The Battle Lord Saga 02 - Her Battle Lord's Desire (12 page)

“When he took the ropes off my wrists,” she admitted. “He...he turned his back to me.

And I wondered how it would feel to kiss the back of his shoulders.”

MaGrath nodded. “And when did you realize you were hopelessly in love with him?”

She drew a trembling breath. “When he beat Karv senseless.”

The physician’s eyes widened. “You
saw
that?” Until that moment, he had always

believed she had been unconscious.

Atty nodded.

Sitting up, the physician leaned over and laced his fingers together to hook them over one

knee. “Okay. Now the hard part. Yulen is worried sick about you. He says you’ve lost all

desire for him, and he’s beginning to think you’re no longer in love with him. He’s terrified he’s

losing you.”

A look of absolute anguish came over her face. “
No!
That’s not true! I swear on my

father’s soul, Liam! I love Yulen more than I could ever believe possible.”

“Then what’s the problem, Atrilan?” he asked gently.

She raised her hands to her face and took several deep breaths to try and calm herself.

Yulen thought she no longer loved him?
Oh, dear God.

“Liam, are you familiar with tunsul leaves?”

“Tunsul leaves. Maybe. Sometimes your people call plants I’m familiar with by names

I’m not. What are they?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “They’re little round leaves, about the size of your

thumbnail.”

“What are they for?”

This time she bit her lower lip before replying. “Every morning you chew one. You chew

it until you get enough spit to make a mash, and then you swallow it, leaf and all. It doesn’t taste

bad.”

“What are they for?” he reiterated, although he was beginning to get an inkling as to what

her answer would be.

She cast him a sidelong look. “They’re to prevent pregnancy,” she whispered almost too

softly for him to hear.

“It’s a contraceptive, you mean?”

Atty nodded silently.

“Go on. I’m listening.”

Throwing a lock of hair back over her shoulder, she continued, keeping her eyes averted,

unable to look directly at him as she confessed. “They only grow six months out of the year. In a

little carpet in certain parts of the forest. My mother told me about them when I began to have

my flow, just before I took my oath of celibacy. But before then, we went out and she showed

me how to gather them and dry them so that when they stopped growing, I could have a supply

stockpiled to last me until the following spring, when they’d begin blooming again.”

“How long have you been taking these tunsul leaves, Atrilan?”

Surprisingly, she gave a little laugh. “You know, I never really had thought about them

until the day you and Yulen saved me from Collaunt’s cell. When I was coming around to meet

up with you after escaping from the compound, I blundered into a small patch of them. And I

remembered I was no longer...pure. And that there was nothing keeping Yulen and me from

making love the way he’d been promising me. I remembered what Mohmee had told me, about

how babies were made. So I picked a handful to take with me. And then, later the next day, after

I ran off from the caravan, while I was hunting, I found some more, and I stuffed them in a small

pouch and put them in my saddlebags.” She snorted, blinking back tears. “When Fortune

brought me back to Alta Novis after I’d recovered from the poisoning, I found the leaves still

there in my bags where I’d left them. So it wasn’t difficult to start taking them again.”

“So you’ve been taking these leaves to keep from getting pregnant. What has that got to

do with what’s been happening on this trip?”

Finally Atty turned her face to look directly at him. “I couldn’t find my pouch of leaves

before we left Alta Novis. I’ve been hoping that once we get to Wallis I’ll be able to find some to

tide me over until we return.”

“They’re out of season now?”

“Yes. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless there’s something
you
can give me.”

From the reaction on MaGrath’s face, Atty had her answer. “Please, Liam?”

“I just want to know why you don’t want to get pregnant.” This time there was no

mistaking the bite of anger in his voice.

“How can you ask me that? Just
look
at me!”

“Have you spoken to Yulen about this?”

“No.” She emphatically shook her head.

“Why?”

“Because I’m scared!”

“But don’t you think he’s already realized the possibility that any child you have could be

Mutah? I know for a fact he wants children. He wants children with you. Don’t you think you

owe him the chance to at least make a valid argument about you taking a contraceptive?”

MaGrath sat up as she approached him, eyes flashing. “Listen to me,” she replied

heatedly. “I took my required courses in science. They taught me genetics. I know the odds are

fifty-fifty our child will bear some sort of mutant mark. And the odds are one hundred percent

that child will bear my genes, and possibly bear Mutah children of her own. But that’s not what

frightens me, Liam.”

“Then why not have a child?” he spoke gently.

“Because I’m terrified of what our child might have to go through,” she said in a shaky

voice. “I’ve had to endure broken bones and excruciating pain, and so much humiliation just to

be able to love Yulen. Can you imagine what our child might have to face? At least I grew up

where my difference was not a stigma. I was allowed to feel good about myself, and not be afraid

to stand up for what I believed in. Your people tried their damndest to beat it out of me. They

tortured me, and they dragged me through verbal mud. Well, I can’t bear the thought of a child

of my flesh having to go through all that. I can’t allow him to be punished or made to feel

ashamed simply he or she was born different!”

Crawling over the pillows, Atty reached out to place a hand on his knees. “I know you

have something in that bag of miracles to help me through this. Please, Liam.
Please
.”

To her shock, he shook his head. “I can’t, Atty, and I won’t. At least, not until you talk

this over with Yulen. Then, if the both of you are in agreement, I’ll concede and give you what

you want.”

“It’s not Yulen’s choice!”

“Oh, but I think you’re wrong,” MaGrath argued as he got to his feet. “Yulen wants

children. He wants to continue his legacy and the Alta Novis dynasty begun nearly a hundred

years ago. More than that, he wants you to be the mother of his sons and daughters. If you’re

going to deny him that dream, at least love him enough to let him know.”

He started to leave the tent when her next words stopped him cold.

“Do I have the power to give you a direct order?”

Slowly he turned around to face her. “Yes, you do, although I had hoped our friendship

and love for each other would supercede that.”

Her face fell. “Then I ask you as the man who is the closest thing I’ve had to a father

since I lost my own. Please don’t tell Yulen any of what we’ve discussed here tonight. Please.”

MaGrath sighed heavily. “Patient-doctor confidentiality. You have my word. But,

Atrilan? Talk to Yulen. He’s terrified right now. He needs your reassurance that he hasn’t lost

you.” The physician swallowed hard. “When you were dying from the poisoning, we almost lost

him, too. His heart is forever bound with yours, and if he loses you, his own death won’t be far

off. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Atty smiled through her tears. “Yes, I do. Just...just let me be the one to break the news

to him.”

“You have my word,” MaGrath promised.

“Liam? What will you tell him in the meantime?”

“I don’t know, but I hate lying. I guess that’s why I never was a decent poker player,

either.” That being said, he exited the tent, leaving her alone to her thoughts. Overhead the rain

began to fall harder, reminding her that Yulen was out there somewhere, wandering around in an

emotional fog. Believing he was alone. And deathly afraid.

Scrambling quickly back into her clothes, Atty left the tent to search for him.

“I went through
hell
for you, Yulen D’Jacques!”

From the cover of the small trees, Atty watched his reaction at her declaration.

Sometimes the woods provided the perfect echo chamber, the kind that stymied even the most

experienced hunters, keeping them off-centered and unnerved as the sounds they were trying to

pinpoint seemed to be coming from every direction at the same time. Yulen happened to be

standing in the middle of such a natural acoustic resonance in the midst of the encampment where

he was giving Mastin and a half-dozen other soldiers some instructions.

It hadn’t taken her long to find him. But it had soon become apparent there was no way

she was going to be able to get him aside privately to let him know how wrong he was.

How he was so very, very wrong.

He’s beginning to think you’re no longer in love with him.

She had to convince him. Make him realize how strongly she still loved him. Let him

know how great a hold he had on every part of her.

As she watched, he was turning around, seeking her, wondering where she was hiding but

unable to detect her presence. The men beside him seemed as curious, a few flustered, but all of

them intrigued by her announcement.

“I have been beaten...tortured...poisoned...dehumanized,” she continued hotly, unaware of

the angry tears heating her face. “At any time I could have left. I could have run away.

Just...disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. But I stayed! I came back!
Because I

love you!
”

Yulen stopped; his hand began playing with the pommel of his sword. It was the only

outward sign he gave which showed how deeply troubled he was. Lowering his head, his eyes

shut, she saw him pause and wait for her to continue.

“I love you, Yulen,” she repeated in a gentler voice, and listened to it ring in the cold night

air. “I don’t care if I have to tell the whole damn world. I’ve taken everything thrown at me, and

I’m still here! I’ve even killed for you. Don’t you think there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t

wake up and wonder what led you to me? What made you choose me? Or what made me choose

you? When there is every reason in the world for us to hate each other, and every reason for us

be deadly enemies? What happened that you should be the only person in the world to claim my

heart?”

Her throat unexpectedly closed up, forcing her to swallow hard several times before she

could say more. Her skin felt fevered. It wasn’t difficult to tell him the truth. What was

impossible was trying to guess how much of it he believed.

“If I was to be taken away from you right now, right this very minute, and I was told that I

would have to endure it all over again...
all
of it...the beatings, the humiliation, the broken bones, Collaunt, the agony...if I was told I would have to go through all of it again before I could come

back to you, Yulen, I would not hesitate
one heartbeat
to face it all again. Not if it meant that, in the end, I would be returned to you. Because you still wanted me. Because you still loved me.”

Rising from where she’d taken shelter in the thicket of blueberry bushes, Atty stepped out

of hiding and began to approach him. Yulen whirled around and froze to stare at her as she

stopped more than a dozen steps away. The rain had soaked everyone. Her clothes clung to her

like a sheath of ice, and she found herself shivering from both her fear and the weather.

The look on his face was unreadable. It was too dark to see his eyes, but she refused to

take her gaze away from them. It she couldn’t convince him tonight, she would spend the rest of

her life trying to convince him, if that was what it took.

“So don’t you ever,
ever
again think that I no longer love you, do you hear me?” she

demanded, fists clenched at her sides. “Because I will love you until the last breath has left my

body. Until my heart is stilled forever. Only when you place my lifeless body on the funeral pyre,

and set it aflame, then...
then
I will stop loving you.”

She shook her head, unable to stop her tears from mixing with the rain as she vainly tried

to keep her shoulders from hitching with her sobs.

“Only then will I no longer love you, Yul. Only then. You must believe me.”

Her voice faded. She could no longer feel or think or speak. Her world was centered on

his paled face as he stood ramrod straight, staring back at her, with little more than the width of

the road separating them.

In the distance the sound of thunder rumbled in the darkness. A bitter cold rush of wind

swept across the encampment, forcing Atty to fold her arms over her chest. A second later she

was swept into his embrace and lifted against his chest as his lips found hers. By this time she was

shivering so uncontrollably, she could barely feel her own hands as she sought the curve of his

strong shoulder and the warm hollow of his neck.

Dimly she was aware of him lifting her legs and striding across the road, through the

thicket, carrying her past the campfires until they reached the tent. As he brought her inside, he