The Bargaining Path
Page 45
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The night guard in the village jail was keeping watch over two non-violent offenders, as he and his fellow guards always did. The worst crime we had seen that had resulted in imprisonment was drunk or drugged disorderly conduct, and all those who were guilty of that crime got was a one-night stay in a cell so they could sober up and pay their penance (which was generally crops) in the morning. Because he was not used to actual threats, the guard jumped up upon seeing Paul, his face growing paler with every second that passed.
“This guy is one of theirs. Where did you get him?” He stammered out, “He almost killed us in the city!”
Paul smiled, but said nothing.
“We’re going to use one of the interrogation rooms in the back. Would you please go and wake Don, Adam, and Janna?” I asked, and his face paled even more.
“Adam and Janna?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?” I asked in a tone far more brusque than I should have used with him when he was clearly afraid of them.
“Baby, you should get them.” James said, and I turned around, my surprise evident. Every day, I felt the paranoia and distrust in his heart when I left for work because he knew that I would be spending at least eight hours with Adam. Now, he was encouraging me to go wake him from his sleep and bring him back to us. Him encouraging me to go to Adam was like me encouraging Don to share the secret inner-workings of our society with Paul; the two scenarios were completely unbefitting of us both, and that made them strange, and if they were strange, then they were also suspicious.
“He won’t believe it unless he hears it from you.” James explained quickly, and I nodded, all suspicion dwindling away. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him quickly and then walked calmly out of the building. Once I was away from Paul’s ever-watchful gaze, though, I ran, seeing the trees, houses, and firefly lights zip by me in a bright, indiscernible blur.
Adam and Janna’s house was at the far end of the settlement on the other side of the village square. It was larger than the charmingly modest homes in which we common-folk dwelt, but then, it was Adam’s house, and Adam was not above flaunting his power and the superior position said power afforded him.
I climbed the fifty or so stairs to reach his porch and knocked loudly on the shined oak door. Not even a minute later, the door had swung open, and he was standing there, looking like some debonair 1940’s movie star on holiday, with his bathrobe and disheveled gray hair.
“Brynna…” He said, sounding surprised. “To what do I owe this mid-night pleasure? Surely it must… Have you been in the forest?!”
He stepped out, closing the door behind him with a resounding thud.
“Have you been bitten by the trebestia?” He asked, and I shook my head vigorously.
“Paul was out in the woods, and we found him and brought him here, and he wants to parlay, or something, because he came alone…”
“You are sure of this? You are sure he came alone?”
“Yes.” I replied, “I could not hear the thoughts of anyone else, and you and I both know that if there were people around, they would be afraid, and their thoughts would be running a mile a minute. Even if they were not afraid, I would have heard them.”
He had taken my arm gently and led me into the house. I was momentarily stunned into silence by the grandeur of it, though I had certainly known that Adam would have nothing less. The ceiling was high and pointed, with two large windows at the top to let the starlight in. The floor was hardwood, and on it, they had placed a burgundy rug with some intricate golden pattern embroidered into it. The couches were long and made of leather, and in between them sat a table I knew he must have made himself. On the table were seven books arranged almost to resemble a fan. All of them were classics I had read many times—Homer, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, both Bronte sisters, and the like—and all, I realized with alarm at my own realization, had the theme of forbidden love. I do not want to seem conceited by suggesting that he had planned this out for me, but it seemed too coordinated to be a coincidence.
He disappeared for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was dressed in a button-up shirt and black pants, his typical wardrobe.
“Come along, my darling. You have gone hunting and brought in a live one, and a coveted live one at that.”
I could not help but smile. When his hand grasped the back of my neck so he could steer me forward ahead of him through the door, my smile struggled to widen, but I bit my lip to suppress it.
“Do not try to hide it. I know I entertain you. I also know that you, like everyone else in the entire world, enjoy receiving praise for your actions, which of course, are nothing short of valiant.”
We were striding through the cold evening night, and my arms were crossed tightly over my chest. Just as I began to feel the painful shockwaves my shivering sent through my still-recovering body, I felt his hands wrapping his warm leather coat around my shoulders.
“Much too cold around these parts during this time of year for you to be strolling around in t-shirts, my dear. However, I do appreciate the opportunity to demonstrate my chivalrous nature.”
“If you giving me your coat was meant to be chivalrous then it certainly is not.”
“Ah, but that was not my intention. I merely want to keep you from catching a nasty cold.”
“I am sure. Will Janna be joining us?”
“She will, but she can walk alone.”
I looked at him, slightly shocked that he would be so cold, but then I understood: her tryst with James had not been the first, and Adam knew, more than he cared to realize, even to himself, that it certainly would not be her last. In fact, I sensed in his mind a deeply guarded secret, one that seemed to pulsate with an urgency I could not identify or explain. Though it was one secret stacked amongst piles of many, that urgency beckoned to me, asking me to decode it, to realize it, for it involved one of mine as much as it involved his wife.
“Eli.” I said, stopping my quickened walk mid-stride. He stopped, too, but did not turn around to look at me. For several seemingly endless seconds, we were silent. My heart was hammering against my chest, powered by a rage I could not support entirely, for I was unaware if that extreme anger was warranted.
“Yes.” Added to my hodgepodge emotional array was shock at his tone; his words were hissed out through almost clenched teeth, as though he were just barely suppressing his urge to bellow them at me. “And he feared that you suspected it, and because you and I had gotten closer, he feared that you would tell me of your suspicions, and I would kill him.”
That was it; it was so much worse than I had expected. I had told Savannah that Eli would not push me into the woods—into undeniable peril—on behalf of a woman he had only just met, but he had not only pushed me into the woods because of that, but his attempt on my life was an attempt to spare his own. He trusted me so very little, and he thought our relationship was so badly damaged, that I valued mine and Adam’s relationship more than I valued his life, and so he had tried to kill me. More than anything, I think, that was the worst part.
“For a woman.” I spat out as tears flooded into my eyes, “He tried to kill me for a woman. For your wife! ‘Why her?’ I asked him. ‘Why her?’” I was beginning to pace, my hands quickly running through my hair as they always did when I began to feel a great deal of emotional upheaval. “All I was asking was why she was in his mind. I did not suspect that they were… And she is with him only because…”
“…She wants to take all the men in your life from you. She wants to break them and corrupt them, to turn them against you if she can, but if she cannot, she will settle for merely breaking their hearts. Leave them lifeless, listless. All because she suspects…”
“…that you and I were together behind her back. That I was knowingly entertaining the idea of a relationship with a married man. ‘Just like her mother.’ I heard her think it once.”
“Yes, she was very fond of gossip magazines from Earth, and she knew all about…”
“My darling…” He struggled to grasp my hands, to stop me from pacing, from crying. “My darling Brynna… I wanted to keep this from you until you were completely healed. It has been almost four months since you were injured, but your body is still recovering. I could not burden you with this. Even after you were completely healed, I would struggle to tell you. I knew how this would wound you. He is a stupid boy in love. He is a stupid, lovesick automaton, in over his head, completely beguiled by her affection for him. He cannot understand how it can be so, that my wife, with all her wonders, could want him. He is taken by her empty words and promises.”
“Did she make him do it?”
It would have excused him, however slightly. It would have opened an opportunity for Elijah and me to repair our broken relationship. So when Adam shook his head, I only cried harder, covering my mouth in hopes that the sound of my sobs would be stifled.
“Stop.” Adam implored me softly, with such pain in his eyes. I was still pacing back and forth, and he reached out to stop me again. “Stop. My beauty, please stop. Come.” He grasped my hand, and I stopped pacing but would not let him pull me to him. I could sense James growing worried, thinking that I had run into trouble. Of course, he feared the trouble into which I had run was Adam with a rose between his teeth and wild, animal sex with me on his mind.
I cried harder, adding to my emotional strife with my own pessimistic thoughts, as I always did. He would never trust me, even though I was trying so hard to trust him again. Now, I did stop to press the top of my head to Adam’s chest. Briefly, I saw my tears fall to the ground and splatter on the path, leaving dime-sized little pools in the dirt.
“I did not mean for you to see this now. My darling. My beauty. I did not mean for this.” He whispered as his lips kissed the back of my head repeatedly, and his hands rubbed my arms and back gently. “I know how you love him. I know your bond with him is strong.”
“Was.” I corrected him, pulling away with a sniffle and another furious wipe of my eyes. “Our bond was strong.”
“She will grow bored of him, and move on to someone else…”
“Who? Quinn?” I asked, “She would be out of luck with him. He is committed to Allie and would not leave her for Janna and any one of her ‘wonders.’ He is too strongly devoted to her, and I will never let your wife come in between them! She may have gotten my boyfriend, and my brother, and she may have you, but she will not—”
His mouth pressing to mine cut off my words. His hands grasping my face firmly sent wave after wave of a not unpleasant icy sensation throughout me. At first, my body was tense, surprised by the sudden onslaught of his firm and unyielding kiss. But then, my body had fallen into his, and my arms had wrapped around his neck, and my lips began to kiss his back. Because a storm similar to mine had roared to life in him, the wind began to blow slightly, gently caressing us with that sweet, frigid, Pangaean breeze. The lights grew brighter, though they had been nearly extinguished before. When I pulled away from him, his face was cast in the glow from the torches, and after a moment, his hand gently pushed my hair away from my face.
“She does not have me.” He told me emphatically. “Not now. Not anymore.”
He put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me into him, and walked me along, and because no prying eyes were watching, I leaned my head against his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head, and despite all I had learned, and despite all the complications in my life and the lives of us all, I smiled up at him, and he smiled that slight smile of his back at me.