The Spine of the World - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,51

back on her. "What man could not?"

A great smile erupted on the young woman's face, but it didn't hold, not at all. Why was Jaka acting so peculiar, so love-struck all of a sudden? she wondered. Why hadn't he behaved this way before?

"Did he have you?" Jaka asked, coming very close. "Did you let him?"

The questions hit Meralda like a wet towel across the face. "How can you be asking me such a thing?" she protested.

Jaka fell to his knees before her, taking both her hands and pressing them against his cheek. "Because I shall die to think of you with him," he explained.

Meralda felt weak in her knees and sick to her stomach. She was too young and too inexperienced, she realized, and could not fathom any of this, not the marriage, not Lord Feringal's polite and almost animalistic polarities, and not Jaka's sudden conversion to lovesick suitor.

"I . . ." she started. "We did nothing. Oh, he stole a kiss, but I didn't kiss him back."

Jaka looked at her, and the smile upon his face was somehow unnerving to Meralda. He came closer then, moving his lips to brush against hers and lighting fires everywhere in her body, it seemed. She felt his hands roaming her body, and she did not fear them-at least not in the same manner in which she had feared her noble suitor. No, this time it was an exciting thing, but still she pushed the man back from her.

"Do you deny the love that we feel for each other?" a wounded Jaka asked.

"But it's not about how we're feeling," Meralda tried to explain.

"Of course it is," the young man said quietly, and he came forward again. "That is all that matters."

He kissed her gently again, and Meralda found that she believed him. The only thing in all the world that mattered at that moment was how she and Jaka felt for each other. She returned the kiss, falling deeper and deeper, tumbling away to an abyss of joy.

Then he was gone from her, too abruptly. Meralda popped open her eyes to see Jaka tumbling to the ground, a raging Dohni Ganderlay standing before her.

"Are you a fool then?" the man asked, and he lifted his arm as if to strike Meralda. A look of pain crossed his rugged face then, and he quickly put his arm down, but up it came again, grabbing Meralda roughly by the shoulder and spinning her toward the house. Dohni shoved her along, then turned on Jaka, who put his hands up defensively in front of his face and darted about, trying to escape.

"Don't hit him, Da!" the young woman cried, and that plea alone stopped Dohni.

"Stay far from my girl," Dohni warned Jaka.

"I love-" Jaka started to reply.

"They'll find yer body washing on the beach," Dohni said.

When Meralda cried out again, the imposing man turned on her viciously. "Home!" he commanded. Meralda ran off at full speed, not even bothering to retrieve the shoe she had dropped when Dohni had shoved her.

Dohni turned on Jaka, his eyes, red from anger and nights of restless sleep, as menacing as any sight the young man had ever witnessed. Jaka turned on his heel and ran away. He started to, anyway, for before he had gone three steps Dohni hit him with a flying tackle across the back of his knees, dropping him face down on the ground.

"Meralda begged you not to hit me!" the terrified young man pleaded.

Dohni climbed atop him, roughly pulling the young man over. "Meralda's not knowing what's best for Meralda," Dohni answered with a growl and a punch that jerked Jaka's head to the side.

The young man began to cry and to flail his arms wildly, trying to fend off Dohni. The blows got through, though, one after another, swelling Jaka's pretty eyes and fattening both his lips, knocking one tooth out of his perfect smile and bringing blue bruises to his normally rosy cheeks. Jaka finally had the sense to bring his arms down across his battered face, but Dohni, his rage not yet played out, only aimed his blows lower, pounding, pounding Jaka about the chest. Every time Jaka dropped one arm down lower to block there, Dohni cunningly slipped a punch in about his face again.

Finally, Dohni leaped off the man, grabbed him by the front of the shirt, and hoisted him to his feet with a sudden, vicious jerk. Jaka held his palms out in front of him in a sign