Chapter Two
Morning sunlight stabbed Bael’s eyes but he didn’t open them. He felt like hell, his back and his arms aching even before he moved them. Which he did, just to confirm it, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Pain shot down his left arm, his wrist, his shoulder, straight to his spine. His feet were killing him too.
But the movement brought something much more interesting than pain. Warm skin, not his. Someone lying in his arms. A woman.
Well, this was always interesting. Bael grinned and cracked an eye open as he tried to remember who she was and what he’d been doing to end up with her.
Long, snaky dark hair spilled across his chest. Her eyes were closed and there was a small, pale scar on her cheek. Oh yes, he remembered her now. Remembered waking up with her tight, muscular body pressed against his as they dangled from the roof of that cave. Remembered the flash in her weird silver eyes as she rode him into the ground last night.
His cock stirred. Hell, she’d been fun.
She looked a lot less fierce, lying there still and quiet. Awake, she’d vibrated with angry energy, but now she looked more peaceful, younger even, despite the slight frown on her forehead.
He ran his hand down her back and paused at the scar tissue there. He’d discovered the whip marks crisscrossing her spine last night. But, what with her mouth on his and her breasts rubbing against his chest, he’d had other things to think about.
Now he was intrigued. The marks were old, healed, but he could feel the intensity of the lashes, the jumble of scar tissue that said she’d been flogged again and again.
What had happened to result in those scars?
She stirred, her skin sliding very pleasantly against his, and mumbled something in her sleep. He stroked her hair, tangling his fingers in the thick, unruly curls. His fingers found the warm skin at the nape of her neck and stroked.
Her eyes fluttered and she smacked her lips, stretching out her arm across his chest.
Then she froze, and her eyes slammed open, already flashing with silver fire.
“That’s very impressive,” Bael said, still playing with her hair. “How’d you get them to do that?”
“What?”
“Your eyes. They’re all sort of…sparkly.” He stole a quick kiss. “Very sexy.”
She blinked at him. Then she levered herself upright, sitting on his stomach, and stared at him.
“Mmm.” He placed his hands on her hips. “Even sexier.”
She opened her mouth to speak but Bael pulled her down and kissed her. Gods, she was fantastic, all tightly coiled power and fierce energy. He ran his tongue over her teeth and sucked her lip into his mouth, making her moan. Happily he rolled her onto her back, all the better to lick and bite her all over, but he’d only gotten as far as nipping at her throat when a tiny sound made them both freeze.
Bael looked up and saw an arrow. A bow. They pretty much occupied his attention until Kett said, “Why is that kelf aiming an arrow at us?”
Bael refocused. Behind the bow and arrow was a small green figure, three fingers on each hand, skin hairless, eyes huge. It stood immobile, impassive. Inhuman. Bael’s lip curled. He bloody hated kelfs, and this was precisely why.
“Look, I don’t interrupt you guys when you do…whatever it is you do in bed,” he said, rolling Kett away and getting to his feet.
The kelf said something in its own language, which irritated the hell out of Bael. It knew he couldn’t understand it. Kelfs never taught their language to anyone.
“You don’t-” Kett began, stepping toward the creature, and it turned its bow on her.
“Oh no you bloody don’t,” Bael said, lunging for the little green bugger, but it was too fast for him. There was a sudden zip and whine, and then a furious pain in his left arm.
Bael stared at the arrow sticking out of it and whirled on the kelf, murder in his eyes. “Hey! What the fuck was that for?”
“You are trespassing,” said a sweet, feminine voice in accented Anglish.
Before the voice had even died away, Kett had whirled to face it, her hands curled into fists, muscles tight, body low in a defensive crouch.
Bael stared at the dozen or so kelfs that had emerged from the trees, each holding a bow trained on him. Maybe they could smell the blood. Little bastards.
“This is their land,” said the woman’s voice, and he tore his eyes to her. “They graciously allow me to hunt with them, but they don’t like trespassers.”
She wore bright silken robes and perched elegantly sidesaddle on a handsome white horse. A crossbow rested on her lap. She was tiny, with long, glossy dark hair and tilted eyes, and she was smiling. Bael figured that was probably because the armed kelfs were on her side. Oh, and the fact that both he and Kett were totally bollock naked. Literally, in his case.
Kett scowled up at the woman. “Miho?”
The tiny woman smiled wider. “Kett. I didn’t know you were in the country.”
“Well, funny thing.” She relaxed a little, stood up straight. “Neither did I.”
“You know her?” Bael looked between the two women, his tall, scarred warrior and the tiny, delicate creature on the horse. His arm throbbed, blood oozing from the wound.
“Yes. Miho and I…go way back.”
“Well, that’s great.” Bael waggled the arrow in his arm. “Reckon she could lend us some clothes? Get some food? Dunno about you, but I’m starving.” He glanced at the kelfs surrounding them, bows still drawn. Bloody kelfs. No smiles. They wound him up beyond belief. “Maybe we could eat one of them.”
Kett didn’t smile.
“Apologies for your injury,” said Miho, nodding regally at Bael. “There are medical supplies at my house.”
Bael nodded and considered grabbing the kelf’s bow to shoot back at it. Not that it would have done much good.
Could have been this kelf who killed your mother. Could have been any of them.
The kelf looked up at him, its pointed face impassive. So charming and helpful, so long as you’re not faced with a Nasc.
How can humans love them so much?
Kett poked at the arrow, ignoring his flinches.
“Flesh wound,” she said. “You’ll live.”
He glowered at her then at the kelf, who stared impassively back. Bloody kelfs. You could beat them, but they never bruised. You could shoot and slash at them, but they never bled. Their colorful, hairless skin was like iron.
They bowed and scraped to every human in the five Realms, but became deaf the minute he uttered a polite request.
Well, a request, at any rate. Bael wasn’t good at being polite.
“Oh, piss off,” he snarled halfheartedly, and turned his attention to the arrow in his arm. It hurt like buggery but it didn’t seem to have hit anything major. “Stupid fucking kelfs,” he growled, working the arrow back and forth and eventually gritting his teeth and yanking it out.
He made a pointed yelp of pain. Kett and Miho, who’d been quietly conversing, both glanced over. Bael pressed down on the bleeding injury, giving them a wounded look.
“Shouldn’t’ve gone after it, should you,” Kett said, as a munta was led out from the trees. Four-legged and a little like a camel without the hump, the creature was covered in shaggy dark green fur and looked at him with huge eyes as the kelfs started unloading game carcasses from its back.
“Oh sure,” Bael said. “This is what I get for being chivalrous?”
“It wasn’t really going to shoot me,” Kett said patiently.
“Yeah? They’re not as nice as people think,” Bael said, lifting his fingers from the wound on his arm and showing her the blood.
Kett just rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, mounting the creature and holding out her hand. She had moved slightly awkwardly, limping a little, and indeed Bael could see an ugly puckered scar on her right thigh.
But Kett never said a word or asked for help. After a moment, Bael swung up behind her. She didn’t seem remotely perturbed to be sitting there completely naked, all the girlie bits he’d been so enjoying last night on view for anyone to see.