The Twisting (19 page)

Daeryn’s arm tightened around her shoulders for a moment. “It’s worse seeing someone you love die,” he whispered. “You want to do something, or you try to do something, but it happens all the same, and all you can do is watch, helpless to stop it.”

“You’ve lost someone?”

“Her name was Sylvan. She was…she was my mate back in Rockbridge. I saw a man shoot her. Blood gushed from her while I ran to her, and she died before I could put a hand to stop it. I understand how powerless you feel.”

Annmar cringed at the graphic description. “That’s it exactly. I have this gift, but it’s like I don’t.”

He put a finger to her lips. “You tried. Remember that and let live.”

“Miriam said that. ‘Learn and let live.’”

“It’s one of the teachings of the Creator’s Path. It means recognize the failure and move beyond it. You have to.”

She nodded. When she did, he caught her cheeks again and kissed her on the forehead.

It took a moment for Annmar to realize he’d kissed her. A flutter rose in her chest, and she would have been caught gaping like a fool if he hadn’t flung his arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his naked side. Daeryn pulled her along, and her gaze fell on his bare anatomy. She forced her inspection higher, to his navel piercing, but the heat flooding her stopped any questions. They walked toward the light ringing the Harvester, and though he told her about his hunting and how he needed to check the field before he could take her back, all she could think about was Mary Clare’s suggestion she ask Daeryn to…
do it with her
.

Oh, Lord. He was so warm and comfortable. He’d just been so nice and understanding. They were getting to know each other, but certainly not well enough for that, for…
sex.
She would say it. She’d have to be saying it, or something along those lines, tomorrow night, when she met Mr. Shearing at The Grand. And didn’t
do it
.

She glanced up at Daeryn’s profile. She liked the lines of his face. She liked how she fit against his side. His scent. She did. She liked this fellow. She could imagine how it might feel if they got even closer together.

How well did you have to know someone before being intimate with him? Mary Clare said she’d know by how she felt down below.

Right now, she was feeling pretty good, though, damn it, why? Henry had died. She shouldn’t be feeling… Annmar closed her eyes and pressed her lips tight. Still, a small sob escaped her.

Daeryn’s steps faltered.

“It’s nothing,” she said before he could speak. “It’s just… It’s going to take time to get over…what happened.”

“Hate to say it,” he muttered, “but you’ll never get over it. The pain will ease, though.”

She snaked an arm around his waist, her fingers gliding over the silky hair on his back, and used the motion to pull him into a walk again, and to hide her shiver. It felt so good to touch him, though she didn’t look down again. She just didn’t…

Yet she had to get past this oh-so-proper city notion of how unmarried women were supposed to behave. She steeled herself to think about how to approach Mr. Shearing, how to play his game. If the Harvester couldn’t be repaired, Wellspring needed the money worse than ever. A new determination filled her chest. Mr. Shearing had withheld two of the Eradicators because of her. It was only fair for Wellspring to be compensated for the loss. In fact, she had an obligation to set this right, to make up for her part in causing the hardship.

Just ahead, Rivley and his helpers moved within an array of lanterns surrounding the base of the Harvester and a tractor and wagon. Annmar stopped, still in the dark, though between the Luci-viewers and the ’cambires’ nocturnal vision, any of them could see her holding on to Daeryn.

He turned to her, flashes of red sparking from his belly. Her fingers found his spiral piercing and the faceted stone before she realized exactly how personal her touch was. But now moving away had become more difficult than getting closer. “Rivley has a similar crystal. What is it?”

His hand covered hers. “Rivley has the
same
one. The other half of this crystal. It goes back to Sylvan’s death, too.” He huffed out a breath. “It’s a Rockbridge bloodstone, split during a gildan spell.”

A blood—what?
Annmar snatched her hand back. He’d said his mate died. Exactly whose blood was it?

chapter TWENTY-ONE

The sight of
Annmar backing away cut Daeryn with a loneliness so deep not even the loss of pack compared.

“A b-bloodstone?” she asked, one trembling hand clinging to her bib-and-brace strap.

“Bloodstones carry the old binding spells. The garnet itself doesn’t have real blood or anything.” Trying to marshal his thoughts, he glanced around the fenced enclosure they’d cleared so Rivley and his helpers could work risk-free. Checking for gobblers was habit, but having Annmar in the fields called for additional precautions.

He saw nothing, he smelled nothing, but still Daeryn couldn’t settle the nervous flutter in his gut. When he raked a hand through his hair, he discovered it half-mixed with polecat fur.

The accident…and now hearing Henry had died, that Annmar blamed herself…bad had worsened to awful, to horrible. No one was to blame. Or all of them were. He, and everyone else at Wellspring, had worked themselves ragged. Winter couldn’t come soon enough.

He should wait until then, until his head was together, to tell this city girl just how different his ’cambire life was and learn if he would ever make a suitable beau for her, let alone a mate. She wasn’t even completely comfortable with his nakedness, though she was doing a good job pretending otherwise, considering her city rearing.

If he let her get closer—let himself get closer—without telling her everything, then going their separate ways would only be harder. His palms were sweaty and his heart racing. Stifling a groan, he steeled his nerves.

“The stone holds the gildan, the obligation spell we’re under. Our blood was shed during an old Basin tradition of three piercings”—he pointed to the remaining piercings—“to link us with the spell. We’ve completed one part of it and lost one piercing.”

Annmar pulled her gaze from his belly. “This is the linking that let you enter my room, the linking that granted you access because I’d already granted Rivley access?”

“Mary Clare told you?”

“I didn’t mean to pry.” Annmar took a hesitant step forward and squeezed his shoulder. “Sylvan sounds like someone special.”

His stomach twisted. Not so much at the memory—a part of Sylvan would always be with him—but at the realization that Annmar cared. Maybe she cared enough for more. “You aren’t prying. Most everyone knows she died. But little else.” He weighed the opportunity against the patrols he should be doing, and how much shit he’d have to take from Jac. “I’d like to tell you.”

Shadows fell across the nearest tractor wheel. It was private, and serving as a seat, it would put Annmar’s feet off the ground and out of gobbler reach. He steered her to the far side of the wagon and helped her up. Reveling in her sweet scent, he leaned with his back to the metal, watching the quiet field and sorting the story.

“Like Rivley,” he said hesitantly, “Sylvan and I knew each other since we were polecat kits together. In a place like Rockbridge, way up in the mountains, you know everyone. No humans. Just ’cambires, and all the species mix together from kit and pup and fledgling on. Everyone’s close.”

Daeryn took a breath. “Sylvan and I were closer. We became mates. It was a natural progression, what everyone expected. Just like they expected me to make a pack for myself when I came of age and join our Borderlands Protective Chain. Might seem hard to believe, seeing the size of ’cambires here in the valley, but polecats compete as a large predator on those mountains.”

“Your protections have worked,” she said. “In the city we only hear the mountains are filled with dangerous animals.”

He nodded. “Different ones inhabiting different ranges, but yes, we’re…dangerous.” Hell, what a thing to tell her. “So. Rockbridge. Not that many residents, but forward-thinking ones. Only in the Black Mountains do the species mix for packs. We have to, to survive. To get my pack, I, uh…” He glanced up to see how she was taking this.

Annmar stared at his face, her gaze not wavering. Her relentless study of him made it harder to admit his beastly actions.

“What?” she prompted. “What did you have to do?”

“Fight my way to the top. Rivley did the same. It sounds…I don’t know, so brutal, so animal, but that’s what we are.” He held his breath, watching her.

She nodded, not giving a hint to whether she agreed or not.

His muscles tensed. He had to be truthful and take what came. “When I got to be alpha,” he said, “I formed up a pack, with Sylvan and a mix of others. We trained. Frankly, none of them was beta material and we weren’t together enough. The Elders knew it, and they wouldn’t let us patrol. Sylvan encouraged me to ask Rivley, even though he’d also earned the right to run his own pack. He agreed to be my beta. His family wasn’t happy he gave up his position.”

Annmar made the
tsking
sound he heard so often from Mrs. Betsy. “Did they approve when he gave up guarding here to be Master Brightwell’s assistant?”

“We don’t have anything like mechanics in Rockbridge, so he hasn’t told his parents that either. He didn’t want to rule a pack, or even be in one. Rivley’s tough, but he’s not a fighter at heart.”

At that she laughed. “You haven’t seen him go at it with Mary Clare, then.”

“That’s not the same. In Rockbridge, he couldn’t avoid pack affiliation.” Daeryn shrugged. “Rivley joined, along with the female hawk he’d been seeing. Our group of six trained up, and the Elders put us out on patrol. For two years we did great, even though Rivley broke up with his female, and I lost her to one of the other packs. His next left, too. Rivley felt bad for upsetting the pack structure, but his commitment made up for it. That fall when our pack was scheduled for a week’s stint at OverEdge, he’d been seeing a sparrowhawk named Pepper.”

“OverEdge?”

“A low spot in the Black Mountains with a Gateway to the Outside. It’s magically protected, but the Borderlands Protectors back it up, for when Outsiders poke around. Mostly they don’t.”

“Until that trip, I’m guessing.” Annmar sighed.

Daeryn swallowed. Telling the story was harder than he’d thought. “Pepper didn’t go. The night before we left, she and Riv had a row. He’s never told me what happened between them, and Pepper showed, ready, like she should, but I excused her from the trip, knowing it’d be too hard on the others. With five, we still had the patrol numbers the Elders wanted for two pair and a backup.

“The third morning Riv set off with two mountain cats on a low route to scour the tree line. Sylvan and I ran in polecat form on our higher, rocky traverse. We rounded a boulder and surprised a hunter. Young and green but, unfortunately, a good shot. She died instantly. She changed to human at the same time. So did I, and scared the hell out of him. The kid ran. The others heard the shot and found me trying to revive Sylvan, even though I knew it was no use. My head could tell the moment I saw her vacant eyes, but my heart… She—”

His voice broke. Fingertips brushed his shoulder, then Annmar slipped a warm arm over his shoulders.

“There was nothing else you could do.” She repeated the words he’d said to her minutes ago, words Rivley had said, his mother, the Elders, everyone.

He shuddered, struggling for control, and blew out a ragged sigh. “Nothing,” he whispered. “She was gone.” Memories of his lovely, lost polecat flooded him, but beside him was another girl, a different girl. One who cared. Feeling Annmar’s stroking hand was an entirely different type of comfort than Sylvan would have given him. If he and Annmar did start a relationship, it would be different. And that was fine. He was ready for things to be different. “Sylvan is gone. It’s taken me years to acknowledge it.”

“It’s—oh.” Annmar stiffened next to him. “This is what you tried to tell me: The pain may lessen, but you’re still left with that empty feeling of being unable to do anything.” Her body slumped against his. “So I should accept that, stop reliving it and…learn and let live.”

He managed a nod, and by the time he pulled himself together to finish the story, she had straightened and wiped her face clear of tears, but her irresistible earthy scent lingered close. “I had no time,” he said, “to come around from the horror of what had happened before the kid’s father barreled in.”

“With medical help?” Annmar asked.

“With a gun. If we were both dead, there would be no one to report what the kid had done. One of the cats pinned him, Riv grabbed the gun and flew off with it, and the last guy towed me out of there before I killed the bastard. They held the hunters until a Borderlands Knack could dismiss their memories. That’s the policy. No missing Outsiders assures our safety. I disbanded the pack—”

“Not Rivley, too?”

The bark of a laugh exploded from Daeryn. “Yes, Rivley, too. Though the stubborn cluck still badgers me about it. I wasn’t in good shape following Sylvan’s death. Everyone knew I couldn’t return to OverEdge, or anywhere near the Borderlands. But they didn’t know I wanted to die, too. Watching her die, being unable to do anything to save her, or the life we should have had together… It completely undid me. Rivley finally told the Elders. Then I wanted to kill
him
.

“They met, and then called us to a Determination Trial and announced Sylvan’s death was an accident, but her loss signaled other problems with our dissolved pack. Riv and I were held responsible and bound into the gildan to learn what had gone wrong. The Elders gave us the lessons to learn.”

Annmar frowned. “But it was an accident.”

“Packs are expected to be prepared in every way. We can’t afford to lose lives in Rockbridge. The Elders determined Rivley and I share the blame, so we do, and we learn from our mistakes, or we don’t resume our status within the enclave. We cannot return to the Borderlands Protective Chain, hold leadership positions or participate in our traditional ceremonies.”
Like taking a life mate.

“How long will it take to complete the other lessons?”

He shrugged. “As long as it takes. What exactly the Elders set into the binding is hidden from us, so we’re supposed to figure it out from the lines they gave us at the trial.” Daeryn took a deep breath. “Even without the obligation, I’d be indebted to Riv. Away from the Borderlands, in the Basin’s valley, I’ve pulled myself together. You will, too. I know it must have been hard after your mother died, and now seeing Henry…go. You’ll hold on, won’t you? Or tell someone if it becomes too hard? Mary Clare, or Miz Gere…me?”

Annmar looked away for the first time during their conversation, and after a moment, she nodded.

He sagged against the tractor’s wheel and studied her profile. Strands of hair had escaped their pins, curling along her cheeks and not quite hiding the sweet pout of her lips. His fingers twitched with wanting to stroke them, to touch any part of her. His gaze trailed to the hint of curves beneath her bib-and-brace. Despite his drying mouth, he had to know if he had any chance at all. “Does it make a difference to you I’ve been mated—that is, married, as the human Knack-bearers and Outsiders call it?”

She shook her head, a kind of sad smile forming when she turned to him. “You’re not married now.” She bit her lip. “Does it matter to you I’ve never been with a boy—a man—before?”

Daeryn pressed his knuckles to his forehead to push through a choking swallow. “No,” he rasped, “it wouldn’t matter to me either way. ’Cambires are very loose about that sort of thing.”

She studied the dark field and bit her lip, leaving it glistening in the moonlight.

“I noticed,” she whispered. “You’re not likely to ever leave Blighted Basin, are you?”

He ripped his thoughts from her mouth. Where had that question come from? “No. I could never be myself out there. It’s too dangerous for us, especially the ’cambires. Basin law requires a Proof gained through Elder approval, and they don’t give permission lightly.”

A frown creased her brow for a second before she nodded. “I understand.” She slid off the wheel.

They stood there awkwardly, her nervous scent growing until he almost couldn’t stand it. Dammit, he’d known this story would put her off. He’d find time tomorrow to explain it better, learn what bothered her the most and see what he could do to change his ways. If only he could reassure her before they parted. He raised a hand to pat her shoulder, but his finger found a strand of hair at her forehead and swept it aside. Abruptly, he withdrew his hand and glanced around. “I have to clear this field before I can take you back, but Rivley is tearing the Harvester apart, deciding if it can be fixed. I bet he’d appreciate your help.”

“Very well, I’ll wait with him,” she said, but she didn’t move away. “Um, can we kiss each other good-bye?”

Daeryn’s heart leaped. She wanted to kiss? He’d been wrong. She did accept it. Him. Still, he ought to be careful. He brushed her lips with his, tasting a hint of salty tears. The touch stirred him more than he’d thought possible, and he backed up a step. She looked at him uncertainly. “Like that?” he asked hoarsely.

She closed the space again. “Like this.” She kissed him, her lips parting the slightest amount around his lower lip.

Tears gone, she tasted like the sweetness of spring. Daeryn wanted more, but settled for filling his lungs with the earthy scent of her. After a second, his arms crept around her shoulders, and he kissed her back, just a little more than he should on a first kiss. He drew away while he still could. He had to clear his throat before he could ask, “How’s that?”