Blood Warrior

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tallis watched the unfolding scene as if he were a much younger man, experiencing his first dream vision. The colors were all wrong. The sounds in his ears and the taste in his mouth—they were distorted. He could hear sugar and taste velocity. It was all wrong.

Because, head bowed, Pashkah was kneeling in front of Kavya.

His neck was exposed. And a Black Guardsman had forced Pashkah’s Dragon-forged sword into her hands.

The surreal situation didn’t stop there. His kinsmen had laid down their weapons. They stood entranced, but he knew the Pendray didn’t do so by choice. They were victims of the Guardsmen’s telepathic process. Even Tallis could sense it. They formed a ring like Stonehenge made out of bloodied, armored, panting Dragon Kings, all of whom had been stopped mid-motion. Weapons littered the ground. Even Rill, with her indomitable spirit and forgiving heart, didn’t seem . . . awake. He wanted a touch of Kavya’s powers.

Wake up!

The only change was when another Guardsman stood over Tallis with his own sword poised for a cutting blow.

Kavya darted her eyes between Pashkah’s exposed neck and Tallis’s eyes.

More than anything, he wanted to talk to Kavya’s mind. He wouldn’t tell her to wake up, because he’d never seen her more alert. Every emotion a woman could wear across such beautiful, dear features was there to see. Her outrage and fear, her heartsick mourning and her love. He wouldn’t tell her to wake up; he’d show her what was in his heart, especially how he’d changed himself for the better, freeing himself, reclaiming his free will and his hope for a better future. Maybe then she’d have the courage to do what needed to be done.

But he had no telepathy. He’d only ever had words—when he was lucky and the berserker gave him leave to speak. Kavya’s love had taught him how to bring both halves together. Oh, he was raging and he was speaking. Pashkah didn’t stand a chance

“Don’t do it, goddess. Don’t you dare. Dragon damn you if you do.”

“No! I can’t let them kill you!” She swallowed, tightening her hands on the hilt of that deadly weapon. “I’m stronger than them. I’d use their powers to make people trust me again. Make them see how good peace will be.”

“Yes,” Pashkah said, his voice slinky and soft. “What’s right. Make them see.”

“Make them?” Tallis’s voice, by contrast, was a bellow. Rage clawed out from his throat. He lay on the ground, stomach pressed flat. Fury built beneath his skin, pressing his bones against the solid, unforgiving coastal rock like a volcano about to burst. “Kavya, you’ve made yourself ill whenever you’ve needed to use your powers selfishly. That clerk in the hotel. The customs agent in Istanbul. Afterward I held your hair back as you threw up.”

“Enough!” Pashkah sounded like a demon.

Tallis wasn’t close to being finished. “One-third, Kavya. Remember? The rest has been your conviction and conscience. Peace is not yours to make. They want it bathed in blood, not earned through trust.”

“Shut him up!”

Obeying his master, the Black Guardsman drove the pommel of the Dragon-forged sword into the base of Tallis’s neck. A human would’ve been crippled. Paralyzed forever. Tallis only boiled. That was where Kavya had promised to kiss him.

He locked eyes with his wife. They held each other’s hearts for a second—one second of the lifetime they had yet to share.

She smiled.

“Shut him up?” Kavya backed away from her insane brother. “No, my berserker is just getting started.”

Tallis roared. He threw off pairs of binding hands as if he’d been held down by toddlers. After spinning onto his back, he kicked up toward the looming Guardsman’s shin. His boot connected sideways against the man’s tibia, breaking the limb in two. A compound fracture. Tallis wanted to do more damage, but he didn’t need to. The man crumpled onto his ass, bellowing and clutching his ruined leg.

Kavya whirled on the man holding her in place, ready for the kill, and kicked him in the chest. She grabbed the seax Tallis had given her, stabbing the long blade through the Guardsman’s shoulder. He was pinned to the ground. His screams ended when Kavya decapitated him with the Dragon-forged sword. She yanked the seax free and wiped the blood against her skirts.

The flurry of surprise shocked the Pendray to life. Guardsmen did their best to get up to speed.

Tallis snatched up his family’s Dragon-forged sword along with his other seax. It was a hard test of his control to keep from knocking heads off the men who’d nearly allowed Pashkah to get his way. To kill Tallis’s family. To force Kavya into unending madness.

Kavya!

The hand-to-hand battle had resumed its bloody fury, but he caught sight of her across the wind-strewn clearing. She was an avenging angel. Her colorful skirts whipped around her legs. She held two swords, as he did, and was wearing the red proof of her victory. She sprinted forward to where Chandrani remained captive.

Tallis didn’t like it. Something wasn’t right.

Because Pashkah was nowhere to be seen.

“No!” he shouted.

His spring was fast, exceptionally fast in the midst of his rage, but it wasn’t fast enough. Pashkah snatched a hand out from the ground where he’d fallen. He grabbed Kavya’s ankle and twisted. She spun in a half rotation before landing hard on her back. Her head bounced off a broad, flat rock. More blood, this time from the woman Tallis loved.

Pashkah struggled to wrest the sword from her hand. Her grip was surprisingly unforgiving. She snarled and fought—a genuine warrior now, with rage to compensate for a lack of skill. She used her left hand to stab upward with the seax. Pashkah was forced to relinquish his fight for the Dragon-forged sword. Instead he defended himself with the only shield he had—the bare palm of his right hand. The seax cut through skin, bone, and tendon with such strength that the blade slammed into his collarbone. Kavya abandoned that weapon, scrambling away, unable to catch her balance and stand.

A scream of rage shot through the clearing. Rocks rumbled. Loose gravel and even a few smaller boulders toppled down from the Mother. It was Pashkah. A rage born of madness and a gift that literally shook the world.

Kavya matched his scream, but she didn’t do so to destroy. She cried out in pain. The sword dropped from her hand as she buckled. She clutched her skull. Her whole body shook, twitching, kicking out in all directions.

More screams, as the Guardsmen again turned their telepathy on Tallis’s family—with the intent to cripple. Tallis bounded over bodies and past pairs of growling Pendray who fought on, despite what must be agony daring them to give in.

Tallis knew they wouldn’t.

Another boulder shook loose from the Mother, right above Chandrani’s bound, helpless body. Tallis was nearest her. By instinct he grabbed the large woman and hauled hard under her arms. The huge sandstone rock crashed down where her chest would’ve been. A crushing blow. The kind a Dragon King would never recover from.

He pushed the hilt of his seax into Chandrani’s hand. She’d fight free.

He turned to find Pashkah straddling Kavya. The point of the Indranan’s Dragon-forged sword was aimed directly at the hollow at the base of her throat. “Is this collar some Pendray bauble? How long will it withstand just how angry you’ve made me?”

“Don’t do this,” she whispered.

Pashkah shook his head. “Even now you can’t use the gift you were given. Are you afraid of talking to me on my turf? Because that’s what this mind is, Kavya. Mine. Just as yours will be.”

“What happened to wanting my body instead of yours?”

“Doesn’t matter now. She’ll control us both, no matter the physical form.” Pashkah’s rigid hold on the sword slipped. A resigned sadness infused his voice—that of a regular man. A man who was so very tired. “Kavya, sister, you have no idea . . .”

“And she never will.” Tallis swung with all his might. The sideways arc of his blade parted Pashkah’s head from his body in a bloody gush.

In the next instant, Tallis heard Kavya’s voice in his mind for the first time.

Thank you, my love.

—

Kavya stared up at Tallis. They were both grim creatures, as if they’d spent the last two hours butchering cows.

His eyes were wide, his mouth slack. Smiling a little crooked.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I said, ‘Thank you, my love.’ ”

“No, you didn’t say it.”

Frowning, Kavya tested gently, so gently, all the while watching Tallis for clues. I love you.

“I love you, too.”

With a joyful cry, she heaved herself off the ground and into his arms. They collided in body as they had in life. Unexpected souls brought together, bound together.

“You can hear me now?” She used a swatch of fabric from her ceremonial sari to wipe blood from his mouth. He returned the favor, although the attempt was makeshift at best. “You heard what I said to you?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, hiding it behind the act of tucking her wickedly ruined hair behind her ears. “And you? Can you . . . Can you read my mind?”

She hesitated, too. After a quick, hard kiss, she said, “Now isn’t the time.”

She grabbed her family’s Dragon-forged sword and strode toward where Serre still clashed with one of the Guardsmen. “Stop. Now.”

Both men seemed startled by her authoritative tone. Their eyes went wide—Serre’s bright blue, and the Indranan’s dark brown.

“The fight is over. Pashkah is dead.” Turning her words on the Guardsman, she pointed the sword toward his neck. “If you want to continue breathing, consider returning to your family in the Punjab. Take the rest with you. When I see you next—and I will—you’ll be happily married in a peaceful pod, or we’ll conclude this moment in a much messier fashion.”

The man dropped his sword and held up his hands. Serre lunged, but Tallis was there to stop him. “Peace, brother. Believe it or not, there is a time for it. No matter what he’s done, he’s laid down arms. This is for the Indranan to decide now.”

“Pashkah was not the Indranan,” Kavya called to the other Guardsmen. “Neither am I. We have a long way to go before we learn who we are as a clan. But this . . .” She gestured to those who lay dead and mangled. “This isn’t it. We’re better than this. We’ll fix this chasm and become stronger for it.”

The Chasm isn’t fixed.

She whirled on Tallis. She’d heard those words as clearly as if he’d shouted them across the clearing.

“What did you just . . . ?”

“The Chasm isn’t fixed.” He shook his head. “I thought she was gone. Your . . . Dragon-damned sister.”

“That wasn’t Baile’s voice,” Kavya said. “That’s been part of you forever, not from some outside place.”

Anger shook out from Tallis’s limbs. He sheathed his weapons and grabbed Kavya’s upper arms. His dear, dark blue eyes were clouded by confusion and fury. “I wanted this done. That I saved you, too—I had no idea. It was the revenge I didn’t know I’d find here. But I wanted the past to stay in the past, without pieces left to echo through me forever.”

“I’ve heard it, too,” came a soft voice.

Kavya found Olla, Honnas’s wife, standing beside them. She was as battle-tousled as anyone else in the clearing, despite her fey, ethereal appearance. Fey and beautiful. Her banshee screams must’ve been effective, because she was unscathed after having fought with a Guardsman twice her size.

“I’ve heard it, too. The Chasm isn’t fixed. It’s not just you. What that . . .” Olla glanced toward Pashkah’s fallen, headless body. “Whatever that person did to you, Tallis, had nothing to do with those words. As familiar as my name, ever since childhood.”

“As familiar as your name,” Tallis said, his voice oddly relieved. “Yes. Exactly that.”

“Do you dream of the Dragon? I dream he’s coming back to us.” She shook her head and smiled, appearing embarrassed. “But what’s in a dream?”

Tallis frowned deeply. “Too much. Sometimes far too much.”

My love?

Kavya reached up to remove his hands from her upper arms, to hold them in hers. “So Pashkah—or, Dragon help me, Baile—was responsible for the block the entire time. Keeping you off-balance. Extending your belief in her and your determination to exact her commands.”

“All the while fostering the idea that you were the one to blame,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have acted as I had that afternoon in the valley. I wouldn’t have done a lot of things.”

Needing his warmth, his body, Kavya wrapped herself in Tallis’s vital embrace. He fed her heart with his strength. “They never wanted to kill me at all. They wanted to use me. She would’ve sacrificed him as just another body to get what she wanted.”

“Your influence,” Tallis said against her temple. “She would’ve poisoned it, changing you, maybe even convincing the Indranan to unite through a civil war of mass murder.”

Rill sheathed her weapon and slapped Tallis on the back. “No longer. Not by this lunatic’s hand, anyway.”

Chandrani joined them. She had a limp and cuts up and down her forearms, some so deep they’d scar. Her face was a mass of bruises.

Kavya hugged her dear friend. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. Please, forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive,” Chandrani said with her assurance that sank into Kavya’s soul. “I owed you a debt. Long ago.”

“I never asked you to repay it, but I’m forever grateful that you did. Thank you, my friend.”

Chandrani grinned. “Maybe now I’ll get to go home.”

“Unless . . .” Kavya looked from Chandrani to her husband. “Unless you want to come back with me. Our people need a lot of reassuring, and new hope. I’d like to think I won’t be alone in that.”

Shaking hands with Tallis, who nodded respectfully, Chandrani said, “I’ll go back with you, Kavya, but not because you’ll be alone. I’ll do it for the same reason I always have. I believe in what you stand for. Never more so than now.”

“But first, back to the castle?” Honnas called. He was already halfway across the clearing, hands cupped around his mouth and his wife at his side. “I stink and would dearly like breakfast.”

“You go on,” Tallis replied with a strong voice. “We’ll be right along. Chandrani, you, too. My sisters will tend your wounds.”

Kavya watched her tall, imposing friend walk with the Pendray as if they’d been comrades all her life. That idea warmed her heart and gave her another shot of hope. Maybe this could be done. Maybe she could start again.

So much depended on Tallis.

“India again, eh?”

She blinked. He held her hands between them, their knuckles lined up like the mountains where she’d grown into a woman. “But you’ve only just returned to Scotland. What about your family?”

“I didn’t mean right away. A month’s sleep and a lot of lovemaking have an appeal not even you can deny, goddess. And I’d like to make my peace here. Repair Clannarah. Stand before the Leadership of the Pendray to clear my name. No loose ends before we go.” He kissed the backs of her hands. “Then the real work begins. The Indranan deserve peace, and . . . the Chasm isn’t fixed. It’s bigger than me. What Olla said is a relief beyond description.”

“You really want to come with me?”

“We committed last night.” He offered a crooked smile. “Unless you’re bored of me already.”

“Bored? That word will never make sense when applied to you.”

He kissed her lips. Kavya tasted blood, but it didn’t matter. They were both alive. She would never need to look over her shoulder again.

But she did need something.

“Tallis, the Indranan way . . .” She swallowed. “Of bonding.”

He looked away briefly. “I know. You gave yourself over to my desires, completely and passionately. I—I’ll submit to the Indranan way, if you ask it of me. Because I love you.”

Kavya gently held his cheeks beneath her palms. The old means of reading him. She could’ve slipped inside his mind and taken what she wanted, but that had never been them. “You have secrets you never want brought to light. Manipulated by my sister. Driven to murder and exile. That’s done and gone. I know all I need to know about you. Right here. Right at this moment.”

“What if I insist?” He knelt before the Mother—that place so sacred to the Pendray—and touched the back of his neck. “You promised me a kiss. Give it to me, and I’ll show you something beautiful.”

Legs shaking, she knelt and draped her body across his broad back. He pulled her arms down over his shoulder and held her hands.

“Kavya,” he said softly. “Make me yours.”

With surprising greed, she bared her teeth against his nape and nipped, scraped, bit. Nothing so harsh as what Tallis had claimed, but the significance of it shuddered into her soul. All the while, in the deep center of her mind, she gloried in the images he shared. The sea through his eyes. The salt-laden air as he smelled it. The feel of her touch and how it warmed his coldest, darkest corners. Then he revealed glimpses of Kavya from his perspective. Eyes, lower lip, breast, teasing smile, toes, and then back to her eyes.

In doing so, he did more than share impressions. He proved his trust that she would never take more than he offered. It was just the show of faith Kavya had longed for.

They were Pendray and Indranan, well and truly bonded.

“I’ve traveled this world, aching to be home again,” he said, aligning their knuckles over his heart. “I thought it was Castle Clannarah. My family. Or after my revenge, I’d find a place of my own. But I got it all wrong.”

“Where is home, Tallis?” She nipped and kissed again, where his silver-tipped hair met the silky skin at the top of his neck.

“Where else would it be, my Kavya? It’s with you. Wherever we go, you are my home.”