Honor Bound Read Online Free PDF Page A

out the first injector. The yellow liquid looked ordinary
but the thickness of the fluid assured Miki that the venom she’d added had not
lost its potency. She hoped Eran’s explanation spoke the truth.
    One dose of this
should bring the Kaban warrior from his deep sleep. She placed the small square
on his muscled forearm and pressed down. A small click and the fluid drained
out until the injector emptied. Miki licked her lips and leaned back on her
heels.
    The warrior’s eyelids
flickered. “Blessed One,” she gasped. The muscles in his arms twitched.
Suddenly, he jolted and sat upright. Miki tried to scramble backward but the
hand closest to her reached out and clamped around her throat.
    “What are you
doing?”
    He growled the words
in the standard tongue. Miki choked out her response in the same language.
“Helping. I’m helping.”
    He released her as
suddenly as he’d grabbed her and she fell on her backside. Miki massaged her
sore throat, her heart pounding in her chest. The warrior looked around at the
prone figures of his brethren. Miki rubbed her hands on her leggings to distill
the dampness.
    “What goes on
here?” He pinned her with eyes as dark as the coals used to heat the house
fires.
    “I am Mikayla,”
she started.
    “You are Raasa,”
he growled, as if her race were an insult.
    Nerves tangled in
a ball in her belly. “Yes.”
    “We were poisoned.
Are you a part of Thenl’s treachery?”
    Miki blinked at
the mention of the Warlord who would not accept her refusal to be with him. “I
had no hand in harming you and your men.” This must be Vaan. The look he aimed
her way boiled with fury.
    Miki climbed to
her feet. The warrior copied her actions. Moving to a crouch and then rising to
his full height. He was indeed large. Larger than Thenl and the band of
warriors he’d brought with him to her home. The warrior’s broad shoulders
stretched as his head swiveled this way and that.
    “You will explain
your actions and why I am up but my fellow warriors remain in death’s embrace.”
His hands curled into fists at his side while his dark head lowered to gaze at
her.
    Miki backed up a
step and stumbled over a warrior behind her. She cried out and fell to her
hands and knees. The warrior did nothing to assist her, and Miki decided then
and there she would not present her offer to him. She’d choose another. One of
the other Warlords who would prove to be as fearless as the Overlord glaring at
her would work fine.
    “You were not
poisoned. Your mother managed to switch the drink with a sleeping draught.”
    “What?” Surprise
flashed across his stern features.
    “Ashaya kept a
journal. In it, she detailed Thenl’s plot and how Dakar helped him to betray
you and your top Warlords.”
    A longer stare
pinned her to the spot. Miki dared not move.
    “How did you…” he
waved a hand at his form. “Awaken me from this sleep?”
    She showed him her
leather pouch with the injectors. “She used a small dose of sakar to create the
deep sleep.”
    He glared but she
stood her ground. “You will revive the others.”
    Miki swallowed. “I
planned to.”
    Under his watchful
stare, she went to the next man and knelt beside him. The heat of the warriors
stare burned a hole in her shoulders as she posted the injection. This time,
she leaped back when the warrior jerked upright. He stood slowly and looked as
if he contemplated Miki’s demise.
    The first warrior
said something to him. Miki frowned. They spoke Kaban. After the exchange, the
one she identified as Vaan pointed at her. “Continue. Do not stop until they
all rise.”
    Legs quivering,
Miki hurried to each man and gave him the sakar. After each injection, she
observed and tried to discern which warrior would be fierce enough to battle
Thenl.
    All of them could
crush her with their massive frames but only the toughest would suit her needs.
She knelt beside the last man, ignoring the babble of the others as they talked
amongst themselves in