“Yes, I like them very much.”
He scowled at the mess she had made. Elise knew the consequence for wasted resources, and she took a step back from him.
Adahy’s green eyes appeared to deepen in color to oceanic depths, the sea kissed by a storm.
“I no hurt.”
Elise nodded too quickly, retreating another step. She couldn’t help glancing toward the ports of exit. “No hurt,” he repeated, his irritation evident.
She bit her lip.
She wanted to believe him so badly it was painful.
He stepped forward, and she began to gnaw at the soft flesh, holding her ground with a bravery she had not known she possessed.
Adahy raised his hand, and she flinched but forced herself to remain in place.
He took a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You.”
I will not hurt you, she translated.
He stared at her, while the birds played a symphony of twittering around them.
He seemed to be waiting for something.
Elise took a great breath and let it out slowly. She raised her eyes to meet his and nodded, indicating she understood.
He came closer. When he reached for her face, she hardly moved as the breath inside her stilled.
He ran the pad of his thumb across the lip she had been chewing. His thumb popped it out of the prison of her teeth as he stroked it, the only unscarred part of her body. His eyes dilated, and his heartbeat pulsed in the hollow of his neck.
Swallowing her fear, she moved into the shadow of his huge body and placed her palm lightly on his muscled chest.
He lowered his head, and she met him halfway.
The touch of his lips was feathery soft, yet the passion was there, contained in a taut line of string between them.
Elise plucked that tightly wound tension as she moved her lips against his in tentative response.
Adahy was an Iroquois warrior and Band.
A female of both bloods moved against him with a restrained passion that provoked him at a primitive level. He pulled her tightly against his body, beginning the slow consumption of Elise.
And for the first time in her life, Elise allowed it.
The birds sang, and the kiss deepened. When they broke apart, Adahy hugged her and brushed his lips against the top of her head.
He drank deeply of her female fragrance, passing his lips against her hair a second time.
“No hurt,” he whispered. They watched the birds peck and dip at the water dish. Little splashes like trilling music danced in the cloistered and heated air around them.
“I know,” Elise said and smiled.
He grinned, though she did not see it with her face against his chest.
Yet Elise could feel it like a song in her heart, meant for her, and her alone.
CHAPTER 17
Clara understood she should feel somber. Maddoc and Evie were Outside. Any matter of things could befall them, could have already befallen them. And she was terribly anxious about their fate.
Yet that could not be allowed to delay her secret nuptials. Matthew mentioned time and again how important their union would be for the strength of not only the sphere-dwellers but for his own people.
Together, they would be stronger than apart.
And for the first time in her life, Clara was not about caution but about passion and blessed choice.
Ada and Frederick were no more. King Otto had been banished. Caesar was deceased. The Outside remained unknown and rife with potential for conflict.
The Wedded Joining would happen.
The ceremony would be held, and all would partake.
But in that moment, Clara would selfishly choose love and practicality as an unlikely mix and marry Matthew. Though the timing was not perfect, Clara realized that might always be the way of it to some extent.
Clara took Matthew's hand, and they made swift progress to Olive's chamber, though the hour grew late. After fetching her for a witness, they would then make haste to the Justice of Peace. He would also be blurry eyed from the hour.
However, there were some advantages to being Queen.
Matthew gave a low chuckle when she stopped at Olive’s chamber door.
She spun and faced him.
“What say you, demon?” Clara asked, the bite of her words softened by the tilt of her generous mouth.
Matthew gripped her shoulders and hauled her close.
“I say that once you had a thought of us joining before the ceremony, the notion took flight inside that pretty head of yours, and you are now bursting with the want of it.”
Clara whispered, “You are too right.”
Then she rose on tiptoe, letting go of his strong hips, to move her hold to his shoulders.
Clara nipped his lip, and Matthew groaned, sinking into her as they fell against the door. Only his hand stopped Clara from crashing into it.
Matthew worked his mouth over hers, sipping, pecking, and pulling those full lips.
The door opened in a sweeping pull behind them.
“Good Guardian! What in the sphere is happening here?” Olive asked. Then she smirked as she watched her queen and soon-to-be king stumble into her chamber.
It was quite untoward. Clara did not lack propriety as a normal course. What had come over her?
“My lady,” Olive whispered in a conspirator's tone, “have ye been into the cups?”
Clara’s eyebrows drew together, and she shuddered. Reaching out to steady Clara, Matthew let out a hearty laugh.
“No! You know me better than that, Olive!” Clara would never sip from the vile drink that had nearly ruined her at the hand of Ada.
Olive crossed her arms, not intimidated in the slightest.
“Nay. You burst into my chamber, sucking at each other’s faces. It lacks dignity.”
“Good Guardian,” Clara muttered.
Olive continued, undaunted. “Then you are a giggling simpleton?”
Clara sobered. “I love you like a sister, Olive, but I am, and will never be, a simpleton. You of all people should know that.”
Olive gave a small curtsey, eyes cast to the ground. “Apologies.”
Matthew frowned at Olive's unkind words, and color flared over a face that still wore scars from the beating administered by Caesar.
She wrung her hands. “I know that. I'm not sure what's come over me. It is…” Olive paused, her hands fluttering.
Clara took hold of one.
“What is it, dear heart?”
Olive sighed. “I worry that once you and he are joined, I will lose my place at your side.” She stood up straighter. “There, I have said it.”
She swiped back her hair and waited for the ax to fall.
“Oh Olive,” Clara said, wrapping her arms around her lady-in-waiting and pulling her into a tight embrace.
“There is no one more dear to me than you.”
Olive sniffled. “Even Sarah?”
Clara stepped away, studying her friend and companion of more than eighteen years.
“What has happened?”
Olive shook her head. “I do not know what the future brings!” She swept out an arm that encompassed the kingdom at large. “None of us do.”
“Sara and you, Billy, and even Charles, as contrary as he is, you are all close to my heart. That is why I came calling tonight.”
Olive's heart was captured in her gaze. “I look to ease my people with more than just my presence, but the presence of someone beside me.”
Clara took Matthew's hand.
He said nothing that would compromise their early joining.
Olive put her hands over her mouth. “Clara! My queen!” she squealed.
“No, Olive. In private, I'm just Clara.”
Olive nodded. “I do not mean to presume…”
“Yes, you do,” Clara said, humor clear in her voice.
“You are right, I do,” Olive said, glancing slyly at Matthew.
Clara
grinned. “We wish to elope.”
“Oh, my Guardian,” Olive said. “I… I shall be witness.”
She rushed to get her reticule then spun around. “We will need to call upon the Justice of Peace and—”
Clara held up her hand. “I am aware.”
The women laughed.
Matthew could not help but join them. They all smiled at one another like happy fools.
“Let us go,” Matthew urged.
Clara and Olive linked arms and hurried through the door.
Clara glanced back at Matthew as he shut the door and turned the bolt.
She cast a look at him like an irresistibly baited hook.
It quickened his heart and steps as Matthew strode after his soon-to-be bride.
*
Dale looked at the strange sphere. He hoped there was a way for him to live inside it, because Outside would be inhospitable when the Fragment found him again.
Actually, the Fragment would do horrible things once they got hold of his sorry carcass.
“Dale?” Evie asked.
“What are your thoughts?”
How to answer? He didn't.
Instead, Dale slid down off the mount and went to where Maddoc struggled to sit upright. “I'm not going to hurt ya.”
To Maddoc, the words sounded like a slurred rendition of Imah not gonna hurtcha.
“What says he?”
Maddoc looked at Evie and felt the sting of shame.
He had left her in the dubious care of a ruffian of the Fragment. Albeit one whom had acted for their benefit.
He blinked slowly and managed to half-throw himself off the steed before he embarrassed himself further in the eyes of the woman he claimed as mate.
Evie replied, “He says he will bring no harm to us.”
Maddoc grimaced when his feet touched the ground and turned away to hide it.
Evie's blonde brows drew together. She slid off the mount and stalked over to him. Dale wisely let the lovers’ spat go without commentary. Those Band and Clan types couldn't just have at each other and get it out of their systems. No, they had to fight it out. Such a waste of breath!
The blonde spitfire pinged a delicate finger off the chest of the huge male.
It was obvious to Dale that she was clan-raised. She'd have been soundly beaten if she were in the confines of the Fragment.
Dale tried to shake off that grim realization, especially his part in all of it.
Evie punctuated her words with a wagging finger. “I was saying that Dale has had sufficient time to do the despicable and has elected not to.”
Maddoc leaned forward, his eyes tightening with the pain that coursed through his upper back and numbed his left arm.
“Dale, is it?”
“Ugh!” Evie fumed, folding her arms and turning from him to stomp off again.
“No, you do not, you vixen!” Maddoc charged after her.
Dale whistled low.
Maddoc's pain receded in the face of her provocation.
She had ridden with her body against another male’s for hours. Maddoc had been wounded and was not himself.
He reached out, his arm screaming with pain from the sudden movement, and grabbed Evie’s arm. He jerked her back against him and plunged the fingers of his right hand through her hair, utterly ignoring the audience of Dale.
He could be damned, Maddoc thought dimly as he took Evie's mouth, not tenderly but with savage brutality.
He owned her, and she would know it. They would not wait; she would not put him off; she would not walk away from him after he'd nearly killed himself to free her.
Maddoc felt nothing but the heat of her underneath him. The slightly salty but sweet smell of her suffocated him, and he loosened his hold.
His hands moved of their own accord, taking liberties over her body. She moaned, and something about the tenor of her voice pierced his defiant, frantic anger.
He raised his head. Maddoc felt the salt of her tears covering his face.
Evie sat down on the cold ground and covered her head with her arms.
Maddoc stared down at his hands, thinking about how powerful his grip was, how he had just held her with too much strength.
Too much everything.
Evie lay broken and crying at his feet.
What had he done?
What was happening to him? To them?
Dale broke through his introspection with the steel blade of his voice. “From my side, doesn't look like we're that much different, friend.”
Maddoc flinched from the truth in those words. He sank down on his haunches and reached for Evie. She scooted away.
Dale snorted. “I'd leave 'er be if I were you.”
“You are not me,” Maddoc growled.
“So ya say.” Sewh yawh say.
Maddoc stared at him, ready to take out his anger on a more appreciative subject. Movement to his left snagged his peripheral vision, and he snapped in that direction.
At the crest of the hill whence they came, a large group of Fragment stood.
Ice crept into Maddoc’s veins. His wound throbbed in perfect timing with the cold company who had arrived.
He was fairly certain they had not yet been seen. That was the singular advantage to their new miserable situation.
“Evie,” Maddoc said in a low voice.
She pulled away from him, her lip trembling.
“I am sorry…”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “You should be. I've been through enough without you—” She saw his expression and dropped her arms.
“What is it?” She started to get to her feet.
Maddoc stopped her. “It be Fragment.”
Evie's mouth dropped open, and she scuttled to him like a crab.
“I cannot, Maddoc. I cannot.”
Maddoc wrapped his good arm around her.
“They haven't seen us yet,” Dale commented as their gazes struck each other in wary alliance.
He pulled a slingshot from a back pocket and filled it with a smooth stone from the riverbed that ran close to the former Clan of Ohio.
“If I hold them off, would you take me in?”
The truth always came easier to Maddoc.
“If I am able.”
Dale inclined his head as though he had expected just that response. “I'll take it.”
“You have naught else.”
Dale slanted a smile, and the light caught it just right, making it look almost sad. “Yeah.”
“Leave the steeds,” Maddoc told him.
Maddoc lifted Evie to her feet and began to run. He tugged her along, her at a sprint and him at a medium jog.
Evie's lungs begged for air, and the cold sapped her strength. She kept her eyes on the sphere, which loomed larger as they ran. She tried to add more speed when she heard someone behind them.
Maddoc kept a steady pace, though it was unbearable not to mark the distance of their pursuers. He had to trust Dale of the Fragment to give them precious time.
Maddoc released her hand as they came upon the vast graveyard that stood just outside the great portal that led into the sphere.
The brass door was a lick of seasoned butter against the milky composition of the sphere.
“Run!” Maddoc bellowed at Evie.
He watched her pull away while he deliberately slowed.
Once her brown skirt began whipping between the dirty white teeth of the grave markers, he turned to see who approached.
Maddoc sucked in a deep breath of surprise.
He would have known the Fragment was a male of the Band just from the one thing he now witnessed.
Dale stood tall in the stirrups of one of the steeds they had been forced to abandon. Two heavyweight bags of soft leather were slung low and heavy at his hips. His knees were slightly bent, and though he was stouter than ideal, he moved well for a male of his size.
Maddoc paused for precious seconds as Dale systematically pressed his heels into the horse,
causing it to back up at a jerky trot while he expertly brained the Fragment daft enough to come within range of his throws. The expert load and toss of the stones proved his physical prowess as Band.
However, the bags were growing lighter, and a flick of his head in Maddoc's direction said much, their eyes meeting across the frozen landscape.
Dale would soon be as indefensible as they.
Evie pounded on the door then frantically moved her hands all over the front where she could reach.
Surely there was a door ringer or some such?
Then it slammed home that the door was only to be opened by key from Outside, for the sphere had been erected in a time when keeping the Outside out was the order of the day.
Maddoc rushed up beside her.
“Can you alert those inside?” he asked in a rough voice that did not convey fear. His fingers moved over the locking apparatus just as hers had.
“No!” Evie wailed, hitting the solid cold brass with her fist and yelping when it bruised from the contact.
“Step away, Evelyn,” Maddoc said.
She did, her tears freezing as they fell from her eyes.
The wind rose, tearing at their clothes, and Evie shivered.
Maddoc picked up a large boulder that easily weighed a quarter of a horse and hurled it at the door. The noise was deafening.
Evie clapped her hands over her ears, uttering a cry.
The vibration from the impact thrummed through her body.
Evie did not realize her eyes were squeezed shut until Maddoc took her hands away from her ears.
Dale trotted to a stop beside them.
Half deaf, Evie jerked her head in his direction. His expression was stiff with fear, and his sack of stones hung empty.
He jumped off the horse, took a look at the door, then slowly turned to face the Fragment.
Evie looked over her shoulder. “Oh no.” There were about a dozen Fragment headed their way.
Maddoc looked at the scattered bodies Dale had managed to put to death with a sling and some stones.
Though the circumstances were perilous, he could not help but admire the Fragment.
“Do ye know you be Band?” he asked.
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