he awoke again, the sun had filled the tent with the
thick, diffused light of midday. The sun hadn’t brought much heat
with it, however. His uncle was right; snow was coming to the
highlands, maybe in as little as a day or two.
Next to him, a muffled
choking sound came from Tariza’s throat. She had the blanket pulled
over her head, as if to hide from him. The blanket trembled as
another fit of choking came from beneath it.
He laid his hand on her
back. “Are you all right?”
She cringed, twitching the blanket
more tightly around herself. The choking sound quieted as the
shivering stilled. Dario rubbed her back in long
strokes.
For an instant she was
silent. Then the choking began again, even louder. He tried to pull
back the blanket. She clutched it so tightly he couldn’t pry it
from her fingers without hurting her.
His heart twisted in his
chest as he realized that she wasn’t choking; she was crying.
Sobbing.
Shit.
The words I’m sorry hovered on his
tongue. He forced them down his throat. He had nothing to regret.
Tariza was the enemy and as such he had the right to take her
captive. Besides, he was taking her away from an unnatural way of
life and restoring her to the proper place of a woman.
But if that were true, why did it hurt
so much to listen to her cry?
She sobbed so violently it
sounded as if she might tear herself apart. His heart and belly
grew heavy, aching with the pain of it. What was wrong with him?
He’d never brooded over the sniffling of a woman before, and a few
of them had certainly cried at some deserved punishment he’d meted
out.
He wrapped his arms around
her, blanket and all. “Shhh, little one. It’s all
right.”
She kicked him in the shin. The
blanket stopped her foot from connecting directly with his leg, but
she startled a grunt out of him. Dario threw his leg across both of
hers.
“ You’re safe with me. I
won’t hurt you,” he said firmly.
“ You already have,” she
snarled between sobs.
Under the blanket, she rolled herself
into a tight ball. He could hear her teeth grinding together as she
fought the tears. The little man-woman was determined not to cry,
to be as manly as possible, when everything in her body cried out
to be treated as a woman.
“ It’s normal to cry, you
know,” he said.
“ Fuck. Off.”
“ Regular women cry all the
time.”
She tried to kick him
again. “Do you think I want to be like one of those pathetic little
mice you call women? Do you think you can take a Concordian and put
her in a harness and instantly turn her into a sweet doormat of a
slave?”
“ No. I expect it’ll take
some time.”
“ It won’t happen at
all.”
He stroked her through the
blanket. “You’ll come around eventually. They always
do.”
“ I hate you.”
Her words stung. He peeled the blanket
away from her face, revealing red and swollen eyes, lashes black
and spiky with tears.
“ You didn’t seem to hate me
in the bath.”
“ Apparently I can lust
after a man and despise him at the same time,” she said
bitterly.
Yes, this one was going to
take special and intensive training. He’d have to become her whole
world, the source of all food and pleasure and security. He’d have
to be patient. But eventually she would learn to submit, and do it
gladly.
“ We have to be ready to
ride in the morning. We’re going back to Saturnios,” he said. “Get
up and we’ll have something to eat.”
Tariza gave him a sour look
and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She sat up. Her hair
had dried in wild waves all over her head, giving her an oddly
comical appearance. He didn’t smile. It would only hurt her more
than she was already hurting.
Dario picked up a jar of
oil he kept on the trunk next to his bed. “We’ll oil that leather
if it’s dry. Otherwise it’ll go all hard and give you blisters
where it rubs.”
Another sour look. “I know
how to care for harnesses.”
“ I’m sure you do. But
you’ve never worn one, have
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