Until the acolytes had damaged his pack bonds and Beatrice’s magic had finished tearing those links apart along with the nearby acolytes. He didn’t know if it was accidental or intentional on her part, but he wasn’t as upset about it as he should be.
Now he craved Beatrice’s magic, willing—needing—her to forge the pack ties with him.
If he was honest with himself, he’d wanted to make Beatrice pack for days now. The most common way to instigate pack bonds was through touch, usually some form of mutual grooming. But that way took months, years even. There was another, faster, way. “I should not even be thinking about that!”
But somehow, the human healer had picked up on his thoughts or his need, and now she mirrored his actions, giving him what he craved.
Had her Larnkin not severed his bonds to his pack, he would have ignored what he felt for Beatrice, giving her the time she needed to find her place in his pack. It wasn’t sexual for him, not yet.
Beatrice moved again, rising from where she sat behind him to circle around in front and settling back into his lap, where she started to work her skillful massage slowly down his chest. His eyes drifted closed and he was certain his expression probably betrayed how much he enjoyed her touch.
Apparently a skilled healer knew things others did not. He sighed deeply and the last of his tension flowed away. It was probably good that he was sitting down. He doubted he could remain upright with the way all his muscles were melting into a useless, quivering mass.
After a time, which seemed all too short to Silverblade, Beatrice finished her massage.
“Hmmm, you seem to enjoy that. Was it a fair imitation of lupwyn social bonding?”
“Yes.” The word came out slurred.
“So I’m not overstepping any kind of custom?”
“No.” Was complex speech truly beyond him? Yes, he feared it was.
“Good,” Beatrice said, exhaustion creeping into her voice. She curled into him, her head coming to rest on his chest, just below his chin. “If I did this with a human man, he’d get the wrong idea.”
Wrong idea? Silverblade wrapped his arms around her shoulders to hold her secure against him. A lazy grin tugged at his lips. A male human might not be the only one getting the wrong idea, holding this lovely armful.
No, while this wasn’t sexual for him, it could’ve been, had his heart been free to love. He’d already learned this painful lesson—hadn’t he?
His heart had been bruised and battered once in this life, nearly torn from his chest by the woman he had loved. That time, he thought she loved him enough in return to be faithful. He’d been wrong.
Now, even though his lupwyn soul craved something more, his phoenix heart wasn’t free to love again. No attempt was worth that kind of pain. So his vow remained. It had to.
Which brought his circular reasoning back to Beatrice. What if she wanted something more from him one day? What if she thought he was offering more?
It wasn’t fair to her, and she was so young. She was also human, not lupwyn. While she seemed accepting of him and lupwyn ways, that did not mean she knew this wasn’t more than social bonds. He would not lead her on. He doubted she knew her own heart yet. And living with her grandmother and her younger brother, he wondered if she had ever loved deeply in this lifetime. He did not want to be the first male to capture her heart and then crush it when he couldn’t return that love.
Besides, he’d never felt his age until now. To immortals, physical age meant little. But next to her, he felt…old.
While he had been wandering down the corridors of his mind, he realized that at some point, Beatrice’s fingers had dropped away from where they’d been tracing a line along his pectoral muscle. Her head was slumped forward in slumber.
More than mild disappointment flooded through him when he realized she’d fallen asleep.
Had it been left to him, he’d likely have taken this slightly further, probably further than was wise, considering his present thoughts and the hollow ache of his severed pack bonds. Still, minor disappointment and discomfort flowed through him.
“Old Man,” Silverblade directed the thought at his dormant Larnkin. “Now I know how you feel.”
In the next breath, he chided himself for being foolish. He was old enough to deal with disappointments. Besides, soon he’d be with his pack again, if the acolytes didn’t catch up to him first. Once among his pack, they would heal him. It would be better that way. There’d be no risk to either his or Beatrice’s heart.
Silverblade grunted unhappily and then rubbed his face against her hair, dragging in her scent. Damn, she was already taking on the overtones of pack.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sounds of the first birds stirring in the trees dragged Beatrice closer to consciousness. Warmth cocooned her, warding off the chilled morning air. Instinctively, she knew she should get up; that their lives likely depended on them moving quickly. But she also felt Silverblade’s warmth surround her, and a part of her spirit mourned the thought of leaving that just yet.
“Well, get up, you stupid girl,” she thought to herself. “Unless you want the acolytes to catch up.”
Her mind’s logical words still had a hard time driving her body into action, but at last she sat up, feeling her lupwyn scout’s arms drop away from her. They were both curled up next to the fire’s cooling ashes.
As her eyes grew accustomed to the pre-dawn light, she made out the form of the sleeping lupwyn. Obviously, he’d stayed close throughout the night to keep her warm. His concern was touching. But she’d already known that when he’d held her throughout her crying spree.
If they survived this, she hoped he’d let her stay with him. Briefly, she wondered if his pack would actually welcome her, a human.
“Silverblade,” she called softly, tapping him gently on the chest.
He cracked open his eyes as his fur-tufted ears swung forward out of his thick mane. After a moment, his ears tucked themselves back against his head, almost vanishing into the ruff. The bright, blue orbs with their darker shade of blue and black focused on her for a moment before he heaved himself up into a sitting position.
Then, catching her by surprise, he started to rub his face against hers. He nosed her hair out of his way and worked his way down to her neck, rubbing and nuzzling the entire time.
The strange rubbing behavior—was he scent-marking her?—continued for a moment more, until he ended with his face tucked against her neck and she felt the warm dampness of his tongue stroke across her jugular.
“Blade?” She shortened his name into one squeaked word.
Silverblade expelled a warm breath that raised gooseflesh all along her skin. Then she heard his voice rumble something else in his own language. He cleared his throat and chuckled under his breath.
After a moment, she recovered her composure and tried again. “Are you scent-marking me?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding slightly guilty. “It’s a traditional greeting between pack members. I’m sorry, I should not have…”
“You would greet all pack members like that?”
“Well…no…but if I’d been away a long time, it wouldn’t be unusual to show affection to—”
She cut him off. “It’s all right. I may not be lupwyn, but my healer’s magic helps me understand what other species need to survive. You need this.”
“Ah…thank you for your…understanding.” Silverblade shifted away from her and then stood, where he stretched and limbered up his stiff muscles for a moment before reaching down for her.
When Beatrice was back on her feet, she began self-consciously brushing at her clothing until stray bits of leaf litter fluttered back down to the ground. Unfortunately, the sweat and blood stains were not so easily gotten rid of. She needed a real bath and clean clothes, or at least soap to wash these ones.
If their continued existence wasn’t still in question, she would have visited the river long enough to rinse out her skirt and blouse and give her b
ody and hair a good scrubbing. Then she remembered she’d lost her pack containing her small bar of soap. She sigh dejectedly.
At least the soaproot plant was common in these parts and often grew near bogs. At the next stop she’d keep an eye open for the plant and harvest a few roots.
In the meantime, she could only hope she didn’t offend the lupwyn’s nose. She had a sneaking suspicion his senses were probably much sharper than hers, even though he complained of them being dulled.
While she had been picking bits of grass and leaves from herself, Silverblade had gone over to the cooking fire and dug around underneath the ashes and pulled out a leaf-wrapped bundle. The outer leaves were darkened and burnt and quickly flaked away, exposing some kind of short, thick tuber. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged.
“When I was hunting for rabbits last night, I spotted some of these growing near where the rabbits made their burrows.” Silverblade shrugged again. “The plant’s name loosely translates as Desperate Traveler. It’s aptly named, for you have to be desperate to eat it. It’s chewy and possesses a flavor that’s a cross between cooking ashes, tree bark, and deer piss. But it’s full of nutrients and will fill an empty belly.”
Not wanting to offend him, she accepted the offered food. After a cautious sniff, she took a bite, contorted her face, chewed some more, wrinkled up her nose, and bolted to the river for a drink.
She heard the lupwyn’s laughter float to her over the sound of the river.
“I did warn you.”
When she’d managed to wash her mouthful down, she looked over her shoulder at him to see him gnawing on his share.
“Hmmm…the warning wasn’t much help. Maybe if you said it would taste like two-year-old shit fermented in mead.”
“Have you actually tasted…?”
“No!” She started to laugh. “Have you tasted deer piss?”
“Hmmm, not intentionally.”
Beatrice processed that for a moment and then started to laugh. “Hunting?”
“Unfortunate accident. I was much younger then.”
“Did you win in the end?”
“I let the doe escape for valiant effort.”
Beatrice continued to laugh, but in the end did take another bite of her root and choked it down. He was right. They needed the food. It was going to be another long day of walking. Her healer’s magic had made quick work on the gelding’s hoof abscess, but it would still be sore today and she didn’t want to risk a flare up.
When they finished what passed for their breakfast, Beatrice coaxed the gelding from where he was grazing and together, the three of them continued in the direction they’d been going for days. She just hoped they didn’t run into any more acolytes on their journey.
Chapter Twenty-Four
By Silverblade’s judgment, they had made fairly good time considering they were on foot, the gelding still not being sound enough to ride. They walked all morning, only stopping for a quick meal of toasted Desperate Traveler root at mid-day. He didn’t take time to hunt. It was more important to keep moving as fast as possible.
He cast a sidelong glance at the human, knowing she had a short stride and had to work harder to keep up with him. She probably couldn’t maintain this pace for much longer. But he was impressed by her fortitude, her tenacious will to live. She traveled without complaint or even a weary sigh. He might not know much about Beatrice’s life before he met her, but he knew it couldn’t have been easy.
Living in the shadow of the acolytes, the knowledge that the threat of exposure was always a possibility must have haunted the edges of her consciousness. But instead of breaking her or making her a fearfully, neurotic creature, it had forged hers into a soul of steel. She had the heart of a warrior.
Unfortunately, he was feeling far from warrior-like himself today.
For the past few days, while they had been riding double, the physical closeness had been enough to temporarily replace his severed pack bonds. But then, the gelding had gone lame and now they were walking beside him to be safe. Which was all well and good for the gelding, but Silverblade now grew weaker.
He would have to broach the topic with her about sharing power with him again soon. But he didn’t want to lose travel time because of it, so he would wait until they made camp for the night. He’d just damn-well endure.
***
Beatrice stumbled over a protruding root, her boot toe catching when she didn’t step high enough. Cursing, she regained her balance and continued on, plodding alongside the gelding. Silverblade, stoic as always, continued silently on the horse’s other side.
She was foot-sore, sweaty, hungry, and thirsty, not to mention dirty as a pig. Actually, she had a sneaking suspicion a pig might smell better than she did at the moment. But the knowledge that the acolytes could even now be somewhere behind them on their trail would keep her to this pace for several candlemarks more. Better to be exhausted and possessing a few new blisters than to be sucked dry by an acolyte or have to call upon her death magic again. There was no way she was ready for that again so soon.
“There is a small rise in the land ahead, where the river cuts through the landscape and creates a small waterfall. If the acolytes haven’t already found it, there should be a small stash of supplies we can use. If we see no signs that the acolytes have been there, we’ll make camp for the night before making the next leg of the journey.”
“Are you sure we should be stopping for the night already? We still have candlemarks more of daylight. We could just grab the supplies and keep going.”
***
Silverblade knew she was right, and they should travel further this day, but if he did he was afraid he might collapse somewhere on the trail, and that wouldn’t help Beatrice in the least.
Lethargy creeped across his body, with it came a new chill. Worse, his vision was doing strange things. He was pretty sure his body was going into shock, even though he didn’t have a physical wound to show.
The severed pack bonds were leeching magic from his Larnkin—those conduits were open, almost like a sliced vein. To judge by his body’s present state of weakness, it was worse than he thought. This might not be something even sharing power with Beatrice could fix.
At first, he’d thought he would keep it secret from Beatrice, not wanting to burden her with more stress, or have her decide she might be able to fix his problem by forging pack bonds with him during a night of lovemaking.
She hadn’t figured that one out yet, thankfully. But she was pragmatic and if her Larnkin suggested that it was in the best interest of mutual survival, he was certain the human might try to forge the bonds that way.
And if he was honest, in a few more candlemarks he might be more than willing. But how would he survive with his heart intact if one day she decided to leave him?
Oh, by the Light, why were phoenixes and lupwyns allowed to beget children? It certainly wasn’t fair to the offspring. His mind continued to whirl uselessly. Perhaps if he got through the day, then each night, if he slept with her tucked next to him, her healer’s magic might strengthen him enough to make it through the next day.
With luck, another fortnight’s worth of travel would put them in lupwyn territory and there they would quickly be discovered by scouts.
The scouts could alert his home pack to his danger and another Elemental could bring them by Gate to his location. Once among his home pack, they could heal him. But if he was to judge how weak he was today, he might not even be able to travel another three days, let alone the fortnight required.
He glanced sidelong at Beatrice only to find her studying him with narrow eyes.
“What are you not telling me?” Beatrice said as she circled around the gelding and came over to Silverblade.
She scanned him with her magic. Its warm essence flowed over him, and his Larnkin flared eagerly to absorb that small bit of power.
Her eyes widened slightly, then she frowned. “You have less magic than you did this morning. It’s not
a lethal draining yet, but it shouldn’t be happening at all. I sense no acolytes nearby or following in the distance, and I’ve been hunting for them all day. I would know.”
“So that’s why she hadn’t noticed my problem sooner,” Silverblade thought to himself. Aloud he added, “I had not wanted to burden you with more knowledge. And before, when we were riding double, I was fine.”
“Fine? A lie is always more of a burden than the truth.” Beatrice reached out and tapped a finger against his chest. “My magic will ferret out the truth before too long, but I would rather spend that time fixing whatever is wrong. So if you know, just spit it out and stop wasting time.”
She was right. This wasn’t something he could hide from her.
“You already know that lupwyns are creatures of a pack. We form tight-knit communities who rely upon each other. We hunt together. We play together. We raise our young together. But the pack is more than family. When a Larnkin takes a lupwyn for a host, the nature of the magic is slightly different than among other species. Instead of forming a primary link with a single bondmate, which is almost unheard of among lupwyns, it is far more common for the individual Larnkins to form lesser bonds between an entire pack. While each individual Larnkin might be less powerful, any member can call upon the power of the entire pack when needed.”
“Interesting. I’ve heard you talk of your pack, but even then I assumed you were just speaking of the physical family. But there’s a magical or almost spiritual component to it as well, isn’t there.”
“Yes.” Silverblade accompanied the word with a nod, again surprised at Beatrice’s ability to come to conclusions quickly.
“I know very little about Larnkin bonding, but when Ashayna Stonemantle was visiting with her sisters, I learned a few things of interest about Larnkin bondmates. It’s true that Ashayna is much stronger now that she’s bonded with her phoenix prince, however my healer’s magic also told me they had a great weakness. One cannot live long without the other, and physical separation between bondmates causes anguish between hosts.”
In Deception's Shadow Box Set: Book 1-3 Page 67