And after that, I take it from the fact that you haven't raped her into psychic slavery that you can't do that part. Must have made things hard for you, huh, Raith. Did you get the double entendre there, man? Made things hard?"
"Insolent," Raith said at last. "Utterly insolent. You are like her."
I let out a breath. It had been only a strong theory until his reaction had confirmed it. "Yeah. Thought so. You've been nothing but talk since my mom got finished with you. Living for years, talking a good game and hoping that no one noticed what you weren't doing. Hoping no one figured out that one of your broodmares gelded you. Bet that was terrifying. Living like that."
"Perhaps," he said in a low murmur.
"They're going to figure it out," I said quietly. "This is a pointless exercise. It will cost you to kill us, and you aren't getting any more. Ever. You'd be smarter to cut your losses and start running."
Raith's cold face again lifted into a smile. "No, boy. You aren't the only one who worked out what your mother did to me. And how. So instead, you and your brother are going to die tonight. Your deaths will end your mother's paltry little binding, along with her bloodline, of course." His eyes flashed to Murphy and he said with a slow smile, "And then perhaps something to eat. I am, after all, very hungry.
"You son of a bitch," I snarled.
Raith smiled at me again. Then told the Barbie, "Bring him."
And with that, Murphy still pinned on his knife—don't miss the symbolism there, Doc Freud—he led us through thirty yards of trees and down a rough slope into cold and darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lord Raith led us into the cave he called the Deeps, and the Bodyguard Barbie kept her gun on me while simultaneously remaining well out of easy reach. She wasn't any Trixie Vixen anyway. If I jumped her, she'd shoot me, and that would be that. Not that I could have done much jumping, what with the leg irons and all. I had trouble just shuffling along while ducking my head low enough to keep from bumping into rocky protrusions from the cave's roof.
"Murph?" I said. "How are you doing?"
"I'm feeling a little repressed," she responded. There was tight pain in her voice. "I'm fulfilling this hostage stereotype, and it's pissing me off."
"That's good," Raith said. He still had her by the neck, with the knife he held actually pressed a tiny bit into the wound he'd already given. "Defiance adds a great deal of enjoyment to feeding, Ms. Murphy." He put a contemptuous emphasis on the honorific. "It is, after all, a great deal more pleasurable to conquer than to rule. And defiant women can be conquered again and again before they break."
I ignored Raith. "How's your side?"
Murphy shot a glare over her shoulder at her captor. "A little prick like this? It's nothing."
In answer, Raith threw Murphy against the wall. She caught herself and turned, her hand blurring in a short, vicious strike.
Raith wasn't human. He caught her hand without so much as looking at it. He drove her hand and wrist back against the wall, and brought the bloodied tip of his knife sharply up under her chin. Her lip twisted into a defiant snarl and her knee lashed up as she kicked. Raith blocked it with a sweep of his thigh and pressed in close to her, all sinuous, serpentine speed and strength, until he was pressed to her front, his face to hers, raven-black hair mingling with her dark gold.
"Warrior women are all the same," Raith said, his eyes on Murphy's. His voice was low, slow, lilting. "You all know your way around struggling with other bodies. But you know little about the needs of your own."
Murphy stared at him, shoulders twitching, and her lips slowly parted.
"It's bound into you," Raith whispered. "Deeper than muscle and bone. The need. The only way to escape the blackness of death. You cannot deny it. Cannot escape it. In joy, in despair, in darkness, in pain, mortalkind still feels desire." His hand slid down from her wrist, his fingertips lightly brushing the thick veins. A soft sound escaped from Murphy's throat.
Raith smiled. "There. You already feel yourself weakening. I've taken thousands like you, lovely child. Taken them and broken them. There was nothing they could do. There is nothing you can do. You were made to feel desire. I was made to use