Tip of the Spear (8 page)

She
led the others through the shadows of their dwellings. They passed no one. They
heard no one, until they pushed past their homes.

What
Thais saw when she entered the main camp shook her well-ordered world. Blood
colored the earth like an evil stain. Foreigners, women and girls, babes and
pets alike, littered the ground. In shock, Thais could only stare. The familiar
faces she’d grown up with, loved and hated, teased and fought with, didn’t
stare back.

“What
happened here?” Isadora’s shaky voice reverberated through the unnatural quiet.

“Find
the queen and the princess,” Thais managed, praying her mother did not lie
among the dead.

As
they searched, Thais noted small round holes in several of her tribe, injuries
caused not by rocks, but by something else. Ancient stories of guns and fire
makers, from before the Time of Dying, streamed through her mind. But she
pushed those thoughts aside as she searched in vain for survivors.

“Here!”
Yara yelled.

The
four of them gathered around the princess. She lay sprawled upon the ground,
covered in blood yet still alive.

“Princess
Estefina.” Thais quickly knelt.

Isadora
held her head in her lap, and Yara hurried to her mother’s hut. She returned
quickly with a bag full of medicine. “What happened, princess?”

Thais
couldn’t understand such devastation. Warriors, she could understand dying. But
the elders? Pets? Babes? By the Goddess, they’d killed innocent children.

“Not
a…gift…” Estefina coughed up blood, and Yara wiped her lips. “The males… Not
from the Goddess. Killed us… all.”

Luiza’s
tears streamed down her face. “I saw Mother. She was missing her head,” she
said in a choked voice.

“Estefina,
what of your mother?” Thais asked. “We cannot find the queen.”

Fresh
tears leaked over the princess’s cheeks. “They took her. Over there.” Her shaky
hand pointed beyond the queen’s dwelling. Luiza hurried in that direction. “We
were feasting. Singing of the past.”

Yara
smeared white paste over Estefina’s wounds, and the princess stopped to gasp in
pain.

“Nucca
root. It will speed the healing,” Yara said in a low voice.

After
a moment, the princess took a deep, shuddering breath and spoke again. “The
first night we celebrated. The men were pleased enough to breed with our chosen.
But they didn’t appreciate the honor bestowed them. More of their kind surged
from the north.” She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The males
demanded more. More wine, more women.”

Thais
couldn’t help noting the blood that smeared the princess’s thighs. Fury warred
with the grief threatening to break free.

“But
how did the men take us unaware?” Isadora asked, confused. “Before we left, I
heard the queen post extra guards around the perimeter.”

“Pilar,”
Estefina whispered. “The civil war we thought my mother had ended continues.”

“I’ll
kill her,” Thais said flatly.

“Your
mother tried.” The princess hissed in pain as Yara wiped a damp rag over her
scratched legs. “The males had weapons made of iron. They killed so many of us
in so little time. Still, the guardians did their best to protect us. Aliane
was the last to fall, the last between us and our enemy.” She coughed, unable
to continue.

 “Easy,”
Yara instructed. She held a small bowl to the princess’s lips. “Drink. It will
ease the pain.”

Aliane
was the last to fall. While Thais had disregarded her duty in favor of fun with
her friends, her mother had given her life in the defense of her people. Emptiness
consumed her, spilled over into her soul with grief and guilt and rage.  “We
should have been here,” Thais said quietly.

“Then
you would have died here, like the others,” Estefina snarled, surprising Thais
with a show of strength. “It is good you left, because you will bring me back
my mother’s crown. My crown,” the princess corrected herself. Her lips
trembled, but she held back her tears. “My crown. My mother is dead.”

The
nightmare consumed her. Images of the queen and her mother being raped. Of
babies beheaded and the elderly run through. Of fire burning the flesh from the
dead, while the living lingered with sickness under Yara’s helpless care. They
hit her over and over, like an unending parade of punishment for having left
her tribe in their time of need.

And
then heat surrounded her. The possibility of redemption seemed somehow
attainable again. A low voice murmured something against her hair. She sighed
and huddled closer, wanting the ease that such warmth provided. She felt the
Goddess all around her, blessing her, guiding her along the path to right once
more.

Thais
fell into a deep, dreamless sleep until morning.

Chapter Four

Pilar
gasped and shot up in bed, throwing off a thick, hairy arm from her middle. Memories
of her sisters being slaughtered, of enemies and friends alike falling under
the rutting beasts with which she’d mistakenly allied herself, plagued her
ceaselessly.

Dragging
in a deep breath, she threw her legs over the edge of the bed and walked to the
window to stare out at the sunrise creeping over the mountain. Such a different
view, here, in this part of the world. The moist tang in the air, the croak of
rainbow frogs and the echoes of parrots felt like ghostly ruminations from
another life.

Pilar
sighed and hugged herself, wishing she had never agreed to Aaron Bartel’s plan.
The remembrance of his touch made her sick, as did the thought of what she’d
done, all in the name of revenge. She’d always harbored resentment against
Yasmin, the woman who once called herself queen. Yasmin had supplanted Pilar in
her mother’s affections, and she’d forced Pilar to give away that which Pilar
held most dear. Before Yasmin, Pilar and her mother spent every moment together.
Pilar learned to hunt, to track and to defend at her mother’s side. And then
the civil war happened, and Yasmin demanded her mother’s loyalty. Her mother
had given it, along with her life, leaving Pilar all alone.

She’d
met Thalon during a long, solitary hunting trip. They’d spent time together,
loving, talking, laughing. But men were not allowed among the tribe. Her resultant
pregnancy made it more than necessary for Pilar to be selected to breed. So she
pretended to capture Thalon and brought him to the queen’s attention, praying
Yasmin would pair them together.

Instead,
Yasmin had selected Aliane. Bastard that he was, Thalon willingly agreed to fuck
the guardian. The pretty words, the shrieking pleasure, all given to Pilar’s
greatest rival. Along with a girl child.

Pilar
was later given another warrior and gave birth “early” to his son. Despite
Thalon’s treachery, she still loved him. She had so wanted his child. Absently
rubbing her belly,  she wondered what had ever become of the boy and embraced
the pain of such a thought. She deserved no less.

Despite
all of Yasmin’s faults and Aliane’s selfishness, Pilar never would have
considered such brutal retribution against her tribe. She had wanted to punish,
and yes, kill, Aliane. Yasmin had been blinded by Aliane’s deceit and needed
only to see Pilar’s clear superiority. Not death, and certainly not an
inglorious rape and murder at the hands of Aaron Bartel, a demon in man’s
disguise. Goddess forgive her, but she hated that man as much as her sisters
had hated her in their final moments before death.

She
couldn’t believe Renata and Marcela stayed with him. Then again, Bruna had also
surprised her. Who knew her friends had also been seeing male warriors in
secret, or that they regretted Yasmin’s succession as queen? Pilar thought
she’d been the only one consumed with carnal thoughts and the knowledge that
men were not the enemies she’d been raised to believe.

“Mmm.
Come here, warrior.”

She
glanced at Deke sprawled in the middle of the bed. While no one’s ideal of a noble
warrior, he was a fighter nonetheless. The scars over his body gave testament
to his ability to endure. A master of the iron firemakers—what he called a
pistol—and the dagger he kept strapped on his thigh, he killed when he needed
to survive, and when he wanted something dangling out of reach. Like her, Deke
had never had anything handed to him.

“I
said come here,” he growled, and she shivered. She loved his roughness, his
insistent demands for her attention.

She
walked over to him, wishing he’d been the one to find her tribe those many
years ago. Deke would have helped her. With him by her side, she might even now
be ruling the Amazons, a new tribe devoted to power and might, where males were
tolerated and women could keep the male children they bore.

She
wondered if she’d ever feel another stirring in her womb. The men of the
rainforest had plentiful seed. Most unions between those males and Amazons
resulted in children. But here, in the Territories, she’d learned that many men
were sterile, and not every female could procreate. Most whores, in fact,
earned a living on their backs precisely because they could not produce young, which
devalued their worth in the eyes of men.

Deke
yanked her down on top of him and forced her to straddle his waist. As usual,
he was hard and ready for sex. Used to sating his hunger, she quickly took him
inside her and gave him the ride he needed. She experienced her own pleasure,
the gift of a union. For a small moment in time, Pilar belonged again. She
closed her eyes and imagined Thalon inside her, her green eyed warrior loving
her as he granted her the sweet words and the praise…

“Damn,
baby. You sure you ain’t never whored? ‘Cause you can make me come with one
shake of that fine twat.” Deke panted and gripped her hips hard enough to leave
bruises, guiding her up and down his shaft.

Reality
burst like a damn, scattering the climax she had nearly reached. “No whore, you
ass. I’m a warrior, as well you know.” He liked it when she cursed, and he
gifted her with a grin.

He
swatted her ass and groaned when she tightened around him. “That’s it, ah. Milk
it.
Yes.
” After a few moments, he rasped, “I love your body. Ain’t never
seen a woman so firm, before. Even your titties barely bounce, but look how
round they are?”

“Yeah,”
Deke’s brother Brian agreed, watching them from a chair in the corner. “They’re
real fine.” He gripped himself and stared, waiting.

“Go
on, Pil. Give it to him. But make it quick. The bank’s gonna move fast today, I
can feel it. They’ll transfer that gold by private Runner, not rail. We need to
be there when they do.”

Pilar
reluctantly left Deke and knelt between Brian’s legs. She’d never been
particularly fond of this aspect of sex, but Deke and Brian seemed to like it
well enough. They treated her with respect and shared their profits. And she
knew the pair of them would like nothing more than a child out of this odd
three way union.

“Suck
it deep, the way you take it to the back of your throat,” Brian said thickly as
he shoved his hands through her hair. At the glare she gave him, he backed off,
guiding her instead of forcing her.

Pilar
would do what she needed to find her own happiness this time around, but she’d
be damned if she’d let anyone control her ever again. After she handled Brian,
they’d take that payroll. The Goddess help anyone who stood in her way.

***

Hinto
was having the most erotic dream. In it, Thais lay naked in his arms, her
breasts filling his palms, her ass snug against his cock as he ground into her.
He moaned and thrust again, frustrated by the distance between them he couldn’t
seem to breach.

He
leaned forward and kissed her neck. She tasted fresh, like the vanilla oatmeal
soap he’d handed her, right before she’d walked up to him by the stream, naked
as a newborn. He’d never in his life been so ready to fuck as he’d been then.  Hell,
as he was now.

He
cupped her hip and ground against her, needing relief. More, he needed to know
what she felt, if she would finally accept him. All of him. An odd flash of
energy swept through him, and he said to hell with waiting. He shoved his hand
down her pants and between her thighs.

“Fuck,
you’re wet,” he murmured and nipped at her ear.

“Hinto,”
she breathed and squirmed against him. “
Hinto?
”

The
panic in her tone alerted him that all was not as it should be. Hinto woke with
his mouth over Thais’s neck and his hand between her sleek thighs. His finger
rested on her engorged nub, and he couldn’t help rubbing it back and forth as
he arched into her.

“What
are you doing?” she gasped, but she didn’t tell him to stop.

“Yes,
that’s it. A little more.” He slid his finger deeper inside her tight sheath and
thrust harder against her ass. His jeans rubbed his cock raw as he tried to
come. But her hot, wet sex flooded for him, telling him that no matter what she
said, she wanted him as much as he wanted her.