Hallie’s smile wavered, brows lowering into a frown as she studied Calypso’s expression of concentration. The utterance of her words sent a chill along Hallie’s spine. Do what thing? She vaguely remembered tales of the propensity of the Tansi Island people for sight, for foreknowledge. Remembering this only unnerved her more. She turned back to the task at hand, refusing to dwell on it. Too many other aspects to their escape existed, too many unknowns, for her to worry about some vague precognition.
“Hallie!”
The ear-piercing cry came from above. Hallie bolted to her feet. Burke was at her side before she had the opportunity to look around for him. He took the spear from her hand, hefting it in his own as Hallie scanned the gloom overhead.
“I didn’t see anything,” he said. “I have no idea what that is, but I don’t like it.”
Beside them Calypso rose from the ground, her grace fluid, her balance flawless even though she held two of the makeshift spears, both of which were longer than her body. Walking over to Emil, she handed him one.
“Shane gets no weapons,” Burke pronounced slowly. “None.”
Calypso nodded, holding the other close to her body. She looked up, too, her eyes the color of burning coals. Hallie stepped nearer to Burke, still scanning the darkness above.
“Can he be moved?” she asked without looking at him.
Burke continued his strained study of the shifting green shadows. “He’s bad. If he can manage to get up, there may be a possibility of his keeping up with assistance, and if we move slowly. If he can’t rise from the ground, he’ll have to be left behind. I’m sorry, Hallie.”
“Don’t be sorry, Burke,” Hallie whispered. “I know what he did. You know what he did. I just couldn’t let that thing take him. I had visions of a carnivorous plant slowly devouring prey alive, because if he was meant to be killed by those charges, he would have been.”
“It doesn’t matter. You did the right thing, sweetheart. For the wrong man, but the right thing.”
He drew her close. She turned her head against the firm contours of his chest, closing her eyes as she deeply inhaled the intoxicating maleness of him. His arm was solid and warm, the pressure of his curved fingers against the arch of her shoulder perfectly fitted and comforting.
“Maybe I spoke out of turn when I told you I love you,” he went on, quite as if he wasn’t concerned about a creature calling out her name in his voice, as if they weren’t all in peril the longer they bided in this place surrounded by evidence of the destruction she had wrought, as if…as if this truth of his must be spoken before all chances to do so were obliterated by what lay ahead.
She clung a little tighter to him, burying her cheek into the folds of fabric crushed beneath the curve of bone and flesh.
“You were right when you said I do not know you. What you know of me is even less. A Drifter, a man who has given you many reasons to distrust him and no solid cause to let go of that distrust. And yet you have. You have placed your life into my hands as though I am a man deserving of your faith in me. And I am that man, I swear to you.”
She pressed her fingers against his lips to prevent further speech. He turned his face beneath her hand, touching his mouth to the pulse in her wrist, his breath moist warmth on her skin. A strong yearning coursed through her, not just for physical contact, for consummation of the heat stirring in her blood, but for closeness and companionship and a partner in daily existence. Could Burke be that man for her? Possibly that was what he was offering, but a Drifter never tied himself down. The reasons for that were many and sound.
Hallie stepped away. She squeezed his hand with a pressure of her fingertips. “Later,” she said. “Let’s talk about this later.”
When we’re safe.
Gathering the remnants of the soundsphere, she returned them carefully to her disordered pack. No doubt they would need them before this journey was completed. She hoisted the carrysack up onto her shoulder by the remaining strap and lifted the spear she had specially constructed for herself in the other hand. Not just a spear, but similar to the lathesa in length and pliancy, each end enhanced with a shimmering point. She met Burke’s eyes again and held them, then walked over to where Skelly lay on the ground. The redhead’s lucid gaze glimmered with pain.
“We have to keep moving,” she said. “You need to get up or be left behind.”
* * *
It was the quiet time, if this forest was like any other Burke had known. The time when beasts drowsed, lay hidden, waited for the evening forage, the hunting hours. If they were going to break to rest, now was the opportunity. Shane quite obviously needed it, damn him, as did Hallie. She tried to hide her injuries, yet her every movement showed evidence of pain. Less surprising was the fact that Emil and Calypso were flagging, the former short of breath as he helped hold Shane upright, the tiny dancer walking with shoulders hunched.
One hand hooked under Shane’s arm, Burke scanned the area ahead for a natural defensive position. He, too, was tired, the descent into the pit and out again sounding in his muscles, the emotional turmoil of the past hours weighing heavily on his mind. His usually canny sense of direction had abandoned him, although he was fairly certain Zebulon still lay somewhere over his left shoulder. After resting, they would begin to make their way back in that direction, then set up for the night while still far enough from the facility to avoid detection. The night promised to be harrowing.
Burke’s gaze fell on Hallie, on the length of her back, the curve of her hips and the carrysack unevenly distributed across them. He glanced at the way she held her weapon, at the fingers of her other hand curled against her rib cage, at the way she breathed carefully, avoiding deep inhalation. Silently, he cursed himself for the thing he had done to land her in Zebulon in the first place. Yet, if not him, what other Drifter might have taken the job? Someone else could have been imprisoned with her. A Drifter with fewer principles and no scruples about doing her harm.
Shifting his focus to Shane, his brows lowered in a frown. Shane’s expression was difficult to interpret through the mask of his wounds. Once again, Hallie hadn’t revealed to him the full extent of her interaction with the Lucasian. She was troubled by it, Burke could see that much. The look she turned the redhead’s way at regular intervals was disturbing to witness.
Suddenly she stopped, head lifting. Burke brought Shane up short, finding himself in abrupt support of the man’s full weight. Burke followed the direction of her gaze.
Angling down like a canted golden column through a break in the canopy above was a single shaft of sunlight, the forest beyond dark as ebon ink in contrast to the bright beam. He couldn’t imagine how the rest of them hadn’t noticed the light. It might be a fleeting thing, soon to vanish as the sun moved nearer the horizon, but for the moment it looked almost solid as it grazed the forest floor.
Casting aside caution and all trappings of pain, Hallie strode swiftly toward the beam, outdistancing them all in a matter of seconds, hampered as he and Emil were by the burden of Shane’s nearly unconscious form and Calypso’s uncertainty. Hallie dropped to her knees, turning her face up to the shimmering, dancing light.
Of course. Of course Hallie would react in this way. She had only known the open spaces, the sun. How her confinement—not just on Zebulon but before transport—must have encumbered her spirit. Abandoning Shane momentarily to Emil and Calypso’s care, Burke went to Hallie’s side. He stood beside her, wanting to touch her, to smooth the flying, curling tendrils of blue and golden hair back over her crown, but he kept his fingers flat against his thigh. She held her face to the light, to the clean warmth of it, eyes closed.
“Hallie.” She opened her eyes in a slow, sidelong glance. Moisture stood upon her lower lashes.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
She reached her hand to his. He held her fingers against the soiled folds of his uniform, marveling at their strength. Without warning, she darted forward on her knees, jerking on his arm.
“Look!”
He obeyed, fumbling onto his knees beside her. She extended her hand toward a plant growing in the soil, its thick, serrated, speckled leaves pale in the sun. She broke a bit off the end. A translucent secretion oozed thickly from the severed edge. Hallie brought the broken tip to her nose and sniffed.
She harvested several larger pieces and handed them to him. “Take these to Emil and Calypso and have them rub the fluid from the leaves onto Skelly’s wounds. The juice of the eloa will soothe the pain and help to heal his burns.”
He took the plant matter and rose, carrying it to where Calypso and Emil were crouched over Shane. After brief instruction, he returned to Hallie’s side. She had unfastened her uniform and was attempting to apply the plant’s healing juice to the wound on her arm. Burke crouched behind her to shield her from view. He parted her garment and pulled it down off her shoulders.
“Let me do it.”
Deliberately steering his gaze from the shape of her, the column of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, the curve of her breasts beneath her undergarment, he applied the substance to the puckered burn on her upper arm, examining the wound, glossy now with the greenish fluid. She flinched and pulled away. He let her go.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I… Will you help me?”
Frowning, Burke assisted her to rise. She turned to him, hesitated a moment, then shirked her arm out of one sleeve. Grasping the hem of her undergarment, she lifted it. Burke made a sound low in his throat as the extent of her injury came into view.
“Are your ribs broken?”
“I can breathe,” she answered, “but it hurts.”
The flesh had mottled like the bloom on ripened blackfruit, deep purple, crimson and a blue that was nearly black. Burke exhaled, opening his palm over her waist. She lifted her gaze to his, holding herself very still.
“Will this help?” he asked, raising the hand that held the pulp of the plant, fleshing shining with residue.
“It might ease the surface pain.”
With a gentle, circular motion, he smeared the juice over her bruised flesh, careful not to press too hard, careful to resist the urge to snatch her close to him in fierce protectiveness, in guilt. She held her breath as he worked the slippery fluid into her skin.
“You’ll let me know if I’m hurting you?”
“You’re not hurting me.”
Flicking a glance at her face, he met her heated, steady gaze. He might very well be hurting her, but it wasn’t pain she was feeling now. He stopped, went to pull away, but her hands came up, fingers curling into the folds of his clothes.
“Don’t stop just yet,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against his chest below his collarbone.
Slipping an arm behind her back, he gave in willingly, holding her warm body against his own as he continued to massage the plant’s healing fluids against her ribs. In the fading shaft of the sun he could feel the living flow of her blood beneath her skin, through her veins. His hand moved to her back and up her spine, curving into the hollow at the base of her skull. She turned her cheek against him with a small sigh. He stepped closer, pressing the length of his body against hers. She trembled lightly, rapidly, like the heartbeat of a tiny avian creature. He wrapped both arms around her, wishing fervently for another place than this, for solitude, for a soft bed where he could lay her down with care for her injuries and take the time he desired with her, the time she deserved. He closed his eyes.
Not now. It can’t be now.
She moved against him and a small sound escaped her. Definitely one of pain.
“Let’s wrap your ribs, sweetheart, shall we?” He tore the battered pack from his shoulders to utilize the strips of cloth. After he bound the narrow expanse of her ribs, he helped her to replace her clothing. Kissing her once, and with longing, he stepped away. She looked up at him with a heartbreaking smile.
“Hallie, I—”
“Hallie!”
This time it almost sounded human.
V.
IN FOR A PENNY, IN FOR A POUND
Hallie searched the canopy overhead through narrowed eyes. Beside her Burke stood stock still, waiting, she supposed, for the creature to present itself. Whatever had called out moved with remarkable swiftness and stealth, or else possessed a capability for camouflage beyond imagining. When it issued its call, she and Burke had both reacted immediately, and yet nothing could be seen. The enormous intertwined branches above remained empty of discernible motion, the darkness deeper still as the sun continued its descent toward the horizon. The single shaft of light had vanished together with its concentrated golden warmth. The humid air seemed suddenly chill.
Hallie stepped closer to Burke. “Is it gone?” she asked on a drawn breath, testing the feel of her ribs now that they were bound. Better. So much better, thanks to Burke’s careful ministration. Tenderness and concern seemed in conflict to the required detachment of a Drifter. Of course, she had never known one personally before, but she had always heard and supposed it to be true that members of the loose-knit clan of mercenaries would be hard and tough and unfeeling. It only made sense, given the occupation. There was too much at stake. Familial and spousal connections were liabilities one could not afford. Just such an attachment had been Burke’s downfall, after all.
Remembering, she lifted her hand and squeezed his fingers, then released them. Don’t love me, she pled silently. Loving your daughter is dangerous enough.
It hadn’t been, though, she reminded herself. Somehow Burke had managed to keep the child safe from harm. Arad had changed all of that.
They stood unmoving several moments longer, until Burke dismissed their search with a shrug, turning on his heel. “This position is as defensible as any other. I suggest we ration out a portion of the food and make ready for the night ahead.”
Following the direction of his hard gaze, Hallie saw he was watching Skelly, struggling to sit up with Emil’s assistance.
“I don’t understand how he managed it,” Burke ground out between his teeth. “He was nearly paralyzed with fright that night in the common room, yet he escaped confinement and followed us into the very thing he feared. I wouldn’t have thought him capable.”
“He’s not entirely unscathed,” Hallie reminded him.
“Well,” he answered, summing up and dismissing Skelly’s injuries with the single word.
“Not only that. He’s no longer sane.”
“I don’t believe he ever was. He puts every one of us at risk, Hallie. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Is there something you expect me to do about it now?”
His shoulder jerked. “You? No. I’ll take care of what needs to be done.”
Her hand went to his arm, the tension in his muscles, in the tendons and the flesh beneath his torn uniform sleeve. He had not made any move toward violence but had merely turned his gaze once more on Skelly, yet Hallie sensed the impulse. After a moment, his hand covered hers before he strode away.
Hallie released her breath. She had no idea to what lengths he had resorted in the pursuit of his dangerous and secretive occupation. Was he capable of killing in cold blood, to protect her, to protect them all? Crouching down, she avoided consideration of her own question, opening the pack she had abandoned when she hastened into the sun. She rummaged through the meager provisions within. Contemplating instead how long she could ration portions between five of them and still provide each enough sustenance to maintain stamina, she broke a bar into four even pieces, handing one to Calypso and one to Emil, closing Skelly’s fingers around the third.
“Eat this, if you can.” He grimaced at her words and said nothing, but raised her offering to sniff at it. Hallie rose and walked stiffly to where Burke still stood with his back to them.
“Here.”
He turned, lost in thought, his gaze falling on her open palm. “Did you have yours already?”
Burke bit and chewed the nutrition bar while regarding Skelly with a sidelong glance. The expression in his eyes made her suck a breath in through her teeth. Burke looked back at her sharply.
“I won’t let him hurt you again, Hallie. I will kill him before that happens, I promise you.” He walked away, tracing out a perimeter with the length of his stride and then came back. He gave instructions for the preparation of a defensive barricade, assisted in its building. Hallie tossed debris onto the ground for a good distance beyond in the hope that they would be alerted in advance to anything approaching along the surface. Once darkness drew down, however, they would never see an approach from above until it was too late.
She was reluctant to voice her fear aloud in front of the others, who had drifted back to stand near Skelly. Burke’s grim countenance made it clear he had already considered the same disadvantage.
“Fire,” he said.
“What?”
“A fire would help. I should have thought of that.”
“You’re blaming yourself too much. Was there anything you might have brought with you that would have made a difference?”
He exhaled long and deeply. “No.”
“Burke, you’re doing all you can.”
He shook his dark head, lifting a dirty hand to run the edge of his finger back and forth across the stubble sprouting over his jaw. Glancing at her own hands, Hallie’s mouth twisted in amusement at the grime in the whorls of her fingertips and embedded in her palms. Her face felt in no better condition. She pointed at the dirt and decaying vegetation underfoot. “If we roll around in enough of this,” she joked, “we’ll look and smell like the forest.”
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