months,” he said more to himself than anyone listening.
Willow watched him, hating herself for thinking about how much more pleasing to the eyes he was than Oscar of Lionese.
He moved with the ease and grace of a predatory cat in his leather pants and belted léine. His voice was as smooth and as silky as one of her finest gowns, yet deep as the oceans near her family home in Beldar. There was something wild and carefully contained about him. Something feral and primitive in the way he moved, in the way he lowered his head a fraction and lifted his eyes to her.
“What kind of god wants the Warriors as his followers?” she asked.
“God will accept anyone who believes in Him, Miss.”
She gave a little gasp. “You will use my title when you address me.”
He gave her a doubtful smile.
Her father had said the Warriors were a band of merciless rebels who called themselves followers of Christ, or Christians. Looking at the brooding man before her, Willow couldn’t help but notice that he seemed more a creature of the forest than a man of war. Indeed, she could almost smell the earth on him. And though he could not mask his hatred for all she stood for, there was a quiet serenity in the depths of his eyes that drew Willow into a false sense of peacefulness.
“You live in luxury while the people around you go hungry and die of thirst,” he said, moving toward her slowly. “Doesn’t it bother you?” Before she could answer, he continued, “Do you ever wonder how your father came to be king of Predaria?”
He offered her a crooked smile that more than told her exactly what he thought of her and shook his head. He would give her no answers.
“Jonas,” he turned to his friend. “Get the men ready to leave. I want to go before dawn, when it’s a bit cooler. We’ll trade everything in Theshwar and perhaps ride to Beldar for the king or we will go home. I haven’t decided about him yet…or about her.”
Willow stared at him in disbelief and fear—and a small thrill of excitement coursing down her spine. Theshwar? The trading city? She had never seen it. But then what? She couldn’t go home with him. Would her father come for her?
She couldn’t let her guard down. If these men thought for an instant that there wouldn’t be any consequences to their actions, they were sadly mistaken.
“In case you don’t know it,” she said as Caleb turned to leave, “you’re a common thief and abductor as well as a barbarian.”
Once again, she received no answer from him, no reaction at all, and she nearly burst at the seams as he kept walking.
Later, with leather bags bulging, Caleb’s men left Silvergard with its princess, much to her mortification and dread, hauled over Jonas’ shoulder. They didn’t know what to do with her yet. She was terrified. She wanted to scream, scream as loud as she could for help, but there was no one left who would answer.
Chapter 4
Caleb’s troupe made camp twenty miles into the wilderness, among plains scattered with dried brush burned to a brownish yellow. The blazing sun hadn’t yet peeked up over the horizon and already the heat could be felt like a heavy woolen blanket, suffocating and deadly to any who ventured out without proper protection. Predaria was south on a map, just above the Desert Countries. It had always been hot, but there were no more trees for shade, no water except what you carried, very little meat, and no fruit.
And if the sun didn’t kill you on the plains, there were many other things that would.
Caleb looked at the king’s daughter and prayed that none of the terrible images in his head befell her. He should untie her wrists. Was she that foolish to try to run away?
The men set up tents for shade, and made a makeshift tent for her, hanging their scarlet bandanas between two tents. They did everything they could to make her comfortable, shielding her from the sun with all but their bodies.
Caleb worried that he was going to have to protect her from his own men.
For now, he stationed Marcus and Jarod from among his guard to watch her and not let her escape. “And call me if any man here tries to go to her.”
“Do you mean to sleep now?” she called to Caleb as