by Robin Owens
Thirty-one
We believe you,” Del soothed, glanced around again.
Shunuk sniffed. No young of any kind around here.
Rosemary plunked her bottom onto Raz’s shoulder stubbornly. YES THERE ARE. She sniffed right back at Shunuk. They feel like the LITTLE WARMTHS in Del’s house. Another, final, sniff.
“I don’t have any young things in my house,” Del said. “Only when Doolee and Antenn come over to . . .” She sat down on the tree bench, held out a hand to Raz, and he took it. When she tugged, he sat. But he’d felt Del’s burst of understanding.
Del leveled her gaze at Rosemary. “Little warmths, not quite intelligent?”
You KNOW! Rosemary trilled. She hopped up and down on his shoulder, a small weight.
Del was shaking her head and again he noticed the twinmoonslight on her hair. Extraordinary hair. She looked more vulnerable by moonslight, shadows tinting her face. Raz stroked her hair. “What?” he asked.
“HeartStones?” Del asked. “A House becoming a Residence?”
“HeartStones?” Raz let surprise tinge his voice. He looked at the low house, its many windowpanes. “That means the house has been here longer than I thought.”
“Me, too.” Del cleared her throat, glanced at Rosemary. “Can you, uh, communicate with the little warmths?”
Rosemary lifted her nose. They were HAPPY to see Me. I LISTENED to them and kept them company.
“Ah,” Del said. “Why don’t you try telling them that you must go but that we’ll see they aren’t abandoned.” She rubbed her face and grumbled, “Hard enough to get folk to watch D’Elecampane House, here . . .”
Purring and humming, Rosemary grew warmer on his shoulder. She was using Flair, Raz realized. The link between him and his Fam was open, but it still wasn’t strong and wide, not like his link with Del.
Yet, he could vaguely sense that she was sending emotions to something else. A shiver went through his bones. He’d never felt emanations from HeartStones, not even when he’d been T’Cherry Heir as a child.
Flair was increasing with every generation.
I have told them, Rosemary said in a little voice. They are not happy, but they will wait. She curled her claws into Raz’s shoulder until he yelped. They must NOT be abandoned again.
Del stood. “I said I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”
Rosemary didn’t answer.
Del grunted and turned to walk away. Raz caught her hand, recalled that strangely familiar feeling he’d had, and said, “As long as we’re here . . .”
“You want to look around?” Del sounded surprised.
He grinned. “Guilty pleasure, exploring a secret and forbidden area.”
She slanted him a look. “We don’t go in the house or the hotel.” Her mouth turned down. “Or the springs if they are enclosed.”
“Fine,” he said and took her hand again.
So they walked around the house, long and rectangular except for the large semicircular room that extended in the back. They strolled through overgrown gardens filled with wild roses that fragranced the air. They stood and looked at the hotel, agreeing that it was still in good shape.
Inside one of the large outbuildings, Raz said, “Wonder what this was,” then stopped. The acoustics of the building were extraordinary. He dropped Del’s hand, began moving around, reciting bits and pieces of plays, throwing his voice, listening to the sound.
“What?” Del asked.
Instead of answering, he took her hand and pulled her to one end of the building, turned her in his arms and launched into the role he was playing now, curving his arm around her waist. “Darling, I was so worried.” He raised his brows. She’d seen the show often enough to know the lines. “And you say ...” he prompted.
She went sticklike in his arms. “What?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not right, you say—”
“You fool!”
“That’s not right, either.”
Shunuk snickered from where he sat watching, an audience of one.
Raz said, “The line is: ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, but I found the locket!’ ”
From Raz’s shoulder, Rosemary put in, FamMan was worried about ME!
“This is a play,” Raz said, then he turned to look into close yellow eyes. “Yes, I was. Don’t wander off again.”
Del gasped. “I can’t do this!” She pushed against him.
He tightened his grip and grinned at her. “Sure you can. There’s only Shunuk and Rosemary to see. They won’t be critical.”
“Ha.” Del snorted. “Much you know about Fams.”
He eased back from the pretend-kiss. “I don’t think my lady in the play ever makes that sound.”
“Not a strong character. Can’t see clues in front of her face, gets into trouble,” Del said.
“Maybe you’re right.” She was right, of course. “A mystery might not suit you.”
We know Summer Flowers best, Shunuk put in.
“Ah.” A show that had been vized two years ago. His first lead. It had been a very young man’s role. Everything swam back into his memory, and his posture altered, his attitude, as he became the youngster sweeping his equally young lover up into his arms. He gazed down at Del with burning intensity. “I have loved you for years.” His voice trembled with the remembered note.
“I have loved you for years,” Del whispered huskily, her voice low and vibrating with truth and not sweet and high and gushing with youthful enthusiasm. But this was right, the mood and the words and the way her eyes caught his, the way her feelings opened to his, the way the bond between them pulsed.
All was true. Hurt throbbed, his and hers. A touch of despair. He didn’t know how he could bear it when she rode out of his life. But he didn’t know how he could give up the fulfillment of his career, either. Didn’t want to consider the choices.
OUCH! Rosemary screeched. I DON’T like that FEELING. And I am hungry!
The moment was broken.
Stup kitten, Shunuk said, yawning. To leave safe camp with good food. Lucky she didn’t become dinner herself.
“The fox has a point,” Raz said. “Which is why I was worried about you.” Reluctantly he placed Del on her feet. He glanced around the building, shook his head. “Excellent acoustics.” His smile was lopsided. “Like everything else here, this place has possibilities. Let’s go back to camp.”
“I know the coordinates and the light well enough in these mountains to ’port us there,” Del said, her hand warm in his.
He wanted to bend down and brush her lips with his, but he was still disturbed. Instinctively he’d retreated—and so had she, their bond had narrowed, both of them trying to protect themselves from pain. He wondered if that would work, for either of them.
The next day a little after noon they were out of the mountain pass and on a newly improved gliderway through the rest of the range into Druida City. His father would be pleased that they’d shaved a good six septhours off the trip. He could almost see the man grinning and rubbing his hands at the gilt he could charge the Councils for widening and hardening the ground of a public road. All those who had gliders—and that would be upper-class nobles—would prefer this way for sure.
The Family who owned the hotel could make gilt, too.
He’d let Del drive the glider cautiously along the mostly straight road through the mountains. She even reached top speed once and occasionally appeared as if she was enjoying herself, though she didn’t care as much for guiding a glider as she did for riding—stridebeast or horse. But she valued a new skill.
That pleased him. Once again he had given her something she prized, and when she returned to her estate, she’d find that her ancient Family glider had been refurbished by the Cherrys. Next to that vehicle was a two-year-old previously owned glider in Cherry red that Raz had purchased for her through his father. It was a sturdy vehicle easy to drive and navigate. Thinking of her surprise and satisfaction at the gift—he had heard her mumble
that she’d have to buy a new glider—made him smile.
“Why don’t you take the glider all the way into Druida?”
A horrified expression crossed her face. She glanced at the control panel with all the dials and buttons and pressed the “auto slow” one, ordered, “To the side of the gliderway, please.” The vehicle lost speed and pulled over, though they’d only seen one other glider and a few heavy-duty transports. Del dismissed the safety webshield, flung up her door, and stretched. Raz got out and appreciated the flexibility of her body as he stretched himself. He walked around the glider, grabbed her waist, swung her around in the sheer joy of being with her.
She flung back her head and laughed and he nibbled at the taut line of her throat, enjoying her fingers tightening on his shoulders, her mind hazing with desire. He slid her down his body, humming at the feel of her against him, his sex hardening.
Rosemary is running away! Shunuk said.
Growling, Raz set Del on her feet, saw a tiny bobbing black tail heading toward a gulch. Holding out his hands, he said, “Return to me!” and grasped a hissing, struggling kitten.
Rosemary glared at him. I need to pee.
Raz raised his brows. “Really? Didn’t we stop the glider ten minutes ago so you could dig in the dirt and pee and dig again, and investigate the brush? That was you, wasn’t it?”
With a glare past him, Rosemary didn’t answer.
Raz turned to Del and stilled. She was looking toward Druida. Following her gaze, he saw the ripple of air in the distance—all the many shields of the city. A glint of metal as the sun gleamed on Nuada’s Sword, maybe even the hint of a gray line that was the city walls.
Del’s expression held a weary resignation. Checking on the open bond between them, he felt an underlying dread at returning to Druida. An image came to her mind of the landscape around them, the tree-covered hills, the mountains behind them jutting into the sky, the plains beyond that. All seemed to narrow down into a tube—like the tubelike corridor Raz had felt around him in the starship. That’s what Druida City meant to Del—constriction.
She was taking deep breaths as if filling her lungs with country air, inhaling the essence of nature around them, ready to hold it against all the irritants of civilization.
It hurt to see her, to feel her dislike of all that he loved . . . the lights, people, entertainment, the knowledge that he could go somewhere any minute of every day and night and find something to do.
How could they be HeartMates? Surely two people should be better suited by lifestyle. He couldn’t grasp how they could blend their lives.
Del lifted her hands and fluffed her hair, as if wanting the scent of sage and sunlight on her scalp for a few more minutes. She glanced at the glider and for the first time since he’d been a child unable to drive, Raz saw it as confinement.
He didn’t know what to say, felt as if any words he’d speak would be wrong, would emphasize the differences between them.
She scanned the area, her eyes focused on a trail up a hill, a massive protrusion of rock hiding a path that was too narrow for a glider. She knew where that path went. Her mind showed him, flowers and brooks, patches of snow and more trails beyond with crystals embedded in hillsides. She yearned for that trail.
Just as he yearned for the applause of a full theater.
How could they be HeartMates?
With one last breath, she shook out her legs again and walked from the driver’s side of the glider to the passenger door he’d left open. She let out a loud whistle. Better than he’d ever learned. Shunuk, leaving in two. ’Port your tail to me.
There was a distant yip.
Raz thought that he might even have been forgotten in this small pattern of theirs. He shoved Rosemary back onto her pillow behind his seat. Restlessness filled him and he couldn’t figure out whether it was because he wanted to head back to the city or wanted to head off with Del and make love with her for days. And after that, what would he do? He was at home in a theater, not on the trail, especially any trail that wasn’t made for a glider.
A small pop sounded and Shunuk sat at Del’s feet. His coat looked as if he’d rolled in dust, and he had a satisfied smile that meant he’d caught and eaten something.
Mouse. Shunuk swiped his muzzle with a quick tongue. Very tasty mouse, fat off the land.
Del’s eyes lingered on the path. “Plenty of good game this summer. It’s been a bountiful year.”
Raz had never hunted in his life. He slid into the car, thunked the door down, murmured the webshield on.
Del walked up to stand next to the glider and stretched again. “I don’t miss hunting for food . . . rabbit or Celtan rabbit—mocyn—or wild clucker. Occasional wild furrabeast. But a person can only carry with her so many rations.” She slanted him a smile. “Especially if she packs a lot of vizes or holos of plays.”
Raz ordered the glider to auto into Druida, turned to Del. “Our lives aren’t very alike, are they?”
She met his eyes. “No.”
Honest, as always. He didn’t think of Del as being a woman who would compromise. He took her hand, raised it to his lips. “You are a very special woman, Del.”
“Thank you. I think the same about you.”
He flashed a smile. “My thanks, too. I have to return this glider to T’Cherry Residence and report to my father about the trip . . . and the break-in and thefts.”
“Of course.”
“I want you to stay with me at T’Cherry Residence tonight.”
She raised her brows. “With your Family?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to speak the HeartMate word. Didn’t want to get into any discussion of that. His gut squeezed as tight as a miser’s pouch at the thought. Not now.
But there was a shadow of a notion in the back of his brain about the thefts and diary that needed to solidify. He knew if he gave it a couple of hours, it would coalesce, and he sensed he needed to be in T’Cherry Residence for the revelation.
Tilting her head, she met his eyes. He felt the feathery brush of her mind through their link. She frowned, then nodded.
“Good,” he said.“You showed Dad and me around D’Elecampane House, let’s show you around T’Cherry Residence.” Again he kissed her hand, tasted her unique flavor . . . wild herbs. “I can promise you a fine meal and fine wine and entertainment.”
She smiled back. “How can I resist?” Her brows dipped. “I have a change of good clothes, though they need to be freshened.”
I have not roamed the T’Cherry estate, Shunuk said. It will be fun. The fox slid a glance to Rosemary. You will love the other kitten.
OTHER kitten! Rosemary screeched.
She is very elegant, Shunuk went on. He scratched his ear with his hind leg. But you are bigger, though she is older.
Rosemary hissed.
“We won’t be staying,” Raz said. “I don’t live there anymore, won’t be living there in the future.” He thought of his apartment that he loved, thought of his career and the general idea he had of buying his own small house in the area where most actors and artists lived. That almost seemed a lost dream.
Too much brooding on old plans. An actor needed to be flexible in his mind, his body, his parts to make a good career.
“I also have a . . . feeling . . . about the diary.”
Del’s eyes widened and he smiled inwardly; it was hard to impress the woman, get any strong reaction from her—out of bed.
“I’ll let you know when we get home.”
She stilled and so did he. He’d meant T’Cherry Residence, but it wasn’t truly home. Nor was his apartment. He thought of the landscape globe he’d chosen from her workshop that was sitting on a shelf in his dressing room, wondered if anything was showing in it yet. Something had been building in it the last time he looked.
No, he wasn’t sure what was home, but was sure that it would be in Druida.
Home, a hard and sticky subject between them.
“Let’s ride,” Del said and slid
into the glider, and Raz knew she was wishing she was on the back of a stridebeast.
They made excellent time and were at T’Cherry Residence in a couple of septhours. Raz and his mother showed Del around the Residence and she appreciated his childhood home.
The concept of home again. He itched to get his hands on his landscape globe but didn’t want to leave Del. He was afraid she’d ride out—more afraid that he wouldn’t stop her.
After dinner the Family went into the mainspace and Raz sat with Del on a twoseat, his arm across the back, nearly embracing her. He wanted her close . . . until she left.
Playing with her fingers, he waited until his parents and his sister and her HeartMate settled. Then he projected his Flair through the room until everyone looked at him.
He kept his voice low, a standard murmur that might not alert a certain entity—and might not arouse the kittens who had hissed and fought and then curled up on pillows in opposite corners to nap, ignoring each other. “I have done some thinking about the diary.”
Everyone’s attention keenly focused on him. He liked that just as much as in the theater, and if this show progressed the way he thought it would, he’d be a hero. Anticipation was sweet on his tongue.
He glanced at Del. “Del gave me an idea when she asked whether the diary should have been in the HouseHeart.”
Del snorted. “Obvious question.”
“It’s not in the HouseHeart.” Raz’s father’s brows knit.
“But when the diary went missing, this house wasn’t a Residence,” Raz pointed out.
“We still had a HouseHeart,” Del’s sister said.
“Also true,” Raz said, then sank his voice lower. “But when the diary went missing, we couldn’t ask the Residence if it might be here.”
He snapped, “Residence, review all your spaces, check for an object that is not part of your structure but resonates of a human Family member, a box, perhaps, that has been hidden.”
“Yes, Raz,” the Residence said. “There is the box in the Mistrys-Suite placed there by D’Cherry.”
