by Linda Welch
He took two paces. I held my gun two-handed, straight-armed, and aimed at his chest. “I didn’t murder anybody.”
My hair and clothes were sodden. Water trickled down my forehead, hung on my eyelashes. I didn’t dare blink my eyes.
“Shall I speak the verdict?” he asked.
When I said nothing, he cocked his head to one side. “What? You have no tongue? Yet, surely you can guess.”
And he brought a bloody great sword from behind his back.
Not that it had blood on it, but the thing was huge, a good four foot long from hilt to tip and curved in a crescent. His gaze fondly ran down the gleaming metal, then he flicked it sharply, making raindrops fly. A ball of ice formed in the pit of my stomach.
“Guilty!” he spat.
He came at me with long, loping strides. I kept my aim on him longer than I should, knowing I must fire, now, before he reached me.
He wasn’t there anymore.
A hornet stung my upper right arm. Disoriented, I looked and saw a dime-size slit in my plaid shirt, a slit with edges going red.
He moved faster than Royal did in the bowels of Morte Tescien, faster than my eye could see, and he had cut me.
I shuffled my feet, trying to find a defensive stance, but how can you defend yourself against an adversary you cannot see?
“Here I am!” he sang. I spun a fast circle, and he seemed to appear on the patio out of nowhere.
I watched him intently, yet I didn’t see him take off. But this time I heard him, a soft whoosh of air like the beat of a huge wing.
Ouch! The other arm. Now I had a matching set.
I turned, and caught my foot on my other ankle. Trying to keep my balance, I staggered to one side. Before I could think, he came at me again. I saw his face blink in and out, and felt the sting on my right shin. I clutched my gun, my teeth chattering. Phaid meant to slice and dice and leave me in tiny bloody pieces in my backyard.
Pull yourself together, Tiff. You got out of Bel-Athaer in one piece. You can do this.
Royal came for me.
But he’s not here now. You’re on your own. You’re so big on being the independent woman, you can deal with it.
But the absence of familiar sounds … I felt like the rain and I were trapped in a vacuum. My senses strained to hear traffic, music from an open window, a neighbor’s voice. I heard only the light patter of raindrops.
He came from the right again. Another tiny nick just above the first. I thought I saw a barely-there break in the rain, as if something pushed the sparkling raindrops aside.
I tried to slow my breathing and find a calm place, but my heart thudded out of control. I tried to forget the lack of background noise and concentrate on the raindrops, listening for any change in the pattern they made as they spattered grass and foliage. Every nerve on my body strained to feel displaced air. And because I listened so intently, I heard Jack’s whispering cry: “On your left. Incoming!”
I heard the soft beat of a wing.
I pivoted on the balls of my feet and saw the raindrops slash to one side.
I felt the air move. I tracked a sensation with my gun as it came at me.
I saw what wasn’t there, and fired.
He somersaulted through the air, black-red hair streaming, long black coat flapping, like a giant raven tumbling clumsily to the grass, the sword falling from limp fingers. He hit, and rolled, and came to rest on his back with arms and legs sprawled north, south, east and west.
My Ruger dragged my hand down. I made my feet move until I stood over him. His eyes had lost their glitter, but still glowed a bright emerald green, turned to a sky they no longer saw. I kicked the sword away, kicked it again, till it lay a good distance from Phaid’s hand. I don’t want to describe the head wound. Demon’s bleed red, just like men.
“Gotcha,” I said, unsurprised my voice sounded hoarse.
I backed to the patio and sat on the edge. I knew I should think about what to do next. The cops would be here soon. But I couldn’t move. I sat holding my gun in a grip so tight it hurt. I laid my wrists on my spread knees, letting the gun hang, and dropped my head.
With no warning, the scent of amber and sandalwood surrounded me, and Royal’s arms crushed the breath from my lungs.
Royal stood, bringing me upright. “One of your neighbors is talking to Dispatch and others are about to make the same call.” He let me go and went to Phaid, watching me, probably to make sure I could stay on my feet. “Go inside. Clean your gun. Do it as fast as you can.”
As I stepped on the patio, he crouched, put Phaid’s wrists together and with one hand hauled the limp body upright; bent again, and pulled it over his shoulders fireman’s style. He bent, took the sword in his free hand.
He was gone in a blur. I went in the house, trying to shake the numbness in my body before it got to my brain.
Jack and Mel were hysterical. They careened around the kitchen, babbling. Then Jack tried to hug me and managed to hug himself inside my body.
“Eew!” I said. “Get out of me, Jack!”
He backed off, batting the air with both hands. “You stupid, stupid woman. What did you think you were doing, going out there?”
“I have the feeling he would have come inside otherwise.”
“Oh my, oh my,” Mel twittered. “I feel quite faint. I want to throw up.”
I burst out laughing. I was still laughing when Royal came back in the kitchen.
“Tiff?”
I couldn’t stop. He held me close, but gently. I laughed on his damp jacket till my voice broke on a sob of relief. Jack and Mel were absolutely silent as they gawked at us. I slowly let all the breath in my lungs seep out as Royal’s warmth comforted me, as one arm hugged me tighter and the other hand caressed the nape of my neck beneath my braid.
I took in a breath and pulled back. “Why did he come after me?”
“He came for me, but he wanted to wound me first.”
“By killing me?”
He did not reply; his expression and cloudy eyes said it all.
He stroked wisps of hair back from my forehead. “He had to die, Tiff.”
“I know. Should I feel bad about it?” I hoped he didn’t think I should feel remorse, because I did not. Phaid tried to kill me. He didn’t succeed. I won. That made me feel pretty good.
Royal’s hands went to my shoulders, squeezed. “No, you should not,” he said sincerely.
I still had worries. “I thought it was over when we left Morte Tescien. Are we still in danger? Is anyone else gonna come after us?”
“I think Phaid acted alone.”
I studied his expression.”But… ?”
“My victory guaranteed our escape from Bel-Athaer, nothing more,” he said reluctantly.
I pictured Caesar’s sneering face. “Others may come after us?”
“They face the might of the High House.”
I took his face in my hands and stared into his copper eyes “You didn’t answer me.”
He rubbed his forehead on mine. “I don’t know, Tiff.”
He pulled back. “My friends are leaving your neighbor’s house,” he warned.
He took my Ruger from me and went to the kitchen drawer where I keep it with my cleaning kit. He must have used a little demon speed, because he holstered his Glock and closed the drawer on my Ruger in minutes.
Cleaning the guns was a precaution. If the cops wanted to look through the house, or worse, inspect the weapons they knew we owned, my Ruger and Royal’s Glock looked like they had not been fired lately. A forensics test would probably say otherwise, but Royal did not think it would come to that. They knew him, and had no reason to doubt the word of a fellow officer.
“What did you do with… ?” I couldn’t say his name aloud.
“I stowed him where no one will find him. I’ll call the High House; they will send a team for him within the hour.”
“You can call Bel-Athaer?”
“I told you, Tiff, we are a modern soci
ety. Our technology is a match for yours.”
I would say their technology surpasses ours. I’m pretty sure we can’t make a phone call to another dimension.
He went to the west windows. “They have no reason to look in your yard, but I moved your lawnmower to cover the blood just in case.”
A knock sounded. I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. Royal went to the front door.
“We’ve been here all afternoon, Tom,” he said.
I couldn’t hear what Officer Tom Murphy said, just the rumble of his voice: “Rumble, rumble, rumble?”
“No. We did hear a car backfire,” Royal replied.
“Rumble, rumble.”
“I’m not surprised. It made one hell of a bang and you know how the proximity of the mountains can distort and amplify sound.”
“Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble!”
Royal laughed. “That’s how it goes. Remember those reports of an explosion last month? A jet, breaking the speed barrier.”
“Rumble, rumble? Rumble, rumble.”
“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What a relief,” Mel said.
Royal zipped back in the kitchen. “Done.” He put his hands on my shoulders and held me away. “Now let’s deal with you.”
“Deal with me?”
“You’re soaking. You need dry clothes, and let me look at those cuts.”
I looked from one arm to the other, then bent my knee so I could see the back of my shin. “I think he meant to nick me to death.”
“Exactly what he intended. The death of five hundred cuts.”
“I suppose that’s another of your freaking traditions.”
“A ritual death reserved for traitors.” He took my hand. “Come on.”
I meekly let him lead me upstairs to the bathroom. I looked back to see Jack and Mel coming after us. I made a fist at them. Jack pantomimed terror. Mel said, “Oh come on, Jack. Let them have a minute.”
I went in the bathroom where Royal told me to strip. I did it. I didn’t feel too uncomfortable standing in my bathroom in just my bra and panties. He had already seen me naked, and although I prefer plain, serviceable clothing, I like feminine underwear. These were pale lavender satin overlaid with silver lace.
He dabbed antiseptic on the tiny cuts. It stung so bad I had to clench my teeth. But after he stuck Band-Aids on them, I barely knew they were there. Then he took my chin in a gentle grasp and turned my head to one side, then the other. “Can’t do much about the bruising I’m afraid. You are going to look like your boyfriend beat you up.”
“What bruising?” I went to the mirror and saw a dark smudge down the side of my face.
“I knocked into you rather hard,” he said with an exaggerated wince.
I put my hand to my face. I hadn’t noticed how hard he struck me at the time, I was just glad to see him.
Speaking of boyfriends. “Just what did you mean when you burst in to my rescue - I come to claim what is mine?” I mimicked dramatically.
He did not answer. I looked at his reflection in the mirror, saw his gaze on my body, and lost any inclination for jocularity. I saw the way in which his eyes changed to a deeper brown with fire in them. The atmosphere in the bathroom became sultry, like a hot, humid August day when you want to doze the afternoon away. He clenched his hands to fists and in two quick strides was against my back, burning down the length of my spine. He pulled me so tightly into his body, an atom couldn’t have squeezed between us. “You are mine, my ice maiden,” he said thickly.
His lips were butterfly wings on my neck. I think I burned hotter than him, as if fire licked my body, tingling in all the right places. I felt something else, too, pressed into my buttocks through the thick denim of his black jeans.
He picked me up and cuddling me to his chest, took me to my bedroom and lowered me to the bed.
I tried to speak, but his lips got in the way. He breathed in my mouth and I inhaled the sweetness of honey, the spicy heat of cinnamon. His tongue dipped in my mouth, long and narrow like a cat’s. I gently bit down on the tip, and he held still till I released it, and caressed it with mine.
No fumbling with clasps and zippers; a gentle tug at my back and hip and I was naked, and I don’t know how he got his clothes off without my knowing.
Achingly slow, his heat lapped me as tongue and lips explored my bare skin like velvet fingers, searching, probing. My nipples ached as he teased first one then the other into his mouth. His fingertips found every sensitive place with a delicate, unhurried touch, playing my body until I quivered. I traced hollows and hills of taut satin skin and unyielding muscle and tangled my fingers in his hair; he groaned softly as I gently sucked the hollow of his neck.
As slow, as sweet, he came into me, a hot, smooth heat fiercer than his skin. Supporting himself with one arm, he slipped the other around my hips and lifted them from the bed, and held me to him as we rocked. My muscles joyfully tightened on him, my thighs clasped his hips, my hands his shoulder blades. Until pleasure was a hair away from pain and eclipsed as something divine. My back arched, I cried out.
He stilled. Breathing in the spice of his skin and hair, liquid, knowing I would dissolve and melt away if he let me go, I hung in his arms. And he moved again, just so, and he was right… .
… .right there. Staccato gasps and bubbles of laughter mingled in my throat, until the throb, the pulse, coalesced in my groin and spiraled deliciously through my body, and became too exquisite to be named. My nails dug in his skin as I looked into eyes which blazed copper. He grinned fiercely as his body strained, tensed, went rigid, but only a whispering sigh came from his mouth.
Christ! a distant part of my mind said. I could die of this.
Epilogue
Royal and I lounged on recliners in my backyard, doing what regular people do during an all too brief Indian summer, catching the last afternoon rays of a fading year. Head back, eyes closed, hair loose and spread in a glittering fan, he nursed a beer. I held open the pages of a book I did not read.
Mel and Jack ogled us from the kitchen door. I had to tell Royal about them soon. I don’t know if they watched while Royal and I bounced the bed that first time; it was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell. But we did have a long and spirited conversation. Spirited - get it? Actually, I threatened them. If they tried to watch me and Royal when … when I didn’t want them to, no newspapers, no talk of the outside world, absolutely no socializing. I would totally ignore them. I could do it. For Royal’s oh-so delightful company, I could do it.
They sulked for a full day, but caved just the same.
So the Peeping Tom aspect was taken care of, I hoped. But Royal being here so often made life awkward. I couldn’t talk to them and had to watch myself lest I react to anything they said or did. And they made the most of that by acting up, and about drove me out of my mind at times.
“How’s Lawrence doing?” I asked.
“Taking it in stride.” Royal chuckled. “I think his advisors have a handful. He is already asserting his authority. He sent two aides for Mayberry’s double-fudge chocolate ice-cream last week.”
“Mayberry’s here in Clarion?”
He nodded lazily.
“Will he bring peace to Bel-Athaer?”
“I do not doubt he will eventually. Gorge smuggled him inside the High House and only his advisors and personal aides know he is there. He’s secluded in one wing of the House, where he will go through a good deal of training and tutoring. He’ll be presented to the court in a month or two, then word will spread. Everyone in Bel-Athaer will feel him when he comes into his full power.”
“When will that be?”
“Five years. Ten. We cannot be sure. If we can keep him safe till then, he will bring the rebel Houses to their knees.”
So Lawrence was still in danger. Poor kid.
“Tiff, I’ve been thinking.”
He sounded serious. “You better watch that,” I remarked.
He opened eyes which sparked with enthusiasm. “We could open our own agency.”
I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the seat. “Like in private eyes?” Our own agency. Wow! I grinned, then lost it. “Isn’t moonlighting against precinct policy?”
“I’ll resign.”
He couldn’t mean it. “But you’ve been a cop forever. How can you up and quit just like that?”
“I would rather work with you.”
Hm.
My brow puckered as my suspicious mind thought it through. “I know you’re strong on serve and protect - you wouldn’t be suggesting we partner up so you can transfer your allegiance to me, would you?”
His face took on a neutral expression.
I bristled. “You are. You think I can’t take care of myself.”
He sat up, swung his legs and faced me. He took my book from me, laid it on the grass and held my hand. “Is caring for your safety wrong? Call it a demon thing if you like - we cherish our womenfolk.”
I looked in his solemn, deep-copper eyes and knew he meant every word. I felt all mushy. Damn.
“But that has nothing to do with my suggestion. We’ll make a great team, Tiff. Think of the advantages we’d bring to a partnership. With my experience and your talent … our own agency is the next logical step. “
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
As I ate my spicy chicken noodles and tried to read, Mel and Jack decided to go all girlfriend on me. “Are you in love with him?” Mel asked in a dreamy tone.
It was a question I refused to ask myself. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t forget the lessons life taught me, what happens when you lower your defenses and unconditionally give yourself to another person. Yet a certain look from his eyes and I all but dissolved. His hands sent delicious sensation clean through me. His heat and scent were as familiar as my own body. I let him slip through barriers no other had breached.
“As if she’d tell us,” Jack told Mel. “Asking her is a waste of breath.”
“Like we have plenty of that to waste,” Mel said, then they went into a fit of giggles.