Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty by Kristen Ashley Page B

the warrior.
    And I didn’t speak Korwahk but it was
clearly, “See what I mean?” and whatever he meant made the warrior
roar with laughter again.
    The thing was, Lahn did it with him.
    I stood there, staring.
    I’d never kissed my husband and I’d never
seen him laugh. I hadn’t even seen him smile.
    Until then.
    Jeez, how weird was that?
    He had a great laugh and he looked good
doing it.
    And he had very white teeth.
    They stopped laughing, the other warrior
said something and tipped his head to me. Lahn nodded, smiling and
then suddenly he grabbed my bicep and my body was in motion. Then,
I had no idea how he did it, but he swung me up on his back so my
arm was around his neck and my thighs were at his hips. His big
hands came to my ass and he started walking while talking to the
other warrior who fell in step at his side, all the while carrying
me on his back.
    I curved my legs fully around him to hold
on, my other arm going around his chest and there was something
about this, something sweet, something intimate, something I
liked.
    Oh man.
    We walked through the encampment and drew
every eye from every person we passed. I noticed Lahn didn’t smile
or nod his head. I noticed Lahn had his hands on my ass, me on his
back and a warrior at his side and that was his whole focus. The
people we passed did not exist. He didn’t acknowledge them in any
way.
    So I did, smiling and nodding at anyone who
caught my eye. And there were a lot of those too.
    Lahn’s fingers tensed into my flesh and he
turned his head and said something to me.
    I didn’t understand, obviously, so I dropped
my chin to his shoulder and whispered, “I don’t understand you,
baby.”
    His dark eyes caught mine and he said
quietly, “Lahnahsahna Circe … okay?”
    Oh man.
    Yeah, I was okay. Okay with Lahn attempting
to communicate with me in my own language.
    Yeah, totally okay.
    I closed my eyes and squeezed my arms then
nodded, opened my eyes and whispered, “Okay.”
    That got me another squeeze on my ass as
Lahn looked forward again and his warrior said something to
him.
    I looked forward too, sighed, held tight and
enjoyed the ride.
    * * * * *
    Okay, it was safe to say, the minute we
entered the ginormous tent where the games were held, I knew I
wasn’t going to like it.
    This was because there were a lot of beefy
men sitting around on benches, it smelled like man and booze and
there were two men beating the crap out of each other in the middle
of the circle of benches. And by that I meant, sweaty, bloody,
grunting, beating the crap out of each other.
    Very few eyes came to us such was the
attention on the match. But an entire bench was open at one side,
the other warrior broke off from us and Lahn walked right to it,
swung me off his back (jarring my shoulder as he did, the big guy
was rough but I was getting the feeling he didn’t know it). He
deposited me, feet to the ground, sat, opened his legs wide,
grabbed my hand, tugged it so hard it jarred my shoulder again and
my knees gave out so I sank to the stone ground. He hauled me
between his legs; I did my best to get comfortable and looked
around.
    Lots of warriors, though I couldn’t find the
one who claimed Narinda, not that I was sure I would remember what
he looked like. There were no women except the two scurrying around
with jugs and filling the leather covered cups the men were
guzzling from. One scurried to Lahn, he took the full cup she
offered, put it to his lips, gulped back a huge swallow then
righted himself and his eyes locked on the fighters.
    No beverage was offered to me before the
woman scurried off.
    Hmm. Apparently women weren’t provided with
refreshments.
    Figured.
    To get comfortable, I scooted close between
his legs and draped an arm on Lahn’s thigh. I didn’t know if that
was all right but I figured if it wasn’t, I’d find out soon
enough.
    He didn’t remove it so I leaned into it and
looked at the shouting, cheering, stamping warriors.
    Man, they