Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (20 page)

"Only when you're…" Ashlyn saw the hope lingering in his expression, and knew she couldn't be cruel. "No. I don't."

"Good." He toyed with the frayed end of the rope on his left wrist. "If things were different, Ashlyn…"

"They're not."

"But if they
were
…" He leaned his head back against the wall again. "Maybe we'd be different, too."

"You and me?" She could have kicked herself for feeding into his delusion, but she had to admit that some small part of her liked knowing that Vargo wanted her, that he was harboring the same thoughts that she often suffered.

"Yeah, me and you. I need a cigarette." He rolled his head to the side, looked at her. "You'd really untie me if I asked you to?"

She shrugged. "What are you gonna do? I have your baton, and as good as you are hand-to-hand, I'm better. I'm always better."

"I ain't gonna argue that." He flicked his wrists, and the ropes fell to the floor before he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Ashlyn groaned. "I knew you were lying," she said accusingly. "You could have done that at any time."

He lit the cigarette and let it dangle from his fingertips. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you? Why didn't you escape?"

"You had the baton," he said, taking a drag off the cigarette.

"Not when we were in the cave."

"I wanted to see what Kou was going to do with us."

"So you could report back to Skye?"

Exasperated, he flicked ash in her direction. "No,
Ashlyn
."

She sat back against the bed, arms folded over her chest. "Then what? I'm completely in the dark here."

He covered his face with one hand, strands of garnet-red falling over his fingers. "For a ninja, you're not too observant, kid."

It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, another moment to realize exactly what he was saying. Her face grew hot. "You stayed with us to make sure I would be all right?"

He dropped his hand, met her gaze steadily. "Always knew you were smarter than you look."

Why,
she wanted to ask, but it would have been a stupid question. "You believe me, then? That I'm honestly trying to stop Devlyn?"

"I don't know."

Her heart sank. "Oh," she said flatly.

"I don't know what to believe," he continued, "and if you're trying to help, I think you're going about it in completely the wrong way."

This was getting kind of turned around, Ashlyn thought. "But you stayed," she said. "You stayed with me and didn't betray me to FLD, even though you could have. That's gotta count for something, right?"

He smiled, but it was a sad smile. "I hope so."

Ashlyn's heart twisted. "I think it counts for a lot," she said softly.

Vargo shifted, glanced at her as he exhaled smoke through his nose, reminding her of one of the Dark Dragons from the Eastern Canyon. "That's all that matters, then," he replied, sounding nonchalant.

There was a knock at the door. They both jumped.

"It's me," Kou's voice came through the door, slightly muffled. "Time to leave."

Their dilemma hit Ashlyn shortly after Kou's words registered. She looked at Vargo, trying to think of a way to solve it. Obviously it wouldn't do them any good to tie him up again- and he certainly couldn't go with them to Toryn.

There was another knock. "Are you there?" Kou asked, sounding suspicious.

"Yes," Ashlyn said, finding her voice. She stood, acutely aware that Vargo had gotten to his feet as well and was stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray on the bureau. "Give me five minutes, I'll be right out. Keep watch at the stairwell."

Silence. Then, "Five minutes. No longer."

Turning to Vargo, she lowered her voice. "I don't know what to do with you."

He merely stared at her, allowing her to decide for herself.

Ashlyn shook her head as she considered the options, idly twirling the baton in her hand. "I can't stop you from going to Skye," she said.

"Not without killing me," he said. His words were softened by a devilish smile, confident and charismatic.

Heart in her throat, Ashlyn took a step forward, dropping her gaze to the floor. If she wanted to, she could have reached out and touch him. This close, she could feel his warmth, imagine his heartbeat speeding to keep time with hers.

"I can't take you with me either," she said, her voice low. "I want to, but…"

"I couldn't go with you if you asked," he replied.

"I'm sorry, Vargo."

He reached out a hand and tipped her chin up. "Sorry for what?" he said, and his voice was husky, sending flutters up and down her spine. His hand drifted from her chin to her hair, sliding through the thick strands easily.

"I can't…" Less than half a step, and she was there, against him so closely that she could feel every breath as if it were her own. Ashlyn's right hand came up of its own accord, fisting itself in his suit jacket. "I can't find the words," she muttered.

Her frustration must have shown on her face, because Vargo frowned comically before his lips curved in a smile. "I know what you mean," he said, just before he kissed her.

Ashlyn closed her eyes, savoring his mouth moving over hers, better than she'd anticipated and more than she'd expected. She considered losing herself in his arms, forgetting all about Kou, FLD and Toryn and trying to convince him to run away with her. It wasn't an outrageous idea; Vargo had some feelings for her and probably wouldn't say no to a road trip with a princess. He could kiss her every night and she could (somehow) figure out how to cook and they could live happily ever after.

But…no. This wasn't a fairy tale, and Vargo definitely wasn't a prince.

She raised her hand and struck him once, at the base of his skull, the blow landing precisely where she'd intended it to despite the awkward angle of attack. Vargo gasped into her mouth, then slumped, his hands loosening on her shoulders as he fell against her. Ashlyn backpedaled desperately, trying to support his weight and keep herself upright as well. He finally ended up on the floor half on top of her, and as she extracted herself from beneath him and rolled him over onto his back, his head lolled to the side, his perfect features slack. His wild hair spilled onto the hardwood floor like blood-colored silk.

She checked his pulse. Strong.

"I'm sorry," she said again, brushing her fingertips across his jaw as she stood and walked to the door, heaving the satchel over her shoulder as she did. Road trips and fairy tale endings would have to wait.

Ah, heck. She and Vargo probably would have killed each other in the first week anyway.

The hallway was dark. She had left the lantern in the room.

"I'm ready," she said to Kou. "Let's get out of here."

Chapter 10

Name Game

Indecisiveness was one of Ashlyn Li's lesser-known traits.

(It's true.
Lesser-known…and yet entirely prevalent in her personality. Ever since the day that nine-year old Ashlyn had sliced her arm open on her mother's shuriken and her father had totally blown his top and run around in frantic, lopsided circles while she bled all over her kimono, she'd had her suspicions that indecisiveness ran thick in the Li bloodline.)

Indecisiveness came with a few fringe benefits, too. Tendencies towards annoying habits like procrastination, ambivalence and an inherent clueless air were all qualities that
Ashlyn possessed. This, of course, was pure speculation. But Ashlyn saw it as her excuse for being so damn confused all the time.

Kissing
Vargo was no exception. It was a trick. A ruse. She had concocted a plan, and carried it out with perfect precision.

It was a
lie,
she told herself firmly. It was a freaking
lie!

Ashlyn
raised her hand, touching her fingers to her lips, noting the way her breath fanned out around her fingers in the cold air.

This wasn't the first time her play-acting had backfired on her.
Ashlyn was a good actress, but there'd always been drawbacks to her pretensions. Before her eight-year isolation, when she'd been scouring the earth for stanes and had joined up with Skye and his friends, it had been an intentional deception. The only reason she had decided to travel with them was so she could steal their stanes at the first opportunity.

But after a while, it hadn't seemed like a deception, you know? She'd started to
like
everyone, from Restlyn to Aik to Jackson to Skye, and of course Aaron, who had become almost like a father to her in those weeks. It was hard to travel with people and pretend to care about them without letting the ruse become real.

Still, it creeped
Ashlyn out that her lame-o seduction had started to crumble even her own defenses. Vargo had obviously bought it, hadn't given a second thought as to why she would make a sudden turnaround in her feelings towards him. She'd expected that. What she hadn't expected was the jolt of electricity that had run through her at the first touch of his lips, not to mention the sudden and totally
ridiculous
urge to completely give up her mission to gallivant across Kresmir! With
him!

Ew
. Just…ew. She scowled. The original plan had been to lure him in close to her with her pitiful little I'm-so-torn-between-you-and-my-destiny ploy, then hit him with the baton. No making out whatsoever. No lips, no hands, no physical contact of any kind.

But when he'd been there, staring at her with those gorgeous green eyes like he was starving and she was a seven-course meal…which, to be honest, hadn't happened all that often in her twenty-three years so its impact was magnified by a freaking
bajillion
times…suddenly kissing Vargo hadn't seemed like such a bad idea. And it had been pretty darn enjoyable- while it lasted.

The
knowledge
that she'd kissed Vargo, two minutes later, standing in the rain and feeling like she was about to spew the contents of her stomach all over the grass, made Ashlyn want to scrub her mouth out with steel wool and gargle with bleach.

In the past few days, she'd maybe (subconsciously, of course, because no way would it be a conscious thought, or even, like, an idea that surfaced in her mind as a plausible happening even
once
) pondered a brief interlude with the red-haired Spartan. Maybe she hadn't even considered it. Maybe she'd…just…imagined the possibility of having an affair with him. In an alternate universe. Or something.

All right, all right, so she hadn't ruled out the idea of messing around with
Vargo. She was
twenty-three
, for crying out loud, and he was obviously interested in her and not completely revolting, despite her aforementioned urge to heave, so what normal red-blooded woman
wouldn't
have a fantasy or two?

Heh.
Riiight.

She seriously did feel like she was going to puke. And that was just after
kissing
him. If this was what happened every time he touched her, then a relationship was definitely not in the cards. Ashlyn wasn't about to spend the rest of her life barfing her guts out after every smooch session.

"Lady Li
," Kou said from beside her, and Ashlyn started out of her reverie.

"What?" she said, staring blankly at him and trying to remember what she was supposed to be
doing.

He gave her a strange look. "Are you ill?"

Totally. "No. I…no. Are you ready?" He was leading Suki by the reins, and had apparently managed to get his hands on an old saddle. Ashlyn twisted her hair into an untidy knot at the nape of her neck, wondering where the other horse had disappeared to.