He almost turned at the weariness in her voice. “Do you need help?”
“No, not yet, I don’t think.”
Oh hell, that means she might need me to walk over there and help her get out of the water… “Okay. You can call me William. I promise I’ll try to answer.”
She laughed, a quick, fierce little sound and as beautiful as she. “You’re humoring me.”
“No ma’am, I just think you should focus on not drowning and not worry so much about my name. It’s just a name.”
Another laugh and even the images of gelding weren’t helping. If she didn’t finish soon and get dressed, he might have to go throw himself in the snow. Or shoot himself in the leg.
“Well, I think William is a fine name.” It sure as hell sounded fine when she said it.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You can call me Evelyn, if you like.” She exhaled a long breath and continued before he could respond. “This feels good, but it’s making me sleepy. I’m going to climb out—Wyatt said there were clothes out here.”
Oh. Clothes. He swallowed and glanced to his right to the cupboard. He’d have to pick them out and walk them over to her. Side stepping stiffly, he pulled open the cabinet doors and glanced at the contents. Scarlett’s clothes were at the top as were some dry bathing sheets. He pulled out two of the heavier ones and a couple of shirts, a pair of britches…
Undergarments.
His mouth went dry and he grabbed a handful without looking at them.
“Carrying them back to you.” He backed up. It was only five steps from the cabinet to the first pool. The sound of water cascading tortured him, but he held out the toweling sheets first. Her damp fingers brushed his hand as she took them. The caress lit him up.
“Thank you.” Cloth rasped over skin and he stayed right where he was, drilling holes into the walls with his gaze. “Clothing?”
He held it out blindly and she took the stacks. Praying she could manage all of it, he remained in place. More rasping of fabric, and then a tired sigh.
“Done.”
Daring a glance sideways, he was prepared to jerk his gaze away if she hadn’t meant done, done, but she was dressed and looked deliciously bedraggled with her long blond hair hanging damply around her face. Even the fatigue smudging her eyes didn’t diminish her beauty.
“Can you walk back? Or would you like me to carry you?” And he honestly didn’t know which answer he preferred to hear.
Chapter 12
Kid, The Mountain
Every slam of the hammer against the hot metal vibrated his arms, but he repeated the gesture, over and over. Flipping the sword from side to side. It wasn’t elegant or smooth, but a series of brutal, ham-fisted blows until the metal shrieked and bent at an unnatural angle. Uncaring, Kid turned it over intending to try and knock it back the way it should be when Wyatt plucked the hammer out of his hand.
“Hey,” Kid scowled, but Wyatt ignored him and grabbed the twisted metal wreckage of a blade and dunked it in cold water before tossing it into a scrap barrel along with the other five mistakes Kid made that morning.
“You’re done.” Implacable resolve filled Wyatt’s mismatch colored eyes.
“I need to keep hammering.” He really did. He needed to beat the metal until he was absolutely certain his arms would fall off from trembling fatigue. Since Evelyn’s auspicious arrival, Kid had been on edge. His emotions stampeded one way, then another and her grief—he couldn’t escape it. It perfumed the air like a miasma of honeysuckle on a humid night, cloying and sticky.
“No. You’re not focused and it shows.” Wyatt put away the tools.
“Fine. Then teach me something.” Kid needed something to do, anything to keep him away from the house. He hadn’t been able to leave fast enough that morning.
Wyatt’s brows raised a fraction, his expression unreadable. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong?” The restlessness within him wouldn’t settle. It seethed and surged beneath the surface, anxious to get out, anxious to do something.
“You tell me.” Wyatt sorted through the metal debris.
Instead of answer, Kid tackled another mystery. “What was that pendant that Miss Lang gave you?”
“Grab those.” The eldest Morning Star brother pointed to the burlap sacks stacked in the corner. Eager to do something, Kid swung one up and nearly fell off balance. The bags were a hell of a lot heavier than they appeared.
“What’s in this?”
“Rocks.” Wyatt dragged the barrel of scrap metal over and began to toss pieces into the cast iron cauldron.
“No, I mean what’s really in it?” Kid followed, staggered by the weight.
Wyatt paused and looked him in the eye. “Rocks. River rocks.”
Not following up with the obvious next question, he balanced the weight as Wyatt emptied the last of the discarded and broken bits of metal into the cauldron. The other molten metal inside would help smelt their—Kid’s really—detritus. “Where do you want it?”
“What happened when you found our guest at the bottom of the mountain?” Wyatt tested the weight of a blade before tossing it into the smelter.
Shifting the bag to take pressure off of his shoulder, Kid tried not to shrug and tip it over. “Nothing. I found her, she was injured and not really that conscious. Her arm was a mess and, when she did wake, she was in a lot of pain.”
Examining another blade, Wyatt didn’t look up. “It didn’t look like nothing. Your eyes went black, your fingers curled, and you all but inhaled everything out of her.”
Horror spiked through Kid. “I just took the edge off her pain. I’d meant to make her coherent, but she went out again.”
“So a little more than nothing.” A bland look, no judgment in his expression.
“Yes. Where do you want this?” He shifted the rocks, swinging them from one shoulder to the other as his right began to burn.
Bending down to retrieve smaller scraps, Wyatt sorted through those pieces adding more into the smelt and setting others aside. “And that moment when I arrived, you’d already taken the edge of her pain, so what were you doing next?”
The description of pitch black eyes and mouth open in hunger unsettled the hell out of him. He’d avoided this subject even in his own head since they’d carried the woman back up and especially after the torturous bathhouse session. “Beneath the pain was a wall of grief. It was unfathomable and deeper still writhed self-loathing and disgust. She hates herself for some reason and it was this tangled miasma…”
Wyatt paused in his sorting, his expression intent on Kid.
His shoulders burned from holding the bag, but he didn’t put it down—he wouldn’t until the man told him where he wanted it. Swallowing bile, he looked for the right words. “I wanted to help her. Those kinds of feelings, they can cripple a person, tie them up in knots and maybe even turn them ugly.” But it hadn’t been the right decision. He’d known it the moment Wyatt’s harsh command stopped him. Explaining it and understanding it were two different things.
“Her father died.” Flat, hard words.
“I know…now.” Kid cleared his throat. “I stopped, I didn’t take it. I don’t know why I thought I should take it.” Confessing this part cut deep, but maybe they could explain it to him. “I wanted to help her. I did and I know that easing her pain was right, except that she passed out as soon as I took it and now…” It left him with an opaque lens through which to view his previous choices. “What if taking her pain hurt her?”
Sighing, Wyatt tossed the last few metal bits into the smelter and started to work the bellows, adding to the heat. “That is not an easy question to answer.” The directness of the response surprised him. Particularly when Wyatt and Quanto both preferred vague, leading questions guiding Kid to a conclusion rather than simply providing an answer. “Arguably, our emotions comprise who we are. The bitter person who lost everything and never succeeded in life may have experience all the s
ame things as the person to whom life has allowed a string of success, but they will be different.”
Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Kid grimaced under the burden of the bag, but he didn’t want to interrupt.
“Pain motivates.”
“Pain is pain.”
“When you hurt, you have two choices. Stop what you’re doing that’s hurting you or continue and suffer. Some pains are worth suffering.”
“Did I kill Caroline?” The question came from the deepest, darkest, most hateful part of him—the child who saw his father’s grief as rejection and his brothers’ success as a remark on his own failures. His differences branded him forever apart from his family. Swallowing, he fought to keep his back straight as sweat slicked his skin. The harder Wyatt pumped the bellows, the hotter it became and between the excruciating toll on his muscles and the sultry heat of the forge, he had to fight to stay on his feet and on the subject.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt stopped his motions. “I could argue that she would have died regardless. The fever is indiscriminate and lethal in its effects. It is surprising that so many survived when towns larger than Dorado saw their populations exterminated and were lucky to have even one survivor.”
“I thought—Noah’s presence…” It was a gamble, a guess and one shared by most of Kid’s and Noah’s brothers. The healer worked himself into exhaustion over and over again, treating the sick. He lost more than he saved, but he had saved.
“It’s possible. It’s also possible that a war is coming and the need for more Fevered will continue to grow.” Rubbing his neck, Wyatt walked over to the pail they kept fresh water in and ladled up a drink. “It’s possible that good fortune smiled on the ranch.”
But that didn’t answer his question. “When I took Evel—Miss Lang’s pain,” he didn’t know her well enough to call her Evelyn and it would be better for both of them if he kept their acquaintance to a very polite distance. “She passed out.”
“You said that.” Wyatt took another long drink and watched him with inscrutable eyes.
“I’m trying to figure it out in my head. I couldn’t sleep last night.” And he didn’t know if it was the unsettling effect Miss Lang had on him or a consequence of what he’d nearly done.
“What are you attempting to figure out?” Arms folded, Wyatt may as well have been a statue.
“How much has my ability changed? I thought it was helping people, taking the negative emotions—removing that compulsion Harrison Miller put in Micah’s head, easing their discomforts…” He ducked his head, embarrassed. “Enhancing pleasure, but…”
“But?” A ruthless demand.
“But why did I suddenly want to take all of it from a stranger? When Cody was dying on that mountain, I took it all. I stripped away every agony so he could fight and he survived. It damn near killed me, but it was worth it to save Cody. Evelyn Lang is no one to me.” No matter how beautiful, how fierce she appeared, Kid didn’t owe her anything.
“You know the answer.” Wyatt stared at him unblinking.
Kid’s stomach sank and he shook his head once, a sharp negative. “No, I don’t.”
The other man didn’t look away, he didn’t agree. He waited.
Nausea rippled through him and Kid dropped his gaze. “I don’t want it to be true.”
“Hiding from it helps as much as holding that bag of rocks.”
Frowning, Kid walked the bag back to where he’d picked it up and dropped it onto the stack. “Do all gifts have an ugly side?” They’d discussed this once before.
“Yes.” No hesitation, no softening of the blow.
Palms flat against the bag, Kid exhaled a harsh breath. “Scarlett needs to burn, she can go a while, but then she has to burn.”
“Yes.”
“Cody has to shift, but if he spends too much time as an animal—he begins to lose his humanity.”
“Yes.”
“They’re both a lot better now.”
“They found balance.”
He didn’t want this to be true. He hated that it might be.
“Say it, Kid. The hardest part of this battle is denying it,” Wyatt’s quiet advice washed over him. “You cannot out run yourself.”
“I need to feed on emotion. I tried to strip of all of hers because …” He wanted to throw up. “Because I lost control.”
“Why?”
“Why do I need emotion?” What the hell did Wyatt want from him?
“Why did you lose control?”
Well, that one was easy. “Because I don’t have any.”
Wyatt clapped him on the shoulder, and the muscle’s burning ache turned into a cramp. “The metal piece is something we gave to our students. A token and a map. So they could always find us—and they could send their children if they had them. If they were Fevered, too.”
“You knew her father…” It wasn’t a question and a lot of little pieces of information started to slide together.
“Go walk it off, then meet at the house for dinner.” Apparently he’d spent his revelations for the day. “Stay away from the forge for now, too.”
Kid nodded, he had a lot to think about. He’d just made it to the door when Wyatt added, “Tomorrow, you and Evelyn will start to train together.”
“What?” He pivoted, but Wyatt had crossed to the back of the barn and disappeared through another door, the sound of it closing ringing with a finality.
He didn’t want to train with the beautiful woman—not one he didn’t know and didn’t trust—especially not when he couldn’t trust himself.
Evelyn, The Mountain
She didn’t know what she expected to happen when she finally arrived on the mountain. In retrospect, she’d not thought much beyond getting to her destination. From the moment she set out on horseback from San Antonio, she’d expected the worst, and discovered it. But they’d found her; they’d found her at the bottom and carried her up the rest of the way.
“When you are ready.” They sat on the porch, the snow still lay on the ground, but the sun warmed the day gradually and took the bite out of the chilly air. Despite the illusion of comfort, expectation hung in the air. She’d slept most of the previous day, waking well into the afternoon. Her arm and shoulder were one long brutal ache, but it was just one of many in her exhausted body. The journey had taken a tremendous toll on her. The claw marks stung, but when she peeked beneath the bandage, she found the angry slashes actually looked better.
They’d informed her of their plans during the strained dinner the night before. William barely touched his food, and his gaze refused to meet hers no matter how she tried to engage him. Neither Quanto nor Wyatt seemed to share his reticence, but she didn’t understand what it was Quanto waited on.
“Forgive me.” Tact, she’d decided, was her best weapon in this particular battle. She needed the training, and although she would have preferred a smarter outfit, she’d had to settle for borrowed pants and a heavy shirt. Apparently the last woman to live here didn’t favor dresses overmuch. “When we are ready to begin, what?”
A flicker of what might have been amusement creased the Indian’s face. His docile appearance, she’d already decided, had to be a mask designed to set them at ease. No man could train the abilities her father had only whispered about in situations when he’d been assured of their absolute privacy and not be a terrific power in his own right. The darker man—Wyatt—had to be the son of one of her father’s contemporaries, one he spoke of even more rarely than he had anyone else.
“You said you could conjure, like Edward.” Wyatt leaned against a railing, a slash of night against the sunshine and the snow. Even his voice raised prickles across her skin, ice on ice. If this was his mask, she wasn’t sure she wanted to penetrate deeper than the surface. Had she run into this man anywhere else, she’d have given him a wide berth.
“Yes.” She nodded once. “That is what my father termed it, though I know others would have called it magic or perhaps devil worship.” The last
two words came out a near mute whisper. It surprised her that she felt no such discomfort admitting what she could do to these men. Glancing at William, she studied his profile. His gaze directed out toward the horizon. He’d been so considerate and solicitous on her arrival, and she’d barely seen him the day before, but he wasn’t happy about her presence today.
Perhaps he just doesn’t want to share his lessons with a woman. Her mouth thinned at the thought. He’d hardly be the first who attributed her capabilities as limited due to her gender.
“So, conjure.” Wyatt snapped his fingers and motioned to the snowy landscape beyond as though she were some trained performance pony.
“If I could do it on command,” she lifted her chin, not bothering to disguise her contempt. “Why would I need to be here?”
A hint of a sound, one that suspiciously resembled a laugh, came from William. His shoulders jerked once, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a wry expression. For the barest second, his gaze collided with hers and then away again. The smile erased and his jaw flexed. What offense had she given him? And it irritated her to be wondering that, when she should be focused on the two men she apparently needed to impress.
“You state you possess a gift with absolute certainty,” Quanto spoke into the quiet. “This implies a certain amount of conscious effort—or you would not be able to resist the use of your ability.”
On an utterly rational level, that made sense. Be honest, Evelyn. You gain nothing by hoarding the knowledge you have and everything by making sure they understand not only what you can do, but also what you’ve trained to do. The whisper of her father’s voice—imagined though it had to be, because she’d seen his body, blood-stained and lifeless—kicked her to stand straighter, to be blunt and worry less about the insanity of it all.
Accessing the pathway inside that she’d kept barricaded by briar and trap, bolted against the dark and buried as deeply as possible, she closed her eyes. The ability to conjure, her father warned her more than once, was a slippery slope pock marked by hellish traps—because in the conjuring, intent meant everything.
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