Because of her behavior, he would feel free to do with her whatever he wanted.
But how long could he go without claiming her? If he hadn't done it already, he didn't want to impregnate her. Yes, he wanted his son, but not yet, not when there was so much danger. Not when he knew Sabine would run back to Omort at the earliest opportunity.
When they trudged up a steep incline, she tripped and fell forward onto her front. Spitting out sand, she snapped, "I've put up with this long enough! You've got to free me, else I can't keep up. At least free one of my hands. I need both to work illusions. Rydstrom, I can't keep going like this."
He clutched the front of her metal top and yanked her up with it.
"Omort will come for me! You'll never get away with this."
"Another word, and I'll gag you."
Against his warning, she said, "And Lothaire will be burned to ash ..." She trailed off when he tore another length of cloth from the bottom of his shirt. "Rydstrom! I'll be quiet-"
He wrapped the cloth around her head, tying it tight like a bit to gag her. "I know. ..."
For another hour, he left her like that, gagged as they covered more ground. He could feel her glare on his back, but he didn't want to hear any more of her com­plaints or demands.
He finally glanced back at her. She'd straggled farther behind, the journey taking its toll. She was sunburned, her knees bloodied, her legs cut. Her ass was probably still on fire.
He wanted to feel nothing but satisfaction over her suffering-and couldn't. It went against his instinct.
Damn that sorceress. Got me so twisted. He cast her a black look over his shoulder.
She straightened and assumed her haughty expres­sion-then stumbled once more. Though he could have
continued for days on end, he obviously had to stop for the night for her.
When he found a freshwater lake in a protected canyon pass, he dropped his pack near the shore and crouched down to unpack the contents: a small bottle of wine, bread, chicken, cheese, a knife and flints, bedding.
Sabine sagged in relief, dropping to her knees, then wobbled over on her hip.
After he started a fire, he ate his share of the food, then leaned over to yank her gag down.
She swallowed repeatedly, working her jaw out. "Is it as sweet as you'd hoped?" she asked. "Your revenge?"
"It will be. We're just beginning, princess. There will be parity for everything you did to me. Three nights you came to my cell and tormented me-"
"It wasn't three nights. You have no idea what I would have done the night you were injured. If I hadn't been summoned to court, I might have gotten carried away."
"Though you hadn't before?" He gave her some water from the canteen.
When he brought the chicken up to her lips, she turned her face away. "You know I don't consume meat"
"You knew I did."
"I won't eat it."
"Go hungry." He finished the food, then arranged the bedding under a leafless tree near the fire he'd built.
"I need you to free my hands, so I can wash off." She twisted around to peer at her backside. "I seem to have gotten demon seed on myself!"
He jerked his chin toward the lake.
"There's the water."
"What do you expect me to do with my hands bound?"
"Ask me to bathe you."
When she only glared at him, he stripped off his sword and clothes, then dove into the deep water from a low ledge. The temperature was cool and soothed his battered body.
He surfaced to see her carefully stepping on the slip­pery rocks at the edge of a dropoff, several yards above the one he'd used. Just when he was about to point out a sandy shore for her to go to instead, she slipped and tumbled into the water. In an instant, she disappeared. Her hands are tied behind her back, the metal like an anchor, weighing her down.
With a surge of panic, he dove for her.
24
What are you going to do about my sister?' Lanthe demanded of Omort. Only her concern for Sabine gave her courage with the monster before her.
He didn't even seem to be a man any longer, just per­sonified wrath. Hettiah knelt at the foot of his throne, with her head bowed, constantly shuddering as if with cold.
Over the last several hours, he'd killed again and again, Inferi, revenants, even rage demons abducted from their towns.
But nothing could appease him. Bodies had piled up all around the well, with sightless eyes and tangled limbs on a canvas of blood. The stench and flies were becoming unbearable.
"You've got to send the fire demons after her. They can teleport-"
"You think I haven't considered that?" he yell "Rydstrom will have taken her to Grave Realm-there are ways off-plane there. And none of the fire demons or vampires have been there before!"
Demons and vampires could only trace to places they'd previously been. Lanthe didn't know if Omort was aware of this, but whether or not the vampires could teleport to Grave Realm was irrelevant. None were allied here any longer.
The covenant tablet between the factions had broken, and when Lothaire's legion disappeared, it had become obvious who had betrayed Omort-and Sabine. The fire demon king remained allied, but for how long?
Truthfully, Lanthe wasn't worried about Rydstrom hurting Sabine. In fact, she believed he would protect his female with his life. What she was worried about was Sabine's morsus. "Omort, if we can't find her, when will the poison hit?" Lanthe asked.
He gave a humorless laugh. "A week before she expects it to."
"You lied to her about that?" she cried.
"It matters naught," he said. "You'll open a portal to Grave Realm. The revenants will scour the area and retrieve her this eve."
Lanthe swallowed. "I don't . . . have a portal to give you."
When Omort had called for Sabine's Inferi to tor­ture and kill, Lanthe had made a command decision,
opening a threshold to save the servants under her and
Sabine's protection. Lanthe honestly believed her sister was safer with the demon than any being inside Tornin.
And the sisters had made a pact that if anything should
happen to one, the other would provide for and protect her Inferi.
Omort faced her with confusion in those yellow eyes. "What are you saying to me?"
"I can't generate a threshold for several more days." When he shot to his feet, storming toward her, she scut' tied back from him. "If you do anything to me, you'll never get Sabine back."
"Or, I could take your power." He raised his palms, sinister heat rising above them. "And butcher your use-less body. ..."