The Invisible Ring bj-4 Read online

  Jared bared his teeth in a smile. “So like in temperament?”

  He braced for the punch. He wouldn’t take it, but he’d dearly love an excuse to push her face into the mud.

  She made a noise, like steam escaping a kettle. When she finally spoke, her voice was dangerously controlled. “You’re the one who wears the Red, Warlord. So show some balls and do something.”

  She brushed past him and started walking, her dark braid bouncing against her back.

  Brock raised his hands and shrugged, fighting hard not to laugh.

  Blaed bit his lip, rolled his shoulders, and finally said hesitantly, “I have a chess set, if that would help.”

  Using Craft, the Blood had the ability to call in and vanish objects, allowing them to carry things without being physically burdened with them. Sadi had described it once as an invisible cupboard, its size dependent on a person’s strength and how much power was siphoned off to maintain it.

  Jared didn’t ask what else Blaed—or any of the rest of them—might have that would be of interest to the group. When a man’s body was someone else’s property, material possessions could take on fierce importance and become emotional wounds if sharing them wasn’t done by choice. All too often these small treasures were taken by a stronger slave or by someone in the court who wanted the object. . . or simply wanted the slave to feel the loss of it.

  “It might,” Jared said, letting nothing in his voice or expression make any demands. There had already been too many demands made on Blaed, who was barely twenty and the only other male who had been used as a pleasure slave. Jared remembered too well how he had felt at that age, and the harsh lessons he’d learned when sexual pleasure had been turned into a twisted game.

  Blaed called in the chess set, protected by a cloth bag, and handed it to Jared.

  “Thank you,” Jared said. “I'll see that it’s returned.”

  Relief visible in his eyes, Blaed smiled his acknowledgment and hurried to rejoin Eryk.

  Jared trotted up to the wagon, which had passed him while he’d been “discussing things” with Thera. He wondered briefly why no one was riding the saddle horses, then shrugged off the thought. Either Thera and the Gray Lady were supposed to be riding this turn, or whoever was supposed to be had chosen to walk instead of being that close to two witches who were grating on each other’s tempers.

  He jumped to the bottom step, using a little Craft to keep his balance. Taking the muffled snarl that answered his knock as an invitation, he entered and closed the door quickly so he wouldn’t tumble out. The wide shutters at the front of the wagon were opened enough to provide a little fresh air, but not much light.

  A small ball of witchlight began to glow near the Lady’s head.

  Dressed in dark-gray trousers and a long, heavy gray sweater, she sat on one of the benches that acted as seats and beds, her back resting against the storage boxes stacked against the top side of the bench. A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. Her long gray hair, usually hidden by the hood of her coat, was pulled back in a loose braid. The dim light smoothed away the age lines in her face and made her look like the lovely young woman she once must have been.

  Desire nipped at him unexpectedly, making his heart beat a little faster, making his blood heat.

  He shouldn’t be feeling like this, not for an old woman who had bought him in the same way she had bought the wagon and the horses. But . . .

  Was there a man in Dena Nehele who found her touch exciting, who considered it a privilege and an honor to warm her bed? Did she have a consort or a lover, or did she use pleasure slaves? Would she enjoy having him caress her until his hands and mouth gave her release? What would she do if he kissed her until the desire humming through him consumed them both?

  Dangerous thoughts—and foolish ones. He was thinking like a man who would be granted equal pleasure in the bed instead of a slave who might use his experience and training to his own advantage.

  “What do you want?”

  The surly tone, the wary look in her gray eyes, and the way her body stiffened slapped his thoughts back to something close to neutral. Had he slipped so much that his thoughts had shown on his face? Thank the Darkness his coat was long enough to hide his body’s response. Or was it the Ring that had betrayed him?

  Jared raised the cloth bag. “Would you like to play a game of chess to pass the time?”

  “Chess?” Her eyes immediately brightened with interest. She swung her legs over the side of the bench, wincing when the right knee refused to bend.

  The sharp look she gave him was sufficient warning not to say anything, so Jared settled on the other bench and pulled the box out of the cloth bag. Partly because it was practical and partly to test her, he didn’t ask permission before using Craft to hold the box in the air.

  There was nothing in her expression except eagerness.

  Odd that she didn’t ask where the chess set came from. Slaves were supposed to show any possessions they carried using Craft, including the Jewels which always traveled with them even if they were forbidden to wear them. But every slave he’d known tried to hide a few things—favorite books, a gaming set like this, personal mementos, pictures of loved ones. If Blaed had acknowledged having this, he wouldn’t have been so fearful about admitting it.

  But she didn’t ask, and he found himself warming to her because of it.

  Jared opened the box, which became the game board with its alternating black and light-gray squares.

  “Red or black?” he asked, indicating the playing pieces.

  “Black,” she replied, pushing up the sweater’s sleeves.

  Even slogging through the mud, she moved with unstudied grace, and he’d been surprised when he’d carried her to the wagon yesterday to discover that the body hidden by trousers, layered tunics and a knee-length coat was shapelier than he’d expected. More solid, too. Now, seeing the strong wrists and forearms showing below the sweater, Jared readjusted his image of her a little more. She might be old in years, but she was still a vigorous woman who probably engaged in all kinds of physical activity. All kinds.

  Keep your mind on the game, Jared warned himself as he began separating the game pieces. Your body is getting far too interested in that kind of speculation.

  When all the pieces were separated and ready to be placed, he handed her the dice to roll for the Queen’s rank.

  She rolled a six, which gave her Queen the Purple Dusk Jewel and the ability to move six squares in any direction. He rolled a five, the Summer-sky. One rank difference, so she didn’t have an overwhelming advantage.

  After carefully slipping the dice into the cloth bag, Jared began setting up his pieces.

  The board was thirteen squares by thirteen. The first five rows on either side were the player’s territory. The middle three were the battlefield. After placing his two castles and the sanctuary, Jared quickly set up the rest in one of his favorite patterns, with his Queen safely tucked away behind one of the castles and enough of the stronger pieces nearby to provide protection.

  Satisfied with his positioning, he glanced at her side of the board and clenched his teeth to stop the instinctive protest. Why was her Queen standing in the middle of her territory with other pieces in the way of her reaching the castles and sanctuary? What kind of strategy was that when the whole point of the game was to capture the Queen?

  Unless the Blood in Dena Nehele played by a different set of rules.

  Without warning, a shadow of anger slid through his veins, a feral anger that tasted of the wild stranger. He felt tempted by it, wanted to welcome it and fan it until it burned hot and bright.

  Instead, he pushed it away. Anger was dangerous to a slave. And, Hell’s fire, it was only a game. Why should he care how she set up her pieces?

  He used Craft to create a larger, brighter ball of witch-light. With the witchlight floating over the game board, the rest of the cramped space disappeared until all that was left was the game and the old woman
watching him, wearing a friendly but challenging smile.

  Since he had the lighter-ranked Queen, the first move was his. Meeting her eyes for a moment, Jared smiled as he moved a Warlord Prince onto the battlefield and accepted the unspoken challenge.

  She moved her Queen.

  The game began.

  His father had told him chess was a game of the heart as well as the mind, that it was a kind of training ground because it showed you your own weaknesses. Which was why you didn’t play it with an enemy.

  When he was young and first learning the game, that hadn’t made much sense. But later, as he watched his father play with friends who dropped by for an evening game, he began to understand. Belarr always tried to protect the Healers on the board as well as the Queen, sacrificing any male piece if it could block the attack.

  Reyna, on the other hand, tended to use the Healers as protection for other pieces, even the Blood males and witches who were the pawns in the game. Her Healers, Priestesses, and Black Widows were usually captured long before any of the stronger male pieces.

  When he’d pointed this out to her one time, she had shrugged and told him to care for his own.

  He’d told his father about this quirk in an otherwise intelligent woman, thinking Belarr would find it as amusing as he had.

  Belarr, too, had shrugged, but it wasn’t as lighthearted a movement as Reyna’s had been. He’d carefully masked whatever he had been thinking and said, “Healers and Queens don’t play the game well.” Then he’d abruptly changed the subject.

  At the time, Jared had thought Belarr’s reaction was due to Reyna’s returning home completely exhausted from a long and difficult healing. Now, watching the Gray Lady’s Queen scamper around the board attacking, protecting, risking capture, the memory became shaded with a different meaning, a deeper understanding.

  He passed up a couple of opportunities to capture, initiating attacks on the other side of the board where she had to use the stronger male pieces. Even then, she sacrificed a Priestess instead of a Prince.

  He swallowed the anger that was building up inside him again. It was only a game, a way to relieve her boredom. But, Hell’s fire, didn’t the woman have any sense? You didn’t sacrifice the distaff gender while there was still a strong male left standing unless there was no other move.

  When she moved her Queen to protect a Blood male that couldn’t escape capture, his temper finally snapped.

  “Lady,” he said through gritted teeth as he took the Blood male, “it’s an insignificant piece. You shouldn’t be risking your Queen for a pawn.”

  The air in the wagon chilled so much he could see his breath.

  Startled, he looked at her.

  The gray eyes that had been warm and friendly a moment ago were icy, hard, and reflected a fury that came from so deep within her they reflected nothing at all.

  Never breaking eye contact, she reached out and deliberately knocked over her Queen. “There are no pawns.”

  Looking away, she began gathering up the captured pieces that were lying beside her on the bench, carefully setting each one into the box.

  Watching the jerky movements of muscles clenched in anger was worse than feeling the lash.

  “Thank you for the game,” she said stiffly, feeling around for the last piece. “I’m tired now. I wish to rest.”

  As she picked up the last piece, a Blood male, her fingers closed protectively around it.

  The cold dismissal stung, but he accepted it. After double-checking that all the pieces and the dice were back in the box, he slipped it into the cloth bag and left the wagon. He returned the game to Blaed with faint thanks and hurried away.

  No one approached him. No one asked what had happened. Even Thera took a long look at his face and left him alone.

  Not a game to be played with an enemy, because it exposed the heart’s weaknesses.

  All these long years later, he understood the quarrels between Belarr and Reyna as he never had before. Despite their Craft and their courage—or, perhaps, because of it— Healers didn’t have a strong sense of self-preservation and would drain themselves to the breaking point before they’d back away from a healing. Which was why, by Blood Law, every Healer had to be served by at least one Jeweled male unless she had a Jeweled consort or husband who would assume the duty of protecting her from herself.

  Was that why courts had originally formed around Queens? To protect them from giving too much of themselves?

  Since he’d never served in a court before he was Ringed, he’d never been with a Queen he respected let alone wanted to protect, never experienced the fierce loyalty and pride that he’d heard filled men when they served a good Queen.

  For the rest of the morning, his thoughts chased each other, swinging from the Gray Lady to Reyna and back again. Speculation and memories kept poking at him until he felt savage and frightened. He couldn’t shake the idea that Reyna would like Lady Grizelle, and it troubled him. That Belarr would probably consider her a good Queen troubled him even more, because Belarr would question the honor of a Red-Jeweled Warlord who would abandon a Queen during a difficult journey.

  Hell’s fire, he was a slave. He hadn’t agreed to serve her. Why shouldn’t he escape if he got the chance? He wanted to go home. He wanted to talk to Reyna. Wanted, needed to explain.

  Belarr had never been a slave. There was no way he could fully appreciate the emotional difference. What would the Sadist do if he were here, wearing the Invisible Ring?

  No answers. No answers. Just a churning uneasiness that came from knowing that he would have to make a choice soon.

  Just when he thought the day couldn’t get any worse, it started raining again.

  “Hell’s fire,” Randolf snarled. “What’s wrong with Garth now?”

  “I don’t know,” Jared said as the big man ran awkwardly toward them, holding out his arms to help maintain his balance on the muddy road.

  Garth tended to roam ahead of the rest of them and then shuffle back to keep them in sight, much as a pet dog would do. The fact that the Gray Lady didn’t keep him on a tighter leash was another thing about her that baffled the other males. Granted, Garth couldn’t ride the Winds by himself, if he had ever been able to, and it wasn’t likely that he could get far enough away on foot to prevent the Gray Lady from incapacitating him with the agony that could be sent through the Ring of Obedience, but that leniency wasn’t typical in a slave owner.

  Jared shook his head. Right now, he wasn’t interested in puzzling over the peculiarities of female behavior. He was cold, wet, and tired. The afternoon light—what little of it there had been that day—was waning, and the only thing he was interested in was finding a place to make camp and getting something hot to eat. So his voice had an edge to it when he said, “What is it, Garth?”

  Garth gave no sign of having heard him. Instead of continuing toward Jared, he suddenly veered toward Corry and Cathryn, waving his arms as if he were trying to herd small farm animals into a pen.

  “Shoo! Shoo!” Garth shouted, waving his arms.

  There was something sadly amusing about watching Garth, but there was nothing amusing about the way the children froze, their eyes getting bigger and bigger, or the fear in Corry’s face when he grabbed Cathryn’s hand and ran back to the wagon.

  “Garth,” Jared yelled, starting toward him.

  Garth changed directions and ran toward Eryk. “Shoo! Shoo!”

  “Garth!” Jared put the crack of a lash into his voice. He held his ground when Garth turned again, and clenched his teeth when the big man grabbed his upper arms and lifted him off his feet.

  “ ‘Rauders!” Garth shouted, shaking him. “Fight ‘rauders!”

  Jared felt Randolfs bristling temper and wondered if this was going to turn into a maiming fight. Then he felt Brock’s battle calm and saw the other man silently come around behind Garth. Randolf might have been a well-trained guard before being made a slave, but in a fight, Jared would rather have Brock’s steadiness
at his back any day.

  “Put me down, Garth,” Jared said firmly.

  “Fight ‘rauders!” Garth insisted.

  “When you put me down.”

  Garth dropped him.

  Jared slipped on the mud and would have landed on his back if Garth hadn’t grabbed him again, planting his feet so firmly on the road it made his bones rattle.

  “Damn it, Garth!” Jared snapped as he stepped out of reach.

  Garth just hopped from one foot to the other in an anxious, shuffling dance. “ ‘Rauders!” he said, growing more insistent and more frantic.

  Jared eyed the big man, then took a deep breath and blew it out. Hell’s fire. There weren’t any marauders. No one but slaves owned by a stubborn idiot of a Queen would be traveling on a day like this. Most likely, Garth had spotted an animal moving through the brush and trees that bordered the road. Although . . . unless they had been startled for some reason, even animals would find a spot to shelter in, wouldn’t they?

  Made uneasy by that thought as well as Garth’s continued distress, Jared sent out a wide psychic probe that spanned the narrow road and extended several yards on either side. A few seconds later, he choked back a shiver of fear.

  Still out of sight but coming steadily toward them were thirteen Blood males—twelve Warlords . . . and a Sapphire-Jeweled Warlord Prince whose psychic scent had that distinctive blend of viciousness and passion that separated Warlord Princes from other males. They were a law unto themselves, no matter what Jewels they wore. And they were always dangerous.

  Jared took a step back before he could stop himself. “Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.” He whipped around to face Randolf and Brock. “Get everyone back to the wagon. Now!”

  Brock narrowed his eyes as if that would let him see farther in the pouring rain. “Jared—”

  “NOW!”

  Brock and Randolf looked at Garth, who was now standing in the middle of the road with his legs far enough apart for good balance and his huge hands clenched. Nodding grimly, they wrapped their hands around his thick-muscled arms and dragged him toward the wagon, leaving Jared alone on the road.