The second he entered me, I didn’t see it, my eyes had squeezed closed, but a flash of lightning rent the dark night.

Chapter Three

The Rite

I was bloody and naked before him on the massive steed, his arm around me, his big, hard, heated body all I could feel at my back, the horse moving all I could feel under me.

But I felt something else. I felt the aches in my muscles, the pains on my skin, both seemed to cover every inch of my body, inside and out.

And I felt something else, something so hideous I refused to feel it.

So I didn’t. I blanked out everything as I watched the lights, fires and tents of the Daxshee get ever closer and I concentrated on whatever horrors that were next for me.

He was going to parade me naked through his village, through his people, through his warriors, through those awful spectators, hunted, beaten, shamed and naked.

I closed my eyes.

How was I going to bear it?

The long way back his horse had walked, not trotted, not cantered, not galloped. Walked.

It took forever and he’d said not a word. He also didn’t hold me with tenderness or with triumph. It was like I was a bundle he had to deliver safely. Nothing more.

Nothing more.

I was his wife now.

Jeez. His wife.

Oh God.

I needed to get home.

The horse slowed then stopped.

My eyes opened and my body started.

Five women were rushing to us carrying a variety of things I couldn’t really make out in the dark. I looked beyond them to see

we were well outside the outskirts of the Daxshee. It was visible but still a ways away.

Why were we stopped?

He dismounted and then his hands came up, closed around my waist and he pulled me off the horse.

I tried to hold it back but I couldn’t stifle the moan of pain. He set me in front of him but did not let go of my waist or move away.

I looked up into his painted eyes to see he was observing me like a specimen under glass. There wasn’t a lot of light but I could see his face and it was blank and uninterested.

God, I hated him.

Then his hand lifted, he unhooked the chain from my necklace, he turned his head and barked something at the women then he stepped away from me. The minute he did, one of them rushed forward.

Gently taking my hand, she guided me away from the horse to the other women.

And that’s when, weirdness of all weird, they fawned and cooed over me, talking in their foreign tongue in gentle voices as they wet rags from big jugs and carefully, soothingly, wiped away the blood and dirt on my body. While they were doing this, one of them divested me of the silver ring around my neck.

What on earth?

I started to move away, not thinking to run, that monster would catch me, but to get away from the women. My body was twisting this way and that as their soft rags worked at me but one woman stayed close and held me firmly but kindly while the others cleansed me. The whole time the woman who held me murmured gently in my ear.

Once I was washed head-to-toe, the woman holding me said something softly, the others nodded, rushed away, bent to some trunk that was about five feet away and then they rushed back carrying things that sparkled in the moonlight.

Oh please, God, let it be clothes.

My prayers were answered, sort of.

First came what looked like gold chain links. Tinkling over my head, they pulled it down, fastened it and I saw it was a halter top exposing as much as it covered.

Not great but at least not nothing.

A short skirt of the same links was wrapped low around my hips.

Okay, still not great but not nothing.

Then a wide, low hanging, very heavy, battered gold necklace was pulled over my head. It was so wide and hung so low, it covered my breasts almost completely, just some flesh at the sides and bottoms showing.

All right, this was getting better.

Then a very heavy, very wide belt made entirely of gold disks, more dangling from the bottom, was attached around my hips, hiding my sex but, I could feel, not entirely covering the cheeks of my ass.

It wasn’t enough, it didn’t make me comfortable, all that gold was damned heavy but I was not going to quibble.

Then gold bands were pushed up my arms to my biceps on both sides, the same with very wide cuffs wrapped around that nearly covered me from wrists to elbows.

Well, I would have preferred that amount of coverage elsewhere but again, I was not going to complain.

And then, a thin band of golden feathers, so golden, they glinted in the moonlight like they had glitter on them was wrapped around my head at my forehead and tied at the back.

Finally, moving quickly, they coated my body in a thin layer of oil so that it glistened.

Totally weird.

This was, clearly, the finishing touch for the minute they were done with the oil, they all moved, stepping backward and bowing while the woman who held me murmured something to the Dax.

Before I knew it, me and all my heavy gold were swooped up in a powerful arm and planted on the horse. The second my ass hit the horse, the Dax swung up behind me.

But we didn’t move and one of the women rushed forward. She took one of my ankles in her hand, pushed up and made as if to swing my leg around the beast’s neck.