Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 (10 page)

Rox returned to the courtyard and grabbed her knife, resheathing it behind her back beneath her jacket. It unnerved her that the mage had made the connection between the blade and the changling weapons. It was a family weapon, passed down to her from her grandmother, but not that changlings were a real threat again, it might be wise not to use the weapon so visibly.

Fisk raced back to her from the far corner of the courtyard, a chunk of the mage’s bread in his hands. Rox couldn’t help but grunt a laugh at the absurdity of the sight. “All that and you were still fixated on her food?”

Fisk took a bite of the loaf, ignoring his master’s tone. Rox reached out to him with her right arm and he paused, dropping the bread to grab her open sleeve and sniff at the new mark on her wrist. He looked up at her questioningly. “I have no idea.”

Fisk scurried up her arm and settled on her shoulder. She scratched his back. She looked down at her wrist, studying the design. There was something familiar about it, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before. “Do you think there are any desert witches in the Tribe? They might know what this is.”

Rox had grown up hearing about the desert witches, fortune tellers, seers and charm weavers who wandered the sands of the southern continent. While many desertmen had come to Rox’s seaside village to trade, she’d never seen nomads until coming to Oasis.

Fisk only curled into a ball to sleep. Rox drew a deep breath and retied her sleeve. Her old tension, her restlessness, was already returning despite the battle, her thoughts now locked on the silver mage who’d fled to the depths of Oasis. She could use a walk, desert witches or no. It couldn’t hurt to check.

Jacquin crouched beside the dancing flames of the funeral pyre, the fire allowed to burn lower as the sun rose, blanketing Oasis in a heavy, stifling heat that seemed more oppressive beneath the shifting magic of the dome barrier. Jacquin shifted her weight from foot to foot in time with the pounding of drums and whistle of flutes, the movements nearly hidden beneath the rippling layers of her silk skirt, her bare feet digging into the sand for balance.

She extended her hands toward the fire, the leather and silk bands stacked half-way up each arm shifted and slid around her forearms. She tugged at a particularly tight ribbon knotted over the stone tattoo that had formed on her arm after her vision with Adrian. Her hair draped heavy and full over her back and shoulders, brushing along the edges of the thick silk band tied around her chest. She lifted the mane off the back of her neck, a rush of air licking at her nape and upper back.

Jacquin let out a heavy sigh, her jaw clenched, every muscle in her body tense and electric. She wanted to run, to move, to dance, but it was only a symptom of a deeper need. She closed her eyes and Adrian was instantly in her mind’s eye, every line and angle of her face memorized, the sound of her voice a clear echo in her ears. She could visualize with perfect clarity the snowy plains of Adrian’s memory, the young, frightened girl watching an approaching mob with wild eyes, the same wild eyes that had met Jacquin’s as they were suddenly thrown from the vision and Adrian fled into the depths of Oasis.

Jacquin imagined Adrian’s hand in hers, the way they’d fit together while fighting changlings, the feel of Adrian’s head in her lap. Her heart pounded in her chest and she subconsciously held her wrist right over the mark Adrian’s vision had left on her wrist. There would be no relief in dancing today.

“You aren’t performing today?” Jacquin turned. Khalisa approached, dressed in a simple, woven robe, her hair pulled up as if returning from a Council meeting.

Jacquin shook her head, rising to her feet. Khalisa looked her over with a sad, knowing expression. “Still thinking of Adrian?”

Jacquin’s narrow chin twitched. She had told Khalisa that Adrian had returned and run away again, though she hadn’t mentioned the vision or the mark on her arm. She didn’t know how her protective sister would respond to seeing a magical brand on Jacquin’s arm. “I can’t stop.”

“She’s obviously dealing with a lot of her own issues, but she wouldn’t have come back to you if she wasn’t drawn to you, too. Give her time.”

Jacquin remembered Adrian’s haunted eyes after the vision. Jacquin had scared her. “If the barrier lifts, she’ll leave.”

“Don’t be so sure. Not many can resist the seer of the
Dey Sorormin
Tribe.” Khalisa’s smile was kind, hinting at their more flippant teasings before the raid. Jacquin, however, couldn’t find enough humor in the situation to play along.

Jacquin hugged her arms close to her chest. “I’m coming out of my skin, Khalisa.”

“Then dance. Sometimes it’s better than a bedmate.” Khalisa winked.

Jacquin’s eyes fell, briefly betraying the desire burning in her stomach, dancing beneath her skin. “Not today.”

Khalisa rolled her shoulders with a shrug. “Then perhaps there’s no better way to attract a substitution. Adrian isn’t available. Perhaps there’s another in the crowd just as lonely as you are.”

Jacquin glanced back at the gathered crowd of Tribe and mourning desertmen watching a fire juggler in rapt attention. There was certainly a surplus of people looking for distraction, mourning for others.

“Perhaps.”

Khalisa pulled her sister into a tight hug. “And Jaci… if there’s more to this, more worrying you than Adrian, know I’m here.”

Jacquin didn’t need Khalisa to say more to know what she was thinking. She was thinking about their parents. The deaths during the raids had shaken Khalisa, reminding her of the death of their parents and her promise to keep Jacquin safe.

“You did your best to warn them. They wouldn’t listen to you.”

Khalisa pulled back slightly, shaking her head. “You always see through me even before I do.”

Jacquin smiled softly. “We’re both alive. That’s what matters.”

Khalisa hugged her again, then nodded toward the dance circle. “You deserve some comfort.”

Jacquin parted with her sister, strolling toward the dance circle, skirting along the edges so as not to distract from the performers. She wove through the audience, her eyes flitting over friends and regular customers. Most of the merchants and temporary visitors in Oasis were still holed up in their inns, afraid to venture far after the raid. Still, there were a few faces she didn’t recognize, but none that captured her interest. She rolled her shoulders and sighed as she realized she was still searching for Adrian.

As she approached the far end of the crowd she paused. A small woman, her hood thrown back, revealing short, gold curls stood among the crowd, the same woman who had saved her during the raid. A water ferret sat on her shoulder, leaning back on his haunches to sit up straight and see the drummers. Jacquin felt a memory pull at the back of her mind, remind her of a vision she’d had before the raid of the false Adrians and the sandstorm. A waterferret had saved her. How strange to see both the intriguing warrior woman and the waterferret from her vision together.

Jacquin approached faster, easily moving over the sand to catch a better view of the woman’s face. She didn’t get ten steps away from the woman before she turned, spotting Jacquin approach. Recognition flashed in her eyes and Jacquin felt the desire roiling through her blood spike at the look in the woman’s eyes. There was something just as intense, just as deliberate and primal in the warrior as in Jacquin. Something that momentarily made Jacquin forget Adrian.

A sly grin spread across Jacquin’s face and she nodded to herself, breaking free of the warrior’s gaze and moving quickly around the circle, greeting the sword dancer preparing to go on. She slipped the woman a gold coin.

“One dance. Please.”

The dancer pocketed the coin and nodded, retreating back toward the caravan to continue stretching.

As the next song began, Jacquin stepped slowly into the center of the circle, the audience watching her curiously. She wasn’t dressed to dance, eschewing a performer’s face paint and body-revealing ties and bands for a full skirt and wrap. But Jacquin didn’t need the trappings of a performer to win her prize.

Jacquin danced, using her hips, hands and hair to express the emotions, the tension and lust eating away at her core. She used her feet to skim and kick the sand into swirling patterns, adding movement to the long skirt slipping and sliding along her feet and thighs.

She closed her eyes, forgetting the audience, losing herself in movement and need. She flipped and arched, each movement exaggerated and extended as far as her body could handle, a feat of athleticism as much as art.

As the music started to slow, approaching the final chorus, Jacquin’s eyes fluttered open, locked immediately on the warrior woman. Jacquin’s eyes glowed with obvious victory. The woman’s attention was locked on her every move, her mouth slightly parted with obvious attraction. Jacquin moved toward the smaller woman, dancing slower, more focused, until they were close enough to touch. The woman remained respectful, restrained and unmoving even as Jacquin reached out to her, pressing against her, her hips still moving in time to the music. She ran her fingers through the golden curls, tipping the woman’s head back with a silent request.

The woman needed nothing more than Jacquin’s permission. In an instant she wrapped her arms tight around Jacquin’s waist, her grip stronger than Jacquin expected, and claimed Jacquin’s mouth in a hard, deep kiss. The audience gasped, some even applauded. It wasn’t unusual for Tribe dancers to kiss or seduce lovers out of the audience, but Jacquin was known for keeping her dalliances out of her performances. Jacquin’s regulars were in shock, but Jacquin could barely hear them. She was instantly lost in the embrace of the warrior, her hands and mouth hungry for relief from the tension that had been building for days, the woman’s grip almost animalistic as they kissed.

Jacquin broke the embrace, taking a deep breath of air, the song already ended. “Come with me.” It wasn’t a question.

She ran through the Tribe, her warrior close behind, and led her lover to her wagon, locking the door behind them as they embraced again, their hands more bold, more desperate as cloak and silk were left in piles on the floor.

“What’s your name?” Jacquin gasped as her lover kissed and nipped a sharp line down her neck, Jacquin’s fingers pulling desperately at the knotted cords binding together the warrior’s travel leathers.

“Rox.”

“Jacquin.”

Rox peeled her own shirt and pants off, her fingers more nimble with the light armor, and the women fell in a tangle across Jacquin’s soft nest of pillows and furs. Pillows skittered across the wooden wagon floor as Rox and Jacquin tumbled, Fisk racing wildly from his impassioned owner, growling with frustration as he climbed to the top of a wooden shelf and curled into a ball.

Within moments Jacquin had Rox pinned gently to the ground, a heated smile lighting her face with amusement.

Jacquin nuzzled the side of her neck, licking and kissing the ridges of Rox’s ear. “For a warrior who had no problem taking charge in battle, you didn’t take long to get on your back.”

Rox wrapped her arms around Jacquin’s waist, pulling her closer as Jacquin’s body sank between her knees. Rox’s voice was rasped with wild hunger, yet softer than Jacquin thought possible. “Sometimes I get tired of being in charge.”

Jacquin smiled wider at the response and abandoned herself to exploring Rox’s body. She reveled in the silken feel of the woman’s skin beneath her own, her body solid and strong, the lines of her muscles defined and toned creating peaks and valleys across her skin as Jacquin’s mouth danced across her body.

Rox’s hands skimmed along Jacquin’s back and twisted in Jacquin’s hair, her fingers desperate and clinging, her nails biting into Jacquin’s skin as she gasped arched with desire as Jacquin sought every sensitive place.

Jacquin closed her eyes as she kissed a narrow, precise line across Rox’s small breasts, running her tongue over the swell, finding a hard, taut nipple. Rox was warm, tasting mildly of salt. Her body was more used to the heat of the desert than Jacquin had expected from a woman who smelled of the north.

Jacquin drew Rox’s nipple deep in her mouth and felt a shock of amusement and desire as Rox groaned with delight, sending a flash of truth into the back of Jacquin’s mind: a vision of a small village by the sea, the scent of seaweed and the taste of the desert in the back of Jacquin’s mouth. Jacquin glanced up at Rox in surprise. She hailed from the south, too.

Jacquin’s embrace became more curious, more urgent as she tasted visions and snippets of memories buried in the lines of Rox’s body. Sorrow. Loneliness. Fear. In the lines of her shoulders she saw visions of Fisk, her ferret, hiding in her hair and cloak from a sea-soaked, half-dead kit she’d found in a dockyard to the adult hob rebelliously munching stolen food on her shoulder, his belly scales sparkling in the sunlight, his fur soft as down.

Rox’s chest and arms were hot as flame, leaving a burning, electric buzz against Jacquin’s lips. She saw battles and midnight assassinations, the fights always close-range and frenzied. She could tell Rox favored daggers and her hands, weapons that allowed her physical contact with her enemies. There was something about learning the tiny, petite warrior had a propensity to berserk, to be brutal and fierce, that made her all the more delicious and mysterious to Jacquin.

Jacquin’s head clouded the more she explored Rox’s body, thought disappearing in a sudden primal desire that spread to her lover. She could see pine trees flying as if she were running through the forest, her body more limber and loose than it had ever been, even while dancing. She felt the chill of snow flying around her, a brisk tickle along her body as she realized she was covered in soft fur. The visions didn’t belong to Rox. They were older, buried deep in her genes.

Rox arched and growled beneath her, wrapping her body around Jacquin, biting at her arms and collar, demanding more. Jacquin laughed aloud, Rox’s wildness intoxicating.

Jacquin’s hands skimmed across Rox’s hips, her fingers finding damp, hot curls and Rox pushed into her hand, obvious in her desires. Jacquin indulged her, their lips meeting in a frenzied battle of lips, teeth and tongues. Rox’s breath came in quick, breathy gasps as Jacquin worked her toward climax, her body jumping and trembling as Jacquin brought her to climax. Finally, Rox groaned deep in her throat, her body tensing and opening beneath Jacquin’s hand and she collapsed back against the pillows, satiated into a listless daze.

Jacquin kissed her lips once more, gently, and continued her exploration, her touch more gentle. As she skimmed down her torso she tasted lines of pine, snow, tears and pain. She could feel an oppressive presence in Rox’s life, an immediate threat to her safety that left her hard, isolated. A heavy darkness spread across Jacquin’s skin, skimming along her body like smoke. Tears welled in Jacquin’s eyes, leaving cold trails down her warm cheeks.

As she reached a long, thin scar spanning across Rox’s hips, lined with silver, spider-web thin scars she saw a flash of a small child, a young, wild girl with curly blond hair rippling over her shoulders, her head thrown back in delighted laughter. As she spanned the scar she felt the weight of an infant in her arms, a tiny finger wrapped around her own. The weight of the babe growing in her womb. The warm, fresh smell of the infant’s head and the curl of her first smile. Rox was a mother.

Rox’s hands left Jacquin’s hair. Jacquin pushed up on her hands, barely bringing her lips off Rox’s body, suddenly uncomfortable looking deeper into Rox’s mind. There was such heartache, so much tragedy Jacquin was sure Rox’s daughter had died. She looked up as Rox wept, her arm over her eyes.

Jacquin slid up her body, holding her tight. Rox wrapped her arms around the young woman’s shoulders, burying her face in Jacquin’s hair, her body trembling as she fought to dry her tears. “I’m sorry.”