Heart Fate (37 page)

“Yes. So don't give me fliggering seaspray about Passage.”

“HeartMate,” Tinne managed.

Tab went still. He had iron notions about HeartMates. Then Tinne was gently picked up and carried to the inner office and placed in the big, soft client chair.

Tinne had kept Lahsin's secret, hadn't spoken of his HeartMate. Most FirstFamilies knew he had one, but not even his Family knew her identity. His fingers were curved around a short glass of whiskey. “Drink it down,” Tab said.

Fire touched his lips, burned down to his belly. This was the strong, aged stuff. Tinne coughed. Tab pounded his back.

Somewhere else Lahsin had collapsed into black despair. She wasn't erecting shields against these emotions as she should have been. The urge to go to her strengthened. He didn't have much time. His breathing shortened, and he steadied it. Waves of blackness rolled to him from her.

Of everyone in his Family, Tab deserved to know about Lahsin, and, finally, Tinne wanted to tell him.

“This one'a the reasons Genista left when she did?” Tab asked.

Tinne winced, Genista's name still striking too hard. “I've kept the bond between me and my HeartMate as thin as a mouse hair, even during my own Third Passage last summer.” The link was open now, and her emotional hurt pained him.

Tab grunted, went to the window, and looked out. “Holm Junior told the rest of us that she'd been married young to another.” Anger laced Tab's voice, but Tinne figured it was for fate, not him.

“Her name is Lahsin Burdock Yew.”

Pivoting on his heel, Tab stared. “The missing girl.”

“Young woman, yes. She made it to FirstGrove sanctuary.”

“Thought that was a myth.”

Tinne set the glass down and rubbed his eyes. “No.”

“An' you've been goin' there at night.”

Tinne looked up.

Tab said, “I've scried a coupla times.” His lips twitched. “Talked with the Turquoise House. Funny youngster.”

“Yes.” Blackness encroached on Tinne's vision, Lahsin was sinking deeper into depression. His throat was closing with fear. Tinne pushed himself to his feet. “I have to go.”

Tab nodded shortly. “You do that.” He hesitated. “Met the girl last year at the party on
Nuada's Sword
.” Again a corner of his mouth lifted. “The timing party.” The events at that party would go by that name for as long as it was remembered. “Pretty girl. Not a good marriage with T'Yew, didn't treat her well, anyone could see that. You go to her. Help her. It'll be good for both of you.” Tab turned back to the window. “You spend as much time with her as ya need.” He rolled large shoulders. “I'll take the classes, mebbe upgrade cuz Nitida to an apprentice, was thinkin' about that lately, wanted to run it by ya . . .”

“Fine,” Tinne said, he had to leave
now
. Darkness crept around the edges of his vision. He walked carefully to where the teleportation pad was, stepped up onto it, and set the indicator.

“People will miss ya, gossip, think you're a wimp about the divorce.”

“Fine,” Tinne parroted, searched the link between himself and Lahsin to find her. Crumpled on the stillroom floor, not even in the main Residence!

He 'ported to outside the northwestern door. The area was deserted as usual, so he flung open the door, heard his own breath coming fast and hard.

Once inside the walls he strove to recall the layout of the stillroom. He prayed and 'ported again, using up a lot of Flair.

The place was dark, only her moaning breath told him she lived. It was his turn to take care of her. Now he visualized her bedroom in the Residence, hoped he got the light right. Tinne had been looking out on a gray day dissolving into night.

He stumbled as he landed with Lahsin. Clouds had covered the last remnants of the sunset, and the room was dark.

“Passage!” BalmHeal Residence screeched. “Where have you been? She was out of my reach, no one to help, not even that mongrel beast.”

“I should have sent my Fam to watch her,” Tinne mumbled, just now thinking of it.

“Yes,” the Residence agreed. Suddenly the air in the room grew drier, warmer. The Residence was manipulating the atmosphere for Lahsin's comfort.

Tinne set her on the bedsponge, shuffled off his exercise shoes, and crawled onto the bed with her, pulled the cover over them. No hesitation in holding her. She was fading—he sensed it. Drowning in the depths of an ocean of negative emotions.

He tried, but he couldn't follow. Her memories were too different than his. He hadn't been close enough to see them flash in his own mind, to understand exactly what she was experiencing, and to try to mirror her memories with his and pull her back.

He'd never been close to her.

He'd felt grief and despair, but she was beyond him, sucked into terror. His worst terror had been the spine-slicking, body-shaking orbit of the planet in a spaceship escape pod, and how could he ever link that to whatever her worst terror was?

Gently he tugged on their bond. It responded in a sluggish fashion. He was losing her. No! He simply couldn't lose another person, another woman, he cared for.

Twenty-seven

Tinne did the only thing he could to reach Lahsin in the throes of
her Passage. He recalled his own last Passage and the time they'd connected. He'd been slumped against a wall, sword bloody from killing robbers who'd set upon a Noblewoman returning to Druida. He'd been heartsick that he hadn't been able to stay his hand and change a fatal blow to a disabling one. But he'd had no choice, the man had been trying to kill him.

The touch of her had come to him, like a soft hand smoothing over his brow. His sweet HeartMate. Young, innocent in many ways. He'd accepted her soothing, eased under it, then realized she wasn't his wife and squeezed the link to a tiny filament, sent her mind spiraling back where it belonged. He never knew if she'd been aware of that moment, or their link.

Now he set the memory in the front of his mind, tightened his hold, and
called
her mentally.
Lahsin. Lahsin!

A very faint word rose to his mind. “Who?”

HeartMate. HEARTMATE!
Only that would bring her back.

Surprise her enough to push the other emotions aside.

HeartMate?
A tiny echo.

Yes. Come back. Don't leave me alone.
The plea rang with sincerity. He might not want an intensely intimate tie, but he didn't want to lose her.

He couldn't send love to her, how could he when he didn't love her? So he sent hope. Simply hope. It flew from him as a shining golden glow like the sun rising over the horizon.

She cried out again. Seeing a landscape of terrors?

Another flash of surprise. Comprehension. She snapped shields around herself, included the link between them. Then a distorted image of a naked T'Yew came, face heavy with unwholesome lust. Tinne cringed. He did
not
want to experience her wedding night. Even recalling his own wedding night with a laughing, voluptuous Genista was better. He sent that
feeling
, how it should be between a couple during their wedding night.

Lahsin rejected it—with anger, bitterness.

That was the image, white-capped towering waves, dark, salty as the ocean of tears she'd cried. Cold, frightening waves that tore into slashing slices of water.

Rage came from her, hatred . . .

No, control your fury, your hate!
He screamed into the hurricane wind.
They will open you
—

It was already happening. Her shields had cracked, the riptide tumbled him over and over, sucked him under, cold as a watery grave. He saw a jumble of red anger, then black terror—Lahsin— snagged her and held her close.

She struggled, screaming, screaming, screaming.

Clang! A capsule surrounded them. He smelled brine and his sweat and her tears and terror. Blood.

From the wedding night
—she said.

No!
He let her go, faced away from her.

A few seconds of silence.
I can't see you clearly.
She sounded subdued.
Thank you for saving me.

You're welcome.
He was stilted.

You are a man of violent passions.
She shivered.

No. I am a man of strong passions.
And he'd make sure he'd show none of them to her in reality. He'd clamped a lid on his own emotions just to survive each day.

If they made it back.

She angled herself away from him, the brightly glowing ball of her true self—her soul?—dimming a bit in a sulk.

Then rocks hit the capsule. It tumbled. Light strobed in hideous sheets of blinding white.

Tinne fell into terror. This was
his
worst nightmare, falling through space.

Lahsin's orb touched his own, steadied him, moved away.

He thought he heard a sigh.

Yes. But you will have to embrace the storms and your Flair if you want to be a whole person. Understand. Accept. Master.
The words had been rote for him during his own Passages.

Understood
, she said with irony, the last thing she said.

They endured together, linked by a thread, but staying apart. They survived the sea, the landslide avalanche, the whirlwind, and the fire, and when they were back on a tossing green sea again, she opened her shields and floated.

Tinne returned to reality. A low light surrounded the bedsponge, left the rest of the room in shadow. He rose to his elbow and cut off a groan at the aches of his body. Staring at Lahsin, he saw she was deep in a natural sleep.

Muttering a word to clean the imprint of his body on the linens, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood, and collapsed when his knees gave way.

He was shuddering. Didn't know what to do. The Passage had affected him, too. All he could think of was getting away. If he faced her, everything would change. They'd be awkward with each other and were too new of friends. If he was here when she awoke and she realized he was her HeartMate, they might never bridge the discomfort of that understanding, the experience.

It was better that he go.

If he'd spoken his name during Passage their emotions would have clashed and they could have died. As it was, their emotions were far too tender and disturbed to make a relationship.

After coughing, he said to the Residence, “Don't—” He stopped words that might irritate the Residence. “Please don't tell Lahsin that I stayed with her. I came to check on her, found her in the stillroom, brought her here where you'd take care of her, and left.”

“Just what you did do,” BalmHeal Residence said.

“Right.” Tinne was bone weary. Grime coated more than his body; it was like a layer over his mind. “What time is it?”

“TransitionBell.”

Deep in the night's dark, very early in the morning. Tinne glanced at Lahsin again, her cheeks showed the slightest rosy blush on her golden skin. Beautiful. He arranged the blanket over her, cleared his throat, and said, “Can you estimate—”

“I estimate one more fugue no sooner than a week.”

Air escaped Tinne in a quiet sigh. He bowed. “Thank you, Residence.”

The Residence opened the bedroom door. Tinne shook his head and teleported outside T'Holly HouseHeart. He needed the place tonight. His own emotional shields had eroded to soap-bubble thinness. Ilexa joined him, purring for him.

He'd no sooner closed and bespelled the door behind him than he fell to his knees on the sweet grass floor. His clothes vanished at a Word, and he lay panting and gave in to his own storm of grief and despair for all that had happened. The shudders of emotion left him as weak as a child. He rolled along the floor to the sacred fountain and allowed it to cleanse him outwardly as he hoped his inward self was cleansed.

How long would grief shroud him? Years, probably.

But when it diminished he would be barred from FirstGrove.

He didn't know which was worse.

 
 
Lahsin woke but didn't open her eyes. She stretched inside and
checked her Flair. She had more than ever. Passage lurked like the line of a storm squall on the horizon. She'd have to suffer through it again and master her emotions, but she was optimistic that she could.

By herself. Without the aid of her HeartMate. A tingle ran down her spine.

It had been strange connecting with him, almost familiar. Like she knew his touch . . . or the touch of his mind brushing hers.

Not sexual. In her studies of Passage there had been references to sexual dreams with one's HeartMate. She was glad she was spared that.

She didn't want to think of her HeartMate. Only admitted that his sharp words and strength had saved her. He was strong and powerfully Flaired. Strong physically, mentally, emotionally. Far too strong for her to fight if he'd wanted to capture her in the HeartBond.

But he hadn't, and that was fine with her.

She let out a long breath.

Strother licked her face. She shrieked as she jerked to sit.

He stared at her with sad yellow eyes.
I am sorry that I wasn't here.
He looked away.
I was outside. It's good to hunt outside. I went to my Family's house, where I was crippled.

She grabbed a pillow, needing to squeeze something tight as anger spurted through her. “Did you attack your Family?” She wanted to attack T'Yew, even Taxa would do. She put the pillow down and thumped fists into it.