Chapter 20

I glared at Lady Ran. Even in the flickering torchlight that was the cavern's only illumination, I could see the tension cracking through her body. She was practically vibrating with anger and defiance. The knife in her hand glinted evilly.

She was crazy.

However, this was her dungeon, and she had four armed guards beside her. She also had my fiancé chained to the wall. I need a plan.

Deliberately, I shifted my axes so that I held both in my left hand. Then I stepped over to Var, who stood with her hands chained up on either side of her at shoulder-height.

I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. As I did, I plucked her pearl from my pocket and shoved the hairpin end of it into her blonde curls. It was a promise from me to her – I would get her out of here.

"Stop him!" Lady Ran screamed, and the guards surged forward. I slid Grasper back into my other hand and swept both axes at them. They backed up a little.

But then Lady Ran was at Var's side, and was holding a knife to her neck. "Put down the axes, Dwalin. Now."

Var's eyes were huge as the knife drew a bead of blood from her neck. Lady Ran snarled at me. I put my axes down.

Lady Ran barked an order and the guards grabbed me, one on each arm. They tied my wrists together and hauled me over toward the metal cage. I fought them until Lady Ran threatened Var again. They thrust me into the cage and then slid a metal pin into a bolt on the side, holding the top of the cage in place. The pin was attached to a long slender chain that trailed along the floor.

Once I was trapped in the cage, though, the guards backed away. They had funny looks on their faces, as if they were going to be sick.

"Don't be such fools," Lady Ran snarled. She shoved her knife into her belt and strode forward to grasp the hook dangling from the big chain that was bolted to that pulley system in the ceiling. She attached the hook to a loop on the back of the cage. Then she turned a winch, lifting the cage with me in it off the ground. The cage fell forward, so that I was held parallel and face-down.

I swung sickeningly through the air, just a few feet above the hard stone floor. I roared in terror. Lady Ran picked up the other end of the slender chain leading to the pin that held the metal cage shut.

"You know, I've learned that vague threats are of no use to anyone," Lady Ran said conversationally. "Dwarves in particular, being exceptionally stubborn, need to know exactly what the consequences of disobedience are. So let this be a lesson to you."

She pulled on the chain. The front of the cage swung open, and I crashed heavily to the ground. There wasn't even time to bring my bound hands up to brace myself with. The impact drove the air out of my lungs and I lay half-stunned and gasping against the ground. I groaned, but strangely I wasn't the only one making noises. In the background, one of Lady Ran's guards retched and gagged.

"Put him back," Lady Ran ordered. Hands grabbed me and shoved me back into that infernal cage. I struggled, but hadn't recovered my strength enough to overcome the two guards who manhandled me back into place.

I glared at Lady Ran. "Why are you doing this?"

Her eyes were wild now, and she was practically frothing at the mouth with fury. "Because you are mine. I saw you first! Lady Nott said I had to wait and see if you showed an interest in me. So I waited! But I'm not going to wait any more. You are mine."

Gasping, voice ragged, I forced out the only possible answer. "No. I'm not yours."

Her eyes filled with tears. "I'll make you mine." She turned the winch, lifting the cage again. I swung forward again, face-downwards, helpless and dangling in the air.

"You belong to me. And if I can't have you, nobody can."

She gave another order, and the guards came forward. They pushed, and the cage that I was trapped in swung out over the pit, so that I was held suspended over the abyss.

A blast of icy-cold air surged up from the hideous depths below. The light barely touched the sheer sides of the pit before it was swallowed up in darkness. I couldn't see anything in the inky void, I could only feel the vast emptiness that dropped down, down to certain death.

Of all the things that terrify me, a fear of heights comes close to the top of the list. The thought of falling through the endless dark, helpless and alone, until my body was finally shattered against the cruel and jagged rocks…

I heard a shriek and a sickening crunch. The cage wobbled terrifyingly as something heavy struck it a glancing blow before plunging down into the pit. A high-pitched wail followed the object down. It had been a body. A person. I retched helplessly inside the cage.

Then slowly, the cage was swinging back to safety. Confused shouts, a glimmer of light, and then the cage was dropped onto the stone floor. I was face-first against the sweet, sweet solid ground, and I lay there trembling.

I heard the pounding of feet running away, and then the squeak of the metal pin being worked out of the closure on the cage. Var's voice murmured softly, and then I felt the metal lifting away. Fingers wrapped around my arm, and tugged me out of the cage.

"Dwalin," Var was saying as she rolled me onto my back. My limbs refused to move. She patted my face. I blinked. My eyes weren't working properly, and she looked blurry and out of focus.

I blinked again. The dungeon room was quiet. The torches burned in their holders. Var and I were alone.

Her wrists were scraped, her tunic and hose were torn, and her hair fell in a wild torrent around her shoulders. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes, a look I recognized as the residue of battle frenzy.

I frowned at her.

"The guards ran away," she explained, correctly interpreting my expression. "I think Lady Ran had used that – cage thing on them before. It must have been how she kept them obedient."

"Lady Ran?" I asked. Just saying the name made my mouth feel foul, but I was too weak to spit.

Var sneered defiantly, her eyebrows raised. "She fell down."

Fell down. I shuddered and closed my mind to what that meant.

She brushed her hands together, and got to her feet. There was a kind of nervous tension in her still. "Come on. I'd rather not hang around this place, so if you feel up to it, let's get out of here."

I let Var help me up. She handed me Grasper and Keeper. Before I slipped them back into their harness, I noticed that Keeper had gotten stained with some blood. Glancing at Var, I decided I would have to ask her about that. But not right then.

We left the house and made our way to a small inn, a quiet and somewhat run-down establishment near the marketplace. In the room, we stripped off our clothes and climbed into the bed. I fell asleep before she had settled down beside me.

Several hours later, I woke to find Var was already awake, drinking coffee and nibbling on some kind of pastry. She climbed onto the bed beside me and put a pastry in my hand, shedding flaky bits on the sheets. "These are good. Try one."

I was surprised to find I was hungry as a bear. As I ate, Var told me what had happened. Leaving the pearl behind had been deliberate on her part—she'd hoped that I would find it and understand what it meant. She started to shake as she talked, so I wiped off my fingers and gathered her into my arms.

Var was chained to the wall, the bait meant to lure me to that hideous place. Lady Ran had been unhinged, ranting about how Var had stolen my affections. The woman had convinced herself that I would have married her, that I had been on the verge of returning her feelings until Var had come along.

"That's a lie. I never even thought about her," I protested, baffled.

Var shook her head. "I don't think she really cared what you wanted. It was all about what she wanted. I was so afraid when you came down those stairs. But you saved us."

"I doubt that," I said wryly.

"You did," Var said seriously. "You brought me that hairpin. The guards were so busy watching you and her, that they didn't notice when I got myself free. And then—"

She started shaking again, so I held her tighter. I whispered, "It's okay. Whatever you did, you had to do."

She buried her face in my shoulder and told me.

The guards had been mesmerized, watching Lady Ran dangle me over the pit. Behind them, Var picked up one of my axes. The axe was heavy and unwieldy in her hands, pulling her off-balance. She held her breath and crept forward. As she lifted the axe to strike, the blade clanged against the ground. Lady Ran began to turn. Desperately, Var swung, and the flat side of the blade connected with Lady Ran's back.

With a scream, Lady Ran lurched forward toward the abyss. Her fingers scrabbled at the axe in Var's hands, pulling Var with her toward the precipice. Var threw herself backward, still holding my axe. With a wail, Lady Ran fell into the darkness.

Lady Ran's guards took to their heels.

"And the rest, you know," Var said. She was resting with her back against my chest, her head pillowed on my shoulder.

I stroked her hair, then tilted her face up and kissed her. "My heroine."

She pulled out of my arms and twisted around to look down at me. "I'm no heroine. I'm selfish." She turned to kneel on the bed facing me. "I wanted to keep you with me."

I smiled and sat up, reaching to take her back into my arms. "Good."

She pushed me back against the pillows, then straddled my legs. Her weight felt good, her warm center sliding deliciously against my body. I plucked at the soft tunic she was wearing, hoping she would take it off, but she pushed my hands away. Taking a deep breath, she frowned down at me. "Now, you listen to me. I wanted you, because you are mine. Do you understand?"

I nodded, still smiling, but not sure where she was going with this.

She took my face in her hands, stroking my beard tenderly, then reaching up to slide her palm over the top of my head. "I wanted you because you're clever and brave. No, don't argue. You faced down a wizard. You saved my life after I drank the tamuril poison. And you saved me from Lady Ran."

I shrugged. It had all been mostly accidental, but it felt good to have her petting and admiring me.

She took my hands in hers and lifted each one to her lips, kissing the tattoos on my knuckles. "And I wanted you because you are strong. You can bend iron with your bare hands, twirl those huge axes of yours like they're weightless, and probably crush rocks with your fingers."

"Practice, mostly. Crushing rocks is a pretty useless skill," I pointed out. My breath was coming a little short, because Var was nibbling on each finger in turn. She ended with a soft bite to the side of my palm, sending an unexpected little jolt of electricity all the way to my loins.

"But you're gentle, too. When I had that nightmare, that night on the road, you held me in your arms. You didn't even know me, but you helped me when I needed it."

I closed my eyes, remembered feeling her heart flutter as she had knelt tucked against my chest. Her body had been soft, her cheek against my beard, her glorious hair tickling my lips. It seemed like that had happened so long ago. And we had come so far together since then.

Shifting her weight on my lap, Var lifted my hands and placed them on her breasts. pressed my fingers into the soft weight, and felt her nipples harden against the center of my palms.

She went on. "And I wanted you because of your fierce loyalty. When you give your heart, you give it all the way. You love Thorin, and you love your Aunt Nott—"

"Well, I don't know about Aunt Nott—"

She laughed. "Oh, sure you do."

"Why are we talking about Aunt Nott at a time like this?" I complained.

"I think we don't need to discuss her further." She let her own hands fall to my bare chest, fingers playing in the thick hair, then leaned down and kissed the spot right over my heart. Her lips trailed wetness over to my nipples, sending little shock waves of pleasure rippling across my skin. I moved my hands to her back, reaching under the tunic to lift it up over her head, leaving us both bare to the waist.

She responded by tugging at my pants, and I lifted my hips to let her pull them down and off my body. Then she came back, mouth to my chest and moving down my body.

She stopped at the hollow between my hipbone and belly, licking and tickling that sensitive spot.

I tried to lift her face away. "Okay, now let me—"

"I'm not quite done yet," she said with a wicked smile. "I'm trying to make a point here. May I continue?"

"By all means," I replied generously, and settled back as her mouth moved down my body.

She wiggled down farther between my legs, and lowered her lips to take me fully in her mouth. My humorous mood fled as waves of pleasure began to build inside me. I hissed, trying to hold back the sounds that I wanted to make. My fists clutched at the sheets as her tongue flickered over the sensitive skin. She sucked and licked, moaning deep in her throat as she teased me, reaching under to lightly raking her fingernails along my skin.

Every muscle in my body pulled tight as my back arched up, pushing myself deeper into her wet, welcoming mouth. Then suddenly she lifted away from me, moved up to straddle me again, and took me inside her heated core. Our bodies rocked together, friction building, until the bright hot wave of pleasure crested and crashed over. Var cried out, her body clenching tight around me, and then I felt myself tumbling down into a deep and blissful peace.

Var snuggled down beside me, her head on my shoulder. After a while she lifted her hand and stroked my beard. "And so—" She paused.

"Hmmm?" I was too relaxed to speak.

She took a deep breath. "And so that's why it's so hard for me to say goodbye to you."

"What?"

"I've got a million good reasons to want you to stay with me. To marry you and keep you safely by my side for as long as we both shall live." She sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "And only one reason to let you go on Thorin's stupid, suicidal quest."

I stared at her, speechless.

She glared at me, then scrambled off the bed and began picking up her clothes. "Because I love you, you big fool. Now get up, because we've got a ton of things to do."