A Warlord's Lady (34 page)

Cain’s eyes met hers. Her heart tightened at his gaze — it was filled with love and affection. He gave an imperceptible nod.

‘Got you!’ Hollis laughed, tightening his grip around Cain’s arm and trying to haul him closer.

Cain could have used his magic to get away, to strike Hollis down, but he did not. His gaze flickered back to Sabra for a second and she knew what she must do.

Time seemed to slow. She stared at the bloodied back of Hollis’s head. His neck was thick with roped muscle, and she prayed the knife was sharp enough. Silently and slowly she reached out with the dagger.

Hollis must have sensed their thoughts or their presence behind him and with bewildering speed he whirled around. Consequently, it was his own actions that allowed the knife to slice through his neck. Muscle and veins were split open, and Hollis gasped in surprise and jerked back, releasing Cain as he did.

Sabra found herself landing on soft, blood-soaked forest floor. Hollis swiped hard at Christy’s belly and werewolf and demon tumbled down with her.

‘Sabra!’ Cain yelled, and she felt his big hands on her. Dazed, she looked up at him; he was like a big warm mountain. Her hand was white-knuckled around the dagger. She turned and watched with horrified fascination as Hollis and Christy grappled with one another on the forest floor. ‘Quickly,’ Cain said. His hand enclosed hers and they raised the dagger again.

Hollis was in bad form, blood gushing from his sliced neck. Christy used all her remaining strength to roll him on his back before she staggered away.

Suddenly her crew were there with Jürgen, holding the gagging and gasping Sonneillon demon down.

Wordlessly, with the dagger held tight in their clenched hands, Sabra and Cain stood over him.

‘Take his head,’ Jürgen gasped, ‘quickly.’

Sabra stared down at Hollis, barely recognisable as the neat, orderly police sergeant she’d once believed him to be. His eyes were completely reptilian and his face a mass of cuts and slashes. Still he hissed at them, somehow managing to stay alive despite his grievous injuries.

With her hand wrapped tightly in Cain’s, they lowered the dagger to finish the job.

Hollis let out a horrified gurgle as their knife sliced through the remaining cords and muscles in his neck and became stuck on the hard bones of his spine.

They couldn’t sever it. It seemed as hard and as impenetrable as stone. Cain pressed down harder, yet still the bone neither crunched nor gave way beneath his substantial weight.

Hollis somehow managed a gurgling laugh.

‘Think good thoughts,’ Sabra said, to herself as much as Cain. ‘He’ll live off our hate.’

Cain grunted something, agreement or dissent she wasn’t sure.

His hand was so tight around hers it was painful. He leaned in and down, his body covering her, pushing her down. She found herself pressed hard against the wet, stinking chest of Hollis.

Still the spine did not break beneath the blade.

Hollis gave that hideous sound again. ‘Cain,’ Sabra pleaded.. He lessened his weight on her momentarily, giving his muscles a break. ‘We’ve got to do something. He’s living off our hate.’

‘I know,’ Cain grunted and pressed down again.

Sabra found her face flat on Hollis’s chest. She could hear the slow mechanical throb of his heart. ‘Think about something good.’ She cried, struggling not to gag on the demonic blood pressed against her face.

It was hard to think of something good at that moment, but she could feel Cain’s weight lighten on her which gave her room to breathe.

Hollis flayed wildly beneath them — the only thing keeping him down was the pressure on his neck bones and Jürgen and the crew’s weight — but they were still losing. Hollis seemed to be gaining strength.

As she tried to keep the panic at bay, Sabra thought about her ability. She had a powerful mind, didn’t she? She could trick people into believing she
was not
there. Surely she could impress some positivity into Hollis and weaken him.

She could hear Cain grate his teeth together, as he redoubled his efforts to bring their knife through Hollis’s spine.

Hollis’s gurgling sounded stronger. She could feel his malevolent thoughts pressing into her brain. She imagined violence, terror and murder.

She gasped and shook the hideous thoughts from her head.

They kept coming. She saw herself as an old, grey woman, alone and depressed. She saw Cain in the arms of countless other women.

No,
she said to herself.
He would never do that to me.

She knew it.

She forced the doubts away, and closed her eyes to search for that place that affected her ability. She thought of all the lovely things she wanted to do. She thought of
herself
going to bed with Cain, without fear or recrimination.

The knife inched deeper into the bone.

She thought of eating fruit in the morning on the balcony with him after spending the night in his arms. The knife slipped further still.

Hollis gave another grotesque gurgle.

‘Again,’ she heard Cain’s voice growl in her ear. ‘One more time, down hard.’

She closed her eyes and allowed all her weight to be forced down, and imagined how wonderful life would be without all this evil following them.

There was a sudden sharp crack as the bones of Hollis’s neck finally gave way. Cain collapsed on top of her, and the demon’s head was severed completely.

Time stood still.

Eventually Sabra became aware of the heat of Cain at her back, the low lazy buzz of flies feasting off the dead, and the pained whimpers of dead and dying Rakshasa.

She took a great inhalation of breath, only to find her nostrils filled with the stench of blood from Hollis’s decapitated corpse.

‘Is he dead? I mean,
really dead?
’ she asked, her voice soft and tremulous.

‘Yes,’ Cain’s voice whispered, and she felt his lips brush past her ear as he moved off her.

Her body suddenly felt cold without Cain’s closeness and she shivered as she sat up. The silver knife fell from her hand and landed with a
thunk
on Hollis’s chest.

‘Christy,’ It was Jürgen who spoke.

Sabra looked up and saw Christy sprawled on the wet leaves, her intestines glistening in the mottled sunlight.

Oh dear,
was all she could think. She was no fan of werewolves, or Christy, but her wounds looked grievous, and she had helped when it counted most.

Jürgen knelt down in the leaf litter beside her and felt for her pulse. It was unnecessary, because even Sabra could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

‘My lord?’ he looked at Cain fearfully. ‘Will she heal?’

‘She will heal,’ Cain nodded, exhausted.

Jürgen’s face relaxed.

Mags stirred. She’d shifted back to human, but she was naked and bloodied.

‘You all right?’ Jürgen asked her, keeping his eyes clear of anything indecent.

She shrugged and looked at Faustus. ‘Some clothes might be nice,’ she said.

Faustus shuddered. ‘Not just yet,’ he groaned.

Cain shook his head and sent a spell to clothe Maggie before turning to Sabra.

‘We did it,’ he said.

***

The rest of that day passed in a blur for Sabra. She was escorted back to the compound by several Rakshasa along with Christy, Mags, Faustus and a healing magician. Cain and his remaining magicians left to do what he termed ‘a clean-up.’

Sabra was not at all sure what this was going to involve. Certainly the removal of corpses, but perhaps also the use of memory spells to erase the thoughts of those remaining troops who’d come to the jungle. Sabra had grave doubts about this. The siege on the compound had been
world
news. He couldn’t erase it from the world’s memory, could he?

When she’d asked him, he had smiled cryptically and merely kissed her goodbye.

Several days later, Sabra stood under the shower in her old rooms. There had been surprisingly little damage inside the compound, and unfamiliar but loyal allies who had returned to assist Cain were fixing what needed to be done.

Her rooms were nearly perfect, only one pane of glass in the bay doors had been broken during the battle.

The jungle beneath the compound, however, was another matter. The forest had been decimated in the surrounding area, and no amount of magic could replace centuries-old sentinel trees. The world was a changed place.

As she dried herself off, Sabra looked at the ring glistening on her finger. She was desperate to find out how Cain had managed to mollify the world governments about the slaughter that had occurred in the jungle — because clearly he had. There had been no helicopters, there had been no new army tanks, not an unwanted soul seemed to dare step upon the Warlord’s lands.

She sighed, and sank down onto the bed; the air was warm and the sheer curtains billowed from the open balcony doors.

I should go and see Christy
, she thought, but dismissed the idea. A wounded Christy was worse than a healthy Christy — her mood foul and tongue fouler.

She rolled over and stared at the stone ceiling, wishing she could watch television or — something.

She closed her eyes for a while and found herself falling asleep.

She was woken suddenly by a shifting of weight on the bed. Her eyes flew open in alarm and she felt her skin pale to match the mauve of the bed linens.

‘It’s okay, it’s just me,’ Cain’s voice said.

Sabra spun around on the bed. Her chest gave a loud traitorous thump. He was dressed in a grey tee-shirt and loose black jeans. His dark skin was glistening with moisture. He looked at her with heavy lidded eyes and then handed her a piece of paper.

‘What is this?’ Sabra asked softly, looking down on the official-looking document.

Cain’s lips curled in a smile. ‘My pardon,’ he said.

‘Your what?’ She tried to read the document but his proximity and her sudden awareness of her own nudity made it impossible.

‘I have been pardoned,’ Cain replied, his lips curling and his teeth flashing. ‘Not all my allies abandoned me, it seems.’ He grinned again. ‘Some went to the International Court of Justice on my behalf.’

‘Really?’ Sabra breathed incredulously.

‘Really.’ He smiled and moved closer towards her.

‘But what about all the dead soldiers? Won’t the governments want to punish you?’

‘I didn’t start that slaughter, Hollis did,’ Cain said softly. ‘Jürgen and I took his body to the Court ourselves. After DNA analysis it was discovered that Hollis, in his previous incarnations, has been responsible for a large number of crimes against humanity. Looks like Hague investigators are looking into a posthumous trial for him.’

Sabra felt herself begin to grin. ‘So…’

‘So, they pardoned me.’

For a while Sabra felt she had nothing to say. Words couldn’t express adequately her pleasure at his pardon — and besides that, she’d missed him and was naked before him.

He was very distracting.

She wanted nothing more than to bury herself in his hard masculine flesh and while away the hours in bed — though she knew she should congratulate him or say something important and profound. After all, it was a momentous occasion, wasn’t it?

She reached over and touched his hand, and watched as her own skin shift to match the colour of his. He stared down at their entwined hands, and his gaze caught on the ring.

‘You’re still wearing my ring,’ he said very softly.

Sabra bit her lip and looked down at her hand again. ‘So I am.’

They fell silent again and Sabra watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

‘What does it mean?’ he asked.

Sabra stifled a small laugh. ‘I don’t really know,’ she admitted.

Cain gave a small reciprocal laugh. ‘Me either.’

A parrot or some kind of bird squawked in the distance and they both turned to face the balcony. It was Cain who spoke first.

‘Shall we start all this again?’ he asked.

Sabra hesitated, wondering for a moment what he meant. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. A breeze wrapped itself around her body, making her nipples pucker instantly.

His heavy gaze caught her rainbow-hued nipple, and he bit his lip and looked away quickly. ‘I mean, start our relationship again. Start it right, this time.’

Sabra thought back over the years; she thought about her book, the aching loneliness she’d felt without him, and most of all the burning, heavy sexual frustration that seemed to dog her when he wasn’t around.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘I don’t want to start our relationship again.’ Her voice was firm and uncompromising.

Cain’s brow furrowed deeply, and his lips twisted with confusion. He glanced at the ring again. ‘No? Then…’ His voice faded to nothing, leaving his disappointment ringing in the air.

Sabra swallowed a smile, and with gentle hands reached up and drew his face towards her. She could feel his stubble under her palms and she forced his suddenly reluctant gaze into hers.

‘I don’t want to start it all again because I want to start it right from where we
are
,’ she whispered, and brought her lips to his.

***

[Excerpt from
Memoirs of a Warlord’s Love Slave,
Epilogue]

My experiences with the Warlord have changed me, it’s true. Why these things have happened to me and how they will ultimately turn out are questions that dance in the dark every time I close my eyes. I don’t mind though, because I know in some deep part of my being that things will turn out all right — I just don’t know how.

You see, there are some things in this world you just can’t explain, whether they be mechanical, physical or emotional — and that’s okay.

I think explanations are over-rated anyway.

The End

The Secret Diary of Lady Catherine Bexley

by Viveka Portman