Collins swallowed hard, and all of his rehearsed words left his mind in an instant. He would have to play this carefully and by ear. “Someone . . .” he started, his voice maddeningly unsteady. “. . . from your world.”
“Yes,” she said, her stance revealing the sternness her hidden features could not. “The flashlight was a dead giveaway.”
My mag light. Collins closed his eyes. Gone already, along with my multitool and matches. It was the second multitool he had had confiscated by Barakhains, and he darkly wondered if he could supply the entire royal family.
Quinton’s tone gained spite. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
Many humorous replies came to Collins’ mind, but he forced himself to discard them. No matter how self-deprecating, jokes would only antagonize Quinton. He knew exactly what she meant. “I’m sorry.” He lowered his head, his tone sincere. “I am so very sorry, Carrie. Please believe me; it was an accident. I never would . . . I never could . . . I . . . I never . . . meant to hurt you.”
Quinton’s entire body stiffened. For an instant, Collins thought she would leap on him in a mindless frenzy of hatred. Instead, she wound her hands in the fabric of the veil and yanked it from her face.
Scar tissue marred the once classically beautiful features, leaving lines, ridges, and swirls of odd-looking, hairless flesh. Her sculpted nose listed to the right between keen blue eyes with their irregular lashes and gleam of deep anger. Her ridged brow reminded him of a Star Trek Klingon, and her silken blonde tresses started farther back on her head, leaving a jagged and receded hairline. Though sickened by the sight, Collins would not allow himself to look away. He sank to the floor in a gesture of abject apology. “I’m so sorry.” I caused all that. Moisture blurred his vision, wholly unfeigned. “I am so, so very sorry.”
“Why?” Quinton asked, emotion choking her words. Whether she suffered from a rage too intense to speak clearly or anger mixed with deep sorrow, Collins could not tell. But he did understand that she wanted to know the reason he had caused her such agony, not why he now chose to beg her forgiveness.
“You were talking marriage. Kids.” Tears glided onto Collins’ cheeks. They had slept together one time, and she had used it as the basis of an entire future. “I was twenty-three. A boy. I . . . got scared.”
“Of me?”
Collins shook his head. “Of commitment, not you. You’re smart, beautiful. Perfect.”
Quinton turned away. “Not anymore.”
“You are,” Collins forced out, “to me.”
Quinton whirled, scarred features bunched, a raw primal rage flashing in her eyes. “I’m ugly, Benton Collins. Ugly.” She stepped menacingly toward him. “And it’s because of you.”
“Yes,” Collins admitted. “It is because of me. And I want to make it right.”
Quinton crouched in front of the bars, lowering herself nearly to Collins’ level. All trace of humanity disappeared from her eyes, leaving a depthless madness that scared him more than anything in his life. “I’ve thought about this for a long time, and I know exactly what to do.”
Collins froze, allowing her to speak her piece.
“We’ll start with a leisurely castration. No anesthesia, dull dirty knife, and you get to watch.”
Collins shivered.
“We’ll slather you with dung and let you suffer the slow festering of your wounds.”
Not allowing himself to focus on the image, Collins fell into the nervous humor he had managed to previously avoid. “Sounds like you’ve got this whole thing planned out pretty well.”
Quinton rose, towering over him. “I had plenty of time to work on it while they cleansed my wounds and changed oozing bandages.”
An apology now seemed totally inadequate. “You’ve got me, and you can do what you want with me. But it doesn’t cost you anything to hear me out.”
Quinton said nothing, which Collins took as an invitation for him to continue. “Korfius and I came back to check on you.”
“Korfius?” she repeated thoughtfully, and Collins hoped that meant she believed the dog was his captured companion. The Barakhains had far less reason to harm him than Zylas.
“You have to believe me. If I’d known how badly I hurt you, we would have come back sooner.”
Quinton stared.
“I had a long recovery myself. I fell off a castle tower, broke a bunch of stuff, had some internal injuries. So, it couldn’t have been a lot sooner, but—”
Collins waited for Quinton to say something, anything. When she did not, he continued, “I couldn’t get you off my mind. I realized . . . I . . . love you.” It was a lie, and Collins felt as if the words were sticking to his tongue. He had always had difficulty saying things he did not mean.
“You did?” Quinton finally managed.
“I do,” Collins said, for some reason finding those words much easier to speak. “I still do.”
Quinton turned away. “No one could ever love this face.”
“Someone who loves you only for your appearance is not worth having. Looks fade over time.” Though true, Collins could not help feeling hypocritically shallow. He had pursued Quinton as much for her flawless features and figure as the many things he had believed they had in common: a science background, their time in Barakhai.
And Quinton was not buying it. “What a trite and easy thing to say.”
Collins walked a fine line and knew it. He needed her to trust him, but if he insisted too much, his insincerity would become transparent. She had seemed a bit crazy to him before their confrontation, and the destruction of her most powerful attribute could only have further unbalanced her. “Look, I came here because I missed you. Then, the king’s men attacked me, and I found out how bad off I had left you. I didn’t know how to handle that. I thought if Korfius and I could sneak in here, I could find out the truth. My mistake was trying to let you know who I am without alerting anyone else.”
“The veil thing?” she guessed with clear puzzlement. “That was supposed to—”
Collins tried to look embarrassed. “Okay. Not my best work. But I knew the kingdom wouldn’t forgive me, and I thought you might.”
Quinton frowned, shaking her head.
“I mean I hoped you would, stupid as that sounds. I still love you.”
“Do you?” She sounded more cynical than hopeful.
“And I know how to fix the damage I did.”
That got Quinton’s attention. “You’re not talking about skin grafts, are you? Because they can’t—”
“No. I’m talking about magic.” Collins made a gesture that outlined his own face. “Like this. A real fix. Complete and total.”
Quinton gritted her teeth, her face puckering into fierce lines. “Don’t toy with me, Ben. I’d sooner see you suffer an excruciating, drawn-out death than look at you.”
Collins believed it. “Look at me, Carrie. Look at my face. This isn’t clown makeup.” He rubbed his cheeks until they blanched, then turned scarlet from friction. “If they can do this for me, imagine how much easier to just restore what was already there. Or even better.” Catching his mistake a moment too late, he added quickly, “As if that was possible—how do you improve on perfection?”
Quinton dropped to her haunches, her movements still hauntingly graceful. She had maintained the figure of a Hollywood dancer, pure beauty if one could overlook the twisted, furrowed scars of a once-handsome face. And her clingy, intense, and desperate personality. Collins could scarcely believe he had once found Carrie Quinton so stunningly attractive, and that thought made him feel even more small-minded. He had seen her as the permanent answer to an otherwise lonely existence: pretty, smart, with the shared experience of Barakhai from a vantage point no one else could understand. Was I really seeing all of that, or just a pretty face, a pair of large breasts, and gorgeous curves? He had discovered the volcanic flaws seething just below her superficial beauty, yet that had not stopped him from wanting to sleep with her again. Sleep with, not marry. Colli
ns realized that, until she got some serious mental counseling, Quinton’s looks were all she had had, and now melted into a puddle of fleshy scars. Poor Carrie.
Several moments passed in silence while Quinton considered the situation and Collins waited for an answer. Finally, she said, “I assume there’s a price for this fix?”
Collins had no problem bartering away Prinivere’s abilities. The renegades owed him this much. “Only freedom for me and my companion.”
“Oh, is that all?” Quinton spoke with clear and evident sarcasm. “I’m sure the king won’t mind letting his prisoners go just to help me.”
Quinton could not bluff Collins, who already knew how seriously King Terrin took the counsel of his adviser from a high-tech world. “He’ll listen to you.”
“Maybe.”
“He’ll listen to you,” Collins insisted. “Especially if you tell him you’re going to personally meet the one with the power to change people’s faces.” He worried about revealing Prinivere, especially since he had once promised he never would; yet he saw no real harm in it. The renegades would see to it that no one followed him and Quinton. The dragon had already shown herself to the king’s troops once, and he knew she would accept risk to rescue Zylas and, he hoped, himself.
Quinton rose with slow thoughtfulness. “I . . . could do it,” she finally said, the words anything but a guarantee.
Collins could not afford to let it go at that. “And will you?”
“I . . . will.” Quinton continued to study Collins. “With conditions. You take me to whoever can fix me. Korfius stays.”
Though relieved Quinton had taken the bait, Collins tried to appear circumspect. “Korfius?”
“Sorry. Your partner. He stays.”
Collins attempted to control his response, but he couldn’t conceal the horror he felt over this proposal. “No!”
“As collateral. To assure you take me to the right place and don’t try to hold me prisoner.”
Collins could understand why she might need such reassurance, but he could not afford to agree to it. “Release both of us or no deal.”
Quinton ran her fingers lightly over her ruined cheeks, shuddering as she did so. “I can’t agree to that.”
“How do I know you’ll release my friend, then?”
“How do I know you won’t just kill me?” Quinton shrugged. “One of us will always have an edge. That’s what brought us to negotiation in the first place. Since we captured you first, I think it’s only fair that we have it.”
Collins did not agree but saw no benefit to arguing the point. She did have the upper hand. “Maybe you could keep me instead. Is that enough of an edge?” The words came out before Collins could consider them, and he appreciated and cursed his own courage. Zylas would do a better job of leading Quinton to Prinivere, keeping both safe, and rescuing him afterward. Collins just did not know whether or not he would survive long with his identity revealed. Longer than Zylas would. Though Collins dreaded the thought of staying, he hoped Quinton would accept his sacrifice.
“Very noble of you.”
“Thanks . . .”
“But no.”
Hope died before Collins could even savor it. “No?”
“You take me; your friend stays.”
“But—”
Quinton cut him off with a wave. “That’s it.
Collins knew no argument would change her mind on the matter. If he became too insistent, she might figure out the true identity of the man she now believed was Korfius. “All . . . right,” he finally said. “But, since you get the advantage, I get one more condition.”
Quinton’s brows beetled, a look that might once have made her look sensuously angry. Now, it made her features appear even more homely. “What?”
Collins minced his words. To speak them directly would expose his claim to have come to see her as a lie. “You’ll . . . talk to me. See if we’re still . . . compatible.” He gauged her expression as he spoke, pleased to find a glow coming to her ruined cheeks. “Tell me if and why you still want to stay in Barakhai and what’s happened with your dragons.”
Quinton stiffened. “My dragons?” she said, honing in on exactly the words Collins had tried to soften.
Damn. Collins nodded. “They’re what was keeping you in Barakhai the last time we talked, remember? You’re a geneticist.” He reminded her of his own interest. “I’m a biologist. You were raising them, studying them, wanting to breed them eventually.”
“Right.” Quinton seemed to look through Collins, then her attention returned to him and she met his dark gaze with her icy blue stare. “And when I get my face back you’ll . . . want me again?” The hardness left her eyes, replaced by a desire that seemed more grasping than sexual.
Collins approached her, winding his arms through the bars. He could not understand how the self-esteem of a woman as competent and beautiful as Carrie Quinton had been could hinge upon the interest of an undistinguished, plain-looking man like himself. Is it real, or is she bluffing as much as I am? “Come here.”
Warily, the woman approached, allowing Collins to wrap his arms around her, to draw her face near his. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, to look upon the fleshy carnage he had wrought. “It’s not your face I’m in love with.” Nor any part of you, he added to himself, the only way he managed to force out such a heinous lie. His lips found hers, and he kissed her with all the passion he could muster. To his surprise, his young body responded even to this feigned ardor. “It doesn’t matter to me if you never get restored. Looks don’t matter,” he repeated, “to a man in love.”
Benton Collins hoped his own conscience would forgive him.
Chapter 6
THOUGH every second dragged like an hour, Benton Collins found himself outside with Carrie Quinton extraordinarily quickly. He could scarcely believe any bureaucracy could act so swiftly, yet they moved with a brisk and obedient efficiency that would startle any governing body of his world. Even so, the guards clearly disliked their duties. Each one gave Collins a narrow-eyed glare, and some whispered chilling threats against him and the partner he left behind should he fail to return Quinton in at least as good shape as he took her from them.
The day seemed too cheerful for the somberness of Collins’ thoughts. The setting sun glared into his eyes and ignited chips of quartz like diamonds in the walls of the palace. The stretches of open pasture resembled a soft, emerald sea, and the animals that grazed it watched them with clear contentment. Only the horses gave them shrill, grating greetings, their ears flattened and their hooves grinding up clods of dirt. Several dogs followed them to the drawbridge, some snarling softly behind bared teeth; but none crossed the moat. At length, Collins found himself alone with Quinton and suddenly missed the animals and their hostility. At least, he did not have to carry on a dishonest conversation with them, heaping lie upon lie and hoping to remember all of them.
Quinton mirrored Collins’ discomfort. A wary frown pinched her lips, and she glanced around them in every direction, as if expecting hordes of renegades to surround them at any moment. As she swung her head back and forth, the last rays of sunlight shimmered from hair as yellow and soft as corn silk. A bit behind her, ignoring the bald scars, Collins could almost imagine her as he had first seen her: a young coed with dancing blue eyes, skin like cream, high-cheeked and full-lipped, with the body of an angel. Yet, he knew, madness tainted a beauty that, like the old sayings warned, lay only skin deep. She had seemed nice enough, but her upbringing had left her with a clingy desperate need for love. He did not want to betray her again, but, at some point, he would have to do so.
Quinton spun suddenly toward Collins, her face hidden by a fluttering, translucent veil. “You have to lead.”
Collins hesitated, uncertain where to take her. Likely, Prinivere had moved since he had last seen her. She did not tend to stay in any one place long, and she had a massive network of renegade helpers to keep her safe. He knew the durithrin or wildones, the creatures
of the forest, reported to a kindhearted mouse/man named Vernon, who remained staunchly loyal to the dragon. Surely, some shrew, vole, or sparrow would observe and report them. He only hoped they would send help, rather than simply watch to see what they did and where they chose to go. Time, for Zylas, was running out.
The grassland turned to forest. They remained on the cleared pathway; and, as they slipped between the trees, Quinton took Collins’ hand. Her palm felt small and smooth, her fingers clammy against his. The reason for her amiable gesture escaped him, and he muddled through a thousand explanations in an instant. Is she holding on to slow any escape I might attempt? To keep her balance on uneven terrain? Is she really trying for reconciliation or playing into my own con? Or is this all just a part of her insanity?
Collins gripped Quinton’s hand firmly, protectively. She seemed small and helpless; though he knew her tall, slender figure hid a ticking time bomb. Though not physically powerful, she was clever and emotionally volatile, with the force of a king and a kingdom behind her. He wished he could love her enough to marry her. She deserved someone who could look past her injuries and bond with her soul, a mate who would forever find her the object of his desire. Although she apparently believed otherwise, that man was not Benton Collins, and he doubted even the right man would look beyond ruined features he had never seen at their best. Instinctively, Collins knew he belonged with someone else, and he was beginning to believe he might know who.
As it grew darker, Quinton took out a mag light, probably the one confiscated from Collins himself. Turning it on, she passed it to him to light their way.
“So,” Quinton said suddenly, her voice startling in the otherwise silent woods. Her tone still contained a trace of hostile mistrust. “Who is this secret person who can fix my face?”
“You’ll just have to wait until you meet . . .” Not wanting to reveal gender, he finished lamely, “. . . it.”
Quinton pounced on the impropriety. “It?”
“I’m not giving anything away.”
“No, you’re not.” Quinton’s fingers tightened around his. “You’re taking me to . . . it . . . anyway. What does it hurt to tell me now?”
The Lost Dragons of Barakhai Page 12