Protector of the Flight

by Robin D. Owens

  He and she fell together. She wrapped herself around him. So this was how bondmates died. Together. Complete and utter despair shrouded her. They were orphaning their children. I love you.

  I love you. His arms wrapped tighter.

  They didn’t plunge into the sea.

  Another wind sucked them, buffeted them, into a gray place of mighty winds.

  The dimensional corridor.

  The Snap had come.

  35

  Holding each other, they spun to a portal on the far side of the corridor and hung suspended. In the wide, wide door, the Rocking Bar T spread before her with all the lush richness of summer. Her heart tore. She loved that place. If she could have transported it back to Lladrana, she would have. The view telescoped and she saw her father near the corral. He was smiling, whistling, talking to a handsome younger man who had more city on him than cowboy.

  Calli thought she whimpered, but the screaming tornadoes around her took her voice. She knew she trembled because Marrec squeezed tighter, nearly stopping her breath. At least that’s why she thought her chest constricted so. The only time she’d seen her father smile in recent years was when she won a race and when she handed over money. He looked happy.

  That she was gone? He sure wasn’t grieving. She blinked her eyes, sent her gaze away from the man and back to the land, the fields and pastures, the trees, the gorgeous mountains, not nearly as threatening as those north of Lladrana. Then she turned her head into Marrec’s shoulder. She loved the place, but she loved him, their children and Lladrana more.

  The winds seemed to calm and they drifted back to a closing window on the other side of the corridor, down to where a new portal was opening…ground level near the encampment.

  A high-pitched note and glass shattering hit her ears. The whirlwind picked up again, took them. Thrust them toward Earth, through the door.

  She saw where they were coming out. “Cliff!” she screamed, sent mentally with all her might, Side by side! Narrow path.

  Calli stumbled out first, staggered to the side and kept her fingers linked tightly with Marrec’s and her body angled so that when he plunged through, she slowed his forward momentum. She grabbed him and forced him back against the wall of the hillside, away from the cliff. The ledge was pretty wide here, over a yard, but for a tall man running that was only a pace.

  Trembling at the quick succession of danger, her breath rasped in and out in shudders. “Shit, I’m home,” she said in English and her eyes stung. That was so wrong. Her home was on Lladrana. A more verdant, older ranch than this one.

  But seeing the land, the beauty of her native home, made her throat burn with unshed tears.

  Then he was steadying her—and standing perfectly still, as if probing for danger with all his senses. “This is not Lladrana,” he said flatly.

  “No.” She gulped in one last shaky breath, determined to get ahold of herself. “This is—was—my home on…on—” The scents were so familiar, the colors of mountains and sky and ground achingly beloved. Once. All her emotions tumbled inside her at being…here.

  “Exotique Terre,” he ended for her.

  “Yes.”

  Slowly his gaze encompassed the panorama.

  The clashing of wants, of needs, stopped in Calli. She loved this ranch, but not as much as she loved Diaminta and Jetyer. She flung herself at the crystal, pounded on it. “Let us in. Let us in.” She thought she screamed it…in Lladranan. Frantically, she peered into the depths of the shadowed layers, and saw nothing. No sign of the world she’d fallen into.

  Marrec covered her fists with his hands, pulled them away. Her hands were red and scratched, but that didn’t matter. She gasped out words. “I came through here. Right here. That morning. I came through here! Why can’t I get back?”

  “It was the Snap.”

  “I know what it was! But I didn’t want to return. I didn’t.” To her horror, tears dribbled from her eyes, her nose started running. “And even…even…if I ha-had come back, it shouldn’t have t-taken you, should it have? I was sup-posed to stay. We were s’posed to stay.” Fear fluttered like a panicked bird inside her chest. “Why are we here? Why aren’t we there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are we going to get back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jetyer!” she screamed. “Diaminta!”

  He shook her. “Calli. Stop. Stop this now!”

  Wildness beat inside her, then she focused on his face. His golden-skinned, Lladranan face, alien to Earth. “Oh, God,” she moaned in English, dropping her head. “I’ve lost it.”

  “Calli?”

  She was too ashamed to meet his eyes. All these emotions rolling through her like a freight train. An English comparison. She switched to Lladranan. “I panicked. I’m sorry. I’ve never been so scared.” And now, in the cool shade of the mountains, she was cold. Shivering. Shock.

  He gave her a handkerchief and she wiped her face, buried her nose in it to catch the scent of Lladrana, the faint odor of their children was on that piece of linen. She clutched it close. He set her back against the rough hillside, then stepped in front of the crystal. Tested it himself with large, firm hands. “Whatever doorway was here is now closed.”

  Calli hiccupped. “Can you see any shades of Lladrana, any volarans?”

  “No. It is but crystal to me. Would you have returned without me?” Marrec said conversationally.

  That shocked her out of her grief. “Of course not. You shouldn’t have come,” she said and knew she was speaking Lladranan again.

  “Shouldn’t I?” His tone was that mild one he used to hide deep hurt. Their Songs were only a whisper.

  She looked up at him, gulped and pressed her lips together hard to keep from breaking into deep sobs. She wanted to be home, in Lladrana. She wanted to be here. If it had been at all possible to transport this slice of land to Lladrana, she’d have done it, swapped the place in Lladrana for this one. Foolishness. Despite all the strange and wonderful magic she’d experienced in the last couple of months, that could never be.

  But most of all, she wanted this man and her children, her beloved children.

  She framed his face in her hands. When she could speak, she said, “I would not have torn you from your home. From your children.”

  “It is our home and our children.”

  Her chin wobbled. She set it. “Yes.”

  Once again, he turned to survey her old home, hands on hips. Every movement of his was outwardly casual, but very, very deliberate. She couldn’t hear much of his Song here. Hell, she couldn’t hear any of her own, but she sensed he was using the skills he’d developed over a hard life to keep himself from giving in to the panic she’d already succumbed to. He glanced at the clouds gathering over the mountains. “I don’t think we will be able to stay here on this ledge indefinitely.”

  She cleared her throat. “No.” She patted her face on one small corner of the handkerchief, knowing she wouldn’t want to wash any scent of Diaminta away.

  He stared at her, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Their bond had all but vanished. She cast aside gibbering fear. That sure wouldn’t help anything.

  “Neither of us are Circlets, with knowledge as to how to open any portal between worlds.”

  “The dimensional corridor,” she said and couldn’t prevent one last, racking shudder.

  “Ayes. I read Alexa’s and Marian’s stories.”

  She hadn’t known that. She tried for a watery smile. “Then you know as much as I do, which isn’t very much.”

  A rumble of thunder punctuated that remark and made her feel even more helpless. “We have to get off the mountain.”

  “Ayes.”

  She steeled herself. “It’s ‘yes’ here. Ayes. Yes. How good are you at languages?”

  His eyes were dark, fathomless. “Good, I think, with dialects at least, and once I went to Krache in northern Shud. I know some of that language. But Calli, you forget, we bloo
dbonded. I think I will pick up your Ang-lish quickly.” He smiled but it had no humor. “It’s in my blood.”

  “I suppose so.” With a deep inhalation that told her once again she was back in Colorado, she held out her hand to him. “Let’s go.”

  “Together.” He nodded.

  That started her eyes swimming with tears again. Her lips quivered as she smiled. “At least we are together.”

  He grasped her fingers and lifted them to his lips and she heard the faintest wisp of Song. “I would not let you leave without me.”

  She closed her eyes, opened her lids slowly. “Thank you.”

  “Say that in Ang-lish.”

  “English. Thank you.”

  This time she tried to wipe her eyes on her leathers, but they were dreeth and useless for absorbing anything.

  “Why aren’t you using my handkerchief?”

  She gulped, whispered. “It smells of Diaminta.”

  He flinched.

  “Still, wouldn’t you rather be alone in Lladrana with our children instead of with me?” she asked.

  “We have grown apart.”

  She opened her mouth, but he raised a hand. “Both our faults. I would rather we both be on Lladrana. But we are a Pair. Pairbonded. We will always belong together.” His breath jerked out. “We can only hope our children will be cared for.”

  “Alexa and Marian would never let our children be abandoned.” That was one thing she was sure of. “Never. They will raise Diaminta and Jetyer themselves, if necessary.”

  He stared at her. “You trust them.”

  “Yes.”

  The wind spattered them with fat raindrops. Calli set her shoulders. “We’d better go on down.”

  “Yes,” he said in English.

  They were halfway down the hill when her gaze automatically swept the ranch. She noted that it had been a good year. The fields were green, the cattle fat. Something odd registered and she stiffened, fixed her scrutiny on the house. It had been painted. She could only stare.

  As long as she could remember, it had been brown fading more into drabness every year, with darker, dustier trim. Now it was white and blue.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  “What is it?”

  “The house. It’s been painted.”

  “Then there have been some changes.”

  “More than small changes, believe you me.” With force of will, she kept her body from trembling. “My father hasn’t painted that house since…since…never.”

  Her scrutiny jumped from the house to the arena. It was in good shape, too, better than what she’d had time to fix up. Her father still stood with the younger man whom she’d seen when she’d been in the dimensional corridor. The men talked and gestured at four horses. Calli recognized none of them.

  As soon as they reached the bottom of the path, Marrec took her hand, and she held tight. She and Marrec were only a few yards from the corral when her dad looked up. He stiffened and his expression went cold.

  Marrec squeezed her fingers and she glanced at him. He looked equally impassive, but she sensed alert wariness from him.

  The wind came up, more raindrops pattered around them as they stopped beside her father and the young man.

  “So you’re back,” her father said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Will?” asked the young man.

  “This is my stepson, Roy. Roy, this is Calli. You’ve heard of her,” her father said.

  The emotional blow that he’d married was like a sock to her stomach, but it wasn’t quite as hard as it should have been. Her subconscious had put all the clues together. She lifted her chin, met her father’s eyes—the same color as her own. “This is my husband, Marrec Gardpont. Marrec, my father, Will Torcher.”

  Her father looked Marrec up and down. Though he said nothing, Calli knew prejudice was kicking in. He nodded at Marrec. A nod of acknowledgment of someone standing before him, not approval, not respect, not even acceptance that Marrec was worthy of a handshake. Marrec stiffened beside her. She pressed his arm.

  Her father’s smile had long gone. He was thin lipped now. “You back for good?”

  She was pretty sure that everyone here thought her being back wasn’t good. Though Roy looked less tense than anyone else.

  “I’ll fight you for the ranch.” They were months-old words that shot out of her mouth, filled with anger and bitterness, which she already sensed were futile.

  “You won’t win,” he said, and turned away.

  “I’ve put plenty into this place, and everyone knows it.” She kept step with him.

  “Calli,” Marrec said.

  36

  She stopped the anger and humiliation and bitterness from bursting out in more hurtful words. Who knew all that was still inside her, as strong as it had been before she’d been Summoned to Lladrana?

  Her father’s gaze swept the land and for the first time in her memory, she saw love for the ranch on his face. “Calli, you won’t win.”

  “We’ll see.” Maybe not the ranch, but she’d get a stake.

  “I’ll tell Dora you’re here.” He lengthened his stride.

  Calli would have had to run to keep up with him, and that she refused to do.

  “Will.” Roy’s smile was strained. “He’s a tough guy.”

  “Yeah,” said Calli.

  Roy held out his hand, “Roy Etrang.”

  His grip was firm. Calli asked, “Aren’t you upset?”

  “The ranch isn’t mine.” A brief smile, but flickering sadness in his eyes. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want it. But the ranch is Will’s.”

  “And mine,” Calli said, then spoke another truth. “And Dora’s.”

  Roy nodded, sympathy in his gaze. “And Dora’s. I’ll take you in.” He didn’t say, but Calli figured he knew, that her name wasn’t officially on any papers, and Dora’s was.

  They circled the house to enter through the side door and the mudroom. Marrec was silent and Calli knew he was soaking everything in. She was glad now, for herself and him, that he’d had a rough life. He’d know to be quiet until he could adapt. He’d fight with her and for her.

  Since she and Marrec wore no outer gear, she only brushed her feet on the mat, keeping her gaze from shooting up the narrow back stairs to her old room.

  The rumble of her father’s voice came, along with high, shrill protests. She stopped at the open door to the kitchen. Marrec put his arm around her shoulders. Briefly, she laid her head against his arm. Felt the dreeth-skin leathers.

  How things had changed.

  “I won’t have her here!” a woman’s voice spiked.

  “Then she’ll go stay in town,” her dad said expressionlessly. “Better to keep this here.”

  Well, things wouldn’t be getting any better by lingering in the mudroom. Calli stepped into the kitchen, and color—pastels—burst upon her vision as if they’d been bold carnival hues, they were so different than the dingy white she’d left. The walls were newly painted in pale green, with pretty flowered curtains at the window matching a cloth on an equally new table with polished curvy legs.

  A woman whirled to her. Calli’s eyes went wide. Her father’s new wife was a plump woman about his age with carefully tended colored blond hair, a slight sheen of makeup and bright blue eyes holding anger and greed. “You aren’t welcome here.”

  “Mom,” Roy protested.

  Dora tossed her head; no hair flew from its ordered place in the sprayed bob.

  “I’m Calli Torcher Gardpont, this is my husband, Marrec.” She shut up. Nothing she could say would sound believable. She’d left without taking anything and had now reappeared, with a husband but nothing else. Her dad might not have noticed or cared and she could only hope Dora was too selfish and Roy too preoccupied to ask piercing questions.

  Dora’s lips pushed in and out. Finally she said, “How long are you going to stay in the area?”

  “As long as it takes to resolve things. And if we leave, it
won’t be empty handed.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Yes, we will. I poured a lot of money into this ranch.”

  “Hmmph!” Dora huffed.

  “Mom.”

  “Your room is pretty much the way you left it when you ran off.” Dora’s eyes slid to Will to see if he would defend Calli from the jab. Calli could have told her that he hadn’t even noticed the slight. “You and your husband—” she stared at Calli’s ringless left hand “—can bunk there until we figure this out.” She turned to Roy. “I hope you’re happy now.”

  He’d reddened, but jerked a nod. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Doubt it,” Dora said. “Supper’s at five. That gives you about an hour to clean up.”

  “Right,” Calli said. She’d always prepared supper at five. Discreetly tugging Marrec’s hand, she led him back to the side entrance. She needed to get somewhere private where she could have a quiet breakdown.

  She climbed the narrow stairs to the attic, to her room, and opened the door. How small it was. How sterile. She stumbled in, no tears now, but continuing shock after shock, folded onto the double bed.

  Marrec sat beside her and the old mattress pitched her into him. He circled his arm around her, drew her close. He was the only warmth in the universe. And his strong chest against her, the beating of his heart, was the only thing that mattered.

  This wasn’t home anymore.

  Probably hadn’t been “home” for a long time, but she’d defined it that way.

  She—they—were torn from their real home, the one they’d built together.

  “I am receiving flashes from your past,” Marrec said evenly. “So I know this is the house you grew to adulthood in.”

  “Yes.” Her throat felt dry, but she didn’t have the energy to go to the tiny half bath for a drink of water. She scanned the room. It was relatively clean but smelled musty, and the heat would be too much for her if she weren’t shivering so.

  “I recall when you were Summoned.”

  That had tears flooding back and down her cheeks. Marrec swept a pillow from its case and handed her the cloth. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I remember, too,” she said thickly.