Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (23 page)

Skye
reached out a hand to brush his fingers across her forehead. "I don't think you're running a fever," he observed.

There was some light coming through the window on the far side of the room, behind the screens that served to separate living area from bedroom, but it
was still faint enough for Skye's eyes to catch her attention. In sunlight, their glow seemed to dim. In darkness, or even semi-darkness, they shone brighter than any stanes she'd seen.

Ashlyn had alwa
ys felt the same way about Skye as she had about Drake; she'd never get tired of looking at him. They were both beautiful in a masculine sort of way, both devastatingly handsome. Eight years ago, Skye had still been making that awkward transition from child to adult, and she had only occasionally seen the glimpse of the man that he would become. Now that he was just a year older than Drake- physically, anyway- it was easy to draw comparison between the two men.

Although Skye still retained part
of his defensive attitude that had alienated so many years before, his face was more open, more welcoming. His eyes were shadowed by a lifetime of hardships, but there was no bitterness there. Only remnants of pain and maybe a tiny bit of regret.

She frowned hard, trying to conjure up
Drake's eyes. It was difficult to remember him as he had looked during the battle with Lord Angelo, and also remember him as she had seen him that day in Cosmea. Drake was different now, and the light in his eyes had altered his appearance nearly as much as age had changed Skye's.

"
Drake!" Appalled that she had nearly forgotten, she bolted upright and turned to Skye. "Is he okay? Vargo didn't know- he said that the healers were with him but that he'd lost a lot of blood- you would know, and he's okay, right? I mean, you were with him, you wouldn't have left him alone if you thought he wasn't okay. Right?"

Skye
rested his hand across his knee again. "Right."

Ashlyn waited for him to continue. When he said nothing else, she flicked her fingers, palm-up, as if to say,
Well?

"He heals fast," Skye
admitted. He gave her a grudgingly admiring glance. "He told me what happened. You tried to stop the sword."

"Ye
ah, and I lost my hammered steel shuriken doing it," Ashlyn said, not at all distressed about that fact now that she knew Drake was all right. She crawled over to sit next to Skye. "Did he say anything else?"

"About what?"

She really had no idea. "About…anything."

The blank look that the swordsman gave her made her words sound lame, even to her own ears. What had she expected
Drake to tell Skye? That her crazy attempt to save his life had proved to him without a doubt that she was the woman he'd been looking for all his unlife? That he was abandoning Trace to throw himself at Ashlyn's feet and worship her for all eternity?

Freaking
hormones! All this time to think must have seriously done a number on her common sense!

Ashlyn tried to think of all the things she didn't like about
Drake. Musty coffin. Icky old cape. Red eyes.

Really sexy red eyes.
             

"GO
DS!" she yelled, smacking herself on the forehead. "Give it a break, will you?"

Skye
jumped, gazing incredulously at her like she'd just sprouted three heads. "What the hell?"

"Never mind," she said grumpily, finger-combing her tangled hair and trying to secure it back into a messy knot. "I just hope I can see my dad soon.
Nothing like coming back from the dead to make you appreciate your family again."

There was a grinding sound as the door slid open, and illumination flooded the room behind them, light glaring around the edges of the screens that bisected the room. Ashlyn blinked at the interruption,
and turned to see Kou- Devlyn- outlined in front of her. Tag stood at his side.

"We don't have much time," Kou said, looking at Ashlyn- and, she felt, looking
over
her- probably finding her unkempt appearance somewhat lacking, but if he did, he didn't say anything about it- before he motioned towards the basement steps and told them, "If you want to know the truth, there's only one place to begin."

Ashlyn stood, brushing off her hands. "The one place to begin is my basement?" she said skeptically. "Do you
know
how long it's probably been since anyone's been in there? There could be man-eating spiders down there. They could be huge. They could be the size of
Hydra Wraiths
, as long as they've had to set up house."

"There are no spiders in your basement," Kou said. His expression did not change.

"How do
you
know? They could be ten feet tall. They could be as big as this
house.
They could have hairy legs and fangs as long as my
arm
-" Ashlyn stopped, feeling a little queasy at the thought of ginormous incisors and creepy spider eyes.

Tag and Kou shared a frustrated look, and if Ashlyn had been in any less of a mood then s
he probably would have smiled. Obviously the great and noble Li heir wasn't making such a great and noble impression.

She wasn't intimidated- which really could hav
e had something to do with Skye's presence behind her. As nice as these guys had been so far (which in all honesty was pretty darn nice- not many guys would still be on speaking terms with Ashlyn after suffering vomit-splattered shoes), it was still comforting to boast a sidekick who had tromped Lord Angelo with one seriously lethal hissy fit.

"Kou- Devlyn-
lived in this house for months before…the war," Tag said. "It's only been sitting for a short time. There are no spiders."

Yeah, it didn't take a genius to hear the hesitation in his voice.

Before the war, huh?

Ashlyn glowered. It was difficult for her to decide whether to be angry with them for using her house without her permission, or relieved that they had kept it spider-free in her absence. She chose not to say anything on the subject. "Lead the way, then," she told Kou, jerking her chin
towards the basement with all the dignity that a crusty-eyed, snarl-haired Li could muster. "But if I follow you down there, I better get some answers."

He turned without another word and started down the steps. Ashlyn had the uneasy feeling that he wasn't very happy with her, but she wasn't exactly in the best mood herself
, so it seemed fair enough.

She glanced over her
shoulder, making sure that Skye was right behind her before she made her way down the steps after Kou. "Hey," she said, skipping two steps at a time to catch up with the Toryn man, "when can I see my dad?"

Kou opened the door and walked inside, then turned to hold it open for her. "He's not here," he said.

"Not here?" Ashlyn stumbled forward a little bit as Skye brushed past her to inspect the room. "What do you mean, not here? Not in this house? Not in Toryn? Not on the island?"

"Not in Toryn." Kou motioned for her to take a seat on the circle of mats arranged in the corner, and Ashlyn flopped down gracelessly, too irritated to care about manners and etiquette.

"Okay. I'm getting seriously pissed off here. I have questions, and you're the only man that seems to know the answers,
Devlyn,
" she said, putting emphasis on the name that he had kept hidden from her for the past week. "So here's how it works. I ask, you respond. Once I'm satisfied, then we can get down to whatever it is you want from me. Not before. Got it?"

He sat in front of her, his face emotionless. "I understand."

Ashlyn was about to spit out the angry retort that was on the edge of her tongue, before she realized that he hadn't even tried to argue with her. Glancing at Skye, who was staring up at the heavy cage suspended in the center of the room, she wondered why he wasn't jumping right into the conversation. He was probably remembering the time that cage had dropped on him during one of their…um…disagreements. That was a memory that she'd rather forget, really.

"Fine," she said, trying not to show how confused she was by this entire scenario. "W
hat should I call you? Devlyn?"

"My friends call me Kou," he said.

"Your friends, huh. What's your name? Your
real
name."

"Koudai Devlyn Lunai, of the clan Lunai," he answered promptly.

"That's a mouthful," Skye muttered.

"Not for a Toryn," Ashlyn told him. "I have eight names."

The look the swordsman gave her said he really didn't care. Ashlyn rolled her eyes.

"What did you mean earlier
when you said I wasn't exposed?" she asked Kou.

There was a pause.

"Uh," Kou said eloquently.

"We've
recently discovered that specific Toryn bloodlines are immune to the effects of certain stanes," Tag said, leaning back against the door as he folded his arms across his chest. "However, it appears that some bloodlines are not."

"Stanes
?" Ashlyn repeated. "Bloodlines? Wait- my dad- is he okay?"

"Yes," Tag said.

"No," Kou said at the same time.

"He is exposed
," Tag said firmly, glaring at Kou. "But be assured that he is in good health- the exposure isn't fatal."

"
In good health?
What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Ashlyn snapped. "If my father is ill, I want to know about it."

"It's not what you think, Ash
. Tag and I bear this exposure also," Kou said. "And as you can see, we're perfectly fine. But we won't be that way forever."

"This is an exposure
- more of an addiction- for which there is no cure," Tag said. "We've brought you here because we hope you can help us find one."

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes. "Look, I'm not into cryptic crap. Just tell me what the hell you're talking about."

"I can show you," Tag said, pushing away from the door. He suddenly looked eager, excited. "Here, stand back against the wall. Kou?"

Tag moved to stand in the center of the room, directly bel
ow the cage. As Ashlyn and Skye watched, Kou lowered the cage so that Tag was trapped inside.

"Okay, this is a little creepy," Ashlyn said, laughing nervously. "What are you guys doing?"

"Apparently Tag thinks it might be better for you to see this before you ask any more questions," Kou said. He walked around the cage and stood beside Skye, his mouth set in a grim line.

Tag folded back the sleeve on his right arm, exposing a silver
armband bearing a single green stane. He braced his feet about shoulder-width apart and held out his hands, taking a stance that Ashlyn guessed was meant for spell-casting.

"Stand back," he said, grinning at her. In the flickering artificial light it looked more like a sneer than a smile.

Suddenly a bolt of light split the room vertically, centering right on Tag. He screamed and stumbled to the edge of the cage, falling to his knees as his cries grew shrill.

"Is he okay?" Ashlyn demanded, taking a step forward. Kou reached over and blocked her way with one arm, shaking his head at her and motioning for her to move back again. She complied, giving him a confused look.

Tag screamed and collapsed to the floor, spasms racking his body. The stane in his armband glowed a blinding green, brighter than Skye's eyes, brighter even than Lord Angelo's had been. Tag's skin began to ripple, changing in texture. As Ashlyn looked on in shock, his thick mane of hair began to expand, spreading to engulf his entire head as he twisted and writhed on the stone floor. His clothes strained against expanding muscle, finally tearing at the seams as the pressure proved too much.

"
What the
hell?
" Skye said from beside her. "What the
hell
is going on?" The bulging muscles beneath Tag's clothes were also covered in a wiry mat of hair. It was dark and coarse, like an animal's.

Tag rolled over and over, banging into one side of the cage and then the other, and Ashlyn could see now that his body wasn't the only thing changing. His mouth, his chin was stretching out into a semb
lance of a…muzzle?

As she stared, her jaw slack, Tag opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes, so mellow and dark before, were now the s
ame burning color as the stane that gleamed in his too-tight armband. The animal roared and lunged straight at her, smashing into the bars of the cage with such an unbelievable force that the entire room shuddered around them. Ashlyn started, feeling behind her for the solidity of the wall, and swallowed hard. Now the beast was flinging itself up against the bars, throwing its body mercilessly into the unyielding metal again and again until she could see blood gleaming on its dark fur.

"Stop it!" she yelled, stepping forward. "Tag, stop it! You're hurting yourself!" She put her hand out to reassure him that she wasn't going to hurt him, but all he did was snarl and lunge at her again, jaws snapping.