The mists evaporated until she peered beyond the physical world to find Pashkah silhouetted against a grouping of evergreens on the outskirts of the village. He seethed with rejection. For a moment he’d been calm, as if made so by a higher power. He’d spoken reverently of the Dragon, but that calm was quickly overpowered by the violence she’d feared since childhood. Around him in the trees gathered more Guardsmen than she could count.
Pashkah pierced psychic fingers through her skull, as if her brain was being touched, handled, turned over between careless hands. Kavya swallowed a thick glob of bile as she kept from vomiting. It was the worst sort of vertigo.
The only name—the only word—that would pull her free of hell.
Warm lips crushed against hers. He tasted of the snow. Strong hands framed her face. Tallis gave her a little shake, then pushed his tongue into her mouth. Kavya wound her forearms around his neck and dragged him closer. She opened her eyes. The snow had salted his silver-flecked hair and the winds had tangled it into a wild mass. He would never be anything but a wild creature, no matter the trappings of his human clothes and world- weary ways. Men with sharp minds became jaded. Men with instincts and a connection to the base power of their animal selves—they thrived, leaving sharp minds behind in favor of sharp claws.
And sharp teeth.
He nipped her lower lip. Kavya yipped and pulled sharply away. Their arms, however, were still entwined around wind-chilled bodies.
“There you are.” His voice was a childish tease, which didn’t obscure the worry deep beneath his usual sarcasm. “Status report, please.”
“Other side of town. He’s crazier than I thought. At least twenty guards.” She shut her eyes and gripped Tallis harder, stemming another tide of vertigo. “He played with my brain like tossing a ball.”
“Any Tracker?”
“Don’t know. Couldn’t tell when I was fighting him off. He . . . Tallis, he’s vicious. He might not need one anymore.” She nodded toward the hangar door. “You going to help me steal a plane? Or a helicopter? Or a Dragon-damned hang glider?”
“You keep making this more interesting. Is that your real skill?”
“Hobbies, remember? It certainly isn’t sex.”
His expression was reward enough for being bold. Blue eyes could burn like fire, even in a white squall. She had proof when Tallis looked at her as if the rest of the world could go to hell, if only the Dragon granted them a night together. “I think you need a new hobby. Soon.”
She briefly touched his face. They had time for nothing more than an exchange of heat from skin to chilled skin. “Don’t you know? I already have my eye on one. Extreme mountain aviation.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
A prickle of urgency climbed the hairs along Tallis’s forearms. He could’ve attributed the sensation to yet another spray of snow and lick of wind. With Kavya at his side, however, that wasn’t likely. Her gift was beyond his comprehension and beyond his senses—or it should’ve been. Instead he’d known when her distress had reached its height, when he’d needed to drag her back to the physical.
When he’d needed to kiss her.
That was becoming more frequent.
But this was trouble. Pashkah wasn’t up the pass somewhere, creeping through the white-out conditions of the Valley of the Gods. The man was single-minded. There would be no broken-down buses and feeling through the snow for an inn. Not for Pashkah.
Tallis used to think of himself as a professional of sorts. He had a job to do, no matter that his occupation paid nothing. Its benefits package included ostracizing him from each of the Five Clans, as well as occasional visits from a feminine entity that seduced him into thinking the sacrifices were worthwhile.
Yet that odd, misguided professionalism had been a point of pride. He discredited, upended, maimed, and, on occasion, killed. He sliced malfunctioning systems into pieces, at one point believing the Great Dragon actually blessed the deeds, and that the Dragon Kings would eventually thank him for his surgical rage. They’d demonize him, but they’d thank him for doing what no one else could.
Pashkah seemed to be under that same delusion. It looked more pompous and ridiculous when someone else wore that cloak.
Besides, Tallis had an ally now.
She was sexy as hell and even crazier than Tallis. After all, Kavya was the one who barged into a hangar and starting pulling tarps off vehicles. She assessed the machines with what appeared to be an eye for their soundness—not that he believed any vehicle could be considered sound in these conditions. They were sheltered by the hangar, but the storm sounded like a dozen growling bears, each of them with a different grudge.
He sheathed one of his seaxes and glanced down at the lock he’d split. “I can feel him, can’t I? That . . . pressure? I don’t know what else to call it. In the valley, when people were curious but peaceful, it was nothing but a friendly tap. Just checking me out. This . . .
Kavya flipped on a glaring overhead fluorescent light. The unnatural brightness bleached her skin and added shadows to the hollows of the cheeks. She rewound her chocolate hair. “It’s not pressure for me. He’s beating me across the back of the skull. Soon you’ll be back to having psychic shocks shoved down your spine.”
“I didn’t like that,” Tallis said. “Think I’ll pass.”
“What, go for full berserker from the start?” She nodded to a corner filled with stuffed burlap sacks. “Use it as ballast. If we manage to take off, we’ll need the weight to fight the wind. I’ll find fuel.”
“So bossy,” he said, doing as she’d commanded. Self-preservation trumped pride. “Besides, a berserker needs to be provoked. Not zero-to-crazy. This is good, though. I feel like we’re making real cultural strides, you and I. One day I can talk to others about the Indranan and their capacity for distraction—”
She shot him a nasty scowl, although a blush brightened her cheeks.
“—and you can espouse how sensible the stubborn, uncouth Pendray can be.”
“Sensible? That’s not the first word I’d choose.”
“As long as you don’t use it to describe what you’re planning, I don’t care what you do.” He crossed his arms as she opened the door to a battered four-seater Cessna. “I take that back. I care to avoid getting in that thing.”
“Open the hangar bay and get in. You’re the pilot, remember? Just be prepared to listen to my navigation very, very well.”
The utterly frigid metal of the hangar’s wide sheet metal door stuck to his palms as if coated with glue. He shook free of its unnatural grip and looked down to find a strip of abraded skin across each palm. The wind struck him as it whipped through the open hangar. “It’s amazing you didn’t badger your followers into compliance.”
“Don’t start.”
Tallis jogged across the hangar, stowed his weapons in the scant space among the burlap ballast behind the passenger seat, and climbed in. Kavya quickly followed as he buckled up. “This
“Your nickname should be Faithless. Heretics have to believe in something contrary to the common canon. You don’t believe in anything.” With a flick of the controls, Kavya turned on the Cessna’s safety lights. “Let’s dare the Dragon, right here in the foothills of where our Creator was born and died. See if you’re a heretic or a nihilist. In four minutes, you’ll be full berserker and fending off my brother again, or you’ll be praying like you’ve never prayed before.” She grinned. “Maybe both.”
“When did you become so obviously insane? Forget Masks. This is all you, Kavya.”
