Highland Stallion Page 3

  Sophia wanted to protest. She wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter to her if he was a former slave and had nothing. What stopped her was the determination in his beautiful eyes, his need to become the sort of man he respected before he could truly open himself to her.

  “Can we still see each other?” she asked.

  “If you want.”

  Sophia gritted her teeth to keep from shouting at him. Inez had told her he was still unaccustomed to relating in the world. The mines had been a hard, silent place. Though Zach didn’t talk much about it, Inez had heard stories of the mines from Terra, Moor, and Susana. The workers suffered terribly and many, like Zach, had been stolen in childhood and knew nothing except the bellow of overseers and the sting of a whip. “You don’t have to see me if you don’t want to, Zach. I only want to see you if it pleases you.”

  “I don’t have the words to tell you how much it would please me, but it might be best if we didn’t.”

  “Fine.” Sophia, at the end of her patience, stood. She knew when she was being rejected, no matter how sweetly the rebuff was put.

  “Sophia!”

  She paused, a hand on the doorknob. For a moment, neither spoke. Then she flung open the door and stomped down the cobbled path.

  “What’s wrong?” Inez called.

  “It seems dream lovers are as useless as other men!”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” Sophia swallowed the lump in her throat. “And it seems nothing will ever happen.” She forced a laugh. “So much for the lure of dream lovers. I wish I’d never dreamed of him at all!”

  * * * * *

  Zach paused a moment in pulling the wagon loaded with stones and wiped sweat from his eyes. Though they shared dreams almost every night, it had been over a week since he’d last seen Sophia. After she’d run out of the cottage, he’d wanted more than anything to chase her and take her in his arms, but he couldn’t. Terra and Inez had lectured him about the craziness of denying his soul mate. His friends meant well, but they didn’t understand. How could they, especially Terra. When he’d claimed Inez as his mate, he had already established a magnificent career as a top Fighting Carrier. Zach knew such a position had been earned through hard work and Terra deserved respect, but at least he’d had the chance to work at his goals since childhood. Zach was a grown man yet had no more to his name than a boy. He needed to work twice as hard to become a fit mate for Sophia. How could he claim her without first gaining self-respect?

  Just thinking of her made him ache, and when he’d seen her in person, he felt he might burst into flames from desire. Lately in their dreams, she’d pulled away from him, accepting his kisses and touches, but stopping just short of the incredible fulfillment they’d always shared. Denied passion grated on his nerves and drove him toward his goal of building a life for them to share.

  “When you’re done with that, there’s another load behind the barn,” Simon bellowed at Zach from the pigpen.

  Zach nodded, gritting his teeth. At times he felt working for Simon was little better than slaving in the mines—except at the end of the week he’d be paid for his labor. The man drove his animals and Zach as if they were machines rather than living, breathing creatures. Not that Zach minded. He’d even surpassed the farmer’s vicious standards by rising before dawn and working long past dusk. Simon had offered to pay him a little more for completing extra tasks on what would have been his free time. The man had actually grumbled when Zach took him at his word. After spending his life in the mines, no amount of work Simon asked of him would be too much, and while the farmer was getting the work of four men while paying for one, he still seemed to dislike Zach. In truth he seemed to dislike everyone. He bellowed and cursed at his wife and son as much as he did Zach and the animals. The man was simply a walking misery. Maybe if he’d spent some time in the mines he’d appreciate all he had.

  Simon walked away. Carrying a basket, his son ran up to Zach.

  Zach’s lips tugged upward when faced with James’ huge smile. The boy had such a pleasant disposition Zach wondered how he was related to Simon at all.

  “Here’s your food.” James held up the basket to Zach. The farmer had agreed to feed Zach until his first payment.

  “You can have all the apples and grass you want,” Simon told Zach on the first day. “And I’ll give you a bowl of gruel once a day.”

  The apples and grass weren’t bad. Horsemen’s diet included plenty of grass salads, but the single bowl of gruel wasn’t nearly enough to take the edge off Zach’s appetite. It also tasted as badly as the sparse meals he’d been tossed in the mines.

  “Here.” James reached under his shirt and pulled out a small cloth package. He unwrapped it and held up a piece of nut bread. “I swiped a piece after Ma put it out to cool this morning. It’s good.”

  Zach winked. “Thanks, little one, but if you keep sneaking me food you’ll get in trouble.”

  The boy stood on his toes and Zach bent lower to hear his whisper. “Ma knows.”

  Zach took a bite of the bread. “Then thank your Ma for me, too.”

  “Can I see your muscle again?” James asked.

  Zach knelt and balled his fist, the sinewy forearm beneath hardening even more as his thick biceps bulged, rocklike, a distended vein running along the top.

  The boy’s eyes fixed on the Horseman’s powerful arm. “Wow. You’re even bigger than Terra and Moor.”

  “Those Carriers need different kinds of muscles than a puller like me,” Zach explained. “They have to fly a long time while carrying weight on their backs. If they had my kind of bulk, they’d never get their jobs done.”

  “But they aren’t as strong as you.”

  “They are in their own way.”

  “They couldn’t beat you in the pulling contest at the fair next month.”

  Zach felt a stirring of interest. “Pulling contest?”

  “Every year a different village has the fair for all the villages in the area. It’s fun. There’s food, wrestling, races, and pulling contests. There’s sewing stuff, too, for the girls, but that’s boring.”

  “Can anybody enter the contest?”

  “Sure. You’re going to, right, Zach?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The prize is a new wagon.”

  “New wagon?” Zach was really interested now. With his own wagon he could start a business, perhaps as a woodchopper. Moor said there was a great call for wood and a man could earn a decent living supplying others with winter fuel.

  “I bet you’ll win,” James continued. “Moor won a few years back, but that was before a big Horseman named Frederick moved to Grayville. He wins every year, but I know you can beat him.”

  Not that Zach underestimated any other puller, but he didn’t doubt he had the chance to win, too. In the mines, he’d worked under unbearable conditions. Many times he’d shocked even the slavers who did their best to overload him as they attempted to break his spirit. He had “the look” in his eyes, they said. Even when he tried to cause little disturbance, he couldn’t seem to lose “the look”.

  “Are you going to enter, Zach?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I hope you do. I—”

  “James!” Simon hollered. He stood by the barn, shaking his fist in the air, his face red with anger. “I told you to keep away from that Horseman! He’s got work to do! Besides, one wrong turn and you’ll get crushed with that beast’s body of his!”

  James turned to Zach and shrugged.

  “Do what he tells you, little one,” Zach said, glancing at Simon from the corner of his eye. He’d seen the farmer’s temper explode too often and didn’t want James enduring the brunt of it because of him.

  “Bye, Zach.” James hurried toward the house.

  “James!” Simon bellowed. “Don’t be going to the house. Come help me in the barn!”

  The boy obeyed.

  Zach took another mouthful of gruel.

  “You hurry up with
that food!” Simon snarled in Zach’s direction. “I don’t pay you to eat. I pay you to haul!”

  Zach’s stomach knotted as he imagined twisting the smaller man’s head off. He’d never do it, of course. After the rebellion, he had more blood on his hands than he ever wanted. Killing, even for self-preservation, had left a sick feeling in Zach’s gut. He wasn’t usually a violent man. He didn’t like watching others suffer any more than he liked suffering himself. His parents—what he remembered of them—had instilled decency and passiveness in him.

  “We create things, Zach,” his father had often told him. “We come from a long line of engineers who started as pullers when we migrated to the Highlands centuries ago. Creating is good. Destruction is evil. Never forget that.”

  Zach never had, though there had come a time right before he led the rebellion when he realized his father’s creed couldn’t apply in the mines.

  When he’d finished eating, Zach brought the bowl to the house and knocked on the door.

  Simon’s wife, Emma, a slim, worried-looking woman with light brown hair, greeted him.

  “Hello, Zach,” she said, glancing around the fenced-in yard. Seeing it empty, she asked, “Would you like something else to eat? I know Simon doesn’t like—”

  “No. Thank you,” Zach said. “I’m being paid tomorrow, so I won’t need to bother you anymore.”

  “It’s no bother to me,” she said. “I almost feel we should be paying you more simply for what you’ve done for James.”

  “James?”

  “He was so sad all the time before you came. Simon said I fuss too much over the boy, but I don’t like seeing him so sad.”

  “He’s a good boy,” Zach said. “I don’t do all that much.”

  “You talk to him. All Simon does is shout. There was a time when he was nice, you know. Long ago. Not anymore.”

  “Seems to me he has plenty of reason to be nice. He has land, a family, work. What more could he want?”

  “He used to be a Gatherer until a few years back.”

  “A Gatherer?” Zach’s brow furrowed. Why would Simon work so closely with Horsemen when he seemed to hate them? Or maybe it was just Zach he disliked.

  “He enjoyed Gathering Rock Blood,” Emma continued. “Then he rode a Carrier who gave him a bad fall. He could never ride again. He said the Horseman did it on purpose, and he was probably right. That same Carrier injured others and even killed a rider.”

  “He shouldn’t have been allowed to continue carrying,” Zach said. Even in the mines he’d never deliberately tried killing a rider, though he should have after how he suffered under their whips.

  “He’s dead now. Terra killed him after he assaulted Inez.”

  Zach nodded. He’d heard the story about Kraig, a fiery chestnut Horseman who had committed horrible crimes, including stealing Rock Blood for illegal trade and nearly causing the deaths of Terra and Inez.

  “Simon never trusted another Horseman after that,” Emma continued. “So if he seems a little hard on you, don’t take it personally.”

  “I don’t take anything personally.” Not after living in the mines.

  Zach returned to work, loading several more rocks onto the half-filled wagon.

  “Can’t you haul any more than that?” Simon appeared behind him as Zach was about to hitch up his harness. He dreaded the harness since it didn’t fit correctly. As soon as he saved enough, he’d buy his own tack instead of using Simon’s disgusting leftovers. Even the largest strap was a bit too snug around his equine-belly. Several painful red sores had already developed, but he’d had worse in the mines. At least now he could remove the harness at will.

  “Horseman, I said—”

  “I heard what you said,” Zach stated. “I can haul much more, but this wagon can’t. It’s creaking as it is. If I put anything else—”

  “One thing I can’t stand is laziness! Fill that wagon!”

  “Fill it?” Zach wondered if he kept the sneer from his face as he offered Simon a mock salute. “Yes, sir!”

  Zach loaded more boulders onto the wagon. His pulse raced with fury as he pulled the leather cord tightly across the load to keep several of the rocks from slipping.

  “That’s more like it!” Simon folded his arms across his chest.

  Zach picked up a particularly large boulder and dropped it into the wagon.

  His pulse still throbbing with agitation, Zach adjusted the harness and leaned into it, dragging the load across the field. It was heavy, but no heavier than he was accustomed to pulling through jagged, uphill paths in the mines.

  Simon stood, watching with a gloating expression as Zach pulled three more full loads. Each time the wagon seemed to creak more. Zach knew it would only be a matter of time before the old wooden frame gave. With his luck, he’d be going downhill when it happened and would end up breaking a leg in the midst of a rockslide.

  Simon watched for another half hour before turning back to the barn.

  By late afternoon, Zach had moved most of the rocks to the west field where they would soon begin building a new wall.

  The heavier loads combined with the ill-fitting harness had rubbed his skin raw. Sweat stung the sores as he tried ignoring the discomfort. One more wagon full and he could stop hauling and begin wood chopping.

  Leaning into the harness, Zach tried taking most of the weight on the straps about his man-torso. It was some relief for his damaged equine skin, though not enough.

  He’d just passed the house when there was a loud groan of bending wood, a crash, and a snap as the wagon collapsed. The leather strap supporting the rocks broke. Zach jumped as one of the rocks pelted his hindquarters. Stones and boulders spread over the grass, scattering chickens. A dog barked and the cow lifted her head from where she munched grass in the paddock.

  “What the hell is going on?” Simon roared, tearing out of the barn, a true-horse bridle in one hand, a whip in the other, and James at his heels.

  “Gods! What was that noise?” Emma rushed out of the house.

  Simon’s face turned crimson with rage when he saw Zach unfastening himself from the broken wagon.

  Zach glanced at his rump and saw blood oozing from the cut left by the sharp-edged stone that had struck him.

  “You fool!” Simon raged, striding up to Zach, his slight limp more pronounced as he hurried. “That’s the only wagon I have!”

  “I told you it wouldn’t take the weight,” Zach stated.

  “You big idiot! A true-horse would have more sense than you!” Simon lifted his whip and struck the side of the wagon close to where Zach stood.

  Zach’s heart pounded in his throat. A coil of rage and, to his agitation, fear wound around his gut. Memories of the mine flooded his thoughts. He felt the whip cutting into his flesh—not Simon’s, for the man dared not strike him, but the slavers’ lash.

  “Get this mess cleaned up!” Again Simon lifted the whip and smacked it close to Zach’s equine shoulder.

  With a swift tug, Zach took the whip from the farmer and snapped it in half, tossing the broken pieces at the Simon’s feet.

  “I work for you,” Zach said in low, deadly voice, “but I’m not your slave. Don’t ever pull a whip near me again.”

  Simon stood, glaring, his chest rising and falling as rapidly as Zach’s. Finally he jabbed a finger in the Horseman’s direction. “Just get this mess cleaned up and start chopping wood!”

  The farmer stalked off, shouting for James. The boy cast Zach a wide-eyed look before racing after his father.

  Zach could hardly control his breathing as he removed the straps. He gritted his teeth in fury. If the man ever dared raise a whip near him again, he’d ram it up his ass.

  He knew if it hadn’t been for the amount of work he did, Simon would probably have sent him away after their confrontation. Perhaps Zach would go anyway. He could find other work. The lure of Sophia’s job offer appealed to him more than he wanted to admit, but he couldn’t work for her. If he spent any time at
all in her presence, he’d have to bed her. There was no way he’d become her lover until he no longer felt like another man’s slave.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Zach,” Emma murmured. “The wagon was old.”

  “Emma!” Simon bellowed. “Get back in the house!”

  She left without looking back.

  Zach was about to unfasten the irritating belly strap when he caught sight of a slim, black true-horse galloping full speed across the meadow. She swept past Zach, her eyes wild and foam flying from her glistening coat.

  “Louise! Come back! Louise!”

  Zach’s spine tingled at the sound of Sophia’s voice. He narrowed his eyes and used a hand to shade them from the sun as he saw her and another woman, both on galloping mounts, racing after the black filly.

  Zach wasted no time in joining the chase. Even the fastest true-horse was no match for any healthy Horseman. Zach’s long strides swallowed the ground and within moments he’d caught the filly’s halter.

  “Whoa, girl,” he said, using his greater strength to subdue her. She stood, trembling, her eyes wide. He continued speaking to her in a soothing voice and stroked her lathered neck. “It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.”

  She snorted but some of the wildness left her eyes. Horses generally trusted Horsemen, and this filly was apparently no different.

  He glanced over his shoulder as the women reached them and dismounted. Zach’s heart pounded much more from seeing Sophia again than from his short gallop.

  “Thank you so much,” the other woman said.

  “Not a problem. Is she yours?” Zach’s eyes met Sophia’s. She took her lower lip between her teeth in the most endearing manner.

  “She’s mine,” the tall woman spoke again.

  “This is Phillipa, Zach,” Sophia said in a reserved voice. “Terra’s sister.”

  “So you’re Zach.” Phillipa extended her hand which he shook. “I’ve heard much about you. Good to know you.”

  “You, too. That’s a fine little horse you have there.”

  “She’s going to be the death of me.” Phillipa grinned, taking the filly’s halter and patting her neck. “I’m a messenger and plan on training her to work with me. As you can see, we have a long way to go. If my favorite stallion, Black Satin, was with me, I’d have caught her miles ago. Unfortunately I had to leave him home for this trip, so thank you again.”