Jasmine’s hands came up to press against his
chest. He was starting to worry her. Maybe she’d miscalculated.
After all, how well did she know this man?
Fallon didn’t move. “In the future, if you
wish to torment my cousin...” His hand slid up along her arm and
she sucked in a breath, “...don’t use another man to do it. It’s
not safe; for you or him.” He paused with his hand on her upper
arm, a hair’s breadth away from her breast, and she held her breath
in dread.
He met her gaze with eyes of fire, letting
her see the dangerous extent of his desire. “Understand?” She
nodded like a robot, and rueful satisfaction filled his eyes.
“Good.” He gave her a fast, smacking kiss and withdrew. “Go get
your villi, woman.”
Keilor stepped around the corner the moment
she’d scurried through the door. He surveyed his cousin with
disgust. “I should rip your lungs out.”
Fallon snorted. He leaned against the wall as
if it were the only thing holding him up. A sheen of sweat slicked
his skin. “Too much trouble. Besides, you should be grateful; had I
done as I wished to do—”
Keilor grabbed him by the shirtfront and
jerked the dazed warrior nose to nose. “Say it and I
will
maim you,” he warned. His little charmer had put him through enough
torment that night.
He set his jaw. Agony had shot through him
when she’d declared, no,
implied,
she had not only taken a
lover, but she’d chosen one who abused her. He’d had the sickest
feeling of failure and loss, and a grief so fresh that furious
searching for the lover had been the only thing to keep it at bay.
All of that, only to discover her new ‘playmate’ was a villi! If he
hadn’t already spoken to Jayems for her hand, he would have right
then just to have the right to beat her!
Enunciating very clearly, he said, “I am
going back to the others.
You
will be right behind me. If
you are not—”
Fallon sighed and freed himself from Keilor’s
grasp. He straightened his shirt and smiled wryly. “Rest easy,
cousin. I have myself in hand. We’ll be right behind you. After
all, I am rather fond of breathing.”
The first day of the tournament dawned bright
and clear. Jasmine was nervous, but excited as well. Today promised
to be an event to remember.
Their party, which consisted of Rihlia and
Jayems, as well as Rihlia’s family, walked out to the stands, which
had been set up around the training grounds. They were to be seated
in a raised pavilion where they would have an excellent view of the
event.
Keilor stood behind the pavilion, holding the
reins of a stag. He was dressed in the uniform of the Haunt, with
the red symbol of rank above his heart. He was talking to
Knightin.
With a twinge of unease, she noticed he
seemed to be armed with an unusual number of weapons. An engraved
tomahawk hung from his wide black belt, and he had several throwing
knives in addition to the gun and long knife the Haunt regularly
carried. “What’s he doing?”
Jayems answered, “Keilor is Master of the
Hunt. Naturally he’s overseeing the event, and he’ll be opposing
the contestants, along with several of the men who will be
competing tomorrow.”
“Several?” she asked, surprised. “But won’t
they be outnumbered? You said there are over a hundred cadets in
the tournament today.”
Jayems snorted. “If they could be tired so
easily by mere cadets they wouldn’t be in the ring tomorrow. Today
will merely be a warm up for Keilor and the rest of your
suitors.”
A frisson of alarm shook her at his words.
“What do you mean, ‘
and
the rest of my suitors’?” she
demanded, uncaring that they were close enough for Keilor to hear.
Surely he didn’t mean—
Giving her a sexy smile, Keilor answered for
her. “Jayems gave me his permission to win you, of course.” His
smile turned down right scintillating. “Wear something silver
tomorrow night, Dragonfly.”
She blushed. A little bit scared, and more
than a little bit excited, she ground out, “You can’t play!” What
if he actually won? It was one thing to tease him into noticing
her, another for him to be elevated to suitor. That was serious
business. She wasn’t sure he was ready to belong to one woman. She
hadn’t had long enough to convince him.
Keilor raised a brow and studied her with
lazy possession. “Why not? I did give you a gift, didn’t I?”
Jasmine huffed even as her temperature shot
up ten degrees. “You don’t count!”
With a husky laugh, he flicked a butterfly
caress across her lips with his thumb. “I’m the only one who does.”
He flashed perfect teeth at Jayems, full of good humor. “Your
suitors can still have their reward. All they have to do is go
through me.”
Jasmine stamped her foot, which would have
shocked her if she’d been paying any attention. She couldn’t name
the source of her acute agitation. “Why must you be so
difficult?”
He just winked at her.
“This is hardly fair,” Jayems told him with a
smirk, putting his arm around the seething Jasmine as he steered
her firmly towards their family pavilion. “I ought to just hand the
girl over to you, gift wrapped.”
Keilor grinned as Jasmine twisted futilely in
an attempt to turn around and blast him. Telling that she would
direct her ire at him instead of Jayems. “Where’s the fun in
that?”
The cadets had not been warned what to expect
during the beginning of the tournament, except to be ready for
anything, the Master of Ceremonies announced.
The stands were filled with a restless crowd
of thousands. People had traveled for up to a week to see this
tournament, and to see the skill of those under Jayems’ command.
The measure of their warriors was the measure of their strength,
and this exhibition was much more than just entertainment.
The only prohibition placed on the men had
been no shifting, which had surprised most of them, since the Haunt
always
fought shifted.
Speculation had run wild over the first
command until a rumor had sprung up that Jasmine wouldn’t recognize
the warriors in Haunt, and she wished to remember the exploits of
her favorites. After that all murmuring ceased, and the cadets
walked around giving each other sly looks, each more sure than the
last that the charmer would wish to remember
him.
Jasmine didn’t need to know any of that. For
her, this was only a day of excitement and thrill, and Keilor
intended to make certain it was a day she would long remember.
Nervous and bright eyed, she stood in the
pavilion and looked down over the banner-draped guardrail to the
regimented soldiers. “I wanted to thank you for the gifts you sent
when I was ill.” One corner of her lips tilted up, “It was almost
worth being so sick if it meant I could look at such beautiful
plants and flowers. And those candies!” She shook her head, plainly
awed. “I think I’m ruined.”
The cadets were forbidden to even smile, but
the audience chuckled. “Boys will be boys, I know, or men will be
men, but for the sake of your mothers, guys, please be careful out
there today.” She grinned wryly. “I’d hate to make enemies of half
the Haunt population.” More laughter. She raised her fist over her
head. “May the best man win!” The crowd roared in approval, and she
laughed, looked down, and sat.
The games began.
With a roar like thunder, riders burst out of
the gates to the left of Jayems’ pavilion, charging straight toward
the black blocks of cadets. Jasmine barely had time to note Keilor
and the commanders move to the far side of the field, leaving the
sub-commanders to handle their units. A single shouted command from
five different throats caused the ranks to whip out their knives
and turn en mass to present a solid wall of resistance to the
oncoming hoard. Jasmine barely had time to wonder at the folly of
facing horsemen
—
or
stagmen
—
with nothing but knives
when with a zap!, a hundred blades suddenly elongated into three
foot lengths of blue light.
“Light sabers!” Jasmine gasped, her eyes
enormous.
Jayems’ eyes flicked to her briefly. “Energy
blades. Blue Death.” He returned his attention to the fray.
Faced with a solid wall of lightning, the
riders sheered off, shouting blood curdling war cries as they
tossed glowing white balls into the mass of soldiers. Unless struck
from the air with a sword, dazzling white light exploded where they
hit, coating the soldiers with glowing powder. Only one grenade
struck, and those soldiers immediately removed from the field.
“Acceptable, for cadets, though Keilor will
have them doing drills for a month.” Jayems murmured.
The riders made two more passes with the
bombs, and one struck, narrowing the field by five more men. The
riders, all men with red insignia and red sashes, condensed into a
menacing wedge with a fierce, dark haired warrior riding point. The
wedge shot into the squadron. Jasmine gasped as the living missile
impaled the square of soldiers and forced the box to burst
open.
“Mathin the Mad,” Urseya breathed reverently
from Jasmine’s left. “Every mother’s daughter would give away their
wedding night for a chance at him.”
Jasmine’s eyes opened wider and she watched
the fierce soldier with even more interest.
There was much to see. With a snarl of animal
bloodlust, Mathin cut his way through men who outnumbered him ten
to one, and those men were definitely resisting. Plainly, merely
outnumbering men like Mathin and the warriors who rode behind him
was not enough to ensure victory, or to even offer the hope of it.
In minutes the field was reduced by half, and some of the men were
being helped off the battlegrounds.
“These are only cadets,” Jayems offered,
almost in apology.
Jasmine just stared at him. If these were
only cadets, she shivered to think of his army in action. To her
eyes, there had been nothing remotely restrained in their
defense.
The riders dismounted, pointed towards the
gates and told their mounts to go. Expressions grim, the fearsome
ten advanced, swords drawn, on the remaining fifty cadets. Shouted
commands from the sub commanders, most of whom were still on the
field, locked that remaining fifty into a strong, determined
opponent. Not a flicker of fear or hint of wavering showed in the
entire division.
Yet the ten caused it to fold like a house
gutted by fire.
Jasmine winced and flinched each time an
energy blade descended and decimated a cadet. She could tell they
were trying valiantly, yet heart and soul alone just wasn’t enough
to stop the ten. They were invincible.
When the dust cleared this time, ten of the
original hundred soldiers who’d begun the tournament remained on
their feet, and of those ten, two were sub commanders.
“Tailor and Seris,” Jayems explained in an
aside to her. “Our leaders earn the right to lead with cunning and
skill. Nothing is given here.” He rose. “Well done,” he told the
remaining ten, and they saluted him. The crowd cheered. To Mad
Mathin and his men, he nodded, and received a nod in return. The
soldiers left the field, and fire dancers and drummers took their
places for intermission.
“The ten who have lasted until the end will
now have the honor of exhibiting their skills for you,” Jayems
explained politely. “It won’t be anything like what you’ll see
tomorrow, of course, but these men are not unskilled. I think
you’ll find it entertaining.”
“I thought they did very well, considering
the men they were facing,” Jasmine protested, feeling the need to
defend the men she’d originally set out to thank. She winced a
little, thinking of the humiliating defeat they’d just suffered on
her behalf. Would they still feel as charitable towards her
now?
The last half of the tournament passed
quickly in a stunning display of riding ability, marksmanship, and
sheer daring. Jasmine was particularly fascinated by one cadet’s
uncanny ability to cling to his racing, saddleless mount in an
astonishing number of positions. By the time she was presented with
the sweating, disheveled victor of the day, she was truly in
awe.
Jasmine looked closely at the young sub
commander who stood before her, the one called Seris. He must have
been close to her age, whereas all the men who would compete
tomorrow were unanimously older, though still in their prime. She
felt a tug of sympathy for the cadet, who’d fought so hard against
such impossible odds, and after a moment, she recognized him.
“Aren’t you the one who gave me truffles?” she asked, frowning a
little in thought.
Seris nodded his head in respect. “Yes, my
lady. I made them myself.”
Her eyes lit up. “You didn’t tell me that
when I thanked you for your gift!” she exclaimed. “Had I known, I
would have asked you to show me how right away. Is it too late to
ask now?”
“Never, my lady,” Seris breathed, his eyes
widening in disbelief at his stroke of good fortune. He’d never
dared hope for so much when he’d made the admission.
Jasmine gave him a dazzling smile and awarded
him with a red sash embroidered with her name. She hadn’t made it
herself, but she felt it was best not to share that with him. Why
ruin his moment of glory?
Formally, she gave him the traditional words
Rhapsody had taught her. “I give you a token of my pleasure. May
you wear it in honor of your victory today, in all your triumphs,
until you take a wife who demands the same honor.” And then she
added a touch of her own, kissing him lightly on the cheek as she
presented the sash.
Poor Seris looked like he might swoon. “A
tradition from my own country,” She explained in the stunned
silence, fearing for a moment she’d committed a grievous social
faux pas.
The crowd erupted into wild cheers and began
chanting, “SERIS! SERIS!”