by Ann Aguirre
Mags nearly choked. “Yeah. No problem at all. We’re heading back now.”
The curtain of night had lowered while they were fucking in the stable. Mags paused despite the freezing weather, caught by the unexpected beauty of the sky. There were no solar lights in Kelnora, and the snow had tapered to soft flurries, so visibility was better. Beautiful. The sky was midnight dressed in gossamer clouds with stars showing shy faces, and the moon was a silver coin ringed in frayed brightness. In Ash Valley, she never stopped to look up like this, and even if she did, it wouldn’t look like this.
She reached out, grabbing Gavriel’s shoulder, and he stopped without his usual impatience. Silently she pointed up and he inhaled, an expression of stunned wonder slowly softening his features.
“I don’t even care that I’m up to my knees in snow,” he said softly. “Have you ever seen anything so perfect?”
Maybe there had been a night like this, long ago. When I was twenty-three. When Brendan was alive. Or Tamara, when I was thirty-two. Other than that, her nights had been spent hunched over a screen in the security office or sparring with Slay. Sometimes she’d listened to him whine about his mother, who wouldn’t let him marry his long-time lover, Pru. And she’d swallowed her bitterness, her outrage that his problems were so simple and easily resolved. You only need a spine.
I need a miracle.
She spoke none of that aloud. “I don’t think I have. I’m glad the storm’s over. With a sky this clear, we should be fine to travel tomorrow.”
Gavriel shot her an unreadable look but he only nodded. “I hope it’s quieted some. The constant noise is a bit wearing.”
“That’s because you’re used to being alone,” she guessed.
“True enough. You aren’t?”
“Alone but surrounded by people.” That encapsulated her situation pretty well.
After she’d fought with her mother, the elder Versai packed her shit and left, and like he always did, Mags’s father followed his wife. Sometimes she wondered why they’d bothered having a kid when they wanted a pet, one that could be perfectly trained and taught to perform crowd-pleasing tricks.
Damn, this is really not like me.
She dropped her hand from Gavriel’s shoulder and hastened to the public house, not glancing back to see if he was with her. The snow was no longer a threat; neither was the wind.
This interlude was over. Most likely, she should stop fucking him as well. This was the hardest part, quitting before a relationship went bad. All the signs pointed toward a burgeoning attachment, however, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Whatever, I don’t have to think about this tonight. He wouldn’t make a move if she didn’t. So that session in the stable could be the alpha and omega of their brief liaison.
Inside, the public house was quieter than it had been, at least. The children were lined up asleep in pallets on the floor, and Titus was sprawled beneath one of the tables, a choice surely, since it was hard for an Animari to get that drunk.
Silently Mags headed upstairs for their last night together. That thought birthed a tangled mess of regret, but she wouldn’t change her mind.
Not now.
She’d underestimated how dangerous Gavriel could be. Before, she figured he was the last person who might develop feelings for her—and the reverse should have been true too—but he kept scraping up against her raw edges and finding the gaps in her protective armor. If she let him, he’d find a way inside her walls, like the sneaky bastard he was.
“You’re quiet,” he said, as she laid out the blankets.
“Yeah.”
“Would you talk to me if I asked what’s troubling you?”
You are. So much that I don’t even know what I want anymore. I only know what I can’t have.
Mags didn’t answer until they settled under the covers. She didn’t push him away when he came close enough to touch her because of course, he wouldn’t. Not without permission. But she could feel the heat of him beside her in the blankets, and it was an aching warmth, one she couldn’t share with anyone, night after night.
There might be a few days. A week. After that, it was ‘good-bye, good-luck and thanks for all the orgasms’. That used to be enough. It wasn’t anymore, and she hated herself for the pointless wishing that filled her head.
“Do you ever wish your life was different?” she asked, instead of answering his question.
“I used to, when training was difficult. I’d imagine that Oriel and I had been mislaid, like lost parcels, and that our desperate parents would turn up, crying because they’d been searching ceaselessly all those years. That wasn’t the case, of course. People don’t return for what they’ve thrown away.”
Part of her couldn’t believe he was speaking to her so openly, and that made everything worse. While she was worrying about him getting too close, somehow, she’d turned into somebody he trusted, and she was probably going to hurt him when she put an end to…whatever this was. It had to be soon.
Just not tonight.
Still, she tried to be what he needed, if only for a moment. “There’s nothing I can say. You don’t want a hug, and we already had sex. That’s pretty much the extent of my emotional range.”
“The fact that you’re listening is enough,” he said, his voice all honey and whiskey, two of her favorite things. “You know, I’ve never been able to sleep with anyone else. Until you. Why is that, I wonder? Even when I hated you for sleeping on my rug uninvited, I felt…safe. Comforted even.”
“What about your brother?” Questions were good. They kept him talking, so she didn’t have to.
“Oriel was part of me. Not someone else. That probably sounds strange?”
“Not at all. I get the twin bond. I can’t imagine how you deal with…” Losing him. Losing half of yourself.
Gavriel turned his face into his arm, hiding that ever-present grief. “You don’t.”
Oh gods, I want to comfort him. How did this happen? Mags touched his head lightly, stroking his hair, and he let her.
“Guild life must’ve sucked. You mentioned before that you’re a light sleeper.”
Gavriel exhaled in a rumbling sound that was almost a purr and nuzzled his head against her hand. “In some ways. We slept ten to a dorm hall, and there was always noise…I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I must be drunk.”
Mags knew damn well he hadn’t taken a sip, but she let the lie pass. “Probably. Good night, Gavriel.”
In the morning, they said farewell to everyone in Kelnora. Gray was rested and ready to be ridden. Gavriel had mapped the route to Ancalen, though he was still unsure what they were supposed to do once they got there.
Fight a small war, he supposed. For Magda Versai, he’d do exactly that, even if there was no chance in hell of winning.
“You’re riding with me?” he asked, just to confirm, because there was no reason for her to shift.
Yet she hesitated, sending a frisson of unease through him. She had been strange last night, and was more so this morning, remote as an untouched, snowy field. Leena ran out of the inn to hug Magda around the knees and the tiger woman bent to return the embrace with gentleness that was all the more amazing because he knew firsthand how strong she was.
“I’ll be back,” she promised the little girl, who smeared a wet kiss across her cheek.
“You swear?”
“Pinky swear.” Magda completed a complicated finger lock and Leena seemed satisfied when she returned to her mother, who was crying to see them go.
Crying.
A buoyant feeling fizzed through him, akin to happiness, but he’d mostly seen that in other people. It was close to how he’d felt, the first time Mistress Alana praised him for completing a mission and taking out one of the princess’s most dangerous enemies. Like that but not.
Finally, Magda turned to him. “Conserving my energy makes sense. I’ll ride.”
“Running in the snow isn’t fun,” Titus said. “Damned col
d on the paws.”
“We could get you some tiger shoes.” Gavriel couldn’t believe he was teasing someone. Teasing.
“I’ll knit some,” Keriel volunteered.
When Magda smiled and shook a fist at him, it didn’t matter that he felt ridiculous. “I will kill you.”
“Departure now, violence later.”
Finally, he got her on Gray’s back, and they were riding away. While he was grateful to these folks for offering shelter and glad they’d chosen to save the refugees, he wanted Magda to himself. Privately he admitted that he was tired of sharing her, tired of seeing her smile at other people. Acknowledging that, even in his own head, created a minor mental shockwave.
Ugh. It’s like I’ve caught some terrible emotional disease.
Like before, she wasn’t touching him. Instead, she was holding onto the back of the saddle, but now everything had changed, and it pissed him off that she was still giving him space, still acting as she had before she broke him open like a funeral urn and found more than ashes inside.
Reaching back, he took her arm and pulled it around his waist. “Hold on tight. The ground is rough.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, in such a grave tone that it seemed like another question entirely.
Still Gavriel said, “Yes,” and then she looped her arms around him, pressed her solid heat against his back, and it was so lovely that the top of his head tingled. Not a sex feeling, but the sweetness of it was both extraordinary and exquisite. Nobody ever clung to him. They didn’t look to him for heroic gestures or physical comfort.
Gavriel would have ridden a thousand miles like this. Too bad they only needed to go a bit beyond the border.
They stopped a couple of times for food, hydration, and bio. Gray had plenty of vigor, thanks to a long rest in the stables. One night sleeping rough and they should reach the town before noon the next day.
As night approached, he realized that she’d barely spoken, more lost in her own head than he’d ever known her to be. That quiet withdrawal alarmed him. He didn’t know for sure what it meant, but it couldn’t be anything good. Plus, Gavriel didn’t know how to handle a silent Magda; she was fire and agitation, not the frozen stillness of a winter pond.
“Are you feeling sick?” he asked, as they set up camp.
Tent. Heat stick. Freshly washed blankets that smelled of homey kitchen fires and dried herbs. She didn’t answer as he tethered Gray beneath a stand of trees nearby. There was no forage for him in the deep snow, but Gavriel had enough left in the bags to get them to Ancalen. He’d refused to accept supplies from Kelnora when they couldn’t afford to be more generous than they already had been.
Her voice sounded terse, so he turned to gauge her expression. “I’m fine. Look, do you remember when you preferred not talking to me? Let’s do that.”
Perversely, she was giving him exactly what he’d wanted from her in the beginning, which was nothing—and to be left alone—but now it felt like punishment. Gavriel wanted to protest, but he cringed at the words taking shape in his head.
This isn’t fair. Did I do something? I can’t make it right, if you don’t tell me what.
That was far too close to begging, and he wouldn’t do that outside of sex. This was something else entirely, so he set his jaw and finished the campsite in angry silence.
It was an hour before she joined him in the tent, and as if she wanted to stress the chasm between them, she came in as a tiger, all dense fur, teeth, and claws.
See, she seemed to be saying. We’re fundamentally different, you and me.
Once, he’d agreed with that. Could hardly stand to be in the same room with the Animari because when he saw them, he relived the nightmare of his brother’s death.
It took him a long time to fall asleep, and when he did, he dreamed.
“You worry too much, brother.” Oriel clapped him on the shoulder, all smiles.
He was golden in the twilight, as they waited to be sure they hadn’t been followed. Lord Talfayen’s men were everywhere, and the princess was desperate to secure this alliance. She’d tried to get her people inside Ash Valley to warn the pride second of the plot she’d uncovered, but that mission failed, leaving them no choice but to approach the exiled pride master at the old seer’s retreat.
“And you don’t worry enough,” he shot back.
“There’s three of us,” Oriel pointed out, “and by all accounts, Asher’s damn near done in by grief. I’m more worried about whether we can get him out safely. If he’s gone feral, he won’t understand that this is a rescue mission and he’ll fight us to the death for trespassing on his territory.”
He nodded, watching the house from his perch on the rock nearby. “The princess feels it’d be best to drug him and take him without discussion. She believes in asking forgiveness instead of permission.”
Oriel grinned. “Trust me, I know. We’ll get it done. Let’s wait until the lights go out. We’ll go in quiet and extricate him, quick and clean.”
The world blurred, and then it was all darkness. Screaming cats. Smell of blood. He saw it again. Again. The tear in his brother’s throat, red everywhere, moonlight and death. The face of the woman who murdered his brother was burned into his brain. She was a human sometimes, sometimes an ocelot, sometimes a monstrous hybrid—a cat with a woman’s head.
He wanted to kill them both.
His training won. He ran. To save his own life, he ran.
Gavriel woke with a scream frozen in his throat, sweating and shivering at the same time. For a moment, he recalled that moment when he’d held Pru Bristow at his mercy. Could’ve killed her then.
Sometimes he wished he’d chosen vengeance and family loyalty over the princess’s agenda. And right now, he mostly wanted Magda to notice—to ask if he was all right. The tiger curled up in the corner of the tent gave no sign that she realized he was awake. Shivering, he ran a hand through his hair. Remembered how she’d soothed him only the night before, gentle hands, petting his head.
Why am I like this?
The small space smelled of fear sweat and quiet desperation. It should have been me. Not Oriel. Silently he used one edge of his blanket to mop his face, then he slipped out into the chill night to settle his nerves. Gray greeted him with a chuff and a stamp of hooves, nuzzling his face against Gavriel’s shoulder.
I should be stronger.
It had been a while since he had the dream, not since before he started sleeping with Magda Versai. Maybe it meant something that he was having it again.
17.
In the morning, Gavriel was his customary self, and Magda regarded the change with both relief and regret. In tiger form, she watched while he packed the camp, then she took off on her own toward Ancalen. If he asked later—and he probably wouldn’t—she’d say she was scouting.
Titus had been right, damn him. Tigers weren’t meant to run in the snow, and the going was miserable. She was too heavy to run along the surface as a smaller cat might, and she didn’t have the snow leopard’s broad, fur-lined paws or fatty tail to improve cold resistance. Still, she accepted this misery as a fair price for causing this situation.
It’ll probably melt soon, just not fast enough to do me any good.
She smelled the smoke before she saw the town itself, and when she tipped her head back, she spied dark plumes swirling into the sky. Keriel had mentioned that their houses burned before they fled; it seemed like the violence was still raging. If things went on like this, there might not be anything left to save.
Gavriel caught up to her as she paused on the rise overlooking Ancalen. Even from here, she could hear shouts and cries, fear and hysteria. A small war was raging here, and it was unlikely they’d find any allies.
While it was tempting to go in as a tiger, she would draw too much attention, and she had combat skill on two legs as well as four. Making up her mind, Mags shifted and reached for her pack. The Noxblade kept his gaze fixed on the town below, where fresh fires were still burning.
“This is hell, isn’t it?” he said. “All along, I thought it was Oriel who died, but I’m starting to think it must’ve been me. Otherwise, Eldritch lands could never look like this.”
She didn’t reply until she finished getting dressed, harder than it sounded in the freezing wind and in fresh snow. Her feet were wet and cold, so her socks stuck to her skin and her boots didn’t want to go on properly.
“That’s not like you, waxing philosophical.” She aimed for a light, casual tone, but he didn’t respond in kind.
“Don’t act as if you know me,” he said icily.
From his current attitude, it looked like Mags didn’t need to worry about Gavriel trying to take what she chose not to give. Why did that cause such a painful twinge?
“They say war is hell,” she answered, refusing to be drawn. “Can’t remember who, but it seems accurate. Your skills will come into play here. We need to neutralize as many hostiles as we can while staying under the radar. I’m usually the shock and awe so I’ll follow your lead. You say jump, I ask how high.”
For the first time since the night before, he met her gaze, a reluctant smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. “That means you’re in my hands for a change? I do believe I might enjoy this, provided we survive it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Live it up, boss man. What’s our first move?”
“First we surveil the town.” He pulled a small drone from his saddlebags then and input a few parameters on the remote. “This will do the legwork for us, so try to be patient, though it’s not your forte.”
Mags ground her teeth against the urge to bicker with him. That route led to losing her temper, letting down her guard, and then they’d be right back to intimacy, exactly what she was trying to avoid. With great effort, she muttered an assent and rubbed a hand along Gray’s flank, earning a pleased chuff from the vedda beast.
“It’ll take about an hour for the drone to complete a circuit of the town,” Gavriel said, as it buzzed off to do his bidding.
Mags watched until the unit disappeared from sight, then she asked, “You think anybody will notice? Maybe shoot it down?”