Heart Quest

by Robin D. Owens

  “Oh, yes…and I don’t have any willpower in resisting temptation when it comes to you either.” He bent his head.

  She stepped back. “We’d better take care of the…”

  “Zen garden.”

  “Zen garden.” She grinned. “Exotic words for a fabulous HeartGift. Exotic and fabulous, just like you.” Trif stared at it. Somehow, the arrangement of sand and stones seemed familiar. Then she laughed. “You know what this looks like, don’t you?”

  Ilex stared, blinked. “No. I made it when I was twenty-seven, didn’t much look at it since.”

  She pointed at a square-looking rock, the uneven edge of sand that looked like it had been lapped by water. “It’s the beach beyond MidClass Lodge. The rock is where the fish vendor usually stands.”

  “Lady and Lord, you’re right.”

  Tenderness clogged her throat as she gazed up at him. “Where we first kissed.”

  He took her hands, eyes locked on hers, and pulled her slowly to him. The warmth between them spiraled into heat until her nipples peaked and every inch of her wanted to be pressed against him, feeling the hardness of his muscles.

  This time when he kissed her, she melted into him, opening her mouth, moaning when his tongue swept against hers, sending pure, sizzling delight down every nerve.

  Greyku yowled.

  Their kiss broke and they saw her glaring at the garden and holding her forepaw gingerly.

  Ilex laughed. “Just a small shock, FamCat. There are several spells in that papyrus; one is to keep the garden the same unless Trif or I wish to change it.”

  The kitten flicked her tail and hopped off the table, not deigning to answer.

  Vertic chuckled. Trif looked at him. “Oh! That’s the first time he’s curled on my twoseat.”

  I am Family now, Vertic said. I like the Clover Compound, but my den will be in Clover Grove or the park.

  She smiled, then her gaze caught on the zen garden again. “Lovely gift, thank you.”

  “Let’s have our HeartMate marriage on the beach.”

  She could only sigh. “Yes.”

  “Soon, within a couple of eightdays, before it gets too cold.”

  “Yes.”

  Now he let out a deep breath, kissed her mouth, her eyelids. “I love you, Trif. Always. To death and beyond.”

  She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t have lived without you Ilex.” She stroked his cheek. “I might have survived, but I wouldn’t have lived. I love you, to death and beyond.”

  Greyku purred. And We all get More.

  Epilogue

  Ilex stood hand in hand with Trif, their wrists lightly tethered together with a meter length of ribbon, watching the tide come in and listening to the final notes of their Heart-Mate song. They were in the middle of a Ritual Circle, surrounded by their friends and families who sang the tune composed by D’Holly—the last formality of their HeartMate wedding.

  “We pronounce these two individuals legally bound!” said the Birches, who officiated as Goddess and God. “The Circle is now open, let the merriment begin.”

  A cheer went up; then the large circle broke into small clumps of people, talking.

  “This is perfect. Perfect.” Trif spun around, her gauzy dress whirling. Ilex quick-stepped with her, then caught her close, savoring the fast beat of her heart against his chest. She’d never looked so beautiful.

  He’d never been so happy.

  “Perfect,” she said once more before she brushed her lips against his.

  She was almost right. Everyone sent blessings toward them, as was expected in a wedding. He was especially pleased his brother, nephew, and nephew’s pregnant wife attended. Family.

  But Ilex didn’t need any Flair to notice the roiling emotions of all the Hollys—and former Hollys—present. No hope for it, they’d had to invite them.

  D’Holly was Trif ’s teacher, and had just formally notified the guildhall that Trif had mastered Journeywoman status. Naturally, they’d had to invite D’Holly’s HeartMate, GreatLord T’Holly.

  Lark Apple, HeartMate of the former Holm Holly, son of T’Holly and D’Holly, was Trif ’s best friend.

  The former Tinne Holly was now Tinne Winterberry and Ilex’s brother, as Genista Winterberry was Ilex’s sister.

  It was enough to make his head ache—and his heart, if he hadn’t been so happy.

  Trif was his.

  Bound together in every way, and now by long, formal, legally witnessed HeartMate Ritual.

  “Let’s dance!” demanded Trif. She waved at some of her musician friends, who picked up instruments and mixed lively music with the sound of wind and wave. She began a traipsing line dance down the beach, then grabbed D’Holly’s hand. “You first!” she ordered Ilex, and with complete joy he led them down the beach.

  D’Holly clasped her husband’s hand and the chain lengthened. Trif ’s eyes sparkled up at him in a glance. Circle round Lark and Holm now, like we planned.

  Ilex took the revelers to Lark and Holm Apple, slightly slowing. The atmosphere leadened around them, charged with electricity.

  T’Holly hesitated, then grabbed Lark’s hand—the woman he’d disowned his son over. He brought her fingers to his lips, and after he kissed her hand, his voice boomed, “Blessings upon you and my son Holm, daughter-in-law, Lark Holly!”

  A visceral shout tore from everyone. Ilex felt it rise from his gut at the lifting of the curse, the mending of the Broken Vows of Honor.

  Tears rolled down Lark’s cheeks.

  Ilex stopped, and so did everyone else.

  Holm Holly stepped forward and embraced T’Holly. “Father,” he said. He turned to his mother. “Mamá.”

  “Blessings upon your marriage and your HeartMating, beloved Holm,” D’Holly said.

  Tinne and Genista Winterberry approached the Hollys. T’Holly stiffened.

  “I made it a stipulation of my loyalty oath to D’Winterberry that should this moment come to pass, both Genista and I would no longer be Winterberrys, but Hollys.”

  T’Holly closed his eyes, opened them, and his arms. Tinne hugged his father. Genista air-kissed T’Holly’s cheek, her manner cool. The actions were repeated with D’Holly.

  D’Holly raised her voice. “Music! Let’s dance.”

  This is a perfect complement to our wedding, Trif said along their link. What a blessing we have been given, that we have mended such a rift on our day.

  The musicians started “Greyku’s Jig,” and the kitten ran in front to lead the dance. Ilex followed her, smiling at the sight of her multicolored pastel fur gleaming in the sunlight. He wound around others, gathering them into the chain, into the joyous celebration of his marriage.

  The air sparkled with the additional benediction of a Family made whole.

  Raucous Clover children played with Fams and raced up and down the beach. Vinni T’Vine spun off to join the adult dancers. He took Ilex’s hand and led the dance in a gleeful caper. That was very well done, Trif and Ilex Winterberry.

  Trif answered, It came to us both, in a vision.

  Then you are both blessed.

  We know, Ilex projected at the same time Trif did.

  And they laughed together.

  Her bright eyes and radiant face raised to his, and his breath stopped at the beauty of her, and his future. “I will love you always, to death and beyond.”

  “To death and beyond,” she said, and their words echoed around them in a song.

  Now for a preview of Robin D. Owens’s next novel,

  Heart Match

  Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

  DRUIDA CITY, CELTA,

  405 years after Colonization, winter, morning before Workbell

  Dufleur watched the fresh pinecone wither before her eyes and fall into dust. This experiment with time was not going at all well.

  “No, not good.” She wished she had her father’s notes.

  You want to reverse time.

  She knew what she wanted to do and didn’t need
a cat to point it out, but managed to keep her comment between her teeth.

  With a Word she dismissed the clear force field around the tube. The cylinder exploded, sparks flying. Dufleur flung her arms in front of her face, shoved back her chair. What had happened? And why now and never before?

  A yowl came from her left, along with a nasty singeing odor. Fairyfoot was hopping around, the ends of her whiskers glowing red. “That was interesting,” Dufleur said.

  Noooo, moaned Fairyfoot, racing through the only door of the secret room into Dufleur’s bedroom. My whiskers are ugly! Horrible, horrible, horrible! How am I to judge distances with damage to my whiskers? She jumped up and down and spat at her reflection in the spotted mirror on Dufleur’s bedroom closet door.

  “I’m sorry,” Dufleur said. Her stomach clenched. Is this what had happened to her father’s lab that fatal night? She shoved the thought aside; that would lead to emotion, and emotion had no place in touchy scientific experiments. “Want me to—”

  You have done enough. Fairyfoot plopped down and began meticulously stroking each whisker with a licked paw.

  Dufleur gulped and braced herself on the battered table set in the middle of the large stone room on the lowest level of Winterberry House. With a writestick, she noted down the failed results. She hadn’t slowed time but had done the complete opposite—sped it up to such a rapid rate that the fresh spruce pinecone had disintegrated. There might be a use for this spell someday, if she could standardize it and incorporate it into an object people could use. But right now it was just a failure of what she really wanted to do.

  A knock came at the door of her bedroom, beyond this hidden room she used for her illegal, secret experiments.

  Damn, her cuz, Guardsman Ilex Winterberry, was here a little early to collect the gift she’d made for him and his wife.

  Using a voice-projection spell she called, “One moment!” Shrugging from her lab coat at a run, she flung it onto the chair, shot into her bedroom. Then she muttered a couplet to slide the stone door of the concealed room shut and grabbed her outdoor cloak.

  She opened the hall door to her cuz. “Greetyou,” she said, only a little out of breath.

  “Greetyou, cuz,” Ilex said, smiling. He was always smiling now, his serious nature lightened by his HeartBonding to the vivacious and optimistic Trif Clover and with a baby on the way. “Trif sent me for the baby robe. Still six months before the child comes and she’s wild to have the gown. And when she’s anxious she gives me no peace.” He sniffed and a puzzled look crossed his face.

  Oh, no! She’d forgotten he was sensitive to smells. With less care than she should have, she picked up the small gown she’d finished the night before and handed it to him.

  “Exquisite. Simply exquisite.” He met her eyes. “This will be a treasured Family heirloom for us.”

  The kindness in his eyes, the affection emanating from him for her, closed her throat. She smiled back. “Thank you.”

  “You’re ready for work? Why don’t I walk you to the public carrier plinth?” He set the gown back in the box she’d pulled it from, put the lid on the box, and sealed it with a tap of his finger.

  Was she acting suspicious? Guilty? He’d notice that, too.

  Fairyfoot hissed. He glanced down. “My apologies for rudeness, Fairyfoot. Greetyou.”

  Dufleur looked down at her Fam. Her whiskers looked fine. One word about the experiments and you find yourself a new FamWoman, she sent privately to the cat.

  Tail high, Fairyfoot left the bedroom for the basement hallway. Dufleur exited the chamber and let Ilex shut the door behind her. He sent a glance around the bedroom. He might very well know of the secret room. She hurried to the stairs that led up to the main level entryway.

  “Dufleur?”

  Tensing, she turned back with a strained smile that froze on her face when she saw his fingers curve over the door latch. “Yes?”

  He said a short spell. “You forgot to spellshield your rooms.” Now his gaze was blank. “You might want to keep your personal things…personal.”

  Her heart thumped hard. Did he have any idea she was carrying on her father’s work? She wished she could do it openly, but that bitch D’Willow had made a mockery of her father’s name and experiments. If anyone knew she was as fascinated with time as he had been, she’d lose all credibility and perhaps even her job. Perhaps this place where she lived and worked. Hot rage sizzled deep inside.

  Ilex cleared his throat. “Our mothers can…pry.”

  She forced herself to present a calm front, to pull her mind to this lesser concern and answer him. “They’re snoops, you mean.”

  His lips curved. “Yes.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes. Neither of them had good relationships with their mothers, who lived upstairs. Of course that was because neither of their mothers was a reasonable person. She spared him the knowledge that his mother, D’Winterberry, was too deep into the yar-duan liquor addiction to leave her rooms anymore.

  “Your mother has paid little attention to me. As for mine,” Dufleur shrugged. “Fairyfoot has been a blessing in many ways, not the least because my mother is allergic to cats. If she pries, she pays.” Her smile was just as bleak as his.

  He nodded.

  They were out the front door and into the winter cold before Ilex spoke again. They had reached the corner and turned left. Four carrier lines stopped here, in the once noble neighborhood that was slowly disintegrating. Dufleur rode straight into CityCenter.

  “Sure you don’t want to teleport?” Ilex asked.

  It would take too much of her psi energy, her Flair, that she would need for her daily work, as well as more experiments this evening. “I prefer not to.”

  He held out his hand and she put her fingers in his. “Thank you again for the lovely gift.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Dufleur…”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful.” He dropped her hand. As she watched, he disappeared from view, teleporting back to his beloved wife and her large, optimistic family.

  Dufleur had never felt so lonely.

  Saille T’Willow, GreatLord T’Willow, stood with his hands clasped behind him as he stared at the cryogenics tube holding his not-quite-late MotherDam, struggling to keep his bitterness from showing.

  Ruis Elder, Captain of the ancient colonist ship, Nuada’s Sword, stood beside him. “As you can see, her life indicators are still doing well. When the Healers find a cure for her debilitating disease, we will be able to awaken her for treatment.”

  “I thank you for all you have done,” Saille said evenly. He hadn’t made any of the arrangements. She had, the former GreatLady T’Willow, also named Saille, who had despised him. Unlike most Celtans, she hadn’t accepted death like a reasonable person, but had fought its coming…because she loathed him, hated the fact that he was her Heir and would take the title.

  For generations the strongest Flaired person in the Willow Family had been female. Until him. His grandmother took it as a personal blow that he, a man, would be the foremost matchmaker on Celta.

  Now she lay in the cryogenics tube, and deep in the fissures of her brain where a neuron still sparked with life she no doubt hoped that she would be revived. When she was, she’d reclaim everything he had…or struggle for power with a descendent of his. It was lowering to understand that he’d prefer that.

  “Want to pull the plug?” Ruis whispered.

  The phrase meant nothing to Saille. “What?”

  Ruis bent down and opened a panel in the stand on which the tube rested, pointed at a thick cable. “This is her life support.” Leaving the door open he stood and looked at the large woman. “I can’t think this will ever work. I know it doesn’t seem right to me.”

  Saille stared at the cable. Now it seemed to throb like a mutant gray slug. Temptation beckoned. Yes, he yearned to “pull the plug.” But he couldn’t. “She contracted with you.” Paid the Captain an extortionate amount of gilt to refurbish the tube
and be placed in it, kept alive before the last, fatal stage of her disease began.

  Ruis tapped a forefinger on the clear material of the tube. “Sometimes rules—and contracts—must be bent to ensure justice. She’d die in, what, two weeks, if she weren’t inside here?”

  “That’s the amount of time the Healers gave her.” Saille found the laugh coming from himself sounding far too harsh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she proved them wrong.” She ever was contrary.

  “Arrogant,” Ruis said. “I’ve never cared for arrogant people. She didn’t negotiate with me, you know.” His mouth twisted. “She knew better than that. She was one of the people who voted for my execution. Instead she caught my wife in a soft moment.” He shrugged. “Or my wife’s telempathy assured her that D’Willow should be spared.” He looked around the gleaming metal walls of the ship. “Still, it’s a drain upon Ship’s power and systems, even though Ship considers this an interesting experiment.”

  “Spare me interesting experiments,” Saille said.

  “My feelings exactly.” Ruis scratched his chin. “I believe in accepting death, in the soul’s circling the wheel of stars into reincarnation.” He waved at the tube. “This is unnatural. Our ancestors used these tubes while they traveled from one planet to a new one, not simply for life extension. Unnatural.”

  Saille could only agree. But he couldn’t say so. “This is what she wants, and I will obey her instructions.”

  Ruis slanted a look at him, lifted and dropped a shoulder. “I hear your Family has welcomed you as the new head.”

  Now Saille could smile with real feeling. “Yes, the ladies are an affectionate bunch.” He spared one last look at the mound of his MotherDam. “She was a difficult woman to live with as the disease took its toll.” And for about a hundred years before that, too.

  “Well, then, you have some blessings in your life.”

  “Many.” That was the truth.

  A high, giggling shriek echoed down the hallway outside the room and Ruis laughed as the metal door slid open and his year-old daughter toddled into the chamber.