Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy)

by Charity Santiago

  Ashlyn swallowed hard, rain dripping off her chin. "You've got it all wrong. I'm trying to help you."

  The Spartan cocked an eyebrow. "Really," he said, and it was obvious that he didn't believe her.

  "Yes!" Ashlyn said in exasperation. "I don't want anyone to get hurt, don't you see? I'm the one who has to-" she glanced at Kou- "finish this, I'm the one who has to make peace with Devlyn. It's my responsibility, and I don't want to put everyone in danger any more than I already have."

  "You were gone for eight years," he snapped. "Little late to start protecting them now, don't you think?"

  "I know I've made mistakes. I know that. But I can't just stand by and do nothing." She nodded her head towards Kou. "He's taking me to Toryn. I'm going to speak to Devlyn and see if we can resolve this war before anyone else is hurt."

  "Devlyn’s not the type to talk things out. He's a warlord."

  "Then I'll challenge him in the Leadership Duel, and I'll defeat him, I swear I'll do everything I can to defeat him," Ashlyn said firmly. "This may end in bloodshed. I may not be able to stop him if he's out to kill. But I can try."

  "You can do nothing," Kou spoke up.

  Ashlyn looked at him, careful not to let her attention waver from Vargo. "What are you talking about?"

  "Regardless of whether I agree with your…thoughts…of Lord Devlyn, you cannot fight him," Kou answered. Vargo shifted, and Kou twitched, the knife gleaming in his hand, before he looked back at Ashlyn. "I know this Duel you speak of. It is impossible to challenge the reigning Elder Lord unless you are heir to leadership."

  Vargo glanced at Kou, then at her. She shook her head, silently pleading with him not to say anything, but the red-haired man scoffed and rolled his eyes.

  "This is pathetic," he said disgustedly. "This guy doesn't know who you are. He's risking his life for you and you haven't even told him the truth."

  "I know she is not who she says," Kou retorted. "I know that she has lied to me. I am not as stupid as you may think."

  "But you don't even know who she is," Vargo said, once again sporting his condescending smirk. "Has she told you her name? Do you even…know…her name?" He spoke deliberately, dragging out each syllable until Ashlyn thought she would cheerfully strangle him if it meant she never had to hear his voice again.

  "Vargo, shut up!" she cried. "Kou, my name's not important, he doesn't know what he's talking about." Her mind was running wild, hoping against hope that Kou would somehow remember the way the Spartans had treated the Toryn people during the war. She knew it was too much to ask but couldn't shake the absurd possibility from her thoughts.

  "Your name is the whole reason for this war," Vargo said, taking a step closer to Ashlyn.

  She made no move to stop him, partly because she was trembling with apprehension, partly because she was suddenly wondering if he would get careless enough for her to attack.

  "Her name," Vargo seethed, looking at Kou again, "is Ashlyn Li. She is the rightful heir to Toryn. And she would be reigning over Toryn right now if it weren't for the fact that she decided to 'take leave from life' for eight freaking years while the rest of us fought to hold the world together."

  That was it. Her secret was out. Dismayed, Ashlyn shifted her gaze to Kou, expecting him to be glaring at her with betrayal and rage in his eyes. But he was focused entirely on Vargo, his weight balanced evenly on the balls of his feet.

  "We are still bound by the blood of Toryn. She is kin to me," he said in a low, dangerous voice. "And you are not. I would die by her hand before I would trust a Spartan."

  Thank the gods, he did remember.

  Vargo stared the ninja, jaw flexing as he digested this bit of information, and Ashlyn took the opportunity to make her move. She lunged forward, closing the distance between them in the space of a second.

  The Spartan's reflexes were faster than she expected, and he whipped the baton up. It was too late to dodge, and Ashlyn yelped in pain as the stick connected with her ribs, sending shocks of electricity shuddering through her body. She knew from experience that there was no way to stop the jolt- she'd never stayed conscious through any of the battles with Vargo. There was only one thing she could do.

  Every breath was like a burst of fire in her lungs. Ashlyn lurched forward, pushing herself beyond the agony-

  And fell into Vargo. She collapsed into him like a falling tree breaks to lightning, her cheek sliding against the stubble on his jaw as she clung to him fiercely, the electrical energy surging through her body and into his.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, letting the pain rake across her consciousness like a thousand knives. Burned into the backs of her eyelids was an image of Drake Lockhart, folded over with a hand to his bleeding shoulder. His ruby gaze was fixed on her, and accusation burned in those crimson depths.

  Ashlyn tumbled gratefully into darkness, tears mingling with the rain on her face, hoping against hope that Kou would still be there when she woke.

  Chapter 8

  Rectangle

  There was one upside to being unconscious that Ashlyn had never considered before. Despite the whole not-knowing-what-the-hell-was-going-on drawback, blacking out conveniently gave her time to sort out her jumbled thoughts.

  First on the priority list: this damn triangle – rectangle? - heck, whatever it was that she'd gotten herself into. (Although admittedly, it would be wiser to focus on the fact that Vargo had just not only revealed her true identity to Kou, but also knocked her unconscious, thereby rendering her unable to defend herself against whatever revenge the Toryn ninja would try to exact, Ashlyn felt that her love life ranked significantly higher and was a hell of a lot more interesting, so she figured that the identity/unconscious/revenge thing could probably wait a minute or two.)

  Ahem. Anyway. She was a grown woman and she could handle the strange emotions that seemed to be roiling within her every time Skye and/or Vargo (and even, as much as it pained her to admit it, Drake) showed up.

  All right, so maybe Ashlyn had suffered the tiniest little crush on Skye when she'd first met him. She wasn't ashamed to admit it, to herself or anyone. Hormones raged from mid to late teens, and she thought she'd done a considerable job of keeping her feelings hidden during their travels together.

  Besides, it wasn't like she'd had a choice in the matter. She couldn't have avoided that tiny little crush even if she'd wanted to. Not when the cards were so obviously stacked against her.

  First off, Skye had manly muscles.

  Secondly …

  Mmm, muscles …

  Argh! Focus! Ashlyn shook herself back to the matter at hand. Okay, truth be told, Skye Damien was the first non-Toryn man Ashlyn had met who wasn't either a) grossly old and decrepit, or b) totally ugly and un-drool-worthy.

  It was pretty much a given that sixteen-year old Ashlyn would have fallen head over heels for the blond swordsman. She hadn't even tried to fight fate, or the spine-tingling chemistry that she mostly attributed to her hormones.

  Regardless of the aforementioned raging hormones, however, Ashlyn had always managed to keep her fascination with Drake (she refused to call it a crush) firmly ensconced in the realm of fantasy. For all the moments she'd spent admiring his tragic beauty, and for all the jealousy she'd experienced over Trace, not once had Ashlyn actually looked at the way-too-stoic-for-his-own-good Drake Lockhart and thought, Oh yeah, I'd hit that.

  The mere thought was ridiculous.

  Or at least it had been until she'd suddenly met his gaze and felt a jolt of awareness, followed by an epiphany that really knocked her for a loop.

  Drake was not a monster. He was a man.

  A red-eyed, blood-drinking, musty-cape-wearing, shotgun-toting, forever-thirty, dead-sexy man.

  And boy, that sudden and completely unwanted realization was severely screwing with her senses.

  Skye had been relatively safe. Despite his amnesia when they’d first met, and subsequent identity crisis before he’d finally decided to challenge Lord Angelo, he'd neve
r seemed strange to Ashlyn after he'd revealed the truth - that he was just another DEMON candidate who’d tagged along on his brother’s heels, hadn't made the grade and couldn't bear to return home without his war medals and presidential awards.

  It was also blindingly obvious to anyone with eyeballs in their skull that he was crazy about Restlyn, even if he didn't acknowledge it himself.

  So if, eight years ago, Ashlyn had mooned over the new fire stane that Skye had given her when she‘d drained hers, if she'd stolen his hairbrush a few times to giggle over the spiky strands clinging to its bristles, if she'd sneaked into his room at the inn and flopped down on his rumpled sheets so she could inhale his scent- okay, yeah, that last bit was a little freaky and stalkerish, but for the most part it was all harmless. She'd never for a moment thought that anything might come of it.

  Drake was different. He was dangerous - dark and brooding, his lean frame host to a monster that could easily kill anyone he came in contact with, if he lost control for even a second.

  Skye had never looked at her the way Drake did.

  Skye had never betrayed her the way Drake had.

  Ashlyn stopped short, feeling mortified even though no one could possibly know what she was thinking. Good grief. She'd thought her hormones were bad at age sixteen - that was nothing compared to the raging nympho she was turning into now! Gods! As if it wasn't enough to notice Skye and then Vargo, she was all googly-eyed over Drake Lockhart, too. In a much more disturbing way than she had been at age sixteen.

  The first urge to open her eyes came as Ashlyn was telling herself that the world was not a fair place. Not at all.

  She resisted the abrupt desire to wake up, suddenly scared of what she might find when she returned to the land of the not-snoring. Worst-case scenario would be, obviously, that Kou was gone and she was stuck with Vargo. If the Toryn man managed to make it back to their hometown to tell Devlyn she was coming, the element of surprise would be nonexistent and Ashlyn would pretty much be screwed.

  The best scenario? Um … well, Kou had given her some confidence when he had chosen to side with her instead of Vargo. Maybe he'd be willing to listen to her story.

  That hope was squashed when she finally pried her eyes open, and promptly realized that her hands and feet were bound. And her entire body ached from the currents of electricity that Vargo had sent shooting through it.

  Great. So much for being optimistic.

  Ashlyn, trying to be subtle about it, felt around with numb fingers for the ropes that encircled her wrists. She knew something about rope knots - it would be impossible not to with all the nifty traps and lures she'd rigged up in her home back in Toryn.

  She set to work on the knots. Kou had known what he was doing, that was for sure. Her ankles and wrists were stretched out in front of her, tied loosely on the other side of a sturdy stalagmite with a length of thick, frayed rope. Glancing up, she noted that first of all, she was in a cave (duh), and second of all, the stalagmite was way too tall to simply shimmy up and sling her ropes over in an effort to free herself.

  The fraying rope was the worst kind to try to untie, because there were strings and tendrils all over the place, but the knot itself was fairly simple- two half-hitches conveniently located within reach of her fingers.

  "About time you woke up," Vargo's voice broke her concentration, and Ashlyn started. Glancing over to see him leaning against the wall, with his hands tied behind his back and his bound legs stretched out in front of him, she groaned. Worst-case scenario.

  "Dude, what is your problem?" she said tiredly. Her voice echoed in the empty cave. "Every time I turn around, there you are. It's like you're freaking attached to my hip or something. Did it ever occur to you to maybe be a tiny bit more subtle about stalking me, you moron?"

  Vargo looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she had a feeling that she'd hit upon at least one aspect of the truth.

  "I'm tied up, just the same as you are,” he said finally. “It's not like I can give you personal space when I've got three feet of rope wrapped around my arms and legs."

  "You know I'm not talking about right now!"

  His eyes shifted from her to the floor in front of him. "I can't help it if we happen to be in the same place at the same time," he said lamely, and Ashlyn snorted.

  "Sure. You couldn't help that you were there at the stable in Storim, you couldn't help that you happened to be hanging around when Skye and I got into the argument on the airship, you couldn't help that you were the most convenient person to carry me up the stairs to Aik's house. Not to mention your sudden appearances when I was fighting the ninjas and just now, outside of Eastern City. We've been traveling together for less than a week and I can't get rid of you. Frankly Vargo, it's starting to get annoying."

  His eyes glittered in the dim light - which, Ashlyn noted in passing, was coming from a low-burning fire sitting to her left. Judging from the darkness lingering outside the cave entrance just a few feet further, she guessed it was still nightfall.

  "You're just riled up because I told your ninja friend who you really are," he accused, sounding as immaturely distraught as a little kid who'd lost his candy bar.

  She paused in her knot fiddling to give Vargo an irritated look. "Sure," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I know being ticked off at you is rather selfish of me. I mean, just because you've blown my cover and any chance I had of sneaking into Toryn, why should I be angry? I'm sure it was all in good fun." She managed to loosen the first half-hitch and quickly pulled the rope ends apart, struggling with the more extreme angle of the second knot.

  "You're awfully arrogant for a traitor," Vargo snapped.

  "And you're awfully stupid. Why don't you just go, like, get a haircut or something and leave me to my own devices?"

  He growled something under his breath, then continued loud enough for her to hear, "Seeing as how your 'own devices' seem to involve joining Devlyn in taking over the world, I can't say that idea holds much appeal."

  "Yeah, you'd like to think you're so noble, wouldn't you?" She bit her lip, cheek braced against stone as she worked furiously at the ropes. "Damn it. Where's the rest of the gang? You'd think they'd have the decency to come and free us once they found out you were missing."

  Vargo glared at her, obviously weighing the satisfaction of lying to her against the disadvantage of having her figure out the truth. Finally he looked away. "They're not here," he said grudgingly. "They only dropped me off to keep watch."

  Ashlyn guessed that Skye was probably planning on posting at least one or two FLD members at each potential crossing point along the coast. He'd more than likely considered Eastern City too dull for Ashlyn, seeing as how she'd expressed her extreme dislike of the place on more than one occasion. Ha. She had changed enough to surprise him.

  The knot came loose at last, and she quickly untied her feet before standing, wincing a bit as her joints protested the sudden use.

  To his credit, Vargo didn't bother begging her to free him; he probably knew that it'd be pretty useless to ask Ashlyn for any favors. However, he did keep silent when she ventured out of the cave's entrance, glancing around to see if Kou or Suki were anywhere to be found.

  She suddenly wanted to kick herself, realizing that if he had wanted to, Kou could have taken Suki with him over to Toryn. Damn him! The man better not have stolen her horse. If he had, there was going to be some serious ass kicking heading his way.

  She paused once beyond the reach of the firelight, listening. Was that … footsteps she heard?

  Ashlyn immediately dropped to the ground, belly-down, mindful of the advancing intruder. Her eyes searched the darkness intently.

  "I see you managed to free yourself," Kou said from behind her.

  Aw, man.

  She rolled over and stared up at the Toryn ninja, feeling incredibly dumb when he extended a hand to help her up. "How did you…" she began, glancing from the cave entrance to where he stood, behind her, but trailed off. It really did
n't matter. "Thanks," she muttered, accepting his hand and standing, brushing bits of grass and dirt off her shorts.

  He held out a package wrapped with brown paper and thick twine. At Ashlyn's wary glance, he smiled apologetically. "I bought you clothes," he said.

  After a moment of hesitation, Ashlyn took the bundle, staring at her kinsman skeptically. When he said nothing, she cocked an eyebrow. "You bought me clothes? That's it?"

  Kou glanced at the cave entrance, where Vargo was quite obviously watching them with rapt attention. Lowering his voice, he said in Toryn, "I only restrained you to keep you from fleeing if, by some chance, you woke while I was in the Eastern City." Giving her a purposeful look, he continued, "I see that my efforts were in vain, but fortunately I returned in time."