“I sing to heal, but I take great pleasure in hearing you speak, in hearing your stories,” he admitted gruffly.
She beamed, her smile lighting her face with such pleasure that he wondered why he hadn’t been trying harder to make her happy. She was so beautiful when she smiled.
“What gives you joy?” he asked abruptly, wanting to uncover ways to make her smile again. He immediately felt ridiculous, as if he were trying to woo her, and his hands tightened on the reins, making his horse whinny in protest and Sasha search his eyes.
She looked away rapidly, her cheeks growing ruddy, as if his question embarrassed her. Or maybe it was the answer that embarrassed her.
A gentleman would have apologized for making her uncomfortable, but Kjell was not—nor had he ever been—a gentle man. He was not educated in the art of flowery words, false sympathies, or fake sentiments.
She spoke quickly, quietly, as if she wanted him to listen but wasn’t brave enough to make sure he heard. “When you kissed me, I felt . . . joyful. In fact, I’ve never felt joy like that in my whole life. I’ve never felt anything like that. If I had . . . my lips would remember. My heart would remember. I want very much to feel that way again.”
Kjell’s heart swelled, filling his chest with a sensation that resembled floating. He drew Lucian to a stop. Sasha halted beside him, confused. Jerick tossed a puzzled look toward them.
“Take the men. Go on ahead. Sasha needs to rest for a moment. We’ll catch up shortly,” he instructed. Jerick immediately signaled the men to keep moving, assuming, as Kjell wanted him to, that Sasha required privacy for personal reasons.
Sasha didn’t dispute his claim, but her brows were drawn, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, biting back her words. He waited until the last man had rounded the crop of umbrella thorn trees ahead and slid from Lucian’s back, no hesitation, no second thoughts. His pulse roared in his ears and tickled the back of his throat, and he reached for Sasha, pulling her from the saddle of the docile, brown mare.
She squeaked, and he felt her surprise against his lips as he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
He didn’t close his eyes as he tasted her, not in the beginning. He didn’t want to look away. He wanted to see her pleasure, to witness her joy. The horses at their backs made a V behind them, the lemongrass brushed at their legs, and the cooing mutter of sandgrouse nearby registered only distantly, part of the flavor of the experience, a dash of sound and texture.
But Kjell heard only her sigh, felt only the silk of her mouth, and saw only the spikey tips of her lashes as they fluttered in surrender. Or maybe it wasn’t her surrender but his, for his legs trembled and his eyes closed, his lips moved in adoring supplication, his heart broke and bowed down before her, and his chest burned in elation.
Her fingers brushed his face, and her mouth sought his, even when he withdrew slightly so he wouldn’t fall down. Their breath mingled in frenzied dancing, tumbling over and teasing their sensitive lips. He pressed his forehead to hers, resisting the desire to make her sigh again. He’d let himself forget for a moment that he didn’t want her. He circled her waist with his hands and put her back on her horse so he wouldn’t pull her down into the grass.
“That is . . . joy,” Sasha whispered, looking down at him. “It has to be.”
“No. That is pleasure,” he replied curtly, stepping away from her horse. She stared down at him, her gaze knowing, absorbing his terse dismissal.
“Maybe pleasure feels like joy. But pleasure can be satisfied, and joy never needs to be. It is a glory all its own,” she said.
He turned away, almost ashamed of himself, and prepared to mount Lucian.
Suddenly, with no reason or provocation, the mare Sasha was seated on shot forward.
Sasha cried out and teetered, but managed to hang on. She pressed herself against the horse’s neck, grasping frantically for the lost reins. Kjell lunged for the mare, but was too slow. He shouted, alerting his men, and mounted Lucian, pursuing the spooked mare now racing toward the cliffs, bolting like she’d seen a rattler. Sasha could only cling to the horse’s mane, her veil whipping free, the panels of her yellow dress streaming behind her. Kjell spurred Lucian forward, covering the space between the galloping mare and his stallion. Lucian’s superior size and strength made the smaller horse easy to catch, but the mare was undeterred. They flew across the plateau, the drop looming closer, the mare heading straight for the ledge at full speed. Kjell attempted to turn the fleeing horse, to cut her off and change her course, but the mare simply charged ahead, dropping her head and, if anything, increasing her speed.
“Sasha!” he shouted, needing her to look at him, to know what he was about to attempt. She turned her head slowly, her face pressed to the mare’s neck, her eyes wide with horror. If she let go she would, at the very least, be badly hurt. If she didn’t let go, she would go over the edge with the crazed horse.
Kjell drew abreast of the mare, matching her pace. With the experience born of warfare on horseback, of wielding a shield and swinging a sword, of holding on with nothing but powerful legs and sheer terror, he lunged to the side and snaked his right arm around Sasha’s waist. With absolute faith, Sasha released the mare’s mane and hurled herself toward him as he dragged her free. Pulling her across his saddle, his thighs anchoring them both to the stallion beneath him, he bore down on Lucian’s reins, turning him to the left and demanding he halt.
“Whoa, Lucian! Whoa!”
The stallion drew up immediately, slowing until he could safely stop. Pawing and tossing his head, he whinnied desperately as Kjell and Sasha watched the brown mare, without ever slowing or altering direction, careen over the edge and disappear. There was no equine shriek of terror, no smattering of rocks marking her descent, no fading sounds of alarm. She was just . . . gone.
Kjell’s men had joined in the pursuit, fanning into a circle to corral the crazed animal, and they drew up around them, breathing hard, faces shocked. A gull, flapping wildly, feathers fluttering, rose up from beyond the cliff’s edge like it had been startled by the falling horse.
“We’ve disturbed their nests,” Sasha gasped, her face pressed into Kjell’s neck where she clutched him tightly.
She was breathless, panting, and Kjell was still lost in the horror of the narrowly-avoided tragedy. Then Sasha was pushing herself upright, her hands braced against his chest, trying to catch her breath and communicate simultaneously.
“Captain, the Volgar! We’ve disturbed their nests.”
***
From beyond the cliffs, in the space where the horse had disappeared, the sound of beating wings filled the air, a hundred times greater than a flock of gulls, rising over the edge and making the horses shudder and scream.
“Get back!” Kjell shouted, knowing a battle near the drop would favor the Volgar, not the King’s Guard. They raced back toward the hard-packed path that cut the savannah, back across the distance they’d just traveled, chasing and being chased, exchanging one horror for another. But the Volgar didn’t swoop and drop.
They were thin, their skins papery and yellow, their wings shredded like a spider’s web. These weren’t the Volgar who grew large and fat in the valley of Kilmorda. These were Volgar who were becoming extinct. Their eyes glittered desperately, and their beaks snapped and clicked, beating at the air high above the soldiers, frantic for blood but too weak to take it. They circled like vultures, looking for an opportunity—a smaller victim, an exhausted horse, a space between soldiers.
“Dismount and draw together!” Kjell roared. The horses were accustomed to battle, to the shriek of the winged beasts, to carrying a warrior while he wielded a sword, but Kjell couldn’t fight with Sasha in front of him. He slid from the saddle, dragging her with him, his arm around her waist, not even waiting for Lucian to come to a complete stop.