Heroes Return

Table of Contents

 

 

Praise for the novels of Moira J. Moore

Heroes Adrift

 

 

“A lovely installment in a consistently entertaining series.”

—
Locus

 

“Good entertainment in the romantic fantasy subgenre . . .
Heroes Adrift
is well paced, never bogging down . . . a pleasant way to spend the time.”

—
Grasping for the Wind

 

 

Resenting the Hero

 

“This incredible romantic fantasy will appeal equally to fans of both genres. The sexual tension between the two protagonists is so strong that readers will feel sparks fly off the pages.”

—
The Best Reviews

 

“An enchanting fantasy that introduces two interesting and complex protagonists and a fascinating world . . . The tale has everything—magic, mayhem, a hint of romance and a thread of wry humor.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

 

“[A] fast-paced plot . . . The various threads come together in a satisfying way.”

—
SFRevu

 

“A wry twist on classic fantasy . . .
Resenting the Hero
is a funny book with occasional dramatic spans . . . a good choice for a rainy afternoon.”

—
Infinity Plus

 

“An entertaining read . . . sure to be a hit with romance as well as fantasy readers.”

—
Fresh Fiction

Ace titles by Moira J. Moore

RESENTING THE HERO
THE HERO STRIKES BACK
HEROES ADRIFT
HEROES AT RISK
HEROES RETURN

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

HEROES RETURN

 

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / August 2010

 

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-45707-8

 

ACE

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

To Lucy Maud Montgomery,
whose books I still read occasionally.
A scene in
Anne of Green Gables
influenced one of the scenes in this book.

Acknowledgments

Many readers have sent me comments filled with questions, constructive criticism and quips. They have made me think and made me smile. One reader agreed to let me use her lovely name for one of my characters. She will know it when she sees it. And, of course, I am grateful to Jack Byrne, my agent, and Anne Sowards, my editor.

Chapter One

“Seriously,” I muttered. “You would think someone would have figured out by now how to build a carriage that didn’t cause the passenger to feel every rock and hole.” All the jostling about had given me a blistering headache.

“Are you getting old?” Taro asked. “You’ve been complaining a lot.”

I had not. I had merely been making accurate observations. “And you’ve been unusually quiet,” I responded. “Do you think we’ve switched personalities?”

“Lee, I never complain,” he claimed loftily.

“Never?” I snickered.

“Almost never.”

“Ha.”

All kidding aside, Taro had been uncharacteristically silent for much of our journey. No doubt because we were heading for Flown Raven, Taro’s place of birth, and not by choice. If Taro had had his way, we would have never stepped foot in Flown Raven.

But we didn’t have a choice. Emperor Gifford, assuming an authority he didn’t have, had sent us there, for reasons neither of us could determine. And Taro hadn’t been quite himself since we’d gotten the news.

I wasn’t thrilled with the transfer, either, for a lot of reasons. There was the fact that we shouldn’t have ever been transferred by the Emperor, of course. That just alarmed me. We could have reasonably expected a few more years in High Scape, where we worked with six other Pairs, and where everything we could possibly want was close to hand. Most important, in my own mind, at least, Taro’s mother, the Dowager Duchess, didn’t live in High Scape. She did live in Flown Raven. In my opinion, that made Flown Raven the worst of all possible posts for us.

I despised that woman.

The carriage drew to a stop. I looked around the edge of one of the curtains. We hadn’t reached Flown Raven itself, so I assumed we were taking another break to allow the horses to rest. Our driver seemed unusually careful of his horses. I didn’t mind. I’d hate to be stuck out here with an injured animal, but it did seem to lengthen the trip immeasurably.

The door to the carriage was pulled open. “Source Karish,” the driver said to Taro. “Shield Mallorough,” he greeted me. As he did every time we stopped. He was oddly formal. “You might wish to work your legs.”

I did, actually. I preferred riding to sitting in a carriage for days, but the last livery in our path, once learning of our destination, had refused to lend us riding horses, preferring to send a driver and a carriage with us. Technically, we could have insisted on the riding horses, but I didn’t like making that kind of fuss. I could understand why a livery wouldn’t want to trust us to borrow the horses and arrange for them to be returned when we were going as far as Flown Raven.

So we stepped out, and I spent a few moments enjoying the fresh air and stretching the kinks out of my knees. Taro lingered by the carriage, though, his gaze a little blank, his mind obviously leagues away. I wished there were a way to make him feel better, but the only handy method I could think of was sex, and I wasn’t prepared to do that in a confined space with the driver listening in.

The sky, which had been dark all day, rumbled, and it began to hail. Only little stones, they didn’t hurt, but all three of us scrambled back into the carriage. I’d heard of hail that got as big as teacups and I had no interest in risking something like that landing on my head.

I was worried about the horses being unattended. What if they spooked?

The driver looked at Taro. “Can’t you fix this?” he demanded.

Taro’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “This is just the weather, my dear boy,” he told the driver. “Not our bag, I’m afraid.”

I glanced at him with concern. I hadn’t heard him use that kind of airy tone for a while. It was one he used when he wanted people to assume he was an idiot, when he was feeling uncomfortable.

“Thought you two were supposed to deal with the weather,” the driver insisted. “That’s what you’re paid for.”

Well, no, members of the Source and Shield Service, or the Triple S, weren’t actually paid. We were supported. We could commandeer rooms in boardinghouses, as fine as we liked, and requisition clothing and food and services. But we could never demand money.

“Ah, if only we could,” said Taro. “Hail and rain are so annoying, and snow should be made illegal. It would be delightful if we could just will”—he waved a languid hand—“it all away.”

Well, I could affect the weather. Sort of. I just wasn’t any good at it. And we weren’t telling anyone that, because it wasn’t part of a Shield’s regular bag of tricks.

“So what do you do?” the driver asked with asperity.

I was surprised to meet someone so ignorant of Sources and Shields and their roles. I wasn’t aware that there were people who didn’t know what we did. On the other hand, our new post hadn’t had a Pair in recorded history, having only recently been afflicted with earthquakes. Perhaps people in this area honestly never thought about Sources and Shields.

“When there is an earthquake, or a tornado, or an erupting volcano, or other natural disaster, I gather up all the forces of these events and channel them”—and this time Taro used both hands to make a sort of waving motion—“away.”

“And what does she do?” The driver indicated me with a thrust of his jaw.

“The forces are powerful things, my good man. She makes sure my skull doesn’t fly apart while I channel.”

Actually, I made sure the forces he wasn’t handling didn’t rush into the vacuum created by his channeling and crush him, at the same time making sure his brain and heart didn’t tear apart under the strain of doing something that was unnatural for the human body to do. But I had a feeling Taro was, for some reason, going for maximum dramatic effect as opposed to accuracy.

The driver sniffed. “Seems to me a man who really knew his stuff wouldn’t need some kind of assistant to help him do his job.”

Pompous little moron. And I wasn’t an assistant.

“Why don’t you do something about the hail, then?” Taro suggested in the friendliest of tones. “Show us how it’s done.”