A secret smile stole over his face. It instantly made the fragment which saw it uneasy. They knew the quality of that look.
Filled with intent.
Evilness personified.
*
Clara soaked her aches away. Her blissful time was cut short by Calia, who was always about business. However, Clara and she had come to an understanding. Clara had spoken for some time about the happenings of her sphere. Calia was most curious about the oyster fields.
“You work there... as a royal?” she asked.
Clara nodded, a trifle embarrassed. “Aye, my father raised me to see to the fields myself. It is something I have always loved.”
Calia soaped a body that was slim but strong, muscles appearing as subtle serpents as she moved, undulating under her skin. The gold of her eyes startling in the gloom of the surrounding forest.
Clara spied her pearl bindings which lay upon the shoreline in an inelegant pile, shining softly atop the moss. She turned back to Calia.
“You have the most miserable trappings I have ever come across,” Calia chuckled softly. “The things for your hair! And the insufferable undergarments!” Calia shook her head in wonder. How the poor girl had ever moved in that horrible thing she called a corset was beyond Calia. And the marvelous gems for her hair. So beautiful but all twined about in it! She was very glad she did not live in the sphere or was constrained by such things.
Clara saw the internal musings of Calia and laughed out loud. “I see that it is quite different for you here,” she swung her palm around the wilderness. “You would not have need of all of the accoutrements of my sphere.” Her eyes met Calia's, her hair dripping down bare skin as she stood in the midst of the heated water. “And for that I am glad, it does become tedious at times,” she said, smiling.
“Aye, I think you understate things greatly!” Calia returned.
Clara did. But this was all she knew, it is what she was, who she had been raised to be. Perhaps one day, things would become more... relaxed. The formalities giving way to a more practical way of life, remembering the practiced ease of living by the great sea of her mother's clan as example.
*
Daniel and Charles made their way carefully, having rested only briefly at the edge of the Great Forest Outside. A few hours sleep made all the difference. They began fresh and rode hard to the deepest part of the forest where the Clan of Ohio's hot springs lay.
It was not long before they heard the voices of females.
One he would know anywhere.
The other, well... he was unsure. Women were so scarce it would be a surprise.
They carefully approached the pool. Not hearing the sounds of water splashing, they assumed that the women were done with their bath and came upon them.
Suddenly the voices stopped and he and Charles burst out into the openness which surrounded the heated waters of the spring. Daniel had just noticed the steam rising from the pool when the coldness of a blade was placed beneath his chin.
What?
Daniel had been raised by the fragment but with the instincts, prowess and lethal strength of the Band. He grabbed the arm that held the blade and twisted before the attacker could react.
He was taken aback at the smallness of it but swung the man around to face him, his hand releasing the forearm and grabbing whatever he could.
A female's scream came and adrenaline surged in his body, he raised his dirk to end the life of one that threatened females.
And stayed his blade.
His hand was not wrapped in the hair of a male of the fragment.
Or one of the clan.
But a female of the Band. Her slender neck marked by delicate throat slits, splayed wide in fear and supplication. Her dirk naked in her hand, a red angry band around her forearm where she had been gripped.
By him.
Instantly he released her and she swiped upward with the blade as Clara screamed, “Calia, no!”
Daniel leaned evasively as the practiced arc made its way a millimeter’s breadth from his vulnerable throat. He met the swinging arc with one of his own. The metal clashed, spinning away the female's blade as he jerked her close to him.
It was then that he noticed her size, so powerful and large a few paces away, she was tiny against him.
He was instantly ashamed. She had been defending Clara. She knew him only as one of the fragment.
“Charles, do something!” Clara screamed, racing over in a pair of men's breeches that caused Charles to gasp like a fish out of water.
Charles shook himself loose from his brain fog and lurched next to the female that Daniel held. “Do not, my friend... she is but defending our Clara.”
“I know that, fool!” Daniel ground out, never taking his eyes off the female he held in a vise-like grip. “She is feisty, I'll give her that!”
That made a veil of red come over Calia's eyes and in a surge of rage she broke free, swinging her fist into his face. But he caught it, jerking her arm up between her shoulder blades.
“You are fragment! I shall prevail!” she screamed in frustration, swinging and kicking about, her braid a snake that whipped Daniel as he held her fast.
“I am Band as well... spitfire!” He shook her and she yelped, her shoulder a burning inferno of agony. More guilt stabbed him but by Guardian she would stop this assault before he released her!
Clara stepped in front of Calia waving her arms over her head. “Calia, he means no harm. It is Daniel. He is not our foe!”
Calia gritted her teeth, stilling. Casting a heated glance in Clara's direction she stopped struggling. Daniel cautiously released her and she spun, fuming up at him. Her gold eyes like twin suns blazed out of a face of keen beauty, all fire and light.
He knew that face.
He saw recognition come into hers as well.
“What say you?” Clara asked breathlessly, seeing the look which passed between them.
“He is fragment, Clara,” Calia said warily, looking from he to Charles.
Clara said, “'Tis true, but he is also of the Band.”
“How is that?” Calia asked, backing away, unconsciously rubbing the mark he had put on her arm. Daniel's eyes flicked to her arm and saw it would be a bruise of distinction.
He sighed.
“Dear woman,” Charles began, “he ran with the fragment some time past. But upon learning of his...” Charles hesitated, “unique lineage, aligned with the better of the two.”
Clara smiled at Charles who had come to stand beside her. “Thank you, that was very well said. It was becoming...”
“Violent,” Charles said in a word.
Clara nodded her agreement.
“We are well met from before,” Calia said in a derisive tone.
Clara's brow furrowed and she looked at Daniel in question.
He met her eyes and admitted the atrocities of his past, “She has stolen the spoils of the fragment before.”
Clara and Charles stared at him. “What spoils, Daniel?”
Calia crossed her arms underneath her breasts, her eyes without mercy. “Women.”
Clara gasped. She had known that he had hidden amongst the fragment, done unspeakable things to survive. But... to have the truth of his transgressions laid at her feet was difficult to hear proven out.
Daniel hung his head, more ashamed of his past than he thought he could ever be.
Especially with her golden gaze boring into him. He met her accusing eyes with steadfast regard.
Daniel could not help what he was, what he'd been.
He could only do what was possible now, make whatever amends that presented themselves to him.
Calia turned her back on him and walked to her rucksack, the feel of his eyes on her a steady and heated weight upon her back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They passed the border of the clan, the steep and jagged poles meeting the skyline, the press of the day upon them, the heat did not warm them whatsoever, the snow a sheet of ice underneat
h their feet.
“This is fine footwear, Rowenna,” Bracus said, stomping ahead with assurance.
“Aye,” she responded. The jagged “teeth” screwed into key points of the sole of their boots, biting into the slick ice. The weather lay between freezing at the perfect point of dampness and the two of the sphere were weakening before it. The Band moved forward, unaffected, producing an independent heat that helped greatly in the chilled and damp weather.
As they neared the great gate they could see the main fire burning brightly. “We do not have time to tarry,” Matthew warned.
Edwin gave a short laugh. “As if that would be at all possible with you nagging like a girl.”
Matthew was upon him in a moment, his fist punching out in a connecting shot to his jaw that had Edwin staggering backward, clutching at the open air. He regained his balance and charged Matthew.
Matthew was ready, the seething anxiety of Clara's imagined danger was boiling beneath the surface of him. To see Edwin disregard that potential made him instantly furious.
Rowenna halted Edwin's progress, whipping him around, using his own momentum against him. He raised a fist to her as she swung and Bracus stopped his advancement, his mighty palm closing around it like a vise.
“Perchance your aim is better than your judgment,” Bracus said with a smile.
“He would not have followed the strike!” Rowenna said, offended.
Bracus chuckled as Edwin stalked about, fuming, his hands placed on muscular hips that tensed under the weight of his anger.
“Perhaps not. But I could not have someone strike you in anger,” Bracus said, giving her steady eyes.
“Mother,” Maddoc said. “He would not be the male for you if he allowed another to lay hands on you.”
“Humph!” Rowenna huffed, walking off toward the gate. Let the males fight amongst themselves.
Foolish men.
Bracus watched Rowenna stalk off in a fit of passionate anger and thought how much simpler things would be if he had set his sights on a female that was demure. However, the heart and blood chose where they would, regardless of the consequence. A bottle in the ocean, the current a wayward master.
His gaze swung to Matthew, his fists balled into weapons, his eyes trained on Edwin, who returned the glare, massaging his chin as he did. He sighed. Tensions ran high this day.
He approached Matthew. His blue gaze met Bracus'. “I fear for her safety and this one...” he flung a stiff arm toward Edwin, “makes light of it. I cannot abide his nonchalance at her expense.”
Edwin stopped pacing and nearly ran at the two men. His amber eyes glowed in a face etched with anger. He leaned into Matthew's face. “I do not make light of Clara. Never her,” he paused, his voice gone low, eyes shifting between Bracus' and Matthew's. He straightened. “However, it is not my way to strut about in a funk of anger day by day. It does nothing but rob my energy for the morrow. Do you not see it?”
Matthew did not.
They would concede their differences or kill each other.
Maddoc approached the group in a jog, his bronze hair, so like Clara's, flying behind him. “They have food. Jack and Lillian and their babe await news as well.” His eyes met Matthew's, the older man conflicted. Maddoc put a large hand on his shoulder, almost meeting him in the eye now. “Eat. You cannot hope to fight if there be a battle and you have naught food enough in your belly.”
Matthew sighed, deep and heavy. He was right, of course. But his heart ached as he made his way to the dining hall. Even the familiar warmth of the clan fire could not give him peace. He would have none until he breathed the scent of Clara into his lungs, her small body pressed against his.
Vibrant and alive in the circle of his protection once more.
Where she belonged.
*
Maddoc was secretly pleased to be at the home clan of Bracus. It was where Evelyn was. When they had struck out for the Kingdom of Kentucky, she had departed in the opposite direction. With Clara about boring royal tasks (such as negotiations for an alliance between spheres because of the salted pellet destruction), she wished to visit the people of her clan.
He had been honor-bound to attend his mother and sister.
Maddoc was beyond driven mad with sphere life. How they stayed in those houses of caged humidity without the rain and sun on their backs? It was baffling to him.
It had driven Maddoc to a distraction he did not think was possible. Evelyn away from him, unprotected while he was so bored he thought he would rather die. That was, until the kidnap of his sister. He was worried indeed. But so was every male that rode with him. He still wished to see Evelyn, if only for an hour during the meal they would take, then they would blazon a trail to the nearby hot springs.
He walked through the gate, greeted by the stares of the clan's people. Very like his own clan, but without the salted breeze to tease his senses. Here, in this clan, the trees lifted their branches and the smell of forest and earth were a heady thing.
The fire blazed, the height creating sparks that flew to the sky like fireflies, the brilliance of the sun subdued in the cloak of green that was the forest. It was by the forest that he caught sight of Evelyn and his heart lightened.
Until he saw the male that attended her.
His hands lay upon her body. Maddoc's joy upon seeing her came to a shrieking halt, his warrior instincts sinking their claws into a brain not yet mature. He was without sufficient discernment to weigh the difference between danger and friendship.
He sprinted from the balls of his feet before he knew he had begun to move. He saw, as if from outside his body, Evelyn turn, her face breaking into a broad smile, the male with his hands on her shoulders, his chin at the level of the top of her head, dark eyes without expression watched him come.
Evelyn screamed, “Maddoc, no!”
The male which stood behind her drove her behind him protectively, not recognizing this one of the Band.
It was quite brave to face one of the Band in anger, when one was clearly not Band.
Maddoc bore down on the male, seeing instantly that they were very close in age and went right for his neck.
The other evasively backed up as he used the arm Maddoc gave him and swung him close to the fire.
Maddoc felt the heat of the fire on his back, arching and spinning away to avoid the flames, landing on his back with the male above him, a dirk in his hand, the blade tight under his neck. “What say you, Band?”
Maddoc had never suffered more acute embarrassment in his life. He had reacted in anger, forgotten all his training and one of the clan held his life in his hands while Evelyn... was somewhere unprotected.
Her face came next to the one who held the dirk. “You silly male! He is my best friend!” Maddoc's eyes flicked to the male's. Whatever he was, friendship was not it. Their gaze locked and Maddoc saw what lay there.
Challenge and ownership.
Maddoc was about that.
Bracus was suddenly there. “Maddoc, Jonathan! We do not have time for sport! We need to fill our bellies for strength, not expend it with dalliance,” he said, exasperated. Could they not see that time was not their friend?
Evelyn came to Bracus and he put an affectionate arm around her, tucking her head underneath his chin. “What say you? What is the subject of this ruckus?” His face showed the joke of his words as the blade came away from Maddoc's throat and he sprung up, glaring at all that had gathered. Evelyn smiled at him. “I was pleased for your acquaintance of Jonathan. However, it is not as I had envisioned it.” The laughter was thick in her lovely voice and Maddoc scowled.
Jonathan smiled. “Aye, I thought you had lost your senses for a moment. I was simply defending Evelyn,” he said, shrugging. The ghost of a smile curled his lips. It was not often he sparred with one of the Band who was that close in age to himself. He looked at the slightly older man, because that was what he was, nearly grown, and thought him very much like Queen Clara, save for the obvious disparity of
gender. Instinctively, Jonathan knew that it would be a singular win against him. His passion overcame his sense in just the right sequence to allow Jonathan to gain the upper hand. A sweet but short-lived victory.
He stuck his palm out inoffensively. Better to be well met than to suffer his hate for all eternity. It was plain to Jonathan that Maddoc of the Band was in love with Evelyn.
Although that... Jonathan would not concede. For he was as well. No matter, he had sound wits about him and he would be the victor before Maddoc's rash personality. It was almost unfair, what, with his advantage of long acquaintance with Evelyn and the evenness of temperament as opposed to one of the Band. They were always violent and passionate. They knew no other way.
Genetics compelled them.
Maddoc saw all that he thought on his face. Jonathan, he reminded himself, had learned some fighting techniques in his time. Maddoc knew that he could take him if he had not allowed his heart to unravel his mind. He exhaled loudly and crushed the grip of the clansman.
Their hands turned white from the grip and Rowenna approached, putting a hand on the back of her son's neck and squeezing. She let the strength of a pureborn of the Band direct itself into the tender spot between neck and shoulder and Maddoc winced from the excruciating pressure.
“Dear Jonathan, my son is truly sorry for his rash behavior. He did not realize you did not mean harm to Evelyn.”
Jonathan's brows shot up to his hairline, the woman of the Band in front of him the first he had ever seen. Females of the Band were rare. Pure select. She also had the echo of Clara's looks about her but the physical size was so different it distracted from the similarities. He grinned back, she was categorizing Maddoc's reaction so it would not appear in a bad light.
“I am not offended. It is clear that he wishes to protect all females, a noble pursuit.” He leveled his stare on Maddoc and released his hand, completely numb from the brute force applied on his. Jonathan thought it possible that Maddoc could crush his hand. And he had not been trying, just testing.
They looked at each other and had a moment of understanding. This was not over but just beginning. Evelyn approached Jonathan and giving a withering look to Maddoc, looped her arm through Jonathan's. He resisted the urge to give the smug look over his shoulder he wished too.
savage 04 - the savage vengeance Page 8