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discovered now that it had been ripped away that she was not happy about it. She was of
no mind to argue with the possibility of a real bath, though, and clean clothes.
She had not realized how much her distress and shock had shielded her from her
body s complaints until she settled in the hot bath. She gritted her teeth at the effort it
took even to lower herself into the bath. Her muscles screamed in protest and she could
not prevent a groan of discomfort.
Almost at once, though, the heat of the water began to soak the soreness from her
VALLEY OF SHADOWS Desiree Acuna & Juliette Barrymore 48
muscles. She leaned back against the sloped rim of the tub, closing her eyes, savoring
the heat that leached the pain from her muscles.
She was half-asleep when someone took the sponge from her limp hand and
began to bathe her with infinite gentleness, too content to care if someone else was of a
mind to do it for her. A hand delved into the water, cupped her calf and lifted her leg and
the sponge was brushed back and forth along her entire leg and foot with a mesmerizing
slowness that soothed and massaged even while it cleaned. They settled that leg once
more and lifted the other, bathing that as they had the first and then moved to her arms.
She felt her attendant settled behind her, a slight tug as they leaned over her and
pulled at the hair she d draped over the back of the tub. Two large hands, minus the
sponge settled on her breasts, cupping them as they had her calves and Tyra s eyes
abruptly flew open. She looked up at the dark face above hers in absolutely bafflement
for several moments before she realized it was Raizar.
A jolt of shock went through her.
Lovely, he murmured, coasting his hands downward from her breasts over her
belly and down between her thighs before she could command her chaotic thoughts into
any sort of order.
What are you doing here? she gasped, struggling to sit up and discovering she
was tethered by her hair, which he was leaning against.
Bathing you, he murmured huskily.
What happened to the maid? Tyra gasped.
I sent her away. She would not have enjoyed this nearly as much as I.
Tyra looked away, struggling to evict the turmoil from her mind and consider her
situation. It did not help matters that he had slipped a finger into her cleft and begun to
strum her clit. Try as she might to simply ignore the intimate play, her clit had other
feeling on the matter. She felt her nipples hardening into tight little buds, felt warmth
creeping insidiously through her.
He did not care who she was, she realized with a jolt of surprise, any more than
Killian had. She was a captive prize at his mercy, his to do with as he pleased.
It was impossible to simply relax and try to accept or enjoy for all that. Her mind
was in too much turmoil and the response of her body to his touch evoked strong
memories of Killian s touch that in turn provoked a guilt response.
The realization that her resistance was because of Killian came as more of an
unpleasant jolt even than the discovery that her birth and position meant nothing to him.
Why would she feel any sort of loyalty to Killian? He was no chosen lover! She
had been his captive as much as she was Raizar s!
It defied logic! She had been certain that she was not caught in her own spell, but
was she right? Had the effects merely been subtle enough that she had not realized she
was?
Apparently tiring of merely playing, Raizar drew her from her bath after a few
minutes. Wrapping her snugly in a bath sheet that covered her from neck to feet and
trapped her arms, he lifted her and carried her to the wide bed in the bed chamber. He
settled her there in the center, pulling the sheet away from her in much the manner of
someone unwrapping a gift.
More than a little unnerved by his possessiveness, unable to think of anything she
VALLEY OF SHADOWS Desiree Acuna & Juliette Barrymore 49
could do beyond protest verbally, which seemed unlikely to have any beneficial effect,
Tyra watched his face uneasily. The darkness of his skin, she realized with a touch of
surprise, and mayhap her shock and distress, as well, had blinded her to him as an
individual. Her mind had registered dark elf and shut down.
She saw as she studied his face that he was well favored and far younger than she
had realized before. She supposed the fact that he was clearly the leader of the band of
warriors had contributed to her assumption that he was not young, that he must be a man
of years of training and experience.
She realized that he could not be many years older than she was.
And then it dawned on her that he was an elf. He could be her age plus one
hundred years and he would still appear young. Still, he was a young elf & a handsome
one, his harsh, craggy features pleasing to her eyes.
It could not be so difficult, she told herself, to yield to him what he was
demanding. At least he behaved in a lover-like manner and not as a conqueror and rapist.
Of course, she had not fought him and that might have made a great deal of
difference, but somehow she did not think so. Men who abused women, to her thinking,
generally fell in one or two categories those who had little or no self-control and those
who lacked confidence in themselves as men and felt a need to prove they were
everything a man should be on someone weaker than they were.
Raizar, she felt certain, did not fall in either category. His golden eyes were
tumultuous with desire. She felt his eagerness in his touch, for his hands shook ever so
faintly, and yet there was no clumsiness in his touch, no sense that anger lay just beneath
the surface waiting to slip his control. He merely desired her. He was not bent on
exerting his physical dominance & which he could have no doubt of.
She forced herself to relax as he rolled toward her and sought her lips, to yield to
him. She discovered it was far easier than she had expected. His hard mouth felt good
on hers and his taste and scent pleased her senses. The need in his kiss summoned an
unanticipated rush of desire in response.
Her reaction to him disturbed her more than no reaction would have. She had not
expected to despite the fact that she had acknowledged that she found him physically
appealing.
She did not know what to think of it or herself. She had always welcomed
passion when she had taken lovers before and it had never met her expectations. She had
found intimacy pleasant, or tedious, but never intoxicating to the point of mindlessness.
Yet she had with Killian and she felt herself rising quickly toward that state of being
entirely ruled by her senses with Raizar.
Had Killian unlocked the key? Had he taught her passion so that it was now hers,
to be summoned by any lover who appealed to her and had some claim to finesse?
But she could not really call what Killian had done finesse, as guilty as it made
her feel to think that way. It had been raw, animal desire that he had shown her and
evoked from her in response.
She found she preferred to think that he had unlocked her passion to believing
that no one would ever again make her feel as he had. It made her ache for his touch
even while Raizar caressed her and awoke her body, brought the sadness of regret with it.
He was gone, she told herself fiercely, and she was far better off that he was.
VALLEY OF SHADOWS Desiree Acuna & Juliette Barrymore 50
Sooner or later he would have broken the spell and very likely have slain her as he had
been summoned to do.
Even so, it brought a wave of deeper sorrow to think he might have been slain
himself. She could not believe that, would not believe it. It was far more comforting to
think he had managed to overcome the enchantment in his pain and anger and returned to
his own world.
Banishing him resolutely from her mind, she sought succor in Raizar, wanting
him to teach her body to respond to him as Killian had taught it. She could not allow
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