Guardian of Honor

by Robin D. Owens

  The young man stopped at a small walkway up to stone stairs and a lovely stone house. He opened the door and ushered them in.

  A beautiful chandelier with slim, pointed white crystals illuminated a small entryway. The walls were hung with bright tapestries of forest scenes. Alexa didn't have time to study them before they were shown into a library.

  It was a comfortable room full of wooden bookcases and rich carpets. On the desk was a neat pile of papers that looked like a report, and nothing else.

  As they entered, Masif himself stood in the center of a grouping of two large chairs and a small couch near the fire.

  Alexa liked the room a lot, though it seemed as if everything was a shade too neat, too precisely placed. Still, she took mental notes so she could compare her own library to this one. She wanted one as homey.

  "Please, sit. Refreshments?" Masif asked.

  "No, thank you," Bastien said. He seated her and sat himself, then gave Masif some guy-look that made the man look amused.

  "I'll get right to the point, then," Masif said, and sat once more.

  "We are concerned about some missing people—The Citymasters have been divided regarding whether to bother the Marshalls with the discrepancies, but I believe we have a problem." He gestured to the papers on his desk. "It appears that the disappearances started with animals—pets or food animals—then escalated to children, the elderly, then adults in their prime."

  Bastien tensed beside her. "How many people?"

  Masif tapped steepled fingers together. "Twenty confirmed disappearances of people. About twice that of animals."

  "Bad," said Bastien.

  "Yes. It seems the horrors have touched us here—something more than the frinks or Mockers. We don't know what. Our Lorebooks don't record anything more threatening. It is interesting that the area first affected was near the place where the Marshall and I disposed of the Mockers."

  Masif met her eyes for the first time. They shared that memory.

  Bastien draped his arm around Alexa's shoulders. Masif smiled.

  Bastien traced circles on her shoulder.

  "You think it might be something associated with the Mockers?"

  "I don't know." He glanced again toward the report. "But it is interesting that no one was designated missing during a certain time period."

  "Yes?" Bastien asked.

  "When Marshall Alyeka was away from the Castle on her travels," Masif said softly. "The disappearances resumed when she returned. And they seem to be increasing exponentially."

  When Bastien's face went tight, he looked remarkably like his brother, even a bit like his father, Alexa thought.

  "Whatever it is will have to get through me to touch her," Bastien said.

  "I can see that." Masif nodded. "Good. The one thing all the Masters in all the City and Town gatherings agree on is that Marshall Alyeka is a boon to Lladrana."

  Joan of Arc again. Alexa suppressed a sigh.

  Masif smiled and looked much younger, more approachable. "I don't recall if I said it before, Marshall, but welcome to Lladrana."

  "Thank you." Alexa inclined her head.

  Bastien drummed his fingers on her shoulder, tugged at her hair a bit, like he was thinking hard. "I don't know if you've heard..."

  Masif's gaze sharpened.

  "The Chevaliers of the Field have seen dreeths near battles."

  Alexa had seen pictures of dreeths—huge, bloated pterodactyl-things—in a Lorebook. She shifted a little closer to Bastien.

  The Citymaster paled under his golden skin. "Dreeths," he breathed. "No. We haven't heard this. Things are getting worse. These strange vanishings. Dreeths. The horrors are invading our land." Stern again, his eyes met hers, then Bastien's. "We must stop this. At any cost."

  "I agree. I'll let Lady Hallard and my brother Luthan know of your concerns." Standing, Bastien pulled Alexa to her feet.

  Masif frowned as he rose. "Do you think we should notify the Sorcerers and Sorceresses of the Tower?"

  A crack of laughter escaped Bastien. "I'd wager they already know. Who speaks to them on behalf of the cities and towns?"

  Grimacing, Masif said, "We've expected the Marshalls to do that for us. Either we will have to appoint a spokesperson or you will have to ensure the Marshalls earn our trust again."

  "We're doing our best, but it's a slow process," Bastien said.

  "One last thing," Masif said.

  "Yes?" Bastien asked.

  "There have also been accounts of an unusual gray dust—"

  Something in his tone chilled her to the bone. Visions of Mockers and frinks and people being sucked dry until their bodies turned into dust particles sped through Alexa's mind. Since the two men were unnaturally quiet, muscles tensed, she got the idea they imagined the same thing.

  "Bad," said Bastien.

  Masif nodded. "Very bad."

  "We'll take care of it," Alexa said, not knowing why she said it, where the words came from.

  "Of course we will," said Masif.

  "Of course," Bastien echoed.

  Their walk back up to the Castle was different from their stroll down to the Town. The silence wore on her.

  "Bastien," she said.

  He looked down at her and squeezed her hand. "Yes?"

  She licked her lips. "I think I know what sort of horror it might be. I think I ran into it."

  "What!" All his attention focused on her.

  She sensed his magic rising.

  "That night at the inn, The Singer's Hand, I ran into something. It was like a spider's web in a narrow passage. It tried to smother me, but I fought it off. I thought... I don't know that I did think about it." She'd been foolishly obsessing over Bastien the next day, then had forgotten about the web-thing. "I suppose I thought it was a regular bad-magic thing that I didn't know about but everyone else did."

  Bastien swore. His face took on an underlying pallor. He pulled her close in a hug. His hands rubbed up and down her back. "The things you don't know scare me. We'll keep our eyes out for this beast."

  He kissed her hard, then released her and they walked faster now up to the Castle. Alexa tried not to think, not to visualize or extrapolate what had happened to the towns she'd visited. Not to worry whether something else was after her now.

  Even though it was late when they reached the Castle, Alexa insisted on speaking to the Marshalls about Masif's news. She considered it a good omen that they were all bathing together in the main baths. She steeled herself to undress and briefly appear naked before them.

  The main bath was the turquoise and white one where Alexahad been drugged. Because of that memory and because there was usually someone from the Noble Apartments or one of the Marshalls there when she wanted to bathe privately, she usually showered. She didn't think she'd ever be comfortable bathing publicly in mixed company.

  So she was brisk in her undressing, but still knew that her skin was so pale that blue veins showed under her skin—veins that were never seen in Lladranans. Her nipples were different-colored, and her pubic hair was now as silver as the hair on her head. Her coloring made people stare—even the Marshalls. And when Bastien stopped his undressing to watch her every move, it made her blush—and that was even more interesting from everyone's point of view but her own.

  She jumped into the water as if it was always the way she entered a bathing pool and she didn't care where the splash flew.

  Finally she was settled in, with Bastien beside her. She glanced from Bastien to his father, Reynardus, noting the scars on both their bodies, the blue aura from the jerir that seemed easier to see in the rising steam. Even though she knew Reynardus had braved the jerir twice and Bastien only once, Bastien's aura was thicker, stronger. Wild magic.

  He must have caught the tenor of her thoughts because he tugged at a strand of her silver hair and said, "You glow like a blue star. Awesome. Perfect."

  She snorted, not believing that for an instant. Then she sucked in a deep breath and told the Marshall
s of their little trip to Town and the visit with Sevair Masif.

  Faith, the Loremarshall, frowned and suddenly a book plopped gently onto the water, floating, green leather cover closed.

  Alexa could read the title! Even curlicued letters in gold didn't stop her. It said Lorebook of Monsters. She bit her lip and slid downa little so the steam masked the stinging in her eyes. She had so missed reading!

  "Not a great deal of information," Faith said, then addressed the book. "Unseen horror apparently able to manifest deep in Lladrana in the towns and cities and able to move from place to place, apparently feeding on animals then children then adults, apparently gaining strength, apparently leaving no trace except gray dust."

  The book quivered, sending out tiny ripples of water. The cover opened and smacked the water, the pages riffled themselves to the end, then back, then fluttered to a halt near the end of the book. Water beaded on the pages, then ran off into the bath.

  Alexa stared. Nobody seemed to think a floating book with waterproof pages was anything unusual. Wow. Again wow. Would wonders never cease? If she stayed in Lladrana the rest of her life, she figured some magic would surprise her every day.

  The Marshalls drifted over to the book. "Johnsa will image for me," Faith said.

  Johnsa, Faith's Sword, touched the tip of her forefinger to the drawing. Her finger and the page glowed red, then a three-dimensional image consolidated in the middle of the pool. It looked like a nasty gray cocoon.

  Faith summed up the information in a cool voice. "This is a tournpench, and it meets most of the qualifications stated above. The Lorebook of Monsters is arranged by threat. As you can see, this one is near the end of the book, essentially a minor evil on the level of a snipper. It is of little threat to any being with three strands of silver at one temple, which would include most of the middle class of townsfolk and above. The tournpench is not considered a horror from over the border, but something manifesting from a miasma of magic in a certain neighborhood or town. As it grows stronger, it can move." She frowned. "This notes it should move more slowly than Alyeka reported."

  "Something generated by a town. That would make it none of our affair, and Town or City business," Reynardus said.

  "I agree," Johnsa said, and let the image fade.

  Reynardus raised his eyebrows. "Does anyone not agree?"

  No one spoke. Alexa struggled with an uneasy feeling. What they said didn't feel right, but she was so new to her magic that she couldn't describe why.

  Bastien snorted, stood and walked to the pool's steps, immediately distracting Alexa. God, what an ass the man had! His back was less scarred than his front. Figured, he'd always be one to face his enemies head-on—though from the way he irritated people,she would have expected to see a knife scar in his back—He took a dark blue robe from one of those hanging on a hook in a pillar, wrapped himself in it and stared back at the Marshalls.

  "You lot are as unhelpful as ever." Then he switched his attention to Alexa, and smiled slowly.

  She thought the pool heated ten degrees with that smile. He retrieved another robe and she saw that it was a lot shorter than the others. And purple.

  She was torn between pride that she had a robe like the rest of the Marshalls and resignation that no one had asked her if she wanted a purple one.

  Gritting her teeth and trying to appear supremely unconcerned at her nudity, she got out of the water. Bastien whipped the robe around her and tied the belt, then dropped a kiss on her wet head.

  "We must hurry and leave. I'd rather not display the aroused state of my body to everyone in the room," he whispered huskily. "Good thing these robes are thick."

  He rolled their discarded clothes into the parcel with his new mail tunic and hustled her from the chamber.

  They walked through the Castle hand in hand. Barefoot, wet-headed and only covered in the robe, Alexa should have beencold. Instead her body was heated with the anticipation of lovemaking.

  Bastien bent his head. "You hurried too quickly into and out of the bathing pool. I didn't get to see my fill of you. Only enough to tempt me beyond reason."

  Her heart thumped harder and a low, insistent ache settled inside. She was panting by the time they entered her suite.

  He dropped the parcel jingling to the floor and crowded her back against the wall. Slipping both hands inside her robe, he covered her nipples. She sensed he watched her face, but the small room was too dark for her to see him. Slowly his hands moved over her breasts, then his thumbs and forefingers lightly pinched her nipples. Magic combined with sizzling pleasure and shot straight to her core, exploding her into a quick orgasm. She cried out and gripped his shoulders.

  Her release at his hands, at the smallest of love play made Bastien feel more powerful than at any other time in his life. He could drive this woman, this unique and special woman, to peak with a touch. Her heart pounding under his hand, her ragged breathing and little pleasure whimpers drove his own passion beyond delightful need to aching desperation.

  Her skin was pale, her aura glowed blue, her Power jade green, in melting layers that dazzled him. The scent of her was so alluring that he doubted he would ever tire of it, knew he'd have to lick the sheen of perspiration from her body, just to pull the taste of her deep inside him.

  As he would soon be deep inside her. His blood roared in his veins, drummed in his ears until he was deaf, blind, and could only touch and smell her.

  Agony and ecstasy.

  He lifted her, so light, so soft, so exquisitely exotic, and wrapped her legs around his waist. He wanted her lower, muchlower, but had to kiss her now. With burning lips he found her cheek, glided his mouth to hers, slid his tongue along her lips. Jolted from her the taste of passion.

  No control. None. He yanked the belt of his robe open, brought her onto him. Plunged into her deep.

  She sang a Song of rising desire and he had to have her. Magic and body, heart and soul. Her Song plucked all his own chords, pulled at his magic to blend with hers.

  He forged into her, retreated, lunged deep again, the rhythm and beat and Power nothing he'd felt before, nothing he could deny. Her hands convulsed around his shoulders, nails digging in. He had to taste her mouth as she climaxed, had to drink her Song into himself. His wild magic burst free and he shuddered, pouring all of himself into her.

  That night he shared himself with her as he'd done with no other. He fulfilled unrecognized desires. Only sensation, only loving, only intimacy mattered.

  20

  If Alexa opened her eyes, she'd see sunlight—and she wasn't ready for the day.

  "I'm sorry," Bastien whispered. The lightest of butterfly touches flowed into her mind with the lilting melody reverberating between them. Though his voice was rough with morning, waves of tenderness flowed to her from him, along with his gentle caress on her shoulder.

  No use pretending she was asleep. No use pretending either, that there was no Pair link between them. The Song ran true and strong. She opened her eyes to see him on his side, leaning toward her, eyes intense. Suddenly the strangeness of him, of the bond, of everything hit her and she scrambled out of bed. She grabbed a throw and draped it around herself. Alexa didn't know what he was apologizing for and didn't think she wanted to know. Her faceheated as she recalled everything they'd done to each other in the dark.

  "Good, fine," she squeaked. She looked around. Where was Sinafin when Alexa needed her as a distraction?

  He stacked a couple of pillows and plumped them up, then sank back on them with a sigh, still staring at her. The covers rode downward and exposed his muscular torso.

  "I'm sorry that I ran from you the last time we had loving, just as you're trying to distance yourself now. It's a little fearsome, isn't it, being so close to a person—physically, mentally, emotionally?"

  His words were loud and distinct in her mind, in her ears. Lladranan, but better than before. The floor seemed to tilt under her feet. She let go of her tunic and grabbed the bedpost. "Lladranan. The l
anguage, it's even clearer now. I think I'm getting nuances, inflections, connotations. Whew!" And because she could, she knew how heavy her accent was. She wanted to plop down on the bed, but it was too damn high.

  Bastien sat up, set his hands on her waist and lifted her back to the bed beside him with no magic, sheer muscle. Another daunting thing—that he was so strong. She'd have to grab on to her self-confidence, hard, or he'd overwhelm her.

  He looked smug.

  His arm came around her waist and pulled her close. "I'm sorry I ran. It was rude."

  He brushed a soft kiss on her mouth and her insides clutched at the taste of him. With every word, every gentle caress, she felt her options narrowing, felt more herded down a specific path.

  "Shh." His large hand stroked down her back. "Don't be afraid. This will come out all right."

  She fought to keep her inward trembling from showing and wondered how often the shock of being in an alien culture would overwhelm her.

  "So I am sorry I ran from the situation. That was my worst fault with you, but not the only thing I must apologize for."

  The warmth of his body comforted her. She could deal with this new turn of events, she knew it, she just needed a little time. Being so intimate with another could be a good thing, cement her status in Lladrana. The night before, he'd been so easy to talk to, so understanding. Maybe she could give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, there was no denying how far they'd explored each other. It hadn't been just sex.

  He set her back in the curve of his arm, then tipped up her chin so her eyes met his. Since his touch was gentle, one she could break easily, she let him do it.

  "I'm also sorry that I never thanked you for saving my life."

  She dipped her head. "You're welcome. Last night, you said you remembered. I didn't think you could."

  Bastien chuckled, stroked her cheek with his thumb. "Not remember such a face, the color of cream? Not recall such hair, so light and fine? Such striking eyes?"

  She blinked. "I think you're trying to use charm on me."

  His smile was simply stunning. "Is it working?"