It had been a long, tiring march from her village at the river's bend on the grassy plains, but Tatyana stifled any complaints about her aching feet or sore legs. They were the keys to her survival. After all, the alternative was unthinkable. The other women captives who rode in carts might have fewer blisters on their feet, but their necks and ankles were chained and their fate ahead in the conquering army's encampment was to serve as sexual slaves. As a married woman...no, now, as a widow...Tatyana knew well enough what awaited the younger women who had been singled out of the terrified crowd of villagers when the horsemen had swept in, burned their meager houses and killed any men or women who dared resist.
Grigor had resisted, and now lay dead.
At first, Tatyana had tried to hide, but the moon was bright that night and her shadow gave her away. So, she'd thought quickly and rubbed a little white ash from one of the fire pits in her silky, chestnut hair, to make it look grayer and herself older. She kept her almond-shaped, brown eyes, which Grigor had insisted were bewitching, lowered. Amid the huddled, weeping captives, she kept her head down, smudging her arms and hands with dirt to conceal the youthful beauty that had not yet abandoned her. She was still only in her late twenties, and had not yet lost the voluptuous body that had spurred her husband to chase after her and marry her. More was the pity, for now it put her in danger. Tatyana silently wished she had wrinkles and saggy breasts.
But wishing was for shit in her situation.
The journey of this mournful caravan had taken three days, and each night, she and the other captives she huddled with had been forced to listen to the desperate shrieks of the handful of women who had been dragged out of the carts to satisfy the warriors who were herding them all back to the horsemen's mobile capital city. Tatyana kept her eyes on the ground and covered her ears as man after man pinned those unfortunate women down, wrenched their legs apart, and indulged themselves before tossing the women back in their wheeled prisons. She felt guilty to be hiding herself in a raggedy shift and falsely greyed hair when other women were suffering such abuse, but Tatyana knew that it wouldn't help them at all if she were added to their numbers.
Now, the grim line of bound captives, from her village and others, was marched by their captors into a vast encampment of tents, some larger and more elaborate than others. This was the horsemen's capital city, one that moved with the seasons or the whims of their Great King, whenever he set his sights on another region to despoil.
Tatyana kept her head low, her shoulders hunched, and her eyes open and alert. Clustered together with other villagers who had trudged the long distance on foot, she hoped she would be sent to clean up after animals or cook. If she was lucky, perhaps she could serve one of the healers in the camp, since it was known that this warrior people recruited and enslaved as many of the skilled healers in the known world as they could. Warriors, after all, took many wounds.
As they passed one tent where a healer was examining a warrior's shoulder, Tatyana's eyes lingered perhaps too long on that healer, silently hoping for that kind of work. She tensed with alarm to realize that the warrior had caught her staring. He looked at her with the keen yet impassive eyes of a hawk, his posture upright and unmoving, betraying not a hint of his thoughts. Tatyana quickly glanced away and stooped over even more, trying to appear like a weary old woman. That had been the worst possible kind of man she could draw attention from. Just the brief glimpse she'd taken had shown her he was no young, inexperienced warrior; he was battle hardened and wiser, better at observing and less likely to be tricked since he had survived so many clashes.
Thankfully, she and the other captives around her were jostled onward, their hands all bound tightly to a long rope that forced them to keep shuffling toward the center of the camp. The unfortunate women in the carts had been taken in a different direction, most likely to be distributed according to the will of the more powerful men. Tatyana hoped that her lot would be settled not by any of the horsemen, but by those who served them. And it seemed like she would get her wish. One of the head servants grouped her together with several other captives and gruffly directed her toward a cooking area. Thank the stars above...
But as Tatyana moved to comply, a strong hand gripped her upper arm, so hard she feared she would have bruises. The breath momentarily fled her lungs and she didn't dare look at who had seized her.
'What's this here?' a resonant voice pierced the air, straight and swift as an arrow.
Tatyana felt a man's hand thread through her hair and rub some of the white ash away. She heard him chuckle, 'What magic, indeed, that old age can wash away so easily.'
His other hand tilted her chin up and Tatyana's eyes once again locked with those of the warrior she had passed earlier. While his dark eyes scrutinized her face, the head servant hustled the other captives onward to the cooking area, clearly assuming that the warrior meant to claim her.
'It's not--' Tatyana attempted to explain, but the warrior spoke over her.
'Not a wrinkle on your face,' he mused, his mouth twisted into a wry, lopsided grin.
Gripping her wrist, the warrior dragged Tatyana back toward the tent where she had seen him receiving the healer's care. Her feet stumbled and tripped in pointless resistance, yet only a few heads turned to watch what was a familiar spectacle. Tatyana could well believe that she was not the first woman in this camp to resist in vain.
Once inside his tent, which was large enough to have a meeting table with four cushions and a hearth in the main area, the warrior pulled her behind the privacy curtain that marked off his sleeping area.
'Now, let's have a look at the rest of you. Off,' he said, gesturing to her ragged, linen shift. When Tatyana made no move to comply, he warned in a surprisingly pleasant, amused voice, 'You can remove that rag yourself and have clothes to wear later, or I'll rip it off and you can go naked.'
Tatyana flinched at his unwavering gaze. With his dark hair pulled back in a warrior's long braid, she could see every corner of his face. From the fierce tilt of his brows and his steady eyes, to the calm tension in his jaw, Tatyana recognized a man who acted on his words. Her heart sank at her failure to avoid this kind of attention, but her hands worked quickly to undo the simple ties that held her shift closed. The shift slid down and piled at her feet, leaving her exposed to the warrior's scrutiny.
A slow smile spread across his face. He circled her, taking his time, cupping the fullness of her breasts in his palms, grazing her back with rough fingernails, pinching her ass so hard that Tatyana couldn't hold back a hiss of pain. It was this, inarticulate admission of discomfort that brought the warrior around to face her again. His closeness felt oppressive; the heat of his body, the solid, muscular mass of his chest and arms reminded Tatyana just how trapped she was.
'You've been with a man before,' the warrior stated bluntly, gripping her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. 'You barely flinched when I touched you - until I made it painful. And you haven't been weeping over being naked. I've had plenty of virgins in my tent, and you don't act like one. Good. This will make things easier for both of us.'
Tatyana found herself on the warrior's bed in less than a heartbeat. His sinewy arms balanced strength with control - even grace. His movements were disciplined and precise. There was none of the tender seduction that Grigor had always used. Before Tatyana could blink, the warrior had jerked her limbs and hips until she was on all fours. The bed shifted when he settled in behind her. A moment later, she felt his rough fingers thrust deep inside her sex. Instinctively, Tatyana yelped and tried to lurch away.
The warrior gripped her silky, long hair in his fist and jerked hard. His other hand came down on her ass with a sharp, burning smack.
