❖
Kyle stared up at the ceiling. She sure couldn’t sleep.
How could she go on a mission with Tan after what had happened between them? She’d never intended to lose control like that, to be so rough. That’s not what Tan needed, what she intended. Tan seemed to feel she needed punishment to achieve release, but some instinct told Kyle that she needed tenderness instead. That wasn’t what she’d given her last night. Then she’d dressed and sat like a lump in the corner until Tan woke, instead of waking her with caresses and apologies like she should have. Who could blame Tan for giving her the cold shoulder now? She’d used her to sate her own urges. Her face burned with shame.
And her belly burned with the memory of Tan’s beautiful, smooth brown skin, the arch of her back, the curve of her hip, the scent of her arousal, and the soft brush of her Mohawk. She closed her eyes and recalled Tan’s—fierce one minute and pleading the next. After she’d opened the gate, she’d watched the rays of the sun slowly find the elegant planes of Tan’s profile, lips slightly parted, in soft repose. Kyle was certain her high cheekbones and fine brow must be from the bloodlines of African royalty. She was strong yet elegant, and unlike any woman Kyle had ever met.
Her hand crept down her belly. It wouldn’t take much. Images of Tan filled her mind.
It didn’t help that Nicole and Furcho were in the room across the hall. It was no secret that they’d become lovers, and from the sounds filtering under Nicole’s bedroom door, they were making the most of their final hours before Furcho’s departure. He, Diego, and Raven were also leaving at dusk to track Simon to Brasília and assess the threat to the central warehouse there.
The moans and steady creaking of Nicole’s bed drew Kyle back to the cave and the rhythm of Tan’s hips rising up to meet her thrusts, Tan’s dark-honey eyes searching hers. Her hips moved under her fingers as if they remembered, too. One stroke, two, three, and her shoulders jerked up as orgasm gripped and held her for a few brief, powerful seconds. She fell back to the bed, drained and hollow. Her memories might be all she’d ever have with Tan.
She had failed her when she’d slunk away before Tan woke, and Tan didn’t seem to be the kind to give anyone a second chance. Kyle sighed and stared at the plain tiles of the ceiling. She would not fail her again. No matter how hard Tan pushed her away, she would do her duty—to The Collective, to The Guard, and to this woman to whom she seemed inexplicably connected.
❖
Restless, Kyle arrived a half hour early, but Second already had a light meal ready and her supplies spread across the floor of the main room.
“Geez, can’t either one of you tell time? Tan just picked up her stuff and left.”
“She’s already headed up to the meadow?”
“No. She said she wanted to stop by the infirmary and check on a few patients before she went up.”
Kyle was amazed at the efficiency of her pack. Log shaped, it contained pro-chow bars, a liter of water, a handy multi-task tool, and room for her clothing. She added the small set of tools stored in a long shank of cloth dotted with neat pockets and rolled into a compact tube, and a small jar of ointment. She didn’t know if Tan would add any salve to her supplies, and the wounds on her back would need to be dressed again.
Second watched but didn’t comment. She took the rucksack and laid it alongside two short tent poles positioned on top of a thin bedroll that lay on a waterproof sheet.
“This waterproof sheet serves as a rain poncho or converts to a one-person tent by using these two poles and this little pouch of stakes and nylon twine,” Second said. At the last minute, she seemed to remember something and went into the office. She opened Kyle’s rucksack and added some folded clothing when she returned. Then she rolled the rucksack up in the bedroll and sheet, which made a long cylindrical pack with straps on either end so the wearer could position it diagonally across her back and, at the chest, snap the straps that came over the shoulder and hip.
“What was that?” Kyle asked.
“Furcho had one of the women from the train retrieve some of your belongings. It didn’t look like there was anything you’d want, but you will need the proper uniform when you return to them.”
The hated skirt? “I hope you appreciate how humiliating it is for me to wear that.”
Second cocked her head. “I was a Scottish warrior in one of my lives. A man. And I proudly wore my kilt with nothing under it. Nearly froze my nuts off in winter, but it was considered unmanly to wear undergarments.”
“It’s not the same,” Kyle said. “Dung. I’m going to have to put this on in front of Tan.”
Second smiled. “Don’t worry. Our Tan is something of a chameleon herself. You just haven’t seen the red-hot-cocktail-dress Tanisha yet.”
Kyle stared at her in disbelief.
“Hard to picture, isn’t it? Believe me, once you see it, you’ll never get it out of your head or catch your breath.” Second winked. “It’s a rare occurrence but one you’ll never forget. She totally rocks it.”
Kyle tried to wrap her brain around that image. “Red dress? Tan?”
Second laughed. “You won’t figure Tan out tonight.”
“Where’s she from?” Kyle’s tone was casual, but Tan fascinated her.
“She’s genetically African but has lived this life in the upper Third Continent, so she speaks with that area’s accent and cuts her hair like she belongs to a First People tribe.” Second reached for Kyle’s arm and strapped an individual computer to her forearm. “You’re all set. You can hang out here for a while or head on up.”
“I’ll go,” Kyle said. She was too itchy to stand around inside. She needed to be outdoors and moving, doing something. The waiting was driving her nuts. Was Tan feeling the same restlessness?
❖
Furcho sat on a large boulder near the meadow where he and Kyle would rendezvous with the dragon horses at dusk.
“Hi,” Kyle said. “I thought you’d be spending every possible minute with Nicole.”
“She had to work at the clinic.” Furcho grinned. “I’d apologize for maybe keeping you awake. But if you haven’t figured out how vocal Nicole is by now and found some ear plugs, that’s your problem.”
“Too much information.” Kyle put her hands over her ears. “You’re my mother’s friend, you know. You’re like an uncle to me.”
“I’m not that much older than you, Kyle. Maybe twelve or fifteen years?”
She shrugged her pack off to drop it onto the grass and climbed onto the broad boulder with him. It was warm from the sun, and she dangled her legs over the side as she lay back to stare up at the sky and let the heat soak into her tense back muscles. “How old were you when you met my parents?”
“I was twenty, a new doctoral graduate from a university on the Fourth Continent.” Furcho leaned back, propped up by his hands. “Your father was very kind and opened their home to me until I could find an apartment to rent.”
“Cyrus? Really?” Kyle did have vague memories of a man who smiled and played with them when they were small, but more vivid was the stern man who looked at her with constant disapproval as she grew taller and stronger, and her sexual orientation developed toward women rather than men. Tension had built between them and filled their home. Then it grew until it tainted his view of his marriage, his relationship with his other children, and the one with his coworkers. “He hates you.”
“Don’t judge him too harshly, Kyle.” Furcho’s soft, even voice and the warmth of the rock felt like a brief shelter from the storm she was about to breech. “I’m not at liberty to reveal everything. That’s for your parents to explain, but your father has struggled for a long time with feelings of inferiority. He’s aware that you and your sister are gifted.” He looked at her. “Your mother, as well.”
“I knew about Maya, but Mom? She never told me. What about Thomas?”
“In a way.” Furcho smiled at her. “Your brother was gifted with one of the bravest, purest hearts I’ve
ever encountered.”
Kyle didn’t try to hide the tears that dripped down her temples into her hair. “When I heard what had happened to our town, I went to my aunt’s house to find my family, but she said Father had taken Maya and left. She said he’d gone mad, and she’d been trying to get in touch with Mom to tell her that he’d taken Maya.”
She sat up and wiped her eyes, her voice growing strong and bitter. “So I found Cyrus, only I wasn’t prepared to stand against him, not the madman he’d become.” She looked at Furcho. “He had me shackled to a post in the middle of a courtyard like a dog. I had six feet of chain. I was taken to a restroom twice a day, given one bottle of water and a half cup of pro-chow a day. Day and night, I was chained there…for weeks until I pretended to break and join his cult. Who does that to another person? What kind of father does that to his own daughter? I hate him, Furcho.”
He grasped the nape of her neck. “Hate will eat your soul, Kyle, just as fear has eaten your father’s. Don’t let it. Your brother’s death crushed Cyrus. Try to see your father as ill rather than evil. He needs treatment. The kind soul your mother married is still inside that tortured man.”
“How can he fill people with all those lies about a vengeful deity and a single life that will be judged when we know that souls reincarnate?”
Furcho released her neck and gave her a one-armed hug before releasing her. “When the world was divided by the great religions—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and so forth—they had similarities because they all contained pieces of earlier ancient beliefs. Perhaps the beliefs we hold today as The Collective are only a piece of the big picture, too, and we’re off the mark a bit as they were. Maybe the entire concept isn’t for us to know and understand at all.”
“But—”
“Do you have past lives that you recall, Kyle?” His eyes were suddenly sharp with interest.
“No, not really. Sometimes I think I have flashes of something, but it feels just out of my grasp.”
Furcho nodded. “It could be a past life, or you could have a bit of your sister’s talent for seeing the future.”
“I’m not anything like Maya, or Mom.” She looked at Furcho. “Am I adopted?”
“Can you stand in front of a mirror next to Laine and seriously ask that question?”
She shrugged. “We could be related in some other way.”
“You need to talk to your mother if you have questions.”
His evasion irritated her. She wasn’t a child. She didn’t need to ask her mother about anything. And, if she wanted to hate her father, who was he to question her? “You can recall past lives, can’t you? Can’t you say with certainty that our belief in The Collective is the real truth?”
“I can say that it’s my truth,” he said. “Does my truth apply to the entire universe? Who can say?” Furcho swept his arm toward the darkening sky. “When you look up at the stars, do you believe there might be other inhabited worlds out there?”
“I’m sure there are, even though we stopped trying to explore that possibility long ago.”
“Then perhaps our Collective is but a speck in a huge infinite Collective. When we fully evolve into one Collective soul, what happens then? Does the chaos repeat itself and we fight our way back to unity, or do we evolve onto a higher plane in a huge universal Collective?”
Kyle never wasted much time thinking of such things. What would be would be. These circular discussions of philosophy that Furcho and her father were so fond of only made her tired. “I don’t know all the answers. I just want to make it through this life.”
Furcho chuckled. “And so you will. Nobody has all the answers, Kyle, but each person must live true to what their heart feels is right. The only way to keep your soul pure is to keep your heart and mind open.”
She shrugged. “I’ll try.” That seemed an impossible task.
Movement at the edge of the meadow silenced them as Raven, Diego, Tan, Jael, and Alyssa emerged from the path. Dusk was descending and the dragon horses would be flying in from their high daytime pasture soon. They jumped down from the boulder and secured their packs over their shoulders.
They all met in the center, and Alyssa gave Kyle a reassuring smile. “Ready?” she asked.
Kyle glanced at Tan, who was still ignoring her. “Ready as I can be.” She watched Alyssa move next to Tan and pull her down for a hug. She held Tan’s face in her hands and said something Kyle couldn’t hear, and after a hesitation, Tan nodded slightly before Alyssa released her. Tan shot a look at Jael, and Jael shrugged. What was all that about?
Then the sky was filled with great dark shadows as Bero, Potawatomi, and Azar landed lightly and trotted over to their bonded warriors. Kyle was relieved to see everybody calm after the chaotic scene caused by Phyrrhos being in season.
Only thirty seconds after the first three, Phyrrhos and Specter landed together and ambled quietly to their warriors. Phyrrhos’ normally concave belly was full and slightly rounded. Sun and stars. How could she be visibly pregnant in less than twenty-four hours? The gestation for a dragon horse must be much shorter than that of a regular horse. Should she carry two people? Phyrrhos let out a huge smoky sigh and closed her eyes as she pressed her ridged forehead to Tan’s. She glittered as the moon rose and its light played across her coppery hide.
When they parted, she turned to Kyle, her dragon eyes blinking. Her ears moved back and forth, she walked haltingly to her, turning sideways to rest her belly against Kyle’s chest. Kyle stood very still and felt her chest warm as something niggled at the edge of her brain. She closed her eyes and tried to focus, but, like a weak signal, it faded in and out and then was gone.
When she opened her eyes, Jael was watching her. Their eyes held for a moment, and then Specter nudged his head over Jael’s shoulder to sniff at Kyle. Phyrrhos moved away and stretched her wings in pleasure as Tan scratched her withers, the two relishing their contact after being separated.
“Specter and I are going to give you a ride to San Pedro Sula tonight. Phyrrhos would probably carry you, but it isn’t wise this early in her pregnancy.”
Wow. Specter. She stared at him, tall and ghostly in the moonlight. His reptilian eyes glowed red, and he snorted short blue flames from his nostrils.
“Stop showing off,” Jael said, backhanding him in the chest. “He’s full of himself since he knocked up Phyrrhos.”
Alyssa slid her arm around Jael’s waist. “Will you be all night?”
Jael hugged Alyssa against her side. “No. I should be back shortly after midnight.”
“Good. I won’t have to drag out the extra blanket, then.”
Kyle stepped back and looked away to give them some privacy when Alyssa pulled Jael down for a farewell kiss, but she laughed along with Alyssa when Specter pursed his big dragon-horse lips and presented them for a similar kiss.
Jael swatted him away. “Go kiss your own girl, you big Romeo,” she said, pretending to scowl. “I used to get more respect around here.” Her grumbling, however, had a good-natured tone. She’d never seen Jael so relaxed and casual. If there was any warrior she’d want to emulate, it would be the First Warrior. But then every dragon-horse warrior in camp probably felt the same.
Jael sprang onto Specter’s back and reached down to pull Kyle up behind her. When she was settled, Jael waited for Tan to mount, and they turned to face the other three of The Guard.
“I’ll check in with Tan and Furcho twice daily, telepathically. I don’t want any IC communication that can be intercepted or hacked,” Jael said. “And I’ll always be listening so you can contact me anytime in the event of an emergency.” She searched each of their faces. “Be careful, my friends. Do not engage the believers unless you must protect yourself or an innocent. Wait until the army can confront them.”
They acknowledged her orders with sharp salutes.
“Good speed,” Jael said, returning their salutes.
“Guard. Aloft,” Furcho shouted.
The
three dragon horses reared and spread their great shimmering wings, then lunged in unison into the night sky. Kyle’s heart caught in her throat. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. Specter and Phyrrhos moved restlessly, eager to also be flying.
Jael bent to take Alyssa’s hand once more. “Second is waiting to walk back with you.”
Alyssa glanced across the meadow to the path that led to camp. Second was propped against a tree, smiling. “You didn’t have to summon her, Jael. I traveled halfway across the Third Continent to find you. I think I can follow a path.” Her admonishment, though, was warm with affection.
“I know. Indulge me, okay?”
“Don’t get used to it.” Alyssa released Jael’s hand and rested hers on Kyle’s leg. Kyle filled with confidence and pride she suspected came from Alyssa. “Trust your instincts, Kyle. And trust Tan.”
Kyle nodded. Getting Tan to trust her was the issue.
Alyssa backed away and waved to them and to Tan.
“Hold tight,” Jael said.
Aloft.
The command was silent, but Kyle had barely tightened her arms round Jael’s waist when it rang in her head as clearly as Furcho’s shout.
Chapter Eight
The flight was short, but they hovered over the city awhile before landing on a tall building to leave Tan and Kyle on foot. Phyrrhos would fly back with Specter but would return every few nights as their bond demanded.
Kyle looked up and down the busy square. Transports and people hurried between shops and restaurants. The city, with no shortage of goods, was nothing like the rural villages. A couple hurried past and something seemed familiar to Kyle. She scanned the passersby again. Why hadn’t she seen it before? A man passed by them and stared disapprovingly at Tan, who glared back at him.
“What’s his problem?” Tan said.
“You have on pants rather than a skirt.” They both wore loose cotton drawstring pants and hooded pullovers common in the rural areas over their cargo-style military pants and T-shirts.
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