“I don’t deny that,” Jamie said softly.
“Then grant Timon the chance to continue serving the greater good. Don’t confine him to a static life in an Enclave or one of the colonies. Let him do what he was born to do.”
Cassius held the door flap open for her, and she stepped through. She found her way through the maze of temporary corridors to the front of the tent and rushed outside. Her legs were unsteady, and she had to stand very still to regain her orientation.
Once she could make her feet move again, she headed back to camp. Timon was waiting in her tent.
“Timon!” she said, stopping at the entrance. “You shouldn’t be—”
“It’s all right,” he said, pulling her into the tent. He took her into his arms and kissed her fiercely, the tips of his cuspids pressing gently into her lower lip.
Jamie broke away, her hands on his chest. “Timon,” she said. “I’ve been thinking—”
“I’ve been thinking, too,” he said, covering her hands with his. “I’ve been selfish, Jamie. I’ve been worrying about myself and ignoring your pain.”
Am I to have so little time? Jamie wondered. Was it going to happen so fast, the decision she had to make?
“What pain, Timon?” she asked, slipping her hands from under his. “I’m fine.”
“But you weren’t,” he said. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I abandoned you. I led you to believe that our relationship was over, that there couldn’t be anything more between us.”
“But I...I understood, Ti—”
“I was wrong,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. She saw what was in his, the warmth and passion and honesty that had nothing to do with the blood-bond. “I need to tell you now, so that there can’t be any question.”
“Stop,” she said, pressing her hand over his mouth. “If you don’t want to hurt me, don’t say anything more.”
His brows drew down in confusion. “Jamie? I wouldn’t—”
“It was my mistake,” she said, desperately clinging to her resolve. “I thought I...felt things... I misled myself, and you.”
Timon took a step backward, his gaze moving over her face. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I know what you were about to say,” she said. “But you can’t have thought it through, Timon. I’m human, and you’re virtually immortal. You have your way of life, and I have mine.” She half stumbled back toward her cot. “We’re too different, Timon. This can’t go anywhere.”
For a moment, she was sure he hadn’t accepted her act. His lips parted, and he drew breath to speak.
Then, suddenly, he seemed to understand. The warmth in his eyes drained away. “What happened, Jamie?” he asked.
She knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. Not when he’d been about to speak the words she’d longed to hear. Words he was unlikely to repeat ever again.
“I came to my senses,” she said, looking away. “I care about you, Timon. I accept the blood-bond, and I want to continue giving you blood as long as you need it. But if you know of any kind of cure, maybe you should consider trying it, so when the Conclave is over—”
“I won’t need you anymore,” he said coldly.
“I’m sorry, Timon. I’m—” She turned her back on him, afraid he might still see the lie. Her vision was blurred with tears. Timon made no sound at all.
When she turned back toward him, struggling to think of something to say, he was already gone.
* * *
Timon didn’t believe it.
He strode away from the camp toward the corral, his guts churning along with his thoughts. Jamie had known exactly what he’d been about to say, and he’d expected her to welcome his words, to fall into his arms and whisper them back to him. Nothing else would have mattered.
But she had made other things matter, things he had already decided were of little importance. It was true that they’d never discussed the even the possibility of a future together; until Timon had come to his senses, there’d been no reason to.
Perhaps it was impossible for Jamie to accept that he couldn’t love her once she grew older, slowly changing in strength and appearance as he remained the same. Perhaps she truly thought that they were too different—that he could never give up the Riders, or adapt to her way of life.
Yet if she believed those things, she would have considered them from the beginning. She would never have let their relationship get this far, well before she knew of the blood-bond. He hadn’t misinterpreted her feelings.
No, something was wrong. Perhaps Cahill had gotten to her, or even her godfather.
Timon stepped in the middle of the main thoroughfare, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Why hadn’t she been honest with him? What had become of his earnest, straightforward Jamie?
You waited too long, he thought. You weren’t honest with her.
Timon reached the corral, where an eager Lazarus was waiting for his daily exercise, ears pricked and head extended. He nickered and bumped Timon’s chest as Timon entered the gate.
“Who is it, boy?” Timon said, scratching the horse behind the ears. “Cahill is too obvious, and she’d never listen to him.”
Lazarus bobbed his head.
“Councilman Parks didn’t see us together after we reached the Conclave,” Timon said. “Who else could have that much influence over her?”
The horse stamped, reminding Timon that Lazarus was ready to be on his way across the rolling desert plain. He was a true Rider’s mount, never content to stay in one place for long, bred to remain with the Brotherhood until old age claimed him. Like the Riders themselves.
“I never thought I could leave,” he said to Lazarus. “If not for Jamie...”
If Jamie were out of the way, he’d naturally remain with the Riders until he was no longer capable of staying in the saddle. There would never be another like her to tempt him. His life would be simple again.
Why look for explanations? he asked himself with a flash of anger. Take her at her word. “Cassius was right,” he said while Lazarus snuffled at his jacket. “He said that there’s a reason we don’t have relationships outside the Brotherhood. It makes us weak. As it’s made me.”
Lazarus slobbered on his shoulder. Timon pulled the horse’s head down and rested his forehead against Lazarus’s face.
“Timon?”
He turned to find Orpheus at his shoulder, his hand resting on Lazarus’s back.
“Orpheus,” Timon grunted. “I’m not in the mood for talking, and I need to exercise Lazarus.”
“I can see that,” Orpheus said. “But I thought there was something you should know about Ms. McCullough.”
“What about her?” Timon asked, a strangling fist taking hold of his heart.
“She asked me to steal the official report on what happened to Nereus.”
“When?”
“After I helped her get into headquarters to examine Nereus’s body.” He cleared his throat. “I had the feeling that she didn’t plan to tell you.”
Why? Timon thought. Because she was afraid I’d warn her not to get further involved?
She would have been right.
“Did you get it for her?” he asked Timon.
“Not yet,” Orpheus said. “She asked me to keep trying. Since you’ve been so worried about her—”
“Thank you, Brother,” Timon said, gripping Orpheus’s shoulder. “Don’t do anything else she asks of you. I’ll take care of this.”
Orpheus was obviously relieved. “Good. I wasn’t looking forward to fielding questions from Cassius if I was caught.”
Especially, Timon thought, after he had been under suspicion.
“Will you do me a favor and exercise Lazarus?” Timon asked. “I have other business to attend to.”
/> “Of course,” Orpheus said, taking hold of the horse’s halter. “Don’t be too hard on her, Timon. She was trying to help clear you.”
Trying to help the man she’d declared she couldn’t share her life with. Timon exhaled sharply and strode out of the corral. Evidently Jamie was prepared to be cautious with their relationship, but not where the incident with Nereus was concerned. She had a bee in her bonnet, and Timon’s gut told him that she was still on a collision course with trouble.
She said she’d still let him take blood from her. If that was the only excuse he had to see her, it would have to be enough.
He made it to headquarters in half the usual time, pushing through the people waiting at reception and continuing deeper into the warren of corridors and temporary rooms. He stopped at the door flap of Cassius’s office.
“Captain,” he said.
“Come,” Cassius said.
Timon entered and stood in front of the desk. Cassius was slow to look up.
“What is it, Timon?” he asked in a clipped voice.
“I have a request to make.”
The captain stopped what he was doing and met Timon’s gaze. “And what is that?” he asked.
“Cast me out of the Brotherhood.”
Chapter 26
“What?” Cassius said, his voice cracking with surprise.
“You must know that I never stopped seeing the human woman, Jamie McCullough.”
“I am aware of this, yes.”
Timon chose his words carefully, determined not to let Cassius guess at his true feelings. “I’ve been intimate with her since we arrived.”
Resting his hands flat on the desktop, Cassius stared at the stack of paper to his left. “I seem to remember that we discussed this when you first returned.”
“Yes,” Timon said.
“And you said you had not developed an emotional attachment to her beyond admiration, respect and perhaps a little affection. Do I take it that you were lying?”
The words were harsh, but Timon had been prepared for them. “I didn’t plan for it to go on. She gave her blood to me, and we fell back into the pattern of our journey.”
“I see.” Cassius looked up again. “You said that you were with us, with the Brotherhood. Are you now saying that you wish to abandon us for this human female?”
“No, Captain. That was never my intention.”
“Then guilt has driven you to this? Are you asking for punishment?”
“I may deserve punishment for my errors in judgment,” Timon said, “but that isn’t why I want you to cast me out.”
The captain waved him toward one of the two free chairs. Timon sat on the edge and held Cassius’s gaze.
“You sent my band to find out if the San Francisco delegation was hiding a secret that might be dangerous to the Conclave,” he said. “I told you I hadn’t found any such secret. But I have since learned that I may have been mistaken.”
“Why?” Cassius asked, a spark in his pale eyes.
“Subtle things, bits of conversation. My intimacy with Ms. McCullough has allowed me to observe her delegation a little more closely, but I haven’t been able to get far enough to prove anything.” He hesitated. “She’s broken off with me because she sees no future for us. If she thinks I’m no longer with the Brotherhood, her attitude may change. And I may get the chance I need to expose whatever they’re hiding.”
Cassius returned his attention to the stack of paper, his silence so long and heavy that it seemed he had forgotten that Timon was present.
“You ask me to take a great risk,” Cassius said at last. “You ask me to trust you, when you have already broken that trust by continuing to see this woman.”
“If I betray your trust again,” Timon said, his chest tight, “then you can cast me out in fact, not merely as a pretense. And I don’t want to lose the Brotherhood. Or you.”
Pushing his chair away from the desk, Cassius rose. “I have no desire to lose you, either. But make no mistake—I will see you expelled if I ever have reason to believe that you’ve asked this for personal reasons rather than for the good of the Riders and the mission assigned to us.”
“I understand,” Timon said, inclining his head. “Will I be permitted to keep Lazarus?”
“I doubt he’d be of use to anyone but you.”
“When will you announce the expulsion?”
“Tonight,” Cassius said. “I’ll make it known to all the Brotherhood, and let the words spread from there. You will feel the disgrace, Timon, but it will not be real. This time.”
“Thank you for giving me this chance to complete my mission,” Timon said.
Cassius waved a hand in dismissal. “Go now. Play your part well, and I will arrange a way for you to get messages to me as you gain additional information.”
Acknowledging the dismissal, Timon left the office. He had acted recklessly, knowing that he might have put himself on the path to losing both Jamie and the Riders.
But he’d made his decision, and now it was only a matter of waiting until the entire Conclave knew that he was no longer worthy of being a Rider.
* * *
“I wonder what he did?” Greg asked Jamie, making no attempt to smother the grin on his face. “It must have been pretty bad for him to be ejected from the Brotherhood.”
Jamie sat at the table in the central tent, working to control her emotions. Timon, cast out of the Riders. She could hardly believe it, and all she wanted at that moment was to find Timon and ask him what he’d done.
It has to do with me, she thought grimly. His exile had been announced the night after she and Timon had quarreled, if that was the right word. Had she hurt him so badly that he’d done something his fellow Riders couldn’t accept?
She had no way of knowing all the rules by which the Riders lived their lives. But if she was to blame...
“Excuse me,” she said, getting up from the table. “I think I’ll take a walk around the encampment.”
“Worried about Timon?” Greg asked. “He was the one who rejected you, remember?”
Greg had been so eager to tell her of his conversation with Timon, but he had no idea what had happened afterward. How she had done the rejecting.
“Don’t go near the Opiri,” Amos called after as she exited the tent.
That was the last thing Jamie intended to do. She half ran out of the circle of tents, following one of the lanes between delegate camps toward the main thoroughfare. The hot July sun seemed to beat against her body. Without thinking, she found herself walking toward the eastern perimeter of the tent city, where the camp followers, tinkers and Wanderers had made their temporary home.
She sat down on a patch of dry grass at the edge of the dusty road and caught her breath. She wondered if she’d come in this direction because she expected Timon to have left the Conclave. But it would have made more sense for him to go by way of the corral, if he’d been permitted to take his horse with him.
She could scarcely blame him for leaving without saying goodbye. But maybe he was still here, making preparations.
Rising unsteadily, she was just about to turn back for the Hub when she saw a man walking away from the Wanderers’ camp, his head down and his shoulders slumped. She froze as she recognized him.
“Timon?” she called out softly.
He looked up, his expression shifting to a wary mask. “Jamie,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
She looked past him at the wagons. “I thought you might have left.”
“Not yet.” He stopped in front of her, his eyes searching hers. “I went to ask some advice from a friend.”
But not from me, she thought. What on earth could she tell him? That she was sorry for his loss?
“I know you might not want to talk
to me,” she said, suppressing her sudden desire to flee. “But I just... I—” She shook her head. “What did you do, Timon? How could this have happened?”
His gaze shifted away from hers. “I made a mistake,” he said.
“What mistake?”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Was it about me?”
He met her eyes again. “I continued to pursue a relationship with you,” he said. “I broke the rules of the Brotherhood.”
Oh, God, Jamie thought. Why did Cassius warn me to stay away from Timon if he already meant to do this?
She couldn’t bring herself to tell Timon about that conversation, even now. But was it possible that Cassius had also spoken to Timon, and that Timon had defied him?
The only reason he would have done that was because of her. Because he hadn’t given up on her, in spite of what she’d told him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling ill. “This is my fault.”
“No.” He reached out and brushed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “I knew what I was doing. I was trying to balance the two things most important to me, and I failed.”
Jamie’s heart beat sluggishly. She could admit that her feelings for him hadn’t changed, that she’d deceived him in order to save him. But now that he’d been expelled from the Brotherhood, would he still want her?
“What do you plan to do?” she asked, her voice not quite steady.
“I’m not leaving,” he said, dropping his hand. “There are a few loose ends I need to tie up.”
“Loose ends?”
“I’m still the only one who knows your secret, Jamie. We both had to deal with Nereus. And now I hear that you aren’t done with your investigation.”
“What? But I—”
“You asked Orpheus to help you sneak into the Riders’ headquarters, and now you’ve asked him to steal medical records. I can’t have you putting him at risk. I, on the other hand...” He smiled. “I don’t have much to lose.”
“But you disapprove.”
“Because you’re investigating something that may not turn out to be what you expect.”
Twilight Crossing Page 17