Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

by his hips. Brother’s balls, she was good! He still felt agonizingly exposed, passive in a way totally foreign to his take-charge, soldier’s nature. But he might survive unscathed yet—and with some degree of credit, if he could keep his nerve. A couple of deep breaths and he reached the still, calm center that was his battle-self.

Was that the undercurve of her breasts he could see, revealed beneath thin sunset-colored fabric as the corset fell farther op—

Thunk!

A hideous pause while he processed the evil, chilly feel of the knife at his right knee. No pain, but he knew—full well—what the body did with a clean slice. First the icy burn and the disbelief, then the flare of nerves shrieking. But he dared not look down, not yet.

Thunk!

The same sensation at the left knee.

A woman’s scream echoed, then choked off into silence as if she’d clapped her hands over her mouth.

The dancer shot him a triumphant grin, her eyes flashing, and Rhio let out the breath he’d been holding. All right. He needn’t embarrass himself with a downward glance.

The corset was open almost the whole way down the front, offering tantalizing glimpses of drapery and firm, honey-toned flesh. What in the gods’ names did she have on under there? He’d bet his pension they were veils. Yes, a broad band of supple, silvery links lay against her collarbone, lengths of diaphanous fabric suspended from it.

“Do not move a muscle. Not a single one, yes?”

Rhio lifted his eyes from the delicious indentation of her waist. “I don’t believe I have, so far,” he said.

The dancer paused. Then she took two steps closer and reached out to touch a fingertip to his cheek. Rhio gave thanks he’d shaved in honor of the occasion. The spot tingled. He bared his teeth, beyond caring if his hunger showed.

“Trust me?” Her husky voice was so quiet only he could have heard it.

“In this, yes,” he said, surprised that he meant it. “You won’t miss by accident.”

“No.” For a heartbeat, it seemed she stared into his soul. “This time, I will be very quick.” A gesture to the drummer and the rhythm accelerated.

Rhio allowed his insolent stare to wander over her rangy body, lingering on the

remaining fastenings of the corset. “Excellent.”

Two pairs of knives to go and she’d slither out of the chain mail and dance for him, clad only in those pretty, semitransparent veils. His breath quickened. Four blades. Four.

Where the hell did she intend to put them?

Her feet pattered across the floor, quick and precise, in patterns only she—or one of her lost tribe—could discern. How old had she been when the Trinitarians came? Even as a child, she would have fought to the death, he was certain of it. She didn’t lack for courage. In fact, if the dancer’s people had been fierce enough, the commander would have used a diabloman to ensure his victory. A demon master. Black Magick. Rhio

loathed the uncleanness of it, the stench of wrongness.

Thunk!

Lucky he’d been disciplined enough to stop his hands from curling into fists. That one had been in the narrow space between upper arm and rib cage. If he’d so much as flexed his biceps . . .

Thunk!

Shit, she’d just about shaved off the hairs in his armpit.

The dancer drew the last two blades and raised her hands over her head, spinning, her head thrown back and her hair flying. Her balance would be shot to hell. How the hell could she even see straight?

Fuck. Here it came. Fuck, oh, fuck—

Thunk!

Rhio clamped his lips shut on an unmanly yelp. Equidistant between his brawny thighs, the knife thrummed like a pinned and frantic insect. Under the stiff leather of the battle kilt, his terrified balls tried to climb right inside his body. But he didn’t move, not even a fraction of an inch.

The dancer took a pace forward, exposing a length of sleekly muscled thigh. Flashing him a wicked grin, she tilted her chin and closed her eyes, as ostentatiously as possible.

Rhio’s mouth fell open. A chair clattered as someone shot to their feet. Still smiling, her lashes brushing her high cheekbones, the dancer drew her arm back.

Time passed in infinitesimal increments. The thin, silver flicker of the blade, traveling through the perfumed air, the humming note of its passage. He knew his eyes were stretched as wide as they would go, the wall unyielding against his shoulder blades. In Rhio’s head, a soldier’s instinct bellowed like the voice of his first drill sergeant.

“Freeze!”

Like the recruit he’d been so many years ago, Captain Rhiomard obeyed the order

without hesitation.

Whoosh! Thunk!

His loins drew tight—really tight, uncomfortably tight. Helpless to prevent the immediate glance downward, Rhio stared in disbelief.

The dancer had put the blade right through the leather of his kilt and into the wall. Fuck, she’d come within a hairsbreadth of emasculating him. The impact still hummed through his shrinking scrotum.

And she’d done it with her eyes closed. By the Brother, was she even human?

Gingerly, he reached down, only partly conscious of the room erupting all around them.

Elderly statesmen were standing, applauding, dignity forgotten. The treaty scholar had climbed up onto her chair, where she teetered, one hand on the shoulder of an

embarrassed junior diplomat.

A slim strong hand closed over his. “Let me,” purred the dancer, her eyes twinkling with suppressed amusement. “It is my knife, yes?” A light sheen of sweat gleamed on her skin.

She smelled of healthy female and something green and fresh and wild.

No woman made a fool of Rhiomard of the Queen’s Guard.

“Not anymore.” Rhio wrenched the blade free. Stepping forward, he gripped her wrist with his other hand. She stood docilely enough, tall and limber beside him, the corset hanging open. “Sergeant.”

Yachi’s brisk tread. “Aye, Cap’n?”

“Take this knife and remove the other weapons from Her Majesty’s wall.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

They’d soldiered together for nigh on twenty years, he and Yachi. Rhio knew every inflection of her voice. He’d come as near as dammit to singing soprano, and she thought