Page 60 of Warlord's Mate
He helped her over to where the other injured were and resumed pacing the camp, his thoughts in constant motion.
Did Mar-see betray him as Jityria suggested? Would she have done such a thing?
The feel of her phantom hands against his flesh said no, she wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have left him willingly. She had feelings for him. He knew by the way she touched him. By the look in her eyes as he made love to her.
Had he told her the same with his actions? Did she know he cared for her? Probably not. He’d had to be ruthless for so long now, it's all he knew. Sweet words and gentle affection were nearly a foreign thing to him now.
You should have told her how you felt. Told her how having her in your life now made the hell this place was less painful.
He continued to pace the camp until Wyvind approached long minutes later and drew him to a stop.
“What are your plans, warlord?”
“I don’t know.” He stared at the smoking remains of camp. “We don’t have enough men to retaliate and survive but leaving those captured to their fate feels wrong.”
Wyvind nodded. “He took the best fighters we had.”
“And I’m sure he knows that.” He blew out a breath and stared into the distance, the whir of the small camera orbs that were a constant reminder they were being watched hovering in the air. He forgot they were there most of the time but now, he followed the movements of one as it stopped, hovered, then flew toward the red mountains. The moment he saw it jutting into the air in the distance, something in his chest clenched tight. “I might have an idea.”
“What sort of idea?”
“The only one I have at the moment.”
“You may call me, Allok.”
Marcy bit her tongue to keep from saying something she’d probably regret. This warlord, Allok, wasn’t stable. It was in the eyes. The way he stared at her made her think something inside that misshapen head of his wasn’t quite right.
He crossed to a table against the wall and picked up a slender cylinder and tipped it over a cup. A blue liquid spilled out, and she stared at the talon-like claws on the ends of his fingers.
“I’ve heard many things about you.”
“Oh?” Again, she refrained from saying anything that might get her tongue ripped out.
He picked up the glass and took a long drink of whatever it was he’d poured into it and looked at her over the rim. He licked his lips when he lowered the cup, his black tongue shocking to see. “Rumors say you possess magic.”
She snorted a laugh and met his disturbing red gaze. “Rumors are wrong.”
A pain so sharp streaked through her brain, she briefly wondered if it was an aneurism but the pain vanished as quickly as it came on. She blinked to clear her head and had Allok possessed eyebrows, one would have lifted as the skin above his right eye shifted. “There is a race of people called the Acirassi who look very much as you do.” He nodded to her with a slight tilt of his head. “Their crowns are adorned with manes the same shade as yours and their skin is pink.” He took another sip from the cup. “But their eyes are silver. Yours are not. Are you of mixed breed?”
“No. I’m all human and I have no magic. I’m just plain ole, Marcy Jean Duncan from Nowhere, Tennessee.”
He took another drink, looking at her as he did. “I think you lie.”
“Why would I?”
“To keep from giving me what I want.”
“Which is?”
He grinned and those pointed teeth caused a shiver to race up her spine. “I want the other warlord’s dead and I want the Corporation that runs this hellish prison to bow at my feet. And I want you to get it for me.”
Like all super villains, he wanted to rule the world. Typical. “Sorry. Fresh out of magic.”
His skin turned a darker shade of red and he went so still he didn’t look real. The dude was seriously creepy.
He blinked as he drank the rest of whatever he’d poured into his cup, then set it down. “There are ways to make you do as I wish.”
“No amount of pain inflicted on me or others can make me do something I’m not capable of. I’m not one of those Ack-rassi things. I can’t do magic.” He didn’t believe her. The look on his face told her that much. How much torture would he subject her to in order to get her to perform parlor tricks for him?