Page 39 of The Stallion & The Tigress
“Or any other woman since the cursed day Iset eyes on you.”
Sahar opened her mouth to excoriate him, butall the angry words she’d been holding and harboring against himexpelled into the night air in one big whoosh of breath.Her heartstopped and started again with a queer fluttering beat as shedragged in a deep lungful of air.“Why?”she asked with a raggedwhisper.
“Why what?”
“Why haven’t you consorted with any otherwoman, when they so obviously want to consort with you?”
He shrugged and then laughed, short andharsh.“Good question.”
One he apparently wasn’t going to answer,which didn’t stop her from asking others.“Why did my father hireyou to protect me?”
“You’ll have to ask your father.”
She gnashed her teeth at him, spun on herheel to walk away, and then spun right back around.“Why do youkiss me like you do, and then tell me we are nothing to eachother?”
She hated the pleading whine of her voice,and stood taller and lifted her chin, holding his gaze and refusingto look away, the queer beat of her heart rushing to her ears.
His expression grew dark and serious forseveral of those beats, and then he shook himself and ran a handback through that damned shock of hair, which fell, yet again, overhis forehead.He grinned, and the cocky stallion with dark stubbleaccentuating the square cut of his chin, the one who had stoodbefore her the day she’d first set eyes on him, stood before heragain.
“I’ve kissed many women like I do,” he said.“It’s not my fault the thirty other men you’ve kissed aren’tcapable of stirring your passions, Kitten.”
CHAPTER 9
The River
Sahar stared down at the muddy hoof printsleading into the rushing waters of the swollen river.A river shewould have to cross to continue the race.It was either that oradmit defeat and return back to the check point with her tailtucked firmly between her legs.That she would not do.She had toomuch to prove, for herself, her family, her tribe, and any otherwoman competing in a man’s world.
She unclasped her otter skin cloak andstuffed it into her saddle bag, her teeth chattering as thesleeting rain soaked her tunic through.She glared at Aleksandr,sitting astride Zolotoy beside her, as if he were to blame for theskies opening up and letting loose the torrent of rain that hadturned the hard-packed mountain path into a running rivulet ofslick, sucking mud that had taken another two horses down, leavingthe field of riders down to ten and four men and her.
“What do you want to do?”Aleksandr asked ashe pulled his short sword from its sheath on his back, wrapped itup in his cloak and tied them up with his bedroll.“Cross or not, Iget my one hundred gold pieces either way.”
She sent Lasair plunging into the river andgasped aloud as the bone-chilling water swirled up to her waist.Panic, pure heart-pounding panic, flooded her senses as Lasair swamfor the far shore, fighting against the river’s swift movingcurrent.She gripped Lasair’s mane in both hands and squeezed herlegs tight to keep from being swept off the struggling mare’s back.She fought to keep from squeezing her eyes shut as the image ofOmmar’s frightened face came unbidden as he was carried farther andfarther away from her outstretched hand.
She heard her words, her oath to Ommar beforehis hand had been ripped from hers, only they were being spoken toher in a deep, grounding voice.
“I have you.I have you.I won’t let yougo.”
She looked from the bronzed hand holding ontoLasair’s bridle to Aleksandr’s strong, determined face, and thepanic coursing through her veins receded enough that she could takea full breath and nod her head in acknowledgement.He grinned inresponse, the rain running down from his sodden hair to his flashof even white teeth, and then his eyes widened.
“Munir,” he yelled out over the roar of theraging waters.“Look out, upriver.”
She whipped her head around in time to seeMunir and Kedar no more than ten feet upriver from them, getbroadsided by a branch the size of a tree trunk.Kedar let out ahigh, frenzied whinny that was cut short as horse and rider wentunder.
“Muunniirr!”Her cry stolen by the wind, sheclutched tight to Lasair’s mane as Zolotoy surged ahead, pullingthem out of the log’s careening path.She untangled her fingersfrom the mare’s mane, twisting on the saddle to jump in afterMunir, and felt Aleksandr’s iron grip on her arm.
“Can you make the shore?”he yelled.
“But, Munir.”
He took her hand and wrapped Zolotoy’s reinaround it.“Hold on,” he told her.“Z will guide Lasair to theshore.I’ll get Munir.”
She glanced wildly from Aleksandr to whereMunir had gone under and still hadn’t surfaced.“Go,” she said.“Save Munir.”
He squeezed her hand.“Whatever happens, mytigress, do not let go.”Then he pushed off of Zolotoy and wasbeing swept downriver.
Sahar held on tight to Zolotoy’s reins withone hand and Lasair’s mane with the other, gripping the mare’ssides with thighs numb from the cold and chafed from rubbing as thetwo horses fought their way to the shoreline.She clamped her jawso tight that no more than a groan escaped her lips as a thickbranch tumbling past scraped her lower back.She glanced downriver,and saw Aleksandr’s receding head bobbing above water, but shecould see no sign of Munir.
At last, Lasair’s hooves hit river bottom andshe unwound Zolotoy’s rein from around her hand as both horses madethe shoreline.She slid off of Lasair and fell to her hands andknees in the muck, sobbing and gasping as the horses hung theirheads, sucking in and blowing out great breaths of air.She slappedthe muddy ground with an anguished howl, once again unable to domore than stand by as another river took the lives of men, good mentrying to protect her.How would she ever face Halah after makingher cousin a widow before she even became a bride?How would Saharever face herself knowing Aleksandr had died for her?
