Tethered (12 page)

“My lady!” Pevanne sounded horrified. Soft fabric touched her back, and she glanced at him. The majordomo had shrugged off his own robe to cover her up, revealing a skinny but muscled torso...and the inevitable scars of his conversion. She couldn’t draw breath enough to say a word of warning.

“Pevanne,” Zander rasped out. The majordomo met her gaze for an instant before turning to his master. Zander looked furious, one hand up to ward off the medic valiantly attempting to reapply the oxygen mask.

“Why?” he demanded, gesturing at the surgical scars tracing across Pevanne’s upper body.

“To protect you, master. We had already lost our lady.”

Zander took a step forward to grasp the majordomo’s shoulder. “Thank you seems a poor phrase to express my gratitude,” he managed, his voice full of pain.

Petori, glowing crimson in alarm, rushed to Zander’s side and bobbed up and down as if in agitation. “Master D’joren, are you harmed?”

Zander coughed. “We’ve survived, Monitor. But you have much to explain about your failure to anticipate and detect this particular threat.”

The Monitor guide blazed a deeper red. “My sincere apologies, Master D’joren,” it squeaked. “Rest assured there will be a full investigation! Please allow me to extend priority use of our medical facilities to ensure your well-being at this time.”

“No.” Zander waved the Monitor aside and came to Tyree. “Our own medic will attend to us. I’ve no faith in your services at this time.”

“Of course, I understand, but—”

“No buts!” Zander snapped, rounding on the Monitor. “Your security has failed. I suggest you focus your efforts in rectifying that.”

Petori bobbed away. Zander reached down to Tyree and pulled her to her feet. “Can you walk?”

“Uh-huh.”

He placed his arm around her shoulder and walked her back to their rooms. Pevanne and the four silent Paladins went with them, but Zander waved away the two
Centralis
medics. Tyree’s legs shook as she walked.

Just a reaction to the chemicals,
she told herself,
it’ll wear off. I don’t need him holding me up.

But she didn’t shrug off his arm or resist being led. Her own acquiescence scared her further.

“I will fetch Callista,” Pevanne announced as he left them.

Zander pushed Tyree to sit on the couch and knelt to look her in the eye. “Are you all right?”

Tyree opened her mouth intent on denial, but stopped. “No,” she confessed. “I’m used to being the killer. Not the target.”

For a moment he held her shoulders, his gaze intent. Then he leaned forward and hugged her. Every muscle in her body knotted tightly, anger scorching through her veins. How dare he? And yet she didn’t have the heart to pull away. In that instant, she wanted to melt into his embrace. The shift from revulsion into need left her dizzy.

Heat rushed over her skin. Sudden nausea wrenched at her stomach, and she swallowed hard. “Gotta go,” she choked out, and yanked herself free. She barely made it to the bathroom before acid burned its way up her throat and she vomited into the basin. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop, heaving repeatedly even when there was nothing left to come.

“Tyree?”

She’d closed her eyes, but heard water running over the sound of her retching. Zander pressed a cold cloth to her forehead. At least, she assumed it to be him.

“Tyree.” He rubbed her back.

“D’joren?” Callista’s voice came shriller than usual.

“In here.”

The medic felt for the pulse in Tyree’s neck before something stung her finger, but she was too busy puking to protest.

“Well?” Zander demanded less than a heartbeat later.

“Minimum toxicity levels, well within safety,” Callista responded after a lengthy pause. “Her metabolism deals with potential poisoning far better than a human’s. Hence the vomiting.”

Great.
Tyree’s stomach knotted and she retched again.
So hurry up already, metabolism.

“You’re all clear, D’joren,” the medic continued. “You’ll be pleased to know that whoever primed the cleric chose a bad subject for their biological bomb. He had a long-term digestion problem so the catalyst malfunctioned.”

Tyree groaned. “I know how he felt.”

“That still doesn’t excuse what happened,” Zander said, his tone sharp. “Time and again, something or someone is slipping past all the security. Thank the stars we’ve only a few more days until the damn treaty is signed.”

Tyree levered herself upright, gagging still. Zander’s concerned gaze met hers. He used the damp cloth to wipe her mouth clean with a compassion that had her shaking as much as her sickness. “Are you all right now?”

She nodded, keeping her mouth clamped shut. One way or another, Zander was learning her every weakness. And a Su should never be weak.

“I’m fine.” She shrugged the robe from her shoulders as if shedding his concerns, not caring that it left her cold and naked. She glared at the medic. “Are you done?”

“Neither of you need further care but if you experience any symptoms out of the norm—”

“Then I need a shower,” Tyree broke in. Strands of vomit-dampened hair stuck to her cheek, and the smell of sick stung her nostrils as much as the vomit had burned her throat.

“As you wish.” Callista huffed out.

“Unless you’re going to offer to scrub my back, Zander, perhaps you’d leave too.” She was being a bitch, she knew, but couldn’t stop herself. She’d shown too much frailty to these humans already. Time to prove she really didn’t need them.

The pinched look returned to his face. “I’m sure you’re capable of showering alone. But...” His gaze held hers despite the venom she’d spouted, his fine brows knotted. Even at the height of her rudeness, courtesy held him. Or perhaps concern. “Please call if you should need me or feel unwell. Excuse me.”

Tyree watched him go and wished herself back to Refuge.

***

The shower made a lot of things better. It didn’t stop the pain in her gut, but whether that was from throwing up or pangs of guilt, she wasn’t sure. Afterward, the Monitor system delivered a protein shake via the food dispenser in her room, the drink loaded with added extras that soothed her throat and stomach. It also offered a mild cammer that she refused. She couldn’t afford to be drugged up right now.

She tugged on her Su shift and rubbed at the device in her collarbone. Something nagged at her. No matter how she tried to evade it, Zander dominated her thoughts. She paced the bedroom, skin still damp from the shower, brushing out her hair with her fingers until the worst of the knots had gone. Why couldn’t she get him out of her mind? Why did she feel so bad about the way she’d treated him? By all the Mothers and Fathers, she’d treated people worse. After all, she usually killed them.

Still confused, she Misted through the wall. Zander sat in his chair as if he’d been waiting for her, cradling a glass that reeked of raw alcohol. The sight froze her solid.

Zander glanced up, his face haggard. “Have you come to kill me, Tyree?”

“No.” She drifted closer but kept herself formless. His attitude and question bewildered her. “Why would you think that?”

He gulped down the rest of his glass. “Wishful thinking,” he muttered.

“Is that what you want, Zander? You want to die?” She wafted to his side and took solid form. “Because if it is, don’t ask me to do it. I never could.”

He gave her a twisted smile. “But at least I know you’d make sure I die in ecstasy.” His words stung.

“I’d kill the Su that tried it.” Her own admission surprised her, and his head jerked up.

“Does no one ever commission an Inc-Su to assassinate themselves?”

“I’ve never heard of it. Why would anyone do that?”

Zander shrugged and put his glass aside. His movements seemed sluggish. How much alcohol had he drunk? He’d never struck her as the kind of guy to drown his sorrows in a chemical haze, and yet he swayed as he sank back.

“Zander, what’s wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me?” He lurched to his feet and she matched him. He was so close that the alcohol in his breath made her light-headed. “Look at me!” He held her face, the grip painful. His aura flared red in anger, but beneath it she felt his shame swallow up the light. “Look at my face! I’m a shadow of what I was. Scarred and crippled. That’s what the assassination did to me. It took half my face—and half my soul with it.”

He was trembling. For all his bravado, she knew what he really wanted. What he needed.

She grasped his wrists, pulled them free, and then stepped in close to his shaking body and placed his hands on the small of her back. Before he could protest or pull away, she seized his face and drew him down, kissing her way over the scars that tracked up the right side of his neck and cheek. He went rigid then suddenly melted under her kisses, his body relaxing into hers as she linked her aura to his. He wanted this as badly as she did.

As they shared body heat, his mouth met hers, hungry and demanding. She responded with equal force, slipping her fingers into the hollow above her collarbone and touching the control for her shielding. As it deactivated, the full force of his desire swept over her, and she moaned into his mouth, her knees trembling at the strength of it. His grip around her waist tightened, pulling her harder into him, so she could feel the firm muscles beneath his clothing. It wasn’t enough. The need to feel his skin made her ache. She tugged at the seal of his robe, almost ripping the fabric in her haste.

D’joren released her as if stung and dropped his hands. The same scars that wrapped the right side of his face scored all the way down that side of his body too, farther than she’d realized. They wove an irregular pattern of raised, knotted skin down his chest, curling round his ribs and almost completely encircling his waist in streaks like flames. Synthaskin gleamed at the shoulder where too much of his own had been ripped away by the explosion that had killed Mirsee.

“Now you can see for yourself.” His voice sounded broken, a reflection of his spirit. They had done more than kill his wife and damage his body. His soul was shattered too.

Tyree stepped closer to him. “Yes, I can.” Without hesitation, she leaned in and kissed her way from the thickened ridge at his shoulder, down his chest until she knelt at his stomach. Zander groaned and knotted his fingers tight in her hair. “Stop...”

She kissed her way up his torso, running her hands up the smooth curve of his back and across his broad shoulders. “You don’t mean that.”

“No...I mean yes. Tyree...”

She silenced him with her mouth, curling one hand around the nape of his neck. With her other, she reached for the seal on his pants and slid inside his clothing. His breathing stuttered but she refused to let him break free. Inside, she smiled. Oh, she could feel how badly he wanted her, how hard he was trying to resist! Guilt, shame, abhorrence for his own body all washed through her. She drew it out of him and replaced it with the desire they both felt, the desperate need. She had only ever used her talent to kill before, to take life at the moment of ecstasy. This time she could use it to heal. Every thread of energy she took from him she replaced with some of her own, a mutual exchange that heightened their perceptions of each other.

It broke Zander’s resistance. As she opened the seal and pushed his pants down, he completed the job by shaking them from his ankles, and then fell back hard onto the sofa behind. Tyree lifted her shift, revealing her nakedness.

For a moment, he simply stared at her, his gaze traveling from her face down the length of her body. He opened his mouth, as if to protest once more, but she gave him no chance, sitting astride his lap and increasing her molecular density in one swift move. It pinned him to the sofa.

“Tyree, no...”

Men never said no to her. Come to think of it, neither had the two female targets she’d been sent after. She was playing as fair as she could by not using the pheromones at her command.

“Do you mean that, Zander? Do you really want me to go?”

He made a sound, part whimper, part moan. “No...”

She slid herself onto him, and he clutched her waist with a gasp. “Tyree...”

She gave a throaty chuckle. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I’ll have you screaming my name.” She claimed his mouth, but soon he was moving down her neck, and a moment later he took one nipple into his mouth and teased circles around it with his tongue. Fire sparked deep into her core as the sensation sent her aura flaring. “Or perhaps I’ll be screaming yours...” she murmured.

This was new. This was true rapture. She moved against him and he matched her, thrusting up into her with increasing rhythm. Every sensation trebled as they merged into one another, body and spirit. Auric light, brighter than any she had sensed before, spiraled around them. His euphoria swamped her, and she struggled to keep the flow going, not to take it all. “Oh, Mothers!”

She grasped his shoulders, digging her nails in as climax came. With a shriek, she threw her head back. Heard him echo her cry as his own surged through her like white flame across her sight. For an instant, there was only the light as his soul merged with hers in blissful union.

Her head fell forward onto him as she gasped in air, hearing his own ragged breaths as his chest heaved under her. He cradled her; sweat-slicked skin pressed against hers. The aftermath of their mutual orgasm shivered through her, and she hugged him tightly, unwilling to move, to break their perfect unity. It had never been like that before.

“Ty?” he murmured at last, as their breathing and heartbeats eased into something less frantic. His fingers stroked out her hair, smoothing it down her back.

“Hmmm?”

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

She felt his regret shimmer across her senses, but it was a faint trace. “Too late for that now.”

“I should have stopped you.”

“You didn’t really want to.”

“No, but...” He sighed into her neck. “It’s an added complication.”

She giggled. “There’s nothing complicated about sex. It’s a physical need.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, I...” He sighed. “I had no right...I...I can’t allow...”