Authors: Cara Lake
Nightmare
Wrenched out of the darkness, Tani was awoken by sounds of
muttering, curses and deep growls of anguish. The fire was spluttering, the
embers merely smoking ashes. Light from the early dawn sky was filtering
through the entrance to the cave, bathing its interior in a gray sheen. She
turned with shock as Jaro’s large frame thrashed in near delirium, his body
racked with tremors, legs and arms kicking out as if punching at some invisible
foe. His words were slurred. Garbled mutterings that made no sense.
He was in the midst of a night terror. Something that
sounded so bad that Tani’s natural empathy instinctively wrapped itself around
him, trying to create a protective shield. Forcing aside any thoughts of
rejection or her own resentment, Tani drew closer, hands brushing across his
twisting shoulders in an effort to bring calm.
“Jaro, it’s me, Tani. Wake up. You’re safe now.” Her palm
lay against his feverish brow.
He was burning up. A reaction to the constant beatings he
had suffered over the last number of days, his body fighting to heal. Jaro’s
arm pushed her away, resistant to touch. She persisted. The only way she could
still his torment was by wrapping her arms around his whole body and pushing
the weight of her own into his chest. The shaking subsided but he continued to
mutter incoherently.
As she held on to him, Tani experienced that same surge of
tenderness she had felt before, wanting to extinguish the hurt, wipe away his
pain. Fix what was broken. He was a fighter, a brute, but he was also a man,
flesh and blood, subject to the same fears and hurts as all men are.
Keeping the pressure on him, she could feel the heat of his
skin, his body melded to hers in an embrace that somehow fit. Relaxing into his
warmth as a wave of exhaustion washed over her, she held on to him tightly
until Jaro’s shuddering subsided, her blanket of compassion clothing him in a
tranquil veil.
When she awoke hours later, sunlight was seeping through the
cracked entrance as daylight’s golden glow stroked them with healing warmth.
Her head still lay on Jaro’s chest. His body now relaxed, the nightmares had
subsided and he was breathing more evenly in the calm of a natural sleep. Tani
could feel the rise and fall of his massive chest beneath her ear, the strong
beat of his heart echoing her own. She felt content. Complete. It was an eerie
awakening.
Slowly she inched up his body, reluctant to lose the warmth
that lay between them. Jaro’s head turned to one side, dark strands lying over
his cheeks, obscuring her view of his face. His skin appeared less bruised than
it had yesterday. She hesitated a moment before reaching out, wanting to
reassure herself that his wounds were healing. Brushing the dark locks from his
brow, Tani froze in shock as the other face that haunted her dreams stared back
at her.
“What are you doing?” A growl. Silver mercury eyes flashing
open, the indigo edge of his iris a dark seething ring of intense rage. Tani
sat back at a loss. “Your face!” she gasped.
“Yeah, pretty, isn’t it?” he sneered, lifting his shoulders
and rubbing a hand across the light stubble of his jaw. “You…you’re…” Tani
paused, enlightenment hitting hard. “Are you related to Lorcan Rodach?”
Jaro spat a curse. “What do you think, Red?” he challenged,
the rage in his tone abrasive as acid. Tani’s confusion increased. Lorcan
Rodach was right in front of her, except—except the eyes that stared back at
her were not a cool gray, but rather the same vibrant mesmerizing mercury
silver that had pierced her soul during that passionate encounter in the alley.
Black hair framing chiseled cheekbones and perfect dimpled jawline that had
hypnotized her in the sunlight of the bazaar. Her hand lifted as if pulled by
an invisible thread insisting that she touch, feel the warmth of his skin.
Sense won over sensation and her hand fluttered down. “Are you a cousin of his?”
Snorting, he laughed bitterly. “I’m a much closer relation
than that. Most people can hardly tell us apart.”
Adrenaline kicked in as truth punched her hard in the face.
No! No way! How could this be possible? Twins! Even as her mind acknowledged
the evidence, her brain strove for a different solution. “You’re his brother,”
she whispered. A statement rather than a question, although she was unable to
hide her incredulity at the obvious truth of the revelation.
“Once upon a time there were two brothers.” His laughter
derided the shock in her voice. “Do you think he would acknowledge me now?”
“I suppose after all the things you’ve done it would be
difficult for anyone to acknowledge you as a family member,” she countered,
irritated by his blasé tone. Of course she was shocked. He was her Esseni
partner’s twin!
“Ouch—that hurt. And I expect you know all about the things
I’ve done.” Anger flared in those hypnotic eyes. “I’m sure brother Lorcan took
great delight in cataloguing all my crimes.”
Tani shook her head. “No he didn’t. He just told me the
facts.”
“Oh, the facts.” Another snort of laughter. Jaro’s large
frame encroached into her space. “What exactly are the facts?”
Tani stood her ground. “That you’re a thief and a…rapist…”
She flung the accusation at him, daring him to deny it. Tani hesitated. “And a
slave.”
“Did he tell you how I became a slave?” Jaro’s tone was
quiet. Serious.
Tani sat back on her heels and frowned. Why was Jaro a slave
when both his mother and brother were not? That was unusual on Ophiuchus.
Slavery was generally an inherited bond here. You were born into it—or sold
into it, and it was practically impossible to be released. A sharp spear of
unease shot through her. Had Jaro been sold into slavery—it was sometimes used as
recompense for debt or worse. “No he didn’t,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“You won’t believe me even if I do tell you the truth.”
“Try me,” she insisted. “What have you got to lose?”
Jaro didn’t know. He had nothing anyway. Maybe he had
something to gain. She had tried to give him her compassion many times before
and he had constantly rejected it. It wasn’t what he wanted from her. He didn’t
know what he wanted from her. Yes he did. Why kid himself? He wanted
everything. If he told her the truth, would she see his reality?
He fought to keep his anger at her inside his chest, to hold
on to it. That was the only way he could protect himself from her. If he let
her get any closer, she could prove to be the biggest betrayal of all. She was
already under his skin in a way no woman had ever been before. Her every smile
a silken caress across his flesh. A bitter memory intruded of another woman
whose smiles had twisted his gut and made him wish for more.
“Jaro!” The young mistress’s voice was sharp, commanding.
He smiled before turning, hiding his grin beneath the impassive blankness that
was the desired expression expected from a slave.
“Fetch me water!”
Her eyes didn’t meet his as she swept past him and up the
stairs to her room. He bowed low. Now he had something to look forward to. Her
coded message offered the light of hope in an otherwise dark and dreary
existence.
Later that night, he heard her voice again as he entered
her room. This time a whisper. Soft and seductive. “Jaro, I’m dying of thirst
here.”
He crept slowly toward her bed. He liked to keep her
waiting. He had no other control over her but this was the one thing he could
do. Tease. She reached for him in the darkness. “Jaro! I need your kisses,” she
said. He smiled at the need in her voice. It made him feel valued. More than
just a worthless slave.
The young mistress had been calling him to her bed twice
a week now for the last six months. She vowed that she loved him and that in
one year’s time, when she gained her majority, she would free him and they
would be together as a true couple. He believed her because he loved her. She
had shown him the only kindness he had known since his father died eight years
before. So he gave her his kisses, imagining that they meant as much to her as
those she gave in return meant to him. But in that he was mistaken.
Two nights later another voice awoke him from his sleep. “Bastard!
Scum!” He was dragged forcibly from his bed by his master’s guards as the
master stood watching and hurling abuse. They punched and kicked at first with
fists and then the master fell on him with a stick. By the time they stopped,
he was a bleeding bloody mess of broken flesh, torn and ripped to shreds. He
was dragged up onto his knees by his hair and made to kneel though he was
barely conscious. His head lolled forward, too heavy for his exhausted muscles
to support.
The master tore at his hair, jerking his face upward to
look him in the eye. His vision went dark and pain exploded in his jaw as the
master rained down a succession of punches to his head. “You fucking worthless
bastard! How dare you touch my daughter?” His master’s words became a series of
insults that merged into a barrage of noise as the beating continued and he
lost both vision and hearing, his body striving to numb itself to the agonizing
pain. The master finally stopped and pointed to the corner of the room where he
could barely register the blurry shapes of two indistinct forms. It was the
young mistress, sobbing in her mother’s arms.
“Look at what you have done to her, slave! You have
defiled an innocent flower, my beautiful child!”
Jaro shook his head. This wasn’t right. “N-no…” he
stuttered, the words slurred as he gagged on the coppery taste of blood in his
mouth. “I love her!” She was the only thing he had. “She loves me!”
Outraged gasps. Soft footsteps drew closer and he blinked
at the sight of two small feet that stopped in front of him, his eyes awash
with the blood running from his temple. Someone spat on his head. Not her.
Please Chaos, not her! “You pathetic slave! You are nothing but an insect, a
worm, fit only to crawl in the cesspits! Don’t you dare claim that you love me,
that I love you! You came to my room; forced yourself on me—you raped me!” She
was screaming at him now, hysterical, her fists pounding into his head. His
body collapsed as his whole world imploded.
Her father was raging about a lost marriage contract and
lost honor, but what was that compared with the loss of everything?
Rather than execute him, his master sold him to Lord
Phenex. At least that way the master gained some recompense for losing an
advantageous match for his daughter. And the young mistress? Well, the wealthy
have ways of hiding what they don’t want to be seen. They aborted his child
before his former master managed to marry off the young mistress to a rich
merchant from Arushka, and presumably were able to fool him into thinking that
his wife was a virgin on her wedding night.
Jaro had never recovered from that betrayal; the young
mistress’s denial of him added to his mother’s had ensured he now had a deep
and ingrained distrust of all women. His policy after was that to fuck and
forget. But he never forced himself on women. If they were unwilling, then it
was their loss. No woman was worth losing your head over.
It was just as well his redheaded witch loathed him. He
needed to keep a distance between them because if he ever touched her again—he
wasn’t sure that he would be able to stop.
“Listen, Red, the truth is…I am what I am. I’m even more
dangerous than they say. And if you don’t want me sampling that sweet ass of
yours, then you’d better back off because you know I like it rough.” He sat
back against the cave wall, hoping his hostility would create an effective
barrier.
“Like I said,” replied Tani. “I know how to defend myself.”
Her refusal to be cowed was impressive.
“Sure, but I’m a rapist, aren’t I? Don’t forget. If I want
something bad enough I’ll do anything to get it. Do you think I would take no
for an answer?” He kept his tone aggressive. He needed her to keep her
distance, wanted her to know she was playing with fire if she got too close.
There was no way he could afford for her to soften toward him.
She swallowed before answering. “Well, I’m not scared. You
as good as told me that I’m not your type.” He almost smiled at her bravado but
went for the kill anyway. “Even I sometimes lower my standards when I’m horny
or when someone begs me for it.”
“You’re a bastard, Jaro.”
He nodded in agreement. “Best you don’t forget that,” he
said. “But feel free to beg.”
“In your dreams.”
If only she knew. Chaos! If only she knew how she invaded
his dreams. How last night, her face, her hair, the soft warmth of her skin,
had surrounded him as the nightmares that were a recurrent event battered
relentlessly into his psyche.
He had had these dreams for one hundred and twenty years.
Ever since he was ten years old during his first night as a slave they had
plagued his sleep. He remembered the cold chill of fear that swept over him,
the aching loss of his father and brother, the abandonment of his mother.
Rarely were the dreams about the beatings, the physical abuse. It was the
terror of isolation, of being cast off, that had him struggling for breath,
drowning as each loss dragged him under, his body submerged by a sea of rabid
faces taunting him as they left. Each bitter betrayal drove him deeper until he
was lost in the darkness, crushed by the intense pressure of the waves above.
If only she knew how she had pulled him out of the depths
last night. He had glimpsed tendrils of red, strands of brightness that wove a
path toward him, wrapping around him a silky soft embrace. The glowing light
that emanated from a hand that brushed his brow, then encircled his body
lifting him toward the radiating light in the distance. A soft voice whispering.
A satin caress in his ear.
“You’re safe,” she had said. But was he? She was the most
dangerous thing he had ever encountered because he knew he would have to let
her go. If he let her get close, her eventual loss was surely going to be the
most devastating loss of all. Jaro knew without a doubt that there would be no
way back from the darkness for him. Standing quickly, he clenched his fists in
an effort to hold back the tenderness he felt. “It’s time to get moving,” he
growled. “What’s left of Belial’s men may still be searching for us.”