Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [153]
That changed in the meadow.
I was asleep in my tent, swaddled in woolen blankets with the heavy sheepskin atop them. I was awakened by an additional weight pressing on me, a hand clamped hard over my mouth, and a sharp edge against my throat.
A jolt of terror ran through me as I lurched from deep sleep to full wakefulness. Dim lantern light and the musky scent of perfume filled the tent. Manil Datar’s face hovered inches above mine.
“Moirin,” he whispered. “It is time.” I struggled ineffectually, but he had me pinned beneath my blankets. He leaned harder on the knife against my throat. “Be still. I will not hurt you if you are good. Do you understand?”
I blinked in agreement, too terrified to move.
“Good.” The knife’s pressure eased a fraction. Datar smiled at me as pleasantly as though we were discussing the day’s journey. “I wanted to wait until you understood. Some things are worth waiting for. I have heard stories of the bed-arts of D’Angeline women. I want you to show them to me. Do you understand?”
I blinked again.
Manil Datar nodded in approval. “If you are good, you will be mine, and mine only. If you are bad…” He withdrew the knife from my throat, tracing a line along my cheek with the sharp tip. “I will cut your face worse than Sanjiv’s, and give you to the men to share. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered, my heart thudding in my chest like a trapped thing.
His unsmiling eyes bored into mine. “You will be good?”
“Yes.”
He shifted his weight off me, tugged away the sheepskin, untangled the woolen blankets, pulling me to my knees. With one hand, he opened his long coat and unlaced his thick, lined breeches. Taking my hand, he guided it to his erect phallus. With another smile that did not reach his eyes, he gestured with the dagger and uttered one of the first words he had taught me. “Mouth.”
I felt sick.
The point of the dagger prodded a spot beneath my ear. “Mouth, Moirin!”
“Slow,” I murmured, stroking the length of his shaft, feeling it throb in my hand. “Slow is best, yes?”
Datar’s breath quickened, his lids growing heavy. “All right, yes. Slow.”
Sick and horrified, I stroked him, watching his face beneath my lashes. When I cupped his heavy ballocks and began to lower my head, his eyes fluttered shut for an instant.
It was all I needed—a second without his gaze on me. Quicker than thought, faster than I’d ever done in my life, I summoned the twilight and spun it around me, taking a half-step into the spirit world.
Manil Datar uttered an involuntary cry, dropping the dagger.
Exactly what he was feeling, I couldn’t say, only that it was unpleasant and unnerving. Bao had said it was like being touched by a ghost. Fury ran hot in my veins, and I tightened my grip on Datar’s ballocks with grim satisfaction, feeling them shrivel and attempt to retreat into his body, his erection flagging. With my other hand, I picked up the dagger he had dropped, setting the point beneath his chin.
Datar stared frantically into the empty air before him, his eyes wide and terrified.
“You will not do this to me, Manil Datar,” I said to him in a hard voice, willing him to hear. “Not tonight, not ever. Do you understand?”
He blinked in assent.
“Good.” I shoved the knife a little. I didn’t know if it would cut him while I was in the twilight and he wasn’t, but whatever he felt, it made him raise his chin higher. I gave his shrinking ballocks a hard squeeze. “Never touch me again, or these…” I didn’t know the word, so I squeezed them again. “No more. I make a curse. You will not be a man. Do you understand?”
His throat worked as he tried to swallow. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”
“Good.” I lowered the dagger and released my death-grip on his ballocks. Manil Datar drew a ragged breath. “Now go, and do not trouble me again.”
He couldn’t scramble out of my tent fast enough, clutching his coat closed with one hand, holding up his unlaced breeches with the other.
Once Datar had gone, I began shaking, and couldn’t stop. I clung to my grip on the twilight and