“Does your brother still live in your family Keep there?”
“Yes, he’s married with his own children, but I haven’t seen him in years.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“At the gathering where I married Rowan. He married his wife at the same gathering, but as is our custom, I came back here with Rowan and he stayed at home with his wife.”
“So, you’ve never seen his children, either? Don’t you see each other at gatherings?”
“Prowiss Keep is too far away. We don’t get together for gatherings, and the longer I stay here, the easier it is to stay here. My son Rahni sees them sometimes, though.”
Reyna pricked up her ears. “Your son Rahni?”
“Yes, my oldest son. He travels up north several times a year. He knows his cousins and their families better than anyone.”
“I keep hearing about Rahni. He sounds like a very interesting person.”
“He is. He’s…let’s just say he’s unique.”
“Does he tell you about your family? Does he tell you everyone’s alive and well up there?”
“I’m sure I would hear if they weren’t.”
“Do you have any other siblings?”
“I have two sisters, both married into other Clans, and I have two other brothers. My other two brothers are much older, then my two sisters, and then me and Connal are very close in age. I’m the youngest. My brothers married when I was still young, so I never got as close to them as I did to Connal.”
“And your sisters?”
“They were much more concerned with finding husbands. That left Connal as my closest playmate.”
“Did he feel the loss as much as you did when you moved away?”
“I don’t think I felt the loss. I was wrapped up in Rowan, and then I started having children. I imagine Connal felt the loss more than I did, since he stayed at home in our Keep without his old confidante. I suspect he replaced me with his wife, though. That’s usually how it works, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been without my sister. We were connected by a bond stronger than blood from my earliest memories. We both entered the service together, and we made sure we studied for careers where we could work together. We’ve always been together and confided in each other—at least, until now.”
“And now? What has happened now?”
“I don’t know what happened. Rose has some secret she’s keeping from me and the rest of the team. This is the first time she’s kept anything from me, and it’s driving us apart.”
“I think I know what her secret is. Would you like me to tell you?”
Reyna’s head shot up. “You do? What is it?”
“She’s in love with Rohn. She loves Rohn just as much as you love Damen.”
A flood of images rushed into Reyna’s mind. Of course! Rose started acting strangely when she took Rohn to her room. They couldn’t keep their eyes off each other ever since. Then Rohn rescued Rose in the forest. They must have connected out there.
“She might love him as much as I love Damen, but she would never stay on this planet. She’s a career physician and commander of our team. She would never let herself get swept away by a man.”
“And you would?”
“I never would have before, but I am now.”
Chapter 14
Reyna stayed in the library for hours, long after Fay left her alone. Rose stopped by for a brief conversation, but Fay kept them occupied with stories about how the great war got started that robbed Rowan Harkniss of his brothers. She gave them accounts of Clan fighting Clan over a love match gone wrong, and even plural marriages to seal the peace between rivals for the same lover.
After Rose left, Reyna poured over one document after another, one dust-covered book after another, until her head swam. The thousand interconnections between all the different Kratak Clans would take her a lifetime to document. The sun passed overhead, and the shafts of light shifted across the room until they disappeared. The room darkened but Reyna kept reading until her eyes smarted.
She closed the book she was reading and went to the window. The mountains stood in the shadow of Harkniss Keep. Pastel clouds migrated across the sky. What a beautiful world it really was.
Fay’s kindness changed Reyna’s whole attitude toward her decision. So, the patriarch and matriarch accepted her as Damen’s lover. They had no objection to her, and they would accept her if she stayed on the planet.
Her heart soared when she thought of staying. All this could be hers. She could look out the window every day and see this magnificent country. The weight of years of confinement and lethargy lifted off her shoulders. Her soul rose on pointed wings to soar above this forested planet.
Not even the thought of Rose could disturb those dreams. When Rose was gone, Reyna would take solace in the beauty and kindness surrounding her. She would turn to Damen instead of Rose. He would be her new confidante, and she would grow closer to his family members with the passing of years.
She could let go of the Allies, along with their space stations and their technology. Those things meant nothing to her in the face of all this natural splendor and her growing love for Damen. She belonged here. Rose could turn her back on Rohn. She could kiss Rohn good-bye and go back to her old life, but Reyna never could.
She would launch herself into a new galaxy. She would travel to different worlds populated by Clan connections. All the fascinating genealogical puzzles she spent her career unraveling would still tease her brain and fill her days. Now, though, she would live in a natural world full of real people instead of straw scarecrows.
Her sister Rose was one of those scarecrows. If Rose could say good-bye to a man like Rohn and return to her puny lovers back home, she wasn’t the person Reyna always admired. She didn’t value the same things Reyna valued. She cared for appearances and the benefits of subservient men.
Reyna left the library. She planned to join the family, and maybe her team, for the evening meal, but when she got out of the library, she changed her mind. She went toward the eastern entrance. She wouldn’t see the sun from there, but at least she could spread her arms to the open air and let her spirit take flight the way her body could not.
Halfway down the passage, she stopped short when she saw Callan and Haya standing together against the wall. They murmured to each other in low tones, but Callan frowned when he spotted Reyna.
He addressed Haya, but he raised his voice so Reyna could hear. “You stay away from her. She’s bad news.”
Reyna braced herself and approached the couple. “I’m sorry I said some offensive things to you, Callan. I should have learned the truth before I repeated something I heard secondhand.”
The lines on his brow deepened more than ever. “Do you think you can make friends with me by apologizing? I will never accept you and your people. If I had my way, you would be expelled from the planet.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll do my best to improve your impression of us in the future.”
“You won’t have a chance. I’ll stay away from you, and in a year, you’ll be gone.”
“You might find it harder than that. Our people will have relations with this planet for a long time to come.”
“That will never happen. You’ll have to invade to change our opinion of you.”
“The Allies don’t invade. We can only continue to repeat that until you start to believe it.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now? You’re invading a private conversation between me and my wife.”
“I didn’t hear a word you said. I was just walking down the passage minding my own business.”
“Well, you can keep walking.”
Reyna pushed past him. “All right. I will. I hope you have a pleasant evening.”
Callan let her go, but Haya whipped around and caught Reyna’s arm. “Don’t rush off. He’s really not as bad as you think.”
Haya shifted from one foot to another. “I know what I said, but he’s still my husband and I love him.”
“Why did you lie to me, Haya? Why did you say Callan drove Warku away from the gatherings when he never did anything of the kind?”
Haya’s eyes snapped wide open. “What?”
Callan came up behind her. “Did you tell her that?”
“Asya told me she’d seen her uncle at the gatherings many times. She said Callan and Warku were on fine terms.”
Haya looked around with wild eyes. “I just….”
“Damen says the brothers really did fight over you, so that part of your story is true. Now tell me the rest. Why did you lie about Callan hating Warku?”
Callan came around and stood at Reyna’s shoulder. Now he directed his frown toward his wife. “Have you been lying about me to these people?”
“You don’t understand!” Haya shrieked. “I did it to protect you.”
“Protect me? How?”
Haya turned her desperate eyes to her husband. “These people don’t understand our ways. I wanted to keep the secret from them.”
“What secret?”
Haya turned to Reyna. “Ask your sister the doctor. I’m sure Rohn has told her by now that we women can choose when and from whom we get pregnant.”
Reyna’s eyes popped out of her head. “You can?”
Haya nodded. “Most of the time, when young people get together at the gatherings, they never have to worry about someone going home pregnant. They can play around as much as they like. The women get pregnant after they get married and go home to their new husband’s Keep.”
“So, what are you telling me?”
Haya’s voice rose to a screech. “I got pregnant. Don’t you see? I got pregnant when I was at Assan Keep.”
Callan stared at her. “You didn’t.”
The words rushed out of her in a blur. “After you came back from the hunt and closed the door, I couldn’t tell which man was taking me from which direction. Everything happened so fast, and I was in a delirium of ecstasy. I loved both of you more than anything, and I thought you felt the same way about me. My mind was buzzing day and night. I was full of both of you.
“I thought we would be happy together. I thought I would stay there, in Assan Keep, with both of you. I never thought you would fight over me. I let it happen. I opened my body to receive your seed, and I let myself get pregnant. I got pregnant from Warku.”
Reyna blinked. “But that means….”
Haya hung her head. “Warku is Asya’s father, not Callan.”
Callan staggered back as if he’d been struck. “How could you keep this from me all these years? You never told me.”
“You loved Asya so much. I couldn’t tell you.”
“Does Warku know?”
Haya shook her head. “I wanted to tell him, too. That’s why I wanted to get in touch with him without Callan finding out.”
“All these years!” Callan murmured. “All those times the three of us got together at the gatherings. You gave yourself to both of us again and again, for seventeen years, and you never told either one of us.”
Reyna’s jaw dropped. “You three got together…sexually, you mean? You shared her all the time, every time you attended a gathering with your family?”
“Why shouldn’t we? I defeated him in a fair fight. She’s my wife, but that’s no reason not to give her the pleasure of two men together. She wanted it. She wanted it from both ends.”
Reyna closed her eyes. “I don’t understand any of this. How could you share your wife with another man—your own brother?”
“It was easy, but it was all a lie. Every kiss was a lie. Every touch of her hand was a lie.” He turned away.
Haya went after him and clung to his arm. “Please don’t walk away. Can’t you ever forgive me? I never suspected you would fight over me. When you fought and defeated him, and when your parents agreed that we should come back here, it was the greatest disaster of my life. I couldn’t go back and change what I had done. I couldn’t change that I was pregnant. I could only come back with you and hope you never found out the truth. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
His great shoulders shuddered, and he let out a shaky breath. He lifted his eyes to his wife’s face. “All right. It doesn’t matter. I still love Asya just as much as if she was mine. I’ve raised her from a baby, so she really is mine.”
Haya choked back sobs. “Do you really mean it? You forgive me?”
Callan nodded. “We’ll get in touch with Warku and tell him. He has a right to know. He might want to come here and visit Asya.”
“And you won’t mind if he does come?”
“I never minded if he came. You’ve seen him at the gatherings for years. Him coming here won’t make any difference.”
A broken sound, half laugh and half sob, escaped Haya’s mouth. She hung onto his arm for dear life. “Thank you! Thank you!”
They paid no more attention to Reyna. Callan looped Haya’s arm through his, and they walked away down the passage together. Reyna watched them go. So that was one mystery solved. What other secrets lay buried in these colossal Keeps?
She continued on her way to the eastern entrance. She quickened her step when she saw light flooding the passage, but she drew back when a shadow crossed the doorway. She cringed against the wall and peeked around the corner.
Standing right in the doorway was the red dragon. He beat the air with his wings and hissed through his open mouth. To Reyna’s surprise, another dragon faced him across the entrance. It was the purple dragon she’d seen so many times in her love-making with Damen.
He bobbed his head back and forth and danced around the red dragon. They matched each other’s movements. Except from their colors, they exactly mirrored each other in every detail.
Reyna drew back around the corner where she could see them without being seen herself. Their behavior formed part and parcel of the absolute rightness of the place. Nothing could make more sense than seeing these two massive creatures framed by the dusky sky. Their movements balanced everything she’d seen and heard. Nothing could be more perfect than this.
The red dragon bowed its head with a croaking hiss. It arched back and beat its wings. In an instant, it soared skyward and dwindled into the distance. When Reyna turned around again, she found Damen standing where the purple dragon once stood.
He smiled at her. “The hermit emerges from her tomb.”
She laughed and lifted her face to receive his kiss. “I needed to stretch my legs and get something to eat.”
“Then we better go down to the hall before Rohn eats it all.”
She waved toward the entrance. “Who was that?”
“My brother Rahni.”
She started in surprise. Why did the fact shock her? Didn’t she already know these people were dragons? She turned around to catch one last glimpse of him flying over the mountains when she stumbled over the parapet and lost her footing. She put out her hand to catch herself, but her own momentum sent her spinning over the cliff.
Damen darted forward with his hand out. Reyna snatched at his fingers, but he couldn’t hold her. She tumbled backward and plummeted into space.
Chapter 15
The wind whistled through Reyna’s hair. She flapped her arms and legs in every direction. She couldn’t get the sad reality to penetrate her mind. She was falling through thin air, plunging toward the jagged rocks far below.
Harkniss Keep zipped out of sight. Its craggy summit stuck up into the air above her head. It got smaller and smaller the farther she fell.
The cold night air blasted through her clothes. The Keep’s warm halls would never drive that chill away from her again. She would never see Damen or Rose or any of her friends again.
This was the worst of all poss
ible outcomes. If she stayed on the planet, she would have Damen. If she left the planet, she would have Rose. Now she would have neither of them. She would crash to her death and oblivion would take her.
Why, oh why did she hesitate to make her decision? Why did she shillyshally around what she really wanted? Why did she waste the precious hours of her life worrying about what Rose or Fay or anyone else would think? She should have seized her life with both hands and never let go until she wrung her own heart’s desire from it.
The last rays of the setting sun touched the mountaintops and turned them bright lavender. She had to say good-bye to this beautiful world, too. That hurt worst of all. Just when she thought she’d found what she was looking for, it slipped through her fingers. Now she would never know the happiness she enjoyed in these last brief days.
Something changed in the sky above her. Out of the clouds, a shape pulsed with golden sunlight. Then the shadows swallowed it again.
All of a sudden, the shape reappeared and a dragon rocketed toward her from above. She twisted around to get a better look at it. It was the same color as the violet sky behind it, so she couldn’t see it clearly. Her mind flipped. It was Damen.
He streaked out of the sky so fast she never had a chance to cry out. He folded his wings against his back and dove straight at her. He screeched through the air with the wind whining over his scales.
He hit her with all his great bulk, and his talons closed around her body. He knocked her out of the sky, and the next thing she knew, he was soaring upwards with her into the gleaming clouds.
Reyna dangled from his claws in limp shock. What was happening? She couldn’t force her mind to function. He swooped over the Keep and down into the black valleys. He whooshed past trees and between crags to a part of the forest she never knew existed. She hadn’t been out of the Keep since she set foot on this planet.
Damen (Dragons of Kratak Book 2) Page 11
