Thus we have fought for this peaceable moment right here, our reward this short time of communion which is so much more precious to me than any kind of material payment.
When I emerge from the depths, I come up chin-first, my breasts breaching the surface thereafter. His eyes go to them, and the stark hunger in his scarred face shifts the energy in my body away from the strange despair that’s gripped me… toward something that is so much more preferable.
“Just look at you,” he says in low voice. “Woman… you are a beauty in any light.”
As I flush, I sit forward and brace my hands under my seat to hold myself as very nearly float. There’s a fragrant explosion as he passes his palm over my hair a couple of times and then he’s massaging the soap into my scalp and down the lengths. Suds form and propagate around me, tickling my nipples as they play hide-and-seek with Merc’s hot stare.
“So we leave on the morrow and head north,” he says.
It’s hard for me to connect to his words when his voice has gone to that deep, low place that thrills me. But the translation filters through all the sexual charge.
“Ah, yes.” I clear my throat. “Please.”
“And when we get to Prosperitus, what then?”
“I shall have to speak with the King.”
Merc’s laughter is a balm to my nerves. “Good thing you ask for nothing much at all, woman.”
“Well, I do believe in starting modestly.” As our banter evaporates in the warm, humid air, I exhale with exhaustion. “If I can get to a Queen who refuses all audiences, surely I can find my way to a ruler who actually rules.”
“And what would you be speaking to him about?” When I don’t immediately answer, Merc says, “Would it be the demons, then, yes?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s why we came to the warrior Kingdom. You want to protect that village of fools who’d sooner have killed you from something that stalks them in the dark. And now that you’re here, you see that there’s only shadows of the past in this castle, and no one who’s willing to help.”
“Something like that.”
“Fair enough.” He nods down at the water. “Another dip then, shall we.”
I indulge his command, dropping below the surface once more. When I reappear, he fills a separate bowl with clear water from the tap and rinses the soap out at the crown of my head over and over again—and after he puts the porcelain aside, he gathers my hair up and twists it into a knot on the top of my head.
“I think we can get to Prosperitus in a day.” He sits back a bit. “Provided we leave early.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. All of our things were delivered by a very nice servant, and after I checked to make sure the contents of my pack were in hand, I consulted the map for want of anything else to look at. There’s a northerly route that’s far enough inland it avoids that mountain range we fought through altogether.It does cut close to the Fulcrum, but it’ll get us to well past your village in the daylight—not that I am suggesting we stop there, mind you.”
“Best we do not, yes.” I look at the suds that swirl about me on the surface of the warm water, obscuring and revealing my body by turns. “And if we can arrive at Prosperitus by nightfall that is… for the better.”
But fates, why do I think the King will see me? A woman traveler, with nothing to offer him?
Maybe Julion can help me, though.
“Then we leave at sunrise,” Merc says. “I was told to ring the bell if I needed anything and I’ll have our horses brought around. Wherever… around is.”
“At sunrise, yes.”
His smile tilts one half of his mouth up. And yet his eyes begin to glow with a very different intent than that of conversation.
“Shall we do the rest of you then?” he asks huskily.
I can only nod as I suddenly don’t trust my voice.
He comes back with the soft cloth and he soaps it up, before stroking the sudsy square down my back, my shoulders, my arms. And then he attends to my throat… and goes lower. At the first brush over my breast, I moan his name.
This is only the beginning. Soon, he is progressing even farther down.
