He watched her curl in a beaten ball and savored her hopeless terror. Rape was the one crime that might turn even his father’s men against him, but no one would ever know who’d had this slut. When they found her body and saw all the things he’d done-and still looked forward to doing-they’d assume exactly what he wanted: that someone taken by the Rage’s blood frenzy had slaughtered her like a sow, and-

An abrupt explosion of rending wood shattered his hungry anticipation and snatched him around in shock. The long abandoned sleeping chamber’s locked door was thick, as stout and well built as any door in Navahk was likely to be, but its latch simply disappeared in a cloud of splinters, and the door itself slammed back against the wall so hard one iron hinge snapped. Harnak jumped back in instant panic, mind already racing for a way to bribe or threaten his way out of the consequences of discovery, but then his eyes widened as he saw who stood in the opening.

That towering figure could not be mistaken for anyone else, but it was alone, and Harnak snarled in contemptuous relief as the intruder glanced at the naked, battered girl huddled against the wall. Big he might be, but Bahzell of Hurgrum was no threat. The puling, puking coward had hidden behind his “hostage” status for over two years, swallowing insults no warrior would let pass . . . and he was armed only with a dagger, while Harnak’s sword lay ready on the rotting bed. Bahzell would never raise his hand to the heir to Navahk’s throne-especially if it meant matching eighteen inches of steel against forty!-and even if he carried the tale to others, no one in Navahk would dare take his word over that of a prince of the blood. Particularly if Harnak saw to it that Farmah had vanished before the Horse Stealer could get back with help. He straightened his back with an automatic, arrogant snarl, gathering his scattered wits to order the intruder out, but the words died unspoken as Bahzell’s eyes moved back to him. There was something in them Harnak had never seen before . . . and Bahzell wasn’t stopping in the doorway.