The Lawgivers: Gabriel (20 page)

Well, not since he’d captured her. He
supposed he hadn’t really seen her as different from the others to
start with or he wouldn’t have been so convinced that she’d
committed some punishable crime. “Believe me when I say it isn’t a
matter of want,” he finally said irritably. “We aren’t the same
species—that, more than anything, is the problem with what you were
suggesting.”

She wasn’t entirely certain of what he
meant by species, but she got the general idea. He was agreeing
that they weren’t the same and he didn’t want her.

Well! That was that. She was
disappointed, vastly. She was hurt, too. As much as she would’ve
liked to deny it, the lump in her throat was hard to ignore. She
nodded. “I know. I’m not blind. That’s why … never
mind.”

She waited a few minutes, just to
salvage what she could of her pride and make a show, at least, of
not being particularly concerned about it, then nodded and turned
to leave again.

Gah-re-al knew he should’ve simply left
it at that. He hadn’t considered before he’d said it himself that
she’d been so brutalized her entire life that she wasn’t likely to
enjoy it no matter what he did or how careful he tried to be—which
meant there was nothing at all in it for her in even a single
coupling. And he still wasn’t convinced that that was all she’d
been angling for. She seemed to accept that he wouldn’t make any
commitment beyond a one-time-only coupling or want more, but he had
a bad feeling that agreeing to it was going to create all sorts of
headaches he didn’t want or need.

And he still couldn’t quite bring
himself to let her walk away. “If you want to bathe, I could take
you to a place.”

Lexa sent him a quick look, wondering
if the comment was a not-so-subtle suggestion that she stank. Well,
she knew she didn’t smell particularly appealing when she hadn’t
had the chance to bathe in a couple of days! And, despite the sense
that she’d been insulted, she did want a bath. She nodded.
“Thanks.”

He hesitated. “If you’re still of the
same mind tonight after you’ve given yourself time to think it
over, come to me after everyone has settled for the
night.”

Lexa searched his face, wondering if he
was suggesting what it sounded like he was suggesting or if he was
still just talking about taking her to a watering hole where she
could bathe. She decided not to test it, though, and merely
nodded.

“I have a bad feeling I’m going to
regret this,” Gah-re-al muttered as she left.

* * * *

Lexa was as terrified as she was
excited. It was all she could do to wait until everyone had settled
on their pallets and had time to drop to sleep. She waited, though,
because he’d warned her not to let the others know what he planned
to do, trying to regulate her breathing and racing
heart.

She’d spent the remainder of the day
after their conversation trying to convince herself that he hadn’t
meant anything at all except that he’d offered to take her to
bathe.

She wasn’t entirely certain of why he’d
made the offer, but that was all he’d meant.

There was at least a small chance,
though, that he’d meant the other—that he’d meant he intended to
show her why women wanted him to fuck them.

And even if he hadn’t meant that, she
thought there was still a chance that he might change his mind once
they were alone.

The thought of being alone with him was
almost as frightening as it was exciting, too. She didn’t know if
she would’ve felt the same way if she didn’t think anything would
happen or not, but she was so torn by conflicting dread and want
that she’d wavered from minute to minute all day long as to whether
to take him up on the offer or not.

She wasn’t truly afraid that he’d hurt
her, though, she reminded herself, and therefore there was no sane
reason to be afraid of going off alone with him. Particularly since
she was also almost completely certain that the likelihood was far
greater that she wouldn’t be able to convince him to couple than it
was that she would.

When she’d managed to convince herself
that she needn’t worry on account of him hurting her, she focused
on trying to decide whether to try again to convince him to ‘show’
her what he meant or not. She was still wavering on that when she
rose from her pallet and tried to creep stealthily through the camp
to where she’d seen Gabriel settle his own pallet.

Ordinarily, that part wouldn’t have
been a problem. Moving stealthily was a trick she’d pretty much
mastered over the years since it was a matter of survival to be
able to slip quietly and unobtrusively in and out of some places.
She was downright lightheaded, though, because she couldn’t tame
her runaway heart and the galloping organ made it impossible to
regulate her breathing as well.

Her knees felt weak, too, and her boots
far more awkward and heavy than they ever had before.

She was tempted to simply take them off
and leave them, but she didn’t want to risk the chance that someone
might steal them. They hadn’t been easy to get. She hadn’t lied
when she’d told Gabriel that she’d taken them off a dead person,
but it had been almost more than she could stomach to do so. Beyond
that, she’d had to do without anything on her bare feet for a very
long time before she’d chanced upon the body and she hadn’t
forgotten how miserable it was to go barefoot when it was so cold
the ground numbed her feet or it was so hot she could almost smell
the soles of her feet scorching with every step she
took.

She’d more than half suspected that she
would have to waken Gabriel. She discovered she needn’t have
worried. Either he hadn’t fallen asleep or she woke him with her
approach.

“Unless they sleep like the dead,” he
muttered dryly, “I think we’ve lost the opportunity of slipping
away without announcing it.”

Lexa felt her face heat. “Sorry. I
tripped over that guy’s hand.”

Gabriel snorted. “Stepped on
it.”

Splitting hairs! Did the little details
actually matter? She’d still tripped and she certainly hadn’t meant
to wake half the camp!

He sighed. “I suppose we might as well
go. Either way, it will certainly be no secret that we met after
everyone bedded down.”

“Maybe we should just forget about it,”
Lexa muttered unhappily. It wasn’t as if she’d expected him to
greet her with delight, but his sarcasm coupled with the fact that
he was right and she had given the whole thing away, had severely
dampened her enthusiasm.

He shook his head. Rising, he pulled
her against his length. “Hold on.”

It wasn’t much of a warning. Lexa
didn’t know why, but it hadn’t occurred to her, once, that he was
talking about flying with her dangling from his arms! She sucked in
a sharp breath as he spread his wings, flapped them a couple of
times, and then launched the two of them skyward. It wasn’t an
actual scream but that was only because she didn’t have time to
catch her breath. Her belly dropped as they rose.

She would’ve liked to focus on the fact
that Gabriel had embraced her except that wasn’t exactly what it
was and she was too frightened and uncomfortable to enjoy any part
of it. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that it was dark
and she couldn’t see that well even if her position had allowed for
it. She could still feel being in the air and the movement. The
rush of air past them was almost as scary as the feeling that she
was going to fall any minute and probably still wouldn’t catch up
with her stomach. Within a matter of moments, she was shivering so
violently that her teeth were clacking together.

Gabriel’s arms tightened around her.
“Cold?”

She wasn’t certain, but she nodded
anyway, too scared to actually talk.

“I’ll take you to a warm
spring.”

Yes, well that might help warm her
up—now—but what about the return trip?

At any rate, she thought she was cold
because she was scared to death, not necessarily because of the
wind or the night air and she didn’t think she wanted to make a
return trip.

If she’d known what he had in mind she
didn’t think anything would’ve convinced her to go with
him.

She’d thought when Gabriel said he
would take her to a warm spring that he’d been talking about the
one where they’d stopped before. As soon as they landed, however,
she saw that wasn’t the case. The pool was about twice the size of
the other one and there was no waterfall. Beyond that, it was far
more ‘exposed’. There’d been nothing but a few stunted bushes near
the other pool, but there’d been a number of sizeable boulders.
This plateau looked like a table—flat and featureless.

“The temperature of the water is more
comfortable,” Gabriel said when he’d finally managed to pry her
loose.

Lexa nodded jerkily, but she had lost
all enthusiasm for a bath or fucking. All she really wanted was to
return immediately and crawl under her blanket and stay
there.

“You’re afraid?” he said, a statement
rather than a question, his tone grim.

Lexa nodded jerkily again, too
distressed to ponder the tone of his voice.

“Bathe. You should at least enjoy the
pool.”

“I suppose it’s too far to walk back?
‘Cause I really didn’t like that.”

Gah-re-al sent her a quick look and
relaxed fractionally. Not unnaturally, he had had nothing on his
mind since they’d agreed to meet tonight except how many ways and
times he meant to have her. He’d thought she was so petrified now
that the moment of truth was upon her that she’d found she couldn’t
overcome her aversion.

It was a relief to know the fear was
from the flight—not the prospect of fucking him—but at the same
time guilt flashed through him that he hadn’t considered how she, a
flightless being, might feel about flying. “Walking isn’t an
option, I’m afraid. The cliff aside—which I doubt either of us
could scale—it would take at least a full day, maybe two, to get
back on foot.”

As dismayed as she was by the
information, Lexa wasn’t particularly surprised. She was tempted to
insist they return immediately, but she’d had just enough time to
begin to settle from her fright to want to put off experiencing it
again as long as she could.

Beyond that, it occurred to her
forcefully that this entire thing was her idea. She’d approached
Gabriel about it not the other way around and he might not take it
at all well if she backed out now when she’d not only gone with him
willingly, but had all but begged him to take her.

She thought she might have been more
self-conscious if she hadn’t been so shaken from the flight to the
pool. As it was, it flickered through her mind that she’d committed
herself to something she was no longer at all certain she wanted to
experience. She was alone with a man that wasn’t her kind, far from
anyone who even might help, and trapped on a plateau she had no way
to escape from.

She decided to simply not think about
it.

That generally worked for her when
faced with a situation she couldn’t escape and couldn’t really deal
with. She closed her mind and did what she had to.

She wanted to close her eyes, too, but
then he would know that she was closing herself off and he might
take exception to it.

If he didn’t know then he couldn’t
force her to face something she’d decided she didn’t want to
face.

Moving away from Gabriel, Lexa very
slowly and carefully removed her clothing and then crouched beside
the pool to test the temperature of the water. “Is it very deep?”
she asked without turning around.

“You can’t swim.”

There was disapproval in his voice.
Peripherally, Lexa noticed it and it increased the hysteria trying
to claw its way from her belly to her throat. There was nothing
about her that he approved of or liked, she thought unhappily.
“No.”

“Stay close to the edge. It drops off
toward the center.”

Dropped off how far, she wondered,
feeling a shiver skate down her spine?

Shaking her uneasiness, no longer able
to think beyond getting through what she’d taken upon herself, she
stepped into the water and moved carefully away from the edge until
the water was lapping at her thighs. She settled then, focusing on
the feel of the water and her enjoyment of the water’s warm, silky
caress.

She could do this! All she had to do
was focus on the pleasure of the feel of the water and block the
insane urge to run screaming to the edge of the cliff and throw
herself off.

She’d just decided to settle lower in
the water when Gabriel arched over her head and cleaved the water
near the pool’s center, sending a shockwave rolling outward in
every direction. The wave crested in her face since she’d just
crouched.

Coughing and blinking to get the water
out of her eyes, she sloughed the dampness from her face with one
hand. When she finally managed to see again, she discovered that
Gabriel had moved closer. She stiffened when he reached for her and
then forced herself to relax as his hands closed around her
waist.

He drew her toward him until their
bodies were lightly brushing with the movement of the water around
them, staring at her for long, long moments before his face drifted
closer to hers. She turned her face slightly away, but she didn’t
make any other attempt to evade his touch.