by Dark, Raven
“I had to, Brother,” he whispered.
Oh, yeah, like a pat on the back would make everything honky fucking dory again? I ripped myself away from him.
Sadness flicked across his face before he sighed. “Let Doc take care of that,” he said, referring to the mess on my back.
“Fuck that.”
“PB, come on. It’s over. We’re good now,” Steel rumbled.
Doc got up and started toward me.
I glared at Steel. At the stranger that sat there on his log with our woman’s hand in his.
What the fuck was happening to us?
Without another word, without looking at anyone, I marched off into the forest alone.
These men were my Brothers, the Legion, but right now, it felt as if I didn’t know any of them at all.
Chapter 18
The Breaking of the Four
The next week went by in a blur.
It rushed past in a whirl of duties I didn’t want to perform, duties I absolutely had to carry out if we were going to maintain any sense of normalcy, not to mention if we wanted to stand a chance against Julian. It also crawled past, every day leaving me feeling more and more as if the club was eroding down to nothing.
For one thing, none of the Four would talk to each other. Sheriff was still sitting up there alone in his hut, wrapped in dark world of self-pity, not letting anyone near him, including me. Hawk had said Sheriff hadn’t meant to end things between us, but the more time that passed, the harder that was to believe.
For another thing, Hawk spent most of his time either shut up in his hut meditating or disappearing into his work of keeping the club together. Giving orders, making sure everyone was doing their jobs. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even me. His silence was made all the worse when my promise to leave him alone when he needed space meant I couldn’t interfere.
Pretty Boy wasn’t helping. He was uncharacteristically quiet and aloof whenever I saw him, only coming out of his shell when we talked. With Hawk, he neither looked at him nor speak when the two were in the same room. They didn’t come to blows again, but I almost thought that was worse, this deathly silence between them.
The only one no one seemed to have an issue getting along with was Doc. In a strange way, he’d become the nexus of the Dark Legion. He was the peacemaker, the eternal best friend to all of them, and the one person everyone came to for advice or talked to at length.
Several times, even Bear, Blade, or Grim sniped at each other. It seemed as though seeing the bonds between the Dark Legion’s appointed leaders becoming so frayed was rubbing off on them.
Doc let me help tend to Pretty Boy and Steel when he could. I liked playing nursemaid to them, changing the dressings he’d put on their backs, helping them move about carefully so that their wounds wouldn’t open again. I liked taking care of them, but I hated the reason why I had to.
Looking at their lashes was more painful than I could bear, especially when it served to lengthen the distance that already existed between me and Hawk. I didn’t know how to talk to him, especially when comforting Pretty Boy or Steel felt like a betrayal.
For whatever reason, Pretty Boy and Steel rarely ended up in the same room together. Steel and I spent a lot of time trying to find the Ladies of Shana Ra, while Pretty Boy looked into ways—any way—we could help Sheriff regain his sight. I hoped the lack of communication between them was simply a matter of proximity rather than out of deliberate avoidance, but neither one would talk much about anything other than the task at hand, which made it impossible to tell. I settled for giving them time to come around.
Since I’d known them, they’d never argued, never fought. Their bond represented the one constant in my life, two men whose love for each other seemed unbreakable. With enough time, their emotional wounds would heal just as much as their physical pain. It was silly perhaps, but I felt somehow that, as long as Pretty Boy and Steel weren’t at each other’s throats, then all hope for the club wasn’t lost. As long as one thread was still intact, holding the club together, all was not beyond repair.
Doc and I spent time looking into physicians at the Reach who specialized in blindness. Doc hated the idea of bringing Sheriff anywhere near a doctor from that elitist medical community. I was horrified when he’d explained why, telling me what he’d apparently told Pretty Boy after Olan had abducted me—that some of the doctors there were corrupt and given to performing illegal experiments on people.
Sheriff’s blindness made him a prime target, a man viewed as weak and disabled, who couldn’t fight back. Still, not all the doctors there were bad, Doc maintained, and we’d drag him there if we had to.
The trouble was, it was almost a four-week trip, most of it through hostile territory that we were in no position in to protect ourselves from. And without knowing where Julian was, we couldn’t risk going off in what might be the opposite direction, and with his men still after us.
The Yantu wouldn’t help Sheriff, but at least here, we could do what we had to in safety.
The rest of my days were spent with Ali’san. We meditated for long hours, with me trying to read her thoughts, or her entering my mind and me trying to block her.
It never worked, and usually left me feeling like my head was going to explode.
When we weren’t doing the mind exercises, we took long walks in the forest or ate together, talking at length. Sometimes I watched her practice her sword or run through what she and Hawk called a Da’na Kan, the series of fighting forms used in battle, put into a specific routine.
Watching the woman practice was a wonder to behold but just being around her and talking to her was fascinating.
While I liked spending time with her, it bothered me to realize that I was also spending less and less time with my men. It wasn’t as if everyone didn’t have a lot to do, including me. Ali’san and Doc kept me busy all the time, but I’d never felt so disconnected from my beloved Four.
No. My Three.
Knowing I wasn’t part of Sheriff’s life left me incomplete, as if I’d stepped into some alternate world I didn’t want to be in.
I wouldn’t let myself wallow or fall apart over it, though. Instead, I disappeared into my search for any hint of where Julian might be.
The second week, and even the third, was no better than the first. The days passed by with more of the same, except for two bright sides. Pretty Boy and Steel were all but healed. And then there was what happened with Ali’san.
We were sitting on our mats in Bear’s hut. The men had once again left us alone to work in peace. I was deep in the Don Shi, my mind surrounded in a shroud of peace, every limb in my body relaxed.
“What am I holding, Setora?”
It was the same question she asked each time, signaling that I was supposed to reach into her steel trap of a mind and try to call up the image of what she held in her hand.
I reached my mind out toward hers like a hand. I’d done this a hundred times, so I was hardly expecting much progress. In my mind’s eye, she was sitting cross-legged in front of me, her face the picture of serenity. I pushed past that image and tried to look beyond.
A bowl of binacca. I shook my head and opened my eyes.
Ali’san held up the scarf from her Yantu garb. I flopped back on the mat with a huff.
“This is ridiculous. Ali’san, maybe we should just forget it. Find someone else to be your Liberator.”
“There is no one else, Setora. You are the one meant to save us. You remember what Savak said.”
I jerked upright.
“Yes, and I still don’t believe it.”
A week or so ago, Tai Dan Savak had finally returned and told me what Master Leif had decided after the test. Ali’san repeated what he’d said now, as if I could have forgotten.
“Julian shuts your mind down when he takes over you because, unlike any other Violet, you are dangerous to him, and he knows it. You and you alone can stop him. He wants you as his Cama Di because he thinks he will be ab
le to control the most powerful mind of all, yours. If you don’t find him and stop him, Setora, it’s over. He will carry out his plan, whatever it is, and every Violet in the world will be his puppet. When that happens, who knows what he’ll do.”
I could just imagine what would happen. Hundreds of Violets, maybe more, all of them with superior strength, acting under his command. Killing. And worse, with me at his side, unable to do nothing but follow his orders like a marionette while everyone I cared for was lost.
Cama Di meant Queen. I wanted to think Master Leif was wrong. I wasn’t a hero. I was no savior. I was a slave, for Maker’s sake, and I wasn’t a warrior. The more time Ali’san and I did this, the more I became convinced she was the real hero, the one meant to stop him. It wasn’t like I could fight him when I found him. But she could. She already had.
But even if I wasn’t the savior of the world, I knew Master Leif was right about one thing. I did have to find Julian. If I didn’t, whoever was supposed to stop him, whether it was Ali’san or someone else, wouldn’t be able to.
I sat up and closed my eyes, conjuring up the image of him in my head. Of hundreds of Violets trudging toward him, helpless, unable to break free. The image boiled my blood, and I let my anger build, letting it boil away any urge to give up.
I heard Ali’san pick up something I couldn’t identify.
“Ready?” she asked.
I nodded, determined.
“What am I holding?”
The salvation of the world depended on me. People were dying, killed by their own slaves. People were in danger.
Latching onto that thought, I forced my body to relax, and reached out the fingers of my mind.
Ali’san’s face hovered in front of my mind’s eye.
Then another image.
In her hands, a candle that had been on the table sat, cradled by her long fingers. It leaped out at me, so sharp I winced.
“A candle…” I snapped open my eyes.
Ali’san was grinning, her eyes wide.
My eyes dropped to her hands in her lap. There was a candle between them, a flame dancing on its wick.
My own eyes went huge.
“You did it, Setora. You did it.”
I flopped back, elation sweeping over me.
It was a small thing, a single image I’d pulled from her mind. A small thing, but, Maker, it was a start.
“How did you do it?”
I sat up, excited. “I just imagined someone—people in trouble. That I had to save them, had to do something. It worked. Whenever I’d seen something that came true, someone was always in trouble, so I thought…” I shrugged.
“You require the need to help others to open up to your power.” She nodded.
“I guess so, yeah.”
“It’s a breakthrough, Setora. It’s something we can work with, and I’m betting the exercises will start to come easier now. Eventually, you won’t have to imagine someone in trouble to do it.”
She was right.
Over the next few days, I was able to see what she was holding in my mind more and more often. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of my abilities…or not that one, at least. And more importantly, I was starting to feel that, at last, there was a small hope that we might find Julian and stop him from hurting not only me and my men, but everyone else he had in his sights.
That same week, Steel came to pick me up at Bear’s after Ali’san left. It was the first time I’d seen him up and moving around without any pain, and the first time he’d been the one to pick me up.
“Ready for dinner?” he asked, pulling me into his arms at the door.
“Yes. I’m starving.” I squeezed him close. “Are you feeling better, Master?”
“Much. Come on, let’s go eat before I decide to eat you instead.” He leaned in and nipped my neck.
I chuckled, rubbing his back, the first time I’d been able to do that in weeks. “I love you, my hungry giant.”
He held my hand as we headed down the path toward his and Pretty Boy’s hut. “You’re extra happy today, Petal. It’s good to see you smile again. Did things go good with Ali’san?”
I nodded. “I was able to ‘see’ everything she was holding. Almost as easily as if my eyes were open. And it’s getting easier to block her from my mind, too.”
“So you’re a…what do they call it? Soother?”
I laughed. “Soothsayer, Master. And no, I’m not.”
“What am I thinking?” he teased.
I pulled our linked hands to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “It doesn’t work that way, Master. I can only do it with Violets.”
Then I stopped suddenly and put my free hand to my brow with a mocking wince. “Wait. I see something.” I held out my hand toward him. “I see it in your mind, clear as day.”
He cocked his head at me, his eyes worried.
I squeezed my eyes shut, as if concentrating. “It’s… Food. You’re thinking about eating, Master.”
“Ha ha ha,” he drawled with a grin. Then he scooped me up in his arms. “Come here.” He whirled me around, and I whooped. The dark fears and worries that had hung over me the last few weeks that the club was about to implode faded away, and for the first time, I felt the connection between us forging itself anew.
“I’m so glad you’re all better, Master. I hated seeing you in pain.”
Perhaps some would have said I still should have been angry with Hawk, but I wasn’t. A slave’s anger with her master served no purpose except to push us apart. He’d done what he’d felt he had to, and he’d been right, the world hadn’t ended. I just wished he’d talk to me.
“How’s Pretty Boy?” I asked hopefully when Steel set me down in front of his door and opened it.
“He’s better, actually.” He stepped inside and I followed. “He was moving around before I was and making trouble as usual. He’s always healed faster than me.” He frowned. “But I think he’s sorta pissed with me now.”
“Why?”
“Oh, because I’m not jumping on his anti-Hawk bandwagon. You know what he’s like.”
I tamped down the worry that nibbled at me. One tiff hardly meant disaster between them.
“From his standpoint, I guess that makes sense,” I said. “I hate to see that you two aren’t as close anymore, though. I wish I could spend more time with you both, but I’ve been working so much with Ali’san. It’s been worth it, though.”
Steel bent and kissed me on the lips. “We’ll make up for it sooner or later.” He tugged playfully on my hair and then shut the door.
I hoped that by “we,” he meant the both of them.
I looked around the living room we’d stepped into. This was the only one of the huts we’d taken that had a fireplace, and already there was a good fire going in the hearth. The men had all gathered around it, even Hawk’s four guards. Everyone, that is, except Sheriff.
My heart squeezed.
“Blade,” Steel called, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “I’m hungry, where’s my food?” He winked at me, letting me know he was playing.
“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses.” Blade dished out a plate for him, and then another one for me.
This was probably the first time I’d seen nearly all the Dark Legion members gathered for dinner like this. They’d pulled up chairs and foot stools, around the fire, while Hawk sat on the hearthstone, his back against the wall beside the fire. Grim sat on the table near us, towering over everyone. Blade had bought a veritable feast from the restaurant in town—spicy wings, ribs, fish freshly caught from the river, and fresh produce from the local farms. While the men talked, Grim juggled three tomatoes, all of which were as big as Steel’s palms. When everyone was served, Blade sat on the other end of the hearth and dug into his fried fish.
While the men talked and ribbed each other, a feeling of family swept over me, something I hadn’t felt in far too long. For a moment, the Legion almost seemed whole.
Almost.
> I glanced out the window to the left of the hut, down the path that led up to Sheriff’s, and pushed down the incompleteness that ate at me.
“Drink, Petal?”
“What? Oh.” I took the hot mug of cider Steel handed me and placed it by my plate on the table. “Thank you, Master.” I dug into my own food, refusing to let Sheriff’s continual self pity ruin the night. If he didn’t want me anymore, I couldn’t let that rule my life.
“It’s nice to see you out of your proverbial cave again, Hawk,” Steel said, munching on a wing.
“Yeah, well, I figured I better check in on you guys before you decide to make trouble,” he teased.
Blade threw a chunk of halibut at him.
He threw it back.
I looked around the room, swearing I’d seen Pretty Boy when we had come in, but he wasn’t there now. “Steel.” I leaned into him. “Where’s Pretty Boy?”
He looked around and sighed. “Probably still sulking in his room, now that I’m here.”
I rubbed his arm, noticing the way his brow crinkled.
“Talking about me again, Princess?” Pretty Boy growled in my ear. His arms caged me in, and he pressed me into his warmth.
I grinned, rubbing his arm. “Hello, Master. I missed you.”
He kissed my ear. “Missed you too.” Since there were no chairs left, he squatted down beside me. “More fun with the She-Warrior today, Princess?” He nabbed a wing off my plate.
“Will you stop calling her that,” I squeaked around a mouthful of lettuce.
“Never.” He beamed.
It was good to see the bright light in his eyes, the playfulness in his gorgeous smile.
“Here, have a seat.” I set my plate down and got up. “I’ll get you some food. Then maybe you’ll stop stealing it off mine.”
His eyes flicked to Steel and then tore away. “Nah, you go ahead.” He straightened and started toward the food spread out on the table beside Grim.
