Heartmate (43 page)

Yet when she heard the announcement “T'ASH COMES” resound in the thin air of her mainspace, she prepared to argue.

With a small clap the man stood before her. She lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes, and tapped her foot. The fact that his face was set in weary lines, that his olive skin had a pale cast, that he looked as if he'd lost a few more kilos, and that he held a drooping Zanth, made no difference to her.

She sensed his thoughts—she should not be touched by violence. She should never experience it again. She was special, and precious, and something to be protected at all costs.

This softened her heart a little, until she realized that he wanted to place her under glass, like one of his expensive and exquisite creations.

She crossed her arms and stamped her foot. “No. We are lovers now, and we have begun to share things, things like Passage.”

He flinched, dropped Zanth.

The Fam stared at each of them haughtily, then stalked out of the mainspace to the bedroom.

“You want us to be HeartMates,” she accused.

He nodded.

She threw up her hands. “I've tried to fight you, but now you're too close. I have to admit that I can't go back to my old life, I can only go on into a new one.”

The hint of a smile curved his lips. It didn't placate her. She stabbed a finger at him. “And you want to be part of this new life.”

The smile disappeared. He slitted his own eyes. “I am part of your life. You are all of mine. We will be all in all to each other.”

“No. We won't.” She bit her lip, flicked her tongue over it, felt heat ebb up her neck and cheeks. “We will try being lovers.”

“We are more,” he rasped.

“Are we? You first mock me and say I'm a coward, then when I decide to fight with you, you push me away. You've been pushing me away from many things, from your emotions and your past, for instance. Until you let me closer, we will stay lovers only, not HeartMates HeartBonded.”

He reached out and whirled her into his hard body. Her own instantly appreciated his virility, and her blood started pounding again.

“We are much more than lovers. I've made a HeartGift, two. Mitchella returned the necklace. It waits for you. Soon we will wed. You will be Danith, GreatLady D'Ash.”

She tried to free herself and glared up at him. He wouldn't even admit he was keeping his essential self from her. Hurt stabbed her. She'd known this new life would be painful, and had struggled against it, and now was caught in the rip-tide. “We are only lovers. We have sex, that's all.”

He tilted her chin up with one hand. “We desire each other. Let's come together in passion. I like it.”

She liked it, too.

 
 
T'Ash held her tightly all through the night. When she
awoke in the morning, fear of the incredible future mixed with excitement. Today she started her apprenticeships. What if she should fail in her new life?

“You won't fail,” T'Ash murmured. “You will impress the Sallows and Heathers with your Flair, its strength and the innate power.”

His eyes opened and the contrast of the sky-crystal blue and his dark complexion aroused her.

“Besides,” T'Ash continued, his mouth setting in arrogant lines. “I verified your Testing. I do not make mistakes with Testing Stones.”

Danith smiled and leaned down to kiss him on the lips. She shut her eyes to hide incipient tears. The sex had been marvelous, beyond anything she'd ever imagined, but not quite enough. She yearned for words of love, but would not say her own first. She would not yield to be overwhelmed by him.

And she knew that deep inside him the small seed of darkness still lurked.

She let the kiss spin her mind away, felt the delicious caress of their bodies gently brushing. His warm, full soft lips became demanding, moist ones.

She moaned.

Princess mewed.

T'Ash rolled over and released Danith.

He smiled. “I'll feed the cat.” He glanced at the timer. “You get ready for your appointments.”

She went and showered. When he returned, she was pulling on some new, body-hugging but comfortable troustights under her knee-length matching brown tunic.

T'Ash scowled, his stare blaser-intense again. “You'll probably be working with Caprea Sallow. He's unwed. Don't let him get any ideas.”

Danith raised her brows. “No?”

“No. Perhaps I should make it clear to him—”

“You don't have to.” She sighed, looking around her increasingly cramped home. Gifts from various Great and GrandHouses—each one more elaborate than the next as if it were a matter of competition—had started materializing in her back grassyard. For some reason, probably because of T'Ash's lack, the offerings were mostly antique furniture. She wondered if she'd given the Nobles a chance to clean out their attics, or whatever they called the top floors of their castles. “Everyone knows the new D'Mallow is sleeping with GreatLord T'Ash.”

He stepped toward her, hands fisted at his sides. “Don't say that.”

“It's true.”

“It's more than sex. I've made a HeartGift, two.” He fulminated for a moment, looking as if he searched for words. Danith sighed again. Three little words shouldn't be difficult to find.

“I'll 'port with you to the Sallows.”

So he would be seen with her. “We could take the public carrier, or your private glider.”

“'Port.”

A few moments later Danith and T'Ash stood before the brick-walled Sallow property. He kissed her slowly, lingeringly, possessively—for the scrystone she was sure someone was watching. But that didn't stop her from enjoying the sensation of his mouth on hers, the heat building deep in her core.

When he lifted his head, he smiled and curved a hand around her face. “You'll be fine. Your Flair is now just under the surface to be tapped. An Animal Healer will be prized. With you the FirstFamilies might be able to increase the size of the delicate horse herds. We might save some Terran breeds that are threatened with extinction, ensure our heritage and our future.”

Always heritage and line with T'Ash. She returned his smile, easing herself away from him. Her timer beeped. Five minutes until she was due. She pulled the bellrope. “I'll be fine,” she said.

And she was. The morning at Sallow was spent sitting in the courtyard and practicing simple Flair exercises. Now and again she'd open her eyes to find herself surrounded by animals. Zanth, another cat or two, a rare puppy, housefluffs, even an old horse.

In the afternoon the Heather Healers took her around to the slightly ill and wounded of the Primary HealingHall. The hospital itself was more elegant and richly furnished than any other building Danith had ever been in.

The Healers were gentle but strict, teaching lessons of proper flow of Flair for the illness; when and how to remain distant from the pain, thoughts, and feelings of her patients.

Danith felt her Flair, guided it, and mastered it. It throbbed through her body as necessary now as her blood. As pervasive as life itself. She loved the current of it, reveled in it as she had so long wanted to do. She learned the basics quickly.

Mentally weary and with some of her strength drained in the use of Flair, she still skipped into her home and ate a large dinner. T'Ash showed up as evening was turning into night.

“I want you to come to a FirstFamilies conference. You are expected.”

“No.”

He stomped a circuit through the kitchen, the tiny dining room attached to the mainspace, the mainspace itself, and back. “This is important to me. We deal with Downwind matters, what must be done, how to craft a ritual that will mitigate the tension and ill-feeling.”

“I know it's important to you, and I thank you for inviting me, but I'm not comfortable with them—”

“You think I am?”

“I think you're one of them. You always were and always will be. And you know what must be done. The area of Downwind itself must be rehabilitated, so boys don't live in holes.”

His face froze.

“T'Ash, can't you tell me of that time? Of the doors you keep shut on your memories?”

“No.”

Danith wet her lips. His eyes sparked, but he made no move to her.

“Aren't we close enough?” she asked.

His jaw set and the blue blaze of his eyes intensified. “I want to be closer. I want the HeartBond—”

“I'm not even accustomed to you as a lover, let alone a HeartMate.” She feared total surrender.

“How long do you need?” It was a challenge more than a sensitive question.

“I don't know.”

He didn't say she was cowardly, but she only had to look in his eyes to see that he thought it.

He turned on his heel and went into the mainspace, where there was enough space to teleport in and out. “I'll be back late.”

She didn't tell him not to come; her heart thudded hard at the thought that he might not come back to her. “Inform the Nobles they need to spend some gilt as well as craft spells,” Danith called.

“You tell them. You tell GrandHouses. You will be summoned to their Council, soon enough.” He left with a bang.

Zanth growled, startling Danith. He and Princess lay on opposite ends of her settee.

She stared at the cat, opened her mouth to argue, and knew she'd never be able to change his mind. “You're looking thinner.”

Zanth preened.
Many 'roons dead. Many guards have new boots.
He narrowed his eyes.
Chef at Res-i-dence made cocoa mousse. In no-time place.

“I don't know how to access the no-time.”

Zanth subsided into fake sleep.

Danith shoved more gifts of furniture to line her walls and thought about storage, trying not to think about T'Ash, to no avail.

He was an ideal lover, his hands slow and gentle and caring, his lips firm and demanding, his body hard and delightful against hers. She shivered in remembrance.

During lovemaking, their needs had spurred the melding of thoughts. More and more their loving consisted of unspoken needs flowing from one to the other, being silently fulfilled by each, escalating into mind-numbing ecstasy. Every time they made love was better than the last. Again she shivered.

She still didn't know what to do. The man thought she could instantly adapt to her new life. No doubt he believed he'd acclimated to Downwind in the same amount of time. The poor boy. The poor boy, Rand, who still lived within T'Ash and would not let her near.

He'd shut that fragment of himself off, never to be exposed to anyone, never to be integrated into the GreatLord T'Ash. His Downwind years were to be ignored. His real life had started with his second Passage and the advent of Holm Holly.

Danith firmed her lips. At least she was trying to blend her old life with her new. She was trying to keep her closest friends and the Clovers in her life, trying to make new friends who wouldn't judge her just by her new rank.

The thought led her to action. She'd accept a dessert-party invitation with Mitchella over at Pink's. Despite the publicity of her nobility, she stubbornly refused to let the Clovers put any distance between themselves and her. Yet Danith felt the Clovers were only biding their time, waiting to see if she became D'Ash to completely sever the connection.

Her Flair already separated them enough. She set her shoulders. She was determined that she would not lose the Clovers.

T'Ash was another one who bided his time. He didn't like the Clovers. She'd returned Claif's ring, but T'Ash hadn't been satisfied. He stuck by his idea that she needed no one but him in her life.

She did need him. And she needed him to need her, sensed that his desire for her went beyond passion, but that, too, he never said. He had an idea that he could outwait her, wear her down, that eventually she would give in to all his demands.

Danith didn't think she could afford to.

 
T'Ash stood in the shadows near Danith's house. She
should move into his Residence. Lower St. Johnswort Street was too unsafe.

She walked slowly, tired from her first day using and mastering her Flair, yet still with grace and a cheerfulness in her movements. His heart contracted. After every moment they spent apart, he realized his deep need for her.

A worry had begun to nag him, a feeling that she was progressing well into her new life, striding confidently down a road—and leaving him behind. She was managing to weld her past and her future together into a strong whole, while he was beginning to realize that he'd ignored his past. He'd put it far behind him, refusing to acknowledge any strengths his Downwind boyhood had given him, trying to forget that part of his life.

Did this make her stronger than he? He thought it might. It certainly added to the weight of the evidence that he did not deserve a woman like her.

T'Ash froze. He lifted his head, scenting the tang of twisted Flair. Another lurked in the shadows, glided after Danith. The stalker waited for her to leave the strong and protective light of the nightpoles and turn up her own path. It was the last teenager of the triad.

He was close and unshielded. T'Ash hit instantly and hard, spearing mental pain to the gangmember. The young man collapsed without a sound.

T'Ash scanned the golden web of protection he had once again spun around Danith and fed it power.

On her front porch Danith stopped and shivered. “T'Ash?” she called softly.

He gritted his teeth. He wanted her. He wanted to HeartBond with her. She smelled of the Clovers. “Here,” he said.