Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta

by Robin D. Owens

  Fairyfoot lifted her nose. You did not bring Me; I came by Myself.

  “That’s right.” Arbusca pointed a finger at the cat. “You’re uninvited. Leave.”

  No, I must report to your son.

  “You’re just nosy.”

  The door opened.

  Arbusca swooped down on Fairyfoot, avoided claws, and teleported the cat back to her room in Willow Residence. “You are gone!”

  Her HeartMate walked into the room.

  She straightened, hid her nervous hands in the folds of her long and heavy silkeen tunic. She was in the far corner of the room, not graciously by the table ready to pour cinnamon caff, as she’d planned. Dammit!

  Dri Paris’s gaze focused on her. The emotional connection between them seethed with feelings. “Who else was here?” he asked.

  “No one of any importance,” she said.

  He was not the tall, lanky boy whom she’d seen from afar, but a solid man of broad shoulders and craggy face. Suddenly this venue seemed overcivilized as he brought the scent of the wilds into the place. Arbusca stilled to immobility.

  He raised his brows. “No one?”

  “Of any importance,” she repeated.

  He hesitated, then his hard gaze softened. As he strode toward her, little flutters of more than attraction—lust—stirred. She wasn’t a young woman, but he wasn’t a young man.

  His lips curved and a quick thought from him impinged on her mind. Both in our prime.

  Her shoulders relaxed, her hands unclenched enough so she curtsied to him. Deeply, as if to a GreatLord. Smoothly she moved to her place, near the caff set, ready to pour. Her hands were steady enough now.

  He stopped and bowed, equally deeply. His left hand remained behind his back. Dri wore heavy leather boots and clean leather trous that were cut narrowly for a working man, both in black. His matching sleeveless leather tunic also was workmanlike. His shirt underneath was a warm cream color of a soft weave; the material showed it wasn’t a work shirt, and the sleeves had a faint blouse of fashion.

  His smile was full as he stopped a little too close to her for anyone but a lover—or a HeartMate. “Well, if it isn’t Blush Willow.”

  She’d forgotten that childhood name and, even as he said it, felt heat flowing up her neck, into her cheeks. So stupid. He made her feel like a teenager again, full of nervous anticipation.

  “Now that’s a pretty sight,” he drawled, more than a hint of a southern continent accent in his voice. “Pretty blush on a pretty woman.” He reached out and picked up her hand, bowed over it, and kissed the back. Tingles sizzled down her nerves, mixing with the flutters in her core.

  He smelled of fire—his psi magical power, Flair—and man. Exciting.

  “Greetyou, Dri Paris.” Just saying his name made her tongue thick, sped up her blood. “It’s a pleasure.”

  His thumb rubbed over her fingers. “So smooth.” Gently, he released her fingers. Taking his other hand from behind his back, he revealed a large pink rose in full bloom. “A blush rose. Always reminded me of you, in my dreams.”

  Her cheeks were pinker than that now. She took the rose that had been stripped of thorns. It was plump and full, almost overblown. Like her.

  “Thank you.” She fiddled with it, then caught herself. So she put the rose in the vase already sporting a daffodil, saying a small stayfresh spell.

  Dri and she stared at each other.

  His hair was ginger colored with a few strands of silver. Her own dark brown hair was streaked with gray. She hoped he thought it was due to genetics instead of being worn down by her mother’s demands.

  Weathered skin and a touch of lines were around his amber eyes. She fought time relentlessly and her skin was smoother, but she worked indoors.

  “A hearth fire always reminded me of you,” she said, sounding lame.

  Smiling, he said, “And I thank you for that. I didn’t know if you ever thought of me at all.”

  “I did. I thought of Dri Paris, whose study group met in the same park as mine . . . when we were teens. Later, I knew my HeartMate had fire magic. Though I didn’t know he was you until your note last month in response to my telepathic call.” She stopped and breathed deeply. “And I thought of my HeartMate.” She’d wanted him so badly once. But it had been wrong for her to wish he’d come and take her away from her home then she hadn’t had the courage to break away from her mother.

  That idea led to emotions too deep. She wanted to concentrate on Dri, not the past.

  She moved to her empty chair and hesitated until he seated her, then she gestured to the other chair. He sat, expression inscrutable.

  With a quick smile, she said, “I like cinnamon caff, so I ordered that.” She moved her cup close and poured. “Would you like some?”

  His nostrils widened at the scent. He glanced at the floral china carafe, the delicate creamer and sweet holders. “Sure, a treat for me.”

  Arbusca took the second cup and poured as gracefully as she’d been taught, clamping her nerves tight so her hands wouldn’t shake, mindful of her long, heavy sleeves.

  When he took the cup, he made sure their fingers brushed. She got another little sensual jolt, but he didn’t seem affected.

  “I don’t know how I’ve stayed away from you so long. Put you in the past.” Dri shook his head.

  “I don’t know how I did, either. I’m glad the bond between us was never broken.” She sipped and regretted the dim room. His face was too much in shadow. “I’m glad I . . . ah . . . sent questing tremors down our link.”

  “Yes.”

  The waiter entered. “Is everything all right, sir? Can I get you anything else?”

  “Fine, thanks,” Dri said.

  “Madam?”

  “I’d like a fire.” A hearth fire.

  “Certainly,” the man said and walked to the fireplace, fumbled with the matches three times until the fire was lit. Arbusca’s smile strained as she tried to think of something to say to Dri that wouldn’t lead them directly into dangerous HeartMate territory.

  After the fire caught, the waiter bowed himself out.

  “You know,” Dri said quietly, “either or both of us could have lit that fire from over here. We have the Flair for it.”

  “It’s his job,” she said. “You don’t interfere with a server doing his or her job. It makes one nervous.” She knew that all too well.

  “Ah. Hah,” Dri said. Then his shoulders relaxed and he drank. “Excellent caff. Good choice.”

  “Thank you.” She inhaled, realized something herself, and let a smile hover around her lips. “Cinnamon reminds me of you, too.”

  He ran a calloused hand through his reddish hair. “Guess I understand where that comes from.”

  “I like your hair,” she said.

  “Beautiful Blush Willow,” Dri murmured. He put his hand over hers. “Who’d have thought I was HeartMate to GreatMistrys Blush Willow, of the Colonist FirstFamilies?”

  Now a tremor shivered through her at his touch . . . a touch she’d experienced in dreams . . . intimate dreams . . .

  Dri’s eyelids lowered, his smile grew satisfied, and his hand curled tighter around hers. Once more they stared at each other, and the only thing she heard was her pounding blood.

  The waiter appeared again, coughed, breaking the moment. “Sweet or savory appetizers?” he asked.

  Arbusca tried to slip her hand from Dri’s. His fingers tightened, squeezed, then let her go. She sent a cool you-should-know-better-than-tointerrupt- an-intense-quiet-conversation look toward the waiter. He gulped, dipped his head, and left the room.

  Taking his cup, Dri tilted it and drank it down. His smile had faded and his eyes had become wary. “You do that very well, the high-and-mighty-

  FirstFamily-lady thing. I had heard you became the chief of the household.”

  His tone as well as his words stung.

  “I did not have the Flair to follow my mother as a GreatLady. My son holds the title and responsibilities.
”

  “I meant that you run the household. You take care of the Family and Residence.”

  “I’m the housekeeper, yes.”

  Dri snorted, clinked his cup in his saucer, leaned forward with brows raised. “I’m betting that you hold the Family together. And you have plenty of Flair.”

  Arbusca drank her caff, forgetting she’d put a reheat spell on it, and burnt her tongue. She was rattled. Dammit! “Thank you for the compliment.”

  He made an abrupt, abortive gesture, grumbled, “FirstFamilies, can’t do anything with ’em.”

  What he said might not have been incendiary, but his anger went beyond the moment, simmered hard and fast and flamed in the bond between them in ugly waves.

  Carefully, Arbusca set her cup down, with no clink of porcelain touching porcelain. She breathed deeply through her nose, tried to dispel the effect of his ire beating against her, narrowed their link.

  He scowled.

  “What, precisely, do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “I mean, most precisely, that maybe I made a mistake in searching you out. Seems to me that you have gone all arrogant. Great noble to lowly Commoner.”

  “What!

  “You banish someone ‘of no importance.’ ”

  “That was a ca—”

  “You expect me to seat you.”

  “Manners!”

  “You treat the waiter like crap.”

  “I was helping the waiter learn his job. Such is required here. This is a social club for those who serve in NobleHouses. We train here and we hire from here. As for the ‘no one of importance,’ that was a nosy FamCat. I wasn’t aware you wanted anyone to witness our meeting.” She lowered her voice. “But that isn’t the problem here, is it? The problem is that you have great anger toward me. Why?”

  He sat, spine ramrod. His face appeared rougher as it set in harsh lines. “I wasn’t quite sure who my HeartMate was during those Passage dreamquests we shared twenty-five years ago.” His eyes went hotter as sexuality flickered in them along with anger. She flushed again but kept her gaze locked on his. This was a part of him that she didn’t know, was cautious of. Most people hid their negative qualities at first meetings.

  “And?” Anticipatory dread coated her stomach.

  “I went to your mother, GreatLady D’Willow. She made it very plain, as the matchmaker of Celta, that someone like me, the second son of a minor NobleHouse, was not the HeartMate of her daughter.”

  Arbusca’s throat tightened, but she forced words through it anyway. “You believed my mother when she said I wasn’t your HeartMate.”

  His eyes dropped. He tapped a finger on his cup . . . and banked his anger. But now that had transferred to her. “You didn’t believe her,” she whispered. “You knew my mother lied.”

  He shifted, his lips thinned, but he met Arbusca’s gaze straight. “Even in the entryway to her office, I could tell you were in the Residence. I sensed my HeartMate’s energy.”

  Arbusca jerked back into the cushioned seat. Whatever color she’d had in her face must have drained. Her voice was an unattractive croak.

  “You didn’t believe my mother when she said I wasn’t your HeartMate, but you never communicated with me. You never asked—”

  His laugh was short, humorless. “Your mother, the FirstFamily GreatLady D’Willow, made it very clear that she would ruin me and my Family, maybe worse, if I contacted you.”

  Arbusca yanked her hands back into her lap, clenching her fists. She couldn’t look at him. Her lips were cold. “You didn’t contact me. You didn’t fight for me. Didn’t care enough. I am your HeartMate.”

  “We were twenty-one,” he said.

  “That’s past legal age!”

  “It’s still damn young, and I couldn’t fight a woman of her power—riches and Flair psi magic and status.”

  “You didn’t care enough,” she repeated numbly.

  “And you didn’t wait for me,” he snapped. “You let her chivy you into marriage with the man she wanted. Kept you under her thumb, didn’t she?

  Forced you to send your boy to the country’cause she was afraid how powerful he was and he’d depose her. As he did, last year.”

  All painfully true. “You weren’t the only one who was threatened.” Her son’s health had been at risk. She couldn’t speak. If she moved, tears would fill her eyes and fall. She refused to let Dri see them.

  “Blush?” he said.

  She held herself tightly.

  “I’m done.” He threw the pink napkin onto the table. Without a glance, he strode from the room.

  She breathed steadily, forced the tears back, took a softleaf tissue from her deep sleeve pocket and dabbed at her eyes, blew her nose. How quickly everything went so wrong!

  They were both so angry at each other and she hadn’t even known.

  After one last long, shivery breath, she finished sipping her drink. She reached for his napkin and gritted her teeth at the residue of his intense emotions, then folded it in a manner indicating that it should be cleaned minimally, folded her own the same way. When she thought her knees could support her, she stood. Though there weren’t any caff stains or crumbs, she said a Word to ensure the tablecloth and table beneath were clean, and arranged the caff set so that it would be easy for the waiter to clear.

  She didn’t glance at the rose Dri had given her. Let others appreciate it. She was done. All her hopes had disintegrated. The past was too difficult to overcome.

  Another Word cleansed her hands, and she adjusted her long sleeves so they hung properly. More fool she to have dressed up for this meeting in a long tunic-robe, full trous gathered at the ankle, pretty shoes.

  She fingered the ring she wore on a necklace under her gown. She hadn’t been brave enough to wear it on her finger openly. And she’d waited for Dri to mention it.

  He’d left the pattered circlet of gold with her mother all those years ago, but Arbusca hadn’t known of it until last year. More guilt welled. She’d flashed into fiery rage and almost killed her tyrannical mother when the ring was found. Arbusca had sworn a Vow of Honor never to speak of that.

  Stepping from the room, she lowered her eyelids to slide her scrutiny discreetly around, then let her shoulders relax. The club was dim and quiet . . . and one she belonged to but didn’t often frequent. Since it was a weeknight, there weren’t many people. No one seemed to have sensed any oddness about Dri or her.

  She saw the waiter and he bowed. “Thank you for your service.” She smiled. “You’re coming along well.”

  “I made mistakes,” he grumbled.

  “We all do.”

  The majordomo’s stand was near the entry door and teleportation pad. She stopped to have the caff and a good tip put on her account and found Dri had paid the bill for both the room and caff. At that, some of her anger rubbed away. He was honorable at least—maybe more. They were HeartMates, after all, still enough in tune that they had a good link—enough to hurt each other badly.

  She saw a footman holding the door open for her and decided a short walk in the spring evening would be better than teleporting home. Where her whole Family waited to quiz her.

  She walked through the door, turned left toward CityCenter, and ran straight into Dri’s broad chest. Her ankle twisted, sending sharp pain up her leg. She gritted her teeth. He grabbed her upper arms. “Steady there.”

  Arbusca pressed her lips together to stop hot words. Her ankle hurt and here he was seeing her at a disadvantage again.

  She wasn’t an irritable person; why could being in his company distress her so? Because they were meant to be together. But they’d lost their chance.

  As soon as she was back on balance, he dropped his arm and stuck his hands back into his trous pockets. Had he regretted his words like she had hers and waited for her?

  Is she going to do it, is she, is she, huh? The mental voice was accompanied by a small yip. Arbusca looked down to see a scruffy dog of an unfortunate butterscotch color. He was sitti
ng, scratching his ear with his back leg, tongue lolling cheerfully from his mouth.

  She kept her face smooth. “You have a Familiar Companion, a Fam?”

  He has a dog who loves him. Yes, he does! The dog hopped to his paws, shook himself, which sent dusty hair flying, and smiled up at her. I am Mel. I am his G’Uncle’s FamDog. But I love Dri, too!

  “Of course you do.”

  You’re going to help us, yes? Yes! We need a housekeeping expert.

  She stiffened and slowly turned her head to Dri. He was scowling, his hands in his pockets had fisted, and she thought that his color had risen, though it was hard to tell in the twilight. Certainly, he radiated annoyance.

  “You need a housekeeping expert.” She put her hands in her opposite sleeves as her throat clogged and ached with hurt. She wanted to clear it, but wouldn’t. So that was the true reason he’d seen her.

  “It’s not like that, Blush,” he said, opened his mouth, shook his head. “I have few words.”

  “You had plenty before.”

  The dog yipped again. A fly flew by and he snapped at it, caught it, swallowed, and grinned. His whole body wagged with his tail. We need good spells that work, and good housekeeping! We don’t know spells and we need them.

  “I see,” she said, even though she didn’t.

  “No. Ya don’t,” Dri said, and pulled his hands from his pockets.

  “Pray tell me, then, what I don’t understand.”

  The muscles of his jaw bunched.

  A heavy, wheezing exhalation escaped the dog; he stared up at Dri with wild eyes. She is not happy! You said she would be cheerful and happy! You said all would go well! He sniffed at her trous and the hem of her embroidered tunic. You made her angry!

  “That’s right,” Arbusca said.

  FIX IT! The dog’s mental projection was enough to make a few passersby stop and smile. Mel barked at Dri. You said we were lonely and we needed help and she would come and be your HeartMate and help and we would not be sad anymore and things would get better for your G’Uncle and we would have all we need. FIX IT.

  Dri winced, met Arbusca’s stare, hunched a shoulder. “I’m better at tearing down than fixing or restoring.” He angled his chin. “I’m the best demolition expert on two continents, but fixing . . .” His big, rough hands spread wide.