Legacy of the Witch by Maggie Shayne

Author:Maggie Shayne [Shayne, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781426875571
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2005-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

I was there again, in the secret garden in the midst of the harem, splashing in the warm water of the pool, this time by the dead of night. I kept a scrub brush nearby. Should anyone question me, I was to tell them I was cleaning away the algae. Lilia had made a loud fuss over having “filthy old housemaids” sullying the pool’s pure waters, worked the others up into a real fit about it, and then slyly suggested the job be made one of my many duties.

She was always doing that, my Lilia. Finding out what I loved to do best and then conniving a way to make it my duty. Often times other, less pleasant, tasks had to be moved aside to make room. My life of servitude was becoming a life of fun. Doing things I loved and calling them work. So, since I’d nearly drowned playing in the waters of the sacred river, she’d decided to find a way to allow me to frolic in the waters of the harem pool, which was supposed to be for the use of the king’s harem slaves alone. Its waters were said to contain minerals that enhanced their already breathtaking beauty.

I didn’t mind at all giving the pool a scrub while I was basking in it. It was a far better job than scrubbing the stone floors or washing the bed linens.

This night, however, my fun was interrupted by the arrival of someone who jumped nimbly down from the wall, as he had so many times before, and landed softly, his bare feet slapping the wet stone.

He smiled, and my heart melted the same way it always did. I crossed my arms in front of me, painfully aware that I was wearing only a scrap of cloth around my chest and another around my hips.

He was aware of it, too, and appreciative. I felt a rush of heat and power, and thought perhaps I understood another of Lilia’s frequent cryptic comments—this one about what she called feminine magic. “The woman who can wield her own womanhood can bring any man to his knees,” she told me. Over and over, she told me this.

“Hello, slave girl,” he said.

“Hello, soldier boy.” I lowered my head shyly but could not dislodge my eyes from his. “Join me in the water?”

“And lose my head for it?”

“Everyone’s asleep. They won’t know.”

He looked around. There was only darkness, stone walls, water trickling from the fountain in the center of the pool. Arching doorways led off in several directions, all of them dark. It was dark in the courtyard, too, where we were. The crescent moon was above us, waning, hanging low in the sky.

Giving a nod, he set down the shoulder pack he’d been carrying, stripped off his garment and revealed the white fabric that was his undergarment. It twisted around his lean hips, down between his legs and up again, the untucked end hanging like a short curtain over his man parts.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.