by Raine Thomas
“We have a problem,” Knorbis said. “Uriel’s memory of the scroll piece’s location appears to be gone.”
Chapter 20
When Zachariah left the colorfully-haired female by the stream, he vowed to forget about her. He’d given her all the advice and guidance he could, he told himself. Whether she lived or died was none of his concern. He would just shove his phantom discomfort aside.
Sure, he was still curious about her oddly-colored markings. And maybe he found her pleasing enough to look upon. But he had been away from Estilorian society for five decades, after all. There was certainly the possibility that the Scultresti had decided to introduce a new class of Estilorian to the mix after so many centuries. As a class, they certainly did enjoy variety and creativity. And after five decades, surely any female—outside of the reptilian one he currently traveled with—would seem appealing to him.
He deliberately ignored the fact that he’d never looked at a female and experienced what he did looking at this particular one.
As he returned from his induced meditative trance and went to wash up in the nearby stream, he considered which direction to travel when he next decided to move. The glade in which he and Nyx now rested was peaceful and abundant in resources. He’d seen wildlife to hunt, edible fruit and leaves not far away, and, of course, the freshwater stream with which to slake his thirst or wash away the day’s grime. It was ideal enough to house them for at least a couple days. Possibly longer, if he so desired. He didn’t sense any other Estilorians near them, which was another benefit.
In the cover of darkness, he walked back to the overhang of tree branches he had staked as his new sleeping area. Nyx was already curled into her sleeping position and snoring soundly. He started a fire before walking to the stream, and he now knelt beside it wearing only his boots, holding up his clothes to dry them off. He had decided to wash them while he was at the stream. Although he could always steal clothing from unsuspecting Estilorians on the mainland, it wasn’t terribly convenient or practical, especially for a being his size. He tended to make each set of clothing last as long as possible with frequent washing.
While he waited for his clothes to dry, the lingering pains in his stomach abated. It didn’t matter to him that the female had obviously succeeded in finding a meal. That certainly was not relief he experienced when he was feeling back to normal. And even if it was, it was merely because he didn’t like being hungry or miserable.
When his clothes and hair were dry, he redressed himself, slid his boots back on, took his tomahawk from its harness and settled against Nyx’s warm underbelly. He closed his eyes as the fire burned low. The sound of the wood crackling was peaceful and lulling.
So he shouldn’t have been caught off-guard when before long, she again invaded his dreams.
“Hi, Sparky.”
Tate noted his small twitch of surprise when she spoke. As she settled herself cross-legged on the soft grass across the fire from the large male, she couldn’t help but smile when he opened one dark blue eye in response to her greeting and gave her a baleful glare.
She noted that his raggedly-cut, honey-colored hair was damp. For some reason, even though it had obviously been washed, it still stuck up from his head in an uncontrolled manner…something that gave her a sense of kinship to him. It also appeared as though his tank top and pants had been scrubbed. Patches of damp material clung to his well-muscled form.
When she continued to stare at him, he sat all the way up. She pulled the bulk of her long, spiraling hair forward over her left shoulder so it wouldn’t trail on the ground as she sat. She attempted to tuck some stray curls behind her right ear, but most of them sprang back free as soon as her hand left her head. She had kept the bright beads and feathers out of it for the night, allowing her hair to dry free of any restraint.
His sharp eyes moved over her features, seeming to note this change in her appearance. Somehow, his expressionless face grew more severe.
“What are you doing here?” he grumbled.
Amused by his discomfiture, she propped her elbows on her legs and cradled her chin in her right hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?”
She smiled again, her gaze never falling from his. “I’m apologizing, Sparky. I was really rude to you, and you didn’t deserve it.”
He just stared at her.
“And I wanted to thank you,” she added, immensely enjoying his reaction. It pleased her to learn that eating crow was much easier than she’d thought. “I doubt I would have gotten past my hunger and frustration enough to think of using my hair decorations as a fishing lure. It worked like a charm. Now that I’m not so focused on starving to death, I realize how my behavior must have seemed from your perspective. So I wanted to apologize.”
He didn’t respond for a long moment. His eyes searched her face as though seeking the answer to a silent question.
“All right,” he said at last. “Goodbye.”
She laughed brightly at that. “You’re funny, Sparky,” she said. “Heaven knows why I like you, but I sure do.”
“You do not,” he argued. “You are merely grateful for my assistance.”
For some reason, her humor only heightened. “It surely doesn’t speak much to my taste or judgment that I find your refusal to believe me even more appealing. Maybe I’m attracted to helpless causes.”
His expression went blank over her choice of phrase. “A female such as you should not be spending time with the likes of me.”
“Why not?” she asked with a dismissive shrug.
“Why not?” he repeated, his brows drawing together in consternation. “I do not understand how you could even ask such a question. What is wrong with you? How is it you are not concerned?”
“Well, now. Aren’t you full of questions for a Gloresti who won’t even give me his name?”
“What?”
For once, he didn’t bother to mask his surprise. She lifted one corner of her mouth. “Look, Sparky, I know you’re curious about me. From what I’ve gathered, you’ve been away from Estilorian civilization for quite some time. Why that is, I can only guess. Maybe your last pairing with a Corgloresti went awry and you’re harboring guilt over it. Judging by all of those pairing markings, you must have been quite experienced before you pulled yourself away from society.”
He glanced down at his arms where she noted the many dark blue markings. His bemused expression didn’t diminish as he looked back up at her.
“But I’m not going to press you,” she continued amiably. “And I know better than to reveal too much to someone I barely know. So we’ll just have to be content with having a little bit of mystery in our relationship.”
“Relationship?” he echoed, his eyes narrowed.
When she cocked an eyebrow and deliberately widened her smile, he ran a hand through his hair, making it even wilder about his head. He muttered something under his breath. Tate thought she caught the words, “hallucinating” and “antitoxin” among several colorful swear words. Considering his expression and the words themselves, she began to piece some of the puzzle together regarding recent events.
“Was I poisoned?” she asked.
Once again, she thought she’d taken him off-guard. Though his expression didn’t change, she sensed a shift in his gaze. The air around him began to glow in a way only she could see.
“No sense lying,” she said before he could speak. “I’ll know it for a lie.”
He snorted. “You will not.”
“Try me, Sparky.” She shifted to get more comfortable. “Was I poisoned?”
“No.” The air around him shimmered blue-green.
“Lie.”
As he clenched his jaw and scowled at her, she gave this lie some thought. That meant she actually had been poisoned. Idly rubbing the spot on her chest that still ached, she thought of the various kinds of weapons that could have been used against her. Perhaps she had been shot with a poisoned-tip arrow. But who would have done such
a thing?
“Do you know what kind of poison it was?” she asked.
“No.”
“Lie.”
“Damn it.” He leaned toward her with his brows drawn in a severe line over his eyes. “I find you annoying and I want you to leave.”
She waved that away. “You’re telling the truth now, but that’s neither here nor there. Telling the truth is rarely easy when it matters. I want to know where I am and what happened to me. I think you can tell me.”
“I cannot tell you anything you do not already know.”
“Lie.”
He surged to his feet and came around the fire to loom over her. She leaned back so that her elbows were braced on the grass and looked up at him. His expression could have been chipped out of ice.
He squatted beside her. “You try my patience.”
“Truth.” She grinned. “You should give that a shot more often.”
His face stern and his gaze carefully banked, he asked, “What do you know of the Gloresti?”
“Plenty.”
She loved how her vagueness further aggravated him. She also realized that she loved his scent. He smelled like freshly cut grass, brisk spring water and, for lack of a better description, powerful male.
In an effort to appease him, she elaborated, “You—the Gloresti, that is—are the defenders of Estilorian kind, as you once defended humanity before the separation of the planes. You’re highly trained in the ways of defense, and are mostly comprised of males, though there are some females among you. As a class, you’re all quite large and muscular. Your eyes, wings and markings are dark blue, and you pair with Corgloresti whenever they transition to the human plane so you can protect their Estilorian forms.” Smiling, she asked, “Is that enough for you?”
There was a long silence. He continued to remain in a squat next to her, his eyes trained on her face. “And in light of all those class traits you listed, you classify me as one?”
Why was this such a big point with him? “Well, duh. You have dark blue eyes and markings, Sparky.”
“You see my markings?”
Increasingly puzzled, she shifted into a sitting position, trying to ignore the fact that he was now only inches from her. Her heart rate accelerated in anticipation as she reached out to touch his muscular, tattooed bicep. The moment she brushed against his skin, however, he jerked away from her as though she had burned him.
Flushing with embarrassment, she turned her gaze to the fire. “Yes. Your markings vary. They seem to cover most of your upper body. The one I started to, um, touch is in the shape of a delta.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, completely ignoring her apology as he rose to pace next to the fire. “You must leave.”
“I won’t leave until you tell me what happened to me,” she argued, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin.
“Fine,” he snapped, running both of his hands through his hair and giving it a rather fierce tug. She began to see why it was always so disordered. “You were poisoned, like you surmised.”
“Okay. How?”
He opened his mouth. The air around him shimmered blue-green.
“L—” she started to accuse.
“Damn and blast, female! Nyx poisoned you.”
“Nyx?”
“Yes. She brought you as a gift for me.”
Tate frowned as she tried to figure out what kind of female possibly wanted to poison another female as a gift to a male. It was when she saw his eyes move briefly over to the kragen’s sleeping form that realization hit her.
Scrambling to her feet, she put one hand over the scar on her chest and pointed with the other. “Holy light! You’re saying that thing—that—”
“She,” he corrected, “was acting on instinct. I healed you, so it all evens out.”
“Evens out?” she echoed, her voice rising an octave on the second word. She strode over and intercepted him as he turned to pace in her direction. When he stopped himself from plowing into her, she got right in his face, poking a finger in his chest. “I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere without any food—”
“We have already covered this territory,” he interrupted. “Nothing has changed, and I find it boring. Now remove your finger before I—”
“Before you what?” she demanded, pushing harder. “Before you hurt me?” And here, she curled her hand into a fist and shoved against his chest. “Before you abandon me in a stinking heap of agony in a dark cave without light or food or any guidance on where to go to get help?” Fury had her giving his chest another sound thump as tears stung her eyes and choked her. “Before you leave me behind like some discarded garbage?”
She shoved away from him then, figuring he had no idea how fortunate he was…since what she felt like doing was pounding on his chest until his cold heart stopped beating.
Chapter 21
In the form of the panther, Sophia felt powerful. Her instincts were heightened far beyond what any typical Estilorian could experience. She saw and scented things she would never be able to in her non-animal form. Every muscle felt as though it had been built for stealth and strength.
After spending even part of the day in Quincy’s arms, feeling awkward and frustrated that she couldn’t bring forth her own wings, this was a much-preferred change of pace.
Quincy and Ini-herit couldn’t connect with their paired Lekwuesti or they risked being found. Thus, they were all responsible for their own food while on the journey to find Tate. Because most of the day had been spent in the air, they hadn’t done any hunting. The food stores that Tiege had packed with only the intent to feed himself wouldn’t last them long.
Sophia volunteered to hunt for some meat, leaving the others to scour the forest around their campsite for edible fruits, leaves or fungi. In truth, she just wanted an excuse to get away from Quincy more than she wanted to be helpful.
What a truly magnificent idea it had been to put herself in the position of being directly connected to Quincy for goodness knew how long. She guessed she just needed one more reason to feel insecure. Although she had been able to spend some time on her own in the form of the eagle, she hadn’t been able to hold the shift longer than a couple hours at a time. Thus, they’d had to land a few times between shifts so Clara Kate could bring Sophia her clothes. When they took back off, flying with more caution because she couldn’t scout for them, Quincy had been obligated to carry her.
The look on his face every time he stepped behind her and carefully positioned his hands on her so that he touched her as little as possible told her how unappealing he found this entire experience. She hadn’t been able to relax. Whenever she moved to try and get more comfortable, he held her tighter to keep her still, as though the contact with her disturbed him.
They didn’t talk at all as they flew. She warred between humiliation over his treatment of her and a deep sadness over the loss of the friendship they’d once shared. Although she considered asking him what she’d done—besides come of age—to so offend him, she wasn’t sure her pride could take his response.
As soon as they landed for the night, she stretched and suggested going off to hunt. Oddly, Quincy had been against it. She figured he’d be glad to be rid of her. His protest had simply urged her even more to do it. So she’d shifted, trusting Clara Kate to gather her clothes for her, then gave a fierce growl to Quincy before turning and bounding into the woods.
It had been a small and rather hollow victory.
Now, she carried the results of her hunt in her powerful jaws, dragging the dead wildebeest as she hurried back to camp. Because the sound of the carcass dragging across the dead leaves and debris on the forest floor was far from stealthy, she used her other senses to scout for possible danger. Everything was quiet.
But then she scented something. Coming to a halt, she tilted her ears to try and pick up any sounds above her own. Not hearing anything alarming, she gently lowered the wildebees
t to the ground, freeing her sharp teeth.
Testing, she sniffed the air and caught a whiff of what had alerted her. Estilorian remains.
The cat’s instinct to follow the death scent proved overpowering. Sophia couldn’t deny a morbid fascination herself. When Estilorians decomposed, they dissolved into colored sand. From what she had learned, the process wasn’t dissimilar to an accelerated and much less sloppy human decomposition.
That thought prompted Sophia to remember sitting at Quincy’s dining table in his cottage enjoying lunch with him as he discussed the subject. Neither of them had found it strange to be discussing a topic that many others would have found revolting while they ate. She couldn’t help but remember how his handsome face had lit with enthusiasm as he spoke.
Pushing the now-painful memory to the side, she slowly approached the source of the odor. She paused when she reached the edge of a clearing. Although all was calm and there didn’t appear to be anyone around, her instincts had the hair of her scruff standing on end. Remaining absolutely still in the shadows, she scanned the clearing with all of her senses. Outside of a lump of unidentifiable matter in the clearing, she saw nothing of concern, but she moved with care along the outskirts of the clearing to see it from more angles just to be sure.
She didn’t need her panther senses to know this was a place where evil had dwelled…and not long ago.
Eventually, she decided she was in no immediate danger. Moving into the clearing, she approached the pile on the grass that emanated the powerful scent. Normally, she wouldn’t have been able to tell much about it. However, by using both her animal and Estilorian senses, she determined that the red mass had once been a relatively young Mercesti female.
And she had died violently.
Tiege felt that they were getting closer to Tate’s location. In what turned out to be a mixed blessing, the closer they got, the keener his connection to her became.
