Heart Duel

by Robin D. Owens

  Now she shifted the subject. “May I ask what this very important goal is?”

  He studied her a moment, and folded his hands, face impassive. “Land.”

  “Land!”

  His stare remained calm as impulsive words tumbled from her. “Land! Lady and Lord, of all Celta only one quarter of our world has been settled! Humans have not thrived here, not gained population, and you are willing to risk life for more land!” She bit her lip to keep more words back, words questioning his motives and his intelligence, words she’d pay for forever.

  His answer came in the same reasonable tone he’d used during the entire exchange. “The Hollys own Hulver Pass to the southwest. The pass leads directly to our richest plantation, Tryskel, in Du Park. I now prefer that the Hollys no longer know who and what goes through that pass. T’Holly doesn’t appreciate the land or maximize its potential.”

  His eyes shuttered a moment and Lark understood there was a use for the land he didn’t tell her since she was no longer in the inner circle of Hawthorns who’d be privy to Family secrets.

  She didn’t miss the stratagems, but did miss being close. She had never been lonely until her husband died and she’d lived all by herself. Sometimes she ached with the loneliness and the silence that pervaded her apartment. But to accept T’Hawthorn’s offer would mean a homelife of constant disagreement with him.

  Lark tried to copy her father’s calm tone, but failed, as usual. “There’s a whole world out there without fighting over this little piece.”

  “There’s a whole world,” he repeated. “But even with all our Flair and Flair-technology, transport is expensive. Exploration demands a great outlay of Family assets. Tryskel Plantation is close, it’s fertile, and it’s ours. When we win the feud and we can claim the pass.”

  “Land.” She drained her brandy and placed the glass on the table. She forgot all manners in the anger of old hurt and rancor. “Lives for land. It’s a GreatHouse fantasy that a nobleman should get what he wants, no matter what the cost.” She shook her head. “I cannot accept that thinking anymore. It’s that idea that makes me keep my distance from you. I will not accept this. I will not condone it. I will not participate.” She picked up her bag, aware Phyll grumbled in fitful sleep, responding to her high emotion, then crossed to the door.

  “Daughter, one moment.” Though quiet, his words had an effect like a lash. A GreatLord’s command, not to be disobeyed.

  She turned and looked at him, unable to hide her anger.

  “I heard you treated a Holly last night,” he said.

  “I treated two. One who would have died, one who would have been crippled.”

  Her father’s face remained impassive, but his eyes burned purple with anger.

  She lifted her chin. “Will you ask me to forsake my Healing vows?”

  “I am reminding you that you have several loyalties, and the first should be to your Family.”

  “My Family,” she repeated in an agonized whisper. “Who will die? Who will I try with all my might to Heal, and fail? My cuz, Whitey? My brother? Or even young Laev, my only nephew, on the brink of manhood? You?”

  He met her gaze without flinching. “We will have guards.”

  “Guards! You go up against the premier fighting Family of Celta.” She stopped. Fury, fear, hatred of bloodshed burned inside her. “Your own pride is involved. You can’t negotiate with T’Holly after all these years of insulting each other. This is a dreadful course you have chosen.”

  His hands were still relaxed on his desk. “It would be better if you rejoined us here in T’Hawthorn Residence.”

  “You have your priorities. This land comes before your feelings for your daughter, the welfare of the members of the Family.” Her eyes went to Cratag, who stared at her with a sad smile, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “You send others to do your dirty work.”

  A muscle in T’Hawthorn’s jaw jumped. “Each member of the Family must do their duty to implement the best course for the Family.”

  For the first time she dared to openly question him. “Have you consulted anyone besides yourself in this matter?”

  “Since your duty is with the HealingHalls, it is not your place to ask, FirstLevel Healer Collinson. But to give you the courtesy of an answer, I will say that my heir, your brother, Huathe the younger, agrees with me.”

  Afraid of words that might spill from her and forever ruin their relationship, she nodded shortly, yanked open the door, and left.

  She thought, she hoped, that she heard the sigh of her Father’s voice. “Go with the Lady and Lord.” But, in the end, she decided she’d imagined it.

  Lark willed the tears in her eyes not to fall and her body not to shake until she reached the glider waiting to take her home. She put her bag on the seat, slid inside, and shut the door. As the glider sped away, she gave in to just one sob. Then she straightened and used her last remaining energy to cool her blood, banish all trace of tears, and pretend her life was fine.

  It would be fine. Once she lived in Gael City, Family ties could be more pleasant, interaction at a distance could be more frequent. She pulled the satchel containing Phyll onto her lap. She tried not to think about the fact that for the last septhour she had been with members of her Family for the first time in months, and neither Cratag nor her father had touched her.

  By the time the glider pulled in front of MidClass Lodge, Lark had regained her composure and exited the vehicle with her head high. She passed through the entryway and down the long corridor to her rooms. Placing her palm against the door-lock, she intoned the entry Word. The scene with her father had drained what little strength she had. Exhaustion clouded her vision, and she was barely able to hold on to the bag with Phyll and her instruments. She dragged herself inside and shut the door.

  “Ahem.”

  She jerked upright.

  There, lounging on her brilliant red furrabeast leather sofa, looking outrageously virile, was Holm Holly.

  Four

  At the sight of Lark, Holm’s heart stuttered. He’d wondered how the next meeting with her would affect him—now he knew. His need for her, just to be in her presence, intensified each time he saw her. He rose from the sofa and moved to where she drooped in the doorway. The smudges under her eyes, the sag of her shoulders, sent a pang through him.

  “How did you get in?” she whispered, as if even speaking was beyond her. Slowly she set her bag down.

  He shrugged, then placed an arm around her waist, and the feel of her was sweet, sweet. “The door was open.”

  It was the truth. A HeartMate could make a key that would deactivate any security spellshield of their mate. The redgold charmkey rested in his pocket. Even though he’d thought of her as his own, his woman, his wife, his HeartMate, he hadn’t spoken the word aloud—until he was faced with her locked door.

  All he had to do was place the charmkey on the identplate and say “HeartMate.” There had been a whirring as his vibrations in the key meshed with Lark’s personal spellshield, and the door swung open. He’d shuddered at the momentous action.

  His whole life had shifted when he’d said that word, acknowledged to himself, Meserv, and an empty corridor that he had a mate of his own, for the rest of his life, integral to his well being. And that the time had come to pursue her in earnest.

  But he couldn’t tell her that. It was forbidden.

  “Some GreatHouse Flair got you in, no doubt,” she said tonelessly.

  Tears welled in her eyes, alarming Holm. He drew her into his arms and stroked her hair, her back. “You’re tired. Take comfort from me.” He swept her up in his arms, glorying in holding her. Possessive tenderness rolled through him, lodging forever in his bones.

  She tensed, then a tremor shivered through her, and he knew that though her mind might want to reject him, her body and inner spirit recognized her mate. Her HeartMate. Him.

  She stiffened again. “Shhh,” he murmured, setting her next to him in the deeply cushioned couch. “Take c
omfort from me,” he repeated. “It’s not so very much. We’ve been meeting for a while, and now we’re no closer than when we worked together in the NobleCircle Rituals as youngsters.” In fact, they were less close—then they had loosely linked energy and minds. “I missed you when I graduated to FirstFamilies Circle.” He realized as he spoke that it was true.

  He’d liked the warm and subtle spirit of the girl, a spirit that never failed to soothe any nervous vitality he’d carried. There it was, he thought. That had been the potential. The link that could become a HeartBond. If he’d grow enough to match her.

  He cradled her in his arms. Thank the Lord and Lady he had matured enough to claim such a treasure. He could not face how sterile his life would be if he had to live without her.

  “How long has it been since you’ve been held, Mayblossom?”

  “Three and a half very long years,” she whispered, as if she couldn’t keep the words inside her. “Not since Ethyn died.”

  Holm shut his mind to her former life, would not let futile jealousy eat at him—more than enough that he had her now. And he would be not simply a husband, but a HeartMate.

  He lifted a hand to stroke her tumbled hair, black as the North Iceland Ocean. “You are tired, and lonely. You care for so many, but who takes care of you, Mayblossom?” He wanted her to realize that she needed his care, needed him.

  Though he kept his voice quiet, she sat beside him, barely touching shoulder to shoulder. She removed the curve of her hip and thigh from pressing against his body. He didn’t like that, but stopped his instinctive reach for her and draped his left arm along the back of the sofa behind her.

  “You know I don’t like that name.” She changed the topic.

  He smiled. With his right hand he enfolded her fingers. “I know you didn’t like it as a girl. I never knew why.”

  She huffed. “Mayblossom. All fresh and winsome and pink and blond.” She glanced up at him. “Or silver-haired, like yourself. A flower maiden. Not me.”

  She was so wrong, with her eyes like lavender pansies, rosy lips, a lissome grace. He toyed with her fingers. “Look at these: long, beautiful stems.”

  Lark sniffed and matched her own with his. “Not as long or elegant as yours.”

  He stared at their hands. The shape of his hands was acceptable, but the fingers and palms held callouses from blade and blaser grips, and his hands were covered with small scars from the nicks of practice and battle. Her skin was flawless, and would ever be so. As a Healer, her innate Flair would mend all small hurts.

  She tilted his hand and frowned at a red welt. He felt a tingle and it vanished. Yet even that small bit of Healing cost her, and she leaned against him once more.

  “What makes you so tired, Ma—Lark?” He didn’t like that name. Everyone called her Lark. Her husband would have called her Lark. No, he could not call her Lark.

  She sighed. “D’Hazel’s youngest decided she could fly.”

  Fear jolted. “The teeney girl? How old is she? Two?”

  “Avellana’s three.”

  “Lord and Lady! What happened?”

  “Luckily she jumped from a second-story tower window, not the roof.”

  “She’d be dead if she had. D’Hazel Residence is as tall as T’Holly’s.”

  “As I said, she went from a window. Her nursemaid said she might have flown or teleported or something on the way down; the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been.” Lark shuddered. “Brain damage—so hard to mend, nerves so delicate, blood vessels so critical—” She buried her face in her shaking hands. “I gave it everything.”

  He pulled her close so they were pressed against each other side to side, thigh to thigh, calf to calf.

  “She will be well?”

  “She Healed. We don’t know if we caught all the damage. We do know she will be different.”

  “Her Flair was great, greater than any other child of her generation.”

  “Yes, it’s still there.” She rubbed her eyes. “Whether she’ll be able to access her Flair, we don’t know. How it might evidence, we don’t know. Whether she’ll even survive one Passage, let alone three, we don’t know. We. Don’t. Know.” Tears clogged her voice.

  Holm placed his palms on either side of her face. With the lightest of touches, he reached for her with his Flair, willed his own strength into her. And they linked.

  The bond between them, once forged within the structure of the GreatRituals they had both participated in, now snapped into place, as if only needing awareness. The old connection opened, sending the strength Holm wished to give her to bolster her depleted energy.

  “Uhn,” she said, shuddering.

  He lifted her to sit sideways on his lap. The link spiraled tighter, and he sensed her thoughts, waded into the colorful sea of her emotions. Each step brought him nearer to where he wanted to be. Bound with her forever.

  With her eyes closed, she pinched off the connection, as easily and finally as she stopped a blood vessel. “No.”

  Stroking her cheekbone with his thumb, he said, “I asked you a question, sweetheart. Who cares for you?”

  He jumped as needle teeth sank into his knee and looked down. The twin of his kitten removed its jaw from his trous and sat in front of him, staring up at him with green eyes, even as it delicately licked a forepaw. I take care of her. I am her Fam, Phyll.

  Meserv, who’d been exploring, trotted up to sit by his brother. Holm frowned. His kitten’s belly was noticeably plumper. Meserv also sported a new scratch on his nose, and tooth-indentations on his right ear. Phyll looked immaculate.

  I take care of her, Phyll reiterated, jumping onto Lark’s lap and circling.

  “So you do. But who took care of her before you came?” Doesn’t matter, Phyll said with a cat’s disregard for time. I am here now.

  “That’s true. But it’s nice to be held.” He slipped an arm around Lark. Meserv scrambled up the couch to settle between Lark’s legs and the couch.

  Holm followed Lark’s surprised gaze to the two kittens and cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess. You had a visit from our young, prophecy-spouting GreatLord.”

  When she met his eyes, he saw wariness and a touch of fear. “I could tell Vinni knew something of my future, but he didn’t say much.”

  She shivered.

  Holm wrapped her tighter in his arms. “My feelings exactly. I shudder with fear,” he murmured against her hair, noting that whatever else she had changed, Lark still wore the same scent, the slight musk of white hawthorn flowers.

  He liked her bottom on his thighs, the small waist his arm circled, and the fullness of her breast against his chest.

  Holm tipped her head to lose himself in her violet eyes.

  She licked her lips. It didn’t help his control. Still, the shadow of apprehension darkened her gaze.

  “I can’t imagine you shuddering in fear,” she said.

  His mouth twisted. “Prophecy can do it.”

  She turned to grip his shoulder. “He didn’t say anything definite to me. Did he say something to you?”

  “Nothing I want to repeat.” Forbidden, he kept reminding himself—utterly forbidden to announce to a HeartMate that she could be bound to you, physically, mentally, emotionally. To do so was abusive—not allowing choice in the most important of matters. But Holm couldn’t remember the punishment for the crime.

  “Did he say anything about the feud?” she insisted.

  He stiffened. The fighting was nothing important; his wooing all important. “He spoke in riddles.”

  “Oh.” She slumped and he cherished the feel of her.

  The kittens became restless, walking back and forth across the couch, over their people, or on the back of the sofa.

  Lark looked at Meserv as he tumbled from Holm’s shoulder into her lap. “He’s fat,” she accused.

  “Just a little plump. Baby fat,” Holm defended.

  “I received instructions from D’Ash on my kitten’s care and feeding.”

 
Holm sighed. “My mother is enchanted by Meserv. None of the Family hunting cats care for her, but this fellow”—Holm rubbed Meserv between the ears—“loves Mamá as much as he loves me. She slips him furrabeast bites in between meals.”

  “Mmm-eservvv,” Phyll mewed at his twin who sat on Lark’s lap while he was on the couch.

  “Ph—ph—phhltt,” Meserv tried, spitting at Phyll.

  Phyll looked disgusted, then attacked. They fell to the floor in a rolling, hissing ball of marmalade fur.

  Lark started to intervene, but Holm squeezed her. “Let them be. They’re only playing.”

  She opened her mouth as if to protest.

  “You think I don’t know a real fight?” Holm asked, amused.

  “Absurd. This whole situation is absurd.”

  “No. It might be complicated, but it certainly isn’t absurd. Not funny and not trivial.” He couldn’t wait. He bent his head to brush her lips with his and claim her mouth.

  Just the touch of his mouth on hers sparked something deep inside her. His lips slid against hers, then pressed. She enjoyed the tender kiss—more than enjoyed, delighted in it.

  She’d been alone for so long. No one—no man or woman, lover or friend—had treated her as he just had, simply holding her. The huge ache she’d suppressed at the lack of human affection had vanished with the first curve of his arms around her. She trembled that such a basic need had been filled so effortlessly and generously. She hadn’t been able to resist him.

  For so long, she’d been untouched by any man. And as Holm held her close, trailing kisses over her face—tiny butterfly kisses of infinite gentleness—she let him take her to a new, intimate level.

  He enveloped her. The warmth of him—as if he carried the sun itself within his body and shared it to comfort her. The strength of him—as if after all these long and lonely years of coping on her own, she would have someone beside her. The security of him—as if he would always be there to hold her.

  She twined her arms around him, this vital man, and pulled him close to feel him, and to feel herself held and sheltered and sustained.