Defy (11 page)

The straps of the top were useless, and with
both sides having been ripped, she was essentially left with a long
band of fabric with a hole in the middle. She had little choice but
to tie the tank top length-wise across her torso. After tying it
securely in front of her and then twisting it around her body so
that the ties were in the back, she decided it would have to do.
Fortunately, she was chesty enough that the garment would stay in
place without too much trouble.

She considered her socks and boots and
decided it would be a bad idea to start hiking in them while they
were wet. Her feet would get terrible blisters. Instead, she walked
around the area until she found a spot beneath some bushes where
she could rest and stay out of sight from any predators that might
come by during the night.

Her stomach made rude noises, reminding her
that she hadn’t eaten. But the idea of hunting for food held far
less appeal than merely going to sleep. So as the sky darkened from
gold to orange in anticipation of the coming night, she gathered
the moist material from her skirt to use as a pillow. Then she
clutched her nunchucks in her fists and closed her eyes.

A soft sound of surprise woke Zachariah from
a hard sleep.

He was on his feet with his tomahawk in-hand
before his eyes fully opened. With his brain still cocooned in
exhaustion, he barely registered the fact that his movements hadn’t
jarred Nyx awake
and that the fading sunlight
shining into the rocky alcove wasn’t bothering his eyes like it
usually did just after waking
. Adrenaline cleared the
brain-fog, however, and he carefully assessed the threat.

Standing only a few feet away was a female.
She stood bathed in the light of the sunset, looking around the
cave with intense curiosity, seemingly unconcerned by the male in
front of her holding a deadly weapon. The fact that she didn’t grow
alarmed at the sight of him confused him.

He realized that she was rather tall for a
female and very nicely formed. The purple pants she wore tied with
a lime green belt sat low on the feminine arcs of her hips, and the
colorful band of fabric covering her upper body had no straps and
ended inches above her belly button, providing quite the view of
her remarkably toned shoulders, upper arms and midsection.

The unexpected interest flashing through his
mind had him frowning. Then he focused on her hair. He felt himself
lowering his weapon as he took it all in.

An abundance of curls sprang out of her head
in some kind of ponytail. They went up from the crown of her head
in a thick mass and cascaded down to between her shoulder blades.
Accenting the explosion of curls were vibrant feathers and what
appeared to be beads of various colors, sizes and shapes. But she
hardly needed any extra coloring in her hair.

Some of her curls were a rich brown. But many
others were spirals of light blue or deep blue-green or even what
appeared to be a sparkling dark blue. Yes, that was exactly right.
When she moved her head, the sunlight actually glittered off the
dark blue curls.

Even as he blinked in amazement over that,
she turned her striking, deep blue-green eyes to him. Her lush lips
curved. His thoughts turned nebulous.

Shaking himself from whatever spell she’d
just cast on him, he once again raised his weapon, watching her
warily. And he asked the most pertinent question.

“What the hell are you?” he demanded.

“
What
am I?” Tate repeated, humor in
her tone.

The large, muscular male in front of her,
dressed in an unremarkable gray tank, gray pants and black boots,
looked disgruntled. His dark blue eyes and markings identified him
as a Gloresti, and between that and his size and gruffness, he
reminded her a bit of her father. But where her father had dark,
curly hair, this Gloresti’s hair was blond and looked as though it
had been hacked off with a blunt blade. It didn’t appear to have
been brushed lately, either…though, since she’d obviously awakened
him, she could understand that.

“You heard me,” he said.

She smiled. “Well, it appears to me that I’m
the girl of your dreams.”

His frown intensified. She could see he was
trying to reason out what she’d just said. While he puzzled over
it, she glanced at his feet. What she had thought was just a shadow
cast from the rear of the small shelter finally took form to her
gaze.

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed with wide eyes.
“Is that a kragen? It’s huge!”

She rushed forward, forgetting about the male
in her enthusiasm. She hadn’t gone more than two steps before he
stepped in her path, holding his gleaming tomahawk at the ready.
Pulling back abruptly when she almost ran into him, she gave him a
serious glower.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “I just want to see
it better. I’ve never seen a kragen before.”

He didn’t reply. Merely stared back at her
with hostility in his gaze.

She sighed in irritation. “Fine.” Finding
this all a waste of a good dream, she shifted with the intent to
head toward the entrance to the shelter.

“Wait,” he said.

When she stopped and caught his eye, she
realized he had surprised himself with the command. Although she
found that realization rather funny, she crossed her arms and
lifted her chin. “Yeah?”

He seemed to war with himself over whether to
reply. At last, he asked, “If this is a dream, why does it feel so
real?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Does it?”

“Do not be contrary. You know it to be true.
I can feel the warmth of the sunlight. The weight of my weapon is
the same now as usual. I can smell lemon on your skin…”

When he trailed off and looked discomfited by
his own words, she almost smiled again. “I really don’t know why
this is so intense. But I do know it’s a dream, because I didn’t
sleep with you last night.” Her face flamed with embarrassment when
she realized what she’d just said. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to
notice.

“How did you find me?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “I don’t even
know who you are.”

He considered that, giving her another
thorough once-over. Something about that intent study had her heart
picking up in pace. Then he asked, “Why are your eyes and markings
such an unusual color?”

She tilted her head in confusion. “What do
you mean?”

“There are no classes of Estilorian with your
coloring, that is what I mean.”

Blinking at that, she considered his words,
spoken in the formal manner of an Estilorian who was unfamiliar
with humans and the use of contractions, as well as his unkempt
appearance. Her eyes fell on the satchel not far from the sleeping
kragen. She belatedly considered the fact that Gloresti generally
only traveled to the mainland to pair with transitioned
Corgloresti, and there certainly wasn’t an uninhabited Corgloresti
form lying around.

Weighing all this, she once again caught his
gaze and asked, “Just how long have you been away from the
stronghold?”

She watched his reaction and knew an answer
wouldn’t be forthcoming. It was as though a wave of cold blasted
from him. Rather than back away from him, she rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said again.

Then she closed her eyes as tight as she
could and concentrated. Surely she could will herself out of this
boredom.

“What are you doing?”

Without opening her eyes, she answered, “I’m
trying to wake up. This has been a blast and all, but you obviously
don’t want company. I’m just trying to get out of your hair.”

A rustling sound had her cracking one eye. He
had reached up to touch his hair. Unable to stop herself, she
snorted in laughter.

“It wasn’t literal, doofus. Geez.”

“What makes you think my name is Doofus?” he
wondered.

Giving up, she burst into hysterical giggles,
bending over at the waist when she laughed hard enough to make her
sides hurt.

“What are you—are you all right?”

The fact that he didn’t recognize her humor
or seem to know what to do about it merely made her laugh harder.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She clutched her waist
and gasped for breath as he approached and tentatively touched her
shoulder.

It was as if a sizzle of charged energy
flashed through her.

Her laughter cutting off abruptly, Tate once
again stood straight and stepped away from him. Now her heart raced
for a reason other than fear…something she didn’t quite
understand.

He watched her with his potent eyes, seeming
to sense that he had managed to change her mood and behavior. “It
seems you are all right.”

“I…” She wasn’t sure she could answer that
truthfully. Fortunately she didn’t have to.

A flick of Nyx’s massive tail woke him.

Zachariah opened his eyes and looked around
the alcove, disoriented. One moment he had been standing and
staring at the compelling female after witnessing her strange
behavior, and the next he was opening his eyes to an empty
chamber.

Ignoring the vague sense of disappointment he
experienced, he double-checked to make sure she wasn’t hiding
somewhere and then nodded. “Right.” For good measure, he added,
“Blasted dream.”

But as he again settled against Nyx and
forced himself to go back to sleep, he couldn’t quite ignore the
fact that the air now smelled faintly of lemons.

“You believe that Tiege left in search of
Tate, and that the others just went along with him?”

Caleb rubbed his fingers tiredly across the
bridge of his nose before answering Jabari’s question. They were
gathered in his and Skye’s home, which boasted a large living area
intended for socializing. Every elder, commander and second
commander was present.

Less than an hour ago, they discovered the
illusions that kept them from knowing Tiege and the others were
gone. Caleb had gone to his son’s room for the fourth time that
day, finally deciding to wake him so that he could talk to Skye.
When Caleb reached for his son’s shoulder, however, his hand passed
right through it.

James and Olivia discovered a similar
illusion of Sophia working in her laboratory. Gabriel and Amber
ultimately found the illusion of Quincy, Clara Kate and Ini-herit
sitting around the table in Quincy’s cottage conversing about
baseball.

“I only know that last night, he insisted she
was still alive,” Caleb said at last. He felt Skye squeeze his
hand. They had already communicated about the previous night’s
encounter. He could only love her all the more for understanding
why he hadn’t told her sooner. “He wanted to go after her.”

He didn’t add that Tiege begged his father to
go with him only to be denied.

“It’s unfortunate that the Gloresti bond
doesn’t extend between child and parent,” Uriel said. “You could
easily find them that way.”

They still didn’t know why it didn’t. The
children all carried the blood of their Gloresti fathers, though it
was blended with that of their half-human, half-Corgloresti
mothers. Over time, their fathers had changed diapers, cleansed
wounds and received exuberant and sloppy kisses from their babies.
But the bond that typically formed between a Gloresti and a being
with whom he or she exchanged bodily fluids—one way that a Gloresti
bond formed—was never established between the fathers and children.
Over time, it was generally accepted that because Caleb, James and
Gabriel were already formally paired and avowed with Skye, Olivia
and Amber, they couldn’t establish the same type of pairing with
anyone else.

Jabari looked at Malukali and Knorbis. “Did
you perceive any thoughts last night about this?”

The two elders shook their heads. Malukali
said, “We have never been able to fully read the Kynzesti, as you
know. We didn’t perceive anything.”

Knorbis briefly stroked her hair in a
supportive gesture. “In all honesty, it had been a very trying day
for both of us. We went to bed earlier than usual. We might have
missed their departure.”

“Why would
archigos
Ini-herit go with
them?” commander Caoilinn asked.

“Why would
any
of them go with Tiege?”
the Elphresti commander, Khalidah, replied. “Surely they understand
that he is highly unstable right now.”

Despite the fact that he had said and
believed as much the night before, Caleb stiffened at the
implication.

“We have no way of knowing what occurred,”
Gabriel said, briefly catching Caleb’s gaze and giving him a nod.
“Sophia and Clara Kate are as close to Tiege and Tate as siblings.
I’m not terribly surprised that they agreed to go. It’s much more
unexpected that Ini-herit went with them, but I have to think that
he believed Tiege’s story and was somehow convinced to participate
without telling any of us. And I have absolutely no idea what
possessed Quincy to go.”

Olivia sat between her sisters, holding
Skye’s hand on top of the table. She said, “We may have brought
them into the world, but none of us really understands the bond
between the Kynzesti…particularly Kynzesti twins. I think what we
should be focusing on is how to get to them.”

“The Waresti are searching for them,” Uriel
said. His commander, Harold, and second commander, Alexius, had
already started the search. “The moment they’re found, we’ll
know.”

“And if Ini-herit contacts me for anything, I
will know where he is,” Sebastian said. He was the Lekwuesti paired
with each of the elders. The multiple pairings were unique to him
as the class elder.

“What about this Zachariah guy?” Amber asked.
“Is everyone still looking for him, too? Our kids are out there
with this murderer on the loose.”

“We’re still searching for Zachariah as well
as Kanika,” Jabari confirmed.

Skye looked around the table. Strangely,
Caleb noted she had more optimism and life in her light blue gaze
since learning of Tiege’s defiance. “I don’t want to sit here
feeling useless, but…” she looked down at her very round belly.