Heart Journey (4 page)

When?
When
had this happened? Del had been out of touch for nearly a
year
and Straif sure wasn’t telling this properly. Letting her think she was the last.

But she was the last adult.

“As soon as I heard I arranged to take over your affairs here in Druida . . .” Good! She’d owe him. Her fingers curled over the sphere, she sat up with a grunt and stared at Straif. Shunuk sat next to her and did the same.

Straif looked grim and raked his hands through his hair. A touch of red lined his cheekbones. He cleared his throat. “The NobleCouncil took my word we’d been lovers and I’d know what you’d want.” Well, he was a FirstFamily lord, they would take his word. But with him wed to his HeartMate, that must have been interesting. Del definitely owed him. “You’ve probably got a formal notice from the FirstFamilies Council that you are the last adult of your line.”

Again he looked aside. His shoulders set and he stared directly back at her. “When my wife and I heard of little Helendula’s circumstances we went to the Maidens of Saille House for Orphans and removed her into our care.”

Del’s hand went limp again and the sphere rolled away, onto the bedsponge and down to the floor, where it bounced on a rag rug. Del watched it go, as did Shunuk. His tail flicked. He turned to meet her eyes.

You have a kit,
he said.

She had a child.

She ripped open the envelope. In stilted, formal, legal terms, it told her what Straif had. She let it, too, flutter to the floor, stunned.

The last of her Family, herself and a child a little over a year old.

Shunuk put a paw on her knee, looked her in the eye.
Kits must be cared for until they are old enough to fend for themselves.

Yeah, that made her gut feel worse. He rubbed his paw along her leg in comfort.
We can do that.

“We’ll ride at dawn. Then we can make it to Gael City before the last express airship leaves for Druida.” She flipped up the covers, slid between soft linens, and said a Word that made the room go dark. Shunuk settled near her feet on the bedsponge.
We can take care of the kit,
he repeated.

Could she? She set her teeth. She’d have to.

 

 

T
he night deepened, darker, darker and she was sad and alone. She reached
for him instinctively, and he was there, sharing her dream. “Lover,” she said, her voice breaking. She needed the contact now that she knew there’d be no more hugs or kisses or even conversation with her lost Family. “Lover.” She touched him “physically” and her hands felt the smoothness of a muscular back. She didn’t know who he was, couldn’t see him with blurred eyes in the dark . . . though she thought she heard city sounds.

He was larger than she—taller, and she was a tall woman. Broader, but she was tough whipcord, every muscle honed, and he lean male strength.

He rolled to the side and gathered her close, front to front, skin to skin—he was as naked as she, and aroused. She was hurting and needed him emotionally and the small link between them had widened and he had come to her in her dream . . . It would turn erotic, she knew that, welcomed that, but for now he held her. He kissed tears from her cheek.

Ssshhh
, he said mentally, and she felt the comfort of it, the tenderness that was more than sex, the HeartMate connection that had already formed between them.

He stroked her back, over the curve of her butt, back up. Then his lips trailed from her cheek to her jawline and down her throat, where he licked and her sadness melted away with his gentle touch . . . that became more insistent. His hand went to her breast, cupped it, stroked her nipple, and she arched into him. Sweet desire flickered into greedy passion. She needed him.

He’d given her tenderness, but now she wanted more, wanted like he did. His erection was strong and hard, nudging her stomach, and she shuddered at the sleek length of him, remembering the feel of him inside her during their previous dreams.

She hooked a leg over him, opening her physical self, and felt his slow penetration that made her dampen even more, made her yearn to strive for release . . . and the joy of orgasm and simple forgetfulness. He rolled atop her and she locked her heels behind his back and moved with him.

Passion throbbed through her, faster than his thrusts, flashing hot, faster than her pulse beating in her head. He was taking her away from herself, her life, and that was what she wanted. For now.

HeartMate,
she chanted it mentally, though she knew he didn’t hear, kept it a tasty secret in her mind, naming him what he was for her, cherishing the fact of him, the reality of him.

He panted and his back dampened and she was with him for every step that wound hunger and yearning and pleasure tight until bright stars exploded in the night around her and she fell apart and was remade.

Her HeartMate. The heavy knowledge that she had lost her Family had returned, but she also understood that she still lived. Life went on.

Distantly, she thought she felt him wake, swear. Then the link between them snapped shut and he was gone and her bed was empty.

M
idmorning the next day, pounding came at Raz’s dressing room
door. He jolted awake and rose from the sofa where he’d been sleeping after a very late night—and a disturbingly sexual dream that he didn’t want to think had involved his HeartMate. Not now, not so soon.

Cursing accompanied the rapping. He glanced at the wall timer. Yes, he should be getting ready for the afternoon matinee.

“Raz Cherry, you speak to me
now!
” Lily, his leading woman, shouted with more knocks.

He opened the door and Lily stormed in. “Dammit, why have you been messing with my stuff?”

His character adored Lily in the play, and she was a fine actress, but Raz found her difficult off stage. She carried a negativity around her.

“I haven’t touched your things,” he said.

“It had to be you. You were the only one here in the theater this morning.”

“What are you talking about?” Irritation suffusing him, he followed her to the hall where he heard weeping and raised voices from the cast who shared a common dressing room. Their possessions had been rifled through and things were missing. Everyone converged outside Lily’s room, which was slightly closer to the stage than his own. She flung her door open.

“See!”

It looked no messier than usual to Raz. He shrugged his shoulders. “What?”

Her mouth pinched, then she said, “I lost some jewelry.”

“So did I,” chorused two more women and a man.

Raz raised his brows, rocked back on his heels. “And why do you think I’d take jewelry?” He waved a hand so the ruby signet ring on his hand flashed, the only jewelry he wore.

Lily glanced aside and Raz got the impression she was hiding something from them.

“It wasn’t only jewels,” one of the men who hadn’t spoken before grumbled. “My script has been ripped, pages scattered everywhere.”

“An old
real
book of mine has been pilfered,” the villain of the play said, eyes narrowed.

“I prefer vizes and holos myself,” Raz reminded them all coolly.

The manager showed up, frown lines creasing his long face, his shock of wiry white hair standing straight up. “The actors’ and guest book in the green room has been stolen. The small paintings of Booth and Alyssa Primrose are gone, too.”

Silence fell. Everyone liked the paintings of the famous actors who’d founded the theater, considered them mascots.

An actress sniffled. “Someone found my stash of gilt.”

“Stup,” her partner said and put an arm around her.

Raz stared at Lily. “And you accuse me of all this?”

“No one’s accusing you, Raz,” the manager said.

“My things were all right last night when we left.” Lily tossed her head. “You were here this morning.”

“Because my apartment’s being retinted.”

“Being retinted because you had a theft there, too,” said the villain of the play. “Quite bad luck for us all.”

The manager asked, “Raz, you were here this morning, did you hear anything?”

“No, I was sleeping.”

“I’ll call the guardsmen. Everyone make a list of your missing or destroyed property. Meanwhile I will remind you that we are giving a show in a septhour.” The manager loped away and the others, still loudly upset, drifted back to their room.

Raz propped his shoulder on the doorjamb of Lily’s room. “What was taken that you aren’t telling about?”

“Nothing.” She tried to close the door on him but he stopped it with a foot, gave her a fierce smile.

“Lily?”

“I need to make that list and get ready. Go away.”

“Like to give me orders today?” Then his eye caught a piece of crumpled papyrus with a distinctive golden flower mark in the corner. He straightened away from the door frame. “Is that a script by Amberose? Is she writing again?” He swung his gaze back to Lily. “
You
got a script from Amberose?”

Scowling, Lily set manicured red-tinted nails against his chest and pushed. “None of your business.
Go away.
” She added the Flair of a woman who’d been pursued too much by men and knew how to handle them. Her Flair sent him back through the door and into the hallway.

Raz frowned and decided to scry his agent and ask about a new play by Amberose. Then he heard the back doorman’s raised voice, the clump of heavy feet. His nose twitched as he scented a slight, unfamiliar odor. The guardsmen had arrived. He hurried back into his room and began to don his first costume, gathering his Flair to accentuate his features for the audience.

 

 

T
he day was Ioho, the last of the three weekend days, yet Del managed
to do a great deal. Her first stop was her home, where she sent the windows up and the doors open and initiated all the housekeeping spells. Her house wasn’t an intelligent Residence yet, though she felt the faint stirrings of sentience deep in the bowels where the HouseHeart ritual room lay.

Another thing to tie her to Druida City, along with the child, if she let it. The longer a house was occupied, and by the more people, the sooner it would become self-aware. She shoved the thought aside. There was plenty of time to think of options when she didn’t have so much to do. One step at a time.

She contacted Straif T’Blackthorn’s Residence—a true and mighty being—and was not put through to Straif or his HeartMate, Mitchella. So Del left a message that she wanted to speak to them about her cuz Helendula and meet the child, then went on to her next task.

The City Guildhall was open but practically empty. Shunuk trotted around, exploring the building, yipping, and listening to echoes off the marble walls. Del heard him in the Guildhall clerk’s office while she filed her maps with the clerk on duty. That lady had unrolled the maps to log them in and had made many admiring compliments that fed Del’s ego. Her maps
were
superb.

After that she pleased her fox Fam even more by walking to the southern edge of town where G’Aunt Inula’s house had been. There was nothing but seared land. The Councils had cleared the hazardous ruins. Del swallowed hard, tears stinging the backs of her eyes as she recalled the sprawling red-brick building that had been the home of several generations of Elecampanes. The house and the people in it and the laughter and busyness that had resounded throughout the halls—it had never been a quiet place—were all gone.

She stood alone, the remaining adult member of the Family, and though she wanted to mutter curses at fate, she breathed the soft summer air with the hint of flowers and began a blessing chant for the area and the souls of her lost Family. Her feet tingled as she felt the formal blessings of a priestess and priest from the ground. It had been cleansed after the fire.

The closest houses were many meters away. Del looked at the grass that had begun encroaching on the burnt area. She strode over uneven ground to see a plant or two had been spared, though the rest of the gardens were gone, as were the sheds that had held the Family research workshops. The Family Flair was for scrying—communication—developing ever-better spells to be coated on bowls and panels for houses and vehicles.

A year and a half ago Elfwort had developed new glassy pebbles encasing a droplet of water for individual mobile scrying. Del herself had very little of the Family Flair.

Brows knit, Del tried to recall what she’d heard about what the oracle had said at Helendula’s birth. The baby had good Flair, and the Family sort, hadn’t she? There should be copies of the Family papyrus at the NobleCouncil Clerk’s Office and maybe even a set at Del’s house. She wasn’t accustomed to thinking of Family matters, hadn’t looked for such papyrus at home. Her inefficiency bothered her.

More was the underlying feeling of helplessness and her life spinning out of control.

Children’s shouts from neighboring grounds twisted the sorrow inside her until it cut like a knife instead of being a raw ache. Who knew she’d miss her Family like this? Cherish the idea of them now that they were gone? If she let herself, she could feel deep guilt. But she had followed her heart as they had followed theirs, and the two paths had not often met.

She shrugged the feeling off. Too much feeling, not enough thinking. Scuffing her boots into the dirt, she settled into her balance and again let the atmosphere of the city surround her, press hard on her with the different smells and the faster pace . . . and mentally followed the link to her HeartMate.

To the entertainment district where eateries and social clubs and night clubs were. She’d already scouted out the two jazz places and they were both in that direction.

He was there, and she sensed he was
working
. She let a smile curve her lips. Could he possibly be a jazz musician? That would be perfect. Maybe fortune’s wheel was turning better for her.