Through the Veil (11 page)

Both laughter and screaming would only make her head worse—and if it got much worse, Lee suspected her head would split in two.

“Aye,” he replied, his voice just as level and so soft it only hurt her ears a little. “It is really happening. How does your head feel?”

“Terrible.”

He sat up, tossing his hair out of his face and propping his elbow on his knee, resting his chin in the cradle of his palm as he studied her. “You could have hurt yourself,” he finally said.

Touching her fingers to her temple, she muttered, “I think I did.”

He laughed. He reached out and stroked a finger down her temple. “That is just a headache. A bad one, I imagine, but it is a headache. I’ve seen people send themselves into comas because they pushed themselves too far with their magick.”

The noise that left her was little more than a squeak. Clearing her throat, she said, “Muh-magick?”

Kalen made a tiny noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Well, it was not puffy white clouds drifting from your hands yesterday. Yes, pet. Magick.”

Lee shook her head. “Magick isn’t real.” She licked her lips as she said it, and wondered why those words felt so . . . wrong.

“I think you know it is.”

Thinking made the pain in her head worse, she decided as she squinted at him. “You are confusing the hell out of me.”

He leaned forward and she found her eyes lingering on the bulge of muscle in his arm. Another memory surfaced. His hands on her body. His mouth on hers. She had kissed him, had wrapped herself around his body like she wanted to crawl inside him. And he’d kissed her back with the same hunger. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she dragged her eyes away from his muscles, forcing herself to focus on his eyes. But the dancing light there had her groaning. He knew, exactly, what thoughts were running through her mind.

Gingerly, she rolled onto her belly and buried her head in her arms. Even that was enough to make that bright, throbbing pain double in intensity. She moaned her way through it and as the wave of pain peaked and then ebbed away, she muttered, “Why is this happening to me?”

His fingers, long and warm, came up to stroke down her neck, before he settled into a soothing massage. She could have whimpered as he worked the tense muscles until they felt about as loose as putty. “I have no answer to that. At least, none that I could explain. But you belong here. How you managed to get from our world to the one you call home and then back—I have no explanation.” A long moment of silence passed and he sighed. “But you have a great deal of power within you. The creatures from Anqar are attracted to power. Without strong protectors, a great many children with gifts like yours die before they even reach puberty. Die or are taken. So however you ended up in that world, it was a blessing.”

“What is Anqar?” she asked. But before he could answer, a flash of pain exploded behind her eyes and she had to stifle her whimper in the odd-feeling mattress beneath her. “Damn it, my head . . .”

“Roll over,” he ordered gently.

She resisted, and his hands came up and carefully, but forcefully, turned her onto her back. “This will help.” His voice sounded odd, tinny, as though he was speaking to her through a tunnel, as he touched his fingers to the middle of her brow. Almost instantly, cool, sweet relief started to ease the pain inside her head. After a few minutes passed and the pain had all but abated, Lee chanced opening one eye and looking up at him.

“Are
you
magick?” Touching her fingers to her brow, she felt something small and smooth against her skin, something disc-shaped. And to her touch, it felt cool.

“It’s medicine,” Kalen responded with a faint grin. “No magick needed. I should have not even waited until you woke. There is some tea you need to drink. It will settle the nausea in your belly, and help your strength to return faster.”

She closed her eyes, sighing blissfully, and murmured, “If it works as well as this, give me a gallon of it.”

Moments later, though, as he forced the cup back to her lips, she pressed against his wrist and snapped, “That tastes disgusting.” She would have thrown it, except he wouldn’t let her. The taste of it coated her tongue, seemed to cling to her throat. Sewer water would have tasted better. It was bitter, pungent, and there was a faint moldy taste to it, like something in it should have been pitched ages ago. He pushed it toward her again and she turned her head. “Get that crap away from me.”

Kalen arched a brow and said, “The sooner your energy comes back, the sooner those headaches will stop. That pain patch will not stop them forever.”

With a curl of her lip, she said, “I’ll just use the patches, thank you.”

Turning her head away, she started to lie back down, only to have him fist a hand in her hair and yank her head back. She gagged on the tea while he literally poured it down her throat. Choking on the vile stuff, Lee jerked against his hold. When he finally let go, she spat what remained in her mouth out at him, gasping and rubbing at her stinging eyes. “You jackass!” she shouted in between coughing fits.

“Next time, maybe you’ll drink it on your own,” he responded levelly.

“Next time, you can kiss my ass,” she wheezed out, snatching the cup of water he held out to her. At least, she hoped it was water. Water or cyanide. Right then, she couldn’t decide which she’d prefer. It was just water, though, cold and oddly sweet. She downed half of it before shoving the cup back at him and flopping down on the bed.

“I would be rather happy to.” A cold cloth wiped over her face, and her eyes flew open as she batted his hand away.

“Happy to what?” She rolled onto her belly and buried her face in the mattress. She would have cut her arm off before she admitted that the churning in her belly had eased.

He slid a hand down her back, and Lee tensed as that hand cupped the curve of her butt. His hair fell down around them when he bent over her, sliding along her bare arms as he murmured, “You suggested that next time I could kiss your ass.” Through her thin pajamas, she could feel the heat and strength of his hand on her there. He squeezed lightly, and she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from sighing a little. “I would be happy to.”

He nuzzled her neck, his warm breath drifting over her skin like a caress. An involuntary moan slipped past her lips. She tried to make up for it by tensing her entire body, but she felt limp and loose as putty. Fortunately, she did have a little control over her voice, even if her damn body had developed a mind of its own. “Leave me the hell alone,” she snapped, and she was pretty pleased that she managed to sound more like a shrewish bitch than a sex kitten.

Kalen laughed and slid his hand back up her body, his fingers trailing along the slope of her hip, the slight indentation of her spine, the curve of her breast. He brushed her hair away from her face and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I will . . . for now.”

“I think for the next fifty years would be better,” she mumbled. The nausea was completely gone, and the rest of the pain in her head had completely receded. The lack of pain didn’t make her mood improve, though. She could still taste that repulsive tea, and her face was still hot with embarrassment and irritation over the little trick he’d pulled, forcing that crap down her throat. Oddly enough, she would have been a little happier if she was still wracked with pain.

He cupped his hand over the back of her neck. “Feeling better?”

Obstinate, she lied. “No. I feel like hell.”

His finger tapped her nose and he whispered, “You are entirely too stubborn. Get some more sleep.”

Although she was exhausted, sleep was now the last thing on her mind. She wanted to stay awake, just because he had mentioned it. But only moments after he walked out, her lids started to droop.

Before she realized it, she was sleeping, a deep, dreamless sleep.

FOUR

Kalen barked out a series of orders to the small unit before him. Two of the members of that unit stood in the front, their eyes full of pride and purpose. The purpose reassured him, but the pride made him worry. They were so damn young— Kalen cut off that train of thought before it could go any further. Young, yes, but he’d been younger than the twins when he first started fighting. And the sad fact was that they were safer in his unit than they would be if he turned them away. They just would have sought out another resistance to join, if they lived through the journey.

He had heard the soft footsteps behind him, but he didn’t turn in Lee’s direction as he finished reminding the two younger men before him that this wasn’t a game, or a contest about who had the bigger dick.

“Lives are on the line here. We have to hold that line. No foolishness. No playing around. No antics. Just plant the plasma charges and get back here. It’s Morne’s job to stay there and monitor. Not yours. I don’t want any heroics or stupid acts of so-called bravery. I just want—”

“The charges planted and our asses back here before nightfall,” Dagon repeated, rolling his grass-green eyes as his brother pretended to at least look somber.

He didn’t like it, Kalen thought as he studied the brothers. Dais stood at his side in silence and Kalen slanted him a glance. The older man just smiled. They were ready. Or at least as ready as any of them could get.

It’s not that dangerous a job,
he told himself. The biggest danger this time of day was the charges themselves, and the twins were techno-wizards. They could handle a couple of charges. Finally, he blew out a sigh and said, “Go. Get on with it, and be careful.”

Dais clapped a hand on his shoulder and murmured, “Don’t worry so much, Kalen. They are smart, strong kids. They’ll be back, and soon.” He grabbed a pack from the floor and slung it over his shoulders. “Now I have a watch to finish. Lelia.” He nodded at Lee on his way out the door, but Lee never took her eyes from Kalen.

Behind Lee stood Meghan, a sixteen-year-old courier who had been running messages, supplies and weapons for the past two years. She was itching to get out on the battlefields, begging for Dais to take her on and get her battle ready. So far, Kalen had managed to avoid that, but it was only a matter of time.

“Thanks for showing her here, Meg,” he said dismissively before striding back over to his cluttered desk and dropping into the seat.

Meghan had already beat a fast retreat, leaving the door to bang closed behind her. Kalen looked back at Lee and decided she was still too damn pale to suit him, but time wasn’t exactly a luxury they could afford. If she was well enough to walk on her own two feet, he wasn’t going to waste his breath trying to talk her into resting a little more.

Lee’s gaze focused on the backs of the twins as they headed out. “Did I hear you right? Those two kids are going to set off some kind of bomb?”

Kalen blinked at her. The word “bomb” was a little antiquated, but the plasma charges did go boom, and then some. He glanced at the twins and said, “Yes. There’s a weak spot on the front line—every night a few more Raviners manage to slip across. So far, we’ve brought most of them down, but we have to do something to keep more from coming across.”

“They look like kids,” she said, her voice tight and rusty.

“They turned nineteen last week,” Kalen replied. The simmering guilt inside him went from a low-level burn to an all-out fire. It spread through him, festering, and made his mood go in a quick downward spiral. “By rights, yes, they should be out doing whatever young punks that age like to do. But their parents were killed in an attack five years ago. They want some blood.”

“So you send them out merrily to let them have it?”

Kalen arched a brow. “No. I send out well-trained soldiers and hope they can remember that they are soldiers now. That they don’t need to impress the others or do anything else besides the job. Better to dwell on that than their parents. That will just rub salt in the wound.”

“You think that’s a good enough reason to send kids out there?”

Kalen tried to remind himself that Lee really didn’t grasp what was going on. Not really. Too many of her memories of this world were still hidden. Still, he was pissed off. Did he like sending Dagon and Willim out there? It was a dangerous job. No. But he didn’t have too much choice. Most of his men weren’t that much older than the twins. “We’re fighting a war here, Lee,” he said. His eyes narrowed on her face and he took a step toward her. She didn’t back away. He lowered his head until they were nose to nose. “Those kids stopped being kids years ago. I’m not going to insult them by telling them they have no right to fight.”

He started to pace the tight confines of the war room, turning away from her, the guilt she made him feel. Yes. Dagon and Willim were kids. But war destroyed innocence. They would find a way to fight no matter what he did, and if he made sure they were trained, they had a better chance at surviving.

“We are at war, Lee. Whether you understand that or believe it, it’s just a fact. What should I do? Turn them away? And everybody else like them? These men and women are here fighting because they lost somebody. We’ve all lost something to Anqar, and if we don’t stand and fight back, we’ll lose even more.”