Dangerous Talents (32 page)

There
! A smeared footprint of a lady’s slipper where she’d slipped in the muddy drainage. There was another. The length of her stride said she was running.
From what
? Dahleven clenched his jaw and swallowed the surge of fear that rose in his throat.

He hurried.

Dahleven scrambled to the top of a rocky outcropping where he could survey more of the land. A flash of blue, high upslope near the edge of the forest, drew his eye. He could just make her out, sitting like a large bluebonnet among the other wildflowers.

She wasn’t hiding, or curled into a frightened ball. Relief almost stole his breath.
She’s all right.

Anger followed on its heels. What was she thinking? Surely even someone fresh from Midgard should recognize a less savory area, and understand what that could mean. Anything could have happened to her
! If she didn’t know any better than that, he’d teach her quick enough. He’d spell it out clearly for her—she’d think twice before acting so foolishly again.

He could tell when she noticed his approach. She must not be able to recognize him at this distance because her posture changed, as if alarmed.
She must have had some trouble after all
. He didn’t raise his hand in salutation, but let her stew.
A little worry may make her more cautious next time
.

As he continued toward her, she got to her feet. She didn’t run, but took a defensive stance. He had to admire that, even as his anger pricked him.
She shouldn’t put herself in a position to be so afraid
.

Then she recognized him, waved, and sat down again.

“It’s a beautiful day to be outside, isn’t it?” Celia said, smiling when he came close.

Dahleven forgot the sharp words he’d rehearsed all the way up the slope.

He looked down at her. She seemed hale and whole and none the worse for taking the alleyways out of the village. Her long legs stretched out in front of her, swathed in voluminous light blue pants. Celia leaned back, next to her belt-pack, propped on straight arms. The day was warm and she’d undone the laces at the top of her blouse, nearly all the way down the deep V of her tunic. Sweat glistened on her throat. He could just see the curve of her breast inside, and glanced away. “Yes it is.” Then he looked back.

She was still smiling at him. “Sit down. Enjoy the day.” She drew her legs up and leaned forward, resting her arms on her bent knees, blousing her tunic and shirt even more.

Dahleven busied himself for a moment pulling his scabbard from his belt. He laid his sword beside him as he sat down on her right. When he looked again, he found he could see the pink bud of her left nipple. His groin tightened delightfully, painfully, and he shifted his weight to find some comfort, though he knew the quest was futile.

Then she turned a more serious face to him and he shifted his gaze to her eyes. “Have you talked to Kaidlin?” she asked. “Did she…?”

“Yes, she told me.”

“I’m sorry about the other day, with Ragni,” she said softly. “I misjudged you. Again.”

He smiled at her blush, and took mercy on her. “You drew no blood.”

Kaidlin had been so full of laughter that she hadn’t noticed his anger at first. Celia had thought him a seducing betrayer of a young wife and mother of his son. The idea that she would believe him so callous as to kiss her practically on his wife’s doorstep had burned like a hot coal in his throat. Fortunately, she’d been sleeping away her Emergence fatigue at the time, giving him time to see the matter through her eyes.

There were Lords aplenty who flaunted mistresses in their wives’ faces, after all, not having the decency to take but one as an
elskerinne
. And Lady Celia hardly knew him well enough to know which kind of man he was. It rankled that she would assume the worst of him when he’d given her no cause, until he remembered what she’d said of her father. Her experience of men had taught her distrust. Perhaps it was righteous anger that had prompted her frosty manner in the hall, not offended modesty and grief. Ragni might be right about Celia not grieving Sorn as a lost love.

He hadn’t quite been able to hide his delight at that realization, piquing Kaidlin’s curiosity. He hadn’t explained. His nosey little sister could speculate all she wanted.

“And thanks for getting me upstairs,” Celia added.

He nodded a bow, smiling. “It was a pleasure to be of service.” He tried without success to push away the thought of how soft and warm she’d felt in his arms.

She rewarded him with a deeper blush and looked away.

He wanted to stay here with her, enjoying the glow in her cheeks and the sweet smells of the meadow, but he had duties to attend to and she should be resting. Reluctantly, he said, “You’re in Emergence now. You shouldn’t be wandering off alone.”

“I’m fine. Ghav said so.”

“Nevertheless, we should go back.”

Celia shook her head. “Wouldn’t you rather be out here than inside those old stone halls?” She jumped up and threw her arms wide. “It’s a glorious day! We’re healthy. We’re safe. There’s no one chasing us. Let’s play.”

“Play?”

“Play.” She removed her tunic, then bent and did five somersaults down the hill.

Dahleven sprang to his feet as she started rolling, but it was clear she was in control. When she reached a level place, she stopped and sat up, laughing. Bits of stem and flowers clung to her hair and shirt. She turned around and looked up at him. “Your turn.”

Somersaults
? The only tumbling he’d done since childhood had been in training, when he’d been more focused on avoiding the sharp sting of a practice sword than on fun.

“Don’t worry. No one’s watching. No one will catch the heir to Quartzholm being silly.”

Did she see him as being so grim? Had he become so? “Is that a challenge?” He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“You bet.” She grinned back at him from below.

“What shall we wager then?”

She made a show of considering. “If you do don’t do the somersaults, you have to walk back to Quartzholm on your hands.”

“And if I do?”

“Then I’ll teach you how to do one-handed cartwheels.”

He suppressed a smile. She offered a Loki’s bargain: Yea I win, nay you lose. But he didn’t care. “You have a deal.” Then he dropped and rolled down the hill.

He came to a stop not far from where she sat, laughing and clapping her hands. He found himself grinning back at her. “I win. Pay your forfeit.”

“Gladly.” She jumped up. “What you want to do is look ahead. Don’t look down.”

As she threw herself slightly forward, legs swinging over her head then back down to the ground in a clean arc, the wide legs of her pants slipped, giving him a glimpse of her knees. He felt an unexpected rush of heat. Why should her legs affect him now, when he’d had a clear view of them the entire time they were on the trail?

“Now you try.”

“Show me again first.” He felt a bit wicked teasing her into exposing herself, but it was harmless enough.

She demonstrated again and he got another look at her shapely limbs.

He stood up. “Very well. You’ve taught me the way of it. It’s time to go.” He started up the slope.

“Dahleven! We can’t just go! You haven’t done one yet.” She hustled up the hill behind him.

He pressed his lips together and ignored her protests until they reached the flat space, then let his laughter out. While she stood there gaping, he did three perfect cartwheels in a row.

“You sneak! You let me go on and on while you already knew how to do it!”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, grinning. “Who would’ve known you could be so rotten?”

“My sisters, no doubt.”

“No doubt.” She plopped down and lay back into the wildflowers, releasing their sweet fragrance. She crossed her arms behind her head. Dahleven noted where he’d left his sword, then sat beside her, no longer in a hurry to return to Quartzholm. Her sheer embroidered blouse lay lightly on her breasts, hinting at their pink nipples and soft curves. She stared silently at the high, thin clouds overhead.

Dahleven forced himself to look away from her, willing his cockstand to subside. He shouldn’t allow himself to become too attracted to her. Though he no longer thought her an enemy, she was still a cipher, her role in Alfheim uncertain. Though he didn’t look at her, he remained aware of her nearness, and of all her small movements. He was concentrating so hard on not noticing her that she startled him when she spoke.

“When I look at the sky, I can almost imagine myself back home.” Her wistful tone reminded him she’d lost her whole world.

He looked at her face. It was calm, her eyes staring upward into the infinite pale blue sky. “Is your home so different, then?”

Celia turned a crooked smile on him. “Amazingly different. I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

“Try.”

She rolled to face him, pillowing her head on her bent arm. “Where I come from, people can get on a plane and fly across the country in a few hours. We can pick up the phone or get on the computer to talk to someone on the other side of the world, and almost everyone has a car.”

He didn’t know what a plane or a phone or a car was, but they sounded like miracles. Or Great Talents.
No wonder she misses Midgard
.

Celia frowned. “And almost everyone knows someone who’s been hurt in a crash, or died of a drug overdose, or mugged. That’s what I used to do, answer calls and send help to people who’d been hurt, or shot, or…” Celia shook her head.

“It sounds as though you paid a high price for your wonders,” Dahleven said.

“We could have airlifted Sorn to a hospital, given him IV antibiotics. We might have been able to save him.” Her voice was soft.

Sorn. To have his sworn brother back by his side again. But death was a part of life, and Sorn had died honorably. You moved on. You had to. What would Sorn think of the oath he’d made to Sevond? Would his sworn brother be pleased Dahleven had promised his second son to Sorn’s father in his place? Would Celia?

Dahleven lay on his side looking at her with his head propped on his hand. Midgard was so different. He couldn’t guess her reaction. What kind of place had this beautiful woman come from, where men flew, abandoned women who carried their babes, and saved the lives of men with belly wounds?

He plucked a grass stem and rolled it in his fingers. “When I was young, I was afraid I would be Talentless, and I wondered what a world without Talent would be like. If the people would be very different.” Why had he told her that? Then he realized it didn’t matter, he wanted her to know. He traced her jaw line with the stem.

She twitched at the tickle and brushed it away. “Now you know.” She grinned. “We’re just the same.”

“And marvelously different.” The bracelet he’d once gifted Sorn, that Sorn had given Celia, glinted on her forearm now, not where a betrothal band would rest. He dropped the grass and ran his knuckle gently over her arm above the elbow. She didn’t pull away.
Does she understand
? Their faces were only a foot apart. He imagined leaning over her, pressing his lips to hers. He remembered their softness and warmth and the heat of her body against his, and his cock grew full again. He hesitated, knowing their ways were different, remembering her hand clasped with Sorn’s, wondering if Ragni was wrong after all.

Celia leaned over and kissed him. She tasted sweet and warm and smelled of wildflowers. Then she pulled away and searched his face. He didn’t want her to doubt. He cupped her head, pulling her lips back to his, then kissed and nibbled his way down into the open collar of her shirt.

Her response removed the last of his reservations. She arched her neck, laughing deep in her throat, almost like a purr. Then she pushed him onto his back and followed him over. Her blouse hung loosely, revealing a glimpse of her breasts before she pressed their roundness against his chest and lowered her lips to his again.

Celia’s tongue teased the corners of his mouth, and he opened to her tentative foray, then penetrating her warmth in turn with his bolder thrusts. He rolled her under him without breaking the kiss. Only the thin fabric of her blouse came between his hand and her breast. Her nipple rose, hot and hard against his palm, and his cock throbbed with single-minded desire to be in her. Dahleven’s breath came deep and rapid and his blood raced, sped by Celia’s soft moan as she arched and pressed into him.

A fragment of his warrior instinct shouted a distant warning. Dahleven lifted his head. It was almost too late. Three men charged toward them, running downslope from the nearby forest, swords drawn.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“What—?” Cele protested as Dahleven abruptly rolled away, almost flinging her aside as he jumped to his feet. He landed in a crouch, and Cele’s heart jolted as he swept his still sheathed sword up from the ground just in time to block an overhead blow from the first of two attackers.

Two fair-skinned men bracketed Dahleven with drawn swords. Cele scrambled to her feet and someone grabbed her from behind. A thin, hairy man pulled her back against his chest, his left arm across her throat. He had a knife in his other hand, a big knife, but he held it out, as though he expected little resistance from her, and defended instead against Dahleven. He began dragging her toward the tree-line.

Instinct and two years of self-defense classes took over. Instead of pulling away from her captor, Cele leaned back into him and turned, jabbing her right elbow hard into his diaphragm while holding his knife away with her left. The arm across her throat loosened; Cele spun out, still holding the wrist of his knife hand, and slammed her other palm at his nose.

He saw it coming and swept her blow aside, then grabbed for her, getting only her blouse. Cele went limp, dropping to the ground as dead weight, her grasp still tight on his wrist. The delicate fabric of her embroidered shirt ripped as she fell. The fragrance of crushed wildflowers rose around her as her attacker lurched forward, off balance, trying to regain control of her.