“This is not what I want to hear,” Fallon told them.
Meynard shrugged. “You know there’s no way to tell. It’s up to the gods at this point.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Caden asked carefully.
Fallon ran one large palm along the back of his neck. “There’s no choice at this point. Too many people know what she’s done. If I let it go unanswered, they’ll assume I’m weak and challenge my authority. I can’t punish her in the traditional manner without losing any trust and loyalty she might have after the last few months. The Trateri’s venom is considered enough of a punishment, while having the added benefit of making her a Trateri in full.”
“You really think we hold any part of her loyalty?”
“She could have disappeared at any point. Her men say she saved them time after time. Something had to have kept her here. Whatever it is, I intend to capitalize on it.”
Shea took her time in the bath, luxuriating in the warmth, something she hadn’t done in ages. A sweet jasmine scent wafted from the water, coating her skin and relaxing her muscles.
Trenton had given her orders to wash well before putting on the garments lain aside for her. Shea intended to take her time in the water, feeling a near bliss as the heat soothed her aches and pains.
The water had begun to cool before she stirred, reaching for the soap to begin washing. She took her time as for the first time in months there was no reason to rush. A man wasn’t going to come charging in intending to take advantage of the communal bath the Trateri set up at every stop. There was no pressure to keep her gender hidden.
It was just her and the water.
Bliss. Definite bliss.
“I would never have guessed you’d be the type to take a long bath,” an amused voice said beside her ear.
Shea squeaked and sank into the water until only her shoulders and head were sticking out. She wrapped her arms around her breasts and drew her knees up to her chest.
“It’s such a feminine trait.” Fallon drew circles in the bathwater beside her knee.
Shea glared. Perhaps she should have been worried about one person intruding.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
She refused to act like some virginal maiden. She was a scout, one of the most coveted positions. She’d faced down beasts that made others turn and run. This was nothing.
“I’m the Warlord. I can go anywhere I want.”
He flicked water at her. She ducked and then glared harder.
“My little tomboy has an ounce of softness in her after all,” he murmured as he stood.
She sunk lower, feeling vulnerable in the milky water.
Shea had never been particularly body shy. In the wilderness, things happened. People saw each other’s naked bits occasionally. You got used to it.
With Fallon, it was different.
“What do you want?”
Why wouldn’t he just leave?
“You know what I want.”
She rolled her eyes. For her to be his Tolroi. Yeah, right.
“What do you want from me? Really?” Feeling vulnerable and off balance by her nakedness, she attacked the only way she could. Verbally. “We both know it’s not to be your Tolroi. My face and body aren’t the type to engender such passion in another. So tell me, what do you really want?”
The water sloshed against the sides of the tub as she moved restlessly.
“How long have you been with us?” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. The back of his fingers trailed down her cheek, her neck and across one shoulder in a stray caress that sent shivers racing down her back.
He smiled as the gentle ripples in the water gave away her disquiet. It was a conqueror’s smile, full of dark thoughts and decadent intentions.
Shea was so in over her head.
“Roughly eight months?” His thumb rubbed delicately against the rim of her ear. “I wonder how much you learned in that time.”
He rested his chin on the arm draped across the tub. Shea watched him, spellbound by the liquid warmth in his whiskey colored eyes.
“Do you know how most Trateri chooses their Telroi, the bearer of their children?”
Shea shrugged. She’d heard stories. That was it. Some of them had seemed a little farfetched.
“Most pairings happen when one abducts the other.”
Shea hid her skepticism. That was pretty much another way to say kidnapping. There wasn’t a lot of places a relationship could go from there.
“Yes,” he said to the clear doubt in her face. “Our people have a long standing tradition of seeing a potential partner and then claiming them whether they want to be claimed or not.”
“Doesn’t seem like an ideal start to a life together.”
“You forget that for the past four generations our people were not united. They were scattered in tribes, and every tribe regarded the others as enemies. Carrying our potential mates off into the night was the only way to survive as a people.” He tugged at a strand of hair. “It also added spice to a couple’s beginning.”
Some spice.
“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re so all fired up to have me as your Tolroi. If I recall, the first time you tried to make off with me, I was coming off a three day journey across country and had just mounted a rescue mission. I hardly compared to the beauties in your own camp.”
Shea didn’t lie to herself. Her strengths lay in her brain and her talent for navigation, not in how fair of face she was. She was happy with that much and saw no need to aspire to more. The fact that a warlord professed to want her was baffling and set her instincts twanging. There was more.
“It’s true. Your beauty isn’t the type to outshine the likes of Indra.”
Ha. Shea knew it.
“But there’s more to attraction than the exterior packaging. The color of your eyes has been burned into my brain since that man ripped away your hood in Edgecomb. The feel of your body when I caught you on the wagon has tormented me in dreams ever since. I never know what is going on behind those eyes of yours.” He gave her a wicked smile and Shea’s breath caught at the sight. “You are a constantly evolving puzzle. It drives me mad, and for someone like me, who can guess an opponent’s move before they even make it, that is more attractive than a fragile thing like appearance could ever be. You ask why you. How could it be any but you?”
Shea’s heart felt like it was going a mile a minute. She felt like she was suspended and any movement would send her plummeting to the ground.
For a warlord used to spending time killing or practicing to kill, he could sure talk pretty. Even Dane didn’t have as glib a tongue as this man.
Shea had to be careful, or he’d wrap her around his finger before she even know what hit her.
“So it’s not because I’m one of the few who can get you past the cliffs?”
Fallon didn’t move, the expression on his face remained unchanged, and yet the room felt saturated with his anger.
Shea held very still, somehow knowing that a single movement could reap consequences she was in no way prepared to deal with.
A quick movement and Fallon caught Shea behind the neck, slowly forcing her up with him as he stood. Water sluiced down her body as she rose.
The pulse at her neck beat wildly as his gaze held her rapt attention.