“Of course I eat!”
“Have you ever eaten at Cerulean Blue next door?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They wouldn’t let me in.”
“What! Why not?” Delphine sounded shocked.
“They said I didn’t have on Covenant Keeper clothes.”
“Wow! Did you tell Kahtar?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I fight my own battles. Besides, Kahtar isn’t speaking to me. Apparently he’s shunning me along with all of the Warriors of ilu.”
“Is the clan always rude to you?”
“Mostly. You could say I’m not very popular in the Covenant Keeper world.” Beth frowned at her.
“Are you popular in the outside world?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Delphine’s dark brows drew together.
Annoyed at the barrage of rude questions, Beth spat the answer. “Pretty much the same reason in both worlds. Nobody wants to hear the truth.”
“Yeah, I heard you have a problem with that. I’m surprised Kahtar lets you live here by yourself, though.” Delphine sounded envious. “Why does he? Don’t you have some kind of protection? They never let clan women in town alone—like every seeker is going to go ga-ga over the touch of our hearts. Which is so not true.”
“We’re separated and I have to live somewhere they can keep an eye on me. The cops drive by about every fifteen or twenty minutes. And I think that restaurant next door is always open, and Old Guard are always there. I think they keep an eye out or something, because I see them shimmering sometimes. Now would you please stop interrogating me? It’s rude.” No one from the clan had ever used her gifting of truth against her before.
“I’m sorry. I need to ask you a big favor, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it.”
“Not like this,” said Beth. “You could try just asking me. Do you manipulate everybody?”
“Yes,” Delphine answered, and Beth knew it was the truth.
“It must be exhausting.”
“It is, but I have a lot of energy.”
“Are you finished with the nosey questions now?”
Grinning, Delphine said, “For now.”
“You’re not going to ask why I’m separated from Kahtar?”
The grin vanished. “Of course not, but I know why. Everybody knows why.”
Beth’s heart sank, and anger bobbed to the surface. “So, are you going to try to talk me into apologizing for being hit? Or is the clan secretly delighted Kahtar and I are apart? Surely they’re glad they don’t have to pretend to like me during Glory every Sunday?”
“Um,” said Delphine, “you do realize that I don’t have to tell the truth, right?”
Beth’s anger vanished and she smiled. “Yes, but it would be fair.”
Shifting on the floor, Delphine wrapped an arm around one knee and scratched a puppy with the other. “Well, since you were so accommodating—even though you really had no choice—I’ll answer you. It’s tough enough keeping to the laws of being. We don’t tend to harp on each other about following them, but you really should apologize since you were unspeakably wrong. The clan’s pretty much openly delighted you’re not around. It justifies their prejudices against seekers—another reason you should apologize.
“And during Glory they actually feel terribly guilty because they see how miserable Kahtar is without you. If you’d seen him lately you probably would apologize because the man is in serious pain.” She frowned at Beth and commanded, “Apologize to Kahtar!”
Beth shivered as the words seemed to fall around her like boulders. “Obviously it doesn’t work on me! Geez! Stop it!” She glared at Delphine, wondering if the power of her gifting had caused a mental problem.
“Just checking. It would come in really handy for the favor I need.”
She’s nuts. “So you use your gifting to conjure puppies and kiss guys. I understand the puppies, but—”
“Really? You don’t get the kissing? Have you seen Honor and Welcome?” Delphine’s eyes gleamed with humor.
“Okay, yes, I have. I’ll give you that too. So your gifting can make people see stuff that isn’t there, and make people kiss you?”
Delphine shifted into a kneeling position. “Look, the kissing is no big deal. There is nothing dishonorable about it. You should see what goes on behind the stalactites after Glory on Sundays!”
“I’m willing to bet most people remember what they do behind those stalactites, unlike your victims. How many guys do you go through on an average Sunday?”
“Are you judging me? I’ll bet Kahtar is not the only guy you’ve ever kissed!”
“That’s not the point. You’re like kiss-raping guys and using your gifting to roofie them.”
Delphine looked angry. “I’ve spent enough time with seekers to know what a roofie is.”
“Good. I wasn’t trying to be cryptic!”
Flushing, Delphine turned her blue eyes away. “Look, I’m not going to talk to you about who I’ve kissed.”
The way she said who made Beth flush with intuition. “Have you kissed Kahtar like that?”
Delphine shrugged, suddenly studying Dianta’s Wonder Woman diaper bag sitting on the countertop above them as though fascinated with it.
“You’d better answer me or I’m—telling someone!” Beth threatened.
Delphine’s face turned as scarlet as her dress and her eyes flashed like blue lightning as they returned to Beth’s. “Have you ever poked a snake? Kissing Kahtar is like that—dangerous. The first time I did it I was just a kid goofing around to see if I could make him do it. By the time I was fourteen I thought Kahtar might kiss me back someday, of his own free will. I’ve been gone a very long time—eight years—and I came back to find that’s never going to happen, because he joined with a seeker chick. But now I figure, what with this separation, you’re not using him, so someone ought to! I like the way he tastes.”
Scalding jealousy torched Beth’s heart before she realized Delphine’s words rang with the falseness of a blatant lie, and her hand snaked out. She slapped Delphine so hard the sound echoed across the room, and the puppies scattered, yelping.
The blow knocked the smaller woman to her side, where she clutched her face. Dianta’s face crumpled as the puppies ran toward the corners of the room and vanished. Beth’s hostility quickly faded, although not quite to forgiveness. What is wrong with me? She hadn’t ever gotten into fist fights as a kid.
Long, dark waves of hair hid Delphine’s face, but she wiped at her mouth and blood smeared her hand. Beth’s stomach dropped. What was the punishment for drawing blood against another member of her clan? Even a lying one! She shifted Dianta, who was now sobbing over the vanished puppies. Beth moved to Delphine’s side, nabbed a clean square of cheesecloth off the counter above her and offered it guiltily to the brunette.
Delphine accepted it and sat neatly onto her backside, dabbing her bloody mouth and eyeing Beth speculatively. “This solves the problem of how to ask you for that favor. I’m sorry to say I’m not above extortion.”
She picked a fight on purpose! Dumbfounded, Beth glared at her. All the questions had been a manipulator looking for a chink in her armor. Delphine couldn’t use her devious gifting against her, so she had gone with blackmail.
Beth fought the urge to hit her again.
BLOOD LUST—HARVEST MOON
BY TWO O’CLOCK in the afternoon the temperature had dropped twenty-five degrees since midday. A cold wind had kicked up, ripping autumn leaves off the trees, and lake effect snow joined the unseasonably cold weather. Kahtar hurried up the porch steps to his cabin and found a shaking Wolves leaning against the wall. Pity stirred his heart and he crouched beside the mangy-looking dog. Wolves looked worse than usual, with nasty bite marks and bald patches of fur.
“What happened, buddy? Did the barn cats get you?” Gently Kahtar ran his fingers over him, parting fur, but didn’t spot
a single flea. Standing, he held the screen door open for the animal.
“Come on,” he said, but Wolves remained still, pathetically shifting his eyeballs upward without moving his head, as though not daring to hope. “Save the theatrics. I know you’ve been sneaking inside every night.” He held the door open wider and Wolves darted in.
The wind blew inside through the open windows, and Kahtar stomped to the kitchen to shut them, cursing the plebes beneath his breath. A mess greeted him. Of the forty-seven quarts of tomatoes the boys had canned that day, twenty-nine of them lay broken across the countertop and floor, mixed with the remains of his dinner. It looked like the boys had thrown the jars. Stewed tomatoes decorated the walls, cupboards, and an impressive amount of the floorboards, and broken glass lay everywhere.
“What were they doing? Go, Wolves!” Kahtar shouted as the dog opened his mouth to taste the mess on the floor. Wolves bolted back into the great room.
Glass crunched beneath Kahtar’s size seventeen black military boots as he shut windows. “Old Guard!” he bellowed. The shout must have sounded worse than the usual summons because three of the men appeared. Kahtar turned to the shimmering men with their merciless, pupil-less black eyes. “I want every plebe that was involved in this—and I do not care what happened here—to be brought back here so they can see this mess. I want them to clean it and I want each and every one of them caned.” Two of the men shimmered brightly and vanished. Kahtar turned his attention to the last one, not quite meeting his eyes. “And I’d like a livestock farmer to come check my dog.” He almost expected the man to continue shimmering in place and ignore the request, but after a long, uncomfortable moment, the man vanished. Kahtar exited the kitchen and shut the door behind him.
Wolves sat obediently by the front door, staring hopefully at Kahtar’s hands like he did when dinnertime was late. Kahtar held his empty hands out in explanation, and Wolves flattened his ears in disappointed understanding.
“I’ll bring you leftovers,” Kahtar promised, and the ears went up with interest. A few years ago he’d brought home a container of leftovers from Cerulean Blue and thoughtlessly left it sitting on the front porch while he ran to the bathhouse around back. Wolves had eaten every bite of a beefsteak, mashed potatoes, and the paper container that held it. The dog watched hopefully as Kahtar headed for the front door and risked an impatient whine as he opened it.
“I won’t forget,” Kahtar assured him as he walked out.
“NO.” STANDING IN the entryway with Dianta in her arms, Beth changed her mind. “Just turn me in for hitting you. Tell The Mother or the Old Guard or whoever. I’m not going to do this.”
Pretty and petite Delphine waited beside her, somehow making sparkly butterflies flutter around Dianta, who watched through sleepy eyes with her head on Beth’s shoulder. “Look, I need a distraction,” Delphine said, “It’s a matter of life and death! This will take you one minute, maybe two.”
They were truthful words, but Beth demanded more information. “Whose life and death?”
Delphine half-breathed a humorless laugh. “Several people, but it includes yours and Kahtar’s eventually. Believe me, this is crucial. Besides, you do not want me to tell on you.” A bruise horribly shaped like a handprint already told plenty, and Delphine’s split bottom lip had swollen into a permanent pout.
Beth shook her head; Kahtar would never forgive her for this. He might honestly rather they died. “Couldn’t we just set the porch on fire? There’s gasoline in the shed out back.”
“That we could get in trouble for, besides the Old Guard wouldn’t even flinch if you set the entire block on fire. There are four of them inside Cerulean Blue right now. If you do this my way, one will go straight to The Mother and another will come out to make sure Dianta’s not hurt. Bet he’ll take her to Cobbson just to be sure. If you refuse to go inside, it will take the other two of them to move you and that will give me plenty of time to do what I have to do. Please, Beth. I need your help.”
Blowing out a breath Beth glanced through the window of the front door. It was snowing outside, hard for October. She wondered idly how Delphine could know how many Old Guard were inside the abstract next door, but knew the woman was telling the truth. She didn’t dare ask how many other people were inside, but suspected Delphine knew that, too. “How much trouble will I get into for this?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Delphine enthused. She talked with her hands. “Technically, none. There are no rules or laws against it!”
“Kahtar will bust something,” Beth muttered, “and the clan will hate me even more.”
“You’re wrong there. First off, the clan doesn’t hate you at all; they’re afraid of you, but this won’t make any difference one way or another,” said Delphine.
“Okay, fine,” said Beth, tugging Dianta’s little hat securely to keep her now snoozing daughter warm. “I’ll do this—but not because you’re blackmailing me. I’m doing it for my own reasons—”
“They’ll have to quit ignoring you now, eh? Shun this! You should have thought of it yourself. It’s a beautiful plan for both of us.”
Beth shot her an acerbic look. “You’re not very likeable.”
“I know, right?” Delphine agreed. “We have so much in common. I think you and I are going to be great friends.”
“Oh, great,” groaned Beth, opening the front door. She thought so too, and she didn’t like the idea, or the way Delphine treated her friends.
CROSSING THE PORCH, Beth held the bundled Dianta tightly and hurried down the steps to the sidewalk.
Shoot it is cold! Bet the roads are going to freeze.
Beth’s new pink Timberland boots—size eleven thanks to pregnancy—left a pattern in the light snow. “I guess I’ll never get to eat inside Cerulean Blue now,” Beth said to Dianta, wondering how often the Old Guard checked on her. She couldn’t feel the warmth of a scan, and saw no shimmer of Old Guard in the falling snow. Beth adjusted her hat with mittened hands, her booted feet moving across the limestone sidewalk toward the walkway and the house next door.
To her absolute horror a police car turned onto Pearl Street. Beth moved faster. Oh my, no! Did Delphine know this was going to happen? Did she orchestrate it? Surely not!
It crossed to the wrong side of the road, approaching her, and slowed as she moved up the sidewalk.
No! Please, God! Not Kahtar!
An automatic window whirred down as it approached.
“Excuse me, Miss. May I ask what you’re doing?”
Relief went through her. It wasn’t Kahtar. Forcing herself to look, it hardly surprised her that the cop wasn’t clan. One of the warriors would probably have continued to shun her as he drove by. This man was a seeker and she’d never seen him before. Dark, almond-shaped eyes swept her up and down with keen interest.
“You’re Beth Costas, aren’t you? The Chief’s ex-wife?”
“We’re not divorced,” she said, shifting Dianta onto her far shoulder, and continuing on her way. The car shifted into reverse and followed slowly. Beth knew he was staring, and she might have blushed if she weren’t freezing to death.
“Are you planning to walk onto Main Street like that? Because I’ll have to arrest you if you are. How about you turn around and get back to your house, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”
“I’m just going next door. It’s almost time for my husband to get our daughter. I’m delivering her.” Technically the words were all true.
The cop considered this for a moment. “The things we do in a custody battle. I’m divorced too, so I get it, but this is going a little far—especially in this weather.”
“I’m not divorced or in a custody battle!”
With raised brows the cop looked her up and down again. “If you say so, Mrs. Costas. I’m going to give you two minutes to get inside a house or I’m afraid I’m going to have to put you in the car. Neither one of us want that.”
Beth stopped moving to glare at the man and he br
aked.
The Old Guard wouldn’t come outside with him there. Delphine’s plan would be for nothing. Not that Beth wanted to help her after the way she’d acted, but Delphine had said it was a matter of life and death and Beth had heard the truth in those words. She glanced toward the quiet house that hid Cerulean Blue. It housed an abstract and the food she’d always wanted to try, but it looked like any other well-kept house in the village. Nothing about its appearance would draw attention from a seeker, except the naked pregnant woman standing in front of it.
Kahtar will kill me.
Turning without shame, she faced the cop full-on.
He has got to leave. If I don’t freeze to death first I might have to kill Delphine for this.
“How about you and I make a deal? I’m sure I have something you’d be interested in.” Unable to even fake a smile she didn’t mean, Beth forced her lips apart and revealed her teeth in a gesture she hoped wasn’t too feral.
The cop’s eyebrows rose in disbelief and his eyes flickered to her pregnant belly. He slid the gear into park. “Ma’am, I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me.”
“No!” Beth implored, leaning toward the window. “I meant toothpaste that will whiten your teeth and not leave them sensitive, or deodorant you only need to use once a week! I didn’t mean anything weird!”
The officer shook his head and unbuckled his seatbelt. “So you only meant a retail bribe?”
“No! This is coming across all wrong! It’s just that you’re wrecking my plans! You know my husband, right? Chief Costas? Kent?” Beth forced the alias out of her mouth, talking quickly. “We’ve been having some problems. And I’m just trying to get his—attention, you know? He can’t ignore this, can he?” Straightening, Beth motioned with her free hand at her nudity. “He used to love when I didn’t wear clothes. Sometimes we’d go the whole weekend without wearing any. Well, we did before we started having problems!”
I’m talking really loud and saying way too much to a total stranger.
Even if it was all true.
Clutching Dianta to her chest, Beth added, “If you could just drive on by just this once, you’d be a life-saver. Let this be between Kah—um, my husband and me. Please?”
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 12