Burke nodded abstractedly, going still. With a little grunt he leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, smiling. “And so we would.”
“What? Do you think we could disguise our scent?”
“Not entirely. Anything that hunts by scent would eventually locate us. But I’m not certain all the creatures on this planet hunt by scent. The eyes of those creatures are no doubt adapted to the perpetual twilight.” He started pacing as he contemplated. Watching him, Hallie glanced around, following the direction of the movement of his hand. Darkness had fallen swiftly. Apparently, evening was a fleeting occurrence on Zebulon.
“Still, I am beginning to think that the creatures inhabiting this place sense heat and motion, rather than trust to vision. They may rely somewhat on sound as well, but we made a hell of a lot of noise and it wasn’t until we were involved in abrupt motion that anything set upon us, true?”
Hallie considered. “If that thing hadn’t plummeted down right on top of Calypso and me, it might have continued just to track us. And Emil said he had begun to run when the winged creature attacked him, although Calypso went right on running without a problem. As for Skelly—” Hallie stopped.
“What about him?”
“Nothing.”
“Hallie…”
“His actions at the time of the attack support your theory. I suppose you could be right.”
Burke encircled the fingers of both hands around her upper arms. “Hallie, I want you to tell me the truth. I’m not going to kill him. Not yet, anyway. Just tell me. You need to say it out loud and I need to hear it.”
Hallie swallowed, grinding her teeth together. She felt more vulnerable than she had at any time during either of Skelly’s assaults on her. She couldn’t break down now. Weeping would serve no purpose whatsoever.
“It doesn’t matter. Although it makes small difference in terms of intent, he didn’t finish what he started. That’s some consolation to me.”
Burke narrowed his eyes. “I’ll make it right, Hallie.”
“You don’t need to make anything right for me. It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” he countered shortly before turning on his heel and walking away. She stared after him. He bent to add more wood to the perimeter of the site.
Burke was right. It was his fault. But that didn’t matter either.
* * *
Burke and Hallie drew short sticks for the first watch, followed by the waking of Calypso to stand vigil with him while Hallie slept, then Emil with Hallie while Burke slept. No question existed of Shane assisting in any capacity, nor of the other two standing guard together, alone. While resting, the others were covered over with soil and vegetation. The camouflage didn’t make for a comfortable sleep, although it provided some insulation against the astonishing drop in temperature as night fell. He also hoped the covering would confound anything looking for the heat of an animate body. As long as no one leaped up in sudden fear and began to run away, they might all remain relatively safe. They were being watched, nevertheless, he knew. At times he felt the eyes focused on them, waiting.
Creatures in the massive forest were on the hunt. Blue-white flashes shone livid in the blackness. The gruesome sounds of prey dying followed each flash. Even Shane started at the noises, shivering where he lay propped up on a mound of leaves. Good. Let him worry. Let him worry about death throughout the night. Just don’t let him get up and start thrashing around, calling the attention of anything waiting for such a move.
With any luck, Shane’s condition might kill him by morning. It wasn’t likely, but Burke could hope. There was little else he could do for as long as the man remained among the living, Hallie appeared determined to keep him that way. It didn’t make sense. Even without any sort of confession of the circumstances, Burke knew in his heart what had taken place the night before in Hallie’s cell, which made him fairly certain he knew what had happened, or nearly happened, to prompt the attack of the creature Hallie had dispatched.
Jaw tense, he peered at Hallie on the ground beside him, holding herself immobile beneath the rough covering draped across their shoulders. He could make out the gleam of her eyes and the soft sheen of her hair. The night was lightless, although the fragmented shards at either end of Hallie’s weapon and at the nether end of his own gleamed with a distinct and unexplained luminance.
For a long time neither of them had spoken, and before that only in brief whispers. He wondered what she was thinking now. She was not what he had learned to expect of someone who had led a privileged life. Strong and capable and fearless, with a capacity for kindness, for forgiveness, that astounded him, perhaps because he had never been quick to embrace either of the latter himself.
“How are your ribs?” he asked quietly.
“They’ll mend. Thank you.”
Lips curving, Burke shifted the position of his legs, re-crossing them at the ankle. He thought of the small curve of her waist beneath his hand, the feel of her skin, slippery with the juice of the eloa, then grimaced as he visualized the dark discoloration of her injury. She could have died from that fall. In fact, he didn’t fully understand why she hadn’t. He only knew he was grateful to whatever deity he ought to be thanking for the fact she had survived. And to the cushioning body of the creature. He remembered the long climb down into the chasm and back out again, his double-edged fear, that he would not find her and also that he would, smashed and broken and irretrievably lost.
He let his breath out. As if to assure himself that she really was still alive beside him in the darkness, he lifted his hand and located her wrist, pressing his index and middle fingers to the pulse beating beneath her flesh. She sensed his distress and turned her hand beneath his own, interlacing her fingers through his and settling both their hands onto the firm curve of her thigh. Except for the pulsing points of light at the end of the branches lying close by and ready to hand and the flash of a creature dying a violent death, the darkness was like the interior of a cave. But by the faint illumination of the shards he spotted the curve of her eyes with the blue-green iris made nearly black beneath the shadow of her lashes, looking at him. Waiting. Expectant.
Moving slowly beneath the rustling cover of webbed strips and branches, Burke bent his shoulders, feeling the pull in his lower back, the length of his thighs as he strained carefully toward her. He found her mouth in the dark, lips slightly parted and emanating a sultry heat in the chill of the night. His teeth contacted hers with a soft click and she pulled away, but his hand was already on her nape, circled in the warmth of her tangled hair as he drew her back toward him. The expulsion of her breath in a little shocked but pleasured sigh drifted across his chin. He kissed her in the manner he had been meaning to do, as if they were somewhere else and safe and he possessed the leisure to explore the contours of her mouth in intimate detail before moving on to other areas of her body. Even so, as she began to warm and vibrate beneath his hands, he kept an ear to the surrounding forest and silently cursed the circumstance. She was the type of woman in which he could lose himself totally, but the present situation would not permit that.
Yet despite the distraction of danger, desire leapt like fire in his blood. His muscles heated, his skin tightened over his flesh. Slipping his arm under her legs, he lifted her onto his lap and held her close against his chest. Her arms went around him, the lovely shape of them evident beneath the roaming search of his hands. She breathed hard, the air of her lungs rushing into and around his mouth, across his stubbled jaw, her fingers entangled into the hair at the back of his head. As she kissed him with growing urgency she began to murmur something unintelligible into the hollow of his mouth. After a momentary delay he realized what she had said.
With a low growl he set her away from him, holding her at arm’s length. “You know you don’t have to be afraid, don’t you? I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry for my part in what’s happened to you, I’m sorry for Shane’s brutal actions, I’m sorry for…for everything that’s been stolen from you by
the cruelty of the man to whom you were bonded. I’ll never hurt you, Hallie. Never again, anyway. I promise you that.”
She nodded against his palm, pressed her lips to it. “I’m as much of a danger to you as Skelly is to all of us.”
He frowned, opening his mouth to deny her statement, but she went on.
“If you care for me, Arad will use that against you. Just as he used your love for your daughter to make you do his bidding. I know—I know what you do. You’re a Drifter. An opportunist, some would say. But you are not without ethics. I’ve learned that in a matter of days. I didn’t realize how really vicious Arad could be. I know now, and I don’t want you at risk.”
“What are you saying?”
“If we…when we leave here,” she amended, faltering, “we will retrieve your daughter from wherever she is, and then I will deal with Arad alone. You must take Lese as far from him as you can.”
“Hallie, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. Promise me this.”
“No. I made a promise to you already, and that is the one I’ll keep. Don’t try to alter it now, or wrestle a new one out of me. We’re in this together. I’ve fought more than my share of battles with men who were inclined to murder rather than blackmail. Once we’re safely away from this planet, we’ll deal with Arad Sterne. Together. Is that understood?”
She said nothing, but her fingers closed around his own. Something moved directly overhead and she started, reaching for her weapon with the other hand. Extricating herself from his grasp she rose, brandishing the thing she called the lathesa. He stood beside her, casting off the camouflage, his own makeshift spear in hand.
After a few minutes without further noise, she lowered the spear to her side. Behind them Calypso announced she was awake and ready to take her turn beside him at watch. Hallie slipped away into the darkness.
Together, he vowed again silently, listening as Hallie took Calypso’s place to sleep on the ground.
Together. There could be no other way.
EMERALD TWILIGHT – SEASON FOUR
A DARKENING MIND
I.
THE MIND UNSETTLED
Skelly struggled to sit upright. Through slitted lids he took in surroundings bathed in that damned haze of green. Hadn’t he once said he dreamt in green? He would give anything to see the dark red sky above the Lucas mining fields about now. But he knew he never would. Never. One man was granted only so many opportunities at life. His were done.
He had recognized Death when it came to him. Had recognized it from a long way off. There had been no hope of redemption. The moment he witnessed the demise of that creature on the vitrine panel he had known his hours limited to a very few. And he had been right about that, as he was about many things. He had died sooner rather than later. And when he opened his eyes after death, he discovered himself still animate and still here, in this cursed place of enduring twilight and fearful beasts and darkest night.
At least he wasn’t afraid anymore.
Not true, he heard and pressed his fingers against his temples to silence the voice. He felt the pounding in his veins. What moved in those fine, blue-webbed tracts beneath the surface of flesh? He was afraid of that, afraid of what had replaced his blood. Afraid of what he had become, too, but not afraid of being what he had become. In fact, this new skin suited him quite well.
Breathe, he reminded himself. Respiration was necessary to fool any who looked at him too closely. They would know, if they did not see him breathe. Lifting his head, he drew the close, dank air in through his nose, felt it expand his lungs and blew it out through his mouth. Something small flitted in past his lips and onto his tongue. He pursed his lips to spit the tiny creature out, then thought better of it and ate the thing instead.
Did he need sustenance? He didn’t know. Actually, he rather enjoyed the act of eating the tiny morsel alive. No motivation of hunger, merely delicious, wicked appetite.
Moving his legs, his arms, he attempted to get his feet under him to rise, and then he stopped. He could feel the eyes on him, boring into the base of his skull. They had followed him from the facility and down into the unknown twilight, followed him as he was following his cell mates. It didn’t make any difference. He belonged to them, now, but they were also his. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship of submission and control.
Even so, he had awareness of a chill cross his skin, making the flesh shift over bone. He tugged on the ends of his sleeves, felt the pain in his burned fingertips and subsided. Why did he still feel pain? That wasn’t fair. Since he had given up his existence, pain should have gone with it as part of the deal. Shouldn’t it?
He almost phrased the question aloud, catching himself in time. Someone would wonder if he started posing inquiries to nothing they could see. Yet.
He breathed again, gasping a little in his urgency to appear as if he lived. He scented her this time. All night he had scented her, called to her in silent voice through his agony of sleeplessness, the clarity of waking nightmare. She was here, nearby, waiting for him. She had to. She had no choice. It was meant to be.
Ah, yes. There she was, crouched over something on the ground. He traced with his eye the outline of her spine beneath her uniform, the curve of her hips, the taut length of her thigh. He saw the way she held herself, the evidence of pain and exhaustion. She was filthy—they all were, he realized, glancing around to find the others barely discernible in the gloom, dirt and debris clinging to their clothes, their faces and hands, dangling from the dancer’s wild, nearly white hair. Hallie’s beauty did not diminish in filth but became all the more enticing for being tarnished. Skelly felt his lips curve, crack, bleed, but he smiled nonetheless.
I will make myself invisible and go to her. She will not see me. I will touch her where I please and she will not know.
He closed his eyes, drawing on the power he knew he possessed to effectuate the change. Slowly he rose and moved across the ground. He did not feel the surface of dirt beneath his feet. He did not feel the passage of air as he moved. He did not feel his wounds, sticky with the substance Hallie had provided for healing. But he felt them. They were here.
Slowly, slowly, because his invisibility was so difficult to maintain, he moved closer to where she crouched ransacking that bag of hers. She did not hear him approach. She did not see him. She sensed him though. Her head lifted, her back stiffened, her hands stilled, and then, with a little shiver that delighted him running down the length of her spine, she went back to what she’d been doing. He stood motionless, biding his time.
With heightened auditory ability, he listened to the hushed conversations taking place around him. Emil was expressing remorse over having hastened out of the prison without taking the time to gather supplies, as they had been told to do. And Calypso, in her irritating accent, telling him that there had been no time, it had been necessary to leave when they did. Skelly nodded to himself. How right, little Calypso. There had been no time. There still wasn’t. Soon, Emil would have no further worries regarding his growling stomach, his flagging energy. No need to tell the stout gambler any such thing, however. Rather, let him be surprised.
Skelly shifted his focus in a search for Conlan’s voice, for noise of his activity. Belatedly, he recognized the man’s silence. Not so his little desert mistress. Hallie’s voice came to him in low, vehement discussion with herself.
Is something troubling you, Hallie? Do you know I am here?
Naturally, she did not answer. She couldn’t. He lifted his hand to the cold blue shimmering in her hair, fingers hovering above the tangled mass. Without moving his head he looked around, savoring the moment. Across the clearing the dancer’s eyes were the color of flame, yellow-white and vivid. She was staring right at him.
With a start he straightened, drawing his arm back. Yes, damn her, she could see him. She unfolded from the ground, lithe in accusation, acknowledgment, awareness. Her mouth opened.
“Hallie!”
But it wasn’t her. It was them.
* * *
Burke’s head snapped up, his focus immediately drawn to the clearing ahead. He had gone far in a cautious search for water, returning with the container empty. Staring hard into the near distance he could make out four dim shapes. Four. That meant Shane was up and about.
Forsaking caution, Burke loped toward the campsite. Shane was standing right behind Hallie. How the hell had he gotten up and moved that close to Hallie without her noticing? In three strides Burke crossed the uneven ground, thrusting his arm into the negligible space between them. Shane stumbled backward. Hallie stood rigid, scanning the dark canopy.
“Go sit down, Shane.” Burke pointed to the ground. Shane laughed, a dull and nasty sound. “Now.”
Shane moved away with an indecipherable word. Burke briefly visualized throttling the man, before his attention to Hallie, slipping an arm around her and drawing her back against his chest. He whispered against the curve of her high cheekbone. “Years ago, my grandmother owned a creature who learned to mimic her voice. It was unnerving at times, but harmless. Let’s hope this is the same type of beast, shall we?”
She nodded, looking like a wild thing, dirt-streaked and disheveled. They all did. He smelled the soil on her clothing, damp and rich, and the femininity of her, the scent a woman sometimes carries on her skin, in her pores, like a residue of the night before when she had momentarily clung to him, aroused and frightened and lonely. He closed his eyes, stroking a loose curl of hair back from her collar. “Didn’t you know Shane was standing there?”
“I didn’t hear him get up.”
Burke kissed the side of her head, the loosened wispy ends of her hair brushing his lips. Without turning, he knew Shane was watching the two of them. He could imagine the expression on the man’s face, but he was in no mood to care. Still, he didn’t want to provoke an altercation unnecessarily. A time might come where such provocation was necessary, but that time was not yet.
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