Janna remembered what Ty had said about her last night…suited to be nothing except a man's mistress, but you lack the social graces for even that profession.
Without a word Janna turned away from Ty and swung onto Zebra's warm back, ignoring the pain that mounting the horse without aid gave to her bruised arm.
"Janna? What the hell…?"
She didn't answer. Her heels urged Zebra forward until Janna could see and hear only the rain.
Chapter Thirty-One
"Come on, it's just a little bit farther," Ty said to the stallion, hoping he wasn't lying. Neither Ty's voice nor the steady pressure he put on the hackamore revealed the weariness that had settled into the marrow of his bones, turning his muscles to sand.
For a moment Ty was afraid that the stallion wouldn't respond, but the pressure on the hackamore eased abruptly as the horse resumed his awkward walking gait.
"That's it, son," Ty said encouragingly. "She said the slot was at the top of a little rise."
And that was all Janna had said through the long hours of intermittent rain and wind. When it wasn't raining she rode far ahead of Ty and Lucifer. When it rained she rode in close enough that her tracks were always clear for Ty to follow. When it became dark she rode closer still, ensuring that Lucifer wouldn't get lost.
Ty was certain that it was the stallion's welfare rather than his own that concerned Janna. Not once since she had mounted Zebra had she said anything to Ty. He missed her conversation. In the past weeks he had become accustomed to her insights into the land and its animals, her uninhibited response to the wind and sun, and her shy smile when he touched her. He missed her laughter when she talked about hiding from Cascabel in the same way the renegade had once hidden from the soldiers-out in plain sight. Ty missed the snippets of plays and poetry and essays she liked to talk about with him, drawing from him the missing parts of her education. Most of all he missed the warm, companionable silence they had shared while they walked hand in hand in the cold rain.
The silence Ty and Janna had shared since she had ridden off was anything but companionable. It was as chill and empty as the night.
"Maybe you can tell me," Ty said to Lucifer. "Why would a woman get all upset because I told her it isn't her fault that she's not a virgin anymore? Because it sure as hell isn't her fault. Janna didn't have the faintest idea of what waited for her at the end of that primrose path. She could no more have known when to say no to me than she could have walked down the plateau trail carrying Zebra on her back.
"But I knew where we were going. I knew the first time I kissed Janna that I should stop myself right there or I wouldn't be able to quit short of burying myself in that sweet young body. But I didn't stop. I wanted her the way a river in flood wants the sea. Just plain unstoppable. And God help me, I still want her just like that.
"I knew what I was doing every inch of the way… and it was every inch the best I've ever had. I'll die remembering the beautiful sounds she made while I was inside her, pleasuring her with my whole body."
Ty's voice thickened as memories poured through him in an incandescent tide. Despite his exhaustion, his blood beat heavily at the thought of being sheathed within Janna's fire and softness once more.
"She didn't have a chance to refuse me," Ty continued, his voice rough. "Not a single damned chance in hell. It should have made her feel better to know that what happened was my fault, not hers.
"So why won't she speak to me?"
Lucifer didn't have any answer for Ty. Not that he had expected one. If the stallion had known how to handle the supposedly weaker sex, Zebra wouldn't have been racing around the plateau with Janna for the past few years. Muttering to himself, Ty walked up the rise, urging the limping stallion along with a steady pressure on the hackamore.
At last a low nicker came floating out of the darkness in front of them. Lucifer nickered in return. No verbal welcome came to Ty, however. Nor did Janna say anything when she dismounted and walked around the stallion. Frowning, peering into the coldly brilliant moonlight that had replaced the wind-frayed clouds, she tried to gauge Lucifer's condition.
"Is there too much water in the slot for us to get through?" Ty asked.
"No."
He waited, but Janna had nothing more to say on that subject-or any other, apparently. At least, not to him. But it seemed she had nothing against talking to the stallion.
"You poor, brave creature. You've really been put through it today, haven't you?" Janna said in a gentle voice as she reached out to pet Lucifer.
Ty opened his mouth to warn Janna that the stallion was feeling surly as hell, but the words died on his tongue when Lucifer whickered softly and stretched his muzzle out to Janna's hands. Slender fingers stroked his muzzle and cheeks, then searched through the stallion's thick, shaggy forelock until she found the bony knob between his ears. She slid her fingers beneath the hackamore and rubbed away the unaccustomed feel of the leather.
Lucifer let out a breath that was almost a groan and put his forehead against Janna's chest, offering himself to her touch with a trust that first shocked Ty, then moved him, making his throat close around all the emotions he had no words to describe. Seeing the stallion's gentle surrender reminded Ty of the ancient myth of the unicorn and virgin.
But as Ty watched Janna, he wondered if it weren't some elemental feminine quality that had attracted the unicorn to the girl, rather than her supposedly virginal state.
That poor unicorn never had a chance, Ty told himself silently. He was born to lay his head in that one maiden's lap and be captive to her gentle hands.
The insight made Ty very restless. Though Janna had done nothing to hold him, he felt himself somehow confined, caught in an invisible net, tied with silken threads; and each thread was a shared caress, a shared smile, a shared word, until one thread became thousands woven into an unbreakable bond, and the silken snare was complete.
"Ready, boy?" Janna asked quietly. "It's going to be hard on your poor leg, but it's the last thing I'll ask of you until you're healed."
Janna turned and walked toward Zebra. Lucifer followed, silently urging Ty forward with a pressure on the lead rope he still held. The reversal in their roles gave Ty a moment of sardonic amusement. He wondered what would happen if he tied the rope around the stallion's neck and then turned and walked away, leaving everything behind.
I'll tell you what would happen, Ty thought to himself. You'd spend the night hungry and freezing your butt off in the cold and Lucifer would spend it belly-deep in food with Janna's warm hands petting him. So who do you think is smarter-you or that stallion?
With a muttered curse Ty followed Lucifer over the wet, rocky ground to the invisible opening in the plateau's wall. The face of the plateau at this point was made of broken ranks of sheer rocky cliffs punctuated by dark mounds of black lava. As though to make up for the precipitous nature of the land, the cliffs were only a tenth of the height of the heavily eroded wall Janna and Ty had descended earlier.
Even so, Janna had discovered no trail up onto the plateau itself from this area. If she wanted to go back up on top, she had to walk much farther south, following the ragged edge of the plateau as it rose and fell until she reached the gentle southern ascent. That would have been a full day's ride on a good horse. The east path, while steep, was only a few hours by foot.
Ahead of Ty both horses stopped abruptly. Zebra snorted nervously when Janna waded into the water gushing from the slot, but the mare didn't balk. She followed Janna into the ankle-deep runoff stream, for she had done this before and not been hurt by the experience. Lucifer hesitated, lowered his head and smelled the water, then limped into the stream in the manner of an animal who was too exhausted at the moment to do more than go where he was led.