Daybreak (30 page)
In truth, so would he.
The magic of simple human hope.
“I believe because I must. Because it’s all I have. What little we’ve built here, they would take from us. They would grind us down for no better reason than profit. They took everything from me, I thought. I fell into despair.” Another candid admission, but the words did not ring with a politician’s calculated artifice. Arturi did not seem to speak with any thought toward how his words would be received. In another, a more ambitious soul, such influence would be off-putting. “But who among us has never known loss?”
Heads were shaking, faces soft with memories of those taken, those lost. Tears glittered in the eyes of many. Arturi’s voice was the magic, Tru decided. Soft and full and hypnotic. Even the accent served him well, an exotic lilt to lure the ear.
“But the Orchid came to me and she reminded me that I have
not
lost all that matters.” A buzz of excitement, then. To most, the Orchid was a symbol. “That I still have all of you and your faith, however little I deserve it. If you will follow me—I say ‘if’ because I will compel no one to fight in my name—then I say it’s time we took the battle to General O’Malley. He took my life, my
wife
, and I want her back. I want everyone as safe as she will be in my arms once again. So, what say you, friends? Do we go to war?”
not
lost all that matters.” A buzz of excitement, then. To most, the Orchid was a symbol. “That I still have all of you and your faith, however little I deserve it. If you will follow me—I say ‘if’ because I will compel no one to fight in my name—then I say it’s time we took the battle to General O’Malley. He took my life, my
wife
, and I want her back. I want everyone as safe as she will be in my arms once again. So, what say you, friends? Do we go to war?”
“War,” came the thunderous response.
Someone thumped his fist against his palm, and the noise ran through the crowd like wildfire, an ominous cadence. Like primitive war drums. A call to the end. Watching this fervor, Tru wondered if General O’Malley felt cold fingers of dread dragging down his spine for reasons he couldn’t explain.
THIRTY-ONE
Pen stretched alongside Tru for the third morning in a row. As she had on each of those mornings, she awoke feeling tired but energized. The camp was lean now. Hard work had stripped everything back to the bare essentials of material and personnel. The shipments of non-combatants to the mainland had taken place on the first day of preparations. The only people left on the island were Arturi’s soldiers.
That those soldiers included boys and girls as young as twelve didn’t surprise her at all. Even younger children from the mission would join their ranks. The Change had not been kind to the young. But at least they had been given the tools, training, and guidance—the ability to fight back. The real victims were those O’Malley held prisoner, whether child or adult.
She lay naked against Tru’s side. They had made love silently the night before. Words weren’t as necessary when they shared images that slid from suggestion to reality. He literally read her thoughts when she fed him pictures of what she wanted and needed. He was opening her, slowly, to a new way of communicating. Her body seemed particularly adept.
She couldn’t get enough of him. Touch, taste, sound—she lapped up every moment.
This is Tru. This is the woman I am when I’m with him.
This is Tru. This is the woman I am when I’m with him.
The dawn broke with garish summer colors. She traced the sleek line of tawny hair that bisected his chest, down to his navel. His morning erection rose up to meet her, as a slight smile tipped his mouth.
“The hour is nigh,” he said. “Grant a soldier’s last request?”
“If this were the morning before we strike, I’d give you anything you wanted.”
“Oh? That sounds promising.”
“As it is, we have two weeks of travel ahead of us.”
He looped a hand around her waist and snuggled her hips firmly against his. “It’s not going to be a summer camping trip. O’Malley will have people all through the east. Plenty of danger to deserve a morning BJ.”
“No way.”
His tickling was instantaneous and merciless. Pen threw her head back, laughing, begging him to stop. Tru levered atop her body and parted her thighs with his knee. The laughing trailed into a long moan as he slid into her slick channel. One long, firm push. His languorous rhythm didn’t last long. Such a sleek, beautiful body—all lean lines and responsive muscles.
Pen marveled at the difference between Tru and her previous lovers. Nothing altruistic about this moment. She knew he would take the pleasure he needed, just as she would take hers. That sharing became easier, more natural. Greedier. As if every slam of his quickening hips were an affirmation of their bond.
She was alive. With Tru, she was
so
alive.
so
alive.
Only when he lay sprawled across her, both breathless and satisfied, did Pen’s thoughts return to the day ahead. As she had been practicing, she pushed her mind away from the island, searching, attempting to discern the lay of O’Malley’s people. She had been surprised to learn how few of his rank possessed magic. Either that, or the malicious force she’d encountered—that blood-red aura—possessed the power to cloak their opponents.
No army had ever gone into battle more blindly.
But giving up was not an option. She would fight with Arturi until the threat was no more. Or until she saw her mother again.
That unhappy thought urged her to burrow deeper into Tru’s arms, snuggling closer to his warm safety. Elegant, callused fingers stroked her bare arms, her breasts, her hips, in a lulling rhythm—more hypnotic and comforting than sexual. Pen’s breathing evened and slowed.
A rope ladder.
Looking up toward a distant treetop.
She
must
climb. But to do so would be the end of her world. The end of her life.
must
climb. But to do so would be the end of her world. The end of her life.
I gave you my all, love. I did, I did.
Pen screamed and sat upright. Gasping now, clutching the blanket to her chest, she scrambled out of bed and into her clothes. Free of her lasting nightmare since making love to Tru, she had thought the nightmare gone. But her throat closed around another shriek as grief chilled her skin. Now its horror magnified, strong and bone-deep, when she understood exactly what she stood to lose.
Tru edged onto his elbow, looking impossibly disheveled and sexy. “Bad dream?”
“Yeah,” she said, throat parched.
But more than a dream.
But more than a dream.
She understood that now. Years of believing herself crazy because of Finn had been proven wrong. Her dream had been with her nearly as long: the need to climb, and knowing that to do so would tear her to pieces. The strength of that prophecy sat firmly in her mind like a history yet to be written.
She would be lost to Tru. Her guts twisted as if trapped by a vise.
He knew what it was to lose and fight and endure. All she could hope was that he’d keep the reins loose. His caring held the potential to make her selfish. That was the last thing Arturi and Zhara and the whole community needed.
Tru would suffer again. He would lose another woman who loved him.
Pen squeezed her eyes shut.
Love.
She loved him in ways she’d never thought possible. Now their future together would last only a matter of days, not years.
Love.
She loved him in ways she’d never thought possible. Now their future together would last only a matter of days, not years.
Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe she was only imagining the worst possible scenario. She didn’t mind dying, because part of her had died a very long time ago. The memory of her mother’s blood on the snow wore a numb spot on her heart, one that might never return to sensation. To shed her fatalism had been a lifelong battle.
But she dreaded causing Tru another round of hurt. The openness he’d fostered in her was not without reciprocation. She remembered the scarred, callous man he’d been when reluctantly helping to liberate that slave truck. Had she done something hideous in loving him? In leaving him vulnerable to another loss?
The island came to life around them. With fewer people, the settlement appeared bigger and less inviting. Less like a home. More like an abandoned military encampment. Shine had stripped the galley and the commissary clean, with the domestic supplies heading out to the mission with the non-combatants. Koss and Reynard oversaw loading military provisions onto the last boats. Soon every soldier would take to the swamps and highways and woods, in search of the monstrous human tyrant that must be culled.
In silence, sitting in the flap of the hut, Pen ate dried meat and drank herbal tea while watching the bustle of activity. No matter her gifts, the knack for organizing such an endeavor was beyond her. Tru emerged looking sleepy, unbelievably delicious, and a little mistrustful—watching her with questions he had yet to ask.
He shook his head and blanked his expression. After tugging a homespun shirt over his head, he raked his hands through his hair by way of a morning beauty ritual. Wild. Powerful. A little reckless.
“Good morning.”
A knife of dread slipped between her ribs. She was going to hurt him. And that tinge of wariness in his voice said he knew as much.
Now she understood—so clearly—why he’d left the island by himself. A clean break. But her mother, a nurse’s aide, had told her the truth about ripping off bandages. Quicker didn’t hurt less. The fallacy had been perpetuated by battlefield doctors and nurses unable to endure the agony of removing wrappings one slow, merciless inch at a time. The process, repeated across dozens of soldiers a day, gnawed at their nerves until the medics needed relief. Faster meant less pain for them, not for the patients.
To break it off with Tru now would only be doing herself a similar favor. He deserved every minute they had yet to be afforded. Maybe in time, as he had done with Danni, he would be able to look back on these days with gladness.
He touched her cheek. “What is it?”
Pen blinked, surprised to find herself shedding silent tears. Her heart hurt. It
ached
. Whatever resignation her mind and even her soul had accepted about events to come, the part of her that longed for a future with Tru was already grieving.
ached
. Whatever resignation her mind and even her soul had accepted about events to come, the part of her that longed for a future with Tru was already grieving.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head. “You’ll think me silly.”
“I doubt that.”
“Just my thoughts getting away from me.” Quickly dashing away her tears, she turned away from his probing, icy blue eyes. He would stop her if he knew. It was wrong to deny him that option, but she hadn’t had a choice in the matter since she was nine years old. “I’m just nervous about getting under way.”
Those eyes she loved, so clear, so pale, dug deeper. A frown cut between his brows and twisted his mouth. “I thought we were past this, Pen.”
“We’re not,” she said tightly. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
She turned to join the others, but Tru caught her arm. He dragged her closer—a standing version of the embrace they’d only just shared. His scent wrapped around her like a lover’s tease and a security blanket all at once. “I
can’t
trust you. The only thing I can trust about you is that you’re looking for a way out.”
can’t
trust you. The only thing I can trust about you is that you’re looking for a way out.”
“A way out?”
His frown melted into a sneer. He shoved her away, just enough to end their contact. “Away from us. You’d run as fast as I did, given half a chance.”
“That’s not true!”
He shook his head and lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. “You know what? Forget I said anything. It’s a waste of breath with you sometimes.”
Her skin stung as if she’d been slapped. Pen only stood there as he stalked away, hands shoved into his trouser pockets, the line of his shoulders rigid. He was insane if he thought this was what she wanted. The idea of a quiet, safe life as his woman made her glow from the inside out. But what manner of person would she be if she ducked out of the whole world and let it rot while she indulged in her man?
A happier person. Maybe even a saner one.
She grabbed her duffel and left the tent. Arturi had assigned particular individuals to dismantle the shelters. Everyone had a duty. Hers, apparently, was to question the very course of her existence.
Four hours later, she boarded the last boat off the island. Arturi stood on the docks, looking back at what they left behind. Maybe one day they would return, rebuild, renew. But for the moment this meant the end of all he’d accomplished.
Unlike Pen, who was melancholy, Arturi seemed eager. He boarded the sailboat with a grin. Something of the friend she’d long known shone from him, and she wanted very much to understand how he had regained his center. Hers had been obliterated.
“Smile, Penny,” he said, standing by her side. “It’s a good day to begin a journey.”
“Oh?”
“Zhara has sayings and such for almost every occasion. One was ‘A sunny afternoon holds no malice.’” He shrugged. “Maybe they came from her people in Haiti. Maybe she just made them up to keep her own balance when times got tough. But she said them often enough that I started to believe them. All of them.”
Pen noticed his phrasing.
Zhara has sayings.
Present, not past tense. Whatever dark place he’d plummeted into was well behind him. To her old friend, this journey was not only well under way, but the battle was won and the war concluded.
Zhara has sayings.
Present, not past tense. Whatever dark place he’d plummeted into was well behind him. To her old friend, this journey was not only well under way, but the battle was won and the war concluded.
“You shouldn’t be here with me, though,” he said. “Where’s Tru?”
She looked out over the waves as they sailed west. The bright glint of sunlight off the water stung her eyes and reminded her of the tears she’d shed. “He isn’t in the mood to speak to me at the moment.”
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