Heart Quest (24 page)

 

I
lex wasn't ready to go home. Trif would be there, and he
wasn't sure if they would ignore the enormous chasm about their disagreement on their future together. If she had decided she no longer wanted him. He could delay that pain indefinitely.

The rest of the day had gone well with his investigation. He'd made additions to the poppet of one of the men, had used his Flair to bespell it as strongly as possible—to indicate where the man had been. Then he'd walked the city. He'd been led to the place where Dufleur had been held and the other girl murdered. There guards had gathered even more evidence.

Again, he'd reformed the poppets; again, they'd found another murder scene, a room similar in size and shape to the first. Observation there and from the impressions he'd received from the witnesses had given him enough knowledge to figure out the type of place the cultists preferred for their unholy rituals.

Sawyr had sent guards all over the city to find rectangular rooms of a certain size in old, deserted buildings.

It had been a good day's work.

Leaning back in his chair, Ilex allowed himself to feel the upsurge of hunting anticipation—the strongest and cleanest emotion he'd felt all day. He didn't dare think about Trif.

On the other hand, T'Willow's words about Family and love had prodded a splinter that had been recently embedded in his soul. He needed to reconnect with his brother. And his brother needed to fight for his title of T'Winterberry.

The night guards had gathered in the common room and Ilex's office was dim and quiet. Once again, he leaned back; this time, he focused on the bond with his brother.
Meyar,
he sent down the link.
Scry me. Guardhouse.
He projected the message three times and almost heard the words echoing in his own head.

A few minutes later, his steel scrybowl rang loud. “Here,” Ilex said.

“You called?” Meyar's expression had a hint of humor in it. Something Ilex was glad to hear.

“I'd—” He realized he didn't want to talk to his brother through a bowl full of water. “I want to talk to you. To meet.” The unadorned walls behind Meyar gave no clue to his whereabouts. “I can't come to Gael City. You haven't left for Brittany yet, have you?”

“I'm closer than you think. I can see you in half a septhour.”

Ilex blinked. “Yes?”

“I moved back to Druida a couple of months ago. Our bond was—unsettled. I couldn't go south.”

Ilex's throat nearly closed with emotion. He cleared it and said, “I'd like to meet you by Father's memorial.”

Meyar looked startled, then his face set in grim lines. “If you insist.”

“I'd prefer it.”

“See you there.” Meyar ended the scry.

 

G
reyku was dancing with excitement when Trif entered the
apartment after her studies with D'Holly ended. The kitten had left mid-afternoon for another tinting session.

Look at Me, look at Me, look at Me now!

Trif studied her. She couldn't see anything different and didn't want to disappoint her Fam. “You look wonderful.”

Greyku pranced back and forth, beaming.
It is best when it is dark. I made the windows in the bedroom dark, let's go in there!

A frisson ran up Trif 's spine as she imagined how Greyku would have made the bedroom dark. She hoped the drapes her aunts had made her didn't have long claw marks or pulled threads. Still, she followed Greyku into the room. The drapes looked fine; the tie-backs lay on the floor, the tassels suspiciously tattered—or chewed. That wasn't too bad.

Shut the door!

Trif looked down indulgently at her young cat, then shut the door.

Eyes!

She shrieked. Fell back against the door, hand to her throat.

Huge eyes
glowed
at her.

Wonderful fun.
“Yessss!” said Greyku.
Citrula painted some of the very tips of My coat in a different pattern. Watch this!

Swallowing hard, Trif stared at the luminescent eyes—whites, bright blue pupils with a touch of red in the center, and black kohl-like lines outlining them. The muscles of Greyku's side tensed and relaxed as she jumped to the bureau, making the eyes ripple.

Trif shuddered.

Greyku lay down atop the chest of drawers and huge eyes stared down at Trif, humanlike, but with no expression. Somehow, they looked three-dimensional too. Layered painting on the fur.

And Citrula said if I moved like this
—

The eyes blinked. Opened slowly again. Stared.

Trif pressed hard against the door. The eyes were completely eerie.

Magnificent, aren't I?!
Greyku purred.

“Oh, always,” Trif said faintly, then, “Lights on!” She sighed in relief to see her small cat lying on her bureau, tinted much like she had been this morning.

Greyku looked along her side and sniffed.
It doesn't look the same in the light.

“Amazing,” Trif said, and snicked the door latch open.

Wait! It is different on the other side of me!

“The…the other side?”

Reversing herself, Greyku demanded,
Turn off the light again.

Goddess preserve her. Trif gathered her nerve, then banished the light. Round, red,
menacing
eyes glared at her with split silver pupils. She made a stifled noise, then managed. “Lights on!”

I am very beautiful.

Trif cleared her throat. “Is this the last of the tinting?”

Yes, We are done now. I wanted More. I am glad you gave Me More.

“What did the other Fams think of it?”

I scared Zanth-sire. He left in the middle, then came back! He said he was not frightened, but he jumped and his claws extended and tail went fat.
She grinned.
Drina said it was unusual and Samba was most impressed. Doggie Primrose piddled on the rug.

“Sounds like Danith D'Ash had a wonderful time,” Trif muttered. “How long is this new tinting going to last?”

Baby Nuin laughed and laughed and clapped his hands and said “Kitty!”

“I'm sure Danith was very proud.”

T'Ash was impressed too. Looked Me over top to tail.

“Checking how Citrula tinted you, no doubt.”

“Yesss.”

“How long is this new tinting going to last?” Trif repeated, a little less casually.

I am bespelled. Three quarters of a year.

“Oh, fun.”

“Yesss.”
More is very good.

She'd come to think so, but now doubted. Clearing her throat, she said. “In fact, you are
so
impressive, I'd like to put a dim-fur spell on you.” She patted her heart. “So you don't keep scaring me.”

Greyku sniffed, considered.
Very well. When I am with you.

The kitten hopped from the dresser to the bed, then to the floor, bouncing all the way.
Sire Zanth is so struck with my tinting, he is taking Me hunting with him tonight.

That stopped Trif. “You'll be careful?”

Very careful. And I can teleport too. We learned together and We are good.

“Very well.”

Maybe Sire and I will let Vertic fox come too.

Trif considered that, shook her head. “I really can't imagine him appreciating your new tint.”

Sometimes he is no fun,
Greyku agreed.

And sometimes Ilex was too serious also. Their disagreement wasn't something to be taken lightly, but they'd find a way around it. There must be some way to fight the vision. She wouldn't accept his death, would work hard to prevent it.

As for tonight…Trif grinned. She wanted more, and she'd make sure he had fun tonight.

I
lex reached the overgrown area in the far corner of the
Winterberry grassyard before his brother. Twinmoons were almost full, and with their fullness would come the holiday of Samhain and New Year's, the first month of Birch. He knew in his bones the cult would demand a sacrifice, and waited impatiently for Tinne to get back to him with the name of a Noble who might be at risk. Very bad, but thank the Lady and Lord that Trif was too “common” for the cult. They'd want someone of title—and even greater Flair.

He found himself pacing the circular memorial grove, and as he walked, tending it. With ancient spells he scythed the long dead-brown weeds until they lay smooth, revealing the last green color of lower, thicker grass. It was a soothing process that showed immediate and positive results. Something he definitely needed in his life right now.

Meyar appeared and without a word, matched his stride, matched his Flair, and they tidied the memorials together—sending gentle cleansing Flair up the stone plinths, darkening the color of tinted and chiseled letters.

They stopped at their father's cubic stone.

“He was a good man,” Meyar said.

“Yes.”

“Unlike Mother.” There was bitterness in his voice.

“true.”

Meyar glanced at the yellow-lit windows of the Residence, then away. “I sensed when you visited her, came back here.”

“Did you?”

“Oh, yes. Turmoil due to Family problems is so easy to recognize.”

They did another circuit of the grove.

“What do you want of me?” asked Meyar.

“Why did you leave? Give up on the estate?”

“It would have taken a major legal battle to wrest it from her clawed hands.”

“You have the name, the Flair.”

“The estate didn't have the gilt to survive a fight like that. As for the rest, my other concerns weren't major. I've found that major catastrophes are sometimes easier to deal with than minor, day-to-day life problems that nag you and drag you down. And she was always good at that—belittling us, pecking at us to do as she wanted, never accepting our decisions. Even if I had won, she wouldn't move out, and there's nowhere I could send her. This is it.” He spread his arms wide. “The ancestral Winterberry estate—a large grassyard and townhouse near Landing Park.”

“Not too shabby a location,” Ilex said.

“But all we have. She'd have lived with me and would have nagged at me every day about every fliggering thing and I'd have killed her. One of us had to go.” He slanted Ilex a look. “In fact, both you and I had to go. Maybe if we'd been girls…but not men she couldn't boss around, manipulate. So I went, and left Druida too.”

“You're back.”

“So I am. For the moment.”

“Don't give up on us.”

Meyar whirled, his mouth worked a moment; then he said, “It's too late for me and her.”

“And us?”

“I won't give up on you.” His lips flattened. “You are…not calm and steady as I've sensed for so long.” He shrugged. “I know you've met your HeartMate.” For a brief moment, their eyes met before Meyar looked away. “I remember that nightmare of death that you had in childhood.” He shivered. “I never envied you that touch of Flair you got from Father-Dam's Family. I wanted—to be near,” he mumbled.

“Thank you. Do you stay?”

Meyar didn't answer for a long moment, then stated, “I'd like a good wife.”

“You had a good wife.”

He laughed harshly. “I was too young to know it then and she left me. We had a small Flair bond. I knew when she died several years ago. But she gave me a fine son.” Again, his gaze slid in Ilex's direction. “I don't have a HeartMate in this life and whatever you may say, I'd want one.
Everyone
wants a HeartMate. But I'd settle for a good woman, a good marriage, and there's more chance of finding that here in Druida.”

Something about his brother's speech didn't ring quite true, but Ilex couldn't discern what it was, and wouldn't probe.

“I do want something of you,” Ilex said. “I want you to fight for your heritage. I want you to reclaim the estate and the title. I want it to be respected again.”

Meyar just stared at him, hands jammed in Commoner trous pockets. He gazed up at the house. “I don't know if I have the Flair or energy to fight for that. Or the gilt to restore the place.”

“I'll help. She recently siphoned off my savings as fee for an amulet for my lady, so there's gilt in the household account.”

Shaking his head, Meyar muttered, “More fool you.”

In a low tone, Ilex said, “The Residence is barely alive.”

His brother flinched.

“I know someone who can help restore it for us. Probably for a minimal fee.”

“I don't know,” Meyar whispered, but there was yearning in his gaze fixed on the Residence. “What do we do with her?”

They fell silent.

“Her birth Family wouldn't want her back,” Ilex said.

Nearly howling with laughter, Meyar gasped between chortles, “Find a solution to that problem, brother, and I'll press my claim.”

Ilex shot out an arm. “Thank you for scrying, for coming.”

Meyar clasped his wrist. “You are welcome. I'll stay. For a while.”

He meant until Ilex's presentiment came true or not.

“And thank you for that. Three thanks…a charm.”

“Good.” Meyar was looking up at the house again. “I think we'll need it.” He hesitated, then turned and wrapped Ilex in a bear hug. “I'm glad you called me down our Familial bond. I don't know that I'd have contacted you.”

It was good to have his brother back in town, even if it meant a fight.

Yet as he watched Meyar teleport away, Ilex decided to walk to Landing Park one more time.

The poppet in his pocket stirred at the end of the street. He tensed. Though he quartered the area, nothing more happened. He'd missed the man.

 

I
lex was disrobing and down to his loincloth when Trif
came dancing into his bedroom, a wide smile on her face, carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand. Ilex was sure the movement couldn't be good for the wine, but said nothing to dim her pleasure.

“Hmmmm,” Trif said, staring at his chest. He was glad she hadn't glanced lower, her presence was having the typical effect on his body. He reached into the wardrobe and took out a robe, slipped it over his head.

“Aww, too bad,” she said, a sparkle in her eyes. He didn't trust that look and took a step back, ran into the frame of the bedsponge platform. She laughed.

“You are definitely in a better mood than yesterday,” he murmured.

Nodding, she waggled the bottle. “Vinni T'Vine gave it to me.” She looked down at it. It was older than she was and she hoped it was still good. Ilex had tensed at the mention of the young prophet's name. Her HeartMate was definitely sensitive about foresight. She'd have to accept that, among his other faults—his overprotectiveness and stubbornness.

He cleared his throat. “Did Vinni say anything?”

She looked at him, exuding limpid innocence. She wasn't going to admit that Vinni told her to keep pursuing Ilex. “He said the future regarding you was still changeable.” She frowned. “I got the idea that you're always going to be problematic for him and he doesn't like it.”

“Ah,” he said, and made to move past her into his mainspace.

She stepped to stand solidly in his way. “We're celebrating.”

“What?”

Shrugging, she said, “Many things. Sex with our Heart-Mates.” She sent him a sly glance from under her lashes, let her gaze wander down his body like a caress. When she saw his arousal, she smiled. And daintily licked her lips.

His mouth went dry and he suddenly wanted the champagne. He reached out and snagged the bottle, tested it with his Flair. Definitely explosive. “If you'll let me by, I'll take this to the kitchen.”

With widened eyes and raised brows, she backed out of the bedroom and gestured. “Go ahead.” When he passed by her, he
knew
she stared at his ass, had a hot image of them moving together on a bedsponge sizzle from her mind to his. His shaft got harder until his loincloth chafed.

He cudgeled his mind for conversation. “You said, ‘Many things.' What else?”

“Um…Mitchella told me today that Straif Blackthorn is coming home.”

“To help with the murders, yes,” Ilex said. When she made a sound of surprise, he glanced back at her. “You didn't know.”

“Mitchella didn't say.”

“Perhaps she doesn't know. I have not been informed exactly to whom the FirstFamilies are disseminating our reports.” He sent a variation of the calming spell to the wine inside the bottle, settling it so that the cork would not blow a hole in the ceiling.

“And—and real good news. Mitchella and Straif have reached the top of the list of the Saille House for Orphans to adopt an infant!”

A wave of pure yearning surged through him To have a HeartMate and children, a Family and a future! He had only borrowed time. He focused on gently removing the cork with a touch of Flair. When he thought his smile would be easy instead of a rictus, he turned back to Trif.

“Oh, Ilex!” She rushed to him, held him tightly, and he could only shut his eyes at the emotion roiling inside him. Not lust, or not simply lust, but the warmth of being loved, of loving. And the hard, twisted ache of anticipated loss. He didn't know how long he could live with the knowledge that what he wanted could never be.

Of course, if his premonition was right, he wouldn't be living long at all—a couple of months perhaps.

He gloried in the press of her body against him, savored every sensation—the scent of her hair, how every centimeter of her felt next to his. He'd stand like this, bathed in her aura, the tingling of her Flair permeating him, forever.

Then she was kissing his neck, laving it with her tongue, nipping, and sexual need banished all else. And he was grateful. Those other hungers he could never satisfy—this…He shoved the bottle on the counter with a ringing clatter as it jostled against glasses.

His hands went to her derriere and pulled her close until her mound nestled against his rigid shaft. He opened his eyes to see hers, dark green with desire. He moved until he pressed her against a wall.

“Clothes gone,” she breathed, and she lifted herself and plunged down on him, and she was wet and tight and wild in his arms, shivering and crying out his name.

Passion ruled. He tried to slow down, set his hands under her thighs so he could move her more slowly, more deliberately, increasing their pleasure. His muscles trembled and all feeling went to his cock, the lingering withdrawal from her, the sweet slide back. A flood of heated need pulsed from her to him.

“Ilex, Ilex, Ilex!” she screamed, and his name on her lips snapped his control. He plunged again and again, matching his strokes to their panting breaths, faster, faster, until she clamped and shuddered around him and he shattered.

And let the golden rope of the HeartBond caress him one excruciatingly delicious instant before pushing it away.

He held her against the wall, breathing in the scent of her, the scent of them that was the best fragrance of the world.

Her head lay on his shoulder and her tongue licked his neck again so that he surged into her one more time with energy he didn't know he had. Still holding her, her legs wrapped around his waist, he strode to the bedroom and they fell onto the bedsponge.

Trif giggled and again he arched into her.

“Goddess,” he groaned.

“Thank you,” she said.

He managed a laugh. She was a goddess—the goddess as Maiden. He didn't want to think about that—that he'd never see her as goddess as Matron or Wise Woman—and brushed her tangled hair from her face. She glowed with beauty.

“I love—” she started.

Ilex put a palm over her mouth. “Don't say it.”

Her eyes flashed and she pushed his fingers away. Pushed him away until he withdrew from her and was cold.

She was hot. Anger rippled from her. “Why not? I'm not afraid of my feelings. Not afraid of the future, and not afraid of the
now.
I love you.” She poked him in the chest. “And you love me. I can feel it, even if you don't give me the words.” She rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom. He heard the waterfall whoosh down over the stone ledge, and flung an arm across his eyes so he wouldn't imagine her slick and wet.

A futile hope. With another groan—this one of surrender, he joined her.