"You can't break them. They've been mystickally reinforced."
"Release me, Sabine!"
"But I've just caught you," she said in a pouting voice.
His gaze darted, scanning for a means to escape. She'd trapped him in the largest cell. When he'd ruled Tornin, he'd used this jail for political prisoners. Inside were a sink and facilities, a small bed stand, a rug on the floor, and hearth tools by the fire. Nothing to aid him.
But then, he well knew . . . No one escapes the dungeons of Tornin.
"It looks like it's time to get back to the business at hand." She set her goblet on the bedstand.
"Business at hand? Still haven't come to your senses?"
"No, I'm even more determined than before. I don't lose, Rydstrom."
He lunged up against the bonds, snarling, "You are
about to."
"Ah, here's that notoriously strong will of yours. Almost as strong as your rational mind and your sense of right and wrong. But then, was it right to strangle me as you did?"
"You're an enemy to me." The maddening tension from before redoubled. "An enemy I'll kill at the earliest chance."
His words were now strong, his tone lethal. Yet he alone knew how close he'd been to continuing his exploration of her, to wringing an orgasm from her responsive little body. Every inch of her had been more exciting to him than the last. "Do you have no hesita- tion being used like this? As a tool for Omort?"
"You seem to think me either cowed by Omort or suf-fering qualms about screwing someone for reasons other than pleasure or love. Neither is true of me."
"So you're just a cold, heartless bitch."
"As much as you're a self-righteous, miserable prick." Her lips curled into a smirk. "But that doesn't mean we
can't have something meaningful between us."
He kicked his legs and thrashed his upper body.