“Magnus, I was telling the mistress of our lands and customs.”
“Aye, I heard you.” He gave her a bitter look. “You were telling her it would be stupid for her to try to escape from Malek?”
“Nay, she didn’t ask me about that. I was merely telling her of the dangers here.”
“She asked you for a reason, Hollvard, doubt it not.”
Hollvard shook his head, uncertain of his master’s mood. Magnus said to Zarabeth, “Come now, ’tis time to go to bed.” She looked up at him for the first time, raising her face for him to see her clearly, and he saw the fear there, the defiance, and it made his belly twist. He said, his voice steady and calm, “Do not look at me that way. Come.”
And he took her hand, nodded good night to Hollvard, and led her toward the longhouse. The night was warm, touched with a sliver of moonlight.
He stopped and pulled her very slowly, very gently, to him. “Look at me, Zarabeth.”
She looked up and he studied her features. Gently he touched his fingertip to her lips, to her jaw, up the bridge of her nose. He smoothed his fingertip over her brows. Then he leaned down and kissed her. Her lips were cold and set tightly together. He fancied he could taste her fear, but he refused to acknowledge it.
He only smiled. “Nay, sweeting. Part your lips for me. You did once, remember?”
He wasn’t expecting it, and thus when she wrenched away from him, striking him with her fists, he didn’t react quickly enough. She was running from him toward the gates in the palisade.
He started to yell at her, then thought better of it. He could just hear the men telling of how the female slave escaped him and he was calling after her like a fool.
He covered the ground quickly but she had managed to lift the wooden shaft and fling open the gates. She was through them before he could reach her. Hollvard was staring blank-faced after her. He’d done nothing to stop her. Magnus saw her ahead. She wasn’t running down the path to the water, she had turned and was running toward the narrow paths through the barley field. He realized she wanted to make the pine forest. Then she could hide from him.
He caught her just as she reached the first line of trees.
He had no anger at her; indeed, if he had been able, he would have thanked her for coming here, for he fully intended to take her here, under the soft dim moonlight, in the shadow of the pine trees.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, holding her tightly against him. She shook her head, but he grabbed her chin in his fingers and began kissing her. She jerked her face away, breathing hard, and he kissed her ear and her cheek. He grabbed her head and held it between his palms. “Now,” he said. “Now.”
He simply jerked her off the ground, and, cushioning the fall with his own body, came down on the soft ground beside her, her head on his arm. “Zarabeth, I won’t hurt you. I am going to take you, and I don’t wish you to fight me.”
She looked up at him, looked into the face of the man she had loved, the man she now feared, and said very calmly, “Once you have taken me, will you return to Cyra and your other women? Will you leave me alone then?”
He could only stare at her, fury mixing with pain at her words.
“You do only wish to punish me, do you not? To make me submit to you, to prove you are the stronger, to prove you are the master? Once you have done that, you will be tired of it, will you not? You will no longer care, and you will leave me alone?”
He said slowly, his voice clear as the night air, “Even if I do not take you every night, you will sleep beside me every night of my life and you will awaken in the morning beside me.”
“Why? I am nothing to you! You hate me, you believe I lied to you, betrayed you. Why?”
He had no answer to that himself. He felt her squirming beneath him and quickly held down her legs with one of his.
He slowly began to pull apart the lacing over her breasts. He didn’t look away from her face even as he parted the soft wool. His eyes flickered when his fingers touched her bare flesh, but still he looked at her intently.
She felt his fingers, callused and hard, touching her nipple, and she whimpered. “Do you not like that, Zarabeth? You are so soft, so very soft.”
His palms were rubbing back and forth from one breast to the other, and still he watched her face, watched her every expression. She couldn’t make him stop. All she could do was bear it. She withdrew into herself. He saw it. “No, you will stay here, with me, and you will feel me, Zarabeth, you will feel me touching you and I will see your pleasure grow in your eyes. You won’t retreat from me, I won’t allow it.”
He leaned down then and kissed her. Her lips were slightly parted and he forced them a bit more and his tongue slipped into her mouth. He felt incredible warmth surge through him. Warmth and tenderness, and he didn’t fight it. He couldn’t fight it. He let it flow through him and build and build. His need for her was great, beyond anything he’d ever known, but he would not savage her. He continued kissing her, not demanding, just giving, wanting her to know that he would go easily with her, and his hands kneaded and caressed her breasts.
She was holding herself perfectly still. Then his tongue thrust more deeply into her mouth and he felt her shudder, felt the heaving of her breast in his hand.
“Zarabeth,” he said against her open lips. “Feel what I am doing to you.” Everything in her froze in anticipation as his hand pulled apart the lacings and his palm was flat now on her belly, his fingertips touching her pelvic bone and massaging gently. Lower, she knew she wanted his fingers to go lower on her, it was there, those feelings, but she didn’t really understand. To her utter humiliation, she moaned. She moaned from pleasure, but more from a need she did not understand but recognized to be there, deep inside her.
He raised his head and smiled down at her. His fingers remained still on her belly. “Again, Zarabeth.” And his hand came down lightly over her woman’s mound and his fingers found her.
She stared at him, and there was fear and excitement in her eyes, and growing anticipation, and he was pleased with himself and with her. Slowly, so very slowly this time, he began to caress her with his fingers. She didn’t move. He saw the surprise, the embarrassment in her eyes, and said softly, “Nay, this is what a man does to give a woman pleasure. Tell me it pleases you, Zarabeth. Tell me.”
