Protector of the Flight (4 page)

Her
breasts were flattened on the mattress, but they looked round and full. He eyed
her butt and legs, muscular, like a rider’s would be.

He’d
heard there were no volarans in the Exotique Land, but that there were horses.
She had the tone of horsewoman.

A
frisson of awareness raised the hair on the nape of his neck. He lifted his
gaze from the woman to find four beady eyes fixed on him. Marrec tilted his
chin at the two beings who hunched on either side of the injured woman’s head,
still staring at him.

Then
Marrec realized what they were—magical shape-shifting beings called feycoocus.
One had become Alexa’s companion after she arrived, the other had originally
come from Exotique Terre with Marian. Today they appeared as foot-long rabbits,
brown and white with dark patches over their eyes and noses as pink as the
horsewoman’s lips.

They
should have looked harmless, fluffy. They looked dangerous and threatening.

The
door opened and several Chevaliers walked in, including Faucon and Lady
Hallard.

“This
is a good time to switch singers,” the medica rasped. “We have lowered the web
through our patient and it is below her. We can swap people, then raise it one
final time through her body. That should be enough.”

The
rabbits turned their combined gazes to Faucon. He stopped under the weight of
their scrutiny, then nodded. “Salutations, feycoocus.”

The
magical beings twitched their ears, radiating welcome. Even they wanted Faucon
for the woman. What chance did Marrec have?

3

C
alli woke to
foreign singing. Muzzy-headed, she didn’t know where the sound came from, but
it was a lot better than the chanting of her tinnitus. She felt
good,
except a little cramped, and her face was squashed into something so soft she
had trouble breathing.

She
stretched, long and slow. Her mind caught up with her body. No pain! She rolled
over to her back, eyes wide open…

And
saw a bunch of strangely dressed people standing around her whispering, and not
in English. Her insides clutched and she was suddenly afraid to move. These
folks were armed. Those who wore richly colored poncho-like robes had chain
mail underneath and a sheath on each hip. The people in leathers had swords at
their sides.

She
gulped, realizing they looked a lot like the people she’d glimpsed in the
crystal on the hill for years. Riding flying horses—like those winged horses
who’d come to look at her,
speak
to her in her
mind.

She
remembered falling through the face of the hillside—how could she do
that?
—and…and…being
greeted by someone.

Glancing
around, she saw that same someone, a small woman with silver hair, smiling at
her from the right side of her bed.

“Hi,
welcome to Lladrana.” Her face clouded. “It would have been better if you’d
told
us you were hurt as soon as you came.”

“Urgh,”
was all Calli could manage.

A
woman’s laugh came. “Give her a break, Alexa. Don’t you remember how it was?”

Calli
struggled to sit up, strong hands grasped her shoulders from behind and lifted
her easily. She heard a tinkling song. She eyed the people around her. They
were all tall and beautiful, with golden skin and dark hair and eyes, not quite
Asian looking.
Other.

“You’re
not in Kansas—well, Colorado—anymore,” the other woman said.

Alexa
chuckled and patted Calli’s hand. “You’re not in Oz, either. This is Lladrana,
another dimension and I’m Alexa Fitzwalter.” She beamed.

Calli
must be dreaming.

A
tall, auburn-haired woman, plump and pretty, came to stand next to Alexa, the
second woman who’d spoken in English. “Hi, I’m Marian Dumont, late of Boulder,
now a Circlet of Lladrana.” She touched a golden band she wore around her
forehead. The hammered design showed clouds and lightning.

Sticking
out a hand, Alexa said, “I came from Denver in the spring. Pleased to meet you,
Ms.—”

Letting
her gaze roam, Calli figured out that the rest of the folks were watching
intently and not talking because they didn’t understand English. She wondered
what language they spoke. She looked at Alexa’s hand, put her own in it and
received a surge of warmth that flooded her and left her fingers tingling. She
licked her lips and tried her voice. “I’m Callista Torcher. Calli.”

The
redhead jostled Alexa aside in a teasing manner and held out her hand. There
was something about the gesture, maybe the way Alexa and Marian stood, that
warned Calli that she was being tested somehow. Besides the incredible little
surge of…
something
…she’d felt from Alexa, the smaller woman’s grip had
been firm and strong, her hand callused.

Calli
shivered and slid her fingers against Marian’s. This time she felt a heady zip
that made her head buzz. She shook her head to clear it. Marian released her
fingers and chuckled, a richer sound than Alexa’s.

Large
hands squeezed her shoulders, making her aware of them once more. Man’s hands.
Thumbs brushed her shoulder blades, then the hands vanished as a man to her
left circled the bed she was on. He wore leathers the color of butterscotch
that were obviously expensive. He made a flourishing bow to her. “Faucon
Creusse,” he said, and she decided that was his name.

Never
in her life had a guy bowed to Calli. She nodded at him, but too-handsome men
made her a little wary. They usually had great expectations of a woman and didn’t
return much. At least the rodeo cowboys she’d known tended to be that way.

“So,
how much French do you know?” Alexa asked briskly, drawing Calli’s attention
back to her right.

“Uh,
none,” Calli said.

Marian
nodded. “How good are you at languages?”

Calli
shrugged. “Pretty fair. I have quite a bit of Spanish.”

Alexa
made a face. “I’m terrible. I’ll have a bad accent for the rest of my life. I
chose to stay here on Lladrana.”

Calli
froze. She wasn’t ready to accept she was in a different place—who would? And
if, by some impossible chance, she
was
somewhere else, she wasn’t ready
to cope with that, either. The hurt of her father’s rejection still shadowed
her heart, echoed in her mind.

An
older lady spoke, and the language was French sounding, for sure. This woman
wore tough, dark brown leathers. She walked up the right side of the bed to
stand next to Alexa and did a half bow. “Nuaj Hallard,” the woman said.

Again
Calli nodded. Who knew what they did as greeting here? From the long robe with
no armor that Marian wore, they might even curtsey. Like bowing, curtseying had
never been an item in Calli’s life.

“Lady
Hallard’s right,” Alexa said. “Callista doesn’t need to know Lladranan to get a
tour of the Castle.”

Lady?
Castle? Uh-oh. Sure didn’t sound like Colorado.

With
glee in her eyes, Alexa smiled at Calli, and Calli braced herself for a zinger.
“How would you like to see the winged horses again?”

The
flying steeds couldn’t be real, could they? She just stared at the grinning
Alexa, the smiling Marian and the serious Lady Hallard. After a minute, Calli
said, “Say again?”

“Winged
horses,” Alexa said.

“Flying
horses,” Marian said.

The
words rang in Calli’s ears, but she could almost see a big question mark
hovering above her head with the word
duh?

“It’s
true,” Alexa assured. “We have flying horses here, called volarans.”

“From
the French word
fly,
” Marian said.

“Uh,”
Calli said. She
did
want to see them again.

“So,”
Alexa said, “do you want to humor our madness?”

Once
more, Calli scanned the room full of men and women—some in robes and armor,
some in leathers that looked to be for fighting. Caution, deep and strong,
swept her. Weapons. Armor. These people were at war. If they were being nice to
her, it was because they wanted something.

If
they were really here at all and she wasn’t crumpled on the ledge of the
hillside from cracking her head hard—having a dream more imaginative than ever
before.

A
man said something and Lady Hallard withdrew and Alexa and Marian stepped
aside. Another guy, this one not as tall but more solid and with a gleam of
devil-may-care that Calli knew all too well from her rodeo days, bowed in front
of her and offered his arm. Alexa circled his other biceps with her fingers.
“My husband, Bastien Vauxveau.”

He
was married. Good. But to Alexa? She’d
married
a guy here? Then Calli
noticed a strange thing. They both had a golden color pulsing around them,
merging where they touched, sparkling with glitter. Wow. And they looked really
good together. Happy.

A
bolt of yearning for such love struck Calli so hard she nearly doubled over.
She’d thought she and her dad were partners. She’d loved him, ignoring some of
the offers for sex and a serious relationship with rodeo men. She’d had her
plans to build up the Rocking Bar T to a fine horse-training ranch with Dad and
when she was successful look around for a man.

All
gone.

Bastien
quirked a brow at her, wiggled his elbow. Alexa grinned. Yep, a happy couple.
Partners. Calli turned wide eyes to Marian.

“Yes,
I’m married, too. To a sexy Sorcerer. A Circlet like myself.” Marian answered
Calli’s unspoken question.

Oh,
wow. The back of her neck tingled. Slowly she turned her head to see Faucon
Creusse smiling at her.

“He’s
unmarried and available,” Alexa provided. “But we need to talk a little.”

“We
need to talk
a lot.
” If she weren’t dreaming. From the corner of her
eye, she saw a woman bobbing her head.

“She’s
available and unpaired, too,” Marian said. “This culture has no bias against
homosexuality. There are different levels of commitment, here, too.”

“I’m
straight,” Calli said absently, doing another scan of the people in the
room—different colored and worn leathers—some people wore bands around their
arms. Did that mean anything? From the gazes she met, she thought about a third
in the room were “available.”

“Marian’s
right,” Alexa said. “She and her husband were married in a formal, long,
magical ceremony that bound them together, hearts, minds and souls.”

“Not
to mention bodies,” Marian murmured.

“Bastien
and I haven’t done that yet. But we’re Paired. The guy, here—” Alexa poked him
gently in the chest “—is commitment shy.” Bastien winced as if he got the gist
of Alexa’s words. Calli didn’t doubt the statement.

“I
see,” she lied, turning back to the women and Bastien. She looked at Marian,
dressed in a long linen dress of beige with a deep over-robe of dark blue,
remembering her words. “You’re a Circlet, a Sorceress?”

“Yes,”
Marian said. “I’m only visiting the Marshalls’ Castle, to help in the healing
spell and to aid you in adjusting to Lladrana. Alexa called me by crystal
ball,” she ended blandly.

Calli
let that one go. She stared at Alexa, who wore a blue-green robe over chain
mail, had a sword at one hip and a short, cylindrical sheath at the other—and a
nasty scar on her face. “You’re a…” Calli didn’t know what.

Alexa
dipped her head. “I’m a Marshall.” She tapped the short sheath. “This is my
Marshall’s baton.”

Calli
vaguely remembered the words from long-ago history lessons, but the concept
still eluded her. “And that means?”

“She’s
the crème de la crème of magical warriors in this society,” Marian said.

So
Alexa had landed on her feet. Calli wasn’t surprised. The woman had an air of
complete competence about her. Calli gestured to Lady Hallard. “She doesn’t
wear the same sort of clothes, so she’s a…”

“Very
observant,” Marian said.

Calli
didn’t think so. It was just natural curiosity.

“She’s
a Chevalier,” Alexa said.

Now,
that
word Calli knew. “French for horseman.”

“Right,”
Marian said. “In this instance it translates to ‘Knight,’ and in this culture,
it means those who ride volarans or, if no volarans are around, horses. Lady
Hallard is the leader of the Chevaliers, with men and women under her.” Marian
gestured to a tall, lean man who wore the same yellow and green as the Lady. At
Marian’s wave, he nodded, unsmiling, to them.

Again
a tinge of wariness slithered up Calli’s spine. Warriors. Knights. She sensed
there was a lot no one was telling her, even these seemingly welcoming women
who said they were from Colorado. What
was
going on?

Bastien
joggled his still-extended elbow. “Ven?”

“What
could a tour hurt?” asked Alexa.

“You
will certainly confirm that you aren’t in Colorado anymore. And once you see
the volarans—”

“You’ll
know you aren’t even on Earth,” Alexa said cheerfully.