Tithed (2 page)

     The trill of feminine laughter from the back of the room caught his ear, and grinning, he turned to look. Gretel was right in saying he knew too well his own charm. The ladies came in to eat, drink and be merry, and if a little harmless flirting made them merry, Connell wasn't above that either.

     He recognized the group just as Gretel had said he would. They were all magicreators from up the hill. Instructors at the Keep, which meant they always had plenty of coin to spread around. That suited him fine. Magicreators didn't cause trouble either, because even a group of unattended women wouldn't be bothered by the most boisterous of his customers. No man would mess with a magicreator who could take off his nuts with little more than a flick of her fingers.

     Connell walked around the edge of the bar and headed toward their table, intending to give them a smile and a laugh, and a round of free drinks in appreciation of their business. Maybe let them think they might have the chance to take him to bed. It never hurt to lead them on. Made them spendy, it did, even if it never led to anything but stories they took back with them.

     "Good evening, ladies," he said, hands on his hips, looking round at each of them. "A pleasure to see—"

     The words caught in his throat at the sight of her. The same dark hair, worn tied up instead of loose, but still as smooth as silk. Time had sharpened her features and turned her from a girl into a woman, but the better-defined cheekbones and jaw only made her that much more beautiful. The lush lips he'd once kissed with such passion parted as he spoke, and the remembered taste of her set his mind reeling.

     "Hello, Conn." This came from the red-haired woman to his left. She eyed him without a speck of coyness. "Nice to see you again."

     "And you," he answered, eyes locked on Ella's familiar blue-gray gaze. The eyes he'd never thought to see again.

     The other women didn't seem to notice his lack of attention, for they giggled and flirted while his mouth made replies his mind did not bother to track.

     She was terrified. He could see it in the way her eyes grew dark and her fingers tightened on her glass. Her entire body vibrated like she meant to run away, but was unable to move.

     He scared her, 'twas no great feat to see it, and even after all this time, the fact she would fear him tightened his jaw with anger. He'd never done aught to harm her. All he'd ever done was love her. And even now, ten years after he'd told her he would never love another woman the way he loved her, she wanted to run away from him again.

     "…on the house," he heard himself say, and waved away the ladies' half-hearted protests. "I insist. On me."

     "Ooh," purred the woman with black hair. "Really? Drinks on you? That would be interesting."

     Where he'd have given her a grin and a wink before, now Connell only managed a faint smile. "Be careful, madam or I'll think you fancy me."

     This made the women at the table erupt into giddy laughter. All but one. He stared hard into her eyes for one more moment before turning away.

     Three ales. She'd kept careful count, as she did of everything, even now when the alcohol fuzzed her brain and made her unsteady.

     The others had become raucous as the night wore on, setting up challenges with the table of men beside them. Drinking games. Wagers. Callis had settled herself upon the lap of a brawny man with a ginger-colored beard and a booming laugh. Dayla and Gabriana had agreed to a game of darts with two men, though their opponents had declared the match unfair because the women could use magic to their advantage.

     
Everything in pairs,
Elspeth thought as she stared at the bottom of another empty glass. Tw
o by two.
Neat and tidy. No room for three. She
was drunk, which surprised her into laughter. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle it, though nobody would have noticed with all the noise.

"What's with your friend?" she heard the brawny man ask Callis. "She don't like comp'ny?"

     Callis murmured something Elspeth couldn't hear and she stared at the table. Men had been speaking to her all night, but she'd put them all off. The only man for whom she had eyes had not looked at her again, a fact for which she was intensely grateful as his studied lack of attention allowed her to watch him, unnoticed.

     Connell. Ten years had been kind to him. They'd broadened his shoulders, lengthened his hair and touched the corners of his eyes with lines that showed he, at least, had spent his time smiling. He wasn't a lad any longer, but a man. Then again she supposed she could no longer consider herself a girl.

     She was no fool. She was an Arithmanticist. Elspeth knew better than anyone how small choices influence greater ones, and how one seemingly unimportant decision can affect an entire outcome. Everything counts.

     If she was here and Connell too, it meant that somehow along the way both of them had done something, made some choice, taken some branching path that led them both to this spot. It would not have happened otherwise. She would have refused the invitation to join her colleagues, or they'd have taken her to another pub. Or going further back, he'd not have opened his place in this town where she'd chosen to live.

     She was here, and he was here, and there was a purpose to it. A fate she could not comprehend. An equation she did not know how to calculate.

     All at once the drinks, the smoke and the laughter made her blink against an onslaught of dizziness. She stood, touching one hand to the table to steady herself.

     "I'm going to get some fresh air," she told Callis.

     "Are you well?" Callis looked concerned, as though she meant to get up from her companion's lap.

     "I'm fine," Elspeth answered quickly, adding a smile to be more convincing. "Just need a bit of a breeze. That's all."

     Callis nodded, but sank back onto her seat. "If you're sure…"

     "Yes. I'm sure." Elspeth smiled again and moved around the table, avoiding the leer and lewd greeting of one of the men sitting there.

     Darkness shrouded the hallway leading to the washrooms, but Elspeth had never feared darkness. She went past two doors marked with symbols—one for male and one for female. Again, a pair. The door at the hall's end bore no marking, but she knew it led outside, and so she pushed through it and ventured into the chill winter air.

     The fenced courtyard behind the Lamb contained no pretty garden or bubbling fountain, only a path of fitted slates leading to a leaning, decrepit shed and scrubby grass interspersed with patches of bare earth. Large refuse bins lined one side. Some benches lined another, and 'twas there she sought to rest her legs and catch the breath which had left her with such sudden ferocity inside.

     Above her, the stars gleamed pure white against a black, clear sky. The moon hung like a coin amongst them. She smelled snow despite the lack of clouds. She tipped her head to stare up, and her eyes followed the lines and curves of the constellations as she began to count the points of light.

     She'd never counted them all. She never could. It brought her peace, though, to try. Stars were just about the only limitless thing in the world, the only things she could not reach the end of, and the numbers rose higher and higher in her mind, wiping out everything else for the moment.

     When she lifted her palm, fingers slightly curled, not even the numbers in her head could push aside the sight of the glimmering silver orb that formed there. She could count forever and still remain unable to wipe from her mind how the orb shimmered and shattered before she could push it into anything else. She closed her fingers tight on the remaining shards of what should've been great power and were instead nothing but broken pieces of what she could never have.

     
A star has fallen to earth.

     Not a star, and not a piece of her broken orb either. An ember. A cheroot, the tip flaring as its owner drew in the smoke, then arcing through the air as he tossed it to the ground and left it without bothering to crush it with his boot. A smaller piece of blackness separated from the larger shadows, and she stood, stepping back against the fence.

     "How many are there?"

     She'd known it was him the moment she stood. "You know I can't know that."

     "Not even you? Not the Countess?"

     "Don't call me that." The retort came out sharper than she'd intended. The fence pressed against her back. A splinter gouged her arm. She'd come out without a cloak.

     Connell stepped closer. "You used to like it when I called you that."

     "That was a long time ago." Elspeth couldn't back away any further, so she straightened her spine.
And you used to say it with love in your voice.

     Connell's eyes flashed in the starlight, and a moment later, his teeth as he grinned. "Aye, and so it was. A long time ago and a place far away. But you haven't changed, have you? You're still counting."

     He'd moved so close to her she could smell him, and it made her weak. He'd used to smell of the sea. Salt. Sun. Sand. The tang of sweat.

     Now he smelled of ale and smoke, but underlying it still a hint of sun and wind and sand. He was different and yet the same; the remembered taste of him flooded her mouth and made her heart thump in her chest.

     "I'm still counting." Her voice scratched and cracked, embarrassed her.

     His hand came out to twirl a strand of hair that had fallen over her shoulder. A handspan separated them, no more. He tucked the hair behind her ear. His fingers cupped her cheek, then trailed along her jaw, down the line of her neck and came to rest upon her shoulder.

     She shivered, not from cold but heat, which had sprung up along the path of his fingers. Shadows veiled his face again, but she heard his breath, felt it on her face, and she could almost taste his lips on hers.

     Connell didn't kiss her. "I didn't believe my eyes when I saw you sitting in my pub. After all this time and there you were, looking like an angel. I thought for sure I was dreaming."

     She wanted to tell him she was sorry. She hadn't meant to run away. She hadn't meant to hurt him. She hadn't meant any of it, that long ago night when she'd told him she could never love him… But unlike numbers, words never came to her rescue when she needed them.

     Closer still he moved, his body against hers, pinning her against the fence, and Elspeth shuddered with a sudden force of desire so strong it forced a low cry from her throat. Ten years, and he still affected her this way. The only man who ever could.

     She was already opening her mouth to his kiss when he pulled away, leaving her cold instead of hot. Connell backed away with a muttered curse. She blinked, trying to see his expression, but could make out nothing more than the flash of his eyes again in starlight.

     "Why?" he asked her, one word that meant so much and had so many answers.

     She didn't know which to give him. "Connell…"

     He backed away from her reaching hand, putting both his own up as though to make sure there was no way they could possibly touch her.

     "Why, Ella?" The agony in his voice broke her heart all over again. "Why now, after all this time, when I finally thought—"

     But he'd say no more, just backed away another step. This time, she was the one pursuing, moving across the slate path toward him. "Connell, wait."

     "You're still afraid of me!" he cried. "I saw it inside, and I felt you shaking just now! You're afraid of me, even now, when I'd never do aught to hurt you!"

     "I know that. I know it. Connell, love, please…"

     He'd backed into a patch of moonlight, and to her horror, she saw tears glimmering in his eyes. She'd made him cry before, and it seemed unfair now that she'd made him weep again when tears would never come for her no matter how much she might wish for the relief they brought.

     He ran a hand through his hair, messing it, and let his hand rest on the back of his neck, his eyes turned away from her. "Why?"

     "Because I was a fool," she answered. "I didn't deserve you."

     She reached for him again, a hesitant hand that did not quite touch him. "I was a fool who did not know the gift she held, Connell. And I plead your mercy."

     He shook his head. "You left without a word. I never knew where you'd gone, or if you were all right. I never knew if you were alive or dead, sick or well. I never knew if you were happy."

     "I'm sorry." It was all she had to say, and it was not enough.

     "All I ever did was love you," he said in a low voice. "And you treated me like I wasn't even worth it."

     Then she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers, bruising. She didn't resist, didn't protest, just let him walk her backward and put her up against the fence, his hands on her waist and his mouth crushing, crushing.

     She opened beneath him and his tongue swept inside. She tasted ale and smoke. She tasted Connell, a flavor she'd never forgotten, and it made her gasp as she put her arms around his neck and clung to him.

     He pushed hard against her, the way he used to when they were in her garden and desperate to steal one more kiss before she had to go inside. He bunched the fabric of her skirt in his hands and slid beneath it to the bare skin of her thighs atop her stockings. His hands cupped her rear and he lifted her, holding her so tight she had no fear of falling. The heat and hardness of him pressed against her, and she gasped and tightened her thighs around his hips.

     She tasted blood from the force of his kiss, from a spot where her teeth had caught the inside of her lip. The metallic, salty taste of it made her think of the way they'd been, and how she'd once taken him in her mouth while the ocean crashed so close to them the spray had wet their clothes.