I turned to her and she had her mouth open to speak.

And I knew what was coming so I lost it.

“Don’t,” I whispered on a hiss, shaking my head at the same time tears sprang to my eyes.. “Don’t. Do not tell me more of how this place and these people work, what they do, what are their ways. No more explanations of who they are and why they behave the way they do.” She blinked with obvious hurt, I let Narinda go, turned

fully to Diandra and grabbed her hand, squeezing hard. “I adore you, my friend, you already own a piece of my heart but you and I know there is no excuse for what he did last night, there is no Korwahk explanation that enlightens me to the ways of him and his people that would justify him unleashing his fury on me the way he did. You cannot look at my face, see his mark and know the woman I am and think I could ever do, no matter the wrong he perceives, anything to make him strike me the way he struck me and that would be in any way okay. You know it, Diandra,” I squeezed and shook her hand sharply. “You know it. ”

“Circe,” she whispered, squeezing my hand back, “please listen to me. There are things you don’t know. Things you have yet to learn.

Things Lahn knows and Seerim told me last night he was wild with worry –”

I shook my head hard, let her go and took a step back. “No. No, I won’t listen to you now. Maybe later when I don’t feel the ache of the back of his hand smashing into my face but not now.”

Then as quickly as I could, before she could say another word and without a glance at either of them, I hurried back toward where my cham used to be.

My guard followed.

* * * * *

I stared at the stars overhead and there were a lot of them. They blanketed the dark sky in a twinkle of lights that was breathtaking.

I’d never seen anything like it. Not in my life.

Then I moved my legs and my entire body protested.

We’d ridden from afternoon into the night. It had been years since I’d been on a horse and my body wasn’t used to it. I forgot how much it took out of you physically, riding. Now I remembered.

We didn’t make camp. Once we stopped, I dismounted from Zephyr, a strapping young boy was instantly there to take her away and then Teetru was there, grabbing my hand. My girls gave me water to wash my hands and face, served me a simple meal of dried

meat, cheese, flatbread and dried fruit with a cup of water and a chalice of wine. This was cleared away and I was led in the clothes I wore that day to a stack of hides that I took to be my bed. They were out in the open, as everyone else appeared to be bedding, though somewhat removed from the others.

I wasn’t keen on camping though I was an experienced camper. I was the only child of a man who was a man and he liked fishing, hiking and shit like that. So he took me with him. But I’d never slept under the stars and was uncertain I wanted to. I wasn’t in Rome, but I was in Korwahk and therefore had to do what the Korwahks did.

So bed under the stars it was.

I slipped off my sandals and slid under the top hide. They were set on a slab of cream stone but there were a lot of them (giving me an understanding of why Lahn had that huge pile in his cham) so although it wasn’t the softest bed I’d ever lain in, it wasn’t hard stone either and my aching body was glad to recline.

The girls had rolled some hides at the top to act as pillows and I lay on my back and stared at the stars.

I had seen Lahn that day, several times. He rode mostly at the front of the procession of hundreds of horses that was followed by at least double that amount of wagons but he would often drop back to ride next to warriors and speak with them. I caught his eyes on me twice but he never got near me.

I rode with the women who rode behind the men. I did this but I did it while avoiding Diandra on her roan mount because I felt badly for my outburst. Not that my words were wrong, just that I should have weighed them before hurling them at a woman who had been nothing but kind to me.

I lost sight of Lahn the minute we stopped and hadn’t seen him since.

The stars were drifting from sight because my eyelids were drifting closed when I heard Lahn’s boots approach. I turned to my side away from his side of the hides and heard, one after another, his

boots hit stone. Then the top hide moved. Not a second later, I was hauled across the hides and my body was forced to curve into the large, hard, warm one at my back.

He spoke quietly into the back of my hair as his hand drifted up to cup my breast and I stilled. He kept speaking and I waited for him to do something. It would be just like him to try to have sex with me with hundreds of people camping just feet away.

But his thumb did not wander across my nipple, his hand just cupped me warmly as he continued to speak words most of which I didn’t understand.

Then he stopped talking, his head moved, I felt his beard against the skin of my neck as he used his chin to pull my hair away and then I felt his tongue taste me from the back of my ear down the length of my neck and further down the length of my shoulder.

Throughout its journey, I steeled myself against the shiver and fortunately succeeded in beating it back.

At the point of my shoulder, he rubbed the long hairs at his bearded chin back and forth which felt sweet and nice and made my nose sting with tears that this time I held back with sheer willpower.

He did this for a long time as if he was staring into the darkness deep in contemplation at the same time delivering to me a preoccupied caress that was still, nevertheless, a caress.

Then his arm around me pulled me deeper into him and he settled back into the hides, he tilted his big body slightly into mine and I listened until his breath evened out.

Only then did I allow my eyes to close and my body to fall asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Take Heed

Five Days Later…

I was riding way back amongst the wagons, the ones that carried the chams and belongings and the slaves which were also belongings, of course, a fact I found loathsome and yet another thing I could do nothing about for it was my people’s way.

This was my new tactic. Not that I really needed one. I had not talked to Lahn since the day he gave me Zephyr. He clearly had Dax business to attend to and he was gone from our hides in the morning before I woke and three of the four nights after our first one under the stars, I was so exhausted from the ride I was asleep and didn’t even feel him slide in beside me. I only knew he was there when I woke in the deep of the night, felt his arm around me, his warm body curved into mine and then I drifted back to sleep. The one night I was awake, it was still late and he attempted no conversation, didn’t speak soft words or rub his beard softly against me, just curled me into him and he was asleep within seconds and, shortly after, so was I.

But it was now days later and it was a now when I’d avoided Diandra, and also Narinda, who was riding with the wives who were in wagons, and it had been so long since I’d spoken to either of them, it was too long.

I’d screwed up. I’d been overemotional (with cause) then got stuck in my head for days and it was getting past the point of rude, not apologizing to and spending time with my friends. I was their queen, it might be they couldn’t approach me and certainly Narinda couldn’t as she didn’t have a mount. But I could do what I wished (sort of) and I hadn’t approached them.

So now I was avoiding them both, and Lahn, by riding in the back like a sissy.

My Pop would be pissed. He hated sissies, he wasn’t that fond of rude and he’d always told me procrastination was the work of the devil, especially when you practice it before righting a wrong.

Damn.

On this thought, I noticed there seemed a commotion amongst the slaves so I looked to the wagons at my side then the direction they were looking which was forward. That was when I saw the warrior galloping toward us. He was well out of warrior space; they all rode up front with their Dax. He was also the warrior I saw in the cham the night Lahn hit me.

Shit.

He galloped right by me but when I twisted in my saddle to see where he was going I saw him circle back quickly then come up on my left side. Before I knew what he was doing I was plucked right out of my saddle (yep, right out of my saddle, while both our horses were moving) and planted in front of him. He yanked Zephyr’s reins out of my hands, she whinnied with irritation and then he touched his heels to his mount, made a clicking sound with his tongue and we took off on a gallop, Zephyr running alongside us.

Hmm. It appeared the queen didn’t ride with the slaves.

So noted.

We kept going and he slowed when we were coming abreast of Diandra’s horse.

Shit!