Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (12 page)

"Don't turn me into a frog or anything," she told him as an afterthought.

He muttered a few words under his breath, but Ashlyn couldn't tell if he was retorting to her comment or working the spell. A few moments later his hands glowed green against her skin, and she could feel the hurt inside her leg shifting, changing, the strained muscles and tendons snapping back into shape.

It was excruciating, but she said nothing, instead choosing to dig her short nails into the fabric of the couch, bracing herself against the pain. She'd had to deal with a lot of it in the past three days, but it was nothing new. Living on your own meant surviving on your own, and she'd had more than a few close calls in the past few years.

As the discomfort intensified, she let her breathing grow shallow, calming herself, concentrating hard and at the same time trying to let her entire body relax. If she could find her center, that semi-sleepy state somewhere between the pain and complete unconsciousness…almost…

There.

Ashlyn smiled drowsily. Ah. That was better. Her ninja training came in handy sometimes.

"You know, Aaron," she said, letting her head loll to the side as she focused on the old pilot's rough features, "you're forty years old now."

He snorted ungracefully. "Don't remind me, kid."

"I'll be twenty-four soon," she continued, staring hard at the wall just beyond his head. "Another month or so. Twenty-four with nothing to show for it. You, at least, have the airship and Sara." She paused. "You do still have Sara, don't you? You married her at some point in the past eight years?"

Aaron said nothing, and Ashlyn's eyes widened. "Aaron?" she prompted, her voice hedged with warning.

"I had to marry her, or she would have left," he admitted finally. "Said she'd go off to live with her sister in Rode." He grunted, and said, "Dunno why ya women gotta be so friggin’ disagreeable."

"Rode, huh. She'd rather live in that slag heap than continue at your beck and call as an unpaid, unappreciated slave? Ugh. That must have been a blow to your ego," Ashlyn said slowly, laboring over the words, and winced as a sliver of pain edged into her self-induced stupor.

She took a deep breath and centered again, pushing the physical away and focusing on something else - anything else, anything to take her mind off of what he was doing.

"Drake Lockhart and I have the same blood type." She blurted out the first random fact that came to mind, sufficiently squashing any link her mind was maintaining with the discomfort in her ankle.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "How'd ya figure that out?"

"Medical logs in the ship," she answered automatically, over-enunciating the "L" sound for no particular reason except to amuse herself. "I read them. I don't know why they're still there after all these years."

"I knew we'd all end up back together at some point," Aaron said, pulling his hands away from her leg and slapping his palms against his thighs. "Figured there was no use throwing all those records away if we were just gonna be needin’ 'em again someday."

"Mm." She closed her eyes, still half-drowsy.

"Yer all fixed, kid," Aaron growled, and she could hear the chair legs scrape on the floor as he stood up. "Don't come cryin' to me again if you mess yerself up anytime soon."

Thrust back into reality in a hurry, Ashlyn blinked, a bit light-headed. "Okay," she said stupidly. "Thank you, Aaron."

He grunted again and was out the door without bothering to give her a response.

Chapter 6

Betraying Trust

It was cold when Ashlyn's eyes flew open later that night. She had no idea what had awoken her, but as her eyes searched the dark room uselessly, her fingers clenched at the covers, pulling them up to her chin.

The darkness was strange
. It wasn't the usual, scarlet-navy moonlit night, but rather an oppressive blackness that sent shivers up her spine with its still, ominous presence.

"Restlyn?" she whispered. When she'd fallen asleep the martial artist had not yet returned to their shared room at the inn. Perhaps her entrance had been what startled Ashlyn. "Are you there?"

There was a rustle next to her bed. Ashlyn froze, listening.

Suddenly something clapped over her mouth-
a hand?-
and in the same instant something heavy grasped at her belly. Her stomach lurched at the unexpected contact, and as her assailant fumbled around, she realized he was searching for her hands, trying to bind her before she could gather her wits enough to fight back.

Ashlyn brought one arm up and over to slap the hand off of her face, then yanked away, rolling over and over again until the bed dropped away from beneath her and she fell to the floor. Her hands and knees hit the floor hard, jarring her painfully. She scrambled into a crouch, scanning the room, but it was much too dark to see
anything
.

She heard him grumble in a low voice, securing her assumption that her attacker was a man, and then he began tearing at the bedcovers, apparently trying to find her.

Fear tinged the edges of Ashlyn's consciousness. Restlyn hadn't answered. Did that mean the brunette simply hadn't returned to their room yet, or had this man already incapacitated the female martial artist? Had he gotten to any of the other members of FLD before coming to Ashlyn's room? She didn't even want to consider it.

Something hit her in the face, and Ashlyn yelped and squirmed sideways before realizing that it was her blankets, tangling over her arms and legs like a net. She wriggled out from under them, biting back the curses on the tip of her tongue as she once again struggled to see in the pitch-black room.

Climbing to her feet, she edged sideways, racking her brain for the room's layout. It had changed since her previous visits, so it was difficult to recall, but she knew that she had rolled off the bed in the opposite direction from the door.

Ashlyn breathed shallowly, in through her nose, out through her mouth, trying to still her rapidly beating heart. For all her arrogance, she'd never achieved the level of balance and skill that other Toryn ninjas boasted. She had left before completing her training, brash and hot-headed and full of herself simply because she'd defeated the five Toryn Lords and gained the respect of her peers.

Respect wouldn't help her now, trapped in the dark with an attacker between her and the door. Arrogance wouldn't, either.

Clenching her fists at her sides, Ashlyn dropped her chin to her chest, closing her eyes. Listening. Focusing.

The sound of his feet against the floor was soft, barely audible. Ashlyn guessed that he was wearing soft-soled boots or sandals. His motion as he moved out from behind the bed was anything but clumsy; she could hear the shifting of his clothing as he eased sideways, just a few feet in front of her.

His breathing was controlled, also, but louder than hers. He was nervous. Good. She had him at a disadvantage.

Ashlyn drew one hand back, holding it up behind her head, fingers curled, palm braced. Her other hand she extended in front of her, folding her ring and pinky fingers down, keeping her thumb, index and middle fingers outstretched.

She heard him stop in front of her, and then the unmistakable metallic slide of a sword being drawn from its sheath.

The door creaked open the slightest bit, sending a tiny sliver of light into the room. In the sudden illumination, she could see the man turn, tensing, but there was no one there.

She didn't wait for him to finish drawing his weapon. Ashlyn leapt forward, digging the toes of her left foot into the floor as she jumped up in a spinning kick. He had one hand up over his head, still drawing the sword from the sheath on his back, but he managed to clumsily block her attack with his opposite hand. She countered with an immediate uppercut, going for her trademark deathblow to the nose, but his sword clattered to the floor as he used his hand to stop her palm's upward motion.

She tried to spin away to stay out of his grasp, only to find that he'd caught her wrist and now twisted it viciously. Ashlyn went with it, not wanting to injure herself by struggling, and ended up bent over at the waist to avoid strain to her weaker arm. Quickly she brought her elbow up to his stomach, landing a solid blow despite the awkward position.

He cried out when she connected with his ribs, and fell to his knees. But his grip remained solid, dragging her down with him.

Her mind raced, her eyes searching for something to use to free herself, and her gaze came to rest on the sword. When her left hand snaked out to grab it, her captor twisted again, his booted foot coming down none too gently on top of her wrist.

They stayed like that for what seemed like forever, their heavy breathing eventually slowing.

This is freaking ridiculous,
Ashlyn thought as she shifted uncomfortably. They were wrapped around each other worse than the salted pretzels at the Silverbell Theme Park. There was no way he could secure her without letting go, and they both knew that if he released even one of her hands she would find a way to get free.

"Guess you're kind of in a bind now, huh?" she taunted lightly, enjoying his momentary confusion. "Well, make up your mind. We can't stay like this forever. One of my friends will come eventually."

A short silence, and then, "What makes you think I've not already dealt with them?"

He spoke in Merchant Tongue, with a guttural, clipped accent that was surprisingly familiar. He was a Toryn, but it was too dark to get a good look at his face, even with the light from the open door.

Ashlyn's confidence wavered, fear prickling at her heart, but she smiled anyway, determined not to let him get to her. "Please. There's no way you could have taken Drake," she said, "Or Skye, for that matter. Dream on! You'd be sliced to ribbons if you had even thought about walking into his room."

His head cocked to the side in the dim light. "You hold your traveling companions in such high regard, and yet reserve no trust for your kinsmen," he said. "It is no wonder that you make claim to be Scorned."

There was a handful of heartbeats as she processed what he had said, where their breaths intermingled so closely that Ashlyn would have felt uncomfortable had she not been so shocked.

"
Kou?"
she hissed at last. "What the heck are you doing here?" Her thoughts were consumed with anger and fear; if this man was no longer captive on the airship, then what had he done with her friends?

"I might ask the same of you, Scorned Elder."

Ashlyn contemplated for a long moment. Finally she said, "All right then. What say we call a truce, at least temporarily, until you're satisfied with my story and I figure out why the heck you decided to break out of the airship and try to kidnap
me,
of all people."

"Kidnap you?" He sounded amused. "Do not flatter yourself. I needed a guide and this was the first room I found."

She breathed a sigh of relief at his careless admittance the rest of FLD was safe, at least so long as none of them had tried to stop his escape. "Okay," she said, and released the sword.

His foot came off of her arm, carefully-
yeah, like the damage isn't already done, you friggin' moron,
Ashlyn thought irritably at his belated manners, and he let go of her wrist.

Slowly they both climbed to their feet,  Ashlyn rubbing her sore arm, Kou holding a hand to his stomach- where, she suddenly remembered, he had sustained some cracked ribs from their battle on the airship. Well, fine. After stomping on her arm like it was a Rode Doom Bug, he deserved some pain.

"Why do you travel with FLD?" he asked.

Ashlyn stared at him for a second, eyes adjusting somewhat in the dim light. His thick hair was mussed from their struggle, some of it escaping from the ponytail at the back of his head. "First tell me if you've hurt any of them."