Free Stars Across Time by Ruby Lionsdrake Page B

thing such as food might distract them from carnal intent. “You starved after walking all day? I am.”
    “Already had a sandwich.” One of the men waved toward a smashed tin of travel bread and some dried meat that had come out of someone’s pack. “Looking to relax now.” He gave Theron a friendly smile, though there was wariness in his eyes too. Rami, that was the man’s name, Theron recalled. “Why don’t you join us, big man? You like the tattooed girl, right? We’ll take the younger ones.”
    Blackie thumped him in the arm. “ I want Tattoo.”
    “ Nobody’s taking Tattoo,” Theron said.
    This time, Rami thumped Blackie in the arm. “I told you he’d want that one. He was talking to her all day, trying to be charming, like we’re back in civilization and he’s gotta dress up and court her.”
    Theron looked down at his bare chest. Dressing up hadn’t quite been involved.
    Blackie snickered. “Yeah, like you don’t just take what you want out here. You’re not going to make it long, new blood.” The man’s snicker faded, and his eyes closed to slits. “You’ll push someone’s hackles up the wrong way, and you’ll get a dagger between your shoulder blades.”
    “That’s more my concern than yours, isn’t it?” Theron would have tried to get along with the men if he had respected any of them even a single iota, but he was waiting for the day when he could bury these boys six feet under. If he was wise, he would wait until he had a platoon of soldiers with him, but he had a feeling they were going to force him to be unwise.
    “My concern might become yours real soon,” Blackie said, “because I want Tattoo.”
    Not surprisingly, Andie and her friends had noticed this conversation and were looking toward the men. Blackie wasn’t speaking quietly. Everyone in the cabin probably knew his intentions.
    “Why don’t you keep your paws to yourself for a couple of days, and then go buy willing women with the coin you’ll get from the sale?” Theron suggested, doubting his idea would take root in the infertile brain matter this one carried around.
    “Maybe I like them better when they’re not willing.” Blackie smiled like a wolf, looking past Theron’s arm toward the trio of women.
    “That make you feel more like a man?”
    “It makes me feel good .” Blackie grabbed his crotch, having all the shame of a rabid badger. “When they’re fighting you, and you come all over them. Bet you’d like it, too, new blood, if you got that stick out of your ass and relaxed some. There doesn’t need to be trouble between us. Just step aside.”
    Two men by the hearth stood up, their stumps rocking audibly in the cabin. Theron heard it because the area had gone quiet, save for the snapping of the logs in the fire. If he had been across the water, or anywhere in civilization, the men getting up to pick a side would have stood behind him. These idiots joined Blackie and Rami.
    “Been a long day,” Rami said, lifting his chin now that he had men at his back. “And it’s been a long time since we had girls. You’ll have to fight all of us, if you think you get to keep them to yourself.”
    “How about nobody keeps them?” Theron pulled out his knife.
    The men tensed, but all he did was spin the blade on his fingers.
    “You expect us to believe that, Mace?” Blackie asked. “You want that one for yourself. That’s all this is about. Look, you can have her first, then I’ll take her. That’s a fair deal. But you don’t get to be selfish, not when there are only five of them and...” He glanced at his little group, mumbled, “four,” then counted out loud, trying to tally up the rest of the room, but he got distracted somewhere about ten. Maybe it was the way Theron was flipping his knife.
    “New blood,” Bedene said, still on his stool. “Go gather some firewood. It gets cold up here at night. We’ll need some more.”
    Theron snorted. “Sure, I’ll jump right to it.”
    Blackie