A Kiss of Magic: A Kiss of Magic Book One (18 page)

The men began to run and Yasra bounced and jounced on the big man’s shoulder. She made sure to keep her eyes trained on the other man, allowing Dendri whatever it was that he needed to find and focus on her attackers. Suddenly the large man screeched to a halt as his partner screamed out and grabbed for his head.

As soon as he stopped, ivy began to spring out of the ground, growing up around his booted feet as fast as lightning, tangling them up. He yanked his feet free and began to run. They were in open ground now, heading for a nearby wall. There were more men waiting by the wall. Dendri couldn’t possibly deal with all of them at once. The ivy must have been from one of the Padoni guards, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.

The giant man hauled her over his shoulder and moved forward with her in his arms. There was a briar patch at the base of the wall, but a ladder had been slanted down over it so that it ran under the ladder and the men could easily climb over it. But suddenly the patch began to grow, thorny brambles reaching up to snare at the men, thorns digging deep into their legs. The giant man ignored the pain and climbed the ladder, handing her up to a man sitting straddling the wall. A mat had been laid over the top of the small sharp spikes that crested the wall all around the property.

“Hurry!”

“Stop!”

The thunderous command was shouted by voice and into the minds of everyone there. Dendri came running toward them, his face a mask of rage, his hands held outward.

Suddenly men were screaming, grasping their heads, falling to the ground in sheer agony. The only one not affected was the one holding her precariously atop the wall. The man clasped her with one arm and withdrew a pistol, firing it at Dendri. Dendri hesitated a step, but then moved forward. Dendri walked up, to the foot of the ladder and holding one hand out to the man he beckoned for him to come down the ladder.

“Give her to me and you won’t be hurt,” he said, his deep voice dangerous and sure.

The man on the wall hesitated.

“Look at your friends,” Dendri continued. “By the time I am through with them they will be drinking their meals through a straw for the rest of their days. Give. Her. To. Me.”

The man seemed to realize how foolish it would be to continue when all of his companions were incapacitated and the pistol could only be fired once. He stepped onto the ladder and brought her down to Dendri. Dendri took her into the cradle of his arms, his face dark with anger, yet his voice lilted soothingly through her head.

It’s all right now, sweetheart.

He turned to the Padoni guard that had come running up. The one from earlier in the day, Yasra recognized him.

Dendri lowered her to the ground and drew away the gag and untied her hands. The Padoni guard seized the remaining upright man and dragged him down to his knees. He grew vines from the ground, wrapping up each man like a mummy.

“This should hold them until we can get the constable.”

“Are they majji?” Dendri asked.

“Don’t think so.”

“What would possess nons to come onto the grounds?”

“They said I was worth something,” she said.

“Damn right you are worth something,” Dendri said, his hands gentle as they touched her face. “It still doesn’t make sense. They had to know they wouldn’t succeed against a majji.”

“Greed makes people do stupid things,” Kio Axen said.

“They didn’t seem to realize I could communicate with you, or that you could affect them even though you weren’t here.”

“Only by looking through your eyes could I see them. At first I was too far away to affect them. But I’m here now.” He stroked the backs of his knuckles down the side of her face. “Did they hurt you?”

“No. I’m fine,” she assured him.

“I’ll be the judge of that in a moment. Axen, how did they get on the property without you knowing?”

“I honestly can’t tell you. I didn’t notice any disturbance until she pulled the grass out by its roots.”

“Could one of them be Padoni?” Dendri asked looking at them skeptically.

“It’s possible. But it would take a very high level Padoni to do it so that I didn’t feel any disturbance. I doubt any of these fellows are a high level anything. They don’t dress like majji.”

“Well if they were they aren’t now,” Dendri said darkly. “Now their brains are mush. They deserve worse.”

“Agreed.” Another guard was coming up to them. “I’m going to go get the constable. Can you watch this lot?” Axen asked.

“Yes sir. Sir, you can go in now,” the guard said to Dendri. “We’ve got this.”

Dendri nodded and rose to his feet, sweeping Yasra up into his arms. He turned away from the group on the lawns and began to walk toward the house with her.

“I can walk,” she complained after a moment. “I’m too heavy for you to carry the whole way.”

“Hush. Let me care for you,” he said.

He carried her the entire way, never once missing a step or needing to adjust her weight. He was so undeniably strong. She touched his shoulder and his chest, feeling the caged strength within his skin.

He carried her into the house and she immediately squirmed.

“You can let me down now.”

“I said hush,” he said with a soft smile. He brought her into the day salon where sun was streaming brightly through the windows and a fire was crackling merrily in the hearth. He set her down on the floor in front of the fire, on top of a soft, deep piled rug.

The salon was meant to be used during the idle hours of the day. For women’s stitching or men’s reading. Painting, perhaps, or other such hobbies that required good lighting. There was a door in the rear of the salon that led out onto a glassed in patio and she could see a potter’s wheel and what she suspected was a kiln. That bemused her. Was this something Dendri did? It seemed an incongruous sort of thing for a man like Dendri to do.

Dendri sat back from her a little, kneeling back on one heel.

That was when she saw the blossom of scarlet red that had spread over his shirt.

“Dendri! You’ve been shot!” She could see the puckered space where his shirt had been driven into the wound. “And you carried me all of that way!”

Her hands flew to him in concern, her touch stinging Dendri even though fiery pain was searing through his chest and shoulder. He had not been quick enough to affect the bullet’s trajectory properly. Once a bullet was ejected from a gun even he couldn’t stop it. But he could have altered the shooter’s aim before the gun was fired. He had been so focused on not letting Yasra fall to the ground and the painful bramble at the base of the wall that he had missed the drawing of the weapon.

“It’s nothing. All that matters is that you are all right.”

“That is
not
all that matters!” She began unlacing his shirt at the throat, even though he had left it fairly loose already. After their lovemaking he had not redressed fully in his waistcoat, coat and cravat. He had looked a little wild without his usual clothing, a little disheveled compared to his usual impeccable state of dress. It looked delicious on him. But that was not what she noticed right then as she unlaced his sleeves next and, getting up onto her knees, she drew the shirt gently over his head. Dendri winced in pain as he had to lift his arm above his head to help her and she saw the facial expression.

“Tudman!” she yelled.

Normally she would have gone for the bell pull, but she did not want to leave Dendri for a moment. She shouted for Tudman again. A maid appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Tudman is in the kitchens,” she said quietly. “Shall I fetch him for you?”

“Yes. And have him call for a doctor!”

Once his shirt was off she looked back to the wound. She thought she saw a gleam of something at the center of the bullet hole.

“The bullet,” he told her. “Good. It’s not deep. Thank god the man didn’t use enough powder to pack the gun.”

“Thank god indeed,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you stop him? You could have affected him as you had affected the others.”

“He would have dropped you. That wall’s a good fifteen feet high and there’s thorn bushes at the base. I didn’t want you hurt.”

“So you allowed yourself to be hurt instead.” She tsked her tongue. “What am I to do with you? It makes me want to rethink letting you go after Delongo.”

He went still a moment, then grabbed her face in his hand and made her look at him. “What did you say?”

“I said…I was going to let you go after Delongo, but if this is how you take care of yourself—“

“Are you sure?” he asked with heat. “Are you truly sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said softly. “But if you get yourself killed I shall never forgive you!”

He chuckled at that. “I will keep that in mind.

“Anyway you can’t go now. You’re injured.”

“This is nothing. It’s not deep as you can see. The doctor will fish it out quick as a sprite. A stich or two to stop the bleeding. It will be all right. There, there,” he soothed her as he saw tears welling in her eyes. “Listen to me. I promise you it will be just fine.”

“You’re shot! Because of me! How is that fine?”

“Yasra, stop. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

“Who else is to blame?” she asked dejectedly, blinking and allowing tears to spill free. “Already I am proving to be a painful liability.”

“No. Not at all. Those men are to blame for their own actions. They have been punished for it.”

“Did you truly scramble their brains?”

“Well…it’s possible they may recover. I wasn’t being delicate or precise. I was angry and afraid for you.”

“I’m glad you did what you did,” she said with a sniff. “They deserved every bit of it. But why would nons attempt something so foolish?”

“I’m not certain it was just nons. We may have only seen nons, but it is possible there were majji behind them. They simply did not want to risk themselves so remained in the shadows. I am going to have the guards look into it further, but we may never know.”

Just then Tudman entered the room and took in the sight of them kneeling on the carpet together, Dendri naked from the waist up. Tudman took the scene in stride.

“I’ve sent for the doctor, my lord. He should be here shortly.”

“Thank you Tudman,” Dendri said. “Perhaps you should bring some water, some alcohol, and some bandages.”

“Right away my lord. Will you be wanting a brandy?”

“I can alter my perception of the worst of the pain, but a brandy might be nice. If for no other reason than to calm my nerves.”

“
Your
nerves!”

“Too right. Make that two brandies Tudman.”

Yasra sighed in exasperation as Tudman nodded and took his leave. As usual, the well-trained servant took everything completely in stride. It made Yasra wonder exactly what they saw on a regular basis that had them calmly accepting their lord and master being shot.

“What am I going to do with you?” she said in vexation.

“Make love with me until the sweat gleams on our bodies and we can no longer feel our extremities?” he suggested, leaning forward into her and nuzzling her neck.

“Dendri!” she gasped as curls of heat unfurled within her. That was it. An instant of words and a single touch and he had her wanting him. “You won’t be making love to anyone in this condition!”

“As I said…a few stitches and it will be done with. Here. Watch.”

He placed his hand an inch away from his wound, closed his eyes a moment and with a pop, the bullet reversed its track and flew out of the wound and into his hand. He held it up for her to see. “There. See? Simple.”

She gaped at him for a moment. She hadn’t known he could do that. “How did you do that?”

“I can move things with my mind.”

She was floored. She hadn’t even conceived of the things a high level Aspano could do with his mind, she realized. “I didn’t know Aspanos could do that.”

“It is a very difficult skill to master. It requires a great deal of focus and concentration. It would not be easy to do it while in action. For instance, I could not jerk the gun out of his hand to prevent him from firing because I was too affected by my worry for your safety. That, and it happened so fast,” he added before she could take any guilt onto herself.

He tossed the bloodied bullet into the fire. His wound was bleeding afresh, runnels of blood rolling down his chest and the ridges of his abdomen. She picked up his ruined shirt and cleaned up as much as she could.

“Where is the doctor?” she fretted.

“He will be here soon,” he soothed her. He reached out to her and stroked warm strong fingers over the rise of her cheek and then into her hair. His thumb twitched across her chin. “Stop worrying. You crease your pretty brow when you do.” His fingertip drew up along her forehead, tracing each of her eyebrows gently.

His touch soothed her fractious heart and thoughts…just as it was intended to do.

“Come and kiss me,” he said softly, leaning forward toward her.

She could not deny him anything right then. Cautious not to lean on him, she touched her lips gently to his. The chaste kiss made him growl.