"I have a hangover, but I can't for the life of me remember drinking anything," he answered blearily.
Tarrin's suspicions went wild immediately. "Did you happen to meet Auli last night, Dar?"
"Yeah, as I was leaving the baths. She gave me--she didn't!"
"I'd say she did," Tarrin nodded grimly.
"That little--just wait til I get my hands on her!" he said angrily. "She drugged me!"
"That's not half of what she did to me last night," he admitted.
"She caught you, didn't she?"
A bit contritely, he nodded. "I never had a chance. She caught me in the baths. I had nowhere to go."
"You could have said no, you know."
"Look me in the eyes and say that again, Dar," he said seriously. "I don't think there's a man in the Tower that could say no to Auli when she's all up against you like she was me. I mean she had me dead to rights, Dar. Alone and naked in the baths, and she managed to sneak up to where she got a hold of me before I realized she was there. I couldn't have said no in that situation."
"I guess not," he sighed. "Is that what you wanted to tell me?"
"No, actually, I need your help," he said. "She managed to get me to bring her back to my room, and I need to purge her scent out of it before one of the Were-cats finds it. If Jesmind finds out about this, she'll kill Auli, so I need to get this done before Jesmind comes around."
"I don't really know how to do that, but Kerri does," he answered. "Don't worry, Tarrin, Kerri can keep a secret. Let me wake her up, as soon as I find my amulet."
Though Tarrin could tell that Dar was a little amused by the situation, he took it seriously enough. So did Keritanima, to his surprise. After waking her up by calling to her using the amulet, she rushed down to his room wearing nothing but a nightrobe, with Binter ambling along behind her, an eternal presence. Wherever Keritanima was, one of the Vendari was as well. "Alright, now what's so important that you'd wake me up at the crack of dawn, Dar?" she demanded as she shuffled off the staircase and towards them.
Rather abashedly, Tarrin explained what had happened, which made her laugh. "Is that all? Good grief, Tarrin, you take these things too seriously. It's not like Auli's going to marry you. You didn't have to wake me up to tell me that."
"Jesmind's already threatened to kill her, Kerri," he explained. "That's one of the reasons why I was trying to stay away from her. If Jesmind finds out, she'll go after Auli, so I need your help destroying the evidence."
"In here, eh?" she nodded with her muzzle, then she opened the door to his room and put her head in. She then chuckled humorlessly. "Oh, Auli was in here all right, and it's obvious you and her were rattling the headboard. I can smell it from here."
"Kerri," Tarrin said in protest, his cheeks flushing slightly.
"You were alot more fun as a Were-cat, Tarrin," she teased with a toothy grin. "Alright, I'll take care of this, but I can smell Auli all over you. Take some clean clothes down to the baths and scrub every finger of skin you have with soap twice, and wash your hair at least three times. Auli's sweat is all over you, and that kind of a scent is very hard to wash off."
"I was getting ready to do that," he assured her.
"Well, Tarrin, was it any good?" she asked shamelessly.
"Kerri!"
"It's alright, Tarrin, I'm a married woman," she said wickedly. "I'm allowed to talk about these kinds of things now."
"Well, I'm not a married woman, so I'm not going to talk about it," he said adamantly.
She looked at him and laughed, then patted him on the shoulder. "Go get cleaned up, and I'll help you cover this up," she winked. "But you owe me a big one."
He didn't really answer that, taking a clean change of clothes down to the baths and getting to work. He nearly scrubbed himself raw with soap as he labored to get Auli's smell off of him, and he had to hurry. There was no telling when Jesmind or Kimmie was going to come looking for him, if they weren't watching him already--
That brought him up short. If Jesmind had been watching him last night, then she may already know about him and Auli. If that was the case, then she may already be on the warpath. But he hadn't heard anything about it yet, so there was a chance that it hadn't happened. Or at least hadn't happened yet. There was no screaming in the hallways, none of the other bathers were talking about any kind of fighting last night, so he was a little encouraged that she'd not been tailing him last night.
He went back to it, spending nearly an hour washing Auli's scent off of him, and then laboriously scrubbing his hair for a second time in so many days. He was waterlogged by the time he climbed out, and his skin was decidedly pink from the brisk scrubbing, but he was relatively certain that he'd gotten all of it. That knowledge made him relax a little. If Keritanima did her part, any scent evidence left in his room had been wiped away, and now there was nothing but him, Auli, Dar, and Keritanima to say anything about it. He knew that Dar and Kerri wouldn't say anything, and he certainly wouldn't. He just hoped that Auli had the sense to keep her mouth shut. He'd have to find her, to talk to her and tell her that her life very well may depend on her keeping what happened last night to herself.
He dressed in the clean clothes he'd brought with him and carefully wrapped the dirty ones so he could minimize their contact with him, then wrapped them in a towel and put them under his arm. He was pretty sure that he'd gotten everything, and that made him feel quite a bit better. He started back to his room feeling quite relieved about the whole thing. If Keritanima finished, then all that would be left would be the clothes under his arm, and that would be easy enough to attend. He'd burn them if nothing else. He hurried back to his room, confident that everything was going to work out alright--
And found Jesmind standing in the doorway. And she did not look happy. Her beautiful face was very tight, very flat,and her eyes were very narrow as she glowered into the hallway. Those eyes locked on him, and she moved towards him at a fast walk that made him realize that she'd break out into a run and chase him down if he tried to get away from her. And that would only make her angrier. She stalked up to him, and he felt honest fear of her as she looked the slight difference in their heights down at him with that same flat, angry expression. He swallowed reflexively as he backed into the wall behind him, out of room, and then flinched when her open hand slammed into the wall just beside his head. The other hand snatched the towel-wrapped bundle from his hands and threw it aside.
"I leave you alone for one night," she hissed at him, "I decide that I can trust you by yourself for one night, and this is what happens!"
Tarrin's fear of Jesmind was suddenly displaced by indignation and not a little anger. "I'm not your child, Jesmind," he said in a level tone. "I didn't want it to happen, but it did. Even if I'd wanted it or not, what I do is none of your business."
"You'd better believe that it's my business!" she suddenly raged at him, making his flinch as drops of that dangerous spittle flew from her mouth, nearly landing on his face. "You are my mate, Tarrin! Even if you are human, you're still mine! Mine, do you hear? You're not free to go sleep around with anyone until I let you go!" She slammed her other hand into the wall on the other side of his head, trapping him, but he did not flinch. He looked up at her with steady nerve, the calm taught to him by his parents when facing an enemy. Never show fear, they had both taught him. Fear is a good emotion, but not when someone you're facing knows you're afraid. "I just want to know one thing," she growled in a very inhuman voice. "Did she come after you, or did you go after her?"
"I'm not going to answer that," he said in as steady a voice as he could manage. "Because no matter what I say, it won't matter to you. You've already made up your mind."
Jesmind laid her ears back, and her eyes suddenly went from their normal state to glowing all green. It was quite an unnerving sight to see, especially when those eyes were barely a nose's length from his own. "You're right," she hissed. And then she recoiled from him and dashed down the hallway.
"
Jesmind!" Tarrin called in surprise and worry. He knew exactly what she was doing. She was going to go hunt down Auli. And when she found her, she was going to try to kill her.
Knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop her, he instead ran to his room. Dar and Keritanima weren't there, and the room was a disaster. The bed had been completely destroyed, furniture smashed, sheets torn apart, even the art on the walls destroyed. Jesmind must have come in and discovered the truth, and then ripped the room apart in her anger.
Good Goddess! Auli! As furious as she was, Jesmind was really going to do it, she would really try to kill Auli, no matter who saw her or what stood in her way!
Tarrin couldn't stop her, but he could warn someone and try to get word to the Sha'Kar. The Sha'Kar could handle Jesmind, they could stop her and hopefully not hurt her. He just needed to find a Sorcerer.
He knew exactly where to go. He ran down the hall, down to the end, where Dolanna's door was, and then banged on it feverishly. "Dolanna!" he shouted, then he realized she wasn't there. If Jesmind tore his room apart, she was bound to make a whole lot of noise, and that would have alerted everyone in the area. It was why he hadn't met anyone in the halls coming back to his room. They'd cleared the halls because they knew that Jesmind was being violent. Or at least he really, really hoped so.
If he couldn't find Dolanna, then he needed to find someone else, anyone else. He scrambled down the hall and down the stairs, thinking that his best bet was the kitchens. Someone would be there to get word to Jenna and the Sha'Kar and warn them that Jesmind was coming. He ran down the circular staircase so fast he nearly fell twice, and he did fall when he came around the steps and out into the hall and slammed headlong into the scaly back of Binter. Tarrin wasn't heavy enough to even budge the massive Vendari, and he ended up bouncing off of him and nearly tumbling down the stairs behind, had Binter's huge clawed hand not reached down and grabbed him by the leg.
"Tarrin!" Keritanima called in concern, rushing over and kneeling by him. "Are you alright?"
"Kerri, we have to get word to Jenna!" he said. "Jesmind's out of control!"
"It's already taken care of," she said with a reassuring smile. "Triana just got back a little while ago, and she's going to intercept Jesmind before she can do any harm."
"You're sure about that?"
Keritanima grinned. "Nobody can get past Triana, Tarrin. Trust me on that one."
"That's a relief," he said with a sigh as Binter helped him to his feet. "Did she hurt you? Where's Dar?"
"Dar's gone to tell the Keeper what happened," she answered. "I figured you'd come this way, so we waited here for you."
"What happened?"
"She showed up while I was purging the smell from your room," she shrugged. "She realized what happened, and about that time she had a hissy fit. Started throwing furniture around and cursing alot. About that time, Binter decided that it was time for me to withdraw," she said acidly at the Vendari.
"I was not going to let you stay in danger, your Majesty," he said calmly. "And Jesmind is family to your brother, so I was not going to stop her. Out of respect for him."
"I could have handled her, Binter," she accused. "If you hadn't have grabbed me like a doll and slung me over you shoulder, I could have stopped her from tearing Tarrin's room up."
"I have seen Were-cats fight against Sorcery before," he said, nonplussed. "I do not take chances with your life, Majesty."
"Someday you and I are going to renegotiate this little agreement, Binter," she said in a steely tone.
"You are free to try, Majesty, but our oaths to you are very clear. You are our child, and we will not let you come to harm."
"Dar and Dolanna went to go warn the Keeper, and they told us that Triana was back on the grounds, and that she'd take care of Jesmind. That's a good thing. As mad as Jesmind is at the moment, I don't think most of the Sorcerers could manage her."
"Exactly why I removed you from her presence."
"Oh, shut up," she snapped at the Vendari.
Tarrin was a little worried, and not a little embarassed. All this madness was his fault, be it directly or indirectly. And what was worse, everyone in the Tower was going to find out that he and Auli had slept together. Auli probably wouldn't care at all, but Tarrin did. Such a rumor could completely destroy one's reputation back in Aldreth, be it a boy or a girl. "Great," he sighed. "This was the last thing I needed.
"You just never seem to catch a break, brother," she chuckled. "Come on, let me take you down to the kitchens and we can get something to eat. Something tells me we're both going to need all our energy today."
"I think you're dead on, Kerri," he agreed as she took his hand in her own, and he paused to feel how soft yet rough it was, and how silky the black fur on her hand was. Just like a fox, her hands and feet had black fur on them. Her coloring was totally faithful to the animal she resembled.
Things were going to get very unpleasant. He just knew it. And the least of it was how all this made him feel. He was very angry with Jesmind for her words, making it sound like he was nothing but her possession. He had his own life, and damnit, he'd been trying to be as objective as possible. But maybe that was the problem with her. Jesmind had absolutely decided that he was going to be a Were-cat again, and him fooling around with Auli was a very direct threat to that future. He could see that now, and he could understand why it made her so furious. If Tarrin got involved with Auli, Jesmind was afraid that the relationship would make him want to stay human. It was the exact same thing he'd thought himself, so it was no stretch to think that Jesmind had reached the same conclusion. The others talked about how tempermental Jesmind was, but most of them didn't understand how intelligent she was, either. She was alot smarter than most of the others thought she was.
That knowledge was going to cause him no end of problems, he was sure of it. The next time he saw Jesmind, he could foresee quite a shouting match.
Chapter 5
Tarrin ended up waiting in Jenna's office, and truth be told, it was one of the places where he felt safest. Jenna was his sister, his blood relation, and at least she was someone he had known before he lost his memory. Even if the time had changed her a great deal, at her core she was still the sweet little girl she'd been back in Aldreth, considerate and thoughtful, and at least she understood how upsetting all this had been for him. She set him in a very comfortable chair, and then after shooing everyone else out of her office, she and him talked about what had happened as adults. It was a little strange to him to admit that he'd slept with Auli to his sister, but in many ways, she'd become more than just his sister in his eyes. She was very young, only fifteen, but she was the Keeper, and that authority made it alright in his mind to discuss such things. Her position and the knowledge she had gained from that mysterious Spyder woman had changed her, and though he knew she was different, at least the feel of her had not changed. She was older, much wiser, and she ruled the Tower, but she was still Jenna. She would look out for him, and as long as he was with her, he had the confident feeling that things weren't going to go wrong.
But for now, there was nothing but waiting. Waiting and talking. Jenna showed a great deal of maturity when he described the trouble he'd had with Auli, how she'd been chasing him, and he also made sure to explain that regardless of her behavior, Tarrin liked her and considered her a friend. It was why he was keeping it more or less to himself, and why he wasn't being more aggressive in rebuffing her. That, and the fact that part of him wanted what happened to happen. He didn't want Auli to get angry with him and have the situation cost him her friendship. It was hard for him to work it out, mainly because of his inexperience with such things, and he admitted as much to Jenna as they talked. He'd handled the situation all wrong, and as a result, Auli had seduced him, Jesmind was on a rampage, and the whole thing was almost mortifyingly embarassing for him. Everyone was going to know that Auli and him had slept together, and that Jesmind's fury was because of it.
The situation
with Jesmind was a different problem, and Jenna managed to urge the truth out of him about her. He liked her, but he was very resentful of how she and the other Were-cats had been treating him. Only Jula had shown any kind of neutrality in the matter, and she was the only one he found he could confide in to any degree. She was the mother of his daughter, and that was the only thing that linked them together in his mind. He didn't see Jesmind as a mate or lover or wife, only as a shadowy figure from a lost past, a woman who had once been the love of the Tarrin that had been forgotten. But it was like he was a different person now, and instead of trying to get to know him or talk to him, Jesmind had simply decided that since he was going to change back to the Tarrin she knew and regain his memory, there was no need to go through that. He didn't understand why she was being like that, but Jenna told him that Auli's chasing of him had put Jesmind on the defensive, and he suddenly understood. She probably felt that she couldn't compete with Auli because she couldn't be intimate with him, but what she didn't understand was that alot of how he felt about Auli came from the fact that she was such a good friend to him. If Jesmind had spent the time to get to know him, to talk to him and try to understand him, he may not feel the way he did towards her now, and maybe Jesmind would have gained enough understanding of him to know that what happened between him and Auli was generally unintentional, and also that it was by no means permanent.
The first person to manage to reach the office, to his surprise, was Auli. She was literally being dragged by the ear by her mother, the formidable Sorceress Ianelle, and Ianelle did not look very happy. "I'm sorry it took so long for us to answer your call, Keeper," she said in a brusque tone in formal Sha'Kar, curtsying and kicking her daughter in the shin to make her do the same, all the while keeping a firm grip on the girl's ear. Tarrin almost found the scene funny, but he knew that if he laughed, Auli would hate him until she died. Auli was all about image and status, and if he humiliated her now, she would never forgive him for it. The trip through the Tower had probably been humiliating enough. "I had to actually use Sorcery to hide her from the Were-cat. I've never seen such determination."
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