Mastered By Love (15 page)

You spanked
her.

Was she truly so proud
she’d rather die than be spanked? It seemed such an exaggerated
reaction. He’d trained a couple of non-Saturnian women in Saturnian
ways, and they hadn’t responded so violently. But they hadn’t been
Concordians.

He grabbed his boots and
stuffed his feet inside, glancing around the lamp-lit tent at the
same time. Her clothing and boots were missing as well, so maybe he
was wrong. Maybe she didn’t want to die, just escape.

With his hat jammed on his head, his
hands encased in gloves and face obscured by a thick muffler, he
caught up the lamp and opened the tent flap. A gust of wind blew
sharp flakes of icy snow into his eyes as he stepped
outside.

He swore under his breath, fumbled
with the tie on the flap, his movements hampered by the lamp in his
left hand. Finally he got the thing tied down. No sense in leaving
it open so the wind could blow his tent full of snow while he was
gone.

Clear footprints led away
from his tent into the scrub trees bordering the little camp. The
deep indentations had already been softened and partly covered by
falling snow. They were still obvious, but judging by the amount of
snow blurring them, she’d left some time ago – plenty of time to
get into serious trouble.

Dario swore again as he set
off along her trail. He could’ve used a horse. There was no telling
how far she’d gotten and he might need help getting her back to
camp. Yet he didn’t want to overtire any of the mounts; they had a
long ride ahead of them in the morning and the horses would need
all their energy for the journey.

The selfish little tramp
should’ve thought of that when she ran off. She ought to have
considered how her actions were going to affect other people, and
the animals as well. But she didn’t care, apparently. Not Princess
Tariza. No. Her needs came before everyone else.

He plunged into the scrubby trees.
They were too small to provide any kind of shield from the falling
snow and the accumulated drifts came up to his knees, forcing him
to wade awkwardly through the icy whiteness. Clumps of snow fell
over the tops of his boots and melted against his
trousers.

“
When I get hold of her,
I’m going to beat some sense into her,” he grumbled into the winter
stillness. “After this, she won’t dare step outside my tent without
permission.”

Her tracks led downhill, but not in
the direction from which the party had come. The prints seemed to
follow the easiest way cross-country, rather than going in any
particular direction. Of course, since it was dark and completely
overcast, he had no way of knowing for sure.

They wended their way
around rocky outcroppings and fallen logs, always heading down. She
wasn’t trying to get anywhere in particular. Just away. From
him.

Dario felt an unfamiliar
sinking in his chest as the thought came to him. She was running
away from
him.
Then he stepped into a small depression in the ground,
obscured by drifted snow, and sank into freezing cold up to his
waist.

“
Goddamned spoiled little
bitch!”

He floundered, getting more of the icy
stuff into his boots, caked on his trousers, up his sleeves and
down the collar of his jacket. The cold burned against his skin. He
dropped the lamp and the little flame went out.

Dario snarled in frustration. He
reached out to one side and then the other, fumbling for some solid
object he could use to drag himself out of the all-enveloping
snowdrift. His hand brushed a lump of something soft.

Not snow. Fabric. He lifted
his head, squinting through the gloom. A ragged bundle of
something
lay half-sunken
in the drift, its dark color almost hidden by fallen
snow.

“
Tariza?” he said
aloud.

No answer. Dario floundered
through the cold white, his motions like swimming, until he came
abreast of the mysterious bundle. The thin moonlight filtering
through the clouds showed him the vague outlines of a woman’s face.
Light hair. It could only be her.

With stiff fingers, he
pushed the snow and ice encrusted hair from her face. Tariza, her
skin bluish-white with cold. Her garments, he realized, were also
crusted with ice. She’d gotten wet somehow. Soaking wet. His fury
vanished, replaced by driving terror.

“
Tariza. Tariza, wake up.”
He shook her.

“
Warm now,” she murmured,
the syllables blurred. “Sleep.”

She was in real danger. Victims of the
cold often imagined themselves warm just before they
succumbed.

“
No. You can’t
sleep.”

He grabbed her, turned her face-up.
Then he slipped an arm around her chest and under her arms, as if
she were a drowning swimmer. With a mighty heave, he dragged her
toward the edge of the drift. At least he thought it was the
edge.

She wasn’t very heavy. Yet
the weight of her was enough – nearly – to anchor him in the cruel
snow. He fixed his gaze on the dark vertical slash of a nearby
tree. Just a few more feet and they’d be free.

“
Leave me,” she said.
“Die.”

“
I’m not going to let you
die.”

He needed her to live,
although he couldn’t explain why. She was disrespectful,
argumentative, arrogant. The daughter of Saturnios’s sworn enemy.
But he wouldn’t leave her here.

His gaze fell on a dark
pool of water an arm’s length away from where she’d fallen. She
must have stumbled into the water and the wet had intensified the
cold. He’d gotten to her just in time. If he didn’t get her warmed
up soon, though, she could still die.

Dario heaved again, pushing hard with
his legs until he broke free of the heaviest drifts. He shook
Tariza, pulling her up against him until she was on her feet. Her
head lolled against his chest, her arms hung limply, but she was on
her feet.

“
You’re going to live,” he
barked. “Now walk.”

They stumbled and staggered
their way up the hill. Just enough moonlight reflected off the snow
to show him the trail they’d already broken, and he used it to make
the going easier. Twice, Tariza stumbled and fell to her knees,
requiring him to pull her upright again.

By the time they made it to
the top of the hill, he’d broken into a sweat beneath his clothes.
It was lucky for both of them that she’d collapsed relatively close
to the encampment.

“
Paolo!” he bellowed as
they reached the huddled circle of tents. “Paolo! Get
up!”

He staggered into his own tent and let
Tariza sink to the floor next to the bed. Leaning over her, he
began to unwrap her clothes.

The air in the tent was
frigid, but he had to get her out of her wet things before the
combination of damp and cold killed her. She began to shiver so
violently her teeth clicked together. He got her coat off and found
the dress beneath soaked with melted snow. She had on none of the
layers she’d been given as protection against the cold – just a
thin cotton dress and a coat.

Dario stuck his head out of
the tent. “Paolo, goddamn it, get out here!”

He returned to stripping his
unmanageable slave. He got her boots and socks off, then her dress.
Her skin felt cold to the touch.

As he lifted her onto the
bed, the tent flap opened and Paolo stuck his head inside. “What is
it, milord?” he said, his voice bleary with sleep.

“
Light the travel stove and
heat some tea. Tariza has taken a deadly chill.” Dario tucked the
blankets close around her and began removing his own
clothes.

“
How did that happen?”
Paolo opened Dario’s saddlebags.

“
She tried to escape.” He
stripped off his jacket.

“
Maybe you should’ve left
her out there,” his squire muttered, taking the little travel stove
from a saddlebag.

Mateo would probably have
said the same thing. Dario’s friends would agree. So why was he
yanking off his clothes in a frenzied rush to get in bed with her –
not for sex, but in order to share his precious body heat with
her?

Nothing he’d done with
regard to Tariza had been sensible. Dario took off his trousers and
climbed into bed. He gathered her chill and shivering form against
him, tucked the blankets around them both. She would live. He
wouldn’t accept any other outcome.

“
Where’s the lamp?” Paolo
said.

“
I dropped it in the woods.
Use the other one.”

More fumbling and muffled swearing
ensued before the boy finally had the lamp and the stove lit. Dario
watched his squire fill a tin mug with packed snow and set it on
the stove to heat.

In Dario’s arms, Tariza
murmured. He looked down to see her lashes fluttering. She opened
her eyes and gazed blankly at him for a moment. Then her lids
lowered and she seemed to fall asleep.

“
She’s more trouble than
she’s worth,” Paolo said.

“
Just do your job,
boy.”

His squire pressed his lips
together and didn’t answer. He was probably right, but Dario didn’t
want to hear it. She was his. His to protect, his to nurture, his
to enjoy. He wouldn’t leave her to die.

But would you do the same
for any other slave?

He’d never known a slave to
run off like this. Sure, occasionally one attempted to leave her
master, but not in such an openly suicidal manner. Therefore the
issue had never arisen.

You can lie to the king,
even to Mateo or Paolo, but don’t lie to yourself.

He gazed down at Tariza’s
pale, unconscious face. Frowned. Perhaps another slave wouldn’t
have aroused such a degree of desperation in him. It must be
because of her unique value as a political pawn. No other slave had
the same import as she did; that was why he felt so much concern
for her.

It certainly wasn’t because
he cared for her. Who would? She did nothing but defy him at every
turn.

Yet the relief that flooded him as her
eyes opened once again did not seem to have the faintest connection
to Saturnian politics.

She stared at him in apparent
befuddlement, one slim hand sliding halfway up his arm. She
blinked. Her gaze cleared, her eyes growing bleak. She dropped her
lashes and withdrew her hand.

“
The tea is ready, milord,”
Paolo said.

“
Make sure it has plenty of
honey,” Dario replied, still watching Tariza.

“
It does.” The boy rose and
came to the bed.

“
Sit up, Tariza,” Dario
said. “You must drink.”

She tried to obey. Her arms buckled at
her attempts to push herself upright, so he put his arm around her
shoulders and pulled her into place. Paolo handed him the mug and
he held it to her lips. She bent her head to the mug with a strange
air of submissiveness, her eyes never meeting his.

Dario glanced up at Paolo.
The boy shook his head, muttering something about learning a
well-earned lesson. Clearly he didn’t think much of the former
Concordian princess.

“
Thank you,” Dario said.
“You can go back to bed.”

The squire left, still muttering.
Dario drew Tariza against his body for maximum heat. Although she
seemed to have regained normal consciousness, she still was
dangerously chilled and needed every bit of warmth he could
provide.

“
Why did you do it?” he
said. “You must have known you wouldn’t get far dressed like
that.”

Tariza gave a half-hearted
shrug. “That wasn’t the point,” she said in a lifeless
voice.

“
Then what were you trying
to do?” Dario half dreaded the answer. “Did you want to
die?”

“
No. I didn’t want to die.”
Her voice was barely audible. “But honor had to be
satisfied.”

“
Honor.” Did she mean what
he thought? She’d risked death for the honor of her
country.

“
To surrender to slavery
without protest is ... contemptible,” she whispered. “I could not
soil the honor of Concordia that way.”

He’d never encountered a
woman who thought of honor in that manner. In fact, he’d never
encountered a woman who thought of honor at all. Honor was
something for men, not slaves. But Tariza wasn’t a slave, not in
the usual sense anyway.

That idea sat uneasily in
his mind. She was female, yet her notions of selfhood and duty were
more like a man’s than a slave’s. Were all women of Concordia that
way? How had they learned to think like men?

They weren’t raised
slaves.

He was getting a head-ache.

Dario offered her the cup
again, but she pushed it away. “I’m finished. I can’t drink
anymore.”

“
You need it. Finish
it.”

She glanced at him, just a
flick of the eyes and away. “You were out there, too. Don’t you
also need it?”

“
I wasn’t out as
long.”

“
I am warm,” she
said.

He took a sip. The sweet, hot liquid
did feel remarkably restorative. But she needed it more than he
did.