Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) (36 page)

She just shook her head, but they were well connected and the huge rage had begun to dissipate in her. He could sort through her turbulent emotions. “Yes. You’re angry because they didn’t fight when your home was firebombed.”

“We might have hurt people if we—”

He flung up a hand. “You don’t need to mouth any excuses to me. Your folks didn’t fight then, and they didn’t fight afterward. And that angered you.”

Her lips and chin trembled.

“And it’s understandable . . . both that you were furious and what your parents did—or failed to do. Your Family is gentle and pacifists, so you copied their behavior and accepted what was. Your training helped you squash those feelings.”

“I . . . I . . .” Tears coursed down her cheeks. “I thought I’d gotten through these issues.”

“Probably some, but not all. Not the underlying basic stuff.” Cautiously he stepped forward and closed his hands around her upper arms. He dug down for a tone of command he rarely used. “Why are you mad at your parents?” he snapped.

“They took my home away!” She shuddered now. “No—”

“Yes. They took you away from your home and you never got to go back . . .”

Her shudders turned into full-body shakes.

“So you’re angry at them. Let it out.”

“Yes, I’m furious with them. They didn’t
try
to fix things. To get back what they lost.” She wrenched away from him, flailed her arms as she stomped around, tears pouring down her face. Then she pounded her chest with a fist. “That
hurt
me and I was a child and couldn’t do anything about it and—”

He nodded. “I understand.”

She flung out her arm, pointing.
“And YOU!”

“Me?” He blinked.

“You are my HeartMate and you HID from me. I couldn’t find you. Why, why?”

“Not my fault—”

“Shut up! You! You could have had that spell taken off at any time. You didn’t let me help you, either. You didn’t have faith in yourself or me.”

T
hat’s not true,” he protested.

“It
is
true.” Her stomping had turned into striding. “I’m angry at
you
, too.”

“I can see that.”

“You hurt me, too.” She swallowed hard and the tears, which had paused, began again.

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes lit with a wild ferocity he’d never seen in them . . . far, far from her usual tranquility. She sure was letting it all out.

“
Years
I endured thinking you didn’t want me because of the scandal. Because you might have believed the original lies about me and my Family.”

He rocked back on his heels. “So you can understand some of what I went through—go through—too. Not being good enough for you.”

“Not
feeling
as if you’re good enough for me. Tcha!” She paced up to him, stabbed a finger in his chest, flung out her arms again. “Blood doesn’t determine who I love.”

“Easy for you to say,” he muttered. “You’re a priestess and supposed to be nonjudgemental.” He squared his shoulders, letting her words actually sink in. “So you just thought I was cowardly and stupid,” he said evenly, his own temper beginning to simmer at how dismissive she’d been of his concerns.

She tossed her head. “Stupid in a different way.”

“Right. Great. Just what a man likes to hear from his lover.”

Narrowing her own eyes, she corrected, “HeartMate. And you were the one who started this.
Yes, I’m carrying a lot of anger from my past. Ire at my parents for just abandoning our life. I’m . . . peeved . . . at you for your stupid spell, and for thinking the way you did. The way you do!
”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.”

Before either of them could say anything else, Felonerb RatKiller appeared, hissing.
You all big mad!
he said to Tiana, then whirled to face Antenn, all his fur on end.
He hurt you! You said so. I will BITE him.
He leapt for Antenn.

“Wait!” Tiana
pulled
at her Fam and he landed into her arms. Her expression tightened to stone. “You
did
hurt me.” Her breath came out less explosively, and Antenn reckoned she was winding down. “All those years I couldn’t find you, even if I’d tried.”

“Which you didn’t.” He discovered
he
hurt, too.

“I tested the link between us often. There was nothing there,” she said. “I don’t care who your brother was or what he did. I don’t care who your father is or isn’t. I want my HeartMate. And if you wanted me to reach my full potential, I want the same for you. Accept
yourself
, Antenn. Value yourself.”

“Ah, Family?” TQ asked tentatively. “You are affecting my emotions and those of the ferals around me.” He cleared his throat. “There are fights.”

“Oh,” Tiana said.

Antenn snorted. “Oops.”

“It’s not funny,” she said.

“I suppose not. Maybe you should discuss this matter with your parents and clear stuff up.”

“I can do that.”

“Of course you can,” Antenn said.

She glared at him as if she thought he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t.

Felonerb jumped from her arms onto the bed and she strode over to a dresser, yanked a softleaf from a box and used it to wipe away continuing tears, then blew her nose. “I
will
discuss this with my parents. And my sister.”

She looked at Antenn, then flushed. “Fighting, I’ve caused fighting between innocent animals.”

Felonerb, kneading the comforter on the bed, belched.

“You’ve made me understand how much you hurt me.” She put her hand on her heart. “I don’t know when I’ll want to see you again.”

“We have to work together.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps!”

Pressing her hands against her head only emphasized how flushed she was and her tear tracks. “I can’t think. I’m only feeling.” Biting her lip, she shook her head. “I don’t know what I want with you.” She flung on her clothes, then walked over to a corner that held a teleportation pad.

“Wait—” She shouldn’t leave him. Couldn’t. Desperation fired through him, making him wave his arms jerkily. “Wait! I didn’t mean to—”

But she left.

Felonerb hissed at him.

“I don’t have to stay here, cat. And I’m not.” He wouldn’t go home. His mother and father would want to talk about the ritual, the cathedral, and Tiana. His Betony-Blackthorn cuzes would—

His cuzes Vensis and Draeg would be at The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon. Tonight was an all-night melee for charity, the continuation of the refurbishment of old Downwind.

Antenn had paid the entrance fee for the fight and pledged more besides but had disregarded the event when the Chief Ministers had set tonight for their ritual. He kept a locker and fighting robes at the salon. All-night fighting.
Damn
good release.

Surely others would have arrived late. Or the rounds of competition were over now. He didn’t know, but yearned for a good bout.

“TQ, thanks for your hospitality. Good seeing you again.”

“Antenn, it’s all my fault—” TQ began.

He didn’t hear the rest of that, and didn’t need to, because Antenn knew damn well whose fault it was. His own. As he changed in the Men’s Locker Room, he understood that the disaster he’d been flirting with all day had finally caught up with him.

And losing—for now and who knew how long?—Tiana’s affection sliced worse than if he’d lost the job. He didn’t want to contemplate how tough it would be to work with her on the cathedral. She’d probably retreat behind that perfect priestess exterior that he found difficult to affect. Or maybe she’d go icy. Either way, he didn’t like the results of what he’d said and done.

Needed to be said and done, but maybe he should have put it off until later, until they knew each other better.

But he’d never been one to let a faulty foundation stay.

When he stepped into the main salon, Tinne Holly nodded to him and strode up. Though Antenn was sure the man would have been in several fights by now, he appeared unharmed, unmussed. He clapped Antenn on the shoulder. “Greetyou, Antenn. Sorry the Holly Family couldn’t be at that ceremony of your cathedral tonight, but we’d already set this up.”

“I understand.”

Antenn’s cuz Draeg, who spent most of his time at this place when he wasn’t prowling the city streets looking for trouble, pummeled Antenn on his opposite shoulder. Draeg was taller, broader, and hadn’t been starved for food in his childhood. He said, “It was a good ceremony. Unusual since it was not to the Lord and the Lady, but intriguing, all the same. I liked it. Like the look of that structure you’re building, too. Didn’t expect to see you here tonight, though. Guys with new, hot lovers can find better things to do than fight.”

Draeg and Tinne laughed, and Antenn said, “Let’s fight.” He poked Draeg, who could take him down three out of five times, in the chest.

“Trouble so soon?” Draeg shook his head. “Sad to see.” He scanned Antenn up and down. “Just sad.”

Antenn growled.

Tinne raised his voice. “Change of plans! General melee in
two
minutes.”

“Fine,” Antenn said.

“Fine,” Draeg said.

*   *   *

T
iana dropped onto the teleportation pad in the mainspace of BalmHeal Residence. She’d been a little off, but was lucky her emotions hadn’t influenced her ’porting even more. She’d have liked to have blamed
everything
on Antenn, but of course she couldn’t do that. No strong person could, let alone a priestess. All he’d done was prod her to reveal—spectacularly—the understandable but awful emotions lurking inside her.

She must
still
be broadcasting great distress because her mother ran in. Her mother and father had probably been spending time in the conservatory, talking about the ritual, which seemed years ago instead of a couple of septhours.

Quina appeared anxious. “What’s wrong?”

Tiana wobbled over to a twoseat, not her regular chair in the Family grouping, and collapsed. She translocated the crumpled softleaf in her hand to a cleanser, pulled another one from her sleeve, and wiped her face. She couldn’t stop crying . . . better not to stop crying.

Sinjin!
her mother called telepathically.
Artemisia! Garrett!

Tiana wanted to say Garrett didn’t need to be here, but that was her own cowardice speaking. He’d understood her before, but he loved her sister and her parents. He wouldn’t be on her side now.

Tiana’s father jogged in, expression concerned, followed by Artemisia. Maybe Garrett wouldn’t show—

There was a quiet swish and the man appeared on the teleportation pad, face tense. Like her father, he went to his HeartMate and put his arm around her waist. Tiana wanted to think that she and Antenn would be like that, but they hadn’t meshed.

She wanted all the pain to go away, all the anger that still spurted through her, all the exhaustion and confusion. She wished to bury her head in her hands, but until she faced the situation, life wasn’t going to get better. So she lifted her hunched spine bit by bit and faced her Family.

“What’s wrong, honey?” asked her father, who sat next to her. Her mother, still linking fingers with him, hovered close.

Tiana gulped because she was afraid she’d scream at him, as she’d screamed at Antenn. Absolutely no rein on her emotions.

“I . . . I . . .” A gulp of air, this time, not swallowing tears. She pressed her flattened hand above her breasts, close to her heart. “I have this rage inside me I didn’t know about.”

Her eyes had blurred again and it was good because it distanced her a little from the world, from whatever reaction she would see in her father’s eyes when she told him the truth. “I am angry.” Her voice shook and now she couldn’t tell if it was only anger, but fear of hurting her parents, or embarrassment at losing control or what-all-ever.

Stumbling, she let it out. “You just . . . we just . . . we left our home during the mob firebombing and we never returned. We abandoned it and everything!” The words tore from her.

Her parents shared a glance. To her absolute surprise, her father lifted her and set her on his lap, and then her mother took Tiana’s seat, crowding her. That was fine.

Artemisia and Garrett drew up their regular chairs.

“How could you do that? Leave our home?” Tiana cried.

Her father held her close and rocked her. “There was evil out there. An evil man of the Black Magic Cult had left clues implicating us—your mother as a member of the Intersection of Hope—as running that murderous cult. Everyone, Commoners and Nobles alike, went through a time of panic.”

“But afterward, you didn’t try to get things back, did you?”

She felt his heart pound faster in his chest beneath her cheek. “I presented document after document, petition after petition. Clerks lost them. Nobles never heard of them. People who we thought were friends didn’t speak with us. People I sent messages to said they never received them.”

Garrett nodded slowly. “Nothing shows up in any official records that you tried to get your home and holdings back.”

Her father shrugged. “I tried every avenue I thought of to file such petitions.”

“Then I panicked,” Quina said. “We were disenfranchised. Nobody. Easy prey for those who might want us to disappear—all of us, even my babies. No one would care. So I took another name and worked at AllClass HealingHall. We moved often. We stayed beneath notice of anyone who might pursue us.

“We decided to leave Druida, change our names, and move to a smaller town,” Tiana’s father said.

Her mother lifted her chin. “Healers are always useful.”

“Then came the offer to stay here, to mind the estate, and to care for the Residence.”

And I thank you
, said the Residence.
You have been a good and true and honorable Family.

Tiana leaned back and stared at her father’s worn and lined face, met his steady eyes. “You did try.”