"So, little witch," Dak waited until she looked at him, "tell me about your father’s crime."
Kierin knew this would come. She’d put him off as long as she could. Slipping her hands into her lap to hide their trembling, she drew a ragged breath and let the memories flood her heart.
"My father was a research scientist--one of the best. He was brilliant. For several decades the growth of crystals on the home world has been in a decline. There were dozens of possible explanations. Nothing based on fact, but the end result was the same with each. Before the end of the next millennium, crystal growth would cease completely.
"My father felt it was possible to create man-made crystals with all the properties of their natural counterparts and without the need for constant recharging. It became an obsession with him. When he made his first breakthrough, he reported his findings as required by law. He warned that it was too early to be certain of success, but he was optimistic."
Kierin swallowed past the lump in her throat. She had never shared this part of her life with anyone except her immediate family. Grief, locked away for so many years, threatened to choke her. She wiped at the tears she couldn’t prevent.
"My m-mother worked from home after I was born. Rian was eight-years-old and already showing signs of following in my father’s steps. She wanted to monitor his education closer than she could if she spent all day at the laboratory with my father. It worked well for all of us until my father succeeded in developing the crystal.
"There had been some subtle suggestions from the government about possible military uses for such a crystal. The potential was limitless. Where my father saw an endless energy supply for industry, or a heat source for a frozen planet, the Council saw a weapon. A weapon of such massive destructive force, that we would be invincible. The interest of the Warlords became more and more persistent, more demanding.
"Just before my fifth birthday, the Warlords came and took us to their headquarters. They took Mother to one of the private areas but Rian and I stayed in a windowless room. I have no idea how long they kept us prisoner. To a child, five minutes can be an eternity. When they finally brought Mother to us, we could see that she had been crying. She was so quiet on the trip home. That night, when she told Father about what happened, they began planning our escape. They knew the harassment would continue to escalate until the Warlords got their hands on the crystal. My father never knew who betrayed him, but someone in his lab told the Warlords that my father was successful in his efforts. Father denied the charge, claimed it was an attempt to discredit his research by forcing him to demonstrate a failure. The Warlords apparently believed him, but they followed us everywhere and at odd times of the day or night, a Warlord would come and demand to see everyone in the household. As a precaution, my father increased the blocking power of the cloaking crystals and brought us to the lab with him every day."
She could no longer control the tremors racking her body. A child’s terror, locked in the memory of an adult, was no less horrifying--no easier to rationalize. Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, Kierin rocked against the back of the chair, much like Rian once rocked her. He’d shared her pain then. Now, she was alone.
"Rian would keep me entertained by playing cloak and track with me. He would close his eyes and count while I ran and hid, then he would come looking for me."
"On Anderas, that game is called hide and seek.” Dak whispered, softly.
"I didn’t know until years later that we were setting the stage for our escape. Sometimes my parents would join us in the game. Everyone working at the lab became so accustomed to seeing us sneaking around or climbing into storage bins that no one paid any attention to us.
"One morning, Mother gave me a doll. It was a pathetic little thing, all floppy and plain and made of scraps of cloth. But she told me a story about how lonely and scared the doll was and that I would have to keep her with me all the time. Later, when Rian and I went to hide, I knew the game was different somehow. When Mother found us, we didn’t jump up and laugh as we usually did. She just hugged us and said we had to be very, very quiet and wait for Father to join us."
Every whispered word burned like acid across her tongue. Not in twenty years had she uttered a word about that day. The memories were far too painful.
"I was sleeping in her lap when someone knocked on the wall of the storage bin and told us the Warlords were searching the building for us. Whoever it was must have figured out what we were really doing and tried to warn us. We heard the same knock on the storage bin behind us. Mother told us to pretend we were still playing the game but not to leave the bin. She climbed out just seconds before the Warlords entered the chamber. They took her away. It was a long time before my father joined us. Rian told him about the Warlords and he got so upset. Before he could climb out of the bin, an explosion rocked the building. He grabbed his chest and we thought he’d been hurt."
Kierin forced herself to meet Dak’s eyes. There was no way she could make him understand what her father went through.
"A crystal witch mates for life, Dak. It’s not just words spoken or documents signed. It’s a true joining of the souls. The truth was in my father’s eyes. That explosion had ripped his soul apart. My mother was dead."
In two strides, he was around the table. Scooping her into his arms, he held her close while she cried. Her emotional pain sliced through him. He knew the pain of losing both parents but he had King Zeth, Queen Arica and JarDan to help him heal. Who held you when you cried, baby?
"Rian.” She whispered.
She was picking up on his thoughts again. He slowly stroked her back, smoothing his palm against the softness of her hair. Arica had done much the same for him whenever the memories were too painful to deal with alone. The fire in the cooking pit was little more than embers before Kierin’s sobs quieted. With a shuddering breath, she tried to pull out of his embrace, but he didn’t allow it. She gave up the effort and turned her head to rest in the hollow of his shoulder.
"I don’t remember a lot of what happened next. The transport crews moved the bins and, eventually, they shipped the one where we hid. We traveled for several months before finding this place.” She indicated the cave with a wave of her hand. "My father said it was a perfect hiding place for the crystal."
"He brought the damned thing with him?"
"No. I did."
She pushed herself off of his lap and started down one of the dark corridors. "Don’t you want to see what my family has died to protect?"
"Kierin, wait! You don’t have to do this."
If she heard him, she gave no indication. In her present state-of-mind, he could do nothing but follow her slow progress down the darkened passage. The tunnel was black as sin beyond the faint glow of the fire pit. Instinct urged him to return to the main chamber for a torch. That same instinct warned him not to leave Kierin alone. In the past two weeks, he’d learned to judge her many moods by the expressions in those remarkable aqua eyes. That’s what had him worried. There wasn’t a spark of life in her eyes.
"Come back to the main chamber, little witch. We can do this in the morning.” Dammit, Kierin, where in the hell are you going? All he could do was follow the faint sound of her soft slippers against the smooth rock floor and pray to all the Ancients that there wasn’t a low spot on the ceiling. If he were smart, he’d turn around and go back.
This tunnel was longer than the one to his room. It was hard to judge distance in the total darkness but Dak felt they walked close to half a mile into the bowels of the cave before he noticed a pulsating glow ahead of them. Within minutes the glow illuminated an opening into another chamber.
A quick glance around assured him the room was empty. Kierin sat huddled against the stone wall, her knees hugged tightly to her chest. When he knelt beside her, her gaze never wavered from the center of the room where the pulses of light were strongest.
“Little witch?” He asked softly, stroking the hair from her face. “What is this place?”
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“My father’s crime is on the other side of that black stone outcropping.”
Her whispered directions held no emotion--no life--and Dak shuddered in reaction. Whatever lay beyond his sight was powerful enough to cause the deaths of an entire family and everyone connected to them. Standing, he glanced once at Kierin’s blank face before slowly circling the mass of obsidian stone. The waves of energy were stronger the closer he got to the source but he felt no threat. Considering his recent experience with crystals this knowledge surprised him.
Whatever he expected it wasn’t what he found. At the core of the pulsing light was a clear stone no bigger than his thumbnail. The crystal itself wasn’t impressive but he felt the energy emanating from it like the heartbeat of the mountain itself. No, the crystal didn’t alarm him but the vessel used to transport the stone broke his heart.
Nestled in the dirt was Kierin’s doll. It was a pathetic excuse for a toy. Even the poorest of the villagers on Anderas provided better for their daughters. It was little more than rags tied together and knotted to form knees, elbows and feet. The head, ripped open in a macabre display, cradled the stone. Like a sacrificial offering, Kierin’s one solace--the final link to her mother--forever desecrated in the name of science.
Returning to where she sat still huddled against the wall Dak didn’t waste time with words. He scooped her into his arms and headed back down the dark tunnel. When she turned her face into his neck and gripped his shirt something squeezed his heart. Something alien, unknown and that scared the hell out of him.
Chapter Fourteen
Dak lay stretched across the bed, arms crossed behind his head. Any hope that he might actually sleep through the night was long gone. The flickering candle flame cast eerie shadows across the ceiling and walls. Normally, the softly shifting shapes worked better than a sleeping drug. Not tonight. Hell, not for the past week, if he were honest. Undulating figures, brought to life by his constant state of arousal, performed an erotic ballet for an audience of one. He tried creating less explicit images in the shifting shadows, like a child watching clouds. It didn’t help. Nor did it help to extinguish the candle. That’s when his cursed imagination really took control.
In the total darkness of the cave, he saw her. Her face, soft in sleep. Her delicate body glistening from her bath. That shimmering silver-white mass of hair, hanging loose, begging for his touch. And her mouth. By all the Ancient Prophets, a single taste of her mouth could sustain a man for life--or drive him insane for want of more.
Muttering a string of curses in a variety of languages, Dak lunged off the bed. There would be no more sleep tonight. If he were home, he’d work off his frustrations with a long ride across Falcon Tor or a rigorous workout with the Royal Guard. If I were home, I’d get rid of the problem with a trip to a Pleasure Station. He refused to think about the bitter taste that thought brought him.
There was plenty of work to do around Kierin’s fortress. The first week he worked on the corral fence and out-buildings. Then he started repairing the doors to the different rooms in Kierin’s home. All hung straight and tight in their frames. He tightened joints in chairs and leveled the table. He added shelves in every conceivable location and as fast as he completed one section Kierin filled it. Why did women feel they had to cover every flat surface; fill every nook with something? He had to admit, though, that her delight in these simple additions made him feel good. He felt so good about all that he accomplished that he decided to do something special for his little crystal witch--and that decision brought him to his current state of arousal. Of course, since the night of his freedom from the stone a hard-on was just a heartbeat away.
His bed was comfortable enough with the extra mattresses but when he built shelves in Kierin’s room he saw that her bed was nothing but a single mattress on a rock ledge. He could and would make her a simple bed with wood left from the new corral.
What demon possessed you to add this torture to your fantasies? The original idea was for a plain wooden box with rope stretched between the sides to support her mattress. He could only blame the raging testosterone for burning away his common sense because now--now--the bed was alive with sexual promise. Just a touch of his hand against the wood and he pictured her in the bed and him with her. Oh, the things he could teach her in this bed; the pleasure they could share. He had fifteen days left of his commitment to Kierin. Fifteen days until he could leave and find release at the nearest Pleasure Station.
Well, damn. I think about a Pleasure Station and everything goes limp. What the hell are you doing to yourself, Dak, old man? First you bitch because you can’t get rid of a boner and now you complain because you do. You have lost your mind!
Making his way through the softly illuminated central room, he stopped long enough to add another log on the fire. The temperature dropped significantly at night; another sign of approaching winter. Throwing a heavy, wool cape around his shoulders he made his way through the pre-dawn darkness. The light of the full moon was more than adequate to see where he was walking.
The horses acknowledged his presence with soft whinnies. He fed them and released them into the grassy meadow. Chores completed, he was free to work on the bed. The store room at the back of the stable was bigger than the stable area itself. Other than a couple of tables and a shelf along one wall, the room was empty. Tools were scarce but he managed to find a hammer and a handsaw but the file used to care for the horse’s hooves was his only option for sanding the rough planks. Given the original plan for a simple bed, these were perfect.
Dak activated the illuminating crystals set into the wall with a casual wave, no longer intimidated by the process. Another sign that it was time to leave before he started believing in all of Kierin’s crystals.
The small bed of his original design was now as large as his bed at Falcon Tor. When Kierin saw the bottom frame she laughed and said she would need a bigger mattress. Every day since she would gather basket after basket of soft moss for the stuffing. She finished the new mattress yesterday and he would soon finish the bed but he hadn’t let her see the bed since that first day. He wanted to surprise her. The surprise would be if he didn’t grab her, throw her down on the new mattress and end his torment.
With nothing but the thick planks left from the stable to work with he was limited in design. The headboard curved across the top and when Dak ran his palm over the surface to test the smoothness of the wood he pictured the curve of Kierin’s hip. Instantly, his body reacted to the image. Damn. The footboard was a twin to the headboard except that it was half as tall.
He completed the frame days ago. All it needed was the rope supports tied through the holes on the sides. At least, it should have been--until his creative brain overtook his logical brain and decided to carve the headboard. He didn’t know if he would survive to finish it.
Dak grabbed a stool and started to work. For about the hundredth time, he wished for his carving tools from home. Working with wood was his passion and his extensive set of tools made his designs come to life. As excited as Kierin was about the plain box bed she saw the first day, he wished she could see the cradle he made for Melodie before Elizabeth was born. That was a labor of love, idiot. He ignored that little voice in his head that asked what this design signified.
Using a small knife to carve the design and a heated horseshoe nail as a wood burning tool the mountain scene came alive. He touched the two central peaks and remembered the way Kierin looked in the bathing tent in Cypriana. Her breasts small and firm would easily fit his palm, the nipples hard and aching. A waterfall cascaded between the peaks, flowing to the small lake at the base of the mountain reminding him of Kierin’s hair. He continued to stroke the waterfall, his heart pumping even more blood into his already impressive erection. The slender trees along the edge of the lake were her arms and legs--strong but delicate. At the bottom of the design, along the lower edge of the lake he carved tall, thick grass. It didn’t take a genius to know what that represented. Dak con
tinued stroking the design, tormenting himself, testing the limits of his control.
To hell with it! His hand went for the opening of his pants, needing the release--if only temporarily--of his own hand. Before he could free himself from his clothes Kierin’s voice called to him from the edge of the corral.
“Dak? Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes. Will that give you enough time to finish?”
In about ten seconds before you called. Straightening his clothes, willing his body to cooperate, he called back. “Great! I’m starved.”
“That’s it.” He mumbled to himself. “Finish the damn thing! Today!” All it needed was the rope and Kierin could sleep in her new bed tonight. He didn’t think his control would survive additional work on the scene.
When he walked back into the central room after washing up he helped her set the table. Thick, soft bread still warm from the oven and sweetened stewed fruit completed the simple breakfast of fried fish from the stream. They ate in companionable silence for several minutes when Dak suddenly stopped and looked at Kierin.
“What’s wrong?” He demanded.
She looked confused and glanced around the room. “Nothing. Why do ask?”
“Something’s wrong, little witch. Why don’t you save us both trouble and answer my question?”
Her confused expression hardened before she dropped her spoon and blasted him with her anger. “What are you talking about? For your information, I did answer your question. I told you nothing was wrong and I meant it. NOTHING IS WRONG!” She turned and stomped from the room.
“See. I knew something was wrong. You’re yelling. Why are you angry?” He yelled at her retreating back.
Her answer was a screech to wake the dead and something about men and curses.
Men of Anderas II: Dak the Protector Page 13