A Warrior's Desire (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Pamela Palmer

“Charlie.” His name was little more than a breath as she reached him and fell to her knees beside him. “Charlie, wake up.” But her hands had barely brushed his tunic when his own snapped up to capture her wrists.

  Tarrys strangled a scream as the man she’d thought unconscious sat up then leaped to his feet, dragging her with him, his eyes blazing.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He wasn’t injured at all. It was a ruse to catch her. Her knees nearly buckled with relief. “You knew I was following you.”

  “Of course I knew you were following me. I’ve known for miles.”

  The day hadn’t even broken and already her plan was ruined.

  Anger washed off him in waves, yet she didn’t fear him. Her heart pounded only from his startling her. And from the storming of her senses by his nearness. Sweet Esria, she was falling under his enchantment all over again.

  He gave her arms a shake. “Answer me. Why did you come?”

  “To protect you.”

  Charlie gave a short bark of laughter, but there was no humor in the sound, nor in the hard twist of his mouth. He held her so close she could smell his uniquely masculine scent, as deep, rich and endlessly fascinating as his world. His grip on her wrists was no more than snug, yet her skin burned where he touched her. Burned not with pain but with a heat that sank beneath her flesh, into the heart of her blood. Inciting a desire she wanted to feel for no man.

  Her body’s reaction frustrated her. Charlie’s belief in his own invulnerability…and her uselessness…annoyed her. “There are things about my world you don’t know,” she snapped.

  “I’m not denying that, but I don’t need a freakin’ babysitter.” He shook her again, the tension in his hands tightly…barely…controlled. “And you left the others thinking…what? That I was dead? Captured?”

  “No!” Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “Harrison knew I was staying with you.” As Charlie’s expression darkened even more, she added quickly, “He didn’t ask me to come. This was my decision. But I told him before we left.”

  “I’m sure you made him obscenely happy with that news,” he said disgustedly.

  “He thought it was a good idea.”

  “I’ll bet he did. He’s not the one that has to…” He released her suddenly. “You can’t come with me.”

  Tarrys said nothing, unable to agree yet unwilling to lie. If he chased her away, she’d only go back to following him, though how she’d keep him from seeing her this time, she couldn’t fathom. She’d been so careful!

  “Go home, Tarrys. Or somewhere you’ll be safe. Or, better yet, find someplace around here to hole up for a few weeks until that gate opens again. Keep out of sight. Even if Esri go through the gate at the next full moon, Harrison and the others will be there. They’ll protect you.”

  As she remained silent, his stiffness softened ever so slightly. “Look, eaglet, I appreciate your trying to help, though…Jesus…I can’t believe you put yourself in danger to come after me. But you’ll slow me down. This mission is time-critical and I’ve got to move fast.”

  The gentling of his attitude softened something deep inside her. As much as she longed to stop her body’s reaction to this man, she would never be able to harden her heart toward him.

  “I know,” she said simply.

  His gaze sharpened on her, his eyes probing hers, as if he sought a way into her innermost thoughts. When they narrowed, honed to a piercing point, she thought maybe he had.

  Charlie scowled. “If I try to send you away, you’ll just follow me again, won’t you?”

  Tarrys pursed her lips. If he were anyone else, she’d consider lying to him. But she was beginning to think there was no hiding from Charlie Rand. Whether in actions or words.

  She met his gaze. “Your mission is to free Princess Ilaria. Mine is to make sure you succeed. I won’t give up mine any more than you will yours.”

  Charlie scowled. “Harrison did put you up to this.”

  “No. No one did. This was my plan. My choice.”

  “It’s not your mission if you make it up on your own.”

  She cocked her head. “Who directed you to free Princess Ilaria?” She couldn’t believe her temerity in questioning him like this. A few months ago, she never would have dared question any man, anyone, but the humans had encouraged her to speak freely. She’d embraced that freedom more slowly but no less appreciatively than the others.

  And this was Charlie. For a reason she couldn’t fully understand, she knew he’d never hurt her, no matter what she said or did.

  “My going after Princess Ilaria is different. It needs to be done.” His eyes snapped with determination as his gaze held hers.

  Tarrys lifted her chin. “And you need to reach her safely. Doing all I can to make that happen is what I have to do.” She suddenly couldn’t bear having him so unhappy with her. Looking into his eyes, she implored him to understand, and reached for him, only to let her hand drop to her side. “I’ve never been free to choose my path before, Charlie. And I won’t remain so forever. While I can, I choose to help the humans win. And that means making sure you succeed.”

  He watched her for breathless moments, his gaze delving deep inside her, stirring her pulse and her own determination.

  Finally, he looked up at the sky that was beginning to lighten to a soft gold. Twining his fingers behind his head, he arched back, squeezing his eyes closed as if he were in pain.

  With a groan, he straightened and looked at her, his expression wry but not unkind. “You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you? If you’re coming, you’re going to have to keep up. I can’t slow down for you. There’s too much at stake.”

  “I understand.”

  Something gleamed in his eyes she couldn’t quite name. A challenge, perhaps? He wasn’t going to make this easy on her. But she didn’t expect him to. Didn’t want him to. She’d come to help him, not slow him down. But she had to wonder how much more difficult this journey was going to be on her now that she’d consigned herself to his side night and day.

  Charlie turned and started off again, his strides longer, if possible, than before.

  With a sigh, Tarrys held tight to her bow with one hand, lifting the hem of her gown with her other, and hurried after him.

  Though she trusted him never to hurt her physically, she feared he’d end up hurting her all the same, more than any Esri ever could.

  The woman was tireless.

  All day Charlie had kept up this pace, driving them both hard and fast for more than twelve hours, resting for no more than minutes at a time. He’d been certain she wouldn’t last. Certain that she’d suddenly remember someplace else she could go to wait for the gate to open again. But he was damn near exhausted and Tarrys still jogged at his side.

  They’d yet to see another person, thankfully, but he’d gotten an eyeful of the local wildlife. They’d watched a herd of white deer with large red polka dots leap over the stream as lightly as Santa’s reindeer taking off. The flying snakes with their high-pitched screams were everywhere, wrapping themselves around high tree branches when they lighted. But the ones he’d found the most interesting, if oddly unsettling, were the packs of neon-green chipmunks that scurried across the ground like large shag rugs on the move.

  Charlie hazarded a glance behind him where Tarrys followed close. Sweat glistened on her forehead, but her expression showed no sign of distress.

  The little slave was tougher than she looked.

  At first, her stubbornness had annoyed him. Hell, everything about this situation annoyed him. But he couldn’t help admiring the courage it had taken to give up the cushy life she had now to try to make a difference. But wanting to help wasn’t the same thing as helping. He couldn’t afford to compromise his mission just to make her feel good about herself. He wasn’t giving an inch. Either she kept up, or she found somewhere to hide until the gates opened again.

  Tarrys wasn’t his problem.

  He couldn’t afford to let her be,
though he had to keep stirring his anger to keep the need to protect her at bay.

  “Tarrys, wake up. It’s time to get going.”

  Tarrys groaned silently, her exhausted body crying at the thought of rising, of moving at all, let alone returning to that bone-jarring run she’d had to maintain to keep up with Charlie’s much longer strides. She felt like she’d just closed her eyes. And probably had.

  The rogue thought flitted through her mind that she could tell him to go on without her. To let her sleep. But helping the humans was the only useful thing, the only real thing, she’d ever done. Nothing would stop her. Nothing short of enslavement.

  The slightly caustic smell of the pink flower beds teased her nostrils, the air filled with the clicking sounds of the night insects. Her eyes opened, heavy and coarse with grit. The sky was starting to lighten again, but they’d traveled most of the night. They couldn’t have rested for any time at all.

  Charlie stood over her, looking tired but utterly determined. He didn’t have to say the words for her to hear them ringing in her head. You have to keep up.

  She forced herself to her feet and slung her bow and quiver over her shoulder. When he turned and strode off in that ground-eating gait of his, she once more ran, though her body felt like it was going to come apart and start dropping, piece by piece onto the ground. Marceils healed injuries quickly, but she needed rest and sleep to replenish her stores of energy. And she’d had little of either in more than a day.

  None of that mattered. Nothing but staying with Charlie Rand, though she wondered what use she’d be to him if all she could do now was to keep one foot moving in front of the other.

  “We’re on a collision course with a chipmunk rug,” Charlie said a short while later. “Should we step aside and let them pass?”

  “No.” She caught a glimpse of green, but could see little beyond Charlie’s broad back. “They’ll go around us.”

  Minutes later, several hundred small green petermoles covered the ground at their feet. Charlie stopped so quickly, Tarrys nearly ran into him.

  “You can keep walking,” she told him, though the respite was welcome. “You can’t step on them.”

  “That’s not why I stopped. I swear I just saw a big black cat with three white horns. But it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared.”

  Tarrys froze. Her blood went cold.

  “A black trimor. The most deadly creature in Esria.”

  Chapter 4

  Tarrys grabbed his arm. “Get behind me! A black trimor will kill you.”

  “Like hell.” Charlie pulled his knife as he stared at the sea of neon-green, watching as another chipmunk levitated into the air. For an instant…only an instant…a catlike creature about the size of a German shepherd, black with three white horns sticking out of his forehead, appeared to eat the little guy. Then both disappeared. “I’m really seeing him, right?”

  “Yes. They’re invisible until they snatch their prey…or attack. And there’s more than one.” She stepped away from him and lifted her bow. “I see four. Tell me if you see more.”

  Four? He felt as if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but yeah, now that she mentioned it, he was seeing things in his peripheral vision—a flash of black appearing for a second, then disappearing.

  Beside him, Tarrys began shooting, arrow after arrow. He thought about doing the same, but knew she had the best chance of striking one of those creatures.

  Her movements were swift and graceful, edged with a desperation that did little to reassure him as she spun, shooting in every direction. They were surrounded, the trimors working at the edges of the chipmunk rug. But the black trimors never stayed visible long enough for one of Tarrys’s arrows to hit its mark. Charlie wondered if he’d have been more effective with a gun, but doubted it. By the time he saw the creatures, they were gone.

  “Got one!” Tarrys crowed even as she continued to shoot. The one she’d shot fell, an arrow through one eye. A moment later, it disappeared.

  “Charlie, I’m nearly out of arrows. I’ll need your quiver.”

  He pulled it off his back and waited, handing it to her the moment she shot the last arrow from her own. With remarkable grace, she dropped the first and slung the second quiver onto her back, the arrows flying in an almost fluid continuity.

  A second cat went down with an arrow through the neck, followed by Tarrys’s chilling words.

  “I’m out of arrows.”

  “Back to back,” he ordered. Though what good it would do when they couldn’t see the creatures, he wasn’t sure. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  “A trimor paralyzes its larger prey, or its enemies, by goring them with its central horn and pumping them full of poison. Neither the goring nor the poison will automatically kill me. They will you. While I draw their attack—”

  “No way.”

  Tarrys continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—you kill them with your knife. You’ll have to be fast.”

  “They could still kill you.” Her plan went against every instinct he possessed.

  She met his gaze, violet eyes flashing with steely determination. “If we’re not very quick and very lucky, they’re going to kill us both. I may heal fast, but even I can’t survive being eaten.”

  Dammit. His pride protested, but he took a deep breath and forced it aside. She might be small and female, but she was all warrior and this might be the only chance they got. They were going to do this together or not at all.

  “How will you draw their attack when you can’t see them?”

  “Noise. Stay close behind me.”

  As Tarrys lunged forward with a high-pitched scream, Charlie followed. Sure enough, a moment later a cat appeared, in full leap, his head down. Before Charlie could react, that long, razor-sharp center horn gored Tarrys clean through the chest.

  Charlie went berserk. Horror screamed through him as he flew at the cat, digging his knife deep in the creature’s throat, ripping through muscle and sinew. Warm blood spurted from the animal, mixing with the blood that bloomed on Tarrys’s gown. The cat fell, taking Tarrys with it, fully impaled on its horn.

  As he reached for her, the second cat appeared, leaping for him. His fury found an outlet and lent speed to his reflexes as he shoved his knife upward into the attacking cat’s jaw, lodging it deep in the animal’s skull. That deadly center horn caught on the fabric of his tunic, but didn’t break through.

  Close. Too close.

  The cat fell dead at his feet then disappeared a second later, leaving his knife lying, bloody, on the ground.

  He snatched the knife and crouched, watching for more cats. But the green carpet had passed them by and nothing else moved.

  Finally he whirled back to Tarrys and knelt beside her, turning her gently onto her back. The trimor gone, she now lay on a bed of dark pink flowers as if she’d been laid out for burial. A bloom of blood the size of his palm covered her chest. And her eyes, those vibrant, violet eyes, stared at nothing, unblinking, her expression frozen in a mask of pain. A mask of death.

  Charlie felt as if he’d been sucker punched, his heart skipping a beat, then racing faster than it had during the attack.

  Tarrys was dead.

  No. Not dead. Paralyzed. Wasn’t she? How in the hell was he supposed to know?

  Lifting her hand, he pressed it between his own. Her flesh was warm and damp, the perfection marred by a faint green allover mottling, but that hardly told him anything. She could still be dead.

  The thought went through him like a blade. She’d saved his life. If he’d come upon this scenario alone, it would be him lying on that bed of flowers. And he would be dead.

  “Can you hear me, eaglet?”

  No response, but he hadn’t really expected one. “I should have asked you how long the paralysis lasts. Or, hell, if there’s something I need to do to bring you out of it.” This place was filled with magic. What if the poison wasn’t a toxin so much as a curse? What if she was like Sleeping Beauty or so
mething?

  Charlie stared at her, at those lips parted with pain. What did he have to lose? It wasn’t like kissing her was any kind of hardship.

  He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Her scent filled his nostrils. Even totally unresponsive, she moved him, the feel of her damp mouth beneath his stirring something warm and exciting inside him.

  When she didn’t respond, he pulled back and studied her, searching her eyes.

  “It was worth a try,” he said with a shrug.

  Something flickered in her eyes.

  He squeezed her hand. “You’re aware, aren’t you? You know I just kissed you. Great. Now I really feel like an idiot. You know Sleeping Beauty, right? Probably not. Hell. She was awakened with a kiss. I thought it might work, though heaven knows I’m no Prince Charming.”

  He was only digging himself deeper. “Right. Anyway…” Releasing her hand, he stood and surveyed the surrounding area, looking for anything else that might come after them. Those trimors were going to give him nightmares.

  Comfortable that there was no imminent danger of the corporeal kind, he knelt once more beside Tarrys and took her hand again. Still warm, thank God.

  “Are you in pain?”

  As he stared into her eyes, he felt sure the answer was no. She wasn’t in pain. Her eyes, for all that they weren’t moving, were amazingly expressive.

  “Will you recover?” Again, he thought the answer was yes. “Good. I’ll wait for you.” Now, he clearly saw distress. “What? You think I’m leaving you like this? Not a chance.”

  He stretched out his legs and got comfortable, a sound of relief escaping his throat. It felt good to be off his feet.

  “You know, eaglet, if it turns out you’re really dead and I just think I see emotions in your eyes, I’m going to feel like a real fool.” But watching her eyes, he grinned. “Except now you’re laughing at me.”

  He lay down beside her, watching a pair of the green-and-white-striped snakes fly across the golden dome as he pulled her slender hand against his chest.

  “I’m glad you came, Tarrys. It’s a hard thing to admit, but I’d be dead if you hadn’t.” He squeezed her hand, then rubbed her warm, soft skin with his thumb. “Sorry for pushing so hard. I thought you’d give up, but you’ve got the stamina of a marathon runner. Now I realize sending you away was the last thing I should have been doing. I hate Harrison’s being right even more than I hate being wrong.”