Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

  “Ion cannon. We managed to get into a fallen military base and we . . . ah—liberated some badly needed supplies. The ion cannon is a bloody powerful weapon, but none of us were exactly sure how to use it. One of the older men was in the army when its predecessor came out, so he’s helping us work the kinks out. Before we have to use it.”

  “Oh,” she said faintly. An ion cannon, of course. I feel like I’m trapped in some weird science fiction movie. “Why am I so important to this?”

  “The ion cannon?” he asked, a smile curving that hard mouth. Her belly quivered as she imagined arching up and pressing her lips to his. His taste still lingered in her mouth and she wanted more. But bad enough she had been making out with a man she didn’t exactly know. She wasn’t going to kiss him when she suspected they would have company at any minute. “No, pet. We can figure the ion cannon out for ourselves.”

  Lee scowled at him, her brows drawing low over her eyes before she sniffed and averted her face. “Smart ass,” she muttered. “That wasn’t what I was talking about. And you know it.”

  Under the arm she had wrapped around one shoulder and his neck, she felt him shrug. “If I knew why you were so important, don’t you think I would have tried to do something about it before now? I’m a soldier, not a seer.”

  Her cheeks heated as she felt his eyes lingering on her face, the slow sweep of his thumb on the underside of her knee. Through the fragile cloth of her pajama pants, she felt that slow, rough stroke as though he were touching naked flesh. A gasp locked in her throat—images slamming into her mind, that long hard body arching over hers, sweat gleaming along his flesh, muscles bunching and flexing as he pumped his hips against hers, the sight of his eyes, gleaming and hot, as he stared down into her face . . .

  “Sweet bleeding saints, would you stop?”

  Lee gasped as his arm fell out from under her and she was dropped without ceremony onto her feet. With bemused eyes, she watched as he stomped away, his big hands closing into fists at his side as he paced the path before her, keeping his eyes away from her face.

  “Don’t bloody do that!” he finally bellowed, spinning around and glaring at her.

  “Do what?” she demanded, propping her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “I didn’t do anything!”

  A sexy little snarl crossed his face and she felt her belly quiver. She was already dazed and hot from that wicked line of thoughts dancing in her mind, and this wasn’t helping. He looked entirely too—biteable.

  Yes. That was the word. She wanted to walk over there and catch his face in her hands and sink her teeth into that sullen lower lip, maybe into the tendon in his neck . . . then the gleaming perfection of his muscled shoulders . . .

  “That!”

  Her face flushed. No way. He couldn’t possibly . . .

  “When you’re a strong projector, anybody can pick up. But I’m a fairly talented receiver, which is how I knew you were here, how I always know you’re here, and damn it, would you stop?” he snarled. “You’ve got enough fucking chaos to deal with right now, trying to figure out what is going on, and you haven’t even grasped the full extent, but if you don’t stop tempting me, I’m going to . . .”

  Lee couldn’t help it. Lifting one brow at him, she smiled slightly and asked, “Going to what?” And she really couldn’t help it, no more than she could stop thinking about him, and her, together . . . Damn, had she really . . . ?

  “Not yet,” he growled. “But keep this up and we will. Right here in broad daylight. As to what I’m going to do—bloody hell, I’ll just give you what it is you are dreaming about.”

  Lee rolled her eyes. “Male testosterone is obviously on the same high levels here that it is back home,” she drawled. “Arrogance sure as hell isn’t in short supply either.” Balancing on one foot, she lifted her right one, staring at the deep gash and poking at it with a gentle finger. Not as sore. Lowering it back to the ground, she lifted her head. And jumped.

  Kalen was standing right in front of her, having crossed the good twenty feet between them in total silence. “It’s not arrogance when we both know it’s the truth,” he murmured, using one finger to tip her face up to his. “Now, is it?”

  Her breath was trapped in her lungs as his mouth slanted across hers and his tongue plunged boldly into her mouth. His tongue tangled with hers, rubbed sinuously against it, withdrew, and then started the dance all over again. Under the thin cloth of her halter top, her nipples beaded and swelled. One broad sweep of his hand opened the jacket he had placed on her shoulders and it fell to catch at her elbows, leaving her shoulders bare.

  Lee whimpered when he pulled back enough to nip at her lip as his fingers tangled in her hair, tugging her head back, exposing the line of her throat. The sharp sting of his teeth had her pulse racing. The brush of his fingers caressed her nape and she arched into his touch, only to have his hands retreat moments later.

  Cool air stung her breasts and she glanced down, watching as the top of her halter fell to hang at her waist. “I like this,” he purred, reaching out and circling one finger around the swollen pink tip of her nipple. As she shivered, she felt his eyes on her and she looked up through her lashes, seeing the stark hunger on his lean face.

  Lowering his head, he breathed into her ear, “You know one of the most amazing things about being a receiver? I can hear and feel every thought that passes through you, since you don’t seem to understand how to guard against such. And when I touch you—I can feel just exactly how much you like it.”

  Forcing a breath into her tight lungs, she said weakly, “That’s not exactly fair, is it?”

  Kalen laughed, reaching up and closing his hand over hers. “Well, now, I don’t know that it isn’t fair. After all, you can imagine how touching you affects me just by . . .”

  Her eyes met his as he drew her hand to his erection, closing it over the hard length covered by the thick material of his dark pants. Swallowing, Lee trailed her fingers slowly up his length, feeling the slight pulse even through the layers of clothing. “See?” he whispered as his cock jerked under her touch. “I think this makes us even.”

  Lee was pretty certain there was something faulty with that reasoning, but the way her brain was functioning, or rather, wasn’t functioning, she’d be damned if she could figure out what the problem was. With a slight smile, she dragged her hand back up his length. She’d figure out logistics and thought and everything else later . . . much later . . .

  The rumble of the ground distracted her for a minute, but only a brief minute. As she arched up into his touch, Lee slowly massaged his cock, dazed pleasure suffusing her entire mind.

  Damn it, his body was so hot. His mouth closed around her nipple, sucking on it with hard, rough pulls of his mouth. Lee fisted one hand in the thick black hair at his nape, holding him tight against her, whimpering as the very earth seemed to shift beneath her.

  Kalen arched her back over his arm, one hand going to her waist, to the tie of her harem-style pajama pants, and she let go of his neck, reaching to tug at the knot even as he was trying to tug them down her hips. One second later she was all but naked and he was fumbling to complete the task.

  The next second, he was gone, turned away from her, slinging the gun from the harness at his back as he rasped out furiously, “Son of a fucking bitch!”

  Lee whimpered, her brain still buzzing and trying to catch up. “Kalen?” she whispered.

  He cut her a disbelieving glance and shook his head. “Bloody hell, what have we gotten into? Climb a tree, pet. We’ve got company coming.”

  She stared at the trees surrounding her with vague eyes, even as the rumbling beneath the ground intensified. “Sweet heaven,” she whispered. “What is that . . .”

  But even as she whispered it, part of her knew. “Raviners . . . what in the hell are they doing coming out in the daylight?” she asked. She felt like there was a curtain within her mind, dividing her into two separate parts. Every once in a while, it would part and allow s
ome of the knowledge the women from this world had to slip through, letting Lee absorb it.

  “You, pet. They felt you.” He glared at her, pointing to the tree. “Climb, damn it. The higher, the better. They don’t like daylight. If you are too high to be worth their while, too far out of reach, they may just go back to their hole for a while.”

  The ground in front of Kalen split apart, and Lee screamed as black-robed creatures came spilling out. Blue light pulsed from Kalen’s gun, but he was only one man and there were nearly two dozen of them.

  That odd curtain parted again, letting more knowledge slip through. Psychic energy . . . magick . . . they love it. It’s a feast to them.

  I sent out a damned invitation, she realized in self-disgust, backing up to the tree. Lee turned and scrabbled up to the nearest sturdy branch before glancing back down. “If you fall, no chocolate for a month.” Images of every B-movie heroine leaped to mind, the cute teenaged coed, scantily clad as always, falling to her doom just as freedom appeared within her reach.

  The tree she had picked was dead, like most of them, but it towered nearly fifty feet into the sky. Like a squirrel, she scrambled upward until she was a good twenty-five feet off the ground, and then she turned and stared down at Kalen as the circle of dark-robed creatures closed around him.

  The Raviners weren’t true demons—or rather, they weren’t natural ones. They’d become demons by choice. They were something that had once been human, or close to it. Living in the world of Anqar, they had worshipped a dark lord, practicing blood magick, taking his dark power inside themselves until they were no longer mortal. They needed no food to live, needed little rest, and they thrived on energy.

  Cruel, cunning, full of madness and power, they loved a psychic or magickal feast, a man or woman with budding powers that they could feed off of during torture.

  Wincing at the information bombarding her brain, Lee muttered, “This is a little too much info to process right now. Can we slow it down a bit?”

  The knowledge that had been whispering through her mind fell silent as she watched Kalen stumble when a Raviner lashed out with a hooked staff, slicing at his chest. The black tunic covering his chest resisted the blade but his bare arms didn’t and blood flowed. Lee glanced down at the black jacket that covered her arms and flushed. His armor. This was armor. Would have protected that long, powerful body . . .

  Rage boiled inside her as she saw the blood welling on his flesh. She descended the tree so rapidly, she barely even remembered the trek down, and the last ten feet she jumped. She landed without even feeling the impact and stood there, staring at the black-robed creatures as images swirled in her mind.

  Broken, destroyed bodies, as empty as husks, their eyes staring upward in sightless terror . . . all at the hands of something that wasn’t even a demon.

  Rage had a feel, a mind, a color all its own, and it brewed hot and powerful in her belly as she stared at them. They never even noticed her as she started to move closer.

  Use the power. Harness it . . .

  Her body suddenly felt like that of a marionette, and she could watch as her hand lifted, seemingly of its own volition, pointing palm out toward the throng of Raviners. There was a river of power flowing under the earth, calling to her. In turn, she reached for it and it flowed into her. The crackle of power jolted up from her belly, zinging out her arm like a crack of lightning, and she cried out as the blue light exploded from her hand.

  The scorching smell of flesh flooded her nose and she watched as a swath of Raviners fell. The saner part of her mind started to babble in terror as the blue light wrapped around the humanoids and fire exploded, burning them away until they exploded like a pile of ash and soot, like a TV vampire.

  This is sooooo not happening, she thought helplessly, even as she jerked to the left and flung out her hand again. Again, and again, and each time, more of the Raviners fell.

  Kalen broke free of their circle and fought his way to her side as the throng of creatures tried to regroup. But from their earlier number of several dozen, less than ten now stood. Blood roared in her ears. Her heart pounded frantically as fear gnawed a hole in her gut. But the Raviners all fell back, scrambling away from them. They watched Lee and Kalen from the depths of their hoods, hate radiating from them.

  Lee’s hand fell to her side as they all rushed to the tear in the earth where they had ripped through only minutes before. As the last one disappeared from sight, her knees buckled and she started to collapse slowly, only to have Kalen’s arm come around her, supporting her weight against his body.

  “This isn’t happening,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Not happening.”

  Lifting her face, she looked up at him, seeing his lips move but hearing nothing as the roaring in her ears increased and a sudden blinding pain exploded just behind her right temple.

  Kalen stood in the back of the small mobile hospital, brooding. Morne Ramire knelt over Lee, his long-fingered hands absorbing the negative energy from her wounded body, one hand on her forehead, the other resting between her breasts. The deiron’s hair fell around his face like a shield, hiding his features from Kalen, and the relaxed posture of his body told Kalen nothing.

  Kalen had seen him that calm and serene as he guided a dying child into the arms of the ever after. Lee could be dying, and Kalen would never know just by looking at Morne’s face.

  When Morne finally spoke, his deep, soft voice was weary, but Kalen heard a nuance in it that gave his heart hope even before he finished processing what the healer had said.

  “She overextended, too hard and too fast. Your lady will wake up with a headache the size of a wyrm hole, but she’ll be fine,” Morne said, rising to his feet with boneless grace, turning to stare at Kalen with probing black eyes. The deiron’s face was as exquisite as if he had been formed by heaven’s own angels, but those eyes had more knowledge than Kalen would hope an angel would ever know. The shock of those black eyes in his pale face, surrounded by hair a soft, silvery blond—Kalen imagined his rather poetic looks had subjected him to endless tormenting as a child, but whether it had bothered Morne much was anybody’s guess.

  He was . . . contained. Very, very contained.

  He was also the most deadly soldier in their ranks, quite possibly even surpassing the skill of Kalen’s legendary father. Dead many years, Astrin Brenner had fought back the demons in their small haven for decades before he was finally cut down.

  That a healer, of all people, was the one rising to meet that legend was unheard of.

  Kalen hunkered on the ground by Lee’s head and ran his fingers through her tangled blond hair. He cupped a hand over her neck and contented himself with the slow, steady rise and fall of her breathing. “She scared the hell out of me. I’ve seen witches kill themselves by pushing too hard,” he murmured.

  Behind him, Morne chuckled. “That lady would have to come close to leveling our world before she killed herself— you know magick is physically draining to the bearer, but Lee has more control than this.” He frowned and shrugged. “That little bit of magick I sensed earlier shouldn’t have even fazed her. Why did it? Lee’s been throwing blasts around since she was old enough for you to notice she was female.”

  Kalen cut Morne a narrow look before looking back at Lee’s still face. “Would you believe she’s never really been here, my friend?”

  The laughter that followed Kalen’s slow question wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. Rising, Kalen turned and met Morne’s eyes with a level stare, lifting one brow and waiting.

  “The average warrior wouldn’t notice, even your warriors with all their gifts. And that’s most of what we have here. But a good healer knows when he is facing a person’s shade,” Morne responded, shrugging. “Still doesn’t explain why she made an amateur’s mistake and damn near put herself into a coma.” He focused his black eyes on Kalen’s face and simply waited.

  “She doesn’t realize what she’s been doing here,” Kalen finally said after a length
y silence had passed. “She came in her dreams, and when she woke, she forgot them.”

  “And you’ve known this for . . . ?”

  “Always. Or at least it seems that way.” Kalen closed his eyes, trying to recall a time that stood out when he knew that Lee wasn’t exactly of his world. “I’ve always known there was something odd about her presence here. Time passed—and I just knew.”

  A soft sigh left Morne, and Kalen glanced up to see a faint frown on the man’s ageless face. “You’re dealing with a very powerful weapon, and she hasn’t a clue as to how to use a damn thing that is inside of her. This could be interesting.”

  At the man’s mild tone, Kalen scowled. “Interesting? Bloody insane, that’s more like it.”

  “Well, I’ve been told I am a master of understatement,” Morne said drolly. From the utility belt at his waist, he pulled out a small stack of minuscule circular pain patches and handed them to Kalen. “In case I’m out when she wakes.” He grabbed a pack from the ground and flipped it open, reaching inside and pulling out a sealed pouch of tea bags. “Chances are, she will not like it, but some insian tea will help. Restore her energy and clear up the headache. Let me know if I’m needed.”

  Kalen didn’t respond. If something came up when she was waking, and Morne was needed, the deiron would already know. On rare occasions, a witch rising out of a slumber like this had trouble—in the form of seizures, or Raviners lurking nearby as they waited for a chance to possess the weakened body. Either one would release a burst of energy that Morne was unlikely to miss.

  Kalen moved one of the small cots over by the sturdier, more comfortable patient bed. The patient beds were thick, cushioned jela pads, but the cots were just tough cloth strung over a metal frame. The jela pads were too few and far between a luxury for anybody other than the very sick, the wounded or the very old to use.