Chapter 10 #2
her, his gaze as black and smooth as pitch over a bottomless
well.
“My father, my mother.” Her heart dropped at
the realization that she might never see them again. “My brother,
Ratter, Aleksandr, they all warned me about you.”
“You should’ve heeded their warnings.” Yago
tapped her on the nose and jerked his finger back as she snapped at
it. Then he wagged his finger at her. “As you shouldn’t have
entered this race.” He shook his head and tsked. “Did you truly
think that you, a woman, could finish, much less win this
race?”
“I beat you the first two races.”
The force of his slap slammed her head back
into the tree and left a ringing in her ears.
“You watch your mouth,” he snarled.
She licked her cracked and swollen lips, the
corners raw and bloody from the gag. “Why?” she whispered
hoarsely.
“Because I’ll gag you again if you
don’t.”
“No.” She shook her still spinning head. “Why
take me captive? Why take me to your father? Why not kill me
now?”
“To exact revenge on your parents by first
defiling and then killing you in a public manner.” He grinned,
pleased with the chilling effect of his words. “When your precious
mare, Lasair, the last foal out of Storm Chaser and Cloud Dancer
comes into season, we will breed her with an ass.”
Sahar swallowed her rising bile. “Killing me
will only lead to more killing,” she said. “To war between our
tribes.”
“Precisely.”
Aleksi made the previous night’s campsite
after nightfall. The drier weather had held, and with the light of
a hastily made torch, he was able to find the muddy tracks of four
horses leading east from the camp. One of the horse’s hoof prints
were smaller than the others, and had not sunk so far into the
dried mud.
“Lasair.” Carrying Sahar.
Until now he’d only had suspicions, but these
tracks were proof. Yago and his pack of curs had taken his tigress.
Why, Aleksi could only guess, but he knew Yago to be a lying,
vindictive corruption of a man, perfectly capable of exacting
revenge against anyone he perceived had slighted him. Aleksi would
put nothing beyond the worm, and had worn a hole in the side of his
cheek and in his gut worrying about how that revenge would be
exacted. He’d spent the better part of the ride back praying to
every god and goddess he could think of that he would get to Sahar
before Yago had his way with her. She was a strong woman, the
strongest he’d ever known, but everyone had a breaking point, even
a tigress.
Or an arrogant ass.
It had been Aleksi’s arrogance that had let
her come to harm. He had been so cocksure that his presence was
enough to ensure her safety that he hadn’t taken Yago’s threat
seriously enough. Not that Aleksi could have foreseen this. Yet, he
should’ve picked up on the signs. He should’ve been more suspicious
when she caught the Jackal standing over their bedrolls. Aleksi
should’ve listened when she said the wine tasted off. Clearly,
their wine had been adulterated with dream flower, and it’d
happened while they were busy with Feroz. Aleksi should have known
something was amiss when he woke up late and disoriented. He hadn’t
drunk that much wine. What he had done was become so distracted, so
besotted, that instead of protecting Sahar, he had left her open to
the Wolf’s vile, nefarious attack. Then Aleksi had given the worm a
full day’s head start.
“AARRGGHH.”
He smashed the torch against a tree, his rage
splintering into a thousand flaming shards. He had to get her back,
before Yago hurt her any more than he had already. Not because of
the hundred gold pieces, not to be able to look King Asad in the
eyes again, but because Aleksi wanted her back. Because he wants
her. He always had, since the first moment he had laid eyes on
her.
The torch out, he glanced up at the face of
the moon, a day away from full and spilling light down the trail
before him. Yago and his pack may have gained a full day’s ride
ahead, but four horses traversing muddy terrain should be easy
enough to track. With any luck, and the moon’s continued
assistance, Aleksi would be able to make a good portion of the
distance up if he rode all night.
Following their trail turned out to be the
easy part. The hard part was keeping his mind from straying to all
the atrocities the Wolf could inflict upon Sahar. The man was a
scheming, spiteful, malevolent bully who had already proved he was
capable of base, vicious behavior. The chance that Aleksi would not
find her in time to save her from whatever horrible fate the Wolf
had planned for her gnawed at him, goading him into riding Zolotoy
harder than was safe, or smart. If he injured himself or Z, and was
unable to reach her at all, what then? Even knowing this, he
couldn’t slow his pursuit. He wouldn’t. Not with every hoof beat
pounding the image of her beaten, used, and bloody, or worse,
deeper into his worried mind.
Sahar knelt on bruised knees at the stream’s
edge and quickly lapped up the water from her cupped hands. The
chill of the water both stung and numbed the scrapes on her palms
and wrists, and eased the swelling of her tongue, which she bit as
the Jackal jerked the rope tied around her wrists, causing the
water to splash in her face. He cackled with glee as the icy water
ran down the neck of her tunic, and she closed her eyes and slowed
her breath to keep from lashing out at him. It would only make her
situation worse.
Yago had handed her leash over to the Jackal
that morning, the second morning of her kidnapping, and the Jackal
had immediately taken to playing with her, exacting his revenge for
his broken nose and laughing with sick pleasure every time he
yanked on the rope, causing her to flail and fight to keep her seat
or to trip and fall onto her hands and knees at their infrequent
stops.
The more distress and humiliation she showed,
the greater her captor’s amusement, and she’d learned to hide her
pain as best she could. The oil of the dream flower that they
continued to pour down her throat actually helped numb the physical
and the mental pain, as well as taking the edge off the hunger
pangs. They fed her only enough to keep her from fainting, but not
enough to fill the hole in her belly. It would’ve been easy to give
in and welcome the numbing relief, but she needed to keep what wits
she could about her, and had taken to acting more drugged and
subdued than she actually was. The tormenting thought that Yago
might truly have killed Aleksandr and that she was the cause of his
death had wormed its way into her mind and festered there, its
poison spreading into her heart, her blood, her marrow, chilling
her to the bone.
Then there was the ever-present threat of
rape. A threat she expected would be meted out sooner or later, and
that she would not, she could not, allow herself to dwell on.
Otherwise she would be useless. She had only herself to rely on.
The possibility that Aleksandr would find her in time was slim to
none. Her willfulness had gotten her into this predicament, and it
would be that same stubborn will that got her out of it.
“Get up, bitch,” the Jackal commanded as she
took one last frantic drink. “To your feet, now.”
She grunted and planted her hands in the mud
to push up with. The sharp edge of a small stone cut into her palm,
and she dug her fingers deeper around the stone, palming it as she
stood. The Jackal jerked her rope taut, cackling as she fell onto
her hands and knees. She slipped the stone into her boot and slowly
rose back up on stiff, shaking legs, stumbling forward as the
Jackal dragged her over to a tree. He tied her to the trunk, yanked
her head back, and poured a few drops of the oil of dream flower
into her mouth. She made the motions of swallowing, and then spit
out most of the bitter oil as soon as he turned his back.
Yago had told her he intended to take her
back to his father’s kingdom. She figured she had another ten and
four days of hard riding before she was served up to the Ox, which
meant she had only ten and three nights to get herself and Lasair
free. The sooner the better her chances of finding help. If
Aleksandr was dead, her only other hope was that the guards at the
next post had noted her failure to check in and had gone to search
for her. Her heart seized as she imagined them finding Aleksandr at
the last campsite, his impressive body stiff with rigor, his warm,
earth brown eyes dulled and unseeing.
She shook herself mentally. She couldn’t let
herself think that way. She had to concentrate on staying alive, on
getting herself and Lasair free and on their way home.
If she didn’t get free, didn’t get home,
she’d never be with her family again in this world. She’d never see
her mother’s understanding face, or feel her father’s big paws
ruffling her hair, or hear her brother’s teasing voice again. She’d
never know her brother’s firstborn, or be a loving auntie to any of
his children. She’d be only a sad, whispered tale of family lore.
She’d never be witness to Halah’s and Munir’s wedding, and their
marriage would always be shadowed with Sahar’s memory. Ommar’s
face, Sahar’s familiar ghostly companion, came to her, and she
squeezed her eyes tight to stop the sudden welling of tears.
She’d be damned if she gave Yago and his curs
the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Her mother had been captured by
pirates and tied to a pole in the slave market for days, held in a
hot hole and almost died of heat sickness. The Ox had attacked her,
and her arm was sliced open by a sword, yet she had survived it
all. So would her daughter.
“I will see you soon enough, Ommar,” she
sighed, and then straightened her spine and her resolve. “But not
yet.” She shook her boot and felt the small, jagged stone lodged
above her ankle. “Not yet.”
She dropped her chin to her chest, stretching
the tight muscles along the back of her neck, and let her mouth
hang open, feigning a deep, drugged sleep as boot fall approached.
A hand grabbed her by the hair and tilted her face up, and she let
her tongue loll as she rolled her unfocused eyes back before slowly