Bound in Darkness (21 page)

But Doisy's potion meant a certain freedom she had never experienced before and Maxum's passion for her, mature and hot and wild as it was, promised to be something far beyond the fumblings of her youth. True, she was young yet, but she was far older and wiser and she suspected she would appreciate a liaison with a man far and away above what she had experienced before.

And what a man he was. Complex and powerful, potent and sexual, tempestuous and tortured. There would never be anything like him to cross her path in her life again, she thought, so why shouldn't she take advantage of him while he was around? She could simply use him for the pleasure he could provide and then walk away when the time came. And the time would come. It always did. Whether it would be her leaving him or him leaving her, it would come. Even if she followed him through to the end of these quests she would watch him pit himself against a god…and that would be the end of it. She didn't care how many talismans or totems he managed to acquire. A god was a god and there was no way he could fight a god and survive.

But in the end that meant he had very little time left in this world. At the end of it he would either be dead or consigned to some kind of hell for the rest of his days. If these were his last days, shouldn't she provide some companionship and some pleasure he could take memories of with him wherever he ended up going? Shouldn't she try and give him enough pleasure to hopefully outweigh a small portion of the terrible torment that awaited him?

She was suddenly angry with him…angry he would throw away his life. But the anger quickly faded when she realized he was only living half a life to begin with. The other half was lived buried deep in the ground. She shuddered as she thought of it, thought of what it must be like to be dragged beneath the surface and suffocated by the heavy soil. What must it feel like to have the weight of all that rock and dirt pressing in on him, crushing him from all sides at once?

Unable to help herself, she reached out and touched a hand to his thigh.

Maxum looked down at her hand with no little amount of surprise. It was an intimate gesture, one that he never would have thought she would instigate. He had fought with her for every intimacy thus far. This one was finally being freely given.

He didn't know how to feel about that. He was afraid she was doing so out of pity for him, now that she knew his situation. He did not want pity. Especially from her. He would rather she continue to fight him tooth and nail. Besides, the fighting was half of the fun. He wondered if he would grow bored with her when she finally gave in to him. If it was the game that kept him so interested.

Well, there was only one way to find out. He covered her hand on his thigh, squeezed her fingers, then picked up her hand and leaned over to touch her finger to his mouth, which he then promptly and baldly sucked into his mouth. He felt her hand tense, saw her eyes widen, then she flushed and jerked her hand away. She glanced back at the men behind them, clearly afraid they had been seen.

What should it matter to her if they were seen? The men already thought he was fucking her. Little intimacies like that would merely remove all doubt. And he would be fucking her. Tonight, if he had any say in the matter. There had been enough games, enough fighting. If she felt sorry for him he would use that to his advantage to get what he wanted. It would be just another tactic, he told himself. A weapon to be used against her. Then he would purge her from his system and be done with her.

And he
would
be done with her. Whether it be now or a month from now when they achieved the retrieval of the cuff. As soon as he had the cuff he would challenge Sabo and either he would die or…well, he hadn't thought much about what would happen if he should succeed. He didn't want to look beyond the moment he was presently living in. He couldn't afford to crave things he did not yet have. It would make him sloppy, would weaken him to think of everything he could be losing if he failed. He would not take half measures. He would not live his life if it meant he would suffer for half of it every damned day. He would be free or he would be nothing. There were no other options.

He would not change his way of thinking for anyone.

Not for anyone at all.

I
t began to rain.

It was a miserable, heavy rain that drenched them all thoroughly, and any good spirits they might have had became quickly sodden. Camping that night in the rain meant cold provisions for dinner. Airi had dried meat and crackers in her remaining saddlebag, so she was not required to ask for anything from Maxum. She had been confused for most of their travel that day, not understanding herself. Did she want him or didn't she? Was she being a child or was she going to act like a mature woman and make up her mind? She had thought she had her mind made up, but then he had put her finger in his mouth and the ferocious heat it had inspired in her had shocked her to her core. Somehow that one action had just as much power over her as he'd had when he'd put his hand between her legs in the river.

That was the key phrase. Power over her. Would she be giving him power over her? Would she be giving something of herself away?

And what of the rest of the men? It was one thing to have them suspecting she was lying with Maxum, quite another to remove all doubt. What would Doisy, Kyno, and Dru think of her then? Did she care?

She realized she did and that was a whole new level of disturbance. When had she begun to care about them enough to be concerned what their opinions of her were? When had she ever cared about what anyone thought of her? She hadn't cared about anyone's regard since her mother had died and she'd been forced to learn what a hard world it was, a world where it wasn't worth trying to please everyone.

She kept to her own bedroll that night, dodging Maxum's halfhearted attempt to draw her close, huddling deep beneath wet blankets. When she awoke the rain was even worse, lashing hard and rolling with thunder.

“Where are we headed now that we've given up on finding the temple?” Doisy asked. Maxum had told the men he thought finding the temple was a waste of time and that he had been mistaken to search for it. Then he had whetted the men's appetites with promises of a dangerous labyrinth with a treasure guarded by a great beast. The men only needed to hear the word “treasure” and they were on board.

Airi didn't know why Maxum had chosen not to tell them about the temple, but when she thought of it she agreed it was best. The only thing that had come of it was the dagger and the men would have wanted their equal share of it. There was no way to share a weapon that had been entrusted to the bearer by a goddess, so it was best to save them all the trouble of the squabbling.

The rain continued and grew colder over the next few days, making all thoughts of seduction fly far away, as they made their way into the Killing Forest. There was a reason why the forest had been so named. It was dark and full of dangerous creatures. Being blinded and slowed by rain made it unwise to journey within, but Maxum kept pushing them farther. Airi knew why. His goal was so close now he could probably taste it. Whether it ended in victory or loss, the confrontation was almost at hand. He wanted it badly. And she didn't blame him. But pushing them like this was likely to get one of them killed.

They were riding single file when the rain finally began to ease. A sudden sound caught Airi's attention to the right. She heard a shout and began to turn, but then was tackled off her horse by a powerful force of nature. She hit the ground hard, her breath knocked out of her. She barely registered a mouth full of fangs snarling over her, the thick claws digging into her breasts, the heavy weight of the beast as it roared into her face.

Then suddenly the creature stopped roaring and fell face-first into her chest. Headfirst. Its head had been severed from its shoulders with one sharp swing of Weysa's Champion and now the head lay on her chest while the body was bleeding buckets of blood onto her. Gagging she shoved the head of the thing off her and scrambled to get out from under the body. Maxum's hand was there a second later and with one strong tug he yanked her to her feet and pulled her up against his body, hugging her tightly.

“It's all right,” he soothed her. “It's over.”

She pushed away from him hard. “What do you think you're doing?” she shouted at him.

“Saving your ass!” he shouted back, a look of surprise coming over his features. “I would think you would be grateful!”

“Fine! Thank you for killing the…whatever it was.”

“Razorbeast,” Doisy supplied.

“Thank you!” she snapped. “But I'm not some delicate flower in need of comforting! Get that out of your head right now!”

The belligerence bled right out of Maxum and he chuckled. “Oh. I see. It's not the rescue that upset you, just the comforting afterward.”

“Damn right!”

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said with a flourishing bow. “I forgot who I was dealing with. I should have let you kill the beast yourself.”

“Yes, you should have! I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can,” he said with a smug smile. “Next time I'll know better.”

“Well…as long as we have it clear…I…I mean you can help if I'm in trouble and you happen to be there,” she said awkwardly.

“All right then. No comforting and help only when necessary. It's all clear now.”

“Good,” she said. Then she looked down at her blood-soaked clothing. “Ugh! This is my only set of clothes!”

“I heard a stream to the left. We'll go there and you can wash up. You should be used to wearing wet clothes by now. Wash them out and wear them.”

“I'm not getting naked in front of you guys.”

“Don't worry. We'll find you a nice private spot.”

“I'm not getting naked in a place called the
Killing Forest,
” she said with a huff.

“Then bathe with your fucking clothes on! Can we get on with it already?” Kilon exploded.

Airi mounted Hero and they made their way to the stream. She quickly took off her corset and waded into the stream in just her breeches and the shirt she wore under the corset. The water was fast-running and blood clouded into it as she washed it off herself and the corset. When she was done she hung the corset from her saddle to dry and mounted Hero in just her wet clothes.

Maxum wished she'd put the corset on. The wet material of her shirt was clinging to her unfettered breasts and he could see how hard her nipples were from the cold. It immediately made him hard and craving, a position he didn't want to be in when riding through a dangerous area.

He noticed she had taken the Dagger of Truths and tucked it into her boot as a backup to the ones she already had in her sheaths. She was leaving nothing to chance.

They were more on their guard as they went. They were following a small worn path, and shortly they came to a cottage nestled into a clearing. She wondered who would be brave enough to settle in the middle of the Killing Forest. Maxum dismounted and, holding his horse's reins, he walked up to the cottage door and knocked.

The door was split in two and slowly the top half opened to reveal a man no taller than Airi was but with a strong and stocky build.

“Well met, my friend,” the man said. “So look at you all.” He sounded nervous. Who wouldn't be when outnumbered by a rank of men and women? At least she thought he was outnumbered. The cottage was so small it couldn't house that many people. “What can I do for you this day?”

“Well…we are in need of a hot meal and all of our supplies and the land around us are wet. My friend”—he indicated Kilon—“can do the hunting and bring fresh game if you but provide the fire and a few hours of your company.”

“You would hunt in the Killing Forest?” the man asked with surprise. “You must be brave.”

“A beast's a beast. They all fall,” Kilon said shortly.

“Well then, with an offer that does little to inconvenience me and brings fresh game to my table I say welcome!”

The man opened the bottom half of the door in welcome.

They tied up the horses then made their way inside the cottage. It was a small cozy space, one room in all with a plank bed tucked up into the far right corner and a small table and two chairs in the near right corner. The left side of the cottage was taken up entirely by a huge fireplace. The blaze in it was healthy and hot, warming the room considerably. Everything felt dry and comfortable and Airi, shivering from the wet, went to sit by the fire in hopes of drying her clothes on her body. It seemed the warmer the room around her was the more she suddenly felt the cold.

Maxum introduced everyone and Kilon left to go hunt some dinner. Everyone made themselves comfortable on the floor in front of the fire and the man sat down in his rocking chair by the hearth. He picked up something he had been mending and began to rock.

“So where are you all from and what brings you here to the Killing Forest?” the man, who was named Ty, asked.

“We're from all about,” Maxum said, speaking comfortably for the group. “And we are in search of an adventure.”

“Well you've come to the right place…though you'll find more death and danger in the Killing Forest than you will adventure.”

“But that's the kind of adventure we like.” Maxum paused a beat. “We've heard there is a great labyrinth full of treasure in the forest.”

The man paled and dropped his mending, looking at them, one at a time.

“You want no part of that place,” the man said. “Any rumors you've heard of treasure are lies. The labyrinth is a place of death, plain and simple. As dark and dangerous as the forest is, the labyrinth puts it to shame.”

“How do you know they are lies?” Doisy asked.

“You aren't the first men to come through here looking for the labyrinth. The men come, but they never leave. They go in but never come out. If there is treasure there it stays there. So do yourself a favor and stay away.”

“Well, we'll think on what you have said for certain. In which direction lies the labyrinth?”

“I will not tell you,” the man said stubbornly. “I will not be responsible for more deaths.”

“But then we will have to search blindly for it in the forest. Is that not more dangerous?”

“Better to search blindly for your death than to go to it directly.”

Maxum coaxed the man some more, but he would not be moved. Kilon came back with a black stag, more than enough for them to feast on and the man seemed grateful for the meat that would be remaining.

“My friend will hunt you down enough meat to get you through the winter if you'll tell us where the labyrinth is,” Maxum said.

The man hesitated. “Enough for the whole of the winter?” he said. “Are you that determined to get there?”

“We are,” Maxum said.

But then the man shook his head. “No. I will not tell you. It will be hard to hunt on my own through the winter, but better that than to have your deaths on my head.”

“You are so certain we will die?” Maxum asked.

“I am.”

Maxum stood up, glancing out at the waning light of day. He had to go or he would be caught in the middle of the cottage. The curse would not care if there was a building in its way. It would come up through the floorboards, destroying the man's house.

“Enjoy your meat. I will return shortly.”

“You are going out by yourself? To what purpose? We already have our meat.”

“I must think on things awhile,” Maxum said as he approached the door. “Save me some dinner. I will return in a few hours.”

He left. The man shook his head, his balding pate gleaming in the firelight. “He is mad to walk about for no reason.”

Ty fell silent and went about preparing their dinner. Soon the cottage was redolent with the smells of cooking venison. The group had not had a hot meal in nearly a week and they were salivating at the promise of roasted meat.

Dinner came at last and they ate with relish. Airi's clothes finally dried and she was finally beginning to feel warm. She became drowsy and was dozing sitting up over her plate, which was resting in the nest of her crossed legs. She caught herself from falling over twice before Ty chuckled and said, “I cannot share my bed, but you are all welcome to sleep out of the wet before my fire. The Killing Forest is no place to be camping in the open.”