Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (5 page)

“I’m all right,” she mouthed before she
hesitantly tipped her head back to her (handsome, I was pleased to
see, very handsome but also hopefully soft under all that muscle)
warrior.

Then I was equally pleased to see him slide
his arm along her waist in a way that looked kind of tender before
he guided her down the steps.

Okay. Shoo. Maybe Narinda was going to be
okay.

More warriors, more brides, more drums, more
chin jerks and bowing and then, almost to the end, I was shocked to
see the cruel warrior who got his chain on me before the Dax had
severed it was striding up the steps dragging an extremely
beautiful, native girl behind him.

He, too, was wounded, one eye swelling, a
cheekbone too and he was bleeding profusely from his nose and
shallow but nasty gashes on his chest.

But it wasn’t his wounds that freaked me
out. It was his eyes.

His eyes were burning and this burn came
from his soul, that soul was filled with hate and his eyes were
locked on his king.

Oh man,
that
did not bode well.

His bride stumbled on the steps but he
didn’t even slow; he dragged her on her knees to the top of them.
This caused me to take in a sharp breath and then I felt it.

Something coming from the Dax. Something not
good.

I tore my eyes away from the bleeding, vile
warrior whose new wife was at her knees by his side, his blood and
probably others, considering her beauty, all over her naked body,
to look at the Dax.

He gave nothing away. His expression had not
changed and his body was held loose and relaxed. And somehow I knew
his not giving this man anything was taking away what that man most
wanted. He wanted the Dax to look angry or alert to the obvious
threat he posed.

But the Dax wasn’t giving him even that.

Still, my new husband did not like this guy.
I could sense it.

My eyes snapped back to the warrior when I
heard his bride cry out in pain. Then I froze in horror when I saw
he was pulling her up by her hair.

Unless I missed it, he didn’t give the Dax a
chin jerk or me a bow. Instead, he positioned his new bride in
front of his body, kicked her legs apart with his foot, then his
arm circled her as his other hand stayed clenched in her hair,
clearly in a painful way for both her hands had wrapped around his
wrist and her stunning face was twisted in distress. Then his torso
bent low, his hand moving from her waist, to her belly, down, over
her sex, curling in…

My eyes shot to the Dax as I heard her
whimper.

He did not look at me. His face was set to
blank and his eyes were glued to the warrior. They were up, not
down, not watching what he was doing but locked on the warrior’s
face.

Then I watched his lip curl.

But I didn’t feel the warrior move away
though I heard his woman keep whimpering.

He was still hurting her.

I couldn’t allow it. After what had
happened to me that night, to Narinda, to all those frightened
girls out there who had been claimed on rough rocks by savage
warriors, I couldn’t allow it. Not this. What we’d endured was
humiliating,
this
was beyond
that.

I had to do something.

“Stop him,” I whispered to the Dax but he
didn’t tear his eyes away from the warrior. “Stop him,” I repeated
but he ignored me. Hesitantly, not wanting to do it, never wanting
to touch him but spurred on by the girl’s whimpers and fresh
memories of my own nightmare, I reached out a hand and wrapped my
fingers around his wrist. “Stop him,” I implored.

At my touch, the Dax’s head turned, his dark
eyes dropped to my hand then they lifted to my face. I saw them
move over my features but he gave me nothing. I didn’t know what he
was thinking. I had no clue.

When the whimpers continued, I moved my
hand to his, curled my fingers around, shook it, leaned in and
begged, “Please,
please,
stop
him.”

The Dax stared at me.

God, he had no idea what I was saying.

Or worse, he didn’t care.

Then, suddenly, his head turned to the
warrior and he said something to him in a low voice that included
two words I knew, “Kah Lahnahsahna” and one that struck me,
“Dahksahna”.

“Tooyo!” was the response spit from the
warrior and that got a reaction.

The Dax’s face went hard.

Uh-oh.

My hand slid away.

He was freaking scary normally but when his
face went hard like that…

Yikes.

“Tooyo?” he asked softly.

“Tooyo!” the warrior repeated, I pulled my
eyes away from the Dax and wished I didn’t.

The warrior was working the girl with his
fingers, right there, right in front of us and for all who could
see. She was not enjoying it, not even a little bit, her face
stained with tears, her body twisting madly to get away.

The instant my eyes took it in, I didn’t
even attempt to hold it back.

I tensed and shouted, “
Stop it!
”

The warrior’s eyes sliced to me and he
smiled a cruel smile but he did… not… stop.

I jumped from my seat and screamed,
“
Stop
it!
”

“Tooyo!” he shot back at me and that was
it.

The Dax was out of his seat, the woman
ripped from his hands and thrown at me. I caught her in my arms as
the Dax moved on the warrior. The warrior shifted to deflect him
but without any apparent effort and so fast the warrior didn’t even
begin to defend himself, the Dax rammed his hand, palm first,
fingers wrapping around, into the man’s throat, lifted the huge guy
right off his feet, took two long strides and threw him down all
ten steps, the man flying through the air to land on his back at
the base of the dais.

That’s right…
threw him
. He
threw
an enormous, grown man
through the air
down ten steps.

Holy
crap!

The Dax stood at the top step looking down
and then his rough voice rumbled through the drum filled night when
he called, “Kah Dahksahna me ahnoo.”

The warrior scrambled to his feet, the Dax’s
body tensed to alert, the crying woman in my arms shoved closer
into my body, my arms tightened around her but other than that, I
stood stock-still.

They went into stare down and this lasted
awhile before the warrior spit on the steps and stalked away.

The Dax turned and, without looking at me or
the girl, he moved back to his throne and sat. Two women bustled up
the steps and laid gentle hands on the girl, pulling her away from
me then to the side of the dais then they ducked into the crowd
after they reached the bottom of the steps.

“Kah Dahksahna,” I heard the Dax say from
behind me, I turned and caught his painted eyes.

They were burning into mine. Then they
looked at my throne and back at me.

Guess it was time for me to sit back
down.

I took in a shuddering breath and slowly
lowered myself to the pad under the Dax’s black gaze. Once my ass
was to the pad, he turned away and jerked his chin at the next
warrior.

And then the wedding rite continued like
nothing happened.

No joke.

Like nothing happened.

God, I had to get out of this place.

The Golden Dynasty

Three days later…

“Kah Dahksahna, shalah dahnay,” the woman
implored, her hand resting light on my hip over the silk sheet.

My head was to pile of silk pillows; my eyes
were open and unseeing. I could feel the soft hides under my body.
The light, silk sheet was down around my waist but I was covering
my naked breasts with my arm.

And I wanted to die.

Every day, I didn’t wake up at home. Three
nights of sleep, three days of waking up and I wasn’t going home.
Three days of waking up to the attentions of the king. Three nights
of being woken to more attention when he arrived back at the
tent.

There were no murmured words of tenderness,
even ones I didn’t understand. There was no attempt at foreplay. No
cuddling afterward. He didn’t hold me in his sleep. He just turned
me to my belly, yanked me up to my knees, used me, pulled out,
dropped down beside me and fell asleep (or, in the mornings, after
he took me, he got up, dosed himself with water from a jug, pulled
on his hides without even toweling off and prowled out).

He didn’t share meals with me (not that I
got up to eat, I didn’t get up at all, except to use the pot at the
back). He didn’t visit with me.

He didn’t even know my name.

At least he was gone during the days.

And he had just left and like every day when
he left, the five women who’d seen to me after the claiming rushed
in and bustled around his tent with great activity. The one with
dark skin, clearly the leader of the group, as usual coming to me,
talking gently but increasingly anxiously using words I didn’t
understand but her hand was always light on me, the shakes she’d
give my body always gentle and I got the message – she wanted me to
get up.

I didn’t get up and eventually they gave up
and stole out.

I barely looked at them.

I needed to get home. I needed to
get
the
fuck
out of
there.

I needed to do it but I had no clue, not
that first stinking clue,
how
to
do that.

And my nightmare rolled on.

The hand left my hip and I felt her get up
from the bed. Then I heard her speaking softly but urgently to the
other women.

I shoved my hand under the pile of soft
pillows at my head and kept staring across the tent, seeing
nothing, still feeling him between my legs, knowing he’d be
back.

What could have been five minutes or five
hours later, I heard the tent flap slap back, my body tensed, my
mind searched the tent to see if it could feel if it was
him
who had returned (it would be a
first, it was still daylight) and I didn’t feel his raw, brutal
energy filling the tent.

I relaxed.

Then I felt a presence seat itself behind me
and another light hand on my hip.

“
Kah Dahksahna, my dear, you must rise, you
must eat, you must show yourself to The Horde.”

I blinked and turned to my back, my arm
moving to cover my breasts as I stared up at a very pretty woman
with dark brown hair, hazel eyes and a gentle expression. She was
wearing the clothing of the natives and speaking my language.

“You speak English?” My voice was scratchy
because I hadn’t used it in three days.

Her head tipped to the side. “English?”

Great. She didn’t know what English was. She
wasn’t here from a dream either.

I stared at her and guessed she was maybe in
her early forties and aging very well. I also knew, in their
desperation, the women who tended me went out and found a woman who
spoke my language.

Well, interesting to know that there was
another person in that vile place who spoke my language but not
interesting enough for me to care.

I turned to my side again and resumed my
contemplation of nothing.

Her hand shook my hip gently. “Kah
Dahksahna, please, you must rise. There are whispers.”

“I don’t care,” I stated though it was more
that I didn’t understand but I didn’t care enough to understand
either.

“I see you were sheltered,” she muttered to
herself, her fingers giving me a kindly squeeze.

No. I wasn’t sheltered. Like Narinda, my Mom
died when I was young. It happened when I was ten. A freak
incident, the kind you never heard of unless it was on TV or in a
movie. Mom going to the bank, a robbery in progress, the robber
flipped out when Mom walked in, he turned and shot her. She died in
the ambulance. She was doing something simple, making a deposit and
then… no more Mom.

My father owned a moving company and was not
loaded by a long shot. Therefore, he couldn’t afford to pay for
babysitters or childcare but also, with what happened to Mom, I
thought it was about him keeping me close and around people he
trusted. So I grew up in his office around his men who looked after
me, took care of me, were cool about it and I loved them. They did
their best to be appropriate around me but they were guys. Shit
happened. I heard things. It was the way of the world.

And I grew up in that office until I started
managing that office at fifteen. Now, at thirty-five, I still
managed that office and the guys didn’t do their best to be
appropriate around me. I was older; I’d been around awhile so I was
one of the guys.

Though one of the guys with tits and ass
that I caught some of them staring at on more than one
occasion.

But I wasn’t sheltered.

That said, I’d definitely been sheltered
from
this.
Then
again, Pop didn’t know
this
existed. If he did, though, he’d have sheltered me from
it.
H
e’d take a slash from a warrior’s sword to
protect me from it, as would any one of his boys. I knew
it.

I wondered what he was thinking, being at
home, me not there. He was probably going out of his mind.

“I know this is strange for you,” the woman
said.

Right.
Strange.
Yeah, she hit that on the head.
Strange.

Though, I might use another word for it.

Or several.

“
But, you
must
care, kah Dahksahna,” she whispered on another
squeeze.