Heartmate (47 page)

The Fam took in the situation with a glance and sat
solidly before the bedroom door, hissing.
What you doing?

T'Ash narrowed his eyes. This was no time for Zanth to get temperamental. T'Ash was holding on to the straining link of his temper as it was.

“I'm fulfilling my promise to T'Ivy in payment for the Passage potion. My last vow, and damned if I'm going to ever make another so important. Do you want to go to Gael City? An eight-day trip to go there and back.”

“And I won't. She doesn't deserve us, Zanth. We can never give her the Family she wants.”

Zanth snorted.
She has Me as Fam, has Princess. Has many animals. You give her four children. Plenty Family.

T'Ash wouldn't let Zanth tempt him to break his will in this. “No. We've forced our way into her life, but no more. And I must fulfill this promise, now. I've made plans with T'Ivy.”

Zanth lashed his tail. His growl fed the heavy silence for a moment. He muttered cat-talk to himself then speared T'Ash with an intense emerald stare.
A week. Not flying?

“No.”

“No.”

Zanth snorted.
Then, how?

“Stridebeast.”

“Horses are rare and valuable. I doubt if T'Ivy has any. And I don't ride them as well as stridebeasts.”

“No!” He settled the saddlebags on his shoulder and glanced at his timer. “I made a promise to T'Ivy, and I'm going to Gael City. By stridebeast. Come or not, as you please.”

Me stay,
Zanth huffed.

“Fine. Hedara Ivy waits for me. I'll teleport to the T'Ivy gates. I'll be back in nine days.”

T'Ash bared his teeth in a smile. “Yes.”

Hedara awaited them with two grooms holding the stridebeasts. Native to Celta, the stridebeasts were one of the first animals the colonists domesticated four centuries ago, particularly since horses had a worse adaptation rate than most Earth animals.

One of the stridebeasts was hairy with a broad back and sturdy-looking long legs widening to fat padded feet. Its neck was straight with a well-formed broad head and intelligent brown eyes. T'Ash handed his saddlebags to the groom to place on the beast and took the reins. He rubbed the animal between the eyes. The gray hair was as long and as soft as Princess's.

The second mount danced a little until Hedara took its reins and patted it, dismissing the grooms. It was obviously an animal bred for generations for beauty and an even gait.

Hedara looked equally elegant, again clothed in blue that matched her eyes. Her trous suit was both fashionable and suitable for riding. Not a hair escaped from her blond-brown braid, a hairstyle that emphasized the fine bone-structure of her face due to ages of noble breeding.

Her loveliness, obvious self-confidence, self-worth, and Nobility left T'Ash unmoved. He wanted Danith. He banished the thought.

Female,
Zanth said, sniffing her legs.

Hedara stared at the huge cat, then looked at T'Ash.

He shrugged. “My Fam.”

“Nice cat,” she said, stooping with a hand out.

Zanth snarled, and she snatched her hand away.

Zanth sprayed on her boots.

T'Ash closed his eyes. When he opened them, Hedara still appeared shocked and appalled.

“My boots,” she choked, then panted as the warm, wet stench of cat urine enveloped them. “My best boots.” She hopped from foot to foot. She stabbed Zanth with an awful look, sent a beseeching one to T'Ash. “I can't travel like this. Impossible.” She winked out, teleporting away.

She not like Me.
Zanth grinned with satisfaction.

“You cat!” T'Ash wanted to singe the Fam's fur with a Word.

Zanth raised his nose at the insult.
You man. You stupid. Go. Me stay with FamWoman.

“No! I don't want you near her, speaking to her, or visiting her while I am gone.”

“You will do as I say, or I will see that you no longer see the chef in the mornings and that he feeds you nothing but oily fish for the rest of your life.”

They matched glares. Zanth's tail whipped back and forth.

“Do you hear me?”

“I mean what I say.”

Zanth growled. He spat.

T'Ash didn't move.

Paws flashed, leaving deep scratches on T'Ash's boots, ruining them.

T'Ash stood still.

Zanth hissed and whipped himself through the dirt, a small, furious whirlwind.

Hedara appeared. She looked down her nose at Zanth. “Now, that is a hissy fit.” Her words were rewarded by clawed boots. She stared down at them with a pained expression on her face.

She would never like Zanth, T'Ash knew. Something inside him rejoiced.

“Zanthoxyl!” T'Ash commanded.

Zanth stopped, sat up straight with his solid back to T'Ash, and started grooming.
I not see FamWoman. But you stupid, stupid, stupid. Go away.
He ignored his person with more studied arrogance than he'd ever done before.

“You're nobody until you've been ignored by a cat,” Hedara murmured, lifting an eyebrow at T'Ash as she easily mounted her beast and reined it in.

T'Ash gritted his teeth at the old saying. Something Danith might say. The black hole inside him expanded with every second. He mounted up. He refused to say farewell to Zanth and didn't even glance back as they rode away.

This trip would put his entire past behind him, and he could prepare himself for the bleak future.

 
 
Danith's spirits plummeted. T'Ash didn't come to her
that night. She got chills and his big body wasn't there to warm her. She shivered all night long and told herself it was due to the cool summer night, not the insidiously creeping notion that T'Ash had given up on her.

She called his Residence but only reached the holo cache. She left a stilted message.

The next night passed without him. And the next.

He did not visit the AllClass HealingHall. The last living triad boy, Shade, needed constant care to keep him from dying.

Again and again Danith recalled how the other boy attempted to kill her, the appearance of T'Ash, the quick violence that ended the situation.

She remembered the emotionless stare T'Ash had left her with. She hurt more for him, for how that act had worked on his soul, than she grieved for the Downwind boy. T'Ash had handled the situation in the only way possible.

She missed him and didn't want to. She wanted a solid life, to establish herself as D'Mallow, and to know herself before she surrendered to him. She had to believe she was his match, that he could not overcome her with his powerful Flair.

She studied for the test on the laws that governed Nobles, GrandLords and Ladies, GreatLords and Ladies. She sweated through the test and answered every question correctly. She threw herself into her work, rapidly building her career, until every minute of every septhour of every day were filled with activity.

But empty of T'Ash.

One morning during the next week, she was ordered to rest by all her instructors. Finally she faced the facts.

Her heart thumped hard. Her throat closed.

She was so tired and so hurt that tears seemed dammed inside her. She was beyond crying; it would bring no release.

She had waited too long. She hadn't summoned enough courage to tell the brooding man that she loved him. She hadn't tried to banish his darkness. She hadn't accepted his HeartGifts or the HeartBond.

She was glad her third and last Passage was over. If it hadn't been, the flagellation she inflicted upon herself for these regrets would have killed her.

Now she listened to her emotions. She'd lost him and she'd never live with him. That meant no more moments at the T'Ash Residence. That hurt, too. It was a beautiful house, with so much character and potential. She could make it into a comfortable home as well as a showplace.

No more Zanth. A fragment of her heart shattered. She missed the Fam dreadfully.

She shouldn't go to him if he didn't love her, didn't respect her enough to share himself with her. And was what she just thought true, or was it an excuse to be safe and not risk herself? She paced back and forth in her small house, following a pattern T'Ash had used.

It came down to trust and love and hope. Did she trust herself and him? Yes. She'd grown enough in the last few days to believe she could exorcize that seed of darkness within him. And she trusted his word when he said that he wanted them to be HeartMates, she trusted the emotions that flowed through the bond between them, feelings that were so much more than passion.

Danith went into the kitchen and made tea, keeping her hands busy as she sifted through recent events. He must love her. Even when he was infuriating, his actions told her she was special to him. He'd give her all his wealth, and his work he valued. He wanted her to live with him, involved in all aspects of his life. She should not be involved in fighting, so he teleported her away. He'd die protecting her.

He must respect her. He believed in her Flair when no one else had. He'd let her Heal his Fam. He had shown her how to master her Flair, but had not patronized her. He had given her time to come to terms with her new life.

Trust, respect, and hope. She didn't think he hoped. That she would have to do by herself. She would have to risk herself, as T'Ash had risked himself in offering the HeartGifts.

She sipped the tea standing up.

If he didn't come to her, she must go to him. That was the bottom line. If she didn't . . .

No more T'Ash. The thought nearly stopped her heart. She couldn't live without T'Ash!

No other man was so strong, so powerful, so intelligent. So honorable. So sexy. So loving.

He was her addiction. She craved him, the sight of him, the touch of his calloused fingers, his body plunging into hers as if she held the world for him.

She could not give that up. She
would not
give that up.

Her determination would have to substitute for courage.

Without further thought she teleported to outside the Ash estate.

She wiped her hands on the tunic of her raspberry-colored tunic-trous that she had donned that morning. “Danith D'Mallow to see T'Ash,” she announced in her loudest voice. It still came out as a squeak. She wondered if he had shielded his home from her.

The greeniron gates swung slowly open.

Danith sighed in relief.

She'd just entered when Zanth appeared with a pop.

Shut!
he said, and the gates did.

He bounded to her and circled her, sniffing the cuffs of her wide-legged trous. Then he sat and grinned at her.

Greetyou. Good to see you. You come. FamMan thought you stupid. That you don't want Me, or him, either. Told Me, ME, not to eat your crunchies.
His rumbling purr was background to his happy thoughts. Danith had never heard him so talkative.

She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin.

“You are always welcome at my home.”

“I will tell T'Ash.”

“Yes.”

Before she could give in to her baser nature and turn and run away, she said, “Take me to him.”

Zanth flopped his tail back and forth.
He gone.

Danith's blood froze. “Gone?”

Danith managed a smile. “When will he be back?” Perhaps she could wait. If worse came to worse, she could park herself in his bedroom and take a dreamtime to make her sleep until he arrived. That way she wouldn't have to nurse her wavering courage.

Danith's trepidation vanished in the blink of an eyelash, replaced by jealousy—a twining, furious emotion that squeezed around her heart and ignited anger. “A female? Well, T'Ash doesn't need any other female in his life. He has me, his HeartMate. And I want him.”

Zanth smirked.
Good. Me piss on her boots.

Danith choked with laughter.

Firming her lips in determination, and muttering the affirmation that she wanted T'Ash, that he wanted her, and that they were destined HeartMates, Danith nodded.

“Thank you.”

That caused her to smile again. The only hunting she was going to do was for one stubborn, self-denigrating GreatLord. And, by the Lord and Lady, she was going to bag him!

Zanth teleported out of sight, and Danith 'ported home.

 
 
With relief T'Ash bid Hedara goodbye at the outskirts
of Druida, where T'Ivy guards waited to escort her home. T'Ash was glad to see her gone. He suspected she was of the same opinion.

He'd been so lost in his thoughts, and so melded telepathically to his mount, that to quickly sever his mind from the stridebeast's and send the animal along with Hedara would harm the creature. The solid, sturdy mount, which had carried him without complaint and whose easy gait had even soothed T'Ash, deserved better from his temporary master than to be summarily abandoned.