Blood Warrior

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Perhaps the Dragon wasn’t angry at them after all. Maybe he just wanted two troublemakers the hell out of the Himalayas. Fine with Tallis.

Through some combination of skill, luck, and complete idiocy, they belly flopped the Cessna in a cornfield. The stark Pir Panjal peaks had given way to less formidable hilly terrain, as well as grasslands, lakes, and abundant population centers. Kavya had navigated along the national highways until final sputters of fuel, as well as a suspiciously freaky sound coming from the port propeller, meant her goal of a landing at the Jaipur International Airport was too ambitious.

That the plane’s nose hadn’t dug a trench was a minor miracle.

As it was, Tallis’s door was jammed into the dirt. The plane was tipped sideways, with the wing on his side snapped back like a crippled bird. The temperature was sweltering and humid. Apparently they’d dropped into hell as a nod to the fate they’d courted. He shed his coat and handed it to Kavya, who padded the door frame where a jagged piece of metal waited to slice her palm. She crawled the upward angle out her door, then turned to take the pack and seaxes from Tallis. Their fingers touched. Hers were still shaking, after nearly five hours in the air. Eyes assessing each other, they must’ve made a strange tableau in the middle of that field.

Tallis blinked and Kavya turned away. After climbing out, feet back on solid ground, he leaned hard against the half-wrecked cockpit. “Any head cases coming after us?” he asked, angling his question toward where she’d taken a seat on his pack.

“No. Coast is clear. Plenty of Indranan in Jaipur, maybe ten kilometers from here. But we’ll blend in better.”

“Good.” He stood back from the plane and gave it a solid looking over. “I’m quite proud of that, you know.”

“Crashing?”

“Landing. A very creative landing.” He walked around to the ruined port side. The wing was like a hangnail—a clinging piece of something that had once been part of the whole. One of the propellers was twisted into the stripes of a candy cane. No wonder it had grated so badly. “And a lucky landing at that,” he said to himself.

“Do I want to take a look?”

Tallis emerged from around the rear of the plane and smiled. “Nope.”

“Then I won’t.”

“You’ll lose that green tinge any minute now and realize that extreme mountain aviation is a completely shite hobby. Tell me this was the one and only time you planned on giving it a go.”

“One and only time.” She stood, strapped on the pack, and arched her neck to a particularly defiant posture. “I’m never running from him again. You should know that. Whatever distance we put between us and him now is for strategy. But . . . there will be a reckoning.”

Tallis watched her with nothing short of complete fascination. Her insides should be jelly. Her mind should be some fog of pain or confusion or madness. But she was still Kavya, the Sun, the goddess who dogged him while waking, not sleeping. Her resolve made him feel invincible.

He walked toward her, slowly, just as she’d approached him when he emerged from his berserker fury. Wild animals required patience and caution. Kavya seemed like just such an animal. She was not the pristine cross between deity and politician who’d spoken on that distant altar. Only days had passed, but already that woman seemed years distant, consumed by danger and circumstance. The woman who’d shouldered his pack and stared at him eye to eye was more primal. She’d shed the constraints of her role.

After kneeling to pick up and sheath his weapons, he touched her chin. His fingers wanted to wander, so he let them—along her hairline, over her cheekbones, down to the lower lip that would never fail to arouse him to his core. “This is closer to who you used to be,” he said quietly. “Isn’t it? This adaptability and resolve. You weren’t always untouchable and perfect.”

“I’ve never claimed to be either.”

“Your followers believed otherwise.” Rather than start another argument—he really didn’t have the strength—he turned to survey where they’d landed. They were surrounded by cornstalks taller than Kavya. “Ten kilometers to . . . what was it? Jaipur? How many people are we talking? Because this doesn’t look promising.”

“I don’t know. Maybe six million?”

“Well, well. A welcome change from Bhuntar. A city means food, new clothes, a bath, shelter.”

She started walking. “You had a bath last night, if I recall.”

“If you recall?” Tallis caught up with her swift steps. “You’ll recall that particular bath for the rest of your life.” He dropped his voice an octave. “And so will I.”

“It’s best to get away from the site of the crash,” she said, apparently ignoring him. “People will come to investigate. We’ll find a little town and transportation that doesn’t involve walking.”

“You want me to steal a car?”

Kavya’s laugh was beautiful, even brushed by a hint of leftover hysteria. “No. Not a car. Never mind. You’ll see.”

It was midmorning, and the blazing sun made the snowstorm up in the Pir Panjal seem like a horror movie villain they’d barely escaped. Every ten minutes or so, Kavya would stop, turn her head some direction or another, and close her eyes. She might make a minor course correction. Tallis bit his tongue to keep from asking questions.

Companionable silence was a good thing after all they had suffered, escaped, and heaped on each other. Soon the monotony of the walk was poking holes in his conscious thought until higher function dribbled through. He was a walking reflex. All instinct. Rather than sink into that seductive trap of action and reaction, he took Kavya’s hand.

“What’s that for?” she asked, staring at where their fingers interlaced.

“Because I wanted to. It’ll give me something to think about other than how tired I am.”

She smiled with that quiet, teasing humor he was beginning to anticipate. “I’m glad you admitted it first. I wasn’t going to mention it at all.”

“Being so tired that the ground looks as comfortable as a feather bed?”

“Something like that.” Her voice was dreamy and soft.

“But you can’t sleep. That whole Indranan thing.”

A heavy sigh lifted her shoulders. “I can’t sleep.”

“Wait.” He pulled her close, guiding her by tense upper arms. She felt even more frail than she looked, although she’d survived several circles of hell. “Are we safe here? There may be loads of Indranan in the city, but can you sense any nearby?”

“What does it—?”

“Let’s call this ‘question time,’ and that’s my first. When we’re done, we can discuss another topic, perhaps one of your choosing.”

Her lips twitched into a smile, as if a feather had tickled her lower lip. “We’re alone. I can’t search too far without giving us away again, but—”

“Good enough.”

“When it’s my turn to speak, will you interrupt me?”

Tallis chuckled and kissed her forehead. It was becoming so easy to touch her so casually. Good? Bad? Didn’t matter in the middle of a sun-drenched cornfield. “We’ll see. There’s no telling when one might need a good interrupt—”

“Are you done yet?”

“You think you’re so clever.”

Kavya’s mouth softened around a deeper smile. “Even you know I’m clever. ” She exhaled softly. “Too much for my own good? Not clever enough? No telling.”

“I protest. You’re talking again.” He rubbed his thumbs along her upper arms. “So there’s no one around who might play roulette with your thoughts. Time for a nap.”

Her expression of panic reminded Tallis of all he hated about her relationship with Pashkah. No, the only thing he hated about it. Pashkah made her less of a woman. He made her scared and small and doubtful. What the man had done at the assembly in that hopeful little valley was horrific. In doing so, he’d layered disappointment over her existing fear.

That wasn’t what he’d grown to expect from a member of the opposite sex. Pendray women were indomitable. Boudicca had drawn her inspiration from the Pendray, revered in myths as Valkyries. Kavya had that spirit in her, but only glimmers shone through at any time. When she’d uncovered that airplane and began filling it with fuel—that had been strength to the point of suicide or legend, depending on the storyteller.

Yet when Tallis mentioned a mere nap, she shrank into herself like some darting sea creature seeking shelter among the coral, although that was probably an analogy better suited to the coastal Southern Indranan.

“I’ll be right here,” he said. “I have two rather vicious weapons, I have a gift that makes grown men weep in fear, and we are relatively free of Heartless mind-fuckers who’d keep you from getting rest.”

“Where do you mean, ‘right here’?”

Tallis smiled. He slid his hands down her arms as he folded back onto his haunches. He looked up at her, while still clasping her hands. “Here.”

“In a field.”

“That’s wasn’t a question. Good. I won’t need to remind you of the rules.”

“There are no rules with you,” she said, slowly shaking her head. Shining dark hair tangled around her shoulders.

“All I know is that we’ll both be more zombie than conscious if we keep walking.” He let go of her hands and spread his. All around them was a field of sheltering green. “I’m going to sleep. Should you wish to continue zombie-crawling to Jaipur or wherever, be my guest. But think about that. If you’re caught alone by yourself, what would you do?”

—

Kavya’s eyes burned. The underside of each lid felt lined with the silt of a riverbed. She looked down at Tallis, who had cut a pile of stalks to assemble a makeshift bed. The ground still held the moisture of the monsoon season. He draped his coat over the top, stretched his long legs, and sank onto the vegetation with a sigh. Logically she knew those pointy stalks couldn’t be comfortable, but he might as well have been lying on a cloud. She longed for that calm, and for the calm she would find against his body. Those hindering layers of clothing would provide softness for her bed, with his strong muscles revealed for her pillow.

“Dragon damn it.” She sank to her knees. “Don’t say a word.”

Apparently Tallis was self-aware enough to try to stifle a smile, and when that didn’t work, he covered his mouth with the back of his hand.

She raised her brows. “Are you going to sleep with those blades at your back?”

At least there she’d caught him off guard. He frowned briefly and sat up. He unsheathed one seax and dug the blade into the ground at his left hip, halfway to the hilt. He would only need to reach across his body with his right hand to grab it from its concealment alongside a stalk. Holding the second weapon, he eyed its shining blade, then Kavya. “You handled yourself well with this. One day I’ll teach you how to use it properly.”

He shoved it into the ground next to its duplicate.

“One day,” she whispered. “I don’t think so.”

Without warning, he closed firm hands around her shoulders and pulled her stiff body toward his, alongside his, touching his. “You didn’t think you’d be taking a mid-morning nap with a Pendray exile in a cornfield either.” His voice was playful, as were his ocean eyes. “With all those minds at your disposal, I’d have thought you would have a better imagination.”

Tallis arranged their bodies so that one shoulder each dug into the thick, tall, sun-warmed bale. They faced each other, lying on their sides. Wrapped together. Legs extended. Hips paired, touching. No part of her could deny notice of any part of him. His torso, clad in only a lightweight cotton shirt, was hers to enjoy.

Kavya didn’t want to hear him talk anymore. She didn’t want to bicker or even joke. That allure of the physical was too powerful. So she kissed him. It was the first time she’d initiated a kiss, but she was too pent up to take it any further than a brush of sensitive skin.

Tallis picked up where she left off. He wasn’t stopping.

And she didn’t want him to.

She shivered and wrapped her arm around his firm abdomen. He was made of hard planes, like a man pieced together from scrap metal, yet with the grace of a finely honed blade. He was the living embodiment of his weapons—hard, graceful, vicious, beautiful.

Tallis shifted until he pressed her back against their makeshift bed. She soaked up the sight of him as he loomed so powerfully above her, blocking out the sun, replacing it with the need for him. Just him. He exuded the gorgeous, intimidating strength of monsoon clouds ready to part with curtains of rain. His eyes were narrowed, intense, greedy, but his lips appeared vulnerable. They were reddened and slightly swollen from their kisses.

I did that.

Tallis smiled.

Whether he heard her thought or not didn’t matter. Not when he pushed his palm up between her legs. “I’m going to give you something, Kavya.”

She swallowed tightly, then cried out when his fingers brushed the sensitive skin between her legs. Panic caught in her throat when she managed to reply. “What?”

“The gift of my restraint, and your first taste of pleasure.” He smiled again, this time with salacious humor. “Actually, I’m the one who gets to taste.”

“Tallis?”

He stilled and took a deep breath. “Tell me to stop. If you want me to.”

“Are you going to have sex with me?”

“No,” he said, his expression surprisingly neutral. “If the time’s ever right for sex, you won’t have to ask for clarification. You’ll make it happen. I know you that well, at least.” He bowed his head against her stomach. His hair caught the sunlight. The silver tips were filaments of precious metals, glinting like tiny, tiny mirrors. “But for now, I want to kiss you. Everywhere. Will you let me?”

Kavya’s head spun with a flickering slideshow of images. Where could he kiss? He cupped her mound and began to explore with his fingertips. She yanked her head from the ground. They locked gazes.

“Yes,” he said. “There.”

She gulped a breath. “Do it.”

“So bossy . . .”

He pulled her inner thighs wide. With a surprised gasp, Kavya adjusted her position on the bed he’d made—and she dug her heels into the soft earth. His shoulders became her handhold. Tallis slipped between the silk layers of her sari, then used roughened thumbs to part her folds. He dipped closer. He licked. He sucked.

Kavya paired a hoarse cry with a slap against his upper back. Her palm landed with a hard thumping sound. Beneath her palm, Tallis shuddered—long and uncontrollably.

“That’s it,” he said against her inner thigh. “Give me your aggression. I can’t take it out on you, but you can give it to me. Don’t close your eyes or bite your lip. Don’t keep quiet, Kavya. Take your frustrations out on me. I want all of it.”

Every nip of lips and teeth against her sensitive nerves wound her body tighter and tighter. Once she had been all supple ease and grace. Now she was a series of reactions to what he wanted. His pace. His direction. She gave him everything.

“Breathe. Breathe, Kavya. Watch me as I take you.”

Fighting the sensual lassitude that made her head heavy, she did as he ordered. His face was centered between her legs, with his mouth nestled against her private core. She caught sight of his tongue when he licked upward. Then flashes of teeth when he smiled, or the grim set of his lips when another shudder overwhelmed his broad shoulders.

Now she knew truly what he’d meant. He was enjoying this just as much. What must the effort be costing him, to keep from giving in to the animal desire to lever over her body and take?

Oh, that thought. She rode that thought until its rhythm matched the flick of Tallis’s tongue, until it crested and broke. A gasping cry ripped from her throat. Tallis gripped her backside when she thrust up, seeking more—and he gave her more. The pressure of his lips and mouth intensified her climax, while that maddening tongue prolonged it. Every time she thought she couldn’t ensure another moment of such intense ecstasy, she was convinced that she could. He convinced her.

Only when her thighs wouldn’t stop shaking and her throat ached from sharp, endless gasps did Tallis ease her from that wave of climaxes. He slowed his kisses. He caressed and soothed. Kavya couldn’t have moved for all the world, but he arranged the draping silk of her sari back around her legs and pushed up to his knees. After lying down, he urged her to tuck her head in the hollow between his chest and shoulder.

Long, languid moments passed as their breathing approximated a normal pace. Tallis idly petted whatever skin he could find, although his energy, too, seemed to be waning.

“I meant that as a joke, by the way,” he said, still hoarse. “You have plenty of imagination. But who could’ve foreseen this? Where we are?”

The last vestiges of pleasure worked down her spine. He pulled her closer. “Not me. Not ever.”

“I choose to take that as a statement of wonder and awe.”

“Exasperation and confusion.” She kissed his neck. “And yes, wonder and awe.”

“That works.” He smiled, then tucked loose tangles behind her ears. His touch—how could a Pendray berserker be so gentle?

She smiled tiredly, with the effort costing her what felt like the last stores of energy. “But . . .” Trembling with curiosity as more and more possibilities came into focus, she tightened her fingers against his outer thigh. “What about you?”

“Later, after we find a hotel. I’m very discerning.” He glanced up toward where green leaves created an awning against the blue of a clear sky. “Truly discerning.”

She leaned forward and kissed each eyelid. “Are you sure? After what you gave me . . .”

“I’ll hold you to it,” he said, eyes gentle. “Sleep now. We’ll reset this whole mess. When we wake up, we can revisit the tantalizing possibility of you choosing a topic of conversation.”

Kavya’s heart shoved into her throat. “I want to trust. I want to be prepared the next time my brother comes for me. But I don’t know if I’m capable of any of that. Not yet. Not even after what you’ve shown me.”

“What’s changed when it comes to your ability to fight? You came up from the streets.”

“Maybe it’s a matter of faith. I think back on the young woman I was, cobbling a life together out of mud and trash.”

“Not a bad thing. Admirable, actually.”

“I got caught up in the myth of my own resilience. Not everyone comes out unscathed.”

He tapped her temple. “You call yourself unscathed? Woman, you’re a head case, and I mean that with a surprising amount of affection. Remember, that’s coming from a guy who’s been talking to dreams for twenty years.”

“That is pretty messed up.”

“I don’t think unscathed is a word for people like us.”

“This won’t last, will it?”

“What?” He half grunted the question.

“This. Us. A moment like this when we’re not fighting anyone and we’re actually . . . serene. Good things don’t last.” They were hot and sticky, but Kavya wouldn’t have let go even if he gave her the opportunity.

“You need to know what a good thing is before you can figure out it won’t last,” he said. “This, goddess, this is a very good thing. Now do me a favor?”

“Hm?”

He smiled in that antagonistic, endearing way she was beginning to relish more than hate. “Question time’s done. Be quiet. Be still. The sun’s on your face. A man is holding you as if you’re the last piece of driftwood in an endless ocean. I’m that tired, and you’re that nice to hold.”

Long years of panic and habit screamed that sleep should be easy. But even there, feeling more protected than she had in years, she couldn’t.

“Kavya?” His voice was thick with the drug of fatigue. “You’ll be here when I wake?”

She kissed his lips, which smelled and tasted of her own body. Wholly erotic. “Yes, I’ll be here.”