Strongman (14 page)

Joy
,
child
.
I give you joy
.

75

Denise Rossetti

Whether it
’
s a furtive fumble or a dance of power and grace
,
the act of sex is a homage to
Lufra
.
Never forget that sacred fact
.

Lady Chelisand
’
s Admonishment to the Temple class of 10
,
351 ATF
,
later enshrined as a
Precept
.

Fort woke instantly, battle-ready, the way he always did. But all was quiet, save for the twitter of rasa birds in the brush, the tearing sound of the vranee cropping the grass.

He frowned, idly scratching his chest, chasing the trailing fragments of a dream.

I give you joy
,
child
.

His fingers slowed and stilled as he became aware of a shift, a…settling, somewhere inside him. When he inhaled and his chest expanded under his hand, it felt as if he had infinite room under his ribs, as if he were lighter somehow, freer. Fort blinked and shook his head, tears coming from nowhere, prickling behind his eyes. What the fuck?

He’d dreamed of his mother and she’d given him the absolution he’d always longed for. Fort’s lips thinned. Well, of course she had. It was his dream, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t shake the conviction the old bastard had survived that desperate, roundhouse blow. And if he had, he’d gone on and on for years, making everyone’s lives a misery. The cruel, bigoted, drunken sot of a bastard coward. He’d looked somehow diminished, lying there crumpled at his children’s feet. A fallen giant.

Shaking his head, Fort sat up, shoving the bedroll down to his hips. When the job was over and Jan had paid him, he’d finish his contract with the Fair and go back to find them, his womenfolk. Surely he was big enough, mean enough, to take care of himself among the Brethren? Not a frightened boy any longer. And Lufra help him, he’d find Sobriety McLaren’s grave and piss on it.

Heat gathered in the small of his back, simultaneously comforting and stimulating.

His morning erection reared happily and Fort grunted, the vividness of the dream fading. Cradling his cock, he crouched to leave the tent, coming to his feet in the morning sun. Involuntarily, he smiled. Lufra was good to Her children. Sunlight spilled into the hidden glade, brightening the white upturned faces of the goddess daisies dotting the grass. The tiny stream swished over rocks in a soothing murmur.

Luxuriously, Fort scratched his balls, enjoying the moment.

But when his eye fell on the other tent, his pleasant mood evaporated as if it had never been. Growling curses, he fished out his trews and pulled them on. Then he stumped off to relieve himself and dunk his head in the chilly water of the pool.

76

Strongman

Ten minutes later, he was still trying to decide what to do about the tumbler as he poured hot roberry into the Sereian cups. Should he escort him back to the borders of the Empty Lands and lose two days or keep him close and have to watch him every minute? Indecision made him so irritable he planted himself outside Griff’s tent and barked, “Get up, you lazy little shit!”

Silence.

“C’mon, Griff. Up! I’ve got things to do.”

Nothing. Only the rasa birds cheeping and the sound of running water singing a counterpoint to the wind.

Fort extended a big, bare foot and pushed the tent flap aside. He peered. Empty.

His guts disappeared into a cold, dark void. Ruler God! A hasty glance confirmed the presence of both vranee, so wherever the other man was, he was on foot. Fort tossed the cups aside and dived for his saddlebags. Shit, shit,
shit
! It took him two tries to loosen the buckle because his hands were shaking so hard. Lufra’s tits, he’d kill him, make the stupid bastard rue the day he was born. He’d—

“The view’s much better from up there.”

Fort spun around, sword in one hand, boots in the other.

Griff was easing out of the cleft in the rocks. He reached up to give his hobbled vran an affectionate slap on the rump as he passed, his dark eyes bright with excitement.

For a hideous instant, Fort thought his heart had stopped forever. Then it thumped back to life and with it came a wave of pure red, pulsing fury.

Griff was grinning with triumph. He gestured toward the very top of the bluff.

“You can see for miles, especially from the old candlewood. You’ll never guess what—”

The words choked off as Fort gripped his biceps and hauled him to his toes.

“Never—” He shook the tumbler so hard his head rocked on his shoulders. “
Never
do that again!”

Recovering, Griff glared. “Do what?”

“Leave.” Another shake. “Without telling me.”

“I’m perfectly capable of—”

Fort lowered his head until they were nose to nose. “You’re not!”

“Fuck you!” Griff twisted in his grip, freeing himself with an acrobat’s supple strength. His sloe eyes burning, he hissed, “Listen, you stubborn bastard, it worked. I saw what—”

The words slid past Fort’s ear in a meaningless jumble of noise. Grimly, he stepped forward and Griff fell back, wariness crossing his face for the first time. “Fort?” he said.

“Fort?”

Fort closed his hand over a straight shoulder and spun Griff around, clamping the younger man’s back to his chest. He hooked a brawny forearm around his throat.

“You,” he snarled, “will learn to do as you’re told.”

77

Denise Rossetti

Griff heaved and bucked in his grasp, incredibly strong for his size, but Fort increased the pressure. “I’m going to beat the crap out of you, so I never need worry again. Understand?”

Griff gurgled, a noise that like sounded like a curse. Abruptly, Fort was holding something more like a fellwolf than a man. The tumbler rammed an elbow into his gut, stepped on his bare instep and threw off his grip with shocking strength. He whirled into a knife fighter’s crouch, a naked blade in each hand, eyes blazing.

Stunned, Fort stared. Griff bared his teeth. “Why the fuck won’t you listen? I may not be the size of a bloody mountain, but I told you, I can—”

“—look after yourself,” finished Fort. Sweet Lufra! Eyes locked, they stood, a little breeze fingering Griff’s shirt, playing with Fort’s hair. That strange new steadiness stirred again in his chest.

“Perhaps you can.” He shrugged and his lips curved in a savage, joyous smile. “But you still have a lesson to learn.” He took a pace forward. “Drop the blades, Griff.”

The tumbler flushed. “Sorry. It was reflex.” He straightened, lowered the blades. “I wouldn’t have used them, not on you.”

“I know,” said Fort in a deep rumble. “Drop them.”

But Griff stepped aside and placed the knives carefully on a rock, laid aside his sword belt. “I, ah, have others.”

“I can imagine. How many?”

Griff shrugged. “Ten altogether, give or take.”

Fort’s eyes narrowed. “Lose the shirt.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Griff hauled it off over his head, revealing his strong chest, crisscrossed with leather straps and snug scabbards, a similar arrangement bracketing each muscular forearm. “Lufra’s tits,” breathed Fort, as the other man unbuckled and unwound. “You’re a walking armory.”

“Not usually,” said Griff. “But out here…” He shrugged.

“Good idea. I always carry a knife in my boot. Boots too, Griff.”

The tumbler’s eyes flickered down to Fort’s bare feet. Propping himself against the rock, he hauled his boots off. His chest rising and falling with his quick breaths, he stood. “We’re even now. What do you think you’re going to do, strongman?”

Ten knives. Holy Lufra,
ten
. He shot a glance at the rock. Only eight. Suddenly, Fort recalled a hot whisper in his ear. “
Remember the razor
.” True, he didn’t believe the other man would cut him, but no sense in giving the little shit the slightest advantage.

“You scared me, Griff. I didn’t like it.”

“Well, you’re a fool. There was no need.”

Fort continued as if the tumbler hadn’t spoken. “So you’re going to pay. Drop the trews.”

“What?”

78

Strongman

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

“Do it or I’ll do it for you and it won’t be pleasant.”

Griff snarled, but he pushed the trews down and kicked them off. Fort’s eyes were drawn to that terrifying scar on his hip, as always, and to Griff’s genitals, nestled in the golden-brown fur between his muscled thighs. His gaze traveled down the graceful athlete’s legs to the daggers sheathed against the other man’s calves, his thighs. His brows rose. “You lied. That makes an even twelve.”

Griff grinned, bending to unstrap the harnesses, all long fluid muscularity. “I said I could take care of myself.” He added the weapons to the pile on the rock and turned, spreading his legs and putting his hands on his hips, completely unabashed and unbearably beautiful.

Suddenly, the first Hssrdan slave camp he’d seen filled Fort’s vision, as vividly as if it had been yesterday. But this time, he saw Griff’s lithe, perfect body there too, broken and bleeding, desecrated in ways so horrible he wished he had no knowledge of them.

The red wave of fear and fury returned, rolling him under. On the very periphery of his consciousness, he heard Griff’s voice say. “Play fair, Fort. You too.”

A long low growl rumbling in his chest, he ripped his trews off and hurled them away. Then he leapt.

Fort’s massive naked body hit Griff like a runaway vran, bearing him to the ground with a thud that had the breath whistling out of the smaller man. Fort gouged a hard knee into the muscle of the tumbler’s thigh and wrapped long fingers around his throat.

As he squeezed, he leaned down beside Griff’s ear. “I should put you over my knee and spank you,” he hissed. “Like a naughty child.”

Under him, Griff made a choking sound of sheer fury. His body heaved and

bucked, but Fort simply increased the pressure. A flurry of blows to his kidneys made him grit his teeth and his hold slackened for an instant. Griff surged up, all sinew and finely tuned muscle, turning the tables more swiftly than Fort could credit.

“Oh yeah?” Griff panted, locking a powerful leg around Fort’s knees, immobilizing his lower body, while he grabbed his wrist, twisting it at a painful angle. Only instinct and years of training had Fort reacting in time, placing a hard palm under the other man’s chin and shoving with all his strength.

Griff’s hold broke and he rolled away. Fort came up to his knees and they glared at each other, chests heaving. Ruler God, it wasn’t going to be so easy after all! A bubble of some strange feeling forced its way into Fort’s throat, emerging as a hoarse chuckle. He shook his head to clear it, a fierce joy suffusing his soul. “Two falls out of three?” he offered.

Griff’s teeth gleamed. “I said I’d take you on, Fort.” His dark gaze scorched the length of the big man’s body. “Naked.” He licked his lips. “Winner takes all, first fall.

Agreed?”

Fort’s growl would not have disgraced a fellwolf. “Agreed.”

79

Denise Rossetti

Griff laughed. Then he kicked Fort’s bad leg out from under him.

The battle raged across the glade, startling the vranee into nervous hoots, demolishing Fort’s tent, rolling them through the warm ashes of the fire so that both sweaty bodies finished up streaked with soot. What the tumbler lacked in heft, he made up for with flexibility and sheer guile. He was as slippery as a sewersnake and twice as cunning. Trying to sandwich Griff’s writhing body between his own torso and the trunk of a tree, Fort faced the astonishing possibility he might lose. Every time he thought he had the bastard in an unbreakable hold, he got away. The other man was completely unpredictable. He didn’t fight by any rule book Fort had heard of. It was all desperate, dirty stuff, interspersed with amazing feats of athleticism he couldn’t match. Too big, too old, too slow.

Winner takes all
. Ruler God, what would Griff do to him?

Dark excitement rose and his pulse thundered in his ears.
Concentrate
,
you fool
,

concentrate
.

Griff hooked his ankles, tripping him so they rolled together, grunting and punching, muscles tensing, the spicy scent of crushed daisies rising all around them.

Every now and then, Griff gasped out a laugh, or a swear word. Once, he nipped Fort’s earlobe, the sensation sharp and stinging. Twisting Fort’s arm up behind his back, he hissed in his ear. “I was born for this.”

When Fort forced him away with sheer muscle, he sank back, fluid as water, but as he went, he gasped, “Born for you, Fort. For you.”

Holy Lufra! With a roar, Fort reared up and slammed Griff down to the turf, near the rock where they’d started. Before the tumbler could wriggle away, he grabbed one of the knife harnesses and wrapped it around Griff’s right wrist. It took him several minutes of determined, profane effort to secure the other one, but he did it, his knee in the small of the other man’s back. Completely winded, he sat back, and used a second length of leather to double tie Griff’s wrists together for good measure.

Then he simply bent over, sucking in air.

“That’s cheating.” Griff lay quietly, his cheek pressed to the grass, a sprig of goddess daisy waving cheerfully beside his ear. His mouth curved. “But you were desperate. I forgive you.”

“Shut up.” A pause. “You were asking for it.”

Winner takes all
.

“And now you can give it to me, can’t you?” One dark eye peered at him. “Still angry?”

“Yes. No. Shit, I don’t know.” He placed a palm on the back of Griff’s thigh, feeling the sheen of sweat, the warmth of the firm flesh.

“You won. What are you going to do?” Griff lifted his hips and settled gingerly back into the grass. The warmth at the base of Fort’s spine returned with a vengeance, spreading to encompass his balls, spilling into his cock.

80

Strongman

Winner takes all
.

Fort stared at the tumbler’s body stretched full length among the daisies, at the strong sweep of his spine, the muscled buttocks and long, lithe legs. “You’re bleeding.”