Protector of the Flight

by Robin D. Owens

  Marrec frowned.

  “For those of you who do not know about Exotiques, an instinctive revulsion upon first meeting can be possible to the…less open-minded.” Marwey lifted her nose. “If anyone else must leave, especially those who wished to work in the Hall, please go now.”

  A few more people slid away.

  After that, the introductions got confusing. Since Marrec was paying attention to the nobles and richer village folk, Calli concentrated on the people who’d come to take care of her new home. The Hall. The what Hall. Or the Hall of What? She cleared her throat and everyone fell silent. “What is the name of this place?”

  Thunder and Dark Lance trumpeted and sent strong mind images. Volaran Hall!

  “Volaran Hall,” Marrec repeated.

  “What was it before?” asked Calli. Gazes sharpened at her accent. Calli disregarded that. She hadn’t been in Lladrana very long and her accent was better than Alexa’s.

  “Stinton Hall,” someone said. “Their line died out.”

  “Our line will not die,” Marrec said.

  People exchanged glances.

  “Calli and I will be bonding with children,” Marrec said. “We intend to have a large family.”

  There was some muttering…instinctive blessings, Calli thought, wishing them long lives. The evening seemed chill.

  Marwey said, “And the Chevalier Exotique Pair’s children will have the other Exotiques as godparents.” She sniffed and waved to a tall, thin, older man who Calli had been told was the Hall’s hereditary keeper. “I think you have the keys, please open the door.”

  The large wooden door opened silently into darkness.

  Marrec swung Calli up into his arms and stepped over the threshold. Lights went on. Calli stared up at him, openmouthed. His eyes glinted down at her. “Alyeka told me this was a wedding-ritual custom?”

  Calli could only nod.

  He turned a full circle, still holding her, nodded himself. “Good place.” His approval of the house slipped through him, through them both. The last faint image of a sprawling ranch house disappeared from her brain.

  Carefully, he set her on her feet, then looked at the keeper. “We wish a tour.”

  The man bowed low, eyes down. Then led them up an imposing staircase that dominated the middle of the hall. His voice was whispery and respectful. With each step Calli experienced an echoing tone in her mind, as Marrec felt the stone of this house and the land beneath and was bonding to it.

  By the time they’d been shown the most important rooms, the feeling that this place was home, was theirs forever, had insinuated itself into her very bones. Magic, again. She’d fight for this land that would house and breed volarans…and children.

  But it overwhelmed her before they even finished looking at the bedrooms on the second floor.

  “Calli, Lady Gardpont, is tired,” Marrec said, and handed over a clinking pouch and a small, smoky crystal ball. “We will return to the Marshalls’ Castle. Clean and furnish this place, and keep me informed.”

  Calli wanted to see the stables, whatever setup there was for horses and volarans, but Marrec’s words seemed to have sunk her into a swamp of exhaustion. Even his strong hand under her elbow and sturdy endurance couldn’t keep her from swaying.

  Once again he picked her up, and she was barely conscious for the ride home and the walk up to their new apartments in Horseshoe Hall.

  As they walked to their new suite in Horseshoe Hall, Marrec felt it before he saw it, a vile, crackling, invisible spiderweb of destructive force. Everything inside him clenched. The spell spread over their door and attached to a trigger. Narrowing his eyes, he saw a small glove—almost a child-size glove—near the brown-stained wooden footboard at the threshold of the door. It looked like a worn glove, the fingers curved upward, reaching to grab them.

  Danger.

  An evil trap.

  19

  His pulse picked up pace. His breathing hitched. Sweat slithered along his back and arms.

  Calli leaned heavily against him, weary and still thrumming with the exhilaration of their ride, the pleasure of their discovery of her house. No, their house, their land, their people.

  His woman. Whom he had to protect. He didn’t want her to see the trap, sense the danger.

  Marrec kept his voice soft and murmured words of affection as he angled Calli’s body away from the threat of the door trap, placing himself between it and her.

  Suppressing a shudder, he sent a mental probe sliding around the door near the knob. It wasn’t one of those evil horrors, a sangvile. The taut threads of Power held notes of a vicious human. An enemy in their midst. Wearing a pleasant mask, no doubt.

  To keep her safe, and angle her farther away from the door, he drew Calli into his arms. Then he set his hands against her back and stroked her torso, enjoying the suppleness of her muscles. A few minutes ago he’d been concentrating on sex. Now he was focused on keeping her safe. He rubbed his chin against the side of her head. The silkiness of her hair, that wonderful, beautiful hair, caressed his cheek like nothing he’d ever felt before. “We’ll go straight to bed.”

  She chuckled, an image rose in her mind—something of Exotique Terre—of herself in a long, fancy white gown and him in silly black-and-white clothes, then they were rolling naked in their bed. “Honeymooners,” she said, and though he didn’t know the word, he knew the concept. Newly bonded people who couldn’t get enough of sex with each other. His pulse leaped, but arousal stayed a second priority behind the fierce desire to protect her.

  Fear snaked down his spine, he made his voice steady. “We’ll go to sleep. It’s been a long day for you.”

  “A very long day,” she sighed out. Yawned. Leaned heavier against him.

  His mind went over the evil threads attached to the door. A few days ago he wouldn’t have had the vision to notice the spell, wouldn’t have had the Power—or the innate knowledge—to disarm it. Definitely wouldn’t have had the ability to split his focus on cuddling a woman and working on tracing the lines to a knot around the latch, picking at one and pulling, slowly, slowly unraveling it.

  “I’m glad it was you,” Calli said. She glanced up at him, ran fingers along his tight jaw. “Always so serious. You don’t need to be, with me.” She kissed his jaw.

  He fumbled with the web, unraveling string after strained string. Worked silently, fast, sweat coating his body.

  Finally he reached the last thread, taut and straining, ready to snap and unleash a spell that would lash them with energy, straight to their minds—to the seat of their Power? Calli’s Power? Overwhelming her? Burning her Power out? He thought that was the intention.

  He let his hands wander down her, shielded her with his body. Sweat rolled down him; he followed strings, unwove. Paused. One. Last. Tiny. Tug.

  The thick atmosphere around the door dissipated with a little “Pop!”

  A lash of pain whipped him. His mind went gray. He struggled to stand, to force the edges of fog shrouding his vision back.

  Calli tilted her head, frowning. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” His tongue was thick. Second by second he fought to stay conscious.

  She looked around, blinking. He hoped she couldn’t see the glove. His back was to it. Should he have tried to destroy the glove, the holder of the Power? He’d have died. They’d have died, because Calli was bonded to him.

  He must get Calli inside and in bed, asleep. Then he’d figure out what to do next. His fingers went to the doorknob, slid off. Too sweaty.

  A deep, erotic chuckle came from Calli. “Hot and impatient, cowboy?”

  That note in her voice plucked a chord directly to his groin. Concentrate! He didn’t want to. Relief rushed through his veins, sweeping the fog away. Now he wanted to throw her on the bed and pound into her, explore this woman he’d just saved with his hands and body and keep her under him and safe.

  This time he managed the door, shoved it open with his shoulder, scooped her up and
kicked the thick slab of oak shut. He probed the room, the suite. It was free of any evil. More than that, their new home at the Castle felt like sanctuary.

  Calli licked at his neck.

  With quick steps he crossed into the bedroom. Calli’s hands were busy, stroking his chest. He laid her on the bed and her hands went to the front of his breeches. He jerked. Maybe sex was a good notion. He’d tire her out.

  “What’s this?” she asked, prodding. Her fingers were a couple of inches from where he wanted them.

  “What’s what?” he said thickly.

  She reached into his pocket and held up his worry stone.

  “Mine!” She barely glanced at it before her fingers curved over it in possession. She sat up. “It feels good. Like you.”

  “You gonna take everything I have, woman? My knife and my stone?”

  “You still have Dark Lance.” Her smile was sultry. “Yeah, I’m gonna take everything you have.” She wiggled her hips.

  “You’re welcome to everything I have,” he muttered.

  Now she looked at the stone, sniffed it, put it in her mouth.

  Song in All! If he’d used the stone as his token on the Choosing table and she’d done that, she’d have made him climax in public! His thoughts ricocheted, then snagged on a dim recollection. Another object imbued with an evil spell.

  Definitely an enemy in their midst.

  That cooled his ardor enough that he went to Calli, removed her shoes, stroked her face and said, “Give me the stone.”

  She opened her mouth and tongued it into his palm. Now it radiated of her, smelled of her, probably tasted of her—the warm, wet places of Calli. He shuddered, made to put the stone back in his pocket and she caught his hand.

  “Mine,” she said, then nodded to the bedside table.

  He put the worry stone on the table, lifted Calli’s feet to the bed, lifted and moved her so her head sank into a pillow of the finest down. She smiled at him, lips and eyes welcoming.

  Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he leaned down and swept some strands of hair from her face, feathered his fingers back over her forehead, set his index finger between her eyes and sent Sleep! The word had Power behind it, the calm insistence he used to settle an anxious volaran.

  Her eyes closed and she dropped into sleep.

  He let out a long breath. Not thinking about what he did, he stripped her. Sex must come later. Would come later. Good thing he wasn’t a man who was used to getting a woman whenever he wanted. He lifted the covers, then hesitated. The summer night was warm, the room cozy.

  When he returned he wanted her there, on the bed, naked and waiting for him.

  With a shrug at his needy thoughts, his deep masculine yearning, he turned away. His eye caught the worry stone on the table. He didn’t reach for it. It wasn’t his anymore, but hers.

  Lips curving, he figured she must have had something with her that she could give to him. He’d insist. This partnership already tilted one way then the other, unbalanced. Her with her incredible Power, the zhiv and land and status she brought to the pairing. Him with his knowledge of Lladrana, volarans, experience in the culture and battlefield. They’d have to work to find a reasonable balance.

  Though he’d noticed she liked leaving doors open behind her, he shut the bedroom door, ran a finger down the long crack around the door. “Keep her safe,” he chanted, sending all his will along with licks of Power into that spell.

  He went to the outer door, frowning. This suite was more like homey rooms than the security of a fortress like the keep’s towers. There weren’t enough shields between her and the outside, between whoever laid the trap, whoever walked Horseshoe Hall with malice, hiding behind illusion.

  Which meant he’d have to learn how to set shields inside the rooms.

  He opened the outside door, examined every inch of it, the lintel and threshold around it, then turned his attention to the glove.

  Squatting, he stared at the glove, noted the faded purple patterns and embroidery.

  It was Alexa’s glove.

  Why?

  And how?

  Marrec studied the glove for several minutes inside their rooms that pulsed with silence. Then he sent a mental question. Bastien?

  A startled Ayes? came back to him.

  Marrec had given a lot of thought as to whom he should trust. Despite the fact that he was a Chevalier and would naturally look to Lady Hallard as their representative, and as his former leader, his concerns must be understood by the greatest in Power. I must speak to you and the Marshalls—only those who are Paired.

  Oh? When?

  Now. There’s danger to Calli.

  Meet us in the Marshalls’ Council Room.

  That wasn’t a room Marrec had ever entered. Hadn’t ever thought to enter. His life had certainly changed. He shrugged, Ayes.

  A tapping came at the long glass window-door of the balcony. He glanced out to see a pair of peacocks. Opening the door, he stared down at the faint auras surrounding them. He could easily distinguish which of the two feycoocus was female.

  “Salutations,” he said. “But I don’t have time to talk to you.”

  We will guard Calli while you discuss the danger with the Marshalls.

  He had a sudden feeling that they knew what was wrong. “Do you know who her enemy is?”

  The feycoocus exchanged a look. No. We were not here today, and yesterday we were watching you and Calli, adding our Power to the ritual.

  Marrec wanted to ask why, but from the way they held themselves, he didn’t think they’d say.

  May we come in?

  More interest rose in him. He stared down at them. “You have to be invited in?”

  They clicked their beaks in irritation. Yes.

  “You promise no harm to Calli will ever come from you?”

  We promise, the male said. I am Tuckerinal. You may call on me for help at any time.

  Marrec raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

  So.

  He had to remember that this one was an Exotique feycoocu, come to Lladrana with Marian. The notion made his mind spin. He opened the door and stood back. “Welcome.”

  Thank you. Eyes bright, the female walked in first.

  Marrec closed the door after them.

  She flew to a chair back and perched. My name is Sinafinal. You may call on me at need.

  He’d just been given a great gift. He didn’t know how many people could call her by name. Though he sensed interaction between Calli and Sinafinal, the memory didn’t come clear and mention of the feycoocu’s name in Calli’s thoughts were blurred.

  Only the Exotiques and their mates know my name. Go now and tell the Marshalls of the danger. We will watch, Sinafinal said.

  With a deep bow to the magical beings and a lighter step, he left the suite and locked it after him.

  Though the summer night was warm, sweat had chilled on his body by the time he reached the Marshalls’ Council Room. This was the first time he’d ever speak to the Marshalls by himself regarding his own concerns. The only person he knew halfway well was Bastien.

  Yesterday morning he was a penniless Chevalier with only one volaran who had disappeared with all the rest of the winged horses and could do so again. Today he was the bondmate of an Exotique. At the door of the chamber he squared his shoulders, strummed the doorharp.

  “Enter,” Swordmarshall Thealia Germaine ordered.

  He sucked in a deep breath and opened the door. The room was bright with two miniature suns floating near the ceiling. Absently he wondered if he and Calli had the Power for such light in their own quarters. They’d need their Power for other matters.

  “Sit.” Thealia gestured to a chair.

  He’d rather stand, but that might make him look more like a servant. He slid into one of the chairs with a sword engraved on the back.

  Frowning, Alexa shifted on a stack of pillows.

  Silence reigned. He kept his face the impassive mask he’d used for years. Then he met
Thealia’s eyes. “I just disabled a door trap.” He tossed the glove on the table.

  Alexa jerked. “That’s mine!”

  He looked at her coolly. “I know. You wouldn’t harm her.” He glanced around the rest of the table…all the old Marshalls and two pairs of new ones. “We have an enemy within the Castle.”

  Leaning over the table, Alexa reached for the glove. Both Bastien’s and Marrec’s hand covered her fingertips.

  The three of them linked. The next instant, all the rest of the Marshalls seemed to crowd like shadows in the back of Marrec’s mind. Before he could explain anything, they all shared his memories of the trap. He exhaled raggedly.

  Then everyone withdrew. He sensed them communicating among themselves. Yet a small trickle of notes ran between himself and Bastien and Alexa. He liked the feel of their hands with his. Like they were family.

  “Marwey threw out the glove,” Alexa said. “I thought it had plenty of use left, but…” She shrugged.

  It probably had another whole year’s use left before the leather split.

  Bastien snorted. “It’s very worn, Alexa, many of the embroidery stitches were wrecked. The dyeing has dulled. It’s stained and wrinkled. Marwey was right to throw it out.”

  Marrec lifted his hand from atop Bastien’s, met Alexa’s eyes. She had been poor, too. Before she’d been Summoned to Lladrana, she had been even poorer than Calli. Bastien, for all the prejudice against him for being a black-and-white, for all that his father had despised him, still had owned a small, productive estate.

  “As you say,” Alexa said. She withdrew her glove from under Bastien’s and Marrec’s fingers. Holding one small edge between her thumb and forefinger, she lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Her face scrunched as if she tried to sort different smells, then she sneezed, shook her head as if to clear it. “Even scent has been hidden. Nothing of this glove resonates of me or of any other person whom I could identify. She wrinkled her nose. “It reeks of Power.” Scowling at the thing, she let it drop. “Marian and Jaquar left for Alf Island as soon as the Unbinding ritual was finished.”

  Bastien scooped up the glove, pressed it between his hands, engulfing it. A line dug deep between his brows, then his shoulders dropped. “My wild magic finds nothing either.” He set the glove down.