HeartMate

by Robin D. Owens

  Chapter Nine

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  His Passage opened two futures before him. In one prospect Danith laughed with him, surrounded by children and animals. Four children, the largest Family ever for the Ash, two girls and two boys. They romped in the PlayRoom, which now looked both comfortable and gracious. The children's auras were strong and healthy, the continuation of the GreatHouse Ash assured.

  Danith had matured into a confident, joyful woman, all the qualities he prized about her in full bloom. Love encompassed him, and when he met Danith's eyes, he knew they shared a HeartMate marriage that could never be equaled. She looked at him with love and passion. And he knew, if he wished, she would open her innermost soul to him, as well as her lovely body.

  He strove to grasp that future. But it came no closer.

  He tried to ignore the other destiny. In it his Residence towered gray and secluded in the sleet of a winter day, only one small light flickering in a massive window, all the others black with darkness. His body ached with old and new wounds, barren solitude leached all contentment from his being, and he brooded on the future, knowing he'd lost his HeartMate forever.

  With all his might he hurled himself at the warmth, but fell, finally, onto a lonely, stone road, bruising his body and soul.

  The earrings rolled out of his hand.

  "Danith! Lady and Lord, help. Danith, answer me. What's wrong?"

  The words stabbed her head, dragged her sweating and weak from a sluggish doze.

  Her fingers hurt. Slowly she disentangled them from the chain and stones of a necklace. Her heart lurched. The Necklace.

  She shuddered. Had she stroked her body with the piece? How decadent, too decadent. She couldn't face that. She shoved the thing into Mitchella's hands.

  "Here," Danith croaked.

  Mitchella fumbled at it. "Thank the Lady and Lord you're all right. What is it?"

  Danith struggled to sit up, and saw the soft evening rays of Bel painting her bedroom. "Necklace."

  "By Avalon, it's huge. And beautiful." Mitchella squinted. "How unusual. A roseamber heart with a flaw that looks like a mother and child."

  Danith had seen entwined lovers in the flaw. She pushed her hair away from her face. It was as damp as her perspiring hands. Ugh.

  "Put it away," she said.

  "In that new jewelry cabinet you have? Where did that come from? Danith, I saw in the evening newsheet that you're a noble now. What is going on?"

  Danith sank her head in her hands. "There's a box on the table in the back grassyard. Can you put the necklace in there please, and in your pursenal, and take it away?"

  Mitchella started. "Me? A necklace like this, you must be—"

  "Please, Mitchella? It's magic. Powerful magic. And it—affects—me. You don't feel anything, do you?" Danith finally looked at her friend.

  Concern glowed in Mitchella's eyes. "No. I have trouble seeing it, which is beyond odd, but it doesn't seem bespelled to me."

  Danith laughed, a rusty, unamused sound. "Please, put it away."

  Mitchella nodded and left the room. Danith rose from her bedsponge and gasped as aches that she shouldn't have twinged. She hobbled into the bathroom and took a short, scalding shower.

  After wrapping herself in a commoncloth robe, she found Mitchella in the mainspace, pulling out drawers and gaping at the multitude of jewelry in them.

  "It's so good to have you here."

  Mitchella flushed an unbecoming red and took a couple of quick steps back. "I was just curious—"

  Danith blinked at her friend's behavior. "Of course you were. Anyone would be. Did you see everything?"

  Mitchella's smile flashed and faded. "I think so. Except the jewelry on Pansy."

  "Princess," Danith corrected.

  Mitchella stared at her. "Princess? You've changed the name of your cat, too?"

  "I didn't." The last few days rolled over her like an inexorable Wheel of Fortune. She crossed to her divan and sat. Her head started pounding. She dropped it into her hands.

  "Danith?"

  "Lord and Lady," Danith said softly.

  Mitchella came over and put an arm around her. "What's wrong?"

  "Everything. You can't believe it!" She started talking slowly at first, then the words came faster and faster, tumbling from her. Mitchella couldn't even get a word in edgewise and sat staring at her with her mouth in a round O.

  Danith had just finished telling of her visit to T'Ash and the Testing, when her scrybowl pinged.

  She stared at it. She didn't want to answer.

  It pinged again.

  "Are you going to take the call?"

  Danith looked at her friend. "Everything has happened too rapidly. It's all too much."

  Mitchella raised her red eyebrows and went to the scrybowl. "Here."

  "Mitchella, there you are. Thank the Lord and Lady! You must come at once—"

  "Aunt Pratty, I can't. Danith needs—"

  "But you must! It's Trif—"

  "Trif?"

  "Trif?" Danith asked. "Is there anything I can do to help?" She walked over to the bowl.

  "Danith. Oh. I didn't mean to bother you."

  "Not at all." Danith forced a smile beyond her headache.

  Pratty Clover's smile was as strained as Danith's. "I just need to borrow Mitchella. Trif decided to roam the streets tonight, and everyone knows gangs will be out—Downwind and Noble. I told her she can't, but she doesn't listen to me anymore, does she? But maybe she'll listen to Mitchella…"

  "Are you sure you don't want—wouldn't like me to come, also?" Danith asked, her heart sinking. Pratty had always welcomed her.

  "No. No. I'm sure you have plans. Ah, plans that don't include us. But, Mitchella—"

  "She'll be right there," Danith said, and ended the scryspell.

  "I can stay," Mitchella said.

  Danith shook her head. "It isn't necessary. And I'm getting a headache; I think I'll try to nap."

  Mitchella looked worried. "All right. But you are coming to our Discovery Day party tonight, aren't you?"

  "Of course."

  "And the Ritual and picnic tomorrow at Uncle Pink's?"

  "Yes."

  Mitchella took both Danith's hands and kissed her on the cheek. "Good. Do you feel all right?"

  "I'll be fine."

  "Fare well."

  "And you."

  "Till tonight." Waving a graceful hand, Mitchella left.

  Danith refused to feel. Too many emotions battered at her.

  After feeding Princess, Danith stood on the threshold of the shadowy bedroom. Dusk had claimed it. She went to the two small, high windows and, standing tiptoe, opened them. Then she smoothed out the cover, plumped up her pillows, settled herself, and opened the gates to all that threatened.

  Rejection. Always rejection. Pratty Clover was distancing herself, and Trif, from Danith. Since Danith had been welcomed by the Family, it hurt all the more.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. Her heart ached, as if she had been scoured hollow by the passion forced on her by T'Ash.

  A lick of anger ignited. T'Ash—she'd felt his touch, his mental seduction. Why had she expected more of him than initiating a tawdry affair with telepathic passion? Why had she started to believe him when he nattered of HeartMates and HeartGifts, instead of following her common sense and knowing that she would never be his match, that he simply played games with her?

  Anger at his loathsome act, at all the changes in her life that had been initiated by him, mixed with the hurt of rejection. She couldn't fight for what she wanted when she was in the Saille House of Orphans; she had to bow her head and accept that couples preferred other children to her. She couldn't fight Timkin, who, glowing with happiness, told her of his new life and new love.

  But she could fight for this new life, a life shaped by her. And she could fight to keep her good friends.

  Mental seduction, intrusion on a person's thoughts. Now that was a violation of the most basic laws of p
rivacy, of individuality. It was forbidden, particularly to the powerful FirstFamilies. T'Ash had crossed the line this time, and she would nail him.

  The air around her heated with her anger. A little, high-pitched steaming whistle escaped her clenched teeth at the thought of such betrayal. Timkin's dismissal of her was nothing next to this looming hurt of being deliberately overpowered and mentally seduced by T'Ash.

  A great bubble trapped inside her burst. She found herself flung, whirling through space in an instant.

  She landed in T'Ash's ResidenceDen.

  One moment she was on her bedsponge, the next she was in the Den of T'Ash Residence, trembling with rage.

  T'Ash jumped back. The black silkeen robe draped around him flapped. The drink in his brandy snifter sloshed, releasing potent fumes.

  "You!" she screamed. "You beast! Getting in my head, having mental sex. That is everything despicable."

  He paled. He looked exhausted. It infuriated her more. They had certainly spent themselves. In sex. "I hate you. Don't you ever, ever, come near me again. Physically or mentally. And you will hear about this, you GreatSlime, I'll call the guards myself!"

  He grabbed her threatening fist. "Danith, Tinne Holly is on his way to this room."

  She jerked from him, slanted his open robe a glance of contempt. "You like boys, too?"

  "Danith—" His mouth thinned into a white line. He found her hand again, held it.

  "Keep your hands off me!"

  He dropped her hand.

  There was a polite knock on the door.

  "I go. But you will pay, I promise you."

  "Go, how? Do you plan to 'port out?"

  For the first time rage receded enough for a little logic. She looked wildly around the room.

  "This is a ResidenceDen. There is only one door to the room," he said steadily, tying his robe around him, and fingercombing his hair. "You are overwrought—"

  She hissed hatred at him.

  He flinched. "We must talk. But not now. Look at yourself. You're not presentable." His eyes flickered even more intensely than usual. She ignored it, but glanced down at herself. She wore a thin commoncloth robe. She suspected he knew she was naked beneath it.

  "How could you?" Angry tears started down her face, infuriating her further. She loathed the apparent weakness and lifted her chin. She wasn't weak, and if he took her tears for frailty, he'd learn better soon enough.

  "GreatLord T'Ash?" A young man called from outside the door.

  T'Ash held out a hand to her. "Let me 'port—"

  "No. You keep your filthy mental fingers off me."

  "Wait, Tinne." T'Ash raised his voice. Then he frowned and a couple of claps echoed.

  Danith jumped back as a softfleece trous and shirt crumpled onto her bare feet from thin air.

  T'Ash walked carefully past her. When she heard a scraping noise, she turned. He was unfolding an ugly, ornate screen and putting it around a chair in the farthest corner of the octagonal room. "Please?" He inclined his head.

  More rapping at the door, sounds of impatient pacing.

  With dignity, Danith scooped up the clothes and marched behind the screen. She muffled a curse when she found they were her size.

  T'Ash opened the door.

  "Merry meet!" The young man sounded thrilled to be here.

  Danith flung her robe off and pulled the clothes on.

  T'Ash's voice rumbled. "I have your main gauche. There, on the desk, please take it and go."

  "GreatLord? Is something amiss?"

  Danith shoved the screen aside and strode to the door.

  T'Ash blocked it.

  She tossed her head. "You get away from that door. Now."

  "We need to talk."

  "No and no and no. No more talk. No more scrying. No more visits. No more jewels! You get out of my life and keep out. I don't want you anywhere near me."

  "Danith—"

  "Get away from that door. You are in deep trouble as it is. Forced telepathy carries heavy punishment. Even a common woman like I am knows that."

  "I called you and you came. My lady—"

  She stomped her foot. It made no noise on the thick Chinju rugs. "You seduced me. I had no choice. No choice. Open the door."

  "I had no choice, either—"

  She whirled to the white-faced boy watching. She pointed to T'Ash. "I cry harm. Extreme harm done to me by this GreatLord. Witness this—"

  T'Ash stepped from the door. A muscle in his jaw worked. "You are too crazed to talk rationally. Go, then. But know this." He bent a heated look on her, but it didn't faze her. He turned the cold blue gaze on the young Holly. "I broke no law. Implied or written. Violated no Laws of Conduct for FirstFamilies. I—"

  Danith wordlessly screeched her fury and grabbed the doorknob, jerking open the heavy door and stalking out. She hardly noticed the cool oak flooring under her bare feet. "Never again!" she shouted. "Do you hear me? Never contact me again."

  T'Ash felt the blood drain from him as he heard her angry words and the quick pattering of her feet down the corridor. He could trap her inside the Residence, but it would solve nothing.

  The bang of the main door came a minute later.

  "Oh, Lord and Lady!"

  T'Ash turned at Tinne's epithet, to see the young man quickly slipping the main gauche on his sword belt, settling the belt on his hips and buckling it. Tinne looked at him. "GreatLord, I was followed from my home by rivals of the Hollys. There are more than six young men my age, all armed, and they wait for me outside your gates."

  T'Ash slammed his palm on the holo crystal. It showed the front gate swinging open, then shut behind Danith. A swarm of youths engulfed her.

  A cry wrenched from his lips. How could he have forgotten?

  She was a woman surrounded by blasers.

  T'Ash pulled on leather trous and vest. His finest sword and blaser flew to his hands.

  He said a Word and a grid appeared on the hologram, delineating the exact square where he wanted to teleport. He 'ported to outside his gate, dragging Tinne Holly with him. The street was empty, but raucous cries came from a few blocks away, in the direction of Downwind. At that moment T'Ash knew this would be one of those years where clashes between the gangs of Downwind and Noble youths would mar Discovery Day. He swore under his breath; FirstFamilies Rituals should have addressed this issue more.

  Tinne ran toward the young voices, his aura flashing brilliant white as his second Passage threatened to overcome him. Deathduels, T'Ash remembered. He shuddered. He had to get Danith away.

  T'Ash overtook Tinne and ran past him. A wild shriek came from his right. Zanth.

  We go. We fight. Downwind ferals. Noble stups.

  "The gang has Danith."

  WHO?

  "Who, Holly?" called T'Ash over his shoulder.

  The young man grimaced. "Whitey Hawthorn. He can't ever keep up with me, and T'Hawthorn is envious of T'Holly's influence—"

  T'Ash cut him off with a wave. "Purple and white, Zanth. Look for purple and white. Find her. Give me an image, and I'll 'port."

  The Fam sprang forward, lengthening his stride, stretching out his body in full as he ran. His muscular hindquarters bunched with effort. He disappeared in seconds.

  T'Ash ran, aware of Tinne behind him, also aware of his fading strength. He had undergone Passage this night, and used most of his reserves of Flair in fashioning a new HeartGift and marriage armbands.

  Instead of being able to weld a golden net of protection and send it to cover her, he could only mutter prayers with each pounding stride.

  As the minutes stretched out, he fought fear that would spark his berserker nature.

  Zanth's triumphant cry!

  Sounds of human pain.

  A distorted image from Zanth's point of view.

  T'Ash stopped, sucked in air, 'ported.

  Into the middle of a crowd of young men.

  He pulled his blaser, thumbed it on stun and whirled in a circle. The youths screamed a
nd toppled into heaps.

  Silkeen gleamed in the nightpole light. Zanth jumped on the teenagers, prodding them.

  Scuffling noises from about a block away.

  A cry of pain. Swearing.

  A slap.

  A whimper, female.

  "Danith!" Finally able to see the shadowy figures, T'Ash pursued a pack of raggedly dressed young men who threaded through the streets, then took to alleys.

  He knew this area, it bordered on Downwind. He knew it all too well. He 'ported to behind the young men, caught them in an alley with a low wall at the end.

  When they faced him, his swordblade rippled silver.

  "Lord and Lady," one breathed.

  T'Ash's teeth bared in a fighting grin. His sword point made small circles in the air, challenging them.

  "Come to me," he crooned. "Who wants to fight T'Ash?"

  "T'Ash!" A large boy let go of a squirming bundle. Then fell as one delicate, bare foot swept his legs from under him.

  Another youth jumped to the two.

  T'Ash and Zanth snarled together.

  "Touch her and you die."

  The teenagers froze. One stepped back and held up his hands. He jerked his gaze to his other two cohorts. "Is T'Ash, recognize voice. Downwinders know Zanth."

  The boy on the ground crawled away from Danith.

  The ringleader licked his lips. "Ah, T'Ash. A pretty lady. Took from stupid nobles. Ransom?"

  "Don't pay for my lady. Kill for her."

  "I go," the leader said, hands still high. He glanced at the end of the alley and saw Zanth crouched on the wall. The boy sidled carefully past T'Ash.

  "Me, too."

  "Me, too."

  Some boys vaulted the wall, escaping the swipe of Zanth's claws, but the Fam chased after them. Others slid along the walls, trying to blend with the dark shadows, slipping past the shining steel sword. T'Ash pivoted to keep them in sight, then watched as they took to their heels and ran back to their Downwind holes.

  Sounds of explosions peppered the night air. Fireworks, both mechanical and magical. Discovery Day celebrations had begun. T'Ash flinched as he saw red flare in the direction they came. The holiday was instants old, and the first fire ate at the city.

  Danith sat in the cobblestoned alley, rubbing her bruised feet, wondering what to say to her savior. She should have felt gratitude. Perhaps it was there, under the great relief and the festering resentment. She shivered with cold and reaction, all too aware that she only wore the softfleece trous and shirt, both of which had torn in places. There was a rip in her left sleeve above her elbow, and one near her right knee.