“I think more of you than anyone I have ever known.” His mouth twisted. “And I mean that in all senses. Which is why I know you deserve more than—”
“Stop. I don’t wish to strike you again.”
“You caught me by surprise. You might not find it so easy again.”
“I would not expect to. So I would find another way.”
“As you always have, little one.”
His voice had gone quiet. And something had changed in his gaze, shifted somehow, as if he were seeing possibilities instead of hopelessness.
“I know,” she said, softly now, “that Dax gave you warning, when we first met.”
His mouth twisted. “Warning? He threatened to remove whatever body part I might touch you with.”
She couldn’t help but laugh; it was so very Dax. “He worried overmuch.”
“And likely still does.”
“I am far from a child any longer, even by Triotian standards, and he is no longer my guardian. Are you saying you fear him still?”
“Any rational person would. And I doubt he has removed himself from the position of guardian, no matter what your laws say.”
“So is he to be your excuse?”
To his credit, he did not pretend to misunderstand. “Now you insult me.”
She shrugged. “If that is what it requires.”
It was a long moment before he said roughly, “Be very sure, Rina. Be very sure this is what you want. Because it has been a very, very long time, and I can make no promises about holding back. Or stopping, if you change your mind.”
Her breath caught, and heat of a kind she’d never known slammed through her at the blunt words. “It may have been a long time for you, but for me it has been . . . forever.”
He blinked. “Forev—You mean you’ve not . . . ever?”
“How could I? I’m Triotian, we bond for life. Casual mating is not our way. And the only man I ever wanted in that way I thought dead.”
He grabbed her arms, held her in place. His gaze shifted upward, as if in some sort of mute appeal. She heard him, barely, mutter an oath under his breath. And when he looked at her again, she saw in his gaze the same sort of searing heat he fired in her. Joy slammed through her; it was returned, this glorious, terrifying tangle of emotion.
“War is coming, perhaps worse than before. I cannot promise you tomorrow now any more than I could then.”
“All the more reason,” she whispered. “Do not leave me with only wishes and imaginings this time.”
He groaned. “You’ve always been the only one with the power to break me,” he rasped out.
And then she was in his arms, his mouth was on hers, and her entire body was singing with the rightness of it.
At last.
Chapter 30
“YOU’RE CERTAIN?”
“Saw them m’self,” the man said, tipping back his mug to drain the last of the brew. He didn’t seem to mind the cheapness of it, Mordred thought. It was the effect he was after, not the taste. Of course these rustic sorts had little refinement; they wouldn’t know good wine or food were it set before them.
“When?”
“Not three days ago. Captain of that cargo ship I grabbed passage on said I was imagining things, but I was back where they could be seen, not like him, up front.”
“How many?”
“Least twenty ships.”
He took another long swallow. Wiped his mouth on his already filthy sleeve. Mordred barely managed not to recoil in his distaste.
“Couple really big ones.” The man shuddered visibly. “Even bigger than during the rebellion. I was here then, you know.”
“Were you?” Mordred asked, his voice tight with excitement at the realization the invasion was indeed imminent.
He had, after impossibly losing all sign of that infuriating pair, retraced his path to this inn halfway back down the mountain. He needed food and rest, although he was sure it was only because he’d been on the move for so long now.
And he had, by some overdue turn of luck, heard of the garrulous drunk who had migrated here because those in town had wearied of hearing his tale of a fleet of ships amassing beyond Arellia’s outer moon. It had been a welcome bit of information amid all the nonsense these people seemed to favor, so absurd it was all he could do not to visibly roll his eyes in disgust.
But he had found the man who had told them the latest tale, one they seemed to find more impossible than the silly myths and fantasies they accepted so readily. And he had resigned himself to staying at it until he got what he needed.
He tried to shrug off his distaste at having to glean information in this way, but it lingered. That he, once the pride and future of the Coalition, had to bribe a drunk with more brew to learn what he should have been privy to all along was an insult. He told himself it was no different than being a spy, when odious methods were necessary to achieve the goal. Gathering information could be a nasty business, but it was necessary.
Somewhat mollified, he plied the man with more brew, scorning the local libation himself. He suspected it was concocted in some dirty vat in a back room, and he longed for the days when nothing but the finest wines and foods had graced his table.
When the man’s head thudded to the rough-hewn table for the third time, Mordred knew he had gained all the worthwhile knowledge the addled drunk had. He rose, ordered the innkeeper to prepare a bundle of food and drink for him, to be picked up at first light, and retired to his rented room for a few hours’ well-deserved sleep.
THE SKY WAS lighter, Shaina decided. Dawn was, if not near, at least coming. Finally.
She had slept little, when he had had the watch they now kept. And what sleep she had managed, had been full of unsettling dreams. Not, as she would have expected, of following threats or even an old man’s silliness. No, her dreams this night turned to a hidden, unknowable future, the one person she trusted above all others, and childhood speculation by others that went against everything she believed about freedom and self-determination. Just because some old wishes still rolled around in the elders’ minds didn’t mean it was real, true, or destined.
Besides, she had always assumed it had been invented to please their parents. It was only natural that a union between their houses would be welcomed.
And then she and Cub had come along, conveniently male and female—despite the fact that never before in Triotian history had the firstborn of the flashbow warrior been female—and only whetted the Triotian appetite for what seemed to them the perfect match.
She stared at the sky, which still seemed the same as before, thinking. So she was the first female offspring. The flashbow ability had never been hereditary before, either.
The anger that had driven her to jump that first transport, to get herself as far away from her father as she could, was still there. But now it was a cooler thing, not the boiling rage that had erupted. She was calmer now. Soon she might even be able to think about it without losing all logic.
Not, she thought, that he deserved it.
Perhaps she’d been mistaken about the closeness of the dawn. The sky was no lighter than when she had first opened her eyes. Perhaps she had been awake so long it had just seemed that it must be near.
She had sensed, more than once, that Cub was as restless as she. And yet she did not speak to him in the darkness, as she typically would have. It seemed too dangerous, as if the quiet night would take the discussion places she was not ready to go.
So you avoid thinking of your father, and talking to Cub, because you are afraid. When did you become such a coward?
Her thoughts were harsh, unforgiving. And true, she told herself sternly.
“Shay?”
She went still. Barely breathed. She hadn’t heard him stir. “What?”
“
Just making sure you were awake.”
His tone was clearly teasing, but she was so edgy she snapped anyway. “It’s my watch, of course I am.”
“And barbed, I see.”
Only the fact that the sharp retort that leapt to her lips would prove him right stopped her from saying it.
“Wishing you had stayed home now?” he asked.
Just that easily he deflated her irritation, for the answer to that was clear. She turned her head, was barely able to make out his shape in the darkness. He, too, sat up, drawing his knees up to rest his elbows across them. She crossed her legs before her, leaning forward to rest her chin on her propped hands.
“No,” she said. “I could not stay. I was too angry.”
“But it has cooled a bit now? It’s as well, then. You might have said something . . . irrevocable.”
Her mouth tightened. “You don’t consider ‘I hate you and never want to speak to you again’ irrevocable?”
“In the face of the love your father has for you? No.”
His words bit deep. “And what part of love does a lie of that magnitude represent?”
“The part that fears losing that love. The part that says a father’s task is to protect that which he loves. The part that has seen enough of the trickery of life to know that no one is ever completely safe.”
She turned her head, studied him for a moment, completing in her mind’s eye the image of what she could not see in the darkness. She could see the long, lean shape of him, could see even the faint light gleaming on his golden hair, could see the sheen of skin and the shape of jaw, brow, nose. Her memory filled in the shadows with every detail of the face she’d grown up with, the face she’d seen change from the soft, round innocence of childhood to the sharper, promising leanness of youth, to the solid strength of manhood.
“You truly have your father’s knack for the right words at the right moment,” she said.
“It is easier to see all sides when you are a step back,” he said. But she saw the flash of his teeth, and knew he had smiled. Odd, she thought, how they were both so much like their fathers, and yet their relationship with each was so different.
Or it was now. She had ever been as close to her own father as Cub was to his. Until it had all been shattered between one breath and the next.
And she had come, as always, to the one person she knew would understand.
“It seems I’m ever coming to you with my troubles,” she said, her voice as quiet as the night. “Tell me, Cub, do you never tire of soothing me?”
“I worry. Worry that your temper and recklessness will one day cost you too much. But tire? No, I don’t.”
His words stilled her. Something deep inside shifted, changed. She had never, in all their years growing up together, realized he worried about her. Oh, she knew he did when they were in a rough spot, when one of their larks had skirted the edge of danger a little too closely, but she had always thought the worry began there and ended when they were safely through it.
“I never meant to worry you.”
“Your fearlessness worries us all, Shay. We wish you would be more careful. For the sake of those who love you.”
For the sake of those who love you.
If you can’t tell the difference between a man who’s tamed and one who’s curbing himself out of love, then you have much yet to learn, my sweet. Your father is far from tamed. And he will ever be so.
Her mother’s words came back to her in a single rush, as if a cinefilm was playing in her head. Could those words apply to her, as well?
Somehow, she had never thought of it in just that way. She had always accepted that her impulsiveness carried a price, but she had always thought herself the only one to pay it. Now, with Cub’s quiet words, she realized that when others loved you, what you did cost them as well. And she felt a fool for not realizing it sooner, and for thinking she was grown when she had in fact been in this way still a child.
No wonder her father felt she still needed protecting.
Chapter 31
ON SOME LEVEL Rina was aware she was sleeping, had that odd feeling as if she were swimming toward the surface from the bottom of a very deep lake. Some part of her resisted, for the depths were warm and comforting and she wished to stay. Forever, perhaps. She had no desire to surface, to open her eyes and face the world. She wanted nothing more than to stay, right here, safe and sheltered in the arms of—
She jolted awake.
Tark.
Heat flooded her, not the heat of embarrassment at waking naked in his arms, in his bed, but a glorious, delicious heat, remembering the night and what they had found in the quiet hours.
Hours that hadn’t stayed quiet for long, as again and again they had come together, she crying out his name, he gasping out hers.
She had finally seen the redoubtable Bright Tarkson brought down, and in the most intimate of ways. And she had done it. He was sleeping even now, so deeply she thought that this once, he might not wake as he always had, alert, on guard, and ready for any threat.
She moved slowly, wanting, no, needing to look at him. He was but a faint outline in the alcove’s darkness, lightened only by the slight glow from the banked fire in the cave, but she needed no more. Had she not carried his image in her mind for years? And the changes in that image were part of what she saw now. There were more scars than the one that sealed his eye. His lean, hard body was marked with them, dagger bite here, a burn from a laser pistol there, and what looked like a spray of shrapnel over his back.
She had learned each during the night, turning each into a marker, a point on which to linger, to caress, until he was arching to her hands, her lips. She had done her best, with her limited knowledge, to drive him mad, until at last he took it out of her hands and joined them.
He had held back much longer than he had warned her.
And it had been more glorious than she had ever imagined.
“Regretting your mad bargain?”
She had been so lost in her heated reverie she did not even realize he had awakened until he spoke.
“Regretting so many lost years,” she whispered. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
He made a sound, low and rueful. “Deeper than I’ve slept in all those years. The world could have ended, and I doubt I would have known.”
“Good.”
“It was your doing.”
“Good,” she repeated. “Do you feel rested?”
“I feel . . .” His voice trailed off. Then, his voice touched with puzzlement, he said, “I’m not certain how I feel.”
“I was hoping for rested. Or at least recovered.”
He moved then, away, and she was struck with a sudden fear that he would pull back now, that he would retreat behind that harsh exterior, hiding from her once again. She reached for him, pulled him closer.
“Running from this is not among your choices,” she said, her tone edgy with that fear. “Between us, there is no hiding now.”
“You didn’t warn me of that.”
He sounded nothing more than rueful again, and his body relaxed, so she took heart.
“When you take on a Triotian, it is part of that bargain.”
He was silent for a long moment, but he made no further move to pull away from her. “Dax once explained to me that Triotians do not normally mate outside of bonding.”
She wondered if that had been while Dax had been threatening him with bodily harm if he touched her, but merely said, “Yes.”
“But we aren’t . . .”
“It matters not.” She hesitated, knowing what she wanted to tell him, but her usual boldness failing her for a moment.
“You are so proud—rightfully—of being Triotian, yet you discard this primary tenet?”
Had he sounded in the least c
ritical, she probably would have taken advantage of their intimate position and applied her knee to a very vulnerable part of him. But he sounded merely puzzled—and she had plans for those parts—so she did not.
She knew he was not Triotian, and that offworlders sometimes found the ancient bonding custom quaint, or too restrictive. It had been abandoned as such in many quarters, but it was inborn in Triotians. They were known for it.
And yet Califa and the queen were both Arellian, and they had bonded with their mates as thoroughly as any native born. Perhaps it was something about Trios herself that changed people.
All the more reason, she thought, to convince him to come back with her. Selfish, yes. But there it was, and she couldn’t deny it.
Nor could she deny him the truth.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, plunging ahead, “because my heart was lost to you years ago. My mind has ever held you close. And bonding is as much of the heart and mind as it is of formal ceremony.”
He went very still. “Are you saying you feel we are . . . bonded?”
“That is for you to decide. It can only be mutual. Especially with a non-Triotian.”
“But—”
“I am saying I will never be bonded to another, for I do not have what is required to give. It is all already yours.”
She felt a shudder go through him. Gladdened by this proof that he was not unmoved, she lifted her head and kissed, as she had before, that thick ridge of tissue, that a badge of honor in her eyes. He had tried to turn away the first time, but she had refused to let him, had repeated the move again and again until she felt he was convinced it did not repulse her, but rather reminded her of all the reasons she was here with him.
This time he did not pull his scarred face away, but he whispered, “Rina, I don’t deserve—”
“If you finish that idiotic and unwise statement, I will have to forgo my plans and send my knee a handsbreadth upward. Hard.”
He froze. She nearly laughed. The hovering darkness outside the cave, the turmoil that was approaching, seemed distant, at least for the moment. And it was a moment she wanted to seize, to treasure, for when that chaos arrived she might never have another chance.
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