Feet anchored in the dirt, his bare chest glistening with sweat, Bonn swung his arm at the hot air. His fist glanced the chin of his opponent, who countered with a kick that landed in the center of Bonn’s chest.

  His breath gusted from his lungs as he landed on the dirt. He lay there for a moment, sweating into the ground. In his clouded vision, he could make out the seats of what had once been a grand amphitheater, now half-buried in sand, stretching into the cloudless sky. The blow he'd received wasn't so bad, he'd certainly suffered worse, but still, he couldn't move.

  I’m weak because I’ve betrayed my lady.

  Bonn had killed too many men in his time to wrestle with his conscience. But this betrayal of his marriage vows ate at him. It was possible Starlex was dead along with their child. But still, he had taken another woman into his arms. But not his heart. Never his heart.

  A splash of water in his face broke his guilty reverie.

  “You’ll never be my champion that way, Bonn Skaard!”

  He gratefully swallowed some of the water and shook his hair like a dog. Esmeralda stood over him, blocking the sun's punishing rays.

  “Rest for a moment,” she informed Bonn’s sparring partner. The sweating, panting man with ebony skin thanked her and hobbled off to the nearest slice of shade.

  Esmeralda overturned the bucket she held and made a stool out of it. Propping her elbows on her knees, she stared at Bonn the way a dog stares at its owner during a meal. Bonn understood the familiar look. She was waiting for a scrap of his affection, but he had none left to give her, and the more she stared at him with those refracting eyes, the weaker he felt.

  “Your mind is not on your fighting,” she said.

  She speaks the truth, acknowledged Bonn. He had been staying at the ruins under the princess's watchful gaze for half a moon now, training daily for an upcoming tournament with the king’s champion.

  “And what riches will you receive if I win?” Bonn had asked her when she first approached him with her plan.

  “I have all the riches I could want,” she had replied. “My only wish now is to humiliate my brother.” She added with a musical laugh, high and clear like the ringing of a tiny silver bell. The sound would have been charming and childish if it hadn’t been accompanied by her cut-gem eyes. Those green prisms told a different story, one of not only wanting her enemy humiliated but utterly destroyed. Bonn couldn’t help but wonder how they would turn on him if she knew the truth about his feelings for his lady wife, and his lack of feelings for her.

  “You hate your brother so much?” asked Bonn, cooling in her shadow, and buying a bit of time before she wore him out with another fight.

  Her pointed chin bounced up and down and her smooth brow knitted in a tiny crease.

  “But, dear lady,” Bonn said, trying his best to affect some suavity. “You have everything you could possibly want.”

  Her eyes flashed like the green swirls of the sky over Kadaar. What he would give to feel the cold again. As a boy he would roll around naked in the snow after a bath; a smile tugged at his lips at the memory.

  “And what do I have, Bonn Skaard?” she asked, pouting prettily.

  He fingered the hem of her gown, fluted sheer silk the color of sea froth. “You have wealth, youth, beauty—“

  “You?” she said pointedly. The curve of her pink lips told him he must lie or face certain execution.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Bonn could kill easily with the swipe of his ax or longsword, but here was an opponent he had no weapons against. The smooth lie he had prepared died on his lips.

  This girl, he thought, sinking back into the dirt, has robbed me of my manhood.

  “Why do you not answer me?” she said. Her sandaled foot gave his sore chin a sharp kick.

  “Ouch!” he muttered. His tongue was dry as the surrounding sand.

  She was relentless. "So you can speak?"

  “I can’t think clearly in this hot sun, my lady,” he said at last.

  “Come then,” she quickly stood and extended her hand.

  He took it and slowly clambered to his feet, dizzily listing to one side. Hours of training under the hot sun had worn him out as much as volleying with Esmeralda had. Somehow he knew the latter skirmish was not over.

  I might just die on that flowery battlefield, Bonn thought, as the princess led him to the combination armory and stable.

  “You may go home,” she said cooly to the man she had hired to train with Bonn. Macon was a worthy opponent in the ring. Bonn gazed enviously as Macon hopped on the back of his white mare and galloped bareback across the sands before the princess could change her mind.

  “Now we are alone,” she whispered, her cool fingers tracing the raised scars on Bonn’s chest.

  He knew what was coming. “But I’m dirty, my lady.”

  “I like dirt,” she said, licking her lips like the yellow snake hissing from its basket. The two remaining horses heard the sound and danced nervously in their stalls.

  “Quiet, my sweet,” she said, pulling the snake from its basket. It braceleted around her upper arm. Both pet and owner gazed at Bonn with the same expectant look, irises black and elongated. Immoveable.

  Bonn swallowed hard.

  Taking his hand, she led him to the wooden ladder leading to the sleeping loft where Bonn stayed. In a most unladylike gesture, she mounted the ladder first, her hips swaying luxuriously from side to side as she climbed.

  There was no getting out of it. He followed languorously behind her and found her already lying on his low straw-stuffed mattress. Her gown was pulled up. Her legs, long sinuous curves, made an inviting runway to her awaiting glistening sex. Her white breasts heaved with anticipation.

  Suddenly he heard Leiffen’s voice in his head, “You can do it, mate.”

  Bonn suppressed a smile, but Esmeralda’s sharp eyes missed nothing. “Do you laugh at me?”

  The snake perked up, ready to strike.

  “No, my lady,” Bonn said, stripping away his damp linen britches. His manhood sprung to action.

  At least the damn thing still works.

  He could hear Leiffen’s giggle echoing from a world beyond.

  Esmeralda licked her lips and stretched out her slim white arms. “Come to me,” she whispered.

  * * *

  As the naked princess dozed heavily in his arms, her limbs wrapped around him as tight as the snake constricting its prey before swallowing it alive, Bonn gazed helplessly out the large window. The sun hung behind Mudárah, domed and white in the far distance. A gentle breeze floated in. Bonn’s made all the sounds of any reluctant lover, sighs and clearing of his throat, as a signal that it was time for her to go.

  “My sweet lady,” he said, at last, his tone of voice less like a lothario’s and more like a merchant, counting change. “As much as I would like to have you stay with me all night, you must ride back. Your palace will raise the alarm if you are not home by sundown.”

  Esmeralda cooed like a dove but did not move. “But I want to stay with you forever, Bonn Skaard.”

  He grunted, not knowing how else to respond.

  At last, the yellow snake hissed, saving the day, for the princess finally pulled herself up from their embrace. Her skin stuck to his like paste and made a smacking sound when they parted.

  She stood, her body making a curvy silhouette against the window. He watched her slowly dress. He moved too, stepping into his limp britches to accompany her to her horse, although his limbs were so fatigued he needed to palm the rough-hewn walls to keep from toppling over.

  At last, she was seated atop her horse with its high-cantled bronze studded saddle and he was leading her white stallion, Flame, into the open air. The yellow snake was safe within its little basket secured to the back to the saddle.

  “I’ll ride out first thing tomorrow morning,” she said brightly. “We’ll continue your training.”

  I bet we will, he thought with a thud of exhaustion.

  She leaned down to force one final kiss on Bonn. Her tongue snaked in between his teeth.

  “Goodnight, dear lady,” he said, giving the stallion’s rump a hard slap.

  He watched her ride swiftly over the shifting sands, her aqua silk veil trailing like a kite behind her. He waved until his arm felt like lead, then slowly lumbered back into the stable. He stared at the horse his Esmeralda had given him and thought of taking off into the desert. If he rode in the other direction all night he might be able to put enough distance between this green-eyed creature and…

  His hopeful thought evaporated like a drop of water when he realized he hadn’t the energy to saddle a horse. He sank into the straw and slept like a common beast until the sound of thudding hooves across the sand awakened him at the crack of dawn.

  "She's returned," he mumbled with a desperate groan.