Wild Within

by Mima

  Wild Within

  A Bonded fantasy

  Mima

  Published 2007

  ISBN 978-1-59578-402-5

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2007, Mima. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Liquid Silver Books

  http://LSbooks.com

  Email:

  raven@LSbooks.com

  Editor

  Deanna Pryce

  Cover Artist

  April Martinez

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Lisa

  Mine

  Chapter 1: Dark

  She was going to kick his ass. Rylan had been gone from her bed for three nights. He had never been gone from her bed all night before. Not once. Not since her foggiest memories of his constant warm presence at her back. He’d been there even before they'd been found by Scuffle, when they'd been existing only for food and sleep like true wildlings.

  Now it was day four of no Rylan. She’d ranged from worry, to anger, to confusion, and back to anger. It was time he explained what in the Six Elements he thought he was doing. Today was the day they’d planned a major snatch. They’d gone over every detail a hundred times. He’d problem solved everything that could go wrong. She’d been ready a week early. But then he’d disappeared. She hadn’t thought about the snatch since.

  She started the morning the same way she had every day since he’d gone, by checking on him through their magepath. She didn’t have strong magecraft. However, she and Rylan shared a rare magepath that linked them. Each knew when something was wrong with the other, and could pass emotions along it as a kind of secret conversation. Kneeling in the middle of their bed, she brought down her heart rate, and her mists rolled up. Everyone had an image they held when they worked the magescape. Everyone it seemed, but her. She had fog. And a blue ribbon that undulated off forever that led to Rylan. She knelt on the ribbon, summoned her will, and pushed her anger at his absence at him, demanding. Rhythm, heat, pleasure, striving. Oh Joy. He was fucking. Again. Like he’d been every morning when she checked.

  She opened her eyes, blinking as her mental mists faded like an after-image. Their rooms were bare, but clean. Plaster and wood and torn scraps of fabric made up the walls. A few rainy day pieces of loot that could be traded for water, if needed, hung as decoration. It was a good shak at the top of the building, with an open rooftop impossible to scale. They’d held this together for a few years. She thought with fury about how she was approached last night as she’d come in the main entrance four stories below by the ambitious, flat-eyed man living on three.

  “Need a partner, pet? Seeing as how traps need resetting so damn often and Rylan seems to have left. I’d be better as help than an enemy, sweet. Think on it. I’ll keep you good.”

  She’d wanted to spring at him. It had been a long time since someone called her a bedpet to her face. But she didn’t know if Rylan would be home to back her up if she took damage. She didn’t know if this creeper knew something she didn’t. The magepath told her he was alive, and unharmed. But not where the blazing ash he was and why he wasn’t back.

  Today, she would hunt. All she got from the Clan sisters yesterday were shifted eyes, and the men left the room when she walked in. She’d never cared about the skinlickers he fucked before. They couldn’t touch her confidence in KarRylan. That was what people called them they’d been together so long. What was going on?

  She set off to find out. The Dark was divided into wedges labeled by the AlphaZeta. The alleys and hodgepodge of buildings that surrounded Fourth City were like moldy cheese encircling a delicious fresh loaf of bread. Only a magic-laced wall, an impossibly smooth eight shaks high, separated the City dwellers from those outside the walls. There were four gates in, and these closely guarded against anything not a City citizen. “Wildlings” is what the City folk called them, as they spit at them. The wildlings of the Dark lived forever in the shadows, outside law, but with no true freedom.

  Some dared to travel the True Wild to one of the Kingdom's other Seven Cities, but it was just some other ramshackle fringe to be gained, the only change perhaps in climate. The way through the True Wild was dangerous beyond belief, filled with wild creatures, magic creatures, wild men, and Beasts. None who went into the Wild thinking to escape City or Dark ever returned to tell tales. No one, no matter how skilled with magic, blade, or cunning. Thus the walls. And when people would not or could not live within the walls, they built a tangled trash barricade around their little shak world. The forbidden, guarded roads and secure City gates kept out the danger for cityfolk. Wildlings had to make do by staying close, fighting for survival and status around the City edges.

  KarRa watched Pru from the shadows of a deep doorway that had a torn awning. Eventually there was enough of a lull in the busy intersection she could be sure there’d be a moment for conversation. She freed her warclub from her waist and flowed smoothly straight for Pru. She let her fighting face drop down, the mask that she wore whenever she knew she was going to be involved with pain. Pru saw her coming too late to run for her bolt hole at the edge of the street. She moved so the trash barrel was between them. Green sparks were still spitting up from the last deposit.

  “Keep away bitchling!” Pru’s voice was a screech that had nothing to do with the lines on her face, and everything to do with hard living.

  “I’ve no desire to get closer, Pru. Tell me who Rylan’s taken up with and I’ll have no reason to.” KarRa’s body was loose, ready.

  Pru’s face flickered with glee. {Secret} she signed with her hands, even though both of them were missing several fingers. “Bet you never thought you’d lose him, did you? Thought you were better than us. Turns out he’s just a cock like every other man. Kar-Ra, Kar-Ra, Kar-Ra’s lost her Rylan…”

  The hideous taunting singsong scraped down KarRa’s last nerve. Sooner than she’d planned, the club flashed out in a thrust strike straight across the barrel. It was an unusual move, for most of the wildlings knew nothing of knife work and swung the favored clubs in sideways sweeps. Old Pru was on her back, eyes wide and tearing as she clutched her bony throat with her poor tortured hands. KarRa was on her in an instant, wrestling her in her moment of weakness so that Pru’s hands were under her knees and the club was across her throat. Pru was old, at least thirty-five, but street smart, and they’d tangled too many times for KarRa not to respect her abilities. She had to hurry or the people gathering in the shadows would see KarRa’s back as an opportunity.

  “Who. All I want is one name, and if it’s the wrong one I’ll come back here and use this club a lot more freely.” Pru opened her mouth, eyes still tearing but looking nothing but vicious. KarRa pressed down with the club, causing her to choke. “The only word out of your mouth is going to be a name.”

  She kept the pressure up until she saw the subtle decision in Pru’s eyes. She let up ever so slightly and Pru gasped, “Vili.”

  KarRa nodded once to her and raced away, ignoring the ear splitting curses that turned heads.

  There was a café that fed her three times a week in exchange for traps she set on their cellar. When she entered, there were two men on her right playing dice, three at the bar, and a group of six seated on her left, all of whom were d
isplaying cocky shoulders due to the pets that were leashed at their feet. Everyone looked up to see who entered, as always, and a hush spread as she walked across the room. One of the bedpets giggled.

  A man holding a leash on a too-young brunette muttered, “I got another leash, bitch.”

  She stopped. She turned, and pulled her club. You didn’t pull your club unless you were willing to use it.

  “Say it to my face.” She assessed quickly. Black-hair first, and the two reds after. The rest would run. She didn’t know the allegiance of the other five in the room, though. The cook and serving boy wouldn’t help her or hurt her.

  Luckily, KarRylan’s reputation held. Whoever had muttered the insult stayed quiet.

  “I thought so.” She held the club until she’d passed into the kitchen.

  By the Shadows, she missed Rylan. She missed sharing a grin with him after turning from a facedown, she missed his hand on her back when she met him on the street, she missed seeing his eyes glow with the heat of challenge. Day four. What was he thinking?

  She sat at the kitchen table and served herself some stew. The cook ignored her. It killed her to do it, but she cleared her throat and asked.

  “Saxley?”

  “Yeah, KarRylan.”

  “Who is Vili?”

  “Uhhhhh…”

  “Just who is she.”

  “Daughter of Bim’s Clan in C. Younger than you. They’ve kept her out of the mix, mostly. She’s no tavern skinlicker, but she’s not her own woman, either.”

  “Thanks.” Now she’d owe him. She always paid her debts. She just wouldn’t come in for meals next week. Then he couldn’t spring a favor on her later.

  He wiped his grungy hands on his grungy shirt, turned his haggard face more fully to her. “KarRa. Don’t go walking up to Bim’s people without yours with you.”

  Was he worried for her?! That was as close to friendship as Saxley was capable of.

  “Thanks.”

  Next she visited a few of the taverns in D and bashed heads. Not Bim’s territory, but close enough to hear Bim’s business. She finally got someone to name a wedge on her third tavern. And she only had a bruised thigh and jammed fingers on her off hand. Pretty good for doing some knocking on your own. Never pay for information when you can knock it loose for free, Scuffle said.

  On her way back south, she was flushed with success. So she turned off the main crossway in H and swung up onto a balcony without breaking her stride. From there it was a quick leap to an awning, which allowed her to reach a window on a third story. It was trapped and she had to work quickly before someone shouted from the street, looking for a warning reward.

  She took the pathetically unoriginal trap down and hoisted herself into the room with a smooth somersault. After latching the window she crouched behind a chair. Her heart pounded so loud, it was all she could hear.

  She couldn’t believe she was doing this. It had been three days since she scoped the place. For all she knew, the ever-changing fortunes of wildlings could have brought a new tenant to this lodging. The balcony could have been trapped. The awning could have been damaged. New watchers on the street could have been hired. This was insanely stupid.

  KarRa didn’t do stupid. Not since an ill-timed snatch had seen a client return unexpectedly. She'd been cornered in a small room. It hadn't been bad as rapes in the Dark went, according to the other girls in the Clan. There were no knives, only one man, and it was quick. He'd stunned her with a lucky punch, pinned her on her stomach over a table with his hand gouging into the nape of her neck, ripped down her pants, and stuffed himself in. He'd struggled behind her for a few moments, then dragged her over the table and tossed her out the door screaming, “And don't come back!”

  The utter lack of any touching had made it easy for her to consider it no worse, really, than any beating she'd taken in a fight, and actually with much less damage. She was used to violence in this life, both the giving and receiving. Not a week went by when she didn’t carry bruises from fist or warclub, even as good as she was. The only lingering damage seemed to be that she took no pleasure from having a smoothskin boy surround her from behind. To be fair, the need to keep your back protected against a wall was so innate in the Dark that her dislike of being mounted could just as easily have been from habit as from the rape.

  She had thought to keep the event a secret, but even though washing was the first thing she did, Rylan said he could smell it. He had come storming into their shak, where she’d curled up, already knowing she’d been hurt through their magepath. He had stood there, stunned, yellow eyes stony, nose flaring, and then gone storming out. He went directly to Scuffle, who had the man in hand, literally, within the hour. They had listened to his defense, “She was thieving from me! I was protecting myself!” and his pleas. Scuffle had handed him to Rylan, and left. Rylan never would tell her what became of the man as no one ever saw him again. He swore he hadn't killed him, and KarRa believed him, as the Beasts never came. She was grateful to never have to see that weasely face again.

  It was a miracle she hadn’t been raped sooner, actually. And Rylan was one of the few men who had grown up in the Dark not to be raped. It was a fact of life. True, Scuffle trained his madechildren better than most, and what those skills didn't cover, Rylan usually did. Until he’d begun to separate them on jobs.

  “It’s easier with two,” she said.

  “To cover more ground,” he said.

  “The risk of solo jobs just isn’t necessary,” she’d argued.

  “You’re good enough,” he’d scoffed.

  After the rape, she’d thought he’d return to their working partnership. He hadn’t. He’d worked her harder in hand to hand, and encouraged her to take longer in planning. Most thieves in the Dark were too stupid or desperate to plan. It’s what made KarRa and Rylan so successful in their snatches.

  So here she was, back in another job without the kind of planning she preferred. She was going to end up raped again. She wondered if she wasn’t doing this because of Rylan’s bizarre absence.

  “See what you make me do?” KarRa muttered to herself. She instantly was ashamed. This was her choice. She had to get her head straight.

  She scanned the room for traps. Finding invisible traps was KarRa’s one shining strength. Rylan often joked that KarRa had magecraft in the seventh Element: thievery. No one could sense wards, traps, and scans like she could. There was a trap on the door. She undid it across the room. She stayed where she was and scanned the shak. No one was home.

  Moving out the door and mentally cursing at finding a decent ward on the next door in the hall, she took precious moments in the open. She was a feather’s whisper from the latch when she felt an excellent, subtle trap, and took more time to mentally twist and sway it into mist. Then she scanned beyond and sighed to see her old information was holding true.

  She eased into the room, quickly assessing. She only wanted small, easily traded, high end things. She ignored the rare candle on the table, the gleaming City sword on the wall. The book snagged her eyes for a long moment, but she passed over it. Seeing the curtain in the corner, she walked to it.

  It was warded. The personal energy in a ward was draining for her to dispel. You had to let it seep into you, or the imbalance would tip toward the person who placed it, warning them of the disturbance. Wards were tough, but if you were strong enough, you could merge with them, never revealing they’d been disturbed. When she had it undone, she studied exactly how the curtain hung on the rod. She drew back the cloth.

  There was a row of clothes on pegs. She’d never seen so many clothes. Her eyes caught a white net sort of thing. She knew that. Lace. There were a few people in the Dark who could make it. It would be rare enough to be a bit of a risk, but not rare enough to be utterly unique. And it was worth a month of water. She hovered her hand over it, checking for traps. Snatching it up, she crushed it into a ball and stuffed it down her pants. Then she subtly arranged the clothes around it so that
it could possibly be covered.

  Fixing the fold of the curtain to what it was before she disturbed it, KarRa went to the sword. It would serve as her decoy. She breathed deeply, bounced her knees. She flexed her hands. She hated this part. Rylan wasn’t waiting in the hall. He wasn’t even waiting in the street. But that had never been part of the plan. He only planned solo jobs for her now. She missed working with him so much. And now she apparently was to miss sleeping with him as well. Rage swelled through her. How dare he.

  Picking up the sword, she triggered the trap. She ran. Up onto the roof, tripping three traps on the two flights up. She hit the rooftop wall and skittered across the hand-width edge as graceful as a chuck. In a flying leap she soared onto the next rooftop a story below. The boards that covered that rooftop gave but she had enough leverage to push off as they crumbled beneath her. She landed in an ugly windmill, caught her balance, and considered the hole she’d created. She dropped the sword in. There was a shout from the street, but they couldn’t see her from here. They’d go into the main building first.

  She crossed another rooftop, then scaled down two stories to an alley. Two turns down, a running crowd caused her to duck down and wait. Then her third planned turn was thwarted by a new pile of boxes from someone apparently moving. An alternate route snapped into her mind. She made sure she wasn’t seen leaving H. Her heart was still pounding in her ears, but she rolled her head on her shoulders. Another major snatch. Scuffle would be proud. Would Rylan?

  Off to K. He was staying with the woman near Scuffle’s Clan territory in L. KarRa was aware of this significance and it added to the roiling confusion inside. He had practically extended Clan protection to her. Her Clan had known Rylan was staying in the next wedge and hadn’t told her. She couldn’t trust anyone but Rylan. A shiver eased down her spine.

  By the time she had threaded her way to K, she had her heartrate under control. She turned down the blind alley where Justo was good for swapping snatched items. She waited in the shadows of a doorway until a customer cleared the corner, and stepped forward.