Between Two Tiron (28 page)

needing that hand to move to her clit or her slit. She wanted to have them in her, thrusting deep

and she didn‟t care about the location. With a sigh, she grabbed Shard‟s free hand and drew it to

her breast. His palm cupped the firm, round mound, wandering up over it before his fingers

plucked at the hard nipple.

Without warning, Kaleb‟s mouth left her neck and he stepped back. Shard‟s hand drew

away from her pussy, allowing the fabric to fall a moment before his hand rose from her breast.

The lift had stopped and the doors swished open a moment later. They took a step toward the

door and paused.

Drawing a deep breath, she followed into the giant shuttle bay. Her breasts ached and she

was all too conscious of the empty need pulsing within her pussy. Damn it, two against one just

wasn‟t fair.

Kaleb reached back and pulled her between them. He leaned down and his warm breath

fanned over her ear. “Aren‟t you glad you know two such men,
i’ma
?”

Lina growled. There should be a law against doing this to someone. She would have to

suffer at least through a shuttle ride to the surface before she could satisfy this ache.

Lina smiled as she saw Shard and Kaleb sitting at a table with the images spread out

before them. Dressed almost identically, they looked dangerous in the brown shirts and brown

pants. Other men had joined them there, trying to help them solve the puzzle. They worked on it

every day after they‟d searched for the Seal in the old Santir ruins. They hadn‟t made any

progress on the puzzle, but so far they‟d been good-natured about it. They hadn‟t pressed her for

information or the answer.

“
Rao nari
, I feel like going for a run. Would you like to go with me?” She raised her

brows and propped her hand on her hip as she stood at the end of the table. Since the lifting of

the restrictions she‟d taken a run whenever she had felt the need to be free of the camp.

“No,
i’ma
, we‟re anxious to get our apology from you. We‟ll stay here and work on this

puzzle.” Shard lifted his eyes from the image of one of the scenes.

“Some of the women might want to go.” Kaleb barely looked up from his work.

“Nerisa might want to go.” Avick sat across from Kaleb. “She mentioned that it would be

a nice night for a run earlier.”

Lina rolled her eyes, but gave in without an argument. What she‟d wanted was a romp

with her mates, but a run was still a good idea. The need to move through the forest in the body

of the
tiron
coursed through her. She asked the women and six of them accepted the invitation.

All went to their tents to undress and change forms.

Shard looked up from the image as Lina and six others streaked through camp and

headed into the forest. His eyes fell back to the scene on the paper before him. He couldn‟t see

any message in it. It was just a woman watching as a piece of pottery was being painted. His

eyes took in the other scenes. The whole thing together looked like a simple, large vase to him.

Determination flowed through him. He would solve this. If she said the answer was there

to see, it was there.

They‟d tried to find some meaning in the scenes as a whole, but the images jumped from

one scene to another and they weren‟t even certain which image was supposed to be first or if

there was a first. There didn‟t seem to be a notable order to the scenes which had been painted in

two rows on the large vase.

“Do you think Lina was as frustrated as we are before she solved this thing?” Kaleb tried

placing the pictures in front of him in a different order. Although he had tried it before, he was

getting desperate.

“I don‟t know. Was anyone in the camp in the artifact tent when she first saw it?” Shard

looked around the table to see if anyone knew.

“Calla was there the day your Lady first saw it,” Vador volunteered, turning the picture in

front of him. “She‟s still in camp if you‟d like to talk to her.”

“Call her over here.” Maybe knowing what Lina had done when she saw this would help

them solve the puzzle. Shard picked up an image of one side of the vase and looked at it. The

colors on the vase were surprisingly vibrant, the images detailed.

Vador went to get Calla. He returned with his petite, black-haired mate. She stood at the

end of the table waiting for their questions.

“What did Lina do when she first saw the vase?” Kaleb looked up from the images and

watched her face as he waited for her answer.

“She smiled, circled the table, and leaned close to look at it a few times. She laughed and

rubbed her hands together, wearing a very satisfied look. Immediately, she took it off the table

and carried it over to the corner where she hid it. After that, she didn‟t touch it again that day.”

Calla frowned at the memory. “Oh, and before she moved it, she took a light and looked into the

vase.”

“Into it?” Shard frowned. He had requested detailed images of the vase and they had

taken a few of the inside of the vase. It was just smooth glazed pottery. There was nothing

special about it.

“It sounds as if she knew almost immediately that there was something special about this

vase.” Kaleb moved a picture and frowned. “That means that she‟d seen it before or… Shard,

does this look like the symbol of Pryman to you?”

Shard took the image and looked to the decorative drawing around the scene. There amid

the curling lines was the symbol of the Pryman, the first of the ancients in old Santir lore. It had

sometimes been used to denote first in order in some of the old stories.

“That‟s Pryman.” Shard handed the image back to Kaleb. “Now we need to see if any of

the others hold the symbol for Saudane, Naushar, Retarin and so on.”

Soon, they had the pictures spread out in an order far different from the one which was on

the vase. A story unfolded before them. Now they merely had to figure out what it was telling

them. At first glance, it wasn‟t clear.

“These two men in the first scene are just sitting in chairs all alone in a room.” Avick

frowned. “Could the meaning be symbolic?”

“They‟re the Ardin of a
thent
. Look, there‟s the symbol on the wall between their chairs.”

Vador pointed to the silver circle in the picture.

Kaleb had been looking at the second scene where the two men gave a woman a wrapped

bundle. He scanned the wall between the two chairs in that scene. There was no symbol there.

His eyes swung to the first scene.

“It‟s not in the second scene, Shard.” Kaleb looked up and caught the near-black eyes

across from him. “In the second scene, the Ardin are giving a woman a wrapped bundle.”

“You don‟t think…” Shard‟s eyes scanned the pictures, excitement sending a rush of

adrenaline through him.

“They would have known that it might be many years before any Santir returned here.

They‟d have wanted to be able to find it again when it was time. A sort of picture map would

make sense.” Kaleb moved on to the next picture, his excitement building at the thought of

finding the symbol of their
thent
.

The woman had the packet in her hands. She was in a room with various pieces of pottery

and a man stood nearby. They both appeared to be looking at a lump of clay.

In the next scene, the woman‟s hands were empty. She watched as the man pushed a

piece of pottery into a kiln. Kaleb‟s eyes searched the tables and shelves for the packet. There

was nothing in the image that resembled the bundle she had held.

“Do we have it out of order? Where is it?” Shard picked up the image to look at it more

closely.

“It‟s the right image.” Kaleb had already double-checked. His doubts had flared when he

couldn‟t see the packet. “Maybe it will show the packet in one of the next scenes.”

The woman stood to the side of a table now. A large piece of unglazed pottery sat on the

table. A woman with an array of paint pots in front of her was looking to the woman at the end of

the table. There was no sign of a packet in the scene.

The following scene showed the woman bending and pointing at a half-finished scene.

The young painter looked to the woman as if listening to instructions.

The focus of the next scene was the mouth of the kiln as the paints were baked onto the

pottery. The woman was to the side of the scene, standing near the man. Both of them seemed be

staring at the kiln.

The last scene showed the two Ardin and the woman near a table on which various sizes

and types of pottery had been placed. The two men looked very satisfied as they gazed at the

array of ceramics arranged before them. The woman‟s hands were spread, indicating the table

and its contents.

“Does that large vase look familiar to you?” Shard pointed to the large vase amid the

others on the table.

“It‟s the one the woman in scene six was painting. See there is the finished scene she‟d

been working on.” Kaleb pointed to the detail on the vase.

“That I know, but look at the scene the woman was painting and the third scene on our

images.” Shard pushed the third scene toward Kaleb.

“They‟re the same.” Kaleb sat back in the chair, frowning as he turned the matter over in

his mind. “Why would they…”

“A better question is why our mate would let us waste so much time if this is the case.”

Shard growled as he stared at the images arrayed before him. Everything before him indicated

that she‟d been keeping a very important secret.

He stood and strode to the artifact tent. Picking up the large vase, he bluntly ordered the

man brushing at a piece of mud-caked pottery with a delicate brush to bring the scanner. Shard

left without another word. He carried the pot to the table and waited.

The scanner was primarily used to check for voids behind walls or beneath sections of

floor, but it could do what they needed it to do. The handheld device was placed into Kaleb‟s

hands. With a flick of his finger, he activated it.

He ran the device around the base of the vase in a slow sweeping motion. He lifted the

scanner and waited as the image came onto the screen. He grimaced and handed the device to

Shard.

The scan was clear. It showed a large metal disk sandwiched between two distinct layers

of clay at the wide base.

“That little kitten has some explaining to do.” Kaleb looked toward the spot at the edge of

camp where Lina and the others had disappeared into the forest.

“Her run is over.” Shard stepped forward and tilted his head back. A roar tore from his

throat. He growled and began to pace as he waited.

“Come back now, woman.”

The roar resonated in the early evening air. Lina‟s golden head came up and cocked to

the side. The use of the word “woman” didn‟t bode well, although the tone held only demand.

She grimaced.

She could think of only one reason for such a call and the reaction indicated that they

hadn‟t taken her surprise in quite the way she‟d hoped. Resigned, she stopped and jumped to the

forest floor. She turned back to camp, but paused to tell those with her.

“I have to go back now.” Lina looked back over her shoulder to the other
tiron
who had

descended from the trees at the roared order. “Continue your run. I‟ll go back and face them.”

“We‟ll go back with you.” Medina trotted up beside her. “We‟re curious to find out what

you‟ve done.”

“It‟s probably about that vase.” Lina led the way at a run back toward the camp. “I don‟t

think they appreciated the discovery as I intended.”

She wasn‟t eager to arrive. She knew that Shard and Kaleb were probably furious, but

there were times when it wasn‟t wise to push a man.
This being a perfect example
, she thought wryly. A delay would only anger them further and the two men were difficult enough without

infuriating them. Lina entered the camp at a trot, heading straight for the tent.

“Lina…” Shard growled. The rumble in his voice carried no true anger.

Her head swung around and collided with his brown eyes. She couldn‟t quite read his

mood in either tone or those dark, intense orbs. “I need to change.”

Kaleb strode out of a gathered crowd of men and stepped up beside Shard. He held a

folded blanket in his right hand. As her gaze alternated uncertainly between the tent and them, he

raised a brow and then his hand. The blanket flapped in the breeze. With a last longing look

toward the large tent, she turned and paced over to where her two men stood.

She wished for just a little time and the comfort of her own clothing. Without a word

from Shard or Kaleb, she knew it wasn‟t going to happen. Kaleb stepped forward and knelt

beside her. He wrapped the blanket around her. She shifted to human form.

Tucking the blanket under her arms, she wrapped it securely around her. She stood and

pushed the wild tangles of honey-gold hair away from her face. She glanced up and saw that

Kaleb now stood beside Shard. They were waiting for their explanation.

“You once again have some explaining to do.” Shard‟s lips were compressed in a firm

hard line. “Now begin.”

Shard held up the round symbol, a shiny silver engraved disk. It was larger than his hand.

The symbol was much bigger than the personal symbol Lina had found on Denao. That metal

disk had been meant to be worn. This symbol was meant to be displayed in the home of the