Loving a Stranger Page 18

  At the time, Nallah had thought nothing of it. She had been too excited to be getting married to such a handsome member of the Inner Circle. Now, however, with Harryx leaning over her, the shrive naked in his hand, she felt sick with fright.

  “Please, my husband!” she begged brokenly. “Do not mark me—do not cast me out! I didn’t know it was not you inhabiting your body!”

  Although she supposed the signs had been there—she just hadn’t wanted to see them. She’d fooled herself into thinking Harryx’s eyes got darker by a trick of the light and shadows and told herself his new personality was a result of the bump on the head he’d taken during battle. Now she knew the truth—another man’s spirit had been controlling her husband’s body—a man she desperately wished was here now, though she didn’t even know his name.

  Please, she thought desperately. Whoever you are, can’t you come back? Can’t you take over Harryx again, at least long enough to help me get away from him! I can’t let him mark me—I can’t!

  The blades of the shrive were razor sharp and treated with a chemical which caused extreme scarring. A woman marked by the three-bladed instrument would end up with three raised purplish-red marks across each cheek—scars that would ruin both her beauty and her reputation. No man would ever dream of taking her for a wife after that—she was fit only for the Punishment Gangs until she finally died of exposure and trauma.

  “Please,” Nallah begged again. “Please, husband, I didn’t know!”

  “If you didn’t know, you should have!” Harryx snarled. “Now hold still, wife, I wouldn’t want to take your eyes out when I mark your cheeks. Then you’d be ugly and blind. How would you like that?”

  His words froze Nallah’s heart and she stopped struggling. Harryx would do it—he would blind her if he wanted to. Moreover, he would take pleasure in the act. Better to just lie still and let him get this over with—there was no stopping him and she could only make things worse by fighting.

  How many times had she told herself these words—just lie still, it will all be over soon, no sense in fighting, you’ll only make it worse… How many times had she bitten her tongue and held back her tears at her husband’s cruel treatment? And she had done it because she had been taught it was right and proper—because she didn’t know any other way to exist.

  But the stranger who had entered Harryx’s body—the stranger she had grown to love—had showed her there was another way. That she didn’t have to be always cringing and cowering and frightened. He had shown her that a man could respect a woman, that her lesser physical strength didn’t have to mean a lesser status or lesser respect.

  He loved me, she thought as Harryx drew the shrive in three, stinging parallel lines across her right cheek. He showed me what love really is—what it can be. I didn’t know until then.

  And this, what Harryx was doing to her, wasn’t love. It wasn’t even a husband’s duty or right. It was evil and cruel and hateful and she hated Harryx for doing it—hated him with all her heart. Suddenly the emotion boiled over into words.

  “I hate you,” she whispered to her husband, looking up at him, her eyes blazing, filled with tears of defiance and pain. “The other one—the man who took your body—he was a thousand times the man you are. I wish he was here right now. I hate you!”

  For a moment, Harryx looked almost taken aback. Clearly he hadn’t expected any show of defiance from her at all. Nallah was a little surprised herself. Part of her was screaming that she’d better apologize—better be quiet. Harryx could do more than just mark her with the shrive. He could blind her, maim her—even kill her and nothing would be done about it. There was no penalty for punishing a wayward wife on Hascion Five, for women had no rights at all. Nallah was entirely at his mercy. And yet she couldn’t help herself.

  “I hate you!” she shouted again and spit in his face.

  Harryx’s face darkened.

  “You little bitch,” he growled. “I was just going to mark you up and throw you out to the Punishment Gangs but you’re losing both your eyes, your lips, and your nose for that. The Gangs will have to throw your robes over your face before they punish you or your ugliness will make their shafts wilt!”

  “No!” Nallah began to fight as hard as she could. There was no point in lying quiet and still now and hoping Harryx wouldn’t hurt her too much. He had stated his intent to blind and maim her and whatever else he was, her husband always kept his word—especially when he was talking about punishment.

  She writhed and fishtailed in his grip, managing to get one hand free. Reaching up, she clawed at his face, leaving long, ragged furrows across his cheek—not far from the others she had made when he had actually invited him to hit her.

  No, not he—not Harryx—the other. The stranger. Where is he? Why did he leave? Why can’t he help me? I’m going to die here—Harryx will kill me!

  “You little cunt!” her husband roared. Gripping the shrive tighter in his hand, he raised it above his head and Nallah had no doubt where it would land—in her eye or her heart. Or maybe he would just rip her to ribbons with it while she shrieked and screamed and begged.

  “No!” she cried, rolling to one side, trying in vain to get her other hand free of his grip. She kicked out with her legs, hoping to hit him in the groin but Harryx was too fast for her. He moved to the side and her foot merely hit his rock-hard thigh.

  “You’ll pay for that. You’ll pay for all of it,” he snarled.

  Then he was on her, as heavy and bulky as a mattress, pinning her body to the bed, his heat smothering her, his cold blue eyes only inches from hers. He raised the shrive again and this time Nallah knew there would be no reprieve—no getting away. Harryx had decided to kill her and so she would die. The only question was how long it would take…how much agony he could wring from her before she breathed her last. The blood dripping from her ruined cheeks was nothing to what he would do to her now…nothing at all.

  His hand came down and she wanted to look away, wanted to close her eyes to the killing blow but somehow she couldn’t—her gaze was glued to the silver shrive…

  Which was why she saw a strong hand grip her husband’s wrist, keeping him from completing the blow.

  “No you don’t, you son of a bitch,” a low voice growled. A face appeared over Harryx’s shoulder—a dark face with bronze skin and a white scar across the bridge of the nose. Midnight black eyes were narrowed in concentration and anger as he wrestled to get the shrive away from Harryx.

  Harryx was caught by surprise but not for long. Turning, he somehow managed to keep his grip on the knife as he faced the newcomer.

  “Hello, Harryx,” the new man said, scowling. “Good to see you again—from the outside this time.”

  “You,” Harryx breathed, his eyes narrowing to cold, blue slits. “So you came back.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t?” the stranger growled. “I knew exactly what you were up to. Leave Nallah alone and come fight someone your own size you fucking coward!”

  Harryx roared with anger and swiped forward with the shrive, but the stranger was too fast for him. He ducked away, leading Harryx away from the bed, away from Nallah, giving her time to catch her breath in panting sobs.

  Could this dark stranger be the one who had inhabited Harryx? Was he the mystery man she had fallen in love with? Harryx certainly seemed to think so and it was clear the man wasn’t Hascion—he didn’t have the up-tilting eyes of her people and his skin was much darker than any she had ever seen.

  And what will he think of your skin now that Harryx had ruined you—marked you with the shrive? whispered a little voice in her head.

  Without thinking, Nallah pulled out the thick, black veil she’d pocketed earlier and put it on. Her eyes followed the two men as they circled each other warily. Harryx still had the shrive with its long, wicked-looking blades, now dark with her blood in one hand. The stranger seemed to have a blaster in his belt but even as he reached for it, Harryx charged him.

  The stran
ger tried to dodge to one side but his boot got caught by a small hassock which usually sat by Nallah’s favorite reading chair in the corner of the bedroom. With a crash he went down and Harryx was on top of him.

  The two men were almost the same size and Harryx was the only one with a weapon in his hand. Nallah saw the shrive rise and fall, rise and fall. She screamed breathlessly—No—no it must not happen! Harryx couldn’t kill the stranger—he couldn’t!

  Rushing forward, she grabbed the first weapon she could find. It was a heavy, ornamental vase made of filigreed silver and filled with teribiths, long blue flowers which grew in the little wilderness in the back yard. Nallah had placed them there just that morning, hoping to brighten up the room for the husband she thought she loved.

  I don’t love him anymore—I never really loved him! she thought and brought the heavy vase down on the back of Harryx’s head.

  Her husband gasped and the bloody shrive fell from his hand. He looked stunned, Nallah thought. He wouldn’t be able to hurt the stranger anymore. It should have been enough but somehow it wasn’t—it just wasn’t.

  With a cry, she raised the vase and brought it down again. And then again and again. It wasn’t enough—it would never be enough for all Harryx had done to her. She couldn’t stop.

  Beneath Harryx, the stranger was struggling. There was a sound like a shot being fired and a smoking hole appeared in the back of her husband’s shirt. Then the stranger was rolling out from under Harryx and getting to his feet.

  Nallah barely noticed. She gripped the vase in both hands, so hard her knuckles went white, and her vision doubled and trebled as forbidden tears filled her eyes.

  “I hate you!” she sobbed. “You hit me and hurt me and scarred me, Harryx! I hate you!”

  “Hey, sweetheart…hey, Nallah. It’s okay, baby…it’s all right. He’s gone—he’ll never hurt you again.”

  Gentle hands were taking the vase, which was dripping with gore, and someone was telling her to stop now because Harryx was gone…he was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Dead? How can that be? Nallah swiped at her eyes, remembering that she shouldn’t cry in front of a man—especially not her husband. But it didn’t matter anymore because Harryx was dead. Not just in a coma this time but really dead.

  As her vision cleared, she saw it was true. Her husband lay on his back, his cold blue eyes staring lifeless and unseeing at the ceiling. His chest had a smoking hole in it and it no longer rose or fell. His head…well, she was glad she couldn’t see the back of it. The front of it was bad enough—one side of his skull was caved in and there was a slow trickle of sticky red leaking from his nose and one eye socket.

  “I…I killed him.”

  The minute the words were out, Nallah knew they were true. She had committed the unforgivable sin—she had killed her husband. Women who were found guilty of such crimes were punished horribly and publicly—their hands and feet cut off, their eyes poked out with hot irons. And there was more—so much more and so much worse. Death by torture, that was what she had just earned for herself. In killing Harryx she had signed her own death warrant.

  “I killed him,” she said again in a stunned voice. “They’ll kill me too. They’ll torture me to death in the public square where everyone can watch.”

  “Hey, no, sweetheart,” the dark eyed stranger began but Nallah was already in motion.

  She knew where the bottle of death-flower poison was. Every married woman was given a tiny stoppered vial of the stuff on her wedding day. It was to use in case her husband died abroad and she was unable to be with him to die on his funeral pyre.

  The effects were supposedly excruciating but Nallah was certain they would be better than death by torture. She had seen one such execution—a woman who was accused of killing her husband while trying to protect her children from him while he was in a drunken rage. Of course, the reason didn’t matter—nothing mattered except that an inferior woman had killed a man and she must be punished for it.

  If she closed her eyes, Nallah could still see the terrible sight—the blood, so much blood—and hear the hoarse, awful screaming and begging. She couldn’t let that happen to her. Poison was preferable—preferable by far.

  Running to the little medicine chest she kept in the necessary room, Nallah started digging through its contents. Past the bottles of perfume and the few trinkets of jewelry her father had given her, she found the vial of bright green poison.

  Not wanting to lose her nerve, she broke the seal at once and lifted the vial to her lips…

  Only to have her hand caught in a firm grip.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a deep voice asked.

  “Let me go!” Nallah gasped. “I’m doing the only thing I can do—taking the death-flower poison. If they catch me…if they find out what I did to Harryx…”

  “I did it too,” he said firmly, taking the vial from her hand. “In fact, I think it was my blaster that killed him. Though you do swing a mean vase, sweetheart.” He nodded at her. “Thank you for that. He stabbed me in the arm and shoulder a couple of times but if you hadn’t hit him the next blow would probably have been my throat.”

  “He…he marked you too?” Nallah looked up at him and registered for the first time that he was shirtless, his broad chest bloody and one arm hanging limp by his side. He was wearing only a pair of black sleep trousers and his feet were bare. He must have come here in a hurry. Or else maybe his people always dressed this way? She had no idea—she didn’t even know his name. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now that Harryx was dead.

  “Yeah, he got me pretty good,” the stranger said ruefully. “Nothing that can’t be fixed, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nallah said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter if you helped kill him or not—I struck him. And…and I wanted to kill him. I hated him.”

  “I don’t blame you one Goddess-damned bit,” the stranger growled. “Not after the way he treated you. A male like that isn’t fit to live.”

  “But…but if I’m found out…they’ll catch me. And then…” Nallah shook her head and reached for the vial of bright green liquid which he was holding just out of reach with his good hand. “Please give me that back. I’d rather a death from poison than public torture.”

  “Nobody’s going to torture you and you’re sure as hell not taking poison.” He sounded almost angry at the idea.

  While Nallah watched in horror, he poured the green liquid down the sink and slapped the empty vial on the counter before looking up at her again.

  “You’re not spending one more minute on this Goddess-forsaken hell-hole of a planet, baby,” he said decisively. “You’re coming with me.”

  “With you?” Nallah couldn’t help herself, she shrank back from him. He was big—even bigger than Harryx had been. And he looked so foreign—so alien with his bronze skin and his dark hair and eyes… “I…I don’t even know you,” she whispered. “I don’t even know your name.”

  He took a step towards her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes with his good hand.

  “You know me, baby,” he murmured in a soft, low voice that was oddly familiar even though she was hearing it through a different set of vocal chords. “Look into my eyes. You might not know my name, but you know me.”

  “I…” Nallah shook her head, unable to continue. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. For a long moment she found herself falling into his midnight gaze. The eyes…they were the same eyes she’d seen so often, she realized, whenever Harryx was being kind or understanding to her.

  No, not Harryx—the stranger. It was this man inside Harryx all along. But how?

  “Reeve, I know you said you want to do this yourself but you’re taking too damn long. The stealth shield won’t hold forever.” The voice belonged to another strange man—this one with bright golden eyes and wild black hair—who had suddenly appeared in the doorway of Nallah’s bedroom. He looked around, surveying Harryx’s
still, bloody form and let out a long, low whistle. “Holy shit, Brother—looks like you got the job done after all. My apologies.”

  “Apology accepted,” the stranger, who was apparently called Reeve said. “Could you please step out now? This is the first time I’ve met Nallah in my own body and we’re trying to have a moment.”

  The other man held up his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.

  “All right. Just make it quick.” He backed out of the doorway and left the two of them staring at each other again.

  “Well, I guess you know from that my name is Reeve.” The stranger sighed and ran his good hand through his hair. “And I’m sorry I don’t have more time to explain right now but Baird is right—the stealth shield that’s keeping our ship from being visible to everyone in your neighborhood won’t last long planet—side. So…” He held out a hand to her hopefully. “Will you come with me?”

  Nallah looked at his hand doubtfully. Should she go with him—this stranger she had only known in another man’s body? Should she trust him?

  Then again, what choice did she have? He had poured her poison down the sink. And what could he do that was worse to her than death by torture? Which was certainly what she could expect if she stayed here.

  “All right,” she said hesitantly, giving him her hand, which was immediately swallowed up in his own, much larger one. “I…I’ll come with you. But where are we going?”

  Reeve grinned, his teeth a bright slice of white in his bronze face.

  “Away from here,” he said. “Somewhere you never have to be afraid again, baby.”

  But though she allowed him to lead her away from her domicile—away from the only life she had ever known, Nallah was still afraid—very afraid indeed.