Mine to Take (6 page)

There was a slight stickiness between her inner thighs.

Untying her cloak, she let it drop onto the rocks behind her. The breeze would feel good against her heated flesh.

She lifted the edge of her dress. Traces of blood stained her legs. Evidence of what
he
had done. What they had done.

Despite her acceptance of what had happened, her hand shook as her fingers partially covered the vulnerable spot.

“You are injured?”

Stunned, Jenise glanced up into the tawny gold and green eyes. She had not even heard him approach. Embarrassed to be caught in such an intimate moment, she looked away from him.

Silently, she shook her head.

His steady hand covered her fingers. Gently, he removed her hand from her thigh, revealing the dried bloodstains.

He said nothing, but he did not move for several moments. Then he picked up one of the gourds he had found, breaking the lip of it open with his teeth. He poured the
systale
water in the cup of his hand and carefully began washing her with it.

Jenise’s mouth parted, shocked at the intimate gesture. Her hand came over his to stay him.

He disregarded it, going on with what he was doing.

“You should not be doing this, Gian.”

The long black lashes—which, at the moment, hid his mesmerizing eyes from her view—flickered at the mention of his name. It was the first time she had used it.

“Why not,
taja?”
he murmured as he worked.

“Be-because it is too intimate.”

“Too intimate…” He paused to capture her with his eyes. A dimple curved his cheek. “How is that possible?” he whispered.

Color instantly heightened Jenise’s cheekbones. She looked down again, unwilling to let him see how he affected her.

What should she have expected? It was well-known that the Familiar were entirely sensual. She had simply never realized
how
sensual. It was in the way he moved, the words he spoke, the purring tone of his voice, and the intent, hidden messages in his fiery eyes.

“I was only supposed to share that with my mate.” Her voice was very faint.

He stopped to stare at her. “Do not worry about such things, Jenise. Your mate may understand more than you credit him.” He resumed his work.

“You misunderstand; I shall have no mate.”

He hesitated in his ministrations briefly. “You think not?” he murmured dryly. He rinsed the area a final time and stood.

She nodded seriously. “I must be free. I can never mate.”

“What has the one to do with the other?” He began unlacing his
tracas.

“I need to feel free. A mate would bind me, keep me from what I seek.”

“How do you know that?” He finished unlacing the breeches.

She explained to him the situation in which she had grown up; the stifling atmosphere around Karpon and his brother.

“Your mother’s people—the Frensi—they mate, do they not?” He dropped the
tracas,
stepping out of them.

“Yes, of course they do—but that is different. In any case, I seek to explore life, not become caged by it.”

Nude, he stood before her and moved his hands through the air above and around her.

“What are you doing?”

“I see no cage here.”

She snorted, grinning slightly. “Very amusing.”

His raised an eyebrow, placing a warm palm over her heart. “It is here, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you unlock this, you will be free.”

“I do not think so, Gian. What you speak of
is
the cage.”

“No. It is the wind which will carry you.”

He turned from her and entered the stream, dunking under the water when he reached the middle. Jenise wondered if he was symbolically washing away the feel of the prison chains.

When his burnished head broke the surface, he flung the wet and dripping strands out of his face. Dual-colored eyes gleamed with a predatory light as he intently marked her under the silvery shine of two moons.

Jenise’s breath stilled in her throat.

He
was beauty and he was fire.

He walked out of the water towards her, taking steady,
deliberate steps. The long strands of his hair dripped down his chest and arms and back.

In a catlike move, he shook his head, sending water droplets through the air, their scattered pattern crystallized by the dual moons.

There was no mistaking the sudden hunger that radiated from him. Feral hunger.

Jenise paled. “I—I said I do not want—”

He approached her, closer. She could feel the searing heat of his golden skin. Hot moisture and
krinang
spice.

With just the tip of his finger, he lifted her chin.

Slowly, he lowered his lips until his mouth—that incredible, sensual mouth—was just a hairsbreadth away from her own. His silken hair slid forward to brush against her shoulders, a hushed caress.

Oh so lightly, he grazed his bottom lip over hers. His warm, sweet breath drifted across her lips like a sultry breeze which heralds thunder.

“Let me tell you something about me, my creamcat…I do not heed words that are so patently false.”

Jenise’s eyes widened. His other hand grasped her upper arm, holding her to him.

“You see…I come from a people who rely on instinct.”

“And what does that mean?” She tried to pull away from him. He drew her closer.

“It means,” he drawled in a husky purr, “that my senses have already told me that you do
want
me very much.”

The shock of his accurate revelation caused her to release a pent-up breath of dismay as well as hidden desire.

Gian inhaled the breath as he gazed down upon her. His eyes dilated with the rich sensory perception he received from her. He knew what she wanted.

Jenise stared at him, astonished.

“Exactly.”

Before she could question him, his mouth firmly came down over hers. It was a hot taking. He singed her nerve endings. Worse still, the man seemed to claim everything as he kissed. Everything.

Stunned senseless, Jenise was immobilized under the skilled onslaught. It was yet another side of the Familiar she had never heard about before—this need to capture. In fact, Jenise had heard that they were always very casual in their alliances, enjoying their partners as their partners more than enjoyed them.

She wondered if this behavior was usual for a Familiar…or simply a personal trait of Gian Ren. For if it was—

She could no longer think.

Gian had expertly slid his rogue tongue between her lips and he was
licking
the inside of her mouth!

Quivering, she moaned at the exquisite, delicate flicks that could only be called torture.

His hands cupped her shoulders and he slowly drew away from her. Dazed, Jenise blinked up at him. The corners of his mouth curled upward enigmatically as he released her.

Stretching sinuously, he reached for the breeches on the ground, stepping into them and sliding them much too languidly—bit by bit—up over his hips. He began lacing them up, but the Familiar wasn’t watching what he was doing; he was intently watching her.

His potent kiss had rocked her. Jenise felt dizzy and muddled. She did not like the way he was looking at her either. As if she were something edible. She coughed.

He chuckled knowingly. Low and husky.

Uneasy, Jenise decided to ignore what had happened. She cleared her throat and straightened the folds of her gown. “What about you?” she blurted out.

“What about me?” he asked, still watching her.

“Do the Familiars mate?”

He laughed. The rich, deep sound nestled in her like a snug cuddle. Shivering, she suddenly imagined what that laugh would feel like resonating against her own lips as he…

Instantly, she banished the erotic image, wondering what was coming over her. She was never one to fantasize over such matters.

“Yes, we mate, Creamcat.” The teasing dimples were back.

Appalled at her question, which he undoubtedly misinterpreted in a typical male way, she clarified, “I meant a
permanent,
singular bonding.”

He grinned broadly. “I know what you meant.”

She snorted.

He sat behind her on the boulder. His clean scent was mingled with fresh water and the night. And just a hint of that special scent of his. The scent that was beginning to make her go weak with desire.

Jenise tried not to inhale.

“Most often we mate among ourselves,” he offered in explanation, speaking from behind her shoulder. There were many reasons the male Familiar mated only among his own kind. It was not simply his intense desire, for desire could be taught. There were reasons of a deeper nature.

When she didn’t comment, he added, “There have been a few exceptions, but only amongst the females.”

“Why is that?” She did not turn to look at him, choosing instead to rearrange the folds of her dress. Again.

“Most often such alliances have not born issue. When they have, a Familiar child has been a rarity. In fact there has been only one child born of mixed blood who inherited the Familiar abilities.” He thought of his blood relative Rejar, wondering if Yaniff had yet located him in
the Tunnels. “He is most uncommon,” Gian murmured thoughtfully.

“Do you continue your ways of pleasure after you mate?”

“Of course we do.”

Shocked, she gaped at him over her shoulder.

His eyes sparkled teasingly. “With our mates.”

“Oh.”

“Once mated we are strictly bound to each other. Only each other.”

“Then you are not mated.”

He paused. “Why do you say that?”

“Because we—well—” Her heart sank as she thought of something terrible. “Did—did I force you to break your bond so you could escape?” Her eyes filled with tears. “I would feel truly terrible if such were the—”

His thumb wiped a tear from under her eye. “I would never break my bond,
taja.
Not to escape; not even for my life. It is not our way.”

Relieved not to have caused him any personal grief, she exhaled a breath.

He inhaled it.

An
ollyn
screeched in the night, its plaintive wail a customary cry to its mate. Gian lifted a front lock of Jenise’s hair and placed it behind her back. Then he leaned over and rubbed his chin back and forth on the exposed skin of her shoulder. A low, humming purr followed.

Jenise shivered.

“We must leave shortly.” He spoke in a distracted, hushed tone.

She nodded.

In the darkness of night, outside of the keep, a rickety cart pulled by an equally rickety
safir
beast made its way slowly around the perimeter of the imposing structure. The old woman who was steering the cart urged the stubborn
safir
beast to hurry. She did not like coming near the keep. The guards were cruel and anything might happen, especially at this time of night.

The old woman had only ventured out because she knew this was the day the servants cleaned the storerooms. Often in the past, she had found useful things that had been discarded in the refuse pile behind the stone wall. When one had so little to live on, one did not mind taking certain risks.

She sighed heavily, her ancient bones creaking. So far she had found nothing. Her back hurt from fighting the reins and she was ready to turn the cart toward her home in the Silver Forest. At the moment a nice cup of hot mir by her fire sounded better than the finest of clarified stones.

Yes, that was it. As soon as she passed this next bend, she would turn and head back. Away from the darkling Karpon and his barbarous guards.

She had just about completed her circuit when she discerned a slight movement on a heap of offal. A
riat,
she thought; they liked to burrow through such refuse. Nothing more.

A faint moan traveled the night wind.

The sound was agony on the lips of something barely living.

The old woman paused. There was something out there that the guards had tossed out for dead. Immediately she turned the cart in the direction of the sound.

Karpon was dangerous, but she was not concerned about Karpon. Something or someone needed her out here in this offal pile. Spying a heap of rags and wounded flesh, she pulled the cart up short.

Jumping down, she hobbled over to the broken mass. Whether it was man or beast, she could not tell, for it was so badly mangled. She bent down slowly in deference to the soreness in her back and pushed the bundle onto its side.

A terrible groan of pain rattled from its chest.

By the two moons’ light she could see that it once had been a man.

He was in a very bad way. From a cursory glance it looked as if he had been beaten and tortured…and maybe worse. There was no telling what he had looked like originally—not that such a thing would concern him anymore. Whatever comeliness he had once possessed was gone forever.

Not that it mattered. He probably wouldn’t live long.

But she would try to help him anyway.

She put her face close to his ear so he might hear what she was saying and focus upon it despite his pain. “I do not know if you can hear me, but if you wish to live then you must help me. I am too old to lift you by myself. There is a cart here…if you can aid me, I will attempt to get you into it. You must try not to call out, no matter the pain; Karpon’s guards are near.”

Compassionately, she took his hand in hers. She didn’t expect a response; the man was too far gone. A few moments passed while she debated what to do.

The hand weakly squeezed hers. He was attempting to tell her that he had heard her and wanted to live!

The old woman’s eyes gleamed. Mayhap she could save this one from being another of Karpon’s victims. “Yes, I understand, my poor friend. We will try.” Placing his arm around her shoulders, she told him she was going to stand.

It was difficult and for a moment they almost toppled over together, but she was able to steady him. His entire body shuddered but he did not cry out. He was brave, she realized, saddened that he had been so unlucky as to fall into the hands of Karpon’s guards.

The cart was right next to them, and somehow she managed to shove and push and pull his mangled body
into the back. He twisted and convulsed from his pain, but he still did not cry out.