Nightbound (11 page)

My last. My only. My omega.

T
he sinking of the sun roused Beau, who should have felt rested, but a heaviness still burdened him. He had spent most of his rest wandering through the nightlands, searching the void for something he had lost, long ago.

Sunehri,
the weary, rasping voice of a woman whispered in his heart.
You are going on a journey tonight.

The words meant nothing to Beau, and yet they weighed on him like a millstone roped round his neck.

This man will protect you. Obey him as you would me.

Beau could see the boy he had been, smiling and sleepy-eyed as he stumbled over to his mother, who caught him in her arms and covered the top of his dark curls with soft kisses.

“Ammijaan.”
The boy buried his face against her breast, taking one furtive peek at the man.

“Sunehri.”
She gently lifted his chin, and in Urdu said, “You are going on a journey tonight. This priest is my friend, and he will take you to your father’s homeland, that you may know his people.” When the boy protested, she touched her fingers to his lips. “Remember, when we
talked of this? You promised you would be brave for me.” He nodded slowly, and she smiled. “Now, kiss me good-bye.”

The boy pressed his lips to her thin cheek, but when she tried to put him aside, he wrapped his arms around her neck. “You come with us, too,
Ammijaan
?”

Beau reached for her as well, but the woman and the boy faded away, leaving him alone with the robed man.
“Aap mhujhe kahan lay kay ja rahe hain?”
he heard himself say as he followed the man to an enormous warhorse.
Where are you taking me?

“Ghar,”
the man answered, picking him up and tossing him onto the destrier’s back.

Beau frowned as the man swung up on the saddle in front of him, and looked past his shoulder. “The House of Heaven is my home.”

“Not anymore, lad.”

They rode the horse through the city, and across the desert and into the mountains. Each day the man would stop and set up a nomad’s tent so Beau could eat and sleep. Sometimes Beau would wake to see him making chains of tiny links. He made three chains, and on each of them strung…

The eye of Yblis.

The tent, the man, and the horse faded from Beau’s mind, and the burden pressing on him did the same, lifting and lightening until he felt only a hint of it huddled against his chest: soft, warm, alive.

A single breath told him who the sleeping woman sprawled on top of him was, but Beau couldn’t believe it. He lifted his head to see rumpled red hair spread beneath his collarbone. “Alys?”

She answered with a mumble, turning her head and twitching her limbs before going limp again.

Beau touched her back with his hands, intending to gently shake her, but the clammy condition of her thermals gave him pause. Was she sick? Her heartbeat thrummed steadily against his chest, and her breathing seemed regular and clear. Despite the dampness of her garments, they didn’t smell of her sweat or anything at all.

Taking care not to jolt her, Beau placed her on her side, climbed over her, and stepped out of the bed. She slept on as he lifted her into his arms and carried her over to her bed.

As Beau lowered her down, he discovered her linens were as damp as her garments. Alarmed now, he rested a hand on her brow. Her skin felt warm, not hot, to the touch. He lifted a corner of her coverlet to his nose, but like her thermals it smelled only of her body scent, not the salt of sweat.

Beau glanced back at his own bed. The dampness of the cellar may have woken her, and in some drowsy confusion she may have mistaken his bed for her own. She had certainly shown no waking desire to share it.

I agreed to let you join my team, Mr. York, not climb into my bed.

Beau drew away from her and took a seat at the desk, swiveling the chair to watch her and think. He did not recall dreaming or waking even once during the day, which was not at all normal for him. The Darkyn did not sleep as mortals did; their rest was more conscious and deliberate, and when they did surrender themselves to the darkness, they often ended up in the nightlands.

Alys’s presence had made it difficult for Beau to rest,
but when he had finally drifted off, he had blanked out completely. He could not remember experiencing such an oblivious sleep, in fact, since his days as a mortal.

A faint ache in his head made him rub a hand over his scalp. At the base of his skull he found a new, tender spot that indicated he had been struck there. He eyed Alys’s peaceful, innocent face. Had she clubbed him over the head while he slept? Why would she then crawl in bed with him?

“No.” As if she’d heard his thinking, Alys sat straight up in the bed, staring at him with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Presently?” He leaned back. “I’m sitting and watching you sleep.”

“Oh. Right. We’re sleeping together. I mean, we’re sharing a room.” She fell back against the pillow, and then brought her hands up to touch her sleeves. “Why are my thermals damp?”

“I cannot tell you.” Beau regarded her, noting that her confusion seemed genuine. “Did something happen while I slept?”

“How would I know? I was asleep, too. Ouch.” She touched the side of her head. “That hurts. Did I fall out of bed?”

Beau rose and went to her, pushing aside her hand to examine the spot on her scalp. “Perhaps you did. You have a bump here.”

“Wouldn’t I remember that?” Before he could reply, she shook her head. “Never mind. I had an awful nightmare last night. I was thrown across the room, and then I was in bed with you.”

She didn’t have to say it as if it were the same as being
submerged neck-deep in muck, Beau thought. “Then you do remember something.”

“Excuse me?”

“When I awoke”—he nodded across the room—“you
were
in bed with me.”

Alys’s shoulders stiffened. “That’s not funny.”

“I am not jest—joking. I woke up and found you on top of me.” He knelt down before her. “Let me see your eyes.” When she glared at him, he could see that her pupils appeared normal in size. “Do you feel dizzy, or sick?”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” Alys glanced over his shoulder. “That part about me being thrown across the room—you couldn’t have done that. It’s too far. I probably…” Her voice trailed off as she went still and closed her eyes. “Oh, God, no. Not now.”

“Alys?” He touched her hand. “What is it? Do you recall something?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure I know how I got in your bed.” She looked at him. “I must have been sleepwalking. I had a terrible problem with it when I was a child, and I still have episodes once or twice a year. I am so sorry.”

He sat back on his haunches. “Why do you apologize to me? You were not awake. You could not know what you were doing.”

She cringed a little. “Thanks, but that doesn’t make crawling into bed with you any less embarrassing.”

Now she thought being in bed with him was humiliating. “When I woke, you seemed quite content to be using my chest as your pillow. I certainly did not mind it.”

“You didn’t.” She gave him a wary glance. “Why not?”

“It seemed to me harmless.”
Think of her as a child.
“Something a younger sister might do.”

Alys frowned. “Your sister slept in your bed?”

“No; I have no sisters.” He was making a hash of this. “I only mean that you should not feel embarrassed. I knew from the moment I woke that it was an innocent thing.”

“Yeah, well, it was.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “And it was probably the nightmare that set it off.”

“Unpleasant, was it?”

“I don’t know.” She thought for a moment. “I was walking through the old church. I saw the missionaries kneeling and praying at the altar. It was so cold, it began to snow.” Absently she rubbed her hands over her arms. “That’s all I can remember.”

Her scent remained clear and sweet; she spoke the truth. Which meant their injuries were the result of Alys’s sleepwalking…or someone else had come into the chamber while they slept. Beau healed instantly, so whatever had been done to him didn’t matter. The thought of someone assaulting Alys, however, made a slow, burning fury ignite inside him. “Do you feel hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think so.” She stood, cautiously stretching out her arms and legs. “I’m a bit stiff, but I think that’s from setting up last night.” She picked up her watch from the lamp table and strapped it to her wrist. “The interns will be arriving soon. I’d better get dressed.”

When she went into the lavatory, Beau pulled on a shirt and his boots before making a complete circuit of
the chamber, looking for signs of an intruder. He found no trace of unfamiliar scent in the air, or on anything that might have been used to strike them while they slept. At the same time he felt sure someone else had come inside the chamber.

If the intruder had touched nothing, and had taken the weapon with him…

Beau went upstairs and performed a thorough search of the cloister for trace scent. Wherever humans went, they dispersed tiny amounts of their sweat and other body odors into the air. Unless particularly strong, these traces were undetectable to other mortals. The Kyn, however, could pick them up for hours after the human’s passage. Because all humans had scents unique to them, the Kyn could also follow the invisible trail to wherever the mortal had gone.

The only scents Beau found inside the cloister were those belonging to Alys and himself. Outside the structure, all he could detect were the faint traces left behind by the interns.

A carefully shielded mortal, or a very controlled Kyn, might have invaded the camp while he and Alys slept, but unless the intruder could levitate, he would have left tracks in the dirt. The only footprints he saw belonged to him, Alys, and her team.

Everything indicated they had slept undisturbed, but Beau didn’t believe it. His instincts still insisted that someone had come in the night. Someone who wanted to harm Alys.

Beau’s hand itched for his sword.
When I find him, and I will, I will introduce him to his entrails.

The sound of the cargo vans coming down the dirt
road diverted his attention, and as he walked to meet the students, Alys caught up with him. “Beau, ah, would you mind not telling the interns about what happened last night?”

“They may have seen someone coming this way when they drove out,” he said.

“You can ask them if they did, but please don’t mention my sleepwalking and getting into bed with you and all that.”

She sounded shamed. Beau gritted his teeth. “Why not?”

“I don’t have the best reputation,” Alys said, surprising him. “With the way that students gossip, it could get back to Hylord and cause you some problems.” She sighed. “It would definitely get back to the university.”

She was blaming herself for this, and Beau couldn’t fathom why. “You did nothing wrong, Alys.”

“Your boss and the tenure board won’t see it that way.” She forced a smile as the interns piled out of the vans and started toward them. “Please. I have to deal with enough people who already think I’m crazy, and I don’t want to be responsible for getting you fired.” In a louder voice she called out to the students, “I hope everyone got plenty of sleep. We have a full schedule tonight.”

The students collectively groaned.

“That’s why they call it a working site, people.” Alys grinned at them. “The good news is that since you did such a thorough job last night setting up, we can begin the grid layout immediately. Chan, you and I will be operating the GPR. Brenda, Charles, you’ll handle marking, and Paolo, you’re on mapping. The rest of you can
supply the workstations and set up the lab. Any questions?”

Brenda waved one long-nailed hand. “Can Beau—I mean, Mr. York—work with me and Charles?”

Some of the other students chimed in, asking the same, until Alys made a gesture for quiet. “Mr. York has his own work to attend to, and I’d appreciate it if you let him do it. We’ll break at ten and three for meals. Anything else?” When no one spoke, she nodded. “Let’s get started.”

The interns scattered in different directions, and Beau followed Alys as she walked toward the stable. “I’ve no real work of my own. I would be happy to assist your students.”

“Brenda and the other girls only want a chance to flirt with you,” she told him. “You should try to avoid giving any one of them too much attention. They develop attachments quickly, and at this age their egos are very fragile.”

Beau felt amused and annoyed. “Do you speak from experience?”

“Me? I don’t bother with romance.” She took out her flashlight and switched it on. “Emotional attachments are time-consuming and unpredictable, and the results are often disappointing. I don’t think I’m very good at them, either. Would you carry out that big blue case there?”

Beau retrieved what she wanted. “Matters of the heart are not experiments, Alys.”

She considered that. “I’ll have to take your word on that. I’ve never loved or been loved by anyone.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that he frowned. “What about your parents, your family?”

“My parents died in a car accident shortly after I was born. I spent my childhood at boarding schools. They were all excellent learning institutions, but growing up in a purely academic environment doesn’t encourage much in the way of personal bonding. I liked my schoolmates, and admired my teachers, but they weren’t effective substitutes for siblings or parents.”

Although she used unfamiliar words, Beau understood what she was saying. During his childhood Harlech’s family had been kind to him, and he had responded with steadfast loyalty, but he had never truly felt part of his foster brother’s boisterous, happy clan. “Who sent you away to school?”

“My guardian. He knew my parents, and when they were killed, he took care of me.” She shouldered a pack. “I didn’t see him very often, and he died last year.”

“I am sorry for your loss.” Beau picked up a second case she wanted before she could lift it. “Why didn’t your guardian bring you into his home and foster…raise you as his daughter?”