Olivia (133 page)

Olivia kicked him in the ass with both feet, knocking him on his face in the narrow aisle.  She cupped her mouth and screamed for Kodjunn.

A gullan roar blasted out an answer.  There were no other voices.  There was no one left to scream.

The man on the floor was trying to pull his jeans up, raving tearfully about how he hadn’t touched the woman, hadn’t intended to the touch the woman, was actually protecting the woman from the evil fuckers outside, and here she was, safe and sound, just leave him alone, okay?

Kodjunn’s claws punched through the thin door of the camper and pulled it off as easily as wings off a fly.  The gulla pushed his head and shoulders in through the little doorway and fixed his eyes on the human on the floor.  The Great Spirit was in those eyes.

Olivia uttered another scream, a wordless cry of primal relief.

Kodjunn’s head snapped up towards her.  He saw where she was, how she looked.

Then he was gone from the doorway.

The human and Olivia stared at the empty place with identical expressions of shock, but only for an instant.

That was when the body of the camper was vaporized.  Smokeless flame of unearthly temperature turned the brittle steel and plastic casing into a little fall of ash to be dispersed by the gentle summer breeze, leaving the camper’s base, furnishings, and garbage completely intact.

Kodjunn leapt up onto the foundation of the camper, smashed through the blackened toothpick that had once been part of the wall’s frame and threw the grimy oven end over end into the trees.  The man scrambled back, banged into the bed, then heaved himself out into space, less like a man jumping than like a man attempting to fly.  Kodjunn’s arm swept out and snagged him, his claws sinking into the human’s spinal cord as though it were the handle of a suitcase, and yanked him back.

Olivia closed her eyes and kept them closed until the screaming stopped.  It didn’t take long, realistically, but it took long enough.

After a moment of uncertain silence, she felt the base of the camper tip with the weight of the gulla.  “Olivia?”  He touched her shoulder, stood her up.  He probed at the worst of her cuts and bruises; his hands were too hot to be Kodjunn’s alone.  She kept her eyes shut.

“
I gave them too quick a death
,” the Great Spirit said.

“It wasn’t them,” she managed to say.  “They only just caught me.  Urga!”

“
What of her
?”

“She turned into a monster, she was going to kill me.  She chased me and I got lost and then I found this place and was going to wait for you, but Bahgree grabbed me.  I made so much noise getting away from her that these men found me.  That’s when I screamed for you.”

Kodjunn tried to say something and the Great Spirit interrupted:  “Ol—
Enough talk!  Fly!
”  He lifted Olivia into his arms, and then jumped into the air and took them away from the carnage.

Olivia opened her eyes only when the blast of Kodjunn’s beating wings filled her ears and even then, she didn’t look down.  “You saved me,” she said.

“
There should not have been a need
.”  The Great Spirit set Kodjunn’s jaw grimly.  “
Urga will answer for the peril she placed you in.  She will answer for the evils she caused to befall you
.”

Olivia felt herself start to beg him not to confront Urga, that Urga would kill her if he did.  But she realized then that Urga would kill her even if he didn’t.  Urga was the enemy now, just as much as Bahgree.

7

They flew until Kodjunn’s wings could no longer carry them both, and they went on foot through the forest, just the two of them.  The Great Spirit had left much earlier, either to face Urga or to work himself up towards the confrontation.  That he meant to do so on the night Urga came into season weighed heavily on Olivia’s mind.  Although she did not doubt he would remain furious, Olivia suspected that night might find him in the arms of his mate.

So deeply immersed in these unsettling thoughts, Olivia did not notice when the forest began to thin out until she was poised on a ridge overlooking a sleepy little community not unlike the one she’d been taken from. 

Kodjunn, his eyes on his feet, walked into her shoulder.  He staggered back, steadied himself with her help, then looked out and saw the town.  A fleeting expression of abject astonishment gave way to disgust.  “Oh piss in my mouth!” he snapped, or at least, that was what Olivia heard him say.

“We’d better not try to go around,” Olivia offered.  “Better to find a place to rest until it gets dark.”

“I’m not resting this close to a hive,” he said, and right on cue, it started raining.

They looked up in surprise at the low clouds that had stolen over them unnoticed.  Well, not entirely unnoticed.  It wouldn’t have been near as easy a hike if they’d been making it under the summer sun, and Olivia had idly thought several times during that long day how nice it was that it was finally cooling off.  After so long surrounded by cold rock, it didn’t take much heat to make her uncomfortable.  And she was a Northwesterner by birth.  Summers were supposed to be cool and overcast.  And rainy.

Kodjunn closed his eyes, letting rain stream over him while his hands drew up slowly into fists.  Then he sighed and shook it off.  “We’ll rest,” he grumbled, kicking a stone over the ridge like a petulant child.  “Come.  We’ll keep at the edge of the forest and look for a safe place to sleep.” 

Taking her arm, he turned and marched back into the forest, Kodjunn casting black stares down at the rooftops anytime he could see them through the trees.  He kept her close, his arm around her shoulders and one wing unfolded to shield her from sight as they walked.  She didn’t fight it; after everything that had happened, she felt like clinging herself. 

“There!” he said suddenly, pulling her hard against him. 

She followed his pointing claw and saw an old cinderblock shack up ahead, half-hidden in a nest of cedars.  It looked harmless enough to Olivia, but Kodjunn’s hackles were up.

“Get down,” he growled, pushing her to the ground.  “And stay low.” 

She obeyed, but it was clear to see that the shack had been long abandoned.  Kodjunn was harder to convince, but once he’d peered in through the boarded windows, he was confident enough to smash open the door and beckon to her.  Within, the floor had disintegrated into flat, hard earth, but the walls and the roof seemed sound.  Enough light made it in through what remained of the windows for them to see that there were neither rats nor snakes, only a white-faced owl watching them disinterestedly from its perch on the shack’s only shelf.

“At least it’s shelter,” Kodjunn said, leaning outside to give the town one last mistrustful glance.  “All right?”

“More than all right,” Olivia said, basking in the dry air like a cat in sunlight.  “It’s wonderful!”

“Well,” he countered, looking doubtful, “I wouldn’t go that far.  I’d rather have a nice cave myself, but I think this is the best we can hope for in this land.”  He shook the rain off, annoying the owl, who stalked to the far end of its shelf and glared at them over its back.  “And it’s going to get cold.  I’ll be all right once I dry, but without the Great Spirit to provide us with benches, I’m afraid you’re going to feel the chill.”

“Benches?” she echoed, one eyebrow raised.

“Fire,” he said quickly, and struck himself in the head, the universal gesture for stupidity.

Olivia took a moment to reflect that if the Great Spirit were here, they could have a nice time explaining Freudian slips.  Since he was not, Olivia let the matter drop, and found a good place to stretch out for sleep.

Kodjunn paced the perimeter of the shack three times before coming to stand over her while she drowsed.  “Are you tired?” he asked at last.

“Aren’t you?”

He left her to pace around some more.  She dozed as slats of shadow moved across the dirt floor and the rain drummed down, and eventually he came back to her.  She could feel him standing over her, could feel the press of his stare and the weight of his thoughts, and she wanted to tell him it was all right now, that she was safe, that she wasn’t hurt, but she didn’t want to wake up enough to do it.  At last he lay down beside her, and that was all right. There was serenity in the silence, security in the feel of Kodjunn’s arm across her waist.  It had been a bad night and a bad day, but both were over now. 

Kodjunn combed through her hair with his fingers, exposing her shoulder and kissing it.  His other hand brushed over the curve of her hip, pausing to gently squeeze her thigh.  “Olivia?” he whispered, the word strained across a hopeful thrumm.

Benches
, she thought tiredly.  She pretended to be asleep.

Kodjunn touched his mouth to her shoulder again, this time to bite her delicately.  He slid his hand beneath her shirt, brushing at her nipple with the tip of one careful claw.  “Olivia,” he breathed again.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why in God’s name he would want sex now after all the times he had used her, but before she could work up the acid she had a sudden, vivid vision of how his eyes would look if she did.  She turned into his touch and looked at him.

“I thought that I might lose you,” he said.

She said nothing.

He drew her closer, until she felt the heat of his lean body pressed full against hers.  His hand slipped around her waist and cinched, possessively.  “Someday soon, I must lose you.”  His voice was thoughtful, slightly surprised, as if he had not considered this eventuality.  “How terrible it is, to care for another,” he mused.  “I wonder if our ancestors experienced these things, in those ancient days when they were free to love where they would.”

She rolled all the way towards him.  They were close enough to see only the eyes of the other, to breathe the same air.  “Can I ask you something, honestly?”

“Yes.”

“What is it about me, really?  I’ve had a long time to think about it and I’m completely baffled by what you people see in me.”

“I can speak only for myself.”

One corner of her mouth went up.  “Well, you’re the only one here, so I guess I’ll have to be content with that.”

“Compassion,” he said, without the slightest hesitation.  “I had never known it before I knew you.”

She thought about that.

“There is a healing way about you.  I don’t mean in your potions or the magic things old Murgull—”  He hooked absently at the air.  “—taught you.  There is a healing in your very soul.  No, you aren’t always gentle.  I’ve seen you match the
tovorak
roar for roar and never show a flinch, but I’ve seen you put your arms around him, even him, who stole you from your world.”  He paused then, and she could feel him struggling not to apologize for mentioning Vorgullum, no matter how obliquely.

The apology would be a hundred times more painful.  She put her hand on his arm before he could say anything, making herself smile for him.

“And just so,” he said, and breathed a sigh.  “There is not a one of us who would not tremble to feel this touch and know that you saw all the evil of his heart…and could forgive it.  For that touch, even for only its memory, we will let our females hunt with spears, sever a mate-bond, fight a challenger, and someday even fly again.  We will allow those who cannot hunt to have mates and raise children.  We will remember you, and perhaps one day we will learn there can be magic even in mercy.”

“How very comforting.”

He thrummed, low in his throat, and let his hand caress her bare flesh where he found it.  “You don’t mean that,” he said serenely.  “Never mind. 
I
find it comforting.”

There was a silence between them, a long and easy one, in which they lay and looked at one another while the rain beat on the roof. 

“Kodjunn?”

“Yes, Olivia?”

“You are fully prepared to lie there all day and never ask me to couple with you, aren’t you?”

He rolled onto his back and howled with laughter.  When the storm eased, he said, still smiling at the ceiling, “Why yes, Olivia.  I am.”

“You can, if you want to.”

“No.  You have endured too much, too recently.”

He lay there, looking at the ceiling, not speaking.

Olivia listened to him breathe as the rain pattered above them.

“It’s just that he’s always with me,” Kodjunn said suddenly.  “And there’s no pleasure in that for either one of us.  And you are here, and I remember… how fine and kind you are…how you took me in your arms while you lay in blood and pain…and loved me.”

Olivia waited, but that seemed to be all.

And then, much later, as if there had been no pause at all, he added, “And he isn’t with me now.  And I want to savor that, savor you, now that I have you all to myself.”

“Kodjunn?”

He sighed.  “Yes, Olivia.”

“You’re still not going to ask me, are you?”

“No, Olivia.”

She rolled her eyes slightly, safe in the knowledge that he was not looking at her.  “Well, then you leave me no alternative.  I’ll have to ask you.”

He turned his head and arched a brow at her doubtfully.  “I refuse to take advantage of your good nature,” he said.

“Only females have the right to refuse,” she countered primly. 

He opened his mouth, looked first startled, then thoughtful, then closed his mouth and smiled at her again.  “So it is,” he agreed, and reached for her.

8

Afterward, enfolded in his arms, Olivia stared out through the gaping holes in the roof of the shack and watched the sun set.

“I’m sorry,” Kodjunn said, “if you weren’t ready.  I know what those humans…that is…It just seemed to me that I might never have another chance to be with you, without him.”

She made a sleepy sound of agreement.  It would have been easy to use her power on him, to replenish herself with his energies during his lovemaking, and a terrible part of her had wanted to.  The feeling of emptiness and weakness about her was a bad thing to lie down with in the dark, especially with Kodjunn there beside her, his desire resonating with whatever hungry spark the Great Spirit had kindled within her, but…but she might never have another chance to be with him this way either.  She didn’t want to spend it feeding off him, leeching away his lifeforce while he thought he was making love with her.