Dark Stallion (10 page)

He released her slowly, allowing her to regain her balance before he dropped his hands from her. “I doubt I will live long enough to worry about my balls if the king’s men catch up to us.”

“My god, Col! Why would take me if you knew that?” Emma gasped, horrified.

He sent her a strange look. “It is not the same where you are from?”

Emma began blinking again, suddenly recalling that she hadn’t told them where she was from. “There aren’t … any centaurs where I’m from,” she said finally. “They wouldn’t do anything like that even there were!”

“If there are no centaurs, how would you know that?” he asked dryly.

“Because they aren’t barbarians!” Emma snapped. “This is such a bad idea, Col! Why didn’t you say something before? Why didn’t you tell me how much danger it put you and Aydin in?”

He studied her blankly for several moments. “What place are you from that you do not understand the ways of our people and yours?”

Alarms went off in Emma’s head. She eyed him warily. “It’s a long way from here,” she said cautiously.

“You said that you did not remember.”

“It’s starting to come back to me,” Emma said. “Not all of it, of course, but I know it isn’t like it is here—unless you just said that to make me feel guilty?”

He frowned curiously. “You would feel guilty if the king’s men strung me up by my balls and slaughtered me?”

She actually felt a little ill at the mental picture he’d conjured. “Don’t
say
things like that! It’s horrible! Of course I’d feel guilty if it was my fault!”

His gaze flickered over her face. “Why?”

“How could I not?”

He shook his head at her but he moved closer, settled his arms around her and drew her against his length. “You are a strange hoonan,” he said huskily, though amusement laced his voice. “You have not forgotten that we captured you, by chance?”

She sent him a look. “I’m not crazy! But you aren’t bad men—you or Aydin. Those men back there … they’re very bad men. Especially King Fart!”

“Who?”

Emma felt her face heat. She should’ve known if she allowed herself to even
think
bad thoughts it would turn into a bad habit. “I mean Bart.”

He started laughing. “You are a very strange female, Emma!”

She studied him doubtfully. “Not strange enough to prefer the company of those disgusting brutes! I threw up on him when he kissed me. It scared me when I had time to get over it, but it turned out to be a lucky thing that I have a delicate gag reflex. He thought I was sick and sent me to that room so I couldn’t get him sick or anybody else, otherwise I would never have escaped!”

“And I would not have had the chance to steal you away.”

She smiled at him tentatively before she remembered what he’d said about the danger she represented to him and Aydin. “That might not have been so lucky … for the two of you.”

He shrugged. “Time will tell.”

She was starting to prune when they waded out of the stream and she was still self-conscious. The cloth he’d brought her dry with, she discovered, barely wrapped around her—in fact, left a gap. She studied it with dismay and then her wet, muddy dress. “I can’t run around in this until my dress dries.”

“So? Where nothing. I will not mind and I do not think Aydin would object.”

She sent him an irritated look and crouched down to wash the dress. “Well, I’m not going to find out because I’m not walking around naked!”

“Stand. I will show you how our women cover themselves.”

She finished rinsing the dress first, wringing it out the best she could and then found a bush to spread it over to dry. Colwin took the length of cloth she’d covered herself with and tied it at her waist with the opening along one thigh. Taking the piece he’d dried off with, he wrapped it around her just beneath her arms and made a knot in the back.

“Now all the pretty things are hidden from my eyes.”

She looked down at the outfit doubtfully, but realized he was right even though she felt downright slutty in it. She was about to ask him if he was sure it was alright for her to wear something like that when they heard noise from the woods behind them that drew their attention.

To Emma’s relief, she saw it was Aydin. He flicked a look at her, did a double take and then simply stopped to stare at her for a long moment before he seemed to recall what his purpose in going to the stream.

She saw that he had what looked like a three or four rabbits in one hand. From their limpness, it was clear they were dead and she felt her heart contract. Colwin’s reaction was entirely different. He smiled in pleasure. “Rabbits! I hadn’t expected you to snare so many!”

He followed Aydin down to the water to help him clean them. Emma didn’t think her stomach could handle watching and then eating. She found a place to sit down where she couldn’t actually see what they were doing and focused her gaze into the distance.

Her mind went immediately back to her anxieties but the fear of ‘catching’ pregnant paled beside what Colwin had told her. She discovered it was easy enough to convince herself that neither stds or pregnancy were likely to result from her adventures, particularly since Aydin had pulled out. The stds—well, she didn’t doubt the nasty creatures that inhabited the castle were riddled with all sorts of things, but Aydin and Colwin were both clearly strong, healthy male animals—and centaurs. She didn’t believe they were nasty enough to carry ‘nasty diseases’ and besides that, they were centaurs. Granted, when they were in human form, it was impossible to tell, or believe, that they weren’t human—but they weren’t. She doubted they were even half-human, although they certainly looked it and, that being the case, it seemed highly unlikely that she could either get pregnant by either one of them or catching anything.

The situation with the hoonans was another matter entirely. Maybe they thought it was worth risking their lives to try to free the babies. She could only admire that in them, but she didn’t want to add to their risks and she could see she did.

She honestly didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her before except that she was more focused on herself.
She
wanted to escape them because she would almost rather be dead than to have to endure that horrible man touching her. She hadn’t really felt threatened by Aydin and Colwin from the moment she discovered they were as anxious to leave King Bart’s vicinity as she was.

Well, she supposed she’d felt a little threatened, but not nearly as afraid of them as the men in the castle.

She wasn’t sure why unless, maybe, she’d sensed they were a far better caliber of men?

Maybe. She wasn’t convinced her instincts were to be entirely trusted.

She didn’t really know Aydin or Colwin. She supposed the very typical sort of relationship between the two men had soothed her fears. Watching them and listening to them, they sounded so like other siblings she knew that it was the familiarity of their relationship that had quieted her anxieties—as if they were just two average guys she might meet most anywhere.

Except she knew they weren’t even close to ‘ordinary’ and this wasn’t home.

So, could she trust her instincts? Should she accept that they were as trustworthy and exceptional as they seemed to be?

She thought she did, but that didn’t help her any when it came to the situation she’d found herself in. If she was right and they were really good men, was it right to allow them to risk their lives for her?

She couldn’t convince herself that it was or that it wasn’t something she could do anything about. She’d already tried to escape, though, and that hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

Well, it had. She’d had a rousing good time with Aydin ‘punishing’ and ‘subduing’ her, more fun than she should’ve considering that it had been very, very bad of her to allow him to have sex with her—encourage him!—when she hadn’t known him more than a few hours!

She would never have believed she would even be tempted to do something like that!

Which meant that she was more powerfully attracted, to both men, than she’d ever been to any mortal man, or she’d dropped a few cards from her deck when she made the trip from her world to theirs.

Maybe that was sort of the key to her uncharacteristic behavior and her inability to fully grasp the dangers, though? Maybe her mind simply hadn’t adjusted to this as reality? Maybe, it had even prompted deep, dark fantasies to surface that she’d kept locked away all these years and never acknowledged before?

She thought it was possible and it was certainly easier to accept that nothing she’d done actually
was
uncharacteristic but rather suppressed. She supposed discovering herself in a place where no one knew her and none of the old rules applied had been a sort of liberating experience, particular since it didn’t have the feel of reality to her—yet.

It was beginning to feel all too real, though.

She didn’t believe Colwin had just made that stuff up, or that he’d exaggerated, despite the fact that he hadn’t seemed particularly perturbed about it. She thought it was more a matter of him accepting that that was the way things were—in his world. Hoonans were their enemies because they did horrible things to them whenever they caught them.

It made her wonder how they could stand to look at her, believing as they did that she was one of the hoonans. She supposed she could see how they could have sex with her anyway, but only in the sense of punishment—rape and pillage—and they hadn’t treated her like that. Even Aydin, as angry as he’d been, had been careful with her, had given her as much pleasure as he’d taken.

Was that why he’d pulled out, she wondered? Because he didn’t mind fucking a hoonan, but he didn’t want to spill his seed in one?

Was there any chance she was wrong and they actually
could
get her pregnant, she wondered uneasily?

But, even if they could, why would they worry about it?

Not that Colwin seemed worried about it, but she couldn’t think of but two reasons why Aydin would’ve pulled out—the possibility that he might get her pregnant and or a disgust of the idea of sharing his seed with a hoonan.

Colwin had seemed to indicate that he didn’t think it was possible. He hadn’t actually
said
that, but he hadn’t seemed to think so. Then again, he had told her he’d never fucked a hoonan before.

That had stung, especially after the way he’d held her, made her feel as if he was making love to her, but then again she didn’t suppose she could blame him for being defensive.

She thought he
had
been defensive. He’d been sweet right up until she’d suddenly remembered she didn’t have protection, and she knew he’d taken that the wrong way—as if she was afraid of being tainted by him—because he was centaur. God knew it seemed to go way beyond a little racial prejudice! Neither the hoonans nor the centaurs seemed to think twice about killing one another!

And maybe she was a little worried about the possibility of getting pregnant, but they were
centaurs
! It wouldn’t be like giving birth to a baby with a different skin color! They had to know that it just wasn’t possible for a hoonan, or a human, to give birth to a centaur!

She shook the thought. It was ridiculous even to worry about it! They were too different for anything like that to happen.

It was
them
she should be worried about!

She glanced at them at the thought, realizing that she liked them—a lot! It was more than just being sexually attracted to them. She liked them. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to them because she was with them!

Almost as if they felt her gaze, both men turned to look at her. They must have seen the worry in her expression because almost identical expressions of curiosity flickered across their faces. It made her heart clench in her chest. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much they favored one another despite the difference in their coloring.

They turned back to their task after a moment and then rose, moving toward her.

“We will have to make the fire up again,” Aydin said dryly. “It had burned out when I returned.”

Colwin sent her a look, waggling his brows at her, and she bit her lip, looking away. She didn’t supposed, under the circumstances, that it was likely to cause friction between them, but there was no sense in going out of her way to provoke trouble between them. They already had a volatile enough relationship.

Not but what she could see both sides, she thought wryly as she got up and followed them back to the campsite. Aydin was the older and clearly the more responsible of the two. He obviously loved his brother and wanted to look out for him even though Colwin just as obviously tried his patience.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to see that his little brother was now a man and didn’t need or want his guidance and wisdom. He wanted to live his life his own way, even if it was reckless and fraught with danger. Maybe he even thrived on danger? In any case, she could see where it must chafe to have an older brother always trying to tell him what to do and how to do it.

It was bad enough that one always had parents to do that!

That thought made her throat close.

What must they think of her disappearance? How much time had passed back home, she wondered? Was the time in the world she’d come from the same? Or had weeks or maybe months passed while everyone searched for her?

She hated to think of what they must be going through. She knew they loved her, but it wasn’t as if she could do anything about her situation.

She still felt guilty for enjoying being with Aydin and Colwin when she knew they must be suffering.