Heart Thief (50 page)

He kept grinning. Perhaps the lights and other technological backup systems were in place because the Guilds hated the thought of being without power, or helpless, but to Ruis it meant that he had been accepted. That Nulls had been accepted as integral to Celtan life.

Words carried to his ears. “Your reinstatement ceremony was lovely, Judge D'SilverFir. Sit here and calm yourself while I put my robes away in my cache.” D'Ash's voice floated from around the corner, where the Council room was.

Irritation spurted in him. How often had Ailim heard those words in her life—“just calm yourself”? She didn't need to be calm anywhere except in the JudgmentGrove.

As he neared the waiting benches outside the CouncilChamber, his palms began to sweat. His knees felt weak. His stomach clenched and he began to doubt whether he'd get his tongue around the words he wanted to say. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rubbed them dry, but found that his fingers trembled, so he left them there. He hadn't been so nervous the first time he was here . . . but then that had all been about his past.

This was all his future.

He licked his lips, swallowed, and with a deep breath he rounded the last corner.

She sat straight, hands folded, on the bench. She looked small—she'd lost weight—and pale, the epitome of serenity. Around her neck she wore his gift, and he didn't know what that meant. Would she be able to forgive him?

At the sound of his footfalls, she turned her head and faintly raised her eyebrows. The knot in his stomach twisted. She looked every inch the noblewoman, every inch the cool judge—her hair confined in a silver net, her gown exquisitely simple and elegant.

He sat next to her and she turned her head away to stare as if absorbed in the mediocre mural on the opposite wall. His mind froze, all the words he'd planned on saying evaporated, gone. He cleared his throat. “I see you are the only case on the FullCouncil's agenda this evening, SupremeJudge.”

She didn't even bother to lift her shoulder a millimeter.

Ruis winced. He closed his eyes. He wanted her so badly his entire body shook. He didn't think he could live the night through without her. He opened his mouth. Nothing emerged.

Finally, in an act of pure desperation, he slid from the bench to his knees before her. He put a hand over her twined ones. They were ice cold. He jolted at the sensation of pure desire that raced through his blood, then folded his fingers over hers, hoping to warm them, warm her into just looking at him.

“I have come to beg.”

She flinched, and he caught her gaze sliding toward him. He sucked in a breath and went on. “I am desperate, lady. I stand convicted of pride and stupidity and distrust. I have been banished from the most important place in the world—by my lady's side.” He fumbled for phrases. She tilted her head and met his eyes, then glanced away.

He brought her hands to his lips, kissed them, inhaled her scent. It made him dizzy, but didn't stop the words that finally flew from his mouth. The right words.

“I love you. Tell me that you will be my wife, my lover, my—HeartMate.” His voice cracked on the last word. What could he know of HeartMates? They'd never join mind-to-mind like other HeartMates. But if there was ever one woman for him, the woman, it was she.

He shook with futility. How could she prefer him over others? Now that her Family estate was secure for the future, how could she find any reason to return his love after he had scorned her so?

“Ruis.” It was a breath, but he heard it. His blood pounded through his veins, his muscles warmed with joy.

He bent his head over her hands. He couldn't look at her. He'd made too many mistakes. She couldn't forgive him.

She slipped her fingers from his, and he felt stricken, executed. Then her small hands framed his face and tilted his head up. When he met her eyes, her own were warm, her lips smiled, her cheeks tinged with a blush. “Yes, Ruis.”

“You'll marry me?” he asked and waited an eternity.

“Yes.”

He shouted in triumph and picked her up and spun her around until her shrieks of laughter bounced off the severe marble walls of the Guildhall.

Then he slid her down his hardened body. His lips found hers, tongue plunging in her mouth to claim it, as he would claim her body and her heart. HeartMate.

Her arms went around his neck and her fingers played with his hair on his nape. He shuddered and moaned.

She molded herself to him, her tongue tangled with his. Her little moans ignited his blood so he thought he'd explode.

“Ahem!”

Cough
.

“Damn it all. We go through hell and he gets the girl,” a young male voice said.

Ailim giggled and broke the kiss. She tapped his shin with her foot, and Ruis reluctantly put her on her feet, pulling her back against his body. He scowled at the interrupters.

The Council Herald, Danith D'Ash, and the Holly brothers stared at them.

“Merry meet, Captain Elder.” D'Ash dipped a curtsy.

Ruis frowned. “Merry part, and merry meet again. Forgive us, but we have business to attend to.”

Tinne snickered. Holm nudged him in the side. “Merry part and merry meet again, Captain Elder.” Holm bowed.

Ruis gazed down at Ailim who raised her face to him. Her blue-gray eyes were dilated and her lips were red and swollen with passion. He swallowed, then managed a wink. “Let's go home to the Ship.”

She smiled.

“Let's go play,” he said.

She threw back her head and laughed, waved goodbye and echoed, “Let's go play!”

Turn the page for a preview of
the next futuristic romance from
ROBIN D. OWENS,

Heart Duel

PRIMARY HEALING HALL, DRUIDA CITY,
Summer

 
FirstLevel Healer Mayblossom Larkspur Hawthorn
Collinson faced the gold-inlaid door of NobleRoom One. She inhaled deeply and battled a sense of injustice. Primary HealingHall NobleRooms held all the best furnishings and equipment. Privacy and luxury for the privileged class. NobleRoom One was the best, reserved for FirstFamilies Lords and Ladies.

She shunted aside a contrasting image of the barren wards of AllClass HealingHall, where she also worked. Noble or common, an injured person needed her Healing skill. This thought came easier now than it had when her Healer husband had died trying to help in a streetfight between feuding nobles.

When she entered the room, Holm Holly rose from a chair, his expression serious. “How's my kinsman Eryngi?”

“He'll recover.”

Holm's eyelids lowered for an instant. “Thank the Lord and Lady.”

“Yes.” She glanced at her patient, Holm's brother Tinne. He lay on the Healing Bed. He winked at her. ThirdLevel Healer Gelse, who was administering pain relief, nodded.

Lark turned back to Holm. She studied him, telling herself she scrutinized him for hurt, nothing else. He looked immaculate, every silver-gilt hair in place, not a smudge on his bloused shirt and trous, not a tear in his elegantly woven cloak thrown over a chair. “You were in the fight, HollyHeir?”

His jaw muscles flexed. “An ambush.”

He said nothing about her Hawthorn name or Family—a Family feuding with the Hollys—and she admired his courtesy. She raised her chin. “You don't appear any worse for wear.” There weren't even perspiration marks on his clothes, but then there wouldn't be; the cloth would carry a spell to erase those. With the thought, Lark became aware of his scent, musky and attractive.

“I don't look roughed-up because I'm the best at my skill,” Holm said. He dipped his head. “As are you, Mayblossom.”

She gritted her teeth. She hated that name, but hadn't corrected him when they'd had their first real conversation about a month ago—after a planning session for the charity ball to fund AllClass HealingHall. He'd escorted his mother, D'Holly.

The way he used Lark's given name reminded her that no matter how she denied her class, she had grown up his equal and he still considered her that, even though she was the widow of a common man.

Crossing to the Healing Bed of layered permamoss covered in silkeen, Lark took Tinne Holly's hand. She nodded to Healer Gelse and smoothly made the pain-relief transfer.

“My heartfelt thanks, GraceMistrys Gelse,” Holm said, flashing a charming smile.

Gelse looked like she might melt. Then she shook her head as if to disperse bemusement and left.

Lark stared down at the handsome blond youth of twenty. “Well, GreatSir Holly. It's been a while since I treated you.”

“Three years ago, my second Passage, when I fought my death-duels in the slums of Downwind, when I helped T'Ash.”

“When T'Ash saved your hide,” Holm said.

Tinne grinned, and Lark couldn't suppress her own smile. She lifted the poultice off Tinne's thigh. His trous had been cut from the injury, but the ends of the fabric appeared melded. The burn was bad, a third-degree streak from his knee to the outside of his hip. From the amount of relief she'd been applying, she'd thought it was a first-degree burn. He must have a high pain threshold. She wondered if it ran in the family and glanced at Holm, only to meet his intense scrutiny.

His gaze switched to Tinne. “You'll wear a scar from that one,” Holm said to his brother.

“Really? That makes six,” Tinne replied with relish.

Lark set her teeth at the sentiment, but built a layer of Healing energy between her hands and the burn. “So, what have you been doing, GreatSir, besides playing blaser-target?”

“Not my fault. Those fliggering Hawth—”

“Tinne,” Holm said.

“Ah.” Tinne pinned his gaze on Lark and smiled winsomely again. She had the unmistakable Hawthorn coloring of blue-black hair and violet eyes. “Sorry, GreatMistrys Hawthorn.”

“It's GentleLady Collinson. Call me Lark.” Lark carefully repaired the muscle, intertwining lengths of sinew, siphoning more energy faster.

“Ah. Yes. I'm grateful for your skill. I don't feel a thing, and it's looking much better—” Tinne raised his torso.

Even as Lark jerked her head at Holm, he was pushing his brother back to the bedsponge.

“GreatSir Tinne, I'm sure your family has an estate and an occupation for you,” Lark said, trying to distract his mind while she Healed his body.

“Ah, yeah. Second sons always get the fighting and fencing salon, The Green Knight.” He sounded pleased. “My G'Uncle Tab is teaching me, so I can become a Master and train young-bloods for the duel, street fighting—”

“Exercise and entertainment. Sport. Exhibition bouts,” Holm continued easily.

Tinne's gray-blue gaze went to his brother. “Huh?”

Lark used a spurt of anger and disgust to Heal. The muscle glowed with health. The flow of the ALL through her picked up some of her own energy, tiring her. She concentrated harder at sloughing the dead skin away, bringing new skin to the top, transforming the cells to the proper shape and thickness for an outside layer. She quickened her pace, but didn't forfeit an atom of care. In a few seconds she was done. “All finished. Send the record to Primary HealingHall Library and T'Holly Residence.”

“Immediate payment authorization of all Holly charges to the HealingHall,” Holm commanded.

“Funds transferred,” acknowledged both the deep male tones of T'Holly Residence and the comforting feminine voice of Primary HealingHall.

Tinne sat up. With a pretty, rhyming verse, Lark placed a spell on the injury, keeping it clean, but letting the flow of air through to the wound. “The bandage spell will gradually diminish over a week. Have your GreatHouse Healer examine the burn daily.”

“Despite the fact that we are the Family that needs one the most, we have no HouseHold Healer. Perhaps you would be interested in the position?” Holm asked.

Shock forced Lark to look into Holm's gray eyes. She felt a tiny jolt. Small though it was, it was still a little stronger than the quiver she'd experienced the last time they'd met. She found speech. “Impossible.”

“Huh?” Tinne asked again, his puzzled glance on his brother, then his lips curved. He stood and picked up her hand and kissed it. “My thanks, GentleLady.” He glanced at his brother, hesitated, then said, “We would be pleased if you joined GreatHouse T'Holly. As you know, ours is a line of fighters, not Healers. We have no Family member who is capable of Healing. You would grace our halls.”

Lark smiled at him. “Quite impossible.”

Tinne put a hand over his chest and sighed. “You have anything for heartbreak?”

Lark laughed and shooed him out. He left with a bounce in his step.