Guardian of Honor (35 page)

She beat back his blade, entered under his guard and sliced his
good leather tunic. When he hopped back and looked at her, she was grinning.
Sweetly.

Bastien increased the pace of the fight. They moved well against
each other, and would move better together. He heard murmuring from the
sidelines as the Marshalls and Chevaliers recognized that their fighting
patterns complemented each other, showing that their energies would merge well
too.

Alexa frowned, not understanding. Bastien winked.

Showing her teeth, she pressed him, making him fight faster,
concentrate more on his sword and shield, on his footwork instead of his mental
probing. With sheer strength, he deflected her blade with his shield and
touched her shoulder with his sword.

She scowled. Their gazes locked, and through that look, he touched
her mind and broke the block she had against him with a piercing whistle. All
the emotions she'd suppressed flooded from behind the block—humiliation,
rejection, anger.

Alexa's eyes widened. She stumbled back. He let her go. She shook
her head. Her face, her stance, her fighting
changed.

Fire lit her eyes. Energy crackled around her.

"You jerk!" she screamed.

He didn't know what the second word meant, or many of the
following words, and had no time to think as she rushed to him in a fury, her
sword moving faster than his eye could see.

He reacted on instinct and thanked the Song for his years of
training. He'd thought that she might lose her concentration when angry, make
mistakes he could take advantage of. The opposite was true.

Suddenly she was
there,
totally and completely enveloped in
her Power, using it, channeling it, fighting as no one he'd ever seen in his
life.

Wham!
A slap of her blade on his shield and he was flat on his back
gasping for air, her sword swooping to his heart.

"Halt!" Luthan cried.

Her sword point tickled Bastien's chest. He wondered if she was
going to carve something on him. One of those words she'd shouted.

She glanced at Luthan and sneered, stared down at Bastien with the
same expression. It sat oddly on her features.

"I won't lose control," she said.

Chevaliers and Marshalls poured into the yard, but they all kept a
distance from her. She glowed jade.

As far as Bastien was concerned, she'd already lost control. And
too damn bad it hadn't been in bed instead of in a fight.

A cackle of bird-laughter came from the feycoocu.

"I came to the Castle to apologize," Bastien said.

She laughed and threw her sword into the air. It spun high,
twirled and sparkled in the light, plummeted down and slid into the sheath at
her side with a tiny
snick.
Bastien had never seen the like. The shadows
of the onlookers, which had been nearing, faded back.

Alexa put her hands on her hips and laughed some more. Then she
shook her head, turned on her heel and swaggered away.

Luthan loomed over Bastien. "Well, brother, I would say that
you brought the lady full into her Power."

Luthan stretched out a hand and Bastien took it, let his brother
help him to his feet.

"You continue to push your luck, and by all the Songs that
sound in the Universe, you
are
lucky."

Since Luthan was taller than Bastien, he could pull off the trick
of their father's and stare down his nose. "You are in trouble,"
Luthan said cheerfully. "And it will be fun to see you get out of it. It's
evident to all—" he swept a hand at the observers "—that you somehow,
somewhen became intimate with our new Marshall.
And
despite your usual
charm, you did not endear yourself to her. We will all be watching to see how
and if you can fix this latest mess of yours."

"Go to hell," Bastien mumbled, and limped to the gate.

S
he felt
great.
As if she'd drunk some amazing elixir that
had flowed through every vein, simmered down every nerve to energize it. When
she took off her helm, despite damp sweat, her hair
stood straight out with the static electricity and she
liked it. She grinned and danced down the corridors to the stairs to her suite,
and when anyone saw her, they got out of her way.

She almost wanted to meet Reynardus. She thought she could beat
him now. She sure had beaten the pants off his no-good son. It had felt really
great, and in doing so, it was as if everything she knew of Lladrana and all
the qualities that she'd carried from home had clicked together and made her
whole.

Flexing her fingers, she saw the outline of faint blue from her
dips in the jerir, then the jade green of herself. Yep. She done good.

She raced up the stairs and into her rooms, and Umilla was there,
bobbing and smiling and helping her with her clothes. The maid seemed to be as
happy as she was—sensing her victory, maybe. Alexa didn't think the gossip of
her great win would have reached Umilla by now, but who knew?

Before she went into the bathroom to shower, Alexa carefully
penned a note to Luthan. "I want my good food. Now." She put it in an
envelope and turned it over. Placing her finger on the front she thought of
Luthan's coat of arms and it appeared etched into the envelope in color. She
handed the missive to Umilla for delivery, then hit the bathroom.

Oh yeah, she felt good. She'd whomped both of Reynardus's sons in
different ways today. Soon she'd take on the old tiger himself.

B
ack in his rooms in Horseshoe Hall, Bastien was grateful that
Urvey kept his snickering to a minimum. The squire gasped when he saw the state
of Bastien's body.

"I told you that you were lucky not to come along with
me," Bastien said to the openmouthed boy.

Urvey glanced away but his chin jutted.

Bastien sighed. "I'm going to bathe. I know you're good with
horses—do you have one?"

Gaze hopeful, Urvey met his eyes. "No."

"A friend of mine is bringing three." Two had been for
himself, the third a gift for Alexa, since Pierre believed it a better mount
for her than the one the Marshalls had provided. But it would be a good
incentive for the teen to have his own horse. "The sorrel will be
yours."

"Thanks!"

"Take care of them, and me, and I will send for an old
volaran for you to learn to fly on."

The youth's eyes were filling with tears as Bastien hurried to the
communal Chevalier bath in Horseshoe Hall.

18

A
s Bastien stripped and waded into the medium-hot pool in the
basement of Horseshoe Hall, he suffered the joking comments on his scars and
his latest loss.

On the whole, he'd spent a lot of time with the independent
Chevaliers, or the minor nobles, like himself—knights who were the most
dissatisfied with the progress of the Marshalls in repairing the fenceposts and
defending the land.

He leaned back, closed his eyes and let the water lap over him.
He'd decided to win Alexa. The idea had snuck up and clobbered him when she'd
walked away from the training ground.

Everything within him told him that Lladrana needed this woman.
He'd joined the majority in that. The best way she could be incorporated into
Lladrana was to be Paired. So he'd had to decide whether to Pair with her and
live with the machinations of
the Marshalls, or cut the
bond between them so she could Pair with another man.

The thought of her body shuddering in climax under any other man's
ignited a storm of jealousy within Bastien.
He'd
been the first one to
have mind- and body-shattering sex with her, and he wanted to keep it that way.
He felt possessive. Jealousy and possessiveness weren't emotions he admired or
wanted to feel, but they were undeniable all the same.

Soaking with other men and women, he sensed their underlying
excitement that the rogue of the Chevaliers would soon be inside the Marshalls'
inner circle. They were proud of him too, an emotion that threw him a little
since he'd only ever felt it from his brother.

And as usual, as soon as he thought of his brother, the man
appeared. He took in the common bath with its dingy brown walls and puddles on
the concrete floor with a pained glance.

Since Luthan had a large estate and was the heir to Reynardus, as
well as being the former Representative of the Chevaliers and now the
Representative of the Singer, he had a suite in the Nobles' Apartments of the
Castle. Still, Luthan stripped, folded and placed his clothes on one of the
stone shelves along the side of the room, and sank into the heated water next
to Bastien. The others who had been sharing the pool with Bastien discreetly
withdrew.

Luthan moaned in contentment, leaned his head back on the round
stone neck-rim and closed his eyes. Bastien smiled at the all-too-human sound.

"The things I do for you, brother," Luthan said.

"This bath isn't too troublesome. I know for a fact that the
water is hotter and the minerals more efficacious than in the Castle buildings
proper."

No answer.

"And I don't recall asking you to do anything for me."

Luthan's eyes opened and he pinned a sharp stare on Bastien.
"You
always
press your luck. I don't know how you get away with
it." Then he smiled. "But sometimes you don't. That fight in the
training yard will be remembered for a
long
time. The stuff of tales
around encampment fires."

Bastien grunted.

Luthan continued. "I trust you have an idea to win her back.
You know, there's betting going on as to how long it will take."

Bastien shifted and leaned his head back too. "I hope you put
your zhiv on me, and for tonight. I have a wonderful idea, one that will get me
into her suite tonight. Once I am in her suite, I am hopeful the Pair bond will
help me out."

To his amazement, Luthan scowled. "Tonight Alyeka is dining
on sweetcheese and roast dinfais fowl and drinking tea from the island of
Brasser."

"Is that so? What time?"

"In about an hour."

Bastien nodded. "That will do. I will join her."

Luthan groaned again, this time with disgust. "That was what
Faucon was feeding her when I saved her from seduction. It cost a month's worth
of my estate profits to replicate that meal. Now
you
will partake. I
should have known."

"You really shouldn't do me so many favors, brother. But my
thanks," Bastien said softly.

"I was sure she would fall to his charms that night,"
Luthan said. "Her concentration was all on him. Ever since she returned
from her travels, she's been looking around. You met her then, right?"

"Yes. I handled it badly. The
afterward
I handled
badly. I was my usual superb self in bed."

Luthan grinned. "You must have truly bungled, for her to be
so angry that she wanted to skewer you."

"Huh."

"Be careful of Father. He won't take this news well."

"I know. He wrote me off as an acceptable son a long time
ago."

"Don't underestimate him. Don't push your luck."

"I'll try not to."

An hour later, dressed in a new surcoat of his colors of midnight
blue and silver, over equally new trousers and shirt, Bastien strummed the
doorharp on Alexa's suite. He was a little surprised when Umilla opened the
door a crack. He'd heard, of course, that Alexa had chosen the black-and-white
as a personal maid, but had thought Umilla would never retain the post. The
woman had fractured energy pulses that she hadn't been able to work around as
Bastien had done. Black-and-whites often had mental problems.

But Umilla held herself with pride.

"May I see Alexa?"

Umilla gave him a sharp look. "You say her name right."

"So do you. We are more flexible."

She studied him. "You are whole, now, together."

"Alexa did that for me."

Umilla shuddered. "I am happy as I am."

"Each to his own." Bastien wasn't about to tell the
woman he hadn't exactly agreed to the change in his circumstances. After
examining the entire matter from every angle, he knew that Alexa had felt
guilty in curing him without his consent. He could use that too. "Please,
just ask her to come to the door to speak to me."

Umilla looked at his offering. "She will like those." She
closed the door on him.

Bastien couldn't hear Alexa's dragging footsteps, but sensed them.
Whatever exultation she'd known after trouncing him was gone.

The little square door at his eye level opened. She was too short
to be seen. "What do you want?"

"Alexa." He lilted her name. "I have a bouquet of
the first spring flowers gathered from my estate and yours. Don't you wish to
see what grows on your land?"