The evening passed in a dream for Trif—the best night of her life, and she fully intended for the rest of the dark hours to be full of rapture and ecstasy with Ilex.
They loved with tenderness and care, gentle touches and long, quiet sighs, until the last moment, when they held on tight to each other and climaxed together.
Throughout the night he’d turn to her, need in every movement, or she’d lie awake and watching him in the moonslight, stroking him.
Each time she’d crafted the HeartBond and thrown it to him, his shields had gotten taller and stronger…and their connection had shrunk. A few more times and they’d be little more than casual lovers.
And each time she became more and more enraptured with him…losing herself in him, wanting nothing but him. It was frightening.
By the morning, her heart had filled with tears yet when he reached for her, she couldn’t deny him.
The sun rose and the colors of dawn filtered into the room, tinting the white walls with pale pastels of the glow. As the light grew stronger, so did her love. The love that she’d confessed but he had never spoken of. His hands were on her, bringing her mindless joy, arousing her with a few caresses of skillful fingers until she needed, needed, needed. Like he was an addiction.
He thrust into her and flung his head back on an orgasmic cry. He gave to her, his seed and his unaddicted love, and the whirlwind of his climax swept her away into her own until she shattered—and flung out the HeartBond.
Once again, he did not grasp it, did not want it. He loved her, and she felt that, but he did not accept the whole of her. He would not merge with her in all ways. Even as she gasped out her own transcendental passion, a tiny core of her wept in rejection and withdrew from him.
Ilex rolled and took her with him, holding her tight.
She hurt, a huge ache that filled her, that she couldn’t banish any longer. And she knew. Being with Ilex was now more painful than being without him. She couldn’t keep offering all of herself and being refused. He had chosen this path for them and despite all the loving between them, he had not changed his mind.
Now she knew what he had been doing the night before with the lovely dinner and the sweet lovemaking. Unconsciously, he’d been saying good-bye. From their bond, she knew he was completely certain that his death drew near—and he’d been conditioned by his visions throughout his life to believe in it. His shields were strong and deep, and she couldn’t get through them, no matter how she tried. Had she been a fool to hope, deep in her heart, that he might ever let those shields down for her?
No. She’d brought the pain upon herself, but she’d had to understand that there was no changing him, not with sex, not with loving, not with their growing connection. She would have always wondered if they might have made a HeartMate marriage had she walked away earlier.
He was so strong. He would keep his shield up against her forever. She had to accept that now, that she couldn’t change their circumstances, only he could. It went against her nature, to fail in a fight for what she wanted so desperately, but she had.
And she’d wanted to know what HeartMate loving was—she’d had a touch of that, had experienced sex and affection and closeness with Ilex. She was sure she wouldn’t regret that in the future. When this excruciating pain that racked her went away.
They could not be together anymore. She held him, eyes as dry as her heart was empty, storing memories of the heat of him, the texture of his skin, the music of his breathing.
Finally, it was time to rise. She slipped from the bedsponge and stared down at Ilex. He’d thrown the covers off and she had a full view of his prone muscular body. Broad shoulders, tight butt, strong legs. His face was turned toward her, relaxed in sleep. Her heart jolted, then twisted as her hands clenched. She couldn’t be his lover anymore, couldn’t continue to be rejected. It just hurt too much.
Still, the decision caused a tremor in her nerves that rippled through her whole body.
Ilex awoke with a start, and she knew he’d felt her distress even in his dreams. His blue-gray eyes focused on her and he rolled to sit up. “What’s wrong.”
“I can’t anymore, Ilex.”
His jaw flexed and though his pose was still casual, tension delineated his muscles and throbbed through their bond to her. “No?” he said softly.
He’d expected this? Probably, always the pessimist.
Trif moistened her lips. Her voice still emerged raw through a dry throat. “We make love, but we—don’t…” She lifted helpless hands. “We merge in body, in mind, in emotion, but you keep a shield up, not accepting the HeartBond that flies from my soul to yours.” She ended on a whisper. “I can’t be with you anymore.”
He watched with an impassive gaze that told her nothing, shrank the bond between them to a filament, but his pain equaled hers. She fumbled her clothes on and went to the door of his bedroom. Glancing into the mainspace, she saw the illusion of romantic fantasy was gone.
His hands yanked the linens over his nude body and kept a fisted hold on the cover. “I told you why I won’t accept the HeartBond.”
Anger flashed, and she was glad of it. She lifted her chin. “And I didn’t like your reasoning, and don’t now. But I pushed on anyway. My mistake.”
Inclining his head, he took a step backward. “As you say.”
The awful devastation vibrated between them, hurting him, hurting her, tearing them apart. Shattering both of them? She wrapped her arms around herself. “Can’t you see that I hurt? I could hurt no more if you died this instant. Why must we live our lives anticipating a fate which might not come to pass?”
“Because you will live. You will not die. I will not be the cause of your death.” For a moment, his face showed stark pain; then he swallowed and glanced aside.
She paced forward. “I tell you, I am willing to risk your vision! You think living without you could ever be easy?” Her fist pounded her chest. “What if we HeartBonded and I was the one to die first?”
“Then I would welcome death,” he stated as fact. “We’ve had this argument before. I haven’t changed my position. I. Will. Not. Be. The. Cause. Of. Your. Death. Ever.”
His scent drifted to her, spice and man and sex. She shuddered at all the emotions whipping through her; then the tornado stopped and left her hopeless. Only pain existed. She turned away, setting one foot in front of the other to leave. “You already have killed me inside.”
Silence hung heavy in the apartment, but the sharpness of her senses faded, dying as the candle of vitality she’d always treasured flickered and went out.
“You’re young. You’ll heal,” his voice rasped as she hurried to the door.
“I’ll move to Clover Compound by the end of the week. Please try and avoid me like you did so well before. Grant me that much. So I can heal.” She didn’t think she ever would. Now, with deft precision, she narrowed the bond between them to a filament. It would always be there, but she’d do her best to ignore it. As he would.
She barely made it into her rooms before a silent scream tore from her.
Her Flair spiked, out of control. She collapsed and let the vision of the past—and soldiers dying slowly in an ancient Earth war—overtake her.
She gradually emerged from the daze when Greyku started licking her face—salty with perspiration, she supposed. Blinking, she rose to one elbow and stretched, a few minor twinges from falling onto the carpet, but not many.
Greyku increased her purr and the sound innately soothed Trif. Sitting up, she scooted until her back was supported by the twoseat and Greyku hopped onto her lap.
Bad time with FamMan.
“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse. From tears? Screams? A combination of both?
Trif hurt. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t run to her family. They’d worm the whole story out of her and she couldn’t bear that. What they might do to Ilex, she didn’t know—but sensed some of the men, maybe her own father, would be on his side.
She ached as if sh
e’d been hollowed out and no heart remained. She couldn’t even think about playing music. How could she handle her lessons today?
Flexing her fingers, she found they reacted well. She snapped them and her tin whistle appeared on her lap next to the kitten, who grinned.
Play My tune.
Trif placed Greyku on the floor so she could dance, and took a chair. After Trif cleared her throat, she played “Greyku’s Jig.” Her fingers were quick and skilled. The tune sounded well, technically. Only musicians would understand that it had no heart breath behind it. Would this last forever? Had he stolen her music from her?
No. That was wrong. She had made the decision. Her head flopped back against the chair. They belonged together, and he had to learn that. She held onto the hope that he would come to her. He had to accept that they were HeartMates. No more lovers or loving until he did. Tears escaped her eyes and leaked down her face. Being alone was too much.
She went over to her scrybowl and fury gripped her. How dare he be so stupid. So stubborn, so…She took the little china bowl and dashed it against the tile floor of the scrybowl area. The smash sounded great, very satisfying. She replayed the noise in her head, smiling. Yes, an excellent sound, and it had relieved her feelings.
Slivers might hurt My paws, Greyku said disapprovingly, eyeing the tile area.
Hands on hips, Trif surveyed the damage as anger drained from her. The scrybowl was shattered beyond repair and she realized that she’d never liked it. Like much of her furniture, it had been passed down from someone else.
Gathering her Flair, she kept a vision of the repairs she wanted in her head. She should be able to do this. Just as she released it, her Flair surged out of her control. She watched, appalled, as carpet ripped back from the main area and the tile, once only under the scrybowl, replicated itself to the wall. The tile area now extended from the threshold of her bedroom door well into her living room, about sixty centimeters.
To avoid the cold tile, she’d have to step over it. She’d have to fix this before she moved out in a week. Or someone would. She’d thought she was getting better at managing her Flair.
Greyku rubbed against her ankles. FamMan will come back.
Trif could only pray that was so. Well, one good thing, there was no sign of the old scrybowl. The shards and slivers had vanished…somewhere.
Into the garden, said Vertic’s voice in her mind.
She turned to see him sitting, head cocked at her.
FamMan distraught, he said. He certainly had a good vocabulary.
“He didn’t appear that way to me.” She jutted her chin.
You lie, he said calmly. He looked terrible and is all churned up inside. You can feel.
She didn’t want to; it hurt to test her connection with Ilex, that bond that had narrowed to a thread between them due to agony on both sides. She couldn’t think about it either.
“Vertic, were you in my apartment a few nights ago?”
I am in your apartment every night. I check on the heedless kitten.
Greyku plopped her rear on one of Trif ’s feet and lifted her muzzle and sniffed.
You are both very irritating. The fox flowed to his paws and headed toward her door, then simply vanished in the shadows and was gone.
Set up the “Greyku’s Jig” scrybowl, prompted the kitten.
To do that, she’d have to enter the bedroom where she’d stashed the scrybowl in the closet.
Greyku unsheathed her claws to prick Trif ’s foot.
“All right, all right!” She tried to ignore the sight of the bedsponge where she’d made exquisite love with Ilex. A trace of his scent lingered in this room more than the rest of her apartment. Trif chanted the housekeeping spell and put a little extra Flair behind it. Except for the unnatural speed of the spell, it worked well. Her Flair was still slightly out of her control.
She unwrapped the brass bowl and set it on the fancy iron scrystand, filled it with water, and ran her finger around the rim to initiate the spell.
Once again, “Greyku’s Jig” filled the room. No faulty Flair this time, not with a bowl that still resonated with D’Holly’s Flair.
The song echoed with the joy that Trif had felt when she’d first received her Fam. The tune had substance, was strong and true. Greyku raced around the room, so fast she appeared a multicolored streak, emitting a high cat shriek of glee that didn’t accompany her jig very well. The sight and sound of her made Trif ’s lips twitch up in a smile.
And the scrybowl made her think that she needed someone. Couldn’t bear to be alone, even with her kitten. She glanced at a timer on the larger table next to the scrystand. An eightday ago, she’d have been running late for the public carrier going to work. Now, she had more than an hour before her lessons with D’Holly began.
Impulsively, she touched the water in the scrybowl. “T’Blackthorn Residence.”
“Here,” answered the cheerful voice of the new butler.
“Trif Clover for her cuz, Mitchella.”
“I’ll alert her. One moment.”
It was less than two seconds. “Trif?” Mitchella beamed out at her. The new bowl was larger and Trif could see her whole face—an easy, smiling face. Someone was happier this morning than the one before. Trif licked her lips. “Greetyou.”
“Trif, I can see something’s wrong. What?”
“Ilex and I—” She swallowed hard. “No longer together. I…can I come?” It was more of a plea than a request.
“Of course!”
“I’ll be right there. See you shortly.” She glanced around the mainspace. The housekeeping spell had whisked through here too, and everything looked clean and tidy. The new tile work on the floor gleamed. Trif wondered if there was any way she could convince the management of MidClass Lodge that the tile was better than carpeting. She frowned. She didn’t think so. She wasn’t going to enjoy walking from bedroom to mainspace barefoot in the winter…but she wouldn’t be here in the winter. She was going back to Clover Compound. For a moment, the sense of loss had vanished, and when it flooded back it was worse.
Had she done the right thing? Was this current pain worse than loving Ilex and having him reject her? She’d never been so indecisive in her life. Never felt such grinding hurt for so long. Definitely needed to discuss this whole mess with someone else, and Mitchella would understand best, even better than Lark.
Standing under the warm waterfall, she let it sluice some of her pain away, then dressed in her favorite trous suit. Anything to ease her day.
“We’re going to T’Blackthorn Residence,” she said to Greyku, lifting the kitten and attaching her to the shoulder pad with a small spell. Again, her Flair worked perfectly.
T’Blackthorn Residence will be good. Drina FamCat will still be asleep and Pinky FamCat is gone with his person to apprenticeship. Neither will pick on Me.
“That’s my main consideration, of course.”
“Yesss.”
She couldn’t find her instrument case, and despair threatened to overwhelm her again. Struggling through it, she recalled that D’Holly had said they’d work with panpipes today instead of the whistle or flute. The pipes were separate, in their own bag, so she grabbed it and stood in the middle of her mainspace, ready to teleport. Greyku hummed in her ear.
After a couple of minutes of concentration and breathing, Trif knew she was ready, that the ’porting would be right. She checked the landing light in T’Blackthorn Residence, then on a long exhalation, said, “We go!”
They appeared in a corner of the entry hall and Mitchella hurried up to greet them, hugging Trif hard. Again, sadness welled up, uncertainty. Tears stung her eyes.
Mitchella patted her on the back. “Come into my sitting room and we’ll have cocoa with sugarcream.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Trif said thickly.
A few minutes later, she was cradling a large cup of sweet cocoa in her hands and pouring out the story to Mitchella. When she was done, she drank and let the warm liquid s
oothe her throat.
“Is this the Trif I know and love? I don’t think so,” Mitchella said.
Twenty-six
Mitchella tilted her head. “It’s true you look more… mature, as if you’ve become a real adult.”
Trif shot her a scathing look. “Thanks, something else to be depressed about.”
“So you’ve had a hard knock. Your very first real hard blow. I can see that it might slow you down a little. Make you think. And that’s all to the good.” Mitchella sipped her cocoa. “You’ve never tended to think things through.”
Smoldering anger in the pit of her belly licked out a few flames. “I’m hurting here!”
Mitchella’s face softened. “And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that your HeartMate courtship is going so badly.”
“He doesn’t want me.” Trif choked back a sob, then saw a flash of lingering pain in Mitchella’s eyes. She set her own cup down and rushed over to her cuz, sitting beside her. “I’m sorry now. You’re right, I don’t think before I act, or I speak. I’m sorry for making you remember.”
“Straif didn’t want me either. But that was a while back.”
“It still shadows your heart.”
“The memory can prickle a little, true.” Mitchella’s lips curved. “But when I think of the loving we had before he left, and my plans for when he returns, it all vanishes.” She lifted the cup in a toast. “We’re fine now, happy and healthy and building a family.” Then she patted Trif on her knee, eyes as green as Trif ’s own studying her. “The question is, what are you going to do to get your HeartMate? Are you going to give up?”
Trif shot to her feet to pace. “Of course not. I’m going to hunt him down. I just feel…I feel…” She thumped her chest between her breasts. “Angry that I have to do this. That he won’t listen.”
“That you don’t listen.”
“I listen! I just don’t agree with him.”
Heart Quest Page 28