All For One [Nuworld 3] (44 page)

secrets then she was doing something that someone wouldn’t approve of and he knew

it wasn’t beyond her to break the law if she thought what she was doing was right.

“I wasn’t planning on being done anytime soon,” she began but when his eyebrow

shot up, she raised her fingers to his cheek and added quickly. “But I’ll tie up my ends

tomorrow and be done with it.” She sighed, not wanting this to be the case at all.

Syra felt sure she didn’t wake Torgo as she crept out of their bed and out of the

house. She had sneaked out of that house so many times as a teenager and chuckled to

herself when she realized that she remembered all the squeaky floorboards in the

house.

It was incredibly cold outside and her breath froze before it could leave her nose.

The snow on the ground was so frozen it didn’t crack under her weight. Her headscarf

helped battle the cold winds and she was glad for the heating system Torgo had

installed in her glider as she took off toward the southern town.

Torgo slipped out of the warm covers reluctantly hoping he hadn’t given her too

much time. She’d be furious if she knew he followed her. But he’d rather deal with her

wrath than the wrath and torment his brother would issue if he discovered Torgo’s

brand-new claim had disappeared and he’d been unable to prevent it. He told the

guard on duty that he was leaving with Syra and would be back by lunch…at least he

hoped they were. Then, pulling his glider out of the garage, he took off toward

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Taratown following the signal on his dash, which showed him the bug he’d installed on

Syra’s glider was working.

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Chapter Twenty-Four

“What are you doing here at this hour?” Roth answered the door after Syra

knocked in the cold several times. She stood in front of him shivering and he opened

the door wider. “Come in.”

“I’m not going to be able to keep coming here,” she said as she watched Roth start

coffee. “There’s been some trouble and there’s a mark on my head.”

He turned to face her and squinted so he could focus on her eyes through her

headscarf.

“What’s going on here?” Beel walked out of his room wearing long underwear and

a loose-fitting shirt. His blond curls were tossed violently around his head and he

rubbed his eyes as he focused on Syra.

“Go put some clothes on,” Roth ordered and Beel looked down, shrugged, then

turned back to his room.

“You can’t keep talking to him like that.”

“He needs a father figure, doesn’t he?” He shot his gaze quickly to Syra’s eyes as

she pulled off her headscarf after taking a hot cup of coffee. “What’s this? You’ve been

claimed.” He smiled.

“Yeah, Torgo.”

Roth smiled. “You’ve wanted him for a long time.”

“Yeah, but our cultures are very different. He’s not your typical Gothman and I

know I could never be with anyone else but I hate to make a commitment and then not

have it work out.”

“If you want him bad enough you’ll make it work out. But what is this mark on

your head?”

“Torgo’s former claim has been killed and her family accuses me. I don’t have an

alibi for yesterday so it’s hard to prove my innocence.”

“You know we’ll vouch for your whereabouts if you want us to,” Beel said as he

walked back out to the kitchen.

Syra smiled at the boy that she’d grown close to over the past weeks that she’d been

coming here to help them. She knew what it was like to coexist among a race of people

you knew nothing about. As a Runner, she’d had many opportunities to visit different

places. But these two had never been anywhere but in their own privileged tribe.

That was one reason why she came, to help them adjust. But it wasn’t the only

reason. She looked at Beel as he poured cream into his coffee. He looked just the way

Torgo had at that age. She saw more of Torgo in Beel than she saw Andru. Oh, Andru

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and Beel looked alike physically but Beel didn’t carry himself the way Andru did. Beel

lacked that cocky, bullyish attitude that Andru inherited from his papa and mama. It

broke Syra’s heart.

She knew how Torgo suffered as a boy because he didn’t feel he lived up to the

Bryon name. Well, Beel was a Bryon and he would grow up among these people who

would recognize him for what he was. The bastard of the greatest warrior in the family

that ruled all of Gothman but with no warrior skills and none of the family’s charisma.

It would be an awful existence for the boy as he grew into manhood and lived with the

ridicule of the mouthy Gothman. She wouldn’t have Beel grow up like that, not if she

could do something about it.

“I know you would.” She ruffled Beel’s messed up hair. “Now, get ready, you two.

Since today is our last day together for a while, at least, I thought we’d head out to our

spot and get in some more practice. You two can keep working together until I can

come back.”

They packed bags with food and water and put on layers of clothes before heading

back out the door. Roth and Beel followed on the glider Torgo had given them as Syra

headed to a patch of countryside they’d used for target practice and one-on-one combat

lessons over the past weeks.

Torgo remained on his glider while Syra was in the house. He couldn’t tell who

answered the door from his hiding place some quarter of a mile away. It looked like a

man, though, and his heart sank. During the time period she was in there, every

imaginable thought went through his head. Everything from barging through the door

and grabbing his woman, to leaving and going home so he could pretend he hadn’t

seen anything—which he hadn’t, but he’d imagined plenty.

So when she left the house with man and boy at her side, he’d focused keenly,

trying to better see her companions. It wasn’t until they flew off and he saw the glider

following Syra that he knew whom she was with. The next question that rattled his

thoughts was why?

As he landed some distance from the other two gliders, he soon had the answer to

his question. Although, he admitted, the why of the answer wasn’t clear to him. He

followed at a discreet distance as Syra, Roth and Beel hiked across open prairie land

with backpacks on their backs. The snow cracked under his feet and the sun shone

down out of a deep blue sky. Its reflection off the sparkling white virgin snow blinded

him more than once. He was glad when they finally stopped, dropped their burdens

and then each armed themselves. Then, the target practice began. Several wrestling

matches followed as Syra worked to make warriors out of Roth and Beel.

Why was she doing this? Why?

The sun was almost above them when Roth and Beel loaded their backpacks, each

bestowed her with a hug, shared some parting words, and then boarded their glider

and took off, leaving Syra standing alone in the valley. She slowly lifted her own bag

and mounted her glider. Torgo quickly boarded his own glider so he wouldn’t lose her

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in case she had another appointment other than to return to him. She took off quickly

and much to his surprise, as he prepared to take off himself, flew directly toward him.

Syra landed within feet of him and eyed him warily.

“I have only one question,” she began, as she remained straddled on her glider,

forced heat blowing on her legs. “Is my glider bugged, or am I?”

“Your glider,” he said simply.

“Well, I guess I can conclude you have some amount of trust established in me.”

“I trust you implicitly, I do. I trust you to be yourself and take on a wild adventure

by the horns. I trust you to get yourself into more trouble than you can throw a stick at

before you realize what you’ve done. And, I trust that you’ll tell me everything when

you feel you’ve finished your project, yes.”

“So why are you here?”

“I don’t trust the rest of Nuworld, no. If I’d been a spy looking for your mark, you’d

be dead by now, you would.”

“I knew you were here.”

“Still, it would be too late. If I’d wanted to shoot you, you couldn’t have stopped

me, I’m thinking.” He looked around him. “You’re out in the middle of a field with no

protection, you are.” He then turned an inquiring eye on her. “Not to mention in the

company of two men who could blackmail Darius to kingdom come. I look forward to

hearing what you thought you were doing out there?”

“I’ll tell you but not here,” she shivered. “I’m cold.”

“Follow me then. There is a nice café inside Taratown. We can eat some lunch

there.” He closed his glider, not waiting for a response and she watched him speak into

his comm as he took off for the town.

“Torgo, can you imagine what you would be like today if Tara hadn’t entered your

life and taught you how to fight? What if Runners hadn’t come to Gothman and you

never learned your natural abilities with landlinks?”

They sat at a large table facing each other in a private corner of the café. The

proprietor recognized Torgo the second he entered and quickly escorted him and the

woman by his side to the best table in the house. Servants had come and gone, bringing

plates full of roasted duck, new potatoes, fresh fruit, and hot bread. The proprietor

oversaw the production and then lingered before Torgo dismissed him and said he’d

call if they needed anything else.

“What’s your point, Syra?” He lavished one of the rolls with honey butter and then

reached to pour them both large mugs of ale.

“My point is you would have been a frightened shadow of your brother, if you

lived this long,” she added and bit into a potato.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Knowing all too well that her assumption was more than

accurate. “I still want to know why you’re teaching those two to fight, I do.”

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“I’m teaching Beel to fight so he can have half a chance at winning his father’s heart

and Roth is learning so he can help Beel.” She spoke with her mouth full then washed it

down with ale as she watched him for a reaction to her words.