Tor's Betrayal

KINGDOM OF YUTE: TOR’S BETRAYAL An Ellora’s Cave Publication, July 2005 Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc. 1056 Home Ave. Akron, OH 44310 ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199-0307-1 Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned): Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML KINGDOM OF YUTE: TOR’S BETRAYAL Copyright © 2005 MADISON HAYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously. Edited by Pamela Campbell. Cover art by Syneca.

Warning: The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Kingdom of Yute: Tor’s Betrayal has been rated S-ensuous by a minimum of three independent reviewers. Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme). S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination. E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature. X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

KINGDOM OF YUTE: TOR’S BETRAYAL

Madison Hayes

Dedication For wonderful author and best friend, Rhyannon Byrd. Thank you for believing in my muse; this is his story.

Kingdom of Yute: Tor’s Betrayal

Chapter One Spark

“You talk like an effing nob.” My head came up as I held my breath, waiting for the stranger’s reaction to Ayden’s harsh assessment. Apparently unperturbed by my cousin’s blunt accusation, the stranger’s hand slid through the straw-colored hair on his forehead, lifting it out of his eyes, and in that instant our eyes connected. The look he gave me was edged with a hard promise of challenge that fell just short of being a threat. “I’m sorry,” the man returned patronizingly, “I didn’t realize you had to be ignorant to join this outfit.” I barely choked back my snort of astonishment—no one talked like that to Ayden. No one who wanted to live more than a few additional minutes. Ayden glared at the blond seated across the table. “It’s no’ that I’m ignorant, man.” He leaned across the small wooden table, put his face close to the newcomer’s, and switched dialect. “Only, you may understand my reluctance to take into confidence a man who might ultimately prove to be a nobhead spy.” The man’s lips hinted at a smile. But whether it was for my cousin’s improved speech, or whether it was a smug precursor to his next words, was not immediately apparent. “Details like the locations of your hangouts?” He then began to reel off the locations of our three most secure hideouts. Ayden’s eyes narrowed in threat as he glanced around the crowded tavern. “Tor Fucking Andarta,” he hissed. “Which means, if I were a spy, you’d know it by now.” It was enough for me. He had my vote. I was convinced. But then I had been convinced when he’d walked into the dark, smoky tavern, crossed the room and pulled 5

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out a chair at our table. He was that good-looking. Good-looking in a hard, blond way, with a serious, measuring gaze that gripped your eyes and didn’t let go. His wide mouth and hard lips looked like they wouldn’t know what to do with a sense of humor. But I had to guess that they’d have a fair idea of how to drive a woman to the brink of insanity, and I was ready to experiment with this theory any time he might give me the opportunity. He had dropped into the chair, put his elbows on the table and addressed Ayden. “I know who you are,” he’d told Ayden. “I want to join you.” We didn’t have much choice, did we? He joined us. I suppose we watched him closely at first. I know the girls did! Sinda was quite mad about him. She watched Tor as closely as she dared, especially at night, when she’d park her bedding right next to his. But while Sinda was ready to stand up for Tor—or lie down for him, for that matter—the guys withheld their endorsement. Sometimes, when the weather was pleasant, we slept outdoors. You can imagine how often that happened. Not that pleasant weather is unknown to the Yute peninsula, only that it’s rare. As Inverham is located on the southern part of the peninsula, just north of Skythia, the weather is not quite as glowering as is found in the north or on the islands located just off the coast. Sometimes we would split up for the night, but most often we stuck together for the sake of communication. Like I said, we had several hideouts. In a city as large, and discontent, as Inverham, we’d enlisted more than a few sponsors who supported our cause, despite the risk involved in being associated with our sort—rebel streetslag. The nobhead rule had grown increasingly oppressive in our lifetime and more than a few of us chafed under its weight. Although we had what was called a “parliament”, membership in that governing body was limited to those of noble birth and the rules handed down from above seemed solely dedicated to ensuring the nobheads remained in power and remained wealthy. Their large army of nobguards zealously ensured that

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their edicts were carried out. Small bands of dissenters were rooted out and imprisoned to await execution, as required by nobhead law. Not that everyone was put to death, mind you. It was a well-known fact that a prisoner might very well escape if enough money was paid into the right hands. The guard viewed each captive as a potential source of income and when the gold could be raised it was rare that a prisoner couldn’t be bought out. They made an exception in our case, however. Ayden had killed two nobguards in a tavern fight. One of them was somebody’s brother. The nobguard had it in for us—with a vengeance. One of our early hideaways was a tiny stone hut in a merchant’s rear garden. It was a chore to get us all crowded in. We filled the small building though there were only about a dozen of us back then. A dozen rebels to stand against all the power and wealth of the nobheads. A dozen rebels reckless enough to contest an oppressive rule enforced by an overwhelming army of nobguards. A dozen rebels with enough restless energy to believe they could change the world. I’ve heard the fabulous city of Tharran is all honey and gold, where temples and homes alike are fashioned out of huge blocks of sandstone. But the cities of the Yute Peninsula are built out of dark, impenetrable basalt. The little hut was like that, small and close, put together with black stone and, for the most part, cold.

***** I ducked in through the narrow door and pushed it shut behind me. Once inside the close little room, I found myself sucking for a breath. “Mithra, Sinda. You have it hot enough in here?” Jerra giggled as she poked at a raging fire. “Apparently not! Tor is still wearing his jerkin.” Sinda’s eyes were lit with merry fire as her gaze drifted across the room to Tor. I glanced over in Tor’s direction. The room was stifling. In an act of self-preservation, 7

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he’d rucked his sleeves up over his elbows. The veins on his forearms wrapped around his muscles to make a very appealing package. I rolled my eyes. “You’re going about it all wrong.” Sinda lifted an eyebrow in my direction, inviting me to do better. Crossing the room, I positioned myself behind the tall blond. “Mithra, Tor,” I said casually. “What’s that all over your back? Blood?” As the jerkin came over Tor’s head, the two girls squealed in delight. The golden light of fire cast him as a god among men. His straight hair was blunt cut, sweeping just above shoulders as broad and hard as metal. Like liquid gold, the fire’s light poured onto his chest to enhance every curved muscle stacked and chinked on the front of his body. A glint of light drew my eye to the talisman hanging from his neck on a short chain. Shaped like a short, twisting whirlpool, the stubby bit of precious metal was a tribute to the old Northern Gods of War and Passion. It took him a moment to realize he’d been had. He glowered at Sinda and Jerra before he threw his gaze at me. A very reluctant, very miserly smile edged the corner of his mouth at the same time that his eyes flicked a warning at me. I don’t know what it was about Tor Harnesson, but he hit my resonant frequency every time he glanced my way. Everything inside me, everything about me, started humming and whirring in merging synchronization. I don’t think my body was sure what it was asking for, but I think it wanted to merge with Tor Harnesson—frequently. Unfortunately for me, at least from my point of view, those glances didn’t frequent me frequently enough. He’d been with us several months by then. Aloof and distant. The guys—Ayden, Thane and Jet—didn’t trust him. I put it down to the male ego thing. They were like dogs, snarling at each other, maneuvering to establish the order within the pack. Before Tor joined our ranks, it had always been Ayden, Thane and Jet, in that order. After he became one of us, it changed.

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Ayden was my mother’s cousin’s son—a tall stretch of taut impatience with a fire of spiky red hair on his head. With a sharp wit and a lash for a tongue, he could cut a man to pieces with a few words. With a few more words, he’d have you crying with laughter. You never knew what to expect from Ayden. He was like a fire on the hearth, which might warm—but could just as easily burn. Thane was just taller than Ayden, long and lean, not so violent nor so passionate as his best friend was apt to be, although he could be just as funny once Ayden and Jet got him going. But, for the most part, he was more serious than the other two and sometimes lost patience with his friends. Finally, there was Jet. With black hair and eyes, Jet might have been the cleverest of the three, although he’d never admit it. But he was always the quickest wit, the first with the twisted joke, and for that reason he was seldom taken seriously. Although life was desperate at times and we lived it on the run, it never lacked for laughter when in the company of those three. Indeed, there were times when I had to bite my tongue—while hiding—to hold my laughter lest I give us all away as the nobguard tramped within scant feet of us, looking for us. And all the while, Ayden would egg me on, encouraging me to laugh, willing and daring enough to take on any fight that might ensue. But Ayden was wild. There was a restless fire in Ayden, the sort of fire that couldn’t be put out. The kind of fire that’s always looking for a fight, and finds it, and fights it, but is still restless long after the fight is finished and won. Tor was older than the rest of us, stronger, tougher, probably smarter, and—except for Thane—taller. Oh! And better-looking too, though, before he joined us, I’d always had a thing for Thane. With dark hair and blue eyes, Thane was handsome enough, in a lanky, boyish way—but Tor! Tor Harnesson! He was named for the Rhyssian god of thunder, pronounced Thor in the north, but generally Tor on the Yute Peninsula. Mithra and Ishtar Together at Once! 9

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Not that it would do me any good. He rarely cast so much as a glance in my direction. I was certain of that, since I had watched him both openly and surreptitiously. Nope. Nothing. Envying Sinda her plump curves, I put it down to my girlish figure. Although I was small and hadn’t much in the way of breasts or hips, there was no mistaking me for a girl. My face is narrow and heart-shaped, with large eyes, and my lips are small but full. My nose is long. Not large, but long—and it was probably this feature that made me appear older than my actual age. More than once, I ground my teeth when one of the other girls made a play for Tor, but he treated them all with cool indifference. Eventually, I decided he was one for men and ignored him, or at least pretended to. Until the incident at the wall, I don’t believe Tor had ever said a word to me. Although, there was that time in the cellars… There was an innkeeper who supported our cause. Couldn’t afford to support us financially, but his cellar was one of our several secret hangouts. We moved about constantly to evade the nobguards, never staying two nights in one place. I could tell you the name of the inn and you’d smile. The place has become a bit of a landmark in the last ten years. Anyhow, though we had little in the way of extra clothing, we had some bedding, and this was stashed above the innkeeper’s ale barrels, bundled together in a large bale wound with rope. The ceiling was low in the cellar, and only a tiny offering of light sifted down through the slatted wood floor overhead to illuminate the tamped dirt floor. As the rope trailed on the ground I tripped on it, pulling the great mass of bedding down on my head. Or almost down. I stood supporting it with my outstretched arms as it teetered at the barrel edge, helpless to push it back up and unable to let it down without succumbing beneath its weight.

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So I stood there like an idiot, crying for help, certain Thane or Jet would come to my aid eventually, after they’d had their laugh at my expense. Oh, they came to my aid all right. Leaving his game of ivories and sauntering across the cellar at an unhurried pace, Jet nicked his steel under the shoulders of my sleeveless jerkin, sliced upward and my jerkin dropped to my waist in folds. The cheering and whatnot that ensued! You’d think I was Ishtar herself. And I am not, nor ever will be. Believe me, there has never been much to cheer about on the front of my chest. There is about as much topography on my chest as that of lichen on a flat rock. Choking on my own laughter, I was about to crumple beneath the weight of the bedding when I felt a warm chest against my back, and an arm went up beside mine to take the weight bearing down on me. At the same time, a hand slid up from my waist, raising my jerkin to cover my chest—where the hand then lingered, the large palm almost swallowing one of my inconsequential breasts. Due to this familiarity, I assumed my champion must be Thane, and turned around to grin up at him. And instead looked up into the face of Tor Harnesson. I’m sure I quit breathing. And I know for a fact my body went into shock—a shock that jolted through me in a heady rush starting at the nipple under his broad hand, hitting me in the small of the back where my buttocks were warmed by his thighs, and slamming to a stop in the pit of my belly. Immediately, my nipples pinched into hard little kisses as my heart threatened to explode right out of my chest. And I’ll swear he knew it. I felt his fingers stiffen the slightest bit and his rough palm shifted to cup and graze my breast. More than a little stunned, I stared up at him. But Tor wasn’t looking at me. Instead, his gaze cut across the room to stab at Jet with a look of protracted violence.

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Later that evening there was a scuffle at the back of the cellar. Thane stood between Tor and Jet while Jet flung insults at the hardy blond. In the next instant, Thane was pinned against the cold stone wall, Tor’s big hand around his throat. When I asked Thane about it later, he glowered at me. “He’s a prick,” he articulated. And Jet backed him up. “He’s a fucking violent prick.” More male dominance stuff, I surmised. Violent, aye, though he never carried steel as did the rest of us. The guys rode him about it at first, but not for long. “If I need to kill a man,” he told them, one day, “I’ll take his steel and kill him.” His voice was hard and cold and quiet, like steel rasping out-of-sheath. And though his voice was low, I don’t think he ever said anything that everyone didn’t hear…and believe. He wore thick elk-hide gloves that flared out over his wrists and, above the gloves he wrapped his forearms in linen, several layers thick. The guys caught on soon enough that the linen was for protection and they sneered at him, pointing out—braggingly— that they wore nothing to guard their hands or arms. “You will,” was Tor’s cool reply. But Ayden wouldn’t leave it alone and he continued to taunt Tor as he watched him tear the linen into strips. “Why do you no’ wrap something valuable, at least? A man can live without an arm. Me, I’d wrap ma dick.” “A man can survive without a dick,” Tor told him. Ayden laughed. “Aye, a man could live without it, although it might no’ be worth tha living. Nay man! Why do you no’ protect yer chest?” “I am protecting my chest,” he grunted cryptically, without further explanation. It was months before any of us knew what he meant. Even longer before I heard the story of how he’d used his arms to take the sword blows meant for his body—and then had gone on to kill the men that day in the stable. Although I was there, I don’t

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remember a thing from that day. I don’t even remember entering the stable or why I’d gone there. But, by then, Tor was reaching down to throw a very slim, very short length of linen at Ayden. “Here, wrap something valuable.” We all laughed. Even Ayden laughed as he pulled out his cock, tied a neat little bow around the bald head, and tucked it away again. I laughed ‘til I cried.

***** But to return to the wall. We were a small company of six out recruiting. It was dusk when we were spotted by a unit of nobguards. Immediately we split up, but there were so many guards—there were always so many guards. Before we knew it, five of us were trapped together, with the highwall behind us. The highwall stood a good eight feet tall and was thick enough at the top for a man to easily stand on. Built out of huge stone blocks seamlessly locked together, the wall ran for miles, enclosing the fine homes and fine world of the nobheads within. The huge blocks of dark stone had been put together long before our time and we couldn’t begin to guess how that feat might have been accomplished. We only knew that the wall was meant to keep riffraff like us out of the nobhead world. With our backs to the wall, and facing dismal odds, we pulled our steel. There was always a chance in fighting and, even if there wasn’t, death was always preferable to capture, at least in our case. We’d all broken enough nob laws to be put to death several times over, and we were certain the nobguard would make it feel that way, should they ever get their hands on us. And there we were, backs to the wall. When, out of nowhere, Tor came clattering toward us, mounted on a horse. Riding a horse!

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If you are from the south, you may not understand the significance of this fact. Because, at that time—on the Yute Peninsula—only nobheads were permitted to own, ride, or even touch a horse. It was probably the most aggravating of all their insufferable rules and discriminations, and punishable by death! No big deal—as I said before, we were all in for it anyway. What was remarkable was the fact that Tor could ride! None of us had ever been on a horse’s back, and wouldn’t know what to do if we were—yet there was Tor Harnesson careering toward us, but obviously in control of the tall, leggy creature. He pulled up right in front of us and leapt for the rim of the wall, vaulting to crouch at its top. Reaching down, he pulled Thane up beside him as the nobguards were closing on us. Thank Ishtar, they carried no bows! As I stretched for Thane’s arm, I was surprised when Tor’s big hand reached me first, closing around my wrist as he snatched me from the ground. My foot touched the top of the wall for an instant before he pushed me over the other side—the nobhead side. “Run!” he commanded. I rolled as I hit the ground and came up on my feet running—running through a perfectly groomed garden that had to have been tortured in order to produce such unnatural results. On my left was a lighted mansion, and I kept close to the highwall, dodging the hedges and benches, almost dying when a man loomed suddenly before me. In the same heart-stopping moment, I realized that the entirely naked man was very white and very marble…and very virile, I noted as I whipped past. Pounding footsteps followed, but I assumed it was one of my companions and continued without looking back. Then I was in a maze of streets. Screeching to a halt at the end of an empty lane, I realized that the road it emptied onto was populated with clusters of finely dressed nobheads. Only I was a bit late in this observation—as I had drawn the attention of the people in the street. They stared at me. In my worn clothing I must have looked like a mistake. An ugly blot in their perfectly planned, carefully preserved world. But before I had a chance to backpedal 14

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out of there, I was grabbed from behind and propelled down a narrow chasm between tall palatial homes. Several twists and turns later, I was smashed up against hard stone inside the shadowed recess of an unexplained notch in the wall, the purpose of which may have been to house a small god at one time. And there we stood, crushed together and sucking air—Tor Harnesson and I. I couldn’t have chosen a better way to die, I thought, though some air would have been nice. But there wasn’t much to be had with Tor’s hard chest and hard body crammed against mine. Waiting for his breathing to return to normal, I grew concerned when his chest was still heaving long after I’d gotten back to baseline breathing. Well, relatively baseline. I was still feeling a bit breathless, but that had more to do with Tor’s warm proximity than the dash we’d just made. Because of our difference in height, his chin rested on the top of my head. I felt a few hairs on my head lift and realized they must be…stuck to his lips…or something. He said something in Rhyssian, a low, deep rumble. Then he eased away, gave me a fraction of an inch—just a fraction—and bent his mouth to my ear. “Thor’s Slagbit, I love you,” he said. Those were his first words to me. It was—unequivocally—the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life. I mean! The Tor Harnesson. In love with me! I didn’t even care if it was true or not. It was enough that he had said it. It would carry me for the rest of my life. And, as well as being romantic, he was also practical, as he used that fraction of an inch to press his knee between my legs. And I knew what that meant. Or at least I hoped I knew. His hand slid behind my neck and I felt each one of his hard, blunt fingers as he gripped the back of my skull. I looked up at his face, but got no further than his lips. They were hard and curved, parted with serious intent.

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I held my breath, waiting for him to kiss me. His other hand came up and the rough pad of his thumb tugged down on my chin but I had no idea what he was about. He must have been aggravated when my mouth remained closed. Frowning, his eyes cut to mine for an instant as though reassessing me and then, with his thumb on my bottom lip, he parted my lips and skipped his thumb along the wet surface of my bottom lip. The hand clutching my skull tilted my head back and—finally—he opened his mouth onto mine. The kiss was hard and soft at the same time, a meaningful brushing of the bottom lip, a clinging withdrawal followed by consuming heat and pressure. A consuming heat directly at odds with everything I’d observed about this cool, indifferent man. The hard length of his body that I’d never so much as brushed in passing, was now smashed against mine, flattening me against the wall, touching and heating the skin beneath my clothing at every point of contact. His thick, iron thigh was wedged between my legs and pressed against the cushion of my mound, and I was more aware of that hard, masculine leg and its insinuating position than anything else. His lips broke suddenly from mine as his chest crushed my hammering heart. His breath rushed against my mouth in a wash of heat and I felt every separate cell inside my recently crushed lips expand and explode in tiny, tingling bursts, my mouth aching to be crushed again. The hard hand on my skull angled my head sideways and back, and he returned his lips to twist against mine with a stark, new passion that eclipsed the earlier portion of his kiss. Hunger and fear have always evoked my ardor. That is to say—hunger and fear make me horny—and I must have been both that night. My breasts tingled as though fireworks smoldered at their tips. My legs—if they were there at all—had no strength, and my whole being seemed centered around a hollow place just beneath my belly. A place that cried to be filled. Tor’s hard, male touch precipitated a waterfall of response that started at my breast tips, poured across my belly, heating my loins as it washed into that empty slot that longed for Tor Harnesson.

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He broke away again, his breathing hard and rough, his open mouth smearing into the skin at the corner of my lips. Automatically, my lips followed his, trying to reunite with his mouth, but he pulled back. “I want more than this,” he said harshly. I nodded without thinking. With his body pressed against mine, I felt his erection surge against my belly as his mouth returned to mine with eager male violence. I wasn’t expecting his tongue. It embarrasses me now to think how naïve I must have seemed. The tongue was a stunner as he forced it between my lips and came up hard against my clenched teeth. He pulled away again. “Open up,” he growled. As his tongue breached my mouth, a grating sound of masculine satisfaction rumbled from his chest. Without disconnecting the kiss, he pulled away enough to slip his hand between our bodies—to loosen his ties. I thought I would melt. Honest to Mithra, I thought I would melt into a puddle at his feet. His light touch as he fumbled with his ties—the thought alone, of what would follow—warmed that empty void inside me—warmed it to melting. His other hand still clamped my skull, possessively, and his lips continued to manipulate mine to the point of distraction. As he reached for the hem of my kilt, his fingers flicked my thigh and I shivered with anticipation as well as fear. I wasn’t completely ignorant. I had heard enough from the other girls to be afraid it would hurt the first time—not that I feared the pain, only that I was afraid I’d cry, or whimper, or do something equally gauche and put him right off. I felt his warm, moist tip drag along the inside of my leg as he worked his way into the opening of the loose silk shorts I wore beneath my kilt. Then he nudged into my slot, looking for my entrance. Suddenly, he was lifting me and opening my legs to spread for his hips. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. His hand pulled the tip of his cock the length of my slot several times before settling into the notch, and easing into me. The slow penetration of his cock head was strange and foreign, but my body welcomed his invasion with open gates and a rush of liquid heat—for the first inch or so. At that point, my narrow channel started to choke on him and my uncooperative 17

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body had second thoughts about invasion in general and Tor’s thick, pressing intrusion in particular. Despite my body’s obvious reluctance, I was still game. As a token of my goodwill, I stifled a complaint that fought its way up my throat before it could surface into sound. “What’s that?” he said with alarm and pulled back to stare at me. I stared back. Tor’s Witch, he was a fabulous man, and I was determined to have him. Biting my bottom lip, I ground back a whimper of discomfort. He shook his head and groaned. “No. Spark. No. Tell me you’re not a virgin.” “I’m not,” I gasped, eager to cooperate. He frowned at me with a strained expression. “This can’t be your first time,” he insisted as he stared at my face. “No. Never mind.” He almost dropped me in his rush to get out of me. The void beneath my belly gave a lurch of distress. “Please, Tor.” When he shook his head, I had the feeling it was for himself as much as me. “Not tonight,” he grunted, as he pulled his ties closed and I witnessed my shot at paradise disappearing behind his drawstrings. The head of his cock crested the top of his doeskins and he hitched at the top of the leggings in an attempt to cover himself. Sliding his thumb down one side of his shaft, he angled his cock downward and toward his hip. He looked uncomfortable, and I wondered if he felt as uncomfortable as I— burning up from the inside out with an unnamed need and an aching emptiness. “Not your first time. Not up against a wall in a dark alley. Not with a—not tonight.” I’d seen a man’s cock before—Jet and Ayden’s, anyhow. Some of the others as well. I didn’t make a habit of looking for it, but we were thrown together all the time. I’d never seen anything like that before. I’d seen a man stiff in the morning but I’d never seen a man hard and full and dark and wanting a woman. And if size was any indication of need, Tor needed a woman badly. The idea that he both wanted and needed me, encouraged me to argue.

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“But Tor,” I’m sure I was breathless, “I’m not likely to get a better offer…and…and…I could be dead tomorrow. I could be dead before we get another opportunity to—” “You’ll be alive tomorrow, and you’ll be a virgin,” he said, going all fatherly on me. “Is it only that I’m a virgin?” I asked. “Because, if it is, I can have Thane take care of that tomorrow and we can start again—” Aye, in retrospect it sounded dumb, but at the time I was desperate. “You wouldn’t,” he growled. “I would,” I told him, and I think I meant it. “If it meant I could have you in the end. Only I’d rather have you in the beginning.” The look he gave me next had me wanting those words back. If looks could burn, his scorching gaze would have fused metal. “I’ll have you in the beginning,” he both warned and promised, his face dark and threatening. “And in the end.” Then his lips curled with evil mischief. “And in the front, as well, eventually. Shall I go on?” he queried. Breathlessly, I nodded, my eyes fixed on his and I heard a groan rumble from deep within his chest, as he carefully pulled me toward him again. As he rested his forehead on the top of my head and leaned into me, I could feel his rigid length against my stomach—hard evidence of his arousal—and my own body responded with an agonized whimper of female craving that, as yet, I didn’t quite understand. But I was sure I’d start to figure it out once I got Tor inside me. “Mithra,” he complained, “I’d never have guessed that you hadn’t had a man. Why do you have to be…like this?” Well. He might have told me I was beautiful and I would have preferred it. But it was better than nothing, and besides, I figured I’d already done well by him. He’d already told me he loved me. I raised my lips to his in gratitude and everything started all over again, as I very nearly lost my virginity for the second time that night.

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Chapter Two Tor

I figured the girl was my in, my key to acceptance among the little gang of rebels. They had no particular leader, but Thane, Jet and Ayden especially seemed to dominate the group. There were about twelve of them and at first it seemed they would never accept me. And I was looking for total acceptance. But Spark was the fourth member of that circle and—fortunately for me—didn’t appear to belong to any of them. I knew she was related to Ayden in some way, second cousins, I believe. But she was always hanging with them, always joking with them. They were—all three of them—mad idiots, and they kept the girl laughing, which was something I couldn’t do. Finding myself inside the walls with her, I dragged her between two buildings and pushed her along, knowing there was a place up ahead where we’d stop. A place we’d be alone. I’d used it before…without interruption. I slammed her up against the wall and pinned her against the stone. She felt good beneath me. She was small. I liked that, liked the feel of her small body crushed beneath mine. It had been a while since I’d had a woman and, immediately, my cock struggled between our bodies to assert itself. I’d been a long time waiting for this. And it hadn’t been easy, waiting. Especially with Sinda, and the other girls for that matter, constantly coming on to me. Sinda was especially troublesome, always up against me, it seemed. I might have given in to her under other circumstances. She was round and warm and not without appeal. And I’d seen what she could do.

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I’d walked in on her, once, when she was servicing both Jet and Ayden. She was on her hands and knees between them, while they were on their knees on either end of her. Jet’s cock was in her mouth and Ayden’s groin was sealed against her ass—Ayden apparently getting the better end of the bargain. I don’t think they saw me. They were all pretty into it. Sinda’s long black hair hung in thick, knotted strands to hide most of her face while Jet’s eyes were on Ayden, on the damp ginger hair that curled at the top of his crotch. At the same time, Ayden’s eyes were on the root of his own cock. The girl’s legs were spread as Ayden clutched her rounded ass, pulling her cheeks apart so he could watch his own thick entry, stretching her wide as he crammed himself into her. As she rocked back to meet Ayden’s penetration, Jet’s cock slid almost out of her mouth. Leaning forward, Jet grasped her chin with one hand and his root with the other, as he struggled to keep his cock between her lips. Then her heavy breasts were swinging slowly and she was rocking on both men. Ayden grunted a curse and his eyes closed as he approached arrival. Watching his friend with glassy-eyed fascination, Jet picked up the pace of his own action as he held Sinda’s chin and thrust his hips at her face. I backed out of there as smoothly as I could. I felt bad bursting in on them. There was little enough opportunity to tend to even the most basic needs—things like this— and never any time for privacy. Seeing the two guys with their dicks out, wet and flushed with success, reminded me how long it had been since I’d had the basics. She ambushed me once in the tiny stone house. Sinda. The others had gone on ahead. I was wrapping my arms and was a bit slow getting out. Somehow, she managed to get entirely naked before I realized what she was about. My mind was on…other things. Normally, I would respond to round, warm breasts shoved in my face and I won’t say I was completely repulsed. I was probably hard before I got her back into her clothes and got myself out of there. The problem was—I wasn’t hard for her. I

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wanted a woman, all right, and if the right woman had been standing outside the door, she would have been in for a hard time. Spark. She was a provoking little creature and a temptress of the first order, although I’m not certain she realized it. Her eyes were always on me, pulling me, her gaze huge and seductive, the small kiss of her mouth pouting and sultry. She had a way of pushing her fingers through the wild tangle of her hair, dragging it away from her face as she gave me a look heavy with bold interest. Every long, lingering, knowing gaze she sent my way was an open invitation. Her hair was every color of gold you can imagine, running the gamut from dark and rich to flashing and bright and it was in a constant state of disarray, spilling over her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes were a heart-stopping shade of blue. But it was her mouth that drove me crazy, pulled up in a seductive little bow that begged to be ravaged in every way imaginable. It was all I could do to keep my eyes off her. It was all I could do to keep my hands off her. Ayden caught me staring once. We were in the hut. She’d leaned over to feed the fire and I watched her lissome body bent almost in half, my eyes fixed on the curves of her bottom scant feet away from where I sat. Mentally, I placed myself behind her, grinding my hips against the small cushion of her ass. Her actions might have been innocent but I doubt it. Placing herself in such a provoking position, how could a woman not know the effect her actions would have on a man? Ayden warned me off with a glare and I deflected it with a shrug and a grin as I dragged my eyes from her bottom. I didn’t see how he could fault me for staring. I was a man, after all. At any rate, I had her up against the wall. I’d waited a long time for this fuck and I wanted it badly. I told the girl I loved her. I figured I’d turn my high number first. It worked in ivories and I figured it would work with her. She seemed willing, if inexperienced, and 22

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I soon had her panting for me, pushing her warm little tits into my chest. Getting my hands under her kilt, I lifted her and spread her legs, knowing she would be small inside—tight—hoping she would be able to take me. All of me. I slipped my cock inside her shorts. She was damp at the hood of my dick and I breathed a sigh of relief then forged on ahead until I came up against a barrier. Mithra Fucking Ishtar on Her Knees! She was a virgin! The little slagbit was a fucking virgin! Success, acceptance, and more importantly—at the time—release and satisfaction were mere inches away as I hesitated, the tip of my cock buried just inside her warm, wet lips. At the same time, she trembled against me like a new little mare, excited and ready, waiting to be mounted. One thrust was all it would take—one thrust of my hips. It was as hard as shifting a pyramid, as hard as admitting you are wrong—but I pulled out of her and slid her body slowly down mine. The damp, smooth silk of her shorts licked my length as I returned her to her feet. Apparently hot for me and obviously disappointed, the girl argued with me. I don’t think she realized how close I was to banging her up against the wall, pulling her legs open and fucking her four inches into the stone. Somehow she got her lips on mine again and the next thing I knew her shorts were bunched in my fist as I prepared to wrench them from her body and drive up into her. By that time, I was damp behind my ties, my cock head streaming, desperate to get on her. How I pulled away from her at that point, I’ll never know. I had never been so hot for a woman before in my life—to the point where I thought I might flash inside my leggings if she so much as lowered her eyes to my crotch. To the point where I was nearly oblivious to her needs and so wrapped up in my own that I was contemplating something very close to rape. But a woman—any woman—deserves to be done right her first time. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself as I pulled away from her and held her at arm’s length. 23

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It would have to wait, I told myself and listened to my own groan originating from deep within. “Stop it, Spark,” I growled at her. “Stop it now, you little minx.” I probably got a little impatient with her in the end but, if I was a little abrupt with her, I had cause to be. I knew my balls would soon be cramping with disappointment. Taking her hand, I led her through the dark alleys to a yard where a low garden shed was built up against the wall. After lifting her to the shed roof, I followed her. Soon, we were over the wall and back to what she considered the real world. Making our way back to the cellar, I pushed her through the door, then turned and stumbled down the block where I found a dark corner behind a building. With my back against the wall and my chin on my chest, I pulled out my cock, cased the taut flesh in my fist and pumped myself out.

***** Spark

“Where’d you learn ta ride?” Ayden asked him after he returned to the cellar. Everyone turned to look at Tor. He gave Ayden a cool look. “It’s not exactly alchemy. I’ve watched the nobheads ride, seen how they direct their horses with the reins.” Ayden didn’t look convinced. But several of the guys nodded, wanting to think they could ride a horse too, if they had to. Wanting to be like Tor Harnesson. And after the incident at the wall, the guys started listening to Tor. He argued that our cause would never draw much support while we were forced to steal from city merchants in order to survive. From now on we would steal from the nobs. “Too dangerous,” Ayden said with a reined voice. “It’s too dangerous for us inside tha walls.” “I know at least one place nobheads visit outside their walls,” Tor countered. “Nob men, anyway.”

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Ayden glared at him, knowing the part of town he was suggesting and guessing at the rest of it—the candlelight district, where a man could buy slagbit and a rougher ride than he’d find within the walls. Tor tore open a package and threw a handful of red silk on a stool. Every girl gasped and made a grab for it. At the same time, Ayden put his arm in front of me to hold me back. “Not Spark,” he started, “she’s too—” I kicked his shin. “Little,” he squeaked. “Little.” He turned to me. “I was going ta say little.” Ignoring both of us, Tor tore open a second package and pulled out a long length of black velvet. He put it in my hands. It was gloriously soft and lush and for several moments I stood stroking the fine stuff before I came to with a start. Dodging behind a row of barrels, I wriggled into the black dress that was just shy of being too tight and pushed my fingers through my hair. Jerra had the red silk on and everyone was making a great fuss over her as I stepped out from behind the barrels. The room was suddenly quiet as everyone stared at the black velvet dress. Frowning at the silent reception, I checked the dress with my eyes, wondering what I’d left out, then poked a finger at Jerra and told her she looked fabulous. She bobbed her auburn head and smiled shyly back at me, her green eyes wide and pleased. “So, what do you think?” I finally asked Ayden, shoulders raised in a shrug, hands out, palms turned upward. Ayden nodded slowly as he stared at the dress. “I think that ought ta work, Spark. What do you think, Harnesson?” There was a taunting edge of challenge in Ayden’s voice.

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Of all those present in the cellar, Tor alone watched my face. His eyebrows were drawn together in revelation, as though he’d just hit on some disastrous realization and it had taken him a bit unawares. “Harnesson!” Abruptly, Tor shook his head, then answered Ayden. “That will definitely work, Spark.” He frowned and smiled at the same time and I shot him a huge smile of appreciation, then watched his smile flatten and unravel as he cut a troubled look at the other men in the cellar.

***** They’d send us into taverns to lure out rich, old nobs. Our guys would roll them after we’d led the men outside. A little bit of nob money went a long way in our world. And gloves were the first thing Tor bought with the money. Thick elk-hide gloves like his own. And made everyone wear them. It wasn’t long before the guys were wrapping their forearms as well. Eventually we came to be recognized by our gloves. Our cause. We came to be known as The Glove. It’s a point of irony that has caused me no end of chagrin in my lifetime—the fact that our rebel cause was named for Tor Harnesson’s gloves.

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Chapter Three Spark

“I’m going with you,” Ayden announced curtly. “You are not!” Dressed up and made up, I placed myself between Tor and Ayden. I was set on spending the evening alone with Tor. Even though we’d be “working”, I saw the planned trip across town as my chance for more. More of Tor Harnesson. It would be almost like a date! He’d taken to rolling his mat out beside mine every night, which had gotten me nothing more than several sleepless nights. And I longed for more. “I don’t need that much protection,” I told Ayden. “One man was good enough last time.” “One man were good enough when it were me,” Ayden growled. He glowered at me—it was easier than glowering at Tor. “If anything happens,” he threatened, “I’ll kill him, Spark.” And I’m sure he would have. Or at least tried to. Ayden was telling me to be careful, telling me he didn’t trust the man at my back. And, in his own way, telling me he loved me. I shot him a reassuring smile as I slipped out the door with Tor.

***** I didn’t have much choice about the two men who followed me out of the inn. I’d only poked my head in for a quick look and left almost immediately when I found the place nearly empty. But there was a great lump of a fellow standing next to the door and he squeezed out the door behind me. His friend followed. Hoping to lose the men in the dark, wet night, I hurried away and made a left into the first alley. It had rained on our way across the city and I had thought it fine at the time to have a reason to snuggle inside the shelter of Tor’s thick wool cape. But now my

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feet skidded on slick, black pavers as I hurried on. Both men were too young and too strong to be easily rolled, and one of them was just too damn big. I wouldn’t have chosen to mark either of them, let alone two of them at once, even if Ayden had been with us. But my hope to evade the men without involving Tor died as I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and the big guy’s words. “How much?” he demanded. His companion—the handsome one with the black hair and dark eyes—followed us into the alley where I heard him laugh. “Tor’s Slagbit,” he uttered with delight, then pulled at his friend. “Hold up, Hugo.” His eyes scanned both ends of the alley. “Where is he?” He directed this question at me. His large friend still gripped my arm tightly. “Who?” I asked, with what I hoped was wide-eyed innocence. “Your boyfriend.” “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, feigning more innocence, but beginning to feel uneasy. Hugo clutched my breast in a meaty fist and crushed me against the wall. My gaze ducked into the dark end of the empty alley. He jerked on Hugo’s shoulder. “Where’s your boyfriend?” he repeated. “You know, the big guy who’s supposed to intervene about now, rescue you, and relieve us of our pouches.” As his dark, unyielding eyes bore into mine, my heart pounded into Hugo’s big, sweaty palm and I watched his lips curl in a smile of contempt—a smile I would one day learn to resent. Again, my eyes shot to my left, into the blackened alley. The contemptuous smile turned into a laugh. “Perhaps a scream would be welladvised at this point,” he suggested. Firmly, I pressed my lips together and glowered at him as he laughed again.

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His hand was still on his friend’s shoulder, only just restraining the man. “Perhaps I should let Hugo, here, take you,” he intimated ominously and, with this encouragement, Hugo attached his lips to mine like a leach. His thin, lank hair, the color of cheap candles, scraped against my face and for some reason the dank touch of his yellow hair filled me with revulsion. As his thick, slippery lips slid against mine, I fought for repossession, wondering where Tor was. “My price is three gold,” I declared boldly, as I broke free from Hugo’s mouth, hoping to put them off with this staggering price. The dark one tsked as he raked my body with his eyes. “A bargain by any standard,” he murmured. “But who will require us to pay?” Again, he looked down the alley. I stuck my chin out. “I assumed you were gentlemen,” I declared. “And so we are, most of the time. But no man is a gentleman when he’s fucking slagbit up against a wall in a dark alley.” In response to these words, Hugo pulled my skirt up to my hips and reached for his ties. I didn’t exactly scream, but I imagine I squeaked a little at the prospect of Hugo fucking slagbit—the slagbit being myself. I gulped in air, squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for deliverance. I prayed for Tor—at this point long overdue. “Put it away, Hugo.” Cautiously, I peeked out through the screen of my eyelashes as Hugo turned on his friend, disbelief and disappointment pulling his mouth downward. The dark one shrugged. “It won’t be any fun if she doesn’t scream.” “I could make her scream, Whit,” he said with casual brutality. Whit laughed. “I’ve no doubt you could, old friend. And,” he muttered, “I’ve no doubt it would be your last act. Put it away,” he repeated. “I’ll buy you another girl. A fancy girl in a big, warm bed.”

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Hugo groaned, obviously torn between cold slagbit in a dark alley and hot fancy in a warm bed. Fortunately for me, warm and fancy won out. Hugo released me and rumbled toward the mouth of the alley. “How much do we owe you?” Whit asked brusquely. Staring at the gleaming pattern of wet stones on the cobbled ground, I mumbled something as I edged away from him. He opened his purse and shook several coins into his palm. Hands at my sides, I watched the gold in his palm. Lifting one of my hands, he closed my fist around the coins. “I’m sorry your boyfriend didn’t show,” he said, and backed toward the mouth of the alley. As he disappeared at the building’s edge, I slumped against the dark stone, relief making me weak for the moment. Something brushed my shoulder and I jumped. Tor stood beside me. “Are you all right?” “Where were you?” I almost shrieked. He shrugged. “I wanted to see what you could do on your own. I was ready to intervene if necessary.” I shoved past him. “I did well,” I said tightly. “Made three,” I looked into my palm, “four gold, spreading my legs for nobs…in case you’re interested. Perhaps you didn’t hear my screams of pleasure.” His hand wrapped around my wrist in an iron grip and he snapped me back toward him, against his chest. “Don’t dick with me, Spark,” he grated in a voice like steel. He lowered his lips to mine but I pulled my face away from him. “Ayden would kill you if he found out. If he knew you weren’t there for me.” “Is he going to find out?” He held me tightly against him. “Are you going to let Ayden kill me, Spark?”

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Grinding my teeth, I glowered at his chest. “No,” I answered. “But I’m not going out with you alone again. Next time there’ll be two men with me. And one of them will be someone I trust.” He thrust me away from him.

***** Tor

I pushed her away. She’d never been in any danger! Whit wouldn’t hurt a spider. Hugo would, but Whit wouldn’t have let him. Whit knew why I was there and exactly what she meant to me. To say I loved Whit like a brother wouldn’t be fair since I couldn’t stand my brother. But Whit was the brother I would have liked to have had. I trusted him without reserve. Despite Whit’s taunting, Spark wasn’t in any danger when he threatened to let Hugo take her. And I couldn’t let Hugo see me. Hugo was as dumb as a pile of rocks. She didn’t know that. But I was angry that she hadn’t more faith in me. She should have known I’d have been there in an instant if there were any real threat. She remained cold and silent all the way back to the cellar, where she smacked the coins into Ayden’s palm and stalked across the shadowed room. Ayden looked at the gold in his hand then at me, knowing something was wrong and looking as though he’d like to kill me, good reason or otherwise. After Jerra ladled out two bowls of soup, I took mine to stand beside a very angry Spark. The cellar was long and low and dark, crowded with the innkeeper’s casks and barrels. Light filtered down through the floorboards above along with the tavern’s harsh noise, chairs scraping and loud, rough conversation. Our own words were softened and damped by the thick stone walls that enclosed us as well as the hard earth floor beneath our feet.

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Thinking a little conversation might normalize the tension that stretched across the cellar, I thanked Jerra and told her the soup was good. Then I asked Spark why she never cooked. I saw her eyes connect with Ayden’s while her lips ticked up at the corners. “You wouldn’t want to eat Spark’s cooking,” Ayden delivered eventually. “And why is that?” I asked him. He snorted. “She burns everything.” Tilting my head, I frowned at him as I addressed my next question to Spark. “You can’t cook, then?” “I can cook,” she told me, without looking at me. “I’ve a few good recipes from my grandmother.” Ayden started into snorting laughter and I watched both Jet and Thane grin, feeling I was missing something. “They’re good recipes,” she added, with a smile for her companions that didn’t include me. “Just a bit hot, is all.” At this, her three friends dissolved into laughter and, although I didn’t appreciate being left out of whatever joke they were sharing, I smiled into my bowl. At least the laughter had worked to loosen the tension in the room, and softened the edge of her anger. Glancing around the room, I noted puzzled expressions on several faces, revealing that I wasn’t the only one in the dark about Spark’s cooking.

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Chapter Four Spark

Burro was Tor’s pet project. He’d found the small, skinny boy underneath a heap of scrapping youngsters. Wading into the fight, Tor kept pulling boys off the pile of humanity until he got to the bottom of the matter. And there, he found Burro at the root of the problem. He was too young, really, to join us. Thane and Jet argued against his induction. But Ayden took pity on the homeless little street lad who apparently couldn’t speak. He couldn’t eat much, Ayden pointed out, and it wasn’t as though he could tell anyone any of our secrets. It was just as well he felt that way, because Tor meant to keep him. We called him Burro because he was small and because, while he couldn’t talk, when he was amused he let go with a loud braying cough. Though he couldn’t have been more than nine, a white streak sprang from his right temple and slashed into his straight black hair like a flash of lightning. Perhaps it was malnutrition that had caused the peculiar aberration but I’d never before seen hair like his. I’d heard that Slurians were known to have a white streak in their hair but the race was extinct, or thought to be extinct. The ancient Slurians were able to sense others’ emotions and as time rolled on I began to wonder about Tor’s young protégé. The Slurians were a race of mutes. In addition to his unusual hair, stunningly blue eyes dominated a pinched little face that rarely smiled. The lad appeared to carry a world of weight on his narrow shoulders. Between the two of them—Tor and Burro—they devised their own hand signing to communicate. I don’t know why Tor did it. Most like, he was bored and had to be doing

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something. I don’t know why he didn’t teach Burro standard signing but it may have been so they could communicate privately, so the nobguards wouldn’t be able to listen in on their conversations. I—my name—was a tight fist that burst out into five splayed fingers. Tor’s name was an upraised, clenched fist. And that, too—that upraised fist—came to be known as the sign of The Glove and the cause for which we fought. And, later on, more grist for the mill of my frustration.

***** It wasn’t long after Burro joined us that we had our first big recruitment success. Our meeting with the Night Strikers, a large eastside street gang, was, potentially, a big step for us. Although they referred to themselves as rebels, they weren’t much better than common thieves, and weren’t much worse than us. Danny, their leader, had been recently captured. His younger brother struggled to hold onto leadership but he hadn’t the brains or the charisma of Danny. When the Strikers asked to meet with us, Ayden thought they might ask to join us, as we’d gained a lot of legitimacy in the last several months. I’d forgotten about Yar, one of the Strikers. I’d known he was interested in me. He’d let me know in various ways, none of which were appreciated. I probably winced when he came in through the door, his eyes scanning to find me as he cut across the room in my direction. Tor must have caught my expression because he was suddenly beside me. His arm slipped behind me and his hand gripped my waist firmly. Yar stopped before me in an abrupt halt, looked at the hand on my waist, then at the man who was attached to it. “Shit, Spark. Who’s this—yer father?” he asked, casting aspersions at Tor’s age. I felt Tor’s hand slide up my rib cage and settle, fingers spread, over my left breast. “Guess again,” he told Yar without smiling. For a few heartbeats Yar held his gaze, as men will do when they don’t want to appear weak. Quietly, Tor stared back and allowed the man his measure of dignity. 34

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And when Yar finally turned away, I took in a breath that filled out Tor’s wide palm. After Yar took a seat, Ayden started the meeting. Ayden wasn’t surprised they came without Chanes, Danny’s brother, but he was definitely taken aback when the Night Strikers suggested we join their crumbling unit. There was a long silence and nobody seemed to know what to do with it. In the middle of the awkward pause, Tor moved forward and left me standing against the wall. “You lost one of your men recently,” he stated. Several of them looked at the ground while two answered at once. “Danny.” “Your captain,” he said, honoring their leader. “Is he still alive?” Several of them nodded. “Do you know where he is and how much it would cost to buy him out?” A dozen young men stared at him gape-mouthed. Yar snorted. “More than what we could ever hope to scrape up.” Tor and Ayden exchanged looks. “Nine gold,” Ayden told him bravely, as though that wasn’t the whole of what we’d saved in the last several months. “Bring Chanes with you tomorrow,” Tor told them. “He can negotiate his brother’s release. In return, the Strikers will come under my command. Danny will be my captain.” That said, the meeting began to break up. A few of the Strikers shuffled out while several hung around to talk with Ayden or flirt with our girls. I noted several pairs of eyes follow Tor with curiosity. In one shrewd act of generosity, he’d rescued the Night Strikers from dissolution and reinstated their leader as well as elevated Danny’s failing brother. The two brothers as well as the Strikers now owed him a firm allegiance which wouldn’t soon be forgotten. I was leaning against a wall in a shadowed corner when Tor made his way over to me. With his hand on my waist, he leaned over to run his lips across my temple and nuzzle into my ear.

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Thinking he was only there to put Yar off, I pushed him away with a laugh. “I don’t dislike all of the Strikers,” I pointed out, and pretended to fix my interest on one of the men at his back. “In fact, there’s one or two I’m quite interested in.” He closed on me again, leaving me no option but to stare either at his chest or up at his face. I chose his face—and observed that his expression completely lacked humor. “Well, don’t get your hopes up, Spark,” he said. “Because after this, none of them will be showing an interest in you.” With those words, he pulled a long, slow kiss out of my mouth that ended abruptly. A little too abruptly for my taste. Then, with a mean little smile, he pushed away from me and stepped off to do parting words. Remaining in the shadows, I watched him. I was probably smiling, but it must have been a frustrated smile. It was the first he’d kissed me since that time we were inside the walls, and I was glad to have it. Only I thought it a bit unfair. That he would stake his claim on me every night when he rolled his bedding out beside mine. That he would claim me there in the cellar, with a kiss, in front of all the new young men, denying me the chance at anyone else—while at the same time withholding his own favors. I watched him as he stood, arms folded across his chest, exchanging words with one of the Strikers. Warm, flickering firelight glowed on his thick forearms, glinting on the swelling muscles of his upper arms and all I could think about were those arms folding me into his body. My gaze drifted upward, to his face, and I found his eyes lit with a fierce fire as they slanted across the room to meet mine.

***** Tor was a natural leader. Quiet, confident, decisive. And canny. It wasn’t only that he made fast decisions, he made the right decisions quickly. He had a way of cutting through the noisy crap of argument and leading the discussion forward to focus on the real issue-at-hand. There were more of us now that the Strikers had joined us and more potential for argument. But Tor didn’t always have to be right. He let other men be right too and somehow it seemed like a gift, to have Tor acknowledge the value of your

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input. Because of that fact, it was easy to agree with him, and he generally got what he wanted out of any argument. Like the next meeting. It was risky, venturing into that part of the city, to meet with a rebel sympathizer—supposed rebel sympathizer. It would have to be a small group, Tor insisted, just Ayden, Jet, Tor and myself. The nob with whom we were meeting couldn’t risk being linked to streetslag rebels like us. But Tor was convinced, and convincing—this was the way to go. According to him, the man we were meeting was willing to represent us and present our complaints to the House of Rules. And wasn’t that what we wanted? It would be a lengthy process, Tor admitted, but you had to start at the beginning in order to arrive at the end. Ayden didn’t think so. He thought we should start at the end. Get rid of all the nobheads and all the rules. But I took up for Tor. As a woman I suppose I favored a peaceful solution, one that would minimize bloodshed. I certainly didn’t fancy murder. I imagine it would be hard to kill a child, nobhead or otherwise. To be honest, we didn’t hate the nobheads so much as the nobguards. I didn’t mind the idea of carving up the guard, but after that there’d be the nobility to deal with. I thought they should be given an opportunity to be…noble. “Yer an optimist, Spark,” Ayden told me. “That’s no’ a bad thing. You always think tha best of everyone. But. Tha problem with an optimist is—he doesn’t know when ta bail. An optimist will stay with a sinking ship, certain that things will work out—while everyone else is pushing off in lifeboats. But things don’t always work out, Spark. Be ready ta bail when tha time comes.” I nodded, thinking about the night’s meeting ahead. But I knew Ayden wasn’t really talking about the meeting, or politics. Neither was he talking about ships. He was talking about Tor. “Ayden doesn’t trust you,” I muttered to Tor as we made our way through the dark streets, Jet following with Ayden. 37

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Tor nodded without looking at me. “Ayden’s in love with you.” I almost stopped in the middle of the street. “He’s kin.” Tor slowed to turn. “How close?” I probably looked disgusted at the prospect. Ayden was like a brother to me. Tor just shrugged. “I’m not saying he wants to lay you, but I’ve no doubt he’d make love to you…if you weren’t related. He can’t stand to see you with me.” When I stopped to frown at him, he took my arm and pushed me along before the others could catch us up.

***** Our meeting with the sympathetic nob was our first opportunity to lay out our grievances. First and foremost among our complaints were the restrictions placed on steel. While nobs were permitted to carry long steel—swords—rabble like us were allowed nothing more than knives, never to exceed eight inches in length. In addition, shields were outlawed. Of course, if a man really wanted sword or shield, they were available on the black market and easily obtainable in Skythia, just to the south. It was dangerous to be caught with either, however. Worse than this, were the shipping confinements. We lived on a peninsula for Mithra’s sake! Almost everyone’s livelihood depended on the sea, was dependant on shipping or fishing. Yet no man, or woman, was allowed to own a boat. Instead, we were required to ship all our goods on nob vessels. Even the fishermen could not own their boats but must rent their craft from the nobs. Each of these boats carried a bronze seal attached to the bow—and heaven help you if you were discovered in a boat without one. Foreign craft, other than those on diplomatic missions, were simply not permitted to dock in our harbors. Thus, we were denied products from abroad that foreign merchants might have sold to us more reasonably.

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On top of that there was the issue of horses, a ruling that was purely discriminatory and meant only to remind us of our place…which was far below the Yute nobility. The meeting went well enough. Nyronal seemed a reasonable man, for a nob. Listened to each of our points, made notes. Shook his head at one item. “Let’s leave that out for now,” he suggested when it came to long steel. “Let’s gain the nobles’ trust before you ask for the metal that you might use against them.” Ayden scowled but Tor nodded. We hadn’t any more than left the upscale inn located close to the gate on the east highwall, when we were set upon. We were badly outnumbered. Where did all the damn nobguard come from, anyhow? And how could there be so many of them? I pulled my steel, but Tor backed me into a wall and shielded me for most of the fight. By the time I worked myself out from behind his back, the conflict was mostly over. Each of my three companions was engaged in several fights at once. Tor alone put five men out of commission. He was something to watch. Those arms, protected beneath the wrapped linen, were always in the right place at the right time, deflecting a blade, turning what should have been a deadly thrust into a glancing blow. I watched him take a length of steel in his gloved hands, rip it from its owner’s fist, and club two men senseless in one stroke. Tor was beautiful in battle. I would rather fight a big man than a small man. A small man is deadly—has to be. But a strong man will often leave you with your life, having done the minimum to disable you, then move on to the next opponent. A small man will make sure you’re dead—he can’t afford your resurrection. Tor fought like a big man. He was a wonder to watch. And I would have enjoyed the fight, if Ayden hadn’t been lying dead at my feet.

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Chapter Five Tor

I hung back and kept Spark in front of me, unsure of how she’d react to Ayden’s death, certain she hadn’t begun yet. She reminded me of a colt that had lost its mother. Each step high, uncertain, as though she herself wasn’t sure any particular step would be completed. Ready to bolt under the smallest provocation. But she followed Jet back to the inn and through the cellar door at the back of the building. I delayed in the hedgerow a few moments then followed them in, stepped through the door and moved to one side, as I put my back against the wall. She had her hands out in front of her and was backing away from Jerra, nodding her head to assure her friend she was all right. She was fine she insisted in a cracking voice. She was fine. She continued backward as her eyes flicked around her, behind her, to clear her path. She didn’t want to touch anyone, I realized. I watched her settle across the room, her back to the wall, her eyes fixed on the ground. Her friends did their best to get a conversation going but it was hard work. She shook her head when Sinda approached her with a bowl of soup. Her chest rose and fell as though she’d jogged a league. Her eyes were bright and she blinked several times as her gaze cut to the door beside me. I don’t think she saw me standing there in the shadows. Slowly, she straightened and picked her way casually around the perimeter of the room, obviously forcing herself to smile at those she stepped around or over, not actually making eye contact but smiling in their general direction. She ran the last few feet and yanked open the door. My eyes connected with Jet’s just before I followed her out into the night. For a long time she ran and I loped along behind her, feet sloshing in muddy puddles, watching her through the sheer curtain of rain separating us. It was a cold, soggy night and there were few people on the streets. 40

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When she reached the outskirts of the city, she stopped running but continued to push herself along, her hand pressed tightly against her side. As I closed the distance between us, I could hear her sobs as she gasped for air, or release from sorrow, or release from pain—I wasn’t certain which was the case. I let her continue, aware of her desire to be alone with a sorrow she couldn’t share. The rain drenched her. The night was cold, but I guessed she could feel none of it yet. I followed her out of the city and dropped back. When she stopped before one of the many small bridges that cross the Little Muddy, I held back in the shadow of a hut until she disappeared, then I stepped out, navigated the road, and crossed the bridge. I couldn’t see her. For a long, breathless moment I blanked. In short, I panicked. I stopped at the end of the bridge, did a three-sixty, peered through the harsh, drifting curtains of rain—heart pounding, ears straining—and slowly crossed back over the bridge. Dropping down the slope, I found her hunched beneath the bridge, hugging herself as she rocked on her heels. Her wet hair hung like ropes in front of her face as she stared at the river, seemingly unaware of my presence. I checked her face. It was wet but only from the rain. Crouching beside her, I opened my cape and drew her against me.

***** Spark

“I’m sorry about Ayden,” Tor said, forcing me to nod. I didn’t want to acknowledge his presence. Didn’t want his presence. Ayden had never trusted him. I wanted to be alone. Alone with Ayden and the memory of Ayden. But his arm went around me and his cape sheltered me and, hard as I tried, I wasn’t alone anymore. I wasn’t cold anymore, either. The warmth of his body, the warmth of his presence seeped through my wet clothes, into my skin, into my soul. I leaned against him and closed my eyes.

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“Come on,” he said, nudging me. I had slumped against him and was close to being asleep. I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to do anything, anywhere, anyhow. But he pulled me to my feet and coaxed me up the slope and back onto the road. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry,” I kept saying. “I know,” he said without arguing. He stopped to wrap me in his cape, then picked me up and carried me back to the cellar. I suppose several days passed. I must have fallen asleep. I wanted to be asleep. Asleep in a world where Ayden still laughed and cursed and fought and argued. Everything was a clouded blur. I remember an argument. Evidently, I’d done something wrong. What it was didn’t interest me much. Whatever it was, Tor and Thane stood together to face down the Strikers and a few others on the matter. Thane angry and adamant. Tor silent and entirely unyielding. Afterward, he talked to me gently. I remember nodding helpfully although I had no idea what he was going on about. Words and conversation seemed so complicated, so hard to follow. His face was troubled as his gaze rested on me. The next thing I remember was my hand in his. I was wrapped in his cloak as he led me out of the cellar.

***** I woke up to searing pain and a frightening amount of blood. Tor was on top of me, his mouth damp against my ear, his breath misting my hair. One of his arms was a vertical line under my shoulder, bearing his weight but the other was firm against the small of my back, pulling me up hard to meet the pressure he exerted inside me. Pain cycled between my legs at an increasing frequency. I cried for him to stop and he did. There were a few seconds of silence that probably accompanied his release. Then his voice, hard as quartz. “You belong to me now, Spark.”

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I was…in a bed…was my guess. Although I’d never slept in a bed or even seen one for that matter. My face was wet.

***** Tor

She hadn’t spoken since Ayden’s death. She hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t cried. She’d probably have gotten over it on her own, in her own time, given the time. But time was something I couldn’t give her. A couple of the Strikers wanted her out. Said she was a liability, the state she was in—seemingly unaware and uncaring of her surroundings. I couldn’t blame them. They weren’t nasty about it, just matter-of-fact. Jet sided with the Strikers. I think he was worried about her safety as much as the group’s security and saw this as a way of protecting her. Thane was furious. Took it personally for her. I told them we’d give her two more days, then she was out. I was determined she would feel something. She’d wanted me before—she’d made that clear enough. I just hoped it would be enough for her now. That I would be enough for her. She’d lost her family. All I could offer her was my own claim on her. And a physical connection I hoped would shock her out of the place where she’d gone to grieve. I didn’t know it would hurt her that much, or there would be that much blood. Afterward, I was afraid I’d ruined her for sex.

***** Spark

“Mithra,” he whispered next. “Are you all right?” His lips were all over my wet face. “Say something, Spark. Anything. Even if it’s only stop, again. Did it hurt so much?” “It hurt a little,” I gave him.

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“Thank the gods.” His lips shook as they touched mine. He looked down between our bodies. “Mithra, you’re a mess.” Watching his face, I thought he would cry and I focused on the gold talisman swaying at his neck. “Where are we, Tor?” “Somewhere safe. I’ll be back in an instant.” Sliding to the edge of the bed, he pulled his doeskins up his legs and disappeared. And because it was Tor, I believed him without question. Somewhere safe and quiet and comfortably warm. A faint chiming tinkle sounded from somewhere in the room or perhaps in the next room. It was dark. When he came back there was food, the like of which I’d never tasted before, and hot sweet tea. But that was nothing compared to what followed. I had never in my life been wet without being cold. I’d been drenched in the rain, I’d been swimming in lakes and, of course, in the ocean. I’d bathed in all six branches of the Major Muddy and I’d bathed from a bucket of cold water. But I had never had a bath. In a tub. Filled with warm water. He lit a tiny lamp, checked to see the windows were draped, then made several trips through the door with a bucket. A fabulous piece of sculpted bronze stood in the corner of the room, and I watched the steam ghost upward as each bucket splashed into the tub. “The house is empty,” he explained. “I know the caretaker.” “Empty!” “Nobs generally have more than one home. This family has three scattered throughout the peninsula.” I looked around me. The room, meant for one person, was as large as the cellar we all crowded into. Heavy red curtains denied any light that might have found its way through the windows while richly patterned rugs muffled each of his steps. A large, officious-looking desk dominated one end of the room. The bedcover beneath me was fine stuff—a stiff brocade of gold interlaced with bright scarlet. A room with that much red in it might have been warm, but it was cold. Large, cold and empty. 44

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Tor made a face. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” “Your friend—the caretaker—won’t get in trouble?” I couldn’t help my eyes’ guilty descent to the ruined brocade beneath me. Tor shook his head. “A family this wealthy won’t miss one bedcover.” He tested the water with his hand then shook it, evidently satisfied with the temperature. As he looked at me, I’ll swear his eyes were as warm as that steaming water. “Look at you, Spark,” he whispered. “You’re so lovely.” He carried me to the tub and lowered me into the water. And—pure bliss—you cannot imagine how fine it is to lie in warm water. The tub was a scoop of bronze metal, long enough for me to sit in without bending my knees. At my back, the metal curved with a rest for my neck and head. And I was content to do nothing more…for a while. But it was not Tor’s intent that I should be content. “What’s that?” I asked him. “Soap,” he answered. I’d never seen soap so white. So creamy and full of froth. Soap that smelled like lemon thyme. He made his hands all white and full of it, then went to work on me…went to work on my discontent. With soapy hands sliding down my neck, he started a kiss that got him over my collarbones, across my shoulders and down to my breasts. There, he paid my breasts a good deal more attention than they warranted. He cut the kiss off at that point, and together, we watched his large hands circle my breasts, his fingers drawing lazy patterns into the cream coating my areolas. As I looked down, I found my nipples behaving quite sluttishly, adding considerably to the elevation on my chest. “Look at these little hussies,” he smiled, his voice gravelly and deep with emotion, “just begging to be fucked.” “What!” I protested his language, but only very weakly. “Wash your mouth out, Tor Harnesson.”

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And he did. His tongue licked out to ride up over my nipple, then he sucked in a whole mouthful of nipple and breast as I arched into his mouth. When he was done, he looked down on me, white cream coating his lips, and kissed my mouth. It was the first time I remember enjoying the taste of soap. Mithra and Ishtar Together at Once, Tor Harnesson could kiss! By the time he moved his hands downward from there, I was ready for them, aching for them. But for a long time he only teased his hands over my flanks. Finally he pulled each of my legs out of the water and washed them carefully as he cased my legs with his hands. “Close your eyes,” he told me, and ran a hand up the inside of my leg from the ankle, along my calf, under my knee, up the inside of my thigh—until he could go no further. My legs clenched together automatically in some protective instinct or some innate shyness—a shyness directly at war with the yearning that possessed the space between my legs. With the soap in his hand, he gently massaged the crown of curls on my rise until I was ready to cry, by now fully discontent. Then he pressed a kiss into my mouth, a long, wet kiss that pushed my head back onto the scooped bronze. A kiss that warned of his own scarcely controlled discontent. His tongue slid along the length of my upper lip then took my mouth by storm—by storm of violent passion. The sort of passion only Tor was capable of. His tongue thrust forward to fill my mouth with a hard, erotic rhythm. And I didn’t want him to stop. “Spark,” he told me, eventually, his voice deep and rough. “Do you…think you could take me again? Without it hurting too much?” Pressing my lips between my teeth, I stared up at him and nodded. He picked me out of the bath and, shoving the bedcover to the floor, pushed me into the bed. Pushed me into silk sheets, now wet, then pushed his fingers into the wet silk between my legs. 46

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I was nervous at first, and shy. But I recall at the end that I had to cover my own mouth.

***** Tor

There’s a quiet inlet I’ve fished since I was a boy, within a few hours traipse of the city. It’s perhaps a long way to go for a little fishing, but I always thought it worth the time it took to get there. If you have ever had a striper, a sea striper, on the end of your line, you’ll know what I mean. When you get one up to the surface of the water, it just about goes mad. It’s a wonder they don’t thrash themselves to death on the end of your rod, at the hard edge of the water’s surface. I would watch the smooth plane of the water, waiting for it to break, watch the line being tugged, watch as the rod whipped forward to meet the surface of the water. Watch my hands as I reeled the striper in close to breaking, then played the line out again. I think of fishing, sometimes, when I’m with a woman. It helps divert my attention when I’m on the edge of arrival. I know of other men who do the same, though few will admit it. I had a friend who would think of hunting which seems appropriate enough. Another thought about his work, and I suppose that’s all right so long as you’re not a butcher. I think of fishing. And teasing a striper up to the surface is much like bringing a woman to her arrival. The wrist action is the same and I like to watch my hands as I reel a woman in, then play her out again. And perhaps women play men in much the same way when they take the part of the shy coquette, but I don’t think so. I think they are honestly shy—start out shy. The

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mystery to men is that a woman will start out like that every time—apparently shy— even knowing she will soon be spreading her legs and begging for his full entry. Even though she did so only the night before. But it doesn’t bother me when a woman starts with her legs tightly clenched, almost rejecting that first trespass, because it is so sweet for a man when the woman changes that attitude of withholding. Right from the first slackening he feels on the inside of her thighs to the moment when she lets him get his arm under a thigh and open her legs. But, by far, the most exhilarating moment is that final instance when, unable to demure any longer, unable to wait for his erect action, she pulls her own knee up high along his flank then lets it fall flat against the bed. When entry is deep and complete and demanded. When the thick cushion of her pelvis grinds up between shaft and belly and her hot, wet sheath torques his cock to the point of near no return. Spark was nervous and shy and didn’t know what to do. For a long time we lay together as I took her mouth with my tongue. During this time, I left my hand over her mound to warm her sex. Then I started stroking into the crease at the top of her leg. She found she liked that well enough to relax a little—enough for me to pull her legs apart slightly, enough that I could spread her lips with three fingers, with my middle finger laid out the length of her damp pussy. I kissed her while I lifted my finger then returned it to her ruts, nudging and dabbing with a light touch. Her changed breathing told me my finger was having the desired effect and I continued, watching her face. Her eyes were closed and she was, as always, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. Her pointed little chin began to tilt upward on a neck that started to curve and I realized she was contributing a little movement beneath my hand. This is the point at which it was hard not to mount her. I’d had women before. A good many. Probably a good many more than I deserved. But never a woman I wanted as completely as I wanted this one. I tried to think of fishing again. How good it is to watch that striper just as it comes up over the surface of the water. I let my finger drop

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and did nothing but kiss her for a long time. Kissed her until she pushed her sex up into my hand. I reset my outside fingers to pull her open again, then rocked my hand carefully the whole length of her slot. Wetting my tongue, I traced a damp circle around her areola and blew on it. She made some strange strangled noises, which I took for pleasure and, almost immediately, the fingers that spread her open started to slide on a wet, slick surface. By now, my heart was pounding in a constricted chest and breathing was becoming hard labor. I rubbed my cock up against the closest available surface, the side of her thigh, and continued. At this point, I thought I could probably find her nub and my fingers slid around probing for the hard little knot of flesh. She cried out when I found it. Cried out my name. In response, my dick surged, and a quick glance revealed my cock stretched to maximum proportion. I don’t know how I didn’t enter her at that point—but I remember I had to stop to collect myself. I watched her while I fought with the simple concept of breathing. Her slim, shining body twisting as her skin shimmered with sweat, close, so close, almost to the surface. I gave the line of her sex a final tug and tried to decide if I wanted to watch her crest, thrashing alone at the surface, or if I wanted her whipping on the end of my rod. I removed my hand from her completely, playing her a final time and watched her for a sign. And Mithra, the sight of her knee coming up and her legs spreading had to be the sweetest sight of my entire life. I pulled her knee flat against the bed, rolled across it, and with the hump of her rise cocked up to meet me, I penetrated her hard and all the way. I could have come, easily at that instant, up to my waders in Spark’s wet depths, almost to the point of spilling, but I held back, varying the speed and pressure of my delivery until I seemed to hit her particular resonance. With each woman it’s different. The problem was that her resonance appeared to match mine perfectly and I must have 49

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thickened some more inside her as she rocked up to meet me every time I forged forward. At that point, I concentrated hard—concentrated on a slim, shimmering form breaking and thrashing on a still, dark surface. A long, slow, keening note of longing wisped from her lips and I stopped and stiffened. Topped up with desire, and hard at every point that touched her, I watched her surface. Her eyes opened without sight and rotated upward. Her head whipped on the pillow while her body fought for mine. I gave her everything I could, wondering if she would want it still or pounding and decided to give her some of each. I forced myself hard against her limit. Beneath the wild wrenching of her body, an erratic, erotic clenching was being performed by her cunt as it closed on my cock. Fully charged and waiting for this catalyst to release on, I got an arm down to pull her leg higher and, with my hand firmly behind a cheek, I brought her sex up hard to meet my next several thrusts. And then I lost track. I think she must have enjoyed it though, because the next time I looked at her face she was smiling up at me, shimmery damp and thoroughly landed, her fingers hooked across her mouth.

***** Spark

“I’m sorry about Ayden,” he said as we lay together afterward. “It was my fault.” I shook my head. “Do you think we were betrayed…by Nyronal?” He pushed himself up to sit on the bed. “No. I think the man’s sincere in his support. It was just bad luck we ran into the nobguard directly after leaving the inn. But it was my fault. There are always more nobguard in that part of the city.” “Ayden knew that. We all knew that.”

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“But I made the decision.” Tor’s head went back and he sighed. “I should have gone alone.” I thought about this. “Ayden would have been suspicious if you’d gone alone.” Tor nodded, his face grim. “Ayden was always suspicious. I wish…but I suppose his distrust wasn’t unwarranted.” His voice was full of disgust. “I got him killed in the end.” His eyes settled on mine. “And now you have no one.” “I have you, Tor.” He nodded. And sighed again. “We’d best get back. The others have been…worried about you. They’ll be glad to know you’re all right.” As we sneaked from the dark house, across the back garden, I was amazed to discover we were heading for the same shed we’d used that last time we were inside the walls. The same shed we’d used to climb back over the first time we were there. I thought it an astonishing coincidence, although I didn’t point it out to Tor.

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Chapter Six Tor

Burro burst into the cellar, hands exploding with information. Everyone stared as I dropped to my knees in front of the boy, my eyes focused on his flying hands, trying to keep up with him. “Where?” I cut at him, repeating the question at the same time with my hands. “Where? Which way?” Then I was on my feet. “It’s Jet. The nobguards have him. They picked him up south of the market and are coming north. We can intercept them. Danny, Chanes, get the Strikers on the rooftops either side of Market Street. Take your bows. Rocks. Bricks. There’re about thirty of them. “Thane! You’re with me,” I shouted as Danny’s boys pushed out the door. “You and I will pull Jet out of the guard! “Spark!” I pointed at her. “Bring your rouge.” I’d lost one man and I was damned if I’d lose another. We got out fast—Thane, Spark and I—and positioned ourselves in an alley off Market Street with about two seconds to spare before the nobguard turned the corner. “Give me the rouge,” I told Spark. With my thumb, I dug into the little pot and smeared the shining crimson over her lips. “I just need a bit of a diversion,” I told her. “I need you to get in the way. Halt the column. Can you do that?” She nodded up at me, her face serious, her red lips small and full. I should have given her more direction, but I kissed her instead and pushed her out of the alley. Seconds later, Thane and I sauntered into the road as the nobguard came around the corner.

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Market Street is wide its whole length from the harbor to the highwall gate, but the houses that line the road are jammed together like fish in a pan. A glance at the rooftops told me my men were in place. The nobguard captain was out ahead of his men, leading them by about three paces. At the rear of the column, we could see Jet as he was dragged along. Casually, we moved to the side of the road, getting out of the way as the nobguard passed. I made eye contact with Jet then leaned against the wall, waiting for my diversion. She didn’t disappoint me. Spark was a showstopper under any circumstances, her hair a wild rain of gold, her eyes too blue to go unnoticed, her slender slip of a body every man’s wet, cock-in-fist fantasy. She had the captain’s attention when she stepped out of the alley, and that was before she threw herself at his knees and started wailing about her brother, the prisoner—begging for clemency. I watched her bury a kiss in the captain’s crotch as his unit came to a tripping halt behind him. Thane and I exchanged an instant’s shocked amusement then we went in for Jet. Afterward, we celebrated. I let the celebration be Burro’s idea and pretended to scowl but, the fact was, the mission’s success was a boost to morale and reason enough for a party. We came up out of our cellar and paid the innkeeper to close his doors for the night. He could have charged us more. He was a good man, Davison. Is a good man. Drumming on the long, heavy table with a pair of wooden spoons, Burro accompanied our rebel songs while Davison’s wife attempted to shush us. Davison put half a lamb on to turn in the large open fireplace and we feasted. Feasted, feted and toasted. I didn’t drink much—one of us had to be responsible. I didn’t need much. It was enough to have Jet back. Enough to have Spark pressed close beside me, the glow of the large friendly fire lighting her face with a warmth that looked good on her after months of dark huts and cold cellars. But she shouldn’t have put her hand between my legs. Next thing I knew, I had her standing on the table, hugging her slender thighs as I placed a kiss low on her body, demonstrating to everyone how she’d stopped the nobguard captain.

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“Get a room, Harnesson,” Jet complained loudly, hiccupping with laughter. And I’ll be damned if Davison didn’t slip me a key and a nod—toward the hall leading to the back rooms he rented. Have you ever been with a woman and felt as though you wanted to do everything—everything—with her, to her, and somehow have it last forever while you’re at it? I closed the door behind me and turned to look at Spark. And in that moment I wanted her with every inch of my body. I wanted to take her with my mouth, my fingers, my dick, my palm spreading her pussy lips and rubbing into her warm, wet sex. I wanted to take her in every way possible and all at once. And I wanted her doing me the same way. I wanted to come between her breasts, against her belly, with her hands on my cock and her fingers stroking my balls, with her tongue licking me until I was tight and ready to burst, sucking my cock and swallowing me whole as I fucked her mouth, her cunt and everything in between. I wanted her with her fingers in my crease, nudging against my skin to expand the tight rim of my ass. Thor’s Whore. I loved her. I remember. The small room with whitewashed walls, the little wooden cot. A tiny window let in a sliver of moonlight to fall on the sheets. The sheets were new. Crisp and almost white. The mattress had been recently filled with fresh straw and a little crushed alfa leaf. To this day, I cannot smell alfa without being transported back to Davison’s Inn—and Spark. She was nervous and self-conscious. She sat on the edge of the low cot as I walked toward her, loosening my ties. When I got to her, I turned her head and pulled her face against my groin, rubbing my erection into her cheek—gently, I hope. “Mithra,” I rasped at her. “I want you to take my cock, Spark. In your mouth. But you’re so small.” With her hands, she reached into my open leggings and coaxed my cock out into her small warm grasp as I wrapped my hand around hers and showed her what I wanted. Then let go to watch her fingers tighten around my cock and drag up my

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warm, moist length. I watched, fascinated with lust, those innocent hands performing this carnal act of pleasure. Under her shy, hesitant ministrations, my cock burned and stretched and grew impossibly thick, the veins dark, the wide head darker as it started to stream at the head. When she gave me an uncertain look, I smiled and nodded, nudging the dark head against the little kiss of her mouth. Her tongue reached out for me and circled the wide head of my dick, lapping up my pre-cum, then her small mouth closed on me, her lips stretched impossibly wide around my first few inches. With my hands at the back of her head, I pushed into her as I watched my dick between her lips, pulled my shaft out—wet with her saliva—then forged back into the moist envelope of her mouth. I could have come in her mouth. In a few thrusts I could have come. And I wanted to. But I wanted everything else as well. Pressing her back on the bed, I fell to my knees and urged her legs open, dragging her shorts down as I put my face in her warm pussy and licked into the pink folds between her legs. I didn’t give her time to think about what I was doing. And I didn’t give her time to be shy. I just kept licking into the full lips of her pouting sex, fumbling her kilt off until I felt her legs loosen, then I pushed her knees over my shoulders and— with my thumb—pulled down on the bottom of her slit while I sucked her clit into my mouth. Her head came up off the bed in a startled gasp and I eased off her a bit, gentling her clitoris with my lips as I reached back for one of her feet and brought it to my shoulder. When I had both her feet on my shoulders, I put my hands at the top of her thighs and spread her knees to flatten her legs against the bed. Leaning back, I blew on the hot, swollen pink of her clit and she whimpered, fist in her mouth, gnawing her fingers with her teeth. The next time I touched her clit, I felt her output slide onto my tongue and I pushed it back at her, smearing her slippery female moisture back into the delicate pink tissue folded between her plump lips. With two thumbs pulling at her opening I covered her pussy with my mouth and ate at her sex with tongue and teeth and lips. When her hands jerked into my hair, I knew she was close. I knew she wanted me to rise on her and enter her. 55

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But I made her come into my mouth. She started to go wild under my mouth, but somehow I stayed with her as her hips jumped and thrust, one moment filling my mouth, the next moment threatening to break from my lips. I kept my lips sealed against her creaming cunt and fucked her with my tongue as she orgasmed into my mouth. And as she jerked out of control, I kept kissing and sucking and dabbing at the knot of her clitoris through the long quaking reaction of her releasing cunt. My thumb stretched out the rim of her entrance as her body shuddered beneath the intrusion of my tongue and I stroked my own balls as she came on me. Then had to grasp my cock at the root to stop myself from spilling on the floor, there between her legs. Mithra. I loved her. And I wanted to fuck her more than I wanted to live. There was a table in the room. Somehow she ended up on it, still wearing her short jerkin but naked from the waist down. With her feet on my chest and with nothing to impede my entry, I put the broad tip of my cock tight against her notch and thrust my hips forward, watching my shaft enter her deeply, completely, in one hard push. Inside, she was hot and swollen, soft and tight, as her vagina clamped on my length, begging for all a man could give, begging to be fucked hard. I leaned forward with my hands just beneath her knees and took her violently. The gold charm I wore around my neck bounced against my chest as the room filled with the sound of slapping skin and Spark’s small, hoarse cries. Uncertain her whimpering noises represented pure pleasure, I reached around her leg to get my thumb in the top of her cleft and massaged the hump of her rise with my whole hand. With my cock fully rooted between her legs, my balls tight against the damp, smooth skin of her bottom, I felt her vagina seize on me as my expansion stretched into her, filled her, then exploded into blackening, blissful, sinful arrival.

*****

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The soft glow of dawn filtered into the room and I looked for Spark as I woke. She’d wriggled away in the night and I had to smile at the sight of her. Her little hand was fisted at her mouth, her lips slack and moist. Her eyes were closed, lashes dark gold on her pale cheeks. She slept on her stomach—on her knees, actually—they were tucked beneath her, almost to her chest, her saucy little bottom flung provocatively into the air. I’d woken up hard and wanted only to sink into her, but I’d promised myself more. With my knees either side of her head, I straddled her and smoothed my hands down her waist and over her hips to caress her tiny heart-shaped bottom, then leaned over to kiss the pale skin between my spread fingers. Thumbing my way down through her crease, I worked my right thumb—as far as it would go—into her warm, damp opening. She murmured and woke with my thumb buried inside her, my fingers spreading downward from there, scraping into her slot, looking for her sleepy clit. I felt her light kiss on the inside of my thigh as her bottom lifted a bit to reach my hand. I watched my dick expand and tighten against her back as I worked my fingers through her folds, still sticky from the night before, not yet worked up enough to be wet. My left hand pulled her bottom up and toward me while my right hand continued to work at her clit, now starting to show real interest. Then my fingers were suddenly swimming and I couldn’t help it, my hips were working slowly as I scraped my cock lightly over the long silky stretch of her back. She pushed up with her forearms, arching her back at the same time, bringing it into tight contact with my swelling skin and I groaned my appreciation as I rubbed my dick into the smooth silk of her back. At that point, my hand slipped in her pussy and I lost her clit but spread her lips with my fingers and continued to rub three fingers along her slot while my thumb plunged in and out of her slippery little slit. With my hand full of warm, throbbing, swollen sex, I glanced down at my shaft, thinking I would just come against her—there and then—and watch my silver seed

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spurt out to coat her back. But the next thing I knew I was kneeling behind her, pulling her bottom upward as I fought to force my way into her. The bulging head of my cock was desperately dark as I tried to notch into the first available opening. After a few thrusts against the tight rim of her ass, she must have lost patience with me. Her hand reached between our wet legs and grasped my cock as she tried to guide it down to her weeping vagina. “Mithra, no,” I tried to warn her. Then I began to surge into her hand, as my hips continued to pump my cock through her fist, my seed shooting between our legs. Realizing her mistake, she pushed my cock up to meet her pussy and shoved her wet sex back along my erupting shaft. Her little body went crazy beneath me as she started into orgasm and I flipped her onto her back, and contained her twisting contortions beneath my body as I stretched her wrists out to their limit and rubbed my cock into her shimmying body. Rubbed my dick into her wet cleft until my final silver spurt spat out to puddle on her belly. A minute later we were laughing breathlessly. Sliding down her body, I wrapped my arms around her while I pressed my cheek into the damp, sticky skin of her smooth, flat stomach. She was covered with my cum, front and back, from her waist to her knees. And I loved the smell of us. The smell of Spark and me together. “What are you thinking?” she asked me presently. Lazy and content, I licked up alongside her pelvic wing. “That you’re the best little fuck I’ve ever had.” “Should I be impressed?” “A man can pay a woman no higher compliment.” She gazed down at me with smiling eyes. “But have you had enough women to speak with any authority?” I smiled back at her. “Yes, my little slagbit, you can be impressed.” At these words, her smile wavered and I realized—too late—I shouldn’t have called her slagbit. “I’m sorry, Spark.” 58

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“It’s all right. Only. When you use that word, it makes you sound like a nob.” “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I love you, Tor.” “I’m glad of it,” I answered. “I’ll always love you. I’d love you even if you were…nob. Even if you were effing nobguard. I’ll always love you, Tor.” “I hope so, Spark.” She was so naïve. She couldn’t know that most men would shrink from this girlish, heartfelt confession. But her loyalty made me want to cry. “What are you thinking?” I threw back at her gruffly. Her small, lithe body stretched in my arms. “That I’d like another fuck. A proper fuck this time. A full-contact fuck.” I dug my tongue into the tiny cup of her belly button. “Give me ten minutes,” I told her. “It would help if you got rid of that jerkin,” I added. I was ready in five. And fucked her properly. Lying on top of her, easing into her slowly, stopping to play with her clit until she didn’t want to play anymore, until she wrapped her legs behind me and held me tightly inside the greedy little fist of her cunt. Then I got onto my knees and pounded into her. She came quickly, suddenly, out of nowhere, in a sparking display of head-tossing and body-thrashing and I felt her nails score deep into my buttocks as she demanded all of me, taking her as hard as I could. When she started to scream, I covered her mouth with my hand, captured her tossing head, and lowered my mouth to kiss her through my fingers as I thickened a final time then exploded into her clenching channel. Watching her, I lay awake beside her until the morning light was pink. Then I picked her up, wrapped in the sticky sheets, and carried her out the back door of the inn. Cradled in my arms, she was all cozy and warm with sleep. I hope she was awake when she landed in the river. I dove in after her to be sure she didn’t drown. But the Muddy’s not very deep behind Davison’s Inn.

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She came up choking and laughing and I took it for a good sign. With her hand in mine, we climbed the steep sandy bank—where she rested a minute, standing in kneedeep water with her back against the smooth, water-washed wall of the inn. The houses in that part of the city come right down against the river but there were few windows actually facing the river, I noted. When I came up against her, the slope of the bank put my lips at hers and my dick hard at her cleft. I smiled into her eyes. “Thor’s Witch, I want you again,” I told her. Before she had a chance to deny me, I pulled her legs apart, bent my knees, and drove up into her. Her mouth formed a perfect little ellipse as she stared into my eyes and I groaned as my skin stretched painfully tight. I looked down at her proud little nipples caught between my rough fingers. “I’m sorry, Spark. Are you too sore?” I prayed she wasn’t. I heard her voice catch in her throat and I knew she was uncomfortable, having been used the night before as well as that morning. “I’m sorry. Mithra, I’m sorry, Spark.” I pulled out of her enough to pump myself a few times, then entered her again slowly. With a few gentle thrusts and my hand on my balls, I threw back my head and came inside the woman I loved. When I was done, I had to splash downstream and rescue Davison’s new sheets just before they disappeared beneath the Fish Street Bridge. Slogging back through the lazy river, I watched her laughing at me, the morning sun glinting off the wet tendrils of gold that haloed her face. When Spark smiled her face was joy itself, her pretty pink lips stretching to frame her straight white teeth. I gave her the chip of soap that Davison’s wife had sent with me and she did me the great honor of washing me. Afterward, I returned the favor. Together we soaped up the sheets, rinsed them and wrung them out. I wore them twisted around my neck as we ran naked up the bank and back through the inn’s rear door. Back in our clothes, we joined our friends in the cellar, and I gave her a parting smile as she headed out to the market with Sinda and Jerra. Burro trailed out the door 60

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behind them and I experienced a moment’s disquiet but shook it off, thinking the room empty without her. Not an hour later, I was sprinting through the door with Thane at my back, racing for the stable.

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Chapter Seven Spark

Something had gone terribly wrong, I dimly realized. I woke in a darkened room and asked for Tor. The sound of chimes was faintly reassuring and that shouldn’t have been the case. A man leaned over me. A man with dark hair and dark eyes. “Don’t move,” he said, lifting my head as he put a cup to my lips. I swallowed compliantly as I looked into his marginally familiar face and frowned. “Tor?” “Don’t move,” he repeated, using both his hands to turn my head on the bed. I found Tor sleeping in a chair next to the bed. The top of his head was wrapped in white linen. Only—a lot of the linen was red. Tor’s face was pale beneath the white and red bandages. Automatically, I reached for him. Automatically, I wished I hadn’t as my whole world turned scarlet with brutal pain. “Hadi’s Gates and Threshold! I told you not to move!” I felt a thick finger slide alongside my gums, precursor to a strange, strong flavor like extracted molasses in coffee. Then I didn’t remember anything for a long time. I was hot most of the time, except when I was terribly cold, and I couldn’t tell anyone, and I couldn’t do anything about it. My mind had apparently shut down and was no help at all. The only thing my mind knew for certain was that I mustn’t move. At one point, two men were arguing—loud enough to enter my embattled consciousness. “She’s fucking streetslag,” one of them was protesting. “That’s not your concern.” She’s fucking streetslag. For days I was unable to escape the three words, repeated unendingly in my mind. 62

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Nightlong nightmares ensued. Nightmares in dark alleys with Hugo playing the villain. “I’m not going to argue with you, Neels. She’s a good fuck and I’m keeping her.” “She’s just a good fuck,” I heard repeated in a flat voice. She’s just a good fuck. The words reverberated through my head and were a recurrent theme in my fragmentary dreams. The sound of a chair being pushed back, the wooden legs scraping on the tile floor, then Tor’s voice at its coldest. “If you ever touch her, Neels, I’ll kill you.” The sound of a door slamming. She’s just a good fuck.

***** The next time I saw Tor, the bandages were gone and I wondered if I’d dreamed them. As before, he sat in the chair next to the bed I lay in. When I lifted my eyes to his forehead, I found a small white scar just above his left eyebrow. He closed a book and regarded me uncertainly, as though he expected to be disappointed. “Spark?” Then he was on his knees beside the bed. “Spark!” The heavy red drapes had been replaced with light sheers, white and frothy. Where the heavy desk had previously reigned, there now stood a delicately carved, oval table. Underfoot, the thick patterned rug hadn’t changed. But my bedcover was spring green splashed with pink. I closed my eyes. “No more drugs,” I whispered. “They give me nightmares. Hugo’s been ravishing me every night for—” “Three weeks.” Three weeks! I opened my eyes. “And the worse part is he’s no damn good. Every night for three weeks and never once has he satisfied me.” Tor nodded wryly. “That would be Hugo. How do you feel?”

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“I’d feel better if you kissed me.” And he did. It was a small, warm, caring kiss. “Do you think you could manage anything stronger?” “I could, but I have my doubts about you.” I must have looked disappointed. “If you could manage some soup, I’d be willing to give you another chance.” But I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of thin brown broth. After that, I saw Tor for a short while every day. Most of the time I slept and, while Tor urged me to eat and assured me he was cutting back the drugs, still most of my time was spent in a haze of dreams. I still had nightmares. Hugo had me pinned against the alley wall as he casually explained to Tor, “She’s just a good fuck and I’m keeping her.” One day I woke to find Whit sitting in Tor’s chair, watching me with a faint smile. Automatically, I looked around for Hugo. “Tor’s taking the morning off.” I nodded. “How do I look?” I asked him. “Shall I bring a looking brass?” I shook my head quickly. “I don’t want all the details, just a rough idea.” “You look rough,” he said unkindly. I tugged the sheets off my legs. “You can help me walk,” I informed him and, with an arm at my elbow, Whit helped me limp out a small circle in the large room. “Tor’s a nob,” I told him. Whit slid me a sardonic look of congratulations. “You’ve puzzled that out, have you? All on your own? But Tor said you were bright.” “What about you?”

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Whit grunted. “If you’re asking about my rank, I can boast only the slightest claim to nobility. If you’re asking how I feel about your being here, slagbit—if I support your cause, as Tor appears to—better to not ask.” “Can I trust you?” “With your virtue?” He cut me a look of haughty disdain. “Shall I bring that looking brass?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You can trust me,” he answered my question with quiet finality. “Because you belong to Tor. But that’s the only reason,” he added. I thanked him. I’ve always liked an honest man. It’s not as though they’re all that common. “Would you like to use the water closet?” “What’s that?” He gave my elbow a nudge. “I’ll take you there and let you figure it out.” They had an in-house outhouse. Now that is luxury. As I sat in the little room, I wondered who’d been…caring…for me these last several weeks. I grimaced, but it was a little late for embarrassment. “Who’s Neels?” I called through the closed door. “His brother.” I stood up and saw…myself…I realized. A looking silver was fixed to the wall above a basin. I could have cried. “Older brother. His parents died of the coughing flux. That was several years ago.” At one time, I had been attractive enough. Now I was just skin and bones with a nose far too huge for my narrow face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Whit pointed out as I crept through the door. “That’s one way of putting it.” And that’s how I felt, a faded ghost of my former self. “Whit? What happened…to me?” 65

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“You broke your leg.” “I know that! How did I break it?” Whit’s face was grim. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”

***** Tor

“Of course I want you.” I watched her eyes fill. It was the drugs. Coming off the drugs, actually. Over the past several weeks I’d reduced her daily dose to almost nothing. She’d soon be clear of them. That’s why I needed to get the next words out. Every one of those words was going to be a challenge. I had a lot to explain to her. It was only the drugs that had delayed her questions, about her leg, about me, about The Glove and her friends. But she was almost clear of the narcotics and I needed to explain everything to her before she drew her own conclusions. I watched her teeth in her lower lip, wanting to stop her tears before they ruined all the effort she’d put into fixing her face. She’d rouged her lips and painted her eyes. Whit must have brought her some of Cherindra’s makeup. I didn’t want her to cry. Tears would only streak her face and make her more miserable than she already was. “Of course I want you. I just don’t want to hurt you. And we need to talk.” “I’m so thin,” she whispered. She looked down at her breasts, clearly outlined inside the thin gauze shift she wore. “And small.” “Fragile,” I corrected her gently. “Delicately fragile.” I pulled a chair up close to where she sat on the bed’s edge and captured her legs between my own. Taking her hands, I pulled them into my lap and dragged the back of her fingers up along my ties. “Of course I want you.” Mithra. It had been too long.

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There is nothing so motivating as a woman on a bed in the early morning, wearing something filmy that promises a great deal but leaves more than a little unsaid. Tissuethin, the fragile white fabric nestled around her elegant lines, displaying her body like a precious gift. Where the wide neckline of the nightdress slid off one shoulder, a bare ivory curve was exposed. Inside the shift, her tiny breasts were evocative shadows that called to me on every level, but most particularly on the lower level. I was motivated. Her fingers dragging the length of my cock just increased what was already a growing problem. I closed my eyes for an instant and she used that opportunity to move into my lap. I held her carefully and let her kiss me and could do nothing to stop her from nestling her bottom into my lap. “Of course I want you,” I breathed when she let me up for air. By now, I probably had her convinced of that as my cock stretched and pulsed against the curves of her bottom. I gave her a little room, enough room for her to slide her hand down between my legs and, with a little coaxing on her part and a little cooperation on mine, my legs moved apart and my dick played right into her hands. I had a lot of things to say but couldn’t get one word out as she tried to untie me with one hand. I helped her. And when she pulled my cock out of my leggings, I slid the shift up over her legs and helped her to mount me. As her tight, wet heat sheathed me, I choked out a gasp that had been building for over a month. Fighting the instinct to push into her and move myself toward climax, I remained still although I was aching to grind against her, to clamp onto her thighs and thrust up into her. It had been too long. I was afraid I’d hurt her. And not only physically. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand why I’d taken the steps that had led me back inside the highwall. I was afraid she wouldn’t understand what was going to happen next. What I had to tell her. But she was sensible and strong and I knew I had her trust. I valued that trust more than anything. I knew she’d listen to my explanation before she started to judge me.

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But all of that didn’t make it any easier to say. My throat ached, stretched tight around the difficult words. But the ache in my throat was nothing compared to the throbbing need in my balls, in my tightly stretched cock. With her back against my chest, I carefully lifted her legs to the bed in front of the chair. With shaking hands, I pulled her good leg open a bit, enough to get my hand in her sex. “Don’t move,” I told her, “don’t move until you’re ready to come.” With one hand sliding into her slot and the other beneath her, pulling her cheeks open as gently as I could, I tweaked her to within an inch of arrival. She did the rest when she used the chair’s arms to leverage her body on my dick. She came down on me a few times and I was fucked. Mithra, it’s hard to be gentle at a time like that and I must be given credit for my restraint—and for restraining the girl—when my dick wasn’t disposed in the least to be gentle with her. Knowing her proclivity for contortions, I held her body tightly against mine as she shuddered through orgasm, and where she would normally have thrashed on my shaft, I allowed her only the most confined tremor. Afterward, I kissed every part of her body I could reach and told her I loved her. But I think she was asleep by then. I fell asleep too, with her damp bottom in my lap…and almost missed my own wedding.

***** Spark

When I woke, Tor was gone. I found myself outside on his balcony in a leaning chair. Stretching out in the glorious golden warmth that beat down on the balcony, I sat with my good foot on the rail, soaking up the sun. It was a bright, sunny corner, the newly whitewashed walls clean and bracingly fresh. A silver set of chimes hung from a stand, winking in the sun as they tinkled out a random melody.

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“Hello slagbit.” The voice behind me turned me around. I thought it was Tor at first. The voice matched his, exactly. But the man, dressed in white, was too pretty to be Tor. Neels. Something about the man made me shrink from Tor’s beautiful brother. “No, don’t get up.” He stepped out into the sunshine. Leaning with his back against the rail, he shook his head at me. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?” He’d been drinking. I arched my eyebrows and looked at his white clothing. “Someone get married?” I asked him. He smiled slowly. “Yes, someone got married. And it wasn’t me.” He pointed at me with an unsteady finger. “It wasn’t you, either. Which leaves the two of us an unmatched pair. What do you say slagbit? Do you fancy the groom’s brother?” He sighed with drama and cynicism. “I, myself, fancied the groom’s bride, but at this point—having drunk this much—I’d be willing to settle for the groom’s little whore. He said you were a good fuck. And Tor never lies.” And up until he said Tor’s name, I hadn’t caught on. The sun was swirling unsteadily in the sky as I got to my feet and backed away from the man, favoring my bad leg as I did so. She’s just a good fuck. That was the only thought in my head. Tor’s voice saying She’s just a good fuck. Then another man stepped out onto the balcony. “Get out of here, Neels.” Dressed entirely in white, Tor stood in the harsh, cruel sunlight, his voice terse. Outfitted in a complete suit of embellished satin, gold wedding coins jingled at the edge of his vest. They flashed and sparkled as they caught the sun’s rays. I raised my wrist to protect my eyes as Neels shot a slow smile in my direction, passing Tor on his way into the house’s dark interior.

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I limped another step backward as Tor blurred before me. Hot tears skimmed my eyelashes and began to wash onto my face. I’m ashamed to admit I cried. But I was naïve and so much in love with the first man I’d ever…been a good fuck to. I threw up my head. “I’m remiss. My congratulations to you on your wedding day. I have no gift, other than that which you took from me earlier today.” “Stop it, Spark,” he said as though chastising a child. “The wedding wasn’t exactly a love match.” No. I hadn’t imagined it was. It was probably a wise wedding, however. One sensibly and politically motivated to assure his ascendancy in the nob world. I looked down at my leg. “It’s time for me to go,” I informed him, as my tears dropped to make shining spots on the balcony’s floor. “Spark.” He took a step toward me and I backed up again, shaking my head. “It must have been all the drugs,” I started to babble. “How could I not have questioned—” I looked up at him suddenly. “Jet and Thane.” It had been weeks and I hadn’t even thought of them. “It must have been the drugs,” I repeated. My eyes went to the wall that separated our worlds, to the little shed standing hard against that wall. “Spark. I tried to tell you…earlier.” I shook my head. “You tried to fuck me earlier. And succeeded.” “Don’t be ridiculous, Spark.” “Thane,” I insisted, “and Jet. It’s time I got back.” Now he took a step backward and turned to lean with elbows on the rail as he watched the highwall. “They’re not there,” he said quietly. My heart thundered in my chest. “They’re in prison.” “Why…why haven’t you bought them out?” His lips turned downward in a frown. “Because I’m the one who put them there.” 70

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“You’re not a spy,” I whispered to myself. “You’re not a spy,” I told him, and shook my head, certain at this point that he was, in fact, a spy. He shook his head, but by then I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe in Tor Harnesson. “Don’t be foolish, Spark. You needed doctors, drugs. I had to sacrifice them to get a foot back in the door, the door to this world.” I must have stopped breathing because I felt very faint. “How did I break my leg?” I asked him. But he didn’t answer. “I’ve been trying to find them, to buy them out, but I can’t do it openly without raising suspicion. I’m too highly placed.” He blathered on, but by now I hardly listened. “The Nobles think I’m angling for a coup with the streetslag as my army. I can’t talk to any of The Glove. I don’t dare.” I looked over the balcony’s edge and wondered if my leg would survive the jump. “I got a few words to Burro once, got him to lift my pouch. There was fifty gold in it. It should be enough to buy the guys out, assuming they can be found.” “Assuming they’re still alive,” I said faintly. He gave me a grim look. “I’ll find them,” I told him. He looked at my leg and shook his head. I wiped my cheeks and smiled gamely, but it was probably more of a grimace than a smile. “I’m not staying here,” I told him with fierce stubbornness. I looked him in the eye. “I’m not just another pretty face,” I said, with an attempt at humor. “And I’m not just a good fuck.” His face fell. “Don’t be silly, Spark.” “I heard you tell your brother…weeks ago… I thought it was the drugs. I heard you,” I insisted as I looked up at him. “And Neels says you never lie.” “That’s not what I said.” “I heard you.” 71

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“That’s not what I said. And I didn’t lie. But I couldn’t let him find out I was in The Glove. I couldn’t let him know you were anything more than—” “A good fuck.” “That’s right!” “Get out of my way, Tor.” “Spark.” “I’ll go over the balcony if I have to.” He gave me a look what I guessed was supposed to represent shocked hurt. But I was beyond it at this point. I was beyond Tor Harnesson. Tor Harnesson! “I thought you didn’t lie!” I spat. “Tor Harnesson, my ass.” I backed him in off the balcony and into his room. “Tor Harnesson Gunnar,” Neels spoke from the shadows within the house. Having just come off the bright balcony, the room was dark to my eyes. “Gunnar.” I stopped. “That does place you highly, doesn’t it? Get out of my way, Gunnar.” “Spark, listen to me.” “Let her go, Tor.” “Shut up, Neels.” “If you don’t help her over the wall and through the gates, she’ll only hurt herself. And if you don’t help her, I will,” Neels informed his brother. “Today, tomorrow, next week. Let her go, Tor. She’s figured you out. She’s decided you’re an opportunist only out for yourself, haven’t you, slagbit?” Tor stared at me as if for direction. I nodded my head.

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“And once she sees your wife—” Neels whistled. “Once she sees Cherindra. It’s going to be all over.” “Are you going to listen to him, Spark, or are you going to let me explain?” “I’d listen, Tor, only I might start crying again, especially when you start explaining Ayden’s death, and how you used his death as an excuse to fuck me that first time.” Again that faux look of disbelief. Tor stiffened. “You know that’s not true,” he whispered. But there was so much disbelief in his voice, it sounded like a lie. “The nobguard were waiting for us as we left that meeting with your nob friend.” “You don’t believe that.” “You killed Ayden.” He turned away. I watched his shoulders twitch. “How was my leg broken?” He was still a moment. Then gave his head a half-shake. “Go,” he said. “Get her through the gates in a litter,” he told his brother. “Take her to the other side.” As he left the room, I slumped against the nearest wall. Turning my face, I put it against the cool plaster. “Why do you let him push you around like that?” I grumbled in sobbing bits of broken words. “Aren’t you supposed to be the eldest?” “Why do I let him push me around?” Neels said with easy amusement. “Because, my darling slagbit, I’d just as soon he didn’t kill me. Have you ever seen my brother angry? Really angry? Have you ever seen him lose his temper?” I shook my head against the wall. “No? Well, he lost his temper the day your leg was broken.” Neels laughed. “Too bad you missed it.”

***** I left the walled city in a covered litter. Despite the time I’d spent inside the highwall, I knew no more about life inside the walls than the life inside knew of me.

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Neel’s men left me in the central market and there I sat, waiting for someone to find me. “Take me home,” I told Jerra when she stumbled across me. She took me to the deserted boathouse, a familiar haunt, but one we hadn’t used in a while. I was glad it wasn’t the cellar. The cellar would have been filled with Tor’s memory. A lonely old boat moved gently in the middle of the enclosed structure as tiny waves lapped quietly at its battered hull. Burro had been fishing with a line from the wharf that ran along both sides of the building, but he jumped up when he saw me, wrapping his line around his fist as he searched behind me. I turned away before he could question me with his eyes. Thane was there. They’d only recently bought him out, and Jet. Thane wrapped me in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked in a deep voice of concern. I nodded my head into his chest. “Where’s Tor?” I peered up at him, appalled. “He’s had you in prison these past weeks!” Thane appeared stunned. “It wasn’t like that.” But I put two fingers on his lips. “We’ll not speak of Tor Harnesson,” I told him. A few weeks later we moved into our first real headquarters. By that time, I knew I was carrying Tor’s child. I bedded Thane immediately.

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Chapter Eight Tor

Six months after I lost Spark, I took my seat in the House of Rules, my chair right next to my brother’s. Although I ranked high in the nobility, I was a very junior member and, despite my resolve, I knew it would be years—if ever—before I’d see any real change in the Noble Government. As a result of the time I’d spent on the other side, many of my peers regarded me with suspicion, this regardless of the fact that I’d turned in two of the rebels. During the next year I continued to support The Glove, both in the House of Rules as well as on the other side of the walls. It was rare Burro didn’t find me when I went to the other side and he always lifted my purse. He was a cunning little thief. The real problem in a dictatorship such as ours is the number of men who must be employed to maintain it. In the course of preserving our way of life, the nobguard had grown to an unmanageable force. The House of Rules watched the streetslag with jealous suspicion, completely overlooking the real power, the real threat that was stationed right beneath their noses. The nobguard. Under the command of a charismatic, ambitious general of only three years, they struck in the night. We had just a moment’s warning from the old caretaker before they hit. But life is like that, I’ve discovered. Despite the best plans and schemes of nob and rebel, despite steps bitterly fought for and sweated over, despite all forward progress, whether accomplished with hard determination or haphazard stumbling—in the end, all of it meant nothing. You had to laugh, really, at all the petty plots reduced to naught. In one stroke the rebel dream was reduced to nil, and the nob world robbed of everything.

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But the nobguard army couldn’t take anything from me that I hadn’t already lost. I’d lost everything when I lost Spark. We cut our way across the garden—Whit, Neels and I—pushing Cherindra toward the wall at the back of the yard. It had been a while since I’d had long steel in my hand, but a lifetime of training is not easily forgotten. The yard was crawling with nobguard as we started across, then littered with uniformed bodies as we reached the shed. I saw my brother go down, nobguard steel in his back, but not before he’d cut a wide circle of death around him. Neels was pure, evil genius with a sword. Whit and Cherindra were on the shed roof and I was reaching for the eave’s edge when I felt the heavy weight of cold steel drag at my shoulder. Then Whit was on the ground again, beside me as his steel caught the next blow—so late that the blue sparks singed my eyelashes. I still thank Mithra for the shed against the wall and for the time I’d spent on the streets with The Glove. The night was moonless but I felt my way through narrow pavements to the old stone hut no longer used by the rebels. We’d outgrown it when the Strikers had joined us. My wife was pregnant by then. My main concern was for her and Whit as we fought our way across the garden and over the wall. Cherindra was only just beginning to show and I prayed her condition was not common knowledge, otherwise her life would be worth no more than my own. Not if the new powers thought she was carrying a Gunnar. We fell into the cellar, gasping for breath, gasping for life. I staggered toward the stone bench and dropped onto it, facing the door. Whit followed me and cut open my vest, or what was left of it, at the shoulder. Cursing, he ripped a piece of cloth out of the vest and pressed it into my shoulder. I felt like my life was running out of me in a thick red stream.

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“Watch the door,” Whit ordered Cherindra, but it was too late. I heard her squeal of alarm. Burro stood just inside the opening. Drawing his steel, Whit wheeled on the boy. “No,” I coughed, reaching for his sword arm without any strength. “No.” I watched Burro, watched his hands as he stood talking to himself. Watched his fist as it bunched into a knot and exploded out in a spray of five fingers. Spark. He looked at me and I nodded, then he turned and slipped back out through the door. Cherindra and Whit looked to me for direction. “He’s gone for help,” I told them. I kept my gaze fixed on the door. My eyes kept closing. Each time they did, I forced them open again. I must have done that a thousand times as the room grew colder, grayer, as though color fled the cellar along with my life. Even my blood, sticky on my hands, was black. I watched the door through an ever-narrowing circle, as darkness closed in on the dim tunnel of my vision. I focused through the narrow beam on that selfish, ungiving door as though it were my life. My eyes closed again and when I opened them, a man stood in the doorway. Thane, I thought vaguely. Jet perhaps? Terror seized me and I feared the room would fill with darkness before I would see her in the doorway. For an instant, a gray rectangle of dawn light silhouetted a small, slender form. Then she was crossing the room like a wavery, uncertain dream. I focused on her face, on her eyes, and wondered why they were gray instead of blue. “Spark,” I said, just before I let the blackness take me.

***** Spark

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She stood before the table in my small office. Her hair was a glossy black sheet against her perfect olive skin. I returned her angry gaze and shook my head. “You had your people out looking for us.” “The boy—Burro—has always been close to him.” “But the boy brought you to us.” I shrugged while holding Cherindra’s black gaze. “We thought it wise to have our own nob highborn. The army might choose to rule through a puppet. We wanted a puppet of our own, just in case.” Cherindra laughed. “After all you’ve fought for? All The Glove has fought for? I don’t believe you’d settle for anything less than full, unconditional freedom.” “Just keeping our options open,” I said coldly. “Come see him. He’s asking for you.” Her hands smacked down on my table as she leaned over me. “He’s only down the hall,” she hissed. “What’s wrong with you? He’s ill and fevered and looks for you every time he opens his eyes. Can you not forgive him for wedding me?” The door exploded inward and Burro blasted into the room. His face was squinched into glaring anger as his hands worked and his intense blue eyes looked set to catch on fire. I saw a spray of fingers that meant my name and a fist for Tor. He caught at my hand and yanked me from my chair, down the hall, through a door, to face the gray man on the bed. I shook off Burro’s hand as I looked down on Tor’s pale face. I wasn’t afraid of him. It didn’t matter what Tor Harnesson said at this point. I was a block of gritty glacial ice no amount of hurt, no amount of love could shift. Tor’s lips moved and I found myself on my knees beside him as I lowered my ear to his lips. The words were faint. “Cherindra,” was the first word I heard. “Get her out of the city.”

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I won’t tell you I wasn’t disappointed. Despite all my glacial grittiness, I had apparently been hoping for some sort of lie. “You can’t be moved,” I told him brusquely. He shook his head, but only a fraction. “Send Whit with her. Please, Spark. She’s pregnant. If the army thinks she’s carrying a Gunnar…” I nodded. His concern was for his wife and unborn child. “Spark—” “I’ll do it,” I said quickly, seeing what each word cost him. I stood. “I love you,” he whispered. I wiped angrily at gritty tears as I shook my head without belief. Love might be gone, but the hurt still lingered. And I did not understand.

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Chapter Nine Tor

Spark was a natural leader. Smart, quiet, she tended to collect opinions before making decisions. The Order of the Glove had grown considerably in my absence and their ranks exploded after the hated nobguard took control. Immediately, the new military regime set into place a dictatorial government that made the nobhead rule seem generous in comparison. Under nobguard rule, the common folk of Inverham had truly lost any hope for self-realization. Spark had several captains reporting to her. Although she was always busy, she had a way of giving a person her whole attention when listening. Focusing on you, alone. Or at least, that was the case with everyone but me. I often thought that she and Cherindra would have made good friends, had circumstances been different. She’d gotten Cherindra and Whit off the peninsula. They were on one of the many, many islands that dot the western coast of the Yute Peninsula. It was unlikely they would be discovered by the army, and that knowledge was a great relief to me. I was grateful to her for that favor. Our new headquarters was a large, open home, so ancient that the wooden floors were polished smooth by miles of travel over years of time. Upstairs were several small rooms, one of which I had evidently occupied for several weeks. I don’t know. Much of the time following the nobguard attack is lost to me. Downstairs we all shared a large common room with many windows and a wide, comfortable fireplace. Although her office was upstairs, the room Spark slept in opened onto the common room. In the back of the house was a big stone kitchen. Slowly, my shoulder mended. It was unfortunate it was so damn close to my heart, otherwise, it might have healed more quickly. But when the shoulder wasn’t stiff and

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sore, there was always the vise that clamped around my heart in an ever-tightening grip. It was hard watching them together. Thane and Spark. Watching the door to her room close, knowing Thane was with her. Trying to get a breath into my lungs. Knowing Thane was on her, spreading her legs beneath him. But Thane was a good man. I couldn’t fault him for loving her, no matter how much I wished to. She’d had a child by him. Had it been that long? Had I let her go that long ago? The boy was the image of his mother, blue eyes, hair full of shocking gold wrinkles. Big for his age, but then Thane was tall. Strong little bugger and smart as a whip. Thane seemed fond of him, but the boy toddled around after Burro most of the time, signing him all the while with a fat little fist. It was no wonder the boy couldn’t say more than a dozen words—everyone catered to the lad and his signing. His mother was busy and we’d often find ourselves thrown together, little Ayden and I. He was good enough company, considering I had none other. Strangely enough, Jet and Thane—the two men I put in prison—were the only members of the Glove who would have anything to do with me. Other than Burro and the boy. The toddler would park his little tail beside me and we’d scowl together while I made arrows, Ayden with a stick in his hand, mimicking my every move. Of an evening, he’d crawl into my arms, give me a keen grin, and fall asleep there as if he owned me. “He’s a fine boy,” I told Thane one day. “Bright. Quick to laugh.” Together we were repairing the courtyard gate. I crouched to support the gate’s weight in my hands while Thane installed new hardware. The boy had gamboled up to join us just as we were finishing. Thane grunted without looking at me. “How’s the shoulder?” “Better,” I told him as I smiled across at the boy holding my knee. “He makes you proud.”

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Thane nodded as he pushed a pin through the gate and capped it. “I would be proud. If he were mine.” He met my gaze and held it for two instants before he started to gather his tools together. My eyes burned at the edges as I stared down at the small hand latched to my knee. She sure knew how to break a man’s heart. How could she love the son so thoroughly and hate the father just as equally? When I could breathe again, I went to find her. She wouldn’t look at me. She never looked at me anymore. But I would have her attention. It was important. “It’s about young Ayden,” I started. Her eyes cut to mine in angry warning, but I continued. “Perhaps he should join Cherindra and Whit on the—” “Don’t even think it, Gunnar.” Her voice was like a knife. “Spark.” “Don’t you dare think it. And don’t you let anyone else think it.” Getting to her feet, she leaned across the table. “Do you understand me, Gunnar. The child is Thane’s son.” I was angry some myself. With my hands on the table I leaned my face close to hers and was satisfied to watch her eyes widen as she drew back an inch. “I understand, Spark. The lad is Thane’s son. And he’ll be safe as long as that’s what everyone believes. “Am I right, Spark?” She nodded coldly. We understood each other.

***** For several weeks they’d been planning a raid. There was a small nobguard arsenal against the south highwall and they planned an early hit on market day, when the streets would be crowded. Had anyone asked my opinion, I would have advised against it. Swords would be of little use in rebel hands. Without training, a man might as well have a club or mace in

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his fist. But my opinion wasn’t solicited. Perhaps the raid was mere strategy—a coup against the hated nobguard meant to pull support to our cause. I wanted to be with them, though I didn’t ask to take part in the attack. To be honest, I’d planned to join them, with or without their leave. There wasn’t any one of them who could have stopped me if I had wanted to go. Bar one. She left me with the boy. Ayden was my guard. And the most effective one she could have chosen as I couldn’t leave him on his own. So I could do nothing that day but worry the whole time she was gone, sure their party would be outnumbered, certain something would go wrong, knowing I should be with them as I was the only one amongst them who could cut a sword with any efficiency. But I knew Burro would bring me a message if things went badly. So I kept the fire built up in her office and stood, leaning over the window most of the day, pessimistically waiting for the sight of Burro rushing up the road. The room was silent except for the occasional spit and crackle in the fireplace. Ayden played at my feet, quietly stacking wooden blocks with amazing industry. He seemed surprised each time his tower toppled. He had my sympathy. I set him to building bridges. The sky was the color of steel and large flakes of snow moved slowly to the ground. It was cold, I thought. Her office was cold. You might wonder why I’d never tried to explain to her. The way things were, the way they’d turned out. Why I had wed Cherindra. I hadn’t told her and it wasn’t only because I couldn’t get her ear. I’m sure that pride and youth had a lot to do with it. I wanted her to trust me, believe in me, without reservation or doubt. But, even more than that, I couldn’t bear to hear her tell me again, how I’d killed her cousin. Even though I didn’t truly think she believed it, I couldn’t hear it from her lips. I’ve never considered myself a coward. Yet,

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there are some words that cut more deeply than a knife’s thrust. All I could do was tell her I loved her, and hope that one day she’d catch on. At last I saw Burro working his way up the street. And behind him, a cloaked figure leading a donkey that was pulling a haycart slowly forward. “Let’s go meet Mama,” I told Ayden as I scooped him up. I was there to open the gate and watch the cart trundle into the courtyard. When the donkey halted, I put the boy in his mother’s arms and started to unload the steel— swords, shields, lances and long knives. According to plan, others of the raiding party trickled back to our offices, singly or in pairs. There was a bit of a slope to the cobbled yard and, at one point, the cart rocked backward. I heard Spark scream. She was screaming my name. Evidently she’d put the child on his feet. One glance revealed the toddler had fallen between the wheels of the cart. The front wheel pinched at him, about to crush him. Spark had wedged herself against the weight of the cart, using her small strength to stop the front wheel from rolling over our son. “No!” I shouted, as Jet grabbed the donkey’s halter. If the cart were to jerk forward, the boy would then be crushed beneath the back wheels. I stooped to yank a cobblestone from the ground and kicked it hard behind the back wheel, then joined Spark at the side of the cart. With one hand either side of her, I braced my legs and shoved the cart forward a few inches. I looked backward to tell Burro—but he was already kicking the cobblestone tight into the space I’d created behind the rear wheel. A few inches and a few seconds, then the boy was in his mother’s arms again. She stood between my braced arms, hugging Ayden, hiding her face in the child’s wrinkling gold hair. I leaned over my little family, captured between my arms, and put my lips in

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Ayden’s hair, found her fingers in his hair, brushed my lips against those fingers and felt my eyes burn when she didn’t immediately withdraw them. “Spark,” I whispered, “I love you.” The boy, unhurt and unaware of any threat, reached up and pulled my head down to join his and his mother’s. And that was as close as I have ever come to crying in my lifetime. I don’t know why I thought it would make any difference. That evening, she took the boy off to bed earlier than usual, right after the lastmeal, and I watched her closed door as we sorted through the day’s haul. I put two lances aside for replacement shafts. As the night wore on, I found myself increasingly tense. I don’t know what I had expected. Or why I thought that night would be any different than any other, but as the hour got later, I found my stomach knotted into so many lumps I thought I’d be sick. Burro came to crouch beside me, but I ignored him as I sat with my back against the wall, rolling the lances between my hands. Just as she’d avoided looking at me for the remainder of the day, I’d avoided thinking about her. Didn’t dare think about her. Not that way. Not rolling toward me with the pink morning light in her hair and a warm, sleepy smile on her face, her small, slim body stretched out next to me, mine for the taking. Not spread out beneath me, her sweet, soft little mound caught between my body and cock, pressing into my groin and robbing me of breath. Her tight, hot sheath flirting coyly with my cock, one moment fighting my advance, the next moment opening to receive all of me, coaxing my release out of my scrotum and through my shaft in a long, hot, searing stream. Her vagina clamping down on me like she’d never let go. Then afterward. Lying together damp and spent. Drawing a finger around the small swell of her breast and watching her face. Feeling my cock tighten and knot again, wanting her, knowing she felt the same way.

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Aching with frustration, I snorted out a breath and Burro moved off. Squeezing my eyes tight, I tried to shut out those intrusive memories, but the visions continued as I was tormented by the image of her body, her knees tucked into her chest and her sweet little bottom lifting into the air. Giving in with a groan, I tried to imagine my hands smoothing over the curving cheeks of her bottom but instead saw Thane’s hands on her, stroking her silken skin. Thane behind her, pulling her onto his erection. Thane working into her, the silver chain around his neck swaying as he leaned over her and pushed into her. My stomach clenched. I was grinding my teeth by the time Thane crossed the room, opened the door to her room and then closed it behind him. I don’t know what happened. Where it came from. The next thing I knew I was on my feet, staring at two lances buried to their shafts in the thick pine door. For an instant I watched them shiver—as did every other frozen face in the large room. Shoulders hunched in surprise, everyone turned staring eyes in my direction. I turned and pushed my way out of there. I don’t even remember who was at the entrance—who was responsible for guarding me. They couldn’t have stopped me if they’d tried, if they’d wanted to. I thrust out into the mean, winter night and started walking. By the time the dark, stinging cold finally reached me, I was a long way from where I’d started and wanting a drink. Not that I’m one to drink much, but I thought hot rum might warm my stiff fingers and unwind the hard, painful knots that gripped my stomach. Unfamiliar with that part of the city, I looked around for a tavern and stepped inside the first one I found…and realized I hadn’t a single coin to pay for a drink. The door scraped open behind me and I turned to find Burro at my back. Digging into his pocket, he showed me a fistful of coppers. “From Thane,” he signed.

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Scowling down at the lad, I took the coins. When he eyed the clientele nervously and shuffled his feet, I signaled him to return home. Reluctant to leave, he looked around. In the end, I got impatient with him. “Be careful,” he signed. “Come back.” I stared at him a long moment and his face fell as though he’d read my mind. I wasn’t coming back. Reaching to my neck I undid the gold chain and amulet, hefted its weight in my hand and then put it in his—and parted with this last symbol of my noble life. Watching my face, he shook his head slowly. “You’re a good man,” I told him with my hands. “I owe you more than I can ever repay.” Stooping to grasp his small arm, I gave it a hard squeeze. Then, turning away, I motioned to the girl behind the counter. As it turned out, I drank a little more than would have been advisable—under any circumstances. Had I known the tavern was so popular with the nobguard, I might have been more circumspect. I don’t know. Legend has it that I made quite an impact. I don’t remember any of it. But I guess all those years of sword practice paid off. Neels only ever bested me once, and that was a cheap shot. I’ve no idea where I got the blade, but according to the stories I killed nine men before I went down. But they wanted me alive.

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Chapter Ten Spark

“Shut up, Spark. Just…shut up.” Sitting at my table, I glared across the room at Thane. “I would like ta let you continue…ta hate Tor Harnesson. I would like ta have you and keep you and wear you on ma arm for tha rest of ma life. Let you think he were guilty of some sort of betrayal. But…if anyone has been guilty of a betrayal, it has been me.” I opened my mouth to protest. “Shut up, Spark! What do you remember about tha day yer leg were broken?” I shook my head slowly, cautiously. “Burro led us ta you. Some nobguards had you trapped in a stable. I don’t know what you were doing there. Most like, you went in ta admire tha horses. They’d followed you in and cornered you. I don’t know how they knew you were Glove, or even if they did. Maybe they just thought you were tha prettiest little slagbit they’d ever seen. You must have tried ta fight them off, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have broken yer leg. Yer leg were broken below tha knee. We could see it were broken, tha bone sticking out. One of tha effing bastards were trying to mount you. “He killed all three of them. With only his hands. They were big men, two of them, and experienced soldiers. He didn’t have a blade. He didn’t need one. It were all I could do ta get out of his way. I think he’d have killed me too if I’d come between him and those men.” Thane grew quiet, his gaze distant and unfocused as he continued.

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“I watched him lift tha bastard off you with a hand on tha back of his neck, then slam him onta tha short wall separating tha horse’s stalls. Tha man died with a crushed windpipe, or a broken neck, or both as Tor turned on tha two remaining nobguards. “When tha soldiers pulled their steel, he took tha first one’s blade in his gloved hand, and crushed tha man’s jaw with his closed fist. Then, with one hand on tha sword and tha other fisted in tha man’s jerkin, Tor used him as both shield and battering ram as he attacked tha final guard. “Blood—mostly tha soldier’s—but his own as well, splattered across tha stable and tha soldier died on his friend’s sword as tha final guard fought ta do something useful with his steel, all tha time staggering beneath tha weight of his companion’s body. Desperate ta live, tha guard heaved off his friend’s carcass and slashed at Tor while Tor took tha blows on his forearms, and part of one on his face. “With his own blood blinding him, Tor took tha man’s blade, broke it in half, returned tha hilt ta tha guard’s hand, and shoved tha broken steel deep in his guts. “And afterward, he…crumpled. He sat down with you in his arms, his head buried in yer neck. I thought he would cry, Spark.” Thane shook his head at the ground. “You know what a tough bastard he is. He looked up at me, his eyes pleading, apologizing, demanding. I have to get her somewhere warm and dry, he said. I’m nob. My brother has a place inside the walls. We knew what he were asking and we agreed ta it. Tha nobheads would never take him back without he could claim he’d been spying on us all tha time. All those months he were gone. Tha break were bad. You’d never have made it without nob doctors, and tha drugs he could buy you inside tha walls.” Thane stopped, waiting for me to say something. But I kept that knot pulled tight inside me. I’d not let it unravel at this point. “Thank you, Thane,” I told him. “It gives me some peace to know that Ayden’s father at least regretted his betrayal.” Thane stared at me. Then shook his head. “Spark,” he started, “that’s no’ tha point.” I stared back at him, unyielding.

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“Ah, shit, Spark. It won’t be ma fault if you decide ta keep on hating him. But Spark,” He cut a wary look at Burro, “Ayden’s not ma son. Don’t keep tha boy from his father. And don’t let his father die.” I waited for him to leave, angry that he would share our secret with anyone, even Burro. “You’ve never said you loved me, Spark.” I nodded and shook my head at the same time. “Drag out the cast iron pot,” I told him grudgingly. “The big one. Tell Sinda I’ll be cooking tonight.” The door closed and I scowled as I watched Burro, crouched against the wall, fingers flying as he grumbled to himself. The door to my room opened again and I looked up with a mouthful of impatience for Thane. “Hey, slagbit.” I looked up into Whit’s eyes. His eyes still sparked with that amused contempt he reserved for me alone, although otherwise, he was much changed. His clothing was ragged, worn though not dirty. It hung on his frame loosely, as all his softness had dissipated, replaced with lean, wiry stretches of muscles that twisted across his arms like wrought iron. It looked good on him, I thought. “What are you doing here?” I asked him pointedly. His eyes flashed. I knew why he had come—he knew I knew. He didn’t like having to ask. He threw himself into a chair, his mouth a thin line while he formulated his attack. All this time his eyes rested accusingly on mine. Eventually his lips curled and contempt returned to his eyes. “Can you not forgive him for wedding Cherindra?” I put him at my back. “Did you think it was a love match?” “Not for an instant.” “You assumed the wedding was politically motivated, then.”

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“I assumed the man was not capable of love.” “You’d be wrong on both counts. It wasn’t a political wedding. And Tor wed out of love. He loved Cherindra too much to let his brother have her. You met Neels?” I inclined my head as I turned back to him. “Not a very nice man. Nor a very nice kid. I won’t tell you how we knew that. Let’s just say the neighbors could never keep a cat. He tried the same on a woman once— hired slagbit from the other side. When Tor found out about it, he thrashed Neels almost blind. “And that was reason enough to keep him from Cherindra. But that wasn’t the only reason Tor wed her. Tor loved me too much as well.” I frowned at him, not sure of his meaning, not sure I wanted to know. “It was the only way we could be together.” His dark eyes held mine. “Cherindra was promised to the Gunnar family at birth, her family name being almost as elevated as the Gunnar name. It was assumed she would marry the oldest son, Neels. The man she loved was too far beneath her to even contemplate. That is to say, both Gunnar brothers could have died and it wouldn’t have brought me an inch closer to a match with Cherindra. “She was afraid of Neels. Like his brother, Neels had an explosive, violent temper. But unlike Tor, he had no passion or purpose to accompany it. He was a cold, dangerous bastard.” Whit was silent for a moment, lost in memory. “Our first romantic encounter was in Tor’s bedroom, while Tor stood guard outside. Afterward, he promised Cherindra that Neels would never wed her.” Whit smiled slightly. “We didn’t know how he planned to accomplish this miracle, but neither did we worry about it any further. What Tor promised, he would make true.” Whit’s contempt rested on me. But I was not moved. “Which means, slagbit…that Cherindra’s child isn’t Tor’s. The child is mine.”

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The sun glinted through the window and momentarily stung my eyes. I felt as though I watched my ship from a distance, gliding empty and alone, sails full, the sun sparking at the tip of her mainsail mast. But I had deserted that ship long ago. Whit continued. “Did you never wonder how he knew of your hideouts? All of your hideouts? You might have been suspicious, had you thought about it. He’d been watching you for some time. He’d been watching you. I was with him the first time he saw you. We heard a girl’s laughter—your laughter—and it drew him like a siren’s song. We both turned. You were at a food stall with three of your friends. He couldn’t take his eyes off you! As you headed away, he followed at a distance. I dragged along for a while before I got bored, reminded him you were streetslag, and left. When I called on him the next morning, he wasn’t there, and he hadn’t been home that night at all. But Tor was like that. Once something got hold of him, he’d study it exclusively until he learned everything there was to know about the subject.” His eyes cut into mine. “He had followed you, innocently enough, only to discover where you lived. Almost immediately, it must have been apparent what you were—a slagbit rebel. “He could have turned you in. Should have turned you in. You and all your friends. Only Tor was different, always had been different. He never could stand an injustice, even a slight one. Even when we were kids, playing flyball, Tor was always captain. And if there were girls who wanted to play, he’d pick them for his team and win anyway, against all the noble toughs. There’d be Tor and I—sometimes Hugo—the rest of the team made up of girls, and we’d still win. But then, Tor carried the game. He was so quick and strong he could have won without us. “But he didn’t. He’d put the ball right in Cherindra’s arms—short throw—and we’d advance down the pitch, one short throw at a time. If we got behind, he’d run the ball himself, from one end of the pitch to the other and catch us up.

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“There was this young, soft kid. At the bottom of the nobility scale, his father a minor, minor clerk of no importance, with barely enough money to afford a place inside the walls. All the toughs picked on him. Rotten, spoiled, noble toughs. He was younger than Tor. They called him Whitshit. Not that they ever beat me badly. Just bullshit stuff, like tripping, pushing. But one day a couple of them slammed me up against the wall of Tor’s home as he was coming out. “I never saw anyone get so mad, so fast. He threw three guys halfway across the street and made a lot of enemies that day…as well as a lifelong friend. Not that they could touch him—he was too highly placed, too highborn. At first they tried to get back at him through us. They hurt Cherindra once during a game. But only once. Tor was capable of more violence than they would ever see, or want to see, in their lifetimes. He picked out the two biggest ones and flattened them. I don’t think he hit either one of them more than three times, but they were out for the count. “After that, they left us alone—all of us. And after that, when Tor threw to me, I caught the ball. I always caught the ball. I would rather have died than not catch that ball.” Whit halted then, watching me with his trademark haughty smile. I gave him back my best cynical stare. “And at this point, I’m to realize I’ve misjudged Tor Harnesson, and help you to save him. A spoiled nobhead who’s never in his life had to worry about anything greater than the outcome of a game. Whilst outside the walls, there were kids fighting for only enough to eat. Kids like me, kids like Ayden, who grew up to be betrayed by Tor Harnesson. Kids like that!” I pointed at Burro, hunched against the wall. The chair scraped backward as Whit bolted to his feet. “Fuck you, slagbit. I’ll save him myself. He’s too effing good for streetslag like you!” His gaze hardened. “But the day Tor stepped outside the highwall was the day he found a cause he could fight for. Your cause!” He turned and crossed the room.

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“Tor Harnesson is a noble lie,” I tried a final time, before he could escape my opinion. “His first words to me were lies. His last words were more of the same.” Whit shook his head as he reached for the door. “Tor never lies. His worst enemies will tell you that. I don’t know what he said to you, slagbit, but I can tell you it was not a lie.” “Whit.” I stopped him with a word. He turned a fraction and gave me half his attention. “I hope he’s publicly executed,” I said. Burro’s back slid up the wall, a surprised look on his face. I turned and gave him a hard grin.

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Chapter Eleven Tor

It was a bright, crisp, sunny day with an unseasonable trace of warmth. There’d be a good crowd. A good crowd to watch my execution. I was to be hanged at noonday. I hadn’t eaten for a few days, for the simple reason that I wanted to die clean. Stupid, the things you worry about at the end. I slept through most of the morning. I was tired of it, tired of everything. I was ready to die—had been ready for nearly two years. I hadn’t prayed to any of the various gods I might have petitioned for help. In my experience, I have seen no evidence of gods, nor any example to recommend them. To the new military dictatorship, I represented the last holdout on the nobility scale. My cousins, uncles, my brother Neels, had all gone before me. Whit, and other nobles of insignificant rank wouldn’t be pursued. For once in my life I could envy my best friend his obscurity. There was a good crowd. A lot of people. Streetslag. This was their moment, or so they thought. I felt a little sorry for them. They were only trading one master for another. Noble of me, don’t you think? To spare sympathy for those who would taunt me in death? Still, they had my noble pity. The scaffold was an impressive affair constructed of wood and large enough to support a company of fifty armed bowmen, should anyone decide to differ with the opinion that I should lose my life. But why should anyone complain? I saw Whit, mounted, at the edge of the crowd and my heart lurched a little. I hoped he didn’t try anything. It would just be a bloody mess that would draw attention to him at the least and end in his death at the worst. Actually, it would probably end in 95

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his death either way. But I watched him as I mounted the scaffold steps and managed a warning smile as I shook my head. In the next moment, I saw him dragged from his seat. Automatically took a step toward him but my guards rough-handed me back into place. Fighting to catch a glimpse of him, I saw—on the back of the same horse—her. Spark. She was laughing. Laughing at me. I saw her mouth open to form a few words and the crowd picked up the chant. “Parting Words. Parting Words. Parting Words.” I hid my surprise. I doubted any of my predecessors in death had been allowed a final speech. The crowd roared and hammered and swayed and was crushing in their demand. My captors didn’t dare refuse the mob. I was going to have my three minutes of fame. While all this was going on, I stared at her. I watched as she tossed a brown globe in her gloved hands, bobbled it, then flung it into the crowd. The crowd tossed it amongst themselves and I saw her bobble several more, then these joined the first that flew back and forth, jumping at the top of the mob. As I watched, she held up her hand and the entire square went silent. Her eyes were on me. She was a long ways off but I had seen that look on her face before, and I knew what it meant. I took a breath, staring at her as I did so. “People of Inverham, you honor me with your presence.” “What’s that? Speak up!” I scowled at a face in the crowd. Thane’s face. Burro stood beside him, his eyes worried, darting everywhere. I bowed to the crowd and spread my hands wide. “This is perhaps more attention than I have ever received in my lifetime. Forgive me if I revel in these final few minutes.”

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I looked over the crowd. “You’re well represented today. First and foremost by the army.” I gestured to the bowmen on the scaffold platform. “Your new masters, or so they would have you believe. “And I see a few Nobles have survived,” I added. “Though only very, very minor ones.” The crowd jeered. “I think I see… Yes, that is the Order of The Glove at the back of the crowd.” A small but mighty cheer erupted at the edge of the mob. “But my final words are not for these, not any of these.” I paused. “My words are for…the streetslag.” With these words, I raised my voice and my arms, and the mob responded with devilish howls of approval, pleased with this recognition and acknowledgement. The captain beside me frowned as his hand moved to his hilt and I guessed I wouldn’t have much more time. The brown balls, the purpose of which I could not guess, bobbed back and forth in front of the platform. “The streetslag,” I repeated. “The streetslag who think themselves as good as other men, and equal to the nobility. The streetslag who would not be—could not be, refused to be—ruled by other than by themselves. Well, I am the last in the Noble House of Gunnar,” I roared. “Let me leave you with one last ruling, which is within my power and my right! “Let me grant you your freedom! The freedom to rule yourselves!” And then I realized—as every streetslag arm was raised—that every fist in the mob was gloved. Every motherfucking fist! Many things happened at once. The crowd surged and roared. The balls were not leather as I had supposed them to be. They were iron balls, their rust brown surfaces closed with latches. Unlatched and thrown into the armed bowmen, they spilled liquid fire onto the soldiers. Nobguards screamed as sticky fire caught their clothing alight. And I stood staring. The formula for liquid fire was—and is—a closely guarded secret in every society. A powerful and dangerous weapon, kings and generals alone know the recipe. Men 97

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have been killed for only pretending they might know the formula. I gaped as the thick, cindery smoke burned my nose. This, then, was the recipe Spark had from her grandmother. Whit was suddenly beside me. “Jump!” he screamed as he threw himself into the crowd. Thane pushed me from behind and I jumped. My instinct was to jump feet first, which was a bit of a mistake. Whit and Thane threw themselves, literally flat out on the crowd. Hands reached out of the packed humanity to catch them, passing them hand-to-hand over their shoulders. Me, they had to pull back up over their heads so they could send me on my way to the back of the crowd. It was a bumpy ride with lots of dips and rises, but as I was passed away from the scaffold I watched the wooden structure wobble and lift, then tip under the rising power of the mob’s shoulders. I watched it slope and tilt as the hated nobguards slid into the crowd and disappeared. Nearing the edge of the crowd, I fought to my feet. Fought for the right to take the last several steps toward her. I looked for the horse large in the crowd, looked for her face, and the look on her face—confirmed that it meant what I thought it had. I let out a breath of knee-buckling relief and hope, because I had seen that look before. It was the same way she looked at our son.

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Epilogue Tor

I won’t tell you there haven’t been problems getting our little democracy off the ground, up and running. But we have a good template to go by, Thrall being just to the south and west. A number of men died that day—the day of my execution—instead of me, as the nobguard army rushed into the square. But Spark had planned on that eventuality. The battle went well. Spark led our fledgling parliament for the first five years, then Thane had a go at it. Whit’s running for the next choosing and stands a good chance of winning. These days I do most of the cooking. It’s a great joke in our family that Spark’s cooking is a shade on the hot side. But her grandmother’s recipes have come in handy over the years. She’s not told me about her grandmother—yet. But I have my theories. As I mentioned, you’d almost have to be a king or general to know how to formulate liquid fire. And it’s common knowledge that Chay was originally from the Yute Peninsula. That was before she helped push back the Maydayn Invasion and became Thrall’s greatest general. And Chay was blonde, as are most northern Yutes—as is my wife. Spark’s recipe was particularly useful the winter the Vandals attacked. Coming from the west, they hit the islands first. I’ve never understood how Whit managed to get himself and his family out of there alive. I suppose he kept himself going so he could bring us the warning. He came out of the war a hero and has a house in the city. It’s a handsome home, newly constructed out of gray stone—the same gray stone that once formed the highwall and separated our worlds. We are one now, as a people, though Spark and Whit still argue—but the two women are friends and our children get along.

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Burro has grown to a young man and rides every day with my children. Both of my daughters are in love with him so I expect that means he turned out handsome. I don’t know. As a man, I’d be a poor judge on the matter. Sometimes I wonder if he hasn’t a little of the Slurian in him—it might explain his inability to talk. The Slurians were a race of mutes who could sense others’ emotions. That might explain how he led us to the stables when Spark was attacked. It might also explain why he never gave up on us—Spark and I—even when we’d given up on each other. Perhaps he alone knew that we’d never stopped loving each other. I hadn’t lied. I never lied to her. I had loved her from the moment I first saw her in the street that day, as I stood with Whit—and I told her so. It was the first thing I told her. Why should she find that hard to believe? She’s the most beautiful woman on The Peninsula. Yes, I told my brother she was a good fuck. It was true enough. And I was keen he shouldn’t know what she meant to me. I won’t apologize for that. Did I ever say she was just a good fuck? No. Never. That was Neels’ voice she heard. But then, I’ve been told our voices were very similar.

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About the Author I slung the heavy battery pack around my hips and cinched it tight—or tried to. “Damn.” Brian grabbed an awl. Leaning over me, he forged a new hole in the too-big belt. “Any advice?” I asked him as I pulled the belt tight. “Yeah. Don’t reach for the ore cart until it starts moving, then jump on the back and immediately duck your head. The voltage in the overhead cable won’t just kill you. It’ll blow you apart.” That was my first day on my first job. Employed as an engineer, I’ve worked in an underground mine that went up—inside a mountain. I’ve swung over the Ohio River in a tiny cage suspended from a crane in the middle of an electrical storm. I’ve hung over the Hudson River at midnight in an aluminum boat—30 foot in the air—suspended from a floating barge at the height of a blizzard, while snowplows on the bridge overhead rained slush and salt down on my shoulders. You can’t do this sort of work without developing a sense of humor, and a sense of adventure. New to publishing, I read my first romance two years ago and started writing. Both my reading and writing habits are subject to mood and I usually have several stories going at once. When I need a really good idea for a story, I clean toilets. Now there’s an activity that engenders escapism. I was surveying when I met my husband. He was my ‘rod man’. While I was trying to get my crosshairs on his stadia rod, he dropped his pants and mooned me. Next thing I know, I’ve got the backside of paradise in my viewfinder. So I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “That’s real nice,” I told him, “but would you please turn around? I’d rather see the other side.” …it was love at first sight. Madison welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1056 Home Ave., Akron OH 44310.

Also available from Madison Hayes Dye’s Kingdom: Wanting It Forever Enter the Dragon anthology Gryffin Strain: His Female Kingdom of Khal: Redeeming Davik Miss February Zeke’s Hands

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