an end to the beating. Rough hands grabbedNavarre under the arms and dragged him out of the room, along a dark corridor, down seemingly endless flights of stairs, and into a small room that held a large wooden tub and nothing more. They did not leave him to bathe alone. After removing the shackles from his hands and feet, the guards stood at the door, keeping watch.
Gritting his teeth,Navarre disrobed and stepped into the tub. Ignoring the guards, he closed his eyes, sighing as the hot water soothed his aching flesh.
When he emerged from his bath, one of the guards offered him a coarse cloth with which to dry himself, then handed him a long black robe. When he was dressed, food was provided.
Navarreate slowly, aware of the two men who stood at the door watching his every move.
When he finished eating, they led him down another long narrow corridor to a small, iron-barred cell which contained a narrow bed covered by a thick blue quilt. There was a square table, a single chair, a small shelf filled with scrolls. A covered chamber pot stood in one corner.
The door closed behind him with a loud clang. Crossing the floor,Navarre sank down on the bed, his eyes closed against the pain that thrummed through him with every breath he took.
When he opened them again, he stared at his surroundings. He was really in a cage this time, a cage made of iron bars. A second cage stood some six feet away. And in it, looking back at him, he saw a young female.
Part Two Chapter Three
Navarrestared at the girl for a long while, unable to think or speak. Except for his mother, he had never seen a woman. Zoe had been tall and regal, with blond hair and dark blue eyes; this girl was small and delicate, with a mass of curly black hair and deep green eyes fringed with long black lashes. Her skin was fair, like those of the gray-robed priests. She wore a long, loose-fitting blue robe. Her feet were bare.
He thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
He wondered who she was, and why she was imprisoned, and even as the thought crossed his mind, he remembered that his father and mother had been imprisoned in adjacent cages, permitted to see each other, to speak to each other, but never to touch until the time of mating.
He stared at her, his body tensing.
Was this ebony-haired woman to be his mate?
It took him a moment to find his voice. "Who are you?"
"Katlaina."
Her name was as sweetly feminine and lovely as she was. "Why are you here?"
She tipped her head to the side. "Don't you know?"
Navarreswallowed hard. "Are you... are we... ?"
The girl nodded, her cheeks flooding with heat. "I am to be your mate."
In the days that followed,Navarre grew to love the woman with the ebony-colored hair. She told him of her home far to the north, high in the mountains where she had been born; how she had entered a sacred order and taken vows of poverty and chastity; and how, a short time later, she had been abducted and brought to this place. She had been told that she was to be mated to the male destined to be sacrificed to the goddess Shaylyn.
"And if I do as I am told," Katlaina said, "they promised to send me back home when I am no longer needed here."
"And my child will be the next sacrifice."
"Yes."
"There will be no child," he said adamantly, yet even as he spoke the words, he knew that, should he refuse to mate with Katlaina, the priests of the goddess Shaylyn would drug his food or his water, as they had done to his father.
Which would be better, he mused night after night, to rut with the woman like a mindless beast in heat, or take what pleasure he could find in her sweet flesh? Drugged, he would pay no heed to her wants or needs, nor would he have any memory of the act itself. And since this was the only opportunity he would ever have to enjoy the company of a woman, he thought perhaps he would like to savor it, to remember it.
As the days passed, and his feelings for Katlaina grew, he knew he would take her gladly to his bed. He would be gentle with her, patient, as, together, they learned to pleasure one another.
Through Katlaina, he learned of the other villages on the island, of