Forest Whispers (6 page)

Lana studied him for several moments,
thinking it over, and realized with a touch of surprise that he was
right. The last thing she remembered was being irritated because he
was hell bent and determined to snuggle after they’d had sex. After
that—nothing. She frowned thoughtfully, trying to remember the last
time she’d slept straight through the night without rousing even
once. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “That’s—odd. Must have been
all that unaccustomed exercise.”

Shrugging, she got to her feet, gathered her
pack, and went out to perform her morning ritual, bathing off
quickly again because she felt sticky from the late evening bump
ugly mamba.

Her hair was a catastrophe. She hadn’t
gotten around to combing it after they’d had that last bout of sex
and had gone to sleep with it wet. It took her nearly thirty
minutes to rake the tangles out of it. Taming it was an
impossibility at this point. Finally, she wet it down and combed it
again.

When she’d dried off, she dressed in the
last uniform she’d packed and pulled her thigh high boots on. She
was either going to have to spare the time to clean her clothes, go
back for more, or start wearing the not-so-clean outfits she’d
brought with her. None of the possibilities particularly appealed
to her, however.

To her surprise, when she returned to the
cabin, Corin was gone. She stood in the middle of the room for
several moments, looking around. Finally, she shrugged, dug a food
bar from her pack then shouldered it and headed out. Corin was
standing in the middle of the cart track, waiting for her.

She stopped when she saw him. It
occurred to her after a moment, however, that he
was
a quick learner. He knew she
would’ve gone on without him if he hadn’t been ready to go when she
was. Amusement touched her at the thought. His wary expression when
she strode toward him only made it deepen.

She offered him the bar in her hand. “I
brought extras, and I didn’t get around to eating last night.”

He shook his head firmly and pulled a
bread-like substance from his own pack.

Shrugging, Lana turned and gestured toward
the cabin. “This is the second one of these little cabins I’ve
located. Any idea why there would be two one room cabins in this
area—both abandoned?”

“
They are fifen.”

Lana’s brows rose. “Sorry. That doesn’t
really tell me anything.”

He frowned. “The royal guard. If they have
not taken a woman, and have no offspring, when they reach an age
where they are no longer able to fight—if they reach that age—they
are given fifen—twenty parsects of the Rex Pimetrius’ lands and a
cabin.”

“
That is … so generous,” Lana said,
trying without much success to keep her voice neutral. She supposed
it was a fairly generous retirement, but it was hideously
depressing to imagine being ‘sent to pasture’ with twenty parsects
of wild wood lands, whatever amount of land that was, and a one
room cabin to die in--alone.

Corin said nothing. His face was impassive,
so it was impossible to figure out how he felt about it.

She wasn’t about to ask.

“
Are there more of these—abandoned, I
mean?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps twenty in this forest.
Some abandoned. Some occupied.”

A sense of excitement began to flow through
her. “Do you know which are empty?”

He nodded.

Lana pulled her map from her pack and moved
to stand next to him. “Show them to me on the map.”

He studied the map for several moments.
“Tine died last winter, so his cabin is empty now,” he said
pointing to the position. “This one and this one, also.”

A sudden thought occurred to Lana. “Wait.”
She punched up the old map. On it, each fifen was clearly
marked—and very likely Sadin was using the old map. When Corin had
pointed out the cabins he knew to be empty, Lana studied them,
trying to think which one Sadin would be most likely to head for.
“This one,” she said finally. “I believe he’ll head here.”

Corin frowned. “Lianal lives there.”

“
Sadin won’t know which are occupied
and which are empty. And this is just the sort of thing he would
do—swing around and head in the other direction.

“
I know he went to the one here. I
didn’t go, but the locator picked up his signature. He would
probably have seen this one when he passed this way—which could
lead him to believe they’d all been abandoned.
This
one, though,” she said, pointing to the
cabin she’d picked, “it’s just the sort of thing to appeal to him.
If we cut through the forest here we might be able to reach it
before he does.”

Chapter Five

It was cooler under the trees. The walk was
rougher, though. As focused as Lana was on getting to the cabin as
quickly as they could, it was still impossible not to notice that
the forest was a beautiful place. It looked like an ancient forest
and was virtually untouched—most likely because most of it belonged
to Rex Pimetrius.

She wondered if the family she’d seen was
the family of a former royal guard. The old guy had looked big
enough and mean enough to have been a soldier. Without the paint,
the armor, and the hair cut, he hadn’t looked anything like the
warriors she’d seen and it hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but
she supposed he must be retired military.

He’d had a pretty nice place, but then he’d
had plenty of help, too, in building it into a farm.

The other one—maybe, maybe not. If he’d been
a warrior, it certainly hadn’t helped him or his wife.

She had to wonder how long they were
expected to serve the king. How old was considered too old to be a
royal guard anymore?

She surveyed Corin speculatively. He’d
washed the war paint off the night before when they’d bathed and
hadn’t bothered to reapply it since, but she still couldn’t
pinpoint his age with any degree of certainty. From the information
she’d gathered on her way to Ata Prime, she knew the life
expectancy of the average male was roughly the same as a human
male. It was probably somewhat shorter for the warriors, but that
was because of their trade—like being a ranger.

She finally decided Corin must be somewhere
between thirty and forty. There wasn’t a trace of ‘boyish’ about
him—his face looked young but definitely mature—and she figured, no
matter how good he was, it would still take some time to work his
way up to captain of the royal guard. It was a position of
authority second only to Rex, himself, and not one that would be
handed over lightly.

It also occurred to her to wonder if he had
a wife, or maybe more than one, somewhere, and a pack of curtain
climbers. She supposed she should have thought about that before
she’d had sex with him, but she’d never considered policing other
people’s relationships were part of her job. She certainly wouldn’t
even consider casual sex if she knew a man had a significant other,
but in her line of work most of her encounters were flybys. She
didn’t have a lot of time to invest in ‘getting to know’ and she
didn’t want to since she couldn’t afford to get deeply involved
anyway. Besides, she figured if Corin had had a prior commitment
and it meant anything at all to him, he should have at least been
hesitant when she’d initiated intimacy.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know him well
enough to know whether he was the sort of man who took his vows to
heart or not.

After further consideration, she decided
that wasn’t strictly true. She did know him well enough to be
fairly certain she hadn’t stepped over the line and into the middle
of a domestic war. His position in the royal guard meant that he
must be a man of strong loyalties, and, if that was his nature, he
would be the same in his personal life.

Not that it mattered to her, personally. If
she was right about Sadin, she might be leaving this very
night—certainly within the next couple of days. Within a few
months, she probably wouldn’t even remember Corin’s name, much less
any of the rest, except, maybe, as a fond memory, but it was a
relief to think the possibility was slim that she was going to be
leaving one—or two—very unhappy women behind who considered she’d
been claim jumping.

Except for killers, she wasn’t in the habit
of trying to put herself in someone else’s shoes, but it seemed to
her that Corin was an exceptional man. If he’d been hers, she
wouldn’t take it kindly if some other woman tried to snatch some of
the action, even if the woman hadn’t had any designs on trying to
claim him.

It was a shame, really, that her time here
was so limited. Barbarian or not, he was a damned good lover—which
was even more surprising considering the tool he carried around
with him. It had been her experience that men with big dicks
usually considered that was enough in itself and no finesse on
their part was actually necessary.

As if he could sense her speculative gaze,
he turned to look at her. She smiled faintly. “Sorry I was so
cranky this morning. Guess that’s why everybody calls me a bitch,
huh?”

Several emotions seemed to flicker through
his eyes, one after another. Anger was the last and it settled.
“You have had many lovers?”

Lana looked at him in surprise for a moment
before irritation surfaced. “Many, no. More than one, yes,” she
responded tartly. “Guess you were a virgin, huh?”

To her stunned amazement, he flushed
darkly—and got angrier. “You do not understand our customs,” he
said stiffly.

“
You’re not seri….” Lana broke off at
the look he cast her way. “Obviously no better than you understand
ours. I guess I should’ve listened to the entire data log instead
of skipping around to what I thought was the important stuff …
never mind! Sorry I brought it up.”

They traveled in complete silence for a good
while after that. It wasn’t a comfortable, or companionable,
silence. Corin wasn’t making any bones about the fact that he was
pissed off. Lana was intrigued by the notion that she’d been his
first, but she could see it was something he didn’t want to
discuss.

After a while it occurred to her that she’d
heard of primitive societies that associated sex with strength, or
rather the lack of it, that believed that having sex somehow
weakened a man. She supposed it did, at least directly
afterward—women too. She didn’t think there was any scientific data
to support the theory that the effect was lasting, however.

Regardless, she could see a certain sense to
it if these people believed sex weakened them. Warriors would want
to remain at their peak strength.

But, when he’d told her about the fifen,
he’d mentioned ‘if they had no woman’. How would that fit in? Maybe
the chastity rule wasn’t that strict? Or maybe it wasn’t a rule at
all, but a belief, which some held and others did not? Or maybe it
only applied to officers?

She felt a little guilty now that she
considered it from that perspective, wondering if she’d done
something as bad, or worse, than tempting Corin to be unfaithful to
a wife. What if she’d ruined his career?

She tried to shake it off. People were
responsible for their own actions. Maybe she shared the guilt for
tempting him to break his vows, or whatever, but he was a grown man
and ultimately responsible for his actions. All he would’ve had to
have done was said ‘no’ and she would’ve backed off. For that
matter, if he’d seemed hesitant, she would’ve back off.

He hadn’t been and, moreover, he’d
instigated sex the night before. She’d been perfectly willing to
leave well enough alone after he’d pointed out that she was totally
insensitive to the feelings of others.

She sighed. It didn’t make her feel any less
guilty, particularly when she knew she’d be leaving him to face the
music alone … and who knew what the repercussions might be?

“
I did something wrong?”

The question snatched her out of her
abstraction, but she couldn’t make any sense out of it since it
seemed to be following her own thoughts. “Wrong how?” she asked
doubtfully.

He flushed again, obviously tempted to let
the subject drop—except that it was bothering him. “I did not do it
right?”

Lana stared at him blankly for several
moments before it finally dawned on her what he was asking. She bit
her lip, trying not to smile. “You didn’t see me complaining, did
you?”

He frowned thoughtfully, but he seemed to
relax fractionally. “You did not seem to want to … do it
again.”

“
Oh, well that was something
else.”

He fell silent again but not for long.
“What?”

Lana sighed. “Look, I think I really screwed
up here. I didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t make it any better, I
know. I’m not trying to be mean … just realistic. I’m not going to
be here long. I figured, we’re two adults. We could scratch each
other’s itch, and no harm done. But then you were pissed off about
it, and I realized that you probably weren’t looking at it the same
way I was. I thought it would be best just to leave it alone.”

He studied her for several moments and
finally nodded, looking away.

Lana had a very bad feeling about it,
though.

Hopefully, she was wrong. She was too prone
to becoming fond of people. That was not a good thing in her line
of work and potentially hazardous, as well. That was the main
reason she generally avoided even casual sex. Mostly, when she did
indulge her needs, she tried to be sure she’d settled on someone
she wasn’t likely to get too attached to, or vice versa.

She saw now that she’d made a serious error
in judgment with Corin. She should’ve been paying more attention—or
just kept her distance. Clearly, the people, or at least the
warriors, of Ata Prime considered displays of emotion unacceptable,
but that didn’t mean they didn’t feel anything.