Crystal Shadows

by Joy Nash

  Gina couldn’t miss the note of pride in Derrin’s voice. “You’re a regular Alexander Graham Bell,” she mused, impressed.

  “Who?”

  “That’s the name of the man who invented a long distance communication system in my world.” She recounted a brief history of communications, starting with telephone and radio, and ending with satellites and the Internet.

  “Your world is a wondrous place,” he said when she finished.

  “Some parts of it.”

  “I’ll send you back, Gina, even if I have to steal Balek’s webstone to do it.”

  “What if it doesn’t respond to your command?”

  He shot her a look that was half-amused, half-affronted. “I won’t fail you. You’re in danger, and will be until I get you across the web.”

  “What’s to say I’ll be safe even then? Balek summoned me once. Couldn’t he do it again?”

  “After I send you home, I mean to destroy the webstone, but even so…” He reached into the neckline of his shirt and looped one finger about the silver chain that lay against his skin. The crystal swung free, scattering the glow of the firelight. Gina leaned close to look at it. The stone was a flawless gray cube.

  Derrin drew the chain over his head. Leaning forward, he placed it around Gina’s neck and drew her braids through it.

  “This is a shadow crystal. It’s the most powerful gem I’ve ever created. It keeps our movements hidden from Balek. As long as we stay within a half-day’s walk of each other, we’ll both be shadowed. If you keep the crystal with you, your protection will continue when you return to your world. It will fade only if I withdraw my intention from the stone or it’s destroyed.”

  Gina touched the silver cage. “You didn’t even want me to see this before. Why would you give it to me now?”

  Derrin shrugged. “I feared you had the power of a sorceress. Now I believe that even if you did, you wouldn’t use it against me.”

  Gina fingered the chain, still warm from the heat of Derrin’s body. She slipped the crystal inside the neckline of her dress, where it nestled between her breasts. “I thought you said women couldn’t perform wizardry.”

  “No. I said women weren’t allowed in the Hierarchy. Their powers are considered too erratic to control.”

  “Oh, please.”

  Derrin sent her a look that was half-apologetic, half-teasing. “I’ve never met a sorceress, so I can’t give you a personal opinion on the subject.”

  Gina crawled into the shelter a short time later. Derrin didn’t join her immediately. He sat by the fire, his back toward her, the muscles of his shoulders clenched in tight lines. Before she considered the wisdom of it, Gina reached out her mind to him.

  The wave of raw lust that blasted her caused her to pull back as if scorched. Derrin flinched but didn’t turn. Gina’s heart pounded in her throat as her body responded to his. Her nipples hardened and ached. Moisture collected between her thighs. She wanted him. And not in a sweet, romantic way. She wanted him wild and hot between her thighs. She wanted to sweat and scream as he drove her, commanding her body as he’d commanded her mind.

  Another woman might have welcomed the desire. Another woman might have gone to Derrin and pulled him into the shelter, but Gina lay frozen, unable to move. The Na’tahar had given her unbelievable pleasure, but it had also brought other, more painful feelings. Helplessness. Vulnerability. Those were emotions she had been well acquainted with during her brief marriage. She never wanted to feel them again.

  She rolled over and shut her eyes.

  * * * * *

  A man’s hands covered Gina’s breasts.

  His fingers were warm. Callused. They toyed with her nipples, rolling the sensitive flesh to tight peaks, tugging and squeezing, making her ache. She twisted, arching her spine, wanting more.

  She wanted to feel. It had been so long since she’d let herself do that.

  A warm, open mouth replaced the hand on her left breast. Briefly, Gina wondered what was happening to her, whether she should resist. In the back of her mind a small voice urged caution, but the waves of pleasure coursing through her body drowned all protest. The scent of earth and musk surrounded her.

  She tried to lift her hand, but her limbs were heavy. Weighted. Her eyelids stayed closed, though she willed them to open. In contrast, her body felt light, as if it were floating. She’d fallen asleep in a rough woodland shelter, but oddly, no rough ground caressed her hips now. No cold night air chilled her. She didn’t know how that could be, but oddly, the anomaly didn’t trouble her.

  The man’s mouth shifted to her other breast, leaving the first one bare, moist, and needy. His tongue circled her areola. His teeth scraped her nipple, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. Tiny zings of pleasure-pain raced from her breast to her belly, then slid lower. She welcomed the sensation. This was what it felt like to want, to need, to make love. A hint of an old fear rose, but she pushed it away. She wanted to concentrate on the moment. On the pleasure.

  The man’s hands skimmed over her body. Everywhere he touched, Gina came alive. Her arms, her belly, her hips. It was as though her unknown lover had turned every inch of her skin into an erogenous zone. Her lips parted on a moan. Then lips and teeth left her breast to trail kisses and nips down her torso. His hands moved under her, cupping her buttocks.

  She reached into the darkness. Her fingers tangled in her lover’s hair. The strands were soft and silky. Long. Much longer than Michael’s had been. She toyed with it a bit, liking the feel of it.

  His head came up a fraction. She felt his hesitation, his quick intake of breath, then his lips returned to her body. His tongue teased in the dimpled hollow of her navel. Gasping, she pushed his head lower, instinctively guiding him to where she needed him most.

  He obeyed, shifting, trailing wet kisses toward her mound. She stiffened a bit as he drew close to her clit. She’d never had a man do this before. In some ways, it seemed more intimate an act than making love the usual way. She hovered on the crest of indecision. Tension coiled inside her like a spring. God, she was close to coming. So close…

  The tip of his tongue touched her clit. She writhed, not sure she wanted to yield to the invasion.

  His hands on her hips restrained her. Open for me, Gina.

  The wordless plea was like a splash of icy water. The command had come from Derrin, not some faceless lover. She felt his presence crowding the barrier shielding the deepest part of her mind. If she yielded even a fraction, he would slip inside. Once there, he would become part of her. She wouldn’t be able to hide from him.

  His tongue dipped and suckled, sending a spike of raw need to her womb. She struggled to shut her legs, shut him out of her body and her psyche. His tongue circled the opening to her body. Clever fingers joined the dance, skating across her clit, teasing the crease of her inner thigh, slipping into the cleft between her buttocks.

  Her pleasure climbed. His mind surrounded hers, seeking a weak spot in her defenses. When she lost control and climaxed, would he be able to enter? Would she be at his mercy then?

  Cold fear grew, overpowering Gina’s dizzying pleasure. Nausea churned in her stomach. The familiar numbness stole through her, weighting her limbs, pressing her down, into the ground. A sharp rock under one hip sent a shock of pain shooting along her nerve endings. The jolt caused her eyes to fly open.

  She lay in the brush shelter. Derrin wasn’t beside her—in fact, he wasn’t in the shelter at all. She was alone, and fully dressed. A warm pulse lingered between her legs and a vague sense of panic squeezed her chest. That was all that was left of what she thought had been a real experience.

  Gina let out a long breath.

  A dream.

  It had only been a dream.

  * * * * *

  The distance he’d put between them hadn’t been enough.

  Derrin looped his arms about his knees and tipped his head against the rough bark of the tree he was using as a backrest. The night air held a w
hisper of ice, but despite his fear the unseasonable weather meant the Blight was advancing, he welcomed the chill on his heated skin. The frosty air didn’t affect his cock, though. He suspected the deepest snow wouldn’t cool that part of his anatomy.

  He’d abandoned his bed in the shelter sometime after midnight, cursing himself for his loss of control. In sleep, his mind had drifted toward Gina’s. His spirit had tried to join with hers.

  He was still shaken by the experience.

  As a boy, he’d known those bonded by the Na’tahar shared experiences beyond the physical, but in his youthful innocence he’d never imagined the erotic nature of those joinings. As he approached manhood, he learned more, but he had left the clans before taking a mate. He’d never experienced the sacred joining of souls.

  Until Gina.

  But the union he’d forced on Gina in his grandmother’s hut hadn’t been a joining born of love. It had been a nothing short of an obscenity. If there had been any other way—other than murder—to break Balek’s control on her mind, he would have done it. He had vowed afterward to keep his distance, but the lingering bond of the Na’tahar was strong. He was not strong enough to resist it.

  He’d pleasured Gina in a dream. Even now, he could feel the sweet surrender of her flesh beneath his lips, taste the pungent bouquet of her arousal as it spilled over his tongue. She’d been soft, open, urging him with sighs and moans to take what he wanted. So unlike the woman she was when the sun was high.

  He’d pushed her higher and higher, unable to pull back, wanting more than anything to feel her break under his control. But in a heartbeat, everything had changed. A memory had flashed through her, and in the way of joined lovers, he had felt it in his own mind. In the grip of the same terror and humiliation she’d felt during the Na’tahar, Gina had gone cold. Numb.

  Once again he’d caused her pain.

  He wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

  * * * * *

  Gina rolled onto her back and stifled a groan. Dawn hadn’t yet come, but more sleep was out of the question. The screeching of a thousand birds made sure of it.

  Reluctantly, she opened one eye.

  Derrin was already up, standing in the clearing a short distance away, his back to her. Despite the chill of the morning her cheeks heated as the memory of her dream flooded over her. Even though she’d managed to fall into a fitful slumber afterward, her thighs were still slick and her clit still tingled. Beneath it all lurked the fear of losing herself, of letting a man cause her to lose control. Michael had done that during her marriage. Derrin had done it when he’d entered her mind. Both memories had the power to immobilize her.

  She drew a shaking breath as she pushed herself to a sitting position. If she could feel so unsettled after a mere dream, what would she do if Derrin tried to enter her mind again for real? She didn’t want to contemplate it.

  He glanced back at her, his gray eyes shadowed. He’d heard her movements, of course, even though she’d been trying to be silent. The man was aware of everything. Sometimes, when she looked up to find him watching her, she had the feeling he could look into her soul.

  He gestured for her to join him. She vanquished the last remnants of her dream from her mind and went to him, relieved when he made no move to touch her.

  “We need to check our traps,” he said.

  Three of the stick and stone traps had sprung, including one Gina had set herself. In it, a blue-green harta lay whimpering beneath the stone, its back legs crushed. It writhed in a pitiful attempt to escape.

  Derrin hunted around until he’d found a smooth stone the size of a baseball. He held it out to her. “Here. Kill it.”

  Gina gaped at him. “Me? No way!”

  “It’s your trap,” he said evenly. “The animal’s death is your responsibility. Besides, don’t you want to eat?”

  “Well, yes, but I don’t want to kill anything.”

  “Gina, no creature lives without causing others to die. You’re no different. You’re not harmless because others do your killing for you.” Once again, he offered Gina the stone.

  She took it this time, and stared down at the struggling ball of fur.

  “Crush its skull. One clean stroke should do it.”

  She dropped to one knee and raised her arm. The rock struck the animal’s head with a sickening crack. Blood splattered on her hands and on the grass.

  “There.” She tried not to think of how easy it had been.

  “Good.” Derrin pulled the animal out of the trap and laid it with the others, then pried the stone from her fingers. “Why don’t you go back to the camp and check on the fire?”

  Gina scrambled to her feet. “Thanks.”

  They broke camp after eating and continued their journey. At midday they came to a cross trail. A bent tree marked the intersection. Derrin knelt to examine a pile of stones at the base of the trunk.

  “What is it?” Gina asked.

  “A trail marker. The tree was bent as a sapling, to serve as a signal for the stones. See?” He pointed to a slab set to one side of the mound.

  Gina crouched and ran her finger over a crude image of a fire etched on its surface.

  “The path leads to the Fire Clan,” he said.

  They set out in the direction indicated by the marker. By late afternoon they were edging along a narrow path overlooking a sheer cliff. A wide swath of water separated the mountain from the valley beyond.

  “We have to cross the river to reach the village,” Derrin informed her. “If I remember correctly, we should come to a ravine tomorrow. We’ll be able to climb down to the water’s edge there.”

  The hiking was difficult along the ridge. Rock formations loomed above Gina’s head. The trail meandered between them, skirting dense patches of thorny brush. There was little that was edible in the harsh landscape, and even less water.

  By the middle of the following afternoon Gina’s last drink had faded to a distant memory. She relieved her parched mouth by sucking on a smooth pebble. She looked down at the river. All the water she could hope for was less than fifty feet away.

  They forged on. The sun dipped low, yet the ravine Derrin had spoken of didn’t appear. A stiff wind rose.

  “It’s going to be another cold night,” he muttered. “The Blight is spreading into the wilderness.”

  A rocky outcropping jutted out over the river. Derrin hiked past the thick bushes clustered on one side of the ledge and surveyed the cliff face. After a moment, he gestured for Gina to join him. She edged toward the precipice and peered over the edge. Far below, brown water swirled, catching the glow of the fading daylight. Hastily, she took a step back.

  “Over there.” Derrin grabbed a branch and pulled it back, pointing with his free hand to a spot farther along the cliff. “See how the ridge splits? We should be able to make our way down to the river without too much trouble.”

  “It doesn’t look too easy.”

  He flashed her a grin. “You’ll do fine. We won’t be able to climb down in the dark, though. We’ll have to camp here along the ridge.”

  Gina turned back to the main trail. She’d taken only a few steps toward it when a menacing growl reached her ears. She halted in her tracks. Less than fifteen feet in front of her, an odd gray-furred creature lumbered out from the shadow of a rock formation.

  The beast was the size of a small truck, square and massive, with a shaggy coat that hung in twisted ropes that resembled dreadlocks. A flat snout covered with spiky gray bristles sniffed in her direction. The animal surveyed the human intruders with an air of irritation. Then it rose up on thick hind legs and gave a trumpet-roar.

  Gina’s insides turned to water. The creature loomed over her, impossibly huge, curved claws unsheathed. She couldn’t see Derrin, but she felt his rigid presence at her back. His heat surrounded her. It was the only thing that prevented her from crumpling.

  “A tarma,” he breathed. “They don’t usually hunt this early in the evening. If we don’t move, it ma
y lose interest.”

  A flash of motion caught the corner of her vision. To her right, at the far edge of the overlook, a miniature version of the shaggy beast waddled out of the thicket. It looked past Gina and gave a whimper. The larger tarma roared.

  The cub cried. The adult tarma’s lips drew back, revealing a pair of sharp, deadly tusks.

  “Gina, can you swim?”

  “Yes, but—”

  The monster charged. Before Gina could react, Derrin grabbed her around the waist and shoved her over the cliff.

  Chapter Nine

  The impact of Gina’s body on the water’s surface kicked the air from her lungs. The river closed over her, deadly and cold, pummeling her with rough fists. Rocks bit into her leg as the current drove her into the river’s bed.

  She kicked hard against it and struggled upward. Icy air blasted her face. She managed a deep, painful breath before the current reclaimed her.

  The water rushed in with suffocating force. Terror drove her limbs, propelling her body with desperate strength. Endless moments later, she broke the surface a second time.

  “Gina!”

  “Here!” She couldn’t see Derrin, but his shout told her he was near.

  She floundered in the current for what seemed like an eternity before his arm wrapped around her from behind.

  “Are you all right?” he yelled over the roar of the river.

  “I think so.”

  He shifted his hold and towed her across the current toward the far bank, where the water broke white against a jagged line of rocks. The daylight was fading rapidly.

  “There!” She tried to point to a break in the rocks.

  “I see it.” He changed course and angled for the cove, but the current drove them past it. He found purchase on the river floor and struggled upstream.