Trevarr still slept deeply — something else she’d never seen. Except now he was shirtless. The pants had somehow been too much bother to remove, especially given the convenient way they were put together.
Not to mention the way they came apart.
Garrie took another breath, long and silent. But smiling.
She toed her sneakers off and eased past the kitchen to drop two bags and a couple of Keharian sticks into the tea mug. Not without a grimace at the pungent scent, but it had certainly done well by Trevarr so far.
She eased into the bathroom and gave her hair a few pointless licks with a brush, careful of the spreading bruise on her forehead. Meg Ryan hair at its shortest and bed-headiest — except hers was nut brown with silvered blue streaks that she no longer had to create herself.
Her skin still did the shimmer thing it had acquired in San Jose, but if the vortex had left a mark, she had yet to find it. Not even dressed for a workout, with a spaghetti strap tank over a sport bra with no attempt to hide the one with the other and running shorts she’d gotten in the juniors department complete with Sweet! inscribed across one cheek.
Always just a little too spare, curves always a bit too subtle. But they were there, she realized, in a way she hadn’t seen — until Trevarr had traced them so reverently during the night, and then possessed them so fiercely.
Yeah. Look at that. She looked... relaxed. Huh.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just what that meant.
She set the brush back into her toiletries bag, quietly — all too aware of the gift bag from Robin’s store beside it. Nothing like a little tourist trap collection of geodes and crystals to camouflage several otherworldly plasmic energy storage devices. The trokhilar.
Well. She did like the geodes.
She left the rest of ablutions for later — still flushed from the exercise and ready for a shower, but waiting until Trevarr woke.
She didn’t think he slept like this very often.
Like, in a bed.
He sprawled across the whole mattress, covers everywhere. Just enough room, she thought, to curl up beneath that out-flung arm and soak up another moment or so of quiet before the day started. To ponder the fading bruises and ugly abrasions and to absorb his unusual warmth and smile to herself, thinking of the previous night. Of those times during the night when the wild ferocity within him touched her so deeply — the flinging sensation of freedom, a soaring through darkness and strength.
She recollected it and held onto it as if she could simply soak that sensation into her being and have it forever, whenever.
He opened his eyes, looking straight at her. No muzziness there, just the clear, alert gaze in a face of hard male beauty. The whole of him came awake, just like that — an awareness thrumming through him that hadn’t been there moments earlier.
“Shh,” she said. “It’s quiet. That’s all. We’re being quiet.”
And he said nothing, but shifted his arm slightly to encompass her.
Quiet.
Just being.
::Trey!::
We’re being quiet, she thought at Sklayne.
No more warning that that and here he came, poof! into the room, condensing into red buff cat, black-ticked hair and green eyes and regal face, much with the ears. ::Treyyy! They come —::
Garrie spent a precious moment frowning — not immediately understanding.
Trevarr’s repose vanished; all his ferocity filled the room. He threw off the tangled covers, rolled off the bed to his feet — except the leg gave way beneath him.
The weakness hardly slowed him. He wrenched into balance, snatching his leather satchel from the headboard and his duster from the chair. The satchel, upended, dumped scattered tangles of metal and bright color and personal sundries — and by then Sklayne had leaped to the bed, using all his dexterous claws and a sporadically forming thumb to pull out the items with which Garrie was most familiar.
The ekhevia. The oskhila. The knotted kirkhirrah belt and dark vial.
Garrie bounced out of bed, too — not exactly speechless, but knowing better.
They come.
Something big. Something not entirely unexpected.
She waited until they had what they wanted — until Trevarr had shoved the chosen items into his duster’s infinite pockets, his hands unerringly retrieving Lukkas while he was at it. “What can I do?”
“Be quiet,” Trevarr said, finally tending his pants flap. And to Sklayne, “How long?”
::No long.::
“Be quiet?” Garrie repeated.
He glanced her way, testing his leg. Nothing on his face but a pure hard desperation. “As we spoke. Quiet. Keep yourself inside.”
Blinding understanding. How casual that conversation had been, the day they’d arrived in Sedona. “Can you keep yourself from them?”
He hadn’t meant the ghosts at all.
“This is what you were talking about,” she blurted. “What you’ve been ready for all along. Your people. And now you want me to hide myself from them.”
“Yes,” he said, blunt grimness. “Physically, you cannot hide from Ghehera. Physically, they will find you. Ethereally, they cannot.”
::Told you! Told you!:: Sklayne’s outline shifted slightly, his coat sparking. Claws peeked into existence and subsided, talons flexing and fleeing. ::Cannot save us if saving her!::
And then, as a wave of spicy dark energy washed through the breezes, Garrie quite suddenly understood it all. Stood stunned and stupid and disbelieving and knowing all at the same time.
“You’re not in exile,” she said. “You’re on the run. They still want you!”
::You!:: Sklayne spat. ::The Garrie! They want the Garrie!::
“I—” She blinked. “What —?”
Trevarr moved around the bed to snag her arm — not a smooth stride, but a lurch. He jerked her in close and held her tight, and she felt in that embrace his fear that she would not, could not hear him. “They felt you, those moments you left the lair. They felt something of what you did to save us all. They had the shattered memories from the broken Krevata. They wanted—”
“Me,” she breathed, suddenly so frightened she couldn’t move. “Oh my God. They want me.”
Not Trevarr. Never Trevarr. And by protecting her, he had risked everything.
Sklayne paced frantically along the wall, grabbing an anxious swallow from the wall socket. ::Free the geas, Trey. Free! Let me take them!::
No! Trevarr’s vehement refusal hit Sklayne strongly enough to echo through to Garrie. “Should they find out all of what you are, little friend? Your entire people would be forfeit.” He sent a pointed look at Garrie. “Shield her. Keep her silent.”
“Mrrrr.” It came out as a sad little sound, almost washed away by a second gust of rising breeze and thickening air.
“They asked you for me and you wouldn’t give me up. And they’re coming for you.” Garrie struggled to process what she’d heard. All the inexplicable little things she’d seen, all of Trevarr’s wariness and Sklayne’s pointed comments. That moment at the Arch when Ghehera’s energies had disrupted all.
Looking for Garrie.
“If I’m quiet,” she said, her tone making it clear she wasn’t sure she’d be any such thing, “I can’t help you.”
“Do not,” he said, his eyes gone pewter dark, the pupils wide with intensity. “Do not think it. My people—”
Nothing to clear the head like a good kick of guilt. Because he’d given up everything to be here — his people, his freedom, his way of life. To protect her.
He’d given up his world.
“Trevarr,” she said, suddenly so scared it was all she could manage — searching his face for the determination she knew, the reassurance.
Not finding it.
“Remember,” he said, growing fierce again, pulling her close. “What comes now. It is what must be done. Remember.” He kissed her, then — hard and thoroughly and with a poignant desperation that made her cry even as
she clung to him, fear-cold fingers on warm flesh.
And the door blew open.
Open and off the hinges, slamming against the wall and crashing to the floor. Three huge forms stood blocking all the diffuse morning light with size and strength and confident intention. Hunters.
The men looked everything like him and nothing like him. Harsher in feature, taller; two of them beefier and the third bigger all around. One wore his hair shorn, tattoos heavy on his scalp.
Or not tattoos at all. Hard, tight scales, etched so sharply that Garrie thought they might peel right away. Another’s hair pulled back in a rough ponytail, while the oldest had so many little tiny braids — just like Trevarr’s, silvered and tight — that there was little free hair left at all.
They bore knives and swords; they bothered with neither, garnished in black leather gloves with weighted metal knuckles; studded wrist guards and protective collars. The oldest scraped his eyes over Garrie and made a derisive comment, harsh words with a thick tongue.
Sklayne hissed bravely from under the bed.
Translate! she demanded of him.
::Quiet! Be you his atreya and be quiet!::
It was a stinging scold she hadn’t expected to hear from that quirky being. She buttoned herself up tight, tight, tighter — there in Trevarr’s arms, trembling and not even pretending she wasn’t. He kept her tucked up close and tight — giving every impression of a man interrupted in pleasure, and not at all impressed by the interruption at that. He returned derision with words of disdain.
Garrie caught Sklayne peeking; she glared. Message clear enough. Translate for me, or there will be no quiet.
His energy, a touch of cool crystal breeze, circled her and clamped down tight. ::Raxl says we should have known we would find you with a — like this. Trey says they might as well leave, because there will be nothing left of you for them when he is done anyway.::
Okay. She’d asked, hadn’t she?
Raxl, he’d said. He knew the man. Probably knew all three of them, but Raxl spoke for them. With impatience.
::You know what we want, you —:: Sklayne hesitated, didn’t translate that last precisely. ::Rudeness. Heritage slander. Killing words.::
And indeed, the tension hummed through Trevarr — the impulse. He snapped a reply, dutifully translated: ::I told them the man they seek is dead.::
He pushed Garrie away — roughly, at that, and onto the bed. Hard enough so she bounced. But she’d heard. She’d understood. I told them the man is dead.
They didn’t know they were looking for a woman.
She scrabbled across the bed and to find her feet on the other side, looking as stunned and stupid as she could. Not far enough from the truth anyway. But here, on the floor, her things waited.
The knife. Truly hers, now. Blooded. Her hand closed over it.
Sklayne’s head popped up in front of her. ::No!::
No doubt he’d meant to startle her into dropping the thing.
Trevarr was without cover, now — his uneven stance revealed, his injuries revealed... his sword revealed.
The bald hunter lifted his lips into a derisive sneer of a smile, rumbling a few words in a voice almost too low to hear. Sklayne said, ::This is more like it. Not so distracted by your scrawny little piece of —::
Hesitation. ::Sorry. Forgot to make nicer.::
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but what happened next.
Trevarr’s voice was quiet enough. ::The man they want is dead. You tell them that when you leave this place.::
Raxl snorted. ::They didn’t believe it the first time. They didn’t believe it when you ran. They won’t believe it now.:: He showed his teeth in a threatening smile. Really, really ugly teeth. ::We don’t believe you, either. Take us to him, or come with us now. Ghehera will get what it wants in its own way. I hear Anjhela misses you.::
Trevarr raised his hands from his sides, a quiet but distinct gesture. Come and take me, then.
No! Garrie wanted to scream it, to throw herself between them. Sklayne snaked out a paw, pricking her shin hard.
And even if she didn’t want to, she understood. Trevarr had taken things this far, this fast, because she couldn’t stay quiet forever. She couldn’t hide forever. And they couldn’t talk their way out of this at all.
Come and take me, then.
They did.
Three of them, hale and hearty and large, working as a precision team. The first took a swift deep hit in the arm, but Garrie knew better than to hope. He’d be used to pain, as was Trevarr. He was strong. He’d heal. They’d all heal.
And it meant they had little respect for a blade, as sharp and quick as it was, in the hands of a man with one good leg and one good arm.
Trevarr went down hard. He went down fast.
Garrie groped for the knife... she groped for courage and for wits, and she couldn’t take her eyes off jumbled arms and legs and bodies, a glimpse of Trevarr twisting beneath them, pinned tight and anger rising. She felt it, the cold rush of heat, the dark slash of unfurling wing — she felt what it evoked in her, and she panicked, knowing she couldn’t quiet it. She couldn’t hide it. And Sklayne couldn’t hide it.
Trevarr wrenched his head to find her gaze... and he knew.
I’m sorry, she said — not loud enough for it to go anywhere, but enough to come through in her eyes, loss of control rising and imminent.
Hard decision shuttered his expression. He shouted something — not at the hunters, not at Garrie, but to Sklayne’s shadow under the bed. Ritualized words, rhythmic and fast and followed by a terrible, terrible feline howl of sorrow.
Then his eyes flared bright and hard and fierce and the defiance exploded from his throat, all roar and bellow. Disarmed, buried under their collective weight, weakened and broken —
He went for them.
And she saw the fear on their faces. Raxl rolled away, stunned and streaming blood; another cursed with pain, a small wicked knife sprouting from his chest. They shouted discordant fury and as the third man spun away in an arcing spray of black blood and Raxl threw himself back into the fight, eyes pulsing red and gold. He brought his weighted fists down with the force of his body behind them.
Trevarr grunted, a raw deep sound, and went limp.
No.
Atreyo, no!
Sklayne raked unkind claws across her mind, a rebuke thick with sorrow.
The hunters wasted no time. They climbed to their feet, exchanged a few curt, harsh words as Raxl snapped scorn at those wounded by their own weapons, whipping a quick leather tourniquet on the bald man’s arm.
No!
Garrie’s hand closed around the knife.
Raxl gestured and the other two hunters limped over and hefted Trevarr between them, careless with his arm, careless with his leg; careless with his head as it hung slack, his hair trailing the ground.
And then they took him away.
“No!” Garrie screamed it, finally, bouncing up on the bed, oblivious of Sklayne’s claws digging into her ankle. She would have launched herself off and after Trevarr, had Raxl not plucked her lightly out of the air and effortlessly flung her back to the bed.
::Quiet,:: Sklayne hissed from beneath the bed, his mind’s voice sounding ragged and wounded. ::Quiet, quiet, quiet, atreyva.::
As if she could do anything but scrabble away, the knife slicing through bedding and mattress alike in her wake.
Raxl looked hard at her — he looked with threat and intent, decision hovering. ::Scrawny,:: he sneered, words coming through Sklayne in a numbly rote voice. ::Dragon-bait.::
And he left her.
With Sklayne crying soft cat-wails under the bed, Trevarr’s belongings littering the room, disaster scattered around them...
They took Trevarr, and they left her.
Chapter 32
The Sudden Brush of Air
“Hold fast, child.”
— Rhonda Rose
“Waiting is for when you’ve already let go.”
<
br /> — Lisa McGarrity
Lucia strolled down the curving path between the Journey Inn’s widely spaced units, stretching muscles still sleepy as she headed to the room that had originally been Quinn’s but now, she was certain, had been thoroughly occupied by Garrie and Trevarr.
Thoroughly.
She smiled. Here in the light heat of the early day, the sun was just coming up and the birds were still active; a hummingbird strafed past her head and away. And Lucia — fresh, clean, lightly splashed with a crisp citrus scent and her hair sleek on her shoulders — thought it all good.
She also thought she had best not hurry. She suspected she would interrupt something no matter when she reached Garrie’s cabinlet, and if Trevarr wasn’t naturally an early riser... well, he would be today. All puns intended.
And she’d never seen that look on Garrie’s face before.
Or Quinn’s, if it came to that. She hadn’t told Garrie yet; Robin hadn’t quite decided. But with repairs to do on Crystal Winds, insurance claims in the works, healing to do... Robin might just close the store for this hottest of summer months and recover in Albuquerque. Recover... assess. Plan. Albuquerque and Sedona... not so very far away, really.
Butterflies fluttered off to the side, in Feather’s carefully tended xeriscaping, along with honeybees and morning birds, and the rustle of a squirrel off to the side. “I am in Bambieville,” she announced to it, and it flicked its tail at her and ambled a few steps away. “If you all burst into song, I — I’ll... Well, don’t. Just don’t do it.”
And yes, still smiling. Right up until the moment she glanced at the double cabin and realized that not just one door hung askew, but both.
Broken. Shattered inward. Violently breached.
Lucia faltered — and then she ran. Sprinting in her dainty sandals, listening for sounds of ongoing conflict, hearing nothing.
She flung herself at the door — used the frame to stop her motion, and peered, panting, into the studio space of the room. “Madre de Dios.”
Blood and more blood.
At least, she thought it was blood. It was black, even hardly dried. Black and thick and full of musky odor.
Garrie crumpled in the middle of one heavily used bed, sheets tangled everywhere, her shirt twisted up her torso. She sprang up when she realized she wasn’t alone, that world’s sharpest knife gripped in her hand as if she had quite suddenly grown used to using it, her eyes fierce and wild and her teeth bared. But just as suddenly she saw Lucia, and all that fight fled right out of her.
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