18. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
It was mid-morning when Talyn and Samhail entered the nearby village and asked the first person they saw to direct them to the local stable.
Samhail wouldn’t let Talyn ride the horse she’d taken.
He could’ve flown while she rode, but he didn’t trust her to be more than an arm’s reach away, even if he could fly faster than she could ride.
So they’d walked.
In silence.
For miles.
Samhail didn’t strike Talyn as the kind of man who chatted, so she wasn’t surprised their journey had been so quiet, but she couldn’t help feeling there was something else beneath his silence.
Hatred most likely. She’d put him in an extremely vulnerable position the other day and had tricked him into revealing a very personal secret. She didn’t think he took too kindly to that. Not to mention the fact that she’d been at Tide’s End to kill his two best friends.
In truth, she was shocked he’d agreed to her deal, and even more shocked he’d let her live long enough to make it.
“Is anyone here?” Samhail called as they approached the house next to the stables on the outskirts of town where they’d been directed.
A man came out, and his eyes widened as he saw Samhail. To his credit, he didn’t run.
“Can I help you?” the man asked warily.
“I need a horse,” Samhail said. “A large one.”
The man opened and closed his mouth, seeming to search for something to say. “For you?” the man finally ventured. “I’m not sure I have one big enough.”
“What about him?” Samhail asked, pointing out into the pasture where a giant dark gray stallion with pale gray dappling near his shoulders stood grazing.
“He…he’s really more of a draft horse,” the man said. “I rode him once bareback, but I’m not sure he’ll take a saddle. Three hells, I’m not sure I even have one big enough for him.”
Samhail fished a small bag of coins out of his pocket and dropped several gold ones into the man’s hand.
“Let’s find out for sure,” he said as the man’s eyes widened.
Two hours later, Samhail sat atop the large horse.
The animal had accepted a saddle and bridle easily enough, but the biggest saddle the stable owner had didn’t quite fit around the horse’s thick body.
They’d had to enlist a leather worker in town to craft an extension for the saddle’s girth so it could be fastened.
Samhail nudged the horse with his heels, and after a moment’s hesitation, the animal moved forward in a slow walk. Samhail dug his heels in more, and the stallion picked up its pace.
The horse was a docile beast that wasn’t inclined to be energetic, but it obeyed Samhail’s commands willingly enough, and he soon had it galloping around the yard.
“Thank you for your help,” Samhail said to the man as he reined the horse up in front of him.
The man nodded his head. “Anytime,” he said. “Always happy to help out Lord Bressen’s man.”
They’d made introductions earlier, and Samhail had told the stable owner he was on an assignment for the lord, which was only partially true.
“It’s time to go,” Samhail said to Talyn as he dismounted from the horse. “This took longer than I would’ve liked, and I want to put in some miles before it gets dark.”
Talyn only glared at him as he came over to release her from where he’d tied her hands to a nearby fencepost. She’d been free most of the day as they went shopping for supplies in town, but when it came time to try out the horse – who was apparently named Guster – he didn’t trust her to be alone with the stable owner, so he’d tied her to the fence.
Talyn didn’t say anything to him as she headed for her horse.
“You’ll ride with me the rest of the day,” he said, stopping her.
She looked at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious. We have two horses now, but you want me to ride with you on that monstrosity?”
“You’ll ride with me until I can trust you enough to ride alone,” he said. He leaned toward Guster and patted the horse. “Don’t listen to her. You’re perfect,” he told the beast.
Talyn only blinked at him. She looked at the stable owner, but he was eyeing her wrist with the caronium cuff on it. He’d been friendly to her until Samhail had tied her to the fence.
“No,” Talyn said, shaking her head. “It’s ridiculous for us to share a horse when we have two.”
“Get up there now, or I’ll throw you over the front, and you can ride that way.”
Talyn crossed her arms and glared at him again, but she uncrossed them quickly and stepped back when he started toward her.
“Fine! Fine!” she said, holding out her hands to ward him off. “I’ll get on the horse.”
He stepped to the side so she could pass, and she hauled herself up into the saddle. She was annoyed to find her legs didn’t reach the stirrups once she was up, not that she would’ve been allowed to use them anyway.
Samhail tied the reins of Talyn’s horse to the saddle of his own, then mounted up behind her.
She ground her teeth at the feel of his hard muscles pressed up against her.
The weather had turned milder this week, but it was still chilly, and she found it infuriating that her body ached to lean back into his warmth as they set off.
Talyn now had a cloak, which Samhail had bought her earlier, but his body heat seemed to penetrate even that.
Talyn tried to sit forward, but it was nearly impossible to get away from him.
His arms caged her in on either side, and it seemed like he only leaned further forward every time she tried to pull away from him.
Finally, she gave up and let herself lean back against him, but she was too aware of his body to be able to sit still.
He might hate her, and she might find him to be an arrogant, infuriating prick, but none of that mattered to her body.
She didn’t have to like him to fuck him.
Three hells, some of the best sex she’d ever had was with a man she’d absolutely loathed.
She’d been in Bader working for a client who’d hired her to kill his business rival, and she’d eagerly taken the job when she’d learned the rival had been using children for labor, keeping them under horrendous conditions and paying them far below what an adult might be paid.
The man who’d hired her hadn’t cared about the children. He’d almost considered using them himself, but he’d decided they weren’t worth the trouble and that the easier solution was just to kill his rival.
Talyn couldn’t stand the man who’d hired her, but he’d been unfairly attractive, and she hadn’t been with anyone in some time, so she’d fucked him after the job was done.
The sex had been uninhibited and raw. She’d been riding her blood lust, and her employer had been celebrating the demise of his rival.
He’d let her tie him to his bed, and she’d ridden him until they’d both exploded with ecstasy.
Then she’d left him tied there naked with her undergarment shoved into his mouth, and she’d told his servants on her way out he didn’t want to be disturbed.
Talyn smiled at the memory as she tried to settle in for the journey.
An hour later, however, she was still fidgeting.
She was all too aware of Samhail’s thighs pressed to the backs of hers, and that leather and earth scent of his had wrapped itself around her brain and wouldn’t let her think of anything else.
Her eyes fixed on the way his hands held the reins, and the direction her thoughts took as she looked at them left her aching at her core.
She was also almost certain the lump she felt against her tailbone was his erection.
Talyn shifted again and tried to decide if she felt the lump twitch.
“Stop moving,” Samhail growled.
“I can’t get comfortable,” she said. “Just let me ride the other horse.”
“No.”
Talyn groaned and shifted again.
“It’s not too late to throw you over the front of this saddle,” he said.
“I don’t know why you think that’s going to help anything.”
“Maybe you’ll stop moving if I slap your ass every time you do.”
Talyn’s mouth dropped open, but she clamped it shut again. She wouldn’t take the bait, but fine. If he was going to be stubborn, she’d make him regret riding like this.
She leaned back against Samhail to nestle into his chest, and she smiled to feel his body tense against hers. She ground her ass slowly into his groin, and the lump against her backside seemed to get harder.
Talyn gasped as Samhail’s hand shot up and closed around her throat, not hard enough to cut off her air, but hard enough that she understood the warning in it.
“Don’t do that,” he snarled in her ear, each word clipped.
She grinned and ground into him harder, then moaned softly for good measure.
Samhail jerked on the reins to stop the horse and tightened his hold on her throat.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, his voice full of fury.
“Trying to convince you I should ride my own horse,” she said hoarsely against the palm of his hand.
“No, what you’re doing is playing with fire,” he shot back. “You’re alone with a man you don’t know, trying to arouse him for spite. You may be the most feared assassin in Rowe, but if I decided to throw you on the ground and fuck you, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”
“On the continent,” Talyn said.
“What?”
“The most feared assassin on the continent,” she corrected. “Not just in Rowe.”
“Fine, on the continent,” he said. “Either way, you’d be at my mercy if I decided to fuck you raw.”
Talyn paused, not sure why that thought aroused her rather than frightened her. She almost told him as much, but she said instead, “You won’t do that.” She didn’t know how she knew that, but she knew.
“Wouldn’t I?” he asked menacingly. “You were the one who started this a few days ago. Can you blame me for wanting to finish it?”
Talyn froze, suddenly unsure of her assessment of him. No, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to finish it, but she didn’t want to think he was the kind of man who’d take a woman unwillingly.
But he was bluffing. She knew he was. Wasn’t he?
“You won’t,” she said softly.
“And how do you know that?”