Blood Warrior

He kissed her, licked her bottom lip, delved inside to stroke his tongue over hers. She exhaled through her nose and sank more deeply into his attentions.

Only when he pulled back did she find the presence of mind to bring reality back into their room. “But that wasn’t us. Not here tonight. This was . . . Thank you, Tallis.”

“You thanked me in the laundry.”

“I meant it then, too.”

With a lopsided grin, he ran his hands through his hair. The motion lifted his arms, stretched his chest, bared the undeniable masculinity of his underarms. “Anytime, goddess. I’ve never been thanked for something so easy to give.”

“Easy? I don’t believe that.”

They held each other’s gaze in darkness shredded into strips by rainbow beams of light. “You probably shouldn’t, no. But the issue remains: What now? Morning will come and, as much as I hate to admit it, we can’t stay here for weeks and continue exploring each other until we’re half crazed.”

“Among the Pendray—does that crazed feeling wear off?”

“Let me ask you one in return. Among the Indranan—do the doors close again, barring off secrets?”

“No,” Kavya said carefully. “Minds open. For the rest of their lives.”

Tallis stood with a shrug. “There’s your answer.”

She shivered with the loss of his heat, and the implied knowledge that what had taken place between them would be how Pendray men and women . . . made love. Vicious and needy and daring. The prospect was exciting but intimidating. She had been a wild woman for a night. That didn’t mean she could be that person forever.

Forever. With Tallis.

She cleared her throat. “So what was this grand plan of yours? The one you said could wait for later?”

“We’ll need warmer clothes for you. And another moped if ours isn’t there in the morning. The airport’s some ways south?”

“About twenty minutes by the main roads. Why? You have someplace in mind?”

“I do.”

Kavya frowned. “Out with it, Tallis. I don’t want to play guessing games about something so important.”

“No matter what we decide about my dreams or your clan, Pashkah will come for you again. Isn’t that so?”

A shudder replaced the giddy, almost girlish joy she’d experienced with Tallis’s attention—and the hot-cold terrifying joy of realizing that she’d fallen in love with him.

But no. Pashkah. Always intruding. Always.

“Yes, he’ll always come for me.”

“Then you’re right. We’ll face him, but on our terms.”

“There can be no ‘our terms’ when we’re here. Even now, among six million people, his personal army could be fanning out through the streets and alleys. We may have accidentally picked a place that will take some time to find. But he has the Dragon-forged sword he stole from my parents, and he won’t stop.” She threw up her hands. “In that, I’m out of luck. I’ve never been part of a pod to share a sword with people who’d protect me.”

He turned and looked down at her, suddenly so calm and ethereally beautiful. “I have a Dragon-forged sword.”

Kavya’s heart leapt, only to be stilled by doubt and lit by a flicker of fury. “Don’t joke, Tallis. Not about that.”

“Especially not about that.”

“So tell me, where have you been hiding it?”

His grin was slow and sultry, like a cherry-red sun taking its time to rise in the east. “I think it’s time you visit Scotland.”

“No.”

“Yes. At my family estate.”

“But . . . you haven’t been back in twenty years. You’re the Heretic.” She joined him in standing and wrapped her arms around his trim waist. “A straight answer, now. What will it cost you to return there?”

He exhaled heavily. “All these years, I thought that if I truly wanted to, I could go back. Defend my actions. Stand trial, if I needed to. Face execution. Whatever the punishment, I’d at least be able to say good-bye to my family. At least I’d be home.”

“Staying away means never having to know for certain.”

“That’s right.” He retrieved one of his seaxes, then held it nearer to the window. A shaft of light made the steel gleam. He pressed her fingers against a circle in the hilt. “Do you feel where the metal’s raised? It’s a concealed gold inlay that can be removed in emergencies, like how pirates of old wore gold earrings to cover the cost of their burial. It hasn’t been an emergency until now. We have the means to get to Scotland. If you want that sword . . . If you . . .” He shrugged.

Kavya curled against his side on the bed and stared at the gleaming metal, at how right it looked when Tallis held it with such assurance. “If I what?”

“If you want my protection. That’s the only reason I’d be willing to return to a place that may never again be home.”

Yes, she loved him. And yes, he had a plan. She could see it burning out of him as if his golden skin had been lit by a thousand candles. But she needed to hear an answer to the question she could barely form. “Why for me?”

Tallis didn’t say anything. He only kissed her temple and settled his hand around the back of her neck, with his thumb gently caressing her nape.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tallis emerged from the taxi and looked out over the barren waste of a long, long valley. There was no end to it, just gray-green grass that faded into the fog-shrouded place where the land met the sea.

“It’s breathtaking,” Kavya said at his side, her words hushed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He didn’t want her to like his home. He didn’t want her to get any closer to him than she’d already become. Emerging from the wildness of the Pir Panjal was nothing compared to the bureaucratic and financial nightmare of flying into Edinburgh. Normally Tallis took the slow route. Borders weren’t borders when they were simply a set of coordinates on a map that no one took notice of in an official capacity.

To fly? By commercial airline? That was completely different. Governments and companies. Security checks and the process of thoroughly exhausting Kavya as she threaded them through human physical and legal barricades. He’d promised that she’d never have to use mind control for selfish reasons—to have that feeling of prostituting herself. But she’d insisted. It was the fastest way to continue their escape from India. His seaxes would still be in Turkey if she hadn’t intervened. They would’ve been detained overnight in Hamburg without her ability to fuzz tiny details into nothing.

Much like the fog erased the details of a valley he used to know so well.

They had been together almost exclusively for more than three weeks. They’d been lovers for two of those three. And that was not the mental path to travel if he wanted to put distance between them. His defenses were so depleted. She could own him with a few choice words.

He had a few choice words of his own.

Stay away from bloody Scotland.

Keep running.