Surrender (THE DRAGONFLY CHRONICLES) (16 page)

Kailin pushed the bombardment of the same tiring questions aside as she hiked up the courtesy step and propped her foot in the stirrup.

“A lift?” Jackson’s gentle rumble sent her heart galloping and she concentrated on holding in her powers along with her breath. What would happen if she were incapacitated? Would her powers run amok or would they wilt along with her body if she fainted? She never had before, but it seemed the only way to restrain her magic was to restrain her breath which could lead to the inadvertent triggering of the experiment.

She inhaled tentatively, lifted herself into the lady’s sidesaddle, and arranged her riding gown around her booted legs. “No need, Mr. Black. I am schooled in camel riding. I did spend much of my childhood here.”

His hat tilted back as he looked up at her, a wisp of his hair peeking out along his forehead. “Would you care to lead the way then?”

She nodded crisply and glanced at the road toward the Valley of the Kings. It would take two days of riding to reach the spot she’d been entombed with Anthony long ago. Although she’d never returned, it had caught her attention through the years each time she passed nearby. The hole she’d blown apart was in fact on the edge of a slope leading down to the sometimes surging Nile. The original entrance to the tomb had collapsed and Anthony had managed to guide her in filling the hole that night after she’d calmed down. But the spot had been disturbed and still looked slightly sunken. Due to the churning, unstable inlet of water so close to the hole, no expedition had advanced in that particular area.

Anthony explained how there had been a rock slide that night caused by the force of the flood. He’d described to the British emissary how he’d fished Kailin from the flood waters. Her parents presumed dead and anonymous, he’d had little trouble adopting her when no family could be found.

Kailin breathed deeply as she tapped the camel with the leather-tipped rod. The animal started its slow sway out into the street like a heavy barge breaking free of the dock. Perching high on the camel’s hump provided a generous view of the narrow streets leading down toward the water where they’d moored the other day. Merchants, still wrapped in layers to guard against the morning chill, set out wares for the day.

Kailin glanced at the ascending orb. It wouldn’t take long before the chill burned away, leaving a baking heat. That was the way of the desert, extremes. Baking heat with the sun and bone-chilling cold with its lack.

She watched Jackson from the corner of her eye. He coaxed out the desert in her. She preferred the chill of aloofness, had grown accustomed to its numbing protection. Yet Jackson Black, with a deep stare, a caress of voice, the minute upturn of a wicked grin, could melt her ice, evaporating it into steam so that she became hot baked sand within his gaze.

Kailin touched the long scarf that held her wide-brimmed hat on top of her head. After leaving the curious eyes of civilization, she’d wrap the white gauzy material in the native fashion to keep out sun, sand, and any peripheral glances at the man who had become a torment to her calm civility. Instead she would continue to introspectively consider the serpentine questions about his motives as her eyes roamed the smooth landscape beyond the green flanking the Nile. The hotel luckily sat on the West Bank so there was no need to cross the wide waterway. They would head west and then south along the flood line of the Nile. The undiscovered tomb lay along a hill one day’s journey south.

Kailin glanced behind as they left the main street to head toward open countryside beyond the bustle of the town center. Would they be followed? Watched? Would those responsible for the asp seek to assassinate her as she rode toward the orb? Or would they wait for a more private moment? She could stop any weapon if she saw it coming. It was the unexpected that could kill her. Kailin held her breath and waited until her heart calmed. Her back stiffened as she turned forward. She wouldn’t let fear delay her. Perhaps it was good that Jackson came with her. Another set of watchful eyes could sway the line from death to life.

Jackson clicked to his mount and moved closer, his eyes scanning the hills in the distance before them. “A covered conveyance may have been a better idea.”

“I’ve yet to see a coach on expedition,” she said with a forced smile in her voice.

“I don’t like this,” he murmured. “It will be easier to protect you once we’re out in the countryside. It’s more difficult to hide on a desert.”

“Any ideas about who might not want me to proceed?”

Jackson was silent for a long moment. “There are radical groups who feel British discovery is akin to desecration of the dead.”

“Technically I suppose that is what we do,” she said, her eyes squinting back at the sun cresting the edge of the Nile beyond a series of low shacks.

“They attack any archeological expedition in order to stall and, as they see it, protect their long buried kings,” he added. “Every expedition must watch for these radicals.”

“Have they tried to end a particular life before the expedition even started? I have not heard reports of such deadly lengths.” She shook her head. “Perhaps they thought to just discourage me, scare me off.”

“With an asp under a well-made bed? No.”

Kailin huffed with an indignant twist to mask the chill that snapped along her shoulders. “Well I’m not dead and I’m not scared off.”

Jackson pulled his hat forward a bit to shade his eyes better. “No, you are most definitely alive.” She held her breath to hold her blush. “And the bravest woman I have ever known.”

She had to laugh at that. If he could see the goose bumps along her arms he might think differently. “Braver than your sister, risking ridicule and illness to attend a nest of vipers last night? I think not.”

His lips quirked into a gentle grin. “Cassy is more desperate for entertainment apart from dear Mrs. Pierce than she is brave. But yes, you two would do well together I think. Both brave and ready to face the world no matter what your perceived disadvantages.”

Kailin blinked. She certainly perceived her lack of control as a disadvantage but didn’t think anyone else who knew of her power would so. Did Jackson realize the length of her struggle, her exhaustion at times?

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Kailin said slowly. “What is the illness that plagues your sister?”

“Polio-
myelitis
, an illness that attacks the spinal system, causing paralysis. She contracted it last spring after our parents died back in the States from influenza. She seemed to recover but I think the shock of being on her own there weakened her greatly.”

Jackson said the words evenly, his gaze outward once more. Yet his jaw tensed, his stare crinkling a bit at the corners of his eyes. “You weren’t home, in the States, when your parents died and Cassy was sick?” she guessed.

His lips tightened in the hard set of his face. “No.”

“How did you hear?”

“By wire that they had died, but I didn’t know Cassy was sick until Mrs. Pierce sent word that her heart had become so weak and she could no longer walk. It was the first I’d heard of her illness.”

“Yet you blame yourself,” Kailin said beneath her breath.

“I should have known she could not stand alone without my parents. She was barely older than a child, orphaned. I am her only family.”

“You went to her.”

He nodded and touched the rim of his hat. “She was so weak by that time I feared she would die immediately. I stayed months, nursing her with Mrs. Pierce.”

“She grew stronger though, strong enough to make the voyage to Egypt.” Kailin paused. She studied Jackson’s profile as he stared straight ahead. “Why? Why bring her halfway across the world?”

Kailin brushed at her arm a half second before an iridescent blue dragonfly alighted on the knobby head of the camel. If the creature noticed, he didn’t show any sign, not even a twitch of his ear.

“The ghost,” Jackson said, his gaze shifting in a slow scan of the air around them.

“Why did you bring Cassy here?” Kailin insisted.

Qeb rattled through a short burst of an Arabic dialect Kailin wasn’t familiar with as a swarm of dragonflies whirled around them like a small locust storm. Jackson spoke calmly back to a wide-eyed Qeb.

Drakkina didn’t show herself, but as the warming breeze teased a curl out of Kailin’s bun, she heard the spirit-woman’s voice.
Just keeping watch. No demons. No assassins. Yet. Stay close to your mate.

Kailin let out a frustrated huff and glanced at Jackson. He gave her only the slight tip of a nod, but it was enough to show he’d heard Drakkina’s words. Mate? Kailin felt her blush begin to grow. Good God, what would she set on fire out here? Her eyes scanned the low scraggly bushes that marked the border of the flood plain.

Lesson one,
Drakkina’s voice floated into Kailin’s mind
. Imagine your magic as a bubble held inside. Contract it in on itself, forcing it smaller, denser.

Kailin held her breath and realized that she already thought of her power as a bubble inside. She reinforced the image and softly exhaled. The bubble image remained, her magic remained trapped inside. She inhaled a calm ribbon of dry air. The bubble continued.

Lesson two, shrink your bubble until it is small enough to feel like a hard pebble inside. Then tuck it deep behind your rib, in the center of your heart, to be released upon your command.

Kailin packed around the bubble like a translucent snowball, forcing it to contract. The walls thickened until they became opaque marble. She’d closed her eyes, her fingers wrapped tightly into the woven layers of saddle. Her muscles flexed in her arms as if she wrestled the magic, bullied it into a tight star that sparked and glinted, enlarging and contracting until she compacted it into a pea-sized pebble. She blinked open.

Jackson watched her from beneath his brim. “Well done.” He studied her, his face serious. “Maybe you won’t need me much longer.” His lips quirked upward in a wry grin. “I’m sure Qeb could crawl on his belly down in the dirt for you.”

Kailin wiped the back of her hand against her forehead and the light sheen of sweat marking her efforts. The dry breeze sent a shiver along her skin. “Somehow I don’t think getting rid of you will be that easy.”

His grin widened until she could see his white, even teeth behind those lips she’d been pressed against just last night. Kailin yanked the mental image of the pebble into her mind.

Jackson chuckled. “We archeologists are a tenacious lot.”

“You mean treasure hunter,” she said and indicated him with a bent of her head. “There is a vast difference.”

“We both decipher clues, follow our instincts, hunt down every known bit of information and dig for lost treasure.”

Kailin nodded. “But it is what we do afterwards that makes the distinction.” She looked closely at Jackson. “Just what do you plan to do after we find the orb, Mr. Black?”

“Get your father back, Dr. Whitaker,” he answered without hesitation.

Kailin closed her lips, weighing his words. They came smoothly with the undisturbed glassy surface of truth or…the chiseled rut of rehearsed lines. What was she missing? She could feel it like a puzzle that didn’t quite fit together properly.

“What I mean, Mr. Black, is”—and she leaned a bit toward him—“what is in this for you? Treasure hunters don’t just come along for the ride. And don’t think to spill the same lies about being Anthony’s assistant. If you didn’t know my father’s name for me, you don’t know him.” She straightened up in the gently shifting saddle, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t know
me
.”

“I know you prefer chocolate to tea or wine, with a dollop of frothy cream. I know that you will throw yourself in harm’s way to save your pet and that the mask of ice you wear is just that, a mask.” He leaned closer but his voice didn’t diminish. “That your heart is as kind and warm as your mind is clever and your wit is a razor’s edge.” Jackson’s eyes connected to her gaze like a chain. “I know, Kailin Whitaker, what makes your blood fly, your heart pound. I know the intoxicating warmth of your body pressed to mine and I know the enticing way you taste.”

Kailin managed to pull in a wisp of breath. “You overstep propriety,” she whispered.

“On a continuous basis.”

Kailin glanced at Qeb. “Does he understand English?”

A wicked glance sparked Jackson’s eye. “Shall we see?” He straightened and looked at the guide. Qeb smiled, showing a line of chipped, tarnished teeth. “The lady is beautiful.” Jackson didn’t look at Kailin and neither did Qeb. But he nodded as if agreeing.

“Jackson, don’t.” A blush started and Jackson held his finger and thumb apart as if he held a small marble. She huffed at his reminder to keep her magic contracted.

“I have kissed her,” he continued. “She tastes like honey and smells like summer flowers. I plan to kiss her again.”

Kiss her again
! Kailin opened her mouth, eyes wide. She’d just called him a liar and questioned his motives and he spoke of kissing her again. She snapped her lips shut. Refuting him with words would sound weak. Instead she narrowed her eyes and stretched her Ice Queen mask tight across her skin.

Qeb just nodded, but his eyes didn’t stray to her. Jackson glanced her way, ignoring her scathing look. “I’d say we are fairly safe.” He turned back to Qeb and spoke quickly in Arabic. Something about the camels being solid beasts. Qeb nodded and rattled off a reply. He smiled fondly and slid his hand over the camel’s neck. Apparently the beasts were his and a source of pride.

Kailin swayed in her saddle and let her gaze wash over the nearing hills of sand in the distance, yet she barely saw them. She breathed in, breathed out. Several exchanges later she realized that he’d never answered her questions. Instead he’d rattled her with his preposterous flattery and outrageous words.

“You think, Mr. Black, that you are smooth enough, audacious enough to knock me from my senses. You think you are clever enough to evade my suspicions.” She looked at him, an icy stare meant to leach the triumph and humor from his eyes. “You. Are. Not. What do you want?”