Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

  Their world wouldn’t die when the gates could no longer sustain travel. Let Taise have his delusional dreams of dominating worlds. Char just wanted one. His mark in history would be laying the foundation for their new way of life, a life that didn’t rely on offworld raids just to ensure their survival.

  The gates—they were the start of all his troubles, and when the last one fell, he would be satisfied.

  Almost as if the High Lord could still sense thoughts, he felt Taise’s gaze focus on him. “How fare the gates this trip?”

  With his hands linked behind his back, Char faced Taise and responded, “Secure. I did not notice any instabilities. I think the key to maintaining them is moderation, High Lord. Endless use, or forcing them to remain open, that seems to cause the fluctuation in the gate’s power.”

  Even though Char delivered the words in a diplomatic, level tone, Taise erupted. “Damn those gates! Moderation—no. It’s raiding season. The nights are long and my men are ready to hunt.” He jabbed a gnarled finger in Char’s direction. “You will find a way to stabilize the Roinan Gate. It’s the key. If it is stable, the smaller gates will be as well.”

  Char inclined his head. Stabilizing them was the last thing that Char would do, even if he knew how. But pacifying the High Lord suited him right now. “Of course, High Lord.”

  Waking up was rarely a pleasant experience for Lee. Caught in the grip of dreams that she couldn’t remember— but that terrified her nonetheless. Terrified her so that when she lay in bed, she was covered with sweat and had to resist the urge to pull the blankets over her head and hide like a child.

  But pulling the blankets over her head wouldn’t do a damn thing to ease her fear, and she knew it. Didn’t stop her from wanting to try again, but pride wouldn’t let her. Even without the dreams lingering in the back of her subconscious, waking up was a bitch.

  Today, though, today wasn’t just a bitch. It was a colossal she-bitch from hell, and Lee wished she could just close her eyes and escape into unconsciousness. Lying there with her mouth as dry as cotton and an aching hole in the pit of her stomach, she was too nauseated to eat. No, waking wasn’t any fun in her experience, and the only thing that made it tolerable was coffee. Oh yeah, today was going to go down in the records as far as bad mornings went. Every last inch of her body ached, her heels were a blistered, screaming mess of pain, her soles were even worse than that, and her head hurt so bad, she figured a visit with a guillotine would be an improvement. All of that she could have handled, so long as she had some coffee.

  No. Not some. Lots of coffee. Strong and sweet, with just a little milk and a hell of a lot of sugar. Anything could be faced, as long as there was enough coffee. Lee was pretty certain that was part of her problem. This damned place had no coffee. After the second night here, she knew that she wasn’t dreaming all of this. Even in her worst nightmares, she wouldn’t conjure up some dream world unless it had coffee in it.

  So she was either in some bizarre, alternate reality thing—or she was dead and trapped in hell. Lee was pretty sure there wasn’t any coffee in hell. Of course, by that reasoning, maybe this really wasn’t an alternate reality, where she had to deal with no coffee and a sexy warrior that she didn’t know how to handle. Maybe she really was in hell and this world had been conjured up to serve as her punishment, with Kalen as her keeper.

  With a pitiful whimper, she rolled over on the bed and pressed her face into the pillow. It was daylight out. She could see the light streaming in around the weird-looking curtains. They looked like they were made of some sort of organic material. They blended in perfectly with the walls and they felt weird to the touch. Rough, at first, like the wood that made up the bunker, and then softer—almost like flesh under her hands. They changed color under the contact as well, going from a weathered gray to a pale ivory nearly the same tone as her skin.

  They blocked the sunlight so well, she never would have known it was morning except that the curtain was just a little too short and pale golden slivers of light fell through. They did something to muffle the sound as well, and she could just barely hear voices outside.

  The encampment was never quiet. That was one thing she’d learned pretty fast. Right now, she’d have given anything for some silence, some coffee—and someplace to hide from that evil woman.

  If the sun was burning in the sky, then Eira would be here soon. Actually, Lee was pretty surprised Eira hadn’t shown up already to drag Lee’s exhausted ass out of the bed.

  “It’s safe to get up. Eira won’t be bothering you until later today.”

  At the low, rough sound of Kalen’s voice, Lee turned her head just a little, enough so that she could see him if she opened one eye. The sight of that dark angel face was enough to make the morning a little less depressing. Lee would have had to be dead for that face to leave her unaffected, and she figured she hurt too much to be dead.

  Kalen was crouched down by the bed, staring at her with a faint smile. The little scar on his chin was very faint, years old. There was another one that bisected his left eyebrow, stopping just short of his eye. A little lower and he probably would have been left without any sight in that eye.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” Lee said softly.

  He reached up and brushed her bangs away from her face. His fingers lingered, trailing across her cheekbone. “You have slept more than thirteen hours. There could have been a gatestorm and I don’t know that you would have awakened.”

  Gatestorm—Lee wasn’t sure what that was but it sounded ominous. Her brain wasn’t ready for ominous, so instead of asking him what it was, she turned her face back into her arms. If she tried, maybe she could go back to sleep. She sure as hell was tired enough.

  “Eira has a way of making somebody feel like they’ve run the gauntlet.”

  She cracked an eye back open and slid him a dirty look. “She’s evil. You know that? Just plain evil.” Then she sighed and pushed herself up on the narrow bed. That was when she realized she was mostly naked. She flushed and tucked the sheet around her legs, and when she did, she caught sight of her undershirt. It was stiff and dirty, and unless she was mistaken, it stank to high heaven. Lee probably wasn’t in much better shape. That evil woman hadn’t let her take a bath. There had been a time when Lee would have been desperate enough to dive into arctic waters to get clean, but Eira wouldn’t have it.

  Too much of that soft world clings to you, vassa. We need to sweat it out of you.

  “People usually survive a gauntlet. I don’t think Eira wants me to survive. She wants to torture me to death, slowly.” Lee shivered a little, the cool morning air kissing her flesh.

  Kalen’s quarters were barren, a barracks-style cabin that boasted little more than the bed and a huge desk. It was a single unit, though. Or at least it had been until she showed up. From the first day, she had crashed on his bed and Kalen made do with a pallet on the floor. She kept waiting for him to cart her off to a double unit where she’d share with some stranger, but it still hadn’t happened.

  From what she had seen, most of the people here shared. She had an idea why Kalen was by himself, but she felt weird asking. She felt weird not knowing the answer, if she had to be honest. She felt like she should know, and was embarrassed that she didn’t.

  Too many things here felt too familiar—she found herself recognizing people, knowing them by name, even though she hadn’t ever met them. Or at least, not while she was awake.

  She rubbed her hands over her face and muttered, “It’s too early for this. Thinking before coffee ought to be outlawed. Hell. A world without coffee shouldn’t have ever been allowed into existence.”

  “Coffee.” Kalen said the word slowly and Lee squinted up at him. The faint light still seemed too bright for her tired eyes.

  “Yes. Coffee. I can’t wake up without coffee.”

  He said nothing, but she knew by the look on his face that he didn’t know what coffee was. “If I had to wind up in some twilight zone dimension, you c
ould at least have coffee for me.”

  Kalen reached out and traced a hand down her cheek, then tapped her nose. “We do not have coffee. But . . .”

  The tone in his voice gave her hope. When he turned and left, Lee mumbled, “Maybe they have chocolate.” It wasn’t quite the same, but it had caffeine. It had sugar. It would work. She could make do with chocolate. Hell, she’d make do with hot tea, so long as it wasn’t some kind of herbal crap or whatever vile concoction he’d made her drink the other day.

  However, she wasn’t going to hold her breath. If they didn’t have something as simple as coffee, she wasn’t going to hope for candy. By the time the door opened a few minutes later, she had forced her stiff body out of bed and gone to stand in front of the minuscule sink. She found her clothes in a pile by the door and decided that Kalen must have stripped them off, because if Lee had done it, the undershirt would have come off as well. She didn’t have any other clothes, but she couldn’t walk around half-naked either. Even if Kalen had already seen her in the undershirt and panties.

  She found one of his shirts draped over a chair, and after hastily stripping off the undershirt, she pulled it on and then immediately wished she’d waited a few minutes. It was clean, warm and it smelled of him. While she stank.

  A week in the shower might help, but it wasn’t an option. Kalen’s small cabin didn’t have a real bathroom. There was a toilet behind a little wall that she assumed was supposed to make it a bit more private. There was a sink and running water, so Lee figured she shouldn’t complain. These people were living in a manner she’d never imagined, but technically she knew it could be worse. A lot worse. As soon as she could stumble her way outside, she was going to the communal bath. Those mineral springs were seriously excellent. A day at a spa couldn’t beat those mineral springs.

  She splashed water on her face and glanced at Kalen’s reflection in the little mirror. The round piece of glass was barely large enough for their two faces. A blessing in disguise, Lee figured. If she looked at her full-length reflection, she might cry. Lee wasn’t overly vain, but her filthy clothes, the ragged lengths of her nails and her tangled hair would have been enough to have even her crying.

  Then she caught the scent of something seductive. Something rich. Something she would have happily chopped off an arm to have. Slowly, she turned. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the metal cup in Kalen’s hand. It had steam rising off it, dancing in the cool air.

  It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “Is that . . .”

  The look on her face was so erotic—she looked like a woman tumbling into orgasm, not a woman staring at a hot cup of kion. One thing they weren’t lacking, thank God, since the Kona beans they used to make kion grew naturally in this area. She stared at the cup with the same kind of greed he’d seen in the eyes of a teenaged boy seeing his first naked female. “Kion,” he supplied. “Careful. It’s—”

  She grabbed it from him and a little of it splashed on her hand, but she didn’t even notice as she lifted the cup. “Hot,” he finished lamely. Her lashes fluttered closed and she made a sexy little moan.

  How ridiculous was it to feel jealous? Kalen had dreamed of hearing her make that kind of sound for years, and when she finally did, it was over a bloody cup of kion. She took one sip and then a second one before she looked up at him. The fog of sleep cleared a little and he saw satisfaction in her eyes. “You’re my hero,” she said.

  He laughed. “Over kion.”

  “Absolutely. You saved my life. If I had to go another day without caffeine . . .”

  “You would have lived,” Kalen said, his voice dry. “Even if some people around you wished otherwise.” He felt just a little bit of guilt, too. The woman had an addiction to caffeine that probably bordered on unhealthy and she’d gone four days without it. Not that Eira would have allowed her to take any into the field while she was being trained. He reached for the bag he’d brought when he first came in. “I also have clean clothes, although I doubt you’ll be as thankful for those.” He smiled faintly as he studied the tunic she wore. “That looks better on you than it ever did on me.”

  She flushed and shifted from one foot to the other. “Sorry. Should have asked but I couldn’t keep that shirt on any longer. And you obviously don’t know me that well if you don’t think I’m going to love the clothes as much as the coffee—kion, whatever,” she muttered. She glanced toward the mirror and used her free hand to finger comb through some of the tangles in her hair. “Clean clothes are worth their weight in gold. I can’t stand to be in the same room with myself. I don’t see how you can stand to be that close to me.”

  It wasn’t that easy, but it had nothing to do with what she did or didn’t have on, with whether or not she’d taken a bath in the past few days, her tangled hair or anything like that.

  His shirt hung on her so long it came down to her knees, and her nipples peaked against the soft cloth. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep. Just standing there was hard because he had to resist moving any closer.

  Being this near was both heaven and hell. Heaven— because he only felt complete when she was with him. Hell—because she wasn’t ready for what he needed from her. Things he’d always needed from her, but circumstance and fate had kept him from it. Just as circumstance and fate now kept him from her. She was confused and exhausted. Beyond that, there was the war with Anqar. Every day was a battle to survive. Even with the gates relatively quiet, Kalen’s forces had their hands full with the demons that had already taken up residence.

  Kalen had a bad feeling their time was running out. He didn’t understand it, but every day he woke with the urge to hurry riding him. Fortify their position. Get the new recruits trained and combat ready. Stockpile food, weapons and whatever armor they could scavenge. Hurry, hurry, hurry. A clock ticking away the seconds in his mind, always there, and now they had a new problem thrust upon them. Lee. Although he looked at her and saw salvation, there was the problem of getting her ready for this life. Each day it seemed she remembered a little bit more, but would she be ready in time?

  If she wasn’t, he would lose her.

  So definitely thoughts of heaven and hell tormented him whenever he thought of her, whenever he saw her. It was torture, having her there. Actually there. Even though he’d waited for this moment, Kalen hadn’t really expected it would ever happen. Now that it had, he was learning the true meaning of frustration.

  Kalen had wanted Lee since he’d been old enough to understand what it was to want a woman. She had just been a girl then, and he’d been a boy forced to grow up way too soon. He’d spent too many nights having hot, sweaty dreams centered on her, but when she was at his side in combat, he could focus on the job, on the war. Lee had always had a knack for showing up in times of trouble, and even a hormone-crazed adolescent could put wet dreams to the side when facing down a cadre of demons and Warlords.

  They had always been surrounded by people before. There had also been a distance between them, an uncertainty on his part brought on by Lee’s very presence. For as long as he could remember, he’d known there was something strange about her. Something strange about how she showed up in time to free him, then disappear. Reappearing on the sidelines when the resistance went to thwart a raid.

  That distance was gone now. Lee was here, alone with him, and she wasn’t going to disappear the second he turned his back. It would be so easy to reach out to her, to pull her against him and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. So easy to strip away the shirt she wore and lick the salt of her sweat away, then make her sweat all over again as he fucked her blind.

  Lee wanted him.

  He could see it in her eyes, in the way she held herself around him. He could see it in the way she made sure she never met his eyes for too long. Yes, Lee wanted him, maybe every bit as much as he wanted her. It would be so damned easy. He could find some peace and solace and pleasure, even if it only lasted for a little while. He could stroke away the shadows in her eyes, eas
e the tension that tightened her body.

  And it would solve nothing. Lee was still lost, like a boat cut adrift, and he’d be damned if he’d use that to bring her to him. She needed to find herself first. Needed to get her legs beneath her and understand what she had gotten caught up in.

  Her safe, secure world might be lost to her, forever. Selfishly, Kalen hoped it was. He hoped she couldn’t ever go back, because even if by some miracle they could send the Warlords screaming into hell, he didn’t want her to leave. Ever. If that happened, he wanted her to accept it willingly. To come to him because she had the same need for him that he had for her, not just because she wanted some sex, and some comfort, of the skin-to-skin variety.

  But he did have to touch her. Instead of pulling her to him, he went to her, stepping behind her. Kalen rested a hand on the nape of her neck, felt the tension mounted there. He dug his fingers into the tight muscles, and almost immediately, Lee moaned and dropped her head forward. He brought up his other hand, massaging until the tension slowly eased from her neck and shoulders. “I saw you come in last night,” he murmured.

  “I bet I looked like something the cat dragged in.”

  His mouth quirked. He didn’t quite understand the words, but he grasped the sentiment easily enough. “Today won’t be so bad.”

  “Yeah, but what about tomorrow?”

  He smiled at the grouchy, surly tone and wished he could say something that would make her smile. “It will get a little easier, with Eira, at least.” The rest of it, though? Her problems were only beginning.