Her fight at the moment centered on Tallis. With his face tilted down and decorated with a maddening smile, he was as solid in body as he was opaque of mind. She’d suspected that he hid strength under unassuming clothing and a lean fighter’s frame. She hadn’t known how that strength would feel, pressed intimately along her silk-clad hip as they’d walked through the valley.

Now he knelt before her. Body to body. Heat against heat.

He was holding her.

He’d slipped his hands beneath the long sleeves of her sari and cupped her restrained arms. His fingers were warm, blunt, strong. When was the last time she’d been graced by anything more than reverent touches? This was prolonged contact. This was calluses against smooth skin. Because she couldn’t read his mind, she compensated with a desperate scramble for information.

He smelled of dust and juniper.

He was a foot taller.

He had eyes the color of the sea at its darkest depths, but not the Indian Ocean—some frigid, azure wasteland.

Kavya’s attention kept slipping back to him. She couldn’t even find Chandrani, her best friend and closest ally since childhood. Chandrani was the only person who knew Kavya’s mind without its Mask—the only person except for Pashkah. Without the Masks she’d worn since the age of twelve, Kavya would’ve been at her brother’s mercy. If he succeeded in killing her, Pashkah would become something unholy.

This stranger knew how he was affecting her and had piercingly guessed that violence was a fact of life for Kavya, as it was for every Indranan. She’d spent her adolescence in the rough cubbies and alleys of Delhi. A girl didn’t survive places so perilous without witnessing terrible things and developing protective skills. The net result was that to be threatened by a blade—even one as intimidating as his seax—had nothing on the distraction of being held.

Thought began and ended with Tallis’s arms sliding down to her backside.

No.

No!

Chandrani!

Except for her rabbit’s-heart pulse, she held perfectly still. Chandrani would find her. Kavya had to believe—and bide her time.

Her feet and calves were going to sleep, but she hadn’t wanted this man to lord over her with his height, strength, and the weight of his stare. Not that it had mattered after he’d assumed the same stance. They looked like worshipers at prayer, supplicated before one another.

What he’d done to her . . .

What he kept doing. The trace of his lips from the divot behind her ears to the tendon of her neck was like nothing she’d ever experienced. What was this madness? Had his ramblings been a strange cover for his desire to bind her, even ravish her? Sensation shot through her limbs and down her spine. Her thighs trembled—nothing he would see, but she resented her weakness.

“Those people who revere you,” he said against the skin he’d made damp by his tongue. “Do they know how you taste? Do they wonder? Do some fantasize about claiming the body of a living deity?”

Kavya punched her shoulder against his jaw. “Get off me, you Pendray filth. Always thinking with your cocks and your work-worn hands. If you think at all.”

He smiled as if he were the mind reader. “Stereotypes, eh? Wasn’t that my sin a few hours ago? We could play that way all day, but my game is better.” He grabbed a fistful of hair. “Tell me, goddess. Do you like that they imagine fucking you? Or that I have? For years.”

Her heart shuddered. He was sick, yet her body reacted to his crude words. No wonder the Indranan lived apart from baser clans, no matter the danger within their own.

“That’s why you brought me here? In a camp full of people loyal to me?”

“Ah, so they’re loyal to you. Not to your cause. You give yourself away.”

“No, they have dreams of a better future and hope for the safety of their families. What I offer them is beautiful and pure.”

“Pure,” he said, the word thick with sarcasm. He sounded English—not the typical Pendray blend of Scots and Norse—but certainly refined and exotic to her ears. “I’m sure the Sun burns away all sin and all thoughts of flesh and desire.”

Kavya yanked her head back, but he only pulled her hair taut and dug hard fingers into her hip. He scraped his teeth along her throat. She bit back a cry of indignation.

“I like how you taste, goddess. I even like these twists and fights. Those are real. You’re giving me quite a lot. I’m owed more, but this is a start.”

Kavya closed her eyes. His mouth’s caress was wrong and ghastly—and yet intriguing. What she knew about sex was . . . vicarious. Being a telepath meant catching scraps of feeling and unbidden images. The first touch of skin to skin, the moment of penetration, the ravage of climax. By comparison, those impressions were ephemeral and distant as Tallis licked her throat.

Yes, he was keeping her mind occupied. He was watching her as if examining the progression of a sick experiment: tempt the untouched with sex and see how she reacts.

The results were obvious. She’d reacted with surprise, a hint of revulsion, and greed. She’d had no idea she could be so untrustworthy. That realization was shocking. She’d always thought herself above.

Then he kissed her full on the mouth.

His body bowed over hers. She felt surrounded. Overwhelmed. Firm lips. Spicy taste. His heavy breathing remained tightly controlled. Her breathing and pulse, however, were panicky. More struggles. More casual restraint on his part. He used his arms to engulf her more completely. His strength made her struggles seem as fragile as cobwebs.

“I could do that all night.” He broke the kiss and threw her to the ground. “Maybe I will. But I’d just as soon kill you as assault you. I said I don’t want you martyred. I want no place for you in this world. When I’m through with you, no one will remember you with anything other than bitterness. If they remember you at all.”

CHAPTER

THREE

Tallis shed his heavy leather jacket and levered over where she sprawled on the ground. He edged his thighs between hers, then shifted so that his pelvis fit snugly against hers. He wore sturdy military-style cargo pants, while Kavya still wore only silk. She would be able to feel his desire taking physical form.

“Should I kiss you again?” He only touched her from the waist down, where he used the weight of his pelvis and thighs as more threat than seduction. Arms straight, he braced his hands on either side of her head. “I’d learn secrets about the Sun you’re too arrogant to admit possessing.”

“More of the so-called justice you seek? I’ve done nothing to you!”

“You know my weaknesses better than I do. Every fantasy—even those I can’t arrange into thought.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve used that knowledge against me for years,” he said, his voice deepening with anger. “If I resisted, you invaded dream after dream like a monster. You’d raid another locked closet in my head to find more secrets. You even profaned the Dragon to legitimize your crimes.” He was still aroused. Kissing her had been calculated, but he’d been swept into the vortex where fantasy swirled with reality. “I have the power now. Is it any surprise that I desire to use it against you?”

A clamor of voices came from beyond the tent’s dingy white canvas. For a moment Tallis thought she’d managed to telepathically call for help, but she wore no expression of triumph. Then came more voices, more chaos.

He edged away and grabbed the deadly Norse seaxes he’d kept out of her reach. Tallis parted the canvas and peered through.

His sense of hearing gave away her attack from behind, as Kavya swung a cooking pot. The determination and, frankly, the vehemence in her glittering brown eyes were pure surprise. Ropes around her ankles meant she had one chance before losing her balance, but she made the most of it. The bulk of the pot hit his shoulder. One seax with its etched blade and honed edge skidded along the bare rock floor.