Blood Warrior

He walked toward her with swagger, leading with his shoulders. His scabbards moved with a hiss of leather over leather. Bright blue eyes narrowed. “You’ll find out before I’m through with you.”

—

The Sun was a fraud.

Worse, she was a vile manipulator.

As an upward surge of violence scribbled red across his vision, Tallis of Pendray could’ve been staring at the interior of a slaughterhouse. Droning pulses of cruelty beat a counterpoint to the rhythm of his heart. He wanted to loose his fury.

He needed to stay in control.

Otherwise he would never be able to discredit the Sun and thwart the commands she had thrust into his mind for two decades.

Always dripping in gold. Always riding away on the back of the Dragon.

A berserker rage would ruin months of preparation—sensible, rational preparation. Finding her hadn’t been easy. Everyone knew of the Sun Cult, but its ever-changing location had taken him almost a year to pinpoint. It was bad enough that the gift of Tallis’s clan, the Pendray, was the mindless fury of a berserker. Because the Sun had deluded him for so long, he’d come to prize rationality. He would not be a pawn to his blood-born impulses or a puppet to a charismatic charlatan.

Yet . . . she was real.

Some part of him had always feared he was well and truly mad. What if he’d been acting on a delusion so clear and all-consuming that he needed a scapegoat? How convenient to blame bloodied hands on a woman conjured by a guilty, disturbed conscience, then top off his mental self-defense with delusions of the Dragon. He put away his doubts and laid the gory blame where it belonged—there on an altar of stacked rocks the color of bronze.

His only regret was that, truth be told, the Sun’s professed ambition was noble and worth his sacrifices. Her appearances were rare enough to be treasured, but constant enough to reinforce her design for the future of the Dragon Kings. And Tallis’s role in it.

However, the violence he’d guided to the home of his niece, Nynn, had sapped his optimism. Whether the Sun’s plan to unify the clans would protect the Dragon Kings from extinction was no longer his concern. After what he’d endured, what he’d done, what he’d become for her—he deserved to embrace a personal grudge.

“You cannot threaten me,” she said, head tilted at an assessing angle. “And you cannot harm me.”

“I did, and I can.”

Tallis leapt forward—the fluid, trustworthy movement of a body honed for fighting. One of his seaxes was easy to retrieve. He grabbed the woman’s hair, twisted fistfuls in his free hand, and held a razor’s edge of steel to her throat.

Her eyes bulged. She froze.

“That’s right,” Tallis said. “Very still.”

“It’s not Dragon-forged.” Her voice was a near-silent rasp.

“Correct.” A Dragon King could only be killed by rare swords forged in the Chasm where the Great Dragon had lived and died, high in the Himalayas. “But killing you would make you a martyr. Not my intention.”

Her appearance as she’d addressed the crowd had struck Tallis like a blow to the jaw. A faint, otherworldly shimmer had surrounded her as would the wavy heat of a mirage. Hair that should’ve been deep brown, flowing in animated waves down her back, had been a bland, neutral shade in a style that sat primly on her shoulders. Her mud-colored eyes had been wrong, too. Nothing distinctive except for that inviting shimmer, urging people to believe the false front she presented.

Now he was near enough to see each lash. Wide irises as rich as amber. Lush hair as luscious as chocolate. Realizing the full extent of how well she could deceive others, including Tallis, was overwhelming.

At least her figure matched his visions. He held her resilient, athletic body close to his. A gold silk sari wrapped around womanly curves he’d seen in the nude.

He restrained a frustrated growl.

The Sun still hadn’t moved, but her lips tilted into a ghostly smile. Nothing about her seemed false, yet he could feel the potential for deception like a slick of oil on his fingertips. His only chance was to keep her distracted. With the ability to focus on only one mind at a time, his threat of violence might keep her from assuming too many of the false impressions she gleaned from other individuals.

“This way,” he said, yanking her hair. The blade nicked a line of red across her delicate neck.

Delicate? No. It was just a neck.

She deserved no adjectives. He could trust no adjectives.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to anger you,” she said with surprising calm. Only her near-frantic respiration gave away her fear. “But we can discuss it. We can make amends.”

“No, we can’t. Now, this blade is going back in its scabbard. You’re going to walk with me.”

She actually laughed, although the action pressed her neck more firmly against his seax. Her laughter was truncated by a gasp as another streak of red appeared. “How do you expect to accomplish that?”

“You have an announcement this evening.”

“I do.” She still breathed without rhythm. “It’s important. More important than you can imagine.”

“You have done my imagining for too long.”

“I’ve never seen you before!”

“Save it. You want to make that announcement, right? Can’t have these people disappointed.”

A gleam of moisture coated brown eyes that matched the rocky landscape of her homeland. “That’s right.”

“Then we’re walking. Calmly. I hold no grudge against anyone else, but I will do harm if you cause them to interfere.”

“They would demolish you in a second. We’re the Indranan. Telepathy can be a nasty weapon. You’d live the rest of your life with your body intact and your mind flipped inside out.”

Tallis pulled her hair and brought their faces together, close enough to share the same chilly air. “How much chaos could I cause before that happened? The precious Sun in danger. A hundred Dragon Kings running scared. Your cult destroyed.”

The woman grasped his forearm with both hands. Her nails dug into his flesh. “You have no right. Why would you plan violence, here of all places? These people live in peace and they believe in me.”

“And in time they’ll learn the truth.” Tallis held her neck in his palm as he sheathed his blade. “Just like I did.”

CHAPTER TWO

What’s to stop me from screaming with my mouth and shouting with my mind?”

Grinning tightly, Tallis shook his head. “You would’ve done both already. And even on your lying face, I can see it—you can’t read my thoughts. Frustrating, goddess?”

“I’m not a goddess. My name is Kavya.”

He raised his brows. “Very pretty.”

Her jaw tightened. “No. I can’t read your mind. Who are you?”

“Tallis. Search that piecemeal soul of yours. You’ll know me.”

“They warned me,” she said, almost to herself. “I didn’t listen. How long have you been tracking me?”

He was pleased his gamble had paid off. Everyone had heard of the Sun Cult, but its leader was elusive. Cult bodyguards had felt his presence as he’d neared his objective. They’d reached out with tap-tap touches into