He never did.
Because nothing mattered a Dragon damn when he sank into her soft, eager body. Whether she realized the influence she had over him was another matter. She was willing every time. She initiated many of their encounters, and when she hadn’t, she rose to the challenge of meeting him at the edge of passion and violence. A trio of fresh scratch marks across his shoulder had yet to heal.
And, unexpectedly, as soon as they’d landed in Edinburgh, she had become . . . lighter.
“You’re smiling again,” he said.
“Is that a bad thing?”
Tallis shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his leather jacket. “No. Just wondered why. You don’t seem as wary.”
Her grin deepened. “If you’d spent most of your life waiting for an intruder to thrust into your mind and play, or for a mad sibling to track you down, wouldn’t it be a relief to be here?” She lifted her chin and aimed her tiger- eyed gaze down the valley. “There isn’t another Indranan for at least six hundred kilometers.”
“You can tell?”
“A little. It’s just a guess.” Her brows furrowed. “The Townsends, I think.”
“In London. Yes, I know of them. They control anything to do with the lives of Dragon Kings in southern England. I spent a lot of time in England before it became too rife with cartel types looking for Cage warriors.” He joined Kavya in looking over the misty, gray-green swoop of land. “Tell me, if you’d been raised here, would fighting in a Cage hold any appeal?”
“Maybe. If I could be guaranteed a child. But that’s the problem. If I bore children, I’d turn into my mother. Every day we drew nearer to twelve, the more haggard and frantic she became. Mood swings. Terrible rants and screaming fits.”
Tallis turned in time to see her swallow and push a tear back from her eye. She was smiling more often, which made seeing her cry even more unsettling. He didn’t want to see her cry any more than he wanted to wield a sword on her behalf. None of what he did for Kavya was in obvious service to his own goals: to find out who had poisoned his dreams, and keep that individual from success.
Reality didn’t alter, however. He’d returned to Scotland because of Kavya.
He pulled her into his arms. His chin fit just atop her head. “Can you explain it to me?”
“Remember what I said about how Indranan marry,” she said, her voice muffled by the folds of his jacket. “She and my father were linked. He had to make a choice: go mad right along with her, or sever the connection and try to prevent violence between Pashkah, Baile, and me.”
“What did he choose?”
“To break their link of twenty-six years. She was insane within days. Not that it did my father much good either. He just . . . stopped being. Once Baile was dead, Pashkah put his sword to other uses. The blood of more than one family member colors its blade.” She shuddered. “I’d already fled. I hated Pashkah. I hated the Indranan way. But I was glad my parents were out of their misery. In all ways that matter, they died as soon as they’d severed.”
Tallis regretted that their conversation had taken her from carefree smiles to the darkest possible memories. He should’ve left it alone. On some sick, self-flagellating level, he’d wanted to know if he was the inspiration for her new, relaxed humor. No, she’d been smiling because Scotland was an escape from lunatics, freak snowstorms, and slum alleyways.
She was weeping because of his questions.
Leave her alone?
Impossible. He didn’t want her to cry. He held her tighter and smelled jasmine as her hair tickled his mouth and nose. Their lives had been woven together, probably since the beginning of his dreams. Yet the woman he held was not the source of the visions he now considered nightmares—visions he hadn’t experienced since that last dream by the Beas River.
That . . . entity had been gone. For weeks.
Had Kavya driven her away? Or had that been Tallis’s choice, thrusting her out of his subconscious when he’d learned the difference?
“Here, look.” Tallis gently disengaged and urged her to turn back toward the valley. He stood behind her and crossed his arms around her upper body. She leaned her head back against his chest, which pierced new perforations in the armor of isolation he’d worn for years. He’d wake up one morning and realize she’d disintegrated the leather and metal and hard, stubborn memories. He didn’t know if his heart sped out of alarm or anticipation.
“Down there,” he said, pointing toward the end of the valley. “Can you see where the land meets the sea?” He took her hands in his and held them so that her knuckles were perfectly aligned mountain peaks.
She took a deep breath. “No, I can’t. The fog has it. Don’t tell me you can.”
“Not at all.” He breathed the mist-laden air. The scent of being home—that was a stronger memory than he’d imagined, whisking him back to the moment when he’d become the Heretic. He concentrated on his story, distracting them both from so much that was wrong. “The place where the land meets the sea is sometimes crisp, defined. On clear days, it’s almost too bright to look at—that beauty. Days like this, however, are considered sacred. The place where the land and sea blend into one is like the end of a rainbow. Neither is stronger than the other. You can’t see it or touch it or even describe it. But it’s there.”
“Sacred.”
“And in that mist is a boulder formation that resembles the ancient humans’ fertility goddess, only she bears hallmarks of the Dragon. She’s our interpretation. I know other clans believe the Dragon male, but not us. The boulder is called the Mother. She’s the heart and soul of the Pendray, and what was once my center.” He inhaled another breath of home. “But were we ever satisfied with the center? Of course not. Pendray have been racing toward misty, unreachable places for longer than history. It’s taken us across the water, made us people of hills and waves. Both. Always both.”
“The beast and the man. Both.”
Tallis closed his eyes, knowing he had to let her go or he’d pledge himself to more than her safety.
“We have some walking to do if we want to reach the estate by nightfall.” He shouldered his pack—a new duffel they’d bought in Istanbul, along with clothes more suited to English tourists. Kavya even wore jeans, a loose-fitting cowl-neck sweater, hiking boots, and a red wool coat that reached mid-calf. Zippered pockets on either side of the duffel held his seaxes.
Kavya followed. She was quiet, as was he, perhaps knowing they’d each said too much. They’d been saying too much for weeks.
Afternoon bled into twilight. He’d almost hoped he wouldn’t remember the way. That would mean “home” was purged from his mind and his heart, and he could leave when the time came. Instead he was a carrier pigeon on a cross-country flight toward the place of his birth. Many Dragon Kings had abandoned the stately castles that had once been their domain. Yet Tallis’s family was proud, holding on to old traditions to the very end.
“There,” he said—the first word he’d spoken in hours. He and Kavya didn’t share thoughts, but they’d become very good at sharing silences. “Do you see it?”
He pointed to a far hill where shadow rested atop shadow. Even the air there was darker than its environs.
Castle Clannarah, the local humans had named it. Tallis only knew it as home.
Kavya’s gasp came before he felt the presence of another being. Tallis swiveled on his heel and found her held at knifepoint by a beautiful woman whose face had been worn weary by the years.
“Hello, Rill.” His heart beat without any regard for how calm he needed to remain. “It’s been a long time.”
“Tallis?” Kavya’s eyes widened as the knife against her throat pressed deeper.
“Don’t worry,” he said, stepping closer, never breaking eye contact with the older woman. “My sister won’t hurt you.”
—
