by Robin Owens
I need My own cushion. A FAT one. Rosemary had awakened and eyed the flattened pillows. A feather pillow might be good. I like feathers. Her little teeth showed. But it MUST be plumper.
Raz knew answers to statements like this. “Why don’t you pick your pillow or your cushion out from whatever is in the house?”
She wrinkled her nose.
“We can purchase a pillow for you later today,” Raz said. “But now all the best establishments are closed.”
The kitten made a small huffing sound. Her ears rotated and she turned her back.
Del rolled out the groundmat, waved a hand, and it inflated. Raz eyed it warily. Sure wasn’t a bedsponge.
“Well, I’ll be going,” said the guard who’d arrived on stage with one line like a minor player. “Little Miz Rosemary, if I were you, I’d take the middle couch cushion from the mainspace. Dark red would complement your coloring.”
Raz couldn’t see that, a blue gray cat on deep red.
Rosemary’s back rippled in a cat shrug. YES.
“And I can ’port it up for you,” the guard said. With a frown and a Word he did so.
The kitten went over to it immediately, hopped atop it, began kneading.
“How does it smell, Rosemary?” asked the guard.
She lowered her nose, then looked at him. Smells like FamMan and Family and knife metal and furrabeast glove. She touched a slash.
This cushion was the least harmed of all. The guard had known that, had observed the location of the cushion well enough to be able to transport it, had enough Flair to do so. Perhaps Raz’d underestimated the man.
“Ah,” the guard said. He nodded to Raz, bowed toward Del.
Raz stepped forward and offered his hand. “Thank you for your work.” He added a sincere smile. “You’ve been a great help.”
“It’s nothing. My job,” the guard said gruffly. He set a tiny disk down that would include all his contact information. “Scry if you want, or if you come across anything you think I should know. I’ll use the upper-story teleportation pad.”
Neither of the teleportation areas had been drained of energy. Probably so the crooks could escape.
The guard passed Shunuk as he trotted in, smelling of cool air with a hint of damp. He grinned when he saw Rosemary. Kitten needs to sleep on a pillow? His teeth were a lot sharper than Rosemary’s. Then the fox snorted, angled his head so he was looking at Del. Kitten would not be good on the trail. He fluffed his tail, flicked it. Not even when she is grown. She is a demanding cat.
“No,” Del said quietly with an odd note in her voice. “Rosemary is not meant for the trail.” She left the room carrying the other rolled groundmat. Raz watched her, tried to figure out what she might be feeling through their link, but only sensed a weariness.
MY cushion needs to be moved so the morning sun will fall on Me.
Shunuk rolled on the floor, hooting with laughter. This room does not have any eastern windows, cat. Take yourself down the hall, then.
Rosemary turned her back on them and curled up in a pouting cat-circle, tail over nose.
Del walked in, all quiet competence and with the air of a task well done. There was not a less demanding woman on the planet. Had he truly understood that? Valued that? Now that he had a FamKitten that wanted things her way from the start, the contrast was staggering.
His lover walked up to him, wrapped her arms around him, and they leaned together. Almost like a unit like his parents were, like his sister was with her HeartMate.
No! He didn’t want a HeartMate or a wife to distract him from his climb to stardom.
But Del felt so good in his arms. “Lights off,” he said and peeled her shoulder tabs apart.
Twenty-seven
Del sighed, stepped away, and dropped her trous, loosened her breastband a little until it only draped over her breasts, didn’t lift and form them into delectable mounds. They looked fine to Raz anyway. “You don’t need the breastband,” he said. He didn’t have the energy anymore to have lusty sex with her . . . anger had been worn down by grief and melancholy and the sheer work of trying to recall all their Family possessions and report on what was lost.
“Straif will be here soon.”
“Oh, yes.” He grimaced, pulled his clothes off until he was wearing only his loincloth. Del was dressed in breastband and pantlettes. She took a loose onesuit from her bag and put it near the left side of the bed.
They matched in that. He preferred the right side of the bed. He swung her up into his arms, kissed her, and when their lips met, it was with a gentle tenderness, a promise of other times. He’d needed her taste. He opened their bond wide, found it was wide on her side, too. Then he sank onto the bed, let his ragged emotions sink into her. He wrapped around her and in an instant was asleep.
He was awakened by a knock on the front door that echoed loudly by spell through the room. “Straif Blackthorn here.”
Raz flung sleep away with a shake of his head, rose, and drew on trous, saw a shadowy Del slip into the onesuit from the corner of his eye. Coughing to clear roughness from his throat, he projected, “Raz Cherry on my way down. Thank you for coming.” For the first couple of steps he was stiff from the groundmat, then he balanced his energy and moved across the floor with an easy glide.
Del was one step behind him as he went through the door and he reached back and caught her fingers. They moved through the dark in silence.
You forgot ME! Rosemary mentally shouted.
Shunuk stayed in his corner.
“Come along, then,” Raz said. “We did a quick cleanup of the floors, nothing to hurt your paws.”
There was a skittering and she ran to keep up. He paused at the head of the stairs following D’Ash’s instructions. “Always keep the cat in sight when negotiating stairs. Let the cat proceed first.” He wondered how many broken bones Healers had put together from cat/people tangles on stairs.
“I wonder how many cats D’Ash has Healed from stairway incidents,” Del murmured.
Rosemary was prancing at the doorway. Time for T’Blackthorn to see ME.
“His FamCat is Drina,” Del said, then Raz heard privately. Do not let Rosemary talk to Drina under any circumstances. She is the original Queen of the Universe Fam. She will give Rosemary ideas.
Raz smiled wryly as he picked his kitten up, mentally whispering back to Del, I think Rosemary already has a lot of ideas. He opened the front door, his brows rising as he took in FirstFamily GrandLord Straif T’Blackthorn. The man looked scruffier than Raz himself. His leathers had stains Raz didn’t want to contemplate and Straif wore the oldest celtaroon boots Raz had ever seen.
“Greetyou.” Straif adjusted his wide-brimmed hat.
Raz recalled his manners. “Thank you for coming so soon.”
I am a beautiful Kitten and Drina is OLD, Rosemary announced.
Straif’s gaze went to her as she sat on Raz’s shoulder. His eyes crinkled. “Older than you, for sure.”
Raz stepped back and Del did the same, moving like they were a unit. He didn’t want to think about that, had plenty of other things to think about. “The kitchen is this way. It’s bad.”
“Not too bad,” Del said. “No dead animals or people.” She and Straif shared a look and Raz disliked the annoyance that bit at him.
They walked to the kitchen as Rosemary listed all her good qualities. At six weeks. Opening the kitchen door, Straif stared at the meat and scowled, turned to Raz. “Using my Flair, I saw traces of two men throughout the house, but their tracks are much stronger here.” He narrowed his eyes. “They ate some of the food, would have left saliva, a better identifier. Good job on the containment spell.” Straif rubbed his hands. “I’ll get to work.”
“You don’t want to sleep?” Del asked.
Shaking his head, Straif said, “No, the fresher the trail the better. I slept on the luxury airship. I think I’ll have to keep a Cherry airship on retainer.”
“Excellent idea,” Raz said.
“Excellent service,” Straif said. He crossed the room to a point that didn’t seem the least interesting to Raz. He looked at Del. She shrugged. She must not see anything, either.
The man was using his powerful Flair for tracking. Raz’s interest was snagged. He always enjoyed watching people work. It came in handy later when he was shaping a character. Straif had straightened, walked with smaller steps, studied the floor, the counters, glanced at a gouged wall or two, stared at the no-times. Then he nodded and strode to the back door. He waved a hand. “Later.”
He was gone before Raz could ask about the two thieves and he was left pondering how much Straif could tell about them. Not their names, surely, but something of their looks?
Del yawned. “Let’s send this mess to the city salvage and get back to bed.”
“On three,” he said, staring at the spoiled meat. Flair ran up and down their hands as Raz tried to recall the location of the Gael City facility. Del augmented his memory with her own fragments of the place. Raz was unsure their recollection would be sufficient.
It is like this! Shunuk grumbled, as if roused from sleep by a stupid problem. The fox added perfect lighting for this time of year.
Del met Raz’s eyes. “He must have been there lately.”
“We’ll transport the mess to the intake station on three,” Raz said.
When it was done, Del said a housekeeping Word that Raz didn’t know and strength was siphoned from him. In a few seconds the kitchen gleamed.
“Rosemary?” Raz called. She’d hopped down and had seemed to be sniffing at the trails Straif had followed. She’d disappeared when Raz wasn’t looking. The kitten didn’t answer and he sluggishly tried to think of what might bring her to him and keep her where he wanted her. He walked to the pantry, crossing the open end of the U that were the counters. No kitten in sight. He didn’t want to call her again, preferred to use guile.
Reaching up for a small stray tube that had rolled back to the darkness of a pantry shelf, he tore it open. “A snack for Rosemary before we go back to bed.” Again he projected his voice. “Come along, kitten dear.” He infused his voice with love. Still no answer. He tsked. “You should stop acting like a tracking dog.”
Dog! She hissed and shot out from one of the bottom shelves of the pantry, between his feet. I am NOT a dog. Nothing about Me is doglike.
Raz cocked a brow. “Many dogs track. They are very good at it.” Damn, wrong thing to say. “Not as good as you could be, of course, but very good. Perhaps you could hire out for it.”
Hopping with anger, black tail straight up, Rosemary hissed again. Raz hoped she wasn’t going to pee on his bare feet.
She lifted her nose. You may pick Me up and give Me a snack. She stared at the tube of caviar. What is that?
“Caviar, a delicacy. Fish stuff.”
Del glanced sharply at him, then shook her head. Too late, she said privately.
I think I have heard of this caviar, Rosemary said. I think D’Ash gave it as a treat to a cat once.
“A treat, yes. For good behavior.” Raz corrected his mistake. Thank the Lady and Lord that the tube was small and the portion he would give the kitten would be equally small, just a little squirt.
Rosemary purred. Raz could hardly hear it. She licked her muzzle. I CAME when I was called.
Not quite, but he was tired. He scooped her up with a hand under her belly and took her to the feeding station in the dining room, hesitated. The chamber looked worse now that the kitchen was cleaned. He grunted, turned back toward the kitchen.
Rosemary wriggled in his hand, fell lightly to the floor. I eat in the dining room.
Del coughed. Raz glanced at her sparkling eyes. He didn’t have to use his bond to know what she was thinking. He and Rosemary were establishing patterns. Caviar. Eating in the dining room. He began to squeeze the treat onto the plate Rosemary had used before and she said, This is NOT a clean plate.
It looked clean to him, not a crumb, not a smear of a previous meal. Del turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen, returned with a whole saucer of thick pottery.
The kitten scowled at it. Looked at the “dirty” plate of fine porcelain. I will eat on the dirty plate.
“Fine,” Raz said. “Because I don’t have the time or inclination to clean it right now. And I don’t have plates like this at home or in the theater. I don’t have a dining room or caviar.”
Rosemary just ate her caviar.
Del awoke to the lovely feel of Raz’s body all along her back and a bare, unfamiliar pale blue wall ahead of her. She stared, blinked, and memory filtered back. She wasn’t at the inn at the Great Labyrinth. She was on a trip with Raz, but not an intimate getaway. This would not be the relaxing time she’d wanted with him to focus on each other.
This time together would be an emotional mess.
Her gaze dropped to the ripped carpeted floor as she extended her senses. Rosemary was up and exploring, but an indulgent Shunuk was with her.
Do not leave her, Del admonished her Fam.
Shunuk didn’t answer, but she got the vision of him carrying the kitten by the scruff of her neck back to the room, kicking the door shut, and him teleporting away . . . when he became bored with her.
Thank you, she said. Today they’d have to clean the house, start the replacement of furniture, find someone to mend Raz’s sister’s dolls. Del didn’t know Gael City well enough to do that, doubted that Raz did, so they’d have to depend on someone else—guardsmen, she supposed. Raz wanted to viz the play Trillia was in, Heart and Sword, and Del didn’t know how to arrange that, either. She’d be stuck with cleaning the house.
Beyond the house there was a hum of busy Flair. In some ways Gael City was harder for Del to tolerate than Druida. A more fluid class structure made for a very bustling town. The energy was high, the personal space between people closer. Del considered a couple of kilometers a good personal space between herself and everyone but Raz and Doolee and Shunuk.
Soon it would be a month since she’d been on the trail, riding her stridebeast up to Steep Springs and the letter that had changed her life. So long in Druida City, and now Gael City. What was she doing here?
Raz’s hand covered her breast and played with her. Passion speared straight to her core. She arched against him, found him hard and throbbing. Her breath went ragged and thoughts fell apart. “Mornin’,” he said in a naturally raspy voice he hadn’t bothered to clear, from a throat he hadn’t bothered to limber up. That touched her, too. He wasn’t thinking like an actor, just a man.
Her man, her HeartMate.
His fingers slipped lower, under her pantlettes, down where she was rapidly dampening, her body loosening for his. She let out a whimpering pant and he arched as if the sound had roused him further.
She liked the feel of his sex, long and hard. Her skin flushed with hot need and anticipation.
He grabbed the side of her pantlettes, yanked, and they were gone. He rolled over and slid into her in a quick smooth move and only sensation mattered.
And emotion. When she closed her eyes she saw sparks, fire-works, heard their unsteady breathing, felt the slickness of their bodies as they plunged in rhythm. Need. She craved him—his touch on her breasts, him inside her. She was addicted to his raging emotions pouring through her, cracking and shattering whatever brittle shield she’d begun to build around her own feelings.
Rounds of golden rope shone in her mind. The HeartBond, for her to send to him and they would be linked together for life, in all aspects of their lives. But her body demanded release and . . . just . . . there.
She flew, she fell, she exploded, and when her mind came together again, she heard him whispering. “Lover, lover, lover Del.”
She found wetness on her cheeks. He knew they were HeartMates, otherwise the bond wouldn’t have appeared. But he wasn’t admitting it to himself, let alone to anyone else, and definitely not to her.
Because a life with her would mean work and compromise, now and in t
he future, and the only work he wanted to do was on his career.
That hurt.
They’d been so close, physically. His desire had rushed through her and he’d felt her own. So fast, so hard, so passionate. Now he rolled back and held her, snuggled with her, one of his hands low on her stomach, one on her breasts, their legs tangled together. Love enveloped them. Love he thought of as affection or caring or tenderness.
Del swallowed her stupid, untimely tears. She was tough, she could handle this.
She’d get through this step-by-step. Win or lose.
He wanted to give Del something.
She had given him so much, and though he’d given, too—taken her around to all the theaters, involved her in his life, that wasn’t enough. The safes in the house had been opened and robbed and drained of any locking and shielding Flair, but perhaps a young boy’s hidey-hole might have been missed.
Come to me outside when you are done in the waterfall, Raz said. He’d already cleansed in a different room.
Fine, Del said.
He left the house through the sunroom door and walked to the trees where his father and he had made a platform. The tree house was one of his favorite places in his youth. The platform was suspended midway in a close circle of trees. As far as he could tell, the permarope was still good.
He didn’t think that the thieves would have bothered it.
With a quiet inhalation and a lift of his hands he levitated straight up, grinning. He hadn’t forgotten that skill. He separated thin, whippy branches with their multitudes of leaves and stepped into the green light of his hideaway. The trees arched over him; the space was still taller than he. As he stepped a pace, the floor swayed a little. Ah. He’d reached his full growth, had the muscle mass of an adult man. Half closing his eyes, he tested the thick wood planks of the platform and the permaropes for soundness. Fine. Good for another fifty years, another few generations of young Cherry boys.
“Raz?” Del called.
She stood near him but couldn’t see him and the secret delight of hiding from an adult washed over him as if he were ten.
