Heartmate (30 page)

Shudders took her.

A strong wind whirled through her, drying the film of sweat on her body from the inside out. She shivered and soon ice encased her.

Her shudders increased.

Weird, surreal images came to her, followed by hollow, echoing sounds. Elongated figures of her father and mother towered over her. Mother pleaded at her. Father shouted, as usual.

More flashes of color, bright enough to sear the inner lids of her eyes.

She burrowed into the bedsponge and the scent of heady earth, with its solidity and slow rhythms, soothed her for a long moment.

But only a moment.

Pansy came to her side and gave a fearful mew.

Using the last of her strength, Danith blindly reached out and tangled her fingers in Pansy's fur wrapped with T'Ash's jewels.

With only the small cat as her anchor, Danith tumbled, shrieking, into an all engulfing darkness. An emptiness that was not a true void, but pulsing with tearing emotions, hurtful flares of light, raucous noises.

 
 
Fury and fear gnawed on T'Ash. He banished them.
Staring at Danith's closed back door, his jaw tightened. He would let her go now, but only for now.

With a little concentration he visualized his HouseHeart. He needed to be there, instantly. So he was.

The place welcomed him, the fire crackling with renewed vigor at his presence, the pool gently lapping its rim in greeting.

He sat on a bench and pulled his boots off. It took several tugs to strip the trous from his body, and he sent them directly to the cleanser.

Nude, he took a short dip in the warm pool. He dried off quickly, then bowed to the altar and in each direction, welcoming the Lord and Lady and the Guardians. Then he fit his body once more into the pattern of the Rainbow Serpent and the World Tree. Immediately he felt a connection, and the renewal of his strength and power.

The ancient cadence of the Residence pulsed through him, and he relaxed. Until the first little shock. A ripple of agitation came with each wave. And it grew.

He searched for it. Nothing could be allowed to harm his Residence, nothing so disturbing that it affected the very HouseHeart.

And he found it.

Danith!

His mind jumbled. His stomach clenched in fear.

Danith!

He reached for her and was caught in the great undertow of her first Passage.

Lord and Lady. Lord and Lady. He whispered desperate prayers as he grabbed a robe.

He teleported to his ResidenceDen.

Zanth was amusing himself by half-heartedly chewing on the furniture and batting the gallant's stupid little box around. T'Ash ran his finger around his scrybowl.

“Here,” the Holly butler answered.

“Holm.”

The butler inclined his head. “Of course, GreatLord.”

“Urgent.”

The man's features tightened. “Yes.”

Seconds later Holm's concerned face projected larger than life over T'Ash's desk. “T'Ash?”

“Not at Ritual today.”

Holm's nostrils flared. “You—”

“Can't. Emergency. Danith. Passage.”

Holm's eyes widened. He jerked his head in a nod. “Right. I'll inform the others. T'Hazel will modify the Ritual to function without you. Go to your lady.”

T'Ash cut the air and the spell.

Wait!
Zanth called.

He didn't.

On the next breath he materialized at the back of Danith's house. He ran to the door. It opened under his hand. She had closed the door, but not spellshielded her home. Awful fear rose to squeeze his heart. He entered, then uttered a Word to protect the house.

He followed short, fretful mews to the bedroom. Princess whined, licked Danith's face, and kneaded her.

Danith barely breathed, and moaned in pain. Lord and Lady, he had brought her to this, raised her emotional levels, particularly the powerfully inciting emotion of anger. He'd thrust her time and again into conflict—and into close contact with Tinne Holly, who was on the flashpoint of his own Passage. T'Ash had taught her a few small spells that tapped, then unlocked her Flair, a great Flair that had slept for years instead of being released bit by bit. Now she would pay the price.

Yes. He had brought her to this, then stomped off in a temper without recognizing the signs of imminent Passage.

He wanted to slip off his robe but dared not. The energy buzzing around him both aroused him and irritated his nerves. He lay on the bed beside her and slowly turned her to her side. Her skin held a clammy grayness and fear rose into his throat. Did she even know what she was experiencing? None of her friends had great Flair.

She wouldn't know how to fight it, how to endure it, how, finally, to control it.

He slipped one of her hands to his neck, and it curled naturally around his throat, her thumb over his carotid artery so she felt his pulse. The sweet scent of spicy apples floated to him and he groaned. He could not possibly lose her! He cut the thought off. They could not afford a whisper of a negative thought.

Her other hand he placed inside his robe on his heart. She would learn he was here, and soon the beat of their hearts would match.

He positioned his own hands the same way on her. Her pulse fluttered lightly under his thumb.

He drew in a deep breath and prepared to sink deep inside himself, then to reach out for her, always for her, and find her.

It would be rough, but with a sliver of luck and his help, she would survive it.

And when it came down to the basics, she fought. He admired nothing more.

He shut his eyes.

 
Her mind echoed with her own lost cries in the timeless
dark. She screamed until she could scream no more. Then, exhausted, she let the great whirlwind whisk her away. Soon she realized that huge waves of emotions overwhelmed her at odd intervals, shocking her with their intensity and detail. They tormented her with memories, and she couldn't do anything but suffer. And endure.

First came humiliation. Every embarrassing childhood mishap, every stupid word she'd ever said, every ill-advised action she'd ever made, beat on her until she writhed, feeling hot with mortification.

The cyclone spun her away. She tried to breathe. Guilt slammed into her with sins of commission, and the more afflicting sins of omission. What she should have done, could have done, to save someone pain. What she ignored. She swirled in an agony of self-flagellation.

Endless moments lapsed before despair descended. How could she ever think she was worthy of her Flair? She was nothing, deserved nothing, common and unfit to hold and craft a shining dream. She'd failed at many things, too many, large and small. Each failure an obstacle to climb. How could she go on?

“HERE!”

“Who?” she asked. Before the flash of words faded from her mind, she knew. She always thought of his strength first, and a strongly muscled arm wrapped around her, pulling her against a hard body.

“T'ASH!” his mind shouted to hers. Other words whipped away from her.

“What?”

“PASSAGE!”

Passage? Passage! The dreadful cost of great Flair.

Passage. She shuddered, and cold, icy fear plucked at her soul. The whirlwind transmogrified into a whirlpool. T'Ash held her tightly, but they both half-drowned in the spinning water.

Fear.

The first fear of pain as a child.

Fear of being alone when her parents died.

Fear of the House for Orphans.

Fear of being the smallest child in a new place.

Fear of the rules.

Fear of leaving the House for Orphans.

Fear of living on her own.

And new fears battered her.

Fear of punishment.

Fear of fire.

T'Ash's fears.

And the fire was one of the worst. It shadowed all his others. The strong body beside her in the turbulent waters trembled at the shadow of fire. She turned in his arms and held him tight.

Fear of being alone.

“I know that fear,” she said, and hugged him close. The fear disappeared.

Fear of bigger children, tougher children, adults. His in Downwind, hers the first days at the House of Orphans.

“I know that fear,” she said, and they faced down the line of images marching toward them.

Fear of fire.

“Water surrounds us. Fire cannot touch us.” The maelstrom cast them away from memories of fear.

Each circuit increased in speed.

Rage.

Rage at her Father and Mother leaving her in death.

“I KNOW THAT RAGE!” T'Ash shouted. Visions of their lost families wrung tears from Danith to mix with the white waters around her.

Rage at the murderers of the Ashes.

“I KNOW THAT RAGE. I PROWLED THE VENGEANCE STALK AND IT IS DONE.” T'Ash dismissed it.

Rage at the inability to pursue a dream.

“I KNOW THAT RAGE. MY DREAMS NOW COME TRUE. YOUR DREAMS BECKON TO BE FULFILLED.”

“I know that rage. Let it go,” she echoed.

A touch of a brighter emotion swept by.

Triumph.

Danith's joy at her first paycheck, her purchase of Pansy, her healing of Pansy.

“Yes!”

Vast exultation at fighting, at bodies spurting blood and falling into the rictus of death.

Danith gagged and choked, water entered her mouth, darkness threatened.

“NO! AND NO! AND NO! OVER AND DONE.”

Triumph vanished.

Danith panted.

The pace increased. Pain. Joy. Grief. Confidence.

Rejection.

Five couples, faces she'd thought she'd forgotten, who'd preferred other children over herself.

Two respectable smiths who sneered at apprenticing a Downwind boy.

Timkin.

A disgusted GraceMistrys raising her eyebrows at T'Ash.

The pool whirled faster and faster. Instead of emotions wrenching through her, memories flashed by, incidents she barely recalled, T'Ash's memories she couldn't understand.

Finally the last few days rushed by—showing flickers of Mitchella, the Hollys, more.

She grabbed at the episodes T'Ash experienced, felt his pleasure in finding a HeartMate, his anger when the HeartGift was stolen, his hurt when she rejected him. The explosive memory of his last Passage shattered hers.

She heard herself moan and smelled the odor of her cold-sweated body before she could open her eyes.

T'Ash's hands rested on her body, one over her heart, the other encircling her throat. Pansy—Princess—snuggled against the small of her back.

She took her hands from him to rub the gluey substance from her eyes. She almost heard the creak of her lashes when they lifted.

T'Ash's startling light blue eyes stared into her own. His olive skin held a sheen of perspiration, like her own. His long black hair had tangled, once more like her own.

Her lips felt dry. She wet them with her tongue.

T'Ash groaned. He jerked his hands to himself and rolled over, his back to her. She saw the harshness of his breathing beneath his ash brown silkeen robe.

She didn't quite dare to reach out and touch him. Now he knew all her secrets, and despite the fact he was a dozen centimeters away, she didn't know if she could face him.

“T'Ash, are you hurt?”

“Not 'xactly.”

“T'Ash?” She stopped, fingertips hovering close to the muscled indentation of his spine.

“No desire in Passage this time. Or Passion. Or happened too swiftly to impinge consciously. But the HeartGift's vibrations still linger. Don't you feel them?”

A sudden rush of pure carnal lust hit her. Her nostrils widened at his now-familiar scent of searing steel and man. Yet her mind, sluggishly, began to work.

Lust. It was there, but not overpowering. And suddenly she knew with absolute truth that he was using that as an excuse to draw away from her emotionally, just as afraid as she was to have his secrets probed by the other.

It piqued her, stirred a little remaining anger that had sparked the whole Passage, but she let it go, only noting in her accountant's brain that though they had just experienced Passage together, now he had once again withdrawn.

So, he fought desire. She scrambled to her feet. Princess rose with her.

Zanth stalked into the room. He raised his lip at her in disapproval. She glared back at him. Her head started to ache. “He's your Fam, deal with him.” She headed to the bathroom.

T'Ash heard the flow of water start and stiffly uncurled himself. He rubbed his hands over his face and wondered what the odds were of Danith letting him use her shower. She probably expected him to teleport home while she bathed.

His blood pounded hotly, his muscles were stiff with sexual tension and his body was hard and ready to mate. He ached.

He wanted Danith. But more than he wanted her body, he wanted her company, now. He had to be sure she was well.

He should leave. He knew he should. He was in a weakened emotional state—a weakened emotional state? Where had he ever come up with that idea? That damned book of D'Rose's, the gushy, flowery one. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure a woman wrote
The Manual of Manners for the Gentleman of Noble Background,
and what, by the Cave of the Dark Goddess, would a woman know of a man's emotions? Stupid. But women probably made up this whole manners stuff, anyway.

“I was in a hurry.”

Zanth tried a sniff, barely audible. T'Ash suppressed a smile; just being with Danith was curing Zanth's sinus condition. Soon it would be completely gone and Zanth would lose his sniff as punctuation.