Freedom's Fall (6 page)

Tansy wandered into the lounge room the next morning, not at
all sure how she was supposed to look either of her Enforcers in the eyes. She
was embarrassed by her meltdown the day before, and she felt bad for them because
she knew they’d somehow blame themselves. She was trying really hard not to
have a pity party about the whole fucking mess.

They were waiting for her at the dining table, food laid out
but the warming covers still on.

“Morning,” she said.

“Morning.” Rye walked straight over, wrapped her up in his
huge arms and crushed her to his chest. “Did you sleep well?”

He nuzzled her ear, his warm breath ghosting over her skin
and waking up every erogenous zone she had. She lifted her head to answer him,
but the heat in those strange lavender eyes froze the words on her tongue. He
was so gorgeous, and having his big, strong body pressed so close to hers was
playing hell with her brain function.

Then he lowered his head, aligning their lips with such
purpose that she had no recourse but to lift her mouth to meet his. Pressing them
together, he eased his tongue out to slide along the seam of her lips, tasting
her without demanding entry, holding her body tight and hard while he played
soft and gentle with her mouth.

Her breasts swelled where they pressed against his chest and
a low, heavy ache settled deep in her pussy. She surged closer, opening her
mouth to invite him in, but he didn’t take her up on her offer. He nipped at
her lips, he licked them, kissing from corner to corner, but he didn’t delve
inside.

“Rye, please.” She breathed the words out and she could feel
the curve of his lips as he smiled.

“Not yet, honey. Soon.”

Tucking his head into the crook of her neck, he gave her one
long, hard squeeze and then released her, stepping back and turning her toward
the table. “You’d better go say good morning to Dev before he gets too lonely.”

Tansy’s vision was a little blurry and she was sure her
steps weren’t as steady as they should be. As she made her way around the table,
it didn’t occur to her to disobey. She was so busy worrying about Dev not
feeling left out that she forgot about her own embarrassment.

The moment she got close enough, Dev pushed back his chair,
grasped her by the wrist and dragged her onto his lap. She let out a gasp of
surprise, and Dev’s hand was at the back of her neck in a flash, guiding her
mouth to his and sealing their lips together. The kiss was closed-mouthed and
intense. There was no way to mistake it for anything but a claim of possession.

As soon as he pulled away, Tansy opened her mouth to speak,
but Dev placed his hand over the bottom half of her face. “No, you don’t get to
protest. You started this, you asked for our help, you let us touch you and
kiss you, and you don’t get to shut us out now.” He removed his hand and gave
her another quick kiss. “This is going to take time, Tansy. We’ll have progress
and setbacks. There’ll be time for talk and times when no words are needed. But
whatever happens we need to keep moving forward together. You’re ours now, for
as long as you’ll have us. Unless you pack your things and leave this den, Rye
and I are going to treat you like our woman. Do you understand?”

She nodded and slid her arm around his shoulders, tucking
her hand underneath his long, silky, outrageously purple hair. “Yes, I
understand, Dev.”

“Good.” He gave her a love-tap on the bum. “Now let’s eat
breakfast before Rye fades away from starvation.”

She wriggled off his lap and allowed Rye to guide her to the
head of the table. Dev sat at her left, Rye took a seat at her right, and the
Enforcers proceeded to serve her, then themselves. She ended up with far too
much food on her plate but she didn’t have the heart to rein them in.

She’d been so worried about how they’d react to her meltdown
the night before. At the time, she hadn’t been in any shape to deal with the
Enforcers and they knew it. Dev and Rye had taken her to the lair and Tansy had
spent the night tucked safe and tight between Zenbaylan and Fellescend. Being
around the blacks seemed to smooth all her rough edges, and to her surprise she’d
slept like a baby.

But since waking she’d had more than enough time to fret
about how Rye and Dev would react this morning. Half of her had expected them
to treat her with kid gloves, the other half had feared they’d shut her out.
But in all her scenario-building she’d never quite come up with the notion that
they’d kiss her and claim her. And she’d never been so happy to be taken by
surprise.

“The stormwatchers have predicted clear skies today, so
there’s a big market on in town,” Dev said. “We thought we might fly down and
have a look.”

“Oh, okay.” Tansy tried to hide her disappointment. She knew
her males weren’t required for duty today, and now that the air had cleared she’d
been looking forward to spending time with them. She was bored with her own
company and with being trapped on the top of the den. Going to the market
sounded wonderful, but the only way to get there was on dragonback. There was
no way she’d be able to get into the air, so she’d have to stay at the den and
be bored.

“How soon can you be ready to leave?”

Rye’s question froze her in mid-motion, a loaded fork
halfway to her mouth. “Ah, I’m not going.” She lowered her hand.

“Why not?” Dev reached out and stroked her arm. “Is because
of last night? Are you still upset with us?”

God no. She was so far from being upset with them that she
felt as though she should grovel at their feet in gratitude. “No. I was never
upset with you. I had a flashback, that’s all.” And that
was
all. The
flashback might have been a doozy, but she’d survived it—and she’d survive the
next one too. She’d fight her way through as many traumatic memories as she had
to in order to regain a normal life.

Dev smoothed his hand up her back and under her ponytail,
cupping the nape of her neck. His palm was rough and warm and her body
instinctively leaned closer to him.

“Are you sure? If we did something wrong, you have to tell
us so we know not to do it again.”

“The three of us are fine, truly.” Or at least the two males
were. She, on the other hand, could be the poster girl for Mental Health Week.

Rye leaned his elbows on the table. “So why won’t you come
into town with us?”

Flicking her eyes down to her plate, she took a long breath
and tried to unscramble her sluggish brain. She only had a few seconds to come
up with a plausible lie and she wasn’t sure if she was up to the challenge.

She won’t fly.

Tansy gasped in outrage. Bloody Zenbaylan and her big mouth.

Fisting her hands in her lap, Tansy sent a sharp, hopefully
private message to the nosy battle dragons.
Keep out of this, both of you.
If I wanted Dev and Rye to know my secrets, I would have told them.

They can’t help you if they remain ignorant.

Tansy ground her teeth together.
This is my problem,
Zenbaylan. I’ll fix it in my own time.

Rye reached over, scooping her out of her chair and hauling
her onto his lap. The movement broke her concentration and she fell out of the
link with Zenbaylan, thank goodness. Then Rye snuggled her tight, turning her
so she was facing Dev. His full lips were pressed tight and his eyes narrowed
as he stared at her across the table.

“It that true? Are you afraid to fly?”

“Yes.” Just one more freaky failure to add to her list. She
tried to wriggle off Rye’s lap, but he simply tightened his arm, squeezing her
until she stopped moving. Giving up with bad grace, she slumped against him and
tried to prepare herself for the fallout.

Dev leaned forward, propping his arms on the table. “I know
you were frightened the night we rescued you, but I thought that was because of
the ordeal you’d been through. If you’re scared to fly, how did you manage to
stay calm on the flight home?”

She shrugged. “My captivity was a living hell. I would have
strapped on a pair of wings and flapped myself out of Allsgate if I’d thought
it would work. Plus I was pretty sure I’d just killed a man. I was so
terrorized I was numb and I just didn’t have it in me to be scared once I got
into the air.”

And both Rye and Dev had held her tight. She’d been wrapped
in a blanket, then wrapped in their arms and held firm against their hard,
strong bodies. Relief at being safe and free had overtaken every other emotion.

Rye rubbed her back in long, smooth sweeps. “Is it just a
fear of being on dragonback, or is it something else?”

Tansy screwed up her nose. Rye was supposed to be the
fun-loving half of the Enforcer partnership, the easygoing pleasure seeker.
This was not the time for him to turn into Oprah.

“I can sit here all day, Tansy. And don’t bother to lie,
because Zenbaylan will call you out.”

Apparently Rye could also be an asshole with a wide streak
of can’t-mind-his-own-business.

Dev leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You are
aware that we have the whole day off. How long do you think you can hold out
before we make you talk?”

Wow. Assholes in stereo. Wasn’t she just the luckiest girl
in the den?

She felt Rye’s whole body lift and drop as he heaved a big
sigh, then he rested his cheek on top of her head. “Come on, honey, please let
us in.”

She recognized the undercurrent of need in his voice. The
compulsion to help and to heal, a desire that seemed strange coming from a male
who made his livelihood from battle.

All the men in her family were strong, but they were regular
human men whose first instinct was to fix a problem. She’d learned early on that
if she wanted to talk, she went to her mom. But if she wanted someone’s ass
kicked, she went to her brothers.

Sitting cradled in Rye’s lap, looking across the table into Dev’s
pale-blue eyes, it occurred to Tansy that she was being offered something rare
and precious. A combination of emotional and physical strength that went far
beyond their connection in the bedroom. And it called to her, deep down inside.

Taking an unsteady breath, she did her best to meet them
halfway. “In my other life, I used to skydive. We’d fly up to twelve and a half
thousand feet, throw ourselves out of a plane, and after a minute or so of
freefall we’d pull our parachutes and gently float to the ground. It was
wonderful. It was a rush. When I was in the air, I felt like I could conquer
the world.”

She let her eyes drift shut, remembering a time when
plummeting toward the earth at one hundred and eighty-five kilometers an hour had
been her idea of a good time. When she opened her eyes again, she could see she’d
lost Dev and Rye, so she took a moment to explain the concept of skydiving to
them. Neither male seemed enchanted by the idea of anything less than a dragon
to break a fall, but that wasn’t the point of her story.

“During my last jump, I got tangled in my ’chute. I managed
to kick myself free and I deployed my reserve but I’d lost a lot of altitude.
The landing was ugly and I broke my leg in two places and fractured my wrist.”
And she’d got her ass kicked from one side of the army base to the other by her
very unhappy CO, who didn’t like his soldiers being reckless, on duty or off.

“By the time I was fit to get back in the air, I’d lost my
nerve. It’s the one time I let my fear win.”

Rye’s big hand kept right on rubbing her back. “I can
understand why you would be wary after that experience, but we can work on it
together. If you’re going to be happy here in the den, you have to be able to
ride our dragons.”

She knew he was right and she wished with everything in her
that there was no more to her story. “That’s not all,” she whispered. “That’s
not the worst of it.”

Dev swore, and she watched him come around to her side of
the table. Pulling a chair close, he wedged himself at right angles to Rye so
her legs were tucked into the V of Dev’s. Leaning forward, he cupped a hand
over her hip. “We’re right here, honey. You’re safe with us.”

She nodded. Then, to her horror, she felt a hot, fat tear
slide down her cheek. It was followed by a second and a third. Dev snatched a
napkin off the table and gently brushed them away as they fell. “Don’t stop
now, Tansy. Tell us the rest.”

The only way she could tell them, the only way to share her
story, was to detach. She forced her mind and body to disconnect, as though her
limbs no longer belonged to her and the tears on her cheek were not her own.
Separating from herself, she refused to allow the words that came out of her
mouth to have an effect on her body.

“The men who took us, Willersby and the others, had some
kind of competition going on between them. When the other women and I compared
notes, it became clear that our captors wanted to bring us to heel without
breaking us entirely. Somehow they’d linked their status and authority in the
group with how quickly and effectively they could force a woman to comply.”

The cold numbness seeped into her body, chilling her nerves
and freezing her emotions. “At first, Willersby tried deprivation and pain. My
control bracelet got hard use and he would withhold food and drink. But it didn’t
take me long to work out that kind of punishment couldn’t last if he wanted to
win their stupid game. Long-term use of the bracelet would kill me, and no one
would respect Willersby if his mistress was thin, haggard and malnourished. So
I held out. I endured the pain, I ignored the hunger and I refused to comply.”

Dev gathered her hands in his. “How did he respond to that?”

“He got inventive.” She shuddered and clung to the
emotionless cold. “He tried several different techniques. He bombarded me with
random acts of cruelty until he hit on the one thing guaranteed to break me.”

“Your fear of flying,” Rye said.