The Lawgivers: Gabriel Read online

  She almost lost her nerve when he looked up at her with those cold blue eyes of his.

  “You wanted something?”

  That didn’t sound very promising! Lexa considered retreating immediately, but she reminded herself that running away wasn’t going to get her what she wanted this time.

  Besides, her knees went weak. She settled ungracefully to the ground close enough to talk without being overheard and far enough to beat a quick retreat if it pissed him off that she’d asked.

  “Uh ….” She broke off, frowning as it occurred to her that she hadn’t actually figured out how to broach the subject. “Do you remember that night you caught me you said ….”

  “Yes.”

  Lexa frowned when he cut her off before she could finish her thought. She cleared her throat. “I mean the part ….”

  “I remember.”

  Anger surged through her and then disappointment when it occurred to her that he might have cut her off because he did remember and he didn’t want to talk about it. “I was just thinking ….”

  “Don’t.”

  Lexa suddenly felt like crying. She swallowed convulsively a couple of times. “Ok.” He’d pretty effectively trampled all over her pride and she wanted to leap to her feet and tell him to go to hell. She didn’t quite dare. He’d never actually offered to hurt her, but she’d never actually seen him lose his temper either and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to.

  On the other hand, he had trampled her pride and she didn’t want him to know. “I guess you’ll be heading out again as soon as we get to where ever we’re going, huh?” she said after a moment.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  She didn’t know if that shaft had stabbed home or not, but she was just sorry she couldn’t think of anything more hateful to fling at him. She wasn’t happy when she finally nerved herself to steal a peek at him and saw that he looked almost as amused as irritated.

  She didn’t know what he thought was so damned funny, but she felt like punching him. Surging to her feet, Lexa turned to stalk off.

  He caught her wrist as she whirled away from him angrily. The amusement in his eyes had vanished when she turned to glare at him. “I can’t take you as my woman, Lexa.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lexa felt like her cheeks had caught fire. It distressed her all the more because it was damned hard to salvage her pride and act like she didn’t care when her face lit up like that! “I don’t want to be your woman,” she lied, not realizing until she’d said it that that was what she’d really hoped for.

  She was curious about it. She was hopeful that it at least wouldn’t be hellish so that she could bear belonging to him, but more than anything she was desperate to find a place for herself. She hadn’t realized just how hellish her life was always being afraid and hungry, not having a place where she could relax and let down her guard. She was tired of being alone, of having no one to talk to, ever, but herself. She was tired of carrying the entire burden of her survival, always having to do everything herself without any help from anyone, always having to fight or escape to survive because any man that had no woman was liable to decide to take the one thing she could hardly bear to give—herself.

  She’d hoped that he would decide to keep her if she let him fuck her because, as scary as he was in many ways, especially when he was angry, he hadn’t tried to force her and he hadn’t even looked like he wanted to knock her down and beat her senseless when she made him angry let alone done it. Except for Sir, he was the only man she’d met that was like that.

  She finally understood why her mother had stayed with Sir instead of trying to run away. Sir had often bellowed when he was angry. He’d even thrown things around at times when he was really, really angry, but he hadn’t thrown things at her mother and he hadn’t slapped her and knocked her around. He’d made her feel safe from harm, even from himself.

  Gabriel made her feel like that and she’d hoped, without ever consciously acknowledging it, that he would think she was worth keeping and she would finally have a place of her own where she could feel safe.

  “It’s a very bad idea, Lexa,” Gah-re-al murmured after a moment.

  Right up until the moment she’d come to him and offered the one thing he hadn’t been able to get his mind off of, he’d believed that he could do it with impunity—as long as he was discreet and his superiors didn’t find out that he’d been fraternizing with the natives. He’d been thinking about fucking her entirely from his point of view as if it would mean no more to her than it did to him—a few moments of pleasure and relief.

  He knew as soon as he looked into her eyes, though, that that wouldn’t be the way of it. She would expect more than he was willing or able to give.

  He still wanted to take her up on the offer, desperately, but he didn’t believe her claim that she didn’t expect to be his woman and he couldn’t take her up on her offer on those terms.

  Anger flickered through him. As far as he’d ever been able to see, before, they fucked like animals—without attachment, commitment, or emotion of any kind. It was as natural to them as breathing and meant no more. Women were no more to the human male than a possession, something they used when they felt like it and discarded when it suited them and it didn’t seem to him that the women expected any more from them. They expected that the first time a stronger male came along that wanted them they would be passed on.

  So either he’d completely misunderstood their customs regarding sex, or he wanted the one woman among them who didn’t see it the same way as everyone else.

  Lexa wrestled with her discomfort, but discovered she couldn’t give up the hope that he would change his mind. “What is?”

  “If even half what you’ve told me is true, it wouldn’t be what you’re expecting it to be,” Gah-re-al responded with brutal honesty.

  Lexa sent him a sharp look. “But you said ….”

  “I was talking about women of my own kind—women who’ve never been mistreated let alone raped. From what I understand, it isn’t something that anyone ever really recovers from. That’s why the penalty for rape is so harsh—and also because rapists can’t be reformed.”

  Doubt began to gain the upper hand. Lexa realized that she hadn’t really believed that coupling with him would be some miraculous experience that would change the way she felt about it, but she’d hoped. She needed it to be true. She wanted to belong to someone.

  But then he didn’t seem to believe that he could make it not horrible for her and he didn’t want her to belong to him. The disappointment she felt was horrendous and it made her angry. “You don’t want me because you think I’m a savage, right?”

  Guilt and discomfort wafted through Gah-re-al. He’d never really tried to hide his contempt of the humans, but he’d thought they were too stupid, or savage, to know or care. How much good would it do, at this point, to try to convince Lexa that he’d never looked at her as he had the others, he wondered uncomfortably?

  Well, not since he’d captured her. He supposed he hadn’t really seen her as different from the others to start with or he wouldn’t have been so convinced that she’d committed some punishable crime. “Believe me when I say it isn’t a matter of want,” he finally said irritably. “We aren’t the same species—that, more than anything, is the problem with what you were suggesting.”

  She wasn’t entirely certain of what he meant by species, but she got the general idea. He was agreeing that they weren’t the same and he didn’t want her.

  Well! That was that. She was disappointed, vastly. She was hurt, too. As much as she would’ve liked to deny it, the lump in her throat was hard to ignore. She nodded. “I know. I’m not blind. That’s why … never mind.”

  She waited a few minutes, just to salvage what she could of her pride and make a show, at least, of not being particularly concerned about it, then nodded and turned to leave again.

  Gah-re-al knew he should’ve simply left it at that. H
e hadn’t considered before he’d said it himself that she’d been so brutalized her entire life that she wasn’t likely to enjoy it no matter what he did or how careful he tried to be—which meant there was nothing at all in it for her in even a single coupling. And he still wasn’t convinced that that was all she’d been angling for. She seemed to accept that he wouldn’t make any commitment beyond a one-time-only coupling or want more, but he had a bad feeling that agreeing to it was going to create all sorts of headaches he didn’t want or need.

  And he still couldn’t quite bring himself to let her walk away. “If you want to bathe, I could take you to a place.”

  Lexa sent him a quick look, wondering if the comment was a not-so-subtle suggestion that she stank. Well, she knew she didn’t smell particularly appealing when she hadn’t had the chance to bathe in a couple of days! And, despite the sense that she’d been insulted, she did want a bath. She nodded. “Thanks.”

  He hesitated. “If you’re still of the same mind tonight after you’ve given yourself time to think it over, come to me after everyone has settled for the night.”

  Lexa searched his face, wondering if he was suggesting what it sounded like he was suggesting or if he was still just talking about taking her to a watering hole where she could bathe. She decided not to test it, though, and merely nodded.

  “I have a bad feeling I’m going to regret this,” Gah-re-al muttered as she left.

  * * * *

  Lexa was as terrified as she was excited. It was all she could do to wait until everyone had settled on their pallets and had time to drop to sleep. She waited, though, because he’d warned her not to let the others know what he planned to do, trying to regulate her breathing and racing heart.

  She’d spent the remainder of the day after their conversation trying to convince herself that he hadn’t meant anything at all except that he’d offered to take her to bathe.

  She wasn’t entirely certain of why he’d made the offer, but that was all he’d meant.

  There was at least a small chance, though, that he’d meant the other—that he’d meant he intended to show her why women wanted him to fuck them.

  And even if he hadn’t meant that, she thought there was still a chance that he might change his mind once they were alone.

  The thought of being alone with him was almost as frightening as it was exciting, too. She didn’t know if she would’ve felt the same way if she didn’t think anything would happen or not, but she was so torn by conflicting dread and want that she’d wavered from minute to minute all day long as to whether to take him up on the offer or not.

  She wasn’t truly afraid that he’d hurt her, though, she reminded herself, and therefore there was no sane reason to be afraid of going off alone with him. Particularly since she was also almost completely certain that the likelihood was far greater that she wouldn’t be able to convince him to couple than it was that she would.

  When she’d managed to convince herself that she needn’t worry on account of him hurting her, she focused on trying to decide whether to try again to convince him to ‘show’ her what he meant or not. She was still wavering on that when she rose from her pallet and tried to creep stealthily through the camp to where she’d seen Gabriel settle his own pallet.

  Ordinarily, that part wouldn’t have been a problem. Moving stealthily was a trick she’d pretty much mastered over the years since it was a matter of survival to be able to slip quietly and unobtrusively in and out of some places. She was downright lightheaded, though, because she couldn’t tame her runaway heart and the galloping organ made it impossible to regulate her breathing as well.

  Her knees felt weak, too, and her boots far more awkward and heavy than they ever had before.

  She was tempted to simply take them off and leave them, but she didn’t want to risk the chance that someone might steal them. They hadn’t been easy to get. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Gabriel that she’d taken them off a dead person, but it had been almost more than she could stomach to do so. Beyond that, she’d had to do without anything on her bare feet for a very long time before she’d chanced upon the body and she hadn’t forgotten how miserable it was to go barefoot when it was so cold the ground numbed her feet or it was so hot she could almost smell the soles of her feet scorching with every step she took.

  She’d more than half suspected that she would have to waken Gabriel. She discovered she needn’t have worried. Either he hadn’t fallen asleep or she woke him with her approach.

  “Unless they sleep like the dead,” he muttered dryly, “I think we’ve lost the opportunity of slipping away without announcing it.”

  Lexa felt her face heat. “Sorry. I tripped over that guy’s hand.”

  Gabriel snorted. “Stepped on it.”

  Splitting hairs! Did the little details actually matter? She’d still tripped and she certainly hadn’t meant to wake half the camp!

  He sighed. “I suppose we might as well go. Either way, it will certainly be no secret that we met after everyone bedded down.”

  “Maybe we should just forget about it,” Lexa muttered unhappily. It wasn’t as if she’d expected him to greet her with delight, but his sarcasm coupled with the fact that he was right and she had given the whole thing away, had severely dampened her enthusiasm.

  He shook his head. Rising, he pulled her against his length. “Hold on.”

  It wasn’t much of a warning. Lexa didn’t know why, but it hadn’t occurred to her, once, that he was talking about flying with her dangling from his arms! She sucked in a sharp breath as he spread his wings, flapped them a couple of times, and then launched the two of them skyward. It wasn’t an actual scream but that was only because she didn’t have time to catch her breath. Her belly dropped as they rose.

  She would’ve liked to focus on the fact that Gabriel had embraced her except that wasn’t exactly what it was and she was too frightened and uncomfortable to enjoy any part of it. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that it was dark and she couldn’t see that well even if her position had allowed for it. She could still feel being in the air and the movement. The rush of air past them was almost as scary as the feeling that she was going to fall any minute and probably still wouldn’t catch up with her stomach. Within a matter of moments, she was shivering so violently that her teeth were clacking together.

  Gabriel’s arms tightened around her. “Cold?”

  She wasn’t certain, but she nodded anyway, too scared to actually talk.

  “I’ll take you to a warm spring.”

  Yes, well that might help warm her up—now—but what about the return trip?

  At any rate, she thought she was cold because she was scared to death, not necessarily because of the wind or the night air and she didn’t think she wanted to make a return trip.

  If she’d known what he had in mind she didn’t think anything would’ve convinced her to go with him.

  She’d thought when Gabriel said he would take her to a warm spring that he’d been talking about the one where they’d stopped before. As soon as they landed, however, she saw that wasn’t the case. The pool was about twice the size of the other one and there was no waterfall. Beyond that, it was far more ‘exposed’. There’d been nothing but a few stunted bushes near the other pool, but there’d been a number of sizeable boulders. This plateau looked like a table—flat and featureless.

  “The temperature of the water is more comfortable,” Gabriel said when he’d finally managed to pry her loose.

  Lexa nodded jerkily, but she had lost all enthusiasm for a bath or fucking. All she really wanted was to return immediately and crawl under her blanket and stay there.

  “You’re afraid?” he said, a statement rather than a question, his tone grim.

  Lexa nodded jerkily again, too distressed to ponder the tone of his voice.

  “Bathe. You should at least enjoy the pool.”

  “I suppose it’s too far to walk back? ‘Cause I really didn’t like that.”


  Gah-re-al sent her a quick look and relaxed fractionally. Not unnaturally, he had had nothing on his mind since they’d agreed to meet tonight except how many ways and times he meant to have her. He’d thought she was so petrified now that the moment of truth was upon her that she’d found she couldn’t overcome her aversion.

  It was a relief to know the fear was from the flight—not the prospect of fucking him—but at the same time guilt flashed through him that he hadn’t considered how she, a flightless being, might feel about flying. “Walking isn’t an option, I’m afraid. The cliff aside—which I doubt either of us could scale—it would take at least a full day, maybe two, to get back on foot.”