A Sinless Betrayal by Cherie Benjamin (books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

vengeful and pissed. "Wulakanci ne karuwa!" he cries. "How dare you speak to a royal in such a manner!"

He's so close to hitting me when Abigor yanks him away and backhands his older brother across the face. "Fuck, get a hold of yourself! I tol' you to stay in the goddamn bed and stay away from 'de whores!"

Iron Coyote scowls at me and spits in my direction. "Put a leash on your kariya, brother…or I will. And she won't like it."

Abigor scowls right back at his brother. "You won't touch what's mine. Ever."

And they're out of the room. Cassandra bounds over to me and grabs me by the collar of my necklace. "Foolish!" she gasps. Then she smiles, laughing breathlessly. "You should have gotten your ass beaten."

"Could have," Evalyn interjects. "But didn't. I think our king here is a bit taken with you, miss Elizabella."

I can feel the heat rushing to my cheeks again. There's no doubt in my mind that I believe what Evalyn says. I mean for the gods' sakes, I had braided his hair. That was a worshipped practice!

We all turn our attention back to Arlena. Evalyn is like the harem doctor, always making up little potions and serums to heal the beaten and bloodied girls that crawl like scared puppies back into our little harem haven.

She brings over the same purplish potion that she had used on my neck bruises and a bowl of greenish liquid. She sits before Arlena, dabbing her fingers into the thick violet cream and spreads it in patches over her blackened bruises.

Arlena winces as Evalyn moves on to the green liquid. She cleans the violet cream off of her fingers with an old rag and dips them into the greenish liquid. The redhead seems to clench her teeth and tense her muscles when Evalyn touches her bloodied lip with the liquid.

She cries out in pain, but Evalyn hushes her. "Calm yourself, Cece. It'll be over in just a few seconds."

And she is right. Evalyn removes her fingers and Arlena's lip is rapidly healing before our eyes. "How do you do that?" I find myself asking. Never had I seen a remedy like that practised back in my little village, not even on our yearly visits to the kingdom.

Evalyn grins. "It's the waraka leaf, Elizabella. That literally translates into 'the healing leaf.' It only grows in the barbarian territories, so that's probably why this seems so new to you. I've been studying the plant life around here for quite some time. It's interesting. Word has it that Dances With Wolves is thinking about maybe naming me the castle healer. Exciting, isn't it?"

I blink and chew on my lip. "What did you do for a living before you were…um, before you…"

"Before I became a whore?" she asks. I cringe at her word choice because that's not how I would have put it at all. She shrugs her shoulders. "In my village, I was a healer and a part-time midwife. I worked with my grandmother and my sister Annabel. We collected herbs from the forests and made healing potions…"

My eyes widen. "Oh. That's quite interesting."

Soon, Arlena is all better and chatting happily with the rest of the harem.

0o0o0o0o

"Don't do 'dat," he scolds me as my fingers scratch at my skin. It's an annoying habit of mine that comes about when I'm nervous, angry or upset. I look down at my arm and I'm slightly surprised to see that I had drawn a little bit of blood.

I feel the sting almost as soon as I pull my fingernail away. The warm, bright red blood trickles down my arm in a little stream. "I'm sorry," I say mindlessly. "It's a habit of mine."

He inhales on the little wooden pipe and then lets the smoke float out from his lips. "Break it 'den," he tells me firmly. He tosses me a wet rag that lay in a bowl on the counter and I wipe away the blood subtly.

It's around eleven o'clock in the morning and he had called me in here for company about fifteen minutes ago. He smokes his pipe and drinks his wine as he lounges on the stone floor, back pressed up against the wall.

I sit near him. He tells me that I amuse him more than the other whores and that he liked having me all to himself even though he didn't get to fuck me. It was kind of a compliment, and I liked being complimented.

Abigor gazes at me from under heavy-lidded eyes and smirks. "I like you," he remarks. "You try to kill me."

I heave out a surprised huff of laughter and furrow my brows. "I don't see how that makes any sense at all. I tried to kill you. You should really hate me, you know."

He purses his lips and shakes his head. "I can't hate you, Tiger Claw. You're 'de strongest woman I ever met." He draws smoke from his pipe and lets it curl of out of his lips like a smoke-dragon.

I blush bright red. "If that's a compliment, then…then thank you. You're not a pompous arrogant prick like your other men are. You're so much different."

He chuckles softly as he sets down his pipe to fetch his goblet of wine. "I know," he simply says. "And gods, I can't wait to fuck you. I've never done a budurwa."

I frown at him and show my teeth at him. "You know what? I actually take back what I said about you."

"Relax!" he laughs. "I was just jokin' wit' you."

I can feel myself relax as I let out a little breathy noise that passes for laughter. I slump against the wall too. "Cruel, King Abigor. Quite cruel…" I grab the pipe and inhale the smoke, trying to see if I could curl smoke out of my lips just like he did.

But instead, I do the opposite. I choke on the smoke, nearly killing myself and giving Abigor a heart attack. "You inhaled," he laughs. "Stupid."

I laugh in shock, my eyes widening. "You are positively cruel." I give him back the pipe, still coughing. He offers his wine, but I turn it down. I was never big on wine. I fan myself with my hand. The heat of the outdoors flowing through the open window makes my hair frizz up and my skin feel sticky. "It's scorching hot in here!"

"Got a lot warmer in here when you walked in," he says in his deep, smooth voice. I gasp softly as my head snaps towards his. At first, I assume he's joking, but the look on his face says otherwise. He smiles sweeter and slower than molasses.

This man must have had years and years of education in the art of seducing whores. But I'm not a whore, I'm a civilized woman educated in the arts of courtship and kindness, which the barbarian people obviously lack. "That was a good one," I tell him, nodding my head.

He looks out past me, staring the marks on the door. "There's gon' be a festival tonight. I want you to come an' stand by me."

I blink, watching him intently with interested eyes as he draws smoke from his pipe again. "You…you want me to come to the festival tonight…and stand by you?"

He nods his head. "S' a shagali festival. Big fire, dancin', loud music, and rituals. We have one every damina, or as your kind call it, summer."

I tap my blunt fingernails on the stone floor. "So you want me to come to your shaggly?"

He laughs. "Sha-ga-li," he breaks it down for me.

"Shagali," I repeat. "Festival." He nods and smiles.

"I should teach you Hausa," he says.

I furrow my eyebrows at him. "Hausa?" I ask. "What's that?"

He lets smoke curl out from his lips, smiling slowly. His eyes glow with youth and mischief. "That's actually what we originally go by. But you palefaces jus' keep callin' us barbarians so much that it kinda stuck wit' us."

My face reddens and I choke back laughter. "Oh, I didn't know. So you go by Hausa?" I ask him.

He shrugs his massive shoulders, setting the pipe down and drinking from his goblet. "I do, but 'de men took on 'de likin' of barbarian."

I sigh. "I never knew." He licks the excess wine droplets off of his full russet lips and makes a noise so deep in his chest that makes my heart flutter, sending a burst of heat down to my lady parts. I try to shake it off by taking my mind somewhere else. "So you're going to teach me your language?"

He nods. "If you want."

I nod right back at him. "I want."

He holds up his goblet and shows me the contents. "Giya. Wine. Now you repeat it back to me."

"Giya," I say, testing it out on my tongue.

He nods his head, his braid falling forward over his broad and toned shoulder. "Good. Now…" Abigor points to his eyes. "Idanu. Eyes."

"Idanu. Eyes."

It goes on like that for a little bit longer. Hair is gashi, chair is kujera, hands are hannayen, smoke is shan taba, legs are kafafu and arms are makamai. He makes a deal with me at that moment. He promises to tell me a new word each day when we wake and teach me some of the words as long as I promise not to get on his nerves as much anymore and to never run away again.

I agree to his terms.

He smirks as he stands from his position on the floor. I gape like a Venus flytrap trying to catch bugs on a hot summer afternoon as he unties his breechcloth, baring his muscled and firm backside to my unyielding eyes.

I wonder what he's doing. Will he take me? He does not, I find out, when he strolls to one of the doors in his room, opening it and revealing a large, dark bathroom, illuminated by scented candles and beautiful decorations.

He turns his torso around so he can look at me. I do not see his genitals. "I'm going to get clean before 'de shagali. You're very welcome to join me, Eliz'bella."

I feel my face heat up like a pot of water over a raging cooking fire. I look away from his beautiful being to the cold, hard ground. He shrugs and sighs. "If you change your mind, I'll leave 'de door unlocked for you. Feel free to surprise me."

I gasp and look up. I can faintly see his satisfied smile and his wink, but he's already mostly disappeared into the bathroom, his braid flicking behind him like a horse's tail. That man.

It's sinful the way this man's seducing me. He's making me want him for all of the wrong reasons I should want a man for. And to be truthful, I've never wanted a man as much as I want Abigor at this moment. Shagali

He comes out of the bathroom fully naked and still dripping wet, soapy water trickling through his defined abdominal muscles like they were deep trenches.

I'm lounging on his bed, my skirt hiked up my leg completely, baring my milky white skin to his hungry eyes. I was looking at a book with interesting pictures that told me a little bit about the barbarian/Hausa history.

His eyes are like an animal in mating season, a male seeing his female perfectly