Acacia scrutinized her. “You’re looking good.”
“Thank you. How’s the building refurbishing coming along?”
Rolling her eyes, Acacia said, “Slowly, but I’ll be able to get rid of a lot of frustration here.”
The thirty-second bell rang and the gym fell silent. With a quick glance, Camellia saw that Laev Hawthorn was fighting . . . and there was a group of cats in a corner. Not many people of her own rank were there, and hers was the lowest rank.
A buzzer honked and all stepped past the lines and bowed. Then the fight was on. The melee scrum was rough and scary, exhilarating. All levels took part, though those who were higher—like Laev T’Hawthorn and the Hollys—tended to wipe the floor with anyone lower who strayed into their area. Camellia was watching Laev from the corner of her eyes until she was taken down by another woman and she had to concentrate on getting her own back.
Like most of her rank, she was ruled “dead” long before those at the higher levels were finished fighting. Instead of going to the waterfall rooms like a few others did, she sat on the sidelines and watched with most everyone else. She saw the great T’Holly himself was there, and a few more men well known as fighters, such as T’Ash and Cratag T’Marigold. More, in the far corner away from the humans, cats were tumbling and playing. Mica was wiped from the challenge even before Camellia, and when she sat on the rolled mat, Mica crawled into her lap with a whimpering, Hurt.
Danith D’Ash came up to them, said, “Let me look at you.” She ran her hands over Mica and pronounced, “You’re good enough. You need to eat better, though.” Danith shot a look toward Camellia, who raised her hands.
“I can control what she eats at home. She begs at the teahouses, and my staff are soft touches. She goes to other places outside my control.”
The animal Healer sighed and plopped down beside them, and said, “I understand that. I have a prime moocher in my household, T’Ash’s FamCat, Zanth.” She glanced over to the men still fighting and Camellia looked, too. Only men were on the floor, even Acacia Bluegum had been defeated.
“Oh, they’ve aligned according to generations.” There weren’t many men T’Holly’s age, and just before he went down, his sons broke from their own generations—Holm with T’Ash’s group and Tinne Holly with the younger Laev—and the Hollys took on all the rest.
Laev wasn’t the first to fall and Camellia took secret pride in that, and, again, he’d lasted longer than his Fam. Brazos was at the line designating the fighting area as Laev rose, rubbing his shoulder. Zanth cheated! Brazos projected.
Camellia figured the black cat was lying. She was pretty sure that cats had few rules and none when fighting. Laev picked up Brazos and petted him. You did very well. And Camellia figured that was a lie, too. Laev wouldn’t have had time to watch his cat. But it was a good idea. Still petting Mica, Camellia said, “You did well, too.”
Thrashing her tail, Mica said, Yes, but I do not like to fight, I like to eat better. I will not play again.
A groan and a swear ripened the air and announced the downfall of two more fighters. One was the uncanny Vinni T’Vine, the other a member of the new noble Family, the Clovers. The only non-Hollys now were Cratag T’Marigold and T’Ash, and a few minutes later they went down under the onslaught of the three men.
The Hollys broke into identical grins, slapping each other, then bowed to each other.
Laev dropped down on the other side of Camellia.
She tensed only a little.
Here he comes, Brazos said. The CHEAT.
“Oh, dear,” Danith D’Ash said.
A large cat splotched with black and white swaggered around the floor, a ribbon in his mouth. The infamous Zanth, T’Ash’s FamCat. He came up to Danith and dropped the ribbon on her feet, revved a purr that reverberated off the walls.
ME WIN! ME ALWAYS WIN! the cat shouted mentally, loudly enough that everyone in the room heard him. T’Ash joined his HeartMate. “Good job, Zanth.”
“Yessss,” Zanth vocalized, then moved to touch his nose to Mica’s. YOU ARE PRETTY.
Mica purred. Brazos growled. Zanth looked at Brazos and said, YOUR SIRE FAT, BLACK PIERRE. He sniffed.
Danith hopped to her feet, hauled the large cat up in her arms. “Not another sinus infection, Zanth. Sorry, we need to leave. Playtime’s over.”
T’Ash laughed, put his arms around his woman and Fam, and they vanished.
Many smiled at that and headed toward the waterfalls.
Laev’s arm wrapped around Camellia’s shoulders and he squeezed. Glancing down at Brazos, he said, “There is usually someone better than you. Get used to it.”
I am a wonderful YOUNG Cat, Brazos said.
“Yes,” Camellia soothed.
Mica leapt from Camellia’s lap, rubbed against Brazos. I like you better. You have nice long fur.
I do, Brazos preened. He stared at Laev. You smell sweaty.
Laev laughed. “I do, so does Camellia.” His eyelids lowered. “Essence of woman.”
“Which means I need to take a waterfall.” She stood, shook her limbs out before they stiffened too much.
He stepped close to her. Then he captured her hand and brought it to his lips, bowed and kissed it, meeting her eyes, his own gaze fathomless. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“I want to get to know you better. I’ll buy you a drink—tea, caff, whiskey. We can talk.”
Her mouth was hanging open, she knew. Surely one of the knocks on her head hadn’t cause hallucinations, had they?
He flung out an arm as if encompassing the whole world. “I’ve the urge to see the Great Labyrinth Fair. I’ve never been and would like to experience it with you. Come with me.”
So he was following urges—due to testosterone from fighting?—dangerous urges that might sweep them both up if she wasn’t careful.
Nineteen
Camellia’s heart thumped fast and hard, near pain. He was getting far too close emotionally. He threatened her peace. This could be the start of him thinking about an affair with her, and the more she withdrew, the more he’d pursue.
As far as she could tell, he wasn’t interested in anything long term. Flirting, bed games . . . and he didn’t know they already had mental sex. . . . and he didn’t know they were HeartMates, did he?
HeartMates, bonded mates so close that if one died the other followed within a year. That should scare him as much as it did her.
But she wasn’t allowed to tell him that they were HeartMates. That was usually because a HeartMate wanted to claim the other, and to tell someone they were your HeartMate took away free will.
So even though she might use the fact to discourage Laev, if she told him, she’d still be breaking the law, and that didn’t sit well with her.
Maybe there was another way.
She looked around, the space was still busy with people going to and from the waterfalls and the teleportation pad. The Hollys had gone into their private office. No one appeared as if they were watching Laev and her, not even their Fams, who were interacting with the remaining cats.
She wetted her lips and his stare dropped to them. With the hand he still held, she drew him to the wall, lowered her voice, though she didn’t look at him. “You know those hot and sweaty dreams you’ve been having?”
He stiffened abruptly beside her, not looking at her.
“I’ve been having them, too.”
Slowly his head turned. His eyes had widened, his beautiful lavender irises nearly lost by the dilation of his pupils.
He understood what she was saying. He dropped her hand, nodded to her, and walked away.
It hurt, a lot. More than she’d anticipated.
Stup! That was what she’d wanted, right? Despite all the progress she’d made in the last few weeks, she didn’t want a real lover, true intimacy.
She’d given in to her fears.
But so had he.
Laev kept walking. The knowledge was too sudden and huge. The pai
n it could bring, also huge. He strode across the gym, into the men’s rooms, and to the cubby that held his clothes and the pistols. He’d said the strongest protection charm on the small space, along with placing an alarm on it that would have been heard throughout the building. The weapons were safe. He flipped open the box to see them and double-checked, closed it. And stood, wondering what to do.
If he went home to the Residence in this stunned state, his Family and the house itself would fuss. But there was nowhere else he wanted to be. Despite his earlier set-down of Alma and the Residence, they would still be nosey.
As he would have been if any other of the Family looked as if they received a blow that made them look . . . he went to see himself in a mirror and found he appeared a little wild-eyed but collected.
Still, the Family would sense his upset, even if he stayed in his rooms.
He could go to the Great Labyrinth, walk the path. Since he’d never been, there might be a lot of welcoming and socializing expected. No. He also recalled that some of his cuzes would be manning the Hawthorn shrine and booth.
Where else? He belonged to a couple of social clubs but needed to be alone. In a cave perhaps. The image of Darjeeling’s HouseHeart flashed before his mind’s eye and he knew that would be good—but impossible.
Which left his own Residence HouseHeart, a place he hadn’t been in a while. Brazos, teleporting in one minute. There was a hiss in his mind from his cat, then he shot through the doors.
Too much hurry.
Laev shrugged, tucked the pistol box under his arm.
You did not waterfall and change.
No, come along. He’d only be in his bedroom long enough to dump his clothes in the cleanser and strip. Brazos hopped onto his shoulder.
On three. One, Laev T’Hawthorn, two, Brazos cat, three! They arrived in his bedroom, Brazos leapt from his shoulder, and Laev disposed of his clothes, picked up the pistol box again.
He padded to the corner and a hidden panel, Brazos twining around his calves, purring. Laev opened a piece of molding and pressed the fingertip indentations in the proper sequence. The panel slid aside and he stepped into an omnivator that would hold five. Brazos slipped in. His loud purr echoed in the space. The door slid shut and Laev opened a shallow hidden drawer, took out the petrified thorn, and pricked his finger, let three drops of blood drip to the floor.
Brazos stared at the red droplets that faded to brown and disappeared. The omnivator slanted down and southeast. When it stopped, Laev splayed his hand, blood welling again from his finger, against the door. It opened, they stepped into a space equal to that of the omnivator. When the doors closed behind them, Brazos gave a squeak. Where are we going?
HouseHeart, Laev replied.
Like Darjeeling’s HouseHeart?
Laev snorted. Not quite. This is a REAL HouseHeart, the core intelligence of the Residence.
Brazos yawned, set his front paws on the ground, and did a whole-body stretch, tail up.
Once again Laev set his hand on a door—this one dark planks set between two small golden pillars that appeared like spiral-carved maypoles. He repeated a short, guttural sentence. The spell-words were a mixture of antique Celtan and ancient Earthan. With a long, low creak the door swung back.
Laev braced himself. He hadn’t been here as often as he should have. Would the HouseHeart scold? He was never quite sure how much of the HouseHeart was in the main Residence awareness—probably all. But the place had a different voice.
“Greetings, Huathe Laev Oak Grove Hawthorn, GreatLord T’Hawthorn.”
No sarcasm, good. Laev’s shoulders eased.
Brazos bounded in. Greetyou! He skidded to a halt just before he fell into the bubbling turquoise hot pool, squealed as he tumbled backward.
“Greetings, Fam Brazos.” The tones were rough, again the words oddly shaped. The resonant gruff voice old, old, not changed in centuries.
“Greetyou, HouseHeart.” Laev bowed and stepped into the place, put the pistol box on a small table by the door. It fit well there. The door creaked shut behind him and the light that emanated from the pale marble walls brightened.
Not at all like Darjeeling’s HouseHeart. Long ago the Hawthorns had smoothed the underground walls, facing them in sheets of light green marble. Once again, between the stone slabs were small moldings of gilded wood, carved in a spiral pattern. Above them was a faceted and domed ceiling of rock crystal, giving the impression of filtering light from a sunny day.
The room was more like a temple than a place deep beneath the soil of Celta, though the chamber was rectangular, not circular like Celtan temples.
Under his soles, the dark brown flagstones were gently warm. Laev sighed as he crossed to the pool and slipped into its steaming depths. Again, it was large enough to hold five and the mosaic on the bottom of the tub showed a pentacle of green set in white stone.
Brazos paced cautiously around the room, sniffing at the clumped Hawthorn bushes planted in one corner, scratched at the dirt . . .
“Don’t you piss on those!” Laev cautioned. Good, his brain was still working even though it felt woolly.
His Fam lifted his head, moved on, just as if he hadn’t considered that.
“It is good to have you here again, Laev,” the HouseHeart said.
Again, no judgmental tone.
“I should have come sooner, and more often,” Laev said.
“Why didn’t you?” asked the HouseHeart.
“I’m sure you know.” Laev sat on an underwater bench, let the herbal liquid swirl around him, leaned his head back against a soft neckroll. “I missed coming here with my FatherSire, and . . .”
“And?”
Easier to talk about old hurts than the new one he was still processing. “I felt bad about the mistake I made in wedding a woman who was not my HeartMate. Who wasn’t worthy of being a Hawthorn.” Here he could lay out a hard line of words like nowhere else in the world.
There was a deep gurgle of the pool as the HouseHeart answered. “You are, of course, the only T’Hawthorn or D’Hawthorn who has ever made a bad mistake.”
Laev winced.
“Did not your FatherSire compete with the Hollys and hold a grudge so long that it became an obsession and a feud?”
Yes! Brazos hissed.
“Did not that feud cost several Hawthorn lives? Your own father’s life?”
The water in the pool had heated and roiled enough that it threatened to drown him. Laev slipped out to move over to a towel-covered bedsponge.
“Well?” the HouseHeart prompted.
“Yes. But my wife stole from us.”
“So did your FatherSire. He stole lives from the Family.”
Laev swallowed.
“Nivea Hawthorn stole nothing from me,” said the HouseHeart.
“She wasn’t often here.” Hadn’t liked visiting the HouseHeart with Laev. Because she knew she wasn’t a good Family member?
“No favor tokens are gone. No ancient Family artifacts. All else is of no importance.”
So his FatherSire had thought, too, protecting Laev. But he still felt he had to make right what was stolen from the Family due to his bad judgement. “I brought the pistols back.”
“We are glad to note that; they were much loved and used by past Hawthorns. We have always been a Family of good shots.”
A nice, distracting, thought. “Really?”
“Yes. You might want to reopen the shooting gallery.”
“Didn’t even know we had one,” Laev said.
“I will inform the Residence.”
“Good.”
With another purr, Brazos leapt onto the bedsponge and curled up at the end. The air around them heated and drowsiness crept up on Laev.
“And you have brought a good Fam into the Family—”
“Yesss,” Brazos articulated.
Laev was drifting into a doze.
“And will soon bring a good HeartMate.”
That jolted him from lethargy. He’
d learned of his HeartMate tonight, turned her down. Which, on the face of it, was stupid, but not something he wanted to remedy if his gut said to withdraw.
His gut said to run, his body whispered need.
Scented herbs swirled in the air. “Sleep, Laev,” said the HouseHeart.
So he did.
For once Camellia didn’t take the public carrier home. Her little house wasn’t the sanctuary it had been. Nor did she want to speak of the fresh wound to her friends. She wanted to brood on it first. So she hopped on a transport and a few minutes later went through the back door of Darjeeling’s HouseHeart and sat at a table in the middle of the room next to the gently chiming fountain.
The dark closed around her, cozy and comforting, with a few aromatic firefly glows of light from the incense sticks before the Lady and Lord.
The Lord statue that Laev had given her. She made out the vague shape of stone, then turned her back on it.
Her shoulders lowered and she propped her face in her hands. Tonight had brought forward all her fears for her to face, and she had failed. In one moment, one instant, she had failed.
And the thought of claiming a HeartMate still sent her into a downward spiral of disturbing emotions.
While the recollection of her dream lover’s, Laev Hawthorn’s, her HeartMate’s hands on her body brought wild sensations of echoed ecstasy.
She rubbed her face and stood. Tea sounded excellent, a blend of hybrid Earthan chamomile and Celtan paleleaf. She brewed a cup and tidied up. Then returned to her seat to close her eyes and drink, and let the atmosphere of her place wash over her.
Quiet cheer, that was the feeling she got from her surroundings. Patrons happy to be here, servers happy with their work.
It was enough to have her relaxing further. This she’d built with her own hands. There was something to be said for being independent, not part of a couple, a HeartMated couple where one was bonded so close to the other.
Heart Search Page 20