Ulric's brows drop low, his hands landing on his hips. He flicks a glance to the dying twilight as the shadows grow long inside the wood. “Does that matter at present? You have talents as all Alphas do, and I have the gift of shadow walking. If you've spoken with Brom, you know what is at stake.”
He hesitates for a moment, then seems to decide on something. “I am Tabben, Tab for short.”
They clasp forearms.
Ulric drops his hands. “How can you help?”
The others back away from them and Ulric glowers at the retreating males. However, they'd be useless to assist him if they were ruled by fear of his unusual ability.
“I can help, but they will not come near a shadow-skipper.” He jerks his jaw at the males who now blend with the dark creases inside the forest.
“That's foolish,” Ulric says.
Tab lifts a heavily muscled shoulder. “You know what is told when we are younglings. The shadow-skipper steals souls.”
“It's like a tongue twister,” Ulric says with disdain.
Tab cocks an eyebrow.
Ulric waves a hand at his puzzled face. “Nevermind, it's an expression I've heard from the lips of a dying Fragment.”
“A dead Fragment is—”
“—a good Fragment,” Ulric finishes.
A look of perfect understanding flows between them and they grin at each other.
“I can assist for a time. My man, Detritus,” his eyes flick in the direction of the woods, “can watch things in my short absence, but I must know what it is you seek.” His eyes do not drop from his survey of Ulric, “Brom would only give me superficial details. I cannot commit to this excursion without knowledge.”
Ulric does not want to share the women.
Nor does he want the burden of gathering them to be his alone.
“I've given blood to two females who are of Band lineage,” he admits quietly.
Tab whistles low in his throat, his fangs lengthening from just the thought. Ulric can't blame him. Blood letting has erotic components with females.
“We have very few females,” Tab needlessly points out.
Ulric nods. “It is the same for every society here except the lucky ones inside the sphere.”
Tab bares his teeth, a low hiss escaping his tight lips. “They are prisoners of their own devices. Never feeling the wind in their hair, the sun on their face, or the rain on their back. It is a life without living.”
Ulric nods. “Agreed. And their females would not be worthy of mating.”
Tab grunts agreement.
“Are you prepared to journey the way of the Travelers?” This is critical. If Tab cannot see this through, and if Brom trusts him enough to convey a message in case Ulric did not return at their rendezvous point, then he must be trusted to assist in this. But will Tab decide to assist while using whatever means at their disposal?
“The evil tunnel,” Tab confirms Ulric's unspoken thoughts in a tight voice.
“Yes.” Ulric tries to contain his disdain. Each clan is different from the next, and were schooled independently. Ulric considers his tribe the most advanced of all that he has encountered. He's impatient with Tab's hesitancy.
Tab cups his chin.
Ulric silently suffers through his deliberation.
“All right,” he finally concedes.
Ulric holds in his sigh of relief, stifling his exhaustion. There would be time aplenty to rest after he's gathered enough females for his tribe. What did the sphere-dwellers yammer on about?
Oh yes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
The red globe of the sun is spilt blood as it caresses a plum skyline.
Tab and Ulric step away from the border of the forest into the first hesitant breath of nighttime.
Tab gives chirps of both dismissal and goodbye.
His small clan vanishes into the forest's embrace.
Ulric walks toward the wooded corridor and Brom. Ulric is thankful that the direction Jim had forced him had been a loop to his own world—instead of another.
Ulric feels a vague smile hang on his lips, thinking of what awaits Jim when he gets his hands on the Traveler.
Death.
*
“Ulric!” Brom calls, striding into the middle of the dark meadow with teeth that gleam in the nearly non-existent light of a waning moon.
Ulric takes in his close friend and clansman with something nakedly akin to relief. They clasp forearms and touch foreheads in the ancient greeting of their kind.
Ulric turns to reintroduce Tabben.
“Greetings, Brom.”
“And you, Tabben of the Tree Clan.”
Tab inclines his head.
Ulric skirts further courtesies and gets right to the point. “Nighttime reigns. I wish to pursue the women.”
“What happened, Ulric—we were set to rendezvous at the portal of the Pathway?”
Embarrassment flushes the skin of Ulric's neck.
Brom's nostrils flare. “What?” his excellent vision no doubt catches the pounding pulse in Ulric's throat, the blood at the surface of his skin—his acute shame.
“It was the Traveler—Jim,” he mutters with self-disgust. “He was able to shift the direction within the Pathway, which caused me to circle around, and land at a different location.”
Brom's lips flatten. “You could have been incinerated, Ulric. Or thrown into another world.”
They stare at each other for a heartbeat. “I understand.”
“He is a shadow-skipper,” Tab announces as though Brom would not be aware.
Ulric chuckles at Brom's indifferent reaction. “Yes?” Brom's brows slouch over steady eyes.
Tab blinks slowly. “A soul-stealer? He is legend among our kind.”
Brom and Ulric share a look. “It is how his clan has been reared,” Ulric explains.
Tab fists his hands. “It is not a light thing. There is merit in the role aside from the ability to shadow walk.”
Ulric wards off a lengthy and unneeded lecture in tradition. He doesn't have the time or appetite for it.
But Tab won't be so easily dismissed. “Do you know all languages? Do you hear the call of day, though you can't partake?”
Ulric stills. He has always been able to understand any cadence, speech or slang. Ulric had discounted the ability as nothing more than a sharp ear and aptitude for language.
He's told no one of his ability to manipulate the day. However, it had gotten him out of many jams. Shadow calling is a thing better left quiet. Brom knows. And Ulric has schooled Brom in the languages, though he would not divulge to others of the private education Ulric has passed on.
Tab searches his face. “Your lack of expression says more than words.”
“What of it? Say I could speak all the languages of this world? Say I could also summon the shadows.”
“Not of just this world,” Tab interjects.
Ulric gives Tab a hard look of scrutiny.
“Any world.”
Ulric's head spins. What he considers a convenience could be much more. He remembers speaking with Jim, and understanding him perfectly while the foreign Band scratched their heads.
Ulric shakes off his musings. More urgent matters remain.
“I'll think about what you've said later. Right now, we pursue the stolen women.”
“What if they don't view themselves as needing rescue?” Tab asks.
Ulric gives a genuine grin. “I am most persuasive.”
Chapter 3
Adahy
Adahy holds the rear position, the women in the center, as they trudge toward the sea.
Vague memories stir as the smell of saltwater drifts to them like tendrils of smoke. Adahy wonders if these scents are somehow tied to the clan of his people? Though his heart is Iroquois, his blood might be of two peoples.
The proof is there in the strange fire that burns inside him when meeting those who are kin of the Band.
He is curious of his past, and his ties
to the Band, but Adahy is not convinced that exploration is the best course of action. More pressing circumstances command his attention.
His tomahawk beats a comfortable rhythm against his thigh as Adahy walks, his eyes everywhere but at the path ahead.
Elise glances over her shoulder, and Adahy spares the barest smile of comfort.
She freely grins back, and the tightness inside his breastbone loosens. Her faith gives him strength.
A bird calls in the bright, low sunlight that attempts to slacken the frozen ground.
Vaughn and Zaid know the way as they lead just ahead. Their blond hair blends with the wheaten tapestry of the lengthening stalks of grass as the landscape changes from prairie to that of the sea. Hiking up a short hill, the endless water rises in the distance like a shimmering jeweled blanket of deep aquamarine.
Sparks of memory burst behind his eyes, and Adahy slows to a stop. He stills as the vague ghosts of his memories travel over the grave of his thoughts.
Elise stops as well, coming to stand in front of him.
He dips his head to look down at her face, and her simple dark beauty moves him.
Just as her healing by the Stone Giant unnerves him, her return to health is of utmost importance. Those contrary emotions will not own him. He must choose the one that makes the most sense: Elise lives because she took blood from Ulric. It should not bother him.
Yet it does.
Adahy reaches for Elise, and she no longer flinches as his fingers wrap her jaw. She leans her face into his caress with an almost inaudible sigh.
“Why do you stop, Adahy?”
He gives a slight shake of his head, the main body of the group has also stopped, turning to look at what he is doing.
Adahy takes a slow perusal of their immediate environment. It is something he is always very deliberate about when he scouts. He does not rush into new situations, but takes careful stock of his surroundings. Weighing each angle.
The terrain. The people. The level of danger.
Yes, the Red Men have amicably traded with the clans. But Adahy has never had anything of true value since the death of his wife, Ohana.
Now there is Elise.
She is too important for Adahy to throw away his natural caution with a death wish.
“I watch,” he says in his broken English.
Elise's dark eyes quiz him. “For danger?” she whispers with uncanny instinct.
He looks at her sharply and nods.
“You do not trust the Clan of Massachusetts,” she states slowly.
His face breaks out in a grin. “I trust no one.”
Except Chasing Hawk, who he left behind after the massacre and abduction of their tribeswomen.
Guilt pierces Adahy.
Elise cups his face and the shame he harbors falls away at her touch. Elise erases so much of the bad, and grows so much good inside the garden of his heart.
“You own me, Elise,” he says in his native Iroquois.
She understands enough that her skins turns pink beneath his fingertips. Under the weight of his meaning.
Elise lays her face in profile against his chest, her fingers working up to bracket her face.
Adahy's heart beats only for her.
*
After Adahy's pause, the group moves on. Though the sea had seemed almost touchable earlier, Adahy notes it presents as a subtle optical illusion of sorts up close.
The last leg of the journey costs them four tough hours on foot.
Calia, though weakened considerably from the Yellow Death, stubbornly maintains whatever pace the males set.
Adahy slows for Elise, whose edges are tattered with the accumulative fatigue of their journey.
They stroll together, the forward part of the group are five flesh specks some distance ahead.
“This will be a difficult introduction, Adahy. With Edwin's unfortunate demise by the Fragment and Calia's reuniting with family—and Philip's attitude about the Rite.” She sighs, shaking her head and drags wisps of raven black hair behind her ears.
Adahy could not place blame on Philip's shoulders—he had claimed Calia—she obviously accepted him as a future mate. They were matched, without the benefit of this Rite of the Select he had heard much about.
He doubts the validity of a test for true mating. Tests of that kind do not exist within the tribe.
The Iroquois approach mating like everything—they go after what they want. There are no “rites—” no “tests.” The process is about who the best candidate is for the female.
“I do not like this ʻrite,ʼ” Adahy states flatly.
“Nor I,” Elise agrees. “It is a robbery of freedom. And I have had my fill of that.”
Neither speaks of her time with the Fragment.
Adahy places his hand on her belly. “But the Stone Giant, Ulric—he gave you the gift of your womb.”
Elise covers his hand with her own, her face having waxed from its normal pale tones and flaring to pink again. “You speak very plainly, Adahy of the Iroquois.” Her voice has turned shy.
Adahy's brows knit. “Yes.” He understands it is the best way to be. Truthful.
“It is not everyone's way,” Elise comments gently.
Adahy straightens, pulling her into a tight embrace. “It is my way,” he whispers against her soft temple and is rewarded by a shiver of pleasure.
“I love that about you.”
He hears the hesitancy in her voice and pulls back, studying her expression. “Yet?”
“I fear it might be too much honesty for this clan.”
Adahy clenches his jaw until it aches. “Is it this Vaughn—Zaid?”
“They have done nothing,” she rushes to appease his apparent suspicion. “But they do not seem to bend to anyone's will but their own.”
They both glance at a forlorn Jim. Who travels outside the pack, neither with the women and Philip—and certainly not with Zaid and Vaughn.
“Vaughn was harsh with Jim. Granted, his looks give one pause...”
Adahy chuckles. “So we have never seen one as exotic as our Jim. It does not mean he should be lauded as somehow lesser.”
Jim seems to know that they speak of him, and his almond-shaped eyes narrow on Adahy and Elise.
Adahy raises a hand and Jim waves back. He turns, continuing to walk behind the rest of the group.
“He is strange—and wonderful,” Elise admits, looking after him.
“Funny,” Adahy adds with a twitch of his lips.
“We will be his friends in this place that hates those who are different.”
Adahy silently agrees. Taking Elise's hand, he marches forward, maintaining his careful watch.
*
When fine grains of sand begin to take place of dirt, and the grass whispers its secrets upon the breeze of the sea, Adahy knows they are near.
Vaughn and Zaid drag daggers from their belt of weapons, metal glinting in the late afternoon daylight. Adahy shoves Elise behind him and unsheathes both his tomahawk and dagger in a swinging half-circle. Though he's more proficient with his dagger, his skill with the tomahawk is sufficient.
Sufficiently deadly.
Jim stands by himself, looking as nervous as a Fragment in a circle of Iroquois.
Three huge men approach, straddling horses of varying colors, the hooves silenced by the sand. They ride easy, as though born for their mounts.
Adahy recognizes them as Band a moment after Vaughn and Zaid. He reluctantly puts up his weapons.
“Band?” Elise whispers from behind.
He nods.
Taking her hand again, he carefully moves forward, the thinnest trust in the newly met Vaughn making him unnaturally jumpy with the newcomers.
Jim does not move any closer as Adahy and Elise come to stand beside him.
The three mounted Bandsʼ eyes are all for Calia as she curls against Philip's side.
Their eyes are hard; expressions that should be joyful, for one of their own has returned to them unhar
med, are not. A rare Select, as Adahy understands the title. A surprise gift.
Instead, they cast wary and question-filled glances at Philip, Vaughn and Zaid.
Finally, they look to where Adahy, Jim and Elise stand.
Adahy finds he does not like their lengthy scrutiny of Elise, and wraps her more tightly against his body.
One smirks, shooting a comment at his companion that is just out of earshot of Adahy, and he laughs at whatever is said.
Adahy does not bother to contain his frown.
“Friendly,” Jim comments dryly at Adahy's right.
Adahy's frown shifts to a scowl. He quickly translates Jim's word and does not agree. “No think friendly.”
Jim's shaky chuckle is magnified in the roar of the ocean, as though stolen and amplified in the wind tunnel of the sea.
Jim claps Adahy on the back. “You're not a comedy kind of guy, huh?”
Adahy regards Jim, who he likes as much as any male—perhaps more for his wit and seeming genuineness.
“I do not find funny.”
Jim sighs, his hands landing on his lanky hips. “Nah, I don't either. That's what I was saying.”
They look at Calia and Philip as distrust instead of camaraderie reigns supreme.
The introduction does not bode well.
Chapter 4
Elise
Elise holds a tight position beside Adahy. Trust of males is slow to arrive, and she will maintain caution until proven otherwise.
Not that her caution is necessary with Adahy gripping her hand in an unbreakable hold. Her unshakable faith in this male has opened so many doors in the house of her happiness. Ones she never dreamed existed. Elise takes her cues from Calia, who also expresses a subtle wariness at the newcomers.
She, Adahy and Jim slowly approach the Band on horseback.
Elise does not squirm as the foreign Band's lazy perusal of her.
Adahy makes a noise very like a growl in the back of his throat.
The Band's eyes flash to Adahy. “You there—from where do you hail?”
His question is neutral. Yet Elise senses the vaguely threatening undertone, and replies before Adahy, hoping to avert a social disaster—or more. “He is Adahy of the Red Men. English is not his mother tongue.”
savage 07 - the dark savage Page 2