The Forlorn (5 page)

Marcos disagreed. “But do not take too long, brother. Having your mate is the best thing a male can experience. A moment without her is a moment too long.”

The look the two of them shared was so intensely private and full of love envy immediately filled Rion. Envy and hope.

Would he and Mara one day feel the same of each other?

Mara shivered and Rion took the extra blanket at the end of the bed and covered her with it more fully. It wasn’t cold in the room, by any means. Was she chilling?

“We’ll need to watch for infection,” Lana said. “I’ll send a bit of the green from Marcos ruined
vestis
to Josey. Maybe she will be able to identify what those creatures were.”

A knock sounded on the door. Lana opened it and a blonde woman rushed in. From the resemblance he assumed it was Mara’s mother. Two young boys followed her, identical down to their feet. Twins—odd. Dardaptoan women did not deliver twins safely very often. Especially women so young. He would put her younger than fifty. Very young.

She was most definitely Dardaptoan, but she wore human clothing, and no
hasha
. Her sons, too, were dressed in human clothing. Frayed and worn, and a bit too small. The fear and wariness in their faces was almost tangible.

He stood, and stepped between his female and her family, halting the mother’s progress. “I am Clarion,
dhar
of the Australian Adrastos House. I am your daughter’s
Rajni
.”

She stared at him with horror. “My daughter has no
Rajni
. Least of all an Adrastos warrior. My daughter is Lupoiux.”

“No more than you are, my lady. And you cannot deny what the Goddess has decreed. I am your daughter’s mate, and I will see her happy and safe.”

“Can you return her to the life she had before coming to this place? If not, then you face a losing battle. My daughter has been anything but happy in this world.” The mother looked at the girl in the bed. “And that’s all my fault.”

“Mama?”

Chapter Fourteen

Mara heard them talking, but it was taking more energy than she really had to open her eyes. So she didn’t.

She heard him use the word
rajni
and she’d been around enough Dardaptoans in the past five months to know what it meant. Mates destined to be together, put into place
without choice
by the goddess these people revered.

She hadn’t understood it the first time she’d heard it, and she sure didn’t understand it now.

And
he
thought she was
his
?

No way. That was so not happening. She opened her eyes partially, just enough to look at him.

He looked strong and beautiful in the light coming through the window.  Where had he come from and why had he been in the library? “You followed me…but…I don’t know you.”

Her mother took her hand, and Mara resisted the urge to cling. No matter what kind of strain there had been between her and her mother in the last five months, she was still the center of Mara’s world. She and the boys always would be. “Baby? Are you hurting?”

The fear was so easy for her to hear. Mara pushed herself up, even though her arms burned. Then
he
was behind her, supporting her weight against his broad chest. “I’m ok. Just…those
things
got pretty close.”

“What were you doing in the middle of the city?” Her mother’s censure was underneath the question. “It isn’t safe. You know that. You can’t take risks like that again. You can’t.”

“I was…” What was she supposed to say? She
had
knowingly broken the law the leader of the town had imposed. That she did not feel that leader had any say over her mattered very little. She had been raised to obey the laws. That the law she had broken had been Dardaptoan instead of human didn’t change things. Would she be in trouble for that—legal trouble? How were rule-breaking Dardaptoans even punished in this world? She knew enough about non-American cultures to know that some extremely harsh punishments existed. Would Relaklonos, this strange demon land, be any different? “I just…it was stupid.”

“Yes, it was. You can’t do that to me again.”

Chapter Fifteen

The mother’s words were harsh, but so was her fear. Her concern for her daughter. But he wouldn’t have the woman browbeating his Rajni, not when she had been injured, when she was still so afraid. “Perhaps now and here are not the best for such discussion. Your daughter needs to rest, to allow her body to heal.”

“I will stay with her. And my sons.
We’re
her family.”

And the mother was the one upsetting her. That he would not allow. “I am sure something can be arranged for you and your sons to stay nearby.”

“And where will my daughter be? With you? No. That won’t work.”

“She’ll be in our family hall,” Barlaam said. “Until she is well, and then decisions about such can be better made.”

Rion appreciated the other male’s diplomacy. The mother, who looked a lot like her daughter, but with pale blonde hair, also appeared intractable and determined.

He did not wish to fight with her over her daughter, but he would if he had to.

But what kind of position would that put his
Rajni
in?

Something about the relationship between the two women was
off.
Strained and tense. Unhealthy.

“Your daughter is now a part of the strongest family of warriors within our Kind. She will be protected and safe from whatever it is that has attacked. I can promise you that. I will have some of my best people escort you and your sons to your home. Gather your things. You will no longer be without a House to protect you. You will have a family now, for always and forever. This I make as a vow, on the noble blood of the Adrastos.”

The mother just stared at him but he knew the woman understood what he meant. How old was she? What House had she originated from? Where was her male—the boys were very obviously Lupoiux—but the mother and her daughter were definitely Dardaptoan.

“We really have no choice, do we?” The mother wrapped a hand around each of her sons’ arms. “We don’t have much. I’m sure you can send someone for it in less than an hour.”

Chapter Sixteen

Mara was on her feet early the next morning. Her mother and brothers were not going to see her cowering, wimpy and weak in a strange man’s bed. No matter how insistent the man was. He had carried her—she remembered some of it—to his own suite in the ruling hall, and placed her in the center of his bed. She’d been too exhausted to protest. Then.

He’d positioned himself next to the bed the entire night, and she was just weenie enough to admit that his presence was a comfort. Especially when the nightmares came. How could they not? And he hadn’t attempted to talk too much, stating she needed to rest.

It had made for some pretty awkward awake times. Thankfully she’d slept more often than not.

He hadn’t let her mother in, and Mara was grateful. What was she supposed to do about her mother? Yesterday had illustrated the chasm that had widened between them more than Mara could have ever expected.

And that wasn’t good for any of them, especially the boys. She’d have to find a way to work things out with her mother. And quickly.

Starting with getting her questions answered, ones her mother had evaded for far too long.

He was in the shower, and she could hear the sounds of him moving around in the small bathroom. Thrun had running water and plumbing but it was far different from what she was used to in the modern world. At least—the main residence hall did. She didn’t know much about the rest of the city.
Their
house hadn’t had more than a single piped toilet and a cistern to store water outside the house. The ruling hall’s pipes were far less crude and made out of the same white and black stone that characterized the rest of the city. They were exposed—not that stone would weather all that quickly—and they used gravity for movement instead of electric pumping.

There wasn’t anything as modern or convenient as electricity or power—other than magical, of course—in this new world. This old world. Whatever it was.

She’d always been fascinated by ancient times, but she had never intended to live in some of those times.

But Mara made do. Their small home had no power, no real windows, no real beds, and only a very crude kitchen. Her mother hadn’t been thrilled with it, but she had adjusted better than Mara would have expected.

But then again, maybe her mother had been born into similar times. She didn’t even know how old her mother truly was.

He—Rion, she needed to remember to call him by his name—came out of the bathroom. He didn’t have a shirt on. There was all kinds of man muscle right there in front of her. She’d seen a lot of Dardaptoan men in recent months—they were all tall and muscled and absolutely beautiful. At first she hadn’t believed they could be real. They all looked too perfect.

He took that to the next level. He smiled at her. “Good morning, Rajni. Do you feel rested?”

“Better than yesterday.” She looked at the bandages still on her arms. The bleeding had stopped, and she had been about to change the wrappings herself. She wasn’t waiting for his sister-in-law like she’d been instructed.

She wanted to find her mother and get her and the boys back to their house. Where she could have some time to process everything that had happened.

Somehow she doubted he was going to let that happen. “I need to get going. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but I need to take my family home. The boys will have school, if it’s safe.”

“You’re not going back to the center of the city. It’s not a safe place, especially for the
dahn
of one of the Adrastos Houses. Your family will be moving with you.”

He meant it, didn’t he? He actually thought
he
had the right to give her orders. “Excuse me? Isn’t that my decision to make? I don’t know why you think you have a say in my life. But you don’t.”

“I am your
Rajni
. And you are mine. You know what that means.”

“No. No, I don’t.” And wasn’t that part of the problem? She’d spent the last three months not knowing anything. “All I really know is that your brother showed up at my door and told my mother we were evacuating the only world I’d ever known, and told me that I wasn’t as human as I had always thought. My mother hasn’t told me anything more than that since we came through a freaky kind of cloud to get here. My brothers know nothing, and believe me, all the lovely little Dardaptoan kids have no trouble pointing that out to them. We have little running water, a pit to cook in, and barely enough blankets between the four of us to keep two of us warm in this frostbitten purgatory. And I still know barely more than I did that first day. That was why I was in the library when I shouldn’t have. I knew it was wrong, Rion. But I needed to know what I am supposed to do in this world. And I needed to know what it would take for me to go home. I’m sorry if you think I’m something I’m not, but you’re wrong. Find someone else to be your
rajni
. You’ll be a lot happier.”

Chapter Seventeen

Bitter. There was a bitterness in her words that saddened him so greatly. Why hadn’t her mother told her of her heritage? The knowledge that she had been so denied and confused almost physically hurt him. He reached out for her, not surprised when she pulled back. Afraid.

She wasn’t more than twenty-three or twenty-four and to be deliberately kept in the dark about who she was, and then be thrust into a strange, demonic land?

There was no way he’d want that for his sister Nora. He pulled his hand away. They’d just take it very slow between them. That was all he could do. He forced himself to settle into the chair near the bed. “Sit down. We’ll…talk. I’ll answer every question you have. About this world, the old world. Any world you want to know about. I will help you find your answers. It’s one of the things I do. I am an historian of my—our—people. Let me help you. Let me at least be your friend. Perhaps
lover
will come later.”

***

She hadn’t made a single friend since the relocation, and that loss was never harder than it was in that moment looking at the man in front of her. No one wanted to be associated with a family that didn’t wear a stupid, freaking colored scarf. She’d never understand that. And her mother seemed almost militant in not pushing people to interact with her and the boys.

Mara had left all the friends she’d had since she had been thirteen years old, and she hadn’t been given a chance to say good-bye. She’d roomed with them in college, and they’d been planning to rent a house together for grad school.

Did they even know what had happened to her? Did they think she was dead?