Dragon Haven (41 page)

Nothing. Years of nothing ahead of him.

For three heartbeats, he considered Alise’s solution. Stay in the Rain Wilds. Never go home. But she had someone who would take her in and care for her. He had no one, save a dragon. A dragon who was devoted to him. But how long would that last, if she discovered why he had first come to the Rain Wilds? He dared not think too much about it lest she discover his thoughts. He did not understand how she could not remember that he had come by darkness, to pluck scales from her and fill vials with her blood. Did she not recall it? How could she know that about him and still care for him?

Some day, she would realize it.

He thought of what that would mean. For the first time in his life, when Relpda touched minds with him, he had actually been able to feel the love that another creature had for him.
Daily her mind developed, her thoughts grew clearer and stronger. What would she feel for him when she realized that he had come to her, not as a friend but as a butcher?

And would she share that feeling with him, as she had shared her love? What would it actually be like to experience the hatred and loathing she would feel for him?

A shudder ran over him. He realized abruptly that he had not lost everything. He still had the love and regard of a simple creature. He could think of no way to avoid eventually losing that. He could not imagine enduring it. With sick certainty, he saw his only exit from his problems.

Don’t think about what he was about to do. Don’t let the dragon pick up on his thoughts and thwart him. Even warning himself brought her attention back to him. He wanted to say good-bye to her, to tell her it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t. She’d done her best by him, saved him time after time. He felt a surprisingly sharp pang of sorrow at the thought of hurting her. He had an impulse to take off his boots and jacket. How silly was that? What difference could it make?

Sedric? Sedric?

Not right now, dear.

You are scared? Something hunts you, something comes to hurt you?

No. No, I’m fine. Everything is going to be all right.

No, you are frightened. Sad. Something is bad.

As gently as he could, he pushed her away from his thoughts. No time to waste. He could feel her clamoring outside his walls, raising an alarm with herself. Time to get it done before she could puzzle out what he was up to. He studied the water off the stern of the barge and chose a place where he could see the current running. He climbed up on the aft railing and judged the shining black water below him. Would it be deep enough and swift enough? It wouldn’t take much. He’d never been a swimmer. Jump. Just jump and don’t struggle. That was all. He deliberately exhaled, crouched, and sprang.

He hit hard, slamming on his side. His head slapped something that burst into light. He thought he’d breathed out, but a weight on top of him forced a gasp from his lungs. No
water. Nothing made sense…“Can’t…breathe…” he wheezed out.

The weight rolled off him. Sedric sucked in a breath, and for a dazed minute could not make sense of where he was or what had just happened. His eyes focused. He lay face-to-face with the hunter, Carson, on the
Tarman
’s deck.

“I knew you’d try something,” Carson panted by his ear. “Saw it in your eyes when you left the galley earlier today. I told your dragon to let me know if she was worried. And she did.” Carson dragged in a breath. “I had to run all the way up from the bonfire. You’re lucky I got here in time.”

Sedric’s body was demanding air, and all he could do was wheeze. Funny. He wanted so badly to die, but when his body wanted air, it didn’t care what his intentions were. All his thoughts stopped until he had air. When he’d had three full breaths, he asked bitterly, “Lucky?”

“Very well, then. I’m lucky. I caught you in time. I didn’t have to get wet coming after you.” Carson was smiling, very slightly. His dark eyes studied Sedric’s face. “Why were you trying to drown yourself?”

“My life is over. I might as well be dead.”

“How is that so?”

“You should have let me go. I want to die. I’ve lost everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Hest was finished with me. I see that now. That’s why he sent me off with Alise. I confessed it all to her, admitted everything to her. She hates me now. Or she’s very angry with me, she can’t decide which. I haven’t protected her. I betrayed her as a friend, and now she’s making a terrible mistake, but she no longer trusts me, so my warnings are useless. If I go back to Bingtown, I’ll be penniless and jobless. Hest will see that I’m despised by everyone in our circle. So I can’t go back.” Sedric’s voice was getting ragged. He felt childish, recounting his woes to Carson in such a disorderly list. He bit his tongue before he could say a word about betraying the dragon. He still had a small chance of taking that secret to his grave. It didn’t help that the
big man just regarded him with those dark eyes and that half smile. He tried to sit up, to be away from him, but Carson’s arm across him suddenly grew heavier, pinning him down.

“Stay there a moment. Catch your breath. There’s something else bothering you. What is it?” That deep gaze bored into him, demanding confidence.

As if the simple question were a glamour he could not resist, he heard himself babbling his final secret. “The dragon’s in my head. We’re linked. I can’t be free of her. She…she loves me. And that only makes me feel worse, because I don’t really deserve it. She’s a kind little creature…”

“Little?” Carson’s was incredulous.

“Young, then. So young and in her own way, innocent. She’s always aware of me, and especially so when I think of her.” Tears had begun to spill from his eyes. He was ashamed of them. Hest had always mocked him when he wept. He turned his face away from Carson and looked up at the sky. He could already feel the dragon. Relpda offered her warmth. She tried to wrap it around him, to reassure him, but he cocooned himself in his own hard misery and held her off. He felt a hand on his jaw and flinched.

“Easy,” Carson said. “No one’s going to hurt you.” Gently he turned Sedric’s face back to his. “I don’t think there’s anything so terrible about someone loving you, even if she’s a dragon. So what else pushed you to this? What is so terrible you can’t live past it?”

Sedric swallowed. Carson hadn’t lifted his hand from his face. He moved his forefinger carefully to swipe away a tear. When was the last time anyone had touched him with simple kindness?

“I’ve started to scale.” The words came out tighter, higher pitched. He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. “Along my jawline. And on the back of my neck.”

“It doesn’t usually happen to grown men. Let me see.” Carson leaned up on an elbow and looked down at him intently. He walked his fingers along Sedric’s jawline. “Mmm. You may be right. There’s a little scaling there.” He smiled a small smile. “Your beard is as soft as a puppy’s fur. Let me check the back of your head.” He slid his hand around the back of Sedric’s skull,
and let his fingers trace a line down the nape of his neck. “So you have,” he said softly. “Scales.”

He took a deep breath. “Better and better,” he said gently. He sounded pleased and for some reason, Sedric felt very hurt by that. Why would Carson enjoy his misfortune? And then, with his hand cupped around the back of Sedric’s neck, the hunter slowly lowered his mouth onto his and kissed him. Sedric went still with astonishment. Carson’s lips were gentle but demanding. When he broke the kiss, Sedric discovered that Carson had gathered him into his arms, holding him with strength but not cruelty. Cradling him against him. Something in him broke. He lowered his face to the rough fabric of Carson’s shirt and wept. Sobs rose out of him and broke him. He cried for all the things he’d thought he’d had but had never possessed. Wept for what he’d let Hest make him, how he’d deceived Alise, for what he’d thought of doing to Relpda. He cried because it was suddenly safe to do so. The hunter said nothing. He didn’t move other than to pull him closer. As the last tears finally left him, Sedric felt the dragon’s affection surround him.

I know you took my blood. Even then, you did not want to kill me. You drank my blood and gave me a link to your mind, to clear my thoughts. It will be all right, Sedric. I won’t betray you. No one need ever know
.

The simple acceptance and forgiveness washed through him like a flood. It tumbled him and drowned him as the wave of water had not. He could not and found that he did not wish to resist it. Mindless warmth flushed through him again, taking away all thought of his problems, washing away his despair and leaving comfort.

He felt his whole body relax.

And Carson put two fingers under his chin, lifted his face, and kissed him again.

After a time, the hunter pulled his mouth away and said hoarsely, “If you’ve changed your mind about killing yourself, I’ve thought of something else you could do tonight.”

Sedric tried to find his own thoughts, to summon again everything that had filled him with despair. Carson must have seen it in his face.

“Don’t,” he suggested softly. “Just don’t. Not now. Don’t question it, don’t hesitate.” He pushed his body back from Sedric’s and rose to his feet. Then he leaned over, offering Sedric a hand. He took it, felt the hunter’s rough and calloused palm against his, and let Carson help him to his feet.

“Let me take you to your room,” Carson offered quietly.

“Yes.”

T
HYMARA WALKED AWAY
from the bonfire into the night. It should have been a good evening. The night weather was mild, her stomach was full of fish and creek greens, she had been able to bathe and wash her hair and drink all she wanted this afternoon. She had scrubbed Sintara until the arrogant queen shone bluer than any summer sky. She hadn’t praised her with words and had been annoyed when Sintara had turned to her and said, “You are right in your heart. No other dragon here can compare to me.”

No thanks for her grooming had she offered. Thymara had seethed, but silently, and had soon left her. The rest of the afternoon, she helped Tats, Harrikin, and Sylve groom the keeperless dragons. That had been a challenge.

Baliper had been morose and uncooperative, still mourning Warken. Spit had presented the opposite problem. Newly cheeky and dangerously aggressive, the little silver had not wanted anyone to leave off grooming him as he basked in the attention of several keepers at once. Thymara had been relieved when Alise, her hair still damp from washing, had joined them and kept him occupied. Poor Relpda had submitted to grooming, but all the while, she had kept her eyes on the
Tarman,
palpably missing Sedric. Thymara had felt outrage on her behalf. “What sort of a man allows a dragon to save him and then ignores the poor creature?” she’d demanded of Alise. And then been jolted with surprise when Alise had defended him, saying, “I’m not surprised. He has problems of his own to deal with just now. It’s best to leave him alone with them.”

The copper had been more direct with her. “My keeper!” she’d hissed at Thymara, and though the exhalation had been
venomless, Thymara had made no more disparaging remarks about Sedric.

When evening was full and they gathered by the bonfire to bask in its heat and eat together, she had seen that the others were healing from their losses. She was glad for them. All missed Jess’s storytelling. When Davvie brought out his pipes and began to play, the music sounded thin and lonesome. Then, to the startlement of all, Bellin had come down from the
Tarman,
carrying her own pipes. Without fanfare, she had sat down beside Davvie and joined her music to his, wrapping his melody in an accompaniment that made it seem more than enough to fill the night. Stoic Swarge was more pink cheeked than his wife, visibly prideful over her talent. The music was beautiful.

But that was when Thymara had slipped away from the company. For when she had turned to Rapskal, looking forward to sharing her astonishment and pleasure, he simply wasn’t there.

It seemed obscene and cruel that she had forgotten, even for a few moments, that he was dead and gone. It seemed a betrayal of their friendship, and suddenly the beauty of the music cut her too deeply and she had to go away from those who sat by the fire enjoying it. She’d stumbled off into the darkness until she came to the stream. There, she’d sat on a fallen tree and listened to the mutter of the water. Behind her, the light and warmth of the bonfire and the music seemed to come from a different world. She wondered if she belonged in it anymore.

The silence of the forest was no silence at all to her ears. The water moved, and insects ticked in bark and moss. Up above her, something small and clawed stalked through the branches; probably a little tree cat looking for lizards gone motionless with the evening chill. She listened intently and heard the final pounce and a thin squeak before the little predator gave a short purr of satisfaction and then made its purposeful exit. Probably taking its kill off to a safe place to enjoy it.

“What if I just stayed here?” she asked the night quietly. “Clean water. The firmest land I’ve ever seen; there is sand in the creek bottom, not muck. The hunting should be good. What do I need that I couldn’t find here?”

“Company?” Tats suggested from the darkness. She turned and saw him as a silhouette against the orange firelight. “Or have you had enough of people? Mind if I join you?”

She moved over on the log instead of answering him. She wasn’t sure what her answer would have been.

“By now, he would have had everyone up and jigging with him,” Tats said to the night.

She nodded silently. Tats reached over and picked up her hand. She let him. He handled it in the darkness, sweeping his thumb across her palm, counting her fingers with his. He ran his nails lightly over her claws. “Remember when you thought these were a bad thing to have?” he asked conversationally.

She drew her hand back into her lap, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m not sure I ever really thought that. They’ve always been useful to me. I just knew I’d have to live with everyone else thinking they’d limit me.”