Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

Jealousy had a good, tight hold on Kalen, and even though common sense told him he was overreacting, he couldn’t stop. He kept replaying those moments over and over in his mind: Morne bent over Lee while she stared at him with a look akin to fascination. Their focus on each other had been complete. For a few moments, nothing else had existed, not the war, not the world around them and not Kalen.

  He wasn’t sure what pissed him off the most, Morne touching her—or that complete and utter focus that blinded them to all else. He’d known Morne for years—the enigmatic stranger had appeared in their midst years ago. Mistrustful of the man at first, Kalen had slowly gotten to know him, grown to trust him.

  Kalen also knew his people. Women went nuts over Morne. It was almost like there was something inside the man that called to women. Even in the middle of war, the man wouldn’t ever have to spend a moment alone if he didn’t want to.

  Morne barely seemed to notice. Kalen could count on one hand how many times he’d seen the man voluntarily touch anybody unless he was doing a healing. So why in the name of the saints was the bastard touching Lee?

  When Kalen had stumbled upon them, there was something weird hanging in the air. Some odd, intangible connection.

  He had only touched her face. Morne’s hand cupping her cheek, his fingers pushed inside her hair, their faces close but not touching. Staring at each other. Lee had looked hypnotized. It wasn’t something that could be called innocent, but neither had there been anything overtly sexual about the encounter. Still, anybody touching Lee was enough to enrage him.

  Kalen growled and spun away from her to prowl the tight confines of the small cabin.

  He couldn’t believe . . . He bounced back from the disbelief, to the irrational fury. He swung back around to her and closed the distance between them. Fisting one hand in the soft, silky shirt she wore under her cavinir, he jerked her up onto her toes. “Why did he touch you? What did he want?”

  Her soft blue eyes weren’t so soft as she glared at him. They blazed like blue flame, and fury flushed her face a delicate pink. She closed her hand around his wrist and tugged in an attempt to dislodge his grip. “I don’t know what he wanted. And would you quit acting like you found us rolling naked on the ground?”

  Oh, now, that was the completely wrong thing to say. That image exploded in Kalen’s mind and he jerked Lee forward. Her soft, strong body crashed into his as he lowered his mouth to hers. “Don’t let him touch you again, Lee. You hear me?”

  Any answer she might have made, he smothered with his lips. She wouldn’t open for him. He angled her chin and squeezed her jaw until her mouth opened. The taste of her hit his system like a lightning bolt, electrifying and breath-stealing. Lee’s hands pushed at his shoulders and she twisted in his arms even though her lips clung to his. He lifted her body in his arms and turned, pressing her against the wall. “You can’t understand what it does to me, thinking about somebody else touching you,” he murmured against her lips. He fisted his hand in the silky strands of her hair and jerked her neck to the side.

  “Let go, Kalen.” Then she moaned as he raked his teeth down the arch of her neck. Her hands fisted in his shirt and she pulled him closer, arching her hips and pumping against him. She circled her pelvis against his in a mad little shimmy, and those rocking, teasing gyrations had him gritting his teeth.

  “Let go?” he repeated. He slid a hand down her side, over her hip, along her thigh, until he could cup her knee and bring it up high. Then he stepped between her thighs and pressed against her. She was wet and hot, he could feel it through the layers of their clothes, and he could smell her hunger in the air, wrapping around him. He could feel her own need in the way she moved against him, the way her hands clung to him even as she tried to push him back. “You don’t seem to want me to let go.”

  “Bastard,” she muttered. He nipped her earlobe and then lifted his head, watching as she slammed her head back against the wall and glared at him. Her face was flushed, color riding high on her cheeks, and under the fringe of her lashes, her soft blue eyes glittered hot as flame.

  Lee squirmed against him and then brought up her other leg, hooking her ankles together at the small of his back. Kalen snarled as need blistered and burned through him. It was a demanding scream in his brain, and he couldn’t think of anything but getting her naked. Didn’t she understand she was his?

  “I have been waiting for you,” he muttered against her mouth. “For years. For this.” He tangled a hand in the silky blond tresses and pulled, arching her head back and baring her neck. He scraped his teeth down the smooth white flesh and bit down lightly where neck and shoulder joined. “Just waiting for this. Can you understand that?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, just kissed her hard and rough before continuing. “Then you let another man touch you. I don’t want another man touching you. Not for anything.”

  Her gaze was fogged and hazy when he lifted his head to look at her. The soft pink of her lips had darkened and her mouth was swollen from his. She was so perfect, soft, strong, sweet as honey and volatile as fire. Desperate to get as close as he could, he reached behind him and unhooked her ankles. He fumbled with the waistband of her trousers, and his fingers refused to cooperate. Hooking his fingers under the snug band, he jerked them down, taking the silky scrap of underwear with them. Hunkering down by her feet, he fought to get the pants off. The thick-soled boots on her feet kept Kalen from completely stripping her naked.

  “Shit,” he swore roughly as he managed to get one of her boots off. His patience, what little remained, evaporated, and he didn’t bother with the second one. Lee leaned against the wall, her hands braced on his shoulders. She still wore the cavinir jacket, and her pants were tangled around one ankle when he leaned in and pressed his mouth to her sex.

  The downy soft curls were already wet. Lee wailed out his name when he nuzzled those curls and licked her through them. The taste of her exploded on his tongue, and he reached up, seizing her hips and holding her pinned in place. He circled his tongue over her clit and then pushed inside her. She clenched down around him and moaned. He pushed her harder, alternating between caressing her clit and penetrating her with his tongue, until she exploded against him.

  Lee’s long body arched and trembled. Her nails pierced the skin of his shoulders. He caught her wrists in one hand as he stood up, pinning them against the wall above her head. With his other hand, he freed himself from his pants. Their gazes locked as he stepped between her thighs. With a slight dip of his knees, he pressed the rigid length of his cock against her.

  She was wet and slick, hot and tight, and she squeezed tight around him as he pushed inside her. “Do you still want me to let go?” he rasped against her lips.

  “Yes . . . my wrists. Let go of my wrists.”

  Slowly, Kalen let her go, and when he did, she caught his hands and twined their fingers together. “I don’t want another man touching me,” she whispered. Passion clouded and darkened her eyes to midnight. That midnight-dark gaze locked with his, and a slow smile curved her lips. “Just you. Only you.”

  She brought her legs up, hooking them over his hips and locking them at the base of his spine. Her back arched and Kalen dipped his head, pressing a kiss to each shoulder, the upper curve of her breasts, then to her neck. Her pulse slammed against the fragile shield of her skin, he could feel it. Her flesh was slick and gleaming with sweat.

  “You’re so lovely,” he muttered. “So perfect.”

  The sexy smile on her lips widened a little. “You talk too much, Kalen.” The tiny muscles of her sheath flexed around him in a teasing, rippling caress. She did it again and again, until he groaned and crushed his mouth to hers.

  The miracle of touching her was that she made him forget. With their bodies joined, rubbing against the other, Kalen could forget, just for a while, that there was anything in the world beyond them. He could forget the war, he could forget the friends he’d lost, and all the years he’d spent without Lee.

 
The sound of her moan was like angel song to his ears, and the taste of her some rare, forbidden fruit. He wouldn’t ever get enough. Greed and need had him moving on her hard and fast, determined to take as much as he could, and equally determined to give her as much pleasure as he took. Her body moved against his, so soft, so strong.

  Her hands still entwined with his, he lowered them and guided hers around his shoulders. Then he skimmed his hands down her sides, cupped her hips and canted them to a higher angle. He felt Lee’s reaction shudder through her body, each muscle tensing, her pupils flaring wide. She bucked against him, and a soft scream slipped free. Her hips circled against his, and Kalen groaned. The little convulsions of her pussy caressed his cock from base to tip, pushing him closer and closer to orgasm.

  She wasn’t quite there yet. He cupped her ass in his hands and drove into her, a series of short, hard digs that kept him in contact with the bud of her clit. Lee’s breath caught—he heard the erotic, needy little gasp—and then she started to come. A series of long, hard spasms wracked her body, and a sharp scream echoed from her mouth. He caught it and swallowed it down and followed her over the edge.

  When he could move again, Kalen shoved off the wall, still holding Lee’s body tight against his. A few wobbly steps took them to the bed, and he tumbled them both down on it. He could smell his scent on her, and hers on him. Her lips were swollen from his, and his mouth had left little reddish marks on her neck and chest. He captured one wrist in his hand and lifted her hand up so he could kiss her palm.

  “Mine.”

  She sighed, a sexy, content sound, vaguely feline. “Hmmmm.”

  He gave his heart a few minutes to settle down, and then he lifted up onto his elbows and stared down at her. Slowly, her eyes cleared and she smiled up at him. Kalen lowered his head and covered that smiling mouth with his own.

  “Again. ”

  NINE

  Kalen trailed his fingers down her arm and stared at the faint bluish marks forming on her wrists. He laid his hand over them, lining his fingers up with the bruises and brooding. “I left marks on you.”

  Lee popped an eye open and stared at him balefully. “Ummm. Let me rest a little and you can do it again.” She pressed her face against his shoulder and snuggled in closer. “Sleep.”

  “Go ahead and sleep.” They’d spent more than half the night making love, and Kalen was pretty sure he was drained. At least temporarily. His body was exhausted, too, but his mind wasn’t shutting down. He rubbed his chin back and forth over the top of her head. The silky tresses smelled like dusk-roses. Soft and seductive. Not enough softness in his life. He didn’t know how to deal with softness, and that much was pretty damned clear, as evidenced by the marks he’d left on his woman.

  “You staying?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. He kissed the crown of her head and whispered, “I’m sorry, Lee.”

  The eye opened again, and now a faint smile appeared. “What are you sorry for?”

  Kalen closed his eyes and muttered, “I should have known you wouldn’t make it easy.” He lifted her hand from where it lay on his chest, and he kissed the bruises. “It’s not this. Although I feel like I ought to be sorry for marking you, I’m not. Earlier, when you were with Morne, I was wrong. I knew even as I said anything that I was wrong.” Then he opened his eyes and squinted down at her. “I still want to know what was going on.”

  The smile faded and she sighed. Her blue eyes were dark and troubled. Confused, even. “Yeah. Me, too. And as soon as I figure it out, I’ll tell you.”

  She closed her eyes again, and slowly her breathing eased into a more regular pattern. “He’s a weird guy, isn’t he?” she murmured sleepily.

  Lee never heard his response. She was sound asleep before she even finished the question.

  Lee accepted the small disc from Eira. Puzzled, she stared at it before glancing up at Kalen. He took it from her and flipped it over. The minute the matte black surface faced upward, the black dissolved and colors shifted inside. He held it out to Lee and she took it back. But she almost dropped it as something seemed to leap out from inside the thing.

  Not something.

  Someone.

  “Whoa.” It was like a . . . hologram, or something. But the technology of it was far more advanced than anything Lee had seen. She’d seen some of the best technology available in her world and coveted a lot of it. Pieces of equipment that costs thousands and thousands—or tens of thousands. And all of it paled compared to the small egg-sized disc in her hand and the image it displayed. “Wow. What is this thing?” she asked, rubbing the edge of the disc with her thumb and staring at it in wonder. The image wavered and then disappeared, and Lee scowled. “What did I do?”

  She caught a glimpse of Kalen’s amused smile and resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “If you could see some of the technology we used to have, you would truly be amazed,” he said. He reached out and thumbed a tiny depression, and Lee grinned as the woman’s image reappeared. “It’s an emsphere. Once upon a time, we could store thousands of images on one of these but . . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “We rarely have time to sleep anymore. Portraits are a hobby few of us have time for.”

  “Well, that sucks,” Lee muttered. Then she felt stupid. When people were fighting to live, taking pictures probably seemed like a waste of time.

  She looked almost real, the woman in the hologram, or whatever it was. She was smiling, almost on the verge of laughing. Her eyes were a pale, warm amber and her hair was worn in a complicated twist. It was a soft, golden brown, shot through with pale gold highlights. There was something oddly familiar about her. Those eyes—Lee closed her own and tried to concentrate, to remember where she’d seen the woman’s face before.

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name was Aneva. Ana, my Ana. She was my granddaughter—the oldest. Ana’s mother died when she was a child. Her father died in a raid. I was all she had.” Eira stared at the woman with sad eyes. There was something in that look that clued Lee in. Eira didn’t even have to say it and Lee knew.

  Then Eira smiled. “No, that isn’t fair. I wasn’t all. There was Elina. Her cousin.” A smile came and went. “They were inseparable, those two. Just like their mothers had been.”

  It took a minute for Lee to remember who Elina was. She continued to stare at the woman’s image, and while she stared into very lifelike amber eyes, it finally clicked. Eira’s granddaughter, the one who had headed back east with her family. “Their moms were sisters?” Lee asked as she tried to work out the family tree in her head.

  “Yes. My two youngest daughters. I had five daughters. Two sons.” Eira studied the image and explained, “Only one of my children still lives. Hanel, my son, went east decades ago when his wife conceived. It was for the best—even now, it’s so much safer. I wonder . . .” Her voice trailed off and she took a deep, harsh breath. When she spoke again, her voice was more garbled than before and thick with tears. “I wonder if I shouldn’t have sent his sisters with them.”

  “I’m sorry, Eira.”

  A sad smile curved Eira’s mouth and she murmured, “As am I, child. As am I.” When she looked at Lee, tears gleamed in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “I never imagined this would be the life I lived, fighting a war that cannot be won. Losing my children to it. The raids were a way of life, you know. Girls went missing from time to time. On occasion, entire families. But then the raids started coming more and more often. The demons started coming, and it wasn’t just a few here and there. Entire swarms of them, coming through the gate and massacring everything they crossed. They weren’t content with just bloodshed, though, and they no longer sought out victims and then waited for the gate to open so they could return home. They wanted to stay.”

  Eira closed her eyes and fell silent for a long while. Lee wondered if she hadn’t gone to sleep, but then her eyes opened and she looked at Lee. Her eyes didn’t look quite so dull in that moment. They
all but blazed with fury. “My girls were grown by then. Shiryn, my husband, had already died trying to fight a horde of Raviners, and two of my girls were taken by the Sirvani. That was when I realized I had to start fighting as well.”

  Puzzled, Lee asked, “Start fighting? Eira, how old were you?”

  “Forty-three.” Now the smile on Eira’s face didn’t look quite so sad and bitter. She actually looked like she was smirking a little. “Yes—forty-three, Lee. You were not the only one to come late into this life. Magick has always run strong in my family, but I hadn’t ever used mine in battle until then.” She gazed into Lee’s eyes, and as though she heard the question circling through Lee’s mind, Eira said, “That was sixty-six years ago.”

  Lee blinked. A little dumbfounded, she sat back and stared at Eira. She did the math and then did it again. She squinted at the old woman. Yeah, she looked old now, but ten days ago, before the stroke hit? Lee had seen men and women not even out of their fifties that looked older than Eira had. “You’re telling me that you’re 109 years old?”

  “If I see another month, it will be 110.” Eira chuckled. Her right eye gleamed with the same dry humor that had driven Lee insane just a couple of weeks ago. “Remember that next time you feel tempted to throttle me. I’m not just old, I’m practically ancient.”

  Practically? Hell, Eira was ancient. One hundred and ten fricking years old . . . Lee couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. Yeah, she knew people could be long-lived back home, but she hadn’t ever imagined that a woman who was as active as Eira could be so old. She’d seen a century come and go. It blew Lee’s mind even thinking of it. “I reckon retirement is out of the question.”

  Eira frowned and repeated, “Retirement.”

  “Never mind.” She looked back at the image. The woman portrayed looked so real. Unable to stop herself any longer, she touched it and gasped, startled at the lifelike feel. If light could be touched, it would feel like this—warm, almost soft—it felt alive. “Wow.”