Pathfinder's Way(67)

"So you need rescuing a lot, then? Your poor army. It's a wonder they  ever managed to conquer the Lowlands if they always have to worry about  your safety."

Shea could have bitten her tongue at those words. She didn't know what  possessed her, but whenever she was around him the filter that normally  existed between her brain and mouth seemed to disappear.

His arms tightened around her momentarily before his chuckle rumbled against her back.

"What do you plan to do with me?" Shea asked sharply.

"That depends."

"On what?"

It was difficult to keep her concentration on the conversation at hand  when his fingers were drawing maddening symbols on the shirt covering  her belly. It was distracting. She wished they could have this  conversation in slightly different circumstances. Maybe when they  weren't touching. Preferably with an entire room between them.

One of his large hands drifted up to tuck some of her hair behind her  ear. She was beginning to get the unsettling idea of what he wanted.  He'd have a fight on his hands if that was the case.

"Would you stay with me? Be my Tolroi?"

A gentle kiss dropped on the side of her neck. Shea shivered as lightning arched across her skin.

Through suddenly dry lips, she said, "Your mistress, you mean?"

The Trateri didn't marry, not in the sense the Lowlanders and  Highlanders did. They didn't often see the point in tying themselves to  only one person for the rest of their lives, instead preferring one  night liaisons for the most part. Occasionally though, one would choose a  partner, a Telroi, who would bare their children and share their tent  on a more permanent basis. More often they took a Tolroi. In the  Lowlands, the closest equivalent would be a mistress. It was often a  more temporary relationship then a Telroi.         

     



 

Either position was considered a great honor. Doubly so when the man  offering was the Trateri's Hawk himself. Shea didn't want to be honored.  She just wanted to be left alone to do her job.

"That is a Lowlander term," Fallon growled behind her.

"It doesn't matter. I don't-" Shea couldn't think of a polite way to decline. "I just want to be a scout."

"I'm afraid that path is closed to you."

She huffed. Because of him. Because she'd saved his ass. Again.

She held her body stiffly, making it clear she wanted to be anywhere but  in his arms. His sigh ruffled her hair and slid across her skin.

His arms loosened, and Shea rolled out of them, not giving him a chance  to change his mind. She spun to face him after standing. His head was  propped on one hand, his gaze a physical brand on her.

"Since you refuse to be my Tolroi, you'll continue in the role I originally planned for you."

He didn't mean-

The slightly smug expression on his face said he did. Shea had never  stomped her foot before in her life, but right at that moment she came  close.

"You want me to be your personal guard?" Her voice rose slightly on the last word.

His lips tilted up in a roguish grin. Son of a misbegotten revenant, he did.

"Why?"

The grin fell from his lips, leaving the ruthless warlord behind. Shea  stepped away from the fierce expression. This was the man who had burnt  Edgecomb and several other villages to the ground and then salted the  earth. Those places had been devastated to the point where nothing would  grow for years. In another generation nobody would even know they'd  existed, such was the devastation he had wrought.

"Because it's what I want."

And there was the rub. This entire army revolved around his whims. If he  wanted to camp in the middle of a river, they'd figure out a way to  make it happen.

Her shoulders sagged in defeat, and her eyes dropped to the ground

"Trenton is waiting outside to run you through what is expected of you," Fallon said.

Shea nodded and moved towards the door. His voice brought her up short.

"You're known to many soldiers now. Trying to disguise yourself as a boy  to escape won't work again. If you try to run, I will have the three  other men in your team stripped, flogged and then dragged behind the  army until we next make camp."

Shea was frozen in place. Horror gripped her by the throat as she numbly turned back to him.

"Why?" she whispered. "They had nothing to do with this."

His face was a mask of stone and his eyes darkened dangerously as he  said, "You know the answer to that." She swallowed hard. "Eamon figured  out you were a woman on your first mission. Buck took longer, but he's  known for a while too. Neither one came forward. That would be reason  enough to have them punished."

They had known? Shea's world tilted. They had known this entire time and hadn't said anything.

"I am sparing them because they saved my life and because they make a  good incentive for you not to disappear again. You obviously care for  them, or you wouldn't have stayed so long."

She looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes. He was right, damn  him. She wouldn't be going anywhere with that threat over her head. They  probably wouldn't escape with her either. For them, these people were  home.

All of her barely formed plans crumpled around her. There would be no  waiting for the right moment. No great escape. She was well and truly  caught.

Her mouth firmed into a tight, thin line. Icily, she asked, "If that is all?"

His lips quirked in an acknowledgment of having won this battle, and he  raised one hand to flick his fingers at her in dismissal. "For now."

She ground her teeth in annoyance and batted the door flap out of her  way. Vexing bastard. He may have won this round, but she'd find some way  out of this. Eventually.





Chapter Nineteen





Shea stormed out of the tent into the sunshine. Though it was bright and  nearly blinding, she didn't squint or shield her eyes until they  adjusted, as she would have normally. She was too mad for that.

"Guardsman."

The encampment that had seemed so huge suddenly felt stifling. She  wanted out. To walk into the great beyond until there was not another  soul for hundreds of miles. Maybe then she wouldn't feel as if her skin  was too tight for her body.

People. God, people. Men especially.

"Guardsman Shea."

Stupid, stupid man. She had saved him when he was helpless in a  spinner's web. If she had left him there, he would have been sucked down  like a man sized drink of water. But did he thank her? Nooo. He  threatened her, tried to fit her inside a little box.         

     



 

"Shea," a voice yelled right next to her ear.

"What?" she snapped back, thinking better of it when she met Caden's irate gaze.

She gulped and quickly rearranged her scowl into some semblance of a  pleasant expression. Judging by the way his mouth turned down, she  didn't think he appreciated her effort.

Shea took a deep breath and then released it slowly. This man could make  her very miserable for the foreseeable future. It paid to get on his  good side.

"I apologize, sir. I didn't hear you calling."

Caden grunted and snapped, "Follow."

Caden didn't stop to look behind him, simply assuming she would follow.  Though it rubbed her already raw nerves, Shea didn't disappoint and  trailed behind as he led her back to Fallon's tent and then past it to a  smaller one at the end of the lane.

Shea looked around curiously once inside, noting the sacks of clothing  threatening to overtake the small space. She had never seen so many  shirts and pants in one place.

"Meynard," Caden said loudly.

He took up a position next to the screen divider on the far side of the room where he could watch Shea and the exit.

"Meynard," Caden called loudly. "Get your ass out here, man. I don't have all day."

"Must you yell every time you're here," a voice said crabbily from the  divider. A weathered hand pushed the screen aside, and a white haired  man with sagging jowls and a slightly crooked back stepped into the  room. "You're the most impatient Daisy I've ever met."

Daisy wasn't exactly a term she would assign to the scarily capable Caden.

The old man looked up, his slightly cloudy blue eyes, coming to rest on  Shea. His head tilted and he shuffled forward a few steps.

"This her, then?"

Caden grunted.

"Hm," the old man said.

He stuck his face close to hers and craned his neck like a giant, white  feathered bird. Shea leaned away, disconcerted at the close scrutiny.

"Not very pretty." The old man looked her up and down and then cocked his head. "Kind of scrawny too."

Shea stared back at him with the blankest expression she could muster.  He'd have to do better than that if he wanted to offend her. She'd never  put much stock in her looks. They were always just there. Like the sun  or the sky. Neither helping nor hindering. Her strength, speed and  capability were infinitely more important.

She disagreed, however, with his assessment of scrawny. Scrawny implied  she was just skin and bones. It implied weakness, and Shea wasn't weak.  Her body was lined with trim muscle.