Chaos Tryst (6 page)

On their return to the goblin gate Maks refrained from expressing the variety of issues he’d taken with Ari’s antics. She wouldn’t have heard him anyway. The jeep gurgled and bellowed—the saber tooth may have gotten the better of the woolly mammoth this time around.

Before the jeep came to a complete stop Ari jumped out, wriggling fingers in both her ears. Maks exited and waited for the patrol to pull off. He’d asked the driver to drop them a ways from the main thoroughfare, on a side road seldom used. From across the pair of empty fields, on either side of the road, came a buzzing symphony of insects. Maks sensed some type of ward around the area but he had no intention of walking out into the grasses. He wanted seclusion and he’d chosen the location wisely.

When the goblins were out of earshot, and Maks had regained a modicum of hearing ability, he faced the returner down. There was no one around, no one to be harmed by his magick.

Ari stood her ground, her visage wary.

“You are a liar and Wendell is going to kill you.”

“Who’s Wendell?”

“The Grand High Oni.”

“Oh. Heh. Wendell. Ooh, or Mortimer…”

“His name is Wendell.”

“That’s what I said.”

Patience. You’re close.
“I see it now. You, Ariana Golde, are the origin of the term gold-digger. You want the Grand High Oni to pay you more to retrieve the necklace a second time.”

He had been tricked by her loveliness, by her kindness and humor. No more.

She shrugged, laying her shoulder pack on the ground. “If you say so.”

Fractals of chaos magick, each particle the size of a rose petal, stormed into being around Maks. The magick encircled him in a churning whirlpool. “It does not matter. Give me my parents’ statue and I will leave you to your deceptions.”

Her lips thinned as she faced him. “Maksim. You know I can’t give you the sculpture.”

One moment fingers and nails, the next paws and claws. “Then I will take it. I am not to be made a fool.” Flecks of chaos jumped in a frenetic pace, mimicking an equalizer fueled by sound.

Ari closed her eyes and breathed. After three deep inhales her countenance softened.

“I’m not making a fool of you, Maksim.”

“You have given the Lady Goblin-kin a necklace belonging to The Ogre.”

Mounting rage brought out his snout and fangs.

She left her pack on the ground and returned to stand before him, laying her fingertips against his chest. “Think. What do goblins do?”

Maks shuddered in were-like form—neither Faeble nor bear. He snatched her to him by the forearms, barely preventing his claws from biting into her skin. With his snout inches from her nose he growled. His rage became a living thing in full possession of him and Bear. The returner somehow brought his emotions to the surface, banishing all control.

She closed the distance between them to a greater degree. “Goblins cancel out returner magick because they appropriate.”

A bit of truth. Not enough.

Ari held his glare, her heartbeat steady in his ears. “The Lady Goblin-kin wanted the necklace once it was offered, Maksim. Not to make the Grand High Oni angry or to get back at him. She wanted it the way any female might seek a gift from a male. Lucida wants to be adored.”

True but still not enough. “Why do this?” he hissed.

Moistening her lips, she looked away from him. Bear shook her. He would not allow her time to work out more lies.

The smaller flecks of her chaos joined his. Combined, the mass swept around them and accreted. The flanking fields churned as the magick spread. A shriek of shattered glass, and the earth shook in a deafening rumble. Chunks of stone erupted, displacing grass, thatch and insects. An angry swarm amassed, boacusts, their chorus sounding off a battle cry.

Fury barred Bear from an appropriate show of concern over the swarm. He shook Ari again. She squared her jaw.

“Something came over me. I can’t say what, but I needed to give her the necklace as much as she needed to take it.”

He snarled, his teeth snapping centimeters from her nose. She neither flinched nor struggled in his hold. Her focus remained locked on his face. When she spoke, a fierce rasp trailed her voice. “If I could give you your parents’ sculpture back I would.”

Truth, untainted. Stunned, Bear pushed her to arm’s length but didn’t let go.

The buzzing battle cry escalated. The swarm approached. Their locust heads and snake-like lower appendages dodged the flecks of his and Ari’s seething magicks as they flew.

Clockwork.

Trust him to have chosen the field infested with boacusts, insects that devoured plants and small animals in an unceasing wave of destruction. Enough of them could take down larger creatures, as well. And trust the combo of the returner and him to have broken the wards holding the insects at bay without even trying.

He cursed. From within Ari’s pack, a few feet away, Corbel shouted, “Oh now, that’s not right.” Trajan screamed, “I’m allergic to stingies, ain’t I?” The bag roiled, emanating a different buzzing than the din made by the boacusts.

Bear looked at Ari for a mere second. Her confusion echoed his. They turned together, the zipper at the center of the pack peeled back, and amber bees rushed from the opening. His mother’s bees. They’d taken attack form, their bodies more freakish wasp than maker of honey.

The two swarms collided in a chitinous tumult. The boacusts wrapped snaky bodies around the bees and crushed. Crushing proved ineffective against amber. The bees clamped down on their opponents with mandibles and sunk extended stingers through the boacusts’ scales. Insect screams met stinger strikes and boacust bodies littered the landscape. It took only moments.

His mother’s bees. They had not lived since Valentina’s abduction. He clutched Ari tighter. “You have done this?”

She gifted him such a gentle smile. “No. We.”

Shifting her left arm Ari dipped her fingertips into the whirlpool of rose flecks still encircling them. The eye of the tempest realigned itself and began to flow backward, soaking into Ari’s palm when it reached her. His mother’s bees followed the flow but broke off to take orbit around the pair. Contented buzzing surrounded them. Ari hummed in concert.

“You guys were amazing,” she said, her gaze darting to follow one, then another. “Rest now.” The swarm floated lazily toward the bag. Upon reaching it they disappeared inside.

“There go my hopes of a quiet evening,” Corbel said from within the depths.

Ari snorted. “Close things up for me, Trajan. Please.”

A miffed squeak escaped the bag. “That’s what I’m here for, Madame Bossy Bits.”
Zzzupp.
The zipper sealed.

Ari took a breath and regarded his were-bear face. His lip curled to greet her. She sighed. “Sometimes I lie. My parents and I don’t call it lying but deception is our family business. Everyone knows this.”

Her face scrunched and relaxed several times. “My nose itches.” She shrugged in his grasp. “Can you help me out?”

Bear licked her, the roughness of his tongue meant to ease the itch. Her expression wasn’t grateful. She looked incredulous and lovely. Damn her.
And she tastes good too.

A pause followed by a frown, then she went on: “I lie well but not often, and I don’t know how to trick folks into their greater good the way
Okaasan’s kitsune
and
Baba
do. I fail. I try. I fail more spectacularly. Like the time I tried to help Granny Ridinghood get her granddaughter to come over for a visit. Grandma got eaten. I stopped trying.”

Bear froze. A conundrum: should he lick her again for comfort or fling her from him? She grunted in frustration. “That’s got to be crazy embarrassing for my parents. Can you imagine? Two great, tricky gods with a fox-child for a daughter who can’t even carry on their work.”

Ari moistened and chewed her lower lip. He could lick or bite that lip for her, so it wouldn’t distract her anymore.
Lovely, kind, treacherous
vorovka. With Bear in control Maks had lost the ability to make up his mind where the returner was concerned. He snarled at himself. She thought he’d meant it for her.

“Why do you think I chose a job completely devoid of dishonesty?” Ari snorted at herself. “Lying is a part of me, Maks, but my parents and I never deceive each other. It is a rule in our family. And I don’t lie to you either.” Her tone and expression begged him to understand. “Do you see? All I give you is truth.”

Bear jerked her closer, searching for trickery. No fraud showed.

She kissed his black nose with a soft
mwah
sound. He drew back quizzically. The paws clamping her arms had become hands again. Bear receded from Maks’s physical appearance but remained fully conscious, regarding the woman from the ports of his eyes, tasting her scent and judging it good. The hunt, his purest animal instinct, was upon him and Ariana Golde was prey—no, not prey but craved.

Good,
Bear whispered to him.
A match.
She’d merged with his chaos and calmed Bear. Maks could not refute it. He resisted anyway.

No. Liar.
Vorovka, Maks answered, tampering down urges he had not expected to feel, hungers that demanded both his compliance and Ariana. Although Bear no longer transformed his features, the hunt thrashed and yearned in a way it had not before. Maks had far less control than he liked.

She smells good. Tastes better. Hunts. Fights. Has power. Good. A match.
Bear’s desires fed the hunt.

Ari observed Maks silently. Once again, she waited without impatience or demands.

Chaos is nothing to play with, Bear. We will cause destruction together.

Bear ignored him. The hunt within them saw no problem with deception. In the forest they called it survival. Outsmarting others kept you alive. Stealing didn’t matter either. Their ancestors stole honey and thievery made it sweeter. Bear did not care about chaos. Not when the returner’s body should be underneath him; he knew how wonderful her moans would sound in the hush of a forest, and he already dreamt of the good strong cubs she would bear him. Against desire and the hunt, trepidations about chaos were lame. With these things in mind, Bear calmly invited Maks to kiss his furry brown ass.

When Maks released her Ari nearly swallowed her tongue in relief. Kissing an enraged bear required a special brand of crazy. That. Had been. Intense. Crazier still, the peck on the nose likely saved her backside. If his eyes were any indication, she’d come a snapping jaw from being eaten, and not in the way she wanted.

Although Maks had let her go, he hadn’t gone back to his normal restrained self. His breath gruffed from deep inside his chest, his eyes vivid as flame. Tense fingers mechanically flexed and folded into fists. Repeat. And again. Somewhere inside he struggled against a beast different from the bear she had seen before. Or something had transformed the bear and brought out the predator in him.

She’d been forced to tell Maks the truth. Scared into telling it. Well, most of the truth. She hoped he wouldn’t notice she’d distracted him from the question of “why?” by revealing her feelings for him. Those feelings took precedent anyway. Despite her trembling, Ari wanted to woo Maks. To make him want her. To love him. Too bad he’d introduced fear into the equation.

She’d shown aplomb and hidden the rabbit’s beat of her heart, but Ari wasn’t sure how to deal beyond her facade. Aplomb was just another word for bullcrap. Right now she wanted her
okaasan
. Ari wrapped her arms around herself. Actually, she wanted to be held by her
okaasan
while sucking her thumb and rubbing a blanky against her cheek—and she didn’t even own a blanky.

Maks’s breathing slowed but his eyes smoldered with barely banked embers. Ari whistled in an effort to relieve the tension. Her phone vibrated and jumpy fingers clicked the hands free on.

Inari spoke without the benefit of a hello. “Your
baba
is still out and I remain bored. So yes, I am calling you again. No, it is not separation anxiety.”

Ari eyed Maks, hoping he’d come back to himself soon. Bending at the knees, the way she would when sneaking away from a job, she crept over to her discarded pack and sagged when she reached it.

“Oh Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” she whispered after she’d gotten a hold of and fully extended her staff. Her lethality with the weapon and the texture of the wood comforted more than any blanky.

“What is it, daughter?” Inari asked, concern lacing the question. Gathering power zapped through the connection and coiled around Ari.

Oops, her mother might kill Maks. Could slay him without difficulty. That would be bad. Ari collected herself, lightening her tone. “Hee hee. Oh nothing. Everything’s copacetic. A good time to be had by all. Happy, happy, joy, joy.”

“Are you tossing clichés at me?”

“Hahaha.”

Inari’s robes rustled and Ari knew she’d stood up. “You sound very much like a lunatic. Should I come for you?”

“Hahaha.” Ari rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“It is best you understand, uttering this noise again will make me come to you.”

One look at Maks as he stood struggling to bring himself under control reordered Ari’s thoughts. He rubbed his eyes, one arm pinned beneath the opposite elbow. The pose exposed vulnerability in him she hadn’t seen. Maks’s unease reconnected her to him, and Ari felt him with the same intensity she had on the Orient Express. Distracted, she barely noticed the swipe of her knuckles across her nose.

If possible, and if Maks’s distrust of her allowed, she would make life better for him. Ease the torture of the battle between the order he craved and the chaos in his blood.

In spite of believing her a liar and a thief—a
vorovka
as he called her—Maksim Medved had protected her the entire night. He’d thumped goblins, opened doors and told her when she was wrong. Sure, he’d gone Armageddon crazy on her, but chaos did that to Faebles. Mostly he’d looked out for her. She would be grossly remiss if she didn’t return the favor.

In the span of nanoseconds she chose to love Maks. Although the decision had been a century in the making, it crystallized in that moment. Only a strategy to make him see the wisdom of accepting her love remained to be chosen. Oh, how she hoped her affection brought him joy. Rubbing her knuckles against her lower lip, she considered what she knew of the man.

Ahh. The slinky warmth of chaos on the prowl filled her. She would destroy the fortress around his joy—a corny thought but a needed outcome. Clearly he wanted to laugh. Mirth had tugged at the corners of his mouth several times during their impromptu adventure. He’d batted it aside every time. Returning the favor of his care by giving him more laughter than he could stand impressed Ari as justice.

That odd mix of glee and nausea reclaimed her.

And we have nose twitching! Good stuff.
He’d scared her momentarily, but in all honesty she was not afraid of him. Ari’s staff retracted to latent length. She feared he’d walk away much more.

“I’m loaded for bear,
Okaasan
.”

“You plan to slay a Medved?”

A bark of hilarity burst out. “Uh. I meant I’m good to go.”

“Your clichés have caused my eyes to cross. Yet you imply you are well.” Her mother relaxed and the pressure of Inari’s magick relented. “We do not deceive one another, Kit.”

“No, we don’t,” Ari replied with sincerity.

Footsteps struck the dirt road behind her the moment she hung up with her mother. How considerate of him. Normally Maks moved in silence, but he wanted to make her aware of his approach. Clearing his throat he took a beat and gentled his voice. “My apologies. You are a creature of your birth. I should not blame you for this.”

He said it like she was a rabid animal. Ari’s cheek twitched, concealing a sulk. Any ground she’d gained with him had dissolved and blown away in the storm of their chaos. She had work to do. Giving Maks a show, she shrugged and reached into her shoulder pack.

He continued speaking. “I will maintain control until I have reclaimed the statue. Then we can be done with one another, perhaps with expedition enough to leave our city intact.”

Ari ignored the slice of anxiety his words caused. Focusing on pulling transportation from her bag lent her a few seconds to come up with a response. Her entire left arm disappeared into the opened zipper. She grasped handlebars and pulled.

To Maks she said, “I guess you don’t enjoy my company as much as I enjoy yours. That’s sad.”

His attention went to the squeaky toy softness of the marigold colored handlebars and headlight being pulled from her bag. Next came the front wheel, followed by the body.

“It is not that I do not enjoy your company. I—”

Her Vespa 180 Super Sport popped out, losing the squishy softness required for magickal storage, to become a solid bike.
A classic one at that.
Ari elbow shined the “A!” insignia on the front. Going back into her bag she retrieved two helmets and held one out to Maks. “You were saying it’s not you don’t enjoy my company but…”

The muscles near his temples tightened, causing his eyes to narrow. He’d thought of something and she’d bet she wasn’t gonna like it. He moved closer, affecting nonchalance the little hairs on the back of her neck warned her not to trust.

“I am not relishing the chaos we cause. Nor am I comfortable with your—” he rolled a hand in the air, “—lifestyle. Parting ways is best.”

He could say whatever he wanted but her middleman was stalking her on the sneaky sneak. Ah ha. Well, it had to happen at some point. The bigger surprise came from him not trying earlier. Which proved he was an honorable man; one at the end of his patience. Ari bent and lifted her bag in her right hand, the two helmets held firmly in her left.

Maks danced forward, took her bag and returned to his original position so quickly he left her gaping.

He smirked, gorgeous and triumphant.
That’s new.
Reaching through the zippered opening Maks felt around and made a horrible face. The hand he withdrew oozed with—Ari sniffed in his direction—mud.

“Lucky you,” she said. “The last person who tried that got the cow pie, extra moist.”

Taking her pack back Ari found a box of wet wipes. After Maks cleaned off the mud she shook a helmet at him. He declined. “If I wear a helmet to ride a Vespa I may as well give you my balls as adornment.”

“Are you pouting because of the mud?”

“I do not pout,” he said in all seriousness.

“Sure and you’re not surly either.”

Paying her no heed, Maks strode to the bike and sat. He adjusted the rearview mirrors, shifting his weight for comfort. The man took a lot for granted. He owned her heart, not her Vespa. Oblivious to her astonishment, he motioned for her to hop on back.

“Oh no, middleman, it’s my bike. I drive.”

“If I have to ride on the back I will become the bear so no one recognizes me.”

Payback was a mutha. She hopped on back of the Vespa so fast her boots didn’t stir the earth. Maks peeled out at speeds surpassing hers.

The moment she settled her arms around his waist he moved them up just below his chest. Oooh, his pecs felt nice.

He snarled.

Hm, had she felt him up without realizing?

Palming both her wrists in one of his hands he slid her arms way down, nearly into his lap. Even better. A rumbling rolled through him and into her. A purr? He shifted her arm position again, settling for the area one would’ve called his breadbasket—if there were any fat on him. There wasn’t. More like an energy bar basket. My, oh my, she wanted him bad.

Maks braked at a red light and coughed, changing position to put more space between them. “How do you become a returner?”

Distraction techniques, huh?
She’d play along. “How did I or how does it happen in general?”

“How does it happen?”

“In some ways it’s a talent.” She changed her voice to sound sage. “The ability to discern between truth and deception must be as strong in you as the force, youngling.”

His cheek twitched but as far as she could tell he didn’t smile. He’s a tough one. “We returners are naturals at that kind of discernment as long the case or the circumstances aren’t personal. Personal entanglements make things cloudy.”

“This is true of any creature with the lack of self-preservation it takes to bond with others,” Maks said.

Ari laughed and nodded. “If a Faeble feels they have a proclivity for retrieving and returning they go to the Bridge Across building to be tested.”

He made a hm sound. “You are speaking of the bridge on North Naiad Street that disappears into mist and the appearance of nothingness beyond?”

“Yup.”

“I know this place. I went there once.”

“Ever been inside?”

“No. I felt uncomfortable with the magicks tugging at me.”

His body stiffened slightly. He glanced at her over his shoulder and turned away again.

“You really don’t like returners, do you?” Ari shook her head in amusement but scooted closer. Tightening her arms around him, she laid her cheek against his shoulder blade. If he didn’t want her touching him he’d have to fight her for it.

“The building is gorgeous once you cross the bridge. Anyway, I passed. So I trained for two years, apprenticed for another and on the spring equinox in 1996 I had my branding ceremony.”

The light changed and the wind picked up as they accelerated.

“I was there.”

Her head snapped up. Maks’s spine had gone so straight hugging a two by four would’ve been more comfortable. Whatever he’d said had been lost to the wind but it sounded like…“You said what?”

He didn’t answer. A thought occurred. “You know, you might have seen a ceremony if you were there in late March and had gone in. Maybe mine.”

Ari couldn’t tell whether Maks jerked at her words or if the forward momentum of her Vespa, once he opened the throttle, made her think he had. Either way she suddenly felt good, light and at ease.

“You’re not going to let the Grand High Oni kill me,” she said, whispering the words into his ear to keep the wind from swallowing them. At least she’d use that as an excuse if he asked.

“Why would you believe this?” he shouted back.

“Because you still have to find out who had me take your family heirloom and why it no longer belongs to you…Plus, you can’t get it out of my bag without me, middleman.”

The Vespa shot forward again. Maks pushed the magick-enhanced bike to its fastest.

“I am not liking this ‘middleman’ you keep calling me,” he shouted over roaring air. “I am Maksim Mikhail Valentin Skazkakh Bolshebnukh Medved.”

“Fabulous. You Russians really pile on the monikers, huh?”

“My brothers and I are of the Bolshebnukh Roma, Faebled Gypsies, on my mother’s side. The lengths of our names come primarily from them.”

“That’s a serious inheritance to lay on a kid.” She repeated his full name, mimicking his accent. From behind, she noticed his cheekbones rise, becoming more defined.
He smiles?

“When you have a son, vixen-
vorovka,
mine will be his name too,” he said, his tone feral.

“Wha—huh?”

The bike wavered in what any observer would call a drunken swerve. “Oh Gods,” Maks said. “It was Bear. All Bear. I swear it.”

Ari’s brain square-danced, punctuated by a mental yee-freaking-haw. She forced her breathing and heart rate to steady. It wouldn’t do to spook the wild animal before she’d trapped him. “The bear? You sayin’ the bear wants to procreate with me?”

“Do not say it this way. You make it sound so clinical.”

It didn’t sound clinical to her. Ari tightened her arms around him by slow degrees. The thought of Maks knocking her up sounded like a great way to spend a Sunday and every day after.

“Do you have a timetable for my insemination? My father isn’t gonna let us make babies until we’re married.”

“I am not going to marry you,
vorovka
.”

She shrugged. He wanted her. She knew it. Something in each of them called to the other. She’d work with whatever advantage she got. Maks avoided her eyes in the rearview and began to hum a tune.

No further comment came but Ari didn’t mind. A fog of bliss expanded in her head and she floated, as high as if she’d snorted several lines of pixie dust. Of course, she played the roll of a wary woman for Maks’s benefit.