Текст книги "Blood Warrior"

Автор книги: Lindsey Piper

Соавторы: Lindsey Piper
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Kavya shivered. Again she was overcome by the idea of being bound to Tallis. Married? How could she even think the word if she didn’t love . . .

Oh, by the Dragon.

I do love him.

The back of her neck practically burned with the passion and possession he’d kept from them both.

Her entire life, all she’d wanted was the right to make her own choices. She didn’t want to be another Indranan woman caught in the net of vicious traditions and deadly cycles. With Tallis, however, she almost wished he had taken that choice from her. Then she could love him, have him, keep him, without the staggering fear of picturing their future. One on the run? Constantly? They’d break into hotels and fly airplanes through snowstorms—not because they wanted to, but because external forces toyed with their lives.

She wouldn’t accept him on those terms. She wouldn’t let him accept heron those terms.

Kavya loved Tallis of Pendray. As with so many instances, she was glad he had no access to her thoughts. She needed to bury that realization so deeply that even she couldn’t bring it into the light and admire its bright prism of colors and hope. Keeping her heart intact depended on it.

He turned his face so that his mouth nestled in her palm, pulling her free of her trembling reverie. “How do the Indranan marry? No one would ever tell me.”

Ah, the Indranan way. That would help keep her fancies in check. She wanted nothing to do with love and a forever partner if it meant doing so by the dictates of her clan.

“Kavya?” He kissed her fingertips.

“The Indranan are bound with their minds. They . . . open themselves. All their thoughts. They throw open the doors and cupboards and boxes—everything that holds a piece of a secret. It can take days. Imagine how much of your life resides in your mind. All that makes you Tallis. And all that makes me Kavya.” She hunched her shoulders to wiggle deeper under the covers. “I’ve never been able to fathom that.”

“Revealing every detail? No, I can’t even imagine.” He laughed a little. “But look what we did here. You were a virgin. You offered me that rare gift, and I managed to believe I could make it worth your while.”

“You worried about disappointing me?”

“And hurting you, yes.”

Stated so bluntly, Kavya realized just how easily he could’ve taken advantage of her willingness. Knowing his strength, his size, his passions—now she understood the care he’d taken to keep her safe. Another man might not have been so vigilant, while still being generous in giving her exactly what her body had demanded: a frenzy of release.

“You made me wild, Tallis. Thatwas a gift.”

“It was in you the whole time. But it was fun to see you let loose with me.”

“I felt like a different woman.” After a deep breath, she kissed him again and closed her eyes. Darkness. Safe to say whatever she needed to say. “The woman in your mind. Did she ever bring out that impulse in you? To bite her?”

He sat up, leaving her cold. “No.”

“And she never offered it as temptation?”

“No.”

Each refutation was stark. His skin became a field of goose bumps beneath her hands.

“Then she might not have known the ritual,” she said. “Is it well known? You had no luck learning the Indranan way.”

“I can’t imagine many Pendray bragging about our customs, not among the Five Clans. We’re already considered little better than dogs. All those werewolf stories through the years. Rabid canines. Wouldn’t the other clans love to learn how close to home those stories hit? We fuck like animals.”

Her chest was tight. Breathing had become some magical skill possessed by other people. “So you said.”

“And we marry like animals. Biting and scratching. If a couple doesn’t emerge the next morning wearing each other’s war wounds, people start to talk.”

“No passion?”

“No trust.” He turned on the bed and caught her face in his hands. The gentleness he was capable of demonstrating was all the more potent when contrasted with his hurricane potential. “How deep to bite. How long. How much pain to inflict and take. I suppose it’s the physical flip side to what you Indranan do. Lay everything bare and see if a union withstands the process.”

He kissed her, licked her bottom lip, delved inside to stroke his tongue over hers. She exhaled through her nose and sank more deeply into his attentions.

Only when he pulled back did she find the presence of mind to bring reality back into their room. “But that wasn’t us. Not here tonight. This was . . . Thank you, Tallis.”

“You thanked me in the laundry.”

“I meant it then, too.”

With a lopsided grin, he ran his hands through his hair. The motion lifted his arms, stretched his chest, bared the undeniable masculinity of his underarms. “Anytime, goddess. I’ve never been thanked for something so easy to give.”

“Easy? I don’t believe that.”

They held each other’s gaze in darkness shredded into strips by rainbow beams of light. “You probably shouldn’t, no. But the issue remains: What now? Morning will come and, as much as I hate to admit it, we can’t stay here for weeks and continue exploring each other until we’re half crazed.”

“Among the Pendray—does that crazed feeling wear off?”

“Let me ask you one in return. Among the Indranan—do the doors close again, barring off secrets?”

“No,” Kavya said carefully. “Minds open. For the rest of their lives.”

Tallis stood with a shrug. “There’s your answer.”

She shivered with the loss of his heat, and the implied knowledge that what had taken place between them would be how Pendray men and women . . . made love. Vicious and needy and daring. The prospect was exciting but intimidating. She had been a wild woman for a night. That didn’t mean she could be that person forever.

Forever. With Tallis.

She cleared her throat. “So what was this grand plan of yours? The one you said could wait for later?”

“We’ll need warmer clothes for you. And another moped if ours isn’t there in the morning. The airport’s some ways south?”

“About twenty minutes by the main roads. Why? You have someplace in mind?”

“I do.”

Kavya frowned. “Out with it, Tallis. I don’t want to play guessing games about something so important.”

“No matter what we decide about my dreams or your clan, Pashkah will come for you again. Isn’t that so?”

A shudder replaced the giddy, almost girlish joy she’d experienced with Tallis’s attention—and the hot-cold terrifying joy of realizing that she’d fallen in love with him.

But no. Pashkah. Always intruding. Always.

“Yes, he’ll always come for me.”

“Then you’re right. We’ll face him, but on our terms.”

“There can be no ‘our terms’ when we’re here. Even now, among six million people, his personal army could be fanning out through the streets and alleys. We may have accidentally picked a place that will take some time to find. But he has the Dragon-forged sword he stole from my parents, and he won’t stop.” She threw up her hands. “In that, I’m out of luck. I’ve never been part of a pod to share a sword with people who’d protect me.”

He turned and looked down at her, suddenly so calm and ethereally beautiful. “I have a Dragon-forged sword.”

Kavya’s heart leapt, only to be stilled by doubt and lit by a flicker of fury. “Don’t joke, Tallis. Not about that.”

“Especially not about that.”

“So tell me, where have you been hiding it?”

His grin was slow and sultry, like a cherry-red sun taking its time to rise in the east. “I think it’s time you visit Scotland.”

“No.”

“Yes. At my family estate.”

“But . . . you haven’t been back in twenty years. You’re the Heretic.” She joined him in standing and wrapped her arms around his trim waist. “A straight answer, now. What will it cost you to return there?”

He exhaled heavily. “All these years, I thought that if I truly wanted to, I could go back. Defend my actions. Stand trial, if I needed to. Face execution. Whatever the punishment, I’d at least be able to say good-bye to my family. At least I’d be home.”

“Staying away means never having to know for certain.”

“That’s right.” He retrieved one of his seaxes, then held it nearer to the window. A shaft of light made the steel gleam. He pressed her fingers against a circle in the hilt. “Do you feel where the metal’s raised? It’s a concealed gold inlay that can be removed in emergencies, like how pirates of old wore gold earrings to cover the cost of their burial. It hasn’t been an emergency until now. We have the means to get to Scotland. If you want that sword . . . If you . . .” He shrugged.

Kavya curled against his side on the bed and stared at the gleaming metal, at how right it looked when Tallis held it with such assurance. “If I what?”

“If you want my protection. That’s the only reason I’d be willing to return to a place that may never again be home.”

Yes, she loved him. And yes, he had a plan. She could see it burning out of him as if his golden skin had been lit by a thousand candles. But she needed to hear an answer to the question she could barely form. “Why for me?”

Tallis didn’t say anything. He only kissed her temple and settled his hand around the back of her neck, with his thumb gently caressing her nape.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Tallis emerged from the taxi and looked out over the barren waste of a long, long valley. There was no end to it, just gray-green grass that faded into the fog-shrouded place where the land met the sea.

“It’s breathtaking,” Kavya said at his side, her words hushed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He didn’t want her to like his home. He didn’t want her to get any closer to him than she’d already become. Emerging from the wildness of the Pir Panjal was nothing compared to the bureaucratic and financial nightmare of flying into Edinburgh. Normally Tallis took the slow route. Borders weren’t borders when they were simply a set of coordinates on a map that no one took notice of in an official capacity.

To fly? By commercial airline? That was completely different. Governments and companies. Security checks and the process of thoroughly exhausting Kavya as she threaded them through human physical and legal barricades. He’d promised that she’d never have to use mind control for selfish reasons—to have that feeling of prostituting herself. But she’d insisted. It was the fastest way to continue their escape from India. His seaxes would still be in Turkey if she hadn’t intervened. They would’ve been detained overnight in Hamburg without her ability to fuzz tiny details into nothing.

Much like the fog erased the details of a valley he used to know so well.

They had been together almost exclusively for more than three weeks. They’d been lovers for two of those three. And that was notthe mental path to travel if he wanted to put distance between them. His defenses were so depleted. She could own him with a few choice words.

He had a few choice words of his own.

Stay away from bloody Scotland.

Keep running.

Leave Kavya.

He never did.

Because nothing mattered a Dragon damn when he sank into her soft, eager body. Whether she realized the influence she had over him was another matter. She was willing every time. She initiated many of their encounters, and when she hadn’t, she rose to the challenge of meeting him at the edge of passion and violence. A trio of fresh scratch marks across his shoulder had yet to heal.

And, unexpectedly, as soon as they’d landed in Edinburgh, she had become . . . lighter.

“You’re smiling again,” he said.

“Is that a bad thing?”

Tallis shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his leather jacket. “No. Just wondered why. You don’t seem as wary.”

Her grin deepened. “If you’d spent most of your life waiting for an intruder to thrust into your mind and play, or for a mad sibling to track you down, wouldn’t it be a relief to be here?” She lifted her chin and aimed her tiger-eyed gaze down the valley. “There isn’t another Indranan for at least six hundred kilometers.”

“You can tell?”

“A little. It’s just a guess.” Her brows furrowed. “The Townsends, I think.”

“In London. Yes, I know of them. They control anything to do with the lives of Dragon Kings in southern England. I spent a lot of time in England before it became too rife with cartel types looking for Cage warriors.” He joined Kavya in looking over the misty, gray-green swoop of land. “Tell me, if you’d been raised here, would fighting in a Cage hold any appeal?”

“Maybe. If I could be guaranteed a child. But that’s the problem. If I bore children, I’d turn into my mother. Every day we drew nearer to twelve, the more haggard and frantic she became. Mood swings. Terrible rants and screaming fits.”

Tallis turned in time to see her swallow and push a tear back from her eye. She was smiling more often, which made seeing her cry even more unsettling. He didn’t want to see her cry any more than he wanted to wield a sword on her behalf. None of what he did for Kavya was in obvious service to his own goals: to find out who had poisoned his dreams, and keep that individual from success.

Reality didn’t alter, however. He’d returned to Scotland because of Kavya.

He pulled her into his arms. His chin fit just atop her head. “Can you explain it to me?”

“Remember what I said about how Indranan marry,” she said, her voice muffled by the folds of his jacket. “She and my father were linked. He had to make a choice: go mad right along with her, or sever the connection and try to prevent violence between Pashkah, Baile, and me.”

“What did he choose?”

“To break their link of twenty-six years. She was insane within days. Not that it did my father much good either. He just . . . stopped being. Once Baile was dead, Pashkah put his sword to other uses. The blood of more than one family member colors its blade.” She shuddered. “I’d already fled. I hated Pashkah. I hated the Indranan way. But I was glad my parents were out of their misery. In all ways that matter, they died as soon as they’d severed.”

Tallis regretted that their conversation had taken her from carefree smiles to the darkest possible memories. He should’ve left it alone. On some sick, self-flagellating level, he’d wanted to know if he was the inspiration for her new, relaxed humor. No, she’d been smiling because Scotland was an escape from lunatics, freak snowstorms, and slum alleyways.

She was weeping because of his questions.

Leave it alone.

Leave her alone?

Impossible. He didn’t want her to cry. He held her tighter and smelled jasmine as her hair tickled his mouth and nose. Their lives had been woven together, probably since the beginning of his dreams. Yet the woman he held was not the source of the visions he now considered nightmares—visions he hadn’t experienced since that last dream by the Beas River.

That . . . entity had been gone. For weeks.

Had Kavya driven her away? Or had that been Tallis’s choice, thrusting her out of his subconscious when he’d learned the difference?

“Here, look.” Tallis gently disengaged and urged her to turn back toward the valley. He stood behind her and crossed his arms around her upper body. She leaned her head back against his chest, which pierced new perforations in the armor of isolation he’d worn for years. He’d wake up one morning and realize she’d disintegrated the leather and metal and hard, stubborn memories. He didn’t know if his heart sped out of alarm or anticipation.

“Down there,” he said, pointing toward the end of the valley. “Can you see where the land meets the sea?” He took her hands in his and held them so that her knuckles were perfectly aligned mountain peaks.

She took a deep breath. “No, I can’t. The fog has it. Don’t tell me you can.”

“Not at all.” He breathed the mist-laden air. The scent of being home—that was a stronger memory than he’d imagined, whisking him back to the moment when he’d become the Heretic. He concentrated on his story, distracting them both from so much that was wrong. “The place where the land meets the sea is sometimes crisp, defined. On clear days, it’s almost too bright to look at—that beauty. Days like this, however, are considered sacred. The place where the land and sea blend into one is like the end of a rainbow. Neither is stronger than the other. You can’t see it or touch it or even describe it. But it’s there.”

“Sacred.”

“And in that mist is a boulder formation that resembles the ancient humans’ fertility goddess, only she bears hallmarks of the Dragon. She’s our interpretation. I know other clans believe the Dragon male, but not us. The boulder is called the Mother. She’s the heart and soul of the Pendray, and what was once my center.” He inhaled another breath of home. “But were we ever satisfied with the center? Of course not. Pendray have been racing toward misty, unreachable places for longer than history. It’s taken us across the water, made us people of hills and waves. Both. Always both.”

“The beast and the man. Both.”

Tallis closed his eyes, knowing he had to let her go or he’d pledge himself to more than her safety.

“We have some walking to do if we want to reach the estate by nightfall.” He shouldered his pack—a new duffel they’d bought in Istanbul, along with clothes more suited to English tourists. Kavya even wore jeans, a loose-fitting cowl-neck sweater, hiking boots, and a red wool coat that reached mid-calf. Zippered pockets on either side of the duffel held his seaxes.

Kavya followed. She was quiet, as was he, perhaps knowing they’d each said too much. They’d been saying too much for weeks.

Afternoon bled into twilight. He’d almost hoped he wouldn’t remember the way. That would mean “home” was purged from his mind and his heart, and he could leave when the time came. Instead he was a carrier pigeon on a cross-country flight toward the place of his birth. Many Dragon Kings had abandoned the stately castles that had once been their domain. Yet Tallis’s family was proud, holding on to old traditions to the very end.

No surprise.

“There,” he said—the first word he’d spoken in hours. He and Kavya didn’t share thoughts, but they’d become very good at sharing silences. “Do you see it?”

He pointed to a far hill where shadow rested atop shadow. Even the air there was darker than its environs.

Castle Clannarah, the local humans had named it. Tallis only knew it as home.

Kavya’s gasp came before he felt the presence of another being. Tallis swiveled on his heel and found her held at knifepoint by a beautiful woman whose face had been worn weary by the years.

“Hello, Rill.” His heart beat without any regard for how calm he needed to remain. “It’s been a long time.”

“Tallis?” Kavya’s eyes widened as the knife against her throat pressed deeper.

“Don’t worry,” he said, stepping closer, never breaking eye contact with the older woman. “My sister won’t hurt you.”

–

Kavya held perfectly still. On the inside, she wondered if Tallis realized the irony. He was trying to save her from the very tactic he’d used against her in the valley encampment. She’d wind up with another couple knife cuts on her neck.

What welcome should she have expected when returning to the land where Tallis had become the Heretic? Apparently his family was as dangerous as hers. Somewhere deep and unexplored, she’d hoped for better for him.

“Rill.” As if placating a wolf caught in a trap, Tallis’s voice was calm and low. “I need you to let her go. Look at me. Tell me I’m not your brother.”

“My brother’s dead.”

The woman was nearly as tall as Tallis. She’d wrenched Kavya’s arm behind her back at a painful angle. She was incredibly strong. Maybe that was a trait of Pendray women. Kavya was only just learning how little she knew of the Five Clans other than rumor and stereotype. Uniting the Indranan was a noble aim and she intended to see it through. But what of the Dragon Kings as a whole? Their race was dying. How could they discern the cause if they didn’t even know basic truths about each other?

No matter the deception, and no matter Tallis’s justifiable outrage, what if he really had been in service of a higher power? To unite the Dragon Kings. To solve the mystery of their slow extinction. There was no higher calling, although she knew how much his sacrifices had cost Tallis.

“I’m not dead.” He held his hands out, devoid of weapons or fists. “Rill, you know I could prove it. Will you promise to let her go if I do?”

Although her hold didn’t soften, the woman’s posture changed in ways Kavya couldn’t articulate. Using her telepathy, Kavya felt a mental shift—and was gratified that her gift was not barred to every Pendray. The woman had come to the decision that violence could wait, but the minutiae of her physical cues were beyond Kavya’s grasp. She only knew Tallis to that degree. His posture said he was somewhat wary yet confident. His gaze was half amazement, half sorrow.

Twenty years. A homecoming after twenty years. Kavya’s heart was breaking for him.

“Prove it, then.” A thick brogue colored the woman’s voice with the lilting rhythm and soft vowels of the Highlands.

“When I was seven, you saved me from certain annihilation. I’d been so angry with you and Opheena that I hurled a bucket of compost at you both. It was revolting. Every table scrap for three days splattered across the kitchen’s rear wall.” He chuckled at himself—this from the man who’d been practically nonverbal upon their first meeting. He’d lived a step outside of the world back then. Now . . .

His story turned wistful in a way Kavya had yet to hear from him. “It was sunny out. Midmorning. Mrs. Garrett had finished the morning’s breakfast cleanup. I remember feeling a moment’s satisfaction as you and Feena stood there, covered in scraps. Your expressions were stunned, then livid and ready to do murder. But you decided on the worst punishment imaginable. You said you’d leave it for Father to decide. Feena agreed, practically gleeful.”

The woman, Rill, had definitely softened. Even the knife blade was not too threatening in its press against Kavya’s flesh. She wondered if she could have overpowered the woman now. Doubtful, with so much strength at the Pendray’s disposal.

Not that it mattered. She remained still. Her trust in Tallis’s abilities and her eagerness to hear the conclusion of his story trumped all.

“I ran to my room,” he said. “I knew I was doomed to stable chores for the rest of eternity. No more lessons with my fencing master. I’d only just started, but my training would end with punishment for an ignoble mistake.”

“Only . . .” Rill stopped herself.

“Only when Father came home from his rounds, I didn’t hear a thing. No rumble of his big voice through the castle walls. Hours passed. Hours.It was nearly sundown when I dared creep out of my room. You and Feena were watching a movie, both of you clean and dressed as if nothing had happened. You gave me this . . . look. And when I peeked into the kitchen, it was spotless. Every scrap gone, and every smear cleaned. I was seven. I never asked why you’d done it—just took it as a gift and grabbed a hunk of cheese and bread before running back to my room.” He stepped forward, then another step. “After all these years . . . Rill, why did you do it?”

Rill shoved Kavya away and stood toe-to-toe with Tallis. Her expression of wariness and hope made Kavya’s chest burn. The woman wanted to believe.

Despite the noticeable age difference, they looked so much alike. The same tall, lean frame. The same dark hair with silver, although Rill’s reached mid-back. Silver flecks lined the tips of each strand, as if the thick mass was decorated with a hem of lace.

“We’d teased you mercilessly,” she said quietly. Kavya worked to understand her brogue, which was thick with emotion. “You were so eager to please and impress. Every opportunity. That made it easy to make fun of you. The equivalent of a teacher’s pet, I suppose, and all the jealous classmates. You’d finished your chores early, while Feena and I had stayed late in bed, reading fashion magazines. I still remember the fury on your face, just before you hurled your best shot. Our little berserker. We were in the bathroom, cleaning that rot off us, when Feena broke down. She couldn’t let you take the blame for what we’d prompted. We were downstairs cleaning within a half hour.” A slight smile tipped the woman’s thin lips, almost an exact copy of Tallis’s smile when he was in a sarcastic mood. “Letting you squirm for most of the day, dwelling on what would’ve been your punishment . . . that was satisfying.”

“I bet it was.”

He opened his arms. Rill fell into them with a little cry, then said his name over and over. Tallis held on, arms wrapped tight, with his face tucked in her hair. He whispered Pendray words that Kavya wasn’t meant to understand. She would’ve been embarrassed to know what secret words of affection they shared.

The sight of two siblings holding each other in pure relief and happiness was more than she could take. A stab of envy left her breathless. It was a fairy tale no Indranan would ever believe. She turned away and tightened the sash of her red wool coat. The damp chill of the Highlands wasn’t as biting as the frozen Pir Panjal, but she shivered anyway.

Glancing over her shoulder, seeing Tallis still holding on to his sister for dear life, she knew it wasn’t just the misty weather that had made her shiver.

I want to be her.

Except that wasn’t true. She was Tallis’s lover. She only wanted to be held by him with that much abandon, with her love returned by the man she’d come to adore. The mental box she’d used to lock away her feelings for Tallis suddenly burst open. She would never be able to close it again.

“So who is this mysterious fey girl?” Rill asked. “A tiny thing.”

“Just watch out for the claws.” Tallis’s eyes sparkled with amusement, never looking away from Kavya. “She’s to be our guest. We were just on our way up to Clannarah.”

“I’m afraid accommodations won’t be to your expectations.”

“What do you mean?”

For the first time, Rill didn’t appear so imposing. More like furtive. “Twenty years is a long time to be gone, brother. Things have changed. For the worse, I’m sorry to say.”

Tallis’s posture seized. “Because of me.” His expression assumed a hard edge, with his mouth pinched tight and his brow a series of unrelenting lines. Kavya didn’t think that severity was meant for anyone but himself.

“Yes,” Rill said quietly. “Because of you.”

“Then put that knife to my throat instead. What’s happened? This isn’t kitchen scraps against a wall.”

“Come up to Clannarah. Some rooms remain decent. It’ll be dark soon. Remember how fast it can slink up on a body?”

Tallis nodded, his eyes focused deep within. Long memories? Regret? Worry? Nothing remained of the hopefulness he’d revealed when telling his story.

“But first, I need a name for this young woman.”

“I’m Kavya of Indranan,” she said, extending her hand.

Rill looked ruefully at her right hand, where she still gripped her dagger. She switched the weapon to her left. Even in that feature she was built like Tallis, with long fingers and rough knuckles. She was a scrapper. A fighter. Another berserker. It was hard to imagine of the older woman, who appeared haggard in ways that Dragon Kings rarely revealed. Gorgeous blue eyes were surrounded by tense lines and cupped underneath by heavy shadows.

“Sorry about twisting your arm,” Rill said. “We don’t get many visitors, and none are friendly. To say this is a surprise would be an unforgivable understatement.”

“But you’re happy to see him?”

A flash of unreadable emotion crossed Rill’s features. Then it was gone, replaced by a friendly but neutral smile. “Of course I am.”