It was midmorning, and the blazing sun made the snowstorm up in the Pir Panjal seem like a horror movie villain they’d barely escaped. Every ten minutes or so, Kavya would stop, turn her head some direction or another, and close her eyes. She might make a minor course correction. Tallis bit his tongue to keep from asking questions.
Companionable silence was a good thing after all they had suffered, escaped, and heaped on each other. Soon the monotony of the walk was poking holes in his conscious thought until higher function dribbled through. He was a walking reflex. All instinct. Rather than sink into that seductive trap of action and reaction, he took Kavya’s hand.
“What’s that for?” she asked, staring at where their fingers interlaced.
“Because I wanted to. It’ll give me something to think about other than how tired I am.”
She smiled with that quiet, teasing humor he was beginning to anticipate. “I’m glad you admitted it first. I wasn’t going to mention it at all.”
“Being so tired that the ground looks as comfortable as a feather bed?”
“Something like that.” Her voice was dreamy and soft.
“But you can’t sleep. That whole Indranan thing.”
A heavy sigh lifted her shoulders. “I can’t sleep.”
“Wait.” He pulled her close, guiding her by tense upper arms. She felt even more frail than she looked, although she’d survived several circles of hell. “Are we safe here? There may be loads of Indranan in the city, but can you sense any nearby?”
“What does it—?”
“Let’s call this ‘question time,’ and that’s my first. When we’re done, we can discuss another topic, perhaps one of your choosing.”
Her lips twitched into a smile, as if a feather had tickled her lower lip. “We’re alone. I can’t search too far without giving us away again, but—”
“Good enough.”
“When it’s my turn to speak, will you interrupt me?”
Tallis chuckled and kissed her forehead. It was becoming so easy to touch her so casually. Good? Bad? Didn’t matter in the middle of a sun-drenched cornfield. “We’ll see. There’s no telling when one might need a good interrupt—”
“Are you done yet?”
“You think you’re so clever.”
Kavya’s mouth softened around a deeper smile. “Even you know I’m clever. ” She exhaled softly. “Too much for my own good? Not clever enough? No telling.”
“I protest. You’re talking again.” He rubbed his thumbs along her upper arms. “So there’s no one around who might play roulette with your thoughts. Time for a nap.”
Her expression of panic reminded Tallis of all he hated about her relationship with Pashkah. No, the only thing he hated about it. Pashkah made her less of a woman. He made her scared and small and doubtful. What the man had done at the assembly in that hopeful little valley was horrific. In doing so, he’d layered disappointment over her existing fear.
That wasn’t what he’d grown to expect from a member of the opposite sex. Pendray women were indomitable. Boudicca had drawn her inspiration from the Pendray, revered in myths as Valkyries. Kavya had that spirit in her, but only glimmers shone through at any time. When she’d uncovered that airplane and began filling it with fuel—that had been strength to the point of suicide or legend, depending on the storyteller.
Yet when Tallis mentioned a mere nap, she shrank into herself like some darting sea creature seeking shelter among the coral, although that was probably an analogy better suited to the coastal Southern Indranan.
“I’ll be right here,” he said. “I have two rather vicious weapons, I have a gift that makes grown men weep in fear, and we are relatively free of Heartless mind-fuckers who’d keep you from getting rest.”
“Where do you mean, ‘right here’?”
Tallis smiled. He slid his hands down her arms as he folded back onto his haunches. He looked up at her, while still clasping her hands. “Here.”
“In a field.”
“That’s wasn’t a question. Good. I won’t need to remind you of the rules.”
“There are no rules with you,” she said, slowly shaking her head. Shining dark hair tangled around her shoulders.
“All I know is that we’ll both be more zombie than conscious if we keep walking.” He let go of her hands and spread his. All around them was a field of sheltering green. “I’m going to sleep. Should you wish to continue zombie-crawling to Jaipur or wherever, be my guest. But think about that. If you’re caught alone by yourself, what would you do?”
—
Kavya’s eyes burned. The underside of each lid felt lined with the silt of a riverbed. She looked down at Tallis, who had cut a pile of stalks to assemble a makeshift bed. The ground still held the moisture of the monsoon season. He draped his coat over the top, stretched his long legs, and sank onto the vegetation with a sigh. Logically she knew those pointy stalks couldn’t be comfortable, but he might as well have been lying on a cloud. She longed for that calm, and for the calm she would find against his body. Those hindering layers of clothing would provide softness for her bed, with his strong muscles revealed for her pillow.
“Dragon damn it.” She sank to her knees. “Don’t say a word.”
Apparently Tallis was self-aware enough to try to stifle a smile, and when that didn’t work, he covered his mouth with the back of his hand.
She raised her brows. “Are you going to sleep with those blades at your back?”
At least there she’d caught him off guard. He frowned briefly and sat up. He unsheathed one seax and dug the blade into the ground at his left hip, halfway to the hilt. He would only need to reach across his body with his right hand to grab it from its concealment alongside a stalk. Holding the second weapon, he eyed its shining blade, then Kavya. “You handled yourself well with this. One day I’ll teach you how to use it properly.”
He shoved it into the ground next to its duplicate.
“One day,” she whispered. “I don’t think so.”
Without warning, he closed firm hands around her shoulders and pulled her stiff body toward his, alongside his, touching his. “You didn’t think you’d be taking a mid-morning nap with a Pendray exile in a cornfield either.” His voice was playful, as were his ocean eyes. “With all those minds at your disposal, I’d have thought you would have a better imagination.”
Tallis arranged their bodies so that one shoulder each dug into the thick, tall, sun-warmed bale. They faced each other, lying on their sides. Wrapped together. Legs extended. Hips paired, touching. No part of her could deny notice of any part of him. His torso, clad in only a lightweight cotton shirt, was hers to enjoy.
Kavya didn’t want to hear him talk anymore. She didn’t want to bicker or even joke. That allure of the physical was too powerful. So she kissed him. It was the first time she’d initiated a kiss, but she was too pent up to take it any further than a brush of sensitive skin.
Tallis picked up where she left off. He wasn’t stopping.
And she didn’t want him to.
She shivered and wrapped her arm around his firm abdomen. He was made of hard planes, like a man pieced together from scrap metal, yet with the grace of a finely honed blade. He was the living embodiment of his weapons—hard, graceful, vicious, beautiful.
Tallis shifted until he pressed her back against their makeshift bed. She soaked up the sight of him as he loomed so powerfully above her, blocking out the sun, replacing it with the need for him. Just him. He exuded the gorgeous, intimidating strength of monsoon clouds ready to part with curtains of rain. His eyes were narrowed, intense, greedy, but his lips appeared vulnerable. They were reddened and slightly swollen from their kisses.