LC03 Shield's Lady

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Her eyes were closed and she had gone rigid with unnatural tension. Her fingers were frozen on the lock.

  “Hold onto that pulsing light ray, Sariana. Follow it back to its source.”

  Gryph never knew what made him try for a working link. No woman had ever been able to work prisma according to the history he knew.

  But he was desperate and Sariana was a most unpredictable female.

  He touched the other side of the prisma lock and carefully tuned into it. Sariana was there. There was definitely another presence in time with his lock and it was not a weak presence.

  Gryph didn’t stop to analyze what was happening. He cautiously reached out for other rays that would be generated by a crystal ship, the way he had been doing all afternoon.

  Without any warning he found them.

  The unseen vibrations of prisma light focused on the weapon kit lock and bounced through Gryph’s head with such force that he nearly screamed.

  He did hear a scream, but it wasn’t his own. It was Sariana.

  He wanted to reassure her but he wasn’t given the chance. Unprepared to handle such an incredibly strong focus, Gryph’s brain did the only sensible thing. It shut down temporarily and plunged him into unconsciousness.

  Chapter

  15

  SARIANA was shaking as she knelt beside Gryph. He was lying in the same unconscious sprawl he had been in the first time she had seen him. Frantically she sought for a pulse in his throat. Her own pulse was racing as if her bloodstream was attempting to dilute and drain away the impossible, unnamed rays of light that had filled her head for a split second.

  “Gryph, wake up. Please wake up.” Her trembling fingers found the steady beat in his throat and she told herself he was all right. “Come on, Gryph, open your eyes,” she ordered tightly. Her whole being willed him to awaken. She almost collapsed when his dark lashes fluttered and lifted. He gazed up at her for a long moment.

  “I always said you were an unpredictable woman, Sariana. But this time you’ve outdone yourself.” Gryph swore softly as he sat up. Gingerly he reached for his weapon kit and reattached it to his belt.

  “What happened?” she demanded, sitting back on her heels in the sand.

  “You helped me work prisma,” he told her simply. “We found the weapon ship. Or at least we found the beams it’s putting out. I’ve never tuned in to live prisma crystal before, but I was told years ago that if I picked it up I would recognize it. The men who taught me that were right. It’s very similar to neutralized prisma but it has a slightly different pulse. I’ll be able to track it now.” He leaned back against the rock from which he had toppled a few minutes earlier and gave her a strange smile. “It’s supposed to be impossible, you know.”

  “What is?”

  “No woman has ever worked prisma. The original Shield teams were all male and all their descendants are male.”

  “What about their Shieldmates?” Sariana asked. She was getting a distinctly uneasy feeling.

  Gryph gazed up at he stars for a moment before answering. “Until now being a Shieldmate meant only that a woman had the ability to link with a Shield and, if all went well, give him a son. Sometimes, if everything went very well, there would eventually be two or three sons. Some experiments have been done through the yeas, but no woman has ever been able to work prisma beyond the point of being able to tune in to her lord’s lock. We’ve always assumed the talent didn’t go farther because the women had never undergone the original genetic alteration. They might have the potential, but without the chemical injection needed to strengthen that potential, women can’t truly work prisma.”

  “Sounds like just the sort of conclusion a bunch of men would arrive at,” Sariana said with a shaky smile.

  “I have to tell you something, Sariana. I think that whatever happened between us that first time we linked was unusual, to say the least. It may well have been unique. You remember the way you felt? You picked up on the pain of my wound, my fever, and then there was the sensations of the link itself plus your own, uh, feminine reactions.”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” Sariana told him. “I remember it all quite well. You said there might be some ‘initial discomfort.’ I believe that was the euphemism you used.”

  In the firelight Gryph’s cheekbones seemed to darken to a dull red, but his eyes met hers steadily. “That’s all I had ever been told to expect. But I talked to Delek about it and he said—”

  Sariana was abruptly outraged. “You talked to Delek? Another man? About us? About what happened that first time? Gryph, how could you? Have you no respect for my feelings? My modesty? By the Lightstorm, what right did you have to discuss something that personal with someone I don’t even know? I will die of embarrassment if I ever meet him. Of all the stupid, egotistical, unfeeling things to do.”

  He groaned and massaged his temples with both hands. “Please, Sariana, I could do without the cutting edge of your tongue tonight.”

  “You deserve it!”

  “Maybe, but do me a favor and save it for later, all right? There are more important things to discuss at the moment.”

  “Ha!” But she said nothing more. She had the uncomfortable feeling he was right.

  Gryph eyed her warily and then went on with his story. “As I was saying before you jumped all over me, I talked to Delek about our initial linking. He said it didn’t sound normal to him. He said that I had been told the truth. There is supposed to be a faint burning sensation from the lock when the man tunes the woman to it. There is also generally a feeling of disorientation as the man and the woman catch traces of each other’s feelings and emotions. There is a lot of powerful sexual energy being exchanged in such circumstances, and the sensation of picking up on your partner’s passion can seem very strange until you get accustomed to it. Then it becomes very, uh, exciting. I’ve told you before, Shields and their mates have a strong bond between them. That bond starts with the sexual relationship. It’s unique.”

  “You’ve already explained it doesn’t necessarily lead to love,” Sariana said stiffly.

  “A Shield’s first duty to his clan is to create a son. Love has nothing to do with that.”

  “It’s always nice to feel needed,” Sariana muttered.

  Gryph held up a hand in protest. “You have chewed on me enough tonight. No more. Not now.”

  Sariana sighed. He was right. “Go on.”

  “I was just trying to explain to you that right from the start there was something different about our relationship. When you and I are in bed together we do much more than just pick up on each other’s emotions. We practically pour our passion into each other along with whatever else we might be feeling at the time. And we seem to resonate with each other in a way that makes the original sensation stronger. We’re like mirrors that both absorb, concentrate and reflect back sensation. When you felt my wound in your shoulder, the pain of it was more intense than the ache I was actually feeling. My fever made you feel hotter than I felt at the time. You transferred that heat back to me and I felt hotter. You see what I mean? Since that first time together we’ve both instinctively started figuring out how to control the reaction. We can tune out everything but the passion and the excitement, which is fortunate because otherwise we’d probably drive each other insane. But the interesting part is that we seem to have a bond so strong that it requires such internal control in the first place. We’re communicating with each other on some very strange levels, Sariana.”

  “What else did this friend of yours say?” Sariana asked suspiciously.

  “About us? Not much. I didn’t tell him the link we have in bed seems to have already extended itself to other occasions. Normally the ability to sense when one’s Shieldmate is in distress or exuberantly happy is an evolving process that takes years of living together to mature into anything that might be labeled telepathic. Even then it
would be hard to distinguish it from the normal empathy that seems to develop between a man and a woman who live together for years. Except in bed, of course, where it stays unique. But with us it was there almost from the beginning. It’s sporadic at this point, but it’s also very strong. I think it’s going to eventually grow even stronger.”

  Sariana thought of the image of her backside that had popped into her mind while she was on the river sled. She tugged on her lower lip and gazed into the fire while she considered it. Experimentally she tried projecting it toward Gryph, just as she had projected her passionate demands the night before. She glanced at Gryph.

  “You see what I mean?” he said with an understanding expression.

  “We would have no privacy at all,” Sariana said in shock as she considered the ramifications.

  He shook his head reassuringly. “I don’t think it will work like that. I think we will have to be actively projecting in order to send anything even remotely comprehensible. Just like working prisma.”

  “Well, what about that—that lewd picture of myself that just appeared in my head yesterday?”

  He grinned, showing his teeth in the firelight. “I was bored. For once you didn’t seem inclined to talk so I decided to do a little experimenting. I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried projecting a scene into your mind. This is the first time you’ve admitted you picked up on it. Until now I had no way of knowing whether or not you had received it. Which should tell you something.”

  “What does it tell me?” Sariana asked automatically. Then she leaped to the obvious conclusion. “Oh, I see. I didn’t send anything back to you so you had no way of knowing if I had gotten the message.”

  “Right. I’ll admit I don’t know much about telepathy. Shields and their mates have always just skirted the edges of anything that could be labeled genuine telepathy. But judging from what I’ve learned by working prisma,

  I’d say it’s not a passive process. It takes strength and a deliberate focus.”

  “And both factors come into play automatically under conditions of extreme stress, is that it?”

  “And under conditions of passion,” he added blandly. “Don’t fret, Sariana, I can’t read your mind any more than any other man can read a woman’s mind.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” she tried to say lightly. The truth was she was feeling extremely nervous about the whole matter. She rose and settled herself onto a convenient rock. “What are we going to do now?”

  “That’s my Sariana,” he said approvingly. “Back to business when things get sticky. Now, thanks to you, I’ve got a fix on a large source of prisma somewhere in this gorge. Tomorrow morning I will stash you safely here in this cove and then I will see if I can track the beams to their point of origin.”

  She didn’t like the casual way he said that. “Then what?”

  Gryph shrugged in that gracefully negligent manner all westerners seemed to be born with. “Then I’ll decide what to do about it. If I think there’s enough time, I’ll wait until Delek and the others arrive. If there isn’t time, I’ll try to neutralize the weapons on my own.”

  “Can one Shield neutralize a whole shipload of the prisma weapons?”

  “If he’s strong enough. And if the ship is a small one.”

  “How strong are you, Gryph?” Sariana asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” he told her. “No Shield learns the limits of his own strength until he actually confronts a weapon ship. I’ve never even seen a ship.”

  “Oh.” She sat in silence for a while, thinking over what he had said. “If it turns out you aren’t strong enough to neutralize the weapons and if you have no backup, what happens?”

  “You worry too much, Sariana,” he said calmly. He got to his feet and began banking the fire. “We have a lot to do tomorrow morning. I think we’d better get to bed.”

  Sariana started to demand an answer to her question, but she stopped, realizing she could guess the answer from his evasive response. Whatever happened to a Shield who lacked sufficient strength to neutralize his target, it wasn’t pleasant. Perhaps it meant death. Or insanity. Sariana shivered and folded her cloak more tightly about her.

  The scarlet-toe on her shoulder yawned sleepily as Sariana reached up to pat it with the tip of her finger. Gryph moved around the fire, his actions efficient and economical as he made preparations for securing the campsite.

  “How close do you think that ship is?” Sariana asked, glancing out into the night-shrouded canyon.

  “Several kilometers away.”

  “What if this rogue Shield is watching for intruders into this gorge?”

  “I’ve told you not to worry, haven’t I?” Gryph asked with soft humor. “When are you going to learn to follow simple instructions?”

  “But, Gryph—”

  “If there is a rogue behind all this, my guess is he’ll be sticking close to his prize. He’s not out here prowling through the night. I’d know if he were. There is no prisma nearby other than my lock. It’s not hard to estimate distance with prisma rays. You do it with a simple formula.”

  “I’m going to worry about you tomorrow,” Sariana said bluntly.

  Gryph took off his boots, crossed the sand toward her and handed her the boots. Then he swung her up into his arms. “I’m just selfish enough to admit I’m going to like having you worry about me. But you’ll be safe, Shieldmate. I’ll make certain of that before I leave you.”

  He waded out to the sled, lifted her over the low railing and set her on her feet. She clutched his boots while she waited for him to jump lightly on board the sled. The moon was directly overhead and a narrow strip of golden light managed to seep as far as the river canyon floor. It gilded the black depths of Gryph’s hair and highlighted the arrogant planes of his harsh face. Sariana remembered the buckle she had purchased at the fair.

  “I almost forgot,” she murmured as she went over to her travel pouch and opened it. “I have a present for you.” She smiled as she turned around to hand him the small package.

  Gryph looked oddly startled. He stared at her in the moonlight and then his gaze dropped to the package in her hand. “For me?”

  “Well, I don’t know anyone else who needs this quite as much as you do,” she teased. “Here. Open it.”

  His usually deft fingers fumbled slightly with the wrapping, but a moment later the exquisitely detailed buckle lay in his palm. Holding it in one hand, Gryph opened his weapon kit and withdrew a tiny vapor lamp. He thumbed a switch and a narrow beam of light revealed the intricacies of the buckle. Gryph studied it for a very long time, apparently fascinated. When he glanced up finally, it was difficult to read his shadowed gaze.

  “It’s beautiful.” His voice was rough and strangely husky. “Thank you, Sariana.”

  “I bought it at the fair.”

  “I stopped there to buy something for you, too. That’s how I happened to be close enough to realize you were in trouble. With so much going on yesterday and today, I forgot to give it to you.” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a tiny package. “It’s not much. After living with the Avylyns for a year you’re probably accustomed to fancier jewelry.”

  She was amazed by his diffidence. It was so uncharacteristic of Gryph. Sariana was amazed too, by her own reaction to the gift he was handing her. She was thrilled. When she unwrapped the cloak pin she thought it was the most beautiful pin she had ever seen in her whole life.

  “Thank you, Gryph. It’s really very lovely.” She thrust it at once into a fold of her cloak. The scarlet-toe peered over the edge of her shoulder and studied the pin with idle interest. Then it went back to dozing.

  Gryph switched off the tiny vapor lamp and he and Sariana stood looking at each other in the moonlight.

  “You’ll be careful tomorrow?” Sariana asked.

  “I’ll be careful.”

 
“Maybe I should come with you,” she suggested.

  “Absolutely out of the question. You’ve already been in too much danger because of this mess. I won’t expose you to any more risk. I’m going to make certain you’re well hidden tomorrow.”

  She heard the finality in his tone and knew this wasn’t the time to argue. “What an arrogant man you are.”

  His smile was whimsical. “Does that mean you’ve decided I do qualify as a man, after all?”

  She felt a pang of guilt as she realized he’d taken her provoking words seriously. “I only said these things because I was very, very annoyed with you.”

  “And because when you get annoyed you get even more mouthy than usual.” He reached out to pull her closer. The soft night breeze wrapped her skirts around his legs. “Lucky for you I’m such an understanding man, hmm?”

  “Lucky for me you’re a man, period. Any kind of man at all,” she whispered against his shirt.

  He laughed softly into her hair. “Why is that?”

  “Because I’ve fallen in love with you, Gryph.”

  He froze. Then his hands caught and held her face so that he could look down at her in the moonlight. His expression was stark and searching. “Sariana?”

  “Let’s not talk about it,” she said, her fingertips sliding upward into his hair. “There is so little time before morning.”

  “But, Sariana—”

  “Hold me, Gryph.”

  His arms enfolded her with an urgency that swamped everything else.

  At dawn the next morning Gryph woke Sariana and gave her a few terse instructions. He told her she was safe in the shelter of the cove and if something happened to him, she could use the river sled to make her way back to Little Chance. There she was to go straight to Delek’s house. Gryph made Sariana repeat the directions to his friend’s home twice to make sure she had them.

  “With any luck, I’ll locate the ship this afternoon,” he told her crisply as he finished checking his weapon kit. “I’ll go in tonight for a closer look. Then I’ll decide if I’ll try to destroy it on my own or wait for Delek and the others. One way or another I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”