LITMIR.BIZ

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his fists. He yanked sharply and the weak linen shredded easily. For a moment, Reule thought the act strangely erotic. He’d never been the sort to tear off a lover’s clothes, and this child was certainly no lover, but something about the strength in his large hands destroying something so fragile to expose something even more fragile—it brought a wash of unexpected heat over his skin. He swallowed hard against the ridiculous sensation and pushed it away as he tore through more fabric and exposed a pale length of buttock and thigh.

      The perfect whiteness of her skin was completely unblemished in the area revealed. Reule had never seen skin so white in all his life, and he’d been a great many places and seen a great many people. It had to be the only spot on her body that wasn’t dirty, and he found it oddly intriguing. The contrast to his own dark skin fascinated him.

      Reule realized Para was watching him expectantly and he made quick work of the rest of the tear. Then he withdrew his knife again and cut away her sleeves. He was glad she didn’t move, because the blade was sharp and even an accidental brush would slice her. Another reason he’d never share his blade, especially with someone inexperienced. He tossed away the remnants of fabric and unbuckled his sheath and belt, laying the scabbard purposely near the edge of the bathing pool. When he was stripped down to nothing but his breeches, he scooped up the girl and walked with her into the pool, using the wide steps that led down into it. He didn’t immerse her all at once, though the hot water pooling around his hips made him want to dive under to soak in the heat.

      He wasn’t the priority here.

      He carefully began to introduce her tightly coiled body into the water. Para watched anxiously for the first minutes until she was satisfied he wasn’t going to foul up his responsibility to treat her gently. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her lord and master, it was just impossible for Para to believe anyone could care as much as she did. Reule easily forgave her that because she was right more often than not.

      Reule worked his way back to the stairs, seating himself on the second-to-last step with his charge resting in his lap. Para took the opportunity to hurry from the room to do whatever it was she needed to do. He couldn’t remember what instructions he’d given her. He realized then that he hadn’t eaten or slept properly in three days. He was feeling that lack now that he was cocooned in the relaxing heat of the water. Even his patient was relaxing, her small body unfurling in increments. He held her as she unwound, the water rushing over her entire body held in the cradle of his lap and arms. Her head finally lolled back, her hair tumbling into the water as he allowed all but her face to soak.

      At last, her arms fell away from their protective cross over her chest. Finally, he could see her entire body. He started to skim assessing eyes over her for damage done to her by the Jakals, but they soon widened in surprise. Small she might be, small she definitely was, but while she was smooth-skinned, as the young ought to be, there was nothing childlike or even adolescent about the curves of her unfurled body. Reule blinked, trying to reconcile the woman he now held with the girl he’d thought he’d been holding until just moments ago.

      Hair still obscured her face in a net of webbed strands. The heated water had soaked away much of the dirt soiling her skin. Reule brushed his fingers against her to assist the process, hoping to determine the extent of the abuse she had suffered. It quickly became clear that his mild efforts weren’t enough, and he reached for a cloth that was soaking in a bowl of soap solution at the edge of the bath. It was a man’s scent, the one he preferred because it reminded him of the mountain valley in which he lived: crisp, clean, and natural. It would do for his purposes. The solution was viscous and clung to the cloth even when submerged in water, so he was soon able to produce lathering swipes against her arms and shoulders. He was rewarded with clean skin…

      And livid bruises. Ugly discolorations hiding under the dirt and grime. As he worked over her neck and throat and upper chest, cuts, scrapes, and abrasions joined the list of injuries. An awful idea began to form in his head and he sat her up so her chest was flush with his, her face tucked against his neck as her head nestled on his shoulder, while he dipped the cleaning cloth in fresh solution. He balanced her now-heated body against himself to free both hands, sliding away her straggling mop of hair to expose her back to the approaching cloth. Her skin was nearly black with grime, but it was soon clean as he coasted over her shoulders, down her ribs, and along the path of her spine.

      Reule’s gaze was steady and watchful as soap and soil fizzed away in the current of the water and left a clear picture of the damage to her back. His fist tightened reflexively in her wet hair. More bruises, more cuts, but there were also wide swaths of abrasions at her shoulder points and the prominence of every vertebra. Burns, as though she’d been dragged over a surface…or repetitively scoured against one.

      By the Lord, he thought fiercely as he squeezed his eyes shut and touched his forehead to her collarbone in gentle sympathy. Had she been gang-raped by those monsters? It had to have been unimaginably violent to have left such awful damage behind. If that was the truth of it, then the bastards had died pitifully easy. Reule’s fury boiled his blood and he swore softly as he tried to vent it with deep, controlled breaths. ’Twas no use letting it rip him up; what was done was done. They were dead and she was alive and safe now. That was all that mattered.

      Reule lowered her away from his body to continue the chore of assessing as he gently cleansed her, forcing himself to clear the persistent red haze of emotion that dwelled in his vision. He once again found himself faced with the curves of a fully fledged woman. Of most prominent note, and next in his path, were her sweetly rounded breasts. He ran a cloth-covered hand over the swell of her right breast, feeling the partial peak of her nipple rippling under his passing fingers. Partial altered to full rigidity by the time he was done, the reaction so quick that he found himself needing to clear tightness from his throat. Confusion soon followed when he realized unblemished, perfectly pale skin, as well as those taut pink buds, was becoming visible through the water. If she had been sexually abused, her breasts would have suffered badly from mauling and manhandling, wouldn’t they? What male bent on degradation and sexual gratification wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to molest such lush, enticing breasts?

      Reule was slowly circling soap around the buoyant globe on the opposite side, his eyes fixing on the way the pink of her areola gathered up into a tight ring. It sent the tip of the attractive nipple pointing outward in tempting invitation. He felt her flesh brushing against his bare chest, luxuriant and slippery with soap. The resulting quickening of his body ought to have been predicted, but it took him by complete surprise. All he knew, as a man of honor and conscience, was that he shouldn’t be feeling the discomforting rush of blood to his groin for an unconscious and defenseless woman. Last he checked, he wasn’t into such callous perversions.

      His gaze and hand sought more neutral territory, traveling on to the gaunt curves of her ribs, which hinted at the duration of her neglect. In his lap, her hips and bottom were well rounded and soft, proving her not too far gone to starvation. Though her legs were slim and long for her build, they were a little too thin at the knees and calves. Her ankles were pronounced even through the water, just like the wrists at the ends of her skinny forearms.

      Reule rubbed away dirt on her gently hollowed belly, finding more bruises, these already healing. Then, very carefully, he washed over her pale thighs. Her hips were a mess of cuts and contusions. Had she been pinned down? Her flesh was scoured over both hips, but there was hardly even a bruise on the top sides of her thighs. Her knees were only a little dusky with damage. Yet he could see angry red and mottled blue in livid circles coiling around her ankles to nearly a third of the way up her calves.

      Bound by her feet, but not her wrists? Reule was more perplexed than ever. His eyes drifted to the triangle of protective curls at the juncture of her thighs, the indeterminable color dark while wet. He found himself swallowing hard against a swell of struggling emotions. Rage. Worry. Empathy. Fear.

      It was because of the fear and his inability to bear the keenness of it that he turned to a safer emotion. Or so he thought. Curiosity. They were the lightest dusting of little curls he’d ever seen on a woman. Without thinking, he reached to touch the pale inside of one thigh, fingertips sliding against wet, silk-soft skin. Reule didn’t even realize he’d dropped the cloth. Those sparse curls, were they as

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