Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (11 page)

The way he’d looked that day at
North Camp Inn- so carefree and happy- was emblazoned in her mind’s eye, a
horrible point of contrast to the enraged monster that stood before her now.

She shifted, sitting cross-legged
and folding her hands neatly in her lap. “I make things difficult for you,
don’t I,” she said sadly.

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

She pursed her lips, staring at
her hands and wondering how much of life consisted of destiny. Had she created
this connection between them on her own? How could she have been so completely
enamored if their fates weren’t somehow intertwined? Could she have truly
fallen for Drake if they weren’t meant to be together?

She didn’t realize he had knelt
in front of her until his hands covered hers. Ashlyn looked up reluctantly,
trying not to think about how she was setting herself up for yet another
rejection from him.

“I push you away, and yet you
always seem to find a way back to me,” he said, and his eyes were solemn
despite the curve to his mouth. He reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her
ear, and his touch was tentative and gentle. “Tell me. What do you want?”

“Me?” she said numbly, and he
nodded. His grip tightened on her fingers, a welcome pressure that distracted
her from the confusing jumble of her thoughts.

She swallowed hard, and met his
gaze, knowing that her heart was in her eyes. “I want you.”

He nodded again, thoughtfully,
looking as though he’d expected her answer. “Why?”

Ashlyn smiled despite herself, an
easy grin that might have been followed up with a snarky comeback if it had
been anyone else kneeling in front of her. Drake was so serious now, and this
was not a situation she’d ever expected to find herself in. She remembered the
day he’d carried her away from Soryl, let her cry in his arms, and said exactly
the right words to her. He’d been the man she needed then, the man she had
always wanted him to be, but she hadn’t realized exactly how deeply she cared
for him until the night .he’d rejected her.

“Because I love you, stupid,” she
said wryly, knowing that ignoring the feeling wouldn’t make it go away any more
than ignoring Drake would make him disappear. She was both elated and miserable
at finally being able to say it out loud, but there was also a sense of
defiance in her words. Despite his attempts to rebuff her, Ashlyn’s emotions
hadn’t changed. A fifteen-year old girl’s childish crush was one thing, but genuine,
lasting love was quite another.

“Where is Skye?” she asked,
wanting to change the subject.

Drake sighed, and raised a hand
to his chin, rubbing pensively as he looked around. “I don’t know. I was
fighting the soldiers and he ran. Then I came after you.”

“So considerate of you,” she
muttered.

“We shared blood,” he reminded
her. “We share a bond now that cannot be broken, even if I am without
resist.
”

“So I’m the first person you’re
going to try to murder every time you snap?”

Drake rolled his eyes. “You view
things so negatively.”

“Oh, will you…ugh. Whatever. My
dad is in the cave behind the waterfall. Assuming you’re done with your bloody
rampage, can you please give me a hand with him? He could really use some
mending right now.”

“Ashlyn.”

She looked up, exasperated.
“What?”

He tilted her chin up with his
fingers and leaned down, placing a firm kiss on her lips. “Thank you.”

He was talking about how she’d
saved his psychotic vampire butt with
resist,
of course, and Ashlyn knew she should make some snarky comeback, but her
mind was completely blank. She blushed furiously, unsure what to make of his
behavior. “Um…no problem.”

Chapter 6

Let Go

After all the indecision and
heartbreak, Ashlyn had expected there to be some ambivalence regarding what had
happened with Drake. She supposed, at the very least, that she ought to feel
guilty for kissing Drake when Vargo was waiting for her in Toryn.

Somehow though, she couldn’t find
it in herself to be unhappy. She was giddy inside, feeling alive and hopeful for
the first time in a long while, and when she opened her eyes in the morning to
find herself curled against Drake’s side, his arm draped protectively over her
shoulders, she smiled to herself and snuggled closer.

She’d fallen asleep alone,
leaning up against the cave wall and shivering from the cold. Despite their
kiss just hours before, Drake’s closeness now came as a surprise. His words and
demeanor while he was tending to her father last night had been no different
from his usual solemn, distant countenance. He had carefully set the bone in
her father’s arm and healed it, then done his best to smooth over the skin that
was scabbed and scarred from frequent bloodletting. But there was nothing he
could do for Lord Li’s anemic state. Only time would heal that affliction.

Drake had echoed Ashlyn’s
sentiments regarding the danger of trying to use the
heal
stane on the black horse, and had agreed to leave the injury
alone till daylight. Ashlyn suspected he would try to heal the gelding’s leg
anyway if it wasn’t better this morning, since they both knew that it was
essential they return to Toryn as soon as possible.

From the back of the cave, a
voice croaked her name. “A…Ashlyn.” Her father’s voice was rusty from disuse,
barely audible over the roar of the waterfall.

Ashlyn scrambled out from
underneath Drake’s arm and dashed to Lord Li’s side. “Dad! I’m so glad you’re
awake,” she whispered, wanting to hug him but unsure if it would be
appropriate. “Can I get you anything?”

“Water,” he rasped, and she
rushed to get a canteen. She smiled hesitantly at Drake, who was just waking
up, and one corner of the vampire’s mouth curved in tired acknowledgment. He
looked exhausted. He obviously hadn’t slept as well as she had.

She helped to prop her father’s
head up while he drank, and wiped some droplets from the corner of his mouth
with her glove when he was finished. She moved to put the canteen back in the
saddle bag, but his fingers fluttered weakly, reaching for her hand. Ashlyn sat
cross-legged beside him and threaded her fingers through his, unsure of what to
say.

“I thought…I thought you were
dead,” he said to her, eyes half-lidded as he struggled to stay awake.

“You know me better than that,”
she said, smiling as she brushed a lock of unkempt hair from his forehead. “But
you weren’t the only one that Kou deceived.”

“Kou…Devlyn.” Now Lord Li did
close his eyes, and a tear squeezed out one corner and made its way down his
temple. “I…misjudged…him.”

Ashlyn grimaced. “It must be a
weakness of the Li bloodline. I did, too.”

“He is no…better than…Lord Angelo.
He must…be stopped.”

“I’m not sure if Skye was able to
kill him last night or not,” she said, “but if he’s still alive, I’ll find him
and put an end to this. Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t let you down.”

Her dad nodded faintly, his eyes
fluttering shut again. Ashlyn leaned down to kiss his hand, reveling at the
feel of his knuckles against her cheek. She’d spent so long pushing aside her
emotions for the sake of Toryn, trying to convince herself that she could kill
her father if it became necessary, that it seemed surreal to be here with him
now. She wished he was stronger so they could talk. It had been three years
since she’d last seen him, and there was a lot to catch up on.

After a long moment, she tucked
his hand back under the blanket and stood. When she turned, Drake was kneeling
next to his horse, light scattering through the curtain of water and
highlighting his dark silhouette.

She picked up her shuriken and
her knapsack from the ground, shrugging into the blue straps and securing the
weapon on her back. “How is he?” she asked.

Drake shook his head silently,
his gloveless hand gently working its way down the gelding’s leg, which
appeared even more swollen than it had been last night.

Ashlyn folded her arms across her
chest, contemplating their options. She felt much better with Drake here, but
that didn’t solve the problem of how to get back to Toryn.

A flash of color caught her eye
through the waterfall, and she frowned, moving closer so she could try to see
outside. The water kept her from seeing much, but she did make out a small blob
of red moving swiftly across the opposite side of the lake. It was high up
enough that it could be an unusually-colored bird…or maybe a person with bright
red hair…on horseback.

Vargo!

Ashlyn rushed to the edge of the
cave, holding her hand up to shield her face from the worst of the wet. She
heard Drake say her name as she ducked through the waterfall, but she ignored
the warning in his voice. There was only one person on the island right now
with that exact garnet shade of hair.

She slipped on some moss, and one
boot went into the water. Ashlyn grimaced and hastily leaped onto the wet grass
at the lake’s edge, shaking her foot. Using her hand to shield her eyes from
the sun, she peered across the clearing and saw Vargo disappearing into the
forest.

Cursing under her breath, she bit
her lip. She didn’t particularly want to draw attention to herself by shouting,
but the Spartan’s horse was already moving at a fast trot and she wasn’t sure
she would be able to catch up.

“Vargo!” she yelled, running
after him. “Wait!”

She sprinted across the grass as
fast as she could, which was pretty fast considering one boot was sopping wet,
incredibly slippery and squishing out water with every step.

Vargo must have heard her though,
because she was still at least fifty feet from the edge of the forest when he
suddenly burst out from the trees at breakneck speed. Ashlyn came to a sudden
halt, both from surprise and an intense desire
not
to be squashed by a galloping horse.

The horse hadn’t even come to a
complete stop before Vargo jumped off and closed the distance between them in three
long strides. Ashlyn was yanked into a hug, his arms going around her as he
pulled her to him.

“Thank the gods,” he murmured
against her hair, and Ashlyn smiled uneasily, unsure of how to respond. Her
arms were pinned to her sides, so she couldn’t return the hug- and, oh yeah, that
huge boatload of guilt that she totally hadn’t missed earlier? It was making an
appearance now.

“Are you okay?” he said, pulling
back but keeping his hands on her shoulders. “Where’s your father?”

“I’m fine- he’s in the cave
behind the waterfall. He’s not so good.” Her mind was already racing. She could
send her dad back to Toryn with Vargo, and stay behind with Drake until Aaron
could come pick them up in the airship. Or she could just send Vargo to fetch
the airship. She didn’t like the idea of moving her father, but he needed
medical care as soon as possible.

Vargo tucked her wet, tangled
hair behind her ears, his hands lingering at her neck. “Skye made it back to
Toryn last night. He told us everything, said that you’d be meeting him there,
but when you didn’t show this morning, I knew something must be wrong. What
happened?”

“I’m so glad that Skye is okay,”
she said, pressing a hand to her suddenly-warm cheek. “My horse tripped while
we were escaping, and came up lame. We really need to get my father to Toryn.
Can you take him back with you? I can stay here until Aaron can bring the
airship.”

“Hang on just a second,” Vargo
replied, and finally let go of her to turn to his horse. He pulled a long red
cylinder from the saddle bag and cracked it against his leg, then flung it as
far as he could towards the large end of the clearing. The cylinder landed in
the yellowing crab grass and began smoking fiercely.

Ashlyn’s eyes widened. “What are
you doing? If Kou’s army sees that smoke, they’ll know we’re-”

“Relax, princess. Trust me.”

She bit her lip nervously, and
Vargo’s gaze locked with hers. He smiled reassuringly. She noticed for the
first time that his eyes were bloodshot and he had a black smear on one cheek.

“Did you get any sleep last
night?” she asked suspiciously.

One eyebrow quirked. “With you
out here alone? Knowing that Lockhart lost
resist
?
Yeah, right.”

His admission that he’d stayed up
waiting for her was strangely touching. “You didn’t have to worry,” she said, smiling.
“Drake got
resist
back, everything’s
okay.”

“I’ll always worry about you when
you’re not with me,” he answered, and looked as though he wanted to say more,
but just then they heard the familiar hum of machinery, and both turned to see
the airship emerging over the trees.

Ashlyn took a few steps back,
holding up a hand in an attempt to block the wind as the ship descended. Vargo
grabbed his horse’s reins and followed her, staying close.

She glanced over her shoulder and
saw Drake emerging from the waterfall. He carried her father in his arms, and
as he stepped onto the grassy bank, his horse poked its head out from behind
the waterfall as well, seemingly contemplating the route before limping out
after its master.