A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Pamela Palmer

  But Charlie had every intention of making it back alive. He grinned to lighten the mood. “Cheer up, Harrison. I’m going to kick some major Esri butt.”

  Harrison’s cool expression never wavered. “If I don’t hear from you in a month, I’m coming in after you.”

  Charlie scowled. “Stay the hell away, Harrison, I mean it.” If he, a trained special operative, couldn’t handle Esria, what chance did his white-collar CEO of a brother stand? “I’ll try to make it back in a month, but it might take longer and I can’t exactly call to give you an update. I’ve got at least several weeks of walking ahead of me just to reach the freakin’ forest. After that, who knows how long it’ll take to free the princess and find another gate out of there. Just stay put until I get back.”

  Charlie clasped his brother’s shoulder. “I will come back, Harrison. I promise.” He forced himself to smile again. “With a fairy princess on my arm.”

  Harrison snorted, the faintest hint of a smile twitching his lips. “Get your cocky ass through that gate, little brother.”

  Their gazes held as something heavy passed between them. The knowledge that this might be goodbye.

  Charlie refused to accept that. “Keep an eye on the apartment for me.” He turned to look for Tarrys and found her waiting quietly behind him. “You ready, eaglet?”

  She nodded and held out her hand to him.

  “Be careful, both of you,” Larsen called as Charlie’s fingers closed around the surprising warmth of Tarrys’s fine-boned hand. Excitement sparked inside him, adrenaline charging through his system as it always did at the start of an op.

  Charlie glanced down at the delicate profile of his pretty companion. “Let’s do this.”

  Her face lifted and she met his gaze, her eyes shining like violet-hued silver in the moonlight, piercing him with their intensity, stirring that excitement.

  “Be safe, Charlie Rand.”

  His gaze dropped to that intriguing mouth of hers and for half a second he thought about kissing her. And wouldn’t that give the others something to talk about when he was gone?

  But before he could give it another thought, Tarrys turned and tugged him with her as she stepped onto the fountain’s rim and down into the dry well. When they reached the thick marble pedestal, Charlie hesitated. Tarrys didn’t. Inch by inch, she disappeared until all but her hand was gone…the hand caught tight in his.

  Then she gave a tug and pulled him into chaos.

  Charlie opened his eyes to a canopy of spinning, glowing orange, confusion clouding his mind.

  Where was he? What had happened? His mind scrambled for an answer as he quickly took stock of the situation. He was on his back, something hard pinned beneath him. No pain. So he was either unhurt or so close to dead nothing mattered.

  Something entered his line of vision, flying about twenty feet above him. What the…?

  A snake. A green-and-white-striped snake with long black wings.

  In a dizzying rush, it all came back.

  Esria. Chills raced across his flesh.

  Charlie blinked, stayed where he was a moment longer, listening for sound. When none met his ears, he slowly glanced in every direction, wanting to make sure there was no obvious reason to stay down. The familiar smells of loam and pine mixed with a flowery-metallic scent that burned his nostrils.

  The alien landscape that caught his gaze made his heart stutter. It was as if he’d stumbled into a cartoon world where the artist had mixed up all the colors. The light was dim, but not dark, the sky low, glowing like a dark orange dome over a colorful yet barren terrain. A few clumps of straggly trees or bushes and a scattering of jewel-colored rocks were all that relieved the hilly expanse of blue, royal blue, dirt. Except for the small patch of vibrant pink flowers he’d managed to land upon.

  He sat up, then slowly rose to his feet, adjusting the bow and quiver slung over his shoulder, his senses alert, his gaze searching for sign of trouble. But the land was utterly quiet. He was alone.

  Tarrys.

  His gaze searched for her even as he knew she wouldn’t still be here. A tiny regret had him wishing he’d at least had a moment to say goodbye. Maybe he could have snagged himself a kiss for good luck.

  Right.

  Sounds began to rise around him, sounds he’d probably silenced with his arrival. Insects, if he had to guess, but unlike any he’d ever heard before—odd clicks, musical screeches, and a host of others, pitched both high and low. He hoped to God they were merely insects and not something that might decide to put him on the dinner menu.

  A chill slid down his spine, part excitement, part reaction to the total unknown. What dangers lurked in this place that he might never know existed until too late?

  With a start, he realized the flowers had disappeared. All that remained beneath his feet was a tuft of orange-and-gold grass.

  Jesus.

  He looked around, trying to get his bearings, needing to figure out which way to go. Where was the gate? His gut clenched with the sharp realization that it didn’t matter. Even if he stayed here and waited for the gate to open in a month, he couldn’t get through. Not without help. There was no turning back. The only way he’d ever get home was hand in hand with the princess herself. Anything less and he’d never see home again.

  Which was precisely the reason he wouldn’t fail.

  Determination surged into the flow of adrenaline firing his body and he grinned. God, he loved a challenge. But as he looked for his first landmark, the twin peaks of the red mountains, a sound reached his ears, beneath the clicks and squeals of the night creatures, that had ice forming in his blood.

  The sound of voices. Human voices.

  No, not human.

  Esri.

  Chapter 3

  Charlie tensed, his mind scrambling as he listened to the low, unintelligible voices drawing nearer. Esri voices. From the sound of them, they were just below the rise, less than twenty yards away. Three Esri, he’d guess. Maybe four. By the time he knew for sure, they’d be able to see him. And he couldn’t kill them, unfortunately. He might be able to outrun them, but a human-looking Royal Guard running from the gate was going to look damned suspicious. No, the only thing to do was hide and pray none of them possessed a gift that would sense him. He scanned the area and spied a nearby thicket of low, bloodred bushes that might do the trick. It would have to. Using skills honed as a SEAL, he ran across the hard-packed dirt to the bushes without making a sound. As he ducked low within the center of the soft, fuzzy branches, a flurry of winged insects took to the air, like a spray of raindrops flying skyward.

  Wishing for some red camouflage paint, Charlie took a deep breath and concentrated on quieting his thudding heart. Calm. Steady. He looked back the way he’d come and nearly had a heart attack. A narrow path of that same thick rust-and-gold grass led straight to him. Grass that hadn’t been there a moment ago, as if it had followed him. It was going to lead them right to him!

  The grass disappeared.

  Charlie blinked. Shit. Nothing remained of the grass except the tuft beneath his feet. He reached down to feel the stuff and had gotten nothing more than the fleeting impression that it felt like the grass at home when the grass disappeared and he once more found himself on a bed of tiny pink flowers.

  Charlie’s skin raced with goose bumps. Kade had warned him that the two worlds didn’t follow the same laws of nature. He’d laugh at the understatement if he weren’t quite so shaken.

  The nearing voices pulled his attention away from the insta-garden beneath his feet and again he prayed none of the Esri possessed the ability to sense his energy. While every Esri had certain baseline abilities, each had unique gifts as well. Hell, most of their human descendants…the Sitheen…did too, with the unfortunate exception of his own line. Neither he nor Harrison had any special talents except for the inability to be enchanted which, all things considered, was really all that mattered.

  Still, it would have been nice to have had some magic at his di
sposal. Larsen foresaw death. Jack could speak with his Sitheen ancestors. Myrtle was a healer of prodigious skill. The Esri, Baleris, had been able to smell the power stones. And Zander, the Esri Kade had killed, had been able to sense power in others.

  If any of the approaching Esri possessed that ability, he was in trouble. Because if they could smell power, even the low-level power of a human’s life force, they’d know he was here.

  Pale heads broke the level of the rise. Charlie watched, barely breathing, as three male Esri wearing the same silver tunics and black cloaks he himself wore came fully into view. One of the three possessed the startling whiteness of both hair and skin that he’d come to associate with true Esri, but the other two just looked deathly pale. All three were fairly tall with lanky, rangy builds. Their hair varied in shade from stark white to white-blond.

  Though the air temperature was comfortable, a trickle of sweat rolled down Charlie’s neck as the trio neared, speaking Esrian gibberish. If they caught him, he was going to have to decide whether to run or grunt and thump his chest and hope they backed off, though why they’d be afraid of someone who’d been hiding in the bushes, he couldn’t fathom.

  The Esri neared, their voices growing louder. Clearer. With a jolt, Charlie realized he was starting to understand snatches of what they were saying. “…gate…nearby…” “…must have closed…” “…King Rith…displeased.”

  Goose bumps rippled over his skin. He was beginning to understand Esrian. Had he inherited a gift from his Esri ancestor after all? Or was this newfound ability just part of the magic of this world? Kade had warned him to expect anything. He’d been expecting the worst, but speaking the language was a huge plus.

  “We are not even certain the gate is here,” said the shortest and whitest of the three Esri.

  “I felt it.” The speaker’s face was rounder, his hair thick with straw-blond waves. “When it opens again, I will know.”

  The first man made a noise of dismay. “That won’t happen for another cycle.”

  “So we wait.”

  Charlie gave a mental groan. Don’t wait here. If they settled in, he was sunk.

  But the men never stopped, never glanced his way, just continued to walk toward the hills. Finally, when they were but a speck on the horizon, Charlie crept out of the bushes and headed the other way.

  He was being followed.

  Charlie picked up his pace as he crossed the rocky, hilly blue terrain, the rust-and-gold grass appearing beneath his feet with every step and disappearing a few steps behind him. The grass had entertained him for a while after he escaped the Esri at the gate.

  He’d been so distracted by the grass, he hadn’t noticed when he’d first picked up the tail.

  The trees had grown more numerous the farther he traveled from the gate, thin patches of woods cropping up here and there, the trees resembling those in his world only in their basic shape. They had trunks and branches and leaves. But the trunks were blue or green or some combination, some shimmery as satin, others spiked with thorns. And the leaves looked like an autumn forest with the color turned up two hundred percent. Reds, golds, oranges as bright as crayons from a coloring box.

  Unfortunately, scattered everywhere were bushes and rocks as big as boulders. Whoever was following him had plenty of places to hide.

  Charlie followed the stream Kade had told him would lead him through the mountains. It wasn’t the most direct route, but would provide him with water the entire journey. A necessity, especially since large bodies of water were rare in Esria.

  In the distance rose the twin red peaks he knew he’d have to cross. The air was cool and comfortable with a light breeze that brushed his heated skin—skin heated from exertion and the tension of feeling he had a bull’s-eye painted on his back. He didn’t dare confront his stalker unless he had no choice.

  Nearly two hours had passed since he’d tumbled through the gate, more than an hour since he’d caught a glimpse of movement and felt the familiar sensation of being watched. But he’d yet to see the man who followed. Or hear him.

  Damn, but he hated being without his team. In any other op, one of his men would slip away and double back to spy on the spy. But he was stuck. As soon as his pursuer knew he’d been made, he might no longer hang back. Which meant a confrontation Charlie couldn’t afford. But neither could he go on like this indefinitely. Sooner or later he’d need sleep. Better to confront him and try to scare the hell out of him while he could. If he could.

  But first, he wanted to see his tail and make certain there was only one.

  It took three tries, slipping behind bushes or trees before he finally caught a glimpse of the one following him as he darted from one boulder to another high on the hill above him. A Marceil, if the small size and gray gown were anything to go by. But this Marceil had hair. Very short, dark hair.

  Tarrys.

  Relief hit him first and hard, relief that he didn’t have an Esri on his tail. Anger followed fast on its heels.

  Damn her. He’d told her in no uncertain terms she wasn’t coming with him. Was this her doing or Harrison’s? It didn’t matter now. But, yeah, it did. If this was her doing and she hadn’t told anyone she was planning to stay in Esria, the others would assume they’d been captured. Harrison would jump through the gate at the next full moon to fulfill the mission he would assume Charlie had already failed.

  Dammit.

  His jaw clenched, his eyes burrowing beneath his brows as he fought to hide the telltale signs of emotion. The first thing he intended to do was lure her to him so he could wring her delicate little neck. The second was send her away, somewhere safe to spend the next month until the gate opened again. If he’d wanted her company, he’d have asked for it.

  Fisting his hands on his knees, he straightened and resumed walking as if nothing was wrong. For a moment, he considered trying to outdistance himself from her, but he didn’t know what kind of stamina she had. Besides, allowing her to follow him was too dangerous. If he picked up a second tail…a true threat…he might not realize it until it was too late.

  Damn her. If she thought she could thwart him and get away with it, she was dead wrong.

  Tarrys ducked behind a crystalberry bush, the sound of its fruit jangling like broken glass in the dull breeze. Peering around it, she watched Charlie, his long strides carrying him quickly toward the foothills of the red mountains. She ran, dodging behind a boulder, then another bush, determined to stay close enough to watch him. Determined that he not see her in return.

  Sweat rolled between her breasts and dampened her scalp as she struggled to stay hidden and keep him in sight. They’d only come through the gate a few hours ago and already she was tiring of this. Eventually, Charlie would rest. Then and only then would she catch her breath.

  She’d planned to run from Charlie when they first came through the gate, at least until the gate closed and he could no longer send her back. But the shift between the worlds had knocked him unconscious, giving her the perfect opportunity to hide.

  Then the Esri arrived and she’d been terrified the mission would be over before it began. She’d been prepared to draw them off, giving Charlie a chance to get away. But Charlie had moved fast and the Esri had passed, unaware.

  Now the only things chasing her were memories, and the fear that an Esri would catch her before she saw Charlie safely across Esria.

  She scanned the surrounding hills, looking for a sign of others. Few traveled these lands. The chances of crossing paths with one was unlikely, but not nearly unlikely enough. The thought of it stirred the fear that had ridden over her like a haze since her return.

  Sweet Esria, she didn’t want to be back here. Walking through that gate had been, without doubt, the hardest thing she’d ever done. If not for Charlie’s hand clasped hard around hers, giving her strength, reminding her of her purpose, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to force her feet into that fountain. Every step since, she’d felt fate’s hot breath on the back of he
r neck, corralling her toward that awful and inevitable moment of capture and enslavement.

  Don’t think about the past. Don’t think about the future. Charlie. Only Charlie. And getting him safely over the mountains. That was all that mattered. All she could allow herself to think about, or she’d go slowly mad.

  Yet she couldn’t stop the wish that she’d never gone into the human realm in the first place. That she’d never known freedom or kindness. Or friendship. How much easier her future years would be had she never known what it was like to have someone speak to her as an equal. To feel the touch of a friendly hand. To laugh and to do as she wanted knowing her body was hers to command. To know that no one would draw her into a frenzy of false passion for the purpose of raping her.

  That the only desire that stirred inside her was drawn by a man who didn’t mean to attract her as he did. And Charlie would never, she was certain, force himself upon her.

  And while she’d prefer to not be attracted to him, or any man, the truth was she liked him. A lot. Far more than she wanted to. He was a good man. A man who’d shown her more simple kindness than any man had since she was a child.

  For Charlie and Aunt Myrtle and all the humans she’d begun to care for, she would do what she could to make sure Charlie succeeded. She would do what she must.

  She peered around the edge of the rock, watching, staking out her next hiding spot. But as her gaze swung back to Charlie, she saw him stumble, then fall to his knees, swaying as if he’d been arrow shot. Her jaw dropped, shock vibrating through her body as she watched the strong warrior collapse slowly onto his back as if in the throes of human death.

  No.

  Heart thundering in her chest, Tarrys darted out from behind the rock and ran down the rocky hillside, the grass rising to prick her feet as fear congealed into a hard mass deep in her throat.