Reckoning

by T. J. Michaels

  “We will talk later.” RuArk then turned his attention to Ricard and Brita, who seemed strangely out of sorts.

  “Brita, are you well?” RuArk asked.

  “Huh? What?” She appeared completely shaken, her mind obviously elsewhere.

  “Are you well?” RuArk asked again. Gray eyes narrowed at her discomfiture.

  She fidgeted, but finally responded, though her gaze remained focused on the floor. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just a bit tired is all. We’ve been working well into the night tending other wounded. I think I’m just a bit weary.”

  Ricard’s face was hard and unfeeling as he watched Brita speak to RuArk. He looked at her without a single emotion. No care. No concern. Like a shell. His presence, his energy seemed... foreign. When the man caught Rhia’s gaze on him, the strange expression evaporated as if it had never been.

  Rhia appeared to have dismissed it. RuArk, however, did not.

  Ricard broke the stifling silence. “I’m glad to see that you’re well, RuArk.”

  “Truly?” RuArk asked stonily.

  “RuArk,” Rhia hissed and poked him in the ribs. “You don’t have to be rude.” He ignored her as Linc stepped a bit closer to Ricard.

  “Have you been of help to your sister since the battle, Ricard?” Linc inquired quietly.

  “Actually, I was wounded. One of the nurses from the Society of Physicians bandaged me up.” He held up his arm, showing the neat wrappings of clean white linen. “I took a good slice to the ribs as well. I can finally move my arm without too much pain,” he said with a wince as he gingerly attempted to stretch the place where he’d been cut.

  “How bad is the cut? Do you mind if I see it?”

  “No, my lord,” Ricard grimaced as he stiffly raised his loose tunic to reveal a sparkling white linen bandage wrapped deftly around his midsection.

  “Take care not to overtax yourself. You would not want to take a fever,” RuArk drawled. Something niggled at the back of his thoughts. Something dark and sinister. The longer he looked at the little Draeman man, the stronger the sensation grew. He knew Ricard was involved somehow, but proving it was another matter. Perhaps he would simply throw him into one of the cells in the lower levels of the villa until he could be sure.

  Brita offered RuArk a dose of pain medicine. He refused, choosing instead to face his scowling lifemate. The last thing he wanted was for Rhia to worry, but he needed to be clear-headed and completely aware of what was going on around him if he was to get to the bottom of this. Rhia made no bones about expressing her thoughts—she thought he was nuts for choosing the bone-rending pain rather than a mild sedative.

  Ricard and Brita left just as Marth and Joan entered. RuArk noticed that Ricard moved awfully well for someone with a wound to the ribs.

  “Linc, did you learn anything while you were watching Ricard since he arrived some days ago?”

  “RuArk you couldn’t possibly think Ricard was involved in this?” Rhia protested, again.

  “Why not?”

  “He would never hurt me. He’s been in love with me forever.”

  Linc, being the voice of reason asked, “But what if the goal was not to harm you? What if the goal was to harm the Protector, leaving you unprotected?”

  Rhia tilted her head and seemed to think on what was being said. After a moment, her unwavering gaze found RuArk’s. “Considering the lengths that my father went to just to get me mated to you, I can’t dismiss the seriousness of the situation. As much as I don’t want to believe it, I can’t rule Ricard out. The Noman you introduced me to on the way here was bad enough, but to learn that they somehow knew how to get inside this township is another deal entirely.”

  Linc, Marth and Joan all nodded at her sound reasoning.

  “You will be careful Rhia. No arguments. No excuses.” RuArk gave her a moment to protest, and was relieved when she didn’t. “Given the number of dead and wounded, your life is not the only one in danger here. Marth, you know what to do. Between you and Dalmore, continue to watch our unexpected guest. Where is Sharyn?”

  “She is securing the gates where the Noman entered.” Linc replied on his way to the door. He eased it open, and then stopped. “Do you believe Ricard is truly injured, Rhia?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because he has not been seen since right before the battle. We did not know until now whether he was among the living or the dead, as we are still accounting for our people, both Draeman and Gaian.”

  RuArk sat stone still as his anger flared and Rhia’s calm reassurance reached for him through their bond. The throb in his shoulder became a wash of pain as his energy began to flag. He might need to rest, but his mind was already thinking of all kinds of imaginative punishments for Ricard Shae if he learned the man had been involved.

  Easing down beneath the covers, he spoke around a huge yawn. “Bring me word as soon as you know where he has been, Linc. Have Dalmore look after Ricard while you join Sharyn at the gate. The two of you decide if this gate should be sealed, or if it should simply be patrolled from now on. We may come to need it someday.”

  Linc nodded, then spoke boldly, but sincerely, to Rhia. “I ask your forgiveness, Fire Storm. I was wrong to blame you for the Wind Storm’s actions the night of the battle. He is his own man and makes his own decisions. You have my respect for your strength through this ordeal. Forgive me for my disrespect. I will never disregard you again.” He turned on his heel and was gone before she could respond.

  Meanwhile, RuArk whispered instructions to Marth, whose report later that evening was of no comfort. Ricard had disappeared again. Sadly, no one missed him. Not even his sister, whose current hobby was walking around in a daze.

  Chapter Five

  “You have failed again, Rehn. You are totally incompetent. The Gaian is still alive and Rhia is safe and sound in Province Springs. Where’s the good news you promised me when you sent your filthy Noman kin to carry out this latest farce you call a plan? What good are you if you can’t bring me one little woman?”

  “Your whining is beginning to bore me, Father. If you cannot have patience, then why don’t you ride into Province Springs and retrieve her yourself?”

  “Impudent, useless freak. Of my two sons, you’re supposed to be the one who has rediscovered magick that makes you indispensable. Perhaps not, eh?”

  “Watch it, old man,” Rehn said on a bored sigh. His sharp eyes caught the slight flicker of fear in Collaidh’s eyes. “You need me to do what you cannot. So do not push me further.”

  “How dare you, you white eyed, black hearted Noman piece of shit. You’re no better than your filthy Noman mother.”

  Rehn growled menacingly and let his already elongated fangs lengthen further.

  “Don’t you dare threaten me,” Collaidh ranted. His face turned an alarming shade of purple as he returned Rehn’s growl and bared his own perfectly white, straight, small teeth.

  It didn’t have quite the same effect.

  “Do not worry,” Rehn said quietly. “I would not stoop so low as to take your cowardly, mewling blood into my body even if I lay dying.” He stepped close, so close he knew his father caught the scent of aging blood on his cool breath. “My mother was more of a woman than you will ever be a man. Her only mistake was trusting you. You disgust me.”

  Rehn’s mother had been completely infatuated with Rama Collaidh and believed him brave, seeing he’d been the only man to ever purposely go into her hunting grounds. He’d told her he was on a diplomatic mission to bring their cultures together. In truth, he’d been nothing more than a young and foolish Draeman noble who’d taken a stupid dare while drinking with friends. He had to sleep with a Noman woman... and live. In his arrogance and drunkenness, he’d accepted.

  Effortlessly, Rehn peeked inside his father’s mind, saw what he saw, heard what he heard as the man relived the very story that Rehn had grown up with.

  She’d been alone in the High Desert, just outside of Draema Salone along the outer wal
l. Beautiful, ethereal, her pale skin was almost translucent with a pearly sheen. Her long white hair curled to her waist and reflected the bright glow of the full moon. One look at her and Rama had been so overtaken with lust he’d have done anything to have her spread underneath him.

  He’d lied, declared that he’d been watching her and finally come to claim her. He’d had such a cunning tongue, she’d sensed no deception, and believed he’d been as primal in his choice of mate as any Noman would have been. Rama had touched, kissed and fondled her boldly. She’d pulled his hair and nipped him with her sharp teeth, leaving little love bites all over his chest and neck. It had been the most fulfilling, wild and primitive loving he’d ever experienced.

  He certainly hadn’t thought beyond the sex, but he’d won the dare and his friends paid up with round after round of good Draeman ale and the promise to keep his secret.

  While visiting the western counties he’d stopped to see a wench who lived near that same outer wall he’d snuck through a year earlier. A pack of strong, feral Noman found him and taken him to her. Taken him to see his sons—twin boys barely a season old, Rehn and Brehn. One was Noman, the spitting image of his beautiful mother with white eyes and wavy little tufts of snow-white hair. The other was a brown eyed human with black hair just like his father’s.

  While the pack had slept sheltered from the sun, Collaidh had taken the human child, who he renamed Bryan. The other, he’d left behind.

  That was twenty-five years ago. He’d never laid eyes on Rehn again. Until now.

  Rehn had grown into a creature to be reckoned with. Though he was Noman, he was, in fact, brilliant—a scholar who had rediscovered how to touch and use his Source and walk the Dream as none but the Gaian had done for centuries. While Rehn Collaidh had become a leader with his own personal Noman army, his brother, Bryan, had turned out to be an abject failure. A failure who still didn’t know he had a twin. And if their father had his way, he would never know.

  Collecting his thoughts, Collaidh took a deep breath. Rehn felt the old man push the disgust and rage he felt for a creature of his own flesh and blood, down to the bottom of his emotions.

  “I apologize, Rehn. I was wrong to speak of your mother in such a manner. She was innocent in the whole affair.”

  Slipping out of his father’s thoughts, Rehn regarded the man who had fathered and left him behind all those years ago. With his resentment masked carefully, he accepted the apology and turned to leave. Collaidh hindered him with a question Rehn had no intention of answering. He could care less about his father’s apology. All that mattered was revenge and Rhia.

  Patience would give him both.

  Soon he would become a natural in the Dream, and eventually learn to Seek. The Ancestors had no favorites and would guide him as they did anyone who sought their council, whether for good or ill. He would teach his children to master their Source and perhaps develop a true Gift. He would harness that power and use it to rule the weak-minded. Use it to bring the Noman out of the northern lands to take their rightful place as masters in a land of plenty. He would start in Draema. And the end? There was none in sight.

  “What do you plan to do now? Whatever it is, I’ll accept it,” Collaidh said

  “I have another that I am sending to Province Springs, someone from Rhia’s own Society of War.”

  “One of the soldiers she’s trained or served with, perhaps?” Collaidh asked.

  “Yes.” But that was all the information he was giving up. Everyone seemed to want Rhia, but Rehn was determined he would be the one to have her. No one, absolutely no one, would put their plans ahead of his. Including his no good father or the overstuffed Council of Seven that he thought he controlled.

  * * * * *

  On the morning of the fifth day after he’d woken from the battle with the Noman, RuArk was up and about regardless of his lifemate’s harping.

  Rhia grumbled all the way to Sharyn’s apartments on the other side of the villa. She was still muttering to herself when she walked right through Sharyn’s partially open door.

  “He’s out there working his shoulder,” she gestured wildly toward the direction of the lower courtyard. “And after we took all that care to heal the blasted man. He actually had Marth unbind his shoulder while I was downstairs ordering his breakfast. That sneaky, rotten... Hell, what if he re-injures it? What then, huh? If he expects me to wait on him hand and foot, he can forget it.”

  Rhia stopped raving long enough to finally notice Linc sitting at the small luncheon table next to the far windows. Rhia’s eyebrows climbed practically to the top of her forehead as her mouth snapped shut. Sharyn completely ignored the look.

  Curiosity overrode her irritation at her husband, and she flopped down on one of the overstuffed couches and waited.

  Linc rose, took a final gulp of coffee and left the warm mug on the table. It smelled of peppers and spice. In spite of the odd combination, the scent made her mouth water.

  Spices and peppers? In coffee? And it actually smells wonderful? Ack! I must be ill or something.

  The handsome warrior paused meaningfully in front of Sharyn, his expression tender, his tone serious.

  “We shall finish our talk later.”

  Rhia’s head tilted a hard left at the request-that-wasn’t-a-request. Damn these Gaian giants and their arrogant attitudes. What if Sharyn didn’t want to finish the talk later? What if she had something more important to do? What would the big warrior do then? To her surprise, Sharyn dipped her head demurely and agreed.

  As soon as the door closed behind Linc, Rhia was ready to get into her friend’s business.

  “Well, it’s obvious you two weren’t talking about First Commander duties and schedules for the night patrols. What’s up?”

  Sharyn ignored her question and launched right into the day’s lesson.

  Fine. Rhia would let it go for now, but later on, all bets were off.

  “How would you oversee the cleaning of the estate, both the villa and the surrounding grounds?” Sharyn asked.

  “I would find Lunis and have him see to it.”

  “No, Rhia. You alone are mistress here. Master these skills, show you have no problem running this estate as your lifemate asks, and he will give you anything you wish.”

  “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “He’ll never give me everything I wish. The man wouldn’t even stay in bed like he knows he should. He’s too much... warrior. I’ve never had to do this kind of stuff before. Why can’t I just do what I do best-fight?”

  “Remember, you are denied the thing you want most because you fight too much. Eventually, this will sink into your brain. You understand duty, but you do not understand the nature of a man. Your lifemate wants nothing more than to see you happy.”

  “Could have fooled me. He’s out of bed and won’t listen to a word I say, but I’m supposed to jump and do whatever he wants?” Rhia glared. She couldn’t help it.

  “It is not difficult to bend a man if you know how to do it.”

  “Well, what’s the difference between running the Citadel at home, and running this blasted place?”

  Sharyn lifted her brow, and flashed Rhia a secret smile. “Exactly, Fire Storm. Exactly.”

  Finally, the light bulb flared on in Rhia’s mind and she had the answer. There was no difference. How could she have missed it? RuArk had told her plenty of times that there was no need for her to become the perfect Gaian woman. All she had to do was run the place.

  Sneaky bastard had let her think there was some super-secret Gaian code to what he wanted from her, when in truth, he’d said exactly what he meant. It wasn’t his fault she’d read way more into it than he’d said, but she wasn’t going to admit that right now.

  Instead, she thought about how her father managed to take care of their homeland without running himself ragged. It was too much for one person to do alone, so he delegated many of the tasks. When she’d lived at home, she’d been one of those delegates. Well, didn’t she have a whole
township full of warriors, soldiers, and Society members to delegate to?

  “Now answer the question again,” Sharyn urged, obviously realizing that Rhia had put two and two together in her head.

  “To have the estate cleaned, I’d find the head of the Houseman, which is Lunis. I’d ask him to make a list of all of the rooms in the villa and all of the buildings on the grounds that need care, along with a list of who does what. Then, I’d ask him to get all the staff together so I could personally tell them what I wanted done, first making it clear that Lunis is in charge, and second, instruct them to see to the items on Lunis’ list. Then I would leave it to them and go practice my hand-to-hand knife fighting with you.”

  “Perfect! You are a fast learner after all,” Sharyn said proudly, nodding at the stylish cut of Rhia’s sarand. She’d stopped griping about wearing it, and was happy as long as her blade, hanging low on her hips, and her mother’s dagger strapped around her thigh, accompanied the outfit.

  “Let us move from these couches down to the floor. Sit cross legged and we will practice reaching the Source.”

  “Finally.” But it didn’t take long for thoughts of RuArk to lead her down the path of distraction. She wondered what he was doing, felt the bond kick in and knew he was still in the courtyard with some of his men. She felt a faint twinge, a dull ache in her mind.

  His shoulder is tender.

  “Rhia, concentrate.”

  “What? Oh, sorry Sharyn. I just can’t believe him. He’s being totally foolish.”

  “He is a warrior. It is not his nature to stay in bed.”

  “But the Grandfather told him to rest. He shouldn’t be working that shoulder for a couple more days yet.” She jumped to her feet and paced back and forth in front of Sharyn who watched her from her seat on the finely woven rug.

  “He is his own man, Rhia. There is nothing you can do about that. Besides, would you really want him if he gave in to you all the time?”

  Rhia glared at the other woman, and settled back down on the rug.