“That’s right.” He kissed her fingers.
“The Traditionalist Stance movement is discredited and destroyed.”
“But I don’t believe all the culprits were caught.”
Tilting her head, she said, “No?”
“No.” He paused, kept his voice steady and heavy with solemnity. “I, and some of my friends—”
“The other FirstFamily Lords of your generation.” Avellana nodded. “Your social group. And allies.”
“And allies,” he confirmed. “We believe one of the ringleaders escaped, a lover of Folia Yew, male or female, a person who is a member of one of the FirstFamilies.”
She stilled. Her head pivoted slowly toward him. “And that is the danger you think you sense for me now?”
“Yes,” he replied simply.
“And this evil person might want to hurt me. Because I am different, my Flair makes—made”—she corrected—“me different.”
“Yes.”
She stared back at the mural, her eyes moving as if she studied the technique.
Then she snapped, “What are the percentages, Muin?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then no one does. And I will no longer put my life in Druida City on hold for you. My life with you.”
“Avellana—”
“No. I will not stay here.” She jutted her chin. “You must accept my decision and deal with it, Muin.”
Before he could find words to finesse the situation, to persuade her, a cat yowl split the air. Rhyz, Avellana’s tom FamCat, zoomed through the door, then screeched, What is this? WHAT IS THIS? We are NOT in the labyrinth. I don’t LIKE this.
“You know it is a mural, Rhyz,” Avellana said, her voice terse . . . as she rarely was, especially with those she loved.
Make it go away! The cat cast about as if looking for Avellana and him.
“Ask me nicely.”
A cat sniff. Puh-lease make the labyrinth go away.
“Very well.” Avellana flicked her fingers and the mural shrank, flattened, and settled back into the center stone of the temple.
Rhyz swaggered up and stood, hair slightly raised, staring at Vinni. The Fam lifted his upper muzzle to show his fangs. You, again, coming to argue with my FamWoman. His tail flicked. Only coming when you want to take, not to give.
“That is not true,” Avellana said.
The cat slid his eyes toward her, then back toward Vinni to glare at him. We are tired of you keeping Us out of Our Residence and with strangers.
“That is enough,” Avellana scolded, but a surge of truth came through her bond with Vinni at her Fam’s mental words.
The going-away party for you has started. We must attend.
Avellana jerked upright. “I am late. I am off schedule.”
Yes, he, with all his quarreling, made you late.
“I must go, Muin.” Her lips pursed and she stood. “As it is, I will have to do a wretched Whirlwind Spell to cleanse and change for the party.”
She hadn’t said anything about his sweat-odor, Vinni noted. His words must have spurted through their bond with his emotions, because she caught his thought, as they occasionally did with each other.
You do not smell bad to me, only like my hardworking Muin, Avellana sent him telepathically.
A nice sentiment, but his muscles didn’t relax under the emotional stroking.
“No one will care if they see you in your work clothes,” Vinni pointed out.
“I care. I want to wear appropriate clothes for the party, to honor my friends.”
There is excellent food at the party that we are missing! Rhyz lifted his nose.
“That is right. They have several gourmet chefs here on Mona Island.”
You are not invited, Vinni, said Rhyz. He turned his back and sauntered away from them, stopped at the western door, and waited for Avellana to open it for him, as if he couldn’t open it himself with his Flair or teleport out.
Vinni hadn’t risen, so Avellana bent and pressed her lips to his. A tender gesture, though he could feel her anger at him decrease, then spike, then even out, then rise . . . and his love didn’t like unruly emotions.
“I love you, Muin, but I remain angry with you.” She kept her face near his. “The fact is that you lied to me all these years.”
“I didn’t—”
“You misdirected. Both me and my Family. That is the current issue bothering me, though there are others.”
“Others?”
“Yes, your belief that I am fragile, the imbalance of our relationship, your lack of trust in me—”
“Avellana—”
She raised a hand, palm out. “No. We will talk of these concerns later. Currently I am late for an event my friends are giving in honor of me.” Stress laced her voice. Walking to the west door, she opened it for Rhyz. He looked out, up at her, then back at Vinni.
You go, the cat sent mentally.
“Yes, I am late.” She angled toward Vinni. “If you leave now, you can catch the next ferry back to Druida City. It will give you time to think, as opposed to teleporting back to your home”—she glanced at her wrist timer—“where they will be serving dinner and will expect you to be clean and dress formally.” She walked out the door and didn’t look back.
Rhyz sauntered up to him, tilting his head to meet Vinni’s eyes. We have been many places over the years when you sent us away. North when the plague raged in Druida City. South to Gael City and also to the Cherry Resort in the time of more sickness. We stayed with D’Marigold and T’Marigold in their Residence at the edge of Druida City during my FamWoman’s Passages. But Avellana does not like travel as much as I. She wants to go home and stay there. I think once she is there she will not be budged again, because you have sent her off so many times already. You have lost that ability now, and some of her goodwill and trust. You think on that, Vinni T’Vine.
He answered the FamCat mentally, And you guard your FamWoman.
Rhyz turned and sashayed back to the door, tail waving. I always have. I always will. Better than you, ’cuz I stay WITH her.
As soon as his last paw cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut.
Vinni sat in the cool temple, all his muscles tight. He’d finally reached his limit with Avellana, and why hadn’t he understood he was coming up on that? He laughed shortly. She’d spoken of inequalities of their relationship, and now he knew she’d just taken charge of that relationship.
He hoped she would be more generous with him than he had been with her.
• • •
Avellana fell asleep and found herself walking in the Marigolds’ garden at dawn—the Residence where she had spent all three of her Passages to free her Flair. Her Family and Vinni had believed that without the help of Signet D’Marigold, a catalyst, Avellana would die. Looking back from adulthood, she concurred. She remained close to Signet, especially since the woman patronized artists and had been the first to emotionally support Avellana in her holo painting. She considered Cratag Maytree T’Marigold like an older brother.
So she enjoyed the familiar gardens and took the path through the groomed beds to the grove at the juncture of the river on the south and the Great Platte Ocean on the west. D’Marigold Residence stood at the far southwestern corner of Noble Country that held most of the FirstFamily estates.
Avellana loved this piece of land and made sure to visit it and give extra care to the trees if she spent any time with the Marigolds. She moved to the point where she could watch the summer-sleepy river join the ocean, a little less crashing here than up the coast. Water sounded in a myriad of rhythms, and she smiled and let the ebb and flow of the surf wash away the irritation of the day. The sun speared light on the river, turning it a jeweled emerald, and colored the white-tipped waves coral.
But she jolted when Muin’s long fin
gers closed over her left shoulder. She said nothing but should have anticipated that he would join her tonight for dream sex . . . or simply to be together outside reality.
Three
At various times in their lives since she had reached adulthood at seventeen, she or Muin had pushed for marriage and the HeartBond, but the other had hesitated.
When she was twenty-two, she and Muin had finally gotten properly engaged. Naturally their Families preferred a long engagement to negotiate the contracts and alliances. But that had taken, so far, two years. Far too long.
Now in the interior of the dream, she said nothing, and he did not speak, either. But he dropped his hand and moved close behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close to his body. His shaft was erect, and that caused her pulse to jump, her core to heat and clench as need filtered into the dream—his and hers—and her own sex to dampen in readiness for him.
“A beautiful place,” he rumbled, and she could have sworn his breath stirred the tendrils of hair at the top of her ear. “But I prefer our own place.” He dropped his arms and urged her to turn around and face him. As she did, her head naturally tilted up.
Though his lips curved slightly, his blue-gray eyes showed sadness. She had watched that sorrow creep into his gaze more and more as he practiced his craft. She believed that for every positive, cheerful, and wonderful future he saw, dark and dreadful visions also threatened. She did not know what to do to bring him to a more lighthearted identity again. She thought if they wed and HeartBonded she could ease that melancholy in him, though of their original personalities, she had always been the more serious.
He put his hands on her shoulders and the setting dissolved from the land overlooking the river and the ocean to a garden outside T’Vine Residence. At her request many years ago, Muin had claimed this particular strip of garden because the fewest windows overlooked it, and only Family members with telescopes could see. The first spell she and Muin had done together had been erecting a privacy dome over the area.
That did not matter in a dream, of course, nor did the fact that their clothes had vanished. His erection lay against her stomach, long and hard and hot, and she felt the heat of her own desire flag her cheeks pink. Her nipples tightened.
“Avellana,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied. It would always be “yes” to loving with Muin, no matter how difficult the reality outside the dreams.
He stepped back and drew his hands down her arms, and that touch primed her for the linking of their hands, all the sensitive nerves in their palms meeting in intimate touch. She lifted her eyes and their gazes met, too, and their bond had swelled to a huge throbbing cable of a rich yellow hue.
She had heard that the HeartBond glowed golden, but that connection could not be made with dream sex. Physical mating must occur and she yearned for that, so much that wetness dampened her cheeks.
He framed her face, wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “Let me love you, Avellana. I need you so much tonight.”
Unlike most of the times when they met in dreams she did not answer, “Always.” Tonight she said, “Yes.”
His eyes tinted from bluish to gray, the more sorrowful hue, and she lifted up the few centimeters to meet his soft mouth with her own and closed her eyes.
Of all the moments of their lives, she liked best when his lips touched her.
He opened his mouth and pressed his tongue against her lips and she let him in to stroke her tongue and their hips arched together, rubbing, teasing until the nerves on her skin tingled with fire that swept throughout her body. Then they lay on soft cropped grass with that smell mixing with Muin’s sex fragrance and the tall wildflowers bowed over them. The stalky blooms covered them more and he slipped into her and muttered something she could not hear, but she felt was “home.”
She opened her lashes and found his gaze soft and blue. Such changeable eyes he had, her lover, her only lover and only love, her HeartMate. He filled her, long and thick and rigid, and he did not move because he knew she liked this moment, too, where they lay linked, bodies and hands and gazes, totally connected. Before they moved and she got locked in her head with the selfish pleasure of rushing toward orgasm.
His expression turned from tender to strained, and her lips curved in a complacent smile. She liked when he lost control; he did not do that very often in their dreams and never during those three times of in-person bonding.
“Av’ln’a.” He slurred her name, even as his eyes lost focus on her and turned inward. She angled her hips a centimeter and he groaned and became pure man, only physical with none of his huge intelligence, his great Flair. Primal man and her mate.
Then the sensations he gave her and the spiraling desire flowing between them stopped all thought, and she could only move as primal woman and his HeartMate. She raised her legs and clamped them around his narrow hips, moved her hands to his wide and muscular back and held on. Vaguely she understood that as her nails dug into his dream-flesh he groaned and sped up the slick plunging until he yelled and held still and hard over her. She reached for the shattering he always delivered. She hit the peak and broke apart and saw the structure of life and death and the colorful spinning dandelion florets of her very own Flair, and then she sank back into her body and mind.
If they had been corporeal, she would have bloodied his back, but her hands fell limply from him and into the grass. Her panting sounded loud in her ears, and she had to blink to see the beads of perspiration on Muin’s face.
Then he rolled and she lay atop him and heard his heart beat, matching the rhythm of her own. Or her pulse ran with his. She had never been aware enough to feel whose matched with the other’s. Perhaps they fell into the exact cadence at the same time.
She propped herself on her arms against his chest and stared at her love. Now his eyes had closed. His shoulder-length blond-brown hair showed strands dark with perspiration.
Passion faded from him slower than from her, and she could take these minutes to scrutinize him, how he had changed. All life’s alterations reflected here. The lines by his eyes and mouth had been etched deeper; a few more strands of silver in his hair waved over his temples. He was a young man, but his Flair had aged him.
And perhaps worry for his HeartMate, her.
She ran her fingers through his long hair. “Muin.” Then she sighed and laid her head on his chest. “HeartMate.”
He responded, “Yes.” His hand lifted and stroked her hair.
“I do not know how I could bear our outside life if I did not have these loving interludes.”
“Me, either.” His slate-blue eyes opened and centered on her, and her spirits sank as she understood she had introduced reality into the conversation and there would be no after-sex affectionate cuddling.
And then Muin made a gesture and they stood, fully clothed in their nightwear. She wore a short silkeen tunic with tabs on the shoulders, he loose trous that did not reach his knees, of a deep color that she could not see in the twilight but was probably dark green—and the time of the dream had changed from dawn to twilight. Muin preferred evening and night for sex for some reason, while she liked greeting a new day full of potential with loving.
Now they walked through the wildly artful garden of Mona Island, and she provided the dreamscape with true features. He took her hand and near-danced her to the white gazebo constructed of thin wood rods and slats in an airy fantasy of posts and dome. As usual, he instinctively felt what she liked best about each place she had stayed.
Vinni whirled his lover up the steps of the gazebo, around the small space, then stopped them in the middle, surprising a smile from her. He’d seen that smile after they’d made love, but it had faded when he’d moved them vertical. Once in the center, cool mosaic tile under their feet, he said, “If you stay here on Mona Island, I will come and be with you.” He moved close and kissed her mouth gently, tenderl
y, lingering when it curved down.
Her brows slanted down, too. “And we will love in the flesh instead of dream? I am very tired of dreams, Muin.”
“I think your sister added a new condition to our marriage contract regarding the loyalty ceremony from the Vines just yesterday.”
Her breath escaped in a huff. “I will speak to my sister and parents. I will not let this betrothal drag on much longer.”
He had to kiss her again. Her lips firmed under his and he touched his tongue to them so she’d open her mouth, but she didn’t. More, she even drew back to stare him in the eyes. Her gaze scrutinized him, and the link between them pulsed with her intense focus, but he didn’t know what she sought, what she wanted.
“I will not wait more than two and a half more months, Muin. If you wish me to tell those negotiating for your Family that, I will do so. Tomorrow is the first of the month of Holly, then comes Hazel, my Family’s month, then yours, Vine. Let us set the date for Vine new twinmoons at the beginning of the month.”
He stared at her, beautiful in the evening light, and thought on her words. He had made a shot at changing her mind but realized he hadn’t expected to do so, though he would have carried through on any promise he’d made.
As for marrying her in two and a half months . . . his heart bumped at the thought, the yearning. But he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d be able to find and neutralize the threat to her in two and a half months . . . According to his nightmares, their enemy’s intention to harm her seemed to wax and wane, perhaps had been put aside for different goals, like the attacks on children of Noble and Commoner marriages earlier in the year.
He thought he understood the motive of their enemy. He or she considered Avellana a mutant, a freak, her primary Flair too extreme for her to be allowed to be a powerful FirstFamily GreatLady.
Because she’d nearly killed the whole Ash household—people, Familiar animal companions, even Fams in the adoption rooms—when she’d been a child. To resurrect a newly dead Fam.
Heart Sight Page 3
