With a snarl Jasmine clawed at his face. Just
as fast, she retreated to huddle in the corner of her cot. He
clamped a hand over her mouth before she could order him away.
Knowing Yesande was probably monitoring their conversation, he put
his lips to her ear.
“Wouldn’t you like to leave this padded cell
and go with me, Dragonfly?” She froze, and he lowered his hand.
Wary eyes watched him through sweat dampened
bangs. “Keilor calls me that.”
“Yes.” He held her gaze. “He
calls
you
that.” He hoped her drugged mind would comprehend what he said.
It didn’t.
When he rose to his knees on the bed to block
what he was doing from possible watching eyes, she shoved at him,
her eyes rolling. “No! I want Keilor, only Keilor!”
There was no point trying to reason with her.
She was too drugged to understand.
Mentally swearing a filthy oath, he clamped
his hand on her jaw and forced her mouth open. He squirted in one
of the antidotes the medics had sent with him, just in case. To
hide her sputtering and to prevent her from spitting it out, he
kissed her ruthlessly, clashing their teeth and bruising both their
mouths.
The kiss revolted him, not because he didn’t
find the woman attractive but because he’d never forced his
attentions on anyone. He didn’t relish starting with the wife of a
friend, even if it was the only way he could think of hide his
actions and force her to swallow.
When he was certain enough medicine had
gotten down to clear her brain, he let her go. She shrank away with
a cry and hid her face in the corner, sobbing.
Pretending to reconsider his strategy, he
used his thumb to wiped the blood from his lip were she’d bitten
him. He waited for her mind to clear and his body to stop shaking
with rebellion.
Her mind cleared first.
In moments her eyes had opened and she looked
at him with the cold stare of a wounded cobra. Before she could
tell him to go fry in hell, he grabbed her hair, yanked her to him
and hissed in her ear, “Your husband sent me, you idiot. He’s
alive, and if you ever hope to see him again, you’d better play
along.” He allowed her to pull back. She watched him, openly
distrustful, but said nothing.
He figured silence was the best cooperation
he was likely to get under the circumstances. He pulled her to her
feet, went to the door, and called for the guards to open it.
Yesande was on the other side, flanked by ten
of her Haunt, and she was not happy. “You raped her,” she said,
taking one look at his blood on Jasmine’s lips. Her eyes narrowed,
and she informed him with cold intent, “She is no good to me mated,
fool.”
He pulled Jasmine in front of him and grabbed
her throat before his sister could order her Haunt to attack. “She
comes with me or you lose her, Yesande.” He was not failing Keilor,
not after making it this far.
Smirking, Yesande chided him, “Come now,
brother. Cease these games. You may have forced the charmer to
spread her legs and mate with you
not that
I blame you; I agree something had to be done
—
but you’ll not kill her.”
Mathin broke Jasmine’s arm.
Even Yesande recoiled a step at her
shriek.
“Still think I won’t kill her?” he asked
savagely, trying not retch at her gasping sobs. She deserved better
than this.
Yesande took a step back, pallor leaching her
already pale skin. “Father’s madness,” she whispered with horror.
“It did carry to you.”
He allowed his eyes to gleam golden. This
time the Haunt stepped back as well. “Go,” she told him hoarsely,
too afraid to stand in his way now.
He drew his sword and dragged the moaning
Jasmine out of there. No one got in his way.
“What happened to her?” Raziel demanded when
they reached the stags.
Mathin touched the sides of Jasmine’s neck
over her carotid arteries and cut off the flow of blood to her
brain. It put her out of her misery for what was about to be a
grueling ride. “I broke her arm,” he said grimly, and handed her up
to Raziel.
Eyes wide, Raziel said, “If we live through
this, Keilor is going to kill you.”
“He’ll have to stand in line,” Mathin
answered, as angry Haunt swarmed out of the citadel. He spurred his
stag for the hills.
It took them nearly two days of reckless
dashes and miserable damp as they hid from Yesande’s soldiers, but
they gained a lead on the other Haunt. By then Jasmine’s arm had
been set, and she was taking painkillers, but the drugs coming out
of her system combined with their grueling pace was took their
toll.
Humans were never meant to keep pace with a
Haunt.
“If we don’t do something soon, she’s not
going to make it back to Keilor,” Raziel said quietly as they ate.
Jasmine lay on a pallet one of the higher pieces of swampland. Thin
insect netting shrouded her from head to toe, but they could still
see her pallor through the veil. Her breath sounded harsh over the
calls of insects and swamp birds.
Mathin looked off through the raised tree
roots to where Isfael stood guard in the deepening gloom. He was in
Haunt, and somewhat protected from the insects by his thick
fur.
An insect bit Mathin and he slapped at it,
coming away with a hand covered in glowing bug goo. “I know. That’s
why we’re going to start looking for a symbiont.”
Raziel dug a shred of giant swamp snail out
of his teeth with a sliver of wood. “What’s that?”
“A creature that lives in these swamps. They
don’t have much use for Haunt, but I think a symbiont may be just
what our patient needs.”
She was dying.
As Jasmine lay next to the giant tree, she
found she didn’t care. Mathin had gone off to hunt, leaving Isfael
and Raziel to guard her. She didn’t want him to come back. When he
did, they would leave again. Riding hurt.
She was so very tired, and she just needed to
rest.
She missed Keilor. Maybe, she thought
fuzzily, if she went to sleep she might dream of him again. Her
eyes began to close, and she almost thought she saw him, somewhere
in her mind, beckoning…
“Here you go,” A rude, raspy voice intruded,
and Keilor vanished like so much smoke. She opened her eyes and
scowled weakly at Mathin, who knelt beside her with a pouch. The
pouch moved.
Thinking of the various forms of swamp life
he’d forced down her throat, she informed him with as much strength
as she could muster, “If that’s dinner, you can have my share.”
“It’s not dinner.” He reached into the pouch
and extracted a ball of liquid silver. Isfael and Raziel watched
with interest. “This, my cranky little charge, is your new best
friend.”
The blob was about the size of a baseball and
moved like a worm, stretching out and up as if scenting the air.
Suddenly the creature stiffened, and its “head” slowly rotated in
her direction. It reared back, as if in surprise.
Then it zapped onto her.
Jasmine screamed as the creature landed on
her chest with a big warm splat and spread out into a sheet of
blood warm silver. With her undamaged arm and hand she frantically
tried to grab it and pull it off, but the silver flowed through her
fingers and eagerly slid down inside her sling. A tickling buzz
spread from the sight of the break, and then up her arm and over
her body. By the time it reached her head and buzzed through her
brain she was on her feet, something she hadn’t been able to do
unassisted for twenty-four hours.
“Mathin!” she screeched, as she felt the wave
move down her body to the soles of her feet and back up to settle
around her forearms. “Get it off!”
“Why?” He smiled as he watched her tear off
her sling in her panic and try to pull the happy symbiont off her
forearms. It had divided and settled there like two filigree
bracelets. It covered her forearms from wrists to elbow.
“It’ll suck the life out of me!”
“No, it will suck the life
into
you,”
he corrected as he saw her face flush with healthy color. Now he
just might be able to get her back to his friend in one piece.
It couldn’t happen fast enough for him.
Keilor wiped the sweat from his brow with the
back of his hand and sheathed his sword. Perspiration sheened his
entire body, and he grabbed a towel to swipe at his chest and
flawless abdomen.
He cursed the lingering weakness. The towel
dragged on Jasmine’s dragonfly choker, and he flung the cloth away
with an oath, assailed by painful longing.
It had been over a month since he’d sent
others after his wife.
“You’re going to damage yourself again if you
keep this up,” Jayems observed from where he lounged in the doorway
to Jasmine’s room. Keilor spared him a glance full of self-disgust
but said nothing.
Jayems wandered into the room, pausing to pet
Casanova. The independent little villi was the only one not
concerned about his mistress. “We know they got her out.”
“With a broken arm and a bloody mouth!”
Keilor snarled.
Jayems winced, remembering his cousin’s
reaction to that bit of news. Mathin would be lucky if Keilor
didn’t break every bone in his body when next he saw him. “She was
alive. Raziel and Isfael are with them.”
“Small comfort,” Keilor answered morosely. He
looked at but did not see Jasmine’s lemon tree.
Jayems froze. “You don’t think she would
betray you?” he asked in amazement. “In spite of the rumors, I
don’t believe she’d dishonor you, whether she’s away a year or a
day. She is not the kind of woman to take her promises lightly.”
Thanks to spies, they’d had some intelligence on Yesande’s doings
at the Citadel, none of it encouraging. They knew Jasmine had been
drugged, heard what she’d been given.
“It’s not that,” Keilor said, but his words
were half-hearted.
Jayems inclined his head with a touch of
temper. “If you think her association with Mathin is likely to
foster affection, think again. He can be charming on the surface,
but you of all people ought to know that prolonged contact with
Mathin is more likely to drive Jasmine into fits of rage, not
passion. I’ve no doubt she’s counting the days until she’s free of
him.”
Keilor sighed, a little cheered. The grim
warrior in him still wished to brace for the worst, but perhaps it
was time to exercise some faith in his woman, as a husband should.
It would help if he knew where they were, so he could meet them
half way.
This unending waiting was getting to him.
Chapter 23
Jasmine pulled at her new “bracelets” and
sent Mathin another dirty look. It had been two days now, and they
still couldn’t get the symbiont off her, not that anyone really
cared but her. After all, they weren’t the ones feeling a pulsing,
breathing, snake-like
thing
occasionally move on their
arms.
Mathin ignored her. He’d merely shrugged away
her complaints and pointed out that the creature had healed her. It
also continued to supply her blood with extra oxygen in exchange
for her carbon dioxide and bodily wastes, making her capable of
sustaining the pace of the others. Her personal distress was of no
interest to him.
She fingered the pistol Raziel and Isfael had
given her for a wedding gift. They’d brought it with them at
Keilor’s request. Even hurt as he was, he’d thought of her.
It was a comfort to know he was alive. His
friends assured her that Haunt healed quickly. They were able to
sustain incredible amounts of damage, wounds that would kill a
human.
She turned her eyes back in the direction of
home, somewhere past the foggy, muggy swamp. She couldn’t see a
whole lot in the deepening gloom, and finally gave it up. She
needed to apply some more bug repellent, anyway.
Strands of greasy hair brushed her face as
she squatted down. She grimaced and pulled out the tie to tighten
her ponytail. “If we don’t get a bath soon, Yesande’s Haunt are
going to smell us coming a mile away.”
“You’re welcome to take your chances in the
swamp,” Raziel teased.
Jasmine shuddered. No one was that desperate.
Tugging the end of her hair over her shoulder, she began to finger
comb the knotted ends, scowling as the split ends slid through her
fingers. Apparently her symbiont didn’t do hair. “I need a
haircut,” she grumbled.
“I have a knife,” Raziel offered, reaching
for it as if she would really use it.
“No thanks,” she answered, warding him off
with one hand. The last thing she needed was the mess a blade would
make of her hair. “What I really need is a sharp pair of scissors,
but since we don’t—” she broke off, staring as the symbiont on her
right forearm slithered down into her hand. It coalesced into pair
of scissors joined to her wrist by a thin loop of liquid metal.
“Hey,” she whispered in astonishment. “Maybe this little guy is
good for something after all.”
Mathin rolled his eyes. “Just like a woman.
Save her life, and she snubs you. Provide her with grooming aides,
and you’re her friend for life.”
The symbiont turned out to be handier than a
Swiss army knife. All Jasmine had to do was think of what she
wanted, and the symbiont became that thing. Any manner of utensil
or hand tool was suddenly available to Jasmine at a thought,
including cups and needles. It even formed into a string for cat’s
cradle.
“There might be some defensive capabilities
to this creature,” Raziel observed. Isfael, who remained almost
constantly in Haunt, signed something back, and Raziel raised a
brow. “I agree. A knife or a garrote might prove invaluable against
an unsuspecting foe, provided you knew what you were doing. What do
you think? Would you like to test your new friend’s
capabilities?”
Jasmine, who’d caught some of what Isfael had
been saying, grimaced. The idea of using the symbiont for
disemboweling or stabbing was not appealing, but considering what
they might yet face, maybe she’d better get over her aversion. Her
life might just depend on it.