The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (60 page)

The feeling of cold fingers on the back of my neck
made me jump, and I whirled, stumbling backwards in my haste. I was shocked to
see G standing there, wearing- well, not much at all.

“What are you doing?” I yelped, frantically trying
to look anywhere but at her.

She looked at me like I was a stupid child in need
of specific instructions. “This may be the only time we have alone.”

“I, uh…” I stood up and edged past her, covering the
side of my face so I would not see her. “For pity’s sake, G, we barely know
each other. I am not about to take advantage of the daughter of the Chief of
Cosmea, no matter how-“ I squeaked again when she tugged my jacket down around
my elbows. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You were
distraught and crying
moments ago!
You
are obviously
not
thinking clearly!”
I struggled with my jacket, which was now effectively binding my arms at my
sides.

She grabbed my face in her cold hands, and lifted my
chin so that I had no choice but to look her in the eye. “I am thinking very
clearly right now. And if I’m not mistaken,
I’m
the one taking advantage of
you.
Not
the other way around.” She pushed me towards her bed roll, and I followed her
directions weakly, still fighting with my accursed jacket.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, and I paused in my struggling,
looking up at her.

She bit her lip, her confident façade wavering. She
looked very young in that moment, and I realized that no matter how aggressive
she was acting, it was very obvious from the expression on her face that she
was nervous.

The jacket dropped at my feet, and I reached for her
hands, threading my fingers through hers.

She looked down at our joined hands, then up at me.
“You feel this too, right?”

I nodded, and she grinned widely before pulling me
down to her for our second- and third, and fourth- kiss.

In the span of just three days, my life has been
completely, irrevocably changed by a beautiful girl with bronze-colored eyes
and a firm hold on my heart. My father would laugh at my impulsivity, at my
stupidity, at my childish notion of love at first sight. I cannot find it in
myself to care.

The airship was cold despite the warming glow of the
fire
stane, and I will forever be
grateful for that, because G and I were both fully clothed and in our
respective bed rolls- although no longer on opposite sides of the cargo hold-
when Delail opened the hatch this morning and woke us. She was not alone. The
third Angel, the one who had smiled at me, was with her.

“I’m glad to see you two survived that snowstorm
last night,” Delail said, shaking her furry head. “I felt terrible about
leaving you out here, but Lucius is in no mood to be trifled with.”

“We were fine,” G said, yawning as she stretched her
arms above her head. “Thank the gods for shared body heat, though.”

I blanched at G’s words, desperately worried that
Chief Redhorse would have my head on a pike the moment we touched down in
Cosmea. But Delail appeared not to notice.

“Good, good,” she said. “This is Loritta. She’ll be
accompanying us to Cosmea. Will the two of you be ready to leave soon?”

“Yes,” I muttered, and grabbed my knapsack. When I
straightened up, Loritta was standing in front of me, a smile playing on her
lips, and Delail had already retreated outside.

“You are
definitely
not a diplomat,” Loritta said. Her quiet alto held the same sweet
musicality as Lucius’s.

“So I have been told,” I answered, trying not to
meet her eyes.

She looked me up and down, then glanced over at G.
Slowly she nodded. “It will be a girl,” she said, and turned to head for the
hatch.

“A
what?”
G’s voice was shrill.

Oh, Drago. What have I gotten myself into?

***

Ashlyn closed her eyes, struggling to keep her
emotions under control. The Angel was Loritta- the woman Drake had loved so
long ago. Ashlyn harbored no ill will towards the deceased Angel, but she
certainly wasn’t feeling too chummy towards the girl who had kept Drake’s heart
firmly locked up for the better part of two decades.

Not to mention, all jealousy towards Drake’s former
lover aside, Ashlyn felt vaguely dirty at reading her father’s private
journals. She had to admit that the story was intriguing, but she wasn’t all
that keen on reading about Lord Li shacking up with anyone.

She skimmed the next few pages, noting that much of
it was filled with Lord Li’s incessant rambling about honor and propriety.
Judging from the old-fashioned morals he was so adamantly defending in these
pages, if Lord Li had known the sleeping arrangements during her adventures
with FLD three years ago, it would have sent him into an apoplectic fit. Ashlyn
had never done anything technically inappropriate, but she did remember one
morning where she woke up nose to nose with Skye after tossing and turning all
night.

“Aik,” she said, and the wolf looked up from his own
reading.

“Yes?”

“Where is the Chief of Cosmea now?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Oh, I know- but I mean the last one, before Lord
Angelo took over.”

Aik tilted his head to the side, looking pensive.
“That was before I came to Cosmea. But I believe the last Chief was killed by
Lord Angelo.”

“Hmm.” She rubbed a hand across the back of her
neck, feeling awkward and…well, a little disgusted. She didn’t particularly
want to know about her dad’s sexual exploits, and clearly he’d never intended
for her to read them, either.

“Did you find something?” Vargo asked. He had finished
organizing the remaining journals and was idly playing with an unlit cigarette.

“I…I guess. It’s…” Ashlyn trailed off, distinctly
uncomfortable. “Um, in this one my dad talks about his diplomatic mission to
Cosmea before he became Lord of Toryn. He…met a girl while he was here.”

Vargo grinned widely, obviously catching what she
wasn’t saying. “I don’t envy you, princess. I wouldn’t want to read about my
parents, either.”

“It’s not my mom,” Ashlyn said, and Vargo’s smile
faded. “It’s the chief’s daughter. That’s why I was asking.”

“Your father had an affair with the chief’s
daughter?” Aik repeated. “On a diplomatic mission?”

“He was a pretty terrible diplomat,” Ashlyn
admitted. “He even says so in his journal. Several times.” She fidgeted with
the corner of a page. “And…well, that’s not the worst part. I guess she got
pregnant.”

“What?”
Aik
and Vargo spoke in unison.

“That’s what an Angel told them.”

Aik shook his head slowly, processing the
information. “When was the baby born?”

“I don’t know. I just got to the part where they
find out she’s pregnant. I don’t…I mean, I want to keep reading, but…this is
just a lot to swallow.”

“Why don’t you take a break?” Vargo suggested. “Go
get some air. There’s no rush.”

“I just want to get through this,” Ashlyn said,
shaking her head.

“I could read it,” said Aik. “I could save you the
emotional turmoil. This journal I’m reading now is discussing your father’s
time spent training as a ninja. He was very young, younger than you were when
we met. It’s fascinating, but…” He glanced down at the book, then looked up at
Ashlyn, a lopsided grin on his wolf face.

Did she want to read about what happened next with
Lord Li and G? She wanted to know how their story ended, but…Aik was right. It
was wrecking her, emotionally. Ashlyn stood, the legs of her chair scraping on
the floor as she pushed it back. She leaned over and put the journal in front
of Aik.

“I’ll be back,” she said, then added, “Thanks,” even
though she felt like a coward for ducking out instead of finishing the journal.
She had no concerns over secrecy- Aik was as trusted a friend as she’d ever
had.

Vargo was another story. But as the Spartan stood to
accompany her outside, Ashlyn figured she should probably give him the benefit
of the doubt, too.

When she stepped outside into the sunlight, the
warmth on her skin was a welcome relief. Vargo offered her his hand when she
made to climb down onto the ladder leading to the second platform, but Ashlyn
shook her head, smiling faintly at him.

“You know,” he said as she gingerly found her
footing on the top ladder rung, “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen Aik go
down this thing. How does he do it?”

“Very carefully.” She descended to the bottom and
stepped off, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked up at the red-haired
man. “What’s the matter, Spartan? Scared of heights?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said as he
reluctantly put one foot on the ladder and turned, edging his way down slowly.
“It’d be one more thing you could hold over my head.”

“I don’t hold things over your head!”

“One more thing you can add to your mental list of
my shortcomings, then.”

“I don’t…” She trailed off. The worst part was, of course,
that he was right. Besides Vargo being a Spartan, he was an annoying wise-ass,
with freckles to boot, and Ashlyn had never truly let herself forget that he’d
once been a part of the team of assassins who had wiped out the Angels on Lord
Angelo’s orders.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, trying to sound
light-hearted. “If there’s no such thing as redemption, I’m kind of screwed,
aren’t I?”

He stepped off the last rung, rolling his eyes as he
brushed red dust from the bandages on his left arm. “What have you ever done in
your life to need redemption?”

She raised her eyebrows at him as she fell into step
beside him, descending the stairs towards the weapon shop. “Besides skipping
out on my birthright and causing a war? I can’t imagine.”

“If you want to compare transgressions, I’m pretty
sure I’ve got a longer list than you, Ash.” His tone was bleak, but in the next
moment he threaded his fingers through hers, holding her hand, and Ashlyn was
too startled to respond.

Drake’s letter was in her pocket. She’d read it so
many times that the paper was already beginning to tear at the folds. Whether
Vargo liked it or not, Ashlyn’s heart had already made the decision for her-
and she wasn’t feeling indecisive anymore. But over the last few days, Vargo
had been a good friend to her, and his innuendo and lewd behavior had been
curiously absent. She still wasn’t entirely comfortable holding hands with him,
and wasn’t sure how Drake would feel about it, either…but she didn’t really
want to let go.

She supposed holding the hand of a friend wasn’t
such a horrible thing.

Just
keep telling yourself that,
a tiny voice in the
back of her head whispered, and Ashlyn scowled. She didn’t need any nagging
reminders from her conscience right now.

They stopped at the base of the stairs, within view
of the Eternal Flame, and Ashlyn carefully withdrew her hand from Vargo’s
before sitting on the bottom step.

“What do you think Aik will find in my dad’s
journal?” she asked. It was a stupid question, but she wasn’t sure what else to
say.

Vargo sank down on the step beside her, propping his
arms on his knees. “No idea.”

“What if…what if the chief’s daughter really did
have my father’s baby?”

Vargo ran a hand through his hair and leaned back on
the steps, bracing himself with his elbows. “What if she did? They weren’t
married. You would still be Elder Heir.”

“But I might have a sister out there somewhere.
Maybe I’ve even met her and just didn’t know who she was.”

“Maybe you did.” Vargo glanced at her sideways. “You
really think you wouldn’t know who she was?”

Ashlyn flushed. The look in his eyes was intense and
deliberate. “My dad would have told me,” she said, purposely avoiding
confirming what she knew he was implying.

 
“He adopted
her, Ash. I’d say that’s a pretty clear sign.”

Vargo was talking about Restlyn, of course, who was
almost twenty-four, half-Cosmean, half-Toryn and whose father had remained
anonymous even after Lord Li had adopted her. Ashlyn supposed she’d suspected
for a while- maybe as early as when Restlyn took on duties as interm Lady of
Toryn and turned out to be such a natural at it.

“I guess we won’t know for sure until Aik is
finished reading,” she replied, wondering how she should feel about the
possibility of Restlyn being related to her by blood. When Kou had told her that
Lord Li was his father, Ashlyn had been so furious that she’d scratched off her
clan tattoo from her left ankle. But now she didn’t feel angry…she felt
strangely hollow. Restlyn was already her sister, albeit an adopted sister. The
last possibility Ashlyn could ever have wanted was that Restlyn was actually
Lord Li’s illegitimate child.

“Don’t think about it too much,” Vargo advised,
smacking her shoulder lightly. “No use worrying about what we don’t know and
can’t control.”

“I guess.” Ashlyn’s stomach grumbled, for once
speaking up at exactly the right moment, and she immediately brightened. “I
didn’t eat breakfast. Let’s go see if they have any pancakes left.”