Darkness Chosen: Into The Shadow Part 10

Did he feel anything for her? About her? Besides murderous rage? Besides l.u.s.t?

He turned her onto her stomach, lifted her, and dropped her onto the mattress. It was still bouncing as she flipped over to find him waiting for her, that ferocious smile in place. He swung the rope before her eyes like a hypnotistas dangling watch.

"No!" She grabbed the center, tried to jerk it away.

He clutched her wrist and wrapped the rope around the bracelet. Gentlya"he had no reason to be rough; her struggles were getting her nowherea"he pulled her arm up, slid the rope through the bra.s.s posts on the headboard, and grasped her other wrist.

They wrestled.

He won.

When he was finished, the rope wound around one wide bracelet, through the posts, and around the other bracelet. There was play in the rope; she could move her arms twelve inches in any direction, could use the ropes to leverage herself toward the headboarda"but she was tied. "I hate you so much."

"You donat yet. But you will." He pulled out his knife.

A gush of fear struck deep into her core.

He was angry. So angry. The blade gleamed in the light of the lanterns. He pressed the tip of the knife to her throat right over her wind-pipe, and smiled into her face.

"Donat struggle," he whispered. "Iad hate to slip." He ran the point down her throat to the neckline of his T-s.h.i.+rta"and with one clean slice he cut it open down to her waist.

She shrieked, and hated herself for it.

"I told you. I wonat hurt you." He used the tip of the knife to move the material away from first one breast, then the other.

Her nipples hardened from the cold . . . and maybe from the slow, betraying touch of his hungry tongue to his lower lip.

That blade cut the sleeves. The T-s.h.i.+rt lay beneath her in ruins.

He slipped the knife into the leather holster strapped on the headboard. He used his hands, one each, to press her clenched fists. "So rebellious, " he chided. "It wonat do you any good. Iam bigger, Iam stronger, and I already know how to make you purr." He wrapped his fingers around her wrists above the bracelets, then slid up toward her elbow, over her straining biceps, and over her bunched shoulders. "So much tension." He used his thumbs to ma.s.sage her tight muscles above her shoulder blade, and his fingertips to ma.s.sage the cords at the back of her neck. "You wonat be able to keep it up. But definitely you should try. Iall enjoy watching you yield."

Pa.s.sionate, sharp hatred burned in her stomach.

How could she have welcomed him into her tent, into her bed? He was nothing but a . . . "Youare a snake," she said, the accusation dipped in poison.

"No. I am a panther. And you are my mate."

"No."

"Weall see what you say . . . later." He used his thumbs on her nipples. Over and over he rubbed them, first with the pad of his thumb, then with the edge of his fingernail, until she wanted to whimpera"and not from fear.

d.a.m.n him. If he meant to use her, couldnat he be a man and get it over with quickly?

Instead he slid his arm beneath her, lifting her, arching her up to his hungry mouth. He suckled softly at first, then harder, taking almost all of her slight breast into his mouth, manipulating it with his tongue and teeth and lips until her eyelids closed and she found her fingernails clawing the pillows under her head.

With careful deliberation he placed his knee between her legs and thrust his thigh against her.

The hard canvas seam of the jeans rubbed against her c.l.i.t, and her sensation of fullness abruptly became painful.

No, not painful. That wasnat the right word. She was . . . needy.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d who held her, who moved her on him, had chased her down, marked her as his, scared her to death, and now . . . now he was using all his knowledge of her and probably a thousand other women to make her come. Come so fast and hard shead be ashamed of herself. Of her weakness.

So she gasped, "Whatas the matter? Canat get it up?"

Slowly he let her down onto the sheets. Rising on his knees above her, he lowered his hands to his worn brown leather belt.

She couldnat look away as, with leisurely care, he pulled the two ends apart, then ............opened the b.u.t.tons, one by one.

He wore underwear, plain white cotton underwear made, by the looks of it, by some American manufacturer. And as he pushed the jeans down, his erection tented the material. He eased his briefs offa"and abruptly the whole business was so much worse.

Shead seen his p.e.n.i.s before. Of course. But today it looked longer, wider. It rose from among the curling black hairs, a pale marble veined with blue, and the mere sight of it made her feel a ferocious desire to touch.

But she couldnat. He had tied her . . . his slave.

She closed her eyes and turned her head away. "I wish youad hurry this up. I donat know what you do all day long, but Iam sure warlords have some duties."

He laughed, and it sounded like a purr. "No. Iam like a hunting cat. There are great, long hours of relaxation, followed by brief bursts of furious activity."

"Which is this?"

"My favorite combination of both." Something soft and luxurious stroked her throat, tickled down her breastbone, slipped under the loose waistband of her borrowed jeans to caress her belly. And for a second she thought she felt the drag of a long, sharp claw across her tender skin.

Her eyes shot open.

Above her Warlord leaned on one elbow and examined her face. "I donat want you to hide behind your lids. I want you completely open to me."

"What was that?"

He showed her a glorious, colorful peac.o.c.k feather and whisked it lightly across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "This?"

"It felt like . . ." Her gaze fell on him.

His pants were gone. He wore only a tight black short-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt that clung to his muscled chest. His sculpted body was tense with antic.i.p.ation, yet still he coolly dusted her skin with the feather, intent on lifting her past the level of suspense to mindless craving.

He laid his palm flat on her stomach, right above the waistband of her jeansa"his jeansa" and slipped his hand beneath the tough material. He pressed her belly, simply pressed it, and that one point of contact felt so good. Rea.s.suring, kind, as if he cared, not about winning, but about making her happy.

He compelled her surrender based on the most egregious lie of all.

She yanked at the rope.

He watched with interest. "Testing the knots? That wonat help. I was a Boy Scout."

"A Boy Scout? Is this what they taught you in camp?"

"No, they didnat offer this merit badge. I imagine camp would have been a lot more popular if they had."

d.a.m.n him for tying a good knot. And d.a.m.n him for making her want to laugh.

Laugh! Now!

She used all her weight to drag herself up the bed, but the rope held, and while she moved up he held the legs of the jeans and pulled them down.

"Youare a pig."

"A panther."

"Donat flatter yourself."

"And yet the pants are off."

They werenat really. They were caught at the top of her thighs, and when he teased the feather over her hips, she wanted to kick the c.r.a.p out of him.

She couldnat, because head managed to imprison her legs as efficiently as head imprisoned her hands. And her.

Frustration scorched her, so she gave a warrioras yell and walked out of the pants.

What did it matter? He would have her out of them at his pleasure, and she would not lie there while he did with her as he wished. In a frenzy of temper she kicked at his chest, hoping to catch him unaware and knock him backward and breathless. Instead he snagged her ankle and used her motion to leverage her up and onto her stomach. Her wrists crossed. Her face pressed into the pillows, and she bounded up onto her elbows and knees to scream her defiance.

Immediately he was behind her, between her legs, catching and holding her hips close to his. His erection probed, found, entered, glided.

She grabbed the bra.s.s bars. The cold metal against her palms and the heat of his hard-on formed an electric current through her body, making her arch as lightning shot through her spine. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You lousy jerk. You sc.u.mbag."

"Thatas right." He thrust hard and deep. "Hate me. Call me names. Be fierce." He reached around, under her belly, and used his fingers to manipulate her c.l.i.t until she undulated beneath him. "But care. By G.o.d. Feel."

Feel? She couldnat stop feeling. He was deep inside her, controlling her motions with his arm around her hips, making her move for him, with him. Fruitlessly she fought him, trying to establish her own rhythm, to use him like a vibrator, to bring herself to o.r.g.a.s.m.

He would have none of that. His motion inside her was deep, small, controlled, inciting yet not satisfying.

Her breath rasped in her lungs. She fought her way forward on the beda"and he let hera" until she could pull herself up onto the bra.s.s bars on the headboard. Her cheek, her shoulders, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her belly rested against the cold metal, and still he remained below her, thrusting up into her body in those slow, hot, forbidden motions that made the lightning spread along each nerve. She no longer called him names. She begged him. "Please, Warlord. Please. Deeper. Now. Faster."

"No." His voice trembled as he fought his desires. "You wait. You yield. You call me your master and then Iall let you come."

She was frenzied with l.u.s.t, but she hadnat lost her mind. "I wonat."

He pulled almost all the way out. He leaned against her back and whispered in her ear, "One of us will win. Both of us will suffer."

"I donat give a d.a.m.n if we both die."

He laughed, his amus.e.m.e.nt vibrating from his chest to her back, his breath lifting the hairs on her neck. "But what a sweet death it will be."

Chapter Twelve.

What was it Warlord had said? Every time you think of pleasure, youall think of me.

Head made good on his threat. Karen had no idea how long shead been confined in Warlordas tent. She no longer knew if it was day or night. She knew only that she waged an endless, constant, sensuous battle to keep her pride . . . and if something didnat happen soon, she would give him what he wanted. She would yield. She would call him master. She would be not Karen Sonnet but Warlordas slave.

Because no matter what they were doing, she thought of pleasure. When he fed her the meals Mingma fixed them, she watched his long fingers and thought how skillfully they feathered along her spine. When he talked to her, she watched his glorious lips and remembered how they felt as they moved against her mouth in long, leisurely, damp kisses. When he walked away from her, she watched the firm, concave muscles of his b.u.t.t and remembered how his cheeks felt under her palms as he thrust in and out and in and out.

And when she stared at the bracelets he had placed on her wrists, she thought them beautiful. . . . Oh, G.o.d. He had drugged her with s.e.x.

She hated him. She hated this place. She hated herself and her own weakness.

Today, as every day, she woke with a single thoughta"she had to get away. She had to escape before winter set in, for then she would be trapped forever.

Normally in the morning she heard nothing but Mingmaas soft murmur speaking to Warlord, and the wind as it whistled a mocking tune. But today she lay very still, listening to a strange man speak from a position just inside the door. "Yeave got to come out, man. Thereas trouble breaking out among the ranks. The last raid went so well it left some of the men hungry for more. The others are nervous, worried about the reports of trouble."

"Which group are you in, Magnus?" Warlordas smooth, menacing drawl raised the hair on the back of her neck.

Karen heard the sharp sound of fist against flesh, and flipped over in shock.

Magnus was short, stocky, balding, with bandy legs and a wide stance. He had a thin red scar on one cheek, and he was missing the little finger on both hands. He held his fists close to his chest like a boxer in a prizefight waiting for a fatal blow.

Warlord was a head taller, barefoot, dressed in his half-b.u.t.toned jeans. He was staring, narrow eyed, at Magnus, and wiping the blood from his mouth. "Shall I kill you now, or should we go outside?"

"Yeall not kill me." Magnus lifted his chin at him. "Ye know Iam in the right."

Warlord still stared, poised on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, ready to spring. Then gradually, deliberately, he relaxed. "All right. Talk to me."

"Two weeks yeave been in here, man, shaking the tent night and day."

Karen stealthily pulled the covers over her crimson face.

"Yeave got responsibilities. These men follow ye because ye keep them safe and make them rich. But riches will do them no good if the rumors are true."

"What rumors?"

"That the enforcers, the ones the militaries hired to get rid of us . . . that theyare led by another like you." Magnus lowered his voice, but she could still hear him. "A beastie who wanders the mountains in animal form."

Magnus thought Warlord was a werewolf? Oh, brother. Warlord really had him conned.

"Benjie and Dehqan disappeared while on patrol, and I found a trail of blood headed toward the army camp just over the border. I got close enough to hear screaming down there. They were racking someone. Then Benjie showed up here."

"Unharmed?"

"Hale and hearty. He said Dehqan decided to head home to Afghanistan."

"You donat believe him."

"Not for a minute. No one does. Heas jumpy as a cat, and Dae-Jung caught him signaling into the mountains with a mirror."

Karen peeked at the two men. They stood with their heads together, intent on their discussion, and while she didnat know for sure who Magnus was, it was clear to her that Warlord respected and liked him.