Sasha giggled, then reached into her pocket and withdrew her handkerchief, staunching the blood on Quinn’s face. He looked angry, and then, after a while, he did not.
They started out, back into the grasslands. Back into danger.
CHAPTER 15
As they crossed an idyllic sea of swaying golden grass, they started seeing a greater variety of dinosaurs. Long-necked sauropods as vast as whales swayed by in trumpeting, ever-mobile herds, while smaller plated dinosaurs scampered between their enormous feet. The smaller ones were capable of feeding in the dense, sporadic woods that dotted the landscape, but the enormous herbivores could only knock down trees with their sheer bulk and feed on the fallen branches. The density of the underbrush forced them to keep to the open plains. The smaller ones followed, because moving with the sauropods was safer. No Ceratosaurus—or, indeed, any predator—was willing to take on such huge, ship-like beasts.
Sasha and Quinn, like the smaller dinosaurs, moved with the herd; unlike them, they kept a safer distance. Quinn commented that even though they were herbivorous, a frightened African elephant would still charge a man just for being in the way. Sasha fed Newton berries and talked about the different dinosaurs they encountered, the meaning behind their scientific names and their behaviors. She was delighted to learn that Quinn knew almost nothing about paleontology, even if he was good at survival in the wild. That meant it was her turn to educate him. Around noon, when the herd stopped to deforest a small copse of trees, they stopped to rest and feed themselves from their store of water and food. When the herd moved on, Sasha and Quinn moved with it, always west, toward the distant territories of She.
“You like dinosaurs, don’t you?” Quinn said at one point.
“I like the big herbivores,” Sasha admitted as Quinn steered her away from a rambunctious young stegosaurus that had wandered away from its mother to explore them. It pranced up to them, the size of a draft horse, then bounced away with its spiky tail held high. “I’m not overly keen on the predators, though.”
Quinn smirked, briefly. “Nor I. May I have some water, please?”
Sasha reached into her homemade rucksack and passed Quinn one of the water eggs. Quinn drank, then splashed a handful of water over his face and hair. It made his shirt stick to his back and shoulders and Sasha looked away, wondering if she’d have an opportunity to see Quinn shirtless again. It was an absurd thought, she told herself.
Yesterday, Quinn’s sensitive redheaded skin had burned to the color of a Heritage rose. Now his skin was peeling and developing a bronze sheen, like something emerging from his African days. She imagined she was even worse off—she never so much as walked in her father’s garden without a hat—but luckily for her, Quinn had harvested some oils from a strangely pointed-looking plant that he said would help with the redness and peeling. The salve helped cool her angry burns, though it felt uncomfortably like syrup coating her face.
Sasha picked absently at the insects sticking to the goo on her sunburned face. “Do you have any new idea as to how we’ll kill She when we find her?”
Quinn thought about that. “In Africa, bushmen sometimes lever boulders off high cliffs to crush the backs of the large animals they’re hunting, like elephants and water buffalo. Perhaps we could do something similar.”
“But elephants and buffalo are much smaller compared to She. Will that work?”
Quinn hefted the spear over his shoulder and considered that. “Maybe we can start an avalanche. Bury her alive.”
His idea seemed reasonable, though not foolproof. She had no idea how they would start an avalanche. And even if it was possible, what was to keep them from burying themselves along with the creature? Sasha stared up at the brutal midday sun and scratched at her face some more, wishing there was a safer way of killing the creature—preferably from a distance. “Did the bushmen teach you a lot in Africa? Is that how you know so many things?”
Quinn didn’t look up, just marched onward, using the javelin like a walking stick. “They taught me everything. After years of living in Africa, I considered them the most civilized men in the world. Especially compared to my countrymen, and my father.”
He said the last bit softly, bitterly, as if he already regretted saying it.
She looked at him, at his bowed head of windblown red hair. “What was your father like, Quinn?”
Quinn never broke his stride. “A devil. The devil.”
“But he took you to Africa with him.” Even her own father didn’t take her anywhere of importance with him when he traveled.
As if reading her thoughts, Quinn added, “He took me to Africa because I was his only child, Sasha, not because he liked me.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say about your father,” she said softly. “You should honor your father, like they say in the Good Book.”
“I don’t believe in God. Watch your step.” He pulled her out of the path of a creaking, falling tree that a sauropod had bullied over only a few meters away. Branches crackled and leaves fluttered down like strange rain, but she just kept staring at him, unable to pull her eyes away.
Quinn stared back, his eyes dark and hooded in his sunburned face. “My father was an evil old git. He beat our servants, our slaves, even my mother almost from the beginning of their marriage. She had three miscarriages because of him. She finally died of her injuries when I was six years old. Then it was my turn.” His smile grew, infinitely bitter, so he looked almost like a devil with his red hair and red face and dark, desperate eyes. Sasha flinched internally. In her mind ’s eye, she saw again the old scar tissue webbing Quinn’s back.
“Quinn, please…”
“That’s who the esteemed Lord Horace Quinn was. And that was the day my faith died. Do you understand, Sasha?”
She looked away. She marched on, putting more lift into her steps. She was too stunned to react. She had never heard of such horrors in a family before. Her father had never struck her in his life, no matter how petulant a child she’d been. He probably wouldn’t have known how. He had loved her mother. He loved her. She concentrated on just walking and not tripping over her own feet. Finally, after the heat and silence had slipped in between them like a burning wall, she said in a soft, broken voice, “I’m sorry, Quinn. I’d no idea.”
“Why are you sorry, Sasha? None of it was your fault.”
His words stung. “I mean…I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say, Quinn.”
Quinn took mercy on her at last and said, “You don’t know what to say because you’re a good girl, Sasha. A pure woman.”
She didn’t feel pure. She felt naïve. A stupid girl who, for all her books and tutors and learning, knew absolutely nothing about life.
Quinn walked on, a small, evil smirk playing on his lips. “When my father finally died, and I became the new Lord Quinn, I threw a week-long party at the old house. We’d stay up all night drinking and carousing. I celebrated the death of that old bastard. For the first time in my life, I felt my mother was truly at rest. Am I an evil person, Sasha?” He turned to look at her directly, to demand her judgment. “Am I evil in that I rejoiced in my father’s death?”
Sasha felt his burning gaze on her profile but kept her eyes down on her feet stomping through the tall grass and over the ragged rocks.
“Am I?” Quinn insisted. “Am I evil to have celebrated the passing of a monster?”
Sasha swallowed, her throat clicking. She hated Quinn, she decided. Before Quinn, her world had been whole and good and beautiful, populated with Godly people she understood. She did not like Quinn’s ugly world of ugly, evil people. She swallowed again over the lump in her throat. She forced her voice out. “No. I don’t think you’re evil, Quinn.” She licked her parched lips. She needed water. “Is that why you drink? To forget all that?”
“No,” he answered flatly. “I was a very happy man after my father died. A free man.”
“Then why?” She thought about the newspaper stories she’d read, his carousing at
taverns, the trouble he was in with his creditors, and with the law.
Quinn’s smile grew, ragged and demonic. “God cursed me. That’s what happened.” He moved ahead of her, using his javelin like a crutch to move along. He spoke no more on the subject after that.
CHAPTER 16
Sasha knew they were nearing the sea long before they saw or heard it. She smelled it.
When she was only a wee thing, her Aunt Margaret had taken her to Boscastle on Cornwall on holiday, and the breezy little seaside village had had this odor, like air and salt and fish and storms. She thought about saying all this to Quinn, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. He’d gone to some other place, a dark place she was unfamiliar with—a place she wasn’t allowed to come. Only when Newton became agitated and started chirping on her shoulder and the herd of sauropods began turning back in clouds of dust and thunder did he seemed to awaken. He laid a hand on her arm, a now-familiar gesture that told her that something was wrong.
The grasslands were giving way to more rocky terrain. After another mile or so, Sasha spotted sand dunes and sparse grasses up ahead. They crested a rise and she heard the dull telltale roar of the sea for the first time. Together they stood at the top of a cliff side ridge and looked down on a rocky coast of glittering brown sand. Beyond lay the distant sea, dark and greenish and forbidding, with furious whitecaps snapping at the beach as if a summer storm were well on its way. Enormous creatures breached just offshore, creatures bigger than the sauropods, bigger than whales, the sun glinting on their sleek backs as they sliced bladelike through the water.
Sasha shielded her eyes from the angry glare of sun on water. “There is no Valley,” she said aloud. She felt a pang of disappointment followed by a swell of relief. Muk must have made a mistake. Or he’d lied to John about the Valley of Songs. Either way, this was certainly no valley. Maybe John had discovered the lie and moved on. Maybe that was why he’d gone missing these past three months. Maybe he was still searching. Of course, that didn’t mean that John hadn’t encountered She or some other dangerous predator. It was only that now she could afford to be hopeful.
Quinn looked things over with narrow, analytical eyes. As if to read her mind, he said, “I don’t see any evidence of John’s having camped here. Of course, he might have moved on a long time ago and left no trace.”
“You don’t think he went out to sea?” John could certainly have made a raft, if he put his mind to it.
“If he did, he wouldn’t have survived long with those dinosaurs out there.”
“They’re marine reptiles, actually.”
Quinn gave her a peevish look.
Sasha bit her lip. “You’re probably right. I think John would have been smarter than that.”
“There are sea caves down that way,” he said, indicating some cliff heads further along the coast with his javelin. “John may have taken shelter there…”
“And if so,” she finished, “maybe he left us another message.”
Together, they started making their way down the beach.
CHAPTER 17
They found John’s note chalked on the wall of the fifth sea cave they explored. It read:
DEAR FRIEND, I HAVE REACHED THE OCEAN ONLY TO LEARN THAT MUK HAS LIED. THERE IS NO VALLEY, OR, AT LEAST, NO VALLEY HERE.
I SUSPECT HE KNEW I WOULD NOT FIGHT HIS BEAST FOR HIM. IN RETALIATION, HE SENT ME ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE. HOWEVER, I’M NOT REALLY VERY ANGRY. AFTER ALL, I HAD PLANNED ON BETRAYING MUK FIRST! HONOR AMONG THIEVES AND ALL THAT. HE HAS OBVIOUSLY ANTICIPATED THIS. PERHAPS IT IS A RESULT OF THE TELEPATHY HIS PEOPLE SEEM TO POSSESS.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT LANDS LIE BEYOND MUK’S TERRITORY, BUT IT’S IMPORTANT THAT I MOVE ON BEFORE HIS PEOPLE RECAPTURE ME, AND BEFORE THE CREATURE WHO HAUNTS THESE LANDS RETURNS. MY PLANS ARE TO FOLLOW THE COASTLINE OF THIS INLAND SEA FULL OF STRANGE SEA SERPENTS. REALLY, WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO? THE FISHING IS GOOD, AND THE LARGE LAND PREDATORS WILL NOT VENTURE DOWN TO THE BEACH.
I WILL WRITE MORE WHEN I AM ABLE. GOD BE WITH YOU AND HOPEFULLY WE WILL “SPEAK” AGAIN.
John’s name and a date approximately two months old followed. Sasha touched the chalk, which was faintly damp from the sea crashing only a hundred meters away. Quinn moved to stand close to her, as he liked to do. He did not touch her, but he did say, softly, “I’m sure he’s fine. He seems like a smart chap, not like your young Toby.”
Sasha swallowed, ignoring his ribbing. “You’re just saying that. He’s probably dead by now.”
“Together the two of you invented an amazing machine that can send men to other earths, Sasha. Like you, I’m sure your John is very clever, and very resourceful. I look forward to meeting him one day.”
She looked at the chalk on her fingertips. Maybe in forty or fifty million years, a human civilization will have evolved on this planet. Explorers would one day find these caves long buried in the earth and wonder what the chalk marks meant. “She might have killed him, Quinn. A hundred things could have killed him. Hunger, an injury, just a single mistake…”
“Don’t think that way, Sasha.”
“How else shall I think?” she shouted. This was all his fault! Quinn himself had torn the veil away from her eyes. Quinn made her see the world for the grim, unhappy place it was.
“I don’t think She ever caught him,” he said softly, with authority. “The sand here is extraordinary soft. I doubt She, or even her husband, would have chanced being trapped in it. It’s almost like quicksand.”
Sasha bit her lip and considered his words. Was he only being overly optimistic for her sake, or did he believe that? She turned around. She was trembling. Quinn put his arms around her, held her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. It felt good to be pressed into all his sun-baked warmth, into the damp, male scent of him. She felt protected. “You’re shaking,” he said.
“I’m tired, Quinn. And scared. And worried about Toby. And worried about John. And, oh…hungry and cold, and I really want a slice of steak and oyster pie.”
Quinn laughed then, the rumbling sound coming from deep inside his chest. “I’d be partial to some Yorkshire pudding right about now.”
“Sunday roast, lamb with mint sauce.”
“You are making me very hungry, little Sasha,” he complained, though his voice had changed, grown airy and husky at the same time. He looked at her the way a man looks at a woman, ran his hands over her mussed hair, and ducked his head to kiss her lightly…cautiously, mindful of Newton, who, at the first opportunity, had leapt to some nearby rocks to chase down a spider. She meant to stop Quinn, to tell him it was inappropriate, that they needed to make camp and prepare for their hunt tomorrow, but the moment Quinn’s mouth found hers, she felt a spill of heat deep inside, like she was full of sun-warmed honey. It didn’t help that the dried goo on their faces made them stick together. Or maybe it did.
She kissed him back, slipped her hands around his sunburned neck, and pulled him down so she could deepen the kiss and run her tongue across his teeth. The motion seemed to weaken him—or maybe it was the long journey—but he simply spilled down on top of her so he was kneeling over her, pinning her to the floor of the cave. The cool rock felt good against her sunburned neck and shoulders, and his heavy warm hands on her made her feel better still. For once, she didn’t feel like an ignorant little girl. She felt like a woman. She wriggled around a bit, and Quinn used the opportunity to anchor himself down on top of her and bury his face in her hair and the side of her neck. It raised shivers all along her skin. He traced the edge of her collarbone with his lips. She traced his back with the palms of her hands, feeling the roughened, raised scar tissue there. It brought her back to resounding reality for a moment, and she feared where this might lead. She’d read about such things in romance novels, these complications, and it never ended well for the heroine who’d been compromised.
“Quinn,” she said, her shoulders grinding into the stones of the floor as he buried his face in the warm, sweating cleft between her brea
sts. She was acutely aware of her lack of a corset. “Quinn…stop…” He kissed the sensitive flesh over her rapidly beating heart and then looked up at her with such a longing it was a labor just to breathe. No one had ever looked at her that way before. “Don’t…” she began, her chest rising and falling so rapidly she saw sparkles of light in the corners of her vision. She felt a blush start somewhere near her toes and work its way up her body before settling into the apples of her cheeks. “Don’t…compromise me, please.”
Quinn drew himself up on his elbows and watched her carefully. “You’re right, of course. This is all very awkward.” He sounded disappointed, breathless, not himself. Slowly he climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, and went off to explore the cave they would be using for their camp.
Sasha remained where she was for the moment, her face turned away so he couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes. She’d never been so close, so intimate, with a man before. She could have hoped for more. She could have wished for…so many things. She wondered what it would feel like to lie every night in Quinn’s arms, to kiss him, to be with him, together, in their marriage bed.
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