Chapter 8 #4
crowd of riders. His point had been made.
“But I am certain that King Asad will insist
on an answer from you. When this race is over, you and I are going
to have us a serious discussion.”
The Wolf stepped back, a bead of sweat
trickling down his forehead. “Come after me, bastard, and my
father’s army will come after you and yours.” He jerked his black
head at Sahar. “As well as your host and conspirator, the Black
Mane.”
“You are quick to threaten the force of your
father’s army over any perceived slight,” Aleksi said as the crowd
around them grumbled and grew closer. “Is your father aware of your
never-ending threats?”
“My father will stand by me against any and
all of our enemies,” Yago proclaimed. “Unlike yours, who will not
even claim you, or the whore that gave birth to you.”
Aleksi shrugged off the insult of his
parentage. He had heard worse from his father’s queen and her two
daughters every day he’d lived in the palace. He glanced around at
the restive riders, who were throwing pointed glares the Wolf’s
way.
“I’d be careful of who I threatened next were
I you,” he told the Wolf. “I see no enemies here, only fellow
competitors.”
“That’s because you’re blind to everything
but the twitch of a royal bitch in heat’s shapely backside,” the
Jackal twittered.
Behind Aleksi, a tigress hissed. Before him,
the Wolf sneered. Aleksi cocked his fist, and held as the blur of a
shadow flew past him, straight for the Jackal. The crunch of
cartilage was followed by a high-pitched keening.
“You bastard,” the Jackal cried, holding his
hand to his nose as blood dripped down his mouth and chin. “You
broke my nose.”
They all turned to Feroz.
“Someone needed to shut the prick up,” he
said, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand. He shrugged. “I was
already out of the race.”
The fight over, the riders made their way
back to their fires as Yago and Taweel led the bleeding Jackal over
to the stream. Feroz and Munir went back to cutting up the saddle
blanket to make a soft boot for the gelding, leaving a fuming Sahar
alone with Aleksandr.
“What,” she demanded, “did my father promise
you?”
“One hundred gold pieces, win or lose, as
long as you are kept safe.”
She nodded slowly and blinked back tears that
burned her throat. “So, you will have enough to buy a wife and
broodmares after all. Well done,” she said with a quick dip of her
head, as if she were truly complimenting him, as if it didn’t
matter that he’d taken payment to protect her. That he’d betrayed
her again. “I’m so pleased to be able to assist you in your
purchase of a bride.”
“I asked you first,” he said. “You refused
me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t.” She
watched surprise take over his expression. “If you recall, I never
answered your proposal.”
“What I recall,” he said, “was your blade’s
point pressed to my stones and your threat to geld me then and
there.”
“Aye, after your ill-bred pawing and arrogant
assumption that I would fall to my knees for the chance to breed
with you.” As soon as she said the words, the vision of the whore
on her knees in the stable, her face deep in Aleksandr’s groin,
came unbidden, fueling Sahar’s growing ire. “After which,” she
added hotly, “you proceeded to flirt with every kitchen and serving
maid in the palace, and consorted with that whore—”
“Roxanna.”
“What?”
“The whore’s name,” he said with maddening
calm, “is Roxanna. You know I didn’t solicit or consort with
her.”
She snorted with derision.
“Or any other woman since the cursed day I
set eyes on you.”
Sahar opened her mouth to excoriate him, but
all the angry words she’d been holding and harboring against him
expelled into the night air in one big whoosh of breath. Her heart
stopped and started again with a queer fluttering beat as she
dragged in a deep lungful of air. “Why?” she asked with a ragged
whisper.
“Why what?”
“Why haven’t you consorted with any other
woman, when they so obviously want to consort with you?”
He shrugged and then laughed, short and
harsh. “Good question.”
One he apparently wasn’t going to answer,
which didn’t stop her from asking others. “Why did my father hire
you to protect me?”
“You’ll have to ask your father.”
She gnashed her teeth at him, spun on her
heel to walk away, and then spun right back around. “Why do you
kiss me like you do, and then tell me we are nothing to each
other?”
She hated the pleading whine of her voice,
and stood taller and lifted her chin, holding his gaze and refusing
to look away, the queer beat of her heart rushing to her ears.
His expression grew dark and serious for
several of those beats, and then he shook himself and ran a hand
back through that damned shock of hair, which fell, yet again, over
his forehead. He grinned, and the cocky stallion with dark stubble
accentuating the square cut of his chin, the one who had stood
before her the day she’d first set eyes on him, stood before her
again.
“I’ve kissed many women like I do,” he said.
“It’s not my fault the thirty other men you’ve kissed aren’t
capable of stirring your passions, Kitten.”