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again, with her fingers, her lips, her own body, but not once in the year-and-a-half he had been coming to her hut had she ever seen the man, himself, nor his muscular body.
    "If he comes to you," one of his men had told her, "we'll have to blindfold you. If you take off that blindfold, we'll kill you. Do you understand?"
    She had nodded to the man they called Sparrow. She looked from the wagon where she had been chained with other women on their way to a nunnery in Fealst to the black-hooded man sitting astride the big black destrier. She felt him watching her, tried to smile at him, but found her lips frozen.
    "He wants you." Sparrow smirked. "You willing or not?"
    And she had been more than willing to become one of the many playthings of the Dark Overlord of the Wind. Her first night with him had been a lesson in degradation and abuse, but she had found pleasure in the rough treatment and in the way his body controlled hers. The only thing that had marred the night's passage was his obvious contempt for her.
    "Keep your whoring mouth shut and your dirty hands off me when I'm finished with you," he had snarled when he rolled away from her. "If I want you again, you'll be told!"
    And he had come to her again, many times over the months. Not nearly as much as she had wanted, or needed, but enough to fulfill the part of her that craved him. And still, not once in all that time had she seen his face.
    Now, he arched against her, shot hot semen deep within her, and held himself still, tense. From months of experience with her, he knew she'd follow close behind him, and when she did, he withdrew immediately and rolled to the opposite side of the bed. He never left her wanting, although she knew it wouldn't bother him if he did.
    "Did you do what I told you?" he asked, his voice tight.
    "Aye, Lord Raven. I made sure there'll be no babe born of our coupling." Her fingers reached up to scratch at the black silk blindfold covering her eyes.
    "Don't," he warned.
    "I wasn't taking it off," she hastened to say. "You know I wouldn't do that."
    "Whores will do anything," he growled. The bed move as he got up. She could hear him slipping back into his midnight clothes.
    "I am no whore, despite what you think." She gasped as his fingers closed around her throat and pressed her head into the pillow.
    "Were you a virgin when I first took you?"
    "No, but—"
    "How many men had you lain with before that?"
    "I don't—"
    "Aye, you do know, slut! How many?" His fingers tightened.
    "Four, five! I don't remember!" She could barely breathe.
    "And how many of them were married?" He shook her.
    " Two!" she gasped, reaching up to pry his fingers from her throat.
    He knocked away her hand. "One was your brother-in-law, right?"
    How he knew that, she had to wonder, but his fingers hurt her so badly, she was afraid he would kill her. "What do you want me to say?" she asked, her voice pressing from her throat.
    "I want you to tell me you fucked your husband's brother, that's what I want you to tell me, bitch!"
    She felt rage powering out of him, felt it in the strength of his fingers, and wondered what woman had hurt him so badly.
    " Tell me!"
    "Aye," she admitted. "It was my husband's oldest brother."
    The fingers relaxed, then moved away from her throat. His voice was a low rumble of hate. "Like I said…a whore will do anything!"
    She lay there after he was gone, crying, hurt, needing him just as much as ever. She knew he'd be back, just as he always came back. There were eight others like herself that she knew about, and there were probably more in Virago, Chale, the other kingdoms. She was not his only whore.
    They all had three things in common, she thought, as she stared into the darkness and heard the last echo of his horse's thundering hooves dying in the night.
    Each of the women he visited on a regular basis had shiny, long, black hair.
    Each had eyes the color of the grass in spring.
    And each had committed adultery at least once—with their