Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 46 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

Daria arched her neck for his nuzzling and careful bites, but she soon shook her head. “Oh, come on, stop,” she said reluctantly. “I know you’re too tired for this.”

“Mm-hm.” His lips played at her shoulders, and then brushed down to close around her sensitive nipple. His fingers continued their deliberate movements, whispering on the silk that separated them.

She made a token effort to stop him, but somehow, the hand she meant to have push him away ended up twining in his hair. She lay, drowsing in his tender attentions, but when he slipped at last beneath her thin panty to touch her intimately, she rolled away from him onto her side. “You’re tired,” she said.

She heard a soft rustle of fabric on flesh, and then his body was pressed against her back. His hand was again low on her belly, pulling her back to feel the proof of his nakedness, his desire.

“You see,” she said unsteadily, as his fingers gently began to draw her panties away, “this is exactly why I’m such a horrible person.” She felt the pulling of the thin silk all the way down her legs to her ankles, where Tagen teased them off one foot at a time. “If you think I’m going to roll over and encourage you, you’re wrong,” she warned him.

“Then stay thus,” he said, his hand still enclosing the heel of one foot. He caressed what he held, his fingers traveling leisurely back to her thigh as his strong legs insinuated themselves between hers. His other hand pulled her hair away from her neck, baring her to a kiss before the heat of his manhood slipped up from behind to press at her. “This body will always admit me,” he whispered, and proved it.

She clutched at the sheets, groaning with pleasure as he stroked deeply up inside her. The sensation was so unique; she didn’t know how to move with him and he would not allow her to move now that she’d declared she wouldn’t. His chest brushed rapturously along her back with each unhurried, sidelong thrust. His hands smoothed across her bared flesh, he kissed every part of her his hungry mouth could reach, and he let her do nothing but feel.

Whimpers first, and then soft cries scratched out of her. She began to writhe in place, her hands fluttering back to pull at him in helpless need.

“Ah,” he murmured. “Now you would encourage me. So.” He turned her onto her stomach and covered her with his heat, sinking his shaft so deeply, so completely, that she had to bury a scream in the mattress. His legs between hers began slowly to open, pushing hers apart. He swept back onto his knees, pulling her with him, and resumed his languorous movements.

She groped behind her, gasping and horribly aware of how thin the walls must be. Her fingers caught at his cheek, his hair, then his arm, his hip, anything she could reach, but there was nothing for her to truly hold on to. The only sound she was capable of making, the only word she could coherently form, was his name and it came in strained puffs from her lips.

“Greatly wise, were the ancient Jotan.” Tagen’s fingers dipped suddenly to tease at the sensitive bud crowning her sex, and his strong arms cradled her as she came alive in orgasm.

He would not let it end. His fingers at her tender cleft, the steady rolling of his hips, his sensual growls against her ear, all kept her afloat in a spreading ocean of warmth through which she ultimately sensed something even greater building.

All consideration for the thinness of the walls and the other sleeping patrons of this fine establishment flew in tatters from her mind like a swarm of butterflies. She cried his name aloud, sinking her nails into his restraining arms, and let herself go to him. His thrusts slowed even further, but the power in them increased, pushing her up and out into the open air in waves. Flying, she was flying in every sense and the pleasure was so complete she couldn’t even feel him anymore, only the molten ecstasy that filled her. And then it struck.

Daria slapped her shaking hands over her mouth as she screamed, her body slamming back against him in the extremity of her climax. Shivers lit all through her; she started to drift back to Earth, and then felt Tagen’s final thrust, the flood of his passion, and she came back to crying life and rode out another blossoming of helpless rapture.

He guided her gently back to bed as he withdrew, arranging her on her stomach with her hands curled beside her head. The sheet was resettled at her shoulders and she mumbled sleepy sounds that might have been praise or gratitude or anything at all.

“You see?” Tagen stretched out beside her and draped his arm around her waist. “The ancient Jotan were masters of the curing arts.”

“Wise beyond compare,” Daria mumbled. She was asleep in seconds.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Thirty-Five

Morning could not come soon enough for Kane. From the moment his eyes opened on sunlight, he was ready to move, impatient to be gone. He shoved Sue-Eye onto the floor and sat up as her first dumbfounded cry came cawing up at him. “Get dressed,” he ordered, and turned to wake Raven.

She was already struggling up from sleep, swiping at her eyes and throwing back the sheet that wrapped her. Her hair was mussed, strands of purple and white all thrown together, and for a brief moment, the faceless urgency that scratched at him faded and he could remember only the pleasures of the day before. He slipped an arm around her, pulled her tightly to him, and grazed his teeth lingeringly along the full curve of her throat before biting at her jaw.

Her hand groped at his chest, found the home of his heart, and then only rested there. Her weak little claws flexed on his flesh as he nibbled carefully. He could smell her sweat and the musk they had made with all their matings, and it was a fine thing to lose himself in so early. He felt himself beginning to relax, to savor.

No, damn it all, it was time to go. Kane drew back with a snarl and gave Raven a hard push to the edge of the bed. He swung out over Sue-Eye and stood, pacing restlessly out to peer behind the curtains, and then back again. “Get dressed!” he snapped at the stubbornly-naked ichuta’a crouching by the bed, and gave her a kick to the ribs to send her on her way. “And you,” he added, throwing a dark glance Raven’s way. “We need to get gone. Now.”

She was on her feet and stepping into her skirt in an instant. “What’s the matter?” she asked, looking tense.

“Nothing.” Kane went back to study the world outside the curtains, and then returned to the bed. He bent to fetch his clothes, threw them down again, and went in to the bathroom where his ichuta’a had disappeared.

She was dressing, obedient enough and certainly speedily, but he hit her anyway. She fell into the shower and landed hard, her arms askew and one leg slung over the side of the bathtub. She stared at him, her eyes satisfyingly wide, and a little trickle of blood painting the side of her mouth. Kane felt better.

He went back out to the main room and suited up. It was going to be another hot day. He couldn’t feel it yet, but he knew it down in his bones. More of that sick yellow sun cooking the crust off the whole damn Earth, more Heat itching and churning up his guts, more humans stinking up his claws with blood and piss and fear, and he had to dress for it in a heavy coat. His feet had to bake out the day in footcovers. His hair had to crawl with sweat under a hat. He couldn’t even wait out the day riding in the climate-controlled groundcar because he’d pissed away so much time yesterday fucking Raven.

Kane scowled at the lacings of his footcovers as he cinched them tight. He’d piss away today fucking Raven, too, if he could. Raven was a fuckable little thing. But time was scratching at him for some reason, and he couldn’t fight his instincts. They’d saved him too many times in the past. ‘When your gut tells you to run, you run,’ as Urak used to say. ‘Intuition is nothing but long stripes of perception squeezed into small spaces.’

Kane grunted amusement at the thought, and then slumped over with only one foot covered and put his head in his hands.

His father’s voice, warning him. He’d heard it a thousand times in his life. And now there was something…something…

Raven’s fingertips brushed at his shoulder. Kane dropped his hands and looked up at her. The mood he was in, and she’d come and touched him. His fearless Raven.

She didn’t say anything, but she stepped around before him and went to her knees. Kane leaned back, thinking indistinctly that a quick blowjob was probably just the thing to calm his rattled nerves, but she merely picked up his second footcover and started loosening the laces. Her hand slid around to cup his calf; she fit his foot inside the human cover and gently brought it home around his heel.

Kane pulled in a breath and let it out slow. His fingers combed at her bent head, sorting out the colors of her amazing hair. It was growing in dark at her scalp. When he got home, he was going to have to find out how to color hair and let her fix it.

She finished with his footcover and sat back, looking at him in that wonderfully solemn way she had. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Bad night,” he said, and smiled crookedly as he added, “Great day. But a bad night.”

She nodded, accepting this.

“I’ve been here too long.” Kane glanced toward the window, and then rubbed at his eyes again. “Too long and too long and too fucking long. And I’m not done yet.”

“What can I do?”

“You’re doing it,” he muttered, and then straightened up and waved her off. “Let’s get moving. Where’s my ichuta’a?”

“I’m here.”

She was eyeing him warily, just out of arm’s reach, which in itself made him feel briefly like stepping out and slapping her down again. This time, he restrained himself.

“We’re going,” he said, and headed for the door.

Raven ran in to do whatever it was that she did when they left these places, and Sue-Eye came with him into the back seat of the groundcar. Kane pulled his pack onto his lap, one claw takking now and then on the solid surface of its lid. It was heavier now. He hadn’t noticed before, but the difference was there and as soothing in its own way as the feel of Raven as she knelt to cover his feet. Less quieting to him was the weight of Sue-Eye’s stare as she sat beside him. From the corner of his eyes, he could glimpse one of her hands rising, as though she were daring herself to touch him. He didn’t think he cared whether she did or not, but this back-and-forth business was scratching at him.

Finally, “Do you want me to do anything?”

“Yes,” he said, watching Raven through the hotel’s windows. “I want you to shut up unless I talk to you.”

Sue-Eye silenced herself and looked away. Her hands stayed together in her lap after that.

Raven returned to the groundcar and Kane held out the keys for her to take. The engines fired, and his guts unknotted slightly.

“Where are we going?” Raven asked, pulling out onto the highway.

“I don’t know.” Kane scanned the road restlessly, his hand running back and forth over the top of his chemist’s pack. “West, for now.” Nine more vials remained empty. At five humans per vial, more or less, that meant another big hunt or thirty to forty small ones. Thirty to forty more stops. He bared his teeth. The urge to go home grew stronger. “West,” he said again.

He would go back through to the So-Quaal Gate. He’d send out a coded message as soon as he came through and there’d be only a few gigameters of neutral space where he might potentially run into trouble before someone came for him. He could probably trade the prison ship with its pre-programmed Gate codes for passage for him and his females to wherever he wanted to go. The So-Quaal who were building his father’s Gate would take him in long enough for him to sell his Vahst. He’d see somewhere around forty thousand crona for a full load of the concentrate, and then there was Sue-Eye.

Fifty crona, he’d told Raven, and that was just if he sold her to the So-Quaal for dissection. She was too old to interest breeders. A sex-house slaver would take her, but the only way Kane would see a decent price would be if he farmed her out first and let the buyer really feel what she was capable of. He rather doubted she’d be able to hold even her ample enthusiasm for fucking after the first few days.

Kane gave her an assessing eye now, and as always, she sat up a little straighter and looked receptive. He wondered if there were female stimulators out on the market somewhere. He was aware only of those made for males, used by breeders to force them to mate. Since human females didn’t require any special inducements to be bred, he wasn’t sure such a device even existed, but if it did, the Kevrian would know about it. And if it didn’t, the So-Quaal could probably make one, but the expense would far outstrip the profit.

Drugs? Vahst didn’t work on humans except as a mild euphoric. D’Gren oil did work, but it killed them more than half the time, and had a tendency to blind survivors. There was always the painkiller he’d made for Raven, but the first Kevrian she bit would kill that deal. Besides, he’d just cleaned her out. Drugs would only deflate her price.

Kane growled and looked back out the window. Well, fifty crona was still fifty crona, and she was ornamentation anyway. Without her, he’d still have enough to hide out long enough to procure a fast ship with decent cargo space, and some top-line chemist’s gear. A ship like that and the name of E’Var would be enough to lure his pick of the best in his business for a crew. It was all coming together. It was all falling in line. Why was he so damned restless?

“Get off the road,” Kane said suddenly, and then snarled as Raven began to slow and said, “No, don’t. Keep driving. Chok.”

He threw himself back into his seat, furious at himself and his unfocused apprehension. He had the very strong sense that Sue-Eye was, in some bizarre way, responsible for his mood and the urge to slash at her itched all down his killing arm. He thought, forcing himself to reason from his head and not his gut.

“Take me back to the mountains,” he said. “Near to where I found you.”

They’d go on foot once they got there, and he’d harvest every human he came across. If he went home with a few empties, so be it. Being edgy made him impatient, and as old Urak was wont to say, prisons were filled with impatient men. Prisons and graveyards, both. He could afford to go home a little light. A few more trips like this, with Raven to pilot him over Earth’s surface, and he would have the funds necessary to finish his father’s Gate.

After that, he would be the sole supplier of wild-caught humans, the sole source of freshening stock to every breeder, miner, and sex-slaver in the entire universe. The price for his goods would go into fucking orbit around him. He probably wouldn’t need to make a trip to Earth more than every other year to see a god’s own profit. He could farm his captives. With Raven’s help, he was sure he could extend their life expectancy several times over. He could easily see himself operating a fleet of breeding facilities, introducing new blood now and then to keep the stock strong. Perhaps he would specialize, maybe teach the females Raven’s art of the human blowjob and sell them solely to Kevrian sex-houses. Hell, open a few of his own. He could build a second Gate, out in the far reaches where his base of operations would be, and never have to risk a jump through one of the Fleet’s ever again.

‘Slow down, boy,’ he told himself in his father’s voice. ‘First hunt, then home. Everything else will follow in its own time.’

Solid advice, but the ghost-memory of Urak’s growl brought back that strange, crawling dread. He shifted, flexing his claws on Sue-Eye’s thigh, and scowled.

“Talk to me, Raven,” he said curtly. “What’s the first thing you want to do when we get back into deep space?”

“Learn the language,” she said immediately.

Kane smiled faintly, the tension that had seized his heart already beginning to relax. Such a sensible answer. Not in the least surprising coming from his far-thinking Raven.

“Then I’ll learn how to work your computers,” she continued. “And fly a ship.”

A human navigator. Kane found the idea at once absurd and incredibly attractive. No one else he knew of had ever used a human as true crew. There was no way to quantify such a warped situation. But she would be his fuck-mate, and he would be commander, and so the rest of the crew would probably just ignore her. Treat her like a rurr’ga he’d somehow trained to poke at buttons, and give her distance. She’d be invisible to them. They’d…talk in front of her.

Kane could feel himself growling deep in his chest, could feel the smile stretching his lips until his fangs gleamed. He mused on the delightful image of Raven on the bridge of his ship, a listening shadow in his absence, and then turned to Sue-Eye.

“What about you?” he asked. “First thing.”

“Whatever you want me to do,” she said.

“How convenient.” He faced front again. “I’m going to want you to fuck.” He intercepted a piercing look of triumph as it passed from his ichuta’a to Raven, and chuckled to himself, rubbing Sue-Eye’s thigh. “Calm yourself, little bitch. I never said I was going to be the one to fuck you.”

The blonde stiffened and gave him a wary look that could not quite be confusion.

“For a few days,” he mused. His hand slipped up underneath her skirt and continued its rubbing on her smooth mound. “And I want you to be the very best fuck you can be. I want you to make me really proud, ichuta’a.”

Her thighs parted to him, and he obligingly stroked up into her moist folds. She shivered and leaned back into the seat, her head back and her eyes closed.

“And you’re going to make me proud, aren’t you?” he murmured.

She nodded languidly.

“Every last male I send in to you is going to tell me you were the best fuck he ever had. You’re going to cum for them and you’re going to mean it.”

She nodded again. “I’m going to use my whole body,” she said quietly. “I’m going to suck them off and rub my tits all over their cocks and give them my ass and my cunt and my feet if they want it that way. They can tie me up or hang me from the ceiling and I’ll still cum for them. They can hit me and scratch me and hurt me and I’ll cum for them. I’ll make you so proud of me.”

Kane penetrated her with his finger and thrust hard and steady, rewarding her. “It’s going to hurt and you’re going to love it,” he said. “You won’t sleep much and you’ll hate the food, but you’ll still love it. You’ll live for the fucking, won’t you?”

“Yes!” She opened even wider, bucking her hips at his hand. “Yes, Kane! Thank you, Kane!”

“You’re welcome, ichuta’a. Cum.”

She did, spasming wildly on his finger, and then sagging breathlessly back into her seat. When he held up his hand, she took his wrist and sucked her oils from him without him needing to speak a word.

“And if you’re very good,” Kane said mildly, watching her lips work around his knuckle. “I’ll give you back your eye.”

She started and stared at him.

He pulled his hand from her slack grip and open mouth and gave her cheek a pat. “Raven’s right about me,” he told her. “I take very good care of my tools. What do you say?”

“Thank you, Kane,” she whispered. She still looked stunned, but she was beginning to smile. “I’ll make you so proud of me! I’ll fuck a thousand men for you! Oh, thank you, Kane!”

Kane leaned back in his seat and smiled at Raven’s face in the forward mirror. She smiled back at him and he closed his eyes to doze. Everything was going to be fine.

*

She never would have thought waking up after only five hours of sleep could feel so good, but then, Tagen had a unique methodology. He was nibbling at her stomach. Her toes were curling even before her eyes were open. She laughed and ran her fingers lazily through his hair. “Already?” she sighed.

“I tried to break the news gently,” he said, and rolled away to stand.

She watched him go through satisfaction-slitted eyes, listening to her body still hum its happiness from the night’s work. “Ancient Jotan cure,” she said accusingly.

He laughed and went to release Grendel from the bathroom, calling back, “Ah, but it did work,” before shutting the door on her.

Daria indulged herself in a stretch and remained sprawling across the bed until the sound of water thundered up through the wall and Grendel came leaping up to lie with her. It was too tempting to shut her eyes again with a cat purring at her side. She found the remote control for the TV on the bedside table and switched it on. After thumbing through the cartoons and perky morning shows aimed at hausfraus, she finally found a local station broadcasting the news.

Suicide bombers in the Middle East, baby boomers bitching about pension fraud, gas prices still going up—just your basic news. No new bodies, or rather, no new unexplained cases of head trauma. There were plenty of bodies. Lots of gang violence going on over on the East coast, school shooting in the Midwest somewhere, some prostitute slashings down in California. Lots and lots of bodies.

Daria pulled Grendel onto her lap and petted him while the steady stream of gore washed over the screen, somberly narrated and subtitled and reduced to a sound bite. As she watched, she experienced an odd doubling effect in her own mind. The images were certainly no different from hundreds of others Daria had seen, but suddenly she was seeing it all through two sets of eyes. There was the Daria who was no stranger to morning news reports, to the smoke and riot of foreign streets, to crying children, to courtroom chaos and stone-faced defendants in clean navy suits. But there was also the Daria who saw all this as Tagen must see it, as an unbelievable deluge of violence. And for a moment, Daria was a little shocked with herself that she could watch this with even a shred of indifference.

She understood all of a sudden that this was how Tagen’s prisoner and all the others like him were able to make their money. Because no one was appalled anymore. Everyone turned on the news and watched blood and bombs and rubble while they drank their coffee and ate their doughnuts, and then they went to work like all the world was at rest. Even the people reporting the news acted like the things they were saying was happening in some other dimension, utterly removed from consequence. Oh yeah, six people died in Allan’s Pass this morning when a disgruntled office worker brought an automatic rifle to his company picnic, and in other news, the budget crisis at the planned community hospital worsens when administrators mislabeled donations meant to provide waiting room amenities. Like there was any comparison at all between the lives of six people and the loss of a coffee machine.

Daria put the remote down and picked the cat up, pressing her face into Grendel’s ample sides and breathing in through a filter of fur. Grendel hung heavy in her grip, his loud purrs effectively smothering the continued babble from the television.

When she let him drop again in the swaddled sheet around her hips, the desk jockeys were talking about the motel murders in Pinesborough. One of them even brought up the bar in Blue Ridge and the movie theater in Hillmark. “Is it just me,” this prescient little twerp asked of his co-anchor, “or is the heat wave here just making people crazy?”

“Don’t I wish, pal,” Daria muttered. “Crazy guys get caught.” She switched off the TV and tossed the remote off onto the floor, out of sight and therefore out of mind, like all the content it had just shown her.

What had E’Var been up to yesterday if it hadn’t been killing people, though? She was starting to think that maybe he really had headed back to his ship, all his little lunchboxes full up with brains. In which case, he might have traveled all through the night, loaded up, and hit that starry road by now.

Tagen came back into the bedroom with one towel around his waist and another rubbing at his damp hair. “What news?” he asked crisply.

“None.”

“Mm.” Tagen scowled at the dark screen, shaking his head-towel out and draping it over the back of the room’s complementary chair. “Well, what thoughts?”

“This is your balliwhack, not mine.”

“My what?”

“What I mean,” she said with a sigh, “is that chasing bad guys is what you do. You need your kitchen counters scrubbed, that’s when you ask my advice. Besides…I’m fresh out of ideas.”

There had been a frown growing on him from her first words, but now it smoothed away and he regarded her with open sympathy. At last, he even smiled faintly. “There is an ancient Jotan cure for lack of inspiration.”

“I’ll just bet there is.” Daria heaved Grendel off her lap and stood up, earning his full and appreciative attention as she walked naked to the bathroom door. “Probably the same cure for nervous energy, right?”

“And for lethargy, come to think.” Tagen removed his towel and bent to collect his uniform. “I suppose, seeing as the ancients knew so few females and so many ills, it only seemed sensible to have one common cure.”

“Kinda makes a girl wonder what they prescribed for hyper-sexuality.” She closed the door on his thoughtful expression and her own teasing smile soon faded. She met her reflection’s eyes in the mirror, but not for long. The bathroom was too small to share between two naked women, especially when they were both in such disturbing moods.

She stepped into the shower and turned on the water. Tagen liked his cool and Daria kept it there, scrubbing at the worst of herself with the little soap he’d left for her.

What thoughts? In other words, where to? Should she finish doubling back and re-checking all the hotels they’d passed since yesterday? Should she turn back around and head west again, on the grounds that he wouldn’t turn off onto another road until after he’d killed? Should she try to get in between him and his ship?

She concentrated and brought, with effort, a mental image of the map and where E’Var’s first kills had been. He’d been on foot and headed east, which meant his ship had to be reasonably close and to the west. If he really wanted to head home, the best way was still to go west to I-5 and then south to Highway 20. And that would be Daria’s best route, too. There might be shortcuts somewhere, but she didn’t think E’Var would use them. He hadn’t so far, anyway. She didn’t think his driver had a map.

His driver. Like he’d hired her.

All the heat went out of the lukewarm water. Daria shivered and shut it off.

Tagen thought the girls E’Var had taken were working with him. It was possible. Likely, even. She’d forgotten what they called it when victims of violent abductions started empathizing with their captors. Stockhand’s symptom, or something like that. And E’Var was an alien. Daria knew only too well that nothing was more important than getting okayness back when there was an alien in the room.

Daria toweled herself dry with the doormat-sized scouring pad the hotel provided, and then went back into the bedroom, savoring the feeling of clean for as long as she could. She hadn’t brought extra clothes on this trip and she hadn’t been terribly consistent about rinsing them out at night. She supposed, considering what she was out here trying to do, it didn’t really matter how she smelled, but it bothered her. Tagen looked like he’d magically stepped out of a recruiting poster. She didn’t know how the hell he did that. His uniform was spotless, the creases sharp, and his hair was pulled back into his severe ponytail without even the benefit of a comb. He was getting stubbly again. That was vindicating at least.

She heard Tagen sigh as she pulled her shirt on, and she tossed him a glance, her nose wrinkling even as her brows raised inquiringly.

“Shame to the world that demands you to cover,” he said.

She felt herself blushing and turned away to look for her underwear. “You really need to meet more Earth girls.”

“I have. A great many.” His hand came into the field of her vision, offering her panties, but he drew them back when she reached to take them. Tagen moved behind her and knelt, holding them for her to step into.

She wasn’t sure whether she felt more pampered by this act or merely ridiculous. She disguised her awkwardness by saying, “I’ve been dressing myself since I was six, actually.”

“A terrible loss to the males of Earth.” The thick pads of his fingers slid up along the outer edges of her panty, bringing a delicious shiver up her thighs to her spine and out through the rest of her. His lips pressed lightly to the very small of her back, and then he stood away. “I think I would never let you dress yourself if I thought I could get away with such a command. Of course, I would never let you dress at all…”

His teasing tone faltered on the last word. His eyes cut sharply away and he did not continue. She didn’t reply. They stood inches apart and worlds away and did not touch.

“So,” Daria said at last. It was a singularly woebegone sound. She cleared her throat and tried again, forcing brightness into her voice. “So I had a thought.”

“Did you?” He moved away where she could see him. His hands were clasped behind his back and his shoulders were squared. She couldn’t see his face and she was glad for it. His voice was impersonal enough. “Tell me.”

“I figure, either he’s still heading west looking for a place to hunt, or he’s all done and making for his ship, in which case, he’ll still be going west. So my thought is, we go west until we either hear where he hit, find him at a hotel, or come to I-5 ourselves.”

“I see.” He still wasn’t facing her.

“And…” Daria sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, staring glumly at the floor. “And if we get all the way down to Highway 20 without hearing anything, then, Tagen…I think maybe…”

“I had best leave,” he finished for her. And then he did turn around.

She had been braced to see that soldier’s indifference with which he had armored himself against her earlier on this trip. Instead, he let her see his sorrow plainly, and it struck her briefly speechless. That he could hurt that much and still be so calm and objective…the thought came to her disjointedly that he had to be one hell of a soldier.