Read Online The Fox by Sherwood Smith - Free Book Online

“Leave it on a Runner road. They’ll think you were left dead and either someone else did the old Disappear Spell or wolves ate you.”
    The Runners had their own paths, cutting short the more general roads that often circled wide, following old land borders.
    “And?”
    “Then it’s up to you. You could vanish, begin another life. We will never snitch,” Buck said.
    “Or you could find Sponge—ah, Evred. Tell him what happened,” Cherry-Stripe suggested.
    The lines of torment in Vedrid’s face smoothed a little.
    Cherry-Stripe rubbed his hands, then put into words the shift of allegiance that would satisfy Vedrid’s own honor. “You’re dead to the Sierlaef, since he ordered your death himself. Swear a new oath to Evred-Varlaef. Become his man.”
    Fnor added, “He will need you.”

Chapter Four
    COCO looked down at Taumad’s sleeping profile, bitter-sweet anguish hollowing her heart. Oh, how beautiful he was!
    She resisted temptation long enough to enjoy the rare sensation, then reached with her forefinger, tracing the high arch of his brows down around his eye, brushing her fingertip along the extravagant curve of his lashes, then down to his lips—severe even in sleep—to his splendid chin and then around his ear to his hair, spread on the pillow. She ruffled her fingers through it, so like combed and shining golden corn silk, warm near his head, cool on the pillow. She would not permit him to braid it.
    His eyes opened, clear, appraising, gold as clover honey in the morning light shafting through the stern windows. Gold, real gold, not mere light brown: those flecks of yellow were the luster of sun through honey—or golden coins in candlelight.
    “Your wish?” he asked, his voice slightly husky.
    She’d had him to herself ever since Walic left to supervise the new attack, but desire kindled again, as if it had been months, and not a watch-bell since their last tangle. “Ooh, my pretty-pretty-pretty,” she crooned, running her hands down his smooth, muscled flesh to ruffle the golden hair on his chest.
    His breathing stayed steady, his hands still.
    He was ready. It was a matter of will, if you knew the way of it. She, who had been trained in the ways of pleasure since sixteen, had recognized another with the same training, and for the first month it had been wonderful to possess this beautiful young man who knew almost as much as she did about what could be done in bed, and for how long . . . but.
    She stared down into the waiting face, her thoughts fluttering as helplessly as a moth pinned down by knife points.
    She wanted—no, needed—to see him want her as much as she wanted him. How strange! Everyone on the ship wanted her. Gaffer Walic had wanted her so desperately he had offered her anything she asked, anything at all, if she’d leave the House of Spring and come aboard his ship.
    She’d had Walic kill hands who didn’t show instant obedience or respect—kill them slowly, so she could watch them beg. Taumad showed those things instantly, with the same readiness she’d shown when she was a worker at the House of Spring and not queen of a pirate fleet.
    If she commanded him he would beg and plead, but it would be the lessoned scenarios of the pleasure house with no emotion behind it. “I could kill you,” she said, to see if he would show fear.
    He didn’t. He smiled, that glorious sardonic smile with the deep dimples shadowing his enticing mouth. “Then do it.”
    “You really want to die?”
    A shrug. “Someday I have to. Why not by a pretty hand?”
    The thought of a knife in her hand, that beautiful skin marred, smote her with deliciously piquant torment. Someday soon he would surely reach for her first, but until then she could possess him whenever she wished. She covered his skin instead with soft kisses and flicks of the tongue. It was time to exert her own skills, to try to please instead of being pleased. That, too, was new and enticing; could she make him lose