Lord of the Storm

by Justine Davis

  “If you’re thinking of ways to warn your colleagues,” Wolf said conversationally, “don’t.”

  It should hurt, Shaylah thought, that he still lumped her with the Coalition forces. But it didn’t. Nothing did.

  “I wasn’t,” she said lifelessly.

  “It would do no good in any case. We’ll be well out of range of the forces guarding Triotia.”

  “They’ll have at least a full detachment orbiting,” she said in that same, passive tone, wondering why she bothered at all.

  “I know. We’ll slip in between their orbits. They won’t linger on the dark side.”

  She knew he was right, so said nothing. She sat at the navigation station with her hands folded primly on her knees, staring at the floor as if she’d never seen it.

  “You don’t seem disturbed by . . . er, mutiny, Captain.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “And flying to Trios?”

  “Or into the sun.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He made an adjustment on the controls, then turned to study her. “I never would have thought you would hand over your precious ship so easily, Captain.”

  “Captain Graymist would not have. She would have died before giving up the Sunbird. But I’m not sure that’s who I am anymore.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I don’t know. Someone who tried to do what she thought was right . . . and ended up doing everything wrong.” She got to her feet; she couldn’t bear this a moment longer. She started toward her quarters, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder at Wolf.

  “May I leave?” He looked startled at the question. “You are in charge now. I thought it might give you pleasure to have me beg permission.”

  For some reason, he looked angry. “When I want pleasure from you,” he said heatedly, “I will ask for it.”

  Shaylah flushed and hurried away, her humiliation complete. Yet even that seemed removed, as if she had somehow withdrawn from herself and watched her own emotions from a safe, unfeeling distance.

  She didn’t know how long she had been lying on her bunk when she felt the change in the Sunbird’s movement. She sat up, concentrating on the change in the angle of flight. She started to rise, then stopped. She should just stay here, she told herself. She had nothing to do with this. The Sunbird wasn’t hers anymore. She wasn’t worthy of her, not after surrendering her without even a protest.

  But she couldn’t just wait here, not knowing. If they were about to die, she wanted, however irrationally, to be with Wolf. She scrambled into her flight suit and raced to the con.

  They were indeed on the dark side. They had flown from day into night and were heading swiftly straight at the planet that loomed large through the viewport. Wolf was staring at his ravaged home as he handled the Sunbird with a born pilot’s touch. He glanced at her, but said nothing. His jaw was rigid, his expression unreadable as they neared the surface.

  He had obviously done exactly as he’d said and timed their descent perfectly between the orbiting patrols. Only a man who knew his destination intimately, who knew exactly where he was going, would have been able to do it.

  “They’ll have picked you up on their scanners.” She was unable to stop her words, although she knew her warning would be superfluous; there was little that Wolf didn’t think of.

  “Yes,” he said, “but we’ll be down before they can pinpoint us. I don’t think they’ll risk searching until dawning, and we’ll be long gone by then.”

  We? He was planning on taking her with him? Shaylah wanted to ask, but doubted that she would like the answer. So she decided to beat him to it.

  “If you’re planning on using me as some kind of hostage, it wouldn’t do any good. The Coalition doesn’t much care what happens to traitors.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said coolly, never looking away from the viewport and the navigation screen before him. What else did you expect him to say? she asked herself bitterly.

  Then they were into the darkness, and Shaylah was amazed at his sureness. After five years away, even from her own home, she would have been hard-pressed to find her way in this kind of blackness. Yet he never faltered.

  As her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, Shaylah realized with a little shock that they were flying along a jagged, rocky range of mountains. He seemed to thread them with ease, although she would have sworn that there were moments when the clearance was bare inches. She could hear the whoosh of the ion drive echoing from the steep walls that threatened to abruptly end this crazy headlong flight.

  “Wolf,” she began.

  “Not now.” It was sharp, short, and she realized then the effort he was expending, even though he was making it look so easy.

  By the time she could make out the level clearing he was headed for, they were already on top of it. And heading straight for a massive wall of solid rock. Her stomach tumbled as he flared the Sunbird sharply. Her heart lurched when he cut the power. They set down with a sharp thud. Intact, Shaylah thought incredulously. And, she saw with a shudder of awe, wingtips a mere arm’s length from that unforgiving barrier.

  They had barely settled, and she was still gaping out the viewport, when he reached for the hatch controls. He released the main outer door, then shut down every system on the ship with quick, efficient movements, as if he knew the Sunbird as intimately as she did. As if he knew it as intimately as he did her.

  He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  Shaylah’s head snapped around. “What?”

  “Let’s go,” he repeated, moving toward the hatchway. “I want to put some distance between us and the ship, fast.”

  “You’re just going to . . . leave her?”

  He turned back to look at her with a wry, mocking expression. “This is a dead planet, remember? If anyone finds her, it will be the Coalition. And she is theirs, after all.”

  Shaylah winced. She looked around at the now darkened ship she so loved. How could she just walk away? “Wolf,” she began, her voice quavering, echoing the pleading tone that had rung in his own voice in the sick bay.

  “I can’t let you stay,” he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “There is so much metal in these mountains, they’ll never get an accurate reading on her as long as she stays dead. But it gets cold up here, Shaylah, and if you stayed, you’d have to use the ship’s systems. They’d get a reading on you the instant the next patrol goes over. I can’t afford for them to find where we came down, not yet.”

  The gentleness did nothing to disguise the unbending strength beneath the words. Shaylah knew suddenly that she was seeing the real Wolf, the man he had been before the Coalition destroyed his life and his world. She should fight him, she thought again, fight the abandonment of her ship. And again couldn’t find the strength.

  “Let’s go, Captain. You’ll need lightweight boots and your flight jacket.” He paused, the softness in his voice reaching his eyes for a moment. “And bring anything you want to keep. I don’t know if we’ll get back here.”

  Her lips tightened, but she held back the sound that rose in her throat. She’d already bared her soul and her feelings to a man who felt nothing for her in return; she’d be damned if she would do it again.

  “Yes, sir,” she snapped.

  When she got to her quarters she grabbed the now-empty pack. She stuffed in her recorded captain’s log, some durable clothing, unfastened and added the holograph of her parents, and, after some thought, the delicate drawings of Triotian roses. An odd feeling struck her when she realized there was really nothing else she wished to take, even knowing she might never see the Sunbird again. But made herself reach for one last item, tucking her small personal weapon into a pocket of the silver thermal jacket.

  She met him at the main hatch. He still wore the flight suit, but he’d str
ipped all Coalition insignia from it. He’d found a large pack, and it was obviously full. Her gaze caught on the bulky object strapped to one side of it: the functional cannon he had pieced together from the ruins of the weapons station.

  He said nothing, just lifted the pack—easily, she thought wryly, even though it was probably more than she could push across the floor—and led the way down the outer ramp.

  At the bottom, Shaylah turned and looked back at the Sunbird. She sat faintly silver in the darkness, quiet, already looking abandoned. The damage the pirates had done stood out as a large black shadow. With a catch in her throat she released the recoil latch on the ramp and watched as it retracted and the hatch swung closed.

  She saw then exactly how close they were to the cliff; it would take some very fancy flying to ever get the Sunbird out of here. But she had no time to dwell on it; Wolf was already walking away. The irony of it hit her; she was leaving her world in the moment when he was returning to what was left of his.

  If Shaylah had been amazed at his accuracy on their flight through the midnight darkness, she was stunned by his unerring certainty as they struck out on foot. She could barely see to put her feet in front of her, yet he was moving as easily as she did through the passageways of the Sunbird. Only the ache that began to grow in her knees told Shaylah they were heading downward.

  She could hear the sound of their feet on the rocky surface, and every now and then a current of air brought her a scent she’d never smelled before; something fresh and clean that made her involuntarily inhale, deeply. But she could see nothing of her surroundings, nothing except varying degrees of darkness, and she wished briefly for that Triotian hunter’s moon. He was more like that lion than she’d thought, she thought wryly; he must have cat’s eyes to be able to see a thing.

  “I didn’t know Triotians could also see in the dark,” she muttered after stumbling over a stone for the third time. She heard Wolf chuckle. The sound seemed to wrap around her heart and squeeze; it was the first time there had been no undertone to his laugh, no bitterness, no mockery.

  “I’ve walked every inch of Trios in my mind countless times in the last five years. No matter what the Coalition has done, it is home. I could not get lost.”

  Shaylah left off talking and concentrated on staying upright on the unseen trail. She didn’t know how long they’d been walking, but she felt as if it were hours, and as if this night would go on forever. She was carrying a mere fraction of the weight he was, yet she was nearing exhaustion; Wolf just kept going, his strides unfaltering. She wondered how much of his endurance was from sheer strength and how much stemmed from just being home.

  She stumbled once more, steadied herself, made it a few more minutes, then stumbled twice in rapid succession. She stopped dead. Wolf went on a few more steps before he halted and turned to look back at her.

  “If this is some kind of test,” Shaylah ground out, “I willingly concede that I’ve failed. I can’t go another step.”

  “Getting soft, Captain?”

  “I’m a pilot, not a ground trooper,” she snapped.

  He smiled suddenly; she could see the white glint of his teeth. “Now that’s the captain I remember.”

  Startled, Shaylah stared at him. Had he done it on purpose, pushed her to the limit of her endurance in an effort to prod her out of the numbness that had enveloped her? Before she could decide, he was speaking again, the smile gone from his face but not his voice.

  “There is a place just ahead. We can stop there.” He turned and started off again, leaving Shaylah wondering wearily what he meant by “just ahead” as she followed.

  Just as she was about to make an acid comment on his judgment of distance, he suddenly left the path.

  “Careful,” he warned, “you have to step down.”

  His shadowy, pack-burdened bulk disappeared, dropping out of her line of sight. The suddenness of it made her waver. Then, unexpectedly, he was reaching up, steadying her. His hand slid down the length of her arm to her hand. She tried not to shiver as his fingers closed around hers to help her down the drop, but she was so weary the effort was useless. What did it matter, anyway? she thought dully. He already knew how she felt; she’d made it embarrassingly clear.

  She would have stumbled, misjudging the depth of the step in the dark, had it not been for the strength of his grip. He led her a few wobbly steps, then stopped. When she had her balance back, she just stood there, unable to move. She felt as if the only part of her that was functioning was the hand he held. It was functioning all too well, sending little ripples of sensation through her, hot amid the chill, making the chill seem even fiercer.

  Why didn’t he let go? Why did he just stand there, her hand trembling in his? Shaylah shivered again. Perhaps he enjoyed feeling her shake at his touch, she thought despondently. Perhaps he was savoring her weakness, getting some kind of vengeful pleasure from knowing he had brought at least one member of the Coalition to her knees.

  Abruptly, without a word, he let her go. “Sit down before you fall down,” he said gruffly and began to remove his own pack.

  She sat, but with the realization that it was more the fall he had mentioned than any controlled action on her part. She didn’t understand it. She’d been through worse than this, Shaylah thought. In battle she’d gone days on mere moments of sleep. So why was she so exhausted? Could the emotional ups and downs of the past few days have drained her so?

  She slid the pack off of her shoulders, letting it rest where it landed at her back. Her hands brushed something oddly soft beneath her, and she froze. The ground itself was soft . . . no, not the ground . . . Grass, she thought in amazement. Triotian grass, the living carpet that was a novelty in other places, an oddity kept in private gardens or artifact houses. Yet here it was, delicate and tender, in this wild, rocky place that had been laid waste by Coalition weapons. She touched it gently, marveling at the thin, pliable blades.

  “We can rest, but only until first light. I want to be moving again by dawning.”

  “Mmmm,” she mumbled, still entranced with the wonder of finding what was, to her, such an exotic thing as Triotian grass growing wild.

  Triotian. The name rang in her mind. Odd, it hadn’t really struck her until this moment that she was actually on Trios, the place she had grown up constantly hearing about, the place her parents had met, bonded . . . and conceived their daughter.

  “Are you all right?”

  She looked up. “The grass, it’s just . . . growing here.”

  “It generally does, Captain.” He sounded amused.

  Stung by his constant use of her rank, reminding her harshly how things had changed between them, she said sharply, “Maybe you can take it for granted, but I can’t.”

  “Believe me,” he said, all amusement having vanished from his voice, “I take nothing about Trios for granted. Nothing. Not anymore.”

  He turned away, and she was aware of his movements as he bent over his pack and took something out. He came back and sat beside her, and she saw the sheen of silver as he unfolded a thermoactive cover.

  “We’d better get some sleep while we can,” he said.

  Shaylah stared at him. Did he expect her to share the cover with him? It was big enough, but only if they lay close together. Very close. She doubted if he was feeling that friendly toward her, so she tugged her jacket closer around her and started to lie down.

  “Captain.” His voice sounded very dry as it came to her out of the dark. “You’re going to freeze your bottom off out there.”

  “I . . .” She stared at the faint shimmer of silver as he held up one side of the cover for her. “I didn’t think . . .”

  “Don’t think, Captain. Just sleep.”

  Just sleep. Was that his way of letting her know he wanted nothing more from her? Had her deception killed even that in him, destroyed
the fierce, hot need she’d gloried in?

  “Now, Captain. We don’t have that long. And I promise you, now that we’ve stopped moving, you’ll feel the cold very quickly at this altitude.”

  She knew he was right; already it was seeping into her, stiffening her muscles on its way to becoming bone deep. Reluctantly she slid under the cover, carefully facing away from him, instantly feeling the heat of him warming her back.

  Mercifully, he said no more. In moments she heard his breathing deepen, and her humiliation was complete. Nothing, she thought, biting her lip against the ache that throbbed in her, could be as painful as wanting so badly, and not being wanted in return.

  Memories flashed in her mind, of a week of mornings waking up beside him, of having him turn to her with the heat of need and desire lighting his eyes, his body hard and ready for her. Painful memories, she added silently. Especially when you know so intimately what you’re missing. Especially knowing you had destroyed it yourself, by one foolish decision made because you thought it was best. One foolish decision you had no right to make, she admitted with grim acknowledgment of his right to spurn her.

  “I’m sorry, Wolf,” she murmured to the man whose long, muscled body warmed her. It was far too low for him to hear, even if he’d been awake. It did nothing to ease the ache inside her. It changed nothing, made nothing all right again. But she’d been no more able to hold it back than she’d been able to challenge his appropriation of the Sunbird. It was a long time before she at last fell into a troubled sleep.

  She awoke to a lessening of the darkness, the precursor of dawning. And to the shock of feeling Wolf pressed tightly to her back, his arm around her and pulling her into the curve of his body. Had she unconsciously been drawn to his warmth in the cold blackness? Or had he claimed her in sleep as he refused to do when awake?

  She stayed motionless, afraid to move for fear of waking him, knowing the moment he came back to himself he would withdraw. And gradually she became aware of something else; heat flooded her in a rush as she recognized the insistent hardness that pressed against the curve of her buttocks.