Free The Chieftain’s Daughter by Leia Rice Page B

mine.”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    “You did not need her anyway.”
    Mechan hardly paid attention to Zari, who had been coming by ever since Ishara was discovered missing. He knew the woman had her own ambitions. In the past, he had rejected her proposals of marriage at least a dozen times. Today, the chieftain did not want to deal with her or her conniving ways.
    “The daughter of a chieftain. The whole situation would have brought problems. How long do you think you could have kept her before her father showed up to take her back?” Zari faced the elder tree branch, one hand on her chin.
    Mechan sighed and went back to cleaning off his machete. Earlier that day, he had gone hunting and found a worthy foe—a stag. The blood stained the cool metal of his weapon, painting it a dark, purple-red hue. Would she ever stop talking? He thought about throwing her out and making it clear that she wasn’t welcome to invite herself in whenever she pleased, but he could not slight the woman’s family by embarrassing her. They made up a good portion of his tribe and on their own would be a formidable enemy if they chose to leave. And her father was more exhausting than she was.
    “I still do not understand why you do not get rid of this thing. I mean, it does not serve a purpose anymore, and soon it can be replaced with a…more attractive one.” Zari spoke the unspeakable.
    “Leave it.” Mechan grunted in annoyance.
    Zari turned away from the branch, and Mechan caught her rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to be so serious.” She knelt down beside him, intimately resting her cold fingers on his forearm.
    “You should go for tonight, Zari. I am going to sleep.” Mechan avoided looking up into her unsettling eyes. Instead, he brushed a cloth up the length of the blade to soak up the blood.
    Silence lingered between the two of them. Outside, the singing bugs filled the night air with their songs, lengthening the silence in his home.
    “You miss her, don’t you?”
    “I said that you can go.” His request bordered on the line of a command.
    “In a moment.” Zari withdrew her hand, ducking her head down so that her face got in the way of Mechan’s weapon cleaning. “Tell me that you don’t miss her, Mechan. She’s a damned slave. The daughter of your enemy! It is foolish to feel for a slave, let alone the enemy.”
    Mechan shifted his gaze from the blade to Zari. She immediately backed away from him, but not too far.
    “She is old enough to be your daughter for Spirit’s sakes. The very idea of you having feelings for her… It…it is…” Zari’s hands balled up in fists and she rose. “It is weak!”
    Something triggered inside Mechan. Something dangerous.
    He didn’t know what it was that gripped hold of him and forced him to his feet. Maybe the very Spirits themselves entered him, driving him forward. He couldn’t control his movements when he took Zari by her throat, pushing her back toward the entrance of the tent. It told him to protect himself. To protect Ishara. His Ishara.
    She gasped for air, choking it down in panicked gasps, her untrusting eyes wide and scared. With a gentle shove, Mechan tossed her out of the tent. The woman’s body crumpled on the ground, and she lifted both of her hands up to her chest.
    “Call me weak again, woman, and I won’t be as kind.” He pointed somewhere off in the distance. “Get out of my sight. I would suggest you do not cross it any time soon.”
    Zari pushed herself off the ground, turning to find dozens of pairs of eyes peeking out of the tents around the camp. They witnessed it all. Her face turned red with anger and she spun back around to point at Mechan. “There is no excuse for loving the enemy. I am a hundred times better than that little slut. Remember that.”
    The woman stalked off into the forest. He was filled with the Spirits. His heart beat too fast and he felt more alive than he ever had in a long time. But what possessed him,