Alliance Forged (7 page)

“Ignorant?” She huffed, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I think
irreverent
would be a word more suited to you.”

“You and Lisella are so much alike. No wonder you get on well together.” His soft chuckle caressed her senses, but then his tone sobered. “Truly though, have I upset you?”

To spare herself embarrassment Kymora was almost persuaded to agree, but too many years as a Servant where the truth of her word was held in high esteem curbed the action.

“The only offense inflicted would be to my modesty.” She averted her head, too aware that the blush staining her face would easily be visible in the firelight. “Being naked in front of someone isn’t a comfortable thought.”

“And you think I feel differently?”

“Varian, I can’t see you.”

“When I sit down behind you to help you get warm we’re going to be skin to skin.” Her heart skipped a beat. “You read other people through touch, much more astutely than anyone gives you credit.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “Vulnerability doesn’t just come through lack of sight.”

Each word was stilted, his tone reluctant. Others claimed he was distant, cold, reclusive, and there were times Varian reinforced that impression with his solitary behavior, but now, with her, she savored his consideration. His honesty struck close to her heart and it swelled with grateful affection.

Before she could change her mind, she stood and, in one motion, pulled the saturated material off her body and held it out to him. Without a word, it was taken from her outstretched fingers. As she settled back into her huddled pose, the heat flushing her body had little to do with the fire.

She listened to Varian wringing and laying out her dress. His bare
feet scuffed the floor as he took his time preparing the bed of forest needles. Was the noise deliberate? Usually he was so silent she had to strain to find his location.

“It’s not the sleeping pad or clean linens you’re used to”—his fingers closed around her wrist and he tugged her arm to the right—“but it’s better than hard rock.”

She smiled as the fronds tickled the palm of her hand. “They’re soft and warm.” They’d been piled into a mound thick enough to stave off any cold or dampness rising from the cavern floor. “They’ll make a fine bed.”

Varian drew in a silent breath. The gentle expression on Kymora’s face proved a thousand times more preferable to the stark lines of fear that had pinched her face when he’d walked into the small cave. He was almost tempted to thank the
Lady
for giving him the right words to say, enough to distract Kymora from whatever dark thoughts she’d been contemplating.

Reaching for another branch of forest needles, Varian stripped the stem and added them to the bedding, then fed the stick into the fire.

“Aren’t you going to join me?”

He couldn’t detect anything in the tone of her voice, but he caught her scent, that light hint of summer flowers, but this time with a subtle minty freshness. Nervousness.

Unable to resist, his gaze strayed to the graceful curve of her naked back, so pale compared to the long strands of black hair that fell to just above her hips. Lithe muscles proportionally suited to her slender form, from the plump hint of her breast tucked against a raised leg to the flare of her hips and tender fleshiness of her buttocks, made her all woman.

Her skin was free of the spotted, uneven body markings that every
Na’Chi
and
Na’Reish
possessed. The absence of the natural tattoos fascinated him. His fingers itched to touch her. Was her skin as smooth as it looked?

In the flickering firelight, he could see every hollow and dip of her form, and what the shadows concealed, his imagination more than made up for. Enough that the lower part of his body began to burn with a deeper need, one he recognized and shouldn’t be feeling. Uneasiness spiraled through him.

She was naked. He was just reacting like any other male would. Nothing else.

“Why would any woman want Varian when there are other, unscarred males to choose from?”

He winced as the memory ran through his mind.

The group of young
Na’Chi
women hadn’t realized he’d been coming through the shrubbery near their latest camp, a cave at the foot of a rocky hillside in the forest.

“It’s a shame his face is scarred.”

The pity-filled comment was the last thing Varian had expected from his peers. His fingers stopped short of touching the jagged wound on his cheek.

The same female voice spoke again.
“Rystin says Varian thinks it’s a badge of honor.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,”
another voice chimed in.
“He’s a worthy scout.”

“What, because he killed the
Na’Reish
warrior who followed Hesia to our camp?”

“Well, no scout has ever done that before. And if he hadn’t, the
Na’Reish
would have found out about all of us.”

“He can fight to protect me… us, but don’t expect me to mate with him.”

The small group laughed. To a fourteen-year-old, the mocking sound was enough to heat his cheeks with shame and anger. Their behavior reminded him of the
Na’Reish
. How many times had he seen the
Na’Reishi
upper caste mock their underlings or others because of their physical imperfections?

He ground his teeth together. Why did a scar bother them
so much? They’d grown up together. They knew he was more than his looks, didn’t they? He was about to step forward and berate them when the first female spoke again.

“Have you seen the look in Varian’s eyes when he kills?”

“What? The crimson hue? All the scouts show that color when they’re fighting.”

“No, not that. His are so cold and empty, but there’s something else.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper but Varian could still hear her.
“It’s almost like he enjoys it. Another reason I won’t be choosing him when it comes time to mate. Who wants an ice-cold killer sharing their bed?”

Her rank disgust and horror left Varian reeling, too shocked to think or breathe. Devastated by their collective rejection, he’d stumbled away from the cave, not because her comments had hurt him, that had come later, but because she’d been right.

He didn’t like calling on his
Na’Reish
half to help protect them. The aggression and violence he was capable of frightened him, but once that part of him took over, the battle rush consumed him. He did crave the victory, but wasn’t that assurance the result of knowing the threat has been eliminated? Instinct and necessity motivated him and every other scout in the group. Without that double-edged blade, none of them would survive.

The dual conflict tormented him even now.

In the months that followed, he’d paid more attention to the way his peers treated him, particularly the young women. No longer so naïve, he watched them cement friendships, enter relationships, and experiment. Their behavior toward him showed a distinct lack of warmth and acceptance they showed the other males.

Never one to accept defeat, it took him another five years to accept the lesson learned from the humiliating incident. His value to the group was measured solely through the strength of his arm. His worth came from his skill with the blade. Nothing else.

They tolerated him but their message was clear. No one loved
a killer, especially not one who rode the high of the carnage afterward.

Looking back, if it hadn’t been for Hesia’s love and encouragement acting as a counterbalance, he might have given in to his darker half and become the demon everyone feared. Instead he’d channeled all his efforts into ensuring her dream to see the
Na’Chi
safe succeeded. Without that driving him, what else was there to hold on to?

Varian sucked in a deep breath. His nostrils flared as Kymora’s delicate scent filled his lungs and drew him back to the present. The friendship she’d instigated filled a hole inside him, one he’d never realized existed until recently.

He rubbed at the ache in the center of his chest. The growing tangle of emotions he felt when he was around her were becoming more intense. They scared him. Adrenaline-pumping, chest-squeezing, heart-stopping fear he could accept, it was something he’d dealt with on a daily basis all his life, but this fear burrowed deeper, sensitizing every nerve ending in his body and turned it inside out.

He wasn’t sure what it meant, but one thing he knew for certain: Friends were all he and Kymora could ever be. There was no way he was going to leave himself wide open for rejection again.

“Varian?” His name stuttered on her lips and she hugged herself harder. A fresh ripple of goose bumps decorated her skin.

His decision to share body warmth now seemed like a bad idea. The pain of reliving a childhood memory hadn’t lessened his arousal. There’d been no exaggerating when he’d complimented Kymora for her skill at reading people. She was going to get a very clear idea just what he was feeling for her once he sat down. But he couldn’t let her continue to freeze.

Shaking his head, he tried to control his erection and quell the need feeding it. It took a few minutes of disciplined concentration, and while sweat beaded his skin and his hands shook, he felt confident that he wouldn’t frighten her or disgrace himself.

“Sometimes, in the deep of winter, the
Na’Reish
patrols came close to where we lived, and we couldn’t risk lighting a fire. Not even one for cooking.” He sat down behind Kymora, stretching his long legs to either side of her. Curling his arms around her, he covered her smaller hands with his, keeping his hold loose as she tensed. He cradled her against him in almost the same position he’d used by the river. “We’d huddle together like this for hours to avoid succumbing to the cold.”

Where she was pressed against his chest and abdomen, her skin was cold. He rubbed her fingers, massaging each digit to get her circulation flowing again.

“Is this why the children are always so quiet?” she asked. “I remember the healers’ apprentice, Rissa, telling me that the first time she played a game of tag ball with them, they were appalled by the amount of noise the human children made. Did the patrols ever find you?”

“Noise always carried the risk of discovery. Keeping quiet was learnt at a very young age, and, yes, there were times when a patrol found us.”

“What happened?”

Deep inside him, something flinched. A chill broke out across his skin. “You really don’t want to know, Kymora.” He couldn’t help the gruffness in his voice. The less she knew about his other half, the better.

She was quiet a moment, then her fingers tangled with his and squeezed. “You killed them?” Her voice was soft, gentle, and not at all accusatory.

Varian sat frozen as her question triggered brutal, painful memories. The sight of
Na’Reish
and
Na’Chi
locked together in combat.

The faint sound of war cries.

The raw prick of animal-like rage.

Of bodies littering the forest floor. Some with their throats slashed.

Their blood a stark contrast against the myriad greens.

The rich, iron odor of it assaulting his nostrils…

He and six other scouts had killed a full
Na’Reish
patrol who’d ventured too close to their hidden camp. That had been their first successful ambush, the first of many. Heart pounding hard beneath his ribs, he stole a quick glance at his hands to assure himself the hot stickiness of blood didn’t coat his skin. He grimaced, hating the vivid details that still haunted him almost as much as the actions he’d taken to survive.

He supposed it didn’t take much to connect the facts. Not when Kymora already knew the
Na’Reish
killed on sight those they considered a bloodborn disgrace, but he was sure Kalan would never share the gory stories of his battles with her, so neither would he. She should be sheltered from such harsh violence. Instead he clenched his teeth and remained silent.

“Lisella told me you all moved your location every couple of weeks. That must have been hard. I’ve lived in Sacred Lake all my life. My parents were Guild-traders so we lived in Bartertown.” Just like that, she changed the subject, and for that he was grateful. It gave him something to focus on other than his shortcomings. “When Kalan was appointed as the
Lady’s Chosen
, we shared the apartment he and Annika live in now. After I became
Temple Elect
, the Temple dormitory became my home.” Her tone grew wistful. “Sometimes I wish I’d been appointed as a Traveller.”

“What’s that?”

“A Handmaiden or Manservant who goes from village to town, ministering or teaching.” He heard the smile in her voice. “They get to see and experience so much of the world. Sometimes I wish I’d chosen a different path for my life.”

The ability to call one place home was something he’d longed for all his life. Living hand to mouth, driven to move every few weeks, every shelter just a place to eat, sleep, hide, never a home, always
afraid of discovery, of being tracked and hunted down, then slaughtered. The differences between their lifestyles were stark, and the irony of each of them wanting what the other had didn’t escape him.

“As
Temple Elect
, don’t you oversee all the territory?”

“I instruct and oversee
Her
Servants.” Her head turned to one side. “Do you remember the Councilors’ shock when I announced that I would be living with you and the other
Na’Chi
?”

“I thought it was because of who we were.”

Kymora squeezed his hand. “Well, that might have been some of it,” she replied, dryly, “but mostly it’s because the
Temple Elect’s
responsibilities encompass everything within the walls of Sacred Lake. Travellers are appointed to cover everything else.”

No wonder her decision to live with them in the village had unsettled the Blade Council and the rest of the human race. Defying convention took a lot of courage, but then he already knew Kymora was a woman of strong convictions.

“Did Kalan and you ever expect this alliance to cause so much trouble?”