Traveller's Refuge (5 page)

An embarrassed silence fell over the room. Wolfe delicately cleared his throat and carefully pointed out, “We love you. We’re concerned for you. It’s a built-in part of being a male sib.”

When Wrenna turned her head to look up at him, her eyes met his and after a brief war, hers fell first. “It would help a lot if everyone didn’t make such an issue of it,” she admitted grudgingly. “It’s difficult enough when such a personal feminine problem is so public. Now I know how Eppie felt when she was waiting for Dancer. I don’t walk around discussing every instance when one of you has an erection!”

“Maybe you should,” Dai said with a brief twitch of his lips. “It would be more honest than ignoring it.” Her brothers shifted uneasily under the healer’s sharp green eyes. Then Dai shot a glittering rapier glance at Wolfe. “I will see you after breakfast in your papa’s office, Wolfe. We have much to discuss. As for the rest of you…”

“I’m sure we all have somewhere to be,” Tyger interjected hastily. “Hawke and I have a meeting about a loom—”

“I have patients to visit—” Ly offered immediately.

“I’ll be at Silence’s, helping her get rid of Homer’s stuff—” Arano jumped up and started passing out the platters as Dai filled them with steaming
peekie
eggs and
hopper
slices.

Arturo slipped into the kitchen just as Dai finished up. Silently, he sat next to Arano and applied himself to the task of eating. After a thoughtful look at his bowed head, Dai merely asked, “Will you be available to fix breakfast for the younglings, Arturo?”

With a curt nod, Arturo agreed.

“I will wake them before I meet with Wolfe. Since your papa has taken your mama down to my retreat to rest, I believe that eating in two shifts will work best. Any objections?” he inquired mildly. Merlyn and Jade didn’t rear stupid children. Everyone concentrated on eating.

Hawke finished first, of course. It seemed that there wasn’t enough food in the entire valley to keep him full during his current growth spurt. Without a word, Dai took his platter and filled it again. When he handed it back, Hawke noticed belatedly that his younger sister was missing. “Where is Robyn this morning?”

“She’s gone down to Ciara’s for a week of training. I sent her down to Dai’s Hamlet because Ciara offered to include her in her class on infusions for pain and headache. Since she doesn’t have the class very often, I thought it best to accept Ciara’s suggestion, even though Robyn’s needed here because your parents are gone. While she’s down there she can find out what color glazes Ciara needs on her salve pots. Arturo has volunteered to help cook. I would appreciate it very much if the rest of you help when your schedules permit.”

There was some hasty mental reshuffling of personal schedules to accommodate the changed family circumstances and then some more reshuffling when Dai added, “I don’t want Wrenna in the hot kitchen. Heat will make her
schalzina
symptoms worse.”

Wrenna thought to object but changed her mind when she saw the determined expression on Dai’s face. The old silver-haired healer had kept the valley residents in line for over thirty years. In a place where the average adult male was well over six and a half feet, no one intimidated like Dai despite his short five-foot stature. Truthfully, she admitted, she hated cooking and she hated the clinging heat in the kitchen and she hated doing dishes. Prudently, she sipped her tea and kept quiet.

Once breakfast was finished, she sidled out the side door and headed down toward the river to her pottery dome, trying to keep her legs apart as she walked.
Schalzina
brought with it a constant state of damp arousal. Her wet thighs rubbed uncomfortably together. Her thin
meerlim
always had damp stains on the skirt. Mama said that was one of the few drawbacks to the lack of underwear in the valley. Wrenna shuddered with distaste at the idea of cloth rubbing against her sensitive labia.

The entire moon before had been stormy with heavy cold rains after Eppie and Dancer’s bonding storm but now the weather was back to the normal stifling heat of summer. In another eight-day, it would be Mid-Summer. Usually, there was a festival with the summer market and picnic over in the training field. All of the bonded women prepared their best sweet dishes and there was a competition. Entire families arrived from all over the valley and camped on the field in lightweight
hurkas
.

She wondered who would judge the competitions this year. Mama and Papa were away on retreat down at Dai’s Retreat. Llyon and Tyger were mostly in seclusion because they had sworn a covenant bond the same night of the bonding storm. Of course, Eppie and Dancer were also in seclusion. After all, their bonding ritual was the reason for the bonding storm!

She hummed as she spent some time sorting through the extra pots, vases, jugs and dishes she had prepared for sale at the market day. Most years, she made enough barter credits to make up over half her yearly credits. There were three market days per year—spring, summer and fall. Summer market day was the largest and had the most participants. With most of the villages in the valley isolated and far apart, the market days were opportunities to acquire or sell items that were unavailable the rest of the year. Tyger offered fine lengths of cloth. Llyon usually had extra small pots of commonly used salves. Arano and Arturo spent the late winter and spring tanning skins from their trapping. At least they always had until Arturo was attacked earlier this spring.

When she was satisfied that her proposed offerings were the best of her inventory, she set up supplies and prepared to make the deep baking pans Dan the baker had ordered—fifteen round bread pans for the chewy sunflower bread he made, twenty narrow oval pans for the dark pungent
wachaz
loaves and eight flat baking plates for the flat
barbahla
bread. The baking dishes were the last of her current orders to be completed and if her
schalzina
was any indication, it was none too soon. Once Traveller arrived in the valley, they would bond and enter their three moons of seclusion.

She bent over her wheel, absorbed in the intricacies of forming the oval
wachaz
pans and lost track of time. She jerked back in surprise and squeaked when Wolfe nudged her shoulder. “You startled me! What’s wrong?”

“You will no doubt be thrilled when I inform you that I’ve been assigned as your healer,” he replied sourly.

“What? When did that happen?” She sat back and stared at him in perplexed amazement.

He folded his arms across his bare chest and sighed. “This morning, at my meeting with Dai. At first, I was angry with you, thinking that you told him about my talents,” he admitted softly. “But Dai was very clear that Papa was the one that asked him to talk to me, just as Papa apparently told him about you. Papa wanted him to assess my talent before he spent any more time urging me to apprentice for healing.”

“So, clearly Dai’s verdict is that you are talented. I could have saved him the trouble,” she replied with a shrug. “Who are you apprenticing with?”

“Dai.” His dry, wry tone was eloquent.

“Well. That’s certainly interesting.” She leaned back and stared at him in astonishment. “Dai hasn’t had an apprentice since Llyon. Does that mean you’ll also be a Master Healer?”

“Apparently. When he’s satisfied that I’ve mastered the basics, he’s sending me down to Rebaccah’s Promise to apprentice under Henry.” He shifted uncomfortably under her interested gaze. “Well? Isn’t this what you kept pushing for? Aren’t you happy?”

Getting to her feet, she approached him and wrapped her arms around his waist. At first he held his body stiff and withdrawn but she persisted until he relaxed and returned the hug. “What am I going to do?” he muttered in despair.

“You’re going to be the best you can be. If you’re apprenticing under Henry, then Dai is truly certain that you are a gifted healer. Dai’s never been wrong as long as we’ve known him.” She rested her head against his chest and shivered. “Wolfe, you’re not selfish enough to deprive the valley of your gifts and talents.”

“Yeah, well, you may be sorry. Because the first thing I’m going to recommend is that you begin communication with Trav. You have two days to reach him and open a mind-touch link.” When she would have pulled away, his arms tightened around her shoulders. “Uhn-uh. If you haven’t completed your task by then, Dai said that he will forge a three-way link between you, me and himself and then open that triple link with Trav. Consider that before you get all huffy about having your hand forced.”

“Son of a—”

“Don’t go there,” he warned her.

“Sea-biscuit!” She shoved away from him and stalked around the dome, muttering beneath her breath.

“I did tell you several days ago that you needed to reach him.”

“Don’t say ‘I told you so’!”

“Well?”

“Just go away!”

“For now,” he agreed. “But day after tomorrow, we will meet first thing in the morning after breakfast in the treatment room. Don’t be late.”

Chapter Four

Three hours after he walked away from the truck stop, Trav had acquired a vehicle, visited two of the safe houses he had set up, acquiring various items from each and was stretched out on a bed, resting for the first time in two days in a horizontal position. He had also squeezed in time for a fast shower and a drive-thru breakfast of sandwiches and a large coffee. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, one muscle group at a time, knowing that while he might not sleep, the benefits of resting would be enhanced if he wasn’t tense. Getting the hamster wheel in his mind to slow down was another thing entirely. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he was going to get it to stop but slow would be good, he conceded.

Long moments later, he was dozing lightly, aware of his surroundings on a deep automatic level that never seemed to shut down. A faint tickle of awareness was his only warning before a soft but distinct “voice” spoke in his mind.
Traveller
.

“What! Who’s there?” He sat up in bed and listened to the silence in the tiny apartment with intense concentration.

Traveller
.
There
’
s no need to shout
! He got the clear impression that the “voice” had winced in discomfort.

Toning his response down some, he “thought” at the voice,
Who is this
?
What are you doing in my head
? Was this what Dancer had experienced—this female invading his mind?

Faint amusement trickled through the link.
I am Wrenna
.
Your brother Dancer is my bond
-
brother
.
Mind speech is common in our valley between bond
mates
.

As her meaning sank in, he stiffened in disbelieving shock.
You know Dancer
?
What is this valley
?
And what the hell is a bond
mate
?
The questions poured out without pause before he had time to consider that the entire conversation could be a trap.

In the cool privacy of the oddly empty kitchen, Wrenna nodded approvingly. He had accepted the mind speech with barely a blink but he had questions. Probably a
lot
of questions. She nibbled at her lips as she considered which question to answer first.

Wrenna
?

I
’
m still here
.
I
’
m just trying to organize my thoughts
.

Well
,
organize them faster
.

Yeah
,
he was Dancer
’
s brother
, she thought with a small smile, alpha male from the top of his red-gold head to the bottom of his big feet.
Dancer is in our valley
.
He bonded with my sister
,
Eppie
,
over a moon ago
.
Papa says that a bond
mate is like an out
-
valley spouse
.

You
’
re trying to tell me my brother got married
? Trav’s disbelief rang clearly through the link.

The relationship is similar
, she agreed,
though the ritual is very different
,
I think
.
At least Dancer and my parents have said so
.

How do I know this isn
’
t some kind of trap
?
Traveller’s anxiety, filtering across the link, told Wrenna that he was both stressed and alarmed by their conversation.

Clearly, she needed to reassure him as soon as possible. She nibbled on her lower lip, pondering the best way and then hesitantly offered,
Dancer said to tell you the code word is
“
Dragon
”.

There was a very long silence—so long that Wrenna thought for a moment that he had figured out how to shut her out completely. If true, that meant he was a very fast learner. Abruptly, he said,
I need to talk to Dancer
.
How do I do that
?

I
’
m not sure I even know
, she admitted.
I
’
ve always been able to talk to my sibs and parents
.
Other than them
,
you
’
re the only one I have mind speech with
.
Maybe you should just try calling his name
.

Like you did
?

Yes
,
exactly
.

Wait just a minute
.
Didn
’
t you say something about mind speech in the beginning
?
Something about bond
mates
? The suspicion coloring his tone was heavy and dark.
Explain that again
.

She wished she hadn’t chosen the kitchen for this conversation. Sighing, she sipped her mint tea and wondered what he would make of her explanation. Nothing good, she was willing to bet.
Mind speech is one of the two signs that a couple has an attachment
.
An attachment is a natural bond that takes place without the oath
-
binding ritual
.
Your brother had such an attachment with Eppie
.

An even longer silence followed her explanation but this time there were spikes and flashes of some emotion, though she couldn’t discern exactly what it was. When she had nearly given up on him, he announced,
I have to go
.
My shadows have caught up with me
.
I will get back to you later
.
Then he was gone, leaving an echoing silence in his wake.