Heart Change

by Robin D. Owens

  “We don’t,” Hanes said politely. He glanced at Laev. “Shouldn’t you be returning to T’Hawthorn Residence to prepare, HawthornHeir?”

  Cratag knew that T’Hawthorn didn’t celebrate twinmoons quarters unless he had some specific goal that demanded such a ritual. Cratag opened his mouth, but Laev didn’t move from his casual pose and answered, “Heirs don’t need the same amount of sacred cleansing time, and T’Hawthorn has not requested my presence tonight.” Implying that there was a ceremony at T’Hawthorn’s. As far as Cratag knew, there wasn’t, but he hadn’t been in contact with T’Hawthorn all day, and from that circumstance, understood that his lord would not be consulting with him as usual—or checking up on him regarding this job.

  “Ah, adults only,” Hanes said to Laev, as a reluctant Vinni stood and crossed to the door.

  Hanes wasn’t usually this undiplomatic, but then Cratag usually met with him at places and situations much more casual—except when they were working as bodyguards for their lords at events. Then Hanes had been all business, but so had Cratag. Perhaps he didn’t know the man as well as he thought, but Cratag had known the Vines kept a more formal household.

  Hanes followed Vinni to the threshold and bowed again, met Signet’s gaze. She was sitting with straight spine in one of the plush chairs. “You don’t celebrate First Quarters?”

  She smiled politely, inclined her head. “Despite the recent influx of residents, I am a Household of one, and I live next to the ocean—the mightiest cleanser of them all. I usually celebrate rituals at twinmoons apex, not rising. Apex is after midnight tonight.”

  Cratag thought his mouth dropped open. Signet was implying that she danced naked on the beach in the twinmoonslight. Hanes’s eyes widened, and his lips quirked as he slid a look to Cratag. Laev was looking at him, too.

  Ten

  Oh!” Avellana clapped her hands. “Can I do that tonight with you, too?” she asked Signet.

  Signet’s cheeks were nearly red. “I think it’s a little too cool for you tonight,” she said.

  Good thing, too. Cratag would have had to accompany them, and he wasn’t sure even the cold ocean would have kept his sex down if he and Signet were skyclad.

  “Oh,” Avellana said with disappointment.

  There was a little pause.

  “Merry meet,” Vinni said.

  “And merry part,” they all chorused in response.

  “And merry meet again,” Hanes fin ished the little ritual. He shut the double doors behind them as they left.

  Avellana stared after them. “That was a rude personal question.”

  Signet burst into laughter. “Yes, it was.”

  “Hanes is a good man,” Avellana pronounced. “But all Muin T’Vine’s oldie female relatives and his tutor are too rigid.”

  Cratag couldn’t decide whether she was repeating something she’d heard or stating a conclusion of her own.

  Laev rose with a smile, bowed, and thanked Signet, but didn’t actually look at her. The tips of his ears were red. Druidans and nobles weren’t modest about nudity, but teenaged boys in the presence of the opposite sex . . . Laev said his good-byes and left.

  Rhyz, Avellana’s Fam, stood and stretched, looking at her. Nap time for us.

  Avellana blinked in surprise, glanced at the large schedule hanging on a wall. She’d insisted on having schedules in all of the rooms she might occupy, and Signet had agreed. “Yes.” Avellana rose, smiling sweetly. “I might nap.” She curtsied to them. “I will see you before dinner.”

  Laev hadn’t shut the doors, and Avellana hesitated at the threshold. “Are you really going down to the beach for a First Quarter ritual after midnight?” she asked Signet.

  Signet chuckled. “I can praise the Lady and Lord during my regular meditation time. I think it’s a little too cold for me on the beach, too.”

  Avellana nodded. “Good.” She looked at Cratag. “Don’t you think that’s good?”

  Once more, an image of Signet, as pale as the moonslight and dancing naked, came to Cratag’s mind. He couldn’t find words, so he just nodded.

  Avellana nodded solemnly back, closed the doors, and walked down the corridor, talking to her Fam.

  Signet turned to Cratag, frowning. “Do you think we should follow her and tuck her in?”

  He had no idea. There’d been no time for naps when he’d worked in his father’s store growing up. By the time Cratag had joined the T’Hawthorn household Laev had been thirteen, beyond naps. Finally Cratag said, “What about you, did your parents accompany you for naps?”

  “No . . . not usually.”

  “And she needs to feel that we trust her,” Cratag said.

  “Do we trust her?” Signet whispered.

  “I trust her to keep the promises we’ve hedged her in about,” he said, then smiled. “Though I don’t think that ‘oldie’ room is much of a threat anymore.”

  “No. I’ll have to think of another consequence for poor behavior.” Signet nibbled her lip and glanced toward the HeirSuite. “How much personal alone time should she have?”

  That had been rare in his childhood as well. “I think we can trust Rhyz.”

  Signet blinked. “You do?”

  “Yes. He’s a mature Fam, aware of his status and that of his mistress. He will inform us if we stray too far from what the Hazels would approve. T’Hawthorn’s FamCat is vocal about what he expects.”

  Letting out a quiet breath, Signet said, “I’m sure you’re right. I do wish I’d had a little more time to prepare, though.”

  “It’s been my experience that when a FirstFamily lord or lady wants something, they roll right over the opposition as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

  Signet cleared her throat, met his gaze, then looked aside. “At the cost of being impolite and asking a rude personal question, I don’t know much about you.” She met his eyes again, and they were darker. “You probably don’t know much about me, though I’ve seen you at GreatTemple rituals and social events.”

  Warmth unfurled inside him, and he smiled. She wanted to know about him, and for more reason than just because he was here to help watch Avellana. Signet was interested in him personally. “I grew up in Tref, a small town on the southern continent of Brittany. I wasn’t meant to be a shopkeeper like my father, so I left home at fifteen.” He’d been concerned about his older sister, who’d run off with a man Cratag hadn’t trusted. “I was big even then and had some arms training, signed on as a merchant guard, and got even more. Sold my sword for a while.” He shifted his shoulders. He’d looked for his sister until he’d discovered her in a mass grave of victims who’d succumbed to a deadly virus, then he’d found and dealt with her lover. A long four years. “Was a merchant guard for quite a while.” He rubbed his scar. “Got this when looking around the jungle alone. Bad idea. Took me a while to heal.”

  “I should say so!” She appeared distressed. When she picked up her cup, it trembled in her fin gers, and another spurt of gratific ation went through him. She was beginning to care.

  He continued his story. “Thought a lot when I was Healing. Took on a job that got me across the Plano Strait. Didn’t like the Strait towns.” Too wild and dangerous and corrupt. “Drifted northward.” Seeking something inside and outside himself. “Finally decided I’d apply to T’Hawthorn for a job. The Maytrees split off from the Hawthorns a century or so back.” Cratag had decided that what he missed was a real sense of Family. A couple of his childhood friends had had close families, so he knew those sorts of bonds could be loving and tight. He’d wanted closeness and Family, no longer wanted to be alone.

  He shrugged again. “T’Hawthorn was glad to hire me on.” He met Signet’s eyes, knowing he didn’t have to remind her of the Hawthorn-Holly feud. He’d been the only good fighter T’Hawthorn had had.

  Silence spun between them with Signet looking out the windows. Cratag didn’t think her eyes were focused on the ocean view. Eventually she met his gaze and smiled a little. “You’v
e come a long way, found your place.”

  It didn’t surprise him much that she understood that.

  Her lips curved in a sad smile. “I haven’t moved at all and should know my place.” She brightened her smile, and he was glad to see her determination. “But I’m learning it.” She hesitated then said, “It’s obvious that Laev, HawthornHeir, respects you.”

  He liked hearing that. “Thank you.”

  A small frown formed between her brows. “But do you think it’s wise having Laev here?”

  Cratag didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Having a young man flushed with oncoming Passage around Avellana. One who is experiencing Passage can affect others, you know, bring on their Passage, too.”

  “I didn’t know.” Of course that’s why Laev had been jumpy when he’d come, despite his workout. Maybe some sort of Passage thing had put that shadow in the teen’s eyes.

  Cratag’s jaw tensed. “I have little Flair, don’t know much about Passage.” His voice was sharp with anger at himself, embarrassment. He tensed. Would she think he’d snapped at her?

  But her eyes went soft. She put down her cup and walked over to him, looking at him in a way that made his heart thump faster. “Of course you didn’t know.” She held out her hand. He took it, and a zip of desire went through him. Of sexual tension or her Flair, it didn’t matter. She affected him, and he liked that. Liked the feel of her fingers in his, her tall, slim body next to his.

  She drew him to the tower windows and said, “Open,” and glass vanished. The air still wavered in front of his vision with the new spellshields. Signet said the couplet and squeezed his hand so he knew she wanted him to remember the words. The spellshields vanished, and there was nothing between them and the drop to the rocks below, the rolling of the gray ocean. The breeze was warmer than he expected and carried the sound and scent of the ocean. She breathed deeply, unafraid of the height.

  But she’d lived in this house all her life, learned her place in the circles of Druida society as she’d grown. An Heir to a title herself, then GrandLady.

  “The height doesn’t bother you,” she said.

  “No.”

  She sidestepped even closer, until their bodies touched—her shoulder to his biceps, the roundness of her hip against his thigh. “I’m sorry that this situation takes you away from Laev at this tender time in his life.” Her words were nearly a whisper. She understood. “The first twinges of oncoming Second Passage is when a person is considered an adult.”

  He recalled that, now that she’d said it. Nobles with great Flair would think so. Commoners held that the seventeenth Nameday was the mark.

  “So when you return to T’Hawthorn’s, Laev will be of age.”

  Yes, that was the ache inside him.

  She turned to him, gazed up with her light blue eyes. “I want you to know that if Avellana isn’t experiencing Passage, you are free to go back to T’Hawthorn Residence.”

  To the room he had in the dark fortress. He grunted. The next bit would be rude, but it had to be said. “I don’t think my contract with D’Hazel allows that.”

  Signet pressed her lips together. “No, it isn’t my decision, is it?” Something like glee lit her eyes. “This has happened so fast. Have you even seen your contract with D’Hazel, Cratag?”

  He reddened under her stare. “Uh, no.”

  Signet chuckled. “And you scold me for not watching out for my interests.”

  “I should have said the contract between T’Hawthorn and D’Hazel might not allow me any time off. My lord would have looked after my interests.” Cratag was pretty sure.

  Signet poked Cratag. “You get a copy of that contract.”

  “Right.” He’d do that later, right now all he could think of was Signet and the heated blood throbbing through him. He didn’t want to think of D’Hazel or T’Hawthorn or even Laev, let alone FirstFamily contracts.

  She was a tall, willowy woman, but he still had to bend to kiss her. Her lips looked pinker, plumper today, and he figured that was because he knew how she tasted. Sweet with an edge of tartness. His mouth watered, and desire curled in his groin.

  Her lips opened slightly in invitation, and he held hard on to his control, but knew he’d taste her even more deeply, probe the moist cavern of her mouth with his tongue. Even the thought made him shudder, but it didn’t stop him from setting a palm around her nape, feeling her shiver, too. He traced her soft skin and lovely cheekbones with his thumb. Then he closed his eyes, angled his mouth, and put it on hers.

  Her tongue darted between his lips, inside his mouth, jolting him with fiery passion. His cock, rarely soft the whole damn day, thickened and surged. His tongue tangled with hers, battled in a sensual duel, thrusting, curving around hers, sucking. Then he explored her mouth, and he was lost as the last, exquisite taste of her slid through him with total inevitability.

  He groaned and sent a hand down her slender back, curved it over her nice ass, and pressed her to him. He yearned, he needed, like never before. Red mist of desire swirled in his brain, fogging his thoughts.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her toes, arched against him, so he could feel the roundness of her breasts against his chest, the pebbles of her nipples. She closed her teeth on his tongue, and he moaned.

  She sighed into his mouth, warm, wet air, with the fragrance of her and the taste of her, and all thought vanished. One of her arms hooked around his neck, then her free hand trailed down his thigh, and he moved instinctively, rubbing his sex against her softness. He hadn’t worn regular work trous today, and these were made of silkeen, and the sensation was perfect. His hands clamped on her ass, pulling her up. His tongue thrust inside her mouth like he would inside her.

  Beadle yowled, zoomed into the room, hitting Cratag’s calves. Du and Rhyz chased him, and a girlish shout echoed.

  His brain sharpened with painful clarity. Cratag broke the kiss, flung himself and Signet to the side, where they lit on a soft twoseat. He ordered the spellshields up and the windows to thicken back into sturdy glass. He stood, took a mussed and dazed Signet and placed her properly sitting on the twoseat, managed to turn and pretend to look out the windows at an angle that wouldn’t show the bulging of his trous to Avellana as she swept into the room, chasing the Fams. “Naptime’s over!”

  It hadn’t been very long. Cratag glanced at the schedule and decided that her twenty minutes wasn’t enough time, he needed—she needed—a septhour at least. “I guess it is,” Cratag said, heard his own voice rough and gravelly.

  Avellana went to her schedule, nodded. “Time for a walk in the gardens before dinner.”

  “I’ll accompany you,” Signet said, her voice warm and throaty, which didn’t help his desire subside.

  Had she been mussed? Now every hair was in place, though her cheeks and lips were noticeably darker. Some female spell.

  What was his part of this timetable? He couldn’t recall.

  “I’m dressed for the walk and dinner,” Avellana said, now a little adult again.

  Ah, dressing for dinner.

  Signet blinked, glanced down at her clothes, which were casually elegant, but not something any of them would consider appropriate for dinner in a noble GrandHouse.

  “Yes, Cratag and I must change,” she said. Did she linger on his name? Give it an extra lilt? He hoped so.

  She moved to Avellana. “Not quite perfect,” she said. Cratag noticed the girl’s shoulder tabs were uneven and gaping. Signet smiled. “I think you were preoccupied with the Fams.”

  Avellana stuck out her lower lip. “Perhaps.”

  “Let’s take care of this.”

  Sniffing, Avellana looked at him. “I think we should put your schedules up, too.”

  Before he could answer, Signet did. “I like to keep my schedule flexible.”

  Avellana’s expression went from pouting to shock. “You don’t schedule!”

  “Not all my septhours.” She smoothed the cloth of the girl’s tu
nic on both shoulders. “There, you look perfect.”

  But Avellana was standing completely still, blinking, mouth open. She looked at Signet, then her own schedule board, then Cratag. Her gaze lasered on him. “You come from a FirstFamily household. You must have detailed schedules, too.”

  Signet flinched.

  “That was rude, Avellana,” he said. “Not every Family or household does things the same way, not even FirstFamilies. It was rude of you to imply that Signet’s Family is wrong in doing things because hers isn’t a FirstFamily.”

  Avellana frowned. Glanced at Signet. “The Marigold Family is an ancient and honorable GrandHouse, which has contributed to our society, well worthy of respect.”

  Cratag heard D’Hazel’s admonition behind her daughter’s tones. He nodded. “That’s right.” Holding up a hand, he said, “We all know that the twenty-five FirstFamilies have the greatest status on Celta, and you are a daughter of that line, but it is not honorable to imply that Families are lesser because they aren’t FirstFamilies.”

  “Even if they are?” Avellana persisted.

  “Are they? Each Family, each individual, is respected more if they contribute to our society, and each can contribute in an equal but different way.”

  Avellana frowned.

  Cratag waved a hand around him. “When has your Family, for instance, created and built such a lovely home as this? When has any Family?”

  “D’Marigold’s home is unique,” Avellana admitted, looking at the wide curved windows of the sitting room, framed in white arches.

  “Would Druida be less without this house?”

  “Yes.” Avellana nodded.

  “Then the Marigolds have given Druida and Celta something that no other Family has.”

  Signet stared at him, eyes wide.

  Avellana curtsied. “I’m sorry, GrandLady D’Marigold.”

  “Forgiven,” Signet said. “The FirstFamilies are the most ancient and the most powerful, but it isn’t wise to think that their ways are the only ways, or their households are the best.”