Lock (5 page)

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

Food was the last thing on his mind. The thought of movement made him sick, but he needed to piss, and his mouth and throat were so dry he nearly choked when he tried swallowing.

“I have salve for your back.” She washed her hands in a basin by the bed, dried them, and reached for a pot of strong-scented, slimy-looking paste.

He drew a sharp breath at her first touch, then managed to relax a bit. The salve was very cool, and though it didn’t take away the pain, it made the thought of moving slightly less daunting. Still, when he sat up, he bit his cheek to keep from groaning.

She washed her hands and reached for a chamber pot. Humiliated by the thought of her tending his bodily functions, he nearly refused, but he hadn’t a choice.

She must have noted the rage in his eyes because she said, “We all have to do it.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “You have some attitude for a man in your condition.”

“You bought my attitude.”

“Guess I did.” She ripped the chamber pot from him and disappeared outside, leaving him to fix his own loincloth. He finished the task and sat on the edge of the bed, too numb to move. The whole situation was so incredibly degrading, and he was in too much pain to do a thing about it. He didn’t dare risk an escape attempt. He knew he didn’t have the strength to break the chains, and even if he did, he doubted he’d make it past the front door. No, he’d have to wait.

The woman returned with a bucket of fresh water. She brought him a full mug and he accepted it, willing himself not to flinch at the motion. When he drank, even swallowing hurt. He almost wished for that old witch’s potion from the night before.

“You should eat something.”

He shook his head.

“Maybe after you clean up.”

He stared at the basin of water. He felt disgusting, not having washed since his ship had crashed, but the thought of moving any more than he had to was far from appealing.

“I’ll help you.” She dampened a cloth in the basin.

With a snarl, he snatched the cloth from her and began washing slowly, every movement excruciating.

“You know being this stubborn is what got you into trouble yesterday,” she said, watching him.

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know if you weren’t stubborn you’d have passed out long before they got you to the rack.”

He nearly shivered at the memory. “It has nothing to do with stubbornness. Some people just faint easily.”

“You call that easily?” She reached for another cloth and finished helping him wash. This time he didn’t protest. All he wanted was to lie back down and not move until he had to pee again.

“I want to change those bandages.” She nodded toward his arms.

She walked across the room and filled a bowl from a pot simmering over the fireplace.

“Eat this.” She placed the stew on his knee. The aroma of boiled vegetables and meat made him realize he was a little hungry, and he had to sit up while she worked on his arms.

She unraveled one of his bandages. He glanced at the symbols branded into this flesh and asked, “What does it say?”

“This arm is for thief,” she told him. “The other one says murderer.”

At least his flesh would carry no lies.

By the time she’d finished cleaning his arms and applying fresh bandages, he’d managed to empty half the bowl.

“Do you need help lying down again?” she asked.

He shot her another annoyed look and lay on his stomach. He’d been sitting up so long that the salve had dried on his oozing flesh, and movement was almost as agonizing as when he’d first awakened. He closed his eyes tightly, his cheek resting against a pillow that smelled faintly of wild flowers. After a moment, he realized his hair—the only part of him that didn’t hurt—was being stroked with a gentleness he’d never experienced.
How can anything feel good enough to rival the pain in my back
?

He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the woman’s large, soft ones.

“As your slave, do you expect me to put up with your touch?” he said in his most frigid voice.

The caress stopped instantly, and without a word she returned to the table and continued shelling peas.

When he closed his eyes, he wondered why he could still feel her hand on his hair.

* * * * *

“That’s what I get for trading my mother’s necklace for the son-of-a-bitch,” Sparrow muttered to her cow, Daphne. Seated on a milking stool, she squeezed the cow’s udder, listening to the rhythm of the milk as it hit the bucket.

“Sparrow, I’m back!” Shea-Ann stepped into the barn, looking weary. She’d been gone all night and part of the morning caring for other newly-bought slaves. “I’m going to get some sleep. How’s the pirate?”

“Flippant.”

“Excuse me?”

“He was arguing with me all morning.”

“He has the strength to argue?”

“Evidently. It’s as if he’s furious because I saved his life.”

“I told you.” Shea-Ann shook her head. “He’s going to be nothing but trouble. Do you want to ride to Begonia and see if the bounty hunters will take him back before it’s too late?”

Sparrow’s stomach twisted at the thought of what they’d do to him. He might be rude and ungrateful, but any further punishment in his condition would kill him, and she had no desire to see him dead, though she wondered why not.

Shea-Ann left Sparrow alone to finish her chores and reflect on the pirate lying in her bed.
Her bed
! She’d slept wrapped in blankets by the fire, and he had the nerve to speak to her with contempt!

She stalked to the house with the bucket of milk and slammed it on the table, the white liquid sloshing onto her hands. She glared at the pirate only to realize he was staring at her.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she demanded.

“Switch places with me and see how well you sleep.” He sounded tired.

“If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead.”

“Did I ask you to buy me?”

She shook her head. Evidently he wasn’t tired enough to keep from arguing.

“I wish I’d never stepped into the village yesterday,” she muttered.

“I wish I hadn’t either.”

Her lips flicked upward in a smile. “I’m sure that’s true.”

He lifted his arm and reached for the mug of water by the bed. His hand curved around it for a second before he dropped his arm, his breathing shallow.

“Would you like a drink?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice. His manner made her furious. To her, there was no shame in admitting weakness, but he’d rather deny his own limitations rather than ask for help. Such behavior made no sense.

“No. I wanted to rearrange the table.”

Sparrow bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. She would not allow his sense of humor to get to her. She was surprised he even had a sense of humor. His expression was so incredibly hard, and she didn’t think of criminals as having charms and preferences the same as other people.

“Here.” She took the mug from him. He raised his head to sip.

She sat close enough to feel the heat of his flesh and brushed his forehead with her knuckles. “I just want to see if you have a fever,” she explained.

“She said I did.” He motioned with his eyes toward Shea-Ann who slept on a second bed closer to the fire.

Sparrow placed the mug aside and changed the water in the basin by his bed. She dipped a cloth in the fresh water and placed it on the portion of his brow unconcealed by the pillow. She muttered, “I don’t want you to croak in my bed.”

“So you have a specific place you want me to croak in?” he murmured. She knew by the sound of his voice he was drifting to sleep.

“I’ll let you know when I think of it,” Sparrow replied, gazing at the sharpness of his cheekbones, the shape of his nose, and the fullness of his lower lip. She shook her head and walked to the fire, stirring the pot of stew. The pirate was arrogant, rude, and ungrateful. He was a filthy, oozing body lying helpless in her bed. What was it she found attractive about him? Perhaps Shea-Ann was right. She kept remembering how he looked when he’d been dragged up the scaffold. All that untamed male power. Even now, his body exuded strength in every curve and plane of his muscles and each expression in his pale blue eyes. That morning when she’d brought him the chamber pot, she’d seen his respectable equipment. All his parts, both soft and hard, were large and thick. Evidently torture hadn’t shrunk either his attitude or his masculinity.

He obviously didn’t like her at all, but he was her slave. She wondered if she could think of a way to use his body…
No
. Sparrow chastised herself.
That would be rape, and she was no rapist
.
But
, she reflected,
there’s more than one way to plant a field
.

Lock lost track of how long he lay like a useless sack of grain, moving only to wash, eat, and use the chamber pot. Eventually the leaping flames on his back turned to smoldering heat and he was able to move without feeling physically ill.

Both Sparrow and the older healer, Shea-Ann, kept careful watch over him. The healer was a monotonous bitch, always droning on about how vile Lock was and how Sparrow had wasted the family jewels.

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Lock snarled at Shea-Ann one evening when the healer was delving into gossip she’d heard regarding one of Lock’s past raids. Though he spoke with Sparrow in his own language, he understood theirs and when the mood took him, he argued with Shea-Ann.

“All of it’s true! You sank a ship of a hundred men.”

“One hundred fifty, and it wasn’t the first, I assure you.”

“And proud of it, too, aren’t you?” Shea-Ann snarled. “Sparrow, I can’t believe this scum in our house!”

“It’s not by my choice, hag,” Lock hissed.

“You shut your mouth, or I’ll take a horsewhip to you myself!” The healer paused in stirring the pot of stew and pointed the ladle at Lock.

“It would be my pleasure!” the pirate spat.

“Stop it, both of you!” Sparrow bellowed. “You make my head ache.”

“Among other things?” Lock tossed her a lewd glance.

Sparrow blushed to the roots of her hair. The woman was unusually innocent and didn’t hide her desire for him well. He was experienced enough in the ways of lust to know when someone wanted him.

“You’re disgusting,” Sparrow snarled at him, her blue eyes flashing. “Not only are you horribly scarred, but you stink.”

“Forgive me if I’ve neglected to visit the palace bath, My Queen.” He bowed his head in a mock gesture of respect. She was right, however. He needed a full washing. His own smell was starting to make him sick.

The argument must have made her think as well, because the next day when Shea-Ann left for her rounds in the village, Sparrow dragged the wooden tub near the bed and filled it with water.

“Do you want me to go while you undress?” she began, but by the time she’d finished, he’d unfastened the ties on his loincloth and slid it off. Since his feet were shackled, the cloth was the only clothing that allowed him to undress without removing his chains. He wondered what the hell Sparrow was going to do when winter came. He certainly wasn’t about to freeze his balls off because she was afraid he’d nab the first opportunity to run away – even if he would.

Her gaze swept him from head to foot, then fixed on his cock. He had to admit his apparatus was something to be proud of, even when not erect. However something about the pretty little bitch filled him with more desire than he wanted to admit, and since he’d started feeling like his old self, just looking at her was enough to make him hard.

Lock noted her scarlet cheeks with satisfaction. He curled his fist around his steely rod and pumped it twice, winking at Sparrow. “How about feeling your first cock, girl? I’m more than willing to let you have a few strokes.”

Sparrow’s expression tensed and she fired him an enraged look. “I would rather eat rotten goat’s cheese with rat droppings in it.”

Lock chuckled and stepped into the tub. With his back still far from healed, the water hurt, but not mercilessly as when the bounty hunter had doused him with hot water after being tossed off the scaffold. He shook his head clear of that memory. That had been sheer, blinding agony.

Sparrow cast him another glance before yanking the blankets off the bed and bringing them outside to air.

Lock reached for the cake of soap beside the tub and washed. He tugged on the chain still attached to his shackled feet. It was a very strong, thick chain. He’d need some sort of weapon to break it, but he’d consider that later, after he was fully recovered. He tried wetting his matted, itchy hair. If he’d had access to a knife, he’d have cut it off days ago. When it was clean, it wasn’t bad, but dirty, the long, heavy mass was driving him to madness.

Sparrow returned and picked up a bucket of water heating by the fire. She dumped it over his head, leaving the bucket over his face and whacking the top of it.

Lock ripped it from his head and threw it across the room, the motion pulling the healing flesh of his shoulders and back. He gritted his teeth at her gloating expression.