Halcyon Rising (25 page)

“Miranda, if you knew how much I’ve wanted to be right here, in this bed beside you, I fear it would scare the hell out of you.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, his fingers icy cold around hers, making her wonder how long he had stood at the foot of the bed, watching over her as she slept.

“I am not afraid.” If he had wanted to hurt her, he would have already done so.

Shivering uncontrollably, he slid beneath the blankets beside her. She instinctively moved closer, wanting to share her body’s heat. With a soft groan, he pulled her into his arms, pressing against her from chest to thigh, wrapping his freezing bare feet around hers. She wondered briefly if he had taken his shoes off to keep from waking her, or if he had been traipsing around without any since she had last seen him.

“I’ve been so cold since I got to this cursed place,” he whispered, his breath warm against her cheek. “The chill seeps into your very bones…. No fire is warm enough to chase it away completely. You roast on one side, while the other half freezes.”

She laughed softly and burrowed closer, wondering if he came from somewhere warm. She really didn‘t know anything about him.

“Ah, Miranda…” He buried his face against the crook of her shoulder, his voice vibrating against her neck. “It has been nearly a fortnight since we parted at the tower door, and in all that time, I haven’t spoken to a single soul. I’ve been living like an animal—hunted and driven to ground. I knew that if I came to you, you would be like this, so soft and sweet and welcoming… The urge to do so, to put you in danger for my own selfish needs, overwhelmed me. I‘m so sorry.”

She lifted her free hand to his silky hair and found it crisp and clean beneath her fingertips. He certainly did not look or smell as though he had been running for his life. In fact, he smelled wonderful.

“There’s no danger in you being here,” she assured him. “It is the middle of the night, and no one knows the secret of the tower door, save you and Lord Simon.”

He lifted his head and met her gaze. “I didn’t enter through the door. I came up through the tunnels beneath the tower.”

“So they really do exist.” She brushed her fingertips along his cheek, finding him smooth shaven. Where ever he had been living, he’d had at least a few luxuries. “I have looked for the secret passageway you spoke of a dozen times, but I have never been able to find it.”

“I will show you before I leave,” he promised. “In case you ever need to leave Hawkesmere in a hurry.”

She shuddered at the implication, because she knew all too well that her pampered existence in the tower relied upon Lord Simon’s fickle whim. She still did not know how she’d gained his favor and lived in daily fear that she would do something to lose not only his patronage, but her very life.

“It’s all right. I‘ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn‘t happen. After I leave here tonight, I swear I‘ll find the strength to resist coming again.” He pulled her closer, but as she came up hard against his chest his pained hiss of breath made her draw away in concern.

“Do your ribs still bother you?” Before he could answer, she slid her hand beneath his thin tunic. She pressed her palm along his ribcage, feeling for any sign that the bones had not healed properly.

He fell back, closing his eyes with a grimace.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked, starting to withdraw her hand.

“No.” He closed his hand over hers, holding it to his bare chest. His skin felt like marble beneath her fingertips. Hard, smooth and cold. He opened his eyes, and the sheer need in those crystal blue depths stunned her. “I like it when you touch me. In fact, I was remembering what happened the last time you examined me this way.”

Her cheeks warmed as she thought back to the first time they had met. He had been battered and bruised, just another patient who needed her help. She had knelt beside him, sweeping back the blanket that covered him, and began a completely impersonal inspection of his injuries. She had pressed upon his belly, trying to determine if he bled inside, then moved to his groin, to see if he had suffered any lasting injury there. The instant she had brushed her hand against him, he had swelled to attention, hard and huge beneath her palm.

She had made some sort of poor jest—
I think you’ll live
—then hurriedly pulled her hand away and covered him from view, but the memory had lingered. That moment had haunted her dreams far more often than she liked.

Gazing into his eyes, she gathered all her courage. “Do you grimace because you wish I would repeat that part of my examination, or because you do not wish me to?”

“Both, perhaps.” He held her gaze. “Just being here beside you is enough to rouse me. If you were to touch me, I fear I’d be unmanned in a matter of seconds. It’s been far too long.”

If she were honest with herself, she had to admit his mere presence roused her, as well. Trevelan was the first man who had ever made her want for the sake of wanting.

“You don’t have to answer.” He released her hand and eased away. “I didn’t come here for that, Miranda. I’m sorry I said anything. I should go.”

“No!” The word escaped her lips before she could think better of it, but then she realized it must sound like an invitation. “I mean, please don’t go yet. Can you just stay here beside me for a little while?”

He hesitated, obvious yearning written upon his face. “Are you sure? Because there’s nothing I’d like more than to lay here with you for a few more hours.”

“Then stay, Trevelan. I want you to stay.”

* * *

Trevelan turned Miranda in his arms, sighing with pleasure as her body molded spoon fashion against his. She fit him perfectly, just as he’d known she would. He tucked her head beneath his chin and pressed the throbbing length of his erection against the curve of her bottom, nearly groaning aloud at the sense of homecoming.

Soft. Warm. Sweet. She was everything that had been missing in his life since Rhoswen had walked away and left him on the Surface.

Though lumpy in spots, the feather bed beneath them felt like a cloud, such a welcome change after so many nights spent sleeping on cold stone or damp earth. Despite the desire raging within him, drowsiness settled over him almost immediately. With Miranda in his arms, in the relative warmth of the tower, a dozen blankets piled atop them, some of the chill finally left his heart.

“Thank you,” he whispered, nuzzling her cheek with his. “I needed this more than you can imagine. Just a few moments of sweetness and peace. I‘ve been running for too long.”

“I have needed it too. It feels wonderful to be held, to feel cared for, even if it is only for tonight.” Hesitation filled her voice, and he knew she wondered what he felt for her, why he had come.

He wished he could put her mind at ease, but in truth, he had no idea what he was doing here. He only knew he had been unable to stay away. The thought of her—his visits to the tower to watch her sleep—had been all that had kept him sane, especially given what he’d found when he’d returned to Old Halcyon.

He’d activated the back-up generators, which provided enough light to see by, and the hot springs provided water for bathing. Once he’d gotten the power on, he’d started to explore his civilization’s old home, only to find something that had shattered all of his long held beliefs, made him question everything he’d ever been taught.

Miranda’s auburn tresses flowed between them, snagging against his tunic and tickling his nose. Like a river of fire or the forest in autumn… He drifted to sleep with the image of falling leaves in his mind, temporarily free from the fear and anger that had ruled him since he had been stranded upon the Surface.

Darkness filled the preternaturally quiet room, and the lack of all light and sound chilled Sebastian to the core. For a moment he lay perfectly still, wondering if he had died during the night. He had always thought death would feel like this — an absence of…everything.

A small movement beside him drew his attention, and he realized a warm female body pressed against him from chest to hip. Not dead, then. As he tentatively pressed his hand against her soft hair, memory returned. Despite their argument, Rhoswen had gotten into bed with him.

He didn’t know why it surprised him. Every time he thought he knew her, thought he knew what was going on in her lovely head, she turned his expectations upside down.

He had decided to keep her at arm’s length until he left, but now that he held her again, he found it impossible to move away. In a few minutes, he promised himself. For now, he just wanted to revel in the feeling of contentment and belonging he had only found with Rhoswen, be it real or a mirage.

She shifted against him, then pressed her lips against his collarbone, dispelling the myth that she had been sleeping. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” He made a pretense of stretching, which disentangled him from her sweet clutches, without, he hoped, being too obvious. He did not want to hurt her; he just wanted to make a clean, relatively painless break.

To his surprise, he did feel better. Though his shoulder ached like hell, his strength seemed to have completely returned.

He rolled out of bed, then realized he had fallen asleep with nothing more than a toweling cloth around his hips. He managed to secure it just as she reached over and flicked a switch on the bedside table lamp, flooding the small, comfortable room in a soft glow.

Her gaze drifted down his body with obvious appreciation, and it took every bit of his willpower to turn away.

“I will be back in a moment,” he told her as he headed toward the bathing chamber.

He dressed quickly in the soft, comfortable clothing Kaylee had provided him yesterday, then took a moment to get his wits about him. “What time is it?” he asked through the door. “Is it morning yet?”

“No. It’s not even midnight. There’s still plenty of time.”

Plenty of time for what?
Only one pastime came to mind, but making love to her was no longer an option.

He took a deep breath and opened the door, returning to the bedchamber. She sat against the headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest, looking sweet, vulnerable and achingly beautiful.

“You look…” She trailed off, then swallowed. “You look so good, Sebastian. Yourself, yet different. More like the you I think you’ve always wanted to be. You look like you belong here.”

She was silent for a long moment, but he could practically see her mind working. She had something she wanted to ask him, and he was afraid he knew what.

To his surprise, she slipped out of bed and went to the battered pack that rested on the back of a chair. “I wanted to explain this to you when we were in Hawkesmere, but I couldn’t risk having all the information it contains fall into the wrong hands.”

Turning, she held out the large, flat object he had spent so much time examining in the tower. With a quick motion of her hand, she opened it like a book, showing him that one side was clear like glass, while the other was filled with small, lettered squares in some sort of pattern.

“What is it?” he asked, intrigued even though he knew she was purposely trying to distract him.

“When our people fled our homeland, they took thousands of books with them, then spent the years before the cataclysm gathering even more great works from all over the world. But by the time we built Halcyon, many of the fragile scrolls had been damaged or were starting to decay. We needed a way to store all that precious information, so that it would never be lost.”

His eyes widened, but he said nothing, afraid the explanation that had just popped into his mind could not possibly be real.

“We invented a storage device, something capable of holding millions of pages worth of information in a very small space. We set scribes to entering the information into the data unit, and now all my people’s knowledge is available with the click of a button.”

“Millions of pages?” His voice trembled with excitement. “How does it work?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside her. “Sit down, and I’ll show you.”

He walked toward her like a sleepwalker, riveted by her actions as she placed the device in her lap and started moving her hands rapidly over the buttons. All his anger and dismay evaporated. Everything he had ever wanted to know was apparently at her fingertips.

“Ask me a question,” she urged. “Anything you can possibly think of, and I can probably find the answer for you in less than a minute.”

“You choose,” he murmured, too stunned by the possibilities to be able to pick one thing.

Her fingers flew over the buttons, and then she placed the data unit in his lap. The clear upper section was now filled with Latin text. He skimmed the first few lines and found that ‘twas the legend of Atlantis, as told by Plato. He grinned and met her mischievous gaze. “He got it a little wrong, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “You can search by any topic — just enter a word that interests you, and all the books on that subject will be available to you.”

Excitement raced through him. His stunned amazement gave way to a flood of questions. He did not even know where to start.

“I will show you how to use it, help you look up anything you like. I just wanted you to know what you’ll be giving up if you leave. Much as I want you to find Trevelan, and even though I know you truly want to help those who are ill, this data unit represents everything you’ve ever wanted.”