. “Come up, Gepali. Your deliverer has arrived to rescue you from your labors.”

Oh, she would not draw her sword. She would not draw her sword. No matter how she wanted to.

Unlike the other tables, Barin’s had been covered by a long blue cloth that concealed everything beneath. Mala had thought the man sitting two seats to the warlord’s left had been drunk—his eyes were glazed and his skin flushed, and he’d only seemed to be half listening while she spoke to Barin. But when a collared woman emerged from beneath the cloth, her mouth red and her lined face a portrait of humiliation and misery, Mala could only imagine taking her blade to every single courtier in this chamber.

Gripping her leash, Barin tugged the woman closer. “Tell us, Gepali—tell all who are here—is it by choice that you serve me and my court?”

The old woman had to draw two long, shuddering breaths before the answer came. “Yes, my lord.”

“And do you enjoy performing with my guests?”

Her tortured gaze flicked up to meet Mala’s. “It is my honor to please them and to repay his lordship’s generosity to my family.”

Generosity. Mala wondered what threat Barin had made toward her family that this woman—that all of these leashed people—had chosen this, instead. If he’d threatened their lives, there would be no difference between choice and force.

But merely asking this woman whether that was true might endanger her family, too. And remembering Kavik’s warning that any kindness might earn Barin’s retaliation, she dared not offer Gepali encouraging words, either. Mala would have vowed to her that she wouldn’t leave this land without seeing Lord Barin dead.

She silently made the vow to Vela, instead, knowing the goddess would hear her and hold her accountable.

“So you see that I have spoken truth, chosen one,” Barin said and pulled on Gepali’s leash again. The old woman sank to her knees, unresisting. “Now tell me why you so urgently seek alliances from our neighbors. Perhaps you have also heard the rumors that the Destroyer is returning from across the western ocean?”

No reason to lie. “We have.”

“It is no rumor. He comes.” Those pale eyes seemed to glitter with amusement, as if Barin could sense the shiver that raced over Mala’s skin. “So it would be best for you and your people to form that alliance with me, because there will be no standing against him. He is the storm, and the wind, and the sun.”

Then Mala and her people would be mountains. They didn’t need to stand forever—only long enough. “Then we will speak of alliances after I have completed my quest. I have been told that a demon tusker haunts the mountains to the north.”

Barin abruptly stilled, his gaze intense on hers. “You seek to destroy the demon?”

Did he not want her to? Watching his reaction just as intently, she said, “Vela has sent me to tame the beast of Blackmoor.”

Utter silence. As he stared at her, the warlord’s expression loosened into stunned disbelief—then he snorted, and laughter erupted throughout the great hall, rising like thunder as courtiers slapped their knees and the tables, reaching a hysterical pitch. But although everyone laughed, not everyone meant it, and Mala saw the grief and confusion that passed over the faces of some. The marshal, who looked to the floor; Gepali, who looked to the heavens. A few of the courtiers wore grins that seemed like a rictus of death, and their chests hitched as if they’d rather be sobbing than laughing.

“Hold, hold!” Barin stood, calling for quiet, his amusement still shaking through every word. His glittering gaze fell upon Mala again. “I have longed to see that beast tamed again. This is the brightest news that my court and I have received in some time.”

Again? “Vela must believe I can achieve that which you have only longed for, my lord.”

“Not if you search for the beast in the mountains. You should wait for him in the Weeping Forest, instead—or at the maze, as he should be returning through it shortly. And you will need this.” Quickly he pulled Gepali up by her graying hair and unbuckled the collar. “If you bring the beast back here, tamed, I would not have much use for this one any longer. I would consider her debts paid in full if you return with him on her leash. I will consider all of my servants’ debts paid, and remove the collars of every one, for the beast on a leash is worth more than a dozen others.”

Jaw set, Gepali stared back at Mala with wild eyes—as if silently begging her to refuse the offer. With ice filling her stomach again, Mala strode forward to accept the collar.

“My lord,” she said, “I know of a man who will shortly be returning through the maze. Do I seek the one called Kavik?”

At the mention of his name, silence again—but Mala imagined the click of Barin’s teeth as he grinned, and she saw more runes tattooed into his palms as he held out the coiled leash and collar. That familiar cold dread scraped down the back of her neck, and she lifted the leather from his grasp without touching his skin.

“That is he.” Barin sat back again, softly petting Gepali’s head. “You have met?”

“We have.” With a thin smile, Mala bowed. “I will return when my quest is finished, Lord Barin.”

He nodded, still so pleased, and though her hand itched for her weapon, Mala didn’t try to take his head with her sword. Clutching the leash and collar, she strode between the courtiers’ tables, ignoring their shouts of encouragement. Her gaze fixed upon the group of leashed debtors. Though she held their freedom in her hand, there was little hope to be seen in their faces when they looked at her. Their spirits seemed to resemble this land, barren and gaunt.

And though there had to be others who stood against Barin, Kavik was the only one she’d seen fighting for any of Blackmoor’s people. Now she would bring him here with a collar on his neck?

She made it past the columns before sour bile shot up her throat. Forcibly she swallowed it down. Vela could be cruel, but this could not be what the goddess meant by taming. And it wasn’t how Mala would have tamed any being—beast or man.

But no doubt this was what Kavik would think she intended to do to him. Again, if Barin was to be believed.

Outside, the rain had returned in full force. Shim met her near the inner gates. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his mane.

This could not be what Vela intended. It could not be. Mala simply had to trust in that.

But her voice was still thick when she said, “It is never the easy path, is it?”

And there was nothing to do but follow it.

KAVIK finally dreamed of her again.

After two years without seeing her while he’d slept, her return was more torturous than the absence had been—because this was not a vision sent to him, but a memory. This time he didn’t watch her from a distance, as a stranger. This time he knew the warmth of her touch. He knew the huskiness of her voice. He finally knew what to call her.

Mala.

He met the gray dawn with her name on his tongue and need hardening his flesh. But the torture wasn’t over. Because she’d finally come. The woman who hadn’t been much younger than Kavik the first time he’d seen her, a stripling Krimathean with a long brown braid and a wild edge to her grin. He’d watched her train with sword and axe and fist, just one of many young women and men—and he’d watched her practice alone by moonlight until her arms shook from exhaustion. He’d watched her fight; he’d seen her face ground into the dirt by her opponents and he’d seen her win. He’d watched her scream with laughter after diving into icy mountain streams and dance in the firelight until her body glistened with sweat, and as she knelt with tears dripping over the unmoving figure on her mother’s bed.

That death was the last time he’d dreamed of her. And though Kavik knew Mala’s face better than his own, he’d never imagined the woman in his dreams would be the woman in red. He’d never seen her wear the color before. But now she was here—and she was the woman who heralded his end.

So it was time to meet it.

Stiffly, Kavik rose from the bed he’d made on the ground, with his brocs laid out beneath him and his saddle pillowing his head. His breath steamed in the morning air and the cold ached through to his bones. The previous night, darkness had forced him to stop at the head of the labyrinth. A fire would have drawn the leather-winged raptors that hunted these canyons and the sun wouldn’t climb above the maze’s high walls until midday. If he wanted warmth, he needed to start moving.

His brocs were crusted with dried blood and dirt, but he dragged them on, then slung the saddle over his shoulder. Pain tugged at his wounds, but it wasn’t the agony he’d expected. Mala’s salve had not only drawn out the revenants’ poison and kept the fever at bay; his injuries were healing faster, too.

Many charlatans claimed to sell potions blessed by Nemek, yet in all of his travels, Kavik had never met a divine healer. Mala had come across one, though. She must truly be favored by the goddess.

Vela’s favor wouldn’t help her defeat the demon tusker. The goddess protected those who quested for her, but they had to complete their tasks without Vela’s assistance.

With every step through the maze, Kavik debated whether to offer his. If Mala coming to Blackmoor meant his end, then he could think of few better deaths than while fighting beside her against the demon. That creature had plagued his people too long. And all the while, he’d pray to Hanan that she would torture him with another touch, and burn him with the heat in her eyes.

Another good way to die.

But she would pay for his help when Barin took notice of it, and if Kavik was dead, he wouldn’t be able to stand with her against the warlord. He could help her . . . but doing so might hurt her worse than the demon could. Which meant the choice would have to be Mala’s, not his.

And throughout these long years, Vela hadn’t abandoned him. Instead the goddess had remained nearby, sliding her blade so slowly into his heart that he hadn’t even known she’d pierced his flesh. She’d promised to return when he’d lost everything. And what had he left? No family. No home. Not even a horse. So Vela only had to twist the blade through his heart—and somehow, she would use Mala to do it.

At least he would see her again. And it wouldn’t be a dream.

KAVIK passed through Perca’s gates just before the guards closed them for the night. Familiar rage clutched at his throat when he glanced up and saw the torches burning in the citadel towers, so he kept his head down through the streets. Better not to think of Barin.

Instead he would think of how to find a horse. A full day had been lost walking through the maze and across the moors—and Kavik couldn’t hunt the demon on foot. But escorting the caravan had only earned him enough gold to buy a few meals, not a new mount. And although hunger gnawed an ache into his gut, better to save the coins for those days when not even a lizard could be found in the fens.

Except he probably didn’t have many more days remaining.

So he would buy a meal. He was already headed to the Croaking Frog, where Telani’s sister was innkeeper. He’d promised to let Selaq know whether the caravan had made it across the river, and he had no doubt that Telani had encouraged Mala to stay at her sister’s inn. Kavik might find her there.

Along with a dozen of Barin’s soldiers. Kavik set his jaw when he spotted their horses in the alley leading to the inn’s stables. The Croaking Frog lay near the eastern gate and in the shadow of the city wall, so Selaq served more ale to Barin’s men than to travelers needing a bed. Usually Kavik came during the day, when soldiers and guards were less likely to have settled in. There’d be no avoiding them this night.

But no matter how enjoyable cracking their heads would be, Kavik would stay his fists. Selaq didn’t need the trouble he would bring.

The inn’s thick clay walls trapped the heat from the hearth and the warmth instantly soaked through his wet tunic and brocs. Quiet fell in the common room when Kavik entered, as it always did. Then voices rose again, but he ignored the soldiers’ taunts about collars and leashes. He’d heard it all before. His gaze searched the tables. Mala wasn’t here.

He fought the heavy disappointment. Her absence didn’t mean she hadn’t come to the inn. She might have taken a room and preferred privacy to the company of soldiers. He’d learn more from Selaq.

The innkeeper was already almost on him. Though petite, she always moved with the determined stride of a man twice her size, but her step faltered a few paces away. She blinked rapidly, then seemed to steel herself and approached him with tightened lips.

“There’s clean water and soap in the basin out in the brewery.” Rag in hand, she swatted him in that direction. “Use it.”

To bathe in. Kavik shook his head. “Don’t—”

“I’m not helping you, fool. Your stench will empty out this room in a breath.”

The revenants’ blood. Not all of it had washed off in the rain. Kavik hardly noticed the stink anymore—but nearby patrons were covering their faces. “Considering who’s here, I should stay as I am.”

She snorted and swatted him again. “I don’t want them taking their coin elsewhere. Go on.” More quietly, she said, “I’ll join you shortly.”

With a nod, he started across the common room. Best to wash, anyway. Mala had talked of tasting him if not for the stench—even though she hadn’t smelled much better at the time.

By Hanan’s shaft, it mattered not. He’d have tasted her even if she’d been dipped in dung.

And here was the gods’ answer to that. He just had to think of dung and one of the soldiers rose from his table and pushed into his path. Kavik stopped only when another step would have pressed their noses together. He knew this measle. A brute, Delan was one of the few men who stood level with him. But like all of Barin’s soldiers, he took Kavik’s unyielding gaze as a gesture of disrespect.

They were right. It was disrespect, mixed with the same hatred and rage he felt for their warlord. Fueled by it, Kavik had stared down Delan before. Doing it again would be no effort. He could stand here all night.

But Delan had been distracted by the burden on Kavik’s shoulder, and he called out, “Look at this! She’s already saddled him.”

A burst of raucous laughter came from the soldiers. Someone shouted, “Then we’ll all ride the beast!” and then abruptly fell silent when Kavik glanced in that direction.

No one would ever ride him again.

And he would stay his fists. Maybe. He looked back to Delan and saw the sudden unease in the measle’s shifting eyes.

“Now move aside, little pony, so I can take this piss in my belly outside.” Delan’s overloud command rang through the room. “Or continue standing in my way so I can piss on you.”

Unsmiling, Kavik waited. A span of breaths passed. Finally, Delan muttered and shoved past him.

Shaking his head, Kavik moved on. Pissing on him? Hardly a threat. Kavik couldn’t smell worse than he already did.

He couldn’t be wetter, either. The rain was to thank for that, and for the basin of wash water. As a brewer whose inn was favored by Barin’s soldiers, Selaq had freer access to the city’s wells than most citizens did, yet even she didn’t waste a drop. The downpour of the past few days offered a few luxuries, however.

Four basins would be needed just to clean his blood-encrusted hair and beard, so he took care of the matted strands with a few sweeps of his blade. Stripping down to skin, he lathered up and rinsed, careful to catch the runoff in an empty bucket. His brocs and tunic went into the rinse water to soak before their scrubbing. Furs, boots, and breastplate wiped clean with a damp rag.

His belt and furs went back around his hips, leaving his torso and legs bare. He hung the linens to drip from the ceiling beams near the ovens and was cleaning his saddle leathers when Selaq finally joined him.

He kept his gaze on his saddle and tried not to sound like an eager boy. “Is the Krimathean woman staying here? The one who wears the questing cloak.”

“Yes,” Selaq said, but the response seemed hollow. When he glanced over, her normally bright eyes were shadowed in the firelight. “And I pray you will forgive me.”

Kavik frowned. “Forgive you?”

“I should have turned her away.” Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she averted her gaze from his. “But you know I could not.”

All public houses had to follow the law of the road. Long ago, Selaq’s own parents had taken in Kavik and his father for the same reason. No innkeeper could turn away someone in need of a bed and with money to pay, even if it meant putting them in the stables.

Yet why would she have turned Mala away? Even if the other woman hadn’t helped protect the caravan, Mala was Vela’s Chosen—and there were few in Blackmoor more devoted to the goddess than Selaq. As a girl, she’d wanted to be a Narae warrior. Later, she’d hoped to become a priestess and rebuild the city’s temples. But when Barin had forbidden any temples but Enam’s, establishing an inn and adhering to Vela’s rules of hospitality was as close as she’d come . . . until Mala had arrived. If someone had told him Selaq had paid Mala to take a room here, simply to ask the other woman about her journeys, he’d have believed it.

Now Selaq wanted to refuse her lodging? “Did she not tell you that Telani sent her here?”

Confusion filled her voice. “Telani did?”

So Mala hadn’t said anything of it. He gestured to the raw wounds on his arms and thighs. “We were set upon by revenants. The Krimathean saved your sister’s boy.” And many others. “Then she gave her a healer’s potion to spare them the fever.”

Selaq’s face paled and she whispered, “She didn’t tell me.”

“She shouldn’t have had to.” And none of this made sense. Frowning, he slowly rose. “What are you not saying?”

Swallowing hard, she turned her face away. “Do you know who she is?”

Of course he did. In dreams, he’d seen the palace where she’d eaten and slept. He’d watched her don a hauberk of glittering green dragon scales, and stand in front of a cheering crowd before bowing her head beneath her mother’s sword. “She is the High Daughter—and second to her sister.”

“Second to her cousin,” Selaq corrected softly, and still she wouldn’t look at him. “And she is here to form an alliance with Barin.”

Ice filled his gut. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve seen her cloak,” he said. “She’s on a quest.”

Now she met his gaze, and at the sight of the moisture pooling in her eyes, the ice began to spread into his chest, cold and heavy. “And did she tell you what it was?”

“To slay the demon tusk—”

“No. Oh, Kavik. No.” She shook her head, drew a shuddering breath. “She’s here to tame the beast of Blackmoor.”

There was nothing inside him. Nothing for a long, endless beat. Then a single word, and though it screamed within him, it emerged so quietly. “No.”

“It is truth.” With arms folded around her middle, Selaq seemed to squeeze herself tight. “Osof was in the citadel’s great hall when she arrived. Barin gave to her a collar and leash. She is to bring you back to him.”

Osof. The warlord’s marshal, who’d once served under Kavik’s father. He was one of the few good men remaining in the citadel, and one of the few men whose word could be trusted. Anyone else might have twisted the story and spread a lie. But not Osof.

And so Kavik was to be tamed.

Tamed.

Pain ripped through his heart—the goddess, twisting her dagger. As forceful as a dream, sudden memories crowded his mind. The choking collar on his neck. The soldiers behind. His bleeding knees. Barin’s laughter and his father’s unseeing stare.

And Vela would put him there again? Mala would?

Temra’s fist, he could not bear it.

Selaq made a small distressed sound. She stared at him, with eyes wide and fingers twisting. “Kavik?”

Afraid. Of him. As if she could see his rage and agony and knew he was at the edge of warrior’s madness, though no revenant or blade had bitten into his skin.

But he would control this. If not the anger, then at least his flesh. “Go,” he said roughly. “I’ll be out.”

She edged to the door. “Are you staying?”

“I’ll buy a supper.”

“I can give—”

“Don’t.”

She fled. Jaw clenched, Kavik stared after her, wishing that Delan would come back for a piss now. He’d pound the man into a bloodied pulp. And the soldiers who would ride him? His blade would taste their flesh, and he would roast their tongues before they ever joked of whips and collars again.

But, no. That wasn’t who he wished to see. He wanted Mala. Vela’s Chosen. He would hear it from her own mouth. He would see the truth confirmed by her eyes.

She thought to tame him? Better to die first.

And he would never be on his knees again.

CHAPTER 4

By the hushed anticipation that fell over the soldiers when she entered the Croaking Frog, Mala knew that Kavik must have come. Still, she didn’t immediately see him, until her gaze searched the darkened corner of the common room. He sat at the end of a long table, apart from the other patrons and facing the door where she stood. His black hair only touched his shoulders now and his beard was shortened and cleaned. If not for the healing gashes on his arms and the width of his shoulders, she might not have recognized him.

Focused on his plate, he didn’t glance up as she crossed the room. He ripped away a piece of bread with stiff fingers. Oh, Vela. She hadn’t expected that this would be easy. She’d expected his anger. But what she saw in him now was different—the cold, sharp edge of rage. Her own blood and temper were hot, but she knew that ice well. He didn’t ignore her out of petulance or bad humor. He ignored her because looking at her might snap his control.

And this was the man who needed to be tamed? He had himself well in hand.

With a sigh, she pushed back the hood of her cloak and slipped onto the bench opposite him. His body tensed only for a moment before he resumed eating, his gaze cast firmly on his roasted meat. He’d bathed. And though she couldn’t be certain without glancing under the table, she thought he only wore his belt and furs, along with a leather baldric that crossed over his chest and sheathed the sword at his back.

“So you have a face under the revenants’ blood,” she said softly. And a fine face it was. Wide cheekbones, a strong nose, firm lips. But she still liked his eyes the best, though they hadn’t yet met hers this evening.

His voice like gravel, Kavik told her, “Go home”—then slipped another piece of bread into his mouth, as if she were nothing but a fly to be swatted between bites.

Her chest tightened. “You know I cannot.”

“You won’t die if you give up your quest.”

No. If Mala gave it up, she would be marked by Vela, forsaken and shunned. She would lose her place among her people. But she didn’t pursue her quest because she was afraid of failing. She needed to succeed.

“I won’t die,” she agreed. “But my people might. The Destroyer is returning. We’re ready to fight, but our numbers are so few. I’ve asked Vela to help me find the strength of ten thousand more warriors.”

“Make alliances. Pay the rest.”

“Do you think we haven’t tried? But no one is interested in coming to the aid of another country when their own people are in danger. They make vague promises at best.”

“Even Barin?”

He spoke the warlord’s name in the same way a wolf ripped a chunk of flesh from a haunch. So it was not just her quest that enraged him. He’d heard of her meeting in the citadel.

“He can promise what he likes,” she said quietly. “None of it will come to fruition, because I have vowed to see him dead.”

Kavik barked out a hard laugh and glanced up for the first time. The back of Mala’s neck tensed as alarm shot through her, yet she stayed her hand instead of reaching for her sword. Never had anyone looked at her with such hatred and anger—but he was still cold. Still controlled.

A sharp smile touched his mouth. “That sounds like a lie you would tell a man you meant to win over. To tame.”

Sickness balled in her stomach. “That doesn’t mean what you believe it does.”

“What does it mean, then?”

“I don’t know.” From all that Mala could see, Kavik was no more savage or feral than she was. So it must be something she couldn’t see yet—and so she needed to know him better. “I suppose I must discover what it means.”

He shook his head and resumed eating. Not believing her.

Then she would make sure to stay with him until he did. “Though it is not my quest, I still intend to slay the demon tusker while I am here. I would hire your services.”

No response.

“I’ve purchased a mount for your use.” Along with two additional pack horses, over which Shim was currently playing lord of the herd. “We could leave for the mountains tomorrow.”

Only silence.

That would not break her. Still, she was grateful when Selaq approached their table with two flagons of ale. Setting them down, the innkeeper quickly looked from Kavik’s face to Mala’s again. “Will you be having supper, too?”

“I will, thank you.”

Selaq hesitated. The woman had been abrupt and resentful when Mala had arrived at the inn, and during every following encounter. Now she seemed torn between that resentment and guilt.

Her next words revealed why. “Kavik told me you saved my sister’s boy.”

“My horse did.” Mala pushed one flagon in front of Kavik and picked up her own. “And he enjoys a warm grain mash.”

“I’ll see that he gets one.” But the innkeeper still did not move away, and the twist of her hands revealed that anxiety had joined the guilt. In a rush, she admitted, “I spit in your ale at the midday meal.”

“I knew,” Mala said easily and took a swig.

Selaq looked at her in astonishment. “But you still drank it.”

Of course Mala had. She wouldn’t waste good ale because of a little spit. “Have you never kissed someone? It is the same—mouth to mouth and spit to spit. So a drop in that ale was no different than a kiss from you. I considered it my welcome to Blackmoor.”

And she’d had kisses thrown behind her feet all day. Word of her encounter with Barin in the citadel had already traveled through the city. No matter that they called Kavik a beast, not everyone Mala met had approved of her quest, and their reaction told her what she’d already guessed: many of these people cared for Kavik, even though he didn’t want them to show it. Yet they cared enough to risk both Vela’s and Barin’s anger by spitting on the path she walked.

“A poor welcome,” Selaq said.

Mala shrugged. A welcome mattered not at all. Only the man across from her did.

His gaze had risen from his plate again, but not to look at Mala. Instead he frowned up at Selaq. The color rose in the innkeeper’s cheeks.

“I shouldn’t have,” the woman said, as if in reply to a silent admonishment.

Had she read disappointment in his expression? Mala searched his face, but she didn’t know it as well as the innkeeper did. She could see nothing at all but his frown, then even that was gone when he began eating again.

Oh, but that small exchange gave her hope. The woman had admitted to spitting in Mala’s drink, yet he hadn’t enjoyed hearing it. For all of his hatred and anger—justifiable anger, if what Mala had guessed of his history with Barin was true—he hadn’t taken pleasure in Selaq’s insult. Mala suspected that, in his place, every single soldier in the common room would have mocked her or tried to make her feel shame for having sipped a little spit.

He was an angry man. But unless Mala had completely misread the reason for his frown, he wasn’t a cruel one.

And there was one way to be certain. One that might put them on a more level understanding.

But she waited, gathering her courage. Mala expected pain on this quest—but she believed it wouldn’t come at Kavik’s hands. Still, she feared being wrong about him more than she feared what he might do.

Quietly she ate the meal Selaq brought her, and after Kavik refused to touch the ale she’d bought for him, she took it back and drank it herself. When he cleaned his plate, every last crumb of bread and shred of meat and drop of gravy, she couldn’t wait any longer.

Without a word, she brought the coiled leash and collar from beneath her cloak, and placed it on the table between them.

And Temra forgive her, because this was cruel. For an instant, there was not just rage and hatred when he looked at her, but an agony so deep she didn’t know how he’d survived it. An agony she’d seen before, on the faces of some older women at home—as if they’d been subjected to a torture that simply wouldn’t end.

She forced herself to speak past the constriction in her throat. “This isn’t what it means to tame you.”

Jaw like steel, his gaze a cold blade, he only watched her.

“What do you think it means?” Mala hoped to understand him better. “Whatever you believe I would do to you—do to me, instead.”

His eyes narrowed. “You want me to show you? To tame you?”

“Yes,” she said simply, but when his gaze went to her neck, she prayed to Vela for strength and courage, because she didn’t know how she would bear the collar around it.

And he seemed more enraged now than he’d been. No longer cold but hot, with a pulse pounding in his temple and a flush over his skin. He reached for the collar. His voice was hard. “Come here, then.”

First she placed her sword on the table, followed by the daggers from her thighs. Her heart thudded in her ears. Dimly aware of the sudden quiet in the common room, she rose. The jawbones swinging from her belt clicked together as she moved to his side. He stood, so tall, and his gaze locked on her throat. His knuckles were white. The thick leather of the collar had folded under the pressure of his fingers.

His bare chest lifted on a ragged breath. “Put your hands together.”

Why? But she didn’t ask; she simply obeyed. Kavik moved closer, then relief and hope lifted through her when he wrapped the collar around her wrists, instead. He was angry, so angry. But he wouldn’t do to her what was done to him.

Maybe.

Abruptly he yanked on the leash. Her body slammed against his, her armor hard against his chest and her arms trapped between them. His left hand fisted tightly in her hair, tilting her face up. He lowered his and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Now I bend you over this table and fuck you, before I give you to every soldier here. You want me to show you that?”

Perhaps the first part, one day. But it should not be today. “In a half turn,” she said.

His black eyebrows lowered in a heavy frown. “What?”

“On the full moon.” Lifting her chin farther, she bared her throat to him. “Do you see? No scar. I’ve not yet had my moon night.”

And man or woman, a virgin’s blood belonged to Vela, and only could be offered when she looked fully upon them.

He shoved the band of her cloak aside, searching beneath the thick material fastened across the hollow of her throat where the ritual scar was usually placed. “Krimatheans don’t prize virginity.”

“No.” Most enjoyed fucking, and enjoyed it often. “But other houses do, and I am High Daughter. It might come to pass that an alliance depends upon a marriage and my acceptability to the person I wed.”

“Yet you’ll take my cock in a half turn? What of that alliance?”

It had never been certain, anyway. She’d only abstained because of the possibility—and this was just as important. “This is my quest,” she said simply. “If you believe that being tamed means being fucked, then I will submit to you. Only to you. But I prefer to honor the goddess when I do.” When he didn’t immediately respond, but only looked at her as if to determine whether she spoke true, her gaze fell to his strong throat. “You are not marked, either.”

His body stiffened. “My moon blood scars are on the back of my neck.”

Scars. Not one, but many. And Mala suspected that not one of them counted. Blood by rape was not an offering; it was an offense of the worst sort, to the human who suffered it and the goddess who witnessed it. But this time Mala was the one who was silent, because his rage had turned cold again, and now he would decide—to honor her preference, or not. To bend her over this table, or not. But no matter what he did to her, it would not be the same as had been done to him. Because this submission would be her choice. No one forced her.

His gaze like ice, he gathered up the long leash and tossed it up over a ceiling beam. He hauled back on the leather, dragging Mala’s arms up over her head, until she was pulled up onto her toes. The sleeves of her cloak slipped down over her leather bracers, bunching at her elbows. He tied off the leash at her bound wrists.

“Now stay,” he said softly and sat at the table again.

Like a dog. Or a horse. Mala almost laughed, but hearing the same reaction coming from the soldiers kept her quiet. With her back to the common room, she hung from the ceiling beam, suspended with most of her weight on her arms and the rest supported by her toes. Uncomfortable, though not terribly. As punishment, it wasn’t the worst she’d ever suffered.

She glanced down at Kavik. Pewter scraped over wood as he dragged her flagon to his side of the table and drank. Cooling his anger, perhaps. She still couldn’t see how he needed to be tamed.

And she liked him just as well as she had while tending to him after the revenants’ attack. Even better now. She’d taken him for an honorable warrior when he’d stood his ground against the creatures, despite the overwhelming risk. Nothing he’d done since had dissuaded her of that opinion. Instead he’d only cemented it.

She would not regret spending her moon night beneath him. There would be no mere submitting to his attentions. She looked forward to them and fully intended to take her pleasure.

Mala hoped to give him pleasure, too. It would be no hardship. His hair was thick and dark, and his mouth so fine. She liked his teeth, so even and white, and imagining their bite sent a hot shiver racing through her. He no longer smelled like death, but soap and smoke, and she wondered if the taut skin of his neck would taste the same as the skin over his sinewy thigh. Soon she would find out, and trace every rigid muscle with her tongue.

She had always loved strength. All her life, she had fought to increase her own. She wasn’t like her cousin Laina, the first High Daughter and heir to the Ivory Throne, whose line had been blessed by Hanan’s seed and who could defeat a dozen warriors with barely an effort. Mala could never equal that—and if the worst happened, if Mala ever had to take Laina’s place, she would never be as strong. But she had trained and practiced, so that ever if it did occur, she would have as much strength to offer her people as possible.

Now she recognized the same dedication within Kavik, who had not defeated the revenants because his ancestor had been fucked by a god but because he constantly fought to keep himself strong. To protect others. Perhaps to protect himself, too. His path had obviously not been an easy one.

Whatever came of this quest, Mala hoped it made his path less painful to walk. As he tipped his head back to drain the last of the ale, she wondered, “So this is what a taming consists of? I merely have to make you wait for me to finish a meal.”

“No.” Gaze unfocused, he stared down into the empty vessel. “If your task was to make me wait for you, your quest would already be done.”

She frowned her confusion, then recalled that he’d said something similar while struck by the battle madness. I waited for you, little dragon. Every night, I dreamed of you. And now I will have you.

Perhaps it had not been madness. “How long did you wait?”

Face hardening, he shook his head. “You are tamed. You should remain silent.”

“Holding one’s tongue is not what it means to be tamed,” she said. “If it were, my quest would have been completed during our supper, when you barely spoke a word. Now, will you signal Selaq for another flagon? I grow thirsty.”

His gaze flicked up to her bound wrists. “How will you drink it?”

“I have many talents, warrior. One is that I can carry an ale to my mouth with my feet,” she said, and the corners of his mouth twitched before his lips set in a firm line. There. Still angry. But not unreasonable. “I am surprised you do not have me on my knees.”

His humor vanished. “What?”

“Were you not showing me what you believe taming means? You started with a promise to fuck me. Now I only hang here. And although you wait until my moon night, fucking is not all I can do.”

The vein throbbed in his temple again. “You want to service me on your knees? In front of them?”

The soldiers. Mala didn’t even look in that direction. “I care nothing of what they think or say.”

Only of what Kavik thought and said. But he said nothing now, and she couldn’t read his face, except to know that his expression was like cold steel again.

Mala sighed. “I imagine it is too dangerous for you. Who needs leather and a collar? A man’s leash grows between his legs. I would only have to tug on it a few times to make you mine.”

“Then a woman’s leash must be much shorter.”

She laughed. “So it is. And harder to find.”

His hand shot out and snagged her belt. Surprise stopped her laugh when he dragged her toward him, the leash twisting as it rolled along the ceiling beam. Her thighs hit the edge of the table, but he continued pulling. Suddenly breathless, Mala swung her feet up and planted them beside his flagon.

Kavik shoved aside her sword and knives. Strong fingers gripping her hips, he settled her in front of him—with Mala sitting on her heels, and her arms still stretched overhead, but almost all of her weight on the balls of her feet.

He swept her cloak open. The red fabric pooled on the table around her. Her breath stopped when he pushed her knees wide.

“How many tugs?” he asked softly, but his voice held the edge of a blade. “How many tugs until you’re mine?”

Her heart thundered. “I don’t know. No one has had me.”

“I will.” His long fingers untied the sides of her molded leather cuirass. “And I will not be the one who is tamed.”

He would. Perhaps not today. But she would not fail in her quest.

Until then, she would take her pleasure in being with him. Her breasts felt tight and heavy when her armor loosened. He couldn’t remove the cuirass, not with her arms bound over her head, but he didn’t need to. At her waist, his hands slipped beneath the armor and linen undercloth that protected her from chafing. Warm callused palms scraped over her ribs, drawing a shudder of breath from her lips. Her skin seemed afire beneath his.

And by the gods, his face was the finest sight. There was no ice now. Only heat, as arousal joined the anger. His gaze followed the path of his hands, as if he could see her skin and his fingers beneath the armor.

But although her nipples ached for his touch, he could go no higher without ripping the cuirass apart. Perhaps that was for the best. The sharpest ache centered lower.

His burning gaze rose to hers as his hands slowly journeyed to her belt. Panting softly through parted lips, she didn’t look away from his face as he whisked away her furs. Cooler air kissed the skin of her inner thighs. Though her knees were spread wide, the soft loincloth tied around her waist hung between her legs and concealed her from his sight.

But not from his fingers. His hand slipped beneath the cloth and found slick, bare flesh. Oh, sweet gods. Her head fell back, and she couldn’t stop her moan—didn’t want to stop it. By Vela’s blood, she wished it were the full moon.

A roughened growl penetrated her bliss. “You’re already drenched.”

Disbelief filled his voice. With a breathless laugh, she looked to him again. “What did you expect? I have wanted you since the maze, warrior.”

His eyes closed, as if in sudden pain. “Since the maze,” he echoed hoarsely. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.”

“Then I don’t know why you’ve stopped,” she said, and his eyes flew open again.

“I won’t.” He dragged her closer and bent his head. “Not even if you beg.”

He swept aside the loincloth. Her body trembled, and she forced her muscles to steel. Then his strong teeth nipped the inside of her thigh, her hips jerked forward, and she would beg, she would beg if he didn’t bite her again.

But he didn’t bite. He gripped her hips and tilted her forward and licked. And licked again as she cried out and pulled against the leash, bucking against his mouth and thanking the goddess for sending her to find this man. This beast who growled and held her still as he devoured her.

Abruptly his head shot up and he stared past her with jutted jaw, glistening lips, and the promise of death in his eyes. But even as she realized that someone had approached the table, they must have retreated, because he dragged her closer again.

So he wouldn’t hurt her . . . and he wouldn’t share her, either. Chest heaving, she whispered, “Kavik,” and he looked up at her through thick black eyelashes as his mouth gently closed over her clitoris—and softly tugged. He tugged again, and this time she screamed his name, then begged, but not for him to stop. Never to stop, and to give her more, and harder. He licked and tugged again, and again, pushing her closer and closer to the edge. She suddenly froze, her body straining, then shattered all at once when he followed another lick by thrusting his longest finger deep into her sheath.

The orgasm ripped another scream from her, her body writhing and her inner muscles clamping down on him. His satisfied groan buzzed through her flesh. Her spine arched, because now it was too much, she’d begged for more and he’d given her more than she’d been ready for.

His licks softened and slowed. His finger slid from inside her, and though he still held her knees open his touch had changed. The kisses that moved up the length of her thigh weren’t hungry, but almost reverent.

Then a soldier shouted, “If your head’s down there, little pony, she’s got you tamed already!” and Kavik shoved her off the table.

Her blood still roaring, she swung from the beam before her toes found the floor again. Her legs were as steady as pudding. Over the soldiers’ raucous laughter, she heard Kavik call for another ale.

She grinned down at him. “I didn’t count how many tugs that was, warrior. You might have to do it a second time.”

He shook his head. His skin had flushed with anger again—at her, at himself, or at the soldiers, she didn’t know. He downed the ale in a few great gulps, then without looking at her, reached past her thigh and slipped his broad thumb into her swollen sheath.

Mala gasped, her muscles tightening around him. She canted her hips to allow him deeper access, but he was already withdrawing his hand and rising from his seat.

Holding her gaze, Kavik brought his thumb to his lips and sucked her wetness from his skin. “I’ll wait until I can fuck it.”

He abruptly strode past her, abandoning the table. Mala bowed her head, biting her lips against her laughter. She didn’t know if he was leaving her to hang or just going outside to jerk the stiffness from his cock, but either way, this quest had started out very well—and Kavik was not as cold toward her now as he’d been when she’d first stepped into the inn.

Light steps approached. Mala looked over her shoulder to meet Selaq’s concerned gaze.

“Do you need to be helped down?” the innkeeper asked.

“Is Kavik returning?”

“I don’t know. He is through the back chamber, gathering his clothes.”

So he might be returning. “I’ll wait. With another ale, if you’ll bring one.”

But the next steps that neared weren’t Selaq’s or Kavik’s. Mala swung around to face one of the soldiers, a drunken brute with greedy eyes and his erection making a tentpole beneath his brocs.

His gaze rose to her bound wrists before sliding down her body. “Your beast ran off to his den. But it sounded like he warmed you up good.”

Mala recognized this one’s voice. Little pony. “He did. Now walk away from me. He had my permission. You don’t.”

The soldier scratched his bristled chin. “Problem is, you warmed up me and my men good, too. And we’re thinking it won’t be long until you’re screaming and squirming on our pricks, and liking it just as much.”

She stared at him in disbelief before glancing at the others. They didn’t look as eager to fuck as they did entertained. They would enjoy her encounter with this brute no matter the outcome. “Do you not know what I’ll do to you?”

“We’ve heard what you did to the citadel guards.” He tilted his big head to the left and eyed her wrists. “Don’t know how you’ll manage that now.”

Easily. “I warn you, soldier. You’ll lose any hand that touches me.”

Behind him, Selaq came into the common room, carrying Mala’s flagon of ale. Her eyes widened in alarm. “You soused lout, Delan! Get away from her before she takes your fool head!”

Her warning only made him more determined. His lewd sneer turned ugly. “We’ll see.”

He reached for Mala’s loincloth. By Vela, she would not even give him a chance to touch her.

Gripping the leash, she hauled herself up and snapped her booted foot into his balls. He folded over, retching. Swiftly she spun toward the table. Kavik had shoved her sword farther down its length than she could reach, but one of her knives lay close enough. She trapped the hilt between her feet and flipped upward, bringing the blade to her hands. Before her legs swung back to the ground, she’d sliced through the leash.

With an enraged roar, Delan came at her like a charging ox. The idiot. Her hands were still bound but she held a leash and a blade.

Choosing her weapon, she whipped the length of leather around his throat, leapt up onto the table and vaulted past him, yanking the leash. His feet kept going; his upper body didn’t. His legs flew out from beneath him and he landed hard on his back, choking and ripping at the leather circling his neck. Mala jumped heavily onto his chest and stomped his cock again. It wasn’t so hard now.

She glanced up. Kavik hadn’t run off to a den; he’d apparently only been donning his clothes and gathering his belongings. Arms crossed over his now-armored chest, he stood at the nearest table, watching without expression. Selaq waited behind him, her mouth agape.

Good. Mala had worked up a thirst even before this scut had attempted to touch her.

“The ale?” she asked, and gratefully took the flagon the innkeeper brought to her. Beneath her feet, a purple-faced Delan tried to heave her away. She ground the toe of her boot into his throat and didn’t step off until his eyes rolled back and his struggles ceased. Not dead. Just beaten soundly.

As if suddenly uneasy, the other soldiers looked away from her and quietly resumed their drinking. Since they weren’t going to display the same stupidity or avenge their comrade, Mala approached Kavik and held out her bound hands.

“Are you still showing me what it means to be tamed? We’ll need a new leash.”

“No.” He unfastened the collar from her wrists with a few sharp pulls. “I’ll return for you here when the moon is full.”

“I’m supposed to wait?”

“You will.”

The warrior hadn’t tugged her leash that well. But she said nothing and watched him go. There was still much to learn about Kavik the Beast; it could not all be done now. He had more to learn about her, too—such as how patient and stubborn she could be.

He would soon find out.

CHAPTER 5

The woman in red followed Kavik across the moors. Riding her stallion and leading three other horses, she’d appeared behind him as the midday sun slipped behind gray clouds. As the rolling hills flattened into a dank marsh, she dismounted and trailed him on foot. When evening fell, she stopped to tend to the animals and to lay out a camp. By night, she was only a small flickering fire in the distance. Though hungry and tired, he continued on until the shadows of the Weeping Forest swallowed his trail.

By midmorning she was behind him again.

And no longer at a distance. If she had been, the thick forest would have concealed her presence. Yet she followed close enough that he could hear the clomp of the horses’ hooves over the noise of the rain and the dripping leaves. Her voice floated among the occasional nicker and whinny—and at times her laugh. That night she didn’t stop to camp before he did, and set up hers so near that the glow of her fire was indistinguishable from his. Over the flames he roasted the red-crowned hopper taken with his bow in the morning. The wingless bird’s meat was tough and stringy, and he watched her skin a fat opossum while he ate. She glanced over at him once, holding up half the animal—offering it. Kavik shook his head and made his bed on the wet ground.

Though Kavik would have liked to smash the other man’s teeth for it, the measle Delan had spoken truth. It hadn’t mattered that Mala had been the one bound by the collar and leash; Kavik had been the one being tamed from the moment he’d tasted her—and by the time she’d screamed his name, he’d forgotten his rage. Instead he could only reverently kiss her sleek thigh. He’d have done anything for her, this woman he’d loved even before knowing her name. Who’d been drenched in her need even before he’d touched her.

He’d been led so easily. He’d gone exactly where she’d wanted him to go.

Never again.

But Kavik couldn’t summon more rage. Instead he went to bed with a heavy ache in his chest, and it still remained when he woke. He’d known an ache like this before, following his father’s death. Now Mala stalked his path and heralded his own.

Vela had been clever. She’d sent the one person in the world Kavik couldn’t fight. But he could stand firm. And he would have to until Mala abandoned this quest. He might lose everything. He might die. But he wouldn’t face the end tamed and on his knees.

In the morning she came to him, leading a sturdy black gelding. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep and her dark hair newly braided. The rain dripping from the trees overhead beaded on the shoulders of her red cloak before soaking in.

“This mount is yours, if you wish,” she said. “He’s sound and even-tempered.”

And of a similar build to his gray horse, as if she’d noted the size of his saddle and chosen a horse it would fit. With a nod, Kavik asked her, “Do you still want to hunt the demon tusker?”

Her lips parted and she stared at him for a long moment—she hadn’t likely expected any answer. But he couldn’t stand firm while running away.

“I do,” she finally said.

He took the gelding’s reins. “Then we will go.”

THE density of the trees prevented Mala from riding alongside Kavik, so she continued following him to the forest’s edge. Though the rain had ceased, the leaves still dripped, and she studied him from beneath her shadowed hood. He’d hardened himself again. Not with icy rage, this time. Instead he seemed filled with iron determination.

She preferred his anger. Fire could be doused. Ice could melt. But iron wasn’t so easy to bend.

Mala knew it well. Her own will and stubbornness was crafted from iron just as strong. So they would be as two hammers, striking away at each other. Neither one would break.

But if Mala’s task were simple, the reward would not be so great.

When they emerged from the forest, her gaze immediately sought the jagged peaks to the north. The demon tusker reportedly haunted those mountains, but that wasn’t why the sight drew her so powerfully. Two nights before, when she’d bedded down in the marshes, an orange glow had lit the dark clouds shrouding those peaks—the same glow that had lit the southern sky outside the window of her bedchamber at home. The Flaming Mountains of Astal. They were all that stood between Krimathe and Blackmoor. But there were no passes that allowed travelers across those treacherous, burning peaks; instead they had to trek far east or west before finding a path over the Astal range.

Mala had taken the fastest, most dangerous route, yet it had still been a two years’ journey to this land. When her quest had finished, it would be two more years before her return—and with her she would carry Vela’s promise that, when Mala most needed it, the strength of ten thousand warriors would be added to Krimathe’s own.

She had begun to hope Kavik would be one of those warriors.

Though she couldn’t imagine that he would leave Blackmoor as it was. Not as long as Lord Barin still sat on his corrupted throne and the demon tusker still fouled the waters.

Mala frowned and looked westward. This land had dark, rich soil. With so much rain, at this time of year the earth should have been bursting with growth. Instead thin, dried grasses wove a scraggly carpet across the moors. Game was scarce. She’d seen no animals grazing—only those protected behind the city and village walls. Yet Shim hadn’t given her any indication of danger near.

Scratching the stallion’s neck, she asked him, “Have you scented any revenants?” When he responded with a shake of his head, she urged him to catch up with Kavik’s mount. “Warrior, do you slay all of the revenants at the maze each time you escort a caravan through?”

His gaze searched her face, as if he wondered what had prompted her question. “I do. A few have escaped my sword. Not many.”

“So when more animals are corrupted, the new revenants congregate at that same location and wait for the next travelers?” Mala shook her head. “That is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. After forming packs, they usually roam.”

A humorless smile touched his mouth. “It is whispered that Barin has tamed them, and that he has ordered them to prevent anyone from escaping his rule. They also say the same of the demon tusker.”

Fear made people whisper many things. “Do you believe they’re under his control?”

“I believe they could be.”

So did Mala. Foul magic surrounded the warlord and his citadel. “Telani told me Barin couldn’t be killed.”

“Perhaps he can.” Jaw suddenly tight, Kavik looked ahead. “But I haven’t found a way to do it yet.”

“You’ve tried?”

“Countless times.”

Her mouth dropped open. Even Shim snorted his astonishment, his ears swiveling back as if to better listen. Kavik glanced at the stallion, then back to Mala as she asked, “What did you try?”

“Blades forged of every metal, axes and spearheads made from every stone. Knives of bone and ivory. Catapults launching boulders that required a dozen oxen to move. Fire, arrows, and poisons. At sunrise and as it sets, at midnight and midday, during the full moon and new moon and every turn in between.” The litany stopped, then he added with a faint smile, “I even tried using a charm I bought from a peddler who told me it would make Barin’s eyes boil in his head. It smelled like tusker dung.”

Mala grinned. “It probably was.”

“I attempted it anyway.”

She couldn’t imagine him being cheated by a peddler now. “How old were you?”

“It was during my eighth winter when I took my first sword to the citadel. It was my fourteenth when I left Blackmoor. I haven’t made any attempts since my return.”

And he’d returned five years ago. Since then, he’d helped people leave this land—saving them from the man he couldn’t kill.

“Why did Barin allow it?”

“I amused him. And with my every failure, those who opposed him lost heart. Everyone knew a blade didn’t cut his skin, boiling oil didn’t burn him, and that he could drink poison by the barrel.”

“When I saw the debtors leashed in his hall, I vowed upon my blood to see him dead.”

A dry laugh broke from him. “You shouldn’t have been so hasty.”

Perhaps not. But she couldn’t regret it. Instead she tried to imagine a young boy marching into that hall each day, determined to destroy a warlord who only viewed his attempts as entertainment.

And failing each time. “You lost heart, too?”

“No. I realized that I couldn’t succeed alone. So I left Blackmoor and hired out my sword until I’d earned enough to pay for my own soldiers. I returned with them five years ago.”

She’d known he was an honorable warrior. Now her admiration knew no end. “Where are your men?”

Grim memory hardened his eyes when he looked to her again. “We came upon the demon tusker. Those who weren’t killed then were later killed by Barin.”

“But not you.”

“I still amuse him.”

That couldn’t be the only reason. Men like Barin never took offenses against them lightly. No matter how Kavik had amused him as a boy, hiring an army of mercenaries to challenge his rule should have ended in Kavik’s torture or death. Instead the warlord hurt anyone who helped Kavik—and although that must be torture of a sort for Kavik, why did Barin bother?

“But why does it amuse him to hurt you? He doesn’t even hurt you, he hurts others. You wouldn’t even take water from Telani. And I didn’t expect you to take the gelding.”

Though now that she thought of it, a sharp pang struck her chest. She wasn’t afraid of the warlord, but Kavik’s refusing her help and warning her away from Barin had mattered. Did he not care anymore whether Barin tried to hurt her?

His expression had iced over again. “You’re on a quest to bring me to him on a leash. You’re the last person he would harm now.”

The ache in her chest eased. So he’d accepted the gelding because he thought she was safe. “But why you? Even if he was amused by a boy, why single you out in such a way?”

Mouth flat, he looked to her, then to Shim. “Tell me how you tamed him.”

Caught unawares by the change of topic, she only stared stupidly back at him—until Shim seemed to realize Kavik was talking about him. The stallion’s head shot up, and he reared toward the warrior, trumpeting an outraged neigh. The black gelding balked and shied. Kavik rode out his mount’s fright smoothly, the heavy muscles of his thighs tightening on the horse’s sides, his big hands easy on the reins.

“Shim isn’t tamed,” Mala snapped. She smoothed her palm down the stallion’s tense neck. Shim was snorting air like a bellows. “He’s my friend and my companion.”

“You ride him.”

And now he trembled with rage beneath her. Was Kavik trying to anger Shim so much that the stallion would attack him? Even now, Shim probably only held back because he might injure the gelding. Fortunately, Mala had traveled with the stallion long enough to know exactly how to deflect his anger. She leaned over to scratch his shoulder, just where she knew he liked it, and fondly teased him, “Because he’s weak-minded and easily led by his stomach.”

Laughing, she rode through the stiff-legged hop and buck that was the stallion’s response.

Kavik tensed and reached for her, then seemed to realize she wasn’t going to be tossed. He frowned at Shim, then his gaze went to Mala’s hands when she let go of the stallion’s mane. “No bridle or reins?”

“Of course not.” Mala didn’t know if Shim would kill her if she ever tried to put a bit in his mouth, but he’d certainly see it as a betrayal. Losing his trust could never be worth having the security of reins. She scratched his neck again. “We came across each other in the highlands west of Krimathe shortly after I set out on my quest. I told him he was beautiful, and that I thought he would enjoy traveling with me, because there’d be bandits to kill. I assumed that he disliked humans, just as so many others born of Hanan’s seed do.”

Shim snorted again, as if to say that “disliked” wasn’t a strong enough word.

Kavik smiled faintly. “But not you?”

“He did then. He blew air at me and walked on.”

“What did you do?”

She bit her lip, but still couldn’t stop her grin. “I followed him through the highlands until he gave in.”

Kavik said flatly, “I did not give in.”

“I know.” Instead he’d filled himself with iron. “I didn’t even ride him at first—I had another horse. But we were fording a river and a paddle-serpent stung my leg.” She pushed down the top of her boot to show Kavik the veiny scar that burst like a pale star against her brown skin. “I thought Shim would abandon me then, but he carried me to the nearest village, and we found a healer there. After that, he let me ride him, but only because he realized how much faster we travel when I do. No other mount matches his speed.”

He nodded. “You came upon us at the maze faster than any other I’ve seen.”

“That is Shim’s gift.” She rubbed his neck. “So you see he is not tamed. Not as other horses are—and not as humans think of it. If he ever was, I would fight to the end of my life to free him.”

His hard gaze found hers again. “Even if Vela had made your task breaking him to a bridle and bit, instead?”

In truth, she didn’t know. Because it didn’t have to be force; if so much depended on his taking a bit, Shim might willingly submit.

But it mattered not. “It isn’t the same, warrior. The taming is not what you think. There will be no collars or leashes. I would never be so cruel to anyone. So I have faith that Vela won’t ask it of me.”

Kavik didn’t look as convinced.

MALA’S stomach was grumbling when they stopped for the night in the shadow of the mountains.

“I’ll cook,” she told Kavik, and was glad when he didn’t argue. They’d only caught a few snakes and lizards that day, and she suspected by the meager amount of his possessions that he typically shoved a blade through their stomachs and roasted them.

Though no longer raining, the ground was sodden and the horses soaked. Mala tended to the animals while Kavik built the fire, then wished she hadn’t sent them to graze so quickly when a fat crescent moon shone through thin clouds, shedding weak light over the valley below and the ribbon of muddied road winding through it.

“Is that a village?” A ring of shadows lay in the distance—if she wasn’t mistaken, that was a village wall. “Should I have Shim herd the horses back this way? Perhaps we can find an inn.”

“We can’t.”

She glanced back. Their tinder was dry and had started well, but the peat he’d added to the flames was slightly damp. The fuel smoldered, the thick smoke obscuring Kavik’s face, but she couldn’t mistake the bleakness of his reply.

“You patronized an inn in Perca. An innkeeper has to take you in. Surely Barin doesn’t punish them for it?”

“He already did. All of them. There’s no village there anymore. He razed it to the ground.”

Stomach tightening, she looked across the distance again. “Why?”

“We aren’t far from where my men and I fought the demon tusker. Most of us were injured. The villagers took us in. They tended to us. And they all died for it.”

The tension in her gut rolled into a sick ball. He didn’t glance up when she crouched next to him, his gaze fixed on the tiny, flickering flames beneath the heavy peat. She studied his strong profile, remembering the matted tangle of his hair, his long beard. That hadn’t just been because he’d been doused with revenant blood. Unable to abandon the people in this cursed land, and unable to reside among them, he’d chosen to live like this instead. Not just while on the road, as Mala did. But all the time, except for when he escorted others to the bridge.

“So you became the beast of Blackmoor,” she said. And she’d been sent to tame him.

As if reminded by the name, he finally glanced at her. “I did.”

Determination had hardened his expression again. She met his gaze with iron in her own.

“We will see Barin dead.”

“You’re favored by the goddess. Perhaps you’ll find a way that I could not.” Abruptly he stood. “But it is too late for them.”

Mala knew that well. Even if she completed her quest, Vela’s help would come a generation too late for thousands of Krimatheans. “We help those we can, warrior.”

He only shook his head and retrieved the lizards lashed to his saddle. With a sigh, she concentrated on encouraging the fire. The weight of hope for her people couldn’t compare to the burden of death that he bore. But Mala would know that burden if she failed her quest.

It would not be completed tonight, however, so she focused on what could be done. Such as skinning lizards. She was too hungry to wait for a stew, so she stuffed them with yellow peppers and sweetroot before laying them in a clay pot, filling the remaining space with ale, and setting the pot in the fire. It would be a hearty meal, especially after adding tender slices of the opossum she’d smoked throughout the previous night. She would do the same for the snakes this evening—they were better eating on the road.

Then there was nothing to do but wait. Kavik had already gathered their sleeping furs and saddles, and he joined her by the fire. He glanced into the crackling flames. Fragrant steam was slipping from the pot. He leaned over and breathed deep before settling down beside her.

She passed him the wineskin of ale. “I hope that you are weak-minded and easily led by your stomach.”

His grin seemed to increase the heat from the fire. She watched his throat as he drank, slipping her fingers down the length of her own. Mala wouldn’t touch him now, not without permission. Oh, but she could imagine so well.

She needed a deep drink when he returned the ale, aware that Kavik watched her mouth, and of the slide of his gaze down her body.

It came to a rest at her hips. “You wear your mother’s trophies.”

The jawbones suspended from her belt. An outdated tradition, but one that Mala was glad to carry on. At least for these.

“I do.” She took another drink, regarding him curiously. He’d spoken as certainly about their origin as if he’d seen her mother wearing them. “How did you know they were hers?”

He looked into the fire. “They’re old. And I think you would be wearing many more.”

So she did. Many more eyeteeth studded her belt. But she only said, “One is my father’s.”

His eyes met hers again. “They were the Destroyer’s men?”

“Yes.” She tilted her head back, looked up at the moon. Her mother had told her it had been full that night. Vela had seen it all, but there had been no help for Krimathe. “I’m fortunate that most of my traits resemble my mother’s, because they must have been the stupidest of soldiers. They turned their backs on her when they’d finished.”

Kavik didn’t respond. But this time, only because there was no response to make. Mala passed him the wineskin, then untied the jawbone hanging from the middle of her belt.

“I think my father must have been this one,” she said and held the bone up to her own jaw. “It’s the same shape, don’t you think?”

And in this short time with him, love must have been coming upon her. Because when Kavik choked and spit ale into the fire, she didn’t think about what a waste it was. Instead she watched him laugh, and the deep sound of it made her heart seem stuffed full. Then he looked at her, and his laughter quieted, and she hoped he felt the same.

If he didn’t, she would see that he did. “I hope you still intend to lie with me on my moon night.”

Fire filled his eyes even before he looked away from her and into the flames. “If you are so willing to take my cock, then I am still willing to fuck you.”

“I’m not only willing, warrior. I am eager. But I should warn you that once I have you, I will not share you.”

His hands clenched. He stared into the fire, his broad chest rising on a series of deep breaths. Finally he looked to her again. Hard determination had covered the heat.

Slowly he stood. “Come here, then.”

Her heart pounded as she rose. With each step, her breasts seemed to grow heavier, her nipples teased by soft linen behind stiff armor. Her gaze locked on his, she moved close enough to touch. His face a mask of tension, Kavik reached for her, his big hand cupping her jaw before sliding back to fist her braids.

“Down.” His voice was harsh. “Take my cock now.”

And taste him. Finally taste him. Anticipation sliced through her, hot and sharp. She sank to the ground, her knees cushioned by the folds of her cloak bunched beneath them. Her hands gripped his thighs, her palms sliding over the threadbare brocs and thick, steely muscle.

Oh, sweet gods. So strong.

“Now.” His fingers tangled deeper into her hair. “If you are so eager for it, take it all now. Tug as hard as you can.”

Her gaze shot to his face. A grimace had pulled his mouth taut, as if he lifted a weight beyond his might. Strain made sharp lines of the sinewy strength in his arms as he reached beneath his furs and shoved down the front of his brocs. His stance widened, powerful legs braced apart.

Because she was about to yank his leash, and he was apparently determined not to be moved by it.

Mala didn’t care if he moved. This wasn’t about taming him. She just wanted her tongue on his skin, and to give him pleasure. So if Kavik wanted the satisfaction of resisting what he felt for her, and if he needed it hard, and now, that was how she would give it.

Wetting her lips, she pushed aside the furs hanging from his belt. Oh, generous goddess of creation. There was so much for her to taste. Already his cock stood so tall for her, thick and heavy, with ruddy shaft and substantial crown.

“Thank you, Mother Temra,” she breathed against the broad tip, and after a swift lick to catch his flavor—like precious salt—she swallowed him down.

With a grunt, his body stiffened as if he’d been kicked in the gut. His hand tightened in her hair. She heard his sharp inhalation, followed by a long, slow release that was cut short when she drew back and took him as deep as she could.

It wasn’t deep enough. Surrounded by his scent, like rain, like leather and a long hard ride, she sucked hard upon him and worked his thick length to the back of her throat—then was forced to release him, coughing and afire with frustration.

Temra had been too generous, perhaps. “I can’t take all of you, warrior.”

“You will,” he said hoarsely, then guided her lips back to his shaft, the head still glistening from the wet heat of her mouth. “Your moon night and every night after.”

All of this inside her. She groaned and swallowed his cock to her limit again, and every hard draw upon his length stoked her hunger. His left hand joined his right, his fingers clenching and unclenching in her braids, the rest of his body like stone.

“Your hands.” The ragged words seemed ripped from him. “Stroke what you can’t suck.”

Her fingers were already slick from tending to her own need. She gripped his shaft tight and looked up to see his gritted teeth and his nostrils flaring, his eyes as fierce as when he’d first seen her and his gaze had been filled with the madness of battle.

I waited for you, little dragon.

Her warrior did not have to wait much longer. Her eyes locked on his face, she pulled him to the back of her throat and pushed her hand between her legs, gathering the wetness there. His shaft throbbed against her tongue. His breath shuddered with each stroke of her fingers down his length, but the rest of him didn’t move at all, except for his grip growing tighter and tighter in her hair.

Abruptly he stopped the movement of her head and pulled her from his cock. Mala glanced up. Oh, how he fought. His eyes were closed, his face contorted as if in agony. But there was never any stopping this.

Huskily she said, “Give to me your seed, warrior,” and with a savage thrust he filled her mouth, first with his heavy cock and then his salty release, and she took all of that though she still couldn’t take the rest of him.

Not yet.

Softly she licked away the remaining seed and thought she knew why he’d placed such reverent kisses upon her thigh. It was so easy to give pain and to become hardened to it. To give pleasure instead—and to know it was accepted—was a real gift. Mala had never felt so gently toward anyone as she did at that moment.

“No more.” Fingers rough in her hair, Kavik pushed her away from his cock and held her there. “I’ve finished.”

With his iron determination in place again, along with satisfaction—as if he’d passed a test of his own making.

So he would not show her any tenderness, as if tenderness meant he was tamed. Very well. In all her life, Mala hadn’t known much softness. She didn’t need any now.

And the dull ache in her stomach was just hunger.

With a nod, she licked her fingers and turned to the fire. The juices in the clay pot steamed and bubbled around the edge of the lid. “The supper is ready, warrior, and at just the right moment. Your cock isn’t as filling as it appears.”

A sudden tug at the base of her throat pulled her back—Kavik had grabbed the hood of her cloak. Mala suppressed her instinct to fight and let him take her. Dragging her against his hard chest, he wrapped his fingers around her neck.

“Make your bed with mine this night.” The soft gravel of his voice rasped against her ear. “You won’t go to sleep hungry.”

She nodded and shivered as his callused thumb scraped over her racing pulse. “I’ll lie with you.”

Kavik let her go, and with shadowed eyes he watched her prepare the rest of their meal. But this one did not pass in silence, for she asked him about his travels as a sword for hire, and he told her of a mad king who’d paid a thousand soldiers to escort him to the southern jungles, only to sacrifice himself to the jaws of a great thunder lizard. He spoke of creeping vines that would wrap around a sleeping man like a constrictor, and continue holding on until the rotting body had been drained of its fertilizing juices. He’d seen the Salt Sea’s beaches stacked high with giant bones, and he’d hunted wraiths at the feet of the monoliths of Par, said to have been built by the gods themselves.

Belly full, limbs warmed by ale, Mala listened in wonder. He had been farther than any other person she’d known. “Have you ever traveled north? Have you seen Krimathe?”

He looked into the fire for a long moment before shaking his head. “I’ve never been north of these mountains.”

Mala had never been south before her quest. “Have you seen any place untouched by the Destroyer’s hand?”

“No,” he said softly, and they fell quiet then. Finally she rose to prepare the snakes for smoking.

Kavik laid out their bed. When she’d watched him the previous night, he’d only removed his armor. Now he stripped down to his brocs and boots before laying his sword by his saddle, where he would rest his head. The glow of the fire bathed his skin in orange light, and even the fiery sky above could not draw her gaze away.

She laid her sword beside his. Only their exposed position prevented her from removing her tunic and loincloth, and sliding in next to him skin to skin. If bandits came upon them, best to be wearing more than her boots and cloak.

His body was as hot as the fire. She tried to turn toward him, but he pulled her back against his chest, lying on their sides with her head pillowed on his right biceps. His rigid cock nestled into the cleft of her ass.

Frustration bit deep. “Warrior—”

His heavy thigh pushed between hers and lifted, separating her legs. His left hand swept down the curve of her ass and delved through her slick folds from behind. Gasping, Mala arched her spine, pushing closer. His biceps flexed as he pulled her up higher against his shoulder and wrapped his arm across her chest, holding her tight against him. His fingertips teased her entrance.

Oh, no. No teasing. She reached back and gripped his thick hair. “Now.”

He thrust into her. Oh, Vela. She cried the goddess’s name, because even though her sheath was soaked by her need there was pain as he filled her with two broad fingers instead of one.

Kavik froze behind her. “Mala?”

“Don’t stop.” With a breathless moan, she rocked her hips back and forced him deeper. “Take me hard, warrior.”

A groan rumbled through his chest, and she felt the sharp bite of his teeth on the lobe of her ear before he abruptly rolled her onto her stomach and followed her over, his weight pinning her torso to the furs and his cock heavy against her hip. His fingers pushed into her again—slowly, so slowly. Mala screamed and tried to come up on her knees, to force him to a deeper angle. His foot against her ankle shoved her legs wide, denying her leverage. Leisurely he stroked into her, again and again. Cheek pressed into the furs, crying out with each deliciously torturous thrust, she desperately worked her hand beneath her stomach and down to her clitoris. Trapped beneath the weight of her pelvis, she could barely do more than wriggle her fingers, but it was enough, and the painful tension began to spiral more quickly toward the end.

Kavik’s slick fingers glided past hers and paused. She was discovered. Mala stilled, grinning into the furs, her body a taut, throbbing ache.

A chuckle sounded above her. “Now, little dragon?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

He set his teeth against her shoulder and drove his fingers deep. Oh, sweet gods—like this. Mala cried his name and Kavik struck a brutal pace, the heel of his palm pounding her ass with each thrust of his hand. Pinned with her legs widespread, she couldn’t move, could only take every rough stroke. Orgasm roared upon her like a charging beast. Screaming, she came in a hard rush, her slick channel constricting tighter around him with each convulsion that jolted through her flesh.

Then she lay limp, with his chest a heaving bellows against her sweating back. She groaned when his thick fingers slipped from inside her, until he pulled her against him again.

“Every night I will sheathe myself within you,” he said roughly and pushed his thigh between hers, so that her slick, heated flesh rode against heavy muscle. “After your moon night, it won’t be my fingers but my cock, and each day I will have you until my seed overflows your well and runs in a river down your thighs.”

“I hope that is a vow.” With a yawn of sheer exhaustion, Mala snuggled closer and closed her eyes. Her voice was thick with sleep as she said, “Happy dreams, warrior.”

His arms tightened around her. “I do not need them.”

CHAPTER 6

He did not need happy dreams and, in the nights following, he did not receive happy ones. Kavik held her in his arms but in his dreams Mala was walking away, and no matter how he raced he could not catch up to her. But these dreams meant nothing, because upon waking he would have her again. He gave her pleasure and took his whenever and however he wanted.

He was not tamed. Even if his heart was not his own. Even if he could never have enough of her touch or her laugh. Even if he never wanted to face a dawn without her.

He stood firm. For although she believed his taming would not be cruel, Kavik knew it must be. Vela had sent Mala to bring him to his knees again.

So even when she lay so softly against him, her face flushed with sleep, Kavik did not kiss her awake as he wanted to. He watched her, his chest filled with an ever-deepening ache. He stood firm. But for how long? He would do anything for her. If she knew how his heart lay in her hand, soon he might be putting the collar on himself.

But hiding his heart would not be enough. He needed to persuade her beyond any doubt that he would never give in. He needed to push her away, because he weakened with her every touch.

It would not be today, though. Today they would reach the dark river that tumbled down the nearby mountains. Tomorrow they would cross the fouled waters, and Kavik would continue leading her farther away from the demon tusker’s den. He had seen too many men killed by that evil, and he would not see Mala hurt by it, too.

Even if it meant his life, Kavik would never see her hurt.

She stirred against him, lashes fluttering and a soft smile on her lips. He remained still as she turned in his arms. After so many mornings, he didn’t need to tell her what he wanted; his body spoke for him. But as she skimmed lower, her mouth brushed his shoulder, then his chest, and she repeatedly touched her lips to his skin as she moved down his rigid stomach.

Each kiss was a sweet knife. He couldn’t bear it.

Roughly he gripped her hair. “Take my cock,” he commanded hoarsely. “Now.”

She did. So hot. So hard. She gave him what he wanted, needed. He controlled this. He was not tamed. She was.

And it mattered not that he thought he might die without her.

THE sun had finally come to Blackmoor, but the cursed land looked no happier for its warmth. Along the great river, blackwood trees lay twisted and dry. Bones strewed the rocky banks, animal and human, as if those who had drank directly from the waters had immediately fallen dead.

Though it was long before sunset, they stopped to camp within an arrow’s flight of the river. A stone bridge lay farther south, but it was gated, and Barin’s soldiers only allowed travelers to pass through while the sun was up. Kavik had told her it was better to sleep at least a half day’s ride away and cross at midday, because bandits were never as much trouble under cover of darkness as the bored soldiers at the bridge garrison were.

Although Mala might have enjoyed a fight, she would enjoy an undisturbed night with Kavik more—and a bath. Her last had been at the Croaking Frog, and for a quarter turn she’d made do with wiping herself down with a damp rag. So as he built the fire, she retrieved a small packet of soap and a cloth from her packs.

“See that the others stay away from the waters,” Mala said to Shim, who had taken to watching over the horses when they weren’t traveling. “I will let you know when it is safe.”

Small bones cracked between her bare feet and the rounded stones at the edge of the river. It was unfortunate that she and Kavik couldn’t cross at this spot instead of requiring a bridge. But the recent rains had swelled the waters, and although they flowed placidly near the banks, the current at the middle appeared deep and swift.

After unbraiding her hair, she shed her clothes and stood before the lapping waters, wearing only a knife strapped to her thigh. There was no ritual required for this. Only honesty. “Vela, most gracious of goddesses,” she prayed softly. “I am your servant, awed and humbled by your protection. I need it now, for these waters are fouled, and only your power can cleanse them. Take my body as your vessel and my faith as your due.”

Soap in hand, Mala stepped in. Braced for icy cold, she was pleased to find it merely cool. Bliss. She waded out to her waist, where the current was still only a constant, gentle push against her legs.

She didn’t feel Vela move through her; she never did. Some priestesses said they were filled with ice, others described it like fire. But however the goddess worked through Mala, it was quiet, like a breath.

Holding hers, she dunked her head.

Kavik’s shout met her ears when she came up. Bellowing her name, he raced toward her, his powerful stride tearing across the distance. Alarmed, she unsheathed her knife and scanned the water’s surface. Had some monster survived the poisonous waters?

Slowly, so as not to attract any creature’s attention, she started back toward the river’s edge.

Eyes feral, Kavik charged directly toward her across the rocks and splashed into the river. “Out of the water, Mala!” Desperation hoarsened his voice as he reached for her. “Out!”

Heart thundering, she searched the water again. “What is—”

Kavik’s fingers snagged her wrist. Dragging her against him, he hooked his arm beneath her legs and forged toward the shoreline. At the rocks, he dropped to his knees beside her clothes and began scrubbing her wet skin with her cloak. Lips white, his face was a mask of anguish. “Did you drink any?”

Understanding swept over her. The fouled water. He must have been certain she would be poisoned. That she would be dead within a few breaths.

Yet he’d charged into the same water after her.

Mala cupped his face in her hands, forced him to look at her, and could barely stand the devastation in his eyes. “I told you that Vela would protect me,” she said softly. “That she would cleanse any water I need.”

“A wineskin,” he said harshly. “She cannot cleanse a fouled river.”

“She can, warrior. She did. It will be safe from the headwaters to the end.” She stroked her fingers along his bristled jaw. “Now come and bathe with me.”

Chest heaving, he shook his head. With a sigh, she rose from his arms. She hadn’t taken a step before he caught her hand, frowning up at her.

“You are not going back in?”

“Of course I am. I haven’t properly washed, and the water holds no danger now.”

Anger hardened his face. “You could not have known that when you first stepped in. It was a fool’s risk.”

“That is faith, warrior. It wouldn’t be very strong if I required proof before I believed in her power. But Vela does want us to believe in her, because she must work through us—and we would have no reason to allow it if she didn’t keep her promises. She only asks that I keep mine.” Still holding his hand, she took another step toward the water. “Perhaps you don’t trust the goddess. Trust me instead.”

Tension coiled in her chest as she waited, then constricted painfully when he let go of her fingers. Blindly she turned to the water. So he didn’t trust her. It mattered not. One day he would, because she was patient and stubborn, and never would she give him any reason to believe she might betray him. She would keep her promises, too.

But her eyes still stung, so she bathed her face in the cool water, then went under completely so that the ache in her heart could be blamed on her lungs.

Kavik was wading naked into the river when she emerged, his fierce gaze fixed on her face. “Either you are right,” he said roughly, “or I will die with you.”

Reaching for her, his fingers delved into her wet hair. But no command followed this time. No down. No now.

Instead his mouth descended upon hers. A kiss. Like sweet fire, he singed her lips with a possessive taste that slowly gentled as he lingered over her mouth, returning to it again and again. Mala clung to him, loving his strength, loving this tenderness.

When he finally lifted his head, she told him, “We will not die,” and her voice was thick. “But if we do, our corpses will smell better than they would have before we bathed.”

His grin loosened every painful ache inside her. Easily he lifted her against him, wrapping her legs around his waist before moving deeper into the water. “We must not smell as bad as revenant yet. You have tasted me many times these past days.”

“Much better than revenant.” Mala lay her head on his shoulder and held him close. “But I would have you anyway, warrior.”

MALA washed his hair, and Kavik thought there could be no greater pleasure until he took the soap and lathered every stretch of her beautiful skin. Touching her was the greater pleasure. Kissing her was. He followed each spot that she rinsed with a tender press of his lips.

He should not. Kavik knew he should not let himself touch her like this. But after seeing her in the water, he knew how it might feel to lose her—and that when he pushed her away, it would tear his heart from his chest. It mattered not if he began his torture early. This was all he would have of her until the end.

She slipped her strong arms around his neck, the movement lifting her small breasts. The water lapped her erect nipples. Suddenly ravenous for a taste, Kavik bent his head.

Mala stiffened against him. “Wait.”

He looked up. She had not denied him. Instead her gaze had fixed farther down the riverbank, where Shim and the other horses had been splashing through the shallows, nipping and kicking at each other. Playing, Mala had said, and Kavik had ignored their whinnies and squeals. But now the stallion let loose a more strident neigh as he faced the west, nose in the air and snorting.

“Revenants?” Mala called.

The stallion shook his head, then with nips to their hindquarters began herding the others toward camp.

Frowning, Mala glanced up at Kavik before starting for the shore. “The demon tusker?”

Shim whinnied impatiently and shook his head again.

“Humans?”

A stamp of his hoof answered her.

“Humans,” Mala said to Kavik and swept her cloak over her shoulders before collecting her clothes from the shoreline. “Maybe bandits, maybe travelers. Do you see them?”

Fastening his belt and furs, Kavik scanned the western horizon. The rolling landscape that led down to the river was not in their favor. “Not yet.”

But it did not take long after they’d returned to the camp to recognize a squad of Barin’s soldiers, the sun glinting off their polished helms. Riding quickly, they headed directly toward the camp.

“From the bridge garrison?” Mala asked him, tightening her armor. Her dark hair hung long and wet over her shoulders.

“No.” Kavik had spotted the dogs running ahead of the soldiers. “They’ve tracked us.”

Her full lips twisted with irritation. “Sent by Barin?”

“We’ll find out.”

Not by waiting at camp for them to arrive—their position would be too much of a disadvantage. Mounted, they rode out to meet the soldiers. Only a dozen of them. If Barin meant to kill Kavik and Mala, he’d have sent more.

The company leader slowed at their approach and Kavik recognized the captain of the citadel guard. Red-faced and sweating, Heddiq was more accustomed to sitting for meals in the citadel garrison than hard riding.

At two hundred paces, Heddiq rose his fist and shouted across the distance, “Halt! We have a message for the questing one.”

For Mala. When Kavik looked to her, she was regarding the soldiers with pursed lips. Finally she murmured something to Shim, who slowed to a walk. Kavik reined in his gelding.

She slid him an amused glance. “It seems that whatever the message is, they do not want to be too near us when they deliver it.” Lifting her voice, she called out, “What is this message?”

“It is of two parts, and from our glorious Lord Barin!” Heddiq shouted. “He wishes you to know that a cleansed river will only bring the demon tusker from his den more often! You do not help anyone, and many will likely die when the demon emerges!”

Her expression flattened. “And the second part?”

Heddiq’s horse pranced uneasily and backed up, as if the man’s hands were hard and nervous on the bit. “Our glorious lord grows weary of waiting! You must bring the tamed beast to his hall by the new moon.”

“And if I do not?”

“He will kill the son of Karn and you will fail your quest!”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. She glanced to Kavik. “The king’s son still lives? Why would his death affect my quest?”

His heart a burning weight, he could only return her gaze. Her lips suddenly parted and she sucked in a sharp breath. Abruptly Shim reared and pivoted. Mala’s red cloak flared open over his back, and Kavik had never seen anything so fierce and beautiful as when she faced the soldiers again.

“Return this message!” she shouted. “The goddess Vela guides my blade, and when her hand is upon my sword, it will cut even a sorcerer’s neck from his shoulders! And to make sure the message is delivered properly, piss on him as you speak it! Now, run!”

The captain of the guard only hesitated a moment before giving the signal. With a thunder of hooves, the company started south. Mala stared after them with clenched jaw.

“Heddiq won’t piss on Barin,” Kavik said. The guard would probably be too afraid to relay her message at all. “But he likely just pissed on himself.”

“Heddiq?” She whirled to face him. “That was the captain of the citadel guard?”

“He is.”

Rare indecision warred upon her features. “I had never seen him. But I warned those raping pig guards that if ever I did, I would kill him.” She looked to Kavik. “Barin must have known that when he sent him. It can’t be usual for a guard to ride with mounted soldiers.”

“It’s not.”

“More of Barin’s amusements, perhaps,” she said softly. “He must have expected me to kill him. But I will not be yanked by a leash any more than you will. So Heddiq has a reprieve. Now that I know his face, however, he will not have one again.” She looked to the river. “Is it true what he said of the demon tusker—that it will emerge early to foul the waters again?”

“It might be.” Kavik nudged his mount back toward camp. “Or Barin might hope to stop you from cleansing them again. His concern is not for the people, but how to control them—though I don’t know how he knew to send the message when you cleansed the river only today.”

“Shortly after I began following you, I cleansed the river just north of Perca,” she said. “Shim was thirsty.”

Kavik frowned. “Did you tell anyone?”

She shook her head. “It would do more harm than good if people knew and began to use the waters, then they were befouled again. I would not have said anything of it until we slew the demon tusker. We need to return to the city. If Barin spoke true, then the demon will soon come to that river.”

“Or this one.”

But even as he said it, Kavik knew there was little choice. If Barin spoke truth, then many villages north of Perca would be in the demon’s path. Far fewer people lived near this river. So instead of leading her away from the demon tusker, Kavik would ride with her toward it.

“We will have to gamble,” she said, then suddenly grinned. “I prefer the city, because we will be more likely to find a soft bed to pass my moon night in.”

Kavik’s chest tightened. And he would be more likely to find the help he needed to persuade her that he could not be tamed. She might not abandon her quest, but if she did not touch him, he could continue standing firm.

Her grin faded when she glanced at his face. “Kavik?”

He forced himself to nod, his voice rough. “I agree. A soft bed.”

She watched him a moment longer. “You are truly Karn’s son?”

“I am.”

“And so that is why Barin amused himself with you.” With a sigh, she looked ahead. “My mother spoke well of your father. They met once when she was young. Before the Destroyer. Was that who killed him?”

“No.” Kavik stared at the river, seeing nothing. “Barin came to Blackmoor ahead of the Destroyer. He was instructed to persuade my father to give him the location of a passageway beneath the mountains. My ancestors had trapped the demon there during the time of the ancients. Barin said the Destroyer wanted to use the demon’s power, and such an alliance might save Blackmoor, but my father refused. At first.”

“He was tortured?” Mala’s dark gaze was solemn upon his face. “But that is not all Barin does to those he wants to hurt.”

Of course she understood. Though the details were not always the same, this story was a common one from during the time of the Destroyer. “I had brothers, a mother. Barin gave them to his soldiers. My father revealed the passageway’s location, hoping to save them.”

“Did he?”

His throat burning, Kavik shook his head. “She had been heavy with child—with me. I was all that Barin returned to him. Then he let us go.”

“Because it amused him,” Mala said flatly.

“It did.”

“Where did you go?”

“The Weeping Forest. Not as I live there now. There was an inn at the edge of the forest. My father still had gold, a few servants. But Barin had taken most of his fingers and he couldn’t hold a sword. So I held it for him the first time I returned to the citadel.”

Jaw clenched, she looked ahead again, but held her tongue. He knew what she would say. His father must have been mad. Kavik had only seen eight winters then.

“He was mad,” Kavik said softly. “But the hope of freeing Blackmoor from Barin’s reign was all that he had. And I knew nothing else. Nothing but trying to discover a way to kill him.”

“Until your fourteenth winter, you said. What happened then?”

“We tried an ivory blade under a full moon. It failed, but before we left, Barin decided that would be my moon night. My father died trying to stop them from putting the collar on me. His heart gave out. And I left Blackmoor to earn gold for my army.”

Eyes glistening, she looked away from him again. Kavik had no tears left for his father, or for the boy he had been. All that remained was the icy ache in his chest.

Her throat worked before she spoke. “I vow to you that it will never be a collar,” she said, and the hoarse catch in her breath scraped over his heart. “And Vela will not ask it of me.”

“I pissed in her temple.”

Mala’s shocked gaze flew to meet his. “You did what?”

“I pissed in her offering bowl. Do you think Vela would put me on my knees in front of Barin for it?”

The goddess possessed cruelty enough to punish him that way. Mala knew it. Uncertainty flashed over her face.

His throat seemed full of grit. “If you will not have me in a collar, take off the robe. Abandon your quest.”

“I cannot.” Breath shuddering, she shook her head. “And the taming will not be that. I have to believe it won’t be. I know you don’t trust her. But trust in me, warrior. Please.”

He couldn’t answer. Nudging his mount’s sides, he rode ahead. But as soon as he dismounted, she came to stand before him. Rising onto her toes, she captured his face between her hands, her gaze fixed on his lips.

He caught her hair. “Down.”

“Kavik—”

“Now,” he said. “I have no need for your mouth except on my cock.”

Fire lit behind her eyes. Holding his gaze, she slid down. His shaft hadn’t been hard when he’d given the command, but the touch of her fingers started a brutal ache in his flesh. She raised his stiffening length to her lips.

And kissed him, so gently. Kavik froze. Again, a reverent press of her mouth. Releasing her hair, he ripped himself away from her touch. His chest was heaving, each breath tearing raggedly from his lungs.

Still on her knees, she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were haunted. “Do you have no need for any part of me, warrior?”

He could not stop his harsh laugh. She was everything he needed. All of her.

But he turned away from her. “Not if I can’t fuck it. I’ll wait for your moon night.”

And wait for his end.

IT was three days’ hard journey back to Perca. Mala wasn’t surprised when Kavik retreated into silence again. He didn’t share her bed. Instead she was left alone with her thoughts and the growing ache of the distance between them.

Mala had known this quest would be painful. But she’d thought it would be her body that suffered, not her heart.

But the pain made her hopeful that she was on the right path. If this had been easy, it wouldn’t be a quest, and she could think of few more difficult tasks than winning Kavik’s trust—which made her wonder if the answer to his taming had lain before her almost from the very beginning. She had befriended another beast who hadn’t been easy to win over. And although she didn’t consider Shim tamed, many others would. Just as some thought a collar meant its wearer was tamed, and Mala called it cruelty, instead.

It only mattered what Vela intended the taming to mean. If Mala was right, then she only had to be patient. She had to be stubborn. And she had to remember Kavik’s anguish as he’d charged into the water to save her. She had to remember his tenderness as he’d kissed her.

He hadn’t covered his heart in iron to hurt her, but to protect himself. She’d seen his pain after she’d refused to abandon her quest, and knew that he expected more agony to come. If it did, the agony would not come from her hand, and she would help him fight its cause. Though he could be hard, and the distance between them painful, Mala trusted that he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her; she could wait until he trusted her in return.

And she hoped the single night remaining before the full moon passed quickly. Though Kavik had been quiet these past days, his ravenous hunger for her still burned in his shadowed gaze. Taking him would not be easy, either. But she didn’t care if he was rough, or tried to persuade himself that he hadn’t softened toward her. Mala would find her pleasure in every merciless touch, in each brutal thrust.

She was just as hungry as he was.

Until the full moon came, however, she suspected that her only need to be sated would be her thirst. The sun had been warm, their ale had run dry two days before, and watered mead never satisfied as well. She was glad to see the Croaking Frog’s familiar banner with its lucky lily pad. Dally birds squawked in the stable yard behind the inn, bald pink heads bobbing, and their scraggly gray and white feathers floating everywhere. The ugliest birds that Temra had ever created—but also the most delicious.

As soon as she removed Shim’s saddle, the stallion trotted into the yard and began to snort at the swirling feathers. She glanced over to find that Kavik was already seeing to the packhorses. The furs he’d worn over his shoulders had been shed days before, leaving his steely arms bare. Her bottom lip between her teeth, she watched the sinews flex in his strong forearms as his long fingers tugged at the leather ties.

Without looking up, he said gruffly, “Will you go and see if there’s a private bed available for us?”

Swift joy rose through her. “Will we be sharing it tonight, then?”

“We will.” He came nearer, his gaze hot on hers. “And add this.”

He pressed a thin gold coin into her palm. She glanced up curiously.

Kavik turned to the horses again. “Ask Selaq to join us in the bed tonight.”

Did he think his fingers and tongue weren’t enough? Mala grinned at his back. “I prefer your touch, warrior. Not hers.”

“I want her there for me.”

Her brows rose. “Do you not realize she prefers women?”

Easily he lifted the heavy grain baskets balanced over the animal’s withers. “But she will lie with men for extra coin. I’m desperate for your sheath, but there’s no need to wait. I can fuck another tonight.”

No, he could not. “Why would you say this to me, warrior?”

“Because one sheath is the same as any other.”

The edges of the coin bit into her fingers. “I told you that I would not share you after I had you.”

“I’ve not had you yet. That is why my cock aches for waiting.” His gaze was shuttered when he looked up. “And that is why I will have another tonight.”

“Do you believe that we’ve not already had each other just because my moon night hasn’t come? We’ve had each other over and over these past days, warrior. We had each other when you kissed me. When you rode by my side. When you slept by me and held me close.” She didn’t mistake the sharp agony in his gaze before he looked away. “Do you intend to hurt me or are you simply being a stubborn fool? Because I promise you, this will injure me.”

It would shred her heart more quickly than a pack of revenants.

Determination hardened his expression again. Catching her wrist, he took back the coin and started for the inn. “I will pay her myself, then.”

She stared at his retreating back. Her face seemed hot and numb all at once, as if repeatedly slapped. He’d been devastated when he’d thought she’d been poisoned at the river. And yet . . . this.

Maybe he would truly do it, maybe he wouldn’t. It mattered not. She’d told him this would hurt her and he intended to carry on anyway.

She’d been wrong about him. So wrong. Swallowing hard, she said after him, “If you give her that coin, you will not touch me again.”

For an instant, his step faltered. His fists clenched. But he continued on.

And she had not expected agony like this. Never had she imagined Kavik would slip a blade between her ribs and leave her bleeding. Throat burning, she blindly turned toward the packs, vision wavering with hot tears.

Vela. I need your strength now. Help me, please.

But the pain did not ease.

HIS legs barely seemed able to carry the crushing weight in his chest. It was done. She would not touch him. He would never touch her again. Even if she continued her quest and followed him until the end of his days, he would stand firm.

Except he could barely stand now. The heat from the ovens in the inn’s brewing chambers seemed like a demon’s breath on his face. As soon as he moved out of sight of the stables, he leaned back against the support of the walls.

“Kavik? Are you unwell?”

Selaq, with a blue cloth covering her yellow hair and a wooden tub propped on her hip. Her appearance made the coin in his hand seemed heavier than any boulder. He would never give it to the innkeeper. Mala never needed to know.

Whatever her injuries, they couldn’t be deep. Her pride had been damaged. Not her heart. She hadn’t known him well enough or long enough to feel more.

Except that she felt everything deeply. He’d never seen anyone possess such ferocity and passion. Who was so quick to grin—or to make him laugh.

His throat a knot, he said, “I would ask for your help.”

Eyes widening, Selaq stared at him. “You would ask? Has the sun risen in the west? Or has the truly impossible happened, and Barin is dead?”

Kavik could never joke about Barin’s death. “I need you to let Mala believe I have paid you to come to my bed tonight.”

“Oh, no.” She hefted the tub up onto a table. “She’ll kill me.”

“No. It would not be you that she hurt.” And Kavik would take any punishment she gave him. Had already given him. You will not touch me again. “She would never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“You don’t deserve a collar.”

The coin seemed to burn in his palm. “She has vowed never to put one on me.”

And she wouldn’t. Kavik knew she wouldn’t. She’d felt deeply then, too, when he’d told her of his father. Of his moon night and what Barin and his soldiers had done.

Selaq scoffed and lifted a ball of brown dough from the tub. “Even if Vela demands it?”

“She believes the goddess wouldn’t ask it of her.” The image of cold silver eyes flashed through his memory. “I do not believe the same.”

“Do you think she would defy the goddess? Abandon her quest?”

“She will have to.” Because Kavik would never give in. “Or never complete it.”

Her brow furrowed. “You say that very easily. When I heard of the taming, I wished her no success. But I would still never wish what would come upon her if she abandoned it.”

“She will be marked. But she has no vanity. And she wears other scars.” Almost as many as Kavik did.

Selaq’s kneading hands stilled, and she stared at him. “Kavik, you fool. You utter fool.”

Tension gripped his chest. A stubborn fool. “Why?”

“A quest is a promise made to Vela. Do you think she accepts a broken vow lightly? Mala will be forsaken. Shunned. Never allowed to return home. Never allowed to stay in any one place because anyone who offers her shelter or aid will risk Vela’s wrath. Any village she enters, they will drive her away with dogs and stones. You think Barin plagues you? It is nothing to what the goddess will do to her.”

Ice splintered through his veins. And he had shoved her away? Sworn never to give in? He would crawl into the citadel with a bit between his teeth if it pleased Vela.

And beg Mala to forgive him.

His legs found their strength again but as soon as they carried him into the stable yard, a vise seized his heart. Mala was sorting through the packs, adding items to the pouches on Shim’s saddle, her head bowed and her movements slow. Leaving.

Her head shot up when the stallion gave his nicker of warning. She wiped her cheeks.

The tightness in Kavik’s throat became a burning knot. “Mala—”

“You can keep the black gelding and the other two horses. They will only slow me down.” Without looking at him, she opened a jute sack and began dividing the contents. “They will be compensation for your assistance in searching for the demon tusker.”

“Don’t, Mala. Please.” Voice broken, he reached for her.

She whirled on him, her hand flying to her sword. Her blade pressed against his throat.

Kavik stilled. It was not the weapon that stopped him. Her dark eyes swam with tears, but the expression in them was a spear through his chest. Not just pain. Devastation that matched his own.

“You have no permission to touch me now,” she said through gritted teeth.

With desperate hope, he opened his hand. Though it had weighed so much moments before, the gold in his palm seemed like nothing now. A boy’s trinket. Yet he had risked her life and her quest with this worthless thing. “I would not have given it to her,” he rasped. “I never would have.”

“That matters?” Her hollow laugh told him it mattered not at all. Tears slipped over her cheeks. “I thought I finally knew what Vela wanted. I wouldn’t call Shim tamed, because he is free. But others would call him that, simply because I ride him. Even you said he was.”

Kavik had. And he would still say it. But he couldn’t speak past the pain in his throat.

Her fingers trembled as she continued. “I began to believe that was what Vela meant. Not a collar, but trust. Shim and I ride together. One day, though, I know we will part ways. He will return to his herd. But I thought . . . I thought if that was what it meant to tame you, then we might have so much longer.”

If that was taming, then Kavik would give anything to be tamed. “We will.”

“No.” Her simple response shattered his hope. On a sobbing breath, her hand dropped to her side, her blade falling away from his throat. “When I first began to ride him, he would throw me. He never meant to hurt me—he was just unused to the weight on his back. Sometimes I surprised him, or treated him like any other horse, and he needed to remind me that he was free, not just another animal to be tamed. But never did he turn on me. He never bit at me. He never kicked at me. He did hurt me, but he never meant to.”

And she had warned Kavik that he was hurting her. No wound from a blade could have matched the agony of the emptiness spreading through him now.

“He was never deliberately cruel,” she continued softly. “If he had been, I would have left him behind—because how could I have trusted him at my side if he might turn and kick me in the chest? So it is not that you might have touched another woman, because I knew you might try to throw me. I knew you didn’t want to soften toward me. But you meant to hurt me tonight.”

No. He hadn’t known it truly would. But it mattered not, because she’d warned him—and he’d been so determined to stand firm that he hadn’t listened. Hadn’t seen.

He’d had everything. She’d told him that, too. Her kiss. Her warmth at his side. Her heart. Now he had nothing.

Except he could make certain she wasn’t hurt again. “What of your quest? You have my trust. I will ride at your side.”

Or behind her. Anywhere she went. Even if she never spoke to him again, he would follow her until the end.

“You no longer have my trust, warrior. I’m not traveling that path anymore. So I pray that I was wrong, and that was not what Vela meant, because you are not worth the pain you would do to me.” Her eyes were dull as she turned away. Sheathing her sword, she picked up Shim’s saddle and moved out to the stable yard. “And there is another kind of tamed, one I didn’t begin to consider until I learned you were Karn’s son. It simply means to bring something wild into a home, and that wild thing takes a place within the household. Perhaps my task is to return you to your place in the citadel. I would need to kill Barin—and I have already made a vow to see him dead, so I was on that path. Or perhaps I am meant to tame the demon. That was what I first believed when I came to Blackmoor. Perhaps that was the road I was supposed to take.”

Both roads so dangerous that they’d already taken too many people Kavik had known. New determination filled him. “I will help you.”

She set the saddle upon Shim’s back. “You will not be able to keep up with me.”

Maybe not. His mount couldn’t match the stallion’s speed. But he could follow. Blood pounding, he raced back into the stables for the black gelding.

He was cinching the saddle when Selaq came into the stables. “I’m leaving these other horses with you.” They would slow him down, too, and he’d survived for most of his life with nothing more than a horse and his sword. “Do whatever you like with them.”

“Mala is leaving?” The innkeeper whispered the goddess’s name on a long sigh as Kavik led the gelding past her. “Then this is the moment you’ve lost everything.”

Ice seized Kavik’s gut. That had not been his friend’s voice. Those were not Selaq’s eyes, orbs pale as a milk moon against a blue sky.

Her frigid hand closed over Kavik’s arm and iron seemed to fill his legs, locking them in place. “Stand firm, beast. Stand firm while I twist the knife.”

He had already stood firm for too long. “There is nothing to twist it into,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve destroyed my own heart. You cannot do worse than I have already done.”

“No?” Her smile was a scythe. With rigid forefinger, she tapped the armor over his chest. Abruptly his lungs constricted, cutting off his breath. “But Mala was right. She did understand what the taming meant. It was never a collar. And you had her heart, warrior.”

So she could twist the knife. There could be more agony. It joined the desolating emptiness as the last of his air escaped his lips.

“Oh, that is not the knife, beast,” she answered as if his thoughts had been spoken. Her icy finger slid down his throat. “This is the knife. Because she abandoned the path that I’d chosen for her.”

No. Understanding cut through him. His gaze shot to the stable doors, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t call out. Wildly he fought the heaviness of his legs, the choking airless grip on his voice.

But his strength was nothing, and Kavik was nothing when Mala’s scream ripped through the air, followed by a cry of limitless pain and despair. His empty lungs convulsed on her name. His body stood rigid. Blinded by agony, he looked to Vela. She had to let him go to her.

“Go to her? You want to see what is happening? I will show you, as I’ve shown her to you so many times before.”

Mala sobbing on her knees amid swirling feathers. Still wearing her cloak, but it was black now, as if all the red had bled into her face, into the ragged disfiguring scars that raked from jaw to hairline as if slashed by a dragon’s claws. Blood and her tears rained into her cupped hands.

Shim nudged her shoulder. All at once she scrambled away from the stallion, her hand fisted against her chest as if holding closed a wound that threatened to spill her innards onto the ground.

“The path is ended for us, my friend. I will not see you forsaken, too.”

The stallion shook his head.

“You must shun me!” she cried. “You must!”

Snorting, the stallion pranced an uneasy circle.

“Please, Shim,” she added brokenly. “Please. Return to your herd. I cannot see you hurt, too.”

The horse blew a long breath and pushed his muzzle into her shoulder again. She stroked his nose once before letting her hand fall to her side.

“Be safe, my friend,” she said. Her tears ran a jagged path over the ruined lines of her face as he continued past her. Head hanging, she slipped to her knees again, and her sobs were silent.

Vela’s voice filled Kavik’s ears. “Look at you, honorable warrior. Look how firmly you stand when she needs kindness more than she ever has.”

He would go to her. He would hold her. But his chest convulsed again, wracking spasms that ripped down into his gut, up through his head. Darkness filled his vision of Mala, then brightened on a pair of milk moon eyes. Vela studied him for a long moment.

“I don’t know why you cry, beast,” she finally told him. “Her mouth is still hot and you said her cunt is the same as any other.”

No. Mala was unlike any other.

“Of course she is. She is my chosen.” Cold fingers pried his hand open. “I will have this coin. It is not worth as much as the one you stole from my temple, but I will consider it a proper offering—and perhaps I will piss in your mouth while you sleep. Happy dreams, beast.”

She tapped his head and all was gone.

SELAQ’S eyes were her own again when Kavik opened his, and found her looking down at him in concern. The dirt floor of the stable was hard beneath his back. The sky was dark.

Mala would be far ahead of him.

His body a solid ache, he rose to his feet and stumbled toward the gelding. Someone had removed his tack.

“Do you know which gate Mala used?” His voice was hoarse with grit, but he could speak again.

“East,” Selaq said softly. “But she turned north after she was outside the city.”

Kavik nodded, then stilled. He looked to her again.

A watery smile touched the innkeeper’s lips. “She left something in me.”

Something that let her see beyond the walls of the city. “Are you all right?”

“I am.” Her gaze narrowed. “You’re a fool.”

He picked up the gelding’s saddle. “I don’t need a goddess’s vision to know that.”

CHAPTER 7

Hood shadowing her face, Mala rode across the empty moors. Unlike Shim, the dun mare would not be punished by Vela. The mare had no understanding of what it meant to be forsaken. The Hanani stallion did.

The mark burned. Her face didn’t feel like her own, but a heavy and swollen mask. But that was only skin and flesh. It was nothing compared to the shattered wound in her heart—and Vela must have been her breath. Because now that she’d been forsaken, Mala seemed to have none left, and every time she tried to draw a new one it never eased the drowning ache in her chest.

She had failed Krimathe. Mala would make no alliances now. No warriors would answer the call of a woman who wore Vela’s Mark. And two years would pass before the House of Krima would know of her failure and attempt to send someone else.

If ever she returned to Krimathe at all. She had failed her quest, but she would not abandon her vows—and before she left this cursed land of Blackmoor, she would see Barin dead.

Though she did not know how to do it. While she’d been wearing the red cloak, Vela might have guided her. Mala could not expect help from the goddess now.

Mala could ask for help from no one else, either. Not even the man who’d tried so many ways to kill Barin before.

Kavik.

As soon as he slipped into her thoughts she desperately tried to shove them away. But it was too late. The shattered ache erupted through her chest and doubled her over into helpless tears. Vela forgive her. She should have been more patient. She should have been more stubborn.

She should have let him stab her over and over.

But, no. No. Her tears passed, leaving only the hot agony of the salt burning in her marked cheeks. She could not believe that was Vela’s intention. The goddess could be cruel. But Mala had believed Vela would not make the taming a cruel one—and it made no sense that she would not be cruel to Kavik, but would be cruel to Mala. She couldn’t believe that the goddess had meant her to love a man, and then ask her to endure as he shredded her heart whenever his fears threatened him.

He’d thoughtlessly, deliberately hurt her. She was not sorry for walking away.

And she had not abandoned her quest. She had not. She had only stepped on the wrong path.

She would find it again.

Pushing her hood back, she looked up. The moon shone fat and bright. Tomorrow Vela would look fully upon all of them, but Mala rode by her light now. Not completely forsaken. And with so much to be grateful for.

“Thank you,” Mala called to the sky, and the next breath she drew was an easier one. “You sent me to him. What you put into my path would have been so much more than I expected. I didn’t come to find love. Only strength. But you chose well for my heart. I wish Kavik had taken the same care with it.”

There was no reply. Mala hadn’t expected one. She was still forsaken.

She looked to the path ahead again just as the mare shifted nervously beneath her. Tension gripped Mala’s neck. Her gaze scanned the barren hills.

A piercing whinny split the night air.

Shim.

No. Oh, no. The mare answered and wheeled toward the call. Mala tried to rein her in. The mare slowed, then fought the bit when Shim trumpeted again. Curse it all. Mala would not saw at this horse’s mouth.

Swinging her leg over the saddle, she slid from the horse’s back to the ground. The mare galloped away and into the dark.

“Do not follow me, Shim!” she shouted.

He did. Within minutes he strode behind her, nose nudging her back with each step. The mare walked alongside him, and every time Mala tried to mount her again, Shim nipped at the mare’s hindquarters and her wild bucking sent Mala flying to the ground again. As if it were a game.

Her heart would not stop aching. “Do you not know what this mark means, you god-swived scut of a horse? You will be forsaken, too. Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”

He blew air at the back of her neck and shook his head.

Oh, Temra. Why had that goddess not given this horse sense? She couldn’t bear to see him hurt. But she didn’t know how to send him away without hurting him herself.

Shim’s sudden snort had her reaching for her sword again. His ears pricked forward, he faced the darkness behind them.

“What is it?” Gripping his mane, Mala prepared to haul herself onto his back. Not riding together again—she would defend him. Then when the danger had passed, she would make him go.

A rider crested the low hill. Mala’s heart constricted. At this distance, he was nothing but shadow, but she couldn’t mistake him. Kavik.

He’d pushed her away. Why come after her now?

But it mattered not. “Shim,” she whispered. “Let me mount the mare. Please.”

He only lifted his head and whinnied loudly. Kavik’s horse answered. All part of Shim’s little herd.

Heart racing, Mala drew up her hood and swiftly struck out north again. Dead grass crackled under her boots. Shim and the mare plodded along behind. And the pounding of the gelding’s hooves was growing ever louder.

Abruptly the gelding slowed. She heard Kavik dismount. Moments later, the crunch of grass under his boots caught up with her own.

“You must go away from me.” She did not shift her gaze from the path ahead. “I am forsaken.”

“So am I,” Kavik said softly.

No. Not like this. “Danger will come into your path. Your fortunes will turn.”

“Danger has always come into my path. And how could my fortunes be worse, little dragon?”

“They will be.” Pain swelled in her chest. He had no more sense than a horse. “Please, Kavik. I could not bear being the one responsible for the hurt this will bring you. How can you not understand this? To protect your people from Barin, you haven’t allowed them to help you.”

“If I choose to stay, then I am the one responsible for any hurt this brings me. Not you.” His voice roughened. “You once helped me despite my warnings. You called the sweetest touch torture. I would torture you the same way, if you believe it would save me from Vela’s wrath.”

With his fingers sliding beneath her belt. With his hands gripping her ass. Then telling her how much he wanted to taste her.

She stared ahead without answering. A heavy cloud passed in front of the moon and the moors darkened. Kavik was only a shadow beside her.

“Now she won’t see me walking with you and know to punish me,” he said. “You could touch me without fear.”

“I don’t wish to touch you.”

“Then why do you care what Vela will do? Already I suffer punishment beyond bearing.”

Her breath hitched. “Why have you come? It is still not my moon night—and there are many sheaths in the city.”

“But I do not love any of the women who possess them,” he said gruffly. “I only love you.”

“And what of it?” Teeth clenched, she looked into the sky, at the silver-laced clouds with the moon lit behind. Why could she not breathe again? “You think I am so desperate for your heart that I would let you stab mine?”

“What I did wasn’t meant to hurt you. I was a stubborn fool.”

Just as she had already told him. So she said nothing.

“I dreamed of you,” he said. “For so many years. Every night, Vela sent me visions. I didn’t know your name, but I knew who you were. My little dragon, the High Daughter in a hauberk of green scales. I was earning coin to build my army, and fought amongst giants, yet I measured every warrior I met against you because I loved you even then. And I wanted to come for you. But how could you love a man who’d abandoned his people in favor of his heart? So I built my army, and planned to go to you after I killed Barin. But Vela sent you to me first.”

To tame him. Mala could not halt her laugh. “She can be cruel.”

“I believed it was cruelty, too. When I pissed in her offering bowl, she told me that I had to wait for the woman in red. That when that woman came, I would be on my knees, and it would be the end.”

Mala’s heart clenched. She stopped walking and her gaze flew to his face, but the darkness hid him from her. “Your end?”

“It must be mine” was his bleak reply. “At the labyrinth, when I saw your red cloak at a distance, I knew it must be coming. I didn’t know the woman in red would be my dragon. I had not dreamed of you since your mother’s death.”

Shards of remembered pain pierced her chest. “That was when I took up my quest.”

“Then that is why my dreams ended. I would have seen you wearing the red. I would have been prepared. Instead I learned when I met you that the woman I love would be my end.”

Mala wouldn’t be his end. But it might not be her choice. “Perhaps because you walk with me when I am forsaken, warrior. She will be cruel.”

“Not in this.” His response sounded raw and thick, as if he’d choked down sand. “She sent you here. I had you, even if only a short time. She is more generous than I knew. If simply walking beside you is all that I will ever have, I will thank her for every moment, no matter how painful it might become, and no matter how it might hasten my death.”

Mala glanced into the sky. Not so very long ago, she’d thanked Vela for the same. But it was too late. “I would not have you beside me.”

“I vow on my life that I would never hurt you again.”

“How could I trust that?”

“I’m not asking you to have faith in me. I’m not a god, but sometimes a foolish man, and you’ll be able to trust me because I’ll prove that you can trust me. Every day, I will prove it. Every breath. Not a single word or touch will ever be made with the intention of giving you pain.”

Tears burning in her eyes, she looked to the sky again. Where was Vela and her guidance now? There was none.

And she wanted to believe in him. Wanted to believe so much.

But it was impossible. “Even if I did trust, it cannot be. You can’t abandon your people. I can’t abandon mine—even if I can no longer live among them.”

“Then we will use Stranik’s passageway. It is only a week’s distance between Blackmoor and Krimathe through the tunnel. If ever your people needed help, you could quickly go to them.”

Mala knew of the passageway. It was said that during the creation of the earth, the snake god had fallen asleep, and the pounding of Temra’s fist had built the Flaming Mountains of Astal around him. When Stranik had finally woken and slithered on, the tunnel in the shape of his body remained. “That is only legend, warrior.”

“No.” There was certainty in his voice. “It had only fallen out of use when the demon was trapped there by the ancients. The Destroyer opened the passageway again and released the demon—and the demon tusker uses it as a lair.”

It could not be true. And yet it was not legend but fact that when the Destroyer had attacked Krimathe, he and his army had suddenly appeared in the mountains to the south, as if brought there by his sorcerer’s magic. At the time, the latest reports had placed him at least two years away, and Krimathe had still been preparing their defenses.

But it had not been magic. “So he didn’t want the demon’s power, as he told your father,” she said softly. “He wanted a fast route to the north.”

“Or both. My father believed Barin was left behind to protect the demon tusker from anyone who would destroy it, and that the demon’s power protected him in return. Neither can be hurt by blade or fire. Many of the weapons we used against Barin were those that are often used by demon hunters. When I returned with my army, we had many more—and yet my warriors still fell before it.”

“Then how do you propose we use the passageway if the demon can’t be killed?” A week’s travel to Krimathe. Incredible. Determination and excitement filled her just thinking of it.

“It was trapped before. We could do it again. But not in Stranik’s passage.”

Which would defeat the purpose. “Where?”

“The labyrinth? I know not.” His deep laugh suddenly rolled through the dark. “But we should discover a place quickly. If danger will come at me simply for being near you, then the demon will probably be upon us soon.”

Her excitement burst like a rotted eggfruit. How could she have imagined for one moment that this was possible? Perhaps the demon could be killed or trapped, but Kavik could not remain by her side.

“You won’t be near me, warrior.”

Already challenging her, he moved closer. Not touching her. But walking so near that her cloak swept against his leg with every step.

“I will,” he said, and iron hardened his voice. “We are both forsaken. We must both remain separate from our people. So we’ll live together in the Weeping Forest, and when Krimathe needs your help, we’ll go to them. When Blackmoor needs us, we’ll be here for them. And every morning I will kiss you awake—”

“No,” she whispered.

“—and every night I’ll hold you as you fall asleep.”

The longing that had pierced her with his every word was unbearable now. “Stop this, warrior.”

“Wherever you go, I will ride beside you,” he said, and added when a sharp snort sounded behind them, “and Shim.”

“You can’t risk this!”

“And whenever you wish, you can ride me.”

All at once, agony and frustration hacked through her control like an axe. No more. Mala whirled on his shadowed form. She slammed her palms into his armored chest and shoved. “Go!”

He didn’t move.

With a scream, she set her feet and threw her shoulder against his breastplate. Pain shot down her arm. A soft grunt escaped him, but he stood firm.

Eyes burning, she pushed harder. There were so many ways to defeat him. To make him go. To make sure he couldn’t follow. But all would hurt him more than he deserved.

“Use your sword, Mala.” The suggestion was soft. “I will not defend myself against it.”

And she could not use it against him. Not now. But did he know?

Salty tears scalded her ravaged skin as she backed away. In the darkness, her polished blade was only a dull slice of smothered moonlight. “Is it truly worth your life to have me?”

“Merely the chance to have you is worth far more than my life.” His massive shadow came nearer, then sank before her. Hoarsely he said, “But my life is worth nothing at all if you will not have me.”

Her breath wouldn’t come. It wouldn’t come, though she dragged it in, over and over, trembling as she looked down at him. His head was bowed, she thought, but wasn’t certain until she searched for his face in the dark. Her fingers slipped over his hair before sliding down to cup his jaw. He shook, and a ragged groan burst from him before he turned his cheek against her palm.

“Mala.” His mouth pressed against her inner wrist in a hot, shuddering kiss, and the jagged pain in her chest eased. “Can you see? I am on my knees before you. I am tamed. For as long as I draw breath, I will walk by your side and do it willingly. I will fight to walk by your side.”

Not tamed. Still strong. Still free. And just as stubborn as she.

But he could call it whatever he chose.

“You cannot walk by my side on your knees, warrior.” She sheathed her sword. “You’ll fall behind.”

Or he would carry her forward, because as he surged to his feet Kavik lifted her from the ground. His mouth found hers, so sweet and rough, and her tears would not stop falling.

Abruptly he tore his lips from hers and stepped back, fingers lightly brushing her shoulders, then her arms, as if he couldn’t bear to let her go but was afraid to touch her. “Your tears, Mala.” His voice was agony. “I forgot your mark. Did I hurt you?”

She had forgotten it, too. And there was no pain at all, as if the burning, swollen mask had peeled away.

But she had no time to wonder over it. From behind her came Shim’s urgent whinny, and a moment later, a thunderous roar echoed across the moors. Kavik stiffened against her.

Dread settled in her stomach. “You know that sound?” she asked, and could barely make out his nod through the dark.

“The demon tusker,” he said.

WITH Mala beside him, Kavik raced to the top of the next hill and looked north. Her path from Perca hadn’t lain along the roads, yet he knew this land, and a village didn’t lay far distant. If the demon tusker passed it by, he and Mala might not have such a dangerous fight on their hands.

Dread filled his chest when he saw the flames flickering in the distance. “It’s at the village,” he said.

“Then we will be, too. Shim!”

His heart clenched. He wanted to tell her to let him go alone to help the village, but knew she would not remain here any more than he would.

The gelding waited down the hill. Kavik started toward it, but halted as heavy hoofbeats drew alongside him.

“Kavik!” Mala called from atop Shim. The hood hid her face, but the light of the distant fire made her into a dim silhouette, her hand extended toward him. “Shim is strong enough to carry us both, and he’s faster. On your gelding, it will be over before you arrive.”

He only hesitated long enough to glance at Shim. “You agree?”

The stallion snorted and Kavik swung onto his back as lightly as he could without a saddle. As soon as he settled behind her, Mala’s small form crouched over the stallion’s neck.

“Go!”

The stallion surged ahead. Only Kavik’s light grasp on Mala’s hips saved him from tumbling over the horse’s rump. He leaned forward until his chest pressed against her strong back. The sides of her cloak flared out like wings as they raced across the hills, Shim’s hooves like rolling thunder. Her hood flew back.

“Mala!” he shouted into the wind.

By the slight turn her of head, he knew she listened.

“If this is the end, it’s not because I was with you! It’s because of the demon and because I pissed in her offering bowl!”

The vehement shake of her head whipped her braids against his face. “It’s not the end,” she shouted back at him. “Because if I’m the one to herald it, then I want to be the one to end you!”

Grinning, he squeezed her waist. “Don’t try to fight the demon! Just guide the villagers to safety, if you can! If they can’t reach the southern gate in the wall, make them climb over it. Then they need to run out over the hills, away from the demon’s sight!”

The demon rarely followed. It only attacked what was in its path. Her nod told him she understood.

“There will be revenants!”

She tensed against him and nodded again just as the demon bellowed, a deafening roar that drowned out the drumbeat of Shim’s pounding hooves. The stallion carried them over the next hill.

The village lay directly ahead. Its northern wall had been destroyed, the mortared stones lying in shattered heaps. Houses nearby burned, the thatched roofs blazing. Indistinct figures darted through the dense smoke that choked the northern half of the village and had begun billowing south along the road. Human screams mingled with the revenants’ shrieks.

“People will be hiding in the houses!” Kavik shouted. Almost a hundred and fifty lived in this village. “They think they’ll be safe if the demon doesn’t destroy their building. But the revenants will hunt them down.”

“Can we draw the revenants?” Mala called back to him.

So she was already thinking the same as he. The creatures might be searching individually for prey now, but they would converge upon a stronger foe.

“Take me to the northern wall!” The demon tusker had already broken through—moving south. The demon likely wouldn’t turn around, but the revenants would still come for Kavik. “I’ll draw the revenants. You stay on Shim! You can move through the village and help any people you can, but if the demon comes at you, let Shim run! You can ride back around to help them from another direction!”

She nodded, and her hand reached back to grip his thigh. “My heart is yours, Kavik!”

Fierce love grabbed hold of his chest. But before he could reply, her fingers abruptly clenched. A gust of wind blew through the billowing smoke and revealed the demon tusker.

Given a choice, Kavik wouldn’t want to face a tusker even if the animal hadn’t been possessed by a demon. With legs like thick tree trunks, a hulking back, and heavily domed head, the bulls were aggressive and territorial—and big, often growing as tall as the mammoths that roamed the far southern steppes. Unlike mammoths, however, a tusker didn’t wear a pair of long tusks beside its prehensile snout. A tusker’s snout and the tusks that flanked it were shorter. The primary tusks jutted straight out from beneath the jaw like a pair of flat blades. The animals used them to slash through thick branches and vegetation as it foraged, and as defense. He’d seen a tusker cut a hunter’s horse from beneath him by swinging those tusks like a scythe.

The demon’s possession transformed an already-dangerous animal into a monstrous terror. The tusker’s long red hairs had been shed from its hide. Bloated white skin stretched tightly over its enormous frame, as if the burning evil inhabiting the creature expanded its body to an ever-greater size to contain the demon inside it. Each of its tusks had elongated and sharpened, and its jaw could unhinge to reveal jagged teeth unlike any natural tusker’s.

And unlike a tusker, the demon didn’t lumber. It stalked the ground swiftly, silent when it wasn’t roaring. Now it slipped through the smoke like a wraith and vanished from their sight again.

Through the dark, he spotted a handful of villagers scrambling over the eastern wall. No one had yet fled through the southern gate as Shim raced north around the village. “Check the southern gate first! Revenants might be blocking escape!”

Nodding, she squeezed his thigh and released him. Throat tight, Kavik pressed his face against the back of her neck and breathed deep. Mala. No longer in red. But he’d been on his knees. Now there was only the end.

He would still fight to his last breath against it. Never would he leave her alone, forsaken. He would never leave her side.

Shim rounded the northern wall. Fire raged in the nearest houses, throwing wavering orange light through the wall’s shattered remains. With his sword, Kavik pointed to the breach. “There!”

The horse slowed as he passed it. The shrieking howls of nearby revenants sounded as Kavik swung to the ground, landing amid the broken stones. Without stopping, Shim continued on, and Kavik stole a last look. His gaze met Mala’s. She’d glanced back over her shoulder, her face lit by the burning houses behind him.

Her unmarked face.

Shock jarred him forward a step, but the stallion’s speed had already carried her past the breach and into the darkness beyond. Kavik stared after her for a breath. His heart pounded as he crossed the shattered remnants of the wall.

He’d been on his knees. That didn’t just mean the end. Kavik had told her something else—that he was tamed.

Now her mark was gone. No longer forsaken. Her task accomplished.

The beast of Blackmoor was tamed.

Wild elation whipped through him and he answered the revenants’ shrieks with a howl of his own, banging the flat of his sword against stone. “Come for me, then!” he shouted. “I am leashed! An easy kill!”

A red-eyed shadow raced toward him. A wulfen revenant, jaws slobbering. Kavik cleaved through its neck with a mighty swing, then set his boot against the neck stump and ripped the creature open from gullet to stomach. Hot blood poured out, steaming on the ground, stinking.

The stench of a revenant’s blood always drew more—as if its scent told the others that their blood had been spilled, so there was a foe to defeat.

Within moments, he’d killed two more, then charged forward to protect a white-faced woman who emerged from the smoke screaming. He slaughtered the revenants chasing behind her, then sent her over the breached wall.

They did not stop after that. Revenants by twos and threes. A family who scrambled gratefully past him in the dark, a bleeding old woman that he couldn’t help over the broken wall until he’d put down the five revenants that came at him. The demon’s roars were followed by the crashing of stone, more flames.

Rapid hoofbeats pounded through the smoke. Mala.

Her sword cleaved the neck of a revenant snapping at Shim’s hindquarters, her blade already dripping with gore. Her grin was wide as she approached him and took in his pile of corpses. “We ran!” she shouted on a laugh. “We’re heading back around! The south gate is open now!”

So she’d encountered the demon and fled. “Your mark!” he called as Shim swept past him. “I’m tamed!”

With a heaving snort, Shim abruptly wheeled around. Mala clung to his back, her expression a mask of disbelief and astonishment. She touched her cheek.

Suddenly she laughed and looked to the sky. “Vela!” she shouted. “I would appreciate those ten thousand warriors now!”

Kavik grinned but couldn’t respond. Another revenant was upon him—what had once been a cow. Grunting, he swung through its thick neck, and the next was already lunging. He greeted it by shoving the point of his blade through its eye.

He glanced back. Mala had crouched over Shim’s neck again. They were gone.

A chorus of shrieks and howls warned him before he saw the pack of revenants coming. His grip firm upon the handle of his weapon, he moved closer to the wall, made sure the stone was at his back.

As much sweat as blood dripped into his eyes when he could pause for breath again. Where was the demon? He hadn’t heard its roar since Mala had come through. If it had passed through the village, then there were only revenants left. And no more of the creatures had come for him yet—the slaughtered pack had been the last, and he’d taken at least fifteen breaths since.

Was it done?

Kavik listened. The only roar was from the nearby fires, the loud rumble of roofs and walls collapsing, the snap and crack of heated stone. Animals bleated outside the walls—probably those that had escaped through the south gate and were running loose. A distant shout.

He started in that direction as another sound carried across the distance—Shim’s enraged, trumpeting neigh.

Kavik bolted toward it. Smoke burned his eyes and throat. The thick clouds obscured everything past the reach of his sword. Obstacles appeared almost the same moment he was upon them. He vaulted over a cart abandoned in the road and landed on the lump of a body. A revenant. Mala’s work.

Icy dread filled his chest, squeezed at his lungs. She was another strong foe.

But she was on Shim, fast and mobile. By the time any revenants were drawn to the others she’d slain, Mala would already have been gone.

Unless she’d come upon a pack, too. One might have slowed her down.

Heart pounding, he raced south through the village, faster than he’d ever run. The smoke thinned. The roaring of the fires dimmed. And he could hear them now, the shrieks and howls. He followed the noise through a courtyard and abruptly saw her.

They’d swarmed her. Four or five dozen of them. With Mala still astride him, Shim had backed up against the stone wall of a cottage, and they fought together as if one. Mala’s blade and axe protected their sides, and Shim’s tearing teeth and striking hooves guarded their front. Every revenant that leapt at them was driven back or slain. Given much longer, or a single miss, they might have been overwhelmed—but not yet. And not now.

Kavik didn’t howl to announce his presence this time. The revenants did not know what was coming behind them. Mala saw him, and he saw her fierce grin.

Then he saw his end.

Vela had not said it would be his death. But it mattered not. This was the same.

An oxen revenant charged through the pack. Mala’s axe fell upon its skull but couldn’t stop the thrust of the heavy body behind it. The creature slammed into Shim’s shoulder at the same moment the stallion reared to strike at a revenant. The impact whipped the stallion around, hind legs swept from under him. Mala flew from his back and into the middle of the swarm of revenants. She disappeared beneath them.

Red filled his vision. Kavik roared, charging the swarm, and his heart was a shredded thing, the agony growing with every beat. Shouting her name, he began hacking a path toward her through the mass of revenants. The nearest creatures turned toward him then, but he didn’t see them anymore, his gaze fixed on the spot where she’d vanished. She was still fighting. Through the swarm, he saw the flash of her sword. The fall of her axe.

And the demon tusker silently coming from around the cottage behind her.

“Mala!” Desperately Kavik tried to reach her, his sword swinging, but the mass of revenants pushed him back. He couldn’t get to her.

But she must have sensed the huge demon, or realized the revenants behind her had scattered, or felt its hot breath. She spun to face it.

The demon swung its head. The blades of its tusks swept into her like a scythe.

“Mala!” He screamed her name, then there was nothing, nothing but the blood and agony and the fall of his sword. He had to reach her.

With a final swing, abruptly he was through the mass of revenants, and he knew the madness of battle was upon him. Or simply the same madness that had befallen his father after he’d lost his queen and his sons.

Ahead, Mala was still standing. Feet braced, her jaw tight with effort, she held the edge of the tusks away from her stomach, as if she’d instinctively caught the ivory blades and tried to stop them from cutting her in half.

The demon screeched. Rage filled that shriek, and its own powerful legs were braced. A spasm shook its head.

Not a spasm, Kavik realized. It was trying to shake her off. To move her.

He wasn’t mad. She had captured the tusks in an unbreakable grip. An immovable grip, as if she weighed more than the demon tusker could lift.

Kavik had felt an unbreakable grip before. But no silver light filled her eyes. Her skin didn’t shine.

This was Mala. Only Mala.

A revenant slashed at him from behind. Still staring, Kavik swung his sword in that direction, and still didn’t look away even when the stamp of hooves sounded beside him and the revenant’s brains splattered his boots.

The demon roared, its terrible jaws opening wide. Nose wrinkling, Mala closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“By Temra’s fist,” she breathed. “It smells worse than revenant.”

Kavik’s wild laugh broke from him. She laughed, too, then shook her head.

Determination set her face. “I still don’t know if we can kill it. But perhaps I can make it easier to try.”

Adjusting her grip on the tusks, she looked back at the demon. Slowly, she began to twist. The demon screamed, its head turning to the side.

A crack split the night. Not the demon’s neck. The tusks. Gritting her teeth, Mala drew back her fist and swung it down hard against the flat blades. Those tusks had rammed through stone, had withstood sharpened steel.

They didn’t survive the hammering of Mala’s fist.

All at once they snapped, the long blades coming away in her grip—and releasing her hold on the demon tusker. Kavik shouted and rushed at her. With a roar of pain, the demon charged. Stumbling back, she desperately swung the long bladed tusks.

The ivory cleaved through its neck even as Kavik slammed into her, yanking her out of the demon’s path. Its charging body tripped over its own head and fell, plowing into the ground. Still moving.

Mala pulled out of Kavik’s arms. With a ringing battle cry, she stalked forward and shoved the blades through the demon’s chest, through its heart.

The body tried to get to its feet. She stared at it, chest heaving.

Suddenly laughing again, Kavik suggested, “The head?”

Shaking hers, she stalked toward the body and slammed her foot against the end of the bladed tusks. The ivory splintered. She ripped one away, a shard as long as a sword, and stabbed it through the demon’s eye.

It fell quiet.

They waited, watching. Still nothing. Mala murmured, “It wasn’t ten thousand warriors.”

Kavik looked to her and she met his eyes, hers wide and disbelieving.

“It wasn’t ten thousand warriors,” she said. “That’s not what she promised me. I assumed it would be. But it was the strength of ten thousand warriors.” She looked at her hands. “The durability, too. Those blades should have cut through my hands.”

“And the weight,” Kavik said. “It couldn’t move you.”

She glanced up. “You moved me. But can I—”

Striding forward, she tried to lift him. Then again, wrapping her arms around his waist and grunting with the effort. When she made a sound of frustration and stepped back, Kavik gripped her waist and lifted her easily, bringing her up to his mouth.

Smiling, Mala slipped her arms around his neck. “She also said ‘when you most need it.’ I apparently don’t need it against you. Or the revenants.”

When she’d been thrown from Shim’s back. Kavik could still see the revenants swarming over her. “No,” he said roughly.

Her hands cupped his jaw. Softly she kissed him, then slid back to the ground. She turned toward Shim. “You’re all right?”

The horse responded with a stamp of his foot. Yes.

“He’s limping,” Kavik said and the stallion pinned his ears back and bared his teeth at him.

Mala stroked the stallion’s neck, soothing him. “Can you call the other horses? We should stay through the night and make certain all of the revenants are dead.”

Through the night. Sudden overwhelming emotion filled Kavik’s chest, and he turned away, staring at the demon’s body. He’d thought this would be the end. But there would be a tonight. A tomorrow.

It hadn’t been the end. At least, not his end.

And what Mala had assumed Vela meant wasn’t what she’d received at all.

His gaze moved to the ivory shard embedded in the demon’s eye. In that temple so many years ago, when he’d sought Vela’s help, he’d asked for the strength to defeat Barin—or the knowledge to do it.

Mala had received strength. And Kavik had been a fool about many things. He would not be a fool about this.

VELA looked fully upon them when Mala rode with Kavik to the citadel gates. Unlike the first time she’d come here, the gates were closed—but Selaq had already told them they would be. With eyes closed, the innkeeper had looked beyond the fortress’s walls and told them the citadel guards waited in the courtyard, two hundred strong.

When Barin had learned the demon was dead, the warlord should have hired ten thousand.

She dismounted. Of heavy blackwood and reinforced with iron, the gates were a formidable barrier, built to withstand battering rams and armies mounted on tamed tuskers and three-toed beasts. But she thought that a demon tusker could have probably broken through it alone. And so could she.

Raising her foot, she slammed her boot into the gates.

The barrier exploded open with a shriek of iron and rain of splinters. Mala strode through with axe and sword in hand and met the stunned, fearful faces of the citadel guard.

“If you know what is good for you,” she shouted, “you will move aside and create a path!”

The guards shifted uneasily, looking to each other. Mala spotted Heddiq mounted on a horse at the opposite end of the courtyard. With a grunt, she whipped around and threw her axe.

The heavy weapon flew end over end, spinning above the heads of two hundred guards and smashing through Heddiq’s face. With a thunk, the blade embedded in the stone wall behind him—with Heddiq’s helm pinned between. His body toppled from his horse.

Two hundred guards moved aside.

There was only silence as Kavik joined her, and together they walked to the keep. Mala opened the doors with another kick.

More dedicated guards waited inside. Kavik met them with his sword, and Mala didn’t need her strength now. She fought beside him until the last guard fell to the floor, and walked with him to the great hall.

Mala didn’t have to smash those doors. A tall, wiry man stood outside them, keys in hand and tears in his eyes. The marshal, she remembered.

She strode into the great hall and called, “I have brought my beast, Lord Barin!”

In his robes of yellow and gold, the warlord stood at the center of the hall. No courtiers sat at the tables now. More guards waited—but Barin held his hand up to them, and his smile was still amused.

“Did you think killing the demon tusker would be the end of me?” He laughed and looked to Kavik. “Come and see. There is still no sword that can harm me.”

Mala glanced at her warrior. When she had first encountered him at Selaq’s inn, just after he’d learned of his taming, Mala had thought she’d never seen such cold hatred and rage directed at her.

She had never seen him look at Barin. Vela had gifted her with the strength of ten thousand warriors, yet if ever Kavik had looked at her like that she would have fled for her life. He was death itself, not silver-fingered Rani come to gently carry a warrior into Temra’s arms, but ragged screaming death, contained within sheer muscle and bleeding from his savage stare.

Yet Barin did not flee. Not as Kavik stalked toward him, his steps fluid and strong, his sword held loosely in his grip. The warlord even spread his arms wide, robes falling open and baring his tattooed chest.

When Kavik set his blade against the side of the man’s neck, Barin looked into his eyes, grinning. He didn’t look down to see the ivory shard in Kavik’s left hand—until blood spilled from his mouth. Then he glanced down to see it embedded in his heart.

Cruel. But Mala thought Barin deserved it.

The warlord looked up, and she thought that now he saw what Kavik was. His end. His death. It was the last he saw. Kavik yanked the shard from his chest and shoved it through his eye.

Barin slid to the floor. Unmoving, Kavik stood over him with head bowed, and when Mala went to him he was staring at the man’s dead body, his chest heaving with harsh, ragged breaths. She touched his arm and he caught her against him, burying his face in her hair.

“It is done,” he said hoarsely. “It is finally done.”

Mala held him tight. Around them, chaos was exploding. Some of the guards shouted with fear, others with joy. Near the entrance to the great hall, the teary-eyed marshal was unfastening the collars of men and women tied by their leashes. Someone spoke a word, and soon it was repeated, louder and louder.

King.

So he was. She drew back and looked up at him. “Your work has only begun, warrior.”

CHAPTER 8

Later that night, her warrior followed her. When she’d left the chaos of the citadel below and climbed the stairs of the northern tower, Mala had known that he would.

She didn’t want to be inside, not this night. Instead she cleared the guards from the northern tower’s battlements and laid out a soft bed atop the stone. When Kavik found her, Mala stood at the parapet wall, looking over the city below. Barin’s fall was still being celebrated and fought over within the citadel and beyond its walls. Yet there was no one who argued with the name they were calling him now. Kavik, the king of Blackmoor.

He was still her beast.

His arms circled her waist from behind, and she leaned back against a chest as strong as these stone walls. “There is still much corruption to root out,” she said and shivered as his warm lips found her neck. “And Stranik’s passage is likely full of revenants.”

“We will root those out, too.” His gentle hand cupped her throat, holding her still as his fingers untied the side of her cuirass. “And I will return with you to your home, which will soon have far more than your strength available when they need it. Change will come to both our lands when others hear of this pass through the mountains. Everyone will be traveling this route—including more warriors. Perhaps even ten thousand of them.”

Bringing trade, riches, and trouble to both sides. Mala looked forward to it all.

But she only needed one warrior.

Unsheathing her knife, she turned in his arms and pressed the tip to the hollow of this throat. “The full moon still shines overhead. Do you intend to have me?”

His hunger lay stark upon his face. “I do.”

With a flick of her wrist, she carved a shallow crescent into his skin. Not a flinch passed through his body, but a question lay in the arch of his dark brow when blood began to slide down his chest.

“The scars upon the back of your neck are not moon blood scars, Kavik. Those cannot be offered by force. Your moon night is here with me.” As his gaze turned fiery, she flipped the knife in her hand, offering it. “Will you mark me?”

“I will.” His voice was guttural as he took the blade.

She tilted her chin back, exposing her throat to him. The sting at her neck was nothing, and yet it was everything. Hope for her future filled these drops of blood—a future with this man, blessed by the goddess who had brought them together.

Taking the knife, she let it clatter to the stone. “Vela has been given the blood that she wants. Now I will have what I want. Down, warrior.”

His grin was instant and fierce. Down he went, taking the long path. He stripped away her armor, and cold air caressed her skin. His lips followed the trickle of her moon blood, then journeyed over the swells of her breasts. Their stiffened peaks ached even before his mouth reached them, and when he had finished his heated assault upon their tips, her nipples throbbed from the suckling and her whole body was aflame. Only then did he continue down, pushing her back against the parapet wall and feasting upon her yielding flesh until she screamed.

Her hands fisted in his thick hair. “Now.”

With a growl, he lifted her against him and carried her to the soft bedding. Laying her upon it, he stepped back and removed his armor. Mala watched him undress with pleasure, stroking between her thighs as the torchlight flickered across his bared chest. His ravenous gaze fell upon her fingers. Grinning, she widened the spread of her legs.

“Do not be easy with me, warrior.”

He was not. With a rough grip, he caught her wrist and brought her fingers to his mouth to suck the wetness from her skin, then pinned her hands over her head. He pushed her legs wider before his weight settled between her thighs.

But he did not fill her. Instead he took his cock in hand and slicked the broad tip through her lush cleft, testing her entrance with gentle pressure. Again and again he did this, sliding up to tease her clitoris with his cockhead before returning to gently nudge her center again. Crying out in frustration, Mala arched beneath him, trying to force him in.

“Now, Kavik!”

“I have waited long, little dragon,” he replied through gritted teeth. “You will wait until I have seen you take all of me. I will not pound into you before I know how much you can bear.”

“I can bear everything you give to me, warrior.”

Abruptly he pressed harder. Mala gasped and stilled as her sensitive flesh stretched to accept his immense crown. Oh, but Temra had been generous to him. So generous.

Kavik paused, rigid above her. “Mala?”

“More.” With a rock of her hips, she urged him deeper. “If you will take me, take me hard.”

Bending his head, he claimed her mouth with his—but though his kiss was hard and deep, the invasion of her sheath was slow. So slow. Mala cried out as he retreated slightly before advancing again. He filled her, and filled her, and even as she wondered whether there would be an end, his loins finally settled heavily against hers.

“Do you see?” Mala panted, looking down between them. Her clitoris was nestled against the dark hair growing at the base of his cock. The delicate gates of her sheath embraced the root of his shaft. They were the only delicate part of her, and even they were strong enough to take him. “I can sheathe you, though your sword is so massive.”

“And you are tighter than a blademaster’s fist.”

Body shaking with strain, his eyes locked on her face, he rocked against her. She cried out, and her thighs came up to grip his hips.

Teeth clenched, he rocked again. “Is this pleasure, Mala?”

“It is.” Slicing through her, deeper and deeper. “The path is never easy.”

He stopped with his cock buried to the hilt. Mala bucked under him in desperate frustration. His gaze hot, Kavik licked his fingertips before sliding his hand between them. She shuddered as he brushed her clitoris—then screamed when he gently tugged with slick fingers. Heat rushed up under her skin. Kavik groaned and tugged again. Mala sobbed his name and her thighs fell away from his hips. Her sheath clenched around his shaft with each soft caress, as if trying to pull him deeper.

“This,” he ground out. “Better?”

So much. She arched beneath him. “Hard, now. Hard.”

He drew back, and his cock was drenched in her need, the heavy shaft glistening. Slowly he thrust into her again, with no resistance, no invasion, just a long sweet stroke that stoked fire through her veins. Helplessly she moaned and tilted her hips to take him deeper.

Withdrawing his fingers from between them, Kavik braced his elbow beside her shoulder. Letting go of her wrists, he fisted his fingers in her hair. Laughing, Mala took hold of his.

“Now,” he said hoarsely.

His cock drove deep. Her scream was cut short by another savage thrust, and she cried out again before setting her teeth against steely muscle. Kavik groaned, grinding hard between her thighs. The brutal pressure against her clitoris burst into stars behind her eyes.

Ruthlessly, he pushed her left knee up to her shoulder and fucked deeper.

Mala couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get close enough. With open-mouthed kisses, she tasted the saltiness of his chest and the bleeding mark on his throat. Her hands dragged down his flexing back. His cock surged into her, each heavy thrust striking harder, winding her body tighter.

“I love you,” she whispered against his skin.

Abruptly he pulled away from her, leaving her empty. His cock stood reddened and thick. His gaze was feral.

Mala licked her lips and reached for him. Kavik trapped her wrists and flipped her onto her stomach. His big hand pinned the back of her neck. He dragged her up to her knees and mounted her like a beast, his rigid length spearing deep.

The bedding muffled her scream. He slammed into her again and orgasm crashed through her, writhing along her spine and jerking her hips even as he pounded harder into her convulsing sheath. She sobbed his name, fingers clenching.

Then he slowed, slowed. Reverent kisses trailed across her shoulders.

With a blissful sigh, Mala stretched beneath him, widening her knees. So sweet, this fucking. Sweet and tender and slow, and when the shattering pleasure splintered through her again, she needed to know this pleasure was his, too.

“Come into me, warrior,” she urged. “Fill me with a river of your seed.”

A primitive groan sounded behind her. Hard fingers bit into her hips and his cock stroked deeper, faster, before his body abruptly stilled. His shaft throbbed the release of his seed and her sheath clenched around him, stealing her breath with the unexpected ecstasy of it. Moaning, she turned her face against the bed.

His breath a hot shudder against her ear, he withdrew and rolled her over atop him. She went bonelessly, muscles still quivering. The full moon gazed down on them, and she thanked the goddesses for giving her a strong heart and a resilient sheath.

“Ale?” Mala asked when she could catch her breath. When Kavik grunted, she reached for the wineskin she’d put beside the bed. He sat up and drank with her, then pulled her over his lap, her thighs straddling his.

He kissed her, and it warmed her better than any drink. She slipped her arms around his neck. Already his cock stood hard again.

She grinned and tasted his mouth. “Was I worth the wait?”

“Worth waiting forever,” he said gruffly.

“Instead you’ll have me that long,” she said and rose over his straining shaft. “Now we’ll ride together.”

His hands caught her waist, holding her in place. Concern deepened his voice. “Are you raw?”

A little. She didn’t care. Biting her lip, she sank onto him, her head falling back as he filled her.

Groaning, Kavik licked the crescent moon at the base of her throat, then rasped against her stinging skin, “Was I worth the pain?”

“And so much more,” she breathed, taking him deeper. Her beast. Her warrior. Her heart.

Having him was worth everything.