She held his gaze for a moment. Then she lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.
“Let’s go then,” she said. Just that easily, she was with him. As always.
He turned to Theon. “Are you going on?”
“Perhaps, after some rest. I may see you yet again.”
“Do. I would like to hear more of my mother as child.”
Theon smiled. “And I would like to hear of her as queen.”
Lyon nodded. He didn’t quite understand what this sensation was, only that it was growing stronger. He was still trying to analyze it as they started up the moonlit trail.
Chapter 26
“DO YOU ALWAYS answer a knock with a dagger in your hand?”
Rina had reached the hidden cave late. Too late to be polite, since the crescent moon had already risen, but she’d gone nevertheless. And in the moment before her eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness of his doorway, all she could see was the glint of Clarion steel in his hand.
“Few know of this place. And there are those who would be happier if I vanished.”
For a moment pleasure at being one of the few who knew mattered more. But she didn’t doubt what he’d said. Resistance was high to the very hint that war might be starting all over again. And the delusional among the populace transferred that feeling to the messenger.
He stepped aside and let her in through the hidden door. The large room was in darkness.
“If I woke you, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
She supposed it was a negation, but she felt even worse if he didn’t sleep well and she’d disturbed him. In the darkness she heard, rather than saw, him move toward the back, and then the huntlight flooded the room.
She’d awakened him, all right. His hair was a dark tangle, as if already his night had been restless. He wore sleep leggings and a light shirt open at the throat. She realized abruptly that he had changed, physically, more than she’d realized, aside from his injury. He was still lean, rangy, but his shoulders and chest had broadened from the younger man she’d known, his arms grown more muscled. And he—
Her thoughts stopped short as her wandering—and admittedly appreciative—gaze stopped at his face.
No eye patch.
His head snapped around, away. “Sorry,” he muttered.
He turned, took a step toward the sleeping alcove, no doubt where the concealing patch was.
“No. Don’t.”
He froze. “My face,” he said tightly, “is not something you want to look upon in the light.”
“And who are you to decide that for me?”
His head snapped back around. She took advantage, studied the scar that twisted its way from his cheekbone to his hairline.
It was both better and worse than she’d expected. Better, because there was no glimpse of a damaged, blind eye, the scar had sealed his lids shut. Worse because it was a thick, jagged thing, a ridge of tissue that twisted and pulled even as it spoke of a grievous injury healed.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” he said.
She couldn’t speak. When he did again, his tone was sour, and oddly disappointed.
“I would never have thought you one of those.”
“Those?”
“Those with the peculiar fascination with the gruesome.”
She smothered a gasp at the harshness of both voice and accusation. She drew herself up and faced him head on.
“Bright Tarkson, you are a fool.” She bit the words out, sharp and nearly as harsh as his own.
His good eye blinked. “I’ve been told that before.”
“You are a fool if you think I feel anything but pain at what happened to you, if you think I do nothing less than ache inside at the thought of what you had to endure.”
“I—”
“Did I wish to see? Yes. But only because I was hopeful it could be helped, if seen to properly. Battlefield wounds never heal as they could, especially when no help is at hand. Nelcar, our medical officer from the old days on the Star, could always work wonders if someone was hurt, even in the field. And now, with full equipment and time to work slowly, he does even more.”
“It would take more than a wonder.” The words were as sour, but the heat was gone from his tone.
“Nelcar is very good. But even if he can do nothing, that scar is still a mark of honor, of courage.”
“More of ineffectiveness.”
She scoffed. “Oh, yes, that too, because the vaunted Captain Tarkson must of course be able to deal with one hundred to one odds, must he not? There were five of you against an entire troop of Coalition forces, but nevertheless, you were ineffective to not have walked away without a mark.”
“I meant I should have seen it was a trap. Dax would have. And he would have won.”
“Won?” She stared at him. “Won? Against hundreds of the Coalition’s best—you came out of that canyon alive, and your men with you, and you think you did not win?”
“I—”
“Dax prized his crew above all else. They are the one thing that was irreplaceable to him.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d moved, that she’d stepped forward even closer in her need to get through to him. But now she was there, bare inches away from him, meeting his gaze, refusing to avoid the sight of the twisted scar.
“You were irreplaceable,” she finished, hating how her voice broke on the word, but unable to help it. “To all of us. When we thought you dead . . .”
Her voice trailed off. The memories of that time were too painful to voice, even now.
“I would have thought you would have forgotten by the next battle.”
“Then you are indeed a fool. I could—” She caught herself. “We could never forget you. And we never did.”
He studied her for a moment. Facing her, she realized. Letting her see the reality he lived with. The patch covered the worst of it, and she wondered if he wore it for others, or himself. Perhaps both; keeping them from staring would make his own life easier, surely.
“So fierce,” he said softly. “You needn’t spend your concern on me.”
“I’ll spend it where I please.”
“What if I don’t want it?”
“Then reject it. As you do all others. It will not change how I feel.”
For a long moment there was silence, and she didn’t think he was even breathing. But he didn’t look away, didn’t step back, and that alone seemed to freeze her in place, unable to move.
“And if I did want it?”
The words sounded pained, forced, as if he had fought them and lost. And suddenly, as clearly as one of the star maps filed away in her head, everything snapped into focus.
“Then concern would be only the beginning,” she said softly.
“Rina.”
Her name was all he said, but the way he said it told her he understood.
“That,” she said, lifting a hand to his scarred face, trying not to react when he winced and pulled back involuntarily, “means less than nothing to me. This”—she touched the other side of his head at his temple, tapping to indicate the mind inside—“and this”—she lowered her hand and gave a single, gentle tap to his chest, over his heart—“are all that matter.”
He caught her hand in his, startling her. He pressed her hand flat against his chest, and she thought the heat of him would sear her fingers.
“You cannot want this.”
“That is not your decision,” she said, although breath to speak seemed in short supply at the moment.
“You are too good for the likes of me.”
“Funny, I always thought the same of you.”
“I’m merely that broken-down war steed.”
“And I flew with the most infamous skyp
irate ever known.”
“You’re too young.”
“That mattered then. Not now. Besides, my youth ended the day my family was slaughtered by the Coalition.”
The mention of the conquerors reminded her of why she was here in the first place. She hesitated—she did not want to interrupt this, but the choice was taken from her. He seemed to see or sense the change.
“Ah. So there is a reason you’re here in the night, other than to plague me with impossible dreams.”
She pulled back and glared at him, hands on her hips. “The only steed you resemble just now is an Omegan cart horse. That discussion will continue,” she said.
“I am warned.” His voice was a pained combination of weariness and longing. She seized on the latter, tucking it away in her tight chest, next to the hope that had sprung in her when he’d said, “And if I did want it?”
“There is something I came to tell you. I received word from Dax. Dare spoke and the council has voted.”
He went very still. “And?”
“Dax is coming now. With the Evening Star fully armed. And Trios is preparing backup forces to follow, if he calls for them. Dare will lead them.”
He let out a long, harsh breath.
“Your king must be quite convincing.”
“He is. He is both loved and respected, the kind of man who would be a leader anywhere, royal blood or no.”
He nodded slowly. “I just hope he does not come to regret it.”
“Dare—and Dax—would rather mobilize a hundred times unnecessarily than not be ready the one time it was necessary.”
“It is coming, Rina.”
“I agree. Although I sometimes wonder why you would fight for this world that has turned against you.”
“I fight the Coalition. The place is secondary.”
She reached out once more, cupped his cheek below the scar. “And you will not be alone.”
She felt a tremor go through him—and vowed in that moment that this gallant man who had borne so much would someday find the ease he deserved.
Chapter 27
SHAINA PAUSED once more to study the path ahead. She led because there was only the one path now, all others had faded away once they’d left the spot where the old man had caught up with them.
This was crazy, trying this mountain in nothing but the stark light of the moon. And all this talk of treasure and magical crystals was crazier still. But if Cub said the pull was that strong . . .
She shook her head, sharply, as if that would rid it of the fanciful thoughts Theon seemed to bring on. It was all his mystical talk and riddles, she thought. That and the darkness caused such silliness.
The darkness caused other silliness as well. An uncomfortable kind.
His touch, his kisses had seared her to her very soul. Childlike notions seemed burned away, leaving her only with the thoughts of a woman. A woman who had suddenly realized that the person dearest and closest to her was also a man who fired her blood in a way she had never thought possible. She had thought herself immune, and had silently discounted her mother’s promise that one day she would meet the man she could not walk away from.
She had never imagined that man would be the one person she had never wanted to walk away from since the day she had been born.
“Don’t you think this is all rather strange?” she asked, grasping for distraction.
“I think this is Arellia,” he said simply. “Home to myths and legends and magical ideas.”
“Do you believe in them? Is that why you wished to go on this quest in the first place?”
He let out a long sigh. “Maybe I just wished to avoid the inevitable a little longer. I’ve trained for this all my life, yet I find myself wishing I could simply be a fighter. It seems simpler, somehow, than the governmental side.”
“Cleaner, perhaps,” Shaina said with a grin. “But you worry needlessly. I know you. I know your mind and your heart. I have faith in you and always will.”
“As long as I have that, I will muddle through,” he said.
Her heart wrenched oddly in her chest at the simple declaration. All he needed was her faith in him? She could think of nothing to say that would not circle them back to that thing now between them that she did not wish to acknowledge.
Cub looked up the mountain, up the pathway lit by that odd silver light. “As for this quest, it may be as simple as not wishing to quit when I feel we are so close.”
“It is truly that strong, this feeling you have?”
“All I know is I feel we are drawing very close.”
She supposed it was no odder than her own ability to sense approaching threats, that sense she was unable to explain in any logical terms.
“You mean you are,” she said. “You’re the Graymist.”
“Yes,” Cub said, almost absently, as he stared up the mountain. The path they were on curved sharply right up ahead, and they could not see anything beyond that from here.
“I do not like this.”
Cub looked back. “You sense something else?”
“Not in the way you mean. I just do not like this idea of being pulled.”
“You do not like feeling you have no choice,” he said.
He knew her so well. There was that, too, she thought. What would it be like to be with, as man and woman, someone who knew her mind, her heart, as Cub did? He knew what moved her, what she wished for, what she feared, what she scorned. And she knew the same about him. There would be no learning period for them, when mates had to learn each other’s ways, except—
She cut off the hot, sensuous vision that flashed into her mind, but between one breath and the next, her blood had heated to near boiling. Why was she even thinking of that one place where they had yet to learn everything about each other? Why was she even thinking about them together in that way at all?
“Whatever you just thought,” Cub said, his voice oddly husky, “I would give much to know it.”
Just the idea of admitting what she’d thought overwhelmed her. “Are we moving on, or are we not?” she snapped out.
He frowned in the silver light, at her sharp tone no doubt. “I’m as unsettled as you are. No need to sting.” He turned and started up the path.
Even this, he understood, she thought as she followed. And it struck her suddenly, the thought that if she were to be joined with someone, in that unbreakable Triotian bonding that was forever and beyond, who better than her Cub, who knew her so very well?
That simply, everything changed in her mind. What had seemed impossible now seemed imperative, for how could it ever be anyone else? And how hideous would it be to stand by and watch him with someone else?
And no matter how much going along with old wishes of people she didn’t even know went against her nature, she had to live with the simple, undeniable fact that no man she had ever known had made her feel the way Cub had with one simple kiss.
At least they were, as usual, in this together. For feeling like this if he did not would be the most impossible of all.
THAT DAMNED moonlight. It kept him back too far; he could not hear them. It had taken him too long to relocate them, after he’d had to change his route. It rankled that they had gotten behind him; that the woman had spoken to him in that insolent tone—that the whore had spoken to him at all—still rankled. The entire time he had worked his way back to them he had regretted not simply taking them then and there. This treasure they searched for was merely a legend, and he was beginning to feel he was truly on a fool’s errand, following them as if they would lead him to something worth all this effort.
True, the prince was more important. Riches might buy his own life after killing the Coalition’s advance scout, but not the life he wanted, back in good graces, back in power. Riches would merely stop them from kil
ling him. And there was no promise for how long; Coalition memories were long and their hatred implacable.
But the king’s son would buy him everything he dreamed.
But he must have patience. The Coalition had waited a long time, and so must he. He could ruin everything by indulging in his need to hurry. And indulging in need was what had brought down that fool Corling.
So he would wait. And follow. And when they were distracted by the treasure, or by the realization it had never existed, he would make his move. He would kill the woman and take the prince, and his future would be assured. And it would be soon. He had gleaned from those few who dared remain his ally that the move was imminent. The Coalition was already gathering, and would be on the wing again soon, and this time they would obliterate any opposition regardless of the assets that would be destroyed in that cleansing. They would not make the mistake of leaving anyone on Arellia and, most particularly, Trios alive to mount another rebellion. This time they would die to the last man, woman, and child.
They were moving again, up the path. Their every move was painted for him with that silver light, but it also forced him to hang back, out of sight. Only when the path curved to the right, around the flank of the mountain, did he dare pick up his pace.
He kept close to the rocks, moving from shadow to shadow as he followed the bend in the narrow track. He moved slowly despite his impatience; he did not want them to spot him this time. With infinite care he worked his way around that curve, pausing to listen carefully before peeking around for a glimpse of the path ahead. They kept moving, as if they hadn’t a care in the world. They clearly had no idea he was behind them this time.
He was still congratulating himself on his stealth and cleverness when he peeked around the next outcropping of stone and brush. The path straightened up ahead, and he could see it in that cursed light for some distance. He blinked, squinted, his brain refusing to accept what his eyes were telling him.
The path was empty.
They had vanished.
Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3) Page 20
