Read Online The Battle Lord's Lady by Linda Mooney - Free Book Online

the
direction of her attention.
    “It should be morning within another hour,”
he told her.
    “Why are you here?” she whispered.
    “To see how you were doing.”
    “Why?”
    The question apparently amused him, and he
gave her a crooked smile. Atty noticed the scar seemed to be giving
him trouble, and any undue movement in his facial muscles caused
him pain.
    “I’m taking you back to our compound.”
    “Again, why?”
    “To teach us your tricks.”
    “My tricks?”
    The hand against her ribs slowly pulled back,
but the one with the knife never wavered from her face.
    “I want you to teach my men how to kill with
the same efficiency as you showed us.”
    “Why not go ahead and kill me now?” she asked
him. She brought her hands before her face and began digging out
the short shreds of rope from the wounds in her wrists. She had to
get them all or risk infection.
    “Do you want me to kill you?”
    “Why not,” she snapped heatedly. “You’re
going to kill us all anyway. I won’t teach you or your men a damn
thing, I don’t care what you say or order me to do.”
    To her astonishment, the man suddenly slid
the dagger back into its sheath belted at his hip. Atty blinked and
looked up into the man’s face where she could see hard lines
forming around his mouth and eyes.
    “I’m willing to make a deal with you,” he
stated flatly.
    For some reason, the proposal seemed funny.
Atty gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Oh, that’s just peachy. A
Cleaner making a deal with one of my kind? What kind of trick is
this? How stupid do you think I am?”
    “I’m offering the lives of the inhabitants of
this compound in exchange for your knowledge and skills. There.
That is my offer. In full.”
    Atty froze. Several seconds passed as she
tried to see through the man’s subterfuge and into the heart of the
truth, but the Battle Lord’s expression never wavered. Her lungs
finally kicked in, reminding her she needed to breathe again. “You
lie,” was all she could manage to respond.
    The man shook his head. A lock fell over his
forehead, somehow softening the terrifying visage. “I’m not lying.
Not in this case. In exchange for you teaching my men how to shoot
like you do, I will spare this compound. Furthermore, I will have
my men give your people a few suggestions on how they can better
fortify this holding, and possibly help prevent future exposure to
the outside world. Next time...the next time there may not be
someone like me to grant you impunity.”
    She gave him another long look. “How did you
discover us in the first place?”
    “The smell of your cooking,” he replied
simply. “First one or two men catch the scent. They tell their
squad. The squad sends a messenger. It was a domino effect.”
    “Is your compound near us? Is that how you
were able to get here so fast?”
    This time it was the Battle Lord who gave her
a long, searching stare. “No,” he finally whispered. “Our compound
is many days’ ride from here.”
    “So you were just on a cleaning mission when
you came across my home by chance?”
    “Would you have killed every one of my men if
I had not brought in the rest of my forces when I did?”
    Rubbing her watering eyes, Atty surrendered.
“Yes.”
    The Battle Lord slowly nodded. “Then my
answer is yes as well.”
    “Then what happens?” she asked. “What happens
when I teach your men all I know? Are you coming back here to
finish what you left behind?” Biting her lower lip, she lowered her
voice and added, “Will you let me come back home?”
    “You know I can’t let you do that.”
    Although she had expected almost those exact
words, the sound of them coming from his lips was too much to bear.
She lowered her face into her hands, pressing the heels of her
palms against her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle her sobs.
    Long minutes passed as she began to accept
her fate. When she pulled the hem of her shirt out of her pants and
lifted it to wipe her eyes, she was