Lycan Alpha Claim 3 (121 page)

CHAPTER 32

Clara woke gradually to rhythmic movement—a swaying sensation. She opened her eyes and saw the underside of a very masculine jaw.

Reality and memories rushed upon her in a confusing slush. Matthew had taken her from the clan, from her new women friends. She was a ship without oars being steered by a male without regard for her welfare.

Her future prospects were bleak.

Matthew became aware of the female's change in breathing and knew when she woke. He slowed his pace to something less jarring.

He stopped underneath a deep canopy of trees, moss springy underneath his leathers. He looked around and noticed a dry area where the moss seemed less green and took Clara there, gently lying her down.

Clara looked at him and moved backward on her hands and legs until she felt her back meet the bark of the nearest tree. She eyed him warily. She had never given him great regard. With the chaos of the past days, just getting proper food and rest had been foremost on her mind. Now she belatedly realized he should have had her full attention. She looked him over closely. He was as tall as Bracus but fiercer of expression. What she had thought of as anger when he had gazed at her while she was safely encapsulated in the sphere, she now understood to be some kind of intense indifference.

As if he willed himself not to care.

He spoke. “Do not try to run.”

She shrugged. “And where,
dear sir, would I go? Where would I go and you not catch me and assault me further?”

He took a step nearer to her, and she instantly regretted her flippant comment. He was huge in the way of the other
savages
and could easily harm her —slowly, if he so chose.

He saw her eyes widen in fear and hesitated. Matthew was still unsure what to do with her. His plan had been so full, so sure. And now? All he could see were those swimming aquamarine eyes. He felt her heat when she touched his bare skin. He hated her power over him
.
Mayhap it was not a conscious thing on her part. After all, if she were
select,
it would not be something she could help.

She saw him hesitate and arched her brow.

“I do not wish to harm you.”

Clara crossed her arms underneath her breasts and let her face fill with disbelief. Oh yes, he did not wish to
harm her after the whole slam-into-the-tree episode and her fainting,
yet again
. And the vomiting everywhere. Yes, that was it. Her welfare was clearly
important to him.

She felt battered, body and soul.

Matthew raked a hand through his hair, ripped a hairband from his knapsack, and tied it back.

She would be difficult,
he thought. Soon, he would have the entire Band hunting them, and he would have to think of an explanation as to why he had taken her.

More and more, he could not think of one.

Clara stood, stretching the tightness of her body. Small popping sounds emitted from her back as the tension was released. She moved her neck in a small circle, the kinks slowly easing. She would kill for something to wash her mouth out with. Tentatively, she reached for the flask in the knapsack at her feet. Sniffing it and smelling nothing, she took a pull of water, discreetly spitting it out behind her. Then she drank her fill, all the while feeling his eyes on her. She looked back at him as neutrally as possible. She wanted no more shows of force. Possibly, if she were cooperative, he would not be rough with her again.

Matthew saw her moving to relieve the pressure of travel, and he wished to rub her neck and back. He wished to touch a female,
this female. He clenched his fists. He would not touch her. It was too much of a betrayal of Margaret
.
No other female could be as pure and vital as she had been. Yet his eyes strayed back to Clara's form again and again, watching her drink, watching her move.

Clara watched him watching her, his expressions ranging from indifferent to pensive to resolved. She wished very much to find out about this strange man. Why was he not following Bracus's commands? Was he not second-in-command?

“Why do you kidnap me? When your captain returns, he will be unhappy.” She stumbled over that word, thinking that it may be quite a bit more than that. “Surely there will be conflict. It has been explained to me what my potential role is for our peoples. You put that at risk. Your actions put that at risk.”

She gazed directly at him, and that heat licked at him. She was beginning to undo him. He walked to her, and her eyes widened but she did not back away.

Clara was accustomed to intimidation. Queen Ada had been an adept teacher.

When he was but a foot away from her, he asked, “Who did this to your face?” He could not stop himself as he put a finger along the chartreuse bruise, which bloomed like an ugly flower, beginning at her cheekbone and fanning out toward her temple.

She felt the tender touch of his finger as it glided against her cheekbone in sharp contrast to his rough treatment of her earlier. Clara wondered if had he been
afraid
of her before. Scared not of her
but of what she represented
?
What was he afraid of? The melding of their peoples, as preposterous as it sounded with the Queen's involvement, would be a positive thing. She was puzzled and felt her brows knit together.

What was he doing? He saw her frown at his caress and took his hand away, a dull warmth throbbing where he had laid that small touch upon her face.

Her face smoothed.

As his hand fell away she felt like she had lost a source of comfort. It was almost, with this stranger, as it had been with Charles. But how could that be? She and Charles had spent seasons together. Many events had bred their easy familiarity. She’d had nothing with this guard, except his disregard of the rules, his rough treatment of her, and his simmering anger. She felt it boil and ripple like a fish seen through dark water.

“I wish to know: why did you take me? Why not let our peoples mingle? You have a need for propagation, and we need to be free of a life confined to the sphere.” Clara thought briefly of the ocean her father had told her about and had a sharp ache of longing for that unknown sea.

“I believe that the Captain cannot be objective where you are concerned.” He rubbed his hands together. “He has shown a degree of... subjectivity. He has lost his focus, our purpose.”

“Does he... is he?

Matthew nodded. “He wishes to have you. If your people were resistant to the idea...” He shrugged.

“They will come for me, you know.”

Matthew's eyebrows came together. “It does not matter. The Band is not afraid.”

“What of the
fragment?
”

“What of them?” Matthew snarled.

Ah
... Clara thought, watching his fists clench. She had touched on something tender which bled. Of course the girl, Evelyn, had been taken.

“Is it Evelyn? The young girl that Bracus seeks?”

He shook his head. His expression momentarily softened then hardened again. “It is not the girl.”

Clara cocked an eyebrow.

He sighed. “Not entirely the girl. I...” He shifted. “The Band will retrieve her. But it is a personal matter between the
fragment
and me.”

Clara waited.

He looked at her and realized that, somehow, he had been cornered into saying more than he had intended. He did not wish to speak of his time with the
fragment,
of
Margaret
.

They looked at each other, a tiny young woman with fierce eyes and a bruised face and the warrior with a troubled heart and an abusive past.

Could he trust her? Would it matter? Why was it important that he tell her anything?

Clara saw the conflict rage within him without knowing the cause. Instinctively, against every internal warning, she said, “Please, tell me that which causes you this suffering.”

He watched her silently, searching her face for any deceit.

“The Prince. He and my mother, the Queen.”

“What?” Matthew asked, confused.

“Your question,” Clara answered. “That is who put this abuse upon my face.”

Matthew stood stunned. He had known that the Prince was a viper, as the Band had come upon him in the act of assaulting the Princess. But her mother the Queen? It made no sense.

Seeing his expression, Clara gave a harsh cough of a laugh that ended in a sob. She put her hands over her face so that she could not see him. Her shame shone as bright as the Outside sun.

Matthew’s soul churned. This tiny female had suffered abuse but not by strangers as he had within the
fragment
but by her own flesh and blood. He could not reason it out. But his heart, which ached for no one, ached for her. He thought that he might comfort her but did not know how
.
So he stood awkwardly watching her misery, powerless to help her, hating his incompetence.

Finally, Clara removed her hands. She swiped at her useless tears, embarrassed beyond words by her stupid weakness as this huge male stood staring at her, expressionless, probably bored by her tirade. She straightened.

Matthew watched her gather herself together, and felt grudging admiration. Beaten, almost raped, and kidnapped twice
.
And yet she regained her composure. His hands ached to hold her, but he remained where he was. There was one gift he could offer her: his trust. So he gave it.

It was a larger thing than his comfort.

“I was twelve when the Band found me starving and delirious from thirst, hunger, and neglect.” His mind wandered a million miles away.

*

Matthew lay down in the meadow, his head swimming with dizziness, flies buzzing above him, impatient for his death. He looked down at his body, the planes of it like weaponry: sharp hipbones, ribs like poles bound together with skin. His eyes rolled, dry and swollen, within their cavities. He heard a noise. He raised a hand, knowing the sound was not
the
fragment
,
h
oping, as only a young boy c
ould
, that someone would help him, that he could either end forever or begin with new hope.

A shadow fell over his body and he didn’t have the strength to shield his eyes from the sun. The shadowy form seemed to realize this. A great warrior stood over him, weaponry hanging off his body like the leaves of a mighty tree. Matthew was too weak to feel fear, but his heart stuttered.

The great male crouched down in front of him, grabbing him gingerly by the wrist, firm but gentle.

He paused for a moment, head cocked. Then he spoke to someone just be
hind him. “He is Band.”

Matthew saw a bow shift with the man’s body and took in his weapons. Daggers at the small of his back in a complicated contraption of leather, a bow rested upon the back of his right flank, and a quiver rode near his spine. A small dagger was sheathed at his right hip and another at his ankle.

His eyes flitted to the great male above him and he smiled down at Matthew. “Where do ye hail from, lad?”

Matthew opened his mouth to answer but was too parched to form words. The male saw his problem., “Bracus, fetch me the flask. His heart beat is steady, but not for long. If we had not arrived...”

“Yes, father,” a young voice came from behind him.

Suddenly, a second shadow crossed the first, and Matthew was looking into the face of a male he instinctively knew was the same as him.

Finally, Matthew belonged.

Beleaguered, starving, thirsty, and near death, he had come home. These were his people. He gave a weak smile, drank the water from the large male's cupped hand, and then passed out.

*

Clara listened to Matthew quietly tell of his recovery by the Band. Why, she asked, had he been with the
fragment?
Why had they beaten him, starved him, treated him so terribly?

“Why does your mother beat you?”

“I do not know.” Clara’s eyes filled with unshed tears. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that she wished her mother loved her.

Matthew saw the loneliness and fear rise in her eyes like a poisonous tide and could have struck himself for being so insensitive.

He tried to salvage things. “I think it may be because I was different, and they knew that. I was threatening to them, their
way.
” He thought carefully about his next statement. “You may also be a threat to your mother.”

“The Queen,” Clara corrected automatically.

Matthew inclined his head in acknowledgment, watching her distance herself from the familial tie.

“I do not threaten her. She is in ultimate control.” Clara swept her hand around the forest, visualizing it as her kingdom.

Matthew saw the marks on her throat from his fingers. They were reddening, just shy of bruising, and he was ashamed.