Daybreak (16 page)
The hands that had held her in place tugged her up and off. Pen only smiled, then wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “You taste good.”
Tru growled as she climbed astride his lean hips. The shaggy length of his hair fanned over the dark blanket. Just the barest grace of morning light bathed his skin in a rosy glow. People thought she was a goddess. But Tru . . . he was as divine as a man could appear, all sleek features and powerful limbs. Preternaturally beautiful. Clear blue eyes watched her with unblinking intensity, as if he might regard her the same way.
His hands molded along her waist, then smoothed up over her ribs before cupping her breasts. He idly flicked her nipples with his thumbs. Hard and ready, his prick nestled flat between her wet lips. He thrust gently, rubbing, teasing.
“I’ve never ridden anyone,” she confessed. “I’ve never taken what I need. You make me want to.”
She
was
taking. The fact he still languished behind a foggy curtain of sleep should’ve made her back off. He could wake up and leave—the inevitable. But her throat was tight. Her breath came in quiet, truncated gasps. This wasn’t going to end until she knew exactly what she’d been missing.
was
taking. The fact he still languished behind a foggy curtain of sleep should’ve made her back off. He could wake up and leave—the inevitable. But her throat was tight. Her breath came in quiet, truncated gasps. This wasn’t going to end until she knew exactly what she’d been missing.
Just a dream to him. Just a dream to them both. She felt hazy and groggy, high on her arousal and dimmed by the blanket of magic she’d laid over their conscious minds.
Pen lifted her hips, enough for Tru to position his thick, hard head at her opening. She sank down with a long groan, one he matched. At first she set a languid pace. She could feel each ridge of his cock as he pushed in, drew out, pushed in again. But the greediness she’d held back refused to wait any longer. Bracing her hands on his chest, she worked him harder, gaining speed and power.
Tru wrapped his forearms around her lower back. He bowed her body down over his until their chests pressed flush. His breath heated her neck.
The shaking tremor sprang from deep in her belly. Rich and full, her climax built until she became mindless for it, striving, taking Tru for all he’d give.
He clamped his hand over her mouth when she screamed.
Hard waves swirled her into a thick blackness, dragged under by a pleasure she’d never known. Dimly, she realized when Tru tensed, and she rolled away. His hot release spilled against her thigh. They breathed in tandem. The echoes of their gasps filled the hut.
Pen collapsed against his slack body. She nuzzled his neck as he drew her closer. A sigh of contentment—content on so many levels—eased out of her lungs.
And she knew exactly when her magic slipped.
Tru tensed. The hands idly stroking her back went still. He grabbed her upper arms and shoved her up.
“What the
fuck
did you do to me?”
fuck
did you do to me?”
SIXTEEN
She witched me.
Tru scrambled from the pallet and grabbed for his clothes. The faintest creep of light signaled dawn’s slow approach. Outside, torches crackled some distance away. He smelled the animal fat, but the torches weren’t enough to brighten the tight darkness in the hut. Better that way.
Pen’s silence felt like an admission of guilt. And that stung like hell. He’d trusted her not to encroach. Not to disrespect his boundaries. Not to
take
what he chose not to give.
take
what he chose not to give.
“Nothing,” she said, but it was too late. She seemed to realize it, for she amended, “Not on purpose—”
“I don’t care. Give Adrian my best, will you?”
Leaving the boy bothered him more than a little. The kid would feel abandoned . . . but better now than later. At least they had found safe refuge for him. Adrian would make new friends and fit in. Nothing to worry about. Saint Penelope would sort out any problems quick enough.
He packed fast because he was good at it. In the past ten years, since leaving Jenna and Mason’s cabin, there had been only one place where he’d lingered for longer than a few weeks. That was the problem with this kind of sex. It came with unwanted emotional crap. He didn’t need memories bobbing in his brain like deadwood swept up in a churning river.
“I don’t have any regrets,” she whispered.
Maybe he wasn’t supposed to hear it, so he pretended he didn’t. Tru shouldered his pack and pushed out of the tent into the darkness just before sunrise. A few people were already stirring, headed for the galley. He’d bet they ate a lot of seafood here, courtesy of the retrofitted fishing boats. With purpose to his step, he set off toward the dock, taking care not to draw undue attention.
An old guy slept at the bottom of a small boat. He stirred at Tru’s approach. “You’re later than Arturi said you’d be.”
Tru shook his head, sure he’d heard wrong. “What?”
“I expected you last night,” the man went on. “You oversleep? I’m Burke, by the way.”
Scraggly bits of hair grew around the dome of his head, like a ragged tonsure. Though only a few teeth remained, he showed them off with a cheerful, uninhibited smile.
Between the hour and his mood, Tru really didn’t have the patience. He curled his hand into a fist and decided not to play head games. “I just need a ride to the mainland.”
The boatman sighed in exasperation. “I
know
. Just get in already, before the tide goes again. It’s come and gone already. I was starting to think Arturi might be wrong about you, but you know he never is.”
know
. Just get in already, before the tide goes again. It’s come and gone already. I was starting to think Arturi might be wrong about you, but you know he never is.”
What the—?
Choking the inevitable question that the cagey bastard doubtless hoped to provoke, Tru hopped into the craft. Burke raised the sail and trimmed the lines, doing whatever he needed to ease the boat out to the dark water. Tru’s inner lion rumbled with discomfort. Those instincts didn’t like the open sea and asked when the hell he’d get back where they belonged.
We’ve come too far east. We were better off in the plains.
Plenty of hunting and grasslands there, but the winters were deadly. Still, he’d worry about that when the time came. Plenty of time until the big chill.
Plenty of hunting and grasslands there, but the winters were deadly. Still, he’d worry about that when the time came. Plenty of time until the big chill.
While he adjusted the sails and lines to wind and current, the old man rambled on about the miraculous nature of what Arturi and his fine wife, Zhara, were doing on the island. How proud Burke was to do his part. For a brief moment Tru considered shoving his escort over the side, but since he didn’t know how far they were from shore, he took that to be a bad idea. The lion agreed, so he gritted his teeth and sat quietly.
Hoping to aim the man’s conversation in a new direction, he asked, “How can they be married? I haven’t seen a priest in years.”
“They said their vows in the new church, boy.”
“The what?”
“Didn’t you meet Preacher?”
Tru badly wanted to tip his head back and shut his eyes, but that would only unsettle the lion, unable to see anything, feeling only the slosh of the waves. Bad idea to provoke a big cat. So he stared at the old man. “I wasn’t in camp long.”
An evasion, sure. At that he was world-class.
“I guess. You can’t miss him. Big son of a gun with wild red hair and beard halfway down his chest.”
“Sounds like a charmer.”
The old man laughed as if Tru hadn’t spoken in an arid tone. “Not sure I’d describe him that way myself, but he’s got a big heart. Arturi draws that sort, like your lady friend.”
Tru’s nerves tightened, but he ignored the reference to Pen. “So what’s this about a new church?”
That should be a safe subject. Keep Burke from gushing such praise over Arturi. For a man like him to end up with a woman like Zhara, he had to be the fastest-talking motherfucker in the world. On those merits alone, he couldn’t be trusted.
And you left Pen there, her and Adrian, at his mercy.
The guilt, too, he ignored.
“The Church of the Change?” Burke asked, as if new faiths had sprung up like ragweed.
“Uh-huh.” Middle of the water, angry lion in his head—anything more civil was beyond him.
“It sprung up about five years ago, I guess. Services have some old words and some new ones. Mostly it’s about helping each other and spreading hope around. It’d do you good to listen one morning.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“There’s a mission on the coast here, if you’re curious.”
“Oh, yeah?” His tone said,
Who fucking cares?
Who fucking cares?
The old man reached for his hand and shook it. His finger palsied against Tru’s palm. Then he pointed. “Sure. Eight kilometers from here as the crow flies.”
Finally they drew close enough to shore that the ferryman stopped rowing. “You’ll swim from here. I won’t risk beaching her.”
With muttered thanks, Tru hopped over the side, hoping the frigid water wasn’t too deep. He could swim but didn’t care to pit himself against the ocean. Fortunately, he found his footing and slogged to shore. His pack would need airing, provided he could find someplace to hang his things. At least the weather was warm enough.
He trudged out of the water onto the damp, sandy beach, a desolate stretch of ocean. Driftwood made monstrous shapes in the dawn darkness, but they didn’t unnerve him. He’d been alone for almost half his life.
Briefly, he considered shifting, but it wasn’t wise to do so this far from good game hunting. He needed to push inland before risking that, where he was more likely to find prey other than seabirds. Animals in flight really pissed off the lion—and there was nothing quite so pathetic as a lion roaring on a beach because his dinner squawked twenty meters overhead. So he flung his pack over one shoulder and set off.
Four days later, he’d changed twice. Slept a lot. Eaten plenty. Run a lot of hours with his pack in his teeth, which was faintly absurd. The Change had culled the hell out of the country. Now the wide-open spaces were just that—a brave new frontier for anybody crazy enough to go exploring.
During his travels, he’d occasionally wondered what the rest of the world was like. How long before someone perfected a spell to talk to people in the Far East, to see about the damage there? Sometimes the Change was incredible because everything was brand-new. The only way to learn came through trial and error. Since Tru had always preferred reading poetry to educational texts in school, he didn’t mind.
Living with the errors, however . . . That took a different sort of determination.
Nightfall found him in human skin, which was unlike him. Until he came upon the mission, he hadn’t known why he was walking on two legs. He hadn’t consciously made the decision, but he admitted to curiosity.
Let’s call it that, anyway.
At one time the mission had been a church, the kind that serviced a whole county. It had half fallen down, shored up with primitive construction. A schizophrenic structure—part old world, part new. Salvaged parts were strewn across the yard. The place teemed with activity. He drew up short, watching young women bustle around. From the smell, he guessed they were making soap.
“Are you here for shelter or to help, son?” A motherly woman hobbled toward him with a welcoming smile.
Iron-gray hair wrapped around her head in an impressive coronet of braids, and her face showed more evidence of smiles than frowns. She wore the same homespun he did, perhaps courtesy of the island camp. He supposed that made her take him for one of Arturi’s followers.
Tru had no explanation for his reply. It just came out—as crazy as four days in the wild that had offered no peace, only a discontented buzzing and memories of Penelope Sheehan.
“To help.”
“That’s excellent. You look like a strong lad.”
It had been a long-ass time since anyone talked to him with instant trust and acceptance. He didn’t show teeth or let the lion slip. Not even a little. Instead he followed the woman. From what Tru could tell, mostly kids and this lone woman ran the place. No weapons. No sentry. No guards. How could it possibly survive?
“What
is
this place?”
is
this place?”
“The Children’s Mission, of course.”
Yeah, he’d gotten that much from the garrulous old man. What he didn’t know was what they did . . . or why. She must have surmised his confusion, for she went on: “We’re farmers mostly, allied with Arturi. Close enough for trade.”
He supposed that was necessary. “So you send supplies back and forth?”
“And we keep a watch on O’Malley’s people.” She spat in the dirt as if the name left a bad taste in her mouth. “We have scouts, though they don’t look like much. Our girls are good at going unseen.”
“You’ve only women here?”
Dear God.
If the general’s men ever got wind of this place, they’d raid the hell out of it and burn it to the ground. The young ones would be worth big money. Tru felt sick.
If the general’s men ever got wind of this place, they’d raid the hell out of it and burn it to the ground. The young ones would be worth big money. Tru felt sick.
She shook her head. “No, not all, though most of the boys are young yet. I suppose it’d be most accurate to say we’re an orphanage, though that doesn’t encompass the width and breadth of it.”
Boys, too. Shit.
Clearly, he was here for a reason. They needed protection. And the idea of so many vulnerable kids made him crazed—tapping into an old, lost part of his heart.
Clearly, he was here for a reason. They needed protection. And the idea of so many vulnerable kids made him crazed—tapping into an old, lost part of his heart.
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