"What entitles you to a larger meal than the rest of us are enjoying?"

Radstac balanced the tray on one hand, her right. She was already planted into a ready stance. It was still possible that with enough groveling soldierly behavior she could extricate herself from this.

The sergeant's tone was surly; but there was something else playing beneath his voice and a particular glint in those minute eyes.

"I asked you a question."

Which was significant in itself. Though this man was of rank, he wasn't yet enforcing that status. He was asking her a question.

"I'm especially hungry," Radstac said, lacing something tacit into her voice as well.

A small stub of tongue came out of that thick face to lick the sergeant's lips. "Are you...?" They were unseen here, behind the tent.

Now it was almost comic. Radstac shifted her stance just slightly, still balanced but now posing herself provocatively. She let her mouth move slowly, sensually. It was all caricature. But evidently effective.

The sergeant's breath caught. Then he heaved his heavy chest. "I could overlook this."

"You could," she agreed.

"But I need something to make me forget."

"Show me what I need to do."

He did, eyes widening in surprise at the ease of this. His hands moved hastily, and he drew himself out of his trousers, holding his hardening shaft proudly and nervously.

It wouldn't be so much to do this thing. But Radstac had no assurances that this would be the end of it.

"Why," she said, eyes lowering, then lifting, "I see I've mistaken you for a man. How embarrassing."

That thick face reddened. It was a trite vulnerability she'd targeted, but this sergeant was acting out the clichй perfectly. Trying to hold up his undone trousers with one hand, he snatched a knife from his belt. It fumbled slightly clearing the sheath, but he swung it, a fast arc for Radstac's throat.