The look the two of them shared was so intensely private and full of love envy immediately filled Rion. Envy and hope.
Would he and Mara one day feel the same of each other?
Mara shivered and Rion took the extra blanket at the end of the bed and covered her with it more fully. It wasn’t cold in the room, by any means. Was she chilling?
“We’ll need to watch for infection,” Lana said. “I’ll send a bit of the green from Marcos ruined vestis to Josey. Maybe she will be able to identify what those creatures were.”
A knock sounded on the door. Lana opened it and a blonde woman rushed in. From the resemblance he assumed it was Mara’s mother. Two young boys followed her, identical down to their feet. Twins—odd. Dardaptoan women did not deliver twins safely very often. Especially women so young. He would put her younger than fifty. Very young.
She was most definitely Dardaptoan, but she wore human clothing, and no hasha. Her sons, too, were dressed in human clothing. Frayed and worn, and a bit too small. The fear and wariness in their faces was almost tangible.
He stood, and stepped between his female and her family, halting the mother’s progress. “I am Clarion, dhar of the Australian Adrastos House. I am your daughter’s Rajni.”
She stared at him with horror. “My daughter has no Rajni. Least of all an Adrastos warrior. My daughter is Lupoiux.”
“No more than you are, my lady. And you cannot deny what the Goddess has decreed. I am your daughter’s mate, and I will see her happy and safe.”
“Can you return her to the life she had before coming to this place? If not, then you face a losing battle. My daughter has been anything but happy in this world.” The mother looked at the girl in the bed. “And that’s all my fault.”
“Mama?”
Chapter Fourteen
Mara heard them talking, but it was taking more energy than she really had to open her eyes. So she didn’t.
She heard him use the word rajni and she’d been around enough Dardaptoans in the past five months to know what it meant. Mates destined to be together, put into place without choice by the goddess these people revered.
She hadn’t understood it the first time she’d heard it, and she sure didn’t understand it now.
And he thought she was his?
No way. That was so not happening. She opened her eyes partially, just enough to look at him.
He looked strong and beautiful in the light coming through the window. Where had he come from and why had he been in the library? “You followed me…but…I don’t know you.”
Her mother took her hand, and Mara resisted the urge to cling. No matter what kind of strain there had been between her and her mother in the last five months, she was still the center of Mara’s world. She and the boys always would be. “Baby? Are you hurting?”
The fear was so easy for her to hear. Mara pushed herself up, even though her arms burned. Then he was behind her, supporting her weight against his broad chest. “I’m ok. Just…those things got pretty close.”
“What were you doing in the middle of the city?” Her mother’s censure was underneath the question. “It isn’t safe. You know that. You can’t take risks like that again. You can’t.”
“I was…” What was she supposed to say? She had knowingly broken the law the leader of the town had imposed. That she did not feel that leader had any say over her mattered very little. She had been raised to obey the laws. That the law she had broken had been Dardaptoan instead of human didn’t change things. Would she be in trouble for that—legal trouble? How were rule-breaking Dardaptoans even punished in this world? She knew enough about non-American cultures to know that some extremely harsh punishments existed. Would Relaklonos, this strange demon land, be any different? “I just…it was stupid.”
“Yes, it was. You can’t do that to me again.”
Chapter Fifteen
The mother’s words were harsh, but so was her fear. Her concern for her daughter. But he wouldn’t have the woman browbeating his Rajni, not when she had been injured, when she was still so afraid. “Perhaps now and here are not the best for such discussion. Your daughter needs to rest, to allow her body to heal.”
“I will stay with her. And my sons. We’re her family.”
And the mother was the one upsetting her. That he would not allow. “I am sure something can be arranged for you and your sons to stay nearby.”
“And where will my daughter be? With you? No. That won’t work.”
“She’ll be in our family hall,” Barlaam said. “Until she is well, and then decisions about such can be better made.”
Rion appreciated the other male’s diplomacy. The mother, who looked a lot like her daughter, but with pale blonde hair, also appeared intractable and determined.
He did not wish to fight with her over her daughter, but he would if he had to.
But what kind of position would that put his Rajni in?
Something about the relationship between the two women was off. Strained and tense. Unhealthy.
“Your daughter is now a part of the strongest family of warriors within our Kind. She will be protected and safe from whatever it is that has attacked. I can promise you that. I will have some of my best people escort you and your sons to your home. Gather your things. You will no longer be without a House to protect you. You will have a family now, for always and forever. This I make as a vow, on the noble blood of the Adrastos.”
The mother just stared at him but he knew the woman understood what he meant. How old was she? What House had she originated from? Where was her male—the boys were very obviously Lupoiux—but the mother and her daughter were definitely Dardaptoan.
“We really have no choice, do we?” The mother wrapped a hand around each of her sons’ arms. “We don’t have much. I’m sure you can send someone for it in less than an hour.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mara was on her feet early the next morning. Her mother and brothers were not going to see her cowering, wimpy and weak in a strange man’s bed. No matter how insistent the man was. He had carried her—she remembered some of it—to his own suite in the ruling hall, and placed her in the center of his bed. She’d been too exhausted to protest. Then.
He’d positioned himself next to the bed the entire night, and she was just weenie enough to admit that his presence was a comfort. Especially when the nightmares came. How could they not? And he hadn’t attempted to talk too much, stating she needed to rest.
It had made for some pretty awkward awake times. Thankfully she’d slept more often than not.
He hadn’t let her mother in, and Mara was grateful. What was she supposed to do about her mother? Yesterday had illustrated the chasm that had widened between them more than Mara could have ever expected.
And that wasn’t good for any of them, especially the boys. She’d have to find a way to work things out with her mother. And quickly.
Starting with getting her questions answered, ones her mother had evaded for far too long.
He was in the shower, and she could hear the sounds of him moving around in the small bathroom. Thrun had running water and plumbing but it was far different from what she was used to in the modern world. At least—the main residence hall did. She didn’t know much about the rest of the city. Their house hadn’t had more than a single piped toilet and a cistern to store water outside the house. The ruling hall’s pipes were far less crude and made out of the same white and black stone that characterized the rest of the city. They were exposed—not that stone would weather all that quickly—and they used gravity for movement instead of electric pumping.
There wasn’t anything as modern or convenient as electricity or power—other than magical, of course—in this new world. This old world. Whatever it was.
She’d always been fascinated by ancient times, but she had never intended to live in some of those times.
But Mara made do. Their small home had no power, no real windows, no real beds, and only a very cru
de kitchen. Her mother hadn’t been thrilled with it, but she had adjusted better than Mara would have expected.
But then again, maybe her mother had been born into similar times. She didn’t even know how old her mother truly was.
He—Rion, she needed to remember to call him by his name—came out of the bathroom. He didn’t have a shirt on. There was all kinds of man muscle right there in front of her. She’d seen a lot of Dardaptoan men in recent months—they were all tall and muscled and absolutely beautiful. At first she hadn’t believed they could be real. They all looked too perfect.
He took that to the next level. He smiled at her. “Good morning, Rajni. Do you feel rested?”
“Better than yesterday.” She looked at the bandages still on her arms. The bleeding had stopped, and she had been about to change the wrappings herself. She wasn’t waiting for his sister-in-law like she’d been instructed.
She wanted to find her mother and get her and the boys back to their house. Where she could have some time to process everything that had happened.
Somehow she doubted he was going to let that happen. “I need to get going. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but I need to take my family home. The boys will have school, if it’s safe.”
“You’re not going back to the center of the city. It’s not a safe place, especially for the dahn of one of the Adrastos Houses. Your family will be moving with you.”
He meant it, didn’t he? He actually thought he had the right to give her orders. “Excuse me? Isn’t that my decision to make? I don’t know why you think you have a say in my life. But you don’t.”
“I am your Rajni. And you are mine. You know what that means.”
“No. No, I don’t.” And wasn’t that part of the problem? She’d spent the last three months not knowing anything. “All I really know is that your brother showed up at my door and told my mother we were evacuating the only world I’d ever known, and told me that I wasn’t as human as I had always thought. My mother hasn’t told me anything more than that since we came through a freaky kind of cloud to get here. My brothers know nothing, and believe me, all the lovely little Dardaptoan kids have no trouble pointing that out to them. We have little running water, a pit to cook in, and barely enough blankets between the four of us to keep two of us warm in this frostbitten purgatory. And I still know barely more than I did that first day. That was why I was in the library when I shouldn’t have. I knew it was wrong, Rion. But I needed to know what I am supposed to do in this world. And I needed to know what it would take for me to go home. I’m sorry if you think I’m something I’m not, but you’re wrong. Find someone else to be your rajni. You’ll be a lot happier.”
Chapter Seventeen
Bitter. There was a bitterness in her words that saddened him so greatly. Why hadn’t her mother told her of her heritage? The knowledge that she had been so denied and confused almost physically hurt him. He reached out for her, not surprised when she pulled back. Afraid.
She wasn’t more than twenty-three or twenty-four and to be deliberately kept in the dark about who she was, and then be thrust into a strange, demonic land?
There was no way he’d want that for his sister Nora. He pulled his hand away. They’d just take it very slow between them. That was all he could do. He forced himself to settle into the chair near the bed. “Sit down. We’ll…talk. I’ll answer every question you have. About this world, the old world. Any world you want to know about. I will help you find your answers. It’s one of the things I do. I am an historian of my—our—people. Let me help you. Let me at least be your friend. Perhaps lover will come later.”
***
She hadn’t made a single friend since the relocation, and that loss was never harder than it was in that moment looking at the man in front of her. No one wanted to be associated with a family that didn’t wear a stupid, freaking colored scarf. She’d never understand that. And her mother seemed almost militant in not pushing people to interact with her and the boys.
Mara had left all the friends she’d had since she had been thirteen years old, and she hadn’t been given a chance to say good-bye. She’d roomed with them in college, and they’d been planning to rent a house together for grad school.
Did they even know what had happened to her? Did they think she was dead?
“I don’t have any friends here.” She sat down on the bed as the tears came. “I don’t have anyone but the boys. And my mother.”
“And now you have me. And Lana and Marcos; I have a younger sister that I raised. She turned thirty three months ago. She’s just as ticked at the ‘forced relocation of Dardaptoan Refugees’ as you probably are. Only she tends to be very vocal about it. Last I saw her she was trying to get a laptop to work using a root vegetable as a crude battery.”
She stared at him for a minute. “It would probably work…If she made it strong enough.”
“We can go meet her, if you like. I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning. I know she’s probably worried about me, and I’m definitely needing to see her for myself, too.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t need to stay with me. You don’t know me.”
“You are my Rajni. I suspect you don’t know what that truly means, but your needs are more important to me than any other. You need to always remember that. You are my world, and will always be. I know that scares you, and I understand that. But we don’t have to rush into anything.” He wouldn’t lie to her and she was his mate. He knew that with every bit of his being. This girl was the one the goddess had meant for him. He had faith enough in his creator to know that Kennera would not have chosen Mara for him if it was not the way it should be. If she was not the best mate for him.
And he owed his mate everything that he was.
“See? What does that even mean? It sounds like you’re a crazy stalker, and I can’t deal with that. At all. I hear Rajni all the time, yet what does it really mean?”
Maybe he needed to start at the absolute beginning? “Do you know how rajnis are chosen?”
“I don’t have a clue. Every single time I’ve asked my mother she’s refused to answer. I don’t know how old she is, or what House she comes from. She will not say. And no one in Center Thrun City will give me the time of day because I don’t have one of those stupid scarves. Real friendly bunch of people the Dardaptoans are. I’ve read of friendlier treatment of outsiders from the Celts and the Vikings!”
Rion stared at her, hoping his shock didn’t show. “The Dardaptoan way is to help one another. Who have you asked?”
“Our neighbors, at first. But my father was Lupoiux, whatever that means. And it was made very clear that we are not welcome.” She looked out his window, and he studied her in profile. She may not know what it meant to be Dardaptoan in nature, but she was certainly a beautiful example of their Kind. Every Dardaptoan female favored the Goddess of their Kind, and had a feline type of allure. It helped them to draw humans and other blooded Kinds to them for feeding. That brought up another point. “How do you feed?”
“I don’t. Apparently I don’t need as much as regular Dardaptoans—real ones, not Lupoiux. And my mother cooks it into the food. Big shocker, I didn’t even know vampires existed.”
Vulnerable and unknowing, and even unable to feed properly. Her mother had done her a great disservice. “I make this vow to you, Mara. You will never be so unprotected or unprepared again. And you will never be so alone, not as long as I live.” Probably shouldn’t tell her that their souls were already so entwined that if one were to die, the other would most likely follow.
But then again, was it fair to not tell her?
Honesty compelled him to do the right thing. “There is something you need to understand about rajni bonds. When a Dardaptoan is born, the goddess of our people whispers that person’s….soul mate, if you want to call them that, name. Even if hundreds of years are between those birthdates. No one else in any of the worlds will be a better mate for that Dardaptoan, and all of our Kind knows this.
Your name was whispered the day I was born. And mine was spoken the day you were born. Our souls are weaving together every moment we breathe from this point on. When you hurt, I will hurt. And Mara—it will work the same for you. That is what makes Rajni bonds so sacred to our people. That your mother mated a Lupoiux, I don’t know if they were rajnis or not, though I suspect they were since Lupoiux have a similar mate selection process, would set her apart from our people. That she still lives when her mate is gone—that would be another barrier. Add in that you don’t show an affiliation for a Dardaptoan House…” It angered him, the position her mother had placed her in. “Your mother was wrong to not tell you. Even if the House was rife with problems, a Dardaptoan is owed their House. Their family. I will find your mother’s people for you. I vow this to you. By the end of the day. I will speak with Theo, of the Sebastos House. He is the chronicler of the Houses, and has taken on that role even more greatly with the relocation. Normal House numbers are between four thousand and fifteen. The House I lead numbers five thousand four hundred ninety-six with me. Five thousand five hundred with the addition of your family. I am responsible for every single one. And I do not take that responsibility lightly. Tell me, what color hasha surrounded your family these last three months?”
He would find the head of that House and talk to them about the lack of respect they had shown the needy in their midst.
“The same you wear, and some black. I don’t know who rules our section of the city, other than that.”
“I will see to it, then. For those are both my family colors. I will find who should have offered you shelter, and I will see they make recompense.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mara saw that he meant it. “No. I don’t want recompense. I just want something better than this normal. For my brothers, if nothing else.”
The Forlorn Page 4