Warrior Blind (15 page)

He pointed toward the one male she’d avoided looking at.

Koios was still on one knee near her. “Get up, Koios. I don’t want you, or anyone doing that to me, for the goddess’s sake.”

“Do not deny us the reverence and respect we owe you. It is our gift to give.”

But he stood.

He held a hand out to her. “We will speak of important things between us in the privacy of our home. Soon. Now, I have sent your Eralyna for Eaudne.”

She had forgotten that Dekimos was Eaudne’s son. How could she have forgotten her friend so quickly? Remorse—and worry—filled her. “Someone needs to prepare her. I am not sure the shock is something she needs now.”

“He is her son. You are here if she has need of a healer.” Koios leaned down and kissed her forehead, like he had done before. “I am glad I returned to you this day.”

She’d forgotten him, too, hadn’t she? “You are injured! Koios...Let me...”

“After we see to Eaudne. I too have questions for this Dekimos.”

“Like?”

“Why has he returned now? It is almost too much of a strange thing.”

“Who hurt you?”

“I believe I had an altercation with the dark sorcerer, gamata. But he is one we will speak of shortly.”

She heard a wail and knew it was Eaudne. “Go to her, Koios. I can’t get to her fast enough. Go and help her.”

***

Koios did as she asked. How could he not? He understood the worry she felt. She and Eaudne had bonded, grown close over the last week. And empathetic Bronwen would feel the other woman’s suffering.

Eaudne was wailing even louder. He turned toward the stairs in time to see her moving down them as fast as she could. He half feared she would fall, but she did not.

It took him a moment to understand what she said. She was yelling that he had to be an imposter. That her son was dead.

Bronwen stepped into her path. Eaudne almost fell over her. But Bronwen held firm, and wrapped her arms around the other woman.

Dekimos had stood when the first wail sounded.

His expression showed nothing. He stepped toward the females.

Eaudne pulled away from Bronwen. She turned so that her body was between Dekimos and Bronwen. Protecting the one she knew carried her child’s soul?

Dekimos bowed to her. “Mother, I believed you dead all these years.”

“You look as my son.”

“Because I am he.”

“How is that? I felt the death of each of my children’s souls. All save four. Yours was one I lost. I mourned you every day.”

“I have my mother’s gift of healing.” He did not move to touch her.

“In Dekimos it was the strongest. Far stronger than mine own.” Eaudne studied the male. Koios studied the both of them. Dekimos was a large male, equally as large as Koios was himself. And the male was far darker than his golden haired mother.

In fact, Dekimos most greatly resembled that Laquazzean bastard Black, once Koios got a good look at him.

The coloring, the carriage. The eyes.

Even the attitude was similar to Black.

Black, the reborn soul of Eaudne’s eldest son.

Interesting. Did anyone else see it?

“That still does not explain how it is you stand before me. Unless you are imposter. Unless you are he who did this?” She held up her scarred arm. “Tell me...”

“My soul was gone. That I cannot deny. But some small part grew in the soil around where I died. In the gardens that Koera favored so. Beneath her favored plant. Remember it mother, remember what it was called?”

“The
endla
plant.” Eaudne whispered. “It only grew there in that one place. The place your sister created it. Tell me, what color was it?”

“It was the color of the rarest sunset on the longest day of the year. When the day met night. I have never seen that color duplicated anywhere else.” His words were low, there in the middle of the lobby. Koios waved a hand at his guards. The signal to have the lobby emptied. These people did not need their reunion so visible.

The room cleared quickly, leaving just Eaudne, Dekimos, and him and Bronwen. Koios stepped up and pulled his gamata back.

“Yes, it was. It was her favorite color and her favorite plant.”

“A part of my soul was lodged there when I fought the dark sorcerer and lost. Directly in the roots of the flower that housed my sister’s spirit. That part of me grew. And grew some more. Until my body reformed.” He held out his hand and Eaudne took it. “Until I was remade, just as I was when last you saw me.”

“So it is possible that more of my children still live?”

Dekimos hesitated. “This I do not know. How many of them live?”

“Jushua and Kennera. I have found them both. And I have found the souls of three more—Keryana in our young Bronwen here, Leonle in the heart of a woman named Havalana, and Kilan in a Laquazzean male named Nalik Black. There is a reason you are all being returned to me. And I fear...I fear that reason to the bottom of what remains of my own soul.”

“So six of twenty-two.”

“Five more than I ever thought possible.” Eaudne broke down then, and Koios watched as she threw herself into her son’s arms. “And I fear it is because you six will be fated to fall before the sorcerer yet again. And I cannot protect you.”

“Perhaps, Mother, we are here now to protect you from him. Perhaps we are here...to stop him.”

She allowed Koios to hold her hand while they walked from the Healer Hall to their suite about a quarter of a mile away. Neither of them said anything.

Finally, after he closed the sliding door did she ask the question that was weighing on her. “Do you believe him? That he’s her son?”

“Do you? There is something other worldly about that male. And he saved my life.”

She hadn’t known that, but his words reminded her. “You need to take off your vestis.”

“Had I known you would be getting me naked, we would not have tarried so long in the Healer’s Hall.”

“You know what I mean, Koios. You need healed.”

“And you are too weak to do it. You brought two men back from death. Now it is time for you to rest.”

“That man healed Dell and Phan. I just helped. I still have enough strength to heal you. What happened to you?”

“I believe I had an encounter with a portion of the dark sorcerer’s soul. And just a portion was enough to knock me on my ass. Dekimos was there and drove him away. But not before Dell and Phan fell. The sorcerer and I battled with blade and staff. I struck him as much as he struck me.”

She could hear the pride in his words, and she shook her head at him. Every male she knew would have had the same pride. “Koios...sit.”

She tried to guide him to the chair she knew was nearby. Finally he humored her.

She sent out a bit of her gift, and it entered her
Rajni’s
body. Bronwen studied each mark within him. There were scrapes and scratches, bruises and minor burns. Those she’d leave for later. Right now she was more concerned with the stab wound on his side and with a deeper laceration around her left bicep.

It took her several minutes to repair the damage. When she was finished, she was exhausted. “I think you are well now.”

She leaned back on her heals, then yelped when hard hands went around her waist and she found herself clutched against his naked chest.

His medallion tangled in her hair and she moved it.

But she didn’t pull away from him. He could have died that day. He could have been one of those bodies on the stretchers, dragged back from a fight with the dark sorcerer. And she would have seen him, thanks to Dekimos. Her last sight of him would have been his charred and dead body.

She started shaking, and couldn’t stop.

Her arms clung to him and after half a moment his tightened around her. His fingers tangled in her hair and he tilted her head back.

This time there was real heat in the kiss he gave her. Finally he pulled away. “Bronwen, I am whole. There is nothing to fear now.”

“I am not afraid.” And she wasn’t. But she also wasn’t talking about what had happened to him today. “I am just glad you are alive. Glad you are here with me.”

“Here? As in within this city, or here as in with you?”

“Both.” It was time she was honest with herself. With him. “What is going to happen between us? I know nothing of what should happen between mates.”

His hands slipped down her back, and into the band of her pardus. Hard fingers wrapped around her rear. “I know what it is that I want. I am feeling the need for my gamata, and feeling it strongly.”

Her embarrassment must have shown. “I don’t—I’ve never—”

“Never?”

***

Koios had not expected that. And it had his ardor lessening somewhat. She was not ready for an intimate time with him, for all that he was.

And hadn’t he made a vow that he would put her needs above his own? “Then we shall take our time, and when you are ready, we will act upon our bond.”

“I don’t know what is going to happen between us.”

“We are bonded. Neither of us can deny that now. And as the days pass our bond will grow stronger. It is the way of gamata, and I suspect the way of your
Rajnis
. And Bronwen...I know you lied when I asked it of you. I am the
Rajni
your goddess chose for you, am I not?”

She did not deny it this time, and he took heart in that.

“You will have my eternal devotion, and yes...my love. I am a Beskre warrior. We do not often allow ourselves to express such emotion.”

“I need it, though. I will not deny that you are my rajni. But there have been some Dardaptoans who have successfully ended RAjni bonds.”

“But do you still wish that?”

She was silent for a long while. What would he do if she said that it was what she wanted? Would he be able to set her aside if it was what she needed to be happy?

He closed his own eyes, knowing what he would need to do.

Koios would do it, if it made her happy. Because he wanted her happiness far more than his own.

It would hurt his very soul to be parted from her, but he would do it.

Because he loved her. “I love you, Bronwen Sebastos. And I will until the day my soul ceases to be. But if you wish it, we will part now. And I will remove myself to another chamber. And I shall not harass you again.”

She was silent for the longest time, and then she shocked him by smiling.

His Bronwen had the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

“No. Stay. Stay with me. Maybe…maybe we can learn to do this
Rajni
or
gamata
—whatever you want to call it—thing together.”

The next three days were almost a dream for Bronwen. It wasn’t quite what she’d imagined it would be like when finding her Rajni—she definitely hadn’t pictured herself ruling a foreign world at his side—but it was still more than she had hoped for over the last fifteen months.

His overbearing protectiveness was a bit much. He put Theo and Thadd to absolute shame in that regards.

But he was there whenever she—or Eaudne—needed him. Something about the older woman seemed to draw Koios, as much as it drew Bronwen. She didn’t know what it meant for them, but she didn’t see anything bad with it.

Eaudne was constantly at Dekimos’ side, and Bronwen understood it. How could she not? She’d felt only a portion of the love Eaudne had for her children, and she was just one reborn. Dekimos was the real deal.

Three days after his arrival, the Healer’s Hall was running more smoothly than ever. But Dek—as Eaudne called him—refused to take an active part in the running of it. He said he would help Bronwen with it, but that it was her destiny to run it, not his.

He’d worked with her for a few hours each day, and she could feel the melding of her healing gift with her new strengths as a Laquazzeana.

She was quickly developing more confidence in his presence than she had in years under others’ tutelage. But how could she not?

He was the Greatest Healer of all ages.

And he guided her, and the healers that she led.

His presence gave her hope.

But she knew it worried Koios.

They’d spent most of the time they had alone over the last three days talking. Of anything and everything.

Something that he freely admitted he should have done with her fifteen months ago.

She had finally let go of the bitterness and anger that had plagued her, and was starting to trust him.

To let him hold her and kiss her. And touch her. She was starting to love the feel of his hands and mouth on her. She was confident that they would be going further than just kissing sometime soon.

Real soon.