by Carol A Park
“Is your other brother actually dead?”
“I have three other brothers. Teryn, the youngest of the four of us, is dead, yes.” He tried not to falter in his work as he spoke. The image of Teryn’s mangled body—looking much like Ivana’s leg—had been seared into his mind in that moment of horror when he had realized what had happened—why a bloodbane had been pulled through a tear while they hid, ironically, in their own saferoom during the sky-fire. “I don’t know about my other two brothers. I assume they’re still alive.”
She didn’t say anything.
He hesitated. “You…don’t seem to care much that I’m a Banebringer.” He opened the jar of salve and started rubbing it into the wounds.
She glanced at what he was doing and then away again. “It would be the height of irony for me to condemn you for having an illegal existence.”
That was surprisingly fair of her. “What, you don’t theorize that I must have done something horrible to deserve it? Or that my family line is tainted?”
She almost smiled, but there was too much mockery in it to be a real smile. “Oh no,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve done something horrible. Perhaps just not to deserve being cursed.”
“Cursed,” he repeated. “Did you know they used to call us Gifted?” That was a long time ago, before the Conclave had even existed. Back when the heretic gods were still worshipped.
“Doesn’t seem like much of a gift to me,” she responded. He could feel her eyes on him again. “Though invisibility…now that’s something that could come in handy in my line of work. I’d give a lot to have that.”
“I’d give a lot to not have it,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. What were a few magical abilities compared to family, acceptance, and love?
His throat tightened at the memories, especially of the last. They had haunted his dreams since the night he fled his own home. Since the night he subsequently fled the home of his ex-fiancée, who had no longer wanted anything to do with him the moment he had changed.
She was silent at his confession. Instead, she changed the subject. “You know an awful lot about these monsters.”
“I’ve been fighting them for years.”
Her eyes flicked to his bow, resting against the wall of the alcove. “If you can take down a twenty-foot monster with a few arrows, why don’t you just stick one in your own father’s back at an opportune moment? Doesn’t seem you needed to waste money on hired help.”
He put down the jar he had been using and wiped his fingers on a piece of cloth. “For one, I’ve never killed anything other than monsters and animals, and I don’t know if I want to start now.” He didn’t look up to see her reaction, but he had a feeling it would be impassive, as usual. “For two, I’m really terrible at this sneaking around stuff. Ironically.”
She snorted. “I hadn’t noticed.”
He allowed a small smile, but went on. “For three…I don’t know if I could do it.” That was a half-truth. He knew he couldn’t do it. “He is my father, after all.”
“A father who is determined to hunt you down and turn you into a comatose husk?”
Vaughn didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t know how to explain. Yet he felt compelled to try. “He wasn’t that bad when I was a child,” he said. “At least, I don’t remember him that way. Perhaps a little obsessed with making his sons into perfect specimens of nobility, but…he wasn’t cruel.” He paused, a few memories rising to the surface that contradicted that statement. “Usually,” he revised. “But I wouldn’t have thought he would have turned on his own family. But I guess…I guess some things are too much to handle.”
“Sounds like you’re making excuses for him.”
“No,” he said. “I’m…” Was he? In the end, his father proved that he cared more about his own power than his children.
He fell silent, once again, not sure how to respond. “How does it feel?”
“It doesn’t, right now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “At all?” That wasn’t good; the salve should have only decreased the pain, not numbed her entire leg. Had there been nerve damage? He ran his fingers over the upper part of her thigh, where the skin was unbroken. “Can you feel this?”
He didn’t even need to look at her to know the answer. He heard the sharp intake of air, felt her tense under his hand.
He looked up and met her eyes. It only took a few heartbeats of silence for him to realize she hadn’t been tensing in pain, and for his own body to respond to the realization. And then—
“I misspoke,” she said, shoving his hand off her thigh and seeming disconcerted for the first time since he had met her. “I meant it doesn’t hurt.”
“Ah.” The salve was acting properly as a focus for the aether, then. “Good.”
He wiped his hands again and then looked for the needle and thread, ready to stitch her up as best as he could; he wasn’t a surgeon, and it wouldn’t be pretty, but he had stitched together a few of his own wounds in eight years’ time. Hopefully, in combination with the aether, the healed result wouldn’t be that bad.
Ivana let out a slow, silent breath as Vaughn turned away to root around in the bundle of items he had bought.
Curse her body for its sudden betrayal.
Vaughn turned back, holding the spool of thread, but frowning. “Where did I put the needle…” he muttered to himself. He picked up his discarded dinner jacket, emptied the inner pockets, and then set it back down again.
“It’s stuck in the spool,” she said, and only barely kept herself from smiling. Bloodfire. One too many draughts on that bottle, apparently.
He looked at the spool in his hand, in which the needle had sunk almost to the end in the mass of thread. “Oh.” He shook his head, pulled it out, and started threading it.
She glanced at the items he had discarded from his dinner jacket. “You had a sheath in your dinner jacket pocket? Who in the abyss were you planning on bedding that you needed it with you at dinner?”
He gave her that crooked, charming grin she hated so much.
She frowned at him. “Don’t even think about it.”
His grin broadened. “Sorry. Far too late for that.”
“Tell me, Dal Vaughn, what would you do if you got a woman with child on one of your many conquests?”
“That won’t happen.”
“You know those things aren’t perfectly effective, right?”
“The odds are better when I’m only using one—” he tilted his head as if considering, and then shrugged, “—maybe two per woman. And there’s always tanthalia.”
Great. The herb that could destroy a woman’s womb if overused—as she knew first hand. Then again, she supposed he would say he only needed one or two doses per woman. Burning skies, this man was unbelievable. Perhaps he did deserve the title ‘demonspawn.’ “You still haven’t answered my question.”
He started in on the worst of her wounds. “If you’re asking if I would marry her, I can assure you that no woman, once they found out what I was, would want to marry me, even for the sake of a child.”
“And what if you weren’t a Banebringer?”
“Then…I’d already be married,” he said. “I had a fiancée before I was changed.”
She didn’t miss the implication that his fiancée had broken it off with him because of his change. Interesting—but beside the point. “I’m speaking theoretically here.”
He cast her a furtive glance, and then looked back down at his sewing. “I’m afraid if I answered honestly you’d decide you wanted to kill me again.”
She gave him a suitably withering look.
He sighed. “Look—no, I probably wouldn’t.” He hurried on before she could reply. “But she wouldn’t end up on the streets, to be plucked up by an eccentric assassin who runs a charity—if that’s what you’re getting at. I would give what monetary support I could.”
“Bastards can get awfully expensive,” Ivana said, trying to decide if she resented being
called eccentric or not.
He jerked his head toward his jacket. “Hence, precautions.” He tied off the thread for one wound and re-threaded the needle to begin on another. “Enough about me. What about you?”
“Pardon?”
“Who are you, Ivana?”
Ivana flinched, as if he had struck her. If she were able, she would have risen and walked away. As it was, she was stuck there.
“You know who I am,” she said.
“I know what you are.”
“There is no difference.” She tried to communicate with her tone that if he pressed it, he might not want to go to sleep tonight.
“Come on. Play fair. What about siblings?”
“You’re asking me to play fair?”
“You have to tell me something.”
“I do not. But so you’ll stop bothering me, yes, I had one sibling. A sister.”
“Had?”
“I don’t know where she is,” she said. “Dead, probably.” If she were lucky. Otherwise, she was likely still a slave, a fate Ivana herself had narrowly avoided.
Her throat contracted. By running. By leaving her sister behind.
Guilt? Burning skies. How long would it be before she could lose this man and everything he represented? Trying to regain her long-cultivated detachment with him around was like pouring water into a sieve.
“I’m sorry,” Vaughn said.
She didn’t like this subject. “I’m surprised you didn’t save some for yourself,” she said, nodding toward the empty liquor bottle.
“You’re awfully talkative tonight,” Vaughn observed.
It was the liquor, in part. It had been pretty strong stuff, and she had downed enough to relax a full grown man. She felt it around the edges.
She shrugged. “I’m trying to keep my mind off the fact that you’ve been digging your hands into my leg.”
“Actually, now I’m sewing up your leg.”
“Ugh,” she said. “Whatever.”
He chuckled. “I don’t really drink,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”
He shrugged. “What’s the point in drinking when I can’t get drunk?”
“You can’t get drunk?”
“Alcohol doesn’t affect Banebringers.”
That was a revelation. And…it put him in a whole new perspective. “That’s rough,” she said.
He worked for a few more minutes in silence, their conversation having apparently run its course. Finally, he declared, “I’m done.”
She examined her leg. It was a pretty ugly job—and she was sure she would have some pleasant scars on her leg after it healed, but it was better than nothing. “Thank you.”
He seemed a little surprised at her expressed gratitude. She was a little surprised herself.
He looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. He went to his bundles and unwrapped another one, and while he did so, Ivana glanced toward the waterfall. The sun was setting.
Apparently it had been later in the day rather than earlier in the morning.
Vaughn returned with a long length of clean white cloth. “All right,” he said. “Let’s wrap it up again.”
Ivana adjusted her position, lifting one knee so he could reach around her leg with the cloth. As she did so, her torn skirt fell to the side, revealing the entire length of her leg, from ankle, to thigh, to the scrap of cloth that still held the skirt of her dress at her waist.
He paused momentarily, eyes resting on the unbroken flesh there. She wore an undergarment, but it was a delicate slip of cloth, as though she were preparing for a tryst, not going to be running around in the woods fighting monsters. Though to be fair, she hadn’t known she would be doing that when she had dressed for the banquet.
He glanced her way. Her eyes were him, and one eyebrow was raised.
He coughed, embarrassed to be caught staring at her like an unexperienced schoolboy, and started wrapping the leg.
“My,” she said, humor in her voice. “You would think you’ve never seen a woman’s leg before.”
“I was observing that your choice of underclothes isn’t very practical,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.
“A woman wants to feel feminine now and again,” she said. “Even if that woman is a hardened killer.” She paused, a slight warning in her voice. “Perhaps especially if that woman is a hardened killer.”
He finished the wrap, tying a knot and then tucking the loose end in at the top of her thigh. He wondered if her being slightly tipsy would make it more or less likely for her to follow through on her threats.
Warning or not, he found his hand lingering there again, tracing the skin at the top of the wrap. “Well, rest assured, hardened killer or not, you’re quite feminine underneath.”
He was in dangerous territory. He knew that. But her skin was so smooth. After he had touched her earlier, he couldn’t get out of his mind the thought of what it must be like to run his hands over the rest of her…
She shifted, and he flinched, half expecting a dagger at his throat, but she said and did nothing.
He looked up to meet her eyes. He was surprised to find them half-closed.
She ought to tell him to stop. She opened her mouth to do so, but nothing came out. Instead, her lips remained parted as his finger traveled upwards, tracing a line up her thigh, onto her hip.
Her body was rebelling against her again. Sending all sorts of mind-numbing messages to her brain.
And he was moving from touch to caress. With eyes flicking repeatedly from hers to her leg, one finger turned to two, and then three…
Against her will, she felt herself relaxing into his touch. It had been so long since someone had touched her like this, in such a way that she could enjoy it. Not to get information. Not because she was about to assassinate them. Just because.
No! Stop! Her mind screamed. But her body simply refused to cooperate.
She found herself shifting again, trying to expose even more flesh, and he willingly accepted her silent invitation, following an invisible line from her hip to her upper abdomen, even pushing back her dress slightly to reach the skin there…
His hand paused, ran across her stomach again, and then stopped. “You have stretch marks,” he said, surprise in his voice.
Vaughn cursed himself the moment the words left his mouth. It was as though he had doused her with water.
She sat up, shoved his hand away, and flicked what remained of her skirt back over her leg, glaring at him.
Still, he was so shocked, he couldn’t help but press her. “You have a child?”
She struggled to rise to her feet, though he didn’t know why. “No.”
“But—”
“It’s none of your business. Along with the contours of my leg.” She limped across the alcove, about as far away as she could get from him, and slid back down the wall, resting her head back against it with a grimace.
He decided it would be wise to drop the subject.
“I bought a bundle of blankets,” he offered.
She didn’t reply.
And so he sat in the increasing darkness—not that it mattered to him, since his eyes adjusted to let in more light the darker it became—until he was certain she was asleep.
When that happened, he padded over to where she sat, gently lowered her to the ground, tucked one blanket beneath her head and draped another over her.
He couldn’t say why he did it. Only that it felt right.
Chapter Fifteen
Star-Leaf
Ivana was sure every muscle in her body had been trampled when she woke up. Her back hurt from sleeping on stone, and her leg was aching again. And then there were the dreams. It had been years since she had dreamed of him, yet it was the same sequence of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal, crushed together in one distorted summary.
Except this time his face had been replaced with Vaughn’s. It irritated her, even though he could hardly be responsible for her dreams.
She grimaced as she pushed herself to her feet and tested her leg. Thankfully, she was able to stand and walk.
Vaughn was missing again—not that she cared. She would just as soon that he disappear forever, and she sincerely hoped he didn’t bring up the stretch marks again.
Temoth. What had come over her last night? She couldn’t blame it all on the liquor.
She went over to the bundles he had bought the previous day, hoping to find another clean cloth, and she did, so she started the process of changing her bandage.
She examined the wounds once she had removed the soiled cloth. The angry red of the surrounding irritated skin had faded some, which was a good sign. She rewrapped her leg and went looking for the needle and thread. When she had found it, she proceeded to stitch as much of her skirt back together as possible. She didn’t bother below the knee—no reason to be impractical—but she would be damned if she gave him an excuse to see her leg again.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was functional.
She had just risen to put away the needle and thread when Vaughn returned.
Too bad.
He glanced at her. “You shouldn’t be up on that leg,” he said.
“You would prefer I sit around here and wait until the guards catch up with me?”
He shook his head. “They don’t know where we are yet.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he jerked his head toward the waterfall. “I did some scouting. I’m pretty sure they’re pulling back to Talesin’s estate.”
After only a day of searching? Great. That probably meant they were concentrating on the city, hoping she would return, even though that would be incredibly foolish.
Apparently she was foolish.
“Good. Perhaps it will be easy to slip through then,” she said, stepping toward the entrance.
“You’re serious about going back to the city?”
“I never asked you to come. In fact, feel free to leave any time you want.”
“I’m still coming, I just—” He shook his head. “We should at least wait until—”